The new Tom Cruise movie, Digger, is one of the biggest bombs of all time, and critics hated it too. But the director says he’s fine with that — that he wants to make polarizing art, because it means he’s taking chances.
“I prefer that to the lukewarm reception,” he said recently.
This is actually a fairly common response when an arthouse director releases a massive stinker. Ari Aster said it about Eddington, Darren Aronofsky said it about mother!, and Lars von Trier said it about Antichrist, The Idiots.
But it also has me thinking about my own work as a writer — and how I think all writers should approach their projects:
Should we swing for the fences — or play it safe?
At first blush, the answer is easy. We should all absolutely swing for the fences, right?
After all, so many “great” movies are remembered precisely because their screenplays took big chances — and as a result, the movies often ended up literally changing cinema.
In fact, watching some of these movies now — like, say, The Graduate, Star Wars, or The Matrix — it can be hard to see how truly groundbreaking they were because they so thoroughly changed the movies that followed.
And think of all the novelists who initially saw nothing but rejection, but stuck with their risky, swing-for-the-fences visions and ended up finding massive, genre-defining successes: Frank Herbert! Octavia E. Butler! Madeleine L’Engle!
J.R.R. Tolkien, for God’s sake.
I also hate derivative storytelling. I just threw the Emma Straub novel This Time Tomorrow aside in disgust because it turned out to be the story of a woman turning forty who’s frustrated with her life — and is then magically sent back to the time when she was sixteen.
Seriously? What’s the point of telling a story I’ve already heard a hundred times before?
On the other hand, another pet peeve of mine is self-indulgent or pretentious writing. Speaking of the film director Ari Aster, I can’t remember hating a movie more than his second film, Midsommar, which I found painfully artsy — but also utterly ridiculous.
Florence Pugh is ultimately happy to kill and eat her boyfriend because he’s kind of a jerk to her earlier in the movie? Huh?
For the love of God, Ari Aster, please stop swinging for the fences!
Honestly, I think I prefer watching or reading a solidly-executed-if-not-exactly-revolutionary project over a self-indulgent piece of crap.
In fact, many of my favorite projects are exactly that: books like Robert Silverberg’s Lord Valentine’s Castle and movies like The Silence of the Lambs and The Purple Rose of Cairo.
I might even have tolerated the plot of that Emma Straub novel if it had been better written.
So does this mean I think writers should “play it safe”? Or at least occasionally ask themselves questions like, “Is this story of mine really landing?” Or, “Is my vision, well, stupid?”
Or do I think it’s better for writers to at least try something different, even if they might fail? After all, the artistic process is all about striving for perfection even when you know you’ll never truly reach it, right? If you’re not swinging for the fences, are you even making art?
In the end, maybe the answer is: do a bit of both.
Yes, swing for the fences. In fact, reach for the Goddamn stars! Art is literally all about self-expression, so hold fast to even the craziest of visions, at least if it’s a reflection of who you are.
Plus, the world already has a lot of books and movies, so if you’re going to add to the number, why not try hard to make it something that no one’s done before, at least on some level?
But then “play it safe” by nailing that sucker down. Sit with the story. Solicit criticism — the more ruthless, the better — and be open to that criticism.
Art is also about communication, so do the work to make sure you’re really communicating and not just talking to yourself and your three English-major friends. Even arthouse movies and literary novels need some structure — and more importantly, they need to make emotional sense.
There are no easy answers or certainties in art — no one knows anything, it always depends, and timing is everything.
But that’s okay. After all, that’s why it’s called an “art” and not a science.
Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my other newsletter about my travels at BrentAndMichaelAreGoingPlaces.com. And order my latest book below.
Well said...written...my friend. That's the dilemma in a nutsack, er, shell. We've always gotta be willing to take the chance that that mighty swing for the fence will leave us forlorn in Mudville.