Pound of Flesh: Producing in Hollywood-Perilous Tales from the Trenches

A Great read. As entertaining as is is informative, this is one of the better books on producing that I have read. The book is broken down in the same way a producer goes about putting together a project. From conception to birth, this covers it all. Many great stories and personalities are covered (esp. good is the section on the Untouchables and not being able to get David Mamet to write anymore because he was off working on his own film House of Games). Pick this one up and enjoy.

I have read this book and one by Lydia Obst ("Hello, He Lied"). I preferred the Linson by a mile - Obst is too full of herself (she even disses Linson!). Linson discusses the role of producer and his contribution to films such as "Car Wash" and "The Untouchables". There's a revelatory look at a film he worked on the DIDN'T get made, called "Arrive Alive". Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the process of motion picture production.

In an honest, engaging, and pithy memoir, Art Linson manages to convey not only what a producer is and does in modern Hollywood, but also why that individual is so important both in the creation and final success of the product. If American film stands at the nexus of creativity and enterprise, the producer is the individual who must mediate the inevitable clash between these immutable forces, and Linson openly recalls his successes as well as his failures. It's not always pretty, but it's always good.In fact,the book's great strength is Linson's success in divorcing himself - or his ego - from his topic, allowing the reader to learn with the author, rather than from him. The entire process of the creation of a film, from pitch to production to premiere, including unpleasant diversions like Turnaround Hell and rites like Test Screenings, is laid before us through Linson's formative years as a producer. What the reader ends with is an understanding of the filmmaking process that no textbook could convey, and that few insiders would be willing to impart to a tyro.This is truly a primer on movie production that belongs on the shelf of everyone from development executive to film student to movie-lover.

This book is about 100X better than Lydia Obst's egotisticalpiece. Indeed, Linson is remarkably ego-free - and he's worked with DeNiro, De Palma, Mamet, and others. His tales are entertaining, at times harrowing, and best of all, he describes the process of assembling all the elements to produce a picture. Not a knockout, but a solid, informative piece of work. I'd like to meet Linson one day.

Very smart, funny, astute book by a top line Hollywood producer. This is the book I give to people who want to understand what a producer does. Linson produced The Untouchables as well as succesful junk like Car Wash, and unsuccesful junk as well, and he uses his experiance to elucidate rather than to inflate his own importance. An anti-dote to "Hollywood Producer" books by the likes of Linda Obst and Julianna Phillips -- no sex, no drugs, just the business.