Writing the Complex Metaphor: Ben Hopkins Talks About ‘Inside’
Ben Hopkins recently spoke with Script about writing ‘Inside’ and the writing genesis of his projects.
Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted as saying, “Art is life’s metaphysical exercise.” Art appeals to the mind, body, and soul. It is a tangible representation of the spirit. Writer/director Ben Hopkins explores these themes in his latest film Inside. The Focus Features release will be exclusively in theaters on March 17, 2023. Willem Dafoe is a one-man tour de force as Nemo, an art thief who gets stuck in the penthouse he’s supposed to be robbing. The saying “No man is an island,” has never been so subverted as it is in this film. The name Nemo is Latin for “no one” or “nobody" which Dafoe’s character devolves and evolves into.
Cast Away, 127 Hours, Gravity, and I Am Legend are just a few films where a single character is the center of the film. This required a lot of heavy lifting by the actors and Dafoe more than handles his weighty performance load in Inside. His quicksilver expressions speak volumes, creating noise in the vast cavern of silence that’s his environment and temporary prison.
Ben Hopkins (The Nine Lives of Thomas Katz, Marionette) has done television, documentaries, and features. The British writer/director’s visual style can’t be categorized and neither can his writing. Yet, in both mediums, he can capitalize on silence as much as dialogue. He recently spoke with Script Magazine about writing Inside and the writing genesis of his projects.
How Hong Kong Has Changed Since He Was Born There
I was born in Hong Kong in 1969. My father was working at the University of Hong Kong. I left when I was a baby, so I have no memories of the place. I’ve been to China, but I’ve never gone back to Hong Kong. My brother went back with my brother about ten years ago. What I find interesting is that my grandmother, who’s a watercolor artist, went to visit us in Hong Kong and made a picture of the view from our apartment where I was born. We still have that painting and it shows a place with no high-rise buildings and with sailing ships…Chinese junks they were called, in the harbor. It’s changed massively during my lifetime.
His Method for Writing Books vs Screenplays
I’ve written three novels. I’m writing a fourth at the moment. Writing a novel is like a marathon compared to the sprint of the screenplay. If you’re concentrated and you know what your story is, you can write a screenplay in ten days or so. If you can do ten pages a day, you’re done. A novel is always going to take at least a year. The last novel I had published, Cathedral, took me seven years. It’s a much longer, more involved process.
I enjoy writing novels and screenplays in different ways. The novel allows you to go slowly and deeply into quite complicated themes and a complicated world. Whereas, the challenge with the screenplay is to tell a story with economy and excitement, with tension and speed. They’re quite different challenges and I enjoy the different challenges that they present.
On Getting Attached to Inside
I was contacted by Giorgos Karnavas, the producer, about five years ago. He was looking for a writer to work with Vasilis Katsoupis, the director. Vasilis is someone who has great concepts and ideas for films, but he’s not a writer and knows that he isn’t. They’re two Greek guys who were looking for someone who could write in English because Inside was going to be set somewhere like NYC. There are no high-rise penthouses in Athens. I’m known in Europe, I think, as a British writer who has an international outlook. That’s my reputation and that’s what they were looking for. We had a long, initial Skype call to discuss it. I immediately loved the concept and we took it from there.
When you’re writing something like Inside, which is set in one apartment, quite quickly, details of that apartment become quite important for your story. Certain objects that are found in that apartment become important. Something like a stone…a heavy stone that is found in the apartment, which the character can use to try to break a window. A knife that he has in his pocket when he arrives becomes something that he can use again and again. Props become important and, as you see in the film, certain objects of furniture become important. It focuses your attention on all of the things that could be in an apartment.
It was an interesting challenge to structure his emotional journey. Quite often in a screenplay, you’d have your protagonist relating to a variety of characters and through dialogue and human exchanges, you’d get to know the character better and develop the character’s journey through their interactions with other people. But here, you don’t have any of that. There’s almost no dialogue in the film and almost no interaction between Nemo and anyone else. His interaction instead is with objects in the flat, with the flat itself, and with conditions in the flat. And how he reacts to the flat, how he transforms the flat from a prison that he’s into something that he can escape.
His changing interactions with the objects begin to take on a spiritual or metaphysical significance the longer the film goes on. He starts painting on the wall like cave paintings…like our ancestors did when they were trapped in caves during the winter…they painted pictures of animals that they wanted to kill and eat. He moves from the initial frustration of being enclosed, to a determination to escape, then towards the end, to a spiritual resignation to his fate. William Dafoe conveys his journey quite brilliantly simply through the expression on his face and his stance. It’s an incredible performance because so much is clear without words.
The Meaning of Nemo’s Mantra
I’m not sure what it means. But, this is a guy…we see him throughout the film sketching in a sketchbook. And in the opening voiceover and at the end of the story, the importance of the sketchbook and of art for him is made clear by the opening and closing voiceover. One of the main themes of the film is how his relationship with art changes after being imprisoned in this penthouse.
On the Types of Projects That Appeal to Him
I suppose I gravitate towards stories that can operate on a few different levels. There are two kinds of stories. Something complex which can operate on a variety of different levels. In Inside, one aspect is the escape of the soul from the prison of the body. Inside operates on a physical and metaphysical level. Then there’s the complexity of stories that have a variety of tones. That’s also true of Inside. Or I also like something completely the opposite. Something that is very simple and clear.
On the Project He’d Do if He Had the Budget
There’s a film script I wrote back in 1997. It’s a kind of an Arabian Nights story, about the importance of music and sound in the world. It would cost a huge amount of money to make, which is why it’s never been made.
On How His Work on Documentaries Has Informed His Other Work
The best thing about documentaries is they’ve given me a chance to travel all over the world and meet people I wouldn’t normally meet working as a writer in London and Berlin. The paradox of a writer is having to stay at home, not meeting anyone, whereas you can’t write if you haven’t had any life experience. My treasure trove of experience has helped and informed my writing.
Inside will be released in Theaters on March 17, 2023. And visit SUPERYAKI for their exclusive collab with Focus Features on a limited collection of apparel for Inside.
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Sonya Alexander started off her career training to be a talent agent. She eventually realized she was meant to be on the creative end and has been writing ever since. As a freelance writer she’s written screenplays, covered film, television, music and video games and done academic writing. She’s also been a script reader for over twenty years. She's a member of the African American Film Critics Association and currently resides in Los Angeles.
