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.