Brandeis Magazine

By Joey Hartstone ’05

Joey Hartstone (Photo Credit: Dennis Kwan)

Part of Character Development

I wasn’t supposed to be at Brandeis in spring 2005. I’d matriculated five years earlier and had left school three times. So, depending on how graciously or stringently you were doing the calculations, this was either my seventh-and-a-half semester or my 10th. I was on the verge of overstaying my welcome.

I began my final term at school with one attainable objective in mind: figuring out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I’d effectively already completed my degree in politics but had sworn off that entire field after working on one congressional campaign. My dream of going to law school never even reached the LSAT stage.

So, in my (second) senior year, I began taking film courses — the idea of watching movies as homework appealed to my work ethic. But the more I read film criticism, the closer I got to abandoning the discipline entirely. I felt dumb admitting it, but I didn’t like “Citizen Kane,” and I could have happily gone the rest of my life without learning about the French New Wave or the auteur theory.

I was incensed when one professor told a lecture hall filled with students that “Top Gun” was an abomination, pure patriotic propaganda. When I was 8 years old, my buddy and I stole his mom’s VHS copy of “Top Gun.” I went on to watch that movie — no exaggeration — at least 500 times. I didn’t join the military, but I did get my pilot’s license because of it.

During my final semester at Brandeis, a screenwriting class was introduced. The instructor was Marc Weinberg, a UCLA-educated screenwriter who’s taught at Brandeis for almost two decades now. He spoke about things that truly interested me: screenplay structure, loglines, pitching, posters — everything that goes into making movies. And he called them “movies,” not “films.” The first text we examined closely was the script for the modern American classic “School of Rock,” starring Jack Black. The word “Rosebud” was never mentioned.

Four weeks into the class, Marc asked us to draft an opening scene for a movie. I wrote a conversation in a bar (the best location for a scene, always) between a guy and a girl. The guy had a one-page monologue explaining how much you can learn about people from the drink they order. Then he orders himself a Bud Light.

I worked harder on the scene than anything else I’d written at Brandeis. When my manuscript was returned, “A+++” was written at the top.

Marc allowed me to monopolize his office hours and flood his inbox with questions. He recommended movies I should watch and scripts I should read. He made professional writing seem like an attainable life goal. And he promised to remain my mentor long after I left school.

Brandeis was, of course, where Mitch Albom ’79 had met Morrie Schwartz, so my expectations for forging life-changing relationships with professors were understandably high. But until Marc arrived, there wasn’t a single professor who knew me. My unimpressive work and questionable attendance record were mostly to blame for that.

Marc gave me so much time and attention that I left college with dreams of becoming a writer in Los Angeles. I ultimately followed in his footsteps by studying screenwriting at UCLA, and going on to write movies and television. I’m certain none of those things would have happened if I’d never met him.

At the end of my last term, Marc and I went to the Ninety-Nine Restaurant on South Street. I tried to convey my appreciation to him, but my words in any given moment never quite come out right — one of the many reasons I love to write.

One thing I remember clearly: Marc asked the bartender for a black and tan. To this day, he’s the only person I’ve ever seen order that drink.

Joey Hartstone wrote the feature films “LBJ” (2016) and “Shock and Awe” (2017), as well as episodes of television’s “The Good Fight”; served as showrunner of the Showtime series “Your Honor”; and is the author of the novel “The Local” (Doubleday, 2022).