The View from the Bridge (23 page)

Following the telecast, an instant survey was taken in which people were asked if the movie had changed their minds about nuclear war. The press then gleefully informed me that according to their stats, no one's mind had been changed and what did I have to say to that?

I answered truthfully that it was too soon to say what effect the film had had on viewers and whether any were prepared to admit—even to themselves—if it had. What do people really believe about anything? People aver all sorts of positions and ideologies—but do they mean what they say? Or are they saying what they want to believe? Hope to believe? Want
you
to think they believe? Maybe we only learn what we really believe on our deathbeds or with a gun to our heads.

But at least one person's mind
was
changed by the film. When President Reagan signed the intermediate range missile treaty in Iceland, I got a lovely card from someone that said, “Don't think your film didn't have something to do with this,” which turned out to be intuitively prescient. Some years after I had a weird confirmation of this fact. I was speaking at Oxford, and a student asked if I'd ever read Reagan's autobiography. I said I hadn't, whereupon he handily produced a photocopied page for me in which the president described his reaction to the film, essentially allowing as to how it had altered his perception of the nuclear subject. Remember, this was a president who saw life in terms of movies, and it had taken a movie to help him see that nuclear wars are unwinnable. Later, when I met Edmund Morris, author of Reagan's biography
Dutch
, he confirmed the paragraph in his book that stipulates the only time he ever saw Reagan depressed was after viewing
The Day After
. Reagan, who had come to power contemplating a winnable nuclear war (“if we have enough shovels . . .” etc.), had changed his mind.

Take it where you find it.
The Day After
received a staggering twelve Emmy nominations. In the end, it won only two; a smaller film,
Special Bulletin
, rushed into production on tape by NBC, took the “nuclear” TV movie Emmy a year earlier while we were fighting over our film's final cut. In
Special Bulletin
, the anti-nuke activists are the baddies who set off an A-bomb. Go figure.

When it was time to make the VHS and later DVD versions of the movie, I was allowed to reinsert some of the cut footage that the network had deemed too controversial to air.

Since its initial broadcast, a number of books and PhD theses have been written and (continue to be written) about
The Day After,
not counting Reagan's memoir
.
Many of these contain a great deal of information regarding the politics—national as well as network—behind the production and subsequent reaction to the film of which I was unaware. I have chosen to relate the making and airing of the movie as I experienced it, rather than including information to which I had no access at the time.

Before ending this chapter, there is an incident I feel bound to relate that occurred somewhere around this time and that had a profound effect upon me.

I was in New York and had, for some reason I cannot now recollect, been invited to attend a party in a Fifth Avenue apartment, given for members of the French film industry. I was there by myself, wandering around, knowing no one, but happily eyeing French filmmakers and actors whom I had long admired, as they ate and chatted in French among themselves, convivial, charming, and effortlessly Gallic. I spied a director who had long been an idol of mine. We had not been introduced, but I hovered nearby, watching his every move, hoping to glean I knew not what. He was standing by the buffet table, now laden with desserts, and the hostess passed and said, “Oh, Louis, darling, would you be an angel and cut these cakes?” before moving on to other obligations.

Having nothing better to do than indulge my fascination for this director, a slim, dark-haired gentleman, not especially tall, I watched him cut dessert cakes and as I did, I died a thousand deaths. I don't know about you, but as far as I am concerned there is only one way to cut a round cake; you start in the middle and carve out pie-sliced wedges to the edge. I daresay not one man or woman in ten million has gone about it otherwise for ten thousand years of human cake-cutting.

And yet here was this French director carving out triangles, parallelograms, squares, ovals, and what-have-yous, cutting the cake as no one before had ever cut the cake, thinking through (or not even thinking, doing it on instinct or intuition) the whole cake-cutting business as if it was for the first time.

I sidled up to him and tried to keep my voice casual.

“How come you're cutting the cake like that?”

He shrugged, didn't look up, and went on sculpting. “Well, this way everyone can have the size and shape that they want.”

A perfect answer to go with his unprecedented act. I was in the presence of a genius. No wonder Louis Malle had been able to make a comedy about incest. I stumbled away in a daze, left the party, and walked alone up Fifth Avenue in the dead of night, stunned, indeed humiliated by the thoughtless feat of originality that I had witnessed.

My first response was that I couldn't wait to cut the cake like that. I am not brilliant. As I continued my lonely hike uptown, I realized that I would never cut the cake like that, nor do anything so profoundly original, as long as I lived. The first man who said a woman's lips were like a rose was a genius; the second guy who said it was a plodder. It was a sobering moment. I had come face to face with my limitations and in a fashion that I could not ignore. It was as if I was a pianist and had finally listened to Horowitz. What was the point of going on if you know you were never going to play like Horowitz?

In years to come I had another insight that was somewhat comforting: While it was true that I would never be capable of that sort of act, I
had
, on the other hand, recognized it when it had occurred. I
did
understand its significance at the time and preserved it in my memory; I am relating it to you now. That is the sort of artist I am; not of the first rank, perhaps not even of the second, but I do recognize something original when I see it; I can preserve it for others to savor, even if the originator of the act is unaware or unappreciative of just what it is he or she has done. I could never write
The Odyssey
, but I can probably make it into a very good screenplay. That is the other thing I am besides being a teacher. A storyteller. Not the creator of stories, but rather the re-creator. I would never have imagined anything as original as Sherlock Holmes—but I might, with some success, imagine him meeting Sigmund Freud. If someone had said their two names together first.

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME

Based on Khan's
spectacular success, it was by now a foregone conclusion that there would be a third
Star Trek
feature and that it would involve the resurrection of Spock. The year was 1983, and I was deeply involved in cutting
The Day After
. I was also falling in love.

Paramount Pictures asked if I would write and direct the third
Star Trek
movie, an offer I declined. I still felt passionately that Spock ought not to be brought back to life and in any case, bringing dead people back to life was something I didn't know how to do, because, I suppose, I have trouble believing such a thing is possible. The tale of Jesus's resurrection is one of the most prominent in our culture, but I have difficulty with that one, as well.

When Leonard Nimoy learned I was not going to direct the film, he perceived a challenge that suddenly made the whole project interesting to him and he perceived some leverage as well: He wanted to direct the film in exchange for his participation as the resurrected Spock.

Michael Eisner tried to talk him out of this, pointing out that directing a film is hard enough, but a directing debut in which you are also the star places you under a triple burden.

At which point Nimoy called and sought my advice. My reply was very simple: “Are you prepared to let this ship sail without you?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he answered.

“Then sit tight; you're gonna direct the movie.”

Which is exactly what happened. Did I feel a pang when I learned the film was going forward with Nimoy at the helm? Possibly. I had become friends with many of these people, and there was certainly something alluring in the promise of directing a film that had all a studio's resources—production and distribution—behind it. If you're doing a studio film, nothing is too good for you; the red carpet of money and expertise is yours. Ever since the French gave us the auteur theory, the director has become king, and if you don't keep a cool head, you may confuse yourself with the job description. All the importance, all the deference attached to your every whim and opinion is there only so long as you are doing what the studio wants you to do. You ride first class—but only for the duration of the film.

Of course, if you are Kubrick or Huston or Coppola or Scorsese, you really
are
king.

Nonetheless, I don't believe I lost much sleep over
Star Trek III.
Nimoy and Harve Bennett wrote the screenplay together, Bennett produced (minus the participation of Bob Sallin, whose place and function were assumed by the very capable Ralph Winter), Nimoy directed, and
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
was released in June of 1984. This was the second pairing of Bennett and Nimoy, and they worked well together. Kirstie Alley declined to reprise the role of Lieutenant Saavik, and her place was taken by Robin Curtis. It was a thankless task for the newcomer; it's far easier to create a character than reprise someone else's performance (James Bond being the exception that proves the rule).

The movie and its fate were largely unknown to me as I got married on June 6 and headed off on my honeymoon. I heard in distant fashion that the film was a success and learned occasionally of doings on the Paramount lot. Incomprehensibly to me, Diller, Eisner, and Katzenberg had been summarily dismissed. As I understood it, their firings had to do with a photograph of all three on the cover of
New York
magazine for an article extolling the value and virtues of the most successful studio chiefs at the time. Martin Davis, CEO of Gulf & Western, Paramount's corporate owner in New York (he had succeeded Charles Bluhdorn following the latter's death in 1983), was, according to this version of events, incensed that he had not been included in the photo or accompanying article.

With the Eisner-Katzenberg-Diller triumvirate gone (the first two would save Walt Disney and turn it into an entertainment behemoth; the third would found the wildly successful Fox television network), Davis picked Frank Mancuso to head the studio. Originally a film salesman from Buffalo, Mancuso headed west. With no hands-on production experience, he asked the recently retired head of Universal Pictures, Ned Tanen, to run Paramount's feature division. Tanen agreed to undertake the job on condition that he be given a free hand, answerable to no one and limited to what I think was a two-year contract. Dawn Steel (née Spielberg, a cousin) was made production chief, the second woman ever to reach the position (Sherry Lansing was first, at 20th Century Fox). Steel had begun in Paramount's marketing division and would go on to an extremely successful career, working on such projects as
Flashdance
and
Top Gun
with Don Simpson before succumbing tragically to a brain tumor in 1997.

Tanen was not unknown to me; as head of Universal (he of the Verna Fields eulogy) he had bought the rights to my Sherlock Holmes novel,
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
, and had green-lit the film in 1975. A mercurial, brilliant, and witty man, he had led Universal for so long, he knew how to run a film studio in his sleep, which was probably why he didn't want to do it again for very long.

Tanen looked at the Paramount slate and computed what was needed. He green-lit a new Eddie Murphy feature,
The Golden Child
, and he ordered up the fourth
Star Trek
. Tanen's production slate would always include films he believed were more or less surefire so that he could—judiciously—experiment with other fare.

When Mancuso demurred at the price for both films, Tanen reminded him—brusquely, as I heard it—of the terms of his contract. As events proved, Tanen knew his stuff, and both films were successful.
Star Trek IV
, in fact, made the most money of any film in the series, for reasons that we'll examine shortly.

Paramount hired two screenwriters to deliver the script for
Star Trek IV
, both unknown to me. Following my honeymoon, I was preparing a comedy,
Volunteers
(written by David Isaacs and Ken Levine), that would star Tom Hanks and John Candy, when I was surprised to receive a phone call from Dawn Steel, an old friend whom I had first met through Karen Moore.

“Nicky, we have an emergency,” she began without preamble. “Can you come over here right away?” “Here” meaning Paramount.

I could and did, to be told that the studio (read Tanen and Steel) were not happy with the screenplay for
Star Trek IV
, later aptly subtitled by studio exec David Kirkpatrick
The Voyage Home
.

“We're four weeks away from starting prep,” Dawn explained, “And we need a whole new script. We want to keep the central story but start over with the screenplay. Can you help us?”

I wasn't sure how to answer that, since I had no idea what was being contemplated. I asked to speak with Bennett and Nimoy, who were to produce and direct the film. I left Dawn's office and trudged across the lot to Bennett's.

There was a comforting familiarity to our reunion. These were my friends, and I hadn't realized—or allowed myself to realize—how much I had missed them.