Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I watch the previews for this movie, and I get some weird-ass echoes back to the summer and winter of ’94 and ’95 when I was working in New York with... well... better not say who. Let’s just say I was photographed by the FBI going into the Tribeca Film Center when I thought I was meeting with producers, and I am probably lucky that the development costs on a feature I wrote didn’t earn me a pair of cement shoes. As a result, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to think of THE LAST SHOT, but I am certainly going to check it out as soon as it opens this weekend. For now, Mr. Beaks sat down with writer/director Jeff Nathanson, and here’s the chat they enjoyed:
Jeff Nathanson is as close to being a “made man” as anyone in the screenwriting profession gets. Along with such major players as Frank Darabont, Scott Frank, David Koepp and Steven Zaillian, Nathanson belongs to Steven Spielberg’s inner circle of writers; an exclusive club that could keep one knee-deep in highly profitable rewrites for years to come. Sooner or later, though, these scribes, either emboldened by their newfound position or nurturing a lifelong aspiration, turn their hand to directing. In Nathanson’s case, the latter motive seems most likely, especially when one considers that the highly lauded writer of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN designed for his feature debut, THE LAST SHOT, the film’s flashy opening credit sequence, which plays as a virtual tour through a movie theater where the principal titles turn up on any number of familiar moviegoing paraphernalia.
As for the rest of the film, it’s a clever bit of Hollywood satire that, for all its rough talk (most of which is provided by Joan Cusack as a ballbusting, low-level agent), is quite gentle in its skewering of this oft-reviled town, reflecting its writer-director’s unfettered affection for the inspirational upside of the best studio product. Clearly, Nathanson’s hoping that this picture, about an out-of-work filmmaker (Matthew Broderick) who gets his big break, albeit from an FBI agent (Alec Baldwin) working undercover as a producer in order to infiltrate Providence, R.I. mobsters, will spark the imaginations of moviegoers as infatuated with the magic of filmmaking as he is. Few genres are a tougher sell to mainstream audiences, but THE LAST SHOT is a modest, but frequently hilarious concoction that proves pretty irresistible. If people can find it in the crush of 8,392 new releases this Friday, they’re bound to walk away utterly charmed.
A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to chat with Jeff Nathanson about everything from the business of screenwriting to the benefits of working with Spielberg. But before we could get started, I had to clear up a minor confusion for which only an internet search engine could be responsible.
I was doing a Google search under your name, looking for any interesting or embarrassing things I might throw at you, and I found out that you’ve been touring the world with Latin pop superstar Luis Miguel.
Yes. I’m exhausted.
I had no idea you were so accomplished.
I play the tambourine. It’s a very strange little group we have.
It must be a nice break from the writing. Speaking of which, what was your first sale?
I was hired by Imagine Entertainment to write a film that was based on an idea by Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers. They had an idea for a movie. I came in, wrote it, and the movie never got made. But that led to various other things.
Was that right out of school?
No, no, no… it was school, then struggle for six years, then… finally.
That’s tough. We most remember the overnight success stories, but then there are those tales of delayed gratification. I think it’s good for people to hear that. I think a lot of people tend to think, writers especially, that if they don’t hit the ground running, then they’ve failed.
It’s very hard to rush Hollywood. You hear once in a while those, you know, “At twenty-two he was at the top of the world” stories, but, personally, I don’t know if I would’ve even been ready. In some ways, it was good to have those years to grow up, and instead of one script, having written five or six scripts. When it happened, I was more prepared to handle it. Not that I was enjoying being a towel-boy at the Sports Club/L.A. (Laughs.)
I know you did some uncredited writing on TWISTER.
Right.
Was that the first big assignment?
I guess you could say that was a big deal at the time. That led to SPEED 2, which was, obviously, a complete disaster, but at the time I was getting the chance to rewrite a big studio movie. And the fact that it was set on a cruise ship that didn’t go more than four knots and didn’t have Keanu Reeves didn’t even bother me, because I was so excited to be a part of a real movie.
It’s not an overnight sensation kind of story; it’s very slow steps toward where I could write my own things. (SPEED 2) led to, I think, RUSH HOUR, which I did a lot of uncredited work on, which led to RUSH HOUR 2, which led to me finally having enough clout to go after something like CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, and bring Dreamworks the book and say, “Take a chance on me writing this.” It was all baby steps.
But it’s always been geared toward getting to this point – to write *and* direct?
Absolutely.
It’s always been about directing?
I can’t say that. It’s always been about getting to have the choice of what I work on, to get to choose what I write, and, ultimately, have more control over the kinds of things I do. Directing is just part of that; it’s part of a desire to truly have your own voice in all of this.
THE LAST SHOT has its roots in the 80’s. Is this something that you’ve been carrying around for a while? Maybe something you envisioned as your first film?
I got involved a long time ago – ’97 is when I read the magazine article in DETAILS. That’s a pretty long time to have a script gestating. There were a lot of projects that came and went, but nobody was making this movie up until last year. Honestly, I wish I could say this was part of some master plan, but that’s just not the case.
This just happened to be the vehicle?
They called and they asked, and I said “yes”.
The films-about-making-films genre is a well-trod one. One of their pitfalls, however, is that they’re not always popular with audiences. While there have been some really fine works in the genre – STATE AND MAIN, DAY FOR NIGHT, and things like that – were you worried about being too “inside baseball” with the material? How did you bring your own spin to it?
First of all, I didn’t want to make your typical Hollywood movie. They’re usually pretty cynical. It’s usually an attack on Hollywood, and that wasn’t the goal for me. It’s been done. Everyone in this film really isn’t in Hollywood; they’re on the fringes of Hollywood; they’re wannabe Hollywood people. That was the first way I dealt with that.
I don’t think it’s possible for a movie to be too inside anymore. I don’t think you can actually say something to an audience that they haven’t heard either on T.V. or read in a magazine. I think audiences are so far ahead of where we think they are. We’ve screened the movie in L.A. and Arizona and other cities, and it doesn’t matter where you go – the reaction’s the same. They laugh at the same jokes.
Even the “gross points” line?
Yeah! Look, when CATCH ME IF YOU CAN came out, my grandmother called me on Saturday morning. She didn’t congratulate me on the movie; she said, “What were the grosses”? That’s the world we live in.
You still hear, in particular, Roger Ebert lamenting about how entertainment journalism turned the top ten grossing films into a major event that’s reported on Monday, and that it’s made audiences more preoccupied with the business end of the film than the enjoyment of just going to the movies.
And to be honest, after working on a couple of movies in a row that were very successful, as a first feature… it’s not that I don’t care how it does, but it doesn’t make as much difference as when I write a movie. As a writer-director, because there’s so much more time and energy invested, I just wanted to make something that I liked, that made me laugh, and that twenty years from now would still make me laugh and that I wouldn’t be humiliated by. It was a different set of rules that I applied to myself as a director.
You’ve done all of these big-budget event films, but I’m starting to notice – after CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and THE TERMINAL – the Jeff Nathanson sensibility, which is a mixture of the heartfelt sentimentality of Spielberg and gentle absurdism.
I think the term is “quirky”. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN was a small movie. It wasn’t an event when I started writing it. It was a little movie about a strange kid running around pretending to be all of these things. THE TERMINAL was certainly a quirky movie; a small movie contained in an airport that just happened to star Tom Hanks and was directed by Steven Spielberg. (THE LAST SHOT) is clearly closer to my sensibilities, and closer to the kinds of things you’ll be seeing than RUSH HOUR and those kinds of things. I’ll still work on those movies, and still like those movies, but, ultimately, this is probably closer to my sense of humor.
One thing you do that I really love is the non-sequitur. Where does your affection for that kind of humor derive from?
When I was growing up in the 70’s, my parents would come home with the new George Carlin or Richard Pryor album, or you’d go to the movies and you’d see early Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Comedy was just a big part of my existence. It was a combination of having a real affection for certain dry and very straightly performed comedy.
And there’s definitely an affection for film creeping through. I mean, anytime I see a director dressing an apartment set with an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK poster, I think, “*There’s* a kindred spirit!”
Look, I love movies. And I also like Hollywood. I don’t want to attack Hollywood. It’s not that Hollywood just chews everyone up and spits them out. Hollywood provides a service, and that service is it allows us to have certain dreams. It allows all of us to think beyond ourselves, and imagine what it would be like to do this or that. Whether or not I ever had made it in Hollywood, I never lost my love for going to the movies. When I was struggling in L.A., and had no money, and was working horrible jobs, I still went to the movies. They were always there for me, so I didn’t want to simply attack Hollywood. I wanted to embrace a little bit of the magic.
There is that best aspect of Hollywood, which is an attempt to bring something into the world that is absolutely joyous.
And also give people a space to dream. It’s like professional sports. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a baseball player, but, very quickly, when you’re a five-foot Jew, you learn that you’re not going to be a professional player. Something else has to take its place. So, you segue… you look for something, and, for me, it was always Hollywood and movies.
When you were growing up, what were the ones that really did it for you?
I was a huge Hal Ashby fan. Nichols. Robert Altman. I couldn’t get enough of the early Woody Allen movies. I couldn’t get enough of the early Mel Brooks movies. You know, we were one of the first families on the block to get a VCR when they first came out. I think my parents paid, like, $1,300 for this huge box.
Betamax?
No, it was a VHS. But the only movie we owned was BLAZING SADDLES. That was it. So, literally, for a year I had a machine that could play one movie, and I never got tired of it. I watched it a thousand times.
I kind of had the same experience. When I was very young, my dad bought a Betamax and we had AIRPLANE. I’d watch AIRPLANE nonstop. We’d also tape things off of television, and one of those films that’s been a touchstone throughout my life has been JAWS. And it’s one of those scripts that’s just perfectly crafted. It’s one that’s always referenced.
It’s playing in theaters right now. You can go see it again. It’s called OPEN WATER. (Laughs.) Also, you’ll see the JAWS reference in (THE LAST SHOT). Obviously, I’m a huge JAWS fan. I had to ask Mr. Spielberg for permission to even mention JAWS, which was a little scary. Luckily, he said “yes.”
Being a fan of that movie, and also being a part of that inner circle that writes for Spielberg, along with Darabont and Scott Frank, must be phenomenal. You’re a trusted collaborator. What’s that like?
If you had told me growing up, or even when I was starting out, that one day I would be writing movies for him, or even meet him, I would’ve been in disbelief. To have written back-to-back movies for him is a concept beyond what I can understand, or even respond to. The best part is that I got to spend two years sitting in a chair behind him and watching him. If I never do anything else again, if I never work again, I’ll be able to tell those stories. I’ll have those memories. You know, on the set of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN one day, Martin Scorsese came to visit. Scorsese and Spielberg were sitting in front of a monitor and I was sitting behind them, and I thought, “There’s nothing anyone could ever do to take this moment away from me.” It was the ultimate film geek moment. I literally could barely control myself.
Did you get in on the conversation at all?
I couldn’t speak! I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. They must’ve thought I was on drugs or something, but I was just in awe. I’m a little kid like that. It’s like seeing my baseball heroes when I was growing up. When I’m around these people, even to this day, I turn into a fan very quickly. That’s why I was worried about directing. I thought, “I’m fans of these actors. How am I going to deal with this?” Luckily, they were all cool about it.
Do you think you’ll get in on WAR OF THE WORLDS at all?
I don’t think so. I think David Koepp has proven that he doesn’t need my help.
I guess it’s David’s turn then. He hasn’t worked with him since, what, JURASSIC PARK?
JURASSIC PARK 2, I think.
So, did Spielberg provide you with any insights that you were able to apply to your own directing?
You take a lot away you, and not just watching him, but watching his crew – he has the greatest crew in the world. And you watch the actors he gets; you take a lot away from them, too. You can’t learn to direct from watching Steven because he does it mostly internally; he likes to walk into a space and experience it for the first time, and then just figure out where he wants to put the camera. It’s very much like watching Tiger Woods hit a golf ball. I can’t emulate that, I can only appreciate it. But I learned a great deal about the tone that you set when you walk onto the set – how to run a set, and how to deal with the actors and the crew. He never leaves the set; he’s always standing by the monitor. He’s the hardest working guy on the set, and he’s the first one *at* the set. All of these things allowed me to come on to my movie and have a sort of a starting point. That’s a huge help to someone’s who’s never experienced it.
How brutal were you as a director on yourself as a writer?
(Laughs.) I couldn’t turn it off. The re-write part of me wouldn’t stop. So, every morning the cast was given new pages that were slipped under the trailer door. It’s just what I do. It’s what I do professionally; it’s what I do all the time. So, certainly, on my own movie, I wasn’t going to stop. At first, they were all a little freaked out about it, because I would so easily and willingly change things. But then they got in the spirit of it, and they understood that it was never done just to do it. It was always done because I’m truly rewriting the scene; I’m truly trying to make them better. Until it’s shot, you can always do a rewrite, you can always add a word or come up with a new joke or a new line. I just wouldn’t let things live. That’s just something that they all got used to and dealt with.
When you cast someone like Joan Cusack in that role – did you find yourself rewriting specifically for her?
We rewrote in the moment because she was so funny. The crew was just dying laughing so hard that I thought, “Well, let’s try some things.” She was up for it, so we just sort of went as far and as dark as we could.
Who’s to blame for the filthiest contributions to that scene?
I’ll take blame. I won’t blame Joan.
Getting back to perfectly constructed scripts, because I know we all reference certain ones as exemplary accomplishments, I’d like you to throw out some titles. What are the ones you always look to?
Truthfully, structure is a function of the mainstream Hollywood movie. Not that I’m saying it’s not important to be structured – it’s something I think I’m pretty good at. But I like to push the envelope and not get too rigid with structure, and not be a slave to it, because there is a certain danger. So, a lot of my favorite movies are films that are not perfectly structured. Look at THE GODFATHER films; certainly, there’s a wonderful structure to those films, but you have to think about it, and really try to figure exactly out how they were doing it. It’s not obvious. I really think that structure should be a hidden trick of the writer. It shouldn’t be, “On page thirty, the girlfriend leaves him, and his life starts.” All movies should aim for a little more seamlessness in their structure.
You mention films that push the envelope in terms of structure. The other night I was watching OUT OF THE PAST, which is an amazing movie. It starts in the present for about eight minutes, then goes into this long flashback, narrated by Robert Mitchum, which brings you back up to the present, which is something like the forty minute point. Now, with the whole backstory in place, we continue on with *that* story, which is a quite different one than the prologue led us to expect. That’s bizarre. Nobody would think to do that if they simply followed the basic tenets of story structure.
I think that films are getting so much more structured, whereas in the seventies… the structure was there, but it was much less on the nose. I have trouble with… well, I don’t want to use the title of a movie I don’t like, but with the obvious structural points. I think that sometimes they’re a necessity, and sometimes the studio is going to put them in whether you like it or not. And a lot of the times you’re making a studio film, so you embrace it. But THE LAST SHOT is oddly structured; it certainly is not your typically structured movie. Nothing happens on page twenty-five or page thirty-five. These people go away to Providence for this extended second act, and there’s a truncated third act, so it’s a little funky.
“Second acts are tough.”
(Laughs, obviously recognizing a line from his movie.) Exactly.
What are you up to next?
I’m writing another movie for Touchstone that I hope to direct. So, that’s the goal: to convince them that I can do this again. Hopefully, this movie will do okay, and they’ll make back their money, and they’ll let me do it.
Any details you can offer on the film?
Well, I’ve done three movies in a row that were based on a true story, so this one will not be based on a true story. I want to do lower budgeted things, I want to continue defining my voice – as you said my “sensibility” – and I want to continue to do things that are closer to my own heart than some of the other stuff I’ve done in the past.
The very entertaining THE LAST SHOT opens this Friday.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
Thanks, man. Nathanson sounds like a really good guy who knows his craft inside and out. I look forward to the movie.
"Moriarty" out.
