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tv   Charlie Rose  Bloomberg  November 15, 2014 8:00pm-9:01pm EST

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>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> boris johnson is here. he is the mayor of london since 2008. he announced his intention to stand up for election to the
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parliament in the 2015 elections. his latest book is about winston churchill and is called "the churchill factor: how one man made history." there is a long history of politicians writing a books to burnish their careers. "profiles in courage" and "the audacity of hope" this book is more like "profiles in courage" than the barack obama book because it drops a hint. i am pleased to have boris johnson back at the table. >> it is an honor to be back. >> why did you write this? >> what the churchill family and the estate said as they had the 50th anniversary of his death coming up next year. and they genuinely felt that although there is a lot of scholarship there was not a book
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that tried to bring it together to argue to a new generation that churchill was the great manda i think he was and that people of my generation think he was. in the new generation he is receding, fading. because the vastness of his achievement is being lost. the was a survey that showed that most people think that he was in an insurance advertisement. that is what young people think. it was an attempt to bring them to life again for a new generation -- him to life again for a new generation and to show them the scale of what he achieved but also why he was the only guy who could have possibly achieved it. how it came about that in may
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1940, britain and the world was on the brink of disaster. >> harris had been captured. -- terrorists had been captured. -- paris had been captured. >> the french were hoping that we would do a deal with hitler because that would help their own. they were saying to make a deal with hitler. if he had, you would've had a nazi dominated continent, europe. an epic disaster for humanity. it is possible that it would hitler would have been able to invade russia successfully earlier. it would have been a tragedy. >> instead he had to fight a two front war and that derailed
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everything. >> churchill knew that he could hold on long enough it would lose because in the end the americans would come in. that was his whole strategy. and it worked. in the end, it worked. >> a good part of his time was trying to get roosevelt to do it. john meacham wrote a good book about churchill and roosevelt. >> don't forget that churchill, although his mother was american and he came to the city in 1895, he loved america but he also, i must confess to you, there was also a part of churchill that felt a certain badness about america's eclipsing of britain. in the 20's. in the 20's in the 30's he became so anti-american that clementine says he cannot be foreign secretary because of his feelings. >> was it jealousy?
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>> i think that is the right word. it was a feeling that america was elbowing britain off the top. which was true. >> it went into high gear after the war. >> in public churchill said of lend lease, the deal by which america helped britain to fight on and buy planes and ships, he said it was the best act in he said thatte, britain was being skinned and flayed to the bone. do not forget that he does not go to roosevelt's funeral. remember? it is a very, very complicated relationship. >> what was the explanation? >> it was not good enough. he should have gone and he regretted it.
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do not forget that at the end of his career when he has his cabinet around he has two pieces of advice. one, man is spirit. whatever that may mean. and second, never be separated from the americans. which is profound guidance. >> when you sat down i said that this book is about what is greatness and how do you get there? it seems like this is a man who wanted to be great and thought about it and did things that he thought would put him on that. >> that is very astute. that is right. there is a great element in churchill of self-assessment. he knows exactly who he is. he has napoleon and nelson, busts of both of them on his desk.
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remember that he was not a tall man, he was a shrimpy guy who built himself up using dumbbells , but morally, also. >> you do have a feeling that he believed so much in his own capacity that he could be britain, that he was willing to do almost anything to make that happen. whether it meant to shifting parties or whatever was necessary to get power. >> yes, yes. there had been no one like him before our sense in british politics because he left to tories and then rejoined them. he says he had been consistent but he abandoned free-trade and came back to free-trade.
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this renegade, this trader is then made chancellor of the exchequer. >> the recognized that he had real ability. >> they did. everybody knew throughout his career that they were dealing with somebody exceptional. >> so everybody knew -- >> but not to be trusted. >> correct. he was thought of as a loner, a maverick, a guy who continually got things wrong. but in the late 30's he takes this gigantic political position. hitler is wrong, hitler is a bad guy. he has seen it, he has seen the marching kids and the rest of it and he smells and he was totally right. >> you wrote that he was not what people thought of as a man of principle but a glory chasing
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opportunist. >> he was. he took positions that crumpled beneath him. with the amazing thing was that he survived. -- but the amazing thing was that he survived. but he was never at any stage morally compromised. when politicians get things wrong in our times there will often be an element where their honor our integrity is at stake and they will be shown to have lied about something or whatever. nixon. but that was never the case with churchill. >> it is said about him that he -- that his father did not spend a lot of time with him. that his father was not there for him. therefore, he was overly protective of randolf. >> he had a complicated relationship with his father.
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there is an essay he writes after the war that he imagines that randolph is in a chair next to him and randolph is saying, my boy, tell me about the world today. and randolph does not understand that churchill has become the greatest englishman. his father forms an impression that he is a retired military officer who is interested in painting. and churchill is bursting to explain his success when the shade vanishes. you have a sense that churchill is it yearning to impress his father. his father wrote him terrible letters when he was at school, saying he was a confounded young wasteral. >> do you know how many young men who come to the stable and
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simple to them is this idea that they could say i did ok, pop. >> the monkey on churchill's back was that. with his mother, an extraordinary woman. a new yorker, of course. she was very influential in his early life. >> what was his greatest skill? other than his will to prevail. >> other than his will to prevail -- i was going to say it was never giving in. the thing that he had that i find stunning in writing the book and researching it and that many people who dig into churchill come out with the feeling was his energy, his industry. he was like the toy with the battery that just keeps going. and churchill's unlike anybody or any journalist that i know -- he could drink red wine at
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dinner. white wine, brandy, liquor. he would then go upstairs to his office, walk around while a secretary was waiting up, and dictate until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. >> a book or speeches? >> speeches, thoughts, memos. he composed not just more words then dickens or shakespeare but more words than them combined. and he won the nobel prize for literature. and his paintings still sell for about a million dollars. >> he won a nobel prize for a history of the world war. >> they say that it was the swedes feeling guilty about neutrality during the war. but still, the nobel prize. >> when i ask about the greatest skill, i thought it was --
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>> charm. amazing charm. he had so many fantastic literary gifts, the ability to speak directly to people, to move them, to sway them. he understood it, too, because it is said that he built the pauses and halting because he knew that if it appeared that this was something that he was just thinking than it had a more powerful appeal. pause as if looking for the right word. >> his speeches were very far from unpremeditated. they were declamations of text in which he had worked very hard on.
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a secret was using short, anglo-saxon words when he wanted to grip them. to say we are going to fight them on the street and we will never surrender. the only latinate word is surrender. >> jack kennedy said to mobilize mobilized the english language. >> it may have been edward murrow. but the great thing about his speeches and his broadcasts was that they were aimed not just at the british but he always had an eye to america and he knew that that was the crucial audience. if he could reach the motherland, as it were, and persuade them, then he would have done his duty. that was his big achievement. >> why did the ungrateful british turned him out of office? >> that is one of the great questions of politics and i think the answer is blindingly obvious. he had become -- he had become
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somehow detached from the conservative party and straddled politics, he was above it. it was felt possible to vote against the conservative party without -- people thought that it was ok to be anti-tory and it to support churchill. the labor slogan was cheer for churchill and vote for labor. >> that is pretty good. >> it was a good one. and so they kicked him out. again, look at that. he gets this incredible poke in the eye when he is 70. he keeps going and gets back into government. >> "the economist" says that your semi conscious views of politics speak to the analysis in which deep similarities emerge. this is "the economist," your own homegrown "the economist."
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they say you join this comparison because you want people to think of you as a churchill in the making. >> no. i explained the origins of the book. i had written an essay about churchill which they liked. it was a chance to expand the message and try and bring it. i have more in common with a three toed sloth or whatever, a one-eyed pterodactyl than churchill. >> they said this about lincoln, too. ambition. do you know how may times lincoln lost the election before he was elected president? 10 times. he was defeated. but he kept -- his ambition burned like an ember.
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not a bad thing. >> not a bad thing. >> so fess up. >> i have 18 months to go as mayor and i have to finish that up and then we will see what happens. >> we are thinking about it but we will see what happens. >> i know what will happen in london which is that london will continue to make progress and i hope. >> the great urban experiment is alive and well? >> it is always wonderful to be here in new york. we have a lot to learn from each other as great cities. but london is going gangbusters at the moment, no question. the london effect is spreading across the rest of the country. >> thinking about churchill and seeing america becoming, there
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are those who look at america and look at china and say china is coming. they are going to make this -- the 21st century will be china's century. >> churchill thought that britain and america, with america now firmly in the lead, represented values, ideals of freedom and democracy, free speech and an independent judiciary, habeus corpus, whatever, that were peculiar to english-speaking cultures. and there is a lot of truth in that. those ideas are not banal, they are not trite, and they are not uncontested.
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there are many parts of the world including china and russia that do not subscribe to that. churchill wanted to push that forward. the people of the world want america to play that role as long as i am around and i think that the world will want the idea of america. >> the mayor of london, boris johnson. back in a moment, stay with us. >> " foxcatcher" is a new movie. here is the trailer.
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>> do you have any idea who i am? some rich guy calls you on the phone and wants to speak to you about what you hope to achieve. what do you hope to achieve, mark? >> i want to be the best in the world. >> good. >> there is a key for you. the big house is off-limits. >> the coach has a vision. he would like foxcatcher to be the official training site for the american team. >> what does he get out of it? this is it, this is all we have ever wanted. >> you have been living in your father's shadow your entire life. it is your time. >> i will give you everything i have. >> i am leading men and giving
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america hope. i have spent my lifetime looking for a father and i have found one. >> it does not matter. the sport of wrestling is a low and i do not like to see you being low. >> why is there nobody in the gym? >> you ungrateful ape. >> mark? mark? mark? >> i do not need your help. >> tell me what is going on with you and john. >> what did i just say? >> the coaches is a father. the coach is a mentor.
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the coach has great power on an athlete's life. >> usa. usa. usa. >> mark. >> with me are the director, bennett, and three of the stars, steve carell, channing tatum, and vanessa redgrave. >> 8 years ago, at the supermarket, someone gave me clippings containing the things from this story and it took me almost no time after reading the first clipping that i knew it was something i wanted to do. it was a long time ago -- looking back on it, there are elements of my other films. it has these pathetic characters
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that have been alienated. this particular one has an allegory underneath it that spoke to me. it had something to do with class and wealth and entitlement and country, family. there are so many things woven into it and i just cannot put it down. >> sounds like a bit of shakespeare. >> it did to me. i read the script and i thought it was incredible. the opportunity to work with bennett was a huge component. because his work speaks for itself. he is really good. to be a part of that world is an honor. >> he casts well, too.
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>> he tends to cast against the grain. i think, in terms of me, i do not think i was on any list for this role. and i think that bennett took a chance. >> why did you cast him? >> because nobody expected that john dupont would kill anybody. part of it was putting somebody in a role that you do not believe is capable, in that way. one of the early conversations between steve and i, he said that he and only ever played characters with mushy centers, and that john dupont seems to have a mushy center but he does not, he is dangerous. the way steve spoke about him and the understanding he had --
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the thing about comic actors, i am attracted to them and the idea that there is another aspect to them. a darker side, perhaps. that you can access and surprise people with. and i also just think he is a great actor. very compelling. >> mr. channing, was it bennett, the story, the role that brought you on board? >> i first met bennett seven years ago before i had been in even one successful film. i had seen "capote," and obviously steve says that speaks for itself. i knew i wanted to work with him. i do not think he had a script then so i went and researched the character. i did not have any knowledge of the story and i fell in love with the idea of this world that i do not think anyone has seen before in film in a deep way. i did not know anything about this event.
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and then i read the script and, to be completely honest, i did not understand it. i think i was too green in my knowledge of film. i thought that there needed to be some sort of resolve or lesson learned. i just did not understand it. and then the movie just sort of came back around and i met bennett on the lot of sony when he had just finished "moneyball." he said to see it and we talked about "foxcatcher." i think i had done a lot of growing, more lessons learned. i was reading it with fresh eyes and with bennett talking me through it, it made sense. i threw myself at his feet. >> and then you found vanessa.
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this is between john dupont and his mother. here it is. >> i think we will give it to the children's museum. do you agree? >> i do not care what you do with the train set. i do not care about trains. mother, i am leading men. i am training them. i am teaching them. i am giving them a dream and i am giving america hope. >> hope? it does not matter. i am glad you have your trophy. it can go in the trophy room. not in the front case.
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i do not like the sport of wrestling, as you know. it is a low sport. and i do not like to see you being low. >> tell me who john dupont was. >> he was the heir to the dupont fortune. i think he was a very lonely guy. he grew up essentially by himself with his mother who was pretty chilly. his parents were divorced when he was two years old. he grew up with just her in his house and was isolated, i think because of his wealth. it is documented that he had a mental issues. who was he? it is our best guess as to who he was, but i interviewed people and read books that he had
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written, books about him. i think ultimately he was a tortured and tragic individual. >> seeking something? >> well, yeah. i think the reason that he started the wrestling facility and sports in general -- he had extensive sports programs on his estate. he wanted that greatness to rub off on him. he embraced it. he just loved the idea of being a leader of men. and he was not, naturally. but the character that mark rufflo plays was a leader of men, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. and dupont zeroed in on people like that and wanted to be -- it
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was a conflict because he wanted to be that person's mentor as well as be mentored by him. i think he was trying to fit himself into this world and did not possess the tools to do so. >> it took you eight years. to get this made. what was the reservation on the part of the studios? >> it is an unusual film and it does not fit into a simple economic model. movies get financed based on formulas. there is a value given to it based on the estimations of a foreign presales driven by cast. with genre and director considered. the film did not make sense to anybody and it never did make sense to any standardized metric that is used. and when "moneyball" was wrapping up, i met megan and
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showed her the script, talked to her about it. she disregarded her counsel and just -- >> took a shot. >> took a shot. >> this is a clip. >> hey, joe. i am really sorry about your mother. >> no, no, no, i am fine. >> are you sure? >> there is a lot of work to do in the next couple of months. you are an integral part of that. do you understand? i'm going to need you. and i will be relying on you to a great extent.
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i want, more than anything, to win a gold medal. and we have someone who could do that. >> we are going to win a gold medal, john. >> how are you feeling? >> i feel good about it. >> i am concerned that there are psychological issues that we need to take care of. >> i think he will be in real good shape. >> i think you are doing a good job. you and i, working in tandem, if we cannot get him there, no one can. >> ok. >> mark? mark? mark?
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good. >> what is it at the core of the film? what is he seeking from them and what are they seeking from him? >> that is the question, what is the transaction? i think that dupont cast himself in a role where he would be the leader of these guys. i think he was a very lonely guy, a very alienated guy. i think he was attracted to the fraternity, to the culture of these guys who do have a moral code. and they are in it for the virtues because you are not getting rich or famous. >> something he could never have done. >> yeah. it is sort of a parallel to the mother, who has her stable of horses and she was a world-class equestrian. part of it was rebellious.
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but i also think that he imagined himself being some kind of cold war hero. he had visions of 1980 hockey victory or like a bobby fischer thing. >> what happened that changes when dave arrives? >> i think that all sense of, i guess, security. he was someone that he thought believed in you, it all comes crashing down. dave, even though he was largely a father figure for mark, i think he was always a bit -- mark could never be as shiny and important as dave, because dave brought him into wrestling.
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so every achievement by mark was a bit attributed to dave. i think when dave gets there it is just the thing that saved him but also his biggest nightmare. >> is this an allegory on america? >> i am drawn into these themes but you have to be careful when you are making a film because you have to give importance to the characters and what is happening. for me i do see a lot of relevant themes. >> this is between john dupont and mark. >> do have any idea why i asked
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you to come here? >> no. >> mark, do you have any idea who i am? >> no. >> some rich guy calls you on the phone. "i want mark to come visit me." well, i am a wrestling coach. and i have a deep love for the sport of wrestling. i want to speak to you about your future, about what you hope to achieve. what do you hope to achieve, mark? >> i want to be the best in the world. >> what is the biggest challenge for you here in making this? putting together a cast that you like?
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>> a very quiet film. what it is really about does not get expressed explicitly. so finding a way to coordinate the moment so that we register what is happening, the unspoken. >> he will put his head down and get very shy about that but i have never had an experience like this. to have complete trust in someone and feel -- to have complete trust in someone and feel like that. i talked with ruffalo one night and -- i did not socialize much with these guys, but you guys got tighter as brothers. i very much felt to be on the
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periphery. but, one night, i was commiserating with mark on the way back to the hotel and we both expressed his fear of, what are we doing? this is either the biggest mistake in the worst that we have ever done, because we are way out on a limb in terms of these characters. but, for both of us, and i think for the three of us, four of us, five of us, all of us, trusting bennett was the big thing. that was, for me, the comfort factor. >> i've had a short career compared to these two. i do not know anyone that lives it with you as much as bennett. i mean, it is not a fun movie, and i do not mean that like it was not enjoyable, because there was an immense amount of gratitude and appreciation that goes into doing something that was hard.
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and you know for a fact that he is right there next to you, just going through it with you. there is something very comforting in just committing and going all the way. doing it for him. for the story. >> sounds interesting to me. >> i think it was one of the greatest experiences, actually --being able to be a part of these, and like with you today and q&a's. i like to hear what bennett has to say and each time i see the film i think, oh my goodness. my goodness me. it is like going down in a bathysphere, down 6 miles with creatures that are coming up to the air.
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there is such, such resonances, underwater residences that are not made explicit that i am so fed up with. [laughter] and beautiful, it is beautiful. great writing and all of the greater writing because the writer did not insist that we have to explain everything, which i am sure he did not. i have to pitch in and say that i was frightened because of a frightening scene it knowing that i must i have any assumptions and that is exactly what the journey was about. i was playing a very specific woman but i had to listen and
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and confront my son. since you are talking about this thing, you have to keep alienated if you are going to be an alienated person. you cannot jump from one to the other, or it is very difficult, almost impossible. it is both micro and macro. i was amazed watching the film. >> thank you all. it is great to meet you. one more time, the film opens -- >> limited on friday. >> limited friday night. >> back in a moment, stay with us. >> daphne merkin is here, a former columnist for "the new
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yorker" magazine. she just published a new anthology, called "the fame lunches." woody allen says that her essays are strikingly original and take on the human condition. i am pleased to have her back at the table. welcome. this is the second anthology. how do you approach an anthology? >> i think one of the problems with anthologies is that you want to try and make them look organic when they are not organic. >> they were not meant to be together but they are together. >> so i tried to put together pieces through different scenes. one of the wounded icons, a very -- really interested me.
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it is about my -- how would i put it -- effort to gain significance in my eyes or attain a certain kind of status in the world by harnessing myself to famous people but famous people who are themselves wounded. >> you are drawn to them? >> yes. >> you are drawn to fragile sorts of celebrities or famous somebodies who feel they are misunderstood nobodies. what is it about them that attracts you? >> i think the notion that somebody becomes an accomplished person or celebrated person but is not totally intact psychologically. i find that fascinating. none of us are totally intact psychologically but the notion that they work around their woundedness to make something.
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>> and sometimes the impression is as they are so successful they must be adjusted, solidly ok. >> absolutely. >> and they are not solidly ok and all of the things they thought fame would bring it did not bring. >> absolutely. as a culture, we look on and think about, like, robin williams, what could have been wrong in his life? in truth, we never know the demons that drive people. >> of all of these, which one is the most revealing for you? >> for some reason, marilyn monroe fascinates me unendingly. >> what was it about her? what did she say about sex and fame? >> right. i read her diaries that came out last year -- it is not really a diary, it is little notes that
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she wrote to herself. one of them is a dinner menu. she was trying to teach herself how to entertain. i think it is the beauty plus the vulnerability, a potent combination. >> she would show up two or three hours late for a scene. it would drive everybody crazy. >> she had an enormous anxiety for performance. >> everything i've read says that you did not include the essay on spanking. is that the most famous essay you've ever written? >> i shudder to think that it might be. >> why not? >> well first, i included it in the last collection so i would not double it.
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but a certain kind of candor about sex remains -- >> missing. >> right. it is not one of the things that people are upfront about. keeping it away from the area of porn, which is not about candor anyway. i think the piece has haunted me. >> because everyone remembered it. it was "the new yorker" -- when i reread it, i thought, i cannot believe i said this. i always think of a title of a collection of "esquire" pieces that came out, the title of which was "all of our secrets are the same." >> what does that mean to you? >> that if we told them -- >> that it is the same whoever who we are?s of
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>> that we keep the same things hidden. >> a lot of it has to do with ego and fear. you have a new piece about therapy called making my therapist laugh. what is at about? -- that about. >> i wrote it for a section of "the times." they called to say what i write something and i was myself about my own tendency to try and entertain my therapist instead of droning. i thought the opposite is entertaining is boring, but psychic life is repetitive by its nature. i thought he saw how one therapist could not stop laughing and i was not that funny. he said to me, why did i not
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become a standup comedian? >> so you were in therapy. >> you do not see big changes on the next street corner. >> when you write an essay, where do you start? an idea, a person, a theme? >> that is a good question because i am always -- every time i start an essay again, i think here we go again. i think a mixture of scene, placing, and some idea about the person.
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some perception you have that has not been out there. >> especially if it goes against the grain of perception. it is something that is so personal. how could someone that cares so little about fashion care so much about jewelry? >> that would be a great opening. >> that would be an opening line you would say. >> true. >> what is the normal length for an essay? it depends on the magazine. >> it ranges from 1000 for a certain length essay for "the times," to 4000 or 5000 words for some. >> and when you look into the pantheon of essayists, who is up there? >> i love an essayist, very sick now, named clyve james. i find him a wonderful essayist. >> he lives in london?
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>> he lives in australia, i think. i just read a collection by him. >> is he writing about dying? >> yes, he has. it has a sense of humor, which is interesting. i always go back to virginia woolf for a certain kind of essay, a certain kind of personal yet informed essay. >> and then there is the famous orwell essay -- why do i write? >> he was a great essayist. >> tell me how you employ language? are you looking to tell details or are you looking for contradictions or are you looking for what? >> to be a book editor. [laughter] i look for a mixture of, as you said correctly, the detail that will capture a reader and i like phrases that stand out on a page, that you do not gloss
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over. >> when i read an essay, i like to read something in which some body has characterized somebody that i have not thought of that instantly i say, yes, that is who they are. >> that is actually -- i write in my introduction that i hope the essays will get nods of recognition. >> a writer should force somebody to say, my god, i cannot express that but that is what i thought without expression. >> that is the goal, pretty much. >> you did say that you are always in search of love. >> it sounds like something i would say. i once told a therapist that i wrote, and she said, what do you write for? and i said, for love.
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and he said, you will never get it that way. but i went on writing. >> and we are all glad. the book is called "the fame lunches." thank you for joining us, see you next time. ♪
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>> he is the provocateur behind some of the big ideas of our time. a creator of a sort of pop science. an unofficial, but incredibly influential set of laws that govern human behavior. between five new york times bestsellers and two decades at the new yorker, malcolm gladwell has inspired, inflamed, and perplexed the most critical of readers. joining me on "studio 1.0," author, journalist, and thought-provoker, malcolm gladwell. thank you so much for being here, it's really great to have you.

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