Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Film producer of cult classics including The Italian Job, Blade Runner, and The Deer Hunter.
On the island
Eight records
I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)Favourite
I think it's wonderful. No other reason. I think it's wonderful. It it's of a period. I just remember it with great affection. I love it.
Jacqueline Barron and James Rainbird
it's so moving and um has a real sort of spiritual impact.
It's a piece of music we used in [a] picture with David Bowie called The Man Who Fell to Earth. And um I actually would play an entire C D of Roy Olson if I if I was allowed to. This is just marvellous.
This is actually theme music from The Deer Hunter. ... I don't really pay much attention to my old movies, but I do in this case.
New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
I like the Mexican feeling about it. I now live in a town which is fifty percent Mexican ... Santa Barbara in California. And um I just love the sound, the feeling of it.
New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
It's used as a theme in Death in Venice. I love the movie, I love the atmosphere of it.
I wouldn't like to get through a programme without listening to something from him, and he seems good at anything.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:26When you were making the Italian Job back in the sixties, is it true that you had a fueled plane standing by on the runway in case you personally had to make a speedy exit out of the country?
We were doing a really seemingly dangerous stunt, having three mini-cars um jump between the roofs of two buildings. And there was the risk that someone's foot would slip off the throttle and end up splattered against the wall, and at that point apparently I would have been arrested as the person in charge. And um so tried to argue my way o out of jail, which is not too easy in Italy apparently. ... I had a quick getaway planned and um that was it.
Presenter asks
4:51What did you think at the time about going to boarding school at a very young age?
Good time. ... I really did. I mean, once or twice things I didn't like, but essentially, I mean, I was institutionalized in that way, um, until I left the army because I went from prep school to public school to army.
Presenter asks
10:48What about the occasion upon which somebody standing right next to you was shot dead [in Malaya]?
It was a young guy who'd just come from um Cambridge ... and he was seconded to me as a experienced officer for training ... And we got into a a sort of situation and suddenly this bit of firing came up, and he was standing right by my shoulder, and he was shot right through the head, and he dropped dead. Then suddenly I felt this very secret, but enormous exhilaration. ... that it was him and not me.
The keepsakes
The book
Two reasons, one's serious and one's silly. The serious reason is that I would really like to take the time if I had all that time to see really where the stories diverge and where the problems arise in the conflicts between the two texts and therefore perhaps the conflicts between the people, or is it just their ministers who have created the conflicts? It's one thing. The other thing is that if I were by any chance rescued by Barbary pirates, I would have this document hold up and say, Hey, I'm a good guy.
The luxury
A container packed with vintage French wine that can also serve as a hut
Luxury requires a bit of bad luck on somebody else's part. It would need to have a storm, rough sea. And at one of those dangerous moments when a container slips off a boat. And when it floats ashore and it comes up on the sand, and I managed to get it open. Find two things one that it's packed entirely with vintage French wine. And two, that it's obviously a potential hut for me to live in.
Presenter asks
17:11What was it that you saw in [the script for The Deer Hunter] that made you think it would work as a movie?
Something completely original, which I I knew had never been done, or I presumed had never been done, which was drama pivoting really, um on Russian roulette. That's a rarity and originality is one of the key things in my view to movies.
Presenter asks
18:57How did it actually feel when you heard John Wayne say, 'And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to The Deer Hunter'?
Obviously pretty good, because it could have gone anywhere. Um but I also thought with great pleasure that that had cost me five hundred dollars. Because I'd made a deal with David Putnam, who had a picture up against us, that if one of us won ... Then the other one will be given five hundred dollars to go out and have a drink.
“One script in a hundred gets anywhere near getting made. And um it's often a matter of timing.”
“Suddenly I felt this very secret, but enormous exhilaration. It was probably the most exhilarating moment of my life. that it was him and not me.”
“I have a a hatred for remakes. The only time I ever wanted to do a sequel was on the Italian job, which is why I wrote that ending, which was the cliffhanger ending of the bus on the on the teetering on the brink, because I had a a solution.”