100 Books Like Pictures at a Revolution

We believe you can learn more from failure than success. Misfires don’t come much bigger than the 1990 adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s blockbuster novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. The movie busted nary a block, which only makes director Brian De Palma’s willingness to open up the process to reporter/critic Salamon more remarkable.

This visits every department—including our favorite, costume design—and underscores that no one knows if a movie will be a smash or a flop while they’re making it, so cast and crew work just as hard on both. We love the story of second-unit director Eric Schwab seizing the opportunity to prove himself.

Until I read Wasson’s provocative book, it was my understanding that Robert Towne crafted his Oscar-winning Chinatown script with guidance from his star (Jack Nicholson), producer (Robert Evans), and director (Roman Polanski), all of whom urged Towne to find a cogent narrative inside a sprawling concept embedded with powerful metaphors.

Then Wasson debunked the romantic myth of the genius scribe working in isolation by revealing not just the extent of Polanski’s notes but, even more explosively, the involvement of Edward Taylor as Towne’s “editor” and possible uncredited co-writer. I didn’t think it was possible for me to be shocked anymore by discoveries about my chosen field, but Wasson’s book reminded me that solo screenwriting credits are, at best, abstractions and, at worst, misnomers.

I’ve been a fan of Josh Karp’s for years. So much so, that at this point I just blindly trust his taste. If he thinks something is worth writing about, I tend to end up agreeing. In Orson Welles’ Last Movie, he puts on his private-eye hat and starts digging into the legendary Citizen Kane director’s unfinished final film, The Other Side of the Wind (it was completed after Karp’s book was published and aired on Netflix). Yes, the story is about an auteur’s quest to realize his vision against crushing odds, but it’s also about something much larger—a promising young genius who tragically flamed out too soon and battled with every last breath and cent to do what he was born to do. Parts of it almost read like a Shakespearian tragedy.

When I first read this years ago, it struck me as one of the great books about directing—Steven Spielberg’s ingenuity is a major focus. Revisiting it today, I realize it’s equally valuable as a screenwriting resource because serving a director’s vision is a huge part of the screenwriting life.

As Gottlieb recounts, making Jaws wasn’t stressful just because the mechanical shark kept malfunctioning but because of the pressure Spielberg was under to transform a pulpy bestseller into a crowd-pleasing spectacle. Gottlieb, the third writer to work on the project, offers his unique perspective on the all-too-common scenario of starting a production without a finished script.

Every time I return to this book, I discover another insight about screenwriting, about filmmaking, and about creativity.

This book opens with an absolutely breathtaking passage, one of my favorite openings in any book ever. One imagines Niven narrating his memoir poolside, gripping a cigarette and a martini in the same fist, his pince-nez mustache dancing up and down while he describes, in sordid detail, old-school Hollywood at its most louche. If you want a book that brings alive the atmosphere of a bygone era, this is it.

In 1988, a book on film history became an unexpected cultural classic. This book tells how a handful of Jewish immigrants from a very small area of central Europe became Hollywood moguls, effectively creating the screen imagery depicting the American dream.

The moguls’ identity as migrants and marginalized people was crucial to their success. As Gabler writes, precisely because of their striving and desire to belong, a former peddler, cobbler, junk seller, and other impoverished transplants concocted the gilded fantasies of Hollywood’s Golden Age. As a group biography and industrial history of Hollywood illusion, An Empire of Their Own is not usually considered in the same vein as The Power Broker’s bricks-and-mortar history.

Yet, in today’s screen-driven world, the legacy of these early media titans is more obvious than ever. The movie moguls’ quintessentially American story of immigration, success, and reinvention is also a prescient, more fully inclusive history of… show more.

Isenberg has explored all the Hollywood archives and has produced a delightful and fascinating story of the actors, the director and producer, the writers, and all the technicians who created the film. A splendid guide to Casablanca and a great example of an in-depth, how-it-was-made history of a single film. 

This book remains the pinnacle of memoirs, in my opinion.

Didion’s ability to weave biting social commentary with vivid, unforgettable anecdotes continues to inspire me. I’m grateful to my creative nonfiction professor, Michael Hofmann, for assigning this book. Her language is rich, precise, and full of wit, and it kept me hanging on every word until the very end.

Unique among those in Hollywood who dove head first into the American counterculture, Jane Fonda proved too committed to dismiss as a dilettante, too persistent to just fade away, too formidable for the FBI to destroy. Bosworth, a veteran Hollywood biographer (she has written books on Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando as well) uniquely understands political celebrity; she’s never dismissive, but she’s not so easy on her subject either. Because she knows better: Bosworth’s father was the Hollywood 10 attorney Bart Crum. Bosworth surely understands the risks involved in Left-wing celebrity.

The best book written about 1960’s Pop-Culture madness and mayhem. As founding member of The Fugs and a unique literary voice, Ed Sanders tells this tale brilliantly. The warning signs, the goosebumps, and knowing when it’s time to stop are all there in The Family.