{"product_id":"the-whole-equation-isbn-9780375701542","title":"The Whole Equation","description":"With the same style and insight he brought to his previous studies of American cinema, acclaimed critic David Thomson masterfully evokes the history of America’s love affair with the movies and the tangled history of Hollywood in \u003ci\u003eThe Whole Equation\u003c\/i\u003e.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThomson takes us from D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and the first movies of mass appeal to Louis B. Mayer, who understood what movies meant to America–and reaped the profits. From Capra to Kidman and Hitchcock to Nicholson, Thomson examines the passion, vanity, calculation and gossip of Hollywood and the films it has given us. This one-volume history is a brilliant and illuminating overview of “the wonder in the dark”–and the staggering impact Hollywood and its films has had on American culture.“A must-read for anybody who loves film and is fascinated with the less-than-romantic  machinery behind the glitter. . . . Engaging.”–Liz Smith, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You  are not likely to find a more affecting and intellectually absorbing book on film...” \u003cbr\u003e —Louis Menand, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I’ve always wanted to read a history of the  movies that dealt with their whole ecology—what they were, why they were, who made  them, who watched them, how they were paid for, and where the money went. This is  it. It’s engaged, passionate, tender, informative, critical, mournful, funny, and  unsentimental.”\u003cbr\u003e —Richard Eyre\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Thomson traces an arc  as sure and elegant as the best of Tinseltown’s movies in his totally absorbing book,  hitting all the right bases along the way—risk, fantasy, ruthlessness, joy, horror  and money, always money. A remarkable summing up from perhaps the only observer with  the right balance of passion and perspective to pull it off.”\u003cbr\u003e —Kate Buford\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “From the opening chapter on writer Robert Towne and his struggles with \u003ci\u003eChinatown\u003c\/i\u003e to the cloudy denouement–the future of cinema–this is a must-read for anybody who  loves film and is fascinated with the less-than romantic machinery behind the glitter...For  its candid good taste alone, the book goes on my shelf.”\u003cbr\u003e –Liz Smith, \u003ci\u003eNew  York Newsday \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The excitement of Mr. Thomson’s wild ride is infectious. . .  the  author’s penchant for outrageous bons mots never fails to hit the bull’s eye…Thomson’ s “mathematics” of myth-building–both Hollywood’s and his own–is so compulsively  readable…you still can’t turn the pages fast enough.”\u003cbr\u003e –David Fear, \u003ci\u003eTime Out  New York\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “On one end the problematic creative folk like Charlie Chaplin, Erich  von Stroheim, Marlon Brando, on the opposite end of the equation are the businessmen  and studio heads whose interest was, and always will be, the bottom line. As Mr.  Thomson unreels the history of film in a series of flashbacks forward and back, budgets  are broken down, boardrooms are spied upon, scripts and personalities pass before  us in fascinating and unprecedented review.”\u003cbr\u003e –Stefan Kanfer, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street  Journal\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “ . . . With strong opinions and acerbic prose Thomson puts a contemporary  spin on Hollywood’s origins by crunching the numbers in Greta Garbo’s contract, dissecting  the budget of \u003ci\u003eGone with the Wind,\u003c\/i\u003e and psychoanalyzing pioneering producers Thalberg  and David O. Selznick… A meditation on [the American film industry’s] significance,  Thomson’s engrossing book blows the dust off forgotten scandals and offers vivid  examples of money’s toxifying power.”\u003cbr\u003e –Andrew Johnston, \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“ A deliciously opinionated, wise and witty work…A profound and often humorous and  poignant [book] that examines Hollywood movies with a wide lens.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Compelling are  [his] musings on stars and directors, from Charlie Chaplin to Steven Spielberg… He  offers arguments powerful enough to make the reader view the movies in a new light…Most  important is the intersection of art and business, the center of \u003ci\u003eThe Whole Equation.\u003c\/i\u003e” \u003cbr\u003e –John McMurtrie, \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eDavid Thomson taught film studies at Dartmouth College and served on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival. He is a regular contributor to \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSalon.\u003c\/i\u003e He was the screenwriter on the award-winning documentary \u003ci\u003eThe Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind. \u003c\/i\u003eHis other books include \u003ci\u003eShowman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts, \u003c\/i\u003eand three works of fiction. Born in London, he lives in San Francisco with his wife and their two sons.The Gamble and the Lost Rights\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a brilliant Saturday morning in late March 2003, warm yet fresh \u003cbr\u003eenough to keep many Californians out in the bliss of the air itself, I \u003cbr\u003ewas invited by the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities to have a \u003cbr\u003epublic conversation with Robert Towne, the screenwriter, as part of a \u003cbr\u003eweekend conference entitled “From Sunset Blvd. to Mulholland Dr.: Los \u003cbr\u003eAngeles in the Cinematic Imagination.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were in a large basement hall at the Davidson Conference Center at \u003cbr\u003ethe University of Southern California, but it was fun, relaxed, and \u003cbr\u003einstructive to a degree. I have known Towne for twenty years. We have \u003cbr\u003etalked a good deal, and enjoyed it. We are friends, or friendly. We did \u003cbr\u003eour best to be serious about the beguiling gloom of noir Los Angeles, \u003cbr\u003eand the foreboding of Towne’s best-known movie, Chinatown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe did a decent job, I hope, yet nothing matched the burnished day \u003cbr\u003eoutside where, in an urban sprawl far beyond Nathanael West’s worst \u003cbr\u003enightmares (to say nothing of the invasion of Iraq that had begun), \u003cbr\u003esome people seemed to be having a good time, or as good a time as \u003cbr\u003epeople have had in human history; that is not to flatter L.A. or the \u003cbr\u003eU.S.A., and I hope it’s not being silly or sentimental about all the \u003cbr\u003ewretchedness there must have been in L.A. that day and others. Still, \u003cbr\u003efree people took their leisure–on the beaches, on playing fields, in \u003cbr\u003ethe shops and open-air restaurants (at the movie theatres even?). Some \u003cbr\u003eread books, or wrote them. Some must have married, or been in love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the period allowed for questions, a young woman asked Towne whether \u003cbr\u003ethere was any chance for the completion of the “trilogy” that had been \u003cbr\u003ebegun with Chinatown. For in his mind, at least, there had been a time \u003cbr\u003ewhen Towne had hoped to follow his private eye, Jake Gittes, through \u003cbr\u003ethe decades–1937, 1947, 1957–tracing the story of water rights, of oil, \u003cbr\u003eand of the killing of public transport to let the automobile own Los \u003cbr\u003eAngeles. There had been a second movie, The Two Jakes–much troubled and \u003cbr\u003enot satisfactory, and plainly removed from Towne’s control or \u003cbr\u003eauthorship–but nothing of a third film.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTowne is a successful man as screenwriters go. He has an Oscar and a \u003cbr\u003efine house in Pacific Palisades. He has been involved with the two \u003cbr\u003eMission: Impossible pictures (and even a third?) at a very high salary. \u003cbr\u003eHe has a great dream, to film John Fante’s Ask the Dust, one of the \u003cbr\u003ebest novels about Los Angeles in the thirties–and that film has come to \u003cbr\u003epass. Yet I think I know him well enough as a man who would count his \u003cbr\u003elosses first if you asked him to describe himself. And he lost Jake \u003cbr\u003eGittes–long ago. “No,” he told the questioner. “No chance.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s what I want to talk about–for if he meant what he said, we are \u003cbr\u003eall the losers for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRobert Towne is an Angeleno; he has lived there most of his life, and \u003cbr\u003ehe wears the badge of the city on his sleeve, as it were. In the \u003cbr\u003ePreface to a published version of the Chinatown screenplay (and very \u003cbr\u003efew screenplays get published), he wrote about his memory of the \u003cbr\u003echildhood scents of Los Angeles, of a quality in the air now gone in \u003cbr\u003ethe toxic rush of urbanization. He wrote about it with such warmth and \u003cbr\u003efeeling and nostalgia–like a true writer would:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChinatown is a sort of eulogy for me. It is a eulogy I’m afraid for \u003cbr\u003ethings lost that would concern others about as much as a missing button \u003cbr\u003eor a dead mouse. Easterners, for example, have often tended to be a \u003cbr\u003elittle snide about the tepid weather and negligible change in \u003cbr\u003eseasons–things I have loved perhaps the most about L.A. I’ve loved the \u003cbr\u003efirst hint of October nipping thru the sunlight after school, New \u003cbr\u003eYear’s Day, chilly and clear as crystal as tho someone put the sun in \u003cbr\u003ethe freezer overnight, the February rains that came with Valentines and \u003cbr\u003ewould flood intersections with muddy waters rushing around stalled \u003cbr\u003ecars, vacant lots in March that overnight sprouted thousands of sharp \u003cbr\u003egreen spears you could pull and send with a clod of dark earth hurtling \u003cbr\u003eat another kid, little ponds of black polliwogs squiggling like \u003cbr\u003eanimated commas–and then spring and summer with the smell of pepper \u003cbr\u003etrees mentholated more and more by eucalyptus, the green lots turning \u003cbr\u003eto straw leaving foxtails in your socks and smelling like hay in the \u003cbr\u003emorning, the Santa Anas progressively drying the city into sand and \u003cbr\u003esummer smells.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy noticed; the man learned to write.* Towne’s parents were well \u003cbr\u003eoff, but he attended Pepperdine College, up on the way to Malibu. And \u003cbr\u003ehe drifted into screenwriting, by way of acting classes–the place where \u003cbr\u003ehe first met Jack Nicholson. He still likes acting and actors, and even \u003cbr\u003ein private talk he has a way of being that is casual but intimate, like \u003cbr\u003ethe best sort of naturalistic acting. I like this quality in him, and \u003cbr\u003eothers, but I know some who feel it is just a touch too calculated, too \u003cbr\u003estylish, too unreliable. Make up your own mind. But still its ease and \u003cbr\u003eattractiveness, and its worldliness, are deep at the heart of this \u003cbr\u003ebook’s subject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTowne worked for Roger Corman. He did a few scripts for exploitation \u003cbr\u003efilms. And then he began to demonstrate, or act out, one of his most \u003cbr\u003evital traits: he made friendships in which his discreet touch, or \u003cbr\u003etreatment, was highly esteemed. He had met Warren Beatty–some have said \u003cbr\u003ethat he and Beatty learned their stylishness in the course of long \u003cbr\u003etelephone conversations, absorbing it from each other. Whatever, when \u003cbr\u003eBeatty came to make his first movie as a producer, Bonnie and Clyde, no \u003cbr\u003ematter that he had a highly original script (by Robert Benton and David \u003cbr\u003eNewman), and a very good director (Arthur Penn), still Beatty hired \u003cbr\u003eTowne to go on location with the film to Texas to work on the script, \u003cbr\u003eto touch it up, to give it what Beatty wanted, to doctor it. To make \u003cbr\u003esure Warren was in charge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen that film opened, and eventually enjoyed its outstanding success, \u003cbr\u003eTowne had a most unusual credit on it: Special Consultant. I’m not sure \u003cbr\u003ethat a writer had ever had so secret yet so public a credit, though \u003cbr\u003every often in Hollywood history, writers had done uncredited work \u003cbr\u003edoctoring or rewriting scripts. Towne’s insider status was confirmed \u003cbr\u003ewhen it became known–and somehow it did slip out–that he had joined The \u003cbr\u003eGodfather at short notice to “help” with the final scenes of Vito \u003cbr\u003eCorleone’s life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s worth stressing (with what I have in mind) that up to this moment \u003cbr\u003e(1972), Towne was most illustrious for his imprecise intervention, \u003cbr\u003edoctoring, or help on other writers’ scripts. Which would not always \u003cbr\u003ehave left those other writers feeling better, happy or well treated. \u003cbr\u003eBut it was Towne’s way to success, and I do not doubt the value of what \u003cbr\u003ehe brought to those two films. Still, I want to underline his ghostly \u003cbr\u003epresence, for it is close to the odd avoidance of responsibility in \u003cbr\u003eHollywood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the early seventies, therefore, he was in a position where he could \u003cbr\u003eexpect to get assignments to write whole films, big pictures, \u003cbr\u003eworthwhile ventures. In fact, he wrote three scripts in a row–The Last \u003cbr\u003eDetail, Chinatown, and Shampoo–that all received Oscar nominations. It \u003cbr\u003ewas the peak of his career, with the Oscar going to Chinatown, and to \u003cbr\u003ehim as the sole writer of an original script.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo one has ever argued but that Chinatown was his idea. Towne has said \u003cbr\u003ethat in April 1971 his wife brought him a copy of Carey McWilliams’s \u003cbr\u003ebook, Southern California Country, which held the germ of the story of \u003cbr\u003ehow William Mulholland* had secured water for a growing Los Angeles \u003cbr\u003efrom the Owens Valley, 250 miles to the north. Around the same time, he \u003cbr\u003esaw a magazine article in which a photographer had re-created the \u003cbr\u003elate-1930s mood and look of the Raymond Chandler novels.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had begun work (on spec), or he looked forward to beginning it, when \u003cbr\u003ehe had dinner with Robert Evans, a key figure at Paramount, and the \u003cbr\u003eexecutive who had had The Godfather made. Evans had come to the table \u003cbr\u003eto ask Towne to take over the script for The Great Gatsby, but all \u003cbr\u003eTowne wanted to talk about was Chinatown. It’s about how Los Angeles \u003cbr\u003ebecame a boomtown, he said–incest and water. It’s set in the thirties. \u003cbr\u003eA second-rate shamus gets eighty-sixed by a mysterious broad. Instead \u003cbr\u003eof solving a case for her, he’s the pigeon. I’m writing it for \u003cbr\u003eNicholson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was more or less so. Nicholson and Towne had talked about \u003cbr\u003eChinatown. But Nicholson had not purchased the idea or the script, or \u003cbr\u003eTowne’s time. I know, that sounds crass when a person is gently nursing \u003cbr\u003ea great story and his fondness for a lost city into being. But writers \u003cbr\u003ehave to eat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvans, acting for Paramount, offered Towne $25,000 to do Chinatown; he \u003cbr\u003ehad been ready to pay him $175,000 to doctor Truman Capote’s wretched \u003cbr\u003eGatsby script.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTowne created it–but Paramount owned it. Yes, such formulae operate all \u003cbr\u003ethe time in Hollywood, so let me explain the setup carefully. Suppose \u003cbr\u003eChinatown was a first novel. That is a little far-fetched, because \u003cbr\u003eTowne had done several things already. Nevertheless, in terms of how \u003cbr\u003efar the material was autobiographical in feeling, Chinatown was like a \u003cbr\u003efirst novel, in which case he might well have written the book in \u003cbr\u003eprivate, on his own time, and only then offered it to a publisher. Or \u003cbr\u003ehe might have secured a modest advance on account of promise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn which case, the deal would have gone thus: for an advance of, say, \u003cbr\u003e$5,000 (generous for 1972), Towne would have delivered a novel. When it \u003cbr\u003ewas published, he would get a royalty of, say, 10 percent of the \u003cbr\u003eselling price on the first 5,000 copies; 121⁄2 percent on the next \u003cbr\u003e5,000; and 15 percent after that. There would be provisions in the \u003cbr\u003econtract for sales of paperback and other subsidiary rights–including, \u003cbr\u003eperhaps, a sale to the movies. Towne would have retained the copyright. \u003cbr\u003eThat means the author owns the work and is simply licensing the \u003cbr\u003epublisher to sell it. His editor at the publishing house might fight \u003cbr\u003etooth-and-nail for a year or more trying to get Towne to rewrite the \u003cbr\u003ebook, to make it clearer, to make it more saleable. (In fact, on a \u003cbr\u003e$5,000 advance, that kind of striving is unlikely–it’s not practical or \u003cbr\u003erewarding. An editor works hardest on a book he expects could be a \u003cbr\u003ebestseller. If you can’t understand a first novel when you read it that \u003cbr\u003efirst time, why publish it?)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, there could be editorial work, and rewriting, and fights before \u003cbr\u003ea novel is printed. But they get settled because, once the contract is \u003cbr\u003esigned, it is acknowledged that the book belongs to the author. If it \u003cbr\u003egoes out of print, and stays out, the author can regain the rights he \u003cbr\u003elicensed. He can try to get a new publisher. When he is dead, for at \u003cbr\u003eleast seventy years, the copyright and any income the book earns go to \u003cbr\u003ehis heirs or estate. Only after that does a book enter what is called \u003cbr\u003epublic domain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe script of Chinatown that Towne delivered perplexed its best \u003cbr\u003esupporters. Evans and Nicholson joked together how they couldn’t follow \u003cbr\u003eits twists and turns. Roman Polanski, the director Evans had hired to \u003cbr\u003emake the film, was equally at a loss, and sure that he had to take \u003cbr\u003edrastic measures to make it “work.” Rewrites from Towne didn’t clarify \u003cbr\u003eenough. Executives at Paramount were advising Evans not to make the \u003cbr\u003epicture, or not to attach himself to it so personally. And, of course, \u003cbr\u003eParamount could have elected not to make the movie–they owned it, and \u003cbr\u003ethus they had the right of refusal. Evans stuck by it: “I knew I had \u003cbr\u003eNicholson locked, and, even though I didn’t understand the script, I \u003cbr\u003eknew Towne was a great writer. I felt like a blind gambler wanting to \u003cbr\u003ethrow back-to-back sevens.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeveral important points come from this. Scripts are not easily read, \u003cbr\u003eand possibly the richer a film, the harder it is for “outsiders” to \u003cbr\u003edetect its quality. It’s not going too far to say that in the history \u003cbr\u003eof the movies, many semiliterate people (or disadvantaged readers) have \u003cbr\u003ehad to make a judgment on a hundred or so pages of single-spaced \u003cbr\u003etyping, laid out in a strange and inaccessible way. That is one reason \u003cbr\u003ewhy some of those men, the executives, have thrown away scripts in \u003cbr\u003edespair and told someone to just tell them the damn story. To this day, \u003cbr\u003e“the pitch”–telling a movie story in a few persuasive minutes–is vital \u003cbr\u003eto getting projects made. It follows therefore that many scripts are \u003cbr\u003enever actually read. In turn, this encourages everyone’s assumption, or \u003cbr\u003ehope, that they can exist in a state of continual rewrite.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut note Evans’s attitude. “I knew I had Nicholson locked. . . .” He \u003cbr\u003esaw himself as if not the film’s proprietor, then its skipper, \u003cbr\u003eassembling units of talent and identifying the picture with his ego and \u003cbr\u003estatus at the studio. Chinatown would not have existed without Robert \u003cbr\u003eTowne. Roman Polanski became the project’s director, and perhaps the \u003cbr\u003ebest-known theory of film production is that everything depends on the \u003cbr\u003edirector, the auteur. When the general public says Chinatown to itself, \u003cbr\u003eit sees the sour smile on Jack Nicholson’s face; not to mention Faye \u003cbr\u003eDunaway or John Huston (hefty presences in its story and mood), Richard \u003cbr\u003eSylbert (its production designer), John A. Alonzo (the \u003cbr\u003ecinematographer), or Jerry Goldsmith (who wrote the memorable theme \u003cbr\u003emusic at the last moment, in just ten days, after another score had \u003cbr\u003ebeen dropped). Still, Evans felt sure and safe in thinking the picture \u003cbr\u003ewas his because his peers–the powerbrokers of Hollywood–would expect it \u003cbr\u003eof him. Studios own movies. Producers make them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then there was the longing in Evans to see the whole enterprise as \u003cbr\u003ea gamble: not just in terms of winning big as opposed to losing; but \u003cbr\u003ebecause to gamble is to defy all those sacred American codes of hard \u003cbr\u003ework and just reward; it is believing in magic. Nearly everyone \u003cbr\u003eimportant in the old Hollywood gambled several nights a week, as if \u003cbr\u003ethey dared not lose touch with magic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTowne and Polanski sat down together to convert the script into a \u003cbr\u003eshooting script–the one is a dream, the other is a precise plan of \u003cbr\u003eaction to determine which sets are built and costumes ordered, and how \u003cbr\u003etime and money are scheduled. The two men got on very badly. Towne was \u003cbr\u003ehesitant, Polanski aggressive. In a story that had so many hints of \u003cbr\u003erape, Towne felt he was being robbed, or got at. Polanski was intent on \u003cbr\u003ethe bare practicalities, and he felt Towne was clinging to obscurity \u003cbr\u003eand doubt. Writers and directors are not always alike, which is one \u003cbr\u003ereason they envy each other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe decisive battle concerned the ending of the film. Towne’s initial \u003cbr\u003econcept and the story he had sustained throughout his writing process \u003cbr\u003ewas gentler than the film we know. Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) and her \u003cbr\u003edaughter were to get away. Noah Cross (Huston) was to be killed. Jake \u003cbr\u003eGittes was left as the patsy.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305148240101,"sku":"NP9780375701542","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375701542.jpg?v=1767742204","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-whole-equation-isbn-9780375701542","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}