{"id":115614,"date":"2017-09-19T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=115614"},"modified":"2017-09-19T12:41:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T16:41:26","slug":"type-writing-interview-jim-shepard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/19\/type-writing-interview-jim-shepard\/","title":{"rendered":"Type Writing: An Interview with Jim Shepard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jim Shepard is always funny in conversation, but never more so than when he\u2019s imparting dark musings about the future of the country or about human nature in general. And he can often be found musing about these dark things, for he is, as he puts it, \u201cresourcefully pessimistic.\u201d As evidence, he cites the title of his just-released book, <\/em>The Tunnel at the End of the Light: Essays on Movies and Politics<\/a>. Many of us nursing the bitter cocktail that is the Trump administration are familiar with this sentiment, but Shepard\u2019s book has been decades in the making. There has always been something to despair about, he announces jovially: The title \u201creflects the sinking sense I\u2019ve had following American politics since the late 1960s. It\u2019s been an ongoing cycle of progressive and thoughtful people saying, Well, this is a new low, but we have something to look forward to\u2014and then hitting a new low after that.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

An award-winning, seven-time novelist and professor of English and film studies at Williams College, Shepard has studied certain iconic, influential American movies, from <\/em>Casablanca to <\/em>Goodfellas to <\/em>Schindler\u2019s List\u2014along with \u201cwhat they\u2019re selling us\u201d\u2014for clues as to why this country keeps finding itself in the soul-crushing cycle of Icarus highs and lows. They provide, he concludes, a constructive road map. He pulled his book\u2019s title from an anecdote about the 1974 noir film <\/em>Chinatown, in which scriptwriter Robert Towne told director Roman Polanski that the dark ending was like \u201cthe tunnel at the end of the light\u201d\u2014much like the circumstances contributing to the d\u00e9j\u00e0-vu political landscape Shepard sees now. He and I spoke last week about how movies both reflect and generate the circumstances that made the presidency of a creature like Donald J. Trump possible in the first place.<\/em><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

So are we doomed forever to the despair-redemption political cycle you describe? I mean, how much lower can we go?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s generated by a pretty toxic combination of late-model capitalism refracted with Americanism. And part of what The Tunnel at the End of the Light<\/em> is about is the way the myths we tell ourselves as Americans, and the things we cherish most tightly, interact so poorly with late-model capitalism. The two together create a sort of spiral that\u2019s very hard to break out of. Is it possible to get out of it? Yeah, but each time I imagine the pessimistic future, the future out-pessimists me.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Where do you see yourself on the spectrum of pessimists?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

My good friend, Elizabeth Kolbert, the climate writer for The New Yorker<\/em>, loves to come over and visit because she says that as Cassandra-ish and apocalyptic as she is, she always feels upbeat after she leaves my house because \u201cat least I\u2019m not as depressed as Jim is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

In your book, you describe a handful of films and characters that may have contributed to the cultural and political landscape that landed us in our current fraught situation. What are some of the characters or film prototypes you think have been most influential in this respect?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

The character I probably find most influential is the Sentimental Sociopath, suffused with self-pity. It operates in various forms\u2014figures like Kit and Holly in Terrence Malick\u2019s Badlands<\/em>. And the Outraged Innocent is someone like Holly Martins in The Third Man<\/em>, who just blunders around Vienna creating all sorts of havoc because his feelings are hurt and he doesn\u2019t seem to be able to get anybody to respect him. It\u2019s this wonderful model for the way Americans sort of thrash around abroad.<\/p>\n

Another one I call the Mover and Shaker\u2014he\u2019s open and ebullient in his rapacity and ruthlessness. That\u2019s the kind of figure you see disguised in a movie like The<\/em> Godfather<\/em>, but it\u2019s really exposed in a movie like Goodfellas<\/em>, where the protagonist, Henry Hill, is just delighted in being able to say, Yeah, we\u2019re badasses and we trample people\u2014but you know what? At least we get things done. He sounds like the horrifying figures who surrounded W.\u2014whether his vice president or secretary of defense\u2014who were just openly cold-blooded and gleeful about it and were lionized for being the kinds of guys who got things done. These hard-nosed realists\u2014there\u2019s a kind of pornography of state violence that Henry Kissinger helped develop and that these guys brought to greater PR fruition.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about your consideration of the Western Hero and how damaging he can be. You argue that he has some traits in common with villain and sociopath prototypes. I\u2019m especially interested in the theory that these kinds of characters contribute to the hero-worship mentality that helped create an electorate that would value or condone these qualities in a leader.<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

A Western hero embodies all sorts of fundamental paradoxes without giving it a second thought, right? Like, I\u2019m fundamentally antisocial, but I guess I\u2019m here to defend community. Or, I really don\u2019t want to employ violence, but violence is pretty much my only tool. And maybe ever more worrisomely, he models a way of being in the world, a way of acting, that\u2019s all about refusing to think about why you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

My favorite paradigm for the Western hero comes from one of the original Westerns, Owen Wister\u2019s The Virginian<\/em>. One of the famous lines from it is, \u201cA man\u2019s gotta do what a man\u2019s gotta do.\u201d And when you think about that, it\u2019s a hilariously and darkly comic circular reasoning. In the Western, you usually have reasonableness embodied by a schoolmarm or a woman who says something like, This seems crazy. Why would you want to fight nineteen guys? And the Western hero always responds with something like, I don\u2019t talk about why I do what I do. I just do it. That sense of defining yourself by action you don\u2019t need to have worked through\u2014and that action is almost always violence\u2014has gotten us into a lot of trouble in terms of the kind of figures we admire.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll notice that almost the only good press Trump has gotten was when he bombed somebody. He flattened some little area in Syria that the Syrians had said, Well, there\u2019s nothing here, but if you want to bomb it, go ahead, and he bombed it, and the American press was like, See that? There\u2019s a guy who\u2019s acting decisively. He didn\u2019t lay out a careful articulation as to why this needed to be done\u2014he just did it. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve been trained to respond to\u2014that\u2019s a good father, that\u2019s a powerful father, that\u2019s somebody we can relax with.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

But aren\u2019t these characters more cautionary than admirable? If their behavior is worry-making, why would it have the effect of helping to create an electorate that would turn around and elect someone with these qualities? It seems bizarre to me.<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

Part of the reason is that Hollywood excels at having things both ways. If you\u2019re watching a good John Wayne Western, you\u2019ll register that he had some difficult decisions to make. You do register at the end of The Searchers<\/em> that he\u2019s brought everybody together, but he\u2019s not going to be a part of it. But you\u2019ve also been emotionally prepared to think, He\u2019s the most admirable person in the world of the movie. So on one hand, attention is called to what\u2019s worrisome about these myths, and on the other hand, there\u2019s the mythmaking. Without that, of course, people wouldn\u2019t be going to movies over and over again, and John Wayne wouldn\u2019t have a cult following.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

So the allure of the Western Hero is that he\u2019s essentially the least offensive figure among various evils?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

The idea is that there\u2019s nobody who\u2019s completely untainted. There\u2019s that line in Chinatown<\/em>, when Jack Nicholson\u2019s character is asked if a certain cop is honest, and he replies, \u201cHe has to swim in the same water we all do.\u201d Nobody is all that pure. But what\u2019s interesting about American myths is that we use them to justify that unsupported violence, while also insisting on our innocence. One of the myths we absolutely refuse to let go of is the idea that we mean well.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s related to another very peculiar notion Americans have\u2014that it\u2019s an admirable thing to say you\u2019re not political. When you say that to somebody outside of America, they say, What does that even mean? And why would you brag about it? But in America, this is something we\u2019ve been taught by John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart and any number of other people\u2014that it\u2019s cool in a peculiarly American way, maybe because you seem to be suggesting a kind of brave, rugged individualism. But really, when you say you\u2019re not political, you\u2019re just saying that you have no concern for the collective.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Bogart\u2019s role as Rick Blaine in Casablanca <\/em>embodies this supposedly apolitical\u00a0stance\u2014which usually is anything but apolitical.<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

One of the most durable archetypes is what I call the Hero in Disguise. Another version is the Hero in Repose, the guy who says over and over again that he doesn\u2019t give a shit about anybody, and therefore he\u2019s not going to be any kind of hero. But we know, as an audience\u2014from about nineteen thousand cues the movie\u2019s giving us\u2014that yes, he\u2019s going to be a hero, just give him some time.<\/p>\n

The paradigm movie for that is Casablanca<\/em>. Humphrey Bogart spends the first forty-five minutes to an hour telling anybody around him that he sticks his neck out for nobody. The movie gives us a hundred examples of the fact that nobody believes him\u2014everybody thinks he\u2019s way more idealistic than he actually is. A lot of the pleasure of those movies, whether it\u2019s Bogart in Casablanca<\/em> or Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine<\/em> or Liam Neeson in Schindler\u2019s List<\/em>, is waiting for this guy who\u2019s supposed to be selfish\u2014and we get to watch him be selfish and enjoy that\u2014but we know, when the chips are down, he\u2019s going to come through for us.\u00a0That enables a certain political paralysis on Americans\u2019 parts as well. We\u2019re all waiting for our big moment before we intervene.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Is that how Americans see themselves? Do we all believe that we are Rick, that when the moment comes, that we\u2019ll do the right thing?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if we feel that actively, but I do think that one of the paradoxes we hold in our heads is, We\u2019re the sort of people that, if something truly horrible happened, we would stand up and do something about it. And then we have to juxtapose that with the fact that most of us haven\u2019t done something about it. And normally, the way we do that is we go, Oh, I guess really terrible things aren\u2019t happening. Or, I guess we haven\u2019t hit my threshold yet.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s a difficult paradox to keep in your head. You don\u2019t need much access to the news to start to figure out that\u2019s not really true. One of the things I said to my classes the morning after the election was that it would behoove everybody, at this point, to start thinking about how\u2014given that a government is now in place that is actively looking to demolish American democracy and to go after vulnerable groups\u2014to decide, What line will I say this government can\u2019t cross? At what point do I say, Now I\u2019m going to get involved? Because it seems very likely that that line\u2019s coming. You might as well know in advance. We all have the sense that we\u2019re basically good people, that we\u2019re heroes in disguise, we just don\u2019t know at what point our heroism will be triggered. That\u2019s a really nice way to justify passivity.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

As I read The Tunnel at the End of the Light<\/em>, I often wondered whether life has imitated art or vice versa? How much are these film prototypes creating an appetite for seeing their traits reflected in actual, real-life leadership?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the million-dollar question. Are movies creating it? At the very least, they\u2019re abetting it. Most people who are working in culture are simultaneously trying to exploit impulses they think people will respond to and critique, unless they\u2019re entirely seeking to slavishly provide whatever the audience wants. There\u2019s some method or impulse to think about what\u2019s happening, but it\u2019s just competing all the time with this other impulse.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

In the book, you talk about other ways movies encourage passivity, which in turn has contributed to our current political landscape. But I\u2019d argue that reality television is a far greater culprit.<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

When I say that movies have contributed to our problem by encouraging passivity, I simply mean they contributed, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t say that when you\u2019re looking at what\u2019s problematic about American culture today, let\u2019s put movies at the top of the list. Reality TV has had a much more nightmarish impact than movies.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Is there a screenplay or screenwriter that captures a notion of America for you more completely than others?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

Robert Towne\u2019s screenplay for Chinatown<\/em> is often cited as one of the best screenplays ever written, in part because it\u2019s so beautifully built. But part of it might also be the way it exposes the romanticism of what we imagine to be hard-boiled, cynical notions, like the notion of the individual private eye, the figure who thinks that by acting on his own he can transform everything, because, of course, it turns out, as the line in Chinatown<\/em> goes, \u201cYou may think you know what you\u2019re dealing with\u2014but believe me, you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Just out of curiosity, have you ever written a screenplay?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

Oh, yes. I\u2019ve probably written four or five over the years. A film called Project X<\/em> was shot this summer, and that was a screenplay of mine. I also did a screenplay with Ron Hansen based on one of my short stories, about a lonely young woman on the frontier in western New York in the early nineteenth century. That\u2019s in Casey Affleck\u2019s hands now, but the bad news is that he has a million projects going.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How do you like being on the other side?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

Screenwriting is like building a table for somebody else. That means that not only do you think, Nobody\u2019s ever going to sit at this table, but you hope anyway, against all odds, that someone does<\/em> sit there. And then, once that happens, you\u2019re thinking, Boy, I hope whoever sits at the table isn\u2019t a total asshole. That means the odds are really against you. It\u2019s a very different kind of writing than something where everything is just yours.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Would you ever write and direct?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

I would, but I don\u2019t think I have to worry about that, because no one is going to walk up and hand me three million to do this. When I was making the transition from undergraduate to graduate school, I was trying to decide between film school and an MFA program. I thought, Well, with movies, you make a lot more money. But one of the decisive things that pushed me away from film school was coming across an interview with Orson Welles. Somebody asked him, What\u2019s the one thing you wish somebody had told you? And he said, I wish somebody told me that I was going to spend eighty-seven percent of my time trying to raise money. If there\u2019s one thing on earth I\u2019m poorly suited for, it\u2019s raising money.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

If your book identifies films that serve as road maps indicating how we got into this political mess, can you cite a film that will help us get the hell out of it?<\/p>\n

SHEPARD<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure any movie that\u2019s been made so far has been prescient enough to figure out what the new strategies are going to have to be. The movies do provide a model, however, for a mode of flexibility and a mode of persistence that we\u2019re going to need. And a mode of innovation. One of the other things Americans believe about themselves is that we\u2019re endlessly resourceful. Whether fictional or not, hopefully it will serve us well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lesley M. M. Blume is the author of\u00a0<\/em>Everybody Behaves Badly<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Jim Shepard is always funny in conversation, but never more so than when he\u2019s imparting dark musings about the future of the country or about human nature in general. And he can often be found musing about these dark things, for he is, as he puts it, \u201cresourcefully pessimistic.\u201d As evidence, he cites the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":409,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[27413,14345,7324,4830,9651,30585,30594,79,30583,1219,2461,30587,30593,995,4009,19403,5180,10249,30588,81,30590,1470,30591,13679,2426,5284,59,30584,25885,11994,30589,83,11833,8782,5569,30586,30592,1346],"class_list":["post-115614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-american-democracy","tag-capitalism","tag-casablanca","tag-casey-affleck","tag-chinatown","tag-detective","tag-elizabeth-kolbert","tag-film","tag-film-school","tag-george-w-bush","tag-goodfellas","tag-henry-fonda","tag-henry-kissinger","tag-hollywood","tag-humphrey-bogart","tag-individualism","tag-jack-nicholson","tag-john-wayne","tag-liam-neeson","tag-movies","tag-my-darling-clementine","tag-orson-welles","tag-owen-wister","tag-pessimism","tag-politics","tag-private-eye","tag-reality-television","tag-robert-towne","tag-ron-hansen","tag-sam-shepard","tag-schindlers-list","tag-screenwriting","tag-syria","tag-terrence-malick","tag-the-godfather","tag-the-tunnel-at-the-end-of-the-light","tag-the-virginian","tag-westerns"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nType Writing: An Interview with Jim Shepard by Lesley M.M. 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