378
PARTISAN REVIEW
then, as they were eating, he said goodnight.
It
seemed like a little
lesson in humanity . Howard and I said goodnight to them a few mo–
ments later. It was easier than I expected to leave . I liked Samantha
and put some of her remarks into the screenplay. I did the same later
with an argument between Howard and me. I'd written "woman" at
one place in the stage directions. Howard said, "But she's a whore.
Write 'whore.'"
"She's a woman ."
"Whore ."
"Woman."
We were in a restaurant and I was shouting as if my integrity
were at stake.
Howard turned in the screenplay to Twentieth Century Fox.
They read it almost overnight , but didn't feel it in their
kishkas.
They
said, "Too mature. Where's the audience for this?" Howard took the
screenplay to every other studio. It was universally rejected. But
then some well-known actors read it and seemed to desire parts . The
screenplay had an unusually large number of words, pages dark
with type. It even opened with a talking head as the lead character
tells a story. The actors might have liked the challenge of words,
having to act, make an audience listen, survive the lingering
scrutiny of the camera.
Using the actors' names , Howard could raise money in–
dependently , but months passed , the option on the novel lapsed, and
it wasn't renewed . Everything seemed over; the work was lost.
Howard became involved with another movie, but he phoned
regularly. It wasn't over for him. He said money was coming in, a
little here, a little there . This thing would not be allowed to die. I
was skeptical and kept asking, "When is it going to happen?" He
couldn't say , but he was positive it was going to happen.
From skepticism I fell into black doubt. There had been too
many rejections. The screenplay was shopworn, passed around too
much, soiled, cheapened. Not merely rejected; many disliked it. It
wasn't a novel or a poem; the opinions of other people mattered.
Worst of all, when I reread the screenplay, I didn't know what I felt
about it. When one doesn't know writing is okay, it isn't okay, but
there had been too much talk and praise and encouragement. There
had also been tremendous work. More than anything work is
destructive of judgement.
I once visited a monastery built by monks in the wilderness.
They'd carved every stone by hand. It took them years to complete
