The difference between life and the movies is that a script has

Hear the words of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, master of dialogue and weaver of stories for the silver screen: “The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn’t.” In this paradox lies the recognition of two great truths: that art is bound by order, while existence is often ruled by chaos; that the storyteller must give pattern and meaning, while the living soul must endure mystery without answers.

In the realm of the movies, every event must connect, every action must lead to consequence, every character must serve a purpose. The audience demands coherence, for in art they seek the comfort of structure, the assurance that the tale has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But in life, such order is absent. Joy rises suddenly and vanishes without reason. Tragedy strikes without warning or explanation. The innocent may fall while the guilty prosper. In this realm, meaning is not handed to us—it must be sought, wrestled for, even forged from the fire of suffering.

The ancients knew this tension well. In the tragedies of Sophocles or Aeschylus, men demanded that the story resolve in clarity, even if the ending was grim. Yet when they looked at the world around them, they saw confusion and injustice. A noble warrior might fall in the mud by chance, while a coward might live to boast. History itself echoed this: think of Julius Caesar, master of Rome, slain not by divine justice but by knives of envy. To an audience, such a scene in a script would require long foreshadowing, carefully laid motives, the weaving of cause and effect. But in life, it unfolded suddenly, brutally, without the symmetry that art demands.

Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed in Hollywood’s golden age, understood this divide intimately. His scripts, like All About Eve, were renowned for their wit and precision. Each line carried weight, every scene drove forward. Yet as he looked upon the world, he saw contradictions that no screenwriter could justify. Lives ending too soon, hopes dashed by chance, victories gained not by merit but by accident. Thus he reminded us: life doesn’t make sense—and therein lies both its cruelty and its wonder.

But let us not despair in this. For though life lacks the tidy arcs of cinema, it gives us something greater: the freedom to shape our own meaning. If the movies demand logic, life invites us to create it. The very absurdity of existence calls us to be authors of our own narrative, to bring coherence where none is given, to weave purpose into the chaos. To live wisely is not to expect life to obey the rules of a script, but to accept its mysteries and still carve from them a tale worth telling.

Consider the story of Anne Frank. Her young life was cut short by cruelty, her dreams never given their natural unfolding. To a dramatist, such an ending would seem too abrupt, too harsh, lacking resolution. And yet, because her diary survived, her words became a light for generations, proof that meaning can spring even from senselessness. In this, we see Mankiewicz’s truth fulfilled: life defies logic, but we, as living souls, can draw from it purpose and hope.

The lesson then, O listener, is this: do not demand that your days follow the neatness of a script. Do not despair when the unexpected shatters your plans, or when fate offers neither justice nor clarity. Instead, embrace the disorder of life, and take upon yourself the noble work of finding meaning within it. Tell your own story with courage, even if the world refuses to make sense.

So remember Mankiewicz’s wisdom: the movies must satisfy the mind with structure, but life will not. Accept this truth, and you will not be broken by chaos. Instead, you will rise as a storyteller of your own existence, crafting order from mystery, and leaving behind not a perfect script, but a living legacy.