"Even [George] Lucas's friends were dismayed, watching the first Star Wars rough cut. Granted, there were no opticals, no music, and most of the special effects were missing--Lucas had spliced in black-and-white World War II gun-camera footage to stand for the X-fighter action. The room was silent when it was over. Lucas was worried only kids would want to see it. Marcia [his wife] began to cry. De Palma was merciless, out of control: 'What's this Farts of Others? And the crawl at the beginning looks like it was written on a driveway. It goes on forever. It's gibberish. The first act, where are we? Who are those fuzzy guys? Who are these guys dress up like the Tin Men from Oz? What kind of move are you making here?' Only Spielberg understood it, calling Ladd Jr. later that night and predicting an enormous hit. He named the highest figure he could imagine--$35 million in rentals."-- from "What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting," by Marc Norman
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Scott, do you ever worry you'll go TOO FAR into the story? And what happens if you can't get out the other side?
Rhetorical question the Spinx might ask should he or she (I'm not sure what sex this creature is so I'll leave that open) should the Spinx ever vist this blogspot.
Oh, sure, you can go too far. Just watch Fax Bahr & George Hickenlooper's brilliant documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse", which showed how 'lost' in the story Francis Ford Coppola got when writing and directing Apocalypse Now. Of course, I suppose you could argue that he never would have created that amazing movie had he not gone too far into the story, but he was probably one millimeter away from losing his sanity.
The reason I continually urge writers to dig deeper into their characters and go further into their stories is because most of the scripts I read just aren't all that good. If the concept or the writing sucks, that's one thing. But if the idea is great, the characters have the earmarks for being interesting, and the plot has possibilities, and the script doesn't succeed because the writer didn't go into the story deep enough, well... that's when it's a real shame.
Yes, a writer can go too far into the story. But 90% of the time, the problem is reverse: They don't go into story far enough.
Another great doc re: one man's quest to tell a story, is LOST IN LA MANCHA...
Hearts of Darkness will always hold a special place in my heart and should be required viewing for all filmmakers. It is a must see, and should be considered a compendium to Apoc Now... Thankfully, Francis finally released it on dvd last year.
My question is re: this post. Who is being quoted here? Certainly not Marc Norman... but who is telling the Star Wars story? And what is De Palma referencing with the "Farts of Others"? Did he mistake the "FORCE" as Farts?
I've been meaning to read Norman's book and following these last several anecdotes, I'm sold -- will be picking up a copy.
Ryan, the excerpt is on P. 403-404 and evidently the De Palma quote comes from the book "Easy Riders," by Peter Biskind (P. 334), per Norman's notes at the end of the book.
BTW, one of the values of Norman's book is the bibliography, an incredible resource for primary sources about movies and screenwriting.
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