Harold Ramis (1944–2014)

Harold Ramis has died at the age of 69. He directed two films dear to me, Groundhog Day and Ghostbusters, and had a hand in many others I enjoyed. By all accounts, he was a selfless collaborator, and this is amply on display in Ghostbusters, which Ramis acted in and cowrote with Dan Aykroyd. Ramis plays Egon Spengler, the no-nonsense brains of the outfit, meaning he delivers some great lines deadpan, but mostly plays straight man to Bill Murray and Aykroyd – and let them have most of the funniest lines. (He also often showed sound judgment as a writer and director, as when he rejected a studio idea that the cause of Phil's Groundhog Day predicament should be a jilted ex soliciting a gypsy curse on him.) Some great tributes have been written to Ramis, but I wanted to take a look at Ramis' craft and artistry, especially since comedy often don't get no respect.

The difference between a decent comedy and great one is often just a few elements, and Ramis' successes demonstrate that well. Three aspects stand out for me – the ending, exploring the premises, and the human core of the story. (Obviously, in a good story, all of these will overlap.)

Let's begin with endings. They can be tricky, and it's not uncommon for a story to go for the big climatic scene and flop. The typical forced-versus-earned climax chooses spectacle over character, and loses sight of what made us invest in the story earlier. A forced climax in action and horror films tends to be a big-but-hollow CG spectacular. Comedies often build toward madcap mayhem, the ultimate chaos of the film – but in the forced versions, it all feels strained and artificial. In The Party, the forced climax is the all-too-predictable, everyone-in-the-pool-with-the-baby-elephant bit. (Some people love the film; I think Peter Sellers is brilliant and delivers some great moments, including a hilarious Gunga Din parody, but don't like the overall flick much.) In American Pie 2, it's the turn into the third act – the overamped-for-the-circumstances scene where the bros hear their other bro is distraught and has gone walking on the beach alone (oh noes!) so they must find him urgently, pull him out of the film's lowest moment (bro despair of little more than a minute or two) and then stride back to the beach house together, gorgeously lit as the music swells, bro-triumphant. (I only saw the first two films in the series, and they have their moments, but that sequence felt forced, unearned and reeked of filmmaker desperation.) I'm sure readers can come up with their own examples. But compare the misses with the finale of Ghostbusters. The extended showdown with the demon Gozer, who transforms into the giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, is absolutely hilarious. The editing build-up of teases and reveal is perfect, Dan Aykroyd's lead-in is masterful, and the ensemble play off each other beautifully, with some classic lines. (Ramis: "I'm sorry Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.") The climatic parade mayhem scene Animal House is likewise actually funny. In a different tone, Groundhog Day's big celebratory party scene feels completely earned, as does the final morning wake-up scene. Ramis knew how to set up his partners for a topper, and at his best, he really stuck the landing.

Many films don't fully explore their own premises. It's a key frustration for viewers of a near miss, usually voiced something like, "They had a good idea, but they just didn't know what to do with it!" The better the core idea, the more maddening the whiff is. In the best films, that exploration has happened during the writing process, dozens of bad (or merely not as strong) ideas have been tried out and discarded, and the final script reflects all that thought and experimentation. The best scripts work through all the weak spots until the character(s) and the plot click together and are inseparable. Groundhog Day is one of those films for me, and I've praised it more times than I can remember on those grounds. I found it immensely satisfying when I first saw it, because every time I thought, "What about...? What if he tried..?" the filmmakers actually explored it. (Groundhog Day was originally written by Danny Rubin, but it was significantly reworked in collaboration with Harold Ramis, and both authors deserve some credit for the script's success.) Dumb characters are maddening to watch. Phil (Bill Murray) is certainly selfish, self-destructive or despairing at points in the movie, but he's not dumb. He tries everything – personal advantage, charity, suicide, conning Rita (Andie MacDowell), and many other approaches. The basic idea of being stuck in a particular place has been explored countless times in storytelling, and the idea of being stuck in a specific day or returning to the same spot has been done several times in sci-fi. (I've actually argued that Groundhog Day can be viewed as sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction – using an unusual situation to explore some facet of the human experience.) Groundhog Day covers similar ground to other "trapped" stories, and it's actually funny to boot (even moving). That's quite the feat.

On that point – Groundhog Day works so well because Phil not only amuses us, we begin to really care about him and his predicament. There's a human core to the story. (In Ghostbusters, that element isn't as strong or crucial, but we do grow to like the team.) Groundhog Day is one of Bill Murray's best performances, and the importance of that can't be underestimated. But the screenplay, cowritten by Ramis, creates the path, and Ramis' direction guides that performance and sets the story's pace and build. There's a great line in The Fisher King where Jack (Jeff Bridges), who's in genuine despair and feeling deserved guilt, says, "I wish there was some way I could just pay the fine and go home." He wants an easy out rather than actually changing. One of the triumphs of the The Fisher King is that it fully explores that dynamic and what it takes for Jack to truly transform, and Groundhog Day pulls off something identical. After a lovely night with Rita, Phil tries to recreate the magic another night, but it's forced and artificial, and doesn't work. In a different vein, he tries to save the life of a homeless man, but nothing he tries succeeds. Both of those elements are pretty damn profound for something sold as a comedy. (The sequence of deaths is also masterfully assembled.) Death can't be cheated forever, and sometimes not even for day; true love is not a matter of tricks or following the um, perfect script, but of honestly, intimately connecting with a human being. Call it soul or heart, but we need to care about Phil for the film to resonate ultimately; Ramis and the rest of the team provide a recognizable human experience in the fantastical by grounding the proceedings in an emotional reality. ("Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.")

All of this is to say that Harold Ramis' best work shows a craftsmanship and artistry that's genuinely impressive. Here are a few scenes to demonstrate this. First, here's one of my all-time favorite comedy scenes:

Ramis deadpans his bit expertly, as does Ernie Hudson in his reaction. Notice all the exposition and setup in this scene hiding under the comedy? It starts with Ramis, Aykroyd builds on it, Murray mentions the EPA and asks about the grid, gets an update, and then the scene closes with a callback – "What about the twinkie?" We get several funny lines – all rooted in character – plus plot development, all in about 45 seconds! That's mighty efficient.

Here's the bridge scene, the most serious one from the same movie. Ramis isn't in it, but he and Aykroyd wrote it, and notice that only this combination of team members could have this discussion. The scene is actually pretty spooky for a comedy, and builds the stakes and tension:

Over to Groundhog Day. Murray's very good here, but this sequence also shows off how tightly written and edited the film is:

In this later clip, Phil tries to recreate the connection he felt with Rita building a snowman on a previous Groundhog Day. But Phil's trying to force things, and discovers that the magic doesn't work like that:

Well done.

Links:

Harold Ramis on the metaphor of Groundhog Day (video).

The Los Angeles Times obituary.

The New York Times obituary.

The Chicago Tribune obituary .

The NPR obituary

The Variety obituary.

Rob Vaux's fine remembrance.

The io9 remembrance.

Ubiquitous character actor Stephen Tobolowsky, probably best known as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, has a great remembrance of Ramis.

The Wrap: "Harold Ramis, ‘Buddha of Comedy,’ Remembered By Rainn Wilson, Judd Apatow," "Harold Ramis and Bill Murray: Inside The ‘Groundhog Day’ Duo’s Decade-Long Feud" and "President Obama Makes ‘Caddyshack’ Joke in Tribute to Harold Ramis."

Esquire:"An Oral History of Ghostbusters."

Indiewire, 2013: "5 Things You Might Not Know About Groundhog Day."

The New Yorker, 2004: "Comedy First: How Harold Ramis’s movies have stayed funny for twenty-five years."

DVD Review, 1999: "Anatomy of a Comedian."

How to Read for Writers, by Vonnegut

A new book is out of Kurt Vonnegut's letters, and Slate has been running some selections. His advice to a friend slotted to teach at the Iowa Writers' Workshop is interesting (and gossipy), but I really enjoyed his term paper assignment. Apparently, Vonnegut "wrote his course assignments in the form of letters, as a way of speaking personally to each member of the class."

November 30, 1965

Beloved:

This course began as Form and Theory of Fiction, became Form of Fiction, then Form and Texture of Fiction, then Surface Criticism, or How to Talk out of the Corner of Your Mouth Like a Real Tough Pro. It will probably be Animal Husbandry 108 by the time Black February rolls around. As was said to me years ago by a dear, dear friend, “Keep your hat on. We may end up miles from here.”

As for your term papers, I should like them to be both cynical and religious. I want you to adore the Universe, to be easily delighted, but to be prompt as well with impatience with those artists who offend your own deep notions of what the Universe is or should be. “This above all ...”

I invite you to read the fifteen tales in Masters of the Modern Short Story (W. Havighurst, editor, 1955, Harcourt, Brace, $14.95 in paperback). Read them for pleasure and satisfaction, beginning each as though, only seven minutes before, you had swallowed two ounces of very good booze. “Except ye be as little children ...”

Then reproduce on a single sheet of clean, white paper the table of contents of the book, omitting the page numbers, and substituting for each number a grade from A to F. The grades should be childishly selfish and impudent measures of your own joy or lack of it. I don’t care what grades you give. I do insist that you like some stories better than others.

Proceed next to the hallucination that you are a minor but useful editor on a good literary magazine not connected with a university. Take three stories that please you most and three that please you least, six in all, and pretend that they have been offered for publication. Write a report on each to be submitted to a wise, respected, witty and world-weary superior.

Do not do so as an academic critic, nor as a person drunk on art, nor as a barbarian in the literary market place. Do so as a sensitive person who has a few practical hunches about how stories can succeed or fail. Praise or damn as you please, but do so rather flatly, pragmatically, with cunning attention to annoying or gratifying details. Be yourself. Be unique. Be a good editor. The Universe needs more good editors, God knows.

Since there are eighty of you, and since I do not wish to go blind or kill somebody, about twenty pages from each of you should do neatly. Do not bubble. Do not spin your wheels. Use words I know.

poloniøus

There are many things to like about this. The first is Vonnegut's warmth. The wit isn't surprising (and the "poloniøus" handle is probably a little self-deprecating humor, Vonnegut casting himself as the fool even as he urges his students, "this above all..."). Still, he seems to genuinely like his students and teaching. It'd be hard not to respond positively to that. The second thing is his explicit (and implicit) instructions to his students not to try to agree with him – he wants them to think for themselves. The third thing I love about this assignment is the "you are a minor but useful editor" bit. Vonnegut is trying to help his students learn how to revise, how to evaluate the purpose of passages and their effectiveness and necessity. This is a very practical and an important skill. ("Do not do so as an academic critic, nor as a person drunk on art…") If writing is both an art and craft, this assignment is designed to increase his students' understanding of craftsmanship. Lastly, while Vonnegut preemptively tweaks any tendency toward pretentiousness, and the assignment is extremely pragmatic, there's an irrepressible joy to the whole endeavor. It's a well-thought-out task, but he's also made it fun. He must have been a fantastic teacher. (Also, detailed grading of eighty 20 page term papers? That'll make ya swallow more than just two ounces of very good booze… and more than just good booze.) Vonnegut's other writing advice is quite good, all the more so because (true to form) he himself doesn't take it too seriously.

Billy Wilder's Advice for Screenwriters

Billy Wilder would be on every short list for greatest screenwriters ever. I always gotta root for the writers who get to direct, and he was a hell of a director, too. Wilder managed to make classics in several genres, and would get bored doing the same thing for too long. He said when he was in a good mood, he'd write a tragedy, and if he was sad, he'd write a comedy. Even some of his lesser-known scripts have extremely original or clever touches (Ball of Fire comes to mind), and he had a knack for story developments and character moments that were both unexpected and satisfying (as in Stalag 17 and Some Like It Hot, but most of all The Apartment).

In any case, from Conversations with Wilder (via Lists of Note), here's his advice for screenwriters (and writers in general).

1. The audience is fickle.

2. Grab 'em by the throat and never let 'em go.

3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.

4. Know where you're going.

5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.

7. A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever.

8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they're seeing.

9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.

10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then – that's it. Don’t hang around.

Reportedly, he also delivered one of my favorite aphorisms: "If you're going to tell people the truth, make them laugh, or they'll kill you." (I've seen it phrased a few different ways, and also attributed to Shaw, Wilde, and others, but it certainly makes sense from Wilder.) I've always been fascinated by where comedy and tragedy intersect or change places, and Wilder understood that much better than most. (I still need to see some of his films, but considering how prolific he was, that's not surprising.)

Not Writing for Power

Scott Horton recently interviewed Chinese playwright and activist Sha Yexin. One exchange particularly stuck out for me:

5. At the recent Beijing meeting on Chinese drama and literature, you said that playwrights should never forget the role of literature and the aim of writing, and that they should never write for power. Could you elaborate on that?

Why shouldn’t one write for power? Here are my reasons:

First, power corrupts. The British historian Lord Acton said: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This famous quotation has now become political common sense. Its correctness has been borne out by the intensifying corruption in China, where power is exercised without oversight or restraint. When corruption and power exist in co-prosperity, how can people fight corruption? In present-day China, anti-corruption is kept at a certain level to ensure that people will not revolt while power will not get out of control. In some districts, corrupt elements have become leaders of the anti-corruption effort. Undiscovered corrupt officials are fighting those already exposed.

Second, power makes people stupid. By using mathematical theories, the American scholar Jonathan Bendor proves the great value of independent thinking and the limitations of decision makers. When leaders are too busily occupied with myriad state affairs, institutional methods can be used to ease their cognitive constraints, by seeking wise solutions from among the people and encouraging independent thinking in government officials. But in a totalitarian country, such institutional methods do not and cannot exist.

Most power-holders in such countries are fond of dictatorship. Each of them puts forward his “ideas” and “theories” when it is his turn to rule the country, hoping to see his thought adopted as the “guideline” to unify the thinking of the whole nation. Acting in this way, they deprive themselves of the kind of wisdom and talent that are needed to solve the thorny problems facing the country. As a bunch of dumbbells, they can not help becoming an object of ridicule among the people.

Third, power brings flip-flops and hence suffering to the people. Since power has reduced the wisdom and intelligence of the power-holders and their think tanks, setbacks caused by repeated policy changes including the adoption of reactionary measures are bound to occur. Frequent ideological reversals and repeated changes in ideas and policy bring about great social instability. It becomes very difficult to attain a truly harmonious society and avoid more flip-flops in the future.

Fourth, power produces cruelty. Those who hold power can be overwhelmed by the glare of the spotlight that accompanies power. They may experience a peak period in which they feel accomplishment, happiness, or pleasure. But according to Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist, this peak period does not last long. The powerful had problems coping with the end of this period. Once they reject oversight, checks and balances that come from outside, they immediately become completely irrational and inhuman. If someone wants to share power with them or seeks to replace them with new power-holders, they become mad and cruel, and have no scruples in resort to guns, cannons, and tanks, producing huge social disasters.

If you are a writer who writes for power, objectively you are working, directly or indirectly, for corruption and stupidity, for more suffering and cruelty for the people. You may have some excuses if you are forced to write for power. If you write for power out of your own will, how can you evade your responsibility as an accomplice?

As may be easily understood, what I am speaking about is power in a totalitarian state. It is power without oversight and constraints, as compared with power born from democratic elections. Refusing to write for power also means refusing to write according to the will of those in power, or to promote their ideology in one’s writings.

One may choose to write for any other purpose: to write for art, for life, for oneself or others. But he or she must not write for power.

I haven't read any plays by Sha Yexin yet, but now I want to seek them out. There are many different reasons to write, but over here in the States it can be easy to take the freedom to write for granted. The stakes for Sha Yexin are higher.

When I briefly studied in Russia, my group was told harrowing tales of how artists of all sorts were treated in the Soviet era (The Great Terror has a good chapter on it). Some stories were absolutely heart-breaking. One of my favorite writers, Mikhail Bulgakov, was basically tormented by Stalin, despite Stalin's love of Bulgakov's play The White Guard (also known as Last Days of the Turbins). Bulgakov's masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, was passed around for years in underground samizdat copies after his death (he died at age 48 before he could fully revise the second half). Decades later, an abridged version was published, and eventually, a full version. (The German film The Lives of Others captures a similar samizdat dynamic very well.)

I'll pass on some other images. An arts patron we met temporarily renamed his restaurant "Speak Out" after the end of the Soviet Union, because it felt important to him at the time. And our lead teacher – who was more brilliant even when drunk (a rarity) then almost anyone I've ever met - showed us with his lectures and conversations that simply surviving, remembering what had actually happened in the Soviet era, and telling it to others became an act of conscience. I had a movement teacher (who used to design nuclear missile silos!) who once lived in a border town where he was able to get records of jazz and rock music, which were banned or restricted. To escape detection, he and others would set up their record players in their basements, and dance away to the music, often alone. This guy had crazy moves – he had a tall, lanky build and could move his hands and legs to different rhythms in different time signatures - and I've always loved that image of secret dancing at night in the basement.

In general, what I value the most from my time in Russia is coming to understand that many Russians have much deeper expectations for their art. I had an acting teacher who said he had mixed feelings about a new production of Chekhov's Three Sisters we saw, that it was beautifully staged, but that "it wasn't life." At first, I thought that was a bit harsh, but by the end of my stay, I understood what he was talking about. (And he was a phenomenal teacher – the best audience for a monologue you could ever hope to have, living and dying with every line. He was the Michael Chekhov expert, stressing: zydes, ceychas, civodnya - here, now, today.)

It's not as if every act of writing is political or needs to be profound, though. For instance, The Master and Margarita is quite profound, but it's also a comic novel, witty and entertaining. Use whatever metaphor or motivation for writing works for ya - Annie Dillard's "living like weasels," Natalie Goldberg's "writing down the bones," Lanford Wilson's "burn this" or something else altogether. But I appreciate Sha Yexin's great observation above about not writing for power, and it's a good one to remember. It also makes me think of one of my favorite pieces on writing, William Faulkner's Nobel speech (although it seems a crime to quote just a section). The last line below is my favorite:

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

A Toast to the Writers

Congratulations once again to the Writers' Guild on their new deal! While not perfect, it's a step in the right direction. (The Oscars made for one hell of an ace in the hole.)

But you're worried some of your Hollywood survival skills may have atrophied, you say? Never fear! We'll get you back up to speed on pitches and script notes!

Via John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey, here's Denis McGrath's new pitch, inspired by a certain Oscar nominee:

"You see, I am a TELEVISION WRITER. And I wish to speak to you today about WRITING FOR TELEVISION. There are those who will say they can craft you a pilot, and that may VERY WELL be TRUE. But can they get you to SIXTY EPISODES? Can they craft a decent ACT BREAK? Will they rely on a creaky FOUR ACT structure, or have they mastered FIVE? It is THESE QUESTIONS you must consider.

I have a six episode strike over at the former CHUM, you see. I have had meetings with executives both HIGH and LOW. You could go with someone from the Film Centre, or someone who's developed a CANADIAN FEATURE, yes, about a man having sex with his GRANDMOTHER. But only I can have the FIRST DRAFT and the BIBLE for your series by APRIL. I can do it, I can have it, and I can make it exciting, with explosions and sexual interplay. YOU can GO WITH SOMEONE ELSE, that is your right. BUT you CANNOT say that you were not PRESENTED with the option to skip all that; to just DEVELOP WITH ME.

I await your decision. I will sit here and calmly wax my mustache. Please don't mind my son, J.W. He will be stepping out momentarily to procure a SMOOTHIE.

NOW, what is for LUNCH?"

So that's pitches covered. Now let's get a quick refresher on script notes from Hollywood execs (hat tip to Ursus):



Remember, execs never, NEVER own up to a bad note.

As to the writing itself, well, you're on your own there.