Guillermo Arriaga interview

On Digital Spy, Ben Rawson-Jones talks to screenwriter and director Guillermo Arriaga about his new film, Burning Plain (above).

Did you make any decisions or changes in the editing room with regards to the fractured structure of the story?

"It's in the screenplay. Everything is in the screenplay. All of them have been written the way you have seen them, including 21 Grams. It's not editing room decisions, it's writing, narrative decisions. The structure of the film is exactly as it was written."

What is the writing process like for you, especially in terms of slotting the story together in a non-linear way?

"First of all, I do not map any kind of thing. I do not write the story separately and then put them together. I write exactly in the order you see them, because these structures will never work if you don't write it in that way. You have to sense where you have to make the cut, where you have to have the dramatic question. It's draining for me because I have a lot of problems to concentrate when I'm writing because I am wondering all the time, and in order to get myself right it's difficult. For example, I write from 10pm to 5 in the morning and I will not stand up from my computer until I have written at least half a page."