Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman

Author:William Goldman [Goldman, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Film & Video, Nonfiction, Performing Arts, Retail
ISBN: 0375703195
Google: eHgpAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00GVZMYVG
Barnesnoble: B00GVZMYVG
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2013-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

I just saw The Matrix, which has the best special effects I’ve ever seen, and one of the things I wondered was this: How long will they hold? How long before they look just as dated as King Kong seems to us today?

A friend of mine just saw, on television and for the very first time, Titanic. And are you shocked if I tell you he was disappointed? I don’t think you can see Titanic anywhere today and have it work as it once did. (I know, I know, the talk scenes were an embarrassment.) But when I went, just after it opened, I was surprised and moved by the last forty minutes. It was this very troubled movie that turned out well. Now, with all the hype and honors, I wonder. We know too much about it—how they did the effects, what a miserable shoot it was, how cute Leo is, what an asshole James Cameron turned out to be—anyway, I think its time is over, in the sense of surprise.

And I wonder about these two movies in the same way. Towne thinks if Faye Dunaway had had sex with her pop, John Huston, today they would end up on Oprah Winfrey, or, if Oprah wouldn’t have them, then Geraldo. Towne feels there is so little shame in our world now, it damages the possibility of drama at this level.

Take Littleton, an uncontested nightmare, but is it any more lunatic than the fact that several of the networks sent out press releases afterward proudly announcing their rise in ratings since they started covering the massacre?

What’s so awful about this is that people are taking the insanity for granted.

A news event like Littleton, well, of course, that must be written about. What is so terrible is that after the news has been given, after all the pictures shown, they keep on showing them again and again. OJ, Di, Monica. Katie flies out for the interviews and Diane sheds such tears and Reba flies out—first telling the world what she is doing—to sing “Amazing Grace” at the second funeral.

Hey, what about the dead kids, anybody give a shit about them?

And I assume you must be wondering, Why am I telling you all this? I guess the answer is, I wonder if it is affecting screenwriting. Is the second-rateness of the world right now going to drag us storytellers down?

The answer is, I don’t know, but I do know we have to try harder. It’s easier, as the audience dumbs down and expects less, to be satisfied with less than our best work.

I hope Towne is wrong in his feelings about our lack of shame. When I look at this great scene, when I feel the awful pain of the Dunaway character looking at Nicholson and saying, after the revelation, “My father and I, understand, or is it too tough for you?”

Or is it too tough for you? Those words still echo inside me every time I watch the scene, and I

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