DON GONYEA, HOST:
Many films can lay claim to the title of the great American movie. Take Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather Part II," an epic about the immigrant experience and the dark side of the American dream.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER PART II")
ROBERT DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I mean, you've won. You want to wipe everybody out?
AL PACINO: (As Michael Corleone) I don't feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom, just my enemies.
GONYEA: Or consider Spike Lee's 1989 film "Do The Right Thing," which captured simmering racial tensions on a New York City block, a block that can stand in for so many others across the U.S.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DO THE RIGHT THING")
SPIKE LEE: (As Mookie) All right.
OSSIE DAVIS: (As Da Mayor) Doctor...
LEE: (As Mookie) Come on. What? What?
DAVIS: (As Da Mayor) ...Always do the right thing.
LEE: (As Mookie) That's it?
DAVIS: (As Da Mayor) That's it.
LEE: (As Mookie) I got it. I'm gone.
GONYEA: Even today, some filmmakers are going all-in, budget be d***ed, trying to reflect the larger story of America. Take last year's best picture winner, "One Battle After Another," Paul Thomas Anderson's tale of revolutionaries and community activists battling an increasingly fascist American government.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Me and Willa's mom, we're the French 75. They got her. Now they're coming after us.
GONYEA: There are numerous films that have managed to capture something true about the American identity. And as the U.S. celebrates its 250th birthday, we want to use this week's Cineplexity to talk about some of those films past and present. Here with us are two people who have thought a lot about America and have seen a lot of movies, NPR's Morning Edition hosts Michel Martin and Steve Inskeep. Welcome to you both.
STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: Hi there, Don.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Hey, Don.
GONYEA: So what are some formative films for you that would make the list for you both? Let's start with you, Michel.
MARTIN: OK, let me just say this as a preface - none of these are, like, gather the kids for a movie night films.
GONYEA: All right.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTIN: I just want to be super clear about that.
INSKEEP: It's not "The Wizard Of Oz"...
MARTIN: No.
INSKEEP: ...That you're going with (ph). OK.
MARTIN: No, it's not "The Wizard Of Oz." But these films all speak to each other, and you'll see why. First off is "Birth Of A Nation"...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: ...That 1915 epic by D.W. Griffith. It was - you know, Woodrow Wilson played it at the White House. It's racist propaganda, basically.
INSKEEP: It's the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
MARTIN: It's the rise of the Ku Klux Klan sort of glorified as these kind of heroic figures, you know, saving the South and particularly white women from the ravages of unworthy Black people. We'll use that word. I mean, you look at it today, and you want to cringe, but the fact that it was such an important film of its time, I think, is something worth note. Let's fast-forward. Let's go to "12 Years A Slave."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "12 YEARS A SLAVE")
ADEPERO ODUYE: (As Eliza) But you truckle at his boot.
CHIWETEL EJIOFOR: (As Solomon Northup) No.
ODUYE: (As Eliza) You luxuriate in his favor.
EJIOFOR: (As Solomon Northup) I survive. I will not fall into despair. I will offer up my talents to Master Ford. I will keep myself hearty till freedom is opportune.
MARTIN: Also an epic, it was based on a 1853 slave memoir by Solomon Northup. To me, in a way, it directly answers "Birth Of A Nation."
GONYEA: And it took forever, but it's a film that did find its place in the American dialogue. It came out at the right time.
MARTIN: Absolutely. Go ahead, Steve.
GONYEA: Steve?
INSKEEP: I wanted to go for a couple that are more recent that each involve huge Hollywood stars, even though they're not really, like, the biggest movies. They're not epic films. One is called "Up In The Air."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UP IN THE AIR")
GEORGE CLOONEY: (As Ryan Bingham) To know me is to fly with me. This is where I live.
INSKEEP: George Clooney, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, lot of other great people in that film. And for those who haven't seen it, it is the story of a guy whose job is to go around the country firing people. He's a consultant, in effect. And a corporation wants to lay off people, but the manager doesn't have the guts to do it themselves, so they bring in George Clooney to do it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UP IN THE AIR")
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS: (As Steve) I mean, is there something I can do differently here?
CLOONEY: (As Ryan Bingham) This is not an assessment of your productivity. You got to try not to take this personally.
INSKEEP: And then he's confronted with this new person, a younger person, played by Anna Kendrick, whose job is to automate his job, and it's the conflict between the two of them. And it came out after the 2008 financial crisis. The timing of this movie is a lot of the power of this movie, and a lot of people really are getting fired. And you have this guy who at the beginning of the movie is really unsympathetic. He lives out of one suitcase that he can carry on a plane.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UP IN THE AIR")
ANNA KENDRICK: (As Natalie Keener) The isolation, the traveling - is that supposed to be charming?
CLOONEY: (As Ryan Bingham) No, it's simply a life choice.
KENDRICK: (As Natalie Keener) It's a cocoon of self-banishment.
CLOONEY: (As Ryan Bingham) Wow. Big words.
INSKEEP: He's going around and giving people the worst news of their lives, but by the end of the movie, you feel the world from his perspective. He's trying to do it in a humane way.
MARTIN: It stays with you.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
MARTIN: It's one of those things you don't think it's going to, but it does. You can't get it out of your mind.
INSKEEP: Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant, brilliant movie. And there's another film from a similar period that plays on some similar themes and also, huge Hollywood star, Clint Eastwood. And the movie is "Gran Torino."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GRAN TORINO")
CLINT EASTWOOD: (As Walt Kowalski) What's going on?
AHNEY HER: (As Sue) Thao is here to make amends. He's here to work for you.
EASTWOOD: (As Walt Kowalski) No, he isn't. He's not going to work for me.
INSKEEP: And he directed the film, as well as starring in the film. You see all the other characters he's played through - iconic characters in "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" series, "Pale Rider," "Unforgiven," on and on and on, great movies that we could name, and now he is an older Korean War veteran. And the classic line from that movie is when there is a group of immigrants living next to him and they have some kind of fight that spills onto the grass of his front yard, and he brings out a gun and says...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GRAN TORINO")
EASTWOOD: (As Walt Kowalski) Get off my lawn.
GONYEA: It is a film that is evocative of a certain era in the city that I live in.
INSKEEP: Yes, it's in Detroit. It's set in Detroit.
GONYEA: It's set in Detroit suburbs. And he lives in one of those neighborhoods that could be considered the home of White flight. And now that neighborhood was changing. And there is so much that is so real that anybody who lives here and watched it could just see from the local TV news at night.
INSKEEP: Clint Eastwood ends up in these extended conversations with a much, much, much younger woman. Ahney Her is the actress who plays her, and she is under 20 in the film, I believe. And she is an immigrant, and she is of the Hmong people of Southeast Asia. And Eastwood is constantly saying these insensitive to racist things.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GRAN TORINO")
HER: (As Sue) Never touch a Hmong person on their head, not even a child. Hmong people believe that the soul resides on the head. So don't do that.
EASTWOOD: (As Walt Kowalski) Sounds dumb, but fine.
INSKEEP: You have a sense of America in an economically difficult time, again, in transition and people struggling with that transition and what it means and ultimately finding a way to relate to each other as human beings.
GONYEA: So these films the two of you mentioned are from different eras. I'm wondering if, over time, your individual criteria for movies that get America right has changed.
INSKEEP: Wow. You know, I'm going to name a film that you mentioned at the beginning that I think broadened my lens. I was a very young guy living in New York City for the first time, and we went down the street to the theater and saw "Do The Right Thing."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DO THE RIGHT THING")
LEE: (As Mookie) All right?
GIANCARLO ESPOSITO: (As Buggin' Out) Hey. Hey, Sal. How come they ain't no brothers on the wall here?
DANNY AIELLO: (As Sal) You want brothers on the wall? Get your own place. You can do what you want to do.
INSKEEP: And I think it is not unfair to say that I had an easier time at the beginning of that film, relating with the perspective of the white people than with the Black characters. And there is something about the narrative of that film that lets you into the world of the white characters. I think you understand Danny Aiello's character by the end, but you also understand the perspective of the people on the street. And you absolutely understand the perspective of Spike Lee at the incendiary moment, literally, where he throws the garbage can, I believe, through a window that ultimately starts people tearing up a shop and setting a fire.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DO THE RIGHT THING")
LEE: (As Mookie, yelling) Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, yelling) No.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS SHATTERING)
INSKEEP: You get a sense of the differing perspectives of these characters who are in the same neighborhood, in the very same place, dealing with a difficult moment of transition.
MARTIN: I think that the thing that makes a film great is that it continues to tell you things even after the era has ended, even something as racist as "Birth Of A Nation" because...
INSKEEP: Filmmakers still watch that for the technique.
MARTIN: Yeah. Sure, they watch it for the technique, but also you watch it to understand the origin of certain racist practices like blackface. Like, the alleged Black characters are all white people in blackface, and that tells you something about how dominant blackface was in the culture and remained for years. And I think that's why it's worth watching.
GONYEA: How should a movie now, in this era, speak to the current moment? What must it capture?
INSKEEP: Here's what I think the challenge of storytelling and filmmaking is today. We're at this moment where we imagine - we've told ourselves that the American story has come apart, that there used to be one narrative, which really meant that all the other narratives were suppressed. And now we have a million narratives, and nobody has any point of reference or understands what's going on. And nobody understands anything except what they think is their own story. I think the challenge of great filmmaking at this moment is to integrate those stories back into one, to understand that we are all characters of different backgrounds, and we push and pull against each other and hopefully learn from each other, and that we are all part of one American story with all of its flaws. And it's better to understand that and to grow from it than to shy away from it.
GONYEA: Are we so fragmented as a society that that sort of thing is even possible?
MARTIN: Does a great piece of art have to speak to everybody? I mean, I love "It's A Wonderful Life." We watch it every year at Christmas, like a lot of people do, and there's nobody who looks like me in it that I recall.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
MARTIN: But it still speaks to me in that sense of...
INSKEEP: It speaks to you in a universal human - yeah.
MARTIN: ...It speaks to me in a universal sort of human way.
INSKEEP: It's on economic themes about community (ph).
MARTIN: But let's just also - can we just be honest about it? Some people don't want to be part of the larger fabric. They like their story better. I'm not dismissing your question, Don, but I am saying that...
INSKEEP: You're saying it's OK.
MARTIN: ...It doesn't have to be - speak to everybody to be valid in speaking to some people if it speaks something true.
GONYEA: Steve, final thoughts?
INSKEEP: How am I going to top that? I just listen to Michel, and I say, this is Morning Edition from NPR News and seg close. We're done. We're done.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
GONYEA: We will leave it at that. That was Morning Edition hosts Steve Inskeep and Michel Martin. Thank you both for joining us.
INSKEEP: Glad to spend the time, Don.
MARTIN: So glad to be with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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