Poisoning the Well, One Movie at a Time...Is Okay...Sometimes

So a couple of weeks ago we read an article by Wendy Bishop and Stephen Armstrong called "Box Office Poison".  It talks about the way that writers and the writing process are portrayed on film and how that influences  the way people view writers and the writing process.  We then watched two movies, Finding Forrester and Wonder Boys, and are going to look at how the film portrays writers/the writing process versus how it really is while considering points made in the article.

While watching the movies and thinking about the article, I kept thinking about the "writer's scene" that we talked about in the first few chapters of Released into Language of the solitary writers slaving away by candlelight in a tall tower.  That's not what it's like for most writers.  It's sort of funny that the two movies we watched portrayed two writers at the opposite ends of the spectrum.  In Finding Forrester, the famous novelist is a recluse (almost to the point of a misanthrope) that has food and supplies delivered to his apartment so he never has to leave.  He's very old fashioned, pecking away at a typewriter when he decides to write.  The portrayal of this character is very close to the classic idea of a writer that we learned about in Released into Language.  Yet, in Wonder Boys, writers are portrayed quite differently as adulterous creative writing professors desperately trying to meet the standard of their last successful work of art all the while getting entangled with the issue of stolen property.  It's really quite over-the-top.  

But that's what Hollywood does.  They make things over-the-top because portraying writers or the writing process as it really is would be boring.  That would certainly be the case with me.  I do some of my best writing sitting in the living room of my apartment with muted cartoons on the television and a bottle of water.  No one wants to see a two-hour movie about that.  So Hollywood over exaggerates the life of a writer whose day may start with a cup of coffee from Starbucks and end with a brilliant novel, but between the two was a run-in with some drug dealers over mistaken identity and the survival of a few attempts on their life all while they try to uncover the government's cover-up while sustaining their alcoholism.  Over-the-top, but it makes for quite an entertaining movie, and that is Hollywood's job.  They are suppose to make something that will entertain us; it doesn't necessarily have to be accurate.  

After watching the movies, we are suppose to address the following question on our blog: If you were an intelligent visitor from outer space curious about teaching creative writing, what would you learn if all you had to go on was what you learned by watching Finding Forrester and Wonder Boys?

Well, I'd learn that writing talent comes in all shapes, forms, and sizes, that even the most unassuming person can write, and write well with a little help.  I remember Jamal's angry face (from Finding Forrester) when he opens his notebooks and sees a sea of red editing comments.  Editing can easily become harsh, so I'd be careful about that.  The English teacher from Finding Forrester was very irritating, and I know that though he is a teacher, his job isn't to point-out how much better he is than us at something.  Teaching creative writing involves being a part of an encouraging community, but you can't really teach if the students don't want to learn.

Anyway, that's my take on the movie industry's portrayal of writers and the writing process.  They are off by a little (and sometimes a lot).  Slowly but surely, one movie at a time, they've managed to create inaccurate preconceived notions about writers and writing in general.  But it makes for great movies.  And I'm okay with that.  I want to leave you guys with a couple of really great lines from Finding Forrester.  I was scrambling for paper to write them down.  I hope you like them as much as I did.

Forrester: Writers write things to give readers something to read.

Forrester: No thinking - that comes later.  You must writer your first draft with your heart.  You rewrite with your head.  The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!

I really love that second quote, don't you?

BK