Mukluks: Marley
What Franklin really meant is that, more than any other production, Diner invented … nothing. Or, to put it in quotes: Levinson invented the concept of “nothing” that was popularized eight years later with the premiere of Seinfeld. In Diner (as well as in Tin Men, his 1987 movie about older diner mavens), Levinson took the stuff that usually fills time between the car chase, the fiery kiss, the dramatic reveal—the seemingly meaningless banter (“Who do you make out to, Sinatra or Mathis?”) tossed about by men over drinks, behind the wheel, in front of a cooling plate of French fries—and made it central.
During postproduction on Diner, MGM/UA executive David Chasman complained to Levinson about one of its most famous set pieces, when Guttenberg’s Eddie and Reiser’s Modell argue ownership (“You gonna finish that?”) of a roast-beef sandwich. Chasman wanted it cut because it didn’t advance the story. “You don’t understand,” Levinson explained: between the lines about roast beef lies all you need to know about their fear, their competitiveness, their friendship. The roast beef is the story.
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