LEONARD MICHAELS
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and they were very content with it, but their work was so brutally
ugly that it seemed to comment on their faith. I wandered in halls
and courtyard looking for a redeeming touch. There was no vision,
no sensibility. In works of true self-abnegating faith, is there a
necessary ugliness?
When Howard had laughed at lines, I laughed and felt great.
To think I'd written
that.
Now, in the middle of the night, I'd wake
up frightened, go to my desk, reread the screenplay and not know. It
was like waking up blind . I phoned my agent. "Is it good? Tell me
the truth."
"It's good," he said. "It's a very valuable property ."
Some friends read it and said it isn't good, others said it is. One
friend, a film critic and scholar, said, "Look, the best screenplay in
the world can be made into a lousy movie." Was the reverse also
true? Harassing people with questions about essential value was
futile. There was no truth.
Late winter, 1985, I went to the opening of two short plays by
David Mamet,
Prarie du Chien
and
The Shawl.
They were about rela–
tions between imagination and reality, and the powers and terrors of
estrangement in artists. The subject has been treated by
Shakespeare, Byron, Blake, Kafka, and Wallace Stevens, among
others. Mamet's plays seemed to me moving and very good. The
next day, when critics attacked the plays, I thought only desire and
luck prevailed in this world; maybe there had never been anything
else. I felt a strange hope for my screenplay.
If
it wasn't good, could
it be bad enough to succeed?
Other movie people approached me about the novel. Just the
novel. One was brutally plain:
"If
they make that screenplay, with
your name in the credits, you'll never work again." But if he made
the novel a movie, I'd have artistic success. More money, too. I was
immensely tempted, but never in my life have I succumbed to my
own best interests . One evening in a bar, I pulled a five-by-eight flle
card from my briefcase, scribbled an option renewal agreement on
it, signed my name, handed it to Howard. No lawyers, no agents,
and drunk, I put an end to agonized indeterminacy. Like getting
married not to deal with the excruciating prospect of backing out.
Afterwards you feel much better about yourself. G. Wilson Knight,
the great Shakespearean critic, says MacBeth murders Duncan
because he's afraid he might not. Hamlet acts similarly . I've rarely
acted otherwise.
Money for a low budget production was suddently in the bank.
