Screen Story Success from Lindsey Hughes

Movies about Writing

JULIE AND JULIA is a wonderful summer confection of a movie.  What I like most about it is that it was two sweet, simple stories.  To be entertaining movies do not have to be complicated.  They just have to be about characters that we want to spend two hours with.  It’s easy to forget that as we work with all the bells and whistles of concept and structure.  In figuring out act breaks and themes, screenplays can quickly become convoluted.  The only thing complicated about JULIE AND JULIA is that it cuts between two stories:  Julia Child learning French cooking and writing her cookbook.  And Julie Powell cooking all of Julia’s cookbook in a year and blogging about it.  This movie is about two things, cooking and writing.  As I new blogger, I found Julie Powell’s story particularly inspiring.  And it got me thinking about movies about writing.

Writing is, as all of you know, a solitary, cerebral occupation.  Even when you’re actually pounding on your keyboard, you’re in your head.  The process of writing, the blood, sweat, and tears of it, is difficult to dramatize.  In JULIE AND JULIA, Nora Ephron was lucky because her characters were writing about cooking.  Preparing the food, the before and after, and the eating all give wonderfully visual moments.

Lots of characters in movies are writers, but very few films are about writing itself.   Here are a few of my favorites that I think capture what a writer goes through as he tries to get the story in his head down on paper.

BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994) –  makes all aspects of the writer’s experience entertaining.  A wunderkind playwright (John Cusak) is interested in creating deep Art, but he’s not thinking about telling a story or entertaining an audience.  He is seduced by the aging star (Dianne Wiest) who knows she needs him to write her a part.  He also has to deal with the backer of the play, a gangster, who wants to give his mistress (Jennifer Tilly) a part.  John is having to compromise his art to get his project made.  Something screenwriters do every day.  Meanwhile, the gangster’s henchman (Chazz Palmentari) has a flare for story and starts making suggestions.  It turns out he’s the real talent, and he’s willing to kill bad actress Jennifer to preserve his play.  I am sure there are a lot of writers who have wished actors dead.  This movie points out two truths:  Writers can be pretentious and untalented.  And anyone can have good ideas that contribute to the success of the story.

WONDER BOYS (2000) – Once promising novelist Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) doesn’t do a lot of writing in this movie, but he captures perfectly the mania of trying to live up to the reputation of your own book, and the despair and fear at being eclipsed by a younger, more talented writer.  One crazy thing after the next gets in the way of his writing.  The silly desperation is so funny.  I love that Grady has to wear a ratty, pink woman’s bathrobe to write.  He spends most of the movie in it and it always makes me smile.  I know that many writers have to dress a certain way to work.  My hair has to be up in a clip.  For some reason I can’t think properly if it’s touching my neck.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998) – is a love story about writing.  Shakespeare falls in love with Viola who is pretending to be a man so she can act.  This relationship gives him inspiration to revise his latest play ROMEO AND JULIET.  Not only is this movie terribly romantic, but it’s fun for a Shakespeare buff like myself to see the fictional story of how he came up with one of his most famous plays.  The romance is a very clever way to dramatize the intangibility of inspiration.  Writers are always asked how they come up with their ideas.  Creating is a mysterious process.  The origin of ideas is rarely as clear as it is in this movie.

SWEET LIBERTY (1986) – follows the experience of an author (Alan Alda) whose book is being made into a movie.  Even though it’s non-fiction, the Hollywood folks are changing it left and right.  Alan Alda struggles to keep the integrity of his book and make the screenplay good.  This is an overlooked gem of a movie with great performances from Michael Cain and Michelle Pfeiffer as temperamental movie stars.  Even though it’s a comedy, it’s very true to life.

ADAPTATION (2002) – Writer Charlie Kaufman had such a difficult time figuring out how to turn the book THE ORCHID THIEF into a movie that he wrote the screenplay about his struggle.  This movie perfectly captures the turmoil when you just can’t crack the story and everyone else you know seems to be sailing along.

THE MUSE  (1999) – Blocked screenwriter Albert Brooks hires kooky professional muse Sharon Stone to help him.  She may be crazy, but there’s a method to her madness.  She helps him come up with a new idea and gives his wife the confidence to start a business.  If only we could all have a muse for hire on call.

IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) – Humphrey Bogart as a murderous screenwriter.

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) –  Desperate and destitute screenwriter meets desperate and unhinged movie star.

PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES (1964) – This is a mediocre movie.  The fun is seeing Audrey Hepburn act out all of screenwriter Bill Holden’s different scenarios as he tries to figure out what kind of movie to write.