August = Movie Lists!

[malsperanza]

The movie "Factotum" has just opened, and I am looking forward to seeing it. But it does bring up that perennial question of movies about writers: how to depict the Writer at Work in a way that is, er, cinematic. Many a good director has crashed and sunk on this iceberg. And that's partly due to the large number of movies about Writers at Work. Was discussing this the other day with friends--especially the subgenre of films about Writers Going Insane at Work.

They pointed out that about 50% of the movies on that topic are from Stephen King stories; King does seem to be obsessed with the idea, but only the heroism of Stanley Kubrick and the desperation of studio execs would make anyone imagine that it's cinematically compelling to show an author at a typewriter or laptop, typing. Yet movies about writers keep getting made.

And this is ironic because, of course, the books aren't exactly getting published at a great rate, which is one reason the writers go insane: the sheer accumulation of rejection letters is itself an iceberg.

So, kids, how many movies can you think of with scenes of the Writer at Work?

The Shining
Buncha other Stephen King movies, whose titles I forget
Barfly
Naked Lunch
Barton Fink
Amadeus
All the President's Men

There are lots of older ones too--movies from the 1950s & 1960s--but none comes to mind offhand. Feel free to add to the list.

How many of these depict the Great and Mysterious Act of Creation as a guy cackling or frowning at a keyboard while a montage of pages flies by, and/or words float and flicker above his head like ghosties? Although I like all these movies a lot (except Amadeus, which is dreck), the depiction of the guy at the keyboard is just not very satisfying, except on the one occasion when the keyboard turns into a giant cockaroach.

So, flist, a summer challenge: How would you depict the Writer at Work in a way that is cinematically compelling?

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Jane Fonda, playing Lillian Hellman in "Julia," chain-smokes and throws pieces of paper into a wastebasket. Frankly, this was enough to convince me that there's no damn point at all in trying to depict the act of writing.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Now, if she had puffed smoke rings in the shape of sentences, *that* would have been worth watching!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Paris When It Sizzles (http://imdb.com/title/tt0058453/) and the remake I didn't see, Alex & Emma (http://imdb.com/title/tt0318283/) solve the problem of making an entire movie about the process of writing a novel by dramatizing the scenes as they go along. I think this is the process I like the best.

Coal Miner's Daugher and Walk the Line show the "real life situations" that are behind the songs and then usually show someone picking vaguely at a piano or guitar and stopping often to write down lyrics, which strikes me as rather silly.

And then there are the flying numbers of A Beautiful Mind which is akin to the act of creation, as well.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Beware the Flying Numbers! That's as bad as calendar pages flipping off the wall to depict The Passage of Time.

Man, I want someone to make a movie that uses every frigging one of these gimmicks.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually, this was one of the things I liked about Factotum--I believed in the writer. Mostly he's scribbling on yellow legal pads.

I recently saw another movie with a writer...damn, what was it called? It was a British horror movie from the 60s that had a few different stories in it. One of it was about a guy who was a writer and his story seemed to sort of come to life.

I guess I'd also add "This Boy's Life" and probably "Basketball Diaries," though I never saw that one.

Oh--and Capote.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

How do they handle showing the writer at work? The only one of these I've seen is Capote, and IIRC we never actually see him writing--we see him interviewing and talking. But maybe I'm blanking out those scenes of Truman hunched over the Underwood...?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I believe there is one small scene where Capote is typing-he gets a phone call during it, I think. There may be a few more scenes where he's typing in hotel rooms. I might also add the scene where he's reading the column about the murders in the paper and clearly Getting His Idea.

I remember in "This Boy's Life" there are scenes of him sending out a story in a manilla envelope--wait, I'm wrong. It's not a story. They may never show him writing!

I've heard in Basketball Diaries he's shown scribbling in a notebook.

The writer in the British film I just remember being at his desk in front of the window, I think smoking and typing, and the villain from his story appeared outside.

I believe I, Claudius shows him writing on his parchment, though that's not a movie.