bottom of the trash heap is The District, an insult to the cops and citizens of D.C. and anyone else unfortunate enough to watch it. On cable there’s The Shield, whose creators are shooting for something different and often achieve it. While we’re on the subject, Kent Anderson’s Night Dogs is hands-down the best cop novel ever written. Training Day was a great film about cops, too.
I’m hoping you might discuss the influence of movies in your own writing. For instance, what are your favorite films and how do they filter into your own work? Or, in general, has the connection between cinema and novels changed much, in your belief, between 1950 and the 2000s?
I was a movie freak originally and not much of a book person. That changed for me in college, but before that, I was deeply influenced by films. Going back to the ’60s, the movies that left the most lasting impression on me were The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape (both from John Sturges), The Dirty Dozen (Aldrich), the Sergio Leone Westerns, and Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. All describe a masculine world with codes of friendship, honor, and (bloody) redemption. Add to that my formative film-going years (the early to mid ’70s), where I got into the anarchic films of Don Siegel, Scorsese, and others (and the entire exploitation, blaxploitation, and kung fu canon), and you pretty much have the setup for what I would explore in my novels.
With regards to all of this, I was pretty fortunate to have grown up when I did. If I were a teenager watching films today, there would be little to inspire me.
As I said before, there’s nothing wrong with younger writers absorbing their pop culture influences and organically incorporating them into their books. But a novel should not read like a screenplay or be a blueprint for a film.
The best example I know of the historic relationship of books to movies is the one between noir literature and film noir. I’ll generalize here for the sake of time. Pulp noir novels came first and were adapted to film. Film noir began to take shape as a cinematic expression of the novels, but also developed concurrently with elements of other arts (Expressionism, Ed Hopper paintings, the lighting design in German films, etc.). But a funny thing began to happen in the ’50s. Film noir began to influence noir literature. You can see “shots” and cinematic shadows begin to show up, quite consciously, in the books of Woolrich, David Goodis, and others. Finally, late-period noir films like Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil are pulp adaptations that comment on film and literature, and the film noir genre itself. Those films were, in effect, brilliant parody, and they marked the end of noir (Aldrich literally explodes the genre by way of apocalypse at the end of Kiss Me Deadly, just as Peckinaph would do to the Western, fourteen years later, in The Wild Bunch). After this, noir became a dead end. Today’s film noirs are a parody of a parody, which is to say that they equal nothing.
I’ve gone on too long. But I don’t see a dynamic modern relationship between films and novels. I’d like to see one. I guess I’m waiting for the revolution.
How do you go about your street research? Are you upfront about what you are doing or more “incognito”? Is your research observational or participatory? Having lived in the D.C. area and having been on those “bad” sides of town, were any of your research expeditions dangerous or scary?
I’ve lived here all my life. That gives me an edge. I know where to go and what streets to avoid, and when. But generally, I’m pretty comfortable out there. You need to know about body language, eye contact, and things of that nature. But the one thing you have to learn is how to give respect. In many case, self-respect is one of the last things some of these people have to hold on to. You violate that and you’re going to have a problem.
I’m not much of a talker, either on the job or in my everyday life. I find that I learn a whole lot more just by listening. So my “research” often consists of walking into a bar, having a quiet beer, and keeping my ears open. If people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them. But I don’t volunteer the information. Some of the things I do