TC #35 - Mark Harris (The Best Years Of Our Lives)

During World War II, five of Hollywood's star directors, whose names had been behind some of the biggest box office hits and Oscar winners, dropped their entire careers to go to war. Their goal was not to fight, but to document. Besides being the only Oscar columnist worth reading, Mark Harris is now the author or Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. In this podcast, Mark and Peter sit down to discuss this essential read, examining the relationship between Hollywood and the government, the problem of realism and re-creations, and the pains felt by men who returned to a system that seemed to have forgotten them. Finally, the two discuss William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, a universal drama that has numerous touches of the director's own war experience.

0:00-1:35 Opening
2:33-8:06 Establishing Shots - William Freidkin's Sorcerer
8:50-1:26:40 Deep Focus - Mark Harris
1:27:53-1:46:58 Double Exposure - The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
1:47:02-1:48:41 Close