Do you consider screenplays as literature? Why or why not?

Apparently the novelization of Alien is supposed to be pretty good, but I have a general disdain of novelizations.

Well put it this way, why read the script when you can watch the movie. Goddamn roach

Shakespearean plays are stripped of any definitive performative manifestation, unlike films. Yes, his plays are performed but they’re performed by everyone from your high school’s theatre department to Broadway. Shakespeare is primarily READ.

The English novel wasn’t a thing in Shakespearean times. Shakespeare is as close as it gets, historically speaking.

The stage is broadly understood as a writer’s medium. Film is a director’s medium and it is rare a director will write his/her own screenplay (obvious exceptions exempt) so the literary credit becomes muddled.

etc.

No. But birdman is kino.

It´s like saying "why read Romeo and Juliet when you can watch the play?", makes no sense to me

Why is this? Just curious as to your reasoning. I feel the same way.

The thing with that is that, film is a very relative young art, we have only like 130 years of film history, while theater plays have a very longer existance, that´s why I think that screenplays haven´t be officially accepted as literature (yet). Regarding the "performed" thing, as far as I know, Shakespeare wrote plays for (like the name stablishes) being played, but that doesn´t stop people from reading their scripts and considering them a literature.

Regarding the "is rare a director will write his/her own screenplay", the exceptions are bigger than you may thing, as far as I know, a big percentage of director´s debut film had a screenplay made by the director, when the director starts having fame there´s a big probability that he stops writing, still, he or she may return after years; and the literary credit that the screenwriter unfortunately doesn´t have to general public is, in my speculation, a matter of the time this art form has, again, it´s a young art, if a Shakespeare play is performed, and the perfomance is directed by, let´s put a random name, Johnny McGregor, who´s the owner of the story, or, who gets the credit for it? Shakespeare, but, with film, if a screenwriter writes a good screenplay, and is performed, and, is directed by a recognized director, who gets the credit of the story? The director; it´s a matter of ignorance in my opinion, maybe in the future people would recognize screenplays as literature, like many screenwriters think.

This is a problem I'll always have with performance: They've always got some form of directorial spin on them, and more often than not it distorts a writer's own vision for the play. On the other hand, it's interesting to see what other people took from the text, however this always ends up moulding my OWN interpretation of the play, which is pretty infuriating when I come back to a play.

Same happens with screenplays, a film has, like the play, a directorial spin, and a more noticeable one (since the name of the director is more recognized), still, scripts (plays) are recognized as literature

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't like novelizations either but I like finding exceptions to the rules.

lolmao! goteem haha

wrong though. television is the writer's medium. stage is the actor's

For me it has to do with: why do you want to see a movie translated to the page? A movie is meant to be seen. It's a visual medium. And while yeah, a novelization may fill in the blanks and flesh out things, but it's still going to mimic the way the movie plays out, which is boring as fuck to read. Do you really want to read some low-effort writing about an action scene?