Cinematographer Gordon Willis, Setting the Scene

*** TRANSCRIPTION COMPANY BOUNDARY ***
..DATE:
20091113
..PGRM:
Fresh Air
..TIME:
12:00-13:00 PM
..NIEL:
N/A
..NTWK:
NPR
..SGMT:
Cinematographer Gordon Willis, Setting the Scene

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m David Bianculli of tvworthwatching.com, sitting in for
Terry Gross.

This year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is presenting its
Honorary Oscars in a separate ceremony taking place in Hollywood this weekend
rather than on the televised Oscar Awards in March. Planning to attend to
accept their awards are actress Lauren Bacall, filmmaker Roger Corman, and our
first guest, cinematographer Gordon Willis.

Willis was nominated for only two Academy Awards during his career to date, for
Woody Allen’s “Zelig” and for the “Godfather Part III.” He didn’t win for
either, but his string of stunningly photographed movies speaks for itself.
Here are scenes from a few of his classic films.

(Soundbite of movie, “The Godfather”)

Mr. MARLON BRANDO (Actor): (As Don Vito Corleone) If you’d come to me in
friendship, then this scum that ruined your daughter would be suffering this
very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies,
then they would become my enemies. And then they will fear you.

(Soundbite of movie, “All the President’s Men”)

Mr. DUSTIN HOFFMAN (Actor): (As Carl Bernstein) Mitchell was in control. There
were men working in under Mitchell…

Mr. ROBERT REDFORD (Actor): (As Bob Woodward) How many?

Mr. HOFFMAN: (As Carl Bernstein) I don’t know how many. But the men working
under Nickel are the ones that received the money from the slush fund.

Mr. REDFORD: (As Bob Woodward) Okay. Do we know how much money we’re talking
about?

Mr. HOFFMAN: (As Carl Bernstein) Yeah, we’re talking about hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and these men are the key to what that money was used
for. Boy (unintelligible) at one point I suddenly wondered how high up this
thing goes, and her paranoia finally got to me. I thought what we had was so
hot that any minute CBS or NBC were going to come in through the windows and
take the story.

Mr. REDFORD: (As Bob Woodward) You’re both paranoid. She’s afraid of John
Mitchell and you’re afraid of Walter Cronkite.

Mr. HOFFMAN: (As Carl Bernstein) Right.

(Soundbite of movie, “Annie Hall”)

Ms. DIANE KEATON (Actress): (As Annie Hall) Hi, hi.

Mr. WOODY ALLEN (Actor): (As Alvy Singer) Oh, hi. Hi.

Ms. KEATON: (As Annie Hall) Well, bye.

Mr. ALLEN: (As Alvy Singer) You play very well.

Ms. KEATON: (As Annie Hall) Oh, yeah? So do you. Oh, God, what a dumb thing to
say, right? I mean, you say you play well, then right away I have to say you
play well. Oh, oh, God, Annie. Well, oh well. La di da, la di da, la la.

BIANCULLI: In that sequence, we heard Marlon Brando in “The Godfather,” Dustin
Hoffman and Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men,” and Woody Allen and
Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall - three films on which Gordon Willis served as
cinematographer. He shot eight Woody Allen movies and the entire “Godfather”
trilogy. His other films include “Klute,” “The Parallax View,” and “Pennies
from Heaven.”

In 2002, Terry Gross invited Gordon Willis to talk about some of his films,
starting with the “Godfather,” which was released in 1972. She began by asking
him about the guiding principles behind the look of that film.

(Soundbite of archived interview)

Mr. GORDON WILLIS (Cinematographer): You know, for a while, I really didn’t
know what to do with that movie. You know, I thought about it for weeks and I
finally decided, this should be this kind of brassy yellow look to it. Don’t
ask me why, it just felt right, you know? So that was the first thing that I
applied in my thinking. And the other part of the thinking was, it should have
this kind of New York street look, one foot in the gutter ‘40s kind of feeling,
a little dirty.

And so I was satisfied with that kind of a feeling in my mind. And then the
other thing is, well, I thought, you know, we didn’t get the money to go to
Sicily until about two-thirds of the way through the movie, when Paramount
people realized that they had something better than a cheap crime novel on
their hands. So they gave us the money to go to Sicily. So I figured at that
point Sicily should look, you know, mythical and sunny and kind of storybook
feeling, so that there was a juxtaposition between these two places – New York
and Sicily. And there was a counterpoint when I went back and forth.

TERRY GROSS: Let me ask you about one of the kind of the most famous scenes in
the first “Godfather” movie, and that’s when the studio executive who isn’t
playing ball with the Corleone family…

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: …wakes up in his silk sheets, in his satin cover to find that his bed is
basically flooded with blood because the decapitated head of his horse is
underneath the covers. Can you talk about shooting that scene?

Mr. WILLIS: It was very hot that day.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILLIS: It was kind of smelly. I think for animal lovers, you have to know
– this was a real horse’s head, by the way, but it was a horse that had already
died and one that was (unintelligible) in the glue factory already. So they
acquired the horse and kept it on ice and, you know, we put it in bed and when
we were ready (unintelligible) and off we went.

But as I say, I preface by saying it was hot that day, so once you took this
horse out of the ice, it got a little gamey, so it was kind of the last thing
we did. But it was, it was real, real horse.

GROSS: And what were your concerns as a cinematographer of that scene?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, my concern always is just getting it right. I mean, you know,
getting the visualization of the moment, getting that right. That’s always my
concern.

GROSS: What does getting it right mean in this situation, where a guy is kind
of waking up out of a dream, senses something’s wrong, and then realizes this
absolutely horrible thing has happened, this absolutely horrible thing is
happening in his bed and he’s just like screaming?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, from my point of view, getting it right means seeing it at
the level that you should see it from an audience point of view. Perceiving it
properly, visually.

GROSS: What are some of the changes you made between the first “Godfather” and
“Godfather II” in terms of, for instance, how you shot the interiors? Because
“Godfather II,” it’s a different decade, it’s a different generation.

Mr. WILLIS. Right. Well, one of the things you have to do, or one of the things
that I decided to do, was that since these are sister movies and that they
really work together in a sense, is that I maintained the same color structure
in the second “Godfather.” It was this yellow, kind of yellow (unintelligible)
however, the content of the structure of the photography I changed because of
this turn-of-the-century feeling in the retrospective footage. And then we went
from, you know, 1902 up to 1950-something in Lake Tahoe. So it was tricky
because you had New York and you had Sicily, which had to be different but
still in the same time period. And then, you know, you had Lake Tahoe in the
‘50s. So when you have an audience watching this kind of film, you don’t want
to push too much visual information at too many different levels. You want to
be able - they should be able to watch the movie, take it in, know they’re in a
different place and be able to accept that without getting in the way of
telling the story.

I mean at one point, Francis said to me: How are we going to know where we are
here? We’re going from here to there to there to here. I said, look, you know,
we get to New York and you say it’s New York, 19 so-so. When you get to
France(ph), say, put it - you know, put a one-liner under it. I said, it’s been
done for years, it’s classy, everybody will – and everybody will know where
they are and there won’t be a problem.

So there were presentation of a story that was that long and that complex, you
want to present simply, you know, because simple is the most elegant. You know?

GROSS: What were the streets in New York or the parts of New York that were
easiest to transform convincingly to the turn of the century?

Mr. WILLIS: Jesus, none of them. It was, you know, we were downtown in the
Lower East Side. And what happened was we had one - actually one east to west
block, which the art department, Dean Tavoularis, who did a great job, it
changed.

Changed means, you know, you redo everything. You redo all the storefronts, the
buildings. And the buildings, for the most part, the superstructure of the
buildings were about the same. But all the storefronts and everything had to be
put back in time.

So it was very complex. And then, of course, you see past that into more
contemporary streets at the very end, which I had to block out with big tarps
and things that became sort of transfused into the visual. You couldn’t see
them. It was tough.

GROSS: You had to put tarps over whole buildings?

Mr. WILLIS: I put tarps over whole buildings, not based on what I just said,
but I'd hang them like two blocks away so you couldn’t see down. But I had to
tarp one whole side of the street.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILLIS: People yelling at us. We pulled tarps right up in front of their
windows. But because the sun would hit that side of the street and that side of
the building and bounce into the street and we didn’t - we couldn’t do that.
You know, we had to have continuity in the visual structure. So that was –
there were two reasons for tarps: one to kill sun and one so you couldn’t see
across town.

BIANCULLI: Cinematographer Gordon Willis, speaking to Terry Gross in 2002. This
weekend, he accepts an honorary Oscar.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2002 interview with cinematographer Gordon
Willis, who is being awarded an honorary Oscar this weekend for his work on
such films as "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," "All The President's Men" and the
"Godfather" trilogy.

GROSS: In the "Godfather" films, there are so many great actors…

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: …different generations of great actors, different types of acting
styles. You’ve got De Niro, Pacino, Brando, Lee Strasberg.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Was there anything that had to change in your approach to shooting them
because of their different approaches to acting? I mean, for example, is one of
them the kind who wanted to do a scene over and over again and another the kind
of actor who believes first take is best take?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah. You’ve always got a certain amount of that while you’re
working. Regarding the structure of the movie, they had to do what, you know,
we had laid out. And you sort of work in concert to make sure everybody's
comfortable, but that's the design of the movie. As far as the way they
function, yeah. You know, Al would like to do things in a certain way.

And actually the most definitive actor was Lee Strasberg. He had no problems
doing it and doing it well and not doing it a whole lot, you know? Marlon
Brando didn’t like to do a lot of takes, either. Al - I don’t remember him
being particularly indulgent, wanting to do too many. But, you know, it depends
on how secure an actor is within the structure of the scene and the material
and how far he wants to go with it.

But I think Bobby De Niro was kind of the most method actor in the group, and
Bob would take a while to get to the place that he thought was good, almost to
the point, drive you crazy. You know, how to pick an apple, you know, 25
minutes later he's still trying to pick it up three, four different ways.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILLIS: And I mean, you know, and Francis said just pick the apple up and
eat it. I mean, you know - so, but everybody has their own way in, you know.
And finally, if it works, that's all that matters.

GROSS: I'm sure you realize that, you know, when Brando was in the "Godfather,”
that everybody would be studying him to see: What did he look like? How had he
changed? What's his acting like now?

Mr. WILLIS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

GROSS: Yeah. So how did that affect how you shot him, knowing that he had to
look, you know, pretty iconic in this movie, that he was a much older man than
people remembered and that he was no longer going to be like the kind of a sex
icon that, you know, that he was?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, well, of course, all that worked in our favor because just to
recap this business about asking about photography on the first movie, this -
the thing that happened, or that had to happen, was Marlon said, well, I have
this idea, you know, about this makeup and everything. He says but, you know,
it has to be photographed. I said sure. I know. So we shot these tests, which
are actually those tests that are available on some of the rereleases of the
"Godfather" on DVD.

But - so we went into the studio, and he stuffs this stuff in his mouth and he
puts on a few things, and he - and to make a long story short, I had to design
the lighting from, so that Marlon looked right in the movie when you first see
him in the office and when you see him in the rest of the movie.

And the design of that lighting had to work for Marlon, but it also - I had to
be able to take in through the rest of the movie, to be able to apply it
everywhere. So actually, it was him and his makeup and his look that actually
were responsible for the designing, the overall look of the lighting, which was
not only carried through one, but it was carried through two, as well.

GROSS: So what was it that you needed to do lighting-wise to get his look
right?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, the bottom line of it is it all had to be overhead lighting,
because, I mean, there were two things. They didn’t really want to see his eyes
that well, although I was criticized for it because I didn’t want anybody to
say, well, you didn’t want to quite know what he was thinking all the time, you
know.

And in order to make the makeup work, we had to have this sort of overhead
lighting to give him this look that he had. And, of course, everybody else had
to have - selectively, had to be subjected to the same kind of lighting to make
the movie hold together visually.

GROSS: There's this great operatic sequence in "Godfather I" that intercuts
between a baptismal scene in a church and these Corleone mob murders. And could
you talk a little bit about the kind of shooting that you did to give it that
operatic look?

Mr. WILLIS: What happened was it was Francis's idea to use this counterpoint of
taking this baby, this child in the environment of a church and the dialogue
that went with it denouncing the devil, etcetera, and at the same time putting
the counterpoint of killing everybody against that image. So that idea in
itself sort of holds the whole thing together.

So it's the idea - it's the counterpoint that makes this so strong, of a baby
renouncing the devil and a baby being christened in the middle of the church,
and then the counterpoint of all these people being murdered. So it wouldn’t
mean much - a lot of people have tried to do that in movies since, by the way,
one form or another. But…

GROSS: I noticed.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah. Who wouldn’t? Yes. But it wouldn’t mean much if you, you
know, finished that scene, got in the car and drove away then started the other
stuff. So it - what means something is the counterpoint of it, you know, of,
you know, Richie Castellano shooting somebody in an elevator and then somebody
in a machine and somebody else in bed and then somebody getting shot. It's - I
don’t want to use the word fun, but it's fun to watch that kind of structure.
It's definitive, and it works, you know.

GROSS: Let's talk about working on Woody Allen's movies.

Mr. WILLIS: Hmm.

GROSS: "Manhattan" is shot in black and white.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Was that your idea or Woody Allen's idea?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, actually, it was Woody's idea, because he loves black and
white. So do I. It was…

GROSS: Why do you love black and white?

Mr. WILLIS: I don’t know. I look at New York. It's kind of a black and white
city to me. It's, you know, when you work in color, it's a burden. It can be a
burden to an audience if you don’t use it properly, and it's burden to the
people that are working with it because if you don’t make the right choices in
color, you don’t make the right choices in clothes, you don’t make the right
choices - you know, then it all comes together. It looks good.

Whereas in black and white, you’re really working in values, you know, grays,
blacks and white. So, actually, the visual structure in a black-and-white movie
can become more difficult in one sense, because you have to pay attention to
values. You know, separating people from backgrounds and etcetera, etcetera,
where if I just find the content of black-and-white movies sometimes, sometimes
can be a lot easier to watch because you don’t have this kind of color thing
going on. You know?

GROSS: Did Woody Allen ask you to go back and watch a lot of Ingmar Bergman
movies before working?

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Because Woody Allen's such a Bergman fan, and there's so many Bergman
references in his films.

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah. Right. No, he never asked me to watched anything. And all of
– all of his movies are designed from the ground up. I mean - I must say that
working with Woody for 10 years was like a vacation. I mean, I had so much fun.
And I think I probably like Woody a lot more than he likes me, because I'm kind
of a carnivore when I'm making movies. You know, I want to get it done. I want
to get it done the right way, and I don’t, you know, want to fool around.

But from the standpoint of working with a man who's - you know, it's like
working with your hands in your pockets when you’re working with Woody. It's a
very easy, off-the-cuff kind of day. And I don’t mean that we don’t plan. We
do. And the movies are designed to look like they're off-the-cuff, but they're
not. But it's just working with him as a personality was a pleasure.

And I also like working with writers, you know, because if something's not
working, you know, you take the pencil, you cross it out and throw the page
away and you do something else. You know, and it's much faster than working
with a director who can't write, who has to get on the phone and talk to the,
you know (unintelligible). This way, you know, it’s right there. So he tears it
out and then you start again. You know, it's quick.

GROSS: You live in Cape Cod now, which is known…

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: …among other things, for its beautiful light.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Is that something that means a lot to you?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah. It means a lot to me, not so much from the standpoint that
oh, I, you know, want to rip out a camera. Light means a lot to me in life. You
know, I mean I hate to be in rooms that are not - that don’t have dimension and
beautiful light. And I have the same feeling about living in a place that
doesn’t have dimension and beautiful light. I mean, I hate Los Angeles. It's
like living inside a toaster oven, you know.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WILLIS: I mean, it's awful. The light stinks. The only time I like it there
is, really, in winter, when it's a little bit better. But, I love New York
light in the winter. Winter light is so beautiful. It’s beautiful here in the
winter.

GROSS: Can you describe New York light?

Mr. WILLIS: I can describe New York light mostly in the winter because it's
like my favorite thing. You move from light to dark. You know, you move from a
brilliant splash of sun to kind of like a midnight shadow, you know, and you
watch the sun come up in east and go down in the west in New York, and it's
like, you know, it just looks like welding sometimes it's so beautiful.

It's stunning, mainly because it's moving through all of these buildings, you
know, and it bounces through windows and off windows and down into the street.
It's - and it's always changing, which is quite wonderful, unless you happen to
be photographing something, then you want to hurry up so you get it the right
way. But it's just stunning.

BIANCULLI: Cinematographer Gordon Willis speaking to Terry Gross in 2002. The
man who shot "Manhattan," "All the President's Men" and "The Godfather," among
others, receives an honorary Oscar in Hollywood this weekend.

I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
..COST:
$00.00
..INDX:
120386781
*** TRANSCRIPTION COMPANY BOUNDARY ***
..DATE:
20091113
..PGRM:
Fresh Air
..TIME:
12:00-13:00 PM
..NIEL:
N/A
..NTWK:
NPR
..SGMT:
Between Albums, Rivers Cuomo Digs Up Solo Work

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m David Bianculli, in for Terry Gross.

Our next guest, Rivers Cuomo, is the lead singer, guitarist and principal
songwriter of the band Weezer. The group has a new album out called “Raditude.”
Here’s the opening track.

(Soundbite of song, ”If You’re Wondering If I Want You To”)

Mr. RIVERS CUOMO (Lead Singer, Weezer): (Singing) The moon was shining on the
lake at night. The Slayer T-shirt fit the scene just right. Your smeared
mascara, I looked into your eyes and saw a light. You told me stories about
your chickadees. They didn’t like BB guns or stupid archery. And Shaun the
lifeguard, he let them use the pool all day for free. Then the conversation
stopped. And I looked down at my feet. I was next to you, and you were right
there next to me.

Then I said, girl, if you’re wondering if I want you to, if I want you to. So
make a move, because I ain’t got all night. The rest of the summer was the best
we ever had. We watched “Titanic” and it didn't make us sad. I took you to Best
Buy, you took me home to meet your mom and dad. Your mom cooked meat loaf, even
though I don’t eat meat. I dug you…

BIANCULLI: Weezer first got attentions in the mid ‘90s when the videos for
their songs “Undone-The Sweater Song,” and “Buddy Holly” got a lot of air play
on MTV. The band has continued to record and perform, sometimes with long
breaks in between. During that time, Rivers Cuomo has written many songs that
never made it onto Weezer albums, but which he released as solo albums of home
recordings. The stories behind those songs reveal a lot about his life and
musical influences.

He spent part of his childhood on an ashram, and went back to Harvard to study
music and literature after becoming a rock star. Terry spoke with Rivers Cuomo
earlier this year and started by asking about one song in particular - not one
of Weezer’s earliest hits, but a track from the group’s follow-up album.

TERRY GROSS: Weezer’s first CD was a real success. The second CD, not so much.
It was called “Pinkerton,” and it got slammed by some of the critics and didn’t
sell nearly as well as the first. But it has some great songs on it, and I want
to play one of the songs from it, which I find really interesting. And you’ve
spoken in the past how this album was inspired in part by your love of Puccini
and, you know, great, romantic operas. And this is like a comic romantic song.
It’s called “Pink Triangle,” and it’s about falling in love with a woman who
turns out to be a lesbian.

And it’s like you find that incredibly - you know, the character who is singing
in the song finds this, like, incredibly upsetting because he was sure they’d
be able to get married.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: And there’s a great line in it, like, everyone’s a little queer. Why
can’t she be a little straight?

Mr. CUOMO: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: So is this song based at all on a relationship that you had, or is it
just a character?

Mr. CUOMO: Most of the songs I write are just very directly from my life. I
don’t have a big imagination. Whenever I tried to write from fantasy, it comes
out sounding really fake. So I just pretty much write exactly what’s happening
to me, most of the time, and so that’s what the song is. I got to Harvard in
‘96, really happy to be there. And I saw a girl in class, and she was so
beautiful and so cool. And I watched her over the weeks and, you know, all
kinds fantasies started to happening about getting married. And then one day
she came to school with a button on her - it was actually on her backpack, not
her sleeve, like in the lyrics. Sometimes I change a detail here and there, but
that’s not important.

So it was on her backpack, and it was a button of a pick triangle. And I took
that to mean that she was a lesbian, and I was crushed. And at the same time,
it seemed like a really novel experience for me and confusing and interesting,
and I went home and wrote a song about it. And then I found out after the album
came out a year and a half later that she wasn’t a lesbian at all. She just…

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CUOMO: …was showing support for gay rights or something.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Was it too late for you?

Mr. CUOMO: I was on to something else at that point, I’m sure.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: That’s really funny. Well, I’m glad you got a really terrific song out
of it. So - this is “Pink Triangle,” from Weezer’s second album, “Pinkerton.”

(Soundbite of song, “Pink Triangle”)

Mr. CUOMO: (Singing) When I’m stable long enough, I start to look around for
love. See a sweet in floral print. My mind begins the arrangements. But when I
start to feel that pull, turns out I just pulled myself. She would never go
with me, were I the last girl on earth. I’m dumb, she’s a lesbian. I thought I
had found the one. We were good as married in my mind. But married in my mind’s
no good. A pink triangle on her sleeve. Let me know the truth. Let me know the
truth.

GROSS: There was a period - and maybe you still feel like you’re in this period
- when you were struggling to figure out what kind of songs you wanted to write
and what your best song writing process was to come up with a decent song. So
you started to keeping a journal and experimenting with different approaches to
writing songs. It sounds like a very analytical approach to something that, for
some songwriters, is really very intuitive. Can you describe a little bit a
couple of the different processes that you tried in song writing?

Mr. CUOMO: Yeah, for a couple of years there – well, I’ve always been an
analytical person, but for a couple of years, I just got really analytical in
keeping track of every detail of the process of writing a song and
intentionally varying individual elements to see what the result would be. But
sometimes these experiments were indistinguishable from how any other rock
person would write a song. For example, in mid-2000, I - somehow my experiments
evolved to a point where step one was take a pill of Ritalin. Step two was take
three shots of tequila.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CUOMO: Step three was go out in the backyard, sit down on a chair. Step
four was close your eyes and imagine the song. And that’s how I wrote “Hash
Pipe.”

GROSS: So, shall we hear the song that was the outcome of this experiment?

Mr. CUOMO: Yeah, sure. I think you’ll hear it.

GROSS: Okay. Here it comes.

(Soundbite of song, “Hash Pipe”)

Mr. CUOMO: (Singing) I can’t help my feelings, I’ll go out of my mind. These
players come to get me because they’d like my behind. I can’t love my business
if I can’t get a trick down on Santa Monica, where tricks are for kids. Oh,
come on and kick me. Oh, come on and kick me. Oh, come on and kick me. Oh,
you’ve got your problems. Oh, I’ve got my ass wide. Oh, you’ve got your big
G’s. I’ve got my hash pipe.

BIANCULLI: Rivers Cuomo spoke with Terry Gross earlier this year. More after a
break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Our guest is Rivers Cuomo of the rock band, Weezer. Terry spoke to
him earlier this year, not long after the release of Weezer’s sixth record “The
Red Album,” and Cuomo’s second solo collection, “Alone II.”

GROSS: Now, one of my favorite songs on “Alone II” is a song called “I Was
Scared,” which is about an event when you were a junior in high school and you
were being bullied by jocks.

Mr. CUOMO: Yeah.

GROSS: So, tell us the story of what happened that led to this song.

Mr. CUOMO: Well, junior year of high school is when I figured out how to do my
hair, and I was really…

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CUOMO: I was into heavy metal at the time, and I’d been experimenting with
different kinds of mousse and gel and blow-drying and scrunching and all these
different techniques. And then one day I figured it out, and my hair just
popped up. And it looked - I thought it looked amazing. But boy, the jocks
didn’t like it. And me and all my friends, of course, were wearing heavy-metal-
type clothing to school. And we weren’t the necessarily the biggest guys, so
we’d get pushed around all the time.

And on one occasion, they made us an offer, that if my brother would fight this
one guy, David, they would - you know, that would be the one final fight and
then they would leave us alone after that. And so we put it all on him, and he
said, yes, he would do it. And the understanding was that the rest of us had to
stay inside. Now, I knew very well that all of the other guys - all our other
enemies were going out there to surround him, and they did. But I stayed inside
like a total coward. And I felt so guilty about that, like I’d betrayed my
brother. And, of course, I had. And I pretty much buried that in my unconscious
mind for years.

And then in 2003 - what’s that, 16 years later? I was doing some intensive
meditation, and suddenly this tremendous feeling of guilt came up. And as soon
as I got out of that meditation course, I ran to my guitar and wrote the song
“I Was Scared.”

GROSS: And it’s a great song. Let’s hear it. And here’s Rivers Cuomo from his
new CD, “Alone II,” and he’s doing all the parts on this.

(Soundbite of song “I Was Scared”)

Mr. CUOMO: (Singing) Listen to me. I’ve got to clear the air. There’s something
I’ve held way down deep inside all these years. You always were a friend. You
always trusted me. But now I must admit that I was not trustworthy. I let you
down. I sold you out. I turned away as you fell onto the ground. I was scared,
and I was terrified. And I was lost, and so I shied away.

GROSS: That’s “I Was Scared” from Rivers Cuomo’s new solo CD, “Alone II.”
There’s a version of “I Was Scared” that’s on the Internet now, where you had
basically held these open auditions through the Internet to find a pianist and
an a cappella group to accompany you performing “I Was Scared.” And it really -
it sounds terrific. I want you to talk about why you heard piano in your mind
for this, because on the recording that we just heard from your album “Alone
II,” it’s guitar based. So why did you also hear piano as an option for this?

Mr. CUOMO: Hmm.

GROSS: And along with that, why did you want to hold auditions on the Internet?
I guess that’s kind of the larger question.

Mr. CUOMO: Hmm. Well, I know growing up in middle school and high school, I was
very into classical music and classical singing, and then later even opera. And
so I have this other side to me that’s very into art music and Schubert and
Schumann songs, and a lot of these are just piano, vocal arrangements. I’ve
never really gotten the chance to do that with Weezer. And now with YouTube, I
can pretty much - the world is available to me. I can just - I can put up a
call for musicians, and I’ve gotten hundreds of replies. And I can just pick
whichever one feels right to me.

And in this case with “I Was Scared,” I heard it being something like a really
aggressive Schumann song or something - not just a piano strumming chords,
like, along to a pop song like “My Day Is Coming,” or something, but somebody
who could really shred. And because the chord progression’s so simple, somebody
could come up with very intense variations to make it interesting over the
course of three and a half minutes. So, this one girl replied, who is a
Juilliard student, and she’s just a fantastic musician with all the technique
and power, and I knew it was going to be great. And it was one of the most fun
things I’ve ever done.

GROSS: Well, I really like it. So, here’s a version of the song we just heard,
“I Was Scared.” And Rivers Cuomo is singing lead and tell me the name of the
pianist who you found through the Internet?

Mr. CUOMO: Her name is Sonia.

GROSS: Okay.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: We’ll keep it to that.

Mr. CUOMO: That’s all I know.

GROSS: And the name of the a cappella group accompanying you, who you also
found through the Internet?

Mr. CUOMO: These guys are part of the Dartmouth Aires, which is the male a
cappella group at Dartmouth, from New Hampshire.

GROSS: Well, here they are, with Rivers Cuomo, and this is just from the
Internet.

(Soundbite of song, “I Was Scared”)

Mr. CUOMO and DARTMOUTH AIRES: (Singing) Oh, whoa. Listen to me, I’ve got to
clear the air. There’s something I’ve held way down deep inside all these
years. You always were a friend. You always trusted me. But now I must admit
that I was not trustworthy. I let you down. I sold you out. I turned away as
you fell onto the ground. I was scared, and I was terrified. I was lost, and so
I shied away.

GROSS: That’s Rivers Cuomo with a pianist and an a cappella group that he found
through Internet auditions. Now, you mentioned that you’re, you know, not only
interested in, you know, pop and rock, you’re interested in classical music and
art song and opera. And you studied classical composition at Harvard for a
while before dropping out and then coming back as an English major and
completing your degree. But you’ve said that you didn’t really like the atonal
music that was emphasized at Harvard. Give us a sense of the kind of music that
you just weren’t warming up to.

Mr. CUOMO: Well, at the time - this is ‘96 - I was in my hardcore romantic
phase. I was so in love with Puccini and Tchaikovsky and stuff like that. And I
got to Harvard, wanting to learn how to do that, and, of course, that music is
not only 100 years old but it was just completely out of style after the 20th
century and everything that happened. But several years later I got another
music teacher and I was in a different frame of mind, and I really came to love
some of that 20th century music, Stravinsky and Bartok and even Schoenberg,
stuff like that.

I got this great composition teacher who taught me private lessons from UCLA.
And he actually - some of the homework assignments he gave me at that time,
2004, I integrated into a song on Weezer’s latest album, “The Red Album,”
called “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived.” At the end of that song - it’s a
six-minute song, very epic - and at the end there’s all this vocal
counterpoint. He taught me how to do all that, and actually, a lot of it is
from a homework assignment he gave me.

GROSS: What was the assignment?

Mr. CUOMO: It was - I was learning how to write three-part vocal counterpoint
in the style of 16th century. And as soon as the album was finished, I sent it
to him. I was - I knew he would be overjoyed to hear his influence on a modern
rock record. You know, as a college professor, in a somewhat obscure field, you
might start to think, like, you know, how relevant is this anymore? And he
probably would have been overjoyed to hear that on the Weezer record. He was
such an enthusiastic guy. And I was sad to learn that he passed away before he
had a chance to hear that album.

GROSS: I’m sorry to hear that.

Mr. CUOMO: Yeah.

GROSS: But we should listen to the track that you just mentioned. So, we’ll
hear the end of it, where the choral music influence comes in.

Mr. CUOMO: Yes. This is my favorite Weezer song ever.

(Soundbite of song, “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived”)

WEEZER: (Singing in round) I’m the greatest man that ever lived. I’m the
greatest man that ever lived. I’m the greatest man that ever lived. I’m the
greatest man that ever lived. I’m the greatest man that ever lived. I’m the
greatest man that ever lived. I’m the greatest man that ever lived. I’m the
greatest man that ever lived…

GROSS: That’s “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived” from Weezer’s latest, “The Red
Album.”

Mr. CUOMO: “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived.” It’s intentionally incorrect.

GROSS: Sorry, that - okay.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Why?

Mr. CUOMO: It just sings better.

GROSS: Well, I really want to thank you a lot for talking with us. It’s been
great to talk with you. Thank you and I wish you continued good luck with your
explorations in music.

Mr. CUOMO: Thank you very much and I’m so excited to talk to you. This is
great.

GROSS: Oh, that means a lot to me. Thank you.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BIANCULLI: Rivers Cuomo speaking to Terry Gross earlier this year. His band
Weezer has a new album out called “Raditude.” This is FRESH AIR.
..COST:
$00.00
..INDX:
120380079
*** TRANSCRIPTION COMPANY BOUNDARY ***
..DATE:
20091113
..PGRM:
Fresh Air
..TIME:
12:00-13:00 PM
..NIEL:
N/A
..NTWK:
NPR
..SGMT:
With Its Limp Remake, AMC Breaks 'The Prisoner'

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

I’m David Bianculli, TV critic for FRESH AIR.

The original British series “The Prisoner,” starring Patrick McGoohan as a
secret agent hauled off to a remote and mysterious place known as The Village,
was shown on American TV in 1968. In a very volatile year, it was stunningly
political. It questioned authority and championed independence. It was one of
TV’s first true mini series, with a beginning, a middle and an end — even if
that ending, the Sixties’ equivalent of the blackout finale of “The Sopranos,”
infuriated as many viewers as it pleased. And even though we never knew the
name of the hero, it was easy to identify with him.

For reasons unknown, but doubtlessly noble, he resigned his job as a spy, and
the entire series is an attempt by his Village captors, to uncover his true
motives. Each week, a village official known as Number Two tries to crack the
hero using a different approach. Each week brings failure, and the following
week, a new Number Two. Meanwhile our hero, played by McGoohan, continues to
rage against the machine and even against his given identity in The Village -
Number Six.

(Soundbite of TV Series, “The Prisoner”)

Mr. PATRICK MCGOOHAN (Actor): (As Number Six): Where am I?

Mr. FRANK MAHER (Actor): (As Number Two) In The Village.

Mr. MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) What do you want?

Mr. MAHER: (As Number Two) Information.

Mr. MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) Whose side are you on?

Mr. MAHER: (As Number Two) That would be telling. We want information,
information, information.

Mr. MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) You won’t get it.

Mr. MAHER: (As Number Two) By hook or by crook, we will.

Mr. MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) Who are you?

Mr. MAHER: (As Number Two) The new Number Two.

Mr. MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) Who is Number One?

Mr. MAHER: (As Number Two) You are Number Six.

Mr. MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) I am not a number, I am a free man.

BIANCULLI: The original “Prisoner” series was shown on CBS as a summer
replacement for “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Needless to say, it was noticed and
still is, for being jarringly, daringly different. My interpretation of the
controversial ending, by the way, is that it revealed Number Six as The
Village’s Number One — that we are all held captive by metaphorical prisons of
our own design - that sort of thing. I could go on and on about the original
“Prisoner” — and I’m tempted to, because the new version, beginning Sunday on
cable’s AMC, is such a disappointment. AMC, in trying to make a name for itself
as a presenter of quality TV, had a perfect record up to now.

First, it presented the Robert Duvall Western mini series “Broken Trail,” then
the superb drama series “Mad Men” - great season finale, by the way - and most
recently, another daring drama, “Breaking Bad.” Triple, home run, home run. And
now, with its new “Prisoner,” an embarrassing strikeout. Except for the casting
of Ian McKellen is Number Two, this new six-hour TV version seems to make
changes that weaken the concept rather than played to its strengths. For
“Prisoner” fans, there’s a lot to be irritated by. There’s only one Number Two,
rather than a succession of adversaries. And even the honorific prefix, Number,
is dropped.

The head of The Village is simply, Two, now, just as our captive hero, played
in the new mini series by Jim Caviezel, is Six. That just sounds wrong, like
when the first adaptation of a 007 novel, made for American TV before the
movies came out, referred to that spy as Jimmy Bond. Honest.

Writer-producer Bill Gallagher respects some of the old touches to keep them
intact. A few villagers still end each conversation with, “Be seeing you.”
There’s still a mysterious, oversized oval that serves as a sort of sentient
watchdog. And one scene, in which Six tries to buy a Village map, is still a
strong nod to the original series premiere.

Each hour, Two tries to unearth Six’s secrets, but this time, Six is not even a
spy, just a corporate middleweight. But most plots are original, and aren’t
improved by their originality. Instead of filming at the quaint yet modern
resort on the coast of Wales where the original was filmed, this new
“Prisoner,” set in the present, prefers a desert-and-mountain setting, filmed
partly in Namibia. It’s added lots of recurring characters, including a teen
son for Number Two, named Eleven-Twelve, presumably intended to hold younger
viewers. Another bad move.

The only scenes that work are the ones with McKellen. Where Patrick McGoohan
was magnetic, Jim Caviezel, who played the title role in “The Passion of the
Christ,” almost fails to register. Put the two actors in the same scene, as in
this early interrogation between Two and Six, and you’re in danger of rooting
for the wrong side.

(Soundbite of TV Series, “The Prisoner”)

Mr. JIM CAVIEZEL (Actor): (As Number Six) Why are you keeping me here?

Mr. IAN MCKELLEN (Actor): (As Number Two) I see no locked doors.

Mr. CAVIEZEL: (As Number Six) Well, they were after me.

Mr. MCKELLEN: (As Number Two) Sounds terribly ominous.

Mr. CAVIEZEL: (As Number Six) Why am I here? This has nothing to do with me,
any of this. I’ve seen you before.

Mr. MCKELLEN: (As Number Two) Really. What were you doing in the mountains?
Six?

Mr. CAVIEZEL: (As Number Six) I was – I was lost. I mean, I have no idea how I
got here.

What did you call me? This is – something is wrong here.

Mr. MCKELLEN: (As Number Two) Yes, you are wrong, Six.

Mr. CAVIEZEL: (As Number Six) Do not call me that. I’m not Six.

BIANCULLI: This new “Prisoner,” tries to be mysterious and compelling, like
ABC’s “Lost.” But it’s not so much lost as misguided. The original, despite its
serious themes, had a great sense of fun. AMC’s new “Prisoner,” just seems glum
— and seems a lot longer than six hours. My advice, seek out the original, skip
the remake.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: You can download Podcasts of our show at freshair.npr.org. And you
can follow us on Twitter @nprfreshair.

For Terry Gross, I’m David Bianculli. Be seeing you.
..COST:
$00.00
..INDX:
120383344

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.