A TWO-SIDED COIN

The neighborhood theaters and comedy venues of my youth sold iconoclasm, and so attracted those of that bent; that would be me. How grateful was I? How grateful was the closeted mid-century lone homosexual of Birch Falls, Idaho, who discovered Fire Island? That lucky fellow wasn’t ever going “home.” Me neither.

The Theater, and my first decades in Film, had no downside. I’d found a meritocracy that appreciated what I had not ever realized were skills. Who wouldn’t work, work being more fun than fun?^I

Work and talent (and luck) are a good recipe for success, which breeds isolation, and for prosperity, which both encourages luxury and requires either financial sagacity (a rare extra talent in the artist) or the aid of Advisors and Managers, these professions attractive (inter alia) to toadies, parasites, and thieves. The stories abound.

Not only does this turn into that over time, it is the definition of time.

The “support positions” listed above could also be described, by the dyspeptic, as parasitical. But all life is parasitical, in that it lives off other life. “Scout” can mean either to investigate or to avoid, and growth means progression toward death.

But on my side of the fence I must shake my head at the support positions sheltering those who, though they have a right to live, could perhaps employ that right other than in fucking up my films.

Some contemporary wildlife biologists hold that it’s the hyenas who pull down the prey, and the Lazy Lions who chase them off to snack on it. The horror of parasites is that their successes lead to increased breeding, which must lead to a depletion of the host mechanisms, and then what do the poor parasites do? Starved and confused, they will be prey to some new Masters called into being by the abundant free lunch. (See films advertising twenty producers.)

A grand artifact of the nineties is the good news/bad news jokes. Good news: your teeth are fine; bad news: your gums will have to come out. The joke seems to be a recognition of a philosophic truth. The Jews understand that the Good News is the Bad News. For Good News (prosperity, success, or safety) will attract the notice of the Cossacks. The nonreligious understanding is, curiously, more metaphysical. Jews do not fear the notice of God in success—we understand God as one who desperately wants us to do well. We just fear humans.

Sailors, actors, and filmmakers—we insulate ourselves against a Greater Power by superstitious practice. We fear, not God, but the previous holders of the position: the gods. I will not venture near the edge by naming them here—the Greeks called them the Honored Ones; they are those who are summoned not by the enjoyment but by the announcement of Good Fortune.

There I was in London, directing my play Bitter Wheat, starring John Malkovich as the Weinstein-Inspired Mogul. We’d just missed each other in Chicago. His Steppenwolf Theatre took over the space of our St. Nicholas when Macy and I went to New York. We’d never worked together, and I don’t think we’d ever met. But he signed on to play the part in the West End, and I was happy as a clam.

There we were, in his dressing room, in previews, discussing various aspects of the production and our hopes for the run. I noted that, frequently, I was knocking on wood, and that he was, at the same points, doing the same. I was told by an Old Jew that it is a plea, through the True Cross, for the intercession of Jesus. I continued it anyway, as I can use all the help I can get.

I flew to Miami Beach in 2002 to talk to Denzel Washington. He’d read my script for Spartan, a paramilitary thriller, and asked me to come by and talk. At the end of the evening, he said that, yes, he’d be glad to play the lead. But that he might have an idea or two, and would I be open to hearing them. “Of course,” I said. “I need all the help I can get.” This last was delivered rather slurred because of too much liquid cheer. And off I staggered.

The next day Denzel’s agent informed me that he had changed his mind. I understood. We were Two Guys talking, about a Job, and then I’d cracked out of turn. It was not that I’d said I needed all the help I could get; it was that it wasn’t true. I was then no longer a filmmaker but a dread sycophant, to whom he, rightly, shouldn’t trust his time.

The good news is that I went on to make Spartan with Val Kilmer, who was magnificent, and a treat; and Denzel, in its stead, made Man on Fire, a smashing film by Tony Scott, whose ending I fixed, while watching it on DVD.^II

1. I. Noël Coward.
2. II. In the film’s final sequence, Denzel, a bodyguard, goes to ransom the child kidnapped under his care. He is shot at the beginning of the sequence but continues onto the bridge to complete the transfer. He negotiates to trade himself—that is, his life—for the return of the girl. She runs to her mom, Radha Mitchell, and Denzel is driven off to his death by the kidnappers. But as he was already dying at the beginning of the transfer, his self-sacrifice is moot.

   They missed a beat, as Denzel might have agreed to trade his life for that of the kid while planning to escape. We might wonder at his easy acquiescence, and then realize that he is about to FOOL them. Aha, and well in line with his resourcefulness. THEN, his plan goes bad—he gets shot and must actually give up his life in order to save the little girl. But everyone’s a critic.

   We all make mistakes. Billy Wilder said that every director leaves the set thinking, on his way home, “Now I know how to direct that scene today.” Warners made the funniest cartoons of all time. Chief among them was the Road Runner. The only dialogue involved was the hero’s “Beep Beep.” Late in the run someone decided that Wile E. Coyote should talk. The cartoon was ruined, as we are saddened by his newfound ability.