‘A Film by’ Credits: Just What Exactly Has the Director Created?

Re “The Director or the Writer: Whose Film Is It?” (by Mark Caro, Nov. 24):

The problem isn’t a director of such consistent accomplishment and stature as David Lean. It’s every director who hasn’t yet become a David Lean. Lean may deserve the credit, “David Lean’s film of ‘Dr. Zhivago,’ ” but even that’s less arrogant than “A film by” since it acknowledges a source for Lean’s inspiration.

Robert Altman claims that “nobody’s as important as the actors,” but he doesn’t give “A film by” credit to his actors. Though often fluid in the hands of Altman, even he works from a screenplay written by a writer, just as a conductor works from sheet music written by a composer. The writer begins with a blank page, the director with a script that has story, characters, action, dialogue, structure. At its most basic, this is about the difference between creating and interpreting.

It’s true that directors also create, but they create from something, not from nothing. And it’s not about the amount of months it takes, as Darren Aronofsky wants us to believe. If that were the case, we’d credit the contractor for a major building, not the architect.

What’s most astounding is that so many directors want to take “A film by” on workmanlike product or even junk. You’d think they’d leap at the chance to spread responsibility around, but movies are a business in which egotism, narcissism and self-promotion often trumps talent, so it’s no surprise. Shouldn’t it be enough for everyone on a film to simply get credit for their job without denigrating anyone else’s?

CRAIG STORPER

Pacific Palisades

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Isn’t it enough that the director gets final opening or first end-credit title? I think a director’s “possessory credit,” if bestowed at all, should be earned, being granted only at the permission or unsolicited recommendation of his or her peers.

Otherwise, it becomes nothing more than the cheap marketing gimmick that it currently is.

RICHARD LEON

Van Nuys