Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting
By William Goldman
Why this book?
William Goldman is best known as the screenwriter of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, and The Princess Bride. Published in 1983, Adventures in the Screen Trade quickly became a favourite among filmmakers as Goldman shares gossipy anecdotes about the movies that he’s worked on – including projects that didn’t get made – and offers what he has learnt about screenwriting and Hollywood. The two major adages from the book are Nobody Knows Anything – that is, for all the smart talk in Hollywood, no one knows what the audience is going to want to see. Secondly, Screenplays Are Structure – it’s not the clever dialogue, it’s the architecture of the storytelling that matters most. But not only does Goldman have the Tinseltown experience to write about, he does it in an immensely entertaining way.
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