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Going to the Movies: A Personal Journey Through Four Decades of Modern Film | 
 enlarge | Author: Syd Field
Publisher: Delta
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $1.82
You Save: $14.18 (89%)
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 791164
Media: Paperback
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0440508495
Dewey Decimal Number: 812.54
EAN: 9780440508496
ASIN: 0440508495
Publication Date: October 9, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Featuring insights ... analysis ... great films and filmmakers from “the most-sought-after screenwriting teacher in the world” (The Hollywood Reporter).
A life in film. An extraordinary career. An unforgettable story — from noted lecturer, teacher, and bestselling author Syd Field.
What makes a great movie great? ... An actor legendary? ... A screenplay extraordinary or just ordinary?
Syd Field has spent a lifetime seeking answers to these questions. His bestselling books on the art and craft of screenwriting have become the film industry’s gold standard.
Now Syd Field tells his own remarkable story, sharing the insight and experience gleaned from an extraordinary career. Using classic movies from the past and present — from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane to Andy and Larry Wachowski’s The Matrix — Field provides a guided tour of the basic elements common to all great films.
Learn what makes La Grande Illusion a groundbreaking, timeless classic ... how Casablanca teaches one of the most important elements of creating memorable characters for the screen ... why Pulp Fiction might be one of the most influential films of our time.
Discover the legendary filmmakers, films, and stars who shaped Field’s understanding of the medium.... Meet Jean Renoir, the great French director who steered his young Berkeley protege away from medicine into film.... Watch a dazzling young Francis Ford Coppola as he directs his thesis film at UCLA.... Spend an amazing summer with Sam Peckinpah as he shares the screenwriting techniques behind his classic western The Wild Bunch.
Rich in anecdote and insight, Going to the Movies will both entertain and inform, deepening every moviegoer’s appreciation of the magic behind the silver screen.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Essential Reading for Budding Screenwriters October 14, 2008
Jeremy Crowhurst (North Vancouver, B.C.)
As a biography, it is compelling reading. Field lived in interesting times, surrounded by interesting people. Though a minor player in Hollywood, his story provides a perspective on the movie-making process in the second-half of the last century that I haven't seen before.
The real value of this book, though, is as an unintentional primer on screenwriting. His process, developed over more than a decade, of identifying what makes a movie work and what doesn't is, in my view, more enlightening than all the "how to" books ever written, including his own.
With this book, Goldman's "Adventures in the Screen Trade", and to a lesser extent his follow-up "Which Lie Did I Tell", I think the budding screenwriter has everything he or she needs to start writing.
Great Teaching Experience April 15, 2008
Eugenia Renskoff (New York, New York)
I read Syd Field's Going to the movies. It's a great experience because not only does he teach about what makes a good/great screenplay, he also talks about his time in Hollywood and how difficult it was for him to find a job. It is a very realistic, yet hopeful, book. I am working on the English version of the Different Flags script and it's helped me a lot. Eugenia RenskoffDifferent Flags
Living history May 15, 2007
Juhani Luukkonen (New Zealand)
Going to the Movies is a wonderful journey with Syd Field trough decades of living history of movies. Syd Field writes in such a way that you almost hear him talking to you. His precense is wonderful.
 A Life in Film and A Screen Writers Guide March 8, 2005
Aco
This is a pretty good book. While Field has been touched by beneficial timing, and influential relationships, he has developed through diligence a perspective and vision for film, screenplays in particular.
While the book begins as an autobiography: school, wanderings, discovering film, school, early work, etc., it developes into a book of analysis and technique. In that way it went from good to okay. His working at Wolper Productions, his relationship with Jean Renoir and Sam Peckinpah all are interesting views of film making and film makers. I wish there was more of that. In fact, after a half chapter plus on Citizen Kane, in a following chapter Field talks about working at Wolper on a series hosted by Joseph Cotton. But there is no regarding of Cotton's involvement in the most influential of films.
Through script reviewing at Wolper Productions he developes a style and level of efficiency which begins to translate itself into a writing career. He survives off of optioned scripts for several years before he begins teaching. From this point on he becomes more of an advisor, and leads up to his place today as a formidable screenplay expert.
Within this arc, from autobiography to technical manual there is interesting and insightful writing on film, it's brilliance, influence, form and power. A decision on whether or not to make this a technical book about writing a screenplay or a memoir about a life in the film business would have improved this book.
Simple, yet oh, so revealing April 10, 2004
C. D. Reynolds (Tucson, AZ USA)
Let's start by saying this book is not for everyone. Going to the Movies is the story of how and why Syd Field learned to analyse scripts. As such, it's introspective at times and personally revealing at others. I especially loved two things about this book. First, Field's honesty is quite endearing. He discusses his failures as well as his triumphs, and writers need to see failures, too. It's how we all learn. Second, I loved the tips I got from this book. Field discusses the importance of midpoint--how to hang your story around a centerpiece event. Later he explains closed and open stories. In the former, the protagonist knows what's happening (like Chinatown). An open story is when the audience understands what faces the protag., but the protag. doesn't (Hitchcock movies, usually). And Field reminds us that a good story isn't a good story unless it's executed properly. One thing annoyed me a bit. Field has an "Uncle Sol" who helped him get started by finding him jobs in Hollywood. Well, frankly, I sure wish I had an Uncle Sol. BUT--in fairness--Field did his own homework, worked hard, and learned important lessons which he shares with us. Uncle Sol or no Unlce Sol, Field understands what makes a script great. He deserves his success. You don't have to be a screenwriter to learn from this book. I'm a novelist, and what he says about story works regardless of medium. I think beginning writers will probably learn more than advanced writers, but that may or may not be true. I've been writing a long time and still picked up invaluable tips. So, this book may not be for everyone, but you'll love it if you sincerely want to learn basic techniques for better writing.
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