How Does She Do It?

Terry Gross gets a truly revealing interview out of Aaron Sorkin.

Sorkin talks about his own corniness, his lack of story-telling strength, his lack of action, his lack of visual awareness.  Remarkable in that, it doesn't feel like she is criticizing his work, and yet, the interview it totally revealing about Sorkin as a writer.

I'm not a big fan of his work.  I'm not a fan of the flourishes of dialog, which I think embody the type of people depicted in the recent "Busy Trap" article.  Basically, yuppies trying to ward off existential despair through constant busy-ness.  Sorkin's character ward it off by talking too much and being concerned with credentialism and other forms of status and power amongst people-just-like-them.

He talks about the West Wing "walk and talk" which was invented because the scripts were boring to watch.  I knew this without him saying it.

His training was the theater and listening to the stylized dialog of playwrights.  Very telling.  His writing is not cinematic and it took the great visual artist Hollywood has - Fincher - to Sorkin his Oscar.

And yet, though the interview, I came to like Sorkin more.  I'll never revere his work like others, but I respect his craft and the span and duration of his career and his concerns of what he calls "heroes who don't wear capes."  So good on him for being open.