Chris Collins <raisinja...@earthlink.net> wrote in message <news:BCF04EA6.8241%raisinjack9@earthlink.net>... > In article 7b98c3ee.0406101718.7e268...@posting.google.com, choral reef at > symphonic...@hotmail.com stated:
> > some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some > > reject it passionately. > > yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary > > artistic force behind movies.
> The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or > rather the media that has replaced it.
> What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed, > impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it. > Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with > 'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and > shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out > what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
actually, it's the opposite. when cahier crew came up with the theory, there were plenty of film artists around, like bergman, mizoguchi, renoir, satyajit ray, etc. the cahier crew made the then-outrageous argument that many of those conveyer belt movies that came out of hollywood were indeed works of auteurs.
> The dream of Truffaut especially was to create a cinema as intensely > personal, as pure, as the novel. As a form, at its best, the novel gives you > a sense of the internal life of the writer to the point of becoming a > controlled psychic exorcism with all of his experiences, fears, and desires > gushing out, usually between the words. It can feel like the writer is > sitting in a room and directly addressing you, offering universal truths > without being didactic, and we revere writers who can reach that level. Why > can't a movie be the same? Must film be an irreparably schizo medium? > What's between the words in Hitchcock?
i don't think so. that would have closer to what resnais was aiming it. or bergman. truffaut wanted film as an artistic outlet; he was enamoured with the filmMAKING. he wanted to be liberated thru film, for his personality to merge with the rest of the world. he grew up a lonely kid hungry for attention and film was his means to connect. he didn't so much want to draw people into his world as draw himself out into the larger world. 'love on the run' is where personal has become totally public: not just truffaut but his movies about himself and his thoughts about his movies about himself.
> At least that's the impression that I get from 'The 400 Blows.' I think > Truffaut may have said as much somewhere.
this is his first, cautious, thoughtful movie. as it was largely about his childhood, it tended to be more personal than his later films where he was more interested in the outward telling than in self-exploration. jules and jim is, foremost, personal FILMMAKING and only secondarily a personal film.
> And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
with truffaut it was less theory than a hammer. it was godard and rivette who were the real theoreticians. truffaut was essentially a romantic and sentimentalist and he abandoned his theories in practice as his career progressed. later, he just wanted to make normal, even conventional, films. it was godard who got involved in the meaning of cinema and dismantled it into i dunno what during his vertov yrs. and rivette is a big mystery to me except secret defense and va savoir. among the new wavers, truffaut eventually became the least auteurish. he later insisted more on story and characterization than visual style or personal expression unlike rohmer who stuck to his moral tale format, godard with his intellectual antics, and rivette with his incorrigible formalistic austerity.
> The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind > (you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you). > Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather > than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech, > for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech. > People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking > to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
i disagree. it depends on the movie. i'm sure LOR fans experience it collectively. but, i don't think anyone gives a damn who thinks what in the next seat when watching stuff like faithless or mulholland drive. and i never felt as alone as when i saw AI. also, cinema offers a world so fully realized that you become totally pulled into its reality. it becomes only you and the movie. in a stage play, you're always aware of the fellow audiences and the actors. watching tv, you are aware of the refrigerator in the other room. when reading a book, you stop and go, maybe talk on the phone, then return to the book, take a bite out of apple, scratch your crotch and look for lice, go to the washroom, look out the window, talk to family or friends. it's actually more collective than filmviewing unless you're totally concentrated on the reading and few people are. most read on buses or at the beach with scantily clad women around and how much can you concentrate on words when there's a nice ass going by? but when you watch a movie, it's you and the movie. the movie takes you far far away and you feel like you're in lala land. you forget the world outside, you forget other people in the theatre. in fact, when it's over, you feel kinda embarassed that it's just a movie and other people experienced the same and are getting up and walking out and going to the washroom and going wee and wee while another guy goes into a toilet stall and starts flushing to drown out his fart. it's when the movie ends and you walk to the car among other people that you realize you're back in collective reality. movie takes you away from the collective.
> The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's > speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other > people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably > the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century > totalitarianism invested in it.
not really true. yes, film is powerful but its use by totalitarian powers has been overestimated and its impact overrated. russian people didn't like eisenstein and few people saw his films. a film lecturer once told my class that the most popular filmmaker during early soviet era was charlie chaplin. so despite lenin's yakking about potential of cinema, it had little to do with bolshevik seizure or maintenance of power. same with hitler. triumph of the will came after hitler gained power and he didn't rely on film to gain or hold power. mao and his peasant army took china without cinema and cinema under mao was mostly dull propaganda and had little to do with communist hold on power. ho chi minh and vietcong's resolve to spread communism in vietnam had little to do with film. and taliban and khmer rouge banned film and tv altogether. in fact, film, despite or because of its power, is dangerous to totalitarians because of its liberating power, like music. totalitarians have been more eager to control film than use it.
in fact, the most devastating and farreaching use of film have been in capitalist countries where it's all about personal freedom, individualism, consumerism, feeding fantasies. totalitarians feared cinema just as they feared rock music. i suppose a totalitarian can order the creation of pro-commie or pro-fascist rock band but what'd be the point, just as it's ridiculous when rockers espouse radical dogmatism--the clash's maoism.
> (Television has the same hypnotic power, but stripped of cinema's positive > attributes [mythological resonance, connectedness]. It has the same powers > of persuasion, but numbs and isolates people beyond the possibility of > trying to do anything about it.)
taliban didn't allow tv but i don't think afghanis were doing anything about anything. under mao's china, less than 1% of the people owned tv. yet, i don't think the average chinese was all that thoughtful or conscientious about politics. people want entertainment. they'll get it thru tv, gossiping on the phone, playing cards, watching sports, going bowling.
Chris Collins <raisinja...@earthlink.net> wrote in message <news:BCF04EA6.8241%raisinjack9@earthlink.net>... > In article 7b98c3ee.0406101718.7e268...@posting.google.com, choral reef at > symphonic...@hotmail.com stated:
> > some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some > > reject it passionately. > > yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary > > artistic force behind movies.
> The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or > rather the media that has replaced it.
> What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed, > impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it. > Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with > 'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and > shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out > what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
actually, it's the opposite. when cahier crew came up with the theory, there were plenty of film artists around, like bergman, mizoguchi, renoir, satyajit ray, etc. the cahier crew made the then-outrageous argument that many of those conveyer belt movies that came out of hollywood were indeed works of auteurs.
> The dream of Truffaut especially was to create a cinema as intensely > personal, as pure, as the novel. As a form, at its best, the novel gives you > a sense of the internal life of the writer to the point of becoming a > controlled psychic exorcism with all of his experiences, fears, and desires > gushing out, usually between the words. It can feel like the writer is > sitting in a room and directly addressing you, offering universal truths > without being didactic, and we revere writers who can reach that level. Why > can't a movie be the same? Must film be an irreparably schizo medium? > What's between the words in Hitchcock?
i don't think so. that would have closer to what resnais was aiming it. or bergman. truffaut wanted film as an artistic outlet; he was enamoured with the filmMAKING. he wanted to be liberated thru film, for his personality to merge with the rest of the world. he grew up a lonely kid hungry for attention and film was his means to connect. he didn't so much want to draw people into his world as draw himself out into the larger world. 'love on the run' is where personal has become totally public: not just truffaut but his movies about himself and his thoughts about his movies about himself.
> At least that's the impression that I get from 'The 400 Blows.' I think > Truffaut may have said as much somewhere.
this is his first, cautious, thoughtful movie. as it was largely about his childhood, it tended to be more personal than his later films where he was more interested in the outward telling than in self-exploration. jules and jim is, foremost, personal FILMMAKING and only secondarily a personal film.
> And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
with truffaut it was less theory than a hammer. it was godard and rivette who were the real theoreticians. truffaut was essentially a romantic and sentimentalist and he abandoned his theories in practice as his career progressed. later, he just wanted to make normal, even conventional, films. it was godard who got involved in the meaning of cinema and dismantled it into i dunno what during his vertov yrs. and rivette is a big mystery to me except secret defense and va savoir. among the new wavers, truffaut eventually became the least auteurish. he later insisted more on story and characterization than visual style or personal expression unlike rohmer who stuck to his moral tale format, godard with his intellectual antics, and rivette with his incorrigible formalistic austerity.
> The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind > (you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you). > Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather > than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech, > for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech. > People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking > to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
i disagree. it depends on the movie. i'm sure LOR fans experience it collectively. but, i don't think anyone gives a damn who thinks what in the next seat when watching stuff like faithless or mulholland drive. and i never felt as alone as when i saw AI. also, cinema offers a world so fully realized that you become totally pulled into its reality. it becomes only you and the movie. in a stage play, you're always aware of the fellow audiences and the actors. watching tv, you are aware of the refrigerator in the other room. when reading a book, you stop and go, maybe talk on the phone, then return to the book, take a bite out of apple, scratch your crotch and look for lice, go to the washroom, look out the window, talk to family or friends. it's actually more collective than filmviewing unless you're totally concentrated on the reading and few people are. most read on buses or at the beach with scantily clad women around and how much can you concentrate on words when there's a nice ass going by? but when you watch a movie, it's you and the movie. the movie takes you far far away and you feel like you're in lala land. you forget the world outside, you forget other people in the theatre. in fact, when it's over, you feel kinda embarassed that it's just a movie and other people experienced the same and are getting up and walking out and going to the washroom and going wee and wee while another guy goes into a toilet stall and starts flushing to drown out his fart. it's when the movie ends and you walk to the car among other people that you realize you're back in collective reality. movie takes you away from the collective.
> The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's > speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other > people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably > the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century > totalitarianism invested in it.
not really true. yes, film is powerful but its use by totalitarian powers has been overestimated and its impact overrated. russian people didn't like eisenstein and few people saw his films. a film lecturer once told my class that the most popular filmmaker during early soviet era was charlie chaplin. so despite lenin's yakking about potential of cinema, it had little to do with bolshevik seizure or maintenance of power. same with hitler. triumph of the will came after hitler gained power and he didn't rely on film to gain or hold power. mao and his peasant army took china without cinema and cinema under mao was mostly dull propaganda and had little to do with communist hold on power. ho chi minh and vietcong's resolve to spread communism in vietnam had little to do with film. and taliban and khmer rouge banned film and tv altogether. in fact, film, despite or because of its power, is dangerous to totalitarians because of its liberating power, like music. totalitarians have been more eager to control film than use it.
in fact, the most devastating and farreaching use of film have been in capitalist countries where it's all about personal freedom, individualism, consumerism, feeding fantasies. totalitarians feared cinema just as they feared rock music. i suppose a totalitarian can order the creation of pro-commie or pro-fascist rock band but what'd be the point, just as it's ridiculous when rockers espouse radical dogmatism--the clash's maoism.
> (Television has the same hypnotic power, but stripped of cinema's positive > attributes [mythological resonance, connectedness]. It has the same powers > of persuasion, but numbs and isolates people beyond the possibility of > trying to do anything about it.)
taliban didn't allow tv but i don't think afghanis were doing anything about anything. under mao's china, less than 1% of the people owned tv. yet, i don't think the average chinese was all that thoughtful or conscientious about politics. people want entertainment. they'll get it thru tv, gossiping on the phone, playing cards, watching sports, going bowling.
> Chris Collins <raisinja...@earthlink.net> wrote in message > <news:BCF04EA6.8241%raisinjack9@earthlink.net>... >> In article 7b98c3ee.0406101718.7e268...@posting.google.com, choral reef at >> symphonic...@hotmail.com stated:
>>> some people are more partial to 'auteur theory' than others. some >>> reject it passionately. >>> yet, all of us still talk of the director as being the primary >>> artistic force behind movies.
>> The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination. Or >> rather the media that has replaced it.
>> What the auteur theory came out of was the sense that film was a processed, >> impersonal medium with a contrived, stagey air of unreality about it. >> Imagine the studio system as a conveyor belt, each movie emerging with >> 'product' stamped on it. What it had in glamour and accessibility and >> shorthand realism, it lacked in psychological purity. So, they sniffed out >> what struck them as psychologically pure and canonized it.
> actually, it's the opposite. when cahier crew came up with the theory, > there were plenty of film artists around, like bergman, mizoguchi, > renoir, satyajit ray, etc.
Was Bergman well established at the genesis of the idea?
> the cahier crew made the then-outrageous argument that many of those > conveyer belt movies that came out of hollywood were indeed works of > auteurs.
Then maybe the Theory was an attempt to confer status on the movies they spooged themselves over so they could feel less guilty about doing so?
>> The dream of Truffaut especially was to create a cinema as intensely >> personal, as pure, as the novel. As a form, at its best, the novel gives you >> a sense of the internal life of the writer to the point of becoming a >> controlled psychic exorcism with all of his experiences, fears, and desires >> gushing out, usually between the words. It can feel like the writer is >> sitting in a room and directly addressing you, offering universal truths >> without being didactic, and we revere writers who can reach that level. Why >> can't a movie be the same? Must film be an irreparably schizo medium? >> What's between the words in Hitchcock?
> i don't think so. that would have closer to what resnais was aiming > it. or bergman. truffaut wanted film as an artistic outlet; he was > enamoured with the filmMAKING. he wanted to be liberated thru film, > for his personality to merge with the rest of the world. he grew up a > lonely kid hungry for attention and film was his means to connect. he > didn't so much want to draw people into his world as draw himself out > into the larger world. 'love on the run' is where personal has become > totally public: not just truffaut but his movies about himself and his > thoughts about his movies about himself.
>> At least that's the impression that I get from 'The 400 Blows.' I think >> Truffaut may have said as much somewhere.
> this is his first, cautious, thoughtful movie. as it was largely > about his childhood, it tended to be more personal than his later > films where he was more interested in the outward telling than in > self-exploration. > jules and jim is, foremost, personal FILMMAKING and only secondarily a > personal film.
I've only seen that by Truffaut, so I can't rightly speak of the others. But wasn't the whole Doinel series essentially autobiographical?
>> And you know how those Frenchies love their 'theories.'
> with truffaut it was less theory than a hammer. it was godard and > rivette who were the real theoreticians. truffaut was essentially a > romantic and sentimentalist and he abandoned his theories in practice > as his career progressed. later, he just wanted to make normal, even > conventional, films. it was godard who got involved in the meaning of > cinema and dismantled it into i dunno what during his vertov yrs. and > rivette is a big mystery to me except secret defense and va savoir. > among the new wavers, truffaut eventually became the least auteurish. > he later insisted more on story and characterization than visual style > or personal expression unlike rohmer who stuck to his moral tale > format, godard with his intellectual antics, and rivette with his > incorrigible formalistic austerity.
>> The problem is that film is made with a dark room full of people in mind >> (you all). Novels are conceived in terms of the reader, an individual (you). >> Film is experienced collectively, the novel personally. It's public rather >> than private speech, with about a dozen authors at that! And public speech, >> for better and worse, can never be as nakedly honest as private speech. >> People are always more guarded and self-conscious -- rhetorical -- speaking >> to a crowd, and a crowd has a psychology and set of responses all its own.
> i disagree. it depends on the movie. i'm sure LOR fans experience it > collectively. but, i don't think anyone gives a damn who thinks what > in the next seat when watching stuff like faithless or mulholland > drive. and i never felt as alone as when i saw AI.
On a subconscious level, I think most people perceive and are affected by how other people are experiencing a film. Laughter or a gasp of surprise is a reminder that others are responding to the same thing and you match this against your own responses. People are more likely to "like" something if those around them are. Don't underestimate the herd instinct.
And directors are aware of this. They get a kick out of how an audience responds to a film, and they tailor their movies with this in mind. You can't not do it -- it has to make sense to an audience, and group response is always a factor in playing to an audience.
There's a lot of psychological gamesmanship involved in it and it's not just a little bit cynical. (If I were a grad student I might write a paper on how movies are "fascist" in this regard)
Think of how writers and directors conceive of reaching the audience -- I don't think it's in terms of "him" or "her" (as with a novel), but rather "them." Then think about how this affects the project in the conception stage. It's tailored to group psychology which I think is more the factor in filmwatching.
> also, cinema offers a world so fully realized that you become totally > pulled into its reality. it becomes only you and the movie. in a > stage play, you're always aware of the fellow audiences and the > actors. watching tv, you are aware of the refrigerator in the other > room. when reading a book, you stop and go, maybe talk on the phone, > then return to the book, take a bite out of apple, scratch your crotch > and look for lice, go to the washroom, look out the window, talk to > family or friends. it's actually more collective than filmviewing > unless you're totally concentrated on the reading and few people are. > most read on buses or at the beach with scantily clad women around and > how much can you concentrate on words when there's a nice ass going > by?
The factors you site that pull you out of a book have to do with external elements. That doesn't affect the structural integrity of the work itself or make it less believable. The book is still there. In the case of your attention wandering, that's a failure of either the writer or your attention span.
You're right that in the cinema you're more quickly engaged and there are less external distractions. But those distractions that ruin a film are part and parcel of it -- bad lighting, hammy acting, poor editing, etc. In a novel, all the failings that make the work itself less believable can be laid squarely at the foot of the writer. That's simplicity of form. Film is a complex medium that has so many factors coming in to play that a clarity of vision on a literary level is damn near impossible. The more parts a machine has, the more likely to break down. What I sense the auteurists were trying to do is impose a semblance of order, deliberation, and analyze-ability (for lack of a better word) on what is by its very nature organized chaos.
> but when you watch a movie, it's you and the movie. the movie takes > you far far away and you feel like you're in lala land. you forget the > world outside, you forget other people in the theatre. in fact, when > it's over, you feel kinda embarassed that it's just a movie and other > people experienced the same and are getting up and walking out and > going to the washroom and going wee and wee while another guy goes > into a toilet stall and starts flushing to drown out his fart. it's > when the movie ends and you walk to the car among other people that > you realize you're back in collective reality. movie takes you away > from the collective.
You may be right. Maybe it's an idiosyncracy of mine, but I haven't experienced that level of rapturous involvement at a film showing in a long time. I assume it's not at every movie that you're completely subsumed in viewing - certainly you have critical faculties. I wonder what percentage of any given audience at a particular film achieves that and what share remains conscious of the artifice.
But I think the psychic significance of sharing an experience with a group of people remains a factor in level of involvement. I'd posit that people will become less involved in a movie in which they're sitting in the dark watching by themselves than with an audience. I sense a connection to the other people walking out of a theater - we've been subject to the same experience, or at least simulation of it.
>> The power of film is its mass hypnotic effect, somewhat like Hitler's >> speeches. It makes us feel part of something larger, and closer to the other >> people viewing. You're an emotional hostage. Because of that it's probably >> the most politically powerful medium: think of how much 20th century >> totalitarianism invested in it.
Chris Collins <raisinja...@earthlink.net> wrote: >Then maybe the Theory was an attempt to confer status on the movies they >spooged themselves over so they could feel less guilty about doing so?
According to some, that's the gist of it. . . .
>But I think the psychic significance of sharing an experience with a group >of people remains a factor in level of involvement.
Like riding an extreme roller-coaster at an amusement park.
In article <e18a7727.0406112059.523c1...@posting.google.com>, missguy...@hotmail.com (miss guydid) wrote:
> however, even with hollywood movies, there are directors with a > personal vision and/or concept. cameron, jackson, wachowski brothers, > etc, like them or not, are not mere hired hacks.
Didn't the Wachowski get ideas for what could be possible in the Matrix movies from the FX people? The rotating slow mo or whatever it's called. The only other thing that that effect was used for when the first Matrix came out was a Gap commercial with all these dancers in khakis.
David Cronenberg said in an interview, or it may have been a DVD commentary, that he was offered those same effects for eXistenZ but he didn't think it made sense for his movie.
So you wonder if the signature visual effect of at least the first Matrix movie came from some less famous special FX people.
In article <f33e00ab.0406120658.2bd3a...@posting.google.com>, estas...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote:
> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
I didn't read Puzo but wasn't it considered a pulp novel which didn't have the grandeur that was in the films?
> >The Cahiers crew succeeded in imprinting it on the popular imagination.
> I think the privileging of directors predates Cahiers. When I watch a > movie from the 1940s, the director's name is typically the final > credit, which has pertinent implications in any discussion of the > public's view of a director's importance.
but it's director more as a star than as an artist or author.
> dober...@DROPsocal.rr.com wrote > > estas...@att.net wrote
> > Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most > > important element in a movie.
> But others would say that the blueprint for an aircraft design won't > get you to Paris.
And they would be right but art is a more strait forward process IMO. With a movie, play, song, ect there _has_ to be that one person right at the beginning with at least the seed of an idea that everything which follows grows from.
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation for example, doesn't get the credit for "Purple Haze" because they made the electric guitar Jimi Hendrix used, he does because without him the song wouldn't exist.
In the film industry on the other hand, it seems to me that writers get the short end of the stick every time. How much credit did Philip K. Dick receive for "Minority Report"?
G'day You're logic here is slightly flawed because you're starting out with the premise that the story is the most significant part of [some movie], and using that as the basis for demonstrating how the writer (of that story) is the most important factor in said movie.
Compare the recent Peter Jackson LotR with the 1978 Ralph Bakshi one.
Same source material (albeit, in a movie sense of the term, different writers), but profoundly different Results. The *least* important element here in how the respective movies can be compared is Tolkien's input.
Yes, a movie requires a story (and yes, there are exceptions to this, but for all intents and purposes a movie needs a story). No story: no movie. Similarly, a movie needs a director. No director: no movie.
Let's ignore movies based on existing material, for a second: it's hard to see the distinction when we're using that as a basis for comparison.
Peter Jackson previously made the film The Frighteners. I automatically went to see it because it was a Peter Jackson film; not because it was the story of "The Frighteners". If Wes Craven had directed it: I'd have skipped it.
I also think that had Jackson decided to do his own Fantasy-based movie (ie: not Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), the result would be an equally satisfying movie. Yet the writers would be Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh. Not JRR Tolkien.
And just a footnote (apropos to nothing), it's "etc", not "ect".
Adam --
Adam Cameron Senior Application Developer Straker Interactive
> > > Remove the writer thou, and you have nothing.
> > But when you say "remove the writer though, and you have > > nothing" suggests that the writer cannot be replaced as > > anyone else involved in making the film can be. This is > > bogus. Writers can replaced just as easily as anyone else.
> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting. it's based more on videogames than a book. peter jackson could have used germanic mythology, arthurian legends, iliad and given us the basically same CGI crap. and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and legend? so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
you say no puzo, then no godfather. but if no gangster genre, then no puzo's godfather. puzo too built on something, interpreted and shaped a preexisting genre. besides, godfather by any other director would have been forgettable, like the sicilian by cimino or last don tv series. and did you see king's tv version of the shining? it's shit. the way i see it, a truly great director uses a literary source as a mere springboard to express his own vision. and great cinematic art is about nuance, subtlety, that 1% extra talent that the great director possesses which others don't. any hack director could have made jaws or raiders of the lost ark. it would have been 90% same as spielberg's but what makes spielberg's films great is the skill beyond the rudimentary and basic, that sublime extra talent and ability to go visualize and execute what others can't. the way i see it, 'writing' in film is any creative aspect of conceptualization. the inspiration for a film can come from a dream, music, a newspaper article, or it can have no conventional narrative. take long stretches of andrei rublev without dialogue. the filmmaking IS the writing. the director can be as much the writer as the screenwriter or novelist. in fact, his visual writing is ultimately more important.
> In any movie ever made one could replace the director, lead actor, > hair dresser, caterer, ect on down the line and the movie can still > happen and thou I'm not suggesting that if Steven Segal had been > cast as Frodo, a "LotR" movie would still have been a success, with > _no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
but it's not so much the story that makes a movie great. LOR story is very conventional, dime-a-dozen. good guys vs bad guys, adventure and action, giants and monsters, battles, etc. this is highly staple material. it's basically the same stuff as in wagner's niebelungen. if you or i used the niebelungen story to compose our own opera, would it be as good as wagner's? no, cuz it's the music that is the real 'writing' in an opera. what makes kubrick's shining great is not so much the story but how kubrick used the basic story as a springboard for exploring human psyche. but kubrick could have done much the same using a different story and indeed he did. shining has much in common with 2001, clockwork orange, full metal jacket, eyes wide shut. similarly, what makes a great novel is not really the story. take farewell to arms or great gatsby. as stories, they are the stuff found in a gazillion romance novels. what makes them great novels is how hemingway and fitzgerald used the medium of language to delve into character psychology, gain social insight... and simply because they knew how to use language like no one else. it's like a jazz artist can take a simple ho-hum melody as a base and expand and mold it into countless things, innovating new styles along the way.
same with food. we can all follow the same ingredients but what makes a great chef? i dunno. i can do 90% of what they can do but they got that 10% extra skill. and the really great ones got that extra 1% skill. it's like the scene in amadeus where mozart takes salieri's little ditty and keeps reshaping it over and over until it becomes mozart's own.
> Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most > important element in a movie.
in cases where the story is highly personal or original, yes. i'd say faithless is more bergman than ullmann. it can also apply to charlie kaufman.
but most movies follow a staple formula. indeed, most popular fiction on which movies are based are cliche ridden; the story may be entertaining but it aint anything new or special. so when they are made into movies, we care not so much about the story as the treatment. we want the director to use it merely as a springboard or base to do something truly original and daring. like welles with lady from shanghai or touch of evil. the fact is welles could have done that with any pulp novel because he had the welles touch. but let a hack direct a pulp novel and it's as silly as the pulpish source. or take innumerable crime thrillers; when they end you don't wanna see it again cuz there's little other than the formulaic story, like pakula's 'presumed innocent'. but, the reason we return to vertigo over and over is hitchcock used a genre story to express something truly deep, profound, and sublime about longing, love, and loss.
though i don't like pulp fiction, we gotta credit tarantino for taking clicheridden material and trying to fashion it into something daring, innovative, original. i wish he didn't embrace inhumanity with such sneering glee. but he understands that the director shouldn't merely be a faithful hack trying to serve the writer but a 'writer' himself who turns the basic dough into great pastry.
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 03:03:23 GMT, poldy <po...@kfu.com> wrote: >In article <f33e00ab.0406120658.2bd3a...@posting.google.com>, > estas...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote:
>> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, >> eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King >> means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
>I didn't read Puzo but wasn't it considered a pulp novel which didn't >have the grandeur that was in the films?
It's a really good pulp drama. Moves like a bat out of hell and has just about everything you want. Ironic -- Puzo wrote a couple of "literary" novels -- The Fortunate Pilgrim comes to mind -- and they aren't nearly as good as the novel he wrote when he decided to be a total whore and go for the best-seller.
> > however, even with hollywood movies, there are directors with a > > personal vision and/or concept. cameron, jackson, wachowski brothers, > > etc, like them or not, are not mere hired hacks.
> Didn't the Wachowski get ideas for what could be possible in the Matrix > movies from the FX people? The rotating slow mo or whatever it's > called. The only other thing that that effect was used for when the > first Matrix came out was a Gap commercial with all these dancers in > khakis.
> So you wonder if the signature visual effect of at least the first > Matrix movie came from some less famous special FX people.
no. you're confusing art with technology. technology certainly serves art but the ideas for film has to conceived in the mind of the artist first.
there's all sorts of technology out there but it's the director who chooses what to use. for instance, if a director wants a dinosaur, he might look around for the best f/x people who can realize the effect most fully. technology serves the art. following your logic, the author of every movie is the inventer of the camera or crane. yes, sound technology gave directors the CHOICE to use sound but would you say the inventer of sound technology is the author of the film?
also, use of f/x helped wachokowski brothers realize their effect, they had to have thought of the idea in their mind first, and it was essentially a variation of the hongkong kung fu film style.
a director doesn't know all the technical details but he tells the technicians what he wants and they realize it to the best of the knowledge and skill, but the vision and order comes from the director. a director may not know how to operate the camera but he tells the cameraman what kind of shot he wants and the cameraman tries best to achieve what the director is looking for.
On 12 Jun 2004 20:39:43 -0700, missguy...@hotmail.com (miss guydid) wrote:
>and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and >legend? so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
Tolkien has a number of literary influences, among them H. Rider Haggard. Did H. Rider Haggard write those stories, or make that movie? There's a difference between having literary influences and antecedents and outright copying.
> Compare the recent Peter Jackson LotR with the 1978 Ralph Bakshi one.
> Same source material (albeit, in a movie sense of the term, different > writers), but profoundly different Results. The *least* important > element here in how the respective movies can be compared is Tolkien's > input.
I think you're making my point for me here.
From you're example we can see that the director is an interchangeable technical component of a "LotR" (or any) film, plug in Peter Jackson or Ralph Bakshi or ____ and the movie can still be made, take Tolkien (or any writer) out of the equation and it's no longer possible to make the movie.
> Yes, a movie requires a story (and yes, there are exceptions to this, > but for all intents and purposes a movie needs a story). No story: no > movie. Similarly, a movie needs a director. No director: no movie.
Sure, if it's a case of no director _at all_ then there is no movie but there can still be a movie regardless of who is chosen as director. Now the movie might suck or might be great but it can still be filmed regardless of who actually says; "action!".
> Peter Jackson previously made the film The Frighteners. I > automatically went to see it because it was a Peter Jackson film; not > because it was the story of "The Frighteners". If Wes Craven had > directed it: I'd have skipped it.
But if "The Frighteners" had not been written, then neither Jackson or Craven would have been able to direct it and there would have been no movie for you to see.
> I also think that had Jackson decided to do his own Fantasy-based > movie (ie: not Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), the result would be an > equally satisfying movie. Yet the writers would be Philippa Boyens > and Fran Walsh. Not JRR Tolkien.
Maybe, maybe not. But it wouldn't be "Lord of the Rings" and whatever the movie is called, it still needs a writer to provide the story for the director to work from.
> "miss guydid" <missguy...@hotmail.com> wrote > > estas...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
> > If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, > > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King > > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
> wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting.
Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and thus don't have _that_ movie.
The director, actors, camera man, ect can still work together to make _a_ movie and it might be great or it might suck but without the writer to give them something to work with, they're unemployed.
> it's based more on videogames than a book. peter jackson could have > used germanic mythology, arthurian legends, iliad and given us the > basically same CGI crap.
Peter Jackson could have made _a_ movie using the above ideas but it wouldn't be "Lord of the Rings" and even then, it would still require somebody to first come up with a story.
> and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and legend? > so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
But comparing the author of a novel to a film director is comparing apples to oranges IMO. To use a manufacturing analogy; a writer is the equivalent of an engineer designing some widget while the director is the machinist who makes the widget from the engineers blueprint.
> you say no puzo, then no godfather. but if no gangster genre, then no > puzo's godfather. puzo too built on something, interpreted and shaped > a preexisting genre.
Well no man is an island, right? But my point is that a writer can still write a story without producers, directors, actors, hair dressers, caters, ect but everybody involved in making a movie _cannot_ do their job without the writer.
> besides, godfather by any other director would have been forgettable,
> and did you see king's tv version of the shining? it's shit.
> any hack director could have made jaws or raiders of the lost ark.
This is just making a judgment on whether a move is good or not, it doesn't change the fact the story is still mandatory for the movie to be made in the first place.
> the way i see it, 'writing' in film is any creative aspect of conceptualization.
I disagree, since without the story there is nothing conceptualize.
> the inspiration for a film can come from a dream, > music, a newspaper article, or it can have no conventional narrative. > take long stretches of andrei rublev without dialogue.
True, the inspiration can come from anywhere but _somebody_ has to have that inspiration in the first place or you have nothing.
Now I could take a video camera, mount it on a tri-pod, aim it out my living room window and let it run for hours on end but when I win the Palme D'Ore for my stunning masterpiece, the statuette will read; "Hours of Nothing by Ed Stasiak" not "Hours of Nothing by Sony Handi-Cam".
The idea was mine so I deserve the lions share of the credit, regardless of the method used to bring my vision to my adoring fans.
> the filmmaking IS the writing. the director can be as much the writer as the > screenwriter or novelist. in fact, his visual writing is ultimately more important.
I'm not disregarding the efforts of the director or anybody else involved in making a movie and film making _is_ an art form but just as a guitar is simply a tool used to present the musicians song to the listener, everybody from the director on down in a film production is simply a tool used to present the writers story to a film viewer.
> > In any movie ever made one could replace the director, lead actor, > > hair dresser, caterer, ect on down the line and the movie can still > > happen and thou I'm not suggesting that if Steven Segal had been > > cast as Frodo, a "LotR" movie would still have been a success, with > > _no story_ there simply is _no movie_.
> but it's not so much the story that makes a movie great. LOR story is > very conventional, dime-a-dozen. good guys vs bad guys, adventure and > action, giants and monsters, battles, etc. this is highly staple material.
That's debatable and we could argue till the cows come home but it doesn't change the fact that without Tolkien's story, the "LotR" movie never happens.
> it's like the scene in amadeus where mozart takes salieri's little > ditty and keeps reshaping it over and over until it becomes mozart's > own.
But Salieri still had to come up with the ditty for Mozart to reshape, just as Peter Jackson needed Tolkien's story to make the "LotR" movie.
> > Everything starts with the story, thus making the writer the most > > important element in a movie.
> but most movies follow a staple formula. indeed, most popular fiction > on which movies are based are cliche ridden; the story may be > entertaining but it aint anything new or special. so when they are > made into movies, we care not so much about the story as the > treatment.
Again, you're just making a value judgment on whether the movie sucks or not, you still need the story to be able make that opinion in the first place.
I'll agree that a good director can turn a crappy (or at least not that good) story into a cool movie but he needs at least that crappy story, without it the director is just a big fat bearded guy sitting next to a camera twiddling his thumbs.
> >> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, > >> eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King > >> means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
> >I didn't read Puzo but wasn't it considered a pulp novel which didn't > >have the grandeur that was in the films?
> It's a really good pulp drama. Moves like a bat out of hell and has > just about everything you want. Ironic -- Puzo wrote a couple of > "literary" novels -- The Fortunate Pilgrim comes to mind -- and they > aren't nearly as good as the novel he wrote when he decided to be a > total whore and go for the best-seller.
Even more irony. Coppola took on the film project as a whore. It wasn't as big an artistic ambition as say Apocalypse Now. He figured he'd make some money so he could do the projects he really wanted to do.
> no. you're confusing art with technology. technology certainly serves > art but the ideas for film has to conceived in the mind of the artist > first.
> there's all sorts of technology out there but it's the director who > chooses what to use. > for instance, if a director wants a dinosaur, he might look around for > the best f/x people who can realize the effect most fully. technology > serves the art. > following your logic, the author of every movie is the inventer of the > camera or crane. yes, sound technology gave directors the CHOICE to > use sound but would you say the inventer of sound technology is the > author of the film?
> also, use of f/x helped wachokowski brothers realize their effect, > they had to have thought of the idea in their mind first, and it was > essentially a variation of the hongkong kung fu film style.
Right the director ultimately chooses which technology and FX to use. But the way I heard it, it sounded like the people who developed this effect was marketing it to different directors and the Wachokowskis were the first to bite. Maybe that wasn't the case but that impression was disseminated at the time.
> > > If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, > > > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King > > > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
> > wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting.
> Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and thus don't > have _that_ movie.
a movie is much more than the story. take a narrative song for example. whether the song is good or not is really a matter of lyrics, the music, and the performance rather than the story it tells. to a great director, the story is only raw material to shape into HIS art. wise guys is an informative book but goodfellas' greatness is the product of scorsese's directorial 'writing'. no one could have done it that way. the original source and writer obviously deserves credit but a movie is built on the base material. it's this building that ultimately counts toward why a movie works or not. also, oftentimes, the director alters the source material, somtimes changing it drastically, preserving only its general outline, if that. for example, tim burton's planet of the apes has little to do with boulle's novel nor with the heston film. it's burton's. so is sleepy hollow which has almost nothing to do with the original story.
> The director, actors, camera man, ect can still work together to make _a_ movie > and it might be great or it might suck but without the writer to give them something > to work with, they're unemployed.
no, most movies are genre products, and writers are usually hired to submit what the producer/director demands. just about anyone familiar with genre staples can write a workable western, thriller, cop movie, horror movie, etc. very few movies are based on truly original scripts. also, many great directors come up with their own stories and material; in these cases, writer and director is inseparable. and, you take the vast majority of hollywood movies and the story is just recycled genre material, the sort of stuff anyone can come up with blindfolded. now, the story has to be SMARTLY written but that's only the beginning. the movie is truly created with the director. oftentimes, the movie doesn't originate with the writer but with the producer or director. they have an idea, concept, or story and hire a writer to work on a treatment. in fact, no producer(no money), no movie either, whether there's a script or not. anyway, it doesn't matter where the story originated. a movie is truly realized during the making.
> > it's based more on videogames than a book. peter jackson could have > > used germanic mythology, arthurian legends, iliad and given us the > > basically same CGI crap.
> Peter Jackson could have made _a_ movie using the above ideas but it wouldn't > be "Lord of the Rings" and even then, it would still require somebody to >first come > up with a story.
again, the story such as LOR is nothing special. it's fantasy staple based on germanic myths, and judging by the movie, rather sucky. i can come up with a better sword/sorcery story. also, judging from the movie... what story? it's just a long videogame with the usual sorcerers, midgets, swordsmen, etc. where's the story you're talking about? LOR the movie is so generic that it can easily be mistaken with countless other CGI videogamish ilk. it has even less of a story than infantile star wars movies. if LOR did have a great story, i'd be willing to give your argument more credit. but, the story is threadbare and just an excuse for alot of action. maybe, the book tells a better story, but if that's the case, LOR is based more on your generic hollywood summerblockbuster than tolkien's novel. it's closer to Pearl Harbor or Raiders of the Lost Ark than an epic saga.
> > and didn't tolkien, like wagner, base his stuff on germanic lore and legend? > > so, how is he the author? he a copycat too.
> But comparing the author of a novel to a film director is comparing apples to > oranges IMO. To use a manufacturing analogy; a writer is the equivalent > of an engineer designing some widget while the director is the machinist who > makes the widget from the engineers blueprint.
false analogy. in engineering, there is no creativity. it's all about precision and detail. art isn't like that. the director has to mold the source material into something entirely his own. the director doesn't just execute. he designs and creates.
for example, if i tell you 'i went to macdonalds and ordered a big mac and came home and ate it and threw up', i'm the writer. do you know how many ways this can be expressed visually? countless ways. it can be done comically, dramatically, tragically, heavyhanded, thru montage, mise-en-scene, etc. unlike the engineer who has clear instructions, the director has to interpret and CREATE. now, a writer can give very specific instructions as to how a movie should be shot, and if a director follows these directions to a letter, the writer is as important as the director. this is usually not the case. the director takes the written material and does it his way.
> > you say no puzo, then no godfather. but if no gangster genre, then no > > puzo's godfather. puzo too built on something, interpreted and shaped > > a preexisting genre.
> Well no man is an island, right? But my point is that a writer can still write > a story without producers, directors, actors, hair dressers, caters, ect but > everybody involved in making a movie _cannot_ do their job without the > writer.
actually, a director can improvise on the set and movies have been made this way. or the movie can be written or constantly rewritten as it's being made and this is not so rare. also, we should differentiate among writers. in the case of puzo, his novel did contribute greatly to the final movie. but, in the case of scarface the remake, it was the producer who originated the idea. oliver stone was hired to submit a readymade formula by making it contemporary and adding some saucy dialogue. the writer was a hired gun, not the originator of the story. if scarface is any good, it's due to depalma's realization. even if we say the writer originates the story, whether the movie is GOOD or BAD is really matter of the director.
> > besides, godfather by any other director would have been forgettable,
> > and did you see king's tv version of the shining? it's shit.
> > any hack director could have made jaws or raiders of the lost ark.
> This is just making a judgment on whether a move is good or not, it doesn't > change the fact the story is still mandatory for the movie to be made in the > first place.
well, of course. but, isnt' quality the ultimate reason why we see movies? and the quality of most movies depend on whom most? the director. writer is very important IF the screenplay is good; but even when the original screenplay isn't any good, the director can rewrite or reshape it and make it into something worth watching.
if we're concerned mainly with origins, we should credit the writer's mother. if she didn't give birth to him, he wouldn't have written anything. or his teacher. if no one taught him how to write, he would not have written. and previous writers from whom he took ideas for his own story.
what concerns us is quality of the movie and the director is most important because most mainstream movie scripts are threadbare and cliched and only serve as raw material for the director to fashion into something worthy.
> > the way i see it, 'writing' in film is any creative aspect of conceptualization.
> I disagree, since without the story there is nothing conceptualize.
i'll give you an example: 'i got up today and looked at birds and drank too much water and took a wee wee. then, i fed my dog and it took a poop on the rug'. now, that is the basic material. the director is free to conceptualize this in numerous ways. this interpretation is 'writing'. the director can choose the kind of bird, how it's shot, the movement of the character, etc. the writer offers the basic material but the realization by the director is cinematic 'writing'. also, the director may relate the narrative with something he personally knows about waking up in the morning, birds, or taking a wee wee or feeding a dog. of course, the director is working from the writer's material, but he too is creating and his creation is ultimately more crucial because it becomes the movie. the writer only offers possiblities. it's the director who defines and establishes the possibilities into concrete form. also, everyone conceptualizes from something, even the writer. a writer may base his story on an event he witnessed or something he heard from his friend or a magazine article, family trauma, or interview. the writer becomes creative when he takes this material and writes his story or treatment. the movie director does the same thing from the written source. he too finds creative ways to explore and express from a raw material, the written story.
for example, let's say a writer met someone on a bus and on a long long ride, the fellow passenger told him his entire life story. the writer takes that basic material and writes a treatment. though the story is that of the passenger, the story is the writer's because the writer chose the manner in which it was written, what words were used, whether the style was serious or comical, to what extent the passenger's story was kept or altered. though the writer took someone's else's story, the written work belongs to the writer. the director does exactly the same with the written material. he finds his own way to question, explore, expand, condense, alter, etc the written material handed him. the director
...
> > no. you're confusing art with technology. technology certainly serves > > art but the ideas for film has to conceived in the mind of the artist > > first.
> > there's all sorts of technology out there but it's the director who > > chooses what to use. > > for instance, if a director wants a dinosaur, he might look around for > > the best f/x people who can realize the effect most fully. technology > > serves the art. > > following your logic, the author of every movie is the inventer of the > > camera or crane. yes, sound technology gave directors the CHOICE to > > use sound but would you say the inventer of sound technology is the > > author of the film?
> > also, use of f/x helped wachokowski brothers realize their effect, > > they had to have thought of the idea in their mind first, and it was > > essentially a variation of the hongkong kung fu film style.
> Right the director ultimately chooses which technology and FX to use. > But the way I heard it, it sounded like the people who developed this > effect was marketing it to different directors and the Wachokowskis were > the first to bite. Maybe that wasn't the case but that impression was > disseminated at the time.
well, it's a two way street with a ever changing technology like cinema. the director takes advice from all sorts of people. still, the director has to have a sense of what he wants to do. for example, i think spielberg had the opening scene of 'saving private ryan' fully realized in his head before he shot a single scene. once he knew what he wanted, he got the right people to realize that vision thru camerawork, effects, set design, etc.
I think it's more you're just not getting my point.
>From you're example we can see that the director is an interchangeable >technical component of a "LotR"
That's where you're not getting it. You're basing it from the perspective of "making LotR". Well *obviously* Tolkien's involvement (albeit passively ;-) is required there! I'm not disputing that to take a movie based on prior art, then, well, *yes*, the prior art needs to exist.
If we're just looking from the POV of "Peter Jackson's next project"... Tolkien isn't part of the equation. Nor is Wes Craven. For it to be "Peter Jackson's next project", it has to be directed by Peter Jackson.
If you look at it from the POV of "New Line Cinema's next project"... even Jackson is surplus to requirement. All New Line might be after is "some director, and some writer".
All I'm saying is that you're taking it from a story-centric POV. That's a valid POV, but it's not the only perspective.
You're arguing from the point of view that [some given story], whilst it needs *a director*, doesn't need a *particular* director (any old director will do). I'm pointing out that the same equally applies from the perspective of [a given director's film] needs *a writer*, but has no particular reliance on who the writer is, or what they've written about.
Speaking personally, I will got see any film that Ridley Scott directs. I don't give a rat's arse who wrote it, or even what it's about. Or even if it's GI Jane (!). Ridley Scott is the most important ingredient in a Ridley Scott film; and a RS film is a particular breed of beast. Maybe David Lynch would be a better example (although whilst I see his all films, I don't really like them). My frame of reference here completely excludes the writer as a significant factor.
I'm guessing you're just seeing a movie as simply a story on a silver screen.
Anyway, different stroke for different folks. Which is the way it should be.
Adam --
Adam Cameron Senior Application Developer Straker Interactive
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 18:18:43 -0400, "Ed Stasiak" <estas...@att.net> wrote:
>> "miss guydid" <missguy...@hotmail.com> wrote >> > estas...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
>> > If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, >> > eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King >> > means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
>> wrong. lord of the rings the movie is six flags theme park in fantasy setting.
>Without Tolkien (or Puzo, King, ect) you don't have _that_ story and thus don't >have _that_ movie.
And without the director (or actors, composer, cinematographer, etc.) you don't have _that_ movie, either.
Look at the two versions of The Shining, and try to maintain that it's the *writer* who most determines the movie.
> >> If you remove Tolkien then "Lord of the Rings" is never written, > >> eliminate Mario Puzo and there is no "Godfather", no Stephen King > >> means "The Shining" never happens, ect ect ect.
> >I didn't read Puzo but wasn't it considered a pulp novel which didn't > >have the grandeur that was in the films?
> It's a really good pulp drama. Moves like a bat out of hell and has > just about everything you want. Ironic -- Puzo wrote a couple of > "literary" novels -- The Fortunate Pilgrim comes to mind -- and they > aren't nearly as good as the novel he wrote when he decided to be a > total whore and go for the best-seller.
> Adam Cameron <adam_j...@hotmail.com> wrote > > Ed Stasiak <estas...@att.net> wrote
> > I think you're making my point for me here.
> I think it's more you're just not getting my point.
I get it, I just don't agree with you.
> > From you're example we can see that the director is an > > interchangeable technical component of a "LotR"
> That's where you're not getting it. You're basing it from > the perspective of "making LotR". Well *obviously* Tolkien's > involvement (albeit passively ;-) is required there!
But you sniped out the part where I said; '"LotR" (or any) film' and 'Tolkien (or any writer)'.
I'm only using Tolkien's "LotR" as an example, pick any movie you want it and still needs a story and thus a writer or it never happens (even if the writer happens to also be the director).
> I'm not disputing that to take a movie based on prior art, then, > well, *yes*, the prior art needs to exist.
And that's my point; regardless of who is the director (or actor, ect) there must be a story first or no movie can be made.
> If we're just looking from the POV of "Peter Jackson's next > project"... Tolkien isn't part of the equation. Nor is Wes Craven. > For it to be "Peter Jackson's next project", it has to be directed > by Peter Jackson.
As I understand it, PJ's next project is "King Kong" and since he obviously didn't write the story that the film will be based on....
> You're arguing from the point of view that [some given story], whilst > it needs *a director*, doesn't need a *particular* director (any old > director will do). I'm pointing out that the same equally applies > from the perspective of [a given director's film] needs *a writer*, > but has no particular reliance on who the writer is, or what they've > written about.
Sure any writer can be plugged in _if_ the director (or the studio) _already_ has the idea for a story to start with, but somebody had to come up with the story in the first place.
No studio throws down a bazillion dollars for a director, actors, ect without having at least having a rough outline of what the story is that they want filmed.
> Speaking personally, I will got see any film that Ridley Scott > directs. I don't give a rat's arse who wrote it, or even what > it's about. My frame of reference here completely excludes the > writer as a significant factor.
That's fine, as long as you realize that Ridley Scott can't make cool movies without a story to start with.
> I'm guessing you're just seeing a movie as simply a story on a > silver screen.
But once you boil it down, that's all a movie really is.
That's the original point I was making; writers in Hollywood get the shaft as far as credit for the film goes, even thou without them there would be no film.
"LotR" was hyped as; "Peter Jackson's: Lord of the Rings" not "Peter Jackson's _film version_ of Tolkien's: "Lord of the Rings" and if it's a lesser known author like Phillip K. Dick, then the credit is even less.
"Minority Report" was all Tom Cruise this and Tom Cruise that, the only people that mentioned Phillip K. Dick were more or less hard core film fans like those in this group (and even then, not everybody knew or cared who he was).
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