# Movies About Writers and Writing



## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

Stranger Than Fiction ... Barton Fink ... Henry Fool ... Shakespeare in Love ... The Swimming Pool ... anyone have others? ... any favorites?


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## Cathymw (May 27, 2010)

Colin Firth's character in _Love Actually_ was a writer.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

_Ghost Writer_ and one I saw recently titled _The Kovak Box_.

The first was excellent, the second I'm still trying to figure out.  

Mike


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

Cathymw said:


> Colin Firth's character in _Love Actually_ was a writer.


 Yes, I remember that, the manuscript blowing away in the wind!


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## terryr (Apr 24, 2010)

_Alex and Emma_, a romantic comedy, got low ratings but I really related to it as a writer. I liked it enough to buy the DVD. And the 2006 one about Beatrix Potter, _Miss Potter_... again, completely related to the character (especially interacting with her drawings, since I have that same relationship with my Pencil People.)


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## JenniferBecton (Oct 21, 2010)

How is Stranger than Fiction? I wanted to see it, but never did. Any good?


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

ADAPTATION - a movie about the writing of the movie we're seeing.  (So very Charlie Kaufman.)

THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (Including a famous scene where Zola and Cezanne - who are freezing to death - decide to burn the books of the old elite to keep warm, as well as a symbol of them being the new wave.)

And if you include movies about newspaper people, there's always the various iterations of THE FRONT PAGE, including HIS GAL FRIDAY.

Camille


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Sideways.


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## chris.truscott (Dec 3, 2010)

Love Actually.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Sunset Boulevard


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Sunset Boulevard


Just saw that in a real theater a few weeks ago. Man that's a great flick. About writing, about stardom, about pride, about everything.

Camille


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## chris.truscott (Dec 3, 2010)

JenniferBecton said:


> How is Stranger than Fiction? I wanted to see it, but never did. Any good?


I only saw it because Will Ferrell was in it. Loved it, but I think a lot of my friends were bummed that it wasn't a more traditional WF movie.


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## OliverCrommer (May 17, 2010)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Secret Window, staring Johnny Depp and based on the novella by Stephen King.


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## FrankZubek (Aug 31, 2010)

THE WONDER BOYS starring Micheal Douglas
A classic

And

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING stars Frank Langella


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## mattposner (Oct 28, 2010)

Finding Forrester with Sean Connery

Dead Poets Society with Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, and Robert Sean Leonard

Re-Cycle a Korean horror movie. Be advised of aggressive of anti-abortion message though


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

Jason W. Chan said:


> I'm surprised no one has mentioned Secret Window, staring Johnny Depp and based on the novella by Stephen King.


 I had thought of it, but forgot the title. Quite liked it: Quite strange.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

No one has mentioned "Little Women" yet? I think it was Jo who was the writer.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Hello? MISERY


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Hello? MISERY


Oh, yeah, great one! Didn't think of it! But how about my all-time favorite: In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart. Best Bogart ever. By far. He plays a screenwriter suspected of murder. Gloria Graham - who divorced director Nicholas Ray during production! - plays his neighbor. "I said you had an interesting face," she tells him. "I didn't say I wanted to kiss it."


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## Thumper (Feb 26, 2009)

BTackitt said:


> Hello? MISERY


Came in here to mention _Misery_...
That was the first one that popped into my head; still creeped out by it after all these years...


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## chris.truscott (Dec 3, 2010)

It's not a movie, but wasn't Billy on _Melrose Place_ a writer when the show first started?


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## AJB (Jul 9, 2010)

_Julie and Julia_ is about blogging. Can't say I recommend it, though - I loved the Meryl Streep (Julia) parts, but the Julie sections drove me nuts. 

Amanda


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## JoeMitchell (Jun 6, 2010)

I loved _Barton Fink_ for it's great depiction of writer's block, and it's just a great movie.

Good call on _Misery_, BTackitt. 

I'll add _Naked Lunch_ to the list.


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

*Quills* with Geoffrey Rush


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Just saw that in a real theater a few weeks ago. Man that's a great flick. About writing, about stardom, about pride, about everything.
> 
> Camille


What's great is that it's still relevant today. On a sidenote, if you haven't seen the Apartment--also by Billy Wilder--you should check it out. One of my all time favorites.

As for more writer movies, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

oh, yeah, naked lunch and quills - great (transgressive) additions! loved them both. thanks guido and joe!!


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Hello? MISERY


That's the first one that came to my mind when I saw the title of this thread. _Misery_ is one of the best stories about the raw creative process I've ever read (or seen on film). It saddens me that Stephen King never wrote out the full _Misery_ novel within a novel that Paul Sheldon composes--I really enjoy those gothic bits interspersed in the course of the larger story. It's ironic that Paul Sheldon rediscovers his joy in the creative process when he's forced to play Scheherazade to a psycho--I think most creative people can relate to that on some level.

_Stranger than Fiction _ has a fascinating premise--I love how the story plays with the boundaries between reality and fantasy in such a whimsical way.


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## CathyQuinn (Dec 9, 2010)

What a great thread!  I don't think anyone has mentioned Finding Forrester yet?


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

Yo! The Shinning! King uses writers as central characters a lot, which makes sense. Misery also came to my mind first.


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

Also lots of good writer's bios. I especially loved An Angel at My Table direced by Jane Campion about an Australian writer, think named Jane Frame. The Beatrix Potter movie was very good and there was also one about Jane Austen with Anne Hathaway... Recently.


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

CathyQuinn said:


> I don't think anyone has mentioned Finding Forrester yet?


 matt posner got it on page 1. ... the shining! another great one that i didn't think of! 'all work and no play ...' thanks octochick! i loved 'the piano' so i tried to watch 'angel at my table' when it was on cable but i just could not get into it.


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## Scott Neumyer (Dec 8, 2010)

WONDER BOYS, MISERY, and THE SHINING are my personal favorites.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Article about 10 ten movies about writing:
http://worldfilm.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/writers.htm

Yay for Wonder Boys. I feel bad for Michael Douglas now though. Poor guy.


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## durphy (Nov 5, 2008)

Shadowlands about C.S. Lewis


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Thank for sharing that worldfilm link! I had no idea they'd made a movie of Dodie Smith's brilliant _I Capture the Castle_! I'm excited to check that one out.

And _Capote_--how could I have forgotten _Capote_? That movie is one of the best in-depth character studies I've ever seen.


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## AnnetteL (Jul 14, 2010)

I'd have to place my vote with Stranger than Fiction. 

I liked it more than my husband, but I think that's because I'm both a writer and an English major (the Dustin Hoffman parts had me rolling in the aisles).

Will Ferrell definitely showed a different side--and I found that refreshing. It wasn't the same old, same old from him. He actually put on a new character for once.

And Emma Thompson was sheer genius. The scene where he walks in to meet her is one I'll always remember. Her reaction is classic and so believable.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I won Capote and it has never been watched.. Think I have something to see Tuesday Night after Finals.

(and I loathed Stranger than Fiction.. so much I quit watching half way through.)


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## Lalalaconnectthedots (Dec 5, 2010)

history_lover said:


> No one has mentioned "Little Women" yet? I think it was Jo who was the writer.


This was the first one I thought of.

Also, I guess I'd add Bowfinger to some degree. Not really about just writing, but the whole process.

There was one with Sharon Stoned titled "The Muse", I believe, but I never actually saw it.

And since someone mentioned Melrose Place, I'll throw out a couple of episodes of Doctor Who where he met Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare.


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

Another one just came to mind.... *Gothic*.


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

AnnetteL said:


> I'd have to place my vote with Stranger than Fiction.
> 
> I liked it more than my husband, but I think that's because I'm both a writer and an English major (the Dustin Hoffman parts had me rolling in the aisles).
> 
> ...


LOVED that movie too!


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Funny Farm - A comedy but has some great writer scenes.


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## M. G. Scarsbrook (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi, just found this link -- Top Ten Movies about Writers (it has some that no one's mentioned yet). Hope it helos:

http://worldfilm.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/writers.htm


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

swolf said:


> Funny Farm - A comedy but has some great writer scenes.


Oh yeah, of course, Funny Farm! Hilarious movie and all revolving around writing and writer's block, etc.


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## 13500 (Apr 22, 2010)

I have to second "Adaptation." Great movie!


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Another King with a writer is "The Dark Half."

M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" got bad reviews but I liked it because it is about the process of writing, even though on the surface it's not about that at all.


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## Christine Merrill (Aug 19, 2010)

I just ordered Paperback Hero as a Christmas present to myself.

Hugh Jackman is a rough, tough Australian romance novelist who uses his best female friend's name as his nom de plume.  And then he is expected to go on a book tour and needs her to cover for him.


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## cc84 (Aug 6, 2010)

^ that sounds quite good actually  

I wracked my tiny brains thinking and all i could think of was Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. She wrote a column for a newspaper, but she had a book published also. And now they are films so i think it would count, not sure.


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## JimJ (Mar 3, 2009)

How about Finding Neverland with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet (two of my favorite actors)? It's about the writer of Peter Pan.


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

"Henry and June" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099762/combined
About Anais Nin and Henry Miller

And if you want characters who are writers (not real people)

"Her Alibi" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097500/combined with Tom Selleck. I thought this one very funny and enjoyed it thoroughly, though the critics don't agree with me much. Selleck is the writer of bad detective novels who has a bad case of writer's block.


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

oh some great additions: henry and june, i should've thought of that. but it reminded me of another favorite: dorothy parker and the vicious circle.


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## 13500 (Apr 22, 2010)

JimJ said:


> How about Finding Neverland with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet (two of my favorite actors)? It's about the writer of Peter Pan.


OMG! That makes me cry every time I watch it. It is a beautiful movie.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

KarenW.B. said:


> OMG! That makes me cry every time I watch it. It is a beautiful movie.


I do too--I bawl my eyes out at the end. This thread has made me realize that there are a number of movies that I love which don't immediately come to my mind as movies about writing--but they are. Interesting, all the ways we categorize things in our brains and don't even realize it until we compare notes with each other.


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

purplepen79 said:


> This thread has made me realize that there are a number of movies that I love which don't immediately come to my mind as movies about writing--but they are. Interesting, all the ways we categorize things in our brains and don't even realize it until we compare notes with each other.


Exactly! I've really enjoyed it! ... while 'The Big Red One' is not a movie about writers and writing, it does have one of my favorite scenes on the subject. Fuller sees another Marine reading "The Dark Page:"

"Hey' that's my book," he tells him.
"No it isn't. It's mine. I bought it at the PX."
"Yeah, ok ... but I wrote it. That's why I said it's my book."
"I don't know what you're talking about, but this is my book. I paid for it. It's mine."

And now I'll have to see 'Finding Neverland.' And 'Paperback Hero,' too; that sounds like a riot.


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## Pelenor (Nov 17, 2011)

Two movies with Al Brooks= Mother and The Muse.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

First two that come to my mind are Misery, and John Candy's Delirious.  Delirious is silly, but I like it a lot.


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## Dawn McCullough White (Feb 24, 2010)

Impromptu- about George Sand


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

Dawn McCullough White said:


> Impromptu- about George Sand


One of my favorite films. It's about Sand, sure, but I remember it as much more about Chopin and Liszt, though. I loved the scene at the end where Liszt sits down to sight-read Chopin's new composition, all casually, as if it's easy, and while he's playing, he says: 'Hey, not bad.' I also loved the scene where Sand and the others take the hookah out into the forest for a 19th century stoner picnic.

I have friends who say that the modern interpretations (Hugh Grant as Chopin!) are so wrong that it drives them crazy, but I thought it was perfect because it carried a certain subtext - we're different people today, but are we _that_ different?


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