Hot, sexy women in their time were Mimi Rogers, Angie Dickinson, and Helen Mirren
Along the way to earning my degree in English, even though I did well in the courses and received A grades, I took a couple of screenwriting courses and learned enough to know that screenwriting wasn't my thing. The first night of class, the professor, who wrote all the screenplays for Moonlighting with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, but for four, wanted to know what we knew. He passed out five, two column sheets of paper with a list of 500 movies for us to check off which movies we've seen.
As if taking in all the movies in my head at the same time, page by page I looked at the long list of movies before checking any of them off as being seen. With so many movies flashing before my eyes to give me a brief visualization of stars, co-stars, and a synopsis of the movie, checking off that many movies in one sitting was a daunting process. I didn't think I could check off 100 movies. Yet, the only one in the room who did, I checked off all 500 movies. That was when I realized that I was a movie buff as well as a TV buff. I couldn't believe I had seen all of these movies. That list of 500 made me wonder how many more movies I've seen that didn't make his list.
Nonetheless my love for movies, I immediately knew that screenwriting wasn't my thing. I didn't like the idea that the director and/or the actors could make changes to my lines.
"Where's the screenplay writer? Rewrite! We need a rewrite?"
With one page of dialogue equal to one minute of the movie, I didn't like the idea that I was only writing 120 pages of dialogue and not much else. I didn't like the idea that I was giving up control of my story to someone else's interpretation. I didn't like the idea that when they'd be handing out Oscars, someone else would be receiving credit for all that I created, developed, wrote, rewrote, edited, and reedited. When it comes to movies of television programs, the writer never receives enough credit. It's always the star who receives all of the accolades, all of the awards, and all of the money.
Instead of just writing lines in a movie, fade-in, fade-out, I wanted to write it all, every word. I wanted to write the backstory, write the plot, create and develop the characters, describe the characters, the setting, and the scenery. I wanted to write all of the imagery, the tension, and every word of unchangeable dialogue. Instead of becoming a screenwriter who wrote screenplays adapted from someone else's novel, I wanted to be a novelist.
Yet, not only did I want to be a novelist, a rich novelist who could hide in her mansion while buying anything and everything she wanted by just picking up a phone or ordering online. Even though I am a novelist, a short story writer, and a poetess, I'm not rich. Unfortunately, there's not much money in writing erotica unless someone discovers me or unless I write some shitty novel, such as Fifty Shades of Grey. Give me a break.
"Oprah! I'm here! Where are you Stephen Spielberg? Can you make one of my stories into a movie? Please? Pretty please?"
Yet, when taking the screenplay courses, it was so very interesting to read the novel and then to watch it play out on the big screen while the professor pointed out what the director did to make the movie come alive from the written word. We analyzed such movies as James Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, James Dearden's Fatal Attraction, Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, along with several other movies. The only writer who couldn't correctly be translated to the big screen was F. Scott Fitzgerald. With his stories so rich in imagery, even the Great Gatsby wasn't nearly as good as reading the book.
As far as I'm concerned the book is always better than the movie anyway. I thought I was going to die when I read Peter Benchley's Jaws. It took me years before I went in the water and that was just a pool. Unfortunately, with riveting page turners few and far between, there aren't very many stories that can hold you hostage until you finish the book.
Nonetheless me not wanting to be a screenwriter, it fascinated me to see how the director could bring the author's words to life. The only movie that I remember that was exactly like the novel, word for word, was Martin's Scorsese's interpretation of Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence with Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder. Edith Wharton, a Pulitzer Prize winner who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928, and 1930, how could a mere director change one word of her novel?
A total chick flick, I loved the book as much as I loved the movie. How did Scorsese do that? How could he bring that book that was such a period piece set in the Gilded Age, from 1870 to 1900, and that was written in the 1920's, back to life? Yet, he did. A daunting project, the movie was just like and as good as the book.
The only book that I recall that was written after the release of the movie was Piano. The movie was not only directed by but also was later written by Jane Campion. Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin, who later starred in those vampire movies, True Blood, were the stars of the movie. Oddly enough, both movies, The Age of Innocence and Piano came out the same year, 1993.
