Conflict and Resolution Examples
Frank Pierson, former WGAw president (and former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), says that, "The large majority of credits are still straightforward and uncontested," but "When they go wrong, they go horribly wrong." Writer-director Phil Alden Robinson says, "No one can trust the writing credit. Nobody knows who really wrote the film."
When Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was adapted for the screen, Alex Cox and Tod Davies wrote the initial adaptation. When Terry Gilliam was brought in to direct, he rewrote it with Tony Grisoni. The Guild initially denied Gilliam and Grisoni any credit, even though Gilliam claimed nothing of the original adaptation remained in the final film. "As a director, I was automatically deemed a 'production executive' by the Guild and, by definition, discriminated against. But for Tony to go without any credit would be really unfair." After complaints, the Guild did award Gilliam and Grisoni credit, in addition to Cox and Davies, but Gilliam resigned from the union over the dispute. "It's really a Star Chamber," said Gilliam of the arbitration process, which he claimed took more work than the screenplay itself.
Similar problems arose for the film Ronin. According to director John Frankenheimer, "The credits should read: Story by J. D. Zeik, screenplay by David Mamet. We didn't shoot a line of Zeik's script." Instead, Mamet received credit under a pseudonym. After the controversy over credits for Wag the Dog, Mamet reportedly has decided to attach his name only to movies on which he is the sole writer.
From 1993 to 1997, there were 415 arbitrations, about one-third of all films whose credits were submitted.
Read more about this topic: WGA Screenwriting Credit System
Famous quotes containing the words conflict and, examples, conflict and/or resolution:
“Sometimes the children who are no problem to their parents should be looked at more closely. This is especially true if those children are extremely obedient and have few friends their own age. A good self-concept allows children to explore the world, risk engaging in conflict and failing. Children who play it safe by never disobeying or risking conflict may be telling you that they feel unqualified to face the world head-on.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face—so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)