RIP Steven Bach, former United Artists exec and author of "Final Cut," one of the essential books about movies

He passed from cancer the other day. A brief note from Nikki Finke along with some comments from fans and former students.

I figure I don't need to tell many of the heavy film buffs here about Final Cut as well as some of Bach's other work -- his biography about Leni Reifenstahl a few years back was another great book and I need to read some of his other work -- but for everyone else: Final Cut was Bach's from-the-inside take on Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate and the downfall of UA as an independent company (though admittedly Transamerica had already bought it some years beforehand -- they'd more or less kept a hands-off policy until the Heaven's Gate prompted a sale to MGM and Krikorian, which in a roundabout way explains how Ted Turner eventually got the UA library).

It is absolutely key reading, a snapshot of a time/place that only seems to grow more important with time. It's one of the few books I dip back into every couple of years, last time being just some weeks back -- he was an informed, funny, and very self-aware and self-critical voice. By no means is it just about Cimino and Heaven's Gate -- a major subplot involves the gestation of Raging Bull, for example -- and by expanding the larger context of the film's making he provides a sharp history of the industry and one studio in particular as it further adjusted from self-contained status to part of larger business empires. Meanwhile as a portrait of the end of the seventies and the start of Reagan's time it has a wealth of observational detail scattered throughout, economic, political and otherwise.

Get this book if you haven't already, I can't underscore this enough -- for me it's up there with The Devil's Candy and DisneyWar.

Absolutely agree - it's a great book and until I read it I didn't really believe the stories. But it's not sensationalist - just great journalism.

And so, RIP.

I've tried reading the first 25 pages twice and put it down, but I will return to Final Cut soon.

(Disney War IS terrific)

Give it another chance, Alfred -- first time through I was a little unsure about it as well but you have to come into it less from a 'all right, all the dirt on Heaven's Gate!' standpoint and realize it's much more inclusive than that.

I somehow don't see any present/future movie execs being von Sternberg / Riefenstahl scholars.

clip from Final Cut docfilm:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/03/ciminos_epitaph.php

Damn, never knew about this documentary based on the book! Going to get a hold of that for sure.

RIP

(Disney War IS terrific)

I haven't read Final Cut, but Disney War is great.

final cut was such a wonderful book. rip

I really enjoyed that book, but the only detail that sticks with me after all these years is that he called Isabellle Huppert a "potato-faced peasant."

Peasants know about potatoes, presumably.

I've tried reading the first 25 pages twice and put it down, but I will return to Final Cut soon.

Well, it takes about that many pages to cover United Artists' backstory and the history of the other studios before getting to the Heaven's Gate dirt proper. The rest is fantastic - if I were at all organized, I'd shelve my copy right beside Easy Riders and Raging Bulls.

RIP

RIP

'final cut' is a classic.

abt halfway through FINAL CUT, Bach meets w/ a 'famous' director and tentatively sounds him out abt taking over HEAVEN'S GATE. this obv came to nothing, and the director is never named - anybody have any ideas who it was?

Norman Jewison.

Or David Lean (says imdb trivia!).

Damn, never knew about this documentary based on the book! Going to get a hold of that for sure.

The whole thing is on youtube...start here...

That was supposed to be "starts here" - now it looks like a command...

I think I tossed Final Cut last time I moved cuz I'd owned it for years and never read it. Will gwet to it from the library some year.

this book is the best book

yes. total page turner.

Yes also

i watched the doc on this too
there was a part where they flung out a line from the article that the extra dude wrote during production that read:

"Cimino interviewed up to 300 horses for the battle scenes"

http://jimhillmedia.com/mb/images/upload/mww-1-web.jpg

^reading this now, its m/l the extension of disney war, loving it

Yeah I've read that a couple of times but there were a bit clunky bits -- including some flat out errors -- that kept me from loving it completely. That said it's still a gas.

curious what the errors are -- are walter parkes and laurie macdonald not as attractive as is mentioned ~20 times?

Haha exactly. Nah a lot of it was more "Wow they REALLY don't employ fact checkers any more, do they?" level of glitch.

Irritated at myself for not keeping my old copy of "The Devil's Candy" when I moved

^has been on my to-read list for awhile, reminded of it as a jeop q last nite

started Fatal Subtraction which strikes me could belong in this type of hyper-detailed behind the scenes of hollywood genre… it is the story of art buchwald suing paramount for not crediting him on Coming to America

odd detail in background describing the then ceo of paramounts parent company, Martin Davis…

Davis dined at the White House, traveled around the world in the corporation’s sleek Gulfstream jet and hobnobbed with the likes of Bob and Larry Tisch, Pete Rozelle and Donald Trump. He once gave Trump a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as a gift.

I think I may have read this one! Is a lot of it at the start about cheque swindles involving Clive Davis? I feel like I read a bunch of books like this 15 or so years ago...

Indecent Exposure by David McClintick is the one about the head of Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, getting fired for forging actor Cliff Robertson's name on a $10,000 check (iirc Clive Davis was one of the anti-Begelman crowd who didn't want him reinstated/forgiven).

Fatal Subtraction is much less interesting, unfortunately. It's co-written by the main lawyer for Art Buchwald, and is tediously self-aggrandising - and also seems to massively overstate the cultural importance of Art Buchwald and his works. There are interesting details about Eddie Murphy's star power and the incredible things he could demand/get away with at the height of his fame.

Ah, thanks Ward. Have definitely read Indecent Exposure, but the stuff about Eddie is verrrry familiar so I've no doubt I've read that one too.