Milius

Milius (Zak Knutson, Joey Figueroa, 2013) The title would be referring to John Milius of the notorious USC Brat-pack, pal of Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, Zemeckis, and writer/director/producer of some good films—like Dillinger, The Wind and the Lion, Big Wednesday, Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn, Farewell to the King—those he directed. He wrote (or co-wrote) 1941, Jeremiah Johnson, Dirty Harry and Magnum Force, Apocalypse Now, and contributed to little projects like Jaws (the U.S.S. Indianapolis speech) and The Hunt for Red October (Sean Connery liked him, which makes me suspect he worked on The Rock, too). One suspects he was the model for Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski—even this documentary does—but, that might just be speculation.

 

I was recording a commercial once with a football player and he said he'd just come back from making a movie. "Which one?" I asked. "Conan The Barbarian," he replied. "Oh, I want to see that one," I said. "Oh, good," he smiled. "You a Conan fan?" "Not particularly," I said. "But I really like John Milius' movies." His smile tightened. "Man," he said. "That guy's nuts."

 

Maybe. He is certainly a maverick in every sense of the word. A burly, gun-loving raconteur who talked big and loud and often preposterously, but with a twinkle in his eye. He is a romantic who hates love scenes, a historian of the John Ford school ("If the legend becomes fact, print the legend"), and has a fine sense of the absurd. 

He doesn't make little movies. The ones he makes are about brio and talking big and having big dreams. His movies swagger, but his characters don't, and they have an old-fashioned movie-showman sense to them that bring a smile to the face, even if you're shaking your head at the loutishness of it. He wanted to do Apocalypse Now because Orson Welles had tried (and failed) to make a movie of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." As a script-doctor, he was more of a script-puncher, pushing movies places that they'd might not intended to go. But, one could ignore the theatricality...or avoid the temptation.

The movie takes a look at Milius' career—the tag-line "Man/Myth/Legend" is appropriate—with his film-making compatriots, all of whom have obvious affection for him, even if it's a rueful "That's John" smile. At the time of the film—2013—Milius was battling back from a debilitating stroke that had interfered with his speaking—the brain was functioning but he was having difficulty speaking and writing—which leaves you on a tragic note. Spielberg almost breaks down: "That's the worst thing I could imagine happening to a story-teller."

 

One wishes him well. One does not want the story to end.