Final Cut

About twenty-five years ago I picked up a copy of Daniel Stern's Final Cut at a used books store in the San Fernando Valley. I had never heard of it, but people like James Jones and Anaïs Nin had nice to things to say about it (Remember when they were the go-to people for book blurbs? I didn't think so.) Opening the book I found on the first page: For Byron and the two Elizabeths, with friendship (and gratitude and fortitude) from Daniel Stern, April 1975." Who knows what twisted path brought the book to the book store in the Valley, but still, I always felt a little bad for Stern that his gift had, apparently, been spurned. In any case, the book's twisted path has now wound to Japan where I read and enjoyed this Hollywood novel. It follows the education of a relative innocent who finds himself in a position of power in the industry, and comes dangerously close to becoming of the industry. He learns things about the movie business like: "It's very American. The profit motive in one of its strangest incarnations. It only horrifies someone like you because art gets mixed up in it. And where there's art you expect some sort of humanity in the mixture. But exactly the opposite seems to happen. When art gets mixed up with business it leads the way to the worst kind of corruption of both processes. Except, now and then, when you get lucky, and the art come out clean. The business and the people never do."