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. Overall, though, this is a well-organized look at the Hollywood system from every angle, told through the eyes, ears and mouths of those who experienced it firsthand. However, the book, maybe for the first 3/5ths or even 4/5ths, feels like the "witness" scenes in "Reds.

Most who spoke of his relationship with Judy Garland scoffed at the idea that he drove her to a troubled life. At least 2/3 of the book concentrates on "old Hollywood" into the 1960s, and that's fine with me, as "new" Hollywood isn't really Hollywood anymore.

The book is especially strong on the silent era, studio system (pro and con), movie moguls (ditto) and, strangely, the independent film movement of the late 60s. There’s Meryl Streep kvetching about how she likes to get done in four takes while Robert De Niro just goes on and on. This isn't so much an "oral" history as it is an edited compendium of a very, very limited cache of interviews. I did not read this book from start to finish like a novel, but browsed through it here and there until I finished it.

Two caveats: you have to be very familiar with Hollywood's history to recognize many of the "speakers", and there is no index provided. It’s a fascinating look at the creative processes that went into bringing this medium to the public. In addition, she is a trustee emeritus of the American Film Institute, a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation, and one of the Board of Advisors for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. In other words, here are 400 cinema insiders, including directors, makeup people and actors, recounting what it has been like to make-believe for a living. Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today.The cinematographer George Folsey (1898-1988) remembers parties at San Simeon with Marion Davies at which Theda Bara’s husband compensated for her poor eyesight by whispering in her ear, “Coming up on your right is Mary Pickford, and over here will be Joan Crawford. The quotes are quite interesting and give the reader a lay of the land during various periods in Hollywood over the years. Had I not just read about Madge Oberholzer, the woman who brought down the KKK in Indiana early in the 20th century, and learned of D.