Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton (natu a Chicago lu 23 di uttùviru dû 1942, scumparsu a Los Angeles lu 4 Nuviemmiru 2008), er n'auturi Miricanu , nu prudutturi di cìnima, riggista e nu prudutturi televisivu. Li sò travagghi cchiù canusciuti sù li rumanzi ticno-triller, li firma e li prugrammi televisiva. Li sò travagghi sù basati di sòlitu supra lu gèniri dî azzioni e utilizza assai a ticnoluggìa. Nu saccu dî sò rumanzi di storia futura sù basati supra lu travagghiu di mèdicu ca facìa prima, e chi rifletti la sò canuscenza scintìfica.
Biografìa
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]Sò patri era John Henderson Crichton e sò matri Zula Miller Crichton, e passau la sò nfanzia a Roslyn, Long Island, New York. Crichton ci havi dù soru, Kimberly e Catherine, e nu frati cchiù jùvini, Douglas, ca l’aiutau a scrìviri sutta farsu nomu "Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues."
L’università sò la fici a l’ Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, A.B. (summa cum laude) 1964 (Phi Beta Kappa). Poi addivintau nu Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellow, e ntô 1964-65 nu Prufissuri 'n vìsita â facultà r'Antropoluggìa a l’università di Cambridge, Ngraterra, 1965. Si pigghiau la làuria a l’Univirsità di Midicina di Harvard, firannisi a pigghiàrisi nu M.D. ntô 1969 e si fici lu post-dutturatu di ricerca a l'Istitutu Salk pî studia Biològgici, La Jolla, California, ntô 1969–1970. Ntô 1988, era nu scritturi 'n vìsita a l'Istitutu di ticnoluggìa dû Massachusetts.
Mentri era ntâ scola di midicina, si misi a scrìviri dî rumanzi cû farsu nomu di John Lange e Jeffery Hudson. A Case of Need (Nu casu di nicissità), ca fu scrittu cu lu sò ùrtimu farsu nomu vincìu lu Premiu Edgar ntô 1969 pû Megghiu Rumanzu. Scrissi macari Dealing (Aviri a chiffari) cû sò frati cchiù nicu Douglas cu lu farsu nomu cumuni Michael Douglas. Nta la quatta di cupirtina c’è na fotugrafìa dî dù frati ca fu pigghiata di sò matri quannu èranu nichi.
Li sò dui noma farsi foru criati pi riflèttiri la sò àuta statura fìsica. Iddu dici ca ntô 1997 era circa 2.06 m (6 pedi e 9 pòllici) [1]. Lange signìfica "tall one" 'n Tudiscu, Danisi e ntâ lingua Landisa, e Don Jeffrey Hudson era nu famusu nanu dû diciassittèsimu sèculu ntâ corti dâ riggina Henrietta Maria di Francia.
Crichton na vota cunfissau ca mentri studiava di jùvini a l’univirsità, cupiau plaggiànnulu nu travagghiu di Giorgiu Orwelle e lu prisintau comu si l'avissi scrittu iddu. Lu travagghiu secunnu lu sò prufissuri univirsitariu di littiratura nun s’a fidau mancu a pigghiari la sufficienza. Crichton poi dissi ca cu lu plaggiu iddu nun avìa ntinzioni di pigghiari n giru la scola, ma chi vulìa fari nu spirimentu. Crichton pinzava ca lu prufissuri n custioni lu facìa apposta a mintiri vota vasci, e li raccursini cu stu spirimentu iddu pinzau ca si macari Orwelle pigghiava voti vasci, studiari littiratura a l’univirsità nun era cosa p’iddu.
Astura è maritatu cu Sherri Alexander e ci hannu na picciridda ca chiamaru Taylor, na figghia ca ci happi câ mugghieri ca ci avìa prima Anne-Marie Martin.
Intentionally or unintentionally, his career has paralleled that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Like Conan Doyle, Crichton qualified as a medical doctor but has pursued a career in writing instead. Additionally, Crichton has investigated the paranormal trends of his time with a scientific eye (compare Crichton's Travels with Conan Doyle's Memories and Adventures). What's more, Crichton followed in Conan Doyle's footsteps in creating a story of dinosaurs alive in modern times (Jurassic Park and The Lost World, following Conan Doyle's The Lost World.)
Scientific concepts
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]In several of his books, Crichton popularised scientific and technological concepts which had not previously received widespread attention by non-scientists. Many of the ideas he used were novel to the average person, despite previous attention to them being given by some in the scientific community.
For example, before Jurassic Park, Robert T. Bakker's theory of warm-blooded and fast-moving dinosaurs had not received a great deal of attention in the popular media. Laypeople were accustomed to seeing stop motion clay dinosaurs crawling sluggishly over the volcanic prehistorical terrains.
Literary techniques
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]Crichton's works are consistently cautionary in that his plots invariably portray scientific advancements going awry, often with worst-case scenarios. Seldom if ever does Crichton portray scientific achievement as going according to plan.
The use of author surrogate has been a feature of Crichton's writings since the beginning of his career. In A Case of Need, one of his pseudonymous whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the clock to clear a friend's name from medical malpractice in a girl's death from a hack job abortion.
That book was written in 1968, long before the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide in the US, Roe v. Wade (1973). It took the hero about 160 pages to find the chief suspect, an underground abortionist, who was created to be the author surrogate. Then, Crichton gave that character three pages to justify his illegal practice.
Some of Crichton's fiction uses a literary technique called false document. For example, Eaters of the Dead is a fabricated recreation of the Old English epic Beowulf in the form of a scholastic translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's tenth century manuscript. Other novels, such as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, incorporate fictionalized scientific documents in the form of diagrams, computer output, DNA sequences, footnotes and bibliography.
Fiction
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Non-fiction
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]Apart from fiction, Crichton has written several other books based on scientific themes, amongst which is Travels, which also contains autobiographical episodes.
As a personal friend to the Neo-Dadaist artist Jasper Johns, Crichton compiled many of his works in a coffee table book also named Jasper Johns. That book has been updated once.
Crichton is also the author of Electronic Life, a book that introduces BASIC programming to its readers. In his words, being able to program a computer is liberation:
- In my experience, you assert control over a computer—show it who's the boss—by making it do something unique. That means programming it....[I]f you devote a couple of hours to programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever afterward.[2]
To prove his point, Crichton included many self-written demonstrative Applesoft (for Apple II) and BASICA (for IBM PC compatibles) programs in that book. Crichton once considered updating it, but the project seemed to be canceled.
His non-fiction works are:
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 1970 | Five Patients |
| 1977 | Jasper Johns |
| 1983 | Electronic Life |
| 1988 | Travels |
Fìrmi e televisioni
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]Fiction 'n televisioni
| Annu | Titulu | Nuti |
|---|---|---|
| 1972 | Pursuit | A TV movie |
| 1973 | Westworld | |
| 1978 | Coma | |
| 1979 | The Great Train Robbery | |
| 1981 | Looker | |
| 1984 | Runaway | |
| 1989 | Physical Evidence | |
| 1994 | ER | Creator/Writer/Executive Producer |
| 1996 | Twister |
Westworld fu lu primu film a usari 2D (computer-generated imagery) (CGI) e assai tardi fu fattu nantru fìrmi 'n virsiuni da 3D CGI, Futureworld (1976), nantru film ccu ticuluggìa computer-generated mani e faccìi criatu da l'Universitati di l'Utah ccu prutagunisti studenti: Edwin Catmull e Fred Parke.
Crichton directed the film Coma, adapted from a Robin Cook novel. There are other similarities in terms of genre and the fact that both Cook and Crichton are physicians, are of similar age, and write about similar subjects.
Many of his novels have been filmed by others:
He has written the screenplay for the movies Extreme Close Up (1973) and Twister (1996) (the latter co-written with Anne-Marie Martin, his wife at the time).
Crichton is also the creator and executive producer of the television drama ER. In December 1994, he achieved the unique distinction of having the #1 movie (Disclosure), the #1 TV show (ER), and the #1 book (Disclosure, atop the paperback list). Crichton has written only three episodes of ER:
- Episode 1-1: "24 Hours"
- Episode 1-2: "Day One"
- Episode 1-3: "Going Home"
Primizzioni
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]- Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award ppi littiratura migghiuri, 1969 (A Case of Need; scrittu da Jeffrey Hudson)
- Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970 (Five Patients)
- Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award ppi migghiuri sciniggìatura, 1980 (The First Great Train Robbery)
- The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journalism Award, 2006 (State of Fear)
- A dinosaur, Crichtonsaurus bohlini, cca purta lu numi 'n unuri di Jurassic Park[2].
- Crichton è statu numinatu cumu l'òmu più bbiddu di lu munnu da la rivista People, 1992
Crìtica
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]Many of Crichton's publicly expressed views, particularly on subjects like the global warming controversy, have caused heated debate. An example is meteorologist Jeffrey Masters' review of State of Fear:
- "[F]lawed or misleading presentations of Global Warming science exist in the book, including those on Arctic sea ice thinning, correction of land-based temperature measurements for the urban heat island effect, and satellite vs. ground-based measurements of Earth's warming. I will spare the reader additional details. On the positive side, Crichton does emphasize the little-appreciated fact that while most of the world has been warming the past few decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling trend. The Antarctic ice sheet is actually expected to increase in mass over the next 100 years due to increased precipitation, according to the IPCC. Additionally, Crichton points out that there has been no rise in hurricane activity in the Atlantic over the past few decades (a point unchanged by the record four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004)." [3]
However, 28 hurricanes and tropical storms took place in the 2005 season, which was 7 more than the meteorologists had names for because historically, 21 names seemed far above what was needed for a season. In addition, Peter Doran, author of the paper in the January 2002 issue of Nature which reported the finding referred to above, that some areas of Antarctica had cooled between 1986 and 2000, wrote an opinion piece in the July 27 2006 New York Times in which he stated "Our results have been misused as 'evidence' against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel State of Fear".[4]
Crichton has also been criticized for having the protagonist of State of Fear assert,
- "Since the ban [of DDT ], two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. The ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler."
Even though the DDT ban specifically exempts any and all use for disease prevention from any regulation, and even though the total number of deaths from malaria worldwide in the period described is actually less than fifty million.[5] Although Crichton moderates his statement somewhat elsewhere in the book with:
- "DDT was never banned."
- "You're right. Countries were just told that if they used it, they wouldn't get foreign aid."
Even this version conflicts with statements by USAID, the World Bank, and WHO, all of which do fund DDT for malaria prevention.
Trivia
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]- In the episode "Emily" (5x05) of The X-Files, a judge describes Fox Mulder's paranormal investigations by saying "...I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around this...Michael Crichton bit" meaning that Mulder's investigations are very science fiction-like.
Nuti
[cancia | cancia la surgenti]- ↑ Adara Interative: Crichton
- ↑ Crichton, Michael. Electronic Life, Knopf, 1983, p. 44. ISBN 0-394-53406-9
- Trembley, Elizabeth A. Michael Crichton: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Press, 1996, ISBN 031329414 Template:Please check ISBN
External links
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