Memoirs of a script supervisor
There’s one important weird job in the movie industry that seems to have little written litterature, which is odd considering they write everything down: script supervisor (or continuity supervisor).
So when an actual script supervisor (Hi Florence) talked to me about “Lanterne magique - Mémoires d'une script” by Jeanne Witta-Montrobert, I coulnd’t resist the urge to read it at once.
It was an enjoyable reading indeed!
So who is Jeanne Witta-Montrobert?
She’s one of the first french script (it’s the “french” word for the old american script-girl that has now become script supervisor). She started in the early thirties when talking movies appeared everywhere. That’s the tipping point that made Paramount open french studios in Saint-Maurice and Joinville-le-Pont and that’s where she began after having occupied a “stenodactylo” position (stenographer / typist might be the translation) for a few months in there.
Why read her memoirs?
- Because she’ll teach you a lot of things about the way movies were made in France from the thirties to the sixties/seventies.
- Because she’ll talk to you about her “colleagues” which includes incredible screenwriters (Henri Jeanson, Marcel Achard, Charles Spaak, Jacques Prévert…) directors (Anatole Litvak, Marcel Carné, Jean Renoir, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Pierre Prévert, Jean Gremillon, Marc Allegret… even Antonioni) and actors (Jean Gabin, Pierre Brasseur, Michele Morgan, Charles Vanel…).
- Because se’ll talk to you about the movies she supervised. The famous (“Quai des brumes”, “Les visiteurs du soir”), the less famous, and even the ones that never made it (“La fleur de l'âge”, the last project of Carné-Prévert)
- Because she’ll talk to you about friends, known and unknown, Joseph Kessel among others (who wrote the foreword).
What is the most jaw-dropping thing you learnt?
I don’t know if it was the same in Hollywood but in France, in that Paramountish system, the “scripts” were more than the girls noting everything happening on the set so they can make sure the continuity is not broken (which is already an insane amount of focus).
They were there when the movie was being written. They actually typed the script while the screenwriters were creating it.
If you can recall all the great tips Alexander Mackendrick gave to us by recalling how Clifford Odets rewrote “Sweet smell of sucess”, imagine the lessons we might have learnt!
How can I read it?
First of all, it’s in french.
Then, it’s out of print.
Fortunately, if you can manage to read in the language of Melies, the almighty BNF has it scanned here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k33499024/f1.item.texteImage
As usual, if you happen to know any related book or movie, please let me know!