Forever Hollywood

Source of images: American Cinematheque Forever Hollywood, Variety December 13-19, 1999

Edward Norton is one of the actors interviewed in the documentary Forever Hollywood. Forever Hollywood is shown daily and exclusively at the newly restored American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre. Please read the descriptions of the film below.

Director's Notes (posted on Cinetropic website)

Hollywood's history has been told many times and in many different ways, but never, it seemed to us, with the idea of jointly portraying the growth of the movie industry with that of the town that is its home. Believing that nowhere on Hollywood Boulevard could its millions of annual visitors find an attraction offering them any background on the very community they were visiting, we set out to remedy this situation in an entertaining way that emphasizes that, no matter how much the town and the industry have changed over the decades, the sense of allure, romance, glamour and unlimited possibility has remained consistent throughout the century, attracting countless people today just as it did in the days of silent pictures.

To tell the story, we approached numerous distinguished film personalities who were drawn to the flame themselves and persevered to forge impressive careers. Whether they came from afar or were native-born, we wanted to hear what impressions our 23 celebrated interviewees had while they were growing up, what lured them into the film business and how they felt about it before and after "making it." Their impressions remain vivid: Gloria Stuart remembering when her native Santa Monica, in the 1910's, extended only as far as 7th Street, with the open space beyond stretching all the way to Hollywood; Robert Redford recalling how the wondrous Los Angeles of his childhood began being spoiled after World War II; Angela Lansbury reminiscing about the great studio era and the town's glittering night life; Clint Eastwood recalling his tough years of unemployment during the 1950's, when all the young aspiring leading men seemed to look just like him; Quentin Tarantino, by contrast, idealizing the 1950's as the best time in the city's history, a moment when the old and the new were both present; Jeff Bridges and Rob Reiner harking back to their teenage days on the Sunset Strip; Kevin Spacey revealing how he used to sneak onto the Universal lot just to watch movies being made; Steven Spielberg recalling his awe-struck first glimpse of a studio soundstage; Salma Hayek conveying her image of a glamorous Hollywood as she grew up a star-struck young girl in Mexico; and Edward Norton evoking how he first arrived in Los Angeles amidst the hoopla of an Oscar night.

FOREVER HOLLYWOOD was expressly designed as a film that would exclusively be shown at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre. Shooting on 35mm, we tried to achieve a look of timeless elegance to suit the stars who appear in the film. The clips from the more that 75 feature films were obtained from the best available 35mm materials, no longer the easiest matter given the fact that most vintage pictures are now more conveniently preserved on video and DVD. Archival footage, of the which we have more than 250 shots documenting various stages of Hollywood history, is now often available only on videotape, so this had to be transferred to film with the utmost care. On the musical side, we are greatly indebted to David Raksin, who generously consented to allowing us to use his great theme from THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, music that has never been matched in its evocation of the romance, melodrama and intrigue of the movie world; it gave us something to aspire to as we endeavored to portray the complex and multi-faceted allure that has always been generated by Hollywood.

--Todd McCarthy

Visit American Cinematheque's site on Forever Hollywood

Visit Cinetropic's page

Variety critic gets behind the camera

Forever Hollywood (Documentary, color/B&W, no rating, 57 mins)

By Steven Gaydos, Variety, December 5, 1999

HOLLYWOOD - A valentine to both the movies and the town with which they've become synonymous, Forever Hollywood is a pleasing and at times moving evocation of the glamour, hopefulness and exuberance that have propelled both the cinema and the city of Hollywood.

While glossing over the physical deterioration of the place and making no reference to its current boisterous comeback, writer-director Todd McCarthy and co-director-editor Arnold Glassman have woven together pieces of feature films, home movies, newsreel footage and contemporary interviews to create a dazzling tapestry that vividly expresses the energy of Hollywood's filmic roots.

Pic is partially funded by the City of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency, which helped finance the American Cinematheque, where Forever Hollywood will play regularly for out-of-towners and local buffs. McCarthy, Variety's chief film critic, has a solid take on the development of the film industry and the little town that suddenly got big and famous along with the pictures. In the first half of this image- and idea-packed 57-minute opus, McCarthy and Glassman, who collaborated on key cinematography documentary ``Visions of Light,'' focus on a dizzying celebration of the stars and the factories where dreams rolled out like Fords off an assembly line.

Behind-the-scenes footage of impossibly handsome Gary Cooper, otherworldly Marlene Dietrich, boyishly buoyant Mickey Rooney et al., is accompanied by insightful interviews with veteran film figures such as directors Andre de Toth and Vincent Sherman and ``Titanic'' co-star Gloria Stuart. Stuart's reminiscing about stumbling upon the shooting of a fairy-tale picture in Topanga Canyon, while footage of the original silent film rolls, is perhaps the documentary's single most stunning moment.

The shots of Hollywood from its origins into the '50s are indispensable, but strangely, when the town begins to fray at the edges after WWII, the documentary also seems to veer from its sense of purpose. With governmental financial support and a mandate to cover the city's history as well as the panorama of Hollywood filmmaking in under an hour, it couldn't have been easy to choose where to pause and where to cut and run.

The problem is perhaps exacerbated by McCarthy's unflagging enthusiasm for explaining how the movies grew up, even at the expense of showing how the town ran down. Given that the American Cinematheque is a key component of the city's revival and only yards from the new headquarters for the Oscars, one hopes there will be a coda or materials provided with the screenings to alert tourists to their position at ground zero for Hollywood 2000.

And instead of zooming in on the low-budget, not to mention low-rent, filmmaking that continued in Hollywood in the '70s and '80s (e.g., the Roger Corman factory and other indies), McCarthy takes the highbrow road and shows how New York-derived film artists such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese kept the film-art fires burning brightly. Oddly, for a documentary that sports interview footage with Quentin Tarantino, there's no footage of contemporary L.A. as seen through his lens or that of Paul Thomas Anderson, both of whom are mining these local mean streets for inspiration.

There's also little indication that recorded music, radio and television also spread the myth of Hollywood the place, but given the time constraints and the expertise and passion brought to explaining the ``big bang'' of celluloid and sunshine, it's a minor problem. For newcomers eager to be baptized in the waters of the local religion, ``Forever'' is a blessing.

Sharon Stone's narration gives the documenatry a comfortable, insider feel, and Nancy Schreiber's lensing of the interviews with stars including Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine, Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Redford is intimate and colorful. The insights provided help welcome the uninitiated into the movie folks' hometown fold.

A Kodak presentation of an American Cinematheque production in association with Esplanade Prods. Produced by Sasha Alpert. Executive producer, Barbara Zicka Smith.

Narrator: Sharon Stone.

With: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Jeff Bridges, Andre de Toth, Michael Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Salma Hayek, Charlton Heston, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Lansbury, Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Edward Norton, Robert Redford, Rob Reiner, Vincent Sherman, Kevin Spacey, Steven Spielberg, Gloria Stuart, Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta, John Waters.

Directed, written by Todd McCarthy. Co-director, Arnold Glassman. Camera (Deluxe color/B&W), Nancy Schreiber; additional camera, Paul Ryan; editor, Glassman; art director, Hernan Camacho; sound (Dolby SRD), Joseph R. Ekins, Beau Baker; sound editor, Warren Kleiman; line producer, Dale Ann Stieber. Reviewed at the Egyptian Theater, L.A., Dec. 3, 1999.

Reuters/Variety

Source of images: American Cinematheque Forever Hollywood (theater postcard and Forever Hollywood poster)

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