“To the contemporary filmmaker-writer, panache and camera movement are more important than compelling dialogue.” Peter Bart.

Sam Roads

In Thursday’s editorial piece in Variety magazine, Peter Bart asks whether screenwriters are becoming obsolete in Hollywood. His conclusion? A resounding yes.

I believe that in general he is right, but conversely, that the examples he uses to make his case are wrong.

He’s Completely Right

Our world is one where the posters say “A Film By” and follow it with the director’s name, with no mention of the writer.

Other forms of entertainment have not made this choice. For example, a new production of Hamlet will be advertised as “A Play by Shakespeare”, not by whoever is directing the play. Or a concert of the Pathetique Symphony will be advertised as “Music by Tchaikovsky”, not by whoever is conducting.

Of course, the director of a play, and the conductor of a symphony, are important, and so is the director of a film. But more important than the playwright, the composer, the writer?

Peter Bart rightly notes this worrying trend.

But He’s Stone Cold Wrong

But despite this, Peter Bart manages to pick examples that are, in every case, wrong.

What he should have done, perhaps, is pick one of the Dantean rumblings of Doug Richardson, who tells story after story about the pecking order in Hollywood movies, in which order the writer lanquishes at the bottom. (Go check Doug’s blog out, once you’ve finished reading this post, of course.) But instead he listed example after example which fail to make his point…

Interstellar

“Arguably, the visually arresting “Interstellar” would have been a far more satisfying film had a talented writer worked on its dialogue and plot (Chris Nolan and his brother, Jonathan, are listed as the writers).” Peter Bart.

He says the film needed a talented writer? The Nolans wrote The Dark Knight, ranked 4th on IMDB. It’s a recent film, and people sometimes rate the new slightly more highly. But Chris Nolan also has several other films at the top of the list, such as Inception and Memento (which was based on Jonathan Nolan’s short story). Films praised for the quality of the writing.

Now you can argue that popularity and quality are not the same thing, and personally, I think Memento is considerably better than Dark Knight. But it seems a bit harsh to describe the Nolans as “untalented”, which Peter Bart clearly implies when suggesting that Interstellar would have been better had a ‘talented’ writer worked on it.

Matthew McConaughey as Cooper in Interstellar

Boyhood

“I admired “Boyhood,” but, again, it plays as if the actors, year after year, invented scenes as they slowly aged.” Peter Bart.

Perhaps Peter Bart hasn’t got round to reading our interview with Richard Linklater about Boyhood.

Chris McKittrick: That ties in to what is probably the biggest misconception about your films, especially in the case of the Before movies and Boyhood, where people think the dialogue is improvised which isn’t the case.

Richard Linklater: On one hand, for all the time I spend writing it’s kind of an insult, but on the other hand it’s the ultimate compliment. The screenwriter in me is insulted, but the director in me is complimented because I want it to feel real.

(If you want to talk about improvising in movies and cutting out the role of the writer, incidentally, you could do worse than read our interview with Mike Leigh about Mr. Turner.)

Ellar Coltrane as Mason Evens Jr. and Ethan Hawke as Mason Evans Sr. in Boyhood

Guardians of the Galaxy

“The obsolescence of the screenwriter also is apparent in the trend toward what some critics call the “post-plot” movie. “Guardians of the Galaxy” is a prime example of a movie that offered great shtick and a wisecracking raccoon but no true narrative.” Peter Bart.

I nearly choked on my cereal at this one, as Guardians was my favourite movie of 2014. (I saw it in Malta where you not only pay half the normal ticket price, but you get an intermission mid-film. Old school.)

But perhaps this is because I’m evenly disposed towards genre movies, and so do not dismiss them out of hand. When I was growing up, in the UK the top film critic was Barry Norman, who detested anything with a hint of sword or spaceship, regardless of whether it was good or bad. Does Peter Bart hold an assumption common amongst film critics, that because a lot of genre films are low quality, genre films are all low quality? Given the lack of respect for Dark Knight, perhaps.

What exactly does he mean by ‘no true narrative’? A narrative is a ‘report of connected events’. Well, the film I saw certainly had a report of connected events, and indeed, those events described an almost classical plot of the hero accepting responsibility, and saving the world.

Not only that, but the film also had emotional depth, character evolution, and, yes, a wisecracking raccoon. A clear case of genre-blindness in this editor’s opinion.

Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Bradley Cooper as Rocket (voice), Dave Bautista as Drax and Vin Diesel as Groot (voice) in Guardians of the Galaxy

TV is the new Film

But though I may object to his examples, I cannot disagree with Peter Bart when he implies that writers are not given the status they deserve in Hollywood. In television, on the other hand, writers are held in higher regard. Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon, Julian Fellowes, all writers given the respect they deserve.

As our articles on Showrunners, House of Cards, Dracula, Brickleberry, Boardwalk Empire, Pretty Little Liars and others demonstrate, in TV the showrunner holds the kind of authority the film writer never acquires. Much of the best content being created in 2015 will come from HBO, Netflix and the BBC.

So at Creative Screenwriting we can only hope that Hollywood will look at the successes of Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Downton Abbey and The West Wing, and figure out that “A Film By” needs to be followed by the writer as well  as the director.

Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood in Netflix’s House of Cards