The Invisible, Maligned Screenwriter

As a member of the Writers Guild of America, I am angered by the “Fall/Christmas Movie Preview” in Calendar (Aug. 25).

In capsule summaries of 114 upcoming movies, all 114 directors were cited, but only six screenwriters were mentioned.

Clearly, you must think story is important: You include a synopsis of all the upcoming movies. But what you seem to overlook is that writers write stories. Directors do not--to paraphrase the great Brackett/Wilder/Marshman Jr. line--”make it up as they go along.”

I am also bothered that in one of only six references to screenwriters, “The Last Boy Scout” was described as being “from an expensive script by Shane Black and directed by Tony Scott.” I am not sure why Black deserves this potshot, and Scott or even Bruce Willis (the star) do not. Certainly the price of Black’s work must pale in comparison to other salaries on the picture.

But this seems to be representative of The Times’ attitude toward screenwriting. If it isn’t ignored in reviews or news articles, it’s denigrated.

I made an informal survey for the Writers Guild Journal of movie reviews in the Los Angeles Times over a six-month period (October, 1989, to March, 1990). The survey was to see how frequently screenwriters were cited in reviews as opposed to directors, and how often screenwriters were blamed or praised as opposed to directors.

The numbers are lopsided.

* Directors were cited 2.5 times for every one time a screenwriter was cited.

* Screenwriters were blamed for the movie’s flaws 61% of the time, while directors were blamed 20% of the time.

* And screenwriters were praised 33% of the time while directors were praised 45% of the time.

Clearly the tendency of reviewers is to blame a bad movie on the script, and to credit a good movie to the director’s skill.

The survey also showed that in movie reviews, playwrights and novelists were twice as likely to be mentioned as screenwriters. In Calendar’s “Movie Preview” supplement, for example, three of the six screenwriters cited are also playwrights or novelists. Apparently the Los Angeles Times thinks screenwriting alone isn’t worthy of mention.

All screenwriters ask of The Times and its staff is fairness:

Fairness that accords to screenwriters the same respect it accords to directors.

Fairness that recognizes that if a script can hurt a movie, it can also help it.

And fairness that mentions not only the movies’ stories in a “Preview” supplement but also the screenwriters who write them.