Matthew Specktor

Beau Rosenwald, seductor carismático a pesar de su ligero sobrepeso, llega a Los Çngeles en 1962 con un traje pasado de moda y unos zapatos caros. Pasados quince años, su agencia de talentos es la más importante e influyente de Hollywood. A traves de los ojos de su hijo, presenciamos como Beau y su socio luchan para sacar adelante la empresa, les vemos morir de exito y luego de fracaso, para volver de nuevo a la cumbre, de acuerdo con las transformaciones culturales que dictan los caprichos del mundo del cine. Y observamos a dos generaciones tropezar y caer, con el paisaje de Los Çngeles como telon de fondo, aprendiendo el precio que marca el exito, y el que marca el fracaso. Dinamica, divertida y llena de personajes vitales y profundos, American Dream Machine es una aguda interrogacion sobre el papel que la ilusion juega en nuestras vidas.

Beau Rosenwald - overweight, far from handsome, and improbably charismatic - arrives in Los Angles in 1962 with nothing but an ill-fitting suit and a pair of expensive brogues. By the late 1970s he has helped found the most successful agency in Hollywood. Through the eyes of his son, we watch Beau and his partner go to war, waging a battle that will reshape an entire industry. We watch Beau rise and fall and rise again, forging and damaging remarkable relationships. We watch Beaus partner, the enigmatic Williams Farquarsen, struggle to control himself and this oh-so-fickle world of movies. We watch two generations of men fumble and thrive across the LA landscape, revelling in their successes and learning the costs of their mistakes.

Quand Beau Rosenwald débarque à Los Angeles, en 1962, il na quun costume dépareillé et une paire de chaussures de luxe. À la fin des années 1970, il a cofondé et dirige la plus prestigieuse agence de

From Melville to Madoff, the Confidence Man is an essential American archetype. George Roy Hills 1973 film The Sting treats this theme with a characteristic dexterity. The movie was warmly received in its time, winning seven Academy Awards, but there were some who thought the movie was nothing more than a slight throwback. Pauline Kael, among others, felt Hills film was mechanical and contrived: a callow and manipulative attempt to recapture the box-office success of Robert Redford and Paul Newmans prior pairing, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. Matthew Specktors passionate, lyric meditation turns The Sting on its head, on its side, and right-side-up in an effort to unpack the films giddy complexity and secret, melancholic heart. Working off interviews with screenwriter David S. Ward and producer Tony Bill, and tacking from nuanced interpretation of its arching moods and themes to gimlet-eyed observation of its dizzying sleights-of-hand, Specktor opens The Sting up to disclose the subtle and stunning dimensionssexual, political, and aestheticof Hills best film. Through Specktors lens, The Sting reveals itself as both an enduring human drama and a meditation on art-making itself, an ode to the necessary pleasure of being fooled at the movies.

Named a best book of the year by Kirkus ReviewsNamed a Notable Book of 2025 by the Washington PostA personal and cultural exploration of the struggles between art and business at the heart of modern Hollywood, through the eyes of the talent that shaped itMatthew Specktor grew up in the film industry: the son of legendary CAA superagent Fred Specktor, his childhood was one where Beau Bridges came over for dinner, Martin Sheens daughter was his close friend, and Marlon Brando left long messages on the family answering machine. He would eventually spend time working in Hollywood himself, first as a reluctant studio executive and later as a screenwriter.Now, with The Golden Hour, Specktor blends memoir, cultural criticism, and narrative history to tell the story of the modern motion picture industryilluminating the conflict between art and business that has played out over the last seventy-five years in Hollywood. Braiding his own story with that of his father, mother (a talented screenwriter whose career was cut short), and figures ranging from Jack Nicholson to CAAs Michael Ovitz, Specktor reveals how Hollywood became a laboratory for the eternal struggle between art, labor, and capital.Beginning with the rise of Music Corporation of America in the 1950s, The Golden Hour lays out a series of clashes between fathers and sons, talent agents and studio heads, artists, activists, unions, and corporations. With vivid prose and immersive scenes, Specktor shows how Hollywood grew from the epicenter of American cultural life to a full-fledged multinational concernand what this shift has meant for the nations place in the world. At once a book about the movie business and an intimate family drama, The Golden Hour is a sweeping portrait of the American Century.