ADVICE TO AUTHORS from Michael Lewis

ADVICE TO AUTHORS from  Michael Lewis

Never mind  the pain and the stress

should  a movie make your book a mess.

And not to  worry if the outcome's s mostly dreck

which of  your talent has used hardly  an ounce;

Just gratefully accept the check

and hope it will not later bounce.

HzL

12/22/15

Even Michael Lewis Was Surprised Hollywood Bet on The ...

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/.../the-big-short-movie-mich...

Vanity Fair

Ryan Gosling plays the truth-telling but unreliable narrator in Adam McKay’s film adaptation of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short. ... Who would—or could—make a movie about credit-default swaps? ... One was the sheer complexity of modern finance: how to explain credit-default swaps and ...

MY  role in making the movies of my books—the role of the author—has been essentially that of a spectator. I think it is fair to say that the people who make movies from books would just as soon that the books’ authors be dead. I don’t take this personally. When it comes time to turn his book into a movie the author has little of value to add and has the power to become a serious nuisance. At a public screening of the first (silent) movie made from The Great Gatsbythe Fitzgeralds walked out. During the making of Patriot Games, Tom Clancy declared war on Paramount. There’s a long list of authors who have bitched and moaned about what the movie people have done to their precious works of art. In my view authors who sell the movie rights to their books should just cash the check and shut up.

On the screenwriter:

 In his previous life as head writer at Saturday Night Live, McKay says, he used to think up 20 skits on the assumption that 18 wouldn’t work—but that 2 would. He says he did the same sort of thing as a stand-up comedian, writing dozens of jokes for every one he performed. He never worried too much about his less than great ideas, because he knew he’d be defined only by the great ones, and he never became too attached to any one idea, because he knew he could always find others. He was generous with his own mind, in the way that newly rich people are often openhanded with money, as they know they can always get more. This character trait is essential to The Big Short. There are many effective storytelling tricks in the movie that a filmmaker would never try if he worried about people wondering if he knew what he was doing. McKay’s original script opened with Morgan Freeman filming a commercial for a big Wall Street bank and going on about trust and security, then stopping, turning to the audience, and saying, “Actually, that’s all fucking bullshit.”