Father Geek here again. Moon Yun has sent me a bit of an interview/review on a new flick ripped right out of the headlines from just a few months ago... a cool story of some most uncool behavior...
Aloha, Moon Yun here signing in from Hawaii where I got to talking to Billy Ray about the new movie he wrote and directed – SHATTERED GLASS.
Nope Ray wasn’t in Hawaii for the interview, rather I spoke to him via telephone. I got a hold of his shooting script, read it and liked it a lot, but I had some doubts about whether it would translate well into film.
Then I read on Ain’t It Cool News that SHATTERED GLASS got good reviews after it had screened at the Toronto Fest.
I saw the trailer for it yesterday at the theater and now I’m dying to see this movie.
Here’s a little piece I wrote up on my interview with Ray and my review of his script:
Nope Ray wasn’t in Hawaii for the interview, rather I spoke to him via telephone. I got a hold of his shooting script, read it and liked it a lot, but I had some doubts about whether it would translate well into film.
Then I read on Ain’t It Cool News that SHATTERED GLASS got good reviews after it had screened at the Toronto Fest.
I saw the trailer for it yesterday at the theater and now I’m dying to see this movie.
Here’s a little piece I wrote up on my interview with Ray and my review of his script:
It’s hard to get the goods from Billy Ray on “Shattered Glass.”
“Shattered Glass,” which Ray wrote and directs for the first time, is filled with scandal, lies, deceit, unbearable public humiliation and the death of a star journalist’s career.
And he didn’t have to make any of it up. It’s all there in black and white, literally. “Shattered Glass” is based on a true story about Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen), a young, hot-shot D.C. reporter, who during his meteoric rise at “The New Republic” pulled one of the biggest cons in modern journalism history by faking stories.
Ray, whose screenwriting credits include “Hart’s War” and “Volcano,” remains impassive about the topic and keeps his answers brief and matter of fact until he starts talking about Charles Lane, “The New Republic” editor who had made the eerie discovery about this strange “wonder” kid.
Ray starts out describing Lane, who he interviewed during his research for the film, as very much like how Peter Sarsgaard portrays him in the movie. “He’s a straight shooter. He’s pretty serious. He was very humbled by the experience. It’s one of those things that will stay with him for the rest of his life.” His emotions then escalate. “The people who encountered Glass never got over him. The ones who worked with him, the ones who trusted him, (and) the ones who he betrayed…they never got over it.”
“Shattered Glass” is based on a “Vanity Fair” article written by Buzz Bissinger.
What’s remarkable about Ray’s script is how the writer stayed so faithful to the article, even to the point where some of the quotes were lifted for dialogue.
“Are you mad at me?” was something Bissinger reported that Glass said incessantly. It’s a phrase Ray uses throughout his script.
In Bissinger’s article, he writes: “More tempting is the idea of seeing each of Glass’s articles, each act of manipulative, aggressive trickery, as a grander and more precariously improvised adventure of the mind.” In the script, Ray shows Glass’s foray into his “adventure of the mind” by creating a high school visit scene where he’s basking in utter adulation by his former journalism teacher and eager students who want to be just like him:
INT. HIGHLAND PARK HIGH – ROOM 12 – MINUTES LATER.
This room is FILLED now with MRS. DUKE’S JOURNALISM CLASS: 30 kids, ambitious as hell, the well-heeled children of suburban money. Megan is in the front row.
We pan along the faces while hearing the voice of:
MRS. DUKE (V.O.)
Contributing writer for Harper’s Magazine. Contributing writer for George Magazine. Contributing writer for Rolling Stone…
The kids are impressed.
Glass stands at the front of the room. He’s trying to be self-effacing, but it’s tough; the adulation is so thick.
MRS. DUKE (V.O., CONT’D)
…and, of course, Associate Editor at the highly prestigious New Republic Magazine in Washington, D.C.
Beside Glass is MRS. DUKE, (45, been here forever.) Her pride in him is boundless.
MRS. DUKE (CONT’D)
Sorry if I’m beaming, but I was his journalistic muse.
GLASS
It’s true.
Mrs. Duke just beamed again.
MRS. DUKE
As all of you know, Stephen will be receiving Highland Park’s Alumni of the Year Award tonight – the youngest recipient in our school’s history, by the way. This is why I am so exacting with you people! Seven years ago he was sitting--
GLASS
--right there.
He points at Megan’s desk. Her eyes go wide. Glass officially owns her now.
(All excerpts are from Ray’s final Shooting Script, dated March 2, 2003.)
In adapting the story to a screenplay, Ray said that the biggest challenge was that if he had made the movie just about Glass, the audience would have felt much betrayed by the end.
“So the trick was how do you start a movie about Glass and make it wind up being a movie about Lane. I thought it was important for the audience that by the end of the movie they’ve begun to identify with someone other than Glass.”
In regards to the dialogue, the only challenge was to make sure that he got it right.
“I wanted to be certain that I had the rhythm of those newsrooms accurately … that the people would speak in the movie the same way that they speak in those offices. And the only ways to get that is to go and talk to those people, take a lot of notes, show them the script and see if you got something wrong.”
If journalists see “Shattered Glass,” Ray would like them to come away thinking that anytime...
“you work in a news organization, you’re susceptible to the cult of a personality.”
He adds:
“Someone who’s very likeable and very good at working the room might be able to get away with things that no one else would be able to get away with. You’d better pay close attention to those people.”
The only problem in this otherwise well-crafted script is the ending. The script ends abruptly with Lane encountering Glass in an elevator after their meeting at the attorneys’ office where they went over which stories Glass had fabricated. By then Lane had fired Glass. To Lane’s horror, 27 of the 41 articles that Glass had written for the magazine between December 1995 and May 1998 had been fabricated. After putting Lane through hell and nearly destroying the magazine, Glass asks that stupid question, “You’re mad at me, huh?” Then the script goes to straight to the epilogue where one of the super reads “Stephen Glass graduated from Georgetown Law School and is now living in New York.”
Ray says by the time audiences see the movie, they won’t feel dissatisfied by the ending. In fact he had to cut some scenes including the elevator scene which isn’t in the film because...
“the movie felt like it ended a couple times too many.”
Ray sounded confident he had delivered the goods on the final product.
“The ending, I think, has some real power to it.”
Well, that’s it folks. From what I heard about the movie and from what I saw of the trailer, SHATTERED GLASS sounds like a winner.
Moon Yun signing out until next time…
