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by Michael Dare Taylor Negron was one of the funniest stage performers I'd ever seen, regularly mixing it up with anyone daring enough to share the stage with him. Many times I saw Taylor not only keep up with but surpass Robin Williams at the Improv on Sunset, doing impossible stuff like off-the-top-of-your-head Shakespeare at a mile-a-minute. Why did I turn him into a carrothead? Read on. |
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The Discovery Program was instigated by David Puttnam when he was president
of Columbia Pictures. The object was to dig out undiscovered talent and
to give them a chance to direct for the first time. The very first year,
I was one of sixteen finalists who were chosen out of thousands.
Our final test was unusual. We were each given the same script, the same set, the same props, the same crew, and the same amount of time to shoot and edit an audition piece. The judges would make their final decision based upon watching sixteen differently directed versions of the same scene. The script was from Torch Song Trilogy, and it concerned an angst ridden Jewish mother and her gay son. "Mom, I'm gay, it's what I am," declares the sensitive offspring. "Oi, I didn't raise my son to be a fegelah," painfully mourns the mom. It was hideous soap opera bullshit. I didn't want to become a director if I had to direct garbage like this, so I made one little change in the concept. Every time the script said "gay," I replaced it with "carrothead." I then had a professional make-up artist construct a rubber carrothead mask. It opened with a satire of the opening sequence from Elephant Man, only instead of a woman dreaming of being hit by an elephant before giving birth, she was bombarded with carrots. Taylor played it completely straight. "Mom, I'm a carrothead," he mourned, "it's what I am." "Oi," she replied, "I didn't raise my son to be a tuber." The Beach boys sang My Favorite Vegetable in the background. It was hysterical. I later found out that all the other contestants played it straight, so imagine if you will, watching fifteen versions of the same goddamn painful pretentious scene, and then my tape comes on. The people running the contest told me I was clearly the winner, the only one displaying any imagination at all, and they were already looking for locations for the film I was planning to make, The Sneak. Agents were pounding at my door. It looked like I'd get a chance to direct an episode of Max Headroom. But then the judges had their final say. As you may have guessed by now, I didn't win. Turned out the judges were seriously offended. They liked Torch Song Trilogy. One of them owned the rights to Torch Song Trilogy and was planning on filming it soon. They were looking for a director. They were not looking for someone to spit in their eye and make the satire before the goddam film was made. If the judges had been funny instead of pretentious, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen instead of Alan Parker and Lynne Littman, I might have had a chance. As it was they all hated it except for David Puttnam, who hated all the others. The fact that the whole program was his idea, that he was the president of the studio, that my film was the one he wanted to make, didn't make any difference. Majority ruled and they didn't make my film. Not that they made crap. They ended up making Ray's Heterosexual Dance Hall instead, and it won the Academy Award that year for best short. Which isn't necessarily a good thing. The Academy Awards for best short are traditionally a way for new filmmakers to get exposure. The film world is not necessarily a better place because studios are taking over the category of Best Short Film. I'm sure I'd feel different if I had won. |
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