Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis
Harold Allen Ramiswas an American actor, director, writer, and comedian. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbustersand Ghostbusters IIand Russell Ziskey in Stripes; he also co-wrote those films. As a writer-director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This. Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, and he was one of three screenwriters of the film National Lampoon's Animal House...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth21 November 1944
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.
Whatever bliss we think we're going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There's an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling.
The comic impulse is sometimes a reaction to sadness. You feel like you can make one choice or the other.
You can perceive life as tragic, or you can laugh at the tragedy of it and that turns it into comedy. It doesn't change the circumstances.
When I've written for Bill Murray - I've written six films for him - people would read it and say, "Oh, that's so perfectly Bill." He'd read it and say, "Are you kidding? I can't say these words." So it's all about perception.
At a certain point, you have to convince the actors that you've done the right thing. The way I work, if I can't convince them, I've got to move on. I can't coerce them or browbeat them.
Groundhog Day was pretty clean. It may have to do with some puritanical feeling that comedy is a forbidden pleasure in a certain way. They make you laugh, and laughter is somehow an inferior emotion to tragedy.
If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.
There's something very edgy about Bill Murray out there improvising.
When you're a big enough part of the process that the Writers Guild gives you a lot of credit, that's a good thing. It tells me that I've had a significant impact on the film as a writer.
It's a great luxury for me to be able to write on the films that I direct, and kind of a nice thing to be able to write enough to get credit, which is difficult for a director.
I always think that the writer is doing the vast majority of the director's work, in a sense. If you're a writer who is also going to direct, you're doing all your preparation: You're already visualizing everything, you're imagining how the lines are going to be read, you see the blocking in your head, and you know the rhythm and the pacing.
Analyze This is a good movie because Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are really good. But without the material to put on the play, of course, they couldn't be good. For me, it starts with the writing.
I can't imagine a successful comedy movie without a successful comedy performance at the heart of it.