As movie awards season is in full season, you might have film on your mind. But sometimes the stories behind the movies are even more interesting than the movies themselves! Here are some books to check out about Hollywood's history (and its future!)
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Black Hollywood : reimagining iconic movie moments
by Carell Augustus In Black Hollywood, photographer Carell Augustus has enlisted Black celebrities and performers from all areas of entertainment to recreate iconic scenes from classic Hollywood movies, television, and other media. The images illuminate the role of race in Hollywood history by re-imagining classic films with Black actors, renewing readers' appreciation of the past while celebrating the hottest Black stars of today and inspiring the artists of the future. More than a book about pop culture, film history, or race, Black Hollywood is truly an inspirational artistic homage to our greatest blockbuster movies and the actors who brought them to life. |
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Colorization : one hundred years of Black films in a white world
by Wil Haygood Explores the history of Black cinema and how it has served as a reflection of social realities and events, from the early racist films of D.W. Griffith to today's groundbreaking work of Black moviemakers and stars. |
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The Disney revolt : the great labor war of animation's golden age
by Jake S. Friedman Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt's expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. But as America prepared for World War II, labor unions spread across Hollywood. Disney fought the unions while Babbitt embraced them. Soon, angry Disney cartoon characters graced picket signs as hundreds of animation artists went out on strike. Adding fuel to the fire was Willie Bioff, one of Al Capone's wiseguys who was seizing control of Hollywood workers and vied for the animators' union. Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labor dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever. |
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High noon : the Hollywood blacklist and the making of an American classic
by Glenn Frankel The story behind the classic movie "High Noon" shares insights into the toxic political climate in which it was created, recounting how, during the film shoot, screenwriter Carl Foreman was interrogated and blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee |
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Hitler in Los Angeles : how Jews foiled Nazi plots against Hollywood and America
by Steven Joseph Ross An acclaimed historian presents a gripping, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles during which attorney Leon Lewis ran a spy operation to stop the Nazis from killing the city's Jews and sabotaging the nation's military installations. |
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Hollywood ending : Harvey Weinstein and the culture of silence
by Ken Auletta This biography of the disgraced Hollywood mogul looks at both his meteoric rise and how he used his position to indulge his sexual appetites for decades before facing a swift and dramatic downfall. |
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Hollywood frame by frame : the unseen silver screen in contact sheets, 1951-1997
by Karina Longworth A treasure trove for any fan of Hollywood's Golden Age, Frame by Frame: The Story of Hollywood in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997 is packed with images that have never before been published, offering a unique insight into the moments when movie history was made. Focusing on still photographers' contact sheets--a record of every shot they took--from the sets of some of the greatest films of the twentieth century, the book tells the story of Hollywood through images that have never been considered since the original shots were taken. The story of each movie's making--from King Kong to Some Like it Hot, from Taxi Driver to Pulp Fiction--is told in extended captions, providing insight into the art of moviemaking, the science of movie marketing, and the nature of stardom. Showing legends such as Woody Allen, Audrey Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, and Frank Sinatra at work and at repose, this book is the perfect gift for any movie enthusiast. |
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The Hollywood Jim Crow : the racial politics of the movie industry
by Maryann Erigha Examines the racial discrimination experienced by African Americans in Hollywood, describing the stereotyping of African American directors as "unbankable" and the exclusion of African Americans from employment opportunities, access to resources, and decision making. |
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Hollywood : the oral history
by Jeanine Basinger A legendary film scholar and a New York Times best-selling author present the oral history of Hollywood through candid remarks from stars both in front and behind the camera including Bette Davis, Meryl Streep and Frank Capra. |
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Lady director : adventures in Hollywood, television and beyond
by Joyce Chopra Hailed by the New Yorker as "a crucial forebear of generations," award-winning director Joyce Chopra came of age in the 1950s, prior to the dawn of feminism, and long before the #MeToo movement. In this engaging, candid memoir, Chopra describes how she learned to navigate the deeply embedded sexism of the film industry, helping to pave the way for a generation of women filmmakers who would come after her. She shares stories of her bruising encounters with Harvey Weinstein and Sydney Pollack, her experience directing Diane Keaton, Treat Williams, and a host of other actors, as well as her deep friendships with Gene Wilder, Arthur Miller, and Laura Dern. Along with the successes and failures of her career, she provides an intimate view of a woman's struggle to balance the responsibilities and rewards of motherhood and marriage with a steadfast commitment to personal creative achievement. During a career spanning six decades, Joyce Chopra has worked through monumental shifts in her craft and in the culture at large, and the span of her life story offers a view into the implacable momentum of the push for all womens' liberation. |
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New kings of the world : dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop
by Fatima Bhutto There is a vast cultural movement emerging from beyond the Western world. Truly global in its range and allure, it is the biggest challenge yet to Hollywood, McDonald's, and blue jeans. This is a book about these new arbiters of mass culture arising from the East-India's Bollywood films, Turkish soap opera, or dizi, and South Korean pop music. Carefully packaging not always secular modernity with traditional values in urbanized settings, they have created a new global pop culture that can be easily consumed, especially by the many millions coming late to the modern world and still negotiating its overwhelming challenges. Author Fatima Bhutto profiles Shah Rukh Khan, by many measures the most popular movie star in the world; goes behind the scenes of Magnificent Century, Turkey's biggest TV show, watched by upwards of 200 million people across 43 countries; and travels to South Korea to see how K-Pop started it all, and how "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube video with one billion views. |
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Nobody's girl Friday : the women who ran Hollywood
by J. E. Smyth Disillusioned with what the American film industry had become by the 1970s, Bette Davis remembered a time when "women owned Hollywood." This book is their story. Historian J.E. Smyth challenges the belief, reinforced in too many histories and public comments, that feminism died between 1930 and 1950, that women were not important within the Hollywood studio system, that male directors called all the shots, and that the most important Hollywood writer you should know about is Dalton Trumbo. |
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Opposable thumbs : how Siskel & Ebert changed movies forever
by Matt Singer An award-winning editor and film critic raises the curtain on the often-antagonistic partnership, which later transformed into genuine friendship, between Robert Ebert and Gene Siskel whose signature“Two thumbs up!” would become the most trusted critical brand in Hollywood—one that still lives on today. |
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Oscar wars : a history of Hollywood in gold, sweat, and tears
by Michael Schulman Chronicling the remarkable, sprawling history of the Academy Awards and the personal dramas that have played out on the stage and off camera, this entertaining exploration of the Oscars features a star-studded cast of some of the most powerful Hollywood players of today and yesterday. |