The Hour of the Wolf: Four Screenwriters Discuss Their Craft This Is a Condensation of a Discussion of Before He's Allowed to Proceed
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Sundance Institute a411hite Paper •••••••••• ale% SUNDANCE WHITE PAPER The Hour of the Wolf: Four Screenwriters Discuss Their Craft This is a condensation of a discussion of before he's allowed to proceed. He says, that if we ever had talent, it has screenwriting which took place at the "I see . I see some mountains, and deserted us. In all the familiar tortures filmmakers' lab sponsored by the there's a little. there's a house—I of creative activity, one is Sundance institute in close to those June of 1985. The think it's a peasant house, with a red emotional terrors that psychoanalysis participants were: .ftank Daniel, Artistic tile roof, and some trees. And there's a was invented to only nibble at It Director of the is in Sundance Institute June woman—I don't know quite how old she this naked and vulnerable state Lab and Co that -Chairman of the Film is—but she's very beautiful, and she's the only truly worthwhile ideas are Department at Columbia University; Ring smiling, but. maybe she's not born. And nobody likes to go through Lardner, Jr., (Woman of the Year, smiling." And the producer, or the pope, it The writer has no way to avoid it, Forever Amber, The Cincinnati Kid, or whoever, says, "Wait a second, you except to be ordinary; shallow, or dull. M*A*S*H); Rank Pierson, (Cool Hand expect me to lay out seven million The director and actor have an out: Luke, A Star is Born, Dog Day bucks and you don't even know if the change the script, rather than dig down Afternoon); and Waldo Salt, (Midnight bitch is smiling?" for the creative answers within Cowboy, Serpico, Coming Home). themselves. "It is very strange, then, that As a screenwriter you have to ammimi with this document in hand— remember that they bought your script I. On Screenwriting As or hired you because they needed you, the screenplay that we've and never forget it. You are their com- A Collaborative Art finally written—we then have pass, their guide. But you have to know Frank Pierson—George Bernard Shaw ' • to go and convince someone in where you're going. and you have to be once said that the sole business of an ready to quit when it's not your story - author in the theatre is to create -.- a blue suit to lay out millions anymore. This is not to say that actots text for exhibitions of acting and that of dollars to even see what it and directors cannot change a script for any lasting literary value is a matter of is. It's a little bit like the better, that their collaboration luck and timing for the writer. That not essential; that would be ridiculous. sort of business-like way of looking at imagining Leonardo having to You must be strong enough to force -- it is at least professional. 'lb an actor, pitch a pope, or a Medici, or them to exhaust themselves in the way [a screenplay] is a list of lines to be Mark Rosenberg, his scheme that you have first exhausted yourself. learned; to the designer it's a list of But, to be strong, you must know your sets to be built; to the costumer, a list for a painting before he's story, know it in the center, know it all of clothes; to the director, a blueprint, allowed to proceed." the way out to its edges, with a passion and sometimes not even that Raoul Frank MEM that can carry them along with you. Walsh, a great director of silent films INMENIMI who moved on into taking days, used to Well, if screenplays are extremely odd Waldo Salt—I think that a film is a col- refer to the script as a piece of yellow documents, then the writing of screen- laboration between a screenwriter and paper that he kept in his back pocket plays is surely an eccentric occupation. a director. I say categorically that's But to the writer, the screenplay is an Only a very few are really good at it, what it is. It's not that a director attempt to describe a movie as yet un- but everybody thinks they can do collaborates on the script or that the created. In this sense, it is utterly it. a director who wouldn't dream of writer collaborates in the shooting, but worthless as a work of art, because it giving an actor a line reading has no I think that it is a constant collabor- is a description of an art work that hesitation in dictating a line of dialogue ation—properly—between the writer doesn't even exist. And yet the screen- starting on page one and going all the and the director, with all of the other play must be born of the unconscious, way through to the end. It stems from people feeding in as their service is like art, and must be labored over with a universal attempt by actors and needed. craft, like art. My own approach to a directors to escape the tyranny of the I think the script is the basic screenplay is to write it like a pas- text. And the reason for this, in my commodity of our business. In the old sionate letter to the director and the own mind, is that when the original days—as vulgar as they were, perhaps— actors in order to try to forge in their work of creation is done, it is always L.B. Meyer and Harry Cohn knew this, souls the uncreated movie in my mind. the hour of the wolf. The writer facing because a bad script could ruin a It is very strange, then, that with the B.P. [the blank page] if he or she is valuable property like Garbo. As a this document in hand—the screenplay doing their business, rejects all of the matter of fact, it was a bad script that that we've finally written—we then remembered solutions, all of the stolen did irreparable harm for awhile to have to go and convince someone in a solutions, all of the cliche solutions, Gable. They had to have good scripts, \ blue suit to lay out millions of dollars until there's no solution left at all, so they had writers at the head of the to even see what it is. It's a little bit except the one that lies undiscovered studio; producers largely came out of like imagining Leonardo having to among the demons of the writer's the ranks of writers, and they were ,-11 a pope, or a Medici, or Mark unconscious mind. This induces a willing to pay a lot of money. Goldwyn, `'erg, his scheme for a painting terminal state of terror, a conviction when sound came in, immediately Sundance Institute wrote to George Bernard Shaw. There's the subject, a great correspondance. [then] you get a fresh slant, But when he Waldo Salt—I think it results in and so on, couldn't get Shaw, he a and they made some pretty got Sidney series of first rough drafts. good pictures Howard, Lillian Hellman, that way. But, I think, it Dorothy has come to be recognized Parker, Ring Lanker, and a =mem increasingly, whole lot that some of the very best pictures of other people. All Frank Daniel during the thirties —Sometimes a collabor- have been the creation of they tried to get the ation the screen- best possible of two writers is very useful—if play author from the very beginning, writers. The scripts it's done were sacrosanct; no organically . from the idea. Some of the top pictures director could change it on the set. imanoma - have been where the writer and They were absolutely firm about that. Waldo Salt—As a collaboration . director are the same person. minimma Frank PIES011-1 think what we've Frank Pierson—If it is a film that is a evolved into in terms of that moment of Frank Daniel—That's fine, but if it's rewriting, then I don't very personal statement of yours, then I collaboration . there are all different think you can think have something which is organic and you'd better direct it yourself. forms of it. There are directors who But, at the same time, which is really original in the sense in there is a point have their own writer who they con- at which you have which scripts need to be. to make a transition stantly collaborate with, and right from —which is extremely difficult to make, the beginning they are working together, and I'm never sure that anyone is able but there is a clear understanding "I remember an Academy to make it completely—at which point among those people as to who is the Awards ceremony in which the you are moving over from being the , writer and who is the director; none- picture scriptwriter to being the director. And-: theless. Patton won the best it is not really a very adequate way of I remember Bob Rafelson and I, screenplay award. They dealing with a problem that arises.* many years ago, were attempting to do announced the award to the middle of a crowded and hectic set a movie version of Peter Mathiesson's Edmund when you're already over time, and so book, The Fields of the Lord. And we North and Rands on, for you as both screenwriter and had an all-day meeting which was Ford Coppola.