Interesting post. Couple of questions:

1. does anyone have the Point Blank script in pdf? Would love to get it.

2. Hill says: "I have always had difficulty being complimentary to people whose work I admire, when face-to-face with them. This is not the norm in Hollywood where effusiveneess is generally a given."

Is that true? I have always wondered about this. Say for example I was lucky enough to get an actor interested in one of my scripts, and I meet with him/her, should I shower them with compliments about their work? If I didn't, would they think that I thought their work stunk? What is the norm in Hollywood, if there is such a thing? Hemingway said that praise to the open face was a disgrace, but what do the folks in Hollywood think?

Walter Hill is awesome, and I'm proud to note he and I share the same birthday.

"Love your work" is definitely the norm. It's pretty simple really, when you are thriving (your films/shows are making people money) then you are at the center of an ass kissing contest. When you are tanking, people treat you like the failure is contagious, and the "love your work" mutates into "I really liked that thing you did, what was it called?"

This is a quote I reference in a book I'm doing on screenwriting. I have it alongside a similar quote from John Milius who more or less claims he is the writer responsible for the style Hill ascribes to Jacobs.

I see it as evidence of the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) at work, just as Bogart became HUGE in the early to mid-'60's: Peter Bogdanovich wrote his tribute article in Esquire, Bogart was being revived on campuses across America, and then posters started showing up in head-shops.

In screenwriting, the business was beginning to move faster, decisions were needed earlier, and anything that slowed down a read would cost the writer. So guys like Jacobs, Hill, and Milius were just responding to what they were encountering in the market-place.

I see this as a really good thing because by getting terse, making the writing tighter, you can work more story into fewer pages. The reader appreciates it when they get through the read before they expected--it's a feeling of accomplishment that can only bode well for the script. The story benefits from the "less is more" maxim. Everybody wins.

@Lee Matthias: Check out the update for a few posts I had re Walter Hill, Alien, Pixar, etc.

I definitely try to be as sparing as possible - no hair color, furniture types, maybe a little analogy (an unkempt crack house; the type of place with more help than helped), etc.

I've been experimenting with poetry form to be even more "abrupt." You can get more out of a good character's lines than in scary/funny/etc. description.

It does have it's place but it is what makes black space. The script I read for Alien was very tight with the beginning. It felt isolated yet familiar enough to feel safe.

@David - aaaah yes, isn't that the problem we all want? I think gushing is OK since you obviously like something about the actor.