Radio 4’s Front Row yesterday was devoted to screenwriters, and several high profile writers were interviewed in the course of a programme that veered from craft talk to industry politics and more.  It was a fascinating listen: there’s something about hearing people speak that brings them to life much more than transcribed words ever can.  Nevertheless, there’s going to be a good deal of that in the rest of this piece.

Ronald Harwood, whose scripts include The Pianist and The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, has a mature take on the industry.  He accepts that a lot of the time his input is unwanted, but that the return for that is a level of compensation you’re unlikely to receive in any other form of scriptwriting.  Speaking of Baz Lurhman’s new epic Australia, which had four writers all jumping through hoops to realise the director’s vision, he said “I was extremely well paid…if you don’t like the game, don’t play it.”  And, as he pointed out, the game is weighted against writers: “The cult of the director is pervasive: you get a first time director called John Smith, his credits are ‘John Smith’s Hamlet‘ or ‘A film by John Smith.’”

Christopher Hampton, whose credits include Atonement, was equally sanguine about the realities of the industry.  The general attitude, he said, is that “Four writers is four times as good as one writer”.  Faced with such a system, how best to approach it?  “Being a screenwriter is like going to the casino and sitting down at the roulette table – sometimes you’re lucky and more often you’re not.”

If you don’t like that reality, the best bet seems to be to head for television and set up your own production company.  That’s what Lynda la Plante did after her series Prime Suspect moved in directions she didn’t approve of, with Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison becoming an alcoholic instead of climbing the career ladder.  Personally, I feel that the series got better away from la Plante, and that the work she owns isn’t as strong…but she earns more money from what she’s doing now, and gets to make the key decisions, so what do I know?

That example points to something of critical relevance: many writers would like to think they know what’s best, but reality is that a director is, literally, going to call the shots.  And that’s fine — get used to it.  Certainly Ronald Harwood had an excellent relationship with Roman Polanski when they were creating The Pianist, a script which Polanski was effectively the editor of, and which he shot faithfully.  But does a script that realises the writer’s intentions always equal a good film?  One counterexample is The Shining, which author Stephen King holds to be a dreadful piece of work, while the world at large finds Kubrick’s vision a powerful one.

Realistically, if you want to have your ego pandered to throughout the process, film is not the world for you.  As Ronald Hardwood put it, “When the director gets going, you’re cut off…they’re polite to you until the moment they don’t need you.”  Richard Price, involved in The Wire as well as feature films including The Colour of Money, is equally pragmatic and has this sage approach to dealing with the business:  “Put everything you have in the first draft, because that’s when they leave you alone…after the first draft it’s more about collective bargaining than it is about writing.”

You’ll note that all this advice is about the pragmatics of being a screenwriter.  Not the business of craft, but the attitudes that are necessary to function in an industry in which the majority of writers are seen as interchangeable functionaries.  It’s only Charlie Kaufman that gets to be Charlie Kaufman, Tarantino remains the go-to guy for punching up other peoples’ dialogue in a Tarantino-esque fashion, and so on.  Until you attain that status yourself, the smart money is on taking on board the attitudes of the successful writers featured in this fascinating radio show: learn to be a good team player, and realise when it’s pointless to complain about what’s happening.  And if, while doing that, you can create projects that you own and can be made for relatively small sums, then you have a chance of having more say in what goes on than you ever will otherwise.  That’s how Christopher Hampton got to co-produce Dangerous Liaisons, and if ever there was an incentive to keep your head down until you know what you’re doing, that film’s critical and commercial success is a role model to us all.