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

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After detailing the vast amount of work it takes to bring a script all the way to the big screen, it's no wonder Goldman gets so angry at the Auteur theory.

Part Two: Adventures" has stories from 11 projects that Goldman has been involved with, from Charly and Masquerade, to the Academy Award-winning Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men, to some projects that remained unrealised, such as a musical remake of Grand Hotel. Well, in this book Goldman also laments how the industry is going down the toilet, how they are making fewer and fewer movies, and so on. For a long time, Sylvester Stallone could be Rocky or Rambo, but he succeeded in very few other roles.

That Al Pacino scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is more or less an echo of what Goldman observes here.

The only detractor is that the book was written in 1983 and the references to stars include: Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, etc. Two big bonuses of this book: Goldman provides his entire screenplay of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and then analyzes what worked and what didn't. Goldman starts by telling readers that Nobody Knows Anything in Hollywood, by which he means that the movie business is extremely hard to predict, marked by frequent failures and occasional big hits. I don't think I have much to say that hasn't been said repeatedly below but yes, this is an excellent behind-the-scenes look at the craft of screenwriting and yes, it's kind of crazy how well it holds up 30 years after it was written.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. It's a creepy, well-acted psychological thriller, so I'm curious why Goldman doesn't even mention it. Dustin Hoffman refused a scene in Marathon Man that required his character to keep a flashlight in his nightstand, Goldman insists, because Dustin thought it would make him look weak on screen, and every male movie star, deep down, will never allow himself to look weak on screen. Nor realized that lots of regular guys dream of being in a position where rich people send expensive cars to drive them around. PS-The title of this book is a PUN on the title: " Adventures in the Skin Trade, a collection of stories by Dylan Thomas.

foutrement bien écrit, concis et très pratique sans donner de « trucs » enrubannés sensés faire de votre petit scénario de rien du tout un chef-d'œuvre digne de Steinbeck.Goldman takes us to very entertaining book of memories about his experience in the "screen trade" highly recommended.

Goldman is one of the best storytellers this country has produced, which may seem a bold claim to some, but it happens to be true. In 1978, Goldman wrote the screenplay for Magic, which was based on his novel, starred the great Anthony Hopkins, and was directed by Richard Attenborough. Nothing is more entertaining than reading about Bill Goldman in the trenches, trying his best to ensure that a movie he's working on will actually get finished.However, the inclusion of the screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid makes the book even more valuable, especially since he also analyzes the screenplay and what works and what doesn't. Goldman's insider's approach is still compelling, though I wondered how much of what he says about how Hollywood works is still true 36 years later.