how come we still talk primarily about directors?
choral reef
reject it passionately.
yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
artistic force behind movies.
for instance, like LOR or not, we generally discuss it as the
visionary creation of peter jackson. few, if any, have mentioned the
writers, editor, cameraman, CGI geeks, etc by name.
when we like or dislike a ron howard film, we discuss it in terms of
howard and not the writer, the editor, cinematographer.
whether we like or dislike titanic or attack of the clones all comes
down to how we think of lucas or cameron.
i guess 'auteurists' are specifically crediting or blaming the
director but how about anti-auteurists? do you guys mention the
director in a comprehensive sense, as an embodiment of the entire
creative process behind the movie?
but shouldn't anti-auteurists call this figure a
prodiractortographeditorgaffer?
mike
choral reef wrote in message
<7b98c3ee.04061...@posting.google.com>...
I agree it's a combination of all these ares that make a film. People tend
to focus on what they see or hear the most about. Hence the reason the
actors are often perceived as the talent behind the movies when they only
offer a piece to the puzzle. The directors names are so widely used as a
marketing tool along side the actors that if a movie performs poorly the
average person regards the director or actor as being the reason. I am
constantly amazed at the diffrence sound and music can make to a film.
mike
Heynony
> some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others
Why not ask who are the top ten auteurists and anti-auteurists in this
newsgroup?
I would nominate myself as about #23 on the auteurist list, at best.
Like a lukewarm agnostic who can't commit, I have so many exceptions,
footnotes, uncertainties and yes-buts to my belief in the theory that
my status as a card-carrying auteurist has long since been revoked.
Is there value to studying films grouped by director? Sure, often. Just
like studying by genre; doesn't mean genre is the overwhelming be-all
and end-all force driving the making of films, but it makes study
managable and frequently enlightening. So I have just downgraded the
theory to wishy-washy nebulousity. OTOH there are clearly Welles films,
Fords, Capras, Hawks, Boettichers, etc. These men are artists every bit
as much as the greatest painters who single-handedly produced their art
(or supervised the brushes of their employees, students or
apprentices). OTOH, despite immense bodies of exceptional films, are
there Curtiz or Bacon films? Probably not; there are literally dozens
of films by each of these guys where I simply can't find them at all.
But I have a hard time understanding how, working under the same system
and with the same craftsmen as dozens of other directors, they were so
successful if they are not the artists primarily responsible for the
product. I've got so many other hands on this issue that I've just
downgraded myself to #42 on the list. No commitment.
dobe...@dropsocal.rr.com
>some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some
>reject it passionately.
>yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
>artistic force behind movies.
>
>for instance, like LOR or not, we generally discuss it as the
>visionary creation of peter jackson. few, if any, have mentioned the
>writers, editor, cameraman, CGI geeks, etc by name.
Most of us probably just refer to the director as a metonymic (or
synecdochic) shortcut; it's for the sake of convenience.
>but shouldn't anti-auteurists call this figure a
>prodiractortographeditorgaffer?
Well, now. . . in a long career of unusual suggestions, you've really
outdone yourself there!
--
Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust,
Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness,
Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags,
Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach
Melquiades
I think it really depends on the director. For example, a Tarantino, Wes
Anderson or P.T. Anderson is going to have final say on the music used in
their films (especially existing music, as opposed to score).
Ed Stasiak
>
> yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
> artistic force behind movies.
>
> for instance, like LOR or not, we generally discuss it as the
> visionary creation of peter jackson. few, if any, have mentioned
> the writers, editor, cameraman, CGI geeks, etc by name.
It's a shame that writers aren't given the lions share of the credit
that they truly deserve, since without them everybody from the director
on down to the janitor wouldn't have a job.
IMO Peter Jackson & Co. did a pretty good job with Tolkien's "Lord
of the Rings" but like every movie ever made, he and everybody else
involved were simply technicians who ultimately could have been
replaced by anybody and the movie still could have been made.
Remove the writer thou, and you have nothing.
jayembee
> IMO Peter Jackson & Co. did a pretty good job with
> Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" but like every movie
> ever made, he and everybody else involved were simply
> technicians who ultimately could have been replaced by
> anybody and the movie still could have been made.
>
> Remove the writer thou, and you have nothing.
Sorry, but this argument doesn't hold water.
Yes, it's true that the director and all of the other
technicians "could have been replaced by anybody and
the movie still could have been made". But the key point
is that they are *replaced*.
But when you say "remove the writer though, and you have
nothing" suggests that the writer cannot be replaced as
anyone else involved in making the film can be. This is
bogus. Writers can replaced just as easily as anyone else.
In fact, I would argue that writers are probably replaced
more often than directors.
-- jayembee
poldy
jayembe...@snurcher.com (jayembee) wrote:
> In fact, I would argue that writers are probably replaced
> more often than directors.
Film making is a collaborative medium and usually, the directors are
suppose to have the final authority on the artistic side of things. But
we know producers often overrule directors.
And writers are pretty low on the totem pole, below the directors and
actors who like to infuse their "input" on the script.
Directors are more like a managerial position. They are chosen based on
their past financial performance (as are actors) and expected to deliver
the film in a way that enhances the economic value of the studio
property.
Particularly in these FX-fests, directors appear to be guiding the
actors how to move in front of a blue screen rather than drawing
emotional responses from them.
Who comes up with the "vision" to do the movie? Do all directors
story-board how the movie is going to look or are there "visual
consultants" or "designers" who determine the look of a movie? As well
as the FX people who can say what kinds of effects are or are not
possible?
Emperor Gondo
> sympho...@hotmail.com (choral reef) wrote:
>
> >some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some
> >reject it passionately.
> >yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
> >artistic force behind movies.
> >
> >for instance, like LOR or not, we generally discuss it as the
> >visionary creation of peter jackson. few, if any, have mentioned the
> >writers, editor, cameraman, CGI geeks, etc by name.
>
> Most of us probably just refer to the director as a metonymic (or
> synecdochic) shortcut; it's for the sake of convenience.
but you mus surly know on barry lyndon the gaffer and sound guy was
maybe replaceable but not kuby.
Emperor Gondo
cuz there's director as Personal artist--welles, bergy, fellini--and
director as able craftsman--zinnemann, curtiz, siegal, zemeckis.
casablanca is a great genre movie, not personal filmmaking.
there are directors who fall somewhere in between: ford, hawks, such.
George Peatty
>Why not ask who are the top ten auteurists and anti-auteurists in this
>newsgroup?
This whole discussion reminds me of how some look at pro football. If the team loses,
it's the quarterback's fault; if the team wins, the quarterback gets the praise, the
publicity and the money. It's not true for football, and it's not true for movies. I
guess I'm not an auteur.
miss guydid
> In article <d3aeee5b.04061...@posting.google.com>,
> jayembe...@snurcher.com (jayembee) wrote:
>
> > In fact, I would argue that writers are probably replaced
> > more often than directors.
>
> Film making is a collaborative medium and usually, the directors are
> suppose to have the final authority on the artistic side of things. But
> we know producers often overrule directors.
>
yes, it all depends on the contract. an average hollywood director is
a hired hack craftsman.
> And writers are pretty low on the totem pole, below the directors and
> actors who like to infuse their "input" on the script.
largely because most writers are hired by the producer to write a
formulaic script. and, most screenwriters are cynical hacks who just
wanna break into the industry and give us cliche-ridden crap.
>
> Directors are more like a managerial position. They are chosen based on
> their past financial performance (as are actors) and expected to deliver
> the film in a way that enhances the economic value of the studio
> property.
>
> Particularly in these FX-fests, directors appear to be guiding the
> actors how to move in front of a blue screen rather than drawing
> emotional responses from them.
>
> Who comes up with the "vision" to do the movie? Do all directors
> story-board how the movie is going to look or are there "visual
> consultants" or "designers" who determine the look of a movie? As well
> as the FX people who can say what kinds of effects are or are not
> possible?
with the average hollywood product, director don't count much. i don't
care who directed X-men, terminator 3, pearl harbor, etc. all same
shit.
however, even with hollywood movies, there are directors with a
personal vision and/or concept. cameron, jackson, wachowski brothers,
etc, like them or not, are not mere hired hacks.
John R Rybock
wrote:
Directors get talked about most because they are, generally, the final
authority. Certainly, they work for the producers/studio, but they are
the ones whose vision influences things day to day - from script
polishing, to regular dealings with the FX folk to make the shots they
vision, to the actors and coaching them to give the performance they
want. to dealing with the cinematographer to get the look they want.
Like with any CEO, you have differing styles of running things. On one
end, you have the Kubricks, who work to create every painstaking
detail, to Eastwoods, who sorta let people do their own work in their
own way. But even in the later case, it is a specific influence that
creates the final work.
There is a new film by Jorgen Leth that they discussed today on NPR's
All Things Considered (I have not seen it yet). But it was 5 remakes
of the director's early short film, The Perfect Human, each one with
an "obstruction", or requirement (i.e. one had to be all in quick
shots (the antithesis of the first film), another animated, etc...). I
bring it up, and plan on seeing it myself, because it sounds like an
excellent chance to see how a director works - they all have their
personal "obstructions", or things they prefer to do, so this is a
chance to see the same script made 5 different ways.
Certainly, none of this is to disparage the hundreds of other people
who work on a film. But when discussing the overall piece, which is
what most discussion is about, talking about the director primarily is
important.
Chris Collins
sympho...@hotmail.com stated:
> some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some
> reject it passionately.
> yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
> artistic force behind movies.
The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or
rather the media that has replaced it.
What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed,
impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it.
Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with
'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and
shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out
what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
The dream of Truffaut especially was to create a cinema as intensely
personal, as pure, as the novel. As a form, at its best, the novel gives you
a sense of the internal life of the writer to the point of becoming a
controlled psychic exorcism with all of his experiences, fears, and desires
gushing out, usually between the words. It can feel like the writer is
sitting in a room and directly addressing you, offering universal truths
without being didactic, and we revere writers who can reach that level. Why
can't a movie be the same? Must film be an irreparably schizo medium?
What's between the words in Hitchcock?
At least that's the impression that I get from 'The 400 Blows.' I think
Truffaut may have said as much somewhere.
And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind
(you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you).
Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather
than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech,
for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech.
People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking
to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's
speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other
people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably
the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century
totalitarianism invested in it.
(Television has the same hypnotic power, but stripped of cinema's positive
attributes [mythological resonance, connectedness]. It has the same powers
of persuasion, but numbs and isolates people beyond the possibility of
trying to do anything about it.)
Ed Stasiak
> > esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
> >
> > Remove the writer thou, and you have nothing.
>
> nothing" suggests that the writer cannot be replaced as
> anyone else involved in making the film can be. This is
> bogus. Writers can replaced just as easily as anyone else.
If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written,
eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King
means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
In any movie ever made one could replace the director, lead actor,
hair dresser, caterer, ect on down the line and the movie can still
happen and thou I'm not suggesting that if Steven Segal had been
cast as Frodo, a "LotR" movie would still have been a success, with
_no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most
important element in a movie.
dobe...@dropsocal.rr.com
>The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination.
I think the privileging of directors predates Cahiers. When I watch a
movie from the 1940s, the director's name is typically the final
credit, which has pertinent implications in any discussion of the
public's view of a director's importance.
dobe...@dropsocal.rr.com
>Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most
>important element in a movie.
But others would say that the blueprint for an aircraft design won't
get you to Paris.
George Weinberg
>In article <d3aeee5b.04061...@posting.google.com>,
> jayembe...@snurcher.com (jayembee) wrote:
>
>> In fact, I would argue that writers are probably replaced
>> more often than directors.
>
>Film making is a collaborative medium and usually, the directors are
>suppose to have the final authority on the artistic side of things. But
>we know producers often overrule directors.
>
>And writers are pretty low on the totem pole, below the directors and
>actors who like to infuse their "input" on the script.
>
Reminds me of a joke....
There' this hot chick, she really wants to be in a movie, she'll
do anything to get into the film but she's really really stupid.
How stupid is she? She's so stupid...she sleeps with the
writer!
George
John Harkness
Plus certain directors were commodities long before Cahiers -- Capra,
Hitchock, John Ford, William Wyler, Huston
John Harkness
Chris Collins
dobe...@DROPsocal.rr.com at dobe...@DROPsocal.rr.com stated:
I think the public would afford the writer more consideration before
Cahiers, which more or less set the ground rules for discussing film-as-art.
Because before then, unless I'm mistaken, there was little talk of the
"vision" of a movie. It was what it was, a product of many craftsmen. The
director was sort of the foreman on a construction project as the studios
understood it, and who had the ultimate say (and to what degree) varied
according to circumstance.
The most important thing Cahiers did was give the director
celebrity-capital, which goes a helluva long way, especially if you're a fat
bearded guy in a t-shirt and cap.
miss guydid
i agree in cases of art or personal films.
1. think of woody allen and bergman. both have used sven nykvist, but
hannah and her sisters is ultimately a woody allen movie despite its
bergmanesque touches because its overall tone and spirit is
unmistakably allenian. godard has worked with different cameramen but
all his films are, above all, godardian. godard wanted belmondo for a
certain movie and didn't get him. it's still a godard movie, with or
without belmondo.
2. jack nicholson has worked with milos forman, john huston, dennis
hopper, but under antonioni's wing, he was an antonionian
character--in the passenger.
of course, some directors are less demanding and perfectionist, and
are willing to let others work autonomously or interpret things their
own way. but directors with strong personalities or total visions
want complete control and they get it. and, it usually helps to have
a director with a strong vision and personality because
cinematographer, editor, sound guy, actors, etc. need instructions;
they may offer advice to the director but as a reponse. if everyone
on the set does as he pleases, it's gonna be chaos. they need a man
with a comprehensive, unified and unifying vision. unlike sports,
there is nothing left to chance in art. a coach tells a running back
to do whatever but it's stop-and-go and much is a matter of chance and
the other team. but art is worked on and on until you come up with a
fully realized product. if a shooting goes wrong, you reshoot it. if
an actor bumbles his lines, you make him read it again. and, in order
to bring it altogether, you need a guiding hand and vision. if there
was no director, he would have to be invented. the writer would have
to take the director's job or the producer. or the actor. or the
cinematographer. all these areas of filmmaking are specialized. it's
the director who's the comprehensive author behind the film.
3. a movie--even a great movie--need not be personal. of course, most
movies are not, for which the main author is the box office or
catering to public taste/demand. but, midnight run is a great
nonpersonal movie with a formulaic script which was intelligently
written, wonderfully acted, ably directed. a great car may not be a
work of art but it's a great piece of engineering and it's better than
shit pretending to be art.
4. however, i can't imagine a personal film without an overriding
author, and in most cases this author is the director or the director
in tandem with the writer, or on occasion with cinematopher or
composer. last year at marienbad is a sterile writer's exercise but
resnais and his cinematographer's visual expression is breathtaking
and has to count for something. and, once upon a time in the west is
basically leone and morricone. leone furnished the visual language but
it'd lose half its power without morricone's outstanding score. it's
like jagger/richards or holland-dozier-holland. cooperative alchemy.
still, leone is the more important author since even without
morricone's score you'd have the movie but no leone, no movie; indeed,
no reason for the music to even exist.
the writer/director partnership is usually much more important. among
personal filmmakers, the director is often the writer--mamet,
antonioni, kurosawa(co-writer), bergman, lynch, peckinpah(co-writer),
coppola(co-writer).
still, usually in a movie partnership, the writer concedes that his
role is subservient to the director. he accepts that it's up to the
director to execute the final product. he accepts that the director
is the boss and has the final say. otherwise, if the writer overrides
the director's decisions, then the writer is the defacto director,
just as demi moore who overrode joffe for scarlet letter was actress
as defactor director, a horrendous one from what i hear.
this is probably why the best writers work on novels or plays since
they know not to expect full autonomy working on a film where producer
or director is the ultimate boss. no wonder that so many movies are
based on novels completed by writers working on their own. they
could not have produced those novels with a producer or director
breathing down their necks. indeed, when writers agree to work for
film, it's usually as a hired hack and don't get to do what they
really wanna do. faulkner, gatsby, huxley, hemingway all worked for
hollywood, writing thirdrate scripts or doctoring them, but they were
always on the sideline.
the director is really a misnomer. a film director does more than
direct or interpret. he creates. a stage director is ultimately
limited by the stage. he may guide actors in a manner or call for
certain set designs but the stage remains static. ultimately, it's
actors and the script. besides, the stage can never convince the
audience as a completely autonomous reality. this is not so with
movies where the director--with all the technological power in his
hands--can do so much more to interpret, reshape, expand, explore,
warp the original material. rather than just a guide, he becomes the
shaper. not merely a presenter, he takes us on a journey. in music, we
think of composer and the conductor. the movie director's conduction
is composition.
a director cannot NOT create. the medium becomes the art. our senses
becomes digested thru his vision.
5. there are certain movies where the director is replaceable, like in
the average hollywood genre movie where the formula is
well-established and the director merely goes thru set motions. in
these movies, the director is as replaceable as the editor or sound
guy or cinematographer... unless the director is a man of supreme
talent and vituosity, capable of doing stuff others can only dream of.
think of john ford, steven spielberg. ford westerns are genre pieces
and so are spielberg's action spectacles but only they knew how to
realize their full potential.
however, this is certainly not the case with personal films. replace
kurosawa with mizoguchi on seven samurai and it's a totally different
movie. have sydney pollock do the wild bunch and it'll be something
else. peckinpah's persona would have been somewhat different, i think.
i can't imagine masculin-feminin by anyone other than godard.
mulholland drive and eraserhead are lynch all the way. 2001 is kubrick
though dr. strangelove is a great alchemic product of the genius of
kubrick, sellars, and terry southern though kubrick still deserves the
lion's share for its greatness.
6. there are probably cases where film language is less important than
the dialogue, music etc. in a wordy script, the dialoguist may be
deemed the personal artist. think of glengarry glenross where mamet is
the true author.
and, singing in the rain can't just be credited to stanley donen. gene
kelly and musical folks deserve as much credit. now, singing is not a
personal film, and glengarry glenross is a personal play but not a
personal piece of filmmaking which is all very fine. still, the point
is in any personal work of art, there has to be a strong authorial
personality at the center. in film, it's usually the director but it
can the writer on occasion, as in glengarry glenross.
perhaps, nondirectors could be even more often the auteur in art or
personal films except that movies, by its nature, favor image over
language, either for art or entertainment. most art
directors--except bergman, etc--primarily focused on the
image--kubrick, resnais, truffaut, even godard where his characters
are usually sockpuppets, bresson, kurosawa(esp. throne of blood and
ran).
7. even where director's art is not the central focus of a movie,
director is often crucial. stop making sense is basically a talking
heads concert movie but it works beautifully because of demme's sure
and deft hand. a same concert can be filmed by two different people
and look utterly different just as if we hand out digicams to students
to film the same event, they can be drastically different in terms of
quality, interest, and skill.
the genius of spielberg becomes apparent when we compare saving
private ryan to enemy at the gate. both are comparable productions but
spielberg knows how to use the smallest details for maximum
thoroughgoing impact whereas the other guy only paints with big
prosaic brushstrokes.
8. bresson is a case where the power of the director is unmistakable.
but, it's also true in a less obvious way with tavernier. and some
directors are clearly out and out auteurs in every way,
self-sufficient artists who indeed resent any notion of compromise
with actors, technicians, moneymen: tarkovsky, godard, rivette,
takeshi, lucas of thx 1138 and attack of the clones--his best films.
9. i think the problem with auteur theory really began as the result
of french new wavers and andrew sarris's realpoliticking and
dogmatizing. any impassioned theorizing simplifies and invites a
backlash. extreme auteurism is just stupid but so is extreme
anti-auteurism. both are cases of rigid constipated mentalities
unable to deal with subtlety and nuance and such. it's ideology vs
ideololgy and has little to do with art, thought, or truth.
still, in today's cinema, some auteurism is what we need when we are
being inundated by the likes of jackson and other videogamish
nonsense, when what passes for an art director is tarantino doing
postmodernist beni hana with blaxploitation, kung fu and yakuza and
noir. not that i like genuine auteurs like pt anderson, solondz, and
other such boogerish ilk, but i still prefer to have a decade be
defined by happiness and magnolia than american pie, LOR, pearl
harbor, and other such crap. but i draw the line with remake of
psycho and far from heaven. that's for the pigeons.
10. i think one reason we prefer 'auteur' than 'author' is because we
don't feel comfortable with declaring the director the author, which
has proprietary connotations of sole ownership. when we use the term
'auteur', we mean a great director is the overriding artistic genius
behind the work--the soul if not sole--and not just a impersonal hack,
just as there are lounge act musicians who turn out schlock and great
personal musical artists who go all the way. now, the idea of
authorship is problematic in all artforms since all art is inspired by
previous art and the world that surrounds the artist. no author
totally creates anything on his own. dylan often took lines from his
friends like bob neuwirth. the band recycled traditional american
music. and couldn't one argue that tricky dick was an author of
oliver stone's movie also since without nixon's words and actions,
there would have been nothing to base the movie on? and, if welles
had been born into a primitive tribe in new guinea, no way he woulda
made citizen kane though he may have served some artistic function
with shrunken heads.
even fictionalized works of art are based on events and things that
may have happened, things the artist might have heard. so there is no
completely autonomous author. heck, one can argue the one true author
of cinema is thomas edison for inventing the technology without which
there would have been nobody, auteur or nonauteur. but let's give his
mom some credit too for authoring his birth and toilet training.
this debate extends into history, with some scholars arguing that
personalities do change history while others insist that
socio-economic factors are all important. some say no hitler, no
holocaust. some say no hitler, then someone like hitler, and same
holocaust. this personal vs deterministic debate can get silly. of
course the answer is always somewhere in between.
miss guydid
esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote in message news:<f33e00ab.04061...@posting.google.com>...
you is partly right but not entirely.
1. it depends on the writer. if he was hired by the producer to write
a formulaic script, he's a hack. the true 'author' of most films is
genre expectations, audience demand, and producer's financial-centric
guidelines. most hollywood movies are made by poll numbers and box
office. LOR is tolkien pared down to CGI videogame effects. if the
writer was hired by the director to fine-tune a script, the writer is
not THE author of the movie.
2. there are more than one layer of 'writing' in a movie. there is the
initial story and concept which could based on hearsay, newspaper
article, book--novel, biography, etc. for example, some movies credit
story to one person while writing credits go to another which is like
an autobiography written with the help of a professinal writer.
then there is the layer of writing where the script is finished. this
begats the screenplay. but, everything that comes afterwards is also
part of the writing. writing for film is more than characterization
and dialogue. writing includes visual conceptualization and planning.
for example, in a novel, the writing isn't only dialogue but also
descriptions of place or mood or weather. oftentimes, a screenplay
will only offer barebones story and dialogue. it's the director who
has to find the proper visual language to fatten it with flesh. for
example, the use of CU, zoom, pan, crane shot, editing, etc. are all
part of the language of cinema and expression. it's part of the
writing. the reason why so many great novelists or playwrights make
poor filmmakers is because they don't have a grasp of filmmaking
language. they know how to write dialogue and characters but not how
to write with images, a talent closer to music, fine art, and
architecture.
a truly complete screenplay should be based on the finished movie and
describe in detail every aspect of the film--use of color, light and
dark, camera movement, editing, use of sound, etc--because they are
all part of the expression of film, usually ordered and guided by the
director. similarly, verdi's otello is much more than shakespeare's
play. the musical performance is the real language of opera, and verdi
was the main author, not shakespeare.
lady from shanghai is a great movie because welles was the author.
yes, it's based on some cheap pulp novel, but the movie's greatness is
not the result of the conventional noirish twists and dialogue but
welles's visual expansion--filmic writing--on the original source.
if lady from shanghai had been directed by some hollywood hack, it
would have been just another forgettable crime thriller.
even when based on great material, the director makes all the
difference. campion's portrait of a lady is painfully bad. house of
mirth is great. lean's great expections is a classic. the ethan hawke
version is godawful.
welles' magnificent ambersons is magnificent. arau's version based on
welles' very script is piss poor. writer or original conceptualist
deserves more credit than he deserves but director is almost always
the key. mario puzo said as much when he compared coppola's godfather
with cimino's sicilian. sicilian is clearly the better book but
godfather the movie is a classic whereas cimino's sicilian is
embarassing.
3. sometimes the line between writer and director isn't clear. there
are of course writer-directors like bergman and antonioni who are
comparable to singersongwriters like dylan. there are also creative
partners where writing/directing is blurred as with the coen brothers,
wachowski brothers, kaufman & jonze.
4. the debate is often really about auteur ideal than auteur theory.
should the director have the primary position in the making of movies?
in the reality of hollywood genre movies, this is NOT so. but
cinephiles want personal art which requires a vision and artistic
style and personality. like bill buckley once said, mona lisa could
not have been created with everyone getting one dab at it.
5. i think citizen kane is the crucial film in the 'auteurist' debate.
at the time, no director had complete control over subject matter,
technique, artistic freedom, at least not since the silent era.
citizen kane is a masterpiece of directorial vision though it would be
wrong to claim welles as the sole author. but he was the overriding
genius who brought and fused it altogether. it was auteurism in action
even before anyone coined the term auteurism. what can a film be with
a strong director with vision, freedom, and personality? it can be
citizen kane. of course, it can also be heaven's gate or one from the
heart. but, i'll take the highs and lows over humdrum middle. in
politics we can do with middle of the roaders but not in art. we need
mavericks, tyrants, loons, rebels, and visionaries. i wouldn't want
peckinpah or godard as a politician but i wouldn't want kerry or dubya
as filmmaker.
miss guydid
you is partly right but not entirely.
miss guydid
you is partly right but not entirely.
miss guydid
you is partly right but not entirely.
miss guydid
> In article 7b98c3ee.04061...@posting.google.com, choral reef at
> sympho...@hotmail.com stated:
>
> > some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some
> > reject it passionately.
> > yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
> > artistic force behind movies.
>
>
> The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or
> rather the media that has replaced it.
>
> What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed,
> impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it.
> Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with
> 'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and
> shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out
> what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
>
actually, it's the opposite. when cahier crew came up with the theory,
there were plenty of film artists around, like bergman, mizoguchi,
renoir, satyajit ray, etc.
the cahier crew made the then-outrageous argument that many of those
conveyer belt movies that came out of hollywood were indeed works of
auteurs.
> The dream of Truffaut especially was to create a cinema as intensely
> personal, as pure, as the novel. As a form, at its best, the novel gives you
> a sense of the internal life of the writer to the point of becoming a
> controlled psychic exorcism with all of his experiences, fears, and desires
> gushing out, usually between the words. It can feel like the writer is
> sitting in a room and directly addressing you, offering universal truths
> without being didactic, and we revere writers who can reach that level. Why
> can't a movie be the same? Must film be an irreparably schizo medium?
> What's between the words in Hitchcock?
i don't think so. that would have closer to what resnais was aiming
it. or bergman. truffaut wanted film as an artistic outlet; he was
enamoured with the filmMAKING. he wanted to be liberated thru film,
for his personality to merge with the rest of the world. he grew up a
lonely kid hungry for attention and film was his means to connect. he
didn't so much want to draw people into his world as draw himself out
into the larger world. 'love on the run' is where personal has become
totally public: not just truffaut but his movies about himself and his
thoughts about his movies about himself.
>
> At least that's the impression that I get from 'The 400 Blows.' I think
> Truffaut may have said as much somewhere.
this is his first, cautious, thoughtful movie. as it was largely
about his childhood, it tended to be more personal than his later
films where he was more interested in the outward telling than in
self-exploration.
jules and jim is, foremost, personal FILMMAKING and only secondarily a
personal film.
>
> And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
with truffaut it was less theory than a hammer. it was godard and
rivette who were the real theoreticians. truffaut was essentially a
romantic and sentimentalist and he abandoned his theories in practice
as his career progressed. later, he just wanted to make normal, even
conventional, films. it was godard who got involved in the meaning of
cinema and dismantled it into i dunno what during his vertov yrs. and
rivette is a big mystery to me except secret defense and va savoir.
among the new wavers, truffaut eventually became the least auteurish.
he later insisted more on story and characterization than visual style
or personal expression unlike rohmer who stuck to his moral tale
format, godard with his intellectual antics, and rivette with his
incorrigible formalistic austerity.
>
> The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind
> (you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you).
> Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather
> than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech,
> for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech.
> People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking
> to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
i disagree. it depends on the movie. i'm sure LOR fans experience it
collectively. but, i don't think anyone gives a damn who thinks what
in the next seat when watching stuff like faithless or mulholland
drive. and i never felt as alone as when i saw AI.
also, cinema offers a world so fully realized that you become totally
pulled into its reality. it becomes only you and the movie. in a
stage play, you're always aware of the fellow audiences and the
actors. watching tv, you are aware of the refrigerator in the other
room. when reading a book, you stop and go, maybe talk on the phone,
then return to the book, take a bite out of apple, scratch your crotch
and look for lice, go to the washroom, look out the window, talk to
family or friends. it's actually more collective than filmviewing
unless you're totally concentrated on the reading and few people are.
most read on buses or at the beach with scantily clad women around and
how much can you concentrate on words when there's a nice ass going
by?
but when you watch a movie, it's you and the movie. the movie takes
you far far away and you feel like you're in lala land. you forget the
world outside, you forget other people in the theatre. in fact, when
it's over, you feel kinda embarassed that it's just a movie and other
people experienced the same and are getting up and walking out and
going to the washroom and going wee and wee while another guy goes
into a toilet stall and starts flushing to drown out his fart. it's
when the movie ends and you walk to the car among other people that
you realize you're back in collective reality. movie takes you away
from the collective.
>
> The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's
> speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other
> people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably
> the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century
> totalitarianism invested in it.
not really true. yes, film is powerful but its use by totalitarian
powers has been overestimated and its impact overrated.
russian people didn't like eisenstein and few people saw his films. a
film lecturer once told my class that the most popular filmmaker
during early soviet era was charlie chaplin. so despite lenin's
yakking about potential of cinema, it had little to do with bolshevik
seizure or maintenance of power.
same with hitler. triumph of the will came after hitler gained power
and he didn't rely on film to gain or hold power.
mao and his peasant army took china without cinema and cinema under
mao was mostly dull propaganda and had little to do with communist
hold on power.
ho chi minh and vietcong's resolve to spread communism in vietnam had
little to do with film. and taliban and khmer rouge banned film and tv
altogether.
in fact, film, despite or because of its power, is dangerous to
totalitarians because of its liberating power, like music.
totalitarians have been more eager to control film than use it.
in fact, the most devastating and farreaching use of film have been in
capitalist countries where it's all about personal freedom,
individualism, consumerism, feeding fantasies.
totalitarians feared cinema just as they feared rock music. i suppose
a totalitarian can order the creation of pro-commie or pro-fascist
rock band but what'd be the point, just as it's ridiculous when
rockers espouse radical dogmatism--the clash's maoism.
> (Television has the same hypnotic power, but stripped of cinema's positive
> attributes [mythological resonance, connectedness]. It has the same powers
> of persuasion, but numbs and isolates people beyond the possibility of
> trying to do anything about it.)
taliban didn't allow tv but i don't think afghanis were doing anything
about anything. under mao's china, less than 1% of the people owned
tv. yet, i don't think the average chinese was all that thoughtful or
conscientious about politics.
people want entertainment. they'll get it thru tv, gossiping on the
phone, playing cards, watching sports, going bowling.
miss guydid
> sympho...@hotmail.com stated:
>
> > some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some
> > reject it passionately.
> > yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
> > artistic force behind movies.
>
>
> The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or
> rather the media that has replaced it.
>
> What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed,
> impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it.
> Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with
> 'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and
> shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out
> what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
>
actually, it's the opposite. when cahier crew came up with the theory,
there were plenty of film artists around, like bergman, mizoguchi,
renoir, satyajit ray, etc.
the cahier crew made the then-outrageous argument that many of those
conveyer belt movies that came out of hollywood were indeed works of
auteurs.
> The dream of Truffaut especially was to create a cinema as intensely
> personal, as pure, as the novel. As a form, at its best, the novel gives you
> a sense of the internal life of the writer to the point of becoming a
> controlled psychic exorcism with all of his experiences, fears, and desires
> gushing out, usually between the words. It can feel like the writer is
> sitting in a room and directly addressing you, offering universal truths
> without being didactic, and we revere writers who can reach that level. Why
> can't a movie be the same? Must film be an irreparably schizo medium?
> What's between the words in Hitchcock?
i don't think so. that would have closer to what resnais was aiming
it. or bergman. truffaut wanted film as an artistic outlet; he was
enamoured with the filmMAKING. he wanted to be liberated thru film,
for his personality to merge with the rest of the world. he grew up a
lonely kid hungry for attention and film was his means to connect. he
didn't so much want to draw people into his world as draw himself out
into the larger world. 'love on the run' is where personal has become
totally public: not just truffaut but his movies about himself and his
thoughts about his movies about himself.
>
> At least that's the impression that I get from 'The 400 Blows.' I think
> Truffaut may have said as much somewhere.
this is his first, cautious, thoughtful movie. as it was largely
about his childhood, it tended to be more personal than his later
films where he was more interested in the outward telling than in
self-exploration.
jules and jim is, foremost, personal FILMMAKING and only secondarily a
personal film.
>
> And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
with truffaut it was less theory than a hammer. it was godard and
rivette who were the real theoreticians. truffaut was essentially a
romantic and sentimentalist and he abandoned his theories in practice
as his career progressed. later, he just wanted to make normal, even
conventional, films. it was godard who got involved in the meaning of
cinema and dismantled it into i dunno what during his vertov yrs. and
rivette is a big mystery to me except secret defense and va savoir.
among the new wavers, truffaut eventually became the least auteurish.
he later insisted more on story and characterization than visual style
or personal expression unlike rohmer who stuck to his moral tale
format, godard with his intellectual antics, and rivette with his
incorrigible formalistic austerity.
>
> The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind
> (you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you).
> Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather
> than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech,
> for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech.
> People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking
> to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
i disagree. it depends on the movie. i'm sure LOR fans experience it
>
> The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's
> speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other
> people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably
> the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century
> totalitarianism invested in it.
not really true. yes, film is powerful but its use by totalitarian
> (Television has the same hypnotic power, but stripped of cinema's positive
> attributes [mythological resonance, connectedness]. It has the same powers
> of persuasion, but numbs and isolates people beyond the possibility of
> trying to do anything about it.)
taliban didn't allow tv but i don't think afghanis were doing anything
Chris Collins
missg...@hotmail.com stated:
> Chris Collins <raisi...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:<BCF04EA6.8241%raisi...@earthlink.net>...
>> In article 7b98c3ee.04061...@posting.google.com, choral reef at
>> sympho...@hotmail.com stated:
>>
>>> some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some
>>> reject it passionately.
>>> yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
>>> artistic force behind movies.
>>
>>
>> The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or
>> rather the media that has replaced it.
>>
>> What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed,
>> impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it.
>> Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with
>> 'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and
>> shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out
>> what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
>>
>
> actually, it's the opposite. when cahier crew came up with the theory,
> there were plenty of film artists around, like bergman, mizoguchi,
> renoir, satyajit ray, etc.
Was Bergman well established at the genesis of the idea?
> the cahier crew made the then-outrageous argument that many of those
> conveyer belt movies that came out of hollywood were indeed works of
> auteurs.
Then maybe the Theory was an attempt to confer status on the movies they
spooged themselves over so they could feel less guilty about doing so?
I've only seen that by Truffaut, so I can't rightly speak of the others. But
wasn't the whole Doinel series essentially autobiographical?
>
>>
>> And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
>
> with truffaut it was less theory than a hammer. it was godard and
> rivette who were the real theoreticians. truffaut was essentially a
> romantic and sentimentalist and he abandoned his theories in practice
> as his career progressed. later, he just wanted to make normal, even
> conventional, films. it was godard who got involved in the meaning of
> cinema and dismantled it into i dunno what during his vertov yrs. and
> rivette is a big mystery to me except secret defense and va savoir.
> among the new wavers, truffaut eventually became the least auteurish.
> he later insisted more on story and characterization than visual style
> or personal expression unlike rohmer who stuck to his moral tale
> format, godard with his intellectual antics, and rivette with his
> incorrigible formalistic austerity.
>
>>
>> The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind
>> (you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you).
>> Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather
>> than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech,
>> for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech.
>> People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking
>> to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
>
> i disagree. it depends on the movie. i'm sure LOR fans experience it
> collectively. but, i don't think anyone gives a damn who thinks what
> in the next seat when watching stuff like faithless or mulholland
> drive. and i never felt as alone as when i saw AI.
On a subconscious level, I think most people perceive and are affected by
how other people are experiencing a film. Laughter or a gasp of surprise is
a reminder that others are responding to the same thing and you match this
against your own responses. People are more likely to "like" something if
those around them are. Don't underestimate the herd instinct.
And directors are aware of this. They get a kick out of how an audience
responds to a film, and they tailor their movies with this in mind. You
can't not do it -- it has to make sense to an audience, and group response
is always a factor in playing to an audience.
There's a lot of psychological gamesmanship involved in it and it's not just
a little bit cynical. (If I were a grad student I might write a paper on how
movies are "fascist" in this regard)
Think of how writers and directors conceive of reaching the audience -- I
don't think it's in terms of "him" or "her" (as with a novel), but rather
"them." Then think about how this affects the project in the conception
stage. It's tailored to group psychology which I think is more the factor in
filmwatching.
> also, cinema offers a world so fully realized that you become totally
> pulled into its reality. it becomes only you and the movie. in a
> stage play, you're always aware of the fellow audiences and the
> actors. watching tv, you are aware of the refrigerator in the other
> room. when reading a book, you stop and go, maybe talk on the phone,
> then return to the book, take a bite out of apple, scratch your crotch
> and look for lice, go to the washroom, look out the window, talk to
> family or friends. it's actually more collective than filmviewing
> unless you're totally concentrated on the reading and few people are.
> most read on buses or at the beach with scantily clad women around and
> how much can you concentrate on words when there's a nice ass going
> by?
The factors you site that pull you out of a book have to do with external
elements. That doesn't affect the structural integrity of the work itself or
make it less believable. The book is still there. In the case of your
attention wandering, that's a failure of either the writer or your attention
span.
You're right that in the cinema you're more quickly engaged and there are
less external distractions. But those distractions that ruin a film are part
and parcel of it -- bad lighting, hammy acting, poor editing, etc. In a
novel, all the failings that make the work itself less believable can be
laid squarely at the foot of the writer. That's simplicity of form. Film is
a complex medium that has so many factors coming in to play that a clarity
of vision on a literary level is damn near impossible. The more parts a
machine has, the more likely to break down. What I sense the auteurists were
trying to do is impose a semblance of order, deliberation, and
analyze-ability (for lack of a better word) on what is by its very nature
organized chaos.
> but when you watch a movie, it's you and the movie. the movie takes
> you far far away and you feel like you're in lala land. you forget the
> world outside, you forget other people in the theatre. in fact, when
> it's over, you feel kinda embarassed that it's just a movie and other
> people experienced the same and are getting up and walking out and
> going to the washroom and going wee and wee while another guy goes
> into a toilet stall and starts flushing to drown out his fart. it's
> when the movie ends and you walk to the car among other people that
> you realize you're back in collective reality. movie takes you away
> from the collective.
You may be right. Maybe it's an idiosyncracy of mine, but I haven't
experienced that level of rapturous involvement at a film showing in a long
time. I assume it's not at every movie that you're completely subsumed in
viewing - certainly you have critical faculties. I wonder what percentage of
any given audience at a particular film achieves that and what share remains
conscious of the artifice.
But I think the psychic significance of sharing an experience with a group
of people remains a factor in level of involvement. I'd posit that people
will become less involved in a movie in which they're sitting in the dark
watching by themselves than with an audience. I sense a connection to the
other people walking out of a theater - we've been subject to the same
experience, or at least simulation of it.
>
>>
>> The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's
>> speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other
>> people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably
>> the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century
>> totalitarianism invested in it.
>
> not really true. yes, film is powerful but its use by totalitarian
> powers has been overestimated and its impact overrated.
> russian people didn't like eisenstein and few people saw his films. a
> film lecturer once told my class that the most popular filmmaker
> during early soviet era was charlie chaplin. so despite lenin's
> yakking about potential of cinema, it had little to do with bolshevik
> seizure or maintenance of power.
> same with hitler. triumph of the will came after hitler gained power
> and he didn't rely on film to gain or hold power.
> mao and his peasant army took china without cinema and cinema under
> mao was mostly dull propaganda and had little to do with communist
> hold on power.
> ho chi minh and vietcong's resolve to spread communism in vietnam had
> little to do with film. and taliban and khmer rouge banned film and tv
> altogether.
> in fact, film, despite or because of its power, is dangerous to
> totalitarians because of its liberating power, like music.
> totalitarians have been more eager to control film than use it.
If I seemed to be implying that cinema was a successful tool of
totalitarianism that wasn't my intention. The past century has shown that
ultimately all forms of totalitarian manipulation break down. Were you the
one who posted that article about Stalin? He intuited that cinema had the
most power. I doubt that a movie would foment a revolution, but if any
medium can, it's probably the one.
>
> in fact, the most devastating and farreaching use of film have been in
> capitalist countries where it's all about personal freedom,
> individualism, consumerism, feeding fantasies.
> totalitarians feared cinema just as they feared rock music. i suppose
> a totalitarian can order the creation of pro-commie or pro-fascist
> rock band but what'd be the point, just as it's ridiculous when
> rockers espouse radical dogmatism--the clash's maoism.
Rock & roll is too American, too adolescent, to effectively offer dogma. But
Battleship Potemkin is no less overpowering, at least to me, for its
dogmatic origins. On the other hand, it is offering a liberation fantasy, so
maybe that's how it gets by with what it does.
>
>> (Television has the same hypnotic power, but stripped of cinema's positive
>> attributes [mythological resonance, connectedness]. It has the same powers
>> of persuasion, but numbs and isolates people beyond the possibility of
>> trying to do anything about it.)
>
> taliban didn't allow tv but i don't think afghanis were doing anything
> about anything. under mao's china, less than 1% of the people owned
> tv. yet, i don't think the average chinese was all that thoughtful or
> conscientious about politics.
> people want entertainment. they'll get it thru tv, gossiping on the
> phone, playing cards, watching sports, going bowling.
Don't forget usenet discourse.
dobe...@dropsocal.rr.com
>Then maybe the Theory was an attempt to confer status on the movies they
>spooged themselves over so they could feel less guilty about doing so?
According to some, that's the gist of it. . . .
>But I think the psychic significance of sharing an experience with a group
>of people remains a factor in level of involvement.
Like riding an extreme roller-coaster at an amusement park.
poldy
missg...@hotmail.com (miss guydid) wrote:
> however, even with hollywood movies, there are directors with a
> personal vision and/or concept. cameron, jackson, wachowski brothers,
> etc, like them or not, are not mere hired hacks.
Didn't the Wachowski get ideas for what could be possible in the Matrix
movies from the FX people? The rotating slow mo or whatever it's
called. The only other thing that that effect was used for when the
first Matrix came out was a Gap commercial with all these dancers in
khakis.
David Cronenberg said in an interview, or it may have been a DVD
commentary, that he was offered those same effects for eXistenZ but he
didn't think it made sense for his movie.
So you wonder if the signature visual effect of at least the first
Matrix movie came from some less famous special FX people.
poldy
esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote:
> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written,
> eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King
> means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
I didn't read Puzo but wasn't it considered a pulp novel which didn't
have the grandeur that was in the films?
miss guydid
but it's director more as a star than as an artist or author.
Ed Stasiak
> > esta...@att.net wrote
> >
> > Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most
> > important element in a movie.
>
> But others would say that the blueprint for an aircraft design won't
> get you to Paris.
And they would be right but art is a more strait forward process IMO.
With a movie, play, song, ect there _has_ to be that one person right
at the beginning with at least the seed of an idea that everything
which follows grows from.
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation for example, doesn't get the
credit for "Purple Haze" because they made the electric guitar Jimi
Hendrix used, he does because without him the song wouldn't exist.
In the film industry on the other hand, it seems to me that writers
get the short end of the stick every time. How much credit did Philip
K. Dick receive for "Minority Report"?
Adam Cameron
You're logic here is slightly flawed because you're starting out with
the premise that the story is the most significant part of [some
movie], and using that as the basis for demonstrating how the writer
(of that story) is the most important factor in said movie.
Compare the recent Peter Jackson LotR with the 1978 Ralph Bakshi one.
Same source material (albeit, in a movie sense of the term, different
writers), but profoundly different Results. The *least* important
element here in how the respective movies can be compared is Tolkien's
input.
Yes, a movie requires a story (and yes, there are exceptions to this,
but for all intents and purposes a movie needs a story). No story: no
movie. Similarly, a movie needs a director. No director: no movie.
Let's ignore movies based on existing material, for a second: it's
hard to see the distinction when we're using that as a basis for
comparison.
Peter Jackson previously made the film The Frighteners. I
automatically went to see it because it was a Peter Jackson film; not
because it was the story of "The Frighteners". If Wes Craven had
directed it: I'd have skipped it.
I also think that had Jackson decided to do his own Fantasy-based
movie (ie: not Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), the result would be an
equally satisfying movie. Yet the writers would be Philippa Boyens
and Fran Walsh. Not JRR Tolkien.
And just a footnote (apropos to nothing), it's "etc", not "ect".
Adam
--
Adam Cameron
Senior Application Developer
Straker Interactive
Ph: +64 9 3605034
Fx: +64 9 3605870
Email: ad...@straker.co.nz
miss guydid
> > > esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
> > >
> > > Remove the writer thou, and you have nothing.
> >
> > But when you say "remove the writer though, and you have
> > nothing" suggests that the writer cannot be replaced as
> > anyone else involved in making the film can be. This is
> > bogus. Writers can replaced just as easily as anyone else.
>
> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written,
> eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King
> means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy
setting.
it's based more on videogames than a book. peter jackson could have
used germanic mythology, arthurian legends, iliad and given us the
basically same CGI crap.
and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and
legend? so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
you say no puzo, then no godfather. but if no gangster genre, then no
puzo's godfather. puzo too built on something, interpreted and shaped
a preexisting genre. besides, godfather by any other director would
have been forgettable, like the sicilian by cimino or last don tv
series.
and did you see king's tv version of the shining? it's shit. the way
i see it, a truly great director uses a literary source as a mere
springboard to express his own vision. and great cinematic art is
about nuance, subtlety, that 1% extra talent that the great director
possesses which others don't.
any hack director could have made jaws or raiders of the lost ark. it
would have been 90% same as spielberg's but what makes spielberg's
films great is the skill beyond the rudimentary and basic, that
sublime extra talent and ability to go visualize and execute what
others can't.
the way i see it, 'writing' in film is any creative aspect of
conceptualization. the inspiration for a film can come from a dream,
music, a newspaper article, or it can have no conventional narrative.
take long stretches of andrei rublev without dialogue. the filmmaking
IS the writing. the director can be as much the writer as the
screenwriter or novelist. in fact, his visual writing is ultimately
more important.
>
> In any movie ever made one could replace the director, lead actor,
> hair dresser, caterer, ect on down the line and the movie can still
> happen and thou I'm not suggesting that if Steven Segal had been
> cast as Frodo, a "LotR" movie would still have been a success, with
> _no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
but it's not so much the story that makes a movie great. LOR story is
very conventional, dime-a-dozen. good guys vs bad guys, adventure and
action, giants and monsters, battles, etc. this is highly staple
material. it's basically the same stuff as in wagner's niebelungen.
if you or i used the niebelungen story to compose our own opera, would
it be as good as wagner's? no, cuz it's the music that is the real
'writing' in an opera.
what makes kubrick's shining great is not so much the story but how
kubrick used the basic story as a springboard for exploring human
psyche. but kubrick could have done much the same using a different
story and indeed he did. shining has much in common with 2001,
clockwork orange, full metal jacket, eyes wide shut.
similarly, what makes a great novel is not really the story. take
farewell to arms or great gatsby. as stories, they are the stuff found
in a gazillion romance novels. what makes them great novels is how
hemingway and fitzgerald used the medium of language to delve into
character psychology, gain social insight... and simply because they
knew how to use language like no one else.
it's like a jazz artist can take a simple ho-hum melody as a base and
expand and mold it into countless things, innovating new styles along
the way.
same with food. we can all follow the same ingredients but what makes
a great chef? i dunno. i can do 90% of what they can do but they got
that 10% extra skill. and the really great ones got that extra 1%
skill.
it's like the scene in amadeus where mozart takes salieri's little
ditty and keeps reshaping it over and over until it becomes mozart's
own.
>
> Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most
> important element in a movie.
in cases where the story is highly personal or original, yes. i'd say
faithless is more bergman than ullmann. it can also apply to charlie
kaufman.
but most movies follow a staple formula. indeed, most popular fiction
on which movies are based are cliche ridden; the story may be
entertaining but it aint anything new or special. so when they are
made into movies, we care not so much about the story as the
treatment. we want the director to use it merely as a springboard or
base to do something truly original and daring. like welles with lady
from shanghai or touch of evil. the fact is welles could have done
that with any pulp novel because he had the welles touch. but let a
hack direct a pulp novel and it's as silly as the pulpish source.
or take innumerable crime thrillers; when they end you don't wanna see
it again cuz there's little other than the formulaic story, like
pakula's 'presumed innocent'. but, the reason we return to vertigo
over and over is hitchcock used a genre story to express something
truly deep, profound, and sublime about longing, love, and loss.
though i don't like pulp fiction, we gotta credit tarantino for taking
clicheridden material and trying to fashion it into something daring,
innovative, original. i wish he didn't embrace inhumanity with such
sneering glee. but he understands that the director shouldn't merely
be a faithful hack trying to serve the writer but a 'writer' himself
who turns the basic dough into great pastry.
dobe...@dropsocal.rr.com
>And just a footnote (apropos to nothing), it's "etc", not "ect".
Does it not -- or does it not -- ever fail?
It never fails! It is the one supreme constant of Usenet.
John Harkness
It's a really good pulp drama. Moves like a bat out of hell and has
just about everything you want. Ironic -- Puzo wrote a couple of
"literary" novels -- The Fortunate Pilgrim comes to mind -- and they
aren't nearly as good as the novel he wrote when he decided to be a
total whore and go for the best-seller.
John Harkness
miss guydid
> In article <e18a7727.04061...@posting.google.com>,
> missg...@hotmail.com (miss guydid) wrote:
>
> > however, even with hollywood movies, there are directors with a
> > personal vision and/or concept. cameron, jackson, wachowski brothers,
> > etc, like them or not, are not mere hired hacks.
>
> Didn't the Wachowski get ideas for what could be possible in the Matrix
> movies from the FX people? The rotating slow mo or whatever it's
> called. The only other thing that that effect was used for when the
> first Matrix came out was a Gap commercial with all these dancers in
> khakis.
>
> Matrix movie came from some less famous special FX people.
no. you're confusing art with technology. technology certainly serves
art but the ideas for film has to conceived in the mind of the artist
first.
there's all sorts of technology out there but it's the director who
chooses what to use.
for instance, if a director wants a dinosaur, he might look around for
the best f/x people who can realize the effect most fully. technology
serves the art.
following your logic, the author of every movie is the inventer of the
camera or crane. yes, sound technology gave directors the CHOICE to
use sound but would you say the inventer of sound technology is the
author of the film?
also, use of f/x helped wachokowski brothers realize their effect,
they had to have thought of the idea in their mind first, and it was
essentially a variation of the hongkong kung fu film style.
a director doesn't know all the technical details but he tells the
technicians what he wants and they realize it to the best of the
knowledge and skill, but the vision and order comes from the director.
a director may not know how to operate the camera but he tells the
cameraman what kind of shot he wants and the cameraman tries best to
achieve what the director is looking for.
Heynony
> with _no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
Exactly. And with _no_ wardrobe ... well I ; like Kathy Bates as much
as anybody but that's no movie for me.
George Peatty
>and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and
>legend? so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
Tolkien has a number of literary influences, among them H. Rider Haggard. Did H. Rider
Haggard write those stories, or make that movie? There's a difference between having
literary influences and antecedents and outright copying.
Ed Stasiak
>
> Compare the recent Peter Jackson LotR with the 1978 Ralph Bakshi one.
>
> Same source material (albeit, in a movie sense of the term, different
> writers), but profoundly different Results. The *least* important
> element here in how the respective movies can be compared is Tolkien's
> input.
I think you're making my point for me here.
From you're example we can see that the director is an interchangeable
technical component of a "LotR" (or any) film, plug in Peter Jackson or
Ralph Bakshi or ____ and the movie can still be made, take Tolkien (or
any writer) out of the equation and it's no longer possible to make the
movie.
> Yes, a movie requires a story (and yes, there are exceptions to this,
> but for all intents and purposes a movie needs a story). No story: no
> movie. Similarly, a movie needs a director. No director: no movie.
Sure, if it's a case of no director _at all_ then there is no movie but there
can still be a movie regardless of who is chosen as director. Now the
movie might suck or might be great but it can still be filmed regardless
of who actually says; "action!".
> Peter Jackson previously made the film The Frighteners. I
> automatically went to see it because it was a Peter Jackson film; not
> because it was the story of "The Frighteners". If Wes Craven had
> directed it: I'd have skipped it.
But if "The Frighteners" had not been written, then neither Jackson or
Craven would have been able to direct it and there would have been
no movie for you to see.
> I also think that had Jackson decided to do his own Fantasy-based
> movie (ie: not Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), the result would be an
> equally satisfying movie. Yet the writers would be Philippa Boyens
> and Fran Walsh. Not JRR Tolkien.
Maybe, maybe not. But it wouldn't be "Lord of the Rings" and whatever
the movie is called, it still needs a writer to provide the story for the director
to work from.
Ed Stasiak
> > esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
> >
> > If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written,
> > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King
> > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
>
> wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting.
Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and thus don't
have _that_ movie.
The director, actors, camera man, ect can still work together to make _a_ movie
and it might be great or it might suck but without the writer to give them something
to work with, they're unemployed.
> it's based more on videogames than a book. peter jackson could have
> used germanic mythology, arthurian legends, iliad and given us the
> basically same CGI crap.
Peter Jackson could have made _a_ movie using the above ideas but it wouldn't
be "Lord of the Rings" and even then, it would still require somebody to first come
up with a story.
> and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and legend?
> so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
But comparing the author of a novel to a film director is comparing apples to
oranges IMO. To use a manufacturing analogy; a writer is the equivalent
of an engineer designing some widget while the director is the machinist who
makes the widget from the engineers blueprint.
> you say no puzo, then no godfather. but if no gangster genre, then no
> puzo's godfather. puzo too built on something, interpreted and shaped
> a preexisting genre.
Well no man is an island, right? But my point is that a writer can still write
a story without producers, directors, actors, hair dressers, caters, ect but
everybody involved in making a movie _cannot_ do their job without the
writer.
> besides, godfather by any other director would have been forgettable,
>
> and did you see king's tv version of the shining? it's shit.
>
> any hack director could have made jaws or raiders of the lost ark.
This is just making a judgment on whether a move is good or not, it doesn't
change the fact the story is still mandatory for the movie to be made in the
first place.
> the way i see it, 'writing' in film is any creative aspect of conceptualization.
I disagree, since without the story there is nothing conceptualize.
> the inspiration for a film can come from a dream,
> music, a newspaper article, or it can have no conventional narrative.
> take long stretches of andrei rublev without dialogue.
True, the inspiration can come from anywhere but _somebody_ has to have
that inspiration in the first place or you have nothing.
Now I could take a video camera, mount it on a tri-pod, aim it out my living
room window and let it run for hours on end but when I win the Palme D'Ore
for my stunning masterpiece, the statuette will read; "Hours of Nothing by
Ed Stasiak" not "Hours of Nothing by Sony Handi-Cam".
The idea was mine so I deserve the lions share of the credit, regardless of the
method used to bring my vision to my adoring fans.
> the filmmaking IS the writing. the director can be as much the writer as the
> screenwriter or novelist. in fact, his visual writing is ultimately more important.
I'm not disregarding the efforts of the director or anybody else involved in making
a movie and film making _is_ an art form but just as a guitar is simply a tool used
to present the musicians song to the listener, everybody from the director on down
in a film production is simply a tool used to present the writers story to a film viewer.
> > In any movie ever made one could replace the director, lead actor,
> > hair dresser, caterer, ect on down the line and the movie can still
> > happen and thou I'm not suggesting that if Steven Segal had been
> > cast as Frodo, a "LotR" movie would still have been a success, with
> > _no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
>
> but it's not so much the story that makes a movie great. LOR story is
> very conventional, dime-a-dozen. good guys vs bad guys, adventure and
> action, giants and monsters, battles, etc. this is highly staple material.
That's debatable and we could argue till the cows come home but it doesn't
change the fact that without Tolkien's story, the "LotR" movie never happens.
> it's like the scene in amadeus where mozart takes salieri's little
> ditty and keeps reshaping it over and over until it becomes mozart's
> own.
But Salieri still had to come up with the ditty for Mozart to reshape, just as
Peter Jackson needed Tolkien's story to make the "LotR" movie.
> > Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most
> > important element in a movie.
>
> but most movies follow a staple formula. indeed, most popular fiction
> on which movies are based are cliche ridden; the story may be
> entertaining but it aint anything new or special. so when they are
> made into movies, we care not so much about the story as the
> treatment.
Again, you're just making a value judgment on whether the movie sucks or not,
you still need the story to be able make that opinion in the first place.
I'll agree that a good director can turn a crappy (or at least not that good) story
into a cool movie but he needs at least that crappy story, without it the director
is just a big fat bearded guy sitting next to a camera twiddling his thumbs.
poldy
John Harkness <jhXaYr...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
Even more irony. Coppola took on the film project as a whore. It
wasn't as big an artistic ambition as say Apocalypse Now. He figured
he'd make some money so he could do the projects he really wanted to do.
poldy
> no. you're confusing art with technology. technology certainly serves
> art but the ideas for film has to conceived in the mind of the artist
> first.
>
> there's all sorts of technology out there but it's the director who
> chooses what to use.
> for instance, if a director wants a dinosaur, he might look around for
> the best f/x people who can realize the effect most fully. technology
> serves the art.
> following your logic, the author of every movie is the inventer of the
> camera or crane. yes, sound technology gave directors the CHOICE to
> use sound but would you say the inventer of sound technology is the
> author of the film?
>
> also, use of f/x helped wachokowski brothers realize their effect,
> they had to have thought of the idea in their mind first, and it was
> essentially a variation of the hongkong kung fu film style.
Right the director ultimately chooses which technology and FX to use.
But the way I heard it, it sounded like the people who developed this
effect was marketing it to different directors and the Wachokowskis were
the first to bite. Maybe that wasn't the case but that impression was
disseminated at the time.
miss guydid
> > "miss guydid" <missg...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
> > >
> > > If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written,
> > > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King
> > > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
> >
> > wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting.
>
> Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and thus don't
> have _that_ movie.
a movie is much more than the story. take a narrative song for
example. whether the song is good or not is really a matter of lyrics,
the music, and the performance rather than the story it tells. to a
great director, the story is only raw material to shape into HIS art.
wise guys is an informative book but goodfellas' greatness is the
product of scorsese's directorial 'writing'. no one could have done
it that way.
the original source and writer obviously deserves credit but a movie
is built on the base material. it's this building that ultimately
counts toward why a movie works or not. also, oftentimes, the
director alters the source material, somtimes changing it drastically,
preserving only its general outline, if that. for example, tim
burton's planet of the apes has little to do with boulle's novel nor
with the heston film. it's burton's. so is sleepy hollow which has
almost nothing to do with the original story.
>
> The director, actors, camera man, ect can still work together to make _a_ movie
> and it might be great or it might suck but without the writer to give them something
> to work with, they're unemployed.
no, most movies are genre products, and writers are usually hired to
submit what the producer/director demands. just about anyone familiar
with genre staples can write a workable western, thriller, cop movie,
horror movie, etc. very few movies are based on truly original
scripts. also, many great directors come up with their own stories
and material; in these cases, writer and director is inseparable.
and, you take the vast majority of hollywood movies and the story is
just recycled genre material, the sort of stuff anyone can come up
with blindfolded. now, the story has to be SMARTLY written but that's
only the beginning. the movie is truly created with the director.
oftentimes, the movie doesn't originate with the writer but with the
producer or director. they have an idea, concept, or story and hire a
writer to work on a treatment. in fact, no producer(no money), no
movie either, whether there's a script or not. anyway, it doesn't
matter where the story originated. a movie is truly realized during
the making.
>
> > it's based more on videogames than a book. peter jackson could have
> > used germanic mythology, arthurian legends, iliad and given us the
> > basically same CGI crap.
>
> Peter Jackson could have made _a_ movie using the above ideas but it wouldn't
> be "Lord of the Rings" and even then, it would still require somebody to >first come
> up with a story.
again, the story such as LOR is nothing special. it's fantasy staple
based on germanic myths, and judging by the movie, rather sucky. i can
come up with a better sword/sorcery story. also, judging from the
movie... what story? it's just a long videogame with the usual
sorcerers, midgets, swordsmen, etc. where's the story you're talking
about? LOR the movie is so generic that it can easily be mistaken
with countless other CGI videogamish ilk. it has even less of a story
than infantile star wars movies.
if LOR did have a great story, i'd be willing to give your argument
more credit. but, the story is threadbare and just an excuse for alot
of action. maybe, the book tells a better story, but if that's the
case, LOR is based more on your generic hollywood summerblockbuster
than tolkien's novel. it's closer to Pearl Harbor or Raiders of the
Lost Ark than an epic saga.
>
> > and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and legend?
> > so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
>
> But comparing the author of a novel to a film director is comparing apples to
> oranges IMO. To use a manufacturing analogy; a writer is the equivalent
> of an engineer designing some widget while the director is the machinist who
> makes the widget from the engineers blueprint.
false analogy. in engineering, there is no creativity. it's all about
precision and detail. art isn't like that. the director has to mold
the source material into something entirely his own. the director
doesn't just execute. he designs and creates.
for example, if i tell you 'i went to macdonalds and ordered a big mac
and came home and ate it and threw up', i'm the writer. do you know
how many ways this can be expressed visually? countless ways. it can
be done comically, dramatically, tragically, heavyhanded, thru
montage, mise-en-scene, etc. unlike the engineer who has clear
instructions, the director has to interpret and CREATE.
now, a writer can give very specific instructions as to how a movie
should be shot, and if a director follows these directions to a
letter, the writer is as important as the director. this is usually
not the case. the director takes the written material and does it his
way.
>
> > you say no puzo, then no godfather. but if no gangster genre, then no
> > puzo's godfather. puzo too built on something, interpreted and shaped
> > a preexisting genre.
>
> Well no man is an island, right? But my point is that a writer can still write
> a story without producers, directors, actors, hair dressers, caters, ect but
> everybody involved in making a movie _cannot_ do their job without the
> writer.
actually, a director can improvise on the set and movies have been
made this way. or the movie can be written or constantly rewritten as
it's being made and this is not so rare.
also, we should differentiate among writers. in the case of puzo, his
novel did contribute greatly to the final movie.
but, in the case of scarface the remake, it was the producer who
originated the idea. oliver stone was hired to submit a readymade
formula by making it contemporary and adding some saucy dialogue. the
writer was a hired gun, not the originator of the story. if scarface
is any good, it's due to depalma's realization.
even if we say the writer originates the story, whether the movie is
GOOD or BAD is really matter of the director.
>
> > besides, godfather by any other director would have been forgettable,
> >
> > and did you see king's tv version of the shining? it's shit.
> >
> > any hack director could have made jaws or raiders of the lost ark.
>
> This is just making a judgment on whether a move is good or not, it doesn't
> change the fact the story is still mandatory for the movie to be made in the
> first place.
well, of course. but, isnt' quality the ultimate reason why we see
movies? and the quality of most movies depend on whom most? the
director. writer is very important IF the screenplay is good; but even
when the original screenplay isn't any good, the director can rewrite
or reshape it and make it into something worth watching.
if we're concerned mainly with origins, we should credit the writer's
mother. if she didn't give birth to him, he wouldn't have written
anything. or his teacher. if no one taught him how to write, he would
not have written. and previous writers from whom he took ideas for his
own story.
what concerns us is quality of the movie and the director is most
important because most mainstream movie scripts are threadbare and
cliched and only serve as raw material for the director to fashion
into something worthy.
>
> > the way i see it, 'writing' in film is any creative aspect of conceptualization.
>
> I disagree, since without the story there is nothing conceptualize.
i'll give you an example: 'i got up today and looked at birds and
drank too much water and took a wee wee. then, i fed my dog and it
took a poop on the rug'. now, that is the basic material. the
director is free to conceptualize this in numerous ways. this
interpretation is 'writing'. the director can choose the kind of
bird, how it's shot, the movement of the character, etc. the writer
offers the basic material but the realization by the director is
cinematic 'writing'. also, the director may relate the narrative with
something he personally knows about waking up in the morning, birds,
or taking a wee wee or feeding a dog. of course, the director is
working from the writer's material, but he too is creating and his
creation is ultimately more crucial because it becomes the movie. the
writer only offers possiblities. it's the director who defines and
establishes the possibilities into concrete form.
also, everyone conceptualizes from something, even the writer. a
writer may base his story on an event he witnessed or something he
heard from his friend or a magazine article, family trauma, or
interview. the writer becomes creative when he takes this material
and writes his story or treatment. the movie director does the same
thing from the written source. he too finds creative ways to explore
and express from a raw material, the written story.
for example, let's say a writer met someone on a bus and on a long
long ride, the fellow passenger told him his entire life story. the
writer takes that basic material and writes a treatment. though the
story is that of the passenger, the story is the writer's because the
writer chose the manner in which it was written, what words were used,
whether the style was serious or comical, to what extent the
passenger's story was kept or altered. though the writer took
someone's else's story, the written work belongs to the writer. the
director does exactly the same with the written material. he finds his
own way to question, explore, expand, condense, alter, etc the written
material handed him. the director too becomes the author. his
direction is visual 'writing'.
>
> > the inspiration for a film can come from a dream,
> > music, a newspaper article, or it can have no conventional narrative.
> > take long stretches of andrei rublev without dialogue.
>
> True, the inspiration can come from anywhere but _somebody_ has to have
> that inspiration in the first place or you have nothing.
so you're saying if an author bases his story on a long interview with
a soldier, the soldier is the writer? after all, if no soldier's
interview, no material for the writer to work on.
>
> Now I could take a video camera, mount it on a tri-pod, aim it out my living
> room window and let it run for hours on end but when I win the Palme D'Ore
> for my stunning masterpiece, the statuette will read; "Hours of Nothing by
> Ed Stasiak" not "Hours of Nothing by Sony Handi-Cam".
you'd have to ask warhol except he's dead.
but, you're offering an extreme example. the point is just as any
event can be expressed thru words in countless ways, a movie director
can interpret any written source in countless ways. it's this
expression that is ultimately most important, not the basic source
material.
also, i'd rather watch a movie where some guy without a story took a
digicam and just recorded the world around him--people, nature,
things, architecure--than an average hollywood movie or tv show based
on someone's predictable cliche-ridden script.
anyway the point is 'writing' is more than writing a script. if i took
a digicam and randomly shot reality, i would constantly be making
conscious decisions as to what to focus on, what to steer away from,
whom to follow, etc. this is part of creativity. it's kinda like
writing with images, like composers 'write' with music. with a
trumpet or with a camera, one can improvise and come up with
interesting stuff, and this too is a form of 'writing'.
even where there is a written screenplay, the director has no clear
instructions. he has to find his own way, improvise, experiment. he
has to be creative and making a movie is a form of 'writing' and
composition.
>
> The idea was mine so I deserve the lions share of the credit, regardless of the
> method used to bring my vision to my adoring fans.
if the story was totally original AND if you wrote highly detailed
instructions as to how the movie should be shot. otherwise, it's just
another cliche-ridden recycled formula and all you deserve credit for
is being a dime-a-dozen hack. if the movie based on such hackwork is
any good, it's because the director knew how to turn textual tin into
visual gold.
>
> > the filmmaking IS the writing. the director can be as much the writer as the
> > screenwriter or novelist. in fact, his visual writing is ultimately more important.
>
> I'm not disregarding the efforts of the director or anybody else involved in making
> a movie and film making _is_ an art form but just as a guitar is simply a tool used
> to present the musicians song to the listener, everybody from the director on down
> in a film production is simply a tool used to present the writers story to a film viewer.
this can be the case but usually is not.
also, you're confusing the director as a mere tool or performer. he is
a CREATOR in his own right.
what made the wild bunch great was sam peckinpah. the story is rather
familiar western stuff.
same with saving private ryan. very conventional storytelling. by any
other director it would have been as forgettable as 'we were
soldiers'. the director is not just a tool. he is the user of the
tool to carve and chisel the raw material into something his own.
to use a musical analogy, the director takes a basic melody and
broadens it into a fullblown symphony, expanding on the tune, adding
the harmony, arranging its structure, even altering it and making it
personal.
when a great bluesman sings some old forgotten tune in his powerful,
sublime, personal way, he's not just a tool but a creator himself. he
adds flesh to a simple melody, blows the heated air of his life into
it.
>
> > > In any movie ever made one could replace the director, lead actor,
> > > hair dresser, caterer, ect on down the line and the movie can still
> > > happen and thou I'm not suggesting that if Steven Segal had been
> > > cast as Frodo, a "LotR" movie would still have been a success, with
> > > _no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
> >
> > but it's not so much the story that makes a movie great. LOR story is
> > very conventional, dime-a-dozen. good guys vs bad guys, adventure and
> > action, giants and monsters, battles, etc. this is highly staple material.
>
> That's debatable and we could argue till the cows come home but it doesn't
> change the fact that without Tolkien's story, the "LotR" movie never happens.
and a good thing too but it happened unfortunately.
>
> > it's like the scene in amadeus where mozart takes salieri's little
> > ditty and keeps reshaping it over and over until it becomes mozart's
> > own.
>
> But Salieri still had to come up with the ditty for Mozart to reshape, just as
> Peter Jackson needed Tolkien's story to make the "LotR" movie.
yes. but art isn't about the prosaic basic material but what you do
with it.
yes, without clay you can't make pottery. but clay is not pottery.
if i give a story idea to a writer, it's ultimately the writer's work
because he or she turned my idea into concrete literary form.
same with a movie director. he has to completely melt down the
written material and remold it into images. the director has to make
it his own.
it's THIS process that is art.
>
> > > Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most
> > > important element in a movie.
> >
> > but most movies follow a staple formula. indeed, most popular fiction
> > on which movies are based are cliche ridden; the story may be
> > entertaining but it aint anything new or special. so when they are
> > made into movies, we care not so much about the story as the
> > treatment.
>
> Again, you're just making a value judgment on whether the movie sucks or not,
> you still need the story to be able make that opinion in the first place.
>
> I'll agree that a good director can turn a crappy (or at least not that good) story
> into a cool movie but he needs at least that crappy story, without it the director
> is just a big fat bearded guy sitting next to a camera twiddling his thumbs.
okay, so the lion's share for touch of evil belongs to the crap writer
on whose forgotten pulp novel it's based on. happy? jeez.
miss guydid
well, it's a two way street with a ever changing technology like
cinema. the director takes advice from all sorts of people. still,
the director has to have a sense of what he wants to do.
for example, i think spielberg had the opening scene of 'saving
private ryan' fully realized in his head before he shot a single
scene. once he knew what he wanted, he got the right people to realize
that vision thru camerawork, effects, set design, etc.
Adam Cameron
I think it's more you're just not getting my point.
>From you're example we can see that the director is an interchangeable
>technical component of a "LotR"
That's where you're not getting it. You're basing it from the
perspective of "making LotR". Well *obviously* Tolkien's involvement
(albeit passively ;-) is required there! I'm not disputing that to
take a movie based on prior art, then, well, *yes*, the prior art
needs to exist.
If we're just looking from the POV of "Peter Jackson's next
project"... Tolkien isn't part of the equation. Nor is Wes Craven.
For it to be "Peter Jackson's next project", it has to be directed by
Peter Jackson.
If you look at it from the POV of "New Line Cinema's next project"...
even Jackson is surplus to requirement. All New Line might be after
is "some director, and some writer".
All I'm saying is that you're taking it from a story-centric POV.
That's a valid POV, but it's not the only perspective.
You're arguing from the point of view that [some given story], whilst
it needs *a director*, doesn't need a *particular* director (any old
director will do). I'm pointing out that the same equally applies
from the perspective of [a given director's film] needs *a writer*,
but has no particular reliance on who the writer is, or what they've
written about.
Speaking personally, I will got see any film that Ridley Scott
directs. I don't give a rat's arse who wrote it, or even what it's
about. Or even if it's GI Jane (!). Ridley Scott is the most
important ingredient in a Ridley Scott film; and a RS film is a
particular breed of beast. Maybe David Lynch would be a better
example (although whilst I see his all films, I don't really like
them). My frame of reference here completely excludes the writer as a
significant factor.
I'm guessing you're just seeing a movie as simply a story on a silver
screen.
Anyway, different stroke for different folks. Which is the way it
should be.
larry legallo
wrote:
>> "miss guydid" <missg...@hotmail.com> wrote
>> > esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
>> >
>> > If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written,
>> > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King
>> > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
>>
>> wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting.
>
>Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and thus don't
>have _that_ movie.
And without the director (or actors, composer, cinematographer, etc.)
you don't have _that_ movie, either.
Look at the two versions of The Shining, and try to maintain that it's
the *writer* who most determines the movie.
miss guydid
fortunate pilgrim is a masterpiece.
Ed Stasiak
> > Ed Stasiak <esta...@att.net> wrote
> >
> > I think you're making my point for me here.
>
> I think it's more you're just not getting my point.
I get it, I just don't agree with you.
> > From you're example we can see that the director is an
> > interchangeable technical component of a "LotR"
>
> That's where you're not getting it. You're basing it from
> the perspective of "making LotR". Well *obviously* Tolkien's
> involvement (albeit passively ;-) is required there!
But you sniped out the part where I said; '"LotR" (or any) film'
and 'Tolkien (or any writer)'.
I'm only using Tolkien's "LotR" as an example, pick any movie you
want it and still needs a story and thus a writer or it never happens
(even if the writer happens to also be the director).
> I'm not disputing that to take a movie based on prior art, then,
> well, *yes*, the prior art needs to exist.
And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor, ect)
there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
> If we're just looking from the POV of "Peter Jackson's next
> project"... Tolkien isn't part of the equation. Nor is Wes Craven.
> For it to be "Peter Jackson's next project", it has to be directed
> by Peter Jackson.
As I understand it, PJ's next project is "King Kong" and since he
obviously didn't write the story that the film will be based on....
> You're arguing from the point of view that [some given story], whilst
> it needs *a director*, doesn't need a *particular* director (any old
> director will do). I'm pointing out that the same equally applies
> from the perspective of [a given director's film] needs *a writer*,
> but has no particular reliance on who the writer is, or what they've
> written about.
Sure any writer can be plugged in _if_ the director (or the studio)
_already_ has the idea for a story to start with, but somebody had
to come up with the story in the first place.
No studio throws down a bazillion dollars for a director, actors,
ect without having at least having a rough outline of what the story
is that they want filmed.
> Speaking personally, I will got see any film that Ridley Scott
> directs. I don't give a rat's arse who wrote it, or even what
> it's about. My frame of reference here completely excludes the
> writer as a significant factor.
That's fine, as long as you realize that Ridley Scott can't make
cool movies without a story to start with.
> I'm guessing you're just seeing a movie as simply a story on a
> silver screen.
But once you boil it down, that's all a movie really is.
That's the original point I was making; writers in Hollywood get
the shaft as far as credit for the film goes, even thou without
them there would be no film.
"LotR" was hyped as; "Peter Jackson's: Lord of the Rings" not
"Peter Jackson's _film version_ of Tolkien's: "Lord of the Rings"
and if it's a lesser known author like Phillip K. Dick, then the
credit is even less.
"Minority Report" was all Tom Cruise this and Tom Cruise that,
the only people that mentioned Phillip K. Dick were more or less
hard core film fans like those in this group (and even then, not
everybody knew or cared who he was).
T
I had another thought re: the title of this thread.
I was thinking these days that the Producers and the money men were
more in control of the finished product that the Director/Screen
Writer are.
<insert dig at the whole 'reimagined' trend.>
TBerk
Ed Stasiak
>
> for example, if i tell you 'i went to macdonalds and ordered a big mac
> and came home and ate it and threw up', i'm the writer. do you know
> how many ways this can be expressed visually? countless ways.
Now let me play the part of the writer while you play the director and
tell me how you would translate this to the silver screen;
"____________________________"
See what I mean?
Ed Stasiak
> > "Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote
> >
> > Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and
> > thus don't have _that_ movie.
>
> And without the director (or actors, composer, cinematographer, etc.)
> you don't have _that_ movie, either.
But as long as you have that writer, you still have that story.
Prior to film being invented one could still read a story and even if paper
didn't exist, the author could still tell you the story.
> Look at the two versions of The Shining, and try to maintain that it's
> the *writer* who most determines the movie.
It doesn't matter if you have hundreds of film versions of "The Shining",
without Steven King you wouldn't have _any_ film versions of that story.
Adam Cameron
>want it and still needs a story and thus a writer or it never happens
>(even if the writer happens to also be the director).
Right. So your usage of the idea of "most important" is analogous to
how I might use the notion of "being first in a sequence of events".
I see what you're trying to say. It's nonsense, but I see what you're
trying to say.
>And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor, ect)
>there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
And the story can't be made unless there's a director. And actors.
And a producer. And all the rest of the movie making process.
Without all that, all you've got is a story. Not a movie.
>> I'm guessing you're just seeing a movie as simply a story on a
>> silver screen.
>
>But once you boil it down, that's all a movie really is.
No it's not. That's another place where you're missing the point.
>"LotR" was hyped as; "Peter Jackson's: Lord of the Rings" not
>"Peter Jackson's _film version_ of Tolkien's: "Lord of the Rings"
I don't know about that, really. And I'm in NZ where *anything* done
by a NZer is hyped beyond all belief (it's a bit small-minded and
parochial, in my view, but I guess it's because we're a small country
which feels like it should be more imporant to everyone else than it
actually is).
>and if it's a lesser known author like Phillip K. Dick, then the
>credit is even less.
Interestingly... I have no idea who directed Minority Report (I have
seen it, a couple of times), but I knew it was by PKD. And I don't
even like SF. BUt that's neither here nor there... just an
interesting observation.
Anyway... I've had enough of this conversation. We're both repeating
ourselves, so it's obvious it's not getting anywhere.
But cheers, anyway.
Ed Stasiak
> > you want it and still needs a story and thus a writer or it
> > never happens
>
> how I might use the notion of "being first in a sequence of events".
> I see what you're trying to say. It's nonsense, but I see what you're
> trying to say.
How is it nonsense? I'll ask you the same question I asked "miss
guydid" down thread;
Let me play the part of the writer while you play the director and
tell me how you would translate this to the silver screen;
"____________________________"
See what I mean? As the director you have nothing to work with if
I don't provide you with a story, the movie cannot be made without
me.
> > And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor,
> > ect) there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
>
> And the story can't be made unless there's a director.
The story still exists regardless of whether there is a director,
actors, ect.
Sure, a _film version_ of the story won't happen without them but
the story can still be presented to an audience, either thru a book
or even by the author simply telling them the story.
> > But once you boil it down, that's all a movie really is.
>
> No it's not. That's another place where you're missing the point.
Then what is a movie if not the efforts of a director, actors, hair
dressers, janitors, ect to present the authors story on film?
By changing any of those people involved in a film production you can
still have a movie, remove the writer and they have nothing to do and
there won't be a movie.
Nick Macpherson
>Let me play the part of the writer while you play the director and
>tell me how you would translate this to the silver screen;
>
>"____________________________"
I don't know what I'd put up on screen, but I'd be ecstatic I was given an
entirely blank slate to work with. As long as the movie was being financed, I
wouldn't care.
>By changing any of those people involved in a film production you can
>still have a movie, remove the writer and they have nothing to do and
>there won't be a movie.
Sure, and remove the guy in the auto plant who sticks the gas tanks in cars and
you won't have cars that work but that doesn't make the that guy the most
important factor in the manufacture of automobiles.
Try reading David Lynch's screenplays some time. They're terrible. They read
like a 13 year old wrote them. No one would produce them if Lynch wasn't going
to be the one to direct them. His visonary skills as a director make his lack
of writing talent immaterial.
Benny Fitzoffheinseit
it's what antonioni is all about. the emptiness of modern life.
Benny Fitzoffheinseit
yes, but i'd still rather watch weekend at bernies by orson welles
than magnificent ambersons by alfonso arau.
Steven J. Weller
> > Right. So your usage of the idea of "most important" is analogous to
> > how I might use the notion of "being first in a sequence of events".
> > I see what you're trying to say. It's nonsense, but I see what you're
> > trying to say.
>
> How is it nonsense? I'll ask you the same question I asked "miss
> guydid" down thread;
>
> Let me play the part of the writer while you play the director and
> tell me how you would translate this to the silver screen;
>
> "____________________________"
Films with directors but not writers are made all the time; we call them
"documentaries," usually, but there have also been more than a few films
improvised on-set by the actors and the director.
Films with writers but not directors aren't hard to find, either; we
generally call them "unsold screenplays."
By the way, I'm a screenwriter.
> See what I mean? As the director you have nothing to work with if
> I don't provide you with a story, the movie cannot be made without
> me.
Happens all the time - see above.
> > > And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor,
> > > ect) there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
This is what is known as a "flawed premise."
> > And the story can't be made unless there's a director.
>
> The story still exists regardless of whether there is a director,
> actors, ect.
Right. Exists as a story, but not as a film.
At around 9:30 this evening, the lights came up in a screening room on
the WB lot in H'wood; we were all there to watch a screening of a film I
worked on last summer, called 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Might get
some kind of distribution, might not. The finished version we saw
tonight was substantially different than the script we started with.
Typically, in H'wood at least, the process starts with a producer or
development exec, who has an IDEA for a story. That idea is usually
plucked from a newspaper or magazine article, or is even based on market
research about what a potential audience might like (and be willing to
pay ten bucks) to see. Then that producer or devo drone hires a
screenwriter to create a script, on assignment. The script will go
through several different writers, as a rule, and the director will
usually also take a pass at the script. The story will usually change
(and sometimes dramatically) during production, and once you get into
post, the editor can change it even more.
Another show from last year, they decided - after the entire film was
shot and cut - that not only did they not like the ending, they didn't
like the choice of hero. One of the supporting players was chosen, by
the producers, to be the new hero of the piece. They flew that actor to
somewhere in Eastern Europe and did some fairly extensive reshoots,
recut the film to include as much of him as possible from the oiginal
shoot, and now have a story that bears a passing resemblence, at best,
to what the worter originally created.
Welcome to Hollywood.
--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary
Steven
Adam Cameron
>still have a movie, remove the writer and they have nothing to do and
>there won't be a movie.
This pretty much sums up your "argument".
> >>>changing<<< any of those people involved in a film production
> >>>remove<<< the writer
See how you're arguing a different thing than the rest of the thread.
The opposite of what you say bears up too:
*Change* the writer... there's still a movie.
*Remove* the director... no movie.
You seem to be getting confused over the words "a" and "the".
Ed Stasiak
> > Ed Stasiak <esta...@att.net> wrote
> >
> > "____________________________"
>
> I don't know what I'd put up on screen, but I'd be ecstatic I was
> given an entirely blank slate to work with. As long as the movie
> was being financed, I wouldn't care.
But that ain't gunna happen, as you (or somebody) would still have
to produce a story before you could put anything on film.
> > By changing any of those people involved in a film production you
> > can still have a movie, remove the writer and they have nothing to
> > do and there won't be a movie.
>
> Sure, and remove the guy in the auto plant who sticks the gas tanks
> in cars and you won't have cars that work but that doesn't make the
> that guy the most important factor in the manufacture of automobiles.
Which is what I've been saying all along. The director is essentially
the guy putting the gas tank on the car frame, (thou more like the
supervisor of the assembly line) he can be replaced by anybody and
the car will still be made
> Try reading David Lynch's screenplays some time. They're terrible.
> His visonary skills as a director make his lack of writing talent
> immaterial.
This is still only a case of judging the story that is absolutely
necessary for the film to be made, Lynch's visionary skills are
useless without a story to work with.
Ed Stasiak
> > "Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote
> >
>
> Films with directors but not writers are made all the time; we call
> them "documentaries," usually, but there have also been more than a
> few films improvised on-set by the actors and the director.
Even a documentary needs a story, somebody had to think up the
idea to film the life cycle of rabbits or whatever before filming
can start and even a film that's totally improvised on-the-spot
by the actors, requires them to think of something for their
characters to do and say.
Whether you call it the screen play, story or idea, that's the
first step and the most important aspect. Everything else follows.
> Films with writers but not directors aren't hard to find, either;
> we generally call them "unsold screenplays."
>
> By the way, I'm a screenwriter.
And that's my point. A writer doesn't need directors ect to
produce a story but they all need the writer (or at least the
idea for a story) before they can do their jobs.
I realize that things probably won't change any time soon but at
least IMO, if you were to get a deal to have one of your screen
plays made into a movie _you_ should be the person getting the
lions share of the credit for the film, because without you there
is no film.
Good luck (honestly) and that's my complaint about Hollywood.
If you were to get your story published as a book, the cover would
read; '"Title Of Story" by Steven J. Weller' not '"Title Of Story"
by Doubleday Publishing'.
In the film industry on the other hand, they might make your story
into a movie without changing a word but your name will not be head-
lining the credits and the director, actors and even lesser players
involved in the film, are probably going to make more money off it
then you are.
> > And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor,
> > ect) there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
>
> This is what is known as a "flawed premise."
It's not false and nobody in this thread has been able to show that.
All that has been said so far is whether the movie would suck or be
great depending on who the director is, disregarding the fact that
regardless of who the director is, the story is absolutely necessary
or the director and everybody else involved has nothing to do.
> > The story still exists regardless of whether there is a director,
> > actors, ect.
>
> Right. Exists as a story, but not as a film.
> Typically, in H'wood at least, the process starts with a producer
> or development exec, who has an IDEA for a story.
No need to go on, you've made my point for me.
The process starts with the IDEA for a story, without it nothing
can happen.
All we're discussing from this point on is who actually thought up
the idea, it might be the producer or the development exe or the
screen writer but without it no movie can be made.
dobe...@dropsocal.rr.com
>By the way, I'm a screenwriter.
Nat Perrin's daughter is a friend of the family. She lives up in
Idyllwild (CA). Many an evening I've spent with her reminiscing about
the Marx Brothers.
Steven J. Weller
esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote:
> > "Steven J. Weller" <az...@lafn.org> wrote
> > > "Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote
> > >
> > > "____________________________"
> >
> > Films with directors but not writers are made all the time; we call
> > them "documentaries," usually, but there have also been more than a
> > few films improvised on-set by the actors and the director.
>
> Even a documentary needs a story, somebody had to think up the
> idea to film the life cycle of rabbits or whatever before filming
> can start and even a film that's totally improvised on-the-spot
> by the actors, requires them to think of something for their
> characters to do and say.
>
> Whether you call it the screen play, story or idea, that's the
> first step and the most important aspect. Everything else follows.
Clearly, you're not a writer.
The difference between a screenplay - or any kind of fully-realized
story - and an _idea_ for a story, is the difference between a seed and
a mature redwood tree. If you want to give the lion's share of the
credit to the _idea_ for the story, then for nearly every film you've
seen in your lifetime, forget the screenwriter listed in the credits.
Place your accolades (or throw your brickbats) at the feet of the
producer.
> > Films with writers but not directors aren't hard to find, either;
> > we generally call them "unsold screenplays."
> >
> > By the way, I'm a screenwriter.
>
> And that's my point. A writer doesn't need directors ect to
> produce a story but they all need the writer (or at least the
> idea for a story) before they can do their jobs.
For people who create screenplays (or any other kind of finished story),
elevating the simple _idea_ for a story to this level, is something of
an insult. There is, as mentioned, a HUGE difference between 110 pages
of screenplay and "hey, mebbe something about the life cycle of rabbits."
>
> I realize that things probably won't change any time soon but at
> least IMO, if you were to get a deal to have one of your screen
> plays made into a movie _you_ should be the person getting the
> lions share of the credit for the film, because without you there
> is no film.
When my stuff has been produced, I get the appropriate credit -
"screenplay by." Some writers get bent out of shape over what's known
as the 'possessory credit' - "A Film By" for the director, but I have no
problem with it. Whether it's a spec script or an assignment, I wrote
it, so I want credit as the writer. I didn't make the film, so I'm not
looking for credit for that, and have no problem with other people
taking credit for what they did.
> If you were to get your story published as a book, the cover would
> read; '"Title Of Story" by Steven J. Weller' not '"Title Of Story"
> by Doubleday Publishing'.
A publisher isn't analogous to a director; it's analogous to a studio.
And both the studio and the publisher will take similar credits in their
respective endeavors.
> In the film industry on the other hand, they might make your story
> into a movie without changing a word
Actually, that has never happened. Film is a collaborative effort and
scripts are rewritten in virtually every professional situation. Other
writers, the director, the producer, the editor... all will have a hand
in re-making the story itself, not just the film version of that story.
In other words, another flawed premise.
> but your name will not be head-
> lining the credits and the director, actors and even lesser players
> involved in the film, are probably going to make more money off it
> then you are.
Credits are assigned according to union regs; the WGA (that's the
screenwriter's union) has negotiated with the other guilds, over the
years. Most folks seem to be more-or-less happy with it, except for the
question of the possessory credit - and I still hold that that's a
question of vanity, on both sides.
> > > And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor,
> > > ect) there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
> >
> > This is what is known as a "flawed premise."
>
> It's not false and nobody in this thread has been able to show that.
Except for the part about documentaries, which start with an idea -
which is not a story - and improvised films, which also start with an
idea, which is still not a story.
> All that has been said so far is whether the movie would suck or be
> great depending on who the director is, disregarding the fact that
> regardless of who the director is, the story is absolutely necessary
> or the director and everybody else involved has nothing to do.
You're stuck on the idea that a story and an idea for a story are
somehow the same thing. Couldn't be farther from the truth, but unless
you've actually done the job, you're not lkely to understand that.
Ed Stasiak
>
> > >>>changing<<< any of those people involved in a film production
>
> > >>>remove<<< the writer
>
> See how you're arguing a different thing than the rest of the thread.
Now you're just cherry picking my comments from one post while
ignoring comments I've already made in reply to your posts earlier
in the thread, such as;
"Sure any writer can be plugged in _if_ the director(or the studio)
_already_ has the idea for a story to start with, but somebody had
to come up with the story in the first place."
The debate is then how much of the resulting screen play comes from
the initial idea and how much is from the writers efforts.
I assume that this can range from 99% of the story coming from the
initial idea (whosever it is) with the writer only putting it on
paper and touching up details to 99% of the story coming from the
hired writer, who then gets the shaft when it comes to credit for
the story....
But either way there has to be a story first or there can be no
movie regardless of who else is involved in the production of
the film.
> The opposite of what you say bears up too:
>
> *Change* the writer... there's still a movie.
Sure, but only if there is _still_ an idea for a story to begin
with.
> *Remove* the director... no movie.
Agreed, but the director is still secondary to whether the movie
is made or not. The story comes first.
jayembee
> I realize that things probably won't change any time soon
> but at least IMO, if you were to get a deal to have one
> of your screen plays made into a movie _you_ should be the
> person getting the lions share of the credit for the film,
> because without you there is no film.
First of all, credit tends to go primarily to the person
who is believed to be responsible for bringing in the
ticket-buying public. One might make the argument that it's
Tolkien who did that for the LOTR films, but in 99% of the
cases in the industry, very few people know who the writer
is, and care even less.
Second of all, you seem to be missing the point that people
are making over and over again.
Look at what you wrote above: "...without [the writer] there
is no film".
That's just as true if you substitute "[the director]" for
"[the writer]".
While you're correct that the story still exists in some
form if there's no director, a *film* won't exist if there's
no director.
-- jayembee
A.E. Jabbour
>> sympho...@hotmail.com (choral reef) wrote
>>
>> yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary
>> artistic force behind movies.
>>
>> for instance, like LOR or not, we generally discuss it as the
>> visionary creation of peter jackson. few, if any, have mentioned
>> the writers, editor, cameraman, CGI geeks, etc by name.
>
> It's a shame that writers aren't given the lions share of the credit
> that they truly deserve, since without them everybody from the director
> on down to the janitor wouldn't have a job.
Well, that's a gross over-simplification if I've ever heard one.
Firstly, many directors also write or co-write the screenplays
themselves (e.g., Dreyer, Griffith, Bergman, Godard, Truffaut,
etc.).
Secondly, a film is, unlike a novel, a result of so much more
than a screenplay or a story idea. You can take a generic script
and turn it into two totally different films. There are so many
decisions which need to made, the list is gargantuan.
Just look at any film made by a respected director. Let's use
PSYCHO as an example. Now, I think the screenplay is pretty decent
for PYSCHO. It's a twisted little story, with some shocks and
a few truly creepy scenes. But are you trying to imply that
PSYCHO was not a result of Hitchcock's choices and of his
vision of the film?
Hitchcock is actually an excellent example, since so many of his
films had screenplays written by so many different hands. And,
yet, you *know* you are watching a Hitchcock film don't you? Quick,
who wrote VERTIGO? Quick, who wrote THE BIRDS? And I bet, even if
you didn't know who directed those, you could have guessed it while
watching.
Of course, part of the story with Hitch is that he started in silent
film. One of the goals for many people who worked in silent films
was to tell the story as completely as possible visually (look at
Murnau's SUNRISE, e.g.). For Hitchcock, this carried over into
sound films; thus we end up with a film like VERTIGO, which, for
all intents and purposes, could have been a silent film.
The fact of the matter is that the director, in most cases,
makes the creative decisions which build the entire film. The look
of the film, the sound of the film, the pace of the film, what's
included and what's not, the very essence of the film is in the
hands of the director.
Is this to say that screenwriters are irrelevant? No, not at all.
Lately, Charlie Kauffman has been the big kahuna in this regard.
And if you just take a look at the films which were written by
Ben Hecht, you can see a vast, impressive, and important body of
work.
> IMO Peter Jackson & Co. did a pretty good job with Tolkien's "Lord
> of the Rings" but like every movie ever made, he and everybody else
> involved were simply technicians who ultimately could have been
> replaced by anybody and the movie still could have been made.
Peter Jackson was a co-writer of the screenplay for all three
films.
The entire set of films was his idea, his vision, and his baby.
To imply otherwise is to simply ignore the fact that everything
that was included (or not) and every decision was, in the end,
up to Peter Jackson (for better or for worse, depending upon
your viewpoint).
> Remove the writer thou, and you have nothing.
If you believe for one second that you could remove Peter Jackson
from the equation, and you still would have had LotR, you are,
I'm sorry to say, insane.
--
A.E. Jabbour
"Dancer in the Dark" is one of the most sadistic
films I've ever seen, but it also raises the
possibility that sadism might be, in spite of itself,
a species of love." - A.O. Scott