SUMMARY: A new PBS NewsHour documentary, “China: Power and Prosperity,” examines today's China, its powerful leader in Xi Jinping and relationship with the U.S. Now, amid a global pandemic, the two governments are decreasing collaboration and accelerating confrontation, says Nick Schifrin, who joins Judy Woodruff to discuss this in-depth portrait.
SUMMARY: Acclaimed director Ron Howard has released a new documentary on the life of opera star Luciano Pavarotti, who grew up in Modena, Italy, and rose to fame with the global phenomenon The Three Tenors. The film is filled with archival footage, interviews with family, and of course, music. Jeffrey Brown caught up with Howard to discuss it and what surprised him most about Pavarotti, who died in 2007.
SUMMARY: Madcap, frenetic, lightning fast: On stage, Robin Williams was seemingly impossible to contain. But a new documentary, "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind," tries to pin down the man whose public persona was often quite different from the private life. Jeffrey Brown reports.
SUMMARY: The documentary "RBG" is a look at perhaps the most unlikely rock star Washington has ever seen: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Tracing her roots, education and career, it's her early and continuing fight for gender equality that winds through the film. Jeffrey Brown talks with directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen.
SUMMARY: he actress Hedy Lamarr captivated audiences during the 1930s and 1940s in films like "Algiers" and "Ziegfeld Girl" and became known as an iconic beauty. "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story," a new documentary, showcases her overlooked achievements in technology, including her work on an invention that helped form the basis for WiFi. NewsHour Weekend's Megan Thompson spoke to Alexandra Dean, director of the film, which airs May 18 on American Masters.
SUMMARY: The new Showtime documentary series "The Trade" shows the pain and consequences of the nation's opioids epidemic by putting a human face on the crisis. Best known for the Oscar-nominated film "Cartel Land," director Matthew Heineman wanted to show just how far the drug war reaches, and the consequences on both sides of the border. Jeffrey Brown reports.
SUMMARY: Only one bank was indicted in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and it was a very small one. The Oscar-nominated documentary "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail" tells the story of its prosecution for mortgage fraud and its ultimate acquittal. Jeffrey Brown talks with director Steve James.
SUMMARY: Documentary filmmakers Margaret Byrne and Ian Kibbe spent six years following the lives of three young African-American men in rural North Carolina. The resulting documentary, “Raising Bertie” offers an intimate look at how they navigate school and generational poverty. Jeffrey Brown speaks with the filmmakers about this coming-of-age story.
SUMMARY: A searing new documentary on the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State group called "Hell on Earth” debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival this week. Hari Sreenivasan talks to journalist and the film’s co-director Sebastian Junger about the ways that war in Syria spills over into crisis around the world.
SUMMARY: Steve Bannon, chief strategist to President Trump, has also worked extensively in the film world, including writing and directing documentaries on the global financial crisis, alleged corruption in the Clinton Foundation, and what he sees as the rise of a violent and radical Islam. Jeffrey Brown speaks with he Washington Post's Ann Hornaday and Matea Gold on Bannon's past work.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): He is chief strategist to President Trump, close at hand as policy is made and decisions come from the White House, the President even recently appointing him to a seat on the National Security Council, a controversial decision.
Stephen Bannon has quickly gained so much of a reputation as an influential behind-the-scenes string-puller that “Saturday Night Live” portrayed him as the Grim Reaper in a recent skit.
ALEC BALDWIN, Actor: Send in Steve Bannon.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: Bannon was well-known previously as chairman of Breitbart News, the right-wing news organization, that Bannon himself once called the platform of the alt-right, a fringe conservative group that mixes populism, white nationalism and racism.
But he's also worked extensively in the film world, as executive producer on two traditional dramas, including “The Indian Runner,” Sean Penn's directorial debut, and as producer, writer and director of political documentaries often released during election cycles.
Among his film topics, the global financial crisis in 2010's “Generation Zero,” Sarah Palin, featured in “The Undefeated” in 2011, more recently, 2016's “Clinton Cash” about alleged corruption in the Clinton Foundation, and also last year “Torchbearer,” about an America turning from God, and the concurrent rise of a violent and radical Islam.
Reporters at The Washington Post have been looking at Stephen Bannon's work in films and how they may inform his role as the President's right-hand man.
Ann Hornaday is a film critic for The Post. Matea Gold covers politics.
Welcome, both of you.
MATEA GOLD, The Washington Post: Great to be here.
JEFFREY BROWN: Ann, give us first an overview of themes, style, approach that emerge when you look at the films.
ANN HORNADAY, Film Critic, The Washington Post: Well, Bannon has really come into his own as mostly a documentary maker.
He has made and produced fiction films in the past, but it's really his documentaries that get the most attention. And often they have political themes. He has a few sort of canards and villains that he returns to. He doesn't like the Clintons very much. He doesn't like any political elite very much.
He rails against the sort of permanent political class. He sees — the films often predict the world in very Manichaean terms, apocalyptic terms.
SUMMARY: James Baldwin was one of the nation's most prominent novelists, social critics and civil rights activists of the 20th century. Now his critiques of racism and segregation are the subject of a new Oscar-nominated documentary titled, “I Am Not Your Negro.” Jeffrey Brown sits down with director Raoul Peck to discuss his tribute to a man he sees as a civil rights prophet.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Next, James Baldwin was one of the nation's most prominent authors, public speakers, social critics and civil rights activists.
A new Oscar-nominated documentary opening today explores his life and legacy.
Jeffrey Brown has our look. It's part of our series Beyond the Red Carpet.
And a warning: It contains offensive language.
JAMES BALDWIN, Author/Civil Rights Activist: There are days — this is one of them — when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): His words never really went away, but the writer James Baldwin, speaking here on public television in 1963, feels as relevant as ever.
JAMES BALDWIN: I'm terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long, that they really don't think I'm human.
NARRATOR: “The story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.”
JEFFREY BROWN: The clip is from a new documentary that draws a portrait of the artist, though not as a traditional film biography, and of the fractured and racially divided world he shone a searing light on.
NARRATOR: “I was free only in battle, but never free to rest.”
JEFFREY BROWN: It's called “I Am Not Your Negro.”
RAOUL PECK, Director, “I Am Not Your Negro”: James Baldwin is probably, for me and for many other people, one of the most extraordinary authors in this country, black or white. And he is somebody who changed my life.
SUMMARY: It started with a school project: Interview someone with moral courage. For Artemis Joukowsky, it became an enduring project to explore the life of his grandparents, Waitstill and Martha Sharp, who helped more than 2,000 people avoid deportation to Nazi death camps. Judy Woodruff speaks with Joukowsky and Ken Burns, who tell the story of the Sharps in a new documentary.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A new Ken Burns documentary airs tonight on PBS, and for this story, he co-directs with another filmmaker for whom the details are very personal.
I talked with the men at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about the cloak and dagger story behind “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War.”
ACTOR: A telephone rang, and it was probably the most momentous telephone call that I ever received. I knew whose voice it was, the voice of my closest friend, Everett Baker.
He said, “Waitstill, Martha, I am inviting you to undertake the first intervention against evil by the denomination to be started immediately overseas.”
JUDY WOODRUFF: And with that call in 1939, the life of unitarian minister Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha, would never be the same, nor would the world.
The Sharps, who lived in Wellesley, Massachusetts, were sent by their church to lead a secret and perilous rescue of refugees and dissidents in Europe before and after the start of World War II. They directly helped over 100 people escape and had a part in helping over 2,000 people avoid deportation to Nazi death camps.
They expected to be gone for several months, and instead were gone two years.
MORDECAI PALDIEL, Holocaust Scholar: They were motivated from the beginning to go out there into the kingdom of hell and try to get some people out.
JUDY WOODRUFF: They left two young children at home.
Artemis Joukowsky is the grandson of the Sharps, and son of the Martha Sharp who was named after her courageous mother.
Artemis, this really has been almost a lifelong project for you, since you were, what, in high school?
ARTEMIS JOUKOWSKY, Co-Director, “Defying the Nazis”: Yes, I was in ninth grade, and I was given an assignment to interview someone of moral courage.
And I went home and I said to my mom, “Who should I interview?”
She said: “Talk to your grandmother. She did some cool things during World War II.”
And that interview changed my life.
SUMMARY: “Zero Days,” a new documentary by Alex Gibney, lays out a sobering view of the rise of cyber warfare and its acceleration since intelligence agencies sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program. Gibney sits down with Jeffrey Brown.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): A new documentary lays out a sobering view about the use of cyber-warfare, a future that’s accelerated since intelligence agencies sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program.
The film, called “Zero Days,” opens in more than a dozen cities tomorrow and will be available online.
Its director stopped by as part of the recent AFI Docs festival.
Jeffrey Brown has our conversation.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): The 2010 cyber-attack on an Iranian nuclear facility dubbed Stuxnet, the first question was, what exactly was this sophisticated weapon, the second, who created and carried it out, and in the years since, many new questions have arisen about cyber-warfare and the new world we live in.
The documentary “Zero Days” pulls together what happened with Stuxnet and since.
Alex Gibney, Academy Award-winning documentary maker of numerous films, joins me now.
Welcome to you.
ALEX GIBNEY, Director, “Zero Days”: Thank you.
JEFFREY BROWN: Why was this a subject you wanted to tackle?
ALEX GIBNEY: It seemed like it was a story that was about the Internet and the militarization of the Internet, but wasn’t properly understood. And I certainly didn’t understand it, so it made me want to dig in.
SUMMARY: Teenagers today have never known a world without the internet, which may be why half of all adolescents say they’re addicted to their digital devices. In her new documentary “Screenagers,” Dr. Delaney Ruston explores why young people are so drawn to social media and video games and what effect it’s having on their brains. Ruston joins William Brangham to share what she’s learned.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A new report looks at how digital devices are taking a toll on kids and families.
The report issued yesterday by Common Sense Media found half of all young people feel they are addicted to their devices. Almost 60 percent of adults think their kids are addicted too. And a third of parents and teens say that they argue daily about screen time.
William Brangham is back with our look.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): The documentary is called “Screenagers,” and, in it, Dr. Delaney Ruston explores the complex relationship teenagers have with their screens, both the pleasures they take in sharing their lives online with their friends, as well as the darker side, those who lose control of their digital habits, and spiral into damaging behavior.
WOMAN: When I went to hug him, I could feel the bones in his back. And that was scary.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The film also looks at the latest research about the impact all this screen time has on the brains of young people.
SHERRY TURKLE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: You have a brain that is wired for what in psychology is called seeking behavior, the kind of thing that a Google search gives you, something new, something stimulating, something different.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Throughout the film, Ruston also turns the camera on herself, exploring the real and all-too-common conflicts that flare up as she and her family haggle over screen time.
DR. DELANEY RUSTON, Filmmaker, “Screenagers”: What should the rules be? Because we don’t have any right now.
TESSA RUSTON: I think the rules should be there is no rule. It’s not like I’m on it 24/7.
DR. DELANEY RUSTON: When you have it, you’re always checking it. And I — don’t you think that…
TESSA RUSTON: Well, if you put this in front of me, yes, I will go on it, and, yes, I can find something to do on it.
SUMMARY: Few places on this planet have gone unexplored. Just 60 miles from Portland, Oregon, there's a natural wonder that was first spotted in 2010. Last summer, an expedition team navigated for three days to reach their goal: Valhalla Canyon. Oregon Public Broadcasting chronicles that effort in a new documentary.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): There are few places left that haven’t been explored. But a team in Oregon has documented a natural wonder for the first time that’s just about 60 miles from Portland. It’s a spectacular half-mile gorge and narrow canyon in the Cascade Range.
It was first spotted in 2010 by a Forest Service employee. This past summer, an expedition team spent three days navigating through it, including nine major waterfalls and a grotto that ended at a slot canyon.
Oregon Public Broadcasting chronicled that effort in a new documentary (full video).
Here’s an excerpt about trying to reach the Valhalla Canyon.
MAN: Oh, man.
BEN CANALES, Photographer: Being in Valhalla, it feels like you have gone into the throat of something, through the stomach and you’re in it. You know, for myself, as I would say much more a normal person and not a hard-core adventurer, there’s kind of just a low level of panic at the back of the mind.
It’s like, this is not normal. What’s going to happen here? What’s going to happen there?
MAN: Yah! It’s awesome!
BEN CANALES: And so there’s kind of always a little fight to keep that quelled down.
And then there’s just this thrilling excitement at the rugged beauty of it. All the fears just disappeared, and it was like, this is awesome. You know, the worry was gone, and it was just pure adventure.
SUMMARY: "Making a Murderer," a new true crime documentary on Netflix, tells the story of Steven Avery, a man exonerated of a sexual assault after serving 18 years in prison, only to be charged and convicted of murder. Presenting recorded police interrogations and court proceedings, the filmmakers raise questions about the criminal justice system. Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos join William Brangham.
SUMMARY: The new documentary "Best of Enemies" pinpoints a key moment in broadcasting: a series of debates during the 1968 political conventions between two intellectual giants. William F. Buckley on the right and Gore Vidal on the left attracted a high national audience with intelligence and wit, as well as putdowns and insults. Filmmakers Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon join Jeffrey Brown.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to political commentary still steeped in intellect, but far less civil than Shields and Brooks.
Jeffrey Brown has the story.
MAN: To help us extract meaning from these conventions, two of America’s most eloquent commentators, William Buckley and Gore Vidal.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Hard to imagine now, a time before political pundits dominated cable and broadcast news programs.
The documentary “Best of Enemies” pinpoints a key moment of change, when two intellectual giants William F. Buckley on the right, Gore Vidal on the left, attracted a huge national audience with intelligence and wit, but also put-downs and insults.
Filmmakers Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon explored a series of debates the two held during the 1968 political conventions that, for a variety of reasons, would alter the future of political discourse on television.
We spoke recently at the AFI Docs Festival in Washington.
You set this up as both a personal and a kind of national epic. Why do you think it rose to that level?
MORGAN NEVILLE, Director, “Best of Enemies”: Gore Vidal and William Buckley represented the polar opposites of the left and the right at a time when America was kind of coming apart at the seams a little bit. This is 1968. There’s rioting in the streets. And they’re representing those poles there on national TV.
But what I think what makes it such a dramatic story for us is that it was deeply personal. It was under the veneer of politics, but I think they saw in the other person somebody who could detect their own insecurities and expose those to the world.
SUMMARY: Filmmaker Laura Poitras captured the moment former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed himself as the source behind a massive document leak of classified surveillance in 2013. Two years later, Snowden’s story is the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Citizenfour.” Jeffrey Brown speaks with Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald about how those pivotal moments came to life on screen.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): President Obama went to Silicon Valley today to call for more cooperation between private companies and the government when it comes to defending against cyber-attacks.
In the wake of major hacks against health insurer Anthem and Sony Pictures, the president told executives they need to share more information.
But today’s summit also comes amid growing tensions between tech companies and the administration over privacy and civil liberties, a point the president acknowledged.
BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: In all our work, we have to make sure we are protecting the privacy and civil liberty of the American people. Now, we grapple with these issues in government.
We have pursued important reforms to make sure we are respecting people’s privacy, as well as ensuring our national security. And the private sector wrestles with this as well.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Several CEOs of top tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo!, didn’t attend, reportedly over anger and disappointment about a lack of reform in the government’s broad surveillance programs.
The revelations about the government’s reach are the subject of a documentary nominated for an Academy Award.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): This Saturday marks the 30-year anniversary of the nomination of the first woman ever to run for vice president on a major party ticket. She was New York Democratic Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro.
A documentary by her daughter titled “Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way” tells the story of her mother’s trailblazing career and the effect she had on American politics and culture.
We begin with an excerpt from that film, inside the Democratic National Convention hall in San Francisco where Ferraro was formally nominated by her running mate, Walter Mondale, on July 19, 1984.
WALTER MONDALE, Former Presidential Candidate: I have had many people tell me it’s the best national convention we have ever had. People were thrilled. The crowds were building up outside the hall to be close to what was going on.
WOMAN: I nominate Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be the next vice president of the United States of America.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
GERALDINE FERRARO, Former Vice Presidential Candidate: It was as emotional as I had ever seen at a convention, thunderous, the response and emotion. To talk about it, it was so spectacular.
WOMAN: The floor of the convention was virtually all women, and women who had fought so hard for women’s rights. And, oh, my God, it was such a wonderful moment.
COKIE ROBERTS, Journalist: Standing up there all in white, looking like this tiny little figure, but looking beautiful and looking female.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): ..... A new television documentary tackles the growing worries and criticism over college costs and student debt.
Jeffrey Brown taped this conversation last week.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): The American higher education system has long been regarded as a crowning achievement. But these days, the focus has been more on its problems, rising tuition bills that stoke ballooning debt, too many students who never graduate, misplaced and overly lavish expenditures on facilities and housing and much more.
A new documentary, “Ivory Tower,” looks at a range of such issues. It opens in many U.S. cities this month.
Here’s a short clip that features one of its main themes.
----
ANDREW ROSSI, Director, “Ivory Tower”: But we also see a shift in the ’70s, when conservative governors like Ronald Reagan suggested that the state shouldn’t be subsidizing intellectual curiosity. And that is really the world we live in now.
----
ANDREW ROSSI: Well, we really emphasize that metrics such as completion rates at schools, average amounts of student debt and employability at a particular institution once someone graduates should be the priority in choosing a school, and not, again, which university has the more popular football team or the more lush student center.
I think, if we can reorient to those metrics, many people might be able to avoid going into an amount of debt that is crushing.
