The 33 Strategies of War (55 page)

In the days to come, Cohn was going to regret his decision.

Three stars were cast for
The Awful Truth
--Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, and Ralph Bellamy. All had problems with their roles as written in the script, none of them wanted to do the picture, and, as time went by, their unhappiness only grew. Revisions to the script began to come in: McCarey had apparently junked the original and was starting over, but his creative process was peculiar--he would sit in a parked car on Hollywood Boulevard with the screenwriter Vina Delmar and verbally improvise scenes with her. Later, when shooting began, he would walk on the beach and scribble the next day's setups on torn pieces of brown paper. His style of directing was equally upsetting to the actors. One day, for instance, he asked Dunne whether she played the piano and Bellamy whether he could sing. Both answered, "Not very well," but McCarey's next step was to have Dunne play "Home on the Range" as best she could while Bellamy sang off key. The actors did not enjoy this rather humiliating exercise, but McCarey was delighted and filmed the entire song. None of this was in the script, but all of it ended up in the film.

Sometimes the actors would wait on set while McCarey would mess around on the piano, then suddenly come up with an idea for what to shoot that day. One morning Cohn visited the set and witnessed this odd process. "I hired you to make a great comedy so I could show up Frank Capra. The only one who's going to laugh at this picture is Capra!" he exclaimed. Cohn was disgusted and basically wrote the whole thing off. His irritation grew daily, but he was contractually bound to pay Dunne forty thousand dollars for the film, whether it was shot or not. He could not fire McCarey at this point without creating greater problems, nor could he have him go back to the original script, since McCarey had already begun shooting and only he seemed to know where the film was going.

Yet as the days went on, the actors began to see some method in McCarey's madness. He would shoot them in long takes in which much of their work was only loosely guided; the scenes had spontaneity and liveliness. Casual as he seemed, he knew what he wanted and would reshoot the simplest shot if the look on the actors' faces was not loving enough. His shoot days were short and to the point.

One day, after many days' absence, Cohn showed up on set to find McCarey serving drinks to the cast. Cohn was about to explode when the director told him they were drinking to celebrate--they had just finished shooting. Cohn was shocked and delighted; McCarey had finished ahead of schedule and two hundred thousand dollars under budget. Then, to his surprise as well, the picture came together in the editing room like a strange puzzle. It was good, very good. Test audiences roared with laughter. Premiering in 1937,
The Awful Truth
was a complete success and won McCarey the best director Oscar. Cohn had found his new Frank Capra.

Unfortunately, McCarey had seen his boss's dictatorial tendencies all too clearly, and though Cohn made lucrative offers, McCarey never worked for Columbia again.

Interpretation

Leo McCarey, one of the great directors of Hollywood's golden era, was essentially a frustrated composer and songwriter. He had gone to work directing slapstick comedies--McCarey was the man who paired Laurel with Hardy--only because he was unable to make a living in music.
The Awful Truth
is considered one of the greatest screwball comedies ever made, and both its style and the way McCarey worked on it stemmed from his musical instincts: he composed the film in his head in just the same loose yet logical way that he would tinker with a tune on the piano. To create a film this way required two things: room to maneuver and the ability to channel chaos and confusion into the creative process.

McCarey kept his distance from Cohn, the actors, the screenwriters--in fact, everyone--as best he could. He would not let himself be boxed in by anyone's idea of how to shoot a film. Given room to maneuver, he could improvise, experiment, move fluidly in different directions in any scene, yet keep everything perfectly controlled--he always seemed to know what he wanted and what worked. And because filmmaking this way made every day a fresh challenge, the actors had to respond with their own energy, rather than simply regurgitating words from a script. McCarey allowed room for chance and the random events of life to enter his creative scheme without being overwhelmed by chaos. The scene he was inspired to create when he learned of Dunne's and Bellamy's lack of musical skill, for example, seems unrehearsed and lifelike because it really was. Had it been scripted, it would have been far less funny.

Directing a film--or any project, artistic or professional or scientific--is like fighting a war. There is a certain strategic logic to the way you attack a problem, shape your work, deal with friction and the discrepancy between what you want and what you get. Directors or artists often start out with great ideas but in the planning create such a straitjacket for themselves, such a rigid script to follow and form to fit in, that the process loses all joy; there's nothing left to explore in the creation itself, and the end result seems lifeless and disappointing. On the other side, artists may start with a loose idea that seems promising, but they are too lazy or undisciplined to give it shape and form. They create so much space and confusion that in the end nothing coheres.

The solution is to plan, to have a clear idea what you want, then put yourself in open space and give yourself options to work with. You direct the situation but leave room for unexpected opportunities and random events. Both generals and artists can be judged by the way they handle chaos and confusion, embracing it yet guiding it for their own purposes.

5.
One day in the Japan of the 1540s, in a ferryboat crowded with farmers, merchants, and craftsmen, a young samurai regaled all who would listen with tales of his great victories as a swordsman, wielding his three-foot-long sword as he spoke to demonstrate his prowess. The other passengers were a little afraid of this athletic young man, so they feigned interest in his stories to avoid trouble. But one older man sat to the side, ignoring the young boaster. The older man was obviously a samurai himself--he carried two swords--but no one knew that this was in fact Tsukahara Bokuden, perhaps the greatest swordsman of his time. He was in his fifties by then and liked to travel alone and incognito.

Mobility, defined as the ability to project power over distance, is another characteristic of good chess. It is the goal of a good chess player to ensure that each of his pieces can exert pressure upon a maximum number of squares, rather than being bottled up in a corner, surrounded by other pieces. Hence, the chess master looks forward to pawn exchanges (infantry battles, if you will), not because he is trying to wear down the enemy, but because he knows that he can project the power of his rooks (mechanized forces) down the resulting open files. In this manner, the chess master fights in order to move. This idea is central to maneuver-warfare theory.

T
HE
A
RT OF
M
ANEUVER
,
R
OBERT
R. L
EON-HARD
, 1991

Bokuden sat with his eyes closed, seemingly deep in meditation. His stillness and silence began to annoy the young samurai, who finally called out, "Don't you like this kind of talk? You don't even know how to wield a sword, old man, do you?" "I most certainly do," answered Bokuden. "My way, however, is not to wield my sword in such inconsequential circumstances as these." "A way of using a sword that doesn't use a sword," said the young samurai. "Don't talk gibberish. What is your school of fighting called?" "It is called Mutekatsu-ryu [style that wins without swords or fighting]," replied Bokuden. "What? Mutekatsu-ryu? Don't be ridiculous. How can you defeat an opponent without fighting?"

By now the young samurai was angry and irritated, and he demanded that Bokuden demonstrate his style, challenging him to a fight then and there. Bokuden refused to duel in the crowded boat but said he would show the samurai Mutekatsu-ryu at the nearest shore, and he asked the ferryman to guide the boat to a tiny nearby island. The young man began to swing his sword to loosen up. Bokuden continued to sit with his eyes closed. As they approached the island, the impatient challenger shouted, "Come! You are as good as dead. I will show you how sharp my sword is!" He then leaped onto the shore.

Bokuden took his time, further infuriating the young samurai, who began to hurl insults. Bokuden finally handed the ferryman his swords, saying, "My style is Mutekatsu-ryu. I have no need for a sword"--and with those words he took the ferryman's long oar and pushed it hard against the shore, sending the boat quickly out into the water and away from the island. The samurai screamed, demanding the boat's return. Bokuden shouted back to him, "This is what is called victory without fighting. I dare you to jump into the water and swim here!"

Now the passengers on the boat could look back at the young samurai receding into the distance, stranded on the island, jumping up and down, flailing his arms as his cries became fainter and fainter. They began to laugh: Bokuden had clearly demonstrated Mutekatsu-ryu.

Interpretation

The minute Bokuden heard the arrogant young samurai's voice, he knew there would be trouble. A duel on a crowded boat would be a disaster, and a totally unnecessary one; he had to get the young man off the boat without a fight, and to make the defeat humiliating. He would do this through maneuver. First, he remained still and quiet, drawing the man's attention away from the innocent passengers and drawing him toward Bokuden like a magnet. Then he confused the man with a rather irrational name for a school of fighting, overheating the samurai's rather simple mind with a perplexing concept. The flustered samurai tried to cover up with bluster. He was now so angry and mentally off balance that he leaped to the shore alone, failing to consider the rather obvious meaning of Mutekatsu-ryu even once he got there. Bokuden was a samurai who always depended on setting up his opponents first and winning the victory easily, by maneuver rather than brute force. This was the ultimate demonstration of his art.

The goal of maneuver is to give you easy victories, which you do by luring opponents into leaving their fortified positions of strength for unfamiliar terrain where they must fight off balance. Since your opponents' strength is inseparable from their ability to think straight, your maneuvers must be designed to make them emotional and befuddled. If you are too direct in this maneuvering, you run the risk of revealing your game; you must be subtle, drawing opponents toward you with enigmatic behavior, slowly getting under their skin with provocative comments and actions, then suddenly stepping back. When you feel that their emotions are engaged, that their frustration and anger are mounting, you can speed up the tempo of your maneuvers. Properly set up, your opponents will leap onto the island and strand themselves, giving you the easy victory.

NO. 71. THE VICTORY IN THE MIDST OF A HUNDRED ENEMIES

To priest Yozan, the 28th teacher at Enkakuji, came for an interview a samurai named Ryozan, who practised Zen. The teacher said: "You are going into the bath-tub, stark naked without a stitch on. Now a hundred enemies in armour, with bows and swords, appear all around you. How will you meet them? Will you crawl before them and beg for mercy? Will you show your warrior birth by dying in combat against them? Or does a man of the Way get some special holy grace?" Ryozan said, "Let me win without surrendering and without fighting."

Test

Caught in the midst of the hundred enemies, how will you manage to win without surrendering and without fighting?

AMURAI
Z
EN
: T
HE
W
ARRIOR
K
OANS
,
T
REVOR
L
EGGETT
, 1985

Authority: Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.... Nearly all the battle swhich are regarded as masterpieces of the military art...have been battles of maneuver in which very often the enemy has found himself defeated by some novel expedient or device, some queer, swift, unexpected thrust or stratagem. In such battles the losses of the victors have been small.

--
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

REVERSAL