MOVIES OF THE ‘80s : WRITING : TARNISHED AGE

What happened to screenwriting in American movies?

This isn’t idle conjecture. The writing in major studio movies today--taken on the average--isn’t just bad. Or embarrassing. Or psychologically and dramatically vacuous. Or sleazily opportunistic and laughably unoriginal. (Though, sometimes, it’s all of those and more.) In many cases, the writing is nonexistent. It just isn’t there.

Did Sylvester Stallone really write a screenplay called “Cobra?” Or did he simply free-associate into a dictagraph one night while watching “Dirty Harry” on TV? (We know Sly wrote “Rocky IV” because he did it three times before.) How about the wild and crazy crew who cooked up “Spies Like Us?” And how about the scribes--or marketing advisers--who may already be concocting “Porky Goes to the Police Academy” and “Footdance II Meets Flashloose III?”

Do people really write these movies? Or are they burped out, like baby sea horses? How about almost everybody who’s written--or photocopied--a movie sequel lately? Or the people busily cranking out revenge sagas? How about all those spectacularly funny teen-age sex comedies they’ve been giving us? Or those hilarious, madcap movies about the daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys: the ones trying to be policemen, doctors, executives, plumbers, or college students--or even journalists?

Or those spine-tingling slasher movies and bloody monster spoofs? Or the spoofs with the cute, cuddly monsters--the ones you see at the toy section two weeks later? (Surely those wells can’t have run dry; not after only 500 trips.) How about another inspirational sports picture with someone struggling, suffering and beating hundred-to-one odds at the very last minute? True, we’ve milked a lot of sports already--but there must be a few left. (Badminton? Jai alai? Tiddlywinks?)

What about another brutal cop movie? Or another G.I. Joe epic with hundred-to-one odds? Or another car chase--or two or three? Or a comedy about losing your virginity? (There are four million stories in The Naked City. . . .) Or something with terrorists? Or gymnasts? Or rock and rollers? (Or all three?) Or, failing all else, a remake? Or a sequel to a remake? (Or a remake of a sequel?)

Isn’t it wonderful being a constant moviegoer in the Easy Eighties? You never know what those daffy, goofy, sex-crazed screenwriters are going to come up with next.

Chances are it’ll be geared toward fifteen-year-olds. And it’ll be about one of three subjects: sex, success or revenge. Those are the hot topics--either alone or in combinations. It’s as if the studios had decided that all America was obsessed with three fantasies. No 1: I want sex. No. 2: I want to be rich and famous. No. 3: I want to kill, destroy and annihilate all my enemies.

Doesn’t paint a pretty picture, does it?

And chances are the script will contain no more than two recognizable characters. (Or three caricatures struggling to be characters--or maybe even four complete vacuums fighting hard to be caricatures.) The plot will consist of escalating conflicts between people who display the emotional and psychological finesse of a rampaging elephant herd. The milieu of the story may be based on an article that ran several years ago in People Magazine or Esquire. And it’ll have a happy ending. (If there isn’t a happy ending, we’ll just keep chopping away until we get one.)

Most of the movies made from these scripts--allegedly to please audiences--are financial flops or disappointments. And most of them tend to work, if at all, as adjuncts to ad campaigns. After a while, you suspect that’s all they were to begin with. The much vaunted “high concept” was a marketing hook; the deal was assembled primarily to make a good 30-second TV spot. Sometimes, the TV ad, not the movie itself, seems the whole target of the creative process--which may be why more and more movies are shot and cut like commercials.

It’s possible that the average major studio movie script has never--in the history of talking pictures--been as consistently bad as it is right now: as poorly written, as banally conceived, as frequently unoriginal or inept. We are definitely not in a Golden Age. In the Era of the Bottom Line, we may actually have struck rock bottom.

The usual screenwriter’s reply to all this is that the system forces them to turn out tripe: that, even if they don’t, their scripts are trashed in production. They’re right: It’s a two-way street. If originality and quality aren’t prized--if the goal is a socko TV ad--is it any wonder the writers aren’t writing? (Often, when they try, they’re squelched.)

Are there any lights in this Black Hole? Yes. As a writer, Woody Allen is like the bright kid in class who drags the whole grade-curve up. And there are sometimes fine director-writers like Robert Benton, Francis Coppola, Albert Brooks, Paul Mazursky, Robert Towne, Oliver Stone, Elaine May, John Milius, John Cassavetes, Paul Schrader; or scenarists like John Guare, Lewis John Carlino, Horton Foote, Mardik Martin, David Mamet, Sam Shepard and others. There’s even some commercially canny ‘80’s writers with glimmers: like Lawrence Kasdan and Chris Columbus. And there are the writers of the American independent films (like John Sayles); they’ll probably have to key any eventual rebirth.

The Golden Age isn’t that far behind us. Billy Wilder--one of the best Hollywood scriptwriters ever--still lives here. Maybe he even wants to make a movie.

But, as it stands now, he’d have a better chance if he and I.A.L. Diamond came on as Hip Izzy and Laid-back Bill--waving a brand-new “daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys” comedy. (With a car chase, a cute monster, and a built-in sequel.)