Paul Hackett

Like everyone else I’m sure, I have a few favorite films that I like to watch every couple of years. American filmmaker Martin Scorcese is behind some of my choices. When going through the Scorcese canon, a less than obvious choice is After Hours (1985). This is one of those bizarre films that works because it’s so unlike most other films. It’s also a wonderful piece of black comedy, something we see successfully done in British cinema all the time, but a genre that almost always fails with American films.

After Hours tells the story of Paul Hackett (coolest film name ever) played by Griffin Dunne. Paul Hackett is having the worst night of his life. Trying to make his way home from Soho, he faces a series of maddingly surreal and dangerous misadventures that make his pointless journey rather “Kafkaesque.” Scorcese actually called this film ”an exercise completely in style.”

Layman’s film critic, Roger Ebert, who has written a book on the work of Scorcese, is also a fan of After Hours. In  the Great Films section of his website he includes his take on this sometimes forgotten masterpiece. He describes this film as something approaching “pure filmmaking.” He says “it’s a nearly flawless example of — itself. It lacks, as nearly as I can determine, a lesson or message.” Many viewers have found the level of suspense in After Hours to be unbearbale. Ebert explains that while the film “is technically a comedy [it] plays like a satanic version of the classic Hitchcock plot formula.” Ebert has always been better at exlaining things than describing them.

The film should be available from most major movie outlets. You can read what Roger Ebert has to say about it in his review The time is three a.m. Do you know where your sanity is?

For me the review was worth reading for the quotable:

What happens to Paul Hackett is like what happens to Buster Keaton: just one damned thing after another.

That may not necessarily describe my life, but it’s a cool way to see my name used in print.

It’s hard to imagine two autobiographies more different than Laurence Olivier’s Confessions of an Actor and John Huston’s An Open Book. Both men were screen legends from Hollywood’s classical era, who reached great heights in their respective fields. When it comes to setting down their lives in their own words, however, the experience awaiting the reader couldn’t be more different.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of stereotyping actors. Yet, as evinced from his style of writing, Laurence is more concerned with creating an esoteric emotion rather than relaying a clarity of thought. This may be an approach that satisfies the author, but it leaves the reader feeling puzzled. Confessions of an Actor reads like the product of an actor with a frazzled brain, who isn’t interested in details or clarity. It’s difficult to turn the pages when you haven’t made much sense of the page you’re on. In the end, Laurence only seems to be a shadow of the larger than life roles he played.

I was hoping to find some deep insight from this mighty thespian and occasional director. Instead, I spent most of the time reading passages over again trying to figure out what he was talking about. Does he even have a point? What is this chapter about? Is there any purpose to this book? These questions kept coming up as I read.

Confessions of an Actor puts things together with no sense of chronology or relatedness. The greatest revelation into Laurence’s work is his penchant for changing his appearance with a fake nose to help him find the character he is trying to become. I finished the book disappointed that he didn’t fill it with that special magical light he brings to movies.

John Huston, on the other hand, is a natural and gifted storyteller. An Open Book is basically one great story after another. Each chapter reads like a movie, ending with either a significant observation or a cliffhanger moment that keeps you enthusiastically turning the pages. John’s life is anything but dull. This is a veritable collection of rip roaring adventures from a man who truly did great things. When he relates his war experiences, or opinions of the anti-communist blacklisting in Hollywood, you really feel you are listening to an authority figure.

When I read an autobiography, I want to read honest accounts that let me into a bygone era. John shares his great admiration for his many friends and speaks modestly about his own achievements. He never sounds apologetic about his shortcomings either. Even when he glosses over a significant part of his life, he does it with flair. There is a picture in the photo section of his adopted Mexican son, Pablo. This is a great story that is only afforded two paragraphs. Throughout the book there isn’t a trace of bitterness for things that didn’t turn out favorably.

After reading both these books, I asked myself who I’d rather sit down and have dinner with. The answer of course is John Huston. Laurence’s writing makes the actor seem stuffy and a bit insecure. He’s neither elegant or enlightening with his words. John is a master storyteller who knows how to keep his audience captivated. Dinner with him every night of the week would be a real treat.

For me, there is something almost as important as keeping a daily writing routine – it is knowing when to break the routine. Creative work is probably the hardest to finish when you’re trying to force yourself. My standard three hours a day, six days a week of writing can at times feel like an attempt to manufacture the goods on an assembly line. A well timed day off works wonders.

Lately it seems as if I’ve been traveling as much as I’ve been working. Travel is the greatest of escapes. It sure beats that other favorite writer’s excuse for not working – cleaning the fridge!

Not only does a trip take me outside the box, it also stimulates me with new ideas and experiences. It’s more likely that a real life situation I wouldn’t get in my regular writing space will produce that key line that transforms a scene and saves the story. Whatever I’m working on, inevitably, turns out better for a little time spent on the road. It’s not always possible to go away mid-project, so I make a point of going somewhere after completing each draft, and again before starting a new one.

I see why the writers from the classic Hollywood era did a lot of their work in hotels. I’m thinking of Robert Riskin writing for Frank Capra in Palm Springs, or Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur churning out scripts for Howard Hawks in Manhattan hotel rooms. For some reason, it’s just easier for me to get work done in hotel rooms. (Yeah I know, the above writers were all notorious for partying it up – but they completed some of their most famous work under those conditions.)

This advice, if it can be termed advice, should come with a warning. Travel can offer some great inspiration; but inspiration only accounts for two percent of a great story. The rest is perspiration – hard work!

When I settle into the hotel room after a long day of activity, I can do a whole day’s work in less time than usual. Most of the time the work is better too. If I had to guess, I’d say it has to do with the fact that while my mind was busy doing other things, the subconscious had all day to work on the story by itself. We writers carry our stories around with us for a long time, sometimes years. The mind simply can’t put it to rest because you’ve gone into escape mode. As Graham Greene wrote in Ways of Escape, “the unconscious collaborates in all our work.” I think I’ll have more to say about this later.