Shaw varied back and forth and managed to end on the wrong foot, but at one point he was right. I am reading Dmitri Volkogonov's "Autopsy For An Empire." A true-believing "hard liner" by his own account, Geneal Volkogonov was the Red Army Chief Historian. In the 1970s, they let him see the real archives, in preparation for a history. It …
Shaw varied back and forth and managed to end on the wrong foot, but at one point he was right. I am reading Dmitri Volkogonov's "Autopsy For An Empire." A true-believing "hard liner" by his own account, Geneal Volkogonov was the Red Army Chief Historian. In the 1970s, they let him see the real archives, in preparation for a history. It turned him 180 degrees, with the result that he wrote this during "glasnost," which he helped usher in. A damning indictment. Next up is his last book, "Lenin." How so many people managed to get it wrong about the true nature of the USSR is still amazing.
I read Lawson's screenwriting text and understood why so many bad screenwriters are graduates of the University of Spoiled Children (USC). The only guy who was ever any good was Robert McKeee, his class "On Structure" was worth every penny. As William Goldman said, "Screenplays are Structure." (turns out, books are too, I find)
I've come to think that anything that gets written is about structure. as for my own writing, I might've come to this conclusion a tad late.
actually, I'm getting weary of making jokes at my own expense, but I'll let that one stand. I have one old friend who could definitely have been a screenwriting "contendah," but his remarkable gift for self-sabotage didn't allow for it.
as for the old New Left...I kept my head about that even when it was going on. my first year at CCNY, I had to take Calculus five days a week at eight in the morning. but my assigned seat was out of a movie. on my left side was the point man for YAF (I don't remember his name, because it was 1966 and YAF guys quickly learned to keep quiet on that particular famously Leftie campus) and on my right was Paul Milkman, who became Rick Rhodes's second-in-command at PL. at the time, all three of us (who managed to stay pretty civil, quite unlike now) laughed about how crazy that particular configuration was, even down to the two of them sitting on the respective wrong sides.
when things really got weird was 1970 or so, when Larouche (then calling himself Lynn Marcus and professing his own brand of radical Marxism) and his NCLC started destroying the lives of a lot of my friends.
Shaw varied back and forth and managed to end on the wrong foot, but at one point he was right. I am reading Dmitri Volkogonov's "Autopsy For An Empire." A true-believing "hard liner" by his own account, Geneal Volkogonov was the Red Army Chief Historian. In the 1970s, they let him see the real archives, in preparation for a history. It turned him 180 degrees, with the result that he wrote this during "glasnost," which he helped usher in. A damning indictment. Next up is his last book, "Lenin." How so many people managed to get it wrong about the true nature of the USSR is still amazing.
I read Lawson's screenwriting text and understood why so many bad screenwriters are graduates of the University of Spoiled Children (USC). The only guy who was ever any good was Robert McKeee, his class "On Structure" was worth every penny. As William Goldman said, "Screenplays are Structure." (turns out, books are too, I find)
I've come to think that anything that gets written is about structure. as for my own writing, I might've come to this conclusion a tad late.
actually, I'm getting weary of making jokes at my own expense, but I'll let that one stand. I have one old friend who could definitely have been a screenwriting "contendah," but his remarkable gift for self-sabotage didn't allow for it.
as for the old New Left...I kept my head about that even when it was going on. my first year at CCNY, I had to take Calculus five days a week at eight in the morning. but my assigned seat was out of a movie. on my left side was the point man for YAF (I don't remember his name, because it was 1966 and YAF guys quickly learned to keep quiet on that particular famously Leftie campus) and on my right was Paul Milkman, who became Rick Rhodes's second-in-command at PL. at the time, all three of us (who managed to stay pretty civil, quite unlike now) laughed about how crazy that particular configuration was, even down to the two of them sitting on the respective wrong sides.
when things really got weird was 1970 or so, when Larouche (then calling himself Lynn Marcus and professing his own brand of radical Marxism) and his NCLC started destroying the lives of a lot of my friends.