I have a desert-island obsession. These myths are buried deep within us: Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson and so on. I read a review of John Treherne’s book and thought, “What an extraordinary story.” A nymphomaniac baroness, an American millionaire in his white yacht, the mad German philosopher who swaps partners; the ingredients intrigued me. And at this stage in my screenwriting, I was thinking about optioning books to give myself more independence. The book had in fact been optioned by Nic Roeg and the option had lapsed, so I took it over and wrote a script, then set about seeing if I could find a producer and director. It eventually wound up at Working Title, and Tim Bevan and Mel Smith were hugely taken with it. We worked on it for a long time and they spent a lot of money—Mel had even done location recces in Australia—and then it all fell apart because of the nature of the material. It revived with Sarah Radclyffe as producer, but by then the PolyGram writing was on the wall, and because I’d signed no contract and received no money, I was able to take the book and script away and live to fight another day. I occasionally think about directing it, because it’s been on the go since 1985, but again it’s an adaptation, and something makes me think that any films I direct will be original.
Have you learned anything from writing these original screenplays for yourself to direct which you can bring to bear on writing adaptations for other people?
I really don’t know. I’m reluctant to create rules like, “If you’re writing a scene and it’s seven pages long and it isn’t over yet then you’re in trouble,” because in fact you may not be. Or to insist, “Don’t put in any camera moves,” because camera moves might actually be useful. But I’m now much more aware of the issue, “Is this going to be a problem to shoot?” When I was writing for other people, that was their problem not mine. Take a dinner-party scene, for example, with ten people chattering away around a table. There’s really only a bog-standard way of filming that kind of scene, and because I know how long it takes and how much coverage you have to shoot and how it still looks like a bunch of people talking at a table, I now think, “Maybe this scene shouldn’t take place at a dinner party after all. Maybe it would be more interesting if they were walking through a park.” It’s not going to justify the sheer effort of shooting it, because you can do it in a more elegant or intriguing way. If you look at the opening of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino set himself exactly that problem and obviously thought, “To hell with this,” and got someone to walk round and round with a steadicam. If you weren’t in shot when you were talking and he didn’t have coverage for it, so what? It’s actually quite a good way of shooting a lot of people talking at a table, although you may find when you come to cut it that a really crucial line is masked by somebody’s head, whereas if you’d storyboarded it and shot it from five or six different static positions you’d have got your coverage. The directorial influence makes itself felt more in the details than the big picture. Some establishing shots are key, for example, but do you really need to see people arriving in their cars and unlocking their front doors? You know you’ll cut that during editing, so why write it in the first place? Unless you happen to be Michael Mann and have seven cameras running simultaneously, there’s no interesting way of shooting someone arriving home. So maybe a better way of writing a scene like that is to have someone inside the house hearing the car pull up, followed by the driver bursting through the front door. Everyone will be able to envisage what happened outside. That sort of writing decision is all as a result of having stood behind a camera.
The vast majority of your scripts are adaptations. Do you think that Hollywood somehow perceives British screenwriters as more literary?
I think that’s a fair point. Maybe the classic serial generates that feeling. Masterpiece Theatre is hugely popular in America. But I also think it’s an industry-wide taste—or problem. For every original script commissioned there are four or five adaptations. Again, it’s driven by this fear of failure: “It’s a really successful book. Let’s make it into a movie.” The art of film is not best served by constantly doing adaptations, because of the problems inherent in shifting from one form to the other. It’s like putting pop songs on soundtracks. Isn’t it better to have a proper score? Isn’t that what film music is all about? It’s not about taking ten hit records and sticking them on so you get a great CD. Similarly, I feel, in a vaguely purist way, that film is best served if the script was always destined to be a film.
Which, looking at your filmography, is rather ironic.
That’s my point. That’s the nature of the beast. I bet most screenwriters would rather write something based on their own ideas than on this best-selling novel or that work of non-fiction. It’s not just books; they’re adapting TV shows, comic strips, other films. Traffic is an adaptation of a British television series. That’s why, in any scriptography, there will always be three to one in favour of adaptations. I was quite lucky that the first two scripts I did were original scripts. I think you have to separate adaptations and original scripts, because there are totally different sets of mental gears engaged in producing them.
How quickly did you adapt to writing scripts?
You can learn the grammar of a screenplay incredibly quickly. That’s why there are so many screenwriters out there. Any resting actor can produce a screenplay which looks exactly like a Robert Towne screenplay in terms of format but ultimately you have to fall back on whatever storytelling ability you have. You also have to understand what you can do with film and what you can’t. You’d have to be a very talented director, for example, to make a forty-five-page dialogue scene work. My advice to aspiring screenwriters is that if you see a film you really like, get hold of the screenplay and read it watching the movie simultaneously, with the remote control close at hand. You begin to understand the rhythms and cadences of film. Why is this scene so arresting? Stop. Rewind. Look again. Because you’re hearing this person talking, but you’re actually seeing the other person listening. And you realize it’s much more powerful that way. You learn.
Though that might not be written down.
It’s surprising how much is written down. I know, having directed myself, that you do a master shot and close-ups and reverses so that you can cut it any way you want. But if, for example, one character is announcing the news of the other character’s wife’s infidelity, then you will often write in the script, “Hold on a big close-up of John.” That’s simple storytelling. It’s more important to see John’s reaction than it is to see Fred speaking the words. And if you, the writer, think the moment should be played that way, then you haven’t even got a chance of getting it done like that if you don’t write it down. The rule of thumb is: if you want it in the film, make sure it’s in the script. Of course, stuff that’s in the script often doesn’t get shot, which is particularly galling for the writer. You come to the editing stage and say, “Where’s that close shot of Sally turning round as he walks off?” “Oh, we never did it.” “But it’s on page forty-three.” “Well, we were pressed for time.” But a good film writer will put these shots in, all the same.
Or not, depending on the advice you listen to. Aspiring screenwriters are often told precisely the opposite: the fewer camera directions the better.
In fact, the first screenplays I read were by Harold Pinter, who’s extremely sparing with directions, so my first screenplays were similarly spare. I don’t think William Goldman even puts scene headings in, it’s just “Cut to …” But there are moments where a scene has no dialogue so you have to write directions, and you would be better off writing them in a way that you think they would be well shot.
Of course, a script—particularly a spec script—isn’t simply a blueprint for a film, it’s also a sales tool for a project, so it has to be as readable as it is shootable. For example, directions in parentheses to indicate how the dialogue should be spoken.
It’s called “grandstanding” in Hollywood. When I was writing for Universal and Warner it was understood that this kind of thing wou
ld go in. It makes an easier read for overtaxed executives, because you’re telling them what the emotion is and they don’t have to deduce whether a character is happy or sad. Now, because I’ve worked more with actors and I understand an actor’s take on a script, I tend to strip that stuff away. Actors hate things like, “Ted (with a thin smile),” because you’re saying, “This is how I want you to act it.” But if you’re writing a film for a Hollywood studio you write it in a different way. A script has to be so many things in its life, and is going to be read by so many people who have a vested interest in saying no, that you want to give it your best shot—and there are all sorts of ways you can garnish it so it seems user-friendly. Hollywood is very conventional, in its own way. They want the script to be presented in the right typeface—Courier—to be printed on the right paper—American letter-size is not the same as our A4—and to be bound with three clips—brass not silver—else they’ll say, “Foreign,” and throw it away. British screenwriters who take their scripts down to Kall Kwik and get a plastic binding are handicapping themselves. When I was writing a lot in Hollywood, I used to buy great stacks of American paper and brass clips precisely so that it “looked right.”
You also get the impression from screenwriting manuals that if the spec writer doesn’t place the heroine in jeopardy on page twenty then the executives aren’t going to read any more of the script. Or even that much.
And not just spec writers. As a gun-for-hire screenwriter you can find yourself having to do things which you regard as mind-bogglingly stupid to satisfy some berk at the studio. In my opinion, these screenwriting courses are designed so executives can come back from them and say knowing things to writers about “character arcs” and “three-act structure.” It’s just jargon, really. Why not have a five-act structure, like Shakespeare? I don’t know any screenwriter who doesn’t regard these courses as laughable, but they have to take the jargon on board because they know they’ll go into meetings with people who’ll be spouting it. Fundamentally, all these decisions are to do with telling a story. Does the story demand that the heroine should be in jeopardy after twenty minutes? That’s the only true criterion.
Do you have a rigid writing routine?
I do for writing novels. I have the same approach for screenwriting, to a degree, in that I spend a long time figuring everything out before I start. That’s true whether it’s an adaptation or an original. As a rule, I make notes and draw diagrams and do scene lists, so that when I sit down to write the script I have the whole thing planned. From page one, I know exactly how it’s going to end. Then I write the first draft as quickly as possible, which may only take two or three weeks, because compared to a novel a screenplay is so short. There are maybe 10,000 words in a screenplay: a couple of chapters, if that. And then I can look at the 110 pages and reorder them and fiddle around with them. That’s where the similarity ends, in a way, because the script is now at a stage to show people and talk about. It’s unfinished in the sense of, “Who’s going to direct it?” or, “Who’s going to put money into it?” You know that there’s going to be more changes required, so you consciously don’t make it word perfect.
Though you have said that the first draft should be fairly close to the final draft.
I think so. You shouldn’t submit a first draft which wouldn’t make a perfectly good film. There are always changes—often nothing to do with the story but to do with the input you get from the producer and the director and the actors—but if in a parallel universe the film company said, “We’ll make this,” the draft which you present should be the film which you want, not just something “along the right lines.” Then, if you’re going to make changes, they’re usually not substantial. One of my working maxims is, “All intelligent suggestions gratefully received,” but if you present something which is polished then it has to be really quite a bright idea for you to say, “Actually, you’re right.” If somebody says, “I don’t like the ending,” you say, “Why? Come up with a better one.” That sort of script note drives you mad: “I just feel the character of Julie isn’t sufficiently developed.” “Really? In what particular areas? Because I think she’s pretty damn developed.” There’s an endless process of tinkering required as the various investors are given notes by their script readers, and one of the main attractions of being a writer-director is that you can say, “The director is very happy with this script as it stands.” But if you’re working with people you’re sympathetic with, that process is mostly beneficial. We did a lot of work on Armadillo before we submitted it to the BBC, so the notes which came back were pretty valid—or else we had cogent counter-arguments if we thought that some suggestion was a mistake.
When you choose to adapt something or are offered something to adapt, do you respond to the material in an emotional or an intellectual way?
I suspect the two are related. If a story appeals to me, it’s bound to have things in common with the stories I write myself, to a greater or lesser degree. As a novelist you always write the books that you would like to read yourself, so that feeling probably governs your choice of commissioned work too: “I wouldn’t mind seeing this movie.” I don’t think I would write a horror film, for example, because I don’t particularly enjoy that genre, but there are all sorts of other genres I would tackle. You might not think I’d like to write a Western, but I’ve got this very dark Western in mind. Your choice is shaped by your own tastes and inclinations, and if you’re not intrigued or stimulated then sure as hell the work you do is going to be similarly lacklustre.
2001
The Trench
The First-time Film Director: An A-Z
Anxiety. No, let’s not beat about the bush, high anxiety. It is 6.30 in the morning, early in November 1998, and I am being driven down the M4 towards Bray Studios, near Windsor, where, in an hour or so, we will begin filming my first film as director, The Trench. What am I thinking about? The first shot? No. I spent two months last summer storyboard-ing the entire film. I have planned every single shot—from the bravura to the minuscule—the film demands. So why am I so nervous? Maybe because I am starting, the new boy, and everybody else, who is hugely experienced, will be watching to see what I do and how I perform. I feel the indigestion mount and suck on a mint. I sense the worry in me course through my body like a bacillus, curdling my blood.
Blood is one of the easiest things to arrange on a filmset. The Trench is a war movie, about forty-eight hours in the life of very young soldiers waiting to go over the top before the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Despite this we don’t have much call on blood. Annie Buchanan, our make-up supremo, has gallons. Sometimes we just need a dribble but for one scene we need masses. Annie and her assistants come in with a lapping baby bath full of the stuff and buckets of what looks like the sweepings from an abattoir. I want this particular scene to shock, I want to see, literally, blood and guts. As the butcher meat begins to be strewn around I wonder if I have gone too far. Too late. The die is cast.
The cast is very young, eighteen-, nineteen-year-olds, most in their early twenties. We forget how young soldiers are and there is no disguising a genuinely youthful face, that innocent incongruity beneath a tin helmet. I ask one actor what he is doing after the film and he tells me he is going back to school. At rehearsals they are polite but guarded, as if curious to see how I will set about directing.
Directing struck me as a major challenge, despite the fact that I had written eight scripts that were turned into films and had hung around a lot, asking questions and undergoing, I suppose, a kind of education. David Mamet said that all the first-time director has to do is show up and be civil. I think it’s a little more stressful than that. The key thing, it seems to me, is to know exactly what you want (even if it is hugely ambitious). If you know what you want to do, then at least you can answer the several hundred questions that come your way each day. I was massively, preposterously overprepared: working on the theory that in order to catch me out you’d have to get up exceptionally early
.
Early rises are a nightmare, especially for the lazy, spoilt, self-indulgent novelist. I used to wake up at 5.30 each morning, go through the day ahead, and record into a dictaphone the events of the day before (this turned out to be the most turgidly boring journal ever). At about 6.15, the car was there and I was ready for some food.
Food is another filming problem. The key aim is to keep your weight-gain under a stone. Food is constantly available: bacon butties, sausage butties, biscuits, coffee for days, lunch, sandwiches, Mars bars, more coffee, more sandwiches. I had the same lunch every day for six weeks—baked potato and baked beans—it was the only way I could keep control of the waistline (it’s a very high-fibre meal), the only way I could keep a grip.
Our grip was called Dave Appleby, whom everyone called Applebox, for some reason. The grip pushes the dolly—a little wheeled cart-thing—that the camera is mounted on. Our dolly, however, had a socking great crane and a remote control camera dangling from it so we could weave through the trenches as if a disembodied spirit. We asked Dave Applebox to do some highly complicated manoeuvres. He didn’t turn a hair.
Haircuts in 1916, by one of the cyclical accidents of history, bore a remarkable resemblance to haircuts in 1998: very short back and sides, very short on top. I have a photograph of a World War One soldier with a mohican—he could be in Vietnam. We had our actors’ hair cut to the bone every week. They looked good in their uniforms; in their civilian clothes the shorn look gave them a kind of innocence.
Innocence seems to me the abiding feature of the Battle of the Somme, and its sibling, Ignorance. The war had been going on for two years yet everyone—from the generals to the private soldiers—thought the battle would be a walkover. They thought the week-long barrage before it started would kill every German soldier opposite. They didn’t know the Germans could descend to deep concrete dugouts and sit the barrage out. If you had said to a British Tommy, on the eve of the battle, that the Germans were just sitting there, waiting, he’d have thought you were joking.