from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." isrlie: "dear evan hansen," that hit musical at the music box theatre in new york. it follows a high school student with severe anxiety to gets caught up in a social media fueled movement after a fellow classmate commits suicide. the "new york times," says start ben platt is giving a performance that should not be missed. "dear evan hansen," has been nominated for nine tony awards, including best musical. ♪

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charlie: joining me now is star ben platt, nominated for best actor in a musical, and writer steven levenson, nominated for best book. i'm pleased to have them at the table. tell me about your character. liz evan hansen? -- liz evan hansen? ben: evan hansen is an incredibly lonely highschooler, he has trouble connecting to other people. that is--- heightened by the hyper conductivity of social media. he feels under deep scrutiny, which pulls him deeper into himself, and makes him retreat even more. he really just can't find a place to belong and be heard and feel connected to anyone or anything. through this rather terrible lie that he tells about a fake friendship with a kid and his cast -- classroom committed

suicide, evan grows closer to the family and helps them heal, and finds a new voice, and a place to be important, and find new confidence and come out of his shell, although it is all predicated on this fabrication. charlie: is it also a critique of social media? when we started working on this, my fellow writers and competitors initially talked about it as more of a frontal critique on social media, more of a parody or a satire. as the show has evolved, what we really became interested in was exploring how social media does promote this kind of false idea of who we are, and we're all kind of performing. charlie: and do we belong, and all that? steven: yes, but at the same time, there is something real that happens, there is a sense of belonging that people find.

it really is a double-edged sword. charlie: when you thought about this, when you wrote this, was it based on a newspaper headline you had seen? these things actually happened? steven: it was based originally on one of the composers in high school, who had a classmate who died of an accidental drug overdose. he was someone who is a real loner, an outsider, no friends. in the wake of his death , he watched as all the fellow students began clamoring to say, "i was friends with him." everyone wanted to become part of the tragedy. he stored that only as a memory that was troubling and interesting. also his own response, he wanted to join in. then when he went to college, he met justin. together. working they discussed this strange story and they saw echoes of that story in our generation and

his response to 9/11. we knew people that have written placee essays about their in 9/11. with social media, that can search ourselves into tragedy seems to only escalate and get crazier, until any catastrophe in the world became a way for people to talk about themselves. us beganthree of working together, that was where we began. charlie: what was the average age of the three of you? steven: [laughter] believe, 27,i maybe 28? that's not repeat we have been working on this for so long. we were like 26. we were really young. [laughter] challenge? there a you have to make sure we explore him and all he's done, the lies he's telling, but at the same time make him a character people don't reject. ben: certainly. i came on board about three

years ago, and it was always a focus. stephen and i together with making sure the audience understood at every turn why he was making these decisions, and you were seeing that it was coming from a place of good intention and wanting to heal and how people. i think -- and help people to one of the most effective things is the first 15 minutes when you meet evan, and you see him giving the first monologue, you get an idea of how deep a hole he's in and how in need of a figure he has. that's why he falls into this life. charlie: is it a savior for him? ben: i think on some level it a savior, forces him to connect. side,rse, there is a dark and forces him to face demons as far as self-hatred and not liking who he sees in the mirror. at the end of the day, it starts conversations, especially with his mother. to show has the ability

start conversations with people coming to the show, topics people are afraid to broach. especially intergenerational conversations. charlie: congratulations on the nomination. ben: thank you very much. charlie: when you write the book, what does that mean? steven: it means essentially that my responsibility is partly to structure things, to kind of come up with the roadmap. then all the dialogue. what it meant in this case, because we had no source material -- often you have a book or a movie -- was we came up together with the rudiments of the story and characters, and then i went off and wrote the first act as though it were a , and less spaces where the three of us decided songs might go. then i send them that draft. then we got here where we thought there would be a song, actually it should come earlier,

so this scene needs to be longer or shorter. it's kind of building the skeleton. charlie: how do you explain this resonance that it has? other than great acting. ben: a couple things. i think it really accurately and without any filtered it takes the contemporary world and the way people are connected with each other, and my social media plays into that, and doesn't make too harsh of a judgment.and presents it the way it is and shows how it's affecting how we connect. i think evan's is somebody that has an incredible universality as far as his loneliness and deep desire to reach out and be reached out to. i think everybody that comes to the show finds themselves and can go onim, the journey with him, not only because it is beautifully written, and he has this self-effacing humor, but people really see their humanity in

him. charlie: this is what your mother told "the new york times." [laughter] said, "i contemplate thence emotional well-being every day. 23. mature, but he's only i worry about how much time he spends alone." that's my mother. ben: that's my mother. [laughter] charlie: how proud can one mother be? ben: she's the most wonderful human being on earth. but we don't have to talk about that, because it would take the whole time. there's sacrifice involved because it is a demanding role, but i take it very seriously to create this eight times a week and give the same emotional intensity, and make sure the audience has an identical experience. that requires a lot of me as far as sacrificing social life. my lifestyle does get affected, but this is the kind of peace that is so beautifully written and felt that you want to give yourself to it and make sacrifices, because they don't

come along all the time. charlie: i suspect most people certainly in your profession would change plays with you in a moment -- places with you in a moment. steven: his discipline and rigor are truly exceptional. you justr met anyone don't worry about. notwithstanding his mother worrying about him. [laughter] has a capacity to generate that same level of intensity every single time. it went as far back as when we began doing the show in readings. ben canearsing a scene, access the emotions like that and it is really stunning. charlie: you've been working with the same actors for three years? yes.n: in the very first reading, four of the actors were already in it. charlie: as it caused you to change the writing at all? steven: these actors have really

helped shape the material, absolutely. especially ben with this character. part of the reason the set -- show resonates is ben's performance. the more specificity, the more universality, that paradox. have been able to have a conversation where he will do something, i will respond in writing, then he will respond in the performance. is a deep pleasure. ben: one of the many things stephen does brilliantly is finding the things we don't notice we are doing in the performance, and they wind out -- up beautifully flushed out in the writing, and he takes advantage of the performers in terms of what comes naturally. that's part of why the characters feel so honest. charlie: this could have come from bruce springsteen, but it comes from you.

i feel as long as i'm doing this -- i don't want there to be a single performance or people like youe feeling getting get the best i could offer. i don't think anything can be genuinely fulfilling or powerful if it doesn't take some kind of a toll. for now, i'm willing to take that toll, whatever it might be. toll?re a if they're just the endurance of doing it and thinking that much, and the demands at the center of this? ben: i think the literal toll would be the physical demands and physical their peak, voice lessons, what have you. toll is also the emotional to make it as real as possible. it's not always the easiest thing to do, particularly if it is the audience that's a little less responsive, or a day that i'm lower on energy. charlie: you can feel if they are less responsive? ben: yes. the beauty of this is people go

on this journey every night, and the response is beautiful every night. anything from of the weather to what's been going on in the world that day, by the age of the people, it takes them a little longer, and they are not as vocal. charlie: what do you do if you sense that? ben: i try not to push. the instinct is always to go harder, but i think the great thing is the material is fantastic and specific. if you lay back and let the show not trying tod slam on the acceleration, they come to you eventually. charlie: this is a cast singing, "you will be found." here it is. ♪ when you need a friend to carry you when you're broken on the ground und ♪ill be fo

found ♪ will be charlie: i asked what the average age of the test is, you said somewhere in the middle. steven: we have five people early to mid 20's playing in eaters, and then adults -- playing teenagers, and then adults. charlie: you never show him and there be. why not? -- in therapy. why not? ben: but we wanted to get to know heaven with his mom. we wanted that to be the lens which we see him. therapy scenes tend to be boring for writers. there are so reductive, in a way. it's like writing an interview.

you have one character whose job and how doesay, " that make you feel?" with his mom, his peers, there a level of unpredictability. charlie: and higher level of engagement. in the scene with his girlfriend, the song "only us." here it is. >> ♪ it will be us it will be us and only us ♪ charlie: congratulations. it's turned.

-- terrific. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: cynthia nixon is here. she is an amine, tony, and grammy award-winning actress, starring alongside laura linney in a revival of lillian hellman's classic play, "the little foxes,."

her performance has earned nixon her for the tony nomination. here's a look at her in that role. birdie? why did you marry uncle austin? >> i don't know. i thought i liked him. and he was so kind to me. and i thought that was because he loved me, too. but that wasn't the reason. ask why he married me. i can tell you that. he told me often enough. >> ms. birdie, don't. >> my family was good, and the cotton was better. he wanted the cotton. me.he usedbe nice to

to smile at me. at me since.led everybody knew that's what he married me for. everybody but me. stupid, stupid me. charlie: nixon also stars in terrence davies' new film, "a quiet passion." she starts as emily dickinson. i'm pleased to have her back at the table. you said it was a two-person play. a two-personas play. there is a big 19th and early 20th century tradition of two actors doing a fellow and eon iago. othello and charlie: so laura linney thought of this, and ask you. and you thought right away, because of the challenge? cynthia: i left the plate.

i loved the idea of playing regina. but laura herself felt verity is a tremendous treasure of a role, albeit a smaller role. i learned -- worked with laura on television, but never on stage. a chance to work with her on this play and with dan sullivan, the director, and with this the article experiment, which i don't think women get to do very often. charlie: part of the challenge -- you and college, you did to place at the same time. cynthia: i did. but this, even people who are not intending to see it twice, they see it one way, and they think, i have to see it again. the rules are so different. once you see us in the first way, it's impossible to imagine us in the second way. because the play is so medium -- -- givinglf, some bit

the audience the chance to hear it twice, they absorb the nuance. charlie: did you think you would play dirty first -- play birdie first? cynthia: no, it was with this author. charlie: when you watch her in the role you just played, do you see insights into the character? cynthia: i do. i see things i can feel. i feel them when i can. was harder for both of us at first when we were rehearsing, but now i think that we have our own characterizations and we are more secure, i find little things. it helps me understand another dimension of the character. charlie: which character do you identify with most? cynthia: well, it's hard to identify with regina. [laughter] birdie is a much more empathetic and sympathetic character,

albeit a sadder one. i think birdie is easier to relate to, which is part of the reason laura came up with the idea in the first place. she said, i understand birdie, but regina's foreign territory. charlie: this is what "the new york times," said. in most, ms. nixon has a steely character. she plays regina's deviousness from the start, which is a treat from the start, but laura linney keeps a concealed for a well, which makes for a surprise. , bullied and beaten by uses hernd, ms. linney sweetness to port in effect, while ms. nixon layers birdie's pain with a compensated self-loathing. that sounds pretty good. cynthia: pretty good. charlie: do you recognize that, though? when you said that, heartbreaking thrills, and

birdie's pain with complicated self-loathing? cynthia: that's one of the things that i feel, you want to happybirdie had a very childhood, then was hoodwinked into marrying this man who is very cruel to her. i think the roots of her insecurity and pain come in her childhood. she talks about her mother and she has great things to say about her mother, but she always ninny about what a mini -- she is, and how she's always laughing at her. i'mhe beginning, the whole, so silly thing, she got it from her mother. charlie: how do they view each other? cynthia: i think one of the disappointing things about our experiment is they don't deal with each other very much. we don't have a lot of scenes together. in effect, they don't really matter to each other. there are certain things that each admire about each other,

but i think there are areas of disapproval charlie: greater than areas of approval. charlie:charlie: how long is this runningcharlie:? cynthia: july 2. charlie: better get there. when did you make the emily dickinson movie? cynthia: two years ago. we made it in belgium. we re-created the dickinson homestead. charlie: was it something you wanted to do? cynthia: it never occurred to me that i would get to play emily dickinson. when terrance approached me about it, it was very daunting to play such a brilliant person, but i think i've always felt a her.f identification with it was less daunting because of that. charlie: and there had never been other movies about her. cynthia: there was a one-person 1970's, but it's certainly not a film. it's not a real exploration,

it's more of a character study. charlie: she had sort of dismissive opinions about marriage. how would you characterize it? cynthia: i would not say dismissive. i think she had two main things. one of them, he was terrified -- she was terrified she would die in childbirth. that was a reality around here and such a strong possibility in those days. the other thing was she knew that she really wanted to write, and she did that if she was a wife or a wife and mother, they would not afford hours in the day, much less a husband to permit that. charlie: beyond poetry, what else do you admire about her? cynthia: i admire certainly the determination to shut herself in her room day after day, decade after decade, and right -- write, and be so true to a voice out of keeping with her time.

her voice seems much more at home in our modern world. she prefigures modernism. of that so much poetry era that is so flowery and goes on for page after page, and her poetry is so spare and so distilled. i think that takes in anonymous -- anonymous amount of discipline. charlie: she talked about god a fair amount. that's a great question for her. whether there is a god, what dent means, whether there is an afterlife, what causes us to be sent to hell, if there is one. she talked about a lot of things that a lot of us are afraid of. she looks at them unflinchingly and asks herself hard, painful questions. charlie: when you do that kind of film, do you go back and read the poetry? cynthia: i tried to read as many of them as i could. i read the better-known ones, but also i tried to read in each period, she's like picasso.

you conservative recognize her, but she's so different period to period. charlie: which did you like the most? inthia: when i was young, liked more of the raptor's stuff about nature, the wonders of the natural world. when i was a little older, i think i love you the sort of heartsick, impossible love, for bit in love, thwarted love. but now that i'm over 50, i really like the ones that are much more looking at attorney in such a profound way. they are less rapturous, but they are so incisive. that was something important, that it would not be a stately

masterpiece theatre. she was a rebel, but it also came from the humor. it might be a painful humor, but a humor nonetheless that came as a person viewing the distance between how things are and how we think things are supposed to be. charlie: did her feelings about sexuality play into her isolationism? it's a complicated question. i think she was a person who craved communion of every kind so strongly, but i think she felt things so deeply that proximity to people was too difficult. i think the idea of giving herself to one person -- she has all the love affairs, we don't know if they have a physical component or not, or they are just on paper. but i think the idea of giving herself to someone physically or in the long was too much. that loss of herself was something that was too frightening. charlie: here's an excerpt.

this is where she is reciting one of her poems. i reckon when i count out all, first poet, then sun, then summer, then the heaven of god, and then the list is done. firstoking back, the scene to comprehend the whole, the others look a needless show. so i write public all. all. summit -- poet their summer lasts a solid year. if the further have be beautiful as they prepare for those who worship them, it is too difficult a grace to justify the dream. did she acknowledge her

attraction to her sister-in-law? cynthia: i think so. the thing about emily's relationship with susan, this is not in our film, but whatever great love those women had for each other, it prefigured susan being her sister-in-law. emily was passionately attached to susan before susan and emily's brother ever met. you read the letters between them, they certainly seem like romantic love letters, at least our modern eye. emily seems to have had a hope or plan that they would live together through their life. emilyas thwarted, but went through a lot of different feelings about susan in her life. sometimes she viewed her as an enemy. a very duplicitous enemy. but i think it is noteworthy that when emily would send someone a poem as she often did, it was all dressed up with flowers, presented almost like a

withf japanese finery, that level of ceremony about it. susan was the only person she would send poetry to written in pencil, meaning i want your opinion, this is not a finished product. i want your feedback. it will go into what i eventually do with it. charlie: did she live in the wrong era? which he has been better in another era? cynthia: it is so hard to say. in a funny way, i think that she would have been -- i think she would have been an outsider whatever era she was in. she was not a joiner, emily. i think that in some ways, our modern world, which affords you so much connection but at such a remove, inc. she would have been very happy on email or twitter. [laughter] charlie: as you understood the role and began to portray her, did you see some of yourself in her? that when i was

young, i thought i saw a lot of myself in her. but i think it was a very who she was.of i thought, here is this person who is deeply interesting, but presents an hour'-- outward show of sinus, but saying to the , i'm soalk to me fascinating. but i think i didn't understand the depth of her isolation. i'm certainly a very not isolated person. charlie: you certainly are. [laughter] i want to go back to "the little foxes," and one other scene. this is you as regina conspiring with brothers. >> good morning. >> sunny morning. any news from the runaways? >> there's no news, or you would have heard it. >> that's way they do things in

chicago. 81, a good time for us all. what do you think really happened to harness? -- horace? >> nothing. what is so strange about people arriving? he has that cousin in savannah he is so fond of. maybe he stopped off to see him. they'll be along today sometime. very flattered you have been so worried. especially when i'm getting ready to close a business deal and one of my bosses is silent and invisible. >> is that it? i thought you were worried about horace's health. >> i'm worried. charlie: where did the voice come from? cynthia: the voice?

do you mean the accent? charlie: yes. how do you practice that? how do you decide that is the right note? cynthia: as the performances have gone on, that is footage taken very early -- charlie: it has changed to what? cynthia: i think regina has gotten a lot deeper, and i think birdie has gotten a lot lighter. one person is so sure, and one is so eager to please. charlie: good to have you. cynthia: thank you. charlie: "the little foxes," place until july 2 at the samuel g freedman peter. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪ these days families want to be connected 24/7.

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charlie: irving penn was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. he's perhaps best known for his work at "vogue," magazine. his work also celebrated form and beauty in unexpected subjects, and portraiture, nudes, and still life. a new exhibition at the marks thean centennial of his birth. 1943 two 2000

eight. jeff rosenheim is the curator in charge of the metropolitan museum, and he organized the exhibition. congratulations. this is something. jeff: thank you very much. a pleasure to be on your program. charlie: tell me about irving penn. jeff: he was one of the greatest picture makers of the 20th century in any medium. for me, it was a pleasure to work on this show. i think we knew a lot about penn. his worker. 165 covers alone. there something about him that i didn't understand, which is that while he was making those great fashion portraits, while he was doing pictures and portraits of citizens, the small trades, he was also making great still lives. he made extraordinary prints.

he was a great image maker, but a splendid object maker. that is the story that comes out of the show. charlie: still life in color, and all the portraiture? jeff: most in black and white, except for cover -- color images -- cover images. that's his own story. what did a picture look like in magazine, and how could he transform it later in his life into a next ordinary black and white print? we learn from seeing it on the walls of the museum. charlie: what is the challenge to put together this kind of exhibition? you can do it chronologically, that's easy. jeff: we had to focus on someone who worked for almost 70 years. we had to focus on the salient moments of his career. otherwise, the show would have seven dozen photographs. no one can see that. no one can appreciate their beauty. we had to synthesize. i did this with my colleague, who was working with me 30 years ago at the met.

step intod you can't the same river twice, but she could do it. she called me on the phone and kind of whispered in might hear, you might want to call tom, irving's son. he's looking to honor the centennial of his father's birth. that conversation led to the visit of the amazing facility that has the life's work of irving penn. i was treated two months after month after month of just looking at the pictures. charlie: they spoke to you. is there some kind of arc? jeff: one of the things i got from it is that he started as a painter and draftsman. he was trained in the arts. he came to photography through a sort of circumstance. but drawing and the idea of the select and the idea of a -- silhouette, by the idea of a

sculptor style of making a that, and thef through-line of still life, that something you can see over those 70 years her. charlie: we take a look at some of them. people may recognize them from having seen it before. just talk about the photograph. after dinner games. jeff: there it is. this is a picture that is made like no other i know. it ran in 1947. it is a color image. it is put together in an interesting way. you can see the cube from with then, and the di six and the four. then the domino, with the two to 10.adding up but everything is connected. one form to the other. it requires the ideal move around to complete the composition. that's the game.

the after dinner game is trying to understand the picture.this is from the beginning of his career. charlie: is "cigarette 37." jeff: we have an entire room of pictures of butts that penn collected on the streets of manhattan and brooklyn. he and his studio assistants used tweezers and picked them out of the gutter. he brought them into the studio. in between other projects, he together, and creating forms that had no life until he brought them together. again, this still life is coming through this lifetime of experience. these are from 1972. in a certain sense, it is an all age to hiss -- hom

friend. he was a college kid, his friend brought him to new york. did for him was enough to raise the money to buy a camera. served his purpose is for the rest of his career. "a deli package." jeff: it's a common object, probably for new york city or anyone around the world, but it has been smashed by time, by trucks, and soiled. he loved the idea of this forum, part of a two headed camel. we know it is a daily package. studio,ht it to the developed a camera technique to reveal it. it's more like a draftsman or a printmaker. then it is this exploding dirt. it has a fabulous object value. it is a platinum print. didn't just accept

printmaking as he expanded it. he used older processes and makes pictures that photographers and everyone else fall in love with. thatie: roberto smith said -- he obliterated the line between art and commerce. jeff: yes. you can see it throughout the work. andink what she was saying, i can understand why that is, he basically understood the page of the magazine. he understood what a power , in ar would sit in ink magazine, and he demanded it stopped traffic. by doing so, he applied all the training and art to the challenge. he was basically a "vogue," photographer for over 60 years. most of his pictures in the show were seen there. yet, he was able to make prints on his own that have other qualities. that's the art. charlie: the next thing is called fishmonger.

jeff: this is one of my favorite photographs. in between portrait sessions and couture sessions with models, i love this project, to look at individuals with the tools of their trade. here is the fishmonger with his apron, and print -- the catch. obviously, the portraits celebrate the everyday experience of the common man.he treated his portrait subjects and fashion subjects with equal love. that love and the beauty that comes from the photographic process gives these individuals a life. charlie: what distinguishes his portraiture? jeff: an understanding of the simple pleasure, and the

interaction between one individual and another. environment.xe all that is there is the empty studio, the artist, and his subject. there is this exchange. a small tradesmen. his trade was photography. these individuals understand that. the fashion world understood he was giving them his attention. the studio was quiet. unlike other photographers in his day and today, it was quiet.ally whispered the individual thought that his attention on them never wavered. it gave birth to an interesting psychological portrait. like rembrandt. charlie: marlena dietrich. jeff: great picture. dietrich spent her whole life before the camera. she was a movie star, she left germany and was an advocate for fighting against noazism.

she also was a great singer. she sang for the allied troops. she knew what he wanted when she arrived his studio. he had to deal with it in one way or another. she said, i know what sign i want you to photograph, i know when the lights should be, i know where my body should be. quietly say,rt ofn why not you be the subject and i will be the photographer? and she turned around and gave this look. and it worked. charlie: and there's the photograph. she also did that wonderful documentary where they roomgraphed her inside a in her apartment, the door was open, but you never saw her. the interview took place without seeing her. yes. crazy. she's a powerful figure. she is hugely popular in today's culture with young people. she's kind of a feminist model, kind of gender bending hero.

she has the chance to be one of the more transformative figures of the mid-20th century right now. charlie: this is the next one. penn was obviously involved in photographing beauty. l'oreal, one of the things they do is lipstick. this is an extra dinner he understanding of form and how to stop traffic. penn's problem is every photographers problem, we live in a multitude of images. said,l degrasse tyson there's a multi-verse, likely a multi-verse. that's where we are with photography today. this exhibition looks at an artist who came out of the analog world and entered into the digital world. charlie: speaking of the digital

world, what is it doing to photography? jeff: it is making more and more people pay attention to shape and form, and asking the role of in ourmerads do society. it is creating an appreciation, and creating a belief that photography has a role in our society. there's no barriers to entry now. with digital tools and iphones, and the cellular world in which we live, the digital world, it is making pictures better. it's making student journalism better. charlie: it's just beginning. i met with an entrepreneur yesterday, talking about how the whole idea of taking content and being able to put it in an iphone, for example, and what you could do with that.

george lucas at me, i can make a movie with an iphone. jeff: that's right. qualitatively, it's amazing. just the idea of sharing images likely share stories -- charlie: the number of selfies i get asked to do, photographs are only 2% of the time. jeff: it's like an autograph. charlie: it just took over. charlie:it shows you the power of the visual. atf: more people are looking photographs that they had made than ever before. where they are going, i don't know. i'm a little worried about that. we might know less about that then we knew about the time before digital, because people are not saving them. or they don't know where they have saved them. charlie: and this additional capacity because of the crowd and everything. take a look at these three. 72."ext one is "nude jeff: one of his favorite wassts wozniacki --

mentee -- matisse. he was tired of the same models that had the same body type. he brought in models where gravity played a role. there's a fullness of the figure. artists like fullness. they like to draw things that are supple and round. penn was very aware of the history of the nude. he taught himself a lot about writing and for my practicing. charlie: next thing is to cost up -- picasso. that's a great photograph. jeff: this photograph is in the south of france. mostly to work in his own studio, but this is one of the great pictures of all-time. dark cloakhe sort of

that picasso had to create this -- sort ofhort of shows the face in intensity. casa was the most -- cost so -- picasso was the most famous artist of his day. charlie: is the next one. enn had this idea in the 1960's, and he carried it into the 1970's, to take it project to distant people. here we are in new guinea. these are mud men. penn was great with company -- composition. iss is a picture that stunning. these figures are posed.

he posed them by hand. he couldn't speak their language. he couldn't speak their language -- they couldn't speak his language. he didn't say very much. he just moved their bodies and turned their forms, and he put the pictures together like a painter. and he had his great understanding of light. photography is a light medium. always wanted to work with north light. he used available light when possible. that combination of understanding of composition, the balance of light, and gravity and its effect, is what defines his work. charlie: the next is a great photograph you all know of truman capote. jeff: we are at the beginning of enn'sportrait -- p portraiture. enn created a weird set by

putting two seater flats together by creating a very acute angle.it was just him and his subject. truman capote had just published his first stories. he was leaning into the wall. on the floor is basically threats of carpet. but int clean per se, this space and controlled environment, we have a psychological portrait that not only stands the test of time, but makes you sort of feel like capote was already the master of his own craft, and penn, too. charlie: he drove an ambulance in italy in world war ii. jeff: yes. penn started the war in mexico. before pearl harbor. he painted for a year. he came back, almost immediately went to war. he, like many others who had

-- largeography, photography, found themselves in fields that photography could play a role. charlie: he wanted very much to be seen as an artist. and he was. i think anyone who is in his presence who had the pleasure of meeting him nude that he was one of the more thoughtful, more generous individuals. his dedication to working with his studio assistants and sharing the experience of being a artist is really distinguishing quality. notpictures are beloved just in a fashion world and portrait world and photography world, but i would say that most people who would pay attention to the 20th century in any area have found their way to penn. they couldn't wait to find their pictures. charlie: the exhibition is at the metropolitan museum of art

until july 30. thank you. pleasure to have you here. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

♪ betty: wall street snapping a seven-day winning streak. oil weighing on energy producers. the asia-pacific awaits the return of a greater china market. of rate hikes,e saying weak u.s. inflation may force the fed to change its plan. betty: president vladimir putin enters the russia issue, saying they did not interfere in elections in the u.s. yvonne: