Under the Scorsese post, I was going to bring up Richard Price (who wrote the “NY Stories” segment directed by Marty, whom I call Marty). Price is a helluva novelist and an equally strong screenwriter, although the stuff he’s done tends toward the better B-movie genres and thus gets too little acclaim. (“Ransom,” for instance, despite workaday direction by little Ronnie Howard, gives Delroy Lindo and Gary Sinise and even Mel Gibson some great gristly chatter.)
There are a couple screenwriters or scripts which get the nod–they get bandied about in the trades, ballyhooed on awards show; it’s conceivable that they, too, are for better or worse celebrities in the star machine. Kaufman, the delightfully execrable Joe Eszterhas, etc.
But who are the unsung heroes of film writing? One of the reasons I love “After Hours” is its astonishingly precise and pitch-perfect script, by Joseph Minion. (I actually do searches trying to see what he’s done since–and it’s pretty hit or miss. Although the most recent flick he wrote, “On the Run,” has two great performances by Michael Imperioli and, especially, John Ventimiglia, who plays Artie Bucco on “The Sopranos.”) UNSUNG, now–don’t say John Sayles or Preston Sturges.
And speaking of unsung, I should add Delroy Lindo to my post on presences, or just give him his own heading. He is particularly astonishing in “Crooklyn,” “Clockers,” and even salvages some of “A Life Less Ordinary.”
My favorite Richard Price script is for the Michael Jackson music video “Bad.” This music video was directed by Martin Scorsese. Michael’s character is named Daryl. Other actors include Roberta Flack as Daryl’s mother, Wesley Snipe as Mini Max and Paul Calderon as the “dealer.” This 17 minute film should have sealed the fates of all people involved. I mean John Landis can make Michael Jackson soft-core films all day and he’ll still have Werewolf and Blues Brothers to fall back on. But as far as I’m concerned, Bad wipes out all the good lines spoken by Paul Newman in Color of Money, and negates everything Scorsese had done before.
Michael – Believe me, I was horrifed that I lost the huge post on Reynolds’ After Hours fixation. I mean, obviously the only reason he wants to rent After Life is because of its alphabetical proximity. I had worked on it for 2 hours, which means it cost my temporary employer about $38. LIke Hemingway’s novel left on the train platform, I am afraid it is gone forever.
i like how mike writes these convoluted topics just so he can slip in the fact that he knows the name of the guy who plays artie bucco on “the sopranos”. like we don’t know he looked it up on imdb.
anyway: i was going to nominate the guy who wrote the script for spike lee’s “the 25th hour” but then i looked on imdb and his next offering was “troy”.
mark, anyone else: if you write a post/comment and then the site barfs when you try to post it, just hit the back button on your browser–it will magically take you back to that screen. cut and paste and try again. most site errors are transient but it did go down for 40 minutes last evening due to an unbelievably stupid cock-up on my hosting service’s part.
–it’s best forgotten?
–it involved taciturn men speaking in short monosyllables, skirting the edge of their emotional reactions to deep trauma?
–it will linger in your memory, becoming not just a lost post but the post, that post that would have crystallized you, Mauerness, the Mauer philosophy, and its loss will itch at the back of your head until you have to get that damn shotgun down, after seven or eight fingers of bourbon, and scratch the itch once and for all?
–it will lead to a fine, fine film by Richard Attenborough, where you will be played by Chris O’Donnell (once he’s become a bit older, more consumptive, and more visibly bitter and enraged)?
As to the guy who wrote “25th hour”–yeah, Benioff–the novel was excellent,too. “Troy” fucking blew. But I’m hesitant to blame folks for picking up a check–Scorsese for “Bad,” or Price for “Bad” or for “Shaft”. Or Faulkner for work on “God is my Co-Pilot.”
Artie Bucco. I’ve been waiting for that guy to explode for four seasons. When will Artie get his? He’s due, man. And having the guy from “Betty Blue” steal his money was a low blow.
Mark–all art is ephemeral. As Duchamp knew. When “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even” was seriously damaged in transport, Marcel said “Fuckin’ A Yeah!”
I HIT the back button dammit. Nothing! NOTHING!!
The names that I came up with, off-hand, tended to be more of the writer-director type. Which is interesting – there don’t seem to be many studio system writer-directors, do there? And the ones that do start out as such frequently move away from it and towards adaptations and biopics – crap like that. I’m looking (down) at you Scorsese!
I’ve always agreed that it’s a greater art when a person directs what he has written, partly because of the singer-songwriter parallel. Before the rise of early 60s pop bands, popular singers did not generally write their own material. When they did, it led to a quick split between those who sang “their own” songs, and those that sang “other people’s” songs. Qustions of authenticity ensued.
One could argue that one is an excellent “interpreter” of so-and-sos songs, but generally, so what? It’s much more interesting to hear Nick Cave sing a song that he wrote about love than to hear some chanteuse cover the Nick Cave song. The cover will always smack of ACTING more than LIVING.
There’s a purity of vision and art when someone writes, directs, (and edits and produces) their own stuff.
I’m not sure if this is exactly WHY the Coen Brothers now make shit instead of films, but the two latest they didn’t write from original material are awful.
I still love Cronenberg’s work, but as he has gotten older he is getting more into adaptations. In his case, his last original screenplay was pretty bad (Existenz – though Dayna liked it better than I), but his adaptations have been very sharp (I liked Crash, and thought Spider was one of the best films of ought-two.) Cronenberg’s next two films are both adapations – one is Amis’ London Fields. (Dead Zone was an early adaptation of his among a slew of creepy originality – The Fly included.
Are there any bankable studio directors that still write their own scripts? (original scripts based on video games don’t count. Sorry Uwe Boll.)
“The cover will always smack of ACTING instead of LIVING.” That’s a loaded statement. I think I prefer acting to living, when, and if, I am able to separate the two
The comment was made in the context of popular music, and it’s completely true as far as how authenticity is measured in music. It seems to carry less weight in film, but I wonder if it should be a greater factor.
“One could argue that one is an excellent “interpreter†of so-and-sos songs, but generally, so what? It’s much more interesting to hear Nick Cave sing a song that he wrote about love than to hear some chanteuse cover the Nick Cave song. The cover will alwys smack of ACTING more than LIVING.”
What of those people–Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline…and,er, Elvis…who are of far greater cultural significance than most singer-songwriters? Perhaps the acting is of such intensity that it is indistinguishable from living? Or it is itself a version of living? I’d take Sam Cooke acting even some trifle like “Having a Party” over Tori Amos’ version of living any day. I’d also take Hitchock–who, though he had a hand in many scripts, never took a writing credit–for authenticity over, say, Robert Rodriguez.I don’t really like to bash authenticity considering how much corporate crap is out there, but maybe we need some way to reconsider these distinctions.
Exception exist to be sure. But some of those you mention – Elvis in particular – greatly suffered in the wake of the authenticity of the singer-songwriter, be it the Beatles or Johnny Cash. (I’ll argue this one all day – you KNOW I’m right.)
As for Sam Cooke, sure, he is just about the best – singing anything. However, he wrote “Having a Party,” (and “You Send Me”). Soul singers also got caught up in this dichotomy. Cooke’s friend and my dear friend Solomon Burke did not write a ton of songs; he was mostly an interpreter (he did write some, but a minority). I believe after Atlantic’s strongest days as a label, part of the reason Solomon suffered such a setback in his career was b/c he couldn’t / didn’t keep writing songs of his own.
Sinatra certainly suffered – at least partly – from this same thing. He famously claimed the reason he was not as popular is because “No one writes good songs anymore,” during one of the highest periods of popular music as art.
Don’t forget that the big studio (director-paired-to script or director chooses script) vs. indie studio (writer-director) system also parallels the current music scene. The pop acts that sell millions of albums are almost all interpreters depending on a stable of pro songwriters for their material (and production). That is, Meanwhile at indie labels the sales are only 1/10 as many, but they almost all write their own songs, and are viewed as much more authentic and genuine. Frisoli, don’t confuse cultural signifance – or sales – with authenticity, greater artistic merit, and all that goes along with it. ( I know you’re probably not, but I thought i’d call you out on it anyway)
Again, I think in general this music application should apply more to directors and films than it currently does.
Authentic. Sheesh–what’ll we deal with next? Aura? The Individual Talent, in relation to Tradition?
Let’s play around–the studio system spits out product, and the mill produces more chaff than wheat. But following your analogy in music back, what about Tin Pan Alley? Lieber & Stoller, penning but never singing — and providing some amazing stuff for some amazing singers? What about Carole King, Burt Bacharach? Music’s full of ‘inauthentic’ genius, just like any other art.
But back to film: Soderbergh. After the first flick, and “Schizopolis” aside, they’re all adaptations or from another’s script–and they display an amazing range of often virtuosic skills in any number of styles and voices. Atom Egoyan … well, maybe he’s not studio–but his best film is an adaptation. Same could/should be said for Tarantino. And John Huston: the man LIVED to make wonderful films from other people’s novels, and he’s a studio product all the way.
Writer-directors still around…: Woody A, alas, alas, but still kicking ’em out. Would you count Paul Thomas Anderson? Wes Anderson?
Sayles gets his own money. Usually. But he also writes a lot for the mill.
I agree that folks in/around/about the music industry wax on about authenticity more than film folks, but so what? Catholics talk more about confession, but that doesn’t make ’em pure.
I’m enjoying my analogies. They’re like syrup on cake. Mmmmm. Syrup on cake.
Several points, Mark:
first, though Cooke wrote “Having a Party” really any songwriter tucked away in an office could have written it (“Cokes are in the icebox/popcorn on the table/Me and my baby/Are out here on the floor). the strength is not so much in the songs (at least in the early fluff material–later when he gets to powerful written songs like “Bring It on Home” and “A Change is Gonna Come” the issue changes) but in his performance of the songs—I think you are undercutting performance too much in the name of authenticity. Cooke is certainly a great actor–he performs every song so that even something very stupid like “Everybody Wants to Cha-Cha-Cha” has great charm to it. The remarkably inauthentic topics of many of the songs are transformed by the performance.
Even when authenticity began to become more important to music, songwriters still relied on the same metaphors, forms and conventions that previously had worked in the “inauthentic” period—after all, the Beatles got their start with songs that could have come right off the assembly line from the Brill building. I don’t think anyone cared about the written quality of “She Loves You,” etc. The Rolling Stones are at their best when emulating rhythm and blues songs or old blues, white english kids identifying (impurely?) with old black guys. The fact that they write their own songs doesn’t mean that the songs have any more to do with living (with their specific lives—they do, in fact, have to do with living in general). Again, the performance by the Stones has everything to do with the success of their material.
The emphasis on authenticity that causes great previous figures, like Elvis, Sinatra and the like, to decline cuts both ways, it seems. On one hand, it’s a legitimate response to corporate control and homogenization—it gives us something great like, say, Astral Weeks and genuine talent like Johnny Cash (though your emphasis on him as an avatar of authenticity overlooks the other side of his career, where he is just as much pop as Glen Campbell); on the other hand, it’s a dodge, a new marketing appeal, that makes authenticity a kind of feel-good and simplistic judgment (oh yeah, I write my own stuff, so it must be better than that soulless corporate crap.)
Who regards the indies as more authentic—the indies themselves?? I am trying not to confuse cultural significance and sales but perhaps the indies are confusing lack of sales with authenticity, or personal integrity with a refusal to perform/act. What do the indies make of someone like John Mayer who hits it fairly big, writes his own stuff, and yet is dreadful? Has he lost authenticity because of his sales, or does he retain indie cred because he’s a popular singer-songwriter, however uninteresting (though, to his credit, he allows Triumph to trash his hotel room during the grammies)?
It seems like “indies†and “singer-songwriter†have certain connotations that have less to do with “authenticity†than with attitudes and gestures. Or do they have more to do with economic realities of distribution and audience than any innate superiority of singer-songwriter material over “interpretations.†Look, I’m all in favor of challenging and confronting the dominant machinery but I don’t think the “indies†should get too precious about their subjectivities, considering that they grew up in the same mass-culture soaked society as the rest of us. If you want to challenge it, do so (please), but please don’t tell me you’re challenging it solely on the basis of writing and performing your own work. Who knows, maybe your own work is more soaked in an unexamined ideology than anything by Clay Aiken. I like especially the people—George Jones and The Ramones come immediately to mind—who destroy the distinctions. they have as much commitment to acting/performance as to writing/expression—they don’t have an allegiance to themselves, but even when they perform something that might be regarded as “inauthentic†they change it by the intensity of their acting, their style that negates the written/performed separation.
The same goes for film-makers. I’d like to see more writer-directors, too, I suppose—but again, that’s a matter of production, control and distribution. I don’t believe the films produced by indies will necessarily be any better than those produced under the studio model. Nor are they challenging simply by being produced “independently.†In fact, film now is a good example of how “independent†is used as much more of a marketing tool than an overt challenge to corporate film-making; most major studies have simply set up little “independent†subsidiaries for prestige films or films that will have specialized audiences.
Lastly—Solomon Burke is your “dear friend?†wow!
Well…..I was kissed by Lou Rawls once!