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- [00:01]
Terry Gross
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- [00:13]
David Biancooli
This is FRESH air. I'm David Biancooli. Robert Duvall, the Oscar winning actor whose roles in both blockbuster movies and small independent films were equally powerful and memorable, died Sunday. He was 95 years old. Born in San Diego in 1931, Duvall studied acting in New York City alongside such other future stars as Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and James Caan. Duvall was performing at Long Island's Gateway Playhouse when screenwriter Horton Foote saw him and recommended him for a part in the movie Foote was adapting. The movie was To Kill a Mockingbird, and Robert Duvall was indeed cast in his first screen role as the silent but haunting Boo radley. Duvall was 31 years old but never stopped working afterward in film and TV. His last two credits were in 2022, six decades later. Duvall's contributions to film were constant and indelible. The characters he played were passionate, intense and often combative. Tom Hagen, the consigliere in the Godfather, earned Duvall his first Oscar nomination. The role of the napalm loving lieutenant colonel in Apocalypse now earned him his second. Eventually, Duvall won a best actor Academy Award for playing a country singer in Tender Mercies. But whether or not his roles garnered nominations or awards, they certainly made their mark with audiences. He played the uptight Dr. Frank Burns in Robert Altman's original movie version of MASH, the ruthless TV executive in Paddy Chayefsky's Network, a cynical sports writer in the Natural opposite Robert Redford and the abusive father in the Great Santini. On television, Duvall played Gus McCrae, the charming Texas marshal, in the CBS miniseries Lonesome dove. In the 60s and early 70s, he clocked a lot of episodic TV, including episodes of the Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the the Outer Limits and even the Wild Wild west and Mod Squad. Today we're going to remember Robert Duvall with two conversations, one with Terry Gross, the other with Dave Davies. Terry Gross spoke with Robert Duvall in 1996.
- [02:33]
Terry Gross
So your father was in the military in the Navy, I believe.
- [02:36]
Robert Duvall
Yes, he was.
- [02:36]
Terry Gross
He was an admiral.
- [02:38]
Robert Duvall
Well, he retired as a rear admiral. His active rank was captain. He went to the Naval Academy when he was 16 years old and graduated the class of 1924. He came off, you know, a farm in Virginia. Virginia. And went to one of those one room country schools down in the woods, and then graduated. He went to high school when he was 11, and, you know, he went to the navy, waited a year, and he went to the Naval Academy when he was 16. So it was all. Yeah, he was a career naval officer. He was 39 during the war. The youngest captain in the navy. He was in destroyers and so forth. But he was a career naval officer.
- [03:12]
Terry Gross
I bet your father didn't want anyone to think that he was the character in the Great Santini.
- [03:16]
Robert Duvall
Well, he. Not. Well, kind of. Actually, my father was a lot quieter than that. So that character was a little more boisterous. And there was some. Let me put it this way. In the book the Great Santini, it said there's an imperceptible passing of the mantle of the husband to the wife, of the wife to the husband, when the husband comes off of duty and is at home for a while when he takes over the family. There was no transference in my family. My mother ran at it at all times.
- [03:43]
Terry Gross
Oh, really?
- [03:43]
Robert Duvall
Yes, she did.
- [03:44]
Terry Gross
Robert Duvall is my guest. It's interesting, you know, the Godfather films are such a. Like, operatic movies with, you know, people playing gangsters who are given to grand displays of emotion and violence. And you're the one in the movie, the legal advisor, whose job is to advise, to be discreet, to tone everything down. So in a way, you're playing a very opposite type of personality than all the other personalities in the film.
- [04:07]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, well, it was a pretty interesting character in that he was an adopted son, plus this. This. This legal advisor. So therefore, as an actor and as a character, you. You really can't cross the line. You're kind of an outsider, but yet you're not an outsider. I really, really enjoyed the part. I mean, those first two Godfathers, that's about as good as you can get, filmmaking wise.
- [04:28]
Terry Gross
I think I agree.
- [04:29]
Robert Duvall
Francis was at top form, although, as you say, maybe a touch. They romanticized the organized crime to a point. But it was such good filmmaking. You can excuse that.
- [04:39]
Terry Gross
Do you have any favorite scenes in the Godfather films?
- [04:43]
Robert Duvall
Well, there were a lot of them I liked. You know, I mean, the one with Michael gazzo in Godfather 2 where I have to tell him he has to, you know, slit his wrist. That scene and the scene where I had to tell Brando that Sonny died in Godfather 1, that was nice. And there are other scenes I liked a lot, too, but those kind of come to mind very quickly. My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. This ain't the Area of mine. I think you should tell your dawn what everyone seems to know. Well, I didn't tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you just now and tell you. She needed a drink first. Yeah, now you've had your drink. They shot Sonny on the causeway. He's dead.
- [05:51]
Terry Gross
You worked with Francis Ford Coppola again on Apocalypse Now, Right?
- [05:54]
Robert Duvall
Right.
- [05:55]
Terry Gross
And in Apocalypse now, you were Colonel Kilgore, famous for the line, I love
- [05:59]
Robert Duvall
the smell of napalm in the morning. Is that the one? It smells like victory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a wonderful line. People come up to me and quote it to me and say it like it's such an in thing between just me and them. And like it's like they're the only ones that ever thought of it. But that happens with everybody the same way.
- [06:17]
Terry Gross
Did you get the script and say, well, first of all, was that line in the script, or is that something that you had to write?
- [06:21]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, no, that was in there. And I think the part was offered to somebody else and they turned it down. And I said to Francis, I know that the part's written for a bigger guy, real tall, big guy, but, you know, I'll just say once I think maybe I could do the part and I'll put in my plea. And he gave it to me. So it was enjoyable. It was a lovely part, and I enjoyed playing it very much. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hail bomb for 12 hours, and when it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of them, not one stinking body smell. You know, that gasoline smell. A whole hill smells like
- [07:11]
Dave Davies
victory.
- [07:14]
Terry Gross
So. So when you saw the line in the film, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, did you say to yourself a classic line, People will be repeating this back?
- [07:21]
Robert Duvall
No, I didn't. I didn't think of that. I didn't think that. I didn't think of it that way. I wasn't sure, you know, I mean, sometimes you're not so aware of that. Although you like lines like that.
- [07:33]
Terry Gross
Did you do a lot of different line readings on that? I love the smell of light. I love smelling palm in the morning.
- [07:38]
Robert Duvall
The one that was most predominant, Jimmy Keene, a friend of mine, who played a small part in that, from Buffalo. I made him call me Mr. Duvall for a year because that was a relationship in the movie. Because, you know, but we're all on a first name basis. But he's saying, now, how do you do this? And he was watching me, and he did great imitation. We were always doing imitation. So the final dress rehearsal before we filmed, I. We were always doing brand new imitations. So I said, I love the smell of Nate Parlor in the morning. I paused and I said, smells like victory. I did my brand new. And he couldn't believe that would do that, you know? So then he began doing Brando imitations. So then when Brando wanted $100,000 to do six lines of the censored stuff for the censored version of the TV version of the Godfather, and they wouldn't pay him, they got Jimmy Keen from Buffalo for $200 to do Brando.
- [08:23]
Terry Gross
Oh, really?
- [08:24]
Robert Duvall
Yeah. So those imitations started in the Philippines, and Jimmy got, because of those imitations, blossomed into the guy that would do the censored version for Brando.
- [08:34]
Terry Gross
Hey, they could have saved a lot of trouble with Brando and Apocalypse Now, I guess.
- [08:37]
Robert Duvall
I suppose.
- [08:38]
Terry Gross
Yeah.
- [08:38]
Robert Duvall
Well, Jimmy was the guy that was there that told me all these wild stories after I left. See, I. I did the second half of my part first, and then six months later, came back into the first half. It was strange the way I had to go do another job because they got so bogged down with weather and with different actors and approaches and so forth. It took a long time to complete that film.
- [08:58]
Terry Gross
It must have been really different working with Coppola on the Godfather movies and working with him on Apocalypse Now.
- [09:03]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, well, you see, I had worked with Francis in the Rain people, as I had said, and he was.
- [09:06]
Terry Gross
And that was in the late 60s.
- [09:07]
Robert Duvall
He was kind of a moody guy, and I didn't quite get a handle on Francis, but then I gained a tremendous amount of respect for him because on Godfather 1, we started out okay. This is Francis again. He's not saying much. A little moody, you know, the way he is. He's a real. He never comes. I want to write a book someday called the Rushes Are Great, because everybody protects everybody by saying rushes are Great. Francis is one of the only guys that comes out of the cutting room with a long face. And maybe that's why he's so good in that he isn't always thrilled, you know, But I gained a lot of respect for him because in Godfather 1, physically, they had an understudy director following him around in case he failed to fire him and take over. And he worked under that pressure. I don't know how you would do that with a guy physically, like, over your shoulder in case we. And I think the first AD Was the best friend of that would be hopeful director. That's quite a lousy thing to do to a director. And I gained a lot of respect for Francis for working under that pressure.
- [10:04]
Terry Gross
When you were young, Brando was one of your heroes, right?
- [10:06]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, I think so. I mean, he was quite a phenomenal. I mean, there were others, too, but he. And then you have to. You grow away from somebody's influence and find your own way.
- [10:13]
Terry Gross
So what was it like to work with him when he was much older? He'd physically changed. It wasn't, I think, of a particularly good period for him.
- [10:23]
Robert Duvall
Well, no, in the Godfather, he was very evil.
- [10:26]
Terry Gross
Right, right, right.
- [10:26]
Robert Duvall
And when I first worked with him, well, Apocalypse.
- [10:28]
David Biancooli
Yeah.
- [10:29]
Robert Duvall
I didn't really. I wasn't really there when he worked.
- [10:32]
Terry Gross
Right.
- [10:32]
Robert Duvall
I worked with him first in the Chase way back. And, you know, the first day he called me into his dressing room and we talked about the part. I said, oh, to my wife, this is going to be great. We're going to be like, brother. We had a great rapport then. He never spoke to me again for eight weeks. I wasn't quite used to that lifestyle of somebody not speaking to you at the beginning of a day, but that's the way he is, I guess. But no, respectful and admired him and enjoyed working with him. And as I say in Apocalypse now, he came into the jungle with his baby blue Mercedes, driving down the jungle, you know, after I had left. And then when I came back, he'd finished, you know.
- [11:09]
Terry Gross
So tell me, when you were young and getting started in acting, what were your expectations? What did you think would come of your career?
- [11:16]
Robert Duvall
Well, you know, maybe I was innocent. And maybe innocent's not the same as naive. Maybe it is. I always felt that somehow I would fit in. I went to New York feeling I would be a stage actor. I didn't think a lot about movies. I thought about them, but I wasn't sure. I just figured I was going to work. I didn't know how, but I figured it would happen. And when I got one of the worst reviews anybody could ever get, I went back to Virginia for a while, and then I came back again. My friend Ulu Grossbar. Then we had done A View from the Bridge, and we did it again off Broadway. And it was a wonderful production with Jon Voight. Dusty Hoffman was assistant stage manager, Susan Ansbach, Ray Beary, you know, Richie Castellano. It was a wonderful production that helped launch my. Into getting more into film and tv, you know.
- [12:01]
Terry Gross
So if you don't Mind my asking, what did that terrible review say about it?
- [12:04]
Robert Duvall
I'm going to tell you exactly what it said. You still remember Ched Shaw has invented some impossible young men in his plays, but never one so revolting as the romantic young interest in this one. And the character is made even less palatable by Robert Duvall, whose spine tends toward a figuress, whose diction is flannel coated and whose simpering expression. Now that's a pretty bad review. Yeah, and the other paper likened me to Liberace, so I had to get off the book.
- [12:30]
Terry Gross
Liberace?
- [12:31]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, I had to get off the bus.
- [12:32]
Terry Gross
I was physically ill. What was the connection to Liberace?
- [12:36]
Robert Duvall
I don't know. Maybe I played him a little feeder. I don't know what it was. It was a guy from the actor studio, I don't know. He had us lying down doing sense memory before we were doing George Bernard Shaw. I said we should be telling jokes, not lying on the floor for sense memory. It was, the whole approach was wrong. It was a disaster. But, you know, at least it was. It was an experience, at least.
- [12:56]
Terry Gross
Well, Robert Duvall, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.
- [12:59]
Robert Duvall
Well, thank you. I enjoyed it.
- [13:00]
David Biancooli
Robert Duvall speaking to Terry Gross in 1996. In 2010, Robert Duvall visited Fresh Air again, this time to be interviewed by Dave Davies, who asked about his immersive acting technique.
- [13:13]
Dave Davies
You know, I read a fair amount about you and people talk about your ability to completely disappear into a character that you, that I forget which director said it's almost eerie that Robert Duvall becomes that character. And then I've also read you say, no, it's work. I mean, you prepare and you bring some of yourself to it. You never leave yourself. You don't transform, never. And at that moment, if you do, you're in trouble.
- [13:39]
Robert Duvall
Okay, yeah, you do. It's like play acting. Kids play house, right? And here we play house as grown ups. We get paid good money to play house. So it's a game, really. It's a game of, you know, it's a game. I mean, you become the character, but it's really you turning yourself in a certain way, as if you become the character. But you cannot lose sight of who and what you are. You have one set of emotions, one psyche, one soul, and you can't, you don't become another thing. It's all those things turned to what seems to be something different.
- [14:17]
Dave Davies
You did so many memorable supporting roles earlier in your career in the 70s. In fact, I read in A piece in the New York Times that one problem you had was that audiences didn't always recognize you from one movie to the next because you disappeared so effectively into those roles. One of them, of course, was the consigliere Tom Hagen. In the Godfather roles, did you realize that these were going to be such iconic films as you were making them?
- [14:41]
Robert Duvall
Absolutely. Well, a third of the way through, I said godfather one, I said, this is going to be pretty important. And I can remember when the film was finished and we had an opening night party, I think it was at the St. Regis Hotel. And there was a wonderful buzz and a wonderful feeling around the whole film of Godfather 1. And I remember, I won't mention names, a well known film director came up and said, you boys did a wonderful job in this movie. I want to congratulate you. He said, I don't know about the movie, he said, but this guy never made a movie that good ever. I won't ment names. Okay, so anyway. But there was always that feeling that wow. And then Godfather II it went in. But Godfather ii, we didn't have Jimmy Khan on the set, so it wasn't as much fun.
- [15:29]
Dave Davies
Well, then of course, there was Apocalypse now
- [15:33]
Robert Duvall
with Coppola again.
- [15:35]
Dave Davies
Right, right. And your portrayal of Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore.
- [15:39]
Robert Duvall
Initially the character was called Colonel Carnage.
- [15:42]
Dave Davies
No kidding.
- [15:43]
Robert Duvall
But they had to water it down a little bit. That was a little bit too much,
- [15:46]
Dave Davies
a little too obvious. Just tell us a little bit about you getting into the head of somebody who would love that gasoline smell and bodies burned so badly you couldn't find them.
- [15:56]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, well, you just have to just go and do it. You know, I was in the army as a draftee and I used to. I didn't know I'd ever play a guy like that. But I mean, out of curiosity, I used to just watched some of the special service officers and the way they behaved, the way they stood. And when I got over there, they had the character as Carnage and they changed it to Kilgore. And they had him in a cowboy hat and boots. And some of the marines and so forth. The more hardcore military said, well, this didn't go on. Well, it did go on because I understood that the head general of the air Cavalry used to deer hunt on his own along the Cambodia border on Friday nights and his helicopter was shot down and he was killed. These guys did crazy things.
- [16:45]
Dave Davies
He was deer hunting. From the helicopter?
- [16:47]
Robert Duvall
Yeah, from the helicopter. And I was told that by a gentleman who had served with the air cavalry. I mean, I guess, guys, you have to have hobbies to break up the monotony. So, like, people have hobbies, I suppose, even in wartime.
- [17:04]
Dave Davies
Your character's hobby here was surfing.
- [17:06]
Robert Duvall
Yes.
- [17:06]
Dave Davies
Was that in the script? Did you come up with that?
- [17:08]
Robert Duvall
Yeah. No, that was. All those things were in the script. Yeah, very much so.
- [17:12]
Dave Davies
Well, I want to talk about Tender Mercies, the 1983 film for which you won the Oscar for Best Actor. In this one, you were Max Sledge, right? A once popular country singer whose career had dissolved in alcoholism, finds himself in a little Texas highway motel where the widow who runs it kind of takes care of him and he puts his life back together.
- [17:40]
Robert Duvall
Yes.
- [17:40]
Dave Davies
And I thought we'd listen to a clip here, and this is late in the film where you have, as Max Ledge, have heard that your daughter has died in a car accident. A daughter you had just reconciled with after many years apart. In the scene, you're hoeing in the vegetable garden and your wife, who's played by Tess Harper, comes up and asks if you're okay. And here is how you respond.
- [18:05]
Robert Duvall
I was almost killed once in a car accident. I was drunk. I ran on the side of the road and I turned over four times. And they took me out of that car for dead. But I lived. And I prayed last night to know why. I lived and she died, but I got no answer to my prayers. I still don't know why she died and I lived. I don't know the answer to nothing but a blessed thing. I don't know why I wandered out to this part of Texas drunk, and you took me in and pitied me and helped me to straighten out. Marry me. Why? Why did that happen? Is there a reason that happened? And Sonny's daddy died in a war. My daughter killed an automobile accident. Why? You see, I don't trust happiness. I never did. I never will.
- [19:24]
Dave Davies
And that's our guest, Robert Duvall from the 1983 film Tender Mercies. You know, as I hear that again, it's such a powerful moment. And this man, feeling such pain, it's so intense, never raises his voice. You want to talk a little bit about him and this character?
- [19:38]
Robert Duvall
Yeah. Well, this scene in particular, I remember that, you know, I said, look, look, I would rather not loop this. Let's get the sound right, because you're outside. So they put trucks around, and we didn't have to loop it, and we did it.
- [19:51]
Dave Davies
When you say loop it, you mean, like, provide an ambient kind of sound so it's not.
- [19:55]
Robert Duvall
No. Well, you add your voice to your voice to make it clearer at the end in post production, you dub it, so to speak. And I didn't want to do that. And they hung back with the camera and didn't come in on close ups because sometimes close ups it spells it out too literally. And they left the camera rolling and it kind of worked for me.
- [20:15]
David Biancooli
Robert Duvall speaking to Dave Davies in 2010. The Oscar winning actor died Sunday at age 95. After a break, we'll continue their conversation. And we'll also remember documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, who died Monday at age 96. I'm David Bean Cooley and this is FRESH AIR.
- [20:38]
Robert Duvall
Today on Up First Winter, NPR's daily video podcast, Team USA's Alyssa Liu broke a 20 year metal drought to take home home gold in women's figure skating and a thrilling overtime gold medal win for U.S. women's hockey. Reaction and more from behind the scenes today on Up First Winter Games. You can watch us on NPR's YouTube channel. This week on up first from NPR News, funding ran out for the Department of Homeland Security and Congress went home. DHS does a few important things like secure the airports or the coasts or the president. Now their funding is uncertain. And what does this say about the way Congress works or doesn't? Follow us for the latest each morning on up first on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts this
- [21:25]
Terry Gross
year on Throughline, NPR's history podcast. For generations, an American quest has shaped the world life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Now, 250 years in, what is that pursuit really about? Join us each Tuesday for an essential new series, america in Pursuit, from Throughline on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
- [21:50]
David Biancooli
This is FRESH air. I'm TV critic David Biancooli, and as TV critic, I'm thrilled that this portion of Dave Davies interview with Robert Duvall, who died Sunday at age 95, is devoted to the 1989 CBS Western miniseries Lonesome Dove. Based on the Larry McMurtry novel, Lonesome Dove was and remains one of the best miniseries ever made. And though Duvall didn't win the Emmy Award for which he was nominated that year, his performance was one of the best he ever gave in television or film. He plays Augustus Gus McCrae, who, like his best friend, Captain Woodrow Call, is a former Texas Ranger. Woodrow is played by Tommy Lee Jones, and the two men are very different. Duvall's Gus loves life and shows his emotions Woodrow doesn't. In this scene from Lonesome Dove, Woodrow comes upon Gus, who's weeping over a lost love. Their Conversation turns to prostitutes and to one with whom Woodrow apparently has fathered a son.
- [22:56]
Robert Duvall
I don't know why you sit down on whores, Woodrow. You've had yours, as I recall. Yeah, and that was the worst mistake I ever made. It ain't a mistake to be a human being once in your life, Woodrow. Poor little old Maggie left you a fine son before she quit this world. You don't know that. That boy could be yours or Jake's or some damn gambler's. Yeah, but he ain't. He's yours. Anybody with a good eye can see it. Besides, Maggie told me we were good friends. I don't know about friends. I'm sure you was a good customer, though. Well, the two can't overlap. You're the one that'd know about overlapping with whores. I reckon you know what hurt her most. You wouldn't call her by name. You never would say Maggie. That's what hurt her most. I don't know what it amounted to. If I had, it would have made her happy. What are you talking about? She's a whore. Well, whores got hearts, Woodrow. And Maggie's was the most tender I ever saw. Well, why didn't you marry her, then? She didn't love me. She loved you. You should have seen how she sat in that saloon every day watching the door after you quit coming around. I reckon the man has got more to do than to sit in a saloon with a whore. Like what? Go down the river every night and clean his gun? Maggie needed you.
- [24:09]
David Biancooli
You let her down.
- [24:09]
Robert Duvall
You know it, too, don't you? No, I don't know anything of the dang kind. Now, that's why you won't claim that boy is your own. Cause he's a reminder, seat, a living reminder that you fail somebody. And you ain't never gonna be up to admitting that, now, are you? Like I said, Maggie was just a whore. Well, I got Woodrow. At least you finally called her by name. I guess that shows some improvement, now, don't it?
- [24:35]
Dave Davies
And that's my guest, Robert Duvall, with Tommy Lee Jones in the series Lonesome Dove. You know, you guys are both. You mount and ride horses. As you're having that conversation, you were both horsemen, right?
- [24:46]
Robert Duvall
Yes, sir. Back then, I was. Really. I rode everything back then. Jumping horses, English saddle, Western saddle. Yeah, especially to get ready for the part.
- [24:56]
Dave Davies
Yeah. Did you know Tommy Lee Jones? Had you worked with him before? No.
- [24:59]
Robert Duvall
I met Tommy Lee. When we were going to do that, I went to his ranch down there in San Saba. We talked. We herded cattle in Argentine polo saddles. We went out and I got to know him. I haven't seen him too much since because he lives way down there. And it was a good experience working with him and all the women. It was a wonderful experience. Wonderful. My ex wife, who lives there in Philadelphia, Gail, she was the one that told me to read this book. She liked it better than Dostoevsky, a great, great novel. And make sure that they gave me the part of Augustus, not the other part, which they were going to give me, the other part. But we talked and arranged it so that I could play Augustus, you know, so if she's listening to the show, I want to thank her for that.
- [25:40]
Dave Davies
And Augustus. Augustus fits you better. Why?
- [25:44]
Robert Duvall
I don't know. It's just, you know, because I've played those more covered guys before. But, you know, this was more of a muted guy, but he's a more outgoing guy, Augustus, and suited a certain side of my personality as much or more than the other part, really. James Garner was. They offered him the part. I said to my agent, he handled us both. If you can get him to switch parts, I'll be in this, and I don't want to play the other part. So he called back a few hours later and said, well, James Garner can't be on a horse for 16 weeks. I said, okay, now go after that part. And he did. So he got me that part. So I really, really. I really loved it. I really did. My favorite, probably.
- [26:24]
Dave Davies
Yeah, this is a film about a cattle drive. And I don't know if you used stuntmen at all. I mean, I guess you and Tommy Lee did not, right?
- [26:33]
Robert Duvall
Well, the only time they used a stuntman, when I had to ride down among the Buffalo, which was. But I did most all my own riding, and my horse got a little iffy. So they put me on a ranch horse, a local ranch horse, which were good and more sound, so to speak, and, well, broke. But then that was working great until the pistols went off. And then this horse started bucking. And I stayed on for about four or five seconds, and then I bailed, or he helped me bail, and the cowboys were laughing. Oh, give me a 75 on that ride. They were all laughing. And I said to the director, you know, get a cutaway. Me on the ground getting back on. So they were able to use it when the horse actually bucked and I came off. So they really used it. But, you know, I did all my own riding. I took the horse to the ground when I used had to slit his throat and use him as a shield. And the stuntman Rudy Uglin told me showed me how to do that. So I was glad that I could do my own riding, you know, because it was that's because they were only horses there, no cars way back.
- [27:34]
Dave Davies
Yeah. You know, that really was one of many moments that I remember from that series. You're being chased by a bunch of guys, about seven or eight guys. You're not going to outrun him. And so you quickly dismount, cut your horse's throat, drop him so that he forms a shield, and you fight these guys. It's amazing.
- [27:48]
Robert Duvall
Yeah. And Rudy and those guys showed me how to drop him because he was a falling horse by training.
- [27:54]
David Biancooli
Robert Duvall speaking to Dave Davies in 2010. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR. This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Dave Davies and his 2010 interview with actor and director Robert Duvall. He died Mundy at the age of 95.
- [28:11]
Dave Davies
You wrote and directed the film the Apostle in 97.
- [28:17]
Robert Duvall
Financed, financed. Right.
- [28:21]
Dave Davies
The thing that gets forgotten, but that's so hard to pull off.
- [28:24]
Robert Duvall
Oh, boy.
- [28:25]
Dave Davies
This is the story of a Pentecostal preacher that you play, a flawed man who faces a crisis in his life when his wife finds another man and and he is ousted from the church that he's the preacher. Tell us where this came from. What was your experience with Pentecostal Christians?
- [28:43]
Robert Duvall
I was doing an off Broadway play called the Days and Nights of Bebe Fenster Maker, a wonderful play by William Hartwell Snyder that just was terrific. And I played a guy from Hughes, Arkansas. So I was flying back from California to New York and I got off the plane in Memphis. I said, let me go to Hughes just to see what it's like. Not that you have to do that to be an actor. But I decided so I went back and there was no place to stay. The highway guys building highway from Louisiana let me bunk in with him. I walked down the street at night. The sheriff gave me dirty looks. It was strange. But there was a little white clapboard church I went into, and I'd never been to something like that. There was a woman preaching, a woman preaching a Pentecostal preacher. And I said, I've never seen anything like this, even in my own country. I want to put this on film someday. So it took me many, many, many years to get it off the ground. And, and finally I did. When my wife came up, I finally got to go ahead to do it. And I did resume my research That I did all over America. And she said, hey, Bobby, you think we'll ever go to any white churches? Because I love the black preachers. They're like surrogate fathers for their community. And it was a great, great experience.
- [29:53]
Dave Davies
Right, right. And of course, this isn't just about Pentecostal culture. It's about a truly fascinating character. I mean, your guy.
- [30:00]
Robert Duvall
Yes, I pieced it together for many, many, many stories.
- [30:03]
Dave Davies
Yeah. I think it's a tribute to the film that I watched this again over the weekend and I still can't tell whether I like this guy or not.
- [30:10]
Robert Duvall
Oh, I like him. Okay. Because let me put it this way. What he did by killing a guy just out of the moment is not half as bad, one iota as bad as King David, who wrote the Psalms, who sent a man off to die by design so he could be with that guy's wife. That's what David did, but my guy just did it. So my guy wasn't as bad as some people. You know, I mean, these guys, a lot of them start out and some of them end up charlatans on tv. But I think even if he had his moves and his whatever at the core of his being, he really believed in what he believed in. I think so. It was a labor of love. But you know something? I mean. I mean, I heard Billy Graham liked it, and I got a wonderful letter from Marlon Brando. He liked it, respected it. So I got it from the secular and the religious side.
- [30:59]
Dave Davies
I was going to ask you how evangelicals reacted to it. Yeah, they liked it.
- [31:02]
Robert Duvall
Well, some didn't like it, I think, but, you know, I mean, I talked with Pat Robertson. He just thought it was right on the money. Just was terrific. You know, most people, you know, get letters from people. My father was a Pentecostal preacher, My uncle was. And you got it exactly right. So I feel, you know, Right. And there's always somebody, you know, like some people didn't like the Godfather. Come on, you know. Great, great movie. So.
- [31:26]
Dave Davies
Well, Robert Duvall. It's been fun. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
- [31:29]
Robert Duvall
Well, thank you for a wonderful interview. Wonderful job. Thank you.
- [31:33]
David Biancooli
Robert Duvall, recorded in 2010. He died Sunday at age 95. Here he is singing a song from the film Crazy Heart.
- [31:42]
Robert Duvall
Nobody here will ever find me I'll always be around Just like the songs I leave behind me I'm gonna live forever now your fathers and your mothers Be good to one another Please try to raise your children right don't let the darkness take em don't make them feel forsaken. Just lead them safely to the light. And when this whole world has blown asunder and all the stars fall from the sky, just remember someone really loves you. We'll live together forever, both you and I. I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna cross that river. I'm gonna live forever.
- [32:27]
David Biancooli
Now coming up, we remember documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. This is FRESH air. This is FRESH air. Frederick Wiseman, the documentary filmmaker whose approach was to choose a subject and capture it at great revealing length, died mundy at age 96. A law school graduate who was studying at the Sorbonne when he picked up a movie camera, Wiseman became excited by the possibilities of the new, less cumbersome recording equipment to capture sound and images from actual settings and events. His first documentary was 1967's Titicut Follies, filmed inside a Massachusetts institution for the criminally insane. He edited the vast amount of footage into a harrowing story told without narration or any talking heads, just capturing the action and the people and letting the drama and morals reveal themselves. New York Times film critic A.O. scott once wrote, walt Whitman wrote that the United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. And in a Whitmanian temper, I would argue that Frederick Wiseman is the greatest American poet. Some of Wiseman's films were the length of TV miniseries, and many were shown on pbs. His films included Central Park Juvenile Court, High School and Hospital, which, though made in 1970, has scenes of operating room intensity and patient care, humanity to rival anything on the pit. Here's a nurse calling a pair of colleagues to try to find a bed for a young boy. She's willing to claim he has an illness, any illness, if that'll help. Her conversation isn't staged, it's just captured.
- [34:14]
Terry Gross
What I want is a bed. Well, for really nothing. I mean, there's no disease. But I need a bed. And I was hoping you and Dr. Wake could think of something that I could get one by. A bed for a little boy doesn't have any place to go. I'll give him any. Anything you want. What do you want in a headache?
- [34:32]
David Biancooli
Terry Gross spoke to Frederick Wiseman in 1986.
- [34:36]
Terry Gross
What have most of your films been about? Institutions.
- [34:40]
Frederick Wiseman
Why have they been about institutions? Well, because after I made Tidicut Follies, which is a film about a prison for the criminally insane, or in the course of making that, I realized what you could do for a prison for the criminally insane, you could do for other places, namely make a film about them. And it seemed to me that this was relatively unexplored territory in film terms. Because not all, but many documentary films up to that point would pick one charming person, a prize fighter, a movie producer, a movie star, or somebody with an eccentric personality and make them the focus of the film. And I thought it'd be more interesting to try and do a series of films where the place was the star and where the film would be an impressionistic and perhaps novelistic account of what the place was like and not following any one individual.
- [35:34]
Terry Gross
Do you have a point of view about the place when you go in and start shooting?
- [35:37]
Frederick Wiseman
Yeah, I always have a point of view. But invariably that point of view changes as a consequence of learning something. Because most of the time my point of view is based on very little knowledge or experience. Or certainly frequently is the case. The most extreme example I can give you to illustrate that is my attitude, say, about the police before I made Law and Order. Because the film was shot in the fall of 1968 in Kansas City. And it was shot right after the Democratic convention and the police riots on the streets of Chicago. So that it was the trendy view at that time, not only because of what happened in Chicago, but elsewhere, that the police were all pigs. When you ride around in the police cars for approximately 15 seconds and you realize that the piggery is in no way restricted to the police. Because you see what people do to each other that make it necessary to have police in the first place, which is not any. It's not to excuse police brutality when it does exist. But what it is to do is not isolate it from other forms of human brutality which make it necessary to have police to respond to and protect other people from.
- [36:40]
Terry Gross
Well, it's a less simplistic way of looking at things that there are good guys and bad guys on both sides of the fence. Do you find that a lot when you go into a place that there aren't obvious good guys and bad guys? Very often the good and bad is a lot more ambiguous.
- [36:56]
Frederick Wiseman
Yeah, well, I mean, ambiguity and ambivalence rules the day because, you know, I mean, just like in our own experience or the way we act ourselves.
- [37:06]
Terry Gross
I sometimes wonder why people, or why the people at the top of an institution would let you film them. Because sometimes the people really don't end up looking very good. And you never know how you're going to come off if there's someone with a camera and a microphone recording everything that you do.
- [37:28]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, as someone, as the fellow once said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- [37:33]
David Biancooli
And
- [37:35]
Frederick Wiseman
I've now made 18 films in this style. And only in three of those situations have the people given me permission not like the film. And in each of those situations, they've only turned against the film. Not when they first saw it, because when they first saw it, they liked it, but only when they didn't like the way they or some of the people in the film were characterized in the reviews, which were those three Primate High School and Titicut Follows.
- [38:03]
Terry Gross
And those are the most controversial ones that you did, too?
- [38:07]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, I mean, they're controversial because,
- [38:12]
Robert Duvall
in
- [38:13]
Frederick Wiseman
part at least, because the people that were in them originally liked them and then subsequently were put on the defensive by what was written about the films, not by their initial response.
- [38:24]
Terry Gross
You became a filmmaker when you were in your 30s. Your first career was as a lawyer. It's always a hard decision, I think, for anybody who's already started one career to change into another, especially into one as financially risky as documentary filmmaking. Why did you want to enter into that?
- [38:41]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, I didn't like being a lawyer. I taught law, and I just simply didn't like it. And I was bored, and I guess I reached the witching age of 30 and figured I better do something I liked. And I had been fiddling around making 8 millimeter movies for a long time, and I was interested.
- [38:58]
Terry Gross
What did you like about documentary movies? You didn't want to go to Hollywood and shoot Hollywood feature films?
- [39:04]
Frederick Wiseman
No. Well, I'm interested in feature film, but not the kind that gets turned out by the studios. But it just seemed to me there was a whole great interesting world out there that hadn't been explored in film terms. I mean, with all the documentary movies that have been made by everybody that makes documentary movies, America is still a relatively unexplored country from the point of view of documentary film. And one of the things that's exciting about it is the fact that if you're lucky and hang around long enough, you're going to stumble across situations that are funnier, more dramatic, more tragic, sadder than almost anything except really great works of literature. And it's not you that have invented them. You've just been lucky enough to be a witness to them and be able to record them on film and include them in a film. But it's an opportunity. I mean, in one sense, in another sense, it's a form of natural history.
- [40:01]
Terry Gross
There were many when you were Starting in the mid-60s or so, documentary filmmaking had, I think, just turned a corner. There was cinema verite, There were a lot of documentary Filmmakers who were inventing a whole philosophy and style in approaching their subjects. What were some of the theories of that period that excited you and what were some of the ones that you rejected and thought were really baloney?
- [40:28]
Frederick Wiseman
I think the whole notion of cinema verite is a baloney notion. I mean, just to use. It's a French term like that. I mean the notion that documentary film represents truth rather than one person's view of a matter, I mean, which gets tied in with the whole idea that there's such a thing as objectivity. I mean, again, strikes me as obvious nonsense, but a lot of people cling to that. And there's also a certain amount of pretension among some documentary filmmakers who I think see the real subject of their films as themselves. Frequently the documentary filmmaker will be a character in the film or there'll be lots of shots of the documentary filmmaker in a mirror just to remind the audience that this isn't really true, but it's. And the way to demonstrate that is if the audience didn't know they were watching a movie. So I guess I'm part responding to that. And it seemed to me what was interesting was to explore, not to pick one's navel, but to see what was out there. And that's quite interesting to say the least.
- [41:44]
Terry Gross
None of the movies of yours that I've seen have any narration in it or any interview with it. In a lot of documentary films, filmmaker will be off camera, but will be asking questions to the. To the person who is the subject of the movie or the subject of that scene. And the person will then be like discussing what they're doing or discussing their life or whatever. In response to those off camera questions, why have you decided to like, not either have narration or interview in your movies?
- [42:13]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, I guess it comes down to something as simple as I don't like to be told what to think. And I think when this kind of documentary technique works, where you're photographing and recording unstaged events, it works because, or at least in part because you're placing the audience in the middle of these events and asking them to think through their own relationship to what they're seeing and hearing. So that the editing of the film, and by the editing, I mean what the structure of the final film represents my point of view toward the material. And that's the substitute for narration. The order in which I present the sequences and the pacing of the sequences is the way I express my attitude. Now that is related to both traditional storytelling, fiction film terms. And it's also related to the way a story gets told in a novel. Because you don't. I mean, of a novel you really like, you don't demand that the novelist summarize his attitude toward the characters in an introductory chapter. I mean, Trollope is a great writer, but we sort of laugh now at his asides where he tells us. I mean, he steps out of the role of the omniscient narrator of the novel and sort of intrudes his own presence. Well, that. But what I try to do is express my point of view indirectly through
- [43:43]
Robert Duvall
structure,
- [43:45]
Frederick Wiseman
but leave enough room in the material so that the audience can respond on the basis of their own values. But yet, if they want to think about what my attitude is, they can figure it out by saying. By thinking about what sequences I've included and the order in which I've included them.
- [44:02]
Terry Gross
I'm trying to think about your position of not discussing what your intentions are with movies or what you finally think of the subject of your films. And I guess part of me is a little uncomfortable with that because I always feel like your opinion is there and it's up to us to crack the code.
- [44:19]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, I don't think it's difficult. I don't think it's so. I mean, I don't mean to make a mistake.
- [44:23]
Terry Gross
Then why wouldn't you want to just say it?
- [44:25]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, because I think it trivializes the subject and because I think, if I've made the film correctly, the final film is an expression of a complex attitude toward a complex subject. And to the extent that I say,
- [44:46]
Robert Duvall
well,
- [44:49]
Frederick Wiseman
welfare center is run poorly, the administrators are poorly trained, or the clients are all psychological or biological basket cases, well, that's demeaning. It's demeaning to both to the administrators and demeaning to the clients, because the problems of each of them are unique, complicated and manifold, so to speak. And if the movie just even begins to suggest that it will have accomplished one of its purposes, where. And I think another part of it is that I don't want to set my. There's a certain temptation which I try to resist, to set myself up. And I think it's one that any documentary filmmaker has or any journalist has or any radio person interviewing on a radio program has, too. And that is setting yourself up as an instant expert on a subject about which you may not know all that much, but where sometimes the occasion may demand that you assert yourself with an authority that your information or your background on the subject doesn't warrant. So that I'm very hesitant about, say, generalizing about police or the health service delivery systems or welfare or whatever, because to the extent that I understand it, what my understanding is, is in the film, to the extent that I don't understand it or the film has failed will be readily apparent to someone who has a greater understanding about it than I do.
- [46:29]
Terry Gross
Okay. I want to thank you very much for talking with us.
- [46:31]
Frederick Wiseman
Well, I enjoyed it. Thank you.
- [46:34]
David Biancooli
Frederick Wiseman, recorded in 1986, the documentary filmmaker whose films included Titicut, Follies Hospital and Central park, died Monday. He was 96 years old. More than 20 years after winning an Oscar for Almost Famous, kate Hudson is nominated again for playing a Milwaukee hairdresser turned Neil diamond tribute performer in song Sung Blue. On Monday's show, she discusses how she prepared and why it's taken so long to start making music. Hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram at NPRFreshAir. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shurok. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Deanna Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Annmarie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzo, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley. I'm David Biancool.