20
The writer who starts his screenplay in the quiet of a small room may be thrilled by the thought that the words which he conceives will be heard by millions of people. Such an unimaginably powerful rostrum inspires him to do his very best: he hopes that success, artistic or commercial or both, will crown his efforts.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. At the outset, the traveler may invoke his favorite lucky charm, whether he prefers rubbing a rabbit’s foot, touching wood, or crossing his fingers. In fact, if he were not too embarrassed, he might consult a tea-leaf reader to ascertain whether he will reach his goal.
Since the dawn of time, men have sought oracles to predict the course of events; they have tried to discover magic with which to manipulate that course; they have yearned for rules by which the gods could be forced to do one’s bidding. And the kings that ran studios placed their hopes in a succession of chief sorcerers, wrathfully firing them when they failed to produce the promised miracles.
From the amulets of the tribal priests to the latest pronouncements of motivational research pundits, the same human desire for certainty manifests itself. The sense of fearful helplessness, engendered by the lack of control over audience responses, prompts networks and film studios to try any device that will predict or enforce a success.
Of course, when the dances and sacrifices of ancient medicine men are mentioned, we readily offer a supercilious smile. But we knit our brows in serious thought when we study the completely contradictory findings of two competing television rating systems.
By responding to our modem needs, superstition has managed to survive — it has merely changed its terminology to a statistical and pseudo-scientific vocabulary and methodology. And as long as our human situation continues to generate the same needs for some sort of control over life’s bewildering unruliness, magic and oracles are bound to invade our thinking.
Some time ago, I took part in a panel discussion dealing with various phases of the entertainment industries. In the course of the evening, some widely divergent opinions were expressed. A motion picture producer, affirming his faith in the star system, was questioned by a director, who pointed out that two features starring the same actress were released in one year; one was a great box office success, the other a total failure.
The motion picture producer, while conceding the existence of such inexplicable discrepancies, remained firm in his adherence to the star system. “When you risk so much money in a production,” he exclaimed, “you must have some insurance — even if it doesn’t always pay off.”
No one pointed to the slight contradiction in the concept of an insurance which does not have to pay off, because by then the argument had raged on to the question of pleasing an audience. A story executive lauded the merits of presold properties, such as hit plays and best-selling novels. Whereupon a critic cited examples of fine plays and novels that had been turned into bad motion pictures — and vice versa. An exhibitor, paraphrasing Pontius Pilate, asked: “What is good?” And he quoted a review by the critic who had praised a certain motion picture, which had been condemned by another equally distinguished critic. At that point, the producer emphasized, very wisely as well as sadly, that such disagreements on quality were not limited to individual critics or viewers. For a motion picture is directed to the same mass audience, which — in a presidential election — is just about evenly divided in the appraisal of the respective candidates’ merits.
As yet, the discussion had not discovered any reliable principles. The situation became still more confused when a sponsor of television programs was questioned on his method of buying them. He readily admitted that he had no faith whatsoever in the value of the rating system to which he subscribed.
“Then why do you keep renewing it?” he was asked.
“I must have something to go by,” he protested.
“But if you don’t believe in it?”
He shrugged. “It’s better than nothing.”
A paradox?
Of course. But one which egresses the dilemma of people who must make decisions based on intangibles.
Indeed, it is perfectly understandable if the executive who is forced to make choices in a welter of elusive values and volatile factors ultimately reaches for any kind of yardstick, for any kind of measuring device, even when he or she does not believe in it. In despair, the executive may prefer dubious rules to none at all — simply because it is “better than nothing.”
But show business, though often accused of irrationality and unbusinesslike methods, is not alone in this paradoxical situation. The same applies to the stock market, where a vast number of investors are guided by the predictions of influential and respected advisory services — though a close study of the record might reveal that their analyses and prophecies are about as reliable as a medieval sorcerer’s incantations. And a close look at the disagreements of hard-headed bankers and economists might cause us to wonder whether our practical affairs, involving the measurable quantities of hard dollars, are quite as securely embedded in a dependable realism as we assume. And, last but not least, gigantic industries, before staking enormous sums in new products, have applied every conceivable device of audience research — as did the Ford Motor Company, before designing the Edsel, which was a total failure.
There is something cussedly ornery and unpredictable about the consumer, the audience — about people. There is still that area of mystery in the human being which the poet can grasp more easily than the statistician. And for that reason the creator remains in control of his field. Instead of succumbing to despair after he recognizes the inevitable failure of all measuring devices, statistical crutches, whimsical insurance, and untrustworthy precedent, the creator, forced to rely on his own judgment, can once again experience the fascination of his work.
In most of us operate two conflicting drives — the wish for security, the safe, the predictable — and the adventurous spirit, the wish for the challenge, which gives us the thrill of feeling alive.
The creator — whether we apply this term collectively to the author, playwright, screenwriter, to the management and staff of a company, to the combination of artists and technicians involved in a production — is continually advancing into uncharted territory.
Unlike the trader or cautious investor who can acquire a store or a going business on the basis of past earnings, the creator starts each new project from an unformed potential, from malleable materials, from seeds which do not reveal their future growth. Nor can he repeat past successes. For the audience, though accepting and even insisting on a reassuring measure of the familiar, also demands the new — which evokes in the viewer the same thrill that had previously excited and inspired the creator.
Unable, therefore, to perpetuate precedent, the creator, driven toward the new, must be guided by a daring conviction.
Since it is a conviction — and not a proven law — it is subject to doubt. And further, since it is daring — it is subject to fear. Both insecurity and fear, therefore, are inseparable from the creator.
But so is courage, for he would not long remain a creator, if he lacked the spirit to fling out a daring conviction. And so is good judgment, for without the capacity for critical evaluation, his courage would soon be exposed as foolhardiness.
In contrast to the graphs and charts that facilitate decisions in other fields, the creator finds his imagination sparked by an idea, by the excitement he experiences in reading a book or story, by his emotional response to a play. On the basis of so volatile a reaction, he must make his initial decision.
A poet, sparked by an idea in the middle of a night, can complete his verses within minutes, or he may polish them over years. But in any event, no costly or far-reaching decisions are involved.
The creator in show business, however, though the initial spark may be equally fleeting, must decide to set in motion the enormous apparatus of production. He must evaluate his primary emotional and rational response in the light of the cumbrous burden, the vast effort, risk, labor, and devotion it will have to sustain. Is it surprising, then, that no basic material seems quite strong enough to endure this comparison — unless it is bolstered by pre-sold qualities, by stars, or by some sort of unfathomable trade axioms?
And yet, even this groping for support does not obviate the need for the daring conviction. For after the first decision, there begins the task of realization, a long road of which each step defies prior guarantee. Indeed, nothing less enduring is demanded than to carry that initial spark and emotional response through sound stages, laboratories, cutting rooms, projection booths, theatres — right into the hearts of the audience, where it must flare up once again after having been extinguished, battered, obscured; after the emotion has long vanished from the experience of the creators, has slipped from their grip, has grown stale by endless repetition.
All creators need daring conviction. In the case of the poet, the circuit from heart and mind to the pen is so brief as to grant safe passage to the tender and gentle and wisp-like impulse. But a Michelangelo needed a burning and compelling vision to sustain him in the titanic labors of painting the Sistine Chapel. And the motion picture, because of its singular nature, requires its own brand of conviction. The creator’s incipient vision must be implemented by a whole caravan of artists and technicians, treading on a rainbow, lugging all their heavy equipment over the radiant, multicolored and utterly insubstantial bridge across the air — toward the distant image, the distant emotion, the distant pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.
And their hazardous journey is first imagined, and then fulfilled, by the will of the writer. Their entire trek over the luminous span of the rainbow is conceived by — his daring conviction.
Magic occurs when the writer leading a caravan of creators towards elusive reward heeds the advice given by Monsieur Delacroix to that visionary painter who brought wild drawings to him for approval: “First learn to be a craftsman; it won’t keep you from being a genius.”
THE END