Stephen Geller (b. Los Angeles, California) is an American screenwriter and novelist. Most famous for writing the screenplay for the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Geller has worked in the film industry in Hollywood and Europe, and recently directed his own independent feature, Mother's Little Helpers.Born and raised in Los Angeles, Geller's father was musician and composer Harry Geller (Hawaii Five-0, The Patty Duke Show) who, in the 1950s, found himself the victim of the Hollywood blacklist. As a result, Geller spent much of his youth abroad in Europe.Educated at Dartmouth College and Yale University, Geller moved to Rome, Italy in 1969-79 to work for the Italian producer, Dino De Laurentiis, where he wrote the screenplay for The Valachi Papers, among other films. Rome became his home for the next sixteen years. He worked in the Italian, French, British and independent film industries. He also commuted to LA, and wrote for every major studio during that period. Eventually, in 1986, he returned to Hollywood, working there for a time, but leaving eventually to found screenwriting programs at Arizona State University, and at the Boston University College of Communication.His screenwriting credits, in addition to Slaughterhouse-Five, include Ashanti, The Valachi Papers, and Warburg: A Man of Influence.Aside from screenwriting, he has also published nine novels and a book on screenwriting, has written several plays, and has directed both theater and film. He currently teaches Shakespeare Appreciation, Satire, and the personal essay at Savannah College of Art and Design. His most recent novel is A Warning of Golems.
Writing a screenplay today, unless you are directing it, is like putting a meal in the middle of a forest. Every kind of animal is going to come up and fight over it-grab food, throw food, crap on the plate. That meal is so destroyed by the time everyone has had his or her way with it, you're lucky if you see forty percent of that film.
2
[on being a Hollywood screenwriter during the "auteur" period in the 1970s] "You never knew if you were going to work, or if your work was going to get produced. Directors never committed to the talent or the writer, rather they committed to keeping the deal alive. That's when you began to see scripts with six, seven, nine, or ten scriptwriters. The 'original story by', written by a single writer, was rewritten by three writers who were never in the same room. Then the script was rewritten by five other writers."
3
[on the Writer's Guild] "We are not a union of writers. We are a union of rewriters. They never, never found a way of protecting an original screenplay the way the Dramatists Guild protects its playwrights and the Authors League protects its published authors. In those organizations the word begins and ends with the writer, but not so in Hollywood."
4
Forms can be taught. Passion, you have to come up with. Imagination, nobody can teach that. Life experience, nobody can teach that. That's yours. That's your gift. Idea is what you bring to it, the intention.
5
[on writing] "The most potent force in film is storytelling. The most potent force in history is the human voice. You must trust your voice, utilize it in a variety of media. It is the greatest gift to humanity to tell people who they are, where they are coming from, and where they are going."
6
I became very aware quite young of a multiplicity of worlds and what was particularly fascinating to me was a very strong memory of southern Europe, particularly the Mediterranean basin. And when I moved to Rome, it was like being home again. There were experiences and places that had such an intense familiarity that I recognized them from previous existences.
7
I had had nine contracts to direct something I had written, but for a variety of reasons they never came through. Either I walked away because it didn't contain the elements I wanted, or the producer found me unbearable, or we lost the money.
8
Kae and I love to write together. I find that we just turn each other on. Her imagination is so rich and so crazy and so much fun. She's far more scientific than I am, so she'll take an idea and go to the craziest places with it.
9
[on his directorial debut] "One of the reasons I did this is to show that you can make a film with little money, and that it can be beautiful. The film actually is very pretty, the cast is extraordinary-looking, the ambiance is very mysterious and magical, and it didn't cost a fortune to do."
10
I've been paid to write 42 films and nine have been made, and I have never been satisfied with the direction of a majority of them, except for George Roy Hill's direction of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). The rest of the time I found that I was brighter than most directors, actually knew more about film, and cared more about film. And so this time, I knew I was going to make this movie.
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Fact
1
His play with Kae Geller, "Opportunities in Zero Gravity," is performed as a staged reading at the Turtle Bay Music School in New York City. [October 1998]
2
Completed production on his directorial debut, an independent feature titled Mother's Little Helpers. [May 2003]
3
Organized the SCAD Writer's Assembly, bringing Savannah's writing community together to read from their works. Geller himself read a chapter from "Feist," his novel-in-progress about a German Jew living in Savannah during the Civil War and Reconstruction. [April 2008]
4
Left Boston University, where he had founded the ground-breaking screenwriting program, for Savannah College of Art and Design. [2005]
5
Sold his independent film Mother's Little Helpers to the Italian film company Rai Cinema. [July 2004]
6
His freshman year roommate at Dartmouth was William Hjortsberg, the screenwriter behind Legend (1985) and Angel Heart (1987).
Geller's private papers (dated through 1993) are collected in the Dartmouth College Library archives. The collection includes drafts of his scripts and novels, as well as an assortment of unpublished fiction and never-produced film scripts.
9
Geller's novel GAD begins with the phrase: ateh malkuth ve'geburah ve'gedulah, le-olam... Amen. This phrase comes from the open passage of the Star Ruby Ritual, which was composed by the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley and published in his "Book of Lies (1913).".
10
Won the 1973 Hugo Award (with George Roy Hill) for Best Dramatic Presentation for the film version of 'Slaughterhouse-Five'.
11
His film 'Cuppa Cabby Piece o' Pie' -- directed by Tom Danon -- won the award for best comedy at ZoieFest 2000.
12
Won a special jury prize at Cannes in 1972 for his screenplay adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972).
$20 Million
