I’m re-introducing this blog with a short essay for Mother’s Day. It’s a departure I know, but I hope it gives you a personal insight into how much the movies and literature are inextricably bound together in my psyche and how and why both are so very important to me. While my father was…
WRITERS ON SCREEN: The Man from Elysian Fields or Can Failure Make a Writer a Better Man? Pt. 2
In Greek mythology, Elysian Fields is “the land of the blessed” a place where those whom the gods favored, usually the most heroic and noble souls, were taken to dwell in eternal happiness. The Elysian Fields of the 2001 film is an escort service that provides older, refined male companions for the mature wealthy…
WRITERS ON SCREEN: The Man from Elysian Fields or Can Failure Make a Writer a Better Man? Pt. 1
If you can’t find true love, at least you can find symmetry. Mick Jagger as Luther Fox, in The Man from Elysian Fields No, The Man from Elysian Fields is not a spy story, although it would be a good title for one preferably written by John Le Carre. The Man from Elysian Fields is…
WRITERS ON SCREEN: CHINESE COFFEE–Not So Much A Beverage, As A State Of Mind.
You can’t sleep in Bohemia and commute to the real world. – Jerry Orbach as Jake Manheim, in the film Chinese Coffee (2000) To be totally honest, I did not think a movie about two aging New York schmucks who love literature and whose respective bullshit has caused them both to be figuratively waiting at…
IRIS: What words define, what words cannot explain; a film about Iris Murdoch, writing, Alzheimer’s disease and the undying love of a good man. Pt2
Love is the only language everyone understands.– Kate Winslet as young Iris Murdoch According to the online Oxford Living English Dictionary the word “genius” is defined as: “An exceptionally intelligent person or one with exceptional skill in a particular area of activity.” This is the second definition. I chose not to use the first, because…
Iris: What words define, what words cannot explain; a film about Iris Murdoch, writing, Alzheimer’s disease and the undying love of a good man. Pt.1
Language lets you down. – Kate Winslet as young Iris Murdoch Born Jean Iris Murdoch in Dublin, Ireland on 15 July 1919, Dame Iris Murdoch’s first novel Under the Net is included in the 1998 Modern Library’s 100 Best English-language novels. Between 1954 and 1995 Murdoch wrote 26 novels. She was a very prolific writer….
TRUMBO: Dissident with a swimming pool — The writer as guardian of the democratic republic, Pt 3.
I was always a bastard, you just never noticed. Kirk Douglas to Hedda Hopper in the HBO movie TRUMBO, 2015 Perhaps one of the most defining incidents in blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s life concerns the film Spartacus (1960), starring Kirk Douglas. Spartacus has a lot of Hollywood mythology associated with it: off-screen Tony Curtis…
TRUMBO: Dissident with a Swimming Pool — The writer as guardian of the democratic republic, Pt 2.
This is the beginning of an American concentration camp.—Dalton Trumbo to the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1947 (from the HBO movie TRUMBO, 2015) Dalton Trumbo’s first name was James. During his exile as a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter he used many different names so that he could go on working, go on writing, go…
Writers Guild of America Library
The Writers Guild Foundation Archive contains unique and rare items, from the personal papers of prominent writers to early WGA periodicals, photographs, vintage scripts, rare books, and other ephe… Source: Writers Guild of America Library
Directors Guild of America Visual History Program
The mission of the DGA Visual History Program is to provide DGA members, entertainment industry professionals, educators, students and researchers the opportunity to explore the art and craft of fi… Source: Directors Guild of America Visual History Program
TRUMBO: Dissident with a swimming pool — The writer as guardian of the democratic republic, Pt 1.
We both have a right to be wrong.– Dalton Trumbo to John Wayne, HBO’s TRUMBO Dalton Trumbo – what a name! His journey from the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood to political prisoner, to ignominy, obscurity, underground script writer, vindicated hero, and legend is chronicled in the eponymous 2015 HBO movie starring Bryan Cranston…
Get That Dead Guy Out of the Swimming Pool 
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