welcome to the program. we begin this evening with north korea and former ambassador chris hill and mark landler from the "new york times." >> what has to happen is there has to be a stronger consensus within the six parties especially with the chinese tha this has just gone on too far and we need to simply make sure the north koreans understand that they are making a very clear choice not so much with isolation as the white house always says. you know, i think the north koreans are quite happy to be isolated but i think they need to understand that they will pay a terrible economic price for this... for these programs. >> charlie: we continue this evening with ben brantley of the new york times.

he's a theater critic. we talk about a new noraephron play called lucky guy starring tom hanks. >> it has the sense of a really good wake. people say remember this guy, let's have another drink, let's sing about this guy. a little too much of it was told in third person for me. and i wanted to see tom hanks who i think is capable of complex portraiture be allowed to act out those moments. we only had snippetsham. >> charlie: we conclude with the performance artist. >> you know, my work and my dedication is to really lift human spirits. this is my main attention. it's so easy to put the human spirit down but it's so difficult to lift it up. like i don't like to have the art that is corrupt to destroy and how bad it is. i want to see the solutions. i want to look at the future. my work is about future.

>> charlie: north korea, new play by nora ephron and marina abrahm wits when we continue. captioning sponsored by

rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: today the north korean government announced plans to restart its main nuclear reactor in recent weeks. both talk and action have stepped up. the isolated country mounted its third nuclear test since 2006. north korea has responded to u.n. sanctions and joined u.s. south korean military drills by declaring a state of war with its neighbor. such threats may be designed to burnish the military credentials of north korea's young leader. like the country he represents his motives and intentions remain obscure. joining me is christopher hill. he is a former u.s. ambassador to south korea and from washington d.c. mark landler of the "new york times." i am pleased to have both of them on the program. chris hill, you have dealt with the rth koreans. telle wh youhink ohese threats. should we be taking them more

seriously than in the past. >> they've certainly kind of backed themselves into a corner. that is, it's hard to imagine them getting out of this. yeah, i would take these threats pretty seriously. they seem to be really wanting to, you know, push this thing as far as they could take it especially during these exercises which, by the way, take place every single yearly and every single year the north koreans object to them. except this year they've objected in about as strenuous terms as 've seen for years and years. so i think we're in kinof a bit of a dangerous situation right now. >> charlie: how much weight do you put on the idea that this is a young leader with his regents trying to establish his own credibility? >> oh, i think that's a big part of the story. i don't think this kid is really being embraced too much by the north korean people. and so i think they're trying to burnish his credentials, as you say, and show that he's standing up to the u.s., but frankly i think a lot of people are really getting sick of this. we can see the south korean

litary, the rules o engagement have been transferred to local commanders so the danger in all this is north koreans go right up to the line. because they're kind of clumsy they'll stumble over it. they'll get into some fire fight whether in the demilitarized zone or off shore and then we've got a situation that will not be easy to deescalate. >> reporter: mark, how does the administration view this and how are they prepared to respond? >> well, i think, charlie, the administration has sort of two tracks. on the one hand, they're trying to show solidarity with their ally in south korea. there is rather vivid displays of deterrents. they sent b2 stealth bombers on a training mission over the korean peninsula. i think all this is calculated to send a signal to kim jong-un that the u.s. will standby its allies and take necessary steps to defend itself. on the otherand, in their public statements, they're being really very careful and very

muted. jay carney at the white house briefing yesterday said that there was a disconnect between the rhetoric of kim jong- and his actions, noting that the rth koreans hadn't actually moved any military troops or undertaken deployments that would suggest an imminent attack so it's sort of a combination of a shot across the bow to gym jong ewen but at the same time a desire not to have this escalate and go into just the kind of miscalculation that chris was alluding to. >> charlie: where do you put the north koreans in that context? >> well, i'd say that, you know, as chris said earlier, kim jong-un is young. there's much about him that's not own. he has every motive right now to demonstrate a toughness. on the other hand, i will say in speaking to the white house just earlier today, i think they've concluded that for all the bluster, the pattern is actually quite similar and quite familiar

to what kim's father kim jong il today. in those cases there were individual military actions, the sinking of the south korean ship, the shelling of a south korean island but the north has always managed to stophort of the kind of wider ken it i can action that would be deeply destabilizing. i think the white house, while they're still concerned, sees it more in that vein than as a truly irrational new threat that they're dealing with. >> charlie: chris, talk to me about... because you've thought about this as well. the miscalculation that might occur. >> well, certainly. first of all, the u.s. has these exercises every year. the exercises are for the purpose of making sure that we can execute the plan that have to defend south korea. that happens every year. every year the north koreans object. the difference this year is it's much more prolonged. it's gone on for some time.

it's involved some really heightened bluster. and so i guess the question is, when these exercises end toward the end of april, will the north koreans be able to kind of change their tune so quickly or will there be some need to show that they indeed are not pulling back but are prepared to do something? the danger is that the torpedo, the south korean corvette a couple of years ago shelled an island. i think the south koreans would react with a much tougher take on that. so the concern is north koreans may not quite understand that. you know, when you sit alone in north korea for decades on end, you kind of lose a feel for how others react to your behavior. so that's the real concern that they'll have a miscalculation. they'll kind of push their way in something in the demilitarized zone say in the little village there, the

so-called peace village and that they'll expect us to back off or something. i'm not sure the south koreans are going to do that. so it is a kind of a tense moment. i think the white house has handled it very well by being resolute on one hand, that is, with these deployments which i think are absolutely essential. i mean they're part of a plan of defending south korea. but at the same time accompanying it with very sort of low-key explanations. part of that is to deal with china. part of th iso show the chinese that we have know interest in escalating this thing, that this whole dance has been started by the north koreans not by us. >> charlie: speaking of the chinese, i mean you wrote a piece in which you basically said that there are a lot of tests here but the biggest test may very well be not what the world will do but what the chinese will do. >> i think what china needs to decide is do they want to be part of a sort of global structure or do they want to continue to have special relations with the likes of

robert mugabe in zimbabwe or kim junk ewen in north korea? i think we need to make very clear to the north... to the chinese that north korea is for us a question that the chinese really need to resolve. i mean, does china really see that the continuation of this type of state is something that they should be allied to at the same time to be a responsible member of the international community? it's important to understand that nobody is supporting the north koreans these days. so i think the chinese... i think this is a kind of tes for th. >> charlie: what is their capability, mark? >> well, certainly they have nuclear capacity and they also have several bombs worth of nuclear fuel. not just plutonium but what made yesterday's announcement significant on uranium is if they are going to put a uranium enrichment facility into operation, they'll be amassing uranium as a nuclear fuel.

the fact that they have a bomb and the fuel for it is not in dispute. what they clearly can't do yet is put it on the tip of a war head and deliver it anyere. they have plenty of short and medium-range missiles and they have displayed what experts say is an i.c.b.m., but it hasn't been tested and the u.s. is fairly confident that they've had no ability to hit the u.s. with a missile let alone one armed with a nuclear weapon. but, you know, the fact is they're further along than they were several years ago. and what makes yesterday's announcement significant is if they're moving on all fronts, you know, reactivating the yongon react and thenthis uranium enrichment facility. there's the danger that they could make further, more rapid strides. i think equally worrisome to the the u.s. is they could proliferate. they could be a source of expertise for other nuclear

powers like iran. this is troubling even if it's pretty clear that they couldn't hit the u.s. mainland any time soon. >> charlie: chris, what would you add to that? >> well, i think that's right. i would like to point out that the fact that they would want to restart the plutonium plant which was, you know, it's been disabled now for several years. they'd have to rebuild a cooling tower. they'd have to reattach all kinds of equipment there. the fact that they want to do that suggests that maybe, just maybe they're not as far along on uranium enrichment as they would like some of us to believe. so it's kind of hard to sort out bluster from fact here. but i think there is one basic fact we all are very acquainted with which is the fact that we don't know really how far they are. for that reason, we have to be prepared. >> chris, you have also written the following. it's interesting to me because you have been there. you basically have said, you know, that sanctions have not

worked. negotiations have not worked. and somehow that they are not the right questions or the right deal has not been proposed so that you can't say that some option has not been tried. >> well, i'm just a little skeptical of those who would say, well, there's a problem with six parties, let's have a five-party talk or seven-party talks. i think that's a rabbit hole we don't have to climb into. i think the fact is that sanctions alone, you know, you hear a lot of people talking about the asia sanction which was undertaken in 2005 and that somehow if we had stuck with that, we would have brought north korea to its knees. in fact it involved freezing some 23 million dollars worth of north korean assets. you know, clearly that in and of itself is not going to work. i think what has to happen is there has to be a stronger consensus within the six parties especially with the chinese that

this has just gone on too far and we need to simply make sure the north koreans understand that they are making a very clear choice not so much with isolation as the white house always says. you know, i think the north koreans are quite happy to be isolated but i think they need to understand that they will pay a terrible economic price for these programs plus i might add that i think secretary hagel's announcement was very important, to thicken up antiballistic missile systems. you ow, someeople would argue that's a bad idea but a bad idea whose time has come because i think we need to show the japannese and show the south koreans we're going to be with them thick and thin. that our treaty with them is really meaningful to them and that they shouldn't take things into their own hands. >> charlie: who do we think is making the decisions in north korea? >> well, it's hard to say but i think the military is extremely powerful in the equation. probably the most important

force. by the way i've been in ongyang. i've met with some of these military people. they make some of these other guys look like liberals. i mean, it is very tough to get through to some of these military people. so i think they really have an important say. but i think also his, kim jong-un's regent who is kim jong il's brother-in-law. he appears to be a key figure. there's probably a kind of rule of civilians around that, the so-called nomenclature who kind of work with the military. i can't emphasize enough the fact tat even though this has caused an international crisis, when you sit there in pyongyang you have no concept that there's a greater world out there. you're just talking about who got... which mercedes last week. i mean it is a very insular crowd. so decisions may be made for reasons that we have no idea why they're being made. >> charlie: mark, let me come

back to u.s. options and what they think they are. >> i think the u.s. at the moment is stick to go the strategy they've had now for four years which goes under the name stratic patience. the u.s. doesn't agree to si down to direct talk s with the north koreans unless they denuclearize, renounce their nuclear weapons. they continue to layer on harsher and harsher sanctions in the hope that evidence notwithstanding that they will have some kind of impact. i mean, i think it's fair to say for president obama north korea was not and has been not top of mind as a foreign policy issue for most of his first term. he was consumed with the war in afghanistan. the nuclear showdown with iran is in some ways a higher level issue for the white house so the president, i think, has been, you know, practicing the strategy of just showing patients and trying to wait out the north koreans to some extent. what's interesting is this

recent round of provocations and the shillness of the rhetoric from pyongyang has sort of forced it back on the white house's agenda. it will be the center piece of secretary of state john kerry's first visit to asia next week. he's going to china, jan and south korea, i imagine it will be a central item in all of those countries. but i don't detect at all in talking to white house officials that they are weighing a new attempt at diplomacy, a new formula. you know, as chris has correctly said, we've been down this road over and over again, and just changing six parties to five doesn't necessarily give you some secret key to unlock this. >> charlie: as chris has said also, north korea has looked at every offer and turned eryone down even when ey me a proposal of somhing they seem to b interested in, they seem after making the proposal simply to forget it and dismiss it. right, chris? >> that's right.

they seem to want it until they don't want it. it's usually after you've moved heaven and earth to get it for them. >> charlie: i remember what sonny liston said about muhammad ali. i'm scared of no man but a crazy man. there are some sense that the united states would like to have somebody they could, you know, could exercise some rationale to somebody. i assume, chris, what you have meant is that the chinese will be the best people to do that if in fact they were prepared to make that kind of decision. >> i think the chinese are coming to a decision. i mean, you see more and more sort of papers and articles coming out of chinese think tanks about the fact that they've kind of had it with the north koreans. i think what the chinese need to do is come to terms with the fact that probably at some point in the future there will be a unified korean peninsula. it will be the republic of korea. it doesn't mean it's a u.s. victory and a chinese defeat. they kind of need to get over that kind of way of thinking. charlie: well said. thank you, chris hill former

u.s. ambassador to south korea. now a dean at university of denver. >> you've got it. charlie: and mark landler from the "new york times." thank you both. back in a moment. stay with us. >> thank you, charlie. charlie: one of the late nora efron's final projects captured the life of a new york daily news columnist. it made its broadway debut a year after her death. to has is the star. >> i am a newspaper reporter and i love my job. and i'm doing god's work. i'm serving the public. i'm telling people what happened yesterday. i'm telling them the facts. i'm rewarding the guys and i'm putting the bad guys away. there is such a thing as facts. that's my story. >> your story is a kid with a bad case. you're probably never going to get over it. >> that's how you tell the

story. >> exactly. you've also got a gut for red meat. you t people to talk who don't want to talk. some day you're going to have your own column. >> you really think so? because i swear to god that's all i've ever wanted. my writing a column in new york city, everything else is second place. and you think it might happen? >> i do. when it does, that will be a fact. i've got a wife and a kid. you left that out of the story. >> so did you. charlie: joining me now is ben brantley chief drama critic for the "new york times." in today's paper he wrote lucky guy has the heart and energy of the perpetually engaged and insabre ally curious observer that efron seems to be. i am pleased to have ben brantley back at this table. been too long. >> thank you very much. charlie: tell me about this play. >> what's great about the play?

i think people forget because she was such a sharp witt what a romantic nora was. she fell in love with journalism. she was in the guys' news room e write in an essay part which is included in the program. there's a kind of... both an aspect of an valentine and an elegy. i came to new york in the 1970s myself. although my first news room was women's world daily there was still a lot of cigarette smoke a lot of "oh, we've got to get this done right away." she captures that kind of urgency. and everyone telling stories about each other that are both mythologizing and denigrang. >> charlie: but ambion for the story and the telling of the story. >> exactly. i think that's exactly what she does. with this play. it's not so much for me the story of mike mechanicallery. is that how you pronounce? >> charlie: (pronouncing it

differently). >> as it is a portrait of the time. it was really the end of days for it too. >> charlie: journalism as practiced in newspapers. we still have it but we don't have the... >> we don't that kind of... charlie: that combination of characters. >> there's a telling in the moment where someone talks about actual hisig story is pulitzer prize winning story on abner being seen on television which made the editors feel comfortable in going with the story the next day. obviously television was envious. >> charlie: but what's interesting about it is that his story, how might nora have decided, a, it's journalism? b, it's a time in journalism? but it's, c, a really larger than life character in some ways not only about his personality but about what happened to him. >>ell, yeah. i think any time anyone does young, i mean, it is a good career move. he was 41 which is heart breaking. that gives it an immediate

poignancy. >> charlie: and four months after he won. >> four months after he won the pulitzer. that's a very touching scene when tom hanks as mike comes into the news room and bids his farewells, well not even farewells. he makes it very upbeat and so forth. >> charlie: just to add to the point. he had been in a terrible automobile accident which had changed his life. >> right. he also had this moment where he said a woman who had bee raped had not been raped, in fact. so that was the nader of his career. he was... suddenly his column was being pushed into the back of the paper. here's this moment of redemption. in that sense it's a very satisfying art. >> charlie: what is it that you found wanting for you as a theater critic? >> well, what i liked about it on some level is it has the sense of a really good wake. people sitting around saying, "remember this guy. let's have another drink. let's sing about this guy. a little too much of it was told in third person for me. and i wanted to see tom hanks

who i think is capable obviously of complex portraiture be allowed to act out those moments. we only had snippets of him sitting down and interviewing. i didn't get a sense from watching hanks how mechanicallery would have been. the other thing i didn't get from him and i'm not sure it's fault with hunger which might have been so immense. >> reporter: it had to be. switching from one paper to another was a great ambition and driving... >> i think hayes was making money like not before. >> charlie: very much alive today. had a personality that is, you know, larger than life. >> i guess he rather enjoys the portrait that is being presented up there. >> charlie: i think he'll be on the show maybe tomorrow. we'll talk more about this. i want you to see... obviously i knew mike and we lived in bellport and eddie lives there. and had talked to him. at different times in his life. here is one clip from an interview he did on this

program. roll tape. >> usual be in one place. i am in one place. i'm happy now. and more quiet. because you know i nearly died in an accident. >> reporter: tell me about that night. >> you know, you write all these columns about people that... you want people to like heroes. unsinkable characters. and in a way you become that but it's fake. you're not really gritty or tough. but aftethe accident i was in a coma for t weeks. and in the hospital for two months. i had to work for six months. in order to come back and write this book, none of this book was written before the accident by the way. and write a column. i had to be calm. the people i like to write about. my recovery in that part of the whole thing is real.

maybe i'll never have another heroic moment but for one month and one year i was... i was. to me this is the only thing, a journalist, a columnist in new york. everything else is second place. and i loved it before. and i reclaim that. and i realize that i had to fight for it. i had to come back. >> reporter: imagine someone today saying all i ever wanted to be was a columnist in a new york paper. i don't think that's an ambition too that many people aspire to anymore. >> but they clearly did then. of course. charlie: you said it's a series of anecdotes. >> it is. it's meant to be structured that way. then he did that. remember, who can forget this. what i like about it is that it does capture nora's passion for that kind of thing. i think she interviewed aate lot of people for this. and used a lot that was fairly

verbatim from those stories. so but up don't really... a lot of it is kind of episodic. then he did this. then he did this. then this happened. there's a moment, for example, where he's... where a cop that he's interviewed has killed himself after a corrupt cop after the story that mike wrote about him appeared. and then there are other people saying but, you know, i think he really enjoyed it. look at the press he got him. i kept waiting for the moment where tom hanks would be allowed to embody that moment, that kind of ambiguity. i wish the play had slowed down just to let him take over a little more. and show that arc, that character himself. >> charlie: in your review appearing in this morning's "new york times" you said if love were really all you needed, nor a he have ron's lucky guy would be the best show of the season hands down. >> well, everyone adored her. i was in london when she died. i had seen her just two weeks

before at the theater with nick. her husband. and she looked good. she seemed... i didn't talk to her but, you know, nodded and so forth. so i thought it was a joke. as many people did initially because the secret had been so well kept. but with the next day... and this is london. in the guardian or the times on the front was a picture of nora with the woman everyone wanted to be her best friend. >> charlie: indeed. imagine generating that kind of response. >> charlie: at her memorial service, you know, you heard that. it reflects two things. you may have mentioned this in your review. tom hanks and his wife rita wilson aked out nora and nick her husband who had one of the famous romances of certainly among journalists. >> no question about it. charlie: among new yorkers. what i loved about tom hanks and rita wilson doing that was you got the sense of how infectious they were and how enthusiastic they were as

conversationalists. and then this happened. and i do think some of that energy is translated into lucky guy. >> charlie: tom hanks' performance you think? >> the only problem... the disadvantage and the great advantage tom hanks has is he can't help being likable. i think if tom hanks played jeffrey dahmer we'd root for him. in a way it makes i think aspects of mechanicallery were more powerful. >> charlie: you mean t overwhelming ambition. >> he's fun, tom hanks is, at the very beginning where he's going, hey, guys, here i am "and so forth. as it went on, he became the classic tom hanks every man i think. >> charlie: part of that is what he suffered in terms of the injury and going through the trial of... >> exactly. charlie: saying the wrong things about... >> yeah. he was chastened. when i was... in the advance pieces i had read that he was

shown as being not terribly nice to his wife. i didn't get that from the play. >> charlie: not at a. sort of looked like very good relationship. she was instrumental to keeping him... >> very placid relationship. she kept him grounded. >> charlie: this is nora talking on this program just three years ago or two-and-a-half years ago about her love of journalism. here it is. >> journalism was something that i was deeply in love with as anything i've ever been in love with. it was so romantic. it was so, you know, i had grown up not seeing the great movies because they weren't reshowing them on television when i was a kid yet. but the aura of the front page and even in superman, even in superman on television, lois lane and the daily planet, it looked like a great job. and it is the greatest job. >> charlie: and it was. you liked the stories you

covered. you liked the idea of doing it. >> i loved it. charlie: you liked the process of doing it. i liked the people who did it. >> i think it is a fantastic job. you i kind of look back on it on soone you were once in love with and you bump into him and you think, "what did i ever see in him?" as you get a little wiser. and about the, you know, the pretensions of journalism, when i was young and still, you know, the pretensions to truth. i really did think that when you wrote a story you were writing the truth. >> she makes that point in the play too. it's never as black and white as news print. >> charlie: you also see the love affair with journalism there and saying that it's never quite as attractive as you remembered. >> it's like when you look back on your first apartment with the cockroaches. it was a much grittier, dirtier, probably more dangerous environment than journalism is today. >> charlie: how is broadway

otherwise? >> i think the best is yet to come. it hasn't been a dazzling season thus far but we've got matilda which i loved in london, the musical adopted from the raul dahl book. very original sensibilit i have fee own an playing the virgin mary. we have bette midler playing. and al he can baldwin and/or fans. there's some interesting stuff coming up. i wish broadway were not quite so reliept on star power on stars from other media. because i think sometimes you get casting that's not quite ideal. on the other hand, what i wanted someone other than tom hanks to play mike, no, i don't think so. >> charlie: for lots of reasons. exactly. charlie: thank you, ben. thank you very much for having me.

>> reporter: marina is here. she is a performance artist who helped define the medium in its early days. she has remained a figure in that world of performance art for years. she is known for grueling performances that help push the limits of human earn deurns. here's a look at some of her early work.

more recently she won the golden lion as the venice and set attendance record at the museum of modern art in new york city. i am pleased to have her here on this program for the first time. welcome. >> thank you. reporter: how are you? very well. absolutely. >> reporter: you're not nervous? how could you be nervous? you're a performance artist. >> if i have to do any speech or even work with students i'm nervous. if imnot nervous, then i'm nervous why i'm not nervous. >> charlie: are you better if you're nervous. >> yes, much better. it's very important. it's about focusing. >> reporter: one of the most intriguing things about you for me is your mother and father. tell me about your mother.

>> wilson. here's a piece which we can see this year. i want to see your art. art everybody knows by now but i'm definitely interested in your mother. >> charlie: that's exactly what i said. i know bob wilson. i'm pleased to be in rank with him. >> he said to me. you went to play your mother on the stage and yourself. this is for me absolutely terror. my mother was the terror of my life. she learned me to focus. she learned me everything i use now but at the same time she was doing this, i hate it so much. >> charlie: give me example of what she did that made you hate her. >> she never kissed me in my life. one interesting thing. >> charlie: why is that a discipline? why is she disciplining you by never kissing you? >> when i was 30 years old i put her in the theater she looked like someone in the later stage of her life with the pearls and the black dress. i asked her, you know, i was

behind the camera. i was really emotional. i said mother, why you never kiss me. she completely surprised to this kind of nonsense question. she said to me, what did you think? of course not to spoil you. my mother never kissed me either. then i understood this chain reaction that she thought it was totally normal. >> charlie: do you think love and some kind of physical expression is important? in other words, do young kids growing up need to feel a sense of confidence that comes in part from knowing that people who love you... >> there's a huge research on the infant children that the gaze of the mother and holding the mother of the infant children makes their life incredibly emotionally stable later on. to me it was very traumatic. my life took me a long time to actually get this emotional stability and to to me the love of my audience became the important kind of feedback because i never got from the

mother. you can always explain this kind of stuff. she will make me in the middle of the night if my bed is not straight if i make too messy. now i go to the hotels. >> charlie: you still sleep very straight. >> i usually look like nobody was there. >> charlie: and your father? and myather, you know, he was, you know, my father was really real communist in the pure sense. >> charlie: in yugoslavia. my mother was bourgeois completely commoner but bourgeois but father was communist. he really was thinking about sacrifice for the cause. everything was important to him. to denounce the property, the private possessions to, you know, let's have more and more of less and less and mother was always completely separate. let's have more and more of everything. i was in kind of living in these two completely opposite energy.

then comes this grandmother and my uncle was a saint. proclaimed as a saint in the church. so i come through this complete religious background with my grandmother and this hard communively of the father. >> charlie: all of it influenced you. >> then on the end i became a buddhist. but with grandmother story was wooppedderful when i was like five or six years old. i was always with her in the church because mother and father weren't. then one day you go there to, you know, to take your fingers to put in the cross yourself in the church when you enter. i stood up and i drank all this water because i was thinking if i drink all the water i would become holy. i did get very sick but it was my first attempt at holiness. >> charlie: james wes cot who is your biography he said your art is a craving for attention and devotion. >> i have to say that this biography that he wrote and i gave him all the material.

i ly actually verify the facts. i could not read it. it's too much. it's easy to simplify in that way but much more than that i think. >> reporter: what is it? my work and my dedication to the art is really to lift human spirits. this is my impression, my main intention. it's so easy to put the human spirit down. but it's so difficult to lift it up. you know, like i don't like to have the art present to society is corrupt to destroy and how bad it is. i want to see the solutions. i want tlook at the future. and my work is about future. >> charlie: and instilling what? inspiring what? >> to inspire any visitor that happened something to him looking at my art. it's very highly emotional. one of the critics said to me, you know, american is a friend of mine. he said i hate your work. why? he said it makes me cry. mostly he wanted to get... everything has to be

intellectual but my work you have to have by gut by the body. >> charlie: some critics have said it's too dark. >> you know, the dark, yes. i think it becomes positive. but i have to enter the pain. pain is such an important element in my work. >> charlie: pain? pain. in our life there are two things we are afraid. we are afraid of pain and we are afraid of something. and dying is a big issue. i stage elements of pain. i stage the dangerous moments in the form of performance and i go through these emotions in the front of the public. the public is a mirror. if i can do this for myself, they can do it in their own life. theyan cross theimitsnd take the risks. >> charlie: let's talk the retrospective at m.o.m.a. in 2010. how many hours did you sit there? >> 736. charlie: what was that about? looked so simple. the creators... curator said to

me, okay, you're going to do this performance. you're going to sit in this chair in the front of you will be nobody. what is going to happen? i said i will sit anyway. it happened that that chair was constantly occupied so much that the people sitetween seven hours to five, six, ten, you know, you know, they're coming back in the next day sleeping out in front of the museum. it was incredible. people in new york, why are they doing this? what is happening? why did it take us to be in the front? >> charlie: what do you think? you know, because we need so much to experience something. we are tied to look at thing. we want to experience. nobody changes from experiee somebodylse but if you have your own experience that is something that matters. >> charlie: no one ever changed because of the experience of reading a great book? >> if somebody made the journey and, you know, whatever, explorer, and make the great

book. read his book. it's wonderful and inspiring but it doesn't change you because you didn't make this trip. you have to make journey. that makes all the difference. that empty chair was the journey that you have to make yourself. >> charlie: it is said that there was... and i mentioned men in your life. i think i'm pronouncing this right, you-leaf. you two would sit across from a table for hours and hours. >> we also went to china and said good-bye walking each of us 12,000 kilometers just to come to the middle and say good-bye. >> charlie: he was the first great love of your life. >> yes. charlie: how long did it last? >> 12 years. charlie: 12 years. yes. charlie: what happened? i think that... you know, there's different theory. if you ask him he'll have one. but my theory was that actually for me this was a deal situation. men are love and work altogether.

>> charlie: love and work together. >> it was too much pressure. we became this ideal love couple, art and love couple. >> charlie: created art together and made love together. >> and there was a projection on us. he could not handle the pressure. he just wanted a simple life. and then, you know, he actually started cheating in private life. this broke everything. >> charlie: he cated y thi becausehe couldn't stand the pressure of too much attention to the fact that you worked and played snowing. >> yeah. it was impossible. >> charlie: would he acknowledge that? >> you know, he told me that he won't change. he doesn't want to have this relationship anymore. before that, we had this idea to go to china and to marry when we meet in the middle. finally the chinese took eight years because china was not open to foreigners to actually give permission. the moment they say yes we were ending our relationship.

we decide never, you know, never, you know, the kind of... i always have to do things. we decide actually to anyway walk but instead of marrying saying good-bye. this was the end of the relationship and the end of the love story. he said to me but is not maybe a phone call easier way to say good-bye. >> charlie: than walking all that distance in china. >> three months each. charlie: and the next great love affair for you was? >> my husband. i don't like to talkabou that. >> charlie: because. because it's too painful. charlie: you who talk about endurance, you who talk about the ability to withstand say i can't talk about that because it's too much pain. >> it's been two years later we are talking so it's a perfect distance. this is recent. in a way i don't think the private life really makes any

difference about what i want to do in art because i really sacrifice my private life completely. >> charlie: i ve that assumption. >> this is really important because i think when you want to to be an artist in the way i wanted to be, it's like a disease. it's like you can't do anything else. you're possessed. you wake up in the morning and you do your work. there's no space for family. i'm definitely not marriage material. i'm the worst. >> charlie: people ask why there are so few female artists who succeed and you say because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. >> two husbands died before she wa60 to make all her career. this is what happened it's not easy at all. loneliness is something that you have to not be afraid of. >> charlie: you wear this as a badge of courage. >> yeah. it's very partisan. snairlt the idea that there were partisans in yugoslavia.

>> it means warrior. charlie: the lovely thing about your parents, back to them, tell me if i'm wrong about this but as i remember it he -- he found her and saved her. she was almost bleeding to ath. >> yes. charlie: and then she comes back and finds him and he's almost bleeding to death gee same blood group. >> charlie: same blood group and they save each other. quite a story. >> then came the peace. then i was born. and then they discovered that in real life they have nothing in common. >> charlie: they have nothing in common but saving their lives. >> but at the same time two totally different backgrounds. my father liked toun the pig in the backyard of the house and have the drink with his partisan friends. my mother likes to go to the theater and the ballet. that's two different...

>> charlie: didn't she become a curator at a museum. >> she was the director of the museum of art in the revolution. every kind of president who comes to see the museum, you can see the people photographed with partisans together with the guns and art. i really hated this museum so badly. >> charlie: was his life most meaningfulo him when he was a partisan? >> the worst part for him was to actually to accept... he never could accept the change. when he died, i made a piece called the hero. he was always riding on the white horse. i made this piece called my horse hero. wearing the white flag. to me the white flag was a a symbol of surrendering. i called the piece the hero and dedicated it to my father because it was about the hero who can never learn to surrender. you had to surrender to change anhe could never do it. >> charlie: people talk about feminism and art and can you create art and be a feminist and

all those kinds of things. you say art has no gender and therefore you can't be a feminist. you personally correct? >> absolutely. charlie: at the same time though you say that women can't be... don't have the same endurance as men so therefore they can't... >> no, they're much stronger than men. >> charlie: stronger than men. much stronger. we have the life force to make a child. they don't. but, you know, it's very interesting about this feminism because it's so different of the feminism in america, so different in yoslavia. in yugoslavia the woman have the same kind of rights like a man always. we never had the need to be feminist. just recently the singer made a wonderful festival meltdown in london. he asked me to do something that i never had done myself: to make the lecture just for women. there were 2,000 or more women. >> charlie: 2.5 thousand.

disabled women, women from art. the women from the, you know, from industry. and it was incredible. i never understood the energy of that kind of sisterhood that i had. you know, i stood there in front of them and i talked. and i never preferred anything. it just came out of me. at the last minute i decided simultaneously to completely undress myself and stand naked in front of them. they all stood up and closed our eyes and we just had this energy passing between us. no one made the photograph of that scene. i don't have a photograph. >> charlie: no one did photograph the scene. you know what i thought yowere going say. i thought you were going to say they all stood up and undressed themselves. >> it was not necessary. i wanted to be naked, completely like a child born, you know, something very, very pure. and give this kind of energy. it was amazing experience i have to say. never had it in my life. >> charlie: let's go to number 3 the abrahmwitj method.

tell me what i should receive from this. >> i come from the background. my grandmother was always going to t church. as a child i used to go with her. i was very impressed by the icons, especially serbian, greek, and russian part of those icons. then i heard all the stories about icons making miracles and creating an inner light. in the icons it is all about the internal journey of enlightenment. in the state of pure consciousness, you produce light. and oject it to the outside world. the light comes from inside. >> charlie: tell me what i just saw. >> what you saw it's what you feel. that's important. you know what is the method?

the method can i just demonstrate with this glass of water. very simple. you see, we take this glass of water and we drink without consciously just automatically. you will take this glass of water and really close your eyes and put next to your lips and feel the coldness and the touch of the liquid on your tongue. then take small sips. swallow and find all the energy. you know, and then the simple example drinking water becomes ritual. so to me it's really opening consciousness about every single action we are doing. it's because we are just becoming invalids of technology. in my institute i just want to open... it's really about that. it's about ritualizing everyday life but also learning the public to actually come to terms with themselves. it's so simple. it's so important because we

lost it. we lost our center so long ago ago, and the artists... the art has predict the future. art has to be disturbing and art has to, you know, give you some kind of idea, you know, of what can happen to you and how it can lp a ask questions. one of the things i'm doing is creating that method. here we are talking about inside light. >> charlie: you're creating it or teaching it? >> i create and teach too. to go through my institute you have to sign the contract that you have to spend six hours as a normal visitor. you have to spend six hours in the space. you have to give you time if i give you experience. if you don't give me your time you go to him. it's as simple as that. the moment that you go there, you really, we are going through different experiences. it's complated to explain in such a short time. basically you really can change

your consciousness. it's all about changing consciousness today. that's what i wanted to create the method that we can actually access that. >> charlie: when i asked people, scientist, what do you want to most understand? what are their biggest questions about, they always say consciousness. >> when you ask a scientist, a brain surgeon. what is the brain? you know what you say. snr tissue. >> we don't know. we don't know so many things. we are just guessing things. one thing that we can really deal is we can, you know, open certain areas in our body that are basically closed. this is why i made the very, you know, experiment to scientists, russian and americans. if you have the caps in your brain and the person opposite of me have the same and we engage in this gaze you can see literally how the brain can function and how it should send enormous amounts of subconscious message between each of us.

now we are analyzing data to s what it means. especially nonverbal communication with a complete stranger. and the brain is to active. we have no idea what's going on. scientists have to give some answers to all of this. >> charlie: they're finding out more and more everyday but at the same time and they're also finding interesting ways how those people who thought about it without the kind of techniques we have today were right. and i also think that art has something to do with it as well. i mean, you're on to something important. >> to me what is very important is what we are looking to the institute i'm trying to create is the mixture between art, tech nothing and science. and spirituality. you know, people in south africa, they were worshipping the little satellite but nobody knew they existed untilled the scientists found the telescopes strong enough to find out that they exist. how could they know?

intuition? you see spirituality has already so much inside of things that the size of the truth, otherwise they don't exist because they have to be conclusive. that's really interesting a combination between science and technology with the intuition of artists who can be completely a new area to experiment. >> charlie: thank you for coming. >> thank you. charlie: very good to see you. captioning sponsored by rose communications caioneby media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org