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Hollywood hit by a strike
V. GANGADHAR
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Scriptwriters demand extra money for re-use of movies, shows on DVD.
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AFP PHOTO
Solidarity: Actors such as Jack Black (second from left) joined the strikers to show support.
The funniest line in Billy Wilder’s immortal comedy, ‘Some Like it Hot’ comes at the end of the movie. The playboy millionaire, madly in love with Jack Lemmon dressed as a woman, remarks, ‘So what? Nobody is perfect,’
when his ‘girl friend’ confesses she is a man! The sparkling script was the handiwork of Wilder’s favourite script writer, I. A. L. Diamond, who collaborated with him in movies such as ‘Love in the Afternoon,’ ‘Irma la Douce’ and ‘Sabrina.’ Quite often Wilder acknowledged that the success of his films was mainly due to the brilliance of Diamond’s scripts.
Over the years, Hollywood has had several wonderful script writers who contributed enormously to the success of the movie industry. They were the unsung heroes, although the spotlight was on the stars and directors.
Today, for the first time in 20 years, the screen and TV writers are on strike and the reverberations are being felt all over California.
It is not just the movie industry which has been hit by the strike. The hugely popular TV talk shows, hosted by the likes of David Letterman and Jon Stewart, have been affected because the gag writers are on strike.
The American entertainment industry is heavily unionised with separate guilds protecting the interests of writers, directors, stars and technicians. The present dispute is between the Screen Writers Guild and the big studios along with TV networks owned by giants such as General Electric and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
The dispute, being negotiated for the last three months, is over extra payment to writers for re-use of movies and shows on DVD. The writers are also demanding new terms for the re-use of movies shown on the Internet. This is now a billion dollar industry in Hollywood and so the writers feel left out. The big Corporations have taken a tough stand and are unwilling to pay any extra amount to the writers.
The strike has crippled the entire entertainment industry in Southern California and disrupted its annual contribution of around $ 30 billion to the state. Its impact is far reaching. With no new entertainment possible, revenue from tourism could also dry up. A variety of professionals such as costume designers, stage technicians and caterers are also out of work. Actors co-operated with the writers by joining the picket lines outside the studios. There are fears that the strike could snowball into fresh confrontation when the contracts with actors and directors are to be renewed in April 2008.
The Indian scene
The reverberations of the strike in Hollywood are being felt in Bollywood. According to wags, with no fresh Hollywood scripts available, the Hindi script writers have no sources to plagiarise. But seriously speaking, there are indications that the Hindi film industry has woken up to the talents of good script writers. Yash Raj films reportedly paid Jaideep Sahni, who wrote the scripts for ‘Chak De’ and ‘Aaja Nachle,’ Rs 25 lakhs and gave him top billing. A good storyline made ‘Chak De’ successful and this has not escaped the producers.
While experienced producers know the importance of a good story, others feel they can lift any Hollywood storyline or mix dozens of existing plots. Writers such as Javed Siddiqui and Sahni refer to the 1950s and 1960s when Hindi movies paid attention to good stories and respected writers. But the arrival of action-oriented films changed all that. Javed Akthar points out that there was paucity of good scripts during the era of action films because it was felt that fight scenes and a mixture of borrowed plots would do.
With the switchover to romantic themes such as ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenga’ and comedies, there is now fresh hope for good scripts and writers. A case in point is director Pradeep Sarkar, who worked for eight years to polish the script of ‘Parineeta’. Some script writers feel that it is time for the industry to invest in writers, discover talent and nurture it.
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Friday Review
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