The Word Cloud

Properly it should say 'screenwriters of the week' as Hud was written by one of the few genuine screenwriting partnerships to be found in the latter half of the twentieth century; Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank jr. The pair met, fell in love and married while junior writers at MGM but it was a several years before they considered writing together.
Before I come to the point I really wanted to make in this blog I should say, I have not seen Hud (I plan to watch it Monday 11.05am BBC4), nor have I seen any of the films written by Frank and Ravetch, together or separately. Through the whole of The Story of Film last year I felt that Mark Cousins was berating me for not watching enough films from around the world, writing this blog I often feel like I'm berating myself for not having even watched enough from America!
Back to the point; working apart for ten years both Frank and Ravetch amassed a decent CV of Western credits, outside of film Ravetch tried his hand at playwriting while Frank was a very successful short story writer. But when they begin to work together, starting with The Long, Hot Summer (a loose adaptation of Faulkner's The Hamlet) the whole tone of their work changes. Though it is still very American, most often southern in setting and can occasionally be called Western, their collaborations tend to have a strong social conscience, dealing with big issues like race (Hombre) or exploitation of workers (Norma Rae). Most of these collaborartions were directed by Martin Ritter who directed 8 of their films and with whom they enjoyed a more congenial working relationship than many of their contemporaries did with directors.
My interest in this is, how much do we change as writers when we take on a partner? In some partnerships there is decidedly a junior and senior partner, Billy Wilder's partners sometimes seem like interpreters of his ideas (I'm not demeaning them, Wilder's co-writers were a hugely talented bunch). In the case of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, the general tone of what they wrote seems similar whether they wrote together or apart, and both wrote successfully apart (though Gordon more for the stage than film). Ravetch and Frank seemed to become a distinct new writer when they worked together. Is that common? I don't know, but it's almost interesting enough to make me want to work with a partner again.
Frank and Ravetch are an interesting couple, they were interviewed by Patrick McGilligan for Backstory after a lifetime of refusing interviews (and more recently by William Baer which I haven't read as it mainly concerns Hud and I don't want to ruin a film I plan to watch tomorrow), part way through they broke off to argue whether film can be seen as art (Frank for, Ravetch against), it's a fascinating exchange. Their explanation for the difference collaboration made to their styles was simple '...whatever faculties we had, we combined into a fresh view'.  Ravetch died in 2010, Frank, now 94, is still alive; They come across as an extremely likeable pair and I look forward to seeing Hud.