The screen writer (June 1947-Mar 1948)

THE SCREEN WRITER does his final sewing-up, it is not likely that the head of the hospital will reserve the right to do more cutting. What Benoit-Levy and Mankiewicz should have insisted, it seems to me, is that once the film author is employed, he be left alone from the beginning of the writing to the time the final negative goes to the lab for prints. Does that happen today with any of the truly brilliant writer-directors or writer-producers Joe has listed? Perhaps with some; certainly not with all. In major studios, the front office still reserves the prerogative of bitching the product no matter what contractual authority the film author has. I say this must stop. When the head men hire — "delighted" as they are — that film author who has learned his trade and earned the respect of his colleagues, that's it, brother, and no interference by men who have money instead of mentality. Until that period in our industry comes, Jean's and Joe's film authors are kidding themselves, but strictly. ALBERT LEW IN: WISH I were able to make some ■*■ practical suggestion to newer writers to guide them in their efforts to "learn their trade" and become "film authors." But in this fiercely competitive business the chances are they will have to scratch for their sustenance. If they are sufficiently hungry and sufficiently in earnest about filmwriting, as as distinct from other kinds of creative writing, the chances are they will learn what they have to know. If they can persuade the unions involved, and the producers concerned, to allow them to put in an actual stint as script clerk and cutter, or assistant cutter, nothing in the world could be of more enduring value. Failing this, they might study a few great pictures intensively, running them over and over again until they know them cut for cut, camera angle for camera angle ; and until the pattern of each scene, as staged by the director, has been apprehended and appreciated. Let them go to school to a great picture like William Wyler's Dodsworth, screening it not once, but thirty times, and do the same with John Ford's The Informer. It is a pity that masters like Wyler, Ford, Lubitsch and Hitchcock cannot have schools of literary and directorial apprentices to study their style. (There are so few who have what can be called a style — so that their work, unsigned, is still as readily recognizable as the music of Mozart or the prose of Joseph Addison.) This was the happy practice of the great Renaissance painters, but it is, no doubt, too much to hope for in the movies. It doesn't even exist any longer in painting. In the old days there was a good deal of Hollywood shop-talk, discussion of technical, narrative and aesthetic difficulties, and this was healthy. Now we rarely hear anything but personal gossip and discussion of boxoffice returns. The vast, and as yet unsolved, problem of the co-ordination of visual and auditory rhythms, which is the central dilemma of the talking picture, is seldom fruitfully explored. Lacking some radical solution, and none appears probable, I can only suggest these quite inadequate makeshifts. I'm afraid they won't prove of much help. For in the long run there is only one way to learn how to do anything and that is by doing it. I am optimist enough to think that, difficult as it is, if the talent is great enough the way will be found. PRESTON STURGES: T T 0 W newer writers can also be-* •* come genuine authors under present conditions or words to that effect: The genuine author is distinguished by his lorgnon, his love of talk and his hatred of writing. He has dandruff on his collar and needs a shampoo. Not being a genuine author, but only a playwright, it is so difficult for me to write prose, spelling out each word, wrestling with the grammar and tripping over the syntax, that I rarely contribute to symposia. What little I know of my profession I got out of a book called "A Study of the Drama" by Brander Matthews which cost $1.50. In closing here are two pieces of advice given by two good playwrights : Dumas the Younger and Pierre Veber. The first said: "To write a successful play is very easy: Let the beginning be clear, the end be short, and let it all be interesting." The second said: "Never be afraid of boring them. When they are bored they think they are thinking. This flatters them." NIVEN BUSCH: \ A OST screen writers in their ■^■V-i apprentice days feel that their biggest problem is getting the job rather than learning how to handle it. I think there is much to be said for this view. The process is injurious to writers only when they fail to learn by doing. If they want to find out how a picture is made there is nothing that I know of to prevent them. In any studio scripts are available for study and the pictures made from these scripts can be studied in turn, and the scripts then checked again for particulars of technique. This process provides a post-graduate course which rapidly produces specialists. However, it is a form of education which is only available after a man has been hired ; hence one raises the question — should there not be an opening in motion pictures for young writers trained directly for screen writing but lacking the qualifications in other fields of creative work which v/ould ordinarily make them eligible for studio jobs? I think that there is definitely a place for such writers and the colleges should be encouraged to supplement courses in motion picture art and his tory with practical craft work in writing and the technical fields. The only campus that I know of that supplies such a course if USC where Clara Beranger's Cinema Workshop is attracting a large number of students, many of them former servicemen. European countries have long provided such courses. In Russia technical courses in all branches of film making, including screen writing, have been established for many years. 36