Will Aaron Sorkin Avoid The Fatal Trap Of "The Politician"?
Aaron Sorkin appears to be bold enough to take on the life of John Edwards, the philanderer with a $500 haircut. Sorkin has optioned The Politician, the tell-all written by aide Andrew Young, and plans to adapt it for the screen, producing and directing. The film will chronicle the former North Carolina senator's fall from grace, which began when that very real and legitimate pillar of journalistic ethics the National Inquirer first started reporting on his affair with Jay McInerney muse Rielle Hunter in October 2007.
There are so many ways to fuck this one up, but there's one potential pratfall that Sorkin would be particularly wont to avoid: the sanctimonious montage of the guilt-ridden man drowning his sorrows at a bar. It's a well-worn cliché, and after Gabriel Sherman's article in the New Republic shared Edwards' social habits with the world, it seems like an unavoidable inclusion toward the end of this tale of politics and scandal. If Sorkin has any discretion, however, the film will cut the following scenes of Edwards' bar crawls through Durham and Chapel Hill, as written in the article: Edwards shimmying up on Duke grad students palming a glass of white wine; Edwards talking awkwardly to women at saloons with names like The Wooden Nickel; and Edwards slamming back brews at dive bars.
But what filmmaker can resist that kind of drama? Oh, yes, it's all there. The golden locks of the one-time presidential frontrunner become mussed as the sequence progresses, his eyes-glassed-over with guilt, the lids trembling oh so slightly-entreating the barmaid for another chilled Riesling. The shot will cut from one watering hole to the next, each as listless as the previous, each hitting you over the head with this crisis of the human condition. This is some serious problem-boozing, so it will get the most inevitable of soundtracks-the god-awful 90s dad-rock of Semisonic's "Closing Time".
Though if the film does stoop to that level, would it be much of a surprise? The subtlety-killing trailer for Sorkin's The Social Network features a children's choir rendition of "Creep." Yes, we get it. Â So, Aaron, when you adapt The Politician, try and depict this modern American tragedy with some honesty and compassion-avoid the dead-end of the montage.
Heh, telling writers of drama what's dramatic and what's not before they even put pen to paper. Next let's hear about proper monetary policy from someone based on his reading of the money in his wallet.
Dramatic writing is alchemy. Sometimes the way it draws you in is by making the least dramatic, most cliched settings develop in unexpected ways. Devising any rules for it more complex than "Keep promising the audience something it wants" is a fool's game.
I really don't understand this post. Sorkin's kind of a hack, but where'd all the bile for the montage in specific come from?
And from whence the bile for "Closing Time". That was a decent pop-rock tune.
re: closing time. indeed.
So very special?
Come on, kids.
How about a Meritage instead?
He will now, thanks to your extraordinarily prescient guidance. Not much to understand here besides one who can't offering pointless advice to one who can.
I assume you have no problem with the inevitable walking-through-a-hallway-while-having-a-very-detailed-conversation scene?
These are classic Sorkin (I use "classic" in a kind of reductive way, not endearing). That said however I always thought they worked. Just from a visual perspective, (tv/movies being a visual medium – I know, shcoker), it's much more interesting to watch two people spew their exposition while the camera is moving than whilst static. Sorkin certainly isn't the only one to employ this technique (it's kind of filmmaking 101) but he's certainly guilty of doing it in the same type of way ALL THE TIME.
Hey now, what's wrong with Closing Time all the sudden? Also, that Social Network trailer looks decent.
What about that Sorkin SNL show? That was Muammar Goddawfi. I also never 'got' the West Wing. I also have a soft spot for The American President despite it's being brazenly terrible.
What's that? No, I have no idea where I was going with this either.