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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: WaymanWong 08:24 am EDT 08/16/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - AlanScott 12:36 am EDT 08/16/14

Albee says Ernest Lehman, who was the screenwriter and producer of ''Virginia Woolf,'' wrote two lines: ''Let's go to the roadhouse'' and ''Let's come back from the roadhouse.'' In Mel Gussow's bio of the playwright, he adds, except for the roadhouse scene and the scene under the tree outside George & Martha's house, ''It's my play f*cking word for word.''


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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: AlanScott 03:52 pm EDT 08/16/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - WaymanWong 08:24 am EDT 08/16/14

According to Mike Nichols, in the recent talk with Jack O'Brien, Lehman wrote a screenplay with many changes from the play. The Lehman screenplay was essentially thrown out and the dialogue from the play restored.


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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: Chazwaza 04:35 pm EDT 08/16/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - AlanScott 03:52 pm EDT 08/16/14

And yet how was Lehman allowed to retain full sole credit for the screenplay? He was even nominated for an Oscar for it... just him, not Albee.

An uncredited intern could probably have done as much work "adapting" the play's dialogue into screenplay format for what was actually in the movie...


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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: AlanScott 05:20 pm EDT 08/16/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - Chazwaza 04:35 pm EDT 08/16/14

Contracts. He was an Oscar-winning screenwriter. It was probably in his contract that he would have sole credit.


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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: Chazwaza 06:02 pm EDT 08/16/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - AlanScott 05:20 pm EDT 08/16/14

I just don't understand why Albee's contract would allow that... not to mention that that isn't really how the WGA does things, though perhaps it was back then. These days if you've written 30% of the original, i think, or 50% of the re-write, you get co-writer credit. Whatever it is, it would easily have allowed Albee to have at least co-writer credit on the screenplay.


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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: AlanScott 06:50 pm EDT 08/16/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - Chazwaza 06:02 pm EDT 08/16/14

It's a good question that I can't answer. Albee was certainly annoyed about it (and who can blame him?).


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re: The whole "uncinematic" thing

Posted by: Chazwaza 06:56 am EDT 08/17/14
In reply to: re: The whole "uncinematic" thing - AlanScott 06:50 pm EDT 08/16/14

And rightly so, yes. And it's not just this movie... this happens with plays being turned into movies quite often, and did more when more were adapted. A screenwriter who mostly just takes the majority of the play's dialogue and the plot, characters and how they are illustrated, etc, and puts them in screenplay format and sometimes "opens" the play up gets credit as the sole script writer, and nominated for "best adapted screenplay" as if they took a novel and created, out of 400 pages of descriptive prose, a 120 page screenplay fit to be shot.... the idea that re-imagining and already written script for the cinema is on par, to the Academy's eyes, with creating a new script out of a book, is beyond my understanding and would INCENSE me if I were a screenwriter adapting a book or a playwright whose play was adapted by someone else.


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