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(More customer reviews)Sam Wasson's just-released and delightful book on the making of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is so chock-full of great anecdotes that you're sorry when it's over. For awhile, you are there - a privileged insider-witness to a marvelous bygone moment in moviemaking history - and it's with a feeling of bittersweet regret that you step from its closing pages back into a realm of noisy 3D sequels and superfluous comic book franchises. Everything you'd want to know and more is delivered in the book, from the reader's coverage producer Marty Jurow was first handed, re: adapting Capote's book for the screen ("In any event this is more of a character sketch than a story. NOT RECOMMENDED") to the guest list for the post-premiere party (including such unlikely elbow-rubbers as Dennis Hopper, Buster Keaton, Charles Laughton, and Jane Mansfield).
A delicious through-line in the book is how close the movie came to not coming out so well as it did, with such jaw-droppers as everyone's resistance to having Henry Mancini write a song for the thing (eventual collaborator Johnny Mercer's original lyric, we learn, one of three eventually presented to Mancini, was called "Blue River"). An intimate exploration of the myriad personalities in conflict and collusion when a casual classic is being created, the book is cannily adept at detailing the logic of the so many minute decisions that lead to what we now accept as inevitable. Of course Audrey Hepburn played Holly Golightly, you think, until you hear how hard Capote lobbied for Marilyn Monroe.
Wasson is a formidable researcher. He doesn't so much know where the bodies are buried as he knows where the hearts and minds are hidden. The book is written like a good novel, taking you inside the consciousness of its characters with an impressive, insight-laden believability ("Fifth Avenue"'s only recent movie-book rival in this regard is Mark Harris' fascinating "Pictures at a Revolution"). And Wasson's notes on how he arrived at, and can justify, his leaps of imagination and empathy are almost as interesting as the text itself.
Of course the book has its thesis and theories as well, positing "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and Hepburn's stylish, fresh, era-defining performance as a watershed moment in cultural history. If you're a fan of Audrey Hepburn, the book is a must-have, because Wasson's astute take on what she was about, what she was up against, and how she delivered the goods strikes me as definitive. Her spritely, near-angelic spirit comes alive in the pages of this eminently devour-able book, which is kind of an awesome dividend.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
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