There are a myriad number of stories of great writers being burned by Hollywood. At the beginning of the sound age, dramatists of note were finally in demand and, in the heady days of the studio system, even novelists of declining popularity, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner, prepared treatments, most of which were never used. Gore Vidal, a minor dramatist of some note, felt the story of Fitzgerald was the saddest because, “He took the movies seriously; that’s not writing.” Well, screenplays are writing, but of all the written mediums, the screenwriter has the least control over their work. Their scripts are often, if not entirely re-written, futzed with, fussed over, and sometimes smashed to bits—unless the screenwriter is also the director.
Yet, there are those occasional writers who are considered all-round “persons of letters,” meaning they have achieved legitimate success in various mediums—perhaps even mastery of more of than one. The most obvious example that comes to mind is Thornton Wilder, who was equally adept at writing Pulitzer Prize-winning novels like The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Pulitzer Prize-winning plays like Our Town. Raymond Carver was the 20th century’s master short story writer, but he wrote voluminous poetry (most of it sadly ignored by critics). Samuel Beckett’s novels are remarkable works of art and yet, Beckett is thought of principally as a dramatist because that was his true métier, and most writers really only have one.
I got to thinking about this subject with some of the recent scripts I’ve been reading as part of my 365 Scripts project that I’ve logged on X and Instagram for the past two years (although I had been reading a play every day since February of 2022. That means, by the time this blog posts, I will have read 1,084 plays since I began: full-length, short, musicals, opera libretti, teleplays, screenplays, sometimes a re-reading if it deserves it. This is one way of making through all my dramatic books that I’ve acquired, purchased, stolen, and inherited over my lifetime. My screenplay collection is obviously smaller than my collection of plays. First, there are only a few companies that will publish screenplays and, even then, the writer has to be “of note.”
While small though, the screenplay collection is eclectic because some are books where the published screenplay was reconciled with the final edit of the film, some are shooting scripts (the script before production and editing), and some are unused screenplays by famous authors who couldn’t quite make the leap into a new genre. I’ve been reading a lot of the latter in addition to plays by true poets and novelists. The most interesting by far are James Dickey’s original screenplay for John Boorman’s Deliverance, Vladimir Nabokov’s second-draft screenplay of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, and the plays of Victorian poet Robert Browning. All of them are failures as plays and screenplays, but I would recommend everyone read them.
James Dickey was already recognized as a robust wordsmith in poetry by the time he published the first of his only three novels, Deliverance. While it mostly sold well and was critically well-received, some critics complained that it was clearly a novel that only a poet could write, trying to keep Dickey in his lane as a poet. When asked how to format his screen version, Warner Bros. sent him a copy of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, perhaps the best novel to film adaptation I’ve ever seen, and Dickey dismissed it as pages of technical mumbo-jumbo. Well, that is what screenplays are for the most part, but Dickey did what he always did—tried to write a masterpiece. When he completed his version of the script, it was based more on long-form treatments than a screenplay. The result is shockingly condescending, allowing the director some leeway, but otherwise, it would have had the camera slither down every leaf and crick in white-water country with a travelogue leading to the torturous events.
And, yet even though his dialogue is spare, once you get past the nonsense of the screen directions and some clunky bits of action, the dialogue is quite good. When I read it, since I couldn’t possibly picture it on the screen, I thought instead of the dialogue sounding like talking heads in a documentary, recounting a terrifying event as it is happening. The resultant film is a terrific movie—it has a bit of Dickey and a bit of Boorman, but that didn’t stop Dickey from visiting the set drunk and socking the director for changing so much of his script. The two eventually made up and Dickey even appears as the Sheriff in the film’s last moments. But screenwriting is more craft than art, more utilitarian than descriptive and, even though Dickey is given the only screenwriter billing, Deliverance is not his film, it’s Boorman’s. Dickey is still known as a poet though he did write three novels and another script, a version of The Call of the Wild, this time for television. Apt reasoning.
Nabokov’s case is more amusing. It is said the first draft he sent to Kubrick and producer James Harris would have taken ten or more hours to film. Nabokov went back to the drawing board and produced a three-act screenplay that probably still would have been three and a half hours long. This eventually was published in the 1970s, long after the film was made. While one wishes Kubrick’s adaptation was better given the novel it’s based on is one of the finest ever written, you would probably not want to watch Nabokov’s version either, even though there are moments to be cherished. Nabokov writes himself into the picture in a cameo, catching butterflies as was his wont—he has interesting flashbacks and he’s clearly trying to innovate —but, in the end, he did not have movies in his mind. He had language in spades, but not the sense and timing of motion pictures. Not too long ago, an Irish theatre company produced the screenplay as a theatrical adaptation, but I still maintain, Lolita, like The Great Gatsby, is essentially unfilmable or rather, should not have been filmed.
I’ll digress here briefly to say you might find it shocking that I dislike Kubrick’s eventual Lolita. There is much to like, particularly the performances of James Mason and Shelley Winters (in maybe her best role), but whereas Peter Sellers made Dr. Strangelove a classic of the screen, he ran amok with his Clare Quilty, a shadow of a villain anyway, with endless, unfunny adlibbing that, along with the cot scene, must be Kubrick’s way of bringing humor into the story though the humor in Lolita is about “ugly” America and Americana. I do find Adrian Lyne’s Lolita more appeasing overall, but there is still something about Lolita which should exist only in the mind of the reader.
Finally, we come to Robert Browning, one of my favorite poets. Known principally for his dramatic monologues—poems such as the fiendish “Porphyria’s Lover” and the devilish “My Last Duchess.” In his early years, he principally wrote drama rather than verse, beginning with Strafford for the 19th century theatrical impresario Charles Macready. From the beginning of his theatrical career, Browning had a problem. The minor historical figure of Lord Strafford in pre-Restoration England has no place on the stage. It is not interesting, though it might have appeared interesting when it premiered—it played for five performances, which apparently was a hit back in the day. Still, Browning’s subjects became duller and duller (at least until his final tragedy) that it is no wonder he joined the ranks of Lord Byron and other Victorian “tragedians” whose dramatic work was meant to be read rather than performed. These closet dramas can be interesting reading, but there really is no place on the bookshelf for many of them. I doubt very much Strafford’s been performed since except, perhaps, by a Browning Society.
His plays make such depressing reading (at least as far as dramatic action is concerned [there is none]), you could hardly believe the same man took on the voice of such amazing characters in his poetry like Fra Lippo Lippi. In the end, Browning abandoned the theatre when his final full-length tragedy, Luria, was rejected by Macready. Luria is a different matter—another British play about a Moor—it is surprisingly respectful and has powerful suspense as we slowly watch its hero die. But slowly is the key word. The rest of it is talking. Talking about doing things. Thinking out loud about doing things. But never doing them. I’m afraid it doesn’t qualify as a play, maybe a Platonic dialogue.
There was no great original British theatre in the 19th century except for revivals of Shakespeare. The only dramatic writers to survive into the present day are Gilbert and Sullivan. Still, it was apparent Macready wanted new plays in his time, but they were mostly copies of Shakespeare—five acts, blank verse, etc. Browning was no exception for most of his work, though he did occasionally innovate—once, by writing a two-act play with the first half in verse and the other in prose (A Soul’s Tragedy), and even found some mild success with A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon and his translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, though that may only be known through Terrence Rattigan’s play The Browning Version. It is ironic that Browning failed in the theatre. Not just because his monologues are so delicious, but because his best poetry share his principal theme of failure.
Alas, Browning is one in a long line of novelists or poets who had aspirations to the stage or screen, but did not have the talent: Mark Twain, Henry James, Dylan Thomas, the list goes on. So few are those who can do it all, though many have tried. It makes me look inward. Since I have, by now, written more non-fiction than drama (at least in word count), am I a prose-maker when I think I’m a playwright? Though one of my poems has won a prize and another published in a journal, I often think my poetry would be laughed out of the academy. I’m sure it would not pass the test of scholars, but I have had readers appreciate them. But most good playwrights know the instinct of the poet and the dramatist are one and the same—they are both calls out to the gods for understanding—one is written for inner reflection, the other written for communal consumption.
But, in the end, I’ve written plays, poems, essays, reviews, screenplays, and have dabbled in humor. There is something I like in all the forms that drives me onward regardless of whether any of them will ever take off. Perhaps I’m just like some of the writers I’ve listed above: I must write, to hell with what critics think and let them sort it all out later. Maybe I’ll be remembered only as a playwright. Maybe I won’t be remembered at all. I would like to be known as a good playwright. That would satisfy me. Then, again—to be a good person? Is that more important?
