Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. It takes the work of an
Speaker 1: insightful and creative mind to fully capture the unparalleled beauty
Speaker 1: of nature in its purest form. While a colorful sunset
Speaker 1: or ripples in the water might be a sight to
Speaker 1: behold for the average person, in the hands of my
Speaker 1: guests today, they become a work of art. Carolyn Marx
Speaker 1: Blackwood is a photographer who captures the changing seasons as
Speaker 1: they unfold around her in New York's Hudson Valley. Her
Speaker 1: cloud series resembles rothco bold colors blocked out in chunks
Speaker 1: across the sky. Her Ice series depicts shifting frozen ice
Speaker 1: sheets on the surface of the Hudson River, resembling a
Speaker 1: makeshift stone path one moment and a scattered deck of
Speaker 1: playing cards the next. Yet Blackwood doesn't stop there. She
Speaker 1: is also a screenwriter and producer, bringing to life films
Speaker 1: like Philomena and The Duchess. Considering her professional range, I
Speaker 1: wanted to learn how Blackwood first embarked on the path
Speaker 1: to fine art photography.
Speaker 2: I got my first camera when I was seven, and
Speaker 2: my father was a really beautiful photographer. And I used
Speaker 2: to go in the dark room and work, you know,
Speaker 2: to develop the film because they were film cameras then,
Speaker 2: and I just loved it. I just was I took
Speaker 2: to a camera like a duck to water. I had
Speaker 2: been doing photography for a very very long time, and
Speaker 2: I just didn't show anyone what I was doing. I
Speaker 2: just my family. Well, I didn't think of myself as
Speaker 2: that good a photographer. I was just old who loved
Speaker 2: to take pictures.
Speaker 1: It was kind of an advanced hobby for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a hobby. And you know, my family said, wow,
Speaker 2: you take great pictures. But that was about it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about my first show, and you came
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: It was my.
Speaker 2: First big show in a gallery in New York City.
Speaker 2: So I live in a little hamlet and we have
Speaker 2: a library, and I live on the river, and I
Speaker 2: took some pictures of a lighthouse, two pictures to raise
Speaker 2: some money for this little library, the Morton Library, and
Speaker 2: they sold for eight hundred dollars each, which astounded everyone.
Speaker 2: They were little eight by ten's. I just couldn't even
Speaker 2: believe someone wanted to buy my photographs. The next thing
Speaker 2: that happened was they said, would you like to be
Speaker 2: in a show? And so I was in a show
Speaker 2: with around fifteen other photographers and artists and in walks.
Speaker 2: This woman who I had invited and I barely knew
Speaker 2: her name was Barbara Rose. Barbara Rose is a very
Speaker 2: famous curator and art historian. And she walked up to
Speaker 2: me and I was with fifteen other artists and I
Speaker 2: was thrilled to be in this little library art show.
Speaker 2: And she said, I'm curating a show in the city.
Speaker 2: It's going to be with two photographers and two painters.
Speaker 2: Would you like to be in it? It's probably equivalent
Speaker 2: to playing softball in your backyard and the Yankees come
Speaker 2: and say do you want to pitch for the Yankees?
Speaker 2: It was very scary. And that's the show you came to.
Speaker 2: What year was that It was two thousand and six now?
Speaker 1: But was that your nature that you kind of undervalued
Speaker 1: yourself and your skills When they say to you come
Speaker 1: and do this, you were like Wow, you couldn't believe it?
Speaker 1: Or was it something you'd hoped for? Did you want
Speaker 1: to have a commercial careers a photographer?
Speaker 2: No, it was a total accident because I didn't think
Speaker 2: of myself as a legitimate photographer. And to add to that,
Speaker 2: most of my artist friends. I was friends with lots
Speaker 2: of artists, and I collect art and I love art.
Speaker 2: They were horrified because they had been added for a
Speaker 2: long long time and nothing like that had happened for them,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't call myself a photographer for a very
Speaker 2: long time. I felt like an impostor do you.
Speaker 1: Go out into your world or in whatever experience you're having,
Speaker 1: wherever you are, and everything is the opportunity to show
Speaker 1: to picture Because I know a lot of people have
Speaker 1: their camera and they love that they can whip it
Speaker 1: out and shoot this and shoot that. They've got it
Speaker 1: in their pocket and the convenience is unparalleled. But I wonder,
Speaker 1: do you set out with a camera and say, this
Speaker 1: is my time to photograph something, whatever it is, or
Speaker 1: to find something to photograph with a real camera, and
Speaker 1: then the rest of your life your phone is a phone.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I live in a place that is my subject. My
Speaker 2: subject matter is mostly here at my house. I get
Speaker 2: deeper and deeper and deeper into this place. I have
Speaker 2: made a study of this place since I've been here
Speaker 2: two thousand and six. I think it's great that everyone
Speaker 2: wants to take a picture. It doesn't take away from me.
Speaker 2: If people want to express themselves creatively by taking a
Speaker 2: picture with their phone, I'd love to see it.
Speaker 1: But let's say the very least, you're walking around somewhere
Speaker 1: and you see something you want to capture, and you
Speaker 1: don't have your camera with you, your regular camera that
Speaker 1: you do your work with, and you take out a
Speaker 1: phone and go, well, I want to shoot this to
Speaker 1: remind me that I want to come back here and
Speaker 1: do it with a real camera or a real professional camera.
Speaker 1: Do you do that or do you pull your phone
Speaker 1: out and start shooting and you're satisfied with the quality
Speaker 1: on a phone. Must your work always be done on
Speaker 1: a legit camera.
Speaker 2: Because of the size of my photos, I need pixels,
Speaker 2: but my camera now has forty megapixels. I think it
Speaker 2: is my phone. For instance, I have a bird series.
Speaker 2: We're in the fall, all these birds, like flock thousands
Speaker 2: of birds, And I was walking on the farm road
Speaker 2: where I walk every day, and there was a flock
Speaker 2: of a thousand birds, and I used my phone because
Speaker 2: I didn't bring my camera. Of course, I came back later.
Speaker 1: With my camera that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but it's most of what I take. Like
Speaker 2: that flock of birds are so ephemeral. It's there for
Speaker 2: a moment, it's there for thirty seconds. It happened to
Speaker 2: be there for an hour, and I took pictures. But
Speaker 2: when I take pictures out here of a moment, it
Speaker 2: really is just a moment. If you look at my
Speaker 2: I mean, like it can be a lightning strike, like
Speaker 2: you know that photo of the lightning strike.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a moment.
Speaker 2: That's a moment.
Speaker 1: That's a real moment. Now, you were born in Anchorage.
Speaker 1: How long did you stay at Anchorage before you guys relocated?
Speaker 2: Two years?
Speaker 1: She were there for two years. So it's hard for
Speaker 1: you to recall what Anchorage was like back then.
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to recall it. But I have
Speaker 2: to say. I went back because I was hired to
Speaker 2: be a photographer on the USCG. Healy, which is the
Speaker 2: biggest icebreaker. It's a Coastguard icebreaker and it's a scientific
Speaker 2: expedition icebreaker four hundred and fifty feet or something, and
Speaker 2: I was hired to do that. So I went back
Speaker 2: to Alaska. I went to Anchorage and Then I got
Speaker 2: on the boat in the Aleutian Islands and it was
Speaker 2: I felt like I was going home. It was so
Speaker 2: emotional flying over Anchorage. I just because I had heard
Speaker 2: the stories from my parents. My mother was eighteen and
Speaker 2: my dad was twenty four or twenty three, and it
Speaker 2: was their great adventure, and I felt like I was
Speaker 2: really going home. I love it there.
Speaker 1: Even only two years you were there, it felt like home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. And your dad was there? Why he was
Speaker 1: stationed there? What was there here?
Speaker 2: Was stationed there? He had gone to West Point and
Speaker 2: they gave him a choice of places to do his
Speaker 2: three years of service after west Point, and he chose
Speaker 2: Alaska because of the salmon fishing. He was an avid
Speaker 2: salmon fisherman. He chose Alaska for that reason.
Speaker 1: Well, then what could be better? Now you wind up
Speaker 1: coming back and your family moves to where to New York?
Speaker 2: Yes, to Great neck Long Island.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to Great neck Long Island. Quite a difference from
Speaker 1: Anchorage to Great neck Long Island. But better shopping, I
Speaker 1: would imagine in Great neck Long Island, as I recall.
Speaker 1: But your grandmother was a painter, Yeah, and I guess
Speaker 1: she took you through that portal into a world of
Speaker 1: appreciation of art. Is that correct? Yes? And what was
Speaker 1: her background meaning? Did someone pass it on to her,
Speaker 1: did she come from a very cultured family or was
Speaker 1: she herself an artist?
Speaker 2: My grandparents were interesting. They came from extremely humble backgrounds
Speaker 2: and ended up being well off. My grandmother had worked
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: I have to go back a little bit. I found
Speaker 2: online my great grandmother, my great grandmother, my grandmother's mother,
Speaker 2: she had somehow landed gosh in Kansas, in Kansas City,
Speaker 2: in Kansas City, and there was a notice that I
Speaker 2: found in a newspaper through ancestry where she's suing for
Speaker 2: a breach of promise. She sued my great grandfather because
Speaker 2: he had promised to marry her and then renegged on it.
Speaker 2: So she sued him for five thousand dollars and then
Speaker 2: he married her. I wonder about that relationship as.
Speaker 1: A way to land a man. You don't marry me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sue you, breacher promise, and I'm keeping
Speaker 1: that diamond pal.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, and this is in the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 2: and she's from Germany.
Speaker 4: I mean, Wow, she's like Annie Oakley with a law degree. Wow,
Speaker 4: you know. So that was my grandmother's parents. She worked
Speaker 4: in an oil company. My grandmother and then my grandfather.
Speaker 4: I knew my great grandmother. She came from Russia and
Speaker 4: she was a character. And my grandfather was a runner
Speaker 4: on Wall Street. And then he kind of got the
Speaker 4: gist of what was going on, and he asked if
Speaker 4: he could invest. And at the end of the day
Speaker 4: he invested so well and made so much money for
Speaker 4: his employer, they wouldn't give him what was to him
Speaker 4: the ten percent that they promised, so he went out
Speaker 4: on his own and I have pictures of him and
Speaker 4: this woman and another man sitting in a very small
Speaker 4: room the size of a bathroom. That was the beginning
Speaker 4: of their company, which was opened in nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Carolyn Marx Blackwood, if you enjoy conversations with brilliant photographers,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with Brian hamil Well.
Speaker 3: You have to be discreet, but you have to get
Speaker 3: you work done. You can't tell the studio later on
Speaker 3: when they see it infurious out of stills. Hey, the
Speaker 3: guy was tough, you know, the actor was a pain
Speaker 3: in the ass. That's not an excuse. They just want
Speaker 3: to see end results. I worked on Raging Bull. De
Speaker 3: Niro had an eyeline problem, but he would always accommodate me.
Speaker 3: He was so sweet about it. He would always not
Speaker 3: make a big deal at it. He'd just do it
Speaker 3: with a hand. I'll do it for you.
Speaker 1: After. To hear more of my conversation with Brian Hammill,
Speaker 1: go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,
Speaker 1: Carolyn Marx Blackwood shares a story from her early years
Speaker 1: listening and learning from the one and only Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Screenwriting, producing,
Speaker 1: and fine art are just a few of Carolyn Marx
Speaker 1: Blackwood's talents. Before that, Blackwood made her living as a
Speaker 1: jazz singer in New York City.
Speaker 2: Music actually was the primary focus for a long long time,
Speaker 2: and I started out. I was very lucky. The best
Speaker 2: part about my family was that my dad was one
Speaker 2: of the early people at Lincoln Center. He was on
Speaker 2: the board for many years and he was one of
Speaker 2: the early supporters of it.
Speaker 1: What profession did he go into?
Speaker 2: He went into my grandfather's business.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Culturally, I was very lucky, and I would got to
Speaker 2: young people's concerts as a matter of fact, the other
Speaker 2: day I went on YouTube and I started playing the
Speaker 2: young People's concerts with Leonard Bernstein, and there am I
Speaker 2: and there's my sister sitting in the front row. But
Speaker 2: what the amazing thing about it was that it was
Speaker 2: a room filled with little kids that were transfixed. Turn
Speaker 2: on one of those young People's concerts. Unbelievable. Kids are
Speaker 2: just staring and listening and transfixed. You would think it
Speaker 2: would be in that room. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So when you're singing in these clubs, what would you say?
Speaker 1: You started singing in those clubs in the West Village
Speaker 1: around what year?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what happened. It was another fluke. It
Speaker 2: was another Barbara Rose walking into the room. I was
Speaker 2: getting my PhD in sociology at Livingston College, which is
Speaker 2: part of Rutgers, and it had a fantastic jazz department,
Speaker 2: and I was like, instead of taking my sociology courses,
Speaker 2: I started taking jazz courses with the best people in jazz.
Speaker 2: Kenny Barron was my piano teacher. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: just unbelievable. So I'm singing and I'm playing piano in
Speaker 2: a practice room and there's a knock on the door
Speaker 2: and in walks this guy and he says, Hi, I'm
Speaker 2: here to do a masterclass with Ron Carter Bass masterclass.
Speaker 2: And I was wondering, can I listen to you? And
Speaker 2: I said sure, So I'm just playing and singing and
Speaker 2: he says, hey, listen, I have to go now with
Speaker 2: Bob Cranch or the bass player. He says, I have
Speaker 2: to go now, but would you like to come down
Speaker 2: to Hoppers and sing with us? And I said, really,
Speaker 2: how old were you? Twenty three?
Speaker 1: Just out of college.
Speaker 2: I had just gotten into a program for a PhD
Speaker 2: in sociology, And I said okay. And I went down
Speaker 2: to the club three times where they would call me
Speaker 2: up on stage and I just went like, no, I
Speaker 2: can't do it. I was too scared. Finally I got
Speaker 2: the courage to do it. I got up on stage
Speaker 2: and I sang someone to watch over me, and I
Speaker 2: did it the way that I learned it from a
Speaker 2: record from Ella Fitzgerald, and she double times the bridge.
Speaker 2: So I did that, and I had like eight more
Speaker 2: bars that were empty because I had double timed the bridge.
Speaker 2: And I just stood there and thought like, oh, that
Speaker 2: was a disaster. And they asked me to sing with them,
Speaker 2: and I packed up. I left a husband, I left school,
Speaker 2: I moved to New York City, and I started singing
Speaker 2: with them. I called up some friends and said, are
Speaker 2: they any apartments in your building? They said, we're moving,
Speaker 2: you can have our apartment. It was just like meant
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: What was the jazz scene, I'm assuming now jazz is
Speaker 1: kind of like Shakespeare and other things where there's a
Speaker 1: perceived fragility to yes, love that. Now.
Speaker 2: Then there was a real jazz scene. It was thriving.
Speaker 2: I mean there were jazz clubs all over the city.
Speaker 2: I mean we were paid fifty dollars. Everyone in the
Speaker 2: band was paid fifty dollars a night.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money.
Speaker 2: And these are some of the best jazz people ever,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I sang with really great people, and
Speaker 2: it was it was a really wonderful experience. And I
Speaker 2: was doing backups and I sang rock and roll. It
Speaker 2: was a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: If you got fifty bucks a night, three nights a week,
Speaker 1: four weeks a month, that's six hundred bucks. You could
Speaker 1: pay your rent for six hundred bucks back then, and
Speaker 1: then some.
Speaker 2: Oh my rent was one hundred and seventy five dollars
Speaker 2: and I was living on eighty third Street between West
Speaker 2: End and Riverside, and I had a railroad apartment, and
Speaker 2: I was happy as a clam.
Speaker 1: I have this image of you with your father who's
Speaker 1: worried that you're not making money and you could be
Speaker 1: making more money in the family business. And you look
Speaker 1: at him and say, I made six hundred bucks last week,
Speaker 1: and your father's like, wow, Wow, that's real money. What happens?
Speaker 1: Because I want to talk about it seems like you
Speaker 1: choose your men the way you choose your own occupations
Speaker 1: and your own passions, which is there all over the map.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Christian and Greg. But what
Speaker 1: is it that pushes you out of the world of singing?
Speaker 1: You stop singing professionally? Why do you stop? And when?
Speaker 2: Because I had very bad nerves. I wasn't comfortable singing
Speaker 2: in front of an audience, and I decided I have
Speaker 2: been writing since I was a little girl, and I
Speaker 2: decided I think being a writer where I can just
Speaker 2: not do it in front of everyone, would be better
Speaker 2: for me. So I started writing.
Speaker 1: How long did you do the singing thing downtown? For?
Speaker 1: How long?
Speaker 2: I think I did it for like around seven or
Speaker 2: eight years.
Speaker 1: Wow, getting close to thirty years old. Now you are
Speaker 1: thirty something years old.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then I had my son.
Speaker 1: And you decide to leave. What was that decision? Like
Speaker 1: after seven or eighte years you concluded that you were
Speaker 1: a little uncomfortable and was performing in front of people.
Speaker 2: I just thought the writing part really really calling you,
Speaker 2: calling me what are you writing? I'm writing plays and
Speaker 2: then it turns into screenplays, which I still write today.
Speaker 1: Right what got made? First?
Speaker 2: Nothing has gotten made except now three of them are
Speaker 2: going to be made. Well, like all of a sudden
Speaker 2: things that I wrote in the eighties, and it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: You know. The movie thing is another aspect. I have
Speaker 2: a partner named Gabby Tanna, Dantanna's daughter.
Speaker 1: How many meals I used to have in Dantana's in
Speaker 1: the nineties.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, we're doing a little documentary on Dantana's.
Speaker 1: That was a real haunt. You go in there, you
Speaker 1: couldn't believe who was there. Dantana's was a was a
Speaker 1: really nice little den.
Speaker 2: Yeah, reallyom old school exactly. But the interesting thing, and
Speaker 2: because I've been partners with Gabby since nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: I've had a few meals at d'antana's, and as a woman,
Speaker 2: I always felt great there. It was sort of safe
Speaker 2: haven for a single woman.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of wolves there, no, but.
Speaker 2: Really interesting stories, a lot of music people, and a
Speaker 2: lot of deals got done well.
Speaker 1: I would see there. Oh my god, yeah, Jimmy Garner,
Speaker 1: I mean all the Jimmy Kahn, all these old school people,
Speaker 1: Burt Reynold's old school, you know what.
Speaker 2: I think the young generation is going there now sure
Speaker 2: and rediscover those places. So we're doing a documentary on dance.
Speaker 1: So singing, writing, When is the photography on that level?
Speaker 1: Do they overlap? Yes?
Speaker 2: And they relapse to this day, right, I'm doing photography.
Speaker 2: I'm having museum shows that are coming up. I have
Speaker 2: galleries where I have shows, and I'm making movies with
Speaker 2: my partner and writing things. So when one part of
Speaker 2: my brain gets tired, I go to the other thing, right,
Speaker 2: and it's just a whole other part of my brain.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Well, I would imagine that things like will you render
Speaker 1: something you know? Like I mean, of course writing render something,
Speaker 1: but where you render something you know? Like photography is
Speaker 1: and this is my interpretation. I'd love to hear yours.
Speaker 1: But I'm a huge not for photography. I've got some
Speaker 1: beautiful prints in my house that I love from friends
Speaker 1: and colleagues who are magnificent photographers. But I would imagine
Speaker 1: that more than writing in a sense, you get fueled
Speaker 1: by photography and painting, you know, the process of making
Speaker 1: something and the beauty and your DNA becoming exhibited over time.
Speaker 1: Whereas writing is really.
Speaker 2: Hard, you know, for me, photography, like I told you,
Speaker 2: is flying by the seat of my pants. I see
Speaker 2: something and I have a second to get it, so
Speaker 2: I'm grabbing my camera and I'm running outside and I'm
Speaker 2: grabbing the light where the patterns on the river or
Speaker 2: a storm. And I mean, you know, I love abstraction too,
Speaker 2: and so I because I was so immersed in painting
Speaker 2: when I was a kid. I see what Agnes Martin's
Speaker 2: saw when she was painting. I see what Rothko saw.
Speaker 2: I see what these painters saw, and sometimes they inspire
Speaker 2: me to take a picture that is reminiscent of their work.
Speaker 1: But would you say that your concentration, your main concentration
Speaker 1: of this area adjacent to your home and everything that's
Speaker 1: specific to that Hudson Valley community that you're a part of.
Speaker 1: Would you say that that's a furtherance of your anxiety
Speaker 1: about being in public. Does Carolyn Marx Blackwood shoot pictures
Speaker 1: in her backyard because there's nobody else in her backyard?
Speaker 1: Is that a furtherance of that where your creative expression
Speaker 1: is always you want comfort and that means less people.
Speaker 2: You know, my work does give me comfort, enormous comfort,
Speaker 2: and the great discovery was that it gives other people
Speaker 2: comfort too. I have had notes from people when I
Speaker 2: do not put something up on Instagram or Facebook or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, and they write to me, I'm in
Speaker 2: the hospital, you haven't posted anything for a few days.
Speaker 2: I'm dependent on your posting.
Speaker 1: Yes, my.
Speaker 2: Dose of beauty for the day. I have gotten notes
Speaker 2: like that. It feels like a big responsibility. So other people,
Speaker 2: I found out gets comfort from it too, which makes
Speaker 2: me feel wonderful.
Speaker 1: Carolyn Marx Blackwood, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow here's the thing on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Carolyn Marx Blackwood shares her thoughts
Speaker 1: on how we might navigate a different landscape, the current
Speaker 1: mind fields of our political environment. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. The first husband of
Speaker 1: Carolyn Marx Blackwood was acclaimed cinematographer and director Christian Blackwood,
Speaker 1: who made more than eighty documentary films and passed away
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two. I wanted to know how her
Speaker 1: time with her filmmaker husband influenced her career path and
Speaker 1: her pivot to writing.
Speaker 2: I was with Christian Blackwood in the city and he
Speaker 2: had a movie he wanted to do, and he asked
Speaker 2: me if I would write it. And it was the
Speaker 2: first screenplay I ever wrote. In nineteen eighty something eighty
Speaker 2: eight eighty nine. It was called Barbette. And we found
Speaker 2: this book on a sale table in Paris that was
Speaker 2: manray photographs of this guy from Round Rock, Texas who
Speaker 2: was the toast of Paris walking a high wire.
Speaker 1: As a woman.
Speaker 2: His name was Vander Clyde Barbett. And I was so
Speaker 2: taken with this book. And Francis Steik Muller had written
Speaker 2: about him in The New Yorker, and so I went
Speaker 2: into Francis Steig Muller's archives, and then I visited the
Speaker 2: family of Barbette in Texas and I wrote this screenplay
Speaker 2: which never really saw the light of day, but it's
Speaker 2: about to.
Speaker 1: And yeah, now Blackwood, I want to interject he was
Speaker 1: a part of one of my favorite documentaries, which was
Speaker 1: the Death of a Salesman. One was Slanders and John
Speaker 1: Malkovich and Hoffman. I thought that that documentary was one
Speaker 1: of the most mesmerizing documentaries I've ever seen. My god,
Speaker 1: that was a great project.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you know about the beautiful movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was a beautiful filmmaker.
Speaker 1: Now, you tend to minimize the commerciality of the projects
Speaker 1: you're doing, so setting aside that you obviously have the
Speaker 1: resources to or you can access other people's resources to
Speaker 1: produce and make these projects. Is it as satisfying as
Speaker 1: you thought it might be? Do you like making films
Speaker 1: and plays and producing these.
Speaker 2: It's very I mean the things that we have produced,
Speaker 2: I'm very proud of. We helped to produce Thirteen Lives,
Speaker 2: which was our last film.
Speaker 1: You mean, the Ronnie Howard movie about the cave thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my company helped produce it.
Speaker 1: Did you really YEA wow? Wow? I love that movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that movie because I could see, as an
Speaker 1: actor who's worked in film, how stressful that must have
Speaker 1: been to be in those dark, dark spaces week after week.
Speaker 2: Gets my partner did it. It was during the height
Speaker 2: of COVID and only one of us was allowed to
Speaker 2: go because of COVID, and she went to Australia. Gabby
Speaker 2: went to Australia and then was put in a COVID
Speaker 2: hotel for two weeks with an armed guard outside her door.
Speaker 2: She just went right from the airport into a hotel
Speaker 2: where she was kept in her room for two weeks.
Speaker 2: Then she was allowed to go out, and there was
Speaker 2: testing all the time. I think there was testing all
Speaker 2: the time. Sure, and she was in these sets that
Speaker 2: were caves. They were so they built sets for them
Speaker 2: to be there.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: It was not a fun shoot.
Speaker 1: You could tell. These guys earn their money on that film.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now let's just finish with this, which is the woman
Speaker 1: who grew up the way you did. You know, raised
Speaker 1: in a nice family with some degree of privilege and
Speaker 1: so forth, and everybody's in the finance world and doing well,
Speaker 1: and you're the blackwood sheep of the family. What about
Speaker 1: your political expression. Oh, you describe yourself as very political.
Speaker 2: How well, anyone that's not very political now better start
Speaker 2: to be, because we're about to lose our democracy possibly.
Speaker 2: And I'm doing everything I can think of to support
Speaker 2: my local politicians, and I mean senators and congress people.
Speaker 2: I've been with Kirsten Chilibrand for a very long time
Speaker 2: and we have a wonderful congress person here named Pat Ryan,
Speaker 2: and I support him. And what I'm doing is I
Speaker 2: am having zoom meetings with these politicians. The reason I'm
Speaker 2: doing it is because I want everybody to feel like
Speaker 2: they have access. I have access to these politicians because
Speaker 2: I support them, and so I get access. There are
Speaker 2: a lot of people, there are a lot of Republicans
Speaker 2: that I want to be able to come on a
Speaker 2: zoom ask questions. And when I say Republicans, I mean
Speaker 2: sane Republicans, ones that are not enamored of whose name
Speaker 2: I shall not say. And so I just think we
Speaker 2: need to really talk to people. I want to do
Speaker 2: a podcast, by the way, that's called Neighbors, where people
Speaker 2: talk to each other, neighbors across the aisle, across the
Speaker 2: aisle and talk. Because we've helped each other. But it's
Speaker 2: important that we talk to each other.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, whoever can solve that problem, because it's
Speaker 1: tough for people to talk to people that they believe
Speaker 1: are responsible for the Mussolini of our generation. He's not Hitler,
Speaker 1: he's Musoline. He's like a clown and a cartoonish figure.
Speaker 1: But of course, the woman who had a camera since
Speaker 1: she was seven and went on to become a very
Speaker 1: successful and very well regarded photographer. She sang in jazz
Speaker 1: clubs in New York, in the West Village for years.
Speaker 1: She's made movies, written screenplays, produced these projects. And that
Speaker 1: same woman, we were joking before the show, in your
Speaker 1: spare time you make scarves or that you sell to
Speaker 1: people to raise money for charity. Yeah, in that vast
Speaker 1: expanse of spare time that you have, I know it's insane.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say insane, But you are the self styled
Speaker 1: you are the tender artistic soul. I mean, what a
Speaker 1: life you've had dedicated to just beautiful artistry. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this with us. Thank you, my
Speaker 1: thanks to Carolyn Marx Blackwood. You can find her fine
Speaker 1: art photography at cm Blackwood dot com The Carolyn Marx
Speaker 1: Blackwood Scarves collection can be Founder James Paul Chung dot
Speaker 1: com That's Chang ch e Unng. Profits go to charity,
Speaker 1: including a food pantry in Rhinebeck, New York. This episode
Speaker 1: was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City. Were
Speaker 1: produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hoben. Our
Speaker 1: engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you
Speaker 1: by iHeart Radio