It’s not quite “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” But “Hollywood: The Oral History” swings equally big in ambition and marketing approach. Which Hollywood history is this, you ask, and whose? The! This is it!
OK! Don’t break stride for killjoy contemporary questions of race, gender, socioeconomics and unconscious editorial bias in the shaping of historical narrative and maybe it is. At the very least, here is testimony by over 300 industry professionals, some of whom made silent movies and are now dead, others of whom are Steven Spielberg and Jordan Peele. And the result is a fat, showbiz-nerd-satisfying tome with something for every showbiz-nerd taste: on-set stories, technical details, funny anecdotes about actors, the echoes of studio executives kvetching and various people complaining about critics. Hooray for Hollywood!
The material, which was assembled by the veteran film scholar and professor Jeanine Basinger and her collaborator, the movie journalist Sam Wasson, comes from the deep resources of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. There, since 1969, a series called the Harold Lloyd Master Seminars has brought in industry professionals to talk about their work to AFI conservatory students eager for their own careers in moviemaking. (The silent-film genius Harold Lloyd was the school’s first guest. O lucky AFI students.)
