One aspect of my book The Screenplay as Literature<\/i> that came in for pointed criticism was my brief treatment of the subject of \u201cwhat makes a good screenplay.\u201d\u00a0 Here the critics were right. \u00a0Not because what I had written was not valid, but because the subject really had no place in a book entitled The Screenplay as Literature<\/i>\u2014just as the subject of \u201cwhat makes a good novel\u201d would have no place in a book entitled \u201cThe Novel as Literature.\u201d\u00a0 The question is much too subjective; and the variety of reasons why a screenplay may be considered good, may have nothing at all to do with whether or not it should be considered as Literature in the first place.<\/p>\n
Certainly we would be inclined to think that a screenplay that is turned into a good film would be considered good. Screenplays (or versions of the same) are written for various purposes, and why they are good depends on the purpose for which they are written.\u00a0 For example, a screenplay written on speculation, that is, for the purpose of being sold, might be written one way; whereas a screenplay written to be directly filmed might be written in another way (e.g. a shooting script).\u00a0 Some writers may write a screenplay that leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader (or director); others may write in a manner that leaves nothing to the imagination.\u00a0 Sergei Eisenstein once remarked that a shooting script is \u201can instrument to transpose a fact, abstracted into a concept, back into a chain of concrete single actions.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t have to be that way: that is, a screenplay doesn\u2019t have to be taken to the shooting script level; furthermore, a shooting script doesn\u2019t have to break down a concept into concrete single actions:\u00a0 it can remain on a metaphorical level.<\/p>\n
Arguably there is no right or wrong way to write a screenplay, although there are certainly conventions. \u00a0\u00a0So do I have any advice for the aspiring or working screenwriter?\u00a0 Yes, I do, which follows.<\/p>\n
My most important advice for the screenwriter is that it doesn\u2019t matter how you get there\u2014that is, to a completed screenplay\u2014just get there!\u00a0 Do what works for you.\u00a0 Start at the end and jump to the beginning.\u00a0 Or start in the middle and jump to the end: it really doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 The important thing is to start\u2014to start writing.\u00a0 The late French writer-director Eric Rohmer wrote that \u201cTo shoot a film is always to shoot something<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 For, as he said, \u201cone never makes a film out of nothing.\u201d\u00a0 And it is the something<\/i> that is the most critical\u2014and elusive\u2014element: no one can tell you where or how to find it.\u00a0 In most cases it simply happens.\u00a0 Ingmar Bergman wrote that for him a film begins as \u201csomething very vague\u2014a chance remark or a bit of conversation, a hazy but agreeable event unrelated to any particular situation\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It can be a few bars of music, a shaft of light across the street.\u201d\u00a0 According to Michelangelo Antonioni, \u201cA picture probably has its birth in the disorder within us, and that\u2019s the difficulty: putting things in order. . . . to recognize an idea out of the chaos of feelings , reflections, observations, impulses which the surrounding world stirs up in us.\u201d\u00a0 Lajos Egri (who I discussed in an earlier post) states that you can begin your work \u201cwith a character or incident, or even a simple thought.\u201d\u00a0 Tennessee Williams related that his renowned play A Streetcar Named Desire<\/i> began simply as a vision of \u201ca woman in her late youth . . . sitting alone by a window with moonlight streaming in on her desolate face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once you have found that something\u2014<\/i>that beginning–what comes next?\u00a0 Again, it is what works best for you.\u00a0 Ingmar Bergman and Erich Rohmer early in their careers would write their first drafts in the form of novellas.\u00a0 In the case of Rohmer, he would often write in the first person, but in subsequent drafts and the final film, this first person narration would disappear almost entirely or be conveyed through the dialogue of the other characters.<\/p>\n
Today, screenplay writers tend to write master scene screenplays, that is, screenplays that are not broken down into shots.\u00a0 This is in contrast to the detailed shooting script that Alain Robbe-Grillet wrote for the break-through Last Year at Marienbad<\/i> (1961) because he could conceive of it in no other way than through concrete images.\u00a0 Again, what is important is what works for you: what turns your formless inspiration into a completed work.\u00a0 Furthermore, with script formatting software you can always edit your first draft in whatever form you feel is most acceptable for the intended reader.<\/p>\n
It should never be forgotten by the screenplay writer that film is a collaborative art.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid to avail yourself of the talents of the costume designers, music composers, special effects and stunt coordinators, and numerous technical advisors that will be associated with the film.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to think of everything\u2014but you could.\u00a0 In that vein the very successful American screenwriter and novelist William Goldman remarks that in comparison to the novel, the screenplay gives him a certain freedom from research.\u00a0 The screenplay has few conventions and even fewer rules\u2014and rules can be broken.\u00a0 It is a literary form that allows its practitioners complete freedom to express themselves\u2014but only if they should choose to avail themselves of this freedom.<\/p>\n
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One aspect of my book The Screenplay as Literature that came in for pointed criticism was my brief treatment of the subject of \u201cwhat makes a good screenplay.\u201d\u00a0 Here the critics were right. \u00a0Not because what I had written was … Continue reading