How are screenwriters portrayed in movies and how does it compare to real life? Are they accurately depicted or are there differences between movies and the real screenwriter life?
Screenwriting : How are screenwriters depicted in movies? by Victor Titimas
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Did you see "The Orchid Thief" yet???
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Cmon, is this a real question?
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There are a lot of great films about writers, but the French film Contempt is probably my all-time fave.
How can you go wrong with Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter character, Jack Palance as a producer character, Brigitte Bardot, Giorgia Moll and Linda Veras as the female leads, Fritz Lang playing himself, Jean-Luc Goddard as the director and writer, a score by Piero Piccioni, and a film that is based on an Italian novel?
Mama mia! You can't go wrong! Contempt!
Favorite documentary about screenwriters: Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey. He was a blacklisted writer who wrote/co-wrote a lot of great films, including Serpico, Midnight Cowboy, and Coming Home.
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I am Trumbo, especially the bath.
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I wouldn't want to be the writer in "Misery" but Stephen King for sure, after he does base his story ideas from real experiences, he just takes it to the next level of " what if..?" I do that all the time..
Dan MaXxx be kind for once, my man. Lol. Just kidding, we love you...I...I think...
Oh, I just remembered, there's a film by Hugh Grant (forget the title) which really makes good on a screenwriter's image. Check it out, its from 3 - 4 years ago... If anyone here remembets? I gotta go.
Screenwriters are people too...
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Bill Costantini Film Forum (NYC) recently screened a restored version of "Contempt." What a sizzler - esp that final scene. Thanks for bringing it up.
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We all are story tellers, true. But very few have compelling stories to tell; and even of those; extremely few can tell 'em well.
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LindaAnn: I love the New Wave films, and the influence they had on American films of the 1960's/1970's. That's probably my favorite period of Cinema, and probably of history, too. I wish I could have been a teenager back in the late 1960's/early 1970's.
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Doug: with no disrespect to anyone....it must be even harder for a writer who has no/little formal training to tell compelling stories. Some of the writers that I interact with have little/no sense of the elements of drama, nor of the essence of the human condition. When you really think about it....telling a compelling story isn't all that difficult, but filling a story with meaningless/illogical/inaccurate information or less-than-compelling information is kinda easy.
You worked on the Mary Tyler Moore show. That show....every character was memorable and complex. Every situational action of every character embodied the three logical parts of human action: before the action, during the action, and after the action.
The Mary Tyler Moore show was one of the most perfect sitcoms of all time. You're a lucky guy to have been a part of that.
Bill - being a teen and coming of age in the 60's was interesting and very complex at the time. It wasn't until I got through it and could look back that I realized how blessed I was to live such a wild and free life - something the millennials and my grand children can never experience.
The characters at MTM were just natural folk to me - I really loved Ted Knight (and I also loved Vera (Beth Highland) over at Mel's dinner.)
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Ryan: Adaptation is actually (loosely) based on the real-life story that Linda earlier mentioned, The Orchid Thief. That's a great read, as is The New Yorker article, Orchid Fever, that the book is based on.
Something's Gotta Give has a female screenwriter a la' Nancy Myers who wrote and directed it.