Books on Film Studios

The recent publication of the splendidly entitled book, ‘The Men Who Would be King: an Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies and a Company Called Dreamworks’ by Nicole Laporte gives us a story, according to one review, of “unbridled egotism, vengefulness and bad behaviour” starring Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. It is about the rise and demise of a film studio.

It reminds me what a terrific book, Michael Kuhn’s ‘One Hundred Films and a Funeral’ is. This brilliantly tells the story of the attempt by an Englishman to set up a studio in LA and how, but for the sale of Polygram to a competitor, it would probably still be with us. Along the way, of course, some great films got made, including the one alluded to in the title of the book (‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, doh!).

It is a book which not only deserves to be compulsory reading for all media students and on the reading lists for all film courses, but for all those interested in the film world or the running of a creative business, as it provides a fascinating account of trying to break into the closed shop of Hollywood, battling with international distribution, taking on new media and outlets and trying to make worthwhile films in the process.

The author, Michael Kuhn (a quiet legend in the film world) knows all about the tangled legal and financial aspects of the film world too and this makes his book a real insider’s story. Good though the Dreamworks book is, it was written without any direct input of the main protagonists. Not so ‘One Hundred Films and a Funeral”, it was written by the man who had been there and done it, a gifted businessman who had a vision and managed to realise it against huge odds, only to have it snatched away.

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