Films originate from written words. Words here, now; images there, later. The question that has plagued the motion pictures almost from the beginning is how best to proceed from one medium to the next. Should the film be devised in minute details during the early process of writing or should the screenplay represent only a first draft toward the major creative effort that is to take place during the production phase? Should the people involved be the same ones throughout or should each job be left to specialists? Today no one questions the well-entrenched system ruling Hollywood. Yet its methods and guidelines are not necessarily neutral and would benefit from an open discussion. For instance, it is my contention that the working arrangement between writers and directors is not disinterested in nature, for it helps the system define film as a commodity to be packaged, manufactured, and distributed worldwide. This gentlemen's agreement is not likely, to say the least, to bring about the individual, innovative film that expands our idea of narrativity or furthers our understanding of life, culture, and history. In this essay, I will thus concentrate on three obstacles that, in my view, are largely responsible for blocking the development of such cinema: (1) the repressive and inhibiting division of labor between writers and directors, (2) the compulsory format which writers must use, and (3) the stereotypical dramatic structure now peddled everywhere by Hollywood proselytizers as "the" way to a successful project.
