Film Flam

[iembalm]

In 1987, Larry McMurtry put out a book called Film Flam that collected some of his essays on Hollywood, with a specific bent to screenwriting. In addition to being interestingly written and funny, it's amazingly detailed, considered, and informative, especially the parts about the relationship between screenwriter and director, producer, etc. I'm not sure if it's still in print, but it's worth a trip to the library for.

[BurntUmber]

Film Flam has a special place in my library. I particularly like McMurtry's essay on Westerns. It's still in print,and available used and in libraries.

I just ran across McMurtry's non-fiction book, Roads: Driving America's Great Highways. In one section, he talks about driving LA highways, and his experiences as a screenwriter in H'wood.

As a young writer, he saw LA in terms of freedom, glamor, cash. A great town with great used bookstores. In his sixties he recognizes, with no bitterness or rancor, that the studio types he sees in meetings aren't merely half his age, they're barely a third. He understands that he and these young people have little to talk about, and that today's H'wood is not so welcoming a place for a grand old man of letters.