THE STORY SO FAR: PART 241

MY BLOG HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. MY APOLOGIES, BUT THE CAUSE WAS JUST

For some little time now, I have been engaged in re-writing a screenplay—not the movie in the poster--and the task has taken all my energy (and my blood into the bargain). In short, it was exhausting, but also absolutely exhilarating. As far as I am concerned, there are few things more mentally stimulating than a creative writing challenge.

Book authors normally don’t write screenplays—though there are exceptions. The reasons for this are that although both require a creative mind, the writing disciplines are significantly different.

Where a book is concerned, a writer is much less constrained. Length is much less of an issue, technical constraints are minimal, and—above all—you can get inside your character’s minds and allow access to their thought processes so you have vastly more freedom.

Screenwriting requires another approach entirely. On the one hand, you have the great advantage that the various media are visual, but you are limited in length to roughly a page a screen minute, production and cost constraints have to be factored in, and, overall, you have remarkably little time in which to develop your characters and tell your story. Screenwriting is the Twitter of the creative writing business.

Movies are much more of an illusion than we generally realize. Much less happens, even in a complex movie, than one thinks.

Is my work on the screenplay finished? Not a bit of it. True, I have now got a very acceptable draft, but there are still some issues that have to be resolved—and I know I can make it better.

That said, I’ll do a better job if I step away from it for a week or so, and then approach it with fresh eyes. Perspective is a wonderful thing, and time brings perspective.

Book-writing or screenwriting? Which do I prefer?

I think I’ll keep that a secret for the time being.

P.S. By the way, I recommend IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY—if you have a strong stomach. It’s really quite an achievement by Angelina Jolie who not only wrote it, but produced and directed it as well. It brings home the horrors of what happened in Bosnia like nothing else I have ever scene. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful, deeply upsetting movie which deserved to do much better than it did. And it is about as different from a classic Hollywood movie as can be imagined.

Personally, my tastes are pretty catholic—I love virtually any good movie—but I wish more serious, issue-based, thought-provoking movies were made.

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THE STORY SO FAR: PART 240

TIME IS A VERY SPECIAL THING—AND SO ARE GOOD FRIENDS

SOMETIMES LIFE CAN BE PARTICULARLY WONDERFUL

I wrote some time ago that no one does anything alone—even if they think they do. There is almost always a support system of some type or other—even if unsung and little known.

Despite the fact that writing is essentially a solitary activity—or my kind of writing is—I still don’t do what I do entirely alone. I have the support of my fans and a few close friends. My family is somewhat divided. Some of my siblings are supportive. My children, in the main, are not. Families are complicated things.

I would like to think I would continue even if I had no support—and I probably would—but, fortunately, I have never had to make such a decision. On the contrary, I have been much blessed. I find it hard to express how much that means to me.

When you reach my age, time has a particular significance. One’s remaining days are clearly limited and time, itself, seems to pass at a faster pace. On the other hand, as if to compensate, life seems to be more intense, more fulfilling. I can’t speak for my peers in that regard, but that is certainly how I feel.

Time has a particular significance for book writers, largely because books, generally speaking, take so long to write. On the one hand your brain is full of ideas and yet you know—if you are realistic—that you won’t have the time to accomplish all you wish; or even come close. Such thoughts evoke a bitter-sweet feeling—plus wry amusement because fundamental to being a good creative writer is never to run of ideas. To have written every book one’s imagination can conceive strikes me as descending into hell.

My personal compromise is to accept the fact that I will die gloriously unfulfilled—after an adventure filled life—but to leave behind an acceptable body of work. Posterity is not high on my list of concerns.

Arising from discussion about time, I was warned to look out for  a package. I expected a calendar or similar. The package contained an excellent Swiss Legend watch featuring capabilities I shall doubtless spend the rest of my life mastering.

I was, and remain, bowled over. It is an exceptionally thoughtful gift of great symbolic significance apart from its practical value. I feel an exceptionally fortunate man.

Time to increase my operational tempo.

 

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 239

THE FORGOTTEN MAGICIANS OF MOVIE MAKING

We writers, because we are communicators, have made it part of the stuff legend that writers are treated abominably in Hollywood.

I’m not sure the establishment of that truth has improved our situation but, at least, it makes us feel better. Besides, pretty much everybody is treated abominably in Hollywood at some time or other.

I read part of it all the way through.

Sam Goldwyn

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

Marilyn Monroe

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

Hedy Lamarr

You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart.

Fred Allen

In my opinion, some of the most neglected people in the movie business are casting directors. If casting is wrong—no matter how good the screenplay and directing—the movie just won’t work.

A good example of that was the disastrous selection of COLIN FARRELL in Oliver Stone’s movie ALEXANDER.

In contrast, consider the min-series ROME where everyone just looked and felt right—even when the casting was unconventional.

Casting is not just a matter of picking stereotypes. It requires an extra dimension—a very special kind of judgment which seems vastly less common in U.S. TV than in American movies.

Fundamentally, it is impossible for a writer to see his vision realized if the casting is wrong. I am a huge admirer of casting directors who have the sensitivity and experience to get it right time after time after time. One example is Lyn Stalmaster whose track record is just plain awesome.

Good casting directors are just that.

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 238

WHERE MOVIES ARE CONCERNED, THERE IS SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT THE SEVENTIES

I enjoy a good movie from any time and place, but I seem to particularly enjoy a raft of U.S. movies made in the Seventies. Doubtless, there were many bad movies made then too—but I seem to remember only the good ones; and there were many of them.

Was there any particular reason for this? I don’t know the answer to that. I suspect it might have had much to do with the decline of the studio system, the presence of some amazing talent who now had creative control—and a particular style of direction that emphasized story ahead of gimmickry. And digital special effects were not yet in vogue.

It may also have had to do with a whole bunch of movie-makers who learned their trade in the late thirties and Forties—who were at their prime in the Seventies. But that is just theorizing.

I pay close attention to such movies because there is a great deal to learn from them—and the best of them have superb screenplays. ULZANA’S RAID is a case in point. It has an impressively tight screenplay by Alan Sharp, was directed by Robert Aldrich, and stars Burt Lancaster.

It’s the very model of a fine Western—and good movie-making.

I figured I owed myself a treat.

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 237

I WAS EATING MY BLUEBERRIES THIS MORNING WHEN THERE WAS A BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT AND A VOICE THUNDERED FROM THE SKY…

Perhaps I exaggerate slightly—although I was eating blueberries (I regard them as a magic food) but it is quite true to say that I suddenly realized that all my best vacations/foreign trips had been on foot. There was no particular context to this insight. It just hit me with the subtlety of a brick.

Hell of a way to wake up.

It wasn’t a deliberate strategy—cars are useful—but the fact is that you are more in tune with your environment, and with people, when you are primarily foot mobile. It’s hard to notice things when you are on a freeway travelling at 75 miles an hour in a sealed metal box. It’s also hard to get to know the rest of the human race when in that condition.

And it is the job of a writer to observe and to empathize—while remaining discretely aloof.

The following have been some of my best walking experiences (multiple trips in most cases):

• MONACO
• SPAIN
• MOROCCO
• CORSICA
• IRELAND
• ENGLAND
• SWITZERLAND
• ITALY
• JAPAN

I am not innately anti-mechanical. Show me a helicopter—and I’m your man.

I’ve seen great deal of the U.S. bit, oddly enough, have never been on a walking trip here—unless you count New York. Perhaps one should count New York—I have walked endless miles there.

Mind you, I’m proud to say I arrived—for the very first time in New York—by helicopter.

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 236

A BOOK IS NOT A MOVIE—FRANKLY I HAVE ALWAYS REGARDED THAT AS SELF EVIDENT

One of the commonest statements made about movies adapted from books is: “The book was better.”

It’s a reaction that irritates me greatly. I have always thought that you have to judge each medium on its own terms—and not compare them. They are different experiences.

A good example of this is CATCH-22. The book is a work of genius—though contains passages I found quite boring. In contrast, the movie is consistently entertaining but doesn’t—and shouldn’t—contain all the complexity of the book.

Which is the better? It’s not a helpful question.

Having cut and re-written extensively, I’m currently reaching the stage where I’m asking: What can I do in the movie that couldn’t be done in the book—and will it help the movie?

I’m not sure I’ll find the answers, but I’m confident I’m asking the right questions.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 235

BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL—AND CONSIDERABLY BEYOND

It makes no sense at all to work ridiculously late—because writing when tired is never a good idea, and you end up exhausted the following day. Nonetheless, I plead guilty to such foolishness. In fact, I have worked to beyond 3.00 am twice (so far) this week—and late practically every evening.

Why so? Well, at a certain point—if you are lucky—you really get the hang of a project, understand it in all its complexity, and know what to do; and when such a magic time arrives, it is hard to let go. Your creative juices are flowing and you know that period of insight will pass. But, if you don’t get enough sleep, there are consequences.

Damn stupid? Damn right!

Still, it is vastly satisfying to be making such progress. I just hope I can keep it up until my screenplay revision is finished—or this phase is. I say “phase” because screenplays have a habit of being re-written near endlessly—and not always for good reasons.

Speaking of weapons—which we weren’t—I’d like to add a footnote to yesterday’s remarks about the Broomhandle Mauser.

In 1916, a small group of the Irish rebelled against the British in an attempt to end the British occupation of Ireland. As part of that rebellion, the Irish seized various buildings around Dublin. One, in Dublin itself, commanded the principal route from the port of Kingstown to the city center (see extreme right of above graphic). The Irish garrison nunbered only 17, but many were armed with Broomhandle Mausers.

They were opposed by the Sherwood Forresters, and other troops—over 1,000. In the subsequent combat, the Irish lost two dead. Sherwood Forrester casualties, either dead or wounded, came to a staggering 240.

I’ve never shot one, but I have had the privilege of examining one in a private collection some decades ago. It’s a fascinating weapons which just feels right in your hand. It’s dominating feature, apart from its long barrel, is the fact the the magazine is in front of the pistol grip. To load it, you push down on the stripper clip, the clip falls away, and the rounds enter the magazine. It’s a rapid process.