Reader Question: Are there no “great scripts,” only “great films”?
Mark, for purposes of context, I visited Mr. McDowell’s IMDb page. And just as I suspected: Whereas he has 245 acting credits, he has only 1 for writing and that for something called Rag Tale (3.8 rating), script by Mary McGuckian with McDowell receiving a “devised in collaboration with” credit along with 10 other actors.
That would suggest, a writer Mr. McDowell ain’t!
In trying to empathize with and understand the point of his comment, I came up with two takes. First, he is simply engaging in hyperbole. A comment on the fly to emphasize the role of a movie’s production over the writing process.
Which leads to my second take: His comment does speak to the reality that a script, while capable of telling a story, is intended to be a movie. It is a movie-in-waiting. Thus a script in and of itself represents a potential movie. And per that logic, how could a potential movie qualify as being ‘great’? It’s only when the script is transformed into an actual movie it can then be assessed as to its artistic and commercial merits.
I suppose there is some truth to that, especially if the frame of reference is that of an actor. However for those of us whose craft is writing… well, Mark, your tweets are a fair representation of what I suspect would be the reaction of most writers.
In response to Mr. McDowell’s observation, let me put forth another take on the subject:
“To make a great film, you need three things — the script, the script and the script.”
Who said that? None other than Alfred Hitchcock. This inverts Mr. McDowell’s statement: That it is impossible to have a great film without a script of comparable quality, i.e., “great”.
I think I’ll go along with Mr. Hitchcock over Mr. McDowell in this particular discussion.
Now if I were a cynic, I might be inclined to perceive Mr. McDowell’s comment as yet another in an endless stream of negativity heaped on writers or worse, a persistent pattern of ignoring the contributions of writers in the movie-making process.
Why, just yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter breathlessly analyzed the greenlighting of a project called “Passengers”. The article goes into great detail about co-stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt’s financial deals, the political moves by current and past presidents of production, the long stop-start history of the project… and nowhere mentions the writer of the script without which none of the content in the article would be in existence.
By the way, the writer is Jon Spaihts and “Passengers” is a 2007 Black List script, widely seen among the screenwriting community as a great script:
But I’m not a cynic, more of a realist. And the reality is if a person is not a writer… or hasn’t worked closely with writers… or hasn’t been involved intimately with the script development process… the chances are they just don’t understand what writers do. If they did, they wouldn’t casually toss off a comment like, “There are no great scripts… just great films.”
This underscores the value of entities like the Black List, the annual version of which provides a snapshot of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood. Those 10 lists, which you can access here, contain plenty of great scripts…
…’potential’ movie or not.
What do you think of Malcolm McDowell’s comments? A mere ripple across the surface of the screenplay universe or a thunderous wave worthy of severe umbrage? Let me hear your thoughts in comments.
Comment Archive