Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris
490 Pages

The New York Times bestseller that follows the making of five films at a pivotal time in Hollywood history In the mid-1960s, westerns, war movies, and blockbuster musicals like Mary Poppins swept the box office. The Hollywood studio system was astonishingly lucrative for the few who dominated the business. That is, until the tastes of American moviegoers radically- and unexpectedly-changed. By the Oscar ceremonies of 1968, a cultural revolution had hit Hollywood with the force of a tsunami, and films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night , and box-office bomb Doctor Doolittle signaled a change in Hollywood-and America. And as an entire industry changed and struggled, careers were suddenly made and ruined, studios grew and crumbled, and the landscape of filmmaking was altered beyond all recognition.

It was interesting I was reading this around the time of the Academy Awards this year because very few people seemed to care who won best picture and most people hadn't seen the majority of the nominated movies.  The author's  examination of  the 1968 best picture nominations as the watershed moment heralding the change of the movie business is interesting albeit a bit dry in parts. I personally think the movie industry undergoes a metamorphosis every 15-20 years and we will be seeing another one soon.  3 stars.