Who really deserves credit for a film? Is it the director, as the French auteur theory has long held? This question has been reopened by critic David Kipen in his new book The Schreiber Theory, in which Kipen declares that knowing who wrote a movie is often a far better guide to knowing whether a movie will be any good. Kipen defends his theory on stage in a discussion with director Nicholas Meyer, who also happens to be the screenwriter of the films such as Fatal Attraction and The Human Stain. Meyer, like Kipen, is an astonishingly quick and erudite wit, but is he a schreiberist, or an auteurist?

The debate promises to be lively and wide-ranging: Why has the role of the writer seemed to diminish while the role of the director has come to dominate? Why are there fewer writing award categories in the Academy Awards than there used to be? How is the art of screenwriting threatened by the international marketing of American films? David Kipen and Nicholas Meyer offer their surprising answers on these questions and more in their first-ever joint appearance, and the first public discussion of Kipen's The Schreiber Theory.

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