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Robert Towne on the contempt Hollywood displays for screenwriters: “No matter what is said about how a movie gets made, one fact is inescapable: until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else, like actors, can do theirs. Until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else has a job….
Another reason for their anger is the pervasive tendency to underestimate the true difficulty of the screenplay form. It started with contempt for the form itself, born and bred in those decades when novelists and playwrights would come out to a California bungalow and condescend to knock out a script in a couple of weeks for big bucks so they could go back to their daytime job and do some really serious writing. It’s rare, however, that anyone has an understanding of how disciplined a good script must be, and how much work goes into achieving that discipline.
Then, too, the usual readers for the screenwriter’s script—studio execs, producer, director, cast, and crew—could not exactly be said to approach their task with enlightened disinterest. There is hardly anything more threatening to them than this 120-odd page document. Generally, the writer’s professional colleagues, particularly actor, director, and producer, ask three questions as they read his work, none of which anyone is in a position to answer: 1) Will this script be any good as a movie?, 2) Will it make me look good?, and 3) Will I work again if I do it?”
I like it. I watched Chinatown the other day and I've been trying to revise my own OWC entry. It's hard stuff. If there's a story out there that's great for its simplicity, it's not because it was created that way, but because so much more was stripped away. Knowing how much to strip away is key and extremely difficult. Especially when the content in question is remotely useful.
"I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called 'Max'."
Robert Townsend on the contempt Hollywood displays for screenwriters: “No matter what is said about how a movie gets made, one fact is inescapable: until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else, like actors, can do theirs. Until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else has a job….
Another reason for their anger is the pervasive tendency to underestimate the true difficulty of the screenplay form. It started with contempt for the form itself, born and bred in those decades when novelists and playwrights would come out to a California bungalow and condescend to knock out a script in a couple of weeks for big bucks so they could go back to their daytime job and do some really serious writing. It’s rare, however, that anyone has an understanding of how disciplined a good script must be, and how much work goes into achieving that discipline.
Then, too, the usual readers for the screenwriter’s script—studio execs, producer, director, cast, and crew—could not exactly be said to approach their task with enlightened disinterest. There is hardly anything more threatening to them than this 120-odd page document. Generally, the writer’s professional colleagues, particularly actor, director, and producer, ask three questions as they read his work, none of which anyone is in a position to answer: 1) Will this script be any good as a movie?, 2) Will it make me look good?, and 3) Will I work again if I do it?”
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Hollywood's love of screenwriters
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