Body Heat
The Craft of Creating Scenes with Double Meanings
by Bill Johnson

Body Heat is a good example of a particular kind of thriller. The structure of this story illustrates how scenes can be written to suggest one purpose while another purpose -- another level of the story -- is buried within that context to be revealed later. It illustrates again how by understanding the direction of a story, the storyteller can write each moment of the story around fulfilling some clearly defined dramatic purpose that keeps an audience engaged.

Like many good stories, this one begins with a suggestive title. By creating a title that engages the attention of the story's audience, the storyteller suggests they understand the process of telling a story. The storyteller here offers something to engage the initial interest of the audience, then works through the structure of the story to sustain and reward that engagement.

The film opens with sultry music. It cues the audience to the nature of the story. We're then shown something through a hazy flame... the shape of a body. Immediately the title of the film is made suggestive while raising the question, whose body? What exactly are we being shown? The audience is quickly and naturally being drawn deeper into the world of the story.

We then see billowing smoke and hear sirens. This is suggestive of a fire, but how did it start? What's burning? Again there's the process here of drawing the audience more deeply into the world of the story.

We then come out to the bare back of a man (William Hurt) watching the fire from a distance. While we have a stronger sense of a place for the fire, it sets up a deeper question, who is this man? What does he have to do with the fire?

We then come around to see Hurt's face, which answers one question, what does this man look like? But now we have another set up. A woman behind him talks about the heat, how she's started sweating after just getting out of the shower.

She asks, "Still burning?"

This line can refer to the house burning in the distance or their passions, etc. It works on different levels while also referring to the title. By knowing what he wanted to do dramatically in this scene, the storyteller used that as a guide to write interesting, suggestive dialogue.

The man speaks about the burning building, that it was possibly torched by one of his clients. Now we have a sense that he's probably a lawyer, so this opening scene naturally brings out who this character is. As is often seen in well-constructed stories, something about the story is set into motion, then its characters are introduced and reveal themselves as they react to events. By how they react to events and what they say, they reveal who they are. Because the event here -- the burning building, two passionate people -- speaks strongly to what's going to happen in this story, the dialogue offers a context for the story. This kind of process is easy to talk about, but deceptively difficult for struggling writers to create, because they are so often focused on introducing their characters and plot ahead of suggesting a dramatic context for their stories.

The woman asks, "You done with me?"

He, "My history is burning up out there." Interesting question which naturally generates interest in what he means.

She, "I'm just getting into my uniform here."

He goes over to her. We hear her laughter and assume they are to be intimate again.

This opening scene suggests this is a highly sexual man. It also answers the question, 'You done with me?' No, not yet. Set up, pay off.

We then cut to a scene in a courtroom and a judge making a statement about toilets, that Ned's client is a fraud and suggesting that Ned (Hurt) isn't very competent. The judge sets up a deal to resolve the case, that Ned goes along with. The judge admonishes him that if he ever appears in his court again he have a better defense or a better class of client.

This scene foreshadows what's coming in this story, that Ned will be set up by someone of more class and he won't have a defense to what he's involved with. The judge also will have a role to play in a later plot event, but he appears as a background detail here. In a well-told story, particularly this kind of thriller, background details are carefully selected and presented to advance the story.

A fan runs in the background, suggesting again the issue of heat.

Ned, taking up the judge's offer, whispers to his client.

Next scene, Ned sits in a bar with the assistant district attorney, who openly tells Ned that he now uses Ned's incompetence as a weapon. He says this partly as a joke, but it's suggestive that Ned is not among the swift, mentally. The DA also comments that the toilet case was not the 'quick score' Ned's been looking for. Again, we're being told something about Ned's character in an off-hand way, but it's vital for this story.

Next scene, Ned is at another bar. He notices something and goes out for a walk toward where a band plays on an outdoor plaza. A sultry woman, (Kathleen Turner), gets up from a seat and passes by Ned. It seems utterly casual. He follows her.

Ned tries to make small talk and she responds, "I'm a married woman."

Ned, "Meaning what?"

They banter about her marriage, then she says, "You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man." Great, great line. If Ned were smart, he would turn around and run, but he doesn't. He only sees what he wants, a chance to make it with a pretty woman.

She mentions that her husband only comes up on weekends.

Ned, "I'm liking him better all the time."

Ned discovers where she lives, Pinehaven, an upper class neighborhood. She, "How'd you guess?"

Ned, "You look well tended."

What Ned doesn't realize, of course, is that Matty tends herself.

They talk about the heat, then she spills something on her dress and he offers to 'wipe it off.' She counters, "You don't want to lick it?"

Ned is hooked now. He goes into a public bathroom where a boy shyly smokes a cigarette. What's the boy doing there? It's another mysterious touch that adds something to the moment, makes it dramatically richer.

When Ned returns to the railing where he left Matty, he finds only her coat; she is gone. Question, what will he do? Why did she leave? The audience continues to be drawn forward. We know what Ned wants, on a simple level. The question is, will he get it? Scenes are written to have a simple, straight-forward level that creates an internal sense of dramatic purpose.

Cut to next day. Ned drives out to Matty's house.

Cut to Ned at the open area concert area.

Cut to Ned lying thoughtfully in bed while a woman in a nurse's uniform dresses. It's made clear here that he's been drawn in by Matty. That her mysterious disappearance keeps her in his mind, even when he's with another woman.

Ned returns to the Pinehaven lounge. He sees something. Simple question, what? It's Matty at the bar. He joins her, and they talk again about the heat and 'hot air.'

They shake hands. It turns out she runs a higher than normal body temperature. It's another touch that plays back into the title of the story.

Matty, "How'd you find me, Ned?"

Ned, "This is the only joint in Pinehaven."

Matty, "You shouldn't have come. You're going to be disappointed."

This line is drenched with an irony that Ned -- and the audience -- will only come to fully appreciate later. Part of the enjoyment of a film like Body Heat is to watch it twice to realize the care taken to construct its dialogue to operate on the immediate, apparent level, and another, unseen level.

She talks about the men she's rejected, that she doesn't try to attract them.

Ned, "Maybe you shouldn't wear that body."

She talks about being unhappy in life. He commiserates and talks about life at times seeming to rain shit.

She gets ready to leave and turns down his request to accompany her, but he then suggests he only wants to listen to the chimes at her house. She agrees that he can accompany her, but she asks that they leave the bar separately, so people won't think of them as a couple in case she comes there with her husband. As with everything else that has been said, this rings true to the moment, although it will later have its real purpose revealed.

Ned, "You've been pretty friendly."

She suddenly slaps Ned and says, "Now leave me alone." She does this so anyone watching them together will think she's rejected Ned.

This seems part of the subterfuge, just not the real one. It's also unexpected, and therefore more dramatic. It's part of the pleasure of a story like this that things happen that neither Ned nor the audience foresee.

Next scene, Ned follows Matty to her expensive home.

She gets out of her car, flashing him -- and the other Neds watching this movie -- some thigh.

He enters the house with her to listen to the chimes.

Ned, "It's just like my place." We know that isn't true.

She leaves him and goes up a staircase. He follows.

They go on to a balcony where the chimes tinkle. It's clear she's already rung his chimes. He asks her about a boathouse on the water, what's in it. The audience is being primed here. She says an old rowboat is in it.

He touches her face. She doesn't react, then turns away.

Matty, "I think you should go now."

He is ready to leave -- disappointed, but ready to leave -- when she tells him she's 'weak' and kisses him. He goes to his car. The camera pulls into his face as he listens to the chimes. What will he do? It's clear he's 'heating up.' As the music swells, he returns to the house. Looking in a window, he sees her. She looks back at him with longing. He finds the door is locked. He goes to another window. She offers another sultry look. What will he do? He picks up a chair and throws it through a door with a window and enters. They embrace passionately.

His throwing the chair through the window is unexpected and communicates his sense of passion and willingness to act on his passion. He may not be smart, but he's an active, dynamic character.

When he gets to Matty, they embrace and kiss and we see the consuming passion lacking in his earlier scenes with the other women.

He gropes her, puts his hand under her skirt, lifts her skirt.

She lays on the floor and he removes her panties. They make hungry, passionate love.

Cut to later than night in bed as they lie together. Again this scene shows the intimacy he wasn't experiencing in his earlier sexual encounters. There's more here.

We listen to the chimes. This time she gropes him, suggesting another round of intimacy. It's unexpected and bold.

We have a dramatic answer to the question raised when Ned first met Matty, what will come of this? It's a simple question with a simple, dramatic answer the audience can track. And it raises another question. What now?

Cut to Ned entering his office and getting a message from a Mrs. Singer, a woman with a medical problem. He charms her and is happy that she goes for his fake charm.

We now see Ned naked looking out a window. Matty, naked, approaches. She gropes him and he asks for a moment to recharge.

Matty, "I've never wanted it this way before." Matty consistently builds Ned up, makes him feel he's special, manipulates him. A question in the background, why?

They return to the bed.

Cut to Ned returning something to a medicine cabinet. Matty strips the bed so no one will know Ned was there. She asks him to promise that he'll tell no one about their affair. This seems true to her point at the time, that's she's a married woman and needs to be careful, but it rings to another truth later.

Cut to Ned meeting with the assistant DA again in the cafe. He hasn't seen Ned for a month. We aren't shown the events of that month, because we've seen enough of what's happening between Matty and Ned to advance the story. A detective, Oscar, sits with them. They banter. The DA wants Ned to tell him some erotic stories. Ned holds back, which surprises the DA, played by Ted Danson.

Oscar, "When it gets hot, people try to kill each other." He explains why. That the 'heat' leads people to think they can break all rules.

This is a well-done scene. It shows that these men are Ned's friends. It's an important part of this story in particular and stories in general that the storyteller writes in a way that suggests their characters have feelings about each other. If a story's characters have no feelings for each other, for better or worse, why should an audience have feelings for them?

Cut to Matty's place and the chimes. Then the sounds of intimacy and Matty having sex with someone, being taken from behind. We see the ashtray, the different brands of cigarette butts. Who's she with? Again, the moment is designed to be dramatic. We find out then it's Ned.

They cool off in a cold tub of water. She tells him her husband is returning, that he's mean and weak. Ned comforts her. Matty telling Ned these things about her husband seems natural and unforced.

Cut to Ned jogging out onto a pier.

Cut to that night as Ned waits outside her house.

Cut to Ned trying to cool off in his own bed. He's clearly thinking about Matty.

Cut to Ned walking up to a blonde who looks like Matty standing on a gazebo outside her house; she has her back to him.

Ned, "Hey, Lady, want to fuck?"

The woman turns around. It's not Matty! She smiles, like she's considering the idea. She and Ned talk for a moment.

Matty arrives as the woman, Mary Ann, says, "You must be looking for the lady of the house," a play on words. Mary Ann assures Matty that Ned was making her feel very welcome.

It comes out that Mary Ann's just passing through. It's clear she knows Matty well. This encounter seems innocent of a deeper purpose. Later it's real purpose, it's real 'truth,' will be revealed. The nature of how Ned comes across Mary Ann gives a dramatic shape to this scene that it would have lacked otherwise.

Matty, "Mary Ann is like a sister to me. She wants me to be happy."

Like much of the dialogue in this story, this line is drenched in an irony that only becomes clear later.

Cut to a foggy balcony and Ned asking, "How do you know?" This question naturally draws the audience into the answer to the question.

Matty tells him about her husband's will and his investments, but she doesn't have many details. By starting with the answer to the question, the audience is naturally drawn forward into the question itself.

Matty, "It scares me to talk these things."

Ned wants to know what frightens her.

Matty, "When I think about it, I wish he'd die... it's horrible and it's ugly but it's what I want."

Ned agrees that he's been thinking the same thing.

She asks him not to talk about it because "talk is dangerous...it makes things real."

Ned, "There's no reason to think he's going to die... It's not going to just happen to make things nice for us."

Very suggestive scene. Ned coming to this idea about Matty's husband dying in a way that it seems his own, but from the perspective of the audience, it can be seen that Matty plants the idea.

Cut to Ned walking along a corridor in a prison. This foreshadows what's approaching for him.

Cut to Ned talking to Matty about her divorcing Edmund, but she says she signed a pre-nuptial agreement that leaves her with little money. She asks for the 'truth' about whether that would matter to Ned.

Ned, "The truth... I wish you were going to be loaded. Does it matter? No, no."

Matty, "God, you make me happy."

She's chosen Ned well. Ned is both a victim and a not very smart guy who's in over his head without knowing it. Everything that is said during these scenes, however, has a point that seems real and true to the moment but will also echo and ring with a different kind of truth when the real 'truth' comes out. The storyteller would know how the story was tracking along both of these levels.

Matty gives Ned a hat, which refers to his earlier talking about life raining 'shit' at times, and that she'll protect him from that.

He happily puts it on. What he doesn't realize, of course, is what he's dooming himself to experience.

Cut to Matty walking out the front entrance of her house. Her husband is in the car with a 'present,' a young niece. Matty feigns she's happy to see the niece. Set up, what's going to come out of the niece being around?

The dramatic pay off here is that the earlier scene talks about the husband, then he makes an appearance in the story. His off-stage character isn't developed earlier, because that would have dragged out the pay off to no dramatic benefit.

Cut to Ned with his present, the hat, tossing it onto a coat rack.

Cut to Matty being surprised by Ned on a verandah. They embrace passionately, then the niece comes out and sees Ned and Matty. She runs off to bed.

Pay off to introduction of niece.

Cut to Matty seeing the little girl off. She's clearly thinking about the fact that the little girl saw Ned. But the real reason Matty is mulling this over so carefully only comes out later, while it appears she's only concerned about her marriage.

Cut to Ned on a city street. He enters a restaurant and sees Matty, then Edmund, Matty's husband, appears. Matty introduces them. The husband invites Ned to eat with them. The husband went to Columbia, Ned FSU. The husband is clearly on a higher level than Ned.

Matty fidgets. Ned asks Edmund about his work, that it's investments.

Edmund makes a cutting remark about Matty not understanding investments. Matty leaves the table. Edmund talks about how he'd kill any man who was seeing his wife. He talks about the man Matty was with when he met her, that the man didn't know the bottom line (a situation Ned is in). That the man wanted to get rich quick. Edmund talks about how the man wasn't ready to do whatever 'was necessary' to accomplish that. This foreshadows Ned killing Edmund, so Edmund here is actually suggesting to Ned that he either make sure he kills Edmund, or he go away.

Set up, what will Ned do?

Cut to Ned jogging. He looks at property owned by Edmund and others, a rundown property on the beach front.

Cut to Ned entering his office. He clearly sees something, but what? It turns out to be Matty in his office. He's surprised. She asks him to hold her.

Matty, "Oh, God, I love you."

Now it's Ned that doesn't want to be seen with Matty, because he's now afraid of Edmund. He makes a point that Matty never call on the phone because of phone records.

Matty, "Why?"

Ned, "Because we're going to kill him. It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Matty kisses Ned passionately.

Ned, "I think I know how."

Matty, "It's real, then?"

Ned, "It's real, all right. If we're not careful it's going to be the last real thing we do."

This has a double meaning that only becomes clear later, when Ned realizes just exactly what was 'real' in his relationship with Matty.

Cut to a police car turning a corner. The camera pulls in to show Ned hiding behind a garbage container. He goes into the old building he looked at from the beach and looks around with a flashlight.

Cut to Matty with Ned. She wonders if they could rewrite Edmund's will before his death, that Ned could do that as a lawyer.

Ned, "No, forget it. Nothing strange can happen in his life right now. We're not going to get greedy... If we do, we'll get burned."

Matty, "You're right, Darling, I know you're right."

Cut to Ned outside boat builder; he meets Matty and tells her they shouldn't be seen together.

Cut to Ned with a former client, Teddy, who's helping him build a fire bomb. Teddy tells Ned that the device will leave traces. Ned doesn't care. Teddy (Mickey Rourke) tells Ned he's 'not a genius' and shouldn't do the job. Ted offers to do the job for him. Ned doesn't answer.

Everywhere Ned goes, he has people offering him good advice. Ned ignores it all. He wants Matty, he wants the money; he's blind to the pitfalls here. It's his nature to be blind. By surrounding him with characters who point out what he can't see, the story develops a deeper level of drama. It points out how a storyteller develops drama by writing to the point of their story, not away from it.

Cut to Ned and Matty together, naked, talking about their plans. She will lure Edmund to a place where he'll be killed; that they shouldn't talk again until after the deed is done.

Cut to Ned in Miami looking at some land, at a car rental. He's setting up his alibi for where he is at the time of Edmund's death. Returning to his car, he sees a clown drive past. Does he wonder if he's a clown? Should he wonder? He continues with his plans while we see Matty cooling off.

Cut to a clock that reads 1:15 a.m. Edmund wakes up. Matty wakes with a start and asks him to come back to bed, suggesting intimacy.

We see Ned driving a car.

Matty and Edmund in bed together, Edmund, "You trying to kill me?" as a joke about her wanting sex.

Cut to Edmund with a gun Matty has never seen; he's heard a noise downstairs and is going to investigate.

Edmund comes down the stairs. The moment is quiet, dramatic, tense. It's made more dramatic because we know Matty and Ned are planning something, but what?

Edmund looks around, hears a footstep.

Edmund turns on a light.

Matty appears on the landing and shouts, "He has a gun."

Ned appears and attacks Edmund with a wooden stave. A shot is fired, the men fight, and Ned clubs Edmund.

Cut to Ned loading Edmund into a car in the fog.

Ned drives through the fog; it's his literal situation. Again, the storyteller writes to the point of what they want to say, not away from it. Ned's in a personal fog, so show him in a real fog. Once a story is set into motion, and its characters are in motion within the context of the story, details like the fog add something to the story. In an inert story with inert characters, details that suggest no dramatic purpose create a kind of impenetrable fog.

Ned almost gets into two accidents on the road. He's a traveling accident that's already happened. He might be better off if he was caught at this point, another irony in the story.

He enters the run down building on the beach. He spreads gas, then brings in Edmund's body.

He throws a bloody piece of plastic against a wall, sets the device to go off, then drops a heavy, heavy timber onto Edmund's body.

Cut to Ned getting into a car with Matty. Moments later, a police car with flashing lights goes past. It's another small touch to make the moment just a little more dramatic.

Ned, "I'm running late."

They park the car. Ned, "We can't talk for a long time."

He gets into his car and looks at himself in the rear view mirror for a long moment. It's suggestive that the audience now also takes a long look at Ned now that he's crossed over to become a murderer. He's no longer just a rather pleasant, vapid guy.

The device detonates and the building erupts in flames.

Matty listens to the first siren.

The story has reached another point of dramatic clarity. Ned and Matty schemed to kill Edmund. They've accomplished that in a dramatic way the audience could track events and assign meaning to them. But what will follow?

Cut to a lawyer from Miami calling Ned at his office. The lawyer represents Edmund's estate. The lawyer lets Ned know Matty has submitted a new will, and there's a problem with the work Ned did on it. He wants to discuss the problem in person.

Ned now knows that Matty has lied about the will. Both Ned and the audience can feel the noose first tighten around Ned's neck. The caller also lets Ned know that Matty and her sister will be at the meeting about the will.

Ned listens to dial tone. He's in shock.

The story has just moved forward into unexpected -- for Ned -- territory. Everything that seemed known is now unsure, for both Ned and the audience.

The storyteller has used this willingness of the audience to track along a clear series of events to stage a kind of dramatic coup.

Ned asks his secretary to look up something.

Close up on the hat Matty gave him. That rainstorm Ned fears has begun, and he failed to listen to the many forecasts from friends predicting it.

Doors open to the meeting with the other lawyers.

Ned sees Matty.

There's to be an inquiry into the death.

The lawyer talks about the new will. The new will divides the estate in two parts between Heather and Matty.

The lawyer suggests there is a problem, that Ned make a mistake in redoing the will. It turns out that the judge from the opening scene of the movie doesn't like Ned's work and is refusing to validate the will. So Edmund has died intestate, without a will. In the state of Florida, that means the spouse inherits everything, although "it was clearly not your husband's intention. He intended Heather to benefit." Matty doesn't respond. She's winning everything she wants.

Cut to Matty and Ned outside. She continues to play Ned, asking him to come to the house that night, even though he is wondering now about her intentions. Just like Heather's mother who fears openly antagonizing Matty by accusing her of complicity in Edmund's death, Ned is semi-forced to go along with what Matty wants at this point. But Matty makes it a bitter pill easy to swallow. Matty, "I want you more than I ever have."

Cut to Ned returning home. The assistant DA and Oscar are waiting. The detective tells Ned that Matty is poison.

They talk about the murder.

The detective asks about the 'friend,' Mary Ann, who witnessed the signing of the will. There is no record of a passport for her leaving the country, which was what Matty told Ned.

The DA warns Ned to stay away from Matty. What will Ned do? The question hangs over this scene.

Ned, "I'm sorry, guys, I just can't do that." He tells them he's going out to see Matty because she's rich now.

Detective, "Ned, you've messed up before and you'll mess up again, it's your nature... but this is major league trouble."

Cut to Matty and Ned in bed. She talks about her life, some earlier problems. She explains how she learned from a lawyer about how to make a will invalid. She tells Ned, "I'm greedy, like you said. I wanted us to have it all."

She tells Ned she loves him and that in a little while they'll either have the money or not. Ned is being reeled in again.

Cut to policeman leaving office. Sister-in-law comes in with Heather.

Oscar questions Ned about the murder, where he was.

DA, "Walker always wears glasses." It comes out that the glasses weren't found at the scene of the death, that he was killed somewhere else and brought somewhere in his own car.

Ned asks his friends if he's supposed to be an 'undercover' agent for them with Matty, a joke. Oscar brings up the point that Heather saw Matty with someone. Is Ned being set up here? Oscar offers that Ned can leave out the back way and not see the sister-in-law and Heather. Ned instead goes out the front door past Heather. He knows that refusing to face Heather would incriminate him. He actually goes up to Heather and speaks to her, talks about the heat. When Ned leaves, Heather looks at her mother. Does she identify Ned? We're left hanging.

Cut to Ned with the assistant DA. The DA makes a crude joke about what Heather saw that night, the man's penis, that's what she remembers. He also makes a joke about the man having greasy hair slicked back. This sets up a question of whether Ned will be able to get out from under this, if Heather can't identify him.

Cut to Ned accusing Matty of having done something with the glasses. Matty is concerned because Ned is accusing her of setting him up. She tells him the money from the estate should come through.

Matty, "All we have is each other." She's continuing to play Ned until she gets the money, and he doesn't see it.

Oscar follows Ned's path in Miami.

Cut to DA dancing on dock at night. Ned runs up. DA is looking for him. Ned says he's going to Miami. DA has noticed that Matty smokes same brand of cigarette. He tells Ned that Edmund is a bad guy and he doesn't care who killed him, but "Oscar's not like that." That Oscar's unhappy because he suspects Ned in the death. DA, to Ned, "He thinks you need help. Someone's putting you into deep trouble, my friend." That someone called Ned's hotel room that night, repeatedly, proving that he wasn't there. Now someone is trying to give the police Edmund's glasses, which would have Ned's fingerprints on them from their fight.

It's an interesting element of this movie that the DA and Oscar both care about Ned as a friend, but it's not going to help him in the end.

Another interesting aspect of this story is that we see the noose slowly, slowly tighten around Ned's neck at the same time he sees it. It's very well done. Audiences like to feel 'in the know' in stories...

Ned drives to Miami, thoughtful.

Cut to Ned sitting at a bar. Another lawyer approaches. He knows Ned from being involved in suing him for malpractice. He mentions Matty, that he met her at a party. That she wanted to know about lawyers. Ned demands to know if this man told Matty about this malpractice case. He admits he did.

Ned now knows that Matty deliberately seduced him.

Cut to Ned entering his office. He tells his secretary he took his phone off the hook. She tells him Teddy Lewis wants to talk to him, the arsonist.

Cut to Teddy talking to Ned, that he has a new lawyer. He tells Ned that Matty contacted him, that she asked for his help to set up another explosion. He lets Ned know the police are asking him about the fire at the Breakers.

Cut to Ned on the phone, no answer. Question, who is he calling? Probably Matty. Did she know he would talk to Teddy?

Ned's secretary talks a call from Matty. Ned takes the call.

Matty tells him that she's in Miami, that things will be all right, that she has the money. She tells him she got the glasses back from the maid, that they'll be left in the boat house, that he should get them as soon as he can.

Matty, "We've made it."

Ned listens to the dial tone for a moment. At this point, Ned's perspective on what 'they've made' is different than Matty's. But what's he going to do about? This story continues to generate drama. As with other well-told stories, the resolution of one question, will Matty get the money, sets up a deeper, more pressing question. What's going to happen now?

Cut to Ned approaching the boat house. He goes up to the door, reaches for the door knob, pauses, then walks away. He looks at the door, then looks through a window. He can see a cord, which he suspects is attached to some kind of device to set off a fiery explosion.

Cut to DA and Oscar. Oscar takes out a gun.

Oscar, "Better go get him."

Ned paces near boathouse, then enters the house and opens a closet. He takes out a gun.

Oscar comes up onto the porch of Ned's house.

Ned waits in the dark gazebo.

Cut to Oscar waiting at raised bridge.

Ned looks at time, 10:15. He hears Matty's car. Watches her get out of the car. She looks around.

Matty walks by the gazebo and Ned calls to her.

Matty, "It's all ours now... It's all over."

She sees Ned's gun, and asks him what it means.

They spar about the glasses.

Matty, "I could never do anything to hurt you."

Ned, "Keep talking. Experience shows I can be convinced of anything."

Good line. It shows that Ned has begun to learn. But what will it gain him? That's an unanswered question at this point. If he were to remain completely dim all through the story, however, the story would have a different dramatic flavor. It is, however, common in scripts by struggling writers that characters don't seem to really change over the course of the story. They are the same people at page one as they are at page 120. This kind of lack of character change -- unless its intentional -- suggests the events of the story have had no impact on its characters. Such events risk having no impact on the audience as well.

Matty asks him what could prove her love. As always, she seems prepared for anything.

Ned tells her she can do that by going to get the glasses in the houseboat.

Oscar arrives and sees Ned and Matty in the distance.

Matty, "I'll go, Ned. I'll go and look for them."

Matty turns and walks away, then turns back.

Matty, "No matter what you think, I do love you."

Ned watches her walk to the houseboat while Oscar watches Ned. This is a highly-charged, dramatic moment. What's going to happen next? Ned watches Matty, Oscar watches Ned, the audience takes in the whole scene.

Close on Ned's face as he struggles with emotion. He drops the gun and starts to run forward, calling out, "Matty."

Suddenly a fireball erupts from the houseboat.

Ned falls, then runs toward the houseboat while Oscar watches.

It seems certain that Matty died in the explosion. She appears to have proved her love for Ned while guaranteeing he's be convicted of murder in one stroke.

Cut to Ned in a bunk in a cell. We see him from above lying in bed. Pull into his face as his eyes suddenly open, "She's alive."

But how? By revealing this, the storyteller pulls his audience forward.

Note, we haven't seen the aftermath of the events at the boat house. They are not relevant to this story.

Cut to Ned talking to Oscar, telling her that the body found in the boathouse was probably Mary Anne, that Matty set this up. Oscar counters that they matched her teeth to the corpse found in the boathouse.

Ned, "You're not listening to me." He explains how Matty set this up even before she married Edmund, that she was really someone else. That Mary Anne was probably blackmailing Matty, who then figured out a way to get rid of both Ned and Mary Anne at the boathouse.

Ned, "Matty killed this other girl and put her body in the boathouse. It was so perfect and so clean. You find two bodies, two killers dead. Case closed. You can't find the money, can you, Oscar? That should tell you something?"

Oscar still disagrees, but Ned counters that Matty was the kind of person "who could do what was necessary. Whatever was necessary."

The point here is that we learn this information at the same time Oscar does. We're not offered the information in the earlier scene, then having it repeated here. Anytime storytellers repeat information there's a risk of stalling their story's advance along their story/plot lines. This is a subtle point, but it reaches into most areas of writing. For example, if every time a character appears in a story they hit, say, the same 'note' of anger no matter what is happening around them, the audience can realize they don't have to pay much attention to that character. Asking an audience to not pay attention is generally a bad move. Sometimes they never return that attention to the story.

Cut to mail cart coming down the cell block. Ned gets an envelope from Wheaton High School, where he believes Matty went to school. This is a quick set up for the question, what will he find in the yearbook? He searches and finds the picture of Matty Tyler. It is not the Matty he knew, but a picture of a young Mary Ann. He then looks up the picture of Mary Ann. The camera slowly pulls up to reveal a young Matty.

He knows the truth now. And so does the audience. There's no dialogue here. Everything Ned and the audience needs to know is presented visually.

The picture raises the question, where is she?

Cut to Matty reclining on a tropical beach. At this point of the story, we cut from revelation to revelation. The climaxes of many well-told films quickly present their final revelations, then end. Struggling storytellers often find a way to have characters discuss what happens at the climax of their story, diluting it.

We're shown Matty here instead of being left to wonder if she's alive or not because it's an effect of the story that we find out the real 'truth' here. If this story had been written around the idea that we could never know the truth, one way to do that would be to leave the audience wondering if Matty was alive or dead.

A man sits up beside her and says, "It is hot."

Matty, "Yes."

Of course, her body heat is higher than normal, a 'truth' Ned would surely agree with.

Matty is silent. Music swells. Does she think of Ned? It's left for the audience to decide as the camera pulls up into sky and credits run over sultry music.

My guess? Probably not.

Body Heat is an example of the kind of dramatic intensity and effect that can be created when a story is written around appearing to have one purpose but having a deeper one that the storyteller only fully reveals later in the story. Everything that happens early in this story clearly has a purpose in every scene. It just turns out to be a different purpose than suspected.

This kind of writing calls for writers to have a sense of where they are going so they can build in these different levels. Can this type of story be written by intuitive writers? Yes, as long as they understand the process and build in the levels as they go along. I wrote a screenplay where the contents of a smuggled package were only revealed at the climax of the script, and I hadn't decided on what those contents were until then. But I knew the context of the story, about people fulfilling their dreams, and the smuggled package representing one character's honor. So I laid the groundwork for the audience to have reasons to feel enmeshed and engaged by the potential outcome of the story.

Body Heat has been referred to as an updated version of Double Indemnity, with Fred MacMurray in the Ned roll, and Barbara Stanwyck in the Matty role. I would encourage any screenwriter serious about writing this kind of thriller to study both films. To understand the great care that goes into their construction. To understand the process of storytelling that supports their construction.

Because of the way it's constructed, a film like Body Heat is fun to watch several times, to pick up fully on the irony of many situations, the double meanings, the careful construction of scenes around more than one dramatic purpose.

©2000 Bill Johnson