The Cousins Karamazov
April 6, 2015 1:16 AM Subscribe
Director of The Wire and Treme David Simon interviews Richard Price, Author most recently of The Whites and also of Freedomland, Clockers, Samaritan et al.
(Previously)
(Previously)
“These guys think I know everything in the world because I wrote Clockers.” I put everything I knew in Clockers. When I wrote Clockers, if my brain had pockets, I put everything on the table, including my keys and my big rabbit ears.
Which is sort of funny, because all (or most) of the Price episodes of The Wire have setpieces from Clockers that didn't make the adaptation. I was on a crime binge when I started watching The Wire, and it was sort of surreal to be watching and recognize a scene because I had just finished reading it in the novel.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:27 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Which is sort of funny, because all (or most) of the Price episodes of The Wire have setpieces from Clockers that didn't make the adaptation. I was on a crime binge when I started watching The Wire, and it was sort of surreal to be watching and recognize a scene because I had just finished reading it in the novel.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:27 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seems like a natural pairing, based on the (excellent) Clockers, which describes a young man's experience in the crack business.
It is. Price wrote five episodes of The Wire.
posted by maxsparber at 4:47 AM on April 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
It is. Price wrote five episodes of The Wire.
posted by maxsparber at 4:47 AM on April 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I just read The Whites. It is good, though it didn't leave me saying "Wow!" like Clockers did. I haven't reread Clockers, so I don't know if that is really a better book or if I just read it at a different moment in life where it was the right book for me at that time.
The interview here is thoughtful and introspective and I am enjoying it.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:20 AM on April 6, 2015
The interview here is thoughtful and introspective and I am enjoying it.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:20 AM on April 6, 2015
all (or most) of the Price episodes of The Wire have setpieces from Clockers that didn't make the adaptation.
Can you provide a couple examples? I've watched "The Wire" straight through twice, and read "Clockers" when it was first published, and saw the movie adaptation upon initial release, so it's been long enough ago that my memories are a little foggy.
posted by hwestiii at 5:20 AM on April 6, 2015
Can you provide a couple examples? I've watched "The Wire" straight through twice, and read "Clockers" when it was first published, and saw the movie adaptation upon initial release, so it's been long enough ago that my memories are a little foggy.
posted by hwestiii at 5:20 AM on April 6, 2015
Can you provide a couple examples?
It's been quite a few years; all I can come up with is this one. I remember irritating mrs ozzy pointing these out as we watched, so there were certainly more.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:39 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's been quite a few years; all I can come up with is this one. I remember irritating mrs ozzy pointing these out as we watched, so there were certainly more.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:39 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I couldn't cite exact examples, but I watched The Wire years after it had ended and found Richard Price via that, so I was reading Clockers while pounding thru the series and I distinctly remember a not small number of scenes that were out of the book.
posted by nevercalm at 6:48 AM on April 6, 2015
posted by nevercalm at 6:48 AM on April 6, 2015
"possibly incomplete list of Clockers scenes that were re-used on The Wire"
posted by czytm at 7:28 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by czytm at 7:28 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Price's Lush Life is a great great book. I've read all of his published work, and it stands out the most to me. One of the only times I've felt that kind of empathic response to police, and it frankly really made me uncomfortable in the way a great book does.
I met him when he came to my old library and read from Lush Life. He's exactly what you want a crime writer to be.
I love this line in a song about driving a bootleg taxi from rapper Billy Woods, a prolific referencer of Price:
"I hate driving at night
just increases the chance that Quality of Life gonna flash them misery lights
Rather stay home, write that Richard Price
But when the script don't flip, right back at it like a neighbor on the pipe"
posted by still bill at 10:54 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I met him when he came to my old library and read from Lush Life. He's exactly what you want a crime writer to be.
I love this line in a song about driving a bootleg taxi from rapper Billy Woods, a prolific referencer of Price:
"I hate driving at night
just increases the chance that Quality of Life gonna flash them misery lights
Rather stay home, write that Richard Price
But when the script don't flip, right back at it like a neighbor on the pipe"
posted by still bill at 10:54 AM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
There were so many touches in the Wire that evoked Clockers that I figured the two must be connected in some way; I want to say that I knew Price was writing a few Wire episodes, but I may not have really known that until now.
posted by nubs at 12:32 PM on April 6, 2015
posted by nubs at 12:32 PM on April 6, 2015
Price cowrote the script for the remake of Shaft, which Sam Jackson notoriously hated. But there is a line in it that I love, because it is such a deep cut, and I don't know if Price is responsible for it, but it has his particular crazy written all over it. At one point, somebody confronts Dan Hedaya, playing a crooked cop, about the fact that he's been following Shaft, and the dialogue goes like this:
--What are you guys doin' here?
--Watching your back.
--I just got here. My back?
--Your back, Shaft's back. You know.
--Well, he never said where he was gonna be.
--The drums. You hear things.
Which I am convinced is a direct reference to this dialogue from Putney Swope:
-- You're a genius, Putney. Do your thing.
-- Putney, I hear you're splitting up the money equally.
-- That's good. - How did you find out?
-- The drum. - The drum should have told you...
The drum is a recurring joke in Putney Swope, their slang for an invisible network of gossip. At one point, Putney fires someone, and a second later somebody leaps into the room, saying they heard the guy was fired. How did you know, Putney asks.
The drum! the man yells.
If I'm right, that's an awfully obscure little joke to throw into a major studio version of the Shaft movies, but it feels appropriate.
posted by maxsparber at 12:43 PM on April 6, 2015
--What are you guys doin' here?
--Watching your back.
--I just got here. My back?
--Your back, Shaft's back. You know.
--Well, he never said where he was gonna be.
--The drums. You hear things.
Which I am convinced is a direct reference to this dialogue from Putney Swope:
-- You're a genius, Putney. Do your thing.
-- Putney, I hear you're splitting up the money equally.
-- That's good. - How did you find out?
-- The drum. - The drum should have told you...
The drum is a recurring joke in Putney Swope, their slang for an invisible network of gossip. At one point, Putney fires someone, and a second later somebody leaps into the room, saying they heard the guy was fired. How did you know, Putney asks.
The drum! the man yells.
If I'm right, that's an awfully obscure little joke to throw into a major studio version of the Shaft movies, but it feels appropriate.
posted by maxsparber at 12:43 PM on April 6, 2015
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posted by thelonius at 3:46 AM on April 6, 2015