Liars and Lunatics :: Film Blog

Liars and Lunatics is part courtroom drama. (Actually, one of the working titles for the story was ”The Trial”.)

As many of you probably know, courtroom drama is not the same thing as what takes place in a real-life courtroom.

Even the sole purpose of “Judge Judy” is entertainment. Or watch for the amazing last-minute confessions revealed in the final five minutes of an old ”Matlock” episode (Or “Perry Mason”… Or “JAG”… Or… You get the picture…)

Well, as film director Alfred Hitchcock once said, “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.” 

And so, when we began drafting the screenplay, part of our plan was to cut out all those dull bits…  Which meant, we skipped over the swearing-in of the witnesses. We did away with all sorts of courtroom conventions…

But, hey… it’s drama after all!

{{ photo :: The gavel Karen Lynn Gorney (as the Judge) used in the film. }}

Part One :: Liars. (Hmmm. Next time, we suppose we’ll probably have to tackle Lunatics…)

A lot of people wonder about where we Moon Brothers got the title for our feature film, Liars and Lunatics. Well, when we first wrote the story, it began as a stage-play called “The Trial”. But there’s already a book with that name by Kafka.

So, last winter, when we made the switch over to screenplay format, we also changed the title to “Liars and Lunatics”.

Why? It actually comes from the writings of author C.S. Lewis. The central character of our film—James Jamisin—is an over-zealous evangelist whose hero is…you guessed it: C.S. Lewis. Yeah, he’s the guy who wrote the books about the Chronicles of Narnia (the same books that are being made into movies by the folks at Walden Media).

In all his writings, C.S. Lewis is known for his very logical approach. In fact, there’s a great line in his novel “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” In the book, an elderly professor takes the four Pevensie children into his country home during World War II. The two older children ask his advice about how to deal with their younger sister who claims to have found a whole new world inside a wardrobe. He systematically shows them their only possible conclusions:

“‘Logic!’ said the Professor half to himself. ‘Why don’t they teach logic at these schools? …There are three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth…’” (Lewis, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, p.45)

That actually sounds a lot like Lewis’ famous “Trilemma” argument regarding Jesus’ claim to be God. So, using logic, the first possibility is that Jesus was a liar. Which means he would have known he wasn’t God. But, because Jesus wanted to be famous… or powerful… or whatever… he lies and claims divinity.

To be continued…