script-writer, if only to give a better understanding of my feelings at that time. As everyone knows, the script-writer is the one who—generally in collaboration with another script-writer and with the director—writes the script or scenario, that is, the canvas from which the film will later be taken. In this script, and according to the development of the action, the gestures and words of the actors and the various movements of the camera are minutely indicated, one by one. The script is, therefore, drama, mime, cinematographic technique, mise-en-scène and direction, all at the same time. Now, although the script-writer’s part in the film is of the first importance and comes immediately below that of the director, it remains always, for reasons inherent in the fashion in which the art of the cinema has hitherto developed, hopelessly subordinate and obscure. If, in fact, the arts are to be judged from the point of view of direct expression—and one does not really see how else they can be judged—the script-writer is an artist who, although he gives his best to the film, never has the comfort of knowing that he has expressed himself. And so, with all his creative work, he can be nothing more than a provider of suggestions and inventions, of technical, psychological and literary ideas; it is then the director’s task to make use of this material according to his own genius and, in fact, to express himself. The script-writer, in short, is the man who remains always in the background; who expends the best of his blood for the success of others; and who, although two thirds of the film’s fortune depends upon him, will never see his own name on the posters where the names of the director, of the actors and of the producer are printed. He may, it is true—and as often happens—achieve excellence in his inferior trade, and be very well paid; but he can never say: “It was I who made this film...in this film I expressed myself...this film is me.” This can only be said by the director, who is, in effect, the only one to sign the film. The script-writer, on the other hand, has to content himself with working for the money he receives, which, whether he likes it or not, ends by becoming the real and only purpose of his job. Thus all that is left for the script-writer is to enjoy life, if he is capable of it, on the money that is the sole result of his toil—passing from one script to another, from a comedy to a drama, from an adventure film to a sentimental film, without interruption, without pause, rather like a governess who goes from one child to another and never has time to grow fond of one before she leaves it and starts again with another; and in the end the fruit of her labors is enjoyed entirely by the mother who is the only one with the right to call the child her own.
But, apart from these disadvantages, which we may call fundamental and immutable, there are others also, in the job of the script-writer, which, though varying according to the quality and type of the film and of his collaborators, are no less annoying on that account. Unlike the director, who enjoys a considerable measure of independence and freedom in his dealings with the producer, the script-writer can only accept or refuse the task offered to him; but, once he has accepted it, he has no choice whatever in the matter of his collaborators: he is himself chosen, he does not choose. And so it comes about that, as a result of the personal likes and dislikes, the convenience, or the caprice of the producer, or simply as a result of chance, the script-writer finds himself forced to work with people he does not care for, people who are his inferiors in culture and breeding, who irritate him by features of character or behavior that are offensive to him. Now working together on a script is not like working together in an office, let us say, or a factory, where each man has his own job to do independently of his neighbor and where personal relations can be reduced to very little or even abolished altogether. Working together on a script means living together from morning