Weekend, 30 September 2000

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

As you know, I've been travelling all week and I've written all I can for now about the WAH! fiasco. (That's War Against Hollywood! If you haven't been here lately.) And so, I figured, as I was reading a great book on moviemaking, that I could use the Top Ten to do a list of movie books that I think that every true movie lover should have in their library. Some you'll know about already and others, you won't. But this is my Top Ten. Of course, it all starts with "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, which should be read by anyone who truly wishes to understand human dynamics. And of course, what else is the movie biz? Here's the list:

10. Projections - This series of books seems appropriate for the 10 slot since, up until now, 10 editions have been published. Well, actually 11, if you count 4 1/2. The series is made up of pieces by filmmakers on filmmaking. The series was started and edited by John Boorman and Walter Donohue in 1992. Boorman did Projections 2-4 on his own. Donahue rejoined Boorman for Projections 4 1/2 - 9. And Mike Figgis edited Projections 10, adding onto Borman & Donohue's regular "Film-Makers on Film-Making" tag by calling it "Hollywood Film-Makers on Film-Making." There is not a single edition of the Projections series that isn't compelling, absorbing and completely worthy of the time it will take to read. The pieces tend to be fairly short, but fairly dense. It's definitely for serious film lovers. If you like the idea of Voices, particularly on the filmmakers' side, you will love "Projections".

9. Hype & Glory by William Goldman - This is the book that made me give up screenwriting. Or rather, a story Goldman tells in the book about returning to L.A. after his year of judging both the Cannes Film Festival and the Miss America Pageant -- the core of the book -- and still having to eat excrement from some punk executive, seven figure salary and all. The book gives great insight into the Cannes experience and the Miss America stuff is great too AND Goldman drops the kind of stories that only he'll print, as he does in two other books that are further up the list. Not every book that gives you perspective on the film business is dead on ABOUT the film business.

8. Going Too Far by Tony Hendra - Hendra lived the professional comedy life during the one great period for comedy in two or three generations. The simple bookend(s) is John Belushi. When he started his career, the era of smart comedy that was about something began. When he died of an overdose, the era was over. He was not the driving difference on either end, but his life span sets the clock. Hendra was part of the Lampoon group, but the performers who defined the early period all seem to have been blessed with magic. From Mort Sahl to Belushi to Chase to Ackroyd to Chris Guest to Gilda to the Second City gang and on and on, in front of and behind the camera. If you want to understand comedy now, you need to read this book, because we are still being bombarded with the reflections of that era.

7. What Lie Did I Tell? - More Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman - Goldman book number two...despite his pieces for Premiere, which I have for the most part choked on, Goldman's post-Premiere follow-up to Screen Trade is another classic. More stories, more perspective, more reasons to read a great writer on what seems to be his favorite subject (as though I could talk), himself.

6. The Studio by John Gregory Dunne - If you want to understand the glory, understand the failure. If you want to understand that there was a time when mid-range studio films didn't open on 3000+ screens...in fact, nothing opened like that...read this book. John Gregory Dunne had amazing access to 20th Century Fox as it went through the death throes of its last true emperor, Darryl Zanuck. Amazing stuff. And an amazing insight into the history of the studios without even a hint of dryness. There's another good book on the subject, "The Fox That Got Away : The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth Century-Fox" by Stephen M. Silverman. But it isn't as good as Dunne's book, though read together, you will be better able to read between the lines of each. Dunne also has a good book, called "Monster: Living Off The Big Screen" worth reading, but not Top Ten.

5. Hello, He Lied by Lynda Obst - The female answer to The Hot Button before The Hot Button existed. A great, tough, funny book by a producer who is still making movies. In a way, "Hello, He Lied" is kind of the less self-victimized version of Julia Phillips' "You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again." Obst really gives you the book on producing in this town, whether you are male or female, and does it with real joy and clarity. A book that I really, really adore.

4. In The Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing by Walter Murch - I can't believe I'd never read this book until this last week. Mind-blowing at times. When Murch explains why editing probably works, it is a revelation that reaches beyond cinema into philosophy. But it's so dead-on brilliant. (And oddly, it isn't even his revelation, but John Huston's, who he credits fully.) I'll be writing more about this book next week, but if you are serious about understanding how a film really comes together, you must have this one on your shelf.

3. On Directing Film by David Mamet/Hitchcock by Truffaut - My favorite book on screenwriting ever and the best book about directing ever. Oh, Mamet's book is about directing and Truffaut's book is a tribute? Wrong! Mamet is really a screenwriter first and he directs like a writer. Simply, I have never read anything that explained the idea that "writing is editing" most succinctly or with more simplicity. And Truffaut's book is mostly a long interview with Hitchcock in which Hitch unlocks the secrets of his work and the work of a director.

2. Getting Away With It Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw by Steven Soderbergh - What a joy to read this book. The Faber & Faber publication is a combination of Soderbergh's diaries in the difficult period in which he made Schizopolis and Grey's Anatomy and an interview that Soderbergh does with Richard Lester. I laughed my a** off reading this book and there is no one in the business that I'd rather sit down to lunch with, based on this and his work, than Soderbergh. You'll need to send to Canada or the U.K. to get the book until it publishes here in America next month...but it's worth it.

1. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman: The book that launched a thousand books on the movies. The book that contains "Nobody knows anything." This is The One. Even 11 years after it came out, this book is as fresh and important as the day it was published. There would certainly be no Hot Button if it weren't for Goldman's opus, which taught me by example to think and write differently about this business. No fear...unless you are afraid, in which case you fess up, but always tell that truth. Goldman's stories are great. He cops to everything...I mean, everything. And you couldn't ask for a better guide to the dark side. If you read one movie book in your life, this is the one.

E ME: I'm sure I'm missing some titles, somehow. There are also a bunch of titles that I just see as part of the next tier. But please send in your favorite titles. Maybe I'll have already read them or maybe I'll be heading to the bookstore.