“Anytime you’re at the movies, and you see the words ‘The following is based on a true story,’ you should think about it as a painting, not a photograph.”
From the live blog of Aaron Sorkin's Interview at D10 with Walt Mossberg.
Another great line:
“The stuff that I write doesn’t work very well as background music.”
And another:
“I’m all but computer illiterate, which I’m not proud of.” Mostly I just use my computer to write scripts. But I’m amazed that 3-and-a-half-year-olds can resonate with computers right away. “If I could ask Steve Jobs anything, it would be ‘What’s that magic trick?’”
Also, Sorkin's dad was an intellectual property lawyer!
And another great line:
“Storytelling is a very old art form, and the important parts of it don’t change at all.” Read your Aristotle.
On writing about Steve Jobs and the hero/antihero spectrum:
He’s a complicated guy. Zuckerberg was, as well. But when I’m writing this movie, “I cant judge this character. He has to be, for me, a hero. … To put is as simply as possible, you want to write the character like they are making their case to God, why they should be let into heaven.”
And finally, speaking of Aristotelian dialectics:
“I worship at the altar of intention and obstacle.” That conflict is the whole point of drama.
