Script Culture and the American Screenplay

Kevin Alexander Boon

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780814335710
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Histoire et critique du cinéma

Though the history of the screenplay is as long and rich as the history of film itself, critics and scholars have neglected it as a topic of serious research. Script Culture and the American Screenplay treats the screenplay as a literary work in its own right, presenting analyses of screenplays from a variety of frameworks, including feminism, Marxism, structuralism, philosophy, and psychology. In distancing the text of screenplays from the on-screen performance typically associated with them, Kevin Alexander Boon expands the scope of film studies into exciting new territory with this volume.Script Culture and the American Screenplay is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides a general background for screenplay studies, tracing the evolution of the screenplay from the early shot lists and continuities of George Méliès and Thomas Harper Ince to the more detailed narratives of contemporary works. Part 2 offers specific, primarily thematic, critical examinations of screenplays, along with discussions of the original screenplay and the screenplay adaptation. In all, Boon explains that screenplay criticism distinguishes itself from traditional film studies in three major ways. The primary focus of screenplay criticism is on the screenplay rather than the film, the focus of screenplay studies is on the screenwriter rather than the director, and screenplay criticism, like literary criticism, is written to illuminate a reader's understanding of the text. Boon demonstrates that whether we are concerned with aesthetics and identifying rules for distinguishing the literary from the non-literary, or whether we align ourselves with more contemporary theories, which recognize texts as distinguishable in their inter-relationships and marked difference, screenplays constitute a rich cache of works worthy of critical examination. Film scholars as well as students of film, creative writing, and literary studies will appreciate this singular volume.

1 Foundations

1
Form and Function

The Evolution of the Screenplay

Prehistory

The history of the screenplay begins about sixteen years after the birth of film, in the 1910s, around the time Thomas Harper Ince began making films.¹ Jean-Pierre Geuens credits Ince as the one who first “successfully managed to codify and standardize the entire practice of filmmaking” (82). Under Ince’s guidance, “writing for film became truly efficient for the first time . . . and developed into the indispensable core” (82) of the filmmaking system. The written text that guided a film’s production became a literary form. The text rendered the shots that the director later realized. Geuens points out that “screenplays . . . became detailed shooting scripts that were given to the director for implementation” (83). As with all shifts in power, when creative control increased in the screenplay, it decreased for production personnel, most significantly, the director. Directors were forced to surrender much of their domain to writers. Some directors resisted the loss of control and Ince’s focus on the written word. Barry Salt argues that Ince’s influence may have temporarily stunted film technique, deducing from the absence of multiple-angle cuts in An Apache Father’s Vengeance (1912)—a technique found in director Reginald Barker’s earlier films for Reliance²—that “when Ince took over the Reliance company at the end of 1912 he also took over the director who knew how to” piece together shots from different angles (293). Nevertheless, many directors adopted the “Ince style” of filmmaking and Ince avoided conflicts with directors who were reluctant to adapt by employing directors “willing to work into his scheme of production” (Geuens 143).

Screenplay form, which is bound by function and intimately linked to the film performance, evolved quickly from the mid-1910s until sound and the introduction of dialogue around the end of the 1920s, when it settled into a format similar to the one still found in contemporary screenplays. The formation of the screenplay and its increasing significance to film during the silent era is the result of film’s early transformation from an arcade novelty into a narrative medium. Complex storylines, multiple-shot scenes, and budget concerns forced filmmakers to plan the shape and structure of a film before the start of principal photography. As Lewis Jacobs notes, “stories ended the production of the trifling ‘report’ or ‘incident’ films” and reframed the motion picture as a complex narrative construction (67). Cameramen could no longer wander cities and scenic countrysides merely looking for something to capture on film. They needed narratives on which to hang their visual images, and they needed a method for planning, recording, and recalling these narratives. Early producers, spurred by the popularity of narrative film, scrambled for ideas, filming “half-remembered anecdotes, newspaper headlines, cartoons, jokes, domestic affairs, social issues, economic tribulations—all sorts of everyday American ideas and activities” (67), any shred of narrative that could be adapted to film. Text, which was the primary repository of story at the turn of the century, became an attractive source of inspiration.

Early predecessors of the screenplay did little more than frame the narrative context for a scene. One of the first major infusions of story into filmmaking was Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, 1902), which astounded American audiences and film producers and involved a great deal of preparation from Méliès. One part of this preparation was the writing of a sparse scenario, which provided the backbone for the finished film. No more than a primitive list, Méliès’s scenario represents one of the earliest predecessors to the modern screenplay. The following is the complete text of Méliès’s original scenario for A Trip to the Moon.

1. The scientific congress at the Astronomic Club.

2. Planning the trip. Appointing the explorers and servants. Farewell.

3. The workshops. Constructing the projectile.

4. The foundries. The chimney-stacks. The casting of the monster gun.

5. The astronomers enter the shell.

6. Loading the gun.

7. The monster gun. March past the gunners. Fire!!! Saluting the flag.

8. The flight through space. Approaching the moon.

9. Landed right in the eye!!!

10. Flight of the shell into the moon. Appearance of the earth from the moon.

11. The plain of craters. Volcanic eruption.

12. The dream (the Solies, the Great Bear, Phoebus, the Twin Sisters, Saturna).

13. The snowstorm.

14. 40 degreees below zero. Descending a lunar crater.

15. Into the interior of the moon. The giant mushroom grotto.

16. Encounter with the Selenites. Homeric flight.

17. Prisoners!!!

18. The kingdom of the moon. The Selenite army.

19. The flight.

20. Wild pursuit.

21. The astronomers find the shell again. Departure from the moon.

22. Vertical drop into space.

23. Splashing into the open sea.

24. At the bottom of the ocean.

25. The rescue. Return to port.

26. The great fete. Triumphal march past.

27. Crowning and decorating the heroes of the trip.

28. Procession of Marines and the Fire Brigade.

29. Inauguration of the commemorative statue by the manager and the council.

30. Public rejoicings. (Jacobs 27–28)

Méliès’s list is simply an enumeration of scenes, but as filmmakers, such as Edwin S. Porter and D. W. Griffith, began to concentrate more on individual shots, more narrative detail was added to each item. Scenes acquired headings, which marked location, and descriptive passages were placed beneath each heading, as seen in the following excerpt from Edwin S. Porter’s scenario for The Great Train Robbery (1903) as it appeared in the Edison Catalogue in 1904.

Scene 1: Interior of railroad telegraph office. Two masked robbers enter and compel the operator to get the “signal block” to stop the approaching train, and make him write a fictitious order to the engineer to take water at this station, instead of “Red Lodge,” the regular watering stop. The train comes to a standstill (seen through window of office); the conductor comes to the window, and the frightened operator delivers the order while the bandits crouch out of sight, at the same time keeping him covered with their revolvers. As soon as the conductor leaves, they fall upon the operator, bind and gag him, and hastily depart to catch the moving train.

Scene 2: Railroad water tower. The bandits are hiding behind the tank as the train, under the false order, stops to take water. Just before she pulls out they stealthily board the train between the express car and the tender.

Scene 3: Interior of express car. Messenger is busily engaged. An unusual sound alarms him. He goes to the door, peeps through the keyhole and discovers two men trying to break in. He starts back bewildered, but, quickly recovering, he hastily locks the strong box containing the valuables and throws the key through the open side door. Drawing his revolver, he crouches behind a desk. In the meantime, the two robbers have succeeded in breaking in the door and enter cautiously. The messenger opens fire, and a desperate pistol duel takes place in which the messenger is killed. One of the robbers stands watch while the other tries to open the treasure box. Finding it locked, he vainly searches the messenger for the key, and blows the safe open with dynamite. Securing the valuables and mail bags they leave the car.

(rpt. Jacobs 43–44)

Technical details were added to the scene headings and descriptions, as needed, to identify interior and exterior scenes, close-ups, long shots, titles, and such. Eventually, most information about the proposed film found its way into the scenario, and the scenario became a centralized guide to the proposed film performance.

Scenario to Screenplay: The Silent Era

A silent film scenario consists of four main parts: a synopsis, a cast of characters, a scene plot, and the continuity (or the plot of the action). All four are still in use today in slightly different forms. The synopsis is comparable to a contemporary film treatment; the cast of characters and the scene plot are similar to documents used to facilitate production; and the continuity is much like the contemporary screenplay.

The Synopsis

The synopsis is straight narrative, although greatly condensed from what we would find in novels or short stories. As with contemporary treatments, synopses were used to pitch film ideas to producers, but they also served as an overview of the story. It is common to find one writer credited for the synopsis and another for the story, but the writer credited for the scenario usually wrote the synopsis, as is the case in the following synopsis for Metro Pictures’ Her Inspiration (1918), story and scenario by George D. Baker and Thomas J. Geraghty.

“Her Inspiration”
Synopsis

Harold Montague, a young playwright, is told by the manager that his latest opus lacks proper atmosphere and as it is a moonshine story, Harold takes himself off to the Kentucky mountains, there to meet the originals of the counterparts of his play. He becomes acquainted with such denizens of the mountains as Curt Moots, Big Hank and Loony Lige—at last, but not by any manner of means least, with Kate Kendall—a wild mountain crew all of them—just the right people to contribute to Harold that atmosphere he needs to put his play over.

Of course, the moonshiners regard him suspiciously, particularly Big Hank, who sees him making progress in a romance with Kate and doesn’t like it at all. Big Hank tries to interpret every move made by Harold as that of a revenue officer. The others, however, accept him for what he is. Loony Lige, a half-witted and self-constituted guardian of Kate, nurses a hatred for Big Hank that is augmented into a fury when he sees him trying to kiss the girl. He threatens to go for the revenue officers and give away the secrets of the illicit still.

Soon after, twelve revenue officers arrive. Harold, not knowing who they are, directs them to the hiding place of the moonshines. Big Hank sees him and decides that he must hang. He is only prevented by the arrival of Looney Lige at the head of the band of officers. After this, Harold decides that he has atmosphere enough and that he must return to the city, because it would never do to marry an uncouth girl of the mountains, no matter how much he loves her. As he is watching the rehearsal of his play the manager requests that he meet the leading lady—Kate Kendall, who strange enough, was also seeking atmosphere.

(Palmer and Howard 99–100)

Despite its abbreviated nature, the synopsis adheres to principles of storytelling, employing dramatic techniques such as conflict, irony, and resolution, and is historically significant and important as a source for the film performance. But the film synopsis is too limited by its focus on plot to be read as a fully realized literary piece. It subserves the filmed work and offers little of critical significance when viewed as an autonomous work.

A Cast of Characters

The cast of characters in a scenario is seldom more than a list of the characters involved in the photoplay. Similar in function to a cast listing in a theatrical play (although sometimes the cast of characters would include a list of scenes in which each character appeared), the cast of characters fulfilled the same need as a cast list (and sometimes, call sheets) in use today. It provided an overview of the number of actors needed for a production. Although a cast of characters was commonly included in a scenario, it was eventually separated from the script and became a preproduction document. This change parallels the evolution of the screenplay and reflects the screenplay’s increased literary status. The more cohesive and complete the scenario became, the less it was marked as a preliminary document by its inclusion of other production-related documents.

A Scene Plot

The scene plot, like the cast of characters, is another production-related document that was originally included...