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A Sudden Flicker Of Light From David Thomson A Revisionists History Of Movies · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: Hey, have you checked out Arrow dot net yet aarre
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: dot net. There are so many podcasts to choose from,
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  Speaker 1: all original and all about us. Can you imagine that?
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  Speaker 1: I share so many conversations with writers all over the world.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've really jumped into
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  Speaker 1: lately is burying writing instruments and then coming back months
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  Speaker 1: and years later. I call it the resurrection. Is it good?
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  Speaker 1: net A r r oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you're doing what you're doing with
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  Speaker 1: these movies because we are in a time period I
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  Speaker 1: call it the Golden Age because everybody, if they've never
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  Speaker 1: seen a movie, it's a brand movie to them, a
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  Speaker 1: brand new movie. And the thing is is that I
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  Speaker 1: love the way that you bring things up for us
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  Speaker 1: to go, Oh, I want to go see that. David's
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  Speaker 1: talking about it, I want to go see it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, as someone who is told
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  Speaker 2: and someone who was written and thought a great deal,
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  Speaker 2: the best thing I can do is introduce a movie
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  Speaker 2: that maybe people have never heard of and suggests that
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  Speaker 2: they'd enjoy it, and spreading enjoyment is a hard life
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  Speaker 2: to beat. People like, people respond to it and they're
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  Speaker 2: pleased and they're grateful. I've seen a lot of films,
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  Speaker 2: and I think quite often I can name a few
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  Speaker 2: films which are easily seen now, because you know, one
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  Speaker 2: of the great things about our time is that you
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  Speaker 2: can dial up so many great films, not just the
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  Speaker 2: films of recent times, but films that might be one
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  Speaker 2: hundred years old. And I was talking with a previous
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  Speaker 2: caller about Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which is nearly one hundred
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  Speaker 2: years old and is an absolutely amazing picture. And I
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  Speaker 2: think anybody could see it and be had their breath
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  Speaker 2: taken away. The ambition, the beauty, the drama of it
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  Speaker 2: are extraordinary. And I love introducing people to movies they've
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  Speaker 2: never heard of, just like, I mean, just like it's
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  Speaker 2: like a certain kind of tourism, you know, come with
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  Speaker 2: me on a trip, and I'll show you so many marvels.
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  Speaker 2: And I don't know, I think it's the thing I
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  Speaker 2: do that that other film writers do that means the
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  Speaker 2: most to the public. You know.
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  Speaker 1: I got to say something that just happened here in
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  Speaker 1: Charlotte this past weekend, David. And that is is that
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  Speaker 1: Citizen Kane was put back up on an AMC theater
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  Speaker 1: screen this past weekend. People dressed up to go see
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  Speaker 1: Citizen Kane at the theater. And then I saw your
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  Speaker 1: review and it's like, oh, okay. But but the fact
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  Speaker 1: of the matter is people still cherish these movies and
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  Speaker 1: they will get dressed up to go see him on
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  Speaker 1: a real theater screen.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's wonderful and I wish I could have
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  Speaker 2: been there, And you know, that kind of involvement of
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  Speaker 2: audiences is so great. My history with Kane is that
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  Speaker 2: I as a I don't know, twelve year old who
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  Speaker 2: was obsessed with film and read everything I could find
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  Speaker 2: in the library. I had read books that said Citizen
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  Speaker 2: Kane is a really remarkable, important film. But in those days,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm talking about the early nineteen fifties, you couldn't
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  Speaker 2: see it old film. You could only see new films
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  Speaker 2: that the business offered to you week after week. There
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  Speaker 2: was no way old films could be brought back. And
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  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, a small theater near where
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  Speaker 2: I lived said, we're going to play Citizen Kane next week.
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  Speaker 2: And I thought, oh my god, the world is waiting
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  Speaker 2: to see Citizen Kane. I will get there very early,
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  Speaker 2: so I make sure I can get in, because sometimes
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  Speaker 2: in those days you would you would line up, you
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  Speaker 2: would queue, as we said in England for a film,
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  Speaker 2: and not get in. So I got there very early,
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  Speaker 2: and I was the only person there who wanted to
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  Speaker 2: see Suitisan Gap because it had been it had been
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  Speaker 2: largely forgotten and because it was not a success when
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  Speaker 2: it was first made it was it was a kind
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  Speaker 2: of flop, but began to come back, and then there
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  Speaker 2: was a period, quite a long period forty years let's say,
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  Speaker 2: where film critics voted it the greatest film ever made,
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  Speaker 2: and it's still on the plateau at the top in
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  Speaker 2: terms of achievement of what films can be. And if
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  Speaker 2: anyone interested in film hasn't seen it, get dressed up
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  Speaker 2: or not go see it. It's an amazing picture to
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  Speaker 2: this day, made by one of the real geniuses of
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  Speaker 2: the medium, Orson Wells, who made it when he was
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  Speaker 2: only twenty five. Bear that in mind, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure the audience who went to see it in
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  Speaker 2: Charlotte had a great time. And I think that anyone
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  Speaker 2: will have that great time again. You know.
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  Speaker 1: You bring up at a very interesting point about Orson Wells
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  Speaker 1: being twenty five years old to make a movie such
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  Speaker 1: as this, And it was just a couple of weeks
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  Speaker 1: ago that Steven Spielberg stepped out and said that he
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  Speaker 1: loves what people are doing with Obsession as well as
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  Speaker 1: back Room in the way that the new age of
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  Speaker 1: these directors is happening right here in front of our
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  Speaker 1: eyes and see and it's going to take a book
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  Speaker 1: like yours, David, to really open up our hearts. Going, guys,
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  Speaker 1: it is it's the young ushering in something that we
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  Speaker 1: all love, and that is movies. Trust them, don't look
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  Speaker 1: at their age, trust their creativity.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and it's a very exciting thing to see
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  Speaker 2: young people making films, which of course, yeah, you can
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  Speaker 2: do now because you can make a film with your
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  Speaker 2: iPhone and it may not cost the huge sums of money.
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  Speaker 2: The film of the Odyssey that's about to open seems
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  Speaker 2: to have cost two hundred and fifty million. There are
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  Speaker 2: kids who can make really interesting movies for two thousand
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  Speaker 2: dollars which they scraped together, borrowing from their parents or
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  Speaker 2: just finding a few dollar bills here and there. If
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  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, and you can make an
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  Speaker 2: interesting film, you don't need to be overawed by the
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  Speaker 2: feelings of budget and size. And do you have to
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  Speaker 2: have a movie star in your film? You don't. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: chances are you have a friend who photographs well. Some
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  Speaker 2: people photograph better than others, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 2: You get someone who photographs well, which really means someone
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  Speaker 2: who can show on their face what they're feeling. People
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  Speaker 2: are like that all around. You can find them. An
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  Speaker 2: awful lot of films have been made by guys who
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  Speaker 2: simply thought their girlfriend was enough to be in a film,
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  Speaker 2: you know. And if you go to YouTube you can
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  Speaker 2: see amazing little fragments of film that They're not movies
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  Speaker 2: in the sense that we understand that, but they are
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  Speaker 2: moving imagery. And moving imagery is beautiful and one of
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  Speaker 2: the ways I watched the World Cup. It's not just
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  Speaker 2: that I was trained to be soccer mad, but it's
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  Speaker 2: because as a spectacle of moving imagery, soccer, the fluidity
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  Speaker 2: of soccer, these are beautiful things.
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  Speaker 1: Well, the title of the book itself really inspires me,
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  Speaker 1: and I think maybe it's because I've spent so many
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  Speaker 1: times in inside a movie theater, up there in that
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  Speaker 1: projector room, a sudden flicker of light is exactly what's
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  Speaker 1: going on. If we did not have that flicker of light,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know where we would be with storytelling. I
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  Speaker 1: guess it would still be through the radio, or it
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  Speaker 1: would be just us having a face to face conversation.
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  Speaker 1: I need that flicker of light.
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  Speaker 2: Me too, Me too. And I was always obsessed with
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  Speaker 2: as a child, in knowing how it was achieved. I
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  Speaker 2: literally believed originally that there were real people behind we know.
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  Speaker 1: You mean too, I'm so god, Oh yes, that's so true.
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  Speaker 2: It's an empowering feeling. And then of course you realize
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  Speaker 2: there's a trick doing it, and you want to know
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  Speaker 2: how that trick works, and maybe you want to do
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  Speaker 2: it yourself. I did, and for a long time I
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  Speaker 2: wanted to make films. I did make films, and I
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  Speaker 2: think kids with their iPhone today have exactly the same feeling.
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  Speaker 2: It's all on a different scale, but that urge to
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  Speaker 2: make life really what it comes to, to make life
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  Speaker 2: and show it to other people, that's a really compell thing.
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  Speaker 1: See, that's what I loved about well, going to the
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  Speaker 1: outdoor movie driving. Back in the nineteen seventies up in Billings, Montana,
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  Speaker 1: at the Big Sky Theater, I would sit at the
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  Speaker 1: children's toys, always up front, and I would wait for
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  Speaker 1: the actors to go into the screen because they had
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  Speaker 1: those doors that you never saw people go into or
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  Speaker 1: come out of, and I was convinced that that's where
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  Speaker 1: they were going.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I share that feeling. And one of
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  Speaker 2: the great things about going to a theater is that
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  Speaker 2: you do feel you're with a crowd of strangers and
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  Speaker 2: they're watching the same image, and that they're reacting in
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  Speaker 2: a sort of uniform way. They're all laughing at the
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  Speaker 2: same time at the joke, they're all trembling in fear,
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  Speaker 2: but they've all got different attitudes to it, and they
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  Speaker 2: see slightly different things. And often when you're talking with
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  Speaker 2: a friend with whom you saw a movie, you realize
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  Speaker 2: that they saw something a little bit different from what
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  Speaker 2: you saw, because there is so much to look at
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  Speaker 2: in the image. And I love that feeling of community.
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  Speaker 2: Now these days, a lot of us watch films alone
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  Speaker 2: in our home on a TV screen or on an iPhone,
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  Speaker 2: and a lot of purists say, well, that's no way
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  Speaker 2: to watch films. That's shocking. I ignore that. I watch
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  Speaker 2: movies now on my iPhone and I get a huge
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  Speaker 2: amount from them. Still, it's the movie image. It's the flicker.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you put your finger on it. I do think,
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  Speaker 2: if I may say so, the title of my book
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  Speaker 2: is a pretty good title. A licker of light. That's
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  Speaker 2: what it's about.
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  Speaker 1: I move there's more with David Thompson coming up next.
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  Speaker 1: I love the title of this book, A sudden flicker
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  Speaker 1: of Light from David Thompson. The book cover, we got
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  Speaker 1: to talk about that because that book cover takes me
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  Speaker 1: into so many different areas of my life. I mean
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  Speaker 1: the book cover with Brando alone, which you hired, the
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to meet him, and at the war boned end
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  Speaker 1: in billings. But the thing is is that you use
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  Speaker 1: the color red, which I think is a powerful color.
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  Speaker 1: And then the melting film. I think today's generation, the
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  Speaker 1: younger people don't understand how that moment of film melting
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  Speaker 1: on that big screen was something that it still got
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  Speaker 1: inside your soul and you never forgot it. But it
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  Speaker 1: was a moment and it was like I always felt
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  Speaker 1: like that every movie should have melting film in it.
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  Speaker 1: Just so you can have a place where you can
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  Speaker 1: have a conversation with a person you don't know sitting
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  Speaker 1: next to you.
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  Speaker 2: Totally agree. And you know a few times in my
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  Speaker 2: life I was watching a movie. On the film, I'm
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  Speaker 2: jammed in the projector, and where it jams in the projector,
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  Speaker 2: in a matter of seconds, that image will burn. And
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  Speaker 2: the beauty of that burning image, it's a big thing.
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  Speaker 2: And we tried to get that quality and that feeling
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  Speaker 2: in the jacket of the book, and I think it's
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  Speaker 2: a great design. And I'm so so happy you like
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  Speaker 2: the red because there was real debate between me and
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  Speaker 2: the publicity department over exactly what quality and hue of redness,
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  Speaker 2: and we went for something a little softer than a
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  Speaker 2: vivid red. There's a certain kind of for me, there
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  Speaker 2: was a certain kind of blood like red in what
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  Speaker 2: we were going for. So I'm very proud of the
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  Speaker 2: jacket of the book, and you know, people worked hard
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  Speaker 2: to get it right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you bring up a very interesting question in this
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  Speaker 1: that I can't shake, and I'm going to write about
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  Speaker 1: it forever in a day because because not just because
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  Speaker 1: I'm a movie freak, but your question is what is
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  Speaker 1: best life like or life Can I have both or
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  Speaker 1: do I have to make a choice.
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  Speaker 2: I like them both, well, of course you do, and
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  Speaker 2: I think we all do. But I do think that
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  Speaker 2: more and more we're getting to a point in our
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  Speaker 2: understanding and that information theory where we have to think
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  Speaker 2: about that choice. Once upon a time, if I went
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  Speaker 2: to a movie theater, or if I was watching my
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  Speaker 2: TV and it came on as news, I believe what
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  Speaker 2: I was seeing. We know now that we contrasted in
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  Speaker 2: the old way, and I think it's only going to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: get more intense and more complicated. But we're into an
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: era where the image, the photographic image is not truly photographic.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: It's an electronic version of fantasy, and I don't think
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  Speaker 2: we have control over that, and I'm not sure where
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  Speaker 2: it's going and what it's going to do. And one
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  Speaker 2: live to see the future.
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  Speaker 1: So many movies are about good guys and bad guys
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  Speaker 1: the villains. Now does that start with the actual book authors,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: because it seems like it's all over that as well
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  Speaker 1: and Hollywood adopted it. Or did Hollywood become the leader
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  Speaker 1: of the good guy bad guy villain movies before the
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  Speaker 1: authors jumped in.
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  Speaker 2: I think Hollywood has a lot to do with it,
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  Speaker 2: because Hollywood realize that we would go to the movies
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  Speaker 2: if we liked the people on screens. Was the woman
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  Speaker 2: pretty enough, she's sexy enough, I look manly, you know.
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  Speaker 2: I mean words like pretty, sexy and manly. Very hard
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  Speaker 2: to define, but you sort of know instinctively what's being
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  Speaker 2: talked about. So you could be going to the movies
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  Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden someone will appear who
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  Speaker 2: isn't just good looking, interesting, they're riveting. I remember James
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  Speaker 2: Dean as that kind of James Dean to me in
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  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four, fifty five. He looked not like me.
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  Speaker 2: He looked much better than me, but he was a
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  Speaker 2: kind of person that I represented, and it was staggering
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  Speaker 2: to feel that people like me could be up on
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  Speaker 2: the screen too. But you know, we've always is, We've
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  Speaker 2: always been suckers for people who've got a photographic quality
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  Speaker 2: that says more than what pictures of most people say.
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  Speaker 2: So we all have our favorites. But thinking of women,
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  Speaker 2: Audrey Hepburnham had something, Marion Rowe has something, Julia Robbers
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  Speaker 2: had something, and that's a huge part of the entertainment.
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  Speaker 2: But it also is a way of saying, well, shouldn't
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: every woman look beautiful or slim or sexy. Now, that's
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  Speaker 2: an archetype that actually can turn into a kind of
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  Speaker 2: prison for most females. And a lot of the archetypes
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: that film has manufactured are prisons in a in a way,
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  Speaker 2: and we have to deal with that. We have to
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: find a way of escaping from the prison.
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  Speaker 1: I love your book. You got to come back to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: this show anytime in the future, but we're gonna have
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: to set up like a week's worth of time here
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: like Rolling Stone magazine does, because you've got so much information.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: My god, I love what you're doing right now.
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  Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, mister David, thank you
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: so much,