Weighing In On Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

There are some movies I’ve never tired of watching. Each viewing yields new details, or a deeper appreciation of a story well told. Of writing John Gardner wrote, "Detail is the lifeblood of fiction." Certainly celluloid makes instantly vivid immense quantities of detail that words on paper would take pages to convey. But in film, many of the details are not simply for the creation of the fictional reality but serve to produce subliminal messages that reinforce the story's themes. In this regard, Roman Polanski is a master of the film arts.

For years Polanski’s harrowing Chinatown (Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway) has been one of those films I never tire of seeing. In his book Screenplay, screenwriting instructor Syd Field points to Chinatown as one of Hollywood’s most perfect films and worth studying in depth if one desires to learn the craft. I’ve not read the screenplay for The Ghost Writer, but as I watch once again this nail-biter suspense drama I’m swept away by those details.

For example, in one sequence Ewan McGregor is watching out the window as a man is attempting to sweep hay or brush into a wheelbarrow. There’s a strong wind, however, and the lightweight material keeps getting dispersed till the fellow gives up in futility. It’s only a few seconds in length, and totally unnecessary in terms of advancing the story, yet it telegraphs the entire film with no words whatsoever.

The main story line is about a writer (Ewan McGregor) who has been called in to complete the memoirs of former prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) whose previous ghost writer was found washed up on a beach on the island where they are staying here in the U.S. It’s interesting that we never learn the ghost writer’s name. A few times Adam Lang addresses him as “man” – as in “hey man” or “good work, man” -- but any special feeling of comradery in thus addressing him is pinched away by another's explanation, “he always calls a person that when he can’t remember their name.”

Like Chinatown this film is about a man brought in contact with a situation in which he finds a loose thread that slowly unravels a mystery that is far too big and dark and potentially deadly. You know he's in over his head but you root for him, though each turn of the screw leaves you more uncomfortably anxious for his safety. And like Chinatown, you only have the hero's perspective so that as new information arises the ground shifts beneath his feet. Like the ghost writer, you yourself are uncertain who the good guys are.

It would be easy to compare this film to many a Hitchcock thriller in which a simple character is unexpectedly thrust into a much more dangerous and complicated situation than he first imagined. I think of The 39 Steps or Cary Grant in North By Northwest, or Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much. With each new revelation tensions mount as our ghost writer begins to realize that he is now a man who knows too much. Yet, what does he know? He’s uncertain but somehow feels impelled to divine what it was that his predecessor knew.

Throughout I found this film pitch perfect. Next time you're looking around on Netflix or Blockbuster, check it out.

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About Schmidt

I once read an interview with Roddy McDowell in which he stated that actors have three stages in their careers, and that they are not always successful in each. In the beginning you win them by simply being charming. You're young and beautiful, have an impish smile, whatever. Then you mature and the little gimmicks that charmed audiences don't quite cut it. In the last stage you are an elder statesman of the silver screen and the roles are of an entirely different class as you re-invent yourself once more. Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood and Michael Caine come to mind here... and Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson is an actor who by any measure has had a charmed career in the film industry. And deservedly so when you remember the range of memorable characters he has invented since catching our attention as George Hanson in Peter Fonda's Easy Rider. Who can forget J.J. Gittes in Chinatown, or Randall P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

It's the uniqueness of the characters he inhabits that is as surprising as anything. Compare the obsessive/compulsive writer Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets to mob boss Frank Costello in The Departed. Both roles show range. And in About Schmidt we see another subtly fine performance, possibly less appreciated because it doesn't draw attention to itself.

The film was a sleeper, perhaps because of the seriousness of its tone while simultaneously being marketed as a comedy. We missed it in the theaters, if it ever came to out neck of the woods, but saw it referenced in a book by Robert K. Johnston titled Useless Beauty. Johnston's book analyzes the complex engagement between faith and culture by studying a range of contemporary films including among others Signs, Magnolia, and Run, Lola, Run. The book's subtitle is Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film.

About Schmidt begins with Nicholson as businessman Warren Schmidt sitting in his office at the Woodmen Insurance Company in Omaha, watching the second hand on the clock as it ticks out the last moments of his career there, boxes packed, time marching on. He is alone, and it's evident that this aloneness is a hallmark of his life. Retirement happens to him, but it is a passionless existence full of empty hours, more seconds ticking off the clock of his life.

Then one day, while flipping through one meaningless channel to another on his television, a commercial captures his attention. It is an invitation to sponsor a needy child in Africa. And Warren Schmidt responds. The child's name is Ndugu, and his letters of confession to Ndugu become the thread that weaves all the other pieces of this film into a whole.

Near the film's end, his wife having died unexpectedly and his daughter's wedding behind, Schmidt stops to visit an exhibit in Nebraska honoring the early pioneers who crossed the prairie going West. It is an ordinary place, yet moves him in an extrarodinary manner. His letter to Ndugu conveys his emotions here at this crossroads in his life:

"My trip to Denver is so insignificant compared to the journeys others have taken... I know we're all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference. But what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me? When I was out in Denver, I tried to do the right thing, tried to convince Jeannie she was making a big mistake, but I failed. Now she's married to that nincompoop and there's nothing I can do about it. I am weak, and I am a failure. There's just no getting around it. Relatively soon I will die... Once I am dead and everyone who knew me dies too, it will be as though I never even existed. What difference has my life made to anyone? None that I can think of. Hope things are fine with you.

Yours truly, Warren Schmidt"

This one I rank high on my "short list" of recommended films. If you've not seen it, check it out.

Helter Skelter, Revisited

The Beatles’s White Album, a double album which some say was their epitome and others say revealed the beginning of their end, was released in 1968. In 2003 Rolling Stone ranked it number 10 on their list of all time greatest albums. The sixth song on side three was called Helter Skelter, which psychopathic madman Charles Manson insanely interpreted as a call to anarchic revolution.

For a time the Manson family lived on Sunset Boulevard with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys who was initially impressed with Manson's songwriting skills. They also took enormous quantities of LSD. Later, in 1969, members of the Manson Family broke into the home of Roman Polanski and brutally killed Polanski’s eight months pregnant young wife Sharon Tate and several others in what later became known as the Tate-Bianca murders.

Director Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown (1973) starred Jack Nicholson, in whose home a 1977 event took place which led to Polanski's arrest and subsequent flight from the country .

Marlon Brando at one time lived next door to Jack Nicholson. Sometimes Brando would walk over to Nicholson’s house for milk and if Jack was not home, Brando would leave his underwear in the fridge where the milk had been.

In February 1968 the Beatles and Mike Love of the Beach Boys went to India to learn more about Eastern religion and Transcendental Meditation under the guidance of Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi. The Beatlles would write a biting song about the Mahareshi, but concealing the direct connection to avoid a lawsuit. The song was called Sexy Sadie, on side three of The White Album on the track precedig Helter Skelter.

In the spring of 1973 during a Beach Boys concert at Ohio University I walked to the stage before the concert began and handed Mike Love a pen-and-ink drawing which I had made, tearing it from my sketch book. He seemed to like the drawing and thanked me for it.

Conclusion: Based on the theory of six degrees of separation, anyone who knows me is within six degrees of Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski, the Beach Boys, Beatles, Marlon Brando and Charles Manson.

Think about it.

Trivia: At the very end of Helter Skelter there is a scream, "I've got blisters on my fingers," which most people attributed to John. It was actually Ringo's voice here. This song, written by Paul McCartney, gives evidence that he was not simply a sweet ballad-writing type of guy. I believe he did it, if I recall correctly, simply to show that he could.

Chinatown: A Polanski Masterpiece

“The exhaustive, labyrinthine narrative is built up like a fortress around this film’s bitter heart.” ~Jeremy Kipp, Slant Magazine

Chinatown. I never get tired of this film. From the haunting music to the crisp dialogue, fabulous screenplay and Roman Polanski’s masterful direction, this film is a sheer pleasure as a work of tragic art. Here's an excerpt from Kipp's insightful review...

The dialogue by Robert Towne has become part of the pop lexicon, "Forget it, Jake—it's Chinatown!" a catch phrase for being in over your head, or for hurting the one you were trying to help. One of those classic American movies from the 1970s, when studios were churning out themes instead of properties for theme parks, Chinatown can be enjoyed on multiple levels. It's a first-class detective story about a man killed by drowning in the middle of a Los Angeles drought. On top of that, it's a disturbing parable about the pressure put on the human heart, with private detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) doggedly pursuing the elusive facts about Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) and her deep-seated reasons for hiding the truth from him. "You may think you know what you're dealing with," intones John Huston as the depraved millionaire Noah Cross, "but believe me, you don't."

Syd Field, author of the book Screenwriting, at one time possibly the Bible for how to write movie scripts, states that if you want to write a superior screen play study Chinatown.

But it is more than a perfect screenplay. It’s is truly a work of craftsmanship in its execution. Once you have seen it a couple times you no longer have to watch to see what it is about. Now you can begin to dissect it, and appreciate its meticulous attention to detail. I invite you to stop the movie at any spot and notice the images, the camera angles, the lighting, the effects. Every frame is a work of art.

Likewise, listen to the dialogue that accompanies these images. Every single scene not only advances the story, it reveals and conceals the mystery. The characters who appear in this film are developed with quick brush strokes through sequences of encounters, engaging banter and a story line that perpetually moves forward toward its painful conclusion.

Jack/Jake’s bandaged nose for seemingly half the film is an amusing metaphor for his character throughout: a snoop.

But it keeps coming back to the screenplay. Listen to this exchange between Dunaway and Nicholson later in the film. It’s rich.

Evelyn Mulwray: Tell me, Mr. Gittes: Does this often happen to you?
Jake Gittes: What's that?
Evelyn Mulwray: Well, I'm judging only on the basis of one afternoon and an evening, but, uh, if this is how you go about your work, I'd say you'd be lucky to, uh, get through a whole day.
Jake Gittes: Actually, this hasn't happened to me for a long time.
Evelyn Mulwray: When was the last time?
Jake Gittes: Why?
Evelyn Mulwray: It's an innocent question.
Jake Gittes: In Chinatown.
Evelyn Mulwray: What were you doing there?
Jake Gittes: Working for the District Attorney.
Evelyn Mulwray: Doing what?
Jake Gittes: As little as possible.
Evelyn Mulwray: The District Attorney gives his men advice like that?
Jake Gittes: They do in Chinatown.

Note the misdirection in this exchange a few minutes later.

Evelyn Mulwray: You really don’t like to talk about the past, do you.
Jake Gittes: I’m tired.

Dunaway then delivers yet another of my favorite lines. A little further Nicholson, continuing his probe, asks one more thing and she demurs.

Jake Gittes: What? It's an innocent question.

Evelyn Mulwray: With you, Mr. Gittes, there are no innocent questions.

Nor are there any wasted opportunities.

There are certainly a lot of great films and not everyone appreciates what this one offers up, but if you have any inclination to make movies, I recommend you study this one. There’s more here than meets the eye.