It's easy to find desolation in Los Angeles, if you get up early enough. It's not a late night town.
I remember the first time I'd ever seen a coyote in person was on Hollywood Boulevard about 4:45 in the morning. It was just walking down the Walk of Fame, not a care in the world.
Getty Center IIHollywood SignSanta Monica BeachWalt Disney Concert HallPinksVenice Beach
For about 3 and a half years, between 2008 and 2019, I lived all over Los Angeles County. I've been to every location Christopher Thomas photographs in his series, Lost In L.A., but I've never seen it presented like this. Wonderful stuff and lots more behind those links.
One of the many reasons I'm so down on Toronto is just how oppressively hot it can get. I've lived in some hot places (Los Angeles, Southern Spain, Vanuatu, Cuba, the Dominican, Melbourne...), but Toronto, in my opinion, is the hottest. I don't care what the number on the thermometer reads — I care how I feel. How I sweat. What a slog it is to get from place to place as a pedestrian — and, to me, there is no worse place than Toronto in the summer. (It also has the worst traffic, but that's another post.)
Anyway, there's a great long-form piece by Sam Bloch in Places Journal about Shade.
I've been a fan of Lem Dobbs since around 1987 or '88, back when he was known throughout Hollywood for writing Edward Ford, which many consider to be the greatest unproduced screenplay of all time. That script is one of the first things I sought when I got on the internet in the early 90s.
Today, Dobbs is likely best known as the writer of The Limey. Steven Soderbergh directed the film and Terance Stamp starred in it. I believe it's not only a great "gangster picture," it's also Soderbergh's best and one of the most accurate film portrayals of memory.
If you have the chance to listen to Dobbs' commentary on The Limey DVD, I highly recommend it.
There's a notorious 90 second scene in The Limey, which you can watch here:
In the commentary, Dobbs uses this scene to highlight a problem with film critics — and perhaps the public's understanding of filmmaking in general.
Dobbs notes that the film's negative press often referred to it as "underwritten," while the positive press praised Soderbergh's "brilliant direction." Many of them cited this scene and how the camera waits outside, forcing the viewer to imagine what's happening inside while increasing the menace as Stamp's character approaches after exiting.
The irony is that the script was not underwritten. Soderbergh cut out much of what the critics wanted. Furthermore, in the screenplay, which Dobbs wrote years before Soderbergh was involved, Dobbs instructed the camera to remain outside:
Wilson is taken outside and dumped. After a moment, het gets to his feet. Dusting himself. Reaches for ANOTHER GUN tucked in his lower back. He re-enters the building.
A beat. We hear several SHOTS.
Seconds later, one of the Meat Puppets comes stumbling out of the door, terrified. He runs past us, fast.
A moment later, Wilson emerges, gun in hand.
WILSON: You tell him. You tell him I'm coming!
Dobbs took the blame for what Soderbergh changed and Soderbergh received credit for what Dobbs envisioned.
Such is the life of a Hollywood Screenwriter.
All this to alert you to this lengthy interview with Dobbs. Admittedly, not the prettiest website, but an interesting read nonetheless.
Anecdote Alert
For years, I used the name Dobbs as one of my heteronyms. Both Lem and I took the name from the same source: Humphrey Bogart's character in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. (Lem's birth name is Anton Kitaj. He is the son of painter, R. B. Kitaj.)
I have another very odd connection here. The scene in the clip above was filmed at the far end of this street in downtown Los Angeles:
To get to it (just prior to the clip), Wilson walks past the building on the left, which happens to be owned by a friend of mine. I've spent a great number of American Thanksgivings there over the years — the best dinner parties I've been to in my life have all been in that building.
On one of the first trips I took after my stroke, I ended up crashed here while my friend was out of town filming the devastation of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. Another friend of his, filmmaker Noaz Deshe, was also staying there at the same time. I have fond memories of deep discussions of film history with Noaz. What was particularly delightful is that they were the first signs that my memory wasn't completely shorted-out from the stroke — something that had been deeply troubling me. In particular, we had a mutual fondness for Miklós Jancsó's films, The Red and the Black, and Round Up (posters below). Good times.
Footnotes
If you want to read the screenplay for The Limey, you can find a PDF here.
You can also get a PDF of Lem Dobbs' celebrated, unproduced script, Edward Ford.
If you're a fan of Terance Stamp, I recommend the audiobook for one of his memoirs: The Ocean Fell Into the Drop, which is unfortunately an Audible Exclusive.
A while ago, I received a text from my friend, Nirvan Mullick, asking if I was going to be in LA soon as he was working on a film project he thought I might want to join in. "Sort of a flash mob situation." Unfortunately, I was in going to be in Toronto on the event date so wasn't able to participate.
Lo-and-behold, the film is now finished and it's lovely:
Update for A Tiny Bell :
You probably had already seen that video as it went crazy viral, inspired a movement, and resulted in this sequel:
