The National Portrait Gallery is the place dedicated to presenting great American lives, amazing people. And that's what it's about. We use portraiture as a way to deliver those lives, but that's it. And so I'm not going to talk about the painted portrait today. I'm going to talk about a program I started there, which, from my point of view, is the proudest thing I did.
Nacionalna Galerija Portreta je mesto posvećeno predstavljanju sjajnih američkih života, sjajnih ljudi. I zapravo je o tome. Mi koristimo portretisanje da predstavimo te živote, ali to je to. Tako da ja neću govoriti o naslikanom portretu danas. Govoriću vam o programu koji sam tamo započeo, koji je, sa moje tačke gledišta, stvar na koju sam najviše ponosan.
I started to worry about the fact that a lot of people don't get their portraits painted anymore, and they're amazing people, and we want to deliver them to future generations. So, how do we do that? And so I came up with the idea of the living self-portrait series. And the living self-portrait series was the idea of basically my being a brush in the hand of amazing people who would come and I would interview.
Počeo sam da brinem oko činjenice da se portreti mnogih ljudi više ne slikaju, a oni su sjajni ljudi, i želimo da ih predstavimo budućim generacijama. I kako to da uradimo? Tako sam došao na ideju o serijama živih autoportreta. A suština tih serija je da ja budem četkica u rukama neverovatnih ljudi, koji bi došli da ih intervjuišem.
And so what I'm going to do is, not so much give you the great hits of that program, as to give you this whole notion of how you encounter people in that kind of situation, what you try to find out about them, and when people deliver and when they don't and why.
Tako da vam ja neću dati sjajne tačke ovog programa, koliko ću vam dati čitavu ideju toga kako se sresti sa ljudima u takvoj situaciji, šta pokušavate da saznate o njima i kada se ljudi otvore, kada ne i zašto.
Now, I had two preconditions. One was that they be American. That's just because, in the nature of the National Portrait Gallery, it's created to look at American lives. That was easy, but then I made the decision, maybe arbitrary, that they needed to be people of a certain age, which at that point, when I created this program, seemed really old. Sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. For obvious reasons, it doesn't seem that old anymore to me.
Imao sam dva preduslova. Prvi, da budu Amerikanci. To samo zato, što je u prirodi Nacionalne Galerije Portreta, da gleda američke živote. To je bilo lako, ali sam onda doneo odluku, možda proizvoljno, da ljudi moraju da budu u određenim godinama, što je u tom trenutku, kada sam osmislio ovaj program, izgledalo prilično staro. Šezdesete, sedamdesete, osamdesete i devedesete. Iz očiglednog razloga, to za mene više ne izgleda toliko staro.
And why did I do that? Well, for one thing, we're a youth-obsessed culture. And I thought really what we need is an elders program to just sit at the feet of amazing people and hear them talk. But the second part of it -- and the older I get, the more convinced I am that that's true. It's amazing what people will say when they know how the story turned out. That's the one advantage that older people have. Well, they have other, little bit of advantage, but they also have some disadvantages, but the one thing they or we have is that we've reached the point in life where we know how the story turned out. So, we can then go back in our lives, if we've got an interviewer who gets that, and begin to reflect on how we got there. All of those accidents that wound up creating the life narrative that we inherited.
A zašto sam to učinio? Pa, za početak, mi smo kultura koja je opsednuta mladošću. I mislio sam da nam je zaista potreban program za starije da jednostavno sedimo pored sjajnih ljudi i da ih slušamo kako govore. Ali drugi deo toga - što sam stariji, ubeđeniji sam da je to istina. Zapanjujuće je šta će ljudi reći kada znaju kako se priča završila. To je jedna prednost koju stariji ljudi imaju. Pa, imaju drugu, malu prednost, ali takođe imaju i neke nedostatke, ali jedna stvar koju oni ili mi imamo je da smo dostigli tačku u životu gde znamo kako se priča završila. Dakle, možemo da se vratimo kroz život, ako imamo intervjuera koji to shvata, i da počnemo da se prisećamo kako smo stigli ovde. Svi ti događaji koji su stvorili životnu priču koju smo nasledili.
So, I thought okay, now, what is it going to take to make this work? There are many kinds of interviews. We know them. There are the journalist interviews, which are the interrogation that is expected. This is somewhat against resistance and caginess on the part of the interviewee. Then there's the celebrity interview, where it's more important who's asking the question than who answers. That's Barbara Walters and others like that, and we like that. That's Frost-Nixon, where Frost seems to be as important as Nixon in that process. Fair enough.
Pa sam pomislio, okej, šta je potrebno da ovo uspe? Postoje mnoge vrste intervjua. Znamo ih. Postoje novinarski intervjui, koji su ispitivanja koja se očekuju. Ovo je nekako protiv otpora i rešetki koje intervjuisani ima. Onda su tu intervjui poznatih, gde je mnogo važnije ko postavlja pitanje, nego ko odgovara. To su Barbara Volters i njoj slični i nama se to dopada. To je Frost-Nikson, gde je Frost podjednako važan kao i Nikson, u tom procesu. Pošteno.
But I wanted interviews that were different. I wanted to be, as I later thought of it, empathic, which is to say, to feel what they wanted to say and to be an agent of their self-revelation. By the way, this was always done in public. This was not an oral history program. This was all about 300 people sitting at the feet of this individual, and having me be the brush in their self-portrait.
Ali ja sam hteo intervjue koji su drugačiji. Hteo sam da budem, kako sam kasnije shvatio, empatičan, što znači, da osećam šta su oni hteli da kažu i da budem agent njihovog ličnog otkrivanja. Usput, ovo je uvek rađeno u javnosti. Ovo nije bio usmeni istorijski program. Ovde se radilo o 300 ljudi koji sede u prisustvu te osobe i sa mnom kao četkicom njihovog autiportrteta.
Now, it turns out that I was pretty good at that. I didn't know it coming into it. And the only reason I really know that is because of one interview I did with Senator William Fulbright, and that was six months after he'd had a stroke. And he had never appeared in public since that point. This was not a devastating stroke, but it did affect his speaking and so forth. And I thought it was worth a chance, he thought it was worth a chance, and so we got up on the stage, and we had an hour conversation about his life, and after that a woman rushed up to me, essentially did, and she said, "Where did you train as a doctor?"
Sad, ispada da sam bio prilično dobar u tome. Nisam bio svestan toga. I jedini razlog zbog kojeg jesam, jeste jedan intervju koji sam uradio sa senatorom Vilijamom Fulbrajtom, i to šest meseci nakon njegovog šloga. I posle toga, više se nikada nije pojavio u javnosti. Ovo nije bio razarajući udar, ali jeste oštetio njegovu sposobnost govora i tako dalje. I mislio sam da vredi pokušati, kao i on, tako da smo se popeli na binu, i razgovarali oko sat vremena o njegovom životu, posle čega mi je jedna žena prišla, zaista, i rekla, "Gde ste se obučavali za doktora?"
And I said, "I have no training as a doctor. I never claimed that."
A ja sam rekao, "Nemam nikakvo lekarsko obrazovanje, nikada to nisam tvrdio."
And she said, "Well, something very weird was happening. When he started a sentence, particularly in the early parts of the interview, and paused, you gave him the word, the bridge to get to the end of the sentence, and by the end of it, he was speaking complete sentences on his own." I didn't know what was going on, but I was so part of the process of getting that out.
Na šta je ona rekla, "Pa, nešto veoma čudno se dešavalo. Kada bi on započeo rečenicu, naročito pri početku intervjua, i zastao, vi ste mu dali reč, most da dođe do kraja rečenice, i do kraja, on je sam izgovarao čitave rečenice." Nisam znao o čemu se tu radi, ali sam bio deo procesa ispoljavanja toga.
So I thought, okay, fine, I've got empathy, or empathy, at any rate, is what's critical to this kind of interview. But then I began to think of other things. Who makes a great interview in this context? It had nothing to do with their intellect, the quality of their intellect. Some of them were very brilliant, some of them were, you know, ordinary people who would never claim to be intellectuals, but it was never about that. It was about their energy. It's energy that creates extraordinary interviews and extraordinary lives. I'm convinced of it. And it had nothing to do with the energy of being young. These were people through their 90s.
Pa sam pomislio, okej, dobro, imam empatiju, ili je empatija, u bilo kom obliku nužna za ovu vrstu intervjua. Ali onda sam počeo da razmišljam o drugim stvarima. Ko u ovom kontekstu pravi odlične intervjue? To nema nikakve veze sa njihovim intelektom, kvalitetom istog. Neki od njih su bili sjajni, neki od njih, znate, obični ljudi, koji nikada ne bi tvrdili da su intelektualci, ali se nikada nije o tome radilo. Bila je u pitanju njihova energija. Energija je ta koja stvara izuzetne intervjue i izuzetne živote. Ubeđen sam u to. I nema nikakve veze sa energijom mladosti. Ovo su ljudi u svojim devedesetim.
In fact, the first person I interviewed was George Abbott, who was 97, and Abbott was filled with the life force -- I guess that's the way I think about it -- filled with it. And so he filled the room, and we had an extraordinary conversation. He was supposed to be the toughest interview that anybody would ever do because he was famous for being silent, for never ever saying anything except maybe a word or two. And, in fact, he did wind up opening up -- by the way, his energy is evidenced in other ways. He subsequently got married again at 102, so he, you know, he had a lot of the life force in him.
Ustvari, prva osoba koju sam intervjuisao jeste Džordž Abot, koji je imao 97, a on je bio ispunjen životnom snagom - mislim da je to način na koji razmišljam o tome - ispunjen njome. I tako je on ispunio sobu, i imali smo sjajan razgovor. On je navodno bio najteža osoba za intervju, bilo kome, jer je bio poznat po svom ćutanju, po tome što nikada nije govorio osim možda reč ili dve. I ustvari, na kraju se jeste otvorio - usput, njegova energija se vidi u drugim stvarima. On se na kraju ponovo oženio sa svoje 102 godine tako da je, znate, imao je mnogo životne energije u sebi.
But after the interview, I got a call, very gruff voice, from a woman. I didn't know who she was, and she said, "Did you get George Abbott to talk?"
Ali nakon intervjua, dobio sam poziv, vrlo grub glas, ženski, nisam znao ko je ona. Rekla je, "Da li ste vi naterali Džordža Abota da progovori?"
And I said, "Yeah. Apparently I did."
Rekao sam, "Da. Izgleda da jesam."
And she said, "I'm his old girlfriend, Maureen Stapleton, and I could never do it." And then she made me go up with the tape of it and prove that George Abbott actually could talk.
Rekla je, "Ja sam njegova stara devojka, Morin Stejplton, i nikada nisam uspela u tome." I naterala me je da dođem sa tim snimkom i dokažem da Džordž Abot zapravo može da govori.
So, you know, you want energy, you want the life force, but you really want them also to think that they have a story worth sharing. The worst interviews that you can ever have are with people who are modest. Never ever get up on a stage with somebody who's modest, because all of these people have been assembled to listen to them, and they sit there and they say, "Aw, shucks, it was an accident." There's nothing that ever happens that justifies people taking good hours of the day to be with them.
Dakle, znate, želite energiju, želite životnu snagu, ali isto tako želite da oni misle kako imaju priču koju vredi podeliti. Najgori su oni intervjui sa skromnim ljudima. Nikada, ali nikada se nemojte popeti na scenu sa nekim ko je skroman, jer su svi ti ljudi navikli da ih ljudi slušaju i sede tako i kažu, "O, dođavola, to je bila slučajnost." Ništa što se dogodi, ne opravdava činjenicu da ljudi sa njima provode sate.
The worst interview I ever did: William L. Shirer. The journalist who did "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." This guy had met Hitler and Gandhi within six months, and every time I'd ask him about it, he'd say, "Oh, I just happened to be there. Didn't matter." Whatever. Awful. I never would ever agree to interview a modest person. They have to think that they did something and that they want to share it with you.
Najgori intervju koji sam vodio: Vilijam L. Širer. Novinar koji je uradio "Uspon i pad Trećeg Rajha." Ovaj momak je upoznao Hitlera i Gandija u roku od šest meseci, i svaki put kada sam ga pitao o tome, rekao bi, "Oh, pa ja sam igrom slučaja bio tamo. Nije važno." Kako god. Užasno. Nikada ne bih pristao da intervjuišem skromnu osobu. Moraju da misle da su uradili nešto i da to žele da podele sa vama.
But it comes down, in the end, to how do you get through all the barriers we have. All of us are public and private beings, and if all you're going to get from the interviewee is their public self, there's no point in it. It's pre-programmed. It's infomercial, and we all have infomercials about our lives. We know the great lines, we know the great moments, we know what we're not going to share, and the point of this was not to embarrass anybody. This wasn't -- and some of you will remember Mike Wallace's old interviews -- tough, aggressive and so forth. They have their place.
Ali na kraju se svodi na pitanje kako proći kroz sve barijere koje imamo. Svi mi smo privatna i javna bića, i ako je sve što ćete dobiti od sagovornika njegovo javno ja, onda u tome nema smisla. To je pre-programirano. To je info-reklama, a svi imamo info-reklame o svojim životima. Znamo sjajne rečenice, sjajne momente, znamo šta nećemo podeliti, a smisao ovoga nije da osramotiš nekoga. Ovo nije - i neki od vas će se setiti starih intervjua Majk Volisa - čvrstih, agresivnih i tako dalje. Oni imaju svoje mesto.
I was trying to get them to say what they probably wanted to say, to break out of their own cocoon of the public self, and the more public they had been, the more entrenched that person, that outer person was. And let me tell you at once the worse moment and the best moment that happened in this interview series. It all has to do with that shell that most of us have, and particularly certain people.
Pokušao sam da ih "nateram" da kažu ono što su verovatno želeli da kažu, da izađu iz čaure javnog ja, i što su više bili izloženi javnosti, to više je ta druga, spoljna, osoba bila utemeljena. I da vam odmah kažem, najbolji i najgori momenat koji se u ovim serijama dogodio. Sve ima veze sa tim oklopom koji većina od nas ima, a naročito neki ljudi.
There's an extraordinary woman named Clare Boothe Luce. It'll be your generational determinant as to whether her name means much to you. She did so much. She was a playwright. She did an extraordinary play called "The Women." She was a congresswoman when there weren't very many congresswomen. She was editor of Vanity Fair, one of the great phenomenal women of her day. And, incidentally, I call her the Eleanor Roosevelt of the Right. She was sort of adored on the Right the way Eleanor Roosevelt was on the Left. And, in fact, when we did the interview -- I did the living self-portrait with her -- there were three former directors of the CIA basically sitting at her feet, just enjoying her presence.
Postoji ta izuzetna žena Kler But Lus. To koliko vam njeno ime znači, zavisi od toga kojoj generaciji pripadate. Uradila je toliko toga. Pisala je pozorišne predstave. Uradila je jednu sjajnu predstavu "Žene". Bila je članica kongresa kada članica nije bilo mnogo. Bila je urednica "Veniti Fera", jedna od sjajnih veličanstvenih žena svog vremena. I uzgred, zovem je Elenor Ruzvelt desnice. Bila je na neki način obožavana na denoj strani koliko Elenor Ruzvelt na levoj. I ustvari, kada smo uradili intervju, uradio sam živi samoportret sa njom, bila su tu tri bivša direktora iz CIA, bukvalno sedeći pored njenih nogu, samo uživajući u njenom prisustvu.
And I thought, this is going to be a piece of cake, because I always have preliminary talks with these people for just maybe 10 or 15 minutes. We never talk before that because if you talk before, you don't get it on the stage. So she and I had a delightful conversation.
I pomislio sam, ovo će biti lako, jer uvek imam preliminarne razgovore sa ovim ljudima nekih 10 do 15 minuta. Nikada pre toga ne razgovaramo, jer ako to učinite, ne ispričate to na bini. Tako smo nas dvoje imali divan razgovor.
We were on the stage and then -- by the way, spectacular. It was all part of Clare Boothe Luce's look. She was in a great evening gown. She was 80, almost that day of the interview, and there she was and there I was, and I just proceeded into the questions. And she stonewalled me. It was unbelievable. Anything that I would ask, she would turn around, dismiss, and I was basically up there -- any of you in the moderate-to-full entertainment world know what it is to die onstage. And I was dying. She was absolutely not giving me a thing.
Bili smo na bini i onda - spektakularno. Sve je to zasluga izgleda Kler But Lus. Bila je u sjajnoj večernjoj haljini. Imala je 80, skoro na dan intervjua, i tu je bila ona, tu sam bio ja, i samo sam nastavio sa pitanjima. I skamenila me. Bilo je neverovatno. Sve što bih pitao, ona bi preokrenula, odbacila, i praktično sam bio tamo - bilo ko od vas iz umerenog do potpuno zabavljačkog sveta zna šta znači umreti na sceni. A ja sam umirao. Apsolutno mi ništa nije davala.
And I began to wonder what was going on, and you think while you talk, and basically, I thought, I got it. When we were alone, I was her audience. Now I'm her competitor for the audience. That's the problem here, and she's fighting me for that, and so then I asked her a question -- I didn't know how I was going to get out of it -- I asked her a question about her days as a playwright, and again, characteristically, instead of saying, "Oh yes, I was a playwright, and this is what blah blah blah," she said, "Oh, playwright. Everybody knows I was a playwright. Most people think that I was an actress. I was never an actress." But I hadn't asked that, and then she went off on a tear, and she said, "Oh, well, there was that one time that I was an actress. It was for a charity in Connecticut when I was a congresswoman, and I got up there," and she went on and on, "And then I got on the stage."
I počeo sam da se pitam šta se dešava, i mislite dok razgovarate, i pomislio sam, imam ga. Kada smo bili sami, ja sam bio njena publika. Sada sam njena konkurencija za dobijanje pažnje. To je ovde problem i ona se bori sa mnom za to, tako da sam je upitao - nisam znao kako ću se izvući iz toga - upitao sam je o njenim danima pisca predstava, i opet, uobičajeno, umesto da kaže, "Da, pisala sam predstave i bla bla bla bla", rekla je, "oh, pisanje predstava. Svi znaju da sam to radila. Većina misli da sam bila glumica. Nikada nisam bila glumica." Ali nisam je to pitao, a onda se rasplakala, i rekla, "E da, ima taj jedan trenutak kada jesam bila glumica. Bilo je u humanitarne svrhe u Konektikatu kada sam bila u kongresu, i popela sam se", i onda je nastavila, "I onda sam se popela na binu."
And then she turned to me and said, "And you know what those young actors did? They upstaged me." And she said, "Do you know what that is?" Just withering in her contempt.
Onda se okrenula ka meni i rekla, "I znate šta su ti mladi glumci uradili? Potisnuli su me." I rekla je, "Da li znate šta je to?" venući u svom preziru.
And I said, "I'm learning."
I rekao sam, "Učim."
(Laughter)
(smeh)
And she looked at me, and it was like the successful arm-wrestle, and then, after that, she delivered an extraordinary account of what her life really was like.
Pogledala me je i bilo je poput uspešnog obaranja ruku, i posle toga, dala je toliko toga sjajnog o tome kakav je zapravo njen život bio.
I have to end that one. This is my tribute to Clare Boothe Luce. Again, a remarkable person. I'm not politically attracted to her, but through her life force, I'm attracted to her. And the way she died -- she had, toward the end, a brain tumor. That's probably as terrible a way to die as you can imagine, and very few of us were invited to a dinner party.
Moram to da zavšim. Ovo je moja oda Kler But Lus. Ponovo, izuzetna osoba. Ne privlači me politički, ali privukla me je svojom životnom snagom. I način na koji je umrla - pred kraj je imala tumor na mozgu. To je verovatno najstrašniji način da se umre koji možete zamisliti, vrlo malo nas je pozvano na večeru.
And she was in horrible pain. We all knew that. She stayed in her room. Everybody came. The butler passed around canapes. The usual sort of thing. Then at a certain moment, the door opened and she walked out perfectly dressed, completely composed. The public self, the beauty, the intellect, and she walked around and talked to every person there and then went back into the room and was never seen again. She wanted the control of her final moment, and she did it amazingly.
I bila je u neverovatnim bolovima. Svi smo to znali. Ostala je u svojoj sobi. Svi su došli. Batler je raznosio kanapee. Uobičajene stvari. Onda, u jednom trenutku, vrata su se otvorila i ona je izašla savršeno obučena, potpuno usklađena. Javno ja, lepota, intelekt, i hodala je okolo i razgovarala sa svakom osobom i onda se vratila u sobu i nikada više nije viđena. Htela je da kontroliše svoj poslednji trenutak i uradila je to sjajno.
Now, there are other ways that you get somebody to open up, and this is just a brief reference. It wasn't this arm-wrestle, but it was a little surprising for the person involved. I interviewed Steve Martin. It wasn't all that long ago. And we were sitting there, and almost toward the beginning of the interview, I turned to him and I said, "Steve," or "Mr. Martin, it is said that all comedians have unhappy childhoods. Was yours unhappy?"
Sada, postoje drugi načini na koje postižete da se drugi otvore, a ovo je samo kratak opis. NIje bilo kao obaranje ruku, ali jeste bilo malo iznenađujuće za osobu o kojoj je reč. Intervjuisao sam Stiva Martina. Ne tako davno. I sedeli smo i pred sam početak intervjua, okrenuo sam se ka njemu i rekao, "Stiv" ili "Gospodine Martin, rečeno je da svi komičari imaju nesrećno detinjstvo. Da li je i vaše bilo?"
And he looked at me, you know, as if to say, "This is how you're going to start this thing, right off?" And then he turned to me, not stupidly, and he said, "What was your childhood like?"
I pogledao me je, znate, kao da će reći, "Ovako ćeš početi ovu stvar, odmah?" I onda se okrenuo ka meni, ne glupo, i rekao, "Kakvo je bilo vaše detinjstvo?"
And I said -- these are all arm wrestles, but they're affectionate -- and I said, "My father was loving and supportive, which is why I'm not funny."
I rekao sam - sve ovo je obaranje ruku, ali nežno - i rekao, "Moj otac je bio pun ljubavi i podržavajući, zbog čega nisam duhovit."
(Laughter)
(smeh)
And he looked at me, and then we heard the big sad story. His father was an SOB, and, in fact, he was another comedian with an unhappy childhood, but then we were off and running. So the question is: What is the key that's going to allow this to proceed?
Pogledao me je i onda smo čuli veliku tužnu priču. Njegov otac je bio kučkin sin, i zapravo, on je bio komičar sa nesrećnim detinjstvom, ali onda smo krenuli. Dakle, pitanje je: Šta je ključ koji će omogućiti nastavak ovoga?
Now, these are arm wrestle questions, but I want to tell you about questions that are more related to empathy and that really, very often, are the questions that people have been waiting their whole lives to be asked. And I'll just give you two examples of this because of the time constraints.
Znači, ovo su pitanja sa kojima se borimo, ali želim da vam predstavim pitanja koja su više u vezi sa empatijom a to zapravo, vrlo često, jesu pitanja na koja ljudi čekaju čitav život da im se postave. I zbog vemenskog ograničenja ću vam dati samo dva primera ovoga.
One was an interview I did with one of the great American biographers. Again, some of you will know him, most of you won't, Dumas Malone. He did a five-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, spent virtually his whole life with Thomas Jefferson, and by the way, at one point I asked him, "Would you like to have met him?"
Jedno je intervju sa jednim sjajnim američkim biografom. Opet, neki od vas su čuli za njega, večina vas nije, Duma Maloun. On je napisao biografiju Tomasa Džefersona u pet tomova, skoro čitav svoj život je proveo sa Tomasom Džefersonom, i usput, u jednom trenutku sam ga upitao, "Da li biste voleli da ste ga upoznali?"
And he said, "Well, of course, but actually, I know him better than anyone who ever met him, because I got to read all of his letters." So, he was very satisfied with the kind of relationship they had over 50 years.
Odgovorio je, "Pa, naravno, ali zapravo, znam ga bolje od svih koji su ga ikada upoznali, jer sam imao priliku da pročitam sva njegova pisma." Dakle, bio je izuzetno zadovoljan odnosom koji su tokom 50 godina imali.
And I asked him one question. I said, "Did Jefferson ever disappoint you?"
Pitao sam ga sledeće. "Da li vas je Džeferson ikada razočarao?"
And here is this man who had given his whole life to uncovering Jefferson and connecting with him, and he said, "Well ..." -- I'm going to do a bad southern accent. Dumas Malone was from Mississippi originally. But he said, "Well," he said, "I'm afraid so." He said, "You know, I've read everything, and sometimes Mr. Jefferson would smooth the truth a bit."
I ovde je čovek koji je ceo svoj život posvetio razotkrivanju Džefersona i povezivanjem sa njim, i rekao je, "Pa..." - loše ću imitirati južnjački akcenat. Duma Maloun je bio iz Misisipija. Ali rekao je, "Pa", rekako je, "Bojim se da da." Reče, "Znate, sve sam pročitao, i ponekada bi gospodin Džeferson ispeglao istinu pomalo."
And he basically was saying that this was a man who lied more than he wished he had, because he saw the letters. He said, "But I understand that." He said, "I understand that." He said, "We southerners do like a smooth surface, so that there were times when he just didn't want the confrontation."
I zapravo je govorio kako je to bio čovek koji je lagao više nego što je želeo, jer je video pisma. Rekao je, "Ali razumem to." Rekao je, "Razumem to." Dodao je, "Mi južnjaci volimo glatku površinu, tako da su bila vremena kada on nije hteo konflikt."
And he said, "Now, John Adams was too honest." And he started to talk about that, and later on he invited me to his house, and I met his wife who was from Massachusetts, and he and she had exactly the relationship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. She was the New Englander and abrasive, and he was this courtly fellow.
Još je rekao, "E sad, Džon Adams je bio previše iskren." I počeo je da govori o tome, a kasnije me je pozvao svojoj kući, gde sam upoznao njegovu ženu, koja je bila iz Masačusetsa, a njih dvoje su imali isti odnos kao Tomas Džeferson i Džon Adams. Ona je bila iz Nove Engleske i odsečna, a on je bio otmen momak.
But really the most important question I ever asked, and most of the times when I talk about it, people kind of suck in their breath at my audacity, or cruelty, but I promise you it was the right question. This was to Agnes de Mille. Agnes de Mille is one of the great choreographers in our history. She basically created the dances in "Oklahoma," transforming the American theater. An amazing woman.
Ali zaista najvažnije pitanje koje sam ikada postavio, i većinu vremena kada o tome govorim, ljudima na trenutak zastane dah zbog moje smelosti ili okrutnosti, ali, obećavam vam, bilo je to pravo pitanje. Postavio sam ga Agnes De Mil. Agnes De Mil je jedna od najvećih koreografa u našoj istoriji. Ona je praktično stvorila plesne tačke u "Oklahomi", transformišući američko pozorište. Sjajna žena.
At the time that I proposed to her that -- by the way, I would have proposed to her; she was extraordinary -- but proposed to her that she come on. She said, "Come to my apartment." She lived in New York. "Come to my apartment and we'll talk for those 15 minutes, and then we'll decide whether we proceed."
U trenutku kada sam joj predložio - usput, zaprosio bih je, bila je neverovatna - ali sam joj predložio da dođe. Rekla je, "Dođi do mog stana." Živela je u Njujorku. "Dođi do mog stana i razgovaraćemo tih 15 minuta, a onda ćemo odlučiti da li ćemo nastaviti."
And so I showed up in this dark, rambling New York apartment, and she called out to me, and she was in bed. I had known that she had had a stroke, and that was some 10 years before. And so she spent almost all of her life in bed, but -- I speak of the life force -- her hair was askew. She wasn't about to make up for this occasion.
I tako sam se pojavio u tom tamnom, nesređenom njujorškom stanu, pozvala me je, bila je u krevetu. Znao sam da je imala moždani udar, a to je bilo nekih 10 godina ranije. Tako da je veći deo svog vremena provela u krevetu, ali - govorim o životnoj snazi - njena kosa je stajala nakrivo. Nije se sređivala za ovu priliku.
And she was sitting there surrounded by books, and her most interesting possession she felt at that moment was her will, which she had by her side. She wasn't unhappy about this. She was resigned. She said, "I keep this will by my bed, memento mori, and I change it all the time just because I want to." And she was loving the prospect of death as much as she had loved life. I thought, this is somebody I've got to get in this series.
I sedela je tamo okružena knjigama i njeno najinteresantnije vlasništvo u tom trenutku je bio njen testament, koji je imala pored sebe. Nije bila nesrećna zbog toga. Bila je spokojna. Rekla je, "Držim ovaj testament pored kreveta, kao podsetnik, i svaki put ga menjam samo zato što želim." I ona je volela mogućnost umiranja isto koliko je volela i život. Pomislio sam, ovo je neko koga moram ubaciti u ove serije.
She agreed. She came on. Of course she was wheelchaired on. Half of her body was stricken, the other half not. She was, of course, done up for the occasion, but this was a woman in great physical distress. And we had a conversation, and then I asked her this unthinkable question. I said, "Was it a problem for you in your life that you were not beautiful?"
Složila se. Došla je. Naravno da je bila u kolicima. Polovina njenog tela je obolela, polovina nije. Bila je, naravno, doterana za ovu priliku, ali ovo je bila žena sa velikom fizičkom nemoći. I vodili smo razgovor, i onda sam joj postavio to nezamislivo pitanje. Rekao sam, "Da li vam je činjenica da niste lepi, predstavljala problem u životu?"
And the audience just -- you know, they're always on the side of the interviewee, and they felt that this was a kind of assault, but this was the question she had wanted somebody to ask her whole life. And she began to talk about her childhood, when she was beautiful, and she literally turned -- here she was, in this broken body -- and she turned to the audience and described herself as the fair demoiselle with her red hair and her light steps and so forth, and then she said, "And then puberty hit."
I publika je samo - znate, uvek su na strani intervjuisanog, i mislili su da je ovo neka vrsta uvrede, ali to je pitanje koje je ona čitavog života želela da joj neko postavi. I počela je da govori o svom detinjstvu, kada jeste bila lepa, i potpuno se okrenula - tu je bila, u tom slomljenom telu - i okrenula se publici i opisala sebe kao lepuškastu mladu devojku sa svojom crvenom kosom i laganim korakom i tako dalje, a onda je rekla, "A onda me udario pubertet."
And she began to talk about things that had happened to her body and her face, and how she could no longer count on her beauty, and her family then treated her like the ugly sister of the beautiful one for whom all the ballet lessons were given. And she had to go along just to be with her sister for company, and in that process, she made a number of decisions. First of all, was that dance, even though it hadn't been offered to her, was her life. And secondly, she had better be, although she did dance for a while, a choreographer because then her looks didn't matter. But she was thrilled to get that out as a real, real fact in her life.
I počela je da govori o stvarima koje su se dogodile njenom telu i licu, i kako više nije mogla da računa na svoju lepotu, i njena porodica ju je onda tretirala kao ružnu sestru lepe sestre za koju su držani svi časovi baleta. I morala je da ide, da pravi društvo svojoj sestri i za to vreme, odlučila je nekoliko stvari. Najpre, ples, iako joj nije bio ponuđen, bio je njen život. I drugo, bolje da bude, iako je plesala neko vreme, koreograf jer u tom slučaju, njen izgled nije bitan. Ali bila je uzbuđena da to iznese kao stvarnu činjenicu iz svog života.
It was an amazing privilege to do this series. There were other moments like that, very few moments of silence. The key point was empathy because everybody in their lives is really waiting for people to ask them questions, so that they can be truthful about who they are and how they became what they are, and I commend that to you, even if you're not doing interviews. Just be that way with your friends and particularly the older members of your family.
Bila je neverovatna privilegija raditi ove serije. Bilo je još trenutaka poput ovog, vrlo malo trenutaka tišine. Suština je bila empatija, jer svako u svom životu zapravo čeka da mu ljudi postave pitanje, kako bi bili iskreni u vezi sa tim ko su i kako su postali ono što jesu, i ja vam to poveravam, čak i ako ne radite intervjue. Jednostavno budite takvi prema svojim prijateljima, a naročito prema starijim članovima vaše porodice.
Thank you very much.
Mnogo vam hvala.