Kermode Uncut: Writing Lesson

[FalconPunch256]

at the beginning there I thought you were rewriting the script for transformers 2

[Smithereen1]

The Social Network.

[Bassbait]

The Shining. End of story.

[psycomedia]

Naked Lunch

[queenrocks21]

The opening sequence of se7en

[CrashLanden]

Adaptation.

[vampireheart99]

Dr K, it has to be Misery, simply because the act of writing not only thrusts the story forward, and illustrates that writer's block and bad ideas are also present when a writer attempts to produce good fiction (rather than merely banging out a best seller in one draft and twenty seconds of mimed typing). Misery is perhaps one of the best films about the psychological, physical and mental strains about writing, topped with a cinematic edge of a psychotic, and ever present, number one fan.

[pauljeremiah]

opening of Atonement comes to mind, and how the sound of the keys typing is used as a percussion

[southpaw169]

8 mile. lots of shots with eminem on bus, of bus, at desk writing his music. the combanation of the soundtrackand the expresions on his face along with him mouthing the words as he writes helps keep it interesting. wether u like or dislike the film the fact is those scenes do work

[DulBeat]

The first few episodes of "Death Note"

...what?

[queenrocks21]

Misery all the way.

[Robkinggozer]

Misery! Now that's not an awesome, entertaining movie about writing.

[merton8181]

Sex and the City the Movie

[allaboutdmagic]

Naked Lunch had the best solution: make the writing tool itself into a sleazy, hallucinatory creature influencing the writer's work. Of course, this wouldn't work for an Enid Blyton biopic, but there's plenty of other ways. Just don't have a ten minute sequence of someone's hands typing away at a keyboard. Writer's do other things in their lives, especially Ginsberg.

[OisinL1]

Atonement

[OisinL1]

Atonement

[OisinL1]

Atonement

[zickzackduck]

Amadeus did it brilliantly, but he was writing music, so I suppose that technqiue might not always work

[wdm2112]

The Social Network did a pretty good job with typing. One of the best in recent memory.

[InfiniteWhizBang]

The Naked Lunch.

[sammybird]

Theres no doubt in my mind, the best film about writing, Naked Lunch. And what better device to spice up the typing scenes than Clark Nova :)

[BunionMann]

Barton Fink is the best non-Big Lebowski coen film

[hbomberguy]

Barton Fink was a good depiction of writing, in the very short sequence Barton actually wrote anything we got typewriter shots, but also voiceovers of lines he'd written. It was short, it went quick - the Coens knew that depicting someone writing without resorting to the metaphysical is boring and should be done as quickly as possible.

[madammao]

Shakespeare in Love

[petrietri]

The Neverending Story

[andymc32]

Withnail and I

[lordtufty]

Inception was robbed

[diefortacos]

@lordtufty Not in the Kermode Awards!

[lordtufty]

@diefortacos Oh yes, thanks for reminding me!!!

When are those? I want to watch the pinnacle of the Cinematic Awards season!

[diefortacos]

@lordtufty Just been mate, bit before the Oscars! I'm sure you'll still find them on BBC iplayer under the 'Culture Show' banner. Enjoy!

[bemoreawesome1512]

Flappy typing hands!

[OxTheWriter]

Croupier.

[Flurbdurb]

As stupid and as bad of a film as it is, I'm going to go with 'The Book of Eli'.

[simozonelayer]

sex and the city, the TV series: "I couldn't help but wonder..." click clicketty clack

[outerlimits007]

Adaptation, Synechdoche New york

[Tezcatlan]

I don't want to see films about writing, I want to read books about writing.

H.S.Thompson was right to reject the addition of that animation; it would have taken an elegant but powerfully beautiful description and made it into a clunky, apparently self-important visual metaphor, as subtle as a tidal wave.

As far as books about writing; Adaptation was ok; the literary film stranger than Fiction was better.

[BarnabyWest]

Manhattan, the opening scene. :)

[tubbstarful]

was is just me or was this weeks podcast with Richard Bacon instead of Kermode and Mayo really really bad?

[crythe1]

i remember someone telling me only writers who ran out of interesting things to write about end up writing about writers :)) which is true for a large amount of people i think.

however. i wanna throw in an off-beat film here and say i really liked the secret window with johnny depp. i loved the deteriorating state of mind depp s character is in. a little gem in my opinion. other than that, does PI (aronofsky) count as a writers movie? he is typing quite a bit in the movie.

[AndyJmovies]

would you count Stranger Than Fiction? that was quite an inventive way of telling story of someone writing a story.

[mrnikeshgudka]

Synecdoche New York

[idioteque113]

adaptation

[IDante1Savage]

Misery

[sam91004]

Well the best on film writing is in the Bob Dylan documentary 'Don't Look Back'' by Pennebaker.

There's a scene in a hotel room where Joan Baez is singning a song by Dylan while Dylan is sitting by the typewriter and typing quite loudly while you can see him producing the outline of the melodies of the lyrics he was writing at the time - sort of waving his head while whispering the lyrics to try to fit it in the melody.

I could watch that for hours! Not sure if anyone else would though :P

[FormerHuman]

Misery - proves to us all that writing and being a writer will get you hobbled eventually (if you get famous).

[rw221192]

misery and shining

[FilmFreak237]

Moulin Rouge

[Winteruk1]

Finding Neverland?

[KieranMajury]

SATC!

[exitcheese]

misery

[Sodacake]

Wonder Boys

[ottopotomas]

Sex and the City 2

[HamGreenandEggs]

Barton Fink

[uwtheo]

@HamGreenandEggs Seconded.

[franzferdinandaddict]

Adaptation.

[nathstreeter]

The Social Network did a great job of getting over a similar problem, who would have thought that you could make data encryption more exciting than most car chases and gun fights in films.

[SpeedFreakNO]

Massively underrated? I have yet to hear anyone say it's not a fantastic crazy movie where everything works and everyone did a great job.

[Sodacake]

@SpeedFreakNO Critically it was massively underrated when it came out.

[tubbstarful]

@SpeedFreakNO I think he is referring to its lack of success when it was released, it flopped at the cinema, no where near covering its budget. I can't imagine why though, its such a great film.

What about films like Momento, or Deathnote, I think there is something mesmerising about watching someone hand write something, specially in a foreign language.

[fullbleed24]

I'm gonna throw Social Network in there, ok its not a book or a poem that they're writing but there is a lot of typing at computers and it is code that they're typing, something even less interesting than someone typing words and completely unintelligible to the uninformed. And yet it's cinematic, it's exciting even at times and remains entertaining to watch.

[MatthiusSama]

Naked Lunch. Pretty obvious. Most interesting film ever made about writers and writing.

[SpecialKid2000]

1. Yes

2. Atonement

3 (in your comment box). Yes, if done well, it can be thrilling, and add to a scene.

[TheHappydead]

Thompsons a fucking god

[brokenstyx]

the end of The A-Team (TV series) credits, where Steven J Cannell swishes the page off the typewriter and into a stack (logo).

(youtube dot com slash watch?v=xCG7zGs4v4c)

[farshnuke]

What you have done here is focus on the least important aspect of writing. 'Ooh someone has to pick up a pencil or press keys' Writing is not about the act itself, it's about the ideas represented. A real writing should have an internal monologue of the writer desperately trying to find the words, inter-cut with the expressions on the writers face and the scatter-shot self correcting chaos of the work appearing on paper or screen and overlay that with images of what's depicted by the writing.

[Mo7V3]

Adaptation???

Synecdoche, New York

[chrisjdgrady]

Also, The Fountain

[MatthewLedZepfan]

"Misery" has an awesome realistic depiction of writing. James Caan is believable as a writer and you really end up caring about him

[BahaVII]

Ginsberg and Thompson are both very close to my heart indeed. but I'm having to agree with the shining.

[jsh357]

I thought The Social Network did a good job showing the process of programming, even though it's a lot slower and less exciting in real life. It's not the same thing as writing, but pretty similar.

[Ricorodrigeuz]

I guess the use of creative editing can make someone writing be interesting. A scene in Atonement involves the young girl at a typewriter and that is interesting to watch because it doesn't drag on.

[Wintersome]

Thompson was right. Animation would have mis-represented the passage in question and completely ruined the flow of the film. Gilliam made the right call by simply trusting Depps voice and the depth of the sentiment.

[jimmymckooel]

I enjoyed the scene in Fear and Loathing with Johnny type writing!

[pacmansays]

Obviously, The Shining. It manages to make writing into something much more sinister

[BlackMagnumFilms]

I can tell you one version which tried and failed. King Kong, the 2005 reinvention by Peter Jackson. When Jack Black tells Adrian Brody the name of the island in order for him to type it down, it suddenly goes all slow-mo and over the top as Brody types. Just doesn't work.

[fullbleed24]

@BlackMagnumFilms Oh yeah and he says every letter before he types it, as you would...

[Samplelord]

Secret Window...

The shots of Johnny Depp being unable to write....

[TeenWolfKingOfTheKil]

The Shining, Stanley Kubrick was a master at making the impossible, possible or in this case boring, interesting

[chrisjdgrady]

Naked Lunch

[miyacemu]

@chrisjdgrady yes! that was the first thing to come to my mind aswell. Living typewriters definately help lift the writing process.

[coasterman16]

Airplane! (Johnny is typing obnoxiously when McCroskey asks him what he can make out of the weather report. After answering "a hat or a broach or a pterodactyl," he returns to typing obnoxiously.

[83phatman]

Probably the best to depict the actual task of writing was in ADAPTATION, where they used fast cut scenes and mainly using Nicholas Cage dictating his thoughts on a recorder.

[TulseLuper]

Gilliam also made use of stock footage from the 1960s to accentuate what Thompson was talking about. It wasn't just Depp typing.

[moeezS]

Adaptation, or in video-game form, ALAN WAKE for me.

[TheRollthebones]

not seen it but thats what they did in social network isn't it not with animation but with fast snapshots

its not writting but harry potter 7 uses animation briliantly

[SookMaDook1]

Misery, they solved it by having him being forced him forced to write, its entertaining because it keeps the audience on the edge of their seat asking "how is he going to get out of this one?"

[Jcolinsol]

Actually depicting the great wave in animation would have been incredibly cheesy. As they actually handled it, it's kind of one of the most moving parts of the film.

[monolith94]

Naked Lunch makes being a writer seem like a rather interesting life.

[pontiuspilot1]

Barton Fink?

[masterofgnargnar]

the social network

[ThePurpleView]

I wonder if The Social Network counts.

[MajorTinfoil]

Probably Bright Star, they got around it by not showing the poetry being written: just at most Keats laying down and thinking about it.

[Gummy132]

One word. Thunderbirds.

[thegiantcookie]

first!

[TheRollthebones]

@thegiantcookie moron

[thegiantcookie]

@TheRollthebones it was actually my first ever first too! Kermode gets it!