Women Screenwriters Today

Their Lives and Words

Marsha Mccreadie

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN:
  9780275985424
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780313043185
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Popular Culture
• Index: Social Sciences

The question of whether women write from a unique perspective has been debated since the silent era. McCreadie examines how this female sensibility has been defined and whether, in fact, it exists at all. Such films as Lost in Translation and Monster suggest that women screenwriters are moving in a new direction, heading away from the big-budget action movies that dominate Hollywood today. But action-driven genre films, like the thrillers of Alexandra Seros, seem to belie the perception that women write films that are more dialogue- and character-driven than those of male screenwriters. Whether or not women actually write differently from men and about different topics, the author's unique approach—working with and through the words and lives of the women screenwriters themselves—allows both readers and writers an otherwise unattainable look into the ever-growing and ever more essential world of women in Hollywood.

Over the course of cinematic history, women screenwriters have played an essential role in the creation of the films we watch. The question of whether women write from a unique perspective has been debated since the silent era. Marsha McCreadie examines how this female sensibility has been defined and questions whether, in fact, it exists at all. The emergence of such films as Lost in Translation and Monster would seem to suggest that women screenwriters are moving in a new direction, heading away from the big-budget action movies that dominate Hollywood today. But there can always be found an Alexandra Seros, for instance, whose thrillers would seem to prove the opposite case. Working through these contradictions, Marsha McCreadie takes a captivating look at the words and lives of women screenwriters, allowing readers an otherwise unattainable look into the ever-growing and ever more essential world of women in film.

Readers interested in film and women's studies will especially enjoy reading Marsha McCreadie's discussions of such films as Little Women, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Piano, Pollock, and Under the Tuscan Sun. Interviews with major women players in the movie business, including Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) and Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility), allow readers a unique chance to learn firsthand how women are trying to enter the business, how they pursue and approach the topics they love, and how they have managed to survive and prosper in the unforgiving world of modern cinema. By talking with writers working in Hollywood, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, Marsha McCreadie provides film fans with an international perspective on the increasingly global film industry.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE Giving Melodrama a Good Name: The Film of Sensibility
• CHAPTER TWO Vets and Lifers: How They Got and Stayed In
• CHAPTER THREE The New Professionals
• CHAPTER FOUR Breakaway Queens and Genre Benders: Women Writers Stretching and Bending the Film Form
• CHAPTER FIVE Adaptation
• CHAPTER SIX The Independents: Finding a Perch, Having Their Say
• CHAPTER SEVEN The Pragmatists: Moving between Film and Television
• CHAPTER EIGHT The Smaller Screen—TV: A Better Fit for Women?
• CHAPTER NINE The View from Abroad
• CHAPTER TEN Conclusion
• Appendix: Brief Biographies of Women Screenwriters
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index