I’m a screenwriter, so let me toss in a couple of comments here.
A “screenplay” is commonly misunderstood to represent the dialogue, and not much more. When someone says the writing was good, they often follow up by saying the characters had some good lines; and when people say the screenplay was bad, they really mean the dialogue was bad.
Important concept #1: The screenplay does not equal the dialogue.
The dialogue is, in fact, the least significant element of a script. The writer determines the arc of the story, divides it into beats, sequences the scenes, figures out the revelations that drive the story, and so on and so forth. And then, when the whole story is in place, the writer creates the dialogue.
And on the set, the actors and director frequently rewrite the dialogue, coming up with new ways to say things. A well-known modern example is from The Fugitive, where Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) catches up to Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) in the dam tunnel. The original script had about a page of dialogue between the two, verbal jousting over whether Kimble would surrender, Gerard’s position of power, etc., etc. Ford and Jones looked at the script on set, read it back and forth a couple of times, and reduced it to the classic exchange you see in the film: “I didn’t kill my wife!” …“I don’t care!”
HOWEVER: The overall arc of the story, the bus crash followed by running followed by sneaking into the hospital for self-care followed by a return to Chicago etc etc… That’s the meat of the screenplay, and that’s the kind of stuff that can’t be changed on-set, because it affects too much other stuff. It’s okay if the actor says, “Hey, instead of saying, ‘Get the cannolis, leave the gun,’ I think it would be funnier if I switched that around, to ‘Leave the gun, take the cannolis.’ All right?” But it’s not okay if the actor says, “Hey, instead of shooting him, what if we run away together…?”
So, that said, the conventionally agreed “best screenplay ever” is Chinatown, by Robert Towne. It’s readable in script form, and isn’t just a template for a film. (Read an action-movie script sometime. Boooooring.) There’s tremendous economy in the language; Towne gives the director lots of material to work with, but doesn’t try to restrict the story or presentation. He creates indelible characters on the page, but doesn’t make them so specific that actors won’t have fun and make discoveries playing them.
And of course, under the supervision of a hell of a director, the script made one hell of a movie.
From another perspective, I think the screenplay for Singing in the Rain is a remarkable achievement. The two writers were given a dozen songs, to which the studio had the rights, and were instructed to build a movie around them. That’s it, that’s all. The songs didn’t really hang together; some of them were from the older Broadway Melody movies around 1930, some of them were just lounge standards, and some were just random songs the studio happened to have. The fact that the writers were able to craft a story incorporating these songs, let alone a classic that’s regarded by many as the best screen musical ever written, is little short of miraculous.
Great question. I hope the thread continues; I look forward to seeing what other people nominate.
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