“The book that I’m writing, it is different things, but the main theme is about how propaganda functions in the entertainment industry…”
So you probably read the book (We Have Always Lived In The Castle) a long time ago before you did the movie, right?
Crispin Glover: No, I read it while we were shooting.
Oh Wow. Yeah. Because from what I know of you, I expect you to have read every book ever. But obviously, that’s a grandiose expectation.
You mean literally? No, definitely not. I would like to be a better read than I am. I mean, I’m somewhat well read, but yes, certainly I’ve never read every book.
I mean, yes, of course I feel the same way but now with technology and stuff, it’s hard to kind of read as much as I used to because I feel like I have to focus so much on that kind of stuff.
So yeah, your time gets pulled in two different ways. I’m editing a film that I’ve made and I’m writing a book right now, so it’s hard for me to read a lot, particularly right now.
Yeah. Because you have to devote your time to your work
I don’t know, it pulls me out of that.
So what’s the book about?
The book that I’m writing, it is different things, but the main theme is about how propaganda functions in the entertainment industry. But I almost hesitate to say it that way because I think people when they say that, get this idea that it’s going to be this negative indictment or something, which it isn’t really. Propaganda is a funny word because it didn’t originally have a negative connotation. It can have a negative connotation when there are corporate interests that have negative leanings, but the functionality of it, why it functions is because humans have a way of getting information kind of in nuggets that’s important information to be passed from one generation to the next. So it’s ultimately a positive thing. It can be very positive. It can be varied, destructive, just depends on what the intent is.
Oh yeah, of course. And like I think with movies and especially kind of during the McCarthy era that propaganda and also maybe with Nazi-ism that was when the word kind of gained its negative association
The time that it actually got a negative connotation was after WWI specifically. There was a book written by Edward Bernays in 1926 that he wrote because he was trained to rehabilitate the word. Bernays is fascinating. His uncle was Sigmund Freud and the reason Sigmund Freud became well known in the US was that Bernays brought him over and Bernays is the literal father of the public relations industry. He came up with the word combination, public relations to replace the word propaganda because the book didn’t work in order to rehabilitate the word. So he replaced the word propaganda with public relations. Public Relations is a synonym to propaganda. Propaganda is public relations. Public Relations is propaganda.
