Friendly Fun

Admit it, you know the scene…  Meg Ryan.

Ok, another hint.

“I’ll have what she’s having”  — Ok, now you know.

That Friendly Fun.

Making fun of the foibles of human relations, was her forte.  Taking a jocular look at sensitive subjects.  Real issues.

That’s Entertainment.

Nora Ephron (May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, director, and blogger.

Ephron was best known for her romantic comedies and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay): for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally… and Sleepless in Seattle. She won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally…. She sometimes wrote with her sister Delia Ephron. Her last film was Julie & Julia. She also co-authored the Drama Desk Award-winning theatrical production Love, Loss, and What I Wore.  [Wikipedia, revised]

Nora was an Entertainer Artisan (SFP), either a Composer Artisan or a Performer Artisan.  Most likely a Composer, you be the judge.

Artisans are drawn toward improvising works of entertainment, and these friendly, informative Entertainers are able to use effortlessly whatever materials they find to wing it, to play it by ear, to fly by the seat of their pants — to make things up as they go along — far more comfortable sharing their creations with others than directing their actions. … Entertainers have the tactical ability to notice every sensual detail of their surroundings and to react spontaneously, adapting something on the spot, in the spur of the moment. They can hit upon ways of utilizing what’s at hand to suit their current artistic intention, and they can do this without pre-planning. In other words, their style is to jerry-build or jury-rig things in front of them rather than to pre-configure and devise things out of the blue. The latter is called engineering, an activity requiring Rational strategic rather than Artisan tactical intelligence. It is true, however, that improvising and engineering resemble each other in that both are methods of construction. However, Entertainers use creatively whatever bits and scraps of material are actually present and immediately available …  [Please Understand Me II]

Ephron said her mother would say, “Everything is copy,” instilling in her four daughters the principle of turning pain into funny stories. All four became writers. The “bits and scraps of material” of Ephron life experience, she used whenever she could.  Heartburn, was a thinly veiled fictionalization of her life with ex-husband, Carl Bernstein, who was the journalist of Watergate fame.

When an interviewer commented that she hadn’t made many political films:

“You should see my closet, it’s full of political scripts,” Ephron revealed, adding that while she’d love to see one of her many political scripts turned into a film, she wasn’t holding out hope that Hollywood would let her take a turn from romantic comedies to political dramedies.

“Forget it,” Ephron said of wanting to direct one of her political scripts. “I mean yes, but the [movies] you get made are not necessarily all the things you write.”

When asked if she felt at all limited by being most well-known for her expertise in the romantic-comedy genre, Ephron said she felt nothing but gratitude for how much her successful romantic comedies have done in providing her with the freedom to explore other unrelated subjects.

“I’m not complaining about any box that I’m in, because I can write whatever I want,” Ephron said with sincerity. “Fortunately, I’m not just in the movie business, so I don’t feel that the only way I can express myself is by the movies I make.”

But, she will be remembered for her romantic comedies  Sleepless in Seattle (1993), You’ve Got Mail (1998), the team of Ephron, Meg Ryan, and Tom Hanks have composed and performed two films that are very popular and entertaining, being shown often on the cable movie channels, like AMC, to this day.

In Memoriam.

The desire to get married, which – I regret to say, I believe is basic and primal in women – is followed almost immediately by an equally basic and primal urge – which is to be single again. — Nora Ephron

Be the heroine of your life, not the victim. — Nora Ephron

5 thoughts on “Friendly Fun”

  1. Actually, the memorable line responding to Meg Ryan simulation of an orgasm in the resturant was not in Nora Ephron’s script. It was an on-the-spur-of-the-moment suggestion by Billy Crystal and was spoken by director Rob Reiner’s mother seated a the nearby table. Rob Reiner told the story on NPR’s “Wait! Wait!i Don’t tell me!” last weekend. A truly great movie moment!

    1. Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me! — I thought I was being sooo… clever with the reference. Bummer, oh well, I am sure Nora would urge me on, since facts should not get in the way of a good story.

  2. Dr Keirsey, Is it possible, in real discussions to “Take a jocular look at sensitive subjects? I find that this is happens only amoung good friends in real life. I don’t know which temperment type is but there is always someoby out there who will not allow decent discussions. They seem to feed upon the energy in a subject and use that energy to create anger. is Neil Simon the same type of temperment as Nora Ephron? Like Nora many of Simons movies and plays come from his own life experiences. Including, The Biloxi Blues and The Goodbye Girl and Chapter 2. I personally am truly sorry she has left us, I found that her stories always had an edge to them that made them real to me and connected in my own life. She will be missed.

    1. Yes Neil Simon is a Composer Artisan. Many of those gag writers for Sid Caesar: Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and Larry Gelbart were Composers. Simon and Mel Brooks are listed on the Composer Artisan page on Keirsey.com

  3. Speaking of orgasms, Meg, Nora…from Meg, about Nora:”Nora was an era,” Ryan said in a statement to OnTheRedCarpet.com. “We pictured ourselves inside her dreams and they became ours. All wisdom, wit and sparkle lights, what a treat she was, what a blessing. I marvel again and again, what a life … To have created a simple happiness in people, to have added to the sum of delight in the world.” Vale Nora Ephron, and thankyou.

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