tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight they conversation with filmmaker jonathan demme, the man behind projects like silence of the lambs and philadelphia. he has a new project about neil young. he is releasing another documentary about post-katrina new orleans and a woman named carolyn parker, based on a series we premiered on this program called "right to return." we are glad to have joined us. >> 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.

tavis: always pleased to welcome jonathan demme. he has two projects at soon. the first is a look at the life of neil young. it opens in theaters june 29. here is a scene from "neil young journeys." ♪ >> that used to be the place where i caught fish when i was 5 years old. this is a town in north ontario. it does not look anything like it did before but i can smell

it. ♪ i lived in this tent during the summer so i could be close to my chicken. i think that is why i was out there. my dad was very famous in canada. he was a great writer. this is the school they named after my dad. the golf course is being converted to a subdivision. this is the house after it was burned down. it was right here.

isn't this beautiful? that is why you do not have to worry when you lose friends. they're still in your head, still in your heart. tavis: i have a photo in my office of willie nelson, john mellencamp, dave matthews, neil young, and me at the anniversary of farm aid. i was asked to be there hosting the anniversary tv special. i went to milwaukee, i do not know why i was asked. but this photo of me next to neil young is unbelievable. why your fascination all these

years? you have done three projects. >> we did a country and western version, "heart of gold." that was a valentine to the grand old opry tradition and hank williams. that was a beautiful piece we did just for film. this time he was on toure. here it is, one man on stage with his electric guitar. filling up massey hall with this extraordinary sound. i saw the show and said we have to film this. tavis: the way you shot this, and this is so inside hollywood, but it makes it beautiful. tell me about to the treatment you get to the subject. >> the two previous film we did,

he is up there with a lot of other musicians. in heart of gold, there were 23 players on the states in part of what is magic is the way he interacts with the other musicians. we really capitalized on that and then with a smaller band we capitalized on this kinship and interplay. here we go on this tour ended this him along. we have lost one of our cornerstones, this interplay. now what we have gained is we can get our focus on neil young. we can dedicate the camera to his guitar. we can have three closeups that do not depend on tying in with anybody else. our goal was to make a film become a cinematic expression of the stories he is telling.

we did it. i think this is one of those intimate pieces that has not been done yet. tavis: the other thing that has fascinated me, i have been honored to spend time with this guy. working on projects. who knew as a kid born in mississippi i would be hanging out and working on projects with jonathan demme. >> i feel the same way. tavis: i raise that because getting to know you and not just having you on the show, i know that so much of what you do is driven by a love, a passion, a connection to humanity. you have that a lot of stuff that has made money. it has made hollywood happy. i am sure there is more in the future for you.

so much of what you do it is not the blockbuster stuff. you follow your heart is a filmmaker. >> that is one of the appeals for me with neil young. he is 99% artist. one of his great songs is called the "ordinary people." the songs which she does here, i saw that man who was as i was, early 20's what the time of kent state. he was so moved about what happened he became -- he wrote a song that became an american classic. now it is many decades later and he is singing with tremendous passion and heartache and rage about four dead in ohio. but do we even know who he is

singing about? it is much more passion and then that lyrical version that came out 10 days after the shootings. in this family have to live up to his passion. that is why we tracked down the families of the four victims of the shootings. we asked their permission to show with these young people look like. we were devastated because here are these americans and they look like all of the kids we know now. down at wall street. i feel like what he is doing with that song and what i want to do with the film is yes, we are paying tribute to these young americans who were shot down by our national guard but also a cautionary moment. we have to be careful because we have young people today being pepper sprayed by security people. how big a gap is it before we

turn guns on the and people? i feel there is a tremendous ongoing permanency to his work. tavis: protest is cyclical and we see that happening on the part of young people in various parts across the country today. what i am. about, where are the neil youngs of today? thankfully he is still around. so you the neil young up to date. i am trying to figure or and -- where those kinds of artists who are speaking out like young and others were back in the day, where they are today to match up with these and people in the streets. >> it makes me wonder because there was an emergence of this kind of musical thematic storytelling in the golden age

of hip-hop. grand master flash, there was tremendous awareness going on. i do not hear enough nowadays. there is too much to listen to. but you are right. it is hard to find somebody go, steve earle is still doing it. especially at this moment in time there is a lot of good material. tavis: i could call some names. i have had them on the show. they are out there but with the kind of conviction that the 1960's had. i got a kick at of the sang grandmaster flash. watching that come out of your math. >> i know you are young. tavis: i know them, i love them. it is you saying grand master flash. >> he did that album shortly

after the invasion of iraq. it was a living with or album which is a brilliant masterpiece. tremendously political album, it's being against war is political. is it? tavis: i think it is a moral position. >> i do too. he had to write that. i feel like we have so many gifted musicians. it would be wonderful if they would come forward and give us stuff to relate to. tavis: 1 could come to the conclusion that you are a lover of music and you are an eclectic. you have done to you love music that much? >> very much. in the early days of television, i have been thinking about

this, my flashes of me as a little boy, standing in front of the radio, freaking out at nat king cole. the stuff coming out of the radio. guy williams singing the wild horses. it was magic, that introduction. i am not the only one. then there is king kong in yankee doodle dandy. i was inoculated, maybe i was a lonely kid and i spent too much time in front of the tv, but i was inoculated with that. as a filmmaker now that i have the opportunity to film neil young, marry great music with a cinematic approach, it is heaven for me. tavis: to your point about your childhood, where and how did you

connect with your calling as a filmmaker? >> i went to the movies all of the time as a kid. i would get the papers and cut out the movie ads. i used to go into the basements of apartment buildings to be -- to see if they had any old newspapers i did not have in my collection. i was going to the movies all the time. then i had the opportunity to become a film critic on the campus newspaper. i did not have enough money to feed my movie habits. then i met roger corman. he said your reviews are good, do you want to write a screenplay. so i wrote a screenplay with my friend and partner. we gave roger the screenplay back in 1970. roger corman says, this is

pretty good. you are a good commercial director. you could produce it and joe could it directed. come out and make this movie. you can split $3,000. it will take you about a year. he was almost as saying, what we were thrilled to be writing a screenplay. the idea of making a movie, so i kicked it joe under the table and said we will do it. i wound up learning how to make films in public. roger corman back in those days, you are conducting your education in public. tavis: that is a great story. i remember him saying you were young of -- one of his young proteges. this other project you have is the carolyn parker project. i will let you talk about it.

again, i will always be humbled and honored to have spent time in the with new orleans shooting the special we showed a couple of years ago. this audience got introduced through the special some years ago. now you have a film. >> that is right. i remember we met each other and we were talking about various things and we were talking about new orleans and i told you daniel wolf and i were making these trips and filming people who had the courage to demand their right to return to their neighborhoods and not see them level then turned into green space or whatever. you said if you want to cut together some of these portraits, we could put them on the show. that is the first step in making these films. after the five nights, we took those episodes and we turned

that into an instant movie. we have 100 minutes of film. it became a pilot for the dream project, which i am hoping we are now going to move on to making something called " guardians of the frame." then we will do something on the neighborhood that got tsunami'd. it is funny because to me, fiction cannot compete with what the new orleans people have been true. you cannot make up a story that can equal the courage, tenacity, humor of the people we visited. it is so great because i remember when we went down there, we showed up at carolyn's

house with doc west, and she was like, it is so nice to have you. come on in. >> she was a sweet lady. which reminds me that i had on my radio program dave eggers, who has a new book. a wonderful review about his new book. but one of the books that made his famous was -- he told me you are working on bringing that to film. an animated film. >> we are working with a fantastic artist from minneapolis who is proving in the images he is doing that animation can be a richer way to visualize a story that with cameras and actors and extras and stuff. tavis: it is a story of a muslim

family in new orleans. they were so poorly treated in the days after hurricane country now. i'm glad you are working to bring that to the screen. i raise that because it has been almost seven years and many people have compassion fatigue. seven years is an eternity. but you are so passionately connected to do anything you can to tell the story of this city. you are a kid from long island. why the connection to new orleans? >> dozen it toward your draws people have katrina fatigue. - doesnt' it torque your jaws people have katrina fatigue? poor you.

is that the fact they do not want to reach out? that was one of the thrilling things about shooting down there. seeing these waves of young american students, the same generation we are talking about. they were the front-runner of the occupied generation which is a very thrilling thing for americans. the first energized old fashioned social response. all of these volunteers kept going down there. they do not have katrina fatigue. they kept going back. these are the american heroes of the 21st century. they are giant figures. they do not think about that way themselves but they dared to fight for their city like that and to the door of living in fe -- endure living in fema

trailers. tavis: the first time i went to your house for dinner, i wanted to see if there is a viewing room. is that where you call it? >> we call that a dent. -- a den. we have our screen down there. tavis: it is a little bit nicer than a den. i wanted to see where he watches his stuff. and of course i wanted to know, where is the oscar for her "silence of the lambs"? we go upstairs. it is on the top of the refrigerator with a bread. sitting on top of the refrigerator with bread and i

say this guy is way too cool for me. >> what is the most visited room in any house? the kitchen. what item attracts the most -- the refrigerator. [laughter] i see that every day. tavis: a have a funny story because one could listen to you and get the impression perhaps that demme has given at or put on the back burner the big hollywood production for the other stuff you are doing. would that be an accurate statement? >> i follow my enthusiasms. honestly i feel like it is easier to get a small amount of money to make a great neil young film and get a gigantic amount

of money to make a big movie. "rachel getting married" had tremendous appeal and a lot of levels. i love doing fiction. i did a film recently with andre gregory, an absent -- an adaptation of a play by ibsen. we did it in expensively. we did not have any grownups' telling us how to do it or say you are lacking a certain ingredient. that becomes difficult, at the way you might be forced into more formulaic thinking with a bigger budget. that does not happen every

buddy. i think great films are being made all the time. but it requires a certain thing. i have been working with stephen king on a screenplay for his book. i hope someday that might happen. tavis: speaking of your loyalty, some of your friends from new orleans to cast in "rachel getting married." i recognize their faces. >> " our whole approach to it was to pretend -- we had a great script, but we wanted to pretend we were making a documentary. we did not plan our shots. we followed it the same way we followed jimmy carter when we made that movie. we heard a lot of charismatic, real people to be the people in the wedding and we knew a very special kind of interaction would occur with the real actors

and the real people. it worked out really well. tavis: i think the moral of the conversation is to always follow your passions. that is what jonathan demme has done and this has worked well for him. the neil young project is out, and carolyn parker coming out this summer. and a gazillion other projects. thank you for coming to see me. that is our show for tonight. you can download are new application. see you next time on pbs. until then, keep the faith. >> you cannot get the people here? bring it to the people. i am hoping and praying they do not take that from a caesar. it is a black, a catholic church that except black catholics.

he did not have to be anything else. we were always invited. i am asking all of you, the whole panel, because i heard nothing for the lower ninth ward. those are my family, my friends, my numbers. i have been down there 59 years and i know who has been here. i know who came, i know who went. i do not think it is right you try to take our property. over my dead body. i did not die with the tree -- katrina. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for the reaction to the supreme court decision on health care and what it means for the presidential race. >> 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. >> be more. pbs. pbs.