Read Online Indecent Exposure by David McClintick - Free Book Online

can be as ambiguous, elusive, and ephemeral as the acclaim that leads to it. The power can even be mystical, just like the institution of Hollywood itself. Hollywood—its mores, its modus operandi, even its raison d'etre —has been shrouded in myth since movies began and remains so today. And anyone who has held power for very long has found it necessary to fathom the truths behind the myths. They have had to learn where real power resides and where it docs not. And they have had to accept and accommodate those aspects of the institution of Hollywood that are eternally mysterious and impenetrable by computer analysis.
    Myth: The Hollywood of today is totally different from the Hollywood of a half century ago. Truth: Even with a more diverse group of power seekers, even with all the changes wrought by television in the fifties when it became a mass medium competing for audiences with movies, even with all of the impending changes posed by new forms of home entertainment, the institution of Hollywood has changed far less than is conventionally believed. More than a place, Hollywood is a state of mind. And the same elemental forces that drove it in the twenties and thirties still drive it today. In addition to the pleasures of p ower, there are money, fame, sex, a stake in creating American popular culture, and an opportunity to have a great deal of fun in the pursuit of these pleasures.
    Myth: By the 1970s, movies had become a rational business, with much of the risk eliminated. Truth: Despite attempts to rationalize it—and even a modicum of success—the fundamental process of conceiving, producing, and distributing a motion picture is more arcane now than it was Fifty years ago. There has never been any mystery about how a refrigerator is made. There has always been a mystery about how a movie is made. "Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of p ictures in their heads," F. Scot t Fitzgerald wrote in 1940.* Fitzgerald's comment was still apt four decades later. And the presence of television only thickened the plot.
    Myth: The spirit of the old moguls, with their consummate showmanship and their insistence on quality, even at the expense of profit, is gone forever. Hollywood today is run by accountants concerned about nothing but profit. Truth: The old moguls were far from homogeneous. Some were skilled showmen with good taste. Some were inept fools with bad taste. All of them, however, were in business for the money more than for the art. Pictures of high quality were the exception rather than the rule, just as they are today. And despite many obvious differences from their predecessors, the men who vie for power in Hollywood today are the direct cultural and psychological descendants of the men who founded and ran Hollywood from the early 1900s until the fifties, men whom Irving Howe has called "the dozen or so Yiddish-speaking Tammarlanes wh o built enormous movie studios [ and] satisfied t he world's hunger for fantasy, [men who were] bored with sitting in classrooms, too lively for routine jobs, and clever in the ways of the world." Contrary to popular notions about bland financiers, most important executive positions in the entertainment business today are occupied by high-spirited, entrepreneurial Jews who emigrated to Hollywood from New York and other points in the East and Midwest. Even though the incumbents are better educated and more urbane, they are colorful, creative, flamboyant—and in some cases outrageous—in many of the same ways as the old moguls. And Yiddish remains the second language of Hollywood.
    Myth: The studio system is dead. Independent producers and agents now hold the power in Hollywood. Truth: Despite many structural changes, the power wielded by the major studios in the production of motion pictures and television programs remains formidable. The studios no longer directly employ large numbers of actors, directors, and writers. Instead, they normally contract