As a member of the Writer’s Guild West, Erudio voted in the WGA awards for best screenplay.

Top of my list? UP IN THE AIR, PRECIOUS, HURT LOCKER.

Each of these intense, emotionally honest, films works urgently toward a primal confrontation with the world we live in today. And every year, I find myself comparing this year’s movies to the movies of the past. You have to. It’s the way the brain works.

And each year, I think of those amazing stories, how they were written, the dialogue, the drama, the conflicts.

Like, think way back to 1962… Lawrence of Arabia (the eventual AA winner), The Longest Day, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Manchurian Candidate, The Bird Man of Alcatraz, Days of Wine and Roses, The Miracle Worker and Long Day’s Journey into Night. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Billy Budd, Divorce Italian Style, Last Year at Marienbad, Gypsy, Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, Jules and Jim, Lolita, Advise and Consent, Peeping Tom, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance… and many more, all in one year.

To you budding film students out there, how many of those 1962 movies have you seen? Classic films are a MUSEUM of film art.

And they all have one thing in common— they all started with a great SCREENPLAY. Amazing narrative, setting, dialogue, action.

In fact, the Writer’s Guild has compiled a list of screenwriters’ picks for the 101 best screenplays of all time.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, East of Eden, Citizen Kane, Shane, High Noon…

Each great movie was first born in the brain of a screenwriter, the man or woman who sat alone and saw the movie in their head, and then wrote it down for others to see and know, and to make into a film for all to see and to know.

Here’s the list… in order, as voted on by professional screenwriters, members of the Writer’s Guild—

1. CASABLANCA
   Screenplay by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. Based on the play “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison
2. THE GODFATHER
   Screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo
3. CHINATOWN
   Written by Robert Towne
4. CITIZEN KANE
   Written by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles
5. ALL ABOUT EVE
   Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Based on “The Wisdom of Eve,” a short story and radio play by Mary Orr
6. ANNIE HALL
   Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
7. SUNSET BLVD.
   Written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr.
8. NETWORK
   Written by Paddy Chayefsky
9. SOME LIKE IT HOT
   Screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond. Based on “Fanfare of Love,” a German film written by Robert Thoeren and M. Logan
10. THE GODFATHER II
    Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo. Based on Mario Puzo’s novel “The Godfather”
11. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
    Written by William Goldman
12. DR. STRANGELOVE
    Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Peter George and Terry Southern. Based on novel “Red Alert” by Peter George
13. THE GRADUATE
    Screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry. Based on the novel by Charles Webb
14. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
    Screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. Based on the life and writings of Col. T.E. Lawrence
15. THE APARTMENT
    Written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond
16. PULP FICTION
    Written by Quentin Tarantino. Stories by Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary
17. TOOTSIE
    Screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal. Story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart
18. ON THE WATERFRONT
    Screen Story and Screenplay by Budd Schulberg. Based on “Crime on the Waterfront” articles by Malcolm Johnson
19. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
    Screenplay by Horton Foote. Based on the novel by Harper Lee
20. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett & Frank Capra. Based on short story “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern. Contributions to screenplay Michael Wilson and Jo Swerling
21. NORTH BY NORTHWEST
    Written by Ernest Lehman
22. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
    Screenplay by Frank Darabont. Based on the short story “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King
23. GONE WITH THE WIND
    Screenplay by Sidney Howard. Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell
24. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
    Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. Story by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth
25. THE WIZARD OF OZ
    Screenplay by Noel Langley and Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf Adaptation by Noel Langley. Based on the novel by L. Frank Baum
26. DOUBLE INDEMNITY
    Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. Based on the novel by James M. Cain
27. GROUNDHOG DAY
    Screenplay by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis. Story by Danny Rubin
28. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
    Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard
29. SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS
    Written by Preston Sturges
30. UNFORGIVEN
    Written by David Webb Peoples
31. HIS GIRL FRIDAY
    Screenplay by Charles Lederer. Based on the play “The Front Page” by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur
32. FARGO
    Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
33. THE THIRD MAN
    Screenplay by Graham Greene. Story by Graham Greene. Based on the short story by Graham Greene
34. THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
    Screenplay by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman. From a novelette by Ernest Lehman
35. THE USUAL SUSPECTS
    Written by Christopher McQuarrie
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY
    Screenplay by Waldo Salt. Based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy
37. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
    Screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart. Based on the play by Philip Barry
38. AMERICAN BEAUTY
    Written by Alan Ball
39. THE STING
    Written by David S. Ward
40. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
    Written by Nora Ephron
41. GOODFELLAS
    Screenplay by Nicholas Pileggi & Martin Scorsese. Based on book “Wise Guy” by Nicholas Pileggi
42. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
    Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan. Story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman
43. TAXI DRIVER
    Written by Paul Schrader
44. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
    Screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood. Based on novel “Glory For Me” by MacKinley Kantor
45. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
    Screenplay by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey
46. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
    Screenplay by John Huston. Based on the novel by B. Traven
47. THE MALTESE FALCON
    Screenplay by John Huston. Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett
48. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
    Screenplay by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson. Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle
49. SCHINDLER’S LIST
    Screenplay by Steven Zaillian. Based on the novel by Thomas Keneally
50. THE SIXTH SENSE
    Written by M. Night Shyamalan
51. BROADCAST NEWS
    Written by James L. Brooks
52. THE LADY EVE
    Screenplay by Preston Sturges. Story by Monckton Hoffe
53. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
    Screenplay by William Goldman. Based on the book by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
54. MANHATTAN
    Written by Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman
55. APOCALYPSE NOW
    Written by John Milius and Francis Coppola. Narration by Michael Herr
56. BACK TO THE FUTURE
    Written by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale
57. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
    Written by Woody Allen
58. ORDINARY PEOPLE
    Screenplay by Alvin Sargent. Based on the novel by Judith Guest
59. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
    Screenplay by Robert Riskin. Based on the story “Night Bus” by Samuel Hopkins Adams
60. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
    Screenplay by Brian Helgeland & Curtis Hanson. Based on the novel by James Ellroy
61. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
    Screenplay by Ted Tally. Based on the novel by Thomas Harris
62. MOONSTRUCK
    Written by John Patrick Shanley
63. JAWS
    Screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Based on the novel by Peter Benchley
64. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
    Screenplay by James L. Brooks. Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry
65. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
    Screen Story and Screenplay by Betty Comden & Adolph Green. Based on the song by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown
66. JERRY MAGUIRE
    Written by Cameron Crowe
67. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
    Written by Melissa Mathison
68. STAR WARS
    Written by George Lucas
69. DOG DAY AFTERNOON
    Screenplay by Frank Pierson. Based on a magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore
70. THE AFRICAN QUEEN
    Screenplay by James Agee and John Huston. Based on the novel by C.S. Forester
71. THE LION IN WINTER
    Screenplay by James Goldman. Based on the play by James Goldman
72. THELMA & LOUISE
    Written by Callie Khouri
73. AMADEUS
    Screenplay by Peter Shaffer. Based on his play
74. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
    Written by Charlie Kaufman
75. HIGH NOON
    Screenplay by Carl Foreman. Based on short story “The Tin Star” by John W. Cunningham
76. RAGING BULL
    Screenplay by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin. Based on the book by Jake La Motta with Joseph Carter and Peter Savage
77. ADAPTATION
    Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. Based on the book “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orlean
78. ROCKY
    Written by Sylvester Stallone
79. THE PRODUCERS
    Written by Mel Brooks
80. WITNESS
    Screenplay by Earl W. Wallace & William Kelley. Story by William Kelley and Pamela Wallace & Earl W. Wallace
81. BEING THERE
    Screenplay by Jerzy Kosinski. Inspired by the novel by Jerzy Kosinski
82. COOL HAND LUKE
    Screenplay by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson. Based on the novel by Donn Pearce
83. REAR WINDOW
    Screenplay by John Michael Hayes. Based on the short story by Cornell Woolrich
84. THE PRINCESS BRIDE
    Screenplay by William Goldman. Based on his novel
85. LA GRANDE ILLUSION
    Written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak
86. HAROLD & MAUDE
    Written by Colin Higgins
87. 8 1/2
    Screenplay by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rond. Story by Fellini, Flaiano
88. FIELD OF DREAMS
    Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson. Based on the book by W.P. Kinsella
89. FORREST GUMP
    Screenplay by Eric Roth. Based on the novel by Winston Groom
90. SIDEWAYS
    Screenplay by Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor. Based on the novel by Rex Pickett
91. THE VERDICT
    Screenplay by David Mamet. Based on the novel by Barry Reed
92. PSYCHO
    Screenplay by Joseph Stefano. Based on the novel by Robert Bloch
93. DO THE RIGHT THING
    Written by Spike Lee
94. PATTON
    Screen Story and Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North. Based on “A Soldier’s Story” by Omar H. Bradley and “Patton: Ordeal and Triumph” by Ladislas Farago
95. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
    Written by Woody Allen
96. THE HUSTLER
    Screenplay by Sidney Carroll & Robert Rossen. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis
97. THE SEARCHERS
    Screenplay by Frank S. Nugent. Based on the novel by Alan Le May
98. THE GRAPES OF WRATH
    Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. Based on the novel by John Steinbeck
99. THE WILD BUNCH
    Screenplay by Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah. Story by Walon Green and Roy Sickner
100. MEMENTO
     Screenplay by Christopher Nolan. Based on the short story “Memento Mori” by Jonathan Nolan
101. NOTORIOUS
     Written by Ben Hecht

So… all you aspiring screenwriters… how many of these films have you actually seen?

How many of these screenplays have you actually read?

How many of these writers have you heard of? Have you studied their writing?

As you watch the Academy Awards, compare the winners to the great films of the past.

Educate yourself. Educate your art, and when you write, write to a level worth your own talent.

Educate, educate, educate!

Poet? One who makes rhymes? Can this be a way of life? Can anyone make a living writing poetry? Or is it solely for pure personal satisfaction?

Are poems still relevant? Our childhood begins with rhymes, the ancient plays were extended poems, and all songs are poems. Poems are mind songs in word form, flowing and revealing as they go. (Soon we’ll look at some of her poems and you can judge for yourself.)

Think of poetry as a gateway to all other writing. In their simplicity, they are profound. In their complexity, they are subliminal.

Sam Thomas is this young poet. She thinks of herself as a writer and world traveler. When you read her poems, you see that assimilating many cultures has depended her lyrical sensitivity, that is certain. When I spoke with her she was traveling…

“Am on the road now, been skipping across Ha’penny bridge and across Dublin. Now in Waterford then Cork but will take a quick jaunt to Aran Islands from tomorrow til Monday. Never seen that part of Ireland.”

Acclaimed for several of her poems, Sam was invited to Oxford University in creative writing, and is now writing her second screenplay as well. (Her given name is Samantha, but she prefers just “Sam”. )

I asked, “How did you begin writing?”

“As far as my writing,” she said, “I’ve always done it and I guess knew I was good at it from about 10. Dad always encouraged me with it, even from that age.”

Her father Mark, a brilliant engineer who had served in the Peace Corps, took their family to live many countries, worldwide, while she grew up. Tragically, he died very prematurely, of pancreatic cancer when Sam was hardly more than a girl. Sam’s poetry has remembered him, as her writing evolved to embrace her ongoing life.

I asked her, “When did you know you would spend your adult life writing full-time?”

“I got serious about it about 4 years ago, and moved to Ireland to do the Poet’s House program, ended up teaching at Uni there too. Now am at University Oxford. They invited me to do my Masters in Creative Writing. ”

I knew this invitation was based on her poems. And we will see some of those poems soon, right after the interview.

“What besides poems, any other writing?”

“I’ve written a few scripts, a couple stories, mostly poems— all really in the last couple years.”

“Scripts, like screenplays for movies?”

“They’re filming one now, yes.”

“What do you really hope to achieve through your writing?” I asked.

“What do I want from it? Well all those things sound fine. I do it because it makes me feel good and creates a sense of belonging for me which, you can imagine, was a nebulous thing in my upbringing. Also, I’m pretty bloody inarticulate but when I write I can actually fricken communicate. I’d just like to marry ‘it’ and live happily ever after, if that makes sense.”

Inarticulate? “It sounds almost as if your writing is a very dear friend of yours.”

“I don’t know yet, but maybe your writing becomes your family… and some of it is for making money. and some of it is for love… and some of it takes care of the garbage or entertains you or stabs you in the back, then sings you to sleep.”

Always surprising, her answers. With the sharp intuits of a poet. And she has a hunger to educate herself, to learn, to devour knowledge.

Sam first earned a dual major in a BA English and BA Fine Arts, Sculpture, from the University of Florida, Gainesville. Next, she earned her MA— Research in Creative Writing at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. (Her focus was on the history of sugar, and the cruel trade based upon slavery and colonial exploitation.)

She was then invited to read for a post-graduate degree at the University of Oxford, where she is currently writing both new poems and now screenplays.

I asked her the cliché question, the one at the heart of all good writing: “What is the source of your inspiration?”

She answered, “I write from my circumstance of never having a particular ethnic identity and the dualities that such an experience incurs… namely a continual process of recognition, rejection and forgiveness… that, on this shrinking planet, is becoming more and more relevant to everyone.”

“Do you continue to study, while writing?” I asked.

“Of course.” Apparently, she never stops learning. “I’ve started translation with Farsi as part of the work I want to do for my final portfolio in poetry with Jamie McKendricks. Before I left Ox I started working with Dr Homa Katouzian and Dr Firouza Abdullaeva of the Oriental Studies dept. I used to speak Persian fluently as a kid, all gone now but would love to still work with it. One of my mentor’s for ages now has been Colman Barks, so I’ve ben very fortunate.”

“How did you learn to write screenplays for movies?”

“Oh, I was asked to adapt a famous poem to film, a poem I happened to love, so I did. Got a hold of Syd Field’s screenplay book and Robert McKee’s ‘Story’ from a friend in Dublin. When I write a screenplay time just stops. I look up and the day is gone and there is all this writing done… there in front of me.”

As promised, here are some of Sam Thomas’ poems— can you guess what part of the world inspired each of them?

Pike

I wasn’t going to kill anything
while wading through that swamp trash forest
but then you found me
and I rescued you
from some stench of a stream
and as you lay swooning
from the heavy bank
my only blind thought
to save us
was do it
do it again
do it
until you were just
dirty tinsel
on my hook and I
was in love.

Alien Pastoral, Montauk N.Y.

Last night, Kristina, the most incandescent
of the Lithuanian food runners decided to
elope with the security guard Ken Bailey.
All along the beach fires blazed orange turning
the sand near cobalt the moon and air were
so clear. Five dollars to Stella’s party and the
Sangria and Rolling Rock flowed. Kelly locked
herself in the Corsica again with the all the cocaine
and you lied to Lena and stayed with me.
We all watched as Eamon turned a vat of
Grey Goose into a livid monster blue martini
over at the Shark Shack and were just
starting to groove when Sorana called Lukas
a stupid spic for saying the Romanians were
a bunch of gypsies. You could hear them brawling
in the dirt lot behind the motel till dawn.
By then Liam had grated a raw ‘V’
into his forehead body-surfing and everyone blacked-out
each unquestionably in love with the other.

Verlaine

Come on let’s play a game I lose. I’m left lying here alone
And beauty does not play. The version of this I’m thinking
Of: You delete the mending needle and booze it up over
My sensible shoes. You gave it all over to some benediction,
Some pope of the after hours and now I’m the foolish virgin
Bride who waits to see her midnight robber beau come home and
Defile her. When you finally stop for nothing I’ll make you eggs Cro-Magnon.

Your escape is starry-eyed but I’ll never let you get too far beyond the
Bastards at the gate. And you’d never even know you made it if
You did. How many times did we say this would never happen.

Oh, where I want to live! And how I want to envelope each sigh to you.
I fold them in my sheets. My sheets are full with them already.
If you knew the scent I could arouse in you, you may have come in like a lotus.

Instead I lie beside myself. Beside herself. I’ll write to you from now
On. Because it’s the wailing I’m trying to stop from happening. If I
Bestow it to the sea your ships will enter each gale in fours with their
Torn elder masts and planks of beseech. I couldn’t watch. I prefer to feel you,
I feel you like a hundred empty shells in me. My belly fills with your
Tide and each one chokes contentedly. You leave and they bake in the heat
Of madness. I’ll care for them and believe them. My beach is as
Wide as your storm.

Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag

The always shirtless, bibbed in nicotine
“old goat,” my mother snorted.
Exported from Anglia, repatriated
from India then mystifyingly locked like a tick
onto the volcanic haunch of Soufriere’s coast.

His small dry beach house was our home
once he was gone. He would tell the story.
My father’s still hairless face jealously
relishing each hyperbole suspecting maybe
he would never become so long in the tooth.

… It was the influenza gave Him a taste for it…
bodies in the ravines after the war
… even snuk in windows in the night.
Killed one hundred and twenty-six…

The lizards slid right down into
the house then and sat up on the chairs
so dad stacked the rocks in tiers half way
up the dry mountain behind us and the
lizards stayed in the lime trees.

Then with the rest he stacked a jetty
straight out into the black green bay that he
and Ashille could launch from with their tanks
and spears each day, floating lucidly over
the urchins sniggering between the rocks below.

Before Soufriere he couldn’t even swim.
But with the almost witchy Midwestern fear
of sea reformed he began to hunt alone
usually returning with whatever we wanted
from its blue brave wilderness.

Once even finding a small breathing
space in a cave twenty feet below
with glowing yellow patches on the
black walls. That’s too far, mom said
when she heard, that’s just too far.

Sick with flu for a fortnight, I had days to watch
him from my top bunk slip into the water
and scout out from the broken jaw of beach
before submerging. If I saw him bob up again
I’d call out to my mother bowed at the bright sink,

stars streaming from her head
a patience preparing, she never looked
and I could never catch a glimpse of him emerging,
only hearing the soft tink of gear against
the rocks and sandy padding of feet
once he was already in the house.

Morne Grande

Before long she was finding her own way easily
no one need walk with her. And the wrath came
more quickly and thoroughly as she was alone.
Now, she was not the thin lost child everyone
had fussed over and what she had become,
so doll-like and painted so flagrantly healthy,

was something the men would stop aiming
their blows to watch walking by. And that day
through the cane fields swinging hot with blades
it was what they said that sliced her as she made
her way and they taunted, “Not such a long way
now, eh dou-dou?” The women’s eyes flickering

in a different, sharper way from the men’s own.
Like her they’d be in douillete by that evening
for harvest mass. She was going for madras to finish
her jupe and get the red ribbons for threading
through lace in the sleeves and neck of her chemise.
It would be the first grande robe she had sewn

for her own. Watching herself in the mirror
at the shop she couldn’t help but superimpose
the graise d’or on her neck or in her thick hair
the zepingues temblants with her aunt’s tete-en-l’air
pinning it up. And to top (she paid her bill) the splendid clothes
a saffron tinted mouchoir and zanneau chenille (a matador’s
guile), swinging heavy and sweet as dove’s eggs
from her skillful ears.

Husbandman

The eclipse was widening
over the valley and Apollo
aimed the stolen telescope
at it and cooed huskily.

Angelique snatched it from him
handing it to Jupiter
without bothering to peer
up at the thickening silver.

“When we go den?” she asked,
“Is long enough we waitin’
for Jacko and dem.
Let’s go now while it dead dark.”

“Listen woman, Jacko and dem
have more dan half de guns, we
only have five between us now.”
“So? We still have dese.”

She lifted the curved machete
blade between them, “Is cane
only you can cut?” The shadow
iris sat stiffly over the glow.

They heard the jalousies below
clatter shut and saw him
himself staring up at the sky
from the glacee his pale bald head

tilted up at the darkened saucer.
“Let’s go,” Angelique said,
“Is him I want.” The others
fell in line behind her. Jupiter’s
band went around left while Apollo’s
came down along the tinkling river.

After reading her poems, I was moved, and amazed. Much depth from one so young.

I asked, “Why do you want to write screenplays, when you’re beginning to be recognized for your poetry?”

“Well, poetry is my writing love, a few good poems are what’s got me all the way over Europe and kicking around Oxford. Not too shabby. Novels will be the big test: how real
can you be, how much stamina do you have and can you still keep it all relevant.”

“What’s happening with the screenplays, anything getting made?’

“I have a script out right now that they will start filming in a couple weeks, short film, artsy. I will go over to Cork to check out how it’s going in a few days. That ones for love, no
money in it — just a sweet kiss. The director/producer well connected and will enter it in berlin zebra contest next year.”

“Writing movies presents no conflicts with your poetry?” I asked.

“I like film, I used to love it but once I realized I wouldn’t be making them myself, too much other stuff to do, I wasn’t all mad about it. I have no problem pimping out
screenplays, if I should be so lucky, to keep the poetry virgin, if I should be so lucky. But of course there must be standards, Faulkner’s right, you must always be getting better.”

As a poet, Sam Thomas has climbed the academic ladder, empowering herself with degrees in the visual arts as well as in writing programs. And she keeps learning.

Now she is a working poet and a screenwriter as well! Her talent— and her evolving education— have opened the whole world to her!