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Hey, @theskza (and @ufcfan4 and @Shot): I'm on a huge Sorkin kick right now. I watched Charlie Wilson's War for the first time (not that great but better than I was expecting considering the two leads were Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts), I rewatched The Social Network (I think this was my third viewing and I'm still liking it more with each rewatch), I rewatched Moneyball (the most un-Sorkin of all of his scripts, but I just love that story and I really liked both Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, plus the two home run scenes, first during the streak and then at the end with the fat kid afraid to run to second base, are just gold), and then I rewatched Steve Jobs. I honestly think I'm ready to do something I never thought possible: I think I'm ready to bump Tarantino from the #1 spot and proclaim Aaron Sorkin as the GOAT screenwriter. Add A Few Good Men to the list (not to mention The West Wing, Studio 60, and The Newsroom, some of the greatest TV out there) and he's just fucking beastly. And Steve Jobs just won't get out of my head. I liked it even more the second time, and that ending with his daughter hit me even harder than the first time. I even had to watch it a third time a few days later. Now it's been almost two weeks (and I've cranked through Studio 60 and two seasons of The West Wing since) and Steve Jobs is still in my head. That's got to be one of the top ten scripts ever. And more so these last two times than the first time, I've really gained an appreciation for Danny Boyle's direction. The way he shot the film, the way he edited it, and most impressively, the way he used sound and music, it's just phenomenal.
I've been wanting to post about this. Over a decade a ago I used to watch The West Wing sporadically; an episode on cable every few weeks or even months. I remember liking what I saw but never watched it serially. I've begun watching an episode every couple days from the first season recently. It's so good. I think that kind of writing is largely absent in TV today: solid episodic writing while maintaining (an admittedly tenuous) serial thread. There's some very cool things about binge-watching but it's meant a lot of lazy-ass writing of recent (see Stranger Things).
I like Sorkin's early work. Challenge and motive to fight it are rooted in character, and he uses elegant shorthand to get there. It allows him to have his fun with the dialogue. I'm not a fan of his railing against tech, and I think he's terrible with women. He frequently portrays them as strong, independent, but surrogates them against male characters (himself) to lose arguments with. Galloway and Mandy come to mind off the top of my head. I'm OK with CJ so far. Though there was this early exchange:
Josh Lyman: You know what, C.J.? I really think I'm the best judge of what I mean, you paranoid Berkeley shiksa feminista... Wow, that was way too far.
C.J. Cregg: No, no. Well, I've got a staff meeting to go to and so do you, you elitist, Harvard, fascist, missed-the-dean's-list-two-semesters-in-a-row Yankee jackass.
Josh Lyman: Feel better getting that off your chest there, C.J.?
C.J. Cregg: I'm a whole new woman.
There's no way there's a movie from last year that surpasses Steve Jobs, right?
Two things. First, you sound like old man Spielberg going back on young man Spielberg's ballsy move to have Richard Dreyfuss get on the ship at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Why? Because no one else has. Because it's once-in-a-lifetime shit.
So is fatherhood? One could argue you could have another kid or come back after your adventure to contribute, but there's still that first pesky little earthling, created in your image, that you'd have missed out on raising during a formative period. Or in the case of Interstellar, her entire lifetime.
As for "no one else has", that's the split isn't it? I accept that argument inasmuch as I can see it being a point of view many would hold. However, I believe most parents would look at a choice like that and come to Stevie's conclusion.
And second, it's better than the Close Encounters case because dream world means dream time. They get to live a life together and then come back to their kids.
Yes, but that's the best-case scenario. In order to even hope to get there you'd have to choose not to worry about this:
All this is beside the point. My beef isn't that Cobb chooses to explore limbo. Parents make that choice sometimes. Many work too hard. Others engage in high-risk sport. But I can see why it's not a black and white thing.
It's that Nolan doesn't dissect that decision in a film whose engine is a father's (Cobb's) love for his kids. Think of the children's role within the script. How do they function in how Nolan engages you? What comes first: the puzzle or human nature?
Why don't we see their faces? It leaves the option open that Cobb is dreaming. Why does Cobb not think about the dangers of being brain-dead before he chooses to explore limbo with Mal? No limbo with Mal, no prior inception experience for Cobb. What is the only effect we notice that their excursion into limbo has had on their kids? Mal yelling at Cobb that they're not real, further engaging us with the cat-and-mouse nature of the dreamscape.
Which is all fucking cool, of course. It's just not all it could be.
If you ever had the time/inclination, I think you'd enjoy Todd McGowan's book The Fictional Christopher Nolan. I pretty much reject the entire thesis of the book, but it's a stimulating read all the same. He's also a very engaging writer, so even though it's heavy on the philosophy, it doesn't feel like you're doing work to get through it.
Very cool. Thanks mang.
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