Three Screenplays Hardcover - 2003

From the publisher

E. L. Doctorow is one of America's most accomplished and acclaimed living writers. Winner of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice), the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Humanities Medal, he is the author of nine novels that have explored the drama of American life from the late nineteenth century to the present. Doctorow has also played an active role in transforming his novels into films, writing screenplay adaptations of three of his works -- The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, and Loon Lake. Published here for the first time, his scripts reveal a new aspect of this writer's remarkable talents and offer film students and other cineastes unique insight into the complex relationship of literature and motion pictures.

For this book, Doctorow has revised his dazzling Ragtime screenplay, making clear how different the film might have been, and has written a preface about the art of screenwriting. In addition, editor Paul Levine provides a general introduction to Doctorow's fiction and specific introductions to each screenplay; interviews Lumet about making Daniel; and talks with Doctorow about his abiding interest in the art and craft of cinema.