Customer Reviews

The Lathe of Heaven

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This intriguing film is a cinematic adaptation of a popular science fiction book written by Ursula K. Le Guin. A made for TV PBS special, it first aired back in 1979 and has since developed a cult following. Considering that it was made on a shoestring budget of $250,000, I must say that I was impressed with what was done. Those involved in the production certainly made a little go a long way.

The film, which definitely has a futuristic, Orwellian feel to it, revolves around a troubled young man, George Orr, played by a young Bruce Davison, who is haunted by dreams that become reality. He goes to a dream therapist in hopes of finding surcease. The therapist, a Dr. Haber, recognizes the potential power inherent in this ability and plays God, giving the hapless Orr a post hypnotic suggestion to help him dream of something which will help the human condition. All thought by Dr. Haber of the good of the patient is tossed aside in the quest for the common good.

Alas, all does not go to plan. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, as you just might get it. Here, it becomes somewhat of the proverbial monkey's paw. Moreover, what starts out as a desire to help humanity is quickly jettisoned, as issues of power and control rise to the forefront, and a megalomaniacal Dr. Haber loses all sense of perspective, with the easygoing Orr being manipulated by the controlling Dr. Haber. What happens to both patient and doctor is certainly a catalyst for thought provoking discussions, as is the end result, given the complexity of the underlying issues.

What makes this DVD particularly interesting is the inclusion of a conversation between Bill Moyers and author Ursula K. Le Guin, in which the novel and the film are discussed. This feature alone should make anyone who has read the book or seen the film include this DVD in their collection.

I had fond memories of the film having seen it when it was was first broadcast by PBS in 1980. It was a modestly produced ($250,000), ambitious (taking on a difficult to film science fiction novel), first ever P.B.S. produced movie. It was supposed to be one of several PBS produced films, but legal problems tied to music rights de-railed the project and kept the film un-available for 20 years. The way many people have seen it is on bootlegged black market videos.

The movie very good, but it's poor special effects and flaws may make first-time viewers wonder what the big deal is all about. The movie is a mostly successful attempt at making a worthy film out of great novel by Ursulla K. Le Guin.

I enjoyed the film a great deal, but there is some truly horrendously written dialogue, and some very unfortunate directorial choices. The acting by Bruce Davison and Kevin Conway remains quite good. Conway goes a bit over-the top and borders on campy melodramatics a few times, but not enough to de-rail the film. Indeed the budget restraints of the film requires the type of energetic Pavlovian performance he gives. Margaret Avery however never over-comes the fact the script has given her little to do and the directors aren't sure how to best utilize her. In one scene her character is passionate but in the next she is almost apathetic. The original story and its ideas are strong enough to withstand such flaws however.

The film is Directed by Fred Barzyk and David R. Loxton and written by Roger E. Swaybill and Diane (creator of t.v.'s Murphy Brown !) English.

You can see how this film might have incluenced films like Brazil, Bladerunner and The Matrix.

The film's special effects are cheap and a few steps below the level of an old Star Trek episode. This might be distracting to viewers. The film however isn't relying on it's effect but it's ideas and I hope new viewers can get past the dated cheesiness of the effects and enjoy what the film is about.

I hope so. The film ultimately overcomes its limitations and works very well as an above average example of an intelligent science fiction film. There haven't been many of those.

The film is about a well-meaning Icarus who pushes too hard and flies too close to the sun with disastrous results.

George Orr ( portrayed by Bruce Davison, who at the time was most famous for Willard and Fortune in Men's Eyes and recently played the Senator in the X MEN film) is an everyman in a Portland, Oregon of the `near future'. The world is over-populated and on the brink of economic disaster. Weather patterns have been altered by the effects of nuclear war. George Orr believes that when he dreams, he changes reality. He tries to prevent himself from dreaming and has recently over-dosed on drugs. Under terms of his probation he must go and discuss his problems with Dr. Haber an Oneilogist (who specializes in dreams). At first, the doctor doesn't believe that George Orr can actually change reality with his dreams. Only George you see remembers how things were before he dreamed. He's lived with the guilt and horror of how his dreams change reality since he discovered his unique gift or curse when he was 17. As viewers, we quickly believe George is telling the truth. His dreams do change reality. Then Haber suggests to George that he change the weather patterns in his dream. The Doctor runs up to roof of the building while George dreams and watches with amazement as the always cloudy skies, suddenly become blue and sunny. Most of the population think it's been sunny for several years, but George and the Doctor know that it was George's dream that changed things. The doctor realizes that he can cure all of the world's problems by hypnotizing George and giving him suggestions about what he should dream.

Like in the Monkey's Paw, however, one must be careful what is asked for or disaster could result. George is well aware of the dangers of what the Doctor is doing, but the Doctor won't listen to him. Will George be cured of his `effective dreams'? Will the Doctor playing God destroy the world he is trying to save? Will ever changing reality make it impossible for George to re-connect with the woman he has fallen in love with?

While I was disappointed the film did not age as well as I had hoped, it is still a worthwhile one which deserved to be saved from obscurity. It has taken the efforts of several big name stars (Tom Hanks and Jason Alexander for example) and thousands of fans over the last several years to convince P.B.S. management to resolve the legal issues over the music right which have prevented the film from being re-broadcast. They were and the film was re-broadcast on P.B.S. in June of 2000 and recently released on video and DVD. Included on the DVD is a wonderful interview of (Portland, Oregon based) author Ursula K. Le Guinn by Bill Moyer.

While the rescue of Lathe of Heaven from obscurity is unfortunately not on the level of the restoration of a true masterpiece like Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, it is a very welcome return of a thought provoking and ambitious film that deserves to be widely seen.

" Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven."

As an amusing aside. Ursula K. Le Guinn based the title of her novel on the above translation of an ancient Chinese quote. However, it was a bad translation because at the time it was written there were no such things as lathes. Still a great quote and a great title though.

Chris Jarmick Author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder - A steamy cyber thriller available January 2001. Please order it today. Thank You

The Lathe of Heaven, a wonderful novel by Ursula K. LeGuin, translates marvelously well to film. It aired only once on PBS and was finally reaired and put up for sale on video and DVD. The basic plot - an everyman, George Orr, has the power to make his dreams come true, and the results have endless possibilities. The intense pyschological drama of this movie, coupled with its futuristic look, and the twist ending, make it an absolute classic in science fiction. The interview with the author at the end of the film brings many different interpretations and analystic choices, and answers a few questions viewers might have about the film. If you saw the original airing of the movie, you'll be thrilled with the re-release. It's been 20 years in the waiting.

This was the first movie commissioned by PBS, one of the many interesting facts that the DVD interview reveals. In fact the interview on the DVD is almost as good as the movie itself - did you know Ursula wanted to do the Left Hand of Darkness instead but that they talked her out of it?

The movie is excellent. Although you can tell at the beginning of the DVD that the master wasn't of the best quality, you quickly get sucked into the storyline, accepting some of the shoddy special effects because the plot and acting are so stellar. I was lucky enough to do a 3 hour phone interview with Kevin Conway, and we talked a lot about how much this movie meant to him and what he was thinking about while filming. The movie has had a big impact on both the actors and viewers - most sci fi fans I know remember vividly when this came out, and have been waiting anxiously for its return. I already have a line of friends who want to come watch this with me!

The basic story is that George Orr has dreams which change reality, and simply wants them to stop. His doctor, Dr. Haber, instead decides to use them to change the world and rid it of evil. Ursula explains in the interview that this pits the tao of 'go with the flow' in George vs the progress and change mentality of Dr. Haber.

It's definitely a movie that you can watch many times and really think about, and also a movie that is fun just as an interesting story. Perhaps my favorite part is when George wonders if *everyone* has this ability, to change reality with dreams, and that maybe the 'rug is being pulled out from under us' over and over again without anyone noticing.

See this with friends or family, and be prepared for lively discussions afterwards!

This film, I believe, originally aired on public television in the early '80's. It is based on the Ursula K. LeGuinn novel of the same name (in retrospect, perhaps her best novel). The movie concerns George Orr, a man who, unwittingly, has developed the power to alter physical reality while dreaming. At first, the changes are subtle and unimportant. Things change, however, when George encounters a psychiatrist who, by studying George's brainwaves, construsts a machine (the "Augmentor") which permits the user to change reality (everyone's reality) at will. From this point, the movie takes off into a world where everyone's skin is gray (the psychiatrisst wanted to eliminate racisim but instead created a grim underpopulated human race with no diversity and, more importantly, no love interest for George who in a previous reality fell in love with a black woman), a world populated by terse, very deep thinking space aliens resembling giant turtles who run curiousity shops, and, finally, a hellish, bad acid trip type world created when our evil psychiatrist experiences a nightmare while his brain is attached to the Augmentor. The performances are excellent and heartfelt. The love story involving George Orr (the alien turtles call him "Jor Jor") is also touching. It is easy to empathize with Jor Jor whose life is complicated enough as it is; falling in love, on top of everything else, almost overwhelms him. The special effects are also pretty decent, especially toward the end. I strongly recommend this movie to any connoisseur of Sci-Fi. Normal people may find this one a little weird.

The 1980 PBS version of "The Lathe of Heaven" was the Science Fiction equivalent of the Marx Brother's "Animal Crackers" or John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate"; a classic that was unavailable to the masses for some stupid legal reason (in this case the unauthorized used of the Beatles' song "A Little Help From My Friends"-the film now has a cover version of the song). Now the adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's celebrated novel about a man whose dreams become reality is available in a DVD edition that offers a 20-minute interview with the author by Bill Moyers. But the chief attraction remains the film and its compelling parable, which explains why bad bootleg copies were prized for so long.

The story is about George Orr (Bruce Davison), a man living in Portland, Oregon in the year 2002 who dreams become reality. George tries to control his dreams by taking drugs. Dr. William Haber (Kevin Conway), a psychiatrist assigned to cure George's neurosis after he accidentally overdoses, learns his gift is real and uses hypnosis to try and have his patient change reality to make the world a better place. However, Dr. Haber learns that the best laid plans of mice and psychiatrists often go astray. The lesson is to live in harmony with your existence because an attempt to force change inevitably makes things worse. Even the desire to solve the race problem or to bring about world peace can go astray.

George has the power but it is Dr. Haber who takes the responsibility who trying to save humanity from a bleak future. You can compare "The Lathe of Heaven" with Stephen King's "The Dead Zone," where the power and the responsibility both lie with John Smith. Instead of focusing more on the ethics of the question of intervening in the course of human events, Le Guin is more interested in the pragmatics of using the power involved for the greater good. In that regard "The Lathe of Heaven" is a futuristic version of all those stories were a human is granted a wish by a genii (or devil) who invariable provides a twist worth of "The Twilight Zone." But as Haber goes from having George change the picture on his wall to having the sun always shine to running the Haber Institute, you are reminded more of the story of the Fisherman's wife who kept demanding that the magic fish caught by her husband keep making her someone more and more powerful until she demands to be god.

The special effects are what you would expect from a PBS production in 1980 (the budget was $250,000), but there are not crucial to the telling of the tale, so you can take their shortcomings into account. This is one of the more cerebral films in the history of Science Fiction and what compels us to think is the story and not the special effects. This production "The Lathe of Heaven" was directed by Fred Barzyk and David E. Lonton from the screenplay by Robert E. Swayhill and Diane English (yes, the one who created "Murphy Brown"; this was her first television script). They can remake "The Lathe of Heaven," obviously, but they cannot recapture the intrinsic elements that made this low-budget work a Science Fiction classic.

What makes a great sci-fi movie ? Visual effects ? Good performances from the actors ? The answer is really simple. It takes its theme, its meaning and its content as well as its creativity. 2001: A Space Odyssey, also adapted from a classic sci-fi novel, comes first to people's minds when they think of the greatest sci-fi movie. I enjoyed the film as well and understand the fascination with audiences to the entire scientific, speculative, space-time themes, alien forces in obelisks and of course, the conniving computer HAL. But author Le Guin (Left Hand Of Darkness) wrote a book which, in my opinion, is the greatest science fiction tale ever made, yet to be surpassed. When, in 1980, it was released as a film, it was the first film broadcast on PBS, the greatest tv channel ever made. Ad a film, it is stunning, symbolic, allegorical, frightening in its intensity and beautiful in it theme of transcience and eternal struggles of good and evil. George Orr, played by an actor who talks and looks somewhat like Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), is a neurotic young man who undertakes involuntary therapy in the future, a world that has survived a great global destruction. His therapist hypnotizes him and uses a machine to tap into his mind as he discovers that his dreams affect present reality. We discover also, that it has been his dreams that has altered human history since the Stone Age all the way to the Armaggedon, nuclear Holocaust that destroyed the world "before April." The therapist, although well-meaning in his quest to vanquish racism, disease, world hunger and all the major problems in the world, only ends up destroying more than he creates. The therapist/doctor has been labeled as the film's villain, which is not what Leguin herself intended. The therapist is good, as all people are innately good. We remember the line when he tells George Orr, "we are going to make the world right." But the elemental forces of nature cannot be controlled by neither God or man, and regardless of our noble intentions, there are dark consequences every time we try do to something to better ourselves. Life, all life, in the past, now and in the future, can only be composed of creative and destructive forces, good and evil, in a yin-yang balance that is eternal and necessary for there to be existence. The interpretation I made the first time I viewed the film was this, although you may interpret any which way you'd like - the individual (George Orr), each of us, man or woman, is an instrument or sum of nature and we are as if part of a bigger dream or series of dreams that is our lifetime, the dreams ending completely when we die. In order to be truly happy, we must always do good, we must be ourselves and not sacrifice neither or individuality nor compassion and humanity- something the doctor seems to have done in a drunken pursuit of power. As for meaning in our life, yes, there is meaning, when we find a religion, belief, career, marriage, love, ANY relationship, and friendship and the meaning of every collective person makes up a beautiful dream, and the dream is over when we die. It was very obvious that the therapist doctor was a parody of religion, or God himself (He tells Orr when he abandons his clinic "You will be back! Without me there is no hope"something no person can do alone in his or her lifetime, and the patient is people altogether. The therapist/patient relationships becomes God/man relationship and the entire meaning of life. This is more profound than even the message in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This voyage into inner space, outer space and everywhere at once, is the most fascinating film ever made about science fiction and the mystery of the universe. I recommend everyone to see this film I urge teachers to read this book to college or high school level students. It's about nothing. It's about everything. It's about what is, what is not and what is to be. Like one of George Orr's dreams.

I, as many others, have been waiting a very long time for this movie to be available on home video. I first saw this movie 20 years ago along with everyone else. I also had the opportunity to record the movie on VHS tape while it was being aired some 20 years ago. After all this time and many viewings, my copy of this movie has deteriorated. Since I consider this to be one of the best SciFi movies ever made, I was excited when my DVD arrived. My excitement only increased when I read the words "Digitally Remastered" on the front of the package. Upon viewing the DVD, my excitement turned to utter disappointment! Although the movie is GREAT (The 5 stars are for the story alone) the transfer to DVD is horrible! There are many low light scenes in this movie that are over saturated with color and produce 'trails' in the movement of the characters. The print this was transfered from needs considerable clean-up & "Digitally Remastered" indicated to me that this had all been done. Silly me! I will never again purchase any video marketed by Newvideo. This transfer is only a marginal improvement over my 20 year old copy from my own VCR. Again I have to give the movie 5 stars for the wonderful story & presentation, but I also have to give the transfer to home video -5 stars - It's a wash! Worth buying if you love good SciFi but know what you're getting when you order.

This is a great sci-fi picture about an ordinary man (George Orr)
who is "cursed" with the ability to have his dreams become reality (whether he wants them to or not). As you may have guessed, he ends up getting psychoanalyzed by a shrink (Dr. William Haber). Eventually, the psychologist concludes that Orr is telling the truth.

Upon this discovery, Haber begins to manipulate Orr's dreams so that he may make good things happen. It all starts out innocently enough; stuff like changing the weather, making Orr dream up bigger and better facilities / equipment for the good Dr. to practice his craft. However, when he attempts to take on the "big" problems of humanity (overpopulation, racism, war, etc), he begins to encounter what is called in science the "law of unintended consequences."

Therein lies the real substance of this story. Based on the book by Ursala Le Guin, the movie asks the question of how capable we are of operating the tremendous tools of science that we have at our disposal. Are we competent enough to manipulate the scientific "dreams" which we bring into reality, without their turning into a nightmare?

As a bonus, there is also a Bill Moyers interview with Le Guin that is included on the DVD. Le Guin describes Orr as a Taoist type of person, and upon reflection, this depiction does make sense. In particular, I was reminded of the following passage in Lao-Tzu's "Tao Te Ching":

Therefore,
The Sage Rules
By emptying hearts and filling bellies,
By weakening ambitions and strengthening bones;
Leads people
Away from knowing and wanting;
Deters those who know too much
From going too far:
Practices non-action
And the natural order is not disrupted.

-Tao Te Ching, 3, Trans: Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo

This is a great film, esp for sci-fi enthusiasts. It is a low budget PBS production, so don't expect any dazzling special effects. However, if substance means more to you than spectacle, and you enjoy original sci-fi, this might just be a DVD worth buying. Also, for those who might be confused by the opening sequence, ask yourself this: which is the dream? And which is reality? For after all, as Edgar Allen Poe wrote, "All that we see or seem, is but a dream, within a dream."

Great movie, one that I'd always heard of, but had never seen. Well, until I learned they put it on DVD! It's one of those movies that's aged well - not visually, of course, but because the strange late 70's production values (low budget, shot on video) add a certain other-wordly flavor, which is perfect for an other-wordly story like this. The video quality is fuzzy and blurry and dark, and they explain before the movie is shown that the original materials for the movie have been lost forever and they were forced to rely on a 2" video tape copy for the DVD transfer. But the muddy look truly does add a nice flavor to the story, and for me it's one of the reasons this movie is so re-watchable. I've read about others complaining about the acting, but I thought everyone was great, except for maybe the black lawyer lady - she makes a few scenes feel awkward with her laid back delivery of her lines. I also have read people complain about the electronic music they use. Again, I think this is a benefit to the atmosphere and story, since to me it's eerie and feels lonely. Which is how the character feels in this changing world of his. Anyway, I loved this movie, it's much better than the remake they did last year (talk about bad acting), and it has a big rewatchability factor. You'll never hear the word "Antwerp" the same way again!