Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade

by William Goldman

  I always try to get out of the way. Usually what I manage is this: to get in the actors' sight line and destroy their concentration. When actors are performing in a movie, the last thing they need is additional distractions, like seeing a strange face staring back at them.

  I also have a remarkable knack for hiding exactly where the shot is going to go. Example. As you read this, look straight ahead of you for a sec. Okay, that's where the actors are acting. So what I do is head in the opposite direction, usually a corner behind the camera--

  --forgetting, of course, that the actors are going to move on this shot. And the camera, of course, will move along with them.

  To where I'm hiding.

  It is so awful when this happens. And I am not pretending it happens on every shot. But it's rare I don't do it at least once every morning.

  The worst thing I've ever done was on The Princess Bride. During the Fire Swamp sequence.

  For those of you who don't know, and how dare you not, Buttercup and Westley are being pursued by her fiance, Prince Humperdinck. They are forced to go through the Fire Swamp, not easy--no one has ever come out of it alive.

  One of the dangers in the Fire Swamp is the flame spurts.

  These unexpected streaks of flame happen there and when I wrote the novel, well, Buttercup and Westley are making their way through the place, and suddenly flames--her dress is on fire.

  Westley saves her.

  In all the endless screenplay versions, same deal. Buttercup and Westley are making their way through the place, and suddenly flames--her dress is on fire.

  Westley saves her.

  Okay. Pinewood Studios. The glorious Norman Garwood Fire Swamp set. This is my dream come true, watching this baby happen, and you can bet I am tense, but for me, kind of almost happy.

  Okay. Roll of drums, please.

  Rob Reiner says "Action" and now here comes Cary Elwes as Westley leading my beloved Robin Wright as Buttercup into the Fire Swamp and they are making their way through the place--

  --and suddenly flames--

  --and I scream out loud, "Her dress is on fire!"

  The shot is obviously ruined. Rob says "Cut," Robin's dress is made flame-free, the actors go back to their positions. And Andy Scheinman, Rob's partner, sidles over to me and says quietly, "Bill, try and remember this time--her dress is supposed to be on fire."

  I made no mistakes watching Eastwood. I think he might have killed me if I had. With a look. But there was another reason I was safe--

  --the speed of it.

  It was the fastest, the most professional operation I've ever seen. You couldn't get ahead of it to screw it up. His crew has been with him since Birth of a Nation and if one of them drops by the wayside, well, either his son or his assistant or someone else familiar with how it works moves into place. He had brought Bridges of Madison County in way under budget. We were talking of that once and he said, "Don't tell anybody that--they don't want to hear about efficiency out here."

  I had watched him and Ed Harris do a take of their cat-and-mouse scene over coffee, which they got through in one take. Not surprising with him. He is noted for saying to performers, "Would you try to just do your speech and don't mind us, we're just trying to get the lighting right." So the actor does the speech, only the camera has been rolling so the rehearsal is the take and then quickly on to the next.

  They were setting up for another angle of the cat-and-mouse scene and Harris went off by himself, sipped coffee, while Eastwood just walked here, there, always glancing back to his crew to see if they were ready yet and how much longer?

  As I watched him pace I went back thirty years to the other great professional star of my career, Paul Newman, and we were shooting a scene from Butch Cassidy. We were halfway through the schedule, the Old West part finished and fine, now a week in Los Angeles before heading down to Mexico for the South American sequences.

  There was a wonderful feel in the air.

  Shooting up in Utah had gone well, on schedule, and here in Los Angeles, right after lunch, the crew was setting up for the scene, I don't remember which exactly, maybe Newman's close-up where he tells Redford how he always wanted to be a hero and Redford says too late now and Newman is hurt because he knows it's true.

  Doesn't matter, the point is that it's after a long lunch, on a movie where everyone is feeling pretty loose, and the crew is taking its time getting things set for the next scene, getting the lighting right, getting everything in just the right position--

  --and slappp--

  --and the crew is taking its time, making sure the lighting is right and everything is where it should be--

  --and slapppp!

  Now the crew hears this sound, and a few of them stop, trying to trace what it is, where it's coming from--

  --and slappp!

  --and SLAPPP!

  And now we all saw him. Pacing as Eastwood paced. Newman, that least demanding of the great stars. He is clapping his hands sharply, and he does not do that to draw attention to himself, and you can see from his face he is trying to concentrate on what he has to do and this is an important scene for him and he wants to get it right, but his concentration is leaving him--

  --not one fucking sound on the set now.

  And quietly, this: "Could you help me, please, I'd like to get this done."

  And the crew, roadrunners all now, finished their work, watched while he nailed his take.

  The crew was ready. A nod from the cinematographer. Back Eastwood and Harris went. This shot included the lady serving them coffee from behind the counter.

  Before they start, Eastwood turns to the lady, who has no lines, and he asks if she is comfortable, is this okay for her.

  She was comfortable indeed.

  Now lunch break.

  The shooting was in a museum and lunch was a block away, in an empty store the company had rented for the duration of the stay and turned into a cafeteria.

  Eastwood exited the museum, where a car was waiting to drive him the block. He shook his head, crossed the street, started alone up the sidewalk. I followed. I do that. I once saw Jimmy Cagney get off the crosstown bus on East Fifty-seventh Street and start walking with a friend. I forget what I was doing there but whatever it was, nothing on earth was as important to me right then as seeing that man in the flesh, with that walk, the lilt, the whole great package.

  I am not alone in following my favorites. Years back--we are in the '50s now--a young girl had finished college and had come to Magic Town and was given the most incredible bit of information--

  Greta Garbo's address.

  This is incredible because of something you don't know--this young woman is the world's great Garbo fan. I remember her telling me, the night she found out, that she was going to follow her dream the next morning.

  The next night when I saw her she was in terrible shape--exhausted, arms scratched, legs too. What happened was this: she had been told that Garbo took a walk every morning at such and such a time, but what she had not been told was that when Garbo walked, she walked.

  Long strides to Central Park and then she really let it go. And this friend, small and totally unprepared, chased after her, up hills and down, through thickets and out, until she sank to a bench, crushed, never to traipse after the great Swede again.

  I saw Garbo twice myself. Once at Christmas near Eighty-sixth and Second Avenue. Late afternoon. A bunch of us were waiting to cross when I glanced around, saw her. She saw me, too. And then her eyes flashed and there was an imperceptible shake of her head and I knew she meant please don't make a commotion. I nodded, watched her walk on, unnoticed in the Manhattan crowd.

  The other time I was with a young woman and it was on a side street near Garbo's apartment and she was walking along with a woman with an eyepatch. Garbo and her friend moved by, and once they were gone I said to the lady I was with, "Did you see that?" and she said, "Yes, wow, a lady with an eyepatch."

  Anyway, there is Clint on the Baltimore sidewalk,
lunch hour, people streaming past him. Me a half dozen steps behind. Now this thing starts to happen. A real-life double take. Numberless Baltimoreans move past this lone mid-sixties guy. No reaction. Another step. They look at one another, start to say something like, "That guy remind you of ... ?"

  Naww.

  Another step. Now they are staring at one another, turning quickly back. Then they stop.

  Dead on the sidewalk.

  Holy shit.

  Then they spin.

  It's him. He's here. Dirty Harry walks amongst us.

  Back they all scurry and he is gracious, always that, soft-spoken, that too, and he nods to them and smiles back at them and if they give him something to sign, why, of course, he signs it--

  --but he never stops walking. They would have had him then.

  He reaches the cafeteria, nods courteously a final time, then goes inside, gets in line for his tray--

  --let me say that again for those of you new to the entertainment business--he gets in line for his tray--waits in line for his food, then goes to a table and has his meal, just like anybody else.

  I believe what has kept Eastwood (and Newman) on top all these years is somehow they have clung to the truth: that in spite of their fame, in spite of our millions of spins toward them, they are just like anybody else.

  Shooting in Los Angeles

  It is the first of August now and I am Out There with Stephen Hopkins, on the mixing stage for The Ghost and the Darkness. (Every time I am near anything remotely resembling a mixing stage, I am so glad I decided, decades past, when offers started coming, that I never wanted to be a film director.)

  And then, casually, I asked him if he wanted to go to the next stage. Why would he want to do that? he asked, and I told him that Mr. Eastwood was directing there. We hotfooted it over, said our hellos. I hope you will forgive me for this totally punch line-less anecdote but I thought it was pretty neat, having two movies grinding forward on contiguous stages.

  Hopkins had to go back to his torment and I found myself talking, for the first time in my life, with Gene Hackman. (I had written his previous movie, The Chamber--a total wipeout disaster, although not his fault or mine, and the reason I left it out of this Adventures section is, while it was a terrible experience, it wasn't a very interesting one, and besides, I never saw the movie and neither did anyone else, so no one would give a shit. This kind of thing happens in the picture business--meeting someone even though you "worked together" before--where not only do writers get fired by failed directors, but the relay-race nature of the operation means that you only meet people who work the same time you do. And since writers are there at the start, and composers, say, are there at the end, I am not all that familiar with anyone who has ever scored a film I've been involved with.)

  At any rate, Hackman and I are talking and then Eastwood comes over. I note, meaninglessly, that we are all kind of tall, unusual in Hollywood. Eastwood says, quietly, "We're ready for you, Gene." Hackman leaves us and Eastwood says how much he loves working with Hackman. I ask why Hackman in particular. "Because I never have to give him direction," Eastwood replied. Then he said this:

  "I like working with actors who don't have anything to prove."

  Wonderful line, that.

  The shot has been set up. Hackman, as President Richmond, is still blind drunk in the bedroom. Scott Glenn plays the Secret Service man, Burton, who, along with his partner, Collin, has just shot the woman dead. The scene was written like this:

  RICHMOND

  Kill her?

  (COLLIN, by the body, nods)

  BURTON

  No choice in the matter.

  (His words are efficient but clearly, he has been rocked.)

  CUT TO

  RICHMOND, staring stupidly at the letter opener. He drops it back to the floor, tries to stand, can't.

  BURTON helps him back to bed.

  Which is when he passes out cold.

  Hackman is getting comfortable, lying on the bed. Scott Glenn waits in position. Hackman is the Gene Hackman we all know--then, suddenly, with nothing happening at all, he is blind drunk. Which is when Eastwood says softly, "Go when you want, Gene."

  A pause.

  Then he gets it dead solid perfect.

  Eastwood says softly, "Thank you very much," and we are on to the next setup.

  Look, I'm not praising his speed here. (We were nine days ahead of schedule at this point.) That's just the way he works. Partially because he can't stand waste, partially because what he wants more than anything on earth is to finish and get out to the golf course.

  But what was so wonderful for me, after all these years, was the sheer professionalism. He is really the Mr. Abbott of the movie business. Being around the atmosphere he creates, I actually felt good about being in the picture business.

  It can be so awful. The ego-ridden stars inflicting their inadequacies on the rest of us. (John Cleese, a friend, once made this observation: "Stars seem to think that their problems are more important than anything else on earth and must take precedence over everything.") The terror-stricken executives, in whose mouths the truth is so often a foreign object. The directors, panicked that you will find out how truly small their talent is. So they punish and fire, confident that the executives are too paralyzed to do anything about it.

  Absolute Power is not a great movie.

  But for me it was a great experience.

  II.

  Heffalumps!!!

  * * *

  * * *

  "I saw a Heffalump today, Piglet."

  "What was it doing?" asked Piglet.

  "Just lumping along," said Christopher Robin.

  For reasons lost to time, I have always thought of screenplays as being like Heffalumps, these strangely shaped things that no one really knows much about, such as what they look like, or are supposed to look like, or actually what they do (especially if aroused).

  I think most people are intimidated by the way screenplays look when they first see them. (I know I was.) Now I read them as easily as fiction, as do most people in the business. It just requires a little familiarity.

  In this section, you're going to look at six movie scenes you already know, starting with Peter and Bobby Farrelly's Zipper Scene from There's Something About Mary and Nora Ephron's Orgasm Scene from When Harry Met Sally. These, and the others you'll come to, are in different styles and come at different points in their respective movies, but what they all do, brilliantly, is thicken and improve the story.

  I picked these scenes because I find them among the best I've read. I also talked to most of the writers about their scenes, how they came about, all kinds of good stuff.

  Enough. We are now going to examine some Heffalumps.

  And try not to be intimidated by how they look. Maybe even, if we're lucky, get comfortable having them around.

  First, I'm going to ask a favor from you now, and this is it: (1)--turn to the next page, glance at it--but don't read it.

  (2)--then go right on to the page after that.

  Got it? Turn. Glance. Go on. Okay, show me what you're made of.

  Whose woods these are I think I know.

  His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here

  To watch his woods fill up with snow.

  My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near

  Between the woods and frozen lake

  The darkest evening of the year.

  He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake.

  The only other sound's the sweep

  Of easy wind and downy flake.

  The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  All right, class, what was it?

  A description of a snowy place somewhere? I think that's a proper answer, but it's not what I'm looking for. A dissertation on loneliness by Robert Frost?
I won't argue, but still, not for me. One of the literary masterpieces of the century? I'd go along with that, too, but here's the answer I want: It's a poem.

  And why?

  Because it looks like a poem.

  Read it again. Here it is:

  Whose woods these are I think I know.

  His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here

  To watch his woods fill up with snow.

  My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near

  Between the woods and frozen lake

  The darkest evening of the year.

  He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake.

  The only other sound's the sweep

  Of easy wind and downy flake.

  The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  Still a (wonderful) poem, isn't it? Why are we so sure? Because we're familiar with the form. We have been looking at poems our entire life on earth.

  Mary had a little lamb Its fleece was white as snow.

  And everywhere that Mary went,

  The lamb was sure to go.

  The Frost poem rhymes. So does the story of Mary and her lamb. Many poems do. But they don't have to.

  Here's one of my favorites, an all-timer, Johnny D. on a hot streak.

  No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

  The Donne, besides being so gorgeous, says a lot, at least to me, about the human condition, or, if that's too phony for a book on screenwriting, then about the way we live now. The creating of beautiful images is a huge weapon for any poet. But Sappho says a good deal about life on earth in just six words, none of them lush with imagery.

  Pain penetrates

  Me drop

  by drop