The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

By WOLFGANG W1LHELM '""I"' HE trend of screenwriters and -* other creative film artists to assume directorial functions has become a stampede : its cause — dissatisfaction with the almost totalitarian powers of our directors: its effect — as far as writer-directors are concerned, initial success. Although dissociating myself from the desire of screenwriters to direct, I believe their desire is more justified, particularly in the case of an original story, than that of any other filmworker. Under present conditions the screenwriter's contribution to the final product ceases weeks before the first shot is taken. The interpretation of his story and script is taken out of his hands from the moment his efforts begin to be registered on celluloid. The British screenwriter is at a disadvantage with his continental colleague. The French, German, Austrian and Czech screenwriter is, and always was, an equal member of a triumvirate of writer, director, and producer, the latter devoting his efforts to the smooth functioning and co-ordination of all technical effects after delegating to the former two all artistic considerations for better or for worse. Even if it should turn out to have been "for worse," the final product will still bear the stamp of individuality, whatever its other shortcomings. The Continental screenwriter is the first major artist to be approached either by the producer, director, or star; he works in close contact with the director during the preparation of script and production schedule, is at his right side through the floor work, spends long hours with him in the cutting-room. No wonder that he is satisfied with his position in the industry. Frankly, the British screenwriter is not. At the same time he realises that screenwriting should be a fulltime job, and that to combine it with directing or producing is often more than one man can tackle. But the frustration due to his unbalanced position in the production unit forces him to be a competitor in the race for directorial honours. The result is often a dual watering-down of individual talent which the British film industry at the present time can ill afford. By KAY STRUEBY TF you are lucky and have missed -*-being told a writer's value on the set is strictly Nuisance, you will have seen at first hand the remarkable improvements in production methods that have helped to put British films on the map. We have come a long way since the "bad old days" of the 30's when our product was often dreadful and making it was a pretty precarious business. Working conditions were far from ideal — scripts on speculation, unpaid overtime, wholesale shutdowns, and other evils that no one regrets having lost. What is to be regretted is the loss of one of the few assets of those "bad old days" — the zest for picture-making that was shared by everyone from director to clapper-boy. Everyone liked his job and was convinced that it was important to the picture, which in turn was of enormous importance. Picturemaking was an adventure, a challenge, and a heck of a lot of fun. Today, with fewer production companies operating, it is mainly a headache, or rather, a collection of headaches. The producer is more than ever concerned about budgets, for he has the added problems of rising costs, fuel crises, and the like ; the same applies to the director with his schedules; the writer about the narrowed market for his work, the floor crew about rules and regulations. There are grumbles and complaints, an occasional outburst of temperament, an occasional strike. Much time is lost in passing the buck to the other fellow; much effort is wasted in attempting to observe rigid rules in an industry that must be flexible. The recent tax on American films has left a gap that only British production can fill. In our own interests, more pictures must be made at lower cost. This will be done — but let's do it cheerfully. Let's get back the keenness we had in the "bad old days." Let's put back the fun into filmmaking! By GUY MORGAN ' I 'HE Movie finger writes, and A having writ, moves on — usually to another assignment. What is that crying? A fatherless brainchild on cold front-office steps. Producer, production manager, director, art director, casting director, costume designer, crowd around and poke with curious fingers. It cries — it must be sickly! Trusted foster-parents are summoned to suckle it. Soon it will go to the studio to be brought up by strangers, to emerge, marching in line, another hard and bright little automaton, by Alibi out of Cliche. Yet it was once an idea conceived in love by a writer. He carried his burden sleeping and waking, muttered to it on buses, nursed it in bed. Through those long gravid months when he attended the studio clinic for progressive weekly treatments, through the protracted labour of hermaphroditic birth, he was sustained by the belief that it would be different, individual, his. He planned every detail of its future, visualised scenes and constructed a complicated system of characters and human relationships to give it proper expression, knew many things about it intuitively, learned its weaknesses and its strength, its potentialities and its limitations. He had, of course, been careful to obtain an affiliation order against a producer. But producers are fickle, easily ashamed of first ecstasies, always prone to mistrust the object of their early affections. Though they have paid for the experience and post-natal care of a parent, they rarely make use of it, preferring the advice of spectators, and the services of babyfarmers. The playwright enjoys the full status and authority of parenthood. To a more limited degree so does the novelist. But the screenwriter is cast early adrift in the production snow — with the wages of his sin, but without his precious bundle. It's a fortunate film that knows its own father. 50 The Screen Writer, April, 194