Focus 580; Interview with Roger Ebert

He is one of the folks who has come here to Champaign Urbana to take part in cyber fest. He introduced last night a special showing of the film 2001 and will be the host for another event tonight and was good enough to come and spend some time talking with us. He is the only film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He now has for 20 years been doing a program with his partner Gene Siskel reviewing films. He has written a number of books including his latest which is a little movie glossary. I have a later well you have a later well I get this off your website you'll have to get it updated. What is that the new it is a book a film. It's big big fat Norton anthology of readings from the last 100 years of cinema. Oh I have to call my close friends at Norton and have them send me a copy yes. Right well you can always buy one as a last resort. Oh always a like me no never is but the only perk I get in this job. Anyway he's written a number of books including books that review have had reviews like Roger Ebert's video companion. They're also collections of some of his writing about people who make movies like Kiss is still a kiss which has got some really good essays

in there. And since 1967 he's been a film critic for The Chicago Sun Times on Ripley's that year are here. Nice to be back in our mass. We thought maybe we could talk a little bit about Stanley Kubrick and about his movies and and. It's what an amazing range of work to do so many different kinds of movies when you think about 2001 A Clockwork Orange. Spartacus Barry Lyndon so many different glory Dr. Strangelove Full Metal Jacket. Well Lida what is there something that. Who holds those movies all together even though they're very different. I don't know all there is have read a couple books about Kubrick that try to force a theme or consistency into his work. But a few directors have made films so different and it's not like Howard Hawks for example worked in every genre so he made Westerns war movies car racing movies. It's more that Kubrick begins with with

ideas that are in different places and then follows those ideas to their ultimate destination. In the 2001 which I saw again last night in that beautiful 70 millimeter print at the Virginia theater. He has dialog that is totally pointless. Entire dialogue scenes where nobody says anything that is of the slightest use or interest frankly by now dialogue in other movies. The dialogue sparkles with interest obviously in 2001 a one point Kubrick said he didn't want in 2001 any of the dialogue to be important to understanding the movie and the dialogue is just. It's like he's shooting a scene to show people talking. That was a scene about it's about people talking. What are they saying that doesn't matter. So there is a totally different stylistic idea than he uses anywhere else in the of his other films. And if it's interesting he doesn't have.

In my opinion a consistent approach to select the material and that's fine. Every movie is a completely new departure. This movie you know has inspired a great many probably late night conversations about what it's about. And obviously he did not he did not want to make something that was obvious. Do do you think that he had some idea what he thought it was about and has he really talked about what I Stanley Kubrick think this movie is about. Well there was a 15 year old girl who wrote a paper in 1988 about the movie and he wrote her and said Your paper is the most intelligent writing I've read about the film. And so he read her paper maybe you can guess what he thought. He has not explained the film. This is a time was made across ten and a half million dollars that would be. I would be a hundred million dollar film if it were made today

100 million dollar experimental underground personal film non-linear. It's just amazing that people love it so much because today Hollywood seems to believe that that all people want. Is an action picture with lots of special effects and things blowing up and an amazing sequence every four minutes. And here is a film with no dialogue for the first 30 minutes and really no dialogue for the last 30 minutes. And all dialogue in between of great consequence except for some conversations with a computer. A movie that doesn't explain itself. It's about people who manned a space mission to seek out another black monolith like one that has been found on the moon but the movie never tells you who put them on a list in place. What they represent or even what they are. At the end the hero has an amazing experience but you're never told what it is. And

then he grows old and dies in a hotel room somewhere beyond Jupiter and that turns into a star child who turns and looks at the audience. It's like music. The movie is like music. When you hear two pieces of great music certainly one makes you feel one way or another makes you feel another way. But you can't paraphrase them and give them a narrative. You can't say Beethoven's Fourth is about this in Beethoven's Ninth is about that you can just say one makes me feel. One way and one makes me feel another way in 2001 makes you feel a certain way. I know there are people who have interpretations of every single shot in the movie but of course they never agree on what those shots mean. Earlier in the week we talked with Harry Lang who was one of the artists I guess. Was involved with the production of the film who had been before Edward from

Nassa and then went and worked for Kubrick and after that worked on a lot of other movies and he was talking about the fact that there was some discussion at some point about having the aliens actually appear. Yes they had tests to create aliens and all the aliens they created looked ridiculous to them so they decided to leave them out. That's a great turn out to be a great idea to have the device essentially of the monolith as a stand in for the aliens. Your proverbial blank slate that you can. There may be I want a brief glimpse of proto aliens in the movie during the sound of a light trip when the astronaut is hurtling through this space gate or whatever it is. There's one shot where there are five. Pyramids on the horizon and some more creep in from the sides until there are nine all together at one point in there. The original short story by Arthur Clarke was of a pyramid that was found on the mound and not a monolith and at one point they talk about

making a kind of a pyramid will sort of alien and maybe those shapes suggest some of their thinking along that way but they're certainly never identified or presented as if they are aliens. We have some callers who want to ask one more question I promise watcher. Let these people talk with you. No after 10 years Stanley Kubrick is making movie now. He's actually after this long period since a full metal jacket he's making a movie and he's he had started to make a movie called AI artificial intelligence and he was preparing that and then he felt after seen Jurassic Park that he needed to give more thought to the special effects and new things that happened with computers and special effects that he wanted to digest. And so we switched over to the movies make you know a Tom Cruise. But AI is still going forward with another team in terms of its preparation pre-production special effects so that oddly enough we may get to Kubrick movies in the next two or three years after not having had any for 10 years. Why did it take such long time.

I don't Stanley doesn't confide he lives on his estate in England. He's not a hermit. He associates with people he talks to Joe Hyams at Warner Brothers three or four times a week. He works with the same people and he talks to them all the time. You know he's a he's a he talks I mean he goes out to eat and he is not living in a room but he does know press. He never talks about his work he does no interviews and he doesn't travel. He won't fly. So as a result there's this whole industry in trying to figure out what he's going to do next because he simply isn't interested in gossip or interviews or chat. Our guest this morning is a film critic Roger Ebert. And we have several people who would like to talk with you so we'll give him the chance to do that. If the number if you would after we talk with some folks if you would like call him the number 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's the champagne Urbana number we do also have toll free line. So it would be a long distance call for

use that number that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. And we have some folks here will start off with someone on the campus line one. Hello there. I want to thank. Mr. Rupert for the splendid job you did hosting. Were you there. I was there. Wasn't that you know when the curtain opened on the size of that screen the audience applauded they were not applauding the movie at all were not a cloud in the credits they were applauding the screen while they were applauding the MGM logo right. So I know I'm on is one of my three favorite movies of all time. The other two but the working man and can you have excellent taste. Last night the times that I've seen I want to see it over to maybe a dozen 15 times because only see 2001 in a movie theater. Oh yeah it's not the same on television it was 10 20

something there were 68 some type seen it in 70 millimeter and it was magnificent. But I want to ask you something about a comment that you made. Afterwards a good discussion about the way movies or rock released are made or broken in the first week. But the Friday night of the first release but you know what they were not. Pardo followed that formula but they know it was going to be good so the first Largo did not open in 2000 theaters. What they will do the key distributors of let's say independent films such as Miramax grammar CD Sony Classics fine line and so forth is they will open in a limited number of theaters and try to and try to go out a little more slowly which is the way all movies used to be handled. They don't want to risk 2000 prints on one weekend and because you know Fargo wouldn't have placed in the top five they kind of knew that. And then it would have been saddled

with the image of being a loser picture so it's better to open slowly and add theaters and accumulate money. You take the Lone Star by John Sayles which was never in the top 10 at the box office. But at the end of the year was still playing in most of the theaters it opened it. It ran for six months in Chicago week after week you know developing an audience through word of mouth. Well but I do think that you know studios movies built up so far I wonder why Academy Award nominations. Dark and far too dark. GARNER Well I hope so I notice the sling blade open today at the art theater in Champagne and I imagine that it's first run it is here and so maybe it was wise to wait until I got some nominations because now people are likely to be very interested in going to see it. Can you tell me what the experience of Fargo was in Champaign-Urbana had it open and how long did it run or do you think it ran a couple of weeks maybe you know. Maybe as long as a month. I can't remember but I think I saw it at the multiplex I don't

think yeah Homestar Theodoric for Fargo at a multiplex but it was truly a word of mouth people came out and told their friends about it said Have you seen this. You ought to go see it. But he did play a part. Pregnant for sure just remarkable. Oh she is. I think she might win the Oscar you know it's so discouraging to me as a movie critic because I like movies and I hope that people when they go have a good time. And you just want to just almost take people and shake them and say look I know you've heard all about any pendants day. I know it you know. Thirty five million dollars over the weekend. I know they spent 20 million dollars on TV ads and you've been hearing about it for six months frankly just between you and me. If you want to have a good time at the movies don't go see Independence Day go see Fargo. I just hope people don't get caught up in the in the syndrome that they have to go to the hit movie they want to be associated with a winner they want to go to the movie that places first for the weekend frequently that will not be the best movie in town.

Well I'm going to let other people. OK I want to thank you for what you're well. Remembering your hometown for you Could you afford a public library town he USA. Thanks again. OK call home will go on your next caller is in champagne. Play number 2. Hello hi I had a couple questions about that and question for my grandmother the first question is about have you seen a performance of visions of life with Dr. or Joan of Arc accompanied by an N-word oratory you. I have not. I was out of town when it was at the Medina Temple two weeks ago I know that they then came down here to the Krannert center with it however I've been in contact on email with Einhorn himself who sent me a CD of his music and I did a review of the movie itself the passion of Joan of Arc I have a new series in the Sun-Times called the great movies that runs every other Sunday and I go back into the past and review a great movie from

the past that I have never reviewed before this is kind of like looking for extra work and you can get it on the web by the way it's w w w dot sometimes dot com of the great movies and I did rereview passion of Joan of Arc and I've listened to the music but I have not seen the movie with the music because I wasn't in town I hear it was a great evening. Wonderful more of the best film experiences I've ever had. When it was your critter. Is it visions of light I think it's voices of light is the name of the oratory. Right okay. Yeah with none of the four. Oh yeah yeah. And so the other question I had about Fund film was on January 20th Laurence Austin was shot outside of a theater in LA. Yeah I know that silent film theater. Yeah I wondered if you knew him and could comment on his work or anything. Well I didn't know him. I did meet him and I have been to the silent film theater and once this was a theater over on. I think it was on

Fairfax. Well anyway it doesn't matter where he showed silent films and he was just apparently shot down in some kind of random street shooting or violence or mugging or something. Apparently he was a treasure trove of information regarding science right. Yeah it's a tragedy. I wonder if you knew. Any other people that. How does so much knowledge at their fingertips. Well we just lost William Everson a year ago who is a great historian of film in general and including silent film. We still have Kevin Brownlow who wrote the praise gone by. And who is still very much with us in England. And then there's a new generation a lot of the people who are silent film fans grew up with silent films and they're getting pretty old now. But young people are rediscovering silent films. And the problem of course is oftentimes one of preservation because these old nitrate prints casually just crumble into dust and so they have to be transferred and cared for.

And the American Film Institute is trying to do that. And one thing that you might be interested in do you ever go on the web. Yeah. You know that the American Film Institute has a web page now where they show silent films. Oh no. I want to work. Yeah. This week they're showing the boat a short subject by Buster Keaton remember the guy who builds the boat in his basement and the boat is too big to get out of the door and. And it's showing a little quick time movie which is kind of flickery but silent films you know the problem a quick time on the Web is that. So far it can't show 24 frames a second which is the way most movies are. It only show about eight or 10 frames a second but silent films were 16 frames a second so they look better on quick time than talking films do anyway they at least look better than the talking films and you can go to the FBI site on the web and see a different China film every week. You can also rent them on video and. That's probably preferable to you or me.

The question for my grandmother was. She worked at shrews grocery store on Main Street during her work to a new woman named Rhonda. My aunt sucks your ass your yakkers she had wondered if that might be a relation. Yes that was my father's sister. The Sears grocery on Main. Yeah ops years on. Oh Popsy years. Oh but that was over on like Maine in the residential neighborhood right. Yeah we're not main downtown Atlanta but over toward Lincoln. Yes oh I've been a pop Sears I probably know your grandmother my grandmother who lived on Clark Street would send me over there you know. Roger now washing over there and take this money and keep it in your pocket and don't lose it and bring me back half a pound of coffee a loaf of bread and you can get a tootsie roll for yourself. You know my grandmother's worsening so I'm sure she's enjoying yours. Oh yeah I want to eat her it was my aunt she died about 10 years ago. Well thank you very OK. Well thanks haha Sears sure I remember papa Sears a little bit before my time.

Another famous local grocer that I remember is Harry Rusk and he had a little neighborhood store in overbuy where I lived on Washington Street in Urbana and then later he opened up a store for many years on Green Street right in campus town. You live on Washington Street and are down to Washington a maple from one thousand forty two until 1962 then I moved to L.A. Noire street and then I moved over on campus and finally I left for Chicago in 66. 410 East Washington 0 0 out of about 4 year in West Washington. Oh great about four years ago my wife and I were knocked on the door and a wonderful woman named Violet who lives there let us in and we looked around the old house. I went down to the basement and I really felt a chill because there were lights in the basement ceiling and they had strings on that you could pool my father take in building block spelling out EBIT and tied them to the ends of the strings and they were still there still there. I was amazed she let me have the take home with me. It's amazing. Let's go on here I want to hit somebody else and mama on three.

However two questions first of all when the movie is reissued for its 30 year anniversary will it also be an 70 millimeter. Only if you're lucky enough to see it in a 70 millimeter house. The movie is controlled right now by Turner pictures which took over the MGM library and they restored this to 70 millimeter print we saw last night was from Turner in Atlanta. And that's kind of part of their ramping up for the 30th anniversary they're going to do a lot with the movie in 68 and in 98. But of course most theaters don't have 70 millimeter projectors. What I'm hopeful is that a theater like the Virginia could in addition to its stage stuff do revivals of these great movies I know that they have a $500000 loan from the city of champagne they're trying to raise another million dollars to pay off the loan and raise a million more dollars to refurbish the theater get it up to code get it up to standard. It's in good shape I mean everybody was there last night so I great movie nobody had any

complaints. But the projection booth has to be rebuilt and things like that have to be done. Her typical West might wonder if possible you would do it. Oh sure I'll give him the whole million and a half years. I'll come and do a benefit I did a benefit for the art. I'd be happy to do a benefit for the Virginia but what would be needed is. The current pattern in restoration is they take an old film they restore it. They make it in perfect shape and they make a print and they open the print theatrically in order to get reviews and interest and then they release it in a new anniversary video edition on tape and disc. And the but the use the actual release is important as part of the promotion. In recent years we've seen a revived and restored versions of Dr Strangelove My Fair Lady the Star Wars pictures Lawrence of Arabia. The Sound of Music Vertigo vertigo. Wow. And coming up a week from Friday in Chicago is the godfather. Well here's what I would do if I were the

Virginia theater. Maybe they can't pay the rate for the first run on one of these films. And in fact their lease prohibits them from showing first run films. But let's say Star Wars plays out the Attlee which is doing right now and then in three months it comes out on video the moment the movie goes to video the Virginia can legally show it at that point. They could get it cheaper too because it would be first run so they could say now see Star Wars on the screen that it was made for. And have you here in Champaign Urbana knew that at the Virginia theater you could see a movie in 70 millimeter. I would or you could see a movie on that big screen. You would go to it. I mean they talk about the problems of exhibition and the problems of booking independent theaters. But the fact is if you're selling something that nobody else in town is selling. People will go I mean everybody who was there last night I'm sure is thinking in the back of their mind the next time the Virginia shows a 70 millimeter film I'm going to go there.

What if you don't expect you for it. Place like Virginia to get old movies like Gone With The Wind and with the five children. No it wouldn't be that expensive but it might not be that profitable. You know the notion that there's a big market for repertory cinema is probably flawed unfortunately because people are accustomed now to running videos and looking at home where they won't go to the movies just to see an old film like The Wizard of Oz Unfortunately that was recently restored too by the way. What they will do is they will go to the movies to see a movie in a way that they can't see it at home like this. The first color that we had who said 2001 was one of his three favorite films. But he's only seen it five times because he will not see it except in a theater like war. Yeah because 2001 just doesn't make it on television. It's not the same movie. You've got to see it on a big screen and I think that would be the way the Virginia would go not just showing repertory in general but showing revivals of particular restored classic big screen films and then in addition they plan to have

concerts and stage and theatrical productions. My second question I asked last night but I don't think the man who answered it understood what I was asking at the beginning of 2001. The various cloud shots all the way through there and all the fist. The savannahs things were obviously still for us not moving pictures. Any idea why he did that it was distracting to see apes running around in the clouds. I think well first of all I think that the one answer that you got last night might have had some truth to it he didn't want to send a motion picture crew to Africa. That makes sense and it's so much cheaper to send a photographer down there with an 8 by 10 camera. Apart from that I think that in the you know most of the opening shots don't have any apes in them but you can tell the grass wasn't moving the clouds were moving. Yeah well it was because they were actually shooting on a sound stage. Now they could have had back projection of moving pictures instead of back projection of a still photograph. Right but in the in the opening shots I think he wanted to show like the dawn of time I think he wanted it to be still.

I was wondering if you struck a moment frozen in time with his attitude. I think I think in a sense that things didn't start so it's like the earth was waiting. Waiting for intelligence to appear. OK I just want or I might have just been because he didn't have moving pictures you know. Sometimes the most part pragmatic answer is the best one. OK thanks for the hello. Our guest here this morning is a film critic Roger Ebert. If you want to be Roger Kara's decided to get involved as a for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals after scene at 8 feet in the other ape to death in 2001 could be because animals are cruel to other animals I guess that's the difference. Questions are welcome three three three. W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W while I'm coloring Taylorville next line I'm for Hillary I have a lot of relatives there. Yeah well I might as well be one of yours but I am glad for the Fragonard going on that I don't know.

OK we'll look in the family Bible and see beyond your name. I was hoping Roger that. Before I cash in my own ship for you and your my to a periodic six times a year program as opposed to year one for the for the larger audience are silent for and etc. and I want to correct the nod and say we were talking a lot. You were in Champagne Urbana and we're talking about the sort of flicks I like of which one of your previous callers voted through I think of for example there at least that free travel on foot or better than 2001 a great movie I grant you that but I think I forget which particular film noir it was but somebody I think.

It's a private dick talking about a woman a little bit colder on the heart was a very cold movie. I see dead people. Maybe they'd be a fraction of a second order effect and fame are almost totally justified. Yeah I think that may be kind of the point that man has used his tools and now his tools are using him. I'll tell you about your other suggestion. I don't think we'll be doing a whole show on foreign films or documentaries or silent films. What we do is we make it as part of the mix for example a show that plays tomorrow will have two documentaries on it. Lonesome creek which was a nominated it was nominated for an Oscar last year and Mandela. About Mount Nelson Mandela is a. Is a nominee this year. And we do foreign films we have mama Rosie coming up on the show the plays a week from Saturday that's this astounding new Japanese film. But we include them as part of the mix and we are very astute us and not only showing

commercial. Hit films we do show subtitled films in the pendent films documentary films and revivals. I'd like to I want to my particular obsession not just enter a period. Politically environmentally but I see you have a great fear or actually what I am required to be. Everything running down Hollywood and movies will act as that damn twister movie only Rafic park. Nothing but lunch around how trashy her arc was better than twister and I kind of mind if you like riding roller coasters and if maybe your dream of heaven as a riding roller coasters America around forever. Yeah with heaps and heaps of Iman sympathy was on the other hand as a movie critic it's my job to say whether a roller coaster is good or bad. I can understand somebody who doesn't want to ride a roller coaster at all. But

there are levels of achievement even in the roller coaster business actually I happen to be a good friend of one of the former presidents of the coaster boasters which is a group that actually rates roller coasters and in terms of roller coaster movies I thought the drastic part was one of the better ones. Even though I might agree with you that it would be better off you'd be better off maybe going to see a more thoughtful film. Yeah I'll buy it. I'm going to get off and let you talk to somebody I see hear from you from Taylorville again. Right back to the call I want to ask you about the comments of some studio mogul and I'm sorry that I can't specifically tell you who it was this was a story was The New York Times a few weeks ago and perhaps you saw it and it was kind of a reaction to the the standard sort of criticism that Hollywood makes junk and

also those people who said that you can see from the movies this time around that we're nominated for Academy Awards. Virtually nothing sort of coming out of Hollywood is just a just another nail in that coffin and says you know Hollywood never makes anything artistic and the comment of the studio person was something defective give me a break you guys. You critic guys would be honest no matter what we did. And if we tried to make artsy films you'd let us have it even then. No I don't think so I first of all I don't think that most critics pay any attention to who makes a film. It I Don't Like a film better because it's from Miramax instead of from Paramount. I like it better if it's good instead of bad and essentially the major studios are now in a position where their average picture cost 60 to 80 million dollars to make and is intended for a worldwide audience including an audience that doesn't want to listen to a lot of dialogue because it's going to be dubbed or subtitled for them so that action becomes international. This is ironic because on the silent days a film made

anywhere could play anywhere and now I think the big budget action films are getting more and more silent in the dialogue becomes less and less important because once again they want to have this international market where a film can play anywhere Well of course you can't have character and situation of subtlety without dialogue. And so when you get into the situation where a. An independent film which might be budgeted anywhere from from $24000. Which is you know I've seen films made for for that little to more typically one two three five or even eight or ten million dollars. These films are simply made in a different way they have different kinds of overhead different kinds of executives connected to them different production budgets different schedules and the big studios are too big to make them. It's just like General Motors can't make a car that will only sell a thousand copies a year. Ford can't make the Rolls Royce they can't make

eight hundred cars they have to make 80000 cars. That's the way their assembly line works. And. I think the studios have more or less said what we're going to do is we're going to make the big pictures and leave the other kinds of pictures to independents but of course what's ironic is that all the independent distributors except one are associated with major studios. Miramax is Disney Fox Searchlight is Fox Sony Classics is Sony fine line is Time Warner and Turner and October is now being shopped around and somebody is probably going to buy October so it's like they have a boutique shop inside the big studio a little studio that's kind of quasi independent. And makes the smaller film. And then the big studio can sort of by association with that they can sort of say well ya know we're not just responsible for just on Independence Day. Look at this you know these fine films that we're you know of with one eye or irony the colossal irony is that this year's Oscar is probably going to go to the English Patient

The English Patient was a 20th Century Fox film until two weeks before the start date for shooting. And there was an enormous fight between the producer and the director on the one hand and the studio on the other hand over casting and the studio want to bigger stars and Anthony Minghella and Saul Zaentz said no this is the cast and this is the way it is. And FOX pulled its money out. And the cinematographer went back home to Australia and the stars dispersed and falls on to the pole. The producer flew to New York and met with Harvey Weinstein the head of Miramax gave him the script and gave him a pitch. Harvey read this took the script home the next morning he called up Saul and he said you've got the money now to do that he called Joe Roth who's the head of production at Disney because Miramax is a division of Disney and Roth was able to OK this enormous for Miramax expenditure. Probably the biggest movie Miramax has made. So now English creation is going to win the Oscar and it'll be a Miramax picture and

everybody will talk about how in any opinion film won the Oscar and everybody connected with 20th Century Fox right on up to its chairman Rupert Murdoch is going to be weeping and gnashing their teeth because it could have been a fox picture. But of course Fox felt well we have to have big stars in this we have to spend more money on it and spend more money advertising it and nobody's heard of Ray Fines and Juliette Binoche and Kristin Scott Thomas. And so now they're all nominated for Oscars. So people have heard of them now. Well I will give some more folks a chance to talk with you. Go here to champagne wine wine. Hello. Hi. I was a teenager when I first saw 2001 so it's very interesting coming back and seeing it you know 30 years later and so forth. But it was interesting because when you started to make your remarks last night about the monolith and what does it mean and so forth. I hadn't a clue as to you know I hadn't remembered anything about that. But it was interesting that when the

monolith first cropped up my initial reaction was oh that's religion. And I was wondering if the idea of the monolith being a religion is one they sort of try to attack they didn't appreciate. You have a response. I think that your and your interpretation is first of all to your own. But it certainly could be valid. Spirituality maybe resign religion. I think religion is an organized system created by man's intelligence and spirituality is what religion seeks. But the reason that I thought it was structured kind of religion is because I saw it like at the beginning with the apes. I thought OK on one side they are a part of that group and and it does something for them as a group. And one of the things it does that it is that it excludes people on the other side and then at the end of the movie I thought you know it's it still being religion because it was there when the.

Yellow tie you're thinking of religion as a tribal thing. In other words if I belong to one religion you belong to the other then we have to be separate and enemies. Well that's you know that's part of it and then I I thought if the if the model is sort of turning and I thought you know when when religion sort of opens its door so to speak you can see people on the other side. Whereas of course when you turn it back to the sort of original way it does serve to exclude people. So anyway I just I was toying with that idea and I hadn't remembered anything about what the speculation was that it. It's sort of symbolized at the time certainly when the new monolith appears the music on the soundtrack is caused by liturgy call. I guess maybe that. I feel. OK see you have your interpretation and I can give you mine in either one of us can prove. Oh no I think I but I but I feel that our way of thinking if what they what the

movie is telling us is we have to get beyond our bodies. We are bodies of flesh and blood and we use tools physical tools a bone or a spaceship or a computer. They're all tools and at the end of the movie when the body decays and grows old and dies but somehow is transformed through the presence of the monolith into the star child which turns and looks out to the audience and the star child is not supposed to be physical I'll think it's not located in any physical place. It's almost as if the movie is saying we have gone as far as tools can take us. And now it's time to liberate ourselves from flesh and to continue our journey as intelligence. Sure we're right now in his new book three thousand one. Arthur Clarke talks about a computer that he calls the soul catcher. He believes that it will be possible to download your memories your personality your intelligence your knowledge you

into a computer. And then you would be on a chip. Now you might think that would be very odd but think how odd it is that you're in your head. Oh yeah. I mean everything that we are is in this brain that's inside our skull. That's where we are. It might not be any stranger to be on a chip or to have a chip in our head in a way as long as we still thought of ourselves in the same way. Well that's sort of like the Natalie Wood movie if I recall there was a brainstorm or something like that. Yeah that's a lot of good record. Yeah but it wasn't. Because I brought my 20 year old and 12 year old children there and they sort of looked at each other and said What the hell with all that about. And I sort of said well they will remember and they will see it in 20 years and they will now at that point have more complex ideas. Absolutely and that's the reason that they were of late to school today and that's the reason that they were up until midnight and they will talk about it and it will sink in.

Who wouldn't it be an interesting idea. And I think that now with with the MRI imaging and so forth we can actually see the brain while it's thinking so we're learning more about the brain than we knew before and this is one of the topics that's been discussed this week during cyber fest. It would be interesting if at some point in the future you you had the entire contents of your brain could be downloaded into a chip now. Let's say it's more or less the end of your days. And instead of being frozen like they're doing now with a siren Gen-X cryogenics. You're downloaded into a chip and that chip is put into a little space ship and sent off somewhere like the Voyager which is now left the solar system with a Beatle songs and Beethoven and Shakespeare on board. And because the chip is shut down you don't get any older you don't you know 20 million years may pass but it won't seem long to you because the chip will be in the sleep mode.

And then at some point we could the chip could be awakened. You would have you would be in a spaceship that would give you eyes and ears and you know and the ability to express yourself. And that would be maybe the way that mankind will be able to colonize the stars or explore the stars because our bodies aren't going to make it there. Unless somebody develops a hyper drive through a wormhole in space and time we as as a species are never going to make it to another solar system they're too far away. But I don't and wouldn't have the need of everybody. It would not be kind of spiritual or beautiful in a way. Everybody on Earth when you die. Instead of just dying. Or maybe even a little earlier point before you're really decrepit. Download yourself a DEP point onto a chip then put the chip on sleep mode you continue to live until you get old and die when you die they put the chip on a space ship and fired

off into space so that every year several hundred million people set off on their destinations with the thought that long long after this planet is a cinder one of those chips somewhere may open its eyes on a new sunset somewhere. But I guess in a way it's one of the things that that that we all have to remember is that the prime time on earth is valuable because it is finite. And I guess in a way I sort of wonder whether or not people would just say OK well everything is infinite now so I don't have to do this I don't have to do that. I will have a million chances or a billion chances too. What about my life. Well we had let out a very good question that's a very good response. Let me put it to you this way one of the problems of growing old is eventually we grow old and we lose our memory and we lose our health and we lose our zest and we lose our

strength. And that's why there's a limit. Sure. Wouldn't it be great if you're my I think your mind I mean I've talked to so many oh people who say inside this ancient body is a teenager right is the same person in here that was always in here. I just look older to you. I know that I'd like to live for a good long time. I'd like to find out what's going to happen 100 years from now. I love the statement that louis been well the movie director makes in his autobiography he says the thing that annoys him most about dying is that he won't be able to read tomorrow morning's newspaper. And when they buried him they buried him with a copy of the next day's paper. I don't I'd always like to read tomorrow's paper. Yeah I would too. Thank you for OK. Thank you for coming and thanks. Thank you. How many more. Thanks for the call but I will try to get at least one more person here who will go to line number two. Hello.

And oh yes oh yes. Mystery bird I would like to say. You know and again we have we in this community appreciate your support especially when you help the Arts Theatre a little while back. They're all set now I guess too. They've got a target date for the next stage of their renovation over there and I know that there are new seats on line I guess. Yeah I thought that was really good and then and but I just have a quick comment because I know a quick question do they know the time is short. I know as a science fiction fan you know I love the movie 2001 and it's a really great movie. But on the converse of that there's a lot of science fiction movies made like Dune where if you read the book The Dune book and you saw the movie it was just so bad it just seems like it's really difficult to make really good science fiction area. I don't know I just like to have a general commentary on that because I thought that for a long time and been very disappointed by that. Well you can't make a good movie by committee. And you can't make a low budget science

fiction movie very easily because it takes so many special effects and the bigger a budget is the more people get their hands in the pie. And that may just be a built in problem with science fiction movies they their special effects films they cost a lot of money you've got all the producers and studio executives saying well this isn't clear this is to big US you need a bigger star here you've got to have some action at some point. And the whole original idea gets lost. What we can hope for is special effects are getting cheaper because computers are getting more powerful. I was amazed to hear at I heard William Gibson speak recently the author of. Of the man who created he created the word cyberspace or he popular Oh right. And he talks about Kubrick at every teenager a Kubrick in his bed and his own basement you know some kid down in the basement with a computer someday is going to be able to make a movie. Today a kid in the basement can make a movie. It

may not be ready to be played in a movie theater yet but some day and the day is going to happen in our lifetime. You will be able to buy a computer take it home take it out of the box set it up and make a movie on it if you want to you know. And at that time maybe science fiction will get better because it will be liberated from the committee. Meddling that takes place on big budget special effects pictures. Yeah I mean obviously true. I just think they have much special effects and name. They oversimplify stories that are retold again and again and oh yeah look at that. What was that canneries movie based on a William Gibson. Oh I can't remember one of his novels because I think the money. Yeah I'm a Johnny Johnny monic. Yeah where the guy had a chip in his head. That's the one I think Gibson is a very interesting writer. And what's interesting about his newest book adorer which is the one about the Japanese about the rock star falls in love with a

Japanese cyber girl. The woman who exists only in terms of computer memory. Is that he creates in his book an idea of cyber face cyberspace which is really more convincing than virtual reality really is today. In other words if you want to experience virtual reality it's more fun to read about it than to do it. I'm really sorry to have to jump in my apologies are ours but a word we're out of time. We keep talking you have some of your listeners are so smart Yes they are not one person asked me who was going to win the Academy Award I'm so impressed. If you're ever in the neighborhood. You're welcome to come by I love this neighborhood this we appreciate. OK Roger take care.