Penultimate Draft. Final version is published in Noël Carroll and John Gibson, ed.

The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Literature (NY: Routledge, 2016),

127-136

Screenplays

Ted Nannicelli

I. Introduction

Are screenplays really literature? And do they actually raise any interesting

philosophical questions? My aim in this chapter is twofold. First, I want to make a

case that many, if not all, screenplays are plausibly literature. Second, I want to show

that debates about the screenplay’s literary status have opened up a host of substantive

philosophical questions—specifically questions about the ontology of the screenplay:

What is the screenplay’s relationship to the finished screen work? Is it a constituent

part of that work or is it an autonomous work? Is a screenplay ever complete and, if

so, under what conditions? Is there ever a definitive version of a screenplay and, if so,

which?

Although questions about the screenplay’s literary and ontological status have

largely gone unremarked upon by contemporary philosophers and theorists, they were

identified and debated by classical film theorists such as Béla Balázs, Osip Brik,

Sergei Eisenstein, Hugo Münsterberg, and Dziga Vertov (Maras 2009: 33-36; 44-47).

The divergence in the answers these theorists offered suggests how knotty the

questions are. Brik averred, “the script is not an independent literary work […] The

script is written in words. But this in no way makes the script a literary work, let alone

an autonomous one” (1974: 96). Similarly, Münsterberg wrote that in contrast to a

drama, which “is completed as a work of literature even if it never reaches the stage,”

in the case of cinema, “the work which the scenario writer creates is itself still entirely

imperfect and becomes a complete work of art only through the action of the
 2

producer” (1916: 193). Balázs drew a similar contrast between the theatrical script

and film script, writing: “The film on the contrary [to a theatrical performance]

mostly absorbs the script completely so that it is not preserved as an independent

object which could be used again for a different film production” (1952: 247). Yet he

concluded that the film script “is just as much a specific, independent literary form as

the written stage play” (Balázs 1952: 246).

Then, as now, intuitions differ as to whether the screenplay is literature. But

for both classical film theorists and the handful of contemporary theorists who have

resumed the debate, the ontology of the screenplay seems somehow relevant (Maras

2009; Price 2010). Evident in the remarks by both Brik and Balázs is the idea that the

screenplay is not an autonomous work, separable from the film with which it is

associated, and apparent in Münsterberg’s commentary is the suggestion that the

screenplay is essentially incomplete. For Brik and Münsterberg, if not Balázs, these

putative ontological facts about the screenplay preclude it from being literature. As

we shall see, contemporary philosophers and theorists have similarly appealed to the

screenplay’s ontology explain why it is not literature (or why it is often not regarded

as such) (Carroll 2008: 68-69; Maras 2009: 44-62; Price 2010: 24-62). In what

follows, my discussion divides this recent work into two categories. Claims that the

ontological status of the screenplay impinges upon its claim to literary status are

supported by the “ingredient hypothesis” or by the “incompleteness hypothesis.”

II. Is the Screenplay an Autonomous Work? The Ingredient Hypothesis

A number of contemporary theorists have reiterated Brik and Balázs’s claims

that the screenplay is not an autonomous literary work, not an “independent object.”
 3

Echoing Balázs’s remarks on the relationship between screenplay and film, Barbara

Korte and Ralf Schneider suggest, “a screenplay is ‘absorbed’ into one film only,”

that it is “entirely ‘burnt up’ in the production process” (2000: 93; 90). Korte and

Schneider also follow Balázs in holding that the screenplay may be literature,

notwithstanding this putative fact about its ontology.

However, other contemporary scholars do take the screenplay’s supposed lack

of autonomy to problematize its claim to literary status. Steven Maras, for instance,

contends that there is “a significant issue when considering the script as literature […]

which is that the existence of the script is bound to the cinematic medium, and also to

the production of films” (2009: 48). For Maras, “One general problem with the

attempt to see the screenplay as a form of literature is that it tends to take the script

out of its production context, restrict [its] intermediality and treat it as an autonomous

work of art” (2009: 48). On his view, though, “the intermediality of the script

complicates the extent to which the screenplay can be considered an autonomous

form” (Maras 2009: 48).

The tendency in contemporary theorizing about the screenplay, evident in the

work discussed above, is to gloss over some rather thorny ontological matters. Korte

and Schneider describe the relationship between screenplay and film only in

metaphorical terms, suggesting that the screenplay somehow mysteriously disappears

in production, and Maras simply asserts that the screenplay is existentially “bound” to

the film medium without explaining what he means or offering a supporting

argument. While the general suggestion that the screenplay is not an autonomous

work has some undeniable intuitive appeal, neither Korte and Schneider nor Maras’s

position is particularly compelling because they do not offer a substantive account of

the relationship between screenplay and film that would support their claims.
 4

However, Noël Carroll has advanced a similar argument that is bolstered by

such an account. The sole philosopher of art to discuss the screenplay—and even in

this case, only in the context of a discussion of the ontology of cinema—Carroll

argues that a screenplay is not an autonomous work, but rather a “constituent part” or

an “ingredient” of a particular movie (Carroll 2008: 68-69). In his words, screenplays

“are ontologically ingredients in the motion pictures with which they are associated

rather than being independent artworks” (Carroll 2008: 69). Call this the “ingredient

hypothesis.”

The ingredient hypothesis underpins Carroll’s objection to the idea that

screenplays can be (literary) art. Why should we think it is correct?1 Carroll argues for

it in two different ways. First, he suggests that at least many screenplays are

transcriptions of films (Carroll 2008: 69). Such transcriptions are unlikely candidates

for artworks not only because they do not seem to be created with the right sort of

intentions, but also because they are ontologically dependent upon finished films.

Without a finished film, there can be no transcription of it; hence, transcriptions are

not autonomous works. This argument seems right, but misses its intended mark

because the first premise—that screenplays are transcriptions—is erroneous. As we

ordinarily conceive of them in our creative and appreciative practices screenplays are

not transcriptions of films, but rather are instructions for making films. So, accepting

Carroll’s argument about transcriptions does not threaten the idea that screenplays

may be autonomous works for it turns out that the argument does not actually involve

screenplays, properly so-called, at all.

The second way Carroll argues for the ingredient hypothesis is by contrasting

the relationship between screenplay and film with the relationship between theatrical

script and theatrical performance. In the case of theater, he writes, “The play by the
 5

playwright is one artwork which is then interpreted like a recipe or set of instructions

by a director and others in the process of producing another artwork—the

performance of the play” (Carroll 2008: 67). For Carroll, this makes theater and the

other performing arts “two-tiered artforms” (Carroll 2008: 67). As he puts it, “In

music […] there is the score—the artwork created by the composer; and then there is

also the performance […] Similarly, there is the choreography of the dance which is

one artwork; and then there is the choreography as performed by the troupe which

constitutes a discrete artwork” (Carroll 2008: 67-68). On Carroll’s view, what seems

to make “recipes” like theatrical scripts artworks in their own right is the fact that they

are created to be interpreted on multiple occasions in performance. For elsewhere he

argues that theatrical scripts are art because they are products of “the art of composing

performance plans,” and not only or necessarily because they are works of literature

(Carroll 2006: 106).

In contrast, Carroll argues, screenplays are not “recipes” that are multiply

interpreted: “If, in theater, the play-text type is a recipe or sketch that the director

and/or the actors interpret, and, furthermore, if the recipe and the interpretation can be

regarded as different though related artworks, in motion pictures the recipe and the

interpretations are constituents of the self-same integral artwork” (Carroll 2008: 68).

For Carroll, the crucial difference between theatrical script and screenplay is that the

latter is not what he calls a “performance plan;” it is not intended to be interpreted in

performance on multiple occasions. This is an important difference between script

and screenplay, but, pace Carroll, it supports neither the ingredient hypothesis nor the

conclusion that screenplays are not literary art.

It is true that most screenplays are involved in the production of a single film.

But this fact entails no conclusions about the screenplay’s ontology, about the kind of
 6

thing it is by nature. On the one hand, many screenplays are never produced. So, the

claim that “screenplays are ontologically ingredients in the motion pictures with

which they are associated” is too general and needs some immediate refinement. On

the other hand, screenplays can be (and occasionally are, as in the case of The

Prisoner of Zenda (1937/1952)) used as “recipes” to make multiple films. Therefore,

even when a screenplay is involved in the production of a particular movie, it is not

ontologically inseparable from it; it is not the case that “the recipe and its

interpretation are presented together in one indissoluble package.” Even if a

screenplay is written for and tailored to the specifics of a particular film production

(as some theatrical scripts surely also are), it may still be interpreted on a future

occasion. So, we have reasons not to accept the ingredient hypothesis.

The salient difference between theatrical script and screenplay is neither that

the former is a “recipe” and the other an ingredient, nor that the former affords

multiple interpretations and the latter does not. Rather, it is this: Theatrical scripts are

“work-determinative” or “work-specifying” instructions (Davies 2001; Davies 2009).

In virtue of completing a theatrical script, the playwright brings into existence a work

for performance—a work that is distinct from the script itself and distinct from

individual performances of it, yet which requires an interpretation of the script and a

performance for its instantiation. Moreover, correctly following the instructions of the

script to execute a performance will always and necessarily instantiate the same work,

which the script specifies. In contrast, screenplays are not work-specifying because no

cinematic work is created when a screenplay is completed (Nannicelli 2011b;

Nannicelli 2013). And following the instructions of the screenplay on multiple

occasions will result in the creation of multiple films rather than multiple instances of

a single film. Inasmuch as Carroll’s characterization of the theatrical script as a

 7

performance plan is able to capture these differences between script and screenplay, it

is unproblematic.

However, the theatrical script’s status as work-determinative performance plan

cannot be what secures its status as literary art. It is not sufficient to make the

theatrical script literature because other work-determinative performance plans are not

literature. But, more generally, being a work-determinative performance plan is

neither necessary nor sufficient for a set of art-instructions to be an artwork in its own

right. It is not necessary because certain architectural plans, which are not work-

determinative, are plausibly independent works of art. And it is not sufficient because

some work-determinative performance plans, like standard musical scores, are not

plausibly autonomous artworks.

The important point for the present purpose is two-fold: First, the fact that the

theatrical script is a work-determinative performance plan is not what makes it art, let

alone literature. Second, the fact that screenplays are not work-determinative

performance plans thus in no way prevents them from being works of literary art. The

first observation indicates that some alternative explanation for why theatrical scripts

are literature is needed. However, without committing to a particular account, we can

suppose it is plausible that what enables theatrical scripts to court literary status is the

fact that they are verbal artifacts. But then it is also plausible that this same feature of

screenplays makes them at least candidate works of literature as well. Obviously, this

does not show that screenplays are works of literature, but it does show that their

ontological differences from theatrical scripts—which do not include being somehow

ontologically bound to films in the manner of constituent parts of “ingredients”—do

not preclude them from being literature.

 8

III. Is the Screenplay a Complete Work? The Incompleteness Hypothesis

Like the ingredient hypothesis, the incompleteness hypothesis makes a claim

about the ontology of the screenplay that may or may not be harnessed in support of

an argument against the screenplay as literature. Nathanial Kohn, for example, takes

the putative incompleteness of the screenplay to indicate that it is a “postmodern

literary exemplar” (2000: 489). Other theorists, like Steven Price, hold that

recognizing that the screenplay is incomplete in the manner of a Barthesian “text,”

“helps to explain its exclusion from the canons of literature” (Price 2010: 41). In what

follows, I shall be concerned primarily but not exclusively with versions of the

incompleteness hypothesis that supposedly problematize the screenplay’s literary

status. In addition, because the hypothesis has various formulations, my discussion

will look at how it is advanced by several different critics.

If, as the discussion in the preceding section argues, it is plausible that

cinematic work and screenplay are ontologically distinct, then it is important to

distinguish between the completion of a film and the completion of a screenplay itself.

We can acknowledge that no film is specified or completed in virtue of the writing of

the screenplay, but this should not cause us to doubt that the screenplay itself may be

complete. However, not all theorists have been sensitive to this distinction. As a result,

their claims about the screenplay’s putative incompleteness tend to be equivocal at

best and deeply implausible at worst.

Münsterberg, for example, writes ambiguously, “the work which the scenario

writer creates is itself still entirely imperfect and becomes a complete work of art only

through the action of the producer”(1916:193). This statement is true if “the work”

refers to the cinematic work, for, as we saw, screenplays are not constitutive of
 9

cinematic works in the same way theatrical scripts are constitutive of theatrical works.

However, if “the work” refers to the scenario or screenplay itself, though, there is no

reason to accept the claim. Why shouldn’t it be the case that the screenplay itself is

complete in many, albeit perhaps not all, instances?

A leading contemporary theorist of screenwriting, Ian W. Macdonald, is

somewhat more careful about maintaining the distinction between film-completion

and screenplay-completion, but nevertheless suggests that the screenplay itself is

somehow incomplete in virtue of the fact that it is not constitutive of a film. As he puts

it, “There are some things the screenplay is not: it is not a finished piece of work (in

relation to the screenwork—the finished film) […] It is not (ever) complete, as a

description of all the aspects of the screenwork” (Macdonald 2004: 90). Macdonald’s

central points are right: The screenplay represents work that is unfinished if it is

regarded qua part of a larger project—i.e. an effort to make a “screenwork.” Relatedly,

the screenplay necessarily does not describe all the properties of the screenwork made

from it. However, there is something odd about casting these points in terms of the

screenplay itself being incomplete—despite Macdonald’s inclusion of qualifying

clauses.

If we regard Macdonald’s points here as constituting a weak version of the

incompleteness hypothesis, then the hypothesis is innocuous except perhaps insofar as

its rhetorical flourish may lead one to believe that the claims it makes are more radical

than they actually are. However, some critics who say that the screenplay is

incomplete do have something more extreme in mind. Macdonald himself shifts from

making these rather modest, plausible claims regarding the screenplay’s completeness

vis-à-vis the finished film to making much bolder claims regarding the putative

incompleteness of the screenplay and Barthesian “texts” more generally. Indeed, one
 10

might suspect that the rhetoric in which the truly modest claims are couched functions

to imply that those claims support the bolder thesis that the screenplay itself is

somehow unfinished or incomplete.

Macdonald invokes the work of Roland Barthes to suggest that the

screenplay—not only qua step towards a finished film but qua “text”—is essentially

incomplete. He endorses Nathanial Kohn’s claim, “in Barthes’s (1974) terms,

screenplays are model ‘writerly texts’—open to being rewritten—as opposed to

closed ‘readerly texts’ which ‘can be read but not written” (qtd. in Macdonald 2004:

91). In his essay, Kohn elaborates: “Screenplays are always works in progress—

invitational, unfinished, tempting… A writerly text demands a productive collusion

on our part” (2000: 495). The idea Macdonald wants to get at here is that, as writerly

text, the screenplay is being endlessly rewritten. This, then, is a stronger formulation

of the incompleteness hypothesis—a poststructuralist-influenced claim that the

screenplay is a kind of writerly-text. However, for Macdonald, as for Kohn, this

putative ontological fact about the screenplay does not impinge upon its ability to be

literature.

In his recent book, The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism, Steven

Price (2010) also draws upon Barthes’s work to posit the poststructuralist version of

the incompleteness hypothesis. Furthermore, he suggests that the screenplay’s

incompleteness explains why it is not typically regarded as literature. After outlining

and considering in relationship to the screenplay seven “propositions” Barthes makes

in his essay “From Work to Text,” Price concludes:

Although [the screenplay] is clearly to be differentiated from the

Barthesian text, it is still in many respects the contemporary text par
excellence, and at the very least this essay can take us further in
distinguishing the screenplay from literature (or ‘work’). It clearly
functions within ‘the activity of production’ rather than as a closed
work; it is not concerned with validating itself as ‘literature’; its
 11

meaning is deferred, since it is a text of suggestive incompletion that

demands the writerly activity of others; it is markedly intertextual,
participating within the general fields of cinema and literature, but –
other than in adaptation or historical drama – rarely concerning itself
with ‘source’ materials; it is indisputably severed from the legal
conceptions of authorship outlined by both Barthes and Foucault; and
the reader of the screenplay, at least in its industrial context, directly
participates in the activity of production and, metaphorically and very
often literally, in the ‘re-writing’ of the text (2010: 41).

For Price, Barthes’s notion of the writerly text not only sheds light upon the ontology

of the screenplay, but also upon the reason it is not literature. In his words,

“conceiving of the screenplay in the ways prompted by Barthes’s essay helps to

explain its exclusion from the canons of literature” (2010: 41).

Of the poststructuralist formulation of the incompleteness hypothesis, we can

ask two questions: First, independent of the question about literary status, does it offer

a plausible view of the screenplay’s ontology? Second, does it offer a coherent and

compelling account of why the screenplay is often not accepted as literature or why it

cannot be literature? There are reasons to think the answer to both questions is “no.”

As a claim only about the ontology of the screenplay, the hypothesis

encounters several difficulties. First, as suggested above, its proponents tend to

equivocate between claims about film-completion and screenplay-completion. To say

that the screenplay “demands the writerly activity of others” (Price 2010: 41) is

ambiguous. For it is the completion of the film that requires further activity—not

necessarily the screenplay itself. It is, for example, very easy to imagine an

independent filmmaker using a first-draft screenplay in production. It may be the case

that a given screenplay requires revision by other writers, but this is clearly not an

essential feature of all screenplays. Price indicates that his claims are limited to the

screenplay’s “industrial contexts,” in which “the reader of the screenplay […] directly

participates […] very often literally, in the ‘re-writing’ of the text” (2010: 41).2 On
 12

the face of it, this statement is true, but it implies that the re-writing of the screenplay

happens through the process of reading since it is a reader who does the re-writing.

But although a reader of the screenplay may re-write it, she does so by actually re-

writing it—not reading it! Perhaps needless to say, this does not mean that

screenplays are writerly texts; it just means that screenplays, like many other texts, are

often co-authored and go through various drafts.

Second, the hypothesis assumes the validity of what is actually a highly

contentious and a deeply implausible claim—roughly, that some texts, which seem to

have been completed by their authors, in fact invite and require the reader to (re)write

them and are actually never complete. That this suggestion renders our ordinary

creative and appreciative practices utterly incoherent appears to be of little concern to

the Barthesian theorist despite the fact that the point of theorizing those practices

would seem to be to explain them. Unattractive on its own merits, this claim becomes

even less compelling in light of the fact that Barthes himself offers no argumentation

for his claims: “these are speech-acts, not arguments, ‘hints,’ approaches which agree

to remain metaphorical” (Barthes 1989: 57).

Third, because the putative incompleteness of the screenplay owes to its status

as writerly text, the hypothesis is, at best, uninformative. On this account,

incompleteness is not a unique quality of the screenplay, but a feature the screenplay

has in virtue of being a writerly text. But then if all writerly texts are incomplete, the

hypothesis tells us nothing about the ontology of the screenplay in particular.

This third criticism of the incompleteness hypothesis’s view of the ontology of

the screenplay also indicates that the hypothesis does not fare well as an explanation of

(or as evidence to support) the screenplay’s exclusion from the realm of literature.

Even if we accepted, for the sake of argument, that screenplay is incomplete because it
 13

is a writerly text, this fact cannot impinge upon its literary status because at least some

so-called writerly texts are uncontroversially works of literature. (For instance, Barthes

himself suggests that Mallarmé—whose poetry is indisputably literature—“wanted the

audience to produce the book” (Barthes 1989: 63)). Rather than offering an

explanation or argument for why the screenplay is putatively not literature, the

incompleteness hypothesis presents a paradox: although screenplays are supposedly

not considered literature because they are incomplete writerly texts, it is evident that

other putatively incomplete writerly texts are widely regarded as paragons of the art of

literature.

None of this is to deny that many screenplays are extensively re-written (often

by multiple authors) and that some screenplays are abandoned before they have been

completed. But from these facts it hardly follows that the screenplay is essentially

incomplete—unfinished by its very nature. True, the industrial conditions of cinema

and television production may raise questions about how we know when a screenplay

is complete and how we know which draft constitutes the finished (or definitive)

version. However, such questions involve epistemological—not ontological—matters.

Moreover, these questions are hardly exclusive to the screenplay. We may have

similar queries when studying any sort of literary work that has been substantially

revised (sometimes by different writers) on numerous occasions (e.g. Walt Whitman’s

Leaves of Grass or Shakespeare’s plays). And it is evident that both in these cases and

even in cases when a work seems to genuinely lack a definitive version or to have

been abandoned prior to completion, the work’s literary status is not necessarily in

doubt (consider, for example, Franz Kafka’s The Castle). So, we ought not accept the

incompleteness hypothesis either as an account of the screenplay’s ontology or as an

explanation or argument regarding its literary status.

 14

III. Screenplays and the Definition of Literature

Thus far, my discussion has attempted to defend against two prominent

objections to the notion that screenplays can be literature. But is it possible to show

that (at least some) screenplays are literature? On the face of it, this may seem to be an

insurmountable task which, as Price puts it, “tends to fall victim to the twin problems

of defining ‘literature’ and constructing evaluative criteria that determine whether a

given text, or even a whole genre, merits entry to the canon” (2010: 27). In other

words, one might think the argument for screenplays is literature is doomed to fail

because there is no uncontested definition of literature available. However, this

objection errs in assuming that the argument requires us to assent to a single, particular

definition of literature. There are several alternative strategies open to the proponent of

the screenplay as literature, of which I shall gloss merely one.

Roughly, the thought is that rather than endorsing (or developing) a particular

definition of literature that will include screenplays, the proponent of the screenplay as

literature can proceed by showing that on any number of a variety of extant definitions

at least some screenplays (and perhaps many) will count as literature (Nannicelli

2013). That is, we can remain agnostic about literature’s definition and simply point

out that on any definition of literature one finds plausible or compelling, at least some

screenplays will count as literary works.

Consider, for example, the perhaps intuitive and relatively prevalent objection

that screenplays are not literature because they are written in extremely prosaic

language. In Macdonald’s words, the screenplay “does not appear literary in a

traditional sense, except possibly in parts” (2004: 90). What Macdonald has in mind as
 15

the “traditional sense” of the literary seems to be what we might follow Robert Stecker

in calling a “linguistic definition” of literature (2003: 66). On linguistic definitions,

literature is defined by particular uses of language—for example, “poetic” language in

a broad sense or in a more specific sense as, say, the Russian Formalists suggested (i.e.

language that “defamiliarizes”).

If we accept such a linguistic definition, just for the sake of argument,

numerous screenplays will unquestionably count as literature. Although it is true that

many Hollywood (and Hollywood-style) screenplays are written in workaday prose,

there are numerous instances of screenplays that employ “literary” or “poetic”

language, whether this notion is cashed out in terms of rhythm, metaphor, imagery,

defamiliarization, or styles of narration like free indirect discourse (Nannicelli 2010;

Nannicelli 2013). Consider, for example, Carl Mayer’s script for Sunrise: A Song of

Two Humans (1927), Walter Hill’s screenplays for Hard Times (1975) or The Driver

(1978), Patty Chayefsky’s screenplay for Altered States (1980), or Terrence Malick’s

screenplay for The Tree of Life (2011). And this is to say nothing of screenplays

written outside of Hollywood that plausibly meet the conditions of various linguistic

definitions of literature: for example, Su Friedrich’s screenplay for But No One (1982),

Marguerite Duras’s screenplay for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), and Dylan

Thomas’s unproduced “The Doctor and the Devils.” However, we should also note

that linguistic definitions of literature seem fundamentally flawed because they

simultaneously exclude far too many non-controversial instances of literature and

bestow literary status upon non-literary works; that is, particular, “literary” uses of

language are neither necessary nor sufficient for something to be literature (Lamarque

2009: 47).
 16

Of the various extant definitions of literature, perhaps the only one that may

give screenplays trouble is an institutional definition. According to Peter Lamarque’s

recent account, “the existence of literary works depends on a set of conventions

concerning how they are created, appreciated, and evaluated; in other words, on

attitudes, expectations, and responses found in authors and readers” (2009: 62). But is

it really plausible that any screenplay is written with the intention that it is “produced

and meant to be read within a framework of conventions defining [literary] practice”?

On the contrary, many screenplays seem intended to be read not within the framework

of the conventions that define literature as an institution, but within the framework of

conventions specific to film (pre-) production. In other words, is it not the case that

Hollywood screenplays are intended to be read only within the “institution” of the

Hollywood system rather than within the institution of literature?

Surely such screenplays also need to be read within a micro-framework of

Hollywood-specific conventions (for example, “INT.” stands for “interior), but these

two frameworks do not seem mutually exclusive. Rather, it is plausible that for

various film production crew and cast members (the director, cinematographer,

gaffers, sound designer, actors) to successfully carry out their jobs, they must interpret

(broadly speaking) the screenplay. More specifically, they must attends to things like

how its language creates a sense of tone, how its structure suggests a purpose or point,

how its narration focalizes and story and, perhaps, encourages the adoption of a

particular point of view. In short, what is needed in the contexts of Hollywood studio

production is to read the screenplay within the same framework of conventions that

governs the institution of literature as a whole.

On the other hand, some screenplays are written and read entirely outside

Hollywood (or any other institution of film production) and within the framework of
 17

the conventions of literary practice (understood most narrowly). The best example of

this is web-based, fan-fiction screenwriting. Roughly, this practice involves fans of

various movies or television shows writing their own original teleplays or screenplays

with the specific intention of sharing them with other fans that read and respond to

them. The thought here is that these fans constitute communities of writers and readers

in the most conventional sense. The screenplays in these communities are created,

appreciated, and evaluated within the same framework of conventions as a

paradigmatic community of poets writes and reads the work of its members. Therefore,

at least some screenplays will still count as literature even if one accepts an

institutional definition that construes the conventions of literary practice in the

narrowest of terms.

As indicated in the introduction, this chapter merely attempts clear enough

ground for philosophers and literary theorists to start taking the screenplay seriously as

literature. Needless to say, there is much more work to be done.

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank Routledge for allowing me to reproduce material that was previously

published in my book, A Philosophy of the Screenplay.

Works Cited

Balázs, B. (1952) Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art, translated
by Edith Bone, London: Denis Dobson.

Barthes, R. (1989) "From Work to Text," in The Rustle of Language, translated by

Richard Howard, 56-64, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Brik, O. (1974) “From the Theory and Practice of a Script Writer,” translated by
Diana Matias, reprinted in Screen 15, no. 3: 95-103.

Carroll, N. (2008) The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

 18

Davies, S. (2001) Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Study, Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Davies, S. (2009) “Notations,” in A Companion to Aesthetics, 2nd edition, edited by

Stephen Davies, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Robert Hopkins, Robert Stecker, and David
E. Cooper, 441-443, Oxford: Blackwell.

Kohn, N. (2000) “The Screenplay as Postmodern Literary Exemplar: Authorial

Distraction, Disappearance, Dissolution,” Qualitative Inquiry 6, no. 4: 489-510.

Korte, B. and Schneider, R. (2000) “The Published Screenplay – A New Literary

Genre?” AAA – Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 25, no. 1: 89-105.

Lamarque, P. (2009) The Philosophy of Literature, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Macdonald, I. W. (2004) “Disentangling the Screen Idea,” Journal of Media Practice

5, no. 2: 89-99.

Maras, S. (2009) Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice, London: Wallflower.

Münsterberg, H. (1916) The Photoplay: A Psychological Study, New York: D.

Appleton and Company.

Nannicelli, T. (2010) “The Early Screenwriting Practice of Ernest Lehman,” Journal

of Screenwriting 1, no. 2: 237-253.

Nannicelli, T. (2011a) “Why Can’t Screenplays Be Artworks?” Journal of Aesthetics

and Art Criticism 69, no. 4: 405-414.

Nannicelli, T. (2011b) “Instructions and Artworks: Musical Scores, Theatrical Scripts,

Architectural Plans, and Screenplays,” British Journal of Aesthetics 51, no. 4: 399-
414.

Nannicelli, T. (2013) A Philosophy of the Screenplay, New York: Routledge, 2013.

Price, S. (2010) The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism, Houndsmills,

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Further Reading

Boon, K. A. (2008) Script Culture and the American Screenplay, Detroit, MI: Wayne
State University Press.

Horne, W. (1992) “See Shooting Script: Reflections on the Ontology of the

Screenplay,” Literature/ Film Quarterly 20, no. 1: 48-54.

Koivumäki, M.-R. (2010) “The Aesthetic Independence of the Screenplay,” Journal

of Screenwriting 2, no. 1: 25-40.
 19

Macdonald, I. W. (forthcoming) The Poetics of Screenwriting, Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Millard, K. (forthcoming) Screenwriting in a Digital Era, Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Nelmes, J. ed. (2011) Analysing the Screenplay, London: Routledge.

Sternberg, C. (1997) Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture

Screenplay as Text, Tübingen: Stauffenberg-Verlag.

1
For a more detailed discussion of Carroll’s position, see Nannicelli 2011a or
Nannicelli 2013.
2
One wonders why Price puts “re-writing” in scare quotes if readers literally re-write
screenplays.