Scorsese's Write-Hand Man
With the opening of the eagerly anticipated movie Gangs of New York this winter, Jay Cocks '66 sees the sweet fruition of a seed planted more than a quarter of a century ago."That's a long time even in the movie business. Usually after a certain finite amount of time, projects keel over from old age. But Marty [director Martin Scorsese] never gave up on this, and here we are twenty-five years later. I would say that's a record, but I don't think anyone keeps records on these things. It would be too depressing if they did."
At fifty-seven, Cocks is a warm and witty raconteur, having built an enviable career based on the written word. He wrote for Time magazine as a reporter and arts critic from 1967 until 1993 (with a year off in 1977 to write the first draft of Gangs of New York ), focusing his attention primarily on movies, rock'n'roll music, and fashion ("I prefer to call it clothes"). He wrote one of the earliest if not the first American cover story on Princess Diana, interviewed such Hollywood luminaries as John Wayne, and reported a Time cover story on the Band. (Cocks later introduced Band leader Robbie Robertson to Scorsese, a pairing that eventually led to the making of The Last Waltz, the classic rock'n'roll documentary.)
As the Time movie reviewer during a period of revolutionary change in the film industry, Cocks became acquainted with many of the young movie directors of his own generation who would transform the look and feel of American movies--not only Scorsese, but also Brian de Palma, Steven Spielberg, Terry Malick, and Bob Rafelson.
It was through his work at Time and a Kenyon connection that Cocks met Scorsese. In 1968, while he was writing a story on the new phenomenon of student filmmakers, a Kenyon friend who worked at a documentary film company suggested that Cocks talk to a young guy who was using the company's cutting room after hours to put together his first feature. The guy, of course, was Scorsese. The young filmmaker and Cocks bonded instantly, and have remained close friends ever since. "Marty and I have been through marriages, divorces, kids, firings, movies, bad commissary lunches, and hell with Harvey Weinstein together," says Cocks of his son's godfather.
Cocks's wife, actress Verna Bloom, brought Scorsese together with the man who would arrange financing for Mean Streets, considered to be the first of Scorsese's legendary films. Of perhaps even greater consequence, it was Bloom who first introduced Scorsese to Robert De Niro, thus initiating one of the most productive partnerships in contemporary screen history.
Cocks, a native New Yorker who has resisted the seductive lure of Los Angeles, began reviewing films in childhood, using a typewriter his father gave him and wearing a fedora in imitation of journalists he saw in the movies. At Kenyon, he wrote a movie review column for the Collegian, using the power of the press at one point to "seize control" of the Film Society so he could show the movies he wanted to see. Patrons did not always agree with his taste. Several demanded their money back when Cocks screened British cinema verité. But reruns on demand were not unheard of either.
"I used to love going to the post office in the middle of every week and getting the 16-millimeter film boxes, then going to Rosse Hall and screening the movie by myself or with a couple of friends. I loved sitting up there in the balcony and running the projector," he recalls.
Looking back, Cocks appreciates that Kenyon "would allow you a fair amount of latitude to make your own world, to make your own school. There aren't enough good movies around? OK, here's the Kenyon Film Society. No film festivals? Start one. Crummy music? Bring Bob Dylan and Nina Simone to campus, which I did with [classmate] David Banks, who was on the social committee with me."
It was in Rosse Hall that Dylan sang three songs that hadn't yet been released on record: "Mr. Tambourine Man," "It's Alright, Ma," and "Gates of Eden." "You knew you were in the presence of something and someone who changed the definition of special. I wrote it all up in the Collegian, and it was a good calling card. It got me my gig at Time Inc." Years later, Dylan asked Cocks to write a screenplay based on his song "Brownsville Girl," which Cocks has completed. Johnny Depp has been cast for the film.
Cocks is obviously a person who enjoys having lots of irons in the fire. Current projects? He's finished a script for a bio-pic about Cole Porter; it's to be produced and directed by Irwin Winkler and is currently being cast. He's completing a film adaptation of When We Were Orphans, the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. A television pilot ("the anti-Alias") for ABC is in the works. He's writing and producing an HBO movie about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. And he's writing an original screenplay of a contemporary espionage thriller for Sony. "This is the payoff for seeing all the movies in Rosse Hall," he says.
Cocks thanks Kenyon's Writer-in-Residence P. Frederick Kluge '64 (who was the junior proctor on Cocks's freshman residence hall and remains a good friend) for telling him to read Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, which Kluge declared "has the greatest last line in history." Cocks read it, loved it, and presented it to Scorsese as a film adaptation that would rank with Luchino Visconti's masterpiece, The Leopard. "I doubt that without Fred's input I would ever have gotten around to that book," says Cocks. AI jumped on The Age of Innocence because he was never wrong."
Cocks admits the business--"a rough and tumble racket"--has been very good to him. He has certainly more than beat the odds in a crap-shoot industry. As a former reviewer, though, he claims not to care much about reviews. AMy satisfaction, or lack of it, comes from my own feeling about the work. Every writer has a whole battery of insecurities, but mine stop with the finished product, and not anybody else's reaction to it." The Academy Award nomination certainly helped his career, and he's grateful for that, but "Academy Award or not, I wouldn't think more or less of The Age of Innocence, Titanic, The Last Temptation of Christ, Strange Days, or anything else I've worked on."
--Amy Blumenthal
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