There are authors with whom you generate a very special bond as a result of such an irrational perception as feeling that they have created something that is expressly designed to satisfy your tastes, filias and needs. In my case, one of them is David Ayer, whose work I fell in love with through his huge script for ‘Training Day’, and who He has delighted me both in his role as a screenwriter and as a director in titles like ‘Hearts of Steel’, ‘Sabotage’, ‘Without truce’, ‘Dark Blue’ or ‘Lives to the limit’.
Knowing this, it is understandable that ‘Suicide Squad’ resulted in a gigantic disappointment. In all his footage there was not a single drop of that identity from Yesterday that fascinated me so muchBut a hodgepodge of scattered ideas put together by a study that apparently distorted original material that is edited in a director’s cut that only a handful of people have seen.
In the wake of the imminent release of James Gunn’s exceptional ‘The Suicide Squad,’ the one known as ‘Ayer Cut’ has returned to occupy a good part of the cinematographic conversation, opening old wounds through tweets as unfortunate as Tim Gierson from ScreenDaily, which you can read below these lines.
“While watching the new movie, I have thought many times: ‘Yes, David Ayer should abandon the idea of that director’s cut'”.
Of those muds …
Yesterday, quite active in social networks and possessing a rather impetuous character, he could not help it and has replied to Gierson’s message. But he has not limited himself to writing a simple tweet, he has written an emotional text in which he has opened his heart, has explained his personal history and has made it clear why, for him, giving up is not an option.
“I don’t know what it means to surrender. I don’t know who you think I am. I haven’t been given anything in this life, it’s been a struggle from the beginning. My parents committed suicide in Miami on Christmas morning when I was 4 years old. And that was just the beginning. Foster homes. Abuse. Chaos. I went to more schools than I can count. What is stability? “
With this first paragraph, the filmmaker begins to dig into a traumatic and difficult childhood. A few years that, he says, turned him into “that kid that everyone knows will end up dead or in jail”; something enhanced by being in a particularly troubled neighborhood in which he lived experiences that help to understand the crude description of reality in his films.
“I have seen corpses, blood, blown heads, I have seen people die. I have gone over brains on the sidewalk to catch the bus. I have been shot more times than I can remember. I have been beaten by the Los Angeles police. One of the first crack dens in LA was on my block. I dropped out of high school and spent all day on the streets leaning against a wall in a warehouse. It took someone dying in my arms, covered in their blood and blood. vomit, to wake me up. “
The turning point and the miracle of ‘Training Day’
This turning point led David Ayer to enlist in the Navy, where he served on a nuclear submarine, “saw more”, Y “he experienced things that burned his soul”. Despite everything, the filmmaker acknowledges that “the navy broke him, and the navy saved him”. A turning point in his life that made him link jobs of the most diverse nature until he began to immerse himself in the world of film writing.
“I started writing scripts because someone saw something in me that I couldn’t see (Wesley Strick, thanks for saving my life). I wrote and wrote, and was sucked back into the streets. Smoking PCP and driving my Olds Cutlass. Refrigerator, I didn’t have a bed. I didn’t have anything, I didn’t file a tax return for seven years. I had no future. And I figured it was just time out until they made a case against me and locked me up. “
And, at that moment, in those circumstances, that miracle titled ‘Training Day’ happened. A job that gave him a lesson that he considers vital when writing scripts.
“That’s where ‘Training Day’ came from. I saw it happen. I listened to all the neighborhood stories. I wrote them. I put my soul on the page. And when someone offered me $ 30,000 for the rights, I laughed. But ‘Training Day ‘was special. Of course, no one believed her back then. The good guys in Hollywood refused to believe that cops could be so corrupt. “
“Then the Rampart Scandal happened and, yeah, they realized it could be real. It took years for the movie to be made and it changed my life. The lesson from that script is: put your pain on the page. That’s why I tell stories, I have seen life, I have seen people. I have seen the bad do good, and the good do evil. I write about the truth that I have lived. “
The case of the ‘Suicide Squad’
In the last section of the writing is when David Ayer enters the detonating matter of the heartbreaking and, in turn, inspiring text: his experience with ‘Suicide Squad’. A production for which he “gave his life”, which he considers “amazing” and which is much more personal than it might seem at first glance. And it is that, after knowing his career and knowing that his idea was to repeat his recurring themes, it seems that he was the right director for the project.
“The studio version is not my movie. Read it again. And my version is not a 10-week director’s cut. It’s a fully mature Lee Smith cut built on the incredible work of John Gilroy. It’s the entire brilliant soundtrack. by Steven Price, without a single radio song in all of it. It has traditional character arcs, incredible performances, a solid third act resolution. Only a handful of people have seen it. If someone says they have seen it, they haven’t done”.
At this point, all that remains is to reflect and answer the key question: Why should David Ayer give up?
“Every day breathing is a gift. I thought my story was going to end in a cemetery or in a cell a long time ago. So what I’m living is extra lives. I’m honored and blessed to have the career that I have. Give up? After my kids have seen me come home each day with a broken heart when the studio took over the power over montage? What would it be like for them if I gave up? “
We will never know his version of the facts about the tortuous process of assembling ‘Suicide Squad’. Yesterday has made it clear that will never count her by her honor code – “I’m that old-fashioned” -. What we do know is that he is a filmmaker who adores his work, who believes that “every movie is a miracle”, and wishes the best to a James Gunn for whom he has shown pride and appreciation.
David Ayer affirms that he will not speak again in public on the subject, but it is not necessary. With its text – which you can read in full on your Twitter account– has said all that he could say; also getting me to respect even more if possible a filmmaker who occupies a very, very special place in my cinephile heart.