CHARLIE ROSE – An Appreciation of MICHAEL CRICHTON

michael crichton died of cancer last week he was only 66 and we did not have time to pay proper appreciation at the time that he died and so we do now Michael was the author of more than a dozen blockbusters including the Jurassic Park trilogy twister and Congo and others his book sold more than a hundred and fifty million copies many were adapted into film he also created the hit television series ER and at one time had the number one book the number one movie and the number one television series Steven Spielberg the great director said Crichton was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts which is what gave credibility of dinosaurs again walking the earth Michael Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942 and raised in Roslyn New York he graduated summa laude from Harvard in 1964 he published his first book the Andromeda Strain in 1969 while attending Harvard Medical School in the early 1970s he gave up medicine and moved to California where he began directing movies based on its books his big break came with the 1973 classic Westworld in recent years Crichton drew noticed as they sometimes doubter and critic of those who were suggesting climate change and its causes he is survived by his wife Sheri and a daughter Taylor Michael Crichton appeared on this program five times over the years and here's some of those conversations what's the drive in a sense I mean what's the mountaintop from you I'm not clear you know mm-hmm there was a time a few years ago when it was to pay the house payment yeah that's clear yeah that's easy you know yeah at some other point I think well maybe what I do really is compulsive behavior you know maybe I'm just compelled to do it but I also think you know there's something that happens to me a lot where the conventional wisdom frequently irritates me some you know here's somebody talking about read something nothing that is so I I Robbie the physicist used to used to listen to certain presentations and even say he's not even wrong I think a lot of that drives the compulsion yeah in some senses and anger and saying they don't even they don't have any clue as to what's really going on right we've talked about motivation understanding you understand your talent know you know you know my my experience is of not being and I think there's a lot of people who'd agree with this not being very gifted at writing and of having to try really hard to work very hard at what I do to put in long hours and to concentrate on it I don't feel in any way that I have natural abilities in this and I just work hard that's my experience working hard yeah keeping your eye on the goal well this is something I wanted to do you know I want a writer and and I'm very happy to be doing it but I don't think that I'm especially is it easier no it's harder it's hard why reason sure well I think people I think that's a common experience for people who do some activity better you do it the more difficult you want just the more difficult it is because you understand the levels of proficiency want and second the more you do it the more you understand about something the more you appreciate the complexity of it yes and the more of all the easy things you get so pretty soon you've done all those easy things you have a golden touch you work like mad I know you do but everything you do turns for the most part though Congo an old novel makes money as a new movie they're going back doing other things that you have written as they have done with John Grisham there's and a very different kind of writer er television show this has already been sold as they say speculate eight to twelve million dollars by Disney it's none of our business you have Jurassic Park made up ton of money you and your wife were their screenwriters for twister made a ton of money this book is two and a half million copies that's only two it's okay to be so but it's all true what is it I have no idea I mean it really I did there was a time when I guess around the time of Jurassic Park when I thought Oh things are going pretty well and then there was a time when I thought I I am the luckiest person alive and then as things went on I just thought I don't know what's happening but this is pretty amazing and then by now I guess I don't think about anymore I don't know I have no explanation for any of this do you know I'm it's just well no I don't mean I'm not interested to what you thought I mean you I mean obviously we know that you have a first-class brain I mean you you know that's clear it's clear that you understand you're not a right and it's clear that you have a touch you know all of that and that you hit it and so there people paid attention when you do it Oh God I'll tell you what I actually think it's probably true statistically things do run in streaks I had a pretty good streak in the in the late 60s and early 70s I had what everyone has now forgotten a pretty long streak of unsuccessful things from the middle seventies to the late eighties now I got another part of the street but only if you added up all the books and all the movies they'd probably be probably look like chance no chance well I mean 50 percent or something like that you know flip of a coin yeah well they're successful do you think you're especially smart are you think that it is some other quality you have that that enables you to be as productive as you are is it energy is it there's something else is it some x-factor I certainly don't think I'm I don't feel smart you don't know smart based on what you and I would recognize is somebody really bright yeah I don't think some lucky other scientist somewhere yeah um this is Richard Fineman wrote and speaking of smart yes that's exactly he wrote in one of his autobiographical books that he was listening to some philosophers and he decided to ask him a question so his question was there's a brick having inside and I read that and I thought well that's a really interesting question and and finally this view was it if you could answer that question then you would know what you were talking about though and I I thought that's really just there's a brick have an inside I don't know I would why would we be asking that so no I have the more interesting question to me I don't uh I don't feel real smart I feel like like after it struggles in do you feel like it works because you work harder than them yeah you dig harder stay up later get up earlier care more look under every rock yes and actually I think that's that's my assumption of I assume that's what's true for most people who are successful attitude I have never had anyone come on this program who have had extraordinary achievement and then I'm talking about 25 Nobel laureates as well you know and writers and artists who've ever said to me I can tell you the answer I'm just smart it's always in their self-perception has to do with commitment has to do with discipline has to do with with appropriate sort of training mmm and focus yeah I think focus is a big one focus you've got that oh yeah I do concentration what does that mean it means the sum of I think um I think of it like long-distance running or something that would I mean I think of it as over time having built up a tolerance for trying to figure something out over a period of years even you know in being patient like this this press thing I mean I have notes it was interesting out of notes for a novel frame 89 so I had some idea about the media in 89 I'm waiting and waiting maybe I'll get it maybe I won't meet or maybe it'll come to me and maybe it won't but that's a sort of endurance and then to just sit at the word processor and good days and bad days you know plenty of business if I ask this question what do you want is there an answer do you know what a success mean to you success to me means opportunity I mean in in the area in which I were because the great difficulty the people have who wanted write books who do movies or have TV shows is they don't feel they have access they can't get their book published or their movie made or their TV show in the air I can now so that's what it means it means I had the opportunity so there are some who say I was thinking about all the things you do then all of your interest in history and science but but in the end when push comes to shove you know as they say and that often quoted cliche you are a storyteller I think that's right yeah that's what you do yes that's what I like to do where does that come from you know I don't know because my daughter has it too and it started an early age I mean when I would tell her fairy tales she she'd stop and go no dad he doesn't come out of the where I see that he stays in there until the giant leaves or something I think wait a minute you know anything I mean but so there's some kind of an impulse about what what makes a suitable story and what's writing and I think they may also be it sounds funny but there may also be some kind of sadistic impulse in there to sadistic the what you're really doing a narrative is here is you're paying out information bit by bit which also means that you're holding it back you know trying to make people worried about something you know it's gonna turn out but you want the reader to to have this feeling intermediately and and and in that kind of manipulation which i think is very pleasurable to experience if it's done well there's something like sadism I mean that's what Hitchcock was accused of too I know I know do you like the isolated quality of writing well usually when I'm writing I wish I weren't and when I'm working on a movie I wish I was writing so it's some way to be perpetually dissatisfied or anything if someone says to you you're marrying thriller with science fiction you say not so much fiction I hope yeah yes the thriller yes a novel but less science fiction than you might imagine that's always my calling card yeah yeah because for example when you're talking about quantum physics very very difficult and I'm hardly you know a person to really be knowledgeable what I'm looking at this it's so hard to describe it at all I recognize that there's a certain level where the physics that would say yes that's the correct way to state it but no one would get it at all no no reader would understand it and then there's another way which is pretty easy to understand but the physicists would say no no it's completely wrong somewhere in the middle is a way of putting this information that it's okay to read for a reader and the physicist will say well okay and that's what I'm trying to that's where I'm trying to get this and some balance between what's technically accurate and what's understandable why is it you're so fascinated with science I mean we all know you went to medical school and we all know that while you in medical school we start writing novels under pseudonyms and help pay your way and we all know that Jonas Salk said to you you're a better writer than dr. Yeah right true words so what is it about science for you I don't know I mean I think it's something that's very easy for me and it seems to me that an enormous amount of what constitutes social change in my lifetime has been a function of scientific development so that the technologies that we're experiencing which are you know I'm enormous ly different from what they were 20 40 50 years ago are are what's driving a lot of the change in the society and increasingly I think if you don't understand the signs you're not going to be able to really make informed decisions and arguably in the past we some people say we have many you've basically said also that the only time that science has been stopped was with the supersonic transport yes that's the only time people said it's too much environmental damage and too much noise and it's not worth the cost and too expensive to attention and and who wanted them no other time now there are a lot of people in Congress never we're saying we know how to clone but we ought not go down that direction you know where are you worried about science I'm quite worried about the whole area of self reproducing technologies which is already about our technology yeah right now that's part of why I did this was was to try and make an example of what might be in our future but we don't really need to worry about nanotechnology right now and self reproduce 20 30 years old here's what you have said also atomic bombs are terrible weapons but genetic engineering can do far more damage the nuclear bombs that's a powerful statement and what do you mean by genetic engineering in that context I'm not sure is one answer well sure you know it's terrible have your past brought back here look this wasn't a long time ago was not a long time ago that makes oh you know for example I mean just to take it at the height of all the the Cold War and all the issues about nuclear exchanges nobody seriously thought I mean in the in the days of Herman Kahn and you know the dr. Strangelove imagery no one thought that a nucleated exchange would end life on the planet but conceivably if as conceivably if there was some kind of a virus that interfered with photosynthesis in enough plants which is the essential component to life right everything's gone the biosphere is essentially wiped out yes and it's possible I hope it's not possible but there certainly are coming to be some examples in which things that were imagined to be very very difficult in genetic technology are being discovered to be not necessarily so difficult bad things so back to my question what's what's necessary for a civilized world to make sure that it makes wise decisions right about science okay I have a weird answer which is why don't we all walk around naked and it isn't really because there's a law about it or there's a regulation we don't do it for lots of reasons that were trained not to do it and and there's all kinds of social pressures not to do it and I think one important thing is that is the education of scientists scientists themselves in terms of having the intuition and an idea about what not to do I mean a very important change in my lifetime is I have heard scientists say we were looking at this line of research and we decided not to follow it it's too dangerous of all the things you have done what has brought you the most psychic income satisfaction hmm whatever is really difficult really the more difficult the more pleasure yeah I'm more sad I mean it was very difficult for me to do a book 20 years ago called travels it was right because it was about myself and I like didn't talk about myself I liked it yeah thank you and I'm trying to do another one and and I'm actually I mean it sounds perverse to many people I'm proud of having done the book about little warming I mean it was gonna be against me and I thought this is what I believe and I'm sorry and I said it and I did it and I've taken just flak for it but you know it is what I believe and but rather you did it because of you you went into a rough seas very rough seas and nasty and personal and brutal and unfair and mean but what was national unfair mean Oh Charlie this is I mean you're gonna look at what people say for example when I started talking about genetics people said well you know you might get some criticism for this well I haven't gotten any criticism for genetics let me tell you I know what criticism is but I I've had the experience of having had books in print for 40 years so I can go back and look at the stand that I took in favor of abortion when I was a medical student in Boston in 1967 six years before roe v wade and I couldn't look at that and go was I right or not and I think dammit I was right and I'm imagining when I wrote this but when I wrote the the state of here I was imagining what's it gonna look like in four years I think I want to come out just fine a personal note about michael crichton he was one of my most favorite guests he could talk about anything architecture and art and science and medicine and movies and books and writing he knew so many interesting people and he can tell you about them in so many interesting ways he was in fact one of the most interesting conversationalist I knew and he will be deeply missed by his family his readers his viewers and people who knew of his remarkable gifts michael crichton dead at 66

Channel: ROMAÆTERNA

Views: 19,954

Rating: 4.9746838 out of 5

Keywords: Michael Crichton, Global-Warming, Jurassic Park, State of Fear

Id: 4RolEhrHzTA

Length: 22min 25sec (1345 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 02 2013