Solo or Committee scripts?
NMercurio
Posts: 9MI6 Agent
The addition of Paul (Million Dollar Baby)Haggis to the screenwriting crew seems to have made a great difference. I'll know better when I see CR tomorrow. Till then I'm wondering: Can any of you see a day when a single screenwriter writes a new Bond screenplay--one that is actually used? Is this even possible today on a film that will cost a hundred-odd million to make? In CR we had Fleming's story, Purvis & Wade, plus Haggis--at the least. I'd imagine other hands were at work as well. One man, one vision (in harmony with Eon's)--could it be done? It seems we all lucky with CR...but can the odds be bettered next time?
Comments
What makes a script good, I think, is if the writing lends itself to good visuals, and a lot of writers are lacking in that area. Back in the '30s and '40s, many American writers were lured to Hollywood. People like F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammet etc ... There was no question these people could write. The problem was writing cinematically. There's a brilliant passage in Fitzgerald's "The Last Tycoon" in which the movie mogul, Monroe Starr, derides one of his writers, a big-time novelist (perhaps Fitzgerald himself), for writing a lot of fancy "talk ... very good talk, but just talk," when the writer complains that the studio either doesn't use his stuff or rewrites it. Starr then presents a fictional situation that makes the point that movies tell stories mostly in pictures, not words.
I think it's that cinematic quality that causes scripts to so often be written by committee, which more often than not includes the director. He, after all, theoretically has to understand the importance of translating a story into pictures.
Now, in regards to wether a solo or committee script is superior, I don't think there is a conclusive answer. Some brilliant scripts (such as The Godfather) were written by multiple screenwriters. Other fantastic scripts (such as Taxi Driver) were solo efforts. I don't care how many people write the script as long as it is good. Plus, if there was a conclusive answer, chances are Hollywood would have insisted all scripts get written that way long ago.
I hated "Crash," too. But it was more the concept than the writing itself. Hollywood has apparently embraced "Crash" as a new formula they can do to death. "Babel" sounds like the same thing and is being touted as Oscar-worthy.
Damn -- I say to-may-to, you say to-mah-to