Latest / Yaron Brook Show / We The Living Movie, Australian Premiere -- Conversation With Duncan Scott | Yaron Brook Show

Transcript

We The Living Movie, Australian Premiere -- Conversation With Duncan Scott | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to the Yaron Brook Show on this Monday, October 19th.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I am....
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Excited about having Duncan Scott back on the show. I
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: can't remember when the last time he was on was.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's been a few years. But we're back to talking
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: about Duncan's, I think, favorite topic, which is We the Living,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the movie. In my view, the best movie based on
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a nine-rand book that's ever been made. And to a
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: large extent, I think the fact that we have it
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and we have it in such great shape and that
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: it continues to be screened and continues to exist out
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: there in the world is really thanks to Duncan. So
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: thank you, Duncan, for keeping this amazing movie alive all
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: these years. We'll get to the story of all that
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and how the movie was made, who made it, and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: how it was salvaged and what Ayn Rand thought of it.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But first, I want to just to remind everybody, the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: movie is going to be screened in Australia for the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: first time in February and March.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Of this year.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So in February 25th, it'll be in Melbourne. 27th, it'll
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: be in Canberra. March 5th, it'll be in Sydney. And
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: March 6th, it'll be in Brisbane. I think, Duncan, you're
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: going to be at all those screenings and giving short
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: talks about it?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I am, Ron.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: It's really.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Four premieres, in a sense. The first one will be
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: in Melbourne. That'll be the Australia premiere. It'll be the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: first time the restored version of the film has ever
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: been seen on the Australian continent. And then we'll go
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: on to three other cities, Sydney, Canberra, and Brisbane, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: have sort of additional premieres in each of those cities.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And it may expand beyond that. We hope so.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic. And you were saying... Tell me a little
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: bit about what's happened to the movie since you kind
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of finished this latest version of it, this cleaned up
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: version of it. Where's it being screened so far? What's
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the reception been like?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: It's been just screened everywhere. For people who are not
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: familiar with it.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: By the way, Duncan, do you have the show playing
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: in the background by chance?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Something is playing in the background. Yeah, I hear it too.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Let me see what's going on here.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: By the way, Duncan, do you have the show playing.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: In the background? Give me one minute and see what's
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: going live here.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Open window or something.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how's that now?
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's better.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So you're saying where it's being screened and how the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: reception's been.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's a lot of backstory to tell about
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: this movie. The most recent chapter is we've taken this
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: movie that, as it approached its 80th anniversary of when
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: it was made, we decided to do a full, complete
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: digital restoration, scene by scene, frame by frame. Really tried
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to make it look as much as we could as
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: it was when it first was released. in Italy in 1942.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: We had this great presentation at Ocon in Washington. This
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: was one of the very first screenings of the film.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And it's been traveling all around the world since then.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It's been sort of a celebratory 80th anniversary tour. You
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: name it, it's been in London and Buenos Aires and Kiev,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Ukraine and Belgrade, Spain. and on and on. Uh, of course,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: many cities in the U S Chicago and, uh, New
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: York and Washington. Um, and, uh, just a long, long
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: list of cities. And we're really excited that now it's,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: it's going to Australia has not been there. And, uh, it's,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: it's exciting. We're looking forward to it.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: How's the reception being in, in all these places around
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the world?
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, amazing. Um, and some surprises you're on. I, I, uh,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've always known it's a beautiful film. I've
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: been associated with it pretty much my whole adult life.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And so first and foremost, I look at what a beautiful,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: powerful film it is and how moving it is. But
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: what I've learned in this 80th anniversary tour is the
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: amazing relevance that the film has after all these years.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Its message is one that really needs to be heard
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: right now and 2026 and 2027, I mean, there's such
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: a universal theme to the movie. People striving for their
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: own lives, for the right to live their own lives
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: the way they want. And it's just shocking that this
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: is something that's an issue in this day and age,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: but it is. And people are looking at authoritarian-type systems
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: somehow favorably, and this is a film that really shows
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: what happens under a system like that. And on a
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: very personal level, I mean, you see what happens to
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: these three characters and how the best in them really
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: is gradually destroyed in a system like that. I can't
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: think of any other film that really shows exactly that
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: kind of thing happening.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: No, I think that's right. And, you know, I think
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you went to You had a screening in Kiev while
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the war was going on?
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: How was that?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Fascinating. Of course, we had some hesitations about going. It
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: was at a point when the war was not as
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: active as it's been more recently. We did have to
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: run from our hotel room in the middle of the
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: night down to the hotel basement during an air raid attack.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: thankfully nothing happened at that point but we had a
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: wonderful turnout and what was really pleasing was to see
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: how many young people were there and they really appreciated
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: that this movie shows it's an existential threat for them
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: what Russia is doing and I asked the woman who
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: our host over there you know, what the movie meant
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: to people. And she said, this shows them what they're
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: fighting against. I think I asked her, does the movie
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: show them what they're fighting for? She said, actually, it
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: shows them what they're fighting against. And many of them,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: and we've seen this in other countries that are in
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: close proximity to Russia, the movie has had special, it's
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: resonated in a big way because of that existential threat.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: And yet many of the younger people in these countries,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: they weren't alive when they were under Russian rules decades ago.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Their parents know about it. But here's a movie that
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: really brings it home for them. And we've had that
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: feedback over and over. They just are amazed and engrossed
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: in the film because of what it presents and what
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the possibilities are if they don't fight back against that
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: kind of authoritarian threat.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: It's sad that, you know, we continuously are fighting against
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the same threats. So tell us the back story. So
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: let's go back to, what is it, 1941, 1942 in Italy.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Who came up with the idea to make this movie,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and what were the circumstances under which they did it?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Sure. Well, it's an amazing story, and I think your
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: listeners who are not familiar with the story are, are
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: just going to be blown away by how many things
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: happened to this movie and how it managed to survive
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: so many things that happened to it. But initially, We
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: the Living, the novel, Ayn Rand's first novel, and highly autobiographical,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: very personal to her. I would argue by far her
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: most personal work.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And heartfelt. It was published in Italy. An Italian version
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: was published in the late 1930s. And it did very
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: well there. And the daughter of one of the heads
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: of the studio, Scalera Film, the daughter read the book,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: went to her father and said, why don't you make
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: a movie out of this? But the war was on.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: It was an American author. It wasn't even possible, really,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: to attain the literary rights. And so they wondered, how
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: could they make this movie? There were some special laws
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: in Italy at the time that permitted them, for better
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: or worse, permitted them to take properties and make movies
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: out of them, even though they didn't acquire the literary rights.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And that's what happened with We the Living. They decided
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: to go ahead and make the movie. And here's what's crazy.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Ayn Rand didn't know they were making the movie. She
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: never gave permission. She had no involvement with the movie.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: She never even heard of the existence of the movie
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: until after the end of the war and so many
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: other things that happened to the movie during that time.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: She totally did not know about it. So basically the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: property was stolen from her. and put into production with
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: no input from her whatsoever. But there's kind of a
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: bright side to that, a happy side to that happening,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and I'll get into that. So doing this book, there
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: was some controversy about it right from the get-go, because
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: it was anti-authoritarian, and Italy was under fascist rule at
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the time when Fellini was in power. Sure. There was
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: some nervousness that this anti-authoritarian theme, the plight these characters
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: are going through, would reflect somehow on the fascist government.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: And frankly, they were right to worry about that. But
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: somehow they looked more at the fact that the movie
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: was set in Russia. Russia was their wartime enemy. Russia
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: looked really bad in the movie. And they thought, well,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: this would be good propaganda. Russia will look bad. We'll
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: show what horrible, uh, government that is and so forth. And, um,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: that was a big mistake as, as I'll tell you
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: in a little bit. Um, and they did approve the movie. I,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: with a height of irony, uh, the son of Mussolini, um,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: was helpful in greenlighting the movie. Um, uh, I, I,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: that's an irony that I can never get over, but
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: he was involved in getting this movie approved. But, um,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: From the get-go, there was a lot of nervousness about
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: the film. Looking over the shoulders of the producers and
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: the directors and all the filming, they would come and
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: look at the dailies, the footage that had been shot
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: each day, and review it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So these are officials of the fascist government or people
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: from their studios?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: The Ministry of Culture in fascist Italy had, like every
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: industry and every business in Italy, they were in charge,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: even movie making. They had to approve the making of
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: the movie. They had the right to come and look
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: at what was going on. They were nervous about this film.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: So they were looking over the shoulders constantly. I found out,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I did a long interview with the main producer of
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the film. He was quite an old man in his 90s.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I interviewed him decades ago and got firsthand stories of
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: everything that went on. And the Ministry of Culture would
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: send their people to the editing room and look at
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: the footage from the day before. And sometimes the editors
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: knew that there were some scenes that were going to
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: be trouble. So they hid them away.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Didn't show them, which I have to give them a
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: lot of credit for.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: And these scenes were put back in the film. But
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: the cat was out of the bag, so to speak,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: at that point. But they got these films seen. They
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: put them away, put them back in. And it was
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: quite an adventure to get the film in.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And to what extent... I mean, the movie stars, two
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: quite famous Italian actors of the time, and I think
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a well-known director. To what extent were they aware.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Of what the real theme of the movie was, do
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I did talk to Rossano Brazzi at length. He
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: was the male star of the movie. And some American
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: or English-speaking moviegoers may remember him from starring in South Pacific.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: He did some English-language films. He was a huge star
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: in Italy. And he was quite aware of what was
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: going on. Interestingly, after the movie was completed... And it
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: was banned, which I'll talk about in a bit. Rosanna
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Brodzi quit the movie business altogether, went and worked with
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the underground. And he actually was instrumental in saving the
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: lives of a number of American servicemen who were in
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: hiding in Rome. And they had no idea that he
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: was a movie star. He would come around and I
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: think even just bring food or information or be helpful
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: in keeping them in hiding. And Rosanna Brodzi was actually...
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: arrested and imprisoned he was caught doing that and thankfully
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: the war ended before he was executed but that was
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: the risk that he took doing that likewise Alita Valley
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: quit the business We the Living was the last movie
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: she made until the war ended later on and English
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: language moviegoers might remember her from an amazing classic film
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: called The Third Man Orson Welles yeah Yeah, amazing film.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: And then the third star of the film was an
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: actor named Fosco Gicchetti, who's not well-known for English-speaking audiences,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: but he was a big star in Italy. He was
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: considered sort of the John Wayne of Italy at that
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: time period. So they had the three biggest stars, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: this was really the first epic film ever made in Italy.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: A movie of this running time and with this kind
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: of budget had never been done before. The original running time,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: which what we have released is a shorter version, but
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the original running time was four hours. And no film
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: had been done with that running time in Italy before. Wow.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: You know, the cliche cast of thousands and all that.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: It was a huge, huge production. And it was a
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: huge hit when it was released. It was the number
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: one box office film in Italy for 1942. And its success... ironically,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: was also its undoing because so many Italians saw it
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: as a parallel for what they were living through and
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: how terrible their lives were under fascist rule because the
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: characters in the movie, their shortages, and they were being
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: deprived of things and the difficulties and the lack of freedom.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: There were way too many parallels to what was going
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: on in fascist Italy. So at the height of its popularity...
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Mussolini personally ordered the film to be banned, removed from
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: all the theaters, and destroyed. His orders were that the
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: film was going to be destroyed.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Now, I've heard the story that the movie made it
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: to Germany and maybe somebody in Hitler's inner circle saw it. Goebbels. Goebbels.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Is that true?
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: That is true. Yeah. So the movie, at the height
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of its popularity and before it was banned, was sent
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: to a few of the Axis countries, Spain, and a
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: print of the film was sent to Germany for the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: same purpose, that it would be released in Germany. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Goebbels saw it and basically said, what are you doing
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: back there in Italy? You cannot show this film. And
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I think that was kind of the last straw. It
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: was already an embarrassment to Mussolini himself Basically, he was
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: being mocked literally in the streets, Mussolini. I'll give you
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: an example. The movie was released as two films, Noi Vivi,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: which means We the Living, and the second part was
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: called Adio Chira, which means Goodbye Chira. And the Italians
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: were joking about it as Adio Lira, their money, Goodbye Money,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: because that's how it was living under fascist rule. But
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Goebbels and the Germans said, we're not releasing this film.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: They got it. Yeah, they got it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: You've got to pull it from release. And so it
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: all went south at that point.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: So they pulled the movie from the theaters, and then
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: he said they destroyed it. They destroyed all the copies available,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: or they thought they destroyed all the copies?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: No, and here's another really interesting twist in the story.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: They ordered that the film be destroyed, and so the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: producers were supposed to send in all the prints, all
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the negatives, all the other production materials to be destroyed.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And they really wanted to save this film. And at
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: great risk, and you have to give them tremendous credit
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: for this, because at great risk, they hid We the
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Living's prints and negatives in the basement of one of
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: the production members, one of the producers' basements, his personal home.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: And they sent in materials from another film that wasn't
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: as important to them on the theory that the fascist
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Ministry of Culture wasn't going to be that careful looking
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: through the film, that they would accept the cans of
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: film and destroy them. And to me, that was a
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: tremendous risk. I can't even imagine what would have happened
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to them had they got caught. But thankfully, they were right.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: They didn't look that carefully. Some other film was destroyed.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: And We the Living survived in the basement of one
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: of the producers until the end of the war. Wow.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: So after the war, what did the producers do with it?
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And how was it ultimately discovered, rediscovered?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So after the war, of course, at this point, they
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: needed the literary rights from Ayn Rand. And it was
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: at this point that she first learned about it. And
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: they sent over two of the three stars of the
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: movie to Los Angeles to meet with Ayn Rand with
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: a print of the film in hand Alita Valli and
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Rosanna Brodsey visited with Ayn and they had a special
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: screening I think an Italian American organization in LA hosted
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: a screening of the film and amazingly I ran despite,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: and you know, I'm sure, you know, you're on with
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: very protective of her work and very, uh, uh, to have,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: have it taken the way it was and without any
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: input from her, you would think it couldn't be possibly
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: any good outcome from this, but let me jump back
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and explain why the movie turned out better than one
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: might've thought. Um, back in, uh, when the movie was
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: about to go into production, the director came back from
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: filming another movie, and they had a script for We
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: the Living, and the writers of that script had taken
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of liberties with the book. One example is,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: instead of Kara being an engineer, aspiring to be an engineer,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: she was now going to aspire to be a ballerina.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And there were just so many major, major changes with
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: the meaning and the thrust of the film and the
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: particulars of the film. And to the credit of the director,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Alfredo Alessandrini he said this is not the book this
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: is not the film that we should be making and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: the studio said but the actors are hired the sets
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: are built everything is ready to go he said no
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the script has to go and his associate producer was
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: put to task to sit with the book and write
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: dialogue the next day's filming they did go right into
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: production but The dialogue was written as they went, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: one of the reasons the movie is so faithful to
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the book is this associate producer was just sitting there
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: with the book, transcribing into dialogue.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: They didn't have time to destroy it, yeah.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was no time to be creative.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: And that was an amazing, there's so many ironies involved
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: with this, what happened with this film. It's just, it's
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: just crazy.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So what, what year was it that Anita Valley and, and, uh,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the mail stock, uh, visited with Ian and showed her
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the movie?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I believe it was 1947 or 48. Oh, wow.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: That early.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's when she saw it, but,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: but a lot of, still a lot of things came later. Yeah. So, uh,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: She actually was very pleased with the film in many respects.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: But during the filming, that same Ministry of Culture that
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I was talking about before, they forced the producers to
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: put certain lines of dialogue into the film. And they
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: really stood out. I mean, they're having characters say things
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: that were just contrary to their whole belief system. And
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: they were awkwardly inserted in the film. And thankfully, it's
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: a small percentage of the movie, but they were there
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: here and there in various places in the film. And
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: in 1947 or 48, whatever it was, when Ayn Rand
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: saw it, she said, I think Alita Valley as Kira,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the main character, is wonderful. I think it's a wonderful film,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: but this propaganda is horrible. I would never let this
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: be released with those lines of propaganda, even though it
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: was a small percentage of the film. So they tried
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: very hard, Alita Valli and Rosanna Prozzi, to get her
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: to agree to let the studio revise the film and
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: get it re-released, but she refused. And I've heard that
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: one of the reasons is that Hollywood was considering doing
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: an English-language version of We the Living itself at the time.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Of course, that would have been a much more preferable
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: situation for Ayn Rand to have the book done that
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: way And so Alida Valli and Rossano Brazzi went back
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: to Italy without permission for the studio to re-release the film.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And at that point, another interesting chapter happened with the film. Thankfully,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: it went into storage. They didn't destroy it, but it
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: went into storage and there was nothing they could do
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: with it. It was sitting on the shelf. They didn't
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: have the literary rights. They couldn't release it. And it
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: sat there for years and years and years. In the
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: early 1950s, the studio, and it was a big studio,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Scalera Film, they went out of business. They had financial
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: difficulties and they had to sell off all their inventory
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: of movies that they had made over the years, including
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: We the Living. And it went into various storage. Different
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: entities bought these films. And thankfully, the entity that bought
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: We the Living, they put it into their storage and
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: it sat there for years and years.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: And a lot of time passed here on, a lot
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: of time. We went through the 50s and into the
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: 1960s and nobody had seen or heard of We the
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Living except for some.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Very poor pirated sort of copies. that occasionally showed up
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: later on Italian television. They were almost unwatchable. They were
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: such poor visual quality. But basically the film was gone.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: As far as anyone knew, the negatives and all the
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: original materials were gone. And then another interesting chapter started.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Hank Holzer and Erica Holzer were doing legal work for
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Ayn Rand. And it happened in one of their meetings
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: to talk about some legal matter. She happened to mention
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: almost offhand that a movie had been made during World
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: War II and she had seen it during the 1940s,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: but it's long gone. And nobody's heard about it for
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: years and years and years. And Hank and Erica Holzer said,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: but if we could somehow find this movie, would you
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: be willing to let us try and find it? And
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: if so, bring it and release it? She said, well,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think you're going to be able to, but
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: if you did find it, the one condition I would
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: have is these propaganda lines would have to be called
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: a movie. And they said, well, of course, we would
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: do that. So this is now the late 1960s when
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: this happened, when the Holzers found out about the film.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And really, this film would not have survived if it
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: weren't for them, because they took it upon themselves to...
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: and what turned out to be two years of detective
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: work looking for this film. And we're talking about the 60s,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: and it's way before internet or any easy way to
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: research these things. They had to physically travel to Italy
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: several times. Lots of dead end and blind alleys and
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: so forth. But after a long time, they found the entity,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: a company that had bought them We the Living negatives,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: and And they were, of course, thrilled. They had been
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: looking for this for two years. And they, on the spot,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: they didn't have a way to project it, by the way.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: There were only negatives available. There was no way to
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: put it on a projector and run it. So they
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: kind of looked at it manually, looked it through a viewer.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: It was like the negative image. You couldn't really tell
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: what it was like. You couldn't listen to the sound.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: But they knew it was the movie. They could You know,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: they saw that there was four hours of material and
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: they knew that the movie had originally run that long.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: And so they bought it on the spot. And the
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: people that had it in storage were actually thrilled because
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: there was nothing they could do with it. So Hank
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and Erica also bought the film, brought it back to
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: New York right away and made plans to start doing
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: the revisions that needed to be done to get this
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: mainly to get the propaganda out of the movie. There
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: were some other creative decisions that Ayn Rand decided on
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: later on, but the initial idea was to get this
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: propaganda out of there. That's, by the way, where I
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: came into the picture. I was in my early 20s,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: and I had just subscribed to this little magazine called
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: The Objectivist.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: A green magazine about that big. Yeah. came out every month,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I believe. And at the very back of one issue,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: there was one paragraph thing saying how the movie had
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: been rediscovered and that there was going to be some
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: re-editing and then it would be re-released. And I just,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: my eyes lit up because at that point in my career,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I was an assistant editor. I was learning the craft.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: And I thought, oh my God, I've got to find
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: out if I can somehow be involved in this re-editing.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And I, pretty much out of character for me at
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: that age, but I wrote a letter. I didn't know
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Hank and Erica Holzer. I didn't really know anybody in
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: the objectivist movement, but I wrote a letter out of
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: the blue offering my services and telling them, you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: this is something that would mean a lot for me
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: to work on. And weeks went by and I thought, well,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: what was I thinking? You know, I don't know anybody,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: so nothing's going to come of it. But probably about
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: six weeks later, I got a response and Hank, Holzer
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: brought me in for a meeting, and apparently somebody else
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: who was going to do the editing, they decided against that,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and I got hired to work on the movie. Wow. Yeah.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So I assume that's how you got to know Ayn Rand,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and you must have spent some time with her while
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: editing this. So what kind of condition was the movie
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: in at that point, and how difficult was it to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: edit out the propaganda lines? And then, you know, if
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: you could get into what Ayn Rand wanted, other changes
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Ayn Rand wanted to make.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, all of that. What's interesting is the initial way
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: that she and Mep, close associates, people who are familiar
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: with Ayn Rand's background will know that there were people
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: around her that were jokingly called the collective, who were
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the closest people. And Ayn Rand and her husband and
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: several members of the collective, I would say probably about
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: 10 people in all, came over to the film company,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the production company that was my day job where I worked,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: And I got permission from the owners of that company
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: to run the film one evening. And this is now
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: in the late 1960s. And the only way to look
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: at it really was on this film editing machine called
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: a Moviola, which is a big ungainly looking, it's a
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: type of projector, but it only projects onto a little
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: maybe eight inch diameter screen. Mm-hmm. If you can imagine
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: about 10, 12 people trying to watch a movie on
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: a screen that small.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And it's in Italian, and they didn't know Italian. And
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: no subtitles, I take it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, and there were no subtitles. And Erika Holzer, I
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: believe it was Erika, had a printout of the script
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: in Italian with English on the other side. And as
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: best she could, she would listen to the Italian and
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: read the English. We'd keep the volume down so they
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: could hear her reading the English. And to make it
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: even more cumbersome as a viewing experience, it was in
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: big reels of film. It wasn't one continuous movie. So
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: every 20 minutes, they were double reels, which ran typically
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes... I had to take the
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: reel of film off, unspread it, get the next reel
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: of film, put it up, run it through, thread it
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: back up, start it up. And this went on for
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: a four-hour movie. You can imagine how long that evening
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: was with about almost a dozen people huddled around an
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: eight-inch diagonal screen. But I've got to tell you, Ron,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: at the end of the evening, I remember this vividly.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Everybody was enthralled. I mean, their eyes were glowing. They...
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: like they had just seen an amazing moment in history.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: What nobody realized then, in fact, we didn't realize for years,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: is that that translation was very poorly done. It was
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: very stilted and stiff. And only now, for the 80th anniversary,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: did we finally get a really good translation. Oh, good.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: We spent a lot of time working on that and
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of time going back to the novel and
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: making sure... You know, there's a lot of choices you
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: make with translating, and we made sure the wording that
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Ayn chose was, wherever it was possible, was the wording
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: we used in the subtitles. But getting back to working
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: with Ayn, we had this big screening, and then after that,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: it was several sessions, I think it was about four,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: either three or four sessions, where Ayn would come over
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: to that same studio where I worked, and she and
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I would go into the editing room and one reel
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: at a time go through the film. And just her
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: and I, it was interesting. I assumed that a lot
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: of people would be involved, but really all the sessions
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: were just her and I in a dimly lit film
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: editing room with cans of film stacked all over and
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: the two of us sitting side by side on a
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: table with the film going through the viewer, stopping and starting,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: and I would make notes on what she wanted to
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: do with the film. And here's the part that blew
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: me away. When I knew that I'd be doing this
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: with her, I thought there'd be a lot of discussion
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: about what needs to be changed. I mean, it was
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: a given that the propaganda had to come out. But
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: what amazed me is she just knew exactly what she
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: wanted to do with everything in the movie. It was
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: a very quick process, actually. And I... thought I'd have
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: to explain a lot about the limitations of what you
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: could do with film editing or not.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Well, she, of course, had decades in the film industry,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: so she knew something about the process of movie making.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. But film editing, especially at that time, and
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: younger people today with video editing capability on their phone
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: realize that. But way back in the 60s, a lot
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: of people knew nothing about film editing. It was just
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: a complete mystery. But anyway, she certainly did. And she
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: had a very interesting idea about what to do with
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the film. In addition to the propaganda lines, the movie
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: was running four hours. And it was not.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Some of.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: The subplots that really weren't essential for the main storyline
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: in the film were making it kind of cumbersome. It
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: was uneven. Some of the subplot scenes were very well done,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: some not so great. But one thing that was true
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: throughout is all the scenes with the three main characters
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: were wonderful. They were amazing actors. They were just so powerful.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: And her decision, it was her decision, we're going to
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: cut out all these subplots and we're going to stick
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: to the main storyline of these three characters. And that
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: And it took the movie running time down to two
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: hours and 50 minutes roughly, which is nowadays a pretty typical,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: not that long a running time. But so it was
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: her decision to make that change. My part of it,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: and I think some people have misunderstood when I tell
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: people that I was the film editor on this restoration,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: is I didn't make the decisions about what to change,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: but I had to figure out how to make the changes. Yep.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: This is what she wanted. Okay, I've got to figure
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: out what to do. And the difficulty was the music
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and the sound effects and the dialogue were all mixed together.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Unlike nowadays when a movie is made, you have separate
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: soundtracks for each thing. It makes cutting a scene, especially
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: the music, was a problem. Music would be running through
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: a scene, and it needed to be cut somewhere in
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: the middle of the scene. But the music was there,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: and we had to keep it in because there was
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: also dialogue in there. It was extremely tricky. And I,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: that really was my main contribution to making the movie
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: what she wanted. And one of the things that I'm,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: you know, most proud of is I was able to
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: do everything that she asked to do.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: There was nothing on her to do list for this
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: movie that didn't get done.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So when you finished, you showed it to her again and, and, uh, and, and,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and she was pleased with it.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, no. Um, so the, we worked on the film, it, because, uh,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: it wasn't, um, something we could work on a hundred
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: percent of the time. Sure. It was spread out over
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: months and, and into, uh, started to be some years. And, um,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Hank Holzer wanted to show her what we had done
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: so far, but there were a lot of things going
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: on in Ayn Rand's life. Um, and she was getting older, um,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: probably not handling as much as she might have as
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: a younger woman. And she kept saying, oh, she wanted
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: to see what we've done, but she couldn't do it now.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Things kept getting put off and put off and put off.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And unfortunately, even though we had made all the changes,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: she died before she ever saw the movie with all
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: the changes.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: That's unfortunate.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So when was it actually released? I mean, I remember
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: seeing a version, God, in the 90s?
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, early 90s. It was really finished in the late 80s,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: and we first started having screenings right about 1990. Ayn
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Rand had passed away, and Hank and Erica Holzer approached
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Leonard Peacock, who aired to Ayn Rand's estate, to say,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: can we now, with your permission, do the completion of
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the film, which he granted. And he approved. He saw
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: and approved the final version. And we did the final
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: finishing of getting prints made and getting the sound cleaned
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: up as best we could at that time. We did
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: a way better job of all that more recently. The
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: movie got.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Reassemble, the propaganda was gone, the subplots were gone, the
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: running time was to a manageable two hours and 50 minutes,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and it was a really fast-moving two hours and 50 minutes.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I often get asked by theater owners, don't you want
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: to have an intermission in this? No, believe me, it
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't need an intermission. It doesn't need it. No, I agree.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Ayn Rand was a whiz at plotting, and every scene
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: runs one right to the next, and it's There's no
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: lag in the movie at all. It's an amazing thing
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: to say for a two-hour and 50-minute movie. So the movie,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: with great difficulty, we found a distributor in the late 80s.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: It was turned down by quite a few distributors. It
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: was eventually taken on by Angelica Films, which New Yorkers
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: may recognize the Angelica film theater and, and Southern in,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: in lower Manhattan. Um, and that the Angelica theater is
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: still there, but Angelica films as a distributor is no
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: longer around, but they originally released the movie and it
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: was shown across, uh, the country, I think in about
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: 60 or 70 cities across the country. And there was
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: some international distribution, um, and, uh, wonderful reviews and people, uh,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Later want to go to the website. We have a
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: page with clips from reviews both then and the more
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: recent release. Reception was amazing.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: So wetheliving.com.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: No, wethelivingmovie.com.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Weethelivingmovie.com.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: We have movie in there because there are other websites
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: that say wetheliving, but this is wethelivingmovie.com. And it has
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: the whole story and the details and the cast and
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: crew and reviews and so forth. And a link to
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: where people can see the film. And also in chat,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: there's a more direct link right to the platform.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to put it up on the chat now.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: So the movie is available now to stream. So even
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: if it's not playing, you can stream it online. I
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: just put up the URL for the stream version, WeTheLiving.com. uh,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: selfie dot store. Uh, so it's, it's right there in
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the chats. If anybody wants to see the movie, uh,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: they can, they can go there, uh, and, and, uh,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and download it, I guess, and, and watch it.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Uh, and I should mention Iran, this is available all
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: around the world, except Australia, because we're awaiting the Australia premiere. Yeah. So, um,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: My apologies to people in Australia who want to look
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: at it right away, but your premiere is coming right up,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: and the streaming and downloading will be available shortly.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, as we said, Duncan is going to be in
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Australia in February, and there are going to be four premieres,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I think February 26 in Melbourne, February 27 in Canberra,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: March 5 in Sydney, March 6 in Brisbane. it's going
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: to be shown in Australia. So I know I have
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of listeners in Australia.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Those dates, I should mention, could change. There's always difficulty
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: booking We the Living. And this kind of mirrors what
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Ayn Rand's own experience has been with the books and everything. Well,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: not a lot has changed. Getting We the Living into
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: theaters and uh, people not wanting to handle it because
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: they have these, you know, corrupt notions about Ayn Rand
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: and so forth. Um, and so we, we expect those
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: dates and, uh, those are the dates they're working on.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: And I want to give a huge shout out to
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: the Australian Center for Objectivism because they are the host
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: organization in Australia that's doing all the groundwork to get these, uh,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: premiers set up, uh, and, and their, uh, the leader
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: of their organization, Maxim Bischoff. They guys have been working
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: so hard to get this put together.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of people I know who listen
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: to my show contributed money to make it happen. I
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: know they raised about 20,000 Australian dollars to make it happen,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: to bring you over. I think they're raising money right
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: now to try to bring me over. I'm not sure
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: that'll happen even if they raise the money, but we're
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: going to try. I'm going to put up on the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: chat of the show the URL for where you can
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: go if you'd like to support bringing me to Australia.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: And I'll be there. What's already set is that myself
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: and our associate producer, Barbara Scott, who did an amazing
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: work on the subtitles, and people have no idea how
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: much work that was, getting them back to beat. fidelity
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: to the book and getting over bad translating that was
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: initially done and a huge job. And there were hundreds
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: upon hundreds of subtitles. But she and I will be
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: there to introduce the film and do Q & A
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: afterwards and tell the story personally.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: So people who saw the film in the 90s and
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: maybe 2000, maybe they have DVDs or they have VHS
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: of the film, what will they notice about the new
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: version as compared to the version they saw back then?
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: It'll be like a new film. And I've had people
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: who bought the original DVD and standard, not only was
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: it in standard definition, like four, four 80. Yeah. Uh, P, um,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: it was made from prints that were, had not had
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: scratches and missing frames and all kinds of problems, bad sound.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what we had at the time. And,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: We felt thrilled that we were able to release that version.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: But it was pretty beat up prints. It was negatives
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: rather that it was made from. And thankfully with the
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: technology that we have now, digital, it's almost like magic
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: that AI can look at the film frame and determine
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: that something is a scratch but the other thing is
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: supposed to be in the frame and it will go
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: through the whole movie frame by frame and we got
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: rid of dirt and scratches and missing frames and have
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: the sound, uh, redone with high fidelity and, um, people
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: who saw the other version are just blown away by
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: how much better the new version is.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: That's great. So, so all you Australians, even if you've
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: seen the movie, you should check out the premieres and, uh,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: for the Americans who are not going to be able
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: to go to Australia to see the movie, um, not
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: be able to go to Australia to see it, then
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: you can stream it, and it's worth streaming because you're
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: going to stream the new version, which is clean, and
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the soundtrack is much better. I remember also the, because
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I saw this in Boston, the subtitles also, Washington, much
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: easier to read. So it was real hard to read
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the subtitles in the original version, and now they're much
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: easier to read.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: That was pretty much the only complaint we ever got
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: about the DVD. Everyone loved the movie, but the subtitles
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: were made with a physical process back in the 80s
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: when those prints were made. So it was a laboratory
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: physically printing subtitles onto the prints, and they never read
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: through very clearly. We had to go with that same
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: version when we made the DVDs. It was just a
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: transfer of the prints we were using from the 1990s.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: So for this 80th anniversary, all those subtitles were completely gone.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: We went back to square one, got everything re-translated, went
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: back to the book, made sure every line of dialogue
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: had as much fidelity to the original dialogue that Ayn
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Rand had in her novel. It was a painstaking process.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Barbara Scott was in charge of all that. It's just
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: an amazing, amazing job. And she'll be in Australia also
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: to talk about that.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'll just say, I've said it before,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: it's an amazing movie. I definitely think it's the best
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: movie made from an Ayn Rand novel. Oh, by far.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: It's gorgeous. Anita Valli is gorgeous. The three main actors
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: are superb. I mean, they're world-class actors. But the direction
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. I mean, the way they use light and
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the black and white, it really is a gorgeous film.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: There were some groundbreaking things for filmmaking that were done
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: in this film. The director had worked for a period
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: of time in Hollywood, and he picked up certain qualities
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: that he was looking for, and very much that's evident
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: in the way he shot We the Living. He was
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: not a well-known Italian director. He did a number of films.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: But this was by far his most amazing work. And
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of the composer was Renzo Rossellini, the
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: brother of Roberto Rossellini, who's a famous Italian director. And
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: his score is gorgeous. And now with AI, we're soon
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: going to be working on extracting the score out of
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: the film. AI can do that. It can separate this
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: music from the dialogue and the sound effects and so forth.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: And I so wish I had that back in the 80s, 70s,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: 80s when I worked on the film, but uh when
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: i was editing but now we can we're going to
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: put you know get that music available eventually uh with
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: the help of a ai.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic so yeah so if all my australian listeners
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: check out the movie i see troy is here thank
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you troy for the support also i know you provided
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: some significant support to to making it possible for duncan
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: to go to australia and for the movies to premiere there.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: So thanks for supporting that fundraiser. Keith has a question. And,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: of course, if you guys have any questions for Duncan,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: now is the time to ask them. So the Super
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Chat is open. You can ask any question you want.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: While you're waiting for a question, can I just interject
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: one thing? Sure. I'm guessing that some of your listeners
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: may not know what the story is in Wait a Living.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: And it's a fascinating story. I'll try to keep it brief. Sure.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: But you have a young woman who's studying to be
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: an engineer, going to university, and she accidentally meets a
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: man late one night. And it turns out he's a
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: fugitive from the Soviet authorities. His father was a counter-revolutionary,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: and so he's been in hiding for They fall in love,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: and they initially try to escape from Russia, and that fails.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Then they struggle to build their lives. And what really,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: the storyline takes a very interesting twist when a GPU agent,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: the secret police at that time in Russia, meets the girl,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: and he falls in love with her. And then you
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: have a really, really dangerous triangle situation that develops after that.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: And the lives of all three, you really see the
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: impact on all three characters of what that kind of
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: system does to people and how it affects their lives.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: And it is amazing that Ayn Rand actually creates a
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: character who's a GPU agent and sympathetic. And he's one
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: of the heroes of the book. And Yeah, the love
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: triangle is incredibly interesting and dangerous, as you said, but
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: really fascinating. And, of course, you know, the character of
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Kira is, I think, very much a kind of an
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Ayn Rand character who, I mean, she knows she can't
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: survive in this system. This system is killing her soul.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: It's killing the soul of the people she loves. So
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: kind of how each one of them has to, in
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the end, deal with the system. is fascinating.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: And I knew what she was writing about. For your
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: listeners who don't know about this, I mean, she grew
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: up in Russia. Most of the things that happen to
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Kara in the novel, it is a work of fiction,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: but it's drawn directly from experiences that she had personally.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: She knew what she was talking about with everything that
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: happened in this novel. And even some of the names
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: of the characters are the same as people that she
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: interacted with when she lived in Russia and before she
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: came over to America.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: So Keith asks, have you spoken with Kino Loba about
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: releasing We the Living on Blu-ray? They released Love Letters
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: in 2023 and did not shy from mentioning Ayn Rand
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: in the blurb.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were offered the film and they turned it down.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Same with Criterion and several other distributors that you would
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: think would be fighting over getting the movie.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: This is the world we live in.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Lyran says, thanks, Duncan. I just purchased a download
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: and it looks great. I will enjoy watching this.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Great. Enjoy.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's exciting. I didn't know it was available. So
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I will also be buying it and have it on
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: my hard drive to watch. So that's incredible.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: It's been interesting. It's available as a stream or a download.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, Maybe it'll be 50-50. Maybe more
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: people will want the stream because it's less expensive. 90-95%
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: of people download the movie. They want to keep the movie.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: You want to keep the movie and you want to
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: be able to watch it when you want to watch it. So, yeah,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: that's exciting. That's great. What is the plan to do
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: with the soundtrack if you can pull it out, when
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: you pull it out?
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Make it available on probably the same platform as a
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: digital download of the music soundtrack. Okay. original soundtrack album,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: so to speak. Yeah.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: All right. I see Maxim is here.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: All right, Maxim. Maxim.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the support you're on. We at the
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Australian Center for Objectivism are super excited to bring Duncan,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: and hopefully you too, to Australia to present at film
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: premieres in four cities. Thank you to our team and donors. Yes.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, thank you to all the donors. I know
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: a bunch of listeners donated to the project. Again, I
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: know that Troy is here, so thank you Troy, for
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: all the support for the show and for the movie. Thanks, Maxim,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: and thank you for all the work you and the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Center for Objectivism have done to make this happen. I
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: think this is going to be a significant event in
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Australia and hopefully increase Rand's visibility in Australia significantly.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: There's one other point I'd like to make, Yaron, but
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: People who are maybe not that familiar with Ayn Rand's work,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: and maybe they've looked at Atlas Shrugged and, you know,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: over a thousand pages and don't know really that much
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: about what Ayn Rand has written. This, We the Living,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: whether it's the novel or the movie, is an incredibly
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: good introduction to Ayn Rand.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: The themes are so universal. You don't really need any
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: advanced knowledge of the philosophy that she so brilliantly developed
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: in her later novels. But We the Living is this
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: very specific theme of what happens to people under an
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: authoritarian regime, and it's a wonderful introduction to her.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: And it's a great book to give to people that
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you might worry about giving Atlas of the Fountainhead to,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: and particularly these days when authoritarianism seems to be on
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: the rise everywhere around us. this is a good time to.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: And also, the characters are young people who are at
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: the beginning of their lives and they're striving to make
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: their own lives. And the movie, despite the fact that
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: it's an old movie, has an incredible appeal to younger audiences.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: We've shown it to audiences in their teens or in
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: their 20s and we made a point of getting feedback
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: in every situation we could and it's just been amazing
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: from these younger audiences. It has that kind of impact.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you're an Australia guy, definitely make
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: an effort to make it one of these four premieres.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Keith asks, any news on the upcoming Blu-ray release?
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: We have to hold back on that. And if people
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: subscribe to our newsletter, we have a newsletter that we
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: don't send out that many mailings every month or two
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: with updates on what's going on. But in a recent newsletter,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: I explained that We have to hold back because we're
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: still hoping to get a major distributor in Europe. We
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: have some discussions with them distributing the movie. And the
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: problem is if you've already released it on Blu-ray and
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: you've distributed it too much, it lessens the value for
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: them in handling the film. And we do make it available,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: and we only did this recently for the streaming and download,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: but we actually don't publicize it. We don't put it on.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: We could put it on Amazon Prime. They take older movies.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Netflix does not. But Amazon Prime, it could be there.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: We've chosen not to do that. We've chosen not to
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: have Blu-rays because if we're ever going to get a
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: commercial distributor handling this, and there is a European country
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: that's interested, that's going to hurt if we've already exploited
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: the movie all those different ways. But eventually, if a
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: distributor that doesn't happen or Or if it does happen,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: a blue ray will be created. That would be great.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Duncan. This has been a real pleasure.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: And I remind you again, guys, all of you in Australia,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I think Australia is my third or fourth of the
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: most watched of my show of countries out there in
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: the world. So I have quite a bit of following there. uh, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: and Brisbane in late February, early March. Uh, you can
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: go to the We The Living movie, uh, website to
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: get more information. Uh, and of course, if you go
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: to the center of objectivism for Australia, Australian center for objectivism,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: their website, you'll get information about when these, uh, when
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the premieres are going to happen exactly. And if there
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: are changes to the dates, you'll, you'll find out there. Uh, but, um,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: You know, go see the movie. Don't miss this. And
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: to see it on a big screen is an extraordinary experience, right?
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: So any movie that's true, and particularly a movie as
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: beautiful as this, it's much better than what you're going
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: to see on your computer at home.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really only one great movie that's been made
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: from an Ayn Rand novel, and this is the one.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: You know, I can say that because I didn't personally
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: make the movie, but I've seen them all. I was involved, unfortunately,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: with some other versions of movies that have been done.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: but this is a great one and also people can
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: go to wethelivingmovie.com and find out a lot of information
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: there I just checked today and the newsletter link wasn't
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: working but we'll get that fixed when that's fixed you
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: can sign up for the newsletter and get news about
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: things that are happening with the movie Fantastic. All right.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I might see you in Australia, but, uh, if not, uh, have,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: have a great, great premieres there. And, uh, you know, I'm,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll get a good turnout of people, uh,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: going to see the movies. Thank you, Duncan. Thank you
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: for everything you've done with this movie and, and, and
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: for preserving it and, and, uh, and keeping, keeping that
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: flame alive, keeping the movie alive all these years. Really,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: really appreciate that.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. You've been a great
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: friend and supporter of the film. Absolutely.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Um, it's worthy of that definitely good have a good
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: night thanks everybody I'll see you guys tomorrow for another
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: show bye everyone take care bye bye