Written interview: James L. Brooks
Today’s written interview is with writer-director James L. Brooks as he talks about the wonderful romantic comedy Broadcast News. Here is an excerpt:
Albert Brooks’ speech about the devil — “He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation… and he’ll get all the great women” — makes it into the national conversation from time to time. The McLaughlin Group program, following on a Maureen Dowd New York Times column, used it as a way of describing President Clinton during the scandal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Mary McNamara of the L.A. Times invoked it to help explain Don Draper, the ad exec of the “Mad Men” series.
Really? I was unaware of either of those things.
What were you imagining when you wrote the speech?
The duality of God and the devil is something that occurs to me in one way or another at various times. I don’t know if I initially had the devil in mind, but I knew it was Aaron’s last pitch for the girl. The surprise in it as I was writing was the line, “Look at that. I buried the lede.” I can’t tell you how important that line became to me.
It’s a long scene. You don’t see that kind of thing much in movies anymore.
It’s as long as two people go, two people talking to each other. From the moment Holly comes over to Albert’s house, until the moment she leaves, I knew I needed something to allow staging. One of the most intense, humbling hunts for a location I’ve ever had was searching for that house. In the script, I’d written that the Aaron character would step outside and look at the Jane character, who’s inside. But it wasn’t until we found that place on Capitol Hill that things started to fall together. And Albert Brooks just killed the speech.
It’s a scene where, as you once observed, he stops loving her by force of will. It happens at the exact moment when he sees that she can’t catch her breath because she’s so worked up over another man.
And Albert absolutely plays that. He goes from being wildly in pain about losing this woman to being, “O.K., Jane. Thanks for dropping by.”
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HT to @webacion for the link.