Compiled one year after Kurosawa’s death in 1998, at the age of 88, Long Take contextualizes Akira Kurosawa through the literature and films that inspired him, from Kabuki to Surrealism to Russian fiction to Hollywood. It will be available to English readers for the first time through a new translation by Anne McKnight, associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature at the University of California, Riverside, being published by the University of Minnesota Press. 

One highlight of the book is a section entitled The List, compiled by Akira Kurosawa’s daughter, Kazuko, from conversations with him about 100 of his favorite films. In the following excerpt, we share the first 20 of those films, listed by order of release, not in order of preference, and Kurosawa’s comments about them. It is translated by Anne McKnight—M.M.

The First 20 of Akira Kurosawa's 100 Favorite Films

1. Broken Blossoms; directed by D. W. Griffith, 1919, USA

Lillian Gish plays a girl who’s very proper—wide-eyed and neatly dressed. Her sister was Dorothy Gish, who was a bit more sensual, while Lillian was a little naive. It was excruciating to watch her character suffering at the hands of her father. I saw her again in The Whales of August, and you can tell she hasn’t changed a bit. She’s now the age of a grandmother, and I was surprised that she’s aged so gracefully.

2. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene, 1920, Germany

This is a signature work of German Expressionism, but it still holds up today. You know the look of Expressionist drawings? The whole set is constructed in that aesthetic. There are so many things to learn from those earlier works, you know.

3. Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, directed by Fritz Lang, 1922, Germany

I saw this one as a child, back when Tokugawa Musei was the benshi. My brother dragged me along because he was a benshi too; it was really fun. With that sinister Mabuse as the master of disguises. I saw Abel Gance’s La Roue (The Wheel, 1923) around that time. I remember so vividly the flashback scene with the runaway train; that was really something.

4. The Gold Rush, directed by Charles Chaplin, 1925, USA

Chaplin really had talent as an actor, and comedy is the hardest of all. Making people cry is easy. He also had talent as a director and was really well versed in music; he had so many talents he hardly knew what to do with them all. I think Beat Takeshi is a lot like that.

5. The Fall of the House of Usher, directed by Jean Epstein, 1928, France

Even though it’s a silent and is composed purely of images, you have the illusion of hearing the sound. That use of the image has some amazing expressive powers. Every time I start shooting a film, I make a point of asking myself what it would be like if I shot it as a silent.

6. Un Chien Andalou, directed by Luis Buñuel, 1928, France

It’s shocking — that scene near the beginning where the woman’s eyeball suddenly appears on the screen and the razor slashes across it. Dalí’s scenario is transposed to the screen so vividly, with the shots connected in that random-seeming way you have in a dream. When I was shooting Rashomon it helped me a lot to think back to those techniques of Surrealism.

7. Morocco, directed by Josef Von Sternberg, 1930, USA

Truly a moving picture worth the name. It was made on a very low budget, but it’s really well done—especially the shifts in camera position and the textures of light and shadow that work so atmospherically. I was really impressed by this film.

8. Congress Dances, directed by Erik Charell, 1931, Germany

This is the first movie that used the technique of playback, matching the songs to prerecorded sound. This is a real masterpiece, an operetta. Its songs move in and out of the story, working to develop the characters, and the flow of the camera is just fantastic. I watched it again, and as you’d expect, I thought about the many, many things we should learn from these old films.

9. Threepenny Opera, directed by G. W. Pabst, 1931, Germany

I’ve often thought I’d like to do a remake of Threepenny Opera. Many people have taken a turn at their own versions, but I think Pabst’s is by far the best of the bunch. It’s really a great piece of work.

10. Unfinished Symphony, directed by Willi Forst and Anthony Asquith, 1934, Austria/England

This is such an elegant work; I really like it a lot. It uses Schubert’s music very well and folds it beautifully into the overall drama of how the symphony was left “unfinished,” with only two movements.

11. The Thin Man, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, 1934, USA

Van Dyke was renowned for his action films, so the tempo is really good. It’s based on a Dashiell Hammett novel, and the detective couple and their pet dog were really popular. It turned into a series, but the first one was really the most entertaining.

12. Our Neighbor Miss Yae, directed by Shimazu Yasujiro, 1934, Japan

He was nicknamed Old Man Shimazu, since he had risen through the ranks to make it to director. He paid his dues as an assistant director, and like John Ford or William Wyler, who made their way through the studio system, his works were really in a class by themselves. He was — how can I put it? — a true old-school movie person.

13. The Million Ryo Pot, directed by Yamanaka Sadao, 1935, Japan

Even back when he was an assistant director, Yamanaka was really mild-mannered; he always seemed to be a little in his own world, very subdued. But when he got to be a director, all of a sudden he became quite eloquent; he had a lot of talent. It was such a blow to Japanese cinema when he died much too young. On top of that, the studios haven’t preserved any of his films, which really makes me mad. What the hell are they thinking?

14. Capricious Young Man, directed by Itami Mansaku, 1936, Japan

This work of Itami’s feels especially fresh. He experimented with a lot of different things in this film; it’s a lot of fun to watch. Itami-san always spoke really well of my work, [and] he gave me a lot of good advice; I feel really lucky.

15. The Grand Illusion, directed by Jean Renoir, 1937, France

This film stars Eric von Stroheim, who directed and starred in Foolish Wives; the film overall is amazing, and so is Stroheim. I was lucky enough to meet Renoir when I visited Paris. He’s by far senior to me, so I was surprised when he spoke to me in such honorifics when we met. When we pulled away in the car, I was touched that he watched and waved until we turned the corner.

16. Stella Dallas, directed by King Vidor, 1937, USA

Barbara Stanwyck is famous for this role, which dramatizes that a woman is strong, and a mother will do anything for the sake of her child. I got all choked up at the last scene. The singer Bette Midler played the same role in a remake, and it was also quite a good performance; quite a fine film.

17. The School for Spelling, directed by Yamamoto Kajirō, 1938, Japan

Yamakaji-san was such a good teacher to me. It was really busy on the set, and Yama-san had me doing all kinds of things, and it was work, work, work all the time. Later his wife told me, “He was really happy,” because he said “now Kurosawa is capable of anything.” It’s true, I realized: Yama-san taught me each of these things, from editing to scriptwriting, costumes, and props on up. Now I realize all that running around has paid off, and I’m so grateful.

18. Earth, directed by Uchida Tomu, 1939, Japan

Uchida Tomu had quite an incredible career. I think he was even homeless for a while. He was also an actor, and kind of an eccentric; I think he worked as assistant director for someone who had worked in Hollywood. His big-budget films are good, but I really like his early ones like Unending Advance. Unfortunately, a lot of his films are gone. I really wish they would think of some kind of film preservation law in Japan.

19. Ninotchka, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1939, USA

This is quite a sophisticated work. Garbo stars in a part that’s different from her usual role. I was surprised she was so good at comedy. Then again, it was Billy Wilder who did the screenplay, so it’s no wonder the dialogue is so good. Lubitsch has been working since the silent era and made a lot of musicals, cine-operetta films; he is an amazingly talented man.

20. Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, 1944-46, Soviet Union

Henri Langlois submitted my Rashomon to the Venice Film Festival, so I’m forever in his debt.  He told me I better take a look at how Eisenstein used color in the banquet scene of Ivan the Terrible. He also told me I better start working in color, and it’s true, when I saw it, I was bowled over. I started playing with color in Dodes’ka-den, and from Kagemusha on I used it for real. By that time, Langlois had died, and when I said I would have loved to have shown Kagemusha to him, William Wyler’s wife said, “Surely he’s arrived at Cannes (from heaven), and he’s watching alongside us.” Until that moment I’d always hated film festivals, but from then on, I made a habit of going to Cannes.

Long Take will be released February 3rd, from the University of Minnesota Press.

Excerpt reprinted from Long Take by Akira Kurosawa; translated by Anne McKnight. Forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. Copyright 2025 by McKnight. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Originally published in Japanese in Akira Kurosawa, Yume wa tensai de aru (Dreams are forms of genius), edited by Bungeishunjū Ltd. Copyright Kurosawa Production, K&K Bros., Bungeishunjū Ltd., 1999. All rights reserved.

Main image: Akira Kurosawa in Kinema Junpo, Special December 1960 issue. Via Wikimedia Commons.

This article first appeared in the fall 2025 issue of MovieMaker.

Director William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning 1973 blockbuster The Exorcist would influence many of the young horror auteurs who emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s. M. Night Shyamalan was one future filmmaker who would never forget seeing Max von Sydow’s Father Merrin attempt to save the soul of Linda Blair’s Regan at an impressionable age.

“We went to my uncle and aunt’s who had HBO and that’s where I saw The Exorcist for the first time as a kid,” says the Sixth Sense director. “Slept with my parents for one month, dude. One month, I would not leave their room. I’m still traumatized from that experience a bit.”

Friedkin’s original movie failed to inspire similarly successful sequels. Director John Boorman’s 1977 film Exorcist II: The Heretic was an infamous disaster that Friedkin would describe as “the worst piece of s--- I’ve ever seen” during a 2019 appearance on The Movies That Made Me podcast.

In the late ’80s, William Peter Blatty, author of the original novel The Exorcist, teamed with the newly founded Morgan Creek Entertainment and directed The Exorcist III. Released in August 1990, Blatty’s movie performed modestly at the box office.

In 1997, Morgan Creek began developing a prequel to Friedkin’s film, which would feature a younger version of Father Merrin. The company hired Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver and director of the 1982 horror film Cat People, to oversee the movie. Schrader cast Stellan Skarsgård as Merrin and began shooting the $38 million-budgeted film in November 2002.

When Morgan Creek president James G. Robinson was dissatisfied with the result, the company employed Deep Blue Sea filmmaker Renny Harlin to take over the prequel. Harlin retained Skarsgård in the lead role but shot an almost completely new film, doubling the budget of the whole project to more than $75 million.

The director’s film, Exorcist: The Beginning, was released in the U.S. in August 2004, and grossed $48 million at the domestic box office, a slight return given the cost of the enterprise. Schrader’s original version, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, would be completed and put out the following year, to improved reviews but very little financial return.

The exorcism subgenre was revitalized by 2005’s Screen Gems-distributed The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The film was directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson, who grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. Derrickson started making Super 8 films with the camera of his car dealer father and at Halloween constructed haunted houses in the basement of his home.

“I used to bring the neighborhood kids around and charge them to go through my basement of scary things,” he says.

At the age of 17, Derrickson moved to California, attending the Christian college Biola and then USC film school, where he first saw Italian director Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic Suspiria. “I grew up on slasher movies and then I saw Suspiria,” he says. “I didn’t know horror could be so operatic and such high art. From that point on, I devoured everything.”

Derrickson and another USC graduate, Paul Harris Boardman, successfully pitched to write the screenplay for 2000’s Urban Legends: Final Cut. The pair were also among the clutch of screenwriters who worked on the script for Dimension’s Patrick Lussier-directed Dracula 2000.

In a 2017 message on social media, Derrickson recalled that Bob Weinstein told him that the movie “needs a rewrite. Shoots in two weeks. It’s called Dracula 2000. It’s terrible. But I’m making it anyway.” According to Derrickson, when he asked the Dimension chief why he was making the film if the script was terrible, Weinstein replied, “Because it’s called Dracula 2000.”

In August 1999, Variety reported that Dimension had signed Derrickson and Boardman to a three-picture deal. The principal fruit of that pact was 2000’s straight-to-video Hellraiser: Inferno, the fifth entry in the Clive Barker-created franchise. Written by Derrickson and Boardman and directed by Derrickson, the film starred Craig Sheffer as a corrupt cop whose investigation of a murder leads him to the hellish realm of Doug Bradley’s Pinhead.

“My reach [exceeded] my grasp,” says Derrickson of the film, which he made for just $2 million. “The budget that I had for that movie didn’t fit the script, that’s for sure. But I also had a lot to learn about how to make something scary.”

How The Exorcism of Emily Rose Broke Through, 20 Years Ago

Over the next half-decade, Derrickson and Boardman worked on a slew of scripts, nearly all of which would remain unproduced. Among the screenplays the pair wrote during this period was the first draft of what would become 2014’s Derrickson-directed Deliver Us from Evil, starring Eric Bana and Joel McHale.

Their script was based on the 2001 non-fiction book Beware the Night, which detailed the career of NYPD officer and paranormal investigator Ralph Sarchie. When Derrickson visited New York to meet with Sarchie, the cop recommended that he read another book called The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel. “He said, ‘It’s the most well-documented case of demonic possession I’ve ever read,’” the director remembers.

Written by anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman, The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel documented the case of a young German woman who underwent 67 exorcisms in the year prior to her death from malnutrition in 1976. After Michel’s passing, her parents and two priests were put on trial and convicted of negligent homicide. Derrickson was electrified by the story.

The director believed that an adaptation of Goodman’s book could satisfy his desire to make movies with spiritual themes and refresh the exorcism movie by marrying the subgenre with that of the courtroom drama. “I contacted the author, and I optioned it for $100, and then I wrote the script on spec, and that became The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” says Derrickson.

The filmmaker was inspired not just by Goodman’s book but by audio recordings of Anneliese Michel which the author sent him. “She became friends with the two priests, who gave her all the recordings of these exorcisms,” he says. “There were something like 30 audio cassettes. She gave them to me, and I listened through all of them. Absolutely horrifying. They are truly the stuff of nightmares.”

Derrickson and Boardman’s screenplay relocated the events to America and related the story of Emily Rose in flashback from the perspective of different characters, a structure inspired by the work of Derrickson’s cinematic hero, Rashomon filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

The script proved a tough sell, thanks to the poor box office track record of The Exorcist franchise in the decades since Friedkin’s film. “I took it around town, and everybody passed on it,” says Derrickson. The director did not approach Screen Gems, believing the studio would be unlikely to take on the project. “Sony’s Screen Gems was a new company,” he says. “They had made the first Underworld, [but] they hadn’t made much.”

Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper got his hands on a copy of the screenplay and reacted with extreme positivity. “I get a call on Monday morning that says, ‘Screen Gems is going to make your movie,’” recalls Derrickson “I’m like, ‘What?! I haven’t even met with them. What are you talking about?’ I’m always going to be grateful to Clint for having the vision to see what that movie could be.”

Derrickson cast Tom Wilkinson as a priest who is put on trial for his involvement in the death of Emily Rose and Laura Linney as the lawyer of Wilkinson’s character. Linney had acted alongside a relatively unknown actress named Jennifer Carpenter in a 2002 Broadway production of The Crucible and suggested that the director look at her for the part of Emily Rose.

In her audition, Carpenter genuinely unnerved Derrickson with her performance of a possessed person. “Jennifer came into the room and, just in front of us, did the kind of things that she does in the movie,” the director says. “I remember watching her in this psychotic state that she seemed to be in, and the way she moved her body, and the sounds she was making. I got frightened, it felt so alien and unhinged.”

Carpenter’s audition prompted Derrickson to reassess his approach to the film.

“I thought to myself, okay, not only am I going to cast her, but I’m going to cut almost all the visual effects,” he says. “This is what’s scary, this person’s performance right here. I realized, this is how you get around The Exorcist. You can’t go over The Exorcist, you’ll never conquer that movie, but you can go under it! That, to me, was the idea, making the terror the result of this naturalistic performance, and that’s how the movie worked.”

Released in the U.S. on September 9, 2005, The Exorcism of Emily Rose comfortably won its opening weekend with a gross of $30 million. The film would go on to amass worldwide earnings of $145 million.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose proved to be the rare original horror blockbuster that did not beget a sequel, with Derrickson moving on to direct 2008’s Keanu Reeves-starring remake of the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.

But the success of the film helped usher in an onslaught of similar tales, including 2006’s An American Haunting, 2009’s The Haunting in Connecticut, 2010’s Eli Roth-produced The Last Exorcism, and 2011’s Anthony Hopkins-starring The Rite.

“No one had really made a successful exorcism movie since The Exorcist, and [our] movie relaunched the possession and exorcism genre,” says Derrickson. “I’m very proud of that fact.”

Screaming and Conjuring: The Resurrection and Unstoppable Rise of the Modern Horror Movie, is now available from 1984 Publishing.

The winner of two Oscars, for 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters and 1999’s The Cider House Rules, Caine cemented his place in cinematic history with films including Zulu, Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter and A Bridge Too Far. But he appealed to a new generation of film fans in Christopher Nolan’s first blockbuster, Batman Begins, released 20 years ago this coming June. 

Billed only behind Christian Bale, who played Batman/Bruce Wayne, Caine played the beloved Wayne family butler, Alfred Pennyworth — who of course was always more than a butler. As Bruce’s emergency medic, de facto therapist, father figure and co-conspirator, Alfred is a dry, brilliant tactician with an unlikely sense of whimsy. A perfect role for Michael Caine. It was the start of a long relationship with Nolan that has also included roles in the director’s The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet. 

In this excerpt from Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over, published by Mobius, part of Hachette Book Group, Caine muses on the importance of being Alfred, his memories of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and what Nolan really wants.—M.M.

Matthew d’ANcona: How did you prepare for the role of Alfred Pennyworth?

Michael Caine: The English butler is a familiar figure in fiction and movies. You can play him as a Jeeves, if you like, very refined and superior. Everyone remembers John Gielgud in Arthur (1981). But I thought, in this narrative setting, Alfred needed to be very tough indeed – he was Bruce Wayne’s protector and his mentor, but also his ally. 

You had to believe that he would go along with this incredibly dangerous secret life that Bruce had decided upon. Remember, this version of the Batman story is not cartoonish at all. It has wit and humor, of course, but the dark side and the pain are real. So Alfred’s involvement in Bruce’s secret work has to be credible. 

I gave him the backstory of an SAS sergeant, who’s been injured and run the mess – that’s how the Wayne family came to employ him as a butler. He cares deeply about Bruce and wants him to be happy, but there’s no question that he’s a trained killer too. He has the ambivalence of a father who knows that his adopted son has a mission in life that is also full of deadly risk.

Also Read: The Best Superhero Movies Ever Made, Ranked

Matthew d’Ancona: Does he speak for the audience too? 

Michael Caine: Yes, this was a deliberate strategy that Chris and I worked up. Alfred is Bruce’s moral compass and also the voice of the audience saying, “Hold on, what are you doing now?” The Tim Burton Batman movies had been quite surreal and larger than life, but Chris’s version required people to believe in what they were seeing. 

That’s why Bruce’s training with the League of Shadows has to be so hard – you understand how this rich orphan was taught to be such a lethal vigilante. And, later in the story, Alfred is up to his eyes in it all, even if a big part of him just wants Bruce to let go of the quest for revenge for his parents’ death and to have a happy life. He understands that this young man is going to have to make Gotham safe, at least in his own eyes, and defeat all the villains before he can even think of that. 

Michael Caine on Memories of Heath Ledger and Working With Christopher Nolan

Matthew d’Ancona: So Alfred is emotionally invested in the whole story? 

Michael Caine:Yes, and you see that most poignantly in the third movie in the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises (2012), when he thinks he’s failed Bruce and his parents. He breaks down with the emotion of it all. He’s tough but full of heart. Which made him a really interesting character to play across three big movies. 

Matthew d’Ancona: Did you enjoy working with Heath Ledger? 

Michael Caine: Yes, he was a lovely guy, very gentle and unassuming. I wondered how he was going to play the Joker, especially as Jack Nicholson’s take had been so iconic. Brilliantly, Heath ramped up the character’s psychotic side rather than going for one-liners. His Joker was deeply, deeply warped and damaged, though you never find out exactly why, or what he’s really looking for. As Alfred says to Bruce, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” And that was Heath’s version of the character: the smeared make-up, the weird hair, the strange voice. It was chilling. Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action – I was terrified!

Matthew d’Ancona: It was a total contrast to Heath Ledger’s personality in real life, though? 

Michael Caine: Chalk and cheese. He and Christian were good friends and always having fun together. And then he was transformed into this scheming monster, driving a whole city towards mayhem. Looking back, I think Heath’s excellence made all of us raise our game. The psychological battle between the Joker and Batman is completely riveting. Are they in any way the same? What nudges one man to do good, and the other to do evil? The Joker wants to torment Bruce by convincing him that they’re two of a kind. 

Matthew d’Ancona: It must have been a terrible shock when he died. 

Michael Caine:It was absolutely awful, it still makes me sad to think of it, more than 15 years on. An accidental overdose, just tragic. Heath was only 28 when he passed away. I hadn’t even made Zulu when I was that age. You think of what he might have gone on to achieve, it’s just heart-breaking. We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for The Dark Knight that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death.

I was so pleased when he was awarded the posthumous Oscar, because it must have been at least some sort of comfort for his poor family. The truth is, we’d all hoped he would win an Academy Award and thought he should, even while we were still filming the movie. So it was just a very sad thing that he wasn’t around to accept it in person. It’s a performance for the ages, and even though his career was cut short so soon, he’ll be remembered as a great actor, I believe.

Matthew d’Ancona: And you made The Prestige (2006) with Nolan between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight? 

Michael Caine:Yes, that’s one of my favorites. It’s about these two magicians in 1890s London – Robert Angier, played by Hugh Jackman, and Christian as Alfred Borden. I played John Cutter, who’s a stage engineer working with both men. It was great to work with Hugh, who I think is a fantastic actor and can do anything. Multi-talented barely covers it! And Scarlett Johansson was in it as well, who is great fun and a superb actor. Plus David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, very reserved and formal in this role. 

Again, classic Chris, bringing together a first-rate cast as the basis of everything else. The Prestige, which Chris co-wrote with his brother Jonathan – or Jonah, as he is called – is all about sleight of hand, and you do a lot of double-takes the first time you watch the movie. The rivalry between the two magicians is presented to you inside this puzzle box. Lots of mind games, and Chris’s fascination with science is in there, too. There’s this whole idea of showmanship and technique, and which matters more. Which is a very important question for any storyteller, whether it’s a conjuror, director or actor.

Matthew d’Ancona: Does Nolan deliberately set out to do complicated movies? 

Michael Caine: Yes and no. People often ask me about what this or that movie of his is about, and I say, “It’s about two hours.” He loves to intrigue the audience and make them think. It’s a positive feature of his films – this love of pushing you to work out what the story is saying. Sometimes it’s deliberately ambiguous, and the viewer is left to make up their own minds. Other times there is an answer to the riddle. The breadcrumbs are there, if you care to look.

Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over: My Guide to Life is on sale March 25 from Mobius. 

Main image: Michael as Alfred Pennyworth in The Dark Knight. Warner Bros.

People often say to me, “I have a great idea for a documentary.” 

My first thought is always: Yeah, but is it worth two years of your life? 

They usually disappear when I reply, “That is a good idea. Can you put up two-hundred thousand dollars?” They are quick to spend your time and money, but not their own. 

I’ve had a bit of luck talking investors out of their money. It helps if you clean up and put on a nice shirt and don’t make sideways, darting glances. Nobody invests in shifty people. Many “committed” investors talk a big game and then back out when it comes time to write a check. It’s a numbers game. A filmmaker has to be prepared to talk to a lot of rich folks. They’ve got plenty of money, and there’s no reason they can’t wager some on an exciting investment such as your movie. If you have that can’t-miss idea in your head and want to see a documentary get made, I’ll tell you what I would do.

Keep It Engaging

Consider the business aspect of your project. If you don’t pick a subject with wide appeal, you probably won’t get paid for the next year(s) of work. You might be making a glorified home movie—which is fine, if that’s your goal.

There are exceptions, such as Sherman’s March (1986), a film that wildly exceeded its limitations. It begins as a Civil War documentary but subverts viewer expectations as it metamorphoses into a personal character study of the filmmaker’s personal dating history and mental state. Britney vs Spears (2021)is an example of picking a topic with an obvious built-in core group. No matter what happens, with a famous subject, you know there is an interested audience.

First, choose a subject you like that will entertain and engage you. Your film will only inspire people if it inspires you first. Big laughs may not be what audiences expected when they selected my film Trekkies, a documentary about Star Trek fans. But audiences like being surprised. You can’t show them what they’ve seen before. Even serious documentaries have funny moments, because real life is like that. 

Write a Proposal

Don’t pitch until you have figured out your film’s story, because story is what sells. My first step is to write a one-page synopsis, beginning with a logline — one or two sentences that concisely explain the entire story. Use bold and colorful descriptions. Describe the protagonists, goals, obstacles, antagonists, climax and ending. When any of these elements are missing, such as in a concept documentary, you may have to rely entirely upon a killer theme and a captivating core question that you will answer. 

Keep it short. You need to excite people right away. If development and acquisition executives can’t quickly grasp the conflict and main characters, they can’t pitch it to their bosses. And a marketing department will struggle with how to sell it. 

Investors and buyers don’t know what they want until you tell them. They are rooting for your pitch to succeed, because they want to get excited by a fantastic idea. They hope you will convince them because it ends their search. Approach with confidence, as if you are doing them a favor. You are going to fill their pockets with money and make them a part of something special.

Create a Pitch Deck

A pitch deck (aka lookbook) is a visual presentation that lays out essential information about your project, supported by enticing photos. Look at pitch decks from other projects. Yours can be a digital presentation using PowerPoint or InDesign, a pdf, or a glossy printed book to page through during a meeting. It can be anywhere from eight to 80 pages. It will answer the questions anyone interested in the film will ask. Include a title page, a logline, a page with a longer description, and a section with the characters. 

If you’re pitching a series, break it down episode by episode. Present all the big moments, and perhaps a timeline. If it’s a vérité documentary, build up the colorful characters and scenes you plan to capture.

List similar, successful documentaries. How much money did these comps make? Who is salivating for your topic? Who will be your big interviews? How big is their (and your) social media following? 

For investors, add up budget versus potential revenue streams, and show your investors a healthy share of the returns. A typical profit split is 50/50, with half the net income going to the investors and half to the filmmakers. 

Prepare a Budget

Somewhere in your proposal is the bottom line — your financial ask. Think about everything you need to accomplish your goals and add it up. 

There are three budgets you could work with: the core budget, the total production budget, and the investor (or buyer) budget. The core budget contains the lean-and-mean hard costs. What unavoidable expenditures will it take to finish? You may be able to persuade the crew to work for free (or deferred salaries). But there are expenses you can’t avoid, such as equipment purchases, hard drives, travel costs, and film festival submission fees. Even if you put a film on credit cards, you still owe that money. 

As different as all my documentaries were, their basic hard costs (not including deferments) were similar, between $120,000 and $145,000. Maybe you can do it for less if you own a camera, mics, a computer for editing, and if there is no travel involved. (But be sure to budget for purchasing copies of my book for your entire crew.)

Though Trekkies cost $120,000 in hard cash, the total budget was $505,937 when all deferments were paid. When you add to your core budget what it will cost once you pay off deferments, plus any other financial promises, you will have your total production budget. You won’t be in “profit” until you pay off all your obligations. Include your own deferment.

One downside to crew deferments is that you usually have to promise larger amounts than their normal salary when a crew agrees to this gamble. When negotiating deferments, remember to treat them like real money. As easy as it is to be generous with money that doesn’t yet exist, the goal is to have that money in the bank someday.

A deferment is different from a profit share. Never give anybody a share of profits (aka back-end points) if it can be avoided. Otherwise, when you have a successful film, you will be married to these partners for life. Filmmaker Les Blank once advised me, “Be sure to cap it off.” When Blank made The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1968), he owed Hopkins a share of royalties forever. He said, “I gave him a percentage. The guy’s been dead for years, and I’m still paying his wife.” 

Most films never get into profit and deferments are never paid, so the number that matters most is hard costs. However, contracts and paperwork are ready for when you do hit the jackpot. With a film that takes off, you are in the rarified position of paying everybody and putting smiles on their faces. If you don’t have contracts in place ahead of time, you will likely experience the worst buzzkill of your life (and accompanying lawsuits) when everybody disagrees on what they deserve.

When I approach investors (or networks/platforms), I provide them with budget No. 3, the investor budget, which adds appropriate salaries for the above-the-line director and producers, a built-in profit for the production company, and contingencies. A feature-length documentary budget for cable or a streaming platform normally ranges between $750,000 and $1 million. It can be much more if the film has a large crew and lots of research and effects. How do I justify asking for $1 million? Because if I am going to spend a year (or more) of my life dedicated to finishing a film, I need to be appropriately compensated with a full-year salary. 

Film agent Glen Reynolds says most documentaries he sees are in the $200,000 to $400,000 budget range, and “to go beyond that is pretty gutsy. If you convince someone to give you $1 million to make a documentary, you’re probably someone who’s made two or three movies in that budget range that worked before. Maybe you have workshopped it at the Sundance Lab so you have a certain percentage chance of being in Sundance next year.”

When your first documentary hits the jackpot, and you get offers to move up to the big leagues, budgets rise. The five-episode series The Comedy Store (2020) cost about $1 million per episode. The Last Dance (2020) cost closer to $2 million per episode. The eleven-part BBC series Planet Earth (2006) advertised a production budget of $25 million, or $2.27 million per episode. That project took five years, with 2,000 shoot days and over 200 locations. The more you shoot, the more it becomes about media management. Everything starts to balloon. More cameras, more operators, more editors, more assistant editors, more storage, everything is multiplying. 

When budgeting a documentary for cable or a streamer, categories are calculated in percentages. Whatever the budget, 30 percent comes off the top for the above-the-line recipients: production company, producers, director, star talent, and sometimes a writer. Everybody else is below-the-line, from cinematographer to office staff to editor. Shooting gets 20 percent. Post production, clip licensing, and music (whether composer or library) are 40 percent. Licensed songs would be separate. An edit burn rate of $10,000 per week is not unusual. Depending on the quantity of clips and archival footage, licensing could be huge, or it could be zero. The last 10 percent goes to office, legal, and miscellaneous. 

Edit a Sizzle Reel

Now that you have your budget and pitch deck, start shooting. Don’t wait for somebody to validate your idea. You will validate it by making it real. Create a sizzle reel, a visual sample of your idea edited together from footage you’ve shot, stock footage, photos, animation, graphics, or clips borrowed from other movies and YouTube. Make it dynamic. With some initial footage, you can create a visual sample of your terrific idea. If you don’t have any footage, you can create a “mood reel,” made entirely from borrowed footage, cut together to present a feeling of what your project will be like.

Set Up Pitches

Never speak as if you will make your film – you are making the film. When you talk about it, call it a project, not a pitch. Sometimes, you have to start filming, and as you work toward your goals, others will join because people like getting on board a project already in motion. Plus, you will get a sense after your first interview if your idea is a winner. When you feel it, you can sell it. 

Marina Zenovich, director of 2008’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, says: “If you have a great story, with compelling characters, with access, something no one else is doing, you can probably sell it.”

Also Read: Starring Jerry As Himself Director and Producer on Bringing Jerry’s Long-Held Dreams to Life

Don’t hit up your funding sources before you are ready. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Wait until you can answer every question: story, profilees, budget, marketing, and distribution. Then you are ready to approach funding sources: streamers, networks, production companies, investors, foundations, dentists, friends, parents, corporations, grants, and charities. If you are represented by an agency or production company, they will set up meetings.

Executives don’t get fired for saying no; they get fired for saying yes to the wrong thing. 

How to Make a Documentary: Ken Burns, Rachel Grady, Davis Guggenheim, Sam Pollard and Michael Tollin on Pitching

Ken Burns advises: “Underwriters have to feel confidence in your sincerity. Given my reputation, I suppose I could walk into a streaming service or a premium cable and get what I need to make a $30 million ten-part series. But they wouldn’t give me ten and a half years, which was what it took to make The Vietnam War. They would have wanted it in two to three years.” At the beginning of that series, Burns credits and thanks nine foundations and 14 other entities and individuals for contributing funding. Burns needs the ability to change direction, as he continually researches, so he utilizes grants and the public broadcasting model to avoid “intercession by the so-called suits.”

Rachel Grady, director of 2006’s Jesus Camp, advises that in a pitch, “Never tell them there’s any chance it will be boring. Keep it engaging. There needs to be a reason for people to keep watching. The most important thing is to believe in the story from the bottom of your heart; and usually, if you do, it’s contagious.”

Davis Guggenheim, director of 2015’s He Named Me Malala, 2015, tries to get buyers to feel his excitement: “I want to immerse them in what it might be like to watch the movie. Whether that means me talking and gesticulating or cutting a ten-minute series of scenes that can immerse them in the story.” He waits until he finds a project that makes him enthusiastic. “

Michael Tollin, executive producer of 2020’s The Last Dance, advises: “During a pitch, always take yes for an answer. Some people just keep talking; shut up already. They said, ‘yes,’ they’re nodding vertically. It looks good. Get out too early rather than too late.”

Sam Pollard, director of 2020’s MLK/FBI, was hired by a company called This Machine Filmworks to co-direct a documentary with Charles Blow about his book The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto (2021). The production company set up meetings with ten streamers over two weeks. The story was about African-Americans reverse-migrating to the South to recapture political and economic power and collectively dismantle white supremacy.  They had a pitch deck that they sent to the streamers beforehand. Pollard says his simple secret is to come up with a pitch they’re going to fall in love with. “They have to love the idea, but they also have to love you.” 

The pitch was carefully organized and choreographed: who would go first, who would go second, and what each would say. Blow talked about his vision when he wrote the book, and he and Pollard described conceptually how they would turn it into a film. HBO quickly bought the pitch, and the documentary aired in 2023, titled South to Black Power. 

In a pitch, expect buyers to ask every question you would ask, and be prepared for their objections. 

Discover What Buyers are Looking For

Your job is to surprise and excite the executives. According to Davis Guggenheim, “The streamers are content hungry for a great piece of material, and when it comes up, they battle for it.” 

Executives may have seemingly arbitrary reasons for turning down a pitch. Sometimes, they’re looking for a specific type of content that fits an algorithm. Other times they’re looking to work with people or directors they think are hot. 

Michael Pollard says: “Unless you have some major celebrity, or it’s a true crime story, it’s difficult to raise the funds. If you have a true crime story, it’s almost like money in the bank.” 

Liz Garbus says that when she made 2022’s Harry & Meghan, she wasn’t purely interested in them as celebrities — but their fame didn’t hurt: “I was interested in what their journey told us about colonialism, history, and the figure of the biracial American coming into this organism that has been part of empire, and now commonwealth, for hundreds of years. The streamers are certainly pushing toward celebrity. And I think for us as storytellers, it’s about trying to find the meat on the bones that make it worth us showing up for work.”

Garbus also warned not to try to predict what streamer executives want, citing the 2022 Academy Award-nominated film All That Breathes as an example. It’s hard to figure out why a documentary about trying to save injured birds in New Delhi works. “Would you say streamers would be interested in such a film if you pitched it on paper? No,” Garbus says. “But it was at Sundance and then nominated for an Oscar. It’s a quiet, gorgeous film. And through the efforts of two brothers, you learn so much about a different world. It’s about a thrilling arc. It’s about unforgettable characters. It’s about a visual style that’s different. So, I don’t think anything should be off the table.” 

Locate Financing Sources

There are not many second-time film investors. Most learn their lesson the first time: It is a difficult business in which to profit. A sole investor is the ideal situation. It’s easier to answer to one master than several investors with differing opinions. When you accept an investor’s money, try to stipulate that they are passive investors with no control over business or creative decisions.

Rachel Grady says when she develops projects and looks for money, “we do what everybody does; we go to the streamers. There’s a lot of financing now in private equity. Everybody’s trying to get into the nonfiction game. The hard part is coming up with the idea. The selling of it is not as hard as it used to be.” 

Glen Reynolds points out one problem with streamers: “You usually have to have already made a film with them before you can make another film with them. And it’s tough to break in. They don’t like to take risks on unproven filmmakers.”

The owner of a film is usually the person or entity that provides the money. However, filmmakers can hang on to ownership (and creative control) if they negotiate well. If you can’t keep 100 percent ownership, negotiate to be a co-owner with the financier or other partners. Ideally, you want the revenue stream to flow directly to you first and then to your partners. You

don’t want to be chasing them for your share of the financial waterfall; better if they have to chase you. If you are not an owner and the owners go bankrupt or disappear, you might find yourself out of luck. 

You can only accept investors’ money once you have a place to deposit it. You first need to create a legal framework, such as a corporation, LLC (Limited Liability Company), or partnership because banks usually ask for documentation before opening an account in the name of a business. Then this entity that you create (and own) will own the film. 

Don’t get too far ahead and form an entity before you need it. It creates a lot of yearly paperwork and is an expensive annoyance if you set it up too soon. Depending on your state, you may also need a business license. Research the process thoroughly. Ask your attorney and accountant for guidance. Be ready to set up your business framework the moment you confirm the first investment check is real.

It’s notoriously difficult to make a living as an artist. So, should you gamble precious time and resources making a documentary? Yes! Why? First, there has never been a better time to get into the business. There are more buyers and outlets than ever before. Second, those who express themselves creatively live a better, more stimulating life than others only immersed in non-creative endeavors. 

Do you want to spend your life moving papers from one tray to another, chasing numbers on a grid, or loading boxes into a truck? (On second thought, you’ll do all those things while making a film.) A documentary is a creative statement designed to be shared, like a sculpture, a painting, a poem, a book, or an architect’s plan. Human beings are imbued with a need to express themselves. Express that creativity bursting to get out of the documentarian inside you — and get paid for it.

Main image: Author and documentarian Roger Nygard making his film The Truth About Marriage. Photo by Roger Nygard

That 70s Show: 'That Disco Episode'

Let’s say you were a teenager in the 1970s. For the sake of ease, let’s say you were born in 1960. You turned 13 in 1973. By 1993, you would be in your early thirties. By 1998, you would be 38, likely established in your career, possibly rife with disposable income, maybe you have a kid or two, and on a weeknight likely home and watching TV. It’s 1998, so you aren’t streaming anything. You aren’t running to Blockbuster on a weeknight, more than likely. There’s a show, and it is about being a teenager in the 1970s. Why wouldn’t you check it out? That logic train, plus generalized nostalgia, is the crux behind the creation of That 70s Show.

Fascination with bygone decades arrives in time over and over. In the 1970s, we got Happy Days. In the 1990s, we got That 70s Show. Granted, the bulk of That 70s Show aired in the 2000s, but the beginning of a nostalgia for/curiosity about the 1970s began in the 1990s, and hit the airwaves in 1998. It was created by Bonnie and Terry Turner, the husband-and-wife team that also created 3rd Rock from the Sun, as well as Mark Brazill, who had been a writer on 3rd Rock. I don’t know for sure, but I speculate that the Turners brought Brazill along because he was born in 1962, and was thus a teenager in the 1970s. The Turners, for their part, were both born in the 1940s.

The seventh episode of the show’s run, written by the Turners, is “That Disco Episode,” which aired on November 8, 1998. In making a show about 1970s nostalgia, and poking fun at the trappings of the 1970s that fell by the wayside, invariably there would have to be an episode centered on disco. Frankly, the only surprise is that it took That 70s Show until the seventh episode to get “That Disco Episode.”

Disco is a style of music long associated with the 1970s. It became a punching bag, and even a rallying cry. Fans of rock music would loudly proclaim that “Disco sucks,” and the ardor against disco would culminate in Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Field in Chicago in 1979.

There would eventually be an overcorrection to the facile and easy jokes about disco that would posit that the driving force behind most people’s disdain for disco was that it was a musical subgenre populated by, and popular with, minorities and gay men. This strengthened disco as a weird touchstone of identity politics. It is very much possible not to like disco because you don’t enjoy the way it sounds. It is also entirely possible to declare that “Disco sucks” solely because you find that to be a signifier of the kind of “serious” music fan you consider yourself to be.

In “That Disco Episode,” the gang all decide to go to a discotheque in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and since this is a book steeped in ‘90s pop culture I must now reference the “Buddy Holly” video by Weezer, which is itself riffing on Happy Days.

Hyde, very much characterized as the kind of guy who would define himself as being against disco, only goes to try and get with Donna (who is not paired off with Eric fully at this point). First he has to learn to dance, which he does by taking lessons from Kitty, Eric’s mom. This leads to some traditional sitcom miscommunications that leads to a rumor that Hyde and Kitty are having an affair, which is then naturally smoothed over, as these things often are.

Also Read: The Best Sitcom Casts in TV History

So we have a triangle formed between Eric, Hyde, and Donna, but also Jackie, Kelso, and Fez. You see, Kelso can’t dance, but Fez turns out to be a marvelous dancer. This, in turn, leads Kelso to tell Fez to stay away from Jackie. Meanwhile, Hyde dances with Donna when Eric doesn’t want to, but when Hyde makes a move on her, she quickly declines.

I will say this for That 70s Show: It wasted no time mining the overwrought interpersonal dynamics of teenagers for intrigue and stakes. Nothing about these two love triangles feels forced or false. If you were a teenager watching this in the 1990s, the emotions on display in these teenagers from the 1970s would feel entirely relatable, by and large.

Are there easy jokes about disco? Of course! This is a multicam sitcom from the 1990s! On the other hand, I would frankly have been disappointed in a show in the vein of That 70s Show if it had not delivered on that front. We needed a disco episode as much as we needed an episode about trying to get alcohol when you are underage or going to see Star Wars.

Ultimately, That 70s Show would go on for too long, key actors would leave the show, Josh Meyers would show up, and apathy set in. I will admit I have never seen the eighth and final season of the show. There is no Topher Grace as Eric, so why bother?

While I was cognizant of disco when I watched “That Disco Episode,” I had no firsthand knowledge of the 1970s, or disco of the era, and I cannot view the episode through that prism. I will have to wait until a sitcom of the future weaponizes emo shows at Legion halls for humor to understand that perspective personally.

In an era where pop culture rarely stays buried, Netflix brought us a sequel series in 2023, That ‘90s Show. I have not seen it, and frankly I don’t know if I want to indulge. Not that I am begrudging any of the parties involved. This is my third book on 1990s television. I know when to bite my tongue.

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Main image: Mila Kunis and Wilmer Valderrama in That 70s Show, "The Disco Episode." Fox.

Shakespeare details Fleming’s remarkable career in British Naval Intelligence, his role in the Allies’ victory in World War II, and even his communications with Bond fan John F. Kennedy. He also describes how Fleming wrote the first Bond novel — 1953’s Casino Royale — only in the last years of his life, which ended in 1964, when he was 56.

And Shakespeare charts how Bond became the hero of 27 films, starting with two released in Fleming’s lifetime — 1962’s Dr. No and 1963’s From Russia With Love, both of which were directed by Terence Young and produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli through their company EON Productions. 

In this excerpt of Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, Shakespeare explores the crucial casting of Sean Connery, who died in 2020 at the age of 90, as the first Bond. —M.M.

“Who decided on Connery as Bond?” asked Sean Connery’s biographer, Christopher Bray. “The likelihood is we will never really know.” As with so much about Bond and Fleming, all those involved in the film have claimed some retrospective say. It is the same with the places Fleming stayed in, or where he shopped or ate or drank. Everyone that Ian had dealings with, everyone he met, is eager to share in his legend, and one of the effects of this has been to lend an element of fantasy to all he touched. 

Bray has little doubt: “It was Connery who made Bond” – as it was Bond who made Connery. “There is no gainsaying the fact that had they not cast Connery in Dr. No there would have been no later Bonds – and no subsequent series – to argue about.”

Also Read: Bond Begins — 12 Behind the Scenes Photos From Dr. No, the First 007 Movie

Since 1995, Michael G. Wilson has co-produced the Bond films with his half-sister, Broccoli’s daughter Barbara. She says, “Sean Connery was the right guy in the movie for the right time. If it hadn’t been Sean, who knows? Would it have captured the attention of the whole world?” 

“Oh, disaster, disaster, disaster.” Terence Young had worked with Connery and was categorical in believing he was not the right guy. Not only that, Connery had ignored his advice. Young had recommended Connery wear a suit, but he ambled into the EON office in “a sort of lumber jacket.”

Saltzman remembered, “Whenever he wanted to make a point, he’d bang his fist on the table, the desk or his thigh, and we knew this guy had something.”

Ian Fleming First Thought Sean Connery Was 'Not My Idea of Bond At All'

Connery’s background – naval boxer, lifeguard, art class model – was a marketable asset. He was brought up in a Scottish slum, like Ian’s grandfather. His father was a truck driver, his mother a cleaning lady. Among choice biographical details: He had delivered milk to Bond’s second school Fettes, and acted at the Oxford Playhouse as an aristocratic diplomat in Pirandello’s Naked. He afterwards maintained that “portraying Bond is just as serious as playing Macbeth on stage.” 

Connery’s son Jason says, “He had worked with Yat Malmgren, a teacher my mother introduced my dad to. He was very influential and had an acting technique, part of which was physical as well as emotional.” Malmgren had advised Connery to think about large jungle cats during the interview, because “they are very loose.”

Even as Connery strode out of 2 South Audley Street following the audition, both Saltzman and Broccoli, without discussing it, went over to the window to look at the way he walked. Michael G. Wilson, aside from co-producing the franchise, has appeared in cameo roles in Bond films. “Walking is a fairly important thing for an actor, believe it or not. It’s how you’re going to appear on screen.” 

Saltzman and Broccoli tracked Connery cross the road to his fiancée’s Fiat. “My dad was in the navy,” says Jason Connery, “and tended to walk like a sailor, you know, rocking. He dodged through the traffic, round a couple of cars, and slipped through.” 

“He’s got balls,” Saltzman murmured. 

Broccoli agreed. “It was the sheer self-confidence he exuded  . . . He walked like the most arrogant son of a gun you’ve ever seen  –  as if he owned every bit of Jermyn Street from Regent Street to St James. ‘That’s our Bond,’ I said.” 

“But first Fleming had to meet him,” remembered Fleming’s film agent, Robert Fenn, “and of course was shocked because he couldn’t speak the Queen’s English. Fleming said, ‘He’s not my idea of Bond at all, I just want an elegant man, not this roughneck.’” 

Connery soon heard the stories. How Ian Fleming had told somebody he was “an over-developed stuntman.” How Fleming doubted that a working class Scotsman had “the social graces” to play his hero. 

Becoming James Bond

Ian’s friend Ivar Bryce’s cousin, Janet Milford Haven, says that she brought Ian around after he invited her to lunch with Connery in London. “I’m a judge of people, on the magistrate’s bench at Westminster, and every night at Annabel’s. Ian was like an old father. He knew I had a lot of different boyfriends. ‘You’ve got rather good taste in men.’ I could choose the best man. A lot of actors he’d shown me were too good-looking, too glamorous.”

On the appointed day, Janet turned up at the Savoy. 

“When you look at someone, you don’t look at the face too much, but what’s coming out of the eyes, the mouth, the way they move. Connery didn’t talk to me. Ian was talking about London theatre. This is the first time Ian’s met him without masses of others. 

“After Connery left, Ian took me home with a chauffeur to my flat in Wilton Street, and walked me to the door. I said, ‘I think that fellow is divine. He’s not too good-looking, he looks masculine, he looks like a proper man and one that would be used to that life. He looks like he is very clever, he looks like he would know how to do everything, who could kill.’” 

Ian wrote to Blanche, a week before United Artists broke the news: “the man they have chosen for Bond, Sean Connery, is a real charmer – fairly unknown but a good actor with the right looks and physique.” After viewing the rough cut of Dr. No, Ian became still more convinced. Connery was “not quite the idea I had of Bond, but he would be if I wrote the books over again.” 

Just as Alec Guinness reshaped the character of George Smiley for John le Carré, Ian responded to Connery’s cinematic Bond by putting some Scottish blood into him in his next novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Nicholas Shakespeare’s Ian Fleming: The Complete Man is on sale next week, from Harper.

His television career includes creating, with longtime creative partner Marshall Herskovitz, the Emmy winners thirtysomething and Once and Again. Zwick and Herskovitz continue to lead their production company, Bedford Falls, founded in 1985. 

Zwick, whose early career included writing and producing for the Emmy winning 1979-80 sitcom Family, also executive produced the groundbreaking TV series My So-Called Life, which ran from 1994-95 and starred Claire Danes as high school student Angela Chase. In this excerpt from Zwick’s new memoir Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood, Zwick recalls the origins of the beloved teen drama. Hits, Flops and Other Illusions is out now, from Simon & Schuster.—M.M.

While writing for an adolescent girl character on Family named Buddy, whenever I’d come up with what I considered to be authentic teenage dialogue — which is to say oppositional and disagreeable, if not downright rebellious—I would receive notes from the network in the margins of my script with the initials “N.O.B.,” meaning “Not Our Buddy.” I vowed that someday I’d get to write truthfully about adolescence.

Similarly, Marshall had once written a pilot for Showtime called Secret Seventeen that the network ultimately rejected, considering its portrayal of teenagers inflammatory. But by the time we asked Winnie Holzman — one of our talented writers on thirtysomething — to develop the show with us that became My So-Called Life, the network claimed to be open to depicting young women as they never had before.

After researching for a time by teaching middle school, Winnie found her way into the show by writing an entire diary in the voice of Angela Chase. That voice not only became the signature of the show, it presented a protagonist at once so undeniably lovable and tormented that the network had no choice but to let us make it.

Finding Claire Danes for My So-Called Life

Claire Danes was not yet 14 when we met her. Our brilliant, ever-resourceful casting director, Linda Lowy, had seen her in a small role on Law & Order and insisted we fly her out from New York. Claire was with her parents, lovely people somewhat daunted by their daughter’s genius and self-possession.

When Claire finished her audition, we were stunned. There are certain actors so preternaturally gifted it takes your breath away; what they know simply can’t be taught. That same week we had met Alicia Silverstone, a talented and appealing actress who would go on to do Clueless and several TV series. But Alicia was a sophisticated 16-year-old, and Claire, in addition to being the age of the character as written, was . . . well . . . Claire. 

Given the shooting demands of a one-hour show, no one had ever dared cast someone as young as her in a lead role. One of the reasons, we realized, was that California has appropriately strict child labor laws governing the number of hours a minor can work during a day and how much time must be spent in school. Nonetheless, we felt we had no choice; that’s how much we wanted Claire.

To make it work obliged us to reconceive My So-Called Life, and like many such compromises in a TV series, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Winnie was able to endow the supporting characters — Angela’s friends and parents — with substantial subplots.

Angela’s love interest Jordan Catalano (the sublime and inscrutable Jared Leto, actually 21 at the time), developed an unexpected camaraderie with Angela’s neighbor and wannabe boyfriend, the geeky, lovable Brian Krakow; meanwhile, Angela’s new best friend, Rayanne, and her former best friend, Sharon, forged a relationship of their own; while in the background, the trouble in Angela’s parents’ marriage cast an unexpectedly dark shadow over Angela’s world.

Also Read: Drive-Away Dolls: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke on How Their Marriage Fueled Their Lesbian Road Trip Movie

When we read Winnie’s description of Ricky Vasquez — a gay 15-year-old Puerto Rican — we couldn’t imagine finding him. And then Wilson Cruz walked into our office. It wasn’t just Wilson’s gifts as an actor that so brightened the ensemble, it was his charisma. As Winnie came to know him well, she realized the circumstances of Wilson’s personal life were not just a living mirror to the storyline she’d imagined — he was indeed the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay character in a leading television role — but also a source for an even deeper exploration of a kid in a tough situation at home.

Given the impact the show has had over the years, it’s hard to believe we only made 19 episodes. Our collaboration with Winnie was intense and just as intensely gratifying. Although we worked closely with her on the stories, only writing and directing occasionally, Winnie’s was the true voice of the show. Scott Winant, our co-executive producer, not only directed the pilot but gave the show its unique visual language.

There was only one additional writer who pitched in: Jason Katims. Jason was a struggling playwright in New York when I first read his work at the Louisville One-Act Festival. We brought him to L.A. for his maiden job in TV, and though Winnie would have liked to write every word, Jason’s talent was undeniable and he contributed to several scripts. It was to be the first of our many happy collaborations together — not to mention Jason’s illustrious career on his own with Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, and many other shows.

Why Was My So-Called Life Canceled?

Despite rave reviews, Emmy nominations for writing, directing, and best actress for Claire, never has a show been so tortured by a network’s lack of confidence: six episodes one year, six the following season, seven more after a long hiatus. It was death by a thousand cuts. Despite the executives’ admission of how much My So-Called Life meant to their daughters, and a rabidly devoted fan base, they refused to see the culture as it was changing around them.

“We can’t program a show about teenagers,” they said. “They’re just not an important market for our advertisers.”

There’s a famous, possibly apocryphal, conversation between Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg that’s always been dear to my heart. Mayer told Thalberg he wanted to buy the rights to Gone with the Wind for MGM.

“Forget it, L.B.,” said Thalberg. “No Civil War movie ever made a nickel.”

My point being, Claire Danes became the star we always knew she would (as did Jared), and it wasn’t more than a year later, when MTV ran a My So-Called Life marathon, showing episodes back-to-back for what seemed like months, that the show took off and finally found the audience it deserved. It’s entirely possible those 19 episodes will be the thing most remembered among all we’ve done.

Ironic, yes. Still, as Angela would say, “We had a time.”

Main image: Claire Danes as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, from ABC.