Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Pen Behind the Lines

Ran across an excellent strike related editorial article today quite by chance and this paragraph screamed at me:
"While there are a handful of exceptions where actors ad lib and improvise lines, for the most part, all of our favorite lines from American television and cinema, lines we often repeat to friends, re-use to express our own thoughts, re-tell to make others laugh, were written by guild writers. And we have no idea who they are. Often, we even credit the actor with the lines they said, for they're who we see saying them. We never see the writer say them, or even write them. We'll say, "It's like Johnny Depp said in that one movie…" And we'll mean, of course, that it's like what Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio wrote in that one movie."
Kudos, Matt Petryni, wherever in Oregon you are, and shame on anyone who thinks you have to be in Hollywood to get it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunate example. “Bring me that Horizon...”, the best line in the first pirates movie was Depp’s idea. Even Elliot and Rossio admit it. This isn’t wikipedia so I’m not going to hunt for a citation. But it’s out there.

MaryAn Batchellor said...

T&T explain all about that on the movie commentary but personally, I don't think that's the best line in the first pirate film.