“Para hacer una buena película”, dijo Alfred Hitchcock, “necesitas tres cosas: el guion, el guion y el guion”. Sin embargo, aunque es fácil encontrar (y argumentar) listas de las mejores películas de la historia, es difícil encontrar una lista de los guionistas más grandes. Vulture decidió remediar eso mediante la encuesta realizada a 40 de los guionistas más importantes de la actualidad sobre cuáles de sus predecesores (y contemporáneos) consideran como los mejores. Para compilar una lista de este tipo fue necesario plantear varios cuestionamientos: ¿Cuál es la esencia del arte del guionista? ¿Trama? ¿Diálogo? ¿Personaje? ¿Todo eso y más?
1. BILLY WILDER
Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960).
2. ETHAN COEN y JOEL COEN
Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010).
3. ROBERT TOWNE
Chinatown (1974), Shampoo (1975), Days of Thunder (1990), Mission: Impossible (1996).
4. QUENTIN TARANTINO
Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Inglourious Basterds (2009).
5. FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
Patton (1970), The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979).
6. WILLIAM GOLDMAN
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), All the President’s Men (1976), The Princess Bride (1987), Misery (1990).
7. CHARLIE KAUFMAN
Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Anomalisa (2015).
8. WOODY ALLEN
Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Midnight in Paris (2011).
9. NORA EPHRON
Silkwood (1983), When Harry Met Sally… (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), You’ve Got Mail (1998).
10. ERNEST LEHMAN
Sweet Smell of Success (1957), North by Northwest (1959), West Side Story (1961), The Sound of Music (1965).
11. PAUL SCHRADER
12. OLIVER STONE
13. AARON SORKIN
14. PADDY CHAYEFSKY
15. SPIKE LEE
16. GEORGE LUCAS
17. PRESTON STURGES
18. STANLEY KUBRICK
19. PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON
20. FRANCES MARION
21. BUCK HENRY
22. LAWRENCE KASDAN
23. JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ
24. JAMES L. BROOKS
25. AKIRA KUROSAWA
26. RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA
27. DAVID MAMET
28. BO GOLDMAN
29. ERIC ROTH
30. JOHN HUGHES
31. STEVEN ZAILLIAN
32. JAMES CAMERON
33. NICOLE HOLOFCENER
34. CALLIE KHOURI
35. ALEXANDER PAYNE y JIM TAYLOR
36. MEL BROOKS
37. RICHARD CURTIS
38. ALBERT BROOKS
39. CAMERON CROWE
40. NANCY MEYERS
41. ORSON WELLES
42. ELAINE MAY
43. DALTON TRUMBO
44. FRANK PIERSON
45. ROBERT BENTON
46. JOHN HUSTON
47. CESARE ZAVATTINI
48. NORMAN WEXLER
49. CHARLIE CHAPLIN
50. WALDO SALT
51. MELISSA MATHISON
52. PEDRO ALMODÓVAR
53. ALFONSO CUARÓN
54. HAROLD RAMIS
55. INGMAR BERGMAN
56. HERMAN J. MANKIEWICZ
57. ALVIN SARGENT
58. BARRY LEVINSON
59. BEN HECHT
60. DAVID LYNCH
61. PETER JACKSON
62. ROBERT ZEMECKIS
63. SCOTT FRANK
64. JUDD APATOW
65. RICHARD LINKLATER
66. WES ANDERSON
67. JAY PRESSON ALLEN
68. STEVEN SPIELBERG
69. SOFIA COPPOLA
70. JOHN LOGAN
71. GUILLERMO ARRIAGA
72. CHRISTOPHER MCQUARRIE
73. JANE CAMPION
74. HORTON FOOTE
75. CHRIS COLUMBUS
76. GARY ROSS
77. LEIGH BRACKETT
78. LANA y LILLY WACHOWSKI
79. MONTHY PYTHON (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin)
80. LOWELL GANZ y BABALOO MANDEL
81. MARTIN SCORSESE y NICHOLAS PILEGGI
82. JOHN CASSAVETES
83. ROBERT ALTMAN
84. FRANK DARABONT
85. DAVID WEBB PEOPLES
86. BURT KENNEDY
87. SHANE BLACK
88. CHARLES LEDERER
89. M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
90. KENNETH LONERGAN
91. ADAM MCKAY
92. LARS VON TRIER
93. JOHN RIDLEY
94. DIABLO CODY
95. EDGAR WRIGHT
96. MIKE WHITE
97. JOHN CARPENTER
98. KEVIN SMITH
99. DAVID ZUCKER y JERRY ZUCKER
100. JORDAN PEELE
Los votantes:
1. Scott Alexander (Ed Wood, Man on the Moon); 2. Judd Apatow (Knocked-Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin); 3. Scot Armstrong (Old School, The Hangover Part II); 4. Andrea Berloff (World Trade Center, Straight Outta Compton); 5. Margaret Betts (Novitiate); 6. Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger, Black or White); 7. Mark Bomback (The Wolverine, War for the Planet of the Apes); 8. James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News); 9. Allison Burnett (Autumn in New York, Underworld Awakening); 10. Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wonder); 11. Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Beguiled); 12. Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult); 13. Lee Daniels (The Paperboy); 14. Emily V. Gordon (The Big Sick); 15. David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, Goat); 16. Paul Haggis (Million-Dollar Baby, Crash); 17. Joey Hartstone (LBJ); 18. Mark Heyman (Black Swan, The Skeleton Twins); 19. James Ivory (A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, Call Me By Your Name); 20. Zoe Lister-Jones (Lola Versus, Band Aid); 21. Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood, Man on the Moon); 22. Peter Landesman (Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House); 23. Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, I Don’t Know How She Does It); 24. Phyllis Nagy (Carol); 25. Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick); 26. Jordan Peele (Get Out, Keanu); 27. Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry, Stop-Loss); 28. Zak Penn (Behind Enemy Lines, X-Men: Last Stand); 29. Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Up in the Air); 30. John Ridley (U-Turn, 12 Years a Slave); 31. Angela Robinson (D.E.B.S., Professor Marston and the Wonder Women); 32. Melissa Rosenberg (Step Up, Twilight); 33. Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit); 34. Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich); 35. Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Affliction); 36. Wesley Strick (Cape Fear, Wolf); 37. Danny Strong (Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Rebel in the Rye); 38. Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith (10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde); 39. Michael Weber y Scott Neustadter (500 Days of Summer, The Disaster Artist); 40. Terence Winter (Get Rich or Die Tryin’, The Wolf of Wall Street)
Fuente: Vulture