A Hollywood Story – 6

How’s your Hollywood story coming? Any ideas yet? As I mentioned last week, there’s a category of satirical films about Hollywood that are fun, and if you’re already involved in the business of film, this might be a fun category for you to explore.

Last week we talked about the hilarious satire, The Big Picture [1989] and this week I’d like to discuss one that’s in the same vein—though in many respects a darker comedy—and that’s Swimming with the Sharks [1994] by George Huang.

When I saw this film, I had just gotten my first big writing assignment from a Hollywood studio. My writing career was beginning! I was so excited… and then I saw this film.

I thought, it can’t seriously be that bad, can it? Studio bosses can’t be this mean to their employees, can they? And sure, not all are. But as the rumors went on this film, its main character was based on someone the writer knew… Joel Silver and Scott Rudin were the two most often mentioned. Huang had worked at Columbia Pictures [the very studio I got that first writing assignment from] so I was doubly worried.

Of course, as a writer, I never get to see the inside workings of how studio bosses interact with their employees. Everybody is all smiles and compliments when I’m in the room. But guess what? I don’t think the boss/employee relationship as portrayed in this film is that different from the same relationship in many other businesses. The nature of the boss who has ‘made it’ and of the employee who just wants to make it, is the same, no matter what the business.

So would this film have been as good had it been set in the world of some large conglomerate? I don’t think so. There’s something about the movie business—the hopes and dreams of people trying to create something—that makes the ‘boss from hell’ even more gut-wrenching than that boss would be in banking or some other business.

There’s something about the glamour and the high profiles of the film business that makes people who are in it feel like the stars that the business is built around! Think about it, as studio executives they deal with the sometimes insane demands of stars, so they begin to live in that world and feel entitled to some of those perks themselves. And underlings? Well, it’s kind of like boot camp, or a frat hazing, they need to learn to do what they’re told, to get what they’re asked to get… in essence, to just do the bidding of the boss. Institutional slavery!

And that’s the visceral response you get from Swimming with Sharks. That it’s a business of sharks and if you’re just a little fish in this very big pond, you probably don’t stand a chance. You’ll be swallowed whole. So the question posed in this film is, how far can an employee be pushed before he cracks? See the film… watch that crack happen… it’s great fun.

Copyright © Diane Lake

14Apr19

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