Waitak'

My grandfather (right), Waitaki, 1930.

A-B-C

Charlie Rose interviews David Mamet in 1994 about Oleanna.

Entirely Feasible Germany

Last year in Berlin. The U55 line really is that efficient.

Forget it, Jake

Robert Towne talks to Alex Simon about writing the script for Chinatown:

Another interesting thing is that when you initially showed the script to both Evans and Polanski, they couldn't make head or tails of it.

Yeah, that was truer of Evans than Polanski. Roman picked the first two drafts apart so we could start rewriting it. While Roman was still in Europe, I did a second draft, and those two drafts were the drafts off of which we worked to create the shooting script, which was the third draft.

And how long did that third draft take?

We spent nearly every day together for about six weeks. I brought my dog, Hira, with me to a lot of our initial meetings. Hira would go lie on Roman's feet, which would drive him crazy, and finally he said "That's enough of that dog!" (laughs)

What was Polanski's creative process like, and what elements did he bring to the story? I know the biggest bone of contention the two of you had was about the film's ending.

Yeah, but in the end, that was such a small part of our daily working relationship, and it only came up at the end. We didn't spend a lot of time on it, to be honest. Roman said "I want it written this way," and I responded 'I think it would be very bad if I wrote it that way.' He said "Well, try it anyway." So I did, and brought it back to him and said 'See, it's so melodramatic." Roman said "No, it's perfect." We said more about it, but not much. That was that. We sat down, and I don't remember what draft, probably the first because there were things about the first draft that were much better than the second, although there were individual scenes in the second draft that may have been used. So we sat down, and we wrote a one-sentence description of each of the scenes that we were working on. We then pasted those onto the door of the room where we were working, and we just moved these little strips of paper up and down, readjusting the structure, to see where there were holes, adding scenes, and that's how we worked on it. And what changes were made in the dialogue were made as I wrote. Roman, with rare exception, did not have any difficulty with the dialogue.

That was always one of your strengths though, as a dialogue man.

Yeah, I mean I guess you'd have to say that. The structure was extremely difficult, though, as it would have been for anybody.

Full transcript at the Hollywood Interview.

'I like this, early nothing.'

New York is hosting a season of Fritz Lang movies. The NYTimes' Manohla Dargis has a terrific essay on the Austrian director's Hollywood years:

Survival, it turns out, was the great story of his tenure in Hollywood, a not unfamiliar tale. Working against the odds as he moved from studio to studio, sometimes under contract, sometimes independently and rarely with the same technicians, he did more than survive, he also thrived. In Germany he would have 100 days to shoot a movie; in America he had closer to a month. He often had a say in the editing, though he was also barred from editing rooms. He said he had control over his sets and costumes, but he didn't always have the final say when it came to all scenes in his movies, whether through producer-dictated changes or the happy, sappy endings that feel like the lies they are.

Hollywood endings can be beautiful fibs, but in Lang's movies the glossy smiles and fade-outs feel forced. You can almost feel him pulling at them, trying to bring them back into the dark where they belong. The miracle of his Hollywood era is that, even when the screenplays tried to force his work in one direction, he managed to take them into richer, more complex realms with a style that was alternately baroque and stripped down and peopled with characters whose cynicism was earned.

Meanwhile in London the BFI is hosting a Howard Hawks season. The Big Sleep last week; Rio Bravo and The Thing From Another World in the coming fortnight. All you need is the trans-Atlantic airfare.

But I'm having good luck

A cup of tea and a good book