Aaron Sorkin Thought He’d Be Better at Making Movies Too

Aaron Sorkin hears you. Maybe not on the matter of his ever-darkening fake tan but at least on his movies, about which he feels a dissatisfaction. During a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast during the Newport Beach Film Festival, Sorkin confessed he still has quite a bit of learning to do about filmmaking itself, whether or not that can even be taught. “There are parts of screenwriting — important parts — that can be taught and can be learned, but there are parts that can’t be. And those parts that can’t be? That’s usually what we mean when we use the word talent. I’m very worried that the parts of directing that I’m not good at are those parts that you can’t learn,” Sorkin confessed. “I would have rather David Fincher directed it,” he added, referring to his not quite sequel to The Social Network, The Social Reckoning. “I would rather David Fincher direct everything,” he said, echoing something many people think.

The parts Sorkin is concerned he’s not able to learn revolve around the visual language of filmmaking. “I have no visual sensibility, it turns out,” he explained, adding that he’s often tempted to write “every scene so that it was just four walls and two people talking across a table instead of worrying about where I’m going to put the camera.” This type of self-awareness is refreshing and could perhaps become a calling card for directors to hire out Sorkin as a screenwriter, rather than leave him up to his auteurist devices, promising that he’s not finished working with “great directors.” “One of these days, I’ll be able to pull it together,” he said of his own abilities. Until then, it’s back to rooms with walls and two people across a table talking.