Not only am I fascinated by old Hollywood history, I’m also interested in the creative processes that produce great art. Everyone approaches their craft a little differently, and it’s always illuminating to discover how different people do what they do. In my own work, I like to explore how creative people come to their Eureka! moments, and hope that I’ll be able to learn something from their experiences.
I wrote...
Wild Minds: The Artists and Rivalries That Inspired the Golden Age of Animation
By
Reid Mitenbuler
What is my book about?
This book is about the early decades of animation history and the larger-than-life artists who created some of the most iconic characters of the pre-television twentieth century, including Felix the Cat, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, and Betty Boop. Ultimately, it’s a story about rival artists competing to outdo each other and set the standards for an emerging art form. Readers will discover the unique creative processes employed by such geniuses as Walt Disney, the Fleischer brothers, Chuck Jones, and many more. It’s a tale of business, art, and the rise and fall of creative empires.
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The Books I Picked & Why
The Moon's a Balloon
By
David Niven
Why this book?
This book opens with an absolutely breathtaking passage, one of my favorite openings in any book ever. One imagines Niven narrating his memoir poolside, gripping a cigarette and a martini in the same fist, his pince-nez mustache dancing up and down while he describes, in sordid detail, old-school Hollywood at its most louche. If you want a book that brings alive the atmosphere of a bygone era, this is it.
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Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
By
Mark Harris
Why this book?
This is a richly layered book that stacks stories upon stories, as if they were Russian nesting dolls. Using five films that were nominated for the 1967 Best Picture Oscar, Harris dissects a waterfalling cascade of cultural trends happening in America at that time—all of them somehow revealing themselves in these five movies. At the core of this book is a story about generational change, as old Hollywood was ushered out the door and new creative types took over the industry.
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The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood
By
Sam Wasson
Why this book?
Sam Wasson is simply a good writer, crafting tight narratives that help this book read like a novel. The best part of this book is its examination of the creative process: in order for Chinatown to get made the way it did, a million (maybe two million) things needed to align in just the right way. The movie easily could have failed, but Wasson shows how the contributions of its many collaborators saved it.
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An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood
By
Neal Gabler
Why this book?
Using detailed portraits of the moguls who built Hollywood, this book tracks the rise of an industry while also telling a unique story about American business and culture. It bristles with insights, particularly about how the moguls (almost all of them immigrants) helped create and amplify many of the popular narratives that Americans tell about themselves. It’s wonderfully written, scholarly but not dry, and serves as a time machine taking you back to a fascinating era in our national history.
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We'll Always Have Casablanca: The Legend and Afterlife of Hollywood's Most Beloved Film
By
Noah Isenberg
Why this book?
This is a page-turner book that I can easily imagine being adapted into a movie of its own: one of those story-behind-the-story kind of affairs. At its heart, this book is about using stories to address current social and political issues (something that is often done with a ham fist). In the lead-up to WWII, most movie studios were too cowardly to offend Germany, Europe’s biggest market. But with Casablanca, Warner Bros. decided to fight back. It’s a lesson we could use again today, as American movie studios meekly cower before Chinese censorship demands. Their behavior is pathetic, but this book could help remind them what courage and integrity actually look like.
