Screenplays & the Architects of Cinema

Cinema

by Brooke Delp '20

Salem State students who tuned in to the Academy Awards on Sunday, February 9, might have their own dreams of obtaining one of those golden awards. Many no doubt had an opinion about whether Joker or Little Women was a superior film. Among friends, there would be talk about best actors and actresses, with speculation about directing thrown in - both Tarantino and Scorsese were nominated. Some awards receive little fanfare, like Original Score and Sound Mixing, but the backbone of filmmaking, the blueprint that influences actors, directors, and sound mixers alike, often goes unnoticed altogether. It’s screenwriting, and though you may not have heard of Bong Joon Ho, Han Jin Won, or Taika Waititi, there have been more familiar names behind the laptop's keyboard.

Sylvester Stallone did it. So did Jordan Peele. Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig did, with a little help from a friend. Boston natives Matt Damon and Ben Affleck did it too. These writers, though noted more for being on a screen than behind one, were all recognized for screenwriting by the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences.

Stallone wrote his seminal work, Rocky, and in 1976 garnered himself a Best Picture nod. Wiig, a Saturday Night Live alum, was nominated in 2011 for Bridesmaids, a script she co-wrote with Annie Mumolo. Owen Wilson, along with longtime collaborator Wes Anderson, wrote The Royal Tenenbaums, and got their nod in 2001. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which took home the Oscar and made twenty-five year old Affleck the youngest ever to do so (a title he still holds.)

As for Jordan Peele, he was nominated in 2017 for Get Out, and won, making him the first African-American screenwriter to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Get out is listed on IMDb (Internet Movie Database) as a horror/thriller, and Rotten Tomatoes files it under horror/comedy. Horror and comedy are two genres which have been largely overlooked by The Academy and its voters, since the inception of the awards show in 1929. In fact, as of this year, only one film which is considered “true horror,” has taken top honors, but not in the Original Screenplay category. The Silence of the Lambs famously swept the Oscars in 1991, winning The Big Five awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Viewers may not know the difference between an adapted and original screenplay and, at the 2003 ceremony, even the Academy slipped up, nominating the film Adaptation, in the “Best Adapted” category. Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay was a product solely of his imagination, and therefore original. If there is any pre-existing source material, including but not limited to novels, short stories and comic books, only then is the work considered adapted. Even a film’s sequel is an adaptation, in that the writer has based the story on another work.

When adapting, changes to the source material are often necessary, but not always well received. This year’s winner of Best Adapted Screenplay, for Jojo Rabbit, is New Zealand filmmaker, Taika Waititi. The film is adapted from the book Caging Skies, by Christine Leunens but Waititi’s screenplay features a major twist (no spoilers.) Fans of the novel might have been disappointed, but filmgoers and Hollywood moguls praised the screenwriter. Waititi’s win this year makes him the first Indigenous director to win at the Oscars - he is of Jewish and Māori descent.

As for the Best Original Screenplay award, Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won took top honors with Parasite: a comedy, crime-drama, according to IMDb. It also won Best Picture and gave South Korea its first-ever Academy Award. Seems Ho and Won beat the odds, being recognized not only for a comedic work, but also as one of the rare foreign language films in their category. Accepting the award in his native Korean, Ho said, “Writing a script is always such a lonely process.” From Stallone to Waititi and everyone in between though, it would seem that the art of screenwriting, and the joy of a finished product, is worth every lonely minute.

For a look at the 2020 winners for Best Screenplay, Parasite and Jojo Rabbit (as well as most any other film), check out scriptslug.com.