Which Lie Did I Tell? (27 page)
Read Which Lie Did I Tell? Online
Authors: William Goldman
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Film & Video, #Nonfiction, #Performing Arts, #Retail
Why do I think Bergman’s so great? Five reasons.
1. Because he is.
2. Because I think Chekhov is
the
playwright of the last hundred years and Bergman works the same side of the street. Heartbreaking, sure, but sometimes laughter. Funny/sad. Think it’s easy? Good luck.
3. Because I just spent a weekend looking at five flicks
—The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Winter Light, Through a Glass Darkly.
Sure, there is the occasional tendency to want to jump out the window, but once you get past that, you enter his world. He takes you places you’ve never been, never knew existed, and you know you’ll never be quite the same after.
4. I wrote a line for Butch once when they are in
South America and Sundance wonders what they are going to do if the Superposse keeps on tracking them: “We’ll outlast the bastards.”
Hollywood is so full of short-time wonders. Welles and Sturges, and all these other great talents who got sucked up by their own egos, began to think they knew what they were doing. Welles worked for decades, but his great work lasted really two years,
Kane
and
Ambersons.
Sturges was around for close to twenty, but there is only real quality for five.
Bergman is not your everyday flash in the pan. He was at it in ’44, was still great
forty
years later with his last masterpiece,
Fanny and Alexander.
For me, that’s a career. (Oh, he’s still at it. His latest screenplay just went into production.)
5. But all of the above reasons are nothing compared to the one thing that sets him apart from all the rest
—Ingmar slugged a critic.
I don’t remember all the details but I’m sure I didn’t make this up—I mean I have no thoughts that Frederico biffed the guy from
Il Mundo.
Here’s what I’m pretty sure happened.
In Sweden, Ingmar is at least as famous for his stage work as for his flicks. He was rehearsing a play one afternoon when a critic wanders in—a guy who had hammered our hero on more than one occasion.
Anyway, Ingmar sees him, temporarily stops rehearsal, leaves the stage, chases the critic up the aisle into the lobby, and
clocks the mother.
Yessss!
Think Orson or Hitch could do that?
William Wordsworth? Listen now with great care, as I recite it to you again. And pay complete
attention to the simple word “oh.” I should tell you this: it comes at the end of the third line, and it is entirely surrounded by commas, one follows the preceding word, “grave,” the next following the crucial “oh” itself.
have
to land on it hard. Now think. What is Wordsworth doing? First, of course, he is making us aware of the depth of his pain. And
oh.
And
oh
…!
to control the reader’s eye
.
in an attempt to make the reader hear
our
voice.
do we understand this
?
the bell rings
)
I tried very hard to make that as interesting for you to read as I could. I put in stuff about how I’m handsomer than Cary Grant, how I’m so charming you want to throw up, all to keep you going. And I believe entirely in the central
notion that Wordsworth did control our eye, which is what screenwriters want to do.
I said at the start it was reality, and I tried to make that as true as I could. It might be a college class somewhere. When I write a movie, I see every cut. I think we all do, and if we don’t, I think we all should. When I wrote “fade in on” a classroom, I didn’t describe it, but I could have, I kept a couple from my past in my head. I see the desk and me standing there and the students.
And I try to imagine that I am sitting there in the theater, watching.
Do you know what you would have done if you had,
in reality,
sat through a scene like that? Do you realize the pain you would feel? You would have been groaning. You would have thought some terrible trick was being played on you. That scene runs
three and a half minutes.
I was at the
Mount Kenya Safari Club years ago, late afternoon, gorgeous sunset, perfect beauty and silence, which is what you go there for—
—when suddenly this awful drumming began and I looked out to see the next cabin, where twenty Africans in native costume were banging away and chanting—and I realized some asshole must have paid them to do that, and maybe the people in the next cabin enjoyed it—
—me, I thought it was the worst practical joke ever. That’s what you would have thought if you’d been in a theater and this awful droning about Wordsworth went on. You might have thought someone was trying to drive you mad.
I hope we understand this by now: movies have nothing to do with reality.
But that scene has enough dramatic material to make a valid movie scene. Here is how you would do it:
Fifteen seconds. Do you have the requisite information? Think so. Were you bored? Shouldn’t have been. We are, at this moment, at something I have written about before and you know all about anyway, but since it is one of
the
crucial facts of our work, I’m going to put it in very large type.
This has been about
entering late.
We must enter all scenes as late as possible.
We must enter our story as late as possible.
Why?
Because of the camera.
Because of the speed.
I cannot think of exceptions. Not in proper screenwriting.
The story I used here could make, in the hands of a skilled novelist, an engrossing piece of work. It could be comic—the silly old fart forgetting his years. It could be heartbreaking—that’s so easy I won’t even bother.
And this could be the first page of a novel. Or it could come fifty pages in or a hundred and fifty. That is the decision the novelist must make. He does not have the camera literally looking over his shoulder.
He is the camera.
You could do endless stuff on the professor, his coming to grips with a failed life, his loveless, or glorious, marriage, doesn’t matter,
he
could still feel failed. You could do endless stuff with the girl. Maybe she has always been a hunk, maybe her father could not keep his hands off her, maybe her father was a saint who protected her from the potential evils of the world so when she saw this Cary Grant of a professor, she couldn’t help falling for him.
Maybe she’s a young
Glenn Close, nutty as hell, who has hated the wife for years and has set out to destroy her and she ain’t pregnant at all. Or maybe she is pregnant, but it’s not the professor’s child.
Any way you want to take this, feel free. And feel free to take all the time you want to develop whatever story you decide to tell.
But not in a screenplay.
There is no time in a screenplay.
Do you want to read a piece of
great
screenwriting? Not mine, alas. It comes from the mind of
Raymond Chandler.
Do you understand that? You must understand
why that is great.
With that shot, you know
everything.
You know it’s a crappy marriage, you know he wants better, you know there is sexual energy in that rising room now.
And you can do that in what, ten seconds?
That scene could be entered a minute before, with the married couple in the lobby, either bickering or staring daggers at each other.
Or a day or a month later.
Don’t need it. Let Chandler show you the way.
Enuf, for the nonce, on this. (See “viz.”)
You know all the nutty stuff people find on the Net? Here are two that were sent to me yesterday, one related to what we’re doing, one not, but I love the “not” so much I have to tell you. Also, I’m getting carried away on this point, never the best thing to do.
Okay. This is from a supposed U.S. Government Peace Corps manual. It is given to volunteers who work in the Amazon jungle. It tells what to do if an anaconda attacks you. In case you don’t know much about them, maybe this will help: they are the largest snakes in the world, they can grow to thirty-five feet, can weigh four hundred pounds.
This is what the manual said:
1. If you are attacked by an anaconda, do not run. The snake is faster than you are.
2. Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against your sides, your legs tight against one another.
3. Tuck your chin in.
4. The snake will come and begin to nudge and climb over your body.
5.
Do not panic.
6. After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from the feet. Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles.
Do not panic!
7. The snake will now begin to suck your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still.
This will take a long time.
8. When the snake has reached your knees, slowly and with as little movement as possible, reach down, take your knife and very gently slide it into the snake’s mouth between the edge of its mouth and your leg. Then suddenly rip upwards, severing the snake’s head.
9. Be sure you have your knife.
10. Be sure your knife is sharp.
I guess I could relate this to screenwriting. My question would be this: How do you do that and not make it a comedy scene? I mean, do you have the volunteers reading it aloud? How, without laughing?
When you’ve got the answer, I’d sure like to know about it.
The next e-mail is just for us. Pay close attention.
Ten Things We’d Never Know Without the Movies
1.
It is always possible to park opposite the building you are visiting.
2.
When paying for a taxi, don’t look at your wallet as you take out a bill—just grab one at random and hand it over, it will always be the exact fare.
3.
Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at the precise moment that it’s aired.
4.
It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending a telephone conversation.
5.
Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paperclip in seconds—unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child inside.
6.
The ventilating system of any building is the perfect hiding place no one will ever think of finding you in and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.
7.
All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they are going to go off.
8.
Should you want to pass yourself off as a German
officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language—a German accent will do.
9.
Once applied, lipstick will never rub off—even while scuba diving.
And my favorite
10.
You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.
Pretty neat, I thought, And there is one crucial point about all ten, and while you are pondering just what it might be, a story. Concerning number 3, about TV news always affecting you personally.
That actually happened once. To someone I know. Here it is:
Almost thirty years ago now, two young actors were in their twenties. Their names were
Penny Marshall and Rob Reiner and they were both on TV shows.
Huge
hit TV shows. (Think
Seinfeld
and
Friends
today.) Rob was Meathead on
All in the Family,
she Laverne in
Laverne and Shirley.
They met. And the Gods smiled down. They fell in love. And got married. And were just so happy. But the home they were living in was not to their liking, nothing ever got finished, the place was a mess.
They went to New York to star in a TV movie Rob wrote,
More Than Friends.
They would be gone little more than a week.