Hollywood Utopia

Literary Nonfiction. Film Studies. HOLLYWOOD UTOPIA examines the individual lives of the Theosophists (proto-New Agers), the directors and actors who believed that silent movies were a Universal Langauge which had the potential to save mankind, and the bohemian circles and Pygmalion figures that made up a community that believed it was creating a new world. Justine Brown's rich and exotic prose makes us feel like we're right there with the likes of Nazimova and Valentino, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, and Sergei Eisenstein. In her homage to a few of the lesser gods, we come to know more about the creative forces of early Hollywood.