AdamSmith

This site is a place where engaging, not disengaging, more often than not gives participants some rewards. Here I think we have self-selected to come together in at least a little bit more mutual giving than taking. And we come here because we like one another, not the opposite. End of sermon.

Like passing a kidney stone...? In the best of circumstances!

Again.

One is losing one’s memory. I turned 60 last year. What else is new?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor/amp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor/amp

How Anthony Fauci Became America’s Doctor An infectious-disease expert’s long crusade against some of humanity’s most virulent threats. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor/amp

Weird Photo Of Mitch McConnell's Social Distancing Has People In Stitches https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mitch-mcconnell-social-distancing-094614723.html

I love you. If it was not obvious already.

Correction: ”Affirmative, Dave. I read you. I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.”

One has to laugh not to cry in these times.

“2001: A Space Odyssey”: What It Means, and How It Was Made Fifty years ago, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke set out to make a new kind of sci-fi. How does their future look now that it’s the past? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/23/2001-a-space-odyssey-what-it-means-and-how-it-was-made/amp

Thus from above posts revealing how even the most innocent-intended of social media boards can turn us into imagos of the Orange Orangutange?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogrnxYHCh2Y&feature=emb_rel_end

Again: very glad to have your awareness here. We bitch & discuss even as we love one another here.

I read you, Dave.

You and I have (accurately) gone back & forth calling each other crazy at times. You are now fully & truthfully off your rocker. WTF?

Fascinating. European Neanderthals ate fresh seafood, which may have given their brains a boost https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/world/fishing-neanderthals-portugal-scn/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=13DpmWPV9IU

Stanley Kubrick’s Longtime Producer Trashes ‘Room 237’ and Lists ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ As His Favorite Kubrick Film Stanley Kubrick's Longtime Producer Trashes 'Room 237' and Lists 'Eyes Wide Shut' As His Favorite Kubrick Film Casey Cipriani Mar 31, 2014 10:51 am @@CaseyCip Jan Harlan acted as a researcher and producer for director Stanley Kubrick for over thirty years, contributing to such iconic films as “A Clockwork Orange,” “Barry Lyndon,” “The Shining,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Eyes Wide Shut.” Harlan is one of three jury members on the docket of this year’s Bermuda International Film Festival, which began on March 21. Last week, BIFF hosted a panel discussion featuring Harlan as the main subject where he discussed the art of filmmaking for festival attendees, filmmakers and students. TOP ARTICLES3/5THE ‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD’ SCRIPT’S ENDING WAS KEPT IN A SAFE IN THE ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT Before the panel, Harlan sat down with Indiewire to discuss his work with Kubrick, including the in-depth exhibit that he’s helped put together, and to offer some advice to young filmmakers. Check out the accompanying video of the panel after the text Q&A for more insights from Harlan. Tell me about how you first started working with Stanley Kubrick. I have known Kubrick since I was at school. He was married to my sister when I was very young. So I came to know him very well. It was after “Dr. Strangelove” that he came back from England to New York. It was much later in ’69 when he invited me to join him to go to Romania on “Napoleon,” that was his big project and his great project. So my wife and I and our baby we came to England, and thought OK we’ll stay there for 6 months and then go to Romania. But then MGM pulled out of the project. But we got along very well. I liked him and he liked me and he asked me to stay. One of the first things we did together was get the rights to “Eyes Wide Shut.” It’s called “Traumnovelle” and he was very much in love with that story, but it proved to be just too difficult, so he dropped it. He had already a contract with Warner Brothers ready to go and he pulled out. He chewed over it for thirty years. When he finally made it he really considered it his greatest contribution to the art of filmmaking. Many people wouldn’t agree with him but that doesn’t really matter. Then came “A Clockwork Orange.” That was my first job as an assistant. I learned the basics of the business, but my responsibility was never what you see on the screen. So were you a film fan before you started working with him? Every Man Should Read These 25 Books Before He Dies Ad By SPY Always. I was absolutely. I knew many, many movies. Anyway from “Barry Lyndon” onward I did what I always do, negotiating and trying to get things. But since every film is different it’s a very exciting life. Because you can’t compare “Barry Lyndon” with “The Shining” or “Full Metal Jacket” or “Eyes Wide Shut” there all totally different requirements. “Eyes Wide Shut” was a great last experience to work with this man who was so enormously critical of himself. It took forever to do. I know that he didn’t want to be just another “mediocre” filmmaker. He wanted them to last. He had to be happy with it. Lasting or not lasting was not on his mind. Also will the critics or the audience like it? There’s nothing you can do about that. He had to like it. Once he liked it that’s all he could do. And you just have to hope that many people go with you and generally speaking enough people did. So his films were a success. Do you have a particular favorite? I think it’s “Eyes Wide Shut’ but I’m not objective because it may very well be because it was the last time I worked with him, it was the last experience that’s imprinted on my mind. And we talked also about “Traumnovelle” for over thirty years, you know on and off. There was one point when he though of doing it as a black and white, very cheap art house movie with Woody Allen in the lead. With Woody Allen playing a straight, Jewish, American doctor in New York. What he liked is universal; it’s a universal truth about the total destruction of jealousy and sexual fantasy where everybody in the audience is an expert. So it’s a tricky one. But anyway he wanted it in New York and he wasn’t happy with the script and so he abandoned it and then “The Shining” was a walk in the park in comparison, because it’s easy, you can do whatever you like. Nothing has to make sense, it doesn’t matter you can do what you like. Did you see “Room 237”? Ah, so idiotic. Of course I did. There’s nothing to like. It’s just dumb. I mean [the filmmaker] obviously waited until Kubrick died. This happened to him in many cases, also this whole story about him doing a fake moon landing. This was only possible after he was dead. People come like worms; they creep out and take advantage of a guy who can’t sue from the grave. At any rate, I don’t worry about things like that. Tell me about the Kubrick exhibityou’ve put together. The exhibit is fantastic. The whole exhibition was created because of the film institute in Frankfurt. We were very resistant because why Germany? Kubrick really had nothing to do with Germany; it should have really been New York or London where such an exhibition should open because these were his two cities. But nobody came from New York and nobody came from London to this very day. So Frankfurt pushed very hard, and finally the federal government came and guaranteed certain funding because they thought that Kubrick – it was irrelevant that he was American or lived in England, he was a world artist like Picasso or Beethoven, it didn’t matter. He was a really important artist of his generation. I’m sure it will come back to America. But it should really come to New York. But nobody wants it. Every Man Should Read These 25 Books Before He Dies Ad By SPY Is there a lot of the “Napoleon” work in it? “Napoleon” is very much presented in that exhibition. And of course there’s this book on “Napoleon” in the exhibit there’s this Taschen book, I think it’s the only book made about a film that has never been made! How come it never came together? That’s a question for film studio executives to decide because they have to evaluate, quite rightly, the cost of doing it versus the potential audience, and I cannot judge this. Right now we are talking about maybe a television series; that would be the solution, no doubt. Especially now since TV is so good. Absolutely. Television is now the answer, there’s no doubt about it. Finally it may come into it’s own. You have a very famous uncle. (Harlan’s uncle was the infamous Veit Harlan, who directed the Nazi propaganda film “Jew Suss.”) Yeah he was, I don’t know much about him, but he was very famous in Germany. He did some schlock films, some terrible movies. I can’t tell you much about it I would have to Google it like you. But my parents were opera singers, both of them. I grew up with music, with classical music, that’s my home territory. I like great composers; it was one of the first things that brought me together with Kubrick because I brought to him “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” I came for Christmas to England, and he said to me [of “2001” A Space Odyssey,”] “The music I don’t really like yet. Do you have anything that is really great, and comes to an end, and is not too long?” So I brought a whole stack of LP’s and one of them was “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and he loved it instantly. He was already taken by the title. It suggests something which is spiritual. He liked that because his film actually was quite a spiritual film. “2001” takes a big bow to the unknown or the creator of the universe. Kubrick was not a religious guy at all, but he was very respectful to life and to the fact that we know nothing. And we are surrounded by miracles. He was an agnostic. That was always a sideline of what I did later, I suggested music. I didn’t choose it, I suggested it. He knows what he likes; he was very musical himself. He was very interested from jazz to contemporary to Ligeti, which he used three times. Ligeti in “The Shining” and Penderecki. “Dies Irae” by Berlioz is an interesting example because the beginning of the film looks like it’s National Geographic but it’s the music that tells you there’s something wrong here. You do a lot of teaching now; what is your biggest piece of advice that you give to students? You’ve got to love it. You’ve got to love what you’re doing because why should anybody else love it if you don’t yourself? This goes for all of the elements. You’ve got to love your script; you have to really have passion for wanting to tell a story. It’s a difficult task because you know many students just have to make a short film as part of their studies and it’s a big demand.. But on the other hand most of these films are also not interesting. So it’s tough. I’m not saying it’s easy. You have to love it and this is something I really love from Kubrick, he would not use music he didn’t love. Now comes the question of what fits. Let’s talk about music, what fits? Music fits if the director loves it. Does a Viennese waltz fit as space music for a futuristic film? Of course it doesn’t. If you love it enough and that’s what you want to do then it fits. This is artistic freedom, yeah? Art is not about being realistic. Art is about being real. Big difference. The video of the panel, which addresses even more topics, is posted below, courtesy of BIFF and filmmaker Robert Zuill.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7wN9VytFi_U