The adventure screenplay in William Goldman: the playful and the ironic in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride

Abstract

William Goldman is a North American novelist and screenwriter with more than fifty years in his professional career. This article aims to identify Goldman’s personal writing traits by focusing on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride, which can be considered the most comprehensive and complete of all his screenplays. Apart from their differences, both scripts reveal the influence of the adventure narrative on William Goldman’s work and reflect the writer’s interest in ironically revising some of the conventions of film genre.