The Bundy Museum Presents
The Screenwriting Biz Film Series
Monthly Film Series Located in the Bundy Museum Annex Theater (Behind the Museum)
Free Admission
Doors open at 7:00PM Films Start at 7:30PM
Intro by Patrick Charsky
Discussion to follow films
From the Studio System to writing on spec, this film series will show the art and business of screenwriting. It shows the struggles that screenwriters face trying to write; dealing with writer’s block, screenplay readers, directors, producers, agents, and others while keeping their sanity and solvency. Most people take screenwriting for granted. These films will show just how hard it is to be a working screenwriter and how great the rewards can be.
The Player by Robert Altman (November 13)
A high powered Hollywood executive thinks he has it all until a writer starts to terrorize his life. Will this be the end of Griffin Mill? A depiction of how the Studio system worked in the 1980’s.
8 ½ by Federico Fellini (December 11)
Guido is a big writer-director. But he’s stuck with writer’s block. He doesn’t know how to make his next film. Everything is on the line; his marriage, his mistress, his future as a film director, what will he do? Perhaps the best film about making a film.
Barton Fink by the Coen Brothers (January 8)
A rising playwright decides to accept a job writing for a Hollywood film company. Little does he know how difficult it will be to write a film and escape from the company’s contract. A movie full of twists, turns, and insights into how a film gets written.
Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard (February 12)
A writer who is writing a film struggles to keep his wife from falling for the producer. Godard’s meditation on filmmaking has a critical eye to what goes on in the screening room and on set. The film shows how conflicts between art and business affect a film’s production.
White Hunter Black Heart by Clint Eastwood (March 12)
A screenwriter works with a director who is mad about hunting and making a film in Africa. They go on safari to hunt. Along the way they write a screenplay and prepare to make a film in Africa. It is a constant tension of whether the film will be made or not. The film is a thinly disguised account of writer Peter Viertel’s experiences while working on the classic 1951 film The African Queen
Paris When It Sizzles by Richard Quine (April 9)
This anti film to Sunset Boulevard, shows an established screenwriter living the high life until he’s got to write a screenplay for a producer. A romantic comedy that shows the lighter side of screenwriting.
