As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless -- and absolutely essential.”

Adventures in the Screen Trade - William Goldman | Bezhan Adventures in the Screen Trade - William Goldman | Bezhan

I’m starting to see a pattern. If I really like a book, I don’t bother writing notes about it cause I just like to read it. Should we want to know how the sausage is made? We mostly shouldn't, but I nevertheless decided to read William Goldman’s 1983 memoir Adventures in the Screen Trade because it's so often mentioned on the Rewatchables podcast. Thankfully, I came away mostly unscathed because the book is almost as old as I am.If survival in the Hollywood film industry is possible, then there is no better "survival guide" than this book, because Goldman tells it like it is. He pulls no punches. And the grand experiment of the last part of the book, where Goldman wrote a new script for the sake of publishing it in this book and having famous screenwriters critique it. The script, "The Big A", about a PI and his relationship with his ex-wife and his kids who want in on the family business, is pretty flat in its writing. I want to be friends with William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride and this awesome book! He has the most delightfully conversational style. This book gets pretty technical, but I like that. I don't know if a non-writer would enjoy it quite so much, but maybe if he or she just skipped over the advice in grey, it would be just a book full of dirt on a screenwriter's adventures in Hollywood (among other places.)

Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-06-25 13:01:15 Boxid IA40150812 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Over the years I have met and worked with a dozen prize-winning American directors, and there is not one whose “philosophy” or “worldview” remotely interests me. The total amount of what they have to “say” cannot cover the bottom of even a small teacup.” Ha! The book is filled with that kind of thing. It's not mean, just honest. And he replied after some thought, “They claim Eastwood? Eastwood’s the biggest star?” Finally, after another pause, he nodded. “They’re right.” Actors in interviews always present themselves as charming, poised, and self-deprecatingly humorous. It’s an act. They’re actors, acting.The second part is an analysis of six scenes (well, seven, but six movies). This part is all about the writing of these scenes, why they work and - sometimes - why they were written. This section spoke to the (aspiring? dying?) writer in me; craft discussed all over the place, what does it mean to write, how is structure affected by the scenes we write (or don't write) ... a writer's dream. There are a lot of dreadful jokes about movie funerals, the most famous, I guess, dealing with Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia and perhaps the leading ogre of his era. At the services, someone expressed surprise at the number of people present, to which the reply came, ‘Give the public what they want, and they’ll turn out.’ Adventures in the Screen Trade is a book about Hollywood written in 1983 by American novelist and screenwriter William Goldman. The title is a parody of Dylan Thomas's Adventures in the Skin Trade.