Business , for which I had written what I thought was a truly great script.
But the world wasnât ready for Robertson Daviesâs blend of mysticism and melodrama (it still isnât, apparently), and Time After Time was not so big a hit as to give me carte blanche. I waited for about two years, wrote a couple of other novels to pass the time, and got angrier and angrier.
Another thing about the movies and me; about art and me. I have always been more interested in content than in the form in which that content is expressed, which I believe is a defect on my part as an artist. Art is mainly about expression or execution and only secondarily about content. Anything can be made into artâeven pornography or fascism, like it or not. (If you donât believe me, check out the wonderful Carmina Burana , which is comprised of both.) But I never was able fully to buy into the form-over-content argument. In my films, I care less for the photography and composition of the images than I do for what the people are saying and doing. I would a thousand times sooner direct actors and help shape their performance rather than work on special effects. I have this theory that the film can be anything but out of focus and audiences will tolerate it, so long as what they are watching is interesting. Ditto the sound. On the other hand, I, as an audience member, respond like everyone else to ravishing or original imagery in the movies, to nifty sound effects. I am as seducible as the next man. Even as I disapprove of the content-less image-makers, I envy them; envy their technical facility and their cheerful, absent-minded amorality. Hey, itâs the moviesâletâs blow something up.
I had only half an idea what Fifth Business would look like; but I understood with perfect clarity that it was a terrific story, which was basically all I cared about, and I insisted on being allowed to tell it. Hollywood resisted. Time, meanwhile, was passing.
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
Looking back on earlier portions of oneâs life, one is surprised by the turns it has taken. Things and events no imagination could have predicted unfold in a seemingly random manner, leading to equally unexpected and improbable results. Like pinballs in one of those arcade games, we bang into things and ricochet off in unanticipated directions. Detours become highways. I certainly could never have anticipated my involvement with the Star Trek series, let alone where that involvement would lead.
Had Time After Time been a bigger hit, I mightâve got my shot at Fifth Business , but it wasnât and I didnât. In the meanwhile the film had netted me Hollywoodâs (then) über agent, Stan Kamen, who called and said he wanted to represent me. I responded that he wouldnât when he heard that there was only one project in which I was interested. Agents must be used to all sorts of quaint notions and obsessions from clients, and mine didnât appear to faze him: agents know how to wait . . . Kamen would patiently send me scripts; I would send them back.
Time passed. I sat in my house and went to meetings only if they involved Conjuring (the screen name for Fifth Business ). Months became years. I met with all sorts of people but Conjuring stubbornly resisted my efforts to give it life.
I got all sorts of advice, including of the âMake one for themâsomething commercialâ (again that word!) âand then you can get your film financedâ bromide.
It was on a Sunday afternoon in early 1982 and I was barbecuing hamburgers with a childhood friend, Karen Moore, now (i.e., then) an executive at Paramount, when she gave me a piece of blunt advice: âNicky, if you want to learn how to direct, you should direct , and not sit up here holding your breath because youâre not getting to make the film you want.â
Had this counsel come unsolicited from, say, my parents, I doubt I would have paid it heed, but
But the world wasnât ready for Robertson Daviesâs blend of mysticism and melodrama (it still isnât, apparently), and Time After Time was not so big a hit as to give me carte blanche. I waited for about two years, wrote a couple of other novels to pass the time, and got angrier and angrier.
Another thing about the movies and me; about art and me. I have always been more interested in content than in the form in which that content is expressed, which I believe is a defect on my part as an artist. Art is mainly about expression or execution and only secondarily about content. Anything can be made into artâeven pornography or fascism, like it or not. (If you donât believe me, check out the wonderful Carmina Burana , which is comprised of both.) But I never was able fully to buy into the form-over-content argument. In my films, I care less for the photography and composition of the images than I do for what the people are saying and doing. I would a thousand times sooner direct actors and help shape their performance rather than work on special effects. I have this theory that the film can be anything but out of focus and audiences will tolerate it, so long as what they are watching is interesting. Ditto the sound. On the other hand, I, as an audience member, respond like everyone else to ravishing or original imagery in the movies, to nifty sound effects. I am as seducible as the next man. Even as I disapprove of the content-less image-makers, I envy them; envy their technical facility and their cheerful, absent-minded amorality. Hey, itâs the moviesâletâs blow something up.
I had only half an idea what Fifth Business would look like; but I understood with perfect clarity that it was a terrific story, which was basically all I cared about, and I insisted on being allowed to tell it. Hollywood resisted. Time, meanwhile, was passing.
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
Looking back on earlier portions of oneâs life, one is surprised by the turns it has taken. Things and events no imagination could have predicted unfold in a seemingly random manner, leading to equally unexpected and improbable results. Like pinballs in one of those arcade games, we bang into things and ricochet off in unanticipated directions. Detours become highways. I certainly could never have anticipated my involvement with the Star Trek series, let alone where that involvement would lead.
Had Time After Time been a bigger hit, I mightâve got my shot at Fifth Business , but it wasnât and I didnât. In the meanwhile the film had netted me Hollywoodâs (then) über agent, Stan Kamen, who called and said he wanted to represent me. I responded that he wouldnât when he heard that there was only one project in which I was interested. Agents must be used to all sorts of quaint notions and obsessions from clients, and mine didnât appear to faze him: agents know how to wait . . . Kamen would patiently send me scripts; I would send them back.
Time passed. I sat in my house and went to meetings only if they involved Conjuring (the screen name for Fifth Business ). Months became years. I met with all sorts of people but Conjuring stubbornly resisted my efforts to give it life.
I got all sorts of advice, including of the âMake one for themâsomething commercialâ (again that word!) âand then you can get your film financedâ bromide.
It was on a Sunday afternoon in early 1982 and I was barbecuing hamburgers with a childhood friend, Karen Moore, now (i.e., then) an executive at Paramount, when she gave me a piece of blunt advice: âNicky, if you want to learn how to direct, you should direct , and not sit up here holding your breath because youâre not getting to make the film you want.â
Had this counsel come unsolicited from, say, my parents, I doubt I would have paid it heed, but
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