Silence.
JUNE
Hello, G for George, hello G George Hello G George, hello —
Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger • Scr: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger • Cast: Kim Hunter (June), David Niven (Squadron Leader Peter Carter)
For the scene where Peter’s body is washed up on the beach, cameraman Jack Cardiff breathed on the lens to create condensation. The appearance of evaporating mist created the perfect ethereal mood for the shot.
1950 IN A LONELY PLACE
STEELE
I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.
Dir: Nicholas Ray • Scr: Andrew Solt, Edmund H. North • Based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes • Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Dixon Steele)
1954 SABRINA
BARON ST FONTANEL
A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.
Dir: Billy Wilder • Scr: Billy Wilder, Ernest Lehman, Samuel A. Taylor • Based on a play by Samuel A. Taylor • Cast: Marcel Dalio (Baron St Fontanel)
BE FUNNY OR THEY’LL KILL YOU
Billy Wilder (1906–2002) is one of only seven men to have won Oscars for best picture as well as director and screenplay but at heart he remained, as he had begun, a writer.
Born an Austrian Jew, he moved to Berlin in the late 1920s to work as a journalist before teaming up with Curt and Robert Siodmak to write the silent film Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, 1930). Fleeing Germany as Hitler rose to power, he arrived in America in 1933 unable to speak a word of English and his work always reflected an Old World sensibility energized by New World opportunities. Vincent Canby of the New York Times described him as ‘the brightest, wittiest, most perceptive, most resourceful’ talent of his generation and noted approvingly that his creations were like ‘sugar laced with acid’.
His private life displayed the same balance of romanticism and cynicism. When Wilder was pursuing the actress Audrey Young, he confessed: ‘I’d worship the ground you walk on if you lived in a better neighbourhood’; blessed with an equally robust sense of humour, she married him.
Throughout his career he remained devoted to the craft of writing, although he freely admitted: ‘It’s such an exhausting thing, you know, facing that empty page in the morning.’ His usual solution to the problem was to work with a partner, and his long-standing collaborations with Charles Brackett and subsequently I. A. L. Diamond gave us such classics as Ninotchka (1939), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960). Despite his wit and urbane manner, his reputation as a co-writer was fearsome; Harry Kurnitz once remarked: ‘Billy Wilder at work is actually two people – Mr Hyde and Mr Hyde.’ Wilder might well have pleaded guilty, since he once admitted: ‘A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.’
Perhaps surprisingly, his greatest tenderness was reserved for his public:
An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark — that is critical genius.
Don’t be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.
In certain pictures I do hope they will leave the cinema a little enriched, but I don’t make them pay a buck and a half and then ram a lecture down their throats.
His greatest reverence was for the irreverent:
In a serious picture you don’t hear them being bored, but in a comedy you can hear them not laughing.
If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
His comment on his craft remains his finest epitaph:
The best director is the one you don’t see.
1955 THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
A murderous preacher explains the tattoos on his knuckles.
REVEREND POWELL
Ah, little lad, you’re staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right hand, left hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I’ll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t’other. Now watch ’em! Old brother left hand, left hand he’s a-fighting, and it looks like love’s a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love’s a-winning! Yes, sirree! It’s love that’s won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!
Dir: Charles Laughton, Robert Mitchum (uncredited) • Scr: James Agee • Based on a novel by Davis Grubb • Cast: Robert Mitchum (Reverend Harry Powell)
Mitchum, despite other memorable roles in Out of the Past (1947), Cape Fear (1962) and Farewell My Lovely (1975), suffered from none of the self-importance of his actor colleagues. When asked by an interviewer what he looked for in a script, he replied crisply: ‘Days off.’ Although the film is now considered a noir classic and influenced directors as diverse as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick and the Coen brothers, it was not well received on its release. Charles Laughton was so disappointed that he never directed a film again.
1966 ALFIE
Jack-the-lad Alfie is not afraid to lie to get what he wants.
ALFIE
I’ve never told her that I love her — except at those times when you’ve got to say something for appearance’s sake.
Dir: Lewis Gilbert • Scr: Bill Naughton, based on his play • Cast: Michael Caine (Alfie Elkins)
1968 IF...
Rebellious schoolboy Mick still has a romantic streak.
MICK
There’s only one thing you can do with a girl like this. Walk naked into the sea together as the sun sets. Make love once. . . Then die.
Dir: Lindsay Anderson • Scr: David Sherwin, John Howlett • Cast: Malcolm McDowell (Mick Travis)
The film features the first instance of a full-frontal female nude passed by the British Board of Film Classification.
1975 LOVE AND DEATH
Neurotic intellectual Sonja discusses the nature of love with her equally intense cousin.
SONJA
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.
Dir: Woody Allen • Scr: Woody Allen • Cast: Diane Keaton (Sonja)
1976 FELLINI’S CASANOVA (IL CASANOVA DI FEDERICO FELLINI)
CASANOVA
A man who never speaks ill of women does not love them. For, to understand them and to love them one must suffer at their hands. Then and only then can you find happiness at the lips of your beloved.
Dir: Federico Fellini • Scr: Federico Fellini, Bernardino Zapponi • Based on the autobiography of Giacomo Casanova • Cast: Donald Sutherland (Giacomo Casanova)
The film’s distributors originally hoped to cast Robert Redford in the lead role but Fellini refused. The director defended his choice of Donald Sutherland thus: ‘A sperm-filled waxwork with the eyes of a masturbator; as far removed as you could imagine from an adventurer and seducer like Casanova, but nonetheless a serious, studied, professional actor.’
1978 SUPERMAN
Lois Lane holds an imaginary conversation with Superman as he flies with her above Metropolis.
LOIS
Can you read my mind? Do you know what it is that you do to me? I don’t know who you are. Just a friend from another star. Here I am like a kid out of school. Holding hands with a god. I’m a fool. Will you look at me? Quivering. Like a little girl shivering. You can see right through me. Can you read my mind? Can you picture the thi
ngs I’m thinking of? Wondering why you are all the wonderful things you are. You can fly! You belong in the sky. You and I could belong to each other. If you need a friend, I’m the one to fly to. If you need to be loved, here I am. Read my mind.
Dir: Richard Donner • Scr: Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton • Based on characters created by Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster • Cast: Margot Kidder (Lois Lane)
Steven Spielberg was a contender to direct the film but on hearing his salary demands the producers preferred to hedge their bets until they saw how his ‘fish movie’ (Jaws, 1975) performed. The shoot was so complex that at one point there were seven units working on different parts of the story; the credits sequence alone cost more than the budget of an average production at that time. Various approaches were explored to show Superman in flight: a dummy launched from a catapult, a model aircraft carrying a painting of the character and traditional animation. In the end the traditional technique of wire suspension with projected background plates proved most convincing.
1979 NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT)
COUNT DRACULA
The absence of love is the most abject pain.
Dir: Werner Herzog • Scr: Werner Herzog • Based on a novel by Bram Stoker • Cast: Klaus Kinski (Count Dracula)
In one scene where thousands of grey rats were needed, only the white variety was available: the director ordered them to be painted.
1981 GREGORY’S GIRL
Gregory confides to a classmate that he has fallen for the girl who replaced him on the school football team.
GREGORY
Have you ever been in love? I’m in love.
STEVE
Since when?
GREGORY
This morning. I feel restless and dizzy. I bet I won’t get any sleep tonight.
STEVE
Sounds like indigestion.
Dir: Bill Forsyth • Scr: Bill Forsyth • Cast: John Gordon Sinclair (Gregory Underwood), William Greenlees (Steve)
1986 HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
Mickey used to be married to Hannah but has now wed her sister Lee.
MICKEY
You know, I was talking to your father before, and I was telling him that it’s ironic — I used to always have Thanksgiving with Hannah, and I never thought that I could love anybody else. And here it is years later and I’m married to you and completely in love with you. The heart is a very, very resilient little muscle, it really is.
Dir: Woody Allen • Scr: Woody Allen • Cast: Woody Allen (Mickey Sachs)
Woody Allen said he was inspired to write the film after rereading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. It took over $40 million [$85 million] at the box office in America alone and a lobby group was formed to propose that the screenplay be eligible for a Pulitzer prize.
IT’S ALL THERE ON THE PAGE
Emma Thompson has won Oscars both as an actor (Howards End, 1992) and writer (Sense and Sensibility, 1995). In her memoir of the making of the Jane Austen novel she recalls how the producer clarified the distinction between her twin roles on the project: ‘Lindsay goes round the table and introduces everyone - making it clear that I am present in the capacity of writer rather than actress, therefore no one has to be too nice to me.’ Most actors - on the record, at least - accord the creator of their characters suitable deference:
You don’t improvise with a Cameron Crowe script.
Orlando Bloom
I only sound intelligent when there’s a good script writer around.
Christian Bale
I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.
Steve Martin
When I’m the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I’ll call it my script.
Edward Norton
You can have a million-dollar, twenty-million-dollar budget or sixty-million-dollar budget and if you don’t have a good script, it doesn’t mean a thing.
Tippi Hedren
With indies, all they have is their script and it’s very important to them. The characters are better drawn, the stories more precise and the experience greater than with studio films where sometimes they fill in the script as they’re shooting.
Mark Ruffalo
Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character. . . And then, using my imagination, and then after all that, I have to tackle the scene.
Viola Davis
Every time you say yes to a film there’s a certain percentage of your ‘yes’ that has to do with the director, a certain percentage to do with the story, a certain percentage with the character, the location, etc. . . I feel I do my best work when it’s all there on the page, and I feel that the character is very vivid as I read the script and I’m not having to create stuff and trying to cobble together something. If I have to do that, then I don’t entirely trust what I’m doing.
Guy Pearce
A script for an actor is like a bible. You carry it with you, you read it over and over, you go to your passages.
Cameron Diaz
All of the good movies are based on how that story was told. And you cannot do it with a bad script, that’s for sure, no matter who.
Javier Bardem
There’s a certain arrogance to an actor who will look at a script and feel like, because the words are simple, maybe they can paraphrase it and make it better.
Mary Steenburgen
Not all actors, however, are convinced that a script is a foolproof guide:
Good actors never use the script unless it’s amazing writing. All the good actors I’ve worked with, they all say whatever they want to say.
Jessica Alba
Normally you read a screenplay — and I read a lot of them — and the characters don’t feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I wasn’t comfortable in the beginning. But the longer I’m in the business, you see a lot of times these screenplays have been rewritten five times and you’re not really offending an author. It’s a studio that keeps banging out money having a writer rewrite portions. I’ve learned that you actually do have some freedom and you’re not necessarily stepping on somebody’s toes if you come in and say, ‘Hey, this thing isn’t working for me but I’m still interested in making this film.’
Edward Burns
Laura Linney is open about her intelligent engagement with material she feels is flawed:
My experience is that’s rare that you have a script that is what they call ‘film-ready’. These days, many scripts are written to be financed, not to be acted. . . and so the agenda behind the writing is to explain, as opposed to give cues and hints to an actor to act. You don’t have to say things all the time; you can act them. Otherwise, you have a character who doesn’t connect to anything because they talk too much.
1987 MOONSTRUCK
Ronny tries to persuade Loretta to abandon her fears and follow his passion.
RONNY
Love don’t make things nice, it ruins everything! It breaks your heart, it makes things a mess. We, we aren’t here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect, stars are perfect. Not us! Not us! We’re here to ruin ourselves and — and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and, and die! I mean that the storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed.
Dir: Norman Jewison • Scr: John Patrick Shanley • Cast: Nicolas Cage (Ronny Cammareri)
1989 WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...
HARRY
I love that you get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out; I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich; I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts; I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my cloth
es, and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
Dir: Rob Reiner • Scr: Nora Ephron • Cast: Billy Crystal (Harry Burns)
1990 PRETTY WOMAN
Vivian, an escort, is weary of always being ‘the other woman’.
VIVIAN
When I was a little girl my mama used to lock me in the attic when I was bad, which was pretty often. And I would pretend I was a princess trapped in a tower by a wicked queen. And then suddenly this knight on a white horse with these colours flying would come charging up and draw his sword. And I would wave. And he would climb up the tower and rescue me. But never in all the time. . . that I had this dream did the knight say to me, ‘Come on, baby, I’ll put you up in a great condo.’
Dir: Garry Marshall • Scr: J. F. Lawton • Cast: Julia Roberts (Vivian Ward)
When Vivian meets her client Edward at the start of the film they go to see Verdi’s La Traviata. The opera is about a courtesan who abandons her calling because she falls in love.
1996 THE ENGLISH PATIENT
An adulterous couple share a rare stolen moment together.
ALMÁSY
When were you most happy?
KATHARINE
Now.
ALMÁSY
And when were you least happy?
KATHARINE
Now.
Dir: Anthony Minghella • Scr: Anthony Minghella • Based on a novel by Michael Ondaatje • Cast: Ralph Fiennes (Count László de Almásy), Kristin Scott Thomas (Katharine Clifton)
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