Strike!

"Writing—like all creative work—is its own reward," David Thomson blogs apropos the Writers Guild Strike. I almost spit up blood when I read that. I wonder—extremely idly, of course—how much Thomson would be willing to renounce, material-wise, in order to prove his point. The sage Thomson makes this observation shortly before cataloging that which he has in fact lost as a result of not having done enough screenwriting ("Life is tough," he muses, a little more wetly than he believes), and then pitches his million-dollar-idea, that what the Guild really ought to be fighting for is COPYRIGHT. I'm not sure I can work up a high enough falsetto with which to pronounce the phrase "Yeahthatsgonnahappen," and even if I could, I couldn't necessarily do the podcast of it at the moment. It must be kind of fun to be Thomson, to pull these ideas out of one's ass, and have them deemed, via some invisible hand, worthy of contemplation.

As for myself, I've always subscribed to Samuel Johnson's pronouncement, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Boswell, a rather touchingly true believer in high ideals, immediately backpedals on Sam's behalf, saying "Numerous instances to refute this will occur to all who are versed in the history of literature," and he's right, except those instances don't really do too much to disprove Johnson's rule. (For one thing, one may be a genius and still be a blockhead.) And, in fact, to prove Johnson's rule, one may well merely tour the internet, specifically, say, the collected works of the Underground Literary Alliance contained therein.

Thomson's larger perception is that the most active portion of the working membership of the Writers Guild is, in a very real sense, responsible for the badness of today's movies. Which hardly seems pertinent to the concerns of profit sharing.

Comments

[bemo]

Glenn Kenny wrote: >>

I believe in you, Mr. Kenny, and I believe that with practice -- which is its own reward -- that you can gradually summon the pitch required.

[bemo]

(shakes hairy fist at darn HTML violently.

Here's the quote I was to have included in above comment:

*I'm not sure I can work up a high enough falsetto with which to pronounce the phrase "Yeahthatsgonnahappen,"*)

[Peter Debruge]

Granted, Thomson's arguments couldn't be more insensitive to the issues at stake in the WGA strike, but I take issue with Samuel Johnson's notion that no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

I needn't remind you that until recently, Premiere.com subsisted on the "charity" of unpaid critics (I contributed a hundred or so unpaid reviews myself). I concur with the opening quotation in the sense that, at least as far as I'm concerned, the writing WAS its own reward (as was the promise that exposure here might lead to opportunities to write again elsewhere).

Nearly two years ago, I made a resolution to myself: No unpaid freelance. And yet, I've violated that promise multiple times simply because I couldn't hold it in and lacked a paying venue to express myself. I imagine many writers (yourself included?) experience the same thing, particularly in the internet age.

That said, the type of writing that you, me or Thomson do couldn't be farther removed from the commercial engine that is Hollywood. And it's sheer lunacy for the mega-corporations to regard writing as "work for hire" when nearly every other creative contribution (from acting to directing to composing to producing) warrants residuals in this business.

[Glenn Kenny]

Well, Peter, you can take it up with Johnson. I think I cushioned my citation with sufficient provisions that one might not take it so entirely literally. As for the policies of Premiere.com in days gone by, not to get into any internecine stuff, I myself did not conceive, implement, or support them, and I recall at the time they were in place was that my personal advice to you was to not accept them.

[Stephen Whitty]

Just a few words in defense of David Thomson, who I think continues to be an interesting and certainly literate voice in cinema journalism...

Because, as brusquely as he may have stated it, it IS true that nobody becomes a writer thinking first and foremost of money. People should be paid, and fairly, but none of us got into this business with that as our motivation.

And I think it is also true that by focusing their energies on money, rather than power, screenwriters have consistently contributed to their own marginalization. (You only need compare their status to playwrights -- who DO control their copyrights -- to see the difference.)

Of course, having said the same thing myself for years -- and restating it on my blog at about the same time (http://blog.nj.com/whitty/) I'm likely to be partial to Thomson's argument.

I will say, as any writer, my sympathies are with the screenwriters, and I hope this strike ends with them in a better financial position. But I do think it's worth thinking about other issues beyond revenue streams and royalties, which is what they tend to obsess over.

For example, to move on to another point -- and this wouldn't require a job action at all -- imagine if every Guild member pledged not to rewrite another member's work. Period. The producers don't like Pat Hobby's second draft? Well, then send it back to Pat for a third draft -- or write it off and move on.

This would, of course, require an actual feat of selflessness on the part of the screenwriters -- thinking of the community rather than those fat, easy rewrite checks -- but what would it mean in terms of a screenwriter's respect or status? Let alone the quality of the film?

This one-person/one-script idea would actually -- gulp -- put screenwriters on the level of novelists. I mean, if Houghton-Mifflin doesn't like Philip Roth's latest, they don't publish it (and he goes off to sell it elsewhere). They don't buy it anyway, and then give it to Stephen King to rewrite.

It's not as practical a discussion as who-gets-what-percentage from IPhone downloads, I know. But personally I think it's a lot more interesting -- and has a lot more to do not only with the quality of the screenwriter's life, but the quality of our movies.

[Glenn Kenny]

Stephen, your comments are well-taken and well appreciated. My larger point was that, at this stage of the game, the copyright issue is so vexed that to even bring it up amounts to an obfuscation on Thomson's part. The moviemaking system's hegemony is so thoroughly entrenched that talking copyright now is an attempt to bring things to an almost pre-Edison basis. It can't happen without a complete dismantling of the current system, which is why I look at Thomson's proposal with such disdain. It's not that I think it's a bad idea on the merits, it's more like I'm thinking, "Well, easy for YOU to say." And yes, Thomson is interesting and literate. And pompous and pontificating. All of which makes him more fun to spar with (virtually, at least) than a lot of the other idiots out there.

[Stephen Whitty]

Agreed there. And anyone who's never read his "Suspects" should track it down now. (Although I still find his worship of Nicole Kidman, um, unsettling at best...)