Hollywood History Via the Directors

Regular readers will have observed that I have more than a little fascination with movies and movie stars.  Movies have until the current era been one of the best reflections of American culture and values.  Now Hollywood is captivated by ideology and under seige from streaming companies who increasingly do their own content.  I recently picked up and read a book by film critic Andrew Sarris, American Cinema–Directors and Directions, which looked at the work of a large number of directors from the start of the talkies era to 1968.  He gives an introduction to how he looks at movies and the role of directors in creating film.  He lumps the directors into various groups, from great to over-rated or just odd.  Sarris is a tremendous writer, very descriptive, with a wonderful turn of phrase and a droll and wicked sense of humor.  I learned a fair amount from the book that would make me view a movie with more appreciation for some of the technical aspects of how it was filmed–scene cutting, scene framing, etc.  And I got a fuller perspective on directors whose names I had seen and about whom I had read something in a movie star biography.  A fairly quick read if you are as interested in film as I am.