I

provocative use of sound that do the job instead? What Astruc makes clear, in other words, is that film creativity cannot be parceled out into neat little boxes, jobs, or moments, but that a film's entire resources must be available at all times to its creators. Understood this way, fabula, syuzhet, and style are components of a single creative potential, they are elements capable of cross-pollinating each other at any time.
Certainly, there were many excesses during the New Wave (the school of filmmaking most in tune with Astruc's thinking). Astruc had opened the door for a new kind of movie, one based on images in preference to words. Ten years of film practice demonstrated, however, that one could not bypass words entirely. The hubris of some directors eventually put an end to a very exciting movement in film history. Hierarchies and egos therefore should not come into play if one is to avoid such mistakes in the future. That films would benefit from directors working with writers is clear. For directors, the encounter would be an eye-opener into all the possibilities of a story. For writers, they should be thrilled to be able to present their material differently. Carri re for instance has suggested that "by necessity if not because of personal taste, the screenwriter is much more a filmmaker than a writer." 36 The key point here is that writers would once again have to care for the finished film instead of their limited assignment. Such a rethinking I believe is necessary if cinema is to move beyond the current system of screenwriting which keeps harking back to film as a mere illustration of a preexisting story, and if the creative process is to be realigned away from the arbitrary as well as nefarious division of labor between writers and directors.
VIII
Long before there were film schools, screenwriting was taught in all sorts of venues so as to feed an industry already desperate for new products. Sixty-one courses in film writing were offered as early as 1915, including one at Columbia University, and by 1920 no less than ninety books on the subject had been written.37 There were the Home Correspondence School, the Photoplay Clearing House, the Fox Photoplay Institute, the Palmer Institute of Authorship, the Irving System, the Eleanor Glyn System of Writing, etc. What was actually taught in these courses is far from clear and what influence they may have had on actual screenwriting is difficult to evaluate. At one time, however, in the early twenties, the studios

 



Film Production Theory2000
Film Production Theory2000
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 126

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