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Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood

Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood

by Mark Harris (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2008

    $5.76

  • New

    Paperback 2009

    $14.29
Synopsis

At the Academy Awards Ceremony of 1967, "In the Heat of the Night" took the Best Picture Oscar. It won out of a list of five nominees that also included "Bonnie & Clyde", "Doctor Doolittle", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "The Graduate". It marked a pivotal moment in Hollywood's history: the shift from the studio-generated epics, musicals and westerns - as represented by "Doctor Doolittle" - to a director-centred, self-consciously European aesthetic of style over content, as demonstrated by the anti-hero worshipping of "Bonnie & Clyde" and the subversive sexual politics of "The Graduate". It represented the birth of the New Hollywood.In "Scenes from a Revolution", Mark Harris has written the story of these five films, from the first drafts of the scripts to their impact on release. He has interviewed many of the key players at the time, including Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffmann, Arthur Penn and Mike Nichols, to fashion a superb book about Hollywood and the USA at a critical juncture in its history. At the heart of the book is the star of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "In the Heat of the Night", Sidney Poitier, who struggled to appease the emergent militant wing of the civil rights movement just as he literally struck out for the black community in his seminal performance as Mister Tibbs.Lucid, masterfully constructed and persuasively argued, "Scenes from a Revolution" is the key text of a vital period in the development of Hollywood, and the films that came to reflect the countercultural thirst for change at the end of a decade.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 496
 Edition: Main
 Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Published: 06 Mar 2008
ISBN 10: 1847671020
ISBN 13: 9781847671028

Media Reviews
Contains enough tantrums, firings and exposed star insecurities to thrill the most jaded Hollywood-watcher...a terrifically enjoyable read. -- Christopher Fowler * * Independent on Sunday * *
Harris's book is racy, wise and deeply funny...All human life is here and most of Hollywood too. -- Nigel Andrews * * FT * *
Absolutely wonderful. An extraordinary book that combines social and pop history in an unputdownable volume. -- Richard E. Grant
Mark Harris understands that film making depends less on creative talent than on social connections, bullshit, and work done in restaurants. As an exercise in social gossip (and incest), Scenes from a Revolution is hard to beat. -- Chris Petit * * Guardian * *
Harris's book initially overlaps with Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind's roaring study of 1970s US cinema. But in fact it stands shoulder to shoulder with it, like a better organized 1960s prequel. -- Larushka Ivan-Zadeh * * Metro * *
Beyond the intrigue and the gossip, Scenes from a Revolution is a persuasive account of one of the turning points in our cultural history. * * Daily Telegraph * *
A fresh and detailed portrait of counter-culturalism on the move through American cinema. Harris' style is easy and lucid and well-worth spending time with. -- Paul Dale * * The List * *
Impeccably researched, engagingly written and remarkably readable . . . the real joy here is the elegant flow of Harris' narrative, moving seamlessly from picture to picture and presenting a thorough, and entertaining, look at a turbulent time. -- William Thomas * * Empire * *
A near-faultless work of film criticism -- Melissa Katsoulis * * Sunday Telegraph * *
Author Bio
Mark Harris graduated from Yale University in 1985 with a degree in English. In 1989, he joined the staff of Entertainment Weekly, a magazine published by Time Inc. covering movies, television, music, video and books. Mark worked on the staff of the magazine, first as a writer and eventually as the editor overseeing all movie coverage, from its launch in early 1990 until 2006. He now writes a column for the magazine called The Final Cut. He lives in New York City with his partner, the playwright Tony Kushner.