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• Q & A with Mr. Jewison
• About This Terrible Business has Been Good to Me
• Mr. Jewison's bio

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Tavis: I am pleased to welcome acclaimed director Norman Jewison to this program. His terrific body of work includes classic films like 'In the Heat of the Night,' 'Moonstruck,' and 'The Cincinnati Kid.' All told, his films have garnered a remarkable 46 Oscar nominations, including four for best picture. Not bad, Mr. Jewison. In 1998, he was honored with the Academy's Irving Thalberg Award for lifetime achievement. Go figure. His latest project is a poignant and entertaining autobiography called 'This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me.' Nice to meet you.

Norman Jewison: You like that?

Tavis: Oh, like? Like is an understatement. I love that scene. Of course, I can't get away with that, but...

Jewison: I think - it was the first time a black man slapped a white man back in an American film. I don't know.

Tavis: Yeah, may have been the last time. (laughs) Anyway, it was a great scene. That was a great flick. It must be hard for you these days, with all the stuff you have done, to turn on television on any given day and not see something that you have directed. I mean, there's so much stuff out there nowadays, so many channels.

Jewison: Well, you know, they're even doing, you know, remakes of my films, and I'm not dead yet. You know, I mean...

Tavis: How does that make you feel?

Jewison: Kinda spooky.

Tavis: Yeah.

Jewison: I think remakes are usually a sign of a lack of ideas, when you do a remake. I mean, why would you do a remake? You know, except that perhaps you felt that, the first picture made a lot of money. So, I'm always suspicious of motivation.

Tavis: You think Hollywood, I get the sense at least from what you're suggesting, that Hollywood is lacking creativity these days.

Jewison: Oh, yeah. I think they're lacking a recognition of what is talented. Because more and more, I'm seeing better films than the studios are making, coming out as independent films. So I think the independent films, the quality has been going up, and the major studios, the quality has been going down.

Tavis: On the other had, maybe it is an ode to Norman Jewison. Maybe it is that the work that you did was so spectacular, so good, that they can't come up with anything better. So why not remake some of your stuff? So maybe it's a compliment to you.

Jewison: Well, it might be, except, you know, for instance, 'Rollerball.' When I made 'Rollerball,' that was a highly political film. I mean, it wasn't, it was about my fear of the exploitation of violence for the entertainment of the masses, which is essentially an obscene thought. I mean, we're going back to Circus Maximum. "Let's all get together on Saturday and watch somebody get eaten by a lion.'

Violence, when you're using it for entertainment, is a frightening thing. That's why I wanted to make 'Rollerball,' where we devised a game in the future that would be played. On the other hand, the main thrust of the film was a world of corporate control, where corporations took over the world and all political systems had failed, but not the corporations. So it was a fairly highly political film. It was embraced in Europe.

You know, it became a cult film, but in America, of course, they loved the violence of the game. And so they wanted to play the game. So when they remade the picture, it was a total action picture, and it lost its heart. It's raison d'etre for being there, you know. So it's stuff like that that I think is - sad. And, you know, I don't know, I just think the quality of films has been kind of vitiated in the last five or 10 years.

Tavis: Before I get to some of the stuff in this book, and I've been trying to figure out how, in 10 minutes, I do justice to your career, what I really want to do, I think, and the best way to handle this is to throw some pictures, some places, and some people at you. Just get your thoughts, 'cause a lot of this is covered in the book.

But let me start, though, speaking of the book, I assume that what you've been talking about is in part what you speak of when you say in the title, "This Terrible Business.' It's been good to you, as the title suggests, but what do you mean by "This Terrible" - why start a book out calling what's allowed you to make a living a terrible business? That wasn't very nice of you, Norman Jewison.

Jewison: Well, no. I just meant it's a tough business. It's a terrible business insofar as it has so many disappointments and rejections for so many people. Here I am today, after making all these films. And I wanted to make a film based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play. Now you'd think when a play wins the Pulitzer Prize, that that's something you'd like to have on your roster or something.

There wasn't one single studio who would make 'Dinner with Friends." I ended up at HBO. The only play - you know why? Because it was too smart. Well, when somebody at a studio looks at you and says, "You know, this is just too smart.' You mean it's too funny, too clever, too witty, too revealing about the social condition or the way people behave? Is that what you mean?

Tavis: Is that a statement?

Jewison: You know, and I don't like that. I think if a studio is turning down material that is so, that is so qualified. I mean, jeez, it won the Pulitzer.

Tavis: Maybe - it's a statement. Maybe the executive was making a statement about the movie going public.

Jewison: I guess. I guess they're worried about, I think they're worried about the bottom line so much that when a corporate, when you get corporate thinking, it's tough, you know? They don't let you make the films you should make. Like, who would let me make 'The Russians are Coming' today? In 1965 I made a film called 'The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming.' Well, that was a, Jesus, talk about a political film. You know - poised with the third world war, a nuclear war.

Russians, Americans, hating each other. Khrushchev was banging his shoe at the United Nations. Who's gonna make a comedy about a Russian submarine running aground off Cape Cod? And everybody thinks it's World War III. These guys just want to get off the sand bar. They just want to go home. Now, when the film was made, all of a sudden it became important. Became important because the timing was right, you know?

Tavis: Speaking of throwing names at you, and places and people, we'll start with people. So after you made, I recall from the book, after you made 'The Russians are Coming,' you met a guy named John Wayne for the first time.

Jewison: That's right.

Tavis: And he had something to say to you about that film. And what was that?

Jewison: He said, "Norman Jewison, what are you, some Canadian pinko?' He called me a Canadian pinko, because I wanted to make a film about detente. About the absurdity of international conflict. I didn't think that was - but anyway, I also couldn't get back in the country, because I got invited to Moscow after the Russians saw it.

Tavis: And you had to threaten folk to get back in the country.

Jewison: Yeah. I had to call, I think I had to threaten the guy I was gonna call the vice president. I was gonna call Hubert Humphrey.

Tavis: Yeah. Nice to have those connections, isn't it? I'll just call the vice president and get back in the country.

Jewison: Right.

Tavis: People. Denzel Washington. You've worked with Denzel on a couple of occasions. I assume that means you have a great deal of respect for his immense talent.

Jewison: Well, yeah, he does have immense talent. I guess I didn't know how immense it was when I hired him in 'Soldier's Story.' I knew he was a good actor, but he came up against Adolph Caesar, man, and he could hold his own with Adolph. But yeah, he was pretty cocky then, Denzel. But then he settled down, and by the time we did 'Hurricane' I think in 'Hurricane' Denzel probably gave the best performance by an actor in any film I've made. I really believe it's probably as good as he's gonna get, in my opinion.

Tavis: So - does that mean that you were as disappointed as I was and so many other people were that he got dissed by the Academy?

Jewison: I can't believe - nobody can believe that he didn't win the Academy Award for 'Hurricane' because they gave it to him the next year. They were so embarrassed. But you know, these things happen. You know that.

Tavis: Yeah. To say that Denzel's one of the best actors you've ever worked with is putting him in a category of Sidney Poitier, who we saw earlier, of course, 'In the Heat of the Night.'

Jewison: Yeah.

Tavis: Not - a bad actor there, either.

Jewison: Sidney was, he was remarkable in that film, and so was Rod Steiger. Rod Steiger won the Academy Award in that film. But I've worked with a lot of good actors, you know, over the years. But these guys are in a league of their own.

Tavis: You talk in this book about your friendship with RFK. As a matter of fact, you were waiting with some friends to meet RFK here in LA the night he was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel. He was leaving that place, coming to celebrate with - some personal friends.

Jewison: Yeah. I was - working on his television campaign for California, and I was making a picture with Melina Mercouri, and Melina Mercouri wanted to meet Bobby. And so we were going to meet him at John Frankenheimer's house in Malibu at 10:30 that night, the night he was murdered. I think, that was the, you know, after going through JFK and then Dr. King's assassination, and marching in his funeral, and then Bobby being killed, that's when I kind of lost it. I just got so depressed, and I lost my confidence, my faith in the American dream, I think.

Tavis: You left the country around that time, did you not?

Jewison: I left the country in 1970. Yeah. I just had to get out. I had - I just, well, I had the opportunity to make 'Fiddler on the Roof,' right? 'Cause everybody thought I was Jewish. Jew-son. Jew-i-son. And so, and then...

Tavis: Here's a question. In this business, did that get you work or did that cost you work? In this terrible business that's been so good to you?

Jewison: I don't know. No, but it sure as hell got me into Arthur Krim's office. And, you know, and it got me 'Fiddler on the Roof,' I think. I don't know. But anyway, I went to Europe and I shot it in Yugoslavia, and I never came back for eight years. I made a lot of films in Europe. 'Jesus Christ Superstar' in Israel, and...

Tavis: In a nutshell - this may be an impossible question. Since you spent eight years there doing films, and you've done so many films here, of course, stateside, was there a particular thing that you liked more, or loathed more, about doing films in Europe versus doing films here stateside? 'Cause eight years, that's a good piece of time to do...

Jewison: Yeah. I felt a little bit more freedom.

Tavis: Over there or over here?

Jewison: In Europe.

Tavis: In Europe?

Jewison: Yeah. Because you're so far away and, you know, it's a different time zone, so the studios couldn't really exert as much influence. But they never did anyway. I mean, after 'Russians are Coming,' I got final cut, so I can't blame anybody. I've got final cut of my films. And as long as you have artistic control over the film, you know, you're okay. 'Cause that's more important to me than the money or anything. It's just being able to tell the story you want.

But today it's not as easy, you know. And it's hard for young filmmakers today to express themselves and their ideas. And I think films should be more controversial, and they should deal with what's happening in the world. You know, it's not all - and I'm not saying it shouldn't be entertaining. You know, I don't want to - you shouldn't make a film that's gonna bore anybody. But I just have a feeling that the better films today, you know, are independent films.

Tavis: I wish I had more time, but that is a perfect place on which to end. Advice from a legend in his own time to you young filmmakers about what needs to happen, and what ought to be made in this terrible business that has been so good to Norman Jewison. That is the title of his new book. We, again, have not even began to scratch the - begun to scratch the surface on this book, but I know you'll enjoy the read. And I've enjoyed the conversation. Nice to meet you. Glad to have you here.

Jewison: Nice to meet you, Tavis.

Tavis: It's been my pleasure. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. We'll talk on the radio this weekend. I'll see you back here, though, next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching, and, as always, keep the faith.