"Yes, I lied. I'm a writer. I give the truth scope."

   I have a question. When attributing a quotation from a movie, do you give the nod to the movie character who spoke the line, the actor portraying that character, or the writer from whom the line of dialogue originated? Who said, "I find your lack of faith disturbing?" Was it Darth Vader, or James Earl Jones; or was it really George Lucas?
   In the example that leads off this entry, a line from the movie A Knight's Tale, the situation is complicated by the fact that the actor speaking the line, Paul Bettany, is portraying a historical figure. There was a real Geoffrey Chaucer, who was indeed a writer. While he may have agreed somewhat with the sentiment, I have no idea if he ever expressed it in that (or any other) way.
   Further clouding the issue, Bettany and the film's writer/director, Brian Helgeland, are good friends and frequent collaborators. Given the somewhat evolutionary process filmmaking often is, it can be difficult to determine who a specific line of dialogue really came from.
   Consider another example from the Star Wars universe. In the second (I mean fifth (I think)) film, The Empire Strikes Back, a memorable exchange takes place between the characters of Princess Leia, and Han Solo. As the bad guys are about to put Solo into the carbonite freezing machine, Leia looks at him and says, "I love you." Solo looks back at her, a tender expression on his face, and replies, "I know." And thus a timeless classic film line was born.
   We know, from subsequent discussions of the film that the scene was in the original screenplay, as written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. We also know that the director, Irvin Kirshner, didn't like the way the scene played, and decided to change Solo's response at the last minute. They tried numerous lines, but couldn't find anything to make Kirshner happy. Finally, in frustration, he filmed one last take, without giving Harrison Ford a line to speak. Kirshner just told him to "say something." The result is perhaps the most honestly Han Soloish bit of dialogue in the entire original trilogy.
   Which brings me back to the problem of attribution. I could attribute the lines to the actors who spoke them, but that would seem to me to be more correct for Ford than for Carrie Fisher (who played Leia). I could attribute Leia's line to the screenwiters, and Solo's to Ford, but that's just plain complicated and confusing. Attributing them to the characters involved gets me in trouble with my lead-in quote; there being a real Chaucer who probably never said anything even remotely close to what Bettany said on screen in A Knight's Tale.
   The safest solution seems to be to simply name the source of the quote; that is, the work it came from. For example: "Whoa!"--The Matrix...I mean Speed...or Point Break...um, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? Hmm....
   If you have an opinion on this, or perhaps some insight into current conventions on the topic, I'd love to hear from you.


   Oh, by the way, "I'm back."
                                   --Sam Gamgee...I mean, The Lord Of The Rings...um, I mean Sean Astin...uh...J.R.R. Tolkien...hell, I have no idea what I mean.

tags:Misc.