Scorsese, Lange’s Script: Knock Writer of ‘Cape Fear’

In at least three articles about the making of “Cape Fear,” director Martin Scorsese and actress Jessica Lange have taken swipes at writer We sley Strick’s screenplay.

In the Nov. 10 Calendar, Scorsese repeated what he had said earlier to Premiere magazine: that he hated the script the first three times he read it. The following week’s Calendar (Nov. 17) noted that Scorsese “insisted on 24 drafts from writer Wesley Strick,” and (now quoting Scorsese) “even then a lot of the scenes were improvised.” Lange goes further: “Nick (Nolte) and I really made up a lot of our scenes. The roles really weren’t there and I wouldn’t have even considered doing the film if it wasn’t for Marty, who wanted Nick and I to come up with our characters.”

We have the very highest professional regard for Scorsese and Lange, but as writers, we find their reported comments intensely distasteful.

Wesley Strick is a well-respected writer. Even if he weren’t, no director stays with a writer who does not deliver. Scorsese could easily have replaced Strick at any juncture. Putting the same writer through 24 drafts means that either he had faith in him, or Strick had Rasputin-like control over Martin Scorsese.

Improvisation is a director’s prerogative, routinely used as an exploratory tool to further enrich a scene. But the article in Calendar made it sound as though they had to resort to this method because the script was poor, when in fact Scorsese is famous for allowing actors to contribute to their characters. For instance, the most famous scene in “GoodFellas”--Joe Pesci’s “You think I’m funny?” riff--was, according to several interviews, Pesci’s contribution.

Actors’ improvisations in no way diminish what the writer contributes to a movie. No one can improvise structure or plot. Jessica Lange could not invent a character who was not on the page to begin with: a woman in a certain situation who had to do certain things for certain reasons.

Given that this director and this actress are offered virtually every script available in Hollywood, they should take responsibility for the material they choose to do. Why must they be so ungenerous as to exclude Wesley Strick, the sole credited writer, from the glory and praise that is coming to this film?

Why are they saying these things? Are they embarrassed by the final product? Their comments seem very much like a disclaimer. “If you like the film,” they seem to say, “give the credit to us. If you don’t, don’t blame us because it wasn’t our fault.”

As Katharine Hepburn once said: “If the script is no good, don’t do it.”

And if you do do it, don’t bash it.

The nature of the comments quoted earlier speaks poignantly about the lot of the writer in Hollywood. Would such remarks ever be uttered about anyone else who worked on a film? Would a director say, “The film was great, but this actress/director-of-photography/sound person kept screwing up so that we kept having to do 24 takes of every scene?”

Writers are so routinely discredited that the journalists who wrote these pieces were seemingly oblivious of the criticisms they were passing on. Did Scorsese and his actor say anything complimentary that was left out of the articles? Did the journalists call Strick and ask him if the actors had created their characters and made up their scenes? Why was the creator of the script excluded from articles that included the director and both stars?

Writers are accustomed to mistreatment from the press, from critics who blame us for lines improvised by actors or for bad plotting that results from structural changes insisted by directors.

But we expect more from fellow artists. They should understand that the process is collaborative and imperfect, and that everyone who works on a movie can end up feeling wronged. The writer may not recognize his script in the completed film. An actress may base her character on a key scene that gets cut. A director may have his film recut by the studio.

What is needed here, among collaborators, is generosity. So long as people work hard and give selflessly of their talent (yea, onto 24 drafts!), they should be accorded respect. If the movies are collaborative, and you cannot find the heart to praise each others’ work, at least abide in silence.