Cue the cameras – this is Eliza Cummings’ world, and we are merely living in it. The British model harnesses an electric energy while discussing her world, her family, the countryside and clothes. Words by Sandy Aziz.
“To make a good film,” Alfred Hitchcock once said, “you need three things: the script, the script, and the script.” Yet while it’s easy to find (and argue over) lists of the greatest films ever, it’s difficult to find a list of the greatest screenwriters. We decided to remedy that — by polling more than 40 of today’s top screenwriters on which of their predecessors (and contemporaries) they consider to be the best. To compile such a list is to pose a question: What is the essence of the screenwriter’s art? Plot? Dialogue? Character? All that and more? We left that judgment to those who know best — the writers. Here are their selections (ranked in order of popularity, with ties broken by us), and representative testimonials for each.
As ‘Chinatown’ Turns 50, Robert Towne Reflects on His Netflix Prequel Plans With David Fincher and Writing Jack Nicholson’s Most Iconic Role
J. Kim Murphhy 22 June 2024
There are the classics — and then there’s “Chinatown.” First released on June 20, 1974, the seminal noir feature was a resounding success at its time: a big hit for producer and Paramount heavy Robert Evans, a renowned return to Hollywood for director Roman Polanski and an Academy Award winner for screenwriter Robert Towne, plus Oscar nominations for stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
“The single most important question, I think, that one must ask one’s self about a character is what are they really afraid of? What are they really afraid of? And if you ask that question, it’s probably for me the single best way of getting into a character.”
BAD TO THE BONE:THIS IS HOW YOU CREATE THEPERFECTVILLAIN
EL PAÍS has put together a collection of various icons of cruelty – hailing from cinema, literature and comic books – to craft a portrait of the ideal nemesis.
TOMMASO KOCH
Madrid -
Stopping the villains is the goal of any superhero. But at least once — just before he tightens the handcuffs around their wrists — Batman should thank them.
The Joker, Penguin, or Two-Face have kept him — and all of Gotham city — awake for more than one night. However, they also made legends out of the superhero. Only a Dark Knight could defeat such tough opponents. Although, lately, the mission of the good guys seems to be getting more and more difficult. Because the bad guys have learned to capture not only cities, but also hearts.
This is Dr. Lecter—or, as many of you know me, Hannibal, or H-ball. I am writing to you because a few people have been talking about some unsavory (to be honest, it’s all savory—but this is not something I intend to make light of) things I’ve done in the past. I wanted to say, in my own words, directly, to all of you, that I am so sorry for my long history of cannibalism.
Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant in a scene in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.'
Absolute and utter rubbish’: When ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ was slammed by its own cast
The romcom classic, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, brought comedy laced with cynicism into the mainstream, but no one involved believed it would work
MIQUEL ECHARRI
Thirty years after its premiere, director Mike Newell remembers Four Weddings and a Funeral as a train that arrived at its destination on time, after being on the verge of derailing at almost every station in between. The veteran director was especially mortified by the paltry £3 million ($3.8 million) available to him which he believed to be totally insufficient to put together a romantic comedy that was “very ambitious, with dozens of characters and five different environments.”
Diane Keaton at a Ralph Lauren fashion show in San Marino, California, in 2022.AMY SUSSMAN
How Diane Keaton outwitted ageism and bad reviews to still reign supreme in Hollywood at 77
With an unmistakable style and a freedom unheard of in the industry — she is one of the few stars who support Woody Allen — the actress is racking up projects and is about to release a film about falling in love after retirement
EVA GÜIMIL MAY 16, 2023 - 10:55 COT
Diane Keaton claims she got the role of Kay Adams in The Godfather because she was a “nutcase.” More than fifty years later she is still Hollywood’s favorite eccentric — a rarity in the industry. While other stars follow fashion, she is fashion. Ever since she appeared in Annie Hall (1977) with a bowler hat, tie and baggy pants, her style has been imitated every season by some celebrity or other. She speaks openly about her disdain for plastic surgery and her problems with bulimia. And of her relationships with stars such as Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, and Al Pacino, and her reluctance to marry: “I think I am the only woman of my generation who has not married.” She is not, but she is one of the actresses with the most entries in the prestigious American Film Institute’s best film list, although for years she has more often been seen in TV movies that are not up to her talent.
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 09: Kathy Bates attends the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)AMY SUSSMAN
‘It was cruel, unnecessarily cruel’: How Kathy Bates became an unlikely star
She was over 40 and had a physique that was not normative for Hollywood, but her Oscar for ‘Misery’ led her to become one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood
EVA GÜIMIL
When Daniel Day-Lewis read the name of Kathy Bates, rhere was some surprise in the Shrine Civic Auditorium. In the 1990 race to win the Oscar for Best Actress, she was up against Hollywood royalty (Anjelica Huston and Joanne Woodward), Academy favorite (Meryl Streep), and America’s new sweetheart (Julia Roberts). The press were not counting on her winning. At age 40, Bates was a virtual unknown. What’s more, she was nominated for playing a villain in a horror movie. Four decades later, her performance Annie Wilkes in Misery has become iconic, and there are no doubts that it was deserving of an Oscar.
The Oscar winner opens up about the early struggles of pursuing an acting career, her breakthrough role in Misery and lessons learned from being a two-time cancer survivor
Reader's Digest 3 March 2020
“I’m your number one fan. There’s nothing to worry about. I will take good care of you.” The image of Annie Wilkes’ stern, catatonic-like face hovering obsessively over the bedridden Paul Sheldon is an iconic one for any horror movie fan. In Misery, Kathy Bates brought to life one of cinema’s most terrifying female villains: the cunning, psychopathic nurse who traps and tortures her beloved author after he gets into a car accident.
Kathy Bates: 'I told Clint that after 50 years, I feel like I've hit the big time'
This article is more than 4 years old
With her fourth nomination for an Oscar, Kathy Bates talks about overcoming brutal criticism about her looks, her pride at playing real women and why she loved working with Clint Eastwood
John Patterson Friiday 17 January 2020
‘Oh, I’m a bumper!” says Kathy Bates as I reach out to shake her hand. A small fist comes towards me with a large, round, pink-rose ring on the middle finger. We bump and laugh and one of the truly unique American acting powerhouses of the past half-century beams back at me. She has a splendid smile, full of mischief and wisdom: a small and compact woman buoyed by that straight-up, unfeigned southern warmth that abides no matter where you encounter it. She fusses over me kindly, offering drinks – a world away from the nervous, shy, deeply rattled and easily hurt woman I have just watched in Clint Eastwood’s new movie, Richard Jewell.
Few actors possess a range like Kathy Bates. She can play a murderous, obsessive literary fan (Misery), a stubborn, bayou-bound matriarch (TheWaterboy), and just about everything in between, be it drama or comedy, film or television. With an Oscar and two Emmys to her name, at age 68, she continues to take on lauded roles. Just last week, Bates received her 14th Emmy nomination for her role in FX’s anthology series American Horror Story. If that isn’t enough, Deadlinealso announced that she’ll be starring in Disjointed, a new Netflix comedy series about a longtime advocate for marijuana legalization who opens her own pot dispensary.
The youngest of three daughters, Kathleen Doyle Bates was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to a homemaker and a mechanical engineer on June 28, 1948. After getting into acting via a high school play, Kathy went on to major in theatre at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1969.
Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.
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It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.
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If an animal has to be sacrificed when a new bridge is built, what will it take to build a whole new world?
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The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.
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Thick smoke like a herd of black horses was rising over the massive building and being blown around by the wind.
Ismail Kadare, giant of Albanian literature, dies aged 88
His allegorical stories, informed by life under state communism, drew international praise but he insisted that he was not a political writer
Richard Lea
Monday 1 July 2024
Ismail Kadare, the Albanian writer who explored Balkan history and culture in poetry and fiction spanning more than 60 years, has died aged 88, his publisher has said.
Robert Towne
