Why We Write: Personal Statements and Photographic Portraits of 25 Top Screenwriters [Paperback]

Lorian Tamara Elbert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999

The screenwriters who appear in this unique collection of thought-provoking essays and photographic portraits offer their musings - some intimate, some philosophical - about why they write, what inspires them, and how they cope with the motion picture industry's unpredictable frustrations and pleasures.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pity the hapless screenwriter. Once he or she has finished a work, it is churned like butter by the great Hollywood system--rewritten and reworked at will. If a movie is successful, the director gets the credit; if it bombs, the screenplay is to blame. "Few people are as essential to a film's success as its screenwriters," says Kenneth Turan in his introduction to Why We Write, "and few are as invisible." What a pleasure, then, to be able to look into the eyes and minds of 25 of today's top screenwriters. In these pages, Michael Ferris (The Net) and Daniel Waters (Heathers) lament the Hollywoodization of their endings. John Briley (Gandhi) and Mark Rosenthal (The Jewel of the Nile) warn against script gurus and film courses. There is plenty of complaining about Hollywood's propensity for producing formula pictures, and about the industry's abuse of its writers.

But it is the screenwriters' humor, passion, and, finally, love for what they do that are so appealing here. In the book's most entertaining essay, Daniel Waters describes the screenplay as "the most fragile art form there is, the one with the most perilous journey from cocoon to butterfly." While other artists' work is done when the artist says so, for screenwriters the end is just the beginning. "No one," says Waters, "has to go through an uglier, middleman-packed, Chinese telephone torture than a screenwriter does." Lawrence Konner (The Jewel of the Nile) takes a more exalted view of his work:

The poet said, "Only God can make a tree." The poet lied. A screenwriter can also make a tree. Or a forest fire to consume that tree. Or the brave man to put out that fire.... A screenwriter can make any team he wants win the World Series. And on a good day, a lucky day, he can write a moment of human truth that makes someone in the darkened movie theater sit up and say, "Yes! That's just how it is!"

--Jane Steinberg

From Library Journal

Only five percent of the approximately 8500 Writer's Guild members actually make a living writing. This is a collection of personal essays by 25 of the lucky onesAwriters who have already experienced success and are ready, willing, and able to pen the next blockbuster feature. The essays discuss what inspires them, how they cope in the strange world of motion pictures, and why they do what they do. Contributors include Ed Solomon (Men in Black), Randall Wallace (Braveheart), James V. Hart (Contact), and Dana Stevens (City of Angels). Elbert's photos, one per screenwriter, were shot in the writers' homes, a hotel room, an office, and at LAX. Whether you write screenplays or just love creative expression, this book's for you. Highly recommended.AMarty Dean Evensvold, Magnolia P.L., TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 233 pages
• Publisher: Silman-James Pr; 1st edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879505452
• ISBN-13: 978-1879505452
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,429,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pen Densham is an Oscar nominated Hollywood screenwriter, producer, and director, with an extensive track-record in film and television. Pen is responsible for writing and/or producing some of Hollywood's most fascinating and successful movies, such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Backdraft, Tank Girl, Larger Than Life, Just Buried. He was the writer/director of Moll Flanders starring Robin Wright and Morgan Freeman. - And Houdini for TNT. Along with his Trilogy Entertainment team he Executive Produced many TV series and personally revived The Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone anthologies.

Pen says his first job in show business was riding atop a live alligator for a theatrical short made by his parents. He fell deeply in love with the magic of film and decided to leave school at age 15. He has since spent his lifetime in the business of entertainment, creating features and television series, as well as collaborating with many A-list writers, directors and stars along the way. Pen is also an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California's prestigious School of Cinematic Arts.

Pen has written the book - "Riding The Alligator, Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing... and not getting eaten", with one clear goal in mind: to write the kind of book he would have loved to have read when he was starting out as a writer-filmmaker.

For more information about Pen's book, Riding the Alligator: Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing (and not getting eaten), including downloading a free chapter, visit ridingthealligator.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Done Deal's Review of "Why We Write", June 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why We Write: Personal Statements and Photographic Portraits of 25 Top Screenwriters (Paperback)

"The joy of this book is that the reader is actually able to learn the screenwriting process from successful screenwriters. Only a selected, creative few become successful writers in Hollywood. Most of them are contributors to this book. This collection serves as inspirational tool that will teach you, the novice screenwriter, what it takes to become successful, and what steps the contributors took to become a success."

"Once you pick the book up, it's difficult to stop reading. This well-structured and artistic book is highly recommended."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An insightful read, beautifully photographed, April 16, 2004

By 

Bill Abelson (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why We Write: Personal Statements and Photographic Portraits of 25 Top Screenwriters (Paperback)

Lorian Tamara Elbert's Why We Write is immensely enjoyable. I figured I might skip some of the chapters by writers whose films were action/thrillers, but wound up reading the entire book. I especially dug Patrick Donovan's musings on why screenwriting is a GREAT gig, and the impact his Mr. Holland's Opus had on people; Dana Stevens ruminating on her weird little writing office; Scott Alexander's amusing explanation of why he always writes about wacky madmen; and Michael Ferris' tongue-in-cheek take on the Hollywood rollercoaster and the spoils of success (helicopters, hot tubs, dominatrixes...).

Elbert's interviews not only got her subjects to open up in very personal ways, her photos bring out her subjects' essences (a la Annie Liebowitz) and their tones (light, contrast) are striking, B&W is a great medium for her.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raw look at screenwriting and screenwriters, April 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why We Write: Personal Statements and Photographic Portraits of 25 Top Screenwriters (Paperback)

Writers, professionals in the entertainment industry and people who just like to watch movies will love this book. The public has been offered an opportunity to get to know 25 big named screenwriters without the mask of studios, cameras, actors or editors. In Why We Write, we learn that these screenwriters are the true creators of the words and pictures we see on the screen in movie theaters across the country. The movie industry would simply not exist without them!