史蒂芬-斯皮尔伯格、弗兰克-卡普拉、凯瑟琳-赫本、梅丽尔-斯特里普、哈罗德-劳埃德等知名人士讲述的好莱坞的真实故事，从美国电影协会的采访宝库中汇集而成，揭示了美国电影业从开始到今天的崭新历史。
从美国电影协会的档案中，我们可以看到一幅独特的画面，即在好莱坞工作从开始到现在是什么样子。本书是从近三千次采访中收集的，涉及行业中的四百个声音。让读者 “倾听 “从镜头前的大人物–贝特-戴维斯、梅丽尔-斯特里普、汤姆-汉克斯、哈罗德-劳埃德–到镜头后的大人物–弗兰克-卡普拉、史蒂文-斯皮尔伯格、阿尔弗雷德-希区柯克、乔丹-皮尔，以及那些塑造了屏幕上所听到和看到的东西的鲜为人知的个人的坦率言论。音乐家、服装师、艺术指导、电影摄影师、作家、音响师、编辑、化妆师，甚至是剧本计时员、信使和宣传人员。其结果就像电影界诸神之间的对话：活泼、有趣、有洞察力、历史准确，而且第一次真实地描述了好莱坞的情况。这是一个内部人的故事。
传奇电影学者珍妮-贝辛格和《纽约时报》畅销书作家萨姆-瓦森，都是以自己的权利而闻名的讲故事的人，他们承担了消化这些数万小时的谈话的艰巨任务，并将其编织成一个关于工作中的好莱坞的权威画像。
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 reader “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.
