The Modernist Screenplay

The Modernist Screenplay explores the film screenplay as a genre of modernist literature. It connects the history of screenwriting for silent film to the history of literary modernism in France, Germany, and Russia. At the same time, the book considers how the screenplay responded to the modernist crisis of reason, confronted mimetic representation, and sought to overcome the modernist mistrust of language with the help of rhythm. From the silent film projects of Bertolt Brecht, to the screenwriting of Sergei Eisenstein and the poetic scripts of the surrealists, The Modernist Screenplay offers a new angle on the relationship between film and literature. Based on the example of modernist screenwriting, the book proposes a pluralistic approach to screenplays, an approach that sees film scripts both as texts embedded in film production and as literary works in their own right. As a result, the sheer variety of different and experimental ways to tell stories in screenplays comes to light. The Modernist Screenplay explores how the earliest kind of experimental screenplaysthe modernist screenplayschallenged normative ideas about the nature of filmmaking, the nature of literary writing, and the borders between the two.

Winner of the 2021 SRN Best Monograph Award

offers a comprehensive history of silent screenwriting in France, Germany, and Russia

includes multiple case studies of screenplays by major modernist authors

introduces the concept of experimental screenwriting

proposes a pluralistic approach to screenplays as both functional and literary works.

Auteur

Alexandra Ksenofontova completed her PhD in comparative literature at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. She is the co-founder of the German screenwriting research network Drehbuchforschung, member of the editorial board of the Journal of Screenwriting, **and the Early Career Representative on the Executive Council of the international Screenwriting Research Network.