Any script or novel is, to use Rene Girard’s phrase ‘a text in travail’ internally with the world we have created and externally by the death of a thousand papercuts, edits and adjustments.
We will forever, if left to it, change, update, amend the script and our put our souls into it. And even if we finish it someone, will come along and suggest another change. I know I am biased, but the screenwriter’s job is the most difficult in the business. Without us no one has a job and those dependent on it then come along as if they know the story better, but they don’t.
Having an ‘idea’ about a concept is not the same as crafting a concept. Reading a script does not take the same energy, time and sacrifice needed to create it. You’d think we’d be better paid! Maybe that’s going to be the next revolution in the film industry?
Writing is the foundation of the film industry. And to quote Saint Hubris, “There’s me, a pen and a notebook. That’s all I need to heal the world.”
Yes, the foundation. Without it, nothing can be built. It’s the difference between the cultural wilderness where everything is built on shifting sand and a well-sown garden, that sustains life and becomes a fruitful place to dwell, to build upon as well as to plant.
Words are like seeds. You plant them in the garden called Hollywood, Sundance, Raindance, Berlin or Cannes and amazing things can be produced.
Words are forever and always metaphors, nothing more, nothing less. And so are screenplays. Not the truth, lest we inflate their importance. What is a metaphor for? It points us to somewhere else, in another direction. Don’t look at the pointing finger, but look to where the finger is pointing.
To quote Tarkovsky,
“The artist has no right to an idea to which they are not socially committed, or the realisation of which could involve a dichotomy between their professional activity and the rest of their lives.”
That to Tarkovsky is what makes the complete artist, it is where our artistic and social responsibilities meet.
Words, therefore, need to be embodied, or be like a well-worn pair of shoes.
The three films I want to make in my life are already written. There is a fourth, which at the moment is mainly sketched in my notebook and I’ve written a cursory 10 pages in Final Draft. It’s a homage to my Dad; to his military service through ‘Operation Varsity’ (March 1945), passing by Bergen-Belsen and on to the Baltic Coast and the end of the War.
This sadly was not the end of war. It simply burnt out the blood-lust for a while. It didn’t take long for the world to get into its military stride again, with the Super Powers carving up the world into Blocs of Influence. Then, recreating the world in their own blood-sodden image.
As writers, do we have a responsibility to say something about this?
This is what William Nicholson has to say.
“Every time we write a story we are in fact creating a moral structure and that moral structure is influencing the people who see that film.
And they add up, all these films, to a sense of what is acceptable in life and what is not. So, we have an enormous power, particularly the movies that are widely seen. You may think if they’re pure entertainment there is no moral message in it, but that is not true.
Imagine every film you ever saw exalted people with guns and said: ‘The people with guns win because they’ve got guns, and everybody who hasn’t got a gun is a pathetic loser.’ We would develop as a society – perhaps we are developing as a society – where people want guns in order not to be losers.
In fact, that’s not what the movies say. They nearly always show that the person who has right on their side has the ‘best gun’ if you like. I know that is a bit pathetic, but there is a moral story operating there. So, we are conditioning our society all the time and we should take responsibility for that.”
https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/transcripts/screenwriters-lecture-wil...
(My Dad ended up having a tour of duty in Palestine until 1948, where he said he had lost more of his friends there, than on their European Tour of Duty. He arrived back home with what nowadays we would call PTSD and being visited by night terrors. All of this, whilst going back to his day-job as a machinist in a metalworkers factory and providing for his mother and three children).
Back to words. Word can be used to incite violence. We see this in the historical propaganda of Socialism, Capitalism and Fascism which all embrace the double-edged sword of Nationalism.
What comes next is identifying scapegoats (generally immigrants), with the inevitable call to do something about them; usually through violent purges. We can create a world where violence predominates and where violence is the answer to it. In reality, injustice follows injustice. The cycle of violence continues. The same thread occurs in the realities we create.
Words in a screenplay can do the same thing, with calls for vengeance because of some historical injustice or precedent. In reality the tyrant always claims the principle of rewriting history and bringing about justice. Just look at what is happening in the Ukraine at the moment.
As (screen)writers do we have a responsibility to not create easy scapegoats, not to be propagandists for a violent cause?
Nicholson tells us where the power lays in being a screenwriter, “We want reality. We want the truth. That’s where the power lies.”
The words of the screenwriter carry, as Nicholson has said, have a grave responsibility, not to instil in the audience the mistaken philosophy of redemptive violence. Usually this - yes just like history , I’m repeating myself - simply perpetuates the cycle of violence.
QUESTIONS:
Do we as writers have a social responsibility?
Can we offer a different master-narrative?
Do we have the imagination to heal the world with a pen and a notebook?
Before we pick up our pen, let's think on these things.
On reflection, I would say that some writers do work from a sense of social responsibility, but not all. The first call on any writer is to entertain. But there are some, like Tarkovsky who see art as a responsibility to society; to raise consciousness about the forces that drive our realities.
Which writers for you, work with this kind of remit/vision?
I'm just reviewing one of my old pieces for the Stage32 website:
"We will forever, if left to it, change, update, amend the script and our put our souls into it. And even if we finish it someone, will come along and suggest another change. I know I am biased, but the screenwriter’s job is the most difficult in the business. Without us no one has a job and those dependent on it, then come along as if they know the story better, but they don’t."
I guess I was feeling a little piqued at the time, jaundiced with the thought of how indescribably lonely it can be as a screenwriter; you pour your heart out into the thing and then someone comes along with a bright idea, who hasn't really understood the story and then wants to make changes.
Maybe in those days I would've felt the need to succumb to those clever ideas, but not any more. I think nowadays I'd be more willing and able to defend my story and concept and give any critic a justification that if you change this or that scene, then you and the audience would lose the plot.
Have you noticed that kind of change in you? Are you now more willing to stand by your script?