Pictures at a Revolution

Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

By: Mark Harris

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Here is the epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Dolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde - and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood and America forever.

It was the mid-1960s, and Westerns, war movies, and blockbuster musicals, such as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, dominated the box office. The Hollywood studio system, with its cartels of talent and its production code, was hanging strong, or so it seemed.

But by the time the Oscar ceremonies rolled around in the spring of 1968, when In the Heat of the Night won the 1967 Academy Award for Best Picture, a cultural revolution had hit Hollywood with the force of a tsunami. The unprecedented violence and nihilism of fellow nominee Bonnie and Clyde shocked old-guard reviewers and made the movie one of the year's biggest box-office successes. Just as unprecedented was the run of The Graduate, which launched first-time director Mike Nichols into a long and brilliant career and inspired a generation of young people who knew that, whatever their future was, it wasn't in plastics.

What City of Nets did for Hollywood in the 1940s, and Easy Rider and Raging Bull did for the 1970s, Pictures at a Revolution does for Hollywood and the cultural revolution of the 1960s. As we follow the progress of five movies, we see an entire industry change and struggle and collapse and grow - and we see careers made and ruined, studios born and destroyed, and the landscape of possibility altered beyond all recognition.

©2008 Mark Harris (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Thorough and engaging....Fascinating." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Fresh and candid....A particularly accomplished debut book." ( The New York Times)

Wonderful slice of history

Everyone is right, the narrator mispronounced at lot of names/words -- and the editors should have had it corrected. Now lets move on!! It's a wonderful history of the 1960's condensed into a narrative about the Academy Awards. The tone set by the narrator is perfect. The narrator reads well and is clear (that's how we can tell that he mispronounced so many words!!). History brought into terms that ordinary people can relate to and understand is rare and this rarity is a true gem.

The reader gets a LOT of pronunciations wrong

The book is great but I wish Mark Harris had read it himself. The reader does a good job but wow, does he get some names wrong.

Great book - especially for film buffs!

I am a huge film buff and loved listening to this book. The author weaves all the various machinations of the vastly different film sets into a cohesive whole. I found all the ins and outs utterly fascinating - and it’s made me look at the primary films discussed in a different (but still entertained) light. Highly recommend!!!

terrific

I highly recommend this book. it was great and packed with information about a really significant time in movie history

Great stories, BUT where is this narrator from?

This book is truly fascinating in detail and broad scope. It succinctly tells with effortless continuity the tale of a brilliant year in movie-making. However, the narrator can't correctly pronounce anything. Where has this guy lived his entire life? You're going to have a tough go if you can't translate his mispronunciation of names familiar to any movie fan. At least he's heard of Sidney Poitier. He gets close on that one. Still, if you're a movie nut, you've got to hear these backstories. Really interesting stuff...