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Overview
Now a Netflix original documentary series, also written by Mark Harris: the extraordinary wartime experience of five of Hollywood's most important directors, all of whom put their stamp on World War II and were changed by it forever
Here is the remarkable, untold story of how five major Hollywood directors—John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler, and Frank Capra—changed World War II, and how, in turn, the war changed them. In a move unheard of at the time, the U.S. government farmed out its war propaganda effort to Hollywood, allowing these directors the freedom to film in combat zones as never before. They were on the scene at almost every major moment of America’s war, shaping the public’s collective consciousness of what we’ve now come to call the good fight. The product of five years of scrupulous archival research, Five Came Back provides a revelatory new understanding of Hollywood’s role in the war through the life and work of these five men who chose to go, and who came back.
“Five Came Back . . . is one of the great works of film history of the decade.” Slate
“A tough-minded, information-packed and irresistibly readable work of movie-minded cultural criticism. Like the best World War II films, it highlights marquee names in a familiar plot to explore some serious issues: the human cost of military service, the hypnotic power of cinema and the tension between artistic integrity and the exigencies of war.” The New York Times
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780143126836 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 02/24/2015 |
Pages: | 528 |
Sales rank: | 190,781 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.40(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Mark Harris is the author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, which was a New York Times notable book of the year and was named one of the ten best nonfiction books of the decade by Salon. An editor at large at Entertainment Weekly, a columnist for Grantland, and a contributing editor at New York Magazine, he has written about pop culture and film history for many other publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and GQ. A graduate of Yale University, Harris lives in New York City with his husband, Tony Kushner.
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Excerpted from "Five Came Back"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Mark Harris.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Pearl Harbor 1
Part 1
1 "The Only Way I Could Survive" 15
Hollywood, March 1938-April 1939
2 "The Dictates of My Heart and Blood" 31
Hollywood and Washington, April 1939-May 1940
3 "You Must Not Realize that There Is a War Going On" 58
Hollywood, June-September 1940
4 "What's the Good of a Message?" 69
Hollywood, Early 1941
5 "The Most Dangerous Fifth Column in Our Country" 83
Hollywood and Washington, July-December 1941
Part 2
6 "Do I Have to Wait for Orders?" 101
Hollywood, Washington, and Hawaii, December 1941-April 1942
7 "I've Only Got One German" 117
Hollywood, December 1941-April 1942
8 "It's Going to Be a Problem and a Battle" 130
Washington, March-June 1942
9 "All I Know Is That I'm Not Courageous" 145
Midway and Washington, June-August 1942
10 "Can You Use Me?" 172
Washington and Hollywood, August-September 1942
11 "A Good Partner to Have in Times of Trouble" 172
England, North Africa, and Hollywood, September 1942-January 1943
12 "You Might as Well Run into It as Away from It" 186
The Aleutian Islands, Hollywood, Washington, and North Africa, September 1942-May 1943
13 "Just Enough to Make It Seem Less Than Real" 199
England, Hollywood, and Washington, January-May 1943
14 "Coming Along with Us Just for Pictures?" 213
Washington, England, and New York, March-July 1943
Part 3
15 "How to Live in the Army" 231
North Africa, Hollywood, Florida, and Washington, Summer 1943
16 "I'm the Wrong Man for That Stuff" 244
Washington Hollywood, And England, June-December 1943
17 "I Have to Do a Good Job" 257
England and Italy, October 1943-January 1944
18 "We Really Don't Know What Goes On Beneath the Surface" 271
Washington, the China-Burma-India Theater, Italy, and New York September 1943-March 1944
19 "If You Believe This, We Thank You" 286
Hollywood and England, March-May 1944
20 "A Sporadic Raid of Sorts on the Continent" 299
Hollywood, Washington, and New York, March-May 1944
21 "If You See It, Shoot It" 310
France, June-July 1944
22 "If Hitler Can Hold Out, So Can I" 324
Hollywood and Washington, July-December 1944
23 "Time and Us Marches On" 338
France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and England, July 1944-January 1945
24 "Who You Working For-Yourself?" 352
Hollywood, Florida, Italy, and New York, February-May 1945
25 "Where I Learned About Life" 366
Germany, March-August 1945
26 "What's This Picture For?" 378
Washington and Hollywood, Summer 1945
27 "An Angry Past Commingled with the Future in a Storm" 391
Hollywood, New York and Germany, 1945
28 "A Straight Face and a Painfully Maturing Mind" 405
Hollywood, New York, and Washington, December 1945-March 1946
29 "Closer to What Is Going On in the World" 419
Hollywood, May 1946-February 1947
Epilogue 439
Note on Sources and Acknowledgments 445
Notes 449
Bibliography 489
Credits 495
Index 497
What People are Saying About This
The Wall Street Journal:
“Mr. Harris has a huge story to tell, and he does so brilliantly, maintaining suspense in a narrative whose basic outcome will be known ahead of time. Five Came Back is packed with true stories that, according to the proverb, are stranger than fiction. Mr. Harris's story of five particular directors at one particular moment of history tells us much about the motion-picture industry, about the nature of filmmaking and, more generally, about the relation of art to the larger demands of society. Although Five Came Back at first seems to be chronicling a collective enterprise, it turns out to be an inspirational, if cautionary, tale of the triumph of the individual over the collective, of personal vision over groupthink, and ultimately of art over propaganda.”
The New York Times:
“A tough-minded, information-packed and irresistibly readable work of movie-minded cultural criticism. Like the best World War II films, it highlights marquee names in a familiar plot to explore some serious issues: the human cost of military service, the hypnotic power of cinema and the tension between artistic integrity and the exigencies of war.”
Leonard Maltin:
“In addition to being a prodigious researcher and a knowledgeable film buff, Harris is a graceful writer whose prose brings the world of wartime, at home and abroad, to vivid life on every page. I tore through this hefty book as if it were a novel and can’t recommend it highly enough.”
The Washington Post:
“Five Came Back, by Mark Harris, has all the elements of a good movie: fascinating characters, challenges, conflicts and intense action. This is Harris’s second brilliant book about movies. Both books demonstrate meticulous research and exceptional skill at telling intersecting and overlapping stories with clarity and power. Five Came Back enables us to watch the films of Ford, Capra, Wyler, Huston and Stevens with new insight.”
The New Yorker:
“A splendidly written narrative.”
San Francisco Chronicle:
“Can't-put-it-down history of World War II propaganda film.”
The Los Angeles Times:
“Meticulously researched, page-turning.”
David Thompson, The New Republic:
“I recommend this book for its narrative sweep, its revelation of character, and for the many ironies that attend the idea of ‘documentary.’”
Cleveland Plain Dealer:
“Mark Harris writes the old-fashioned way. His books are not quick and slick but meticulous. Definitive. In these lush, informative pages, Harris indeed reaffirms his commitment to writing the old-fashioned way, the way that evinces profound respect for his craft, his material and his readers.”
Booklist (starred):
“It’s hardly news that the movies affect and are affected by the broader canvas of popular culture and world history, but Harris—perhaps more successfully than any other writer, past or present—manages to find in that symbiotic relationship the stuff of great stories. Every chapter contains small, priceless nuggets of movie history, and nearly every page offers an example of Harris’ ability to capture the essence of a person or an event in a few, perfectly chosen words. Narrative nonfiction that is as gloriously readable as it is unfailingly informative.”
Kirkus Reviews:
“A comprehensive, clear-eyed look at the careers of five legendary directors who put their Hollywood lives on freeze-frame while they went off to fight in the only ways they knew how. As riveting and revealing as a film by an Oscar winner.”
Publishers Weekly:
“Insightful. Harris pens superb exegeses of the ideological currents coursing through this most political of cinematic eras, and in the arcs of his vividly drawn protagonists…we see Hollywood abandoning sentimental make-believe to confront the starkest realities.”
Library Journal:
“Harris surpasses previous scholarship on the directors who are the focus here… This well-researched book is essential for both film enthusiasts and World War II aficionados.”