(Note: This interview originally aired in March of this year.) Our guest is the film historian and journalist Mark Harris, who's written for Entertainment Weekly, Grantland, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. He's also the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book, "Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood." Harris joins us today to discuss his latest book, which is out in paperback, and which skillfully profiles a vitally important time (that is, WWII) in the lives and careers of five American movie directors: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. The book is called "Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War." It is, per The New York Times, a "tough-minded, information-packed, and irresistibly readable work of movie-minded cultural criticism. Like the best World War II films, it highlights marquee names in a familiar plot to explore some serious issues: the human cost of military service, the hypnotic power of cinema, and the tension between artistic integrity and the exigencies of war." You can learn more about this interview, and can listen to a free, on-demand mp3 stream of it, here.
"Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War" (Encore Presentation)
