The Revolution Will Be Read

Yesterday I met a friend for lunch at Echo Park's super cute, new-ish book store/cafe Stories, which is the only place I know of where you can get a tuna sandwich and a Jane Austen action figure. I also picked up Mark Harris' Pictures at a Revolution, which is now in paperback. Harris traces the journeys of the five Academy Award nominees for Best Picture in the pivotal year 1967: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night and Doctor Dolittle, from conception to that single acceptance speech. Of course, I've only gotten to page 50, but already I've learned that Bonnie and Clyde was written by two Esquire magazine staffers, Robert Benton and David Newman, who didn't know the first thing about screenwriting but nevertheless had their hearts set on Francois Truffaut as the director. And Truffaut seriously considered doing it and gave them extensive notes and ideas about the film, which ended up being directed by Arthur Penn.

I was also reminded about the bluegrass in the soundtrack (the pair wrote while listening to the Foggy Mountain Boys), which felt so fresh to me in Michael Mann's Public Enemies this year but now seems kinda derivative of Bonnie and Clyde. But I guess it's nearly impossible for a genre picture to not be derivative. And I'm always a sucker for a sharp-dressed rogue.