Honestly it’s hard to understate how inspirational Michael Silverblatt was. We don’t talk about good readers as much as good writers, but he really embodied what a great reader could be. I long to be as perceptive and attentive as he was
Joseph Cotten on why 'The Magnificent Ambersons' (1942) was butchered after it was filmed:
"We thought that ['The Magficent Ambersons' (1942) was a better Picture than 'Citizen Kane' (1941)] when we were making it. It was more expensive to make and the costumes were expensive. Much of the house was built as a fully working house. I mean, walls wouldn’t move out so our cinematographer, Stanley Cortez, had a hell of a challenge lighting scenes. One problem: it had no stars to entice patrons into the theater. We shot it very quickly, as I recall. I loved my part. Dolores Costello was so beautiful it was easy imagining I was in love with her. Orson wrote the script in two weeks using great gobs of dialogue from the book.
When Anne Baxter came from Fox [to play] Lucy, she was accompanied by a guardian [because she was legally a minor]. It was Frank Lloyd Wright, her grandfather, the great architect. Orson showed him the footage already shot and Frank said, “Magnificent architecture. Story so so.
For the scenes in winter, we shot in an icehouse so you could see our breath. And, yes, it is true—Agnes Moorehead’s hysterical scene on the stairs was shot a number of different ways, all believable. Aggie is that kind of actress, you see.
We were shooting on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor day. That’s what killed us: American war anxiety. Suddenly the problems of a turn-of-the century family in Indianapolis became completely irrelevant. The first preview was before a bunch of louts expecting a Hopalong Cassidy western. Instead they got this strange film without titles at the beginning and an unseen narrator. They hollered back at the picture and the RKO [brass] heard about it and ordered it be cut down to eighty minutes. Bob Wise, our editor, stretched it to eighty-eight minutes, but at least forty minutes was lost. And the picture tanked with the public. Orson’s short reign as a golden boy was over."
('Conversations with Classic Film Stars', James Bawden & Ron Miller, 2016)
Immerse your classroom in the literary world of 2025 Nobel Prize laureate and author László Krasznahorkai.
Teach your pupils to write like a Nobel Prize author and unlock their writing potential with our newly released Nobel Prize lesson. Don't miss the short video with our Nobel Prize expert Gustav Källstrand.
The lesson is available here: https://t.co/oqFmXUaFTm
Adidas lit up The Sphere in Las Vegas with every FIFA World Cup ball since 1970, teasing the official ’26 ball unveiling on October 2 ⚽️👀
(via @SphereVegas)
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
Little Gidding, Four Quartets
— T. S. Eliot #botd
With tomorrow (9/9) marking the official publication of SCHATTENFROH, we present to you now the introductory letter that review-writers received alongside their advance copies of the book. We hope that it will prepare you, as well.