Ken Adam
Ken Adam
Sir Kenneth Hugo Adam, OBEwas a British movie production designer, best known for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for Dr. Strangelove. He won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction. Born in Berlin, he relocated to England with his Jewish family at the age of 13 soon after the Nazis came to power, and was one of only three German-born pilots in the British Royal Air Force during the...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionDesigner
Date of Birth5 February 1921
CountryGermany
The Berlin of the '20s formed the foundation of my future education... the Berlin of the UFA studios, of Fritz Lang, Lubitsch and Erich Pommer. The Berlin of the architects Gropius, Mendelsohn and Mies van der Rohe. The Berlin of the painters Max Libermann, Grosz, Otto Dix, Klee and Kandinsky.
I'm an incurable romantic, and Casablanca's one of the most romantic pictures I've ever seen - the combination of Bogart and Bergman is just magical.
I have never been sorry to see my sets being struck, provided they are well photographed. They're not works of art but part of making a film.
It takes courage to stay young, to make your enthusiasms work for you. Don't let anyone drag you down.
My house is not James Bondish at all. Sorry.
My mother and father were interested in the arts.
To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve.
What I felt at that time - we're talking about '61 - was that I couldn't remember seeing a film that reflected the age we were living in.
With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.
A studio allows me more freedom. You can create your own sort of reality which is actually more exciting than shooting on location. You can conjure up a complete atmosphere of escapism for the public.
I'm an incurable romantic, and 'Casablanca''s one of the most romantic pictures I've ever seen - the combination of Bogart and Bergman is just magical.
One thing that I think works in 'Casablanca' and which I've lectured a lot about - in terms of what I've been trying to achieve as a designer - is the film's creation of its own form of reality.
Remember, the early '60s in London was something - which must have been like Berlin in the '30s when the arts flourished. You didn't have the differences in class, and so on.
I always wanted to design for films.