Short Hits

It's been a little of this, little of that the last few days here at Dead Things Labs. I'm prepping for a day trip next week that's very top-secret project related -- and will hopefully be inspirational for one of the series I'm trying to crank out right now. It's a pretty key time for that project, and knowing that my focus is going to have be laser-beam intense over the next two weeks, I've been trying to build in some valve time. That leads to diversions.

Diversion One: David Kipen's The Schreiber Theory.

Kipen is now a big cheese at the NEA, I believe, but I always enjoyed his reviews, esp. when he was on KCRW. In this slim little volume, he's taking on the steaming pile of turd that is the auteur theory. "Schreiber" apparently is Yiddish for writer. Jesus, I know I'm an Irish kid from the Bronx, but boy I wish I spoke Yiddish. Anyway... The manifesto part is interesting enough. He does a tip of the hat to other anti-auteurists like Schickel, but the really valuable second part of the book is the list he has of screenwriters, his first attempt to try and promote a way of looking at film through the obsessions of its writers, not the glorified camera jockeys who grab all that undeserved glory. (Trash talking! It's fun!) I'm going to go through some of his lists and do a screenwriter screening as soon as I've got the time.


Diversion Two: Network: Special Edition.

One of my favorite movies, of course. I've been looking forward to this special edition for a while. There's an hour and a half documentary that's just excellent on the whole making of the movie. Sidney Lumet is front and centre through the whole thing, and you see why he's such an effective director, and such a class act.

What makes Lumet doubly interesting is how much he talks about the comedy and the tone, and how tightly he reined in the actors by making the script the king. I'd forgotten that the movie actually was titled Network by Paddy Chayefsky. Lumet makes that absolutely clear here -- that the vision he was trying to bring to life was Chayefsky's. (Hilariously, of course, on Amazon there's no mention of Chayefsky. Typical)

Lumet is candid and illuminating talking about story, and how he and Chayefsky collaborated, how much rehearsal helped things, and how they talked Faye Dunaway into giving such a brilliant but unsympathetic peformance.

There's a couple anecdotes that I won't spoil about specific times when Chayefsky stepped in and taught Lumet how not to crush the laugh in his material. Lumet is my kind of guy -- he's clear that he and Chayefsky fought -- but that the creative process they were partners in demanded that, and that the material was all that mattered.

If you're an insecure director who's done three margarine ads and is rushing to take that A Film By credit, this whole special edition is going to give you nothing but agita.

It's also nice to see Cronkite pop up.

It's almost a cliche now to point out that Network, viewed 30 years on, looks almost like a documentary rather than a satire -- but what's most sobering about this time trip are the things you realize when you watch. This movie was released by a major studio. It was a hit. Not a huge hit, maybe, but it made money. It is funny, but it's also sophisticated -- in a way that doesn't play wide today. There were some revelations that were a little more prosaic -- like, for instance, I had no idea that the studio sequences were shot in Toronto.

But to me, the price of admission are two excellent features: the AMC movie show that has a full session with Lumet, and a 1976 Chayefsky interview on the Dinah Shore show.

The latter is really the mind bender. First, here's a screenwriter sitting there - smoking - on a daytime talkshow. Talking about a movie like this. Talking about the control the media has. He tells an anecdote about waiting in line for valet parking, and how a guy comes out and says, "I'm the green Lincoln" and everyone clucks and reacts horrified by the implications, the dehumanization of it.

I mean, Jesus -- he's right, but today would anyone give that a second thought? Watching that interview, seeing the serious content being discussed on what was a daytime talk show is just mindblowing. And much as I feel kindred to Chayefsky and his way of looking at the world-that-would-come-after-his-early-death -- I know I am a product of the times after. Cause I'm watching Dinah Shore, and you know what I'm thinking?

Heh. She f***ed Burt Reynolds.

True dat.

(Network is available in a six disc Controversial Classics collection with new Special Editions of Dog Day Afternoon and All The President's Men. The extras on President's Men are also first rate, though I haven't dipped into the commentaries yet.)