"... I want screenwriters to have the same relationship to the movies that they write as playwrights have to the plays that they write. It's that simple. I want us to end the festival of self-loathing that we're in... and I want us to take our rightful place as the authors of what we write. I hear all the time that film is a directors' medium. I don't know who first said it but I promise you it was a director, okay, and they pulled it out of their ass. It is no more a directors' medium than television or plays."
Sorkin then goes on to say how "incredibly lucky" he's been with the film directors he has worked with calling them "fantastic collaborators". None more so than with David Fincher on The Social Network saying that they were "partners". He then concludes:
"I love that [being partners] and I want that for everybody because it's no less than what you deserve when you write a screenplay that becomes a movie..."
Amen.
Agreed. "A film by .." is a total wankfest. If its used in the marketing then its fine to talk up who made it but to seriously walk around saying this is a film by "director" instead of the team is wankery of the highest order. Now if only writers and producers in TV land would take this on as well directors would be much happier!
ReplyDeleteI take your point, Tim that TV is where directors can be guns for hire... but this blog is about the suffering of writers :-) You'll have to take up that grievance elsewhere!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the collaborative nature of film, especially in the development stage really should be embraced, if but only by the collaborators themselves...