Beauty or spine: Dilemma of a writer

My favorite Writer v/s Producer story is when years ago, a yesteryear producer approached a writer for a screenplay. He agreed to her price after a bit of haggling but looked incredulous when she asked him for an advance.

"Why do you need an advance?" he shrieked. "There's no investment for you except paper and ink! You can take that from me!" Time has passed since then and the world is said to have improved but this attitude of looking at writers hasn't changed except marginally. The professionalism that seems to have seeped in is restricted to paperwork that makes writers sign away all their creative rights to the production houses. There are very few producers who accord you with the respect that is deserving while the rest send you long winding contracts which assume that you are being 'bought' along with your script!

The film fraternity may pay lip service constantly to the 'Content is King' line but almost in all cases the budget for writing is less than one percent of the total cost of the filmmaking. This disparity is mainly attributed to the star system in our country where film stars are paid ridiculous amounts of money to 'translate' on screen what the writers 'create'! It would be easy to assign the blame for this distortion on the film industry, but I think the fault lies largely with our culture that is still so obsessed with the superficial. We live in a country where sound often supersedes logic on popular news channels and trite one-liners pass off as humor in hit films. Is it then surprising then that most of the audiences in our country decide to watch a film on the basis of who's starring in it?

To me a film is a living breathing entity. And so, if we had to compare a movie to human anatomy then the film stars are the face, the director is the heart, the editor would be the brain and the cinematographer would be the eyes.

The writer, in my opinion, is the spine of the film! Since spine is not something that you encounter as soon as you meet a person, its importance is often relegated to the background! And since most people don't engage with movies except for 'entertainment' (which is now equated with unintelligence or frivolity), very rarely is good writing recognised! Things they say have changed, but I will only believe it the day I see good writers sharing the dais with filmmakers and film stars receiving equal applause and respect. Till then I guess the job of the spine will be to support the body silently!

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/column-beauty-or-spine-2113698