Book review – “Rebels on the backlot” by Sharon Waxman

Waxman tries to do an “Easy Riders Raging Bulls” for Gen X, concentrating on six hot directors of the 90s: Tarantino, David O Russell, Fincher, PTA, Sodebergh, Spike Jonze, with emphasis on the director’s personalities and love lives. Problem is, its too soon to get a real idea of the impact of these directors and rather than concentrating on their careers Waxman instead rather gives case studies of specific films – a lot of time is taking up on the making of Boogie Nights, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings and Fight Club, for instance, whereas other movies from the directors are passed by quickly (why not tell us a bit more about Se7en or Adaptation or Kill Bill?). Those are good films and the book is worth reading from that point of view.

There was a fair bit I didn’t know – Clooney and Russell came to blows making Three Kings, Jonze got John Malkovich to appear in his film by calling on father in law Francis Ford Coppola to make a phone call, Sodebergh had an erratic love life, Aussie producer Ross Bell got Fight Club optioned by having actors read a copy of the book, taping that and playing it to a producer, Russell Crowe was interested in the project and had a bigger fan club so probably would have made the film a bigger hit, Tarantino spent a lot of the late 90s smoking cones watching crappy old movies. And its always worth being reminded how hard it is to get a good movie through the Hollywood system.

But the book is full of irritating inaccuracies (Peter Jackson is not Australia) and hyperbole (there was such a thing as independent film before the 80s – heard of John Cassavetes?). Waxam also takes an annoying narky tone towards her subjects, tsk tsking Tarantino for snubbing his former video mates (maybe they were losers – although it was mean to dump his manager), creating the “myth” of his poor upbringing and not giving his mother lots of money (OK he hyped it a little and his mum was an achiever – but he still had no father, his mother went through several relationships, he was raised by his grandma for a few years when mum couldn’t hack it, and went away for a year to Tennessee – it wasn’t the most stable upbringing), and for crying out loud – this goes for most writers on Hollywood – stop taking writers claims “I wrote most of that script” at face value, you have to actually read the different versions.

She also takes PTA to task for being an egomaniac (which sounds very believable – his films do need cutting) and Clooney for continually going on about the fight with Russell and Russell for hiring a publicist. She seems to like Sodebergh, Jonze and Fincher. There is a lot better book to be written about this period.