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Hey, folks, today's episode is brought to you by the new five part Showtime documentary series, The Comedy Store. Yup, that one featuring the biggest names in the comedy world. Letterman, Leno, Carrie, Whoopi, Whitney Mendell Marrin. Yeah, that's right, people. I'm in this thing plus many, many more. The lineup is one for the ages never before seen. Stand up sets, interviews and personal stories are revealed every week as comic legends pay tribute to the L.A. landmark that made them into stars.

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The Comedy Store premieres Sunday, October 4th, at 10:00 p.m., only on Showtime. Also, turn your great idea into a reality with Squarespace. Squarespace makes it easier than ever to launch your passion project. Whether you're showcasing your work or selling products of any kind with beautiful templates and the ability to customize just about anything, you can easily make a beautiful website yourself. And if you do get stuck, Squarespace is 24/7. Award winning customer support is there to help head to Squarespace Dotcom slash WTF for a free trial.

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And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code to save 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain. Can you dig it? Let's do the show, lock the gate. All right, let's do this, how are you? What the fuck is what the fuck buddies? What the fuck next? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. WTF, trying not to freak out, trying not to freak out, barely holding on Barbara Kopple.

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Is on the show today, she is a documentary filmmaker, she did Harlan County, USA, she did Wild Man Blues. She got a doc out about that soul singer, Sharon Jones.

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I just got a record of hers. I don't know her. I'm excited to listen to the record. I had no idea.

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But anyways, she's got a new one out called Desert One, and we talk about that and the rest of it and a Sprint commercial that she directed in Texas, which I was in.

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Here's the fucking thing about cats, about owning a cat. Those of you who are watching me on Instagram haven't seen me dealing with this. Is that.

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Buster, I guess it was Monday. My cat, Buster, who we've been getting along pretty well, he's an odd cat and he's an intense cat, but he I don't know, somehow he was up on the couch and he jumped off the couch and his one of his legs got tangled up in the cord for the blinds. And it got really knotted up and tangled very quickly. And he was flailing around, freaking out like cats in a panic do.

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And I guess the intelligent thing would have been to just cut the goddamn cord. But I did not. I grabbed the cat and I tried to take, you know, get his I grabbed him and then he just fucking chomped. He just bit me between my thumb and forefinger right on that fleshy part, hard like his wife depended on it. And I still had to get him out from this fucking being tied up. So I grabbed his legs, I fucking tied him and he scurried off and had this massive puncturing cat bite on both sides of my hand.

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And I cleaned it up and then I exercised and it started to sort of like swell.

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And there was fluid coming out. And I'm like, fuck. And then people on Instagram were freaking me out. So I messaged my doctor three times. I got a video appointment, I got antibiotics. I got on Augmentin, you know, within 12 hours of getting this fucking bite. And I've been on it for a couple of days now. There's a redness spreading.

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And I just like if I fucking die from a goddamn cat bite, the irony will be too much for me. But if that's the way I've got to go, that's the way I got to go. It would make sense. As ironic as it is, it's a perfectly appropriate way for me to die from a bacterial infection from my fucking cat. I didn't realize I heard the cat's mouths were garbage. But Jesus, fuck, man, I mean, the swelling seems a little better, but it's just I don't know, I guess I'll wait another day.

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What else can I do? But I was laying in bed, freaking out, reading the information, Googling the symptoms of cat bites, infections, it's probably a bacterial infection, but if you get sepsis, that can knock you out like 24 to 72 hours. And then I'm sitting there the day of the cat bite thinking I'm going to die in my fucking bed from a cat bite. And I start to realize, like, this is one of the horrible things.

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This is why people don't want to be alone, whether you like people or not. This is why people stay in things. That they may not want to be in because it's easier or whatever. Bottom line, though, is if something goes wrong, there's an emergency. You kind of want someone there to help out, call the place, do the thing like I did with Lynne. Someone you know, what happens is you just going to lay there and die from a cat bite by yourself.

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Jesus Christ. They started thinking, like, have I even updated my emergency contacts, how many are still then so fucking sad, man.

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It was a sad spiral, a bad rabbit hole, me dying, fevered of sepsis in my bed buster living coming up to say hi in the morning, finding my corpse. And realizing I did it, now the house is all mine. So that's what's happening with me, I'm just obsessed about my hand. It does feel better. I'm trying not to freak out. I don't know if I would have freaked out if people didn't freak me out. I guess that's the benefit.

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And the curse of doing live Instagram chats and being relatively honest is you get a lot of opinions. But, you know, it got me on I got on the antibiotics pretty quickly. I will say, fuck it, man, fucking what difference does it make?

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On a lighter note, I you know, I don't know I don't know if I saw The Karate Kid because I think he came out and I was too old for it, then came out in the mid 80s. I was already in college. I was already snoddy in watching art films and getting deep. So I think I missed my generation.

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I don't think I ever saw the entire Karate Kid, but because, you know, I'm alone over here and I don't know what to do with myself. I got into watching Cobra Kai, which I guess was a it was a YouTube production originally, and now it's on Netflix.

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And it's basically it's The Karate Kid characters grown up now, current day. And I ended up watching all of them got involved with the good and evil aspect, you know, it's a little ridiculous, but there's something about the way that that guy, William Zamka, he you know, he's the guy that plays Johnny Lawrence.

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But just to see how they age these two guys was is kind of genius. And I think he does a great job playing the aging douchebag, bitter loser guy. I think it's very it's inspired, really. Ralph Macchio is Ralph Macchio and he does a good job, too. But there's something about the beaten dude that kind of kind of sucked me in.

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And I found it to be relatively mindless but enjoyable, emotionally moving entertainment fodder, watched all of them. This isn't a plug. I just maybe I related.

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I don't know, maybe it just he really does it. He does it. He does a good job with the character.

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So, you know, that's one thing that become more open to as covid rips through the world and we become more isolated.

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And I'm sad and, you know, in my grief and in my house.

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And you know what? The political situation with the hopelessness, with everything else, I've become acutely sensitive to people's performances in almost anything acutely appreciative of of acting and the process of it.

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I'm a little more aware of it, having done a little bit myself. But now I'm really watching to see how people show up for these roles and what they're doing with everything I'm watching, it's kind of I don't know what's causing it. It's exciting.

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Maybe it's my need to escape desperately.

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And as we all have, because I am I am tethered painfully to the to the present and to reality.

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And every once in a while I get away. It's nice to have dreams these days, people, they're not easy to come by, so when you've got a good one, don't waste it. That's why you need to turn your dream into a reality with Squarespace. Squarespace remains the best way for you to launch your passion project, whether you're looking to start a new business, showcase your work, published content, sell products, whatever it is you want to do.

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Squarespace is the tool for you with beautiful templates created by World-Class designers and the ability to customize just about anything with a few clicks. You can easily make a beautiful website all by yourself.

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We know it's an important time to be able to sell things online. So sell whatever you want with this Squarespace ecommerce functions. You never need to upgrade or patch anything and you look great on whatever device you're using. And don't forget about their award winning customer support, which is there to help you 24/7. Head to Squarespace dot com slash WTF for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code WTF to save 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain that Squarespace dot com slash WTF offer code.

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WTF.

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All right. Here's a dumb story that happened to me. I'll share it with you. Why not some walking around my neighborhood, going in a supermarket and down my street there's a lime tree, right? Pretty sure was a lime tree. I never noticed it before, but I'm walking back from the supermarket.

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I see all these little limes and I'm like, wow, they're not going to eat all these limes. And I look at the limes close and like, I've never seen lines like these. These look really interesting. Skin's different. Must be a different breed of lime than I have my life. Tree didn't do much this year.

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I don't know. I got sad. I don't know. I was just sort of like not into it so few times and that was the end of it. But these were weird.

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They had a cool skin. It was a deeper green and like, cool.

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Now I'm just going to snag you these limes.

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So I brought him home and I used them as limes and they tasted fine, like three or four of them. And then yesterday I go back there and I'm like, I grab some more of those weird climes.

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And so I picked them. And as I was picking them, I realized, like one of them was changing color up towards the top.

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And I'm like, oh, man, these aren't limes. This is an orange tree.

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These are way unripe oranges that I thought were cool looking limes that I'd never seen before. So I was basically using oranges that were just budding. As Lime's, I don't think it hurt me, but I did feel kind of stupid. These aren't lines.

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These are little unripe oranges. But then there was that moment. I'm like, I could still use them as lines, right? So I brought one home. I cut it up and I'm like, maybe I shouldn't. I don't know. But I wanted to hang on to the idea that they were limes, knowing really that they weren't and that that muscle is why the world is ending.

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So, Barbara Kopple, it's interesting.

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I think we go into it to the story of me when I was working years ago in a capacity in Texas, in Austin, and she was just out casting this commercial. And she I think she was a fan of mine. She came to the show.

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She was like one of ten people in this club. And I remember she booked me on a spring commercial because, yes, I remember her coming up and asking me, do you do commercials? And like, I don't usually is it selling out if you actually use the product?

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That was the big philosophical question back then, but as I said earlier, she's made a lot of great documentaries.

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Her her newest one, a one, is playing now on most video on demand platforms and in virtual cinemas. You can check out Desert One movie, Dotcom, to find out all your options to see it. I enjoyed it. I thought it was an interesting subject, one that's not explored that much, which is basically American failure militarily.

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And I thought she handled it beautifully and I thought it was a great a great film. And this is me talking to her and kind of pressing her for some reason. I think I misunderstand documentaries sometimes or the intention or what they're supposed to be. But she straightens me out. This is me talking to Barbara Kopple.

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Hi, Mark. Hi, Barbara, how are you? I haven't seen you since we were in Texas. I know that was so amazing, wasn't it?

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I'm trying to remember exactly how it went down. I remember I was doing a show. I was at Capacity Comedy Club. I was in the front room because I didn't sell enough tickets to be in the background. There must have been nine people in that audience.

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I was one of them right in your with another woman.

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Yes, she was from the ad agency. Right.

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And you came up to me and you said, do you do commercials? I said, not usually. What's it for? And you said, Sprint. And I said, why use Sprint? So maybe it wouldn't be so bad. What is it? Is that how you remember it?

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I remember it, yeah. I remember coming up to you and saying I was watching you. I'm blown away. And I just thought, I just wonder we're casting. I want to and thank goodness you said yes.

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Is that is that is that why you went to the comedy club? No, I wanted to see you know, I just went I mean, there I was. What was I going to do in that area? Right.

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And then the next day, I remember being at a school field and making children cry. Yes.

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And I got in trouble for making children cry. That woman who is head of the spot, even though that's what they wanted me to do, said if she makes another child cry, I'm going to scream. And I said, OK, I think I went a little overboard.

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My recollection is you were telling me in the earbud in the earpiece to get reactions from the kids. And I said to one of the kids, I asked him if he liked Harry Potter and the kids said yes. And I said, well, he dies in the next movie. And and he cried. That's what I remember. Yeah.

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There was a lot of crying for all of those different spots. I did a whole lot of them at that school. I think it was a Christian school. So the kids were very obedient. Right.

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Well, I remember sitting at lunch with the crew and they would not sit with me. They would not look at me. They were like, you know, that's that monster making kids cry.

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Oh, I didn't know that.

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It's all right. I recovered from it, but that I loved it. I love that you did it. And I thank you. I thank you.

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I'm sure I could use the money. I wasn't selling tickets clearly. So let me ask you a question about this, about the new dock. We can sort of start there. You know, this desert one.

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I watched it quite you have I like Gimme Shelter. That was one of the first things films I worked on with the Masel Brothers. I know.

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I had the big poster back there. Yeah. Yeah. That was for the the reissue of the that was for the new print. The restored print. Yeah. I want to talk about that too.

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But I'm curious about, you know, this Desert One, which is about the botched Iranian hostage rescue attempt.

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Like why this this film now?

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Well, the History Channel was going to do a hundred different feature length documentaries about little known pieces of history. People really had the same I mean, people saw the hostage crisis, but they really never saw the mission because it was a secret mission and it failed. And, yes, it totally failed Murphy's Law that anything could go wrong with everything.

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But but I think that's what's interesting about, you know, the you know, the times we live in. And the timing of the thing is that, you know, American failure is this weird, sort of shameful thing. And I thought that was what was sort of fascinating about it. But I'm sorry to interrupt the History Channel.

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Now, you can interrupt anytime you want. But anyway, they only ended up doing four or five of them. And one of them on the list was Desert One. And we saw it and we thought, this is incredible. It's very challenging. Plus, we have to figure out how to make the mission come alive because there was not one photograph, not anything except for the wreckage on the Iranian side.

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Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Later they had the wreckage. They kept the wreckage.

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Right. They kept the wreckage. But also they put some stuff on the news with the bodies. And, you know, that they somehow framed it as a victory that God had had had helped them in this botched attempt.

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And they still are. Every April 24th, they built a mosque on that site and they sing songs about their triumph.

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Yeah, I thought it was very interesting. It reminded me like like the sort of seeing documentaries like watching Ken Burns Vietnam, where he was able to to sort of really get in to and speak to the. Vietcong and North Vietnamese fighters was me profound in the same way that in Desert One you're talking to Iranian nationals who, you know, were there for the revolution, believed in the revolution, took part in the revolution and now part of mainstream politics in Iran.

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And they're willing to talk about this from their experience.

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Well, they're very hard line, except they totally believe in it, except for this one young man that we found. I didn't go to Iran because they wouldn't let us in. So we had a female crew, Iranian female crew, which was great. And they went to this small village near Tobias and found this guy who was 11 years old. He had always gone with his family on a bus once a year. The whole family went on a bus on a vacation.

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And he just they just happened to roll right into the whole military scene, the military mission. And they were stopped. They were held as hostages. And when all he wanted, though, he was telling us this story as if he was 11 years old again. And what he wanted to do was get home safe so he could tell all his friends about this exciting thing that he had seen. It was crazy, but I thought that was remarkable because there's so much commonality.

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Right and right. Right. Do the same thing. Right.

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Like, he didn't know what was going on, but it was cool. It was unbelievably cool. Yeah. For an 11 year old.

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Well, that was just like the first domino to fall first.

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They can't get the two helicopters through and then they only got six going in and they find this empty lake bed that with this dirt road through it and all of a sudden out of nowhere, this bus with 50 people or one family comes just driving in to this operation where they've just landed three planes and all these helicopters.

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It was crazy. And then it just goes worse and worse from there until tragedy, until horrible things happen. And like, I had no idea about that stuff. I you know, I didn't I didn't remember it in the thing you didn't, you know, linger on too long was the idea of whether or not the timing of it. It did. Reagan, you know, sort of through back channels stop Khomeini from, you know, releasing the hostages until after he was inaugurated.

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I, I would say that judging by the work that you guys did, that he probably didn't.

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Oh, I don't know. I think he he could have. Yeah.

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I think I just found out from Ambassador Limbert that his campaign manager went to Mexico and met with Iranians. Oh, really? Politically, this I just found this out in the last few days. It's a little late that you'll get a better deal from us. And Khamenei, of course, wanted to humiliate President Carter because he was taking care of the Shah for medical reasons.

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Yeah, but he wanted to do that anyways.

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Yeah, this was the last this was the last blast that Carter one minute after Reagan was inaugurated, the hostages were released.

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I get it. Why he wanted to humiliate what I'm think the stick from the sticking point for me is that he wanted to humiliate Carter either way. So it behooved him to wait either way.

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Yes. And this would be beautiful. Reagan would be in and boom, Reagan could announce the hostages for free. Right. You know, the thing that had just ripped apart President Carter.

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Right. And that but that could have happened without Reagan. Like I mean, he didn't have to get involved. It seemed like Khomeini would have done it, you know, was sharp enough to wait. Right.

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Right. It probably would have done it either way. Right. I have a question for you. Yeah.

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Which is what was it like to interview Barack Obama? Was it just wonderful? Because I know I've interviewed President Carter in this film. So how were you nervous? Were you how was it?

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Well, for me, it was a little more structured that I'm used to doing. And we only had an hour and it was a big deal.

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I was more nervous that I wouldn't be able to do the type of interview I do that there was sort of a lot of because I do personal interviews, you know, and I didn't want to get into the weeds with politics, really, because anybody could do that.

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And certainly he can. You know, that's a it's a way for him to be evasive and kind of boring.

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So it was really the trick was to figure out where I wanted to go with him and use the time efficiently, cover what was necessary to be covered, but still get a sense of who he was.

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So, you know, very quickly, I found him to be very disarming and I. And, you know, it did just become a couple of people, a couple of guys talking, which was the best I could hope for, so so in that way it was surprising in that he was sort of pretty down to earth, really.

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And how did you do it? I mean, did it take a long time for you to get to know?

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Because, you know, we we were open to it. That was their idea, you know? You know, they you know, it was you know, he was on the verge of becoming somewhat of a lame duck. It was in the last year of his of his last term. And, you know, and I think they were like, this would be good if he does this.

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But, you know, coincidentally, in horribly, you know, there was that horrendous shooting, that Dylann Roof guy shot up that church and killed all those people, like days before, you know, we interviewed him and, you know, we thought it was certainly going to be canceled.

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But, you know, he chose to continue. You know, he came in and we had to address certain things around around race and around guns and around violence. And and that became the most of the politics we talked about, which is good, because it's not really politics.

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It's it's you know, it's human emotion. It's human horror.

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Yeah. Now, let me ask you about that, because right after watching, I've talked to a few documentarians and I've watched your stuff from way back. I watched you. I watched Harlan County.

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And what is it that why do people who make documentaries feel like they need to use animation now? When did that happen?

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Well, I had to use it and I know what I know. So obviously there are no photographs, there was no footage, there was no nothing. All I could do was listen to what the guys told me and then we had to recreate it. And we had an Iranian animator. We got all the history books out to see what helicopters looked like then and see once there, really. And we did it absolutely to perfection. It was the only way in which we could tell the story.

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And what was really incredible is that the guy said, how did you do this? This is exactly as we remember it.

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You mean the American soldiers? Yeah, the American soldiers.

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I found like I found that stuff very moving that, you know, how this haunted those guys. You know, that the failure of it that it was out of their control and that decisions were made.

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But most of the failure was just, you know, just blotched shit. It wasn't it wasn't anyone's fault, really. They were they did everything they could. It seemed like they were about they were bailing on it. You know, when the ship went down, they were bailing on it because they were one of the helicopters was fucked up. Right.

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Well, they could bail and they could have six helicopters that had to be working that they didn't. They had five. So three of the helicopters went down. But it's interesting because the hostages didn't know anything about it. They thought that they were abandoned and nobody was coming to help them or to do anything. And one of them, Ambassador John Limbert, found a newspaper and he spoke the language and he read it and read about the mission right to him.

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They were heroes. And it spread throughout all the hostages that these people risked their lives to try to save them. So they didn't feel alone. Right.

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It was a crazy mission idea. Like the fact that they tried it was crazy. I mean, it seemed like such a tricky like with the technology where where it's at today, they couldn't have even thought to do that.

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Now, it was so many moving parts. And plus, for me, being able to film President Carter, unlike you getting to film Obama, it took me three months to be able to do that.

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Well, we didn't really film and we just talked to him and wanted to talk to him. But what did you find? You know, how did you find him as like what's your memory of him as a president? Because I feel like I was I was not really politically awake at that time. What year was that? Was it nineteen?

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The seven days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was in high school. I, you know, I knew him, I knew the image of him. I knew the peanut farmer, I knew the nice guy thing. I knew my my mother liked him. But what did you feel about him.

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Oh well, going back to that place, it's hard to go back to that place, but also how I feel about him now for meeting him and being with him. It was around the time he was the president, around the time that Harlan County came out. Right. And also to me, he's such a diplomat and he's such a humanitarian. And even now in his old age, he still goes in planes and he still goes and he helps people with houses, right?

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Yeah. He's just an incredible human being. When you compare him to what our world is today. Life is so different. Life, as you know, you're always on edge. You always feel like you're walking on broken glass because you don't know what this leadership is going to do. What's their next move?

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There is no leadership. There's there's there's intentional chaos. Yeah. Yeah. He's an egomaniac.

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Yeah. It's a vacuum of it's terrible. But I mean, I felt that with with Obama, too, that he's a very grounded guy and a thoughtful guy and a decent guy that was trying to to sort of, you know, balance out the nature of the power he had and also sort of nurture democracy. You know, it is a tough management position to to be a president, to manage, you know, to manage corporate interests, military interests, the interests of the people, and to figure out how to move forward through this system.

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That is certainly not perfect, but it is what it is.

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Yeah. For Carter, they said the only way you can talk to him is if you get in touch with a guy named Phil Weiss at the Carter Center. Yeah. So I call Phil Weiss and he would never call me back and his voicemail would go, Howdy, this is Phil Weiss. And on that and right now leave a message for me. So I decided I would have this relationship with his voicemail. So I called him every three or four days for three months.

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Yeah, him we shot this today. We have to have Carter because of A, B and C, gotta let us do it. And then one day my cell phone rang and this guy goes, Howdy. This is Phil Wise. And I said, yeah, I know your voice anywhere. And he said, OK, Barbara, we've decided we're going to let you film. You said you only have 20 minutes. And February 14th is the day that Valentine's Day.

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So I went and I got the best chocolates I could find to give to President Carter. I I've been in South Sudan and the women had made these crystal hearts. And so I brought a red heart for the first lady. And it was just an extraordinary interview. I mean, he doesn't like to talk very much about this because it's a failure.

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And did he give you more than 20? Nineteen minutes before it is seven seconds, but no shit. Yeah. See, that's so tricky about these guys, but even him I mean, you know, obviously he could have given you more time.

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They wouldn't they they wouldn't let him because his handlers had everything sort of PR staff for him in terms of how to frame the thing.

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Yeah, I couldn't even give him the chocolates in the heart because that would have come off my time. So I had to give it to one of his assistants to give to him.

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So many years later. What were they afraid of, do you think?

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I think making him go through this kind of anguish. And a friend of mine, Bernie Aronson, who was Mondale's speechwriter, said, Barbara, you're not going to get anything emotional out of this guy. He's just not going to do it. And so I said, yes, I well, I said, I'll bet you dinner. And so I went. And he was really emotional. I mean, when he talked when I asked him about how did you feel when these eight men died, what was that like for you?

[00:32:15]

And he just said I was heartbroken. What do you mean? What do you mean you are heartbroken? He said, Well, my father died when I was very young. And he said I never thought I'd have to go through those terrible feelings again. So it was it was very moving. I mean, I was very moved to to interview him and to be there with him and also to film Vice President Mondale, who was one of the few at that time, vice president, who was really into foreign affairs.

[00:32:47]

So it was a very interesting piece to do. Yeah.

[00:32:52]

And I thought you had all those recordings as well, which were great. You know, the sort of transitions between the general, you know, who was the liaison for the military operation and Vice President Mondale and President Carter was.

[00:33:06]

Yeah, I just you know, I, I sort of I don't know if I ever know. I guess no one really knows that story. We all know about the hostages.

[00:33:15]

We don't know about the mission. And it was also the beginning of Ted Koppel and Nightline. And, you know, I think Carter said to Ted Koppel, there were only two people who got anything out of this, and that was you with Nightline and Khomeini.

[00:33:36]

You are the only two successors as far as I'm concerned.

[00:33:41]

So, like, when you're approaching, you've done like dozens of documentaries at this point. And I see like you, I see the form evolving to a certain degree, sometimes as a form.

[00:33:53]

It seems like everybody thinks they can do it, but they can't.

[00:33:56]

That I agree with. It's it's huge. It takes the life out of you, but it gives you so much energy. I mean, it's sort of like you doing all these interviews where you put everything into it to try to get people to be relaxed and to spill everything, not go into the waves, but really talk about things. And that takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of thought. It takes a lot of research. It's to really be able to connect and to bring things out about people for sure.

[00:34:31]

And like, how did you like where did you like you grew up in New York.

[00:34:36]

I grew up in Scarsdale. New Westchester. Right. Westchester.

[00:34:41]

And a home that was so filled with love. It was amazing. Everything was for the children.

[00:34:50]

My parents were generous of spirit. You could talk to them about anything no matter what. And all they wanted was happiness. And I think for us.

[00:35:03]

And they were supportive and encouraging.

[00:35:05]

And what like what was your supportive, so encouraging? I was just so lucky. I mean, I think that what happened is that because I was so protected as a child, I was able, as an adult to go do things that were a lot more dangerous. And in effect, my son is the same way. I brought him up in a home that had so much love and so much protection and kept him in a bubble. And now he's an essential worker.

[00:35:43]

He's a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai, you know, during covid. And he does he works twelve days out of two weeks and tells me unbelievable stories. He has to sometimes talk to families of people who are coming off the ventilator. And so it's it's sort of interesting the turn that you take in the corners that you take depending on your background and. So what was like you grew up Jewish, Jewish, and what's your dad do with reform to reform early on, the reformed Jew thing?

[00:36:22]

Yes, I feel like they did. They were they didn't even exist until the 60s or 70s.

[00:36:27]

Did you know my parents were reformed Jews? I mean, we we didn't celebrate Hanukkah. We felt we had a Christmas tree, but it wasn't the religious part of the Christmas tree, just that it was beautiful. Yeah. My mom my mom bought it.

[00:36:43]

She had a couple of Christmas trees. She like Christmas lights. But I think we were categorically conservative Jews.

[00:36:51]

For me, the difference was always like in the reform temple. It wasn't unusual for the Cantor to play guitar like.

[00:36:58]

Right, right. Anything about since Drew and lots and singing and, you know, screwing around. Yes.

[00:37:07]

And it's what your what your dad do. My dad worked in textiles. He was a convertor and my mom was a housewife and a textile converter.

[00:37:19]

What does that mean?

[00:37:20]

Yes, it means that you take material and you redesign it. Oh, interesting.

[00:37:25]

So they were but they were like intellectual people they liked. Yes.

[00:37:30]

They read. They are. They had lots of friends. The arts. My mother's first cousin was a guy named Maria Burnett who wrote a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's, which became Casablanca. Did you know that guy was. Yes, I did. Yeah.

[00:37:47]

He was probably old by the time you were the remember, but I still knew.

[00:37:52]

It's funny when you grow up and Jewish families on the East Coast, you know, and someone there's a gathering. There's always someone who's like a hundred years old sitting in a chair that he wasn't quite that good.

[00:38:06]

Let's keep them at a hundred. You mean this extraordinary woman that I know who was a film producer named Lucy Jarvis just died at one hundred and two years old and she was amazing. She was the first woman to ever go to the Soviet Union, to Russia and film. She was the first woman to film in the loos and film in China. And she just had an extraordinary life. And, you know, I think she was one of my mentors.

[00:38:36]

She started Unions' at NBC for assistant editors and editors, just such a force. And she just died a few months ago. Wow.

[00:38:46]

That that's a that's a good run, but, you know, a productive life.

[00:38:50]

And she was so great because we go out to dinner and she could care less what she said, like, she would say terrible things and screen them in the restaurant about Trump and everything else. And we would all just sit at the table and laugh hysterically as all the people around us would be shocked and waiters. And we'd say, listen, she's almost one hundred and two now. She's going to say whatever she wants. You're lucky she's talking to you.

[00:39:21]

So OK. Yeah, take it. She's seeing things. Yes. Yeah. What compelled you to you?

[00:39:29]

When did you know that, you know, somehow that like you didn't did you study film in college.

[00:39:35]

You know, now clinical psychology. Huh.

[00:39:38]

So why were you interested in that at that time?

[00:39:41]

What was it that that made you interested in film or know in psychology? Well, it's very similar to what I do now because it's what makes people tick now. I guess it's figuring out who they are. And my son is a psychiatrist now. I get it.

[00:39:58]

But like, you know, when you're younger, you know what? You know what sort of drives you to make that decision, what you love?

[00:40:04]

Well, it was during it was during also the late 60s, early 70s. Right. Everybody was marching against the war in Vietnam, really understanding and thinking that our generation had all this power to change things and to do things. And for me to be able to really sink in and talk to people and see people who they had given lobotomies to or given because I had a six one six month work study program at North-Eastern, which is in Boston. But it was it was right up my alley because I just wanted to understand the times, understand the people, talk to people that had lobotomies.

[00:40:53]

Yeah. Yeah. What were at the hospital at Medfield State Hospital.

[00:40:58]

Yeah.

[00:40:58]

Because I had a six month work study and so that at that time were they still doing lobotomies.

[00:41:06]

They were just ending it. Frederick Wiseman's film came out. Around that time, Titicut Follies, and nobody was allowed to see it. I mean, I think because they said it took away the rights of the people in the institution. So I think it showed in one theater and that really motivated me to present a documentary at college.

[00:41:29]

Yeah. So that was the thing that provided the information that that lobotomies were sort of inhumane.

[00:41:36]

Yes, quite. Yes, it did. And you just saw how they were treated and what happened to them. And it was something that was readily done to people.

[00:41:46]

So so it sounds like to me that, you know, as you're moving towards some sort of clinical psychology degree, your life, that that movie was a turning point.

[00:41:57]

Yeah.

[00:41:57]

That that said to me, wow, this is something that I can do and I can get out the word about who people are, facilitate change to and facilitate change and just be on this unbelievable cultural, political and humanitarian journey.

[00:42:17]

So you got you got a degree in clinical psychology. Mm hmm. And then and then what happens?

[00:42:23]

And then I came to New York. Yeah. And I was taking a course in cinema verité at the new school. And there was a woman named Angela who sat next to me and she said, I work for these people named the Muslim Brothers and they're looking for an intern. There's no money. There's no nothing. Would you be interested? I said, are you kidding? I would love it if you knew Amarone.

[00:42:49]

I knew who they were. Yeah, of course. And so I started working with them, Alberton Davit, and they were so remarkable.

[00:42:58]

What were they working on when you took the job salesman. Oh, OK. Yeah, for door to door Bible salesmen. And I remember for the premiere because I felt I knew them so well from seeing the film. When I saw them at the premiere, I went up and gave them a big hug and they. Were you trying to explain to them what it was about? Yeah. So I work for themselves. I also worked a little on Gimme Shelter.

[00:43:33]

I was the person who carried davits audiotapes and I was the human tripod for Albert because he got on the sound recordist guy's shoulders, Stan Goldstein, and my job was to hold them up so he could shoot at Altamont.

[00:43:51]

Now, this was in Madison Square Garden. I didn't go to Altamont. That was the first show.

[00:43:56]

So the Madison Square Garden show, like it's my understanding of that film that it was meant to be sort of a kind of a positive, sort of almost promotional documentary about the Stones.

[00:44:10]

Well, it was supposed to tell their story, but Albert and David didn't know what they were getting into when they went to Altamont. And I don't think anybody also had problems with the Hells Angels as well. They did? Yeah. They went to see the Hells Angels because they had all this footage of them. And I think Albert got punched. Oh, really? Yeah.

[00:44:35]

Well, I mean, that seems relatively they got off easy.

[00:44:42]

They did get off because, I mean, the the angels are.

[00:44:46]

Yeah. They could have put a death threat on him. Who the hell knows.

[00:44:49]

But but you were at that so you saw the stones at Madison Square Garden and it was at 69, 66, what was it.

[00:44:55]

Sixty, sixty nine and good show. It was a great show. And I remember they all went since I was the low person on the totem pole. They all went out to eat and they said, OK, Barbara, you guard all the equipment, scientists standing there guarding all the equipment, and then this guy stands next to me and it's Mick Jagger. Yeah, I'm figuring, OK, when am I I said, so you think a lot of people will come tonight?

[00:45:24]

And he said, yeah. And I said, Are you excited? And he said, Yeah, Tina Turner is going to be singing with us. So I had the best time of all because I got to have a conversation with Mick Jagger. Oh, I'll never forget that nice guy right here.

[00:45:40]

Nice girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:45:43]

We had we stood and talked with me for a while. We just, you know.

[00:45:47]

Yeah. He's a real charmer that Jagger. He was.

[00:45:50]

Yeah. And I was so happy I was guarding that equipment. Yeah. I had to have that experience. So what.

[00:45:58]

So how long did it how did the Harlan County sort of start to materialize. Did they offer you how did you leave the measles.

[00:46:09]

What happened. Oh. Well, I left the cells because I got a job as an assistant editor. Yeah. And the editor would go out to lunch and he'd say, OK, Barbara, here's an hour. I want you to cut this to 20 minutes by the time I get back.

[00:46:27]

Oh, my God. That was your job. Yeah.

[00:46:30]

And it was great. And so I started to really learn how to tell a story through editing. He really helped me. That's the whole thing. Yeah. And I remember I was listening to NPR Radio and they had this whole story about how a coal miner was going to be running against Tony Boyle, who was the head of the United Mine Workers. Right. And so I just thought, wow, what a great story. And I was able to get a loan of twelve thousand dollars.

[00:47:06]

And off I went to the coal fields. That's how it started.

[00:47:09]

It was about the the the miners for democracy at the beginning versus the corrupt president who was later found guilty of the murder of Jack Blonsky, his wife and daughter Tjokkie Blavatsky was running against him and he didn't want to lose his power. So he had a hit, a hit on them and killed Yablonsky, his wife and daughter.

[00:47:32]

And this is the guy supposed to be representing the miners? Yes.

[00:47:36]

Tony Bellisle. Yeah, he was the president of the United Mine Workers. So and then Arthur Miller got in to power and he said, OK, I'm going to organize the unorganized. And I went, OK, let's see if he's telling the truth. And his first place that he was going to do was Harlan County. So, of course, I went to Harlan County and lived there for more than 13 months for that, for the strike. And for me, it was one of the most significant moments I learned what life and death was all about.

[00:48:11]

I learned so much about these people who were willing to risk their lives for what they believed, which was to be treated like humans.

[00:48:20]

Yeah, to get a decent wage, safety in the mines, that kind of thing. They lived in dire poverty.

[00:48:27]

And is it is it different? Is it that much different now? Well, there's very little coal mining now, right, so I think the union has maybe twenty five thousand members and so it is different.

[00:48:44]

This president, this president really wanted to bring it back to trying to find out in the world as quickly as possible. Yes, I know.

[00:48:52]

It's interesting, though. What did you find? Like like if you think back on that, on Harlan County or on the culture of coal mining, you know, that there was I mean, that was the 70s. But there seems to be like this generational commitment to it that that that somehow you're kind of, you know, added to the anger, added to the poverty and added to like this idea that for some reason there was no other thing that they could do.

[00:49:18]

Would you think that comes from I think it was that there was no other thing that they could do, but jobs were scarce. But your grandfather worked in the mines, your father worked in the mines, and therefore you worked in the mines. And it was something that they did with great pride. Also, the music of Appalachia was incredible because coal miners were geographically isolated and you would be able to communicate with each other through the music, you know, the Maddington mine explosion or anything that happened.

[00:49:54]

And so it was culture. It was tradition. We would sit on the porches at night and people would tell stories or people would play music and sing. And, you know, it was incredible. Everybody was right next to each other all the time and how to deal with the coal miners.

[00:50:13]

And they grew to trust you. And once they figured out what you were doing and and you were able to, you know, sort of commit, that's a big chunk of life to to commit to an outcome that you weren't sure of. But either way, you were sort of able to to show the humanity of the situation.

[00:50:30]

Yeah, but it didn't matter to me. Yeah. I wasn't there thinking about what an outcome would be. I was thinking about I'm getting to document these people who are some of the most incredible people I've ever met in my life.

[00:50:46]

But I have to assume at a certain point you wanted things to work out for them. Oh, yes, of course I wanted things to work. That was the outcome you'd like to see. Oh, absolutely.

[00:50:57]

And it didn't I mean, it did and it didn't. The miner was killed by a company foreman, and that's how they got their contract, because everybody got their guns and there would have been, you know, massacres. Wow, and this is like in the 70s, yeah, I was just this little kid, you know, going for it and you guys, you went for it, you won an Oscar for it.

[00:51:23]

And how did that inform your vision? I mean, after you had that experience and you and you gained some you know, you've got some you know, you got your documentary chops going because the movie looks great still.

[00:51:37]

And it's like that was the thing that really struck me, too, about watching contemporary documentaries versus documentaries from that period where you really relied on on the subject matter to sort of, you know, and also a patience and an ability to capture it.

[00:51:54]

And, you know, using film. I mean, Jesus. I mean, that must have been crazy.

[00:51:59]

It was crazy. I mean, let's face it.

[00:52:02]

You're switching out the magazines and you're reloading shit and you know, you've got it. You've got to get this. It's not disposable like it is now.

[00:52:11]

Now. And and I did I did the sound. I did sound for 17 years on my film, but. Yeah, and then we would bring the film outside of the area when we had enough film and we would place it at we rented a motel room far away and just put the film in there and just, you know, and when I would run out of film, I would call my parents and my parents would send me a film and I would send this film to my father's office and he would put it in his refrigerator for safekeeping.

[00:52:46]

Were you afraid that that that thugs were going to come take the movie?

[00:52:51]

Yeah. Well, I wanted to to make sure that nothing happened to it. Wow.

[00:52:58]

And so after after that experience, what was your goal? What was your agenda in terms of what you were putting into the world? Because, I mean, that did shine a light on something that a lot of people didn't know about, you know, shined a light on the struggle that a lot of people didn't know about. I think a lot of people knew about unions and about, you know, how they were being squeezed. But but what was you know, from that point on?

[00:53:22]

What were you what was your vision? How did it influence it?

[00:53:26]

Well, I didn't know if this was a good film or not. I just knew that I loved it. And one of my mentors, D.A. Pennebaker, I had him show a screening of the film. I begged him. I said, would it be possible for you to show a screening of this film? And he brought all the people to the screening that I totally revered. Yeah, like Charlotte's Waron and Susan Steinberg and a lot of other people.

[00:53:58]

Right. And they really liked it. But I was so afraid. I mean, my stomach was in knots as to what that would be like. And the film was finished one day before it was going to have its premiere at the New York Film Festival. Wow.

[00:54:15]

And I remember, you know, sort of picking up the 16 millimeter print and thinking three years or four years of my life for this and bringing it to the New York Film Festival, which was incredible. And I had the miners and their wives come. And Hazel Dickens, who did the music, and I Xeroxed some sheets of the last song of the film, they'll never keep us down and passed it out out to the entire audience. Yeah. And then Hazel came out at the end and sang and called the women and the coal miners came out and sang.

[00:55:01]

And Lois Scott, who had just been made president of the Black Lung Association, which is you get some coal dust in your lungs, pneumoconiosis, she started raising money from the audience and people were throwing ten dollar bills and 20 dollar bills. Wow. And I was like in that corner laughing. And she said, Barbara, she didn't realize she was like she said, Barbara, you pick up that money, we need it. Put it, stick it in your bra so I can have it later.

[00:55:37]

And Richard Ra'ed, who is the head of the film festival, said, all right, Barbara, next year you'll do it on roller skates. I said, that might be fine.

[00:55:47]

I'll do it. OK, well, that sounds like a beautiful communal event.

[00:55:54]

Yes. Yeah, it was great. All right. So you made an impact. You won an Oscar. What was that? You got to go to the Oscars.

[00:56:02]

I did. And I had never been to L.A. before. How old were you? I was in my 20s and.

[00:56:12]

The distributor who was ruga, didn't want me to submit it to the academy and I did. And so he just took away all my PR and everything.

[00:56:26]

So why did he want you to submit it? Because he didn't want people to know it was a documentary when he played it theatrically. Oh, yeah.

[00:56:35]

He was going to trick people into thinking it was some sort of. Yeah.

[00:56:39]

Fiction film. Yeah. And so I went I didn't have anything to wear. I had to borrow a dress and somebody let us off at the Academy Awards and we walked through and they sat all the documentarians together. And when our category came up with criss crossed arms and when they said Harlan County, I just felt two hands pushing me from behind to get up in. My little heart was beating somewhere in the room.

[00:57:13]

Yeah. And Lillian Hellman gave me the award. And so that was an incredible thrill because she had been blacklisted. Right. Right.

[00:57:24]

Yeah, that's amazing. And then you went you turned around and right away went into making another documentary about a unionization issue.

[00:57:34]

But that was some years later. OK, sound and editing for other films and things like that. And had a child and, you know, did a lot in between American Dream and American Dream was in the 90s. Oh, wow.

[00:57:51]

That is a long time. But you were just working as an editor or what you would an editor, sound recordist for features or documentaries, all documentaries.

[00:58:03]

You worked on new so many films.

[00:58:07]

So that was your community? That was my community. And it still is. I mean, it's grown and it's prospered and documentaries are the rage now. I mean, if you go to a film festival, the documentaries sell out and that's when they're there.

[00:58:24]

Yeah, they are. Whether you like it or not.

[00:58:27]

But that's a good question. So what do you do as a form?

[00:58:31]

It seems that a lot of people who who who get into documentary, their intentions are not always necessarily journalistic. And it does seem like that as a as a form.

[00:58:45]

It's easy to to to sort of assume a tone, but not make a very good documentary.

[00:58:53]

Well, usually documentarians are not journalists, we're more free flowing and sort of anything goes in a documentary. I mean, you have the work of Michael Moore who that was, but that was documented, right?

[00:59:13]

I get that. But that was later. And, you know, it doesn't it felt to me that your intention, you know, at the time of something like Harlan County was there was an element of journalism to it.

[00:59:26]

Not not really. No, because you could do whatever you wanted. I think a journalist really has to hear both sides of the story and, you know, be a journalist and sort of way then a documentary and you just go and you do the things that you feel are right. It's more of a storyteller or it's more of.

[00:59:50]

But if you tell somebody if you tell both sides, then, you know, you're putting the right you can have persuasions, two rounds of sides that you agree.

[01:00:02]

Of course. Right. I mean, and there's nobody above you to tell you. I guess you can't you can't put this in or that.

[01:00:11]

And it's all what you want to do and how you feel about it.

[01:00:15]

I get it. I guess I'm not. I guess I'm not I'm not saying that it's objective, but I find that in that you're saying it's completely subjective from the point of view of the filmmaker. But I find that the more compelling documentaries at least present several sides. Well, yeah, because it makes a great story.

[01:00:39]

Right. You want to know all the different elements and I don't mind.

[01:00:44]

Yeah.

[01:00:44]

And also there's like I find that of documentaries that are ending a certain amount of ambiguity and put the sort of your moral or even final chapter the story in the hands of the viewer.

[01:01:00]

Right. Right. Well, what you do to with comedy interviewing is very documentary style for sure.

[01:01:09]

I know you're also an actor, but but it is you get to the rawness. You get to the realness when you're doing comedy, while you use the things that are very close to you and very important to you. Right.

[01:01:25]

And I never going out. Yeah. I never claimed to be a journalist. Sometimes it gets hung on me, but I don't I refuse to take it because I guess. Yeah, I got that.

[01:01:36]

So if that's true, it's because I don't you know, I don't follow any rules around this stuff.

[01:01:44]

Right.

[01:01:45]

But sometimes I because of that, I get I get done with an interview or a few days later I'm like, fuck, why didn't I. I forgot to ask him that. I mean, that was basic shit and I blew it.

[01:01:58]

Well, I bet you you don't blow it. I bet that, you know, the things that you did ask. If it's not there, forget about it. You just have to go on with what you see there. Right. Right.

[01:02:10]

But like, don't have you ever gotten done with something and being like, oh, my God, how did I not?

[01:02:16]

Yes, of course. Yes, yes.

[01:02:19]

It's not a great feeling, but I let it go.

[01:02:22]

Well, it's just like you said to me today that, you know, that that Reagan had his guy in Mexico meeting with the Iranians. You're like, I could have used that a year ago. I know.

[01:02:32]

Why didn't you just tell me now? I know it would have been wonderful.

[01:02:37]

Well, how is it different when you did American Dream? I mean, like from going and I know these are movies people are going to have to go look for, but there was a difference in in how you approached it, wasn't it? Because there were similar issues, right?

[01:02:50]

Yeah, it was. It was union issues. It was the Hormel meatpacking company taking away the wages of dropping the wages of the people who work there. And it was the same kind of thing. Your grandfather, your father all worked there. But there were it was a much more complex film. And plus, of course, they decide to go on strike in the middle of a Minnesota winter. So sometimes it was 60 below with the wind chill factor.

[01:03:21]

And, you know, I used to pray that the camera's battery would stop for a minute so we could go in a car with heat.

[01:03:30]

And it and it was tough making these films because you were always struggling for money to keep going. And I remember one morning after I'd been out on the picket line from like three o'clock in the morning till seven o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I'm freezing. I went into the union and. A hall and somebody said, Barbara, your office is on the phone. And I went, OK, and I got on the phone and they said, Barbara, you only have two hundred and fifty dollars left in the bank.

[01:04:04]

What are you going to do? And I just what what do you mean what am I going to do?

[01:04:08]

I'm freezing all night long outside every night.

[01:04:14]

And then they called back about four or five hours later and I said, oh, I know what they're going to say. I don't want to talk now. They said, it's your office. You have to talk. So I got on the phone and they said, which is that twenty five thousand dollars from Bruce Springsteen. Come on. I just burst into tears. I was so happy. But how did how know?

[01:04:39]

Because we had been funding. We had been writing and writing to him because he was doing a lot of union things at that time. And finally, just when we needed it, when we had nothing, he gave us twenty five thousand dollars. And just I was so happy. I was crying, jumping around. I couldn't believe it. It meant I could still go on.

[01:05:03]

So that was that was just that's part of your M.O. is to just keep pushing and pushing, you know. Yes. And you chose Bruce. Perseverance.

[01:05:13]

Perseverance, six o'clock. Yeah. But you focus.

[01:05:17]

I mean, you know, like, you know what you want out of a specific person. You know, you wanted to talk to Jimmy Carter and you knew that Bruce, if he could only see what you were up to, would gladly give you some money.

[01:05:28]

And he did. He saved us. He saved us. Making films like this is just so incredible. You never know what you're going to do next. It's so exciting. I mean, I've done Thelma and Woody Allen.

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I going to ask you about that. You and I have done films on like it's I never saw the JFK one. But but but I but I did see Wild Man Blues. So so American Dream is nine 1990.

[01:05:58]

And then what are these what are these homicide life on the street.

[01:06:02]

Oh that's fun. The Tom Fontana. But that became a TV show, didn't it. It was a..

[01:06:08]

It was a series. I also did.

[01:06:11]

Oh you directed you directed the TV show. Yeah. And they gave me a hard time on the first one, but I was totally. Unfazed by it, I mean, Yaphet Kotto said there was a whole big meeting and he said, listen, Barbara, he said, I'm not really saying anything in this scene. And I said, yeah, but Yaphet, these are your guys. You're interested in this? I said, and when we put the camera on you, that's the money shot.

[01:06:42]

And then he loved it. And Andrew Brower was barrooms. And he said, OK, so you're a documentarian. That means you only take one shot. And I said, no, absolutely not. I said, good documentarian stays there even if it's all night. So we get everything that that's not what he wanted to hear. That's not what he wanted to hear.

[01:07:05]

But I figured if I was machine guns in Harlan County, I could understand and work with actors and not be afraid if they tried to intimidate me. I had a great time there because we all live there in Baltimore and go out after we shoot and we have drinks and talk with each other. And it was it was a wonderful community. It was really it was a great experience.

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That's what happens with those longer running shows. Yeah. Everyone gets to sort of know each other. So you've done a lot of TV work and I've done TV work here.

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But like Woody Allen, so like the shift in documentaries like, you know, from union issues, life or death issues, and then you start doing some celebrity centric pieces. What what compelled that? People would call up and say, how would you like to do a film on Woody Allen? We have a budget, we have everything. And how could you ever turn that down? So that wasn't your idea?

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No, it wasn't my idea. And this is before when was in trouble.

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Now, Woody was in trouble because he went with Sunni on on this trip. But I. Love Woody Allen, I think he's a terrific comic. I think he's a really interesting, smart human being and he let me do whatever I wanted. I mean, I even had a key to his hotel room. And so I would just come in and start shooting and film them at breakfast or. Well, that's right.

[01:08:38]

That's what the. And he's with Sunni the whole time. Gooney the whole time. Yes. And all my feminist friends. You can't do that. I said, of course I'm going to do that. I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do. I'm definitely doing.

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And what was the pushback specifically about just the inappropriate seeming seeming inappropriateness?

[01:08:58]

Yes. With Sunni. Right. And I kind of and I remember that.

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And they they just it's what do you think is what do you think he was doing by making himself available for whatever you wanted to do at that time? Was he normalizing the situation?

[01:09:16]

No, no. He was just being himself. He was on a jazz tour and he loves music. And if somebody could do a film on something that he loved so much, it was good. That was fine with him. And when we were editing, he would call me all the time and he would say, OK, Barbara, can I see it? And I say, nobody. It's eight hours long. And so then he call back and I'd say, no way, it's five hours long.

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And then finally he said, I'm coming. And then it was three hours long. And so he came and he and Suni watched it and we watched them sort of holding on to each other and laughing and almost seeing their relationship come alive. And at the end of it, he stood up. I knew he thoroughly enjoyed it and he just said, well, you've got some editing to do.

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So he saw it as a movie, but he also saw it as sort of a home movie in a way.

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Well, then he kept asking me to comment. I kept saying it wasn't ready because it was too long. And then his last comment was, you've got. Yeah, I know. I've been trying to tell you this, but he loves the film. He loved it.

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And you never hate you because I you know, I certainly loved Woody Allen, too. But like, you know, now it's like, you know, everything is thrown into a sort of moral chaos around him.

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You didn't feel at any point during your time with him that he felt that he was doing something wrong.

[01:10:53]

No, he was so happy, it was sort of a film about youth and age, and she always wanted to go out and he wanted to stay home and, you know, or stay in his hotel room and read and get ready. And it was and she just brought life into his world and they had an incredibly wonderful time together. They're still together. They have two adopted children and they seem so happy. Right.

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Yeah. OK, what about this sort of like the Gregory Peck thing? Whose idea was that?

[01:11:33]

Well, my one of my really good friends is Cecilia Peck, whose daughter and we were working on a film, and she moved to New York. I had met her in Cannes. And I said, why don't you just come to New York and I'll give you a job? And we just became really very close friends. And she said, So my father's doing a one man show and nobody is filming it. And I went, OK, we'll go and we'll we'll do one performance.

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Yeah. And we went and I couldn't stop. I mean, he was so brilliant and so charming. And it's as if he really is was Atticus Finch. I mean, just a brilliant, wonderful man.

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How old was he at that point? Oh, gee, I don't know. There's an old guy right there, Guy. Yeah, yeah. So you really saw what made him great? I did, yeah. I mean, he was he was so nice. And that film went to the Cannes Film Festival and he just. Was so low key and so happy to have that film there, and he told us that it was his second favorite film, Next To Kill a Mockingbird.

[01:12:53]

Oh, wow. That meant everything a great deal. That's sweet.

[01:12:59]

And how about experience with features? Are you going to try? You're done with them or what? Now, I'm going to try to do another one, and I'm in the midst of trying to get the rights to it. It's a book that a friend of mine wrote a long time ago. And I'm not going to say what it is till I get the rights to it, but I think it's going to be absolutely amazing.

[01:13:26]

And what's the process once you get the rights to a book? Do you write the script? You know, I'm not going to write the script. I'll work with a screenwriter. OK, my writing is not up to the part of this book.

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OK, I want it to be the very best it is. So is that the next thing you're thinking?

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If we ever make it out of this darkness as a country and if we ever get through this disease that you're going to make this feature, is that what you think?

[01:13:54]

Well, I'm working now. Yeah, I'm doing a film on civil rights. I started before covid, and it's about two civil rights leaders, Marc Morial and Janet Murguia, and they're sensational. And we were filming them before. And then when that happened, we started doing Zoome recordings.

[01:14:16]

And it was like watching history and life unfold before us with all the things that they have to do, you know, and the work that they're doing of prison reform, of getting out, trying to get out the vote of all the politics that they're going on so that the Black Lives Matter protests and, yes, everything.

[01:14:38]

And brown people love Black Lives Matter. So and the two of them are really good friends. So we're doing that now. We're sort of filming them as they go to marches and getting back to to filming. So that's we're going to go through the election. Right. Filming that one and then go into editing. Well, that's good.

[01:15:00]

So that's exciting and unfolding right before your very eyes. I have to assume that that must be, you know, a lot of what's compelling about it. Like I mean, I imagine like in a movie like Havoc where, you know, you have a script, you have the actors, you have scenes every day. All of the production goes into setting up, picking the location, you know, you know, having as much control as possible.

[01:15:22]

Really. Yes. It's almost the opposite of documentary filmmaking.

[01:15:28]

Yeah. Except you're still searching for that sense of truthfulness, you know, that you get from a documentary through the actors. I mean. Yeah, I definitely.

[01:15:38]

I know. Yes, I do. Yeah. That is, you know, a director's job is to find that if that's your thing and you're not making I guess it's probably most of their things, even if they're making a superhero movie. But I mean that the sort of the intimacy of human connection.

[01:15:58]

Yes. Believability. Yes. Yeah. And being real, was that a good experience? But it's all about I loved it. Well, I had done the homicides and the havoc and I loved Annie and I love you fell in love. I mean, we all had so much fun together. It was great.

[01:16:19]

Well, it sounds like you're living the life you want to live. I am. I feel very blessed and very happy to be doing this work. I mean, every time another film pops in front of me, it's I'm so excited. I just put everything I have into it and it really just gets into my heart, into myself.

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Well, thanks for talking to me. Well, I wanted to just see how you're doing. You OK? And not to make you sad, so I'm OK.

[01:16:52]

Well, I mean I mean, talking about that type of directing is certainly what she did, you know, and what was. Yes.

[01:16:58]

And she was just incredible and wonderful. And I just want to tell you that I think about you. I listen to what you said on NPR and I care deeply about you and so to so many other people.

[01:17:15]

Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's been difficult. And, you know, it gets you know, that I was thinking about it today when I talk to people, you know about it.

[01:17:24]

Yeah. I just did a thing with Sam Rockwell earlier today who, you know, was in one of her movies. Yeah.

[01:17:32]

You know, I mean, I'm and I'm managing OK, but it's you know, it's devastating thing. Yeah.

[01:17:39]

Well, I send you so much love. Thank you, Barbara. And thank you for talking to me and thank you for talking to me.

[01:17:51]

Again, the new film by Barbara is a desert one, you can get it where you get all of your demands on most video, on demand platforms and in virtual cinemas. And you can also check out Desert One movie, Dotcom, to find all of your options to see it. And this is this is me now with my guitar. A Telecaster. Pretty clean. Pretty clean. Boomer lives, monkey lives, the fanda lives.