No.
A screenplay is not equal to a musical composition. It takes much more to turn the screenplay into a movie than a composition into a performance. In music, the composition is 75% of the art, in film, the screenplay is 10% or something like that.
i want to be clear: i think your 50 screenplay reading definitely has merit. i think that worst case scenario you’ll be exposed to a lot of great writing and screenwriting and visualization and approaches to the craft. but at the same time i don’t believe that it’s art.
i think it can contain artful moments. but a script is subject to change. as i said in your other thread it is by its very nature mutable. cassavetes – to cite one of your examples – deviates from his own script for minnie & moskovitz and he was the writer/director and, to some at least, a visionary.
to some degree it is sad reality that you can read a play as a fixed piece of drama and you can’t do the same for a screenplay, but it is reality nonetheless. the script, should it actually get made (which is one in a million) is completely subject to change by producer, actor, director, studio exec, all pre or during production. and then afterward in post, an essential scene on the page is rendered superfluous by a judicious edit or by the way an actor says X when he meant Y. whatever. it’s continually evolving.
Who are we to say screenwriting isn’t art? Who are we to say ANYTHING isn’t art? Art is such an elusive term when you think about it…Atleast to me it is.
I believe writing a script is art. Especially if you’re writing for something you plan to direct. I think making films is art and writing the script is the first step in making the film, therefore it’s part of the artistic process.
Sure, a screenplay can be art in a similar way to a play being art whether it’s performed or not, but that doesn’t mean it is common, and it doesn’t mean it will translate to the screen in a very recognizable way. Just as some theater directors have so bastardized plays by great playwrights, film directors can ruin or improve a screenplay. The main problem with screenplays as opposed to plays is that the image tends to have far greater importance than the word, so the screenplay is less likely to be great art than the play if everything else was equal.
Anything can be art—let’s not get sidetracked on a non-issue.
A film is art.
A piece of music is art.
A painting is art.
A novel is art.
So is a screenplay.
None of those things are debatable. What IS debatable, is whether any individual example is GOOD art.
For me, it is quite evident that the screenplay is art. It is like a pencil sketch for a painting; it is in the screenplay that lies the soul of the film, the film being the concrete product.
@House of Leaves…Hey! That’s what I’m always sayin… (about your last sentance)
A screenplay is a component of a work of art. It is like a preparatory sketch for a painting, but even less artful than that.
NOBODY reads screenplays for their own sake as a stand-alone work of art, maybe as research and reference on how to write a script, but not for itself.
Its not even comparable to a stageplay, because the two are so completely different. Film is a VISUAL artform, and a screenplay leaves out most visual directions so that they can be left up to the artistic choices of the director. All you have in a screen play is dialogue, a plot, a narrative, or series of ideas that work together to convey something to the viewer when filmed.
The screenplay is the prepared canvas that the film is painted on.
A Stageplay relies FAR MORE heavily on the words that are written by the playwright in the play, because the words take place of the visuals that a painting or film would have, or the reader’s imagination that a novel taps into-and in this way the words of the stageplay become art themselves, just as important to the play as the plot and action of the play. A Stageplay is a completely different animal than a screenplay. In a screenplay, more often than not, the fewer words of dialogue, the better.
Jason, those are all, at best, generalizations that don’t hold up on individual levels if examined. Screenplays are read for pleasure, hell they sell some of them in book forms. Not by scads of individuals, but then again there isn’t a giant stage play market for pleasure reading out there either. Some films are certainly more dialogue driven and make for excellent reading, not to mention all of the screenplays that are never produced or are drastically changed for the screen. Some screenwriters pay a lot of attention to visual details in their scripts, others, not so much, and some stage plays have heavy use of visual elements that don’t translate very well onto the page, or have music or other elements that don’t fit the page well either. A stage play is a visual artform as well as a performative one so reading a play isn’t the same as seeing it any more than reading a screenplay is the same as seeing a film. I already said that there are likely more stage plays that translate to the printed page better than screenplays, but that is in part a relic of the much, much longer history of the play versus the film add the fact the plays are intended to be performed multiple times whereas films are generally not intended to be remade using the same scripts. That intent, however, does not necessarily give privilege to the play when it comes to artistry, just in usage. Seeing as how there are writers that worked in both stage and screen, as well as other forms of writing, it would seem strange to me to say that their writing in one form could be an art but their writing in another couldn’t be.
Screenplays can be art, but they are usually just the framework for art, it’s certainly the way I write; I Only have it in if it’s Important, if not leave it to others.
But Writing Good Dialogue is an Art Form.
I recommend to all the documentary Tales from the Script, it’s available on NetFlix to watch for free in some areas, but still on NetFlix nonetheless.
Here we go. Jason brings up something important that he almost hits, misses, considers the miss a hit, and shoots on by without looking back at what was missed.
The screenplay is in service to the visuals. Always. The screenplay does not stand alone and a screenplay that stands alone is a production that never got made.
BUT. That doesn’t make it not art.
See, the thing is, a writer of a screenplay does indeed " leaves out most visual directions so that they can be left up to the artistic choices of the director." However, the screenwriter does not just write “a blond woman” and the director knows to cast Nicole Kidman instead of Chloe Sevigny (see the severe difference here?). The screenwriter has to, without giving actual directions to on-set “framing”, literally frame the language around exactly what the director is supposed to see, so that the director can frame it around exactly what the audience is supposed to see. That is to say, with severe limitations, a screenwriter has to inform whoever takes it and makes it into a movie the pacing, tone, beats, emotions, and images that compose the movie without EVER using abstract descriptive prose. The screenwriter can never enter a characters head, can never try to describe something that cannot be an image, action, or line of dialog, and has to basically tell the filmmaker what the audience is going to feel without using emotional words.
A screenwriter can NEVER say “the woman is sad because her baby died.” The screenwriter has to say, “Blonde streaks fall across her eyes as she stares at the faded photo of baby, illuminated by the glow of sun rays barely pressing through a dusty window,” and anybody who reads the script, not just the producers or directors but even those on the crew who reference it, have to “see” the same image in their head. A screenwriter can NEVER say “a lot of rapid cuts as the action increases to a madcap pace,” the screenwriter has to say, “A bang. He falls. Hits the floor. Gets up. Other attacks, he blocks the punch. Spinning, they fall through the floor. Dust rains through shafts of light on them. He lands on top. Other out of breath.” A screenwriter can NEVER say, “She is a quirky, silly character who loves to laugh.” The screenwriter has to say, “Across the room she came in laughing, surrounded by friends. She walks in the center of the group and mugs funny faces to each of her friends in turn, punctuating each one with a grin she barely catches behind the palm of her hand.” A screenwriter can NEVER say, “They play chess all throughout this scene.” A screenwriter has to say, "He taps his finger on the rook. CHARACTER HE: “I don’t think you give Charles much credit.” She shakes her head. He takes his finger away from the rook, moves a pawn. CHARACTER SHE: “I gave Charles his chance. I’m finished with that part of my life.” She moves the queen. CHARACTER SHE: “Check.”" A screenwriter can NEVER say, “The following in a long take:”, the screenwriter has to say, “He walks down the street and heads to the woods, tapping along a rhythm with his cane until he reaches the marsh, at which point the bog muffles the taps and he hesitates, staring around him as a mute tone surrounds the forest and he stares around, listening, checks over his shoulder, and shrugs as he begins to walk again.”
Making clear what you mean in prose that only allows concrete imagery and purely objective description, while informing any reader of the exact subjective viewpoint and emotional space of the scene, the pacing, and the character’s thoughts and motivations, as well as even express how the movie should be framed and cut without ever saying so directly, that is art.
—PolarisDiB
Yes, exactly, thanks Polaris for saying that so well. It was something I was trying to get at in my post, but didn’t expand upon enough.
There are two questions at play here: Is a screenwriter an artist? Most certainly. Is the screenplay an art form? No, not in any meaningful way. There’s no mode of reception for it to be appreciated. Rather than trying to convince others that they’ve produced a work of art, a screenwriter would be better served trying to convince someone to produce the script and turn it into a work of art.
True enough Jerry, one of the problems screenplays have as to being considered an art of their own is that they are largely made to be “disposable”. Given the nature of movies and copyright, they are largely intended to be produced once and then not used again as opposed to a play which is intended to be used over and over again. I would say that there is an increasing shift in that reception though due to sites that collect screenplays for people to view or download. One only has to think of the geeky hubbub over the unproduced Alien 3 script to verify that, and speaking of which, there is an example of a powerful visual image created from a screenplay without ever having been made into a film. A planet made of wood!
one of the problems screenplays have as to being considered an art of their own is that they are largely made to be “disposable”. Given the nature of movies and copyright, they are largely intended to be produced once and then not used again
Oh how right you are! It doesn’t even have to be made to be disposable. I once optioned a screenplay to a well-known producer. At the end of the option, he called to tell me it wasn’t going to work out. Indignant, I told him I would shop it around to others. He told me not to bother, that everybody already knew about it, that nobody was interested, and that I would be better off shopping another one. Disposed of!
Weston thought the negative was the thing – he produced contact prints, which made it so. We don’t see the negative; we see a print of the negative. The print is an interpretation of the negative.
Is a performance of Bach art or is the score? The performance is an interpretation by a conductor. What if the composition with the conductor’s notes were passed to the audience, would that be art?
Is the preliminary sketch for a painting art?
Is a urinal signed R Mutt art?
Look, you can call any of those things art. You can call a fart art if you want, but that is more about you than the thing itself.
So Robert, are you saying that the screenplay is like the negative and only can become art by being produced into a print? If so, would you say the same about a play and a performance?
The notion that such a matter should even be up for debate, much less that there are people here actually arguing that screenplays aren’t art, just blows me away. I’m shaking my head in disbelief/wonderment as I type this.
This is heretical, especially here where thread after thread blames the film or director for one’s ineffable inner experience of the work, but I want art work to be definitive.
Is a screenplay definitive?
@ bolo tie haha
I felt the same way, but that the outcome doesn’t matter – it is the process of debate, the polemics that matter.
A screenplay is definitive if it hasn’t been made into a film, or has been significantly altered I would think. There are screenplays that were never intended to be produced as well made for artistic intent, just as there are sketches made that were never intended to be paintings.
One thing to think about in regards to screenplays is that unlike some other arts, the screenplay writer is often making his screenplay as his final work. Another person then makes another work from it.
the screenplay writer is often making his screenplay as his final work
Really? not to be re-written for production?
Production as films of course…but the screenwriters involvement in the process ends at the screenplay quite often, so to the extent he can be an artist, that is his final work.
“None of those things are debatable. What IS debatable, is whether any individual example is GOOD art.” @House of Leaves
The notion that such a matter should even be up for debate, much less that there are people here actually arguing that screenplays aren’t art, just blows me away. I’m shaking my head in disbelief/wonderment as I type this.
Please spare us your self-righteous prostration before the alter of “art.” The adults are trying to have an intellectually honest conversation.
I see the complications have arisen again behind a screenplays use and its standing as art.
A screenplay is not an art piece, but a piece of that art. The screenwriter is the artist amongst a wide collaboration of artists that make that piece of art known as “a movie”. Just as, similarly, architecture is art, blueprints for architecture aren’t put up on museum walls, but still involve craft, design skills, and a visual language that communicates and can be artful in its own way, and typically is (especially once you learn that many architects can’t draw… er, FYI).
I already hear the fingers itching to type out “well then what about a movie crew? Are THEY artists? And the people who build the building? Are THEY artists?” A film or building crew are technicians. They are artisans, as opposed to artists. A screenwriter and an architect designing blueprints are creative intellectually, artisans are creative materially. It is up for a screenwriter or an architect to create the idea for something out of the idea for it, and the artisans to create that something out of the materials for it.
Okay? I look forward to everyone getting upset by this definition in 5, 4, 3…
—PolarisDiB
_the screenwriters involvement in the process ends at the screenplay quite often, so to the extent he can be an artist, that is his final work.-
Just not sure whether a screenplay is meant to be final… someone here can call up the % of screenplays that go unaltered.
If the intent of a writer is to produce art, he/she is an artist.
A screenwriter will say that the script is a work of art – again, if it is not definitive, that works for me as much as a fart, any fart, can be art.
I read both stage plays and screenplays for pleasure and don’t think either has to be produced to be considered art. What prevents them from being valued as much as, say, a finely wrought short story, is, in my opinion, based on the suggestive cues that are inherent in the form, the equivalent of which, I don’t think, is found in other art forms based on the written word.
I disagree with you polaris.
A screenplay is art. It’s about life, death, love, hate, jealously, tragedy, and change….
It’s the heart of the puzzle that makes a movie. What about screenwriters that also direct there own material (Bergman, Fellini, Chaplin). I know you can’t disagree with me when I say that Chaplin was an artist…..
chris naughton
I started a forum post a couple of days ago to begin a program of the following: read 50 screenplays in 50 days, post an immediate response each day about the screenplay and any thoughts about the craft and technique of screenwriting initiated by that day’s script, and, lastly, to focus and endeavor to write screenplays after the 50 days and see the effect the reading program had – namely, will it help serve as the means to get going and complete something.
Some of the response posts came back questioning, doubtful, critical; others responded with enthusiasm and encouragement. But, something behind the critical ones have made me think. There seems to exist an underlying belief that sustained and intense concentration on the reading of screenplays is not worth the effort because there’s not much there of worth. The underlying belief is the screenplay is an unfinished thing, a cog in the machine of filmmaking, and, therefore, not an art. Maybe art-like. But, the screenplay, and by extension the screenwriter, is not an artist. He or she is more akin to a technician.
So, my question is why is the screenplay not an art? Or, is it an art?
Is the play and the playwright art and artist?
Why when Sam Shepard wrote True West as a play and Peter Coyote and Jim Haynie acted in the first production was the play on paper, the writer, and the play on stage all art? But, when Gary Sinise and John Malkovich performed the same play on camera and released it on video several years later True West on paper ceased to be art? And, it couldnt be art at that point because it was a screen play?
So too with Eugene O’Neil. The Ice Man Cometh as play in a Library of America edition is art. If I took it and created a guerrilla DV film version of it in an old pub off the Atlantic City boardwalk, and let’s pretend that it turned out great, the play on paper ceases to be art because I used it as my impetus and guide to create a separate completed work.
When Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman and The Crucible he is an artist. But, when he sat down and worked out The Misfits he was something else, something less. Why? What is the difference between a play and a screenplay in their core nature? Why does the detail of type of future potential performance make all the difference?
Why is Shakespeare an artist then? Didnt he write a kind of screenplay?
I’m not talking about achievements. I’m not talking about good or bad, high and low, hit or miss. I am not talking about individual works and their quality. I want to know why the work itself can not be an art?
So if J.S Bach composes a piece of music, is it not art until someone plays and records it? The performer may play it with lesser virtuosity or different style then intended, but how is it that music composition is not a work of art? How is it a technical thing to just get the music started?So, why is the screenplay not an art? I’ll tell you why: because you can’t sell it. Not really. No one is buying. The screenplay does not perform well as a promotional product in the market. Therefore, its not complete.
If you can’t sell it as is, then its not complete. So, the underlying belief, and its logical conclusion goes.
I see something different. The screenplay is mostly for other artists. It’s aim and intended audience is other creative and inspired people. It is an offer and an invitation to the potential and the possible . It is a gift. And, there is a sacrifice in it: not many will read it; few will give notice; and it will get changed from the original.
But, the thing itself, put down and completed, is a work of art. A completed work of art that calls to other artists to use to make something themselves.
Maybe the art of film needs screenwriting as an art in this century. And, maybe I feel if screenwriting now is not an art then maybe nothing is. Maybe all that is left is successful product placement, potential future earnings, and staying competitive in a global economy. Maybe I’m wrong.