04/08/2002 Entry:
"Steven Soderbergh, Richard Lester, Jacques Tati, contemporary life"

I'm going to stop linking through movies and stuff in the text because man, its just too much work. Look them up on imdb. I've been reading this book called Getting Away With It, its a collection of interviews Steven Soderbergh did with Richard Lester. Interspersed through the interviews are diary entries Soderbergh made which discuss the things he was working on at the time - doing rewrites for Mimic, trying to get distribution deals for Gray's Anatomy and Schizolpolis, etc. I mainly bought the book for the journals, because i like Soderbergh a lot and thought it would be interesting. Unfortunately they've been a let down. They're fun to read, but they're not very illuminating.

He does a lot of complaining about how hard it is to get weird movies made in this day and age. I would think his target audience would be pretty familiar with these issues. Some of the stuff where he talks about how he writes scripts and works with the studios doing those jobs is kind of interesting, he's a good writer and constantly abuses himself so it keeps you attention even when its just him whining. Reading his problems with distribution reminds me that my sister got me Movie Wars for Christmas a couple years ago I should read it at some point, although I think it will annoy me. I admire Rosenbaum a great deal, but having read some excerpts and being familiar with his views, I don't think I buy a lot of what he's selling in that book.

Back to Getting Away With It. The interviews with Richard Lester are quite enjoyable. I have not seen any of his films (well, I guess I saw Superman II), but reading these interviews has greatly aroused my interest. He'a a very interesting character, and it seems like the approach he took to filmmaking in his earlier works was an exciting one. Of course, the films I'm most interested in seeing (Hard Day's Night, How I Won The War, Petulia) aren't on DVD and I am just so irritated by watching pan and scan videos. Watching that VHS of Priscilla this weekend pissed me off. I can't decide if its better to watch the pan and scan movie or not bother and wait for it to show up at a Music Box matinee or something.

One in these interviews thing that go me thinking was at various points SS and RL are discussing Jacques Tati. I've only seen Mon Oncle, and I liked the style a lot, but the humor didn't really grab me. Its not really my thing. But these discussions got me thinking about humor and the kind of comedy I like, because a lot of people accuse me of being very dour and hating comedies. Now, I know this isn't true, I just don't think there is very much out there that is very funny. Thinking about it, I began to realize that a lot of the comedy I like is humor that comes at someone else's expense. For instance, take something like Spinal Tap. You're skewering lame-ass heavy metal bands. Another example, Seinfeld. There's not a single joke in that show that doesn't come at someone else's expense. Simpsons and Fawlty Towers, you're almost always laughing at someone, not with them. I was having a pretty hard time coing up with something I thought was funny that wasn't making fun of something else, finally I came up with The Blues Brothers and Animal House. Belushi was a fucking genius though, there's nobody of that caliber out there now. But is the root of all comedy making fun of something else? Are you supposed to be laughing at or with Monsieur Hulot? Is the difference in my case that I only like stuff that is mean spirited? I don't know, I'm probably thinking about it too much. Its later and I think I overstated that whole paragraph, at least somewhat. However Bethany is watching The Wedding Singer right now and I can definitely say that this bullshit is not funny. God I hate Adam Sandler.

There was one very illuminating point that Lester makes in the interviews. He talks about the decline that many directors and other artists go into through their careers. His theory is that many people have enter into a field with a burst of creativity that is influenced by many things, but as they get ingrained into that field that variety of influences dies off and their creativity goes with it. In film, people get so obsessed with filmmaking and Hollywood to the exclusion of everything else, and they stop paying any attention to contemporary society, that all they can come up with to do is adapting other people's work or period pieces or fantasy or whatever. I found this quite prescient considering the path Soderbergh is taking, and it made a lot of sense to me. It really rung true. If this was a real notebook I would xerox the page and stick it in. Unfortunately my scanner isn't hooked up. I'm happy to say that despite my current obsession with film I still know who a few good modern rock bands are.