Writing “Seabiscuit”

“The future has arrived!”
Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges)
Seabiscuit

“But I’m not; I’m not obsolete!”
The Obsolete Man written by Rod Serling
The Twilight Zone

Thinking about my recent posts that touched on the theme of the Old West changing, represented in Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1970) as well as The Grey Fox (1982), made me think about another movie that begins in those years of transition—Seabiscuit (2003).

Back in 1996 magazine journalist Laura Hillenbrand stumbled upon an article that would change her life.

“That day I found just a tidbit of information, a few passages about how Charles Howard was a modern automobile man and Tom Smith was a plains cowboy. Something about that tugged at me, and I kept turning it over in my head. I thought it was fascinating that a man who would find his true greatness by teaming up with a frontier horseman who had been rendered obsolete by the automobile. I started poking around in more documents and doing a few interviews, and a spectacular story tumbled out of the research.”
Laura Hillenbrand

Her research became an article, then a best-selling book, and then a wonderful film based on Seabiscuit and the people that were touched by that horse. One of the side benefits of research is what you can stumble upon along the road you thought you were headed down. Serendipity happens in writing, in traveling, and in life.

Speaking of life, the movie was produced and released in wake of the September 11, 2001. A film about struggle was timely then, and it’s timely in 2010. A public speaker once told me that if you talk about pain and suffering, you will always have an audience. This is how the book starts:

“In the winter of 1937, America was in the seventh year of the most catastrophic decade in its history. The economy had come crashing down, and millions upon millions of people had been torn loose from their jobs, their savings, their homes.”

It was the task of screenwriter and director Gary Ross to take Hillenbrand’s research and best-selling book and somehow tell the story in two hours.

“Seabiscuit is about these broken characters coming together, how they helped heal one another. It’s about people redeeming each other, getting past their own barriers and isolation to live again, and to re-engage in life. That’s what I found so amazing about it, was the struggles these three guys had out of despair. As the country was engaging in a similar struggle. That’s what really drew me to it.”
Gary Ross
DVD Talk Interview

Themes about hardship and the hope for change and transformation will never go out of style. Perhaps that is not only the history of American cinema, but of the history of civilization.

Related Posts: Seabiscuit Revisited in 2008
Writing Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

Scott W. Smith

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood… (Part 1)

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Billy Joel
Say Goodbye to Hollywood

There is a lot of finger pointing going on in the film & TV business right now. (As I write this L.A. County has an unemployment rate of 12.7%, and the film industry has not been spared. The Writer’s Guild of America reported for the fiscal year 2009 that screenwriter’s earnings decreased 31%. )

Who and what is to actually blame for Hollywood’s economic downturn that has resulted in fewer script sales and a greater loss of production jobs? Is it the general downturn in the economy or the rising cost of production? Is it the tax incentives that states outside L.A. and even countries outside the U.S. are giving to lure business away from California? Is it the Internet and the fact that spending two hours on Facebook is more interesting than many two hour movies?

Yes. It’s all the above and more.

Once upon a time there was this company called Fotomat. (Yes, I’ve written about Fotomat before but it is a favorite metaphor of mine.) They started in the 60s, seemed like they were everywhere in the 70s, but by by 1980 they had peaked. Their little yellow huts in parking lots were cultural icons back in the day. Now they’re cultural relicis and every once in a while you can spot an old converted Fotomat building that is now converted into a coffee hut or a wind-tinting business. What happened to Fotomat? Well, it’s pretty simple.

They niche they careved out was turning around photos in one day. That was cutting edge in the 70s, but as one hour photo places starting gaining ground in the 80s and then the digital boom in the 90s they had nothing to stand on. (The chant “Obsolete! Obsolete” from the The Twilight Zone (1961) episode The Obsolete Man comes to mind.) In an instant world there wasn’t a big demand for people wanting to get their photos the next day.

From 1800-1840 Nantucket was the “Whaling Capital of the World.” Youngstown, Ohio was once the seventh largest steel producer in the nation. My grandfather used to work for the Youngstown Sheet & Tube and I found an old book the company put together in 1950 to celebrate 50 years in the steel industry. In the opening paragraph of the book there is this line, “This Company looks forward to another fifty years, and then another, ad infinitum….” There wasn’t a Youngstown Sheet & Tube around to celebrate in the year 2000.

Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world’s changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
Youngstown
Bruce Springsteen

I’ll spend the next few days looking at how Hollywood got to be Hollywood and then look from a creative and economic standpoint at where I think screenwriting, production and distribution is all heading.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (part 2)

Scott W. Smith

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