Hollywood Scripting

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby FourthBase » Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:43 am

Cross-posted:

p.s. Part of what makes The Other Guys so deliciously subversive, a sly possible reference to 9/11 I'd wager not a single other viewer picked up (and may not have even been intended by the filmmakers, lol, in which case there's nothing really to pick up) is that the demolition crew's hijacked wrecking ball crashed into the jewelry building under a false pretense, the real purpose was to alter the financial records of the accountants next door. I'm not suggesting the Pentagon accountants were necessarily the real target, the primary target. But, probably, at the very least: Hey, two birds, why not? And, wasn't that also the case for the WTC tower complex? See, next time you watch The Other Guys, pretend it's a comedy designed in part to cheer up this board.


So is there anything there, or is it just the product of over-imaginative hyper-association?
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
User avatar
FourthBase
 
Posts: 7057
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:41 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby Nordic » Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:34 am

JR, I think you'd be surprised how much production is still done practically, and how many carpenters are still employed. CGI seems to have raised expectations of everyone, to where even bigger production values are expected. Now $200 million for a movie's budget isnt considered abnormally expensive, which means a lot more of everything -- a lot more CGI, a lot more elaborate location work, a lot more stuntwork and bigger and more elaborate sets. Also TV shows have gotten more and more sophisticated and slick ( for the most part) which drives the perceived need for production values of features to be even more extravagant. Of course there is the occasional "Sin City" where everything is shot on green screen, but that's more an exception than a rule at this point.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby Spiro C. Thiery » Mon Feb 18, 2013 8:31 am

FourthBase wrote:Cross-posted:
p.s. Part of what makes The Other Guys so deliciously subversive, a sly possible reference to 9/11 I'd wager not a single other viewer picked up (and may not have even been intended by the filmmakers, lol, in which case there's nothing really to pick up) is that the demolition crew's hijacked wrecking ball crashed into the jewelry building under a false pretense, the real purpose was to alter the financial records of the accountants next door. I'm not suggesting the Pentagon accountants were necessarily the real target, the primary target. But, probably, at the very least: Hey, two birds, why not? And, wasn't that also the case for the WTC tower complex? See, next time you watch The Other Guys, pretend it's a comedy designed in part to cheer up this board.


So is there anything there, or is it just the product of over-imaginative hyper-association?

Over-imagination and hyper-association is part and parcel of being creative and enjoying creativity. Choosing an ostentatiously creative career path, scriptwriters strive to be clever in how they use their tools, and the narrative structure and plot devices employed will consist this universe's influence, which includes every story ever told and re-imagined. The plot device employed in this particular film was shaped as much by the first person to set fire to his house deliberately as it is every other conspiracy one might have got a glimpse of with and without realizing it.

Whether or not the screenwriters or filmmakers intended subversion in this case is one thing. Whether or not they intended an allusion events and stories of events surrounding that particular day is another. Whether or not this film subverts anything is yet another. In the strictest sense, one might say that it is entirely not subversive, at least if the subversion depends upon a plot device involving a "possible reference to 9/11" that one person would "wager not a single other viewer picked up". In the broadest sense, however, existence in general is entirely subversive to existence's authority (if there be such a thing), and depending upon the mood of the observer, deliciously so. I know it cheers me up when I recognize unexpectedly that someone sees things the way I do, even if their view is unintentionally stumbled upon.

However, if the view is alluded to, yet I do not share the conclusion drawn, it might not cheer me up at all, I might find it frustrating, even depressing. And if the allusion is intentional, it could be that my view is being mocked, which is only delicious to those who are enjoying the mocking. Fortunately or unfortunately, that particular plot element draws no major conclusions, we are left to interpret it on our own, which leaves us where your question started, I guess.
Seeing the world through rose-colored latex.
User avatar
Spiro C. Thiery
 
Posts: 546
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:58 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby Luther Blissett » Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:16 am

I have to admit that I've really been enjoying "House of Cards," the Netflix-produced series released en masse on the service. The machinations behind party politics are explored, but major events like bills passing and elections are not the plot points - they are only relegated to parts of the larger narratives about plutocracy, assassinations, smears and leaks. If there's an overt manipulation it's to promote the omnipotence of behind-the-scenes power players, making us fear them. So far, though, I've been finding it to be very realistic. In a scene about the vetting process for selecting a new VP candidate to replace an outbound incumbent, I thought to myself, "there's no way it would be left up to this skeleton crew of rag-tag, middle-level players." I was soon proven wrong when the hidden hand is revealed, showing just one of the individuals controlling the process. Highly recommended so far.

It's been developed by Beau Willimon and based on a British novel by Michael Dobbs, two shady resumés (especially Dobbs, but if there's anyone who'd know the material it seems he'd be a good fit). Dobbs:

Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of nurseryman Eric and Eileen Dobbs. He was educated at Hertford Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford University. After graduating in 1971 he moved to the United States. He attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, funded by a job as feature writer for the Boston Globe, and graduated in 1975 with an M.A., M.A.L.D., and PhD in nuclear defence studies. His doctoral thesis was published as SALT on the Dragon's Tail. He worked on The Boston Globe as an editorial assistant and political feature writer from 1971 to 1975. In 2007, Dobbs gave the Alumni Salutation at Tufts.

Politics
After getting his PhD in 1975, Dobbs returned to England and began working in London for the Conservative Party. He was an advisor to Margaret Thatcher, who was then leader of the Opposition, from 1977 to 1979. From 1979 to 1981 he was a Conservative MP speechwriter. He served as a Government Special Advisor from 1981 to 1986. He was the Conservative Party Chief of Staff from 1986 to 1987. He survived the Brighton Bombing in 1984 at the Conservative Party Conference. Considered a masterful political operator, he was called "Westminster’s baby-faced hit man", by The Guardian in 1987. In the John Major government, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1994 to 1995.
Dobbs was created a life peer on 18 December 2010, as Baron Dobbs of Wylye, in the County of Wiltshire.[1] He sits on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords.

Business activities
Dobbs began working at Saatchi & Saatchi as Deputy Advertising Chairman from 1983 to 1986. He was Director of Worldwide Corporate Communications from 1987 to 1988. He was Deputy Chairman, working directly under Maurice Saatchi from 1988 to 1991. From 1991 to 1998 he was a columnist for The Mail on Sunday. From 1998 to 2001 he hosted the current affairs program Despatch Box on BBC.


Willimon:

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Willimon received his BA from Columbia University in 1999, and MFA in Playwriting from Columbia's School of the Arts in 2003. [1]
Concurrent to and following his time at Columbia, Willimon also was active politically, serving initially as volunteer, then campaign aide to a number of prominent politicians, including Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Bill Bradley, and Howard Dean. [2]

The Clooney-directed screen adaptation of Farragut North, retitled The Ides of March, premiered in October of 2011.
Co-scripted by Clooney and producing partner Grant Heslov, the film starred Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, and Jeffrey Wright.
It received an 2012 Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and four Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture - Drama and Best Screenplay.
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
User avatar
Luther Blissett
 
Posts: 4990
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:31 pm
Location: Philadelphia
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby FourthBase » Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:41 pm

Spiro C. Thiery wrote:
FourthBase wrote:Cross-posted:
p.s. Part of what makes The Other Guys so deliciously subversive, a sly possible reference to 9/11 I'd wager not a single other viewer picked up (and may not have even been intended by the filmmakers, lol, in which case there's nothing really to pick up) is that the demolition crew's hijacked wrecking ball crashed into the jewelry building under a false pretense, the real purpose was to alter the financial records of the accountants next door. I'm not suggesting the Pentagon accountants were necessarily the real target, the primary target. But, probably, at the very least: Hey, two birds, why not? And, wasn't that also the case for the WTC tower complex? See, next time you watch The Other Guys, pretend it's a comedy designed in part to cheer up this board.


So is there anything there, or is it just the product of over-imaginative hyper-association?

Over-imagination and hyper-association is part and parcel of being creative and enjoying creativity. Choosing an ostentatiously creative career path, scriptwriters strive to be clever in how they use their tools, and the narrative structure and plot devices employed will consist this universe's influence, which includes every story ever told and re-imagined. The plot device employed in this particular film was shaped as much by the first person to set fire to his house deliberately as it is every other conspiracy one might have got a glimpse of with and without realizing it.

Whether or not the screenwriters or filmmakers intended subversion in this case is one thing. Whether or not they intended an allusion events and stories of events surrounding that particular day is another. Whether or not this film subverts anything is yet another. In the strictest sense, one might say that it is entirely not subversive, at least if the subversion depends upon a plot device involving a "possible reference to 9/11" that one person would "wager not a single other viewer picked up". In the broadest sense, however, existence in general is entirely subversive to existence's authority (if there be such a thing), and depending upon the mood of the observer, deliciously so. I know it cheers me up when I recognize unexpectedly that someone sees things the way I do, even if their view is unintentionally stumbled upon.

However, if the view is alluded to, yet I do not share the conclusion drawn, it might not cheer me up at all, I might find it frustrating, even depressing. And if the allusion is intentional, it could be that my view is being mocked, which is only delicious to those who are enjoying the mocking. Fortunately or unfortunately, that particular plot element draws no major conclusions, we are left to interpret it on our own, which leaves us where your question started, I guess.


Insightful. True. Thank you.

As for the bolded part: If a subversive tree falls in the woods, but no one hears, would it still be subversive?
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
User avatar
FourthBase
 
Posts: 7057
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:41 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby vince » Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:21 am

FourthBase wrote:
As for the bolded part: If a subversive tree falls in the woods, but no one hears, would it still be subversive?

I think the two movie that this phrase could apply to are "God Bless America" & "Red State"; two movies that were just BEGGING for someone at Fox News to scream, 'HOW DARE THEY?'. Sadly, no one took the bait.
vince
 
Posts: 509
Joined: Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:19 pm
Blog: View Blog (4)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby FourthBase » Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:20 am

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386588/quotes

Allen Gamble: Is this how you conduct yourself... in a democracy?


Terry Hoitz: You keep hiding from shit in the world, and eventually the world comes to your front door.


Allen Gamble: I'm so tired of you getting angry, and yelling all the time, it's exhausting. I feel like I'm partners with the Hulk.
Terry Hoitz: You want to know why I'm so angry all the time? Because the more I try to do right the more I screw things up.


Captain Gene Mauch: You know Danson and Highsmith were not good cops, right?
Terry Hoitz: Yeah. But with the way things are now, who's left?
Captain Gene Mauch: Not to be too corny about it... maybe it's you guys.
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
User avatar
FourthBase
 
Posts: 7057
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:41 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby MinM » Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:10 pm

If the NYTimes were ever inclined to pay homage to a piece of psynematic™ propaganda it might look something like this:
Image
Book about the movie ‘The Searchers,’ by Glenn Frankel

There are a few Hollywood movies so thematically rich and so historically resonant they may be considered part of American literature. “The Searchers” is one.


In his vivid, revelatory account of John Ford’s 1956 masterpiece, Glenn Frankel, whose reporting from the Middle East for The Washington Post won him a Pulitzer Prize, writes that “The Searchers” may be “the greatest Hollywood film that few people have seen.” Perhaps that should be “have really seen.” Constantly televised, frequently revived, readily available on DVD, “The Searchers” has never been hard to find; still, the subject this most troubling of movies addresses is an inducement to denial.

Like a modernist drama, “The Searchers” opens on a void, in this case an empty stretch of Texas: an angry loner returns to his family after a long absence. A day or two later, they are massacred by Comanche raiders. He spends the next seven years in dogged pursuit, seeking revenge and the young niece taken captive, but when he realizes the child has come of age as an Indian woman, his objective shifts. He seeks not to rescue her but to murder her. This, briefly, is the plot of what, in its return to the genre’s root issues, is the most radical western ever made.

“The Searchers” was adapted from a novel by Alan LeMay that was inspired by the case of Cynthia Ann Parker; in 1836, she was abducted at age 9 by Comanches who slaughtered her family before her eyes. The underlying story is even older: dating back to the 17th century, memoirs of white women held captive by Indians are the original indigenous American narrative. Frankel notes that the year Cynthia Ann was taken, three of America’s four best-selling novels were by James Fenimore Cooper, with captivity figuring in all; the fourth was the true story of a settler woman who, captured by the Seneca Indians, married into the tribe, had seven children and refused to rejoin white civilization.

Just as relevant, although Frankel doesn’t mention it, was one of the most popular American melodramas of the first half of the 19th century, Robert Bird’s “Nick of the Woods” — published a year after Cynthia Ann disappeared into the wastes of Comancheria. After the hero’s family is massacred, he declares war on all Indians, determined to murder as many as he can. This tenacity is comparable to that of Cynthia Ann’s Indian-­hating uncle James Parker, an original Texas Ranger who spent eight years searching for her. Meanwhile, Cynthia Ann became a Comanche bride and gave birth to three children. Twenty-four years after her abduction, she was recaptured along with her infant daughter. The man credited with rescuing her went on to serve two terms as governor of Texas; the captive, however, was unwilling and unable to readjust to white society. Her daughter died of smallpox (though there are differing versions of the story), and longing for her lost sons, Cynthia Ann followed.

Frankel calls the Comanches “the most relentless and feared war machine in the Southwest.” In his graphic account, the atrocity-filled death match between Texan settlers and Indians escalated from disputes over horses and hunting rights into “the most protracted conflict ever waged on American soil, a 40-year blood feud between two alien civilizations” — a struggle that was personified by the twice-­abducted and permanently traumatized Cynthia Ann Parker. Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, her story became the stuff of operas and melodramas. In 1936, her white relatives and Comanche descendants gathered to re-enact her kidnapping and subsequent recapture.

As detailed by Frankel, Cynthia Ann’s son Quanah was a remarkable figure in his own right. Quanah was a Comanche war chief who, after reaching an accord with the whites, would be “the most important and influential Native American of his generation,” a man whose dinner guests ranged from Geronimo to Theodore Roosevelt. Nevertheless, when LeMay began researching his book, he was less interested in Cynthia Ann (or Quanah) than in the obsessed, long-forgotten uncle who had devoted years to chasing her memory. “The Searchers” (1954), LeMay’s 13th novel, was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post and sold more than 14,000 copies in hardcover. President Eisenhower read it; so did John Ford.

Ford, by Frankel’s unsentimental account, was a drunk and a bully, a political opportunist and a genius who, according to his assistant director, “shoots a picture in his mind before he ever turns on a camera.” Before filming began in June 1955, Ford announced that his new western would be a “psychological epic.” Indeed, “The Searchers” is steeped in pathology — not just the director’s, but ours. No American movie has ever so directly addressed the psychosexual underpinnings of racism or advanced a protagonist so consumed by race hatred.

Raising the stakes, Ford’s savagely driven Ethan Edwards was played by Hollywood’s reigning male star and most outspoken anti-Communist, John Wayne. As I’ve written elsewhere, “Ethan takes America’s sins — racism, cruelty, violence, intolerance — onto himself.” He is at once hero and villain, perhaps even a saint in his mad, essentially selfless quest. At least that’s how it looks in retrospect. Ford’s biographer Joseph McBride tells Frankel that when “The Searchers” opened in the spring of 1956, “racism was so endemic in our culture that people didn’t even notice it. They treated Wayne as a conventional western hero.”

However misunderstood, “The Searchers” was hardly unappreciated. The New York Herald Tribune termed the movie “distinguished”; Newsweek deemed it “remarkable.” Look described “The Searchers” as a “Homeric odyssey.” The New York Times praised Wayne’s performance as “uncommonly commanding,” and The Los Angeles Times would note the actor’s unusually favorable reviews in the Eastern press. The movie was a hit, tied with “Rebel Without a Cause” as the year’s 11th top box-office attraction.

Only Ford’s fans were made uneasy by the film’s rambling plot and unpleasant protagonist. Writing in the British journal Sight and Sound, the future director Lindsay Anderson objected to the hero’s character: Ethan Edwards was “an unmistakable neurotic, devoured by an irrational hatred of Indians.” It was another future director, Jean-Luc Godard, who was likely the first to regard “The Searchers” as a masterpiece. In a 1959 Cahiers du Cinéma essay, Godard compared the movie’s ending to “Ulysses being reunited with Telemachus”; in 1963, he called it the fourth-greatest American sound film.

In the United States, the critical re-­evaluation of “The Searchers” coincided with America’s Indochinese adventure. A generation, more or less Frankel’s, grew up in a world saturated with westerns, and many took the genre as a metaphor with which to understand the historical and psychological basis of the Vietnam War. (In order to save his despoiled and brainwashed niece, Ethan — or rather John Wayne — believes he must destroy her. Better dead than red.) “The Searchers” would be a touchstone for a new wave of Hollywood directors and can be found refracted in some of the most notable ’70s movies, including “Star Wars” and “Taxi Driver.”

It was around this time that Leslie Fied­ler published a slim volume making the case that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “The Birth of a Nation,” “Gone With the Wind” and “Roots” could be read as a single, multimedia “inadvertent epic” — a story about slavery, race and family that America gave to itself. As framed and enriched by Frankel, “The Searchers” is another such epic; recounting the making of what he calls “an American legend,” he has retold it well.

J. Hoberman is the author, most recently, of “Film After Film: Or, What Became of 21st Century Cinema?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/books ... d=all&_r=0

IanEye wrote:
Luther Blissett wrote:Can someone help me out - what's going on with page 19 of this thread? I'm trying to do some research and I believe that the information about CIA posting desk positions at major studios and news agencies in the mid-20th Century exists on that page. However, whenever I try to browse to that page - or even the information contained on that page in the search results - my browser freezes. Unless someone knows that it exists elsewhere.


this what you are looking for?

viewtopic.php?p=487284#p487284
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:http://www.alexcox.com/blog.htm
TONY SCOTT'S SUICIDE NOTE
2012.10.7

...

According to Saunders, a secret campaign was undertaken by the CIA and Pentagon in 1955, called "Militant Liberty". This was designed to insert the theme of "freedom" into American movies, and to remove any elements which were critical of the United States. In June and July of 1956, representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with a group of Hollywood acolytes which included John Ford, Merian C . Cooper, John Wayne, and Ward Bond, to promote the illegal domestic propaganda program. A producer named C.V. Whitney, not coincidentally the cousin of CIA agent Tracey Barnes, signed on and made THE SEARCHERS (in the light of which we might view the film as an anti-Communist parable, with "redskins" standing in for "reds").

Saunders also observes that when, in 1946, Ford and Cooper set up their independent production company, Argosy, the principal investors were all intelligence men: William Donovan (former head of the OSS), Ole Doering, David Bruce and William Vanderbilt. C.D. Jackson, a CIA agent and vice president of Time, listed as helpful "friends" Cecil B. DeMille; Spyros P. Skouros and Darryl Zanuck at Fox; Nicholas Shenk, president of MGM; producer Dore Schary; Barney Balaban, president of Paramount; Harry and Jack Warner; James R. Grainger, president of RKO; Milton Rackmil, president of Universal; Harry Cohn, president of Columbia; Herbert Yates, head of Republic Pictures; and, inevitably, Walt and Roy Disney.

If Jackson's claim is true, then all the studios except United Artists were in the CIA's pocket by 1954. But CIA influence didn't stop with studio heads. A CIA agent, Carleton Alsop, worked undercover at Paramount, where he prepared lists of actors and technicians to be blacklisted, ordered script changes, and shut down films of which he disapproved. Alsop was quite powerful: he killed the project GIANT at Paramount because it was unflattering to rich Texans and depicted racism against Mexicans.

How many other studios had in-house CIA censors isn't clear: but it's unlikely that Carleton Alsop worked all alone.

...

Tony Scott, RIP; John Ford; John Wayne; Cecil B. DeMille; Darryl Zanuck; Luigi Luraschi (head of domestic and foreign censorship at Paramount in the 1950s); Joseph Mankiewicz; John Chambers and Bob Sidell (studio makeup men); Jack Myers; David Houle; Scott Valentine (VP of Sony Pictures); Jack Gilardi (ICM agency); Rick Nicita (CAA agency); Ron Meyer (COO of Universal); Matt Corman; Chris Ord; Kristy Swanson; Tim Matheson; Roger and Robert Towne; Tom Berenger; Ron Silver; Michael Frost Beckner; Jennifer Garner; Jeff Apple; Roger Birnbaum; Colin Farrell; Ben Affleck; Phil Alden Robinson; Lawrence Lasker; Mark Bowden; Mike Myers; Kevin and Michael Bacon; Mace Neufeld; J.J. Abrams; Paul Attanasio; Doug Liman; David Arata; Kiefer Sutherland; Tom Cruise.

(Not all Hollywood actors are thus inclined. Post 9-11, some have spoken out against CIA and government spying: Jenkins lists Al Pacino, Martin Sheen, Hector Elizondo, Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Kristin Davis, Samuel L. Jackson and Jake Gyllenhaal as standing up for the American Civil Liberties Union in a series of advertisements.)


as far as the freezing goes, not sure what to say.
i used to get weirdness on some of my ri blog posts, but i just assumed it had something to do with the amount of images and video links i was posting...
Earth-704509
User avatar
MinM
 
Posts: 3286
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
Location: Mont Saint-Michel
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby JackRiddler » Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:57 pm

Tony Scott, RIP; ... Jennifer Garner; ... Ben Affleck; ... Mark Bowden; .... Kiefer Sutherland; Tom Cruise.


Don't have time to research the filmographies of everyone on that list, but if by their works ye shall know them, little doubt about these names.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby MinM » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:31 am

Tuesday, Mar 19, 2013 07:45 AM EDT
Is “Olympus Has Fallen” anti-Obama?
A black president fails to prevent an attack from extremists tied to North Korea. Interesting

By Daniel D'Addario
Image
Image from "Olympus Has Fallen" (Credit: Filmdistrict)

In the new film “Olympus Has Fallen,” a black man is acting president, Ashley Judd is (for a time) the first lady and paramilitary forces with North Korean ties overwhelm the White House defenses. The president, vice president and secretary of defense barricade themselves in a bunker deep underneath 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — good thing, because the White House is a burning shambles.

Get used to seeing the president’s home under attack. This summer brings “White House Down,” a film starring Jamie Foxx as the president in a seat of power under siege. Later this month, the “G.I. Joe” sequel is to feature black flags flown over the White House as a mysterious supervillain impersonates the president and takes over the country. The “Iron Man 3″ trailer reaches its climax at a shot of Air Force One getting shot out of the sky.

So what is it we thrill to about watching our national landmarks destroyed on the big screen? And at a time when real North Korea nuclear threats are in the news, what’s so entertaining about watching them score a direct hit on Washington?

“It’s kind of fun,” says “Olympus Has Fallen” director Antoine Fuqua, “especially when you know that you can walk out of there OK and go home.”

For Fuqua, disaster films exist as a sort of catharsis. He’s unapologetically patriotic and means the film as a sort of statement of American might. But go back to the disaster thrillers of other decades and you’d never see such explicit destruction. The 1964 film “Seven Days In May,” for example, remains a chilling tale of a coup. “At the time it was seen as quite shocking,” says Mark Feeney, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe critic and author of “Nixon at the Movies.” But it wasn’t taking place in the White House. It didn’t show the White House being blown up.”

For Feeney, that we now see such images at the movies is a sign of the way we now consider politics.

“Prior to Watergate, the White House was held in such high regard that the idea of the president getting used as a plot device and getting treated in such a fashion was unthinkable,” he said. “In a very general sense, ["Olympus Has Fallen"] reflects the less exalted view we now have of the presidency.”

With Morgan Freeman playing an African-American president, however, it’s also easy to wonder whether the filmmakers are playing to an audience that holds a less than exalted view of Barack Obama.

“There’s a cynical aspect to this,” said A.S. Hamrah, a film critic for the journal n+1. “Producers make films because they think they understand what’s going on in the national mood. They prey upon the fears of a certain audience.”

Hamrah suggested that it was no accident that a series of 2013 films depicted the presidency under siege: “They just seem like movies made to capitalize on the fears and uncertainties of an audience that doesn’t accept Obama as a legitimate president.”

After all, the most famous White House destruction on film took place in 1996′s “Independence Day,” but that film’s buff, Clintonesque president was never threatened in any meaningful way. The White House was only blown up because it was a recognizable building. In “Olympus Has Fallen,” it’s the man inside the White House — and his failure to prepare for or fight off a threat from the East — that’s in question.

Fuqua, however, denies that’s his message.

“In this movie, we’re waving the flag — even when we’re getting our asses handed to us,” he says. ”Ultimately, the statement is that there’s hope and we’ll always rise. And you can tear down buildings but you can’t break our spirit and who we are. I think it’s important to say those things, and not be afraid to say those things, not afraid to be proud of our country.”

The explicit imagery of the White House burning or burning American-flag motifs are no accident: “We’ve ripped this flag, and it’s being thrown off the side of a building, so that you feel something,” said Fuqua.

Perhaps Fuqua’s stated patriotism helped the “Olympus” production gain access to former Secret Service agents, who consulted on the script so that the events following the North Korean invasion played out as true-to-life as possible. The director even suggested he had top-secret information: ”Some things I can’t say,” he said cryptically. “There are some things they told me that I had to leave out.”

Daniel D'Addario is a staff reporter for Salon's entertainment section. Follow him on Twitter @DPD_

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/is_olym ... nti_obama/

Seitz on TV Producer and Writer Henry Bromell: 1947-2013
* By Matt Zoller Seitz

I’m going to miss Henry Bromell. The 66-year-old writer, who died yesterday of a heart attack in Los Angeles, didn’t do dumb. If you saw his name in the opening credits of a series, whether as a producer or writer, you knew there was a chance that you were about to see something smart, surprising, and psychologically astute. Look over the man’s résumé: It’s an embarrassment of riches.

Bromell broke through twenty years ago writing for Northern Exposure and Homicide: Life on the Street; he worked on Chicago Hope, Brotherhood, Carnivàle, and the promising but short-lived That’s Life. Whatever their virtues and faults, these were all character-driven dramas, a cut above — sometimes many cuts above — TV’s usual.

Two of Bromell’s most notable gigs came late in his career: AMC’s Rubicon and Showtime’s Homeland. Both shows drew on his personal history as the child of a CIA officer. The former, on which Bromell served as executive producer, was one of the most original espionage shows in TV history, a one-season wonder that explored the link between spycraft and puzzles in a playful, understated way; at its best, Rubicon had the mournful intellect of such seventies paranoid thrillers as Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View. After AMC pulled the plug on Rubicon because of low ratings, he joined Showtime’s CIA show Homeland, a drama from 24 co-producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa that often felt like a slowed-down, psychologically driven answer to Jack Bauer’s derring-do...

http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/tv-produ ... -2013.html

The politics of the man behind the TV show "24"

Showtime's propaganda series "Homeland" started in Israel

Jumping the Rubicon
User avatar
MinM
 
Posts: 3286
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
Location: Mont Saint-Michel
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby JackRiddler » Sun May 05, 2013 4:09 pm

I should miss no opportunity to plug the upcoming BKS-JackRiddler RI-Style Panel at the Left Forum, for those of you who will be in New York on those days (June 7-9).


http://www.leftforum.org/content/hollyw ... ate-influe

Hollywood and CIA. (Hollywood as Propaganda Ministry: Ideological confluence, security state influence, co-creation of enemies. Counterpropaganda.)

Schedule Info
This panel has not yet been scheduled. [Nor has any other panel, as of May 5th. Root for us not to be stuck in the Sunday 10 am slot!]

Panel Year: 2013

Abstract:
Controversy over CIA production help for "Zero Dark Thirty" with its apology for torture was followed by Best Picture for a CIA fable, "Argo." Michelle Obama presented the Oscar from the White House. Are these just latest products of Hollywood's imbrication with the US national security state? Or are we witnessing a new convergence driven by geopolitical realities? Despite liberal repute, big-budget Hollywood often produces paeans to US imperialism, aids to military recruitment, and - crucially – constructions of the 'enemy'. We look at examples when Hollywood has acted as de facto propaganda ministry, up to present-day Pentagon subsidies for war films and surveillance state 'pornography' on TV shows, like "Person of Interest" and "NCIS." Is there a way to intelligibly map the relationship between national security state and Hollywood that improves on current understandings? Would such analysis find simple ideological confluence rooted in shared interest, or something more manipulative and directed? Both? Anyway, aren't movies just entertainment? If not, what would (and does) successful counter-propaganda look like? Session features dialogue between Bryan Sacks (Doctoral candidate, Rutgers School of Communication; Philosophy instructor, Drexel University) and Nicholas Levis (Occupy; Author, "Working for the Enemy"). Commentary by Rutgers professor Jack Bratich, author of "Conspiracy Panics: Popular Culture and Political Rationality." Film clips. Audience participation.

Panel Topics:
Media
Culture and Everyday Life
U.S. Politics

Reading List:
Suggested Books: (1) Matthew Alford, 2010. Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy. -- (2) Melanie McAllister, 2004. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945. -- (3) Benjamin Netanyahu (Editor), 1986. Terrorism: How the West Can Win. ------ Suggested Articles: (4) Naomi Klein, September 10, 2004: "The Likudization of the World: The True Legacy of September 11." (At http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0909-04.htm) -- (5) "Hollywood - Weaponised Dream Factory: an Interview with Matthew Alford." (At http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/10/466515.html) -- (6) Tom Hayden, "When the CIA infiltrated Hollywood." Review of Tricia Jenkins, "The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television" (2013). (At http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/is_holl ... singleton/) ------ Viewing List: In this case, perhaps a viewing list is more appropriate, starting with the 2012 US films "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty." (It's commendable if you can legally avoid paying for either.) -- (7) "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People." Film by Dr. Jack Shaheen. (Available at http://www.reelbadarabs.com/) -- (8) "Hollywood and The War Machine." Al Jazeera series "Empire" examines the symbiotic relationship between the movie industry and the military-industrial complex. Includes examination of the Pentagon film office. (At http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/emp ... 63793.html) ------ Online References: (9) IMDB Filmography of Philip M. Strub, director, US Department of Defense Film Liaison Unit. Displays Mr. Strub's 50+ credits on feature films. At http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0835243/ -- (10) ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY. "Encircling Empire: Report #19—Militainment." Compilation on recent films and related news stories by Maximilian Forte. At http://zeroanthropology.net/2013/01/02/ ... itainment/ -- (11) The War Game Room. At http://www.pomgrenade.org/WGR/ ------Suggested Preparation: Participants in this seminar should feel free to arrive with examples from or insights on works like "Person of Interest" and "Homeland" or even "The Walking Dead," the fictionalized alphabet agency complex of CSI-NCIS-SVU-WTF, or anything else they feel is fair game for a subject that is pervasive in our culture, but not easily defined. ------ Also, one could consider the following question: Is it possible for a feature film, perhaps one that directly takes on the subject of the Hollywood-Mil-Intel-Entertainment complex, to serve as successful counter-propaganda? Given the lack of a Hollywood budget for such a project at this, are different forms of action to confront the military-intelligence-entertainment complex possible, and perhaps more effective?

Participants

Chair:
Name: Nicholas Levis View Details

Speakers:
Name: Bryan Sacks View Details
Name: Jack Bratich View Details
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby semper occultus » Sun May 05, 2013 5:11 pm

...."imbrication"........thanks for the new word.....keep eyes open for a manatee in shades, hat pulled down & collar up at the back of the crowd trying to look inconspicuous ....( did we have amy idea where he even lived ? )

always intrigued by Blatty's background & the power of his cinematic ouevre & can recall the shock-horror media panic over the Exorcist like you were in serious risk of cardiac infarction in mid popcorn-bucket even going into the cinema

Image

http://freeingjohnsinclair.aadl.org/node/197187
User avatar
semper occultus
 
Posts: 2974
Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:01 pm
Location: London,England
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby FourthBase » Sun May 05, 2013 5:38 pm

Try ignoring Blatty's CIA background for two minutes and try to half-positively read the gist of what is being claimed as his message. "Social conscience and faith in our own identity is eclipsed by the threat of infestation by demonic forces." Replace "eclipsed...the threat of infestation by" with "undercut...the internalization of", see how it sounds now. "Social conscience and faith in our own identity is undercut by the internalization of demonic forces." Co-sign. Guess what I also co-sign? That the sloganeering dissident scene is, on the whole, dumb. Fucking stupid, in fact.

I've seethed at its stupidity to its stupid fucking face in Atlanta, in September of 2008, when the geniuses in charge of organizing protests to support Troy Davis were ingeniously conceiving new and effective methods of dissent. Oh, no, wait. They were just regurgitating the same old useless ideas. Worse than useless, actually. Yeah, block downtown traffic, create total gridlock, great. Then when there's a heart attack or fire and the ambulance or firetruck can't get through, everyone will know to blame the death or carnage on the idiot liberals who were whining about the cop-killer. Idiots. Lazy idiots. Unimaginative lazy idiots. Worse. They "brainstormed" for a half hour and then proceeded to set their sights on what to do after Davis was inevitably executed the next day, how to exploit his murder for positive spin. Reprehensibly-irresponsible unimaginative lazy idiots. Yeah. Dumb. And representative, Jack and a minority of others excluded.

How about we try to salvage some of the unexpected good from the pop culture we're fed? Good that might be subtly-coded into art that might look like psy-op tripe at first. Good that might be present in spite of its creators' intentions, even? Or would that spoil people's cynicism-jollies, be a buzzkill for doomist inebriation?
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
User avatar
FourthBase
 
Posts: 7057
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:41 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby MinM » Sun May 05, 2013 6:59 pm

IanEye, as per usual, had an interesting take on the last of the bong-hitting Bob and Bing's "Road" movies. From this old thread:
IanEye wrote:I would like to mention “The Road to Hong Kong”. There is a lot going on under the surface of this goofy “Road” movie. Some of the elements present are: Mind Control .. Illicit drug trade in Asia in the early 60’s .. UFOs .. General theme of Cold War espionage

Plus, this is the last of the “Road” pics Crosby and Hope made, filmed in 1962 in London the only time a Road pic wasn’t filmed in Hollywood and it comes out the same year as “Dr. No”, the first Connery Bond pic. It is almost like there is a “hand shake” going on in the Entertainment Complex. With Crosby/Hope [and Martin/Sinatra] making room for a more Anglophonic entity [JPG&R] to manifest itself in the American consciousness.Leaving Hope to journey on the "Road to Viet Nam" by himself (cue feline rolling of rrrrrrrs)...

If all that doesn’t sway you, perhaps the sight of Bing feeding Bob Hope bong hits in order to obtain information from him will “peak” your curiosity…
Image

viewtopic.php?p=501481#p501481
Earth-704509
User avatar
MinM
 
Posts: 3286
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
Location: Mont Saint-Michel
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Hollywood Scripting

Postby JackRiddler » Sun May 05, 2013 11:24 pm

semper occultus wrote:...."imbrication"........thanks for the new word.....keep eyes open for a manatee in shades, hat pulled down & collar up at the back of the crowd trying to look inconspicuous ....( did we have amy idea where he even lived ? )

always intrigued by Blatty's background & the power of his cinematic ouevre & can recall the shock-horror media panic over the Exorcist like you were in serious risk of cardiac infarction in mid popcorn-bucket even going into the cinema


Ha, great comment, thanks.

Yeah, I had involvement but bks taught me to imbricate! Academic magic, I tell ya.

I think the Manatee was more Pacific than Atlantic.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 33 guests