Hollywood: The Oral History

Product Information

The material, which was assembled by the veteran film scholar and professor Jeanine Basinger and her collaborator, the movie journalist Sam Wasson, comes from the deep resources of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Quibbles aside, it's fascinating to learn what legendary directors like Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, and George Cukor have to say about their movies and the work of others. This is a really good read for movie buffs, but "Hollywood: The Oral History" could have been a truly great book. The cinematographer George Folsey (1898-1988) remembers parties at San Simeon with Marion Davies at which Theda Bara’s husband compensated for her poor eyesight by whispering in her ear, “Coming up on your right is Mary Pickford, and over here will be Joan Crawford.

In between, seminar guests talk about budget bloats and business trends, changing acting styles and changing audience tastes. This oral history in particular has a fascinating look at what it takes and took to make movies from the people involved. The fact, for instance, that many of the early Hollywood men were first world war veterans (from both sides) who had been trained in aerial photography and wanted to carry on doing something similar on civvy street. It really shows that the average person in the early 20th century was cucked hard by capitalist structures and the idea that people with money were inherently better than people who had less money.Most who spoke of his relationship with Judy Garland scoffed at the idea that he drove her to a troubled life. Overall, though, this is a well-organized look at the Hollywood system from every angle, told through the eyes, ears and mouths of those who experienced it firsthand.

With the conversations of more than 3,000 guest speakers to choose from, of course, the organizing structure is key. I didn't know how little I cared what Mervyn LeRoy or Bronislau Kaper thought about anything until reading this book.As for why the West Coast was picked for this new enterprise, Henry Blanke, producer of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, explains: “There was eternal sun here. In other words, here are 400 cinema insiders, including directors, makeup people and actors, recounting what it has been like to make-believe for a living. As much fun as it is, the book faces the inherent dilemma of oral history -- the lack of a coherent narrative. I had a hard time putting down the first half of the book because it was really fascinating reading about what people thought about those early days.

While the comments are generally in a chronological, historical narrative, it would have been great to have an index of major film credits for each of those interviewed. In addition, she is a trustee emeritus of the American Film Institute, a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation, and one of the Board of Advisors for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. What wasn't so great was the way the interviewees talked about the studio system and the studio heads and producers. A lot of these snippets don't even say that much ("oh, he was great, just great, just awesome" might very well be the extent of somebody's opinion here), neither do they seem to be edited all that well to tell a story.Don’t break stride for killjoy contemporary questions of race, gender, socioeconomics and unconscious editorial bias in the shaping of historical narrative and maybe it is.