Join the City of West Hollywood’s WeHo Reads program and Book Soup for Sam Wasson discussing and signing The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood. He will be in conversation with director and screenwriter James Gray (Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z).
Chinatown is one of the best films 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. In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of the most colorful characters in the most colorful period of Hollywood history. Here is Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers, as compelling a movie star as there has ever been, embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage death of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, the scene of the crime, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here is the fevered dealmaking of "The Kid" Robert Evans, the most consummate of producers. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation. Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the '70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to corporate Hollywood. In telling that larger story, The Big Goodbye will take its place alongside classics like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and The Devil's Candy as one of the great movie-world books ever written. (Flatiron Books)
Questions about the event? Please call Book Soup at 310-659-3110 or visit www.booksoup.com
For more information on the City of West Hollywood’s WeHo Reads program please visit www.weho.org/wehoreads.
Ticket purchase required ($29+tax, includes one copy of the book) from Book Soup (www.booksoup.com).
A limited number of free tickets (which do not include a copy of the book) will be provided to West Hollywood residents upon providing proof of residency via a government ID, lease or utility bill. Please confirm your address is in West Hollywood by visiting www.weho.org/streets, and email Mike Che, Arts Coordinator, at mche@weho.org to reserve tickets. There is a limit of 2 tickets per person and tickets may not be resold.
