Thomas Maier: Masters of Sex and Biography Come to Life

I had the pleasure of seeing Thomas Maier - author of the Masters of Sex biography upon which the Showtime drama of the same name is based - interviewed at Fordham University tonight.  This is becoming a delightful and informative regular occurrence here at Fordram - interviews of people behind great contemporary television - and thanks go to my colleague Beth Knobel, who several weeks ago arranged for House of Cards creator Beau Willimon and tonight Thomas Maier  (a Fordham alumnus - it was also great to see some of my former students at this event) at our Lincoln Center Campus.  Thanks as well to our Department's Artist-in-Residence Jim Jennewein, who twice conducted excellent interviews - i.e., interviews that  allowed their subjects to really expound upon significant facets of their work.

Let me say, right up front, that my wife and I are devoted fans of the Showtime series, set to begin its third season this July, even though I haven't reviewed it here or anywhere.   Why not, if I like it so much?   Good question and I'm not sure sure of the answer.  It's almost and maybe that I like Masters of Sex a little too much to focus on reviewing it, though loving a series hasn't stopped me from copiously reviewing Dexter, Homeland, Ray Donovan, The Affair, and other notable Showtime shows.  But something about Masters of Sex has bid me so far to keep it a guilty pleasure.  Hey, maybe it's the sex - but who really knows, I'm after all no Freud.

Speaking of whom, Maier's description of the real Virginia Johnson really struck me - "Freud meets Ava Gardner".  In other words,  Lizzy Caplan's excellent portrayal of Johnson is visually as well as emotionally and intellectually on target - something you can't always say about portrayals of real characters, in which the performance can be much more compelling than the original.

Maier's description of the real William Masters also rang true.  As we've seen in the series, Masters portrayed by the masterful Michael Sheen was not happy or comfortable with publicity.   The real Masters, Maier mentioned, would likely have done everything in his power to squelch the series and not cooperate with Maier's biography before it

But my favorite moment in the interview came in Maier's response to a question about how it felt to see his words come to life on television, when he spends most of his time writing them for print on paper and screens. Maier said he loved it!   This was a great corrective to something one of my science fiction editors had told me, years ago, about the "soul deadening" impact of Hollywood on a writer.   There's nothing like hearing an assessment such as Thomas Maier's - from someone who's been there, done it, and finds it one of the glorious experiences of his life.

See also Beau Willimon at Fordham

Beau Willimon at Fordham

I saw Beau Willimon at Fordham University earlier this evening - thanks to my colleague Beth Knobel (erstwhile CBS Moscow bureau chief) for arranging this.   The hour was the best of this kind I've ever attended.   By which I mean, a creator of a landmark work talking incisively, truthfully, vividly about the creative and business processes employed in bringing the work to life.

Among the highlights of Willimon's disclosures and lessons imparted -

• He started his creative life as an illustrator and painter, but found the static image insufficient to tell the stories he wanted to tell.   (See illustrator Joel Iskowitz for an opposite point of view.)
• Willimon says the revolution in television-making founded and exemplified by his House of Cards is that a writer, producer, creator can sell not just a pilot but an entire season of a series to a distributor like Netflix.   I'd say that this, in effect, is the creator's side of what we viewers experience and enjoy as binge all-at-once watching of a television series, and  this increase of creative control in the producer's hands may be the beginning for television of what Kindle publishing has done for authors on Amazon.
• Willimon thinks that there's here's no such thing as writer's block - I've long thought much the same, that cries of writer's block are evasions.   Willimon put an even finer point on this, explaining that writer's block is really not inability to write but unwillingness to confront a possible failure. 
• Indeed, Willimon emphasized that we should embrace not run from failure - a view very much in tune with Kark Popper's (one of my favorite 20th century philosophers) that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes.
• Willimon says the auteur theory of film (and, by extension, television) is overrated and untrue - these creative forms are inherently collaborative efforts.   (I was thinking that one of the reasons I like writing novels and short stories is that I don't have to collaborate too much with anyone.)
• Willimon's favorite scene in the third season of House of Cards was Frank Underwood and Tom Yates first getting down to brass takes about Tom's life.   Just about every scene with Tom was among my favorites in the third season.

One of the great perks of the academic life is getting an hour like this - reflections from someone whose work initiated what I think of as the third golden age of television (title of a book in progress) - the first being in the 1950s, the second in the first decade of the 21st century with shows like The Sopranos (no commercials, no FCC restrictions on content), and the third being right now with House of Cards - already joined by Peaky Blinders, Bosch, Bloodline, and more.

See also House of Cards 3: Frank, Claire, "Putin," and Superb ... House of Cards Season 2: Even Better than the First, and Why ...  House of Cards Season 1: A Review

And also Thomas Maier: Masters of Sex and Biography Come to Life

Mike Wallace at 89, at Fordham University

I love teaching, but every once in a while I have a day that captures the very best that can happen at a fine university. It's related to teaching, as most things are at a university, but goes far beyond that.

I've been watching, enjoying, and learning from Mike Wallace on CBS since I was teenager, back in the 1960s. Whether his sage commentary in reporting Presidential election returns, or his take-no-prisoners questions in pursuit of the truth on 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace has always been a one-of-a-kind class act.

He talked today at Fordham University. And not only answered but asked perceptive questions of the students - the kinds of questions that may well change some of their lives.

Here's how that came to be.

In my capacity as Chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, I helped hire Dr. Beth Knobel. About a year ago, we coaxed her into leaving her position as CBS Bureau Chief in Moscow and joining our Department at Fordham. She arranged for Mike Wallace to come talk to her "Innovators in Television" class today (there couldn't be a better fit), and opened the class to the entire university.

I said a few words about Mike Wallace and introduced the President of Fordham University, Joseph McShane, SJ, who provided an elegant, formal introduction. President McShane is himself a keen student of media, and aptly observed that Mike Wallace had invented a significant part of what we take today as broadcast journalism.

As Mike pointed out, it's been somewhat in decline of late on cable. (Mike insisted that he be called Mike, so I'll honor that request here from now on.)

He spoke with passion about how he confronted General Westmoreland and Lyndon Johnson about the deceptions they were spreading about the Vietnam War - no easy task for a journalist back then - and about many other signal moments in his five decades on camera.

But his most significant moments at Fordham today came when he effortlessly moved from his role as guest lecturer to his much more familiar role as astute questioner. He started by asking the students what they watch on television, what they want from television news.

But soon he was asking them about their views on mortality, the after life, whether they believe in a deity, a cosmic plan - something one might expect of an 89-year old, but not in a talk to students about his half-century on CBS.

And it was quite extraordinary. And deeply appropriate. What is a reporter, an investigative journalist, after all, if not a teacher, and sometimes of the most profound things, to the public at large.

His wife Mary, who was also a pleasure to meet, watched all of this with a twinkle in her eye.

Mike Wallace may have "retired" from active broadcasting last year. But he'll never retire as a teacher of the human species, a conveyor of its highest calling in the quest for truth, wherever you might find it.