Pictures at a Revolution

I've been busy, but more quiet because I've been reading mostly books about athletic training and swimming, trying to put together a weight training regimen and running/triathlon training schedule.  I have to take a class to learn how to crawl/freestyle properly, as I never really learned how to breathe on both sides and all that stuff.  I figure that's all boring, and no book has been a real stunner...

I did spend three weeks listening to Mark Harris’s “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood,” which was much more interesting than I guessed when trolling through the crappy library ebook app.  (Overdrive's new interface sucks so bad, it makes me hate having to search the catalog.)

It's chock full of interesting facts about the making of "The Graduate," which I love, "Bonnie and Clyde," which I admire, and other big hits of the late 60s.  There's actually a lot of discussion of race and Hollywood, and Sidney Poitier's career, and the riots, which the GF experienced vicariously in the womb in precarious circumstances.  There's also discussion of homophobia, especially since Clyde was bisexual IRL and the original draft of B&C was more of a love triangle.  Hepburn and Tracy are examined thoroughly, as is Dustin Hoffman's big break, and Warren Beatty's ego.

It's a good look at how politics really works to dumb down movies, which the internets do not always understand well in terms of logistics, as opposed to outcomes.  I recommend it as a history and collection of movie trivia but also as a look at the thought processes of Hollywood movers and shakers.

Every time I hear people at cons talk about why movies and tv fail and what should be being made and how, I want to make them read about the industry from the production side.  And interviews with the people who've tried to make things happen.  Yes, but... That's what is wrong, yes, but how it happens is more complex and yet simple.  Let's look at just *how* money talks and ignorance wins again...