♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: "dear evan hansen," is the hit musical at the music box theatre in new york. it follows a high school student with a severe anxiety who 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 is not likely to be better did this season. "dear evan hansen," has been nominated for nine tony awards, including best musical. foresten you're in a

there is nobody around you ever really crash or do you make a sound ♪ i ever make a sound? ♪ i wait around for an answer to appear waiting through a window me anybody see is anybody waving waiting, waiting? ♪

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 for the first time. tell me about your character. who is evan hansen? ben: evan hansen is a really lonely kid, highschooler, he has trouble connecting to other people. that is heightened by the hyper connectivity of social media. everything is instantaneously judged and picked debt. 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 in his class who committed suicide,

evan grows closer to the family and helps them heal, and finds a new voice, and a place to be findtant and belong and 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? steven: when we started working on this, my fellow writers and composers of the music, we 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 yes, 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. a sense of connection. so 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: absolutely. 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 was 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." "our lockers were close to each other." 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. they began working together. they discussed this strange story and they saw echoes of that story in our generation and its response to 9/11.

we all knew people that had written college essays about their place in 9/11. thatsocial media, insertion of ourselves into tragedy seems to only escalate and get crazier and crazier until any catastrophe in the world became a way for people to talk about themselves. when the three of us began working together, that was where we began. charlie: what was the average age of the three of you? steven: [laughter] we were all, i believe, 27, maybe 28? that is not true. we have been working on this for so long. we were like 26. we were really young. [laughter] charlie: is there a challenge? 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. that was, from the beginning of the development.

i came on board about three years ago, and it was always a focus. steven 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. -- 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 some kind of savior he is. that's why he falls into this life. charlie: is it a savior for him? ben: i think on some level it does end up being a savior, it connect in a way he never has. connect in a way he never has. of course, there is a dark side, 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. the show has the ability to start conversations with people coming to the show, topics

people feel afraid to his mother. broach especially intergenerational , conversations. it seems to bust that door wide open. 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 play, and left 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 filter 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 the character of evan has an incredible universality as his isolation and loneliness and deep desire to reach out and be reached out to. i think everybody that comes to the show finds themselves somewhere in him, and can go on 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] steven: always a reliable source. she said, "i contemplate him emotional well-being every day. he's mature, but he's only 23. 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 piece 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 exchange places with you in a moment. steven: his discipline and rigor are truly exceptional. charlie: discipline and rigor. steven: yes. i have never met anyone -- you just do not worry about ben. notwithstanding his mother worrying about him. [laughter] ben 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. just rehearsing a scene, ben can access the emotions like that and it is really stunning. charlie: you've been working with the same actors for three years? steven: yes. in the very first reading, four of the actors were already in it. charlie: has 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 show resonates is ben's performance. -- performance is so specific. the more specificity, the more universality, that paradox. ben and i have been able to have a conversation where he will do something, i will respond in writing, then he will respond in performance. it is a real deep pleasure. ben: one of the many things steven does brilliantly is finding the things we don't notice we are doing and the performance and they end up beautifully fleshed 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

everything has to be in the service of that. i don't want there to be a single performance were people leave feeling they are not getting 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. is there a toll? is it simply the endurance of doing it and there are requirements of singing that much in the demands on you to perform at the center of this? ben: i think the literal toll would be the physical demands and physical therapy voice , lessons, what have you. there is also the emotional toll place eighth a dark days a week is 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: sure. the beauty of this piece is that

people go on this journey every night and the response is , beautiful every night. it's by virtue of anything from the weather to what's been going on in the world of that day, to the age of the people in the crowd. sometimes 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 to try to win them but i , think the great thing is the material is fantastic and specific. if you lay back and let the show do its job, and not trying to slam on the acceleration, they come to you eventually. charlie: this is the cast singing, "you will be found." here it is. >> ♪ when you need a friend to carry you when you're broken on the ground you will be found

if you only look around you will be found >> ♪ you will be found >> ♪ you will be found charlie: i asked what the average age of the cast, you said somewhere in the middle. steven: we have five people in their early to mid 20's playing teenagers, and then adults. they are in their mid-40's playing parents. universe show him in therapy. why not? -- you never showed him in therapy, why not? we wanted to get to know evan through 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 is to just say, "and how does that make you feel?" so with his mom, his peers, there a level of unpredictability. charlie: and a higher level of engagement. here he is singing with his girlfriend the song "only us." , here it is. >> ♪ it will be us it will be us and only us what came before is not anymore you and me we needed to be the rest of the world falls away the rest of the world falls away ♪ charlie: congratulations.

it is terrific. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

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

of birdie. her performance has earned nixon her for the tony nomination. here's a look at her in that role. >> aunt 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 liked 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 cosan in the fields was better. ben hubbard wanted the cotton. oscar hubbard married it for him. he used to be nice to me. he used to smile at me.

he hasn't smiled at me since. 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." as emily dickinson, the renowned 19th-century poet. i'm pleased to have her back at the table. you said it was a two-person play. cynthia: it was a two-person play. there was a big 19th and early 20th century tradition of two actors doing othello and iago. and alternating. not so much anymore. charlie: so laura linney thought -- came up with the idea and you say, what do you think of this? and you did it right away because of the challenge? ,cynthia: i loved of the play. i always loved the idea of playing regina.

but laura herself felt birdie is a tremendous treasure of a role, albeit a smaller role. i worked with laura on television, but never on stage. a chance to work with her on this play and with dan sullivan, in this tremendous experiment -- the director. this is a tremendous experiment women don't get to do very often. part of the challenge -- there was a thing about you in college, you did two plays 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 come back. 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 meaty itself, so many people do not know the play before they come, giving the audience the chance to hear it twice, they absorb

a lot more of the nuance. charlie: did you think you would play birdie first? was that your first instinct? 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. i think it was harder for both of us at first when we were first rehearsing it. but now, i think now that we have our own characterizations and we are more secure, i find little things. that is interesting, either i can take it or 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] cynthia: 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, and i can relate to birdie. regina's foreign territory. charlie: this is what "the new york times," said. in most roles ms. nixon has a , steely character. linney's effect is more yielding. ms. nixon she plays regina's deviousness from the start, which is a treat from the start, ms. linney keeps it concealed for a well, which makes for a surprise. birdie, bullied and beaten by her husband, ms. linney uses her sweetness into affect. while ms. nixon layers birdie's pain with a complicated self-loathing. that sounds pretty good. cynthia: pretty good. charlie: do you recognize that, though? when they say that, birdie's pain with

complicated self-loathing? cynthia: that's one of the things that i feel, you want to think birdie had a very happy 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 only great things to say about her mother. but she always talks about what a ninny she is, and how she's -- how her mother is always laughing at her. that feeling birdie has from the beginning, i am so silly, so dumb, ice -- i think she got the message from her mother early on, whether she knows it or not. 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 the other but

, i think there are areas of greater disapproval than areas of approval. charlie: how long is this running? 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 in antwerp. charlie: was it something you wanted to do? cynthia: absolutely, from childhood. it never occurred to me that i would get to play emily dickinson. when terrance approached me about it, that he had written it with me in mind, it was so daunting to play such a brilliant person. but i think i've always felt a lot of identification with her. it was less daunting because of that. charlie: and there had never been other movies about her. cynthia: there was a one-person play in the 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, she was terrified she would die in childbirth. that was such a reality around her 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 have afforded 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 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. there is so much poetry of that 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 an enormous amount of discipline. charlie: she talked about god a fair amount. cynthia: she talks about god, it was a great question for her. whether there is a god, what death 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 like eternity, but 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 all the poetry? cynthia: she wrote 1800 palms. 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 can sort of recognize her, but she is so different period , to period. charlie: which did you like the most? cynthia: when i was young, i rousd more of the raptu stuff about nature, the wonders of the natural world. when i was a little older, i loved the heartsick, impossible love, forbidden love, thwarted love. but now that i'm over 50, i really like the ones that are much more looking at each turn ity in such a profound way. they are less rapturous, but they are so incisive. charlie: she had a sense of humor. cynthia: yes, that was very important to terrance, that it would not be a stately masterpiece theatre rendition. it would show she was a real

rebel. they came from anger, but also the humor with which she saw the world. 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? cynthia: 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 these 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 i think the idea of giving herself to someone physically or at least in the long term was too much. that loss of herself was something that was too frightening to her. 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. but looking back, the first scene to comprehend the whole, the others look a needless show. so i write, poets all. their summer lasts a solid year. they can afford a sun of extravagance. and if it be as beautiful as they prepare for those who worship them, it is too difficult a grace to justify the dream. charlie: 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 to our modern eye. emily seems to have had a hope or plan that the two women would live together through their life. that was thwarted, but emily 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 bit of japanese finery, with

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? would she have been better in another era? cynthia: it is so hard to say. in a funny way, 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, i think she would have been very happy on email or twitter. [laughter] charlie: as you understood the role and began to portray her, and thought about her life did , you see some of yourself in her? cynthia: i think that when i was

young, i thought i saw a lot of myself in her. but i think it was a very surfacey idea of who she was. i thought, here is this person who is deeply interesting, but presents an outward show of shyness, but is saying to the world talk to me, i'm so , fascinating if you only take the trouble to know me. but i did not understand when i was young the depth of her isolation. solatedrtainly a very uni person. charlie: you certainly are. [laughter] charlie: 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. quite a convention so early in the morning. that is the way they do

things in chicago. >> '81, a good time for us all. what do you think really happened to horace? >> nothing. >> you don't think he started from baltimore? >> of course he started. what is so strange about people arriving late? 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 and oscar have been so worried. >> especially when i'm getting ready to close a business deal and one of my bosses remains silent and invisible. >> is that it? i thought you were worried about horace's health. >> that, too. >> i'm worried. >> you haven't had your breakfast. come along. charlie: where did the voice come from? cynthia: the voice?

do you mean the accent? charlie: yes. how did you practice that, how did you decide that is the right note for her? 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 very assured and one is so eager to please. charlie: good to have you. cynthia: thank you. charlie: "the little foxes," plays until july 2 at the samuel j. friedman theatre. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪ charlie: irving penn was one of

the most influential and celebrated photographers of the 20th century. his career spanned almost seven decades. he's perhaps best known for his work at "vogue," magazine. his early photographs of couture are considered masterpieces. his work also celebrated form and beauty in unexpected subjects and encompassed portraiture, nudes, and still life. a new exhibition at the metropolitan marks a major retrospective of his work to mark the centennial of his birth. 1943 towork from a

2008. jeff rosenheim is the curator in charge of the metropolitan museum, and he organized the exhibition. we are fortunate to have him joining me now. 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 the show. we knew a lot about penn. his work appeared in "vogue," 165 covers alone. he worked every day. his work was amazing. i had the pleasure to do lots of walker evans, eggleston. but there was something about penn i did not understand. 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 images. he shot color and black and white simultaneously. that's his own story. what did a picture look like in color in a magazine, and how could he transform it later in his life into an extraordinary 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 1000 photographs. no one can see that. no one can appreciate their uipoise in the pictures. we had to synthesize. i did this with my colleague, who was working with me 30 years

ago at the met. we are told you can't step into the same river twice, but she was able to do it. she called me on the phone and kind of whispered in my ear, you might want to call tom, irving's son. he is looking for something to honor the centennial of his father's birth. that conversation led to the visit to an amazing facility that has the life's work of irving penn. i was treated to month after month, a year of just looking at the pictures. that is how we did it, by 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 was that he started as a painter and draftsman. he was trained in the arts. and art school. he came to photography through a sort of circumstance. but drawing and the idea of the silhouette, the idea of a sculptor's style of making a

picture, where the photograph is put together in an interesting way all of that, and the , through-line of still life, is something you can see over those 70 years. charlie: we take a look at some of these. 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 double cube from backgammon, and the di with the six and the four. then the two dominoes, the two fives, adding up to 10. connected, oneis form to another, one color to another. to moveres the eye

around to complete the composition, that is the game. that is the after dinner game. it is trying to understand the picture. this is from the beginning of his career. charlie: the next one is "cigarette 37." jeff: we have an entire room of pictures of butts that penn collected, like a butterfly carol -- collector on the , streets of manhattan and brooklyn. he and his studio assistants used tweezers and picked them out damp out of the gutter. he brought them into the studio. in between other projects, he would put them together, mixing 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 homage to his friend. it was the first person they gave him a chance, internships

-- the power of an internship. he was a college kid, his friend brought him to new york. what penn did for him was enough to raise the money to buy a camera. he bought a roloflex. is served his purpose is for the rest of his career. charlie: next, "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, pedestrians, it is soiled. loved the idea of this form two headed camel. deli all know it as a package. he brought it to the studio, developed a camera technique to reveal it. it's more like a draftsman or a printmaker. it is smashed, then it is this exploding dirt. it has a fabulous object value. it is a platinum print. penn didn't just accept

printmaking as he inherited, he transformed it. he used older processes and makes pictures that photographers and everyone else fall in love with. charlie: roberto smith said that -- he obliterated the line between art and commerce. jeff: yes. you can see it throughout the work. i think what she was saying, and i can understand why that is, he basically understood the page of the magazine. he understood what a power picture would sit in ink, in a 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 --penn had his assistants bring in people from the street. he photographed them against the same neutral backdrop. london, 1850. here is the fishmonger with his towel and his apron and 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.

there's no luxe environment. all that is there is the empty studio, the artist, and his subject. there is this exchange. penn was 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 practically whispered quiet. the individuals felt that his eye on them,e to gave birth to an interesting psychological portrait. it was rembrandtian. charlie: marlene 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 nazism. she also was a great singer.

she sang for the allied troops. she knew what she wanted when she arrived in penn's studio. he had to deal with it in one way or another. she said, i know what side i want you to photograph, i know when the lights should be, i know where my body should be. penn had to sort of quietly say, for this experiment 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. jeff: there's the proof. charlie: she also did that wonderful documentary where they photographed her inside a room in her apartment, the door was open, but you never saw her. the interview took place without seeing her. jeff: 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.

i think that 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. this is "mouth" for l'oreal. jeff: penn was obviously involved in photographing beauty. l'oreal, one of the things they do is lipstick. this is an extraordinary understanding of form and how to stop traffic. penn's problem is every photographer's problem, we live in a multitude of images. as neil degrasse tyson said, 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

what cameras do in our society. it changes every generation. it is changing right now. it is creating an appreciation, for the old analog world, our world. it is creating a belief that photography has a role in our society. individually. 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 said to me i can

, make a movie with an iphone. jeff: that's right. qualitatively, it's amazing. just the idea of sharing images like we 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. it is a pictograph. charlie: it just took over. it shows you the power of the visual. jeff: more people are looking at photographs that they have made than ever before. where they are going, i don't know. i'm a little worried about that. we might know less about our time 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 cloud. take a look at these three. the next one is "nude 72." jeff: one of his favorite artists was matisse. penn came out of art school wase drawing the nude form

part of the language. he was learning in 1949 and 1950, 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 lighting and form by just practicing the studio. charlie: next thing is picasso. that's a great photograph. jeff: this photograph is in the south of france. this is that picasso's home. penn liked mostly to work in his own studio. but this is one of the great pictures of all-time.

penn used the sort of dark cloak that picasso had to create this void that sort of shows the face in intensity. picasso was the most famous artist of his day. and the meeting between penn and picasso, i would have liked to have been there for that. charlie: a fly on the wall. these are the mud men. had this idea in the and he carried it into the 1970's, to take a project to distant people. here we are in new guinea. these are mud men. penn was great with composition. his ability to pose not just one figure but many is a hallmark of his achievement. this is a picture that is stunning. these figures are posed. he posed them by hand. he couldn't speak their

language. they couldn't speak his language. he didn't say very much. he just literally went and moved their bodies and turned their forms, and he put the pictures together like he was a painter, sculptor. and he had his great understanding of light. photography is a light medium. it is, absolutely. they all say that. jeff: and penn always wanted to work with north light. he used available light when possible. those combinations of understanding of composition, the balance of light, and gravity and its effect, is what defines his work. jeff: the next slide is in fact the great photograph you all know of truman capote. jeff: we are at the beginning of penn's portraiture. it was a project for "vogue." penn created a weird set by putting two theater flats

together by creating a very acute angle. he removed every other element. it was just penn and his subject. truman capote had just published his first stories. he was leaning into the wall. on the floor is basically threads of carpet. it's not clean per se, but in this space, the 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. he left for mexico right before pearl harbor. he was there to paint for a year. he came back. he'll most immediately went to war. he, like many others who had learned photography, found

themselves in the cigna core and fields that photography could play a role. charlie: he wanted very much to be seen as an artist. jeff: and he was. i think anyone who is in his presence who had the pleasure of meeting him knew 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 an artist is really a distinguishing quality. his pictures are beloved not just in the 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 -- those pictures when they came out. charlie: this is the accompanying book to 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. ♪ alisa: i am alisa parenti from

washington. let's start with a check of your first word news. president trump will meet with the former tsa boss as the search continues for a new fbi director. the ap says they are meeting with a former doj assistant attorney general. arizona republican senator, john mccain, says trump has unsettled allies. he spoke today in sydney. mccain says australia is not alone in questioning whether america remains committed to upholding peace and justice around the world. the supreme court will consider giving states more freedom to purge voter rolls of people who