Find This Film a Home: Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's Hollywood

Getting the word out about films that have a spotty home video history

Directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill
Written by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill
Narrated by James Mason
Edited by Trevor Waite and Dan Carter
Music by Carl Davis

Common complaints lodged against contemporary culture are that we're too celebrity-obsessed, all media-drenched, searching for those fifteen minutes, and that our movies are silly, featherweight, and too focused on spectacle. Kevin Brown and David Gill's thirteen-part, television series, Hollywood, provides a longer view of history and reasserts how our current obsessions were just as rampant then (perhaps more so) as they are now. The evidence includes the enormous crowds that greeted Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford everywhere they went in the world, Charlie Chaplin's tramp character becoming an universally-recognized symbol, and the unsafe, often deadly, working conditions that sprung up around the wild plots pursued by filmmakers. Modern Hollywood can hardly compare. 

The directing duo attack the American movie industry of the teens and twenties from all angles. Their first move is to bury the misconceptions that surrounded silent film at the time of the series' release. It's less a problem now with proper restorations and home video releases, but silent film has long been plagued by technical issues. Improper showings on television and repertory theaters built-up its association with super-fast speeds and dinky, public domain piano music. Hollywood shows the world of difference that proper display makes. Brownlow and Gill then go on to interview a succession of actors, directors, and cameramen who eloquently make the case for the films of the time as worthy of serious artistic consideration. The bits about the elaborate palaces where movies were shown and the full orchestras that often accompanied their screenings will make you weep over the sad state of multiplexes. A movie was an event in a way it rarely is today. 

The sheer amount of historical detail present is miraculous. The background work for the series was started just in time to catch the main players of the era, snapping up informative interviews with Colleen Moore, King Vidor, and Karl Brown. It's a sad fact, but if the leaders of the project had waited even a decade later to begin, many of the principal subjects would have passed away. The beginnings of the film industry are shown to be wild, weird, and full of contradictions. The earliest studios weren't even set-up in California, but in New York and New Jersey. Gangsters were hired to star in front of the camera and bribed by rival outlets to break those cameras with bullets and beatings. The independents eventually moved to the west coast to escape the stranglehold of the big studios. 

Hollywood depicts an odd time in world history. Around the globe, monarchies and democracies existed within short distances from each other. World War I destroyed the European film industry, allowing American film to start its foreign domination that continues today. The Russian Revolution sowed the seeds of the conflict that would take up the latter half of the twentieth century. Within the movie capitol, cars, trains, and horses were all still in use. The west was dying, but given one last chance at immortality. Women and immigrants were given brief opportunities to ascend to the highest levels of artistic achievement despite living in a land that was still hugely racist and sexist (women wouldn't gain the right to vote until twenty years after cinema's start). 

My one complaint is that the series doesn't dig far enough below the glitz and glamour. The perilous positions camera operators and stuntmen often found themselves in are mentioned, but not fully questioned. The exploitation of masses of people for use as extras gets the same treatment. At one point, a star being interviewed compares the discrimination against "movie people" in the early days of the industry's settlement in California to that faced by African Americans.

Still, discussion of those matters, new broadcasts of Hollywood, and conversion of the program and its supporting materials into HD would help immensely in restoring interest in silent film. Brownlow and Gill's work would be a valuable tool in any film studies course, whether in high school or university. It's a shame it's been left to languish on VHS.


P.S.
The entire series is up on Youtube, but as with all copyrighted material that makes it way to the service, its status there is tenuous. Episode twelve has already been removed. If my description has made you keen to learn more, I'd start watching now.