ABSTRACT
The extreme polarity between these two statements, the first by the writer of a popular manual and the second by one of the most celebrated of screenwriters, encapsulates a problem with the study of screenplay character. Within film studies, written texts are usually subordinated to or consumed within the analysis of cinema, and there have been understandably few attempts to examine character independently of the actor’s performance or other aspects of the film text. (For exceptions, see Sternberg 1997: 108-30; Price 2010: 124-31.) Conversely, in screenwriting manuals, of which Lew Hunter’s is a good representative example, discussion of the topic is voluminous, but conducted from the perspective of the practitioner or teacher who is concerned more with the process of developing a character suitable for filming than with retrospective textual analysis; with creative production, rather than critical consumption.
