The last hundred pages I've read of Biskind's Down and Dirty pictures has been very informative. I grew up in the 90s and I remember watching Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction on VHS. I borrowed from the local video store. Those stores aren't around anymore. Yet, the book tells the interesting and improbable story of Tarrantino. A video store clerk who becomes a global film phenomenon. One year he's an unknown and the next he's dating Mira Sorvino. Pulp Fiction was a huge hit, it brought Miramax big box office and critical acclaim. It made Tarrantino a rock-star director. He even got leverage over the Weinstein brothers which was unheard of. Yet, Pulp Fiction also spelled the end of the glory days of American Indie Cinema. It made it into a lottery where instead of filmmakers wanting to make good films, they all wanted to make Pulp Fiction. I remember that there were a crop of films that were remarkably similar to Pulp Fiction. Just as violent, sexy, provocative. I think Biskind puts it at 1994 when the Indie film movement went into decline. I think his assessment is right. I can't remember so many indie films from the late 90s from the States. And Miramax, which sold out to Disney, which I couldn't understand at all, moved away from doing edgy, avant garde films that might not do good box office, but were good films.
The book talks about The English Patient, a favorite film of mine. It gives all the dish about how it was almost not made, then finally, with Harvey Weinstein's help, it did get made. It was a Zaul Saentz production and all the talent took a defferred salaries most of which were never paid. The film went on to gross something like 220 million, and all Harvey Weinstein had to pay was for foreign distribution rights of 10 million dollars. Zaentz threatened to sue, but Weinstein simply said that "we're Walt Disney we have a hundred lawyers." I'm glad the film got made. Yet, it shows, even in the throws of the indie golden age, how hard it is to get a great movie produced.
Harvey, as I will call him, is the most colorful character of the book. His appetite is enormous, his drive is relentless, and his abilities at acquiring films and negotiating deals are legendary. He married a WASP, he was a Jew. He comes from a humble background in Queens. One story Biskind tells is of Harvey at Martha's Vineyard in "WASP" central and he wast he only Jew there. Perhaps this commeuppance is why he turned away from making the films that Miramax made it's bones with. After Pulp Fiction, the English Patient, and some other films he was worth over 100 million dollars, correct me if I'm wrong. He makes the book enjoyable and is in stark contrast to the rather palid character of Robert Redford, the head of Sundance and the other major character in the book. They are very much polar opposites. Redford aloof and evasive. Harvey obsessive and controlling every detail. Yet both fuel the independent movement on opposite ends.
Biskind also talks about young filmmakers from the 90s; Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Kevin Smith, Ed Burns, Steven Soderbergh, and Todd Solenz among others. He gives the dish about how they got their films made, whether they were flops and in most cases, modest successes. It was interesting to learn all the details about Good Will Hunting which Miramax rescued.
So far the book is interesting, like Raging Bulls, it is informative, it's more than just a gossip column. It delves deep into the film culture of the 1990s, and reveals how the films got acquired which seemed to be the way which films were distributed in those days. I don't know if acquisitions is still the way to get a film to an audience, but some of the stories Biskind tells in the book are intense. I can't believe film executives would pay so much money for a film they have only seen 10 or 15 minutes of.
Lastly, many of the filmmakers talked about in the book seemed to have gotten a bad deal. Many of them never made any money or sold at a price far less then the film took in at the box office. The Weinsteins in particular were tough customers. Yet, I guess back in those days if you had film that was indie or edgy, you wanted to be bought buy Miramax. I'll have to keep reading the book to find out exactly what happens to Miramax, because if I recall correctly it runs into financial troubles. I'm looking forward to the end of the book.
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