Don't Sleep with the Writer

Sasha Stone
Mirror film critic

   Someone once told me that there were more screenwriters in Los Angeles than there were people. What is it about writing screenplays that attracts so many? Perhaps it's that it seems like easy money, perhaps it's that we all have movies playing in our heads, or perhaps it's because we go to the movies and think -- not only could I do that, but I could do it better.
   Writers get no respect. If they did, your gynecologist, your librarian, your meter maid, your chef, your landlord wouldn't be "working on a screenplay" at the moment. Suppose we all thought it was difficult, maybe as difficult as any other aspect of the filmmaking experience, like directing or producing. How then would we view writers and writing? We would still dare to put pen to paper? Perhaps we would pay closer attention to the actual writing, and perhaps we might understand why the Writers Guild honors their own, why they award the scripts they do, and why they exclude others.
   Last Sunday, the Writers Guild, in the midst of negotiations with the studios and TV networks, held its awards ceremony, honoring what they consider to be the best scripts of the year. For original screenplay, Ken Lonergan was awarded for "You Can Count on Me," while Stephen Gaghan won for his adaptation, "Traffic," based on the British miniseries, "Traffik."
   Winners of the Writers Guild awards match the Oscars about half the time. Both ceremonies honor works thought to be the very best. But often, the award goes not necessarily go to the best writing on the page, but to the work that was most effective on the screen. Or is it something else? 
   Film is a collaborative medium. A director can have an influence on a script that changes it so completely, the writer has very little to do with it. Take, for example, the famous story of Robert Towne's "Chinatown." Roman Polanksi, being a rather dark and fatalistic guy (can you blame him?) didn't believe that the film should have a happy ending, that Faye Dunaway should live, that justice should prevail. No, this wasn't the world Polanski knew, so the change was made: Dunaway is shot, Noah Cross grabs the young girl, and Jake Gittes is responsible for doing the very thing he sought to avoid. What might have been a fairly hackneyed (albeit well-acted) film destined to be forgotten became one of the best films in history.
   That "You Can Count on Me" won bodes well for writers. Ken Lonergan wrote and directed the piece, so the directing, in a sense, could be seen as an extension of the writing. When the film nabbed the Waldo Salt Screenwriting prize at Sundance, despite its rather awkward title, everyone knew Lonergan had written something exceptional. A vote for Lonergan as writer is clearly a vote for the film itself. But can the two ever be separated? Does anyone ever think the writing is good but the film is bad?
   So, it would follow that Stephen Gaghan also be honored for "Traffic." His adaptation is well done, but since it wasn't based on a novel, it's difficult to measure how good of an adaptation it is. It is judged on its own merit, rather than being measured the way, say, "High Fidelity," one of the best adapted scripts of the year, was judged against the well-loved novel of the same name. To call "Traffic" an adaptation is a bit of a stretch, but nowhere near the stretch of nominating Joel and Ethan Coen for having "adapted" Homer's "The Odyssey" for "O Brother, Where Art Thou" (an original script if there ever was one) which the Academy managed to do.
   It isn't that Gaghan doesn't deserve the accolades. He ended up writing one of the best films of the year and that is all we need to know about it. However, there were a few glaring omissions in the adaptation category, scripts that are worth consideration, mostly by women writers.
   While Susannah Grant was honored for "Erin Brockovich," Karyn Kusama, the writer/director of "Girlfight" was roundly snubbed. Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton-Ellis' "American Psycho" should not have been forgotten, for it accomplished the great feat of actually improving on the novel. Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" was well-reviewed, especially for.
   This brings us to the idea that writers, like directors, can become stars. If they are celebrated at the moment, if the film is still fashionable by year's end, the writer is sucked up into the whirlwind, given an award, his/her status instantly upped. It isn't the script, necessarily, that's feted but the idea behind the script, or even the writer who lives up to the romanticism of the film itself.
   It's ironic, then, that the writers of "Gladiator," currently thought to be the favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars on March 25, would not also be winning multiple awards. But "Gladiator" is thought to be a success because of several factors, not the writing or the directing per se, but the entire collaborative process, top to bottom.
   If it's true, the old joke, that when the Polish actress comes to Hollywood she sleeps with the writer to get ahead, then there is still a long way to go before writers are given the credit they deserve. And if it's true that the film belongs to the director, why even bother giving out awards to writers?
   The answer is simple: writers are as responsible for their portion of the collaboration as the director. If the film is to belong to either, it should belong to both. Not coincidentally, one of the key issues in the current negotiations is the possessory credit (i.e. "a film by..."). While the writers readily concede that certain directors (Hitchcock, for instance) deserve solo credit, they believe, in most instances, the director should share the credit with the writer. Directors, of course, do not agree.