I told many, many people
Dec. 21st, 2005 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enthusiastickSo for no other reason than Because Its Wednesday, allow me to ask: what the Hell happened to Aaron Sorkin?
For no particular reason A Few Good Men keeps showing up on my premium cable channels, mostly during the week, after 10:00 at night, presumably under the rationale that no one is watching. I'm watching, obviously, but generally because there's nothing else on. I never much liked that movie before, but its starting to grow on me. Certainly I'm paying more attention to it than I ever used to.
The movie isn't particularly gripping until the trial spins up, and that's pretty late in the game. And then suddenly you've got that heated confrontation between Jack Nicholson and pre-public-insanity Tom Cruise and the closing credits are rolling -- although not before there's a large and totally unfathomable "The End" splashed across the screen in a yellow cursive script. They don't generally put that sort of stuff in movies anymore, unless they're trying to be ironic, and one gets the sense that was not the intent here. The producers must have understood even as they were filming that this was designed (destined?) to be a classic, in the cinematic classic tradition, and therefore no one would be particularly jarred by the atavistic "The End" text. No one who didn't watch the damn thing over and over again, anyway.
I bring all this up because I've found myself noticing more and more that there's a whole lot of movie before those memorable scenes. A whole lot of Tom Cruise and Demi Moore and the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon yapping at one another. Only they're not just yapping, really. They're doing a lot of Sorkin dialogue.
For the uninitiated, Aaron Sorkin's dialogue is something of a signature style, a sort of rhythm that one can feel and track. If you've seen enough of his stuff you find yourself anticipating the beats and flourishes, so that you can hum along even if you don't precisely know the tune. The phenomenon is of course not unique to Aaron Sorkin. Joss Whedon springs to mind as another screenwriter turned all-purpose creator whose conversations tend towards some inescapable patterns. Its not necessarily a flaw, but it can be an interesting thing, because once you've heard it, you can never go back to not hearing it.
I am at this juncture in my life fairly well immersed in Aaron Sorkin. I have the early seasons of the West Wing on DVD, as well as the entire run of Sports Night. I've got A Few Good Men seeping into my consciousness, and the American President has become a network television favorite (TBS I think), particularly around the holidays. That by itself presents similarities that are impossible to ignore. There's an exchange between Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen concerning the phrase "proportional response" that's almost directly replicated in an early episode of the West Wing (with that as its title, no less) only Martin Sheen has changed roles from advisor to president.
The cute minor female characters with unusual names that end in -ley. The articulate lawyers with high moral standards named Sam. The episodes titled "What Kind Of Day Has It Been." The tendency of every character to respond to minor stresses with the phrase "This is a nightmare. This is a [problem category] nightmare." Its all just sort of congealed in my brain into a lexicon of Sorkinisms, so that these television shows and movies all come to be viewed as part of the same essential thing. And the thing is, for all that I'm mocking it, I'm actually a huge fan of the Sorkin dialogue. I kid because I love. And ever since Sorkin and Schlamme made their famous exit from the production staff of the West Wing, its hard not to notice that the guy has sort of... languished.
There's a new version of A Few Good Men on stage in another country, but that's hardly a big deal to me. And there's the screenplay about Filo Farnsworth, but that's apparently in development Hell, and quirky little projects like that usually can't escape that particular quagmire. I hear rumors of a television pilot slated for next year, but a suspicious lack of specifics. So I am forced once again to ask, what the Hell happened to Aaron Sorkin? I know he lost a good deal of his status as a Hollywood beloved during the withdrawl from the West Wing, but c'mon man! You used to be prolific, and now its been literally years since I've heard anything new from you. I need to hear new characters speaking Sorkinese, and only the man himself can make that happen.
For no particular reason A Few Good Men keeps showing up on my premium cable channels, mostly during the week, after 10:00 at night, presumably under the rationale that no one is watching. I'm watching, obviously, but generally because there's nothing else on. I never much liked that movie before, but its starting to grow on me. Certainly I'm paying more attention to it than I ever used to.
The movie isn't particularly gripping until the trial spins up, and that's pretty late in the game. And then suddenly you've got that heated confrontation between Jack Nicholson and pre-public-insanity Tom Cruise and the closing credits are rolling -- although not before there's a large and totally unfathomable "The End" splashed across the screen in a yellow cursive script. They don't generally put that sort of stuff in movies anymore, unless they're trying to be ironic, and one gets the sense that was not the intent here. The producers must have understood even as they were filming that this was designed (destined?) to be a classic, in the cinematic classic tradition, and therefore no one would be particularly jarred by the atavistic "The End" text. No one who didn't watch the damn thing over and over again, anyway.
I bring all this up because I've found myself noticing more and more that there's a whole lot of movie before those memorable scenes. A whole lot of Tom Cruise and Demi Moore and the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon yapping at one another. Only they're not just yapping, really. They're doing a lot of Sorkin dialogue.
For the uninitiated, Aaron Sorkin's dialogue is something of a signature style, a sort of rhythm that one can feel and track. If you've seen enough of his stuff you find yourself anticipating the beats and flourishes, so that you can hum along even if you don't precisely know the tune. The phenomenon is of course not unique to Aaron Sorkin. Joss Whedon springs to mind as another screenwriter turned all-purpose creator whose conversations tend towards some inescapable patterns. Its not necessarily a flaw, but it can be an interesting thing, because once you've heard it, you can never go back to not hearing it.
I am at this juncture in my life fairly well immersed in Aaron Sorkin. I have the early seasons of the West Wing on DVD, as well as the entire run of Sports Night. I've got A Few Good Men seeping into my consciousness, and the American President has become a network television favorite (TBS I think), particularly around the holidays. That by itself presents similarities that are impossible to ignore. There's an exchange between Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen concerning the phrase "proportional response" that's almost directly replicated in an early episode of the West Wing (with that as its title, no less) only Martin Sheen has changed roles from advisor to president.
The cute minor female characters with unusual names that end in -ley. The articulate lawyers with high moral standards named Sam. The episodes titled "What Kind Of Day Has It Been." The tendency of every character to respond to minor stresses with the phrase "This is a nightmare. This is a [problem category] nightmare." Its all just sort of congealed in my brain into a lexicon of Sorkinisms, so that these television shows and movies all come to be viewed as part of the same essential thing. And the thing is, for all that I'm mocking it, I'm actually a huge fan of the Sorkin dialogue. I kid because I love. And ever since Sorkin and Schlamme made their famous exit from the production staff of the West Wing, its hard not to notice that the guy has sort of... languished.
There's a new version of A Few Good Men on stage in another country, but that's hardly a big deal to me. And there's the screenplay about Filo Farnsworth, but that's apparently in development Hell, and quirky little projects like that usually can't escape that particular quagmire. I hear rumors of a television pilot slated for next year, but a suspicious lack of specifics. So I am forced once again to ask, what the Hell happened to Aaron Sorkin? I know he lost a good deal of his status as a Hollywood beloved during the withdrawl from the West Wing, but c'mon man! You used to be prolific, and now its been literally years since I've heard anything new from you. I need to hear new characters speaking Sorkinese, and only the man himself can make that happen.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:11 pm (UTC)I think you must have originally slept through the first 3/4's of 'A Few Good Men'.
"We have to take a boat? Nobody said anything about a boat."
"Jesus Kafee! You are in the Navy for Christ's sakes!"
"Nobody likes her very much."
"Yes sir."
"I'll hang your boy from a fuckin' yardarm."
"A yardarm? Sherby, does the Navy still hang people from yardarms?"
"I don't think so"
"Dave, Sherby doesn't think the Navy hangs people from yardarms anymore."
"I'll file a motion in liminee seeking to obtain evidentiary ruling in advance, and after that I'm gonna file against pre-trial confinement, and
you're gonna spend an entire summer going blind on paperwork because a Signalman Second Class bought and smoked a dime bag of oregano."
"I want to tell you something Danny and listen up 'cause I mean this: You're the luckiest man in the world. There is, believe me gentlemen, nothing sexier on earth than a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote 'em all I say."
"Take caution in your tone, Commander. I'm a fair guy, but this fuckin' heat's making me absolutely crazy. You want to know about code reds? On the record I tell you that I discourage the practice in accordance with the NIS
directive. Off the record I tell you that it's an invaluable part of close infantry training, and if it happens to go on without my knowledge, so be it. I run my base how I run my base. You want to investigate me, roll the dice and take your chances. I eat breakfast 80 yards away from 4000 Cubans who are trained to kill me. So don't for one second think you're gonna come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous."
That's hollywood gold my friend! Now I may go home and watch it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 03:46 am (UTC)The thing is, nowadays when I watch the movie, a lot of the stuff in that part sounds off. Not so much the things you quoted, but a lot of the quips and barbs traded by Cruise and Moore resonate really weirdly in my ears. Because they're so clearly early West Wing dialogue, only the tempo is too slow, and the actors are wrong -- it should be Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford, or Martin Sheen, or Rob Lowe.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 05:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 02:13 pm (UTC)Totally beside the point, but true.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 03:49 am (UTC)Superb. Thanks for passing that along.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:53 pm (UTC)"Studio Seven on the Sunset Strip."
It's Sorkin/Schlamme doing their magic behind the scenes at an SNL clone, a la Sports Night.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0485842/ has some sketchy details. NBC picked it up already, and are going to dump a lot of money into it (and already have dumped a lot of money into Sorkin. That's right. NBC. The ones who forced Sorkin off the West Wing. They've seen how WW has hemorrhaged ratings, and now they're going back to the go-to kid.)
2006. We will have long shots of people walking through hallways while bantering. We will have banter between the sexes that amounts to "smart funny people get laid more than you do." We will have a clear viewpoint character who will be younger and idealistic and who needs an older, sagelike presence to temper him.
And Josh Molina will have a job after WW gets cancelled.
:-D
Date: 2005-12-22 03:48 am (UTC)I knew as I was posting this rant that if you read it you would understand.