My Movie Business : A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: Notes from The Disapproving Stationmaster...
Review: ...I find John Irving highly entertaining and readable and like I have said in numerous occasions in this Readers' Reviewer Forum, he is one of my favorite writers.

Here is his personal account of what it took to get the great novel "The Cider House Rules" to be made into a movie, and although I feel that the novel is 'way better than the movie, the movie is an adequate presentation of the novel--or in other words, I agree with Irving that there are so many pieces of poignancy in the novel that somehow could not be translated in movie terms.

Irving starts this memoir with personal history of his grandfather, Dr. Fritz Irving, who, in spite of his pioneering advances in obstetrics and teaching at Harvard, all his coworkers and students--present day doctors, retired practioners and such--recalls a ribald poem as his enduring contribution. Go figure. John Irving's father was influential in antisceptic technique. The use of rubbergloves in operations (Hence present day hospital activity) came from Dr. Colin Irving. So the upshot is that a combination of Colin and Fritz was John's inspiration, nay, model for Dr. Larch...but we find that propelling the memoir is John wishing not to disappoint mostly Fritz in this total creative effort to get Cider in novel and movie form.

So the story is told of how first he pared the novel down to screen play. The initial version would have been 9 hours long. And there's quite an entertianing section of how he and his first director/collaborator Phillip Borsos got about the business of trying to get the darker version of the film together, one in which Paul Newman was to play the infamous Dr. Larch.

Then, when Borsos died, and the search for another director was in play, Irving tells of his history of making his novels into films. He goes thru what did and did not work with the adaptations of "Setting Free Of The Bears", "The World According to Garp" and "The Hotel New Hampshire", the various directors and actors involved in each and why his novels overall are difficult to capture in a movie. What I liked about this section is that he gives an insight of how research for his writing works in his decription of his work of "A Son of the Circus"...sometimes, serendipity kicks in.

When finally we are taken to his work with director Lasse Hallestrom, we get many of the ins and outs of why certain scenes worked in the movie the way they did--the section on Fuzzy and the young actor who played him is sriking--we get to hear Irving's take on the Homer/Candy relationship, we get why Dickens passages in certain scenes in the novel were excised, Irving talks about actors Caine, Maguire, Theron, Lindo and Badu, and we see if Irving ever felt as if he was coming to some sort of blessing from Dr. Fritz.

I can't tell you whether he has that blessing or not, but what I can tell you is that for me, Irving's movie memoir is just as enjoyable as his novels....find this, read it and enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: a quick, insightful read
Review: After thoroughly enjoying both the film and novel version of "The Cider House Rules," "My Movie Business" seemed the perfect read to bring the two together. I was surprised at how slowly the book started. Although it was interesting to see how Irving's grandfather influenced his book, the first few chapters left me disappointed, and I almost put the book aside for good. Once Irving starts to chronicle the transformation of his novel into a script, however, the book picks up significantly, and can be finished in a day or two (it's only 170 pages long, with gratuitous spacing).

Irving also details the processes of changing his other novels into films, yet because I hadn't read or seen any of them, these sections didn't hold as much value to me as the ones of "The Cider House Rules." If you've seen or read John Irving's novels and films, especially "Cider House," this book gives you a behind the scenes view of the difficulties of making a movie out of an epic book. If you're not a John Irving fan though, you might want to stay away, or at least make a screening and reading of "Cider House" a prerequisite for purchasing "My Movie Business."

Rating:
Summary: Unprintable - Not worth it !
Review: Amazon was in stock then out of stock on paperback edition, after advising book would be shipped and arrive in 2 days.( Then I check and its due to ship in 2 weeks.) I needed it to review for college assignment,so had no choice but to buy download version.I missed the " can't print " notation on description. Would not allow cut and paste for quotes from book and had to type all quotes referred to. Reading a book on a monitor was also annoying. Never again will I download a book.
First time ever screwed by Amazon, so I will forgive them for now.

Rating:
Summary: Unprintable - Not worth it !
Review: Amazon was in stock then out of stock on paperback edition, after advising book would be shipped and arrive in 2 days.( Then I check and its due to ship in 2 weeks.) I needed it to review for college assignment,so had no choice but to buy download version.I missed the " can't print " notation on description. Would not allow cut and paste for quotes from book and had to type all quotes referred to. Reading a book on a monitor was also annoying. Never again will I download a book.
First time ever screwed by Amazon, so I will forgive them for now.

Rating:
Summary: A wish come true
Review: How many times have I wished I could call an author and ask: "Why did you write that?" How many times have i read a book and loved it, only to hate the movie based on it? I lose count.

Well, John Irving answered my prayers, and in one short book replied to all of my questions and to a few more I didn't even know I had.

I am a huge fan of Irving. He writes like nobody can; he also takes himself very unseriously. I have enjoyed all of his books immensely. This one was a joy from beginning to end. For starters, it gives a fascinating insight into The Cider House Rules. He explains his characters, goes through the thought process that made him write the book this or that way.

This memoir explains very well why it is almost always impossible to transform a book into a movie script verbatim. Irving goes through the painful steps that he took to make The Cider House Rules into a successful movie. It was wonderful to read about the back and forth that Irving had with the director of the film, Lasse Hallstrom. It makes me think that making a movie based on a book is more than anything a labor of negotiation. For me, one of the most poignant moments of this memoir is when Irving tells why he chose the role of the stationmaster. "I just wanted to be there, in the stationmaster's wretched persona, to see Homer get off that train." As an author, this was probably a brilliant moment in his life, seeing his characters in the flesh.

Irving not only reminisces about the trials and tribulations he had to endure to see this book into a movie. He also writes about writing some of his other novels, and bringing them to film, and as always, about his sons. He also offers an unusual insider's account of what it is to be immersed in the movie world. So much of what we know is based on glossy magazines and celebrity TV programs, when the reality is far more crude and plain. Well, no one better than this man to do a bit of reporting, straight from the trenches.

This is a book you must read only after reading AND watching The Cider House Rules. Only then could you do it justice.

Rating:
Summary: Why????????
Review: I am a huge fan of John Irving. I wait breathlessly for each of his new books, and he is one of only a few writers that I will actually spend the money to buy hardcover editions. I purchased "My Movie Business" yesterday and read it in one sitting, and I am left with one overall impression, "Why?". The book is put together in no particular order, each chapter containing little episodes of either Mr. Irving's personal history or antedotes from the filming of "The Cider House Rules". Since another memoir was just recently published (Piggy Snead) it seems as if this was just a waste of time, or, god forbid, a movie marketing ploy. Mr. Irving comes across as conceded in his non-fiction, alot of name dropping about his dinners with Salman Rushdie, or how he and Robin Williams have remained good friends. When I completed the very thin memoir (fairly expensive for such a short book), I can only hope that the writing of this book did not in anyway delay the next fiction title from my most beloved author, who makes fans wait extrodinary amounts of time between publications

Rating:
Summary: A great memoir
Review: If at first you don't succeed...

It took Irving a great amount of time and work to have one of his greatest novels turned into one of the most critically-acclaimed movies of the year. THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, perhaps the best known of Irving's novels, was finally made into a movie starring Michael Caine. MY MOVIE BUSINESS follows the variious difficulties he encounters, while also letting the reader in on his personal history with and opinions on the touchy subject of abortion. In true Irving style, he speaks seriously of the subject but relieves the viewer of its politics by telling some very funny anecdotes.

I highly suggest this book for any Irving fan. If you haven't really read anything of his before, I don't suggest this as a first book--read THE CIDER HOUSE RULES first.

Rating:
Summary: A great memoir
Review: If at first you don't succeed...

It took Irving a great amount of time and work to have one of his greatest novels turned into one of the most critically-acclaimed movies of the year. THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, perhaps the best known of Irving's novels, was finally made into a movie starring Michael Caine. MY MOVIE BUSINESS follows the variious difficulties he encounters, while also letting the reader in on his personal history with and opinions on the touchy subject of abortion. In true Irving style, he speaks seriously of the subject but relieves the viewer of its politics by telling some very funny anecdotes.

I highly suggest this book for any Irving fan. If you haven't really read anything of his before, I don't suggest this as a first book--read THE CIDER HOUSE RULES first.

Rating:
Summary: "a hair-raising revelation..."
Review: It only took John Irving ("A Widow For One Year," "A Son of the Circus") thirty years to break into the movie business. His first attempt cam in 1968, when he was hired to draft a screenplay for his first novel, "Setting Free the Bears." Since that time, Irving has seen three of his novels turned into films, written one original (but, as of yet, unproduced screenplay) and spent thirteen years shepherding his screenplay of "The Cider House Rules" onto the Silver Screen. "My Movie Business" is a record of all that, and more. Because "The Cider House Rules" (screenplay and novel) relies on the subject of abortion as a central issue, Irving starts his memoir by telling us about his grandfather, Dr. Frederick C. Irving. Not only was Dr. Irving chief of staff at Boston Lying-In (one of the world's leading obstetrical hospitals in the early 1900's), he was a writer who cobbled up numerous limericks (many of which live on through medical students) and published three books. Irving's quotes from his grandfather's reveal a "Victorian prose" style that (along with the novels of Charles Dickens) belie an early influence. In writing about grandfather, Irving succinctly sums up his own creed as a novelist: "Grandfather was a man of extreme erudition and unaccountable, even inspired, bad taste; as such, he would have been a terrific novelist, for a good novel is at once sophisticated in its understanding of human behavior and utterly rebellious in its response to the conventions of good taste." Irving uses most of the first nine chapters to educate the reader on the history of abortions in America, detailing his grandfather's personal involvement as well. The author even goes so far as to take a stand on the Right-to-Life movement: "Let doctors practice medicine. Let religious zealots practice their religion, but let them keep their religion to themselves." From there, the author delves into the business of drafting screenplays for Hollywood. It is, Irving realizes, a business of compromise. During the course of developing the film and writing the screenplay, Irving works with no less than four directors (the last one, Lasse Halstrom, saw the film to completion). And in order to make more room for the relationship between Dr. Larch and Homer Wells, Irving has to excise at least one major character and lose all of Homer's history as an orphan. Forced to cut more portions of the film (to make it more stream-lined), he finds that all attempts at humor are excised. As Irving writes, "...these scenes were a comic interlude that would have...reminded my readers of the tone of my novels." In typical Irving fashion, there are digressions, albeit interesting ones. Such as the story about his relationship with Irving Kirshner, who was to direct "Setting Free the Bears"; or that Paul Newman was approached to play Dr. Larch, but was uncomfortable with scenes involving an incinerator; and Irving includes his feelings about the films of his novels "The World According to Garp" and "The Hotel New Hampshire." (The only noticeable exclusion is any mention of "Simon Birch," the Disney version of "A Prayer for Owen Meany," from which Irving disassociated himself). Insightful and informative, "My Movie Business" is a candid glimpse into the film-making process and a hair-raising revelation of how art must always battle commerce in the bottom-line land of Hollywood. (Nov. 1999, San Antonio Express-News).

Rating:
Summary: Only for the insiders.
Review: John Irving might be one of America's favorite writers thanks to books as "A Prayer for Owen Meany", "The world acording to Garp" and "The Cider house rules" but he is not Stephen King whose work is easily identified by almost all modern mortals; so when John Irving writes a memoir about his relationship with the movie bussines, the story of the book is only interesting to those who know Irving's work by heart. The first chapters are a kind of apology to why he choosed the pro-choice theme as the center of his novel The Cider House Rules. He evokes his paternal grandfather who was an obstetrician and a big influence in his pro-choice attitude and those first chapters could be easily read by anyone, but when he beggins to recall his different relationships with directors and movie people in the making into pictures of each of his books you have to be a real Irving expert to keep reading it, because he takes for granted that you know all his works and saw all the movies that were made based on them. I'm a big Irving fan so I had no problem reading it, but when my mother asked me if she would like it I didn't recomend it because she only has read "A widow for one year". The last part of the book, the filming of The Cider house is particullary interesting after almost 6 months since the movie was in the theaters, and won an Oscar for the screenplay of Irving, because he wrote that he will considered the movie a failure if in the poster didn't appear Dr. Larch but the two young lovers: the love story wasn't what this story was about. Well, this book isn't what John Irving is about.