Scenes From A Revolution

Harris Mark

Description

With behind-the-scenes gossip creating as much drama as the movies themselves, Hollywood in 1967 showcased the future of film in more ways than one. From the anti-heroes of Bonnie and Clyde and the illicit sex of The Graduate to the race relations of In The Heat of the Night, suddenly no subject was taboo. This was a time of turbulence as hip young filmmakers embodying the restlessness and rebellion of a changing America wrought radical changes to the traditions of cinema. Scenes from a Revolution is an exceptional analysis of the films shortlisted for the Best Picture Academy Award of 1967 as well as an illuminating window into the popular culture of the time.

Sujets

• USA
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 03 juin 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781847674791
• Langue: English

Extrait

SCENES FROM A REVOLUTION
THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD
MARK HARRIS
For my mom and dad , in loving memory
Contents
Title Page Dedication Cast of Characters Introduction Part One Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Part Two Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Part Three Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Epilogue Appendix Bibliography Notes Acknowledgments Index Praise About the Author Copyright
CAST OF CHARACTERS
BONNIE AND CLYDE

The actors
Warren Beatty (Clyde Barrow)
Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker)
Michael J. Pollard (C. W. Moss)
Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow)
Estelle Parsons (Blanche Barrow)
Denver Pyle (Frank Hamer)
Evans Evans (Velma)
Gene Wilder (Eugene)



Behind the scenes
Warren Beatty, producer
Arthur Penn, director
Robert Benton, screenwriter
David Newman, screenwriter
Robert Towne, special consultant (rewriter)
Burnett Guffey, cinematographer
Dean Tavoularis, art director
Theadora Van Runkle, costume designer
Dede Allen, editor
Robert Jiras, makeup designer
Elaine Michea, assistant to Beatty
Morgan Fairchild, driving double for Faye Dunaway
Elinor Jones and Norton Wright, producers (1963–64)
François Truffaut
Jean-Luc Godard
Jack Warner, head of Warner Brothers
Walter MacEwen, head of production at Warner Brothers
Benjamin Kalmenson, head of distribution for
Warner Brothers
Richard Lederer, head of advertising and publicity for Warner Brothers
Robert Solo, assistant to Walter MacEwen
Eliot Hyman, head of Seven Arts
DOCTOR DOLITTLE

The actors
Rex Harrison (Dolittle)
Samantha Eggar (Emma Fairfax)
Anthony Newley (Matthew Mugg)
Richard Attenborough (Albert Blossom)
Peter Bull (Bellowes)
William Dix (Tommy Stubbins)
Geoffrey Holder (William Shakespeare X)



Behind the scenes
Arthur P. Jacobs, producer
Richard Fleischer, director
Mort Abrahams, associate producer
Leslie Bricusse, composer/lyricist/screenwriter
Robert Surtees, cinematographer
Ray Aghayan, costume designer
Herbert Ross, choreographer
Lionel Newman, conductor/orchestrator, head of 20th Century Fox’s music department
Richard Zanuck, head of production at 20th Century Fox, son of Darryl F. Zanuck
David Brown, New York-based 20th Century Fox executive
Josephine Lofting, widow of author Hugh Lofting
Christopher Lofting, son of Hugh and Josephine Lofting
Bernard Silbert, Josephine Lofting’s lawyer
Helen Winston, would-be producer of the film
Larry Watkin, author of an unused screenplay for the film
Alan Jay Lerner, Arthur Jacobs’s original choice to write the screenplay
Rachel Roberts, Rex Harrison’s wife
Joan Collins, Anthony Newley’s wife
Natalie Trundy, Arthur P. Jacobs’s girlfriend (later wife)
THE GRADUATE

The actors
Dustin Hoffman (Benjamin Braddock)
Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Robinson)
Katharine Ross (Elaine Robinson)
William Daniels (Mr. Braddock)
Elizabeth Wilson (Mrs. Braddock)
Murray Hamilton (Mr. Robinson)



Behind the scenes
Lawrence Turman, producer
Mike Nichols, director
Buck Henry, screenwriter
Calder Willingham, screenwriter
Charles Webb, author of the novel
Robert Surtees, cinematographer
Sam O’Steen, editor
Richard Sylbert, production designer
Joel Schiller, assistant production designer
Meta Rebner, script supervisor
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, composers
Joseph E. Levine, head of Embassy Pictures
William Hanley, author of an unused screenplay
Peter Nelson, author of an unused screenplay
Anne Byrne, Dustin Hoffman’s girlfriend (later wife)
Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft’s husband
Leonard Hirshan, Anne Bancroft’s agent
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER

The actors
Spencer Tracy (Matt Drayton)
Sidney Poitier (John Prentice)
Katharine Hepburn (Christina Drayton)
Katharine Houghton (Joey Drayton)
Cecil Kellaway (Monsignor Ryan)
Beah Richards (Mrs. Prentice)
Roy Glenn (Mr. Prentice)
Isabel Sanford (Tillie)



Behind the scenes
Stanley Kramer, producer/director
William Rose, screenwriter
Sam Leavitt, cinematographer
Ray Gosnell, assistant director
George Glass, associate producer
Robert C. Jones, editor
Robert Clatworthy, production designer
Marshall Schlom, script supervisor
Karen Kramer, Stanley Kramer’s wife
Louise Tracy, Spencer Tracy’s wife
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

The actors
Rod Steiger (Bill Gillespie)
Sidney Poitier (Virgil Tibbs)
Warren Oates (Sam Wood)
Lee Grant (Mrs. Colbert)
Larry Gates (Endicott)
William Schallert (Mayor)
Beah Richards (Mama Caleba)
Scott Wilson (Harvey Oberst)
Quentin Dean (Delores Purdy)
Anthony James (Ralph)
Jester Hairston (Endicott’s butler)



Behind the scenes
Walter Mirisch, producer
Norman Jewison, director
Stirling Silliphant, screenwriter
John Ball, author of the novel
Hal Ashby, editor and Norman Jewison’s right-hand man
Haskell Wexler, cinematographer
Quincy Jones, composer
Lynn Stalmaster, casting
Meta Rebner, script supervisor
Terry Morse, first assistant director
Martin Baum, Sidney Poitier’s agent
Claire Bloom, Rod Steiger’s wife
Juanita Hardy Poitier, Sidney Poitier’s wife



The critics
Bosley Crowther, film critic for the New York Times
Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times
Penelope Gilliatt, film critic for the New Yorker
Pauline Kael, film critic for the New Yorker
Joseph Morgenstern, film critic for Newsweek
Andrew Sarris, film critic for the Village Voice
Richard Schickel, film critic for Life



The industry
Louis Nizer, chief counsel to the Motion Picture
Association of America
Gregory Peck, president of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Geoffrey Shurlock, head of the Production Code Authority
Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture
Association of America

INTRODUCTION

When you talk about films, nobody agrees with anybody . Guys get mad at each other and the air is full of screaming .
David Newman and Robert Benton , "The Movies Will Save Themselves," 1968
A few dozen reporters, wire-service men, studio publicity department employees, gossip columnists, and personal managers were gathered on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood outside the locked headquarters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It was the morning of February 20, 1968. At 10:00 a.m., the doors opened and the group was led inside and escorted to the Academy library, where each person was handed an unsealed, oversize manila envelope containing the names of the 1967 Oscar nominees.
The five films vying for Best Picture that year were Bonnie and Clyde , Doctor Dolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , and In the Heat of the Night . Some Academy Awards competitions offer an almost irresistible temptation to imagine that the Best Picture nominees represent a collective statement a five-snapshot collage of the American psyche as reflected in its popular culture. But that morning, all that was illuminated by the list of contenders was the movie industry’s anxiety and bewilderment at a paroxysmal point in its own history. Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate were game changers, movies that had originated far from Hollywood and had grown into critics’ darlings and major popular phenomena; In the Heat of the Night , a drama about race, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , a comedy about race, were middle-of-the-road hits that had, with varying degrees of success, extended a long tradition by addressing a significant social issue within the context of their chosen genres; and Doctor Dolittle was a universally dismissed children’s musical that most observers felt had bought its way to the final five. Of such mixed bags have countless Academy Awards races been made.
That winter, the question of who was going to win had taken on more urgency than usual. Not who was going to win the Oscars, which would shortly be decided by the usual blend of caprice and conviction, but who was going to win ownership of the whole enterprise of contemporary moviemaking. The Best Picture lineup was more than diverse; it was almost self-contradictory. Half of the nominees seemed to be sneering at the other half: The father-knows-best values of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were wittily trashed by The Graduate ; the hands-joined-in-brotherhood hopes expressed by In the Heat of the Night had little in common with the middle finger of insurrection extended by Bonnie and Clyde .
What was an American film supposed to be? The men running the movie business used to have the answer; now, it had slipped just beyond their reach, and they couldn’t understand how they had lost sight of it. In the last year, the rule book seemed to have been tossed out. Warren Beatty, who looked like a movie star, had become a producer. Dustin Hoffman, who looked like a producer, had become a movie star. And Sidney Poitier, who looked like no other movie star had ever looked, had become the biggest box office attraction in an industry that still had no idea what to do with, or about, his popularity. The biggest hit among the five nominees, The Graduate , had been turned down by every major studio and financed independently. Bonnie and Clyde had been financed by Warner Brothers but loathed by Jack Warner, who rued the day he put even a small amount of his company’s money into it. In the Heat of the Night was made because United Artists ran the numbers and realized the film could be produced so cheaply that it woul