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Hold your ears, folks.
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It's showtime. People pay good money to see this movie.
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When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,
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hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth.
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Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
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Turn it off. Turn it off!
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Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White.
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My guest this episode is the film critic and historian
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David Thompson, whose new book, A Sudden Flicker of Light,
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A Revisionist History of Movies, retraces the medium from its
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photographic origins through the electronic age, with stops at Orson Welles,
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The Godfather, and Oppenheimer along the way. A sudden flicker
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of light is available now. I had a great time
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talking with David, and I hope you have a great
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time listening.
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Enjoy. Well, how did you get interested in film in
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the first place?
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I was taken by my parents to see Henry V,
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the Olivier version. This would have been in 1945. And
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they took me to see it, I think, because it
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was sort of a patriotic duty. Having just won the
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war or emerged, the idea of the English victory at
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Agincourt was very romantic. And so I was taken to
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the film. And it was packed, as films were in
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those days. Big theater, 2,000 seats every seat. filled kind
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of thing, you know. And, of course, I didn't understand it.
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I couldn't understand the language.
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But there's a point in the film where the English
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court is over and knights in armor are in the
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green fields of Ireland, in fact, where they filmed it,
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very unlike the France where Agincourt occurred. And I just thought,
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this is the most amazing, beautiful thing I've ever seen.
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Until there was a scene where the French attack the
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English camp and they set fire to the camp and
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page boys burn alive. And I believed I had seen
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the faces of children not that much older than I
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was on fire.
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And I screamed. I mean, literally.
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And my father had to carry me out of the
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cinema because I was causing such a disturbance. And I
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realized that I learned years later that what I had
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seen was a dissolve. It was two images, the page
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boys asleep and flames. And at age four or whatever, four,
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the poetry of it carried me away.
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I had seen people on fire. And I was terrified.
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But wildly excited, and I sort of still am. I mean,
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the magic and the poetry of moving imagery still gives
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me as big a thrill as I just get walking
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in the countryside or listening to music, those things, you know,
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the great things. And my family quickly learned that if
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they were looking after me or responsible for me, take
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me to a movie. It didn't really matter what the
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movie was. I just loved being in the dark, looking
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at the light.
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Still do.
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Okay. Well, it's one thing to enjoy movies, but it's
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another thing to dedicate your whole life to films. And
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I'm curious, how did you kind of move into more
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of like the critical writing realm of things?
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Well, as I said, I went to movies a lot.
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I lived in South London, and in the school holidays,
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I was on my own.
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My mother worked. My father was away.
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I would walk, easy short walk, to one of three
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local cinemas, and I would go to see films. And
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if the film had what was called an A certificate,
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which meant that If you were under 14, you had
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to have an adult, a parent with you.
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I would ask strangers if they would take me in.
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You know, today, the idea that you were allowing your
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kid to wait outside the cinema asking strangers to take
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him in, it would be shocking. You'd be sent for
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social services and criminal charges even.
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I did it often.
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Nothing ever happened to me, apart from the films. So
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I saw everything. Time went by. As I got into
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my sort of early teens, I was more or less
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on course to go to university. I was supposed to
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be doing all my homework and so on. And in fact,
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I was sneaking off to movies. And my mother, in great,
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great wisdom, I think, said, well, I don't really approve
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of you going to all these movies. If you're going
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to go see them, all I ask is that you
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write something about them. So I would begin to write
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on yellow legal pads. I didn't think of it as
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a film review, but forgive me. I was writing a review,
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and I probably wrote a couple of hundred like that
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in my teen years. I found the challenge of saying
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what I had felt about a film very interesting. At
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that point, I began to think to myself, well, do
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I really want to go to Oxford and study history,
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which was the course I was on, or do I
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want to do something more directly related to this extraordinary
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passion in my life? I saw an advertisement for a
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place called the London School of Film Technique, which was
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in fact, I didn't know it, but in fact it
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was the only place in England at the level of
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higher education where film was studied. This was 1960. So
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I gave up my place at Oxford and I went
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to film school. And a life of ruin ensued.
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Growing up in the 50s, 60s, and then eventually into
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the 70s, where you're probably already working at that time,
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I mean, this is a great era of film. And
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I'm so curious, what types of movies or what things
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really kind of blew your mind when you were seeing
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them for the first time?
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Well, as a very young kid, I loved adventure. That
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was often westerns. Red River. was a very.
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Important film in my childhood. And it made me just
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want to be there with that gang of cowboys driving cattle.
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Not a thing at which I think I would have
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been
very good, but imaginatively, I wanted to be there
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doing it. And I suppose as I grew older, I
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began to feel attracted to love stories in a way which,
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as a young child, I... I had flinched from love stories.
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Those terrible kissing scenes, you know, I don't want to
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look kind of thing. I began to feel, well, kissing
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looks as if it might be pretty good. And, you know,
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in the natural.
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Way of growing up.
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And it was in my mid-teens, about 15 or so,
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that I saw Citizen Kane for the first time. And
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I had read a little bit. to indicate that this
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was a very important film. And I went to see it,
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and I simply could not understand it, but I felt
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more emotionally moved and sort of mentally engaged than I.
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Ever had in a film.
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And I would never have been able to articulate it
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in this way, but I suppose what happened was that
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I saw this medium had a depth that really was
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not sufficiently covered by the word entertainment. I loved the
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entertainment value in films, but it was clear to me
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that they could be as profound as things that also
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moved me greatly. I mean, I was a huge Miles
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Davis fan around the same time, and I was reading...
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People like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, not always understanding, but
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really engaged. And I saw that film could be like that, too.
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And so, I mean, initially, I wanted to make films,
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you know. I think any kid who's carried away by
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the medium wants to do that. And I sort of,
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I did for a while. And I still am interested
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in writing for films. But writing about film became my career.
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And teaching. All connected. So here we are. At the
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age of 85. I'm still excited.
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I'm wise enough to think I probably took a disastrous
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career direction.
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But there we are. You know.
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Maybe you have a similar story to tell. Maybe you've
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gone the same way.
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I don't know.
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Look.
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I love the kind of metafiction that you do. You're
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kind of mixing both the movies and writing fiction stuff,
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but especially the Warren Beatty book. I just really liked that,
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and I liked your approach to that so much.
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Well, you know, I did... I don't know how to
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express this adequately. I did begin to feel that my urge...
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to make movies and my interest in writing, because I
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love writing, meshed and led me into writing and thinking
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of stories about what happened to the characters in films
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when the film was over. I was really fascinated in that.
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And when I saw Rebel Without a Cause, which was
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a very important film in my youth, I lived and
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daydreamed for a year at least, wondering what happened to
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Dean and Natalie Wood, the couple who are teenagers but
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are sort of almost a married couple by the end
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of the film. And I was really fascinated in that.
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And I still, when I see a film that really
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gets me, I sort of take the characters.
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Home and live with them.
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And I think that led me into a way of
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writing about film stories as if they were constant dreams
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that one could get into and get out of, as
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you wished. And, you know, I still am intrigued by that.
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I have a notion. I'm not going to go into
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it in detail, but I have a notion about a book.
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I'll never write it, I think, but I think about
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writing it, which is about Warren Bailey as an old man,
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which is what he is. And I think a man
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who doesn't really like to leave home, that would interest
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me as a character study. So I'm still thinking that way, yeah.
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I think the first book of yours that I read
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was the Rosebud, the Orson Welles book that you wrote.
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What was the state of Orson Welles' scholarship at that time?
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Because now, you know, you can't throw a
stone without
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reading a Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone, Orson Welles book.
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Well, I mean, you know, going back in my teens,
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in the 50s, as I say, I had found a
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couple of books and there were very few books on
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film in those days. I had found a couple of
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books that said Citizen Kane is an important film. The
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problem was you couldn't see it because we're talking about
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a film culture, which I think applied in America just
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as much as it did in England, where cinema showed
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new films and nothing else. That was the way the
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business worked. So that after a film had opened, it's run,
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it went away. And it was impossible to see old
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films because all the things that we now take for granted,
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like television running movies, like DVDs, like streaming, they weren't there.
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And you might have to wait years to see a
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film you'd heard about. And I thought in 1955 that
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The world was waiting to see Citizen Kane again. And
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when I went to this little repertory cinema near my
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house in London, I assumed there would be a great
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line of people waiting to see it. I was the
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only person there. Wow. So, I mean, there was no scholarship.
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There was really no study in Wells. And if you
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had said Orson Welles to the ordinary person, They probably
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would have said the third man. That was the thing
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for which Wells was most known. I'm sure that was,
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in fact, the first time I encountered him. And it
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wasn't until the 60s that people started taking Wells seriously. And,
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you know, people like Peter Bogdanovich wrote about him and
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It became generally accepted that Citizen Kane really was a
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great film and you could see it again. And then
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in the early 1970s, Pauline Kael, who was the critic
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for The New Yorker and.
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A very, very good writer, she wrote.
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What really was an attack on Citizen Kane. I think
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she knew it was an extraordinary film, but I think
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she thought it had been overrated. I think also she
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had a certain ambition to write something that would draw
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attention to her, which it did. And it sort of
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polarized feelings about Wells because those people who loved him
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rallied to his support and a few people understood what
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Cale was saying, that it was an overrated film, a
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shallow film. She called it, in fact, a shallow masterpiece.
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And from that point on, And Wells, of course, was
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still alive. And one of the things he did all
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his life was give extraordinary interviews. So he would give
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very long interviews for television stations, things like that, where
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he talked beautifully because he was a very articulate, eloquent man,
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one of the great voices of our age. And from
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then on, he became a central figure And I would
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say that at the level of teaching, the.
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Director who was most taught.
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In England and America and outside would have been Hitchcock.
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I think he's the favorite director to teach. But I
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think probably Wells was second. And a rush of books began.
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And then Simon Cowell began his series. which is still unfinished,
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many volumes of biography. And as you say, the Wells
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shelf in the library and in my own office, you
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can't see it, but it's just over my shoulder. It's
244
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one of the biggest shelves, and I only have a
245
00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:58.150
fraction of the books that have been done on Wells.
246
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But, you know, a great filmmaker, a great raconteur, a
247
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great personality.
248
00:18:06.849 --> 00:18:09.410
You know, we haven't even mentioned the War of the
249
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Worlds on radio, which was such a big event in 1938,
250
00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:21.180
when he was so young. So, so brilliant, and yet
251
00:18:22.140 --> 00:18:26.619
an unfulfilled career too, so that he became emblematic of
252
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the way ambitions can be crushed in the film business. So,
253
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you know, That's a long-winded answer to your question, but yeah,
254
00:18:39.029 --> 00:18:40.190
things change with Wells.
255
00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:43.769
Well, let's talk
about the newest one, A Sudden Flicker
256
00:18:43.789 --> 00:18:47.230
of Light, A Revisionist History of Movies, and the subtitle,
257
00:18:47.769 --> 00:18:50.789
The Revisionist History of Movies. I really want to dig
258
00:18:50.829 --> 00:18:52.630
into that with you. What does that mean for you?
259
00:18:53.490 --> 00:18:59.430
Well, I have seen, as anyone my age will have seen,
260
00:18:59.450 --> 00:19:05.589
a huge... expansion in the film library. So, you know,
261
00:19:06.390 --> 00:19:13.430
there are books now on individual directors, actors, writers. It's
262
00:19:13.470 --> 00:19:15.490
a huge library.
263
00:19:16.369 --> 00:19:18.990
And there were a few subjects that haven't been covered
264
00:19:19.049 --> 00:19:23.329
or touched yet, but only a few. But with all
265
00:19:23.349 --> 00:19:28.380
the concentration on specific individual subjects, there's been a way
266
00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:34.400
in which I think the larger picture has been overlooked.
267
00:19:35.859 --> 00:19:40.769
In recent years, I've become increasingly conscious about where the
268
00:19:40.829 --> 00:19:44.910
medium is going, and that involves some sense of where
269
00:19:44.950 --> 00:19:49.369
it has come from. So I thought that there was
270
00:19:49.410 --> 00:19:54.839
a point and a usefulness maybe in writing a one volume,
271
00:19:55.079 --> 00:20:01.900
fairly concise, selective history of the whole medium. And I
272
00:20:01.980 --> 00:20:04.960
realized that one of the things that would be a
273
00:20:05.819 --> 00:20:12.839
challenge in that project was looking past the individual careers
274
00:20:13.859 --> 00:20:17.839
and saying, really, what has this medium done for our
275
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:23.519
culture as a whole and for understanding? And even as
276
00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:26.720
I worked on the book over the last, let's say,
277
00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:28.059
the last three years that.
278
00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:29.579
I've been on the book one way or another.
279
00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:35.609
It's become increasingly clear that the medium is in a
280
00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:41.470
drastic process of alteration. The thing that we once called
281
00:20:41.549 --> 00:20:44.950
special effects, which we thought was cute and clever and
282
00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:51.819
funny and cunning and diverting, has become a process whereby
283
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the medium that was once photographic is electronic. So that
284
00:20:58.599 --> 00:21:03.440
the relationship between us and the reality we're looking at
285
00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:09.839
is shifting. And I think by now... Literally, this has happened,
286
00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:13.400
I would say, in the last year. It's gathered momentum
287
00:21:13.460 --> 00:21:17.299
in an amazing way. And the ways in which the
288
00:21:17.339 --> 00:21:22.460
thing that we call AI, which is like sci-fi magnified
289
00:21:22.539 --> 00:21:29.750
to an extraordinary extent, is compromising, taking over, corrupting, diverting
290
00:21:29.769 --> 00:21:34.049
the thing that we've all been so delighted to watch
291
00:21:34.170 --> 00:21:39.900
and so entertained by. And what's revisionist in the book
292
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.960
I've done is really a way of saying, look at
293
00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:47.559
the whole thing, because God knows where it is going
294
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and what is going to happen to us in the
295
00:21:50.500 --> 00:21:52.480
way it goes and what's going to happen to the
296
00:21:52.529 --> 00:21:59.630
individuals who try to make films. You know, I lived through,
297
00:22:00.609 --> 00:22:02.430
treasure the fact that I lived through it, and I'm
298
00:22:02.490 --> 00:22:04.990
sure you did too, You're younger than I am, but,
299
00:22:05.029 --> 00:22:07.430
you know, you're close enough in age, you've known it.
300
00:22:07.960 --> 00:22:14.640
We knew the time when entertainment movies worked for millions
301
00:22:14.700 --> 00:22:19.650
of people and were also pretty good and pretty serious. Now,
302
00:22:19.690 --> 00:22:24.230
you think of films... The 70s was a great moment,
303
00:22:25.509 --> 00:22:33.079
the early 70s. And, you know, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Cuckoo's Nest...
304
00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:34.500
and many.
305
00:22:34.339 --> 00:22:35.210
Other films like that.
306
00:22:36.059 --> 00:22:40.980
Dark, serious films about the world we lived in, but
307
00:22:41.619 --> 00:22:44.460
films you wanted to see over and over again because
308
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they were so good. That, I think, that age has
309
00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:55.640
passed already. I think that there is an increasing divergence
310
00:22:55.740 --> 00:23:00.559
between huge box office films and films that are really interesting.
311
00:23:01.619 --> 00:23:04.519
And It came along too late for me to include
312
00:23:04.539 --> 00:23:07.380
it in the book, but if I could do a coda,
313
00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:13.460
it would certainly include The Odyssey, which is one of
314
00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:19.049
the all-time successful entertainments, and I think it's crap. I
315
00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:25.230
really think it's a hollow sham of a film, and
316
00:23:25.390 --> 00:23:30.039
I feel increasingly that future is coming in which....
317
00:23:31.410 --> 00:23:33.809
Probably the only films really worth.
318
00:23:35.089 --> 00:23:38.250
Seeing and talking about and arguing about are going to
319
00:23:38.289 --> 00:23:44.009
be very small, personal, difficult films that will be harder
320
00:23:44.049 --> 00:23:47.319
and harder to see because they're not going to fit
321
00:23:48.259 --> 00:23:54.180
with the commercial streaming process that says, this is a hit. And,
322
00:23:54.200 --> 00:23:58.180
you know, The Odyssey is enormously influential in the sense
323
00:23:58.259 --> 00:24:02.000
that It convinces the people behind the big business that
324
00:24:02.380 --> 00:24:08.319
the big pictures can still work. I don't think they
325
00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:12.339
are working. And I think a lot of people kidded
326
00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:16.220
themselves about the Odyssey. I think in a couple of years,
327
00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:20.920
the Odyssey may look as dumb as the sound of music.
328
00:24:21.640 --> 00:24:22.480
That's my opinion.
329
00:24:23.710 --> 00:24:27.039
I found it such a fascinating phenomenon, just boots on
330
00:24:27.079 --> 00:24:30.400
the ground and seeing so many of my coworkers and
331
00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:35.640
friends driving across the state and spending the night and
332
00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:39.730
making day trips to go see this in 70 millimeter.
333
00:24:39.750 --> 00:24:40.910
It was wild.
334
00:24:40.930 --> 00:24:44.630
Amazing phenomenon. Yeah, yeah.
335
00:24:44.809 --> 00:24:49.630
It was almost as if a great preacher had suddenly appeared.
336
00:24:50.500 --> 00:24:53.460
On the horizon, and everyone rushed to him. And, you know,
337
00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:56.240
there is something cult-like about it, I think.
338
00:24:57.420 --> 00:25:01.049
No, I would say a lot of Nolan's films fit
339
00:25:01.069 --> 00:25:01.509
into that.
340
00:25:02.190 --> 00:25:02.809
You would say what?
341
00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:05.609
A lot of Nolan's films seem to fit into that.
342
00:25:05.650 --> 00:25:09.109
He seems to be this, you know, even with Tenet
343
00:25:09.210 --> 00:25:12.079
and bringing people back to the theater after the pandemic,
344
00:25:12.150 --> 00:25:12.740
it was such a.
345
00:25:13.539 --> 00:25:17.299
Yeah, absolutely. Fascinating thing. Yeah, yeah.
346
00:25:17.849 --> 00:25:20.609
Anyway, that's what I've tried to do in this book.
347
00:25:22.150 --> 00:25:25.819
And also, a part of the book, an important part
348
00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:30.559
of the book, is the feeling that Donald Trump is
349
00:25:30.619 --> 00:25:35.700
a movie. He's an ongoing movie. Some days you think
350
00:25:36.259 --> 00:25:39.549
it's a farce, and some days you think it's a
351
00:25:39.609 --> 00:25:43.289
horror film. And it's actually both at the same time,
352
00:25:43.869 --> 00:25:45.549
and God knows where it's going.
353
00:25:46.509 --> 00:25:50.630
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I was curious as far as how
354
00:25:50.670 --> 00:25:53.259
you even decided how to shape this book, because it
355
00:25:53.630 --> 00:25:56.140
could go off in so many different directions. I'm sure
356
00:25:56.180 --> 00:25:57.880
you had to be very careful as far as just
357
00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:01.079
what you wanted to keep bound within those pages.
358
00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:05.049
Yeah, I mean, shaping it was a big thing, and
359
00:26:05.369 --> 00:26:09.509
I was very much helped by my editor at Simon
360
00:26:09.559 --> 00:26:14.309
& Schuster, Jonathan Zhao. Did a great job on the book.
361
00:26:15.190 --> 00:26:18.980
I wrote some stuff that I cut. I
didn't write
362
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:21.380
some things that I really think maybe I should have done.
363
00:26:22.259 --> 00:26:25.329
I wanted it to be a book of sort of
364
00:26:25.329 --> 00:26:31.009
350 pages, a certain workable length. And that meant I
365
00:26:31.049 --> 00:26:39.299
had to choose films to concentrate on. There's a lot
366
00:26:39.339 --> 00:26:43.059
left out of the book, but I hope the book
367
00:26:43.180 --> 00:26:46.450
talks about the whole thing in a way that The
368
00:26:46.490 --> 00:26:48.970
things not mentioned fit into it, too.
369
00:26:49.789 --> 00:26:52.130
That's my hope, you know. I mean, I can do
370
00:26:52.190 --> 00:26:55.059
another book, you know. I'm only 85. Come on, you know.
371
00:26:55.859 --> 00:26:56.470
Keep at it.
372
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:00.259
Yeah, if you keep practicing long enough, maybe one of
373
00:27:00.299 --> 00:27:00.839
these will hit.
374
00:27:01.279 --> 00:27:03.279
I might get it right eventually.
375
00:27:05.829 --> 00:27:07.930
You said that it took about three years to write this,
376
00:27:07.970 --> 00:27:10.809
and I can believe it because it's so in-depth. And
377
00:27:10.950 --> 00:27:14.609
I just love that every page was a little bit
378
00:27:14.630 --> 00:27:16.190
of a surprise for me when I would turn it.
379
00:27:16.990 --> 00:27:22.809
I'm so glad to hear that because I felt, keep
380
00:27:22.869 --> 00:27:27.150
the reader a little bit on guard but off kilter.
381
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:32.299
Don't let them settle into this book. So that I
382
00:27:32.359 --> 00:27:35.240
did have a plan that I would be saying one
383
00:27:35.299 --> 00:27:38.559
thing and then I would dart away into something else
384
00:27:38.599 --> 00:27:41.220
that I can see fitting with it but might not
385
00:27:41.849 --> 00:27:46.630
immediately persuade other people that it does. So yeah, there's
386
00:27:46.670 --> 00:27:49.490
a kind of, it's a bit like a movie in
387
00:27:49.509 --> 00:27:53.960
that it keeps cutting something else that fits once you
388
00:27:54.059 --> 00:27:55.599
see the two next to each other.
389
00:27:56.380 --> 00:27:57.440
I think, I hope.
390
00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:02.000
What's a very kind of editor's mindset that you're approaching?
391
00:28:02.819 --> 00:28:03.839
Yes, yes.
392
00:28:04.700 --> 00:28:09.750
Well, you know, I grew up thinking that photography was
393
00:28:09.789 --> 00:28:15.180
the essence of film. And I loved films that let
394
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:18.990
a shot play out in time, have the camera move.
395
00:28:19.630 --> 00:28:23.450
I love the sort of fluidity of the medium and
396
00:28:23.470 --> 00:28:26.809
the feeling that you were watching a real thing. I
397
00:28:29.529 --> 00:28:34.390
would say now that I think the most decisive effect
398
00:28:34.450 --> 00:28:35.289
of film.
399
00:28:35.109 --> 00:28:35.890
Is the editing.
400
00:28:36.450 --> 00:28:41.720
It's the ability to put two different things together in
401
00:28:41.740 --> 00:28:45.559
a way that gives you a thing that you did
402
00:28:45.579 --> 00:28:46.200
not foresee.
403
00:28:46.920 --> 00:28:50.109
It's like the dissolve in Henry V.
404
00:28:50.279 --> 00:28:56.259
It's like one shot, sleeping boys, and the flames, and
405
00:28:56.299 --> 00:28:59.660
they mesh, and you suddenly get a kind of intellectual,
406
00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:03.990
emotional explosion in your head as you're watching.
407
00:29:04.730 --> 00:29:08.630
I'm so curious as far as, was there one particular
408
00:29:08.650 --> 00:29:14.170
moment or time that really spoke to you to have
409
00:29:14.210 --> 00:29:15.779
you begin writing on this?
410
00:29:16.500 --> 00:29:19.000
You mean in terms of actually doing the book? Yeah.
411
00:29:21.400 --> 00:29:25.440
I thought it was clear to me in advance that
412
00:29:25.559 --> 00:29:28.380
The Godfather was going to be a very important film
413
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:35.170
because The Godfather is without doubt a masterpiece of a
414
00:29:35.230 --> 00:29:41.880
certain kind of narrative filmmaking. Everything about it is superbly
415
00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:47.200
chosen and composed. At the same time, it had seemed
416
00:29:47.259 --> 00:29:53.500
to me that The Godfather encouraged a kind of male
417
00:29:53.640 --> 00:30:00.519
gang mentality that I dislike intensely. And you know, to
418
00:30:01.660 --> 00:30:06.519
tie things together, seems to me that Donald Trump is
419
00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:09.640
a man who has seen The Godfather far too many
420
00:30:09.720 --> 00:30:14.779
times so that he has absorbed it into his being
421
00:30:14.839 --> 00:30:17.529
and his language and the way he is on camera.
422
00:30:18.349 --> 00:30:22.990
And that is very frightening, I think, because The Godfather
423
00:30:23.109 --> 00:30:27.990
is about dreadful people doing dreadful things, and the process
424
00:30:28.049 --> 00:30:32.710
of movie has made them glamorous, and they should not
425
00:30:32.789 --> 00:30:36.430
be glamorous. So I saw that as being a very
426
00:30:36.490 --> 00:30:40.880
important film in certainly the latter part of this book.
427
00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:45.680
The Godfather is now 50 years old. It's amazing, but
428
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:48.559
it feels like a film that could have been made yesterday.
429
00:30:48.579 --> 00:30:52.900
A very troubling, disconcerting film.
430
00:30:54.279 --> 00:30:56.710
No, I can definitely see that. And yeah, no, I
431
00:30:57.109 --> 00:31:01.880
very much appreciated that you were not afraid to talk
432
00:31:01.900 --> 00:31:04.640
about trump and and go into that whole arena as
433
00:31:04.700 --> 00:31:07.569
well because who knows what the heck's going to happen
434
00:31:07.589 --> 00:31:09.369
with this it's one of these you know you're talking
435
00:31:09.390 --> 00:31:11.549
about this is a movie and i agree it feels
436
00:31:11.589 --> 00:31:14.450
very
much like a movie a tragedy a comedy all
437
00:31:14.490 --> 00:31:17.569
these things in between a horror film but i can't
438
00:31:17.630 --> 00:31:20.710
see the end i can't normally if i walk into
439
00:31:20.730 --> 00:31:22.650
a film or if i see a trailer i can
440
00:31:23.069 --> 00:31:24.589
pretty much tell you what's going to happen in this
441
00:31:24.650 --> 00:31:26.450
film this one i can't see.
442
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:29.359
The I agree with you totally, but isn't it one
443
00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:33.700
of the great things about certain movies that after an
444
00:31:33.740 --> 00:31:37.400
hour and 15 minutes or whatever, you say, my God,
445
00:31:37.500 --> 00:31:41.059
how is this going to end?
446
00:31:41.940 --> 00:31:46.289
How indeed? Will its ending be the ending to virtually everything?
447
00:31:46.769 --> 00:31:47.950
Who knows? Who knows?
448
00:31:49.470 --> 00:31:51.410
What were some of the biggest challenges of writing this,
449
00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:54.950
or can you just pump these out now that you've
450
00:31:54.990 --> 00:31:56.769
done dozens of books?
451
00:31:58.750 --> 00:32:03.369
I love writing, and I do not have any trouble writing.
452
00:32:04.089 --> 00:32:07.970
I'm very lucky that I haven't had writer's block for decades.
453
00:32:08.130 --> 00:32:12.519
I did have it in my 20s, 30s, quite a bit.
454
00:32:13.380 --> 00:32:19.420
I can write, but some days what I write may
455
00:32:19.460 --> 00:32:22.740
be good, and then the next day, it's awful.
456
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:26.640
And I would say the biggest test and challenge.
457
00:32:26.329 --> 00:32:30.769
I feel is knowing which is which and organizing a
458
00:32:31.029 --> 00:32:35.470
book so that you look back at what you wrote
459
00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:39.029
last week, you felt, my God, this is good. And
460
00:32:39.069 --> 00:32:42.130
then this week, you say, no, it's not actually good.
461
00:32:42.809 --> 00:32:46.859
I was going down a wrong side turning then. And
462
00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:51.140
I've got to be brave enough to junk that or
463
00:32:51.180 --> 00:32:52.359
junk most of it.
464
00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:55.710
There's a couple of paragraphs in there that are.
465
00:32:55.690 --> 00:33:01.130
Quite good and that was something I should retrieve and develop.
466
00:33:01.930 --> 00:33:05.069
And I think the biggest test I have in writing
467
00:33:05.250 --> 00:33:12.589
is that sort of organizational thing. It's knowing what will
468
00:33:12.670 --> 00:33:17.089
work and in what order it will work and making
469
00:33:17.170 --> 00:33:18.730
those decisions.
470
00:33:20.430 --> 00:33:22.279
How many books do you work on at a time?
471
00:33:24.970 --> 00:33:31.950
I would say that I frequently will have two or
472
00:33:31.990 --> 00:33:32.910
three books.
473
00:33:32.690 --> 00:33:36.329
In my head. Only one of them at a time
474
00:33:36.410 --> 00:33:43.150
am I really writing. Another one I might be planning,
475
00:33:44.049 --> 00:33:47.970
and another one still I might be regretting that I
476
00:33:48.549 --> 00:33:52.329
made mistakes, which I could go back to. So that,
477
00:33:52.710 --> 00:33:56.410
you know, I would say three books at a time
478
00:33:56.450 --> 00:33:58.490
are in my head. Wow.
479
00:33:59.289 --> 00:34:01.990
Which, actually, I don't think is unusual. I think a
480
00:34:02.029 --> 00:34:04.900
lot of writers would say that.
481
00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:08.320
I mean, often writers say, well, I really have to
482
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:11.480
concentrate entirely on one thing.
483
00:34:11.820 --> 00:34:13.230
And maybe I.
484
00:34:15.630 --> 00:34:18.989
I always have other things in my head. You know,
485
00:34:19.030 --> 00:34:21.619
just as I have an ongoing life, I have a wife,
486
00:34:21.719 --> 00:34:28.199
I have children, I'm following, I'm getting ready for the 49ers,
487
00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:32.179
having a season. You know, I follow Chelsea Football Club
488
00:34:32.219 --> 00:34:35.510
in England. There's a whole lot of things that occupy
489
00:34:35.550 --> 00:34:43.909
me in a very serious way. And I think concentration
490
00:34:44.010 --> 00:34:47.449
is a precious thing. thing, but it's a luxury I
491
00:34:47.510 --> 00:34:51.449
don't feel suited to. I like to have a lot
492
00:34:51.489 --> 00:34:51.989
going on.
493
00:34:54.849 --> 00:34:57.130
Well, what's next for you? What's the next one that
494
00:34:57.289 --> 00:34:59.210
you're just about ready for?
495
00:34:59.230 --> 00:35:05.829
Well, I'm doing a book now about Mickey Mouse. Oh, wow.
496
00:35:06.670 --> 00:35:11.110
I've never written about animation before, at all. I was
497
00:35:11.210 --> 00:35:14.190
tempted into this by a publisher, and.
498
00:35:15.940 --> 00:35:16.500
We will see.
499
00:35:16.539 --> 00:35:21.750
But it's about Mickey Mouse and about Disney and about
500
00:35:21.829 --> 00:35:25.119
Disneyfication and animation in general.