Tuesday Morning TIFF Frustration
Some days you eat the snake. Some days the snake eats you.
If I were the publicist that pushed me to attend the Tuesday morning screening of Sarah Polley
May 6, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
DP, I’m sure you’re exhausted from the festival, but this sounds like a more sophisticated version of a Jeff Wells tantrum. (That’s not a compliment.)
That happened to me at Tribeca, too…never got a call back, Email, apology or anything from the publicist.
Great Toronto coverage so far, David… bummed I couldn’t make it but from what you’ve been saying, maybe this was the year to miss.
Well, Eric, if a publicist says you should go see a particular movie during the Toronto Film Festival and you take time out of your schedule to see it and then they don’t pull through with a ticket or whatever, I think you’d be pretty pissed off too.
And especially if you ended up having to miss Jindabyne! Strueth.
At a fest this packed with films, that’s a huge no-no.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t be pissed off, too. And it has more weight to it than the standard Wells rant. It’s just not the sort of thing I expect out of David. As I said, it probably comes at the end of a very tiring week.
I think David’s right on. Until you attend something like Sundance or Toronto, you really don’t understand just how intense and stressful it can be. When you get there you have to create a schedule for yourself which is akin to doing long division or something. “If I see ______ here, I can see _____ here, but then I’ll miss ______ here. But it’s playing here so I can see that but then I’ll miss _____.”
To have your time wasted by anything less than a cute girl or drunken night on the town is simply not excusable.
Let’s just be gla he’s not posting photos of the inside of his hotel room.
Jeff makes an excellent point. I concede the argument to him.
I should have said, photos of B-list celebrities he’s hung out with lately, since that’s what Wells has most recently graced us with.
Having a widely read blog is great. First of all it’s a great story and really gives the reader an inside feel to life of the working life of the writer/a writer and now the publicist and everybody who knows the publicist or thinks they know which one it is or could be knows that everybody knows what a pain in the ass they caused. And the world’s a little better for it — this level of discourtesy, which happens too often, should stop.
Hope that made sense.
Question: did the woman ever call back to apologize and/or explain?
Cadavra, that’s got to be a rhetorical question. Do you play football or soccer? — see Michael Moore’s comments for what I mean.
http://reporter.blogs.com/risky/2006/09/toronto_diary_1.html#comments
If you asked if the publicist (no reference to it being a she, BTW) responded to this post, that would be a more realistic question.
My sincere condolences, David. Ninety-nine percent of the publicists pushing films at fests are total pros. (At least, that’s been my experience.) But there’s always the one-percent that forgets (or willfully ignores) that every time you say yes to one thing, you have to say no to five other things.
BTW: Throughout the past two decades, I’ve missed only two Toronto fests. This year’s event is the second. The first one was the 2001 edition. (There’s no way to say this without sounding like a heartless, selfish bastard, but: At least I didn’t get stranded there in the wake of 9/11.) Sounds like, each time, I picked a good year to stay home.
Tight as a drum, Joe, a dream to read, but don’t you think that one-percent person can’t forget now that everyone knows? They should come here and give their side of the story. Wouldn’t that be something?
Do any of us really want to hear a publicist spin things any more than we already do in daily life? I come to this site to read David and others without spin.
Jeffmcm, 1. I’m tired of your spin. 2. You have no sense of humor. 3. David spins (fortunately). 4. We’ve been deprived coverage of Away From Her, so I’d love the publicist to come and tell his/her side of the story and publicize the movie.
1. Please tell me, what’s my spin?
2. I have quite an excellent sense of humor, depending on the circumstance.
3. I was trying to compliment DP. When he does happen to spin, I tend to not like it. And I can’t imagine a publicist coming here at all, and if they did all they would say is something along the lines of “I overslept.” If the story was something more interesting, like “Michael Moore was trying to eat me” or “I was doing something with Pedro Almodovar that caused his back to go out” that would be worth reading, but I find it somewhat unlikely that there’s any side to the story beyond mere carelessness.
i occasionally have to leave the house. u started to make me laugh tho.
thanks, maybe next time I can finish the job.
1. Publicists are reading every word you write, for better or worse.
2. The person involved is an uber-pro and fucked up this rare time. All is forgiven. And I will see the movie soon.
3. J-Mc… how would you know if I was spinning and how hard I was spinning? Of course, this is my opinion on things, so there is some natural spin. But you would have to know the facts that I know and the facts that you know to know whether I was spinning at all. I’m pretty straight… but as I wrote, it’s my take, only purely objective when I indicate as much.
And that’s why I complimented you.