There is a great opinion piece by Ben Stiller about Gene Hackman. It's on the New York Times, so I don't know if it'll be trapped behind a paywall for all of you, so I'll quote some of the main bits in this post.
Here is the article, if you want to try first to see if you can read it.
The main thrust of the story is that Stiller worked up the courage to tell Hackman that his favorite movie was "The Poseidon Adventure", and Hackman proceeded to tell him that he had done the movie just for money.
“ … but I have to say for me, there is one movie you made that means so much to me. It might sound crazy, but I think it’s the reason I wanted to make movies. It’s ‘The Poseidon Adventure.’ It literally was my favorite movie when it came out. I think I was 7 or something and I went to see it in the theater about 10 times, then watched it repeatedly whenever it was on TV. It was so formative, and you were so good in it, and it just for me was my favorite movie for so long because of the excitement of that incredible score and those actors and the action and just all of it. It really changed my life and just … made me want to make movies.”
He smiled a little. He looked forward, thinking, perhaps about the movie, as if it hadn’t crossed his mind for a long time. Then he grinned and said:
“Money job.”
Stiller continues:
He just got up, as if it was no big deal; a conversation that might or might not continue. I sat there wrestling with this knowledge, that what had been one of the most formative performances in my young life, a performance that had moved me so much, had been some sort of a blip to him, a job to pay the bills.
It's a great essay, so I hope you can go read it.
I think there are a couple things we can take from this. The first, obviously, is that opinions differ: what we consider great, others might not consider great—if they are the creator, they might have only done it for the money and don't otherwise consider it very good. You can see this with artists a lot. Talk to any artist and they will invariably tell you how an art piece or song that they poured their soul into was overlooked and ignored by fans, but something that they just put together in a few minutes to fill the album or exhibition blew up and became one of their most popular works.
Opinion is funny that way.
The second thing we might take from this is that we should always put full effort into things we produce, because even if we the creators don't think much of it and are only making it to make something, it may hit someone else the right way to become their favorite thing in the world. Even if we don’t consider something great, we should still treat it with care and do our best. Even if The Poseidon Adventure was nothing more than a paycheck to Gene Hackman, he still gave a great performance.
Anyway, go read Stiller's full essay if you can. It's good!
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. |
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