I’ve got a new buzz in my brain: Mark Harris’ Pictures at a Revolution. It was only published in the last year or so, and I can remember going to purchase it but being coldly informed by Amazon that this title had not yet been released. Since then, I’ve almost ordered it a dozen times, but given that my apartment is a glorified walk-up with nowhere to leave packages, my love of online shopping has waned.
And then today, it was there at the bookstore, winking at me with its white on orange, sans-serif type: the picture of Dunaway and Beatty on its cover seemed to be smiling at me in joyous anticipation: we will finally be together.
(...what? You guys don’t carry on imaginary conversations with books you’re about to buy slash already own? Well, let me tell you: you are missing out! Of all the inanimate things I talk to on a regular basis, I find that future or current books in my possession are the most forthcoming.)
Pictures at a Revolution takes the Best Picture nominees of a pivotal year in cinema—1968—and examines those five pictures. Which, trust me, is the only way that Doctor Dolittle will ever be mentioned alongside The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, In the Heat of the Night and Bonnie and Clyde. The format is designed around one central concept: that after 1968, the game had changed for Hollywood, as the generational gap became yawning and more than ever in Tinsel Town, the old guard was being edged out by the ways of the new.
[There’s one moment in particular, at a party thrown at Jane Fonda’s beachhouse that’s particularly poignant. Fonda, being the Hollywood royalty that she was, was the bridge between the old and the new, inviting her father Henry, and old family friends like William Wyler and George Cukor to a party attended by her (stoner) brother Peter, Jack Nicholson, Sidney Poitier, and Andy Warhol (miserable bastard). A moment frozen in time, commemorated on a cosmic plate somewhere, almost unbelievable.]
In my mind, the history of film is an abstract form that makes the most sense to me in the written word: combine movies with words, that’s a two-for that makes me smile. Sure, documentaries have the added bonus of being able to directly reference the films they talk about, but seeing the hi-jinks of my film heroes on paper adds a delicious layer of divorced narrative, an element of the fictional to the real. So what better list to make than of the film books that inspire me?
There are many industry tell-alls, but few that really marry the investigation of biography with the comprehensive critique of film history better than these:
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood by Peter Biskind
Hands down my favorite film history book. Why? Because it’s basically 700 pages of gossip about the most screwed up people on the planet: filmmakers. I learned things that simultaneously blew my mind and comforted me like an old security blanket about the crucial New Hollywood moviemakers in the late 60s/early 70s. This isn’t even touching on how brilliantly it traces the rise of this new movement to its death at the hands of the summer blockbuster, or how it paints cunning portraits of people who I thought I already knew (Spielberg as the nerd who finally got a girl and became a jerk? Scorsese as the twerp who turned to drugs to keep his creative high? George Lucas as the bizarre voice of reason?!?). If you want anecdotes, you’ll find them here. (see also: The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans)
The Film Snob’s Dictionary by David Kamp and Lawrence Levi
At first glance, it's just a reference guide, but the more I reference it, the more I realize it's basically a history book, and a pretty bitchy one at that. Just read the entry on Ingmar Bergman or Jean Renoir. Me-OW!
Anyone who knows me knows that I pride myself on delivering a Brando story for every occasion. Well, I owe it all to the fact I’ve read many a biography and watched many a documentary on the man. He fascinates and repulses me. These two in particular are like two flip sides of a coin: if you want a healthy overview tracing Brando’s career, go with the Bosworth. It's largely devoid of the kind of damning anecdotal evidence that inflates Brando's legend...which brings us to Somebody, which in the title alone is already delivering the kind of grit I want to see in Brando bios . But as always, when it comes to Brando, you rarely have to embellish: the truth is usually juicier than fiction.
I Lost It At the Movies by Pauline Kael
My hero. Her ability to sum up not only a film, but also its cultural context and creative ancestors in a single paragraph never fails to astound me. She may have been a tough old broad, but damn if she didn't know what she was talking about.
Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of the Independent Film by Peter Biskind
The second and less salacious of my Biskind books. The man knows his stuff (but don't seek out his film reviews unless you're willing to put up with a little bit of datedness) and it's shown in the way he deftly weaves the rise of indie films into a self-contained narrative with foreshadowing, character development and hubris. I love his portrait of Robert Redford. Slightly kinder than Easy Riders--but only slightly.
Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe
In a word, this book is a revelation. It's basically one massive, candid interview with frequent screenwriter, sometimes director and forever legend Billy Wilder as his career was winding down. Full of juicy behind the scenes stories with a mensch who's too old to pull any punches, his insight into the business he devoted his life to is at once touching, heartbreaking and terribly cynical. I re-read this often. (see also Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut for a more film-y approach to interviewing a legend)
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