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Consider, for example, Francois Truffaut’s remark that he liked Hollywood films because they were so similar to one another. Despite technological changes, aesthetic evolutions, and generic boundaries, it is easy to argue that Hollywood films always have more in common with one another than they have differences. By extension, the same could be said of all narrative cinema, whenever and wherever it is produced.

Mikhail Bakhtin once referred to the novel as a genre {{sfn|Bakhtin|1981|pg=~~3-40~~}}. Foregoing my early devotion to auteur theory and the uniqueness of particular film directors, I might well be led to a similar conclusion about the cinema, at least on some days of the week.

Mikhail Bakhtin once referred to the novel as a genre {{sfn|Bakhtin|1981|pp=3–40}}

. Foregoing my early devotion to auteur theory and the uniqueness of particular film directors, I might well be led to a similar conclusion about the cinema, at least on some days of the week.

In years past, I have given many lectures on the importance of modern

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to consider and understand. I believed those words as I spoke them, and most of the time I still do. I am both a film historian and a filmmaker, so I probably have little choice in the matter.

After all, the best film education is viewing films, and viewing them repeatedly. Orson Welles did just that with Ford’s ''Stagecoach'' (1939) before he directed ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).Over six decades later, a graduating film student that I knew—one who was highly astute and very talented—told a university program director that he believed the money he spent on tuition would have more wisely been used to purchase the entire Criterion Collection on DVD. The program director did not appreciate or understand his argument

After all, the best film education is viewing films, and viewing them repeatedly. Orson Welles did just that with Ford’s ''Stagecoach'' (1939) before he directed ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).Over six decades later, a graduating film student

that I knew—one who was highly astute and very talented—told a university program director that he believed the money he spent on tuition would have more wisely been used to purchase the entire Criterion Collection on DVD. The program director did not appreciate or understand his argument

but, well, that is hardly surprising. Most of the stupidest people I’ve ever met have the letters “PhD” after their names.

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Mailer’s film career is another matter. Cinematic adaptations of his literature

began with ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1958), and continued with such films as ''See You in Hell, Darling'' (1966), ''Marilyn: The Untold Story'' (1980), and ''The Executioner’s Song'' (1982). But then there is also the quartet of films that Mailer directed over a period of two decades: ''Wild 90'' (1968), ''Beyond the Law'' (1968), ''Maidstone'' (1970), and ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1987). At the time of this writing, the first three are not available on DVD in the United States.

began with ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1958), and continued with such films as ''See You in Hell, Darling'' (1966), ''Marilyn: The Untold Story'' (1980), and ''The Executioner’s Song'' (1982). But then there is also the quartet of films that Mailer directed over a period of two decades: ''Wild 90'' (1968), ''Beyond the Law'' (1968), ''Maidstone'' (1970), and ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1987). At the

time of this writing, the first three are not available on DVD in the United States.

''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' is readily available, as are its many bad reviews.

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Mailer later admitted that ''Wild 90'' was “tremendously amateurish,” but he was also firm in his belief that there were “elements in it that . . . were different from all the movies” he had ever seen {{sfn|Mailer|1967}}. “Together with all the rough hewn sloppiness of the film,” he said, “there was also in it something vital that I liked” {{sfn|Mailer|1967}}. It was that same kind of vitality that he tried to explore in ''Beyond the Law'' and ''Maidstone''. As he claimed onscreen during a scene in ''Maidstone'', “We made a movie by a brand new process.”

In his published essay “A Course in Film-Making,” which was ostensibly about the production of ''Maidstone'', Mailer modulated his position. He noted that he was not the first to “do fiction in documentary form” ~~(“A Course”~~ 217). Some person or group of persons had evidently brought this fact to his attention. Various filmmakers had worked without scripts, including the likes of Charlie Chaplin. The faking of non-fiction footage had long roots, ranging from the early cinema period (with its fabricated images of the Spanish-American War and famous boxing matches) to newsreels of the thirties (as lampooned in MGM’s 1938 feature ''Too Hot to Handle'' with Clark

In his published essay “A Course in Film-Making,” which was ostensibly about the production of ''Maidstone'', Mailer modulated his position. He noted

that he was not the first to “do fiction in documentary form” {{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=217}}. Some person or group of persons had evidently brought this fact to his attention. Various filmmakers had worked without scripts, including the likes of Charlie Chaplin. The faking of non-fiction footage had long roots, ranging from the early cinema period (with its fabricated images of the Spanish-American War and famous boxing matches) to newsreels of the thirties (as lampooned in MGM’s 1938 feature ''Too Hot to Handle'' with Clark

Gable). And fictional films like ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) had employed documentary

film aesthetics nearly three decades before ''Wild 90''.

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In other words, rather than simply being inspired by a movement that had stopped moving, Mailer conducted his own fictional experiments while direct cinema was the prevailing force in documentary film. His films not only appropriated then-recent film history, but also engaged in a conversation with the unfolding present. Perhaps that is why, as Mailer tells us in “A Course in Filmmaking,” his ideas were a “conception which was more or less

his own, and he did not feel the desire to argue about it” (217). Put another way, he did not believe his films incorporated very much film history.

his own, and he did not feel the desire to argue about it” {{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=217}}. Put another way, he did not believe his films incorporated very much film history.

Of Mailer’s first three films, the inaugural ''Wild 90'' is the most austere. Onscreen text informs us, “Once three guys from Brooklyn were hold up in

a room and couldn’t get out for various vague reasons.” These guys, who are

“Maf Boys,” have already spent 21 days in that location when we meet them. One is Prince, played by Mailer. Another is Buzz Cameo, who shares his first name with Buzz Farber, the actor who portrayed him. The third is Mickey (aka, “20 Years”), who also bore the same first name as the man who assumed the role: Mickey Knox, the only one of the three who was a professional film actor.

“Maf Boys,” have already spent 21 days in that location when we meet them. One is Prince, played by Mailer. Another is Buzz Cameo, who shares his first name with Buzz Farber, the actor who portrayed him. The third is Mickey (aka, “20 Years”), who also bore the same first name as the man who assumed

the role: Mickey Knox, the only one of the three who was a professional film actor.

The trio pass the time by talking, by arguing, by fighting. “If you ever find

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they are, but not by rival gangsters or by the authorities. A film camera watches them. Prince acknowledges that fact at the film’s conclusion, when he looks directly into the lens and says, “Goodnight,” thus violating a longstanding Hollywood taboo. The observed has become the observer. It is in that moment that Mailer best captures the tension between fiction and nonfiction

filmmaking.

Shortly after completing ''Wild 90'', Mailer wrote and directed ''Beyond the

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the numerous changes of title cards:

BEYOND THE LAW

<br>

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<br>

THE IRON TONGUE

</div>

The fact that one of these title cards uses the very word “fantasy” indicates

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corrupt” when he meets a woman at a restaurant who has earlier been arrested for taking part in an S&M party.

''Beyond the Law'' ends with Lieutenant Pope, Mickey Burke, and Rocco Gibraltar staring into the camera. Like ''Wild 90'', the taboo is violated, but here it is more pronounced. Three characters acknowledge us, the audience who has been staring at them.

''Beyond the Law'' ends with Lieutenant Pope, Mickey Burke, and Rocco

Gibraltar staring into the camera. Like ''Wild 90'', the taboo is violated, but here it is more pronounced. Three characters acknowledge us, the audience who has been staring at them.

For Mailer, the complicated interplay between documentary film aesthetics and fictional film narratives culminated in his third film, ''Maidstone''. Much as Oliver Stone’s work with fact and fiction (as in his use of mixed media and what he termed “vertical editing”) moved from ''JFK'' (1991) through ''Natural Born Killers'' (1994) to ''Nixon'' (1995), so too did Mailer’s interest in filming “fiction in documentary form” move from experimentation to mastery.

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''Section 9: The Death of a Director'' intercuts images of nudity and sex with

shots of animal bones and Kingsley laying on the ground, as if he has been

murdered. The section also features Jeanne Cardigan licking a microphone before smearing a baby doll (and then herself) with what appears to be blood. Here ''Maidstone'' aligns itself more with the avant-garde movement of the sixties than it does with any documentary film tradition.

murdered. The section also features Jeanne Cardigan licking a microphone before smearing a baby doll (and then herself) with what appears to be

blood. Here ''Maidstone'' aligns itself more with the avant-garde movement of the sixties than it does with any documentary film tradition.

Whereas Mailer’s earlier films only allowed actors to acknowledge the camera as their narratives concluded, ''Maidstone’s'' ostensible plotline ends

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actor who has seemingly run amok. But here my description is admittedly simplistic, as their roles could have reconstituted themselves repeatedly during the apparently spontaneous and authentic encounter.

“I’m taking that scene out of the movie,” Mailer yells at Torn shortly after the fight ends. They continue to talk, trading barbs and insults in between Torn’s attempts to explain that he did what he had to do. Writing about the event later, Mailer admitted “Torn had . . . been right to make his attack. The hole in the film had called for that. Without it, there was not enough” ~~(“A~~

“I’m taking that scene out of the movie,” Mailer yells at Torn shortly after the fight ends. They continue to talk, trading barbs and insults in between Torn’s attempts to explain that he did what he had to do. Writing about the event later, Mailer admitted “Torn had . . . been right to make his attack. The hole in the film had called for that. Without it, there was not enough” {{sfn||Mailer|1971|p=238}}. Onscreen, the attack and struggle lasts roughly two minutes, with another six minutes covering Torn and Mailer’s ensuing and heated conversation.

~~Course”~~ 238). Onscreen, the attack and struggle lasts roughly two minutes, with another six minutes covering Torn and Mailer’s ensuing and heated conversation.

The fight scene gave Mailer “a whole new conception of his movie.” He believed that his filmmaking process had created a “presence” that outlived the conclusion his original storyline and what had only seemed to be the end of the shoot. It was an event that took ''Maidstone'' closer to the “possible real nature of film” {{sfn||Mailer|1971|p=238}}.

And perhaps closer to real the nature of the filmmaking process. After all,

The fight scene gave Mailer “a whole new conception of his movie.” He believed that his filmmaking process had created a “presence” that outlived the conclusion his original storyline and what had only seemed to be the end of the shoot. It was an event that took ''Maidstone'' closer to the “possible real nature of film” (Mailer, “A Course” 238).

~~And perhaps closer to real the nature of the filmmaking process. After all,~~ those eight tense minutes between Mailer/Kingsley and Rip/Rey include six

those eight tense minutes between Mailer/Kingsley and Rip/Rey include six

edits. Something is there for us to see, whatever it is and whatever it depicts,

but something has been left out as well, removed from our view.

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Does Mailer push things to the edge, or does he (and his actors) fall over the cliff and explode in the canyon below? Viewers will differ on this point, as well as on whether careening off the cinematic road is necessarily a bad thing. At any rate, such a conversation drifts into the realm of opinion, and

opinions should not conceal the kind of important experimentation at work in ''Tough Guys''.

The art of adaptation is much studied. So many books and essays (and, for that matter, entire journals) have concentrated on the rather common

practice of one author adapting the work of another—the Book-into-the-Film. However, self- (or “auto-”) adaptation is rare, particularly in Hollywood with a writer of Mailer’s stature. For ''Tough Guys'', Mailer (with uncredited assistance from Robert Towne) translated his own novel into his own script and, finally—given his role as director—his own film.

Even well planned experiments yield unexpected results. Nowhere is the gulf between written word and live performance more evident than in Ryan

O’Neal’s infamous performance of Tim Madden, particularly when he learns

his wife has been unfaithful. Standing on a bluff at the ocean, he cries out to

himself: “Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God!” On paper the words not only reveal the intensity of a moment, but they also operate on more than one level. These are two exclamations common to everyday speech. But together, repeated in alternation, their literal (and opposite) meanings come to the fore.

However, once enacted by Ryan O’Neal, the words seem detached from intentionality. Their impact is cumulative, and it is extremely memorable, but certainly not in a way that O’Neal appreciated. Touted for its awful acting, the scene has become a favorite “so bad it’s good” clip for the YouTube crowd. But rarely do viewers stop to ask whether any actor could have read those lines in accord with what passes for believability in Hollywood films. Many persons involved with ''Tough Guys'' urged Mailer to remove the scene,

but he would not budge. His cinematic laboratory not only recorded his experiments, but also required their dissemination.

When I began this essay, I proposed the question, “How much film history does a film need?” Norman Mailer believed that ''Wild 90'', ''Beyond the Law'', and ''Maidstone'' represented a unique approach to filmmaking. They were distinct, and so for him they bore little relation to what had gone before.

However, a conscious decision to break from the past is still engaged in a conversation with it.

In Mailer’s case, that conversation was complicated. However original those three films were (and remain), there is no doubt that certain elements of them—including the basic idea of tackling fiction in the guise of documentary—

had many important predecessors. And Mailer’s films constituted a small part of their own history. ''Wild 90'' influenced ''Beyond the Law'', and

both of those influenced ''Maidstone''.

With all of this I mind, I believe that another, related question is now in

order: ''How many film historians does a film need?'' The past needs a present

to remember it: that much is clear. Many films have been forgotten because they were forgettable. But others have just slipped through the cracks. No one can watch every film. Some are lost, and even some of those that are found sit comfortably in archives without attention from viewers. They await rediscovery, their joys currently imprisoned in aging film cans. And they

await interest from enough film historians (and theorists and critics) to be chronicled in studies of the cinema.

Regrettably, only a few of us have examined Norman Mailer’s films in any

depth. Herewith we announce an open call for membership in our small club. We seek allies and enemies alike. The ranks need to swell. After all, even in the space of just a few words, it is possible to suggest why Mailer’s films

deserve intervention by historians (and others) who have to date neglected

them.

''Wild 90'' and ''Beyond the Law'' are mockumentary films, important if for no

other reason than the fact that they helped initiate a genre that did not yet

even have a name. They predate Mitchell Block’s ''No Lies'' (1974), which has

sometimes incorrectly been called the first mockumentary. They anticipate

the large numbers of mockumentaries that have been produced from the eighties until the present day. And, rather than retrospectively copying the aesthetics of direct cinema, they were produced while its style was still being forged.

Long before most persons even knew what amockumentary filmis—and even some time before Orson Welles’ important cinematic experiment ''F for Fake'' (1975)—Mailer tore down the genre’s walls. With ''Maidstone'', he marched into a more complicated terrain, one that proposed to re-examine the very nature of the cinema. Here Mailer chased the authentic, an elusive property that seems to be chimerically reconstituting itself in front of his cameras.

I submit that Mailer’s first three films are important to film history and that their general absence from discussions of documentary film, mockumentary film, and the films of the sixties represents a gap that limits those of us interested in the cinema far more than it does Mailer.And while ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' never rises to the level of importance of Mailer’s earlier films, I believe that it can speak volumes about the rarely discussed issue of self-adaptation.

In ''Wild 90'', Norman Mailer (as Prince) asks who invented the hammer.

Norman Mailer did not invent the hammer. Nor did he invent the wheel.

But in the best tradition of films like ''Citizen Kane'' (1941), he borrowed various elements from prior films and reassembled those ideas anew. Rather

than regurgitate via remake and rather than appropriate via homage, Mailer

reinvented past practice. He reinvented a cinematic wheel, and more film historians need to keep it turning.

===Citations===

===Works Cited===

* {{cite book |last=Bakhtin |first=Mikhail |date=1981 |chapter=Epic and Novel |editor=Michael Holquist |title=The Dialogic Imagination |location=Austin |publisher=University of Texas Press |pages=3–40 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite web |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169606/ |title=Beyond the Law |date=2011 |website=Internet Movie Database |publisher=IMDb.com |access-date=10 October 2011 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite web |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064625/ |title=Maidstone |date=2011 |website=Internet Movie Database |publisher=IMDb.com |access-date=10 October 2011 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |chapter=A Course in Film-Making |editor=Theodore Solotaroff |title=New American Review 12 |location=New York |publisher=Simon |pages=200–241 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1970 |title=Beyond the Law |type=Film |publisher=Evergreen |language=English}}

* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1970 |title=Maidstone |type=Film |publisher=Supreme Mix |language=English}}

* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1987 |title=Tough Guys Don't Dance |type=Film |publisher=Golan-Globus |language=English}}

* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1967 |title=Wild 90 |type=Film |publisher=CineMalta |language=English}}

* {{cite AV media |people=François Truffaut (director) |date=1959 |title=The 400 Blows |type=Film |publisher=The Criterion Collection |language=French}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer}}

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 Consider, for example, Francois Truffaut’s remark that he liked Hollywood films because they were so similar to one another. Despite technological changes, aesthetic evolutions, and generic boundaries, it is easy to argue that Hollywood films always have more in common with one another than they have differences. By extension, the same could be said of all narrative cinema, whenever and wherever it is produced.
-Mikhail Bakhtin once referred to the novel as a genre {{sfn|Bakhtin|1981|pg=3-40}}. Foregoing my early devotion to auteur theory and the uniqueness of particular film directors, I might well be led to a similar conclusion about the cinema, at least on some days of the week.
+Mikhail Bakhtin once referred to the novel as a genre {{sfn|Bakhtin|1981|pp=3–40}}
+. Foregoing my early devotion to auteur theory and the uniqueness of particular film directors, I might well be led to a similar conclusion about the cinema, at least on some days of the week.
 In years past, I have given many lectures on the importance of modern
@@ Line 10: / Line 11: @@
 to consider and understand. I believed those words as I spoke them, and most of the time I still do. I am both a film historian and a filmmaker, so I probably have little choice in the matter.
-After all, the best film education is viewing films, and viewing them repeatedly. Orson Welles did just that with Ford’s ''Stagecoach'' (1939) before he directed ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).Over six decades later, a graduating film student that I knew—one who was highly astute and very talented—told a university program director that he believed the money he spent on tuition would have more wisely been used to purchase the entire Criterion Collection on DVD. The program director did not appreciate or understand his argument
+After all, the best film education is viewing films, and viewing them repeatedly. Orson Welles did just that with Ford’s ''Stagecoach'' (1939) before he directed ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).Over six decades later, a graduating film student
+{{pg|170|171}}
+that I knew—one who was highly astute and very talented—told a university program director that he believed the money he spent on tuition would have more wisely been used to purchase the entire Criterion Collection on DVD. The program director did not appreciate or understand his argument
 but, well, that is hardly surprising. Most of the stupidest people I’ve ever met have the letters “PhD” after their names.
@@ Line 29: / Line 33: @@
 Mailer’s film career is another matter. Cinematic adaptations of his literature
-began with ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1958), and continued with such films as ''See You in Hell, Darling'' (1966), ''Marilyn: The Untold Story'' (1980), and ''The Executioner’s Song'' (1982). But then there is also the quartet of films that Mailer directed over a period of two decades: ''Wild 90'' (1968), ''Beyond the Law'' (1968), ''Maidstone'' (1970), and ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1987). At the time of this writing, the first three are not available on DVD in the United States.
+began with ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1958), and continued with such films as ''See You in Hell, Darling'' (1966), ''Marilyn: The Untold Story'' (1980), and ''The Executioner’s Song'' (1982). But then there is also the quartet of films that Mailer directed over a period of two decades: ''Wild 90'' (1968), ''Beyond the Law'' (1968), ''Maidstone'' (1970), and ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1987). At the
+{{pg|171|172}}
+time of this writing, the first three are not available on DVD in the United States.
 ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' is readily available, as are its many bad reviews.
@@ Line 45: / Line 52: @@
 Mailer later admitted that ''Wild 90'' was “tremendously amateurish,” but he was also firm in his belief that there were “elements in it that . . . were different from all the movies” he had ever seen {{sfn|Mailer|1967}}. “Together with all the rough hewn sloppiness of the film,” he said, “there was also in it something vital that I liked” {{sfn|Mailer|1967}}. It was that same kind of vitality that he tried to explore in ''Beyond the Law'' and ''Maidstone''. As he claimed onscreen during a scene in ''Maidstone'', “We made a movie by a brand new process.”
-In his published essay “A Course in Film-Making,” which was ostensibly about the production of ''Maidstone'', Mailer modulated his position. He noted that he was not the first to “do fiction in documentary form” (“A Course” 217). Some person or group of persons had evidently brought this fact to his attention. Various filmmakers had worked without scripts, including the likes of Charlie Chaplin. The faking of non-fiction footage had long roots, ranging from the early cinema period (with its fabricated images of the Spanish-American War and famous boxing matches) to newsreels of the thirties (as lampooned in MGM’s 1938 feature ''Too Hot to Handle'' with Clark
+In his published essay “A Course in Film-Making,” which was ostensibly about the production of ''Maidstone'', Mailer modulated his position. He noted
+{{pg|172|173}}
+that he was not the first to “do fiction in documentary form” {{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=217}}. Some person or group of persons had evidently brought this fact to his attention. Various filmmakers had worked without scripts, including the likes of Charlie Chaplin. The faking of non-fiction footage had long roots, ranging from the early cinema period (with its fabricated images of the Spanish-American War and famous boxing matches) to newsreels of the thirties (as lampooned in MGM’s 1938 feature ''Too Hot to Handle'' with Clark
 Gable). And fictional films like ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) had employed documentary
 film aesthetics nearly three decades before ''Wild 90''.
@@ Line 61: / Line 71: @@
 In other words, rather than simply being inspired by a movement that had stopped moving, Mailer conducted his own fictional experiments while direct cinema was the prevailing force in documentary film. His films not only appropriated then-recent film history, but also engaged in a conversation with the unfolding present. Perhaps that is why, as Mailer tells us in “A Course in Filmmaking,” his ideas were a “conception which was more or less
-his own, and he did not feel the desire to argue about it” (217). Put another way, he did not believe his films incorporated very much film history.
+his own, and he did not feel the desire to argue about it” {{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=217}}. Put another way, he did not believe his films incorporated very much film history.
 Of Mailer’s first three films, the inaugural ''Wild 90'' is the most austere. Onscreen text informs us, “Once three guys from Brooklyn were hold up in
 a room and couldn’t get out for various vague reasons.” These guys, who are
-“Maf Boys,” have already spent 21 days in that location when we meet them. One is Prince, played by Mailer. Another is Buzz Cameo, who shares his first name with Buzz Farber, the actor who portrayed him. The third is Mickey (aka, “20 Years”), who also bore the same first name as the man who assumed the role: Mickey Knox, the only one of the three who was a professional film actor.
+“Maf Boys,” have already spent 21 days in that location when we meet them. One is Prince, played by Mailer. Another is Buzz Cameo, who shares his first name with Buzz Farber, the actor who portrayed him. The third is Mickey (aka, “20 Years”), who also bore the same first name as the man who assumed
+{{pg|173|174}}
+the role: Mickey Knox, the only one of the three who was a professional film actor.
 The trio pass the time by talking, by arguing, by fighting. “If you ever find
@@ Line 92: / Line 105: @@
 they are, but not by rival gangsters or by the authorities. A film camera watches them. Prince acknowledges that fact at the film’s conclusion, when he looks directly into the lens and says, “Goodnight,” thus violating a longstanding Hollywood taboo. The observed has become the observer. It is in that moment that Mailer best captures the tension between fiction and nonfiction
 filmmaking.
+{{pg|174|175}}
 Shortly after completing ''Wild 90'', Mailer wrote and directed ''Beyond the
@@ Line 100: / Line 115: @@
 the numerous changes of title cards:
+<div style="text-align:center;">
 BEYOND THE LAW
 <br>
@@ Line 141: / Line 157: @@
 <br>
 THE IRON TONGUE
+</div>
+{{pg|175|176}}
 The fact that one of these title cards uses the very word “fantasy” indicates
@@ Line 159: / Line 178: @@
 corrupt” when he meets a woman at a restaurant who has earlier been arrested for taking part in an S&M party.
-''Beyond the Law'' ends with Lieutenant Pope, Mickey Burke, and Rocco Gibraltar staring into the camera. Like ''Wild 90'', the taboo is violated, but here it is more pronounced. Three characters acknowledge us, the audience who has been staring at them.
+''Beyond the Law'' ends with Lieutenant Pope, Mickey Burke, and Rocco
+{{pg|176|177}}
+Gibraltar staring into the camera. Like ''Wild 90'', the taboo is violated, but here it is more pronounced. Three characters acknowledge us, the audience who has been staring at them.
 For Mailer, the complicated interplay between documentary film aesthetics and fictional film narratives culminated in his third film, ''Maidstone''. Much as Oliver Stone’s work with fact and fiction (as in his use of mixed media and what he termed “vertical editing”) moved from ''JFK'' (1991) through ''Natural Born Killers'' (1994) to ''Nixon'' (1995), so too did Mailer’s interest in filming “fiction in documentary form” move from experimentation to mastery.
@@ Line 181: / Line 204: @@
 ''Section 9: The Death of a Director'' intercuts images of nudity and sex with
 shots of animal bones and Kingsley laying on the ground, as if he has been
-murdered. The section also features Jeanne Cardigan licking a microphone before smearing a baby doll (and then herself) with what appears to be blood. Here ''Maidstone'' aligns itself more with the avant-garde movement of the sixties than it does with any documentary film tradition.
+murdered. The section also features Jeanne Cardigan licking a microphone before smearing a baby doll (and then herself) with what appears to be
+{{pg|177|178}}
+blood. Here ''Maidstone'' aligns itself more with the avant-garde movement of the sixties than it does with any documentary film tradition.
 Whereas Mailer’s earlier films only allowed actors to acknowledge the camera as their narratives concluded, ''Maidstone’s'' ostensible plotline ends
@@ Line 192: / Line 219: @@
 actor who has seemingly run amok. But here my description is admittedly simplistic, as their roles could have reconstituted themselves repeatedly during the apparently spontaneous and authentic encounter.
-“I’m taking that scene out of the movie,” Mailer yells at Torn shortly after the fight ends. They continue to talk, trading barbs and insults in between Torn’s attempts to explain that he did what he had to do. Writing about the event later, Mailer admitted “Torn had . . . been right to make his attack. The hole in the film had called for that. Without it, there was not enough” (“A
+“I’m taking that scene out of the movie,” Mailer yells at Torn shortly after the fight ends. They continue to talk, trading barbs and insults in between Torn’s attempts to explain that he did what he had to do. Writing about the event later, Mailer admitted “Torn had . . . been right to make his attack. The hole in the film had called for that. Without it, there was not enough” {{sfn||Mailer|1971|p=238}}. Onscreen, the attack and struggle lasts roughly two minutes, with another six minutes covering Torn and Mailer’s ensuing and heated conversation.
-Course” 238). Onscreen, the attack and struggle lasts roughly two minutes, with another six minutes covering Torn and Mailer’s ensuing and heated conversation.
+The fight scene gave Mailer “a whole new conception of his movie.” He believed that his filmmaking process had created a “presence” that outlived the conclusion his original storyline and what had only seemed to be the end of the shoot. It was an event that took ''Maidstone'' closer to the “possible real nature of film” {{sfn||Mailer|1971|p=238}}.
+And perhaps closer to real the nature of the filmmaking process. After all,
-The fight scene gave Mailer “a whole new conception of his movie.” He believed that his filmmaking process had created a “presence” that outlived the conclusion his original storyline and what had only seemed to be the end of the shoot. It was an event that took ''Maidstone'' closer to the “possible real nature of film” (Mailer, “A Course” 238).
+{{pg|178|179}}
-And perhaps closer to real the nature of the filmmaking process. After all, those eight tense minutes between Mailer/Kingsley and Rip/Rey include six
+those eight tense minutes between Mailer/Kingsley and Rip/Rey include six
 edits. Something is there for us to see, whatever it is and whatever it depicts,
 but something has been left out as well, removed from our view.
@@ Line 214: / Line 244: @@
 Does Mailer push things to the edge, or does he (and his actors) fall over the cliff and explode in the canyon below? Viewers will differ on this point, as well as on whether careening off the cinematic road is necessarily a bad thing. At any rate, such a conversation drifts into the realm of opinion, and
 opinions should not conceal the kind of important experimentation at work in ''Tough Guys''.
+The art of adaptation is much studied. So many books and essays (and, for that matter, entire journals) have concentrated on the rather common
+{{pg|179|180}}
+practice of one author adapting the work of another—the Book-into-the-Film. However, self- (or “auto-”) adaptation is rare, particularly in Hollywood with a writer of Mailer’s stature. For ''Tough Guys'', Mailer (with uncredited assistance from Robert Towne) translated his own novel into his own script and, finally—given his role as director—his own film.
+Even well planned experiments yield unexpected results. Nowhere is the gulf between written word and live performance more evident than in Ryan
+O’Neal’s infamous performance of Tim Madden, particularly when he learns
+his wife has been unfaithful. Standing on a bluff at the ocean, he cries out to
+himself: “Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God! Oh, Man! Oh, God!” On paper the words not only reveal the intensity of a moment, but they also operate on more than one level. These are two exclamations common to everyday speech. But together, repeated in alternation, their literal (and opposite) meanings come to the fore.
+However, once enacted by Ryan O’Neal, the words seem detached from intentionality. Their impact is cumulative, and it is extremely memorable, but certainly not in a way that O’Neal appreciated. Touted for its awful acting, the scene has become a favorite “so bad it’s good” clip for the YouTube crowd. But rarely do viewers stop to ask whether any actor could have read those lines in accord with what passes for believability in Hollywood films. Many persons involved with ''Tough Guys'' urged Mailer to remove the scene,
+but he would not budge. His cinematic laboratory not only recorded his experiments, but also required their dissemination.
+When I began this essay, I proposed the question, “How much film history does a film need?” Norman Mailer believed that ''Wild 90'', ''Beyond the Law'', and ''Maidstone'' represented a unique approach to filmmaking. They were distinct, and so for him they bore little relation to what had gone before.
+However, a conscious decision to break from the past is still engaged in a conversation with it.
+In Mailer’s case, that conversation was complicated. However original those three films were (and remain), there is no doubt that certain elements of them—including the basic idea of tackling fiction in the guise of documentary—
+had many important predecessors. And Mailer’s films constituted a small part of their own history. ''Wild 90'' influenced ''Beyond the Law'', and
+both of those influenced ''Maidstone''.
+With all of this I mind, I believe that another, related question is now in
+order: ''How many film historians does a film need?'' The past needs a present
+{{pg|180|181}}
+to remember it: that much is clear. Many films have been forgotten because they were forgettable. But others have just slipped through the cracks. No one can watch every film. Some are lost, and even some of those that are found sit comfortably in archives without attention from viewers. They await rediscovery, their joys currently imprisoned in aging film cans. And they
+await interest from enough film historians (and theorists and critics) to be chronicled in studies of the cinema.
+Regrettably, only a few of us have examined Norman Mailer’s films in any
+depth. Herewith we announce an open call for membership in our small club. We seek allies and enemies alike. The ranks need to swell. After all, even in the space of just a few words, it is possible to suggest why Mailer’s films
+deserve intervention by historians (and others) who have to date neglected
+them.
+''Wild 90'' and ''Beyond the Law'' are mockumentary films, important if for no
+other reason than the fact that they helped initiate a genre that did not yet
+even have a name. They predate Mitchell Block’s ''No Lies'' (1974), which has
+sometimes incorrectly been called the first mockumentary. They anticipate
+the large numbers of mockumentaries that have been produced from the eighties until the present day. And, rather than retrospectively copying the aesthetics of direct cinema, they were produced while its style was still being forged.
+Long before most persons even knew what amockumentary filmis—and even some time before Orson Welles’ important cinematic experiment ''F for Fake'' (1975)—Mailer tore down the genre’s walls. With ''Maidstone'', he marched into a more complicated terrain, one that proposed to re-examine the very nature of the cinema. Here Mailer chased the authentic, an elusive property that seems to be chimerically reconstituting itself in front of his cameras.
+I submit that Mailer’s first three films are important to film history and that their general absence from discussions of documentary film, mockumentary film, and the films of the sixties represents a gap that limits those of us interested in the cinema far more than it does Mailer.And while ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' never rises to the level of importance of Mailer’s earlier films, I believe that it can speak volumes about the rarely discussed issue of self-adaptation.
+In ''Wild 90'', Norman Mailer (as Prince) asks who invented the hammer.
+Norman Mailer did not invent the hammer. Nor did he invent the wheel.
+{{pg|181|182}}
+But in the best tradition of films like ''Citizen Kane'' (1941), he borrowed various elements from prior films and reassembled those ideas anew. Rather
+than regurgitate via remake and rather than appropriate via homage, Mailer
+reinvented past practice. He reinvented a cinematic wheel, and more film historians need to keep it turning.
+===Citations===
+{{Reflist}}
+===Works Cited===
+{{Refbegin}}
+* {{cite book |last=Bakhtin |first=Mikhail |date=1981 |chapter=Epic and Novel |editor=Michael Holquist |title=The Dialogic Imagination |location=Austin |publisher=University of Texas Press |pages=3–40 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite web |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169606/ |title=Beyond the Law |date=2011 |website=Internet Movie Database |publisher=IMDb.com |access-date=10 October 2011 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite web |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064625/ |title=Maidstone |date=2011 |website=Internet Movie Database |publisher=IMDb.com |access-date=10 October 2011 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |chapter=A Course in Film-Making |editor=Theodore Solotaroff |title=New American Review 12 |location=New York |publisher=Simon |pages=200–241 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1970 |title=Beyond the Law |type=Film |publisher=Evergreen |language=English}}
+* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1970 |title=Maidstone |type=Film |publisher=Supreme Mix |language=English}}
+* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1987 |title=Tough Guys Don't Dance |type=Film |publisher=Golan-Globus |language=English}}
+* {{cite AV media |people=Norman Mailer (director) |date=1967 |title=Wild 90 |type=Film |publisher=CineMalta |language=English}}
+* {{cite AV media |people=François Truffaut (director) |date=1959 |title=The 400 Blows |type=Film |publisher=The Criterion Collection |language=French}}
+{{Refend}}
+{{Review}}
+{{DEFAULTSORT:Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer}}