Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film
by Peter Biskind
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter BiskindEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-12-21
ISBN: 0684862581
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film
Book Review: Sticking with a Format that Works for Him
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the third Biskind book I have read. The first I picked up was his famous Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Enjoying it so much, I purchased this book as well as Seeing is Believing, his book about the 50s. Seeing is Believing was a big letdown, as my review for the book demonstrates. It was with trepidation that I picked up Down and Dirty Pictures, but I was happy to see Biskind was sticking with his Easy Riders formula.
Using Sundance and Miramax as his focal point, Biskind explores the so-called independent film movement from the late 1980s until around 2002. I say so-called independent film because Biskind pretty well demonstrates that by the mid 1990s most of what was hyped as independent film was being driven by studio divisions dedicated to them. I have no doubt true independent film still exists, but once Miramax shifted from acquisitions to production and studios began buying up companies like Miramax, folks with their own cameras and a few friends seem less likely to get distribution agreements.
Biskind seems to have done extensive interviewing, though he acknowledges in the preface that he had access to the Weinsteins, the top men at Miramax, but had much more limited access to the folks at Sundance, including Robert Redford. As a result, the book deals more extensively with Miramax than Sundance. At times, it can become a little gossipy but those stories do a good job of demonstrating the personalities of the business and some of its harsh financial realities.
If you read this book, you will walk away with a good understanding of the economics of the business, especially in the 1990s. You will also end up with a list of movies to add to your netflix list or to pick up at blockbuster.
Of course, the book ends just before the Weinsteins split from Miramax (their baby from the start, named after their parents Miriam and Max) and started a new production company. Still, it encapsulates a moment in time where the Sundance Film Festival and Miramax exploded into the film industry and helped drive tremendous creative output that for the first time, reached an audience outside of Park City, Los Angeles, and New York.
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Summary of Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film
Down and Dirty Pictures chronicles the rise of independent filmmakers and of the twin engines -- the Sundance Film Festival and Miramax Films -- that have powered them. As he did in his acclaimed Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind profiles the people who took the independent movement from obscurity to the Oscars, most notably Sundance founder Robert Redford and Harvey Weinstein, who with his brother, Bob, made Miramax an indie powerhouse.Today Sundance is the most important film festival this side of Cannes, and Miramax has become an industry giant. Likewise, the directors who emerged from the independent movement, such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and David O. Russell, are now among the best-known directors in Hollywood. Not to mention the actors who emerged with them, like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurman.
Candid, penetrating, and controversial, Down and Dirty Pictures is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world and where it's headed.
You've heard the rumors. The film industry is filled with ruthless executives who think nothing of brow-beating their employees, of using creative accounting to cheat filmmakers, and re-cutting a director's vision into a soulless crowd-pleaser. Well, it turns out those rumors are often true--at least according to Peter Biskind's highly entertaining Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film. Packed with industry anecdotes and history, the book chronicles the growth and eventual mainstreaming of independent films and offers the back-story to seminal works including sex, lies, and videotape and Pulp Fiction among others. Biskind, author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, divides most of his time between Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford and Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. Biskind simultaneously credits these two as fostering, though ultimately ruining, the purity of indpendent film. Other indies are largely left out, although the now-defunct October Films appears prominently in the role of noble failure. Biskind has serious points to make, but he's not stingy with the war stories, either. (One particularly amusing scene involves October executives chasing Robert Duvall's agent through a Sheraton Hotel in an attempt to stop him from making a deal with Miramax to distribute The Apostle.) Those who have only a passing interest in the movie business may tire of Biskind's oft-repeated themes (Weinstein is an evil genius! Redford is a passive-aggressive control freak!) but for those who truly love film industry gossip, Down and Dirty Pictures is a feast of insider stories--each tidbit juicier than the last. --Leah Weathersby
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