Film historian Jeanine Basinger is co-author of the new book Hollywood: An Oral History.
What’s the real story of Hollywood? Well, to find out, go straight to those who really know: the stars, certainly, and, of course, the directors, screenwriters and producers, but also the wardrobe mistresses, the publicists, the makeup artists and hundreds of others who made up the Hollywood film industry for more than a century.
Oral histories collected by the American Film Institute over the years have been turned into an intimate and personal narrative of Hollywood over the decades in Hollywood: The Oral History (HarperCollins Publishers), a new book co-authored by Wesleyan University film guru Jeanine Basinger and writer Sam Wasson.
Both were given unprecedented access to the AFI’s seminars, oral histories, and complete archives — nearly 400 figures and more than 3,000 hours of tape — to make what they call “the only comprehensive first-hand history of Hollywood.” Basinger covers the era of the studio system up to the 1960s, while Wasson focuses on filmmaking after that.
In its review, Kirkus Reviews writes: “For cinephiles … this volume is a gold mine of production details, backroom deals, and inside gossip.”
The following is a part of a conversation with Basinger, who was recently honored with a new Wesleyan building in her name, the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies.
How did you even begin?
It was Sam’s idea that we would create a conversation, starting at the very beginning of film to today and not having interruptions. It just would be the history of film as one big conversation by people who were actually doing it on their feet.
Were the subjects more frank knowing the talks weren’t likely to be heard by the general public?
Film historian Jeanine Basinger, pictured at the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.
They’re talking to students at the AFI Conservatory or an oral history person or talking to one another in a group panel, so these are basically oral histories, so what they said was not something that was guarded. It’s very candid and fresh. Only a very small amount has been used by scholars or biographers.
Of course it’s all from personal perspectives.
Like 16 people all said they were the ones that invented the dolly or the boom mike. But then again it’s quite startling to suddenly hear somebody like cameraman Hal Mohr saying, ‘You’re talking about the transition to sound films? Well, I’m the guy who shot The Jazz Singer.’
What did you and Sam learn as you both heard from people from the different eras?
That the change between the old Hollywood and the new Hollywood is even bigger than we thought and the two are really not the same. What happened in the modern Hollywood was without the studio system setting the films up, everyone had to become a producer and the financier because every movie had to be built from scratch. [Sam] said the Hollywood agents in a way became the studios and the studios had become the banks.
Hollywood: An Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson
What’s your big takeaway from the era you focused on?
There are three words about the Hollywood system that come to mind — and not the words people associate with the studio system: Fun, flexibility and family. Everyone talked about how much fun they had and how much they loved it. They all said how flexible everyone was in terms of working together and giving up their own ideas. And they spoke of what a sense of family there was to it all. This is not the picture that we normally get of Hollywood.
Which interviews did you make a bee-line to?
Of course right away we pulled out the interviews from people like Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Frank Capra, Hitchcock, Rouben Mamoulian and John Huston. But for my part I wanted to have the heads of departments: the songwriters like Harry Warren or costumers like Jean Louis or makeup people like William Tuttle or cinematographers like James Wong Howe. Charlton Heston was one of the best interviews — and we didn’t expect that. But some of the most objective and informed interviews came from people working behind the scenes. And they’re funny. Almost all these people are very funny.
Was there any score-settling from past rivalries and conflicts?
That you asked that question reflects what most people think about Hollywood. What the people interviewed would say is: You know what? We had work to do. We couldn’t go around and work irresponsibly. No one wants to work with jerks. You had to learn how to work with people — whether you liked them or not. [Director] George Cukor said, ‘Look, these jerks writing books about Hollywood were never really there. We were there and we had to get the job done.’ It’s about how you make movies, how you learn to work together, how you solve problems, how you do the job.
Is there an audio book or something similar that will feature some of the raw material from the tapes — or perhaps a documentary in the works?
We have strong interest in a PBS documentary. But I can’t say anything more than that. All the AFI material is in the long process now of being digitized to eventually be made available to everyone.
A few things from the behind-the-scenes interviews that surprised even Hollywood expert Jeanine Basinger:
The perception of Marilyn Monroe: “There was a real lack of sympathy for her. It’s totally clear that no one liked Marilyn. They don’t have the modern view of her as exploited and vulnerable. Instead they saw her as tough, demanding and difficult. They’re sympathetic overall toward the tragedy, but it was more, ‘Who wants to work with her?’ “
The real Joan Crawford: “She was never interviewed, but the majority of people did talk about her and she was one of the most popular and beloved of all the actresses. That’s because she was hard working, easy to work with and she was very good to the people at the bottom. It’s the opposite of what Mommie Dearest showed.”
Efforts to help Judy Garland: “They definitely all felt that the studio did everything they could for her. It was confirmed for me that Louis B. Mayer had asked Katharine Hepburn to help him out with Judy when she was really collapsing in the ‘40s. Hepburn gives an interview saying she did it and how sympathetic Mayer was to Judy, saying how much money Garland made for the studio. ‘We need to try to help her and I don’t know what to do,’ he said to her. Hepburn said it’s hard to know what causes the destruction of a life like Garland but she did try to help.”
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Using rare interviews, Hollywood: The Oral History shines a new … – CT Insider
