THREE GREAT DIRECTOR & WRITER COLLABORATIONS

THREE GREAT DIRECTOR & WRITER COLLABORATIONS #3: Network (1976, dir by Sidney Lumet, written by Paddy Chayevsky) One of the amazing things about THE SOCIAL NETWORK (our upcoming Netflix Watch Party 6/13/20) is how well it showcases the incredibly strong voices of director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin while weaving together their strengths into a unity as a movie. That got us to thinking. What other great director & writer collaborations have there been? The first and possibly most obvious has to be the 1976 NETWORK pairing of director Sidney Lumet with writer Paddy Chayevsky. Ironically, many people today might not even see this movie as satire any more or, at best, as relatively tame. That only shows how visionary Chayevsky and Lumet were when they made this movie about how a late middle aged TV personality with mental health issues becomes a leader of a social movement of rage. And how the television network capitalizes on it for ratings and advertising revenue. At the time the movie played as improbably outlandish hilarious science fiction. Today. . .well. . .Probably THE GREATEST AMERICAN SATIRE ever written. And Lumet directs the whole thing with a consummate punchiness, pace, and cinematic movement that elevates it to cinema masterwork.

THREE GREAT DIRECTOR & WRITER COLLABORATIONS #2: Empire of the Sun (1987, dir Steven Spielberg, wri Tom Stoppard) One distinction we want to make here is that we're talking about movies where the SCREENPLAY was written by a singular writer and then directed by a singular director. Here, Steven Spielberg makes one of his most epic, moving, Spielbergian movies while, ironically, adhering to a very unsentimental brutal script by British playwright Tom Stoppard (who later did uncredited Sean Connery-Harrison Ford dialogue in LAST CRUSADE because he and Spielberg got on so well). The movie is an adaptation of great novelist J.G. Ballard's real life experience as a child of privilege in Shanghai during World War II, his separation from his parents, and internment in a camp with other Brits. Spielberg hits all the Spielbergian themes here: the adult world as seen from the POV of a child, family separation, a sense of wonder. But he also lands the plane with one of his all time best endings: honest, emotional, and devastating. Credit Stoppard and Ballard for the narrative integrity. Credit Spielberg for executing with brilliance such complex material. The movie is a masterpiece.

THREE GREAT DIRECTOR & WRITER COLLABORATIONS #1: Shadow of a Doubt (1943, d: Alfred Hitchcock w: Sally Benson, Alma Reville, Thornton Wilder) Hitchcock and creative partner/wife Alma Reville were talented writers themselves who often broke down or outline the stories they filmed. But Hitchcock also knew the value of a great script penned by a great writer. He brought in American playwright Thornton Wilder, best known for his moving, singular OUR TOWN, as just the voice he needed for the twisted story he wanted to tell. Charlie named after the Uncle she adores begins to suspect that her Uncle may actually be a serial killer. Hitch follows his own oft-given advice of creating suspense by letting the audience know everything by telling us at the very beginning of the movie that Uncle Charlie is INDEED the murderer. The movie then becomes an exquisitely painful look at how evil can escape unnoticed by the good hearted. Wilder evokes a wonderful sense of small town Americana so that Hitchcock can totally subvert it. This was Hitchcock's personal favorite of all his movies because he felt he created all the suspense from the story itself rather than a bag of tricks. Easily one of his best movies. And watch out for that stunner of a monologue Uncle Charlie (played to perfection by Joseph Cotten) delivers at the dinner table about how certain people deserve to be murdered like cattle. You'll be like. . .what?! This was made in 1943?!

Written by Craig Hammill, Founder.Programmer of Secret Movie Club