Syriana Plagiarism Claims

Syriana is one of my favourite films for the year, largely because of the complexity and ambition of its script, however there are now claims from a French writer of plagiarism. Stephanie Vergniault has sued the creators of Syriana in a French court, claiming that writer/director Stephen Gaghan has misappropriated many elements of a screenplay she wrote half a decade ago:

'I saw the film entirely by accident, and I'm still in a state of shock that someone of the caliber of Stephen Gaghan could stoop so low. At least 15 to 20 scenes of the film -- the characters and how they develop, creative elements, the entire structure -- has been lifted directly from my script. I couldn't stop screaming when I first saw the film in a movie hall in L.A. First I thought I was going crazy, seeing my work on the screen, and then, when I realized what had happened, I was furious.'

Vergniault, a specialist on geopolitics in the Middle East, claims that she worked on a script titled 'Oversight' from 1997-2003, registering it with the French copyright body SACD in September 2004 and copyrighting it in the U.S. a month later. The script tells the story of a former CIA agent who is reassigned by the organization to reactivate an underground network in
Afghanistan for the benefit of an American oil company.

'I have read the book by former CIA agent Robert Baer that is supposed to have inspired the story, and there is nothing in it that remotely resembles the scenes taken straight from my script,' she said."

Having read the Baer book, I agree that saying the story was 'inspired' by the book is a bit of a stretch, but certainly it is clear that the character played by George Clooney is based on Baer. After reading many interviews with Gaghan about Syriana, it is obvious that much of the research that Gaghan undertook was in the form of being shown around the world by Baer and being introduced to the arms dealers, Arab princes and spies that became characters. In that sense, Baer and his book inspired the story. The film is not an adaptation of the book, but this just goes more to reinforce the achievement and creativity of Gaghan than anything else. That said, one needs to have read all three (Baer's book, Gaghan's screenplay and Vergniault's screenplay) before making any comment on the issue of plagiarism