Film – Page 62 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

09 Important Women Screenwriters Today from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (58 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Transcript:

Next, I don’t know most important , I don’t how I ordered these except they came to this order but Callie Khouri — anyone that can name the movie that she’s famous for? (Audience: Thelma & Louise) Thelma & Louise! Thank you. Thank Goodness. Thelma & Louise! An amazing film, right, that is still being talked about and debated in women’s studies, in Cinema Studies. Do we like the ending Don’t we like the ending? Is it how it could have ended? I think that’s pretty brilliant. Susannah Grant is probably not a name you recognize off the top of your head but you’ve seen these movies. Erin Brockovich is a huge film, right? Charlette’s Web – she has a lot of early kids work which is adorable. And Pocahontas, which is a very very famous Disney film so Suzanne has been one of our newer people and then as you recognized, Diablo Cody, right? Diablo Cody showed up doing Juno and then she did the United States of Tara with Spielberg on television. She’s moving and grooving through town so we’ll see what her next project is but she won an Oscar for Juno. That was her first outing as a screenwriter.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 33 in a series – Alice Guy Blaché and Gaumont

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

Sixty-three of the movies that Alice Guy Blaché made while working for Gaumont are collected on the DVD Gaumont Treasures. Disk 1 is dedicated entirely to Blaché. While just a drop in the bucket of the work she did when she was there, it is a fascinating exploration of how quickly her work and voice grew.

The Nature and Genius of Alice Guy Blaché
by Khanisha Foster

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†

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Italian Stories Day Los Angeles 2019

I was pleased to be asked to attend the first Italian Stories Day hosted by the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers and the Istituto Luce Cinecittà and Italian Audiovisual Producers Association at Mr. C in Beverly Hills. The three groups share the mission of helping more Italian authors see their work produced for the international film and television markets.

I had the pleasure of hearing about new books that we Americans will be able to read once their English translations are complete (within the next year) from authors like Tiziana Triana, author of Luna Nera – Le Città Perdute (Vol I) (Black Moon – The Lost Cities, Vol 1) which deals with witch hunters of 17th century Italy and how that affected women who yearned to gather knowledge; Stefania Auci, a Sicilian teacher and author of the historical novel Florence, published in 2015 by Baldini e Castoldi; and Edoardo Albinati, author of La Scuola Cattolica (The Catholic School).

I also had the chance to reconnect with Leonilde Callocchia, the Attaché at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura who hosted our Mentoris Book Launch last year, and a few producers I was able to invite to come to our Stephens College MFA workshops this August while we all munched on some marvelous brunch.

08 Nora Ephron from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 9 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

But for her, it started with Heartburn which is the novel she wrote about her own divorce from Carl Bernstein — the Carl Bernstein of All The President’s Men because he had an affair behind her back when she was pregnant. So she dumped him and then she wrote a book about it which became a movie starring Meryl Street and Jack Nicholson. From that, she went on to write Silkwood which is a brilliant film you should check out. Meryl Streep. It’s based on the real-life woman named Karen Silkwood who is about to give secrets to the government about how her nuclear facility was being mismanaged and she ended up crashed on the side of the road dead and nobody knew exactly how that happened. So that’s a brilliant — so she went from drama, drama, to comedy and then, of course, we know the other movies. My Blue Heaven is one of my favorites that got dismissed because didn’t make a lot at the box office but it is quite charming. It’s the witness protection program and it’s Steve Martin as a mafiosi in the program right and Rick Moranis is his his watcher and he doesn’t play by the rules he’s supposed to play and t’s funny as heck. So she’s Nora Ephron. She’s really she’s so brilliant that’s a Nora Ephron Prize you can win if you’re a screenwriter at the Tribeca Film Festival. That’s how important she is to the business right?

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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“When Women Wrote Hollywood” Now at the Los Angeles Public Library!

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Read it from the Los Angeles Public Library Today!

Happy news!

When Women Wrote Hollywood is now available at the Los Angeles Public Library thanks to our friend, Wendy Horowitz.

If you have friends who were interested in reading but low on cash, tell them to check it out.

And this is a reminder that if you want your local library to carry a copy, you need to ask a librarian. They have a form you can fill out that requests what books you’d like in their stacks. You can also send or give them this flyer with all the pertinent information!

When Women Wrote Hollywood Flyer (PDF)

Ask today so someone else can read tomorrow!

Get When Women Wrote Hollywood Today

†

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 32 in a series – Anita Loos – Prolific Scenario Writer

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

After The New York Hat, Loos continued to sell scenarios to Biograph such as A Girl Like Mother, Saved by Soup, The Little Liar among many.

According to an interview in Everybody’s Magazine in 1917, Loos would “write 200 scenarios before she ever saw the inside of a studio.”

Anita Loos: A Girl Like Her
by Toni Anita Hull

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon

†

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Remember to Credit The Screenwriter!

While we at Screenwriting Research Network strive to force a focus on screenwriters, we need allies in the non-academic world to properly credit them.

In that vein, I recently wrote to the Guardian’s film critic about a moment in his review of ‘Gangs of New York’ where he credited the director for a visual moment that occurred, clearly and firstly, in the original script — something that happens far too frequently. Often, such letters yield nothing outside of getting the issue off my chest, but today I received this response:

“Dear Dr Welch: many thanks for your email, which has been passed on to me. Your comment is entirely fair: I should have credited this moment to the screenwriters: Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan. With all good wishes,”

I received this response after sending this email to The Guardian’s film desk:

“As a professor of Screenwriting History for an MFA program in the U.S. I greatly enjoy sharing your reviews of American films with my students, so I hope you don’t mind my noting a small mistake I found while researching your review of Gangs of New York – but again, being a professor of Screenwriting History (not film history because film history is the history of directors) I found you fell victim to one of the age-old issues of the old auteur theory. You credited a visual moment to the director when, in fact, it had existed in the original script, therefore the credit ought to have gone to the writer(s) and their imaginations and use of quality research.”

“The streets erupt in a saturnalia of lawlessness, to which the director adds an inspired touch: an escaped elephant from Barnum’s circus trumpeting down the rubble-strewn streets.”

Yet that elephant was in the script (which I researched at the WGA Library in Los Angeles) all along, as you can see:

“116 EXT. CANAL STREET DAWN

The first thing we see is an ELEPHANT, who trumpets fearfully at the sudden sound of the shattered door. The gang stops, wary of this huge refugee from Barnum’s Museum, but the animal is more frightened of them. It hurries on down the street…”

I only make this point because those kinds of errors lead to the continued idea that directors are the only authors of a film – an idea most film programs are debunking by the day. I hope critics (since they are also writers) will remember screenwriters more prominently in their work in the future. I have taken to reminding people that, when you speak of your favorite films you rarely recount memorable camera angles, but in fact you recount your favorite dialogue and that is the realm of the writer. Often, as in this instance, many of the visuals credited to directors were first imagined by writers as well.

Dr. Rosanne Welch

07 Women You May Know from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (55 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

So let’s talk about some women you know and some women you don’t know and hopefully, you will — as I said. These are ladies, hopefully, you’ll recognize. Anybody? (Audience: Shonda Rhimes) Shonda Rhimes! Thank goodness. We must all know Shonda Rhimes. (Audience: Is that Diablo Cody?) That’s Diablo Cody. Exactly, from Juno. This lady — you have probably seen more movies than any of theirs combined. (Audience: Is that Jane Fonda?) No, looks a lot like her though. doesn’t she? Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron, right? Incredible. So these are people that I think you recognize. There’s Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron is probably the queen of screenwriting. She passed away a few years ago, but you’ve seen probably all these films or you’ve heard about them mentioned in popular culture places. You’ve seen parodied on The Simpsons. That’s how embedded in popular culture they are, right? I mean, “When Harry Met Sally” is a classic. it is something that everyone references when they think of rom-coms.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 31 in a series – Jeanie Macpherson and DeMille

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

Jeanie Macpherson herself repeatedly notes in press releases and interviews that Cecil B. DeMille was notoriously hard to please, requesting endless drafts of scripts, but that, “He will take advice from anyone – if it’s right. He won’t take it from anyone if it’s wrong.” Over the years, Macpherson was one of the few people who was able to appease “Mr. Hard to Please.”

Jeanie Macpherson: A Life Unknown
by Amelia Phillips

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library

Dr. Rosanne Welch, PhD is this week’s #WriterCrushWednesday via Write or Die Chicks!

The Write Or Die Chicks, founded by 3 of my former MFA alums from Cal State Fullerton (Deanna Gomez, Mercedes Milner, and Angela Thomas) were kind enough recently to name me on their Writer Crush Wednesday post which made my day.

After their graduation a year ago May, they came out of the dust of the classroom (CP 126) where they spent so much time for two years ready to take over the town with their writing and their energy.

wish them all the luck they’ll need (because they already have all the talent required). Starting such a writers group is always a great way to continue creating new material with caring collaborators.

Dr. Rosanne Welch, PhD is this week’s #WriterCrushWednesday We thank her for being an inspiring and influential Screenwriter, Author, Professor and Mentor from her work on #TouchedByAnAngel to her lectures at CSUF and every publication in between.

#ProfessorAppreciation #RosanneWelch #CSUF
#WhenWomenWroteHollywood #WhyTheMonkeesMatter #AmericasForgotten #FoundingFather #thewriteordiechicks #thewodc#writers #writerlife #ThankYou