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Arts & Ideas

Free Thinking - John Waters

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2599 Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2013

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John Waters' film Hairspray became a hit musical. His "Trash Trilogy" involved negotiations with film censors. In an extended interview recorded in front of an audience, John Waters talks to Samira Ahmed about a career which has moved from film to hosting a show on American Court TV which featured marriages that ended in murder. Their discussion ranges over the influence of Catholicism, his birthplace Baltimore, the films of Douglas Sirk and the perils of hitchhiking. Recorded in front of an audience.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Can I just say?

0:01.5

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.

0:04.0

It's such a wonderful listen.

0:05.6

So nice.

0:06.5

There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.

0:08.8

Different paces, different heights.

0:10.6

The roof is buckling.

0:11.9

Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.

0:14.2

It's right foot goes for goal.

0:16.6

And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.

0:21.7

The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.

0:25.2

And she's had to live with that.

0:26.8

So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.

0:29.8

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:31.8

Sort of expecting that every week now.

0:34.3

This is a download from BBC Radio 3. For more information about our terms of use, go to BBC.co.

0:42.3

UK, forward slash radio 3. For this edition of free thinking, in a frank and sometimes explicit discussion, Samira Ahmed talks to the filmmaker John Waters about drug-taking, gay culture,

0:56.8

and a career which has led him into rouse with film sensors,

0:59.5

but which has also seen his hit film, Hairspray,

1:02.6

which starred Debbie Harry, Ricky Lake, Divine and Sonny Bono,

1:04.8

become a Tony Award-winning musical.

1:09.8

Welcome to Freethinking with film director, writer and artist John Waters.

...

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