Chapter 3: The implied writer’s communication 77
3.2. The screenwriter and the implied writer 89
3.2.2. Different readers’ engagement with the screenplay text 91
Susan Lanser emphasises that a reader’s knowledge of the real author affects the reader’s construction of the implied author, which leads different readers to create different implied
authors.36 When examining how different readers construct slightly different implied writers,
Sternberg’s distinction between three different types of readers is useful. Sternberg makes a distinction between the ‘property stage’ reader, the ‘blueprint stage’ reader, and the ‘reading
35 William Goldman, ‘Introduction’, in Michael Clayton, by Tony Gilroy (New York: Newmarket
Press, 2007), pp. vii-ix (p. viii).
36 Susan Lanser, ‘(Im)plying the Author’, Narrative, 9.2 (May 2001), pp. 153- 60 (p. 155)
Both James Phelan and Wayne C. Booth have objected to that argument, stating that even though different readers may create different implied authors there exist more similarities between the created implied authors than dissimilarities. See Phelan (2005) p. 18, and Booth (1987), pp. 420-23.
material stage’ reader.37 The property stage reader is, for example, a producer who decides to buy the screenplay and produce it. The blueprint stage reader is a production team member during the production of the film, for example the director, the set-director, or the
photographer. The reading stage reader is a reader who bought the published screenplay or a scholar who analyses the screenplay.
Allusions to camera positions and movements clearly show how different readers
respond to the implied writer’s communication. The producer, depending on whether s/he trusts the writer’s visualisation or not, either dismisses the camera directions or uses them as indications of how the film will look. It is important to remember that the majority of
producers regard screenplays as investments that can lead to successful films, which would further their careers and strengthen their positions in the industry. Therefore, producers search for signs of the writer’s capability of telling a story that is transferable to the filmic media.
When the screenplay text is in the hands of a blueprint stage reader the production of
the film has already started, and it is up to the readers to actually transfer the story from the page to the screen. They must not only carry out the camera movements that are indicated in the screenplay but all the camera movements that are not communicated by the implied writer. The property stage reader can either dismiss the implied writer’s direct camera indications, which was the case in Little Miss Sunshine, or they can follow the indications. The implied writer gives the blueprint stage reader an alternative to how the potential film can be visualised. The blueprint stage reader will, however, have the final say and ultimately be the one who decides the look of the film. Since the blueprint stage readers’ decisions to either follow or dismiss the implied writer’s indications have great implications, they will most likely spend a substantial amount of time questioning and looking at each individual scene and decide the best way for it to be visualised.
The reading stage reader, on the other hand, will probably not spend much time
questioning the implied writer’s camera indications. They are more likely to visualise the scenes the way the implied writer communicates them. The reading stage reader, however, is more likely to engage more with other aspects of the implied writer’s communication. For the reading stage reader the story itself and its implication is more important than the technical details of how it should be filmed. An example that clearly shows the different readers’ different engagement with the implied writer’s communication appears in The Hurt Locker:
INT/EXT HUMVEE DAY
Find the Humvee driving across the desert void. Driving and driving.
Outside, horizon of sand and sun.
Inside, shell-shocked men.38
The blueprint stage reader engages with the implied writer when deciding how to film it. The first sentence ‘[f]ind the Humvee driving across the desert void’ indirectly indicates that the Humvee is seen from a great distance, which demands a long shot and maybe even the use of a helicopter during filming. The second sentence, ‘[i]nside, shell- shocked men’, indicates close up shots of the three men so that their reactions can be seen and understood by the audience. The blueprint stage reader thus engages with the technical aspect of how to transfer the text to the screen. The reading stage reader, while visualising the scene first from a long shot and then from close ups, is likely to engage more with the implied writer’s communication along the axis of interpretation and perception, and the axis of
evaluation. The depicted scene takes place just after two of the men in the Humvee considered killing their team leader, the third man in the Humvee. The first half of the scene, when the Humvee appears in the vast desert, reminds the reader of the soldiers’ isolation in a foreign country, which highlights their vulnerability. The close up of their shell-shocked faces then reminds the reader of how the war has changed the soldiers, making them capable of considering killing one of their own.
It can thus be concluded that even though the reading stage reader is inclined to
visualise the scenes as the implied writer indicates, it is the reading stage reader that engages the most strongly with the implied writer’s communication along the other two axes of communication. The reading stage readers are thereby more likely to question the implied writer’s evaluation and interpretation of the story, while the blueprint stage readers are more likely to question the implied writer’s allusions to the film to be. The property stage readers, on the other hand, probably end up somewhere in between the reading stage readers and the blueprint stage readers, since they engage with the implied writer’s communication along all the axes of communication. They engage on the axis of indication to make sure that the writer’s visualisations are transferable to the actual filming process, and they engage on the axis of facts, characters and events, the axis of perception and understanding, and the axis of
ethics and evaluation in order to make sure that the story is believable and engaging for a cinematic audience.