The Last Tycoon - Amazon Pilot

[MikeKardec]

Sumptuously mounted, fairly superficially written and directed ... and like so many movies about movies, not all that tuned into film making or the realities of Hollywood. A few anachronisms. But I've learned not to write off Amazon's stuff to early in the game. I might have said slightly similar things about the pilot to The Man in the High Castle but, having seen the entire first season I believe it's one of the best pieces of television I've experienced.

We'll see what happens if this ever gets picked up. Amazon pilots are true, old fashioned pilots, they only produce a season if the reaction to them is positive.

I hope it does get picked up and I hope it gets better, early Hollywood deserves an in-depth treatment in film.

 

[Fading Fast]

I posted this in "What is the Last TV Show" thread:

Amazon's new TV pilot for "The Last Tycoon." Set in 1930's Hollywood and based on Fitzgerald's book which was loosely based on Irving Thalberg's life, the pilot - as many pilots do - attempts to do too much in on episode: introduce a lot of characters, a lot of background history and multiple plot lines while also wrapping a full episode story inside.

It becomes a mishmash that doesn't really work, but also doesn't mean the series (if it gets made) would be bad as, then, they'd have the time to flesh out the characters and stories. The period sets and details were well done, but overall it felt a bit too modern and "Disney-a-fied." That said, the clothes - the women's dresses in particular - were stunning. My girlfriend wanted several of them.

And would add now, that you are right, if they do it half as well as "The Man in the High Castle," 1930's Hollywood would be a great subject for a thoughtful period show.

Also, do you know if there a second season of "TMITHC" coming - hope so, 'cause, as you said, some of the best TV I've seen.

 

[MikeKardec]

I believe there is a second season of TMITHC, though I don't know how soon it is due. Amazon does things differently than other outlets.

I agree with your take on entirely. It's especially hard with an Amazon pilot because they analyze audience reaction over a long period as well as their own feelings about a production before they go forward. An episode needs to show off a lot of qualities and the risk is trying too hard. In this case the pace (which doesn't feel fast but as you mentioned is still trying to do a lot) seems to have lead to a lot of scenes without adequate subtext to feel like the characters are real people in real situations. It could also be said that the director didn't work hard enough to find the points of subtextual resonance in the script but my experience is that a good script (and good casting) does that automatically. These are characters with long history and the issues they deal with are well known. The film business is all about things that cannot be said because of the lines of power and the secrets that must be kept, the show does deal with this but in a way that simply opens some of those secrets to the world and then moves on.

To quickly coming up with two examples which might not be the best: the studio head's tendency to use his position to take advantage or trade favors with women ... even today that would be something that no one would speak about in his presence and would cause stress in everyone trying to ignore it. The other is the pressure of the German government on studio content. This was a real thing though I doubt it was played as broadly as shown, the German market wasn't THAT important in the 1930s and I'm not sure that "every" Jew would be aware of it in a modern sense, EUROPE was a rough place for Jews in those days, not just Germany. Part of my family is Jewish and Eastern European and their attitude seemed to be that Germany was just the worst of a number of bad places. The Nazi/studio tension is an attempt to create a "bad guy" (though no individual really fills that bill) and to create tension. I get it that that must be done quickly, within the running time of this pilot. But it would work better as a series long slow burn. Hollywood collected a lot of refugees to allow their opinions to pile up and to have German pressure on content to increase would play better.

The tension that I can see that is worth developing in this story is truly between the Irving Thalberg clone Monroe Stahr and his boss/mentor/father figure. They are two strong men with opposing views on how to achieve the same end, and that is always a good source of tension. The problem could be that to set this up the right way you'd have to depart from the text of the novel by a significant amount. They may be trying too hard to be true to the novel which was not only not a TV series, it was unfinished. As I know FAR too well, unfinished literary work can often be because the author could not develop a strong enough mechanism to drive the story forward. In an adaptation of the work that is a situation that would need to be remedied early on or you will have a catastrophe on your hands.

They have time to get a sense of their problems and figure out how to go ahead, that's golden. It could end up being quite a good series. Fingers crossed.