I always write as I like to write, and I've been thinking about it because I honestly didn't realize how different my stuff is, until I started looking at other people's scripts as a producer. William Monahan More Quotes by William Monahan More Quotes From William Monahan Get Carter is a classic, but it did nothing in the United States. It came out on a double bill with a Frank Sinatra western. William Monahan classic united-states bills There were days when you would get the TV listings from The Globe and The Herald. Video was out, but nobody could afford it...expect for my uncle George, who was a second father to me, and had every film in the world, and every book. William Monahan uncles father book When I was very young, you would get the TV listings from The Globe and The Herald, and you would basically go through them, circle things, and map out your viewing week. William Monahan maps circles tvs I learned my job from English dramatists. Tennessee Williams was no good for me, New York stuff was no good to me. William Monahan tennessee new-york jobs I think that scripts should be published, but they are published, really, because when you're a screenwriter, your stuff ends up in samizdat form on thousands and thousands of desks and shelves across the industry. William Monahan scripts stuff thinking I don't think Roger Ebert has ever mentioned a screenplay. He assigns every auctorial move to the director, which makes some sense since the director has run a one-off game, but if Hamlet were written last year and had been only performed once as a film, and it didn't come off well on screen for whatever reason, it would be gone forever as a literary work, and never would have been considered as one. William Monahan running moving thinking If you change a location opportunistically, to gain a day on the schedule, which I did more than once, you have to re-rig everything creatively on the spot, and you not only have to be able to do that, but do it with great fluency to keep moving. I used to go apeshit when anything got changed in a film but you live and learn, and I have learned. William Monahan schedules able moving When I started writing screenplays, as early as I started writing anything, I hadn't seen any ordinary screenplays. I saw movies and figured out how I thought they should be written. William Monahan saws ordinary writing By the time someone gave me some samples of standard screenplays I was already beyond that stuff, because I was not only a tinkerer in ways to do things, I'd started from Dylan Thomas. As a screen dramatist he was a very intense visualist, with great timing and fluency. William Monahan fluency stuff way If you see, as I do, in edited film, you're going to end up as a director. William Monahan film ends directors I came into screenwriting from an odd direction, because the first screenplay that I read was and is better as writing than the top one percent of literary novels. William Monahan odd writing firsts I never viewed screen drama as a vulgar form, or a lesser one, and I've never written it left-handed. William Monahan vulgar form drama Novelists who get shitty about screenwriting invariably can't do it, or they can't hack it in the world of what's really, in truth, very bold and very public enterprise. William Monahan enterprise novelists world The old days of screenwriting, and myths about screenwriting, are maybe over. It's a literary form, if you can wake up to it. William Monahan myth wake-up form Even though a screenplay is performed only once, unlike other forms of drama, it's still a performance in itself, and unless it's a great performance, odds are that actors will not come, and a movie will never be made. William Monahan actors odds drama I don't like scripts leaking. On the other hand, the more real attention a script gets, the better. William Monahan real attention hands In reviewing films, people get quite liberal about saying "the script" this and "the script" that, when they've never read the script any more than they've read the latest report on Norwegian herring landings. William Monahan scripts film people I'm not a precious text protector, or anything like that, you know, because it's a much more vital form than that. You have to rock. William Monahan rocks form knows The thing about The Departed, the x-factor that people can't quite put their finger on, is that it deals clearly with class and accent all these things that are fundamental to Boston, but previously anomalous or even prohibited in demotic American films. William Monahan boston class people I never work until I have a deadline. You have to fit so much in a given day that you just don't get serious until you know when the deadline is. William Monahan fit given serious
