Is a script Literature?

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  • #61
    Re: Is a script Literature?

    I'll plead: -

    semper in dubiis benigniora praeferenda

    [In doubtful matters the more liberal construction should always be preferred]



    There's a fairly healthy trade now in screenplay literature that is at least 20 years old. Faber & Faber produce a fairly broad range of screenplays, comprising of classics, cult, indie and the latest popular releases; the range also seems to recognise that certain writers deserve special attention, Tony Gilroy, Charlie Kaufman, to name only two, are in there. Harold Pinter of course.

    It would be interesting to see if one day, alongside Shakespeare, the classics, poetry, a screenplay ever ends up on the curriculum. Not to be trendy, or as part of any dead authors argument, but because we are in a world which is dominated by the media. It's a form of expression. A small sample perhaps.
    Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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    • #62
      Re: Is a script Literature?

      will this thread run and run like the case of Jarndyce & Jarndyce in Charles Dickens' Bleak House ...




      -- no settlement in sight ?
      Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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      • #63
        Re: Is a script Literature?

        My answer's no, but don't ask me why.
        Sent from my iPhone. Because I'm better than you.

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        • #64
          Re: Is a script Literature?

          Originally posted by The Road Warrior View Post
          will this thread run and run like the case of Jarndyce & Jarndyce in Charles Dickens' Bleak House ...




          -- no settlement in sight ?
          There will be no end to this thread until screenplays finally receive their due respect and are considered literature on the same level as great novels, short stories, poems, and plays.

          The art and craft of screenwriting is advancing. Great spec scripts are becomming more reader friendly and literary, less technical jargon is included. Some day, great spec scripts will be published and sold like novels, even if they are never produced and distributed as films. We have a dream.
          Last edited by jonpiper; 04-07-2009, 08:24 AM.

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          • #65
            Re: Is a script Literature?

            Originally posted by jonpiper View Post
            There will be no end to this thread until screenplays finally receive their due respect and are considered literature on the same level as great novels, short stories, poems, and plays.

            The art and craft of screenwriting is advancing. Great spec scripts are becomming more reader friendly and literary, less technical jargon is included. Some day, great spec scripts will be published and sold like novels, even if they are never produced and distributed as films. We have a dream.



            Revolution -- is in the air.


            The Faber & Faber web link for those who are interested.

            http://www.faber.co.uk/


            Yes, I'd like to see this thread run ... there's plenty more to say, new lines of argument and subsets of arguments, subsets of subsets of arguments ... after that, stand alone subsets !

            Or at times, just a place to get a cup of tea, and hang out. After marching and waving banners all day.
            Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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            • #66
              Re: Is a script Literature?

              Originally posted by The Road Warrior View Post


              Yes, I'd like to see this thread run ... there's plenty more to say, new lines of argument and subsets of arguments, subsets of subsets of arguments ... after that, stand alone subsets !

              Or at times, just a place to get a cup of tea, and hang out. After marching and waving banners all day.
              And I just thought of a subset that may bolster the opposing pov that does not view screenplays as literature. Horrors.

              How do editor inputs and producer notes fit into the argument?

              Novelists work on their creations with relatively little input from their editors and publishers, so the final product is largely their own.

              Screenplays are a more collaborative effort. The final screenplay is frequently the result of many notes and inputs from readers, producers, writers and various others -- even if the screenplay is never produced. The final screenplay now stands on its own as a written work, since it was not made into a movie, but as a work of literature it is technically not created by a single author on his or her own.
              Last edited by jonpiper; 04-07-2009, 09:39 AM. Reason: To add last sentence

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              • #67
                Re: Is a script Literature?

                Hmmm .... but neither are some novels, if we consider Hemingway's famous editor.

                And .. many Elizabethan plays were co - written in 4 - 6 weeks, Acts being parcelled out, and they now stand as works of literature.
                Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                • #68
                  Re: Is a script Literature?

                  Assuming I'm reading your post write, jonpiper, what you posted is why I suspect some won't accept screenplays as literature.

                  And the reason I think this is ill-informed is because they are looking at what happens after the script has been written, completed. They are looking at the business aspects. Defining the word "literature" has nothing to do with business.

                  A stack of poems written or typed on a poet's desk is literature unto itself. It doesn't have to be published to be considered literature. The words are there to be read - it's literature.

                  A screenplay on a screenwriter's desk is complete. Whether a studio gets its hands on it to make a film, the writer shoots it himself, or it just sits on his desk is another matter. But the script is right there, in plain view with words to be read and comprehend by those who understand the language of the screenplay.

                  Why and how the written words of the screenplay appear is a non-issue. If you think it matters, then look beyond fictional literature and take a look at non-fictional.
                  Stupid tv. Be more funny - Homer J. Simpson

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                  • #69
                    Re: Is a script Literature?

                    -- there's another example, Shakespeare's Sonnets, were not published initially, they circulated privately, until the publisher Jaggard acquired them on the side; publishing them without authority, with some other work all under W. Sh's name.

                    That strikes me as being similar to circulating scripts to friends, to enjoy, comment upon.

                    Even if, let us say, two co - authors, sit with a producer, or three producers, then that afternoon, the maid, picks up the script and leaves a note on scene three, and that evening, the one writer's aunt, pops over, and adds a comment concerning line one, after all those views, the writer still rewrites.

                    Okay, in the case of the producers, they may say we want to see the protag do ... but the writer(s) still write/execute it.

                    If this is a problem, you perhaps should consider influential works as part of that "input", those works are a voice -- a poem that excites an idea, that's transmitted, into the script, and then there's the extreme. The next day the writers return to the producers office, and he is still not happy, so he grabs the script, and scribbles five lines, and two more further down on the same page.

                    Here, he becomes an unofficial third co - writer, but of those lines only. And the rest, 98% + is still our former writer's work. And if they wish, they can include too many commas, just as this entry does so far.

                    ...

                    Unless you are of the French school, Roland Barthes et al, The Death of the Author, in which case novels and screenplays are written by ... many agencies ... in that case, diachronic and nasty lil words like that will start to crop up ... let's not go there ...

                    Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                    • #70
                      Re: Is a script Literature?

                      Originally posted by The Road Warrior View Post
                      Hmmm .... but neither are some novels, if we consider Hemingway's famous editor.

                      And .. many Elizabethan plays were co - written in 4 - 6 weeks, Acts being parcelled out, and they now stand as works of literature.
                      Good points, Road Warrior. I wonder how Jake feels about editor input in this respect.
                      Originally posted by Leech View Post
                      Assuming I'm reading your post write, jonpiper, what you posted is why I suspect some won't accept screenplays as literature.

                      And the reason I think this is ill-informed is because they are looking at what happens after the script has been written, completed.

                      I'm referring to what happens during the time the script is being written for final submisssion. I understand, though I've yet to submit a script, that copious notes are given prior to submission and are included in the submitted final draft. What happens after that is the business end as you've noted. Some of that input is for commercial and business reasons that the artist cringes at, some for artistic reasons that the novelist appreciates.


                      A screenplay on a screenwriter's desk is complete. Whether a studio gets its hands on it to make a film, the writer shoots it himself, or it just sits on his desk is another matter.

                      As I've noted, what sits on a screenwriter's desk before the suits get hold of it may be more the result of collaboration than what a novelist submits. But as Road Warrior noted, many novels, Hemingway's included, contained much editor input.

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                      • #71
                        Re: Is a script Literature?

                        Can the language in a screenplay be poetic? Can anyone find a narrative passage in any screenplay that compares with, say... the final paragraph of Joyce's "The Dead"? Or maybe the ending of A Tale of Two Cities? Or to be more contemporary, something as poetic and lovely as many of the passages in "Ghostwritten"?

                        I doubt it, but if you can, please show me.

                        This is the same argument people have talking about for years, that screenplays will one day "get their due" and be considered literature. I don't see that happening, and I've read some excruciatingly moving screenplays like Requiem For A Dream, which is the only screenplay that ever made me cry. Screenplays just don't use beautiful language, but that's fine, because that's not their job. Their job is to move you, and make you want to see the story come alive on the screen.

                        .

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                        • #72
                          Re: Is a script Literature?

                          -- the novel used to be edited, in the good ole days, now I believe, you usually have to pay someone to do it as a speculative novel writer. Publishing has little time or resource.

                          But remember, even when the film is made. It ignores the final script in a number of ways, scenes omitted, in the script I have for THE GRADUATE, (Buck Henry) it does not begin as the film does, I notice this a lot with film/script comparisons, the changed opening.

                          This for me kind of says that the film and the script never totally get together, they stand alone, separate and healthily independent.

                          Singles.


                          Where does this get us, anywhere ?
                          Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                          • #73
                            Re: Is a script Literature?

                            Originally posted by Erehwon View Post
                            Can the language in a screenplay be poetic? Can anyone find a narrative passage in any screenplay that compares with, say... the final paragraph of Joyce's "The Dead"? Or maybe the ending of A Tale of Two Cities? Or to be more contemporary, something as poetic and lovely as many of the passages in "Ghostwritten"?

                            I doubt it, but if you can, please show me.

                            This is the same argument people have talking about for years, that screenplays will one day "get their due" and be considered literature. I don't see that happening, and I've read some excruciatingly moving screenplays like Requiem For A Dream, which is the only screenplay that ever made me cry. Screenplays just don't use beautiful language, but that's fine, because that's not their job. Their job is to move you, and make you want to see the story come alive on the screen.

                            .

                            This, for me, is the argument that I thought would have been raised earlier.


                            The broadside that will sink the screenplay as literature battleship.


                            Perhaps !


                            It's about literary range and function, which determines value.

                            But you could say, that the poem, novel, or what have you, is just different ...

                            Or if I write a screenplay, and my character A is a writer, if I have him read out part of his new poem to his sweetheart, and part of his new novel runs as a clever V.O. which is written as ... let's say ... a parody, of what's happening in the scene as well as performing other functions, it follows that in the screenplay/film, that all of that poetry and that part - novel is mine, my work -- literature ??

                            But the only example ?? Therefore it does not count ?

                            This then becomes about what the screenplay can't do ?

                            Yes.
                            Last edited by The Road Warrior; 04-07-2009, 11:30 AM.
                            Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                            • #74
                              Re: Is a script Literature?

                              Originally posted by Erehwon View Post
                              Can the language in a screenplay be poetic? .
                              Yes!

                              Read Wall-E

                              It's reads just like a poem and is an awesome story.

                              Of course, that doesn't make it literature...or does it?
                              The best way out is always through. - Robert Frost

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                              • #75
                                Re: Is a script Literature?

                                I tried to find the Dark Star "sexy computer" clip, to relax to.

                                But instead --

                                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk


                                Zen -- this is for you.


                                Phenomenology.


                                More intermissions as we go. If we're still going.
                                Last edited by The Road Warrior; 04-07-2009, 12:21 PM.
                                Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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