I have spent the past three years searching for an easy answer to the question, ‘How does one write?’. I yearn to find some way to cheat the system, to write well, and be done with it. On my hunt, I have found more material than I could even read, and as I have not sifted through it all, I will not bore you with it. I will instead introduce the one piece of writing advice I am sure you already know, the age-old adage: write what you know.
The simplicity of this line is a blessing and a curse. The advice seems plain until I sit down to write and suddenly it seems I exist in a lone series of mundane days. My catalogue of knowledge seems dull as a writer, much more so I’d imagine to a reader. What becomes more troubling is the realisation that even what I do know, I do not know well enough to relate on paper. Trying to pin down even the brightest memory sees it become slippery. I have found that upon picking up a pen most images thin before my eyes until they disappear entirely.
So what is one to do?
Anatomy of a Fall, the winner of the 96th Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, among other issues, deals with this. The film conducts itself largely as a courtroom drama, and audiences spend well over 2 hours frantically running between certainty and doubt as they try to decide whether or not Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is guilty of murdering her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis). Yet, for a film which spends much of its time weighing Sandra’s innocence, it seems unconcerned with answering this question. Instead what slowly comes into focus is the fact that narratives are constantly shifting. It is the malleability of truth that takes centre stage and as the final credits roll, the audiences’ only certainty is that the truth is facile. All others are obscured.
What we know is that this is a film written by two screenwriters—Justine Triet and her partner Arthur Harari. It wins almost every nomination for best screenplay it gets. And it’s about the relationship between two writers.
‘What do you want to know?’
This line opens the film, situating audiences in the middle of a frustrating interview between Sandra, an author, and Zoe (Camille Rutherford), a graduate student. The conversation circles Sandra’s process in an awkward rhythm until Zoe asks:
‘So, for you to start inventing, you need something real first. You say your books always mix truth and fiction, and that makes us want to figure out which is which. Is that your goal?’
This is the last question Zoe can ask before 50 Cent’s ‘P.I.M.P.’ begins blasting from the attic and the interview comes to a halt. It’s an important one. Sandra, we assume, is a fairly successful novelist. She has made a career out of writing what she knows, and it’s mentioned that one of her books speaks in detail about the accident which left her son blind. But Sandra pointedly does not write non-fiction (a fact which becomes key to her defence later on). What this conversation shows us is that the line between truth and fiction is often muddied.
What truly distinguishes one from the other is illuminated in the first line, what do you want to know? What answer do you desire? Which version of events are you seeking? Do you want the truth at all?
The film climaxes upon the dissection of an argument which occurred between Sandra and Samuel the day before Samuel died. The spat is found recorded on a hard drive in Samuel’s possession. Sandra claims to not have known of its existence. Played for the court, it is an integral piece of evidence against Sandra. It proves the marriage was tempestuous. It proves the two had arguments that went beyond the usual marital row. More incriminating, the existence of the recording proves to the prosecution that Samuel had reason to want their disputes on record. It is an eerie piece of evidence. One that seems damning.
Yet when asked why Samuel might have taken a recording of the fight, Sandra responds:
‘He often recorded moments of our lives [...] At first he would mention it, then after a while he did it without us knowing. He recorded conversations, Daniel’s piano lessons… sometimes even just himself. It was meant to help him start writing again. He wanted to gather material and see if he could get his creative juices flowing. Now, with hindsight, it actually seems possible he could have provoked this fight just to record it.’
What is truth? What is fiction? What if truth only existed to fuel fiction?
Watching the scene—which showcases the sole interaction between Sandra and Samuel audiences are privy to across the film—is nauseating, but for an aspiring writer, it is not entirely surprising. I have often thought of recording pieces of my life as if I could become more attuned to it if only I could play it back once or twice. Living with a writer is like living in a surveillance state. All art is imitation: to write is to imitate. It is not surprising then that in an attempt to write well, some writers begin to steal.