Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood

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Goldman also wrote a series of memoirs about his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood. [The first of these was this book, "ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE".] It's not perfect, but not problematic enough to derail the enjoyment. Some of the anecdotes about movies Goldman wrote are a little meh. "The Princess Bride", arguably his best known novel and script to modern audiences, seems a little passive in its insights, fawning over the pleasurable experience (I guess bad experiences can be more interesting). I know that when I am writing I have to constantly search for those plot holes and then find ways to plug them and it’s really hard without outside help.

Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade

What’s wonderful about reading these critiques and learning from them is that this is what you are going to get! Both barrels! And while some of it is right, some of it is also wrong, so the critics aren’t giving you help so much as telling you, YOU’VE GOT EVEN MORE WORK TO DO!Goldman won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men. He also won two Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for Harper in 1967, and for Magic (adapted from his own 1976 novel) in 1979. 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.) This is definitely one of them. Fascinating stories about ups, downs, hits and flops, and how it affected him as a person. A particular pleasure was the story of how ‘The Princess Bride’ got written and the movie got maid, involving Richard Lester of ‘Three Musketeers’ fame (and deservedly so). Goldman grew up in a Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at Columbia University in 1956.His brother was the late James Goldman, author and playwright.

Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood

But then we'd have missed a glorious roller-coaster ride through Tinseltown stuffed to the gills with anecdotes of such toe-curling detail that you believe every word. You may even consider it predictable, but that’s a subjective view that you can only have AFTER READING THE SCRIPT. And you can always rewrite it to change it. This] is that big, sad, funny, incisive, revelatory, gossipy, perception-forming book about Hollywood that publishers have been promoting for years -- and now the real thing is finally here."― St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9790 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-2000073 Openlibrary_edition This was my final read of 2021, and it made for a satisfying conclusion to the year. I think I like it better than Goldman's first memoir/tell-all/screenwriting manual Adventures in the Screen Trade; the nearly twenty years elapsed between the two books means Goldman is more mature here, with more experience (naturally) and a better understanding of himself and his craft. I would have liked a LOT more about The Princess Bride, though what's here is excellent, and I really appreciated his ability to size up his failures as well as his successes with honesty and clarity.Though he hasn't been active on the scene for many years now, William Goldman remains one of the most famous and influential screenwriters in Hollywood history. The former Pentagon staffer turned two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter has penned some of the most iconic, lauded and cherished movies of all time, including Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, Marathon Man, The Princess Bride, Harper, Misery and A Bridge Too Far. He has written, co-written or consulted on vehicles for towering movie stars including Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Matt Damon, James Caan, Clint Eastwood and Anthony Hopkins.

Adventures in the Screen Trade - Wikipedia

Oscar winner William Goldman, who wrote such classic films as HARPER, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, MARATHON MAN and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN shares his unique, often difficult, experiences working with top directors, producers and stars like Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. This is really the most badass thing I’ve ever read in a script writing book (and I’ve read a few). William Goldman, the screenwriter of two of my favorite movies (and in my opinion, two of the best movies of all time)--"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Princess Bride"--offers an witty, insightful, acerbic and neurotic look at the world of writing in Hollywood. I haven't read this book's predecessor, "Adventures in the Screen Trade," but I have no doubt it was equally enjoyable and eye-opening. In terms of authority, screenwriters rank somewhere between the man who guards the studio gate and the man who runs the studio (this week). And there is a whole world to which we are not privy. And I thought it may be helpful to know at least something about just what is taking place Out There. With that in mind, I've interviewed a number of people who work the other side of the street: studio executives, producers, directors, and stars. By the time we're done, it's my hope that you'll understand a good deal more about why you see what you see on the screen. Enter Hollywood's inner sanctums in this gosippy and honest book, named one the top 100 film books of all time by The Hollywood Reporter,by the Academy Award-winning screenwriter and bestselling author of The Primcess Bride.The structure of "Adventures In the Screen Trade" is very odd. Chapters start with one topic, then go off into tangents in sections that are highlighted in grey. Why grey? I still don't know. Also, Goldman's short-hand got on my nerves after a while. He'd say "Mr. Warner" instead of Warner Bros. At times he uses one-name monikers as opposed to full names. The Brits are so different from us, there are no words; but nowhere is the difference clearer than when it comes to war: we venerate victories, they adore disasters. So the greatest battle for them in World War II was Dunkirk.” This is a true insider's look at the screenwriting business (from the writer of All the President's Men, Marathon Man and – interestingly, the novel of Princess Bride) and interesting for anyone who writes or likes movies because - yes, there are fun gossipy asides about Hollywood (Robert Redford had ego!), but it's focus is on what makes a good story and how to write one that sells as a screenplay. They're not always the same thing. I glanced inside the cover. I knew that there would be interesting tidbits about the writing of The Princess Bride , both the movies and the book. Also discussed is one of my favorite horror films of all time, "Misery." And there's that quality I associate with the name (yes, even "The Stepford Wives" I liked). As a successful screenwriter and novelist, William Goldman was perfectly placed to write one of the definitive insider accounts of Hollywood. If you like cinema then this is a fascinating read. Although written in 1983, with many films he cites from this era, I am sure the process is little changed.