James Bradley

[JiF][AARP]Tissueman · Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:33 am

I got to go to a 1 hour talk by James Bradley (Flags of our Fathers, Flyboys) tonight. He gave a very interesting talk about both books and a brief discussion of his current book in work. One woman in the audience lost her husband on Iwo Jima. It was after the battle was over and they thought the island was secure. Some Japanese attacked the pilots tents at night and killed a bunch of them.

[JiF]Stepovich · Post by **[JiF]Stepovich** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:24 pm

What a great opportunity.
Did he talk about the movie at all?

[JiF][AARP]Tissueman · Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:06 pm

[JiF]Stepovich wrote:What a great opportunity.
Did he talk about the movie at all?

Yes. He said that he had very little to do with the making of the movie. He did meet with Clintwood and give advice, but the day to day was all Clint. He did tell two Eastwood stories illustrating his character. Evidently if you are on the set you'd never know Clint was in charge. You'd think he was just some old guy wondering around.

They were scouting locations and finally were looking at Iceland because of the black volcanic rock. After 2 days of looking around the reporters asked Clint about the location. Wasn't he concerned about the logistics of bringing everything in by ship? Wasn't he concerned about the weather problems? Etc. etc. Clint answered: "Well, the film rolls and actors act".

Clint is directing another WWII movie from the Japanese perspective that is supposed to complement this movie. James Bradley was at dinner with Clint and asked him about the challenges of directing a movie with actors that didn't speak English and and in a different culture. Clint replied: "the actors act" and resumed eating.

So just like in his famous movie roles, he's a man of few words.

He also said something about the humility of WWII vets. It isn't so much humility as it is the horror. He said that when you have crawled through the remains of your buddies and have had to wash them off you, it's just not something that you want to talk about. Basically, you want to forget about it and get on with life. He said vets from Iwo Jima told him about tripping on the intestines of fellow marines during the battle.

Another interesting point he made was that if the Germans had occupied the island, the battle would not have lasted 36 days. Germans, British, French, Americans, Italians, Poles, Russians, etc all surrender. The Japanese on Iwo planned to die. They had no vision of victory or surviving the battle. Every Japanese survivor he talked to would immediately point to his incapitating wound to show why he survived. They survived because they couldn't fight to the death. The goal was to make the battle costly enough that the US would hesitate to keep up the fight and would negotiate terms. Of course, they didn't realize that this fanaticism would lead to dropping The Bomb.

[JiF]Stepovich · Post by **[JiF]Stepovich** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:34 pm

I got a chance to be an extra in Mystic River when they
filmed in Boston (a lot of it in front of where I was living
at the time!). Eastwood was very cool- calm, reserved,
often cracking dry jokes between takes to the cast
and crowd. Everyone really seems to respect him
and enjoy working for him.
The biggest thing everyone seemed to like most about
him was his penchant for doing scenes in only one
or two takes- he works fast and rarely gets off
schedule.
It was a great experience.

I used to badger my uncle for WW2 stories- makes
me sad to think of all that knowledge lost after he
died...but the experiences he had were, in retrospect,
obviously traumatic.

[JiF][AARP]Tissueman · Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:38 pm

[JiF]Stepovich wrote:I got a chance to be an extra in Mystic River when they
filmed in Boston (a lot of it in front of where I was living
at the time!).

So did you make the film or are you on the editting floor?

[JiF]Stepovich · Post by **[JiF]Stepovich** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:44 pm

I'm there briefly...two blinks of the eyes worth.
I got upstaged by Sean Penn's big melon.
...and I'm not kidding, that is one big head!

[JiF]rIot · Post by **[JiF]rIot** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:49 pm

Mystic River is one of my top 10 movies at all time, great movie!

[JiF]KellysHero · Post by **[JiF]KellysHero** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:08 pm

[JiF]Stepovich wrote:I'm there briefly...two blinks of the eyes worth.
I got upstaged by Sean Penn's big melon.
...and I'm not kidding, that is one big head!

I'm surprised you were able to pull yourself away from the JiF Games section...

[JiF]KellysHero · Post by **[JiF]KellysHero** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:10 pm

Wish you would have said something earlier Tissue, would have been nice to hear him talk.

[JiF]Beej1024 · Post by **[JiF]Beej1024** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:10 pm

Flyboys is a great book. Still need to read the other.

[JiF][AARP]Tissueman · Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:57 pm

[JiF]KellysHero wrote:Wish you would have said something earlier Tissue, would have been nice to hear him talk.

Sorry. Didn't think to tell anyone, but you can't buy individual tickets. You have to buy the complete Montgomery Woman's Town Hall Series. It costs $90 to listen to Bill Hemmer, Jane Seymour, James Bradley, Candice Delong, and Joel Siegel. So if you just wanted to listen to Bradley you still would have had to pay $90 for the series.

http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/montgomery/TownHall.html