Project Mailer - User contributions [en]

The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/A British View: Mailer’s American Language

2021-06-25T20:08:52Z

TMcmillan: Page Created. 2/3 initial content added.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR03}}
{{Quote box|title=''Norman Mailer: An American Aesthetic''|By [[Andrew Wilson]] New York: Peter Lang, 2008 272 pp. Paper $67.00|align=right|width=25%}}
{{Byline|last=Leeds|first=Barry H.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr03leed}}

In this intelligent book, the first volume-length critical study of Mailer since
2002, Andrew Wilson (who trained at the University of Essex) sets out to
define from a British perspective the peculiarly American qualities in the
work. In building his central thesis of “[Mailer’s] crafting of various American voices ... to define American identity during the post-war period,” he
chooses to do a close exegesis of ten representative major works, from ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1948) to ''Harlot’s Ghost'' (1991). In the process, he cites
(and appreciates) much of the body of Mailer scholarship that has emerged
over the past forty years and sets Mailer within the context of American literary antecedents (Henry Adams, Hemingway, Dos Passos) and contemporaries (Didion, Burroughs, Capote).

Wilson’s primary goal is to delineate the American language of Mailer’s
novels, from the New York vulgate of ''Barbary Shore'' (1951) to the Texas argot
of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' (1967) to the flat westernisms of ''The Executioner’s Song'' (1979). In his Introduction, he sets forth the criteria by which he has
established the parameters of his study: “This book is an analysis of the
American vernacular in Norman Mailer’s literature. Mailer’s bid to carve out
an American language or idiom is central to each chapter...” He goes on to
define the reasons for choosing the works to be discussed and for omitting
others. Of those published by 2007, he dismisses the four biographies and five omnibus collections of various genres. “Nor does work set beyond the
borderlines of the United States ... receive an extended analysis.” These are,
of course, ''Ancient Evenings'' (1983), ''The Gospel According to the Son'' (1997)
and ''The Fight'' (1975). The rationale behind not considering the first two is
obvious, as they have non-American characters, and hence voices; but ''The
Fight'', though set in Zaire, is populated principally by American characters.
So, too, are ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1984) and ''The Deer Park'' (1955) relegated to peripheral consideration. We are, then, presented with substantive chapter-length treatments of the ten books which he discusses in
chronological order of publication, interspersed with pertinent references to
some of the other works.

Wilson begins his treatment of ''The Naked and the Dead'' with a pointed
reminder of how one of Hearn’s statements about the neo-fascist officers on
Anopopei anticipates the first lines of Allen Ginsberg’s ''Howl'' by eight years,
and thus firmly plants Mailer in alignment with the Beats: “By their very
existence they had warped the finest minds, the most brilliant talents of
Hearn’s generation into something sick. . .”

He goes on to pay the usual attention to the naturalistic bias of the novel,
although he hazards the statement, difficult to defend, that Mailer wrote in
a naturalistic rather than modernistic vein for years afterwards: “His preference for naturalism over modernism made Mailer, in critical quarters, an
outmoded figure throughout his career.” I would suggest that every novel
after ''Naked'' was a step toward the fully formed modern and existential vision
of An American Dream and all successive work.

''Barbary Shore'' (1951) presents the opportunity for Wilson to consider the
New York idiom of this novel and An American Dream. He points out that
one third of Mailer’s works are set in the “North East and Mid-Atlantic states
...” and the two aforementioned in New York. He gives Mailer the credit and
stature of being “a universal or representative American beyond a regional
writer,” but continues with the reservation that “his journeys across the
country and among its people were relatively short-lived,” a position supported only by the fact that “Large areas of the country are neither described
nor referred to in his books—the Pacific North West, the Rocky Mountains,
the Great Plains and the South.” Aside from the fact that William Faulkner
structured a Nobel Prize-winning body of work upon Yoknapatawpha
County in every work but ''A Fable'', I would suggest that Mailer’s treatment of
the American continent is comprehensive as well as paradigmatic.

In ''Barbary Shore'', Wilson sees Mikey Lovett as “a model of the isolated,
anonymous New Yorker ...” provided by Mailer with existential choice, but
hamstrung by a paranoia that echoes the novelist’s own. To Wilson’s credit,
he segues into a discussion of Sergius O’Shaugnessy and California in ''The Deer Park'' (1955), despite his own earlier disclaimer about not treating the latter novel at length.

As an aside, I must remark that no character in Mailer’s work is more
shuffled about temporally than Sergius, who of course was a pilot in the
Korean War before gravitating to Desert D’Or, California. When Mailer produced ''The Deer Park: A Play'' in New York in 1967, many critics assumed that Sergius’s war experience with napalming civilians was a blatantly cheap reference to Vietnam. Wilson, instead, describes him as a World War II pilot. This I will place in a minor file of errors Wilson makes (as do we all): Croft,
not Red, kills the captured Japanese soldier in ''Naked'', Hennessy is killed not
by a grenade, but artillery shrapnel, etc. But these minor factual errors are
negligible in light of the perceptions Wilson casts upon Mailer’s total body
of work.

The end of Chapter Two on ''Barbary Shore'' is portentous, for it introduces
the language and vision of Mailer’s most autobiographical novel, ''An American Dream:'' “Although the New York vernacular is only one of several regional dialects in Mailer’s fiction, it is the most recurrent, and the most identifiable with the man himself.” Thus, In his third chapter, on ''An American Dream'' (1965), Wilson continues in his distinction between a Brooklyn and Manhattan vision and idiom, and pays the usual attention to the distinction between The American Dream and An American Dream. I won’t belabor that dead horse further here. But Wilson is forceful and largely correct (if
a bit harsh) in his judgement that “In ''An American Dream'', Mailer foregrounds his life, as Whitman had, through an inflated version of his life in the
character of Rojack.” Wilson goes on to insist that “The dream of the title is
Mailer’s dream world.” and that this explains the use of the indefinite article
in the title. The implication, as Wilson catalogs parallels between Mailer and
Rojack, plus “fantasies” by and “salutations” of the latter, is that the book is an
exercise in self-aggrandizement or, insofar as Wilson sees it as a parallel to the
1960 stabbing of Adele Morales, “This lends the novel a defiant spirit rather
than a mood of expiation.” Further, in comparing Rojack to Camus’ Meursault and Didion’s Maria Wyeth, Wilson claims that “Rojack is not presented
with their general indifference. Mailer pleads not for readers’ understanding but rather their approval of his protagonist’s stance, morality and acts.”
This claim of authorial intention is a tall order to substantiate, especially in
light of the eloquently disarming 1998 statement by Mailer, “The Shadow of
the Crime: A Word from the Author,” in ''The Time of Our Time''.

As to the language of ''Dream'', Wilson fairly quotes John Aldridge and
Richard Poirier in their position that the novel “represented a landmark in
American literary speech,” then disagrees strongly with them. He accuses
Mailer of “anti-intellectualism,” compares aspects of ''Dream'' to “a 1960s
b-movie or comic strip,” and concludes that it “devises an interior universe,
at an advanced level, where nothing is valued beyond the self, nothing
applies.” Although he quotes Mailer as calling Dream his best work “sentence for sentence” in ''The Spooky Art'' (2003), Wilson discounts this assessment. Needless to say, I and many others would strongly concur with Mailer.

In Chapter Four on ''Why Are We in Vietnam'' (1967),“Mailer’s most Freudian novel,” Wilson explains how “Mailer characterises a lawless hunting trip as an alternative to anarchic warfare,” and calls the novel “Mailer’s version of
the virgin land reduced to a wasteland.” Drawing parallels to Thoreau, Horatio Alger, and most importantly, William Burroughs, Wilson draws the usual conclusions about Mailer’s intent to discredit the political reasoning behind
the Vietnam War. As to language, he deals with D.J.’s black and Texan alter
egos, and concludes that his “speech is a hybrid of well-defined regional
voices and technologies.” He considers the intentional disregard for conventional grammar and syntax “an act of literary anarchism.” As few would disagree, he perceives that “Mailer considers the hunt and war as obscene, and
as a consequence, aligns rather than differentiates obscene-war from
obscene-language.” In short, the chapter cogently recapitulates the most
common readings of the novel, but breaks little new ground.

In Chapter Five, ''The Armies of the Night'' (1968), Wilson points out the obvious indebtedness in point of view to Henry Adams and more strikingly
refers to Mailer’s “literary nod to Gertrude Stein’s ''The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.''” He goes on to analyze the style Mailer chose for Armies:

{{quote|... he began to structure inordinately long sentences ... containing clause after clause after clause [which] are more in keeping, however, with the spirit of the event than with any direct literary predecessor. They are improvised, spontaneous outpourings, a marriage of metaphors, formal images and adjectival pile-up. The technique is again a manifestation of Mailer’s existential
outlook. }}

Making the easy segue from ''Armies'' to ''Miami and the Siege of Chicago'' (1968) in Chapter Six, Wilson makes the unequivocal and certainly defensible statement that “Beyond any religious, philosophical or aesthetic standpoint, Norman Mailer is a political writer and political figure.” After a brief, cogent recapitulation of the political contexts of the first two novels, he concludes
that “The critical backlash against ''Barbary Shore'' and ''The Deer Park'' ... hastened Mailer’s move from literature to politics.” Wilson continues with a history of Mailer’s political writings from ''The Presidential Papers'' (1963) through ''Miami'' and ''Chicago'' and ''Saint George'' and ''the Godfather'' (1972), giving him due credit for pioneering the New Journalism. Yet, true to his subtitle to Chapter Six: “Confessional Prose,” he goes on to focus on this aspect of ''Miami'', ''Armies'', and ''Advertisements for Myself'' (1959). After drawing the obvious ~and hardly new! parallel between the latter and Fitzgerald’s “The CrackUp,” he makes some perceptive judgments on Mailer as confessional writer, as in this comparison of Mailer and Robert Lowell in Armies:

His confessional literature depended in part, as Lowell’s poetry, on dissolving, through self-revelation, the boundaries between the public figure/public facade and the private person/private truth. Mailer’s confessional
voice, to a lesser degree than Lowell’s ... sustained itself through the extent
of his public stature. . .

Yet it is in his seventh chapter, on ''Of a Fire on the Moon'' (1971) that Wilson brings the vectors of several literary sub-genres together: the political,
the confessional, the novelistic. To begin with, he sees ''Armies'', ''Miami'' and ''Fire''
as a “trilogy” of “documentary novels.” Despite Tom Wolfe’s charges that Mailer concentrated on the external aspects of NASA’s spectacular achievement and on their resonance within Mailer himself, rather than exploring “the points of view... of the astronauts themselves,” (which, by the way, I
believe he did), Wilson sees a major achievement here:

''Of a Fire on the Moon'' marks another chapter in the history of American autobiography. [It] is second only, in respect of the depth of its autobiographical detail, to ''The Armies of the Night'' as a testament to Mailer’s frontier-minded exploration of the self. . .

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:A British View: Mailer’s American Language}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Perspectives on Cinema: A Conversation with Tom Luddy

2021-06-18T19:48:34Z

TMcmillan: Initial Content Created.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Perspectives on Cinema: A Conversation with Tom Luddy}}__NOTOC__
{{Working}}
{{MR03}}
{{Byline|last=Sipiora|first=Phillip|abstract=|url=https://prmlr.us/mr03sip}}

{{dc|dc=T|om luddy is an american film producer}} and executive notable for his
involvement in the restoration and revival of foreign film masterpieces.
Luddy has been associated with Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope
since 1979. He collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on two projects, ''Every
Man for Himself''(1980) and ''Passion''(1982). Luddy’s work also includes ''Barfly''(1987), based upon the life of poet Charles Bukowski, and ''The Secret Garden''(1993), an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel. He was
program director of the Pacific Film Archives in the early 1970s and currently
serves as program curator for the Documentary Film Institute at San Francisco State University. Luddy was the Executive Producer of Norman Mailer’s 1987 film, ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance''. He is also co-director of the Telluride
Film Festival, which he co-founded in 1974. My thanks to Michael Chaiken
for his assistance with this interview.

'''Sipiora:''' You have been in the film industry for more than four decades and
were the Executive Producer of Mailer’s ''Tough Guy’s Don’t Dance''(1987). You
also worked, I believe, with Jean-Luc Godard as early as the 1960s, Can you
tell us about the importance of Godard to those times and his impact on
contemporary cinema?

'''Luddy:''' Godard was the most exciting Director for most of my generation of
cinephiles and film-makers. The fifteen features he made between ''Breathless'' and ''Weekend'' represent not only the greatest creative “streak” ever seen incinema, but were a principal reason for many in the sixties, like Susan Sontag, to consider cinema the most important of all art forms. His move into
radical politics and left-wing collective film-making following May 1968
made him even more of a culture hero. I brought him to the Berkeley Campus in 1967 for a then-complete retrospective, and assisted him on his abortive project with Leacock-Pennebaker. Later at Zoetrope, I was responsible
for Zoetrope’s partnership with Godard on ''Every Man for Himself and
Passion''.

'''Sipiora:''' Mailer also knew Godard in the 1960s. Did you have a relationship
with Norman in the 1960s? When and where did you meet Norman?

'''Luddy:''' I first met Norman thru Peter Manso in Berkeley in May 1965 when
he [Mailer] came to speak at the Vietnam Day Committee rally in Berkeley
organized by Jerry Rubin and others. I was in charge of a showing a series of
anti-war movies as part of the overall two day program of the VDC.

'''Sipiora:''' Although Mailer said that Godard had significant reverence for him
in the late sixties, in 2007 Mailer stated that “Godard was the second most
evil person he had ever met.” Can you tell us about your involvement in the
fallout between Mailer and Godard? Can you set the record straight on the
infamous Cannes napkin deal between Yoram Globus, Menahem Golan, and
Jean-Luc Godard that set so much into motion?

'''Luddy:''' In Cannes Golan and Godard signed a deal on a Napkin ~which
Golan later framed! stating that Cannon would give Godard a series of
monthly payments over twelve months adding up to $1,000,000 ~as I recall!,
and that at the end of that period Godard would deliver to Cannon a Contemporary ''King Lear''.
I don’t think Godard put the words “William Shakespeare” on that napkin but Golan certainly thought they were talking about a film based on the
play.
Golan put on the napkin that Godard must agree to work with an American Screenwriter approved by Cannon. Godard then asked if Norman
Mailer would be pre-approved as the American Screenwriter. Golan said yes
and it was written on the napkin that Norman was approved by Cannon.
Godard then found me in Cannes and asked me to work with him on the
film, and as my first task, asked me to convince Norman to work with him.
I called Norman and met him in NYC on the way back from Cannes.Norman was interested in the money he would make for writing the script,
but said he would have to pass because he knew he would lose twice should
he accept–once to Shakespeare and once to Godard, since he figured Godard
would never shoot any script he [Mailer] would write. He said only one thing
would make him agree and that would be if, as part of the deal, Cannon
agreed to finance a movie he would direct from ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' on
a $5,000,000 budget. I thought Cannon would never agree to this as a condition to get Norman to write the script for Godard, but I was wrong. I called
Golan about this from the restaurant where we were having lunch. Golan
agreed on the condition that Francis give his name to the film and that I produce it. I agreed to this and Golan asked Norman to come to the phone and
they spoke.
Norman did write a script, which he called ''Don Learo''. I am not sure how
much of it Godard read. After a lot of procrastinating, Godard got Cannon
to give him an extension of time and a little more money by telling them that
Woody Allen had agreed to be in the film. Finally, Godard got Norman to
agree to go to Switzerland with Kate Mailer to begin shooting a film based,
not on Norman’s script, but on some notes by Godard and around the idea
of Norman playing a Lear-like Father and Kate playing his daughter. I had to
be in Telluride, so I did not make it to the set but, despite a few scenes shot,
everything blew up around the fact that Godard was insisting that Norman
play a character named NORMAN MAILER and Kate play a character
named KATE MAILER, and that in their scenes there would be a hint of
incest. Norman said that he would do whatever Godard wanted so long as he
was not playing a character named NORMAN MAILER. This led to Norman walking off the film and Godard telling Golan that it was all Norman’s
fault that the film would have to be delayed further. I think that Godard
expected this to happen.

'''Sipiora:''' How would you characterize Mailer’s style of directing in ''Tough
Guys Don’t Dance''? In what way was Mailer-as-filmmaker discernibly idiosyncratic in comparing him with other directors with whom you have
worked?

'''Luddy:''' Norman as a Director focused on directing the actors. He liked
actors and had done a lot of work with actors at the Actors Studio and knew
what he wanted from them. He also set a great working mood for cast and
crew by being so friendly and open with everyone. He understood that he was working with some of the best craft professionals around, beginning
with Cinematographer John Bailey. He listened to them and respected them.
I wished that Norman Mailer the Director was a little harder on Norman
Mailer the screenwriter. I had a lot of back and forth with him about the
screenplay, which I thought had a lot of problems.
I remember once sending him a memo pointing out about eleven things
in the script that make no sense. He told me that he agreed with seven or
eight of my criticisms, but had solutions for only two or three and we would
just have to get by on “movie logic.”

'''Sipiora:''' Was there a pervasive atmosphere of tension, as rumored, among
some of the major actors in ''Tough Guys''?

'''Luddy:''' There was some tension at times between Ryan O’Neal and Norman,
that’s for sure. I think that Ryan knew some of Norman’s dialogue in some
scenes was way over the top and could come off as laughable. Ryan was
undergoing a lot of personal drama during the shoot involving his son Griffin who was going on trial for manslaughter in the death of Francis Coppola’s son, Gio, and this on a movie where Francis was Executive Producer. As
I recall, Griffin was supposed to be in rehab while he was awaiting the trial
and ran away from the rehab [center]. Norman also found Larry Tierney [to
be] impossible at times. Larry would have one way he wanted to do a scene,
and if Norman wanted him try it Norman’s way, when the cameras rolled,
Larry would do it his way again.

'''Sipiora:''' If you could relive the making of ''Tough Guys'', which changes would
you suggest?

'''Luddy:''' I would get another writer to adapt the book and convince Norman
to focus on directing it. It was frustrating to tell Norman that certain things
in the plot make no sense, and have him answer that he’s no good at plots,
and that even in his novels, plot is not his strong point.

'''Sipiora:''' I believe that you were one of the first individuals to call attention
to ''The Wire'' as an example of how some of the best and most significant
work in American film (in terms of narrative, acting, editing) has moved
away from cinema and into the realm of television. Why has this happened
and what are the most important implications?

'''Luddy:''' Television is now a Writers Medium and for the best shows and
series, the targeted audience is an adult audience.
Movies, at least the commercial cinema, is targeted at teens who will go to
see a film two or three times in the Mall, looking to see films modeled on
amusement park rides and video games.

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perspectives on Cinema: A Conversation with Tom Luddy}}
[[Category:Interviews (MR)]]

User:TMcmillan

2021-06-13T19:02:12Z

TMcmillan: Created page with "Tyler McMillan is a student at Middle Georgia State University with a major in IT and a focus on media-art and game-design. He is passionate about gaming, game design, and sto..."

Tyler McMillan is a student at Middle Georgia State University with a major in IT and a focus on media-art and game-design. He is passionate about gaming, game design, and story-telling. His preferred genres in writing and other mediums are: Sci-fi-fantasy, post-apocalyptic, and horror-mystery.