Point and Shoot, FL (YU)—Brenda
and I watched Payback this
afternoon. The Director’s Cut: Straight Up.
She stayed home sick from work today.
Then we watched the extra features.
Brian Helgeland talked about his vision of the picture, how the studio tested it, and asked him to change it, to make it more accessible, and how, when he wouldn’t do it, they fired him, took the movie away from him, and let somebody else do it.
Mel Gibson was the producer. He got to explain why he sided with the studio.
Helgeland said he could understand the studio’s point of view. It wasn’t that he thought his version was a masterpiece, or refused to go along, so much as he couldn’t do it. He didn’t see the movie any way but the way he had done it. Which was true to his conception of the character Parker in the book by Richard Stark, The Hunter.
I had seen the theatrical release, with the new material, with Kris Kristofferson. But I don’t remember it. Just that it was more violent and bleak than the movie we saw today.
I ordered the theatrical release. We’ll watch it and compare the two.
But I am proud of Helgeland for sticking to his guns.
I liked the director’s cut.
Why wouldn’t it be better. He was the writer.
How did he get a chance to remake the movie, after seven years?
Well, he went on to write L. A. Confidential, Man On Fire, and The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3.
That gives you a set of bona fides.
He also wrote one with Keath Ledger (A Knight’s Tale) and Robin Hood, which has just been released.
But he seems like a person who knows his business.
Before Payback he had written Conspiracy Theory, directed by Richard Donner, who gave him his chance.
It’s nice to hear about a guy who gets a chance and does something with it. Doesn’t choke up.
It’s nice to hear about a guy who is ordered to water down his vision, and can’t do it, and is given a chance, later, to restore his vision. And does it.
Hubba hubba hubba, baby.
Also on the extra features was an interview with Donald Westlake.
He said that at the time he wrote the first Richard Stark book he had a publisher, and a contract, and he wrote a book a year for them.
He said the
conventional wisdom at the time, in publishing, was that women bought hardback
books and men bought paperbacks, and his hardback publisher didn’t want to
publish more than one Donald Westlake hardback book a year.
His agent sent it to Gold Medal. They were the top of the line.
They turned the book down.
Then the agent tried Pocket Books. The agent there, Bucklyn Moon, said “I like it. Can you let him live and give me three more of these books a year?”
In an interview
with Ed Gorman,
People who used to read now go to spas and
watch shows on television like those advertised by CBS during the Superbowl.
And you know what is next?
The Olympics.
I don’t like The Olympics.
I guess I’m out of step with my fellow
Americans.
I don’t like the commercials in the
Superbowl.
Or the halftime show. Or the pregame show.
How long is the pregame show? Eight hours?
All day?
You can read a lot of books if you don’t
watch telelvision so much. If you don’t
watch so much television.
To me, the American Dream is in meltdown.
I think watching television instead of
reading books has something to do with it.
I think the conventional wisdom in
publishing has something to do with it.
The conventional wisdom in movies, too.
The business majors run things and they
don’t know what they’re doing.
They’re looking for something to copy.
If it’s original, they want to smash it in
the face.
They want to spit on it.
I spit on your grave. I kill you, then I spit on your grave.