Saturday, June 9, 2012

Farewell to a Legend: RIP Ray Bradbury



     It was with a heavy heart that I learned earlier this week that one of the great writers of the 20th century and one of the authors that influenced my interest in writing, Ray Bradbury, died at the age of 91.  Bradbury wrote some of the best speculative fiction ever, most notably Fahrenheit 451*, The Martian Chronicles, and my all-time favorite of his, Something Wicked this Way Comes**.
     I know that this is a movie blog however, several of Bradbury's works were made into feature films and television series.  Furthermore, Bradbury was actually nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of director John Huston's Moby Dick.
     As one of my writing inspirations, I'd like close this post with something that Bradbury wrote in 2005 about happiness, writing, and the relationship between the two:

"In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back.  Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior."

     Farewell Ray.

*Fahrenheit 451 has maybe the all time best line to open a novel:  "It was a pleasure to burn."
**The movie adaptation of Something Wicked this Way Comes starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Price is simply fantastic.

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