Movies and Money - Hardcover

Puttnam, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679446648 ISBN 13: 9780679446644

Publisher: Knopf, 1998

Synopsis

From David Puttnam—producer of such modern film classics as Chariots of Fire, The Killing Fields, Midnight Express, and The Mission, and the only European to have run a major Hollywood studio—an insightful and provocative history that explains the personalities and events which shaped film's transformation from a technological curiosity into one of the world's most powerful cultural and economic forces. From the early rivalry between its inventors to the power-brokering and political influence of today's mega-stars; from Zukor and Laemmle to Ovitz and Eisner; from the serendipitous discovery of Los Angeles ("flagstaff no good," wired Cecil B. De Mille. "want authority to rent barn for $75 a month in place called hollywood") to the exploitation and depredation of Europe's film culture in the name of the marketplace, Puttnam captures the urgency and wonder that swept through a young industry and set it spinning on an axis of money and power. Movies and Money chronicles the unprecedented collision between art and commerce, and incisively analyzes its implications in today's global arena. Puttnam's engaging history is also an impassioned polemic: From the moment Thomas Edison stole the first crude attempt at a movie camera from the French scientist Étienne Jules Marey, Hollywood and Europe have existed, the author claims, in a state of undeclared hostility—hostility that has occasionally erupted into open battle for control of the century's most powerful artistic medium. And this battle, he contends, will ultimately determine the nature of Europe's cultural identity. He also argues forcefully for the intelligent application of the language and techniques of cinema to education, urging filmmakers to make films that challenge and inspire as well as entertain. Ten years after his abrupt departure from Columbia, Puttnam re-enters the debate about cinema with characteristic audacity, with the irreverence of an iconoclast and the canniness of a seasoned player. Movies and Money is a book that will change our understanding of the history—and future—of film.

About this title

Review:

Ex-Columbia Pictures chief David Puttnam was knighted for making the world safe for British film with hits like Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields. If any other ex-studio chief wrote a book called Movies and Money, it would be essentially similar to Roger Corman's How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime.

But Puttnam's book grew from his Oxford lectures--it's a scholarly history of the struggle for cultural supremacy between the film establishments of Hollywood and Europe. L.A. won the battle from the first shot. Despite massive totalitarian-government support, Russians shunned the masterpiece The Battleship Potemkin in favor of Douglas Fairbanks's Robin Hood. Today, 80 to 90 percent of Europe's filmgoers go to U.S. films, and Hollywood's influence is everywhere. Warner Bros. offered Puttnam extra money to reshoot Local Hero with a happy ending that would have destroyed its pro-pastoral, anticommercial message. He refused--but he admits it would've earned $20 million more with the Hollywood ending. The Crying Game was a flop in England, then a U.S. smash, thanks to superior Yank marketing. Four Weddings and a Funeral was made in England, cannily released Stateside, then repatriated as "America's No. 1 Smash Hit!"

Puttnam yearns to see European film get on its feet and fight back with hits of its own, supported with more savvy marketing. He's not just a film professional and historian. He's a local hero. --Tim Appelo

About the Author:

David Puttnam is the Oscar-winning producer of Chariots of Fire, The Killing Fields, Midnight Express, Local Hero,
and The Mission. He was chairman of Columbia Pictures from 1986 to 1988 and now works principally in the field of
education, serving as an adviser to a number of UK government departments; as chancellor of the University of Sunderland;
and as a governor and lecturer at the London School of Economics. In 1995 he received a knighthood for his services to the
British film industry, and in August 1997 he was appointed to the House of Lords. He divides his time between England and
Ireland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0679446648
• ISBN 13: 9780679446644
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 337