Joe Eszterhas – 18 September
I don’t know if its because I’m more aware of the opportunities around the city now, or because I now have to make the most of my evenings as I work in the day, or even because I now don’t feel so guilty about spending money as I’m working, but we have been pretty busy in the last few weeks – and ironically, if it is because of money, everything has been free.
My first Monday in the office, we went to a book signing by Joe Eszterhas – the screenwriter behind Basic Instinct, Flashdance and, er, Showgirls. So not the most cerebral of films, possibly, but certainly crowd pleasers – even Showgirls has obtained cult status now.
Eszterhas – who looks like a rugged Hell’s Angel but really isn’t – was an entertaining character; completely aware that a lot of stuff he’s written isn’t exactly critically acclaimed, a self-deprecating recovering alcoholic and an Hungarian immigrant (his latest film is actually about the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and sounds like a real departure from his previous work).
One thing that was really both horrifying and fascinating was a story he told about his father. His father brought Eszterhas and his mother to America when his son was 5 years old. He worked hard to put food on the table, and raised Eszterhas to be non-judgmental about everyone, and to be tolerant of every faith and race. In the 1990s when Eszterhas’ father was in his 70s, he was accused of war crimes, and the writer subsequently discovered that his father had indeed worked for the Third Reich during the war.
Obviously this caused him to completely reevaluate his father and his relationship with him. I imagine that this happened to a lot of people of his generation from Eastern Europe – a lot of people would have joined the army in their home country without truly realizing what they were getting into, or perhaps because they didn’t really have a choice, and ended up doing things that they would never normally do. It happens today, so why not then?
Regardless, it was a fascinating night.
In the Q&A session, a couple of things came out – he wrote Basic Instinct over the course of 10 days; the idea just came to him one night and completely took him over. He sold it 13 days after he started it for $3million.
One audience member asked him if he once been paid – as was the rumor - $1million for an idea. He laughed at that, and replied no – although he had been paid $4million for 4 pages of notes.
Then he laughed some more.
My first Monday in the office, we went to a book signing by Joe Eszterhas – the screenwriter behind Basic Instinct, Flashdance and, er, Showgirls. So not the most cerebral of films, possibly, but certainly crowd pleasers – even Showgirls has obtained cult status now.
Eszterhas – who looks like a rugged Hell’s Angel but really isn’t – was an entertaining character; completely aware that a lot of stuff he’s written isn’t exactly critically acclaimed, a self-deprecating recovering alcoholic and an Hungarian immigrant (his latest film is actually about the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and sounds like a real departure from his previous work).
One thing that was really both horrifying and fascinating was a story he told about his father. His father brought Eszterhas and his mother to America when his son was 5 years old. He worked hard to put food on the table, and raised Eszterhas to be non-judgmental about everyone, and to be tolerant of every faith and race. In the 1990s when Eszterhas’ father was in his 70s, he was accused of war crimes, and the writer subsequently discovered that his father had indeed worked for the Third Reich during the war.
Obviously this caused him to completely reevaluate his father and his relationship with him. I imagine that this happened to a lot of people of his generation from Eastern Europe – a lot of people would have joined the army in their home country without truly realizing what they were getting into, or perhaps because they didn’t really have a choice, and ended up doing things that they would never normally do. It happens today, so why not then?
Regardless, it was a fascinating night.
In the Q&A session, a couple of things came out – he wrote Basic Instinct over the course of 10 days; the idea just came to him one night and completely took him over. He sold it 13 days after he started it for $3million.
One audience member asked him if he once been paid – as was the rumor - $1million for an idea. He laughed at that, and replied no – although he had been paid $4million for 4 pages of notes.
Then he laughed some more.
posted by Rich at 1:51 AM
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