Essay on Death by Hollywood
by Steven Bochco
Student: Eric Kasum
Advisor: Rachel Pollack
Goddard College
February 21, 2004 - Winter/Spring
Death by Hollywood, a novel by Steven Bochco, is a study in the use of irony. Unfortunately, the legendary creator of cop shows like Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law probably shouldn't have tried to write a novel. Death is a strange book to read, with almost no literary devices, virtually no visual or sensual description. It reads like a pitch meeting in the office of a producer that was simply transcribed. One assumes the camera will show it all later. But in one way, Death by Hollywood is extraordinary. It's use of irony.
With Bochco, there's always a lot of good/bad happening simultaneously. It's a rich experience. You get a tingle of excitement, a sense of secretly enjoying something forbidden, like eating a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie all by yourself, then stuffing the container into the bottom of the trash can and washing the spoon off so no one will ever know.
English: Ben Greenfield and Jerry Cohen, founders ...
An example of some Irony
Peter Ustinov as Poirot in Evil Under the SunThe story is Hitchcock's Rear Window with a twist. The narrator of the story is Eddie Jelko, a Hollywood agent, but the voice is all Bochco (raunchy, cynical, clever, blunt, outrageous, insightful). Jelko tells us about Bobby Newman, one of his screenwriter clients, who's fingers are spending more time wrapped around a bottle than tapping on a keyboard these days (by the way, the whole book is written in present tense, which is important to note). Bored, sloshed, spying on his neighbors through a telescope, Bobby sees the wife of a Hollywood billionaire having wild, animal sex with her Latin lover. They quarrel, she smacks him on the head with a golden acting statue, and Bingo! Bobby has the plot...