Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A knighted film designer known for creating iconic sets such as the Pentagon War Room in Dr. Strangelove and James Bond villains' lairs.
On the island
Eight records
Let's Face the Music and Dance
It is one of the best scenes in Pennies from Heaven and one of the most complicated scene to stage.
It goes back to my childhood in Berlin... and I think it expresses a lot of what I experienced in the music.
I just think his recording of Nuage is one of the most exciting piece of quartet jazz.
Martin Roscoe with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Rumon Gamba
The story was about, I think, a a Polish pianist who becomes a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. And remember, this was a time when I was joining the RAF.
Java JiveFavourite
Advancing with the Allied forces after D-Day, we had this record in our dispersal and we used to play it every time after we came back from a sortie. The song has a sense of humor...
Can you think of any song which would sentimentalize the war and and I said yes...
We fell in love, to cut a very long story short, and we consider our love song.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: II. Adagio
Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, Paul Tortelier, and Pablo Casals
The last song is from the last film I designed a film called Taking Size...
In conversation
Presenter asks
13:14How quickly was the family business and the family itself affected [by the Depression and the rise of Nazism]?
The family business was affected in nineteen thirty two, when the main business had to go into liquidation... It was in fact the first time that I became aware that we were Jewish because I was never brought up Jewish. And when somebody shouted after me Jubo, I didn't really know. I knew it was an insult, but I went to my parents and wanted to know what it was all about.
Presenter asks
14:07What was the catalyst [for the family deciding to leave Germany]?
The catalyst was my father was arrested, which came as a tremendous shock because you didn't know what he was arrested for and so on. And then, through the help of an ex-employee at his firm, who by this time was a prominent Nazi, he was released after forty eight hours without any charge obviously. But that was the red light for him.
Presenter asks
19:39Did you ever have any qualms about attacking your own countrymen [during the war]?
No, I had no qualms at all. You were aware of the damage you did with your rockets, but you never saw individuals being killed... I've never forgotten it. The first thing I noticed were the animals, the horses and the cows, all in rigor mortars with their legs in the air, and then the dead bodies of even though they were S S but bloated and so on. You know that I could never get rid of the smell of death using every form of disinfectant, that sweet smell of death, and I've never forgotten it.
The keepsakes
The book
I have at home the Propylaine History of Art, which was published actually in Germany and which now has been republished again. It has many volumes and it goes right from the antique to present day and modernism. In films you research api yet. Here you've got art stretching through history. And I could never be bored with that.
The luxury
I would take. particular in in view of my recent experience, my sketch pad with my felt pens. Not that I would try to do Drawings of seascapes or the desert island, but just to design, to almost doodle, and it is very soothing and it keeps me occupied.
Presenter asks
25:57What do you think of the Bond films today?
The audience certainly can tell the difference, and particularly the young audience. And I think the danger is, I think it's great technology, computer generated images and Lord of the Rings and all that is I found fantastic. But It should be treated as a tool and not as a means of making a ho entire film, that's my opinion.
“I've always been a Boy Scout, because even as a young boy... I always used to build models and make things fly or swim. It was such an ex extension in a way of my childhood.”
“I could never get rid of the smell of death using every form of disinfectant, that sweet smell of death, and I've never forgotten it.”
“I always believed in trying to create a reality for the audience which is more believable for the audience than by imitating actual reality.”