Ray Bradbury and the Oscars

Ray Bradbury never won an Oscar, but in 1963 he came close.

The 1962 short film Icarus Montgolfier Wright, which animated hundreds of Joe Mugnaini's paintings, was written for the screen by Ray Bradbury and George Clayton Johnson, and based of course on Ray's short story. It was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Short Film, and the award would have gone to producer Jules Engel. But on the night, the award went instead to John and Faith Hubley for The Hole.

Here's the announcement of the nominees and winner, from actor Van Heflin:  https://www.oscars.org/vef/load/575b1f3cc94322f3e3173d907ac0ca12?width=640&height=365


You can watch the Hubleys' film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGB3eudJwOU

And you can watch Icarus here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm5kylavY3Y

 

Fahrenheit 451 - new adaptation mooted

Breaking news: HBO is apparently developing a new adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's best known and most successful novel. This comes after two decades of on-again off-again "development hell" from Mel Gibson's Icon Pictures, the previous holder of the screen rights to the property.

Ramin Bahrani has been identified as the writer-director of the proposed new version. He has a good track record by all accounts, with a number of award nominations and some critical acclaim for his previous work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramin_Bahrani

As always, I caution people not to get too excited over announced adaptations. Many of them come to nothing. Remember the supposed remakes of The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes? No? That's because they both stalled, like Fahrenheit 451 did the last time we heard about it (F451 was in the hands of the highly bankable Frank Darabont, and even that came to nothing, despite a smart, strong and modern script).

Read more here: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/99-homes-director-ramin-bahrani-to-helm-fahrenheit-451-for-hbo-20160413

Bradbury Read - event in Los Angeles

I'm pleased to announce that I have been invited to join the advisory board for The Ray Bradbury Read, an event scheduled for Ray's birthday, 22nd August. It will take place in Maguire Gardens, adjacent to Ray's beloved Los Angeles Library, and Ray Bradbury Square - the intersection named in Ray's honour in 2012.

The event is the work of Steven Paul Leiva, who was instrumental in the naming of Ray Bradbury Square and in the creation of Ray Bradbury Week in 2010.

Full details of the event can be found on Steven's blog, here:

http://stevenpaulleivasthisnthat.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/announcing-new-tribute-to-ray-bradbury.html

Another Bradbury Reference from The Simpsons

There's something of a Bradburyan influence on the latest episode of The Simpsons, due to air today in the US. According to the Simpsons Wiki:

"Not feeling unique, Lisa signs up for the Mars One Space Colony – to Marge's dismay. Then, Marge hires Bart to go through the tryout process with Lisa to make her want to quit."

It's called (wait for it!) ... "The Marge-ian Chronicles."

OK, the Bradbury reference is tenuous, but it's far from the first. Other references are documented here.

David G. Hartwell

In a strange echo of what happened with George Clayton Johnson, there have been announcements - followed by rapid retractions - of the death of Hugo Award-winning editor and critic David G. Hartwell. He evidently suffered a massive stroke.

I once sat on a conference panel with David, although my interaction with him was minimal. But I am very familiar with his work. The "Timescape" imprint he started at Pocket Books in the 1980s gave me plenty of quality reading back in the day, and that accounts for only a tiny proportion of his career's work. You can read about this influential SF figure here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Hartwell

This photo shows the panel at the 2008 Eaton Conference at University of California Riverside where I met David. Left to right: Paul Alkon, David G. Hartwell, Eric Palfreyman​ and me. The theme of the panel was the Mars and Ray Bradbury, and the whole conference was entitled "Chronicling Mars".

"Ray Bradbury's Library" Update

The development plans for the Carnegie Library in Ray Bradbury's home town of Waukegan, Illinois, are moving forward. The Ray Bradbury Waukegan Carnegie Library, Inc. (RBWCL) is the newly formed body which is trying to establish a museum and educational centre in the library building that Ray Bradbury visited frequently in his childhood.

A fictionalised version of the library lies at the heart of Bradbury's novel, play and film Something Wicked This Way Comes, and references to the same library crop up frequently in Bradbury's books and stories.

The mission statement of RBWCL is as follows:

• To honor and promote Ray Bradbury’s artistic achievement.
• To honor and promote Ray Bradbury’s transformative influence on the culture of the United States.
• To honor and promote the influence of the Carnegie Libraries on Waukegan, Illinois, America, and the entire world.

RBWCL has a new website, which includes several draft plans for the various floors of the Carnegie building. Take a look: www.bradburycarnegie.org

THE NEW RAY BRADBURY REVIEW - announced for October 2016

I've been editing issue five of the annual New Ray Bradbury Review, and it has now been listed in the publisher's catalogue for 2016. October sounds a long way off , but with any luck, copies may become available earlier than this date; they sometimes do.

The issue is entirely devoted to articles related to the Francois Truffaut film of Fahrenheit 451, which is fifty years old in 2016. I managed to pull together contributors from four continents for a wide-ranging look at the film, its contexts, its influence and its curious strengths and weaknesses. The film is usually considered to be flawed - and indeed Truffaut scholars often rate it as one of his lesser works. But it remains just about the only film made from a Bradbury work by a major figure in world cinema. It's fun to speculate what a Kurosawa, a Fellini or a David Lean might have made of a Bradbury story - and Bradbury tried to work with all of these directors and more - but we do at least have a Truffaut version of Bradbury.

The New Ray Bradbury Review is edited at the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies in Indianapolis under the general editorship of the Director, Jon Eller; and is published by Kent State University Press. The publisher's catalogue page for the Review can be viewed here: http://issuu.com/dcrosby/docs/2016_catalog_complete_web/15?e=2256225/31544935

Dandelion Wine - on screen

RGI Productions has confirmed its intention to adapt Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine into a feature film.

Rodion Nahapetov is the author of the film's screenplay, and he will produce the film with Natasha Shliapnikoff, Agata Gotova and Albert Pocej. The screenplay was initially developed several years ago, and had Ray's blessing.

There is a Facebook page for the film, which currently includes some concept art, and photos of Rodion with Ray: www.facebook.com/dandelionwinemovie

There have been many announcements of Bradbury-based film projects in recent years. So far, nothing has resulted from the planned versions of Fahrenheit 451 or The Illustrated Man - and things have gone quiet on Something Wicked This Way Comes. But Rodion and Natasha are different: producers who had a close connection to Ray, and who have a strong commitment to Dandelion Wine. I think adapting Dandelion Wine could be really difficult, but I hope they manage to pull it off!

Happy Halloween!

Forget Christmas. In Ray Bradbury's fiction, Halloween is the biggest holiday of them all.

As I was browsing through some files on my laptop, I came across a couple of images from The Halloween Tree which I don't think I have used before on Bradburymedia. They are background paintings, used as establishing shots in the 1993 Hanna-Barbara film based on Bradbury's novel. Ray wrote the script for the film, and won an Emmy Award for his efforts.

The paintings, below, are shown here as you never quite see them in the film. Both are used in panning shots - the camera moves across each one, from one side to the other. A couple of years ago, I took frame grabs from the DVD and stitched together several frames to create the panoramic images you now see.

I wish I could give due credit to the original background artist(s), but unfortunately I have no idea who they were. The film's credits are not specific about who created the backgrounds, and there are any number of artists who might have been responsible (see the full list of film credits here).

I've always been quite taken with the second image below, a representation of the fictional Green Town, Illinois. It looks very like old Waukegan, the real town it is based on.

Click on the images to embiggen.

The Halloween Tree - in New York

Calling all New Yorkers! An event happening TOMORROW, based on Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree!

 
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The Living Libretto : The Halloween Tree

October 30, 2015 / 7:00 p.m.
The National Opera Center
330 7th Avenue / New York, NY 10001

From Egypt to Mexico, from prehistory to modern day, the epic journey the boys in Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree undertake in their search for their friend Pipkin manages to combine the light humor of Alice in Wonderland with the adventurous narrative of The Odyssey. Underpinned by a morality reminiscent of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the story travels across space and time, all the while offering valuable wisdom with respect to the cultural and historical traditions that have led to the contemporary celebration of Halloween. "From Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, to Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, phantasmagorical adventures have sprouted from regular lifestyles, transporting the audience, along with the characters, into the wild world of imagination," write the creators.

“While it sticks to two of the Aristotelian unities for drama (it has one main plot and takes place within twenty-four hours), TheHalloween Tree disposes of the third unity, one physical location, in a daring manner by traveling through space and time,” explains librettist Tony Asaro. Composer Theo Popov continues, “There are moments in Bradbury’s novel that just beg for an operatic setting: the pumpkin chorus on the Halloween Tree, the funeral processions in antiquity, the lamentations of the Druids, the flight of the witches, the communal celebrations of the Mexican Day of the Dead…Most of all, the excited pace of the narrative, which can glimpse hundreds of years of history in mere moments, makes the story ideal for a staged adventure children and parents alike would enjoy." American Lyric Theater has proudly commissioned The Halloween Tree in cooperation with the estate of Ray Bradbury.

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Tickets and more information here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-living-libretto-the-halloween-tree-tickets-18439261327?ref=ebtnebtckt