The Pickle
The Pickle is a 1993 film produced, written, and directed by Paul Mazursky, telling the story of a formerly powerful film director whose recent string of flops has forced him to make a commercial piece that is artistically uninspired. The absurdity of the film within the film satirizes bigbudget Hollywood pictures, while the rest of the story serves as a character study of fictitious film director Harry Stone.
Aside from a few flashbacks to Harrys childhood, and to the events leading up to the making of The Pickle, most of the story takes place on the day of the new films premiere. Harry is reunited with his agent, publicist, son, daughter, mother, and exwives both of whom are still on good terms with Harry, and the movie explores these relationships in various combinations Harrys Parisian girlfriend also plays a major role. Despite Harrys stress about the upcoming premierehe regrets selling out to make The Pickle, and fears that it will ruin his careerthe director spends time to enjoy the people in his life.Dialogue establishes several details about Harrys career His biggest success was a Western called Blue Sands his most recent film, Paradise Jack, was a hit with his fans, but trashed by the critics and a disappointment at the box office. Harry had ambitions to make cinematic adaptations of Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, but funding fell through after the boxoffice disappointment of Paradise Jack. His dream project is to direct an epic about Cortez and Montezuma starring Dustin Hoffman despite his admission that Hoffman is too old for either role, but he angrily balks when a studio executive suggests updating the story to a presentday L.A. barrio. The success of The Pickle leads the executive to greenlight the Cortez Montezuma film, but Harry instead pitches a drama with a storyline loosely mirroring the events of his own return to New York. ........
Source: Wikipedia
