Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film

by Peter Biskind

It wasn't so long ago that the Sundance Film Festival was an inconsequential event somewhere in Utah, and Miramax was a tiny distributor of music documentaries and soft-core trash. Today, of course, Sundance is the most important film festival this side of Cannes, and Miramax has become an industry giant, part of the huge Disney empire. Likewise, the directors who emerged from the independent movement, such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and David O. Russell -- who once had to max out their credit cards to realize their visions on the screen -- are now among the best-known directors in Hollywood. Not to mention the actors who emerged with them, like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurman.

Down and Dirty Pictures chronicles the rise of independent filmmakers and of the twin engines -- Sundance and Miramax -- that have powered them. As he did in his acclaimed Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind profiles the people who took the independent movement from obscurity to the Oscars, most notably Sundance founder Robert Redford and Harvey Weinstein, who with his brother, Bob, made Miramax an indie powerhouse. Biskind follows Sundance as it grew from a regional film festival to the premier showcase of independent film, succeeding almost despite the mercurial Redford, whose visionary plans were nearly thwarted by his own quixotic personality. He charts in fascinating detail the meteoric rise of the controversial Harvey Weinstein, often described as the last mogul, who created an Oscar factory that became the envy of the studios, while leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. As in Easy Riders, Biskind's incisive account is loaded with vibrant anecdotes and outrageous stories, all of it blended into a fast-moving narrative. Redford, the Weinsteins, and the directors, producers, and actors Biskind profiles are the people who reinvented Hollywood, making independent films mainstream. But success invariably means compromise, and it remains to be seen whether the indie spirit can survive its corporate embrace.

Candid, mesmerizing, and penetrating, Down and Dirty Pictures is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world and where it's headed.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, History, Audiobook, Pop Culture, Business

862 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Peter Biskind is an American cultural critic, film historian, and journalist, best known for his tenure as executive editor of Premiere magazine from 1986 to 1996. He attended Swarthmore College and authored several influential books on Hollywood, including Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures, some of which became bestsellers. In 2010, he published a biography of Warren Beatty titled Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America. Biskind is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, with work appearing in major publications like Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He served as editor-in-chief of American Film from 1981 to 1986. His books have been translated into over thirty languages. Despite his acclaim, some critics, including Roger Ebert, have challenged the accuracy of certain anecdotes in his works.

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's a summary of Down and Dirty Pictures:

1) Harvey Weinstein acts like a lunatic because of some movie deal
2) Another either repellent or uninteresting Hollywood exec has a bad business experience because of some movie deal
3) An either repellent or uninteresting actor or director has a bad creative experience because of a movie deal
4) Repeat above for 12 chapters

Possibly the most interesting thing about the book is how the author, Peter Biskind, somehow manages to bring himself across as equally repellent as his characters despite not even being part of the story. He's the type of know-it-all who feels the need to interrupt his reportage about the distribution of Life is Beautiful to rattle off the titles of six obscure Holocaust movies he thinks are better.

Despite all that, DaDP is surprisingly readable, assuming you don't actually have any interest in Nineties independent movies. Biskind assumes you've seen them all, even the ones that were forgotten months after they came out. This book isn't about great food; it's about how that food makes it's way through assholes that shit it out into the world.

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to know how horrible a person Harvey Weinstein is? I mean, apart from being a rapist.
Harvey's always been a right bastard and so has his brother Bob.
Favorite part was the segment on the Weinstein-Billy Bob Thornton feud.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I really enjoyed, with stories of Hollywood , insider gossip, how the whole thing is a shady messed up world. I haven't found another book quite like it about the movie business, still looking.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm one of those who came of age in the `90s and who loves film, remembering all the great films that that decade produced is great fun as well as finding out how they came about from the mouths of the filmmakers themselves. That said, I loved the book but it goes further than talking about the directors and actors, to the guys who held the purse-strings and the exposure, namely the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob, who created Miramax and Dimension, and Robert Redford, the movie star who founded the Sundance Film Festival.

You read about the Weinsteins' humble beginnings as concert promoters onto small films released on tape, and then small pictures released widely to garner a small profit. From there they go large, getting more pictures, some of which gain success enabling them to seem attractive to a massive corporation like Disney who then buys them and gives them the financial clout to corner the market on low budget films. Redford starts Sundance which then grows, after the initial few years, into a recognisable entity and then comes to be regarded as the place to have your film shown at, given how guys like the Weinsteins go there to buy films.

The Weinsteins themselves come across as monsters. Both screaming and abusing staffers, making them wait hours for meetings, docking pay, threatening them, throwing furniture. They really seem like bipolar ogres smashing around to get what they want. Redford comes across as a control freak who is unable to make decisions and thus contributes greatly to the Sundance brand failing to become as mainstream as he had hoped.

Contributions are from many recognisable faces, from the superstar directors Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and Kevin Smith to actors Edward Norton, Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Even Harvey Weinstein agrees to contribute to the book (Redford declines as he holds grudges). Biskind uses these to create a vivid and compelling portrait of the `90s throughout. While some might say the narrative is repetitive (Weinstein doesn't change nor does Redford and the anecdotes rarely differ - Redford bumbling about, Weinstein screaming foaming at the mouth) I found it too interesting and could easily have kept reading until the present day (it stops at 2003).

I loved it, as a fan of good writing and a fan of film, it's a fantastic read and utterly great fun. Here's hoping Biskind does a follow up of the `00s.

[Vincent Masson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an education for sure. It knocked me out of a fantasy I had about the movie business, and for that, I am grateful. I always knew movies were a business, but nothing prepared me for the complete and totally calculated way they are treated in Hollywood, as described in this book. I had always wanted an account of the early days of my filmmaking heroes - such as Steven Soderbergh, and this is about as good as I could have hoped for.

Sadly, the book is also overwritten. The author insists on inserting his own opinions about the movies being discussed, which were often frivolous and unnecessary. The chapters are more episodic, and feature a great deal of "He said, she said", instead of an objective, free flowing chronology.

A must read for anyone looking to enter the film industry.

[eely · Rating 3 out of 5]

peter biskind’s silly vendetta against robert redford makes me think he was not the right person to write this book. he treats the sundance institute like an indie slaughterhouse and backs up his claims by saying redford means well but is simply a reticent and prideful man who only cares about his own interests at the end of the day. he’d reluctantly give redford a compliment and then backtrack by listing all the “atrocities” he’s committed against indie filmmakers, while simultaneously expounding on many (but definitely not all—he was careful to skirt around the most glaring one) of harvey weinstein’s myriad faults, and then basically forgiving him for them “because that’s just the way he is” and that’s how the job gets done. he paints redford as the villain in scenarios in which he did nothing wrong, and will then explain, in an overly forgiving tone, how weinstein verbally assaulted a woman at a public event or threatened to kill an employee because they didn’t have the paperwork he needed.

overall, this book is a nicely detailed exploration of the indie boom post-1980s high concept, conglomerate conscious cinema. but it’s entirely too unbalanced in favor of miramax, and I now know more about harvey weinstein than I ever, ever wanted to know.

[Alex Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Harvey Weinstein guy seems like a real jerk. Bingham Ray, however, I would love to grab a beer with— rest his soul.

[Johnny Roastbeef · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★

An intriguing look into the world of independent filmmaking and distribution with the focus mainly on movers and shakers such as Miramax, October and Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival. Most of this book is incredibly eye-opening, to see what goes on in the not so glamorous side of the business. However, when you’ve read one incident you’ve kind of read them all leading to a repetitive experience, notably during the Sundance elements.

As you would expect the Miramax stories and anecdotes are mouth watering and had the chapters been smaller would’ve no doubt converted this book into a ‘page turner’. Still, it’s a great insight into how one company, in this case Miramax, transformed from an indie distribution powerhouse into a conglomerate backed studio, thus helping to turn the independent business model they had successfully spearheaded on its head and bringing an end to this specific era of filmmaking.

[Digby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant portrayal of the madness which goes into the production of a movie, particularly the indies of the 90s. Published in 2004 it’s an indicting depiction of Harvey Weinstein before the allegations against him emerged. Biskind has a rock n roll type prose, the kind which expects you’re familiar with the motley band of people he’s discussing. Highly recommend!

[athony · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's your favorite movie? Is it Magnolia? The Royal Tenenbaums? Pulp Fiction? Raising Arizona?

If you're like me, you take great comfort in how fundamentally different these movies are, how they seem to come from a realer place than, say, The Matrix, or Star Wars.

You may then be surprised to open this book up and flip through its pages to find that numbers, figures, and dollar signs are all you see.

The disarming truth of American independent cinema is that, in a sense, there is nothing different about it. The ones who made the deals which brought us our favorite movies were suits who were successful to the extent that they cheated, lied, and stole. There was a hidden empire behind these movies, and it was no less a monarchy than Hollywood. We are dismayed to find that any notion of "independence" disappeared by 1994, and all watersheds of queer or feminist cinema were quickly forgotten about by that time, as well.

Peter Biskind does plenty to disabuse us of the idyllic notion that an impassioned, artistic vision is all you need to succeed. But -- and I think this is as much Biskind's intention as the self-evident truth of the matter -- the book fails to attribute anything damning to the space and act of creation itself. We would not have had the movement that engendered Magnolia et. al. without the Weinsteins, sure, but it was still discerning, compassionate, and artistic minds which produced these films. The "dirty" which pervades this book comes not from the ideology or production methods of the films themselves, but from the competitiveness of the players involved in marketing and the homogenization of a certain style.

If you've wondered exactly where your favorite movie come from, this may be the most informative book you could possibly find on the subject. Biskind lends valuable attention to the provincial film movements of the early '80s and the queer and feminist ones in the late '80s and early '90s, largely forgotten in the public consciousness today, and traces the cultural forces that led the Coens and the Andersons to become the filmmakers we do remember.

Peter Biskind's understanding of '90s American cinema is a nuanced one, and essential if we are to engage with these movies responsibly.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mission 2026: Binge reviewing all previous Reads, I was too slothful to review back when I read them

Reading Peter Biskind’s 'Down and Dirty Pictures' felt less like revisiting a period of film history and more like reopening a scandalous family album where everyone looks glamorous, hungry, and faintly untrustworthy. I came to this book expecting a chronicle of independent cinema’s heroic rise against Hollywood monoliths.

What I encountered instead was something far more unsettling and far more honest: a story of how rebellion itself becomes an industry, how idealism is quickly monetized, and how the language of art is repeatedly hijacked by power, ego, and money.

Biskind does not write as a nostalgist mourning a lost golden age. He writes as a witness who knows that golden ages are usually brass polished by myth.

The most striking thing about the book is its tone. Biskind is not reverent. Nor is he cynically aloof.

He is fascinated, amused, appalled, and occasionally exasperated by his subjects. That tonal instability mirrors the world he describes. Independent cinema in the 1980s and 1990s was not a coherent movement with shared values.

It was a volatile mix of desperation, ambition, aesthetic rebellion, and opportunism. Sundance and Miramax emerge not as noble institutions betrayed by success, but as enterprises whose contradictions were present from the very beginning.

The dream of artistic freedom and the hunger for domination were always entwined.

What makes 'Down and Dirty Pictures' so compulsively readable is Biskind’s refusal to simplify personalities into heroes and villains, even when the evidence tempts him to.

Harvey Weinstein, for instance, is portrayed long before the full extent of his crimes became public, yet the book already captures something deeply unsettling about him. His genius for manipulation, his taste-making instincts, his relentless aggression, and his capacity for cruelty are all present.

What chilled me was how familiar this portrait felt, not just in retrospect, but as a pattern repeated across creative industries. Weinstein is not an aberration in Biskind’s telling. He is an extreme expression of a system that rewards ruthlessness when it produces profit.

Equally compelling is how Biskind situates Sundance. Often mythologized as a haven for pure artistic voices, Sundance here appears as a battleground where aesthetics, politics, and commerce collide. The festival becomes a marketplace masquerading as a monastery. Films are consecrated as art while being quietly priced, packaged, and sold. Filmmakers arrive hoping to be discovered, only to find themselves auctioned.

What disturbed me was not the existence of this marketplace, which is inevitable, but the way the rhetoric of independence is used to mask power dynamics that are anything but independent.

Biskind is particularly sharp when he examines how the word "independent" itself is hollowed out. Independence becomes a brand rather than a practice.

A Miramax film may be financed, marketed, and distributed with corporate muscle, yet still be labeled independent because of its tone, subject matter, or budget bracket.

The book made me reflect on how easily language bends to accommodate capital. Independence, rebellion, authenticity, and even transgression are absorbed into a system that thrives on selling the illusion of resistance.

By the time a movement becomes visible, it is already being repackaged.

What I appreciated deeply was Biskind’s attention to the filmmakers themselves, not as romantic auteurs, but as flawed, anxious, ambitious people navigating a shifting landscape. Directors like Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, and Kevin Smith appear not as solitary geniuses but as participants in a competitive ecosystem. Their successes are inseparable from timing, networking, compromise, and sheer luck.

The book quietly dismantles the myth of the lone visionary without replacing it with bureaucratic determinism. Talent matters, but it is never enough. Timing matters, but it is never fair.

There is a melancholy undercurrent running through the book that I did not expect. As the narrative progresses, the early excitement of discovery gives way to consolidation. The same companies that once championed risky voices begin to favour formulas.

The same festivals that once celebrated surprise begin to reward familiarity. Biskind does not frame this as betrayal so much as entropy. Systems tend toward stability, and stability tends toward repetition. What begins as a rupture slowly becomes a routine. By the end, the reader is left with the uneasy sense that independence was always a temporary condition, never a permanent state.

One of the book’s great strengths is its oral history texture. Biskind weaves together interviews, anecdotes, gossip, and documented events in a way that feels alive and immediate. This approach gives the book a slightly untrustworthy charm. You are constantly aware that memory is selective, self-serving, and performative. People remember themselves as braver, more principled, and more central than they probably were. Biskind does not correct every exaggeration. Instead, he lets contradictions sit side by side.

The result feels truer than a cleaner narrative would have been. History, especially recent cultural history, is messy, and the book honors that messiness.

At times, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer density of names, films, deals, and betrayals. This is not a streamlined narrative. It sprawls, digresses, and doubles back. But that sprawl felt appropriate.

The independent film scene was not a single story but a swarm of intersecting trajectories. Reading it required a kind of surrender, an acceptance that clarity would emerge not from linear progression but from accumulation.

Gradually, patterns formed. Power concentrates. Rebels become gatekeepers. Margins are fetishized and then domesticated.

What lingered with me most was the book’s implicit question: is it possible for art to remain genuinely oppositional once it becomes economically viable? Biskind never answers this directly, but the evidence he presents is sobering.

The moment a form of expression proves profitable, it attracts forces that reshape it. That does not mean meaningful art cannot exist within systems of capital, but it does mean that claims of purity should be treated with suspicion.

The book left me more skeptical of branding, especially branding that promises authenticity.

I also found myself thinking about how male-dominated this world was, and how casually misogyny and exclusion are normalized throughout the narrative. Women appear, but rarely as power brokers. Their marginalization is not foregrounded as a critique, but its very invisibility becomes a critique in itself.

The independent film movement prided itself on being progressive, yet replicated many of the same structural inequalities as mainstream Hollywood. That contradiction feels particularly relevant now, when industries are more self-conscious about representation but still struggle to redistribute power.

Emotionally, 'Down and Dirty Pictures' left me with a complicated mix of admiration and disillusionment. I admire the audacity of that era, the willingness to take risks, and the hunger to tell stories that did not fit studio formulas.

At the same time, I feel disenchanted by how quickly those impulses were subsumed by market logic. The book does not kill my love for independent cinema, but it strips it of innocence. It asks me to love the work without worshipping the system that produces it.

By the time I finished the book, I realized that its title is more precise than it first appears. These are down and dirty pictures not just because of their content, but because of the conditions under which they were made, sold, and celebrated.

The dirt is not incidental; it is structural. Biskind refuses to clean it up for the sake of a better story. That refusal is the book’s greatest integrity.

This is not a book for readers looking for inspiration alone. It is for readers willing to sit with contradiction, to acknowledge that art and commerce are locked in a relationship neither can escape. It is also a book that feels increasingly prophetic.

The cycles Biskind documents have only accelerated. Festivals are bigger, brands louder, algorithms more decisive. The dream of independence persists, but it now arrives pre-packaged, pre-sold, and pre-exhausted.

When I closed 'Down and Dirty Pictures,' I did not feel nostalgic for a lost era so much as alert to a recurring pattern. Movements rise, declare themselves different, and slowly become what they once opposed. The value of Biskind’s book lies not in mourning that cycle, but in exposing it with clarity and wit. It does not tell us how to escape the system. It tells us how the system works.

And in a cultural landscape addicted to myths of disruption, that kind of honesty feels quietly radical.

Most recommended for film buffs.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this slowly over a few months. Peter Biskind at his best writes the most entertaining Hollywood insider books

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exhaustive history of the American independent film scene stretching from the birth of Redford's Sundance Film Festival, through the film boom and acquisitions bubble of the 90's, up through the transformation and commercialization of the scene by the early 2000's. At the center of everything are Bob and Harvey Weinstein and Miramax films--this is a book about Harvey as much as anything else, and will mostly endure as a chronicle of Weinstein horror stories.

Reading it in 2020, it's easy to see the now infamous revelations about the man and his crimes coming: Biskind, through meticulous notes and interviews, paints a picture of an image-obsessed pathological liar and textbook abuser. Weinstein bullied everybody, and more often than not was rewarded for his ruthlessness. There are some shocking and downright frightening stories recounted here: Weinstein psychologically torturing interns and junior staff; threatening and intimidating journalists and young, desperate filmmakers; even occasional instances of physical violence. With all this behavior on record and documented as early as this book's publication in 2003, it's no wonder that Weinstein's other crimes were something of an open secret in Hollywood.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Biskind's book is the insight it gives into the truly insane world of Hollywood film production and backroom wheeling and dealing. The corruption and deceit practiced by Miramax is truly mind-boggling. There are so many stories here of Miramax outright stealing from actors, filmmakers and producers--signing a deal, acquiring and distributing a film for a large profit, only to bury partners in inflated budgets, fees and legalese to con them out of their share of the profits.

Another interesting aspect of the read for me was seeing some of Weinstein's defenders and business bedfellows go to bat for him in print and make excuses for his behavior. Kevin Smith, Matt Damon, and Quentin Tarantino all offer varying levels of justifications for Harvey's general terribleness and exploitative qualities; some interviewers even gallingly describe him as a decent man, a passionate film buff largely misunderstood. Smith in particular comes off as a Miramax loyalist and Harvey's whipping boy. Knowing what we know now, I wonder if some of the parties involved wish they could take back their words?

While Harvey and Bob dominate the book, the Weinsteins are not the only interesting figures Biskind writes about. Steven Soderbergh's career gets pretty thorough coverage, and he comes off as very conflicted and intense, an often self sabotaging artist that longs for the career of the auteur but seems destined for studio filmmaking, as much as he may resist it. He's constantly trying to navigate the divide between the artistic and the commercial. Quentin Tarantino comes off as pure crazy and more than a little sad, which is no surprise; Damon and Affleck are kind of insufferable in their bro-isms; and Miramax favorite Gwyneth Paltrow is revealed to have always been an insulated star completely cut off from reality; Disney head Michael Eisner is shown as a sagacious businessman who, in acquiring Miramax, brokers a deal with the devil. A breakout star of the book is Bingham Ray, one-time studio head of the former Miramax rival October (now on it's third or fourth life as Focus Features), a brash, shit talking executive with a heart of gold who needs his own biopic.

Unfortunately, for a book that also focuses largely on Sundance, it's founder Robert Redford remains rather elusive throughout the book. What is here is interesting, and largely deconstructs the likeable star, everyman persona Redford has cultivated, but I wanted to know more. The Sundance stuff in general really plays background to the Weinstein stuff, and the two subjects are often sandwiched together in lengthy chapters. It tends to get lost. Structurally, the book is a bit of a mess. Large chapters often overlap chronologically, and Biskind often finds himself retreading familiar ground, hopping back and forth. The book is like a working cut of a great film: it's full of great stuff, but it could have used a good editor and a prodigious trim.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

12/13/18: Still a completely addictive read. And who knew that Harvey Weinstein would turn out to be even more of a complete monster than this book had already painted him as? Oy veh.

A quasi-sequel to Biskind’s Easy Riders Raging Bulls, which I re-devoured recently, Down and Dirty Pictures illuminates how the seeds the 70’s filmmaking mavericks planted sprouted a decade or so later. It is less about independent movies themselves as it is about the complicated process of how they are funded, how they get made and how they get distributed (or not distributed as it turns out). It starts in the mid-80’s but really gets going with the 1989 release of Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the game changing hit launched at Sundance that kick-started the independent film scene into the glory days of the 1990’s, when Miramax films rose to prominence and Sundance was cemented as the annual launching pad (and studio acquisitions feeding frenzy) for indie films that it remains today. It’s a fascinating, juicy read, but also rather depressing. The main players are Harvey Weinstein, the man who with his brother Bob founded Miramax Films, and Robert Redford, the movie star who launched Sundance. Problem is that Weinstein is a massively insecure, volcanically abusive, horrible human being – the kind of boss who populates your worst nightmares - and Redford is a passive aggressive control freak (milder-mannered and well-meaning, but no less of a nightmare). Between them and their studios and organizations they did the world of independent film a whole lot of real good and a whole lot of terrible-bad. The genuine indie films – funded outside of the studio system and made out of passion and love above all other concerns, including monetary – were eventually supplanted by bigger budgeted quasi-indies. There is a world of difference between genuine zero-budget films like say, Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise (1984) or Rose Troche’s Go Fish (1994), and such relatively big budgeted, Oscar-winning indie/mainstream hybrid fare like Shakespeare in Love (1998). Once the big studios got involved in indies (after all, Miramax et al proved there was big money to be made) the former kind of film became the extreme exception and the latter the norm; as usual, the little guys got almost entirely squeezed out. Today the extreme polarization is evident: 75% of the year the mainstream Hollywood movies available are mainly a wasteland of superheroes, sequels, franchises, and retreads, while late in the year we are offered the more mid-budget independent efforts, which sprout up just in time for Oscar season (luckily we haven’t yet devolved to the point where shitty, bloated, empty blockbusters like Man of Steel are Oscar bait for anything other than technical awards). In short, the entire situation - further marginalization of the work of artists in favor of expensive corporate junk - pretty much sucks. But I digress. Back to the book, Biskind is a fine writer, with a talent for film analysis – as above, the book is more about the nuts and bolts of filmmaking but Biskind occasionally editorializes, and his pithy observations are to my mind generally spot-on (Bravo, I say regarding his contempt for the borderline offensive Roberto Begnini starrer Life is Beautiful (1997) and to his praise for excellent but all-but-forgotten films like L.I.E. from 2001). He is also adept at explaining the rather convoluted progression/regression of the indie film scene, keeping it all compulsively readable, hard to put down, and all those other clichéd phrases. But as I said earlier, it's a pretty depressing story. By the way, Down and Dirty Pictures was published in 2004 – I’d be very interested in reading an updated version.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally polished off Peter Biskind's "Down and Dirty Pictures," the saga of the rise and fall of independent film in its Sundance and Miramax incarnations, from "sex, lies, and videotape" to the big-budget, mainstream not-really-indie flicks Miramax now supports (Kate and Leopold? She's All That?)

I'm a big fan of Biskind's gossipy dissection of the "golden age" of 70s cinema, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," and "Dirty Pictures" shares the same dedication to movie minutiae, the same exhaustive sourcing, and the same penchant for titillating tales (although this time around instead of sex and drugs we get frequent updates on both Harvey Weinstein's temper and his inhalation of various foodstuffs). In fact, the anecdotes about Harvey's rages -- frequently attributed to anonymous, no doubt fearful sources -- grow tiresome. Enough! We get it! The man's a pitbull! Now tell me more about the movies ...

Truthfully, this seems like a story told before the time was ripe. Yes, since the events described are recent we have the benefit of fresh memories, but genuine insights seem obscurred by the copious details, byzantine deals, and unwieldy cast of characters. It's like those Magic Eye mosaics -- supposedly if you stare long enough you can spy the clipper ship floating beneath the surface flotsam, but I've never had the patience for those. Just draw me the damn picture!

Still, it's a fascinating book if you love movies or, in particular, if you have ever dreamed of making your own. Fascinating and discouraging. As a collaborative and commercial art, filmmaking requires resources, which means inspiration, vision, and talent won't get you across the goal line. You have to have the means, the opportunity, and the personality to persuade someone with deep pockets to commit to your dream, and you run the risk that the dream will become a pitbull-populated nightmare. Honestly, there is no truly independent cinema, unless you can make your entire movie yourself. Otherwise, you're bound to be dependent on someone to finance the filming and post-production, to distribute and market the movie, to put it on the screens and put asses in the seats.

Where is the National Endowment for the Arts in all this? Are there grants that would enable filmmakers to create without commercial considerations? Of course, grants don't necessarily allow greater independence; they just enforce different constraints.

Yesterday I saw a CNN/Money story that posited Newmarket as the "new Miramax." Biskind pointed out in his book that every new indie (October, Grammercy, Focus, et al) has been anointed the "new Miramax," but only Miramax is really Miramax, in all its profane glory.

[Jen Crichton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started to read this book in October 2017 as the Harvey Weinstein me-too details exploded in plain view. I had heard that Down and Dirty Pictures was sloppily written, could use tightening up by a good editor and was ultimately depressing. All true. But the portrait of Weinstein that Biskind drew back in 2005 is as damning as the view of Weinstein that has emerged more recently.

This book shows how abusive, cruel, sadistic Weinstein was to every person who worked for him, male and female. Sometimes stories of sexual abuse and harassment are so at odds with the deference with which a man treats his male colleagues that the disconnect creates a cognitive dissonance that has to be bridged. No effort needed here. Harvey W's abusive behavior with young women can be viewed as a seamless extension of his abusive behavior with competitors, peers and underlings. With both groups, Weinstein seemed intent on humiliating, dominating and making life a misery for them. Kudos to Barry Diller called him out as a bully to his face in about 2000, and to Spike Lee who anticipated that "God don't like ugly" and that one day Harvey's heinous behavior would come back to bite him in the ass (that’s a mild paraphrase of what Lee actually said).

DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES is supposed to be equally about Robert Redford and the rise of Sundance. But that story is such a bland tale of Redford's egotism and egocentricity -- anyone who has read a Vanity Fair dispatch from Sundance can write that subplot in their own head on their own. Just breeze through those chapters.

It’s fascinating to read about the rise of Harvey knowing the fall that lay ahead. And fascinating to see how Harvey set his own trajectory in motion.

It is a wonder the fall took so long. According to Biskind, Harvey's powers were on the wane and his movies were losing money (despite the suites at the Peninsula Hotel) even at the time of the book's publication in 2005. A slew of film people had already vowed never to work with such an abusive, unethical bully again. But the book was also criticized for being a hatchet job on Harvey. Pretty sure Harvey's forces had gone into overdrive to undermine its credibility.

If I were Biskind and his publisher, I would retrofit the book to be about the rise of Miramax, cut the lackluster Sundance story, and add a hundred paged epilogue. Edit well and send back out to the world. The book as it is is no sacred text. But the story is an important one that should be read and learned from. And it stops in the second act, just as Harvey's trajectory begins to enter its long -- and then sudden -- decline.

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic read this was. This book was criticised at the time of publication by some (Roger Ebert, who has an unflattering cameo) who claimed it "consisted of one bad Harvey story after another". The irony is that today the book would be seen as being soft on Weinstein, the fearsome indie film producer already known to film students for his ferocious tempers which involved throwing photo frames at people, ripping doors off their hinges, ripping phones off their cords etc. Now he is a household names thanks to sexual assault and harassment allegations so vast and horrifying ("the plant pot") they spawned a civil rights movement. I can't even bring myself to type this sentence after the last one, but as the book proves, his and his brother Bob's production company, Miramax (named after their parents, Miriam and Max) was vital to the American New Wave in the 1990s. For a generation of film students, Harvey Weinstein was independent cinema. Even if his taste for genuinely thrilling films like Pulp Fiction waned by the end of the nineties when he was making crap like The Cider House Rules. You could even make the case for him looming larger than any other producer in cinema history, for negative reasons as much as positive. Weinstein long nursed filmmaking ambitions and saw himself as a director, involved with making the movie and (infamously) editing it rather than simply putting up the money. Changes weren't suggested, they were forced on directors. Many independent films came with the "Weinstein cut" rather than the "director's cut". Some such as "Farewell my Concubine" came out so different, early fans testified it was an entirely different film. He had the power to bury a film and indeed he did, scaring off other buyers and then simply losing interest himself or, in other cases, burying a film purely out of a dispute with the director or cast.

His behaviour in this book is indeed horrific. I swear this is the book in which I've most read the F-word, not just from Harvey but also from Quentin Tarantino who was a perfect match for Weinstein if certainly not in criminal behaviour, then in his violent and vulgar movies which encapsulated the alpha-male Harvey aesthetic. Tarantino himself comes off as goofy and ego-driven but I'll confess I developed a newfound respect for him as a young director making films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. I'll never forget the first time I saw the latter as a teen and caught a chill when the title-card (from the iconic Pulp Fiction opening credits, perhaps the greatest in all cinema) "produced by Harvey and Bob Weinstein" came on, knowing full-well the stories about the pair.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biskind researched the crap out of this book and the portrait of Miramax is even more terrifying than you can believe. I kept wishing they'd come out with one more flop at the right time to finally doom them but the book also convinced me that every other straight white male in the film business also admired their relentless misogyny, homophobia and starfucking. I loved the presence of Spike Lee in this book, constantly goading Miramax and all of the film studios, calling the Ws "Satan" and that "fat rat fucker," as well as Christine Vachon and Todd Haynes managing to make "Far from Heaven" by telling W. to fuck off. But the overall portrait is of independent film as the same old shit, nothing but a con to get directors and actors desperate for exposure to sign over all of the money in their movies to Miramax or Sundance (Robert Redford is as bad as the brothers) and getting nothing if they break or flop.
I held back a star because this book could have held back 15-20 superfluous W. anecdotes. You know by the 10th one that he will scream at people, hit them, throw stuff, and act as a sexual predator and will get away with it for decades and decades because the movie business is completely rotten. I would have loved more interviews with Spike, with Todd Haynes, with Christine Vachon, with Kimberly Peirce, with Jane Campion, or Cheryl Dunye. Soderbergh and David O Russell are also overexposed and are not nearly as talented as they think they are.

[Inna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very amusing description of the US independent film scene during the 1990s, especially of its business aspects. I am not sufficiently familiar with the field to judge each argument on its merits. In any case the notion that during the 90s there was an attempt to create a middle ground between the traditional independent film scene and large Hollywood studios, an attempt that eventually failed, makes sense.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, with some great insider information and thoughtful perspective on the industry. I'd say it's as good or better than Easy Riders, Raging Bulls but the 'in-progress' nature of the subject matter causes this to end on a "to be continued" note rather than providing an opportunity for reflection and retrospective.

I'd love to read an updated version that ends with either the Weinsteins leaving Miramax in 2005 or - better yet - one that runs up until 2017.

[Sparse Greener · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to rid yourself of the idea that there is a little good in everyone, read this book. The Weinstein brothers really are an embarrassment to humanity—and that’s ignoring the rape or sexual assault which this book doesn’t address—and it’s hard to argue that their existence doesn’t make the world a worse place. Overall a fascinating read, if you don’t mind reading about truly horrible people for a few hundred pages.

[Nick Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Start to finish. It starts off sprinting and never slows. Peter Biskind has the ability to take reality and pace it like a non-stop action movie. The insights into the film business are better than most industry books I've read. call into work, cancel plans, set aside a day or two to read this, once you pick it up you won't put it down.

[Sean Condon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tries to push the idea that the distributors are the true heroes of the indie film business; I do not buy it. Pretty interesting but nowhere near as good as Easy Riders Raging Bulls.

[quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating and prescient. learned about a lot of movies that mean a lot to me and maybe 14 other people

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2004. Biskind is always a good read about Hollywood.

[Graham Mott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audible. An excellent book although it is effectively 80% of the story as it was written before the Me Too movement and the final denouement of Weinstein. An excellent follow on from his Raging Bull book and also a very good Audible production.

[Simone S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Biskind è l’autore di uno dei libri più importanti sul cinema indipendente statunitense degli anni Settanta, la cosiddetta Nuova Hollywood: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, del 1998. Sei anni dopo pubblicò Down and Dirty Pictures, cioè il suo ideale seguito, basato sul cinema indipendente negli Stati Uniti della fine degli anni Ottanta e dei primi anni Novanta.

Il libro si apre con una citazione di Edward Norton che sostiene che alla fine degli anni Sessanta gli Studios non fossero più capaci di produrre film per giovani, e per questo trionfò la Nuova Hollywood, con registi nuovi che risolsero quel problema. Una cosa simile avvenne negli anni Novanta. E il libro parla proprio di questo.

Gli anni Ottanta al cinema avevano infatti ripristinato un ordine (reazionario), coi poliziotti che non erano più corrotti ma eroi, e magari pure simpatici, coi soldati statunitensi che vincevano le guerre (anche quelle già perse), e più in generale con film che vendevano fantasie e fughe dalla realtà piuttosto che realtà scomode.

In un clima simile, Robert Redford provò a dare spazio a giovani cineasti (magari non necessariamente bianchi e maschi) col suo Sundance Festival, e i due fratelli Weinstein a New York fondarono la casa distributrice Miramax, curiosamente partendo dalla musica rock, non dal cinema. Ed è su questi due fenomeni che Peter Biskind si concentra principalmente, dando anche spazio ad un’altra casa di distribuzione, la October di Bingham Ray, Jeff Lipsky e Barry Greenstein.

Il libro è lungo e pienissimo di informazioni, però non posso dire che lo stile dell’autore mi abbia convinto al 100%. Il testo si basa su centinaia di interviste e testimonianze, ma spesso si sofferma su particolari per me più che secondari come litigi, minacce, odi personali, e frecciatine velenose tra i vari personaggi dell’ambiente del cinema indipendente made in USA. Più volte ho dovuto ricorrere a Google solo per scoprire chi fosse al centro dell’ennesima faida, magari per rimanere deluso dall’inutilità delle persone coinvolte.

Mi sarebbe piaciuto leggere qualcosa in più su film e registi menzionati nel libro, che non del gossip intorno agli stessi, specialmente perché il tono del libro rimane più o meno lo stesso andando avanti coi capitoli, e con gli anni (il libro copre dal 1989 al 2002, approssimatamente). Soltanto imbarcando un sacco di informazione ridondante nella lettura del libro si riesce a capire il ruolo delle piccole case distributrici dei primi anni Novanta nel diffondere il cinema indipendente negli Stati Uniti, così come si capisce come le cose siano cambiate quando le grandi case di produzione se ne appropriarono (la Disney comprò la Miramax) e quando i distributori si misero a produrre (un conto è distribuire qualcosa di fatto in maniera indipendente, un conto è finanziare progetti).

Il primo capitolo fa un preambolo sulla situazione pre-1989. Sundance aveva rilevato lo US Film Festival nel 1985 (nonostante a Robert Redford pare che non interessassero i festival), ma ottenne fama soprattutto nel 1989 quando un ventiseienne Steven Soderbergh ci presentò Sex, Lies and Videotape (Sesso, bugie e videotape, per Norton paragonabile a The Graduate di Mike Nichols). E fu la Miramax a distribuirlo, vincendoci Cannes. Miramax che cominciava praticamente allora, ma che già aveva chiara la strategia di cercare Oscar e pagare poco i suoi film (il primo Oscar fu per Max Von Sydow in Pelle the Conqueror, Pelle alla conquista del mondo, 1987).

I capitoli successivi di Down and Dirty Pictures vanno in ordine cronologico e Biskind parla un po’ di Miramax, un po’ del Sundance, e un po’ della October, fondata nel 1991 da Jeff Lipsky e Bingham Ray (che dovettero unirsi a Amir Malin per avere dei soldi, che era meno idealista e cinefilo).

La strategia della Miramax agli esordi era fondamentalmente quella di comprare film da club di cinema e venderli come prodotti diversi per portarli in sala (come il documentario The Thin Blue Line di Errol Morris del 1988 venduto come un film del mistero/dell’orrore). E poi si lanciava anche su prodotti potenzialmente scomodi, tipo Scandal (Scandal – Il caso Profumo, 1989), o My Left Foot (Il mio piede sinistro, 1989) che gli fece ottenere cinque nomination agli Oscar. I Weinstein non erano belle persone, ma l’azienda era in continuo fermento. Harvey cominciò anche con la sua abitudine di cambiare il montaggio in post-produzione sforbiciando bene bene Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988) di Tornatore (il nickname di Harvey era Scissorhands, Mani di forbice). Miramax dopo l’ottimo 1989 ebbe due anni pessimi, tanto che i fratelli pensarono di vendere, ma non lo fecero.

Nel frattempo Sundance organizzava laboratori per cineasti più il famoso festival, ma avere a che fare con Robert Redford pare non fosse semplice perché voleva controllare tutto. Il 1991 fu un buon festival con Poison di Todd Haynes (Roger Ebert si rifiutò di salutarlo per questo film, scrive Biskind, ma Ebert ha contestato questo fatto), Slacker di Linklater e City of Hope (La città della speranza) di John Sayle. E nel 1992 Tarantino presentò Reservoir Dogs (Le iene), nonostante fosse un film di genere e violento, tutto ciò che a Redford non piaceva (ma il festival lo dirigeva Geoffrey Gilmore).

Potrei continuare a riassumere il contenuto del libro in questo e facendolo sembrare un libro sull’arte cinematografica, o almeno sul mercato da essa generato, ma vi prenderei un po’ in giro. Preferisco farvi un esempio delle informazioni più interessanti (badate bene: ho scremato!) fornite da Biskind in un suo capitolo tipo. Prendiamo, per esempio, il capitolo nove, sul 1997.

Miramax: Matt Damon a Harvard sta scrivendo Good Will Hunting (Will Hunting – Genio ribelle, 1997), mentre Ben Affleck esce da Dazed and Confused (La vita è un sogno, 1993) di Linklater (insieme a Matthew McConaughey), un disastro (ma non era un progetto personale). Will Hunting la vendettero a Castle Rock e ci lavorarono un anno mentre facevano feste con tutti i loro amici. Però poi le cose andarono male e i due chiesero a Kevin Smith di intercedere con Miramax, e Harvey Weinstein buttò milioni in questo progetto che a tutti gli altri (tipo Jack Lechner) sembrò una follia.
Sundance: Redford lancia il progetto Sundance Cinemas, che si rivela un disastro totale (mentre lui scompare per fare The Horse Whisperer, L’uomo che sussurrava ai cavalli, 1998). Qualcosa di simile successe con Sundance Productions, lanciata nel 2000 ma senza grosse conseguenze.
October: (ovvero la nuova Miramax, anche se in soldoni non arrivava minimamente ai suoi livelli) si accaparrò Happiness (Happiness – Felicità, 1998), ma era difficile distribuirla per la qualificazione (e la casa madre Universal non dava così tanta autonomia).
Weinstein con un gioco al rialzo fece pagare caro a October (Cassian Elwes) The Apostle (L’apostolo) di Robert Duvall, perché già Miramax non faceva più acquisti per distribuire, ma voleva produrre direttamente e poi distribuire. E Orgazmo di Parker e Stone se la accaparrò Greenstein per October.
Ci siamo capiti? Down and Dirty Pictures è zeppo di informazioni, ma temo che per la maggior parte si tratti di cose che lasciano un po’ il tempo che trovano. Per esempio, è importante dirci delle feste di Damon e Affleck? O delle strette di mano di Todd Haynes?

In ogni caso, nel mare di informazioni in cui ti sommerge il libro, ci sono isole di cultura e di fatti interessanti da scoprire.

Se la Miramax deve ringraziare Tarantino all’inizio degli anni Novanta, verso la fine furono film come Good Will Hunting e Scream 2 a farle fare soldi. E Damon e Affleck devono molto ai Weinstein, a cui sono rimasti fedeli negli anni, anche se pare che non videro un centesimo per il loro film che finì per guadagnare 350 milioni di dollari. Tutto questo mentre Jackie Brown deludeva (anche lo stesso Tarantino) dopo l’enorme successo di Pulp Fiction (1994), facendo pure arrabbiare Spike Lee.

Nel 1998, l’opera prima di Aronofsky (Pi, π – Il teorema del delirio, 1998) fu snobbata da Miramax e October, ma la comprò Amir Malin di Artisan e lì restò il direttore (che era un drop out di Harvard). Miramax si incaponì con 54 (Studio 54, 1998), che invece fu un disastro. Andò bene invece con Shakespeare in Love (con Harvey che rimontava di continuo il film per far salire i punteggi delle proiezioni di prova). Velvet Goldmine, invece, fu un altro disastro finanziario, ma la Miramax ha dimostrato negli anni di saper far fruttare i successi e nascondere bene gli insuccessi.

L’anno successivo, Harvey Weinstein distrusse Wide Awake (Ad occhi aperti) di M. Night Shyamalan, arriva a farlo piangere (lui e Rosie O’Donnell). La tattica di Harvey pareva essere: trattare malissimo qualcuno per poi chiedere scusa, inviando fiori e dicendo che lui fa tutto per amore del cinema. Harvey trattava invece bene Kevin Smith, ma il suo Dogma era diventato qualcosa di difficile da distribuire (troppe polemiche).

In pratica, la storia della Miramax si può riassumere così: un’epoca del bronzo tra 1979 e il 1986 (terminata con l’insuccesso di Playing for Keeps, film scritto e diretto dai fratelli Weinstein). L’epoca d’argento fu il 1987-1993, anno in cui fu comprata da Disney e ci fu un notevole cambio generazionale. E poi l’epoca d’oro tra il 1993 e il 1999 (con l’Oscar per Shakespeare in Love). Poi altro cambio generazionale, e perdita di una direzione chiara (Harvey Weinstein prima scese in politica coi Democratici, poi ebbe un infarto). Dopo l’epoca d’oro, furono parecchi i film abbandonati come The Yards (2000) o The Golden Bowl (2000), e ci furono produzioni travagliate come Gangs of New York (2002) che portò Harvey a scontrarsi con Scorsese, che voleva carta bianca dal suo produttore. In pratica, quando la Miramax distributrice di film indipendenti divenne produttora, finì l’indipendenza dei cineasti…

La October, dopo un po’ di insuccessi, chiuse i battenti a causa delle continue guerre interne tra Bingham Ray e Scott Greenstein. Greenstein, responsabile del grande successo di The Apostle, rimase al timone negli ultimi mesi, fino alla vendita alla Universal, che poi la vendette a Barry Diller che la trasformò in USA Films (fu la USA Films a distribuire Traffic di Soderbergh, che con Schizopolis nel 1996 aveva fatto un film personale che non aveva convinto nessuno e poi aveva accettato di malgrado di girare Out of Sight, 1998). Comprata da Vivendi e poi ripresa da Universal, fu successivamente fusa con Good Machine e diventò Focus Features. Praticamente, a fine anni Novanta le grandi imprese maneggiavano le indipendenti ma non sapevano bene che farci. Grazie a Traffic, invece, Soderbergh si associò a Clooney in una piccola società di produzione, Section Eight, per finanziare gente come Christopher Nolan, Gonzalo Iñárritu e Alfonso Cuarón.

Nei primi anni Duemila, dentro la Miramax, la Dimension Films di Bob Weinstein faceva soldi (con gli Scream e Scary Movie, 2000), ma la Miramax stessa era in difficoltà, con vari film presi e poi persi in post production hell (tipo il controverso O (O come Otello, 2001) di Tim Blake Nelson – il produttore Eric Gitter denunciò Harvey Weinstein per i ritardi distributivi), e Harvey che continuava con l’avventura politica. Faceva aggressive campagne stampa (anche non dichiarate, avendo in tasca giornalisti vari), a favore o contro film (a volte contro anche quelli distribuiti da lui stesso, come Dead Man di Jim Jarmusch). La Miramax fece anche affondare All the Pretty Horses (Passione ribelle, 2001), distruggendo il lavoro di Billy Bob Thornton (e anche rovinandogli temporaneamente la vita). Alla fine solo Chocolat di Lasse Hallstrom funzionò, facendo parte di un genere che Biskind definisce euroamericano, con un sapore europeo ma coi dettagli tutti imposti dal mercato statunitense). Con Amélie e In the Beedroom le cose andarono bene nel 2001, ma i disastri di Gangs of New York e Kate & Leopold di James Mangold non furono facili da superare.

Il punto è che ormai la Miramax non era più la casa distributrice di film indipendenti della fine degli anni Ottanta: si impelagava in produzioni da 100 milioni di dollari, era difficile dire che fossero progetti indipendenti! E molti dei registi nati con Miramax decidevano di non tornarci, viste le esperienze poco felici che avevano vissuto (la lista include Alexander Payne, Todd Haynes, James Gray, David O. Russell, Larry Clark, Jim Mangold, Todd Field…). E anche chi ci tornava non lo faceva con entusiasmo: Spike Lee si bruciò con Harvey tentando di fare Rent, tanto che dichiarò che avrebbe preferito vendere calzini a 5 dollari per tre paia prima di tornare da lui. E fu profetico nell’augurargli che tutto il male che aveva fatto gli sarebbe tornato indietro (tornò precisamente nel 2018)!

Insomma, questa è una lettura che posso consigliare soltanto a chi abbia una vera passione per il cinema indipendente statunitense degli anni Novanta, e che abbia pure voglia di leggere un tomo notevole sapendo di poterci cavar fuori soltanto un numero limitato di informazioni realmente intriganti ed interessanti. Sarò onesto: ho fatto fatica a terminarlo, credo che ne sia valsa la pena, ma mi piacerebbe leggerne una versione lunga la metà e senza un sacco di aneddoti decisamente inutili.

[Soph · Rating 5 out of 5]

this felt like such an education on a topic (miramax/the 90s and early 2000s film industry) i am so invested in. incredible read, i felt like i just took a whole crash course.

[Annette Senesi · Rating 2 out of 5]

toooooooo dense and meandering for 3/4 of the book, and the last quarter feels so sloppily finished

[Brenden Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had some problems with Biskind's beloved classic "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls." I felt that Biskind had trouble balancing his reverence for his subjects with the requirements of the historian in that one. I felt that he often excused bad behavior -- especially misogyny-- of his subjects and had difficulty separating truth from legend. As a result, it was sometimes difficult to parse whether you were reading a credible history or a work of legend. While that book is an essential classic, it is a flawed text.

Oddly enough, in a book about the once-larger than life Harvey Weinstein, Biskind does a much better job bringing his subjects down to Earth.

"Down and Dirty Pictures" is the unflinching, incredibly detailed (it runs at 25 hours on audiobook) story of independent film from "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" to "Gangs of New York." It is a story of indie film from its rebirth to its near-death as every studio set up an "indie" in-house.

The book is must-read material for anyone working in the entertainment industry because Biskind might be better than anyone at recounting the interactions between business and art that define Hollywood, though Kim Masters who appeared in the special thanks for the book deserves consideration there as well. Why did Tarantino become Tarantino? Why don't more people know the names of Allison Anders or Alexandre Rockwell? What even is an indie? The answers are all in here and they are so complex and so fascinating that it is alternately exhilarating and heartbreaking.

While the book is as excellent an account of 90s independent film as one could imagine, the book also has a serious flaw that becomes more noticeable with each passing year. While Harvey Weinstein is depicted as an abuser -- his mistreatment of Miramax employees, collaborators, and competitors examined at length -- there is no mention of his sexual crimes. It is unclear if Biskind was undermined by NDAs or if he himself hoped to avoid litigation at a time when no one would go on the record about Weinstein's sexual assaults and other crimes. This stuff was known by his sources at that time, and Kim Masters has said that this story was out there for years before the Times published. But, the absence of discourse around Weinstein's sexual crimes and how his misogyny likely ended countless careers for women in Hollywood renders the book incomplete regardless.

With that massive caveat, I think "Down and Dirty Pictures" is among the best film histories ever written. It is recent enough to be relevant to anyone working today and yet, it is distant enough to feel like a timeless classic not even 20 years after its publication. Hopefully, Biskind or someone else will plug the holes in the narrative, but if not, "Down and Dirty Pictures" will still stand as a monumental document of a complicated time in Hollywood history.