Love Actually: Movies about Writining

Unless you are five or living under a rock, you know the movie Love Actually. But just in case - it’s several relationship stories revolving around Christmas most of which aren’t the healthiest (you know it’s true). Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy writer Richard Curtis’s stuff a lot of the time (Vincent and the Doctor is one of the best historic episodes of Doctor Who ever written), but this was more fun than it was practical. The best romantic love story in it is the couple who work as body doubles for filming sex scenes.

But that’s not the story I’m focusing on in this short holiday blog. Colin Firth plays Jamie, a thriller author who finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother. Instead of sorting out the drama, he escapes to France for a writing retreat. Already healthy. We’re doing well. A Portuguese woman named Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) is hired to keep house for him while he works. Despite them not speaking each other’s language they fall in love and he proposes. Yes. He proposes to a woman who doesn’t understand him! I’m not sure how that works outside of arranged royal marriages of the 1100 to 1700s.

Anyway, she does take an interest in his book after half of the pages fly away into the local pond. This is because he writes on a typewriter and (as they both point out with annoyance) he doesn’t make copies. All I think of is the first book I tried to write on a floppy disk which got corrupted. It’s fine. I’ve since rewritten the book 10 times. I should really finish it one of these days.

The Holiday: Movies about Writing

I’ll keep this one short. The Holiday is a film by Nancy Meyers about two women who switch houses and lives for the holidays. Cameron Diaz’s character is Amanda, a trailer editor whose boyfriend cheated on her. Kate Winslet’s character Iris and her brother Graham (Jude Law) are a newspaper columnist and book editor respectively whose parents are also in the writing industry. Beloved unto me, Jack Black rounds out the cast as Miles, a film composer who befriends and potentially dates Iris. Amanda and Graham start dating too and discussing his work and family but . . . I like Iris’s plot better so let’s focus on that.

First, there is Iris’s toxic relationship with her ex, Jasper, played by he who does not smile, Rufus Sewell. Despite breaking up and him being engaged to someone else, they still work together and he relies on Iris to be his support and editor. He even sends her pages from his book while she’s on vacation TO GET AWAY FROM HIM. This is a douche writer who no-one should want to be like. That having been said, you know he’s probably a very successful author. The douches always are.

The positive relationship Iris finds (besides Miles) is also with a writer and it’s my favorite part of the movie. Eli Wallach plays Arthur who wrote screenplays during the golden age of Hollywood. He and Iris instantly bond and she finds out about his life and late wife, Marion, who he based all of his female heroes on. Arthur says Marion had gumption, something he want Iris work on so she can move on from Jasper. He recommends movie after movie to her featuring some of the best written leading ladies - Stanwyck, Russell, Bacall, etc. He tells her to be “the leading lady of her own life” which is a great line.

P.S. Why do Graham’s kids say they never have grown-up ladies visit them? What is Aunt Iris? A penguin?

A Christmas Memory: Movies about Writing (Copy)

Netflix. You need to learn to think for yourself. But no. You keep canceling some of your best shows in favor of spending money on Hallmark holiday ripoffs. Luckily, there’s still some class on streaming.

I found the 1997 version of A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote on Kanopy. Eric Lloyd (from the Santa Clause) plays young Capote in the form of Buddy who is excited for “fruitcake season” with his best friend/ spinster cousin Sook (Patty Duke). They send the cakes to everyone including F.D.R. For several years, Buddy has lived with the Southern cousins Sook, Callie, Seabone, and Jennie (Piper Laurie) (as well as a dog named Queenie and visits from a Cherokee housekeeper named Anna and a neighbor girl named Rachel - not Harper Lee, or is it, I’m not sure). Other than Sook, the cousins make snide comments make about his mother back in New York and his absentee father. Jennie worries that Buddy is not going up to be “a man” since he spends all of his time with Sook.

Despite the protests from the other three cousins, Jennie is determined to send Buddy away to military school. Still, Buddy and Sook go through their Christmas adventures of tree chopping, gift delivering, kite flying, and visiting bootleggers. In the end, Buddy is still sent away in hopes that the military school will give him a better education. It gives Sook opportunities to stand up to Jennie and both she and Buddy grow up a little. It’s kinda dark for a Christmas story.

I did also watch the 1966 version narrated by Capote himself which includes more of his fantastic descriptions, but depicts the Native bootlegger talks in broken English like a reject from a 1950s western. Buddy doesn’t go to military school on screen in that one either, just in an epilogue.

By the way, I know Truman Capote did go to military school, but I don’t know if the cousins sent him or his mother did. Either way, there is mention of Buddy’s future as a writer. He gives a notebook and pencil to Rachel so she can write down tall tales she tells about her family. And everyone talks about how they’ll miss hearing his “little stories”. And those little stories would someday be about them.

A Thanksgiving Visitor: Movies about Writing (Copy)

Although this is not about writing, it is based on Truman Capote’s happy childhood memories staying with his “spinster cousin”, a woman in her 60s named Miss Sook (Geraldine Page). Young Capote is called Buddy (Michael Kearney) in these childhood tales while adult Capote in all of his lispy glory narrates.

Buddy is being horribly bullied by a classmate named Odd Henderson (I’m not kidding, that his name). Miss Sook is the only person in the household who understands that academic Buddy does not know how to fight back against a bully like the other cousins want him to (yes, everyone else in the house keeps telling him to punch this kid back - oh, the good ole’ days). As a more progressive adult, Miss Sook then invites Odd Henderson to Thanksgiving dinner.

There are other childhood traumas such as one of the cousins trying to force Buddy to kill a turkey and jealousy over attentions of a pretty young female cousin. Hey, Truman Capote could have been curious about pretty girls as a child.

SPOILER ALERT: Of course, a drama occurs when Buddy sees Odd steal Miss Sook’s cameo. Buddy tries to reveal the theft in front of everyone at dinner and Miss Sook tries to cover for Odd because she states that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Buddy humiliating Odd didn’t help the situation. However, Odd does return the cameo when Miss Sook lies that the cameo was not missing.

Miss Sook is clearly an inspiration for a writer’s voice. The way she talks is very poetic yet simplistic. She is also a woman trapped in a family who does not understand her and dreams of leaving for a new life. But a single woman in Great Depression South is not a person able to escape those with small minds. Of course, the cameo she planned to sell for her freedom was worthless and she never has the heart to tell Buddy.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Movies about Writing

I know, know. Technically, this movie isn’t about writing or Truman Capote - TECHNICALLY - so I’ll keep this short.

If you don’t know, To Kill a Mockingbird is the award winning 1962 film based on the novel by Harper Lee (her only novel published with her consent - you hear me, Go Set a Watchman people)! In case you didn’t have to read the book in high school or watch the movie in film class, it’s a from the point-of-view of Scout. Scout is a lawyer’s daughter living in Great Depression Alabama. She is telling the tale of the big moments of her childhood including when she and her brother Jem tried to make friends their mysterious neighbor and her father defended a Black man wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman.

The book/film is presented like a memoir, with and unseen adult Scout narrating over the top of each change in season or introduction to a crucial moment. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is the perfect father in so many eyes, however no more than in his daughter’s. I do get chills throughout this movie at the little moments. Still, you see it differently at different times of your own life, especially when one is viewing racism, the justice system, gender roles, and parental roles. As a screenplay, the adult Scout only gives you snippets of her own feelings, choosing to show instead of tell (as they constantly tell you to do in writing class).

The book is loosely based on author Harper Lee’s own childhood where she witnessed racism and discontent in her own hometown. Scout’s next door neighbor during summer vacations is Dill, a talkative and awkward little boy. Lee’s next door neighbor as a child was Truman Capote, a talkative and awkward little boy. Capote supposedly used to call the pair of them the “apart people”, because other children didn’t always get along with the two bookworms. They had a lifelong friendship that needs to be stated before I can continue these blogs because in talking about Capote, I’m going to be talking about Lee a lot too.

Truman Capote Theme: Movies about Writing

Most of the next few months I will be writing about films about or by Truman Capote (off and on). Why Capote, you may ask? Because I want an excuse to watch Murder by Death. But Murder by Death has nothing to do with Capote as a person or writer, you say. Shut up - I say.

I will probably pause this theme for some other upcoming events/seasons, but you get the idea.

Also, I did watch the new season of Feud, but I planned out these blogs before that - I swear.

Salem's Lot: Movies about Writing

First rule of being an author in the Stephen King universe - never travel anywhere to write something.

It’s been a while since I’ve watched or read Salem’s Lot (personally, I’ve always loved the fictional history of the town more than the actual plot of the book - and, yes, before you’ve asked, I’ve read the short story). My first thought when I heard about this one was, “It’s under 2 hours? They must’ve cut out the whole story!”

Ben (Lewis Pullman) is a writer who comes back to Jerusalem’s Lot looking for inspiration. He rents a room from a woman demanding payment in advanced when she hears his profession. His second encounter after the local sheriff is meeting Susan (Makenzie Leigh) who is reading one of his books and insults it without knowing that he’s the author.

At the same time, Marsten House, the haunting source of all local urban legends, has a European antiques dealer moving in. Straker (Pilou Asbaek) and his mysterious partner Barlow (Alexander Ward) are the catalytics who will destroy the town (in case you haven’t read the book).

Spoilers ahead.

A group of characters will come together as vampires take over the town. Ben and Susan are joined by teacher Mr. Burke (Bill Camp), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickley), and 11 year old Mark (Jordan Preston Carter). Honestly, I spent most of this muttering, “I don’t remember that in the book.” Look, there were vampires and the cast gets killed off one by one.

Ben is the first person Mr. Burke goes to when he realizes that there are vampires. He thinks that just because the guy is a writer that he’ll believe in vampires. And he does, because this movie has no time for character development. There are other quips about being a writer, but honestly, they are really just repeats of how being an author is not always viewed as a legitimate career. Maybe I’ll just watch the mini-series from the 70s.

Coraline: Movies about Writing

Coraline - the delightfully creepy tale of a child being courted and hunted by an ancient terror who creates a dreamworld to catch her in. But that’s not what I’m going to write about. I’m going to focus on Coraline’s parents.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones are working on a gardening catalog when they move to the “Pink Palace”, the Victorian home turned into apartments where Coraline discovers the tiny door leading to the “Other Mother”. Her mother is the editor and her father is the author. These jobs fit their personalities. Dad is more laid back and silly. Mom is more rigid and practical. My favorite line of Charlie Jones’s is “I have a terrible case of writer’s rash on my-”, but his wife cut him off as he points to his butt. He works on a computer that appears to be a little out-of-date (either that or the story takes place a few years before I think it does) on a cluttered desk with the usual research and half-drunk coffee. How do I know that coffee is half-drunk? Because that’s part of the process. Duh.

Coraline’s mom (who is name Mel according to the internet, but I’m not sure if they ever say her name in the movie) keeps Charlie on task. She is also in charge of the finances, promising Coraline that things will change once the book sells.

Coraline feel ignored by her parents even though they work from home. In the world created by the “Other Mother”, a creature known a the Beldam who wants to keep children and eat their lives away, Dad is a pianist who writes songs just for is kid and helps her in the garden. The Other Mother cooks delicious food and buys Coraline whatever she desires. Although it’s sweet that Coraline wants the attention of her parents, the Other Mother’s world clearly did not give them jobs.

P.S. In the part where Coraline touches a switch that shuts off the power, including her dad’s unsaved work on his P.C., he lets out a cry which I feel in my soul every time.

Field of Dreams: Movies about Writing

Normally, in September and October I do spooky films about authors and newspaper people. However, James Earl Jones, one of the icons of my childhood, passed away. I know he was in his 90s, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still sad. His deep voice and infectious smile meant a lot to me as a kid. So here’s a short blog about Field of Dreams - it kinda has ghosts in it.

If you weren’t alive in the 90s, you might not know this film. A struggling Iowa farmer, who regrets his last encounters with his baseball-obsessed father, is told by a disembodied voice to build a ball field in his corn. So he does. The ghosts of famous players (as well as a doctor played by Burt Lancaster who did so much good, but never got to the majors) show up in the field. However, only certain people can see them.

James Earl Jones plays Terrence Mann, an award winning author who has hidden himself from a corrupt world which he feels expects too much of him. In case you can’t tell, he’s based on J.D. Salinger. He was the favorite author of the main character Ray and his wife Annie in college. Annie fights to keeps Mann’s books in the local school district, arguing about how pacifism and learning from reality are not reasons to ban a book (she makes a good speech about Stalin and Nazi book-burning). When the voice tells Ray to help Mann, he discovers a bitter man unwilling to speak to a fan. Mann gave up writing a decade early to become a software programmer, feeling like after two terms of Nixon as president, no one was really listening to him anyway. Still, he sees the ghosts like Ray and his family do. He goes to Iowa and returns to a sense of wonder and hope in humanity. And he’s going to write about it, because, “That’s what I do.”

Frankeleda's Book of Spooks: Movies about Writing

You want to see something creative and original?

Well then, "Let’s summon the writer”, as this show says.

Frankeleda’s Book of Spooks is an award winning Mexican stop-motion series about Frankeleda, a deceased author who needs readers for her stories or she will fade away. Her sharp-toothed talking storybook, Herneval, doesn’t see it that way, thinking that sharing stories will awake something terrible. You see what they’re doing here? Huh? Huh?

Okay, yes, the metaphor for being a writer is pretty obvious. Each episode has our ghost-host tell a story that usually a lesson for children mixed with some nasty critter or supernatural terror. I’m not gonna lie. Some of these tales were impressively scary for a kids’ show. Spoiler warning: Things never turn out well for the children in her stories which Herneval points out doesn’t seem fair. The book is like her conscience, attempting to protect you, the audience, from whatever Frankeleda’s latest story is . . . and from whatever is keeping them trapped in a scary old house.

SPOILER ALERT: As the reader, you hear a final story about a girl named Francesca Imelda who is expected to do all of the domestic duties for her father and older brothers after her mother dies and wicked Aubela moves in with them. Her escape is story writing, something she does at the most inconvenient times just like any other young writer. Her biggest fan is a owl-child (Herneval prince of the spooks - yep, the book used to be a really neat owl-prince) that lives in her house, but she thinks is a dream. By the time she’s grown, Francesca feel confident enough take the most perfected of her horror stories to a publisher, who instantly tells her that it’s unladylike. She leaves the office crying, declaring that she will quit, until she attempts to cross out her own name and ends up creating the name Frankeleda. The prince of the spooks, also now grown, shows up at that moment to plead with her to help him create new nightmares so his people will not fade away. He essentially kills her in hopes that she will replace his current nightmare writer. Something went wrong and the prince was turned into a book. The original nightmare writer trapped him and Frankeleda in his consciences and that’s where they have been ever since.

As an author , Frankeleda is obsessive, tragic, and does not take criticism well. She doesn’t care if she puts her audience in danger for her art and her own freedom. And she will never stop writing.

Insert maniacal laughter here.

Beetlejuice (Poe-Pourri): Movies about Writing (Copy)

This will be a short one, because it’s based on a short one.

Remember the Beetlejuice cartoon? What? You never watched it? My nostalgia riddled mind will tell you it was amazing . . . so probably best not to trust me. All you really need to know is that Lydia and Beetlejuice are friends in the cartoon, there’s no Barbara and Adam, and it had a lot of little kid humor (so. many. burping. jokes.).

Beetlejuice is freaked out one night reading a book of poems Lydia left at his roadhouse in the Netherworld. I don’t know why the ghost lives in a roadhouse, but I digress. Poe shows up at his house with a rapping raven, a literal steamer trunk, and handfuls of cash which he throws around when he cries about Lenore. I didn’t know writer’s got residual check’s in the afterlife?

The greedy Ghost with the Most invites Poe to stay at the roadhouse as he continues his search through the Netherworld for Lenore. Seriously, where is Poe getting all of this moolah? He was never rich in life. Anyway, Lydia comes over to fangirl over the wailing author while Beetlejuice is driven mad in a montage of Poe tales.

Due to this episode airing when I about seven or eight, I thought Lenore had been a real person, not an allegory for the loss of Poe’s wife and other women he loved. I also thought the Masque of the Red Death was a little mask with a runny nose.

Wednesday: Movies about Writing (Copy)

I’m rounding out my Poe blogs with a writing related piece of media not about Poe or even featuring a living version of him, but where he is a central character.

If you grew up with me, went to school with me, or met me, you probably know that I’m a huge Addams Family fan. I’ve seen the original series multiple times (but confess to only sitting through the 1970s Halloween special once).

Yes, I have seen most Addams Family incarnations and don’t ask me what I thought about those recent animated films unless you want to see my hair burst into flames. I put off watching Wednesday because 1) I loved Adult Wednesday Addams on Youtube written by and starring Melissa Hunter and how could anyone do it better than that (they can’t), 2) Tim Burton keeps breaking my heart, and 3) I was waiting for my boyfriend because he wanted to watch it too. Still, this is not my giving my opinion of the show. This is me talking about depictions of writers and writing in films and TV. (In case you do want my opinion just message me in the comments).

In this Netflix series, Wednesday is an aspiring author of mystery novels featuring a teenage sleuth in a difficult relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, Wednesday is thrust into a mystery at her new school while feeling like she’s living in her mother’s shadow. Yes. Her therapists points out that her real life connections are pretty obvious.

Poe comes into this as the school’s most famous pupil. The yearly house competition teams are named after his stories and the secret society is hidden behind his statue. However, the poem that helps one to figure out the password did not feel like a work of Poe’s. Just saying.

I did enjoy her sitting with perfect posture on her antique typewriter and using her novel as an excuse to be glad when her roommate was angry with her. She keeps her typed pages in a file box with her initials on it which I confess to being jealous of. However, I am really trying to remember what it was like to be in high school, forced into a social life, hunting for murders, AND having time to write! Oh. To be young.

Under the Bridge: Movies about Writing

Even those this is about a mini-series, I’m keeping this one short. Under the Bridge is the fictionalized account of the investigation into the murder of teenager Reena Virk in 1997. The series was based on two books, one by Virk’s father and Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey.

Godfrey (played by Riley Keough who I say looks more like Priscilla, but my boyfriend looks more like Elvis) is made a character in the story even though she didn’t started researching the event until after the investigation began. As the series is more about the life that was lost and the societal problems which led a group of youths to violently kill more than the pure horror and morbid curiosity of true crime.

Godfrey is portrayed as a journalist trying to write a book about the young women who feel abandoned by her home city. She returns home just as her former girlfriend Cam, a local police officer played by Oscar winner Lily Gladstone, arrests a large group of teens for the murder of their classmate. As the different events leading to the death come to light, Godfrey develops a connection with one of the teens involved, Warren Glowatski.

The show brings up several ethical and important questions about true crime writing. Godfrey struggles with how much involvement she can have as a journalist. Cam points out that she can’t tell if Godfrey’s actions throughout the movie are genuine or for the sake of her book. The moral justification of her interviewing any of the kids when the trial is going on is questioned, especially as she seems to overlook the victim. At first, her closeness to Glowatski has her focused solely on how the justice system is railroading him (a homeless Native kid) and allowing middle class white girl Kelly Ellard to have a fairer trial. However, in focusing on these two, she forgets to tell the story of Reena and her family. Guilt and thoughts of her own family make Godfrey go back over her book and try to find out more about Reena. She presents the pages to Reena’s parents, apologizing that she didn’t do more in the first place.

Although, it is a little ironic that the show was about how writer must be so careful when writing a true story when they completely rewrote Godfrey’s life and involvement in order to have a better television series.

Violence: Movies about Writing

Film noir time!

Ann is, naturally, an investigative journalist who’s been using her writing skills and a camera hidden in her watch in order to blow the lid off a group of cooks, misleading veterans into breaking up unions with riots. Even the leader of this organization, True Dawson - best mob boss name ever - has no clue that his secretary is a spy. However, Ann ends up in an accident causing (dun dun dun) amnesia!

A mysterious fiance, Steve Fuller, claims her at the hospital and takes her back to the the organization where she gets him a job. In her addled state, Ann believes in everything the organization stands for and that her boss, Dawson, is a benevolent leader. When a young woman shows up looking for her missing husband, Fuller confuses Ann by telling her get away.

SPOILER ALERT: As Ann suspects that Fuller is a bad guy and rats him out to Dawson, her story on the organization is printed. Nick from It’s a Wonderful Life roughs Ann up and, tada, instant cure for amnesia! All she needed was a healthy dose of assault! She, the mournful wife, and her publisher make a plan to save Fuller and stop a riot the organization is planning. Instead, Ann is captured, but she and Fuller (who is an undercover cop) manage to warn the strikers about the upcoming attack. The bad guys end up killing each other. Fuller and Ann become engaged for reals. And Ann is famous as the “Pretty girl reporter” who exposed a “phony group”. Okay, so it’s not a great plot. In fact, I had a little trouble following it in the first fifteen to twenty minutes. I kept thinking Fuller secretly worked for the bad guys and then it turned out he was spying on the bad guys and the bad guys were clueless as their secrets kept getting out . . .

Anyway, I want to point out one scene. Ann is asked to make a speech when she still has (gasp) amnesia. She is such a good writer, that she rattles off an impassioned string of sentences without really knowing what she’s talking about. A good writer should always have the power of the bullshit.

Merrily We Live: Movies about Writing

It’s 1938. The Great Depression is hitting high proportions. Mass numbers of Americans are out of work. Fathers are abandoning families in shame. Therefore, let’s watch a film about a pair of rich dopes and their “too clever for their own good” grown children. Personally, if you want a great film with a similar premise, watch My Man Godfrey.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Mrs. Kilbourne (the ditzy matriarch played by Billie Burke) insists on bringing home “tramps” to work in their home. She gives them jobs in service, forgets their names, forces them to read patronizing books about what they need to fix about themselves, then is shocked when they rob the family and run off.

Enter Wade Rawlins (Brian Aherne) a man who stops at the house to use the phone after his car breaks down. Mrs. Kilbourne mistakes his oil drenched appears as poverty and hires him as the new chauffeur before he has an opportunity to correct her. He sees all of this as instantly amusing and decides to just be the family driver. Despite their misgivings about mother bringing in someone else without references, Rawlins begins to grow upon the family after he rescues grumpy Mr. Kilbourne from a drunken night. Two of the Rawlins children, bratty Kane (Tom Brown aka Gilbert from Anne of Green Gables) and animal loving Marion (Bonita Granville aka the original Nancy Drew) appreciate Rawlins handling of their father. However, it’s the eldest daughter, Geraldine known as Jerry (Constance Bennett) who he has the instant connection with. Only Mr. Kilbourne fails to see Rawlins merits and worries he’ll be an embarrassment at their important dinner with a senator.

But au contraire! Rawlins is mistaken as a guest and charms the pants off the senator. Moreover, the senator’s daughter wants Rawlins to charm the pants off her (ba-bum-bum-tsk!). Rawlins decides to mess with the family and act the part of a guest in their house while Mr. Kilbourne tries to get the senator to help his business. By the way, I have no idea what Mr. Kilbourne’s business is. Anyway, Jerry gets jealous and fights with Rawlins. He exits swiftly for a mysterious destination.

Meanwhile, in a nearby town, police have found Rawlins’s smashed up car over a cliff. They report him as deceased to a local general store owner (a man that Rawlins borrowed the car from) who reveals that Rawlins is a noted novelist who fishes in the area. Oh hey! Character actor Willie Best! Oh dang, he’s playing a stereotype.

The newspapers report how famous author E. Wade Rawlins has died suddenly with a photograph to confirm to the Kilbournes exactly who they had working for them. There’s a ton of fainting as people think their seeing a ghost and the long suffering butler declares he will become a tramp. All I can think is, “Whelp, Rawlins has lots of material for his next novel.”

La Boheme: Movies about Writing

Hey, you know that Broadway show Rent that you were super into as a theater kid in high school, then just sort of forgot about when you got older. It was based on an opera, which was based on a book of sketches in lives of starving French artist in the early 1830s. What I watched is film version made in 1926 staring Lillian Gish and John Gilbert. Just to repeat - I’m writing a blog about a silent film based on an opera based on a book all of which inspired Rent. Spoilers ahead.

“Would you light my candle?
What are you staring at?”

- From not this version

Rodolphe is a playwright disgusted that he has to sacrifice his art by writing puff pieces for a local paper in order to help pay the rent of his shabby flat. He shares the flat with Marcel, an artist, Schaunard, a musician, and Colline, a philosopher (played by an Edward Everett Horton that was so young I didn’t even recognize him). The fifth member of their group is Musette, Marcel’s girlfriend who usually has some money because of her job . . . a job left unsaid in the silent film. Get it? Unsaid? Silent film? Oh fine. Yes. Musette is a sex worker. They invite into their circle Mimi, a seamstress who lives in the same building and struggles to survive. While the others make light of their meager earnings and eked out existence, Mimi is determined to survive to the point where she works long hours in her freezing garret apartment without a coat. Why no coat? She had to pawn it of course.

The circle of “Bohemians” are clever, boisterous, and usually drunk. They declare the hardships of their life simply they way it must be for them to be geniuses of the thinking world. I think in the opera there are more side plots featuring Marcel, Musette, and the others but these have been left out to keep the run time at 90 minutes. You don’t really get as much of the comradery as you would expect in a movie about an artists community. When do they dance on a table in a restaurant in a show of solidarity to their non-conformist lifestyle?

Anyway, when Mimi declares her love to him, Rodolphe becomes a play writing fool, which is great for his art, but not for the bills. As he’s neglecting his job selling stories to the local paper and Mimi’s work has slowed, she works herself to the bone trying to keep them both fed. In the opera she leaves to be mistress to a wealthy viscount. In 1830, either a woman has integrity or a full belly, not both. In the film, the viscount only promises to show Rodolphe’s plays to a theater manager he knows in exchange for Mimi’s company. Rodolphe drives her away in a fit of jealousy like a punk. Seriously, he’s a whiny brat who blames his outbursts on artistic integrity. Then, too late, he figures out everything Mimi has done for him, after batting her around some. Swell fellow.

Anyway, feeling guilty and realizing how sick Mimi is, Rodolphe make the grand gesture that he will give up his craft to earn money through a day job. Martyr Mimi won’t allow him to do such a thing. She runs away to the streets of Paris where he can’t find her. Meanwhile, Rodolphe writes a masterpiece that make him a great success in the theater world. By the time Mimi comes back to him, she’s dying of consumption. The whole group gathers around her as she declares her love one last time and states that she is happy. The end.

Therefore, remember folks - suffer for your art and you too can be a genius who loses your girlfriend to tuberculous.

The Great Race: Movies about Writing

Despite this being a long film, this will be a short blog. Let’s talk about determination in a writer.

This comedic masterpiece directed by Blake Edwards is meant to be a nod to the melodramas of the silent era. The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis is a master of all trades with a dazzling smile and his perfectly clean clothes. As its the turn of the century full of new innovation, Leslie has agreed to an automobile race against his rival, the mustached Professor Fate (played by my classic Hollywood crush - Jack Lemmon) from New York to Paris. Keenan Wynn and Peter Falk play their assistants respectfully. Still, it is Natalie Wood’s character Maggie Dubois that I’m going to talk about.

Miss Dubois is a suffragist attempting to live an “emancipated” life full of smoking cigars and making grand speeches. She bullies her way into a job on a newspaper and enters the race in order to report on it. This is after both Leslie and Fate refuse to take her with them in their cars. She brings carrier pigeons with her to send her stories and photos back to the newspaper office in New York. This woman is so dedicated to proving her skills as a writer, she literally works on a news story about a bar fight while standing in the middle of bar fight. Each time she meets with a problem that will keep her from getting her scoop, she fibs and cheats in a most charming ways possible. Granted, by the end of the movie, it’s more about just finishing the race than the story, but her determination until she no longer has her pigeons is admirable.

Plus, she kicks ass in the massive pie fight in the movie and I’d like to think that is a secret writer skill we never get to explore.

Under the Tuscan Sun: Movies about Writing

This is a great movie to watch when you’re going through a big, unexpected change in your life. But also understand that this has very little to do with the travel memoir of the same name. SPOILERS HO!

Frances (Diane Lane) is a writer, teacher, and book reviewer who finds out about her husband’s infidelities by an angry author whose book she gave a poor critique. I get that the dude was upset but I can’t imagine being so upset that you’d reveal to a person you barely knew that their husband was getting read to leave them. To break her out of depression after the divorce, her best friend Patti (played by everyone’s favorite Sandra Oh) sends Frances to replace her on a gay tour of romantic Tuscany since Patti can’t travel with a new pregnancy. Patti states that Frances needs to get her life back on track and start writing again.

Frances does get a kitten out her her misadventures.

The first inspiration she has is when one of the men she hangs out with on the tour asks her to write a postcard home for him. She crafts a beautiful paragraph full of metaphors and onomatopoeia. The owner of the postcard declares that he can’t send it now. His mother would never believe that he wrote it! Ingrate!

Anyway, her second inspiration comes in the form of a villa. The majority of the film is about Frances buying, refurbishing, and living in an old Villa. As she lives there, she makes friends with her neighbors, the Polish contractors fixing the house, and Katherine, a fabulous local eccentric played by Lindsay Duncan who once acted as a muse to Fellini. I like the bond Frances forms with one of the Polish workers, teenage Pawel, which is like an aunt and nephew and explains why she supports when he falls in love with the neighbors daughter. That is to say, her time is not just platonic friendships and make-shift family. Frances has a romantic encounter with the handsome Marcello, who is charming and adorable, but has no patience. He can’t handle when a very pregnant Patti shows up and is in need of Frances’s time. By the way, the way Frances and Patti talk is very natural. You can believe that they’ve been friends for years.

In the end, all of Frances’s depression and feeling like she’ll never have all she wanted are cured in various, unexpected ways. She has family and life all around her. She finishes a book (called “Under the Tuscan Sun” - What? Who saw that coming?). AND she meets another fellow writer named Ed who she wrote an other unkind review of. He is healthy person and tells her it was the “best bad review” he’d ever gotten and he used it to help write his next book. So they end up together at the end. Full circle.

*Note: I feel bad for the real Ed (Edward Kleinschmidt Mayes). He’s Frances Mayes second husband and in reality they fixed up the villa together. But no. He became the “reward” at then end of the movie. I don’t know how I’d feel about that if I was Ed.

Agatha: Movies about Writing

Agatha (1979) was an imagining of where Agatha Christie went during her eleven missing days.

The film starts with all of the claustrophobia and depression that comes with the end of a relationship. At a signing, the celebrated mystery writer is closed off and in her own head. Agatha (Vanessa Redgrave) is in a horrible state when her husband (Timothy Dalton) leaves her for her his secretary and ends up wrecking her car. All of this is reality except that they did not mention her child who was in the care of her trusted friend and secretary Charlotte Fisher (Fisher isn’t a major character in the film, but she was important to the real Christie so I feel she should be mentioned here).

Wally Stanton, a fictional American reporter played by Dustin Hoffman, immediately dives into the investigation. Meanwhile, Agatha checks herself into a hotel near a health spa where she thought the secretary would be. Weirdly, she uses the mistress’s last name as her alias. The start of this film is not particularly intriguing other than Mr. Christie being tailed by reporters and investigators. Otherwise it is many scenes of people ordering food in restaurants and drinking tea.

About 35 minutes in, you start to see Agatha Christie the writer coming out as she writes down ways to kill people from things she sees around the spa. Also, there’s finally some jazz music. I know it’s England in the 1920s, but c’mon! Stanton finds Agatha at the hotel with a little help from Charlotte whose worries about her friend/boss. He does not give Christie his real name or tell her that he knows who she is. Instead, they enjoy the frivolities and he appreciates that she looks happier than she did at the book signing at the beginning of the film. I just have to add that Redgrave in heels is a full head taller than Hoffman and kudos to the filmmakers for not putting him on a box. Now, Stanton is writing a piece on her without her knowledge, yet he treats her with kindness. Awkward, awkward kindness.

Stanton is clearly attracted to Christie. He is also worried for her. I won’t give away the ending just know it might trigger some people. It’s a tad on the melodramatic side and involves CPR which wasn’t widely in use then. It does give Stanton the opportunity to make feel Christie feel better and that her life is still full of possibilities.

I really do not think this is even close to what happened to Christie during those eleven missing days, but it made an okay story. However, if Agatha Christie had written it, there would have been more poison in those many restaurant scenes.

Oh. And the theme song at the end is awful. Just awful.

Hearts of the West: Movies about Writing

Yes! A film about someone who wants to be 1930s pulp writer! I love the 30s for writing because upper classes are still thumbing their nose at genre novels while the middle and lower classes loved cheap paperbacks of melodrama, horror, crime, and westerns. The modern book club will be born from these beloved albeit sometimes corny books which gave people happiness in the midst of the Great Depression.

The movie Hearts of the West starts with Lewis Tater (Jeff Bridges) in his Iowa farmhouse bedroom on a typewriter questioning his own vocabulary choices and acting out the scenes he just wrote in mirror. Shut up! We all do it! He goes to what he thinks is a university in Colorado to learn how to be a western author, but is attacked by two men running a school by mail scam. They try to steal his typewriter!

In escaping the men, Lewis wanders onto the set of a western film where he meets a cowboy actor (Andy Griffith), the director’s secretary (Blythe Danner), and a director (Alan Arkin). He becomes a stuntman and actor, yet his need to be the next Zane Grey is still his ultimate goal. Oh. And the bad guys are still tracking him down because he accidentally stole money from them.

Almost instantly, Lewis shows off his skills of observation, attempting to memorize clothes and feathers of those around him in hopes of using what he sees in a story. He verbalizes stories while everyone stares at him. The obsession with Zane Grey goes so far that he states that Grey also used to build up stories out loud and insists that he keep his Grey-esque haircut. He keeps constantly bringing up that he a writer. It’s Andy Griffith’s character who finally tells him that’s he a writer when other people say so. I admire his confidence in the film, but even I found him annoying at times. I did enjoy how he never let anyone tell him to give it up. He even continues to try when he has his heart broken by people he admired and trusted.