A magnificent history of Hollywood from the invention of film to the present day, by the everywhere acclaimed David Thomson, who has established himself as the "greatest living film critic and historian" (The Atlantic Monthly), "irreplaceable" (The New York Times), and simply "the best writer about the movies" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Now we have his master work, The Whole Equation, which, in his own words, embraces "the murder and the majesty, the business statistics and millions of us being moved, the art and the awfulness." It accommodates "the artistic careers, the lives of the pirates, the ebb and flow if business, the sociological impact — in short, the wonder in the dark, the calculation in the offices, and the staggering impact on America of moving pictures. Which is also the thunderous artillery of America unleashed on the world."

Thomson tells us how D. W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin created the first movies of mass appeal. He writes about Louis B. Mayer, who understood the whole equation and reaped the profits. He shows us how David O. Selznick exemplified the vanity and passion that gets memorable movies made; how the movies, offering a sense of common experience, helped Americans through the difficult years of the 1930s and '40s; how and why the quest for the blockbuster changed the industry.

He examines the films of Capra, Wilder, Hitchcock, Spielberg; of Gable, Cagney, Monroe, Crawford, Brando, Bogart, Nicholson, Kidman; of Irving Thalberg, Lew Wasserman, Harvey Weinstein — and scores more. He considers noir films, the blacklist, agents, method acting. He tells us the stories behind The Godfather, Chinatown, and Jaws. And he follows the money — a trip essential to understanding Hollywood at its most thrilling and most disappointing.

David Thomson has given us a one-volume history of Hollywood that is as well one of the most brilliant, most insightful, entertaining, and illuminating books ever written on American film.

"The 'whole equation,' a phrase borrowed from F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished Hollywood novel, The Last Tycoon, refers to the balancing of financial acumen, artistic aspiration and sociological savvy that movie moguls needed to keep Hollywood flourishing during the Depression. It's also what Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film) aims to achieve in his idiosyncratic chronicle of American filmmaking. He explores personalities (Louis B. Mayer, David O. Selznick) and specific films (von Stroheim's Greed, Spielberg's Jaws) to explain the 20th century's shifting sensibilities. Thomson addresses seminal effects from the last 100 years — from the ramifications of sound and color to the chilling consequences of the McCarthy hearings — to explain the culture of moviemaking. His writing is lyrical, but his pronouncements hyperbolic. (His ire against psychiatry, manifested in a dislike of Method acting, is particularly pronounced; its influence on an acting style, claims Thomson, 'could yet destroy a society.') Thomson is considerably frustrated with current films and what he sees as moviegoers' lowered expectations. His melancholy metaphor for survival in Hollywood is the 1974 film Chinatown, where 'the lone seeker of truth is told to shut up at the end.' This fascinating, sometimes frustrating love letter to Hollywood doesn't shirk from exposing the blemishes on Thomson's inamorata. 23 photos. Forecast: Knopf will release an expanded edition of Thomson's Dictionary of Film in November, which could spur additional interest in this title, which will have a 75,000 first printing." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Thomson definitely does not belong to the thumbs-up, thumbs-down school of film criticism....This is history seen through the lens of the movies and movie criticism undergirded with thoughtful research and scholarly reflection." Booklist (Starred Review)

"Thomson's engrossing book blows the dust off forgotten scandals (the mysterious death of Jean Harlow's probably gay husband) and offers vivid examples of money's toxifying power, proving over and over that some things never change. (Grade: A)" Entertainment Weekly

"[D]iffuse, uneven....Thomson continues to nail some topics with great precision....[O]verall, the discussions are arguable...and highly subjective in their choices of subjects....Disappointing, except for some flashes in selected short subjects." Kirkus Reviews

"I've always wanted to read a history of the movies that dealt with their whole ecology — what they were, why they were, who made them, who watched them, how they were paid for, and where the money went. This is it. It's engaged, passionate, tender, informative, critical, mournful, funny, and unsentimental." Richard Eyre, author of Changing Stages

"Once again, with his intelligent eye and sharp wit, David Thomson has managed to bring the reader inside and underneath the world of cinema, this time creating a remarkable one-volume compendium of the history and the magic that we call Hollywood." Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax Films

"Thomson traces an arc as sure and elegant as the best of Tinseltown's movies in his totally absorbing book, hitting all the right bases along the way — risk, fantasy, ruthlessness, joy, horror and money, always money. A remarkable summing up from perhaps the only observer with the right balance of passion and perspective to pull it off." Kate Buford, author of Burt Lancaster: An American Life

"What Mr. Thomson does most powerfully in this volume is conjure the magic of movies....And he suggests that 'the trick of movies' may have less to do with art than with a drug-like bewitchment of our brains." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Much of what passes for critical thinking in The Whole Equation is at best contradictory or at worst crackpot....Since those who make films and those who watch them all seem to be losers in the eyes of David Thomson, he's got an awful lot of history to cover." The Washington Post

"The Whole Equation is a challenging, enthralling, instructive montage of the lurch and sway of the industry, the push and pull of the creators and the sociological impact of the movies they made." Boston Herald

"As Mr. Thomson unreels the history of film in a series of flashes forward and back, budgets are broken down, boardrooms are spied upon, scripts and personalities pass before us in fascinating and unprecedented review." Wall Street Journal

"[A] big-hearted and occasionally ornery ramble....The Whole Equation, like Hollywood movies, can be uneven, but it can be astonishing, too. It is astute and often fascinating." Boston Globe

"The Whole Equation is movie history for people who don't much like movies....I do wish...that [Thomson] would abandon his...pose about movies not being quite 'good enough' for him, that has become a feature of his recent writing." Los Angeles Times

"Thomson too often comes off as droningly dictatorial....His prose is lively and readable in some places but radiates condescension and academic showiness in others. His passion is real, but it's often smothered in pomposity." Stephanie Zacharek, The New York Times Book Review

"The Whole Equation almost confirms Thomson's fear that books are superior to movies: It's sometimes better to read Thomson on movies than to see the movies he's writing about." San Jose Mercury News

"Thomson's book manages, at just over 400 pages, to be both meandering...and oddly compact....Thomson can be an outrageously self-indulgent writer, but he drops so many acid bombs and keen observations that he's worth indulging..." Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[A] frustrating concoction of cautionary tales and facts and figures, written in a dense elliptical prose that seems to have been scrawled in the dark during a movie screening....Thomson doesn't really tell us something we don't already know." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"[W]hile Thomson has a deep knowledge of film scholarship and loves the movies, it is also equally apparent that Thomson is in love with his own voice. Although his writing is witty, sharp and lively, it often sinks to the prose equivalent of scenery chewing." San Antonio Express-News

"Although the book starts naturally enough with Charlie Chaplin, it is largely nonlinear, which tends to add to the narrative's richness, as do Thomson's frequent perceptive and cogent analyses." Library Journal

Taking his title from a line in The Last Tycoon, Thomson sets out to explore the American movie business in all its complexity, all its component parts, from the invention of film until the present day. What is "the whole equation"? In the author's words: "It embraces the majesty, the business statistics and millions of us being moved, the art and the awfulness. It accommodates the artistic careers, the lives of the pirates, the ebb and flow of business, the sociological impact — in short, the wonder in the dark, the calculation in the offices, and the staggering impact on America of moving pictures. Which is to say, also, the thunderous artillery of America unleashed on all the world."

And to be sure, it's essential to follow the money, which Thomson always does, making clear that the urge to tell the stories that are movies is inseparable from the urge to make money, and that the movies redefined greed — there was just so much money to be made. We start when D.W. Griffith yields final say on his films to a movie executive, making the essential point that it's always the studio that owns the work. We see Chaplin, who understands the whole equation, rising and then losing his way when he, the artist, not the mogul, has the final say — another essential point. We learn how Louis B. Mayer mastered the whole equation, and dominated the golden age of film, understanding both how to make a star and the dreamlike state of moviegoers, trying to escape reality.

From D.W. Griffin to Chaplin, from Brando to Nicole Kidman, Thomson gives readers one of the wisest, most insightful, entertaining, and illuminating books ever written on American film--plus a much-needed one-volume history of Hollywood. 23 photos in text, 1 in full color.

David Thomson taught film studies at Dartmouth College and served on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Film Comment, Movieline, the New Republic, and Salon. He was the screenwriter on the award-winning documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind. His other books include Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts, and three works of fiction. Born in London, he lives in San Francisco with his wife and their two sons.

David Thomson's The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is available from Knopf in hardcover and paperback, and Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles is available in Vintage paperback.