Well, screenwriters did a hell of a lot for Stanley Kubrick’s career. They made that talent-free zone of a human being into a “cinematic genius.” Feh.
The writer does not make a movie, they write a screenplay. The lighting guys only provide lighting. The scenic designers provide locations. The actors provide characters. The producer provides money.
But it’s the Director who guides all these strands and creative artists into achieving the finished product. And that’s why the movie is said to be “by” them.
If the movie succeeds, the Director takes a high percentage of the credit. But if it fails, they take the blame 100%.
That’s unfair.
Regardless how good a script is, it is not a film. Have you seen an actual script? Really, there is a lot of room for artistic re-creation for a good director.
No, I don’t think that’s right at all. A great directer is going to be the one who figures out no only how to make things good, but to bring that essence of the action onto the film in the most effective manner possible. And then there are all the “little details”, like putting all of those disparate parts you mention into a seamless whole…
Not to sound like a jerk, but why? I’ve written a few screenplays; it’s hard to write a really good one, but it’s still a job you can do with very little training. All you need, strictly speaking, is an idea, a good command of english, a computer and a book on screenplay format. Directing a modern-day feature film is a vastly more complicated job that takes years and years of training, and it encompasses the entire creation of the film, not just the script.
How much do you know about motion picture photography? Set design? Acting? Lighting? Costuming? Film editing? Sound editing? Running a film set? How many businesses hve you run? Have you ever managed 100 people on a strict deadline? What about 200 people? Those are a small sample of the skills you need as a director. Managing 200 people on location under deadline doing 50 different technical jobs, all of which you must understand, worrying about every aspect of the production, is a much bigger and more important job than writing a script.
The auteur theory is still a little overdone, but there’s no doubt whatsoever that the director IS the big cheese.
Uhh… you would be referring to Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick’s screenwriter was usually Stanley Kubrick, in case you didn’t know. Kubrick wrote/adapted or co-wrote/adapted all his movies.
To put it into perspective, Peter Jackson is hailed far and wide for adapting Lord of the Rings into an exellent movie, which many people were incredibly doutful he could do. Of course, Peter Jackson didn’t even direct the entire movie, due to time constraints - but he was in charge of the most important factor. What the tone of the movie was. How an actor delivers each line, which scenes are cut, ultimately how they are lit.
No matter how brilliant a job the actors did, or the editor (so often overlooked in the importance of a film’s quality), or anyone else, or how brilliant the script, the storytelling quality and tone had to pay enough respect to one of the most popular worlds ever created by man, which has been built up and built upon by generations of fans and spawned a genre. Little decisions like how to portray a battle, how to link together scenes, who the focus the film on, etc are far more important a single contribution than anyone else.
I’m fairly sure that you may want to look into early film production. Like many traditions, the role of a director has changed over the years but may be rooted more in How Things Used To Be.
In any case, they have to put SOMEONE’s name on things for publicity deals, and directors have the largest effect. Screenplays are often written by several people or written by one and revised by many more, including the director. Remember that Steven Speilberg doesn’t even actually direct many of the movies that bear his name. He just kinda supervises soemoene else doing the actual directing - but his name is worth so much freaking money when taped to the name of a movie, it doesn’t matter to the public.
Of course, in the public’s eye, directors are almost irrelevant. The general public only knows the names of a handful of directors, and almost no director can “open” a movie. (Spielberg being an exception.)
It’s the stars that the public cares about and it’s the stars that pull the money in. That’s why the stars often earn far more than their directors.
Just a corrective for film buffs who assume that the director must be the most important factor in Hollywood. So far as the guys who pull the strings are concerned, the guys with money, the director is often a totally secondary consideration compared to who the star is. (Which is how movies like Battlefield Earth get made.)
Reality Chuck: Yes, it’s true that a great script only turns into a great movie if it has a decent director. But it’s also true that you need a good script to make a good movie: no director, no matter brilliant, has made a great movie out of a horrible final script. It’s truly a collaborative medium, which is why the WGA was lobbying to allow the “A Film By…” credit only on films which were directed and written by the same person. (Sadly, they lost.)
I also think smilingbandit is right–the director is somewhat irrelevant if everyone else is first rate (including, crucially, the DP and the editor).
Look at Glengarry Glen Ross. A great film, with a great script by David Mamet, and a great cast (Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Pryce.)
It was directed by James Foley. If you’re asking, “Who’s James Foley?” you’re not alone. His only other credit of note is Madonna’s “Who’s That Girl?”
If you listen to some of the director’s commentaries on DVDs you can see how much of the feel of the movie is directly related to the director. Often they talk about why they went with one type of shot and what other types of things they were thinking about. And ultimately the director is the one who decides if a scene has been properly captured or needs to be shot again.
Unless you are a genius in writing scripts, you can use some books or formal training.
Thats not entirely true, Wumpus. While the general public may not remember the director’s name, the “From the director who brought you _______” carries a lot of weight. For people who actually follow movies closely, directors usually carry more weight than anyone else.
As for directors being secondary to the star, that is only with horribly bad movies made to make X amount of money over the first 2 weeks, before everyone realizes how much it completley blows (like Battlefield Earth).
Mainly, because I think the plot and characters and dialogue are a very large part of what makes a good film, and this mainly comes from the writer. I fail to see why the fact that it takes more training to be director means anything.
I could see that the director might deserves more/higher billing, but it seems like often the guy who came with the story is ignored, when that seems like a hugely important part. You say the writer “needs an idea” as if that’s a little thing. He needs a good idea, and he needs the talent to make a good script.
I’m not saying he deserves more authorship than the director, but I think he should get more than he often does.
Maybe they should say “A Film by Joe Shmoe and Fred Smith”, with the convention that the second name is the writer. If one wants to think the writer is only “author” of 1/5 the film or so, then so be it.
Well, you’re really proving my point Zagadka. The fact that they usually say “from the director who brought you X” just shows how few director names the public actually recognizes. Also, the ads commonly use the phrase “from the people who brought you Y,” meaning, not the director, but the producers or the scriptwriter. (In the case of “Spirit, from the people who brought you Shrek” the only thing the two movies had in common was the studio.)
It may be true that star-driven deals result in horribly bad movies made to make X amount of money over the first 2 weeks, before everyone realizes how much they completley blow. But those movies make up the vast majority of the box office, so the system lumbers on. Do you really think the studio would think twice about making Rush Hour 3 if Brett Ratner dropped out, so long as they still have Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker attached to the deal?
We film buffs are a much more discriminating minority, of course. My point is that Hollywood doesn’t pay much attention to us when creating the movies that make up the vast bulk of their revenues.
A lot of that work is done by the producers, the production manager, and the location manager.
No one ever argued that the director is always the one responsible for the success; films like “Glengarry Glen Ross” or “Being John Malkovich,” or “Casablanca,” are successful much more because of the script than the director. There are always exceptions.
However, back to the basics: great directors make great movies, even when they don’t write the script (or, to be precise, when they aren’t credited with writing the script). I pointed out Hitchcock before: I don’t believe he ever got a screen credit, but he dictated to the writer exactly what he wanted, and if the writer didn’t give it to him, they had to rewrite it (Raymond Chandler spoke bitterly of their working together on “Strangers on a Train,” denouncing what Hitchcock achieved effortlessly as being “impossible” to write).
A good director makes sure the script is filmed as well as it can be. In addition, very rarely is a script actually filmed. There are always changes. Maybe an actor says, “I don’t like that line; I want to say something else.” The director decides whether the new line is an improvement or not. He tells the actors how to say the lines. He decides it would be better to move a scene to another location. He decides which take of the scene is the strongest. He tells the cinematographer how the film should look, and approves the editor’s choice of cuts.
And, if the movie flops, ultimately the director is the one making the mistakes.
The script is just a skeleton. But the director often tells the scriptwriter how the skeleton should be constructed, and adds the flesh and skin.
Directors get the credit for films for the same reason that generals get the credit for winning wars: they orchestrated all the individual decisions that led to the final product.
Well, I’d argue they aren’t ignored at all as compared to anybody ELSE in movies except directors and actors. Actors you actually see, and the director IS the most important person in the crew, by a very, very wide margin. But screenwriters do get substantial credit for their work; they get TWO Academy Award categories they can win, while directors get just one; they make excellent money. The screenwriter is a lot closer to the editor and the cinematographer in importance than she is to the director, and their level of credit is about even with that.
I can name quite a few screenwriters, even ones who aren’t also directors or actors. I can name very few editors, costumers, cinematographers, or set designers, yet I think you would agree that cinematographers are damned important in making motion pictures.
I realize screenwriters have a thankless job, of course, and the public doesn’t really understand the process or even what’s important in writing a screenplay; for one thing, everyone seems to think a good screenplay = good dialogue, when dialogue is actually a pretty minor part of most good screenplays. But it’s still not nearly as important as the director’s job in 99.99% of cases.
Moot point if they are remembered or not. The question is why it is referred to as the movie of that director.
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Nope, but who does get credit for that? Will anyone ever say “That’s the person that made Rush Hour 3, so I want to see another of their movies”? The types of druck driven by star power or franchise names are quickly forgotten.
True, but we get the last laugh. No one will remember the campy movies crammed out these days, but people are going to be watching the movies worth watching for decades. The only time you’ll hear about Battlefield Earth or Scooby Doo in 20 years will be in Mystery Science Theater settings 
In the end, people will go see movies they want to see, whoever directed them or stars in them or writes them. Word of mouth is more powerful than star power, quite often. Someone like Nick Nunziata will have a lot more effect on pushing me to see a movie than just about anything else, though the director is one of the strong points. I mean, hell, About Schmidt is relatively kicking ass, for it’s limited release.
Sometimes the directors don’t get their fair props - only the ones that reach phenomenal success get name recognition. Too many excellent films disappear into “that movie with so and so”.
Oh, by the way, it is quotes like this that lead to my answer for this discussion:
Off to Cafe Society.
From my own site: What does a producer do?
My thoughts, as a hardcore movie buff who is as interested in the business as the art, mirror many of those above. To wit, some directors are the primary creator on the final film, and deserve the “a film by” credit, whereas others do not. Battlefield Earth is an excellent example; Roger Christian was little more than a traffic cop on John Travolta’s baby.
I must take issue with this, however:
It’s been said that 75% of a director’s job is casting, i.e. finding the right person for the right job. Once that’s done, all he (assuming it’s a he) has to do is stand at the tiller, making occasional corrections, while the ship sails itself to its destination. Having directed myself, I can confirm that when things go well, and when everybody is a perfect fit for his or her role, the production goes smoothly.
However, do not make the mistake of underestimating the director’s importance, for several reasons.
First, you need the director there to begin with, in order to assemble the correct team (unless you’re talking about a producer-driven project, like anything by Bruckheimer) and set all the creative priorities and guidelines at the outset. If you put a bunch of supremely talented people in a room but you don’t tell them what they’re all working on, you’ll be lucky if you have any film at all at the end, let alone a watchable one.
Second, even if ideally you want only minor course corrections throughout the production, it’s possible that the lack of correction early on can lead to huge problems down the road. Metaphor: To steer a car in a straight line, you don’t have to do very much, just nudge the wheel every now and then. But if you start the car in a huge open space and press the gas and don’t ever touch the wheel, how likely is it to travel in a straight line to the intended destination over the course of the whole trip?
Third, it’s quite possible that the director (and/or producer) makes a mistake in that initial 75% and hires somebody who isn’t really a good fit. That makes the director’s influence a lot more important, as he either has to micromanage the individual, or distribute the work to others and lessen the individual’s impact, or whatever.
So, for good or ill, the director is usually the person most in charge of the outcome of the project, and thereby gets that credit by default, even if there are numerous exceptions where somebody else (like, say, the currently red-hot writer Charlie Kaufman) is the most influential individual talent on the project. George Clooney, who is making his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, is well aware of the collaborative nature of film, and is on record in his refusal to take the “a film by” credit on this or any other project.
The bottom line: Humans, being the hierarchically-minded creatures we are, need a single person in charge of, or at least responsible for, every single project or endeavor, and in the case of film, the director, again for good or ill, has won the distinction.
P.S. Stanley Kubrick is a genius. Is James Joyce a bad writer because he’s incomprehensible to readers of Scrooge McDuck?