A review by misterfix
Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting by William Goldman

4.0

This book holds up remarkably well considering when it was written and how much has changed in the industry. Sure there are times it feels a bit too chummy and old-boy network in it's appraisal of the mechanics and process of film making but, well that's how things were and unfortunately largely still are. If you are seeking a book that has a lively narrative flow, provides a broad overview of filmmaking with case studies, a focus on screenwriting but, not a book that is too technical and overly focused on the "correct" way to write a screenplay then this book will be right up your alley. Additionally there are a few snippets of gossip and box office/academy award trivia thrown in to liven things up and contextualize some of his anecdotes.

There were no great revelations for me but I have read a fair number of filmmaking books and made a bunch of features, rather there were a fair number of worthy reminders like "Screenplays are structure" and the idea of a 'spine' and theme statements'. Simple truths like "As a writer I believe that all the basic human truths are known. And what we try to do as best we can is come at those truths from our own unique angle, to reilluminate those truths in a hopefully different way."

I would put this book a bit below Lumet's Making Movies and more in the category of Badham's narrative based filmmaking book "I'll Be In My Trailer".