February 04, 2009
Ben Burtt created some of the most famous movie sounds, including R2D2’s mechanical chatter and the whir of the light saber. Burtt is also the voice of WALL-E, the starring robot in Pixar’s 2008 animated movie. Kurt talks to Burtt about the legendary sounds of his career.
Ari Folman is still haunted by his Israeli military service during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He was in Beirut during the Sabra and Shatila massacres, when Palestinian refugees were killed by Lebanese militiamen. Folman tries to reclaim his lost memories in "Waltz With Bashir," but unlike most documentaries, the film is animated.
Shanley’s movie "Doubt," based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is set in 1964 at a Catholic middle school in the Bronx. A nun suspects an improper relationship between and priest and a student. Shanley describes how he came to create this powerful drama that challenges all kinds of belief, religious and otherwise.
It had all the glamor, conspiracy, and danger of a classic heist movie, but it was real –- and the hero was wearing slippers. Philippe Petit’s unauthorized walk on a high wire between the World Trade Center towers transfixed the world in 1974, and it’s the subject of the 2008 documentary "Man on Wire." Kurt visits the site of the walk (now Ground Zero) with Petit and director James Marsh.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
