Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Performing Arts
Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille Details
From Booklist *Starred Review* DeMille wasn’t the sole originator of the huger-than-huge Hollywood movie, but he was one of its most successful purveyors. And unlike some silent-film auteurs, DeMille made the change to talkies seamlessly in a career that spanned more than 50 years of stage and screen hits across genres. Aided by access to DeMille family papers unavailable to previous biographers, Eyman, a seasoned biographer of Hollywood heavyweights, undertakes an exhaustive and evenhanded look at DeMille and his oeuvre. Whereas Sidney Lumet thought “DeMille vulgarized everything D. W. Griffith did,” Eyman finds that “DeMille was always a populist filmmaker, like Frank Capra,” albeit one who “took serious . . . successful flyers at Art.” And such flyers he took: his The Ten Commandments (1923 and 1956) and The King of Kings (1927) are gaudy touchstones of epic filmmaking grandeur and glorifications of conventional Christian values, but he also directed The Volga Boatman (1928), “a surprisingly sympathetic account of the Russian Revolution.” In his career, DeMille directed a veritable who’s who of Hollywood stars and also found time to appear in films as an actor, his best-known role perhaps being as himself in Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece, Sunset Boulevard. Eyman’s sprawling biography fully gives the master his due. --Mike Tribby Read more About the Author Scott Eyman has written fifteen books, three of them New York Times bestsellers, including John Wayne: The Life and Legend. His most recent book is Hank and Jim. He has been awarded the William K. Everson Award for Film History by the National Board of Review. He teaches film history at the University of Miami and lives in West Palm Beach with his wife, Lynn. Read more
Reviews
The name Cecil B. DeMille is synonymous with the quintessential Hollywood epic. As well-earned and imposing of a reputation as that is, it alone does not begin to adequately describe the man himself. In "Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille", author Scott Eyman has succeeded in going far beyond our general perception of "C.B." as a great showman and reveals him to be a complex, seemingly contradictory individual with a fierce sense of loyalty to his beliefs and profound commitment to satisfying his audience.It seems to have been largely forgotten or taken for granted that DeMille was among the handful of early film pioneers who laid the foundation of the motion picture industry. He, along with D.W. Griffith and others defined cinema language, giving the new medium respectability as a legitimate art form. DeMille produced what is widely considered the very first feature-length film made in Hollywood - THE SQUAW MAN (1914). Prior to that, American movies consisted of one or two-reelers originating from the east coast. It is no exaggeration to say that the glamorous, larger-than-life mystique that defined Hollywood during its Golden Age was largely due to DeMille's influence."Empire of Dreams" takes us through DeMille's glory days during the mid-1910s -'20s when he directed some of the era's most sophisticated, contemporary social dramas as well as the great, inimitable cinema spectacles that became his forté during the second phase of his career from the 1930s-'50s.Eyman also delves into less flattering aspects, such as DeMille's staunch support of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist witch hunts - a stand that tarnished DeMille's reputation at the time and, to a certain extent, still does today. By accessing private documentation unavailable to previous authors, Eyman was able to present a more balanced perspective of DeMille - an impassioned filmmaker who was often derided by critics of his day but genuinely revered by the public.After reading this fascinating book, I was motivated to revisit my DeMille video collection. Eyman's vivid, exhaustively researched work has given me a refined insight into the films and the brilliance of the man behind them.Highly recommended.