♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with more questions about the russian hacking of the political process, and also about accusations against the obama administration from president trump. calls are mounting for the republican chair of the house intelligence committee to recuse himself in the investigation into russian meddling. the chairman admitted he met with a source on white house grounds last week to view secret reports. he suggested that had potential surveillance of president trump or his associates by u.s. agencies. the chairman has canceled all

scheduled hearings this week. joining me is karen to margin --karoun demirjian. i am pleased to have her back on the program. tell me what you think this is with respect to the house intelligence committee and chairman nuñez. karoun: i think they are in a little bit of a disarray right now. you do have democrats calling for him to step aside when it comes to this investigation. he is saying that he won't go and accusing them of trying to take a political point. that does not bode well for progressing with this investigation. we have seen there was supposed to be an open hearing today with the former director of national intelligence, former cia director, and former acting attorney general, who president trump fired because she refused to uphold the first immigration order. that got canceled last week. the hearing was never scheduled.

i think people are not sure how long the pause will last. charlie: what has happened to the credibility of the committee? karoun: it has taken a hit in other parts of congress, for certain. most republicans in the senate do not want to say anything one way or the other about this. they don't want to comment. but you heard john mccain earlier saying it looks like it is time to put this to either a flex committee or independent committee, because congress has shown it cannot do its job by itself anymore. there is still faith in the intelligence committee process being run by richard burr and mark warner. in the fbi as well, although there are criticisms of the fbi director, although most people

were pleased with his showing in the open hearing -- clearly there's a lot of discord in the house, among members of the intelligence committee, and everyone else surrounding that. there is a lot of looking askance across the capital coming from senators. the intelligence community is tightlipped, but they are not rushing back to capitol hill to huddle behind closed doors with the intel committee, so it is not clear when that will proceed. charlie: tell us actually what did chairman nuñez do when he went to the white house? karoun: we only know thus far what he has said, which is that he went to the white house grounds to review -- to meet with this source, whose identity he won't disclose, to review this information. he suggested that there either was the president's name or his

surrogates on his transition team, that their identities had been unmasked, which is basically what happens when you have an intelligence report about surveillance being done. in this case, the surveillance was being done against foreign targets, not against trump or his surrogates. that is called incidental collection. if you are a private u.s. citizen, your identity is supposed to be kept secret in the reports. nuñez suggested they may have been unmasked, so the identities may have been revealed. even today he made that accusation, there was a lot of back and forth about that. his ranking member on the committee, adam schiff, after he talked to nuñez, his impression was there was only one name unmasked in the intelligence reports, and it wasn't even a name affiliated with anyone with trump or his operation. nuñez said it was clear to him.

we don't know if we are talking about picked up transcripts of phone calls between members of the trump team and foreign agents, we don't know if we are talking about two foreign dignitaries whose conversation was picked up, we don't even know if we were just talking about a cable that was sent and picked up by surveillance and happened to mention the president or a surrogate in the aftermath of the election. this happened between november and january. we don't know exactly what we are dealing with, quite how serious it is, and specifically who or whether the source was revealed. there are lots of swirling political anger really happening in the wake of nuñez making this announcement. many democrats are saying he's trying to distract from the fact that last week's hearing with the fbi and nsa directors did not go well, and trying to make sure no other public hearings could be complicating for the administration.

remember, that is the hearing that we heard the fbi has been looking into these allegations of possible ties between the top team and the kremlin -- trump team and the kremlin since july, which is significant, and longer-term. charlie: more than ties, also collusion. karoun: the ranking member said there was circumstantial evidence of collusion, then collected himself -- corrected himself to say there's more than circumstantial evidence, but he has not said what it is. if democrats have identified a smoking gun, they have not identified what it is. i think people are saying maybe it could even be illegal, but these are all still allegations. charlie: has the chairman shared this information that he has and the information he received on

the white house grounds, or at the executive office building -- has he shared it with adam schiff yet? karoun: the democrats on the committee, including the ranking members, say they only know what we know it is going. -- at this point. there are pointing to the order of operations that happened that day. nuñez went to the press twice before he came to the committee, and that he has not been that forthcoming with details. they say that they have not even been given reasons why the hearings were canceled, much less specifics about what the source is or what he handed over. even nuñez says people find out as soon as he gets the full data drop or information drop of documents he requested from the fbi, nsa, and cia. adam schiff asked for a full list of the identities that were unmasked as part of these

incidental collections. this is someone who is incidentally collected because they are referred to on the opposite end of the phone line. that is something everyone is still waiting on. nuñez says once he thinks that will come to congress that it will be cleared up and everyone can see what he has seen. but their most recent update he has given is that he expects the nsa's contribution to come may be today or tomorrow, and that we don't know yet when the cia or fbi may furnish whatever is on their end. each of these agencies have the power to unmask these identities. there are procedures you can do when it is important for the intelligence value. there are legal procedures to do this. we don't know yet if this was done legally or not legally.

that is what nuñez has also not clarified. it could turn out this is a very, very concerning thing that identities are being unmasked and linked. our, it could turn out this is a common place, ordinary thing the intelligence community does. we have to wait for the documents. we don't know when they are coming. charlie: and saudi yates, what could she tell the committee? sally yates, what could she tell the committee? karoun: she was the first acting attorney general. going back when we sought a reports about who was meeting with various russian officials, it appears some of that information came from the justice department, whether or not it was yates herself. those are the earlier chapters that we have probably almost forgotten about.

the issue is how forthcoming and open they were about meetings more so than the fact they met with an ambassador. that is a fairly commonplace thing when you are open about it. that is what they were not, in this case. a lot of people are curious to hear what yates does now. i'm assuming she might be more open to talking about it. as we reported earlier today, the white house went through length to keep yates from testifying in front of the committee as she was originally scheduled to do today. it is supposed to be happening at some point in the future, but not the four comey and rogers come back from behind closed doors. according to letters we published, they were alleging some of the communication was

privileged and they were pushing back against that. there is a question of whether there is something she knows that the white house knows that she knows, and they did not want it to be publicly released, or if that is the procedural thing to play things closer to the chest. especially since there was discord between trump and this attorney general, it is potentially not the most healthy relationship. charlie: didn't you go to the white house after the discovery of flynn having met with the people that he met with, to advise the white house of that? karoun: yes. we reported that as well. this has become a common theme, the various things we have reported in places like the washington post or the new york times, that the administration denies those reports that members of congress, especially

republican members, will question the validity of the reports. there was quite a lot of back and forth last week where they seemed to be just sharing insider wink-wink knowledge. certainly there has been quite a lot of effort to discredit. i can't go into details because they did not go into detail on the points. many of those things we have reported, what yates' involvement was, the relationship she had with the administration, whether she alerted them to the discussions, i'm sure those will happen if she appears before the committee. they may come from questions from both sides. not only to find information that is troublesome for the president but also to discredit what has been reported thus far. in an open forum, it is up to yates to set it straight, and it

is not clear when or if that can happen at this point. charlie: there are a lot of questions. what is the most important question you would like an answer to? karoun: all of us would like to know the ultimate question, is there any there there? is there a smoking gun? is this coincidence or is it real? republicans say it is coincidence, just average things everyone is pulling together into a conspiracy theory. the question is to find out what really did take lace, how high up it went, how much was it in terms of politics or money? charlie: well paul manafort, jared kushner testify in open hearings before the committee? karoun: if they do, it is not the first that.

at this point, we only know paul manafort, page, and stone, have offered to do these interviews. eventually there is a step too for a public hearing, but we are not -- a step two for a public hearing, but we are not at that point. charlie: thank you. great to have you with us. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: ariel levy is here. she has been a staff writer at "the new yorker" magazine since 2008. she was 38 years old and five months pregnant in 2012 when she traveled to mongolia to report. on her second night, she suffered a miscarriage. she told the story in an essay for "the new yorker," 2013. now she has written a memoir. it is called "the rules do not apply: a memoir." we have lots to talk about. you won the national magazine award for the peace. this book is, and that peace was, an exploration of meaning. is that a fair statement? ariel: yeah. i think that particularly with

the piece, i wanted to talk about the experience of being a female human animal. i think that is the last taboo. the fact that women are animals, and that really intense stuff that happens around birth, menstruation, fertility, all of this fear in our bodies, i wanted to get into that. charlie: take me back in -- even earlier than that. you went to mongolia pregnant and happy. ariel: i was very excited to have a baby. charlie: you have this wonderful line. for a small amount of time, you knew you were a mother. ariel: yes, i knew because i had a living baby in my hands. for 10 minutes, i was somebody's mother. that was black magic. charlie: what do you mean?

ariel: i mean, because then he died. it was the most painful experience of my life, but also the most transcendent. because before he died, he lived. i experienced motherhood very briefly. i experienced what maternal love feels like, which is the most brutal. i'm sure had he lived to be -- four is how old he would be now. i'm sure i would get to feel a lot of things. but i experienced that love, that primal, brutal love, that i would die for you, and it's not even a thought. charlie: wow. and you wanted to take a picture of him. ariel: i did.

i took a picture. charlie: because? ariel: because the whole thing was so shocking. it was so surreal to be in mongolia and to have a living person who came out of my body. that has never happened to me for. i knew -- before. i knew he was going to die. this was going to be it. this was the only time we had together. i knew i would want to see his face again. believe me, i looked at it a lot. charlie: and every time you look at it, you have the same emotion that you just described? ariel: it is different now. i don't look at it so much anymore. but when i first got back, yeah. charlie: when you got back then, what kind of condition where you in? ariel: not the best. i was so sad i could barely breathe. i had a little identity crisis on my hands. a switch had flipped and i felt like i was a mother. a switch had flipped in my body. i was making milk, i was lactating for a baby that wasn't there. in the deepest part of myself, i felt like that was -- like i was a mother, but it was invisible

to the rest of the world because i did not have a child. i was in a profound state of grief. charlie: did writing about it -- i don't want to use the word catharsis, but definitely something? ariel: definitely something. i don't know. i have only ever experienced that set of circumstances and then written about it here and i don't know what the grieving process would have been like had i not written about it. then again, i don't know what it is like to not write about things, that's what i've always done. charlie: let me talk about your life. your parents sound fascinating. ariel: yeah. i dig them. charlie: you dig them. children of the 1960's. tell me about them. ariel: they are both feminists.

my mom really stressed my whole life that i could do and be whatever i wanted, and she had a lot of faith. she always said, "of course you will be a writer." i think that's a huge gift to a kid who wants to be a writer. my dad is a writer, too. my dad has written for any -- if you name any kind of lefty group like greenpeace, he has probably written some of their copy. charlie: but there's a moment in which you described him, he wants you to be proud of the fact that he approved -- charlie: ariel: of my first girlfriend. he said, are you impressed that i'm so cool that this? and i thought, not really. it's in keeping with everything about you. charlie: and they gave you confidence? ariel: well, they were very loving.

my mom really believed that i could write. she really always told me that's what's going to happen. i believed her. charlie: why do you think someone can write as good as you can? ariel: that's a nice thing to say. charlie: it's true. everybody knows who has read this. ariel: that's all i've ever done for 20 years. all i do is write things. charlie: is it natural? is it learned? ariel: i taught a writing class at wesleyan where i attended college. i taught that class about a year ago. i thought it was sort of like either someone can write or they can't. it was a joy to interact with the students, but i think some people have it. that's just what they do. it's just how they exist. charlie: you also came back and

were divorced. ariel: yeah. for two weeks after i got back from mongolia, my former spouse went to rehab. charlie: for alcoholism? ariel: for alcohol abuse. it was not the beginning of the problems around that. at that moment in time, i just like i just couldn't do it. i just felt like i couldn't do two recoveries at once. i needed to do my own. charlie: but you said this to her? ariel: yeah. i love her. she's very important to me. i sent her this three before my editor. i said, "if there's anything you can't live with, tell me and i will take it out." see the selfless person. she said she would not censor me with my story. charlie: how is she today? ariel: she's doing really well. i'm very proud of her. charlie: the irony of this is that you now have a relationship

with a man who is a doctor. in mongolia, who is now in south africa? ariel: no, right now he's in your green room. charlie: [laughter] so he's watching this? ariel: i believe so. that happened because when i went to this clinic in mongolia after i lost my son, there was this person there who i connected with, and we started writing to each other. at first, it was really my lifeline. john, my doctor, was the only person who had ever seen what felt so intensely true to me. it was making me insane that it was invisible to the rest of the world. he saw, here is a mother with her baby who has died. it's not like we would email about that night, but it was a comfort to be interacting with someone who was there and saw that happen. then it was just a matter of

chance. we just happened to connect beyond that. charlie: being in love is something. it took a while? through emails and everything else? ariel: yeah. normally people would think it wasn't convenient if you live in new york, to fall in love with someone who lives in mongolia and south africa, but for me it was. there was time for me to grieve and for us to fall in love simultaneously. charlie: before, nothing that had really happened to you. ariel: not really. charlie: then this terrible thing happened. ariel: this showed me i had never actually experienced real suffering before. charlie: did you know how to deal with it? ariel: i don't know if anyone could know before they've experienced real grief and real loss. i don't know if you could be prepared for it, because it is so all-encompassing.

i really felt like for a while i lived in grief, like it was a tunnel i lived in. eventually grief became something that lived in me instead. charlie: so you lived in it and then it lived in you. and today? ariel: i will still always have a little part of my heart that has a little hole in it for that baby, and also grief for my first relationship, my first marriage. just because you get divorced and fall in love with someone else doesn't mean you don't care about that person. those are sad things, but it's ok. i take them with me. charlie: and where does the title come from? ariel: i just thought that the rules that my mother and certainly her mother had to follow, they were not relevant to me. they weren't there. i felt like i was the beneficiary of this enormous gift from the women's movement that made me grow up thinking i

was going to be the protagonist in my own life and i could follow my dreams. charlie: and i could do anything. ariel: and i could fall in love with a woman and marry her. i had so many freedoms that were not allowed for my mother and her mother. charlie: is the book about feminism other than the fact that you are a feminist? ariel: in some ways. i think i talk a lot about being a writer. i focus a lot on women who are unconventional and who have accomplished great things. i think that's feminism. i also think about the body -- writing about the body, what happens with women's bodies, i consider that part of feminism. charlie: how is feminism doing today? ariel: well, we've certainly got ourselves a powerful opponent to focus on. i think where you have an

election where you have literally the most competent, most well-prepared woman ever, running against the least competent, least qualified man ever, and the man wins even after you've heard him say that he thinks it's ok to sexually assault women, that is galvanizing. i think that was the moment where women were like, wait a minute, this is not a joke. charlie: what do you say about the women who voted for him? ariel: i can't explain it. i don't know why they did that. i don't understand. i don't get it. charlie: even some women say i shouldn't -- i should go for her because she was the most qualified women it ever seen. ariel: she is. charlie: barack obama said that. ariel: he's right. it would be a much more relaxing time if she was running the free world right now.

charlie: if you were writing this over, would you change anything? ariel:ariel: i'm sure there's a comma here or there. charlie: i'm not talking about grammar. would you have included more? ariel: no, i wouldn't have. i just realized, sorry. [laughter] i didn't write about my relationship with john. charlie: because? ariel: because i did not want to write a book that ended with, "and then i fell in love." i didn't want to suggest that prince charming came and saved me. charlie: what saved you? ariel: what saved me was after a while surrendering. after a wild where i would wake up every morning and think, this is not acceptable. it is not ok with me that my child is dead, it's not ok with me that my spouse is in a

college i don't accept this reality. eventually it became -- my stuff is an alcoholic. i don't accept this reality. charlie: in the morning, to say i can't accept this, and then what you get beyond it, what does that take? ariel: time, i think. you just have to suffer and live through pain and not try to push it away. charlie: all of these people have reacted to this so strongly. what is it that they are reacting to? everybody, men and women, are saying about this -- cheryl said she read it in one long sitting. ariel: i was going to say a lot of people have said that, and i think it is because it's very short. it's a very short book. charlie: it's something else. it is that you are caught up in your life.

you're caught up in what you were, what happened, and how you struggled to find another place. ariel: i think it is a coming-of-age story. i think it is a universal coming-of-age story, even though the specifics involved mongolia and miscarriage, some things that will not happen to a lot of people, but we all go through a process where we figure out that everybody doesn't get everything. that's being an adult, admitting that and accepting and appreciating what you have. charlie: we have to realize, men, women and everyone else, that you can't have it all. time is finite. ariel: absolutely. i think there's a misconception that feminism said you can have it all. i think the thinking that you are entitled to everything you want in life, that is not the thinking of a feminist. that's the thinking of a

toddler. charlie: yes, you said that, too. that's a great line. toddlers do think they can have it all. [laughter] ariel: yeah, they seem to think that. charlie: where are you now? you have written this book which has gotten enormous response. you are at "the new yorker." you are in a relationship. have you reached the other side, so to speak, having swum through and having to swim through treacherous and dangerous waters? ariel: i think i have because i'm really happy and i feel really grateful. i feel the opposite of "this is unacceptable." charlie: what do you think the lessons are? ariel: for me, this process disabused me of the illusion that i could control my life. i think that as a writer i had gotten accustomed to this kind of authorial power of crafting a

narrative. if i was diligent and strategic enough, i could get everything. i could have it all. charlie: the lesson is you can't have it all? ariel: i think the lesson is everybody doesn't get everything, and that's ok. the sooner you accept what you have and find what is in there to be grateful for, the less you will suffer. charlie: the book is called "the rules do not apply: a memoir." ariel levy, it is a delight. this is profoundly admirable. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

charlie: five of the most successful directors working in hollywood in the 20th century put their careers on hold to work in the military and used so making to document world war ii for the american public. five came -- "five came back," premieres on netflix on march 31. the series is adapted from the

book by mark harris. celebrities offer commentary on the five iconic directors and the impact their work had on hollywood and america at large. "entertainment weekly," calls "five came back," a fascinating history lesson. here is the trailer. >> stuck thinking and follow me, cried hitler's. i will make you masters of the world. >> a lot of people left to see what it's like. >> it was comedy. >> america stands at the crossroads of its destiny. >> in the early years of hitler's rise, moviegoing had become an essential part of america's culture. but americans did not realize the extent of the threat he posed. >> he understood cinema could be put in the service of propaganda. >> americans realized we can win this war -- can't win this war. these guys are going to beat us. >> western civilization was at stake. >> five filmmakers wanted to respond as so many millions of

men and women responded. they chose to serve. >> these documentaries were powerful for american audiences. >> it included that the enormity of the task was worth it. >> we had an enormous story to tell. >> the greatest heroes, the greatest villains, on the world stage. this was real filmmaking. >> this is the people's war. it is our war. >> these five men, they were saying goodbye to families who never knew if they would return. and yet coming out of it, each one made their greatest films. >> i believe a film should have something to say. i think it should make people think and feel long after they have left the theater.

>> nothing could prepare anyone for the intensity of the conflict. >> please steelmakers changed the world. -- these filmmakers changed the world. charlie: i am pleased to have the author of "five came back," mark harris, andy director, laurent bouzereau. where did the idea come to make this into that? mark: when i was working on the book, i became really interested in this era and world war ii movies. when the book came out, i was surprised at the number of early readers who said it was fascinating to read about these documentaries, too bad most of

them are lost. i would say that the documentaries are not lost. you can see them. they all still exist. they are properties of the u.s. government. i thought this is a real opportunity for us. as well as i could try to describe the stones in a book, there's nothing like been -- being able to show them to people. charlie: and then the idea was to take five directors and explain each director. mark: yes, that was our big innovation. laurent: we were trying to figure out a very innovative way of telling the story. it was actually steven spielberg who said to me, "let's try to think of a very interesting way of telling those stories. who better than directors to talk about directors?" so then came the search for five directors to speak. it was great. we had a very short list. everybody organically was available. it worked out. charlie: what were they charged with?

laurent: they were charged with being interviewed in the same way you are interviewing me right now. they had to come in with a lot of knowledge. they had already book -- they had all read the book, even before we approached them. they also did a lot of research. mark wrote scripts for each of the episodes that would highlight -- if steven spielberg came in to talk about william wyler, all the things that pertain to him. they were so familiar with the movies, so familiar with their lives. steven spielberg new william wyler. they came in with their own information. charlie: but your challenge was to connect them all. laurent: yes. it was really well done in the book. not only to connect them, but to make sure that on the one hand we had this epic story of world war ii, and on the other side we have those very five, very

specific stories. very personal. there's a balance between the personal and emotional, and the world stage. charlie: and how it changed their lives. this began as a way to honor your father? mark: it did. my father was a world war ii veteran. and was a way to honor him and also a way to apologize to him posthumously. he died when i was young. for the fact that when i was young, i didn't really listen to his war stories very much. it was very scary to me that someone would leave his family and fight for his life country. as i got more into this, i regretted not paying more attention. for my father and three uncles that were all world war ii veterans, this is a way of reopening the conversation. charlie: how did you choose which director will cover which director?

laurent: that's a great question. one thing we didn't want to do is try to think who is the modern version of william wyler? it was more like trying to find directors who had stabilities -- abilities are traits that were comparable to those five original directors from the past. steven spielberg we have another very many years. i was always impressed with his humanity, how kind he was. also his fascination with his own roots, being jewish. we felt william wyler was very similar in spirit. steven spielberg talks about me being -- meeting william wyler, and being a young director meeting a legendary director. he was so impressed with william wyler. i thought it was perfect casting. francisco, i remember being a teenager living in france, and

"apocalypse now," came out and it was a huge event in france. coppola had done an event at a festival. he said making the film was like a war. he was so passionate about it. there were famous pictures of him holding a gun to his head on the set of the film. this echoes john houston in many ways, and assertive fiery personality. paul green grass comes from the documentary world. he identified with john ford and a way that was very personal -- in a way that was very personal and could relate. gear mold el toro -- guillermo del toro was perhaps unconventional, since he does for films, but he's an immigrant like frank capra. histones are extremely emotional. he really connected with capra.

lawrence is very famous for the movies he directed like "the big chill." before that, he was famous for being a screenwriter and coming up with some of the most iconic movie lines, whether raiders of the lost ark or "the empire strikes back." it was important to have someone important -- note for screenplays. george stevens, he had a great affinity with stevens. that's how we got the five guys. charlie: when frank capra saw "triumph of the will," how did that affect him? mark: there was, at the easy most modern art, something about how we fight. capra wanted to make training films for soldiers, but they didn't give him writers or a staff. they barely gave him a budget. he comes to new york and sees

the film, and his first reaction is we are going to lose. this is so powerful. forget the movies. we are going to lose the war. he thought," i can use this movie and kill two birds with one stone." we can turn their own propaganda against them as our incoming soldiers how the enemy thinks, and we have all this seized propaganda footage from germany, japan, and italy. i don't have the money to shoot these, but i can compile a movie from existing footage and get the message across that way. charlie: the movies were propaganda. laurent: they were. -- mark: they were. that was part of the task for these film makers. to sell the war not only to the

american public, but to soldiers who were 18 and 19 years old, who really didn't know the reason we were in the war in the first place. charlie: to give them a reason as to why we are fighting. mark: and to inflame their patriotism. capra was good at that. charlie: did any of them have resistance at all? mark: i think they all wanted to serve their country. capra had the most directly propagandistic assignment. the other four, they thought what they would do is travel the world to wherever the battle fronts were and document the world, just to bring the truth of the war home. i think sometimes their impulses as so maker -- filmmakers is to tell a great story, and their impulse as patriots to sell the war, and then the impulse as artists, they clashed with each other. charlie: this is not related to your film, but there was a story

about some of the film in world war ii, and the government prevented it from being shown. i think it was of german concentration camps. i think it involved alfred hitchcock who had been brought over. mark: the british army film unit, kind of the counterpart of the american effort, did deploy hitchcock as a propaganda film maker. all of these future filmmakers who lent their efforts to the war, at some point had some of what they did suppressed or censored, because the content was too violent. most americans did not see the vast majority of d-day footage because it was too bloody. john huston had and will be suppressed for 35 years. it was a movie about the psychological toll of the war on veterans. it was too emotional into

upsetting. it did not tell the story the army wanted to tell. charlie: did the camera people have to be there in order to document d-day? what risk did they put themselves to? mark: tremendous risk. john ford and george stevens were in d-day in person. we are talking about literally hundreds of cameras and dozens of cameramen and still photographers who were as much in harms way as any soldier in d-day, maybe more, because they were carrying cameras, not guns. charlie: what was the impact of the films on the public? laurent: the impact was tremendous. you have to put yourself back in the time where you have to go to the movies to see those newsreel footage. it's not something you can get on your iphone or watch on tv. i think when you think about the movie john ford did, that was

the first time war was shown in color. the footage that george stevens got of the camps, this is before there was a vocabulary for the holocaust. those were a tremendous discoveries for viewers, extremely shocking and impactful, albeit in a propagandic kind of way. charlie: what impact did it have on the lives and future lives of the directors? laurent: when they came back, i think there was a spirit of independence. they wanted to create their own company and work for themselves as directors. they created their own company. wyler's first movie -- it is interesting to look at the film and compare it to "it's a wonderful life," which is the movie capra does.

that sales at the -- fails at the box office. ford goes on to make some of the most iconic westerns. george stevens doesn't work for a very long time. mark: stevens was the first cameramen into dacau. he made a films eventually shown as evidence at the nuremberg trials. he was so shaken by that, and he was a successful comedy director before that, he said he could never make another comedy after seeing that. he became a very distinguished director of drama. charlie: did the film at nuremberg make a difference? mark: it really did make a difference. the trial was being widely covered by the press. everybody said the first few days were sort of flat and boring, and the prosecutors were not really making an impressive case.

the film was shown and the spotlight was turned on the defendant's box. they were all forced to view the movies. the witnesses say the effect was electrifying. the defendants'own attorneys said they found it impossible to sit in the same room. laurent: that speaks for george stevens, who goes from being a filmmaker of comedies and musicals into doing documentary filmmaking, and once he goes into the camps he becomes an evidence gatherer. that speaks to his transformation as a filmmaker, as a man, and is reflected in the film. charlie: but john huston's film, the documentary called "let there be light," was banned. laurent: yes. about ptsd. i would say of all the films i've had to watch, this was the

most emotional. i think the word did not exist at the time, ptsd. it is the notion that is really discovered in that film. but to get it eventually released. charlie: ptsd, posttraumatic stress disorder. right. did these guys, when they came back, change hollywood? mark: i think they did. capra's dream that they would all become independent, failed. the first movie was such a flop that it sank the whole company. the directors went back to working for studios, but there was a desire to make socially realistic, tougher, more honest movies than what they had been making before the war. we see that growth throughout

the 40's and 50's, into the 1960's. charlie: how did the all-powerful studio head react? mark: the thing is they do like to conserve their power, so it was a constant growing fight over everything from whether studios are directors would take projects for directors -- pick projects for directors, to content. how much with the code allow for directors to put into movies? that with a 20 year fight after the production code fell apart. charlie: liberty films was cap press company? mark: yes, in partnership with stevens and weiler. he asked them to make three movies in the first wave of their project. that would have been nine movies independence of the studio. the first one was going to be "it's a wonderful life." amazingly now because we all consider it a classic, it's a very expensive movie. it did not make its money back.

there was no money left for the company. they had to give up after one movie. charlie: when you look at these five, is there one that you admire more than the others? laurent: i have a real fondness for william wyler, because my dad took me to see "ben hur." it was just my dad and i. discovering that movie was like a whole new vocabulary of images. it touched me tremendously, and got me really interested in cinema. so, wyler. all of them made gigantic contributions and i have studied all of them. i think i have an even bigger appreciation for them. charlie: thank you for coming. the book is called "five came back," and the film on netflix begins march 31.

thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

watchingu are "bloomberg technology." british prime minister theresa may has triggered article 50, marching the official beginning of the end of written's 44-year membership in the eu. a senior european diplomat says the union will not seek to punish britain for leaving, but it will present britain with a 6.3rce bill as high as billion dollars. betsy devos accused her predecessor of wasting billions failingrs trying to fix schools. president