SCREENWRITING

Working across contemporary histories of film and screenwriting, and US screenwriting manuals from the 1910s and 1920s, this volume breaks new ground in thinking about the nature of scripting, and how screenwriting took shape as a particular kind of practice. It focuses on key topics such as the notion of the script as blueprint, the emergence of the screenplay and the politics of writing for the screen. Bringing an accessible academic approach to practitioner-oriented discussions of craft, the book provides a new perspective on debates to do with auteurism, funding processes, digital technology and the future of scripting. Focusing primarily on screenwriting in the US, this work builds on a wide range of writings by filmmakers and screenwriters and the work of different critics and theorists who have theorised the script, including Sergei Eisenstein, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Janet Staiger and Dudley Nichols. Arguing that Film Studies has yet to fully come to terms with screenwriting and the script, this study makes a vital contribution to debates in film study and history, and the critical analysis of screenwriting discourse.

February 2009
256 pages

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Steven Maras is a Senior Lecturer, and Chair of the Media and Communications Department, at the University of Sydney.