HS: More likely a failure of the imagination. It’s easy to think of a hook; it’s much harder to make it seem worthwhile once you get there. It’s like someone who says to you, “You’re going to love this.” And then they tell you or show something to you and you realize you don’t.

HS: Sure. Hitchcock was the inventor of the term “Maguffin” and often used the device, but the point of Hitchcock’s turn is that the Maguffin is a device to get the story started, and often it’s discarded.

My favorite passage in the book involves your thoughts on narration, and how narration is excusable for many books, but not so much in film since celluloid is much more literal than the written word. I often see narration as lazy storytelling in modern films, do you think narration has become a support system for poor writers?

HS: It can be, if it’s used to make an incoherent story seemingly coherent, or to add interest to what is otherwise a dull story. On the other hand, Francis Coppola added the narration of Apocalypse Now after many, many months of post-production, and it tied his story together brilliantly. As with everything I say, you have to recognize I’m talking about patterns and principles, all of which can be contradicted by creative people.

You mention there is no true concept of what an anti-hero is, do you think a hero ever exists? For example, Woodward and Bernstein could be described as simply doing their jobs, and Luke Skywalker could basically just have been in the right place at the right time.

HS: What people often call an anti-hero is usually someone who’s scruffy, sometimes cruel, lazy, boozy, etc. BUT, when you look at memorable popular films, those people invariably perform at least one heroic ACT. Jack Nicholson’s films, except when he’s playing the villain as in The Departed, invariably demonstrate this.

Can the downslide of quality and standards in film be attributed to studios thinking of audience as one big brainless unit, and not as individuals with different thoughts and appeals?

HS: Complaints that filmmakers appeal to the lowest common denominator have been present since the beginning of film history and throughout the 2,500 year history of drama.

I have to say I don't so much hate montages, as I do musical montages which have become a common facet for romance comedies in modern film. Do you think montages like narration have become a device for the lazy storyteller?

HS: Good question. Both narration and montage are devices that allow the filmmaker to tell a story with great economy which has always been considered a positive in art or to quickly go over stuff you don’t care to take the time to tell at length. Again, I try to avoid making categorical statements. No device is inherently bad or good.

This is a two part question: Do you feel comedy deserves the same swell of respect dramas receive? It's constantly proven that comedy is much more difficult to accomplish than drama, so why do you think it's rarely respected as a challenging task?

HS: Comedy has never gotten the same kind of respect that tragedy gets. Aristotle’s Poetics, which really focus on tragedy, has been preserved for twenty five centuries, but the last known copy of his companion book that dealt with comedy disappeared when the great library at Alexandria was burned twenty centuries ago. Similarly, we have many extant Greek tragedies, but only one complete Greek comedy. So, comedy has never gotten the same respect as non-comedies.

If you look at the list of films I list in the early pages of the book, you’l find, if I remember correctly, only three comedies. I used to teach entire courses in comedy for years, and I love comedy. But, when you’re talking about memorable films, few comedies appear. This may be because, as much as we love them, we don’t respect having a good time. It may also be because they’re harder to recall.

I have to say, I loved your section on "Happy Endings."

HS: Thanks.

You wrote that happy endings are very disingenuous, and I find that true especially in horror films. Some of the best horror films (Dawn of the Dead, The Thing) have dark endings, do you think a horror film have a positive climax?

HS: Horror films often bear the name of their central character, who is, in turn, the monster. Thus, we know going in that the central character must die (or appear to) for the story to be over. The same is usually true for gangster films take the remake of Scarface, for example.

How can you best sum up "The Power of Film"?

HS: I’ve struggled with that question for years, but since the book is a condensation of more than 65 different courses I’ve taught over more than 42 years, I’m never satisfied with any simple statement. However, the last line of the book might come close.

How can readers find more of your work?

HS: I appreciate your asking, but this is my first book, published at the age of 69. I’m working on the next one now, which is called Sacred Dramas for a Secular Society” but I have no idea when it’ll be done. My students at UCLA get a lot more, but it’s as hard to get into most of our programs as it is to get into the Harvard law or med schools.

HS: I’m grateful for your interest, Felix.

 - Felix Vasquez Jr.