Latest / Cinema Yūgen / Richard Stanley: Reclaiming the Macabre — From Dust Devil to the Hundred Acre Wood
Transcript
- 0:00G'day. That's right. It's that time again. Time for Cinema Yugen.
- 0:15Yes, welcome back Cinema Yugen, a returning guest.
- 0:21The masterclass always, the maestro of Monsegur is back. His name,
- 0:27Richard Stanley, was actually, it was 10 years ago when I first started corresponding
- 0:33and chatting with Richard.
- 0:35He took part in a book that I was editing, Conquest of the Planet of the Tapes.
- 0:41Since then, we've talked on several occasions.
- 0:43Now he's back. We're catching up again. He's been kicking nothing but goals
- 0:49as far as the absolutely stellar re-releases of his films by Umbrella Entertainment.
- 0:55Here down under his book otto ren
- 0:58grail hunter also out there he's
- 1:01working on another film if you haven't seen
- 1:04hardware dust devil color out of space his
- 1:08documentaries like the other world you're missing out you need to tap in some
- 1:12richard stanley and now is the time to do it it's everywhere the re-releases
- 1:17of his films books coming out he's working on another film and also So he's
- 1:22about to head off into the 100 Acre Woods.
- 1:25So if you haven't heard of Richard Stanley, you need to check the links in the
- 1:28description, but better still.
- 1:30Please welcome him back to Cinema Yugen.
- 1:34We're excited to hear about everything old that's new again and also what he's
- 1:40going to do with that little tubby, little cubby who likes to play with blood and honey.
- 1:46Say hello again to my friend, Richard Stanley. G'day, Richard.
- 1:52Well, great pleasure being with you tonight, sir. It's awesome to have you.
- 1:55Coming at you live from a French Pyrenees.
- 1:57A French Pyrenees, where all the action's happening.
- 2:02You've been kicking a lot of goals, mate, since we last spoke, Richard. A lot of goals.
- 2:07Yes, it's been a busy, crazy year with the events coming so thick and fast that
- 2:14at this stage I have really no choice other than to accept that we're either
- 2:20living inside a dream or a simulation.
- 2:23Because it's so much of it's just, yeah, just so far-fetched that I'm just going with the flow.
- 2:30It's the best way to be, I think, Richard. I think the way the river flows at
- 2:36the moment, it's difficult to fight.
- 2:39So like you say, it could all be like vanilla sky too.
- 2:45We could all wake up at some point
- 2:46and realize that this has been a waking dream or something like that.
- 2:52I think there's a strong possibility. The matrix of coincidence and synchronicity
- 2:57is so strong at times, and the ridiculous flow of events is so ceaselessly surreal
- 3:03that it gives me hope in some way.
- 3:06I think if it's a game, it really likes it when you engage with the process,
- 3:11when you're an active player, and I think it also really likes it if you remain
- 3:16stylish and try and look your best in the face of whatever the hell is coming down,
- 3:20because I'm simply amazed at some of the recent tons of events.
- 3:26Yeah it's uh it's the stuff of uh in some ways it's the stuff of bad fiction.
- 3:34But uh in in a lot of ways too it's like you know sometimes you feel like the rats in the maze and and,
- 3:43Not just the feeling that you are crawling through a maze, that the fact that
- 3:48maybe someone may be looking down from, you know,
- 3:53a plate glass top that you can't see through and is secretly working against
- 3:57you as you work your way through that maze, don't you think?
- 4:00There is some element of that. It definitely feels game-like.
- 4:04I also get frightened sometimes that it's entertainment, that the horror and
- 4:09tragedy of our lives is providing some form of entertainment to our Yeah.
- 4:15Indescribable off-world deities or whatever the heck is actually running the show.
- 4:21But ceaselessly surprising, and I've been having a lot of fun, despite it all.
- 4:26I mean, the best thing you can do in times of chaos is make the most of it.
- 4:31And this has been an intensely lively August, where we've basically been shooting a movie.
- 4:40And not only shooting a movie, but shooting the first film that I've been in
- 4:45any kind of control of since I was a student, which has been a nice experience.
- 4:51It's been good shooting on something where the IP is my own,
- 4:55not owned by any corporate family or streaming service, but basically being
- 5:02allowed to follow my instincts.
- 5:06Kind of like how you began Dust Devil, hey? Like, you know, those early attempts
- 5:10before the attempt where you finally made it, you know, back when you did like
- 5:15the 16 millimeter version.
- 5:18In theory, but not, thankfully, because the 16mm Dust Devil was a nightmare from hell.
- 5:27It was really, really bad. It was almost gone from hell, wasn't it?
- 5:31Yeah, many of the things we recreated in the 35mm Dust Devil actually happened
- 5:37while we were shooting the 16mm Dust Devil.
- 5:40So, yeah, it was certainly an odyssey.
- 5:44It's great to see that Umbrella down here is doing such wonderful work re-releasing
- 5:50these films in wonderful packages, and you've been actively involved with some
- 5:56new commentaries and such.
- 5:57How has it been to see those films being rediscovered recently with these re-releases?
- 6:02Well, my hat's off to the Umbrella Group for doing such a bang-on job with both
- 6:10Hardware and Dust Devil.
- 6:12With Hardware, I was particularly excited not only that we got to finally regrade the movie,
- 6:18and I got to actually okay the cut, which meant after generations of the thing
- 6:23being kind of dull and having lost its vibrancy,
- 6:28we were able to restore some of the original psychedelic intensity to the cut
- 6:33so that was just a treat but also so good that they managed to.
- 6:40Get the rights to reproduce the original Frank Frazetta poster art which always belonged,
- 6:48with the movie but for legal purposes it's always been separated from the movie
- 6:53so it was super nice seeing those two things finally married together in something
- 6:58like the format originally intended,
- 7:02and um yeah haven't seen the um the final box kit on dust devil yet but um i
- 7:07have high hopes for it yeah i'm very excited i've got one now,
- 7:11got mine pre-ordered for sure but uh it always
- 7:13struck me as odd when when filmmakers like yourself would
- 7:16would get artists like frisetta and struzan and
- 7:20i mean in in in the age of photoshop it always you know i mean today it's nothing
- 7:26to sling a poster together with a thousand faces on it here's everyone in the
- 7:30movie but you know i really miss and i've heard a lot of talk about i miss that
- 7:35the poster art used to have more of an artistic quality to it,
- 7:40which implied something of the film without giving it all away.
- 7:43Like, here's just all the faces of the people in it. You know what I mean?
- 7:47Yeah, I mean, there was once a time when films and posters were considered to be art.
- 7:53I think that's something that's gotten completely lost in the days of not just
- 7:57entertainment but content where we are now.
- 8:01Yeah, there's no real sense that these things are.
- 8:06Cultural artefacts. But I
- 8:08hope that true art and human ingenuity will never perish from this earth.
- 8:15And I hope that we will strike a balance with AI and the emerging technology
- 8:22and find a way of bending it to our aims.
- 8:26Yeah. Well, I mean, the ever-imposing specter of AI, there's a lot of debate around it.
- 8:32I mean, I still see it from the point of view is that, again,
- 8:36it's another tool and it's only going to be as good or as useful as we make it or we allow it to be.
- 8:43Unless, in fact, it does become like Skynet and becomes self-aware and starts
- 8:47to create all of its own. What do you think?
- 8:49If it starts to get realized and actually make stuff that we don't tell it to, you know?
- 8:54Yeah, right now I'm hoping that that will not be the case.
- 8:57Right. I mean, I don't know whether we'll even survive AI or not,
- 9:02or what will happen next.
- 9:04But AI is not what we expect it to be, that's for sure. Certainly it's a useful tool.
- 9:10But beyond that, I think the world is starting to discover that AI dreams.
- 9:18AI can go mad.
- 9:21Yeah, AI hallucinates the whole time. We have no extreme electric sheep, eh?
- 9:28Yeah, it isn't the, yeah, the oracle term will always give you the correct answer
- 9:34to every question that you ask. Right, yes.
- 9:37The magic oracle that we would like it to be.
- 9:43It gives back what it thinks is the approximate or the right answer.
- 9:48And people use AI nowadays for medical advice, for legal advice, for financial advice.
- 9:59It's kind of a go-to for not having to pay lawyers and accountants,
- 10:04which I'm all for. But it also has a habit of telling people utter bullshit
- 10:08and quoting cases that don't exist.
- 10:12It's basically hallucinating, which could lead to major problems.
- 10:20Thus far, I don't see that it's been very efficient at writing jokes,
- 10:26creating new narratives or characters that I've been able to engage with,
- 10:33or actually generating popular new IP.
- 10:37So yeah let's see how it plays out but you know it ain't over till it's over,
- 10:44it's certainly looking sparky and strange
- 10:47at the moment but i'm willing to um have a
- 10:49play with this and see what we can do it's it's a wild frontier i mean they
- 10:54talk about a lot filmmakers now using it i i know a few filmmakers are using
- 11:00it to enhance their visual effects visual effects that they couldn't normally
- 11:04afford or have to hire someone to do i mean i think in those aspects,
- 11:10independent filmmakers you know should jump on
- 11:13it in a lot of ways because i think hollywood is certainly going to think
- 11:16i mean they're going to profit on it they can do it for
- 11:19free they're going to right well i think that right now independent filmmakers
- 11:23really have to fight for their existence to to basically remain independent
- 11:28and to yeah exist in the the a rather totalitarian ecology that we're moving into.
- 11:38It's fiercely hard out there, which is all the more reason why I'm very impressed
- 11:42with people like Scott and Reese with Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey.
- 11:47Yes, I was about to get to that.
- 11:50In looking at a lot of film reviews this year, I think I've heard this year
- 11:56more than ever the phrase, this is my most anticipated film of the year because
- 12:01film reviewers today are like food reviewers,
- 12:03you know, those people that review food in the front seat of their cars.
- 12:06Well, film reviewers are pretty close behind them because all you need is a
- 12:09wall full of DVDs and a microphone.
- 12:12But the most anticipated film of the year is certainly the phrase I've heard
- 12:17most this year, but my most anticipated film isn't this year, it's coming.
- 12:22When I heard that Richard Stanley was writing,
- 12:25uh, Winnie the Pooh, uh, Blood and Honey after, after two, the first one was
- 12:30interesting. The second one was better.
- 12:32The third one I have to say, and I hate to say it because this is a phrase that
- 12:37I really can't stand hearing, but it's my most anticipated film when it comes out.
- 12:41Tell us how you, I know you probably can't say too much, but how did you get
- 12:46involved with the Winnie the Pooh?
- 12:48I guess through some kind of malign fairytale magic, but I've always been a
- 12:56fan of, I guess, of public domain material.
- 13:02Between H.P. Lovecraft and H.G. Wells, I've been guilty of trolling that same area myself.
- 13:08And I was hugely impressed by what Scott and Rhys managed to do with Blood and
- 13:14Honey 1 for a film, which I don't know what the initial budget was,
- 13:18something like 30 grand that then grossed 7 million worldwide.
- 13:25Yeah, and it's proof also that England's not finished.
- 13:32I'm so sick of people saying you can't make movies in England.
- 13:35Oh, mate, there's not a chance. there's no money, there's no hope,
- 13:39et cetera. Yeah, there's quite a lot of indie filmmakers.
- 13:43Yeah, making millions, yeah, and getting the equation right.
- 13:46And then seeing the exponential improvement in ambition and also technical quality
- 13:53between Blood and Honey 1 and Blood and Honey 2 is also, yeah,
- 13:57music to my ears because,
- 14:01yeah, it's still very cheap, but at the same time, there's a consistent ambition
- 14:05to arm the shots that they're setting up and the kind of material they're trying to shoot.
- 14:10And I completely respect the desire to keep upping the ante and not just doing
- 14:14the same thing, but taking the opportunity to improve, not so much the formula,
- 14:21but to reinvent the formula.
- 14:24Have you watched the other one? Have you seen all of it? Oh,
- 14:27yeah, absolutely. I count me as a fan.
- 14:33I liked Al in the second one I think Al is an interesting character too He seems
- 14:38like the mastermind of the pack, don't you reckon?
- 14:41Yeah, there's all kinds of things. I don't want to go into detail,
- 14:45but apart from going back into a bit of a soft reboot of the Origins,
- 14:54I really, really want to do some stuff with Rabbit.
- 15:01Yeah, I just have... That's great. Yeah, Eeyore hasn't had anything to do yet
- 15:07either, so there's life in there.
- 15:11But beyond all that, yeah, it's time to get to grips of the woozles.
- 15:18Yes. Got the heffalumps and woozles.
- 15:21Yeah, I'm not sure we can stretch to a heffalump on this outing because it's still a small movie.
- 15:27So you may have to wait on a full heffalump. I would have loved to have ended
- 15:31the movie with a battle between Winnie the Pooh and the heffalump would have been glorious.
- 15:37I'm very interested to see that what's prophesied in their poster for the poona
- 15:41versus winnie the pooh with his chainsaw riding a a demonic bambi.
- 15:47You know against you know leading his his thousand
- 15:50acre wood friends against the humans you know some
- 15:54sort of benja like titanic battle or something at the end of it it seems like
- 16:00a great uh i look i have to say that with with these public domain properties
- 16:07i think it's i think it's great how people have sort of taken it up and there's so many different,
- 16:12variations that i've seen you know
- 16:15like popeye have you seen that popeye the slayer man have
- 16:18you seen that one i haven't seen it but i'm aware there's a
- 16:21popeye and there's a steamboat willy yeah and
- 16:23i'm aware that um thus far um mostly there's been a trend towards um taking
- 16:30public domain characters uh and beloved um children's characters and turning
- 16:36them into ruthless psychopathic blood-spluttering slashes,
- 16:42which I think is the first wave.
- 16:45But I'm also hoping that with the third entry, we're going to be able to add a degree of.
- 16:54Resonance to that iconography, because I do believe that the iconography remains extremely strong.
- 17:02It does say something about the culture, ultimately. I mean,
- 17:06Peter Pan has deep, deep roots in the culture.
- 17:12And on some level, it's also a matter of resting the IP away from Disney and
- 17:17Marvel and reclaiming our culture,
- 17:22which I think is super necessary.
- 17:27I mean, year by year, that's going to be an issue.
- 17:32And I'd like to see the day that someone will take Neverland or Winnie the Pooh
- 17:38and do something really, really smart and special with it, as well as just taking the purse.
- 17:46I mean, we're going to see some very, very choice characters falling into public
- 17:50domain within the next one or two years.
- 17:54I mean, here I'm thinking in particular Robert E.
- 17:57Howard, whose works will come into public domain in the U.S.
- 18:01In about one year's time.
- 18:02And which are already in public domain here in Europe.
- 18:06Yeah, I don't want to see a joke version of Conan or Solomon Cain or Brian McMoran,
- 18:13but I would like to see some people do it properly.
- 18:16I wish Richard they'd just adapt the stories instead of trying to come up.
- 18:21Exactly, Mark. And the more that these things actually fall into public domain,
- 18:26and the more that we can harness new technologies like AI to bring down the
- 18:31vast production budgets of trying to stage some of this stuff,
- 18:35I think it really does open up huge possibilities.
- 18:39I'm all for basically leading a rearguard act of reclaimed fairytale IP against the majors.
- 18:50Yeah so it's it's
- 18:53it's terrible how really a lot of beloved stuff
- 18:56has just essentially become corporate product yeah but yeah it it shouldn't
- 19:02have happened but um it's just been the way it is i mean um corporations don't
- 19:09know what else to do other than to continue to eat and devour and grow larger,
- 19:13and that's just what they do.
- 19:15I mean, I think, yeah, Disney had hardware for a bit and Paramount seems to
- 19:22own Dusk Devil. I don't know how any of these things happen, though.
- 19:26Somehow the mouse will end up owning the work.
- 19:29The old animated thing with the fish, and then another bigger fish eats that fish,
- 19:33and then a bigger fish eats that fish, and a bigger fish eats that fish,
- 19:36and then eventually the biggest fish comes along and eats all of them until
- 19:40you've got, you know, a body of water with one giant fish and then there's no variety whatsoever.
- 19:47Well, there's the illusion of variety. Yeah, and a lot of IP just ends up stacking
- 19:53up in the wrong hands with the wrong gatekeepers, so no one can readily get anywhere near it.
- 20:01Which is unfortunate.
- 20:03Marvel have done a really good job in DC of exploiting their IP,
- 20:08But, yeah, an awful lot of other publishing houses have failed to do so in terms of, like,
- 20:18here I'm thinking Fleetway Comics, Judge Dredd and Road Trooper and all that
- 20:23stuff, but also with the Warren titles, Vampirella, Creepy, Eerie,
- 20:27and to some extent the Humanoids titles and the Heavy Metal titles.
- 20:32There's a lot of stuff where there's tremendous IP, but because of the legal
- 20:37complexities and the corporate nature of the beast, no one can touch it.
- 20:43It's just locked away.
- 20:47It's like I was watching Dust Devil again last night and I was thinking about,
- 20:52you know, there's an awful lot of Stephen King adaptations as there usually are.
- 20:57I remember when I first watched Dust Devil the first time, I really thought
- 21:00that it would have been great if they had attacked you to do,
- 21:04because I know the character in Dust Evil,
- 21:06the lone wanderer, as you say in the commentary, he's the rider on the storm,
- 21:11he's the man with the red right hand.
- 21:13I always secretly in my heart of hearts hoped that they'd give you a shot at
- 21:18Stephen King's first book of the Dark Tower, the gunslinger,
- 21:23because he was very much like the man in black.
- 21:26In that story. And I thought, you know, because you kind of had the feel of
- 21:31that first book with the arid landscapes and this figure just sort of walking
- 21:35out of the nothing, bringing doom with him.
- 21:39Do you like those? It's a funny old thing.
- 21:43Yeah, I never read the Dark Tower books, which is an odd thing.
- 21:48I wandered away before then.
- 21:50And maybe that was also partly because the figure was so familiar to me.
- 21:56And there were so many of them, I felt a disinclination and didn't get started.
- 22:02And it does seem to me that everyone was having the same dreams,
- 22:08that some of those images were really floating around back then,
- 22:14like the walking guy somewhere between towns with the storm following not far back,
- 22:20the Durango boots.
- 22:24But there's some weird similarities.
- 22:27And admittedly, there was a conscious effort to try to make this character resemble
- 22:33the figure in different songs.
- 22:36And if we'd had the money to license tracks, I'd love to have had just a few
- 22:41bars of Riders on the Storm somewhere on the goddamn soundtrack just to signal that.
- 22:48Yeah, the Nick Cave song, Red Right Hand, didn't exist yet. That came a couple
- 22:52of years after the story. Right, right, yes.
- 22:55But, yeah, I'm sure I'd love to tip my hat to the folk who came before.
- 23:02But beyond that, I've also noticed, particularly while I'm doing the cleanup for Umbrella recently,
- 23:09there's some pretty weird similarities between Dust Devil and David Lynch's Twin Peaks cosmos.
- 23:19Because looking at the timing of it, what was happening while we were shooting
- 23:23Dust Devil in Namibia was Twin Peaks would have been airing for the first time.
- 23:28I seem to recall that season two would have been airing the same year that we
- 23:33were shooting Dust Devil.
- 23:34Looking around the map at that time,
- 23:37there's an awful lot of body-jumping serial killers flying around in movies
- 23:45back in those days between Jason Goes to Hell and Benzel Washington and Fallen.
- 23:51Yes. I really like that movie with that little tune he sings. It's time is on my side.
- 23:59And you know who the demon is because they sing that every time they leap from,
- 24:04like at one point it leaps into a little girl, you know, is off of the way, leaps into a child.
- 24:11Yeah, it's odd. It's for sure. I mean, it gave me a creepy feeling looking at
- 24:18some of Dust Devil now, thinking, were we all having the same dreams?
- 24:23The stuff with the hitchhiker looking in the bathroom mirror reminds me of some
- 24:30of the stuff with Agent Cooper and seeing Bob in the mirror.
- 24:35The only line of dialogue I give the guy when he stumbles naked towards the
- 24:40truck wreck and comes up to the family.
- 24:44He was meant to be naked originally, but we had to put boxer shorts on him because
- 24:47of the Miramax and the times we live in.
- 24:50But yeah, the only line of dialogue in the script for that moment is not a light,
- 24:55which also reflects, I guess, Twin Peaks season three.
- 24:59So I was wondering if there weren't a whole bunch of sorcerers from the Black
- 25:04Lodge trying to break into our consciousness back in the 1990s or something,
- 25:08which just found their way into manifestation. Or like that,
- 25:14Like that, the technology that Max von Sydow makes at the end of the Wim Wenders
- 25:19film, Until the End of the World, yeah.
- 25:23Where people become obsessed looking at other people's dreams or,
- 25:28you know, viewing their,
- 25:30reviewing or simply living inside their dream, inside the dreams that,
- 25:35you know, which was interesting,
- 25:37which, you know, it sort of harkens to what exists now with user-generated content,
- 25:43Like they, you know, the people are obsessed with themselves so much that they,
- 25:47you know, they're, they're the star of their own, you know, own universe.
- 25:53And, and yeah, thus they become obsessed with the, the creation and,
- 25:58and the, and the, you know, the playback of just simply reliving those,
- 26:02you know, reliving those dreams and, and memories.
- 26:06Yeah. I think it was Charles Manson who said that the devil's the mirror at
- 26:11the end of all of our freeways.
- 26:15I like that saying, like God wants us to walk, but the devil sends a limo.
- 26:23Well, I think that was the, I think that was one of Joe Esther houses books in Hollywood.
- 26:27Yeah. Yeah. God wants you to walk, but the devil sends a limo,
- 26:30but yeah. Yeah. And that's usually part of the contract.
- 26:34Yeah. I was saying they usually have to pick you up. and give you the most service.
- 26:39And then they also usually have to put you back where they found you again at the end.
- 26:43But I think you're right in what you said before. I think it's going to fall.
- 26:47You know, the independents have a fight on their hands, but I think if independent
- 26:53creators stick to their guns and don't,
- 26:57sell out too quickly you know there could be hope for for some greater balance
- 27:03you know or at least or see at least some semblance of a return to balance you
- 27:08know as opposed to you've got mega budget films and you've got tiny films and
- 27:12nothing in between whereas,
- 27:14you know as you know when you came up there was a mid-ground of of films that
- 27:19were made for you know in between in between 20 million and and and 50 million
- 27:25dollars which don't exist anymore,
- 27:27Yeah, I know that's fully gone at this point in time. Yeah.
- 27:31I mean, that could be the ground in which, like, if enough independence with
- 27:38enough original IP fought hard and turned some of these new tools,
- 27:44you know, to their will, I mean,
- 27:46there's a gap in there which they could rise, don't you think?
- 27:52Like, I'm not saying they're going to ever have the power to take on the majors
- 27:56with all their money, but there could be some semblance of balance in there if, if the mid ground,
- 28:02you know, could be employed again, because I think the majors are starting to
- 28:06see that they can't continue to make films for hundreds of millions of dollars
- 28:10and not make a billion dollar profit, which they're, they're seeing now because,
- 28:15they're seeing, they've been so used to every one of these, for instance,
- 28:18comic book films making a billion dollars, which they're not doing now.
- 28:23They're not cracking yeah no some kind of change is coming and yeah we're living
- 28:28in chaotic um yeah neurotic um frightened times so and as usual um no one really
- 28:36knows yeah what's coming next.
- 28:39And the thing that is cheering me up is
- 28:42it's not impossible to shoot i'm really enjoying
- 28:46shooting again um if it means having
- 28:49to yeah shoot gorilla style um shoot
- 28:52cheaply uh then that's okay because um i'm happy with the um the level of the
- 28:58material we've been harvesting i've i'm about 10 minutes into um steel donkeys
- 29:05now and um the i think the first 10 minutes are as good if not better than anything I've ever done.
- 29:12So, yeah, very satisfied with the results in terms of the technology that's
- 29:17available to us and the amount of fun that can potentially be had.
- 29:23And I think that if that can be extended to Blood and Honey 3,
- 29:27I'd like it to be as outrageously fucking entertaining as possible to really
- 29:33knock people out because the potential is there.
- 29:36We can entertain people and we do have the tools to work.
- 29:43To what extent that work will then be distributed, made available to the world,
- 29:48that remains to be seen in terms of the major
- 29:52still effectively control distribution networks
- 29:56and folks still effectively expect to
- 29:59watch things free on the internet so um
- 30:03yeah um okay how to distribute it
- 30:06or make money out of it yeah that's um
- 30:09a different um art form but i'm gratified
- 30:12that we're at least able to shoot that we're able to
- 30:15yeah harvest material and get good material and so long as i'm still shooting
- 30:20yeah i can't complain and i'm also deeply grateful to be shooting um my first
- 30:27um british movie of a british movie in terms of a film which is set in a recognisable angle.
- 30:35Yeah, it's good to see that there's quite a lot of independents flourishing
- 30:40over there in the UK because, I mean,
- 30:42I do know that Hollywood has gone back there for the tax breaks as far as using
- 30:49all the studio space, but it's good to see that there's a lot of young indies out there.
- 30:56I'm going to have another one on in a couple of weeks, hopefully,
- 31:00that have made a low-budget sword and sorcery film, which is a genre that I
- 31:06have to confess I have a deep affection for.
- 31:08The 80s sword and sorcery films are coming back.
- 31:11We've got Deathstalker coming, or reboot, I should say, of Deathstalker.
- 31:17I was hoping someone...
- 31:19I guess hoping someone does King Conan, and I guess hoping also that the Robert E.
- 31:26Howard franchise falls into good hands, because I would dearly love to see some
- 31:31decent sword and sorcery movies. Oh, yeah.
- 31:35Oh, man, would I like to see that. Oh, yeah. I'm a huge sword and sorcery fan,
- 31:39and yeah, I really would like to see the genre come back strong.
- 31:43Yeah, and for the first time, Richard, they actually take Robert E.
- 31:50Howard's stories and adapt them rather than come up with something else that
- 31:56has Conan in it, you know? Yeah, I would like to see that.
- 32:00I was just rereading Shadow of the Vulture last night. Oh, yeah.
- 32:05Yeah, the original Siege of Vienna story that Red Sonja has introduced in,
- 32:12which is so unlike the version of Red Sonja that's been handed down to us.
- 32:18But yeah, nonetheless, yeah, it plugs you straight into what was attractive
- 32:22and exciting about the character to begin with.
- 32:25Yeah i mean milius milius got the
- 32:28i feel milius and swartney got the
- 32:31the sort of the look and the feel right but i mean they
- 32:33still they still didn't really adapt any of the of
- 32:36howard stories they just you know took the
- 32:39character and and the scenario as
- 32:42as hollywood movies are uh tend to
- 32:45do they take the characters and and some of
- 32:48the plot points and they're they're notoriously for
- 32:51doing it to uh philip k dick too they they take
- 32:54some of his really great stories and just take the spine
- 32:58of it and then apply their own uh you know turn it into an action movie or something
- 33:02like that but uh yeah and unfortunately all of the dick books are pretty much
- 33:07controlled by one producer as far as i remember i think it's a guy named bill
- 33:12morris um yeah and it's just
- 33:17It's impossible to get anywhere near any of it.
- 33:19Yeah. I'm very... I would dearly love to see a version of his book,
- 33:23The World That Jones Made, which I think is very relevant today,
- 33:27as opposed to when it was... Yeah.
- 33:30It would be nice to see. I worked on a strepter for Svi Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
- 33:36Really? Which was developed for Zoetrope a long time ago and then dropped,
- 33:41which is as close as I got to it. and I've always been saddened that it hadn't happened.
- 33:49I'm very interested to see Megadoc about Francis making, Mike Figgis' film about
- 33:56Francis making Megalopolis.
- 33:59Did you see Megalopolis?
- 34:01Um, I did. Yeah. Thoughts? Um, yeah.
- 34:04Um, well, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of grateful for it.
- 34:08And, um, you know, I'm glad he got away with it and he got to make it.
- 34:13Uh, it bent my head completely out of shape and, uh, and, uh,
- 34:18I don't really know what to think about it.
- 34:21I don't know whether I like it or I don't but I watched it I'm glad it exists,
- 34:28ask me in 10 years time and I might have a more project.
- 34:33Well after the behind the scenes it might give us a different perspective certainly
- 34:38there was a beautiful re-release of Hearts of Darkness which shows of course
- 34:42the making of Apocalypse Now which,
- 34:45is a real treasure because as you know films like that
- 34:50That will not be ever made that way again unless some madman has too much money
- 34:56and decides to go off into the Philippine jungle and make an epic,
- 34:58which is not out of the realm of possibilities, but we'll see.
- 35:04Yeah, but nonetheless, those days have passed us.
- 35:07I mean, when I look back at Dust Devil, it's a relic from a time when we shot
- 35:14everything on dollies, cranes and helicopters.
- 35:18And I don't think we'll ever be in a world where we'll have those tools or toys
- 35:23to play with again for better or worse now we've got drones we've got easier
- 35:31ways of doing things, it don't mean having to set up,
- 35:35crane rigs on top of sand dunes or chase trains with helicopters,
- 35:41but yeah it was of a certain time film shoots won't be that way again And I'm
- 35:48concerned at how lazy a lot of action movies are these days and that we're getting
- 35:53less and less real stunts.
- 35:59I did have a theory on my earlier films that the film would never be any good
- 36:05unless there was at least one palpable moment in the film where I risked my life for the movie.
- 36:12But I don't really feel that way anymore. but I remember thinking that was legitimate back in the day.
- 36:19Well, anyway, Richard, before we run out of time, Matt, it's always a pleasure
- 36:24talking to you. My most anticipated movie of...
- 36:27Of next year or whenever it comes out is certainly richard stanley's take on the,
- 36:32the horrors of the hundred acre wood i can't wait
- 36:35to see the restored dust double and the the good work
- 36:38that umbrella continues to do with you and i can't
- 36:40wait to see everything you got coming richard so uh until we
- 36:44meet again mate thank you for being on cinema jugan oh it's
- 36:47a pleasure sir you take care out there and yeah keep the
- 36:51faith yes richard stanley ladies and gentlemen
- 36:54never a dull conversation i sincerely
- 36:57hope one day that we can disperse with
- 37:01a digital distance between us and sit down and have
- 37:04a beer and have a real talk not that
- 37:07we don't have real talks but you know what i mean have a
- 37:10real talk real in close proximity
- 37:13but what will
- 37:17the fates have they'll have their way we'll
- 37:20just have to wait and see but you don't have to wait and see
- 37:23get down to the links in the description and check out everything
- 37:26all the goodness coming from richard stanley
- 37:29and there's plenty on the way check the links in the description and as always
- 37:37my little yugenites thank you for listening to us on spotify or wherever you
- 37:43choose to listen to your favorite podcasts i'm ken hill and until next time
- 37:46you've been listening to cinema.
- 37:53Music.