good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. earlier this year "mondaybound" created quite a stir it a sun dunce. now there is early oscar buzz, now a talk with writer/sbrekter dee rees and jason mitchell as they star with prejudice in a divided world war ii era. we have more coming up in just a mini. ♪

and p by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ so pleased to welcome jason mitchell and writer/director dee rees to the program. the film "mud bound" as the stars go home to cope with post

war. here is a clip from "mudbound". >> go on, son. we don't want know trouble here. >> twhen weapon was overseas,in they didn't make us use the back-door. general patton put us on the front line. yes, sir. you know what we did? we kicked the hell out of hitler and them japs. you are home safe and sound. >> so and i were whispering before we came on camera here about the fact there is -- there is a presis tant narrative in the black community. and i actually understand it and i am not sure that i disagree with it. given what hollywood has done over the last 20 years or so. but there is a narrative that

black people buy into that hollywood has given us too many slave movies. when you see a trailer, you have to be careful to try to decipher, is it a slave movie or a movie in a particular era of time. what is "mudbound". >> it's about home and what it means to be a citizen and it's set in a post war setting. we haven't explored that experience. if it were a slave movie could there be too many of those? the resistance is from scar tissue. there is a void that creeps in and into that voice comes a shame which is not ours and a guilt that is not ours. we talk about the vets coming home and if we don't get to '65, and the veterans coming home and

exposinging hypocrisy. >> they are doing it all the years later. what do you they gap from sounder to now in this particular genre, why has that gap existed so long? >> that's a good question. i'm not sure. and i think it's exposed in literature. and the soldier comes home from the war. it will chach has tried to bridge that gap but hollywood, not necessarily. maybe it's perceived it's not where the drama is. there's maybe a misunderstanding about the things that culminate in that. the soldiers coming home and the soldiers owning land and the blacks, they were held at bay. >> so where did you find the confidence then to believe,

given how long that gap had existed and you had the right story and the time was right now? >> interesting this is a novel by hilly jordan. i came to the novel by virgil williams' script. and i wanted to rewrite it and give my own narrative. my mother was born in 1925 in louisiana and when word war 2 started, he moved to oakland, california to get a job on a naval base and my grandfather was born in ringo, louisiana, fought in the war. he came back and he didn't get his benefits. and small moments like my grandmother talked about her rising around on cotton sacks. and my grandmother said, i'm not

going to pick cotton, i want to be a stenographer. and i think bringing our personal history is the story works. >> once you decide you want to do it, you put the cast together. >> exactly. yeah, yeah. >> tell me about the casting. >> i love jason mitchell from straight out of compton. i saw him portray easy e and i don't e nknow the story at all. and the thing i loved about jason's work, he brought this vulnerability and a sensitivity. and i don't think that people understand. and one moment he is in the hospital room and he's dying and he has a friend and i thought, that act aer understands friendship. and jason has a wisdom -- you don't have young actors that have that wisdom.

>> i'm honored to have you here first of all. glad to have you here. the thing that strikes me about your work in this particular project -- you are on fire and you are everywhere right now. which is unique in part because i have seen -- i have been at this a while now. i have seen so many people that have been in a kind of project, a hip-hop project, and they get known for that. and they never get a chance to break out of that. and to dee's point, you bring something different in terms of character. were you ever concerned that as big as that movie was, straight out of compton, that you will get boxed in? >> absolutely. absolutely. every project they picked after that, i tried to do something different and diversify myself. i have so many layers. i'm like an onion, not a three-layer cake. i have different layers inside of me but i try to pick things that also create a voice. because i had a lady stop me and

say i showed my 8th grade class straight out of compton. so after that sinks in, and you get to do films liking "mudbound" and "detroit" and they create milestones in history. and liking dee was saying, it's not real a time that has been explored. it's not something that child mind knows visually what it looks like or feels like. so we are a visual textbook that is already history. >> yeah, how do you take a story, dee, that is so emotionally wrenching, to jason's point, and make it a family film? make it a film that can be used as something that is both informative, constructive and entertaining. >> i think the key is not leading with the message. and the characterers, the relationships, we get the audience to invest in the

relationships and they don't care what is going to happen next. you are deeply empathized and being as specific as possible and that is about the performance. casting the right actors and jason mitchell, you that have that lend to authenticity go feeling. >> tell me about the character and how you went about betraying him? >> my grandfather fought in the korean war and he was behind enemy lines. he went to baton rouge to try to spruce his life up a little bit. but he used to work on lsu campus an at one time. and all they can do is pick up trash. in his mind, he is like, all i want to do is send my children to lsu. because all black people can do here is pick up trash.

so that was misgoal. that's what he did. but he was also a business owner for 68 years and was a black man without that voice. but the difference, he has a lot to say. and it's a wild ride to follow but he is definitely one of very many people. and that's what made this part so beautiful. the fact i get to be this voice for so many black men who couldn't say anything. >> which leads me to ask, deerks how you respond -- back to the first part of conversation, the puckback that certain films get. love dee, love jason. don't want to see nothing like this again. >> right. >> so we are back to that. and one of the things you hear in those conversations is that people don't like you because it doesn't show us at our best. >> right. >> that's not what i saw in this project. but for those who think they are going to go see something that doesn't show black folks at

their best, their strongest -- >> i would there is a nobility here, there is dignity here. there is agency here and consciousness here. and one of the first time we meet him, he has a parcel map on his wall and he is floting to buy land, and investment. and when we need his character, he is going off to war to fight here fis country. that is nobility and pride and dignity. and i'm standing on my grandfather's showers, my grandmother's shoulders and it's the sacrifice they made to be ayou will me to be on this couch right now. >> if there are ever two combustible reties, emotions, racism and p -- how do you make those things work? >> yeah, just in the performance, so in the blocking

of the scene, it's about nuance and we have great actors that can do that. and the opening scene, they rate and the risk of the material, it could have gone sentimental and sir rippy very quickly. and he extends a hand. jamie doesn't take it. they are not looking at each other. and then you know, the first time ron zel takes them to the barn. he keeps his tis stance. stays on his feet and by the end of the scene, he has come closer. jamie told him a true thing and we get the red tales in there by the way. and two more reasons to watch it as i think about it. at our best and the next time in the barn scene, we have a trust fall and we shoot the coverage and there is intimacy there. because the actors give me

layered and performances, you pick ptsd and we have seen it in the reaction of the townspeople and moody and shifting around look like the disconcertedness like the worry of florence. she knows something's off. we see it because ptsd is isolating and they portray that. >> let me ask thu question. you go first mimp find myself doing this. i can watch a film in a contemporary moment like this, that's got me looking back into the past. and yet, i find myself in certain scenes situating what i'm saying on the skricreen in moment i'm in right now. you have that experience. you know you're filming something that is -- you know, it feels -- >> to me that is what made it

beautiful. because dee had such a safe space for us to work in. as soon as you read the script, you're like, okay, okay this is about to be said to my face. they have series scenes. you have to have some sort of love, some sort of anchor. and dee created that. we had workshops that were designed to make us uncomfortable. and when you have small triggers and in the moment, i feels like i'm about to lose it that is when you know it's beautiful. and we didn't dig into it, 75 takes. you have some directors who shoot and shoot and shoot and she said, i want to see what you bring. and four or five takes, we're moving on. and it was the sort of thing where you know how somebody peoples on the other side. their eyes and when i did have those moments, guys like

jonathan banks who is basically and super villain in the him. they had times where he cried and he's like, i'm not going to quite doing this. and there is that family foy mod rollry, and a support. but to look at the past, you have to be able to look at past like the future. and empg and films like this are 1ye6 go there were moments huh to get comfortable with. give me one of those. >> no the moments in the skrit, you look at her and you get on set, and you're like, i have to do it because dee's paying me to do it. i'm curious what those moments

for were you? >> one of sthem a clip that shay showed. it's so and then find yourself behind enemy lines in the town that you grew up in is incredible. and when somebody look you straight in the eyes and say, hey, hey, hey, i don't know what you thought but this is what it is. it's a huge turning point and it was one of those things, where i'm like, the push-ups. >> yeah, yeah. >> and you can see it. >> yeah. >> and flash back to easy e, right? >> right, right? >> i want to flash back to compton in the hotel. back to you,ing dee. this issue i raised earlier. i do want want to you excavate for me. wlornd -- not whether. but if there are moments where

you know you're filming then. but it feelsed so like now. >> absolutely, yeah, and i was going to say, i was going to pick the same one at the moment, he is walking down the street because he's more american when he is in germany than he is walking down his own block. we are more worried about him getting down the sideline than e we are with explosions going on and the fire fight. that same,and who is american? what does it mean to be american? and when i travel oversees, i'm received an as an american and then i'm a woman, i'm a less deean, it's layers and when i walk in a cv sferks and i feel more american out of the continue than i do in the country. as we saw with bald sbin all the

artists, ended up expay tree yating it and i understand why. >> i want to go back to something you said earlier. let me prephrase it for p you. how you take a story like this, an extension of what we talked about, take a story like this, tell it in this moment, make a point that needs to be made and make it entertaining. >> yeah, i think you make it -- you can take something important and make it felt but leading with the relationship. leading with the characters and look at performance first. this could have been a move about two brothers, or this could have been a movie about two marriages. but it's made e and e -- i do understand florence? do i believe how she feels.

>> it's investing the audience in the sirkky. it's the material that is engaging and also illuminating. >> margie jane, you carry yourself well in the projects. what do you make of marry jane in the project. >> mary j. blige is amazing. i almost want to tell people she's in it. she pulls off the biggest imagimagic and as los angeles, she is willing to let go of hourm and that's something that is rare. you don't get it with big stars too aufb. >> speaking of ancestors, both

of you mentioned that you brought yourl whole self family with you. your grandfather and on. i hear that. did you feel the frens that sense? >> what is so crazy for me, i actually took field trips to those areas when i was young. i grew up in new orleans. to some out here, it already has an earring fili. if you're not okay yourself, you might be like, oh, i have to go. >> and so we shot on an old sugar plantation. it was two hours outside. >> and back to your neck of the woods? >> yeah, violet. >> but it's literally just a roll and a bunch of plantations. and it was kind of nice too. have at one miami no one sloefs

here. and now, i mean, we are shooeing a couple out there, and it's black people -- they always victimized him and demonize people. and they put us in a box, be it's like, i have no power. that is the ensense of a black person. it was so good to be able to por stray that and to be this voice. so unheard. so. >> do, what do you hope? you send hims with messages. what do you take away? >> i hope people take away two ideas. first the idea of inin care.

not just material, what are the things that have been handed down to us. and what are the silences we have been hearing or the silences that we talked about. and when we interrogate that we will be able to do mindself of what we change passing forward. and e we are all connected to each other and we are connected to history. we are not the separate threads. we are all weaving the same narrative. you don't really you are conn t connected to the past and the people around you. >> i never thought of it that way. i love doing the show and i learn something from the people i talk to. i hadn't thought about that. inherit stories and also silence. the undoing of the stories we're trying to right. >> absolutely and that is where his stiffness creeps in, the voice in our narrative. >> what do you home to take away? >> i don't people to empath eye

and i want them to feel however you want to feel but know you have a close to feel that way. everything is about choices. you see a lot of choices in the film and you're like, okay, you see the white guy. and you see a white lady not help a white lady or help a black lady. it's all about choices. if you put 2000 babies in a room together, one black, one write, they would be able to say, okay, your skin's barker than mine but they can't see the difference because everybody's human. so what we're dealing with now is a human snu and i'm so apartment mystic. >> i think they will get him when they see i.

which is a busm digts you made the way you shot this. tell the story to make theland a character. >> absolutely yeah. >> the land itself is a character. >> that's right. and thank you, match the moreson was my sign tnning to fehr and difference of nature. it feels like the land is work against -- and so that was a cool idea to exploes and i tied with the idea of porous. you can see the outside from the outside. and these women are con staktly coming to keep the outside out and the inside in. that is inpomible but jamie, their ideas -- their believes are cores. you don't idea that for long. >> it's called "mudbound"

directed by lee rees, starring jason mitchell. >> november 17th on tv screens. >> you want to see it, november 17th. >> november 17th. thanks for watching. wait until you dheak out. good night from l.a., and keep the faith. ♪ for more information on today's show, visit tavissmiley at pbs dovrg. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me for a conversation of an oscar winning tourm. that is next time. see you then.

and my contributions from your pbss station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. it was 30 years ago this month that the good people of chicago and many of us around the world for shocked by the death of harold washington. today we will speak with his former press second. and his impact of the city which remains to this very day. and actress carmen ejogo on the film ramon j israel ea