An Adequate Goodbye: 5 Tragic Romances

What makes them work?

Quick updates

• I was on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast, which became a two-parter. You can find it here. Good talk about all things cultural with one of my favorite cultural creators and observers.  

• I realize today’s post is long but … there is just no way to learn about story other than by going through stories in detail. 

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“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”

• F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

I often talk about how we do not have enough comedies but in recently reading Barbra Streisand’s memoir My Name is Barbra, I realized we also arguably are in a bit of a lull for the kind of tragic but not merely melodramatic romance. It’s a classic genre. We have all (I hope) loved Catherine and Heathcliff, Mimi and Rodolfo, and many others, but are we not we seeing fewer great examples of this genre of late? I thought it might be useful to review the genre to see what makes the best of these stories shine.

Sometimes you just watch movies for fun. But if you’re going to work on something professionally, it helps carefully to disassemble the watch of the genre, as it were, to see how earlier films earned their key moments – not to develop a formula but just to understand the architecture. So today is a trip through a few that have stood the test of time: The Way We Were (1973), Annie Hall (1977), Lost In Translation (2003), Broadcast News (1987) and Closer (2004). The last two of these are almost counter examples but are still quite useful. And, clearly, there were many others I might have chosen but you have to stop somewhere!  

Bear in mind these are not movie reviews. I am just trying to observe how the stories are working.

A few general observations up front. 

• This is not a “formula” but if there is any high level story pattern here, it is: get together, break up, get back together, inexorable slide downhill to the end, coda. There is a lot more to it but at a high level, there is that.

• Many people will tell you to always have a goal and a conflict. I think that works for a particular type of film but a better way to put it for many contexts including this one is that we need a dramatic question and in every scene we have to learn something about the question. Giving the protagonist a goal (“will he get the McGuffin?”) is a sort of subset or specific case of having a dramatic question. If you only understand stories through the goal/conflict model, a lot of the scenes in these stories would not make sense. 

• My grandfather (Roy Huggins) told me “just cut to the next interesting thing and let the audience figure it out.” I think we will see that in every film today. There are a lot of long gaps in stories and they often jump back and forth in time. 

• And finally, one thing I think we can observe through all of these films that have stood the test of time is that they simply have the varsity team. Sydney Pollack devoted hours and days getting Redford to do The Way We Were. It is worth waiting for the right director and the right cast.

The Way We Were (1973)

w. Arthur Laurents 

d. Sydney Pollack

The Way We Were is so good and is certainly the ultimate handsome guy-complicated girl relationship, classically discussed here in the second season of Sex and the City where Carrie declares herself a “Katie girl” and they do a fun homage to the ending of The Way We Were. The process of developing and producing The Way We Were, including producer Ray Stark getting Alvin Sargent and David Rayfiel to add to the script, is well-discussed by Barbra Streisand in her memoir if you want all the details. 

The Open

The film opens on the New York midtown skyline upside down reflected in a pond in Central Park. We cut into the city where we find Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) in a wide shot sprinting across a street. At work producing a radio play, we immediately establish that Katie is an outspoken political lefty frustrated by the censorship constraints of the era, which appears to be the 40s. It is a youthful, kinetic and fast moving opening with some minor key melancholy in the opening song. 

They Meet

That night, Katie and her boss sneak into a party and (classic scene!) Katie sees Hubbell Gardiner in his Navy officer’s uniform sitting at the bar with a date – but Hubbell is fast asleep. 

Katie is obviously stricken – she’s got yearning down in this scene. Katie approaches Hubbell and fondly, familiarly, adjusts his hair and we slide into the song The Way We Were and go into a montage credit sequence that deftly (editor: Margaret Booth) establishes Katie and Hubbell at college where she was a working class political activist and he was a handsome preppy athlete. 

Memories

Light the corners of my mind

Misty watercolor memories

Of the way we were

Scattered pictures

Of the smiles we left behind

When the song ends, we stay in the college period. Politics and her creative writing class are important to Katie. Katie leads a large rally for the communist party in Spain, which Hubbell attends. 

Later, at a restaurant, she is the waitress for Hubbell and his party of preppies. She scolds him for not taking politics seriously enough. He counter-scolds her for taking life too seriously. She is rigorous and serious. He is light-hearted but has a serious side (he attends her rallies, he takes a creative writing class), so…

Cut to the creative writing classroom – Hubbell and Katie are in the same class – where the teacher picks one story to read to the class and it is Hubbell’s (“In a way, he was like the country he lived in. Everything came too easily to him, but at least he knew it…”). Katie is crushed that her story was not selected. 

OK. Rewind a bit. Two points. 

One of the most critical things in this genre, of course, is that at some point we must be convinced that this couple are in love and we must root for them. At the end of the credits and the song and the montage, we are 9 minutes into the movie and I must say the open is genius. Many people would have just opened at college and established with them having conflict over their differing approaches to life, which we might not care about because we aren’t invested in the relationship yet. Instead, we start after they have already had some relationship and we show Redford looking both heroic and vulnerable, asleep in a Naval officer’s uniform, and we show Streisand, looking stunning (the hair, the 40s clothes, the makeup, herself, bravura!) with a gesture of caring and affection as we go into the exquisite song by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch. By the time she has touched his hair and we have heard the song, the audience is convinced that these people are in love. Now we want to know what inspired such affection and such memories. Without any dialogue or anything, the love has been established in the movie, which is the sine qua non of the genre. We are invested already! Well done. 

Second, it is clear why they are (a) formidable and (b) a match. Because they aren’t a match! They are opposites. Jewish, working class political Katie. WASP-y, frat boy everything comes easy Hubbell. But they’re both impressive. And for audiences, opposites attract. 

On another night some time later, they run into each other. College is about to end. He tells her that he sold a short story. He asks her to join him for a drink but she declines. They have a playful argument about why she is so serious and why he smiles all the time. 

In an intimate gesture, he ties her shoe. Who is this guy?

“Go get ‘em, Katie.”

“See ya, Hubbell.”

Katie is working the white tie Commencement dance serving drinks. Hubbell is there. She has never been to a dance before and decides to break the rules, abandon her post, and dance with her fellow communist co-worker (James Woods). 

Hubbell cuts in. 

Something is going to happen here…

Act Two

Cut back to the party with Hubbell sleeping at the bar…

Katie: “Hubbell?” She is clearly interested. 

Hubbell (wakes up): “Hey. What do you know?”

She takes him home. 

He collapses into bed. She gets in bed. Something happens…

In the morning, she has made breakfast and ironed his uniform. The dynamic now is that she is interested but he is somewhat indifferent and has to go.

What if instead here Hubbell woke up and said “this is amazing!” and then we went straight into a romance montage? Well, that would have been pretty typical and not very substantive. Let’s see how they did it better.

Instead, he leaves. She gives him her number. He goes to shake her hand! This romance is pretty one sided now and it is possible that they could never see each other again. 

Some time later, Hubbell comes back to NY and calls Katie because he cannot find a hotel room. As she comes home, she catches him heading out for dinner solo. She catches him and insists he dine at home with her – she has purchased steak and potatoes! Now we can make this relationship more substantive. While preparing dinner, they argue about why she is so interested in politics and she reveals that she read his novel A Country Made of Ice Cream twice (“you must have bought one of the two copies sold”). Here, their relationship gets deeper as she analyzes his writing — which she loves — at length. 

Hubbel: “Are you really so sure of everything you’re so sure of?”

She remembers the line from his short story – “Does everything still come easy? What doesn’t come easy anymore? Be serious.”

Do you know you’re beautiful?

You are.

But you mustn’t be too serious.

I won’t be. I won’t be. 

They kiss. 

Cue The Way We Were and a romance montage. 

We are on page 49.

Now we have a real romance. In the beginning of this sequence he was not even going to have dinner with her. Now they are something like a couple and their romance has some real foundation.

The important things here are that this is substantive – they talk about things, they talk about his writing – and secondly that she makes a promise. Often in a romance the couple will have some sort of romance montage or they will “fall in love” with long meaningful looks or by having sex but we do not see much of a deep interaction between the couple that explains why they love each other or what the connection is between them. But here they have something personal and real that they are getting into which is his writing and by now they have known each other for some time.  

Second, it will become important to the story that their major difference – that she is serious and he is more lighthearted – is surfaced here and she chooses to compromise for the sake of the relationship in this essential moment. When she says that she will not be “too serious,” they finally kiss. And we will see how that goes. That is the essential test of the story. But at least there is one. In many cases, there is not. 

So what do we have? We have love. We have a substantive relationship. We have an issue between them.

So now they’re a happy couple and he wants her to come to a party. “Oh come on, we can all be disgusting and decadent and eat eggs benedict and vote Republican…maybe something terrible will happen and you’ll have a good time.”

A lot of people would have given Hubbell and Katie a longer “honeymoon period” but here we move right into conflict, which is going to lead to the First Break Up.  

She goes to the party and complains about how shallow and lighthearted everyone is. 

He gives her the first eight chapters of his new novel. She loves it. Issue: should Hubbell sell his book to (and move to) Hollywood?

FDR dies and Hubbell and Katie go to a party full of Hubbell’s preppy friends which ends in total disaster as Katie chides them for making jokes about FDR’s passing and she leaves in a huff. So their disagreement ties back to the theme or core dramatic question.

Hubbell finds Katie at her work. It is some time later. She starts apologizing – “Listen, I was a bad girl. I know that but I am better now. It seems like a tantrum. I get them from time to time. I wanted to have an apology dinner. I am taking a course on laughing and studying Protestant cookery.” 

He says “Look Katie, I … I don’t think we’re going to make it, Katie.”

“I was too easy for you.”

Page 65.

They mope around their apartments … partially dial each other’s numbers… and she calls him. 

I can’t sleep, Hubbell. And it would help me so much if you could uh well if I had someone to talk to. You know, if I had a best friend or something to talk about it with. Although you’re my best friend. Isn’t that dumb? So dumb. You’re the best friend I ever had… And it would help me so much if you could just come over and see me through tonight. Hubbell, I promise I won’t touch you or beg you or embarrass you. But I have to talk to my best friend … about someone we both know. So could... Hubbell, could you come over right away, please?

That is great dialogue because it is moving and true, and it was brilliantly performed. Kudos to everyone. Streisand is very hard on herself and on the direction of this scene but honestly I think it’s beautiful. 

She says the problem is she doesn’t have the “right style.” He agrees. She says she will change. He says she pushes too hard and is too serious. 

I don’t have the right style for you, do I? Be my friend. [This is a call back to their agreement that a friend will always give honest feedback when reading material.]

No, you don’t have the right style.

I’ll change.

No. Don't change. You're your own girl. You have your own style.

But then I won’t have you. Why can’t I have you? Why?

Because you push too hard every damn minute. I mean we don’t… There's no time ever to just relax and enjoy living. Everything is too serious to be so serious…

If I push too hard it's because I want things to be better. I want us to be better. I want you to be better. Sure I make waves. I mean, you have to and I’ll keep making them until you’re every wonderful thing you should be and will be. You’ll never find anyone as good for you as I am. To believe in you as much as I do. Or love you as much.

I know that.

Well then, why?

Do you think if I come back it’s going to be ok by magic? What’s going to be changed? What’s going to be different? We’ll both be wrong. We’ll both lose.

Couldn’t we both win??

Oh, god.

Look, I like Hollywood. What’s not to like?

Katie, you expect so much.

Oh, but look what I’ve got.

Boom! See the dramatic turn right there? Look what I’ve got (suddenly, again). 

I just can’t believe Laurents wasn’t nominated for this script (except by the WGA but what do they know??). Katie appeals here to their love (“You’ll never find anyone as good for you as I am. To believe in you as much as I do. Or love you as much”) and with “Oh, God,” he has turned from “We’ll both lose” to being fully committed again. In a great scene, you need those turns. 

CUT TO:

EXT. MALIBU BEACH - DAY

Fun Malibu couple montage. 

Now she has a ring. (I wonder – did they write a wedding scene?)

And after some Hollywood scene setting, Katie announces she is pregnant. 

Page 83.

Here the film gets into a lot of material about McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Producers being spied on and people testifying and so on. Apparently a lot more of this was shot and cut out of the film after a test screening. Katie is apparently somehow involved with this, though it is a little unclear why she is supposed to testify in Washington. (Is she also writing in Hollywood?)

Hubbell agrees to make various compromises to his script in order to stay on the project. 

Katie, Hubbell and their producer appear to return from Washington at Union Station and face protesters (whatever happened in Washington was cut out). Katie apologizes for what is happening (for some reason). (Honestly, this little section here is a bit of a mess and is carried by the strength of the rest of the film.) 

Hubbell and Katie argue. He says that people are more important than principles. She says that people are their principles. So the old conflict is back…

In a blink and you’ll miss it scene, Katie reveals that she is aware that Hubbell has had an affair, probably with his girlfriend from college (played by Lois Chiles). 

Hubbell: “What’s wrong with us has nothing to do with another girl.”

She has principles. He has compromised his book in turning it into a film. He has compromised their relationship by having an affair. She wants them to love each other but…

It’s over. 

Page 106. 

They have dinner at home. They know the relationship is over. The dramatic question of the film has been answered. Can she compromise? Can they find a middle ground? The answer is no.  

H: “It was never uncomplicated.”

K: “But it was lovely, wasn’t it?”

H: “Yes, it was lovely.”

K: “Will you do me one favor, Hubbell, will you stay with me until the baby’s born?”

The baby is indeed born: Rachel. 

Is the movie over? No. Of course it needs a nice little coda. 

Years later they run into each other in front of The Plaza in the classic scene. She has moved back to New York, has re-married, and is leading an anti-nuclear demonstration. She meets Hubbell’s new girlfriend or wife, who looks both WASP-y and well taken care of. 

Hubbell approaches Katie for a private moment. 

He is assured that her husband is a good father. Katie does her signature move of fondly, familiarly adjusting Hubbell’s hair (a Streisand improvisation). This is the last goodbye. 

And you get the essential shot –

“See ya, Katie.” (Yet another good callback.)

One of the satisfactions of this kind of film where the couple do not wind up together (which is why I call these films tragically beautiful) is that, because it is fiction, we get what you might call an adequate goodbye. The important thing here is that neither Hubbell nor Katie, even years later, even when both are re-married (presumably), is at all indifferent. They’re both still intensely there for each other. And that’s what we want to believe – that, in a way, Katie and Hubbell are forever.  

The things that The Way We Were did best are that we knew they were in love, we knew why and what they could get from each other and we knew what the theme or dramatic question was. 

Not to mention that Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand were at their peaks and just nailed it. 

The first nine pages, where they tease the future relationship, were essential. If you just started in college and proceeded chronologically until they were a couple on page 49 (or 40), it would have been a much slower start. But as it is, those first pages established their love and gave the set up some time to breathe, which allowed it to be more substantial.

To criticize TWWW, the turn from being happy to realizing that it was all over is a bit abrupt and it doesn’t turn on any inner secret or deeper revelation. It is simply the repetition of the old conflict that finally is tipped over by Hubbell’s brief affair. There is no Rosebud that explains the intransigence of Hubbell’s or Katie’s point of view that is ultimately dug up and revealed. Hubbell’s affair feels almost like a writer’s convenience to me in that it is not clear that it comes from a deeper tendency that had been established. 

Nevertheless, it feels churlish to quibble. The virtues here vastly outweigh the vices and it just really works. I know that Streisand has some real problems with the scenes that were removed that brought the political issues and her involvement forward but, honestly, focusing on their personal issues was the right choice and I suspect the film ages much better for it.  

If you zoom out and look at the structure it is:

• Establish that there is love between them (pp 1-9)

• Flashback to college – meet and get to know each other. Simmering interest. 

• On p 49 Become a couple

• P65 Break Up

• P83 Reconciled married and moved to LA

• Tensions and problems

• P106 Final Break Up 

• P119 Coda

Annie Hall (1977)

w. Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman 

d. Woody Allen

Annie Hall won the Oscar for Screenplay, Directing, Best Picture and Actress. It’s the iconic New York romantic comedy. People have written so much about Annie Hall that I am really just going to focus on the structure and I am going to focus on the romance part. One obvious difference versus The Way We Were is that The Way We Were is a story about a relationship whereas Annie Hall is a story about a person, Alvy Singer, who has an encounter with Annie Hall. But the relationship story works beautifully and is certainly the heart of the film. Oh, and this is another Jewish-WASP romance, except this time he is Jewish and she is the WASP and I feel like it is almost all about how they cannot get together. 

The film opens with Alvy making some jokes into camera and he quickly gets into his relationship with Annie Hall, as if he’s finally, vulnerably, admitting what he really came here to talk about:

Annie and I broke up. And I still can’t get my mind around that. I keep sifting the pieces of the relationship through my mind and examining my life and trying to figure out – where did the screw up come? You know? And… A year ago we were in love.

So we have the central question of the film – where did the screw up come? Because a year ago we were in love. 

And then we cut to Alvy’s hilarious childhood in Brooklyn.

So Annie Hall shows up around page 9. They are already dating and she is late for Ingmar Bergman’s “Face to Face.” Since the movie had started two minutes prior, Alvy refuses to see it. They go to see The Sorrow and the Pity (which she said she had seen twice!) and in line they talk about their sexual problems and then do the hilarious Marshall McLuhan joke that I am sure you remember. Breaking the fourth wall is even today pretty surprising. 

Back at home (they’re apparently living together), they further debate their sexual issues briefly and then we cut to a vignette about Alvy’s relationship with Allison Porchnik on page 14 for about four minutes. 

Cut to the classic scene where Alvy and Annie are trying to cook (for some reason) six lobsters at a house in (maybe?) Cape Cod. It’s a funny scene and a bonding moment that feels like a real memory. 

She recounts all of her earlier relationships. And they actually walk through her memories and comment on them. Brilliant. The thing about having skipped the early part of the relationship is that they already feel established, comfortable and intimate. We see them falling in love or being in love. We are already rooting for them, perhaps especially because we know that the question is – where did the screw up come? Obviously these scenes make no sense in a goal/conflict story model but in a dramatic question model, they do make sense — why do people pursue relationships? what makes them work? where did the screw up come?

After establishing that Alvy has been previously married twice, we completely cut away from Annie and look at another previous relationship of Alvy’s for a few minutes. So you see from a story point of view, we are engaged in this dramatic question – what is the nature of relationships? And of these two people? 

Now on page 24 we go back to when Alvy and Annie met for the first time playing tennis with Alvy’s friend Rob. After the game, Annie makes awkward small talk with Alvy and offers him a ride home. They go to her apartment and have a glass of wine. 

Annie: “You’re what Grammy Hall would call a real Jew.” (Ha!)

Alvy: “Thank you.”

Annie: “Well, she hates Jews. She thinks they just make money. But let me tell you I mean she’s the one is she ever I’m tellin’ you.”

Wow. Pretty bold. But, again, opposites attract.

He asks her out but she is auditioning on Saturday at a nightclub. He agrees to come to that, where she beautifully sings “It Had to be You.” 

After the audition, she is mortified by the restless audience and wants to quit singing forever. But he is reassuring and encouraging. This is a bonding moment. As we saw in The Way We Were, when a character becomes involved in another character’s art and becomes a cheerleader and supporter, it involves them in something very intimate for the other character. We begin to see why they are close.

A comment on the structure. This is not chronological, but it feels very natural as if someone actually relating this story to you in conversation might jump around this way. It feels, therefore, authentic.  

They wind up in bed with the deed done. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had without laughing.”

They go to a bookstore and he buys her two books about death. “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. So when you go through life you should be thankful to be miserable.”

A few wooing vignettes follow in iconic New York locations. 

“Love is too weak a word. I lurve you. I love you. I luff you. I have to invent…” Kiss.  

So we are invested in the relationship at this point and it has a unique texture and substance. We are rooting for them, even though we know from the opening that it is ill-fated. 

They move in together on page ~38 and things go downhill immediately. You might think of this as the beginning of act two.

Annie: “You don’t think I am smart enough to be serious about.”

Alvy: “I don’t know why you have to get high every time we make love.”

We go to Wisconsin to visit her family. At dinner, we intercut between the WASP-y family dinner and memories of Alvy’s Jewish family dinners and they interact. Again, this is very original, especially for its time. 

Back in New York, Alvy and Annie have an argument about whether Alvy is spying on Annie and whether she is having an affair with her professor and whether they have a real commitment. 

Annie: “And I told her you don't ever really take me seriously because you don't think I am smart enough.”

They have another argument about the professor on the street as Annie gets into a taxi. 

Annie: “I don't care what you say about David. He’s a perfectly fine teacher. I am going to call this relationship quits.” 

Alvy: “That’s fine. That’s fine. That’s great. [The taxi drives away] I don’t know what I did wrong. I mean I can’t believe this. Somewhere she cooled off to me. Is it something that I did?”

Old woman on the street: “It’s never something you do. That’s how people are.  Love fades.”

Alvy: “Love fades. God. That’s a depressing thought.” 

So around page 52 they have the First Break Up. 

Annie calls Alvy because there is an emergency. He is in bed with another woman but he agrees to come over at 3 AM.  It turns out there is a spider in her bathroom. He asks for a magazine to kill it. 

She hands him a copy of the National Review. “What have you become??”

He kills the spider. 

He finds her and she is crying. “Don’t go please. I miss you.”

Something happens. 

“Alvy, let’s never break up again.”

This is page 61 where they get back together. They have been apart for nine pages. 

They revisit Alvy’s childhood home and there are hilarious flashbacks to his childhood. 

By this time, Annie’s singing career is taking off. She performs Seems Like Old Times at a club. 

Seems like old times

Having you to walk with

Seems like old times

Having you to walk with

And it’s still a thrill 

Just to have my arms around you 

Still the thrill that it was the day I found you…

It does help to have a great song. 

This time the audience cares and Paul Simon, playing a manager, introduces himself. Paul wants them to come back to the Pierre to meet with “Jack and Anjelica” but Alvy doesn’t want to. This feels like a threat to Alvy. 

Page 69. 

Annie and Alvy are at a Hollywood party where people are doing cocaine. Hilarious scene. 

CUT TO:

EXT. BEVERLY HILLS - DAY

Alvy and Annie are in LA. 

Alvy thinks it is immoral that his friend Rob adds a laugh track to his sitcom. Alvy starts to get queasy and ill. He’s too nauseous to make an appearance on a TV show. 

But we go to a Hollywood party. 

“All the good  meetings are taken”

“Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get money to make it into a concept ... and later turn it into an idea.”

Jeff Goldblum “forgot his mantra.”

Paul Simon is trying to convince Annie to come to LA to cut an album. 

Annie thinks to herself: “I adore Alvy but our relationship doesn’t seem to work any more.”

Annie says: “Alvy lets face it our relationship isn't working.”

They break up. Page 79. 

Act Three

He calls her. “I want you to come back here. Well then I'm going to come out there and get you.”

They meet at a restaurant. Page 84.

Alvy: “So you want to get married or what?”

Annie: “No. We’re friends. I want to remain friends.” 

Alvy: “Check please.”

CUT TO:

Alvy is rehearsing his first play which recounts his relationship with Annie. 

And of course there is a coda

Alvy and Annie meet one last time in New York preceded by a montage overlaid by Seems Like Old Times… They meet in a cafe. 

One amazing choice about this scene is that we never cut into the cafe to see Alvy and Annie and there is no dialogue. There is just voice over about the scene. It is as if they are not together anymore… 

After that it got pretty late and we both had to go but it was great seeing Annie again. I realize what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her….

There’s a very elegiac tone here. 

This is really a film about a relationship that was destined not to succeed. It was beset by cultural and personality issues. Like Hubbell and Katie, one was always going to wind up in LA and the other was never going to go to LA. He stuck to his values. But there were aspects of themselves that made them very close, knowing Alvy might have been essential to Annie’s path, and one might wonder if they will ever find anyone who will be closer to them. 

As I mentioned, I would say that The Way We Were was really about that specific couple. We really believed they were in love and could have made it if only things had gone slightly differently or they had pushed a bit harder. But Annie Hall is perhaps a bit more about us, the audience, in general. Why do we keep pursuing these dreams of, for example, the perfect relationship? And it provides an answer with the final joke – 

Doc, my brother’s crazy! He thinks he’s a chicken!’ And the doctor says, ‘Well, why don’t you turn him in?’ And the guy says, ‘I would, but—I need the eggs.’ Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, and—but uh—I guess we keep going through it because most of us … need the eggs. 

So the structure is that they  begin the film together. They “meet” in flashback on page 24. They move in together on page 38. By page 52 they have the first break up. They get back together on page 61. And by page 69 they are on an inexorable decline that proceeds to the end, around page 90. Beautifully done. I would be very surprised if that was the original structure of the screenplay. But whatever moving around and editing they did, it wound up just right. 

Lost in Translation (2003)

w. Sofia Coppola 

d. Sofia Coppola

Lost in Translation is unlike some of these other stories in that it is more like a short story, a brief epic romance that never actually happens. Or does it? It has resonated over time with people because clearly something significant happened  – an unforgettable, perhaps life-saving connection – between Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) even if circumstances prevented what they had from happening in a bigger way (they were both married and had a thirty year age gap). But Lost captures the ill-fated, fleeting, but deep, connection that is of the essence of all tragic romances. 

In terms of structure, it is essential in this story to spend time establishing what is not happening – characters are not connecting, they are not understanding – which means that Lost violates most “rules” of screenwriting. Thankfully Bill Murray’s hilarious interaction with his Japanese handlers – which can sort of be understood as a comic B-story – leavens all the existential scene setting.  

Isolation

We open on a young woman (Scarlett  Johansson) resting in her hotel room, immediately establishing a sense of isolation. 

We cut to Bob Harris in the back of a car groggily heading into Tokyo from the airport late at night. In the midst of the panoply of Tokyo neon, he sees an ad featuring himself advertising Suntory Whisky, so we know he is famous.  

Bob gets to the Park Hyatt Tokyo where he is received by a retinue of attendants. He gets a note from home: “You forgot Adam’s birthday. I’m sure he’ll understand. Have a good trip.” 

Bob goes to the Park Hyatt bar (it’s called the New York Bar) for a cigar and a whisky. Later, he has trouble sleeping. 

In her room, with new husband John (Giovanni Ribisi), Charlotte is also having trouble sleeping. 

Bob goes to the shoot for Suntory Whisky in the classically hilarious, truly “lost in translation,” scene. (“Is that all he said? Because it seemed like there was a lot more.”)

Charlotte is touristing around temples and the subway. Later, she calls her friend because she feels alone and isn’t connecting with her husband or with Tokyo but her friend has no time for it. She is sad and alone. We are around page 15 now.

An escort is sent to Bob’s room and he can’t understand what she is saying and it hilariously goes poorly. 

Charlotte goes for a walk around Tokyo. 

Bob receives an offer to do the “Johnny Carson of Japan” but he is eager to leave. 

Normally someone would tell you to start generating conflict or have them meet but all of this establishment of loneliness and isolation is essential. We’re on page 22. 

After another Suntory shoot, Bob is back at the Park Hyatt bar where he and Charlotte exchange glances. 

Charlotte walks around the hotel. She tries a flower arranging class. She takes a bath. She watches TV while John sleeps. 

They Meet

Page 32. Independently bored and sleepless, Bob and Charlotte each head up to the near empty bar and she sits next to him. We learn she has been married two years and just graduated college “last Spring.” She teases him about having a mid-life crisis. “I wish I could sleep.” And cut.

New York Bar next night. Charlotte can’t stand her husband’s music pals. She wanders over to Bob and says hi. 

John leaves Tokyo to do a shoot in Fukawaka for a few days leaving Charlotte lonely and staring out over the city. The general vibe of her relationship with John is – how is she with this guy?

Bob and Charlotte meet at the pool on page 42 and she invites him to come out later with her friends. 

It’s On

Bob and Charlotte go out with her friends and now everyone is finally having spontaneous fun. There is very little dialogue in these dancing and karaoke scenes but they feel very real, fun and informal, contrasting with the alienation of the Park Hyatt. This is a great vibe sequence. The soundtrack, with tracks from The Chemical Brothers and My Bloody Valentine, is on point. They’re finally having some fun and feeling connection. They fall asleep in the cab. Bob carries Charlotte to her room. Sequence ends on page 56.

Bob calls home. No love there. 

Bob and Charlotte get back together for dinner. She has hurt her toe so he takes her to the hospital. 

Bob and Charlotte go out again. It’s kinetic and fun.  

The Essential Conversation

Charlotte, sleepless in her room, receives a note: “Are you awake?”

They watch TV in Bob’s room and talk in bed. 

Charlotte: “Let’s never come here again because it would never be as much fun.”

“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”

Bob: “You’ll figure that out. I’m not worried about you. Keep writing.”

This conversation is essential to establishing their connection. 

Bob agrees to extend his trip to do the talk show. Now he is enjoying this trip. 

Bob has a short, contentious and loveless discussion with his wife. 

The Rupture

Bob wakes up with the singer from the band at the Park Hyatt Bar (much to his regret). Charlotte comes by his room to see if he wants to go to sushi and overhears the singer in his room. Page 84.

Bob and Charlotte go to lunch. In a sense this is like their “first break up” moment even though they technically aren’t together. 

“Well, she is closer to your age.” 

The Reconciliation

Later there is a fire alarm in the middle of the night and they agree “that was the worst lunch.” 

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll miss you.”

Back to the New York Bar. Now there is really something between them. 

“Stay here with me. We’ll start a jazz band.”

But they chastely kiss goodnight. 

The Departure

He’s in the lobby leaving. He calls her from the lobby phone and leaves a message saying goodbye.

But she gets the message in time and comes down to the lobby. 

“Bye.”

“Alright.”

He watches her go. 

He gets in the car. 

And of course there is a coda.

As he is being driven to the airport, he sees her on the street, He stops the car and gets out. He rushes after her. They hug. He says something to her. 

And we get the essential shot – 

Why were they able to have something they couldn’t have with anyone else? And why can’t they have it forever? What if you could meet the person who understands you best but you could only be with them for three days?

The key here is that we believe their connection. That one conversation in bed was essential. All of that setting up loneliness and isolation was essential. And then once they acknowledge that there is something between them, it is earned. 

Broadcast News (1987)

w James L. Brooks

d James L. Brooks

I love Broadcast News. Its characters are so well drawn and the dialogue is full of brilliant lines. I would be somewhat surprised if James L. Brooks wasn’t inspired to write Broadcast News partly by The Way We Were. Jane Craig and Tom Grunick are just very similar to Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner. Their core conflict – Jane’s rigorous standards versus Tom’s happy go lucky lack thereof – is essentially the same and of course, in the end, irreconcilable. However, in this case, we make it a love triangle. And by the way, Hubbell and Tom have an affair with the same actress (Lois Chiles)! Hat tip!

As a small criticism, I would say that the love in Broadcast News is less clear and compelling such that while The Way We Were is TRAGIC and Annie Hall is tragic, the ending of Broadcast News is perhaps merely unfortunate. Ultimately, Broadcast News is about Jane adhering to her standards and therefore dropping her interest in Tom while she rebuffs Aaron’s unrequited love for Jane. 

The first twenty pages establish news producer and perfectionist Jane Craig (Holly Hunter), brilliant reporter Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) and handsome but lightweight reporter Tom Grunick (William Hurt) in clever, brief, childhood flashbacks to establish their key characteristics. It’s interesting that Annie Hall also chose this childhood flashback approach, and it works well in both cases. 

As we move into the present (1987), at a conference, Jane Craig gives a speech about news integrity that is misinterpreted and rejected by the audience (cf. Streisand being mocked for her speech on Spanish communists). She is clearly established as a lone, uncompromising voice for news integrity. Afterwards, Tom approaches her and announces himself as her one fan. They wind up speaking late into the night about his concerns about his lack of knowledge about the subjects he is reporting on – especially now that he has been hired as Washington Correspondent for a major network! She chastises him that if he isn’t prepared and knowledgeable that is only his fault. He leaves. Page 17

Jane has a brief, very funny call with Aaron. 

Jane: “No, no, no. It wasn’t just the speech. The same thing happened with this guy. I have passed some line some place. I have started to repel people I am trying to seduce.” 

Aaron: “He must have been great looking, right?”

Jane: “Why do you say that?”

Aaron: “Because no one invites a bad looking idiot to their bedroom.” 

Later, Aaron: “Wouldn’t this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If needy were a turn on?”

Tom calls Jane and tells her that actually he’s the Washington correspondent for her network. 

CUT TO:

A legendary scene showing Jane (with Joan Cusack and others) creatively managing fast paced news editing of a story about mercenaries in Angola. This establishes why Jane’s values and high standards matter. And it’s just one of the best sequences ever. 

Afterwards, Jane refuses to help Tom when he asks for help. 

“It has nothing to do with the fact that I left your room instead of staying there?”

“You’re going to have to understand something. This isn’t personal.” 

Aaron and Jane do a dangerous and exciting remote war report from Central America where it almost looks like they’re going to kiss at the end. Their report is a big hit with the network and Jane gets a call from the network anchor who gives no credit to Aaron. It’s a bonding moment for Aaron and Jane as she tries to give him credit. 

At a network party, Jennifer Mack (Lois Chiles!) asks Jane if she minds if Jennifer pursues Tom (this is 1987). 

Jane: “I mean I think about him outside of work sometimes but I know I don’t respect him. What am I talking about? What am I saying to you?”

Jennifer: “You’re saying stay away from him.”

Jane: “I can’t be.”

And later —

Jane: “Jennifer. Do whatever you want to with Tom.”

Jennifer: There’s nothing I’m going to do right this second.”

Jane: “Oh come on. You’re entitled.” page 38

There is an emergency in Libya and the network must organize to report on it. The normal anchor is unavailable on his boat. The network casts Tom in the anchor role over Aaron despite Aaron’s subject matter expertise. Jane is outraged at first but she makes it work. Even Aaron pitches in, phoning in from home. Jane is speaking to Tom through his earpiece, which creates an interesting intimacy between them, and the segment comes off perfectly. 

Afterwards, Tom seeks Jane out and says it was like “great sex!!” 

But Jane declines to go out with the team. She wants to visit Aaron, who is despondent. 

Aaron tells Jane that “I started to think about the one thing that makes me feel really good and makes immediate sense and it’s you. I’m going to stop right now except I would give anything if you were two people so I could call the one who’s my friend and tell her about the one I like so much…”

“Oh buppa” 

“Well, I felt something…”

Jane goes to the bar to see if the team is still celebrating but finds Tom and Jennifer (Lois Chiles, natch) as the last team members departing. Jane decides to have a burger herself as Tom and Jennifer head off together. 

CUT TO:

Jennifer’s place, where something has happened. Page 60. 

At work, Jane assigns Jennifer to cover a serial killer trial in Alaska!

Tom does a piece on date rape and cuts back to himself with a tear in his eye, which is controversial for Aaron and Jane. But it is moving and effective. 

Management warns Aaron that if he gets a job offer maybe he should take it. There are going to be layoffs. Aaron asks for and gets a weekend anchor slot as a sort of tryout for bigger things. It is a hilarious, huge disaster featuring unprecedented flop sweat. 

On the night of Aaron’s big anchor tryout, Tom and Jane go out to dinner. Tom and Jane kiss outside the dinner. 

Jane visits Aaron after the dinner, because she hears that his debut went poorly. 

Jane (about Tom): “I may be in love with him.” 

Aaron: “I knew it. Get out of my house now. Get out of here. I’m not kidding. Get out of here. You go to hell. Come back here. Come on. Don’t go.” 

Jane: “This is important to me.” 

…

Aaron: “Let me just be your most trusted friend now. The one that gets to say all the awful stuff, ok?” 

Jane: “I guess. Yes.”

Aaron: “You can’t wind up with Tom because it goes against everything that you’re all about.” 

Jane: “Yeah, being a basket case.”

Aaron: “I know that you care about him. I’ve never seen you like this w anybody so don’t get me wrong when I say that he, while being a very nice guy, is the devil…”

…

Jane: “I think you’re the devil.” 

Aaron: “You know I’m not.”

Jane: “How.”

Aaron: “Because I think we have the kind of friendship where if I were you would be the only one I would tell. He personifies everything you’ve been fighting against and I’m in love with you. How do you like that? I buried the lead.” 

She leaves. 

Page 90

There is a layoff at the Washington bureau. 

Tom asks Jane if she will go on a vacation with him. She agrees. 

Jane and Aaron have lunch. Aaron is leaving the bureau. This is their coda. 

Jane: “What do you think will happen to us?” 

Aaron: “Ok. That’s very easy. Five six years from now, I’ll be back in town to collect an award recognizing the surge in international coverage from local stations.” 

Jane: “What will they call the award?”

Aaron: “The yuki.” 

Jane: “Yes.”

Aaron: “Anyway I’ll be walking along with my wife and my two lovely children and well numb into you and my youngest son will say something and I’ll tell him it’s not nice to make fun of single fat ladies.”

Jane: “You won’t be able to stay mad at me, right?” 

Aaron: “I hope so. No, I’m really mad. I’ll miss you. We’ll talk. We’ll always be friends. We’ll get hot for each other every few years at dinner and we’ll never act on it. Ok? I gotta go.” 

Aaron: “Jane — do you know how Tom had tears in his eyes in that interview with that girl? Ask yourself how we were able to see that when he only had one camera and it was pointed at the girl during the entire interview. I’m fairly sure I was right to tell you.” Page 116

Later, at the office, Jane watches the raw footage and sees Tom summon a tear. Like an actor. This is opposed to her standards. 

Jane goes to the airport to meet Tom, who is eager to go on their vacation, and explains that she is not going on the vacation because she saw the footage, which violates her news principles. Their relationship is over. 

Seven Years Later

At a conference, Tom is making a speech about accepting the network anchor role. He introduces his fiancé, Lila. Afterwards, he says hello to Aaron (and his son) and they go see Jane. All three have a little coda. Jane announces that she will accept the managing editor role to work with Tom and it’s clear she has “a guy.” So amongst the three, it works out for all of them but not in the way they had once imagined and hoped.

Broadcast News works because of the sparkling dialogue between Tom, Jane and Aaron. Jane is a brilliantly drawn character and the connection between Jane and Aaron is very strong. All the best scenes are between Aaron and Jane. There is something missing here that might have made it stronger. The connection between Jane and Tom is not as well established. Jane is attracted to Tom but says that she does not “respect” him and that is true. They have that bonding moment where they successfully produce the Libya emergency story, but they never get the personal connection that Bob and Charlotte get in bed (“Does it get better?”) or that Katie and Hubbell get (“You’ll never find anyone as good for you as I am. To believe in you as much as I do. Or love you as much.”) and in fact they are never a couple. The one person who is truly in love in this movie is Aaron (''the one thing that makes me feel really good and makes immediate sense [is] you”) and he does not get what he wants. The film is sad but there is no sense in the end that Jane and Tom are forever (as in The Way We Were) or even for right now. If you had to write a song like The Way We Were for Broadcast News, I am not sure what it would be about.

In order to give Jane and Tom a stronger connection, you probably would have to make Tom smarter so that Jane could really love and respect him. But that is a bit of a Rubik’s cube because it would undermine his core characteristic. Hubbell wasn’t dumb. Katie could respect him. He was just not as politically serious as she was. In a way, this is a film about Aaron and Jane, who perhaps could have made it, not getting together. Therefore, while being very entertaining, it doesn’t quite reach the heights — as a tragic romance — of some of these other films.

Closer (2004)

w Mike Nichols

d Patrick Marber (from his play)

One of the most important lines in Closer has Clive Owen saying “A good fight is never clean” and indeed this is not a traditional love story but a sort of love struggle amongst four people, featuring decadence and double crossing throughout. Almost everyone betrays everyone else. I included it here nevertheless because it is an interesting counter example of a love story that is tragic, but not in the normal way, and because it is brilliant in its own way. 

We open on Alice (Natalie Portman) with spiky red hair walking in slo-mo down a London street over Damien Rice’s minor key The Blower’s Daughter (“I can’t take my eyes off you I can’t take my eyes off you”) and we cut to Dan (Jude Law) walking as if he is walking on the same street toward her. Just after they appear to recognize each other, Alice is hit by a car (!) and Dan goes to her.

She wakes up and looks at him. 

“Hello, stranger.”

Cut to the hospital where Alice appears to be okay but bloody, Dan is caring for her, and she is looking for a cigarette. She has just arrived from New York. 

“I’m on an expedition.”

“Where’s your baggage? Where are you staying?”

“I’m a waif.”

Quite a meet cute. (Cuteish?)

They randomly walk to a cemetery (Postman’s Park) where as it happens Dan had gone the day his mother died. 

On the bus to his work, she reveals that in New York she was stripping. He says he is an obit writer because he lacks talent as a writer. 

So in, I think, many of the good examples we have looked at, the writers thought it best to start the story with the couple already together, here we actually start with them meeting. The cemetery, the crisis of being hit by a car and the trip to the hospital, and the story about his mom gives them some immediate connection that is deeper than usual. However, what we never do here is try to go down to the next level where for example Alice and Dan really connect over his art, or hers, or something of similar depth and meaning. The script doesn’t take any step like that, but the dialogue and performances do convince us of the sincerity and passion of the relationships.

They say goodbye when they get to his work. He almost walks in without giving her his number. Then he turns back. We cut away without knowing whether they exchange contacts. 

CUT TO:

Anna (Julia Roberts) taking pictures of Dan for the author photo for his upcoming book. He says he lives with Alice. Anna and Dan wind up kissing. 

Dan: “You’ve ruined my life.”

Anna: “You’ll get over it.”

Alice shows up after the shoot and meets Anna. 

With Alice in the loo, Dan makes it clear he still wants to see Anna but she refuses. 

When Alice comes back, she knows somehow about Dan and Anna.

[As a note, you can sell love at first impression if you do it well enough.]

CUT TO:

Dan sex chatting (pretending to be a woman) on “London Sex Anon” with Larry (Clive Owen) and smoking. Let’s just say that Dan is in a pretty decadent place. Dan sets up a meeting the next day at the London Aquarium between himself (“Anna”) and Larry. 

Larry goes to the Aquarium and runs into Anna, the photographer. He thinks she is in on this whole thing but she has no idea what he is talking about. She tells him he is the victim of a practical joke and they start chatting. We are on page 36. 

Some time goes by. 

Dan is going away for the weekend and he will not take Alice. They go to the opening of Anna’s photography show, Strangers. By this point, Anna and Larry are a couple. Larry meets Alice at the opening and, in private, they flirt. Anna tells Dan that she met Larry because he sent him to the aquarium as part of his online chatting (she calls him “cupid”). Dan speaks with Anna as Larry watches them from inside. 

Dan: “Tell me you’re in love with me.”

Anna: “I am not in love with you.”

Dan: “I am your stranger.”

Later, Larry observes that he could take Dan in a fight.

Larry: “Did you call him cupid?

Anna: “No, that’s our joke.” (lie) 

The web of interconnections is complicated indeed between these two couples. 

A year later, Dan returns from a trip and announces to Alice that he has been seeing Anna for the past year and they are in love. 

Alice: “Can I still see you? Dan, can I still see you? Answer me.”

Dan: “I can’t see you. If I see you, I’ll never leave you.”

Alice: “What will you do if I find someone else?”

Dan: “Be jealous.”

Alice: “You still fancy me?”

Dan: “Of course.”

Alice: “You’re lying. Hold me. I amuse you but I bore you.”

Dan: “No. No.”

Alice: “You did love me?”

Dan: “I’ve always loved you and hate hurting you.”

Alice: “Why are you…?”

Dan: “Because I’m selfish. And I think I’ll be happier with her.”

Alice: “You won’t. You’ll miss me. No one will ever love you as much as I do. Why isn’t love enough?”

She tells him to make some tea. While he’s doing it, she leaves. 

Larry returns home from a business trip to Anna. He puts his stuff away upstairs and comes back downstairs and says “I think you’re about to leave me.”

“Why?”

“Dan.”

She admits she has been seeing Dan for a year. 

“Why did you marry me?”

“You’re leaving me because you believe you don’t deserve happiness, but you do, Anna.”

There is some spicy dialogue here that I will omit but if you’ve seen the film you surely will not have forgotten. Anna certainly ends that relationship (for now). 

Page 59

Larry goes to a strip club where, of course, he finds … Alice. They have a confrontational exchange in a private room where he tries to coax her real name and some honesty out of her.

“Alice, tell me something true.”

“Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off….”

Dan and Anna are at the opera and Anna says she is divorced. 

CUT TO:

Larry and Anna are at lunch. Larry wants Anna to come back. Anna wants Larry to sign the divorce papers. He says – I will sign the divorce papers if you sleep with me one last time. 

CUT TO:

Back at the opera, Dan surmises that Anna slept with Larry one last time. 

CUT TO:

Back to Larry and Anna. 

Anna: “I am doing this because I feel guilty and because I pity you. You know that, don't you?”

Larry: “Yes.”

Anna: “Feel good about yourself?”

Larry: “No.”

CUT TO:

Dan and Anna

Dan: “You’re not innocent anymore.”

Anna: “Don’t. Don’t stop loving me. I can see it draining out of you. It’s me, remember? It was a stupid thing to do and it meant nothing. If you love me enough, you’ll forgive me.”

Dan goes to see Larry at his office. Anna, in the meantime, has gone back to Larry. 

Larry: “If you go near her again, I swear I will kill you.”

Dan: “When she came here, do you think she enjoyed it?”

Larry: “I didn’t do it to give her a nice time. I fucked her to fuck you up. A good fight is never clean. And yeah of course she enjoyed it. As you know she loves a guilty fuck.”

Dan: “You’re an animal.” 

Larry: “Yeah what are you?”

Dan: “You think love is simple. You think the heart is like a diagram.”

Larry: “Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist wrapped in blood. Go fuck yourself – you writer!”

Larry mocks Dan, who starts to cry.

Larry: “It’s over. Accept it.” 

Larry tells Dan where Alice works.

And he tells him he had sex with her. 

Dan and Alice are at a hotel about to go on a vacation. He is after her to tell him whether she slept with Larry. 

He says he is going to go across to the terminal to buy cigarettes and when he gets back he wants the truth “because without it we are animals.”

He gets back.

Alice: “I don’t love you anymore.”

Dan: “Since when?”

Alice: “Now. Just now. I don’t want to lie. Can’t tell the truth so. It’s over.”

Dan: “It doesn’t matter. I love you. None of it matters.”

Alice: “Too late. I don’t love you anymore. Goodbye. Here’s the truth so now you can hate me. Larry fucked me all night. I enjoyed it….”

Larry and Anna fall asleep in bed together at home, Larry’s victory complete. 

Going through border control at JFK, Alice hands over her passport and we see that her name isn’t Alice at all. It’s Jane Jones.  

Dan is back at Postman’s Park with the song from the opening. He sees that one of the prominent gravestones is Alice Ayers – the name “Alice” assumed. It was all a lie. 

And that is what we might call an extremely inadequate goodbye. 

What a brutal and brilliantly written story Closer is. Larry and Anna “win” in the end. They are contentedly sleeping in their bed while Dan and Alice/Jane are separate and alone, Dan thoroughly humiliated. It’s not “tragically beautiful.” It’s much more realpolitik.

After the hard-edged motivations, realities and truths of Closer (perhaps anticipated by Sex Lies and Videotape (1989) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988)), one might wonder tonally if we can go back entirely to the more water-colored memories of earlier stories. Maybe, but Maber and Nichols certainly lifted the covers off a more cynical take on humanity that has to be confronted and we have seen fewer uncynical takes on the genre since Closer. It is perhaps a pivot in the genre or in the culture that cannot be ignored. It is rare these days to see a straight up romance like The Way We Were where people aren’t continually deceiving each other or the story isn’t labeled schmaltzy or similar. But sometimes things go in cycles and, however the romance returns, — I mean, we have been making these since The Sheik! — it will likely rest on some of the key elements that worked for its most classic examples while bringing some new spin.

In the end, the most important requirement is to convince the audience that the couple are in love so that people care. The more convincingly this can be done, the better. We might look for a moment to the novel and find Wuthering Heights’s Catherine and Heathcliff as another example. They have the benefit of being each other’s first loves, of struggling together against the strictures of their environment, of being passionate rebels, of sharing a vision for life. If these two are not in love — if we do not believe them — then who is? And then also, the idea that Catherine and Heathcliff “are forever” is laid in from the beginning when Catherine’s ghost is struggling to get in the window at Thrushcross Grange. These elements, the strong foundation, the dramatic question, the coda and perhaps some idea that, at least as between the couple, the love will never die (as Mimi says in La Boheme, “Qui, amor...sempre con te!” (“Here love, always with you!”)), are a lot to pull together. But if you can do it, we just might have something.

Good luck!

RP

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Roy Price was an executive at Amazon.com for 13 years, where he founded Amazon Video and Studios. He developed 16 patented technologies. His shows have won 14 Best Series Emmys and Globes. He was formerly at McKinsey & Co. and The Walt Disney Co. He graduated from Harvard College in 1989.

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