The Lathe of Heaven (film)
Encyclopedia
The Lathe of Heaven is a 1979 film (released in 1980) based on the 1971 Science Fiction
novel The Lathe of Heaven
by Ursula K. Le Guin
. It was produced in 1979 as part of New York City
public television station WNET
's Experimental TV Lab project, and directed by David Loxton
and Fred Barzyk. Ursula K. Le Guin
, by her own account, was involved in the casting, script planning, re-writing, and filming of this production.
The film stars Bruce Davison
as protagonist George Orr, Kevin Conway as Dr. William Haber, and Margaret Avery
as lawyer Heather LeLache.
in the near future. George Orr is charged with misuse of multiple prescription medications, which he was taking to keep himself from dreaming; he volunteers for psychiatric care to avoid prosecution, and is assigned to the care of licensed "Oneirologist
" William Haber. Orr's explanation of his drug abuse is incredible: he has known since age 17 that his dreams change reality, and tries to prevent himself from dreaming because he fears their effects.
Haber initially considers Orr's fear as a delusional symptom of neurosis or psychosis, referring to him as "possibly an intelligent schizophrenic". He puts Orr into a hypnotic trance, and encourages him to have an "effective dream" to record his brain function. When he realizes that Orr is telling the truth, Haber begins to use Orr's "effective dreams" to first create a prestigious, well funded institute run by himself, then to attempt to solve various social problems. Haber suggests that Orr dream of a solution to overpopulation (resulting in a plague wiping out 3/4 of the human population), the end to all conflict between people (resulting in an alien invasion uniting mankind), only admitting to Orr after numerous failed attempts to "make the world right" that he believes in Orr's power.
Orr turns to lawyer Heather LeLache for help in getting out of his government-mandated treatments with Haber. LeLache doubts Orr's sanity, but agrees to help him, eventually becoming an ally.
As Haber continues to use Orr to create change in human society, Orr remembers that a dream he experienced years ago, which is briefly portrayed at the opening of the film, is in fact reality: the world was destroyed in a nuclear war, and Orr had been dying from radiation poisoning when he began to dream that it had not happened. Haber enters the final version of his machine for directing dreams, and learns this truth, driving him mad. Orr had joined him in that dream state, and was able to change the world back to a relatively normal version not destroyed, and not severely altered. the end of the film shows Orr working in an antique store run by an alien, with LeLache coming in to browse. She has no memory of him, but agrees to have lunch with him. They encounter Haber, wheelchair bound, on their way to lunch, and Haber recognizes Orr, but cannot come out of his catatonia.
and Fred Barzyk were pioneers in the early video art movement; they met in 1968 at WGBH TV in Boston, and collaborated for over 20 years, until Loxton's death in the early 1990s. The first science fiction drama they created together was a 1972 film called Between Time and Timbuktu
, based on the work of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
With a two-week shooting schedule, and a lean budget of about $250,000, Loxton and Barzyk had to get creative to effectively convey the novel's deeper meanings and sometimes grand science fiction scenarios. In an interview in 2000, Barzyk said,
The film was shot at locations in Dallas, Texas
, rather than in Portland, Oregon. These included the Dallas City Hall
, the Tandy Center, Hyatt Regency Dallas
and Reunion Tower
, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
, and a vacated Mobil Oil Building in Fort Worth
. Le Guin, her husband, their fifteen-year-old son, and her husband's eighty-year-old Aunt Ruby appear as extras in a scene where Heather and George talk over lunch in a cafeteria.
According to a 1978 article in The New York Times
, during the process of funding a prospective series focused on "speculative fiction, a category of fairly recent vintage applied to...'the most thoughtful and provocative works of science fiction...[such as] Arthur C. Clarke
, Frank Herbert
, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Anthony Burgess
and Robert Heinlein
," Le Guin was one of several authors whose novels were considered for adaptation: "The [$750,000] financing was awarded as the result of an earlier grant by [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] to research and develop such a series. After much study with a team of consultants that included critics, authors, editors, publishers and professors, a list of candidates for the series was compiled, from which Miss LeGuin's novel was selected" to be the series pilot.
At the time this funding was given, it was thought the film would be shot in Portland, Oregon, where the story takes place.
Loxton and Barzyk hoped that Lathe would be the first production in a public television series exploring science fiction literature. They created one more telefilm together under this rubric, 1983's Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
, based on a short story by John Varley
.
The Lathe of Heaven was nominated for a Hugo Award
for Best Dramatic Presentation. The screenplay was nominated for a Writers Guild
Award for writers Roger Swaybill and Diane English
In 1998, Entertainment Weekly
magazine named Lathe one of the top 100 greatest works of science fiction.
Of the 2000 re-release (see below), TV Guide wrote, "Unlike much current science fiction, it's driven by ideas rather than special effects, and Davison's subtle performance as George, who turns out to be a far tougher character than he at first appears, is a highlight." In Cinescape, a reviewer praised the film as
Fans were extremely critical of WNET
's supposed "warehousing" of the film, but the budgetary barriers to rebroadcast were high. In a 2000 article, Joseph Basile, director of program rights and clearances for WNET, said, "'Lay people don't understand that to take a program out of mothballs, we have to pay for and clear rights with all participants in the program ... It's a difficult and time-consuming and expensive endeavor."
Basile also had to negotiate a special agreement with the composer of the film's score, and deal with the Beatles recording excerpted in the original soundtrack, "With a Little Help from My Friends
," which is integral to a plot point in both the novel and the film. A cover version replaces the Beatles' own recording, "which would have taken too long to clear and cost 'an arm and a leg.'"
Once rights issues were resolved, the film was cleaned up from two-inch Quadruplex videotape masters. In 2000, Lathe was finally rebroadcast and released to video and DVD. In addition to the film, this release features an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin
by Bill Moyers
, which initially aired along with the film's rebroadcast.
WNET
has not said how much it cost to re-release Lathe, stating simply that it "wasn't cheap," and that hopefully royalties would help recoup the expense.
guest-starred in a 1995 episode of the television show The Outer Limits
titled "White Light Fever" which features a visual homage to Lathe: a "tunnel of blue light" effect very similar to a special effect used near the end of the film. (An image from this sequence is featured on the cover of both the mass market paperback edition of the novel that was issued with the film's premiere, and the 2000 video/DVD release).
The novel was again adapted as a telefilm by A&E Networks in 2002, titled Lathe of Heaven
. It was poorly received by critics. Le Guin herself called it "misguided and uninteresting."
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel The Lathe of Heaven
The Lathe of Heaven
The Lathe of Heaven is a 1971 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. The plot revolves around a character whose dreams alter reality. The story was first serialized in the American science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. The novel received nominations for the 1972 Hugo and the 1971 Nebula...
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
. It was produced in 1979 as part of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
public television station WNET
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
's Experimental TV Lab project, and directed by David Loxton
David Loxton
David R. Loxton , was a producer of documentaries and other programs for public television in the USA.Loxton was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the son of Bill Loxton & Binkie Loxton . He grew up in England where his father was a Wing Commander in the RAF...
and Fred Barzyk. Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
, by her own account, was involved in the casting, script planning, re-writing, and filming of this production.
The film stars Bruce Davison
Bruce Davison
Bruce Davison is an American actor and director.-Early life:Davison was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Marian E. , a secretary, and Clair W. Davison, a musician, architect, and draftsman for the Army Engineers. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He was raised by his...
as protagonist George Orr, Kevin Conway as Dr. William Haber, and Margaret Avery
Margaret Avery
Margaret Avery is an American actress and singer. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Shug in The Color Purple .-Early life:...
as lawyer Heather LeLache.
Plot
The Lathe of Heaven is set in Portland, OregonPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
in the near future. George Orr is charged with misuse of multiple prescription medications, which he was taking to keep himself from dreaming; he volunteers for psychiatric care to avoid prosecution, and is assigned to the care of licensed "Oneirologist
Oneirology
Oneirology is the scientific study of dreams. Current research seeks correlations between dreaming and current knowledge about the functions of the brain, as well as understanding of how the brain works during dreaming as pertains to memory formation and mental disorders...
" William Haber. Orr's explanation of his drug abuse is incredible: he has known since age 17 that his dreams change reality, and tries to prevent himself from dreaming because he fears their effects.
Haber initially considers Orr's fear as a delusional symptom of neurosis or psychosis, referring to him as "possibly an intelligent schizophrenic". He puts Orr into a hypnotic trance, and encourages him to have an "effective dream" to record his brain function. When he realizes that Orr is telling the truth, Haber begins to use Orr's "effective dreams" to first create a prestigious, well funded institute run by himself, then to attempt to solve various social problems. Haber suggests that Orr dream of a solution to overpopulation (resulting in a plague wiping out 3/4 of the human population), the end to all conflict between people (resulting in an alien invasion uniting mankind), only admitting to Orr after numerous failed attempts to "make the world right" that he believes in Orr's power.
Orr turns to lawyer Heather LeLache for help in getting out of his government-mandated treatments with Haber. LeLache doubts Orr's sanity, but agrees to help him, eventually becoming an ally.
As Haber continues to use Orr to create change in human society, Orr remembers that a dream he experienced years ago, which is briefly portrayed at the opening of the film, is in fact reality: the world was destroyed in a nuclear war, and Orr had been dying from radiation poisoning when he began to dream that it had not happened. Haber enters the final version of his machine for directing dreams, and learns this truth, driving him mad. Orr had joined him in that dream state, and was able to change the world back to a relatively normal version not destroyed, and not severely altered. the end of the film shows Orr working in an antique store run by an alien, with LeLache coming in to browse. She has no memory of him, but agrees to have lunch with him. They encounter Haber, wheelchair bound, on their way to lunch, and Haber recognizes Orr, but cannot come out of his catatonia.
Cast
- Bruce DavisonBruce DavisonBruce Davison is an American actor and director.-Early life:Davison was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Marian E. , a secretary, and Clair W. Davison, a musician, architect, and draftsman for the Army Engineers. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He was raised by his...
as George Orr - Kevin Conway as Dr. William Haber
- Margaret AveryMargaret AveryMargaret Avery is an American actress and singer. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Shug in The Color Purple .-Early life:...
as Heather LeLache - Niki Flacks as Penny Crouch
- Peyton Park as Mannie Ahrens
- Vandi Clark as Aunt Ethel
- Jo Livingston as George's Father
- Jane Roberts as Grandmother
- Tom Matts as Grandfather
- Frank Miller as Parole Officer
- Joye Nash as Woman on Subway
- Gena Sleete as Woman on Subway
- Ben McKinley III as Orderly
- R.A. Mihailoff as Orderly
Behind the scenes
Directors David LoxtonDavid Loxton
David R. Loxton , was a producer of documentaries and other programs for public television in the USA.Loxton was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the son of Bill Loxton & Binkie Loxton . He grew up in England where his father was a Wing Commander in the RAF...
and Fred Barzyk were pioneers in the early video art movement; they met in 1968 at WGBH TV in Boston, and collaborated for over 20 years, until Loxton's death in the early 1990s. The first science fiction drama they created together was a 1972 film called Between Time and Timbuktu
Between Time and Timbuktu
Between Time and Timbuktu is a television film directed by Fred Barzyk and based on a number of works by Kurt Vonnegut. Produced by National Educational Television and WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, it was telecast March 13, 1972 as a NET Playhouse special.The script was primarily written by...
, based on the work of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
With a two-week shooting schedule, and a lean budget of about $250,000, Loxton and Barzyk had to get creative to effectively convey the novel's deeper meanings and sometimes grand science fiction scenarios. In an interview in 2000, Barzyk said,
- David and I had a unique working relationship. We were co-producers, co-directors. If you really cut it down, I would run the set, and David would run behind-the-scenes. But when it came to content and the actual physical structure of the set, we had equal input. The reason that was important, especially on Lathe, is that we had a very limited budget, and we were moving into science fiction ... and let's face it, some of Ursula's ideas were pretty big. I mean, how the hell do we possibly even begin to portray the attack of aliens or the wiping out of billions of people with the plague? What it came down to was, we had to find metaphors. We had to find things that didn't cost that much money and still led to maybe the same kind of emotional impact.
- ...Our special effects in Lathe were not done the way they were because that was necessarily the direction we wanted to go. It was the direction we had to go. We didn't have enough money to be able to do these things, so we were constantly trying to figure out ways in which we could shoot something in half a day and imply vast amounts of impressions to the audience. For example, when everyone gets wiped out by the plague, we came up with the idea of putting people around a table and just constantly circling the table and making them distorted and growing older to imply all those people being killed. That was partly because we couldn't think of any other way to do it within the constraints of our budget. But we were also influenced by video artists. There was one artist who had taken fishwire and wrapped his face, for example, and so I used a variation of that in this scene. We grabbed from the art director the dust and the smoke and the cobwebs, and in effect we wound up using some of David's English heritage with the candelabras and the rest, which kind of went back to Great Expectations.
The film was shot at locations in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, rather than in Portland, Oregon. These included the Dallas City Hall
Dallas City Hall
Dallas City Hall is the seat of Dallas municipal government, located at 1500 Marilla in the Government District of downtown Dallas, Texas...
, the Tandy Center, Hyatt Regency Dallas
Hyatt Regency Dallas
The Hyatt Regency Dallas is a 345 ft 30-story, 1,120-room hotel at the Reunion district in Dallas, Texas. It was featured in the opening credits of the television series Dallas for the show's entire run, from 1978 until 1991. The building is connected to Union Station and Reunion Tower, the...
and Reunion Tower
Reunion Tower
Reunion Tower is a observation tower and one of the most recognizable landmarks in Dallas, Texas. Located at 300 Reunion Blvd. in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, the tower is part of the Hyatt Regency Hotel complex, and is the 15th tallest building in Dallas...
, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is located between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, and is the busiest airport in the U.S. state of Texas...
, and a vacated Mobil Oil Building in Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
. Le Guin, her husband, their fifteen-year-old son, and her husband's eighty-year-old Aunt Ruby appear as extras in a scene where Heather and George talk over lunch in a cafeteria.
According to a 1978 article in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, during the process of funding a prospective series focused on "speculative fiction, a category of fairly recent vintage applied to...'the most thoughtful and provocative works of science fiction...[such as] Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
and Robert Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
," Le Guin was one of several authors whose novels were considered for adaptation: "The [$750,000] financing was awarded as the result of an earlier grant by [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] to research and develop such a series. After much study with a team of consultants that included critics, authors, editors, publishers and professors, a list of candidates for the series was compiled, from which Miss LeGuin's novel was selected" to be the series pilot.
At the time this funding was given, it was thought the film would be shot in Portland, Oregon, where the story takes place.
Loxton and Barzyk hoped that Lathe would be the first production in a public television series exploring science fiction literature. They created one more telefilm together under this rubric, 1983's Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank was a 1983 television movie. It was produced by Canada’s RSL Productions in Toronto. Financing was provided by WNET/PBS New Jersey, which had hoped to create an entire science fiction series adapting famous works, but due to lack of funding this was the last of three...
, based on a short story by John Varley
John Varley (author)
John Herbert Varley is an American science fiction author.-Biography:Varley grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship because, of the schools that he could afford, it...
.
Reception and awards
When it first aired in 1980, The Lathe of Heaven became one of the two highest-rated shows that season on PBS, drawing 10 percent of the audience in New York and 8 percent in Chicago, according to Nielsen ratings.The Lathe of Heaven was nominated for a Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for Best Dramatic Presentation. The screenplay was nominated for a Writers Guild
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
Award for writers Roger Swaybill and Diane English
In 1998, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
magazine named Lathe one of the top 100 greatest works of science fiction.
Of the 2000 re-release (see below), TV Guide wrote, "Unlike much current science fiction, it's driven by ideas rather than special effects, and Davison's subtle performance as George, who turns out to be a far tougher character than he at first appears, is a highlight." In Cinescape, a reviewer praised the film as
- "an instant classic...a film of ideas rather than action...[W]hile the minuscule budget didn't grant the filmmakers the grandeur of some of Le Guin's set pieces in the novel, such as the alien invasion or the melting of Portland, the film's strength comes from its performers and the suspenseful concepts in the writing." And Time magazine wrote:
- Nineteen years before The Blair Witch Project, this classic sci-fi film showed that you can make an arresting fantasy with hardly more than the change under your couch cushions...[S]ome of the no-budget effects haven't aged well--at one point the earth is visited by alien ships that look like electric hamburgers. The provocative exploration of consciousness, though, is priceless.
2000 re-release
After its initial broadcast in 1980, Lathe was occasionally shown over the next eight years. PBS' rights to rebroadcast the program expired in 1988. The Lathe of Heaven went on to became the most-requested program in PBS history.Fans were extremely critical of WNET
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
's supposed "warehousing" of the film, but the budgetary barriers to rebroadcast were high. In a 2000 article, Joseph Basile, director of program rights and clearances for WNET, said, "'Lay people don't understand that to take a program out of mothballs, we have to pay for and clear rights with all participants in the program ... It's a difficult and time-consuming and expensive endeavor."
Basile also had to negotiate a special agreement with the composer of the film's score, and deal with the Beatles recording excerpted in the original soundtrack, "With a Little Help from My Friends
With a Little Help from My Friends
-Joe Cocker version:Joe Cocker's version was a radical re-arrangement of the original, in a slower, 6/8 meter, using different chords in the middle eight, and a lengthy instrumental introduction...
," which is integral to a plot point in both the novel and the film. A cover version replaces the Beatles' own recording, "which would have taken too long to clear and cost 'an arm and a leg.'"
Once rights issues were resolved, the film was cleaned up from two-inch Quadruplex videotape masters. In 2000, Lathe was finally rebroadcast and released to video and DVD. In addition to the film, this release features an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
by Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
, which initially aired along with the film's rebroadcast.
WNET
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
has not said how much it cost to re-release Lathe, stating simply that it "wasn't cheap," and that hopefully royalties would help recoup the expense.
Pop culture impacts
Bruce DavisonBruce Davison
Bruce Davison is an American actor and director.-Early life:Davison was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Marian E. , a secretary, and Clair W. Davison, a musician, architect, and draftsman for the Army Engineers. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He was raised by his...
guest-starred in a 1995 episode of the television show The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1995 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that originally aired on Showtime,the Sci Fi Channel and in syndication between 1995 and 2002...
titled "White Light Fever" which features a visual homage to Lathe: a "tunnel of blue light" effect very similar to a special effect used near the end of the film. (An image from this sequence is featured on the cover of both the mass market paperback edition of the novel that was issued with the film's premiere, and the 2000 video/DVD release).
The novel was again adapted as a telefilm by A&E Networks in 2002, titled Lathe of Heaven
Lathe of Heaven (film)
Lathe of Heaven is a 2002 television movie based on the similarly named science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was produced for the A&E network in 2002 and directed by Philip Haas. It was nominated for the 2003 Saturn Award for Best Single Program Presentation.-Synopsis:It starred James...
. It was poorly received by critics. Le Guin herself called it "misguided and uninteresting."
External links
- Thirteen/WNET's The Lathe of Heaven web site
- Lathe production stills at Bruce Davison's Official web site