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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Errol Morris's documentaries are unmistakable. Whether they're about great figures

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Speaker 1: in history or dueling pet cemeteries, they can be uncomfortably intimate.

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Speaker 1: Their subjects faces are full frame, looking straight at you.

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Speaker 1: Maurice told The New Yorker that his core belief is

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Speaker 1: that the truth is out there, but he is a

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Speaker 1: master of the unreliable narrator, of shifting perspectives that only

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Speaker 1: come together slowly. Take his breakthrough project In The Thin

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Speaker 1: Blue Line. That film, one of the most celebrated documentaries

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Speaker 1: of all time, overturned a murder conviction. Maurice allowed all

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Speaker 1: the key witnesses, over the course of hours and hours

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Speaker 1: in front of the camera, to tangle themselves up in

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Speaker 1: contradictions and ulterior motives. He's one of cinema's most distinctive

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Speaker 1: a tours, but unlike most of his peers, he seems

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Speaker 1: to have stumbled into filmmaking After college. Morris sold cable subscriptions.

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Speaker 1: He wrote term papers for money, then at all. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, and in the middle of a pH

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Speaker 1: d in philosophy, Morris fell in love with film Noir,

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Speaker 1: met Werner Herzog and developed a fascination with serial killer

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Speaker 1: Ed Geen. At that moment in his life, if he

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Speaker 1: was going to make something about Gain, a movie seemed

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Speaker 1: like the thing. He never did make the film, but

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Speaker 1: Erro Morris had gotten the documentary bug. He just wishes

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Speaker 1: there were a better word for them. I don't like documentary,

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Speaker 1: So there we'll explain that. Explain it if you care to. UM,

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Speaker 1: it's a strange category. You don't have this in feature filmmaking.

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Speaker 1: The minute you suggest that it's about reality, the truth

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Speaker 1: clearly enters the picture. Is what you're seeing true false. Um.

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Speaker 1: There's a documentary police, of course, but how you deal

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Speaker 1: with truth and falsity is up for grabs. All that

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Speaker 1: you have to do is pursue the truth, UM, in

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Speaker 1: your own way. When The Thin Bool Line came out,

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Speaker 1: I had so called re enactments in the movie. The

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Speaker 1: documentary committee at the Oscars turned the movie off immediately,

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Speaker 1: a movie that was on the top of most critics list.

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Speaker 1: Guess what I don't do re enactments. What amazed me

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Speaker 1: at the time of the Thin Boo Line as I

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Speaker 1: showed scenes of the murder on this Desolate Road in

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Speaker 1: West Dallas. They were all false. They weren't used to

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Speaker 1: show you what happened. They were used to make you

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Speaker 1: think about what didn't happen. I hate reenactments that are

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Speaker 1: show and tell. Someone says blah blah blah, and then

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Speaker 1: you illustrate it. Visual material in a movie, whether it's

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Speaker 1: a documentary or a feature, it should take you to

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Speaker 1: some unexpected place. It shouldn't be just illustrating dialogue. What

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Speaker 1: was documentary film in your life? When did you first

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Speaker 1: encounter these films and watch them and wear My introduction

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Speaker 1: was not too ordinary traditional documentary film, but to whack

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Speaker 1: out films. They didn't obey the standard rules of documentary

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Speaker 1: at all. What is a whack out film? Something that

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Speaker 1: doesn't really do what we imagine documentary to do. Documentary

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to have an identifiable subject matter. It's about

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Speaker 1: so and so, or it's about this issue or that issue,

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Speaker 1: handheld camera available, light fly on the wall, blah blah

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Speaker 1: and blah. And I never liked any of it. I

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Speaker 1: like documentaries to be stranger, expressionistic. One of my favorites

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Speaker 1: it was a film by bun Well, call it a

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Speaker 1: serialist Um strange documentary Land without Bread, Um, Land Without Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I recommend it. My connection the documentary film tenuous probably

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Speaker 1: like everybody else. Um. And I was in graduate school Berkeley,

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Speaker 1: and I started compulsively going to movies at a place

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Speaker 1: called the Pacific Film Archive. And I met a young

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Speaker 1: German filmmaker there who was making documentaries among other films,

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Speaker 1: when he heard song and we went to visit a

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Speaker 1: mass murderer together. It's a good first date. And we

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Speaker 1: went up as phoe of psychiatrist Dr Hertzog, his producer

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Speaker 1: Dr Sacks or Dr Morris. Um. I met him at

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Speaker 1: a time when I was first doing interviews the ed

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Speaker 1: Guime project. Well ed Geen. By the way, it's not German.

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Speaker 1: Everybody thinks the name is German. It's from the Scottish,

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Speaker 1: not the German. It's Gaen. I know if I was

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Speaker 1: a mass murderer, serial killer, I would always hope people

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Speaker 1: would get my name right. Yeah, we have to give

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Speaker 1: the mass murderers there if they're due. When did okay,

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Speaker 1: were you commissioned or this was your idea? Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: commission that asked people to interview mass murders approached me

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Speaker 1: one day. We want to make a movie and wanted

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Speaker 1: to commit No, I wanted to do it. I was

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Speaker 1: planning to write why I was playing to write PhD

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Speaker 1: thesis on the Insanity play? Maybe because insanity interests me

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Speaker 1: and what better way to examine those issues than to

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Speaker 1: talk to a number of people who pled insanity. But

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Speaker 1: my point was, you start to interact with this material,

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Speaker 1: what was it that made you want to make it?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, because your life is a kind of

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Speaker 1: you're kind of a cork in the ocean before you

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Speaker 1: start making films. You're into this and you're into that. Well,

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Speaker 1: I still am into this and into that. Why not?

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Speaker 1: Why not be lecture as a filmmaker? I guess is

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Speaker 1: that what it is? Let me fill in that line

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Speaker 1: in your bank application occupation filmmaker. But what I'm saying

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Speaker 1: is that you know you're going to go to You're

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Speaker 1: you're selling subscriptions, You're you're going a PhD program at Princeton.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're you're kind of all over the place,

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Speaker 1: not in any bad way before you land the plane,

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Speaker 1: probably in a bad way. Well they'll let you say

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Speaker 1: that it's in a bad way, in a very bad way.

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Speaker 1: So when you're in Berkeley. Uh, and mean, filmmaking saved me.

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Speaker 1: It gave me something to do with myself. My wife

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Speaker 1: very kindly says that my office is a daycare center

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Speaker 1: for myself. Well, I could consider filmmaking in general as

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Speaker 1: a daycare center for myself. I didn't say that. I

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Speaker 1: just said it was a daycare center. You're allergic to

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Speaker 1: feeling good, I take it. I don't know. Maybe I'm

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Speaker 1: not allergic to feeling good, just don't feel good now.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I consider all the time

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Speaker 1: is that, you know, because I've produced documentary films and

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Speaker 1: I've produced narrative films. In a narrative film, presumable, you

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Speaker 1: have to have some decent writing that at the very

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Speaker 1: least will attract a cast. There's a beginning, middle, in

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Speaker 1: an end. There might be a story, hopefully or not,

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Speaker 1: as the case may be, well crafted characters and so forth,

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Speaker 1: and you've got to lure people to the project. Where

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Speaker 1: when you make documentary films, which I've always enjoyed, you

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Speaker 1: do whatever the funk you want to do. This point

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Speaker 1: the camera, this person. Sometime their reluctants, but I don't

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Speaker 1: think they're so different. Really, don't tell me why I

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Speaker 1: don't have to cast Alec Baldwin in order to get

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Speaker 1: the money from my project. But getting the money for

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Speaker 1: the project is still not a done deal. It's often

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Speaker 1: difficult um. Getting people to agree to actually be interviewed

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Speaker 1: can be an almost impossible task. I can think of

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Speaker 1: countless projects where I thought I had people who are

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Speaker 1: going to do the project with me, and then it

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Speaker 1: all suddenly fell through. Give me an example of someone

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Speaker 1: that was relatively easy. Was McNamara easy? No, McNamara is

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Speaker 1: not easy to book to cajole Um. Someone wants to

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Speaker 1: asked me why I was good at getting people to

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Speaker 1: appear in front of a camera, and I said, I

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Speaker 1: learned it from my mother. My mother was an exquisite

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Speaker 1: nag and I like to think that I am too.

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Speaker 1: McNamara agreed to be interviewed because he thought I was

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Speaker 1: part of a book tour. He wasn't really thinking, and

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Speaker 1: after saying yes, he called me back and said, you know,

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Speaker 1: I've been talking to people about you, and they tell

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Speaker 1: me this is a very bad idea talking to you,

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Speaker 1: and for about minutes explained to me why he wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to do it, and then said, but I said,

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Speaker 1: I would do it, So I'll do it. And as

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine later said, well I know that story.

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Speaker 1: That's the story of Vietnam. Um and he came. He

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Speaker 1: said he'd give me five minutes, which is not particularly generous.

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Speaker 1: He saw my interviewing machine, this machine that I used

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Speaker 1: to preserve eye contact, the entire ron. Describe that for

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Speaker 1: our listeners. Oh, good god, you don't want the description.

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Speaker 1: It's so fucking boring. Of course people want. People want

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Speaker 1: to know all about your technique. Describe the terrortron. What

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Speaker 1: is it named by my wife because it had the

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Speaker 1: word interview and terror in it? Um. I like eye contact.

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Speaker 1: Right now, we're making an eye contact. What does the

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Speaker 1: device do? It allows you to film an interview and

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Speaker 1: to preserve eye contact, which you can't do otherwise. Otherwise,

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Speaker 1: if we were filming this discussion rather than doing angle,

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Speaker 1: you would have a raking angle on you. But what

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Speaker 1: if I wanted to preserve what is happening right now?

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Speaker 1: My looking into Alec Baldwin's eyes and you want to

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Speaker 1: make you talk to Yes, it's two prompters cross connected.

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Speaker 1: You go to Florida to do vernon. You go down

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Speaker 1: there and there's a fascinating element to what was going

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Speaker 1: on in Vernon that you didn't put in the movie

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Speaker 1: about the South amputees. I'm a failed filmmaker who makes films.

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Speaker 1: I think it's probably the most apt description. I read

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Speaker 1: an article of the New York Times magazine about an

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Speaker 1: insurance investigator, John J. Healely. Some of my best stories

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Speaker 1: come out of the Times. People don't usually think of

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Speaker 1: the Times as a tabloid newspaper, but inside every issue

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Speaker 1: of the Times is excellent tabloid material. So I read

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Speaker 1: about this insurance investigator and he describes the worst case

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Speaker 1: that he ever worked on, which was a small town

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Speaker 1: in the Panhandle of Florida where there was this extraordinary

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Speaker 1: incidents of insurance fraud, people suspiciously losing arms and legs,

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Speaker 1: sometimes an arm and a leg after taking out massive

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Speaker 1: policies on themselves. And it became known in the insurance

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Speaker 1: trade is nub City, the nub Club, the Nubbies, nub City,

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Speaker 1: nub this. How many people were doing that? Roughly dozens

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Speaker 1: scores or just a few, um dozens. I think it's contagious.

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Speaker 1: If I were to mutilate myself in this studio, there's

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Speaker 1: a good chance you might follow suit like that actor

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Speaker 1: who was that famous actor who was very good looking

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Speaker 1: through because and he was high. I think he was

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Speaker 1: on acid. He was tripping, and he thought he wasn't

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Speaker 1: getting all the interesting character work he wanted. There's probably right,

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Speaker 1: because he was too beautiful. So he threw acid in

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Speaker 1: his face in Central Park, and any man that boys

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Speaker 1: wound up being a heavily scarred. I'll look it up,

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Speaker 1: but please don't do that. Let's do a movie about him,

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Speaker 1: and I'll play him in the re enacting footage. But

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Speaker 1: the so nubsity, but you don't put that in the film. Correct.

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Speaker 1: There's a problem with documentary Sometimes I wonder why in

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Speaker 1: hell are you applying this particular trade. I am under

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Speaker 1: psychiatric supervision, so I've had occasion to professionally address this issue.

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Speaker 1: But often I'll embark on a story which cannot be

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Speaker 1: done as a documentary. Um and nub City was the

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Speaker 1: perfect example why it couldn't be done. Why we'll think

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Speaker 1: about it for a moment, or we'll think about it together.

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Speaker 1: People admitting that they committed this crime. There you go.

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Speaker 1: So I kept investigating. I'm an investigator at heart. I

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Speaker 1: would go around the town talking to Nubbies, members of

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Speaker 1: the Nub Club, other people, and I got beaten up. Now,

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Speaker 1: I sometimes think a person like me should probably be

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Speaker 1: beaten up every single day. But it hasn't happened that often.

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Speaker 1: And why should you? Why should you be? Because I'm impertinent,

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Speaker 1: I asked questions. I'm an annoying person. Why shouldn't I be?

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Speaker 1: In fact, I have to keep my eye out for

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Speaker 1: you that you just jump across this table and throttle me.

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Speaker 1: You live in fear of that? Not much. I wish

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Speaker 1: i'd gotten a degree in psychiatry before we did this.

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Speaker 1: You'd probably have a degree in psychiatry. Look kind of actually,

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Speaker 1: I kind of do ye. But yet you make the

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Speaker 1: movie Someone gives me money, and it's true, I get it.

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Speaker 1: Someone gives you money, and you better do something. Nothing

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Speaker 1: wrong with a little commerce every now and then. I

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Speaker 1: agree with you, it's essential. So I made a different movie.

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Speaker 1: What did you make? I made Vernon, Florida, which is

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Speaker 1: a portrait of a lot of people in Vernon, Florida. Vernon,

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Speaker 1: Florida was nub City, and it's one of my best films.

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Speaker 1: But it has nothing whatsoever to do with nub City

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Speaker 1: or the Nubclay didn't even sneak in A couple of

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Speaker 1: shots of amputees at the Piggy Wiggily at the checkout

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Speaker 1: count of none of that. Some limbless guy bench in

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Speaker 1: front of civic hall um called dead Pecker Bench where

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Speaker 1: these old guys would sit all day talking, the dead

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Speaker 1: Pecker Bench in nub City. The Dead Pecker Bench in

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Speaker 1: nub City. And one of them was an amputee. But

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Speaker 1: here's supposed it was like Karl Hyacinth. To me, well,

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Speaker 1: it's better than Karl Hyacin. The guy did not lose

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Speaker 1: his limb through insurance fraud. It was a genuine accident.

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Speaker 1: After you do that film, After I do that film,

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Speaker 1: I'm out of work for a long period of time,

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Speaker 1: and I become a private detective in order to earn

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Speaker 1: a living. And where did you apply that trade? You

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Speaker 1: have to get licensed. I'm assuming you don't have to

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Speaker 1: get a license I worked for. You have to pass

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Speaker 1: the psychiatric tests to get that license. Now, thankfully no,

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Speaker 1: And I work for a guy was probably one of

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Speaker 1: the best private detectives in the world. And where did

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Speaker 1: I work. I worked in this very obscure place called Manhattan,

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Speaker 1: which is just pristine in terms of people's behavior and

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Speaker 1: their code of ethics and what's what's what's defined there?

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Speaker 1: And I did big cases. It was if you open

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Speaker 1: the financial pages of the New York Times, usually there

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Speaker 1: would be one or two of the cases that I

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Speaker 1: was working on. What kind of cases did you work

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Speaker 1: on your Private Eye where we Wall Street financial fraud?

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Speaker 1: Exactly right? What did you find whether if you can describe,

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Speaker 1: leaving out the identifiers, what's one case you worked on? Uh?

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Speaker 1: There was wash trading um commodities fraud. I worked on

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Speaker 1: this huge case involving a rogue trader. There's so many

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Speaker 1: rogue trading stories, but this was one of the first

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Speaker 1: where a rogue trader builds up a position loses a

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Speaker 1: very large sum of money. In those days, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: so big as it is now. It was roughly a

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Speaker 1: billion and change. But I worked on that case for

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Speaker 1: over a year. What made you decide that that was over?

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Speaker 1: You go back? I mean, we're getting close in the amount.

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Speaker 1: Don't mean to be so linear here, but in the timeline,

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Speaker 1: we're getting close to the movie that makes your reputation

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Speaker 1: as a filmmaker within Blue Line. I like to think

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Speaker 1: that almost everything I've ever done is out of desperation

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Speaker 1: and some kind of necessity one does have to earn

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Speaker 1: a living. Um. Eventually I found commercials I've directed. This

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Speaker 1: is something to be proud of. I've directed over a

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Speaker 1: thousand of them. Um. When I couldn't get any work

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Speaker 1: as a filmmaker none, I was lucky enough to be

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Speaker 1: offered a private detective job and I was able to survive.

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Speaker 1: H I sent a proposal to public television for a

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Speaker 1: project I didn't really even want to do. It was

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Speaker 1: to interview a psychiatrist in Dallas, Dr James Griggson, who

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Speaker 1: had the name Doctor Death. He told me he had

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Speaker 1: lost most of his private patients in psychiatry because they

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Speaker 1: felt nervous confiding their deepest thoughts to someone named doctor Death.

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Speaker 1: Started to interfere with his bus. This and his main

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Speaker 1: business became making predictions about future behavior at death penalty trials.

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Speaker 1: So I went down and I interviewed him. I got money,

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Speaker 1: and that was the start of the thin Blue Line.

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Speaker 1: By accident, it was only at this guy's behest that

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Speaker 1: I started doing death row interviews and discovered this guy

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Speaker 1: named Randall Dale Adams, who told me he was innocent,

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Speaker 1: and that was the beginning of two and a half

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Speaker 1: years of investigation. I said to myself when I started

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Speaker 1: this whole thing, thank God, you don't have to be

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Speaker 1: a private detective anymore. And of course it's probably the

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Speaker 1: best work I've ever done as a detective. I agreed. Now,

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Speaker 1: um slollowing between the creative and the monetary has been

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Speaker 1: a tremendous strain for me as well. I'm gonna turn

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Speaker 1: sixty two years old in April and four my six

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Speaker 1: the second birthday, my wife is giving me another baby.

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Speaker 1: We're having our fifth child. Congratulations, thank you so um.

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Speaker 1: Being from the Five Towns on Long Island, I was

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Speaker 1: hoping you would have said most thank you. What that

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Speaker 1: means the world to me? So um, I like a

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Speaker 1: good Long Island maltop. What time do you reven? Five Towns,

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Speaker 1: you little Long Island. So you're old enough to remember

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Speaker 1: where I bought my suit from my prom which was

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Speaker 1: Edward Miller's Town and Country and Cedarhurst, Lord Eddie Miller's.

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Speaker 1: I bought my first eve, said, la raw three piece

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Speaker 1: suit there when I was a boy. Do you know

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Speaker 1: the Chinese restaurant in the Five Towns, the Chinese. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's a number of Chinese, but it's my favorite. Which

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Speaker 1: one It's called Chosen? Chosen. That's very funny, that's right.

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Speaker 1: But when you're doing this over the ark of a

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Speaker 1: couple of years, you said, a couple of years, you're

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Speaker 1: doing the work on the thin blue line, and you're

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Speaker 1: getting paid. I was in trouble, okay, but you felt

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Speaker 1: you see, this is what I find to me, this

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Speaker 1: is the nvil of a career. Sometimes you've tasted this

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Speaker 1: difficulty and worried about money, but there's something about this

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Speaker 1: film that you had to see it through, and then

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Speaker 1: your life changes after this film comes out. Why I

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Speaker 1: started to believe this guy was innocent. He had been

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Speaker 1: sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit. Sentenced

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Speaker 1: to death for the first degree murder of a Dallas

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Speaker 1: police officer. Well you if you truly believe in someone's innocence,

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Speaker 1: someone who has been on death row, who in all

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Speaker 1: likelihood will never get out of prison, came within a

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Speaker 1: couple of days of being executed. What are you supposed

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Speaker 1: to do? Punt? Whatever happen. Stories are sort of like

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Speaker 1: prison cells, and sometimes you get trapped in them and

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Speaker 1: you have to fight your way out. You have to

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Speaker 1: fight your way to some kind of conclusion. Dig a tunnel.

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Speaker 1: Did Emily Miller ever get punished for her perjury? This

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Speaker 1: is the chief prosecution witness against Randall Adams at his

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Speaker 1: capital murder trial. Whatever happened to her? Nothing which was unpunished?

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Speaker 1: Nothing and she did commit perjury? Oh yes. Filmmaker crime

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Speaker 1: solver Aero Morris. Another great documentarian is Dawn Porter, director

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Speaker 1: of Bobby Kennedy for President. It features footage of the

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Speaker 1: Attorney General with his family. Porter had worked at ABC

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Speaker 1: News and knew about a trove of unseen tape from

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Speaker 1: the months leading up to r F K's assassination. ABC

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Speaker 1: was just an upstart network trying to make its mark.

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Speaker 1: Who do you do you follow the like sexy, good looking,

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Speaker 1: charismatic candidate. ABC was the most recent. So they're following

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Speaker 1: Kennedy and shooting him, and we had to watch it all.

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Speaker 1: So it was like living in that time and living

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Speaker 1: with Kennedy. The rest of that interview can be found

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Speaker 1: in our archive a Here's the Thing dot org Erro

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Speaker 1: Morris talks about the terrible men he's made movies about

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Speaker 1: coming up. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. Recently,

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Speaker 1: filmmaker Erro Morris has become known for his deep dives

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Speaker 1: into the men in suits who lead our country into

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Speaker 1: armed conflict. First was his two thousand three Oscar winning

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Speaker 1: Fog of War and unsparing and yet human portrait of

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Speaker 1: Johnson's Defense secretary Robert McNamara. Then came Unknown Guns in

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Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, which gave Iraq war architect Donald Rumsfeld

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Speaker 1: the same treatment. And out now is American Dharma, about

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Speaker 1: the architect of a war of culture and politics, Steve Bannon,

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Speaker 1: who led Donald Trump to victory. But accomplishing this trip

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Speaker 1: tick portrait of American power hasn't cured marris Is neurosis.

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Speaker 1: He remains as insecure in his success as he was

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Speaker 1: in ninet when he leapt from day jobs and rejection

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Speaker 1: to comfort and creative freedom. After the Thin Blue Line,

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Speaker 1: things did change. Yes, well, I still feel like a pariah.

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Speaker 1: But what why? I don't know. Because you thrive in

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Speaker 1: a place of discomfort. We gotta keep that underdog thing going.

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Speaker 1: Is it an underdog thing? It's a self loathing whatever.

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Speaker 1: But then we'll say the arrow Morris self loathing technique

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Speaker 1: of filmmaking is that, but you felt like you had

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Speaker 1: to keep that going. Do you hate yourself? Um? I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't say hey, because that if I'm trying, at my

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Speaker 1: age now with my young children to exercise hate. But

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Speaker 1: I do. I'm I'm I disappoint myself constantly when I

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Speaker 1: talk to myself, I look at myself across the room

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Speaker 1: and go, oh, alec. But for you, you you have

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Speaker 1: this success and then once you have more options because

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Speaker 1: in the creative world, when things change, what changes is

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Speaker 1: we can go do more what we want to do.

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Speaker 1: What's the first thing you want to do? Once Thin

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Speaker 1: Blue Line becomes a big sensation, what do you want

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Speaker 1: to do next? I was confused what I should do? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And as you become more successful, there are always people

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Speaker 1: out there to tell you what you should do or

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Speaker 1: could do. Um? What was next? After Thin Blue Line?

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Speaker 1: You got involved in doing a feature with people that

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Speaker 1: I should never have been in business with, which was

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Speaker 1: Robert Redford teacher. It was called dark Wind. Who finally

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Speaker 1: went up directing it? Me? Or you did? You did

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Speaker 1: direct dark Wind? Luta? Who did it? I'm the fall guard?

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Speaker 1: You didn't walk away? No, call me a coward. They

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Speaker 1: come to you and they want you to make a movie.

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Speaker 1: And did you think to yourself maybe that you just

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Speaker 1: didn't want to do those kinds of movies. You want

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Speaker 1: to go back to documentary. You didn't want to be

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Speaker 1: a filmmaker like that. But I did. Finally I did

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Speaker 1: get an opportunity to work with actors in a series

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Speaker 1: that I did for Netflix called worm would um why

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Speaker 1: be polluted by reality? Well? Why be polluted by reality?

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Speaker 1: You were asked, what's the one thing you most strongly believe?

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Speaker 1: Your answer was, there is such a thing as objective truth.

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Speaker 1: But aren't all your movies about subjectivity? Your own films?

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Speaker 1: Do I believe there's a real world out there and

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Speaker 1: which things happen? Do you believe it's an objective truth? Yes?

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Speaker 1: You do. I don't know if we can ever know it.

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Speaker 1: I have often thought that history is about the evasion

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Speaker 1: of history. Cover ups are endlessly interesting evasions, and say interesting,

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Speaker 1: it's a route to truth. Truth is never handed over

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Speaker 1: to you as such. Were you pursuing that when you

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Speaker 1: talk to McNamara? Uh? I wanted to learn something about McNamara.

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Speaker 1: I was certainly pursuing it when I was working on

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Speaker 1: the Thin Blue Line in Dallas. That was the part

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Speaker 1: of it. Do you want to answer some fundamental question?

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00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: And did this guy shoot the cop? Right? And and

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Speaker 1: and and in that film that the falsely accused man,

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Speaker 1: there's an that doesn't need to be stated. There's an

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Speaker 1: abundant empathy people have for the guy that's wrongly convicted.

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Speaker 1: What's the idea when you go in the room with McNamara,

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Speaker 1: who I studied assiduously because I played him in a

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Speaker 1: movie I did well, and and and and and McNamara

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Speaker 1: as somebody who like LBJ and like Nixon, I find

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Speaker 1: it impossible to let them off the hook. When I

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Speaker 1: see Bob Caro and he's gonna write his fifth volume

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Speaker 1: about Johnson, and I want to say, Bob, we are

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Speaker 1: you gonna really write the truth about what a monster?

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Speaker 1: I mean, even I just imply it that Johnson McNamara

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Speaker 1: was a monster. The men who were the engineers of

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Speaker 1: the Vietnam War, I mean, they're among the worst war

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Speaker 1: criminals in history and human history. The Vietnam War was

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Speaker 1: something we will never get out from under, you will

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Speaker 1: never get off from under. And McNamara is largely to

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Speaker 1: blame for that. I mean he was. It was he was,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was that velvety, ivy league. Uh, you know, monster,

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Speaker 1: He's a monster, you know when I'm what's funny is

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Speaker 1: you interview him? And I just want to share this

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Speaker 1: story really quickly. A friend of mine or at some

424
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: congressional office, and Kissinger's mother had just died up in Harlem.

425
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: She lived up there for her whole life and was

426
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: a big community activists up there. She was like nineties

427
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: something news. And my friend is introduced me here Senator

428
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: so and so, Congressman so and so. And as I turned,

429
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: just out of my field the vision in my blind

430
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,960
Speaker 1: s about my friends and you know, Secretary Kissinger, and

431
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: I turned and I gasp, here is Kissinger on par

432
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 1: with McNamara, one of the great war criminals of all

433
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: human history. I didn't know what to say, and I go,

434
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry about your mother. And he hugged me.

435
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: He thank you a very much for saying this to me,

436
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: and he hugs me, and I thought, I'm comforting and Kissinger,

437
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: you're suggesting that I don't think he's a war criminal.

438
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: I told his son. I really came to love Robert

439
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: McNamara came to dinner at our home several times. But

440
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: do I think he's a war criminal? Yes, I'm not

441
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: a great believer in redemption. I think the whole idea

442
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: is a kind of bad idea. After all, I am

443
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: a Jew, not a Christian. I think you do bad things,

444
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: they stay bad forever. There ain't the thousand or ten

445
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: thousand or a hundred thousand hours of community service that's

446
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: going to erase that, like lifting up the acetate window

447
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: on a magic slate. Um, badness stays badness. When when

448
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: you started the project with McNamara, I mean when you

449
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: ended the project with mcmarray. In terms of your own opinion,

450
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: what was the journey? I'm not sure what I thought

451
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: of him in the beginning. I certainly demonstrated against the

452
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: war as a young student, like you, I find the

453
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: Vietnam War to be a horrible, horrible episode in American history. Um,

454
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: it's really hard to know. It's hard to know whether

455
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: the sixties and early seventies were worse than it is now,

456
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: because it seems pretty bad now. Um. At the end

457
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: of all of it, I came to like McNamara, why

458
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: because he was so smart. I enjoyed talking to him.

459
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: We invited him to dinner. He went to the bathroom

460
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: and tripped on a rug in our living room, hit

461
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: his head on a footstool, opened up this cash in.

462
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: His forehead was bleeding profusely. My wife and I are

463
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: going crazy. You want to get him to an emergency

464
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: room immediately. We get coal, compresses to put on his forehead, etcetera, etcetera.

465
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: My wife later says to me, oh, my god, you know,

466
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, forty years ago, if we had killed

467
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: Robert S. McNamara, we'd be heroes. They put a plaque

468
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: on your house, and now we're The footstool would be

469
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian. Now we're worried about him. It's one

470
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: thing to respond to another human being who you've become

471
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: friendly with for whatever reason. Is that? Is that the

472
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: danger of what you do Where there's a person that's

473
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: a sebject matter, you develop a relationship with them, and

474
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: does that color the process? Inevitably it does? You know,

475
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: it's a danger. It's a danger which I believe, maybe

476
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: there's a self deception on my part, can be overcome.

477
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: I've interviewed over the years some pretty nasty characters. What

478
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: would Trump call them? Nasty? Ambrese bad ambres. It's a

479
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: I don't think in the case of Robert McNamara, I've

480
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 1: lost a perspective on who he is and what he's done. Um,

481
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: he's a person you could talk to about things. The

482
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: other hand, Donald Rumsfeld was a person I never felt

483
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: that you could talk to really about anything except his self,

484
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: his legacy, even well maybe his legacy. But he Um,

485
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: he radiated a supreme self satisfaction, pleased enormously with himself

486
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: and what he had done. No apologies, no remorse, no guilt,

487
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: no nothing. I called him the least Jewish person I'd

488
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: ever met. No self hatred, no no introspection, no none, nothing.

489
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: What year did fog of work him out? Um? Two thousands?

490
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: Right after? Because I we did a path to war,

491
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: we shot it in the fall of two thousand one,

492
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: and and and I'm watching fog of war. And for

493
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: the love of God, I lean in and I listened.

494
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: I lean and I listened. That's one of the nicest

495
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: things anyone's ever said. Say go I said, Mr Mcnamaric,

496
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: go a, you have my attention. Tell me, tell me,

497
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: teach me what what What was your perspective? And you

498
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: could tell obviously in the film that he had his

499
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: regrets and he's interviewing is about listening. It's about creating,

500
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: in my maybe not so humble view, it's about creating

501
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: a situation where people want to talk to you, where

502
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: they want to reveal things to you. Um. It's not

503
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: about difficult questions. It's not holding treating people feed to

504
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: the fire. I'm not Mike Wallace. It's not Mike Wallace. Um,

505
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: it's something very, very very different for me. I'm not

506
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: saying for brand X. But to get to this in

507
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: terms of then you do Bannon, and I must say

508
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: I don't really feel like leaning in and listening to Bannon.

509
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: I mean when you say there is such a thing

510
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: as an objective truth, and I want to think to myself, well,

511
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: how could the guy at Bright bart Or understand what

512
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: objective truth is? Probably maybe he can't write part as

513
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: a lie factory of the highest order. You can have

514
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: no understanding of objective truth, no interest in objective truth.

515
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: But guess what that doesn't mean There isn't such a thing.

516
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: There's a fact of the matter. Going back to the

517
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:21,399
Speaker 1: thin blue line, someone shot this Dallas police officer. It's

518
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 1: not up for grabs. You put a hundred people in

519
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 1: a room with a hundred different opinions, it doesn't change

520
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: the underlying reality of what happened. Who pulled the trigger

521
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: and shot the underlying reality of the Bannon film. He won,

522
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: and I think it's really important for us to understand

523
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: how that happened. People don't want to deal with it.

524
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: I don't even want to deal with it, although I

525
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: have dealt with it. People would prefer to see that

526
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: election and when he's sixteen as conspiracies of one kind

527
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: or another. Um m hm. To me, it's one of

528
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 1: the worst things that's happened in my lifetime, a nightmare

529
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:13,720
Speaker 1: that America is still in the middle of. How and why?

530
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: And I do believe that Bannon was instrumental in putting

531
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: Trump in the White House. How did this happen? Or

532
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 1: if you prefer, how the fund did this happen? And

533
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: it's a question that my movie tries to answer. How

534
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 1: did you? How did you connect with him? How did

535
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: you reach out to him? Uh? I have this very

536
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: little known agent. Are you, Emmanuel who have connected me

537
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: with people who knew Bannon? And as a result, we

538
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 1: set up a meeting at the Bright Bart mansion, which

539
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: is a townhouse very close to the Supreme Court in Washington,

540
00:36:54,680 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 1: and I met Steve Steve Bannon and we agreed to

541
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: make a movie together. What do you What do you think?

542
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 1: Was his reasoning for making the movie. His main reason

543
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: was he was a fan of my movies. He was

544
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: at the Tell Your Ride Film Festival when I appeared

545
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: with The Fog of War and Robert S. McNamara. He

546
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: was in the audience. Um. He's during his movie executive days.

547
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: The end of his movie executive days, he had become

548
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: a documentary filmmaker. He made over a dozen documentary films.

549
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: I've seen all of them. Do I want to admit

550
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: to this? I think there might be consequent brain damage.

551
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: Take out from Chosen, watch them. We'll go out to

552
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 1: take out from Chosen and ten Bannon films. That sounds

553
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: like a weekend of May point. If that doesn't kill you,

554
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: nothing will. Was there a good one among them? Was

555
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: there an adequate one among them? They're crazy. They're crazy

556
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 1: because they're filled with unbelievable violence. Even if you were

557
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: a connoisseur of violence, you would find these to be

558
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: unusually violent. Guillotines, crucifixions, shootings, Garrottings, electrocutions, documentary film. Yeah,

559
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: they're about how the world is going to hell because

560
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: we've lost our connection with God. Their films and praise

561
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 1: of Ronald Reagan. They might not be exactly. No, I

562
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: don't want to to suggest something that might be wrong,

563
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 1: but I don't believe they would be your cup of tea.

564
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 1: I'll be the judge of that. Errol Morris, please, Now,

565
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: when you sat down with him, described me, what is

566
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: this list of films? You you you you you watched?

567
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: He had you watch, You had him watch. I asked

568
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: him about his favorite films. He's a film producer and

569
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: a film lover, film lover, filmmaker. UM, I asked him

570
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: about his favorite films. His favorite favorite film Twelve o'clock High,

571
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 1: which you know I've seen thousands of American films. I

572
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 1: hadn't seen twelve o'clock. Um. The first week of Harvard

573
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: Business School, what does the entire class watch Twelve o'clock High?

574
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: Gregory pecks best performance? Much better than To Kill a

575
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: mocking Bird? Yes, yes, yes, it's a lot less sappy

576
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: and the movie is amazing. It's insane, it's neihilistic, it's dark.

577
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 1: What do you have to do in order to win

578
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: a battle against Nazi Germany. You do what you're told

579
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: to do, and you do it, no matter whether you're

580
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,399
Speaker 1: going to live or die. You do it because that's

581
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 1: a fulfillment of your destiny, your dharma, your duty. Okay,

582
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's what you have to do in

583
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:24,280
Speaker 1: order to win a war against fascism. But Bannon uses

584
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock High as the model for the twenty sixteen election.

585
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: So a movie about battling fascism becomes suddenly a story

586
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: about promoting fascism, or in their mind, battling the deep

587
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: state and the entrenched political permanent political class in Washington.

588
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,240
Speaker 1: Remember he says that the permanent political class in Washington.

589
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: It's incredibly ironic, the railing against the deep state, the

590
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: permanent political class, the Party of Davos. This is a

591
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: guy who went to Harvard Business School, who worked for

592
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: Goldman Sachs, who gets his money from right wing fascist billionaires,

593
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: and is telling you that he is a champion of

594
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: the people. It's right out of Facing the Crowd, one

595
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,959
Speaker 1: of my very very favorite movies. But he wasn't willing

596
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: to watch that movie video. I didn't pick these movies

597
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: at all. He picked them and we discussed them. Uninterested

598
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: in getting inside somebody's head, and how do you even

599
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: do that? You have to have some kind of strategy.

600
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: My strategy was movies. Put him in a set which

601
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 1: is based on his favorite movie, Twelve o'clock High. Put

602
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 1: him right in the Kanci Hut where Gregory Peck General

603
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: Savage in the movie addresses the troops. There he is

604
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:08,240
Speaker 1: addressing the troops kind of sort of in my movie

605
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: and Action and Action. I love this movie. I showed

606
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: it to a group of journalists at the Nieman Foundation

607
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: at Harvard, and one of these journalists said, now, you

608
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 1: know this is not how you should interview Stephen Bannon.

609
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: You know it, well, guess what I don't know it?

610
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: And what did they mean? They meant that this should

611
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:50,399
Speaker 1: have been Charlie Rose, where David Frost, no metaphors, no filmmaking,

612
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: no desire to tease out the unexpected or something that

613
00:42:55,880 --> 00:43:00,040
Speaker 1: you don't know? Did you? Yes, what's an example of

614
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: something he said that you thought? There it is. It's

615
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: the overwhelming feeling that this is not a plan for

616
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: anything but a plan for destruction. In the film, at

617
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: some point I called Trump the fuck You President because

618
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 1: for all those people out there in the world who

619
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: have wanted to say fuck you to their teachers, fuck

620
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: you to their neighbors, fuck you to their families, fuck

621
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: you to the state, he's their guy. And Stephen Bannon.

622
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: Despite all of the populous talk doing good for the

623
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: working class, um, preserving jobs for American labor, despite all

624
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: of that whoha, at the heart of it is something

625
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: deeply destructive and nasty. Um. There is a destructive anger

626
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: I feel at the heart of almost everything that he says. Um.

627
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: Trump as well, that's the one thing that does unite them.

628
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: Wherever the truth was damaged, altered, defaced, Vietnam, the Rand Corporation, Elsberg,

629
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: all these seismic events in our life. When people see

630
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: truth corrupt, truth is never corrupted. Baby, our willingness to

631
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 1: pursue the truth because we're burned out, and we're also

632
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: and I can speak for myself here, we're scared. Um,

633
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 1: there's this shock. I remember people talk about the day

634
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. For

635
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: those people old enough to remember, like myself, I will

636
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: never forget the day that Trump was elected president of

637
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: the United States when it beg came clear that he

638
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: actually was going to win the election. A nightmare, A

639
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:14,479
Speaker 1: nightmare that I hope eventually we recover from. Um and

640
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:19,479
Speaker 1: people got angry. It's a really interesting phenomenon. Someone said

641
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: to me, I don't want to believe this to be true,

642
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: but alas I think it is true. People got so

643
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: angry at this movie and got angry at me for

644
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:34,359
Speaker 1: having made the movie that I was attacked. You know

645
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: that theory kill the messenger. It's a good a good theory.

646
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're going to kill someone, the messenger

647
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: standing right there, why not kill him or her? I UM,

648
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: I received this anger, and it's as if people don't

649
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: want to deal with it. They want it just so badly.

650
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: Please Mommy, make it go away. You want to treat it.

651
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 1: Look at an emily, it's an anomaly, or even worse

652
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 1: that it's not even happening, that somehow, if I patiently

653
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:12,399
Speaker 1: hide in the closet, that it'll go away. Mommy will

654
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: fix it. Mommy will see to it that this bad

655
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: guy is pushed out of office and America is restored

656
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: to the splendor that it once was. We're a world

657
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: of magical thinking today. I mean, Bannon is a he's

658
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: a wizard. He is a wizard, he's a snake oil salesman,

659
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 1: he is a very frightening guy. And he won, and

660
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: he won. I think that's important to remember, and then

661
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: ask yourself the important question, do you want him to

662
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: win again? I most certainly do not. This is Alec

663
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. After our

664
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: your view, I realized I still had a couple more

665
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: questions for Maras. Thank you so much. It's Alec, Thank

666
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 1: you so much for taking this phone call. This is

667
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: not a cold call from some policeman's benevolent association. I

668
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 1: hope it's a caulle from a T and T. Years ago,

669
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: when I kept failing to pay my phone bill, phone

670
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: company was after me. They were hot on my ass,

671
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: and my stepfather took me aside and said to me, Errol,

672
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,640
Speaker 1: don't you think it's time you turned yourself into the

673
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 1: phone company? And I looked at him and I said, hmmmmm, no,

674
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 1: I don't think I want to do that. Well, while

675
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,799
Speaker 1: I have you, I want to ask you. I want

676
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,839
Speaker 1: to ask you about collaboration. We wanted to append every

677
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: now and then I think about things I did not

678
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,399
Speaker 1: due to my satisfied action. And I wanted to talk

679
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: to you just briefly about collaborations, because obviously as a

680
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: filmmaker you have fairly steady you know, there's a couple

681
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: of films you've made with different people, and I just

682
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,879
Speaker 1: wanted to go through some of these folks. Now. Of course,

683
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 1: the first one that comes to mine is Glass, because

684
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 1: I downloaded and I watched Fog of War again the

685
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 1: other day, and I've rarely I'm kind of a nut

686
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:27,719
Speaker 1: for score and music and how well it fits or

687
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: how intrusive it is, and blah blah blah. And he

688
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: composed that original score. You didn't access some material of

689
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: this that was original score for the film? Correct, I

690
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: with him at the piano. I've rarely heard score that

691
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 1: was more compelling than that score for Fogg of War

692
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: was beautiful, And I was wondering, how did you first

693
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: begin your collaboration with Glass? How did you guys find

694
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: each other? Well, I had shot most of the symbol

695
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: line I was editing. I was using scratch tracks. When

696
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 1: you're editing a film music hasn't been written for the film,

697
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: you need something to edit with what had I added with?

698
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: I added with Philip Glass, various tracks from music that

699
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: he had written previously, from Glass works from in the

700
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: upper Room. It works. So kept saying, we need to

701
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:22,839
Speaker 1: find somebody who can write like Philip Glass. And then

702
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 1: there was that do we want to call it an epiphany?

703
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,760
Speaker 1: Why I'd get the dude himself when I'd get Philip

704
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: not so easy. I just kept nagging him and nagging

705
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,800
Speaker 1: him to see the film, and we set up a screening.

706
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: He reluctantly came in, looked at the kind of the

707
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: sinboo line and immediately said, I'm righting, wow, And it

708
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 1: was really really I mean, we've done many things together now,

709
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: but it was really interesting collaboration. Um. I remember sitting

710
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 1: at the piano with him and one, you know, the

711
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:09,800
Speaker 1: trouble with this music is it's just not repetitive enough.

712
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:12,800
Speaker 1: And he gave me this very funny look and he said,

713
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: that's a new one. But the collaboration works. I believe

714
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 1: we work really really well together. Fantastic now when he

715
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: when you work with someone like that, and I apologize

716
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: because I should have asked you this earlier, but uh,

717
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: did you have any background of music? You say, you

718
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,879
Speaker 1: sat at the piano, so you played. And when you're

719
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: there with him, is he putting four things and playing

720
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: selections for you and music, you know, pieces of it

721
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: for you and you are just going great? Yes? Or

722
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: do you actually make suggestions to him about what you

723
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 1: want in terms of the film's music. I was, I mean,

724
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 1: I said all kinds of crazy things to him that

725
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:59,720
Speaker 1: are probably deeply inappropriate. How so, why well? I remember

726
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,359
Speaker 1: him playing the main cue for the thin Boe line.

727
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: I said, you know, if you raise that voice up

728
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: an octave, I think it could be much even two octaves.

729
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,919
Speaker 1: And he did, and then he said, I think you're right.

730
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 1: What's the last project you did with him? Oh? We

731
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: did Fog of War. We did a filmed commemorate hundredth

732
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:26,280
Speaker 1: anniversary of IBM together, and he for my new series.

733
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:30,240
Speaker 1: So it's an ongoing relationship. And I am a fan.

734
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:34,239
Speaker 1: I've always been a fan, and I remain a fan.

735
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,240
Speaker 1: You two had the same music teacher over in France?

736
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: Is that correct? We did? Who was that teacher? Can

737
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 1: you believe that? Well? I guess I can act with you.

738
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: Anything is possible. Was it was the the formidable, frightening

739
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: Naughtia Bolage herself, and you were with her when still

740
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:00,320
Speaker 1: in high school. It's a thousand years ago. The done

741
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: um one of the other collaborations. I just want to

742
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 1: hit some of the key ones here was Doug Able

743
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:06,800
Speaker 1: and you just did Fog of War with him. He

744
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,040
Speaker 1: didn't You didn't do any other projects with him. I

745
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: did something you would really really like, which is a

746
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: portrait of Rick Rossner, one of the smartest men in

747
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: the world. What's the name of the film. I think

748
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 1: it's called One in a thousand million trillion. Was it released,

749
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 1: It was on television. It was part of a person

750
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 1: It's really one of the strangest and one of the

751
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: funniest things I've ever done. I'll look it up. I

752
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:39,760
Speaker 1: have this misfortune. No one thinks. Maybe I can convince

753
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:42,719
Speaker 1: you that I'm funny, But it's that rum Sell. Did

754
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 1: we talk about Rumsfeld? Well, you told me that you

755
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 1: thought Rumsfeld was the least I don't want to say

756
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: self disclosive, but that's really not the goal, I guess

757
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 1: when you're talking to people like that, but just the

758
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: most up to If that's a version I have a

759
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:04,760
Speaker 1: version of his, oh none unknown, etcetera. Etcetera. My version

760
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: is the known funny. For example, you would be the

761
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: known funny. I know that you're funny. I find you funny.

762
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 1: You constantly say funny things. And there is the known unfunny.

763
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: We're all familiar with that. Yes, I would put RUMFLD

764
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: in that category, the known unfunny, the known deeply unfunny.

765
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: We released the film and call it that. Well, let's

766
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:32,359
Speaker 1: look at some old footage to see if we can

767
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: foot Then there's another category, the unknown unfunny, which is

768
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 1: a very scary category. It's deeply unfunny, but you don't

769
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 1: know it yet. For that describes half the things I

770
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: see on TV. Only half. Yeah, well, I'm trying to

771
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: be kind. I'm trying to be too negative. If I

772
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 1: told the truth about how I felt about you know,

773
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: much of what's going on after that would be a

774
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 1: sunny from this conversation. Are you going to work with me?

775
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: That's the only question that I'm interested in the answer

776
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: is yes. The answer is fuck yes, Well, I would

777
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 1: be pleased to work with you. We will think of

778
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 1: what we can do, think of what we could anything.

779
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:11,360
Speaker 1: You need, anything you need to please, don't don't hesitate

780
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: to contact me. Now. So, so when you're with able

781
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 1: and someone like that, I mean, I'm assuming that you're

782
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,840
Speaker 1: very hands on editing. What does an editor do for

783
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 1: you other than just give you an assembly? They work

784
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: with me, We talk, we think about what we're doing together.

785
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: They're a companion. Did you have an editor that you

786
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: thought you worked really really closely with it? You had

787
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:36,680
Speaker 1: fabulous editors? My editor as we speak, Stephen Hathaway here,

788
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,399
Speaker 1: who is one of the editors on Fog of War,

789
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: Doug Abel. I've been lucky. I've been lucky with cameraman,

790
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: with editors, with producers, I've been unlucky too, But I

791
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:50,879
Speaker 1: for the most part, been very very lucky. I mean,

792
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:52,800
Speaker 1: have you ever worked with an editor more than once?

793
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: Of course you have, because I look, I look at

794
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: the I look at the you know, I am my

795
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 1: current editor, Stephen Hathaway has been working for me for

796
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 1: twenty years. What makes it? What makes a good editor? Uh?

797
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:11,280
Speaker 1: He's really smart, really good idea of structure and story,

798
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: and he actually rolls up the sleeves and immediately gets

799
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: to work. All he lives on the dailies. You know,

800
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:25,839
Speaker 1: the only thing, it's not clear that I'm really good

801
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,839
Speaker 1: for anything. But I'm a dailies producer. It's what an

802
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: editor wants. Please give me more dailies. The ted Bathe

803
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:38,800
Speaker 1: Lucas was your production designer, an amazing and amazing character.

804
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 1: He workedn't in Baffal Lucas work with Let me look

805
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:46,720
Speaker 1: up and see he worked with Levinson and he uh

806
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 1: trying to see what else he did. It is a

807
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 1: kind of um not that every story is in a

808
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:58,320
Speaker 1: tragic story properly considered. But one of the most talented

809
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: people that I have ever met, certainly one of the

810
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: most talented people I've ever worked with, and he was

811
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 1: never really given his due. He should have been directing many, many,

812
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:14,839
Speaker 1: many films. He directed one film limited distribution, but as

813
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: a kind of film called Rockers. What was his wife?

814
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: Didn't he have a wife in the business? That was

815
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: almost he did that. That's that Eugenie Buffaloucas, that I

816
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:29,279
Speaker 1: worked with her, I worked with her. That that's the

817
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: ke the connection I had with him. I remember his wife.

818
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 1: I remember his wife. We worked and we worked, we

819
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 1: worked together for um. I think probably something with Denny,

820
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 1: something with DEMI. That makes sense. Yeah, let me ask

821
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 1: you just two more here. Robert Chappell. I can't reraman

822
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 1: that I've worked again and again with Chopsky, who did

823
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 1: the Sinbouline, who also did Batman Returns. Someone asked me

824
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,399
Speaker 1: I was being interviewed for the d g A. They

825
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: asked me, why are all so dark in the thin law?

826
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 1: And I thought, what what are you saying? This is

827
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: about a murder that occurred on a dark roadway in

828
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 1: West Dallas close to midnight? Film noir documentary, if anything?

829
00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 1: Would you ask a film noir director say you're talking

830
00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: to Jacques Tuner about how to the Past. Would you

831
00:57:27,040 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 1: say to him, Oh, no, no, sancha so dark? What

832
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 1: was that about? It's a dark story involved the cop killing. Still,

833
00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:44,440
Speaker 1: to this day, the way people see documentary, it's as

834
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,160
Speaker 1: if they don't even see it. They see something other

835
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: than I want to show the Eugenie Baffalupas did Miami Blues,

836
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: the movie that I did that Demi produced and George

837
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 1: Armitage were directed, and then she did Grass Point movie.

838
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 1: It's it's a looping movie, but but I had a

839
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: good time. Ye. George did Gross point Blank with um sure,

840
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 1: and let's not forget the guy that I work now.

841
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 1: It was my dp Igor Mortinovich, who is just kind

842
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 1: of fabulous. He did Wormwood, he did American Dharma. He's

843
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 1: doing my news here. You're not the best I've seen,

844
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:24,480
Speaker 1: but you're up there in terms of this game you

845
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 1: play where you just you know, people love you and

846
00:58:26,400 --> 00:58:29,480
Speaker 1: admire you, and you do what I do. And I

847
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:31,720
Speaker 1: mean in the Irish maybe the Jews are like the Irish,

848
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:33,920
Speaker 1: where it's like, let's just get this over with. That's

849
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:37,400
Speaker 1: my theory of life. We know what's gonna end. The

850
00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 1: Irish way of living is, let's just get this over

851
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:42,520
Speaker 1: we know what's gonna end. Let's just cut to the ending.

852
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: Maybe we can be in a nursing home together. I

853
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: always told my wife literally, I said, when I die,

854
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:50,840
Speaker 1: if I could, maybe you could shoot this movie. It

855
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: would be great you and all your gang. Philip Glass

856
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: could do the music. It would be so compelling. I

857
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: said to my wife. If I found that I'm gonna

858
00:58:57,280 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: die they had a terminal illness, we'll go to film

859
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 1: it all. We're gonna film. You know, the doctor's gonna say,

860
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:04,760
Speaker 1: I think you need to come in and see me

861
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:07,120
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. Boom, we get the cameras. Do

862
00:59:07,200 --> 00:59:09,760
Speaker 1: we go in he says you have cancer, and we

863
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: find that I'm sick, and by the end I'm in

864
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 1: the bed and we do split screen and you kind

865
00:59:15,080 --> 00:59:17,760
Speaker 1: of see a camera like kind of like raking over

866
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: my face, a little little light coming through the window,

867
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 1: but you see the monitor at the foot of the

868
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: bed in the other split screen. So when I flatline

869
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:28,000
Speaker 1: and I'm dead, the moment I die, it's on camera.

870
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 1: We filmed the moment. I just go, did he really

871
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:37,800
Speaker 1: he filmed the moment of his death. He filmed the

872
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 1: whole week his dropping dead? Yeah, and when was anything

873
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:45,640
Speaker 1: ever done? I think that we did it come out?

874
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: You mean that your local multiplex? Yes, it's available where

875
00:59:53,680 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 1: it's like everything else on YouTube. Of course it's on YouTube.

876
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: What isn't on YouTube? Oh god, oh god, oh god.

877
01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: Let's make a movie about that. I'll play Leary. No,

878
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 1: you don't want to do a narrative film. We're doing

879
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,720
Speaker 1: a narrative film. Let's do it all right, Let's do

880
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 1: do me a favor. I always say the same thing,

881
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 1: just but let me finish my question. Representation. Have you

882
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 1: ever agents managers? Has anybody ever helped guide your career

883
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:27,959
Speaker 1: and open doors for you? Are you. Like most people

884
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 1: I know who are extraordinarily talented, you just get the

885
01:00:30,200 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: work yourself. It all just comes to you yourself. I

886
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 1: have perhaps the most powerful agent in the business. I

887
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:42,240
Speaker 1: can't really recall what he's done for me. Yeah. Well,

888
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: my agent would say to me, I want you to

889
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:46,920
Speaker 1: read this script, and he would start to describe the

890
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 1: merits of the film, and I would say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

891
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 1: no no no, don't do that, don't do that, don't

892
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:54,560
Speaker 1: do that. I said, you're an air traffic controller. You

893
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:57,160
Speaker 1: just land the plane and make sure there's plenty of

894
01:00:57,280 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 1: peanuts and diet coke on board, and then we take

895
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 1: off again. And I said, I'm not interested in your

896
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:05,680
Speaker 1: creative interpretation of the material. This way on the plane,

897
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: there was a terrible crash at San Francisco International Airport.

898
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: Some plane came in from I believe it was Korea

899
01:01:14,520 --> 01:01:21,480
Speaker 1: and they crashed. Um people were killed horribly. And very

900
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: shortly after that, I flew into San Francisco and as

901
01:01:25,600 --> 01:01:28,480
Speaker 1: I'm getting off the plane, I looked at the pilot

902
01:01:29,040 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: and said, thank you for not hitting the sea wall.

903
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 1: It's a very strange look, but I thought it was appropriate.

904
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 1: Thank you. For landing the plane. Well, let me just

905
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:41,280
Speaker 1: say this to you. I'm gonna find out how I

906
01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 1: can email your office. I don't want your personal contact,

907
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:46,320
Speaker 1: but i'll get like an assistant and office email something

908
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:49,240
Speaker 1: that's appropriate. And I'm gonna make you so sorry that

909
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:51,800
Speaker 1: you mentioned working with me, because I'm just going to

910
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 1: keep pulsing you and pinging you and driving you insane

911
01:01:55,800 --> 01:01:57,840
Speaker 1: until you let me come. I'll play a cab driver,

912
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:01,360
Speaker 1: I'll play a Somali. Yeah. I don't give a ship,

913
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: how small it is. I just want to shoot something

914
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 1: with you. I have trouble driving me insane because I'm

915
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 1: already there. Well, we're gonna drive you further down down

916
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: the well of insanity. Many thanks to you. I wanted

917
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: to put this in there about collaborations with you. That's

918
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 1: very important, okay, and thank you for doing this. People

919
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 1: bonded to it. What's the word favorably? I gotta I

920
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many people have said this something

921
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: to me. People come up to me all the time

922
01:02:26,200 --> 01:02:28,280
Speaker 1: and they'll go and the more unusual if it's somebody

923
01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:30,520
Speaker 1: that we know is on a tour and you know

924
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 1: somebody who's selling a book or what have you. We

925
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: don't object to that. I mean, that's a part of

926
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 1: the business. But I have had so many people say

927
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:39,200
Speaker 1: to me how much they love this interview with you.

928
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 1: You have many, many, many, many many admirers out there. Many. Well,

929
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 1: I am on a tour. I'm on a tour to nowhere.

930
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 1: I want to go on that tour with you. Let

931
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 1: me come on tour with you, tour again. I'd have

932
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 1: a lovely day and thank you. Okay, we're on a

933
01:02:57,440 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: tour to nowhere together. M Errol Morris, the director of

934
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:11,440
Speaker 1: the Steve Bannon portrait American Dharma. I'm Alec Baldwin and

935
01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:12,880
Speaker 1: this is here's the thing.