Hollywood's horrors

23 November 2008

"Hollywood's just like any other place," says film producer Art Linson, "except multiplied by 10. And add a zero."

If the events of the movie mogul's new film 'What Just Happened' - based on his autobiographical account of life in Tinsel Town of the same name, subtitled 'Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line' - are anything to go by, you can see the logic to his equation.
Linson's regular clashes with power mad executives and prima donna actors translates into a comedy which borders on farcical - despite all events being absolutely true.

Ben (Linson's alias, played by Robert De Niro) has got more than his fair share of troubles with two ex-wives on his case. But throw in an drug-addled director (Michael Wincott) who refuses to cut a scene in which a dog is shot in the head from his new film to please the studio and Bruce Willis (playing himself) throwing a tantrum after being asked to lose weight and shave off his bushy beard, and the producer has a recipe for insanity...

The first thing to cross the mind of anyone making a movie based on themselves is always going to be, 'Who's going to play me?' But when you're friends with Oscar winner Robert De Niro, and he suggested making the film in the first place, it's not one you dwell on for too long.

"I read the book and I laughed all the way through it," recalls De Niro, "so I said to Art, 'You should write a screenplay and try to make a movie out of it. And I'll play the part.'"

It seems the actor made Linson an offer he couldn't refuse.

De Niro joins an all-star cast which also includes John Turturro, Stanley Tucci and Sean Penn - a line-up which just about compensates for the film's unwillingness to name and shame the real A-list culprits involved.

Art defended the decision: "I think naming names in a movie makes it something too specific. This is a movie about allowing people to see what it feels like to be in Hollywood - how treacherous it is and how funny it is.

"There's an intensity to the back stage of the film industry that echoes everywhere but it's perversely funny when you see it happening to agents, actors and executives. "

Even when pushed, the producer remains tight-lipped on the subject. "I changed the names for the film. Why would I give them to you now?" he reasoned.

"There's an intensity to the back stage of the film industry that echoes everywhere but it's perversely funny when you see it happening to agents, actors and executives."

In the book, Linson documents his explosive relationship with Alec Baldwin while shooting 'The Edge', a character assumed by Hollywood hard man Bruce Willis for the movie.

Linson explained: "I think in Alec Baldwin's case, he was just overweight and he was just trying to hide a double chin. Maybe if I had seen it from that perspective, it might never have been an issue."

He added: "But I have too much regard for my own health to go there in too much detail. He has a true temper." Was there ever a reconciliation? "Let's just say we don't have any plans to go on vacation together," Linson added. After more than 40 years in the business, surely De Niro would be able to draw inspiration from some similar past experience to help him bear the brunt of Willis' rage.

"I can't remember seeing or being part of a drama like that," the actor admitted disappointingly, "But we were so lucky to get Bruce Willis, he got the joke instantly and it was fun. " Linson added: "Bruce took himself really seriously; he didn't just send himself up. He really did it with a kind of rage. He talks about integrity in the film, which really makes me laugh out loud. Talking about integrity in the movie business is already a joke. He just elevated it."

The film takes a very satirical look at some key players in Hollywood, while the book's title suggests there weren't as many laughs during Linson's real-life involvement in the high-tension he describes. So why the change of tone? "Bitter to me is usually funny," confesses the producer, "everybody has a different sense of what makes them laugh and other people's bitterness often makes me laugh. "The movie's fictionalised only in the sense that we had to compress it into some sort of a time frame. And that automatically forces things to be fictionalised and funny but the actual incidents, other than changing the names to protect the guilty, are all true." Despite having first-hand experience of the film's subject matter, Linson found the task of adapting it for the big screen a rather painstaking process, according to De Niro.

"It's so hard to write a screenplay and Art was always complaining to me about the process he was going through. "I felt it was best to leave him alone to give him as much space as possible."

On screen, De Niro's character is constantly on edge over the public's reaction to his upcoming thriller 'Fiercely' - despairing at the poor scorecards collected after the screening (one simply reads: 'F**k you!'). Linson points out - with a hint of jealousy - that De Niro himself will never find himself in a situation where no one returns his calls if a film is not well received. He said: "Of course it's always good when a film is well received. But no matter what they feel about a film Bob just did, they know they're always going to need him again. Sadly, they don't feel the same way about producers.

"It's happened to me so many times I don't even like to recall the pain. I imagine it to be like childbirth. My first film profoundly bombed, you couldn't give it away."

De Niro added: "I was thinking that it's not that nobody returns your calls, it's that nobody calls you. I haven't experienced it first hand, but the fact that a movie is not received well initially does not always mean a lot.

"I do think test screenings have a validity. I know directors who take them very seriously. I'm impressed with how they gage certain things. But sometimes they don't work - it depends on what kind of movie it is."

Both Linson and De Niro have carved out stellar careers from themselves in the movie business. They have collaborated on blockbusters such as 'The Untouchables', 'Heat' and 'Great Expectations' and are both multi-millionaires.

So isn't a film which mocks the pretension of an industry, portrayed as fickle and ruthless, a bit like biting the hand that feeds you? "I never saw it like that," Linson explains, "because the hand that feeds is some God-like presence that nobody can even take a meeting with anymore.

"Everybody, including executives, seem to be under the same pressure. Everybody's like a snail on a piece of glass trying not to slide down - hanging on for dear life. And I think that's what makes it so funny."