Michael Pye has now written two books (the first with Lynda Myles) trying to explain how American show business feels to those who make their lives inside it. The first, The Movie Brats, succeeds because it keeps close to the work of the young film-makers with whose careers it's concerned, but also because they demonstrably exist as a group. Coppola, Milius, Scorsese, De Palma, Lucas and Spielberg do have a great deal in common. Moguls, on the other hand, is one of those unhappy publishing ideas for yanking together random essays on a false subject. Any definition of the word 'mogul' that's going to stretch to include Jules Stein and Trevor Nunn is so loose as to be worthless.

LRB 4 September 1980 | PDF Download