Monday, April 21, 2014

Found Document : George Lucas Interview from 1981

When Cahiers did its Événement in their October 1981 issue (N.328) on Raiders of the Lost Ark for its release they could not interview either Steven Spielberg or its producer George Lucas. So instead they reprinted a translation of Lucas’s Film Comment interview (edited and without its introduction) to allow for the director-producer to speak for himself about his artistic ambitions as well as for a better understanding of the changing commercial and production realities in America. In the issue of FC there was also an article Spielberg’s Express by Veronica Geng. I recomment you check out the issue (hopefully at a library that carries it) to find the interview. It is an important historical document of Cahiers’ old Spielberg-Lucas love. Note Lucas’s emphasis on how with Coppola they were trying to re-invent American cinema in the Eighties through engaging with new technologies and by creating an alternative base of operation away from Hollywood. For more recent information on Industrial Light & Magic make sure to check out Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation. – D.D.
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I recommend looking up George Lucas interviewed by Mitch Tuchman and Anne Thompson in Film Comment (July-August 1981, Volume 17 N. 4) if you want to read it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello David,

We respectfully ask that you take down this transcript, which has been reproduced without permission. If you would like to discuss this further, please email editor@filmlinc.com.

Many thanks.