A Hollywood Primer by Bruce Feirstein

A Hollywood Primer
by Bruce Feirstein

If you spend any time working inthe movie business, sooner or later you learn there's a subtle game ofone-upmanship that goes on. It's a sophisticated game that one plays in orderto be perceived as an insider-and not at all dissimilar from the manner inwhich otherwise socialized packs of vicious jackals rip into one another's throatson the African veldt in order to establish dominance.

The object in Hollywood,however, is to establish your "cinematic bona fides" and stake out your position on the food chain (or car-valet returnline). And as an added benefit--if that's how one terms "collateral damage"--youget to not only crush someone's ego but render their life, connections, andaccomplishments utterly worthless. All of this, of course, is merely an adjunctto the old Hollywood ethos that "it's not enough for me to succeed; my friendsmust fail," but let's not get into that right now.

The ritual I'm describing hereis often witnessed during meetings or at film-festival panels where the goal isalways to reference the single most obscure Swedish, French, Japanese, orSpanish film possible. Better still if the film was never dubbed into English.Or, best of all, never even released. And if this doesn't work, simply invokethe "Buñuel." Almost no one I know in modern Hollywood has actually ever seen afilm directed by Luis Buñuel, but it's always a conversation stopper. "Iunderstand what Michael Bay is trying to accomplish, but Buñuel did it first."

On a more practical level,however, this game is played on a far more convivial and social setting-sort oflike a steel-cage death match on a Bel Air tennis court-with hand grenades. Towit: if someone says they went to a movie premiere, you must immediatelycounter, "I saw a rough cut." (Note: Again, almost no one in Hollywood actuallyknows what a "rough cut" is, save, perhaps, Harvey Weinstein. But he's nottelling.) If they claim to have seen a rough cut, you were on the set. If theywere on the set, you read the first draft. And if they read-or wrote-the firstdraft, you had the idea fifteen years ago but passed on it because it wasn't commercial.Game, set, match.

We can now move on to the secondinviolate rule-and ritual-in Hollywood: taking credit. In Hollywood, the basicsocial contract is that "I'll believe you're an actress if you believe I'm aproducer." And this is followed closely by the notion that perception is reality: You're only as respected asthe reputation you've managed to promote. Put another way: Failure is anorphan, but success has twenty-six coproducers. (Actually, success hastwenty-six producers, eleven executive producers, twenty-two coproducers, oneline-producer, four uncredited writers, the director, the leading man'smanager, one extremely disgruntled original screenwriter who would have beenmuch happier if they'd stuck to his original script . . . plus six Germanfinancial entities, each of whom has a single-card animated logo at thebeginning of the film.)

So what does all this mean, on apractical level? Simple: nobody knows for certain anyway. So if it ain't naileddown, take credit for it. No matter how specious or completely tangential youraffiliation may have been with a film--"I once dated the director's mother'spodiatrist's car detailer"--it is your moral right and social imperative to takecredit for all of it. In my own career, I first learned about this back when Iwas working on the lot at Metro, in 1938. I'd just finished doing a two-weekpunch-up on Oz (my contribution: TinMan-needs a heart) when David Selznick called in a panic. He had Rhett, he hadScarlett, he had the Civil War, but he didn't have an ending.

"What am I going to do?" hepleaded.

"Two words," I told him.

"What, what?" he cried.

"Atlanta burns."

Of course, being responsible forthe success of Gone with the Wind isbut one of the very small contributions I've made to the film business. (Noteclosely: false humility. Let the person you're trying to impress stand thereslack-jawed in awe.)

I remember when I first got intothe film business, through Charlie Chaplin. He was a real son of a bitch.Always complaining about one thing or another. And the day I showed up on theset-to serve him a subpoena, if I remember correctly, on some morals charge, Ithink-he was grousing about the caterer. "Yo, Charlie," I told him, "stop yourwhining. Dance with the dinner rolls if you have to. Eat your goddamned shoe."

In 1940, I told Jack Warner:"No. Ilse gets on the plane."

Orson Welles: "Why don't you trydoing something with the sled?"

W. C. Fields: "You can't dance,you can't sing. Work the drink."

And when Billy Wilder and I. A.L. Diamond came down with a case of writer's block, I was always there forthem. Sunset Boulevard? "Do it inflashback." Some Like It Hot? "Put'em in drag." "No. Not The Brownstone.The Apartment."

Needless to say, I could go on.So I will:

When Hitch shot too muchfootage, I told him: "The shower scene? Use a lot of cuts."

Simpson and Bruckheimer? "Pummelthe audience into submission with sound."

Woody Allen and MarshallBrickman? "Lobsters. Play the scene twice."

Spielberg? "Make it a shark."

Scorsese: "Shoot what you know."

Peckinpah: "Slow motion."

Of course, I wasn't alwaysright. And in retrospect, I'm still not entirely convinced, but I suppose I cansee where Jim Cameron was probably better off not doing the Andrea Doria.

The point I'm trying to makehere-and I forget who said it originally, so I'll take full credit-is thatmovies are moments. Glimpses and scenes-Groucho and the boys in the stateroom,Bogie and Raines on the tarmac-are what linger in our memories.

For me, the real test of a filmis when I say I'm going to watch five minutes-and two hours later, I'm stillsitting there as the end credits roll:

Bridge Over the River Kwai. His Lady Eve. The Apartment.Pat and Mike. Thunderball, Dr. Strangelove,The Verdict, Notorious, The Professionals,The Sting. Annie Hall, Animal House,Heaven Can Wait, The African Queen. Rififi,Chinatown. The Man Who Would Be King. AllAbout Eve, The Hustler. To Kill a Mockingbird.

And virtually anything with FredMacMurray, Sean Connery, Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum, Jimmy Stewart, BurtLancaster, or William Holden.

As I think back on my years inthe film business, I suppose my greatest days were in the late '60s. I wasworking on the lot at Paramount. And one Friday, I stumbled back from lunch atMusso's to find a script on my desk from this new young director Coppola. (I'dbeen at lunch with Bill Goldman. He was having problems with an "oater"-a horsepicture, as we used to call 'em. I told him: "Billy boy, you've got ashoot-'em-up. A cowboy picture. Nobody's buying 'em these days. But have youthought about doing it as a comedy?" Funny thing is, I never heard from Goldmanagain. No gift, no flowers, no fruit basket. And nothing-not so much as aword-from Redford or Newman. Not even a case of salad dressing at Christmas.Let me tell you: It's a tough business.)    

It seems that young Francis washaving trouble with a picture. It just wasn't coming together. He asked if I'dtake a look. So I read the script over the weekend and called him Mondaymorning.

"Francis," I said, "It's genius.The script is amazing. A saga. You, this Puzo guy, and Bob Towne--if he goes forcredit: Statues at the show."

I heard him gasp. "But--"

"No, Francis," I interrupted."Listen to me. You've got a chance to make one of the most beloved Americanmovies of all time. A chance to imbue the American culture with characters anddialogue that will live forever.      

"You've got the horse's head inthe bed, the brother-in-law kicking out the windshield, the old man dying inthe tomato patch. The wedding, the assassination of the police captain, themurder at the tollbooth."

"It's almost perfect," I toldhim.

"I know," he said quietly. "Buthow do I fix it?"

"Francis, that's simple," Isaid.

"Make them Italian." 

Bruce Feirstein

Bruce Feirstein is a longtime columnist at The New York Observer, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and the best-selling author of Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. His screenwriting credits include the James Bond films GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough. He is responsible for the female "M" (Dame Judi Dench) calling Bond a "sexist misogynist dinosaur" and for the Robert Maxwell-inspired character Elliot Carver (portrayed by Jonathan Pryce) declaiming, "The distance between sanity and genius is only measured by success."