A Life in Movies

Stories from 50 Years in Hollywood

De: Irwin Winkler

Narrado por: Michael Butler Murray

The list of films Irwin Winkler has produced in his more-than-50-year career is extraordinary: Rocky, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, De-Lovely, The Right Stuff, and Creed. His films have been nominated for 52 Academy Awards, including five movies for Best Picture, and have won 12.

In A Life in Movies, his charming and insightful memoir, Winkler tells the stories of his career through his many films as a producer and then as a writer and director, charting the changes in Hollywood over the past decades. Winkler started in the famous William Morris mailroom and made his first film - starring Elvis - in the last days of the old studio system. Beginning in the late 1960s, and then for decades to come, he produced a string of provocative and influential films, making him one of the most critically lauded, prolific, and commercially successful producers of his era.

This is an engrossing and candid book, a beguiling exploration of what it means to be a producer, including purchasing rights, developing scripts, casting actors, managing directors, editing film, and winning awards. Filled with tales of legendary and beloved films, as well as some not-so-legendary and forgotten ones, A Life in Movies takes listeners behind the scenes and into the history of Hollywood.

©2019 Irwin Winkler (P)2019 Tantor

Bland memoir of an accomplished, but not very interesting producer

There wasn’t much depth, detail, insight, passion or conflict. I can’t recall one anecdote worth repeating from this memoir

A Tapestry of Wonderfully Shared Anecdotes.

This wealth of experience in storytelling, richly conveys the most memorable highlights from a life dedicated to cinema and its many flavors of character. Something much like a personal diary that fully holds a listener’s attention with perfectly spaced coverage for each of Winkler’s many films and enduring partnerships. Phenomenal memory for detail.

ONLY ONE WAY THIS BOOK COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

And that would have been if Irwin had read it himself. Not that there is anything wrong with the narrator, far from it. The book is funny, smart, filled with cultural references with which we are all familiar. I'm waiting for volume 2 and 3. First rate.

Horrific Narration

One would think when they hired a narrator for a book about movies that the very least he would do was pronounce names from historic prominent films correctly. When he said Laura, instead of Lara, indicating the main character in Dr Zhivago I cringed. He also has an annoying whining voice akin to Richard Dreyfuss when he's doing his best sarcasm. It is just horrible to listen to. While the book itself contains a lot of information, it reads like an encyclopedia, and that, coupled with the awful narration makes this book dull and irritating at the same time.

Dull with a nasal performance

"I made this movie, then I made that movie and after that I made another movie..." it doesn't get much deeper than that. You get more info from a TCM intro. The nasal narrative made my head hurt.