When a Golden Globe or an Oscar is awarded to a writer, is it based on just
a viewing of the movie, or do the judges actually read the screenplays?
–Robert Baker
Not only is that a really good question, but strangely, I’ve never even stopped
to think about it until now.
While studios sometimes do send out certain screenplays to Academy or WGA
voters (as Disney did with THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS this year), in the vast majority
of cases, voters are making their decision based only on the movie they saw,
rather than the script.
Anyone who’s been through the process of making a movie knows that a brilliant
script doesn’t necessarily translate into a brilliant movie. The screenplay
is a crucial first step, but the words get filtered through a director, actors,
editors and hundreds of other people who inevitably change the execution if
not the intention of the writer’s work.
If an actress improvises a horrible line of dialogue, the screenwriter inevitably
gets blamed. If the editor and director shuffle scenes so that logic falls
apart, it again looks like the writer’s mistake. So it’s no surprise that the
awards for screenwriting inevitably go to scripts that, for whatever reason,
turned out to be really good movies. That is, the movies where everyone else
didn’t screw up.
But should it really be that way? While I would hate to see forests decimated
just to send 30,000 unsolicited screenplays out to Academy or WGA voters, it
would be remarkably easy to post .pdf versions of nominated screenplays online
so that voters could actually read the material they’re judging. I’m calling
my WGA representative this afternoon.
Update: I called. It’s being considered. There’s some issue of possible fairness,
because some writers have "publication rights" on their scripts, and others
don’t for various reasons. But I strongly believe that making great screenplays
more widely available will boost the profile of screenwriters worldwide.