The Whole Equation : A History of Hollywood

Rating:
Summary: Schizophrenic
Review:

Part of this book--the good part--is a fascinating history and analysis of power and money in Hollywood. Thomson figures that control is power, and he's right--most of the time.

Part of this book--the bad part--is twee autobiography (I'm not fastastically interested in The Granada, Tooting); endless and often obscure rhetorical questions; and rather a lot of thinking with a part of his body that is not his brain. Yes, folks, we're deep in Pauline Kael Land! Thus we get dumb tributes to dumber Nicole Kidman and her dumbest Oscar vehicle "The Hours"; rather more about Selznick Freres than we care to know; and a rather pathetic swallowing of Slim Hawkes' "I-Am-Muse" myth. This self-indulgence is unfortunate, because it gets in the way of the good things in the book. Thomson's opinionated, which makes him entertaining. Thomson's opinions, though, are sometimes dead wrong. (David dear, the French are not right about Jerry Lewis. Just sayin'.)

Rating:
Summary: Chatty, pompous, entertaining.
Review: I'm a fan of Thomson's "Biographical Dictionary of Film," and this book is cut from the same cloth--curmudgeonly, British, often dead-on. This is not the usual Hollywood history book (it has been published by holier-than-thou Knopf, afterall)--it's all over the place and LOADED with references to every last syllable in Fitzgerald's "The Last Tycoon." If you haven't read that novel, you're going to miss half of what Thomson is saying.

Nevertheless, the book is worth sticking with. Starting with a cautionary behind-the-scenes tale from "Chinatown," he then weaves through film history as we watch movie-making go from silent art to studio product to the "filmed deal." The chapters on 20s, 30s, and 40s Hollywood are quite fresh, and full of interesting observations, including a detailed look at how much it would cost to film "Gone With The Wind" today.

The reviewer who mentioned Pauline Kael is right-on. This feels just like her rambling, unclassifiable tomes. If you liked her writings, and miss that kind of casual, chatty film scholarship, you'll like this book.

BTW--After reading this, I followed it with an excellent, little known book called "Hollywood Remembered: An Oral History," which does an equally good job of taking some of he shine off of Tinsel Town.

Rating:
Summary: Flickhead on "The Whole Equation"
Review: The magic of the movies is in their uncanny, hypnotic ability to make us believe in fantasy. Extending from the images on the screen to the exaggerated lifestyles of the falsely refined movers and shakers who make them, the lies trickle down to affect both the manner and perception of us, the viewer. To say that movies (and, more profoundly, television) have reshaped society is an understatement: their sweeping modification of reality is one of the legacies (and the foremost curse) of the twentieth century.

As David Thomson displays in The Whole Equation, to write about movies is to write about fabrication and influence, and authors even as keen as he are just as susceptible to the same power of suggestion as everyone else. Going through this energetic, analytic volume, we're with a man caught between exposing the lie and loving it. In over a dozen books and countless magazine articles, Thomson's study of this dangerous game of chimera and self-deception has been enlightening and often irritating. (How dare he shatter our illusions!) Updated once every decade, the unsentimental tone throughout his Biographical Dictionary of Film has infuriated some readers to the stage where several crabby reviews have been as caustically entertaining as the pointed work itself. The audience who condemns what they fancy to be his myopia fail to recognize Thomson's intense respect and adoration of good films, directors and actors. But it's there, most certainly so, often packed very tight between the lines, an area generally overlooked by unadventurous minds and delusional addicts.

Read the complete review at www.Flickhead.com

Rating:
Summary: A great history of Filmdom-very entertaining
Review: The Whole equation by David Thomson is basically as historical overview of Hollywood and the American filmmaking industry. Mr. Thomson is well placed to write such a book-his other "credits" include a biography of an 18th century novelist as well as one of Orson Welles, an history of an artic exploration and the all inclusive "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film".

The whole equation is an extremely well written and absorbing account of the film industry including, on one side of the equation, the artistic elements of writing, acting and directing, and on the other side of the equation, the bottom line businessmen-the studio chiefs, the producers, agents and assorted bean counters.

Mr. Thomson does not shine his spotlight only on the success stories. He chronicles the rise and fall of several key talents-some well now, some obscure-through all the various means of descent-failure of inspiration, life-styles of enormous excess, bad career management, overrun ego and the nefarious tyrannies of studio chiefs. He also traces the many arcs of success and the juxtaposition of the two often illustrates how often luck---both good and bad-affects trajectories in Hollywood.

This book has a bit of something for everyone. Although written with a novelistic flair, the book adheres to an historian's discipline. It has the "names" one would expect and interesting biographical datum on many great Hollywood personalities. It does a very nice job of providing a vivid picture of how the film industry operates. The book is both informative and fun to read.

A great book for film junkies.


Rating:
Summary: A thinking person's companion to a life long love of film
Review: The Whole Equation is a study in one man's passion for, insight into and knowledge of Hollywood film history. Immediately upon having had the pleasure of hearing David Thomson speak (he was introducing a film that was part of a series inspired by "the Whole Equation") I raced to my nearest bookstore and invested in his latest work. It was money well spent. Thomson is a personable writer whose charm and wit sparkle throughout this book.
He has strong opinions on films and directors that readers will sometimes differ with but maintain a healthy respect for. Thomson backs his attacks with reasons, not the kind of hit and run criticism that some film critics engage in.
"The Whole Equation" is not a straight chronology of Hollywood as Thomson frequently digresses, fast forwards and expands on themes -- always with great results.
There is also a delightful mixture of gossip (how could there not be in a book on Hollywood) which comes across more as history than he-said-she-said. Here is the story of "Chinatown" of Jean Harlow, Irving Thalberg, the black list, Michael Cimino Marlene Dietrich and so much more.
Film lovers we'll be inspired. Inspired to learn even more about the movies and more importantly to want to see particular films whether for the first time or with a new appreciation.
"The Whole Equation" is a thinking person's companion to a life long love of movies.

Rating:
Summary: A bold and successful effort
Review: The whole equation is an ambitious history of Hollywood from the early days to the most recent.

Thomson begins by using the movie Chinatown and writer Robert Towne to make larger points about Hollywood. Since Chinatown is set in LA during the heyday of tinsel town and the growth of Los Angles, it's a good example of what the city had to go through as a result of the success of the movie business. Towne becomes Thomson's example of how movie writers have no power compared to novelists and playwrights and that difference is one reason film is a much broader collaborative medium than other arts.

Later in the book, Thomson uses F. Scott Fitzgerald's un-finished novel The Last Tycoon for more comparison. First, we get his take on Fitzgerald's failure as a screenwriter and a look at his experiences knowing David Selznick and Irving Thalberg, the inspirations for the novel's protagonist, Monroe Star.

Thomson also uses the Edward Hopper painting "New York Movie" as a thread through the book.

These fictional comparisons are inspired and they allow Thomson to move from decade to decade smoothly. The book discusses the importance of Eric von Stoheim, Charlie Chaplin, Nicole Kidman, Selznick, Thalberg, Louis Mayer, Lew Wasserman, and Pauline Kael among numerous other subjects.

The only misstep in my mind is his analysis of HUAC and the early cold war. Here's what he says, "...the campaign of the House Committee on Un-American Activities was unconstitutional, and its punishment, the blacklist, it was illegal... many Hollywood careers were halted, a climate of fear was established, and the prospect of an adult attitude in American pictures was set back."

First, when a butcher like Joe Stalin (who killed more people than Hitler) has an atomic bomb meant for us and Dalton Trumbo is making goo goo eyes about him, I don't feel so bad that Trumbo has to ghost write his work.

Second, Thomson was a film professor at Dartmouth and I'm sure he isn't ignorant to the many campus speech codes around the country that are direct violations of the first amendment. How many students are expelled every year for not following the current version of political correctness? It's very easy to criticize people of 50 years ago while you sit back and let it continue in your own workplace today. It doesn't seem right to portray cold war era politics as unusual when politically correct ideaology infects society and the movies just as much today.

Those points aside, Thomson does a great job of connecting ancient film history with the modern by making interesting comparisons with fluid writing and for that I recommend the book.