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Movies, television shows, cartoons, streaming video, YouTube clips. We’re swimming in storylines, suffering from ‘narrative exhaustion’. Can traditional cinema keep up, asks legendary scriptwriter PAUL SCHRADER

SCREENWRITERS love to complain. They are disrespected by producers, deemed dispensable by directors, not duly credited by critics, treated like employees by actors – although few complain about being historically and chronically overpaid. Another thing they don’t complain about is “the exhaustion of narrative”, though it weighs very much on their minds. For screenwriters to complain about the paucity of original ideas would be like a salesman complaining about a lack of inventory. It’s not good for business.