WEBVTT

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(Music)

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["Oedipus Rex"]

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["The Lion King"]

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["Titus"]

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["Frida"]

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["The Magic Flute"]

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["Across The Universe"]

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(Applause)

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Julie Taymor: Thank you.
Thank you very much.

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That's a few samples of the theater, opera

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and films that I have done
over the last 20 years.

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But what I'd like to begin with right now

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is to take you back to a moment

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that I went through in Indonesia,

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which is a seminal moment in my life

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and, like all myths,

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these stories need to be retold

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and told, lest we forget them.

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And when I'm in the turbulent
times, as we know,

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that I am right now, through the crucible

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and the fire of transformation,

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which is what all of you do, actually.

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Anybody who creates knows
there's that point where

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it hasn't quite become
the phoenix or the burnt char.

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(Laughter)

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And I am right there on the edge,

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which I'll tell you about, another story.

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I want to go back to Indonesia

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where I was about 21, 22
years, a long time ago,

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on a fellowship.

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And I found myself, after two years there

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and performing and learning,
on the island of Bali,

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on the edge of a crater, Gunung Batur.

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And I was in a village where there was

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an initiation ceremony for the young men,

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a rite of passage.

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Little did I know that it
was mine as well.

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And as I sat in this temple square

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under this gigantic beringin banyan tree,

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in the dark, there was no
electricity, just the full moon,

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down in this empty square,

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and I heard the most beautiful sounds,

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like a Charles Ives concert

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as I listened to the gamelan music

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from all the different villagers that came

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for this once-every-five-years ceremony.

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And I thought I was alone
in the dark under this tree.

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And all of a sudden, out of the dark,

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from the other end of the square,

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I saw the glint of mirrors
lit by the moon.

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And these 20 old men who I'd seen before

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all of a sudden stood up in these
full warrior costumes

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with the headdress and the spears,

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and no one was in the square,
and I was hidden in the shadows.

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No one was there, and they came out,

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and they did this incredible dance.

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"Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahaha."

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And they moved their bodies
and they came forward,

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and the lights bounced off these costumes.

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And I've been in theater
since I was 11 years old,

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and performing, creating, and I went,

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"Who are they performing for

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with these elaborate costumes,

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these extraordinary headdresses?"

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And I realized that they were
performing for God,

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whatever that means.

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But somehow, it didn't
matter about the publicity.

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There was no money involved.

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It wasn't going to be written down.
It was no news.

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And there were these incredible artists

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that felt for me like an eternity
as they performed.

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The next moment,

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as soon as they finished
and disappeared into the shadows,

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a young man with a propane
lantern came on,

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hung it up on a tree, set up a curtain.

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The village square was filled
with hundreds of people.

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And they put on an opera all night long.

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Human beings needed the light.

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They needed the light to see.

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So what I gained and gathered
from this incredible,

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seminal moment in my life
as a young artist

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was that you must be true

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to what you believe as an artist
all the way through,

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but you also have to be aware

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that the audience is out there
in our lives at this time,

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and they also need the light.

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And it's this incredible balance

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that I think that we walk

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when we are creating something
that is breaking ground,

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that's trying to do something
you've never seen before,

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that imaginary world

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where you actually don't know
where you're going to end up,

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that's the fine line
on the edge of a crater

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that I have walked my whole life.

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What I would like to do now is to tell you

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a little bit

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about how I work.
Let's take "The Lion King."

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You saw many examples of my work up there,

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but it's one that people know.

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I start with the notion of the ideograph.

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An ideograph is like a brush
painting, a Japanese brush painting.

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Three strokes, you get
the whole bamboo forest.

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I go to the concept of "The Lion King"

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and I say, "What is the essence of it?

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What is the abstraction?

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If I were to reduce this entire story

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into one image, what would it be?"

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The circle. The circle. It's so obvious.

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The circle of life. The
circle of Mufasa's mask.

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The circle that, when we come
to Act II and there's a drought,

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how do you express drought?

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It's a circle of silk on the floor

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that disappears into the hole
in the stage floor.

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The circle of life comes in the wheels

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of the gazelles that leap.

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And you see the mechanics.

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And being a theater person, what I know
and love about the theater

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is that when the audience comes in

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and they suspend their disbelief,

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when you see men walking or women walking

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with a platter of grass on their heads,

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you know it's the savanna.

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You don't question that.

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I love the apparent truth of theater.

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I love that people are willing
to fill in the blanks.

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The audience is willing to say,

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"Oh, I know that's not a real sun.

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You took pieces of sticks.

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You added silk to the bottom.

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You suspended these pieces. You
let it fall flat on the floor.

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And as it rises with the strings,
I see that it's a sun.

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But the beauty of it
is that it's just silk and sticks.

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And in a way, that is what makes
it spiritual.

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That's what moves you.

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It's not the actual literal
sunrise that's coming.

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It's the art of it.

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So in the theater, as much
as the story is critical

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and the book and the language,

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the telling of the story, how it's told,

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the mechanics, the methods that you use,

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is equal to the story itself.

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And I'm one who loves
high tech and low tech.

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So I could go from --

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For instance, I'll show you
some "Spider-Man" later,

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these incredible machines
that move people along.

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But the fact is, without the dancer

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who knows how to use his body
and swing on those wires,

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it's nothing.

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So now I'm going to show you

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some clips from the other big
project of my life this year,

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"The Tempest."

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It's a movie. I did "The
Tempest" on a stage three times

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in the theater since 1984, '86,

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and I love the play.

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I did it always with a male Prospero.

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And all of a sudden, I thought,

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"Well, who am I gonna
get to play Prospero?

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Why not Helen Mirren?
She's a great actor. Why not?"

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And this material really did work
for a woman equally as well.

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So now, let's take a look
at some of the images

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from "The Tempest."

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(Music)

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(Video) Prospera: Hast thou, spirit, performed
to the point the tempest that I bade thee?

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Ariel: I boarded the king's ship.
In every cabin, I flamed amazement.

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Prospera: At first sight,
they have changed eyes.

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Miranda: Do you love me?

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Ferdinand: Beyond all limit.

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HM: They are both in either's powers.

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Trinculo: Misery acquaints
a man with strange bedfellows.

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(Music)

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Looking for business, governor?

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Caliban: Hast thou not
dropped from heaven?

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Stephano: Out of the moon,
I do assure thee.

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Prospera: Caliban!

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Caliban: This island is mine.

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Prospera: For this, be sure,
tonight thou shalt have cramps.

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Antonio: Here lies your brother no
better than the earth he lies upon.

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Sebastian: Draw thy sword.

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And I, the king, shall love thee.

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Prospera: I will plague
them all, even to roaring.

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Ariel: I have made you mad.

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Prospera: We are such stuff
as dreams are made on.

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and our little life
is rounded with a sleep.

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(Music)

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JT: Okay.

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(Applause)

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So I went from theater,
doing "The Tempest"

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on the stage in a very
low-budget production

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many years ago,

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and I love the play, and I also think

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it's Shakespeare's last play,

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and it really lends itself,
as you can see, to cinema.

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But I'm just going to give
you a little example about

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how one stages it in theater

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and then how one takes
that same idea or story

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and moves it into cinema.

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The ideograph that I talked
to you about before,

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what is it for "The Tempest"?

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What, if I were to boil it down,

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would be the one image that I could

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hang my hat on for this?

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And it was the sand castle,

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the idea of nurture versus nature,

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that we build these civilizations --

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she speaks about it at the end,
Helen Mirren's Prospera --

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we build them, but under nature,
under the grand tempest,

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these cloud-capped towers, these
gorgeous palaces will fade

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and there will -- leave not a rack behind.

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So in the theater, I started the play,

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it was a black sand rake, white cyc,

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and there was a little girl,
Miranda, on the horizon,

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building a drip castle, a sand castle.

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And as she was there
on the edge of that stage,

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two stagehands all in black

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with watering cans ran along the top

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and started to pour water
on the sand castle,

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and the sand castle
started to drip and sink,

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but before it did,

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the audience saw
the black-clad stagehands.

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The medium was apparent. It was banal.
We saw it.

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But as they started to pour the water,

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the light changed from showing
you the black-clad stagehands

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to focusing, this rough magic
that we do in theater,

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it focused right on the water itself.

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And all of a sudden,
the audience's perspective changes.

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It becomes something magically large.

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It becomes the rainstorm.

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The masked actors,
the puppeteers, they disappear,

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and the audience makes
that leap into this world,

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into this imaginary world of "The
Tempest" actually happening.

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Now the difference

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when I went and did it in the cinema,

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I started the actual movie

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with a close-up of a sand
castle, a black sand castle,

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and what cinema can do is,

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by using camera, perspective,

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and also long shots and close-ups,

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it started on a close-up
of the sand castle,

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and as it pulled away,

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you saw that it was a miniature
sitting in the palm

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of the girl's hands.

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And so I could play with the medium,

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and why I move from one medium to another

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is to be able to do this.

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Now I'm going to take you to "Spider-Man."

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(Music)

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(Video) Peter Parker: ♪
Standing on the precipice,

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I can soar away from this. ♪

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JT: We're trying to do
everything in live theater

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that you can't do in two dimensions

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in film and television.

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PP: ♪ Rise above yourself
and take control. ♪

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George Tsypin: We're looking at New
York from a Spider-Man point of view.

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Spider Man is not bound by gravity.

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Manhattan in the show is not
bound by gravity either.

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PP: ♪ Be yourself and rise above it all. ♪

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Ensemble: ♪ Sock! Pow! ♪

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♪ Slam! Scratch! ♪

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Danny Ezralow: I don't want you
to even think there's a choreographer.

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It's real, what's happening.

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I prefer you to see people moving,

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and you're going, "Whoa, what was that?"

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(Music)

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JT: If I give enough movement
in the sculpture,

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and the actor moves their head,
you feel like it's alive.

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It's really comic book live.
It's a comic book coming alive.

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(Music)

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Bono: They're mythologies.

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They're modern myths,
these comic book heroes.

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PP: ♪ They believe. ♪

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(Screams)

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(Music)

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(Applause)

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JT: Ohhhh. What was that?

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Circus, rock 'n' roll, drama.

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What the hell are we doing
up there on that stage?

00:15:42.757 --> 00:15:45.395
Well, one last story, very quickly.

00:15:45.419 --> 00:15:48.265
After I was in that village,
I crossed the lake,

00:15:48.289 --> 00:15:51.354
and I saw that the volcano was erupting

00:15:51.378 --> 00:15:53.107
on the other side, Gunung Batur,

00:15:53.131 --> 00:15:56.192
and there was a dead volcano
next to the live volcano.

00:15:56.216 --> 00:15:58.455
I didn't think I'd be
swallowed by the volcano,

00:15:58.479 --> 00:15:59.799
and I am here.

00:15:59.823 --> 00:16:03.736
But it's very easy to climb up, is it not?

00:16:03.760 --> 00:16:05.321
You hold on to the roots,

00:16:05.345 --> 00:16:08.521
you put your foot in the little rocks

00:16:08.545 --> 00:16:11.103
and climb up there,
and you get to the top,

00:16:11.127 --> 00:16:13.393
and I was with a good
friend who was an actor,

00:16:13.417 --> 00:16:15.413
and we said, "Let's go up there.

00:16:15.437 --> 00:16:17.461
Let's see if we can come close to the edge

00:16:17.485 --> 00:16:19.597
of that live volcano."

00:16:19.621 --> 00:16:22.449
And we climbed up and we got
to the very top,

00:16:22.473 --> 00:16:24.954
and we're on the edge, on this precipice,

00:16:24.978 --> 00:16:27.367
Roland disappears into the sulfur smoke

00:16:27.391 --> 00:16:29.304
at the volcano at the other end,

00:16:29.328 --> 00:16:31.146
and I'm up there alone

00:16:31.170 --> 00:16:33.882
on this incredible precipice.

00:16:33.906 --> 00:16:35.503
Did you hear the lyrics?

00:16:35.527 --> 00:16:37.829
I'm on the precipice looking down

00:16:37.853 --> 00:16:40.140
into a dead volcano to my left.

00:16:40.164 --> 00:16:43.968
To my right is sheer shale.
It's coming off.

00:16:43.992 --> 00:16:47.736
I'm in thongs and sarongs.
It was many years ago.

00:16:47.760 --> 00:16:49.361
And no hiking boots.

00:16:49.385 --> 00:16:53.320
And he's disappeared, this
mad French gypsy actor,

00:16:53.344 --> 00:16:56.624
off in the smoke, and I realize,

00:16:56.648 --> 00:17:00.552
I can't go back the way that I've come.
I can't.

00:17:00.576 --> 00:17:05.233
So I throw away my camera.
I throw away my thongs,

00:17:05.257 --> 00:17:08.462
and I looked at the line
straight in front of me,

00:17:08.486 --> 00:17:12.096
and I got down on all fours like a cat,

00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:15.117
and I held with my knees to either side

00:17:15.142 --> 00:17:17.511
of this line in front of me,

00:17:17.535 --> 00:17:20.553
for 30 yards or 30 feet, I don't know.

00:17:20.577 --> 00:17:23.266
The wind was massively blowing,

00:17:23.290 --> 00:17:26.695
and the only way I could
get to the other side

00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:29.139
was to look at the line
straight in front of me.

00:17:29.163 --> 00:17:31.142
I know you've all been there.

00:17:31.166 --> 00:17:33.115
I'm in the crucible right now.

00:17:33.139 --> 00:17:34.979
It's my trial by fire.

00:17:35.003 --> 00:17:37.309
It's my company's trials by fire.

00:17:37.333 --> 00:17:41.566
We survive because our theme
song is "Rise Above."

00:17:41.590 --> 00:17:44.707
Boy falls from the sky, rise above.

00:17:44.731 --> 00:17:47.121
It's right there in the palm
of both of our hands,

00:17:47.145 --> 00:17:48.748
of all of my company's hands.

00:17:48.772 --> 00:17:52.316
I have beautiful collaborators,
and we as creators

00:17:52.340 --> 00:17:54.327
only get there all together.

00:17:54.351 --> 00:17:56.516
I know you understand that.

00:17:56.540 --> 00:17:58.941
And you just stay going forward,

00:17:58.965 --> 00:18:01.582
and then you see this extraordinary thing

00:18:01.606 --> 00:18:03.128
in front of your eyes.

00:18:03.152 --> 00:18:04.428
Thank you.

00:18:04.452 --> 00:18:09.899
(Applause)