Mohammad Mossadegh, PM of Iran ousted in a coup

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Walter Murch picks Mohammad Mossadegh, prime minister following the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1951. Mossadegh was ousted in a coup in 1953.

Murch became fascinated in Mossadegh's life while working on a Sam Mendes film about the first Iraq War. Walter Murch is an editor best known for Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and The Constant Gardener. He also worked on a documentary called Coup 53. This is the first in a new series of Great Lives and includes archive of Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative. The British were also heavily involved in the coup. The expert is Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrews University, presenter on Radio 4 of Through Persian Eyes.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Future programme subjects include singer Eartha Kitt, author JG Ballard, and pioneering British aviator Diana Barnato-Walker who delivered Spitfires in World War Two.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult?
0:06.0	What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are?
0:10.0	I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti.
0:14.0	I saw a footprint and that really gave me goosebumps.
0:16.0	Or people who knew me.
0:18.0	Emmy, I remember every secret, every lie.
0:21.0	I'm the only one who knows the truth.
0:23.0	Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003.
0:27.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:29.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts.
0:36.2	Today's guest has been involved
0:37.9	in making some of the most memorable films of my lifetime,
0:41.9	including The Godfather, The Conversation, the English Patient,
0:46.1	but it's the opening scene of Apocalypse Now that I will never be able to forget. The remarkable slowed down passing helicopter that sets up the
1:01.7	mood for the entire film.
1:04.3	Welcome Walter Murch to great lives.
1:07.6	Nine Oscar nominations and counting, I believe.
1:10.3	Three wins so far.
1:12.3	And I'm going to embarrass you what I think your genius consists in.
1:16.4	We've just just listened to that that whap-wap-wap of the helicopter going past.
1:22.1	Genius to me is thinking of something not only that no one ever thought of before
1:27.0	but that they never could have thought of before. Not the kind of thing where someone says
	...

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