|
PRINTED MATTER
Memo From
David O. Selznick
Selected and Edited by Rudy Behlmer
Series Editor Martin Scorsese
Introduction by Roger Ebert
The Modern Library $15.95 paperback
 |
As the golden age of motion pictures recedes further into mythology and its moviemakers seem more magicians than men, it is illuminating, exciting - to catch some day-to-day reality behind the romance of even the greatest giants.
Few film books fill this bill better than Rudy Behlmer's herculean
Memo From David O. Selznick. When it was originally published in 1972, King Vidor called it "The most revealing, penetrating book on filmmaking," and, 28 years later, we can only nod our heads. And when you think that many of today's filmmakers (not to mention countless wannabes) weren't out of their nappies when
Memo first came on the scene, you bless The Modern Library for bringing this edition to new generations. It is part of The Modern Library: The Movies Series, and, as series editor Martin Scorsese writes, one of the "classics in the field."
With the exception of some photographs that appeared in the big hardcover, nothing has been omitted for the Modern Library
package. A new introduction by Roger Ebert is a welcome addition (addition to - not replacement for - S.N. Behrman's) because of his unique perspective. "Do today's directors save their memos and e-mails? Perhaps, but my guess is they wouldn't be as revealing as Selznick's, because so much of their important work is done face-to-face. The Selznick written legacy is invaluable precisely because so few other filmmakers work the way he did…What we're given is a seat in his office, daily access to his schemes and visions, the Nixon tapes of Hollywood's golden age."
The son of pioneer film producer, Lewis J. Selznick, David began the memo habit as a boy to clarify his thoughts when addressing his father, who had included him and his older brother, Myron, in the family business. Self-conscious about his youth, the teenage David could also "hide behind" the written memos in dealing with the elders in his office. We know this because Behlmer generously supplies pertinent autobiographical information (cleverly culled from other Selznick material) at the beginning of each chapter. We get a handy "Cast of Characters" in the back, too, to keep track of who's who.
Certainly Selznick's ease of thinking on paper makes for our ease of reading as we absorb his emotions, questions, opinions, suggestions and orders regarding the productions of such milestones as
David Copperfield (1935), A Star Is Born (1937), Rebecca (1940), and, of course,
Gone With the Wind (1939). Particularly fascinating are records of Selznick's changes of mind (a decision on May 25, 1936, not to buy the rights to
G.W.T.W.; a decision on May 26, 1936, to buy them), his unique ideas that never saw the light of day (hiring D.W. Griffith as second unit director for particular
G.W.T.W. scenes), and his remarkable-for-the-time championing of directors (importing Alfred Hitchcock from England and giving him the biggest publicity buildup of a director "in the entire history of the business").
Some of the most heartbreaking memos are those involving
Tender Is the Night (1962) - a film Selznick did not produce, but had long been emotionally attached to (and which starred his second wife, Jennifer Jones). Feeling his dismay over Twentieth Century Fox's decisions on casting, music and locations - and on an administration admitting to being "interested in dollars, not honors" - we applaud the intelligence and taste of this self-described "perfectionist."
If, as Selznick said, "...no one knows what a producer does behind the closed doors of his office," Behlmer has wielded nearly 2,000 file boxes of memos into the key to those doors and placed it in our hands.
-Lisa Mitchell
|
