ART WARS:
Bach at Heaven’s Gate
From a weblog entry of Friday, December 13, 2002:
Divine Comedy
Joan Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne (author of The Studio and Monster) wrote the screenplays for the 1976 version of “A Star is Born” and the similarly plotted 1996 film “Up Close and Personal.”
If the incomparable Max Bialystock were to remake the latter, he might retitle it “Distant and Impersonal.” A Google search on this phrase suggests a plot outline for Mel Brooks & Co.
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From The Hollywood Reporter:
Producer Sidney Glazier dies Dec. 18, 2002
Academy Award-winning producer Sidney Glazier died early Saturday morning [Dec. 14, 2002] of natural causes at his home in Bennington, Vt. He was 86. Glazier… is best known for producing the 1968 film “The Producers.” That film, which has since become a Tony Award-winning Broadway play, also marked comedian Mel Brooks’ directing debut.
In addition to “The Producers,” Glazier produced… the 1973 television drama “Catholics.” [Based on a novel by Brian Moore]
His nephew is “Scrooged” screenwriter Mitch Glazer.
(Josh Spector)
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Recommended reading —
FINAL CUT:
Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of
“Heaven’s Gate,”
the Film that Sank United Artists,
Second Edition,
by Steven Bach
From Newmarket Press:
“Steven Bach was the senior vice-president and head of worldwide production for United Artists at the time of the filming of Heaven’s Gate…. Apart from the director and the producer, Bach was the only person to witness the evolution of Heaven’s Gate from beginning to end.”
See also my journal entry
“Back to Bach”
of 1:44 a.m. EST
Saturday, December 14, 2002.