I love the work of the directing-writing team Payne & Taylor. I teach Sideways, and what I love about teaching it is that the screenplay is very different from the novel, all the changes improvements, and that there are many cuts from screenplay to film, all of them improvements -- so the film and script provide an excellent insight into the process of story revision and how, in film, "less is more" is a recurring and powerful theme. Especially looking at the scenes in the script that did not make it to screen, the student hopefully learns to appreciate the poetic efficiency of film storytelling, how there's never a wasted moment. (If it's wasted, it goes.) The script, of course, won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The novel, by the way, is terrible. It truly is. It's another lesson to read it and understand how a bad novel can become a very good film.
Payne-Taylor's other films include Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt, all first rate.
At any rate, today is our dissection of Sideways day, which I always look forward to. Yesterday my reading load was less than it should have been because a significant number of students did not turn in their work on time. I suppose I'll get scripts today for more weekend reading than I prefer.
I go in early for an appointment, wearing my suit for the opera and all. One of those crazy hectic days, lots of places to be at certain times. I do look forward to the opera, though I've done no preparation for it this time. Focusing on Mahagonny, not Norma, but it will be instructive, perhaps, to see the Portland and L.A. opera companies so close together.
Maybe I can get some more work done on the novel during my office hours today.
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