Backstory: interviews with screenwriters of Hollywood's golden age

Abstract

This collection of fifteen interviews documents the experiences of screenwriters during Hollywood’s Golden Age. It details the transition from the silent era to the sound era, which prompted an influx of talent from journalism, theater, and fiction, leading to new professional hierarchies and conflicts. The work examines the often-difficult conditions screenwriters faced under the studio system, including a lack of creative control, arbitrary credit assignments, and a general undervaluation of their craft compared to that of directors and producers. It also covers the formation of the Screen Writers Guild in the 1930s, its internal political struggles, and the subsequent impact of the blacklist on the profession. Through personal reminiscences, the collection provides the writers’ “backstory,” offering diverse and often conflicting accounts of authorship, Guild politics, and the creative process behind classic films, thus serving as a corrective to director-centric film history. – AI-generated abstract.