Giving credit where it’s due
My question is not about screenwriting per se, but rather about writing about films. Screenwriters, myself included, are not fond of essays about movies that ignore the contributions of writers. Do you have a stylistic preference for attributing authorship when writing about a movie, when each person’s individual contributions are not known? As an example, here’s a sentence from an essay I wrote about Armageddon:
In the real world, [a mission briefing] would probably happen in a briefing room. Michael Bay decided he wanted it to happen in the shuttle assembly building with a B-2 and 2 SR-71 Blackbirds.
Now I don’t know that this was Michael Bay’s decision — it may have been in one of the drafts of the script — or it may have been decided by Jerry Bruckheimer. But if I wanted to cover my bases, I would have to say:
Michael Bay, Jonathan Hensleigh, J.J. Abrams, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno, Robert Roy Pool, Jonathan Hensleigh, and Jerry Bruckheimer decided they wanted it to happen…
This seems incorrect. Alternatively, I could recast the sentence as:
“In the film, this happens in the shuttle assembly room…”
or
“In Armageddon, this happens in…”
But doing this consistently means treating the film as essentially authorless. This is probably truer of Armageddon than of most movies, but I don’t like it stylistically. What’s your preference? Say I was writing about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and specifically about something that happens in the film. Furthermore, assume I know nothing about the differences between the book, the script, and the finished film (which is usually the case when writing about a film). Would you prefer:
“Dahl, August, and Burton’s characters,”
“Dahl and August’s characters,”
“August’s characters,”
“Burton’s characters,”
“The characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,”
Or some formulation I’m not seeing?
This isn’t entirely an academic question — I write about movies at Criterion Collection, and recently someone in the comments criticised me for saying things like “Scorsese’s version of Jesus” when writing about The Last Temptation of Christ. So I revised the essay to be more precise — but that meant a lot of sentences that read “the film’s version of Jesus,” and I’m hoping you can think of something more elegant.
Thanks for your time. I enjoy your blog immensely. My little sister recently graduated from Trinity, and hearing you deliver your “Professional Writing and the Rise of the Amateur” lecture was one of the highlights of her college career.
– Matt
Los Angeles
Normally, I lop off these thanks-for-your-blog comments, but I was feeling a little down, so that perked me up. Now, on to your question.
I don’t think there’s a perfect way to address authorship of a movie, but you’re right to be sensitive to the ambiguities. The characters in Charlie and the Chocolate factory are mine, and Dahl’s, and Tim’s, and the actors’. At every step in the process, choices were made by many people for many reasons. The same can be said for the sets, the music, the wardrobe, and the choreography.
If you’re writing about Tim Burton’s body of work, I think it’s absolutely fair to use a phrase like, “Burton’s characters tend to…”, since you’re pointing out a consistency across many different films. (You could do the same for characters in the films I’ve written, or the characters Johnny Depp has played.) Even if the person you’re talking about didn’t create these characters, the fact that there’s similarity between them indicates a certain mindset. An actor or a director might be consistently drawn towards artistic outsiders, for example.
It’s only when you’re looking at one specific film that you need to be careful not to hand out credit indiscriminately. Constructions like, “The characters in Burton’s film,” make it clear you’re not talking about the 1970 version.
I have no issue with the attributive apostrophe. It’s Tim Burton’s film; it’s Richard Zanuck’s film; it’s Warner Bros.’s film. Nor do I mind “A Joe Schmo Film” — it’s including the film in the director’s (or a star’s) canon. The only credit that sets my teeth on edge is “A Film By Some Director.” Both on-screen and in print, the “by” feels like an unwarranted grab for authorship. Even a writer-director is working with a crew of talented professionals to make the movie you’re seeing. That’s why I refused the credit on The Nines. But I know a lot of smart and good people who do use the credit, so I’m not slamming them for it.
In a previous post, I’d mentioned that the screenwriter’s name seems to be much more likely to show up in a negative review than a positive one. No one’s taken me up on the challenge to see if that’s really true, but the offer’s still out there. If anyone wants to do a statistical study of a few films on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, I’d love to publish what you find.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:24 am
One credit that really made me think twice was the “from the singular mind of Mike White” on Year of the Dog. I recognize they’re thinking singular in the eccentric, bizarre sense, but it hits as too possessive and individual.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:26 am
Thanks for this exchange. As a writer about film, I have often had this exact argument with myself. It’s easy to turn each review/essay into an overwritten mess. I’ve found in writing, as in life, there are usually no easy answers, but less is more, and the gripers will gripe no matter what you write.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:00 am
Thanks for the reply — this is quite helpful!
May 31st, 2007 at 8:11 am
One suggestion for Matt would be something like:
“The filmmakers decided they wanted it to happen in the shuttle assembly building with a B-2 and 2 SR-71 Blackbirds.”
Using “the filmmakers” does not erroneously attribute the decision to any one of the many people that might have been involved in any given decision. “The filmmakers” is also better than simply saying “in the movie…” since filmmakers implies some authorship.
Of course, you have to assume that “filmmakers” means any combination of anyone who worked on the movie, which is pretty ambiguous, but the fact is, you don’t know who made the decision. Better to be ambiguous than attribute a specific idea to the wrong person.
If something ends up in the movie, you can assume that there was at least some agreement between everyone involved that the scene should happen that way. Obviously this isn’t always the case, but it is probably safe to assume that the filmmakers agreed that the briefing would be better in the shuttle assembly area.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:19 am
Ah, great post. What do you feel about “A Michael Bay Film”? Is that equivalent to “A Film by Michael Bay”? Eli Roth refuses to do either because he feels films are too much of a collaboration to attribute such a sweeping authorship.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:46 am
Jeff (#4):
Good point. “The filmmakers…” covers a lot of ground.
Ross (#5):
While it wouldn’t be my choice personally, I’ve got no problem with “A Michael Bay Film.” It’s part of his work. That’s all it’s claiming, not any broader authorship.
By the same token, you could call Ocean’s 13, “A George Clooney Film.” Because it is. (Along with many other people.)
May 31st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
That said, what about actors who don’t receive appropriate credit? For example, in “Wedding Crashers” Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson probably created much of the dialog that was significant to their characters, but in the end, they weren’t credited, even partially, for creating them.
And we all know, those characters wouldn’t be the same if they had been played by someone else. How do you feel actors should be credited with material supplied on the set or in story meetings?
May 31st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I love when directors put their name above the title and it alters the meaning of the title, like in - JOHN CARPENTER’S ESCAPE FROM L.A.
Alert! John’s getting away!! His films suck so badly he’s skipping town!
Cracks me up every time.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
ScreenwriterJ -
Reshaping dialogue is part of the actor’s job. Screenwriters describe sets in their scripts. That doesn’t make us set designers… Well, it does, but not to the degree that merits a screen credit.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:23 pm
“The Filmmakers…”
May 31st, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Johnny,
Ohgoodlord it is not. It really, really is not. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s necessary, and film is, in the end, all cliches piled on, a collaborative medium.
But more times than I care to remember a scene has not worked (I’m a director) and has taken extra work to get functioning because an actor — whether due to not bothering to learn the lines properly, or deciding on the spur of the moment despite me and/or the writer having spent months if not years on the script that “this is more what my character would say” — has “reshaped the dialogue”.
Words are not just words. Sometimes they’re very, very important words.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:23 pm
S - (or should I say Kevin? If not, I apologize, but you sound like someone “I know”)
Your post insinuates that actors should show up on set, say their lines, and retreat to their trailers. Not so. Good (!) actors own their characters. They live and breathe their characters - more than any writer ever would, ever could.
I’m not saying actors rewrite all their lines. But a good actor will make suggestions how his character would say a certain line, or improvise a punchline, etc. In the context of credits, this does not merit a screen credit, for it is part of their job - to bring the written character to life.
I agree, words aren’t just words. It’s up to the director - who hopefully understands the many layers and subtexts of the script’s dialogue - to determine what words are “important” and which can be changed.
Read Terry Rossio’s set reports from the Pirates sequels as a great example of actor’s reshaping dialogue for the good of the movie - you’ll find the thing somewhere on the web, I believe it was myspace.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Jeff—I like your suggestion & think I’ll go with “the filmmakers” from here on out. Also, I feel embarrassed that I left actors out of my hypotheticals. And Theron, overwritten messes are kind of my specialty…
May 31st, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Hey John,
First, the obligatory thanks for such a tremendous blog. As an aspiring screenwriter, your site (along with Ms. Espenson’s) are daily checks for me.
Secondly, I decided to dig into your request to survey the reviews on rottentomatoes.com in order to see how many times the screenwriter(s) were mentioned, and in what context. Slogging through reviews got really frustrating really quick, so I only checked one current movie. Once I regain my sanity, I might try surveying some more movies, but for now we’ll have to settle from what I pulled from Pirates 3 reviews.
I ended up scanning through 21 random reviews (just whatever I found on the front page). Those reviews break down like this:
12 reviews were generally positive. Of these 12 positive reviews, 6 mentioned the writers IN THE MAIN BODY OF THE REVIEW (I denote this only because there were a few reviews, both positive and negative, that noted the names of the writer in a sidebar along with other technical information about the movie. I felt like that was sort of a cheat, and if the reviewer didn’t make any actual comments regarding the writer(s), I didn’t count those reviews as “writer mentions.” Whew. End of disclaimer).
9 reviews were negative. 1 mentioned the writers.
By comparison, there was 1, perhaps 2 of the 21 reviews I read that did not mention the director in some capacity (which seemed really bizarre).
Weirdly, exactly one mentioned an executive producer NOT named Jerry Bruckheimer.
That’s all I have for hard stats, so if that’s all your interested in, there ya go. You can stop reading.
The other thing I wanted to mention (or rant about, I guess), was the overwhelming laziness of many of the reviewers. I stopped scanning the reviews because I just couldn’t stand reading any more, particularly the negative ones. I should note that I’ve yet to see Pirates 3. Thus, I haven’t formed any opinion of its merit yet, and, thus, I really could care less at this point what others think of it. Which is to say, it wasn’t the fact that some reviewers didn’t like the film that bothered me. It was WHY they didn’t like the film that stuck in my craw. Every negative review made some comment about how indecipherable the plots of the second and third Pirates movies were (are?), to the point that they were almost objecting to this third movie having any plot at all.
One reviewer actually vented that “The whole stupid Pirates of the Caribbean concept is based on a ride, remember? One out of ten fans of the Pirates franchise may truly care about the complicated soap opera of a story at the heart of At World’s End, but the other nine just want to see something funny and fast-paced, and they’re the ones who are going to be most let down.”
If I’m reading that right, the guy is complaining that the filmmakers actually bothered with a story at all and didn’t just pepper the whole thing with nonstop action scenes (the first time I’ve ever read that complaint about a summer blockbuster, I must say).
If he hates plots so much, he can go review cooking shows. If there’s so many damn characters that it’s truly headscratching as to what is happening, that’s one thing, but don’t criticize the writers for having the gall to actually try and tell a story. Good grief.
Anyway, sorry for taking up so much space with my rant, but the same lazy complaints were made over and over in each negative review, with no real elaboration even as to what part of the movie was so darned confusing. I just couldn’t read the same #$#! one more time.
Then again, if I see this thing tomorrow and have no idea what’s going on… I take it all back.
June 1st, 2007 at 5:02 am
Am I missing something?
– Johnny says, “Reshaping dialogue is part of an actor’s job.” –
Since when?
And to say that “an actor knows the part better” than the screenwriter that CREATED it seems absurd to me. Isn’t that a bit like directors that constantly slam screenwriters by saying the script is “only” a blueprint of the film. The script is ALL YOU HAVE. And if it were all that easy then why don’t actors just create all their dialogue, action, and character arcs in every movie? Why stop at “reshaping” dialouge?
June 1st, 2007 at 7:45 am
Why does it seem like people on writing sites are constantly arguing about credit for this or that or how important the script is and how actors and directors shouldn’t mess with the script and yadda yadda?
Nearly everyone will value their own contribution more than the contribution of others. People are naturally egocentric. No biggie.
The screenwriter develops (either from his own idea or on assignment) a plot and actions and characters and dialogue for a storyline The actors have to make the characters from the script seem like “real” people The set designer makes the places from the script seem like “real” places The costume person figures out what they would wear The cinematographer does whatever they do that I know is very important but I don’t really understand The director makes sure everything makes sense with everything else and looks like one unified story The editor makes it watchable The producer tries to make sure it is started and finished and paid for and actually comes out
And I’m sure more and more and more people do more and more and more
So there is no point saying so-and-so is more important than so-and-so or whatever. Just worry about what YOU do and be glad other people do what THEY do. If the lighting guy doesn’t show up no one will be able to see your beautiful script.
People like to get all bent out of shape. Feh.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:03 am
Carol -
Why do people always jump to the extreme end of the spectrum when arguing a statement that obviously and deliberatly was made somewhere in the mid-range? I’m sure Schopenhauer had a paradigm for this form of arguing but I’m too lazy to look it up… I actually think it was the first.
Unless all you watch are soap operas - where the dialogue is scribbled on poster boards for the actors to read - yes, you are missing something… Actors change their dialogue all the time. And that’s a good thing! The way you write a line sitting in the comfort of your local Starbucks, and the way one delivers that line standing atop the mast of a sixty foot galley in the middle of the Atlantic are two different things. Thats’s why directors rehearse. That’s why they let the actors improvise. That’s why the writer should be on set!
To answer your question - “Why stop at reshaping dialogue?” Because it is not the actor’s job to “create all their dialogue”. That would be the screenwriter’s job. But it is PART OF the actor’s job to contribute. An example - according to one of the screenwriters of PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN the last line in the first movie was Mr. Depp’s creation: “Now bring me that horizon…”. Arguably one of the best lines in the entire film!
Now, why would Verbinsky allow this to happen? Rossio and Elliott are two of the top writers in Hollywood. Who is some tattooed mime to change their dialogue?!
You get my point.
I hope.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:15 am
Just to clairfy, the last line in the movie is actually - “And really bad eggs… Drink up me hearties. Yo-ho.” but far as I recall the article Depp only came up with the ‘horizon’ line. The eggs and the ‘earties must be Ted and Terry’s… Credit where credit is due.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:10 am
Hi John, you said: “The only credit that sets my teeth on edge is “A Film By Some Director.â€? Both on-screen and in print, the “byâ€? feels like an unwarranted grab for authorship.”
Do you feel the same way about the label, A SOME DIRECTOR FILM ?
Does this seem like less of a credit grab to you?
I was having this discussion with a friend about a short film that I wrote/directed/produced that will be making the festival rounds soon…I wasn’t going to put A SOME DIRECTOR FILM, but my friend told me to not be so modest considering I had a hand in every part of the short (even with 30 other people working on the short) and that it’s good to get my name out there in this early stage of my career.
June 1st, 2007 at 10:13 am
“Nor do I mind “A Joe Schmo Filmâ€? — it’s including the film in the director’s (or a star’s) canon.”
Whoops sorry, didn’t read closely enough, you already answered this. Thanks!
June 1st, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Johnny–
I reread my first post and admittedly, I sound quite hostile — it’s been a bad week.
The example you site as Johnny Depp changing the last line of dialogue isn’t what I was talking about. That’s a line change that would add something positive.
More to my point, I feel that the screenwriter and director have an overall scope of the film that often individual actor’s do not have. Therefore, if you as the screenwriter have labored incessantly about a line in scene 12, and know that it HAS to be said in a certain way or scene 75 and 81 of a different actor’s plight won’t make sense, that should be respected.
And it doesn’t seem like it is.
Screenwriters rewrite other screenwriters. Executives get their say, even when they have no screenwriting experience. Directors, rightly so, can sway a project anyway they want.
But you do have to admit, that lack of vision and focus is a major problem in a lot of movies. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
Regardless, I think I’ll stop posting, as I’m usually in too big of a hurry to actually make sense when I do. I’m not half the bitch I sound like. I’m a nice girl, I swear.
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:10 am
Or this seems to be a good place to ask a question I’ve wondered about when I see directors taking a shared writing credit. These days, “the script” is really a Final Draft or Movie Magic file. If the director and writer pass it back and forth for a couple of months, tweaking, dropping notes, adding the odd scene, fixing various leit motifs and so on–really the electronic equivalent of a lot of little “Note Meetings.” At what point does the director say, “You know. I really think I need a writing credit on this one.”
Seems a lot of potential there for abuse of power.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
This has nothing to do with the bulk of the post. I’m a recent Trinity Grad as well, and John’s talk was really inspiring. I also had the opportunity to have lunch with him at Trinity with some Proffs, but I doubt anyone else except me and the other student remembers. It got me and a couple of my friends fired up to work on our own projects.
Thanks for the inspiration and advice John!
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
“An actor or a director might be consistently drawn towards artistic outsiders, for example.”
That was so subtle I missed it first time around!
I’d never made that connection before in my head.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Hi John. I’ve read your blog for a bit but have never commented before. Love reading what you have to say.
Has anyone really taken you up on your statistical challenge yet? As somewhat of an aspiring screenwriter (who has yet to find the confidence that he really wants to pursue it) and someone who studies economics, I think it’d definitely be interesting, and if I can find the time I’d love to try to come up with a statistical test.