One tradition my husband and I share: Tuesday is date night, which usually means going to the movies.
This is both work and play for me. Whereas the cinephile in me revels in the art of film making as a collaboration between writer, director and actors, the novelist in me is analyzing the story, the characters, and the dialogue. Film is a visual medium, where as the novel is not. But a good novelist strives to create scenes which come alive in the mind of the reader.
Last week, we had the pleasure of seeing Ruby Sparks, a film written and acted by Zoe Kazan, and also starring her real life boyfriend, acclaimed actor Paul Dano. Fabulous! I highly recommend it. In fact, I’ve put a clip of it below, so that you’ll get a taste of it.
Her hero is a novelist whose first book, written when he was a boy wonder of nineteen, has won him accolades from critics who compare him to J.D. Salinger, and a legion of fans who have been salivating for his follow-up effort. His sophomore slump has lasted ten years, and counting. Upon the suggestion of his therapist, he puts down on paper a fantasized vision of his dream girl. Soon he is obsessed with her—so much so, that she comes to life….literally, not figuratively.
Great concept, with a super execution by a spot on cast.
As a novelist, I’m always intrigued with how my profession is portrayed onscreen. As for Ruby Sparks, here’s what it gets right:
Writer’s block happens to the best of us. It can happen after your first book, your fifth, or your fiftieth. It can happen if you’re a best-seller, or a mid-lister.
And yes, sometimes our characters become so real to us that we can touch and hear them; that we fall in love with them; that we mourn them when it is time to move on.
Here’s what it gets wrong:
These days, no one who writes full-time for a living does so on a typewriter. Why do screenwriters always put one on a novelist’s desk. They don’t get it: we’re just like them. Yeah, I get it: a vintage Oliveira on a rustic desk is the fantasy. But the reality is this: We are professionals, not hobbyists. That said, we have tools of the trade, which allow us to be efficient at our craft. We prefer state-of-the-art computers with software that allows us to save and edit, without grinding a red pencil to a stub, or filling a trash bin with crumpled paper. (Just don’t look in the trash bin of my Word program.)
There are so many good—and bad—movies about novelists. Here are five others I also enjoyed. Maybe you have, too:
Misery
(Starring James Caan and Kathy Bates; based on the novel by Stephen King.)
During a snowstorm, a best-selling author crashes his car on a deserted country road, breaking both his legs. The loner who finds him happens to be a woman who claims to be his “number one fan.” She proves it by holding him prisoner until he writes a novel which will bring back her favorite character, whom he’d killed off in his last novel. Even after he’s done so, he realizes her goal is to keep him here for life, or kill him if he tries to leave
What it gets right:
Yep, it’s flattering when a reader tells you, “I’m your number one fan!” It’s also freaky when a fan imposes on you. It’s downright scary when you have a stalker.
Word of advice to readers: never walk up to an author with a mallet. We’ve all read Misery or seen the movie, and we’ve got the exits covered.
What it gets wrong:
There’s an easier way to kill an author. Enough bad reviews do it every time.
Midnight in Paris
(Starring Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.)
While bored on a trip to Paris with his girlfriend and her parents, a screenwriter partakes in blasts from the past with his favorite celebrated and long-deceased authors, who encourage him to believe in his own novel.
What it gets right:
We all want to write in a Paris, spending our days scribbling away in an atelier with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and our nights partying with Hemingway and Fitzgerald. And hell yeah, we’d all wish we had Gertrude Stein as a crit partner.
What it gets wrong:
While it’s true that everyone wants to write a book, for the life of me I can’t understand this desire coming from successful screenwriters, especially those who can afford to stay in Paris at the Ritz, or the Hotel de Crillon, or the Georges V. For the most part, unless you’re already proven bestseller or have already sold a bazillion copies of your break-out self-pub’ed eBook, book advances are piddly—especially when you compare them to WGA-mandated screenwriting fees.
If I made that kind of money, I’d be seeing ghosts in Paris, too. And in Malibu—and in a style in which I could grow accustomed to, quite quickly.
Wonder Boys
(Starring Michael Douglas. Based on the novel by Michael Chabon.)
A professor whose debut novel was a success seven years ago can’t seem to shake his writer’s block. But that’s not the worst of his problems. All in the same day, his wife walks out on him, his mistress (who is also the chancellor of the college) tells him she’s pregnant, and he gets embroiled in a robbery committed by one of his students: another “author prodigy.”
What it gets right:
Novelists get writer’s block. We are petrified that our next book won’t be as good as our last. Heck, we are scared out of our gourds that we don’t have another book in us! And yes, we love to hang with other writers because we know they are going through the same angst. At least, we’ll hang with those who admit this. We grouse about the ones who act as if writing is as easy to them as taking a crap. Makes the rest of us feel constipated.
What it gets wrong:
Very few male writers look like Michael Douglas. However, many—even the fugly ones—can be just as much of a horndog douche.
The Shining
(Starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Based on a novel by Stephen King.)
Jack, a novelist, takes a job as a caretaker of a empty, (and haunted) hotel in the frigid off-season, bringing with him his wife, Wendy, and young son, Danny. The kid, who is psychic, witnesses the ghosts in the moment of their horror. The father whose just another author with writer’s block, succumbs to the supernatural darkness around him by becoming psycho.
What it gets right:
It does justice to Stephen King’s novel. The first time I saw this movie I was so scared that I had to tear my eyes from the screen and look at the curtains surrounding it, in order to convince myself that, yes, I was in a movie theater, and not in the movie, being washed away by the wave blood flowing out of the elevator.
What it gets wrong:
When writers are blocked, they don’t write REⱭЯUM REⱭЯUM REⱭЯUM REⱭЯUM REⱭЯUM a bazillion times. We just grab an ax and hit our computers with it. (Notice I wrote “computer” as opposed to vintage Oliveira typewriter.)
Iris
(Starring Dame Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, and Jim Broadbent.)
The movie chronicles the life of prolific novelist and essayist Iris Murdoch, intercutting her early adult years as novelist in the throes of success, and her end of life battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
What it gets right:
We who put words on a page need only one tool for this: our minds. Should that go, so does our craft, our livelihood, our identity.
What it gets wrong:
Nothing. As heartbreaking as it is to watch on screen (especially when acted out by the incomparable Dame Judi Dench), life as we know it is a mixed bag. Sadly, we can’t all die comfortably in our sleep, holding the one we love most, just like in The Notebook.
Come to think of it, The Notebook was also about an aging woman with Alzheimer’s. Why can’t we live forever?
In a way, we do: through our novels.
What movie do you feel best portrays novelists, and why?
Comment below for a chance to win a digital Kindle eBook copy of The Housewife Assassin’s Guide to Gracious Killing.
(release date: October, 2012)Bonus points for not using one of these for an example!
* Photo above is from the official “Ruby Sparks” movie/Fox Searchlight press kit.
