Ed Zwick attended Harvard, then he worked for Woody Allen on the set of "Love and Death." At this time, Allen was drafting the screenplay for "Annie Hall"; Zwick read one version, and he admired the skill with which Allen had transformed his own rocky Diane Keaton years into a work of fiction, something that could reach people all over the world.
Shortly thereafter, Zwick lost his mother in a car accident, proposed marriage to a feisty screenwriter, became a dad, and almost torpedoed his own little nuclear family (and then staged yet more "near-miss" moments, again and again). The insanity of this phase became the raw material for "Thirtysomething." Zwick soon took a risk with something more ambitious--"Glory"--which helped Denzel Washington to earn his first Oscar, and which allowed Zwick to start a substantial career in films.
Zwick is a captivating narrator. He rakes himself over the coals--especially while describing his marriage. At one point, Zwick followed a young Julia Roberts to Europe, to try to persuade her to stick with "Shakespeare in Love." Zwick's wife listened, on the phone, and said, "I'm sorry you're having a hard time with a beautiful twenty-year-old movie star. Both of our kids have ear infections."
Zwick's curiosity about human behavior is infectious. For example, he understands that you should never give a "line reading" to an actor; the thing the actor then delivers to you will not be the thing that you want. If you're eager for Tom Cruise to be emotional in a scene with a child, then you seat yourself with Cruise and casually encourage him to speak about his own son, for fifteen minutes. Zwick also knows it's always a bad idea to praise a specific gesture, in a scene--because the actor will then become self-conscious, and will find that he can't replicate the gesture. Instead, the thing to say is: "You look great in that coat."
Zwick is sad to report that his kind of film is no longer a matter of interest among Hollywood executives. Zwick made movies about adults talking to other adults; the main topics were adult topics. It's hard to see mainstream examples of this kind of work, in 2024; you have to give up the cinema for the TV screen, and then you're not going to get the same visuals, and it's possible you won't see the same mega-stars. Zwick misses the romance of big, smart movies; he is obsessed with movie stars, and specifically the way that they can convey a sense of a fascinating, mysterious inner life (even if what they're doing is making an illusion). Zwick also has limited patience for CGI--because he feels it detaches you from the emotional undercurrents, in a movie.
Reading Zwick, I also visited Amazon to rent "Courage Under Fire," which is a courtroom movie disguised as a war movie. It's not generally listed among Denzel Washington's iconic films--but that's just because Washington is who he is (and his career is crowded with heavyweight movies). It's interesting to see the various professional battles in DC, but what I really loved was the depiction of marriage--i.e. Washington's scenes with Regina Taylor. There is an important moment with a child's overturned bike--in a front yard. It lasts for under a minute, and it gives me goosebumps. It's not something you'd see in a Marvel movie.
It's silly to complain that "they don't make 'em like they used to." The Marvel era will end, and something better will begin. But Zwick's book makes me wish that I was living in the nineties. Eventually, I might try "Blood Diamond."
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