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Maybe someday
46
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
59/100Critics
34/100Scholars
Author:
Sam Wasson
Publisher:
Flatiron Books
Date:
February 4, 2020
Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making.
What The Reviewers Say
The Big Goodbye, Sam Wasson’s deep dig into the making of the film, is a work of exquisite precision. It’s about much more than a movie.
Sam Wasson...[has] a novelist’s eye for complex characters and a natural storyteller’s feel for scenes, dialogue and richly revealing details.
...as Sam Wasson shows in compelling detail in his fine new book The Big Goodbye, the makers of Chinatown were simply too young, too ambitious, too controversial, and their movie, while undeniably brilliant, was like a brash finger stuck in the eye of the Hollywood establishment.
Anyone expecting an uplifting tale of collaborative striving for artistic purity is in for a shock.
