http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/angelina-jolie-eyes-iraq-pioneer-263168
I'm due to create a poster for an event at THE WINTER GARDEN, Middlesbrough, England. The building was donated to the public by Sir Hugh Bell and Lady Bell. A ballroom/billiard room and all round place for entertainment for the working classes.
My recent research into this amazing adventuress/spy 'Gertrude Bell' let me to this article on local born Ridley Scott.
With Angelina Jolie attached to the project I hope (after Prometheus) he actually directs this himself.
I'm sure it'll be tied to Alien somehow ;-)
Ridley Scott has been doing interviews and answering questions.
"I don’t know what to do with ‘Brave New World.’ It’s tough. I think ‘Brave new World’ in a funny kind of way was good in nineteen thirty-eight, because it had a very interesting revolutionary idea. It came shortly before or after George Orwell, roughly the same time. When you re-analyze it, maybe it should stay as a book. I don’t know.”
Q: Are you making Tripoli?
“‘Tripoli’ is great. It didn’t happen because of a personal thing. I felt somebody wasn’t well, so I couldn’t do it and I stopped, but ‘Tripoli’ is great, because it’s about Thomas Jefferson and a guy called William Eaton. William Eaton was a despot who worked on the edge of the political arena in three states. The United States then was three states and Thomas Jefferson spent his entire treasury or 11 million dollars with is approximately a third of the price of half the people I know in Hollywood’s home, he bought from St. Louis to the coast, from Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon needed to cash to go to Moscow. Big mistake. And then William Eaton goes out to the coast, where there’s a pasha of Tripoli who is a mother-fucking despot and gangster who was actually kidnapping and taking American frigates and crews. America only had three war ships, but there were a lot of commercial vehicles in that area. He was taking crews and putting them as slaves and taking them above deck and keeping them for ransom. So William Eaton said ‘Enough of this shit.’ He went out there personally and started to create his one personal war against the pasha and the pasha was the pretender. His brother was a Muslim. They were all Muslim, but the brother had fled to Egypt and Eaton went to Egypt and personally talked him into coming back. It’s a good story.”
Something I found interesting: Ridley Scott has friends in Hollywood who live in houses worth thirty million dollars.
A studio like AS doesn't happen by accident. They have to make movies. They have to go out on a limb and cultivate the talent necessary to make successful movies... it's a LOT more work than the current admininstration seems willing to put into it.
They have a Development Slate, movies they might like to make, but if we try to talk about a movie on the Development Slate, there's nothing from AS that encourages us to offer improvements. I started reading a Consider entry called "Revenge and Vengeance" and all I could think is, "Why this?"
Ridley Scott wants to do a Western, he wanted to do Brave New World and Tripoli... but if he was looking for a successful film for a new studio, it would be "None of the Above." It would be an original scary movie like "Alien>'' A B movie with seven people and a Monster locked in a house.
Gertrude Bell was a force to be reckoned with...she translated HUNDREDS of poems from the most romantic writer in any language, Hafez.
more info here:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=418178541527467&set=a.410968512248470.104366.137434399601884
(...feel free to 'like' his FB page too, it is the best for Hafez by far : )
@ Eric M... nice link.
I actually got a bit tearful when reading about here demise.
Gertrude was a visionary who appreciated other cultures and was well ahead of her time.
Will this be like ROBIN HOOD where all the studios race to make the film???
Director Werner Herzog is after Naomi Watts to play Gertrude Bell.
http://whatculture.com/film/hey-werner-herzog-ridley-scotts-wants-to-direct-a-gertrude-bell-biopic-too.php
And the race was on!
The event on Sat 23rd went down as-well-as could be expected. Everyone had a minimum of a Masters in Architecture (afterall it was about proposals for the newly available funding for that something special in town). When Middlesbrough creates a building a certain percentage of funding goes towards the arts.
I handed out (40) signed copies of my 6"x4" pencil portrait of 'Gertrude Bell' (inc. one of actress 'Angelina Jolie' who is signed up for the part (one I'd done earlier).
The prints are limited to 200 in the world and are signed with a metallic silver marker. I'll make the remainder available on Ebay soon :-)
