Phone Message Transcript: August 10, 1997
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"OK, August 9th, very brief message. I'm getting a lot of calls from you in response to my recommendation that you see Kenneth Branagh's HAMLET, and you're absolutely right--the copy that's for rent right now is a scanned copy and it's not the full 70mm screen copy. But what I'm also discovering is that many of you live in a town where it was never shown and I'd like to hear from you on that. How many of you never saw it, never had any opportunity to see it or saw it in some little theater where it didn't look right.

The reason I'm asking you is I'm contemplating somehow trying to get that feeling back in some sort of festival in the South so that we can all see it in it's 70mm grandeur. I didn't see it either, it only played here two weeks and I didn't go out, and now I regret that very much. But I do want to say this about the rental tape-- the rental tape is very beautifully done and though it is scanned, you only get one "nose talking to nose" scene and you do get one advantage that scanning gives you--you get close up's. So, I think it's worth renting anyway, even though it's not the right film. But in the meantime, why don't you tell me if Kenneth Branagh's HAMLET didn't play in your town, if you never saw it, if it left too soon, just let me know that. I would like to know. And how many of you think you'd come--now I'm talking to the south now, I guess--to New Orleans, if I could get up, in the future, some little Shakespearian Branagh festival where we show HAMLET, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, and HENRY V. Now I don't even know if I can afford to do such a thing, if I'd have enough fans to do such a thing, I don't know. but it's something that I would like to know. Please leave me a message on that. Meantime, thank you for all of your other messages. Once again, VIOLIN will be out on the 14th of October. A lot will be happening to celebrate the Halloween weekend in New Orleans October 31, November 1, and November 3. We will have a magnificent violinist here on November 2, wait, wait, wait, let me back up. October 31, November 1, and November 2. On November 2 we will have Leila Josefowicz in concert, and we're very interested in introducing her to our fans. She is a magnificent concert violinist and she is going to play for us at the Jesuit Auditorium. Alright, I will give you more information on that as time goes on.

I'm sorry about this broken machine. I am trying to replace it but nobody seems to be able to find a replacement for it and nobody seems to be able to get me the 800 number machine I want where I can leave a long message, so we are down here in the swamp land you know, reaching desperately through the moss for technology and if we were in New York I'm sure I could get this is five minutes. But do talk to me, talk to me about that stuff and keep talking to me about the churches. Tell me about the churches. I definitely want to see the forms of people's worships. I want to see how they feel about God and I'm going to a church tomorrow, and I'm going to continue in my search, and I have found a very interesting person to read, Matthew Fox. I can't figure the judgement if that would even be appropriate on Matthew Fox but he's written many books on what he calls the Cosmic Christ and this is the first man, I think he's a Catholic, that I find that I can agree with so far, so far. That's a recorded progress.

God bless you and keep you. My love tonight to Kenneth Branagh in London, my love to Leonardo DiCaprio in Hollywood, my love to all the great actors of our time. My love to everybody who makes film and understands it and sees it as an art and all you writers out there. Well it's time we got back to work, right? Good night, sweethearts!"