Friday, November 16, 2012

Set piece


Anyone who lives in Wellington and who's into the arts will have benefited from the generosity of patrons Denis and Verna Adam. You'll very likely have seen them also attending a multitude of art events over the years.
Less well known is the fact that Denis Adam’s brother Ken is the designer of the sets for the early James Bond movies as well as the famous war room from Stanley Kubrick’s satirical film Dr Strangelove or how I stopped worrying and learnt to love the bomb. Apocryphal maybe but it has been said that when Ronald Reagan became President and was admitted to the Pentagon War room he was hugely disappointed. He was expecting something far more stylish and dramatic - something much more like the one in Dr Strangelove - than a regular meeting room.
On a visit to his brother in Wellington we were lucky enough to hear Ken Adam talk about his work with accompanying slides. As an off-course substitute here's a short documentary about him from 1979 featuring some of his best known work including Barry Lyndon that scored him an Oscar.
Image: The war room from Dr Strangelove