SCREENWRITERS’ MASTERCLASS
Edited by Kevin Conroy Scott
Newmarket, 416 pp., $18.95 (paper)
Students of screenwriting, hoping for a Robert McKee-like structural code-cracking, or a paint-by-numbers schematic in the key of Joseph Campbell’s “Call to Adventure” and “Magic Elixir,” will find no easy answers in Kevin Conroy Scott’s Screenwriters’ Masterclass. Instead, Scott, a London-based film journalist, offers up a fascinating compendium of interviews with some of the best screenwriters – American and international, big budget to no budget – working today. Riffing off roughly the same set of questions, Scott asks the likes of Scott Frank (Out of Sight), Michael Haneke (Caché), and David O. Russell (Three Kings) about their cultural upbringings, their writing processes, and their sometimes surprising methods of combating self-doubt (28 Days Later‘s Alex Garland wins hands down with his method: “Listen, if I’m going to be completely honest … what I sometimes do is smoke a joint.” Betcha don’t find that in a Syd Field text.) The interviewees are remarkably candid when it comes to their frustrations (of which there are many) and offer loads of practical information about the writing process (served up with a sense of humor, as when About a Boy‘s Chris Weitz prefaces a discussion on Flaubert’s style indirect libre by announcing, “Beware, something pretentious is coming up”). Newbies looking for another kind of magical elixir – the keys to the kingdom, the how-to of landing an agent or a sale – won’t find them here; indeed, the book largely glosses over the struggling years, a disappointment if only in that, of the 21 writers included, there are 21 no doubt wildly different paths to landing that first screen credit, each an education in itself. (The book’s only other disappointment is in its poor showing for female screenwriters; while it produces international perspectives from the likes of Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson and Spain’s Fernando León de Aranoa, the lone female voice comes from High Art‘s Lisa Cholodenko.) Still, Screenwriters’ Masterclass is an engrossing, elucidating read, one that celebrates the art of screenwriting – and most would make the case that it’s an art form – and offers encouragement throughout. The best word of advice? From Y Tu Mamá También‘s Carlos Cuarón: “I believe Truman Capote said ‘Don’t humiliate yourself by answering a critic.’ So who gives a fuck, you know?” Nicely put.
This article appears in April 28 • 2006.
