Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film

Today Sundance is the most important film festival this side of Cannes, and Miramax has become an industry giant. Likewise, the directors who emerged from the independent movement, such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and David O. Russell, are now among the best-known directors in Hollywood. Not to mention the actors who emerged with them, like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurman.

Candid, penetrating, and controversial, Down and Dirty Pictures is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world and where it's headed.

Amazon.com Review
You've heard the rumors. The film industry is filled with ruthless executives who think nothing of brow-beating their employees, of using creative accounting to cheat filmmakers, and re-cutting a director's vision into a soulless crowd-pleaser. Well, it turns out those rumors are often true--at least according to Peter Biskind's highly entertaining Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film. Packed with industry anecdotes and history, the book chronicles the growth and eventual mainstreaming of independent films and offers the back-story to seminal works including sex, lies, and videotape and Pulp Fiction among others. Biskind, author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, divides most of his time between Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford and Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. Biskind simultaneously credits these two as fostering, though ultimately ruining, the purity of indpendent film. Other indies are largely left out, although the now-defunct October Films appears prominently in the role of noble failure. Biskind has serious points to make, but he's not stingy with the war stories, either. (One particularly amusing scene involves October executives chasing Robert Duvall's agent through a Sheraton Hotel in an attempt to stop him from making a deal with Miramax to distribute The Apostle.) Those who have only a passing interest in the movie business may tire of Biskind's oft-repeated themes (Weinstein is an evil genius! Redford is a passive-aggressive control freak!) but for those who truly love film industry gossip, Down and Dirty Pictures is a feast of insider stories--each tidbit juicier than the last. --Leah Weathersby

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Interesting at first, then gets repetitive and boring, 2006-07-24
Mr Biskind's previous book, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" was far better, simply because the people he wrote about (directors like Friedkin, Scorsese, Altman, etc.) were more interesting people and filmmakers. I never had the feeling that the author really cared about the movies he was writing about. This book is really about Miramax and Harvey Weinstein and once you've understood that Harvey Weinstein is a savvy producer but also a monster prone to uncontrollable fits of rage, you've understood 70% of the book's content. There are some interesting passages, mainly about Tarantino and Soderbergh, but the same story could have been told in a much shorter form. I often had the impression that the publisher badly wanted a 400 pages book, even if 250 pages would have been more than enough.


2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Gossipy history of '90s movies, 2006-04-28
In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind chronicled the history of movie-making in the 1970s (or more specifically, in the period spanned by the two movies in his title). In simple terms, this was a period of good moviemaking, when the studios, desperate for success, allowed greater creativity; such big names as Scorcese, Coppola and Spielberg came out of this period. The end of this era began with Jaws and Star Wars, which made the studios focus more heavily on blockbusters and be less willing to take chances.

Down and Dirty Pictures is the follow-up to Easy Riders, focusing on the independent movie movement of the 1990s. An introductory section discusses the 1980s, making that decade seem creatively arid compared to the eras before and after it. By the end of the `80s, the studios were still obsessed with the big moneymakers, but there was a burgeoning independent film movement that was producing the daring (sometimes good, sometimes bad) movies that the studios wouldn't touch. The bulk of the book deals with the rise and (sort of) fall of the independents.

Easy Riders dealt primarily with the creative people, particularly the directors who defined the `70s "New Hollywood" movement; Down and Dirty Pictures shifts the focus to the producers, perhaps appropriate as it deals with the money-obsessed `80s and `90s (actually all decades are money-obsessed, it's just that some eras are more blatant in their obsession). There are no real heroes in this book, but there are villains, especially Miramax's Harvey Weinstein whose dubious business practices, tendency to demand excessive edits (he received a nickname of Harvey Scissorhands) and volatile temper make him an ideal bad guy. There are other villains too: Harvey's brother Bob, and to a much lesser extent, Robert Redford. The heart of the book is on Miramax, however, and its story is the story of the independent movement. There is a secondary story with Redford and the Sundance Film Festival, but Biskind seems to lose interest in this topic, and it quickly fades more or less into the background.

There are certain loose parallels that can be drawn between the two books. As Easy Rider marked the unofficial beginning of the New Hollywood movement, so did the Independent movement start with Sex, Lies and Videotape. Both periods would have movies, that while top-notch themselves, would also present major threats: Star Wars, as noted before, would really kickstart the idea of the blockbuster, forcing the studios to pay big money to seek big paydays; Pulp Fiction would really push independent movies into the mainstream, creating that same desire for the blockbuster. If, however, Biskind defines Raging Bull as the unofficial end of New Hollywood, there is no similar end for the Independents. They remain, but Miramax, like the pigs in Animal Farm, has changed so much that it now closely resembles the very entities that it once rebelled against.

This is all intriguing stuff, of which I'm providing only a crude summary. Overall, Biskind does a good job, but sometimes reading him is like studying something through a flawed piece of glass. None of the angles give you the true picture, but if you combine all the views, you get something approaching reality. So much of the book is based on interviews (each with their own biases and contradictions) that many of the accounts within must be taken with a grain of salt. Adding to this is Biskind's own opinions, which pepper the book and remove the objectivity that a book on this topic would benefit by. And there are also little flaws, in particular misspellings of names (such as Jennifer "Anniston") and an incomplete index, but these may be more the fault of the publisher than Biskind. Overall, however, this is a good book and an entertaining read for movie fans who want to know what goes on behind the scenes.



1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

NOT REALLY DOWN, NOT REALLY DIRTY, 2006-01-29
Title is misleading if you are expecting a behind the closet door revelation of Independent Film Makers. That said, interesting read, with some new pertinent facts or fables that I had not heard before. My rating - a good read if you are really interested in film and how the Industry has changed so much since the days when the Majors dictated what we saw. No Jack Warner or DFZ here! But perhaps mores the pity.



0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent follow up to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 2005-12-01
In my opinion Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the best book ever written about film and while this book never quite matches it, it is a very good book in its own right. It tackles the rise (and in Biskind's view fall) of independent film making concentrating on Robert Redford (and the Sundance festival); Harvey and Bob Weinstein (and their company Mirimax) along with a host of film makers and actors including Quentin Tarantino, Stephen Soderbergh, Kevin Smith, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and many others along the way.

Told in much the same style as Easy Riders, Raging Bulls it is a wild mixture of serious comment and salacious gossip. Biskind writes beautifully, handling another huge topic with an enormous cast of characters deftly. He is assisted by the fact that many of the players and the films are already well-known to the reader but he has a wonderful talent for the one-line character profile (often a one-line character assassination) and he chooses his quotes well.

It is evitable given his larger than life personality and aggressive business practices that Harvey Weinstein comes to dominate the book in much the same way as the Weinstein brothers have dominated the independent film business. Harvey Weinstein is a fascinating although in many ways deeply repellent character - very aggressive, prone to outbursts of rage, guilty of some very dubious business practices, a man who will shaft someone just because he can - however he is responsible for some of the best films of recent years and at least he loves movies (unlike some of his competitors). In Biskind's view he made the independent film business. Taking it out of its niche and finding a much wider audience but he is also responsible for corrupting it; as Mirimax increasingly became a studio with a more conservative attitude, eschewing rather than courting controversy, and an ever increasing reliance on stars. This has made life much more difficult for genuine independent film makers like John Sayles and Spike Lee who find it very difficult to get funding.

Absolutely fascinating, particularly if you are familiar with the films of the period (or if you want to be reassured that you do not have the worst boss in the world).



2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Portrait of a bully, 2005-11-16
Peter Biskind's "Down And Dirty Pictures" reflects how much cinema has changed since the golden era of 1970s films chronicled in Biskind's last book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls." The very subject matter covered in "Down and Dirty" - the rise of the "independent" studios and the Sundance Film Festival - is geared more toward the executive than the cinephile. The movies chronicled in "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" - "The Godfather Parts I and II," "Chinatown," "The Exorcist," "Taxi Driver," and "Apocalypse Now" tower over "Pulp Fiction," "Good Will Hunting," "Shakespeare In Love" and "Gangs of New York."

And considering the biggest name in the book, Sundance founder Robert Redford, wouldn't submit to an interview, "Down and Dirty" boils down, essentially, to a gossip rag about Miramax Studios - the ascent, the victories, the flaws, the acquisition by Disney, the ugly battles - and its two co-chairmen, brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein.

The Weinsteins are combination of 1940s studio head, ruthless talent agent and - no other way to put it - spoiled rotten baby. Like Philadelphia Eagles receiver Terrell Owens, they are men whose talents are overshadowed by their sheer need to be loved by everyone, all the time. Victories pale in the shadow of the smallest slights. Biskind accurately portrays - there are enough people on record here to say that he does - the brothers as nothing short of shrewd dictators who have collected lots of trophies but who will, one day, be on the outside looking in.

They have vision, intelligence and the gift of persuasion. They also ride their "favorite" people into the dirt. Others they just treat like the dirt. Biskind recounts tantrum after tantrum, threat after threat, goad after goad. Of course the Weinsteins are successful - they're committed to winning at the cost and detriment of others. While it's revealing to read how the brothers changed the way Oscar campaigns work, they did not change it for the better by stuffing so much marketing down voters throats that they vote Miramax out of sheer saturation. While it's impressive to read how the Weinsteins brought some of the better movies to theaters in the 1990s, it's appalling to see how they treat the talent - aside from Quentin Tarantino - who delivered the art. They bully, cajole, plead, push, prod, stab, clench. Whatever, however, whoever. To a point it is interesting, and then, as Hollywood can be, mind-numbing.

There are good mini-stories within the book. How Matt Damon and Ben Affleck made "Good Will Hunting." How director Wes Craven was almost forced to use a different mask in "Scream." The absurd tale of executives dueling over "Sling Blade" and later "The Apostle." The rise, fall and rise again of Steven Soderbergh is laced throughout the book, and Soderbergh's honesty - about his work and himself - is refreshing. When Biskind actually opens the floor for a philosophical debate about independent studios, Ethan Hawke thoughtfully weighs in. Sundance only emerges in the narrative occasionally; without Redford, I question its existence in the book at all.

Mostly "Down and Dirty" is about the Weinsteins, those who loathe them, and those who make excuses for them. Harvey Weinstein, the more visible and volatile of the two, gave Biskind several interviews, mostly to deny certain events and underline his triumphs. Kevin Smith makes quite a few appearances as a sycophant for Weinstein who can hardly believe he's in the movie business; in one of the book more appalling statements, Smith, who couldn't direct his way out of a paper box, complains that his director of photography on "Dogma" wasn't as talented as he should have been. Tarantino is all id in his interviews, as we've come to expect, but at least he shows a working template for standing up to the Weinsteins.

Biskind tries to end his book a powerful note of failure for Miramax, when "Gangs of New York," the supposed crowning achievement of Martin Scorsese's career, crashes and burns during awards time and at the box office. But Biskind doesn't give the tale nearly enough coverage; it's touched upon and dropped. Unlike "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," Biskind never settles his narrative long enough to enjoy a topic. He flits from emotional fracture to emotional fracture. The book is not warm or fond of much of anything. In 15 years, maybe the views are a bit different. Maybe, by then, the Weinsteins are no longer on top. Maybe Tarantino is a has-been. Maybe Kevin Smith has finally given it up. Maybe there's more perspective. Maybe there's more of a point to this book.

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