Now, the first part of the movie, then, is always taken up with the gathering of the accomplices. Here is a list of some of the people he might go after:
(1) an architectural freak who specializes in castles and has blueprints of the entire six-hundred-room edifice, down to secret passages, if any
(2) an embittered ex-guard who was fired from the castle and wants revenge; what he supplies is total knowledge of when shifts change, etc., etc.
(3) a beautiful girl who will have an assignation with the head of security for the castle so he won't be around when all hell breaks loose
(4) an explosives genius who can detonate a series of blasts to serve as cover
(5) a whiz at burglar alarms so that wires can be cut at the precise second of the raid
(6) the world's greatest driver who will handle the business of the getaway car.
There are half a dozen more possibilities, but these six will do. Newman will conscript them, train them, practice the plan to perfection.
Since we've all seen this kind of thing so often, I won't go on. But it's safe to say the rest of the movie will be the execution of the plan and mishaps that occur before Newman is triumphant.
I don't know about you, but I buy this picture if it's skillfully made. It may not be real as my world is, but for me it's totally believable.
Now let me suggest a different plan--or rather, no plan at all. Newman just decides to go in and get to the fabulous woman.
So, early one morning in daylight, he scales the wall of the castle. Just decides to go up and over.
Not so smart.
But what if he's not only dumb, he's unlucky: A guard sees him climbing the castle wall. And this guard quickly passes the word to the very central control room of the castle, where another guard receives the message.
Only he doesn't do anything with the information, this guard in the control center. Doesn't act on it in any way at all.
Now back to Newman. He's scaled the wall, but since he didn't do any preparation, he doesn't know where the hell his quarry is, the rich and famous lady. So he walks around the entire castle, poking here and there.
And no one, not a single guard, spots him. (I think, by this time, you might have left your seat for the candy counter.)
Newman finds an open window. He climbs in--
--and sets off an alarm. Only no one pays any attention to it.
He finds the doors to the room locked, so now Newman goes back outside and shinnies up a drainpipe to the second floor. He's looking for another unlocked window.
Here comes a maid. She unlocks a window and leaves. Newman crawls inside. This time, he finds himself in a room where the doors are unlocked, so he opens one and enters the castle itself.
Since, as already stated, he hasn't any notion of the setup of the castle, he starts to kind of idly wander around. (By this time you are back from the candy counter and, I think, you are either laughing or starting to get ticked off at the insult to your intelligence that is taking place on the silver screen.)
Newman keeps on wandering, here, there, following one corridor into another. People see him, castle employees. They don't think much of it, maybe some of them nod to him as he meanders around.
Fifteen minutes later Newman stumbles totally by accident on to the quarters of the rich and powerful woman he is trying to see.
But, of course, she is always guarded.
Only now she isn't, because as Newman arrives, the guard decides it's time to walk the dogs of the rich lady. He goes off with the dogs to watch them pee.
At the same time, the rich lady's maids decide it's time to clean another part of the castle, so they go. (If you had eggs in your hands, my guess is that by now you would be throwing them at the screen.)
At last, Newman opens the rich lady's door and there she is, snoozing in bed. He opens the curtains to her suite. She wakes, quickly buzzes for help--
--only no one hears. This lady's got an elaborate buzzer system, but when she needs it, no one's minding the store.
Newman is now face-to-face with the richest and most famous woman in the world--mission accomplished.
The truth now: Have you ever heard anything so totally unbelievable?
Well, it happened: That's exactly how Michael Fagan paid his little visit on the Queen of England in Buckingham Palace not long ago.
Of course it's unbelievable--but it's also real. It makes fabulous newspaper reading. But it has nothing to do with proper movie storytelling, and true as it may be, if you handed it in as a screenplay, you would find yourself thrown out without ceremony as a very uninventive writer of fantasy.
My problems in dealing with a sequence for A Bridge Too Far had nothing to do with fantasy; I was trying to describe an event that a great British combat general referred to as "the single most heroic action of the war."
The action involved a river crossing.
The most effective way to capture a bridge is to attack both ends at once: This divides the enemies' resources and generally initiates panic and confusion. The bridge in question, a gigantic structure, was being attacked by Allied forces at one end only, and the Germans were so deeply entrenched that no advance was possible.
So a plan was initiated to send a group of men in boats, under cover of night, across this wide, swirling river, to the other end of the bridge, behind the Germans.
The boats were to be loaded with combat troops and rowed across where the troops would get off and the boats would return to the Allied side, where more men--a second wave--would get in and row across and join the fighting.
The plan developed logistical problems, the boats didn't arrive in time for the night crossing, so it was now to be done in daylight. And when the boats finally arrived, they turned out to be dangerously flimsy--plywood bottoms and canvas sides and there was a shortage of oars.
Now, the first wave had one thing going for it: smoke cover. A barrage of tank fire was to lay down a giant smoke screen to help the men get across. Major Julian Cook was to lead the first wave (Robert Redford played the part in the film), and when the boats were finally assembled and dragged to the water and the men began to row, something terrible happened: A wind came up.
And it blew away the smoke-screen cover.
So there they were, in these tiny boats, on this vast river, heading into God only knew what. It didn't take long to find out: The Germans were ready and considerable carnage followed. But Cook led his charge and a lot of men died, but he got across and the boats returned and took the second wave across and eventually, with both sides of the bridge being attacked simultaneously, the Germans were defeated.
I think there is no question that we are dealing with valor here of a very high order when we discuss Cook's crossing--
--but that was not what the British general was referring to as "the single most heroic action of the war."
He meant the second wave. Sure, the first wave was a tremendous undertaking. But they didn't know that the Germans would be waiting for them and they thought they had smoke cover.
The second wave, standing there, watching it all, knew when their turn came they were going to get slaughtered. But when the boats returned, they got right in and rowed into the bloodbath.
If you saw the movie you saw Redford leading his men, and it was a splendid piece of action. But you did not see the second wave--
--because even though it was true, I didn't know how to make it believable.
Look, when John Wayne is in a movie, he doesn't arrive at the Alamo the day after the fighting. He is there, superhuman, beating up on as many Mexicans as the budget will allow for.
I didn't have John Wayne but I had Robert Redford and the same logic holds. The star must be in the center of the action.
I could have written a scene involving the second wave of men waiting their turn. And one of them could have said, "Boy, what those guys are going through is no picnic, but they didn't know what they were dealing with; we know, and that means our job is going
to require much more bravery."
And the audience wouldn't have believed it, not for one minute. What's so brave about standing around on a riverbank, safe and unfired upon, when your buddies are out there in the middle, getting shelled to death? And what's the star supposed to be doing during all this, besides maybe running up and down the embankment, shouting encouragement--"Row, you guys, we're coming."
Some star. That's the Elisha Cook, Jr., part.
I tried as hard as I knew to use the second wave, but I failed. The single most heroic action of the war, and I couldn't figure out how to include it. The moral I guess is this: Truth is terrific, reality is even better, but believability is best of all.
Because without it, truth and reality go right out the window....
Enduring
I personally do not believe that you can tell if a movie is "good" or "bad" when it comes out. All you can be sure of is this: Does it "work" or not? For audiences.
Perhaps it was possible once to make a sound judgment as to quality. But now, with the enormous amounts of money spent on advertising, with the unending "hype" that accompanies each release, the film itself becomes obscured.
As an example of what I mean, I'd like to discuss the Best Picture race for the Oscars of 1976. Understand this about the Oscars: You may think the program is silly or long or whatever, but Out There they care about it. They take it seriously and no one has the least idea who'll win. When I was researching this book, I asked everybody whom they were voting for, and truly everyone said the same thing: "Chariots of Fire, but it hasn't got a chance."
Understand this, too: That nervous guy who is giving an acceptance speech for Best Black and White Short Subject, that guy whom you are hooting at in the safety of your living room as he rambles tortuously on, thanking his mother and his first-grade teacher who introduced him to the wonders of film--he may seem like a jerk to you, but you are very likely watching the high point of his life.
The '77 race was touted as being a toss-up between two films, Rocky and All the President's Men.
And it seemed to me absolutely certain that President's Men had to win. For the following reasons:
(1) It was wonderfully reviewed.
(2) More important than that, it did business.
(3) More important than that, it was a Significant picture. No less acute observer of American politics than then Governor Reagan of California said he thought the movie eventually cost Gerald Ford the presidency against Jimmy Carter, because the film's release in April of '76 and its long run flushed to the surface again all the realities of Watergate that the Republicans had tried so hard to bury. We are talking then about a movie that may be one of the few that just might have changed the entire course of American history.
Rocky got the award.
Impossible to say why, but the following reasons may have relevance:
(1) It was well reviewed--but not as well as President's Men: I don't know that Canby of the Times ever wrote a worse notice than the one he gave Rocky.
(2) More important than that, it did spectacular business, millions more than President's Men.
(3) More important than that, perhaps more important than anything, was this: Rocky satisfied the most basic Hollywood dream--dreams can come true.
If we sit on the right drugstore stool at the right time, as Lana Turner supposedly did, Fame will find us. Sylvester Stallone's phenomenal emergence from obscurity with a picture that he invented and starred in was too much for the voters to resist. They gave their hearts to Stallone and their votes to his picture.
This is all hypothetical, remember, but I think if the same vote were taken today with the same people voting, Rocky wouldn't stand a chance.
Why?
Impossible to say for sure, but following Rocky, Stallone went through a period of public misbehavior; a certain arrogance showed in his interviews and personal appearances. In other words, he wasn't the sweet, humble guy whom the publicists had going around saying earlier, "The story of the movie is the story of my life."
Also this: Rocky won three awards and was nominated for a bunch more. Rocky II, which also did fabulous business and got decent reviews, didn't gain a single Academy nomination.
Granted, it's a sequel. But Godfather won the Oscar in '73 and its sequel did the same thing a couple of years later--and it got more nominations than the first one did.
Rocky today is sort of in the same genre as the James Bond movies, popular films but not prizewinners. So am I saying if the vote were taken today that All the President's Men would win?
Not at all: Today I think the votes would go to Taxi Driver, the third film up that year.
Why?
Again, impossible to say for sure. Taxi Driver was well received back then, and it did business, too--but my guess is that the Academy was made uncomfortable by the violence.
Today, with the Hinckley madness all around us, with poor Jodie Foster being always in the press, that violence of Taxi Driver has a terrifying ring of truth.
I would bet anything on Taxi Driver today.
But not three years down the line. Because television is going through a wild upheaval; they are doing incredible things to try and get ratings. Cable has the networks panicked. (A recent show that never got aired was a cinema verite notion about divorce. There were actually ads in L.A. papers for couples going through divorce proceedings. The idea of the show was that they would simply have their divorce on the tube, all the fighting and hatred would pour into our living rooms. We could be voyeurs, comfy and warm, seeing other people's real anguish for free. As I said, this divorce show didn't make it--
--or at least, it hasn't made it yet.)
I'm guessing that in 1985 or so, Network, Paddy Chayefsky's apocalyptic view of the battle for ratings, and the fourth picture up that year, would take it all. It's feeling less and less apocalyptic all the time.
But so is Bound for Glory, the fifth and final contender back in '77. It dealt with the Great Depression, not such close reality back five years ago.
Today, though, the country is in economic chaos. No matter how hard the government tries to convince us that things aren't so bad and are getting better, we know things are that bad and are getting frighteningly worse.
And if the country continues its slide, I would guess that maybe by 1990, Bound for Glory will be the one they'll be studying in film schools.
Movies are not like vintage wines. If you drink, say, a '62 Lafite or a '68 BV Cabernet, and then you drink them each again five years later, of course they won't taste the same. Not only will you be different, older, in a different mood, perhaps in a different surrounding, but the wine is alive and constantly changing.
Movies are just these strips of celluloid running through a machine. If you can find an adequate print, The Great Train Robbery is exactly what it was when Porter directed it eighty years ago.
I am continually dumbfounded by the effects of time. I recently looked at three movies, one I saw alone, La Dolce Vita, and two accompanied by teen-agers: Star Wars and Bambi.
I was never crazy about Star Wars when it came out, but I loved the excitement of the audience reaction. This time, the audience reaction was actually this: embarrassment.
The young people I saw it with thought it was corny and badly acted, but their embarrassment was because this was the same movie they had gone berserk over, seeing it again and again, just five years before.
Bambi, of course, was an (ugh) Disney film. Disney films don't have the hold they once did; in point of fact, most kids avoid them.
Bambi took all of our heads off. Because, primarily, they don't make movies like that anymore--animation stinks these days because of costs. It's all jerky and when the mouths move they don't coincide with the words and the color is bland. My guess is that Bambi works better now than it did when it came out in 1942, and I think it's only going to improve as the quality of animation continues to deteriorate.
La Dolce Vita I suppose surprised me the mo
st. Fellini of that period, before his excesses took over almost totally, is for me, along with Bergman, the great director of my time. And La Dolce Vita was, when I first saw it, a masterpiece.
Now it doesn't work at all--I wanted to hide my head during some of it. It's still the same technical achievement. But the subject matter of the movie--the wild, shocking, debauched Rome of the sixties--well, today it's no more shocking than Captain Kangaroo.
None of this is to indicate that (a) I'm remotely correct in my judgment or (b) if I see it again twenty years from now I won't find it a masterpiece again.
Not only is my judgment always suspect, my whole point here about the effects of time is open to question.
The New York Times, for example, recently ran a long article about how special effects were changing movies. One of their points was that special effects can overwhelm a film. Essential beyond all else, they said, was not the visual show but the story.
To prove that point they picked a couple of classics that endure because of story line. One of the movies was Bambi, forty years young. The other was E. T., which, at the time of the article, had been released for twenty-two days. I don't mind anybody raving over E. T.
But before we start praising a movie for it's endurance, I think we ought to wait till it's been around at least a month....
The Ecology of Hollywood
(or, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Gunga Din)
Hollywood has never been short of boy wonders.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz received his first Oscar nomination when he was twenty-one years old. Stanley Donen was twenty-four when he co-directed On the Town. Most notable, I suppose, is Orson Welles, who received four nominations for Citizen Kane, a feat never accomplished up to that time. Welles was twenty-five.
But nothing in memory comes close to the dominance of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Both are extraordinarily talented, have been working successfully for a decade or more, and are still in their thirties. And when I say "dominance," consider this: Lucas and Spielberg have been crucial to the five most successful pictures in history.