{"id":1855,"date":"2008-06-10T04:57:49","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T03:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=1855"},"modified":"2010-11-06T18:11:01","modified_gmt":"2010-11-06T18:11:01","slug":"interview-peter-biskind-on-miramax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/06\/10\/interview-peter-biskind-on-miramax\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Peter Biskind on Miramax"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Peter Biskind<\/strong> is the author of\u00a0Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film<\/a>, the 2004 book which explored the rise of US independent film in the 80s and how it influenced the major studios.<\/p>\n

One of the key studios of that era were\u00a0Miramax<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>who\u00a0have recently re-released some of their most famous films on DVD including\u00a0Pulp Fiction<\/a>, The English Patient<\/a>, Good Will Hunting<\/a>, Chicago<\/a>, City of God<\/a>, Kill Bill<\/a> and Hero<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since they were founded in 1979 by Harvey<\/a> and Bob Weinstein<\/a>, the company (named after their parents Miriam and Max) started releasing films such as The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball<\/a> before carving out a niche as the key US independent distributor.<\/p>\n

By the late 80s and early 90s they released films like sex, lies, and videotape<\/a> and The Crying Game<\/a> but after being acquired by Disney<\/a> in 1993, the company went to another level with crossover hits such as Pulp Fiction<\/a>, The English Patient<\/a> and Shakespeare in Love<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the departure of the Weinsteins in 2005<\/a> to form their own company, Daniel Battsek<\/a> arrived from Buena Vista International<\/a> and has continued to make Miramax an important studio<\/a>, releasing films such as No Country for Old Men<\/a>, Gone Baby Gone<\/a> and There Will Be Blood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recently spoke to Peter about the history of Miramax, the larger than life methods of the founders, the landmark films they released and their legacy.<\/p>\n

Listen to the interview here:<\/p>\n[audio:http:\/\/filmdetail.receptionmedia.com\/Peter_Biskind_on_Miramax.MP3]\n

In addition to Down and Dirty Pictures<\/a>, Peter also wrote Easy Riders, Raging Bulls<\/a>, a landmark book about Hollywood in the 1970s, and Gods and Monsters<\/a>, a collection of writings about the film industry.<\/p>\n

He has also written for Rolling Stone<\/a>, The New York Times<\/a> and The Washington Post<\/a> and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can download this interview as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

> Download this interview as an MP3<\/a>
\n> Official site for Miramax<\/a>
\n> Find out more about Miramax at Wikipedia<\/a>
\n> Profile of Harvey Weinstein by Ken Auletta of The New Yorker from 2002<\/a>
\n> New York Times article from last December about Daniel Battsek at Miramax
\n<\/a>> Peter Biskind’s page at Bloomsbury Books<\/a> (his UK publisher)
\n> Buy ‘Down and Dirty Pictures’ from Amazon UK<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image by Elizabeth Hess and courtesy Simon & Schuster \/ Miramax logo copyright of Miramax Films]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interview with film writer Peter Biskind about the history of Miramax and the indie film boom of the 1990s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,19,15],"tags":[274,273,271,272],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}