An eye-opening and deeply reported narrative that details the surprising role of the movie
business in the high-stakes contest between the U.S. and China In this highly entertaining but
deeply disturbing book Erich Schwartzel demonstrates the extent of our cultural thrall to
China. His depiction of the craven characters American and Chinese who have enabled this
situation represents a significant feat of investigative journalism. His narrative is about not
merely the movie business but the new world order. -Andrew Solomon author of Far from the
Tree and The Noonday Demon From trade to technology to military might competition between the
United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape. But this battle for global
influence is also playing out in a strange and unexpected arena: the movies. The film industry
Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel explains is the latest battleground in the tense
and complex rivalry between these two world powers. In recent decades as China has grown into
a giant of the international economy it has become a crucial source of revenue for the
American film industry. Hollywood studios are now bending over backward to make movies that
will appeal to China's citizens-and gain approval from severe Communist Party censors. At the
same time and with America's unwitting help China has built its own film industry into an
essential arm of its plan to export its national agenda to the rest of the world. The
competition between these two movie businesses is a Cold War for this century a clash that
determines whether democratic or authoritarian values will be broadcast most powerfully around
the world. Red Carpet is packed with memorable characters who have-knowingly or
otherwise-played key roles in this tangled industry web: not only A-list stars like Matt Damon
Angelina Jolie and Richard Gere but also eccentric Chinese billionaires zany expatriate
filmmakers and starlets who disappear from public life without explanation or trace.
Schwartzel combines original reporting political history and show-biz intrigue in an
exhilarating tour of global entertainment from propaganda film sets in Beijing to the
boardrooms of Hollywood studios to the living rooms in Kenya where families decide whether to
watch an American or Chinese movie. Alarming occasionally absurd and wildly entertaining Red
Carpet will not only alter the way we watch movies but also offer essential new perspective on
the power struggle of this century.
