Living Harlan Ellison's dream
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Alex Garland
halken_no1 — 12 years ago(November 01, 2013 08:32 AM)
Alex Garland is a tyrant of creativity. I once lauded him as a great novelist, but now I just think he's a great creative writer for multiple mediums.
He has done what Harlan Ellison always wanted to do, but got bogged down by execs intervening his vision as being a creative medium writer. Harlan dabbled in film, TV and video games, but he never managed to stray from his short story tracks in his arduous career as an alternative fiction writer.
Garland on the other hand is doing exactly what Ellison never got the chance to do. He's created one of the best action films ever (Dredd), wrote one of the best narratives for a AAA video game (Ensalved) and has written 3 great novels. He's NOW working on a movie where he is director AND writer. What a great achievement! This man deserves his attainment of such creative freedom, he has done enough. beep the guy wrote a script to a movie where I actually ENJOYED Keira Knightley's performance! Now that's what I call a magnificent feat.
Alex Garland is one of my inspirations in life. He's living the dream Harlan Ellison never had. -
Spallone_Spikane — 10 years ago(September 14, 2015 05:28 PM)
I think one of the reasons, and an important one, of Harlan Ellison not achieving the fame some hoped he would have in all those mediums, is that he isn't that diplomatic with the money men. He's quoted as saying that he punched an exec in the jaw at one point. He's also a tyrant when it comes to things being adapted his way, or the high way. Film, TV, and video games, whether one likes or not (or does it all himself) is a collaborative medium. Film especially, is a director's game, not a writer's game, since the director is the general on set, and make things go smoothly. Sure, the writer comes up with the main ideas, but do they overall work for a visual adaptation? Do we have the budget? Do we have the time to shoot all of this/that? And also, do the produb68cers and director agree with the script overall?
The auteur theory emerged because thinking of cinema as one huge team effort is just too complicated. If we apply a film to one or a few people, then it's more easy for analysis, at least, that's my take.
Ellison is an auteur that didn't want to be director, sadly. He is a writer.
Another factor, his first script, was a massive bomb. He could've continued working on video games, but he isn't a fan of them. And also, he never managed to publish a novel. If he had done all of these, like Garland, he would've been as massive as Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker or even Stephen King.