Screenwriter Alan Trustman has sent in a response to my review of THE JUDAS PROPHECY. With his permission, I'm reprinting his email below.
Well, it wasn't as bad a review as I expected, but I was surprisedthat you reviewed it as a novel. It isn't a novel. It is a novelizedscreenplay, a format that is more readable than a screenplay but lessreadable than a novel for the reasons you correctly noted and a fewothers, including the complete absence of any of the deliciouswordplay so beloved by the TIMES BOOK REVIEW and PUBLISHER"S WEEKLY.I will send you the screenplay if you wish but you are busy and yourcomments about the character and structure are applicable to thescreenplay as well as the novelized screenplay.
I still think a JUDAS movie would make a ton of money, and think therevelation of what is going on would carry the second act and thepuzzle of how it would end would carry the third act. But what do Iknow?
As for the characters, I deliberate underwrite those characters whosecharacterizations depend on their not talking very much and that istrue of most of my characters.
With McQueen, I communicated the character in person and at greatlength and since there was minimal dialogue the character was reallynot in the scripts. I screened 40 hours of film on him and tailoredthe character according to what he could do, and what made himcomfortable, and then explained it to him. He loved it and playedthat character in both of my pictures. For a couple of years I washis boy. He would tell everybody that he didn't know how, but Iunderstood him, and he was right, I did. Our relationship lasteduntil I refused to write his racing car picture because he wasdetermined to make it the story of a loser and I insisted that hisaudience wanted him to be a winner. I lost the argument and lost him,and lost my movie career because Stan Kamen was not pleased by myrefusal. Sic transit gloria mea.
As for my autobiography, I have written it but cannot publish it forreasons personal, legal, and safety-related. How's that for a teaser?
Mr. Trustman, after reading that paragraph about your working relationship with McQueen, I think it's safe to say that it our loss that you can't publish your autobiography. Thanks for your communications with me, and through me, my readers.
