Interview with Lenin's Body Screenwriter
SYNOPSIS: Lenin’s Body
Screenplay by Alan Nafzger
Genres: Comedy, Thriller, Drama
Logline: Magic vodka allows two men to steal Lenin’s body the night before it is to be buried.
Let's get to know screenwriter Alan Nafzger:
1. What is your screenplay about?
It is a geo-comedy. Each scene location has and event, somewhat humorous consider the two main characters are toting a dead body but at the same time there is something deeply “Russian” and symbolic about each location.
2. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
Most people don’t know the history of Lenin’s last night before burial. We haven’t seen a movie staring a dead body since,
3. This story has a lot going for it. How would you describe this script in two words?
Unprecedented concept.
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life?
David Webb Peoples’ “Unforgiven”.
5. You are the first writer to have ever had three feature screenplays win categories at the Sundance festival. Two of them high concept scripts that the readers LOVED. You can’t possibly have more feature screenplays completed….do you?
Well, I have 17 completed. Five or six page outlines for 221 at this time. So, yes. I write every day for 8 hours. I type 75 wpm. Don’t worry there is plenty more ready to film.
6. What makes this screenplay and your previous script (Metro2) stand out from the pack is your ability to mix genres. Crime Extraordinaire can be categorized as a “crime meets mystery meets political satire meets Action, with a little bit of history mixed in!” Is mixing so many genres into one completed story a calculated decision in prep?
To help make my mark, I tend to take big risks with extravagant concepts and that usually means fusing different genres together, which I always love experimenting with. But the real trick is to ground them in some basis of reality so your audience will trust you to win them over with an exciting, new approach to your story and not something that eventually turns incredulous.
7. You make it very convincing that the Lenin’s body could be stolen in your screenplay. Can it really happen? (AKA – Is your current events and history realistic in the script, or did you make it all up?)
There is a lot of security, but I made it up. Some idiot Hollywood producer, you know his name, he asked me if it was a true story. But I really had to do my homework. I researched ad nauseam all the mechanics of the operation in order to keep things credible. However, for the sake of pure entertainment, some suspension of disbelief is camouflaged by reality based information. Lenin’s body is above ground and eventually they will have to bury it. It isn’t likely but there IS always the opportunity to steal it.
8. What motivated you to write this screenplay?
As a young man studying for his Ph.D., I was always infatuated with Moscow and Lenin’s tomb. And from that time one of my favorite films is the original “Weekend at Bernie’s”. I was young and watched ALL the films. It isn’t considered a great film but it made something like 75 million dollars.
Actually, I was talking to a Russian book publisher on the phone about a Lenin vampire novel; she said it had already been done. But she liked the Lenin’s them and for some reason in a matter of about 5 seconds this occurred to me. For some reason just the words “Lenin” inspired me to come up with a plot about stealing something as symbolic and big. So since I have my doctorate in soviet politics: Lenin and Soviet Street Art and Propaganda, it seemed like a logical choice to marry “Weekend at Bernie’s” together with Lenin’s body and see what happens with it in a screenplay.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?
The Russian brand of communism is a very difficult thing to handle in a Western film. First of all, the American people are totally ignorant of Soviet history. There are many many communists here who are a majority in the Democratic Party. But they are very ignorant people. They are communists but they don’t realize it. It is the most difficult writing I've ever done, writing for socialists who are basically the most stupid people I've ever encountered.
Secondly, a demanding challenge, of course, was creating convincing characters that would eliminate the audience’s skepticism that an theft of this magnitude could actually be accomplished, and not to drop the ball in its execution; otherwise, the script would have just been a house of cards.
10. The hero/anti-hero/smartest guy in the room in your story is a writer himself. A man who figures out all the pieces of the complicated puzzle to make this ultimate caper happen. Do you really think the great & successful crime writers have the ability to use their past research in prepping their stories, plus their imagination to pull off something like stealing the Lenin’s body?
Well, you just can’t go around every day stealing any national monument you want and get away with it. You must become an expert on the subject you’re writing about to be taken seriously. Anything is possible so long as you’re willing to do the homework and back up your imaginative ideas with a set of logical rules to abide by.
11. What influenced you to the Sundance Film Festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?
I’ve been extraordinarily lucky with feedback over the years. It helped me achieve three table reads, which are so important to improve on what I thought was my final draft. You can drive yourself nuts reading your material over and over again, trying to reach perfection. But until you actually hear the dialogue and scene descriptions being read by other voices, sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. These table reads have helped me catch overlooked errors that I never saw with my own two eyes on the pages.
12. Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?
All great movies take us into UNIQUE, uncommon worlds -- which is one of the many reasons we enjoy them so much. They gift us fascinating glimpses of awesome new vistas, from strange alien planets (Pitch Black), ancient civilizations (Apocalypto) and Dark Ages dungeons (Black Death), to the smaller, more intimate universes like retirement homes (Cocoon), Chinese restaurants (Eat Drink Man Woman), the inside of a coffin (Buried) or an ecstasy dealer's crib (Layer Cake)-- not to mention the racist statutory rapist neighbors' house right next door (Alan Ball's superb Towelhead). If you don’t have a UNIQUE world, don’t bother. I hate, everyone hates, reading the same old stories from the same old location and from same old perspective. Bring me something UNIQUE.
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