Ransom Center's "Making Movies" takes visitors behind the camera

If there is one sacred cow that's going to be tipped as you go through the Ransom Center's "Making Movies" exhibit, it's the auteur theory, the notion that the director is the "author" of a movie.

Before any film student or scholar sits down to write a strongly worded e-mail, know that this is not to denigrate the director's crucial role in tying the movie together, in being the (more or less) final word on what happens behind the camera and what the public sees on the big screen.

But "Making Movies" reminds you that there are plenty of threads to tie, that there are often disparate and competing visions in a movie, dozens and sometimes hundreds of voices that come together and fall away during the creation of a motion picture. The director suddenly seems less an author than a conductor, coaxing the various elements together to create the best harmonies he or she can.

And walking around the exhibit with Ransom Center film curator Steve Wilson is a treat, like having Tom Colicchio talk you through an episode of "Top Chef" or watching the Austin Symphony Orchestra with Peter Bay.

Wilson put together this exhibit out of the Ransom Center's extensive film holdings, including archives from actor Robert De Niro, screenwriter Paul Schrader and a ton of material from legendary producer David O. Selznick.

"We wanted to say something about the filmmaking process, show off all the creative people involved and put the materials in the context of specific films," Wilson says. Between 400 and 700 objects are in the exhibit, depending on how you count (a page of script versus a whole scene on display, for example). Either way, it's easily the biggest display the center has mounted.

We start at the beginning, as many movies do, with the producer, an area dominated, as one might expect, by memos and photographs.

There's a photo of MGM executives Harry Rapf, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg. There's a chart looking at various financing options for "Gone With the Wind" (a production Wilson calls one of the best-documented movies ever made). And there's a copy of the filmmaker's bête noire, the 1934 version of the production code. It's fascinating to see what's on there and what is not. "The sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin" (good luck with that, guys). Offensive terms such as "yid" are on there, as is "nerts." (No, really.)

Some words were obviously so beyond the pale they are simply absent. "Damn is not on there," Wilson says, gesturing to a memo from Selznick to the Hays Office (the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America censorship office) requesting a variance for the "Frankly, my dear \u2026" line.

Over on the writer wall, we learn that writers were typecast right along with actors. A letter of suggested writers for "Gone With the Wind" contains some rather \u2026 direct assessments.

Sinclair Lewis might be "either a little too political minded or a little too gin minded" for this gig. Edwin Justice Mayer, writer of "To Be or Not to Be," is called "the world's laziest man." These days, agents might talk about this sort of thing over the phone, lest they leave a paper trail that could be subpoenaed.

Wilson points to various outlines that screenwriters construct, and, boy howdy, do they reveal a lot. Ernest Lehman's outline for "West Side Story" is on index cards, suggesting the big-picture vibe of a golden age studio movie. Paul Schrader's outline for "Raging Bull" is written in a cramped, tiny hand, the sort you might see on a letter sent to a newspaper before the author starts randomly shooting people in a McDonald's. David Mamet's outline for "Heist" is a timeline, with events carefully placed for maximum narrative punch.

"We have another outline for 'Gone With the Wind' that is 81/2-by-11 pages taped together end to end," Wilson says. "It's about 14 feet long with 75-year-old Scotch tape on it. Couldn't really figure out how to display that one."

Over on the actor wall, memos and notebooks let you know how much influence certain actors have over their parts. Jack Nicholson suggested that Nietzsche be worked into the character of the Joker in "Batman." Notes are scrawled all over De Niro's copy of the "Taxi Driver" screenplay. Tom Cruise was heavily involved in shaping his character in "Top Gun." (And you have to love the "intensity chart" that "Top Gun" screenwriter Warren Skaaren used to plot action beats in that movie. It's easy to imagine it as exhibit A in the hypothetical trial of the American action movie.)