27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to get the toys over the mountain, September 15, 2001
This review is from: Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade (Paperback)
William Goldman's follow-up to "Adventures in the Screen Trade" follows much the same form as that book. It's intended for an audience of prospective Hollywood screenwriters, but can be equally enjoyed by those interested in frank Hollywood gossip and tales from an insider. Goldman is a perfect tour guide across this terrain, for he loves to teach from his experiences, and is an entertaining and economical writer. Most of this book feels like a private chat with a friendly old uncle who's lead an exciting and adventure filled life.
Goldman starts by revisiting a successful section from his earlier memoir: anecdotes from his experiences writing his most recent work. Tales of adapting his own "The Princess Bride", his love for the material and for Andre the Giant; the good intentioned but eventual failures of "The Year of the Comet" and "The Ghost and the Darkness" (the latter is a good example of how the material can get away from the writer once an egotistical star is on board, in this case Michael Douglas); and how he went about adapting "Misery" and "Absolute Power". This last example was my favourite, for even though the book it's based on was pulp, and movie barely registered, Goldman uses it as a fine example on the problems of adapting, and how you need to be ruthless just to make the thing work. He takes you through his process step-by-step, and the parts where he's racking his brain on how to make the sucker work are tangible in their frustration. Also, there were some nifty Clint Eastwood moments that make you respect the Man with No Name even more.
The second section takes a look at several of Goldman's favourite film scenes (from a screenwriter's point of view), and proposes to analyze why they worked. While his passion for these moments is palpable, Goldman skimps on the analysis. Why was the zipper scene in "There's Something About Mary" so effective? Why does the chess scene in "The Seventh Seal" resonant still? He does a fine job, though, finding the importance of the cliff scene from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". But then he should know that one inside out, because he wrote it (Warning: if you have never seen or do not at all appreciate "Butch and Sundance", I'd stay away from this book; Goldman has enthusiastic affection for his first big hit, and returns to it often for examples; I myself love the movie and was glad to read more about it). The best part of this section is his attempt to wrestle credit for the crop-duster scene in "North by Northwest" from Alfred Hitchcock, and give it to the screenwriter, Ernest Lehman. I was convinced.
The third section offers the reader a chance to be screenwriter. Goldman presents several newspaper clippings as examples of possible source material for an original screenplay. He then takes us through the process of molding and shaping the materiel to the demands of the screen. It's pedantic Goldman at his best.
In the final section, Goldman presents an original screenplay he's written to various professional screenwriters, to show the function of a "script doctor" (Goldman's latest and most notorious Hollywood incarnation). The screenplay he's written, a tired detective adventure called "The Big A", is still in process, and it's a treat reading Goldman thinking out loud. He doesn't know where to go with the story at some points, and presents the reader with various possibilities. He's unsure about a scene he's just written, and admits to its inadequacies. He's having problems with character, and admits to that too.
But Goldman is not nearly as hard on himself as those he's solicited for help are. This was my favourite section of the book. On the one hand, the submissions he's received are biting, witty, and malicious in the most entertaining of ways. On the other hand, they full of a variety of great ideas, all of which would turn "The Big A" into a bona fide movie. Tony Gilroy (who wrote "The Devil's Advocate") is particularly effective on both of these fronts; his writing is lovable curmudgeonry at its best.
If Goldman ever decides to finish off this trilogy, I'll be right there waiting. Whether in narrative prose or memoir form, his writing is easily digestible, fun, and most importantly, informative. He wears his passions on his sleeve, and invites the reader to do the same. I was right there with him the whole time, lapping up his nuggets of wisdom. I guess the best praise I have is that everytime I finish a Goldman book, I get the itch to go write a screenplay myself. And feel perfectly equipped to do so.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too much Butch, but still a fun read, April 8, 2000
I'm a huge fan of Goldman's books and most of his screenplays, and the original Adventures in the Screen Trade still stands as the definitive how-Hollywood-works primer. It's great to have him deconstructing the industry once again, praising some unlikely subjects--who would think the 67-year old author of Marathon Man would have picked the Farrelly brothers' There's Something About Mary as 1998's best film?--and attacking even more unlikely subjects--would you expect the screenwriter of A Bridge Too Far to loathe Saving Private Ryan? Goldman does, and how.) I have two key problems with Which Lie Did I Tell, however. One is, many Goldman fans will have seen a lot of this text before. Much of this material has appeared in Premiere Magazine over the years, as well as in collections of Goldman's screenplays. Long-time Goldman enthusiasts, then, might be a bit miffed about buying recycled material. My other misgiving is Goldman's tendency to rely too much on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when he's trying to get a point across. The original Adventures, remember, included the complete Butch screenplay and a lot of background material about the real-life duo and the making of the film. So it's disconcerting to see scene after scene from Butch used in the new book, along with many of the same anecdotes Goldman told us the first time around. On the other hand, if you're going to use a single film for a lot of your examples of screenwriting, you could do a lot worse than an Oscar-winning Western classic. So, if you read (and liked) Adventures in the Screen Trade and haven't read Goldman's movie pieces elsewhere, give this review an extra star and give Which Lie Did I Tell a try. If you know every line of Adventures and sought out everything Goldman has written since then, you might consider waiting for the paperback. (Hey, he's rich and his children are grown, no one's going to starve if you pass on the hardcover.)
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Like most sequels, this ain't quite as good BUT.., March 26, 2000
...it still is very much worth a read. (Goldman has such an easy going, conversational writing style, you can polish off this book a few hours.) One of my favorite all time books is his first Adventures in the Screen Trade, which was the first book that I ever read about how Hollywood really works. (His analysis of The Great Santini is classic.) This book is highly entertaining, but it does not have the sheen of originality that the first book had. And I was really getting a bit tired reading about Butch Cassidy (he even acknowledges that the book's reader might hurl the thing across the room, due to his constant references of that film.) I would much rather have read his thoughts on The Last Action Hero. What the hell was going through the movie makers minds on that one? But overall, this book was lots of fun, especially his analysis of There's Something About Mary and Fargo. And it was fun reading about why that Chevy Chase Invisible Man movie was so horrendous. So, if you like movies, go ahead and read this, but make sure you read the first Adventures in the Screen Trade first.
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