"Old friends die hard, or do they? TAPE seems to suggest that caution should be used when dealing with friendships that have been outgrown," I asked Stephen Belber, screenwriter of TAPE, via email.

      "I wouldn't necessarily say that caution should be used with friendships that have been outgrown." Stephen answered. "Being somewhat of a sentimentalist, I'd be more likely to say that friends should make efforts to improve their communication, so that they don't end up in situations like the one in TAPE."

      TAPE uncomfortably reunites three old high school friends placing them in a shabby motel room for about an hour. Real tension is created which I called claustrophobic in my review.

      "I [Belber] also probably possess a bit of the Vince character myself, when he says to Jon, 'If I wasn't your oldest friend, I doubt I'd have the ability to make you think twice about this.' In the sense (and ever-so-slight reality) that Vince is actually doing Jon a favor, and doing society a great service, I'd say that friends SHOULD call each other on hypocrisies the likes of which Jon is guilty of." Vince is played by Ethan Hawke-scummy and addicted to a number of things.

      Stephen Belber spoke to me from Paris via email. He told me that he was currently reviewing a bunch of Law and Order SVU scripts because he is writing an episode. Imagine being able to write a patch of dialogue later brought to life by Richard Belzer and Ice-T. That's just cool, guys.

      Anyway, he told me that he was reading the Herald Tribune "far too religiously" and was actually giving "Madame Bovary" a read for no particular reason. I'm always fascinated by what people are reading even it if it is just a cereal box or the shampoo bottle in the shower. Surprisingly, most folks tell me that they don't read or aren't because they don't have time.

      "I wish I could say that I am an avid reader, but that probably wouldn't be true. Maybe I'm just not a good reader, although I am a passionate one." Stephen told me. He admitted that finding a "good balance between reading and writing" is difficult. Boy, that's sure true. Of course, Stephen is fortunate enough to write for a living. The rest of us must be content with reading, if we have the time in our busy schedules of course.

      Among the accomplishments on his resume, I noticed that Stephen is a graduate of Julliard's Playwrights Program (I looked it up, its very, very exclusive, only something like four writers a year are invited to attend). He adapted TAPE from his play of the same name into a compact feature film directed by none other than Richard Linklater (SLACKER, DAZED AND CONFUSED) and staring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Robert Sean Leonard. It is a precise production taken from a carefully penned screenplay.

Our conversation went a little like this:

STEPHEN BELBER: It was a slight consideration, seeing as audiences who walk into movie theaters, having paid up to ten bucks, often demand (and deserve?) to see big, semi-epic events, and TAPE of course offers a small, non-epic lack of communication, so we didn't want too many moviegoers pissed at us. But when the movie screened at Sundance and the crowd there seemed OK about it, we figured, why not? My Dinner With Andre scored big, so let's give it a try. (That's not at all a comparison of the two; the former being MUCH better.)

I agree, and I would actually love to script doctor big blockbuster movies, not only for the cash but because I would love to enjoy them more, and I feel that I could create more interesting characters, and certainly more interesting dialogue, while keeping the film within the broad adventure, big blockbuster genre.

I think it's fair to say that I wrote most of that dialogue. I often think to myself when watching that those actors make it sound SO much better than it is, but luckily there wasn't that much ad-libbing. Ethan made up that whole P for Party routine--an old high school thing of his, he said, but otherwise it was pretty word-for-word, and when there was a change, it was discussed by the group.

"He is so not full of shit that at first you think you're dreaming. I think the reason he's so good at capturing slices of life is that he looks at life in incredibly honest ways, and he lives the thing completely on his own terms."
--Stephen Belber on working with Richard Linklater.

I do indeed like warm beer. But the reason I wrote in the pre-play double drinking stuff, is that I wanted to give the audience a hint--which most would get upon retrospect--of Vince as up to something. In this case, he wants to create the illusion that he is a screw -up, so as to prompt Jon into giving him a lecture, so that he can then call Jon on his hypocrisy. But in this case, he doesn't have to go that far to create the illusion, because he really IS a screw-up, and happens to love chugging warm beer. Thus he chugs one and empties one, satisfying both himself and his goal.

Well, I usually try to keep my pieces small in character number because I like the challenge of not simply bringing in another character when I'm not sure what should happen next. It goes with my self-imposed mission in writing plays to begin with, which is to put people in a room together and have them attempt to figure out how they're going to deal with one another amidst complicated circumstances. The smaller the room and the smaller the number of its occupants, the more figuring each one probably has to do, and the more potential, I think, for an interesting adventure. (Which is why I like theater and small movies).

I can't say enough good things about Richard Linklater. Working with him was a true delight. He is so not full of shit that at first you think you're dreaming. I think the reason he's so good at capturing slices of life is that he looks at life in incredibly honest ways, and he lives the thing completely on his own terms. But even more importantly, I think it's because the guy has a profound curiosity. He thinks. He engages, he reads, he's interested, and he's bored with the conventional. And at the same time, his life is fairly normal.

"The smaller the room and the smaller the number of its occupants, the more figuring each one probably has to do, and the more potential, I think, for an interesting adventure. (Which is why I like theater and small movies)."
--Stephen Belber on TAPE's small setting.

Nothing to pass along, seeing as I don't at all feel like a pro, although I am embarrassed to say that I spent a LOT of years writing mediocre poetry in my bed, and am a failed novelist (actually not failed if you wanna come over and check out my room sometime---it's all there) but I think I took up playwriting having realized that I wasn't gonna make it as a novelist. I still love writing short fiction, and would like to do more of it. I'm far from a linguist, or even someone who's good at language, but I must say that I love it, I love how it comes out of different people's mouths, I love how people use it to hide, deconstruct and explode, but mostly I love it when people finally come around to using it for what it's meant for--good ole communication. I love that point in a play or film when they finally find the words--(or eloquently admit that they can't)--to tell the other person or people what's truly going on.

I actually never did see ORDINARY PEOPLE, although I've tried to rent it several times; in fact, for awhile I looked for it every time but it was never there. Perhaps I should make it a priority again. As for GOOD WILL HUNTING, when I first saw it, I was quite impressed with those two guys (also because I act a bit and was envious of what they had pulled off.) Happened to see it again recently on TV, and it wasn't as good, but I still give them major credit for telling the story they wanted to tell, which I felt was a good one. I'm also a Howard Zinn fan, and had heard that Damon borrowed his big speech from Zinn, which I gave him credit for even if it might have been plagiarism.

What I liked about the movie was the inarticulation of its characters, particularly Affleck and his gang, and of Will as well. Thus when he DOES make that Zinn speech, it's a great moment of elucidation. ORDINARY PEOPLE, the title, makes me think I'd like it simply because it seems like it's about just that, people who don't know how to deal (isn't it about Timothy Hutton and his family that can't communicate about a dead father?)--but who are struggling towards some sort of....truce.

Yes, I very much like THE ICE STORM; very nice. It does provide a harsh look at its characters, and yet there is obvious tenderness within the look. I'm thinking specifically of Sigourney Weaver's character, and how she comes off as rather mean, but then there are one or two moments where you see her alone, thinking, or mourning, or with her husband, obviously wanting to make a connection but unable to, and your heart--or at least mine--thoroughly goes out to her. I love the challenge the writer sets to make unlikable characters comprehensible. (Although maybe that also has to do with her being Sigourney Weaver.)

Basically, I like movies that have futuristically ambiguous endings, as opposed to particularly happy or sad ones. I like leaving characters on the verge of figuring out where they're headed, so that we can pick up, as viewers, and take it from there.

Jonathan W. Hickman