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Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood | 
| Author: Mark Harris
Publisher: Tantor Media
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 1070298
Format: Audiobook, Cd
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 14
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 6.5 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1400106257
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.43097309045
EAN: 9781400106257
ASIN: 1400106257
Publication Date: February 18, 2008
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Product Description
Mark Harris beautifully depicts the epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967---Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Dolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde---and through them, tells the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood, and America, forever.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 fascinating read - an exciting time in film history! October 4, 2008
I've been recommending this book to everyone I know . . . it's a well-written examination of the "changing of the guard" in American cinema, and it's an absolutely brilliant idea for a book.
Bonnie & Clyde meet Dr. Dolittle In the Heat of the Night August 25, 2008
Despite a title too long for any marquee, "Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood" is 400 pages of often catty intrigue, missed opportunities, and lucky breaks that capture the confusion of the times as well as the resistance of the old Hollywood guard to American movies influenced by the new wave of European filmmakers. Race, murder, and generational confusion were suddenly topics for discussion, just as old taboos were being broken and outmoded rules discarded. Finally, in the summer of 1968, the old Production Code was done away with all together, making these five American films, produced in 1967, the last of a kind nominated by the Academy.
The book itself is presented in a kind of new-wave film style, without chapter titles or even a table of contents to guide the reader. Readers, like filmgoers to Antonioni, should be prepared: Harris confounds expectations of any conventional chronology. Confusion and uncertainty is the key here -- he jumps in with an Esquire writer's viewing of Truffaut's "Jules and Jim," and we're off.
For film fans, however, this approach to film history can be equally frustrating. Open the book at any page and you'll find something fairly interesting: Beatty tried to get Stanley Kubrick interested in directing "What's New Pussycat?" But the interwoven stories of five separate films can be inherently distracting -- I first tried to follow the disastrous history of "Dr. Dolittle" over the course of the book and finally realized I would have to read about Dustin Hoffman's shyness, the studio politics of Jack Warner, and Rod Steiger's southern accent as well.
With many Hollywood stories, the tales of disaster can be as fascinating as the successes. Dr. Dolittle seemed doomed from the start; Rex Harrison demanded constant rewriting of the script, and tried to replace the songwriter Leslie Bricusse with Alan Jay Lerner, his own original choice from "My Fair Lady". Location shooting in England was bedeviled by constant rain. Trained animals were quarantined. As the production and promotion costs reached $29 million -- Harris estimates final costs in 2007 dollars at an "astonishing" $190 million dollars -- nothing went right.
At one point, Harrison presented the film's producers with an ultimatum: "entertainer" Sammy Davis Jr. (already contracted) had to be be replaced with ... yes, Sidney Poitier. Neither Poitier nor Davis played the role in the end; so it goes. In one of those spectacular, old-Hollywood twists of fate, however, Sammy Davis sang "Talk to the Animals" -- the Academy's choice for Best Song of 1968, from "Dr. Dolittle" -- at the Oscar ceremony in all his Vegas-glitzy, Rat Pack hipster style. Presumably, Rex Harrison was not in attendance. Lots of research went on here; forty pages of notes and bibliography are included. Highly recommended for film buffs who want all the details -- but docked one star for lacking that table of contents. You're on your own.
For more about this book visit BellemeadeBooks at Blogger.com
 Brillant! July 27, 2008
The book traces standard form films, two films representing the new of age of filmography, and one film that shouldn't have been there, Dr. Dolittle. Let's put Dolittle to rest with a quick statement, Rex Harrison, comes across as a real @ss. With all the later year prima donnas, I wasn't aware there were any with such bad behavior from old school films. Think John McEnroe.
In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner are nice but flawed, films. This book really excels when discussing Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, two new age film lucky to be made that set the industry on its ears. Warren Beatty, like him or love him, shows his business acumen in getting this film made and establishing his persona for the rest of his career. The Graduate may have been the best movie and clearly the movie with the longest lasting legacy.
If there is a criticism of this book it is long and exhaustive. But, this is a critical transition year in the history of film and for me very much worth the attention. I strongly recommend this book for any film buff or student of the 60s.
Worth it to Understand the Reasons Why "The Graduate" became such a classic movie July 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I generally don't care for large tomes that hope to explain Hollywood's workings to the general reader--they are often so full of star struck gossip as to be difficult to get through. In the end the stars are usually not that interesting -that's why they have so much machinery to make them stars and the movies--well it is a rare critic that can make films that we have all watched at some time in our lives interesting enough to read about again. But given my reservations about that genre--Pictures manages to be a good read -with some provisos--you have to be good at skipping--otherwise the 426 pages is way too much content to manage as Harris wants to tell everything and I mean everything that can be told about five movies that changed Hollywood. It is not that I don't care for the other films Harris writes about --Bonnie and Clyde, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night (with the possible exception of the big budget flop Doctor Doolittle) it is that I find the film I am most personally interested in The Graduate seems to have the one narrative I could follow and clearly despite the multiple number of other narratives seeming to compete for my attention.
For more of this review and to see other reviews that relate to boomer cultural interests--check out www.babyboomreview.com
Excellent May 19, 2008
As one who turned 17 in 1967 and who vividly remembers seeing all of the films discussed here (except "Dr. Dolittle") during their first theatrical runs, I found this book completely engrossing. It is a popular-culture time-capsule of America at a difficult moment, and of the movie business at an even more difficult one, with plenty of insight into the series of accidents and near-miracles by which any movie ever actually makes it to the screen; and a reminder that Hollywood, pre-conglomerates and certainly despite itself, once provided a breeding ground for the new. Rarest of all, it is extremely well-written.
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