But I have changed them about the presentational style. Then and now, I haven’t changed my opinions about that. So much of the writing that was generally praised inside the business seemed to me soft and vastly overrated - vastly oversentimental. Written in a whole different way than standard format (laconic, elliptical, suggestive rather than explicit, bold in the implied editorial style), I thought Alex’s script was a perfect compliment to the material, hard, tough, and smart - my absolute ideals then. Alex’s script just knocked me out (not easy to do) it was both playable and literary. Mine were tighter and terser than the average, but I was still working with the industry template and not too happy about it. “Anyway, by now I’d been making a living as a screenwriter for maybe two or three years and had gotten to the point where I was dissatisfied with the standard form scripts were written in - they just all seemed to be a kind of subliterary blueprint for shooting a picture and generally had no personal voice. This was about the time he was doing The Seven-Ups (1973). Alex then very graciously gave me a copy of the script. Anyway, a mutual friend told Alex how much I admired Point Blank and John Boorman. This is not the norm in Hollywood where effusiveness is generally a given. ![]() I have always had difficulty being complimentary to people whose work I admire, when face-to-face with them. This revelation came about despite a character flaw of mine. He was a friend (wonderful guy, looked like a pirate, funny and crazy). I was able to make a living at it right away.” ON WHERE HE DEVELOPED HIS UNIQUE SCREENWRITING STYLE “Alex Jacob’s script of Point Blank (1967) was a revelation. Funny thing, once I was able to finish a script. My big problem was finishing - I must’ve written twenty-five first acts - abandon and move on, abandon and move on. Being a sick child means that you are fantastically spoiled - which of course I love - and was excellent preparation for Hollywood.” ON HOW HE LEARNED SCREENWRITING “The usual story - read a lot of scripts, saw every possible movie. Both had great mechanical ability, I had none. My father and his father were my great heroes, smart, physical men who worked with their heads and their hands. I never liked kid fiction much, read adult novels at a very early age, never much liked kid movies either. ![]() This left me with a lot of time alone - daydreaming, reading, listening to radio serials I was devoted to comic books. I was asthmatic as a kid, several years of school interrupted. I admit to a somewhat juvenile sensibility, with an emphasis on physical heroics. There are the mysteries of the head and heart. ON WHERE HIS FILM SENSIBILITIES CAME FROM “I have no idea. Here are some excerpts from the interview with Walter Hill. I strongly recommend the Backstory book series, interviews conducted and edited by Patrick McGilligan. In the book, “Backstory 4, the fourth in a wonderful series featuring interviews with screenwriters from the 1930s through the 1990s, Hill has a lengthy interview with some fantastic insights into Hollywood and screenwriting as a craft. Noted for his distinctive approach to writing - he describes it as “haiku style” - Hill has written or directed numerous movies including The Getaway (1972), The Warriors (1979), Alien (1979), uncredited, 48 Hours (1982), and Aliens (1986). We’ve discussed writer-director Walter Hill previously here and here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |