Home › Books › The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of …
The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood
by
16/99
Critics' Rating Index
48/99
Readers' Rating Index
n/a
Scholars' Citation Index
97/99
Volume of Reviews
78/99
Volume of Reader Ratings
Sign in to add to your shelf, rate, or review this book.
About This Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpiece Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making. In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of the most colorful characters in the most colorful period of Hollywood history. Here is Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers, as compelling a movie star as there has ever been, embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage death of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, the scene of the crime, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here is the fevered dealmaking of "The Kid" Robert Evans, the most consummate of producers. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation. Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the '70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today. In telling that larger story, The Big Goodbye will take its place alongside classics like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and The Devil's Candy as one of the great movie-world books ever written. Praise for Sam Wasson:"Wasson is a canny chronicler of old Hollywood and its outsize personalities...More than that, he understands that style matters, and, like his subjects, he has a flair for it." - The New Yorker"Sam Wasson is a fabulous social historian because he finds meaning in situations and stories that would otherwise be forgotten if he didn't sleuth them out, lovingly." - Hilton Als
Reviews
"It's a bummer of an ending and a disappointing way to celebrate an American classic."
"However, Wasson has an unfortunate habit of cherry-picking facts while ignoring others which may be inconvenient for his purposes ..."
"Wasson portrays drugs and crime in a matter-of-fact manner befitting the movie itself, and he doesn't minimize or romanticize any of the less-than-savory elements involving the principals of the narrative; this applies especially to Polanski ..."
"Wasson, whose biography of Bob Fosse is riveting, makes interesting observations about 1970s moviemaking, but Big Goodbye reads like a book by a writer/researcher who too often was forced to write around missing material and say, 'Forget it, Jake."
"And some thrilling prose re-enactments from the actors' perspective ..."
"...as Sam Wasson shows in compelling detail in his fine new book The Big Goodbye, the makers of Chinatown were simply too young, too ambitious, too controversial, and their movie, while undeniably brilliant, was like a brash finger stuck in the eye of the Hollywood establishment ..."
"Wasson has shown deftness in this genre ..."
"On par with Wasson's exceptional Fosse, this portrait of a neonoir classic will weave a spell over cinephiles."
"a scrupulously researched and reported book with a stellar cast of players, not to mention some astonishing sources ..."
"in Hollywood, but without Tarantino's self-awareness."
Preview
Reader Reviews
0 reviewsSign in to write a review.
No reader reviews yet. Be the first!