#i was going to see a show??? i think it was h*milton | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

justkeeptrekkin · 5 years ago

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Slow dancing as Good Omens fic prompt? I think slow dancing can be really intimate because of the proximity, the looks, the music...

bless you, anon.

***

Aziraphale had never really felt lonely before.

It may come as a surprise to many, but, truly, Aziraphale had never felt lonely. He is an angel who appreciates having time to himself. He is an angel who has chosen to roam Earth on an extended solo holiday for roughly six thousand years, Eat Pray Love style. He is an angel who has set up wards all around his bookshop so every customer is miraculously coerced into leaving the shop after ten minutes of perusing. Up in Heaven, Aziraphale is famous for being a soft, squishy introvert- baffling all the angels, archangels, cherubs and occasional saint.

Being alone is nice.

Being alone isn’t the same as being lonely.

Now, Aziraphale does feel lonely. He stands in the centre of his empty bookshop. A bookshop filled with inanimate, dusty things, but no one there other than him. All these books that he’s always valued so highly, loved so dearly- he still does- but somehow, now, they’re all disappointing to him. The shop feels desolate. The dust particles dancing in the air no longer appear beautifully ethereal, only melancholic; the light pouring through the windowed dome up above feels pale and watery; the silence funerary.

Aziraphale rests a hand on a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and thinks of what he might be missing.

A loud voice in his head tells him that he shouldn’t be thinking- why is he even trying to think about this? The answer is right there, sitting inside him and squirming happily, nervously, miserably. He knows what’s missing, what’s always been missing, yet what’s been there this whole time. Waiting for him. Staring at the chessboard expectantly for him to make his move. Handing over briefcases of books and offering lifts home. And it’s only really since the flop that was the apocalypse last week that he’s seen it for what it is. A perfect clarity, a glorious surety that Aziraphale has never, ever experienced till now- about anything.

It doesn’t come to him in a thought. The decision isn’t made through any logical thought process like: I know what to do. No, it comes to him in a surge, too sudden and overwhelming to hold back or consider for too long. Too sudden for his usual cowardice.

Aziraphale’s feet take him to the phone. He runs his fingers through the numbers, turning the dial, and waits.

He waits only three seconds.

“Alright, Angel.”

And it’s like that surge disappears as quickly as it came- a burst of air lifting a leaf off the ground, only to let it fall, fluttering to the cold, damp ground of reality. Aziraphale swallows. Feels the moment catch up with him with horrifying speed.

What is he meant to say now?

“H-hello, Crowley,” he says through a forced smile, though Crowley’s not there to see it. “I was. Well, I was just wondering.”

There’s a pause. A long one. Aziraphale’s mouth clamps shut. Now is not the time to falter, he thinks to himself.

“Must be a big thing.”

“Sorry?” he breathes, broken from his reverie.

“Big thing. That you’re wondering about. If you’re calling me and breathing down the phone. I can practically feel the anxiety creeping through the wires.”

His mouth opens and closes. Then opens again. And he croaks, “Yes. Um, what I wanted to say was. Was this.” He hesitates, but only for a beat too long. He scrunches his eyes closed. Scrunches them so tightly he can see stars. “Music.”

“Music?” Crowley repeats immediately, dumbfounded.

“Yes.”

“Music.”

“Yes,” he replies, sounding irritated. He’s irritated at himself more than Crowley. He’s rolling his eyes to himself for being so absurdly flappable. He is always the first to be flapped by the silliest things.

“Right.” A pause. “You. So. Yeah, you’ve got to help me out here, Angel.”

“What I mean to say- very, very badly, really,” he says, wincing again, “is whether you’d like to come round to the shop. Help me sort through my mess of a record collection that you’ve been nagging me about since 1964.”

Another pause. Then, “Oh.” Pause. Aziraphale’s perfect posture stiffens impossibly further. Ankles together, foot tapping. “Yeah. Well, what’s all the fuss about then? You sound stressed. Like a… a stressed person. Not a person asking someone round for a drink and some music.” Pause. “There will be drink, won’t there?”

It’s impossible that he finds himself smiling and relaxing, given how far up his throat his heart is currently climbing. And yet. “Oh yes. Don’t you worry, my dear, there will always be drink pouring.”

“Alright. Well, yes. Obviously yes. Even if you’re being weird. You are aware that you’re being weird, aren’t you?”

“Painfully aware, yes,” Aziraphale answers truthfully. Then, quickly, “Shall I uncork the Montepulciano and let it breathe?”

***

They’re on their knees by a teetering stack of vinyl records. The bottle of Montepulciano is finished and there’s another uncorked on the desk beside them. There’s the smell of grapes and dust, a combination that’s become a smell of home to Aziraphale. Made all the more familiar and comforting by Crowley being here, by his side, tearing his beautiful red hair out in annoyance.

“This one isn’t even in a sleeve,” Crowley announces, aghast. He waves the vinyl in Aziraphale’s face, yellow eyes wide. “When are you going to look after the rest of your things the same way you look after books?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replies casually, knowing that’ll just infuriate Crowley further.

It does- he growls desperately, creating a new neat pile of vinyls without sleeves, next to the piano music pile, to the right of the 1500-1600s classical pile. Aziraphale smiles sweetly at him, and Crowley points an accusatory finger, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“You,” he starts. “You need to get some shelves. Otherwise. Otherwise, I’ll come round here every day to check that you’re putting them somewhere safe.”

I wouldn’t stop you, Aziraphale thinks. I invited you here because you fill up my life. He says, “I don’t have room for shelves.”

Crowley’s mouth hangs open. He casts his gaze about the shop, gestures to the room. “It’s a bookshop! Tonnes of shelves! What’s one more pissing shelf going to do? Tear the fabric of the universe? ‘Sides,” he slurs, one class of red too many perhaps, “you could just extend the shop a smidge or two. Miracle it a cheeky inch or two bigger. Encroach on the neighbours’ space, sure they won’t notice.”

“Perhaps.” He thinks about this as Crowley blows the dust off a vinyl record of Mendelssohn. “Although I reckon they would. Humans can be horribly observant.”

Crowley hums knowingly. “Oh, yeah. When they want to be. When they don’t, they’ll turn a blind eye to anything.”

Aziraphale watches Crowley for a second longer. Tears his gaze away and looks down at the Glenn Miller record in his hands. He feels the dog-eared edges, soft cardboard between his fingers. He peers down at the smiling, black and white image of Miller and he’s taken immediately back to 1941. The Blitz, the smell of ash and smoke and the smallest, most precious moment of fingers touching. A feeling of pure adoration that’s never left him- that’s been there since the beginning, waiting. Triggered by one moment.

And just like before when his feet took him to the phone, Aziraphale’s body is taken by a surge of surety, bravery, knowledge of what he wants- damned if it’s right or wrong. (How freeing it is, to no longer have Heaven watching.) He removes the record from its sleeve and with his free hand, lifts the pin of the gramophone. Crowley stills where he’s knelt by Aziraphale’s feet, and they both listen to the crackle of dust being picked up by the pin.

Aziraphale stands by the gramophone and closes his eyes. Moonlight Serenade begins to play and he takes a deep, grounding breath.

“You remember that day,” he says, neither explaining nor opening his eyes to look down at Crowley.

His response is quiet, and almost immediate. “Yes.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I believe I owe you a dance.”

“You-”

“Don’t think of it as a ‘thank you’,” he continues. “I know you don’t like those. Perhaps just a dance?”

When he finally opens his eyes, it’s only after another deep breath- the nerves have made him forget how to breathe any other way. The shop is getting dark. The light is grey, there’s the quiet sound of rain hissing against the windows, and the song continues to play. And through the haze of dust and stacks of records he sees Crowley, kneeling at his feet, looking up at him with a look as if he doesn’t trust what he’s hearing.

Aziraphale therefore adjusts the look on his own face, betraying his nervousness, and smiles. It comes more easily than he thought it would.

He extends a hand.

Crowley looks at the hand. Lips parting and mouthing something silently, uncertainly. Then he croaks, “The 40s was a wonderful time for music, if nothing else.”

And he feels Crowley’s hand slip into his. It doesn’t send a jolt of anxiety or excitement, it doesn’t set off fireworks or give him butterflies like he imagined it would. It feels perfectly natural.

As Crowley stands up to his full height and looks at Aziraphale, he doesn’t let go of his hand.

The music sounds distant. Each passing moment feels very real. Crowley has frozen. Aziraphale knows all too well how paralysing this uncertainty is- and so he takes Crowley’s other hand and guides it to his waist. He sees Crowley’s eyes flutter and widen, hears his throat click as he swallows, feels his fingers grip harder on Azirphale’s hand.

“I think,” Aziraphale supplies once he’s shown Crowley’s where to put his hand, an abbreviated version of: I think that’s where your hand should go, although I’ve never done this before since I’ve only ever really wanted to do something like this with you, and I’m only just brave enough to do it now, and I hope I’m not misreading things and wrongly assuming you want this too.

Crowley nods. He nods and nods and nods compulsively, swallows again and fumbles for words. Hand warm in Aziraphale’s, warm on his waist. “Yeah,” Crowley manages. “Yeah. I’d say this is- seems about right.”

And Aziraphale rests his hand carefully- so carefully- on Crowley’s shoulder. He leaves it there and neither of them move. They stare at each other in disbelief that this is happening. They stare in disbelief that it took this long. They stare at each other, waiting for the other to start dancing, to explain what comes next, anything. Crowley’s eyes wide and his brows pinched, lips parted.

“Aziraphale?” he asks weakly.

And then it feels easy, heartbreakingly easy. Easy to smile, easy to be the brave one for once, to let Crowley be vulnerable. Easy to let the thousands of years pour through him and between them, between joined hands.

“Come here, my dear.”

Aziraphale steps closer. Fingers gripping tighter, frightened of what might happen if the other lets go. Would this moment disappear, as if it never happened at all?

Aziraphale tilts his head towards the ground and looks up at Crowley through his lashes. A gesture that is shy and self-conscious and happy. And Crowley huffs- a laugh, perhaps, or a sigh, he isn’t sure. He feels his breathe blossom against his skin.

He closes his eyes. He feels it all. He absorbs all the time spent together, all the time lost. The music brings them absent-mindedly swaying from side to side, and Aziraphale rests his cheek against Crowley’s. He’s warm. When he cracks his eyes open he’s welcomed by an auburn blur. The hand on his waist finds his back, and there’s the rush of a sigh beside Aziraphale’s ear. Then, a forehead against Aziraphale’s shoulder.

The song ends, the gramophone crackling to a stop. They dance in each other’s arms for a little longer, in a shop no longer empty.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my writing #fic prompt #fanfic

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nauseateddrive · 4 years ago

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4 POEMS by Jake Sheff

Elegy for Dog I: A Failed Acrostic

January was tired when it became king. Apples here love being red in the spring, Casting shadows against the stone architraves our Kapellmeister will never live down. You Stole Apollo’s cows, and let them graze to show me Heaven’s template. Where do failed heroes go? Eucalyptus cupolas and polar icecaps Frame the downtrodden gods. But you weren’t Freakishly wrong, as I so often am, on your

Joyride through nearly twice eight years, Á la someone far from beauty’s stepmom. Copper coin or grimacing sun? I’ve got 20,000 Kor of crushed grief on this threshing floor. Shark-sparks of sadness flood the impetiginous air… How, and why, do clouds cobblestone Entire days, and lakes, when you’re not here? Fixing every broken thing, poets go where Ferns and geraniums baptize the morning.

“Jur-any-oms,” is how you’d spell it; After all, a dog’s a dog, and wisdom knows futility. Cassations make a rusty brew, to drink the truth of truths, and Kill whatever ceases wanting to be new. Stewardship, the color of gravity’s silence, naturally Houses every “glur” (a glittery blur); go chase what plays Eternal games. I hear the swans by Rooster Rock. Your handsome Face, its happy handsomeness, in memory’s eye, goes in and out of Focus; in love’s better eye: your goodness neath its everblooming ficus.

Gravity and Grace on SW Murray Scholls Drive

“Impatience has ruined many excellent men who, rejecting the slow, sure way, court destruction by rising too quickly.” Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

The traffic lights control the people’s actions, but Not their feelings, as the limits of philosophy Collide head on with the nose of a Dalmatian.

I tell you, the day is stress-testing itself, and these Sidewalks wish that it’d just gone straight. Geese Take this sky-hairing wind for granted, as they

Land on the lake like memorable speech on The sensitive soul. Time is never sharp, but it’s Cutting something in the credit union. Maybe

It’s dancing a back Corte for the woman in line Thinking about the taste of limes from Temecula As she waits for the teller. Air Alaska and that

Haunted pie in the sky are not the only reasons For all the volatility in the air today. Rushing And perfectionism both produce a loss; behind

The Safeway Pharmacy, you’ll see the small Smells of both, sloshing around to the ticking- Sound of the ocean’s tides. I must admit, I am

Frozen in place by the sight of steam from Joe’s Burgers; it is poetry’s pale tongue, rising in And arousing the air. This neighborhood’s street-

Lights are more serious than kokeshi dolls. Lights From its windows outshine poison dart frogs. Maybe to forget about life for awhile, the lamps

Are focused on The Population Bomb? ‘Easy Tiger,’ all these incidents whisper. Each day’s A sign twirler’s dais; each corner a promise

Of something more in a different direction: it isn’t A marriageable daughter or impoverishment, But inguinal ingenuity plays a part, and that isn’t

Bad at all. What oaths and paths went here Before Walmart? What voices were voided by The liquor store? What are vague’s values

When the library shares a parking lot with a 24- Hour gym and a cargo cult? Gas stations satirize The Queen of Hearts; I tell you, it makes every

Question seem incidental. Treaty-breakers in Pajamas swing on the swing sets. Was August That full of angst? It feels like autumn went too

Far on accident. Desertification, in a sugar tong Splint, takes a shot of ouzo and talks shit About the death of Brutus, but my Bible-thumping

Memory – on a ski hill in Duluth – is also too busy Watching some ducks on the lake to notice; and Desertification makes a face at me like a Swedish

Film. Poets make for poorly picked men to Familiarity’s paymaster-general. The Calvinistic Rain is an ill-starred attempt to make mayonnaise-

Fries just for me, but I must admit, it all seems – You know – cybernetic. And step-motherly as all Get out, if you ask the trees. They prefer “You

Can’t Hurry Love,” by The Supremes, to any Changes that take effect in one to two pay periods. Pretext ricochets; a perfect reverse promenade.

At Summer Lake, When the Vegetables are Sleeping

Cruelty drinks all the wine, and never gets drunk On these shores. When Summer Lake speaks, In every word, an introduction to the world. I am

Easily duped. The greatest duper duplicates my pride, Which always lingers, in the hallways of my heart And beneath the surface of Summer Lake. The sky is

Supplicating, it’s literally shaking. An hour passes Faster here, the hour always held too dearly dear In paranoid and ivied walls. The ducks can do

An unwise thing correctly, and it sounds more like Dusty than Buffalo Springfield to the enokitake Sold in Springfield, Illinois, which is the opposite

Effect it has on the wild mushrooms on these shores. On cables capable of love, the geese convince The weather to taste like kvass today. Basically,

Another Cuban Missile Crisis drowned itself just Now. The clouds might ask themselves, ‘Is lowliness Allowed here?’ To which the crows might ask,

‘Does omertà sound like lightning?’ The answer’s Oubliette is ten times worse than impotence. Summer Lake isn’t smart, but it stays quiet, like

Someone too smart to say all they know. ‘Whoa, Sweet potato,’ the capital gains tax mutters To itself, knowing that what matters doesn’t mean

A thing. Some say the lake bottom’s sands receive Commands from Hearst Castle, others say Its hands are King City’s hands, and still others

Maintain more sins have been than grains of sand Times secondary gains, and that explains The beauty and industry that none can see but

All can feel on these shores. (Some possibilities Play possum, or get opsonized by hate; this one snores Like Rip Van Winkle.) This orb-weaver spider is

The Milton Friedman of Summer Lake, the wind On her web is Grenache from The Rocks District Of Milton-Freewater AVA for the eyes. The day is

Stereotypical, although it feels like three days In one…But for the lake’s good counterfactual Questions, I would forget that some die young,

But most die wrong. I’ve tried to pick up Summer Lake’s reflections in three lines or less, but The hardest truth is your own impotence. Oh,

It’s hard to hand your power over to a thing No one can see. Hopped up on distinctions – not The obvious distinctions – Summer Lake is pretty;

Cold, but pretty! In the distance, with so many Intercessory prayers, hot air balloons are rising; Shaped like teardrops, upside down and rising.

This lake re-something-or-anothered me. Are first Impressions wrong sometimes? I am a season’s Golden calf, according to the sunlight, doing

A prospector’s jig on the surface of Summer Lake. If not for the Weimar Republic’s wooden- Headedness, I’d set down my heart-song and

Listen to reason on these shores. I never trust An activist guitar, if the weather is socially clumsy. The future is reflected on the lake: it always

Laughs at us – between its math and gratitude Lessons – and never thinks of (or gives thanks to) Us enough. The presence in the lake juniors

My ears. The day is not too baffling, nor is it Jane Eyre. Space-themed and spiritual, some autumn Leaves are swimming in the rain. The ducks arrest

My attention in the mardy weather, even though they Must know my attention is dying. The barbed wire Around my stated goal is an outcome out of

Their control. Picnickers picnic with acorns and apricots, On blankets covering Holy Schnikey’s death mask. My unsandaled thoughts thrive and increase on these,

And no other shores. They are pets for the days less Important than love, when Summer Lake says it’s Humble, because it knows the right thing to say.

Summer Lake gives the comfort of commonly held And seriously absurd beliefs to the blue heron. Nothing is wrong with this lake or anything in it,

Not even the ghost of Amerigo Vespucci. It’s all so Simple to the stiff-necked molecules of water, made out Of frogs and snails and puppy-dog’s tails. These thoughts

Are fine manna in a fine ditch. Post-structuralist squirrels Can tell my heart’s in Italy, and I’m in the intellectual Laity. Chivalry’s technician sees my shovel, and they say,

‘You’ve got to hand it to him.’ Neurocysticercosis Sets the bar high; it looks at this park, and thinks The smartest monkey drew the perfect landscape.

That’s this maple tree’s previous disease, its precious One. It unfurls the ferns of my firm and foremost Beliefs, I’m told, to partialize insufferable vastidity.

We Install a Sump Pump on (What Used To Be) a Holiday (Take 2)

The oppressive heat was born a fully grown Man. I admire the result of its effort, but Despise the means of achieving it. My wife Asserts her individuality in the gunk; her Body’s allegations aren’t too soft or hard today. Her self-interest seems to have drowned in the vortex.

Our little garden knows flippancy with regards To privacy is unwise. The stepping stones can Only blather, as slugs draw nomograms on Their faces. My wife’s body speaks Proto-Indo- European in the vortex and denim overalls. Marc Chagall’s The Poet studies her. He calls her

‘Innocence: The opposite of life! A criminal with A badge!’ I hand her the tools of a crude and Rudimentary faith, and she says, ‘Jill, great books Make fine shackles.’ Her arms only have An administrative objective in the vortex, but They are where good things come from.

Jake Sheff is a pediatrician in Oregon and veteran of the US Air Force. He's married with a daughter and whole lot of pets. Poems of Jake’s are in Radius, The Ekphrastic Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Cossack Review and elsewhere. He won 1st place in the 2017 SFPA speculative poetry contest and a Laureate's Choice prize in the 2019 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. Past poems and short stories have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize. His chapbook is “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing).

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dalishious · 5 years ago

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So this is not a H*milton ask, but are you a musical person? Hadestown is one of my favorites, and I've recently gotten into the Beetlejuice soundtrack...

I like musicals, yes. My all time favourite movie to date is Rocketman, actually! (It does help that my mother is a big Elton John fan, so I've listened to his music since birth and grew up to love him too.) Taron Egerton does a fantastic job with both the music and performance. Like holy shit I get excited/emotional just thinking about that movie... honestly I could talk about how amazing it is for hours please if you’ve never seen it go watch it. Even if you’ve never heard a single Elton John song in your life, you’ll probably still enjoy in the very least some breathtaking sequences and all the things that make it stand out creatively from every other biopic. It is a musical first and foremost, and in that regard I just love how fitting it is, too.

But I’ve never had the fortune of seeing a musical live show, so as far as some people are concerned I’m not a real musical person. :/

#not da #Anonymous #ask

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tcm · 6 years ago

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Interview with Mark A. Vieira, author of Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934)

Mark A. Vieira is an acclaimed film historian, writer and photographer. His most recent book, Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies is now available from TCM and Running Press.

Raquel Stecher: Twenty years ago you wrote Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood for Harry N. Abrams. Why did you decide to revisit the pre-Code era with your new TCM-Running Press book Forbidden Hollywood?

Mark A. Vieira: That’s a good question, Raquel. There were three reasons. First, Sin in Soft Focus had gone out of print, and copies were fetching high prices on eBay and AbeBooks. Second, the book was being used in classes at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Third, Jeff Mantor of Larry Edmunds Cinema Book Shop told me that his customers were asking if I could do a follow-up to the 1999 book, which had gotten a good New York Times review and gone into a second printing. So I wrote a book proposal, citing all the discoveries I’d made since the first book. This is what happens when you write a book; information keeps coming for years after you publish it, and you want to share that new information. Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood told the story of the Code from an industry standpoint. Forbidden Hollywood has that, but it also has the audience’s point of view. After all, a grassroots movement forced Hollywood to reconstitute the Code.

Raquel Stecher: Forbidden Hollywood includes reproduced images from the pre-Code era and early film history. How did you curate these images and what were your criteria for including a particular photograph?

Mark A. Vieira: The text suggests what image should be placed on a page or on succeeding pages. Readers wonder what Jason Joy looked like or what was so scandalous about CALL HER SAVAGE (’32), so I have to show them. But I can’t put just any picture on the page, especially to illustrate a well-known film. My readers own film books and look at Hollywood photos on the Internet. I have to find a photo that they haven’t seen. It has to be in mint condition because Running Press’s reproduction quality is so good. The image has to be arresting, a photo that is worthy in its own right, powerfully composed and beautifully lit—not just a “representative” photo from a pre-Code film. It also has to work with the other photos on that page or on the next page, in terms of composition, tone and theme. That’s what people liked about Sin in Soft Focus. It had sections that were like rooms in a museum or gallery, where each grouping worked on several levels. In Forbidden Hollywood, I’m going for a different effect. The photo choices and groupings give a feeling of movement, a dynamic affect. In this one, the pictures jump off the page.

Raquel Stecher: Why did you decide on a coffee table art book style format?

Mark A. Vieira: Movies are made of images. Sexy images dominated pre-Code. To tell the story properly, you have to show those images. Movie stills in the pre-Code era were shot with 8x10 view cameras. The quality of those big negatives is ideal for a fine-art volume. And film fans know the artistry of the Hollywood photographers of that era: Fred Archer, Milton Brown, William Walling, Bert Longworth, Clarence Bull, Ernest Bachrach and George Hurrell. They’re all represented—and credited—in Forbidden Hollywood.

Raquel Stecher: What was the research process like for Forbidden Hollywood?

Mark A. Vieira: I started at the University of Southern California, where I studied film 40 years ago. I sat down with Ned Comstock, the Senior Library Assistant, and mapped out a plan. USC has scripts from MGM, Universal and the Fox Film Corporation. The Academy Library has files from the Production Code Administration. I viewed DVDs and 16mm prints from my collection. I reviewed books on the Code by Thomas Doherty and other scholars. I jumped into the trade magazines of the period using the Media History Digital Library online. I created a file folder for each film of the era. It’s like detective work. It’s tedious—until it gets exciting.

Raquel Stecher: How does pre-Code differ from other film genres?

Mark A. Vieira: Well, pre-Code is not a genre like Westerns or musicals. It’s a rediscovered element of film history. It was named in retrospect, like film noir, but unlike film noir, pre-Code has lines of demarcation—March 1930 through June 1934—the four-year period before the Production Code was strengthened and enforced. When Mae West made I’M NO ANGEL (’33), she had no idea she was making a pre-Code movie. The pre-Code tag came later, when scholars realized that these films shared a time, a place and an attitude. There was a Code from 1930 on, but the studios negotiated with it, bypassed it or just plain ignored it, making movies that were irreverent and sexy. Modern viewers say, “I’ve never seen that in an old Hollywood movie!” This spree came to an end in 1934, when a Catholic-led boycott forced Hollywood to reconstitute the Code. It was administered for 20 years by Joseph Breen, so pre-Code is really pre-Breen.

Raquel Stecher: What are a few pre-Code films that you believe defined the era?

Mark A. Vieira: That question has popped up repeatedly since I wrote Sin in Soft Focus, so I decided which films had led to the reconstituted Code, and I gave them their own chapters. To qualify for that status, a film had to meet these standards: (1) They were adapted from proscribed books or plays; (2) They were widely seen; (3) They were attacked in the press; (4) They were heavily cut by the state or local boards; (5) They were banned in states, territories or entire countries; and (6) They were condemned in the Catholic Press and by the Legion of Decency. To name the most controversial: THE COCK-EYED WORLD (’29) (off-color dialogue); THE DIVORCEE (’30) (the first film to challenge the Code); FRANKENSTEIN (’31) (horror); SCARFACE (’32) (gang violence); RED-HEADED WOMAN (’32) (an unrepentant homewrecker); and CALL HER SAVAGE (’32) (the pre-Code film that manages to violate every prohibition of the Code). My big discovery was THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (’32). This Cecil B. DeMille epic showed the excesses of ancient Rome in such lurid detail that it offended Catholic filmgoers, thus setting off the so-called “Catholic Crusade.”

Raquel Stecher: It’s fascinating to read correspondence, interviews and reviews that react to the perceived immorality of these movies. How does including these conversations give your readers context about the pre-Code era?

Mark A. Vieira: Like some film noir scholars, I could tell you how I feel about the film, what it means, the significance of its themes. So what? Those are opinions. My readers deserve facts. Those can only come from documents of the period: letters, memos, contracts, news articles. These are the voices of the era, the voices of history. A 100-year-old person might misremember what happened. A document doesn’t misremember. It tells the tale. My task is to present a balanced selection of these documents so as not to stack the deck in favor of one side or the other.

Raquel Stecher: In your book you discuss the attempts made to censor movies from state and federal government regulation to the creation of the MPPDA to the involvement of key figures like Joseph Breen and Will H. Hays. What is the biggest misconception about the Production Code?

Mark A. Vieira: There are a number of misconceptions. I label them and counter them: (1) “Silent films are not “pre-Code films.” (2) Not every pre-Code film was a low-budget shocker but made with integrity and artistry; most were big-budget star vehicles. (3) The pre-Code censorship agency was the SRC (Studio Relations Committee), part of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA)—not the MPPA, which did not exist until the 1960s! (4) The Code did not mandate separate beds for married couples. (5) Joseph Breen was not a lifelong anti-Semite, second only to Hitler. He ended his long career with the respect and affection of his Jewish colleagues.

Raquel Stecher: How did the silent movie era and the Great Depression have an impact on the pre-Code era?

Mark A. Vieira: The silent era allowed the studios the freedom to show nudity and to write sexy intertitles, but the local censors cut those elements from release prints, costing the studios a lot of money, which in part led to the 1930 Code. The Great Depression emptied the theaters (or closed them), so producers used sexy films to lure filmgoers back to the theaters.

Raquel Stecher: TCM viewers love pre-Codes. What do you think it is about movies from several decades ago that still speak to contemporary audiences?

Mark A. Vieira: You’re right. Because we can see these films so readily, we forget that eight decades have passed since they premiered. We don’t listen to music of such a distant time, so how can we enjoy the art of a period in which community standards were so different from what they are now? After all, this was the tail end of the Victorian era, and the term “sex” was not used in polite society. How did it get into films like MIDNIGHT MARY (’33) and SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (’34)? There were protests against such films, and there were also millions of people enjoying them. What they enjoyed is what TCM viewers enjoy—frankness, honesty, risqué humor, beautiful bodies and adult-themed stories.

Raquel Stecher: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Mark A. Vieira: One thing struck me as I wove the letters of just plain citizens into the tapestry of this story. Americans of the 1930s wrote articulate, heartfelt letters. One can only assume that these people were well educated and that they did a lot of reading—and letter writing. I want my readers to read the entire text of Forbidden Hollywood. I worked to make it accurate, suspenseful and funny. There are episodes in it that are hilarious. These people were witty! So I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures, but more so that you’ll dive into the story and let it carry you along. Here’s a quote about SO THIS IS AFRICA (‘33) from a theater owner: “I played it to adults only (over 15 years old). Kids who have been 12 for the last 10 years aged rapidly on their way to our box office.”

#pre-Code #TCM #Forbidden Hollywood #pre-code films #interview #jean harlow #mae west #ginger rogers #Depression era #1930s #Raquel Stecher

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alwaysmarilynmonroe · 6 years ago

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Today would be Marilyn’s 93rd Birthday, she has been in my life for almost a decade and I still find it so surreal to think that in theory, she should still be here. Sadly, we all know that is not the case and the reality is that Marilyn left the world over fifty five years ago. It’s sometimes hard to comprehend that Marilyn wasn’t just a Hollywood Star but a human being, just like you and me. However, today is not for dwelling, it is a very important day to millions of fans and myself, as the worlds Brightest Star is ultimately still shining half a century later!

Marilyn photographed by Ed Cronenweth in 1948.

To celebrate Marilyn’s big day, I usually spend it in the best way I know possible, having a Movie Marathon watching my favourite Actress. Unfortunately, so many people see Marilyn as just another silly Blonde Bombshell who didn’t have much talent and was basically playing herself on the screen. However, I can’t emphasize enough that the sweet, lovable, pretty face was so much more than what people perceive. As someone who has watched her films a countless number of times, I actually appreciate her comedic performances over her dramatic ones. This is because people tend to view dramas with more acclaim and respect and the Award Shows further prove this, when in fact comedies should not be overlooked.

In the wise words of Vivien Leigh – an Actress who yes, was more respected critically than Marilyn, but, ultimately was more appreciated more for her looks too,

“Comedy is much more difficult than tragedy – and a much better training, I think. It’s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.”

Marilyn photographed on Tobey Beach by Andre de Dienes on July 23rd 1949.

Marilyn was incredibly dedicated to her craft and spent numerous hours educating herself on the Performing Arts and trying to be the best she could possibly be. When you learn about Marilyn you realize how much she suffered mentally and the strength she must have found to deliver such beautiful performances. It hurts to think that she didn’t always feel like the bubbly Blonde Bombshell so many know and love her for, as no one more than Marilyn deserved to be appreciated and loved. She was such a perfectionist and would spend hours analyzing and being critical of her acting abilities and performance in each film.

“We not only want to be good, we have to be. You know, when they talk about nervousness, my teacher, Lee Strasberg, when I said to him, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I’m a little nervous,” he said, “When you’re not, give up, because nervousness indicates sensitivity.” Also, a struggle with shyness is in every actor more than anyone can imagine. There is a censor inside us that says to what degree do we let go, like a child playing. I guess people think we just go out there, and you know, that’s all we do. Just do it. But it’s a real struggle. I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.”

– Marilyn to Journalist Richard Meryman for LIFE Magazine, published on August 17th 1962.

Marilyn attending a Court Hearing on June 26th 1952.

Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate to choose five of Marilyn’s films in which she believed she gave the best performances or received great critical acclaim, to recommend for others to watch. If there is any day that Marilyn should be celebrated (personally, I believe it’s all day every day) than it is on her Birthday.

Whilst looking through reviews of Marilyn’s films that were published during their original releases, it’s shocking to me to read the downright prejudice, sexism and ignorance surrounding her as an Actress. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, in my belief Marilyn was the greatest Actress of all time as it seems that even then, 99% of people believed she was just playing herself. Therefore, in believing their own ignorance, critics could continue their lack of acclaim and respect for ultimately, an extremely talented woman.

Marilyn photographed by Milton Greene in June 1955.

• The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Person to Person television appearance interview on April 8th 1955.

“Marilyn, what’s the best part you ever had in a movie?” – Edward R. Murrow

“Well one of the best parts I’ve ever had was, in The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston’s Picture and then, The Seven Year Itch, Billy Wilder’s Picture.” – Marilyn

“You think that’s going to be a big one too, don’t you? The Seven Year Itch.” – Edward R. Murrow

“I think it will be a very good Picture and I would like to continue making this type of Picture.” – Marilyn

Dallas Morning News Review by Harold Hefferman published on June 18th 1950.

“Virtually unbilled and unidentified in a current movie, Asphalt Jungle, Marilyn’s breathtaking appearance immediately piques fandom’s curiosity and imagination. Not since the brief introduction of another tempestuous blond, Shelley Winters, three years ago in A Double Life, has a newcomer stirred up so much interest.”

Marilyn photographed by Earl Leaf at a Press Party held for Bus Stop on March 3rd 1956.

• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

LIFE Magazine Interview with Journalist Richard Meryman published on August 17th 1962.

“I remember when I got the part in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Jane Russell – she was the brunette in it and I was the blonde. She got $200,000 for it, and I got my $500 a week, but that to me was, you know, considerable. She, by the way, was quite wonderful to me. The only thing was I couldn’t get a dressing room. Finally, I really got to this kind of level and I said, “Look, after all, I am the blonde, and it is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!” Because still they always kept saying, “Remember, you’re not a star.” I said, “Well, whatever I am, I am the blonde!” – Marilyn

The Los Angeles Times Review by Edwin Schallert on August 1st 1953.

“Miss Monroe sparkles much of the time just as the diamonds do. Her work is insidiously intriguing in this picture, and at the same time almost childlike in its utter lack of guile. Her portrayal demonstrates that much may be maneuvered in her instance in the future to humorous advantage. She discloses a surprising light comedy touch.”

Time Magazine Review on July 27th 1953.

“As Lorelei Lee, who believes that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, Marilyn Monroe does the best job of her short career to date. [She] sings remarkably well, dances, or rather undulates all over, flutters the heaviest eyelids in show business and breathlessly delivers such lines of dialogue as, “Coupons – that’s almost like money,” as if she were in the throes of a grand passion.”

Marilyn photographed by Sam Shaw in the Summer of 1957.

• Bus Stop (1956)

Speaking to reporters upon her arrival back in Hollywood to film Bus Stop, on February 25th 1956.

“Marilyn, are you happy to come back and do this Picture, are you pleased with the Bus- Picture Bus Stop?” – Reporter

“Oh yes, very much, I’m looking forward to working with Josh Logan, doing the Picture and it’s good to be back.” – Marilyn

“Was he in your selection as a Director?” – Reporter

“Twentieth Century Fox selected him and I have Director Approval and they asked if I would approve of him and definitely.” – Marilyn

“So you’re very happy, you think you’re going to make a very good Picture?” – Reporter

“I hope we do make a good picture, yes.” – Marilyn

The New York Times Review by Bosley Crowther published on September 1st 1956.

“HOLD onto your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress in “Bus Stop.” She and the picture are swell!”

Marilyn in Let’s Make Love in 1960.

• Some Like It Hot (1959)

Variety Film Review published on February 24th 1959.

“To coin a phrase, Marilyn has never looked better. Her performance as “Sugar,” the fuzzy blonde who likes saxophone players “and men with glasses” has a deliciously naive quality. She’s a comedienne with that combination of sex appeal and timing that just can’t be beat.”

The New York Times Review by A. H. Weiler published on March 30th 1959.

“As the hand’s somewhat simple singer-ukulele player, Miss Monroe, whose figure simply cannot be overlooked, contributes more assets than the obvious ones to this madcap romp. As a pushover for gin and the tonic effect of saxophone players, she sings a couple of whispery old numbers (“Running Wild” and “I Wanna Be Loved by You”) and also proves to be the epitome of a dumb blonde and a talented comedienne.”

Marilyn photographed by Bert Stern in June 1962.

I hope however you choose to spend this day, you take a moment to think about Marilyn and in her own words, hold a good thought for her as if anyone deserved that, it was she.

“I Love Marilyn” by Sidney Skolsky published in Modern Screen Magazine in October 1953.

“Before the picture flashed on the screen, Marilyn whispered to me in that low, sexy voice that is natural with her: “Hold a good thought for me.” She always says that when embarking on an venture. She feels much better when you tell her you will.”

Follow me at;

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Happy 93rd Birthday Marilyn! Today would be Marilyn's 93rd Birthday, she has been in my life for almost a decade and I still find it so surreal to think that in theory, she should still be here.

#1940s #1950s #1960s #blonde bombshell #classic hollywood #marilyn #marilyn monroe #monroe #norma jeane #norma jeane baker #old hollywood #retro #vintage

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anathemadevice · 8 years ago

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once i saw christian borle getting coffee

#i was going to see a show??? i think it was h*milton #so he was in something rotten then i think?? probably just going by facial hair #my only celebrity encounter besides bumping into emily mortimer when i was like 3 #nyc is not rly that exciting for me celebrity wise tbh #anyways it was awesome. remember when christian borle had hair cause i fucken do #i saw falsettos in theaters(and it fucking rocked i cried rly hard) and like 5% of my sadness was looking at when his hair was alive and wel #*well #i mean hair is dead you know what i mean.#also i just now watched the legally blonde mtv recording and i rly liked it??? a lot of stuff the movie does better #but they did emmett rly well and it's rly catchy and i enjoyed it! some parts felt rushed or dragging but w/e u know #and the two marvins im Shook #also cause this turned into a musical theater rant there was a spring awakening production w high schoolers i went to and it was very good!!#mama who bore me reprise goes so fucking hard dude #im listening to fun home next #also recently ive revisited you're a good man Charlie Brown and it's so comforting to me fr some reason #the Christian borle thing was like. 2015 fyi #im gonna stop talking now #audrey.txt

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aryastyler · 4 years ago

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123Movies-WaTcH Demon Slayer Mugen Train 2020 Online Full

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simplyshelbs16xoxo · 6 years ago

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‘Spellbound: All Hallow’s Eve’ Chapter 2: Can’t Shake This Feeling

“H-how the bloody hell did you do that!?” Lestrade asked in a panic.

“You’ve had too much to drink,” was Sherlock’s reply.

“Sherlock!” Molly scolded him.

“I’m gonna need a drink,” replied the detective inspector.

“You won’t believe us even if we told you,” Sherlock continued, hoping Greg would just decide that ignorance is bliss.

“After seeing a dead man sit up, I think I’d believe anything at this point,” Greg pointed out.

“He’s right, darling,” Molly agreed.

“Oh, very well. You can explain it more gently than I.”

Lestrade listened closely to what he was being told. If anything, it made sense to him that his friends were a witch and a werewolf. It definitely explained why Sherlock refused to takes cases during a full moon. Molly told him the entire tale of their séance with Moriarty’s ghost and Irene’s vampiric nature.

“A murderous ghost…that’s a new one,” Greg laughed nervously. “A perfect crime if ever I heard of one.”

“You won’t say anything, right?” Molly’s worried expression was plain as the nose on her face.

“Betray you two? I’d sooner spend the day with Anderson,” he assured them.

“And that’s when you know he means it,” Sherlock remarked, rather amused.

Later that night, Molly was in a fitful sleep. She tossed and turned countless times, unable to rid herself of the nightmare. Horrifying images plagued her mind; nails painted crimson red, a woman strangled in a back alley, and Sherlock bleeding just below his naval. A man’s bone-chilling laugh could be heard during the latter image.

Sherlock woke to the sound of his wife’s scream, thoroughly surprised it didn’t wake Victoria.

“Molly, wake up,” he urged her. “Look at me; it’s just a nightmare.”

“Sherlock,” she breathed heavily. “You’re okay. Oh thank God you’re okay.”

“Of course I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be?” He took her hand in his, immediately chilling him. “You’re ice cold. What’s happened?”

“I-I think I had a vision,” she admitted.

“Of the future?” he asked.

“I assume so, though I hope that last one never happens.” Her voice was tremulous at this point.

“Tell me; maybe it can be prevented,” Sherlock assured her.

“You were lying on the ground; cold concrete,” she began. “You were bleeding from below your naval. While not entirely fatal, it would’ve needed medical attention quickly.”

“Is there anything else you remember?”

“A man’s laugh; it was so malicious, it chilled me to the bone,” Molly told him. “I’ve no idea what it means other than you’re in danger. Before that, I saw crimson nails, and a strangled woman in a back alley of London.”

Wrapping his arms around her, Sherlock comforted his wife as best as he could. Molly clung onto him, welcoming his embrace.

“What are we going to do?” she trembled.

“There isn’t much we can do at the moment,” he pointed out. “But we should at least tell John and Mary.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “After all, Mary is in your coven. We’ll have more power on our side than we did last time.”

Molly agreed. It was the most logical thing to do, of course. She settled comfortably in his arms, eventually lulled to sleep by her husband singing softly to her just as he did for Victoria. Tomorrow, they’d tell their friends what to look out for.

She followed a man to Leinster Gardens, keeping far enough away as to go unnoticed, but close enough to not lose the trail. Her light brown eyes kept an eye through the veil, watching as the adulterous husband searched for his mistress. Oh, he believed it to be another secret meeting, but never considered it was the night he’d meet his doom.

‘It’s time,’ she thought with a sinister satisfaction.

“Who’s there?” The man called out. “I demand you show yourself at once!”

That’s when the singing began. It was too soft to make out the words, but it was alarming enough to send chills up his spine. Feeling breath on the back of his neck, he turned around slowly.

“You broke your vows,” she whispered, raising her dagger high.

“Stay away!” he shouted.

A light turned on, distracting them both. When the man turned back to face her, she had disappeared.

Mary Watson set down Molly’s cup of tea. John and Sherlock had been called in by Greg to take a look at the murder scene of Gwendoline Beauchamp, who had been strangled with nothing other than gloved hands.

“You’re more experienced, Mary…there’s gotta be something I can do to prevent my vision,” Molly fretted. “The crimson nails probably belong to the murderer of Milton, and now this strangled woman I saw in my nightmare.”

“I’m sorry, poppet, but there’s nothing more to be done. The visions aren’t there for us to prevent them; only to help prepare us for what’s to come,” Mary informed her sympathetically.

The sound of squealing, happy babies averted their attention momentarily. Rosie and Victoria were keeping themselves occupied in the playpen.

“The best you can do is making sure you’re always prepared at a moment’s notice if Sherlock should ever meet his fate in your vision,” Mary continued. “I wish I could do more, but the most I can offer is helping you with a tracking spell once we find out who has a vendetta against Sherlock.”

“Mary, there’s so many people it could be,” Molly pointed out. “I could probably write up pages of names.”

“Well, supernaturally speaking, is there anyone who may want to avenge Moriarty or Irene?” she inquired.

“Kate was Irene’s closest ally, but only because she had been sired by her,” Molly explained. “As for Moriarty…it could be anyone. He never let on who his allies were.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Mary smirked.

Molly couldn’t get a word out before her friend began setting out vials and a couple of herbs.

“This should help you focus your mind and allow you to control what your next vision shows you,” Mary explained.

“How very useful,” Molly remarked, her burden lifting off her ever so slightly. “Yes, this should be perfect.”

Fingers drummed against the shabby wooden table in the old warehouse.

“About time you showed up,” remarked a man with a slight Irish accent.

The man who had just entered to warehouse stood for a moment in silence before tossing his gun on the torn sofa.

“Bad time at the club?” the Irishman asked.

“Was caught cheating and this hotshot—Adair—threatened to expose me,” he replied.

“So, what’d you do then?”

“What I’m good at—I killed ‘im.”

“Ah, well. I do hope you were conspicuous. Holmes is onto us, Sebastian.”

FFN | AO3 | Buy Me a Coffee?

#sherlolly #spellbound #my fanfiction

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eurydiceh · 7 years ago

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i watched h*athers at the other pal*ce last night and i have Thoughts

first off i actually,,,,,,,, don’t remember that much from off-bway 2014 h*athers cause i haven’t watched it in so long lmao but the most noticeable changes were from blue to a song called you’re welcome. mcnamara and duke are not on stage for that one, they get the car keys and leave veronica stranded w/ kurt & ram. the song is not much better off tbh. it’s even more uncomfortable but in a more predatory way i guess so it highlights how she’s....... literally about to be raped but there are still some jokes??? and it’s........ not the time to expect laughter like idk it personally made me very uncomfortable. and yEAH it’s supposed to make u uncomfortable ofc but then they’re throwing in jokes and it’s like friends we had this problem 4 years ago can we. not.

they added a song for he*ther d*ke which i was soooooo excited about!! look. i didn’t love the song. maybe if i listen to it more i’ll get into it but i feel like it was just this huge spectacle and kinda thrown in and also there’s this part where she rips the green costume off and reveals chandler’s red one. despite not loving the song, t’shan KILLED IT and i’m still not over her tbh lmao she was my fave part of the show last night i think. aLsO it added a biiiit more to the character since before she was mostly treated like a villain and now we see a girl who just Really wants to be liked and suffered substantial abuse from her “best friend” and now is just kind of....... free.

they kept d*ad g*y s*n which like. disappointed but not surprised.

the cast

c*rrie h*pe fl*tch*r as veronica - i’d listened to a couple of audios of her before and i wasn’t too happy that they’d removed veronica’s high notes but watching it live, it didn’t seem like a huge problem at all tbh. she was an amazing veronica and definitely has very powerful vocals but in my opinion she wasn’t particularly memorable tbh?? i just don’t feel like she was really able to make the character her own and a lot of it felt very derived from barrett but that’s just me.

j*mie m*sc*to as jd - i actually really liked his jd!! he had the look dOWN. he started out maybe a bit more cute-sy and hesitant (like, almost told veronica she had the wrong cup when she gave chandler the bleach & was almost kinda shocked like ‘oh shit i killed someone’) but grew veeeery dark and manic and manipulative and was revelling in moments like after d*ad g*y s*n and sh*ne a l*ght and was always like ‘ok who we gonna kill next!!!’ and was very creepy in general though the musical did prompt you to feel bad for people like him as well as kurt and ram which. it shouldn’t & i don’t bye!

- like quick lil note i understand veronica is in distress but i hate how she sings that they could’ve turned out good when they aLMOST RAPED HER like they didn’t deserve to die but come on!!

j*die st*ele as he*ther c - mixed feelings for this one tbh. i didn’t love her, i’ll start by saying that. her voice is definitely very powerful and very fit for the character, but i feel like she played everything as more comical than anything else and some of her meaner moments felt a bit forced. but she was absolutely hilarious in the me ins*de of me and all the other moments after she died lol. not my favorite but she wasn’t bad either. did have some more memorable little moments like her dance in me ins*de of me was gOLD.

t’sh*n will*ms as he*ther d - i!!! stan!!! i think she was my fave he*ther d tbh??? she’s a fucking powerhouse and she made the character pretty sympathetic, especially towards the end. looked genuinely concerned when she said v looked like hell. in the finale she just stands there kinda grumpy and doesn’t sing along but then veronica insists for like a solid ten seconds and she joins in, still not sure if she quite belongs, very hesitant, but with the cUTEST small lil smile and she gives martha this little wave i cRIED.

s*phie is*acs as he*ther mc - again, she was very good, but i didn’t find her particularly memorable. like, to me, lifeboat just kind of flew by and her almost suicide scene as well and i didn’t feel too much??? her voice is definitely very pretty and she’s a good actress but i think the performance fell a bit flat for me.

a few more lil notes!!

- costumes were fine but i gotta say i was not a fan of he*ther m’s skirt or jd’s trench coat

- the stage was very small but the set felt so big at the same time?? and the set was very pretty tbh i really liked it!!

- sh*ne a l*ght was hILARIOUS and r*becca l*ck was great and being vv interactive and pointing to the guy at the audience and being like ‘you brought your wife aND A KID????’ and the wife was living and the guy was dying

- i feel like some jokes didn’t work w/ the british audience as it happens lmao like when ms fl*ming was like ‘as my thesis from berkley says’ and there were like, two laughs, one from me. in brazil we usually translate these kinds of things but i get why they didn’t. makes me wonder how h*milton is working out here tbh lol.

- dominic & chris were on point as kurt & ram (def reminded me of all the dudebros i know) but i just feel a bit iffy about the whole kram thing and everyone...... you know........ forgetting they almost raped veronica.

- huuuuuuge props to the ensemble. it was very small but they nailed it and the ensemble numbers were just always filled with energy and a lot of fun!!

- also props to the cast’s american accents!! they did slip at times but they fooled the friends i’d taken with me who were all surprised to find out the cast was actually british.

- i hate paying for programmes. not a note for the show but one from me to this country. i know they fancier than playbills but we have similar ones in brazil and they’re free!! 4 pounds doesn’t seem like much. until you remember that’s twenty reais. TWENTY!!

- there wasn’t really a stage door, the actors showed up at the lobby, but there was a line that went all the way outside the theatre and i am now Old and no longer have the patience for these types of things so i just left.

- sooooooo many people went dressed up though so if you’re in doubt about whether or not you should i’d say go for it.

- overall it was a good show, definitely fun, didn’t really leave me in emotional shambles but maybe i’m just older & boring now. i’m glad they’re still trying things out and making changes because lemme tell you it needs some of those. but if you’re in london, i def recommend watching it if it’s your type of show (though i know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea), it was a fun experience (love me some h*athers themed drinks) and i don’t think you’ll regret it!

#i probably forgot a bunch of things because i have the memory of a goldfish but......... here goes

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niennavalier · 7 years ago

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Okay friends, here we go: Coldflash North & South AU

(If any of you are unfamiliar, I HIGHLY recommend watching this. Especially the 2004 version with Richard Armitage, which is the one I’ve seen. Good stuff.)

Mid 1800′s, Victorian England. Barry Allen is living a perfectly tranquil life in the south of England. It’s the most idyllic type of lifestyle. His best friend, Iris, has just gotten married to the love of her life, Eddie Thawne, and Barry couldn’t be happier for them. He, himself, isn’t married, and he had pined after Iris for some time, but he’s glad to see her happy, and he’s started to move on.

But then his father decides to uproot them from their happy life and move north.

Henry is a doctor, but he’s become disenchanted with the field, with some of the new outlooks on morality that some of his younger companions have begun to adopt. On principle, he decided to leave, taking his family to the industrial town of Milton, where he can continue his practice on his own terms, and he can tutor privately, teaching about culture and literature that he learned while studying at Oxford.

Barry hates Milton immediately. The perpetually cloudy skies, the ever-present chill in the air, the way everything about the town looks so run-down and grey. He misses the South - the warmth in the air, the way the sun made everything glow golden like a dream. But he doesn’t want to upset his father, so he helps look for a place for them to live with help from one of his father’s friends from school, Harrison Wells.

Wells is an old family friend who happens to know this town and the people in it, insisting that Barry and his family meet with a friend of his - the owner of the cotton mill, a man named Leonard Snart. Barry agrees, if only because his father asked him to. He’s told to wait in an office, but Barry had never been good with patience, and he wanders into the mill. There, he sees puffs of cotton floating through the sky like snowflakes, as if he’d suddenly set foot in a winter wonderland, if not for the roaring sound of machinery. He can’t help but be captivated by it all, just a little bit, when he hears shouting, sees people running, and he follows.

He sees one man beat another to the ground, then he cries out for them to stop. He’s met with blue eyes cold as ice, and is promptly told - in a voice too calm and controlled - to get out of the mill.

The next day comes and Barry is called down to greet their guest, this Leonard Snart that he keeps hearing so much about but never got to meet.

Except that he did meet the man. The day before, at the mill. Beating another man clearly not his equal.

The two butt heads from the start, their ideologies just don’t mix. But there is something there, without a doubt. For all his stubbornness, Len likes Barry’s willingness to speak his mind, regardless of whether the person listening likes what he has to say; he likes how light Barry is, how kind. And Barry reluctantly comes to admit that Len is an honorable man, but he’s not willing to let that show.

He tells all of this to Iris - the good, the bad, the friends he’d made in Cisco and Caitlin, both workers in the factories but with dreams of much bigger things - through their letters back and forth. It’s how he finds out that some relative of Eddie’s - Eobard - had done something to ruin the family name, something that cast suspicion on all of them, and they were all on the run, hiding out in Spain until things blew over.

Everything comes to a head when the strike happens, and the riots start. Barry is at the mill when it starts, is there when Len walks out himself, in front of the workers - half-starved and angry without their jobs and incomes - to put on some show of defiance. Barry doesn’t even think when he runs out, acting on instinct because Len is putting himself in danger that he shouldn’t be. Things pass in a blur, one Barry can’t fully remember after waking up to find Len’s sister, Lisa, looking after him. He insists on leaving before his parents can worry for his safety.

It hardly takes a minute after Barry steps out the door before Lisa turns to her brother. She sees the way he looks at Barry, knew from the start what it was. And she wants nothing more than for her brother to be happy, especially after everything they’d been through. Their father - a failed business man turned convict who would turn his anger on his family before being jailed, forcing Len to grow up too soon. Finding work and setting aside money every week, denying himself so that his little sister and her mother could live easily. Lisa knows that Len still lives by the same rules, even long after her mother had passed, all three of them more than well-off. She tells all of this to Len, because he, of all people, deserves to finally be happy, and Barry would be lucky to have him. Len denies it, of course, arguing that Barry would never have him - he’s hated him from the day they met, and probably wouldn’t love another man, besides. But Lisa knows what she saw, Barry risking his life to try and protect her brother’s - that’s not something you do for a person you hate. And she’s seen how his eyes linger on Len when her brother isn’t looking. Nevermind what the town might say about it; her brother deserves to finally find some happiness of his own. After some forcing, Len agrees to visit the day after.

Meanwhile, Barry returns home during a lull in the violence to find his mother missing and his father distressed. By the end of the day, they learn that she had been killed in the chaos in the streets. Barry doesn’t know what to do with his grief and hates this place even more.

So it’s the wrong time for Len to arrive the next day, not knowing what happened, and open his heart to Barry, something he never does. Still grieving, Barry lashes out and rejects Len because it just feels like his life is just slowly falling apart.

Lisa can tell what happened without having to ask. She swears to hate Barry, because she knows her brother will never be fully able to, despite the cold and calculated front he’s able to put on.

All the while, Barry and his father continue to grieve, both of them over Nora, but Barry also regrets some of the things he said to Len. He’s still scared of the possibility he might be falling in love, so on some level, maybe the rejection was warranted, but he shouldn’t have put it the way he had. There were so many things at play; it wasn’t Len’s fault. But now Barry’s pretty sure he’s burned that bridge entirely. Iris is the only one he ends up telling everything to, including all that happened with Len. Unbeknownst to him, Iris makes the choice to risk a trip to Milton, because her friend clearly needs her.

Barry is so relieved to see his best friend when she arrives; he really did need someone he knew he could rely on, and he ultimately comes to admit that he’s no longer in love with her. They’re both different now, even if they’ll never stop being important in each others’ lives. They keep her visit a secret, but word begins to travel through town about the woman staying with the Allens, and they both know that it won’t take long for someone to start putting things together. Iris sneaks onto a train in the dead of night, and they embrace on last time at the station; their plan is almost perfect, but the only person who happens to see them there - together - is Len.

The next time they see each other is tense, and Barry wants to apologize for everything, but he can’t explain to Len what happened that night at the train station, and because of that, Len doesn’t care to hear anything else Barry has to say. He just fixes him with a glare and walks away.

It leaves them both miserable, but with Henry away to visit some old friends in the south, Lisa is the only one who notices. Barry has to bear her wrath, and while he can’t justify what happened at the station without endangering Iris, he does desperately blurt out that no, he doesn’t hate Len. He was hurting over what happened to his mother, and he shouldn’t have said the things he did that night. So then Lisa asks what his answer would be if Len asked now. To which Barry has to answer that he still isn’t sure; he knows he feels something, but he’s not sure what, and he doesn’t know if it’s right, what with everything that’s happened and-

The answer doesn’t exactly endear him to Lisa, who storms off, because she can’t believe this man is just going to keep breaking her brother’s heart. After cooling off for a bit, she does tell Len what Barry had told her, following it in short order with a rant about how much she doesn’t like the man and whatever he seems to be hiding. Len tells his sister to just leave it alone, but hates himself for feeling some hope grow in his chest.

If not for the reminder that he’d seen Barry at the train station with that woman in his arms. Of course he stood no chance.

As for Barry, bad only turns to worse. His father dies unexpectedly while away - of a broken heart, the doctors from the South had reported, and Barry is too tired of it all to be upset about how fake a diagnosis like that really is. It ends up being months before he finds out what actually happened.

Without a family, Wells takes him in, arranges for Barry to leave Milton, but Barry, even wallowing in grief, insists on seeing his friends to say goodbye. Seeing Len and Lisa before he leaves, because he owes them both a sincere apology, even if he’s certain their lives would’ve been better had he never been around.

He has no idea how much it hurts Len to see Barry so broken, how much it hurts him to see Barry just leave.

Months pass, and Barry is living back in the South, with Iris and Eddie and their family, now that Eobard had been caught and the scandal was in the past. He wants to be happy, being back home and surrounded by everyone he cares about, but he can’t quite manage it. All of his losses cut a little too deep, and the South isn’t quite the same for him anymore; it’s not the idyllic paradise he remembered, and he finds part of himself missing the hustle and bustle of the North. Through a somewhat strange turn of events, he ends up with a rather large inheritance from Wells, and soon learns that he had made money off of some of Wells’ investments. In the same conversation, he ends up learning that Len had lost out due to that same venture, not willing to put the livelihoods of his workers at risk. The future of the mill is bleak, to put it lightly, and that’s the moment when Barry realizes that he does love Len, doesn’t want to see everything the man had worked for disappear like a puff of smoke, all because he wasn’t about to put other people at risk over speculation. Because he cared more than he’d ever admit. Barry can’t let things just end like that, not now that he has the means to fix them. So he plans to travel back north.

As for Len, the financial problems had all started with the strike; his reluctance to speculate while in an already precarious position is just the last things that finally made all of it fall apart. When it all seems bleak, he can’t help but think about Barry, and he wishes he could have some of Barry’s light back in his life now, even if Barry would only reject him time and time again. A number of months after Barry had left, Len ends up meeting Cisco, and somehow, the two of them manage to get along. It’s from Cisco that Len learns what he’d seen at the station. Between Cisco and Caitlin, the two had been able to figure out that Iris was Barry’s childhood friend, happily married and living her own life. Someone Barry loved as something closer to a sister.

She was Barry’s friend. Not a lover, nowhere close to that. Just his friend.

After the last day of work, Len travels south to Barry’s hometown. He doesn’t tell Lisa of his plans; he just wants to experience where Barry is from, wants to feel close to him again, even if they never see each other again.

Barry arrives in Milton while Len is gone, though he doesn’t know that initially. He only finds Lisa there and finally admits his feelings for Len, wanting to see him. He expects Lisa to still be angry about the way everything went; she’s still bitter about it, still does resent Barry for it all, but she’s too worried having not seen her brother to be able to act on that bitterness. Barry ultimately parts with Lisa on good terms, explaining that he does have an idea, and he’ll send a letter with all of the details after he’s returned south. He’d made the trip to see Len in person, because he wants to clear up so much more than business plans but...

He takes a train heading south, and by chance the train stops at a station for a bit, Barry stepping outside the cabin for a breath of fresh air. Another train headed north stops at the same time...and of all people, Len steps out. Barry is shocked and his mind freezes as Len walks toward him, shirt collar loose and unbuttoned. At a complete loss for words, Barry splutters out that he has a business proposition because that seems easier than dealing with his feelings at the moment, and Len gestures for them to sit at a nearby bench. Fumblingly, Barry manages to make it through his idea about investing in the mill because really it’s just a better deal for both of them, nothing Len should need to thank him for, nothing particularly noteworthy either -

When asked later, Barry wouldn’t be sure which of them first moved to kiss the other. But either way, their lips are locked on each others’ in such a sweet and gentle gesture.

Finally.

They separate as the announcement is made that the southbound train is about to leave the station, and Barry moves wordlessly back toward his cabin to steady his head. Not that he really needed to, his decision already made. He grabs his bag and turns back around.

The look of surprise on Len’s face that fades into a softer smirk is the most beautiful thing to Barry, and he asks if he can join Len in his train heading back north.

“It’s about time, isn’t it?”

Barry just laughed in response, settling in next to Len. “Better late than never.”

“Suppose I should’ve expected you, of all people, to be late.”

Barry leaned forward to silence Len with a kiss, a better happy ending than either of them could’ve asked for.

#coldflash #north and south #north and south au #au idea #my writing #almost fic #ish #also i wanted to do a moodboard with a shorter version of this plot #but i cant figure out moodboards #so that might be a problem for another day #also sorry the dialogue at the end isnt really time period appropriate #i was working on this for way too long and just had to finish it #also sorry its so long without a read more #i didnt know where to cut it so i just smashed the post button #also i probably didnt really deal with a lot of societal things that would be related to this au #but i just sorta got excited and typed without doing much research #cause id just rewatched the show and had to keyboard smash it all before i forgot

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theunofficialchurchofsatan · 7 years ago

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What, The Devil? (Essay by High Preist Peter H Gilmore)

Satanism is not Devil worship. That comes as a shock to many who haven’t explored our philosophy and it is the prime misconception outsiders have regarding the Church of Satan. Our founder Anton Szandor LaVey asserted this stance from the beginning. Over the years, individuals with the need to feel embraced by a deity have claimed that Dr. LaVey somehow came to believe in a literal Satan. If we examine his work, it is clear that he never changed his mind about this, nor was belief in the Devil ever some secret “inner circle” practice of the Church of Satan.

We Satanists understand that both truth and fantasy are needed by the human animal. It is a step towards wisdom when one knows with certainty which is which. Man relies on symbolism and metaphor when building a personal conceptual framework for understanding the universe in which he lives. He has always invented his own gods using his carnal brain. From The Satanic Bible: “Man has always created his gods, rather than his gods creating him.” However, this act of creation is usually denied. History shows that the founders of religions claimed personal contact with the deity fabricated through their imaginations, and legions of followers bolstered that fiction. There is nothing wrong with fantasy, so long as an individual knows he is using this controlled self-delusion as a tool for dealing with existence. For we skeptical, pragmatic Satanists, it is wielded in the ritual chamber. Reliance on fantastic constructs becomes dangerous when the believers in spiritual religions dogmatically insist that their personal or collective fantasies are real in the world at large, that they are the only absolute truth, and then wait for the myth to guide them or try to force others to share this delusion. That has been the source for countless wars, as any student of history can see.

Dr. LaVey’s seminal book, The Satanic Bible published in 1969 lays out some basic principles:

The Satanist realizes that man, and the action and reaction of the universe, is responsible for everything, and doesn’t mislead himself into thinking that someone cares.

Is it not more sensible to worship a god that he, himself, has created, in accordance with his own emotional needs—one that best represents the very carnal and physical being that has the idea-power to invent a god in the first place?

From a 1986 interview with Walter Harrington of The Washington Post:

“Satan is a symbol, nothing more,” LaVey says. “Satan signifies our love of the worldly and our rejection of the pallid, ineffectual image of Christ on the cross.”

Accepting the axiomatic premise that no gods exist as independent supernatural entities means that Satanists are de facto atheists. We know that the objective universe is indifferent to us. Since our philosophy is self-centered, each Satanist sees himself as the most important person in his life. Each individual thus generates his own hierarchy of values and judges everything based on his own standards. Therefore, we Satanists appoint ourselves as the “Gods” in our subjective universes. That doesn’t mean we think we have the powers of a mythological deity, but it does mean that we revere the creative capacity in our species. So to distinguish ourselves from the atheists who simply reject God as non-existent, we call ourselves “I-theists,” with our own healthy ego as the center of our perspective. This is truly a blasphemous concept that flies in the face of just about every other religion, and it is why Satan serves us well as a symbol. He was described as the prideful one, refusing to bow to Jehovah. He is the one who questions authority, seeking liberty beyond the stultifying realm of Heaven. He is the figure championed by the likes of Mark Twain, Milton, and Byron as the independent critic who heroically stands on his own.

Dr. LaVey made his most detailed presentation of his concept for how Satan functions in his philosophy in the following monologue that appeared in Jack Fritscher’s book Popular Witchcraft, published in 1973.

I don’t feel that raising the devil in an anthropomorphic sense is quite as feasible as theologians or metaphysicians would like to think. I have felt His presence but only as an exteriorized extension of my own potential, as an alter-ego or evolved concept that I have been able to exteriorize. With a full awareness, I can communicate with this semblance, this creature, this demon, this personification that I see in the eyes of the symbol of Satan—the goat of Mendes—as I commune with it before the altar. None of these is anything more than a mirror image of that potential I perceive in myself.

I have this awareness that the objectification is in accord with my own ego. I’m not deluding myself that I’m calling something that is disassociated or exteriorized from myself the godhead. This Force is not a controlling factor that I have no control over. The Satanic principle is that man willfully controls his destiny; if he doesn’t, some other man—a lot smarter than he is—will. Satan is, therefore, an extension of one’s psyche or volitional essence, so that that extension can sometimes converse and give directives through the self in a way that thinking of the self as a single unit cannot. In this way it does help to depict in an externalized way the Devil per se. The purpose is to have something of an idolatrous, objective nature to commune with. However, man has connection, contact, control. This notion of an exteriorized God-Satan is not new.

The approach outlined here, of consciously creating an exteriorization of the self with which one communes solely in ritual, is a revolutionary religious concept of LaVey’s Satanism, and it is a “third side” approach which proves elusive to many to whom it does not come naturally. It is a psychological sleight-of-mind, not a form of faith. It establishes that to the Satanist in ritual, he is Satan.

To be fair, people attending workings of LaVey’s bombastic and theatrical rites might not be able to separate the shouting of “Hail Satan!” while in the ritual chamber with the disbelief in any external gods outside of the chamber. But then, Satanism isn’t meant for everybody. When asked if there is an upcoming volume Satanism for Dummies, we reply: “Satanism is NOT intended for dummies.” As he said in The Satanic Bible and often in interviews: “Satanism demands study—NOT worship.” The capacity to think is expected of Satanists. So LaVey expected those who embraced his philosophy to understand where to draw the line between the fantastic and the real. He proclaimed that he was a showman, and felt that his Satanists would not be rubes, mistaking the mummery for reality. As a carnie, he knew how to entertain, to draw attention so that he could then present more serious ideas. Some might sneer at his methodology, dismissing his deeper cogitations because of the circus-like elements. However, I believe a case can be made that all religions are in the “show business,” but the Church of Satan is the only one honest enough to admit it.

In an interview released on an LP called The Occult Explosion from 1973, Dr. LaVey explained how the Church of Satan deals with different concepts of Satan:

“Satan” is, to us, a symbol rather than an anthropomorphic being, although many members of the Church of Satan who are mystically inclined would prefer to think of Satan in a very real, anthropomorphic way. Of course, we do not discourage this, because we realize that to many individuals a picture, a well-wrought picture of their mentor or their tutelary divinity is very important for them to conceptualize ritualistically. However, Satan symbolically is the teacher: the informer of the whys and the wherefores of the world. And in answer to those who would label us “Devil worshippers” or be very quick to assume us to be Satan worshippers, I must say that Satan demands study, not worship, in its truest symbology.

We do not grovel; we do not get down on our knees, genuflect, and worship Satan. We do not plead, we do not implore that Satan give us what we wish. We feel that anyone who is going to be blessed by any god of his choice is going to have to show that god that he is capable of taking care of the blessings that are received.

Thus he advocates creating a god-symbol based on one’s own needs and aesthetic choices. Creative fantasy is employed for emotional fulfillment, experienced in the context of the ritual chamber. Satanists see Satan as their proper symbol to fulfill those needs, a magnification of the best within each of us.

Additionally, LaVey speculated on the idea that when attempting Greater Magic, it may be that the operator is tapping into a force that is part of nature to magnify his “Will.” This force is hidden, unknown, and thus “dark.” But LaVey did not view the force as a supernatural entity. In The Satanic Bible he originally explained “the Satanist simply accepts the definition (of God) which suits him best.” He closely follows that with the definition he uses:

To the Satanist “God”—by what-ever name he is called, or by no name at all—is seen as the balancing factor in nature, and not as being concerned with suffering. This powerful force which permeates and balances the universe is far too impersonal to care about the happiness or misery of flesh-and-blood creatures on this ball of dirt upon which we live.

LaVey clearly posits a disinterested, remote force—not a personality or entity—that balances the universe. He sees it as indifferent to life forms, much as any other force such as gravity would be. It is a mechanism, not a personage. It does not merit obeisance, appeasement, or worship. It can be named or not. It operates without awareness of conscious beings. He spoke of this to Burton Wolfe who wrote in the introduction to The Satanic Bible:

Of course LaVey pointed out to anyone who would listen that the Devil to him and his followers was not the stereotyped fellow cloaked in red garb, with horns, tail and pitchfork, but rather the dark forces in nature that human beings are just beginning to fathom. How did LaVey square that explanation with his own appearance at times in black cowl with horns? He replied: “People need ritual, with symbols such as those you find in baseball games or church services or wars, as vehicles for expending emotions they can’t release or even understand on their own.”

So LaVey accepted that there may be currently unexplained elements of the universe that are part of its fabric, but these are not supernatural. He suggests that Man’s inquiring mind may eventually come to understand how they function. The implications of these ideas offer great freedom. Since there is no actual deity watching over or mandating the behavior of our species, men are free to imagine whatever sort of God they choose to satisfy their own needs, however they should not forget that such fantasies are only that—nothing more.

In that same passage, he also addressed the prime reason for engaging in ritual, which he defined as Greater Magic: it serves as a means for releasing pent-up emotions that people may not even fully understand. Hence ritual has a psychological purpose; it is clearly not meant as a means for worship of some supernatural entity. Ritual is demonstrably part of human culture. LaVey knew that it served a value for people over the millennia, even if it was done for reasons that didn’t square with reality. It made people feel better than they did beforehand. So, as he continued in The Satanic Bible when addressing the search for a proper religion: “If he accepts himself, but recognizes that ritual and ceremony are the important devices that his invented religions have utilized to sustain his faith in a lie, then it is the SAME FORM OF RITUAL that will sustain his faith in the truth—the primitive pageantry that will give his awareness of his own majestic being added substance.” Thus the device of ritual, which he explained as “controlled self delusion,” can be of practical use for the well being of one’s state of mind. The truth referred to above is that all gods are an invention of the creative beast called Man.

To summarize a typical individual’s journey from observing reality to declaring himself a Satanist, let us list several assertions:

Nature encompasses all that exists. There is nothing supernatural in Nature.

The spiritual is an illusion. I am utterly carnal.

Reason is my tool for cognition making faith anathema. I question all things. I am a skeptic.

I do not accept false dichotomies, finding instead the “third side” which brings me closest to understanding the mysteries of existence.

The universe is neither benevolent nor malevolent; it is indifferent.

There are no Gods. I am an atheist.

There is no intrinsic purpose to life beyond biological imperatives. I thus determine my own life’s meaning.

I decide what is of value. I am my own highest value therefore I am my own God. I am an I-theist.

Good is that which benefits me and promotes that which I hold in esteem.

Evil is that which harms me and hinders that which I cherish.

I live to maximize the Good for myself and those I value. At all times I remain in control of my pursuit of pleasure. I am an Epicurean.

Merit determines my criteria for the judgment of myself and others. I judge and am prepared to be judged.

I seek a just outcome in my exchanges with those around me. I thus will do unto others as I would prefer they do unto me. However, if they treat me poorly, I shall return that behavior in like degree.

I grasp the human need for symbols as a means for distillation of complex thought structures.

The symbol that best exemplifies my nature as an aware beast is Satan, the avatar of carnality, justice, and self-determination.

I see myself reflected in the philosophy created by Anton Szandor LaVey.

I am proud to call myself a Satanist.

These ideas fundamental to Satanists serve as an earthy foundation that we find deeply liberating and a welcome acceptance of ourselves as human animals. For the type of person who feels the need for an external supernatural parental figure, the responsibility for self-determination explicit in this path would be terrifying. For the Satanist, belief in any actual God or Devil to which one would be beholden is repugnant and stultifying. We “agree to disagree” with those who are spiritually oriented concerning our different approaches to living, hence our advocacy of pluralism in society. We Satanists know that our way is not for everyone. We simply ask that others follow their own path and allow us to be as we are.

But please, all of you believers, understand that we are not simply your “flip side.” We are not Devil-worshippers. We are simply carnal self-worshippers looking to enjoy our lives to the fullest. May you find bliss in your serving of your chosen deity. We certainly will!

#satanist #the church of satan #satanism #satan #leviathan #lucifer #belial #peggynadramia #peter h gilmore #blanchebarton #antonlavey

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bettydraperlookingpissed · 7 years ago

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Matthew Weiner, The Art of Screenwriting No. 4

Born in 1965, Matthew Weiner is barely old enough to remember the period with which his television series Mad Men has now become almost synonymous. His office is exactly what one might hope for the creator of Don Draper: a stylish mixture of midcentury modern furniture, with a cabinet full of top-shelf liquor. But it turns out that the furniture came with the building, which was designed in 1955, and the liquor, mostly gifts, is wasted on Weiner, who hardly drinks at all.

(Copy and pasted cuz TPR charges and I got your back, man. Or maybe you’re made of money and can afford that kind of thing. It’s long in case ya wanna save it. Good Sunday night reading.)

Weiner’s sensibility reveals itself on closer inspection. A framed still from the set is shot from behind the actors’ heads, showing the crew. There’s a black-and-white photograph of Groucho Marx, Alice Cooper, and Marvin Hamlisch in conversation. There’s a homemade Father’s Day card by one of Weiner’s four sons, reading “Dad Men” in red and black crayon. There’s a picture of Stedman (Oprah’s boyfriend), because when Vanity Fair photographed Weiner’s desk soon after Oprah’s, he asked what she’d had on hers. His bookshelf overflows with fiction, essays, and poetry—from Diaries of Old Manhattan to Billy Collins to Moby-Dick.

A former Jeopardy! champion who once, rather than give notes, jumped up and danced to “Zou Bisou Bisou” for Jessica PareÌ (Megan Draper on the show), Weiner seems never to sleep. Our interview took place in four sessions that spanned almost eighteen months—real months, that is. More time than that passed on the show during the same period, but to say exactly how much would be, in Weiner’s universe, a spoiler. We spoke late into the night after he had spent full days in preproduction meetings, in editing, in sound-mixing sessions, on set, and in the writers’ room—and we could only sit down to talk on the rare nights when he didn’t have to write. Even with this schedule, he comes in every morning inspired by a movie he’s seen, an article he’s read, or a poem he’s remembered. (I’m lucky to be a writer on the show.) Weiner begins every season by rereading John Cheever’s preface to his Collected Stories: “A writer can be seen clumsily learning to walk, to tie his necktie, to make love, and to eat his peas off a fork. He appears much alone and determined to instruct himself.” The life of a showrunner leaves him almost no time to be alone, but Weiner seems always to be instructing himself.

WEINER

You know, I got a subscription to The Paris Review when I was fourteen or fifteen years old. I read those interviews all the time. They were really helpful.

INTERVIEWER

How did they help you?

WEINER

There were people talking about writing like it was a job, first of all. And then saying “I don’t know” a lot. It’s helpful, when you’re a kid, to hear someone saying “I don’t know.” Also, they were asking questions that I would’ve asked, only I’d have been embarrassed to ask them. Like, What time of day do you write?

INTERVIEWER

What time of day do you write?

WEINER

I write at night on this job because I have to, except Sundays when I write all day and all night. Left to my own devices I will always end up writing late at night, because I’m a procrastinator. But if there’s a deadline, I will write round the clock.

INTERVIEWER

Did you know when you were a kid that writing was the job you wanted?

WEINER

I wanted to be a writer, but the way my family thought of writers, that would have been like saying, I want to be quarterback of the football team or president of the United States. My parents had the books every Jewish family had—My Name Is Asher Lev, QB VII, O Jerusalem!—but they were also really into Joseph Heller, and my dad took Swann’s Way on every vacation. I always thought I would be a novelist, like the people whose books I saw lying around the house.

INTERVIEWER

Did you read those books?

WEINER

Not really. I read very slowly. I’m a good listener. If they’d had books on tape back then, I would be the best-read person in the world. When I had to do a report on Measure for Measure, I went and got the records, and I listened to John Gielgud do it. My dad read Mark Twain to us at night. I loved “The Stolen White Elephant” and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” And The Prince and the Pauper, oh my God, did I love that. I read Mad magazine and stuff, but my parents were always yelling at me, You need to read more! Crack a book already! I was not really a reader until I left college. My favorite form of writing is still the short story. Winesburg, Ohio was the first book that I read where I recognized the people in it. I knew the teacher who was sort of gay and couldn’t control his hands. I recognized everybody in there. And then, with John Cheever, I recognized myself in the voice of the narrator. His voice sounds like the voice in my head—or what I wish it sounded like.

INTERVIEWER

Who are your favorite writers?

WEINER

I don’t make lists or rank writers. I can only say which ones are relevant to me. Salinger holds my attention, Yates holds my attention. John O’Hara doesn’t, I don’t know why—it’s the same environment, but he doesn’t. Cheever holds my attention more than any other writer. He is in every aspect of Mad Men, starting with the fact that Don lives in Ossining on Bullet Park Road—the children are ignored, people have talents they can’t capitalize on, everyone is selfish to some degree or in some kind of delusion. I have to say, Cheever’s stories work like TV episodes, where you don’t get to repeat information about the characters. He grabs you from the beginning.

Poems have always held my attention, but they’re denser and smaller. It’s funny because poetry is considered harder to read. It wasn’t harder for me. Close reading, that is. Milton, Chaucer, Dante—I could handle those for some reason, but not fiction. From ninth grade on, I wrote poetry compulsively, and pushed myself to do iambic pentameter and rhymes because free verse was cheating—anybody could do that. But I was such a terrible student. I couldn’t sustain anything.

INTERVIEWER

What pointed you toward drama?

WEINER

Actually, I think it has something to do with my not being a great reader. When a play’s put up, it’s all there in front of you. When you’re a little kid who has trouble with long books, it’s a very literary experience to go see Eugene O’Neill. During high school, I wrote skits, I did improv, I was a performer. My senior year in high school I was elected by my class to give a speech at graduation. It was seven or eight minutes of stand-up comedy, including a salute to the bottom fifth of the class, of which I was part. The dad of a classmate of mine, a guy named Allan Burns, who created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, came up to me afterward. He said, Have you ever thought about writing for TV? You could do that.

INTERVIEWER

Had you thought about it?

WEINER

I had been raised more or less without TV. I loved it, my parents loved it—but we weren’t allowed to watch it. And yet what was on TV during those years? M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart. TV was very bad before that, and got very bad after that, but at the time it was really very good. The thing is, I took what Allan Burns said seriously just because it was the first time someone said I might be able to do anything. But my parents hated show business. It’s part of living in Los Angeles.

There was one other formative experience. One of our English teachers, Ms. Moser, had a poet come to visit our school—W.S. Merwin. The honor society got to have dinner with him. Even though I made bad grades, I edited the literary magazine, and the teacher made sure I was allowed to go, too. She had even told him about me, because when we met he said, Tell me your name again, I want to remember it. In my yearbook, Ms. Moser wrote to me, Keep doing what you’re doing, and stick to poetry and starve.

INTERVIEWER

Which you did not do.

WEINER

I tried. At Wesleyan I could not get into any writing classes. I applied to everything and got rejected. You’re laughing now, you should have heard my parents. Six hundred students, all that money, and you can’t get into class!? An older student, who was studying with the famous professor Frank Reeve, told me I should go and ask, personally, to take a tutorial with him. Franklin D’Olier Reeve. This Vermont Yankee, log-splitting son of a bitch. He had gone with Robert Frost to Russia. Incredibly handsome and charismatic—in fact, he was Christopher Reeve’s father. I imagined he was in the CIA. So I went to his office and brought my poems with me. He shredded them. I had some line that was like, “Where does it hide?”—this is sophomore poetry, right?—“Where does it hide to gently squeeze the pitch of morning into orange whispers of dusk, squeeze the pitch of dusk into orange whispers of morning,” and he said, Lose the split infinitive and juice squeezer. It was brutal. Then he said, When do we start?

I spent three semesters studying with Professor Reeve, writing poems and delivering one or two of them to him every week. I also took a lot of poetry classes. There were a couple years there where The Waste Land was the most interesting thing in the world to me. I loved that it was so personal and grimy and gross and epic at the same time. Two women talking about getting an abortion in a bar at closing time right next to a story about Greek gods and the Fisher King. The high and the low together. It is so important to my life as a writer, there’s so much dialogue, so much rhythm that I have tried to emulate. That’s still my idea of what a poetic sentence sounds like. My senior thesis was in creative writing, was poetry.

INTERVIEWER

What were your poems like?

WEINER

Pretty funny, a lot of them, in an ironic way. And very confessional. A lot like what I do on Mad Men, actually—I don’t think people always realize the show is super personal, even though it’s set in the past. It was as if the admission of uncomfortable thoughts had already become my business on some level. I love awkwardness. Reeve compared my poems to cartoons. He had me read “Mac Flecknoe,” Dryden’s satire on the poet Thomas Shadwell, because he knew I had a sense of humor and was interested in celebrities. He also told me that I had to be as interesting as my work, which terrified me. I was like, Forget it, dude. I’m a very conventional person. I’m middle-class. My father’s a physician. I had no personality to speak of. I kept wishing I had grown up interesting so I could be a great writer.

INTERVIEWER

Maybe Reeve turned you into a TV writer by giving you a weekly deadline.

WEINER

I’ve always said TV writing is for people who hate being alone more than they hate writing. Even then I needed to talk about what I was doing. Once I knew that my writing would be read right away, even if it was judged—and once I knew that it would be shot right away—that was all I cared about.

INTERVIEWER

Did you figure this out in film school?

WEINER

No. I didn’t go to film school for writing, but I realized that if you could write, you could have complete control. All these people I admired—Woody Allen, Jim Brooks, Preston Sturges—directed and wrote. When directors would come to the school and talk about their movies, eventually they’d have to talk about the fact that someone else had written it. To me that was like the dirty secret.

Then I graduated from film school and was stuck in a hole by myself for three years, writing. Linda, my wife, was supporting us, but that was awful. I was not made for that. I am not the writer who wants to live in the woods. Plus, half my time was spent trying to get into show business, which is demoralizing and somehow futile without finished work, but easier than writing.

INTERVIEWER

What were you writing during that time?

WEINER

Screenplays. I finished a screenplay that I’d started at USC. Then I wrote another screenplay about paparazzi. Then I started working on a Big Movie. After film school, I read everything that had been assigned to me in college. I mean, everything. I read Mein Kampf. I read all the time instead of writing. And I read a lot of biographies and became interested in this kind of American picaresque character. By picaresque I don’t mean like Candide. I don’t mean a guy who shit’s happening to. I mean a guy who is making his own future because he has no other options. I mean Tom Jones. So I was writing this movie following a guy’s life from 1930 to the millennium. And I got to page 80 of the thing, and I abandoned it.

Then I decided I was going to make a movie, an improvised movie that I was going to be in. Kind of a comedy Cassavetes movie—people improvising, but in a story. This was around the time of Clerks. I saw Clerks and felt the way many people did. It wasn’t like hearing the Beatles for the first time. It was a ten-thousand-dollar amateur black-and-white movie. It was inspiring in the way only something crude and peculiar can be inspiring.

And because I had gone to film school, I knew what commercial filmmaking was and knew I didn’t like it. In the nineties there was a stranglehold of formula on the movies. People would point to great movies like Chinatown as examples of how structure generates great works. But I always felt that these structures were derived from great works. The individual stories are organic, they come out of people’s heads. To say that the story of Jesus and the story of Moses are the same story is a horrible mistake. Are they both heroic? Yes. Do they both have inauspicious beginnings and unmarked graves? Yes. That does not make them the same story. But the studios were trying to consolidate films into a bulletproof system, they were trying to reverse engineer a hit—which, of course, is insane. In entertainment you’re a fool to try that.

One of the big things was, everybody hated “episodic structure,” as they used to call it.

INTERVIEWER

Meaning what?

WEINER

They were uncomfortable with a movie like The Godfather or a story like the Odyssey, where the only thing holding the events together is the characters. Now, there’s this monster, this obstacle, but there’s no real progression—the hero just keeps trying to get home. Sure, Michael Corleone starts off as a young war hero and ends up as the godfather, but the wedding takes up the first half hour of the movie. People liked to talk about “act breaks” and “rising action” leading to a climax, but what about Apocalypse Now? Someone’s on a journey, and sure, we’re heading toward a climax, but there are so many digressions. To me, those digressions are the story.

People would say to me, What’s holding this together? Or, How is this moment related to the opening scene, or the problem you set up on page 15? I don’t know. That’s where the character went. That’s the story. So many movies in the seventies are told this way, episodically, and they feel more like real life because you don’t see the story clicking. Movies like Days of Heaven—big movies that take time out to show the locusts. Do you need the crop duster in North by Northwest? No, but it is the most memorable part of the movie. It has no essential function in the story. Cary Grant has already been pursued. They’ve already tried to kill him. They’ve drugged him. They’ve poured booze down his throat. Remember how Cary Grant goes back to the house where the bad guys got him at the beginning of the movie and poured booze down his throat? He comes back the next day and says, This is where I was, they poured booze down my throat. Remember how he goes into the room where they poured the booze into him and they’ve changed the couch?

INTERVIEWER

Even now the hair on my neck is standing up.

WEINER

They’re so evil. They changed the couch! It’s preposterous, but delightful. Of course, anything that is epic is episodic in structure, whether it’s Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather, which was already being treated like an art movie—the most successful commercial movie in the world treated like an art-house movie.

I liked episodic structure and I thought it worked. I still think it works. At the time I was especially interested in Billy Wilder and Fellini. I liked their grasp of tone, the way the movies are both funny and dark. You’re always scared and laughing and on the verge of tears somewhere in the middle of these movies. I could watch Sunset Boulevard and 8 1⁄2 over and over again. Everything you need to know about writing is in those two movies. How to tell a story, where to start the story, whose point of view it’s from, at what point you leave their point of view, when you should see a character in a scene by himself or herself—all this shit that drives you nuts when you’re trying to structure something. And then, the fact that there are no rules. That’s what both movies are saying—there are no rules, the audience is not as rigid as you think, and certainly not as rigid as the people paying for the movies to get made.

Anyway, once I got out of film school I said, They will not let me fly the plane. So I’m going to build my own airport. I shot my first movie, What Do You Do All Day?, in twelve days, in 1995. It cost twelve thousand dollars. Anybody can raise twelve thousand dollars—now it would probably be even cheaper, because there was no digital then.

Around that time, my friend Daisy von Scherler Mayer called me up and said, I sold this sitcom. Come in and sit at the table. We’re going to run through the script and you’ll just pitch jokes. The show was called Party Girl. And I drove onto the Warner Brothers lot and sat down at the table with all these professional writers and had no trouble talking and telling jokes. Not just because I’m an extrovert, but because I’d just made this movie and I knew it was funny. You’ve never heard of What Do You Do All Day? and it never went anywhere, but I still say it changed my life. Making that movie took me from being a frustrated, bitter person with no control over his life to a delusional, grandiose person with no control over his life. I was so high on the idea of having a job and writing jokes and going down to the stage and seeing the actors saying them and getting laughs. I couldn’t believe it.

INTERVIEWER

So none of the screenplays you’d been writing before that period were made?

WEINER

Well, remember the eighty-page picaresque thing I threw away? That turned out to be the basis for Mad Men.

INTERVIEWER

Really?

WEINER

Four years after I’d started working in TV, I wrote the pilot for Mad Men. Three years after that, AMC wanted to make it. They asked me, What’s the next episode about? So I went looking through my notes. Now, imagine this. At this point it’s 2004—I’m writing for The Sopranos—and I go back to look at my notes from 1999 ... but then I find this unfinished screenplay from 1995, and on the last page it says “Ossining, 1960.” Five years after I’d abandoned that other screenplay, I’d started writing it again without even knowing it. Don Draper was the adult version of the hero in the movie. And there were all of these things in the movie that became part of the show—Don’s past, his rural poverty, the story I was telling about the United States, about who these people were. And when I say “these people,” I mean people like Lee Iacocca and Sam Walton, even Bill Clinton to some degree. I realized that these people who ran the country were all from these very dark backgrounds, which they had hidden, and that the self-transforming American hero, the Jay Gatsby or the talented Mr. Ripley, still existed. I once worked at a job where there was a guy who said he went to Harvard. Someone finally said, You did not go to Harvard—that guy didn’t go to Harvard! And everyone was like, Who cares? That went into the show.

How could it not matter, when everyone was fighting so hard to get into Harvard and it was supposed to change your life? And you could just lie about it? Guess what—in America, we say, Good for him! Good for him, for figuring it out.

INTERVIEWER

I’m struck by the irony that Don Draper has become an icon of the 1960s Establishment when the character himself feels like such an outsider.

WEINER

Everyone loves the Horatio Alger version of life. What they don’t realize is that these transformations begin in shame, because poverty feels shameful. It shouldn’t, but everyone who’s experienced it confirms this. Sometimes people say, I didn’t know we were poor—Don Draper knows he’s poor, very much in the model of Iacocca or Walton, who came out of the Great Depression, out of really humble beginnings. Or like Conrad Hilton, on the show. These men don’t take no for an answer, they build these big businesses, these empires, but really it’s all based on failure, insecurity, and an identity modeled on some abstract ideal of white power. I’ve always said this is a show about becoming white. That’s the definition of success in America—becoming a WASP. A WASP male.

The driving question for the series is, Who are we? When we talk about “we,” who is that? In the pilot, Pete Campbell has this line, “Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.” Sophisticated anti-Semitism. I overheard that line when I was a schoolteacher. The person, of course, didn’t know they were in the presence of a Jew. I was a ghost. Certain male artists like to show that they’re feminists as a way to get girls. That’s always seemed pimpy to me. I sympathize with feminism the same way I identify with gay people and with people of color, because I know what it’s like to look over the side of the fence and then to climb over the fence and to feel like you don’t belong, or be reminded at the worst moment that you don’t belong.

Take Rachel Menken, the department-store heiress in the first season of Mad Men. She’s part of what I call the nose-job generation. She’s assimilated. She probably doesn’t observe the Sabbath or any of these other things that her parents did. That generation had a hard time because they were trying desperately to be buttoned-down and preppy and—this is my parent’s generation—white as could be. They were embarrassed by their parents. This is the story of America, this assimilation. Because guess what, this guy Don has the same problems. He’s hiding his identity, too. That’s why Rachel Menken understands Don, because they’re both trying desperately to be white American males.

Of all of them, Peggy is my favorite. I identify with her struggle. She is so earnest and self-righteous and talented and smart, but dumb about personal things. She thinks she’s living the life of “we.” But she’s not. And every time she turns a corner, someone says, “You’re not part of ‘we.’ ” “But you all said ‘we’ the other day.” “Yes, we meant, ‘we white men.’ ”

INTERVIEWER

It’s strange that you wrote the hour-long drama Mad Men just when you were succeeding as a half-hour sitcom writer.

WEINER

I didn’t see a future in situation comedy. There wasn’t room anymore for something like M*A*S*H*, where they would have sentimental moments and episodes that could sneak up on you and make you cry.

When I started out, there were few dramas on TV. They were out of style. There were four news magazines a week, and there was Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?, or whatever, and the procedurals and the game shows. Reality TV hadn’t happened yet. Then, while I was doing it, situation comedy went from being the most lucrative and exciting place to be in television to disappearing. All the things that people hate about network TV were starting to fail economically, and still the networks were asking, How do we re-create Friends? By the time I wrote the Mad Menpilot, the syndication market had dried up. Survivor happened when I was writing on the sitcom Becker. Survivor, The Sopranos, and Lost all happened within a few years of each other. By then, drama had become really big. And then David Chase hired me for The Sopranos based on my script for Mad Men.

INTERVIEWER

You worked on three seasons of The Sopranos before you went back to your Mad Men pilot. Did that change your conception of your show?

WEINER

Mad Men would have been some sort of crisp, soapy version of The West Wing if not for The Sopranos. Peggy would have been a climber. All the things that people thought were going to happen would have happened. Even though the pilot itself has a dark, strange quality, I didn’t know that that was what was good about it. I just wanted an excuse to exorcise my demons, to write a story about somebody who’s thirty-five years old, who has everything, and who is miserable.

The important thing, for me, was hearing the way David Chase indulged the subconscious. I learned not to question its communicative power. When you see somebody walking down a dark hallway, you know that they’re scared. We don’t have to explain that it’s scary. Why is this person walking down a dark hallway when he’s on his way to his kids’ school? Because he’s scared about someone telling him something bad about his kids. He’s worried about hearing something that will reflect badly on the way he’s raised his kids, which goes back to his own childhood. All that explanatory stuff, we never even talked about it. And I try not to talk about it here. Why did that happen? Why do you think? You can’t cheat and tell people what’s going on, because then they won’t enjoy it, even if they say they want it that way.

You know how sometimes I give you a note that says, Why don’t you do X? and you say, That’s the thing I wanted to do? That’s what I learned at The Sopranos. That’s the note I try to give to everyone who writes here. Take the risk of doing the extreme thing, the embarrassing thing, the thing that’s in your subconscious. Before The Sopranos, when someone said, Make it deeper, I didn’t know what they meant. Or really, I knew in my gut—but I also knew that it was the one thing that crossed my mind that I wasn’t going to do. To have Peggy come into Don’s office after he’s had the baby and ask for a raise and be rejected, and look at the baby presents, so we know she’s thinking about her own baby that she gave away, and then to have her tell Don, “You have everything and so much of it.” There is something embarrassing about that. A scene that was really just about her getting turned down for a raise became a scene about her whole life. That was the sort of thing I learned from working with David Chase.

Another thing that happened when I began writing on The Sopranos was I noticed that people were always telling me anecdotes. They would throw out a line of dialogue they’d heard somebody say or that someone had said to them—and that was the story. I did not know how important that shit was. There’s an episode where Beansie and Paulie are reminiscing and Tony dismissively says, “‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.” And it’s devastating. David Chase had witnessed that actual statement. Now I have a ton of stuff like that I’ve saved, things people have said to me that are concise and devastating and sum up some moment in their lives. When I’m talking to some woman on an airplane, and she says, I like being bad and going home and being good, that is very useful.

INTERVIEWER

Did you cultivate your memory for those moments?

WEINER

I always had that kind of memory, I just didn’t know there was any value in it. One time we were doing a research call at The Sopranos. It was a two-hour conference call with a guy talking about emergency medicine. At the end of it, the writer’s assistant, who was taking notes, had a bunch of medical facts, but all of us writers had written down the same two ideas. All of us. Just those same two ideas in two hours.

INTERVIEWER

What were they?

WEINER

He said that everyone with insurance is a VIP. And he used the expression “wallet biopsy.” I think they’re self-explanatory. But that’s what being a writer is. I don’t know what makes something a story, but I know one when I hear it. Mad Men was a show I wanted to see. I really wanted to tell a story about that period. I thought it was sexy. I wanted to live in it a little bit, and I wanted to remind people that they have a misconception about the past, any past.

INTERVIEWER

What sort of misconception?

WEINER

You know in Reds, when they’re interviewing the witnesses, and Henry Miller says, People today think they invented fucking? That kind of thing. The old people you’re looking at, they may have been more carnal than we are—drunker, less responsible, more violent. So many of those film noirs are about how soldiers reintegrate themselves into society. The private detective is haunted by the shadow of having killed people in the war. Don’t even get me started on The Best Years of Our Lives. The move to the suburbs, the privacy, the conservatism of the fifties—that’s all being driven by guys who, for two years, had not gone to the bathroom in privacy. I’m not the first TV person to be puzzled and fascinated by the fifties. The two biggest shows of the seventies are M*A*S*H* and Happy Days. Obviously that moment is some sort of touchstone for culture. Is Hawkeye not related to Don Draper? He’s an alcoholic Boy Scout who behaves badly all the time. I just wanted to go back and look again.

So I spent a lot of money buying videotapes to watch movies from the period. I hired somebody to do research for me. Then, because I was working all day, I stumbled on the idea of dictating. I found that I was constantly thinking of dialogue and couldn’t write it down fast enough. I heard that Billy Wilder did it, too. He walked around with a riding crop while his writing partners would type. Joseph Conrad did it. So did Henry James. I’ve since kept track because some of my writer friends think it’s cheating. And it’s hard to believe you can be as eloquent as your characters, but you can be if you have the topic and you’re channeling them. Then you get to fix it afterward. It’s way better than sitting there and procrastinating while you write a new piece of description and try to perfect the sentence.

INTERVIEWER

Will you describe how you write the show now?

WEINER

At the beginning of the season I dictate a lot of notes about the stories I’m interested in. Then for each episode, we start with a group-written story, an outline. When I read the outline, I rarely get a sense of what the story is. It has to be told to me. Then I go into a room with an assistant and I dictate the scenes, the entire script, page by page.

INTERVIEWER

I’ve seen you do whole scenes without pausing.

WEINER

I can see it in my head. And I don’t look at the dictation. I try and keep it in my head. That’s why the fatigue gets so bad. And why it’s crucial to have the right assistant. It requires the chemistry, it requires them reading my mind a little bit so they know when I’m moving back to an earlier person who’s talking or which person is saying it—because sometimes I stop identifying the speakers. After a while I’ll talk in different voices. I don’t even know what I’m doing when I walk around making up those scenes. But I wrote my play the same way, and my second movie, You Are Here. If you compose that way, it means the dialogue can all be said. John Slattery and I had an argument about something in the second episode, where there was a bit of a tongue twister. He was supposed to say, “Coop is going to want a carbon with your hand-picked team for Nixon on it. And I warn you right now, it includes Pete Campbell.” He said it was impossible to say, but I knew it could be said because I’d said it. I rattled it right off to him. Then he smiled and performed it and everything else I wrote for him. I started writing more tongue twisters for John. My favorite was, “He knows what that nut means to Utz and what Utz means to us.”

INTERVIEWER

What’s the main difference between writing for someone else’s show and writing for your own?

WEINER

It’s one thing to hear Tony Soprano say your dialogue. That is ridiculous. That’s a totally surreal experience. It’s another thing to create an entire environment and walk onto the set of this fake office from a different era and see Peggy in her ponytail and bangs and Joan looking like Joan. It was better than I could have imagined. I am a controlling person. I’m at odds with the world, and like most people I don’t have any control over what’s going to happen—I only have wishes and dreams. But to be in this environment where you actually control how things are going to work out, and who’s going to win, and what they’re going to learn, and who kisses who...

INTERVIEWER

And then you have the challenge of doing episode after episode, season after season. You once said to me, “I’ve written hundreds and hundreds of scenes with two people in them. You have to know what kind of scene it is.” What did you mean?

WEINER

When I was just starting out, a writer explained to me the meat and potatoes of situation comedy. For instance, a scene where one guy thinks he’s talking about one thing and the other guy thinks they’re talking about something else sounds like a big clicheÌ. But guess what? That’s comedy. The question is, Can you do it well? I’ve personally written some of the most clicheÌd comedy scenes on Mad Men.

INTERVIEWER

Like what?

WEINER

Like the first season, when Pete goes to return that chip-and-dip at the store. He tries to hit on the officious clerk and she rejects him, then that other guy comes in and hits on her, and she loves it. That could be a scene on any situation comedy in the world, right down to waiting in line. To me, waiting in line is one of the funniest things in the world.

Or think of the premiere of season 3 of Mad Men, where Ken and Pete both get promoted to head of accounts. I put them in the elevator so that each of them can magnanimously congratulate the loser. I wanted to see how long we could sustain the dramatic irony. When I got to The Sopranos, I realized that I hated it when one character would just help another character through the scene. “I got something to tell you.” “Well, uh, what have you got to tell me?” “It’s kind of hard to say, Ron.” “Well, I’m listening.” I don’t know about everybody else, but I find that whenever I really want to say something, there’s a huge obstacle. Except in this interview.

INTERVIEWER

What about all the scenes you do with four or five or six people? Or more? You have all those status meetings, all those partners’ meetings.

WEINER

Those are tough, and the hardest part of my job is dealing with exposition. So populating those meetings with a lot of characters gives you a chance to bury it. But I find that giving each of the characters their own goal in the scene helps them talk in my head. And that’s usually the place for the most drama. Characters go in the story from having a private problem to having a public problem, even if they just lie about it. Which I guess is some convoluted definition of dramatic irony. Take the meeting in the episode “Hands and Knees.” Don has almost been caught by the government. Pete has to turn down North American Aviation and lie for Don or Don will go to jail. Pete also knows that Don is sleeping with Dr. Faye. Lane has been beaten by his father with a cane. Roger has lost their biggest account and sent Joan alone to get an abortion. Joan has not gotten an abortion. And Cooper is just there—he doesn’t know anything. So there are six secrets in the room, and when I was writing that scene, the hardest part was forcing the characters to talk about anything. Luckily we had the structure of another dumb meeting. The audience has so much information, and the characters don’t have any.

In addition to writing, I happen to go to a lot of meetings, and I find them hilarious—the rules of order, old business, new business, it’s not just from the Marx Brothers. But you know, every scene is comic to me.

INTERVIEWER

The first time I walked onto the set, I saw a stack of mail sitting on a secretary’s desk. Every single letter was addressed to a character on the show, from a client they have in the show, stamped and postmarked 1965. How do you make it so real, so detailed?

WEINER

Well, I have a bunch of people who delight in re-creating that physical reality. But as for the writing, I don’t make any special effort to write “period.” I try to be realistic, but the characters are smarter and more eloquent than regular people. It’s part of why I have them talk so slowly—or, really, listen so much—because I didn’t want the dialogue to be repetitive and snappy and sound phony. I wanted there to be real things like people saying, What? when they didn’t understand something, and coughing—things like that. The director of the pilot wanted it to look “1950s.” He actually wanted to do it in black and white. Then he wanted it to be spoken faster. But if you speak that fast, you’ll have to keep repeating the information. I did not want to do that. I didn’t even have the characters address each other by name because it felt phony. And after two seasons of the show, Roger Sterling was known as “the white-haired guy.”

One thing we did agree on was that we were looking for a commercial cinematographic style. We were very interested in the ceilings, in the low angles. The cinematographer, director, production designer, and I all shared a point of reference in North by Northwest, which is a story about an advertising man. Even though it’s very stylized and it’s a thriller and it’s Cary Grant, it was made in 1958, a couple years before the pilot took place, and we were influenced photographically by that.

A lot of these things were decided, like so many good decisions, by financial necessity. In the pilot, I wrote an overhead shot of men coming into the Sterling Cooper building, because I knew that was the cheapest angle to make period. Looking straight down, you have the side of the building—and the buildings hadn’t aged much—and you have the tops of people’s hats, which might not require full costumes, and some cars, and you get the sensation of period. When we did the flashbacks, our first glimpse of Dick Whitman’s childhood, I remembered how, in Death of a Salesman, they had staged the flashbacks in the regular sets, and I thought, Why don’t we just put this in Don’s dining room? We’ll stage it in a sort of theatrical limbo.

INTERVIEWER

Often you’ll say, That just doesn’t sound period. And someone will go research it and discover that you’re right. How are you so connected to a period that you experienced only as a small child?

WEINER

I cut out any slang that I didn’t know organically. Even as a kid, you hear certain expressions and then you stop hearing them. I had heard people say, “Make a hash of it.” They don’t say it anymore. Also, I intuitively cast actors who had a certain formality to them. It turned out they were almost all from the Midwest. They have old-fashioned manners.

But you know, these questions of verisimilitude have a lot to do with the framing and the editing. The original director, Alan Taylor, is a huge fan of Wong Kar-wai, and so am I. What Wong Kar-wai does is let scenes develop in front of your eyes. In a conversation, the point-of-view shots will include parts of people’s shoulders and heads. He has a shot design that appreciates the space, puts the people in the space, puts the audience in the space. Music and mise-en-sceÌ€ne are part of it, but the editorial style was most important of all. We don’t use overlapping dialogue. Usually, when you cut a scene between two people talking, you keep cutting to the person who’s listening. It allows you to use material from different performances. It’s also supposed to keep the audience in the scene. But I felt that, since these actors were so good and they pulled off these transitions in front of our eyes, why cut away? So I’d stay with their performance. They would do the entire speech, and then there would be a pause on one side or the other for the other character to respond. That, to me, magically creates a first-person experience, though none of this was intellectual. That’s kind of the way I experience the world. It feels normal to me.

INTERVIEWER

Once you had directed the show, did it change the way you wrote for it?

WEINER

I try now to write every script as if I would have to direct it. I do not leave vagaries of position or gesture. I do not have vagaries about the set. I try to specify who the characters are. It’s a blueprint. I will always give visual clues. I’m not talking about the props only, but a visual motif. People sitting or standing. I will write those things in. Where they are in the room, I write that in the script. You don’t have to do that, and I used to not write that. Betty has a seat in the kitchen. That’s one of my things. Your mom has a place where she sits, if she sits. Directing has made me not write impossible crap like somebody “plops into a chair” or “turns beet red” or “rolls their eyes.” That means that there’s no cheating in the stage directions—“He’s never felt this way before.” “He reminds her of her father.” You can’t write how someone feels, you have to show it in the scene.

The miracle of writing Jon Hamm sitting on the steps at the end of the first season and, as the camera pulled away, seeing his face physically change in a way that . . . It was exhilarating. So much emotion. I’m too embarrassed a person to ever do that job. I don’t know how actors do it.

INTERVIEWER

On the level of the scene, you’re always searching for a surprising way into a moment, or a way that a moment can turn into something you don’t expect.

WEINER

You know that scene in Rebecca when Joan Fontaine is exploring the room where everything is monogrammed “Rebecca,” and George Sanders just appears in the window? It’s a ground-floor room, and he’s sitting in the window. He just slides his leg over the sash and walks into the room. You’re like, That guy could’ve come in through the front door, but I know so much about him because he came in the window. We all love moments like that.

How many people say at the beginning of a story that the character is bored, and they start telling all these things about how he’s bored—he does this, and he goes to his mom’s house, and she’s talking, and he’s staring off, and then you go to his job and it’s the same every day. But actually, it only takes one shot to explain to the audience that the character is bored, and I mean bored with everything in their whole life. They did it on The Sopranos. When Tony was supposed to be laying low, they had a shot of him on the escalator in the mall.

The story is not, We built this great bridge, let’s watch people go across the bridge. The story is, The bridge is out, the bridge is broken, I’m going to try to build one. And then it gets blown up right before I finish it.

INTERVIEWER

Do you read any of the commentary on Mad Men?

WEINER

I stay off the Internet.

INTERVIEWER

Now you do.

WEINER

Yeah, I couldn’t take it. It’s like being on trial for a crime you didn’t commit and having to listen to the testimony with a gag in your mouth. I did learn, though, that what I intended something to mean is not always what it means. That’s okay. It’s actually kind of amazing.

INTERVIEWER

You directed a movie last year. You write plays and poetry. How do you feel about being labeled a “TV writer”?

WEINER

I don’t even understand what that is. That’s going to be a big joke to everyone in ten years because everyone’s going to watch things on the same screen. The movie industry is clinging to its perceived role as the dominant form in the culture, but you know, I was just reading an interview with Stanley Kubrick from the late fifties where he talks about how movies, if they want to have any impact, have to start being more like television, or better. He was talking about the artists in TV at that time—among them, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon, Rod Serling, Paddy Chayefsky, Reginald Rose—and the directors who went with them—John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, Delbert Mann. In the next ten years, they all went into the movies. The movies took that business away. But really, the fifties was the golden age of television.

INTERVIEWER

What made the fifties a golden age?

WEINER

Social consciousness and a respect for the audience. This was the same moment as the blacklist, so there was so much subversion. There’s poetry, there’s great speeches, there’s incredible eloquence in those early made-for-TV dramas, but they are derived from real life. There are actors in them who are unattractive. There are recognizable milieus, like automats. Before the 1950s, something like 12 Angry Men wouldn’t have seemed like a promising subject for a Hollywood movie. It had to be a ninety-minute TV show first. But that’s how it goes. Americans are subversive and they depend on their entertainment to express it. So thankfully, all subversive entertainment eventually succeeds.

INTERVIEWER

Do you ever worry about losing your touch?

WEINER

In show business, careers are always seen in terms of hot or cold. Hot and cold doesn’t interest me. That’s dependent on the world. Are you in style or are you not in style? My kids have no Faulkner on their reading list. Thomas Wolfe—completely gone. You never know what’s going to go and what will stay. But on the creative side, you’re either wet or dry. That’s what a writer asks himself. Am I going to dry up? The repetition is the hardest part. You know—you deal with it every day. You witness me trying not to get caught with my pants down doing something I’ve already done. Remember Allan Burns, from my high school graduation? Well, I had lunch with him after my freshman year of college. I asked him, How do you write? He said, My rule is quit when I’m hot. When I’m in the middle of something and it’s good and I know where it’s going to go, that’s where I stop, so when I get back tomorrow I can get back on it. Underneath this was obviously the fear that he could wake up tomorrow and not be able to write. That terrifies me, too.

INTERVIEWER

Do you have other superstitions about your work?

WEINER

I have a pen I use to check off numbers on the outline. I’ve been using that pen since Becker. I will borrow other people’s superstitions. But I’m most superstitious about hubris. I am terrified about having things taken away from me because I finally relax. When I wrote the pilot of Mad Men, I was saying, I’m already successful, why am I not happy? Now it’s become, You didn’t even know what success was. What if your dreams came true?

#Don Draper #Jon Hamm #Matthew Weiner #Mad Men #this is loooooong #hopefully some of you are into this #also if some of you versed in law tell me if this is legal? i give credit so i should be good right #right??

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the-master-cylinder · 5 years ago

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SUMMARY Thomas Dagget, a Catholic seminary student, loses his faith when he sees visions of a war between angels. Years later, Thomas is a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Two angels fall to Earth: Simon briefly enters Thomas’ home and warns him of coming events, while Usiel, a lieutenant of the Archangel Gabriel, is killed in an altercation with Simon. Investigating the disturbance, Thomas finds in Simon’s apartment the obituary of recently deceased Korean War veteran Colonel Arnold Hawthorne, and a thesis about angels which Thomas himself wrote in seminary. Meanwhile, in Chimney Rock, Arizona, Simon finds Hawthorne awaiting burial and sucks his soul out of his body.

The medical examiner informs Thomas that Usiel’s body has no eyes, no bones, hermaphroditism, and the blood chemistry of a fetus. His personal effects include an ancient Bible, with an expanded Book of Revelation that describes a second war in Heaven and prophecy that a “dark soul” will be found on Earth and used as a weapon.

Gabriel arrives on Earth. Needing a human helper, Gabriel catches a disappointed Jerry, a suicide, in the moment of his death. Jerry retrieves Usiel’s belongings from the police station while Gabriel destroys Usiel’s body in the morgue. Finding Hawthorne’s obituary, Gabriel and Jerry head for Chimney Rock. Before Gabriel arrives, at the local reservation school Simon hides Hawthorne’s soul in a little Native American girl, Mary, who immediately falls ill and is cared for by her teacher, Katherine.

After finding Usiel’s burnt body, Thomas hurries to Chimney Rock. When Gabriel realizes Hawthorne’s soul is missing, he confronts Simon. Hawthorne’s soul will tip the balance to whichever side possesses it, and a win for the rebellious angels would make Heaven like Hell with Earth in its thrall. Gabriel tortures Simon, but he refuses to reveal its location, so Gabriel kills him. Mary shows signs of possession by Hawthorne, recounting an incident from Hawthorne’s harrowing war experiences in first-person perspective. Meanwhile, Thomas examines Simon’s remains and questions Katherine. In Hawthorne’s home, he finds evidence of war crimes. Thomas visits a church to reflect in and is shaken by a verbal confrontation with Gabriel.

At school, Katherine finds Gabriel questioning the children. After he leaves, she rushes to Mary’s home and finds Thomas. As Mary’s condition worsens, Katherine takes Thomas to an abandoned mine where she had seen Gabriel. They find angelic script and experience together a terrible vision of the angelic war. Returning to Mary, they find Gabriel and Jerry. Thomas kills Jerry, while Katherine distracts Gabriel when her wild gunshot misses him and blows up Mary’s trailer home. They take Mary to a Native American site to be exorcised. In a hospital, Gabriel recruits a new unwilling assistant, Rachael, just as she dies of a terminal illness.

Lucifer confronts Katherine and tells her that “other angels” have taken up this war against mankind, and since then, no human souls have been able to enter Heaven. He knows Gabriel plans to use Hawthorne’s soul to overthrow the obedient angels. He also knows that if Gabriel wins the war under his influence Heaven will ultimately devolve into another Hell, which Lucifer considers “one Hell too many”. Lucifer then appears to Thomas and advises him to use Gabriel’s lack of faith against him. When Gabriel arrives and attempts to disrupt the exorcism ritual, Thomas kills Rachael, and he and Katherine fight Gabriel. Gabriel defeats them and moves to kill Katherine.

Lucifer appears, encouraging the Natives to complete the exorcism. Lucifer confronts Gabriel, telling him that his war is based upon arrogance, which is evil, making it Lucifer’s territory. Lucifer tells Gabriel he needs to go home and rips out his heart. Simultaneously Mary expels out Hawthorne’s soul. The “enemy ghost” starts to attack Thomas and Katherine, but a bright light from Heaven appears and destroys it. Lucifer asks Thomas and Katherine to “come home” with him, but they refuse. Lucifer drags Gabriel to Hell. As morning comes, Thomas comments on the nature of faith and what it means to truly be human

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION The film was shot in fall 1993. with an $8 million budget and a solid cast including Walken, Eric Stoltz and Virginia Madsen. While strange, unexplained phenomena seemed to plague the film, it was eventually finished with only a few “act of God instances and very little fundamentalist group opposition.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into some problems later.” Soisson admits. “There are so many different sects of Christianity, not to mention Islam and Judaism, and they all hold angels in different regards. The Old Testament and New Testament are completely different; the New Testament barely speaks of angels. So Christians who look to the New Testament are probably going to find the film problematic. Then again, the Old Testament describes angels as savage beings. They seek vengeance and cause bloodshed, and that’s the kind of angel we’re describing here to a certain extent. If you look at it honestly, there is a truth in the movie.

Gregory Widen

According to Widen, who wrote as well as directed, the film sprang from his fascination with the idea of what makes an angel go bad, prompted by reading Milton and studying the Bible. “I was interested in exploring that and did a lot of research with the Bible,” said Widen. I try to back up the movie as much as I can with the Bible. I’ve got a very unusual take on angels, the idea that they’re sort of God’s hitmen. If you read the Bible, they spent an awful lot of time killing first borns and turning cities to salt, especially in the Old Testament, and so the idea was to really play up that aspect of their personality.

“I thought we’d lost in our modern age the feeling that angels are anything but these fluffy things on your shoulder. There was an earlier time, a few hundred years ago, when they were seen in a much more complicated way, as creatures that were fearsome in some ways. They have free will, they’re not just an extension of God, because they obviously can rebel: they did it once before. They’re just fascinating to me as a creature, the ability to praise God all day, but with one wing dipped in blood. You’re doing God’s dirty work all the time, and you have free will, so what kind of personality does that create in a creature?”

Since the film relies heavily on historical and literary influences, many audience members unfamiliar with angelic lore might be turned off. Widen disagreed, countering, “I don’t think so. A lot of the stuff is mainly textural and will help your enjoyment of the film. And if you don’t get every single Biblical detail, I don’t think it gets in the way. If you do (get it), it’s just an added benefit.”

The film’s interpretation of angels isn’t the only potentially controversial viewpoint. While God and Jesus are mentioned, Lucifer plays a significant role at film’s end.

“Lucifer actually makes an appearance in almost a Lecterian sort of way,” said Widen, “because his basic position is that two Hells is one Hell too many. Gabriel is, in many ways, taking Lucifer’s route, from a Milton point of view.

“Unfortunately now we tend to push these things into all evil and all bad, and the Devil is just this cackling guy in a corner who was evil from moment one. Actually in the Bible and a lot of other writings, Lucifer started out as the good guy. He was the best angel, and along the way he began seeing things in a way that became incompatible with staying with God. And it was almost a heartbreaking falling out. Gabriel is doing the same thing in many ways, where he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong. He thinks he’s right and everybody else is wrong. He doesn’t want to be a king, he doesn’t want to rule in Heaven, he’s not trying to overthrow God. He just thinks there’s a fundamental wrong going on and everyone just sees it wrong.

“Ultimately that’s how Lucifer fell, too. He wasn’t really trying to undo God, he just disagreed. Lucifer’s a much more tragic figure in this movie. He’s more like a guy who lost the love of his life and is still a really bad guy, but is still kind of a sorrowful guy, too. But he’s there to help the humans because it’s simply not in his interests for Gabriel to win.”

The story also juxtaposes Christian mythology with aspects of Navajo mysticism. With the final battle staged on a Navajo reservation, the question of how two seemingly disparate beliefs can coexist is raised. “They weave pretty tightly,” explained Widen. “The idea is that the girl’s possessed, and the Navajo culture does have a procedure for depossessing someone. And they carry on as if that’s the issue and the two worlds meld climatically at the end, where you have an Indian exorcism and you also have Christian-based humans desperately trying to stop these angels. The idea is that they all complement each other; they’re not necessarily in opposition to each other as two concepts.

“For example, there’s a line in the movie where one guy turns to the Indian and says, “You know, this may not be a Navajo ghost,’ and the Indian says, ‘It’s all the same.’ That’s the idea. As far as they’re concerned, this is just a negative spirit inhabiting a girl.”

In eerie fashion, the production had its own run in with evil spirits while filming in Arizona. On the day filming was to occur on an Indian village set, Jones Benally, a medicine man employed as a stunt man, warned producers that two bad omens—the sighting of a coyote and an owl—had occurred and he had misgivings about continuing the production. A storm, with 120 miles-per-hour winds and lightning, subsequently blew in, destroying the set.

“We had built an Indian village on a cliff, and it blew away one night,” remembered Widen. “We had a hellacious storm. It was foretold by a medicine man because we had accidentally killed an owl with one of our trucks.”

Despite the bad omen-induced weather, the two-month production went smoothly. “I had a great time,” said Widen, who makes his feature directorial debut. “I had really great actors, which is half your job. If you have great actors, the most important thing is to just get out of the way. I definitely had Christopher Walken in mind (when I wrote this). He was the first one that signed on. Walken is an incredibly gifted actor. He gives you exactly what you want. And he has a certain ethereal quality about him that really works well with this—that otherworldly quality helps you believe he’s not quite of here. I thought that worked enormously well for him.”

The ultimate script was shaped by the concept of the seraph God’s highest order of warrior angels. Widen then centered on one particular angel, Gabriel (Christopher Walken), who wants to overthrow heaven but needs to come to Earth to snatch the black soul of a recently deceased general, which will help him strategically to win the fight.

“This was definitely a tough movie to pitch,” notes Soisson. “It’s a profound concept that makes people go ‘hmmmm,’ and they’re usually blown away when they read the script. It’s different and thought-provoking and scary, and we hope the movie will capture that. It’s one of those lucky breaks, where you’re actually trying to do justice to the script instead of trying to get a script that does justice to the production.”

Selling a studio on the idea was the hard part. After shopping it around, with Widen as a first-time director, all the team received were unnecessary criticisms one executive thought the movie was great, but didn’t understand why they needed to have the angels in it, so Widen went the independent route and ended up with an $8-million budget and considerable creative freedom. “For the film to work, it had to be done on its own terms, and I think it will work on its own terms,” Widen says. “I was afraid the studios would rub off the edges.”

Interview with Virginia Madsen

You worked with another great actor, Christopher Walken, in The Prophecy. Virginia Madsen: Yeah, and you know, Gabriel also has a broken heart. He feels he’s been cast out by a God he deeply loves. He’s terribly jealous of humans; he feels they have replaced angels, and so Chris played that with a lot of deep, deep pain and betrayal.

He’s such an eccentric performer; what was it like acting opposite him? Virginia Madsen: Well, fortunately, I had met him prior to the Prophecy, because we were going to do another film together that never got made. So I already knew him as this wonderful, sweet, quiet man, and suddenly he showed up with this demonic, unholy white skin and black, black hair And he was constantly eating raw garlic! To me he was normal, because I already knew him, but everyone else was scared and repulsed because of the garlic, and I know he was doing that on purpose so people would feel that way.

So he was more Method than Todd… Virginia Madsen: Yes, but I was like, “You know, somebody has to say something.” So I said, “Chris, man, what’s with the garlic?” And he replied, “Well, Virginia, I’ve done a lot of naughty things…” “Oh, it’s a health thing?” I was like, “Yeah, sure it is.” And I said, “Well, Chris, what if we were playing a love scene between the two of us?” He said, “Well, in that case, Virginia, I would abstain.” “OK, thank you!”

You had a great cast all around in The Prophecy – Elias Koteas, Eric Stoltz, Amanda Plummer, Viggo Mortensen. It must have been very interesting to work with them all. Virginia Madsen: Well, it was not a good experience. I mean, it wasn’t terrible, because I love my job and those guys were great, but we didn’t have much of a script. They were constantly trying to write it as we went along, and that’s terrible for actors, because all we have is the lines to say. So that was awkward, and we were trying to make it better, trying to make things make sense. We were acting our hearts out, you know what I mean? It was like, “Well, that makes no sense, but I’m gonna say it anyway! And I’m going to say it with great conviction.” We kind of felt we were treading water all the time, and Viggo came in just for a day and wrote that scene.

Lucifer’s whole “We’re open every day, even on Christmas” speech? Virginia Madsen: Yeah; I don’t know how much he worked with the writer/director, but it was my sense that those were his words, and they were so beautiful. That was one of the extraordinary nights, because I had never met Viggo, nobody knew who he was and his work was amazing. And then Eric Stoltz came in, and he was very poetic, and everyone was intrigued by the idea of angels feeling they were not God’s favorite anymore, and how they were jealous of us because humans have souls. There was all this Biblical stuff we were discussing and trying to bring into the story, and everybody cared a lot about it.

It was also very creepy a lot of the time. There was a lot of night shooting, and the subject matter was very dark, so that feeling prevailed every day, and it kept getting darker and darker and darker. The one ray of light was Adam Goldberg, because he was so funny! I found it difficult to stay in character around him, because he was so hilarious.

Then there was a terrible storm while we were shooting up on the mesa, with the actual Native American tribe from the area we were shooting. This strange pink cloud that resembled a fist, I kid you not, came down out of the blue sky, and it looked like a big finger pointing—the finger of God-and the Native Americans left. They were like, “This is bad. You have bad mojo on the set. We can’t help you, and we’re leaving.” The director was like, “You can’t leave! We’re filming!” And they were like, “That’s a sign from God,” and they took off!

Very quickly, like it was out of hell, this massive windstorm rolled in and just blew our entire village off the top of the mountain. The trailers were blowing over, and the police were up there with a big truck trying to get us out, and then I saw this figure striding toward me it was Christopher in the wind! Trees, tumbleweeds, everything was blowing around him, and he looked so scary. I was like, “C’mon!” He was yelling something, and at first I couldn’t hear him because the wind was gale-force. And all of a sudden I realized he was saying, “Why aren’t we filming?” “Because, Chris, you’re gonna blow off the mountain! Get in the truck!” It was really scary, but he thought it was great. And you know, he was probably right. Somebody should have grabbed a camera and shot that!

Without question, the only person who could pull off the strikingly dangerous yet sympathetic qualities of Gabriel is Walken, who was also the first to sign onto the film and whose interest was integral to getting such a comfortable budget for an independent movie by a first-time director. Naturally, of the entire crew, Walken has been the only person not affected by the rumors about Queen of Angels’ ninth floor.

“Walken ended up taking off by himself to go up there,” recalls Scott Patton, whose Patton FX (consisting of Dave Snyder, Mark Maitre, Bernhard Eichholz, Walter Phelan, Susan Lamson and Mark Villalobos) provided the special makeup FX. “He said, ‘I’ll be back, I’m going to see a ghost.’ Everyone else was freaking out, because it was 4 a.m. and he was going up there alone. Eventually he came back down and kind of chuckled to himself. Who knows what he saw? He could have seen every demon in hell running down also appears as an impaled angel in one of the movie’s visions, who has the horrible disposition one would expect from the assistant of Lucifer (Viggo Mortensen)himself.

“Being Satan’s sidekick would not be the most desirable position to have in the afterlife,” says Patton. “This character basically has no eyes and a crown of thorns on his face. It’s supposed to be a mockery of Christ wearing that crown and a symbol of blind faith, and blind faith to Satan would be a horrifying thing anyway.”

It was a movie we originally budgeted at $10 million, and we wound up with about $3 million to make it, so we had to perform a bit of triage to make it work, get everything we needed and not go over budget. I totally enjoyed Walken. He’s such a professional that when he had a couple of meltdowns on the set, because of things not being done right—which was somewhat budget-induced-each time he would very congenially ask me to walk with him around behind the trailers, just to have a little chat. Then, as soon as we were out of earshot, he would totally rip my throat out, and then say something like, “Do you understand what I’m saying?” I would say, “Yeah,” and then we would walk back and he was totally cool. Nobody ever knew I was completely shamed by him. I respect that, and I would work with him again in a heartbeat. – Joel Soisson

According to Patton, character makeups have been the effect of choice on Prophecy; among this work contributed by Patton’s crew and his key on-set prosthetic supervisor Dave Snyder are appliances for Walken and Eric Stoltz, who plays the benevolent angel Simon. However, Goldberg had the most work done on him, since he gradually decomposes throughout the course of the film.

“Adam used the makeup in ways more actors should, in the sense of using it to get into character,” says Snyder. “He would take whatever minimal discomfort there was from the makeup and totally buy into that, and blow it so out of proportion that it would be hilarious.”

“He would never ever bitch and moan to us,” Patton adds. “He would say, ‘I hate you,’ and we’d say, ‘Good, we’re making it hurt as much as we can.’ And for some reason, that would make him feel better he’d revel in the fact that he was being put through as much pain as possible.”

Neurotic and terribly funny, Goldberg, who does an eerily dead on Walken impersonation agrees that the process was a nightmare but couldn’t help but use it to his advantage. “It really helped me become the character, because I would never have had any sense how to play this guy until I put the makeup on,” the young actor says. “There’s something about looking at yourself in the mirror all made up, and actually feeling the stuff on you, that makes it quite easy to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is decomposing.”

Dealing with religious iconography is always a touchy subject, and retain the film he order for secure. While there were many studio offers, the producer held out for independent financing in order for Widen to direct the film himself and also to retain the story’s impact.

“I had to walk a lot of miles, but Robbie Little of Overseas Filmgroup has been extremely supportive,” says Soisson. “He looked at it and said, ‘I love it, but I’m scared of it. I want to help you guys, but it’s going to take a while, and it did. It took almost two years, but he hung on with us. sold off some territories and gambled his own money. We cobbled together the budget and ran with it. I’m sure that if a studio had done it, we would not have been involved. It would have been made for $40 million and I’m sure they would have had some compensating values, but I’m obviously glad they didn’t make it.”

SOUNDTRACK/SCORE

The Prophecy (1995) David Williams

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CAST/CREW Directed Gregory Widen

Produced Joel Soisson

Written Gregory Widen

Scott Patton … special makeup effects: Patton EFX Martha Preciado … key makeup artist (as Martha Cecilia) Dave Snyder … on-set prosthetics supervisor Mark Villalobos … special makeup effects artist Stephen Weber second makeup artist

Christopher Walken as Gabriel Elias Koteas as Thomas Dagget Virginia Madsen as Katherine Eric Stoltz as Simon Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer Amanda Plummer as Rachael Moriah Shining Dove Snyder as Mary Adam Goldberg as Jerry Steve Hytner as Joseph J.C. Quinn as Burrows Jeff Cadiente as Usiel Patrick McAllister as Col. Hawthorne Albert Nelson

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique#27n02 Fangoria#142 Fangoria#335 Fangoria#136

The Prophecy (1995) Retrospective SUMMARY Thomas Dagget, a Catholic seminary student, loses his faith when he sees visions of a war between angels.

#90sMovies

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