Pajiba

Man it must be depressing to be a screenwriter then.
The pen is, indeed, not mightier than the Pork Sword.

You could frame it two ways: (1) good screenwriters who sometimes phone it in for the paycheck (the Philip K. Dick Award!), or (2) middling screenwriters who have been saved on occasion by awesome directors (the Stand by Me Award).

Screenwriters should not direct their own movies.

Also, A good script cannot save a good movie from a bad director and a good director cannot make a terrible script into a good movie. Regardless of how good that sandwich looks, if any one of the ingredients is shit, it's still going to end up a shit sandwich.

Woody Allen

Best movie: Annie Hall (Woody Allen)

Worst movie: Celebrity (Woody Allen)

Style. It all comes down to that.

In most of the "Worst" movies category, there's very few directors who lack a visionary style (Save the Scotts and Michael Bay who the latter has a clear "we don't need no script" style). Writing words on a page trying to create an image is one thing, but the ability to take those images and translate them to something on screen to where it's unique and memorable is another talent that most of the "best" movie directors have. If Se7en didn't have that gritty feel, realistic weight to it but tried to be another cop movie it would've gone into the "worst" pile.

Almost all the movies you mentioned in the "Worst" movies have no style to it and if they did, it didn't work out. The best movies, do.

Do I least get a cupcake for participating? Are we going by Little League rules?

The point:

Sometimes screenwriters just need a paycheck. They'll do their best work for a good director who will honor it. But sometimes they'll slum it for a surefire thing. It's embarrassing but hey, you gotta eat.

I don't buy the blueprint theory. You are supposed to be able to build a house with a blueprint. That's clearly not the case with a screenplay. You need other ingredients to make a movie. A director knows how to harness/obtain those ingredients (ie. casting, production design, cinematography, editing, etc.)

My favourite is Cronenberg. He sometimes takes an OK screenplay (the flour, if you will) and bakes a tasty cake (with the other ingredients - I prefer to think of the production design and cinematography as the icing, but that's just me, I think). So on and so forth.

I think your point really jumps out from those few examples: the single most important factor in determining the quality of a film is the director.

It's not foolproof and it's no guarantee-- good directors make bad movies and good actors, editors, screenwriters, and producers can bring a good movie out of a mediocre director-- but the strength of the director is the most important factor in projecting movie quality.

Hollywood and media constantly try to sell you on the MovieStar model because that's what even the most uninitiated can see ("oooh, I like Sandra Bullock. Look, she has a new movie coming out!") But the more discriminating viewer will quickly catch on that while some actors are fun to watch even in bad movies what is really important is their ability to pick good projects (i.e. to pick a good role in a movie with a competent director).

I can't think of many people who really follow the careers of screenwriters and make a point to see the new film comming out written by x, and there's probably a good reason for that. For one thing, the writing process in Hollywood is suck a mess of collaborations, hijacks, and re-writes that a script is very rarely the unspoiled unique vision of a single writer. And even despite that, picking films based on writers you like is not going to give you very consistent results unless that writer is frequently paired with the same director (another good data point might be looking at nominations for best screenplay- most of the repeat nominations that aren't for writer directors are for writers who work with the same director, like David Hare writing for Stephen Daldry).

Also a secondary point that jumps out from this data: Screenwriters are whores. They don't give a shit and will write anything they get paid to write. This quality probably develops naturally from the fact that 90% of screenwriting done for Hollywood studios does not result in an actual film being made*. Shit, if you gave me six figures to knock out a quickie screenplay based on POGS or the life of Michael Hutchence that would probably never see the outside of a desk drawer five weeks after I turned it in (and cashed the check) I wouldn't give much of a shit about what the quality of my work. Unless I was writing for a director I knew could get the film made...

*warning: made up statistic

You seem to be finding instances when a screen writer has a good movie and a bad movie. Don't directors also have good movies and bad movies?

In other words, perhaps it is not a question of screenwriters don't matter, it's all the director, but a question of whether the script was any good and whether the right director got the movie?

Perhaps the same way that a director can have a good movie and a bad movie a screenwriter can write a good screenplay and then a bad screenplay?

I would posit that a great director could take a mediocre screenplay and turn it into a good movie, but so too can a bad director take a good screenplay and turn it into crap. How often do we actually read screenplays and judge whether or not the movie should have been better than it was? When you read the screenplay, don't you visualize how you would want to see the movie? If you read a screenplay after seeing a movie, don't you inevitably see it the way the movie presented it?

I think that the unlikeliest combo would be for a director to take a bad screenplay and turn it into a great movie.

Most simply put: Screenwriters are at the mercy of the director - for better or worse.

Got a lousy script but a great director? You just might be OK.
Got a great script but McG at the helm? Give up, you are screwed.

Kevin Smith needs to direct the shit he writes...

And pending the reception of the Last Airbender...

M. Night Shyamalan needs to direct shit that other people write...

This is an immutable law of film.

chewster

I think the problem with that is the tendency when you read a screenplay (or a book) is that you over-estimate the quality of the screenplay. You are free to imagine little scenes and how great they could be but you don't have the burden of tying it all together into a coherent whole.

Think of The Time Travler's Wife, for example. You read that and you get all these great little scenes playing out in your head and you think to yourself "what a great story". But that story is almost completely unflimable. Trying to make that movie is a disaster waiting to happen. You might like the screenplay, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the ability to make it into a movie. The responsibility for the movie is entirely up to the director.

On the other hand, think of all the stupid, cheesy, wacky, outlandish things you have completely fallen for and loved in movies you have seen. That's the director making it work, pulling performances out of actors, getting just the right tone and just the right look to make it unforgettable and perfect.

Go ahead, think of your favorite moments in movies: what makes them special has very little to do with the writing.

@theresa How are we going to overcome our differences? I propose a cake/blueprint faceoff. I will bring a recipe book, you bring a blueprint. We shall settle this once and for all. That's season one.

A brilliant screenwriter shall document our battle and turn a script over to a brilliant director and a terrible director. What will happen? That's season two.

Tuesdays on Home & Garden TV and Wednesdays on Food Network.

the cake is a lie

There should be a strict vetting process between pairing the screenwriter and the director such as: Do they both reside on the same planet?
The mutual understanding that a fork is a fork and that it cannot be a spoon or a puppy etc.
I blame the producers and studios for pairing up muppets and expecting something decent. You don't breed your Pedigree Poodle with a pavement special and expect to get Lassie!

@pausner ha! You're on!

Of course, I now see puppy breeding analogies. I suppose this will soon get very interesting.

@Brenton

But I'm not even sure that counts as a counter-example. QT is the director of the film, after all. And when you think of that scene and read that dialogue I'm betting you hear Harvey Keitel's voice in your head. You really can't divorce the performance from the writing unless you read the screenplay first, and the director gets credit for getting that performance on film.

I feel like a lot of those examples seem more like studio fuck-ups than director issues, but what do I know, I'm a bear! I suck the heads off fish!

George Lucas
Best Movie: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner)

Worst Movie: Star Wars Episode I:The Phantom Menace (George Lucas)

I don't thinnk any director could have made Phantom Menace into a good movie. The story was idiotic from the start.

Does anyone realizes how little power screenwriters have in the industry? They bring one in, then another to fit whatever the producer want, then demand another rewrite, often within few days. Or so I heard, unless the process has changed, which I doubt.

As an aspiring screenwriter, I want to stress the importance of story. A good movie seem to be the work of a good director mostly because they are more visible, literally and metaphorically. And it just simply cost a lot more money to have the director go through the same grind the writers do. So, you let the director be the face and do his things. They will start to have name value, which will do nothing to hurt the sale of the movies you are producing. Its a system that works for both producers, studios and "Auteurs." (It is interesting to note that the first Auteur, D.W. Griffith was, as great director as he was, partly responsible for bringing back the K.K.K. movement)

The real good directors knows the importance of the story, the screenplay, the bone and core of the movie. As Akira Kurosawa has said "Even a mediocre director can make a good movie out of a great script, but even a great director cannot make a good movie out of a mediocre script."

And, yes, screenwriters make bad scripts too, but so do directors. Difference is, like I said before, directors are more visible. But do they take responsibility for it? No, because people in power will always find the way to direct the blame elsewhere, like, say, screenwriters. I mean, you put money and time in to raising a money tree and why should its spark be tarnished just because of few bad fruits, right?

At the same time, I think a good director can take an average or even below average script and make some magic happen. Think of all the cult classics with laughably bad scripts and dialogue that somehow come together into an unforgettable film. Or, if you are in my generation, think of all the bad 80s movies that you can't help but love. Bad script, bad dialogue and yet the movie works on some weird level.

Yes, but where is the proof that "it works on some level" is by design? Or that it was the director's choices that caused it? It could just as easily be hapinstance, or choices made by the actors, or quite possibly, the script.

Or, who is to say that a better director with the same script would not have made a great movie rather than just a movie that "works on some level"?

Again, I am not discounting the value of the director, I am simply arguing that it is wrong to completely discount the value of the writer.

Also, I liked "Blade: Trinity." It's not a great movie, but I still liked it. It worked often enough to be enjoyable to me.

And, for those directors who claim that the script was responsible for the movie being bad - why did they sign on to do the movie? Didn't they read the script before agreeing to direct? If so, they must have thought it was a good script (or that they did not care, just wanteda payday). So what changed?

John Hughes
Best: The Breakfast Club (himself), Planes Trains and Automobiles (himself)

Worst: Home Alone 3 (

Deric Washburn
Best: The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)
Worst: Extreme Prejudice (Walter Hill)

But I'm not even sure that counts as a counter-example. QT is the director of the film, after all.
Posted by: Yossarian

C'mon, that is brilliant dialogue. I would watch Paris Hilton read that.

Perhaps a far better counter-example would be a movie that has a great script but only a fair-to-middling director? True Romance comes to mind. I love Tony Scott's work, but it rarely exceeds upper-middle class. Yet with a great script by QT he put together an excellent movie chock-a-block full of classic lines. The script (and a few of the performances, and Mr. Scott's own special blend of adrenaline and style, and of course Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper) made that movie.

Screenplays, overall, rarely get praised on their own merit. You can yell 'foul!' and point out the lists of Oscar winners, but I'll stand by my point. Find one of those winners from the last 25 years that was either praised or critically recognized as a stand alone accomplishment. You won't be able to. While a good (or even brilliant) director can elevate an average or even shitty script, the opposite isn't true. You can count on one hand the number of times a screenplay has actually elevated the game of the director. On top of that, you rarely have repeat nominee's (or winners) in the screenwriting categories at AMPAS. And I'm talking about folk who simply write (the Almodvoar's and such don't count). While I still hate to admit it, the heartbeat of a film fluctuates between the director and/or producer. A shitty director makes an average script look that much worse while a brilliant director (even if the director just has technical brilliance) can, and often does, elevate a script regardless of its quality. But to be fair, there are moments where a sublime script finds the right director and true art emerges. Imagine 'The Ice Storm' directed by Shawn Levy as opposed to Ang Lee. Imagine 'Munich' as directed by Michael Bay. Horrifying possibilities that should leave us all in nightmares. The unfortunate rule is that a good screenplay is only as good as the director behind it. In fact, I'd say Diablo Cody owes her Oscar to not only the director of 'Juno' (yay, Reitman!) but to the editor as well. Watch all the deleted scenes on the DVD. You'll realize just how much of a convoluted mess the script actually was.

I've read a lot of scripts. I understand Yossarian's point and agree with it to some extent, but if any of you had read the drek that I've read (some of which actually gets made into movies), I think you'd put a little more stock into the importance of the screenwriting. So, yeah, I tend to fall on chewster's side of the discussion. There is art and texture in the best screenplays, and even if not all of that intended subtext makes into the finished product or is reinterpreted by the directors and actors, the fact that that depth existed in the first place is what makes a good screenplay and prevents numerous problems later in the production process.

One could also say that the causality is actually reversed in some of these scenarios. For instance, any given writer can write both good scripts and bad scripts (just as any given director can direct both good and bad movies), but the better directors will more often have first choice and hence be in a position to acquire the better scripts, leaving the writers' lesser efforts for the lesser directors. Hence, the game is rigged before it begins.

Also, box office stats suggest that story doesn't mean shit.

And another question, what about Animation? Writing obviously is everything right? Just look at any Wall-E, then compare it to Toy Story 3. Or any Dreamworks pic and compare it to Pixar. The animators are all very talented, even the directors are making quality decisions. It's differences in writing and storytelling. Who do we blame in the failure of certain Animated features.

Bob Clark

Best: A Christmas Story (Self), Porky's (Self)
Worst: Baby Geniuses (Self)

Yeah, this isn't helping... but cake is overrated.

Also, Charlie Kaufman? Really??? That's just sad...

Boy, ya'll really want that cake.

I am with the "screenwriters get a bum wrap" group, and not just because I am still failing to become one. A lot of times, scripts get done up so much, they are hardly the creature the screenwriter started with. The name under the credits isn't always the guy who did the most work on the script. It is just to one who is un/lucky enough to get the WGA to put them down. They even have their own version of the Alan Smithee credit.

Agree with Things of Things. Its much better to have collaboration with someone whose job is to visualize and realize a story. Especially for movie. There are few writer-directors who can do both jobs but most of them just get pidgeon -holed to be just writer-director and that's pretty limiting and overbearing. I think directors play a great role, and admirable one too. I just don't agree with directors being "the kings of the world." I think story weighs equal part, and really thankless one the way things are now.

Most writers have a particular style to what they write, whether good or bad. If you have read a few Stephen King novels, and you pick up another one of his novels without knowing he wrote it, you can usually tell it was his only a short ways in to it. You know that he tends to give very vivid descriptions and write some very good dialog, but that the endings to his novels tend to just kind of peter out as if he just got bored at the end and wanted to finish it.

Some writers write great dialog but lousy action, others may write great action or set up a scene really well but write clunky dialog. Some writers may come up with great ideas, but are unable to capitalize on the ideas they've come up with.

A great director knows what his own strengths and weaknesses are as well as those of the writer, and finds a script where the best parts of the script make up for the worst parts of his directorial tendencies, and vice versus. By using the best parts of himself and the best parts of the writer, he creates the best film possible.

A good director knows his own or the writer's strengths and weaknesses, but generally not both. This director will use whatever parts of the script he thinks are best, but what he picks may not always be the best. If enough of the good parts of the script and the good parts of the director come together you'll get a good or on rare occasions a great film.

A mediocre director doesn’t know his or the writer’s strengths and weaknesses or only knows some of them, so can't always tell the difference between the good and bad parts of the script and so his choices as to what to use tend to be rather hit or miss. This usually results in a bad or sometimes an ok film.

A bad director thinks his and the writers weaknesses are their strengths and vice versus, so generally gets things the wrong way around and uses the bad parts of the script and throws out the good parts, because he thinks the bad parts are the good ones. This almost always results in a bad film, though sometimes you'll get something that is at least watchable.

The worst director thinks there are no weaknesses to his style at all, and who mistakes the worst things about his style as being the best things. He can’t see anything bad in the writing either or at least nothing he can’t improve, and tends to find scripts that only reinforce the bad aspects of his directorial style and that do nothing to correct his deficiencies. This usually results in a steaming turd of a film, and often has the name Uwe Boll attached to it.

In short, a great director shows the screenwriter in the best possible light, highlighting the good qualities of the script and making up for any deficiencies. A bad or worse director does the opposite, by highlighting the writer's own excesses and flaws by tending to reinforce them and make them even worse. The worse the director, the more evident the writer's flaws tend to be.

And also most of my favorite movies are done by writer/directors.
Tarantino, the Coens, Scorsese, Anderson comma Wes & P.T.

If its a piece of shit I can make it less of a piece of shit but it is still a piece of shit! Because the writer wants to be the director, the director wants to be the producer, the producer wants to run the studio and the actors want it all.

A screenwriter can write similar stuff, movies whose plot lines or concepts are in similar veins, but what ultimately makes one better than the other is the director.