Career Lessons from Film “The Kid Stays in the Picture”

I recently watched The Kid Stays in the Picture in the HBO documentary section, about Producer Robert Evans’ rise and fall, accomplishments, flops, great and dark times, but most of all his drive to push his vision through, no matter what.

I recommend it to you on a number of different levels:

Let’s start with the photography:  The clever use of stills as 3D cutouts, panning to give an illusion of motion (no, this is not your father’s Ken Burns’ effect) coupled cleverly with narration. Amazing how old footage, photos + new footage added in, came out with a time-line you can’t step away from.  It pulls you into the piece and makes you feel as though this is your private screening of Evan’s life – not easy to pull off.

And of course we’ve gotta talk about Evans himself. The fact that he narrates his own life with the ups and down, embarrassments and triumphs – and be able to lay it all out for the world to watch, shows the balls that he has. How do you pull off that kind of narration anyway? His voice conveys the dialogue so well you feel you’re hearing the other character’s speak (helped with interesting audio tricks) but the whole time it’s Evans’ voice we hear.

An can he tell a story?  Assuming we’re listening to a Mississippi of lies, it’s still a great story!  And man, does he know how to say f*ck better than anyone since George Carlin dubbed it the most versatile word in the English language.

Now let’s talk about the message of the film itself: You can do it—you can grab your vision and over any amount of opposition, nay-sayers, other agendas, etc, etc, you can push over the top, and if you’re clever enough and ballsy enough, pull it off. But if you don’t,  f*ck it there’s another brass ring to grab, and so go for it.

Just the story of the Godfather: A then rather unknown author Puzo, a very unknown Director (Coppola), who didn’t want to direct the film and a host of other hurdles, but at the end of the day, it emerges as one of the biggest films of all times.

Hey, we can all learn a lot about how to approach our careers—what to do and what not to, from this powerfully revealing piece. Who couldn’t stand to have more passion, balls and sheer energy to push forward their vision?