Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate (Steven Bach, 1985 / 1996, Pimlico)
This is probably the classic text on
the making of a movie.
Steven
Bach was an executive at United Artists during the ill-fated production
of Michael Cimino's epic flop Heaven's Gate, and this account
gives a fascinating inside view of the process whereby a film goes
wrong. While Bach's account is inevitably somewhat self-serving, it
doesn't fundamentally shift blame to others: instead, it shows the way
in which such a large
undertaking as the production of a movie can go wrong as a result of a
series of decisions that seem quite reasonable at the time. It's also
of interest as a record of the passing of an era, in that United
Artists'
demise marked the end of old fashioned studios based around a central
"mogul"
(Arthur Krim in UA's case), and the start of the new era of studios as
subsidiaries
of globalised corporations. Bach's account also includes lots of
titbits
about other films in production at the time, such as Raging Bull
and Manhattan.Click here
to buy this book from Amazon.Related Items
For more on this book see my review of Heaven's Gate.
