Writing – Page 39 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

31 The Importance of Names from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (53 seconds)

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Transcript:

Also, think about how important names are with your characters. You all know from your childhood Cruella de Ville. Y’all knew what that was really, of course, maybe not when you were five but eventually you caught on. She was the devil, right? Think about all the movie characters Luke Skywalker walks through the sky right? Han Solo flies alone. I guess you forget about Chewbacca and that right? Names mean something. Ginny Fields. Ginny is the nickname for Virginia which means her name is Virgin Fields. She’s never had sex. (Audience) She’s never been plowed. She has never been plowed. Seriously. That is literally what her name is telling you. Is that not crazy? That.. is it’s wonderful. She’s right. I love that. So you really have to think about, my gosh, what was that message telling young girls right and who decided that was the message they needed.

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.

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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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“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 5 in a series

“Time with his mother and brothers didn’t last. Soon Giuseppe, like all young men from the newly-created middle class, was sent to boarding school in Genoa, over 120 miles from his home in Nice. Nicoletta hoped he would study medicine or law but a short year into his time at school, when the teachers would not give lessons on navigation, Giuseppe and a small group of friends decided to test themselves.”

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30 Michael Wilson – Censored from Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered [Video] (34 seconds)

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Transcript:

In this time period this gentleman, Michael Wilson was completely censored. His movies were put out without his name on them at all. The movies were released and there was no written by credit at all because the studio refused to recognize him because he was marked as a communist.Both of these movies are anti-war films The first one Friendly Persuasion is about our Civil War and Salt of the Earth is actually a union movie. Iit’s about a union of miners, New Mexican miners who are on strike and the women who support them and nobody wanted to support those ideas so his he just disappeared right?

A Note About This Presentation

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

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood Archives 44: Jane Murfin at the Women Film Pioneers Project

Months of research went into the creation of the essays in “When Women Wrote Hollywood.” Here are some of the resources used to enlighten today’s film lovers to the female pioneers who helped create it.

As a woman who wrote or cowrote over sixty produced films, a producer who championed strong female roles, and a Hollywood insider with a career spanning over three decades, Jane Murfin may be one of the most prolific but least known writers of the 1920s and ’30s.

Jane Murfin was born Jane Macklem in Quincy, Michigan. Her first marriage, in 1907, to lawyer James Murfin, lasted less than five years, but Jane adopted his surname and would use it—excluding the brief period in the late 1910s when she and Jane Cowl used the pseudonym Allan Langdon Martin—throughout her life. Although the 1910 US Census records list her as living as a housewife in Michigan with her lawyer-husband James, according to Murfin family correspondence from 1967, Jane moved shortly after to New York City while her husband remained in Michigan. According to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, James eventually became a school regent, after a long career teaching law, and even has a gate on the grounds named after him.

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Now Available: The Civil War on Film (Hollywood History) by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

My newest book The Civil War on Film (co-written with my colleague Peg Lamphier as part of ABC-Clio’s Hollywood History series) was published today.

Peg and I discuss 10 Civil War films based on their accuracy and cultural context. It is no surprise that we agree with a collection of historians that the most accurate of all the films of the Civil War is Glory (written by Kevin Jarre), though even that film makes the ‘mistake’ of omitting the fact that Harriet Tubman served as a spy for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.

As we say about many of the films, one film can’t encapsulate the entirety of a historical event (though Free State of Jones (written by Gary Ross) does try, and here we admit that that attempt to do it all makes for a long and plodding film, which is sad since it is a thorough portrait of Reconstruction, which is nearly never covered in films as they all prefer ending when the war ends).

As always it was a pleasure to work with Peg. We’re in the middle of our second book for this series – chronicling how Women’s History is covered in films coming sometime in 2021.

Want to use The Civil War On Film as a classroom text?
Contact ABC-CLIO for more information

The Civil War on Film will inform high school and college readers interested in Civil War film history on issues that arise when film viewers confuse entertainment with historical accuracy.

The nation’s years of civil war were painful, destructive, and unpleasant. Yet war films tend to embrace mythologies that erase that historical reality, romanticizing the Civil War. The editors of this volume have little patience for any argument that implies race-based slavery isn’t an entirely repugnant economic, political, and cultural institution and that the people who fought to preserve slavery were fighting for a glorious and admirable cause

To that end, The Civil War on Film will open with a timeline and introduction and then explore ten films across decades of cinema history in ten chapters, from Birth of a Nation, which debuted in 1915, to The Free State of Jones, which debuted one hundred and one years later. It will also analyze and critique the myriad of mythologies and ideologies which appear in American Civil War films, including Lost Cause ideation, Black Confederate fictions, Northern Aggression mythologies, and White Savior tropes. It will also suggest the way particular films mirror the time in which they were written and filmed. Further resources will close the volume.

Makes clear that depictions of the Civil War on film are often mythologized
Analyzes films in a manner that shows students the historical context in which the films were made and viewed
Goes beyond just synopses and historical facts, helping students to develop critical thinking skills
Stimulates debate over the various ways the war was interpreted and experienced

Film discussed include:

Gone with the Wind (1939)
Friendly Persuasion (1957)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Glory (1989)
Gettysburg (1993)
Andersonville (1996)
Ride with the Devil (1999)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Lincoln (2012)
Free State of Jones (2016)

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More books from Dr. Rosanne Welch

“A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 4 in a series

Pre-order the Kindle Version of “A Man Of Action Saving Liberty” for 99¢ until October 1, 2020

““I miss Papa,” Giuseppe admitted. His father, Giovanni, known to friends by his middle name, Domenico, often left the family for months at a time to sail his ship, the Santa Reparata. On his rare nights at home, Domenico dazzled his sons with stories of his adventures at sea, from meeting pirates to speaking the exotic languages of the many ports where his ship docked.”

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When Women Wrote Hollywood: The Movies – 10 in a series – Ben Hur (1907), Wr: Gene Gauntier

Ben Hur is a 1907 American silent drama film set in ancient Rome, the first screen adaptation of Lew Wallace’s popular 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Co-directed by Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Rose, this “photoplay” was produced by the Kalem Company of New York City, and its scenes, including the climactic chariot race, were filmed in the city’s borough of Brooklyn.[5][a]

While this film is significant for being the first motion-picture adaptation of Wallace’s novel, its production also served as a landmark case of copyright infringement by an early American film studio. In 1908 Kalem was successfully sued for representing parts of Wallace’s book on screen without obtaining permission from the author’s estate. Copies of the film, which survive, are now in the public domain and are readily available for free viewing online in the collections of various digital archives and on streaming services. — Wikipedia

More about Alice Guy Blaché

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Help Support Local Bookstores — Buy at Bookshop.org

* 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

30 The “Final Girl” Trope from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (43 seconds)

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Transcript:

Now one of the things we have to think about — side note — when we think about horror movies again — is what they’re telling us. In this movie, as we know, spoiler alert, he’s the bad guy. Anthony Perkins was gay and by casting him they knew the audience would feel awkward about him. there would be something wrong with him They didn’t have to say what it was. They just knew society would find him wrong and so they cast him as the bad guy right? And so under all of this, what we’re saying is you can’t trust gay men. They’re dangerous. Don’t be near them. That’s the underlying concept behind Psycho. So I think that’s really — I have to think about what are the messages we’re getting from the stuff we’re watching and the stuff we’re reading and how do we counter those if they’re messages that we don’t want to have but it’s a good movie. It’s a good movie but have to think about that.

A Note About This Presentation

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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Quotes from “A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 3 in a series

Pre-order the Kindle Version of “A Man Of Action Saving Liberty” for 99¢ until October 1, 2020

“Garibaldi rode off, no longer only a child of French-held Nice, no longer the failed leader of the South American rebels of Rio Grande do Sul, no longer merely a candle-makers apprentice in the turbulent times in the far off United States. So much loss, yet so much gained in what still seemed so little time. He could barely believe it all himself.”

Get your copy of A Man Of Action Saving Liberty Today!

Quotes from “A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi” – 2 in a series

Pre-order the Kindle Version of “A Man Of Action Saving Liberty” for 99¢ until October 1, 2020

“On October 26, 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi found himself as far from his childhood home as a man could be, having traveled around the world and back again in his 53 years, seeking a goal no man had yet accomplished, the unification of his beloved Italy.”

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