An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood,   ISBN:9780385265577

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I was disappointed with AN EMPRIE OF THEIR OWN. I didn't feel that it gave a clear impression of the lives of the movie moguls who built Hollywood, or of the early studio era in general.

AN EMPIRE OF THEIR OWN seems too engrossed with it's thesis, with focusing on the "Jewishness" of the moguls and the early film industry, and ends up being scattered and unconvincing. I have to admit that I only read the first 150 or so pages closely, and skimmed through the rest as I began to feel that the book was not worth my time.

Gabler often resorts to a sort of psycho-analytical mind reading of the early Hollywood moguls, rather than relying on facts and events to describe their lives. For example, of William Fox he writes, "But the most signifigant remnant of his childhood, as for so many of the Hollywood Jews, was fear. Jews succeeded at the sufferance of the gentile establishment. Everything gained could just as easily be lost, and it was the provisional nature of success, as much as anything else, that impelled him." This passage is typical of Gabler's method for describing the lives and personalities of the individuals he portrays in AN EMPIRE OF THEIR OWN. I don't think I would describe the internal motivations of even my closest friends with such confidence, or ascribe to them such emotional simplicity....

The book's incessant focus on Jews and Jewishness makes it impossible for Gabler to tell a coherent story of early Hollywood, because the roles of gentiles are (at best) minimized and glossed over. That would be alright if he presented a convincing thesis as to why Jews (a small ethnic minority) were so prominent and influential in the early film industry, but he fails to do so. Gabler gives the impression that America in the first half of the 20th Century was a nation of rich, established gentiles and poor, scrounging, immigrant Jews. In fact there were many poor, scrounging immigrant communities in America at the time, many groups of people who were outsiders to the establishment trying to get in, and that cannot have been the thing that distinguished these Jewish moguls from everyone else in America.

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It is a fact the Jews created Hollywood. Thalberg, Louis B Mayer, Harry Cohn, the Warner Brothers all were Jews who imigrated from Eastern Europe.
And by creating Hollywood, they influenced the culture of America.
The book is magnificent. It is an accurate chronological timeline of their accomplishments and the magic they brought to the silver screen.

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I received this book as a gift some years ago, and with no particular interest in the subject matter, I threw it on a pile of "to read one day," where is was summarily submerged.
Having recently moved to not only Los Angeles, but in sight of the "Hollywood" sign, and within walking distance of a few of the old studios, AND a charming and historic cemetery (making Tyrone Power an almost neighbor) I remembered the book, ordered another copy from Amazon... and didn't put it down from the moment it arrived until I finished reading it, AND creating a bibliography of further titles on related subjects.

Fascinating... well written, well researched.
Yes, a bit gossipy but not enough to detract from the fact that this is serious social and cultural history not simply of "Hollywood" but of America itself, in a time and a place.

And especially, it seems to me, that although the original pioneers, taking their warts and all with them, are long gone, film, has since those Jews invented Hollywood, become, inarguably, the salient art form, the culture maker of our age..
Add to that that while America is no longer the producer of everything that everyone in the world wants... American films consistently have waiting lines of viewers around the block, from Lisbon around the world and back again.
Film remains our greatest export, and friend maker....creating common recognition among people, transcending language.

And Gabler has captured the amazing, primitive energies that went into creating movies, and changing the way so many around the world perceive ourselves and how we lived then and live now.

Enjoyed reading it, first page to last.

Norma Manna Blum

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This was a fascinating history of the film industry, the people who shaped it, their personal histories and outlooks and how that influenced the american ideals as depicted on screen.

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An interesting book about the early Hollywood moguls. Other posters have described and praised the books, so I won't repeat. It is very good, except for two things. First, the author says that the movies colonized the imagination of americans. He assumed that people who watched these movies believed that life was really like that. But can that really be the case? Didn't people acknowledge as we do today that movies have conventions and that those conventions are not necessarily life like? The convention for instance that the bad guy is always punished and virtue is rewarded.

The author says that Hollywood made our values. It is true that our artistic conventions, what we are willing to give lip service to, and our vision of the ideal reflects our values. But those values existed before Hollywood. They are found in the art and popular entertainment from all ages and all cultures. The conventions in American movies are the conventions of art in every culture. I have never heard of any people whose art celebrated wickedness or adopted the attitude that people should not be good or that they should not like their country, just to name a few values. All nations have their myths, not just the US.

The reflection of values in art is complicated. For instance, art traditionally revels in the Jesse James types, the bad guy as hero. Many cultures have the bandit hero. But in the end, that convention serves to uphold the usual moral values. After the audience has the fun of watching him, the bad guy hero is punished. Similarly, the prohibition on violence and sex upheld the values that were already in the society. In that regard, America has changed but many countries have not. They practice censorship of their own products and either ban or severely edit American movies before showing them in their countries.

Bollywood shows very idealized lives. It follows a strict code of conduct. Does that make Bollywood movies bad? Are the Indian people being "colonized" by their own movie makers?

The moguls made not just what they wanted but what others wanted. They gambled that they knew what people all over the world wanted to watch and they were right for a long time. The kinds of movies that the author perhaps would have liked them to make would be movies that no one would want to see.

Second, the author feels that the moguls should have been truer to their jewish heritage. He is harsh towards them for assimilating (and that is a whole other issue that I don't agree with). But any jewish heritage that they followed would have been very conservative, because that was their background and I don't think the author would have liked it if they had been like that. He condemns the moguls for behavior that if they had adopted it he would have condemned it.