Six Powerful Prison Films Compared

Paul Newman is Luke.

I've long been a fan of Cool Hand Luke, the epic prison film starring Paul Newman and George Kennedy. Like all great films, there are memorable scenes and memorable lines, including this one by the prison captain: "What we've got here is... failure to communicate."

Paul Newman is Luke Jackson, who ends up with a two year sentence for a meaningless crime. His story becomes a metaphor for the existential hero who refuses to accept things as they are and is inwardly determined to be free from the constraints of existence. I've watched the film several times over the years and find it to be the perfect expression of existential philosophy, which was very much in vogue in the decades after WW2.

With this film as a gold standard of prison films, here are several more flicks to add to the Prison Films canon.

Cell Block 19 (1954)
I only discovered this movie by accident and what a nice surprise. Unlike the rest of the movies here, it is not centered around movie stars but rather a gritty story about a prison riot. When COVID-19 resulted in lockdowns around the world, there were numerous prison riots that soon followed, hence this 1954 movie caught my attention earlier this year.

Inhumane prison conditions ultimately prompt inmates at a prison to take action. They successfully take over one of the cell blocks and hold a number of guards hostage, hoping to negotiate with the prison warden, who is between a rock and a hard place. To give the prisoners what they want requires the governor's endorsement and he refuses to be bothered with this.

The movie shows how political shenanigans impact the ability of getting a straight answer. It also shows how the media can make a difference, because as a result of the takeover of Cell Block 19, the press gives ear to the prisoners' peeves, which has an influence on public opinion. The appalling circumstances in the prison are no longer hidden and the public can put pressure on the governor.

There are other features of the film of note, one being the manner in which there are differences of opinion on what to do now that the mob rules. Two factions have different ideas about what to do with the hostages, among other things.

Trivia: Walter Wanger, who produced this film, had just done time in prison (four months) and wanted to make a film that showed what prison conditions are really like. As a result, the film is less slick in production but packs a punch for its eye-opening storyline.

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

 

The only thing I have to add here are these two anecdotes. While driving to Hibbing a number of years ago, I picked up a hitchhiker. As it turns out, he had just gotten out of prison and was in the process of getting a Minnesota residency so he could get a job as a cabby. He had an interesting story, had been framed by the police who claimed he had 5000 hits of LSD and was a dealer. He did have LSD, but never saw 5000 hits of acid in his life. The audiobook I was listening to when I picked him up? Cool Hand Luke.

The second tale is that I spent a year in Puerto Rico in 1979 during which time I visited the Bayamon Prison once a week. I was assisting Bruce Fowler, a prison chaplain who was nicknamed "The Prisoner's Friend." Of this much more can be said. So many stories, so little time.

Papillon (1973)
This is a powerful account of one man's escape from a prison on Devil's Island. Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman are the lead characters, two prisoners whose friendship carries them through a horrendous life experience. Like Luke Jackson, Steve McQueen early on realizes this place is not for him. Either he must escape or die trying.

Runaway Train (1985)

This film stars Jon Voigt, another existential hero type. Voigt is one of those prisoners who refuses to be confined, is determined to break free. He's escaped twice before from other prisons and this one is supposed to be the end of the line. Nevertheless, he finds a way and a younger prisoner (Eric Roberts) who idolizes him tags along. It is the dead of winter and up here in the Northland the weather can be pretty inhospitable.

The two manage to jump on a train that is leaving a railway yard but one that has bad luck written on it. That is, as the train leaves the station the engineer has a heart attack. The train, picking up speed, is heading east and it becomes a very wild ride. The two figure out that something is not quite right, and they work their way forward to try to reach the engine. They soon discover that there's someone else on the train, a female railway worker (Rebecca DeMornay).

The train itself becomes a character in the film, and if you like trains, the film is especially fantastic. Some detractors may have issues with some of the storyline cliches. I overlook that.

Trivia: Djordje Milicevic, who wrote the screenplay for this film, also wrote Iron Will, another Northland winter film. As an extra in two scenes, it was my first "up close and personal" experience with Hollywood.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Andy and Red. A story of friendship, dignity and hope.

This is the story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) as told through the eyes of Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman). It is the top-rated movie of all time on imdb.com, based on viewer rankings. As with Papillon, it is a story of two men bonding within a context of oppression and injustice. It's also about what it means to be human.

One reviewer at imdb.com says that renting the movie is a waste of money because you will have to rent it again. "Buy it." He also said it is the best film that never got an Oscar, though it did receive seven nominations.

Morgan Freeman, like all our favorite stars, has an amazing ability to project warmth and that "special something" that makes you want to spend time with him. Was it Driving MIss Daisy that put him on the map? Shawshank sealed the deal that he was a force for good in Hollywood. Writing about all this makes me want to see it again, of course. And so I will look for it.

Papillon (2017)

When I saw that there had been a Papillon remake, I questioned its validity. How could you re-do this classic. Afterwards, I conceded. This is a great remake.

SPOILER ALERT

I'd forgotten that in addition to being a story revealing the horrors of Devil's Island, it was also an injustice that put Henri Charriere (Charlie Hunnam) into this hell-hole, wrongly convicted for murder. Rami Malek plays the Dustin Hoffman character in this version. In addition, it's based on the bok which Charriere wrote after his escape. In other words, the film is based on a true story.

The amount of time Charriere suffered was far longer than I'd remembered, though it's near 50 years since I saw the original. Suffering, in a film, is relatively brief... two to three hours at most. In real life, it's near impossible to imagine what people have gone through. I think here of the POWs who were caged and tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.

* * * *

EndNote: I saw first-hand some very bad things inside Bayamon Prison, but Bayamon was actually a good prison compared to what I heard about others, one of which was nicknamed Satan's Synagogue. That is a place you just don't want to go. And then there was my visit to the prison in Monterrey, Mexico. The old man we brought food to was living in Hell.

The Existential Hero/Anti-Hero Cool Hand Luke

“You made me like I am…. When does it end? What do you got in mind for me? What do I do now?” ~Luke Jackson

For a variety of reasons, existentialism became one of the prevailing philosophies of mid-Twentieth century. It is a philosophical view with fuzzy edges, as writers as varied as Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus bring differing perspectives to the equation. Nevertheless, at its core there are several common defining features: a sense of personal alienation, that our life situation is absurd, and the sense of calling to live authentically.

One definition refers to modern man's situation as "a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."

Merriam-Webster offers this definition: "A chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad."

When Cool Hand Luke was released in 1967, Existentialism was a prevailing wind on college campuses and in popular culture. Hence, the film demonstrates, without preaching, the fundamental essence of this worldview.

SPOILER ALERT

Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is a combination existential hero/anti-hero and Christ-figure in this film. As the opening credits roll we see a drunken Luke cutting the tops off of parking meters in the middle of the night, not to rob them but simply out of his sense of boredom, or for whatever meaningless reason. The rest of the film is about his time in prison. Luke has one quest here, to escape this meaningless existence. I see the overall film as a metaphor for Sartre's No Exit or Camus's The Stranger.

Like all good stories the film is a sequence of scenes which serve to define Luke's character for the viewer. His "never give up" attitude is demonstrated early in his fight with Dragline (George Kennedy). And though his "achievements" win the admiration of his bunkmates or "co-workers" in this hard labor camp, he is non-plussed about all of it, as A. Hardt points out in this 2011 forum discussion:

Through my multiple viewings of Cool Hand Luke, my analysis of the message of the film has switched back and forth between an existentialist one, and one of determinism. The existentialist references are the most common within the film; Luke is constantly discrediting the meaning in his actions. After Captain lists Luke’s significant war achievements, Luke responds by saying, “I was just passing time.” Also, when Dragline consults Luke about the 50 eggs in an hour bet, Luke says about the extremely difficult task, “Yeah well, it would be something to do.” From these and other examples, it seems that Luke has come to believe that his life is inherently meaningless, and in order to create meaning, he must give himself seemingly impossible tasks to complete to the amazement of those watching. When the chain gang is ordered to pave an entire road in one day, Luke recognizes the meaninglessness of this menial task, and by doing so he is able to accept it and even make the task into a game for the other workers, thereby achieving a sort of satisfaction.

Final showdown at the film's end.

In my recent watching of Cool Hand Luke I noted once more that in addition to being something of an existential hero/anti-hero, it's very clear that Luke is also something of a Christ-figure. In one of the reviews at imdb.com the writer points out that director Stuart Rosenberg consciously viewed the character of Luke in this manner, hence the deliberate use of Christian imagery in the film, most strikingly after the egg-eating scene where Luke is lying on the table, hands outstretched. The other prisoners have left his side, amplifying with a slightly long lingering shot the sense of Christ's abandonment at the Cross.

Though at first he was just another prisoner, his escapades serve to help give meaning and hope to his fellow prisoners, even if they seemingly mean nothing to him. In the end, like Jesus, he is abandoned by God (Matthew 27:46) and betrayed by a friend.

Peering through the existential lens we note that Luke is a non-conformist who is authentically himself. He is not like the others who, though discontent, accept their boundaries, their circumstances. Luke is a man of action, not resignation. Tragically his aspiration is impossible to achieve yet he pursues it till the end, hence his final despair.

There are plenty of great moments in this film. If you haven't seen it in a while, it may be time to re-visit this memorable classic.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“The truth? You can’t handle the truth.”
~Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessup in A Few Good Men

“There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity!”
~Burl Ives as Big Daddy

Last week I watched Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives in the powerful Tennessee Williams drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Whoa, what a scorcher.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Burl Ives is Big Daddy, and he’s coming home to celebrate his 65th birthday.. He’s just finished having a medical exam to find out what was ailing him, and lo, he got a clean bill of health, so now he’s smiling. He's ready to live large once again. The problem, from the start, is a problem of mendacity.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is one of numerous Hollywood productions of Tennessee Williams plays and Williams introduces its theme early.

Mendacity: the quality of being mendacious; untruthfulness; tendency to lie.

Brick (Paul Newman) is an alcoholic failed football star who has gone away and remained distant from his family; Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) the wounded wife pushed away by consequences she’d never anticipated. Newman had “big time” written all over him, but it wasn't to be as he now deals with his disillusionments. Gooper, his brother, became a lawyer and did all the right things to earn Big Daddy’s blessing, but the story is complicated and Williams is brilliant at skimming off the layers of the onion to reveal the story’s heart.

Big Daddy is a self-absorbed, insensitive modern day (1950’s) plantation owner who has more wealth than he knows what to do with. The situation that takes place in the space of a day tells the story of all their lives. Brick, who seems despicable at the first, is actually sees clearly how distorted the family dynamics are, and he wants nothing to do with any of it. His brother Gooper and his wife Mae are determined, as the good son and daughter-in-law, to get the blessing and all the goods that come with it. They've been faithfully producing potential heirs to the “Big Daddy” throne and waste no amount energy kowtowing and sucking up.

In contrast, Maggie’s womb is barren, though not because of her desire that it be so. Brick has emotionally cast her away because of an incident that occurred in a hotel room involving Maggie and his best friend Skipper, who committed suicide afterwards. Brick shuts her out so that Maggie never has a chance to tell her side of what happened. The root incident, in keeping with the theme, turns out to be that Skipper couldn’t face the truth either.

The pivotal theme is mendacity. Big Daddy is definitely going to die and he doesn’t know it, yet. This fact, which initially only the doc is aware of, begins to seep through the family and we see, one by one, the various ways in which the characters respond. Ultimately Brick lets it slip. Big Daddy is stunned.

The film sets up Brick’s character in the opening scene where at three in the morning he tries to run the hurdles, while booze-plastered. We see a brash young man who drinks too much, is careless and breaks his ankle in a foolish manner. The broken ankle serves as an external metaphor for the internally crippled man who deals with his pain through rivers of whiskey.

As the film progresses the scales begin to come off the characters’ eyes. What Williams does so effectively is to enable the audience to see who these characters are before they each discover for themselves who they really are. It’s a Hitchcock device, except instead of a gun in the drawer that only the audience is aware of, it’s our knowledge that at some point Big Daddy’s going to discover the truth (that his cancer is incurable) that creates tension. Like Brick’s broken ankle, Big Daddy’s cancer is likewise symbolic of his inner condition. Unlike Brick, whose ankle will heal, Big Daddy’s condition is terminal.

They’ve all been living lies in one way or another. Ultimately we learn the root beliefs that formed the motivational drive in each character, with the ultimate revelation coming in the final basement scene with Brick and Big Daddy. It’s a moment of truth that flows from the story yet of which the audience has know foreknowledge.

This is not a film formulated strictly to entertain. It is a story designed to unveil uncomfortable truths, to enlighten. I have no doubt Williams’ aim is for viewers to leave the theater introspectively, asking themselves how much mendacity and self-deceit they themselves live with.

If you hear echoes of the parable of the prodigal son, you’re probably not far off from the impetus for the original play.

As for the acting, it’s first-rate throughout. Newman, Taylor, Ives and the supporting cast are stellar.

Year End Review and New Beginnings

Don't know what came over me yesterday. I'd intended to do a year end review, something upbeat as we headed into the new year. But that WSJ story about the end of the U.S. as we know it just washed over me and swept me up in its current.

Yes, undertows are powerful and can be dangerous. No, it didn't wash me out to sea. Aside: Did you know that Jack Nicholson, while a teen growing up in New Jersey, once saved five peoples' lives who had been carried out into the ocean by an undertow? There were eleven swept out into the deep. Young Jack grabbed a lifeboat and headed out to save them. He says he puked his guts out after, but the newspaper only showed the shining face of the hero, which caught someone's eye, carrying him off in another current to the turbulent seas of fame in Hollywood.

Anyways, that WSJ story, popularized via the Drudge Report, certainly diverted me from my intentions. I don't really buy into the idea of our country breaking up into fragments by 2010. There are some who might enjoy seeing such things, like the Soviet analyst who saw his own nation crumble into pieces. Yugoslavia was similarly broken into fragments in recent history, which I can't help but think would weaken it and create inefficiencies. The most difficult problem is for geography students who simply can't keep up with all these changes. Yugoslavia was first broken into six parts in 1990's, into 8 a couple years ago and now, as of 2008, Kosovo has become a ninth entity.

A friend in Pakistan fears that the U.S., in an effort to strengthen its global stranglehold on that region of the world in the name of stability, has the same designs on his own nation. Some over there have expressed concern that the Mumbai tragedy will be used as a pretext for increased intervention.

We're not making much progress here in our year end review, though the last two snippets at least relate to the theme. Maybe I'm in avoidance mode since the collapse of housing, and the tsunami of bankruptcies and other financial disasters, culminating in the Madoff scandal as exclamation point, hardly bears repeating.

So, while all this tragedy was happening, what were the top searches for 2008 according to Yahoo Buzz? Number One, Brittney Spears whose police visit, hospital stay and psych evaluation were exceedingly important to Americans this year. Oh, she also appeared in a sitcom.

Number Two, the WWE heated up the cybersearchers in June with some kind of stir created when the effervescent Vince McMahon was purportedly injured in an explosion on a stage... or was it a staged explosion? Sorry, I missed it.

Number Three, Barack Obama. OK, this is a worthy number three. The guy overcame the odds, has charisma, defeated Hillary, steam-rolled the GOP and its veteran candidate John McCain... and has a lot of people rooting for him as he heads toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. My prayer is that we'll see miracles, because with the economic mess we're in and the international turmoil in every direction, it might take miracles to get us back to a place of stability and confidence toward the future.

Two additional quick observations. To my knowledge Obama has never walked on water. And despite his success in the primaries and election, president-elect Obama did not attract more buzz than Brittney Spears.

Rounding out the top ten stories as measured by Yahoo Searches, we have Miley Cyrus (the Hannah Montana siren), RuneScape, Jessica Alba, Naruta, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, and American Idol.

No list of year end summaries is complete without those farewells to significant people who departed this year. I had a personal stake in at least two of the personalities on Yahoo's Top 10 list: Paul Newman and Boyd Coddington. Having the same name as a mega-star actor invariably puts him on your personal life radar from time to time. As a freshman at Ohio University in 1970 I had a room in Scot Quad, where I learned that Paul Newman had lived during part of his abbreviated attendance at O.U. I enjoyed many of his films over the years, especially his early classics The Hustler, Hud, and Cool Hand Luke. He lived a charmed life, married to his one true love throughout and generously giving tens of millions to charity.

My intersection with Boyd Coddington's life commenced in 2007 when AMSOIL began a sponsorship relationship with Boyd who, at the time, had a reality TV show building hot cars. Or cool cars, however you like to look at it. Coddington's influence on the Southern California hot rod scene was legendary. He lived his dream. At the end of 2007 I flew to Orlando where I interviewed Boyd and Jo, his good hearted wife, for a feature story in the AMSOIL Action News. It might have been the last published feature on Boyd as within weeks the effects of his diabetes put him in the hospital, from which he never recovered. Perhaps you'll enjoy reading my tribute to Boyd & Jo, Innovation and a Passion for Cars.

Other passings in 2008 included Heath Ledger, George Carlin, Tim Russert, William F. Buckley, Sydney Pollack, Charlton Heston and the European Bakery in Downtown Duluth.

On the positive side of the ledger, The Centerville All Stars produced and released a great new CD, Party with the Band. You can read my review and purchase your copy here.

In the meantime, have a great 2009, starting today. Hot Tip: Enjoy your friends, make some memories with your families, and avoid the land mines. Happy New Year!

Two Profound Actions

Short Story Monday.

When Paul Newman passed away last week I’d considered devoting a blog entry to the man, especially since our names are similar. (Paul and Ed both have one syllable, and both have the same number of vowels as consonants.)

The next day I decided out check out a Paul Newman flick that I’d not yet seen. Fat Man & Little Boy. Ironically, it was about the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the bomb, the selfsame theme of the story which I had planned to publish here today.

Two Acts That Profoundly Changed World History

Of the dozen or so German physicists who had been assigned the task of building a super-bomb for Germany, Wilhelm Kurtweil more than any knew the consequences for humanity should the Nazis become the first to achieve this ultimate quest. Kurtweil had been a leading voice in German physics before the war, was now a respected scientist in the twilight years of a fabulous career.

For him personally, Nazism was an odious blight on the German peoples, but he had remained silent, hoping against hope that the dark season would pass and German character would rise above its brutal cancer. In 1942 he lost this hope.

The super-bomb project was in full swing. The Nazis already dominated Europe. England was about to fall.

His worst fear of all: that the project would succeed and his name be forever associated with its success in bringing the world to its knees at Hitler's feet.

In November he began praying for divine intervention. He did not believe in God, but not knowing where else to turn and hoping that he was wrong, he prayed that God would give him wisdom. The following week he conceived in a dream, visualized with perfect clarity, the formulation for the Atomic Bomb. It was so perfect, so brilliantly conceived, and remarkably clever. He woke in a sweat. With his mind overstimulated he spent the rest of that night hastily scratching notes on scraps of paper. For three successive nights he worked out the details, occasionally catching fitful moments of sleep to sustain his strength.

On the fourth night, he saw clearly the two actions he must take. First, he must find a way to undermine -- without drawing suspicion -- the efforts of his fellow scientists. And second, he must find a way to communicate his findings to the American scientists whom he believed were actively pursuing the same designs.

The first task was easy enough. He saw clearly that the labyrinthian formula was built on a series of equations which flowed with a counterintuitive divergence from logic at several critical points. How he had seen this so plainly baffled him. In presenting his discoveries to the group, he merely had to re-arrange the equation at two points and the system would forever fail to detonate. Once these two re-arrangements were made, no amount of re-evaluation would point to this particular detail as being faulty. All corrections of the misfire would focus on other areas of the formulation, with over one hundred million permutations. If all went well, it would be ten years before the mistake was discovered.

Though he intended to delay as long as possible the presentation of his formulation, he knew he must be the first to present, lest the correct thesis be presented in regards to the critical path. By early spring of 1944 he saw that two of his young proteges were uncovering significant portions of the path and he was forced to the first task. On April seventh, he presented his findings with cool reserve and astounding humility. The team was ecstatic at the breakthrough.

The second task proved more daunting. He must find a way to communicate hisfindings to a team of American scientists that would be assembling in pursuit of the same objective. It was well-known by Nazi intelligence who America's leading scientists were. There were well placed Germans among them. He must secretly make contact and pass along his findings. So great was his fear of creating suspicions that he never once dared to speak to anyone of his intentions.

In June a secret memo crossed his desk requesting him to cease from all projects not related to the superbomb. An attachment for his eyes only mentioned that it was now going to be a race. The Americans were indeed assembling their own team, and time was not an ally.

Near the end of the attachment he noted a list of names, the names of prominent scientists with whom the German team was in direct competition. Among the names was a certain Robert Oppenheimer and it seemed as if the letters of his name leaped from the page and were branded into his consciousness.

"Oppenheimer," he said to himself.

"Did you say something, Herr Kurtweil?" one of his associates asked.

Kurtweil did not reply. Inwardly he vowed to make contact with Oppenheimer.

By late summer he realized that normal communication channels were closed to him. There was no way he would risk divulging his secrets, for there was no one he trusted. Yes, he knew there were malcontents among the ranks, but the magnitude of the stakes made it impossible for him to risk having such knowledge fall into the wrong hands, that is, Nazi hands.

According to a notation in his journals, on September 12, unable to find sleep, Kurtweil rose from his bed and dressed to go out, perhaps to a cabaret, perhaps for a smoke. When he opened the door he was startled to find a strange stooped man standing on his doorstep.

"What do you want?" Kurtweil said sharply.

"I have watched you, Herr Kurtweil. The destiny of the world is in your hands."

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

"I have come to help you. May I come in?"

Kurtweil was frightened. Did someone know? Had something in his manner betrayed him?

The man put his hand on Kurtweil's arm. "I know the solution to your problem."

Kurtweil began to stammer. He had not been sleeping. He had not had enough rest. He tried to pull back, but the stranger held him firmly.

When their eyes met, Kurtweil saw that he was not in danger. "Come in," he said with resignation.

They walked to the back of the house to Kurtweil’s study. It was badly lit so that the corners remained well cloaked in shadow, as were the recesses of his soul.

The man removed his overcoat. Kurtweil threw it over the back of a chair and gave him an ashen look when his empty hands fell to his sides.

"You understand my dilemma," Kurtweil said.

"Yes," said the man quietly.

They seated themselves and for a long time neither spoke.

"So what must I do?" Kurtweil said.

"You must learn the secret of dreams."

"What do you mean?”

"Dreaming is not a passive encounter with our unconscious, as Freud taught. Jung was more astute. Yet even Jung did not go far enough. I tell you truthfully, the power of the dream exceeds all known powers, and when you have mastered it, you can save the world."

"I don't understand."

"You are a great mind. Have you no imagination? You wish to communicate a great truth to another great mind. You are trapped by circumstance, by geography, by space and time. How is it possible to escape such bounds?"

"If I knew that, I would be..." He broke off.

"You would be... what?"

"God."

"Or...?"

"Or the devil."

"Think again," the man said.

Kurtweil stood up and walked to the window. He saw his face reflected in the glass, illumined as if a mask, his eyes dark hollows. When he turned again, he was alone. The man had disappeared.
From his pocket he pulled a hanky and dabbed at his forehead. He was sweating fiercely and felt a need to take in the night air. Had it been a hallucination? He had not been sleeping well. He had not been sleeping at all, it seemed.

He’d met Carl Jung once. They stood together on a balcony at a party in Geneva fifteen years before. "Consciousness is a portal," Jung had said that night. "When we pass through this portal to the other side, where do we go? When we return, where have we been?" Kurtweil, a practical man, was irritated by Jung at the time. But now, he wondered.

During a press conference in 1947 when he was appointed head of the Atomic Energy Commission, J. Robert Oppenheimer was asked how he solved the problem of predetonation and discovered the secret of the bomb. “If I told you the truth you would laugh, so I will only say that it came to me in a dream.”

“What kind of dream, sir? Did you see blueprints or something like that?”

Oppenheimer hesitated a moment, then replied, “Actually, it was someone else’s dream.” This cryptic reply is the only known public reference to Dr. Kurtweil’s second great achievement.

~ ~ ~

Author’s Note: I learned the above story in 1994 while teaching a class for senior citizens at University of MN, Duluth. That spring I’d written a series of articles on ethical issues in terminal health care and as a result had been invited to teach for an afternoon on the pros and cons of assisted suicide. One of the members of the class was a large man whose name now escapes me (I have it written in my notes somewhere, but for the sake of this story I will call him Mr. Jackson) who as a young scientist had been a member of the Manhattan Project. Being a writer I am always interested in a good story. I asked if he had plans for dinner.

Mr. Jackson told me that during the course of the project Oppenheimer had become a changed man. “It happened almost suddenly. Most of us attributed it to the fact that we had had a breakthrough and the Bomb was going to become a reality.”

“I had worked closely with Robert,” Jackson continued, “and sensed it to be something more, so we went out one night and I confronted him. He made me swear oaths of silence, then stated coldly that if the truth were made public he would be considered a lunatic and removed from the project. ‘I could be ruined,’ he said. As we all know the Project was a success and for a time Oppenheimer became a national hero. I’ve often wondered who else knew the source of his inspiration, or whether I was the only one.”

EN, 3-25-06