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 Dotty enjoys the company of an older man, while dreaming of young bucks... and no, this is not turning into "The Story of O"....
Recently between my hundred percent Egyptian cotton sheets I have been enjoying an elder statesman of film. Bill has worked with the best, the worst, and the shit. He has anecdotes coming out of his ears and boys, to take you through an anatomical diversion, the way to a woman’s pleasure bone is definitely through her funny bone, trust me. If a man can make you laugh he is mere inches away from making you do something else. I am a great one for anecdotes, but given my twisted nature I am more often found by the hearth in my flat spinning tales of cinematic horror than humour. But dear William has a way of making the most terrifying of the levels of development hell sound like a four ring circus. His career has taken in Newman, Redford, Zanuck, and Kasdan. And there is definitely something to be said for experience in a man. Usually it’s a word made up totally of vowels.
But as I dally with this older man, script doctor by trade, renowned for his ability to assess a film and save it, and the studio along with it, I have begun to muse on a dichotomy. I love dichotomies (big word, look it up). A meeting of opposites can only result in that most delicious of happenings, friction. When two worlds meet only one of them is getting out alive. So while I take William Goldman to bed with me, in book form of course (catching up yet?), by day I am hunting down the freshest of film’s fruits. Kelly, Marber, and Anderson fill my days at the moment with adorable picnics of delicacies, days out at the circus and sweet sorrows. There will come a time when these young bucks of the fourth wall will overcome my admiration for William and co. There will be a showdown at the Okay Corral and the last man standing will have my favour. But will he be old school, or new kid on the block? These thoughts came to me as I attended a talk by John Truby. Another doctor by trade, he makes more of an appearance on the lecture circuit than William Goldman, and seems to earn his living charging substantial amounts to tell you that the three act structure is bunkum and that only his writing tools can get you that kidney shaped swimming pool with matching babes in the LA suburb of your choice. We are all aware that there is an industry around the industry, that on the periphery of the world of actually making things, “production”, there is the world of talking about making things or “bullshit” as I like to call it. But why, if we have to pay, why do we listen to these old boys who grew up watching the days of TV when it was Cowboys v. Indians for half an hour straight and the closest they got to narrative was on the stage? Now, I love William, and I respect his work but maybe it is time to pay Richard Kelly, Patrick Marber and Wes Anderson to share their insights. But then of course they do not need to. Because they can afford the kidney swimming pool without touring, without telling us how they wrote Donnie D or the Royal Tenenbaums. Because they are out there “doing it” and not just talking about it. Of course your realise that. The kids at the talk certainly knew that. They even asked Truby that most sharp edged of questions, “What have you written lately?” and he stuttered into recall of films from the eighties he had doodled on. None of you are stupid; I would not be spending my time on you if you were. But still, there is this persistent need to spend money on books, on courses, on people who have “names”. And because X took the course and made Y film, it must be a good course. Have you not thought that maybe X made Y because he worked bloody hard and had a truck load of talent? So I may take William into my bed on a long lonely night to amuse me and keep me stimulated, but I know better than to assume that he can be my sugar daddy and transform me into the doyenne of the film world that I know I can be. I can only do that myself by blood sweat and tears, the real cocktail of the rich and famous. Dotty S. Parker’s course on writing the super dooper script will run on the 1st April for the bargain price of only £699 + VAT. Book your place now! Time for more twisted anecdotes. As mentioned I am often to be found by my open fireplace in my flat with my too few good friends (the ones who knew me before the money, and the ones who know me now and never ask for it) sharing tales of the unexpected, the unexplained and the down right horrific. Lately the topic has turned to work experience. Almost everyone in this industry has a tale of working for peanuts and doing a job a trained monkey could do (though they would demand far more nuts). I am lucky in that I managed to work out my “apprentice period” in the gin joints of LA where a shimmy could get you more brownie points than bringing the producer his latte. But for the majority it seems expected that you will pay your dues like some convict given hard labour. Want to be a director? Go make the tea. Want to be a producer? Tea again. Want to write? Write me a list of all the varieties of tea us more important people require. Besides the fact that should the tea crop fail the British Film Industry would go under (again), why is it that we take turns in inflicting hardships on those coming up? Because we suffered trying to make it we feel it necessary to put those young upstarts in their place. For example, I share with you, like a storyteller of old, the silent horror of the development runner who was asked to measure her producer’s flat for the interior designer. Or the runner who arranged skips, paid parking fees and generally ran the life of his boss who was too busy to make his own decision. Or the thousands of runners in London whose sole usefulness is in saving their bosses the expense of paying for real couriers with real dredds and real wounds from encounters with cars. Go to Soho on any given week day and you will easily spot the kid with the script under one arm, the producer’s holiday snaps under the other and a cappuccino from Bar Italia balanced on his head. It occurs to me that this internship lark is fuelled by fear. Fear that the younger, smarter face that greets you every morning is going to be a bigger success than you if given half the chance. It’s the fear of the Trubys of the Andersons, the old stags beating down the young bucks before their antlers are even fully grown. So they give them but a quarter of a chance, pay them less than they need for the tube fare each week, demand the ridiculous and make them sweat. And these are the very same young bucks who will then pay through the nose to see the old men tell them how to write a script. Save your money for scripts from the Cinema Store, and tube tickets, and read and read and read as fat, sweaty men take up all the seats. You will learn more, and look more interesting on the tube in the morning and may end up chatting to some cutie in marketing who will follow you home and put a smile on your face as William does on mine.
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