"History Is Written By The Victors"

You may notice a similarity between this post and the one immediately previous. I can’t help it. It’s simply the way they come out. Please excuse any redundancy.

“History is written by the victors.”

Which makes a lot of sense. If the vanquished wrote history, what exactly would they say?

“Oh, man! It was brutal!”

“What the heck were we thinking?”

“It’s funny to say this now, but I really thought we were going to win.”

“You know the worst part? I’m wounded in every part of my body.”

This is hardly “Best Seller” material. Think about it.

“Tactics That Didn’t Work” – How I Lost The Battle Of Hastings And Got Shot In The Eye; by Harold, King of the Saxons (deceased).

Try finding a publisher for that.

So of course history is written by the victors. By default. The purpose of the quote – attributed to Winston Churchill, but for all we know, his butler said it and Churchill just took the credit – the purpose of the quote is not informational, because from an informational standpoint, it’s obvious. Most victors wouldn’t bother giving the other side the option, as if they’d accept it, in any case.

THE VICTORS: “We thought you might like to write the history.”

THE VANQUISHED: “No, thanks. We’re happy being servile and alive.”

The purpose of the quote, “History is written by the victors” is cautionary.

The quote reminds us that when we read history, because it is written by the victors, it may not be entirely trustworthy. There is no rebuttal history saying, “That’s not exactly how it happened.” We have, especially when referring to events occurring along time ago, perhaps only one version of the events. We call it history, because it’s all we’ve got.

(NOTE: Even recent purported history can be highly questionable. Remember Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman? You have to keep your eye on whoever’s writing this stuff.)

We thought it might be illuminating to go back in time and talk to a chronicler, someone whose job it was to record the important events of the day for posterity, and see exactly how that worked.

CHRONICLER: Welcome to the past.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you. You are famous for having chronicled the greatest military victory of your people.

And a magnificent victory it was. In truth, I chronicled all of our battles. Except for the last one, which we lost. That one was chronicled by somebody else.

Did you actually attend the battle yourself?

Myself? No. I was busy buying ink. I knew if we won, I’d be needing a lot of it for immediate chronicling.

What if you’d lost?

I kept the receipt.

If you weren’t actually there, how would you be familiar with the details of the battle?

The king told me.

The king.

Yes. As soon as we won, His Majesty called me in and told me exactly what took place.

Did you have other sources for that information?

I’d be a fine chronicler if I didn’t.

So you interviewed a number of people.

Absolutely. The king brought in his generals and they reported the events from their various points of view.

Was the king present when they made their reports?

You bet. He wanted to hear them too.

So they made their reports in front of the king.

I’m not sure I appreciate the insinuation. This was no whitewash, I can assure you of that. The king instructed his generals to communicate exactly what took place. Besides, there was nothing to cover up here. We won.

Was the battle difficult?

Touch and go. It could have gone either way. Our side suffered enormous casualties. And you didn’t have to take my word for that; anyone could walk onto the battlefield and count them.

And you did that?

Not me personally. I sent my assistant. You work your way up in this business. They sent me out when I started. But very quickly, I learned that my strength is not as a “heat of battle” chronicler. My specialty is “overview.” I’m actually a liability in the field. I have absolutely no “poker face”. I’d be out there, counting casualties, and a badly wounded man would look up pleadingly and say, “Am I going to die?” and I’d say. “Of course not”, but he’d read in my face that I’m lying and immediately lose all hope and succumb on the spot. It was not helpful for me to be out there, amidst the carnage. And, of course, there’s the serious possibility of picking something up. When you’re your country’s foremost chronicler, you cannot take that risk.

A large number of casualties could be a reflection of an evenly fought battle. But it could equally be a reflection of high-level incompetence, even though you wound up winning.

It was definitely the former of those two.

According to your generals. Who were at the high level.

Who else was I going to ask, the other side? They’d just lie their heads off. And we couldn’t interview the casualties. They were either dead, or moaning.

What about the soldiers who still had their wits about them.

I’m not sure we had any.

So it was a glorious victory of historic proportions. The army fought magnificently. And the generals’ strategies won the day.

I see you’ve read my chronicle.

You mentioned that the king did not lead his army into battle.

He did lead them.

But not into battle.

He led them in prayer. Before the battle.

Where was the king during the battle?

Safely in the back. Which, by the way, speaks to the credibility of this chronicle. If we had wanted to “fake it”, we could have had the king boldly leading the charge, cutting a swath though the enemy with his broadsword and other weapons. But the king said, “I command you to tell it exactly as it happened.” Which I dutifully did. Noting, of course, this ingenious innovation in battlefield tactics. Our king was the first leader in history who chose, against all of natural instincts, not to place himself in the forefront of the fighting. And the strategy worked perfectly. The enemy’s king was in the forefront, and was cut to pieces, at which point, his army fell into instant disarray, and ultimately gave up. This was unquestionably the turning point in the battle. The determining difference. Our king kept out of harm’s way and we won. Their king positioned himself on the front lines, and wound up hanging from a lamppost in the capital square.

One last question. How was your chronicle received?

His Majesty loved it. In all humility, I am very proud of my work. The participants in the events may see themselves as “making history.” But I know who really makes history.

“Me.”

"Words That Sting"

“Fuck you, George Clooney!”

Is what I said in a recent post about The Descendants, wherein Clooney makes one of his serial bids to be taken seriously as an actor, while simultaneously pocketing major “Pretty Boy” bucks from the Oceans 11 franchise, and suchlike.

For which commenter “pumpkinhead” chided, as part of their response,

“Oh, and I oughta wash your mouth out with soap, young man.”

“Pumpkinhead” was right. I was too quick with the “Fuck you”, which I herein repeat for clarification, rather than to compound the infraction.

Regular readers are aware that profanity in not a dominant color in my communicational palette. I generally reserve dropping the “f’” bomb for something that matters. In hindsight, George Clooney’s struggles for thespianic legitimacy is unworthy of its deployment.

I squandered a curse word.

And I’m sorry.

Not for doing it. That was just stupid, and if I apologized for “stupid”, that’s all I would ever be doing. The apology is for contributing to watering down the impact of certain words so that, as is currently the case in our culture, there is no longer an arsenal of expletives available to go to when you are legitimately pissed off.

There used to be some impactful shock words. Not anymore. Due to serious and inappropriate overuse.

In 1968, I saw a Steve McQueen movie called Bullitt. Bullitt is famous for delivering one of the most harrowing car chase scenes in cinematic history.

But for me, Bullitt was important for something else.

1968 was a famous year for tumultuous culture change. The movies, however, were noticeably dragging behind. Easy Rider did not come out till the following year. 1968’s “Best Picture” Oscar went to the musical, Oliver.

So I’m watching Bullitt, and they get to the dramatic climax, where the ambitious politician (played by The Man From U.N.C.L.E’s Robert Vaughn) says something like,

“It’s all corrupt. That’s just the way it works.”

To which McQueen spits back,

“Bullshit!”

“Whoa!” I recall going, possibly even out loud.

To my recollection, at least in mainstream studio pictures, nobody had ever said “Bullshit!” in a movie before. The outburst’s impact knocked you back in your seat. It was like a sharp, stinging whip crack. Your reaction was visceral. You experienced it in your gut.

You think “Bullshit!’ could do that today? Or any other curse word, for that matter?

It’s a problem. For writers, as well as for the audience. It’s like a pitcher, reaching back for his most devastating fastball, only to realize that he’s thrown it so many times before, the unimpressed batter shrugs boredly when he sees it coming.

“Ho hum. Another ‘Bullshit!’”

To enhance the presentation, I wanted to append the “Bullshit!” scene to this post, so I went to Youtube, to see if I could find it.

Finally, I did.

“The Steve McQueen – Robert Vaughn Scene.”

There it was.

I clicked on the “play” arrow, and I watched it unfold.

It was just as I’d remembered it. Taut. Tense. An explosive mano a mano between Good and Evil.

The only problem was,

It was in Italian.

So I didn’t append it.

Further efforts to find the scene – in English – are confounded by “computer nonsense” that ultimately humbles me into surrender.

There was a site where you could view the entire movie. No problem there. I was willing to watch the whole movie, just so I could get down the word-for-word setup and payoff – Bullitt’s “‘Bullshit!’ Moment”, as it were. My readers, I believed, deserved nothing less. Also, I was curious myself, to see exactly how it played out.

The site requires me to sign up.

So I do.

First Name:

I type in “Earl.”

Last Name:

I type in “Pomerantz.”

E-mail Address:

I am about to include my e-mail address when suddenly there’s this ‘pop-up” for the IPad 4G, or something. And I cannot make it go away.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot return to the “sign-up” place. My only option is to start over. So I do.

I click on the little red circle in the upper left corner of my screen, and I go back to Square One.

I click on the icon that takes me to the Internet. I type in www.Youtube.com. I type in Bullitt. I click on the listing offering a screening of the whole movie. I am returned to the “sign-up” place.

First Name: Earl.

Last Name: Pomerantz

E-mail Address:

I type in two letters, and there it is again – the “pop-up” for the IPad 4G.

I am unable to continue.

Being someone who is willing to try the same thing over and over in hopes of procuring a different outcome, I repeat my efforts again and again, procuring – surprise, surprise – the same outcome.

Finally, I give up.

Later in the day, it occurs to me it might be possible to Google “Bullitt Screenplay”, so I could, at least, read the “Bullshit!’ moment, and transcribe it accurately for my readers.

My persistence is rewarded.

There it is.

The complete Bullitt screenplay – Written by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner.

I scroll down to near the end. It turns out the “Bullshit!” scene is on Page 100 of the 109 page script.

I read the scene.

And you what?

The word “Bullshit!’ is not in the script.

Instead, the exchange goes like this.

CHALMERS (THE ROBERT VAUGH CHARACTER): Let’s not be naïve. We know how careers are made today. Integrity is what you sell to the public.

BULLITT: Go ahead and sell it. But don’t sell it around me. I believe in what I’m doing.

CHALMERS: Lieutenant, we must all compromise.

(NOTE: THIS WAS WHERE MCQUEEN BLURTED “BULLSHIT!”)

BULLITT: (THRUSTING HIM AGAINST THE WALL) If you don’t want to get hurt, get the hell out of here.

LEAVING CHALMERS SHAKEN, HE MOVES TOWARDS THE GATE WITH DELGETTI.

This is the “Shooting Script.” The “Shooting Script” is supposed to be the final version of the script.

And there’s no “Bullshit!”

I had spent the entire day tracking down the “Bullshit” scene, and it turns out, as reflected in the final version of the script,

“Bullshit!’ was nowhere to be seen.

My experience called, legitimately I believe, for a wailing “F” bomb of frustration. Unfortunately, I had none at my disposal.

I had squandered it on George Clooney.

(NOTE: Comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce made the opposite point, encouraging people to use curse words, so as to deprive them of their power to offend. My problem with that position is, what words are then available when you are legitimately offended?)

"Reality Check"

Sometimes, you experience an event that buffets your confidence so badly, you just have to hold on tight and ride it out. Otherwise, there is no telling what you might do.

This is one of those times.

I no longer recall the context, but at some point, I had written about Law & Order, I imagine, in the context of how addicted I am to the reruns, and perhaps, parenthetically, about how I find one of its spin-offs, Law & Order – Special Victims Unit to be borderline pornographic. Though still watchable.

Anyway, in the course of that post, I alluded to the famously identifiable Law & Order (and its spin-offs) auditory punctuator, which is injected during the breaks between the scenes, though not between all the scenes, between some of the scenes, an arrangement whose code, despite my two decades plus as a regular viewer, I have been unable to crack.

At that writing, in an effort to translate Law & Order’s signature sound into words, I described it as,

“Clank-clank.”

I believed I had nailed it.

It turns out I was wrong.

How sweet it is to be blissfully insulated from one’s shortcomings. And how jarring to be roused from your self-inflating illusions, forced to come face-to-face with indisputable reality.

I can tell you this. It is a bitter pill to swallow.

I claim expertise in nothing. That’s why nobody listens to me. They say,

“Who are you, an expert?”

And finding me stationed light years from that distinguishing demarcation, the world immediately dismisses what I have to say.

The single area in which I approach within shouting distance of “expertise” is in the arguably important, though less so perhaps than I’d like it to be, arena of words.

I know words. I’ve been using them since I could talk. Words are the first things that came out of my mouth, after crying sounds, and spit-up.

In my chosen profession of writer, I have honed my word choices meticulously, committed to selecting the most evocative descriptives for what I’m writing about that I can muster.

“Clank-clank”?

I believed it was perfect.

Then yesterday, Anna dropped by, and in the course of her visit, she grabbed her mother’s IPad, key-stroked to YouTube, to a clip she was certain I’d enjoy.

It was a Sesame Street parody. A cleverly conceived mock spin-off of the Law & Order franchise, meant for educational purposes, entitled,

Law & Order – Special Letters Unit.

The clip tickled me immensely. They had caught the show’s spirit down to the hairstyle-mimicking wigs atop the Muppet performers portraying a special police unit dedicated to finding lost letters from the alphabet, in this case the letter “M.”

And then, I heard it. The Muppets version of that signature Law & Order sound cue.

It was not “Clank-clank.”

It was “Chung-chung.”

Which is significantly

Better.

The Muppets’ transliterated upgrade immediately ate me up. I had not “nailed it” after all. Indisputably, “Chung-chung” is superior to “Clank-clank.” “Clank-clank” isn’t terrible. It evokes the lonely desperation of closing jail cell doors. But it misses the ringing finality of “Chung-chung.”

I reviewed my process. How had I, a word expert, been so egregiously off the mark? I wondered, had I had a second crack at it, would I have discovered the unmistakability of “Chung-chung?” I am almost certain I would not. A revisiting “re-do” may, at best, have brought me to an inner tussle between “Clank-clank” and “Clunk-clunk.” But I have to admit it. I am incapable of the perfection that is “Chung-chung.”

Always the “c-l.” Never the “c-h.” And what was I thinking with that “k!"

Two thoughts rushed immediately to my mind. I recall being nominated for an Emmy Award for a Lily Tomlin special, and losing,

To the Muppets.

For the first time, I had to truthfully acknowledge,

They deserved it.

Secondly, back in the seventies, I was invited to go to London for six months to write for The Muppets Show. Though not without misgivings, I said “No” to the offer, as I was working happily and successfully, writing scripts for the Mary Tyler Moore Company stable of series. Plus, I had just begun a relationship with a woman who would ultimately become my wife. I chose not to risk either of those fortuities to relocate to London for half a year.

Despite the sagacity of that decision, I nevertheless harbored secret second thoughts of an “Opportunity missed.”

My eyes have now, belatedly, been opened.

It was good I didn’t work on The Muppets Show. I would not have measured up. Exposed, inevitably, as

A “Clank-clank” writer. In a “Chung-chung” world.

There is nothing I can do about it, I suppose.

Except sit back, take a stabilizing breath,

And tip your hat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

An Observation: In the recent Republican debate, Rick Perry could not remember the third governmental agency he would definitely abolish were he to become president. Saturday Night Live tried to satirize the moment, and failed. Why? Because Rick Perry's humiliation could not be satirized. Satire requires exaggeration. And in this case, there was no place further they could go.

"Help"

It appears that our names have been permanently included in the “Bleeding Hearts” mailing list.

We were recently away for five days. One day was a Sunday, so from a “mail” perspective, it was four days.

When we returned home, I went to the Post Office to retrieve our “held” mail. Along with catalogues, magazines, sales pitches and bills were a stack of solicitations from various charities and interest groups.

The following are the organizations that hit us up for donations:

The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation

The Venice Family Clinic

The Make-A-Wish Foundation

Amnesty International

Habitat For Humanity

Chabad

The United Way

Americans For Peace Now

The American Foundation For The Blind

The American Kidney Fund

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The American Heart Association

The American Red Cross

Save The Redwoods

The Actors Fund of America

and the

St. Joseph Indian School

Sixteen solicitations for money.

In only four days.

What am I supposed to do?

--------------------------------------------

Happy Canada Day, you guys., A poppy - I would gladly pay for.

"The Flying Dutchman"

As I recall, “The Flying Dutchman” was an old-time sailing ship that, from a distance appeared as if all was well – the sails unfurled and catching the wind, the ship bobbing slowly but steadily ahead. But on closer examination, when you climbed onboard, it was a “Ghost Ship.” There was nobody there. (An alternate I’ve seen in pirate pictures – my second favorite kind of movie, after westerns – was that the ship, though unresponsive, seemed okay, but when you went onboard, everybody was dead.)

I endured a similar experience. Though on a television show, rather than a sailing ship of old.

I remember when we got the news. It was late at night, and I and my Best of the West writing staff – made up of myself and two other writers (good writers; one went on to write the movie Good Morning, Viet Nam, the other co-developed The Simpsons; that’s right, my entire writing staff was two people) were toiling away in my office, rewriting Episode Nineteen (of an order for twenty-two).

For me, these rewrite sessions felt like wading through molasses. Working when you’re exhausted, trying to fix a script you once thought was okay – or you would never have put down the stuff that turned out not to be okay in the first place. It was an arduous, bleak, soul-pummeling slog. Hardly the most fertile terrain for nurturing hilarity. Yet there we were, trying to make America (and neighbouring Canada) laugh.

(A similar low point triggered one of my most telling, and simultaneously most self-pitying, pronouncements: “There must be an easier way to make three hundred thousand dollars a year.” A beaten man, lacking all perspective.)

One of the numerous reasons I was an inadequate show runner was that I didn’t know what I wanted. Writers would pitch jokes – sometimes I’d laugh, sometimes I wouldn’t – but either way, the “pitches” just didn’t seem “right.” What was “right”? Paraphrasing the Supreme Court justice, opining on pornography, “I may not be able to say what it is, but I’ll know it when I hear it.”

I rarely heard it. And being unable to define “what it is” myself, I was voiceless in communicating what I wanted to my staff. That’s why it took so long,

Anyway, the clock was lurching towards midnight. We were on, like, Page 8 of a rewrite of an, approximately, fifty page script. We were stuck on one joke – meaning we needed to replace a joke that was in the script with a funny joke – seemingly for hours.

Then, a man appeared at my door. It was my boss. Along with my visceral fear that I was about to be reprimanded, I also felt guilty when my boss materialized. And with good reason. On those not infrequent occasions when I was required to come in on the weekends – and my boss was not – I would regularly trespass into his office and pilfer cigars from his humidor. A minor, arguably pathetic, act of rebellion. My way of saying, “You may not have to work today, but it’s costing you Havanas.”

A further justification for my thievery?

My boss, and his partner, had supervised Best of the West from its inception, through the pilot process, to its selection on the schedule, to its full-time production as a series. With their superlative track record, the duo were trusted by the networks, whereas I, a good writer with no production record and a wavering temperament, was not.

As a reward for their involvement, my boss and his partner, without apprising me beforehand, stamped their production company’s brand on a show I created. This was hardly unprecedented – veterans shepherding neophytes in exchange for production credit. But the “ownership grab” is generally conducted transparently.

I assertively voiced my displeasure. They apologized. But it wasn’t enough. So I took some cigars.

As it turned out, my boss’s visit had nothing to do with tobacco theft. It was, instead, to inform us of this:

“ABC called. They’re cancelling the show. But we have to complete the order.”

The cancellation was a shock, though not a surprise. After an encouraging beginning – the Best of the West pilot ranked seventh in the weekly ratings – the numbers took a precipitous slide. The most recent ratings placed us last.

This was hardly unexpected. We had premiered against Tom Selleck’s new series, Magnum P.I., which quickly became a national phenomenon. (I could tell we were in trouble when, while standing at the checkout counter in the supermarket, I noticed that all the tabloids boasted a scarily handsome Tom Selleck smiling dimplingly from their covers. Best of the West? No covers. No articles.)

Experiencing a continual drubbing, ABC strategically moved Best of the West to a different time slot. Friday at nine. Against Dallas. The Number One show in the country. Their strategy, apparently, was to get Best of the West cancelled. And they succeeded. This was somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophesy. The ABC higher-ups had never championed the show.

I don’t recall whether the actors and production crew were aware of the cancellation. It would seem like they had to be. Variety would have reported it in their paper. (And my boss likely clued them in as well.) All I remember is the way it felt. People avoiding each others’ eyes, hiding from the stinging acknowledgment of failure.

The usual frantic pace seemed noticeably slower. Legs felt unnaturally heavy; voices funereally subdued. Everyone kept trying, but beneath our ongoing efforts to make the show better lay the not unreasonable question:

“Why?”

Why? Because we were professionals. And that’s what professionals do. We make things better, whether it matters anymore, or not.

Still, the effort produced an eerie, almost creepy “Lost Dutchman” kind of sensation. Going through the motions of making a show – three more episodes of that show, to be accurate – that in reality

Was already dead.

"A Response To JED (But You Can Listen In)"

In the third part of my trilogy examining who goes into show business and who, for reasons of choice (Simon opted for the world of mattresses) or exigent circumstances (“Life Happened”) does not, I finished up by taking an inventory of myself, a lab rat prototype, representing “a person who did.”

One of the generally assumed prerequisites appearing on the “I don’t have it” side of my ledger was an almost total deficiency in the area of “persuading tools of salesmanship.”

This prompted a, perhaps, perplexed JED to respond (in part):

“I think it would be an interesting article if you could explain how you could have a hard time with persuasion and yet get people to accept your ideas when there is a team of writers all thinking they know the best way to write a funny line. How did you get them to use your words? Or did they?”

This is a good and thoughtful question, which I will return to momentarily. What I was referring to when I confessed my deficiency concerning the “persuading tools of salesmanship” is that, if being an effective salesperson were an essential component for a career in show business, I would never have been in it. Because I am not persuasive. I, apparently, could not even persuade JED about that.

I used, as an example, the fact that on Gray Cup weekend – the weekend hosting Canadian football’s Super Bowl – when I was hired to sell satin ribbons with the competing teams’ colors on them to, primarily, intoxicated people, many of whom had shelled out hundred, maybe, thousands of dollars, traveling across the country to attend the game – that’s how passionately devoted they were – to this crowd of insanely rabid inebriates screaming themselves hoarse, going,

“Oskee-wee-wee, Oskee-wa-wa, ‘Tiger Cats’ – Eat ‘em raw!”

I could still not sell a single ribbon.

This deficiency later reared its unhelpful head when I tried to sell TV series ideas that I’d created to the networks. I believe my most commonly used selling tools in this regard were whining and begging.

“Let’s make a show!”

I remember myself wailing.

They did not make that show.

To me, a sure sign that you’re a terrible salesperson is that, something’s indisputably terrific, and you still can’t get people to buy it. (This is the opposite of the crackerjack salesman who can sell refrigerators to Eskimos. I couldn’t sell blubber to Eskimos.)

Casting a pilot I created for CBS, I brought in, as was required, three actresses, as candidates for the leading role. After all of them had auditioned, the president of CBS, named Jeff, proclaimed,

“I will not have any of these women on my network.”

One of the actresses went on to a successful if not spectacular career in situation comedy. The other two were Sherry Stringfield, who co-starred for years on the mega-hit ER, and Julianna Margulies who also co-starred on ER, and went on to even greater acclaim as The Good Wife.

But Jeff didn’t want them on his network. And I had no success in persuading him that he might be missing something.

Julie Hagerty, whom I once pitched for another series, a woman who convulsed audiences in, among other classics, the Airplane movies, and Albert Brooks’s Lost In America – I believe it was the same Jeff who pronounced her, “Not funny.” And once again, my persuasive powers were in absentia. Inhibited, though only partially, by an incredulously dropped jaw.

With this, whatever the opposite of “salesmanship ability” is, I would also, of course, never have been able to persuade anyone, during the early stages of my career, to hire me. My strongest sales pitch would most likely have been,

“Aw, come on!”

And I’d have spent my adult years in Canada, doing something else.

And now, after perhaps too lengthy a side trip, to JED’s question.

JED wants to know, if my persuasive skills are so recessive, how then would it have been possible for me to win a roomful of sure-they’re-right writers over to my point of view.

Okay.

Working backwards, from a career standpoint:

When you’re the show runner, no persuasion to your point of view is necessary. You’re right, because you’re the show runner. When you’re in charge, your perspective prevails, which is, generally speaking, as it should be, because the show runner (almost always, in my day) created the show, and would understandably have the best “feel” for what’s appropriate.

It doesn’t always have to be your word that prevails – and if you’re a smart show runner who’s assembled a gifted writing staff, you will go with the best idea, whether it’s your idea, or not – but yours will always be the last word. Rewrite rooms are not a democracy. Though it’s best to be a benevolent despot.

So, no persuasion required in that situation.

When you’re on the writing staff – or, as I often was, an outside script consultant – again, no persuasion is required. The final arbiter in that case is,

“Did it get a laugh?”

A simple determinate: If it got a laugh, it’s in the script. If it didn’t, it’s out.

The same goes for clarifying a story point. If the pitch, by general consensus, improved things, it was accepted; and if didn’t, it wasn’t. And again, no persuasion was involved. Or even desirable, as these fruitless rationalizations merely keep people from getting home at a reasonable time. As the iconic, (joke) “punch-up man” Bob Ellison once observed, during an agonizingly late rewrite session:

ONE WRITER: It’s too broad.

ANOTHER WRITER: It’s too out of character.

BOB ELLISON: (POINTING TO HIS WATCH) It’s two-thirty.

To me, the goods, when they’re right, sell themselves, be it a series idea, a casting suggestion, a story point, or a joke. That’s why persuasion is not a prerequisite, if you’re aspirating to be a writer. This is not the case, however, if you aspire to a career as a (non-writing) producer, or an agent. Those guys are selling air.

And when you’re selling air, persuasion is all you’ve got.

I hope that satisfactorily responds to JED’s question. And I thank him for asking it.

I would be equally happy to respond to other questions, should you have them.

"There Are No New Movies I Like"

It is an Article of Faith – though I’m not sure what an “Article of Faith” is, other than it sounds sonorously certain – that they don’t make movies like they used to. That always seemed curious to me, since, in the “like they used to” times – generally synonymous with the “studio era”, where movies were controlled top-to-bottom by a handful of all-powerful Hollywood film factories – it appears that those studios took greater risks in their selection of the lineup of the films they produced than they do today, an era where nobody’s at the helm, and you could, theoretically, make any movie you want.

Well, you can’t. Because of the money. Expensive movies, with budgets surging above two hundred million dollars, require a guaranteed return, or there’s trouble with the shareholders (not of the movie companies, but the multi-national conglomerates that own the movie companies.)

As a result, as a bitter maker of “serious” films complained in an article I read recently, the big money is allocated towards big-ticket blockbusters made for twelve year-old boys, leaving the crumbs for everybody else.

The result – “Summer movies” that no longer just come out in the summer.

So there’s that.

Then, there’s the fact that, being old, nostalgia inevitably seeps into memory, polishing the past in ways it may not totally deserve. Hand-in-hand are the inevitable changes in taste with which the old are not entirely comfortable, including increased visual gore, louder soundtracks that take a disproportionate toll on older ears, and a shrugging acceptance of storytelling that makes that do not make any sense.

Consequently – oh, and there’s a “sour grapes” component as well, as my resume will expose me as a total failure in movies – I have a great deal of difficulty recalling any recent movies I’ve liked. The funny part, however – “funny” at least for someone who takes an inordinate pleasure in laughing at themselves – is that if a particular recent movie is brought to my attention, I surprisingly often reply,

“Oh, yeah, I liked that.”

So, before I forget that I liked them, I commit to – well, not paper, but whatever this is – recorded evidence of two currently playing movies that I thought were pretty darn good.

Margin Call

Is an independently produced movie concerning the recent Wall Street meltdown that nearly decimated our economy. Although low budget, Margin Call boasts a cast of first class – and usually high-priced – actors, among them, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons.

You can easily see why these stellar actors agreed to participate. It’s a wonderful script. Unlike the movies these actors do for money, Margin Call is written with a sharp-eyed insider’s savviness (though its dialogue is a little faux David Mametty for my liking), it’s tense, it’s insightful, it’s often funny, and it makes eminently coherent sense.

The movie’s clarification of the “heart of the problem” – that the “debt position” on this fictional brokerage’s books has become greater than the value of the company – makes the story of the night they (at least temporarily) saved the firm from extinction compellingly comprehensible to those who are fuzzy about what happened on Wall Street circa 2008 – one of them being me.

The only problem I had was that I was being asked to care about people, who, had I been one of their clients, would have cold-heartedly not cared about me. To obtain my sympathy, the moviemakers were, metaphorically, trying to persuade me to invest in a smelly stock, and, for me at least, there was no sale. Still – an intriguing movie about a tumultuous moment in our recent history. Smartly done. And happily worth the “Senior” price of admission.

Which I do not often say.

The Descendants

George Clooney is a “tough sell” as an ordinary person. Even an ordinary person living in Hawaii whose extended family owns twenty-five thousand acres of pristine property ripe for development yielding the family half a billion dollars and whose comatose wife who’s been cheating on him is about to be taken off “life support” and whose two daughters – aged 10 and 17 – are totally out of control and he doesn’t know what to do about any of it.

There’s a not entirely admirable tendency in me to say, “Fuck you, George Clooney.” You’re rich, you’re successful, you’re way too attractive, and your aunt sang “Come-ona My House.” I know, I’m confusing the actor with the character, but sometimes, it can’t be helped.

I wonder if that bothers him.

“I want to be respected as an actor!”

“Look in the mirror, George, and take the money.”

With The Descendants, Clooney jettisoned the “movie star” props, except for the face, which doesn’t come off, and he really went for it. And he got really close. When he cried, I almost believed him. And I would have. Except it was George Clooney crying.

What does George Clooney have to cry about?

The Descendants' continually disarming script pushes inter-relational moments to agonizing – sometimes comically agonizing – extremes, making the movie constantly interesting to watch. Writer/Director Alexander Payne (Election, among others) regularly tells his exquisitely painful stories with, what, for me, is an accompanyingly enjoyable loose screw. When Clooney races to a neighbor’s house to demand information about his dying wife’s infidelity, he clomps over, hilariously, in flip-flops.

The casting is all-around “on the money”, the performances, never less than solid. And, of course, Hawaii, as always – and they visit three different islands in this movie – is “I wanna be there right now” beautiful. Every breathtaking shot looks like a Chamber of Commerce postcard. Which, for all I know, may be satirical as well. And if so – “Ha!”

It should also be noted that The Descendants was distributed by the movie subsidiary of Fox Studios. So big studios can back decent pictures. As long as they’re cheap, and George Clooney is in them, working for the minimum.

So, there you have it. Now, if you’re ever around me, and you hear me complain,

“There are no new movies I like.”

Say,

“What about Margin Call and The Descendants?”

To which, I will reply,

“Oh, yeah, I liked those.”

And you’ll have nailed me to the wall.