Fwd: Query: Screenplays as literature?--two responses

From: *[email protected] <[email protected]>* <
[email protected]>


In Japan, film scripts (called "scenarios"["shinario"]) have long been
considered literature. There, the version that is published (under the
screenwriter's name) is the final version that the screenwriter considered
her or his final version--not necessarily the version used for production.
Multiscript collections for well-known screenwriters like Yoshikata Yoda
(Kenji Mizoguchi and others) or Kaneto Shindo (writer and director, also
wrote for other directors) are common. "Scripts" published in English, such
as Donald Richie's published scripts for Kurosawa's films or Keiko
McDonald's "screenplay" for Mizoguchi's Ugetsu, are more likely to be
transcriptions of the film itself.

best,

Joanne

Joanne Bernardi
Associate Professor
Japanese Studies
Film and Media Studies
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627

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From: *Stephen A Rust* <[email protected]>


I am finding many of the responses to whether or not film scripts
can count as literature quite reductive and oddly reactionary. Of course
they count as literature. No, they are not the same as a film. No, they
do not all read well. Yes, they are meant to be performed. But to
suggest that they have no literary merit because they do not conform to
our canonical expectations of what counts as literature is a circular
argument. Accept them for what they are, value what students can gain
from studying them in relation to the finished film, and embrace the
play on language they allow us to experience.

Steve Rust

University
of Oregon

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From: *Frank, Michael* <[email protected]>

all the many comments suggesting that screenplays are NOT literature are
compelling [leo recommends them but only as a study tool to see what the
director did with them, and not as a work of intrinsic interest]

if that's the case then i think it important to articulate with some
precision why screenplays are not lit when the text of stage plays are

of course paul, who insists that stage plays too - including  those by will
S. - should not be read or taught as lit, is free from the question . . .
but the rest of us need to come up with some answers

mike

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