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
Interesting. Not quite the SPEECH sweep some are predicting. Again, this promises to be the most suspenseful ceremony in years.
Nah, The Speech is going to sweep like crazy. I’m going with 8 or 9 wins. Seriously, there’s no suspence. There’s only KINGLY DOMINATION!
At this point, we have to wonder if some voters are getting tired enough of the idea of a “King’s Speech” sweep to vote against it… After all, I think KS’s frontrunner status may have emerged out of a growing tiredness for “The Social Network” sweeping all the precursors… Could it swing back the other way? Given people seem to think “Social Network” has a great chance of winning Editing and Director, with the Gurus putting it out front in both categories, I still fail to see the certainty in the inevitable KS picture win.
Still, I’d rather see Hailee Steinfeld be the it-could-happen upset of the evening if there’s going to be one.
The Social Network only did big with critics but with everything else that matters, The King Speech has won going away except tonight it lost the ACE award to TSN. Which means there is now a good chance TSN will get the editing award next Sunday. Whateverthecase, Hailee winning would be awesome (Seriously, she’s the highlight of True Grit. She’s tremendous in it and she’s the STAR of that film. Why they didn’t give her a Best Actress nomination is beyond me), but we might know it’s a sweep if Helena wins.
GO HAILEE GO!
“Social Network” also took the Globe, but then again, so did “Avatar”…
Danny Baldwin,
Yes, TSN took home the Globe but the Globes are voted for by correspondents and “critics.” So, I reckon it is a critics’ award.
And my favorite of the nominated films, 127 HOURS, get’s nothing? (I guess since they gave a Danny Boyle film all those undeserved Oscars a couple years ago, they have to make it up by snubbing him when they’re deserved.) As David so perfectly put it: “forget it… It’s Oscartown.”
Interesting. The gurus look like they have it all wrapped up. I suggest however that there will be a three-way tie for first in wins. Give the costume Oscar back to King’s Speech and move Score back to Social Network. You have three films with four apiece.
DP what are the gurus batting for last 5 years?
Will the King’s Speech win make it the first BP going to a movie directed by someone who doesn’t understand how to frame a shot?
York Durden,
Hooper positioned the characters so they were looking out of the frame for a reason. I’m sure if you think hard enough you’ll figure out why he did that.
It’s framed perfectly for anyone who is a fan of the ROCK ME AMADEUS video.
hey LEXG – i must have watched this ROCK ME AMADEUS video
like 100 times
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXs93KbBCgY
You know, maybe I have to see THE KING’S SPEECH again, but honestly, I sat with my parents every Sunday night watching UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, and all the other heritage fodder Alaster Cooke used to introduce on MASTERPIECE THEATER year in and year out, and nothing about THE KING’S SPEECH stood out as being any better that that stuff was. There have been some great British films over the years, work by Powell, Russell, Jarman, Leigh, Potter, but the stuff that turns the Academy’s head is just so mediocre. Even CHARIOTS OF FIRE seemed more like a real work of cinema than TKS (to me anyway.) Seriously? What am I missing?
The Way Back for Make-up!
The King’s Speech is just a tremendous film on every level. So I have no idea what you are missing Daniella. No clue.
ETA: Oh yeah no snarkiness intended but it’s literally a perfect movie to me. Seriously, one guy helped another guy, speak, and by doing so helped an entire country. The profundity of that is rather staggering.,
i’ll do a bit of a stump for ‘the speech’, after taking my friend who really wanted to see it the other night for what was my second time out, and i’m glad i did (she enjoyed it tremendously, we had a great night).
when i see a movie i like or outright love (liked ‘king’s speech’ first time out, not love at first sight by any means) for the second time, under closer scrutiny i find either one of two things usually happens:
i’m able to see more clearly why i liked the movie in the first place (recent cases in point, ‘true grit’ and now ‘kings’s speech’) and how the tapestry all hangs together for me;
or: i see more clearly aspects of the film my mind may have just brushed over the first time – annoyances/incongruities/lapses – and these ‘flaws’ then become more glaring to the point where at the very least the curtain is torn back and i see the gears turning, the great and powerful oz’s tin-pot puppet show at work – always a bit disappointing but not necessarily a deal-breaker – or at worst, the tissue holding the thing together gets wet and falls apart on me, and i’m left feeling a bit resentful for being ‘duped’ the fist time out, even if it was just me duping myself (recent examples: ‘black swan’ and ‘inception’, tho neither were of the severe wet tissue ilk, i still appreciate them both but not as an ardent fan). sometimes i’m actually afraid to see a movie i really like for a second time, worried it might have been a case of smoke and mirrors the first time around and i’ll see it for what it really is (in my eyes, of course) in the cold light of day.
anyway, i’ve seen the ‘just another episode of masterpiece theatre/upstairs downstairs/etc’ analogy several times re: TKS, and haivng grown up with these shows in a far flung colony of commonwealth under the figurehead of the monarchy myself, i can’t say i can get on board with that appraisal as an apt comparison to hooper’s movie. a story does not have to be big and ‘sweeping’ (or in wide-screen format) to be cinematic; intimacy and character can be every bit as compelling as components of great cinema if achieved in an engaging, evocative manner, and i feel these are the delicacies on offer in ‘king’s speech’.
after my second inspection, what really sets ‘speech’ apart from just anther conventional ‘historical drama’ for me is primarily two factors: the powerful performances – in particular firth’s rather tour de force turn, i am swept along with him on his excruciatingly difficult and at times highly amusing journey, and the rather odd (and apparently quite divisive) photography, so beautifully evocative of photographs of 1930’s england.
in a movie about language, and the anxiety and pressure that comes with severe speech difficulties, and esp. public speaking, cohen’s use of extreme wide-angle lenses for his close-ups to impart an uncomfortable, claustrophobic feeling of anxiety as george struggles to get his mouth around what his mind is telling him – the sheer pressure of it – at times i felt like george was going to spit all over me right there in the audience, such is the feeling of immediacy. very effective.
also, something i really noticed on second viewing is how the wide-angle lens close-ups kept the backgrounds in focus, which is quite unusual and visually arresting – adding tremendously to the sense of place, even somewhere as mundane as logues’ office. for instance, i was fascinated by that dingy, mottled wallpaper as the background for so many of bertie and logues’s scenes, always in crisp focus behind george, serving not only as the backdrop to his struggle but a visual metaphor for the spluttering confusion and disconnect he experiences in trying to do what for so many is the simplest of tasks: speak.
also, the use of shortsided framing (and headroom framing for that matter; i read somewhere that cohen wanted to shoot in 1:85:1 so that the sense of ‘height’ would not be lost, accentuating the grandeur of the period-evocative high ceilings of all the interiors used in the film as effective period detail, quite interesting) adds nicely to the slightly ‘ill-at-ease’ sensibility of many of the exchanges, a bold choice for hooper and cohen, tho i gather this choice doesn’t work for everyone.
at any rate, some interesting aspects and subtleties of the film that i didn’t really catch the first time, which have elevated it in my esteem. i feel like i have a greater appreciation of the film-making now and consider myself a bit of a firm fan of TKS. i wouldn’t be at all dismayed if it won the big one at the oscars, even tho it was far from my fave flick of the year.
yowza, jts sorry for the numerous typos in the above, i didn’t have time to proof-read earlier before posting, much to my chagrin. how many wrong versions of poor logue’s name can i do in one comment
Oh, I don’t doubt that there was some visual conceit to the bizarre angles and lenses and focusing on the background, especially that horrendous mottled office wallpaper, but whatever the rationale, these visuals served to pull me out of the story rather than enhance the emotion and thematic core.
Hooper’s use of dutch angles for establishing shots in JOHN ADAMS was another odd visual choice, come to think of it. But YMMV.
Great posting, leahnz. My respect for the film has ticked, if not shot, up a bit.
I will say I don’t need a movie to be “big” or “sweeping” for it to seem “cinematic” to me. Ingmar Bergman and Carl Dryer are two of my favorite directors, and I consider both to be great film artists. Maybe it’s just the story, which seems soooo conservative and traditional–The Karate Kid for old folks–coupled with a filmic style that merely serves to reinforce the script in the most straightforward way. It’s the “tradition of quality” that the French New Wave sought to replace.
York, all of what took you out of the movie, got me into the movie, which I find just fucking weird. Not that there is any wrong or right. I always find stuff like this curious because one person’s awesomely directed movie, is another person’s horribly directed movie.
Daniella, seeing as I love the Karate Kid as much as I love The King’s Speech, it would seem that comparing the two is a bit silly. Funny, but still silly. Sure it’s a very traditional story but the telling is different and the directing serves to give you insight into the King. Leah posted a link to an article the other day that went into detail about the direction in this film and how Hooper and Co. went about directing SPEECH. Please read it before dismissing one of the best directing jobs in a while as merely, traditional.
Oh yeah, what does the French New Wave have to do with this? Hell, they were replaced by romcoms and Luc Besson movies. They would have been lucky to be replaced by something like The King’s Speech!
well, ‘king’s speech’ follows the archetypal ‘hero’s journey’, so i’d say it’s classical in form, certainly.
(maybe in the next century students will study ‘the asshole’s journey’ as the new classic, reflecting the cultural paradigm of the 21st century as enshrined by a. sorkin and d. fincher)
Pro-tip, leahnz – you’ve got a wrong reading on Zuckerberg’s character. He didn’t get were he got to be out of spite for others, he just insisted on doing it his way is all.