Jan 23, 2008
Sundance screens Westonite's film
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by LAURA MODLIN
Mark Jude Poirier of Weston attended the world premiere of his screenwriting debut, Smart People, at the Sundance film festival Sunday night.
The film stars Dennis Quaid as a widowed literature professor whose tightly managed world is thrown into disarray when he falls in love with an ex-student, played by Sarah Jessica Parker.
Mr. Poirier was excited for the cast and crew to be back together in Park City for the festival.
“The best part of being at Sundance for me has been the reunion of the cast and crew,” Mr. Poirier said. “Seeing everyone who I haven’t seen in about a year has been really fun.”
The film premiered to a sold-out crowd at the Eccles Theater, Sundance’s largest venue.
Impressive
Having a film screened at Sundance is an impressive accomplishment, but screenwriting was not what Poirier first set out to do.
“I stumbled onto writing late,” said Poirier. “I was pre-med at Georgetown, a chem major. Then I switched to English senior year with the intent of becoming an English teacher.”
This seemed a natural choice for someone who came from a family that believed in the importance of education. Mr. Poirier’s father is an engineering professor.
“I went to Stanford [University] for graduate school to become an English teacher, but after my first creative writing class I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. I began studying to be a writer.”
Mr. Poirier went on to receive three master’s degrees, one each from Stanford, Johns Hopkins and the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa.
After finishing the Iowa Writers Workshop, Mr. Poirier got an agent, who sold a collection of Mr. Poirier’s short stories to Random House.
Screenwriting
Mr. Poirier was introduced to screenwriting when he went to stay with a friend of his parents in Texas for a year. That friend was Larry McMurtry, acclaimed novelist, screenwriter and essayist.
“It was a really good year,” said Mr. Poirier. “I got to watch Larry and Diana work.” Diana Ossana is Mr. McMurtry’s writing partner.
Mr. Poirier worked at Mr. McMurtry’s bookstore and passed his days reading and writing.
“It was a really small town,” Mr. Poirier said. “There wasn’t anything else to do.”
His voracious reading habit turned out to be fortuitous for Mr. McMurtry and Ms. Ossana.
“Brokeback Mountain was a short story in the New Yorker. As soon as I read it, I told Diana, ‘You have to read this tonight.’”
Ms. Ossana shared Mr. Poirier’s enthusiasm for the story. She and Mr. McMurtry adapted it into a screenplay, which went on to become a critically and commercially successful film that won several awards, including an Academy Award for Best
Adapted Screenplay.
“They thanked me at the Oscars,” Mr. Poirier said.
Not yet
But Mr. Poirier wasn’t writing screenplays himself quite yet.
A few years later, a former roommate suggested Mr. Poirier submit his book to a competition for a Chesterfield Writer’s Project fellowship, one of the most prestigious screenwriting fellowships in the United States.
Fellowship recipients are paired with mentors who work with them during the year of the fellowship.
Mr. Poirier received a fellowship and was matched with Don Roos, screenwriter for Single White Female, The Opposite of Sex, and Bounce, among other films.
“Don Roos taught me how to write a screenplay and how to sit your ass down for two hours a day to write,” Mr. Poirier said.
“The Don Roos method involves using a kitchen timer and making yourself sit at your computer for two hours every day. You can write a little or a lot. And you’re not allowed to feel bad on the days you don’t write a lot.”
Mr. Poirier wrote Smart People using the Don Roos method of disciplined writing.
So what is next for Mr. Poirier?
“My second novel, Goats, is in pre-production with Chris Neil, Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew, set to direct,” Mr. Poirier said. “And I have three projects in development at the studios, but those are on hold due to the writers strike.”
In the meantime, Mr. Poirier is working on his next novel, which is set in Weston, and renovating the home he recently purchased with his partner, Ed Cahill, a literature professor at Fordham University.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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