Directors — even though we all know from the media’s portrayal of them that they are men and women of wisdom and artistic vision, masters of the subtle use of symbolism — are more often than not a bunch of insecure assholes.
Understand this: all the sleaze you’ve heard about Hollywood? All the illiterate scumbags who scuttle down the corridors of power? They are there, all right, and worse than you can imagine.
Goldman reserves particular scorn for the industry’s belief that it can predict the public’s taste and therefore has the right to dictate all creative decisions. The most famous line from the book is now well established as a salutary warning to all film-makers: ‘Nobody knows anything.’
1971 HAROLD AND MAUDE
Introspective teenager Harold finds an inspiring friend in seventy-nine-year-old Maude after meeting her at a funeral.
HAROLD
You sure have a way with people.
MAUDE
Well, they’re my species!
Dir: Hal Ashby • Scr: Colin Higgins • Cast: Bud Cort (Harold Parker Chasen), Ruth Gordon (Dame Marjorie ‘Maude’ Chardin)
1981 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
Two ex-lovers cross paths in a remote bar in Nepal.
MARION
You’re not the man I knew ten years ago.
INDIANA
It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.
Dir: Steven Spielberg • Scr: Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas, Philip Kaufman • Cast: Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood)
Harrison Ford did a good deal of the stunt work himself, including being dragged behind a speeding truck. He sustained several bruised ribs but when asked if he considered the shot dangerous, replied: ‘No. If it really was. . . they would have filmed more of the movie first.’
The sound effects proved an easier assignment: fist-fights were dubbed with the recording of a baseball bat pounding a pile of leather jackets, and the opening of the stone ark was suggested by sliding the lid of a lavatory cistern.
1981 ON GOLDEN POND
ETHEL
You’re my knight in shining armour. Don’t you forget it. You’re gonna get back up on that horse and I’m gonna be right behind you holding on tight and away we’re gonna go, go, go.
NORMAN
I don’t like horses.
She kisses him.
You are a pretty old dame, aren’t you? What are you doing with a dotty old son of a bitch like me?
ETHEL
Well, I haven’t the vaguest idea.
Dir: Mark Rydell • Ernest Thompson, based on his play • Cast: Katharine Hepburn (Ethel Thayer), Henry Fonda (Norman Thayer Jr)
1982 TOOTSIE
Michael hopes he can still work with Sandy after they split up.
MICHAEL
Friends?
SANDY
No, we are not friends. I don’t take this shit from friends. Only lovers.
Dir: Sydney Pollack • Scr: Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal, Don McGuire • Cast: Dustin Hoffman (Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels), Teri Garr (Sandy Lester)
Sydney Pollack was rare among producer/directors in also being an accomplished actor, studying with Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre before beginning a parallel career behind the camera. After he had taken the lead role in Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman refused to proceed unless Pollack himself played his agent. Pollack appeared in forty productions including The Player, Eyes Wide Shut, Husbands and Wives and Michael Clayton, and directed thirty-six films, notably They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor, The Firm and Out of Africa.
Hoffman decided to give his female character a Southern accent as he felt it helped him play the voice in a more feminine register; several of the crew said of Hoffman in drag that he was ‘much nicer as a woman’.
1989 DO THE RIGHT THING
Two friends greet each other on the streets of New York’s Brooklyn.
BUGGIN’ OUT
You the man.
MOOKIE
No, you the man.
BUGGIN’ OUT
You the man.
MOOKIE
No, you the man.
BUGGIN’ OUT
No. I’m just a struggling black man trying to keep my dick hard in a cruel and harsh world.
Dir: Spike Lee • Scr: Spike Lee • Cast: Giancarlo Esposito (Buggin’ Out), Spike Lee (Mookie)
Barack Obama has said this was the movie he and his wife went to see on their first date.
1994 FORREST GUMP
Forrest celebrates his love for Jenny, his best friend from high school.
FORREST GUMP
Me and Jenny goes together like peas and carrots.
Dir: Robert Zemeckis • Scr: Eric Roth • Based on a novel by Winston Groom • Cast: Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump)
‘DON’T NEVER LET NOBODY MAKE A MOVIE OF YOUR LIFE’S STORY’
Thus begins Gump & Co., the novel Winston Groom wrote following Forrest Gump. Frustrated by the way the team who adapted his book twisted the story and censored both language and sex, Groom was further angered when the film received six Oscars but none of the winners thought to mention the original writer in their speeches.
This is a familiar tale in the world of adaptations, although producers who buy the rights to books justify themselves by saying that they are doing the authors a favour; in the case of Forrest Gump, the novel sold 30,000 copies on its original appearance but the reprint to accompany the film sold 1.7 million across the world.
In the case of those whose reputations are already established and whose bank balances are perfectly healthy, the arrangement can still be depressing. P. L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins, had a contract with Disney which was supposed to safeguard her much-loved character but the ‘script approval’ she was promised did little to deflect the changes executives wanted to the book. Travers thought Poppins had been made far less strict than she intended and she hated the animated sequences; what she made of Dick Van Dyke’s mangled cockney accent sadly goes unrecorded. Relations between author and studio had become so strained by the time the film was finished that Travers had to beg the producers for a ticket for the première and spent much of the screening in tears. Needless to say, she refused to sell Disney the rights to the rest of the series.
Anthony Burgess was not a man given to tears but his response to the furore surrounding Kubrick’s screen version of A Clockwork Orange shocked him profoundly. ‘The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d’esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation.’
Nor was this the only time Kubrick came under fire. Stephen King has had no fewer than thirty-five of his books turned into films, including The Shawshank Redemption, Carrie, Misery and The Green Mile, but he felt the director’s treatment of The Shining was a particular disappointment. ‘I’d admired Kubrick for a long time and had great expectations for the project, but I was deeply disappointed in the end result... Kubrick just couldn’t grasp the sheer inhuman evil of the Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn’t believe, he couldn’t make the film believable to others.’
Bret Easton Ellis makes a similar complaint: ‘I think the problem with American Psycho was that it was conceived as a novel, as a literary work with a very unreliable narrator at the centre of it, and the medium of film demands answers... You can be as ambiguous as you want with a movie, but it doesn’t matter – we’re still looking at it. It’s still being answered for us visually. I don’t think [the story] is particularly mor
e interesting if you knew that he did it, or think that it all happens in his head. I think the answer to that question makes the book infinitely less interesting.’
Graham Greene, whose novels were adapted by directors as talented as Carol Reed, Otto Preminger, George Cukor and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, put it more succinctly: ‘Hollywood made a bad film of nearly every book I did.’
1998 WAKING NED
Speaking at Ned’s funeral, Jackie reminds the townsfolk of the pleasures of friendship.
JACKIE
The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead. What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. Michael and I grew old together. But at times, when we laughed, we grew young. If he was here now, if he could hear what I say, I’d congratulate him on being a great man and thank him for being a friend.
Dir: Kirk Jones • Scr: Kirk Jones • Cast: Ian Bannen (Jackie O’Shea)
1999 TOY STORY 2
A toy laments the truth that her owner is growing older.
JESSIE
You never forget kids like Emily or Andy, but they forget you.
Dir: John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, Lee Unkrich • Scr: John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Ash Brannon, Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin, Chris Webb • Cast: Joan Cusack (Jessie, the Yodelling Cowgirl)
2000 ALMOST FAMOUS
A young music journalist on tour with a band strikes up a friendship with one of their groupies.
PENNY
How old are you?
WILLIAM
Eighteen.
PENNY
Me too! How old are we really?
WILLIAM
Seventeen.
PENNY
Me too!
WILLIAM
Actually, I’m sixteen.
PENNY
Me too. Isn’t it funny? The truth just sounds different.
WILLIAM
I’m fifteen.
Dir: Cameron Crowe • Scr: Cameron Crowe • Cast: Kate Hudson (Penny Lane), Patrick Fugit (William Miller)
The film features over fifty songs from the 1960s and 1970s and the music licensing budget alone was $3.5 million [$4.7 million].
The actors in the band Stillwater rehearsed for six weeks to establish a convincing musical rapport; Peter Frampton gave Billy Crudup guitar coaching, although his actual performances were recorded by Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready. Production was complicated by the fact that the young actor Patrick Fugit’s voice broke and he grew three inches during filming.
2000 TOGETHER (TILLSAMMANS)
A lonely alcoholic calls a plumber who worked for him recently.
BIRGER
I unscrewed it so you’d come here to fix it and we could talk some more.
Dir: Lukas Moodysson • Scr: Lukas Moodysson • Cast: Sten Ljunggren (Birger)
2001 I AM SAM
Mentally challenged Sam persuades Rita, a lawyer, to help him regain custody of his daughter.
RITA
I just don’t know what to call you: retarded, mentally retarded, mentally handicapped, mentally disabled, intellectually handicapped, intellectually disabled, developmentally disabled...
SAM
You can call me Sam.
Dir: Jessie Nelson • Scr: Kristine Johnson, Jessie Nelson • Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer (Rita Harrison Williams), Sean Penn (Sam Dawson)
2001 HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE
The headmaster of a school for magicians addresses his pupils.
DUMBLEDORE
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.
Dir: Chris Columbus • Scr: Steve Kloves • Based on a novel by J. K. Rowling • Cast: Richard Harris (Albus Dumbledore)
2002 DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD
Shep helps his daughter Sidda come to terms with the difficulties of her childhood.
SHEP
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
SIDDA
Well, what about the road back? What’s that paved with?
SHEP
Humility.
Dir: Callie Khouri • Scr: Mark Andrus, Callie Khouri • Based on a novel by Rebecca Wells • Cast: James Garner (Shepard ‘Shep’ Walker), Sandra Bullock (Siddalee ‘Sidda’ Walker)
2003 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
Frodo and Sam have vanquished their enemies but realize they will be unable to return home as the world around them destroys itself.
FRODO
I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee. . . here at the end of all things.
Dir: Peter Jackson • Scr: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens • Based on a novel by J. R. R. Tolkien • Cast: Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins)
The filming of the trilogy had a huge impact on the film and tourist industries in New Zealand. One hundred thousand people turned out for the première in Wellington – almost a quarter of the population.
ALMOST...
Imagine Brokeback Mountain directed by Joel Schumacher (The Phantom of the Opera, 8mm) and starring Mark Wahlberg (Boogie Nights) and Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator). How about The Shawshank Redemption with Rob Reiner at the helm (Spinal Tap, Stand By Me) and Kevin Costner as Andy Dufresne? Or Forrest Gump in the hands of Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Jabberwocky) with John Travolta as Forrest and Tupac Shakur as Bubba? Well, it nearly happened: all of the above were considered for, or expressed an interest in, the roles.
Hardly any projects are conceived and put into production by a fixed director with an actor already attached, and the complexity of scheduling key players further complicates matters. Few directors have so many other projects ready to go that they can afford to bide their time; Spielberg took ten years to persuade Daniel Day-Lewis to play Lincoln in his 2012 biopic. Conversely, when enough key players are in place and a production is slated to start the final pieces of the puzzle have to be found urgently. Kevin Spacey was cast as the killer in Se7en only two days before filming began.
One of the most unlikely combinations would surely have been the Beatles’ version of The Lord of the Rings, not least since they asked Stanley Kubrick to direct it. Even so, when Peter Jackson got the green light for his adaptation, he faced perhaps the greatest casting challenge of his career. A large number of key characters are iconic figures whose presence would need to carry audiences across nine hours split into three films, and whose actors would need to commit to many years of production, re-shoots and dubbing. It seems almost impossible to imagine the result now without Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee and Viggo Mortensen, but it is amusing to bear in mind that the cast might have read as follows:
• Gimli the Dwarf: Bill Bailey
• Elrond, the Elf Lord: David Bowie
• Aragorn: Russell Crowe
• Frodo: Jake Gyllenhaal
• Arwen: Uma Thurman
• Boromir: Bruce Willis
• Saruman: Tim Curry
• Gandalf: Sean Connery
Connery turned the offer down, claiming that he didn’t understand the script and hated the idea of spending three years in New Zealand.
Other alternative universes might have given us:
• Shirley MacLaine as Maria and Yul Brynner as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965)
• Harrison Ford as Benjamin and Ingrid Bergman as Mrs Robinson in The Graduate (1967)
• Sissy Spacek as Princess Leia and Bill Murray as Han Solo in Star Wars (1977)
• Muhammad Ali as Superman in Superman (1978)
• Dustin Hoffman as Deckard in Blade Runner (1982)
• Christopher Reeve as Edward and Sarah Jessica Parker as Vivian in Pretty Woman (1990)
• Daniel Day-Lewis as Vincent and Jennifer Aniston as Mia in Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Macaulay Culkin as Jack and Angelina Jolie as Rose in Titanic (1997)
• Will Smi
th as Neo in The Matrix (1999)
• Robin Williams as Hagrid in the Harry Potter series (2001—2011)
2008 GRAN TORINO
An elderly man visits the barber who has cut his hair all his life.
MARTIN
There. You finally look like a human being again. You shouldn’t wait so long between haircuts, you cheap son of a bitch.
WALT
Yeah. I’m surprised you’re still around. I was always hoping you’d die off and they got someone in here that knew what the hell they were doing. Instead, you’re just hanging around like the doo-wop dago you are.
MARTIN
That’ll be ten bucks, Walt.
WALT
Ten bucks? Jesus Christ, Marty. What are you, half Jew or somethin’? You keep raising the damn prices all the time.
MARTIN
It’s been ten bucks for the last five years, you hard-nosed Polack son of a bitch.
WALT
Yeah, well, keep the change.
MARTIN
See you in three weeks, prick.
WALT
Not if I see you first, dipshit.
Dir: Clint Eastwood • Scr: Nick Schenk, Dave Johannson • Cast: John Carroll Lynch (Barber Martin), Clint Eastwood (Walt Kowalski)
Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford proved a formidable combination in All the President’s Men (1976), the story of the Watergate investigation.
The stunning realism of Kubrick’s moon sequences for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) helped fuel conspiracy theories that NASA’s lunar landings had been faked in a studio.
All the Best Lines Page 4