Interview (Part 4): Ben Jacoby
This week I’m featuring an interview I did with Ben Jacoby. This has a particularly unique hook in that I have an email thread with Ben dating back to July 30, 2013. Every several months, Ben would contact me with the latest development in his writing life, so in effect the emails are a living history of his emerging screenwriting career. The fact he has been a longtime GITS follower makes his story especially satisfying.
Today in Part 4, Ben and I dive into the script which landed him representation — “The Inklings”:
Scott: Wow, that’s great. I am so happy to hear that. So, here’s the plot summary of “The Inklings”: “When aspiring writer J.R.R. Tolkien’s wife disappears after a WWII air raid, he and his friends must venture through a mysterious gateway to another realm to save her, battling the creatures that will secretly haunt and inspire them for the rest of their lives.”
I was going to ask you what the inspiration was and you answered it. My blog. First of all, there is a little bit of Shakespeare in Love in this story, that sort of thing where these events which happen, while real, in this case of hyper-real life, the writers then used to populate and inhabit their stories. How did you get to that kind of narrative idea?
Ben: Well, I knew I wanted to establish the idea that these guys had access to another realm. So, starting at that point I thought, OK, what would they use that place for? What would it want from them? The story took shape from those questions. But yeah, it made it equally easier and more challenging to have a framework to drive toward. They had all written these books, so I was trying to invent the worlds that would one day inspire their writing.
Scott: Much of the story, it’s quite charming in detailing the connections of this group, The Inklings. It’s a group of writers that get together in a pub in Oxford once a week for 40 years. Did you enjoy researching that?
Ben: I loved it. I read a ton about them all. I read Tolkien’s “Complete Letters” and a lot of C.S. Lewis’s correspondence. I read a biography written in the ’70s about The Inklings and their relationships, and it was wonderful. Tolkien and Lewis actually hated each other at first, and then grew to be great friends. So, the seed of a great relationship arc already existed in real life, and that made the script a lot of fun to write.
They were also such interesting people. Lewis was a fervent atheist when he was young, then he became a devout Christian. Tolkien really faced a lot of demons fighting in WWI. Charles Williams actually believed in ghosts. There’s so much rich history there that researching it was a ton of fun. By the time I’d read everything and taken my notes, the script just poured out of me.
Scott: In the script, there’s this portal that Tolkien discovers. It occurred to me, I was wondering where the inspiration for that came from. I’ve read a lot about Tolkien as well. Some things I’ve read suggest that Middle Earth and everything he invented was a whole world that he inhabited in his imagination. “The Lord of the Rings” really was more of a result of having in a way ‘lived’ in that world. It’s a lot like he was setting out to write this book — but more that he felt like he needed to, I guess, codify what he was imagining in Middle Earth.
I was wondering whether that was the jump for you. Like here’s this sort of supernatural gateway he discovers and the city really was more about that incredible direct connection that he had with Middle Earth.
Ben: Definitely. He devoted his entire life to a universe that he created. Pretty much every book he wrote was a deeper exploration of it. He once said, “I did not invent Middle Earth. I discovered it.” And when you read quotes like that, they really get your imagination going. In his writing he really is sort of unearthing this history of another universe that already seems to exist. That’s what was so fascinating about it to me. And that’s also what made it so fluent to adaptation.
Scott: Then there’s this central narrative element which is his wife who gets taken away. I think you detailed that relationship quite lovingly. Then you’ve got this wonderful fantasy, action-adventure story where Tolkien and his Inkling cohorts end up going into this other realm to save her.
That’s tricky because you have these parallel worlds. And you have a lot of plot elements going on, on the other side in that fantasy realm. How challenging was that for you to plot all these stuff out?
Ben: It was pretty challenging. I think that the basic premise was the hardest to arrive at though. Once I got that, then it all sort of fell into place. I wanted to create strong parallels between World War II and the War of the Ring. I wanted it to be an origin story of “The Lord of the Rings”. Most importantly, I wanted the script to be about the conflicts of an aspiring artist.
I’d just gotten married when I started writing the script. And I was thinking, pretty much on a daily basis, that this is what I love to do and it’s my dream, and I don’t think I could be happy doing anything else. I’ve never held down a day job for longer than a few years, mainly because I give my heart and soul to writing.
So, what happens if I am not successful? I’m not single anymore, I suddenly have to think about the big picture. A family, responsibility, maybe not indulging in a selfish pursuit anymore. I was seriously worried I’d never get a shot, almost paralyzed by it. So, I basically infused all those fears into Tolkien’s character.
He finds this world. He becomes obsessed with it, with exploring it as deeply as possible. He falls in love around the same time though, gets married, and has a child. He’s losing his family to his obsession, giving himself to this other world. He’s becoming detached. So, his wife investigates. What’s the source of this obsession?
She finds his portal, and she crosses over to see it. But while she’s there, Nazi planes bomb the city and the portal is destroyed. When Tolkien sifts through the ruins, all he finds is her gold wedding ring. He holds onto it, and it basically beckons him to find a way back to the other side to find her.
So, he literally lost his wife to his writing, his ambition. And, his journey from that point on is about finding her, going into the story and rescuing her. And while he’s on that journey he comes to terms with the uncertainties of the artist’s life and realizes the ultimate truth, that there’s nothing more powerful than love.
Scott: There’s a great quote that you have, actually several, like an homage to writing, a real ode to the writer’s life. There’s one where Tolkien is talking to The Inklings, trying to encourage them, saying they need to go into this other world.
He says, “What waits for you back home, war, famine? Or worse, routine? You’re writers, for the love of God. You dream for a living. Charles, you write of ghosts and demons. Well, here you can walk with them. And you, Jack,” — talking to C.S. Lewis — “you speak of these great chronicles you wish to pen. Where will you do it? Back home in that shadow world? Don’t you see? In this world, your dreams can live.”
When you hear those words, what goes through your mind?
Ben: That classic It’s a Wonderful Life theme of always wanting something more, always wanting to go somewhere else, somewhere bigger, somewhere brighter. And not necessarily knowing that everything you need is right there in front of you.
At the end of the script, Tolkien realizes that routine that, at this point, he’s pretty much lambasting, he realizes the beauty in accepting those little things in everyday life, and that’s where real inspiration comes from. It doesn’t come from some other place, some manufactured, artificial place that exists in your dreams. It comes from everyday life, from the people you surround yourself with. Writing that, and landing on that message, was really cathartic for me.
Scott: And you set that up early on when a young C. S. Lewis says to Tolkien, “Your life is the greatest story you’ll ever write. Don’t waste a single word.”
Ben: That’s the message I tried to convey, and I wanted it to be as concise as possible. Of course, it takes the whole movie before Tolkien actually ends up believing it.
Scott: So, Tolkien marries Edith. And he wins her love early on, but it’s a challenge right? She has a plan laid out for her life, which is that she’s got to marry a certain person, a businessman, not a writer. You’ve got an interesting interchange there between them where Tolkien says, “Each choice in life is a signpost pointing the way to turn, nothing more. And at the end, all those turns add up to a single destination.”
And he basically paints a picture of her future life, where she’s married to the wrong person, and basically lived the wrong life, “living in the grey,” essentially a mundane life. “60 years living in the grey,” Tolkien says, “living someone else’s life, and all because of one wrong turn.” Then Edith says, “Very clever, John, but you’ll recall I’ve always wanted a quiet life.”
Tolkien says, “But not the wrong life.” Which recalls that great quote from Joseph Campbell, “What if a person climbs the ladder to success but then discovers when they get to the top, they’ve been climbing on the wrong wall?”
I’m wondering if that speaks to your own choices where you could’ve gone down the safer path of a non-artistic or a non-creative lifestyle, but you chose to pursue this other path.
Ben: I don’t think it was conscious choice, but it definitely resonates for me. My entire adult life I’ve been living in this state of existential crisis of, “I don’t think I have what it takes to devote myself to something other than the arts.” So basically, either I’ll make it or I’ll be damned.
Then I realized that, like Tolkien at the end of the movie, whether you’re successful or not, it’s not important. That’s not what defines you. It’s the choices you make, the people you love, and the chances you take. That’s what defines you. But yeah, unlike Edith, I was determined not to take the wrong turn. No matter what, I wasn’t going to leave anything on the table. I wasn’t going to live the wrong life.
Scott: I’m pulling one last quote from the script where Lewis is talking to Tolkien and he says, “A story is not a document. It’s a search for something, a need for something. It’s not just wonder. It’s what you strive for in the face of that wonder that defines you. That is a life. That is writing.”
Ben: Tolkien is obsessed with going into this world and finding out everything he can about it. He doesn’t realize until the end that great art doesn’t really come from the world outside you. It comes from within. The stuff that’s outside can inform you and it can help shape your views. But real inspiration and meaning, they have to come from inside you.
Scott: You handled the characters so well, and it’s a fun, exciting adventure. It occurs to me, Ben, you may be the perfect person to take on these projects — I’ve long wanted to see two novels from The Inklings adapted into movies: “All Hallows Eve” which we talked about by Charles Williams which is just a terrific novel. And are you familiar with the Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis?
Ben: No, I’m not.
Scott: He wrote a science fiction trilogy. “The Silent Planet,” “Perelandra,” but the last one, “That Hideous Strength,” which you could do on its own, is really excellent. Put those on your little to-do list to check out. “That Hideous Strength.” It’s constructed like a movie. It’s got crosscuts from various subplots. It’s really interesting. I think it could be adapted to a contemporary setting very well. After reading your script, I was like, “Well, this is the guy. Ben should do these two.”
Ben: Wow, thank you so much. I’m writing it down now! “All Hallows Eve” I read for research for on “The Inklings” and I loved it. I used a bit of it too in the script. I loved the idea of a plane crashing in London, and the ghost who died in the crash walking the streets, not realizing she’s dead. The plane crash in the script that destroys Tolkien’s portal was inspired by that.
Scott: T.S. Eliot had said he thought Charles Williams was the greatest English language novelist of his time.
Ben: I remember reading that. His stories are so haunting, and I think that’s because he was haunted, personally. The darkness, the curiosity too, really come through.
Tomorrow in Part 5, Ben responds to some of my questions about the craft of writing.
For Part 1 of the interview, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
Ben is repped by Verve.