Does
the name JOHN MILIUS, the subject of the aptly titled 2013 documentary MILIUS, sound familiar to you?
To
me and other cinephiles, yes.
To
many a movie-goer, maybe? Vaguely?
To
most, (particularly those born post-1984) Hell no!
Does
his name echo-out in the echelons of post-modern American filmmaking like his
contemporaries Spielberg, Lucas and Scorsese? Again, hell no!
Should
his name ring out? HELL YES!
Why,
you may ask?
This
documentary, a bio-pic-doco about the life and career of gun-toting,
cigar-smoking, filmmaker John Milius, basically maps out how this Screenwriter-come-Director’s
fingerprints / pen-strokes / type-writer-ribbon-smudges, have basically
influenced everything we now see and know of popular film culture!
Pen-strokes / key-strokes; many times Milius did not even write the classic scenes he was responsible for; like the time he
turned in the feature-film script for Dillinger (1973),
dictated into a telegram machine. Or, the time when he verbalized the most classic scene
in Jaws over the phone to Spielberg!
Yep, you know the scene - towards the climax of the film, when salty sea-dog ‘Captain Quint’ recalls, with
spine-tingling detail, the tale of his WW2 ship, the SS Indianapolis, being struck by a submarine torpedo and how the
Sailors were subsequently picked off by hungry sharks… That scene! The best
scene in Jaws! HE wrote that scene! In
a single phone call! Chatting over the land-line with Steven Spielberg, who was
looking to layer-up his film and add more dimension to his characters, calling
upon his old film school buddy John Milus! WOW!
In
Milius’ adolescent years, we learn that he had psychologically prepared himself
to enlist, fight and die in the Vietnam war. After volunteering and being rejected
because of his asthma, in 1967, Milius stumbled his way into film school at the
U.S.C (University of Southern California) School of Cinematic-Television,
alongside the aforementioned George Lucas and, later, Steven Spielberg.
In
1967, the counter-culture hippy movement was at its peak. But Milius didn’t
subscribe to this free-love hippy era, although he was slap-bang in the middle
of it! Milius, mockingly and somewhat provocatively, preferred to portray
himself as a kind of right-wing warmonger. No, not Peace Now! But Apocalypse Now
as Milius would coin the phrase that would later become the film title.
 |
| *Probably the most famous line of dialogue written by John Milius... And possibly the most famous line of dialogue in the history of film! |
The
persona of Milius immediately draws up comparisons with that of another gun-totting,
girl-crazed iconic writer, that of Hunter S. Thompson, also the subject of numerous
documentaries about his life, such as
Gonzo (2008), narrated by Johnny
Depp.
Although
Milius didn’t seem to partake in as many drugs as dope-fiend Hunter S. and whilst
Thompson drew his inspiration from synthetic sources, Milius’ talent as a
writer really sprung forth from literally nowhere, except for maybe being a
well-read, passionate student of history. This documentary and the life and work
of John Milius actually left me wondering that, for some, and I’m talking about
next level genius writers, that maybe
writing for people like Milius is not so much an art, a practise, a discipline or dedication… but rather, almost a divine gift!
That
may sound like an extreme over-exaggeration. But when you look at the screenplays Milius
strung together, it is literally like a roadmap to what was 'cool' in film
throughout the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s… right up until present day.
Let’s
briefly examine the time-line of his career…
The Dirty Harry films, kicked off by Milius
as early as 1971, set the template for the cop thrillers / Jason Stathan-type
roles that are still being churned-out by major studios today. Milius wrote the
lines, ‘Go ahead punk… make my day.’ Not to mention the famous Clint Eastwood
monologue about Harry’s beloved .44 Magnum, ‘the most powerful handgun in the
world’, clearly indicative of Milius’ obsession with guns.
Milius’
Dillinger film was clearly a
precursor to the smash hit Bonnie and
Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
He
managed to adapt the classic Joseph Conrad novel Hearts of Darkness into the Francis Ford Coppola directed,
iconoclastic Vietnam War film, Apocalyspe
Now, when, prior to that, much more feted filmmakers, like Orson Welles, had
attempted to adapt the same source material and failed.
Again,
he wrote the best scene in Jaws… over
the phone!
He actually
gave Arnold Schwarzenegger his big film break with the lead role in Conan the Barbarian (1982), re-writing and
directing a young Oliver Stone’s third feature film script. Yep, that’s right,
he kick-started the careers of Arnie and Oliver, one would go onto become the right-wing
Republican ‘Governator’ of California, the other a left-wing, agent-provocateur and auteur fimmaker in his own right.
 |
| *A young John Milius and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of Conan the Barbarian. |
Whilst
seminal and influential are also two other words that immediately spring to mind
when describing Milius, sadly, so are maligned and ostracized.
Yep,
it wouldn’t be a documentary story worth telling if it were all glory without
any conflict or tragedy… and Milius had his fair share.
After
working closely with Martin Sheen on Apocalyspe
Now, John Milius then gave Charlie Sheen his big break in the ‘84 block
buster Red Dawn (later blatantly mimicked
to great financial success by Australian writer John Marsden in the Tomorrow When The War Began series.)
Whilst
Red Dawn was a smash at the box
office for Milius, the film’s controversial plot about the invasion of the USA
by Soviet troops, touched such a raw nerve that it was labelled ‘reckless’ and ‘dangerous’
by critics, drawing an official response from the Soviet Union who labelled it as
'American Hollywood propaganda', actually leading to an escalation of the Cold War
conflict.
As a
result, from the Red Dawn fiasco, Milius was practically ostracized from
Hollywood. Despite his credits and box-office success, he suddenly became studio political poison!
In
the 1980’s, many of the major Hollywood studios had been bought-up by
multi-national corporations who were now majority shareholders. Established
filmmakers like John Milius didn’t take too kindly to being told how to tell
their stories by accountants and corporate bean-counters. Pulling a
pistol on a big-shot Executive Producer in a meeting may have been funny in the 60’s and
70’s… but in corporate, politically-correct, 1980’s Hollywood, this sort of behaviour
didn’t fly any more and many felt threatened by Milius and his potentially risqué screenplays and films.
The
persona Milius had worked so hard to create - the gun-toting, cowboy
screenwriter, had suddenly become a hindrance to the filmmaker.
Combine
this with being swindled by a shifty accountant and Milius suddenly found
himself on the verge of bankruptcy, whilst his contemporaries Spielberg and
Lucas were defining modern era blockbuster franchises with their Stars Wars and Indiana Jones movies.
Milius
was forced to scrape by for the next two decades however he could, writing
epsiodes of TV for shows like Miami Vice, influencing soon to be big-time filmmaker Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral, Ali and the Dillinger reboot Public Enemies) who was also a co-writer on Miami Vice at that time.
My
other favourite anecdote from the Milius documentary (along with the Jaws story from Spielberg) comes from the showrunner
for Deadwood, David Milch. Milius, a big
fan of the western TV series, contacted HBO to enquire about a gig writing episodes.
The showrunner responded, “You’re fucking John Milius! You wrote Apocalypse Now! I cannot come into work
every day and see you in my team of writers and tell you what to write!” Milius
pleaded his case, saying that he was broke and had promised his son that he would pay for
his college fees to study law. David Milch and HBO generously paid Milius’ son's
tuition fees.
It
was a bold gesture by Milch and HBO. But Milius would pay them back ten-fold in
2005 when he delivered HBO the 22-episode historical epic, Rome, which would become yet another cult classic for the network.
Just
as Conan the Barbarian spawned a new
wave of sword-and-sandal sagas in cinema, so did Rome on TV,
paving the way for another HBO series that some of you may have heard
of... er, um, I dunno, a little show titled, Game Of Thrones!
I
must admit, before viewing the bio-pic-doco, Milius,
my knowledge of his work did not extend much further than Apocalypse Now, Conan and
the surf film Big Wednesday. Therefore, I am thankful for the creators of this doco for filling
in the blanks on what has been a stellar career which deserves way more
acknowledgement.
 |
| *At least the Cohen brothers acknowledge John Milius' influence, Milius the inspiration behind the character of 'Walter Sobchak', played by John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. |
So I
say, aye-aye (*military salute) to the gun-toting, screenwriting, ‘General’
John Milius. A seminal screenwriter who, in the battle of the blank page,
strafed and peppered modern filmmaking with his screenwriting bullets of
machismo and bravado (cheesy military comparisons aside), a filmmaker whom inspired
generations of imitators, with half of them probably not even realising that they have been
influenced by the work of John Milius.
*
Milius was another Netflix documentary discovery, currently available for
streaming via the US platform.
* Pictures ripped from Google Images and reproduced without permission.
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