Script Review: 'Snow White' by Tom Szollosi (SPOILERS)
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Snow White: A Tale of Terror
Normal-Bates — 14 years ago(May 24, 2011 06:59 AM)
So, I managed to purchase a copy of a
very
early draft of the film, dating 4 years before the film got made, simply titled "Snow White", and written by Tom Szollosi, from a website called ScritCity. Here's the link.
http://scriptcity.com/index.php?p=product&id=4748&parent=0
Supposedly, his original screenplay was later revised into several other drafts by another screenwriter, Deborah Serra, and by the director himself. And though this is the basis for the film and does share a few similarities,
it's very different altogether from the finished film
. I just finished reading it today, and, though somewhat half-baked (it's only the second draft, after all), it produces some nice ideas that didn't reach the final screenplay and is
far more developed than the film we have
.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Here are some notable, main differences from the finished film: Szollosi's script is set in late 18th Century Germany, rather than the Medieval Times. The only characters that didn't have their names changed are Frederick and Claudia. "Snow White" is now called Anna, and her mother is called Josephine. "Prince Charming", aka Dr. Peter Guttenberg, is Dr. Peter
Ruttenberg
, and
he
is the love interest, not one of the Outcasts. Ilsa is called Ruth. And the "Dwarfs", aka the Outcasts, have completely different names that vary: Stefan, Eric, Barret, Leopold, Ellery, Jabir and Gershom. There's no brother to Claudia named Gustav.
Frederick Hoffman, instead of a Lord, is Napoleon's German Administrator. Claudia is never pregnant in the script, thus, she never gives birth to a stillborn child. Josephine Hoffman still dies in the opening scene, identical to the one in the finished film (carriage accident in the middle of the snowy woods), but it's not because of wolves. Highwaymen attack the coach, still their money, and shoot Josephine dead. Frederick still cuts her belly to save the baby. Also, the highwayman that shoots Josephine is named Herman, who becomes a butcher in the years following this, and whom Claudia hires to take Anna to the woods and kill her.
The Good
What surprised me most about the script is how developed some of the characters and the story are. Claudia is far less sympathetic, but still a very intriguing, complex character. She's pictured as an unbalanced, hallucinating and downright insane woman, whose madness is fueled by the feeling of rejection she gets from both Frederick and Anna years after her marriage (she feels that they're shutting her off from the family), and from the fact that she's getting old, and Anna's becoming more beautiful as she grows. Like the original character from the fairy tale, she has an obsession with beauty. She attempts to contain this obsession once or twice, and seems to be aware that she's mentally ill and somewhat tries to fight it. She has also weak self-esteem and, despite her awareness of what's happening to her, she eventually goes completely insane.
Plus, there's no witchcraft, nor is the mirror magical. The script excludes the supernatural element completely, and that's another thing that surprised me positively of course. The script moves like a period thriller, rather than horror fantasy. Claudia's attempts to kill Anna are human. She hallucinates that her reflection in the mirror is perfect, ideal, and, that Anna is a threat to her beauty there are scenes in which Anna joins her in front of the mirror, and Claudia's face in the reflection distorts before Anna's juvenile beauty (in Claudia's mind). She gets scarred for life in the face in one of her attempts to kill Anna (the girl slashes her across the face), which fuels her anger towards Anna even more, but her madness won't permit her to see the scar in front of the mirror.
Also, the character of Anna/Lilli/Snow White is more developed here. She's trained by the Outcasts in the woods and is shown how to hunt and survive on her own, and, by the end, she's not a goody-goody two shoes little rich girl, but a grown, mature young woman who's ready to fight her nuts stepmother it's a journey toward adulthood in the script. Thus, the Outcasts have some purpose to be in the script, rather than be there just for the sake of somehow throwing the "Seven Dwarfs" in there. We get to know the past of some of them, too. The most developed of them, a cripple named Leopold, is the "father figure" to Anna, who once had a wife and a daughter in Anna's age, who abandoned him because he was a good-for-nothing drunken sot, who's now repenting for past mistakes and wants to do it right this time by helping Anna. Another one of them is Eric, the leader, who's spiteful against Anna's father because he lost his home and farm.
Dr. Peter Ruttenberg is shown far less in the script than the film, but at least his character is more fleshed out and feels more like a real human than Guttenberg.
The final battle in the script plays out like the film's, only it's longer, and more suspenseful. Claudia has set traps all over the place (which include