0:00:18 > 0:00:21Grandpa, get your teeth from the water glass.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Grandma and great grandma, fry hotcakes.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32Sun...up!
0:00:38 > 0:00:39Ready...?
0:00:39 > 0:00:40Wake up!
0:00:44 > 0:00:49My first decision as a child, at the age of 11, was to become a magician.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51My second decision, at the age of 12,
0:00:51 > 0:00:53was to become a short story writer,
0:00:53 > 0:00:57as a result of meeting another magician, Mr Electrico,
0:00:57 > 0:01:00who pointed at me on a night when he sat in his electric chair
0:01:00 > 0:01:03and touched me with his sword of fire.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07All this blue electricity coming down through his arm and hand,
0:01:07 > 0:01:12out the sword, touching me on the nose and he said, "Live for ever,"
0:01:12 > 0:01:16and it was that week I decided to live for ever by becoming a writer.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44I remember the moment and the hour of my birth.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47I don't know why I should be privileged, if that's the word,
0:01:47 > 0:01:49to remember that, but I do.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53I remember lying in my crib during the first week after my birth,
0:01:53 > 0:01:55I remember being circumcised,
0:01:55 > 0:01:58I remember suckling at my mother's breast -
0:01:58 > 0:02:00I checked all of this out with her later.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04And the nightmares I had in my crib, about being born,
0:02:04 > 0:02:06are still very vivid for me.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13CLOCK TICKING
0:02:30 > 0:02:33BABY CRYING
0:02:47 > 0:02:49SHE SCREAMS
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Years later, I wrote a short story called The Small Assassin
0:03:00 > 0:03:05about a baby with just such a capacity to remember,
0:03:05 > 0:03:09to see, to know and to want to revenge its parents
0:03:09 > 0:03:11for thrusting it out into the world.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13EERIE MUSIC
0:03:17 > 0:03:20I was very fortunate in having a maniac mother
0:03:20 > 0:03:25who couldn't stay away from motion pictures when I was a child.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29So, every chance she had, especially when I was two, three and four years old,
0:03:29 > 0:03:32she'd creep off to the local movies
0:03:32 > 0:03:36and introduce me to those fabulous monsters.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40People like Lon Chaney in the Hunchback of Notre Dame,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46So, by the time I was seven or eight years old
0:03:46 > 0:03:50I was dressing myself up in my grandma's opera cape,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54putting fangs in my mouth and hanging upside down in trees, and dropping on people.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32Well, this is my nest. And what is a nest to a writer?
0:04:32 > 0:04:36It's bits and pieces of things that changed his life for ever,
0:04:36 > 0:04:39starting when I was three years old.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Falling in love with motion pictures -
0:04:41 > 0:04:44grabbing a piece of the film, collecting that,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47falling in love with the Oz books, collecting the Oz books -
0:04:47 > 0:04:48you'll find them here,
0:04:48 > 0:04:50falling in love with science-fiction books -
0:04:50 > 0:04:54I'm surrounded by science-fiction books, comic strips -
0:04:54 > 0:04:56Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59All these things, which are my security blanket.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03JOLLY ORGAN MUSIC
0:05:14 > 0:05:18People told me not to collect them, not to read Buck Rogers,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20there was never going to be a space age, of course.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23It was a long time ago and I listened to them for a while
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and I made the mistake of tearing up all my comic strips.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30And a month or two later I burst into tears and said to myself,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33"Something's terribly wrong. What could it be?
0:05:33 > 0:05:36"Could it be that those people are all wrong,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39"telling me what to do with my life? And am I right?"
0:05:39 > 0:05:41And I decided I was right
0:05:41 > 0:05:44and I went back and collected the Buck Rogers comic strips
0:05:44 > 0:05:46and became a happy boy again.
0:05:46 > 0:05:51And, from that time on, I never listened to anybody else about taste,
0:05:51 > 0:05:53I just went ahead and did what I had to do.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04Now we have a magic set out of my past,
0:06:04 > 0:06:09with all kinds of fantastic goodies in.
0:06:09 > 0:06:10And, er...
0:06:12 > 0:06:15..I think part of the fun comes from the colours of these things
0:06:15 > 0:06:20and the miraculousness of the kind of devices
0:06:20 > 0:06:23you could find in a box like this.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27And if you're very lucky and things are working for you...
0:06:27 > 0:06:30you make cards appear like that, hm?
0:06:30 > 0:06:33Er, these things are in the cellar
0:06:33 > 0:06:36because that's where you keep the naughty boy, hm?
0:06:36 > 0:06:41In other words, if I were upstairs I would clutter the house.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06JOLLY PIANO MUSIC
0:07:41 > 0:07:44I'm a child of my time.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47I grew up in the tail end of the Industrial Revolution
0:07:47 > 0:07:50and at the beginning of the electronic revolution.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55Everything's been turned inside out.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58Therefore, there is no other fiction to write.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02When people ask, "Why do you write science fiction?",
0:08:02 > 0:08:04when you grow up with all this pouring into your blood,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07in your eyeballs and ears - tasting it, feeling it.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11In cities all over the world there is nothing else to write about.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20Well, this is my office, my basement in the sky,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22my annexe to my junkyard at home.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26This is where I come to hide away from telephones and people.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28People are afraid to come here
0:08:28 > 0:08:31because we had an earthquake several years ago.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33I couldn't get into the office.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35Everything had collapsed, everything had fallen over.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38Cleaning people refuse to come in
0:08:38 > 0:08:42because there's so much on the floor - my filing system -
0:08:42 > 0:08:45that it's impossible to do anything about cleaning.
0:08:45 > 0:08:46They flee the place!
0:08:55 > 0:08:57HE WHISPERS TO HIMSELF
0:09:00 > 0:09:03When I was a boy I loved to go out and look at the stars
0:09:03 > 0:09:06and when I wasn't looking at the stars
0:09:06 > 0:09:08I was busy running through the town
0:09:08 > 0:09:12wearing my special Para Litefoot tennis shoes
0:09:12 > 0:09:14on my way to somewhere.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17As I grew older, I looked at the stars more and more,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21wrote about rocket ships, but I never forgot the shoes.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24And when I had characters with problems I would say to them,
0:09:24 > 0:09:27in effect, "put on your tennis shoes
0:09:27 > 0:09:29"and run toward the thing that you want with all your heart.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32"I will follow you. I will write your story."
0:09:41 > 0:09:43"Somehow the people who made tennis shoes
0:09:43 > 0:09:45"knew what the boys needed and wanted.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49"They put marshmallows and coiled springs in the soles
0:09:49 > 0:09:51"and they wove the rest out of grasses,
0:09:51 > 0:09:54"bleached and fired in the wilderness."
0:09:56 > 0:09:59JAUNTY PIANO MUSIC
0:10:10 > 0:10:12"The people who made those shoes
0:10:12 > 0:10:15"must have watched a lot of winds blow the trees,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18"a lot of rivers going down to the lake.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22"Whatever it was, it was in the shoes and it was summer."
0:10:30 > 0:10:33When people ask me where I get my ideas, I laugh.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37We're all so busy looking out to find ways and means
0:10:37 > 0:10:40we forget to look in.
0:10:46 > 0:10:51"Soft trolleys, and runabouts, and friends can go away for a while,
0:10:51 > 0:10:53"or go away for ever.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55"And if someone like great grandma,
0:10:55 > 0:11:00"who was going to live for ever, can die, if all of this is true,
0:11:00 > 0:11:05"then someday I, Douglas Spaulding, must..."
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Douglas Spaulding is most definitely me.
0:11:11 > 0:11:16Er, a boy who grew up in a small, Midwestern town - Northern Illinois,
0:11:16 > 0:11:19very much loved his grandparents,
0:11:19 > 0:11:21loved the summer days and running through them,
0:11:21 > 0:11:24loved making dandelion wine with his grandfather.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28So, all of that I've gathered up over the years
0:11:28 > 0:11:30and put in books like Dandelion Wine.
0:11:40 > 0:11:41"Dandelion wine...
0:11:42 > 0:11:45"..the words were summer on the tongue.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49"The wine was summer caught and stoppered.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53"Row upon row, with the soft gleam of flowers open at morning.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57"With the light of this young sun glowing through a faint skin of dust
0:11:57 > 0:12:00"would stand the dandelion wine.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05"Peer through it at the wintry day, the snow melted to grass,
0:12:05 > 0:12:10"the trees were re-inhabited with bird, leaf and blossoms,
0:12:10 > 0:12:14"like a continent of butterflies breathing on the wind."
0:12:14 > 0:12:16BIRDS SINGING
0:12:22 > 0:12:25I'm a Sunday painter who paints about once a year
0:12:25 > 0:12:28and when I do paint I go back into my childhood
0:12:28 > 0:12:32and I paint pictures of dandelions in the middle of summer fields.
0:12:32 > 0:12:38Or, in autumn, I paint something like a Halloween tree.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41EERIE MUSIC
0:12:53 > 0:12:59Death, violence, fantasy - not good for children - nonsense!
0:12:59 > 0:13:03I've always believed that we should act out our fantasies -
0:13:03 > 0:13:05put them in stories, put them in films -
0:13:05 > 0:13:06so we can make do with them.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10So we don't have to go act them in real life.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13After all, isn't it true that most of us, at one time or another,
0:13:13 > 0:13:17has wanted to kill one of our parents or one of our teachers?
0:13:17 > 0:13:21A film like Dracula, for me, gives me a chance, and others a chance,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24to act out our fears about death.
0:13:24 > 0:13:27And when we've scared ourselves for an hour,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30Van Helsing hands us a cedar stake,
0:13:30 > 0:13:34we put it to Dracula's chest and, "VAM! VAM! VAM!"
0:13:34 > 0:13:35We kill death, don't we?
0:13:43 > 0:13:47"He walked down to the next table, 'Good afternoon, Mr Wren.',
0:13:47 > 0:13:48" 'Good afternoon.'
0:13:48 > 0:13:51" 'And how was the master of the racial hatreds today, Mr Wren?'
0:13:51 > 0:13:55"Pure, white, laundered Mr Wren, clean as snow,
0:13:55 > 0:13:57"white as linen Mr Wren.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02"The man who hated Jews and Negroes. " 'Minorities, Mr Wren, minorities.'
0:14:02 > 0:14:04"He pulled back the sheet.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07"Mr Wren stared up with glassy, cold eyes.
0:14:07 > 0:14:09" 'Mr Wren, look upon a member of the minorities.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12" 'Myself, the minority of inferiors,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15" 'those who speak not above a whisper,
0:14:15 > 0:14:16" 'those afraid of talking aloud,
0:14:16 > 0:14:19" 'those frightened little nonentities - mice.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22" 'Do you know what I'm going to do with you, Mr Wren?
0:14:22 > 0:14:26" 'First, let us draw your blood from you, intolerant friend.'
0:14:26 > 0:14:28"The blood was drawn off.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32"' Now, the injection of, you might say, embalming fluid.'
0:14:33 > 0:14:38" Mr Wren, snow white, linen pure, lay with the fluid going into him.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40"Mr Benedict laughed.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44"Mr Wren turned black. Black as dirt.
0:14:44 > 0:14:45"Black as night.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48"The embalming fluid was ink."
0:14:50 > 0:14:53DOORBELL RINGING
0:14:56 > 0:15:00- Trick or treat? - Well, we're all out of treats.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03- Looks like it's going to have to be a trick.- OK.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08We've forgotten where these rituals came from.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12What the witch mask really means, what the skeleton really means.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Halloween is an example of the need for fantasy
0:15:17 > 0:15:19that exists in all of us.
0:15:19 > 0:15:20This kind of fantasy
0:15:20 > 0:15:24and the kind that comes out in horror stories and horror films,
0:15:24 > 0:15:26is our way of dealing with death.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35I lived in a house near a ravine, on the edge of town.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38I used to go and stare down into the ravine in the daytime,
0:15:38 > 0:15:41when it was all right, but at night, when you went down there,
0:15:41 > 0:15:45the darkness came out from behind the trees, and the rocks,
0:15:45 > 0:15:48and made it very black indeed. Very frightening.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51We knew that someone was waiting for us.
0:15:51 > 0:15:56That someone was a murderer called The Lonely One.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02'Three minutes from now I'll be putting my key in my house door.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06'Nothing's happened, has it? No-one around, is there?'
0:16:06 > 0:16:07FOOTSTEPS ECHOING
0:16:07 > 0:16:10'Wait...someone's following me.'
0:16:12 > 0:16:15'Someone's behind me. I don't dare turn around.'
0:16:18 > 0:16:20'Every time I take a step, they take one.'
0:16:23 > 0:16:24'Run.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27'Faster, faster, run!
0:16:27 > 0:16:32'He's following - don't turn, don't look, just run, run!'
0:16:33 > 0:16:35'God, it's dark and everything's so far away.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37'God, please let me be safe.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40'If I get home safe I'll never go out alone.'
0:16:48 > 0:16:50SHE PANTS
0:16:52 > 0:16:54'Home.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56'Oh, God, safe at home.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58'Look out the window.'
0:17:03 > 0:17:05'Well, there's no-one there at all!
0:17:05 > 0:17:07'NOBODY!'
0:17:12 > 0:17:13SHE GASPS
0:17:15 > 0:17:17I don't much trust realists,
0:17:17 > 0:17:22because what they want to do is wet your thumb and stick it in a socket.
0:17:22 > 0:17:23That way you get electrocuted.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26'I would much rather take that energy
0:17:26 > 0:17:29'and cause it to illuminate the world.'
0:17:29 > 0:17:31CROWD APPLAUDS
0:17:31 > 0:17:33..and Nietzsche has a wonderful quote where he says,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36"We have our arts that we do not die of truth."
0:17:36 > 0:17:40That's interesting, isn't it? That we don't die of reality.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42By the time we get to be 16 or 17
0:17:42 > 0:17:45we know everything there is to know about reality, huh?
0:17:45 > 0:17:49That we are born, that we grow up, that we grow old,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52that we get sick, that we die - those are the basic facts.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56And along the way some terrible things happen to us and some beautiful things happen,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00but by the time we're 18, 19, 20, we know what they are.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02And if you just stick with the realists,
0:18:02 > 0:18:05who tell you again and again what you already know,
0:18:05 > 0:18:07you're never going to learn anything.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10What we need is interpreters of that same basic truth
0:18:10 > 0:18:11and that's my function.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16To come along and take the familiar cliches and hand them back to you,
0:18:16 > 0:18:20refreshed, in some new form, so that you look at them again.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22So that reality won't kill you.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37'I was having lunch one day with some Life magazine editors'
0:18:37 > 0:18:39and they said, "Where'd you get your ideas?"
0:18:39 > 0:18:41We'd been talking about space.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43We were sitting there eating hamburger steak,
0:18:43 > 0:18:46on which there was a covering of mushrooms.
0:18:46 > 0:18:47I pointed at the mushrooms, I said,
0:18:47 > 0:18:50"Now, what would be a great way to invade Earth?
0:18:50 > 0:18:54"Not the old-fashioned way of spaceships coming down,
0:18:54 > 0:18:56"flying saucers, but what if,
0:18:56 > 0:18:59"since we know that spores do drift down from outer space,
0:18:59 > 0:19:03"some of those spores drifted into a swamp, grew up as mushrooms,
0:19:03 > 0:19:07"the mushrooms come into the city on a farm truck,
0:19:07 > 0:19:11"we put them on our hamburger steak, we eat them
0:19:11 > 0:19:14"and we turn into something very strange."
0:19:14 > 0:19:17As soon as I said it, I said, "That's a wonderful idea.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19"Pardon me, I'm going to go write it."
0:19:19 > 0:19:22EERIE MUSIC
0:19:29 > 0:19:33DIGGING AND SCRAPING
0:19:37 > 0:19:41There was the faintest whisper, rustle, stir from the cellar.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44Taking his eyes from the bowl,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47Fortnum walked to the cellar door and put his ear to it.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53Tom?
0:19:56 > 0:19:57Tom, are you down there?
0:19:59 > 0:20:00Tom?
0:20:01 > 0:20:04- Yes, Dad? - What are you doing down there?
0:20:04 > 0:20:06- I said...- Tending my crop.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Well, now, you get up out of there. You hear me?
0:20:13 > 0:20:14Tom, listen...
0:20:14 > 0:20:17did you put some mushrooms in the refrigerator tonight?
0:20:17 > 0:20:19- Yes.- Why?
0:20:19 > 0:20:21For you and Mom to eat, of course.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25Now, Tom, you haven't, by any chance...
0:20:25 > 0:20:28eaten some of the mushrooms yourself, have you?
0:20:28 > 0:20:29Funny you should ask that.
0:20:32 > 0:20:33Dad?
0:20:33 > 0:20:37Come on down, I want you to see the harvest.
0:20:37 > 0:20:38Dad?
0:20:44 > 0:20:48Don't! Light's bad for mushrooms.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52'I suppose I should say goodbye to my wife, but why should I think that?'
0:20:53 > 0:20:56'Why should I think that at all?
0:20:56 > 0:20:57'No reason, is there?
0:20:57 > 0:20:59'None.'
0:21:06 > 0:21:07A few years ago I wrote a short story
0:21:07 > 0:21:09called A Scent of Sarsaparilla.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13It was the story of an old man for whom everything was going wrong.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15Nothing was right in his life at all.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17His wife was yelling at him all the time
0:21:17 > 0:21:20so he took to climbing up into the attic
0:21:20 > 0:21:23to, sort of, hide out and guard himself against reality.
0:21:23 > 0:21:25He began to look around that attic.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28He realised, in a way, it was a kind of Time Machine
0:21:28 > 0:21:33and late on in the story, he went and looked out the back window of the attic
0:21:33 > 0:21:37and saw down below the year 1905 or 1908,
0:21:37 > 0:21:41when things were younger and better, at least for him.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49I had to attack the senses of the reader
0:21:49 > 0:21:52in order to make the reader believe in my fantasy.
0:21:52 > 0:21:57And, when you think about it, an attic truly is a time machine.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05HE INHALES
0:22:09 > 0:22:15I'd allowed the reader to run their hand over the plush, open, old attic trunks,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18look at dress forms, giant chandeliers put by,
0:22:18 > 0:22:20toys from another time.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24And when I described each of these things in great detail
0:22:24 > 0:22:27through the sense of smell, and seeing, hearing, tasting,
0:22:27 > 0:22:31I finished the story and it worked.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35People believed in the fantasy of the Time Machine attic,
0:22:35 > 0:22:37going back in time,
0:22:37 > 0:22:41and at the end of the story the old man climbed through the back window,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44out of the attic, and disappeared for ever.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55When you think of American writers 100 years ago,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58all of a sudden you think of magicians, don't you?
0:22:58 > 0:22:59At least I do.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Washington Irving and Nathanial Hawthorne,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08they were all illusionists who could do incredible things.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10SHOUTS: The birds!
0:23:10 > 0:23:11He rises!
0:23:16 > 0:23:18MEN!
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Get out after him!
0:23:28 > 0:23:30Spike!
0:23:30 > 0:23:32THE MEN ALL SHOUT
0:23:34 > 0:23:38It was while writing the screenplay of Moby Dick for John Huston
0:23:38 > 0:23:42that I surprised myself by discovering that, at one time,
0:23:42 > 0:23:46Melville has never read Shakespeare and suddenly fell upon him,
0:23:46 > 0:23:50took his novel that he was working on, about whales and ships,
0:23:50 > 0:23:53threw it out the window and started over, and birthed Moby Dick.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58So, suddenly I find myself in familiar territory with Shakespeare,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01whom I'd loved since I was 14 years old.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09Oh, ye whale! Ye dammed whale!
0:24:22 > 0:24:24I crammed myself with Moby Dick
0:24:24 > 0:24:28to the extent of reading some parts of the novel 50 or 60 times over.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30Some scenes 80 times over.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33Until a day finally came in London
0:24:33 > 0:24:37when I got out of bed, walked over to the mirror and said to myself,
0:24:37 > 0:24:39"I am Herman Melville,"
0:24:39 > 0:24:43and on that day I rewrote the last fourth of the screenplay -
0:24:43 > 0:24:4540 pages in a single afternoon.
0:24:46 > 0:24:51From Hell's heart I stab at thee!
0:24:51 > 0:24:53For hate's sake!
0:24:53 > 0:25:01I spit my last breath at thee, oh, damned whale!
0:25:23 > 0:25:27I was walking with a friend, about 30 years back,
0:25:27 > 0:25:30along Wilshire and Western Avenue,
0:25:30 > 0:25:31and a police car pulled up
0:25:31 > 0:25:34and the policeman got out and came over to us and said,
0:25:34 > 0:25:35"What are you doing?"
0:25:35 > 0:25:39And I said, "Putting one foot in front of the other,"
0:25:39 > 0:25:41which was the wrong answer.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44CROWD LAUGHS
0:25:44 > 0:25:46And the more the policeman talked to me the more upset I got
0:25:46 > 0:25:50because I felt I wasn't a criminal, I'd done nothing,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53that I could remember anyway, to be questioned on the street.
0:25:53 > 0:25:55And I looked around suddenly
0:25:55 > 0:25:58and I realised how great a distance it was
0:25:58 > 0:26:00toward the West, with no pedestrians,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03and toward the east, with no-one walking,
0:26:03 > 0:26:05and all the side streets,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08nobody doing anything, and we were isolated.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11This other chap and myself, walking at night.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16And the more I talked, the more I realised I was making trouble for myself.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19I became so frustrated that, at a certain point,
0:26:19 > 0:26:24I reached into my pocket and took out a packet of soda crackers
0:26:24 > 0:26:26and put them in my mouth and chewed on them.
0:26:26 > 0:26:29And as I talked to the policeman, I sprayed him with flakes.
0:26:29 > 0:26:31CROWD LAUGHS
0:26:31 > 0:26:34Now, I've never been able to figure out whether I did this on purpose
0:26:34 > 0:26:39or whether there was some subconscious thing going on there.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43And the policeman looked down at the flakes on his uniform
0:26:43 > 0:26:46and he looked like the night sky,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50with the Andromeda nebula here and Orion over here,
0:26:50 > 0:26:53and he couldn't decide whether I was being hostile or not.
0:26:59 > 0:27:01All right, stand still.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03Stay where you are, don't move.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05Put up your hands.
0:27:05 > 0:27:06Your hands up or we'll shoot.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10- Your name?- Ray Bradbury.- Speak up!
0:27:12 > 0:27:15- Ray Bradbury. - What are you doing out?
0:27:15 > 0:27:17Walking.
0:27:17 > 0:27:19Walking? Walking? Just walking?
0:27:19 > 0:27:21- Walking?!- Yes, sir.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24Walking where? For what?
0:27:24 > 0:27:25To breathe the air.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28- To see things. - You've done this often?
0:27:28 > 0:27:29Every night for years.
0:27:31 > 0:27:32Well, Mr Bradbury...
0:27:34 > 0:27:36- Is that all?- Yes.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38Here, get in.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43But you don't understand, I haven't done anything.
0:27:43 > 0:27:44Get in.
0:27:49 > 0:27:54I wrote The Pedestrian, a story of a time, 50 years from now,
0:27:54 > 0:27:57when a man is arrested by a robot car.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59He is taken off for a clinical study
0:27:59 > 0:28:03because he insists on looking at untelevised reality
0:28:03 > 0:28:06and breathing un-air-conditioned air.
0:28:06 > 0:28:10And, about a year later, two years later,
0:28:10 > 0:28:14I took that story out and I was looking at some other notes about fireman
0:28:14 > 0:28:19and I suddenly decided to take that pedestrian out for a walk again.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23And I went to my typewriter, started walking the pedestrian,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26changed the sex to a girl - Clarisse McClellan -
0:28:26 > 0:28:28had her turn a corner and smell kerosene
0:28:28 > 0:28:32and nine days later Fahrenheit 451 was finished as a novel.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34So, thank God for that policeman, huh?
0:28:34 > 0:28:39Tell me, that number you all wear, what does it mean?
0:28:39 > 0:28:40Oh, Fahrenheit 451.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44Why 451 rather than 813 or 121...?
0:28:44 > 0:28:48Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper catches fire
0:28:48 > 0:28:50and starts to burn.
0:28:50 > 0:28:52(Look, isn't that lovely?)
0:28:52 > 0:28:57The pages, like flower petals or butterflies.
0:28:57 > 0:28:58Luminous and black.
0:28:58 > 0:29:03Who can explain the fascination of fire? What draws us to it?
0:29:03 > 0:29:05Whether we're young or old.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09HARROWING VIOLIN MUSIC
0:29:19 > 0:29:22The McCarthy period, the Joseph McCarthy period,
0:29:22 > 0:29:25I consider to be one of the strangest semi-frightening
0:29:25 > 0:29:28and ridiculous periods of American history.
0:29:28 > 0:29:34I myself wasn't so much afraid of him as I was angered by him.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37As a result of this, believing in the power of the individual,
0:29:37 > 0:29:41I wrote a whole series of short stories, which turned into novels.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44The final novel being Fahrenheit 451.
0:29:44 > 0:29:50Is it true...that a long time ago firemen used to put out fires
0:29:50 > 0:29:52and not burn books?
0:29:53 > 0:29:56Oh, really, your uncle is right, you are light in the head!
0:29:56 > 0:29:59- Put fires out? Who told you that? - Oh, I don't know, someone.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02- But is it true? Did they? - Oh, what a strange idea!
0:30:02 > 0:30:04In the midst of writing about the future
0:30:04 > 0:30:09I sat down and exploded, politically, about the future
0:30:09 > 0:30:12by putting together an advertisement,
0:30:12 > 0:30:15which I paid for myself, with 200 I didn't truly have.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20"Get to your work now, remembering that you have good men in your party
0:30:20 > 0:30:21"if you put them to work
0:30:21 > 0:30:24"but in the name of all that is right, and good, and fair,
0:30:24 > 0:30:28"let us send Joseph McCarthy and his friends back to Salem
0:30:28 > 0:30:30"and the 17th century."
0:30:30 > 0:30:33My friend said, "It's no use, he's going to stay in power for ever,
0:30:33 > 0:30:35"he's going to hurt a lot of people."
0:30:35 > 0:30:39I said, "I refuse to be frightened. Let's attack."
0:30:39 > 0:30:42So, I said, "The individual has great power.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45"I believe that McCarthy will be destroyed by one or two people."
0:30:45 > 0:30:46That's how it turned out.
0:30:46 > 0:30:50Edward R Murrow with his television show on McCarthy,
0:30:50 > 0:30:54Mr Welsh, the lawyer at the Army trial, turning on McCarthy
0:30:54 > 0:30:58and saying, finally, at long last, "Sir, have you no decency?",
0:30:58 > 0:31:00and down the drain went McCarthy.
0:31:01 > 0:31:03Is this your special book?
0:31:03 > 0:31:06It's got to be burned with the others and you're under arrest.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26(Die.)
0:31:27 > 0:31:29HE SCREAMS
0:31:34 > 0:31:37People are saying, "Well, what do you predict for the future?
0:31:37 > 0:31:39"You're writing these depressing books."
0:31:39 > 0:31:44I don't mean to depress, I mean to use my books as weapons
0:31:44 > 0:31:47to prevent futures rather than to predict them.
0:31:47 > 0:31:50And I'm optimistic about the future
0:31:50 > 0:31:52or I wouldn't be writing the way I write.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56If I really believed the future was going to be as dark as Orwell said
0:31:56 > 0:32:00or Aldous Huxley said, I would, tomorrow, go out
0:32:00 > 0:32:05and eat a ton of pickles and 16 Clark bars and 13 Cadburys
0:32:05 > 0:32:07and get the hell out of the world.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11MUSIC BOX PLAYING "Fly Me To The Moon" by Bart Howard
0:32:32 > 0:32:34I've never learned to drive ever in my life.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38Number one because I was very poor growing up as a writer,
0:32:38 > 0:32:40number two, I'm afraid of automobiles.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54It's ours to choose - you can create good machines or bad machines.
0:32:54 > 0:32:59A machine that has humanity embodied in it is a good machine.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03We can create machines in the future that can lock humanity into them
0:33:03 > 0:33:08and therefore change the entire aspect of technology.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12'And now, the skills of the sculptor
0:33:12 > 0:33:17'and the talents of the artist will let us relive great moments
0:33:17 > 0:33:19'with Mr Lincoln.'
0:33:33 > 0:33:38The world, it...never had a good definition...
0:33:40 > 0:33:41..of the word liberty.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45'Hello and welcome to the magic kingdom of Disneyland.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48'There are several ways to visit Disneyland.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51'If this is your first visit, you may enjoy the guided tour,
0:33:51 > 0:33:55'complete with your admission and seven of Disneyland's major attractions...'
0:33:57 > 0:34:01I think we all have our lives at Disneyland.
0:34:01 > 0:34:02The future of America, for me,
0:34:02 > 0:34:05is in the kind of planning that is going on here.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15CAROUSEL MUSIC
0:34:43 > 0:34:46I happen to believe that machines of this sort
0:34:46 > 0:34:47are very helpful in the world.
0:34:47 > 0:34:53I'm tired of the cliches about computers and machines being terrible monsters.
0:34:53 > 0:34:56It would be like walking by a library and saying,
0:34:56 > 0:34:58"Aren't you terrified of libraries?",
0:34:58 > 0:35:00And that is what a computer is, it's a library
0:35:00 > 0:35:02but it doesn't look like one.
0:35:04 > 0:35:07It's an incredible place where the first monorails have been built,
0:35:07 > 0:35:11the first real studies of what people are in relationship to one another.
0:35:11 > 0:35:13The elimination of elbows,
0:35:13 > 0:35:17how to get rid of mobs and turn them into crowds, it's very important.
0:35:17 > 0:35:22I think the future of America is in studying a place like this.
0:35:22 > 0:35:24'..icy caverns and crystal caves.'
0:35:25 > 0:35:30I encouraged the web people, the Disney people, over the years
0:35:30 > 0:35:34to bring their robots and their computers, and their plans,
0:35:34 > 0:35:37and apply them to the problems of the small town.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41And when uncle Walt was alive I said to him once,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44"Walt, I wish you would run for mayor of Los Angeles.",
0:35:44 > 0:35:48And he said, "Ray, why should I be mayor when I'm already king?"
0:35:50 > 0:35:54There we go. Hi, there. How you doing? God bless.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59JOLLY MUSIC
0:36:16 > 0:36:20'Happy's one of his favouritest friends.
0:36:20 > 0:36:25'Ha, except I'm your favourite. Yeah, I'm your bestest friend!'
0:36:30 > 0:36:34I'm fascinated with the idea that machines are as paradoxical
0:36:34 > 0:36:37as mankind is itself.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41Over the years you consider the fact that atom power can be used
0:36:41 > 0:36:44to blow up the world or to illuminate the world.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49So, I've written just as many short stories, over a long period of time,
0:36:49 > 0:36:53attacking technology as I have defending it.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01'Tick-tock seven o'clock, time to get up.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04'Time to get up. Seven o'clock.'
0:37:07 > 0:37:12'7.09 breakfast time. 7.09.'
0:37:14 > 0:37:19'Today is August 4th, 2026.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22'Today is Mr Featherstone's birthday.'
0:37:27 > 0:37:33'8.01, tick-tock, 8.01 o'clock.
0:37:33 > 0:37:35'Off to school, off to work.
0:37:35 > 0:37:38'Run, run, 8.01.'
0:37:38 > 0:37:41ROBOTIC SQUEAKING
0:37:44 > 0:37:49"The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53"Here, the silhouette, in paint, of a man mowing the lawn,
0:37:53 > 0:37:56"here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers.
0:37:56 > 0:37:57"Still further over,
0:37:57 > 0:38:01"their images burned on wood in one titanic incident,
0:38:01 > 0:38:04"a small boy, hands flung into the air,
0:38:04 > 0:38:08"higher up, the image of a thrown ball and opposite him a girl,
0:38:08 > 0:38:13"hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17"The five spots of paint, the man, the woman, the children,
0:38:17 > 0:38:18"the ball remained.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21"The rest was a thin, charcoaled layer.
0:38:21 > 0:38:26"The gentle sprinkler rain filled the garden with falling light."
0:38:32 > 0:38:35KETTLE WHISTLING
0:38:36 > 0:38:40'Fire, help, help! Fire, run, run!
0:38:40 > 0:38:43'Fire, help.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47'Fire, burning, run! Run!
0:38:47 > 0:38:51'Fire! Help! HELP! BURNING!
0:38:51 > 0:38:52'FIRE! RUN! RUN...
0:38:52 > 0:38:55'7am, breakfast...
0:38:55 > 0:38:58'FIRE! HELP! HELP!
0:38:58 > 0:39:01'Help, help.'
0:39:01 > 0:39:04DISTORTED ROBOTIC SQUEAKING
0:39:18 > 0:39:22When I was a young man I looked at the shelves at the library,
0:39:22 > 0:39:24saw the empty places and said to myself,
0:39:24 > 0:39:28"How do I get there? How do I put myself on that shelf?"
0:39:28 > 0:39:32The answer was to write a book that would scare the hell out of myself.
0:39:32 > 0:39:34We all love that.
0:39:34 > 0:39:36To write books about boys sneaking around at midnight,
0:39:36 > 0:39:41doing secret things, out in the back yard, climbing trees,
0:39:41 > 0:39:44going into haunted houses, that sort of wonderful adventure.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48If I could write that, maybe I'd wind up on the shelves.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53EERIE PIANO MUSIC
0:40:02 > 0:40:07"Out in the world not much happened but here, in this special night,
0:40:07 > 0:40:12"a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14"Always did.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17"Listen, and you heard 10,000 people screaming
0:40:17 > 0:40:21"so high, only dogs feathered their ears."
0:40:21 > 0:40:23CROWD SCREAMING
0:40:23 > 0:40:25MEN SHOUTING IN UNISON
0:40:29 > 0:40:31WHINING PLANE ENGINE
0:40:35 > 0:40:37"Mankind perished utterly..."
0:40:37 > 0:40:39EXPLOSIONS
0:40:42 > 0:40:45MARCHING FEET AND SINGING
0:40:50 > 0:40:52CHURCH BELLS RINGING
0:40:52 > 0:40:55FOG HORNS BLARING
0:40:57 > 0:41:01I got the title for my novel from Shakespeare's play Macbeth.
0:41:01 > 0:41:06"By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes."
0:41:06 > 0:41:08CARNIVAL MUSIC
0:41:20 > 0:41:23"These illustrations are all right through the day,
0:41:23 > 0:41:26"but at night, they move.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29" 'For you see,' said the illustrated man,
0:41:29 > 0:41:31" 'these pictures predict the future.' "
0:41:31 > 0:41:34FRANTIC ORGAN MUSIC
0:42:22 > 0:42:24This is one of my favourite books.
0:42:24 > 0:42:29Mainly because I found my father, by surprise, in it a few years ago.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33My father died some 23 years back.
0:42:33 > 0:42:36I wrote the book 20 years ago, published it 18 years ago,
0:42:36 > 0:42:38didn't read it for many years after.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40One night, about eight or nine years ago,
0:42:40 > 0:42:43prowling around my house, late, picked up the book,
0:42:43 > 0:42:47read a whole chapter about this man, this father in the book,
0:42:47 > 0:42:49and burst into tears.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52It was my father, hidden away at the heart of the book,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56very special, very loving, very good.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59And that's why it's my favourite book.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05" 'Me,' said his father, 'I'm the original sad man.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09" 'I read a book and it makes me sad, see a film - sad,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12" 'plays - they really work me over.'
0:43:12 > 0:43:16" 'Is there anything,' said Will, 'doesn't make you sad?'
0:43:16 > 0:43:18" 'One thing - death.'
0:43:18 > 0:43:22" 'Boy!', Will started, 'I should think that would.'
0:43:22 > 0:43:26" 'No,' said the man with the voice to match his hair,
0:43:26 > 0:43:31" 'death makes everything else sad, but death itself only scares.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33" 'If there wasn't death,
0:43:33 > 0:43:35" 'well, all the other things wouldn't get tainted.'
0:43:35 > 0:43:38" 'And,' Will thought, 'here comes the Carnival.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42" 'Death, like a rattle in one hand, life, like candy in the other,
0:43:42 > 0:43:45" 'shake one to scare you, offer one to make your mouth water.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49" 'Here comes the sideshow and both hands full.' "
0:43:49 > 0:43:53MUSIC: "Funeral March" by Frederic Chopin
0:44:01 > 0:44:04CHATTERING CROWD
0:44:09 > 0:44:13DISTORTED ORGAN MUSIC
0:44:35 > 0:44:38"The carousel wheeled, the horses thrusting,
0:44:38 > 0:44:43"the music gasped after, while Mr Cougar, as simple as shadows,
0:44:43 > 0:44:49"as simple as time, got younger, and younger, and younger.
0:45:08 > 0:45:13"The days being short now, simply, I had come to gaze, and look,
0:45:13 > 0:45:17"and stare upon the thought of that once endless maze of afternoons.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20"But, most of all, I wish to find the places where I ran,
0:45:20 > 0:45:24"as dogs do run before or after boys."
0:45:25 > 0:45:27I think one of the basic secrets of life
0:45:27 > 0:45:30is doing things because you want to do them
0:45:30 > 0:45:32and not because someone pays you.
0:45:32 > 0:45:33That's been true for me.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35I've been writing poetry for 40 years or so
0:45:35 > 0:45:37that nobody wanted to read -
0:45:37 > 0:45:39even myself, at times.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42And now, very late in time, the poetry is getting pretty good
0:45:42 > 0:45:44and I'm beginning to publish it.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53"I came upon an oak where once, when I was 12,
0:45:53 > 0:45:57"I had climbed up and screamed for Skip to get me down.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00"It was 1,000 miles to Earth, I shut my eyes and yelled."
0:46:00 > 0:46:02Help!
0:46:02 > 0:46:04"My brother, richly compelled to mirth,
0:46:04 > 0:46:08"gave shouts of laughter and scaled up to rescue me.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10" 'What we doing there?', he said.
0:46:10 > 0:46:15"I did not tell, but I was there to place a note within a squirrel nest
0:46:15 > 0:46:20"on which I had written some old secret thing now long forgot.
0:46:20 > 0:46:25"Now, in the green ravine of middle years, I stood beneath that tree.
0:46:25 > 0:46:26" 'Why, why?', I thought,
0:46:26 > 0:46:30" 'my God, it's not so high. Why did I shriek?' "
0:46:39 > 0:46:45"What awe, the squirrel's hole and long lost nest were there.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48"I lay upon the limb a long while thinking.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52"I drank in all the leaves, and clouds, and weathers going by
0:46:52 > 0:46:57"as mindless as the days. 'What, what, what if?', I thought
0:46:57 > 0:46:59"but no, some 40 years beyond,
0:46:59 > 0:47:02"the note I had put had surely stolen off by now.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05"I put my hand into the nest...
0:47:07 > 0:47:10"..I dug my fingers deep - nothing and still more nothing.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14"Yet, digging further, I brought forth the note.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18"Like moth wings neatly powdered on themselves and folded close
0:47:18 > 0:47:20"it had survived!
0:47:20 > 0:47:24"I opened it, for now I had to know. I opened it and wept.
0:47:24 > 0:47:28"I clung, then, to the tree and let the tears flow out
0:47:28 > 0:47:30"and down my chin.
0:47:30 > 0:47:31"Dear boy, strange child
0:47:31 > 0:47:34"who must have known the years and reckoned time
0:47:34 > 0:47:39"and smelled sweet death from flowers in the far churchyard.
0:47:39 > 0:47:41"What did it say that made me weep?"
0:47:43 > 0:47:46"I remember you."
0:47:46 > 0:47:48" 'I remember you.'
0:47:48 > 0:47:50" 'I remember you.' "
0:47:59 > 0:48:01People are always saying, "What are you?
0:48:01 > 0:48:05"Are you a science fiction writer, are you a fantasy writer?"
0:48:05 > 0:48:09I say, "No, I am what I started out to be - a magician."
0:48:09 > 0:48:11Everyone, clothes off!
0:48:13 > 0:48:14Brush teeth.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17Now, out with the lights.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd