This is a story that Jack Valenti has long tried to keep secret. Freedom and Entertainment is the first book to offer a behind-the-scenes account of the motion picture rating system and the Motion Picture Association of America under Valenti's leadership. The book is based on the private papers and oral history of Richard D. Heffner, who headed the Classification and Rating Administration for two decades, from 1974 to 1994, and who was once called 'the least-known most powerful person in Hollywood.' The story chronicles the often tense working relationship between Heffner and Valenti, and the sometimes bruising encounters Heffner had with such Hollywood heavyweights as Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, Michael Douglas, George C. Scott, Lew Wasserman, Arthur Krim, Jerry Weintraub, and many others.
By:
Stephen Vaughn (University of Wisconsin Madison)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 160mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 585g
ISBN: 9780521852586
ISBN 10: 0521852587
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 09 March 2006
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. New leaders and a new system; 2. Sex, profanity, and violence; 3. The X rating and the home entertainment revolution; 4. The technology of special effects and the wffects of screen violence; 5. Pornography; 6. The anti-pornography crusade; 7. Hollywood, drugs, and religion; 8. NC-17; 9. Television; 10. The digital future.
Stephen Vaughn has taught the history of communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 1981. He has been a past Vilas Associate Scholar at Wisconsin and is the recipient of two Fulbright awards. Previous books he's written include Ronald Reagan in Hollywood: Movies and Politics, The Vital Past: Writings on the Uses of History, and Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism and the Committee on Public Information.
Reviews for Freedom and Entertainment: Rating the Movies in an Age of New Media
Carefully argued, impressively documented, and tellingly illustrated, this is a first-rate work on a topic of considerable importance. Essential. Choice Vaughn has written a significant study. Lary May, The Historian