Auteurs Stake a Claim on the Small Screen

Mitchell Hurwitz

Mitchell Hurwitz knows the rules. A TV writer since 1990, he learned the ropes of TV comedy writing working on traditional sitcoms such as The Golden Girls, The Ellen Show, and The John Larroquette Show. So while penning Arrested Development, he knew exactly what he was doing when he took the so-called rules, turned them inside out, and filtered them through his very quirky mind to create one of the most original sitcoms to appear on contemporary TV. More importantly, he knew what had to remain.

"There were rules I knew I wanted to violate," he said in a recent phone interview, "but there are others you can't break." Therein lies the key factor that distinguishes success from failure: the acumen to know the difference.

Though only on the air for a total of 53 precious episodes, Arrested Development earned a loyal but small audience and was a critical success. Filmed in a faux-documentary style without a laugh track, the series follows the affluent Bluth family as it copes with bankruptcy following the family patriarch's white-collar crime. Leading the ensemble cast is Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth, the only level-headed member of an extended family, each member of which has his or own peculiar and often hilarious eccentricities. The series earned multiple Emmys, Television Critics Association Awards, and People's Choice Awards, among others. This week, Hurwitz can add another award to his mantle: He's this year's recipient of the Outstanding Television Writer Award given by the Austin Film Festival to recognize "significant contributions to the industry."

In coming to Austin, Hurwitz will take a break from several of his ongoing projects, including, yes, writing the feature film of the long-rumored and finally announced Arrested Development movie, which, if all goes as planned, he will also direct. Until recently, Hurwitz was dodgy on the prospect of there being an Arrested Development movie.

"You know, it was easy to say, 'We're done; we stuck the landing; we met our mission.' But there was so much interest in seeing this family again," he said. "[Making the film] is half for the fans and half for ourselves," he added, saying that working with the cast again is something he's looking forward to. "And I think we have some more stories to tell."

But will turning to the big screen lure Hurwitz away from TV? Not likely. As one of the partners in Tantamount Studios, he is happily working with Eric and Kim Tannenbaum to cultivate the next generation of TV writers. (Tantamount Studios is producing the comedy Brothers, currently airing on Fox on Friday nights.)

"It brings me great joy to be able to use whatever clout my success has brought me to encourage other writers," he said. "TV is in a challenging place right now. It's gotten very conservative. During a recession it seems that the corporate suits begin to micromanage projects. It's been challenging the last couple of years, but the good news is that it's cyclical." In other words, he sees the TV media climate, while changing, also getting better. "I'm happy to be part of the cycle; it's really thrilling," he said, pointing to forerunners such as the late Larry Gelbart and contemporaries such as Matthew Weiner, Tommy Schlamme, and David Chase.

Besides writing the Arrested Development movie, Hurwitz is also working on a TV project for Will Arnett tentatively titled Good for Nothing. In addition to receiving recognition at the Saturday awards luncheon (along with fellow honorees screenwriter Steven Zaillian and film director Ron Howard), Hurwitz is a featured speaker at this year's festival, offering his take on the art and craft of writing and other industry insider tips.

It's no surprise that Hurwitz named Mad Men's Matthew Weiner among the contemporaries he admires. One of the upsides of the changing media landscape is that the better TV writers are becoming auteurs – creators whose work is so distinctive, their names may as well be listed in capital letters above the title. And Weiner – who is making his first visit to Austin and the Austin Film Festival as a panelist – is definitely among the auteurs.

Matthew Weiner

While Weiner has his fans and his share of accolades (Emmys, Peabodys, Golden Globes, and Writers Guild Awards, to name a few), there are a few detractors as well – those who find his work too labor-intensive on one hand, too pretentious on the other. Fortunately, the fans outweigh the detractors, and Weiner is the first to appreciate the extra work many of his fans put into following his layered, visually compelling series.

"I don't know what the entertainment value of the series is," he said half jokingly in a recent phone interview, adding that when it comes down to it, he "types for a living."

"I feel lucky about the show," he said. "I hear that people watch episodes more than once. They talk about it and have real anxiety about what's going to happen next."

Unfortunately, Weiner quickly yet politely gave notice that he refused to answer any direct questions about future Mad Men episodes, only to say that he is happy with its progress and direction this season and that he hopes viewers will be as well. If that sounds like a writerly response, it is – not so surprising for someone who studied poetry, literature, and philosophy as an undergraduate and later got his Master of Fine Arts in cinema and television at the University of Southern California.

Mad Men has been called "stylish," "cinematic," and "narratively risky." Weiner agrees that Mad Men is a show that must be watched with full attention, but when asked the classic question about whether he thinks TV is a writer's medium, he agreed to a point.

"I actually think television is the combination of film and theatre. I love the physical action of live theatre and the panorama film allows, but the beauty of TV is that it allows you to see things up close." Comments about Mad Men being "painterly" are also apt, and Weiner feels fortunate that in addition to a strong cast, the costumers and set decorators are all on board with the visual palette he imagines for each show.

"It's all in the script," he said. "Of course, the actors add a lot, as does the director, but I have an amazing group of people who feel the same way I do to tell the story," he said. Among his other influences are silent movies. "I'm really interested in how the silent moments tell the story," he added. "How and when people enter a scene, how they interact with props. When people touch. The gestures they use."

Genre also plays an important role in the way Weiner thinks about and writes Mad Men. Episodes, he said, can shift from interrelational to psychological drama, between comedy and drama, crime and horror, and even foreign-inflected, as in what could be the most visually stylish episode of the season, "Souvenir," which pays homage to classic Italian cinema. He sees the primary male-female relationships (Don and Betty Draper, Pete and Trudy Campbell) as following the American short-story form: intimate, self-contained, but still contributing to the larger landscape of the series. Not too shabby for a guy who took 30 years to become an overnight success, as he laughingly puts it.

"I spent a lot of time writing for free," he said. Short stories, blogging, and other TV-related jobs filled the years before he finally got his first paying writing job writing for The Sopranos. An Emmy nomination and a Writers Guild Award came from that work, setting him up as a writer who might be ready to take on his own project. Interestingly, he carried his Mad Men pilot script around with him for nine years before anything became of it, and it was another three years after that before AMC decided to produce it. While it may seem like it took an inordinate amount of time for Weiner to find success, he is more sanguine about the twists and turns his career has taken.

"Writing is free," he said. "When it comes right down to it, all you need is paper and time and effort. I really consider it a gift to be able to do what I do."

Matthew Weiner will talk about Mad Men and his career in two Austin Film Festival panels, Shot of Inspiration and Script-to-Screen: Mad Men.