Which generally makes for a better film?

[Gore] Vidal himself seeks to establish a dialectical confrontation between the word and the image: “Movies are stories; only writers can tell stories. So the wrong people are making the movies.” It might be argued by the defenders of directors that movies are stories told primarily through pictures, or, at least, movies should be stories told primarily through pictures. Vidal has an answer for that, too: “We do need the cameraman, the editor. But above all we need the script.”

Vidal’s position is not particularly audacious for Hollywood. One can imagine the ghosts of the old Hollywood moguls nodding in agreement with Vidal’s summary dismissal of directors. All you need to make a good movie is a good story. Everybody on the Bel Air circuit knows that.