He green-lighted 'Lord of the Rings.' But what will Bob Shaye's legacy be?
LOS ANGELES - Nude women gaze from various angles in Bob Shaye's home. Photographed, drawn and painted, they slant from the ceiling, hang on walls. A topless woman sits in red stockings, another snorts diamonds as if cocaine. A Japanese woman takes a lover. A nude statue stands on the lawn. "I like women," Shaye says. "But not in an abhorrent way."
In his living room, big windows look over the ocean and make one think of the fine cracks between reality and illusion. Shaye wants to talk about his new film, "Ambition," which explores the terrifying subconscious and sinister shadows of a deceptive protagonist. It is the story of a millennial violinist, murder, envy and a gathering storm. Rain falls, music turns menacing, bodies pile up. The film has echoes of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," the franchise Shaye and his studio New Line Cinema produced in 1984, making him a fortune and sending Freddy Krueger's razor-sharp fingernails into a string of bloody sequels.
"'Ambition' hearkened back to the first, very modest film I made a long time ago called 'Imagine,'" Shaye says as assistants whisper nearby. "It dealt with the confusion and uncertainty of what's real, and ironically that's come around again with all the fake news
