/lit/ - Literature

>>3463254
Charlie Kaufman usually gets cred

>>3463281
quick, name another screenwriter that gets as much cred as him

Because writers rarely have any influence on how a film is made, and when they do, it tends to be because they are also the directors of the film. Cinematographers and editors, even, are far more important than screenwriters in establishing a film.

>>3463404
>mfw this was almost exactly what I was about to say

Your script doesn't mean much when the editor just hacked five scenes out of the flick to improve the pacing.

>>3463395
Aaron Sorkin

>>3463254
They don't.
The Departed was a scene-by-scene remake of Internal Affairs.

>>3463395
Harmony Korine for Kids

It's common for big-name contemporary independents to have an auteur approach, you'll usually find them writing their own scripts (Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Coen Brothers).

Just because you're not involved or interested in film or no one associate with anyone or thing that is doesn't mean nobody cares about anything except if Nolan or Spielberg's name is on the trailer and who's acting. This is a /lit/ board for literature.

>>3463404
>>3463407

lol i was in the middle of writing the same thing, i was going to argue that editors are far more deserving of 'more praise' than writers.
it sounds like OP knows little about film production

And of course this is all discounting directors who write their own flims.
>>3463404
They may not have as much say as others in the crew but they are the ones that come up with the ideas, dialogue, and character. All these things come from the author's mind and without him or her the crew would have nothing to work from or with. Even though The Departed was a remake of Infernal Affairs, the transposition to the Boston setting required an intimate knowledge of the Irish dialect and had to have characters retooled or created entirely to suit the story. Everything else just builds on the foundation. You cant have a skyscraper without a first floor.

>>3463464

directors can come up with plenty of ideas and character stuff that isn't scripted - witness Ethan's boner for Martha in The Searchers, which is perfectly conveyed as a recurring element in the plot without a single line being spoken about it.

>>3463484
Film is a medium, not an industry. The director and writer can take whatever role they want and collaborate with who they want and call themselves whatever they want. There are no rules.

>>3463501
>film is not an industry
lol get a load of this guy

>>3463501
Film is an outdated photographic substrate.

>>3463395
Quick, name a screenwriter as good as Charlie Kaufman.

>>3463395
Do writer/directors like PTA count?

>>3463566

Say that to all the microfilm archives that haven't been digitized yet.

First, people are absolutely ignorant about film making. They don't know shit. They can't tell the difference between what a producer does or a cinematographer or an editor, or how much is the actor's work or how much is the work of a good director of actors, how much the director put himself on film or is just following orders from a studio, how much is pre-production or post, etc. They don't pay attention to all that and the director is just the first name they think about besides the actors.

Second, the role always varies. Writing, directing, whatever, to say either one has a "bigger role" as if by a rule is already weird. Though, even so, it is a bit safe to say the director does have the bigger role in most of the works. He truly connects all the shit together, it's his vision and his creative management.

Third, the story is merely a fraction of it, it is not the work of doing film, it is not shooting film, it is not cutting, combining, experimenting with film. The script is a pre-production thing, much valuable but, again, of a role that varies depending on the film. To put the story in this position is to assume the role of the director is to "illustrate" a script and that the role of the actors is "to read lines". It is not that at all, that is not cinema is about. That only serves when the director is just a no-guy working for some studio in a technical position just to follow orders and get some bucks.

Forth, writers do have recognition when they deserve it.

>>3463254
You shouldn't underestimate the importance of Film Directors. They are the crucial part of Films.

The Work behind making a film is extremely intensive, hard and boring. Even though you might think that he just simply got to film a couple scenes, he has to make the scenes doable, arrange every specific thing that the writer hasn't described, change the dialogues to fit a Film, etc. etc. etc.

Because if you watch films for the text, then you are a philistine.

Even the greatest scriptwriters are simply mediocre novelists and playwrights.

>>3463254
>Make the Ten Thousandth thread on /lit/ about film.
>Guaranteed 250 replies
>Guaranteed butthurt trolled Filmfags
>Guaranteed nothing is related to /lit/

But it's like, a meta discussion, mangg

Oh boy, here we go again!

>>3463709
>let me tell you how you should enjoy art

>>3463720
I'm not dictating how to enjoy art. Simply stating the fact that you are highly likely to be uncultured if you appreciate films for their texts primarily.

It would be like treating popular music lyrics as poetry. These parts of the art are secondary, and anyone who treats them as equal or primary in the art obviously have low standards.

>>3463725
>let me impose my objective standards on art

>>3463730
How could art be objective? I'm simply saying within our culture (of which art is a segment) to be good at what you do you need to practise. Beethoven and Joyce were more creative and dedicated than the trash their peers put out that was forgotten over history. And you're not going to be a Joyce if your texts are simply filler for movies. Even the best sountrack scorers and scriptwriters are only average composers and writers.

>>3463748
>art can't be objective but beethoven is superior to everyone
can you just stop posting or something?

Directors interpret the writing and...y'know...direct.

Im pretty sure the laughable shittiness that came about due to the writers strike a few years back taught all /tv/ fans their importance.
Now get out
>>>/tv/
This is a literature board, not an 'ask smart guys stuff' board. Logically you should be trying to improve the shit boards by posting this OP there instead of here.

>>3463794
>/lit/
>smart
oh you

>>3463794
>implying /lit/ isn't all Rand and Tao threads and brolosophy

>>3463709
Can you tell me what the big difference is in writing a screenplay and writing a play?

>>3463639
I agree with most of your points, but i still think writers, not just for flim, but TV are vastly under-appreciated. Mostly, i think, due to them being behind the scenes, at the very back. You say they do get recognition and it may be true, that they get recognition from industry insiders, but the fact remains that the general public assumes the most visible person is responsible for all the flim or show. Fuck, a shit ton of people thought/think that Matt Groening was the man behind all The Simpsons' brilliance, when there were in fact many many writers who were really the ones responsible. Id like to see a single person claim and defend that the Simpson writers didn't account for at least 60% of the show's genius (back when it still was)

>>3464223
I'm not the guy you are addressing, but think about it like this:

Shakespeare was a great writer, right?

Yet, many renditions of his plays are horrendous because of poor actors / production / direction

They perform bad plays, with a play written by a great writer.

For film, the director has a much larger responsibility because he has to not just direct the actors, but also the way the scenes are shot, the way the sets are to be done, the director is the person responsible for a modern Shakespeare's plays looking great on film.

You give a great script to a bad director, you get a shit movie. You give a bad script to a great director, you probably still get something decent.

As for TV shows, the director has the final say in the creative direction of the show, so while the writers wrote all the great joke for the Simpsons, someone had to decide what went in and what didn't, if he had made the wrong decisions, it could go from good to bad.

That's not to say that good writers aren't important, they are very much important. Much of HBOs success is down to them hiring good writers for their shows, writing good dialogue and writing stories that are well put together.

Film is such a different media than writing stories, and often you have teams of writers working on a single film or TV shows, which makes it harder to assign the greatness of the writing to any one person.

Directors get way too much credit especially when half of the reason most films do well these days is their soundtrack and sound design.