In 1997 Arthur Hiller found himself at the center of one of late-career Hollywood embarrassments: the production and release of An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn. Hiller had helmed the picture, but after the creative battle over the finished product he took the extraordinary step of asking to have his name removed from the film’s credits. By acceding to his request the picture was officially credited to the notorious pseudonym "Alan Smithee" — a nom de plume directors used when they wished to disown a compromised picture — and in an almost cruel bit of meta-irony the movie’s very title advertised that fact. The film proved to be an infamous flop, and the episode has been repeatedly cited as a textbook example of an artist repudiating a studio-cut picture and the public humiliation that can follow when a director publicly disavows his own work.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1990s
When Arthur Hiller Disowned a Movie and Made It Literally 'An Alan Smithee Film'
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn / 1990s
In 1997 Arthur Hiller found himself at the center of one of late-career Hollywood embarrassments: the production and release of An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn. Hiller had helmed the picture, but after the creative battle over the finished product he took the extraordinary step of asking to have his name removed from the film’s credits. By acceding to his request the picture was officially credited to the notorious pseudonym "Alan Smithee" — a nom de plume directors used when they wished to disown a compromised picture — and in an almost cruel bit of meta-irony the movie’s very title advertised that fact. The film proved to be an infamous flop, and the episode has been repeatedly cited as a textbook example of an artist repudiating a studio-cut picture and the public humiliation that can follow when a director publicly disavows his own work.
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