Why read Picture?

Book cover of Picture

Book description

A classic look at Hollywood and the American film industry by The New Yorker's Lillian Ross, and named one of the "Top 100 Works of U.S. Journalism of the Twentieth Century."

Lillian Ross worked at The New Yorker for more than half a century, and might be described not only…

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The American Civil War

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Why read it?

1 author picked Picture as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Renee Patrick

Author

We had to go back to the 1952 book that essentially invented this format. Lillian Ross was a writer on staff at The New Yorker when she received the opportunity to be a fly on the wall during the production of The Red Badge of Courage (1951), writer/director John Huston’s adaptation of Stephen Crane’s novel of the American Civil War.

She tracked the film from start to finish, explaining how the two-hour version that Huston regarded as his best work became a sixty-nine-minute afterthought. Ross’s depiction of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer clearly influenced the studio kingpin in one of…

From Renee's list on The best film books that are biographies of a single movie.