Pictures at a Revolution

Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

By: Mark Harris

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

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)

Eye-opening!

As a director of 4 feature films, I found this audiobook to be transformative! It really reminded me of what filmmaking is really about...that is, ideas and attitude, which is what selected filmmakers of the 60's and 70's had in spades! The audiobook uses the past to remind us what future films have the potential to be!

great but flawed by narrator

Have to jump on the same band wagon! Horrible narration of a very engaging and informative book. Deserved much better. No excuse for such bad production -- talk about phoning it in! I am sure our fellow fans of audio books all know how critical it is that a book be "perfomred", not just "read". Hope Lloyd James is ashamed! Or is is it "Leed Joommes?"

Great audiobook in spite of mispronunciations

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the performance was fine except for some glaring mispronunciations of at least half a dozen last names: Leslie Caron pronounced as “Leslie Kar’-en,” “Sidney Lumet” as “Lum’-it@ and “Leonard Bernstein” as “Bern-steen.” There were others, but I’ve forgotten them. Surprised that the audiobook producers let these get through.

Essential storytelling & history for film buffs

This is an incredibly well told story about a transitional period in film history, and the key movies and figures at the center of it.

I’ve listened to many audiobooks for my commute (mostly nonfiction), and this is one of the best, most engaging narrations I have heard yet.

Splendid in every way!

Mark Harris’ writing is taut and smart and vastly entertaining. And his knowledge of the subject matter is staggeringly compressive. A total delight. I didn’t want it to end!

Super interesting read for film lovers

Very informative peek behind the scenes. Steady narrator never is distracting. A must for film lovers!

Sidney Lummit?

Come on, man! I found this book quite enjoyable and fascinating in many ways. I echo what some of the previous reviewers have said that the mispronunciation of luminaries such as Sidney Lumet’s name is all but inexcusable. Is there no way to go into the audio file and fix these negligent errors? It is ultimately very distracting and disrespectful to leave in mistakes of this kind.

A very well told tale

I thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful book. Harris not only declares that our country entered a new era during the mid sixties but shows how using the story of how five “major motion pictures” came into being. In addition to elucidating the complicated tale of how movies reach the screen, he also offers a brief history of the period’s approach to culture. Finally, this book made me recognize that the current #metoo movement bears a strong resemblance to previous times when morals and mores have altered suddenly.

Superb

This book stands head and shoulders above all other film history texts. I’m looking forward to a reread.

Insight into film classics; illiterate narration

A bit of a time machine to the late 60's. The years when Hollywood produced The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. Worth the listen to understand how they came to be the movies we remember. The repeated mispronunciation of names of key figures is so jarring that I thought it was intended as humor. It is not. Just lazy production. But the background stories of these films is fresh enough to forgive the glaring mistakes.