Damned if you do, damned it you don’t
Frears on good form in the cutting room. He hasn’t been so cheerful for days. He’s cutting swathes out of the movie. It’s funnier and more delicate, he says. He adds: Your talent will seem considerably greater after I’ve done with it!
He’s put his finger on something which will inevitably bother film-writers. If the movie is successful you can never be sure to what extent this is due to you, or whether the acting, editing and direction have concealed weaknesses and otherwise lifted an ordinary script which, if it were to be shown in its entirety or as written, wouldn’t work at all.
From Sammy and Rosie get laid, The Screenplay and The Screenwriter’s diary, by Hanif Kureishi.
The opposite also seems true to me. If a director makes a bad movie out of a good script, no one will ever know that what you wrote was good. But then again, it’s usually the directors that get blamed (or congratulated) for everything. Screenwriting is a very odd craft.
