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The one and only - John Milius
You know that line in "Dirty Harry" in which Clint Eastwood's
Harry Callahan describes the power of the .44 Magnum? John Milius
wrote that line.
Remember the line in "Jaws" when Robert Shaw, playing the shark
hunter, talks about his buddies being eaten alive by sharks during
World War II? That
was Milius.
How about the line in "Apocalypse Now," when Robert Duvall,
playing a surf-loving Army colonel, says, "I love the smell of
napalm in the morning"?
Milius again.
Clearly Milius is a talent. He's also a larger-than-life figure
as underscored by some choice excerpts from the CNN article:
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"Apocalypse Now" has its own morality, said Milius. "It has its
own rules."
That might also be said about Milius himself -- who displays
what might be described as a larger-than-life personality. He's
said to be the model for the
character Walter Sobchak in the Coen brothers' "The Big
Lebowski," an item Milius doesn't dispute.
"They told me they based that character on me," Milius said,
adding that he had previously turned down the Coens' offer to
appear in their film "BartonFink" as a studio chief.
*****
Robert Shaw's "Jaws" speech about how sharks attacked survivors
of the torpedoed USS Indianapolis was written "literally over the
phone," Milius said. "I
gave it to them, and they went out and shot it." (Milius work on
the film was uncredited; Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb are the
credited screenwriters.)
And then there's the famous "napalm" line from "Apocalypse."
"I just wrote it -- it just came up," said Milius, describing
the famous line uttered wistfully by Duvall's surfing Col. Bill
Kilgore. "That's what happens.
People love to think that all this stuff happens when you write
a famous line -- that you really thought about it a lot."
*****
Although he admires a few scripts from modern-day Hollywood --
such as P.T. Anderson's "Boogie Nights," "Hard Eight" and "There
Will Be Blood" --most Hollywood scripts that get made today are
"garbage," Milius said, written by "broken writers" with no
"shame."
"There's no shame in the world, and without shame, you cannot
have honor. Our world is ruled by consensus now. There is no sense
of honor."
If that sounds like the lament of an outsider, Milius said it's
probably because he feels like he's been treated like one through
much of his career, given his
reputation as a conservative and his opposition to gun-control
laws.
"I've led a whole life behind enemy lines. I've been the victim
of so much persecution," he said. "I'm the barbarian of
Hollywood."
Milius -- writer, director, conservative, gun rights advocate,
iconoclast.
And let's not forget surfer: But Milius isn't all blood and
thunder. As a surfer, whose surfing exploits as a teen helped to
forge his self-sufficient world
view, he's lent his gruff voice as narrator to a new documentary
about surfing soldiers during the Vietnam War. "Between the Lines"
reveals a chapter of
the war not widely known, outside the fiction of Duvall's
character and his famous line, "Charlie don't surf."
'Apocalypse' writer: Most scripts today 'are
garbage' (CNN)
Apocalypse Now - Helicopter Attack- Kilgore
Jaws The Indianapolis Speech
Do You Feel Lucky?
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/09/john.milius.movies/index.htmlhttp://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/09/john.milius.movies/index.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjWDCX1Bdw&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nrvMNf-HEg&feature=PlayList&p=66904F1B0678D43F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=31http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nrvMNf-HEg&feature=PlayList&p=66904F1B0678D43F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=31http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpB_O60fTYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpB_O60fTYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpB_O60fTYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nrvMNf-HEg&feature=PlayList&p=66904F1B0678D43F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=31http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjWDCX1Bdw&feature=relatedhttp://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/09/john.milius.movies/index.html
