The screen writer (June 1947-Mar 1948)

AN APPROACH TO PICTURES Whether agreed with, or not, I sincerely hope that this recital of a struggle with technique may be of some interest to those directly connected with the creative and policy-making side of production. But since this struggle was undertaken essentially in my capacity as a writer, its most direct bearing on the industry stems from its bearing on writers. Theirs is the first task in achieving this kind of integration of prewar and wartime techniques. If they are to do it at all (or, for that matter, contribute substantially to the maturing of picture making in any other ways at the present time ) , I believe that their current status must undergo changes in certain important respects. Only then will the industry fully profit from their efforts. In the first place, it would seem necessary that the writer be permitted sufficient time to write a story properly. After that, I believe he should be accorded the privilege of following through on every screenplay he writes, from rough draft on paper to the finished film on screen and he should do so with some right of participation in production decisions. The common practice of taking the screenwriter's script, assigning him to a new one, then turning the pages over to another author (most of the time without so much as even a conference between the first and second author), then turning the finished script into film without either author's collaboration, without their privilege of opinion or authority to exercise it, seems to a newcomer's eyes the most outrageous dichotomy of an author's relationship to his own work. From it, not only the writer suffers. So do the producer, the director, the cameraman, the set designer, the set dresser, the film editor, publicity and advertising departments, the studio owner, the bank which participates in financing the film, the exhibitors, and last, and most important, the public. It seems incredible that the writer whose story is the subject of the entire project of production should have the smallest and least important voice in production decisions. I am grateful for what my initial picture production experience has been and to both Sidney Buchman and the distributor of our film for making it possible. I believe that all writers must be accorded a similar opportunity in their own interests as well as in the interests of the industry. It is costly bureaucracy indeed which prevents genuine rapport between the writer and the actors. Surely if the "playing attitude" of an actor derives from anything, it must, in the first place derive from the interpretation of the lines and situations conceived by the writer. Obviously, a director who has not spent the same amount of time on the story which the writer has (which is most often the case and once again I am not discussing the exception) cannot unearth all the intended meanings. The director or producer who denies the validity of this argument inevitably demonstrates the deficiency in his outlook in the final irrefutable evidence of the finished picture itself. There is a whole part of a sincere writer's experience which he never puts on paper in the screenplay. This remaining part in his head and in his nervous system can be contributed only during actual production. It is judgment based on the experience of having written the story. There is mood creation and set design which can be destroyed by over-stylized, low-key lighting or conventional lighting to glamorize the star. There are currents and cross-currents of meaning which can be completely disrupted by an insufficiently digested approach to such mechanical (though important) questions as brevity or length. One may argue that a writer's work is no better than the producer or director he associates himself with. Absolutely tiue. Particularly true in my case with a producer as skilled, talented and experienced as Sidney Buchman. But where, in general industry practice is the writer's privilege of choice in this matter ? One may likewise argue that in the collaborative work of picture making, problems such as those indicated above are properly the domain of the producer, director, cameraman and film editor. This argument likewise is not satisfying. It is a platitude to say that the head of every department has his own specialized, valid, individual contribution to make. Obviously. Likewise it is an evasive argument to proclaim that a writer of necessity loses his total objectivity concerning his material after seventeen re-writes and months of living with the story. Also true. The argument which nonetheless stands unassailable is the simple common sense fact that the writer, and no one but the writer, conceived and incubated an idea. Pie or she gave birth to it and raised it. He visualized scenes designed to express this idea and created characters concerning whom, it is hoped, he developed certain passions. No matter what changes may take place from paper to film, no matter what valid additions or deletions may come about as the result of "kicking the material around," no matter how many re-writes may take place, something has remained in that author as a result of this experience which, if he is still on his feet, gives him a lasting perspective regarding the scenes and characters that supplies him knowledge concerning the dramaturgical pitfalls in the story, and an instinct as to where, when or how violence can