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The Academy and the Award
- Author
- Bruce Davis
- Narrator
- Jim Meskimen
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 11 October 2022
- Run Time
- 17 hours 44 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
The first behind-the-scenes history of the organization behind the Academy Awards
For all the near-fanatic attention brought each year to the Academy Awards, the organization that dispenses those awards—the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—has yet to be understood. To date, no one has ever produced a thorough account of the Academy’s birth and its awkward adolescence, and the few reports on those periods from outside have always had a glancing, cursory quality. Yet the story of the Academy’s creation and development is a critical piece of Hollywood’s history.
Now that story is finally being told. Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy for over twenty years, was given unprecedented access to its archives, and the result is a revealing and compelling story of the men and women, famous and infamous, who shaped one of the best-known organizations in the world.
Davis writes about the Academy with as intimate a view of its workings, its awards, and its world-famous membership. Thorough and long overdue, The Academy and the Award fills a crucial gap in Hollywood history.
Critics Review
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“A tremendously in-depth history.”
Hollywood Reporter
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“[Davis’s] academic background and years at the Academy made him the ideal writer for this invaluable book.”
Variety
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“This engrossing behind-the-scenes look at…how the Hollywood machine works is explained in insightful and sometimes deliciously dishy detail.”
Town & Country
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“Consistently colorful and often novelistic in its vivid scene-setting and descriptive detail.”
Washington Examiner
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“How did the Oscar get its name?…Almost as intriguing are the sections about the extremely short presidential term of Bette Davis and an explanation of how the Oscar statuette was designed.”
Seattle Book Review
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“Film historians and others digging for a deeper vein of Oscar knowledge than mere trivia will turn up many nuggets in The Academy and the Award.”
US News & World Report
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“Not the usual breezy picture book, this is a meticulously researched and eye-opening account…Surprisingly this is only the first truly in-depth history.”
Boston Herald
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“Focuses on the organization’s formative years, ‘an early life that deserves a bildungsroman.’”
New York Times
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Bruce Davis
- Narrator
- Jim Meskimen
- Duration
- 17 hours 44 minutes
- Release Date
- 11 October 2022
- ISBN
- 9798212233095
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Film history, theory or criticism
Synopsis
The first behind-the-scenes history of the organization behind the Academy AwardsFor all the near-fanatic attention brought each year to the Academy Awards, the organization that dispenses those awards—the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—has yet to be understood. To date, no one has ever produced a thorough account of the Academy’s birth and its awkward adolescence, and the few reports on those periods from outside have always had a glancing, cursory quality. Yet the story of the Academy’s creation and development is a critical piece of Hollywood’s history.Now that story is finally being told. Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy for over twenty years, was given unprecedented access to its archives, and the result is a revealing and compelling story of the men and women, famous and infamous, who shaped one of the best-known organizations in the world. Davis writes about the Academy with as intimate a view of its workings, its awards, and its world-famous membership. Thorough and long overdue, The Academy and the Award fills a crucial gap in Hollywood history.
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