The Whole Equation A History of Hollywood

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 inThe Whole Equation. Thomson 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 Americaand 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.

David 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 The New York Times, Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic, and Salon. He was the screenwriter on the award-winning documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind. His other books include Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts, and three works of fiction. Born in London, he lives in San Francisco with his wife and their two sons.

David Thomson’s The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is available from Knopf in hardcover and paperback, and Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles is available in Vintage paperback.


From the Hardcover edition.