Why is Ed Zwick such a rarity in Hollywood?

Hits, flops, and other illusions
Written by Ed Zwick
Gallery Books, 304 pages, $29

Ed Zwick opens Hits, flops, and other illusions, His engaging, panoramic memoir of 40 years as a writer and director for television and film, told by laughing at himself – and the irony inherent in the job.

Here he is, “just a human behind the camera watching the drama of gods and goddesses… and then getting into a whirlwind of nonsense where he’s supposed to tell everyone what they’re doing wrong.” He writes that he imagines himself as a man. But he knows he’s just Ahab in a baseball cap who wants what he wants and wants it now.

Zwick’s tone is self-aware and funny, using humor to advance serious, sometimes profound, observations about directing, acting, and evolution—or is it a paradigm shift? – Hollywood between the years Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Wonder Woman (2017).

While other directors were concocting superhero fantasies, Zwick pursued human dramas (and the occasional comedy) inspired by real-life genre heroes. For example, the African American unit that fought Confederate soldiers in the Civil War epic Glory. And Jews who kill Nazis hide in a Belarusian forest in this World War II thriller the challenge. And major pharmaceutical companies sell Viagra Love and other drugs.

Zwick was the man who saw the possibilities in Mark Norman’s satirical script Shakespeare in love, He enlisted Tom Stoppard to add a touch of humor and poignancy. It attracted Julia Roberts, then 23, to come on board before suddenly jumping ship. After spending $6 million in pre-production, the studio was unable to find a bankable replacement. Harvey Weinstein took over the property, ousting Zwick from the directing job. Fortunately, the now-disgraced mogul couldn’t get Zwick off his producer credit. Thus, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is worth noting that as Hollywood films swelled to gigantic proportions, Zwick’s films remained human-sized.

Since his first victory in television series with his old partner Marshall Herskovitz) through films such as Autumn legends And Love and other drugs, He balanced his interest in group dynamics with the individual’s place within the group. In other words, he specialized in films for adults. There is a bonus memoir at the end of almost every chapter, where there is a useful and entertaining list of wisdom that Zwick has collected over the years.

Screenwriting is one thing. Bringing him back to life is another thing. This is where Zwick’s book distinguishes itself Adventures in the screen tradeWritten by William Goldman, written from the point of view of a screenwriter who believes the screenplay is sacred. He criticized the directors, ungratefully accusing them of being “script killers.” Zwick writes from the consciousness of both writers And The director, is very grateful for what the actors, crew members and happy accidents bring to the game.

He is skilled at creating recognizable situations and dialogue in his scripts and bringing them to the screen. He’s the first to admit that sometimes his best scenes emerge from a chance moment on set.

Takes GloryIt is the first of three films he made with Denzel Washington. With Washington and Morgan Freeman on set, Zwick recalls, “the actors discovered implications and nuances” that Zwick, the writer, had been oblivious to.

“Sometimes, silence is the best attitude of all,” Zwick discovered.

Or take an example courage under fire, Where Meg Ryan plays Gulf War medevac officer, Captain Walden. While rehearsing for the role of the squad leader, who is mortally wounded when she is shot during a rescue mission, a crew member pleads with her to lie down on the ground. “I just had a nine-pound baby, you idiot! I think I can handle it!” said Ryan through gritted teeth. Zwick immediately incorporated that line into the script.

Directed by Tom Cruise in the last samurai, Zwick realized that sometimes the best direction is the wrong direction. He wanted Cruise to be more “emotionally revealing.” “He didn’t want Cruz.” Try To make something happen, he “wanted it to happen.” As the sun was setting and Zwick became concerned about the loss of available light, he turned to the actor. “Tell me about your son,” he said, which turned out to be the key to uncovering the star’s weaknesses. Zwick saw Cruz looking in while “the window appeared to have opened and his eyes softened.”

Love and other drugs, which got the green light on the same day Zwick was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, could have been a case of hitting a script too close to home. The film, about a drug salesman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who falls in love with an artist battling early Parkinson’s disease (Anne Hathaway), reflects both the negative and positive sides of the pharmaceutical industrial complex.

Each actor initially faced an emotional scene at the end of the film. Gyllenhaal delivered his dialogue first, and it was Hathaway’s off-camera tears that helped him get back on his feet. When it was Hathaway’s turn for the close-up, she couldn’t cry. After several failed attempts, Zwick put his arm around her. He reassured her that she was great in the movie, and that there was absolutely no reason to cry in that scene. She immediately burst into tears and called Zwick “action.” Direction by mistake, instinct, or chance?

Zwick is neither a chatterbox nor a score-settler. However, his memoirs do not lack dish. Consider two scenes of the making blood diamond, About the civil war in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s.

When the production, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly, left the small village in Mozambique where they filmed some scenes, Zwick was surprised to see heavy bulldozers plowing through the land. Someone arranged for a new well to be drilled. Believing that each location should be left in better condition than the production found it, DiCaprio quietly put the matter in order.

But instead of nominating the actor for beatification, Zwick tells a contradictory tale. One morning, the director walked into the makeup trailer to discuss the day’s work with his actors. DiCaprio was browsing through a Victoria’s Secret catalog while the artists prepped Connelly for the camera. Surprised by his star’s reading material, Zwick asked what DiCaprio, who was then among his girlfriends, was doing.“the shopping,” Connelly deadpanned.

Blood diamond It made a profit of $40 million. Over lunch, studio head Alan Horn told Zwick that he loved the film—but that it would be the last of its kind the studio would make. “The $40 million has no impact on the stock price,” Horn said.

“I realized there are four ways to measure film, and the first three don’t count,” he writes. “Box office is a false accounting, critics no longer matter, and awards are forgotten within days. Time is the only measure.”

By Zwick’s own measure – and the staying power of many of his films – time is on his side.