Book review - "The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood" by NIcholas Meyer (2009)

I've always liked Meyer since reading an interview with him in a book of screenwriting interviews - he came across as smart and down to earth with a relatively high brow (for Hollywood) group of credits: the good Star Trek movies, Time After Time, Sommersby, The Seven Percent Solution, The Human Stain.

His rise was relatively rapid though like all Hollywood memoirists he's keen to paint himself as an underdog -he went to a midwest college, was a film critic, got a job working as publicity for Paramount, wrote a book about the making of Love Story which financed a move to Los Angeles, got his first screen credit with Invasion of the Bee Girls, did some TV movies, wrote a novel during the Writers Guild strike that became a best seller which was filmed, became a director with Time After Time, moved into Star Trek land and also directed the TV classic The Day After.

There's plenty of Star Trek stuff in here - Meyer's no dummy, he knows who the key audience is. The making of these movies was remarkably confrontational - Gene Rodenberry whinged from his death bed, Paramount politics, egos of Nimoy and Shatner, getting the tone and the story right while not being steeped in series lore. The lesser known Part 6 gets a guernsey which is good and he's nice about Star Trek The Motion Picture which is classy.

He doesn't neglect his other movies and books though - writing The Seven Percent Solution (leading to a little essay-ish bit on how to write a pastiche),  writing and directing Time After Time, the difficulties of The Day After (a nightmare with a big personal pay off), directing Volunteers in Mexico and The Deceivers in India, his script doctoring of Fatal Attraction, the mess that was Company Business, writing Sommersby and The Human Stain (where he was rewritten by Robert Benton).

He is less forthcoming on the personal tragedies in his life - the death of his mother from ovarian cancer in her forties, the death of his wife from breast cancer just as young (which derailed his directing career) - though there is a marvelous anecdote of him and Pierce Brosnan having a widower lunch, both crying in grief, then being distracted by a large breasted woman walking past... that is a very male story.

There's interesting digressions on the nature of creativity, where ideas come from, and so on, as well as the general whingeing that Hollywood has gone to sh*t. Meyer is a fine writer and the book is a pleasure to read.