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50 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W In the process, the author gives us a frank look at the vagaries of his chosen profes- sion. "Each of Jewison's films had begun with a 'dance,'" Wells writes. "That was what he called the pitch, the moment when he would walk into a room and sell his idea to those who controlled the money." Sometimes the dance eventually led to a film, but just as often, all of that prep work — what Wells calls the "daily grind of letters, memos, meetings, minor misunderstandings and major conflicts," many thoroughly summarized here — ended in frustration. Among Jewison's never-made films are an adaptation of William Styron's novel "The Confessions of Nat Turner" and a biopic of Malcolm X. "His twenty-four films," Wells concludes, "could just as easily have been a dozen, or three, or none." Jewison was born in 1926 to Dor- othy and Joseph Jewison, dry goods proprietors in Toronto, Ontario. Amid a childhood in which he developed a show- man's bravado — at the urging of an aunt, he memorized and recited Psalms and bewildered family members with "death scenes" at home — Norman cottoned to cinema early on. Fitting for the director who later dabbled in multiple genres, he is said to have enjoyed everything from George Stevens's adventure epic "Gunga Din" to Keystone Cops comedies. After studying at Victoria College in Toronto, Jewison won a spot as the floor director at CBC-TV — "Live TV was an adrenaline rush like nothing you could imagine," he recalled — before being tapped to join CBS in New York. Larry Au- erbach, who served as Jewison's agent, remembered his client as a man of integ- rity even in those early days. Wells writes that Jewison balked at the creative input that was coming from the sponsor of one program, the cosmetics company Revlon. "It got so uncomfortable that after two shows, he left the show, without a job." There were triumphs, though, including a special with Belafonte that represented, according to Wells, "the first American television special dedicat- ed to a Black performer." Yet Jewison's discomfort with the commercial demands of show business p e rs i s te d eve n a f te r h e sw i tc h e d to features. In live television, Wells notes, Jewison "had effectively served as his own editor, selecting camera angles in real time," but on his first, rather innoc- uous slate of comedies — including his debut, "40 Pounds of Trouble" — others had f inal say on postproduction. "At the time, the studio's editors answered to producers, not to directors," Wells writes. The director's frustration with the type of projects he was making, and his lack of input when it came to their final shape, was alleviated only when he commenced a long-term association with the independent Mirisch Corporation, with whom Jewison teamed to make several career-altering films, including the Cold War comedy "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" (1966) — just the sort of timely project Jewison was drawn to. "I want to make a film about the Cold War, about the absur- dity of international conflict," Jewison wrote of his interest in the project. Around this time, Ashby entered Jew- ison's orbit, and the relationship between the friends and collaborators is one of the book's main threads. Though Jewison would describe Ashby as a brother, the two men had to get used to each other first: In Wells's telling, after Jewison snapped his fingers to indicate a cut — a habit that he had developed while work- ing in live television — Ashby snapped back. "They laughed it off," Wells writes, "but Jewison didn't snap his fingers in the dailies again." Nonetheless, it was clear that Ashby brought freshness and verve to Jewison's films, qualities that had been missing from the director's earlier efforts. "Once the film is in hand, forget about the script, throw away all of the so-called rules, and don't try to second-guess the director," Ashby said of his editorial philosophy. "Just look at the film and let it guide you." Working in concert with Ashby and other key collaborators, most notably cin- ematographer Haskell Wexler, Jewison inaugurated the most fertile period of his career. "Ashby not only shaped Jewison's footage, determining the pace and visual grammar of the film, he also played a role in many of the creative decisions through production," Wells writes, noting the pair's common "anti-war, anti-establish- ment" ethos while also recognizing the chasm that existed between the two in their personal lives: Jewison is portrayed as something of a straitlaced family man — he has three children with his first wife Dixie, who died in 2004 — while Ashby is shown to exemplify the excesses of the counterculture. Yet the push-pull of the Jewison-Ashby partnership produced electrifying effects in the cutting room. In Wells's account, the collaboration couldn't go on forever. After Ashby's directorial debut, the Jewison-produced " Th e L a n d l o rd " ( 1 9 70), t h e m e n te e reeled off a spate of his own films that reflected the shaggy, rough-hewn spirit of the times: "Harold and Maude" (1971), "The Last Detail" (1973), and "Shampoo" (1975). Jewison, though, stayed true to the template he had established: He sought to make engaging mainstream films that reflected the sentiments of a proud liberal. His outrage at expressions of bigotry and discrimination was life- long: "One thing that really sets me off is any kind of racial prejudice or intoler- ance," he said. Sometimes, as in "In the Heat of the 'Jewison was a family man, while editor Hal Ashby exemplified the counterculture.'