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And journalists, who are writers, have made this mistake. They had dismissed writers in talking about Hollywood. I find it terrible. One time, John Ford pointed out that a particular shot that he was going to use in a script was written into the script. The screenwriter envisioned how the camera should move and John Ford said to Nunnally Johnson “I don’t know if the critics will recognize you or me for doing this work.” and Nunnally Johnson responded, “I don’t who’s going to get the credit, but Iknow I did it” and even John Ford said, ‘I know. I recognize it”, but that doesn’t mean that when John Ford was interviewed later in life he remembered to mention Nunnally Johnson. No, no, no. It was John Ford, right?

A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

 

* 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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Watch this entire presentation

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In this case — this gentleman Nunnally Johnson –I think got it even worse. He adapted this famous United States book, The Grapes of Wrath, into a film. You notice on the bottom it was directed by John Ford. We don’t see where — Nunnally Johnson’s name is right above it. Can you see the itty-bitty teeny-tiny print? John Steinbeck, the author of the book, actually said he thought the script was better than his book. He thought that the writing of the script improved this novel that is quite famous and taught in many American classrooms. When the woman who starred in the film — who married Nunnally Johnson — died just a few years ago, the obituary — her very own obituary — read that she was famous for John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and she left acting when she married the film’s screenwriter. It’s his wife’s obituary and it doesn’t list his name because he’s just a screenwriter. He can’t possibly count as much as John Ford does. She wasn’t married to John Ford.

A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

 

* 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

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

Transcript:

In this case, Frank Capra took a lot of credit for this film, It’s A Wonderful Life. It plays in the United States often, It’s a Christmas film. You can see Frank Capra’s name in big red letters on the bottom over there. It was actually written by this couple — a married couple who wrote for over 50 years together — Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. I think they’re quite wonderful because they also wrote the Broadway play and the film production of The Diary of Anne Frank. They won a Pulitzer Prize for that work. Frank Capra has never won a Pulitzer Prize. I believe these are Hackett/Goodrich Films. They are not Frank Capra films. So the unbalance of the credits — the lack of credit — for such incredible work — such incredible craftsmanship, I think is quite sad. They also wrote The Thin Man movies which were adaptations of a book by Dashiell Hammett. There was a book written by this couple by their nephew called The Real Nick and Nora. So they had quite the career.

A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

 

* 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

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

Transcript:

This is an anecdotal piece of history. Robert Riskin is a famous American screenwriter. He won an Oscar for It Happened One Night, which is the first movie to win all Oscars in all five of the major categories and there is a story in town — he often worked with the director named Frank Capra, also a gentleman of Italian heritage who I’m not very fond of these days — because in my research I’ve discovered that often he took credit from writers because he wanted it to be a Capra Production. He wanted to be the auteur of all things. So this story, which as I said is anecdotal, is that at one point Robert Riskin was tired of hearing that the Capra Touch made movies beautiful. So one day when he had a deadline on a script, he handed in 200 blank pages of paper and he said “Go ahead. Put your touch on that!” because you cannot direct if there is no material to direct. Alright. So we don’t know if that really happened but it’s a reminder that we have to think about the work of writers.

A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

 

* 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