Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1525212
57 F A L L Q 3 I S S U E B O O K R E V I E W Kill"—was cerebral and even cautious in how he brought his vision to life. "De Palma may have maintained a vivid, unruly, vio- lent imagination throughout his creative existence, but, in keeping with the metic- ulousness of his visual style, he kept an orderly life," Kenny writes. De Palma, who storyboarded the entire film, says he saw his role as essentially illustrating Stone's script. "I wasn't imposing some type of visual style of my own, I was just trying to interpret his material," says De Palma, who also lavishes praise on "visual consultant" Ferdinando Scarfiotti, to whom "the whole look of the film" can be attributed. Kenny describes the aesthetic very well: "a hard- edged sheen." Although De Palma rails against shoot- ing coverage—"I always believe that you spend a lot of time thinking about where the camera is in relationship to the mate- rial," he says—on "Scarface," he set aside that preference in deference to his star. "I would shoot as much as Al wanted to," De Palma says. "That scene with him consoling his dead sister, I just kept shooting, you know, to see what would happen. And we had . . . multiple cameras shooting from, you know, two different angles, three dif- ferent angles." Perhaps because he prized himself on advance planning, De Palma is described as a fairly lethargic leader on set, though his attention is said to have been roused when working on the over-the-top shoot-'em-up scenes, which included a "synchronization method" that enabled the camera to register each burst of gunfire. Says cinematographer John A. Alonzo: "The synchronizer prevents the gun from shooting unless the camera shutter is open. It's a little cumbersome, because now the actor has another wire coming down his leg, and he can't necessarily fire as fast as he'd like to. . . For those shots where it was essential to get the flash, to see the gunfire, it was invaluable." E d i to r s J e r r y G re e n b e r g, AC E a n d David Ray, working along with associate editor Bill Pankow, ACE reckoned with the resulting footage. "Al's approaches were hugely varied," Ray says. "Particularly the scene in the bathtub. Sometimes he would do it very quietly. And other times he'd be very over-the-top. And I discussed it with Jerry, because we were worried that time is running out, and we wouldn't have time to figure out how to give everything a coherent flow. . . . We had to do a lot of extra guess- work, and mine was occupied with trying to get a middle ground in terms of where the movie and the performances were go- ing." Not that many people would describe "Scarface" as a movie that existed in any sort of "middle ground"; it was a movie of extremes, particularly in its violence. "A lot of the scenes are a bit difficult to take," Ray says. "The chainsaw sequence I found very disturbing. Jerry cut that. And the only way I could get used to it was to take the actual reel into my own cutting room, and I'd run it down and look at the frames by themselves. And then I eventually got used to it." The explicit and pervasive violence in "Scar- face" remains controversial and troubling, though Kenny makes a persuasive case for the picture's enduring popularity. "What it aims for is phenomenological intensity—a spectacle!—and it achieves it," he writes. Compared to these accounts of movies as relentlessly excessive as "The Blues Brothers" and "Scarface," Ed Zwick's "Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions" amounts to something of a palate cleanser. The co-cre- ator of the ultimate 1980s-era TV program "thirtysomething" and later the director of "Glory" (1989) and "Legends of the Fall" (1994)—and producer of "Shakespeare in Love" (1998) and "Traffic" (2000)—has built a reputation as a humane, empathetic storyteller. His memoir is written in the same self-effacing spirit. "I loved the auto- biographies of Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Nunnally Johnson, Akira Kurosawa, and so many others," he writes. "To discover that these Olympian talents were forced to deal with the same indignities I would eventual- ly endure was perversely comforting." Even so, he has no illusions about his own stature in the business. "I am reconciled that my career will never rival those of my heroes," he writes. That is not to say that Zwick glosses over the challenges he has faced through the decades. To the contrary, the book's most engaging chapters concern his struggles with various Hollywood personalities. While making the Civil War epic "Glory," Zwick contended with opinionated co-star Matthew Broderick, who, at various points, recruited Horton Foote and Bo Goldman to weigh in on, or rewrite, the script, and asked his mother to give Zwick feedback. While trying to put together "Shakespeare in Love," Zwick learned how mercurial stars could be when Julia Roberts expressed strong interest before leaving the filmmak- er at the cinematic altar. And, inevitably, there is disgraced Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was willing to make "Shake- speare in Love" but, shamelessly, tried to do so without the participation of Zwick. To his credit, Zwick never comes across as bitter, angry, or even cynical; he is simply sharing battle scars for the benefit of the next generation. The book is studded with practical bits of advice, including the importance of inserting humor into movies whenever possible ("L aughter lets the audience know they're in good hands"), the value of napping on location ("In your chair. In the back of the prop truck. In your trailer"), and the absolute necessity of scrutinizing every frame of film for a usable moment: "There's gold to be found in the outtakes before you said 'Action' and after you said 'Cut,'" Zwick writes. Happily, there's gold to be found on nearly every page of this engaging book. ■ "The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic" By David De Visé - 386 pages - Atlantic Monthly Press - $28 - 2024 "The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface" By Glenn Kenny - 320 pages - Hanover Square Press - $32 - 2024 "Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood" By Ed Zwick - 304 pages - Gallery Books - $28.99 - 2024 Peter Tonguette is a freelance writer whose work appears frequently in the Wall Street Journal, National Review and other publications.