Visual medium leaves many screenwriters blind

Tuesday, March 4, 1997

FILM:

Script remains but one facet in collaborative effort of making
moviesBrandon Wilson

During that bygone era when Hollywood wooed the titans of
American letters to come out west and try their hand at
screenwriting, Raymond Chandler found himself in Los Angeles
working for Paramount when he wasn’t scribbling away at those
little detective novels of his. In one of his letters (published in
"The Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler") dated 1944, he bemoaned
having to write an essay about screenwriting because, although he
was a practitioner of the craft, he couldn’t bring himself to take
it seriously as an art form.

Chandler laid out many reasons that factored into the bastard
status of screenwriting. Fifty-three years later, most of those
factors may no longer hold true, but does that mean his thesis has
become equally invalidated by time?

Let’s examine Chandler’s reasons one by one. First, he argued
that screenwriting is an immature art form ­ one too unaware
of what it was doing and how to do it. Second, the Hays Office
censored any serious work from happening. Third, screenplays
weren’t available for the screenwriter to read and learn from back
in the old days. And finally, there is no teaching of the art
because there is nothing to teach ­ if you didn’t know how it
was done, only the hack or writer manque would bother with
instruction. The first three reasons are a bit too dated to be
relevant to today.

All this is of interest to me because I’ve noticed that a
distinct change has taken place within me in the two and a half
years I have labored and learned within the walls of UCLA’s
department of film and television. Upon entrance to the program,
screenwriting was the only film craft I’d had any true experience
with (I wrote my first feature-length screenplay during my last
undergrad quarter), and so I entered the program as a writer
committed to making the jump to writer-director.

Consequently I thought as a writer and looked at film as a
writer. I was sympathetic to the often beastly treatment of the
screenwriter while his or her brainchild undergoes the painful
birthing process that is filmmaking. I regarded the screenwriter
with dew-eyed sentimentality as the unsung heroes of cinema,
cheated out of money and power by avaricious studio heads and
producers, robbed of the spotlight by vacuous actors, and denied
authorship and control by that scoundrel of the unsavory business
­ the director.

My rather myopic view isn’t uncommon to screenwriters
(especially young and clueless ones such as myself a few years
ago). In fact, it’s safe to say that most film artists (actors,
writers, cinematographers, editors, etc.) regard their own
contribution to the collaborative medium as being primal ­ the
true art form of cinema. For an example of this, read editor
Roderick Jayne’s dryly hilarious and ironic introduction to the
published screenplays "Miller’s Crossing" and "Barton Fink," in
which he summarily dismisses the screenwriter as self-important and
the result of nepotism. He exalted the joining of moving images
­ the craft of editing ­ as the true art of cinema
(Jaynes is currently up for an Oscar right now for his cutting of
"Fargo").

When I first read Jaynes’ piece, I laughed while shaking my head
and dismissed him as being old, crotchety and completely off the
mark.

The strange thing is, when I recently reread the piece, I found
myself agreeing with him.

That’s when I realized something had happened to me. As I wind
down Year 3 in the director’s program of film school, the
inevitable has happened: I’ve converted. I no longer see the
screenwriter as the central figure in the movie-making process. In
fact, I now regard screenwriters with the kind of cynicism and
apprehension I once reserved for actors (who have since become my
favorite folks to work with).

So as not to have the entire screenwriting department of my film
school attack me with pitchforks and torches, let’s go back to
Chandler to explore why my sympathies have shifted, which may also
shed some illumination on the state of the art of writing for the
screen.

First, there’s the unawareness factor ­ it’s not an art
form because the practitioners aren’t savvy about the tools at
their disposal. I find this to be true and untrue by today’s
standards ­ untrue because screenwriting has gotten very
self-conscious (as the billions of books and courses on the subject
imply), and the writer is more aware of the uniqueness of his or
her medium.

However, as a directing student who started out as writer but
has been laboring intensely to become more visually oriented rather
than just a wielder of words, it appears to me that too few
screenwriters understand or attempt to use the visual language of
cinema to tell their story, instead simply relying on words as in
the theater or novel. Things like iconography and how objects and
images can be used to tell the story rarely get any ink in tomes on
how to write a script (which is partially due to the fact that most
films don’t bother with cinematic language but play like television
with profanity and bigger explosions ­ though television gives
film a run for its money these days …). As a person obsessed with
getting at the essence of cinema and learning how to use all of its
tools masterfully, it’s easy for me (though perhaps wrong) to look
down my nose at those who would pretend to be cinema’s champion,
yet who typically restrict themselves to the tip of the medium’s
iceberg.

As for the unavailability factor, that has thankfully gone the
way of the eight-track tape. Now most general bookstores have a
section devoted to screenplays. If there’s any sure fire way to
learn about the craft of screenwriting, it is simply by finding the
script of a film you love, reading the screenplay and then
continuing to read scripts for films you have and have not seen.
You’ll discover a wealth of styles on how to write cinematically
(the scripts of the Oscar-nominated Coen brothers have taught me
most of what I know on the mechanics of screenwriting), and knowing
a good script when you read it is key to knowing how to write
one.

And lastly, there’s the matter of unteachability. Depending on
how you look at it, Chandler was either dead wrong or right on the
money about this one. On one hand, a whole cottage industry has
arisen to teach people how to write scripts (unheard of in
Chandler’s day). The craft, and the teaching of it, has even found
a place in academia. Yet for all this, it’s rather dubious as to
how much of this results in better scripts and finer films.

My problem with screenwriting classes (besides the students) is
that oftentimes writing a script begins to sound like building a
house or a church. People speak in terms of three acts, act-break
page and Page 30 incidents until you think you’re taking a class in
the architecture department rather than screenwriting. Unless you
relegate yourself to formula films, writing is an inexact science.
Essentially, good screenwriting is whatever you can get away with.
The iconophilia, unquestioned conformity and lack of
experimentation within most screenwriting classes (and I’ve had a
few) is quite stunning and has everything to do with my reversal in
attitude about screenwriting and its artisans.

Even the director in me has to concede that the old adage is
true: "If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage." I hope none
of what I’ve written gives one reason to think that I don’t still
understand the importance of a good script (writing the script
remains one of my favorite parts of the whole process). But
ultimately screenwriting, like editing, design or cinematography,
is a sub-craft within the larger uber-craft of filmmaking itself.
By its very nature, the writer can’t be king (unless he or she
wishes to direct as well). May I suggest the frustrated
screenwriter seek a parallel career in short story and novel
writing, for it is only in the literary medium that the writer can
call all the shots and do it alone.

Wilson is a third-year graduate student in film directing. He is
currently co-writing his third feature-length screenplay and having
a grand time doing it.