The James Mangold Episode

When I was in film school, we would frequently have guest artist seminars, which I believe were "mandatory." There were a number of memorable guests - Martin Landau was the best, but we also saw Melvin van Peebles, Sally Menke and this awesome dolly grip. Another time, James Mangold brought his Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line. The school is the California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, CA - Mangold is an alumnus, which I assume by some largess is how we got such a screening. CalArts almost never previewed current Hollywood films for their students - not artsy enough! Around the same time, some marketeers wanted to preview Hard Candy, an "edgy," but mediocre indie thriller starring Ellen Page, but the faculty canceled the screening on the basis of its not being good enough a film, I presume.

Typically, a guest artist for the film directing program would show a film or films and then have a Q&A.

I often find myself thinking about the Mangold screening. Prior to attending grad school, I had seen two James Mangold films, Heavy and Cop Land. I had a good opinion of him; I hadn't known about his CalArts connection before I went there. I can still recall his first film, Heavy, with its sensitive portrayal of a shy outcast, beautifully played by Pruitt Taylor Vince. Cop Land was fine and basically I thought he was a filmmaker who was slowly "going Hollywood" but had managed to hang on to a point of view and a level of quality that I respected, if not revered.

And actually, now that I think about it, it was one of our faculty, Gill Dennis, the film's writer, who hooked up the screening. I remember we filed into our cinema, the Bijou, built at the center of the art school's high modern superstructure, deep beneath the crust of the earth. Well, maybe not that deep. At the door, we had to surrender any digital acquisition devices - cameras, cell phones, bionics - that might compromise the studio's copyrights; I had none such.

I liked Walk the Line. I went in expecting just a bit less than what I got, which is always good. After all, it was a Hollywood movie, with stars - a studio-made pre-packaged hit. As such, for whatever year that was, it was a good movie. Quality product. Hollywood is what it is; if you're going to bitch and moan about everything studio - well, what's the fun in that? Studios have made great films and they still do - though WTL is not quite one of them, it's a well-made, entertaining film with bedazzling star performances and plaudits well-deserved. Me, I just feel like I'd rather see Johnny Cash in Space, in which the reincarnated Man in Black cleans up a one-speeder Martian frontier town, than a straightforward biopic, but I guess we need at least one of those, too.

At that time, as always, I was trying to do a lot of writing and struggling with it as usual. Gill Dennis was up on stage with Mangold, who was fielding a few questions after the screening. Per later analysis, our general impression of James Mangold, meaning amongst myself and my friends, was "D-Bag." Just, Hollywood douchery. But that's to be expected. Think about it - if you have success in Hollywood, it changes you. You don't necessarily realize how you come across to the Normals. You're not trying to be a D-Bag.

But, anyway, I asked him a question. The question was actually to elicit an answer from Gill, as well as Mangold. I wanted to know about the process of telling a well-known true story in terms of writing a screenplay - how do you know what to leave in, or out, or change factually to serve a dramatic necessity? My mistake was in the way I asked the question - I asked, What compromises did you have to make between the facts of Johnny Cash's real life and the dramatization of that life? I gave the question more context than that (explaining my interest in the writing process), but the key word here is compromises.

Mangold rejected that word. "We didn't make any compromises, really." He went on to talk about his and Gill's access to the Cashes, or something. The point is, he misunderstood my question in a way that really underscored the whole douchey thing, although it was my mistake - compromise was a bad choice of words. This guy was from Hollywood; they don't "compromise" there. They win. This was a shame from my perspective because I really did want to know about the practical and philosophical issues raised by writing history, biography in particular. But this guy was only interested in talking about his cock.

Just kidding, Mangold! It's cool - and the truth is, at the time, I just thought it was a funny little exchange, was bummed that I didn't get my question answered properly but accepted it. Afterward, however, a number of friends and associates came up to me and let me know how they felt about the way Mangold had failed to answer my question. In fact, all that stuff about douche bags probably came from them. What your friends say influences you. I didn't really know how to feel about the brush-off. I had very conscientiously tried to phrase my question in a neutral way. The last thing I wanted was to be seen as that asshole art school student who's trying to fuck with the Hollywood guy, which I really was not. But that's what happened.

His answer was just silly on its face - you "didn't compromise," c'mon, bullshit, life is compromise. Of course there's compromise in art sometimes, especially where commerce intersects. And in terms of my question, supposing he understood it, it's a bullshit answer, too. It's not possible to tell the entire story of a man's life. You begin editing as soon as you open your mouth. Otherwise you'd be there forever.

As an example, I have just described an episode from my own life, the one in which I briefly intersected with James Mangold, Film Director. I have forgotten many details, including the exact wording of my question, his exact response, at what point I first thought he was a douchebag, whether I thought that going in, when all of this occurred, who I was with and why, and almost everything else. Yet I keep remembering the episode. If Mangold's next announced film, "Untitled James Mangold Project," is, like it sounds, the life story of one James Mangold, will this episode be included?