Hollywood: The Oral History

By: Jeanine Basinger, Sam Wasson

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon, Marni Penning

Length: 28 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

The real story of Hollywood as told by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Harold Lloyd, and nearly four hundred others, assembled from the American Film Institute’s treasure trove of interviews, reveals a fresh history of the American movie industry from its beginnings to today.

From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly three thousand interviews, involving four hundred voices from the industry, Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a listener “listen in” on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera—Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd—to the biggest behind it—Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele, as well as the lesser known individuals that shaped what was heard and seen on screen: musicians, costumers, art directors, cinematographers, writers, sound men, editors, make-up artists, and even script timers, messengers, and publicists. The result is like a conversation among the gods and goddesses of film: lively, funny, insightful, historically accurate and, for the first time, authentically honest in its portrait of Hollywood. It’s the insider’s story.

Legendary film scholar Jeanine Basinger and New York Times bestselling author Sam Wasson, both acclaimed storytellers in their own right, have undertaken the monumental task of digesting these tens of thousands of hours of talk and weaving it into a definitive portrait of workaday Hollywood.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Wow!

I’ve read a ton of books about the movies. But I learned more about filmmaking and its history from this book than any other.

Picky, Picky!

I don't know how, in a 29 hour audiobok, in which thousands of different names are mentioned, a narrator is supposed to figure out how every name is pronounced. What resource would you use to determine such info? Missing some names is OK. Come on people! You got 29 hours of interesting, well performed book for only one credit.. Give it a rest. How much fun are you to live with?

Confounding

What should have been entertaining and informative was instead a confounding listening experience made so by the arguably necessary announcement of each person’s name with every quote. No flow, and ultimately impossible to enjoy. Individual attributions are seemingly impossible obstacle for an audiobook to overcome.

VicenTAY Minnelli really?

Great book about great directors and the like! Unfortunately the audio version could have used a great director as the male narrator mispronounces so many famous legends names!Example: Vicente Minnelli is Vincent not VinceTAY, what is more Minnelli didn’t sound like Nintendo”s Mario! He was born in Chicago! Only one of many narration blunders!
Great book regardless!

Tedious

The first third was great, despite the narrator mispronoucing many names. Don't they have an editor who listens to the audio before it's released? The book became so tedious inches last third, I couldn't finish it.

Insider view of the Hollywood film industry; A mini-MBA lesson in corporate thinking

I loved the intimate atmosphere created by all these personal quotes. I love the insights into all parts of the film making process and the business. The overview of the different “phases” of film industry is great value to understand other industries going through changes.

Good oral history-poor reading

The information is interesting if not exactly insightful. Too much of it is eyewitnesses of the era saying how great everyone was and weren’t we lucky. We needed some curmudgeons as well! The anecdotes themselves barely muster interest because no one seems to have any personality. Thus, the readers (male and female) have to try to make the dialogue interesting when they really have nothing to play. And even if they did, they are all wrong for the reading. The male had a bland sweet voice and the female has a touch of the irritating vocal rhythms and timbre of contemporary young women. If you’re going to act it, act it. If you’re going to just read, just read. But you need to study how people spoke back then. Americans in that circle of Hollywood spoke in distinctive styles so familiar from old movies.

Transitions

It was a great book just harder to follow since there weren’t really well-marked transitions between one topic to another. Other than that I absolutely loved it!!

Found this to be incredibly informative and a fascinating listen!

A great way to learn about the world of Hollywood.
( not clear why some are so negative about the narrators…. I found them very easy to listen to)

An important documentary work, limited by its general purpose

As a student and teacher of film history, this book is quite valuable and important. As a piece of entertainment, it might not hold enough excitement for a casually interested reader.