The director of Internal Affairs and Leaving Las Vegas shared his secrets to making great films, musings on the ‘sublime poetry’ of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the truth about his relationship with Nic Cage 2.18pm BST This has been very interesting for me. I enjoy this format - it gives me time to think. The questions have been very interesting, thank you. Bye! Just a reminder - The 36 Dramatic Situations is out now and available everywhere. The cards Kickstart on Monday! 2.16pm BST Kamatron asks: _How much rewriting went into Joe Eszterhas’s One Night Stand script, which he allegedly got paid $4m for, and how did it differ from the finished product?_ My version of One Night Stand is so different from Mr Eszterhas's that he asked to have his name taken off the project. I think New Line felt they'd been landed with an expensive turkey and I was hot that week, just after Leaving Las Vegas. They offered it to me, I read it, didn't like it, they said I could do what I liked with it. One of my favourite films is Truffault's The Woman Next Door - I think it is his best film. And I always wanted to do an English language version of it, so this was a big influence on my rewrite. I originally offered it to Nicholas Cage, but I couldn't see him for dust, and I was very happy with Wesley Snipes's amazing performance. It is one of my favourite films, of my own. It got a terrible critical pasting in the states, but fared much better in Europe. Talking of writing (cheap segue into my new book), The 36 Dramatic Situations is a rewrite of a French theatre classic written in the late 19th century. I thought it was vital to update this interesting concept for cinema. In a way, I could describe it as 36 essays on the differences between film and theatre; something that aspiring screenwriters need to be aware of. Also the book examines cliched attitudes, particularly towards gender (the dominate male, the submissive female), as well as race and religion. The book clearly reminds us that "drama comes directly from the original Greek drama and biblical morality". The family is a huge deal in the book. Given the fact that there are supposedly 36 dramatic situations, I developed a pack of cards which enable the writer to use the element of chance in the creative process - take three cards, and then place them in a sequence and let your imagination run wild. I've used the cards extensively over the last year, and what is fascinating is that I find myself in areas of drama that I would never normally choose, and it has opened up so many possibilities in terms of pure storytelling. The book comes out this week, but I've had to develop the cards myself via Kickstarter and the campaign begins next Monday. Continue reading...
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