Three More Directors on Screenwriting

Le Samourai (Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville)

The great Jean-Pierre Melville, director of Le Samourai and Le Deuxième Souffle, on the thriller as modern tragedy:

I think the police thriller is the only modern form of tragedy possible. A protagonist doles out a sudden death or is himself killed. There’s no doubt that the police thriller is a very practical vehicle for the adventure film in France.

Classical cinema, basically, had to do with heroes, so-called modern cinema is to do with grubs. I have always refused to go along with this regression ... I always arrange my characters – my ‘heroes’ – to conduct themselves within their environment, whatever it might be, the way I would conduct myself. To be frank, I’m only able to become interested in characters who reflect some aspect of myself.

On The Waterfront (Directed by Elia Kazan)

Elia Kazan, director of classics such ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘On the Waterfront’, on the importance of dramatic unity:

The subject of writing for the theater or screen defies easily formulated rules. The best rule of screen and play writing was given to me by John Howard Lawson, a one-time friend. It’s simple unity from climax. Everything should build to the climax. But all I know about script preparation urges me to make no rules, although there are some hints, tools of the trade, that have been useful for me.

One of these is ‘Have your central character in every scene.’ This is a way of ensuring unity to the work and keeping the focus sharp. Another is; ‘Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.’

Blow Out (Directed by Brian De Palma)

Film director Brian De Palma discusses the screenwriting process.

You’ve made a lot of films during your career, and you’ve also written a lot of your films. Do you prefer to work fast when you write?


The problem with writing a movie is you’ve got to have a great idea. I loved the idea for Femme Fatale and it came very quickly. Dressed to Kill was another great idea, and Blow Out was a very good idea. Those scripts came very quickly. But when you don’t have a good idea, it can take years. These ideas rattle around in my head forever. The idea of somebody fleeing, then they run into their double and take their life, I’ve been thinking about that for ten, fifteen years, and I never found a way to put it into anything. So it’s very much circling in your brain, and then you get to a certain place, you have a certain experience, and it all kind of jells. Then it’s easy to write. You’re in a terrible situation where you have to turn the pages in when you don’t really have a good idea. And of course, I guess 95% of what we see is like that.

When you see a stunning idea like Memento or Boogie Nights, or something by the Coen Brothers, when someone comes up with a tremendously interesting idea, you take your hats off to them, because you know what a difficult process that is. I’ve had a couple of pretty good ones throughout my career, and if you read as much as I do what everyone else is doing and what kind of trouble they’re having, and if you’re a student of the history of cinema, you realize there aren’t that many good ideas out there. That’s why there’s some extraordinary movies, and some that are sort of okay. You have to be in the right place at the right time with the right actors and the right economics. Something like On the Waterfront, Kazan was in the right place at the right time. Orson Welles was in the right place at the right time with the right contract with Citizen Kane. That’s why those movies are so extraordinary.

Character and Balance: ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain?’

Who’ll Stop The Rain? (Directed by Karel Reisz)

Traditionally, the main character is played against secondary ones in order to demonstrate that only the main character can surmount the obstacles posed in the story. This promotes the notion of a singular hero set against the world. By altering this relationship, a scriptwriter can suggest that no one character is privileged, and that the main character has to deal with the same limitations confronting all of the other characters...

A Case Study of Balance: Who’ll Stop the Rain?

Who’ll Stop the Rain?, written by Judith Rascoe and Robert Stone (on whose novel the film is based), reverses the classic case of the main character dominating the narrative. John Converse (Michael Moriarty) is the main character, a man trying to decide whether he is an idealist or a cynic. The Vietnam War and the 1960s are making him increasingly cynical. He decides to sell heroin acquired in Vietnam and engages Ray Hicks (Nick Nolte), a former Marine buddy now in the merchant marines, to help.

Ray is a loyal friend to John and helps transport the heroin to the United States. Unfortunately, John has naively joined a smuggling operation that doesn’t tolerate amateurs. Ray protects the heroin and John’s wife (Tuesday Weld), and rescues John from an FBI agent (Anthony Zerbe) who employs two of the most venal co-agents (Richard Masur and Ray Sharkey) imaginable. They are ruthless, cruel, and hideously funny. All of these characters are more energetic and heroic than John is. Indeed, John seems inept and indifferent to his fate; he is a depressed main character. As we might expect in a main character, Ray, on the other hand, is energetic, charismatic, and inventive. But Ray is a secondary character. He is also heroic in terms of overcoming the obstacles that endanger John, his wife, and himself. Ray is selfless and, in the end, sacrifices himself in the name of friendship.

Who’ll Stop the Rain? positions the main character–secondary character balance directly opposite the position of the classic model. This strategy is implemented to undermine the sense that the main character is privileged. The consequent antiheroics of John may alienate those in the audience who want a hero with whom to identify, but John’s position provides a more reflective and realistic self-exploration of the Vietnam–U.S. relationship. Just as John Converse reflects on his feelings about himself, the war, and his future, so, too, do we. The primacy of the secondary characters in Who’ll Stop the Rain? leads to the desired conclusion.

– Ken Dancyger and Jeff Rush: Alternative Scriptwriting (2007)

Kubrick, Light and Darkness

2001: A Space Odyssey (Directed by Stanley Kubrick)

Stanley Kubrick on the meaning of life from an interview with Playboy magazine in 1968:

Interviewer: If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living? 


Stanley Kubrick: Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism — and their assumption of immortality.



As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong — and lucky — he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. 

Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining.

The most terrifying fact of the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.


However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

Three Directors on Screenwriting

Raging Bull (Directed by Martin Scorsese)

Paul Schrader, screenwriter of Mishima, Raging Bull and Patti Hearst, on balancing fiction and history:

Interviewer:  In dealing with truth, how do you decide how far to go with fictionalizing true events?


Paul Schrader: It's a balance. There are two responsibilities, the first is to history as you know it and as you know, history is not a simple thing. We can both walk away from this meeting with two very different versions of what happened, but you have to be very faithful to the facts as you discern them. And secondly you have the responsibility to drama which is not necessarily the traditional truth - it has to do with themes and tensions, the exploration of issues - and at some point you strike a balance and say, "Okay, this is fair enough to history - and this is fair enough to drama, and I'm okay now." You can go over the line, you can do things dramatically that they are such an affront to history that they undermine the credibility and drama of your story.

The Godfather II (Directed by Francis Ford Coppola)

Francis Ford Coppola on the screenplay as haiku:

Interviewer: What’s the greatest challenge of a screenwriter?

Francis Ford Coppola: A screenplay has to be like a haiku. It has to be very concise and very clear, minimal. When you go to make it as a film, you have the suggestions of the actors, which are going to be available to you, right? You’re going to listen to the actors because they have great ideas. You’re going to listen to the photographer because he will have a great idea.

You must never be the kind of director, I think maybe I was when I was 18, “No, no, no, I know best.” That’s not good. You can make the decision that you feel is best, but listen to everyone, because cinema is collaboration. I always like to say that collaboration is the sex of art because you take from everyone you’re working with.

Interviewer: What is the one thing to keep in mind when making a film?

Francis Ford Coppola: When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In The Godfather  it was succession. In The Conversation it was privacy. In Apocalypse Now it was morality. 

The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.

I remember in The Conversation, they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.

Sunset Boulevard (Directed by Billy Wilder)

Billy Wilder on novelists in Hollywood and the craft of screenwriting:

Interviewer: Why have so many novelists and playwrights from the East, people like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker, had such a terrible time out here [in Hollywood]?

Billy Wilder: Well, because they were hired for very big amounts of money. I remember those days in New York when one writer would say to the other, I'm broke. I'm going to go to Hollywood and steal another fifty thousand. Moreover, they didn't know what movie writing entailed. You have to know the rules before you break them, and they simply didn't school themselves. I'm not just talking about essayists or newspapermen; it was even the novelists. None of them took it seriously, and when they would be confronted by their superior, the producer or the director, who had a louder voice and the weight of the studio behind them, they were not particularly interested in taking advice. Their idea was, Well, crap, everybody in America has got a screenplay inside them--the policeman around the corner here, the waiter in Denver. Everybody. And his sister! I've seen ten movies. Now, if they would only let me do it my way . . . But it's not that easy. To begin to make even a mediocre film you have to learn the rules. You have to know about timing, about creating characters, a little about camera position, just enough to know if what you're suggesting is possible. They pooh-poohed it.

I remember Fitzgerald when he was working at Paramount and I was there working with Brackett. Brackett, who was from the East, had written novels and plays, and had been at Paramount for years. Brackett and I used to take breaks and go to the little coffee joint across the street from the studio. Oblaths! we used to say. The only place in the world you can get a greasy Tom Collins. Whenever we saw Scott Fitzgerald there, we'd talk with him, but he never once asked us anything about writing screenplays.

Pictures are something like plays. They share an architecture and a spirit. A good picture writer is a kind of poet, but a poet who plans his structure like a craftsman and is able to tell what's wrong with the third act. What a veteran screenwriter produces might not be good, but it would be technically correct; if he has a problem in the third act he certainly knows to look for the seed of the problem in the first act. Scott just didn't seem particularly interested in any of these matters.

John Cassavetes: Daring To Fail

Husbands (Directed by John Cassavetes)

Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, it's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things – but above all, we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.

- John Cassavetes