Missing most of the story

AS long as they keep releasing movies, I suppose they’ll keep publishing books about them. Here’s another one: David S. Cohen’s “Screen Plays” – whose subtitle promises to reveal “How 25 Scripts Made It to a Theater Near You – For Better or Worse.”

Cohen had me at “How” but lost me soon after.

I was hopeful that, through conversations with the writers of films as diverse as “Gladiator,” “Hero,” “American Beauty” and “Happiness,” he’d have had plenty to say about the wild ride these films took from script to screen. Unfortunately, what we get is a flat, very un-insider’s look at Hollywood. Which is a shame: Back-lot politics can be pretty fascinating, but Cohen’s grasp of the development process is woefully underdeveloped – especially considering the readers for whom this book is intended.

The problem is partly one of access: Most of Cohen’s interviews feel as if they were conducted at press junkets – hardly conducive to in-depth conversations.

Far less excusable, though: Cohen never gives us the whole story, and as such, never paints a true picture of film production.

He explains how Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” (2001) made it to the screen from the perspective of the credited screenwriter, Ken Nolan. After going on about the military politics of the time and discussing the same issues every war picture confronts (star vehicle or ensemble piece?) Cohen misses the real, heart-breaking, and ultimately uplifting story. You’d never know from this account but, deep into the process, Nolan was replaced on “Black Hawk Down” in high Hollywood style by Stephen Gaghan and Steven Zaillian – two Oscar-winning writers – only to be rehired when the chips were down.

This is actually a better story than the movie itself, but Cohen misses it entirely. He misses the excitement that accompanied these frantic production rewrites, ignoring the fact that, as principal photography neared, the writers’ deals on “Black Hawk Down” were made with the proverbial helicopter blades spinning more and more loudly.

Cohen’s account mentions only this: “Zaillian essentially did a page-one rewrite,” and “Gaghan in turn was fired after writing only thirty pages for Scott.” Cohen neglects to mention the betrayal Nolan felt when producer Jerry Bruckheimer threw him overboard – and began to throw obscene amounts of money at A-list writers.

The truth is that Gaghan (“Traffic,” “Syriana”) made $250,000 per week for several weeks. (His manager, David Kanter, in fact, told Bruckheimer’s people: “That’s how much it costs for Mozart to write your jingle.”) But even Gaghan was rocked by the process. He told me at the time that the producers were so adamant that he deliver good pages, quickly, that he felt guilty about even going to the bathroom.

Hollywood can be brutal, folks – even for the biggest writers in town. One day they messenger crab cakes from the Ivy; the next, you’re toast.

Cohen misses the boat similarly with “Erin Brockovich” and Susannah Grant (whom he interviewed). He mentions only in passing Grant’s splitting the Las Vegas Film Critics Society screenwriting award with Richard LaGravenese (whom he did not interview) and dismisses the widely held belief that LaGravenese is largely responsible for the shooting script.

Cohen falls short in other infuriating ways, like when he deals with two writing teams that never worked together again.

William Kelley and Earl Wallace, who won an Oscar for their “Witness” screenplay, and Milo Addica and Will Rokos, who wrote “Monster’s Ball.” Having been through this myself, I know that when a writing team breaks up there are always fantastic, horrible stories, personality conflicts, rampant egos, things they wish they’d never said, tearful attempts at reconciliation, agents and therapists intervening, you name it. But, again, Cohen misses the story. Here is Addica on Rokos: “[w]hen we broke up, it was awful … [i]t was very difficult. But I have nothing negative to say about the guy at all.”

The book is more successful when the author delves occasionally into the writing process – as he does with Charlie Kaufman who, like his work, is always interesting. Grant talks amusingly about balancing her writing with raising her children. And Cohen does land an interesting interview on the nature of subtext with Don Roos (“Bounce”). But just when things get interesting, the book invariably lapses into filler, often descending into a mere list of instances where a finished film departs from its screenplay.

Perhaps the book’s main fault lies in the editing: As a collection of essays Cohen wrote for Script magazine (he has also written for Variety), the book feels like parts in search of a whole. Chapters – each dedicated to individual films – do not build on, or relate to, any which precede or follow. Only perfunctory references to prior chapters make these essays into a book – and an episodic one at that.

A more insightful editor might have coaxed some through-line out of all this material and forced Cohen to develop a thesis. It’s a shame, really – many of these films are interesting, artistically and anecdotally, but we never find a unifying principle or context with which to really study them.

A more careful look at how these writers worked, and how their films got made might have offered much to the aspiring screenwriter, hungry for insight into his craft. But this latest entry into an already crowded arena offers little sustenance.

Paul Kolsby’s produced screenplays include “City Unplugged,” “Float,” and the currently filming “Spread.”