The writer and the screen;: On writing for film and television,

by Wolf Peter Rilla

Here is a most informative, helpful and readable book about the art of writing for the screen. In addition to analyzing screenwriting in terms of broad and traditional categories such as plot, language, character and dialogue, "screenwright" and director Wolf Rilla formulates a new "poetics" for this comparatively new medium, which allows him to deal with narrower and rarely articulated matters such as camera angles, electronic editing, locations, the treatment and the punctuation of film language. He also examines the requirements for writing documentaries and the special demands made upon the writer by television. This comprehensive book is essential for aspiring practitioners of the craft, but Rilla's thoughtful and intelligent consideration of works such as Citizen Kane, On the Waterfront and Bullitt , among others, will appeal to anyone who simply has an interest in films. Wolf Rilla has directed and/or written some twenty movies, Village of the Damned among them, and has taught at the London Film School. His previous books include The A-Z of Movie Making .

191 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1974

Reviews

[Calvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because it magically emerged from the depths of my family's collection, likely a remnant of one of my relative's latent interest in becoming a screenwriter. It's an old book, and it shows in the pages. To give Rilla some benefit of the doubt, the massive number of books on screenwriting have a milieu into which their writers could pre-determine a motive unique from every other writer, to make the purpose of their book obvious to readers. Rilla's book attempts to be prescriptive, historically analytic, and philosophical while achieving none of the three. It's hard to tell what Rilla has written from the way he writes about what screenwriter's experience and his analysis of an entertainment market where the television comedy doesn't exist and "cassettes" loom on the horizon as a new frontier is not only lacking for its lack of contemporary significance, but offers no specific or personal insight that I found effective or unique on the part of the writer. More than any book that attempts to sum up a profession in less than two hundred pages, it screams that it wasn't written by an expert in either the profession it analyzes or an expert in the art of analyzing professions to which one does not belong. For its time, it was a book worth a quick read. It is now, as far as I can tell, worthless, unless you're interested in studying Wolf Rilla's life.

[Storrs]

The author purports that this is not a how-to book because art cannot be taught, but a book on craft, an examination of the tools a writer can develop to refine their skills in screenwriting. He discusses the relationship of the screenplay to many other important components of film, as well the individual elements of the screenplay itself. While some of this book may be outdated, seeing as it has a copyright date of 1973 and contains a section on the market place that has undoubtedly changed, it can provide an experienced and insightful perspective on the genre and its disciplines.

Available here:
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