Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

Schulman (Her Again), a staff writer at the New Yorker, combines thorough research with an eye for drama in this highly entertaining history of the Academy Awards. Highlighting eras and awards races that speak to “larger stories of cultural change,” Schulman starts with the founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927 by MGM cofounder Louis B. Mayer, who wanted it to offset unionizing. The first awards followed in 1929, but by the mid-1930s, unions and guilds were pushing back against the Academy’s role in arbitrating labor disputes, leading it to pivot and focus solely on giving awards. Schulman covers Citizen Kane’s “notorious” defeat at the Oscars in 1942 (suggesting director Orson Welles’s auteurism threatened the Hollywood “assembly line”), screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s campaign during McCarthyism to undermine the blacklist by winning Oscars (he nabbed one in 1957 under a pseudonym), and calls in the 1960s to diversify Academy voters and bring in a younger perspective. Delving into recent controversies, the author details #OscarsSoWhite protests in 2016 and offers a backstage account of how the following year’s “Envelopegate” unfolded. The behind-the-scenes perspectives don’t skimp on juicy trivia while the connections Schulman draws to larger societal issues illustrate the power and limitations of cinema to reflect and drive change. This will thrill cinephiles. (Feb.)