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Hollywood Under Siege

Hollywood Under Siege

Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars

by Thomas R Lindlof

Published by: The University Press of Kentucky

Imprint: The University Press of Kentucky

Sales Date: 08/08/2008

408 Pages, 6.12 x 9.25 x 1.43 in, 14 illustrations

Hardcover
9780813125176
Published: August 2008

$30.00 SR

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In 1988, director Martin Scorsese fulfilled his lifelong dream of making a film about Jesus Christ. Rather than celebrating the film as a statement of faith, churches and religious leaders immediately went on the attack, alleging blasphemy. At the height of the controversy, thousands of phone calls a day flooded the Universal switchboard, and before the year was out, more than three million mailings protesting the film fanned out across the country. For the first time in history, a studio took responsibility for protecting theaters and scrambled to recruit a "field crisis team" to guide The Last Temptation of Christ through its contentious American openings. Overseas, the film faced widespread censorship actions, with thirteen countries eventually banning the film. The response in Europe turned violent when opposition groups sacked theaters in France and Greece and caused injuries to dozens of moviegoers. Twenty years later, author Thomas R. Lindlof offers a comprehensive account of how this provocative film came to be made and how Universal Pictures and its parent company MCA became targets of the most intense, unremitting attacks ever mounted against a media company. The film faced early and determined opposition from elements of the religious Right when it was being developed at Paramount during the last year the studio was run by the celebrated troika of Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. By the mid-1980s, Scorsese's film was widely regarded as unmakeable—a political stick of dynamite that no one dared touch. Through the joint efforts of two of the era's most influential executives, CAA president Michael Ovitz and Universal Pictures chairman Thomas P. Pollock, this improbable project found its way into production. The making of The Last Temptation of Christ caught evangelical Christians at a moment when they were suffering a crisis of confidence in their leadership. The religious right seized on the film as a way to rehabilitate its image and to mobilize ordinary citizens to attack liberalism in art and culture. The ensuing controversy over the film's alleged blasphemy escalated into a full-scale war fought out very openly in the media. Universal/MCA faced unprecedented calls for boycotts of its business interests, anti-Semitic rhetoric and death threats were directed at MCA chairman Lew Wasserman and other MCA executives, and the industry faced the specter of violence at theaters. Hollywood Under Siege draws upon interviews with many of the key figures—Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Michael Ovitz, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jack Valenti, Thomas P. Pollock, and Willem Dafoe—to explore the trajectory of the film from its conception to the subsequent epic controversy and beyond. Lindlof offers a fascinating dissection of a critical episode in the embryonic culture wars, illuminating the explosive effects of the clash between the interests of the media industry and the forces of social conservatism.

"No other book has traced the development of a major motion picture from conception through production to reception with the kind of care and detail that Lindlof does here. Hollywood Under Siege provides valuable insight into the machinery of the film industry, and into the machinations of American culture on a broader front as well." - Thomas Schatz, author of The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era and Executive Director of the University of Texas Film Institute
~Thomas Schatz

"Riveting and accurate. Even though I thought I knew there events, I found myself captured anew."—Paul Schrader, screenwriter and director
~Paul Schrader, screenwriter and director

"As a study of a landmark moment in American cinema, Lindlof's book is both profound and extremely entertaining."—Los Angeles Times
~Los Angeles Times

Lindlof has meticulously researched the history of the film from its initial optioning to its ultimate fate, up to the present time, successfully placing it into cultural context. Although extremely detailed, the book is readable and eminently instructive.
~Roy Leibman, LibraryJournal.com

This is an important contribution to the Scorsese legacy as well as a vital examination of religious right cultural hysteria about a film that was condemned before anyone ever saw a frame.
~National Board of Review

"This is a fascinating study of latter-day movie studio politics and the passionate reactions of Christians to the controversial project." Peter Filichia,www.nj.com
~Peter Filichia, www.nj.com

"His book gives one of the best available accounts of how Hollywood works."Mark Kamine,Times Literary Supplement
~Mark Kamine, Times Literary Supplement

"Hollywood Under Siege is valuable as a record of a specific yet seminal event in American film history, showing just how difficult the process of bringing a controversial text to the screen can be."Laurence Raw, Southwest Journal of Cultures
~Laurence Raw, Southwest Journal of Cultures

"Lindlof weaves a spellbinding narrative that investigates the back stories of the novel, script, and people who contributed in some way to the adaptation of the provocative film and its receptions. He sews fascinating portraits into a larger tapestry, producing a compelling story of group ideology and bellicose ideologies."T.Lindawall, Choice
~T. Lindwall, Choice

"[The book] seeks to flesh out what really went on inside Universal studios during what was a very real crisis. And, in no uncertain terms, it succeeds."—biblefilms.blogspot.com
~biblefilms.blogspot.com

Hollywood Under Siege is valuable as a record of a specific yet seminal event in American film history, showing just how difficult the process of bringing a controversial text to the screen can be.
~Laurence Raw, Southwest Journal of Cultures (southwestjournalofculturalscinema.blogspot.com)

"Lindlof's account is detailed and even exciting. Different aspects of the battle between the religious right and Hollywood are still in play, but this episode from twenty years ago marked an important beginning."
~The Times of Acadiana

"Lindlof's account of the Last Temptation uproar is fascinating and insightful. It also provides an alternative to a story already told from the perspective of the religious right...."
~Pamela Grace, www.californiachronicle.com

"[The book] is a revelation. Lindlof's meticulously researched page-turned, which draws from interviews with nearly eighty significant figures involved in the controversy, provides a wealth of detail about Universal's massive effort to bring film to the screen without bloodshed and the Christian right's highly organized attempts to suppress, or even burn, the picture."
~Pamela Grace, Cineaste

"Thomas R. Lindlof's Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, The Religious Right, and the Culture Wars is a must-own book that tracks not only the tortured route Temptation took to the screen and it's production, but the insane backlash the film caused in the Christian community."
~David Faraci, chud.com

Lindlof's book is a very readable, revealing account.
~senses of cinema

Thomas Lindlof has produced a compelling—and often hopeful—chapter in the long, depressing history of censorship.
~Colin O'Shea, Bright Lights Film Journal

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Hollywood Under Siege

Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars

Hollywood Under Siege

Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars

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