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

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What’s fascinating about the criticisms of the script - which I saw no problem with on first reading - is not just how correct they are about the holes in the script, but about the details that they red flag are minute (my-noot?). The little details are what completely blows the whole premise out of the water! It’s amazingly raw but also helpful because you’re reading him go through the pain as ‘practice’ for you going through the same pain! This, for me as a struggling screenwriter, was perhaps the best takeaway from Adventures in the Screen Trade - that the biz is always hard, it's always going to be hard to break into it, and at a certain point you just need to shut up and write. Goldman never says that phrase exactly but his famous phrase, "nobody knows anything," says more than enough: all you can rely on is our own work, so try to make some good work and let the stuff you can't control take care of itself. The Old Guy", inspired by the true story about an elderly criminal (eventually made into a 2018 movie, The Old Man and The Gun, apparently without Goldman's participation). Goldman learned of the story in an April 1999 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. [1] In this book, Goldman tells us how his life and craft took him on a lifelong adventure in the creative world of novels and films (and much more!). And he tells it like it is (or was) with grande modesty, cutting humor, and cynical yet heartfelt sincerity -- and without reservations.

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. He also provides a short story of his that was not optioned by Hollywood. He translates it into a screenplay for this book and explains the choices he has to make along the way: what characters to keep, what scenes to focus on etc…

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For reasons beyond me, Goldman brings up the tragic 1999 Columbine murders (which he annoyingly refers to as "Littleton"...the less-common reference to the town where the tragedy took place). 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. His most famous axiom, that “nobody knows anything” is one of those things that grow truer with time and experience. Goldman was referring to success in the movie business, the idea being that when something worked and was a hit, it just kind of worked and nobody really knew why, though everyone with a hand in the production would claim otherwise.

Part three isn't a good introduction to either writing screenplays or writing, but I sure did find it useful. Goldman hammers home many of the oft-repeated (but for a reason) messages of screenwriting, particularly his emphasis on structure. He's a wonderful storyteller and his adaption example is so ridiculous, that it's impressive to watch how he makes such a trite concept almost work. As I write this, Littleton is still very much in people’s consciousness. The usual shit, oh oh oh, violent movies did it-no, rap music-no, TV-no, the Internet-no, blank did it (fill in your own medium). May take, by the by? If those amazingly crazed young men had gone into that school, with the same murderous intent, but armed with knives and clubs, the incident would have been death-free.” In "Part Three: Da Vinci", Goldman shows the reader how he would go about adapting his own short story "Da Vinci" into a screenplay. The full text of "Da Vinci" and the subsequent screenplay that he wrote are included, followed by interviews with key movie industry figures, including director George Roy Hill, cinematographer Gordon Willis, and composer Dave Grusin. Adventures in the Screen Trade is a funny and honest look at Hollywood by one of its finest writers. Goldman's credits are legendary, two Oscars, for the screenplays in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men, and many many more. Goldman takes us to very entertaining book of memories about his experience in the "screen trade" highly recommended.I loved Willie's book, especially the tender, funny, frank story Da Vinci, about a young boy, his barber father, and the stranger who comes into their lives and challenges the young boy's sense of loyalty and his own true identity. The final section is an original screenplay where he examines the writing process and asks other famous screenwriters for their opinions. 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). 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".] The point being that if a studio giant couldn’t guess the biggest star in his business, the territory is a bit murkier than most of us would imagine."