The best value-for-money writing course you can buy (Which Lie Did I Tell? - William Goldman)

Member Name: Crazy-Christian

Product:	Which Lie Did I Tell? - William Goldman
Date:	10/07/01 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A brilliant read

Disadvantages: None

Oh great! ANOTHER book about writing. All very well, but aren’t there enough of these things out there? Do we really need another one? What makes this one so special? Well, the answers to those questions, in reverse order, are: William Goldman, yes and yes.

William Goldman, in case you don’t know, is one of the world’s leading screenwriters and a fine author also. He has written screenplays for such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), All The President’s Men (1976) (both of which won him Oscars), Marathon Man (1976), The Princess Bride (1987) (both based on his own novels), Misery (1990), Maverick (1994), Absolute Power (1997) and many others. This book is a follow-up to his acclaimed 1983 non-fiction book, "Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting".

The book follows the same format of its predecessor, combining anecdotes from behind-the-scenes of many of the movies he has worked on, critiques of his own and other’s screenplays, as well as guidance and tips on how to tell stories in general. The 480-odd pages in this book are invaluable if you’re interested in how Hollywood works, or in telling stories of any description.

The first section is entitled "More Adventures", and picks up where the original book left off, covering the period from 1980-85, when the author became a virtual leper in Hollywood and couldn’t get anything made. His candour while describing this period is refreshing and sets the tone for the entire book. His writing style is very conversational; it’s like having an old friend sitting chatting to you.

It then goes on to describe his involvement in a number of movies from 1986-97. Some of them, like "The Princess Bride" and "Misery" were very successful, some of them, like "Year of the Comet" and "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" were not, but he treats eac
h the same giving reasons why some worked so well and why some never worked out. He has been fired on many occasions but he always bounces back with a story to tell, usually concerning someone very famous: and Goldman does not pull his punches. There is some very entertaining stuff here and if he does not like someone he lets you know about it! My favourite bits are where he mercilessly attacks critics, all of whom he seems to loathe! No doubt these sections were very cathartic!

The second section is entitled, "Heffalumps!!!". Here, he looks at some of his favourite scenes from a variety of movies, pointing out why and how they add to the movies of which they form part. This section seems to stem from his famous statement that, in Hollywood, "nobody knows anything". He feels this way about screenplays, which he feels are "strangely shaped things that no one really knows much about". He then goes on to display a considerable amount of knowledge about what makes a screenplay work.

He covers the Farrelly Brothers "There’s Something About Mary" (The Zipper Scene), Nora Ephron’s "When Harry Met Sally" (you KNOW the scene!), as well as "North By Northwest", "The Seventh Seal", "Chinatown", "Fargo" and his own "Butch Cassidy..." There are samples of the screenplays and discussions with some of the authors about these scenes, and the information given is invaluable in helping budding screenwriters improve their own work.

Section III is simply "Stories". Here, Goldman looks at "figuring out what movie stories are, and trying to tell them as well as they should be told." Goldman looks at four story ideas culled from newspaper clippings and looks at how he would develop them into movies, all the time challenging you to decide how you would do them. As he admits, he is not always right and sometimes you have to decide for
yourself if you can "make it play".

The final section is a specially written portion of an original screenplay entitled "The Big A", which Goldman wrote especially for the book. He then sent it out to some ‘friendly’ screenwriters asking them to critique it and make suggestions on how to make it better. He has really opened himself up to criticism here, but he respects it because it comes from other writers whom he trusts. It is fascinating to see how each approach it completely differently, some tweaking it, some completely re-arranging it. These are respected and successful writers, such as The Farrellys and Callie Khouri (who won an Oscar for "Thelma and Louise") and their input is as useful as it is varied.

Whether you buy this book just for an entertaining read or as a help to further your own writing career, I am sure you will enjoy what is a thoroughly absorbing and frequently hilarious read.

ISBN – 0-7475-5317-3 (Paperback).

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