And Reynolds, in the four years he's been at the top, is only Reynolds when he can get his hands on the wheel of a car and have extraordinary adventures. When he acts an ordinary guy (Starting Over) or Cary Grant (Rough Cut, Paternity), forget it.
One final extreme example: In the four years of his self-imposed retirement, Steve McQueen was getting unreal offers. A million a week for three weeks in two different movies, back-to-back. Six million for a month and a half's work. He was the international star. Well, during that time he made one movie, An Enemy of the People--
--and no one would book it. (I think it tried a run somewhere--maybe Minneapolis--and expired before the first fortnight.)
The public didn't want McQueen in Ibsen, for chrissakes. They wanted bang-bang pictures, they had no interest in seeing him act.
I'm sure McQueen knew that before he started An Enemy of the People. Just as I'm sure Reynolds knows where his power lies. So why does he keep trying to expand his scope, why isn't he satisfied just doing Smokey?
I don't know Reynolds, but I've followed his career enough to be positive of this: He's serious. He got his first stage part in 1956 and was good enough a year later to get cast in a major revival of Mister Roberts at New York's City Center. And he was good enough a few years after that to get one of the top roles in Look, We've Come Through by Hugh Wheeler, a writer who was good enough to win not one but three Tony awards.
And look what Reynolds has been through. All those dreary tv series--Riverboat, Hawk, Dan August. And look at his earlier film doozies--Navajo Joe and Sam Whiskey and Shark! He was damn near two decades in the wilderness, doing crap because he had to; now, when he doesn't have to, why shouldn't he do what he pleases? (Why the studios continue to let him do what he pleases is a question we'll attack in the next section.)
So there is this strange "something," this nerve that is struck simultaneously in audiences all around the world. And when that happens, it's like discovering a vein of gold. Which is, of course, wonderful. But which also makes for a certain nervousness, because no one can predict the richness of the vein, or its breadth, or its depth, or when it will run dry....
So, with the major exception aside, stars are essentially meaningless. Studio executives know this--they know that the picture is the star.
But they are paying four million plus to Dustin Hoffman to appear in Tootsie. Of Hoffman's last three films, Agatha and Straight Time were disasters. The other was Kramer Vs. Kramer, for which he deserved every award he got. But don't tell me the picture would have stiffed if Redford or Nicholson had played the lead. The picture was the star. To repeat, studio executives know that to be true. They absolutely, positively, one hundred percent in their heart of hearts, in the dark nights of the souls, they know it.
They just don't believe it, that's all....
EDUCATION
Most stars don't have much formal education.
(I know this must seem a bizarre and unimportant grace note, but please bear with me because I'd like to persuade you otherwise.) I think Barbra Streisand finished high school. I'm not sure Hoffman or Minnelli did. I think Jane Fonda may have had a year of college, Redford the same or less, Beatty the same or less, Travolta the same or less, Nicholson the same or less, many more the same or less.
Now, this doesn't mean they're not bright. I've never met a star who wasn't clever and shrewd and loaded with more street smarts than I'll collect in a lifetime.
What it does mean is this: early entry.
And when you come into show business early, there is one simple truth that applies to one and all: The business takes over your life.
At a time when a nineteen-year-old may be trying to figure out Joyce's symbolism in a course in contemporary fiction, the nineteen-year-old performer is trying to figure out how to get in to see an agent. And so, more than likely, is everyone he knows.
And when this nineteen-year-old attends a dramatic event, he may actually be thinking about it--but usually what he's thinking is that great theatrical cliche: "I could have played that part."
Once you're in the business, it permeates your mind. So when our performer reads a script, what he thinks is "I'd be great here; and I'd kill 'em there; no, I don't want to play that scene the way it's written."
They are thinking of themselves in the part and how that part may work for them and what may be altered to make it work for them; because of early entry, that's mostly what they know.
How to make it work for them.
Which is not the same as how to make the project work as a whole. (Elizabeth Taylor was famous, at least in legend, for never reading an entire script, just her own lines. No one's had a more fabulous career; maybe she knew something the rest of us didn't.)
By now we're aware of the power of stars. The way that power most manifests itself is this: not in the material you see on screen (that's something the studio decides) but in the way that material is treated.
And I can give no better example of how that affects screenwriters than in discussing the movie that follows.
THE GREAT SANTINI
Speaking purely as a screenwriter, as someone who must deal with stars, no scene in recent years has rocked me as much as the basketball-playing scene in The Great Santini. I'll try and describe the lead-up to the scene, the sequence itself, and then why it took my head off.
The movie, written by Lewis John Carlino, from Pat Conroy's novel, starred Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, and Michael O'Keefe (and the work of those three--father, mother, and son--was world class). Duvall played the lead role, that of a great Marine fighter pilot whose name is Bull Meachum.
But it's 1962 and there are no wars to fight. The movie opens in Spain, where we see Meachum in action during air maneuvers, then watch him with his buddies, making a wonderful mess of a fancy restaurant.
Bull is sent home to a new assignment, and his family meets him at the airport. Danner, O'Keefe--a high school basketball player--and three smaller children. As they wait for the plane to taxi in, Danner admonishes the kids to wait for their father to come to them, because he'll probably hold inspection, but when he alights, his arms go wide and they bolt for him.
Which is not to say Bull isn't tough. The family drives to a new rented house, and there he harangues them to shape up, calls them hogs: "Listen, hogs--" is his standard family greeting. You sense he cares, but that's from inside the actor and the character, not from the lines.
Now Bull goes to his new post. We learn several things--chiefly, that he's been passed over for promotion and that his new boss, who has requested him, loathes him. But the superior officer wanted Bull for a reason: The Marine squadron is in rotten shape and he, the superior officer, has no intention of being passed over when his time for promotion comes. So Bull is to bring the squadron up to speed.
Bull meets the squadron and, in a brilliant speech, scares the crap out of them. He tells them, "I don't want you to consider me as just your commanding officer. I want you to look on me as if I was... well... God. If I say something, you pretend it was coming from the Burning Bush." He finishes off by saying, "You're flying with Bull Meachum now, and I kid you not, this is the eye of the storm."
Then comes the basketball scene.
It's in the backyard of the rented house, Blythe Danner and the three youngest are sitting happily around, watching Duvall and O'Keefe play a game of one-on-one, the first to score ten baskets wins. It's all very idyllic, the family happily cheering on the underdog son. O'Keefe and Duvall engage in a little taunting family banter, the kid has the ball. He fakes, shoots, and scores.
1-0, for the son.
Duvall takes the ball out, maneuvers, scores.
1-1 tie.
O'Keefe takes the ball out, puts on another move, slips past Duvall--and just as he goes up for the shot, Duvall shoves him against a fence. The family starts chanting "Dirty," but O'Keefe says "No foul." His shot has gone in in spite of Duvall's tactics.
The son is ahead of the father, 2-1.
Now there is a quick dissolve: We're later in the game.
It's 8-6, in favor of the father.
As he scores, Duvall shouts out, "All right, who's for me?" The answer is immediately evident: Everyone's rooting for the kid.
And tension is mounting.
Duvall's play, which has always been rough, is now far past that. This is combat, something he knows about. And he's winning.
And now, another dissolve.
The score is tied, 9-9.
Duvall takes the ball out. "Last shot of the game coming up," he says. He dribbles this way, that--
--and the kid steals the ball from him.
The boy bounces the ball, talking to the Bull. He says that none of the family has ever beaten him in anything, not checkers, not dominoes, not softball.
Don't goad him, the mother calls out to the son.
The boy still bounces the ball. He tries moving toward the basket, Duvall shoves him back. He tries another way, again he's shoved away. The rest of the kids are trying to cheer him on--
--and the kid fights off another illegal shove, shoots, scores.
Game over, 10-9, the son wins.
Duvall stands tossing the ball in frustration as his wife and kids rush to the boy, congratulating him. One daughter goes to Duvall and says, "You played a great game, Dad."
And Duvall says, "Get out of here before I knock every freckle off your face." Crushed, the girl bursts into tears and runs into the house.
Then Duvall says to his son that the game isn't over, you have to win by two baskets.
The kid says that those weren't the rules.
Duvall persists.
The kid is hesitant, willing to give in, but Blythe Danner goes to Duvall and says no, he beat you, don't try and cheat him out of it.
He throws the ball at her, tells her to shut up or he'll kick her butt.
Surprised, terribly hurt, she runs into the house too. Next he insults the remaining two small children and they take off.
The father and the son are alone on the court, facing each other, standing close. But the boy has changed his mind--he won't play on now, because his father has behaved so badly.
Duvall says, "Mama's boy, Mama's boy, bet you're gonna cry." And he takes the basketball and sharply bounces it against the kid's forehead, catches it, does it again, a third time, again and again, all the time saying, "Come on, let's see you cry, come on, cry."
The boy is deeply upset and he turns, walks past the father into the house. But Duvall follows him inside and then up the stairs. And all the time he's bouncing the ball against his son's head, going "One, two, three, cry. One, two, three, cry." And the first tosses, outside, were by no means love taps. But now he's really throwing hard, the ball careening against the back of the retreating boy's head. "One, two, three, cry."
Finally they're at the son's door. They face each other a moment. "You're my favorite daughter," Duvall says. "My sweetest little girl." The son finally explodes--"This 'little girl' just whipped you good, Colonel"--and hurries inside his room to be alone.
Obviously my retelling can't come close to conveying the power and brilliance of the scene. But please believe me, it was brilliant and moving, filled with the knowledge of family love, family frustration, hate, and the wisdom of showing the proximity of these moods, how the one seamlessly shifts into the other. And growing up and getting old, battles that can't be won or lost, only fought over and over till the grave.
I blessed Carlino and Conroy for their talents as writers and director, and I blessed Danner and O'Keefe for theirs as performers. But most of all, I blessed that great character actor, Robert Duvall. Because if you are a screenwriter, and you wrote this wonderful scene, there is one simple fact you must never forget--
--no major star would ever ever ever in this world play it.
Why?
Two reasons: One--the guy's a loser. And two--the guy's an unsympathetic son of a bitch after he's lost.
Now, I know and you know that the Duvall character is, if anything, heroic. And your heart breaks for him in the film. But we are not stars and stars don't think that way.
Oh, they wouldn't necessarily insist the scene be excised from the film. But what they would do is gently insist on a few teeny-weeny changes. Let's divide the scene into its two main actions: the game and its aftermath.
Taking the first. They would absolutely lose to the boy. But you'd have to add this kind of sequence before the game began.
CUT TO
DUVALL. He enters the living room of the house, basketball in hand. BLYTHE DANNER sits quietly in a chair.
DUVALL
Hey, Blythe, baby, I'm going to play our eldest a little one-on-one, come out and watch.
(she says nothing, instead stares quietly out the window, full of emotions)
What's up, hon? Something wrong?
DANNER
(her words come in a tormented burst)
Oh, Bobby, I'm so worried about the boy--he's got such potential, he could really be a wonderful athlete, but every time he gets into a school game, something holds him back.
(shaking her head)
The child just can't shake the feeling that he's not good enough.
DUVALL
That old inferiority, huh?
DANNER
I wonder sometimes if he'll ever lose it.
DUVALL
You think I'm too hard on him?
DANNER
No-no, you're a wonderful father.
DUVALL
Of course you know he's never beaten me
DANNER
And he never will.
DUVALL
(a long pause; then, meaningfully--)
Oh, I don't know about that, someday it's bound to happen.
(he reaches for her hand. She hesitates, takes it, smiles at him, and they go out to the court)
In other words, the star will lose if--big if--we know he could win if he wanted to. As long as he can wink at the audience and have them know his cock is still the biggest around, he'll lose, and gladly.
And he'll bounce the ball against the kid's head all you want. If you add a sequence before he does it that goes something like this:
CUT TO
DUVALL. He enters the kitchen after the game, pours himself some iced tea. BLYTHE DANNER stands quietly in a corner.
DUVALL
Some game the kid played, beating me like that, huh, Blythe? He'll be a whiz in his school games now for sure.
(she says nothing, instead stares quietly out the window)
Something wrong, hon?
DANNER
Oh, Bobby, I'm so worried about the boy--he keeps everything inside. He's all bottled up, afraid to express himself. There's a great human being locked inside, but I'm so frightened he'll never be able to show an emotion, anger, anything.
DUVALL
That old repression, huh?
DANNER
I wonder sometimes if he'll ever lose it.
DUVALL
You think I dominate him too much?
DANNER
No-no, you're a perfect father.
DUVALL
Of course, you know he's never lost his temper at me.
DANNER
And he never will.
DUVALL
(a long pause; then, meaningfully--)
Oh, I don't know about that, someday it's bound to happen.
(he puts his ice tea down, swats her on the fanny, and goes back out)
Now the star will go out and bounce the ball against the kid's head as long as you want. He'll beat the kid for hours if you want that too. He'll follow the kid up to his room, hurling the most vilifying remarks imaginable.
Because now we know he's still the same neat guy you loved on the Johnny Carson show. And when the kid finally yells at him, hey, terrific--we know he's only been mean for the boy's own good.
Here is one of the basic lessons a screenwriter must learn and live with: Stars will not play weak and
they will not play blemished, and you better know that now.
Sure, Brando and Pacino will play Mafia chieftains in The Godfather. But those are cute Mafia chieftains. They're only warring on bad Mafia guys and crooked cops; they're only trying to hold the family business together. Try asking a major star to play a real Mafia head, a man who makes his living off whores and child pornography, heroin and blood; sorry folks, those parts go to the character actors, or the has-beens. Or actors on the come who haven't yet achieved star status.
Of course De Niro will play a psychopath in Taxi Driver. Some psychopath--he risks his life trying to save the virtue of your everyday ordinary-looking child prostitute, Jodie Foster.
Lawrence Kasdan, Hollywood's hottest (The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and I think best (Body Heat) young screenwriter, had some wonderfully penetrating things to say in a recent interview:
If I thought that was all I could ever do and that I would constantly be turning over these works of love to other people and having them changed, I don't know how long I could do it....
... The movie comes out and there's the pain that your movie never got made; there's this other movie instead. But everyone says you wrote it, and they blame you for it anyway. So you're getting it from both sides, from inside and outside.
Clearly, that's true, but perhaps it doesn't go far enough. Look, we are wonders, those of us still left walking on the earth. We can create leaders ranging from Churchill to Attila, singers from Caruso to Florence Foster Jenkins, writers from Shakespeare to Beverly Aadland's mother.
In the world of the screenplay, not only are you terribly limited as to what subject matter is viable; your treatment of that subject matter is infinitely more restricted by the power of the star.