If not, it's here
I know you're busy people, so if you don't read it, I'll quickly summarise. John believes that screenwriters who become directors make bad films because they approach the project from a literary perspective rather than film.
Balls. Big fat hairy balls.
Screenwriters aren't idiots. They are film-makers. (Though being and idiot and a film-maker aren't mutually exclusive in some cases) They understand that film is a visual medium. A script isn't a novel you put in front of a camera. I'm pretty sure all the screenwriters on the list had the intention of stepping in front of the camera in the end, not just so they could film their 150 page monologue and keep it from the big scary producer.
He states that Billy Wilder only ever made four great movies and so should be discarded from the ranks of great film directors. BILLY FUCKING WILDER!!!
Name a director that made more than four great movies? Hitchcock? Kubrick? The list is pretty short.
Woody Allen started out as a screenwriter and then moved behind the camera and he made a couple of corkers before going down the toilet.
Having read his column for a while, I think Patterson comes from the NME school of journalism. In their eyes, everything populist is unworthy of consideration purely because it is populist. But, hey, come and check out this four hour Ukranian film about spot-welding. It'll blow your tiny mind!
Sorry. I'm tired and grumpy today. I think I may need a nap.
Oh, what a bad article! There seems no point to it, and that last line is just stupid. 'It's a visual medium; words should know their place' - it's not photography, for heaven's sake! It's visual storytelling, therefore the story has a very high position of importance and rightly so. Is he the sort of journalist who writes this sort of thing just to get read? I've never heard of him before, don't know if it's his usual style.
ReplyDeleteHe needs some help with his own words anyway: 'and used their scripts used merely as blueprints' makes no sense that I can see.
Good rant, well done.
sounds like he was scratting around trying to write an article out of nothing. he should write an article about what depths journalists steep to when they have a page to fill and nothing to write about...
ReplyDeletetsk.
I mean, if the Guardian want someone to write half-arsed columns that don't go anywhere, I'll do it for half the price he's charging them....
ReplyDelete