Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions by Ed Zwick review – the director’s cut

There have been countless books about Hollywood, but few come from inside the machine. The director Ed Zwick – who made Legends of the Fall, Glory and The Last Samurai, among other films – has written a fantastically entertaining memoir that shows the movie business in high definition. It is part how-to guide, peppered with frank lists that crunch hard-won advice into easily digestible bites, and will be useful for young film-makers – but the layperson will inhale it for the gossip and what it reveals about the frankly bewildering systems of power that prop up the entertainment business.

Zwick writes briskly and warmly, with a clear eye to keeping things moving. He admits early on that he is pulled between telling a good story and a desire “not to be excommunicated from certain Hollywood parties that I don’t care to attend anyway”. Happily for the reader, the storytelling wins that battle. Zwick started directing television in 1976 and by the late 80s was undertaking his first significant big-budget studio film, Glory, about the American civil war. To get that film made, the studio needed a “marquee name” and plumped for Matthew Broderick, then riding high on the popularity of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. What followed, for Zwick, was a “nightmare from which there seemed no waking”, and is only the first of what he refers to as “actor horror stories”. There are many more to come.

The book is at its best when it gently prises the movie-star business away from the business of making movies. Though the two are co-dependent, stardom and storytelling here seem like distinct industries, and Zwick seems as baffled as anyone by the ways in which the movie-star side truly operates. The power dynamics are fascinating. Some actors emerge from this well: Denzel Washington seems both diligent and very decent; Claire Danes (Zwick’s production company made My So-Called Life) is a once-in-a-generation talent; Tom Cruise, while clearly a unique character, is “gracious and enthusiastic”. Anthony Hopkins, meanwhile, is credited with good “English manners”, which may be news to Wales.

Others are painted less prettily. Zwick describes considerable friction with an “anxious” Brad Pitt on the set of Legends of the Fall. In a great and vivid snapshot, he describes Dustin Hoffman pedalling on a stationary bike, pontificating about a draft script for hours. But for all that Zwick reveals, he attempts to give his anecdotes a soft landing, trying to either dull or explain what often reads as rude-to-appalling behaviour. Hoffman is a bore, by the sounds of it, but Zwick adds that he does, eventually, make a brilliant point. Broderick comes across as a nightmare, but Zwick says he must have been under a lot of pressure at the time and has since apologised. Julia Roberts tanks an early attempt at making Shakespeare in Love by agreeing to star in it, insisting on casting an unavailable actor as Shakespeare and then pulling out as the sets were being built. Zwick says she must have been frightened and young, though he does add that they haven’t spoken since. Years later, the messy Shakespeare in Love saga takes a darker turn when the levers of power are pulled in yet another direction. Harvey Weinstein’s company Miramax acquires the rights and cuts Zwick out of the project completely. Weinstein sounds like both a terrifying thug and a pathetically petty man: the credit Zwick manages to win appears onscreen over a foot stepping in horse dung.

Half the fun of Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions is in reading between the lines. If this is the stuff that won’t get Zwick excommunicated from the parties he doesn’t want to go to anyway, then I’d love to know what he left out. The only lingering uncertainty I had was whether I really wanted the wizard’s curtain to be drawn back so far. Much of the magic of film lies in not knowing how its illusions are conjured up. When peeking inside is as enjoyable as this, though, it is hard to resist.

• Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood by Ed Zwick is published by Gallery (£18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.