Tuesday June 28, 2011
Conversation of the Day (2006 Version)
THE BELIEVER: Rumor has it that you turned down the chance to direct Disney’s remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner because you felt they weren’t interested in really exploring racism.
HAROLD RAMIS: The way they wanted to do it didn’t have a lot to do with the colossal amount of pain and violence that swirls around racial injustice. It would’ve been like an episode of The Jeffersons. What’s the point? But who knows, maybe that’s as much as most people want. I can’t tell you how many people have told me, “When I go to the movies, I don’t want to think.”
THE BELIEVER: Does that offend you as a filmmaker?
HAROLD RAMIS: It offends me as a human being. Why wouldn’t you want to think? What does that mean? Why not just shoot yourself in the fucking head?
Conversation between actor-writer-director-surgeon Harold Ramis and Eric Spitznagel, from the March 2006 issue of The Believer
Twitter: @ErikLundegaard
Tweets by @ErikLundegaardWhat Trump Said When About COVID-19
Recent Reviews
John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020)
Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood (2019)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Cagneys
Something to Sing About (1937)
A Lion Is In the Streets (1953)
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
Never Steal Anything Small (1959)
Discovering James Cagney (2014)