Genius: Colin Firth and Jude Law Star in Film All About Words

The KCET Cinema Series kicked off its summer season on Tuesday, June 7 at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre. Opening the nine-week celebration of film was "Genius." Based on A. Scott Berg's 1978 book "Max Perkins: Editor of Genius," the film explores the collaborative relationship between book editor Max Perkins and writer Thomas Wolfe. Directed by Michael Grandage with a script by John Logan, the film stars Colin Firth as Perkins and Jude Law as Wolfe. Also appearing in "Genius" are Laura Linney as Perkins' wife, Louise, and Nicole Kidman as Wolfe's girlfriend, costume designer Aline Bernstein. 

Proudly sponsored by the James and Paula Coburn Foundation and E. Hofert Dailey Trust, the KCET Cinema Series offers audiences the chance to see acclaimed films prior to their release. Screenings are followed by Q&A sessions moderated by Cinema Series host and Deadline Hollywood columnist Pete Hammond. For the Cinema Series opening night, Hammond was joined by famed film critic and historian Leonard Maltin. Below is an excerpt from their conversation. 

Leonard Maltin: I read a reference to Scott Berg's wonderful book, "Max Perkins: Editor of Genius." I realized that I hadn't ever read it, so I picked up a copy. I'm so glad I did. It's a wonderful book. Even having seen the movie, and knowing some of the highlights, I would still recommend it to you. I'm amazed that they were able to make the movie. 

Pete Hammond: Yeah, it's not exactly cinematic. A movie about a writer, first of all, is very hard, and an editor. 

LM: I doubt there's ever been a book about a literary editor -- newspaper editors are almost a cliche -- but I can't think of another, of course, there are very few people quite like Maxwell Perkins too. He was a giant of a figure in 20th century literature, as is plainly obvious here. But, they managed to do something. 

Biographies, biographical films, are tough to do no matter what. How do you really express an artist, what's going through an artist's mind, as he creates a great painting? Or a composer's mind as he writes a great song or a great symphony? And there have been terrible examples of this over the years, going back to the early days of Hollywood. Seeing Don Ameche as Stephen Foster in "Swanee River," you know what I mean? Even Alfred Hitchcock directed a movie called "Waltzes from Vienna" about [Johann] Strauss. Terrible. Very funny, for all the wrong reasons. Unintentionally hilarious because, I think it's the spinning of -- I hope I'm not getting this wrong -- I think it was the rhythms of a kitchen, a busy kitchen, that gave him the idea for "The Blue Danube," stirring and stirring and stirring.  Things going on.

PH: They don't make them like that anymore. 

LM: And a good thing, too. 

But, so how you really get inside the head of any creative person, no matter how well intentioned you are, it's very tough to do. Yet, I think this movie comes as close as any I can think of to giving you a sense, especially, of Thomas Wolfe and of Maxwell Perkins and what he did and how they worked together and what they accomplished together and how they went about it. And, that's miraculous. 

PH: It's a real writer's movie. It's all about words. I heard Scott talk about this is a movie about words and they don't really make movies about words anymore. They're all visuals. 

LM: I can't remember a single line from "Batman vs. Superman," but, I've tried. I've tried. It doesn't work. 

This is more exciting to me than Batman vs. Superman. I'm showing my prejudice here. I like a good action movie. I like to go to a superhero movie. I've got no prejudice against that, but this nourishes me, a film like this. 

And what a wonderful cast. Top to bottom. And the period flavor as well. You know, to capture the look and the feel of a publishing office in New York, in the 1920s and 1930s, all that wood. The big wooden desk. The ink well. The desk lamp. The clear windows looking out at the secretarial pool. The elevator down the hallway. All of that. That's something that contemporary movie-goers, young people, have never seen in their lives. They never experienced that. This film captures all that, I think, really, really well. 

PH: It's about a writer who is actually visual. There are so many ways to shoot him because he writes on the refrigerator and different places, which most writers don't do. 

LM: That's what you think. How do you know? What research have you done to prove that?

PH: I've done no research. Let me ask you, though, you having read the book, that was about a number of things, but they sort of pulled out -- John Logan, who wrote the screenplay -- sort of pulled out this story. 

LM: I guess this gave him the most, the best opportunity, I guess because Thomas Wolfe was -- not that Hemingway was an unentertaining character or Fitzgerald either -- but they had both been tackled on screen so many ways, so many times, I think I don't know what his reasoning would be, but I would think it's because Thomas Wolfe is sort of fresh meat as it were for dramatizing. And Jude Law is so good. 

PH: He's really good, and I heard him say that he was very worried doing this role that he was going way over the top or doing too much. 

LM: That would be any actor's concern because it's such a big performance, but that's the Thomas Wolfe that Perkins recalled and that is portrayed in the book, the biographical volume, and that John Logan wanted to bring to life. 

I always say, though, even in spite of this being a film of great integrity and great dedication on the part of the people that made it, don't ever get your facts or your history from the movies. Not a good idea. 

PH: So, is this not exactly, totally accurate?

LM: No, no, I think it is, but I think somebody told me towards the end, there's that line where his distraught mother is sitting there in the hospital in Baltimore saying his father died in this very hospital. I don't think he did. 

PH: That's always dangerous when you can go look it up. 

LM: That's right. On the other hand, I think they had the accurate postage stamp, so you've got to cut them some slack. 

Did you tell them about how John Logan acquired this?

PH: No, I didn't. 

LM: John Logan, who is not a household name, but ought to be, is the most ridiculously prolific writer of our time. Just humor me, how many people have ever heard, know his name?

PH: He's been nominated for Oscars. 

LM: Just a few. 

This is what he's done: He wrote a play in Chicago, when he was just starting out as an actor, won an award for writing it and for acting in it, then went on to…

He's done everything from write the story and script for the last couple of James Bond movies...

PH: Which is just like this film. 

LM: Exactly. To creating "Penny Dreadful," which is about to start its new season, to writing the screenplay for "Sweeney Todd," collaborating with Stephen Sondheim. To writing the multiple-award winning play "Red," which some of you may have seen when it was downtown at the Music Center. I did. I missed it on Broadway, but saw it here with Alfred Molina. Just great. 

PH: Eddie Redmayne won a Tony Award for it on Broadway too. 

LM: There's nothing he hasn't tackled. All genres. All types of films. Here, a very erudite film and then he does popcorn movies too, television, stage -- you name it. Amazingly versatile and a really talented guy. 

PH: But, this project was very different for him in that he approached Scott Berg, who wrote the novel, obviously, and said, I want to buy it. It wasn't, like, I want to option it or I want to get a studio to pay. 

LM: He took his own money, 20 years ago, and bought the rights, the movie rights to this book. 

PH: So, he wound up as the owner of this property. 

LM: Yeah. He was so moved and so inspired by Scott Berg's book that he said, I just have to be, I have to make a film out of it, I have to be the one to do it. So, he put his money where his mouth was and bought the rights and it's taken all these years to bring it to life. I don't know all of the steps along the way. 

PH: Several different directors were in and out apparently. And actors. 

LM: Of course, the way you get most movies made is you get name actors attached to it. I'm sure, once you get one, like Colin Firth, then maybe that appeals to Jude Law and maybe that appeals to Nicole Kidman and on and on down the line. You get all those people attached and then the money people say, "Oh, okay," even though this is a subject that we don't think is as salable as a genre film of some sort, if you've got that line-up of stars, we'll back it. If you can do it for X number of dollars or pounds. 

PH: Pretty much for nothing. If you can get them to work for base salary, basically. 

LM: Exactly. Bringing it to a modest price, but you still have to create that period. While it's not a huge cast or a lot of sets, they have to look right and feel right and that means hairstyles and wardrobe and settings and sets and locations and they all, because if anything takes you out of the movie, even for a minute or two, everything falls apart, but I never get that feeling here.

 PH: I don't either and I've seen it twice now. When you see the movie a second time, you can sometimes see the strings and everything else. I didn't see that at all. I found all kinds of new things in this movie. You can see that they put a lot of love into it. 

And, you know, it's from Lion's Gate and Roadside, Summit and Roadside. This is a sort of almost major studio. They rarely make, studios rarely make these kinds of movies anymore. In fact, Lion's Gate just announced that they're going to do seven "Mighty Morphin [Power] Ranger" movies. Not one. Not two. Not three. Seven. They tell their shareholders, and that's what the studios are in the business of now, these tent poles. This kind of movie, it wasn't for the little indie world and things like that, it's a fading art in movies. 

LM: It is, but, on the other hand, it's kind of counter-programming for the summer. If grown-ups want to go to the movies this coming weekend, or the weekend after, they look at what's playing and shrug or sigh.

PH: Over "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2" and "Warcraft." 

LM: Then there's this. If this is the alternative, you're going to sort of corner the market, at least for the moment, on something mature and something intelligent. Again, there's plenty of room for escapism and popcorn. I'm not against that. I just like some variety. This offers a healthy alternative, I think. 

PH: What happened? It used to be that the studios were interested in dramas. That became a dirty word. They were interested in movies about human beings. Something changed along the way where it just ended. 

LM: Greed. Greed. You can make more money. 

Of course, as many of you surely know, it's a global business, more than ever before. Now, when you make a movie, you're not thinking what the old cliche used to be... how will it play in Dubuque? How will it play in Peoria? Now, it's how will it play in Beijing. I'm not kidding. Can we sell this in China? Can we sell this in Indonesia? Can we sell this across the seven continents? That income is sometimes higher than the domestic U.S. and Canada revenue for a movie, so it really matters. That's why they want to do it for a specific price, "If you can shoot this for under X dollars, we can back it because of those names." They can always get their return from selling it to Netflix and selling it to HBO and the few people who still buy Blu-Rays and DVDs and they can get their money back. 

Then, if it goes on to be successful, for instance, I can see this as an Oscar contender. Jude Law's performance just for starters, I would think, would be worthy of mounting a campaign for. 

PH: He's great and Colin is too in a very understated way. 

LM: Oh, yes. It's a very understated performance by a very quiet character, very interior character, which is why it's so moving when he sheds tears in the last seam, where he's reading Thomas Wolfe's letter. If they mount a campaign for this at the end of the year and if it should maybe come through with either a nomination or two or three or an Oscar or two, then they're rewarded even further because then, even though it's probably out of theatrical release and probably already out on video, more people will want to see it. That's they're payback, or backing -- what we used to call the prestige picture. This is what the old time studios used to call a prestige picture. That term doesn't even get used anymore, but I'm fond of outmoded terms. 

Top image: Marc Brenner, courtesy of Lions Gate/Roadside Attractions.