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Christina's Reviews > Picture
Picture
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“I happen to like forthright, up-front crooks and villains, and I gloried in finding some of them in Hollywood."
Lillian Ross, where have you been all my life? This is one of the funnest & funniest books I have read in a very long time. However, this book is not frivolous at all. Really, it is an excellent piece of long-form journalism, astutely observant & gently wry. More than that, it is an examination of the seemingly eternal battle between artistic vision & commercial viability, between the creative process & public consumption.
In 1950 famous director John Huston set out to film the novel The Red Badge of Courage. The battle began by convincing the Money People it was a good idea. Classic novels can be difficult to successfully translate into screenplays & books without plot or romance, like "Red Badge," are very risky. Then there was budget, casting, location, etc. Some of the most banal accounting/production details ( “Six dummy horse carcasses were to be bought at $275 each.� ) really tickled me, but also highlighted the extensive absurdities of turning art into a Big Production. Ross does a great job of showing how many people work very hard, physically hard, to make a director’s artistic vision a reality. She also does a great job of showing how many people work hard to destroy a director’s artistic vision. Profit trumps poetry. Or, perhaps, art thrives under pressure?
Ross used her incredible access to the film sets, meetings, previews, parties & personal documents well. The strained relationships & opportunistic backstabbing were not lost on her, but she did not exploit this--it was just business as usual. Clearly she liked Huston & his intentions with the film. She seemed especially to relish the more outlandish characters & I am so glad she seemed to zero in on who I think is the star of the book: Mocha, the French black poodle belonging to producer Gottfried Reinhardt. I jest, but Ross clearly delighted in the absurd overindulging of Mocha as well as in the behavior of adults who had clearly not been outside of the Hollywood bubble in far too long. A wonderful book, easily read in a day or two.
Lillian Ross, where have you been all my life? This is one of the funnest & funniest books I have read in a very long time. However, this book is not frivolous at all. Really, it is an excellent piece of long-form journalism, astutely observant & gently wry. More than that, it is an examination of the seemingly eternal battle between artistic vision & commercial viability, between the creative process & public consumption.
In 1950 famous director John Huston set out to film the novel The Red Badge of Courage. The battle began by convincing the Money People it was a good idea. Classic novels can be difficult to successfully translate into screenplays & books without plot or romance, like "Red Badge," are very risky. Then there was budget, casting, location, etc. Some of the most banal accounting/production details ( “Six dummy horse carcasses were to be bought at $275 each.� ) really tickled me, but also highlighted the extensive absurdities of turning art into a Big Production. Ross does a great job of showing how many people work very hard, physically hard, to make a director’s artistic vision a reality. She also does a great job of showing how many people work hard to destroy a director’s artistic vision. Profit trumps poetry. Or, perhaps, art thrives under pressure?
Ross used her incredible access to the film sets, meetings, previews, parties & personal documents well. The strained relationships & opportunistic backstabbing were not lost on her, but she did not exploit this--it was just business as usual. Clearly she liked Huston & his intentions with the film. She seemed especially to relish the more outlandish characters & I am so glad she seemed to zero in on who I think is the star of the book: Mocha, the French black poodle belonging to producer Gottfried Reinhardt. I jest, but Ross clearly delighted in the absurd overindulging of Mocha as well as in the behavior of adults who had clearly not been outside of the Hollywood bubble in far too long. A wonderful book, easily read in a day or two.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
Finished Reading
May 9, 2021
– Shelved
