Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade
by William GoldmanPantheon Books, 384 pp., $26
William Goldman tells the truth, and it hurts. In his bestselling 1983 book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman coined a phrase about Hollywood that is as accurate today as it was nearly 20 years ago: “Nobody knows anything.” The Academy Award-winning screenwriter (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men) doesn’t pull any punches in his sequel, Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade.
Arguably the world’s most successful screenwriter, Goldman begins the new volume by admitting that even his career has had its problems. He confesses to being a “leper” from 1980 until 1985. He writes, “Let me explain what that means: the phone stopped ringing — no one called with anything resembling a job offer.” Not many other people in the film business would admit that their prospects for work were bleak, much less broadcast it to the world. But Goldman has always been frank in his assessment of the entertainment industry and his own work.
Most fledgling screenwriters want to believe there are secrets to the trade, but as Goldman makes clear, “All it takes for the worst screenplay of all time to become the best screenplay of all time is the news Tom Cruise wants to do it.” The secrets of screenwriting are simple: There are no secrets. There is no magic formula, he adds, “No right or wrong storytelling answer exists. Ever.” And when it comes to the hotly debated auteur theory of filmmaking, where directors take credit as the “author” of the work, Goldman bluntly tells would-be screenwriters, “Tattoo this behind your eyeballs: Directors have no vision.” I have yet to meet a film director that would disprove him.
Goldman doesn’t think moviemaking has improved with age. Acknowledging his status as an “old fart in good standing,” he thinks the 1990s were the “worst decade in Hollywood history.” Camera work that draws attention to itself and the unrestrained use of technology have resulted in movies today that “are too often a blizzard of cuts.” Goldman warns screenwriters not to succumb to the comforts of mindless entertainment. “It’s easier, as the audience dumbs down and expects less, to be satisfied with less than our best work.” At a time when the lines between commercial studio and independent films are blurred, he makes a simple distinction, “Hollywood films reinforce, reassure. Independent films unsettle.” I had to shout from the “Amen!” corner when I read Goldman’s withering appraisal of a recent overblown Hollywood war movie, “I still almost have to vomit when I think of the last hour of Saving Private Ryan.”
For screenwriters, some advice: Stop entering screenplay contests. Stop paying for screenwriting workshops taught by snake oil salesmen. Throw out the Syd Field, Lew Hunter, and Linda Seger books. Buy Robert McKee’s Story (Goldman himself recommends his seminar) and William Goldman’s Which Lie Did I Tell? You will never need another “how-to” manual.
This article appears in March 10 • 2000.