 |
Aaron Sorkin is a man of many words
For the writer of 'The West Wing' and 'Sports Night,' dialogue is music to his ears
Tuesday, March 7, 2000
On a two-hour movie, the average screenplay runs 120 pages. Maybe 125. For "A Few Good Men," Aaron Sorkin's weighed in at 149. For "Schindler's List," on which he did a final "dialogue polish": 183 pages. And when he delivered the first draft of "The American President" to director Rob Reiner five years ago: a sumo-class 385 pages.
"I completely fell in love with the sound of my own voice," Sorkin admits.
The writerly ringleader of "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" does like to talk. Fast. If there were a speed limit on elocution, he'd be ticketed whenever he opened his mouth. Most of his characters talk the same way. Faster than a politician in a frying pan.
Talk fascinates Sorkin. It's what made him become a writer.
"I don't have stories to tell," he says, quite serious, his words spilling out between glottal stops and piling on top of each other like slices from a Salad Shooter.
For some, the chat-happy style of "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" is as appealing as waxy yellow buildup. But to viewers who can't stomach another punchline with canned laughter, or another pregnant pause that delivers diddly, Sorkin has become TV's newest übermensch.
With an ego that steps nimbly between confidence and arrogance while frantically avoiding the inevitable tide of writer's insecurity, Sorkin likes the attention. There aren't many writers who don't. Not even the reclusive ones.
"Someone accused me of writing as if I'm perpetually on a first date with a girl I really want to have a second date with," Sorkin says.
He doesn't dispute it. Both "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" have an ingratiating eagerness that's not unlike a splash of Hai Karate: A little goes a long way.
"For me, the (writing) experience is very much like a date," Sorkin says. "It's not unusual that I'm really funny here and really smart here and maybe showing some anger over here so she sees maybe I have this dark side. I want it to have been worth it for everyone to sit through it for however long I ask them to."
Plenty of people who get paid to watch TV think Sorkin's work is worth sitting through. In the latest poll of television critics by the trade publication Electronic Media, "The West Wing" was ranked No. 1 and "Sports Night" No. 5, ahead of such audience favorites as "The Simpsons" (No. 6), "Friends" (No. 13) and "ER" (No. 17).
"The West Wing," a first-year show that airs on NBC, has done better, currently tied with "Ally McBeal" for 29th in the Nielsen ratings.
But Sorkin has little control over who's watching in either case. That doesn't make him any less fidgety. He smokes cigarettes as fast as he talks and has the overall demeanor of someone on the Juan Valdez All-Caffeine Diet. But you'd be buzzed too if you were the main man, the principal writer, on two network TV shows. For those keeping score, that's 44 episodes in a span of 36 weeks, September to May.
The only other person doing that right now is David E. Kelley, with "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal."
Last summer, Sorkin said he spoke with Kelley and learned that Kelley is a Zenlike master of personal discipline. Sorkin recalls, "He said, 'Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I write 'Ally McBeal,' Thursday, Friday, Saturday I write 'The Practice,' Sunday I'm with my wife and kids.' And I thought, I have a real schedule, too. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I freak out cuz I haven't thought of what next week's show is. Thursday I start yelling at people because I haven't thought of what next week's show is. Friday I go, 'Ohmigod, there's going to be a half hour of dead air on ABC next week,' and then it finally gets done."
With the addition of "The West Wing," Sorkin admitted to some serious sweat stains at the prospect of failing spectacularly. But he's game.
"It's nuts not to think it's the opportunity of a lifetime," says Sorkin, who will be 40 next year. "I'm not crazy. This whole thing may end with everyone realizing I bit off more than I could chew to the peril of not one but two network television shows. But it's not going to end with me saying, 'This is too much work, I'm tired.' Somehow it's going to get done."
The way Sorkin gets it done is unorthodox for TV. If Kelley is the master of well-ordered compartmentalization, Sorkin is the master of miracles out of chaos. He flies so close to the edge that he usually has no idea what next week's episode will be when this week's episode is being shot. It can make for ill-advised plot developments, such as having Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman) come up with the goofy idea of requiring that the guy who loves her date other women before committing to a relationship with her on "Sports Night." Or, on "The West Wing," giving the president of the United States a form of multiple sclerosis because he needed to be bedridden in one scene.
John Wells, one of the creative types behind the success of "ER" and now head of a production company responsible for "The West Wing," jokes that Sorkin's seat-of-the-pants approach can be exasperating.
"I try to get him to be more like me," says the jacket-and-tie-wearing Wells, "and he tries to get me to be more like him."
Sorkin, given to faded jeans and dark V-neck sweaters worn over white T-shirts, doesn't expect to change.
"As a writer, I don't like to answer questions until the very moment that I have to. It's dismaying to John," he admits, "but I don't sit down and think to myself, 'This is what the person had for breakfast when they were 5. This is sort of the book on this person.' . . . I like to answer those questions at the very moment that it's being dramatized."
Perhaps the neon example of Sorkin's penchant for winging it is the first meeting he had with Wells, a lunch arranged by his agent even before "Sports Night" had debuted to critical acclaim.
"I thought, 'This will be a nice lunch to have.' Well, I went there and almost as soon as I sat down I realized John Wells is an awfully busy guy. He's expecting me to pitch him something. He's expecting me to have an idea of some sort that I think might be of interest to him. And so, on the spot, I started saying, 'What about the White House . . .?'"
Thus was born "The West Wing," a weekly drama that makes politics almost noble and government almost human. (Sorkin is heavily into wish fulfillment.) Martin Sheen plays the president, married this time and surrounded by smart, capable people you'd want to take home to meet the family. No one-dimensional slimy villains here, at least not in the regular cast. No wacky neighbors, either.
"There is no dramatic mileage in a character incapable of certain things," Sorkin says. "What I prefer is that everybody I write is capable of being smart, stupid, mean, nice. . . . It's not a clambake every week, but what there is is a great respect for someone else's mind and their heart and their ability to do a good job, and I'm attracted to that."
Sorkin, born in Manhattan and raised in the suburbs, has been attracted to writing since childhood. But not just any kind of writing. Playwriting.
"Writing television, writing movies, was as foreign to me as writing an opera would be," said Sorkin, whose college degree is in musical theater and whose first full-length play, "A Few Good Men," opened on Broadway in 1989, when he was 28.
It was the beginning of a head-spinning decade: a successful Broadway run, a movie adaptation of the play in 1992, another film ("Malice") the following year, "The American President" in 1995, "Sports Night" in 1998 and "The West Wing" last year.
Worldwide, the three films have grossed about $400 million for their makers, and "The American President" alone pretty much changed Sorkin's life. It directly spawned "The West Wing" and indirectly led to "Sports Night," which he dreamed up in the L.A. hotel room where he watched endless editions of ESPN's "SportsCenter" while writing "President." To top it off, he met his wife, Julia, at Castle Rock, the studio that produced "The American President." As Sorkin tells it, she was the lawyer responsible for paying him as little money as possible for his screenplay, and he would remind her of it when they were house hunting. "I'd say, 'You like that house? You want to live there? You can't! You want to know why?'"
Don't shed any tears for the guy. As executive producer and writer of two network television series, Sorkin can probably afford the high-priced spread. And the playwright who knew nothing about TV, and who still assumes he'll return someday to the New York stage, is smitten with the almost immediate gratification he gets in television.
"If I were writing a screenplay right now, I could write a joke and not hear a laugh for another two years."
Shrinking a script is still a challenge, though. (In that 385-page version of "The American President," he realized on page 90 that he still hadn't introduced the woman into the story.) It's the downside of liking dialogue so much.
"Of all the storytelling elements there are, plot is the one I'm least comfortable with," Sorkin says. "I wish that we lived in a world where we could be entertained by a half hour's worth of crackly dialogue and nothing else, because plot frightens me a little bit."
The result, happily for Sorkin's fans, annoyingly for his detractors, is some windy preaching that seems to wag its finger at the viewer the way a parent might. Sorkin insists he's not telling anyone to eat his vegetables. "The things that I write need to respect the properties of dramatic writing, and that's all," he says. "The speechifying on 'Sports Night,' the speechifying on 'West Wing' are there for the purposes of drama."
He adds: "When people talk, as they tend to do in things that I write, they tend to be hypercommunicative, which is to say they can't shut up. It's not for the sake of winning your vote."
And for those viewers who devote Web sites to the mistakes they spot in each episode of Sorkin's shows, he confesses he's not a stickler for research. "I really don't care about reality," he says, "only the appearance of reality."
Sorkin will often make up an entire workplace language just to keep the audience leaning forward, trying to keep up with the dialogue. It's why some viewers don't like his work, but Sorkin isn't apologetic.
"I make the audience chase me," he says. "Involving the audience, making them a participant in the experience, is very important."
So, if you're out of breath after a half hour of "Sports Night" or an hour of "The West Wing," now you know why.
-- President Bartlet to his director of communications, Toby Ziegler, on "The West Wing"
-- Associate producer Jeremy Goodwin, after becoming ill during a deer hunt, on "Sports Night"
John Levesque is the P-I's television critic. Call him at 206-448-8330 or send e-mail to tvguy@seattle-pi.com
By JOHN LEVESQUE 
POST-INTELLIGENCER TV CRITIC
"I really don't. I'm desperate for stories to tell. What I love is the sound of dialogue and the music of dialogue. It's what I like to write."
Aaron Sorkin, above, came up with the idea for "The West Wing" from material he wasn't able to use in his script for "The American President."
It definitely has to do with the writing. His scripts are so full of dialogue that paying attention is a course requirement in Sorkin 101. Of course, high praise is hollower than a "Veronica's Closet" episode if the only people paying attention are TV critics. "Sports Night" has never been a big ratings winner for ABC, and while good buzz from critics occasionally saves a struggling show from exile after its first season, a second reprieve is rare if the show doesn't show a trend that its audience is building. Since its debut in 1998, "Sports Night," a half-hour dramedy about the people who produce a cable sports show, has improved a bit, but its albatross is a tendency to lose much of the audience delivered by its lead-in show, "Dharma & Greg." Networks hate to see that, considering it a serious breach of team ethics even if the two shows are about as compatible, well, as Dharma and Greg.
"Sports Night's" ensemble cast includes (l-r) Joshua Molina, Felicity Huffman and Sabrina Lloyd.
It was the obvious thing to say. "The American President," a breezy, feel-good film about a widower president who falls in love with a lobbyist, had been Sorkin's most recent project. And having boiled down that first draft from 385 pages to something more manageable, Sorkin still had lots of material that never made it onto the screen.
Martin Sheen as President Josiah Bartlett on "The West Wing."
And now a few words from Aaron Sorkin ...
"You know, I was watching a television program before, with a sort of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends, apparently because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. Then they brought the boyfriends out, and they all fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me, these people don't vote, do they?
· Fall's new crop of TV already shows promise
· TV
· Vampires fight for equal rights in 'True Blood'
· Weekend TV
· A moment with: Dana Middleton / former KOMO TV Host
· Video Music Awards to pack in mischief with 'God's favorite virgins'
· Blayne Walsh: Our guy on 'Project Runway' is b-licious
· '90210:' TV's rich kids are now really, really wealthy
· TV
· Broadcaster puts career on hold to write memoir
· TV
· David Letterman is finding it hard to believe Jay Leno is leaving 'Tonight'
more
101 Elliott Ave. W.
Seattle, WA 98119
(206) 448-8000
Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
and 30 million page views each month.
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Use/Privacy Policy
