Word: goldman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Marshall I. Goldman, associate director of the Center, said yesterday that the purpose of the competition is to generate greater interest in the Soviet Union. He added that he hopes the competition will attract support from foundation and alumni, enabling the center to sponsor more than two awards in the future...
Such modesty typifies the manner of Adventures in the Screen Trade, a loose collection of anecdotes from Goldman's Hollywood experiences, plus thoughts on the present state of the film industry and how-to hints for aspiring writers with stars in their eyes. Goldman does not mention his two Oscars (for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men) or the beefy six-figure fees that his work has commanded. He emphasizes instead the pervasive uncertainty that seeps through all stages of moviemaking. He sets "the single most important fact" about his subject...
...this confusion, Goldman insists, has created a power vacuum that performers have filled by default. He has worked with some of Hollywood's biggest names and has learned from hard knocks: "Never underestimate the insecurity of a star." They do not know exactly how they got where they are, but they are fairly sure they will not be there for long. Goldman offers some research to support their fears. Of the ten top-grossing headliners in 1976, as measured by theater receipts, only two (Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds) made the same list in 1981. The s author underscores...
...Goldman is enough of an insider to command attention to, if not total agreement with, such statements. He is also generous with caustic soundstage glimpses of movies in the making. Here is Dustin Hoffman on the set of Goldman's Marathon Man, browbeating an ailing and clearly enfeebled Laurence Olivier into walking around and around a large room with him, improvising a scene. Recalling this long ordeal, Goldman notes "Hoffman's need to put himself on at least equal footing with this sick old man." Someone else the author will probably not work with in the future...
Most good books about Hollywood, including this one, are in fact histories of accidents, chiefly bad ones. That movies are still being made, some even made well, certainly defies the illogic that goes into their creation. Goldman ends his guided tour of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land on an up note, predicting that a horde of talented new graduates from film schools will gallop West and rescue the studios from them selves. Whether they will be allowed to write anything but sequels to Porky 's remains an open question. An altogether different scenario suggests itself: DISSOLVE TO AMBITIOUS YOUNG WRITER seated...