The Big Picture - Hardcover

Goldman, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557834067 ISBN 13: 9781557834065

Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2000

Synopsis

(Applause Books). Two-time Academy Award Screenwriter William Goldman gives "The Big Picture" on Hollywood, Screenwriting, and the future of American Cinema. Among the essays: Who Killed Hollywood? * Christmas in July * Pushing the Envelope * City of Angels * Anything but Gump * and more.

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Review

"The trouble with the Oscar show is that it's too short," William Goldman writes more than once in these infectiously droll essays about Hollywood stars, box office roulette, vintage movie years, and the illogic of Saving Private Ryan. Any other writer would be in deep ironical mode saying that, but the great screenwriter (All the President's Men, The Princess Bride) and giddy movie enthusiast is hardly a "prevailing view" kind of guy. Wouldn't we have gotten Brando himself at the 1973 Oscars, he argues, if he had unlimited time to defend Indian rights to a billion viewers? Would anything have been better than that? Writing irregularly for New York magazine between 1991 and 1999, Goldman promised to explain "the Hollywood mind" to the rest of us--with the mantra always in front of him that "nobody knows anything." Which leaves him open to occasional free association. Gungha Din is "the most important movie ever made," he writes not once but twice. If Miramax is successful it's because the Weinsteins "live above the store." What do you do with Universal giving Sylvester Stallone $60 million after thirteen duds like Tango and Cash? "How long do you think you'd hold if you had those thirteen movies played over and over in a locked room?" Goldman asks. But while there's ephemera galore here, and nothing so very lofty, the guy speed-typing his interior monologues loves movies, and when he runs through the dumb things in Good Will Hunting or the great things about (his "all-time favorite") Cary Grant, just try putting the book down. --Lyall Bush

From Publishers Weekly

The title of Goldman's newest collection of essays is deceptive. Unlike his expansive reflections in Adventures in the Screen Trade, these selections (most of which originally appeared in Premiere, the New York Daily News and New York magazine) narrowly focus on Goldman's once timely film reviews and his commentaries on the 1990-1999 Academy Awards. With two screenwriting Oscars under his belt (for Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men), Goldman is a knowledgeable Hollywood tour guide. On the rare occasions when his predictions are off-target, he's still entertaining. However, this slight and somewhat repetitive collection could have benefited from annotations to make it more accessible to Hollywood outsiders who might be wondering which film finally won the Oscar and how much those projected hits ultimately grossed. Most pleasurable are Goldman's assured opinions ("Giving the Best ActorAactor is the word folksAto Roberto Benigni for his mugging in Life Is Beautiful is, for me, a sin, a disgrace and removes forever the argument from those who felt DeMille's Greatest Show on Earth was the worst Oscar winner ever.") and his contrarianisms ("The trouble with the Oscar show is that it is too short."). Goldman hits his stride with "You Go, Girls!," taking on executives who delude themselves into thinking that every successful movie about women is a fluke, and the "The Emperor's New Fatigues," which lambastes Saving Private Ryan. (Nov.) FYI: Goldman's royalties from this book will be donated to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1557834067
• ISBN 13: 9781557834065
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 283