which one is more important : director, or script writer? (1 Viewer)

[Scott H]

...the director of a film coordinates the separate parts of production.

I assume you are referring to the components of direction, including such issues as perhaps casting and music... But your choice of words here is iffy because a director doesn't coordinate any parts of production. It is numerous others in this collaborative endeavor that do that.
Btw, my housemate has been a production coordinator for one of this years Best Director nominees.
I know it looks like I'm targeting you tonight I'm not, I swear

 

[Scott H]

For those making the analogy that a script is merely a foundation, consider an actual structure. No matter how great the architect, if the foundation isn't solid the structure is flawed. It may be momentarily interesting, but it probably won't last...
Anyway, I think that many of you would be very surprised if you polled some truly great directors on this, as in most of what I have read over the years their views were typically that the script was more relevant than they were. Now, of course there are instances where great direction is the main factor. I can cite many examples, a great one being Kurasawa's Dreams. But, how many great films were based on bad scripts and poor characters? How many reviews and critiques upheld a bad story and hailed direction. In fact, how often do you hear direction praised in reviews compared with the story and characters?
One can make a very valid though controversial argument that a director is often less relevant than perceived. This is easily proved by the quantity of passable films in existance that even got made. They are usually being supported by many talented people. On feature films they are surrounded by experienced professionals. And technically, they aren't the only director, just the one who in the end takes the credit or the blame.
Oh wait, you guys are considering the auteur concept
Okay, I'm going back to re-reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls now...

 

[felix_suwarno]

if the script was THE foundation, dont you think it is the most important aspect of film making, more than the director?

 

[paul o'donnell]

The director must get his inspiration from the script in the first place.

The director may create the look and feel of the film, but the screenplay is what plants the seeds in his imagination.

So I possibly think the screenwriter is more important, but at least of equal importance as the director.

 

[Luc D]

I have to say that I'm really surprised to see that most people think the screenwriter is more important. I'm also surprised that no has really brought up the concept of the auteur. Who is a film's auteur? Almost without exception, the director is. Filmmaking isn't about the writing, it's about montage, the juxtaposition of one shot to another. Nowhere in a screenplay is montage even considered. And we haven't even begun to talk about acting!

Think about some of the greatest screenwriters. Take Paul Schrader for example. The man is a genius and written some of the most powerful screenplays I've ever read. But is Taxi Driver a "Paul Schrader film" or a "Martin Scorsese film"?

Of course the screenwriter is important. He's/She's vital to the process. But in the end they're just words. It's only the first step. The thousand other steps are all taken by the director.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I've been enjoying this thread. In the end, there isn't one answer. It depends on the film. Sometimes, the director is more important. Sometimes, the script is more important. But both are required to make a good film. If the director doesn't understand the script...oh boy:frowning:
Remember what you get when you mix 5 pounds of shit and five pounds of chocolate ice cream...you get 10 pounds of shit. A great director cannot save a flawed story. A mediocre director can ruin a great story. The analogy with the scissors above is ideal. Great movies have both. Case closed
Take care,
Chuck

 

[paul o'donnell]

IMO you cannot be an auteur without being the writer and director. You may have control to make it as you like, but its not YOURS.
Also, there is no auteur really (in the sense of author). Film is far too colaborative, if you want to totally have control, write a book...and beat up editors who give you shit

 

[Luc D]

IMO you cannot be an auteur without being the writer and director. You may have control to make it as you like, but its not YOURS.

Hitchcock isn't the auteur of his films?

 

[Scott H]

Think about some of the greatest screenwriters. Take Paul Schrader for example. The man is a genius and written some of the most powerful screenplays I've ever read. But is Taxi Driver a "Paul Schrader film" or a "Martin Scorsese film"?

Well, starting at about the time that Paul Schrader wrote that script in an apartment here in Silver Lake there had begun a trend by the 'New Hollywood' auteur wannabes to use a self indulgent credit called "A Film by xxxx xxxx" or a "A xxxx xxxx Film". Almost immediately, and continuing to this day, was a strong opposition to that particular credit. I have personally received professional recognition for direction, and nothing for writing. I don't much consider myself either, but I do detest the "A Film By" credits. Like I first said here, "at the very least the screenwriter and director are of equal relevance..." Taxi Driver is a film directed by Scorcese, written by Schrader.

And if you study Taxi Driver, really read about it, you will certainly end up reading more about Schrader and the script than about Scorcese. The same will not be true of later films.

So, I think you are redefining the question to mean who's film is it. But that is not the same as which may be more important, what element might be more important, the script or direction.

Ask me which I think is easier, writing a good script or directing a good script... Directing. Most everybody can tell if a story is good and interesting, but fewer can differentiate between remarkable direction and passable. Passable direction is a relatively simple matter in "Hollywood", when you are overly babysitted. But really good stories, really good scripts, do not abound. And while good scripts often make good movies, few if any bad scripts do.

 

[RobR]

Take Psycho (1998) by Gus Van Sant for example. I refuse to watch it, but I don't hear anyone praising the film.

 

[Steve_Ch]

The great Kurosawa once said "It's all in the script", and he started his career writing scripts for PCL (Photo Chemical Lab, eventually became Toho) and I beleive he wrote the scripts for all his movies.

All that said, I think movies are still a director's media, which I guess make them more "important".

Offhand, I can think of Robert Redford (in Ordinary People) as well as Speilberg (in Jaws), went back and reshoot some sequneces after the final cut, in Spielberg's case, it was AFTER the initial preview. Screenwriters, no matter how good they are, simply do not have that kind of power.

Peter Benchley, who also wrote the script for Jaws, recounted the final scene of Jaws, when the shark was blown to pieces. He told Spielberg that it was just simply impossible, and the audience will just laugh, but Spielberg insisted and said, "Trust me". Benchley finally gave in and was expecting the worst at the grand openning, and he said, "I gained a lot of respect for Spielberg when the audience stood up and cheered widely at the scene".

The point is, the director can often force their vision of the movie on the writer, actor, ... (for better or worse), but it's extremely rare the other way around.

One more thought, some extemely compelling documentaries were shoot totally without script or direction, in many ways, it's the instinct of the camera person as well as the craft of editing, so I guess in some type of films, it's "neither".

 

[Scott H]

Okay, if I have to directly answer the question as asked in the thread title, which I really haven't done, I would say the following:

The script is more relevant than who is directing it, though the director is more important than the screenwriter.

 

[John Wielgosz]

I feel the screenwriter has the greater potential to determine whether the movie will be good or not. I remember part of a memo that producer Gene Coon gave to budding writers for the original "Star Trek" series.

"Problems are easier and cheaper to fix on the page."

The screenwriter essentially is the first one to make the movie. They build the story itself from nothing, essentially creating the template for all who follow.

I feel the job of everyone else is to build upon that template, improving it to the best of their abilities, without fouling up what made it work (if it worked) in the first place.

 

[RobR]

[The screenwriters] build the story itself from nothing, essentially creating the template for all who follow.

Not necessarily nothing. The script could be based on a novel or a true story.

 

[felix_suwarno]

i didnt expect a question for a writing test taken from toefl test would be this interesting.

about spielberg, yes i know he has the power to change a few things. i read about him returning the trex at the end of jurrasic park. originally trex was not supposed to be there. but he merely developed the ideas from the script.

i actually respect directors who write their own movie, like james cameron. doesnt mean i dont enjoy spielberg movies though. schindler's list is the best movie in my life.

 

[Luc D]

Spielberg probably isn't a very good example. He's a relatively by the numbers filmmaker who uses primarily straightforward editing and shot compositions (and I'm not saying this is a bad thing). He's arguably one of the greatest classical directors in history. Still, even in a Spielberg film, what he brings to it is far more important than the screenwriter. Just take Saving Private Ryan (even though it's not a film I really care for), just think of how reading the Omaha Beach sequence compares to watching it?

A better example of someone taking a script and really using the cinema to make it all it could be and more would be Kubrick's 2001. This film didn't really have a script. Working with Arthur C. Clark, they would both develop the idea, Clark wrote a chapter, then Kubrick shot it. That's more or less how that film was made. The real creativity in that film came not from the script/novel, but from Kubrick's use of montage and sound. Writing the stargate sequence is one thing, translating it to the screen is quite another.

It's not simply a matter of changing what's been written, it's how the director interprets and brings it to life through the moving image.

In your run of the mill commercial film, then yes, sometimes the script is more important or relevant, but for the majority of films the director is far more crucial.

 

[Guy Martin]

I personally think that the important person can vary from film to film. Sometimes it's the writer and sometimes it's the director.

But I was at a seminar last night with some Dreamworks people and they all agreed that in the American studio system 90% of the time both the writer and director are just hired hands and that the really important creative authority is the producer. Never thought of that, but it makes sense since the producer usually is with the movie the longest, from initial concept to script to production to marketing to home video and has veto power over everyone at each stage.

- Guy

 

[paul o'donnell]

Maybe outlining some things might be a way to give this arguement some direction.

If we are talking about auteur in the sense of control, then I say the director is most important.

If we mean auteur very much like author of a book in a creation sense, then screenwriter.

Although it needs to be stated seeing as its overlooked far too often. A screenplay and a film are two very different mediums, as are a film and a novel. Screenplay is merely an outline, and if they were published periphery to the films and had their own reader market then this would bear my claim out. They become too wrapped up in the fate of the films and as a result the credit gets lavished on the director...sometimes rightly so, and sometimes not.

Lame example warning:

Remember Alan Ball's acceptance speech at the oscars?

He thanked that plastic bag he saw blowing in the wind one day. Which was more important, the bag for the idea or himself for taking its ideas and creating something else with them.

Now substitute screenplay for the bag and Sam Mendes for Ball.

Untimately an unresolvable arguement im afraid.

 

[Guy Martin]

Writing the stargate sequence is one thing, translating it to the screen is quite another

.

For which we have visual effects expert Douglas Trumbull to thank. He came up with the slitscan techinique and implemented it, further illustrating that film is essentially a collaborative medium and that the director is just one of many important people.