pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: paul ingrassia is a former bureau chief for "the wall street journal. he is now with reuters, and he has a new book, "engines of change: a history of the american dream in 15 cars." let me get your sense in now detroit is going to factor in the race for the white house between now and november. >> i think it will be important,

michigan and the upper midwest, but the obama administration really saved in the automotive industry. that will be a plus. there are a lot of americans that are still angry about the bailouts, the wall street bailout, that sort of thing, so it is going to cut both ways. i think on balance, it will be a plus for the president. tavis: what is your sense of how mitt romney has played this, particularly given the role that his father played in detroit years ago. >> i think he is trying to draw a fine line here, perhaps too fine, tavis. he says he was opposed of the bailout but wanted to say detroit. if you go back to 2008, 2009, there really was not any private money to come out and put into the automotive industry. the money would have had to come from the banks and private equity people, and nobody was coming forward to put up the

money. tavis: when you say president obama say to detroit with his plan, how is it, as we speak? >> it is doing pretty well. sales are good. profit is good. all the companies are still around. you have general motors, ford, and chrysler. what they did is they closed factories they did not need and changed some of the work rules in the factories, and that was a big deal. and used to be that you could only change a light bulb, for example, if your job classification was electrician, so even if you're qualified to change in light of, you had to wait for a guy from the other side of the factory to come and do that sort of thing, and that sort of thing is pretty much gone now. i do not think that detroit is going to blow the japanese or korean car companies out of here. you have a more balanced situation, but they are holding their own. tavis: innovation is another.

where does detroit rank now with creativity, innovation, style, for that kind of thing? >> well, it depends on what you are talking about really. picking one area. getting consumer electronics into automobiles. electronics making the driving experience easier and more enjoyable and that sort of thing. for example, ford for several years has had a voice recognition system, where you can basically give your radio or your cd player or york heater and air conditioner a verbal command. it is not perfect, no doubt about that, but i think ford has really led the way in getting smart consumer electronics into automobiles. alternative engine technology is more of a sort of balanced game. toyota has the previous. there are other cars out there. there are hybrids.

gm has the volt, but the truth is, they are not selling that well these days, the hybrids, and the price of gasoline really has to go to $6 per gallon, $7 per gallon before it makes sense for most people. tavis: we will get to the previous in a moment. that is not a shout out to toyota. these are just one of the cars you talked about in "engines of change," one of those is the toyota prius, so we will come back to that. you mentioned a moment ago the notion of changing a light bulb, and what you're really talking about were union rules. we were talking around that, essentially. what is your take on how unions have been impacted by what has happened in detroit in the last few years, and whether there has been, my language, not yours, irreparable harm to detroit? >> i am not sure there was

irreparable harm done to unions from the bailout of the automotive industry. the united autoworkers union only has about one-third of the membership it had back in 1970, tavis. what i think has happened here really is there has been more responsible behavior by management and union alike, to really forge a more sensible working relationship in the last few years, ever since the bankruptcies of general motors and chrysler. just one example. 1.5 years or so ago, several workers at a chrysler factory went outside during lunch hour and it came back in and started making cars, and they were fired. the union decided not to battle that. that is a big change from the past. tavis: is the worst behind us? i asked that because there are, as you know, some economists who are concerned that the economy

may be in danger of a double-dip recession. if the economy goes into a double-dip recession, that would impact on detroit. is the worst behind at the moment? >> it may have to get back before it gets different. these companies are poised to be profitable or to at least break even. much, much lower sales volumes than there were five years ago. that said, i do not think it is going to be clear sailing. i do think the worst has passed in that it will not get as bad as 2008, 2009, but there is a lot of trouble going on in europe, as you know, with the euro zone and whether the currency will stay together there, the euro, and a lot of that has an impact on the american economy including detroit. general motors and ford have huge businesses in europe, and chrysler is joined at the hip

with the yacht. fiat is a european company. >> -- joined at the hip with fiat's -- fiat. tavis: the industry is starting to rebound, but from what i have read, the size of the city of detroit and the people there, obviously, the industry is made up of people. many of them have lost their jobs. any week on how this impact in the industry is having an effect on the city? >> well, the city is being left behind, quite frankly, but i am not sure it is the industry's fault. in fact, i do not at all think it is the industry's fault. decades of financial and civic mismanagement. you had the past mayor in jail. you have the past city council chairman in jail. i mean, you have a lot of really bad stuff. the schools have been a failure. a couple of years ago, a very wealthy individual, donating

$200 million to the school system to start charter schools, and the teachers' union and the school board there vetoed it, so i think detroit has had some real problems, and i think it will be awhile before the city of detroit can break out. the problems are not unlike that in greece, a country living on largess of some units of government, and it really has to get out of the basement. that being said, there is some hope. in the downtown area, there are a small group of 20 somethings moving in. it is not without hope. there has to be a fundamental change. i think the current mayor is really in the right place on this. tavis: we will see what happens in detroit in the coming days. i hope there is a renaissance as the automotive industry is starting to rebound.

inside "engines of change," i referenced earlier that the toyota prius made your list. let us know what you're trying to make us understand about these 15 cards. >> i was trying to dig the automobile as a lens through which to view the ebb and flow of american culture, if you will, tavis. american culture is sort of a longstanding tug-of-war between the practical, the pretentious, the ordinary, and the ostentatious. and all of these swings, our national psyche is reflected in these 15 cards. for example, the first two and the book, the model t, it was a very practical car. henry ford. it was the first people's car. henry ford's a favorite joke was about the farmer who wanted to be buried in his model t ford because the car had gotten him out of every hole he had ever

been in, and that says a lot. the model t could go anywhere, but it was not stylish. it had 20 years. by the early 1920's, you could buy it for as little as $260. after 20 years, people wanted style, a little sex appeal in the cars, and the roaring '20s came along. gm had won it to come out, the first yuppie car, the first mass-market designer are done by harvey. you remember the old introduction to the family show, the sitcom on television in the 1970's, the fourth line was "our old lesalle ran great." archie bunker. you have the chevrolet corvette introduced in 1953, the same year that you have to started

playboy magazine, that elvis started recording music, and you have a whole generation of americans that have grown up knowing a depression and then more, and the war was finally over, . war ended in 1953, and this whole generation of americans wanted to let loose a little bit. and then you have the cadillac with the biggest tail fins ever. believe it or not, they were sold as safety devices. it was astonishing to find out that they were called directional stabilizers. i know, you could not make it up, could you? that is the really pretentious thing. and then as the cadillac tail fins reached their peak, we swing back to the practical with the volkswagen beetle and the microbus, and then the cars starting in germany in the pre- world war two era, they were the cars of hitler, and then in the postwar era, they became the

hipaa icon. you move further, and you have a mustang which captured the whole kennedy thing, the use era, -- the youth ear, and then you had the deloreans. they were all about the mustang, and then came the darker part of the 1960's. you have an urban riots. you had the rolling stones as opposed to the beatles, and you had the pontiac gto, the growling thing as opposed to the mustang. tavis: i will close on that node. so the present day, the pre-as is the most current card to make the list. what does that say, the hybrid nature of the pre-is, what does that say about it? >> the pre-is in a way is a reaction to the gas guzzling suv's, which are also in the

book. -- the previous -- prius is also in the block as a reaction to the gas guzzling. on 100 miles an hour in his prius, steve wazniacki, the founder of apple computer. they asked him if he was on 105, and he said not true, 104. they said to him, how did you think of it? what about going 104 m.p.h.? he shot back that was not bad. "it is kind of like mind, ." , this is a guy that has a homer and -- a hummer and a prius in the same garage.

tavis: been to have you back on the program. >> thank you. always a pleasure. tavis: up next, oscar-winning actress mira sorvino/ stay with us. mira sorvino is back on the program. she can be seen in a new film hitting theaters this month. it is called "union square," and here is a scene. [knock on door] >> oh. [knock on door] >> jenny? of, my god. hi. this is so crazy.

i did not think you would be year, but you are here. this is amazing. what are you doing here? we have to forget what never happened. whatever you said, whenever i said, get over it. i do not want more years to go by like this, all right? it will not happen again. ok. it up, my god. >> look at this place. it is like an office or something. i had no idea that you lived here. >> with bill on facebook put >> by friend -- with a bill on

facebook >> i friended you, but you did not. >> they have been estranged for three years, have come to the city to deliver a message, but i think i am bringing this letter to agrobusiness address, and i do not think she is going to be there, she is in california, she is really out of touch with me, and she is there, and i am having a breakdown with a boy friend who is breaking up with me, and it is like the apocalypse or me, the end of the world, and as soon as i see my sister, i change on a dime, and i am happy to see her. tavis: ups and downs. that is a good description of that clip. how would you describe this movie? >> it is about a reunion of two people from the same family who have not been able to get along in the past because of some deep issues but ultimately love each

other, and it is kind of like that thing that you cannot live with them, you cannot shoot them, so the third way is you have to find a way to love them. it is a very funny movie. a good balance with drama. tavis: we were discussing before we came on the set about how this was shot. when i say the way, i am talking about the location, the number of days, the camera equipment that was used. i will let you tell the story. it just speaks to the fact that when you have good material, you can form go all of the bells and whistles and make the story of the story line and the narrative and the rest of humanity is all there. you can make it work even if you are shooting over a number of days in one location, and we will let you tell how it got shot. >> it was actually scheduled for 10 days. i thought it was 15, and then it was 12, and she is an amazing

director, and they felt very confident that they could make this movie with an incredibly micro budget and a skeleton crew and the camera, and basically looks like a still camera, but it is a video camera, and other films have been shot on it. they put in action shots and stuff. but it allowed us to walk three union square park and film scenes, and people did not know we were making a movie. they thought it was somebody taking a picture, and the people walking around us became part of the scene because they did not know we were making a movie. it is sort of guerrilla style. it gives this maybe, i think, a real sense of organic urgency and pacing, like real life but not like a reality television show. everything feels very spontaneous, and the camera is like a fly on the wall, a person

watching things, another person in the room. it is a little bit bumpy, because the focus goes back and forth, but i think it works probably for this story which is, as you said, just about the people and about their story together and their odd personalities, and the fact is we are both lying all of the time. you find that as we go along the we are hiding big, big secrets from ourselves and our loved ones, and there is something about the low budget and the small sets, ltd. vacations, it just kind of work. it feels real. tavis: this is shot in and around union square, so you guys did not go further. >> it was all in a 10 block radius. a lot of it is shot in the apartment, which you saw. a lot of it is shot at union square and the stores around it. tavis: to your point, it works for the film that it would shot in the way but it would shot,

but how does a challenge or for that matter bring a different type of freedom to an actor when you are shooting this, you do not even know you are shooting, as you said it is organic, but how did it work for an actor? >> the page county was about 8 to 10 pages per day, you had to have that dialogue and that scene down. you had to come ready and loaded for bear in the morning, so you have to come in just with all of this. i cannot describe it except i had to be on my game every second, because there was not a step and despair. maybe we did two or three takes, and then it was moving on to the next thing. you do these things where you do not cut in for coverage back and forth. a lot of it goes on for several pages, and you have to be just right there, but in a certain way because of that adrenaline, i think it gets free year. i do not know. it is not the boring part of

shooting on the conventional movie set where they have the budget and time to cover a scene six ways to sunday. the traveling, the establishing, the medium close-up, the close- up, the over the show, -- shoulder, and by the time you get to the end of the scene, you have done those lines all day long, and maybe you have lost that momentum, and this is a lot of inspiration. there was a lot of improv for at least for my character. the character is bipolar, and she has this uncensored quality, which i love it when a character is like that because then you can really go with your instincts. it is not intellectual at all. she is smart. she may seem dumb at first, but she is smart. the more you see this bill, the more you realize there is a real substance underneath the pain. in the beginning, you think this

grow its hysterical, i cannot take it, and as you go on, you feel, i see what is going on. i see what is happening. tavis: you are an academy award winner. this hustle bustle low-budget stuff is not the stuff that you have to do. obviously you choose to do it. why choose to do it? >> i started off with this kind of atmosphere. the first film i was in, i was the associate producer, the casting director, the third assistant director, and i drove the van. i was also the female lead. it was crazy. let's make a movie. but i love that spirit. it is about the work. it is about the purity, about making something good. it is not about earning money whatsoever. i paid twice as much as i earned every day on it, but it is a chance to work with a stellar character. nancy is really, i think, people

forget how great she is, and i hope with this bill people will see again that she is like a major independent film director. to my mind, this is a very fine film, and i think she is going to be rediscovered with this, because she had a lot of attention in the early 1990's, and this might make people say that she is an amazing auteur director. because of the family themes and it, i think it is very universal. it is just like me and my dad. men responded to it. it does not have to be women. anybody who has a family issue but they have been avoiding, putting off, and then they have to come to face it. you always want to get back to that love. it has been too long. there are people you can think of now that you did not want to have that conflict with, and you do not know how to fix it. and this is about figuring it

out. tavis: speaking of fathers, how is your father? >> he is fantastic. he is constantly amazing. he turns over a new leaf. he has just done a new film that he thinks is one of his best performances. and he is very excited about that. he has done like five films this summer. singing and directing. tavis: he does not stop. you have that energy, obviously. the film is called "union square." mira sorvino, thanks for coming with us. that is our show for this time. until next time, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a a harlem-based chef, marcus samuelsson.

that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs.

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the syrian opposition, u.n. officials, and the obama administration all blamed the assad regime for the massacre of scores of people in a rural village. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we have the latest on the execution- style killings on what rebels call one of the worst days of bloodshed since the uprisings began in syria more than a year ago. >> woodruff: then, we examine the ballooning losses at j.p. morgan chase and the role of