Bamboo: Essays and Criticism

The Screenwriter’s Lot

Last week in Hollywood a small but significant victory was won by screenwriters. In the course of their negotiations with the Studios the Writers’ Guild gained a provision that affected the credits in the “end-titles” of a film. Hitherto the last three titles you see on every film have always gone — WRITER, then PRODUCER, then DIRECTOR. As a result of the new deal with the Studios they will now read — PRODUCER, WRITER, DIRECTOR. From being “Shmucks with Underwoods” we now officially rank second to the director in the creative pecking order.

There is a conspiracy theory bandied about amongst screenwriters that runs along these lines. The writer — the script — is so vitally important, is so crucial in the making of a film that if writers had artistic and industrial influence commensurate with that importance then they would effectively be running the show. So, keep the writers down at all costs, pay them peanuts, set them against each other, denigrate their creative role, grant others the title of “auteur,” anything, anything to prevent them realizing that the real power lies in their hands.

Paranoia? Well, a year or so ago, Robert King, a screenwriter in Hollywood, had the bright idea of analysing the Fall/Christmas Movie Preview in the Los Angeles Times. Of the 114 movies cited in the preview the screenwriters were credited six times. The directors were mentioned 114 times. King also studied six months of film reviews in the Los Angeles Times and discovered the following fascinating statistics. Where a film received a bad review the screenwriters were blamed 61 percent of the time; directors only 21 percent of the time. Where a film was deemed a success, however, screenwriters were praised 33 percent of the time, directors received the plaudits 45 percent of the time. Bad movies, the conclusion would appear to be, are the results of bad scripts — brickbats to the screenwriter. A good film, however, is down to the director.

When the Oscar nominations were announced this year a deal of British attention was focused, naturally enough, on Four Weddings and a Funeral. I did my own straw poll, á la Robert King, of how the nominations were covered on the news that evening. Now, the one and only and undisputable begetter of Four Weddings is the screenwriter, Richard Curtis. It was his idea, he invented the story, he created the characters long before his fellow collaborators came together to make the finished film. And quite rightly Richard Curtis was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. However, this fact was not mentioned on any of the early or late evening news coverage on BBC or ITV. It did not make it on to the Teletext or Ceefax list of nominations. Here was a great British success story, trumpeted and bruited abroad for months, for which its creator had received the ultimate accolade. Anyone interested? News at Ten, Trevor MacDonald, saw the day’s sole mention of Curtis’s achievement. Amidst all the Forrest Gump fanfares and Hugh Grant’s bitter disappointment some editor at ITN had finally decided it was worth reporting. Four Weddings was “also nominated in the category of Best Original Screenplay.” Were we to hear the writer’s name? No. As far as my researches revealed the name of the man who created the most successful British film ever, never even rated a mention on the day he was nominated for an Oscar.

Am I overreacting? A little. This is standard stuff, and screenwriters are wryly and reluctantly accustomed to this level of routine neglect. But it is symptomatic of a wider attitude, it seems to me, and that is why writers everywhere, in whatever medium, can derive a little satisfaction from the Writers’ Guild’s negotiating savvy last week. Shortly after the day of the Oscar nominations I went into one of London’s best bookshops to buy a published screenplay. In the film section I read the sign on the bookshelf. SCREENPLAYS LISTED A-Z UNDER DIRECTOR. There is more work to be done.

1993