AFF Panel Wrap and Snaps: Creating Classic Characters

David Milch ("NYPD Blue," "Deadwood"), Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) and Sydney Pollack (Tootsie, Three Days of the Condor) gathered Saturday for the Creating Classic Characters panel at the Austin Film Festival. The conversation quickly became a completely engaging discussion of the craft of writing, managing expectations of the studios, Dostoevsky and much more.

Black was his general convivial and vulnerable self, while the affable Pollack spoke with great humility about his legendary career. As for Milch, at first, not knowing who he was, we thought with his long-winded first answer referencing Dostoevsky, Hemingway and Hawthorne, that he might be some pretentious jackass. Boy were we wrong! Milch displayed his uncanny analytic mind in discussing his work and the art of writing. His performance left us flabbergasted and wanting more, kind of like that amazing professor whose classes you never missed, even if you passed out in your contacts and had scratch your cornea the night before. We have not watched "Deadwood" before, but after seeing a glimpse into the mind of this genius, we think we may have to head over to our HBO-having friend's house to check it out.

Pictures and lots o' quotes after the jump.

Some pearls from the panel:

Pollack on structure: "Since I can't write...I start looking for a craft, some sort of matrix to make it follow."

Black on Lethal Weapon and the writer's job: "Finding the spine of it was the hard thing, and I think we did finally. When a director like Sydney Pollack says he is trying to find the spine, he's being nice. (Writers,) find the fucking spine. It sort of is your job.

Milch on creative process: "The distinctions between being a writer...being a director...are false distinctions. There is an interpenetration of roles that one hopes is built on trust.

Milch, trying to untangle his microphone chord: "I always wanted to do a show, Jews confront ordinary domestic problems, like untangling a chord.

Milch on order: "Order for me, of any kind, I associate with taking a beating. To neutralize it, I don't think consciously. Any instrument of order, I want to destroy. I have interns with me at all times so I don't kill the machine.

Pollack on rehearsal: "I think something marvelous happens when the tree doesn't have roots that go to deep into the ground.

Pollack on the studios: "I don't think the studios want the job that I have. I think they're afraid of the it. They talk a big game, but I think they want something where they can say, Woo, I don't have to do anything."

Milch in part paraphrasing his friend Hubert Selby Jr.: "There are only two motivations: fear and faith. The studio smells which moves the artist."

Milch on influences: "Everything you write is a conversation with everything you've ever read."

Milch on "Deadwood:" "The question of the language of "Deadwood" has been an ongoing pain in my genitals."

Black on writing: "A lot of scripts I read don't seem to be about anything.

Photos taken by Eric Uhlir.

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By matthewodam in Arts & Entertainment on October 26, 2006 10:00 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

lunarhowl

Get the Deadwood season one DVD and watch Keith Carradine interview Milch. It's fascinating. Too bad HBO cut short this brilliant show.

odam

one minute milch was explaining how he hated order by saying, "my idea of a good time used to be to get a head full of acid, put a stocking over my head and take a shotgun to a convenience store. then point it over the clerk's head and shoot right above it. they'd freak out and i'd say, 'damn, that crazy person thought i was gonna shoot them.' that's how i feel about order and authority." - i am paraphrasing - and the next minute, doing an on-the-fly epistemological, psychoanalytic break down of something black had said about 4 minutes earlier. wow.

saukrebl

This was a panel to end all panels. To think of all the outstanding observations provided by Pollack & Black, only to be completely overshadowed by Milch's intense insights. Milch would analyze the psychology of the others' answers ("that's the lie that Sidney tells himself"), starting out in esoteric fashion only to complete his captivating explanatory journey by slamming it home with succinctness, simplicity. It was amazing. I thought Sidney would fall off his chair when Milch explained that he hated "that unnamed red-haired man" from NYPD Blue so much that Milch wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing he was having a heart attack in the midst of a heated argument. Only afterward would he turn to a friend & say, "ok, take me to the hospital." If this panel is made available, I suggest you watch it!

chris

oops - embedded content not allowed apparently. Here's the linkage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f31PLcCXD0U

chris

Thanks for the reply - it was admittedly wishful thinking to get to hear the panel discussion.

To give you an idea of how your life may change after viewing Deadwood (and the writing contained therein)... (NSFW language)

odam

yea, i know, but i don't have HBO. what's a man to do? oh, yea, dvd.

as for the recording: we are waiting to see how the quality came out. however, the likelihhod of being able to transcribe the entire thing is doubtful. unless we have an intern break the picket line. will let you know more as details become clear.

chris

Yeah you really shouldn't have not seen Deadwood at this point. It's brilliant.

And th Dinner For Five (Jon Favreau's show on IFC) with David Milch, Tim Olyphant, Michael Rappaport and Jay Mohr is worth finding too.

Is there any chance this panel was recorded??

Christopher

Ahhh. I can't believe I missed this. You can laugh, but I consider Shane Black's script for LETHAL WEAPON a must-read for any aspiring screenwriter.

And you should rent DEADWOOD on DVD. It's great. Start from the beginning though.