Nora Ephron Struggled to Be More Than a Romantic Comedy Queen

Nora Ephron reportedly said, “Don’t forget this moment, because it’s a hit and they don’t come around very often.” in question night of the movie 1998 You’ve got mail premiered. His words came from experience. An acclaimed reporter and filmmaker, he is remembered for creating some of the filmmakers. best romantic comedies of all timeto contain When Harry Met Sally And sleepless in seattle, So was Efron no stranger to the flop.

Hidden inside is the inevitable truth Nora Ephron in the CinemaA new book dedicated to the career of the writer-director, written by. Ilana Kaplan (a past Vanity Fair contributor): Most of Ephron’s movies didn’t work.

Ephron’s filmography is marked by success. He was nominated for an Oscar with his first screenplay. silk treeDirected by and starring Mike Nichols Meryl Streep. Streep also received an Oscar nomination for Ephron’s latest film. Julie and Julia. But you’d be forgiven for forgetting some of his other titles, such as the 1989 father-daughter gangster comedy. cookie, or 1996 John Travolta vehicle Michael—a movie that did more than that year’s Jerry Maguire on its opening weekend, but otherwise evaporated from public consciousness. Ephron also took the helm at not one but two helms Steve Martin bombs (1990s My Blue Heaven and 1994’s Mixed Nuts) shows that the sarcastic tone of his articles does not always translate into film. His seminal first novel Painful burning sensation in the chestExplaining the end of her marriage with Washington Post Watergate reporter Carl Bernsteinmade a similarly drastic transition to the screen: Streep and jack nicholsonwas met with a person much cooler reception more than the book.

“They say failure is a growth experience; You learn from failure. I wish this were true,” Ephron wrote in her 2010 book: I Don’t Remember Anything. “It seems to me that the most important thing you learn from one failure is that it is entirely possible for you to have another failure.” Kaplan says that although she was aware of her failures, they did not stop Ephron, who “didn’t want to be seen as just a rom-com queen.” Vanity Fair. “That’s part of who he is, but I don’t think that’s his full identity.”

Introduced to Kaplan You’ve got mail An eight-year-old boy who later referenced the filmmaker in his own wedding vows admits to falling in love with the popular conception of Ephron. “I’ve romanticized my whole life, to be honest,” he says. “I thought I was living a romantic comedy and would meet my husband (I’m Jewish, by the way) every year for Christmas. I was totally dreaming.

Nora Ephron in 1978.Barbara Alper/Getty Images

Still, Ephron’s own contradictions—an iconic filmmaker with more misses than hits, an often cranky persona she’s now conveniently forever associated with—continued to fascinate people more than a decade after her death in 2012. “His life is like one of your romantic comedies. But Nora’s work was not always loved; it has often been divisive, reviled, and erased by critics,” Kaplan writes. “Of course there have been some re-evaluations over the years, but the connection between admiration for Nora and her work remains.”

Vanity Fair: You conclude that Nora is. “Everything is a copy” faith was less about revealing everything and more about shaping one’s own narrative. What was vital to you in telling Nora’s story?

Ilana Kaplan: I wanted to capture how he revived the romantic comedy genre, how he was progressive in some ways, but also had blind spots in his work because of his time and social status. I wanted this to be very much a celebration of his work, but it was important to really grapple with the things that might be problematic about it. There are almost no black people in his films. You can count the ones you have heard of on one side, or they are just side characters like the ones below. Dave Chappelle inside You’ve got mail. If you are watching a movie like this Mixed NutsIn some ways you can say: Oh, it’s progressive because it has a trans character in it, but it’s pretty transphobic. You can also criticize what it could do better and celebrate the way it moves the genre forward.