Adventures in Screen Writing

by William Goldman

Paperback, 1984

Status

Available

Call number

384.80979494

Publication

Warner Books (1984), Paperback, 594 pages

Description

Now available as an ebook for the first time! No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get a firsthand look at why and how films get made and what elements make a good screenplay. Says columnist Liz Smith, "You'll be fascinated.… (more)

Media reviews

The Observer

Screenwriters are still what Sam Goldwyn called them - 'shmucks with Remingtons' (read word processors now) - but their fees reflect the spendthrift madness of a business that doesn't understand business. Any cash I have in the bank was made not from my primary trade of novelizing but from writing

scripts for films that were never made and, so it always seemed at the time of signing the book-length contract, never had any chance of being made... The sincerity of Goldman's wrath and disgust is never in doubt, but he had no right to expend those emotions in a book so ill-composed that it is an insult to the reader. Damn it, Goldman's enemies lie anywhere but in Brentano's on Sunset Boulevard or in Smith's at Charing Cross. It is a freshman composition in which sometimes the shift key is depressed and, for no special reason except possibly the blindness of the sweat of anger, left so, the word shit is the major pejorative, and slack slang dribbles like unwiped mucus.

Show Less

User reviews

LibraryThing member jdiament

An excellent book, especially if you are interested in a career in the film industry, and most especially if that career is in screenwriting. Goldman offers numerous anecdotes from his career in film as well as the insight he has gleaned from it. His writing is simple but oftentimes wise.

9 more

LibraryThing member krypto

I've noticed that screenwriter William Goldman almost always gets a mention in the tv guide when one of his films is shown. I suspect most reviewers have an interest in screenwriting and cinema, and have therefore read this behind-the-scenes look at the workings of Hollywood. If they're anything

like me, they came away enlightened, entertained and slightly shocked. He wrote 'Butch Cassidy', 'The Princess Bride' and 'All the Presidents' Men', and has the gravitas and connections that you don't doubt for a minute he's telling the truth as he explains the political chicanery that that surrounds directors, stars, agents and producers. There's a fondness beneath it all, however, and you get the impression that he firmly believes it's all worth it in the end, that film is so wonderful a thing. There's a good amount of writing advice, too. Along with its sequel 'Which lie did I tell?', it's a revealing glimpse of a world most of us will (thankfully) never have to navigate.

Show Less

LibraryThing member whiteberg

"NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING!" - It's a lot more profound than it looks at first. Which you find out when you actually start to work in the entertainment industry.

LibraryThing member ostrom

One of the best books about Hollywood and thus, indirectly, about why so few good films get made there.

LibraryThing member Cauterize

Always heard how this was "the book" to read about screenwriting and the hollywood insider machinations of getting a movie made. Goldman lets loose with anecdotes and gossip secrets and provides funny and indepth analysis of what he thinks makes a good or bad screenplay. Also, describes the real

jobs of the director, editor, producer, etc. However, this book is pretty dated now (it was published in 1989) and it makes awkward reading at times. It was pretty weird how he thinks Burt Reynolds is such a big star in the calibre (and supposed longevity!) as Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Paul Newman - but I guess at that time he was? I guess I am too young (27) as I don't remember a time where Burt Reynolds wasn't a joke.

Show Less

LibraryThing member slealos

William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade is the book that made me decide I wanted to be a screenwriter. He talks matter-of-factly about the ups and downs of being a screenwriter and, despite the various horror stories, made me want to do this job above all else. I credit Goldman with my

career choice.

Show Less

LibraryThing member hazelk

I bought this book second-hand this year. It was me (? I) that was at fault with this book not the author. I hadn't realised it was written twenty-six years ago and also that I'm not an aspiring screen-writer so not looking for tips. If I'm honest I was probably wanting a little more insider

gossip. Tut, tut.

Show Less

LibraryThing member engelcox

I had wanted to read this book for years, ever since typing innumerable papers for University of Texas Radio-Television-Film students forced to read and report on it for some beginner class. It wasn’t their reports that interested me, but the fact that this text was considered the sine qua non of

the university RTF world–the text that you needed to have read, because everyone else had. Goldman’s credentials were substantial, having written some quite substantial films both in critical and box-office terms, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men. He further endeared himself to me by his wonderful book and film, The Princess Bride. But I never read this book for years because I wanted to own a hardback version of it. Browsing this past year in the stacks at the Bellevue Half-Price Books, I chanced upon just that, and finally was able to fill a decade old longing.

Adventures in the Screen Trade is somewhat dated now, even though it is only 13 years old. The movie trade is moving and shifting at an incredible pace (although not as quite as fast as the Internet), and what is golden one year, can be video-fodder the next. Goldman’s expose of the in-and-out of movie-making, from the screenwriter’s perspective, is uncomfortably close to the old adage about sausage and politics–you don’t want to see either being made. Yet, like an automobile wreck on your way home from work, you find that you just can’t help from looking. Goldman does a good job of presenting the business straight-forward, if with a tinge of understandable bias for the writer, that underlines the power of stars and the blockbuster mentality. A sequel, updating this book and adding Goldman’s extra thirteen years of experience, would be welcome, I think.

Show Less

LibraryThing member PattyLee

Very readable, anecdotal, gossipy. Nice read, especially if you’re interested in film.

LibraryThing member iffland

Funny and insightful - ok, you don´t expect to learn the business of screen writing and meanwhile I guess a lot of things have also in Hollywood but it is still fun to read.
With me being born in 77 I still remember the mentionend people but it could get more and more difficult if you are way

younger and not a movie nut interested in older movies. Also it feels a bit unstructured and is getting weaker closer the end but I still enjoyed reading it.

Show Less

Fewer