Reader Question: For great films, should I watch them or read script first?

Question via Twitter from @JoshHoltCity

Scott, if I’m fortunate/unfortunate enough to have never seen a number of great films, should I read or watch first?

First off, you are both fortunate and unfortunate not to have seen a “number of great films.” Unfortunate because you do not have the collective experience — yet — of having seen all those great cinematic stories to have fed your mind, body and soul. Besides on a practical level, you absolutely need to watch as many movies as you can, especially great ones, because every conversation about story development in Hollywood references movies over and over and over again. A studio executive trying to make a point says, “Like that scene with the horse head in The Godfather,” instead of nodding your head limply because you haven’t seen the film, much better to be able to get the reference because you have screened it.

That said, you are fortunate because you have virgin eyes. My God, the thought of seeing some of my favorite movies for the very first time: The Apartment, To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr. Strangelove, Casablanca, Annie Hall, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Alien, Psycho, The Exorcist, Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources, Tampopo, Fanny and Alexander, Wings of Desire and on and on…

You have a great gift: You get to experience these classics and more for the first time. In that respect, I envy you.

Advice: Print out the IMDB Top 250 list and make it your goal to watch every single one of those movies. That may be the most important thing you do as a budding screenwriter and filmmaker. There is a Gestalt type of learning you can attain in no other way than immersing yourself in a bunch of movies.

Now to your actual question: Read the script or watch the movie first? I am curious what readers will say, but if we are talking great movies like Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Lawrence of Arabia, I’d say watch the movie first.

You want to take in that whole film experience knowing as little as possible about the story so you can be swept up in the narrative. On your first screening of a great film, you don’t want to be sitting there comparing the movie to a script and going deep into story analysis, rather you should allow yourself the chance to become immersed in that universe.

After you see the movie, then you can bust out the script and re-watch it, comparing script to screen. By the way, that’s a great exercise.

I will say there are a bunch of movies I’ve seen after reading the script, but I’m nearly three decades into this. It’s hard for me to watch movies without having one track of my mind in analysis mode. So knowing the story before I watch a movie isn’t such a big deal to me. With certain exceptions, of course, movies I just absolutely have to watch knowing as little as possible about the story in advance.

But you’re young! You still deserve the chance to experience the awe and wonder of seeing movies fresh.

So my bottom line advice is watch the movies first. Then read the scripts.

Readers, what do you say? I suspect most of you will agree with me, but maybe not. I’d be especially curious to hear from folks who work in Hollywood development circles whose job requires them to read scripts before the movies get produced. How do you deal with that? Do you find that hinders your experience of watching a movie? Or not?

See you in comments for your thoughts.

And Josh, enjoy the classics!

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