Alfred Hitchcock hired Raymond Chandler to write an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith’s novel Strangers on a Train.  Hitch didn’t like it and never used his draft.  Apparently he was fired after loudly commenting, as Hitchcock got into a car on the lot, “Look at that fat bastard trying to get out of his car.”

Chandler’s rage and righteous indignation is quite something, and will touch every writer and director who’s experienced their work being traduced in that sort of way:

December 6th, 1950

Dear Hitch,

In spite of your wide and generous disregard of my communications on the subject of the script of Strangers on a Train and your failure to make any comment on it, and in spite of not having heard a word from you since I began the writing of the actual screenplay—for all of which I might say I bear no malice, since this sort of procedure seems to be part of the standard Hollywood depravity—in spite of this and in spite of this extremely cumbersome sentence, I feel that I should, just for the record, pass you a few comments on what is termed the final script. I could understand your finding fault with my script in this or that way, thinking that such and such a scene was too long or such and such a mechanism was too awkward. I could understand you changing you mind about the things you specifically wanted, because some of such changes might have been imposed on you from without. What I cannot understand is your permitting a script which after all had some life and vitality to be reduced to such a flabby mass of clichés, a group of faceless characters, and the kind of dialogue every screen writer is taught not to write—the kind that says everything twice and leaves nothing to be implied by the actor or the camera. Of course you must have had your reasons but, to use a phrase once coined by Max Beerbohm, it would take a “far less brilliant mind than mine” to guess what they were. 

Regardless of whether or not my name appears on the screen among the credits, I’m not afraid that anybody will think I wrote this stuff. They’ll know damn well I didn’t. I shouldn’t have minded in the least if you had produced a better script—believe me. I shouldn’t. But if you wanted something written in skim milk, why on earth did you bother to come to me in the first place? What a waste of money! What a waste of time! It’s no answer to say that I was well paid. Nobody can be adequately paid for wasting his time. 

(Signed, ‘Raymond Chandler’)

ARTICLE ON ‘MANKIND - STORY OF ALL OF US’

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/commissioning/nutopia-lands-second-history-mega-doc/5036133.article

TEN TIPS FROM THE MASTER

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/12/the-terry-gilliam-school-of-film-10-lessons-for-directors-today/

ARTICLE ON THE SHOOTING OF STEPHEN HAWKING’ S UNIVERSE

http://www.arri.de/camera/digital_cameras/news.html?article=899&cHash=0ee675df258c5ae0c37d019fafe593d1

IN 1968, Jean-Luc Godard was invited to give a series of lectures at the BFI in London. A few days before he sent the following telegram: 

COLD WAR DESIGN

From a collection that can be found at 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bustbright/sets/72157612943324998/

I have felt that Charles Burns is one of our greatest living geniuses ever since I first came across his comics over 20 years ago. This is someone who *actually understands* what is going on.  If you haven’t read his masterpiece Black Hole then I’d recommend doing so as soon as possible.

There’s a retrospective to mark his work at the Comics Museum in Leuven, and here is a rare interview in which he talks about some of his work and influences.

http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/charles_burns2/

http://www.beeldbeeld.be/burns/galerie.php?l=nl

DIRECTORS ON DIRECTING

Includes a brief clip of me on set.

From the new Directors UK website, www.directors.uk.com

This is very good. And very funny:

So here’s the scenario. You’ve just been told you’re going to die from cancer in six months. As you sit down and consider what’s most important (family, friends, etc.) you realize that the one thing you want to do before you leave this earth is sell a screenplay. That’s been your dream. If you can pull that off, you’ll die a happy man/woman. But where do you begin? If it was easy, you would’ve done it by now, right? Well, amazing things can happen when you have a literal ticking time bomb lighting a fire under your ass. The main reason you haven’t sold a script yet is because you haven’t maximized your chances. You haven’t skewed all the odds in your favor. Remember, all you want to do is sell a script. It’s not about “art.” It’s not about “staying true to yourself.” You just want to sell a script. With that in mind, I’m going to lay out the most likely plan for achieving this goal. In other words, this is what I would do if I were you. 

Read on at:

http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/11/article-how-to-sell-script-in-six.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Scriptshadow+%28ScriptShadow%29&utm_content=Google+UK

I have a very specific technique that either you like or you hate as an actor: I try to do many different things with a scene. That means I might, if we have time, try to do the same scene in another tempo. Or, I’d say, “Just before you got to the castle you ran a cat over and you’re trying to hide this while you’re still in your wedding gear.” I get a lot of different material that I can later put together, so that I can achieve more life, so to speak. Because again, the imagination of the director and of the actors is limited compared to what you get if you try to access the scene from other angles, if you try not to think so much about what is “correct” in the psychological way. Life is so much richer than any theories you might have about it. So I’m trying to artificially build up some life by making stuff that doesn’t logically belong there. My experience tells me that women — female actors — are much more willing to go to strange places. The men have a tendency to want to control their character.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW (WHICH, POST-CANNES, MIGHT BE HIS LAST) AT:

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/10/collision-course/