NYT on James L. Brooks’ upcoming movie
In my pantheon of writer-directors, there are three at the very top: Billy Wilder, James L. Brooks, and Cameron Crowe. [One more great movie from Jason Reitman and he goes up there]. So it’s with great anticipation that I’m tracking Brooks’ newest movie Untitled James L. Brooks Project or as we learn in this NY Times feature: How Do You Know:
In an era of cut-price filmmaking, the picture in question has an unusually full roster of well-paid stars: Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd. And while the film business prefers sequels and pop adaptations, and has been shying away from such expensive, star-driven vehicles, this movie tells a complicated, original story about people who might be funny enough, in their own troubled way, to remind Hollywood that it is O.K., occasionally, to buck the trends.
Until recently the project was known publicly as “James L. Brooks Untitled,” Mr. Brooks being the gray-bearded writer-director behind the film. Word is he has decided to use an earlier working title, the stubbornly low-concept: “How Do You Know.”
Brooks, who has 31 producing credits, has only written or co-written a handful of movies:
To date Mr. Brooks has directed just five films, beginning with “Terms of Endearment” in 1983. That one and two others, “Broadcast News,” a triangle set in the news business, and “As Good as It Gets,” in which Jack Nicholson played the crustiest of curmudgeons, were best picture nominees. “Terms of Endearment” was not only a winner, but also gave Mr. Brooks the rare distinction of picking up separate Oscars as the writer, director and producer of the same film.
Twice Mr. Brooks has missed.
“I’ll Do Anything,” about a struggling actor, started out as a musical but eventually had its elaborate dance numbers stripped out before flopping for Columbia in 1994. And “Spanglish,” in which Adam Sandler played a celebrity chef with a personal life in which some viewers found traces of Mr. Brooks’ divorce, then recent, did poorly in the United States and even worse abroad, when Columbia released it in 2004.
Yes, I’ll Do Anything and Spanglish flopped. But Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As It Gets are as… well, good as it gets when it comes to smart, funny, and human filmmaking. Per this movie’s development:
“How Do You Know” started as long as five years ago, when Mr. Brooks — who is known in these parts as the creator of a “Panic Attack!” cheer for his daughter’s soccer team — became fixed on the notion of making a film about a young female athlete.
Not untypically, he spent hundreds of hours interviewing women who excelled in various sports before settling on softball as good cinematic turf, according to people who worked on “How Do You Know” and spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with studio executives and others.
The plot is rooted in an encounter between two people who meet on the worst night of their respective lives.
Early on, Mr. Brooks became convinced that only Ms. Witherspoon could play his lead character, Lisa Jorgenson, who, at 27, is just past her sporting prime. Fortunately Ms. Witherspoon shared his conviction: she spent a year doing three-hour daily workouts to prepare for the role.
Along the way Mr. Brooks became fascinated by the dilemmas of contemporary business executives, who are sometimes held accountable by the law for corporate behavior of which they may not even be aware. This brought new research into the lives of people who run companies, work for the Justice Department, or, in at least one case, have spent time in jail.
From that slowly cooked stew came two new characters, one of whom is now played by Mr. Rudd, the other by Jack Nicholson — a Brooks regular who took the role only after Bill Murray, the first choice, declined.
To complicate Lisa’s love life, Mr. Brooks created a professional baseball pitcher, now played by Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Brooks, famously private, disclosed little about the project, which was widely described in news reports as a romantic comedy set in the world of baseball. But the sport only occasionally figures in a film that is actually about people trying to figure out exactly what, for each of them, matters most.
This process shows how hugely character-oriented — not plot focused — Brooks is. And that approach, for any writer, can be problematic. On the face of it, it looks like Brooks generated a disparate quartet of people, intersected their lives, then saw what happened. Hopefully it’s magic.
The movie opens Dec. 17th.
Anybody else out there a James L. Brooks’ fan? What are you favorite scenes from his films?
UPDATE: In comments, Judith makes a great point re Brooks:
“All of Brooks’ characters get to be somebody — get their own little agenda…”
Absolutely! Secondary, even tertiary characters have their own BOB (“Bit Of Business”). The movie Judith notes Broadcast News is filled with asides and tiny little moments with a host of characters that help to create a vivid sense of the story universe: A TV newsroom. Thanks, Judith, for that observation — and it’s one for which we should all strive: Make sure all our characters get to ‘be somebody.’
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