Sabrina the Teenage Witch (The Phantom Meance): Movies about Writing

In her senior year of high school, Sabrina (Melissa Joan Hart) decides to use Halloween to impress her new boss and work the night shift. This goes against the precedent set by other episodes where witch Halloween is more like Thanksgiving with food and annoying relatives. Seriously, who volunteers to work on a family holiday? Oh wait, anyone who wants to avoid family. But who admits it directly to their family’s face?

Her aunts tell her she can’t “run away” from the holiday, but she’s determined to have a quiet night without the “kid stuff”. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Harvey is running around in a onesie egging houses and she criticizes him. Hey! Let people have their fun! Anyway the main plot is about her being literally haunted because she tries to skip Halloween.

Back at the house (a set I would gladly live on), Aunt Zelda and Aunt Hilda decide to invite Edgar Allan Poe to Halloween dinner using their time travel clock. They hope he can scare them because they have a yen for the shivers. They fangirl hard over the dead poet, holding his cape between them and declaring “no garment could be scarier!” Poe (played by a character actor named Edgar Allan Poe IV who claims to be a descendant of Poe’s family) is portrayed as a very human man who has missed good cooking because “in the afterlife there is no salt”. The actor does a great Virginia accent to go with the role which is something missing from most movie and TV versions of Poe.

The big twist is that Poe no longer write horror because there’s a better market for sappy love poetry. In the end, Salem the cat reads one of his horror stories leaving both aunt and Poe with their hair standing on end in terror.

There are some good jokes in this episodes of late 90s/early 00s fodder. My favorite was Hilda stating that Zelda forgot the one thing that would make Poe feel at home. Salem the cat responds with “An open bar?” I know. I know. It’s not fair to make fun of someone with a problem, but for a kid’s show it was a pretty good burn.

Mr. Peabody's Improbable History: Movies about Writing

I loved Mr. Peabody and Sherman as a kid. My parents were more willing to watch the reruns of this with me than when I went through a Beanie and Cecil phase. Honestly, the 90s were a magical time for throwbacks. Between Nick at Nite and our own bizarre cartoons, its’ no wonder my generation is against reality.

Luckily, that movie came out recently so I assume I don’t have to explain about Peabody, Sherman, or the Wayback Machine in this blog. This cartoon aired in 1960 (I think - please comment below if I’m wrong) as one of the many “something we’ll home you’ll really like” on the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. In the short, Mr. Peabody presents the horror that is his boy’s report card and announces that he’s taking Sherman back in time to meet Edgar Allan Poe for a writing lesson.

The find Poe at a massive desk, finishing his draft of Winnie the Pooh. Oooo, be careful, Poe. Disney will sue you if you put a shirt on that bear.

Anyway, Mr. Peabody and Sherman escort Poe to what is supposed to be one of many haunted houses in Baltimore in order to inspire fear. The “foreboding abode” is filled with torture equipment, deadly creatures, and the best cliches you can think of, however Poe happily plays and is distracted by happy things.

Spoiler Alert: What finally frightens Poe in the end is knocked off his feet in fright by his income tax report. Bah dum dum tsk!

As funny as this was to me at seven years old, as an adult who knows more about mental health, I really want to go back in time and give Poe the damn yoyo from the cartoon. Just let the man be happy, damn it!

Castle of Blood: Movies about Writing

This particular little film I had to track down through the means of Youtube, meaning the transfer was rather painfully grainy. An Italian/French production also known as Dance Macabre, Castle of Blood shows little of Poe, but he’s the catalyst for the whole . . . shall we say plot?

A journalist challenges Poe (Silvano Tranquilli) in a pub that his stories are completely fake, to which Poe declares that he has experienced the supernatural in reality. At least I think that’s what he said. The movie kept slipping into French and Italian with no subtitles. Anyway, a Lord Blackwood (of course he name is Lord Blackwood) dares the journalist to spend the night in a real haunted castle.

Wait? What did I miss? Why is there a castle? Where are they? There are no medieval castles in Baltimore or New York that I know of! Did the Italian screenwriters think the United States just has castles lying about?

I really don’t have much else to say on this except that it is one of several Italian horror movies Barbara Steele (Roger Corman’s Pit and the Pendulum actress) made in 1964. There’s lots of jump scares and close-ups of attempted gore with high-pitched organ music. I really thought Poe would be in it more. He really wasn’t even all that upset that his writing was challenged in the beginning of the movie, just amused. I guess Italian Poe is cooler than real Poe.

Apparently this was remade by the same director a few years later with Klaus Kinski as Edgar Allan Poe, but I’m not sitting through it again especially not with that creeper in it.

Loves of Edgar Allan Poe: Movies about Writing

Oh the 40s. A time of mass production of movies all trying to bank off the last great success. Oh wait. That’s right now. Either way, this, like so many other biopics of the 40s involves very little biography and a great deal of melodrama.

This one focuses on the women in Poe’s life fittingly through the women closest to him. Not an accurate way, but in a lot of sap and sweetness. His adoptive mother is fittingly his first champion who encourages him to become a poet at college, but his adoptive father won’t give him enough money to be a presentable scholar. (Note: In reality, Poe gambled the money and then his adoptive father refused to give him more. But gambling is instead the result of his father’s miserly behavior). He starts his writing career early in an attempt to show his own genius and prove he can marry his first romantic love, Elmira. Poe didn’t start seriously writing until later, however, he also meets Thomas Jefferson as a student to discuss said writing. We are off the historical rails now.

Poe does say that he has a formula for his tales, a mix of expectations and breaking those expectations, a statement he makes with great confidence. He chooses writing over everything especially when he discovers that Elmira will marry another man. Gasp! He does join the army before going to live with his aunt, Maria Clemm, and cousin Virginia which is accurate. Virginia is older and played by Linda Darnell in the film because. . . you know, don’t want to creep out the audience with his child bride.

Poe is overly boastful about his first book being published, thinking he now has a steady stream of income. He is going to “snare ghosts” and put them in a bottle to sell for fame and riches. Oh you sweet summer child. Clearly, this Poe never spoke to another artist in his naive life. He does have success for a time, winning a story contest and being offered a job on a magazine. He even fights for copyright laws with Charles Dickens (seriously, everyone need to thank him and the other authors who fought so we could all have our works protected - maybe I should buy myself another Poe doll as my appreciation). All of this makes him look much more prominent and wealthy than I think he ever was.

Poe ruins this shining moment by allowing a night out with Virginia to upset him when he runs into Elmira, discovering she always loved him. There’s also a scene where someone says, “he married his cousin” with such shock. That was totally normal until the early 1900s. Poe stays away for 3 days drinking and ticking off his his boss. Virginia wants to look for him with pity, but her mother tells her that she needs to wait and be the one to scold him for his behavior. It’s sort of a strong woman scene which you know probably never happened just because Virginia was usually too sick to go anywhere.

Virginia is a bold and wise young woman in this film. She points out that “those who create have always been treated [poorly] by those who don’t understand”. Where is a teenager with no experience of the world getting this insight? A moment of jealousy is added as she lays ill where she is convinced Elmira will take Poe away. This is very human for a character they made so perfect up to that moment.

Spoiler alert: Virginia dies as Poe tries to sell “The Raven”. Then Poe dies in a stupor. The end. No really. That’s how it ends.

To conclude, the part of this which made me happiest was how important copyright law was. I get it. It’s not exciting or romantic. Yet, it is so important and most people don’t even know Poe was a part of it. Copyright projects artists as best it can and to think of a time without it fills me with anxiety. Maybe that’s the real reason why Poe drank.

The Raven (1915): Movies about Writing

Apparently, there was a novel called “The Raven: The Love Story of Edgar Allan Poe” by George C. Hazelton, based on a play he also wrote. I found different exact dates for the play and novel so let’s just say between 1900 and 1909. Either way, this film is based on that book/play. It opens in a strange way, giving the history of Poe’s in America - feel the patriotism people! After about 2 minutes of family tree, the audience is introduced to actor Henry B. Walthall as Poe,

The actual plot starts with little Poe being separated from his sister (Poe’s brother has been written out) upon his mother’s death and sent to live with the Allan family. The house here looks more like Tara than the home of a merchant, but visually nothing is historically accurate. The costumes - so many frills and puffs! The actress look like their clothes are trying to swallow them in fabric!

Anyway, Poe goes to college, gambles, drinks, and gets disowned whereupon his goes to visit his aunt and cousin. Virginia Clem is played by Warda Howard, who behaves very childlike at the beginning of the film and more melancholic as the story goes on. Their courtship is depicted as wholesome and romantic. He tells her stories and brings her flowers and sneaks kisses and competes for her hand against another suitor and buys an enslaved man to make her happy. Oh, did you catch that last part? That’s right. He purchases another human being who was being abused as a gift to his young girlfriend. Yep. Dating sure has changed hasn’t it.

All of this mushy stuff never happened as far as anyone knows, so let’s jump to depressed Poe torturing himself over his writing as Virginia tries to encourage him while she coughs up a lung. All very dramatic. Just like the earlier silent film, the main idea of the scene is that if Poe can only get published, he can save Virginia. Which is not have tuberculosis works and she dies with a great deal of arm waving.

The same actress plays poet Helen Whitman, who Poe mistakes for Virginia in a state of despair and hallucination. For some reason, this all triggers him to write “The Raven”, which is acted out by Poe and the ghost of Virginia. He finishes writing it and [SPOILER ALERT] dies. That’s it. That’ s all Poe ever wrote. The end.

I don’t think I’ll be reading the book this is based on.

Edgar Allen Poe (1909): Movies about Writing

First off, I didn’t spell Poe’s name wrong in the title above. That’s how it’s spelled for the movie. Second, what did I just watch?

Don’t get me wrong- I normally like most silent films. MOST.

This is only 7 minutes long. However, it is directed by D.W. Griffith (deep sigh of despair due to history connected with him) so that 7 minutes is filled to the brim with melodrama. It opens with Virginia Clemm Poe (Linda Arvidson) tossing her hands around to show the audience how tormented by illness she is. Edgar Allan Poe (Barry O’Moore) comes in, also throwing his hands in the air a bunch, puts her to bed, then writes “The Raven” based on a conveniently placed taxidermy bird in their disheveled and under-furnished home. I’m not kidding. Virginia’s bed looks like a table with a blanket. Upon completion, he keeps pushing the poem into his wife’s dying face for her approval, then goes to find someone willing to pay for his work.

The remainder of this short film is Poe trying to convince editors and poets that he needs to get published (which he does without putting on a coat first - no wonder they didn’t take him seriously).

SPOILER ALERT: Poe sells the poem. He uses the proceeds to buy a warm blanket for Virginia, but comes home only seconds after she’s kicked the bucket. And that’s it. That’s the whole film. Thanks for nothing, Griffith. Your legacy lives on.

POE THEME: Movies about Writing

Movies about Poe time! The man! The myth! The super depressed writer who I have an upsetting obsession with. Therefore, I am going to bite the bullet and watch the horribly inaccurate films loosely based on Edgar’s life that I have been avoiding. I’m also going to throw in a couple of funny depictions of Poe to keep myself sane. This will last a few weeks so prepare yourself for lots of Mr. Mopey. . . I mean Poe. Mr. Poe.

Knives Out: Movies about Writing (Copy)

This one is a going to have spoilers - so you’ve been warned.

I love this movie so this will be written with bias. Knives Out is what happens when a bestselling mystery writer kills himself and leave everything to his kind nurse instead of the spoiled members of his family. I can’t do this film justice in a blog, so I won’t go into intense detail, but here’s the background. Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, a self-made millionaire with his own publishing company and house of fabulous oddities based on his many novels. His family is made up of a whose who of great actors (including Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and Chris Evans) in a traditional Agatha Christie style.

This comes with their own quirky private detective Blanc (Daniel Craig takes this role and runs with it in a fantastic way) working with the exhausted police investigators (one of whom is notably played by LaKeith Stanfield). At the center of all of this is Marta, the quiet, young caregiver played by Ana de Armas. Also, Frank Oz has a cameo as the lawyer at the will reading. Side note: I just imagine this moment on the set of Star Wars the Last Jedi where Rian Johnson fanboyed over Frank Oz and slyly asked if he wasted to play the snarky attorney. If this is not how the casting occurred, I don’t want to know. Let me have my geek dream.

This movie is Rian Johnson’s love letter to Poirot, Colombo, Jessica Fletcher, and the film Clue. So, he includes so many of the tropes needed, while mixing in it a unique story of socioeconomic status.

Let’s look at the author/victim of the mystery first. Harlan Thrombey fills his house with a mix of oddities and objects from his novels. He raised his family in this attempt to make his own life more interesting as his daughter talks about his love of games and how he regrets giving them all too many handouts that they don’t seem to appreciate. For example, when he finds out that his son-in-law is having an affair, instead of coming out directly with the information, he writes in a secret message to his daughter that he promises to deliver if the husband does not come clean.

Therefore, when Marta thinks she’s accidentally poisoned Harlan with morphine, he is determined to save her in a way that is full of all the complications of a mystery novel, after he considers how this form of murder would work well in a novel. He refuses to allow her to call the police as her mother is undocumented. Instead, he tells her to leave the house so everyone sees her, sneak back in, pretend to be Harlan so everyone thinks he was still alive after she left, and then sneak back out. All of this while he has slit his own throat to make his death appear as a suicide. This, by the way, is not the actual twist of the film. All of that is revealed in the first 30 minutes.

Going back to the idea of a successful mystery writer being the center of a murder mystery. I’ve mentioned the house and property full of wonderful eccentric relics. This is meant to mirror his personality and the themes of his novels. The reason why I point this out is because it is the beloved goal of every writer or artist to be able to afford a house big enough to fill with all of the weird items of our dream lives. Mine would have a secret bookcase door, a cast iron spiral staircase, and a giant mural of either a Gustav Dore’ picture or a N.Y. Wyeth illustration.

None of this has to do with the plot of the movie (well, it does, but you need to watch the movie to find out how). I’m just saying - I want Harlan Thrombey’s house.

Crimson Peak: Movies about Writing (Copy)

I’ve seen this movie at least once a year since it came out. Crimson Peak includes some of my absolute favorite supernatural tropes: a Gothic house, a woman who is both the victim and savior, ghosts who are both frightening and helpful, and utilizing the social norms of the Industrial Era compared to the “old world” European settings.

Crimson Peak is an atmospheric thriller about Edith (Mia Wasikowska), a writer and the daughter of an American businessman, who marries the charming Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) despite reservations of those around her (Jim Beaver plays her father and Charlie Hunnamam plays her old friend Dr. Alan McMichael). Thomas whisks Edith away to live him and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) in their crumbling English estate, Allendale Hall to pursue his attempts to make the manor lucrative once again. It is not long before Edith is the center of mysterious visitations from those no long living.

The movie is written by Matthew Robbins (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dragonslayer, *batteries not included, etc) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, The Shape of Water, etc.). The director is, naturally, also del Toro. Of course, this might be partially why I adore this film. Guillermo del Toro and I have many similar loves - Ray Harryhausen, Charles Dickens, fairy tales, Disney movies, the Haunted Mansion, Richard Matheson, Poe, and classic horror movies including Freaks and one of my all-time favorite films The Uninvited from 1944. I desperately want to get a beer with this man and just geek out for hour about books and movies. WHY CAN’T THIS HAPPEN?

Let’s get down to the parts of this story that relate to writing. This is a mystery so warning: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

After an experience of her deceased mother delivering her a cryptic warning as a child, Edith Cushing has grown up as an aspiring writer of supernatural fiction. The early scenes of the film focuses heavily on her writing ambitions and how society mocks her efforts. An exchange between Edith and the mother of her childhood friend shows how little she cares about their opinions, as well as her attempts to build a somewhat morbid reputation.

“…our very own Jane Austen. Though she died a spinster, didn’t she?”

“Actually, Mrs. McMichael, I’d prefer to be Mary Shelley. She died a widow.”

Edith shows up early at the publishing office, covering in ink from doing corrections while she waits. THE NOVEL IS NEVER DONE - I TELL YOU!!!! Movies that take places in the mid- 1800s up through the 1910s always show the publisher or editor reading the whole manuscript while the writer sits there anxiously. How do they do this? Do the pair sit there four hours together in uncomfortable silence? Is this potential buyer just skimming? Are there bathroom breaks?

Either way, the scene in Crimson Peak keep this pattern of Edith on the edge of her chair while the publisher (played by Jonathan Hyde who still haunts my childhood at Van Pelt, the hunter from the original Jumanji) criticizes her for being a woman who wrote a ghost story (“It’s not! The ghost is a metaphor for the past” as Edith insists) without love story in it.

Despite the rejection and her decision type her stories from then on to hide her gender, Edith’s father buys her a beautiful fountain pen. I point this out because the pen is important a the end of the story. She also, as she is typing out this manuscript for another attempt at publication, meets the dashing rogue of the tale, Sir Thomas Sharpe Baronet. He compliments the story in front of her, not knowing she is the author. Seriously, if Tom Hiddleston complimented my writing I would probably marry him too (the fact that he is Tom Hiddleston does help, though).

Mr. Cushing has Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille, investigated by a private detective (played by Burn Gorman who will always be Owen from “Torchwood” in my mind) and finds information that make him insist that Edith’s heart be broken so she does not pine too long for Thomas. Thomas does this in the masterful stroke of her attacking her novel. He gets mean, basically she her characters have no realism or true emotion, just the mimics of characters from other books. Harsh, dude! Harsh.

As this is a horror story, Edith’s father then dies in a violent and mysterious way, leaving Thomas a chance to apologize and marry Edith. There are only two things in this movie that bug me. 1) a dog get murdered. 2) When Thomas begs the forgiveness of our hero, he talks about a sting that connects his heart to hers. This is line clearly paraphrased from Jane Eyre and Edith, as a writer and reader, should have recognized such a cheesy line.

Arriving at Allendale Hall cuts down on Edith’s writing as she is a new bride in a haunted house with a psychotic new sister-in-law. There is one scene were Thomas asks her the fate of her main character and she honestly tell him that she doesn’t know - how a writer cannot control completely the decisions their characters make. I’m not going to give away all of the jumps and ghostly entities, but I want to go back to the theme of Edith as a writer.

In climax of the film, when Edith discovers she is trapped in a Bluebeard plot of greed and incest, Lucille attempts to force her to sign over the last of her inheritance to the Sharpes. As this battle of wills takes place, Lucille proceeds to BURN EDITH’S MANUSCRIPT! Bitch! Oh no! She did not! Edith proceeds to stab Lucille in the shoulder with the fountain pen her father gave her. You get it? It’s like a metaphor or something.

The film ends with Edith writing the tale of Crimson Peak, revealed to the audience in form of a published book. So, she’s finally a published writer after all. Happy ending. Right.

Not my image- Belongs to Universal Pictures

Misery: Movies About Writing (Copy)

As James Caan has recently passed, I decided to re-post one of my earliest movie blogs. Here ya go.

Stephen King has said that of all of his characters, Annie Wilkes is the one he would not want to be quarantined with. Especially if she was his number one fan.

I’ve read this book once and only once. The movie I’d only ever seen pieces of until now and I have to say: nothing puts editing critiques into perspective like watching Misery. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story, but just in case, it’s about an injured writer who is in the clutches of a deranged woman who adores his books.

First, the movie in general. I confess I get excited to see Lauren Bacall and Richard Farnsworth in something that I haven’t seen a million time. And of course Kathy Bates is brilliant and horrifying. It does weird me out that it’s Rob Reiner film. Before this he had directed such serious dramatic works as This is Spinal Tap and the Princess Bride . . . alright and Stand By Me which is a little more hard hitting, but also based on a King story. By the way, the screenwriter for Misery is William Goldman, author/screenwriter of the Princess Bride. That’s your random trivia of the day.

First of all, I just want to point out that Wilkes isn’t AS AWFUL in the movie. In the book, some of her actions almost made me throw up. In the movie, she’s still awful, but a fraction less awful (I don’t want to give away anything in the book so just know that I found the movie slightly tamer . . . slightly).

I actually watched this as background noise while going through some editing notes for my next novel. In both the book and the movie there is that moment Annie forces the author Paul to burn his latest book which she found filthy. Of course, the typed pages she sets on a grill are the only copy and she is threatening his well-being if he doesn’t light a match over it. I imagine there are some who watch this and think that the manuscript is no where near as important as Paul’s food, medicine, and life. But this really is one of the most gut wrenching scenes for any creator. You put months and years into a story or any artistic endeavor. It’s not like in those old movies where they write it overnight and it’s perfect as is. Writing a novel especially takes literal blood, sweat, and tears (usually during the editing process) not to mention a bit of booze or chocolate (usually during the writing process).

To anyone who has ever had a project lost, especially to the horror that is computer glitches, you know the frustration and sorrow it causes. The first time this happened to me I was twelve and the floppy disk (that’s right - I’m old) with my first attempt at a novel saved to it stopped letting me open the novel. A friend of my brother’s claimed he knew how to retrieve the file and took the disk from me. I waited several weeks before re-starting the process and trying to remember everything I’d already written once, only to have him then tell me that 1) he’d totally forgotten he’d promised to fix it and 2) that there was no way he could fix it, why did he say that? Although I am clearly still bitter at this betrayal of my trust to he’d have an opportunity to briefly look like a hero, I do have to thank him for one thing. My anger towards him helped me move on from my anger towards the entire situation and I did rewrite the book. Several times, actually, but that’s another story.

In the film version of Misery, they don’t really cover Paul’s thought process at this time, but I’d hate to confess that it’s a little similar to my own in the book. His bitterness and rage towards Annie helps him to keep thinking about how he’s going to rewrite that “filthy” novel just to spite her.

This brings me to other major writer moment of the movie. Annie insists that Paul write a novel the resurrects her favorite character, a romance icon called Misery (get it? Huh? Huh?). When he starts this novel begrudgingly, she gives him serious critiques about continuity. And he has to admit that she’s right. This is possibly the most realistic and undeniably frustrating moment in a writer’s life. When someone whose opinion you don’t even want makes you write something better.

That having been said, I still wouldn’t want her hovering over my bed to get me motivated. Damn it, Annie Wilkes!

Image copyright Columbia Pictures, Nelson Entertainment, and Castle Rock Entertainment (please no one sue me, I’m poor)

Glynis: A Movies about Writing Request

I just found out that there was a Murder, She Wrote BEFORE Murder, She Wrote. In the 1960s Glynis Johns (you know, the mom from Mary Poppins) starred in a sitcom about a mystery writer married to a defense attorney and they solved crimes together! But all I can find of this show is a thirty second clip! Does anyone know if anything else of it exists? Is there any place to watch a full episode? If you do know, please leave comment below. Thanks for fueling my obsession.

Life of Emile Zola: Movies about Writing

I confess I know little about Emile Zola and the only one of his stories I’ve read is Therese Raquin (and I never finished it). But they reference this film in the movie The Majestic and that left me curious. I also learned that Zola was a fighter of antisemitism using both his verbal and written powers. Of course, the movie made in 1937 didn’t dare bring up this topic even though it was the entire reason for the climax of the film!

Paul Muni plays a sympathetic yet pretentious Zola with the usual starving artist tropes. The film opens on a cold garret where he lives with Paul Cezanne and the burn popular novels in order to keep warm. I get that Zola wants to believe in the idea that books need to say something important, but burning? Really dude! Get off your literary high horse. What was your lofty point in Therese Raquin, huh? Yes, I’m just going to go back to that one. It’s my only argument. If you read it or watch a movie version, you’ll see what I feel it makes a valid argument here.

Zola starts as a penniless idealist who can’t hold down a writing job because his topics are not bestsellers. He investigates labor conditions, homelessness, rights for women, and even how the law treats prostitutes. This movie is post Hays Code so they never call Nana, the woman he interviews, a prostitute although it is heavily implied. His fictionalized account of how life treated her to put her in that circumstance becomes his first successful book (sex sells even when it’s highly depressing and oppressive sex). The bookseller is happy to surprise Zola with a large check for 1800 Francs. In reality, Zola interviewed several prostitutes and women who worked in a theatre in Paris. Also, the actual book Nana sounds like just an exploit of how women ruin their own lives. Either way, there was no single Nana, but that’s not very good for a screenplay. Still, I find the movie idea so awful. He essentially tells this single woman’s story without her permission. He gives her a copy with a few francs inside though.

Zola and Cezanne part ways when Zola continues to write scandalous exposes of life in contemporary Paris which make him a comfortable living. He starts to focus more on politics instead of social issues, criticizing the French army and leaders.

Most of this film focuses on what is known as the Dreyfus affair. Alfred Dreyfus (Joseph Schildkrut) is a Jewish (in the movie Hungarian) officer accused of treason. He’s railroaded by the French government with little proof of his guilt and sent to Devil Island for years. *History fact: the only evidence against Dreyfus was disposed of letter found by a cleaning woman and written in handwriting proven to be another member of military personnel. The French military did not want people to think they could not catch a traitor in their midst and supposedly fabricated evidence to blame Dreyfus and have to hunt down the other man. Dreyfus didn’t get a full exoneration by the French government until 1995 because even 80 years later, they didn’t want to be wrong.

When Dreyfus’s wife presents Zola with new evidence in the case, she begs him to expose that the French military knows her husband is innocent and do not want the public shame of admitting it. A middle aged Zola builds of renewed energy at his own outrage and writes the famous newspaper article, “J’Accuse…!” The passionate words of his article convince a portion of the French people of the truth. Again, I’m going to state that the original point of J’Accuse was to show that Dreyfus was a scapegoat due to his Jewish background and that antisemitism was keeping-him imprisoned despite evidence of his innocence. But Hollywood didn’t want to deal with that mess topic in the times of Hitler and appeasement.

There’s rioting in the streets and Zola is put on trial for his open letter of anger. In court, Zola states that he stands up for his country with “his pen”. He gives a great “Oscar clip” speech despite being a “writer” not a “talker”. His argument that his work, even his declarations of Dreyfus’s innocence, is a plea for the good of France.

I’m not going to give away the ending (you can look it up elsewhere or read a biography to get the rest), just know that the last half of the movie is about how writing can convince or infuriate or even fight for a man’s life.

Hamilton: Movies about Writing

You know this one. It’s a Broadway play filmed for Disney+ (don’t sue me Disney+). Okay fine, if you don’t know it - it’s a fictional account of the life of Alexander Hamilton, father of the American economic system, and to a lesser extent about his wife, Eliza. Some people argue that she’s the real protagonist, but for the sake of this blog, I’m sticking to Hamilton.

Why am I writing a blog about a founding father rap musical by Lin Manuel Miranda? Because Hamilton always wrote “like he was running out of time”. Duh.

I’m keeping this short, but what I want to point out is how the play makes a point of showing how prolific Hamilton was. How he wrote everything down and, when he was passionate about a topic, he wrote until he ran out of ink. The play even shows how this habit cut into his personal life with his family and how it led to his downfall as a politician. He needed more balance which he only finds about several tragedies.

That was pretty much all I had to say except that I’ve had “My Shot” stuck in my head for days now. At least it finally go the Bruno song out of there.

Mary Shelley: Movies about Writing

Now to go from the batshit to the attempts at historically accurate on the same topic. Mary Shelley was a movie I never saw before this because I heard it actually wasn’t that accurate (for example, only 6 minutes into viewing I noticed that they completely removed Fanny, the third Godwin sister which is so unfair).

As this one is more about Mary’s life, it has a larger cast than the other movies I watched. Elle Fanning play the titular character who has already begun her attempts at writing even before meeting Shelley (attempts which her father criticizes as unoriginal). Bell Powley is Claire Clairemont, Douglas Booth is Shelley, Tom Sturridge is Byron, and Ben Hardy is Polidori. Since the night in Switzerland is only a part of this film you also see Mary’s best friend Isabel (Maisie Williams), her father (Stephen Dillane), and her despised step-mother (Joanne Froggatt - who outside of Downton Abbey always seems to play antagonists). Thomas Hogg (Jack Hickey) gets to be in this one too who was a friend of Shelley’s.

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The movie starts with Mary sent away to Scotland when she and her step-mother butt heads more than usual. She and Isabel share a love of the supernatural and a bond since both lost their mothers at a young age. The house welcomes Percy Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge to recite their poems at parties. The attraction is instant and yet no one is shocked by their flirting. Shelley shows up at Mary’s home in London to become a student of Mr. Godwin and discuss the scandalous ideals of Mary Wollstonecraft. Let the philosophizing begin!

Mary takes a break from her own writing when Shelley shows up and still doesn’t pick up a pencil when Shelley’s wife makes an appearance. When the pair elopes, they of course take Claire with them. This more than any other film focuses on how close Claire and Mary were. This is heartbreaking since the real women fell out in the last few years of Mary’s life. Despite the lack of writing on Mary’s part, she and Claire are devoted to reading and supporting Shelley’s own attempts to be published. When Mary finds out that she’s pregnant, she worries about being a mother and that she’s moving further away from her goals of writing. There is also the whole Shelley wanting to bang Claire thing and thinks Mary should be free to bang his friend Hogg that gets in the way of Mary’s new relationship. Then Lord Byron enters the picture.

After the death of their first child and an escape from Shelley’s debts, they go on the fated trip to Geneva. Here the story will seem familiar. Once more, the second child William is written out, but the manipulations of Lord Byron’s are left in. The opium, the drinking, and the free love commence. Polidori is used more as a talking head who befriends Mary and acts as her sanity in the midst of Byron and Shelley’s “creative process”. Oh hey, this movie does talk about the connection between the painting “The Nightmare” and Mary’s mom.

The ghost story competition is used as high point where both Byron’s cruelty to Claire, the death of Shelley’s wife, and Mary’s renewed interest in writing all come together on one dark night. Polidori is picked on for his Vamyre novella so Mary doesn’t present her book idea, still Byron says he “looks forward to reading her work someday”.

Something I will give this film a lot of credit for it how it actually shows how science and the death of her children, not just ghost stories, inspired Frankenstein. The movie also deals in her own depression and the doubts of a teenage girl trying to build her own life. They give her more independence from Shelley, a realization that she loves him, but her own autonomy is more important than his philosophy and excuses for behaving however he wants.

More importantly, the Mary Shelley movie is more about her writing her book than any other film about her and her depressing life. She has a period of being cut off from Claire and Shelley in which she uses all of the pain she’d experienced in a short life to write the tale of the lonely creature. This also leads into the tale of the publishing which in itself was depressing. Just like in real life, it took her a year to find a publisher and Shelley had to write a preface meaning lots of people then thought he’d secretly written it. There is a nice outburst from Mary about how she wonders the meaning of writing her great work if she can’t have credit for it. It’s a fair question. Is is more important just to be in print or to get credit?

BFI Films owns this image… I think

BFI Films owns this image… I think

Rowing with the Wind: Movies about Writing

Have you ever said to yourself - gee, I wonder what it would be like if Hugh Grant played Lord Byron? What? You haven’t! Too bad. It happened. Rowing with the Wind was a 1988 Spanish film with a mostly English cast distributed by an American studio. “Too many cooks! Too many cooks!” Besides Grant as Bryon, the movie stars Lizzy McInnerny as Mary, Valentine Pelka as Shelley, Jose Luis Gomez as Polidori (making him way older than the rest of the group), and Elizabeth Hurley as Claire. Yes, children of the 90s, this when Grant and Hurley met. They also make William Fletcher, Byron’s valet, a major character played by Ronan Vibert.

The film opens with Mary on a ship in icy waters writing the same scene into Frankenstein. Then there’s an abrupt transition to Shelley asking Mary’s father for permission to make her his mistress while Mary, Claire, and their sister Fanny watch through a keyhole. Despite Mr. Godwin’s rejection of this plan leads to the group escaping to Lake Geneva so Claire can tell Lord Byron that she’s pregnant. Poor Fanny gets left behind. For those of you who don’t know, Fanny was Mary’s half-sister, the illegitimate child of famed writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who’d been adopted by Godwin when he became her step-father. She committed suicide the same year Mary ran off with Shelley which is thrown in as a random tragedy instead of being the senseless horror that it should have been in Mary’s life.

Byron is suffering from ennui when the group arrives so he accepts them as perverse entertainment with the usual cruelty to Claire and Polidori mixed in. Shelley starts freaking out before the drugs have even been passed around. There’s a lot of easy to look up facts that are inaccurate in this version, but at least it includes mention of the storytelling night. Still, not much is stated about how not just Frankenstein was developed that night. How about a little love for the Vampyre, movie makers! It deserves more love than Byron and Shelley’s philosophies that fill up half of these movies.

This film does go beyond that summer of creation, but in more of a creepy, supernatural way. Mary’s writing is a larger part of the actual story. She’s begun her novel and starts to feel like the creature is haunting her and those around her. After Polidori drunkenly attempts to talk to her in the middle of the night while she’s working, he hallucinates a scarred man in a coachman’s coat is playing pool with him. The next day he’s found hanged near the billiards table (THAT NEVER HAPPENED! The doctor died 6 years later).

Mary pauses the book as she and Claire each give birth to children, but she’s still followed by her creature. She begins to worry about curses and insists they go to Italy for both Shelley’s health and to try to stop her father from demanding money from them. In Italy, the creature kills Mary’s son William, Claire’s daughter is taken away by Byron and dies, Mary grows jealous of Claire, and (gasp) Mary receives poor reviews for her novel Frankenstein! Mary decides she must destroy the creature before it destroys her! Very dramatic.

This one is more of tragedy meeting art in an awkward, historically inaccurate way. There’s no mention of Mary’s other kids or other books. It’s all sadness and Frankenstein’s monster. It’s a little conceited to think every terrible thing to happen in the 19th century was the result of one book you wrote. C’mon Mary, get it together, girl.

Haunted Summer: Movies about Writing

Oh, Alex Winter. Why are you here? Then again, thank you for being here. It makes this film more interesting.

This is actually the third time I’ve seen this movie and it was all pretty much new to me. That’s how memorable it is. First, this Mary Shelley story is based on a novel by Anne Edwards written in 1972, not a historical source. Our key players this time are Alice Krige as Mary, Philip Anglim as Byron, Laura Dern as Claire, Eric Stoltz (yes, 80s teen actor Eric Stoltz who shows off all of his, cough, talents) as Shelley, and Bill S. Preston Esquire as Dr. Polidori. The producers are the infamous Golan and Globus under their company Cannon. If you know not of this duo ridiculous films - LOOK THEM UP! Do it now! Especially some of their 80s magic. I’ll wait.

Yep. The American Ninja films, Superman VI, and the Masters of the Universe films - all their fault! I should be ashamed of how much this company shaped my childhood, but I have no shame. The 80s were a weird time, man.

Haunted Summer pretty much starts by establishing that Mary and Claire are both sleeping with Shelley and are both aware/fine with it. Sisterly sharing, I guess? The poetic lifestyle they are embracing not only includes free love, but drugs, hallucinations, and cruelty disguised as friendship. Toxic relationships alert!

They meet with Byron through Claire’s obsession and love affair, starting with a luncheon before moving onto the villa where most of the film takes place. Just like in Gothic (see other blog), Byron is figure within and yet outside of the group. Their leader who everyone except Mary is in love with. Mary is fascinated by him like a character study, but not obsessed with him like the others. They fight over his attention and grovel at his feet when he’s cruel. I do like how the Dr. Who episode made him more of this figure within his own pompous mind instead of it being his actual role. Mary’s son William is not a part of this story, but Byron’s relationship with the group is changed by the announcement of Claire’s pregnancy. He forces Claire to give up the baby to him, but end their relationship.

Politics and philosophy are also brought into this version, referencing both of Mary’s parents and how their “radical” views shaped her and put her on the path to “revolution”. Interestingly, Byron shows off Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare painting to the group (the same one used as a visual source in Gothic), but there’s no mention of the fact that Mary’s mother knew Fuseli personally.

Now the writing parts. Mary is making her first attempts at prose while on this trip and she complains of how “muddled” her words are. Shelley keeps promising her that her ability will grow with practice. Studying Byron and how he mistreats both Claire and Polidori starts to give Mary nightmares of a large, deformed man in a coachman’s coat stalking the house.

SPOILER ALERT:
There’s no night of storytelling where she comes up with Frankenstein. Mary decides that Byron will experience her terror firsthand. She and Polidori drug the lord and the doctor wears a monster mask. He chases Byron through an underground cave and the next morning when Mary reveals the trick, Byron tells her that all monsters have some sadness. Oh and then they sleep together because that’s what this movie is. For once, Shelley is the only one who doesn’t sleep with Byron!

This is a blog about writing, however, other than Mary being inspired to create a human monster from watching Byron (and out of place scenes of her scribbling while Shelley sleeps naked - too much Eric Stoltz!) there isn’t much about how that night in 1816 inspired her creative process. This was more about creative people goofing off and calling it art.

Doctor Who (The Haunting of Villa Diodati): Movies about Writing

I’ve covered the night of literary birth before when I wrote a blog about Gothic.

First, the cleanest version of the night Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Doctor Who can’t have opium dreams and seductions by Lord Byron after all. This one starts with Mary (Lili Miller) as more of a child-bride, excited by flights of fancy and horror stories. Most of the time, she’s depicted at the logical one amongst the party, but in this case the logic comes later.

Because it is Doctor Who, there are aliens. The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) takes her three companions to the night when the famous ghost story writing challenge is supposed to take place. However, they find the party missing Percy Shelley and busy playing parlor games. This episodes does have a great joke in which one of Doctor Who’s companions, Yaz, commands, “No one snog Byron!”

The strangeness of the episode starts with poltergeist activity and disembodied hands trying to choke people. Percy Shelley has been troubled by visions of a dark figure over the lake and attempts to get to him seem stopped by the villa itself. Dr. Polidori is controlled by an outside force during a bought of sleepwalking which helps the Doctor figure out how the house is tricking them, but also includes another fantastic joke where Byron tries to hide behind Clare when startled.
I also like how the history of the time is added into the episode, how “the year without a summer” played a role in the famous villa holiday and, how it’s effecting the alien presence in the episode. What is “the year without a summer” you may ask? It’s just that. A volcanic errupti0n changed the world’s climate and left most countries in a famine. It’s quite fascinating, yet sad. Look it up.

The alien in question turns out to be an incomplete Cyberman. That’s right. Use the famous Doctor Who villain that is a murdered human body reused by technology in an episode about the author of Frankenstein. Derivative? Probably. But I’ll take it. There is a focus on Percy Shelley’s writing and how the Cyberman has a psychic link to both him and his poetry. And I’ll end the summary of the episode there so you can see the end for yourself.

Being Doctor Who, there is an attempt to give all characters more emotional insight. They of course include the mental health problems of Dr. Polidori and the nasty self-indulgences of Byron. But Claire Clairmont, Mary’s step-sister, is viewed as more of the lost, insecure, and anxious teenager she more than likely was than an instantly mad woman obsessed with Byron.

As for Mary, the episode focuses much more on her relationship to the other character and to her son William than to her writing. Motherhood has made her more mature and determined, more worried about her baby than herself. It’s difficult to watch knowing that William dies as a toddler.

Even though there is little link between Mary’s writing and the night that is is made obvious, the episode includes many visual connections for Frankenstein fans. A great coat like the one the creature wears. A disappearing child in the clutches of a monster. The soul within a horror.

And the doctor has a great speech about how literature effects history. “Words matter.”

Gothic: Movies about Writing (Copy)

And now for something completely batsh*t.

Long before I ever actually read Frankenstein, I was weirdly knowledgeable about its creator, Mary Shelley. And therefore, when I was flipping though late night television long ago and probably watching channels I wasn’t supposed to be, I discovered a young Natasha Richardson running panicked down a hallway while Julian Sands made out with Gabriel Byrne. They addressed each other as Byron, Shelly, and Mary, so naturally I kept watching. What I had stumbled upon was 1986’s Gothic directed by Ken Russell, a man who had to have been high most of the time (and if he wasn’t, the inside of his brain must’ve been a scary, brightly colored place).

This is meant to be a horror movie, but the monsters are pretty obviously the result of a bad trip.

There are several films that attempt to capture the idea of Mary Shelley winning the famous “let’s tell ghost stories” night against Byron, Shelley, and John Polidori (more about them later), but this is the only one that really focuses on the amount of opium likely ingested that night. This is NOT A CHILDREN’S FILM. Hell, I don’t this film is probably appropriate for most adults.

The madness open with Percy Shelley rowing Mary and her step-sister, Claire, to the shore of Byron’s villa. The moment he exists the boat, ye olde fangirls chase Percy up the lawn i hopes of tearing his clothes as a souvenir. You know, that whole poets being the rockstars of their day comparison. I don’t care how popular, I don’t think anyone every squeed at a poet. Sorry poets.

The characters/historical figures are established by extremes in the first 8 minutes. Byron is a lustful rogue who instantly makes Mary uncomfortable. Percy is a ridiculous child who just wants the attention of those around him. Claire is a wild thing determined to keep up in her recent and abusive affair with Byron. John Polidari, Byron’s person doctor, is just weird and uncomfortable with a sense of being both as lustful as Byron yet sexually harrassed by him (everyone man in this is established as bi from the get-go). And finally Mary, the quietest and most sensible of the group.

They decide to play a game in the giant house where the director fills the set with obvious sexual allegories, clockwork figures (that are very obviously people in costumes) and annoyed servants. The game is ended abruptly with Percy crawling out on the roof in the midst of a lightning storm and reminding Mary of her father’s favorite theories about electricity.

Drunk, high, and in hopes of an orgy, the group starts to read aloud from a book of ghost stories (while Percy makes out with Mary and feels up Claire at the same time…yep, you read that right). The stories instantly show Parallels to Mary’s future such as doom for Percy near water and the loss of a child. It feels like most movie versions about this night like to do this, Make it seem like Mary cursed them all for tragedy by writing Frankenstein. Nevermind that this whole group suffered from mental illness that was added to with booze and opium.

Byron decides they should “conjure” a ghost which Mary is unnerved by due to her own desires to bring her recently stillborn baby back to life. Even though they declare that they will make up their own ghost stories you never really see this - just more orgies, Claire having a seizure, Byron ordering a half-naked maid to pretend to be his half-sister, and Mary realizing that Percy is infatuated with Byron.

Here, I finally make a writing observation besides the poet thing. Percy Shelley is portrayed in Gothic as both being fascinated and attracted by Byron, but also as if he wants to be Byron. Sometimes writers think that by mimicking the behavior of their literary idols it will improve their craft. You know those people who only use a typerwriter and drink rum because Hemmingway did the same. Or only use a quill pen and hide oneself in a room because Emily Dickinson was a shut-in. Or pine after a girl named Laura because that’s what Petrarch did.

From that point, the movie 45 minutes of nightmare fuel involving more sex, miscarriages, boob eyes, near suicide, mud baths, philosophical conversations about death and homosexuality and religion, and Frankenstein’s creature following Mary around the house until she sees an image of her son William dead (which really did happen). The characters argue whether this is all the result of their minds or a creature of the night.

The end of all of this crazy is the idea great literature and horror comes from nights of great f*&%ed-up events. A part at the end involving modern tourists informs the audience that from Polodoiri’s obsession with blood and Byron came the novella the Vampyre and Mary’s insistence to bring back the dead came Frankenstein.

Once again, a movie about writers relies on the idea of their biography being directly linked to their works. Only in this case, it involves a lot of Julian Sands being naked and, at least for me, that does not inspire much in the way of literary genius.

By the way, despite my sounding so critical of this bizarre film, I do own it.

I’m too lazy to check who owns this. Just don’t sue me, please.