Which Lie Did I Tell? : More Adventures in the Screen Trade

A very interesting book....it may not work very well as a book about how to be a screenwriter (or maybe it does work well in that regard....I'm not trying to be a screenwriter and wasn't reading it for that reason), but Goldman is a great writer who's fun to read. His memories of his work in Hollywood and his honest and blunt opinions are fun to read and the book zips by.

Goldman wrote the original screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the screen plays for his novels, The Princess Bride and Marathon Man, and many others, including All the President’s Men, Misery, and Maverick. This is an insider’s at what goes into a screen play, why and how movies get made and why they do not, working with actors and directors, what makes a movie good and why movies often differ from the books they are based on. Goldman dissects several famous scenes including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid jumping off the cliff, the orgasm scene in When Sally Met Harry and the crop duster scene in North by Northwest. In the final part of the book Goldman presents an original screen play and invites the reader to show more diagnose it as he goes along. Then he has four screen writers critique the screen play. Their comments are insightful but brutal. Along the way, Goldman shares details of his personal history. Although the book is somewhat rambling, I found it fascinating. It will be interesting to anyone who enjoys film. show less

This is a book about how to write screenplays, and if anyone knows how to do that, it's Goldman. It's got some great insights, and realistic tips on what you should and and shouldn't do. It's also chock full of anecdotes where he namedrops Hollywood stars like mad.
And did he really write "Good Will Hunting" ? Find out here, maybe :-)

Well-written and entertaining tales from the movie business. Refreshingly free of BS (indeed, an antidote to it)