The Clever and The Good: Screenwriting and Storytelling in Mainstream American Cinema [Lex]

The key note speaker at my sister’s 1999 college graduation was Jim Lehrer, then of the PBS News Hour. This was some 26 years ago, but I remember one thing he said vividly. “Just because you are graduating from this prestigious institution [Amherst College] don’t think you are educated,” he counseled.

The year prior, I received a master’s degree from Boston University’s film school where I concentrated in screenwriting. Soon after, I was asked to become an adjunct screenwriting teacher at BU. By 2004, this blossomed into a full-time position. After ten years of teaching (1999-2009), I left academia. I moved into film criticism in 2011 and have been writing reviews since. In 2020, I joined a critics group, and each awards season I am sent hundreds of screeners to vote for ‘best of’ the year in a variety of categories.

For almost three decades, I have not only pursued screenwriting and film review but also published essays and short stories and even have a few novels in the drawer.

The purpose in presenting my bona fides is not to boast but to highlight the many ways which I have been involved in screenwriting, filmmaking, and storytelling (almost always as an outsider). Without this stew of differing viewpoints, I am not sure I would have arrived at the dichotomy of clever and good, and sharing anecdotes from these stages in my journey will illustrate how I arrived at the beliefs I hold today.

“The Clever and The Good” has been a long time in the making, but no idea is too late to offer if it can make an impact. Recalling Jim Leher’s words at my sister’s graduation, I hope anyone who reads this essay will come away with something to consider. Goodness knows the film industry needs a little education.

Upon graduating film school in 1998, I set out to write screenplays, get representation and launch a scriptwriting career in mainstream, domestic cinema. Most of this essay will address ‘Hollywood’ filmmaking and writing, as opposed to independent, art, and foreign cinema (and television writing).

There is a special kind of pressure in the film industry about writing sellable ideas. Of all the arts –so quipped Andre Gide—only the movies have the word ‘business’ as a descriptor. No one characterizes poetry or sculpting as a business, but the ‘movie biz’ as a moniker is indelible.

This is not surprising. Movies, unlike the other arts, cost fortunes to produce. This does not mean those funding films are necessarily wiser about what is good, but they have a right to profit.

Imagine you are a studio executive who has greenlit a movie with a $100 million budget. You are going to need close to $300 million in receipts to get back what you invested (after interest on loans, prints, and advertising). In such a scenario, you are assuredly thinking about how the picture will sell. This often impels you to pursue what is clever and not necessarily good.

This kind of thinking trickles down from the C-suites to the agencies to the writers in the trenches generating ideas. One should always write what is true to the heart, but the marketplace and the heart do not always beat in rhythm, and writers will knock themselves silly attempting to come up with ‘clever’ ideas that will set them apart from the pack. In turn, producers are not looking for simple, honest stories that are good but clever ones they think will turn heads.

And currently the industry finds itself in a period where it decidedly wants clever over good. If I had to speculate, I believe it was the writers strike of the late 1980s followed by the flowering of the internet in the 1990s (and then social media, smart phones and apps) that created the conditions for clever to push aside good.
To detail all the reasons how and why screenwriting arrived at its current state would be the subject of another essay, so let it be granted that American, mainstream cinema is in crisis.

This could be interpreted as so much ‘things were better in the past’ rhetoric, but I can prove they were.

Movies have always cost large sums to make and profit from them sought. Clever is as old as the Lumiere Brothers shorts. But clever and good once aligned more snugly. Over the years, I have challenged many people to look at the highest grossing films in the United States in the 1950s and compare those to the highest grossing films of the 2000s or the 2010s (and now the 2020s).

The last year of the 1950s (1959), the top five grossing films were Ben Hur, The Shaggy Dog, Some Like it Hot, Operation Petticoat and Pillow Talk, which won an Oscar for best original screenplay. Fifty years later –2009—the top five were Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Avatar, Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, Up, and The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Ben Hur won twelve Academy Awards (in just about every major category) while Transformers won one (sound mixing). The best original screenplay in 2009 was Milk, which was 126th in box office.

Lest you think I am cherry picking take any year in the 1950s (or almost any year between the 1930s and the 1990s) and compare it to one in the 21st century.

The 1950s films, if not original ideas, are book and play adaptations, and some are even modest-budget efforts. The 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s are log-jammed with sequels, prequels and reboots, and almost all of them would be considered big-budget, blockbuster-style productions.

Highly-priced, effects-heavy sequels, prequels, and reboots are admissions producers are leaning firmly into clever, draining all the blood from the stone they can of a once original story. Taking a risk on smaller (and quieter) ideas that are good rarely enters the calculus.

True, greed and cynicism are as old as motion pictures themselves, and productions, from any era, are littered with stories of feuding stars, budgets gone wild, and sex scandals, where the quality of the script seemed to be the last consideration. Why ascribe to the producers of yesteryear lofty motives to craft good and meaningful films? Were they not pursuing the same kind of clever ideas I am branding those in the 21st century as chasing?

These are fair questions, and I think I can answer by saying all this might have been accurate yet still, subconsciously, they knew a good story from a clever one whereas today the industry sees them as one in the same; that is, it was more innate for writers and directors of years past to produce stories that connected with something deeper—to be good.

And what is good? What is the difference between good and clever?

It will come as no surprise that a good screenplay or story understands what its dramatic purpose is.

And to demonstrate the difference between good and clever—how you must find the dramatic purpose of a story at the outset of its life—I will offer some personal examples.

The first script of mine (titled Castle Island) that received attention from producers and agents with clout was a true story about the relationship between James Bulger (a gangster), William Bulger (a politician), and John Connolly (an FBI agent). It was a classic Boston tale of crime, politics, family, and corruption. This was long before the film Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Joel Edgerton as the infamous troika, crowded out all others who wanted to tell this story.

Competing projects are always part of the business, and the near shot I had to get something professional going is not the point: the issue was, despite some of the attention I was able to garner with this script, I never really knew what its dramatic purpose was. I was focused on clever. That is what turned heads. That is what made it appealing.

You might tell me this was not merely clever because this story has many themes burrowed into it: twisted loyalty, ambition, and greed.

But themes are empty without dramatic purpose. Love is a theme. Friendship is a theme. But what about them? What is the metaphor? What binds the physical actions we see and the words we hear in a movie (or read in a screenplay) to a subcutaneous, subconscious truth about existence?

Themes without expression are like flightless birds: the wings are there (the clever) but they do not accomplish anything. To soar you need an added element, the first element is what I am arguing. Dramatic purpose. The good.

To further illustrate what I mean, I will contrast my work on Castle Island with a script I wrote some 25 years later. Armed with a full understanding of what is clever and what is good, I had an idea for an indy-style drama (with some humor).

I titled it Whispering Pines, and it concerned an assisted living facility where a new resident, an 80 year old man, comes to reside—somewhat grudgingly. To the world he is completely unremarkable: but he harbors a secret. All his life, he has possessed super powers yet never used them. He is the only one of his kind, and he kept a promise to his dying mother, 70 years previous, not to reveal himself. Naturally, something occurs at the assisted living facility –named Whispering Pines—which compels him to break that promise and use his powers.

This is the kind of idea the screenwriting industry loves. It is vaguely ironic and presents a situation ripe with conflict and mystery (and many a bon mot thrown in). Not to mention it is about a superhero! All of this is the clever.

Years ago, I would not have explored what was beyond clever about this story, but now I pause. If I cannot find anything deeper than the clever idea, I do not proceed. In the case of Whispering Pines, it took me little time to fill out the clever idea with a dramatic purpose.

Whispering Pines is not about an old man who has never used his super powers. It concerns anyone who has regrets about not accomplishing something or failing to use their strength when they had the chance. It is about unfulfilled potential and quiet lives of desperation. But the bright side is you can always do something. There is still time no matter where you are in life.

Teasing out the metaphor, I was able to proceed with the script. It is not a magic bullet. One still has to create compelling characters, a basic three act structure and snappy dialogue, but once I connected the idea with that dramatic purpose the other parts could be made to fit given time. Once I understood what was good about my story I knew I had a tale to tell.

Castle Island was a clever screenplay, but I never plumbed the story to discover why it might connect on a good level. Even after several years of work, I do not recall discussing with anyone, including all those Hollywood pros, what its dramatic purpose was.

Why did it take so long to look at stories this way? It is a two-part answer, and the place to begin is with my own education.

To be fair to any screenwriting program, there is a matter of practicality about it. One has to explain the basics to students: format, character building, ‘show don’t tell’ with dialogue, conflict, structure and on; these have to be inculcated. But they are all ancillary to the heart of the matter: what is good and what makes a screenplay good.

It is not as if film schools and other screenwriting educators are unaware of dramatic purpose. Understanding this element of fiction writing goes back to Aristotle (The Poetics).

But I cannot absolve them so easily. I do not recall much emphasis on finding a dramatic purpose for a story during my graduate years. It was there, swirling around with many other ideas, but it was not the headliner.

As both a student and later an instructor, I probably have read just about every influential screenwriting text there is. I have attended numerous academic conferences and writer seminars, and though some discuss it, I also cannot recall any method emphasizing dramatic purpose as the most important element of story telling for the screen.

Many texts and programs are themselves attempting to be clever, coming up with new ways to approach writing a script. Plot points, dialogue tricks, archetypal characters, and so on. Of course, these tips can be useful, but they blunt the primacy of finding the metaphor for a story.

I cannot let myself off the hook, either, for as an educator of more than a decade I did not emphasize dramatic purpose nearly as much as I should have. If were to re-don my professor’s cap, I would approach instructing students in an entirely different way. The good way.

But it was not just my experience with education that kept me from appreciating the clever/good divide.

As mentioned, the business side of screenwriting had been moving toward clever since the mid 1990s, and I stepped squarely into this transition when I graduated film school.

Prior to this age it was possible to earn a screenwriting job based on samples. That is, you did not have to write a spec script that would set the world on fire to get your career going. Some solid samples would earn you trust and a shot. But as the 1990s bled into the 2000s, the way to a producer’s or agent’s heart came not from solid work and showing promise but splashy, high-concept spec sales or placement on the growing number of ‘lists’ of screenwriters to watch. That is, clever earned you attention while good less and less notice.

As a fledging screenwriter, I never attempted to run completely to the clever-fire, feeling plain stories about true crime (Castle Island), historical subjects, and even romantic comedy could be told competently and earn praise.

Even so, I was blinded by the call to be “commercial,” and, during those times, increasingly, commercial meant clever. That is, I was so distracted by trying to feed the marketplace that I forgot to look for the dramatic purpose in my stories, the good.

I never fully embraced the reality that being clever with story ideas was the better path to success. Perhaps I was fortunate in the end. Had I succeeded in selling something clever, maybe I would not have realized what is good.

***

That is the why of it, but when did the awakening about clever and good take place? Not surprisingly, it began when I started to move away from both scriptwriting and teaching. In 2010, I left the university life, and around the same time I came to the conclusion I could not make it as a professional screenwriter. I had earned small money as a writer but not anywhere near what would be considered a day-to-day pro.

Leaving behind me the whirl of academia and the quest for professional status as a writer afforded me the opportunity to see the proverbial forest, and I began to take the first small steps toward the clever/good paradigm.

In this period of transition, I was still active in screenwriter groups and forums, not having fully separated myself from dreams of selling a script. It was in one of these groups that a writer made a comment which was to have a lasting impact on me.

The discussion was Raiders of the Lost Ark. An action-classic, adventure film, few people do not admire it (second at the box office the year of its release, 1981). I forget what the focus of the thread was (probably something clever), but one commenter deviated to point out the dramatic purpose of the movie: he noted Raiders metaphor which is ‘the face of God cannot be looked upon with the eyes of man.’ Or, put more simply: ‘believe in the holy.’

The lead character, Indiana Jones, is a treasure hunter who seeks to reclaim antiquities for museums. But he does not understand some things are too sacred to pursue. Whether he should or should not look upon the face of God does not occur to him. Perhaps he is an Atheist. But by the conclusion of the movie he believes. He knows not to look at the holy, that there are some things greater than earthly ‘fortune and glory.’ The movie is really a cry to embrace religion and believe in the immortal soul.

I recall much push back when the writer elucidated this take on the film’s dramatic purpose. Others in the group, a mix of working professionals and aspirants, did not want to believe Raiders had a dramatic purpose—that it was anything more than a fun romp across the globe. I think, largely, they were embarrassed that as fans of the movie they had not seen this even after many years of studying it.

I also had to admit I had not considered any of this regarding Raiders. I realized the metaphor was subconscious, deft. I included myself as one who had gotten caught up in the clever aspects of the movie and was of the general belief that only serious movies have ‘messages.’

After this revelation, I began to look at all movies with this focus and dropped the pretense that dramatic purpose is only for films at Cannes or Sundance or the art theater. Popular, even silly movies, do not have metaphors—or so the belief goes. To which I respond: let’s look at the movie Caddyshack.

Caddyshack (17th at the box office the year of its release, 1980) is a screwball comedy about a country club and all the quirky personalities that work and play there. 18 year old Danny Noonan is the lead character and a golf caddy at the club. The movie is famed for its irreverence, its outsized players, and the funny situations in which they find themselves. But what about its dramatic purpose? Need we bother with this? Who cares?

I claim the movie has been beloved for so many years because its dramatic purpose is subconsciously relatable to anyone watching. At about the five minute mark of the film, as Danny Noonan leaves his meager and over-crowded house to go caddy at the ritzy golf club, his father wonders, “He isn’t going to be a caddy all his life, is he?”

Cue the music, as Danny bikes from the wrong side of the tracks to the wealthy side of town. This movie is about Danny’s journey and asks whom will he be in life? He is given several role models. Judge Smails (the country club snob and representative of the status quo). Al Czverik (the nouveau riche disruptor) and Ty Webb (the aimless playboy).

Caddyshack is a coming of age tale. Whom will any of us be? Will we choose an archetype or be an individual or something in between?

No one would mistake Caddyshack for a serious movie, a message film, and, over the years, when I point out what is good about Caddyshack, I receive the same resistance the writer did upon demonstrating what Raiders of the Lost Ark is really about.

If you require more recent examples of good over clever, I will offer one. This exercise—and one of the contentions of this essay—is that it has become more difficult to find ‘good’ movies in the contemporary, mainstream cinema. The good movies, by my definition, are more in evidence in independent and foreign film (and some television series). However, good movies at the mainstream level with well thought out dramatic purpose are still produced.

The movies I appreciated most in 2024 are not going to be found on the top of the box office charts (as they were in years past). In my estimation, the highest a good movie climbed on the charts in 2024 was 22nd place, a movie called The Wild Robot. It is an animated film, an adaptation of a children’s book in which an unpacked robot washes up on the shore of a deserted island. Its function is to assist humans, but since none are present it must serve the animals of the island. It has a difficult time adjusting but manages to form bonds with the island denizens and eventually sides with them against civilization.

The wonderful animation and colorful characters are excellent window dressing, but the dramatic purpose is clear and moving: can we overcome our programming? You might impute to this a nature versus nurture argument or even a political message. You can take it whichever way you wish, but the dramatic purpose is strong and connects no matter what prejudices you bring to the viewing.

Try this exercise with any film you admire. It does not have to be a broadly accessible film. It could be foreign or artistic. The point is to discover the dramatic purpose and understand that a metaphor is, earning power aside, the true mark of a good film.

As the next few years passed and I became more critic than screenwriter, the idea of clever and good began to solidify.

I started attending more press screenings and received increased amounts of material to review. In 2020, when I joined the Boston Online Film Critics Association (BOFCA) and began voting for best of the year choices, the stream of material for consideration became a flood.

Yes, junk had always been made, devoid of dramatic purpose, but the volume was staggering--and all landing on my doorstep each award season.

I considered it a privilege to be casting votes and receiving so many films, but too much of the material was attempting to be clever. The good, original ideas, if they were there, existed outside of Hollywood. Year after year, my top ten films included very few mainstream, domestic entries.

In the end, it was my experience as a reviewer, not forgetting those many years as a screenwriter and a teacher, that finally impelled me to write this essay. I had seen enough to know clever was dominating the American cinema like no other time before, and this essay, even if in a very small way, was necessary to nudge the movie business back in the direction of good.

Can a movie succeed if it is merely clever? Of course. A rollercoaster has no dramatic purpose. It is purely visceral, and many movies work without overthinking it. An example might be a film like The Purge (2013). This is as clever as they come.

The Purge is about a near-future United States where, once a year, for a twelve hour period, any and all crime is permitted. The society is allowed to purge itself of its basest instincts during this allotted time. Many give into it while others simply try to make it through the night alive.

The Purge is not only a clever idea, it is also well constructed, has interesting characters and strong dialogue. It is satisfying from beginning to end. I have put on my good hat many times when thinking about this movie, but I cannot come up with a dramatic purpose.

In spite of this, The Purge was wildly successful, making almost $90 million (on a budget of $3 million), and spawning many sequels. I am sure someone will explain to me its dramatic purpose is XYZ, but even if this case can be made, it is clear to me the premise was the sine qua non of this movie and, dramatic purpose, most likely, was little discussed during its creation.

If you would like a contemporaneous example of clever, take a look at Wicked. It cutely takes the point of view of The Wizard of Oz’s wicked witch of the west. Previously, this character was only known as evil. There was no context or attempt to understand her wicked nature. But in the 2024 movie, we have come to learn she was not always evil but sympathetic, even kind, and made wicked by abuse and manipulation.

Wicked, with a second chapter already planned for 2026, was third at the box office in 2024. It was not made for the likes of me, but even so I did not find it particularly compelling. But I can see clever a mile away. What is good about Wicked? I do not know. Someone will surely opine, but as with The Purge these explanations are after the fact. The genesis of the story is not good; that is, finding a dramatic purpose.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of movies, are created and succeed every year where dramatic purpose is not much considered. And I get this. Sometimes it is more fun to sing along with Wicked or be on the edge of your seat as with The Purge than to dissect the films.

No one should believe that clever movies and good movies are mutually exclusive. When I say a movie is good, it does not mean a clever one is bad. But they do lack depth. They do not go the extra yard. There will always be a place for rollercoasters, but rollercoasters are feats of engineering and artistry—not art.

A good film, no matter budget or genre, is art. It has dramatic purpose and a metaphor, not just a clever plot situation or a different take on a previously despised character. And we need more of the former and less of the latter at the mainstream level of screenwriting and movie-making.

***

That brings us to the present, 2025 as I write. Is what I am urging even possible when the country does not watch anything in common except the Super Bowl? Maybe good was possible in the 1950s when the cinema-going public actually went to the cinema—and everyone was consuming the same cinema.

Maybe clever is a product of the times, when media choices are legion: the multiplex, the art house, broadcast television, cable, On Demand, streaming, and Tik Tok. Can we really expect to get away from clever given the proliferation of so many viewing platforms? Is the spirit of the 1930s-1990s impossible to revive?

This essay is not a desire to return to a romanticized version of the past but to make a better and more incisive future. I realize this cri du coeur might be too pat. You do not say ‘dramatic purpose’ and obviate the need for film school or apprenticeship. But all story tellers, whether at colleges and universities or in the industry ranks, have a stake in this. We can do more than just think about clever situations but providing a dramatic purpose that will impact generation after generation.

I will hazard to say no good script (under my definition) can do poorly financially. If you understand that element of your story you will find a paying audience, but too many are looking for clever cash cows, and that is when you get bombs or flops and clogged in-boxes.

It is difficult to be brave in the Hollywood environment. No writer or speaker wants to be branded contrarian by the establishment. It is easier to go along with the clever game than to be a whistle blower. So perhaps I am the best one to say this—because I have no career at stake if I displease anyone with this broadside.

Naturally, I hope some (many) will take to heart what I have said and see more than clever in their story ideas. All those years ago, Jim Lehrer warned against hubris. You may know a lot and even attain a lot, but that does not mean you are educated. This is my way of paying it forward, helping others come to the conclusions I have today—but much sooner in their careers.

The writing life is many things, but one thing not said enough is that it is a continuing lesson, and sometimes great stories (and essays) take decades to develop. Let us learn and appreciate the difference between clever and good, and, with this knowledge secure, proceed into a more potent future of storytelling.

posted by Open Blogger at 07:30 PM

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