Publication

Why can’t screenplays be artworks?

Abstract
Reviewing film and literary theorists’ writing on the subject of the screenplay, one finds a tradition both of conceiving of the screenplay as a kind of artwork and of denying it art status. However, philosophers of art have been surprisingly quiet on this matter. I say ‘surprisingly’ because, pretheoretically, there seem to be some significant similarities between screenplays and theatrical scripts: typically, both are verbal objects which relate narratives that are intended to be enacted, either before a camera or a live audience. So, one might reasonably have the intuition that the screenplay is, like the theatrical script, a kind of dramatic literary work, and that the screenplay affords the same kinds of aesthetic interest and study as its theatrical cousin.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
Nannicelli, T. (2011). Why can’t screenplays be artworks? The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 69(4), 405-414.
Date
2011
Publisher
Wiley
Degree
Supervisors
Rights