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The Oral History
by Jeanine Basinger
The real story of Hollywood as told by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Harold Lloyd, and nearly four hundred others, assembled from the American Film Institute's treasure trove of interviews, reveals a fresh history of the American movie industry from its beginnings to today.
From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly three thousand interviews, involving four hundred voices from the industry, Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a reader "listen in" on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera—Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd—to the biggest behind it—Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele, as well as the lesser known individuals that shaped what was heard and seen on screen: musicians, costumers, art directors, cinematographers, writers, sound men, editors, make-up artists, and even script timers, messengers, and publicists. The result is like a conversation among the gods and goddesses of film: lively, funny, insightful, historically accurate and, for the first time, authentically honest in its portrait of Hollywood. It's the insider's story.
Legendary film scholar Jeanine Basinger and New York Times bestselling author Sam Wasson, both acclaimed storytellers in their own right, have undertaken the monumental task of digesting these tens of thousands of hours of talk and weaving it into a definitive portrait of workaday Hollywood.
"The secrets of Tinseltown burn bright in this collection of interviews culled from the American Film Institute's archives and assembled by film scholar Basinger...The commentary crackles with humorous anecdotes and acerbic insights on topics such as screenplays...The result is a fascinating conversation about Hollywood's magical blending of art and commerce." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Film writers Basinger and Wasson synthesize (for general readers and cinema cognoscenti) their sleuthing of primary sources—nearly 3,000 transcripts of interviews with hundreds of movie people found in the American Film Institute's archives...Recommended for the large audience of popular culture enthusiasts for whom knowledge of the Hollywood past will enable them better to appreciate occurring and anticipated industry changes." - Library Journal (starred review)
"As close to a comprehensive Who's Who of American film as we're likely to see, and as close to a definitive history of American cinema as we've seen so far. An absolute must-read for industry pros and fans alike." - Booklist (starred review)
"This volume is a gold mine of production details, backroom deals, and inside gossip. There are surprising revelations—e.g., Joan Crawford was more beloved than her reputation for derangement would have one believe—and memorably graphic stories...Fun firsthand accounts from 100 years of Hollywood history." - Kirkus Reviews
"Surely the most comprehensive portrait of America's dream factory ever committed to paper." - The Guardian (UK)
This information about Hollywood was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jeanine Basinger is the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, founder and curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, founding Chair of the Film Studies Department, and a recipient of Wesleyan's Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. She is the author of Silent Stars, which won the National Board of Review's William K. Everson Prize, and The Star Machine, which won the Theatre Library Association Award. She is a trustee of the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute, a member of Warner Brothers Theatre Advisory Committee at the Smithsonian Institute, and a former member of the Board of Advisors of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. She also served as advisor to Martin Scorsese's film foundation project, The Story of Movies. She lives in Middletown, Connecticut.
Sam Wasson is the author of six previous books on Hollywood including the New York Times bestsellers Fifth Avenue, Five A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern American Woman and The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Days of Hollywood, and Fosse, the basis for the limited series Fosse/Verdon. With Jeanine Basinger, he is co-author of Hollywood: The Oral History. He lives in Los Angeles.
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