screenwriting

The importance of sadism in writing a great screenplay

2 May 2020 9:00 am

How do you tell a great story? According to Craig Mazin, you have to be a sadist. ‘As a writer,…

Proper adult entertainment: Claude Rains, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), with taut dialogue by Ben Hecht

The invisible man behind Hollywood’s greatest films

20 April 2019 9:00 am

What do the following filmmakers have in common: Victor Fleming, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch,…

Writers of some of the best-loved programmes in British television history: Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement

Dick Clement on Porridge, Kirk Douglas and having seven projects on the go

5 January 2019 9:00 am

Given their track record, you might think that Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais would be spared the struggles that…

Jack O’Connell in ‘Unbroken’ — out next month — one of the few films today with a star writing team, the Coen brothers

How Hollywood is killing the art of screenwriting

29 November 2014 9:00 am

Cinema is tough right now for writers. Thomas W. Hodgkinson reports from the front line at the Austin Film Festival