Review of Backstory 4: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1970's and 1980's by Patrick McGilligan

Backstory 4: Interview with Screenwriters of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Patrick McGilligan. London, UK: University of California Press, 2006. 424 pages.


By Patrick Charsky

Cinema was dying. What was to be done? In the 1970’s and 1980’s Cinema experienced a Renaissance. Film schools had produced the first generation of film school graduates, film festivals had started up in places like New York City and Cannes, France. Later in the 1970’s, multiplexes opened up across the United States bringing in young audiences. Perhaps film didn’t regain the primacy it had in the 1930’s, but in the 1970’s and 1980’s American film became better and more profitable; a new Golden Age had dawned.

In Backstory 4: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1970’s and 1980’s, Patrick McGillgan uses oral histories to present a masterclass about the writing processes of high achieving screenwriters from The New Hollywood. From countless writers talking about page counts and adaptations, working with directors like Spielberg and Kubrick, and dealing with rejection, criticism, flops, and self doubt, McGilligan shows how the best Screenwriters broke into Movies and sustained writing careers over several decades.

Backstory 4 is the fourth installment of McGilligan’s series about screenwriters. He is the editor of Backstory 4 which also includes other interviewers Vincent LoBrutto and Nat Segalof. The book is structured into an introduction and thirteen interviews with screenwriters who wrote such hits as Star Wars, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Apocalypse Now, Bonnie and Clyde, Howard’s End, and Eyes Wide Shut.

Many screenwriters obsess over page numbers. They ask themselves questions like how many pages should I write a day? How long will it take to write a screenplay? Backstory 4 provides some guidance on this topic. The most lucid example is from Paul Mazursky. Mazursky says he writes a screenplay in three months. Two to write a first draft and one month to edit before he has a final draft. Yet, he emphasizes that screenwriting should remain organic and can’t be forced or follow too rigid rules. Backstory 4 provides some templates and advice about writing for other writers.

Throughout the book, McGilligan pries into screenwriters making them talk about their process. John Milius says he sort of knows what the conclusion is, but he doesn’t know how he’s going to get there. Many screenwriters emphasize that screenwriting grows out of an organic process. Mazursky talks about how screenwriting formulas or too many rules yield boring or overplanned screenplays that result in dull screenplays. Walter Hill highlights the process of writing an action screenplay. He states that the audience mostly knows how the film will end. The key is to keep the audience guessing along the way to the big conclusion.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a master at adaptation. In her interview she talks about her process of working with James Ivory on their many literary adaptations. She says she reads the text once to get a general sense of the work, a second time she takes some notes, and the third time through she writes “long notes.” In her interview she talks about the surprising success of her adaptations A Room with a View, Howard’s End, and The Remains of the Day.

Another strong point in the writing process that McGilligan hits on again and again is working on the fly for directors. In a great story from John Milius, the writer of Apocalypse Now, he relates how he wrote a famous piece of dialogue for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Milius says he wrote the dialogue while Spielberg waited on the other end of the phone. It is stories like these that show how a screenwriter must be flexible with their process. In Hollywood, a writer has to be able to work quickly and effectively.

In another interview, British writer Frederic Raphael talks about his work with another famous director; Stanley Kubrick. Raphael relates how he worked closely with Kubrick for over two years on Kubrick’s last complete film; Eyes Wide Shut. In several instances Raphael had to rewrite scene after scene to meet Kubrick’s standards.

The interviews with Milius and Raphael show how the screenwriter has evolved in contemporary Hollywood. Instead of the Studio System, there is free-lance work by phone calls or being on set for an Auteur like Kubrick. Something that hasn’t changed is Hollywood’s love of good dialogue. Milius is a master of classic dialogue. From his short piece for Jaws, he has also written some of the most memorable lines in Film History.

In the best interview from the book, Walter Hill talks about his experiences from a long career in Hollywood. He speaks with the experience of a veteran filmmaker. He reminisces about his early days with Sam Peckinpah and his later days getting the Alien franchise off the ground at Fox. Hill talks about his many successes working with producers like Michael Eisner. The back and forth between higher ups on the production chain and writer-directors working in the trenches details the ups and downs while working with the big studios. Hill shows how making a film in Modern Hollywood can be difficult, but very rewarding.

It is Hill’s mastery of the process of filmmaking that makes his interview so well done. He can talk about the business of making films and the process of creating them with equal ease. He shows how persistence, mastery of the craft, and a diplomatic mindset can result in successful films like 48 Hours, Alien, and Tales From the Crypt. Screenwriters can learn a lot from Walter Hill.

The process of writing screenplays is an arduous undertaking. These high achievers make it look easy. They have refined their craft through writing numerous screenplays and studying and watching films and books. Many struggle with things common to artists. Financial insecurity. Bad reviews and flops. Problems with continuing to write or getting started. Reading through these interviews is like sitting in on a graduate seminar in Screenwriting. So many great bits of advice.


In Backstory 4, McGilligan shows a new generation of screenwriters with an unprecedented love and appreciation for not just films, but the craft of writing screenplays. It is an excellent foray into a screenwriters writing process, the struggle to attain security, and the bumpy relationships with directors and producers. Or within themselves as they direct their own projects. McGilligan brings deep insight into the rise of the screenwriter from a mere contract writer to Auteur status as writer-directors commanding big money for their scripts. Hollywood would never be the same.