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The Boat That Rocked

Traditionally writers have been at the bottom of the feeding chain in Hollywood. During the classical Hollywood era (roughly the late 1920s to the early 1960s) writers were given next to no artistic recognition and pay that did not reflect their crucial contribution to filmmaking. Ironically, they were one of the groups most vilified by the House of Un-American Activities Committee for supposedly imbedding cinema with subversive propaganda.

Even today most writers working in cinema are relatively unrecognised for the amount of work they contribute to the finished product so it is little wonder that some of them feel the need to step behind the camera and direct their own screenplays. This of course also gives them more autonomy over how their vision is created on screen but is this necessarily a good thing? While there are many fine writer/directors who have always written their scripts and then directed them, I’m not convinced that a good writer can necessarily become a good director. For a start, cinema is a visual art-form and while screenplay writers are more aware than other writers of the need to tell the story visually and not rely on dialogue and description, they still don’t always have the visual awareness of a director.

More significantly is the fact that cinema is a collaborative art-form so having different people work on different aspects of the film is usually a good thing. A writer may be frustrated by changes that a director makes during a film shoot, but ultimately such changes are often for the benefit of the film as a whole. A writer who then directs their own script may not have the emotioanl distance to make any necessary last minute and often ruthless changes.

Synecdoche, New York

Before trying his hand at directing Richard Curtis was responsible for writing the scripts to many modern romantic-comedy classics, including Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, not to mention his terrific work writing for television. Recently he wrote and then directed The Boat That Rocked and Love Actually. Both films are OK but overall lack cohesion and really needed somebody else to come in and give them a good edit. Neither of them are as good as the films that Curtis wrote and then allowed somebody else to direct. Likewise, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York is good but it is indulgent and doesn’t come close to replicating the magic of the films he only wrote and had somebody else direct, which include Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and the masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

What do you think? Can writers make the transition into directing? Do you agree with my assessment of The Boat That Rocked and Synecdoche, New York? Do you have any examples that foil my argument?

Thomas
MWF Marketing Co-ordinator (and film critic!)