Harvey Weinstein Interview This Morning On Weekend Edition (Saturday)

Harvey Weinstein is the movie producer who brought us The Kings Speech. Blessings upon him and the generations that follow him for doing the world such a great service.

This morning, OS heard a long, delightful interview with the gent on NPR. He is a charming conversationalist, and had some real insight, and a moving story to share about his childhood. Scott Simon, host of the show, is one of the best interviewers now working in his trade.

SIMON: But what makes a good film?

Mr. WEINSTEIN: A good film is a good writing, first and foremost, because the writer starts with a blank page. And those words have to capture an imagination of a director, somebody like myself - producers, actors. And I think a good film is something that moves you, and something that entertains you, and something that, you know, enhances your understanding of life.

SIMON: But what makes the difference between you saying yes to a project and I'd love to but I can't?

Mr. WEINSTEIN: It's the quality of the scripts that I get. It's all about reading. People say to me all the time: How can I get in the movie business or how do I get there, how can I have your job. And I just say, you know, I had an unfortunate accident. When I was a 10-year-old kid, I played cowboys and Indians, I was on the losing side of a guy who had like kind of musket, like a Davey Crockett musket and he poked my eye out.

Six months I stayed home because both my parents worked. But there was a librarian next door, her name Frances Goldstein. I knocked on her door one day and said, I'm bored out of my brain, you know, can I read something? And thus began my education into the world of reading.

So for those people who like to do what I do, the answer is read. Read everything. I read "The Americans." I read "The Russians." And I still to this day read a book or two every week, and read every magazine article I can get my hands on.

Did you catch what transpired? A little boy asked for books, and the librarian next door opened the world to him.

And he opened the world to us.

It's the WhoodKoodaKnowed Rule: We can never never never know what may result from those small generous acts, those daily opportunities that arrive to us unbidden. We're not supposed to know. We are supposed to respond, however.

C.S. Lewis said it best in one of his most famous addresses, The Weight of Glory:

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations--these are mortal,... But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

Mrs. Goldstein, Heaven bless you, and may you forever bask in the glow of your good deed.