>> rose: welcome to the broadcast. health care reform took a step forward today when senator max baucus, the chairman of the finance committee, announced his plan. we'll talk to one member of the gang of six which had a lot to do with negotiating what came out of the finance committee, senator jeff bingaman, democrat from new mexico. >> this takes you from about 83% of our population having insurance coverage to something close to 95% of our population having insurance coverage. and that has enormous benefits, not just for those individuals but also it helps to take the pressure off of the premiums that people are paying today because the premiums that people are paying today that have

insurance reflects the cost of providing health care to folks that don't have insurance. >> rose: then to two terrific directors who happen to be women they are jane comp i don't know who has a new interesting film called "bright star" about a love affair with john keats. >> halfway through biography of keats, i came across this love story. i didn't know about it and i was just completely overwhelmed by it. and keats died and they had to be separated i just... something about the purity and the tenderness of it and... just got through to me. and i didn't at the time think i knew of a way of making it into a film. but it had such an impact, it stayed with me and i kept returning to the idea until i thought of the idea of telling it through brawne. >> rose: and catherine bigelow, the direct of of "the hurt

locker," coming with director screen wryer mark boal. >> i think of them as surgeons where they have extraordinary motor skills. >> dexterity. >> extraordinary dexterity but there's absolutely no margin for error. so if a surgeon is working on a patient, they make a mistake, the patient dies. in this case, if the surgeon makes a mistake, he dies. >> but at the end of the day, they're still human beings engaged in this very mechanical, tactile sense with the bombs. so even... it's incredible to me that even in 2009 this kind of thing is going on. but it has to do with the complexity of the bombs and the way they are made to decide to deal with them. but that's what the movie really captures. >> rose: health care reform and two very interesting film directors when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: senator max baucus, chairman of the senate finance committee, today released his much-anticipated health care reform bill. the proposal would provide health insurance for nearly 30 million americans at a cost of $856 billion over ten years. the bill would also impose stricter regulations on the insurance industry, cut medicare spending, and provide subsidies for low-income americans. senator baucus said the bill represented a true compromise

effort that could pass congress. >> we've done everything imaginable to get the most generous, most affordable coverage that we could within president obama's target of $900 billion. there are honest and principled differences among all of us working for reform and this package may not represent all of our first choices. but at the end of the day, we all share a common purpose: that is to make the lives of americans better tomorrow than they are today and to get health care reform done. which means the time to come for action is now, and we will act. we will act and pass health reform legislation this year. >> this is probably one of the largest pieces of social legislation in history since the depression. it affects everybody in our country. it affects everybody in many different ways. >> rose: the bill was crafted after months of negotiations among a bipartisan group dubbed

"the gang of six." many in washington consider it the only proposal with a chance of gaining republican support, but so far no republicans have endorsed it. joining me now are washington is one member of the gang of six, senator jeff bingaman, a democrat from new mexico. he has indicated that he will support the bill proposed by senator baucus today. i am pleased this evening to have him on this program. welcome. >> nice to be here. thank you. >> rose: give me your assessment of this. what in the end does the compromise do and not do that you favor? >> well, i think it does the main things that the president's been talking about. it reforms the health insurance industry practices which need to be reformed, such as denying folks coverage for pre-existing

conditions. it outlaws that. it has variety of provisions in it to reform e insurance market. it also reforms the payment system in medicare and in medicaid, the main two government programs that relate to health care. it expands coverage. as you said in your earlier statement, it expands coverage to a lot of folks who currently don't have coverage. it also, according to the congressional budget office, is able to do this while reducing the size of the deficit in the next ten years and reducing the growth in health care costs over the next couple of decades. >> rose: noticeably, obviously, is the question of public option. where do you stand on that, first. and, second, does this bill suggest that public option is dead as an alternative? >> well, first, i've been fortunate to be on both the finance committee-- which is the committee senator baucus

chairs-- and also the health and education committee that senator dodd chaired on an interim basis during senator kennedy's illness here, prior to his death. and i support a public option. i supported it in the health and education committee bill that we reported out. i hope we'll have the votes to adopt a public option. in this bill, in the finance bill that senator baucus put forward, he has proposed that we do a co-op system, the federal government do that instead. i think that depending upon how that was implemented it could get you to what the same place. i don't think it's as good a choice, but it could provide the same kind of competition and a choice for folks if it was properly implemented. >> rose: you realistically think the co-op could be the competition that the public option would have offered? >> well, i think it's... it

could and it depends on who takes up the challenge to establish co-ops and how well established they become. there's no reason why under the language of the bill that senator baucus put forward a co-op could not establish itself and indicate that it's going to get licensed to do business in 50 states and become a significant competitor to the private insurance industry. and provide a very genuine choice for folks. i don't know that that would happen. as i say, i prefer the public option where the secretary of health and human services is directed to establish a nonprofit that would operate on a national basis. i think that's preferable. >> rose: what would have been necessary to get republicans? you've been negotiating with republicans, to support this baucus plan. >> well, i think senator baucus has gone the extra several miles

to try to get republican support and i hope that by the end of our markup we will have some republican support. i don't think that we have a final answer for from the republicans as to whether or not they would be able to support a bill coming out of the finance committee. i hope they'll be able to. but i feel very strongly that senator baucus has tried to find something here that would accommodate some of the legitimate concerns the that folks have raised. and at the same time, achieve the objective it is president set out. >> rose: when you look at the medicare cuts, some democrats are questioning whether they are cuts in fact. and republicans say that's part of what's wrong with the baucus plan. >> yeah. and, frankly, there's a lot of irony in this. most of the republicans have been fighting against medicare for years and years and have fought the establishment of it

and now they're claiming that they're the great defenders of it. the proposal that senator baucus has made is not to cut medicare beneficiaries or the benefits available to people under medicare. it is, though, to insist upon increased efficiencies in the administration of medicare and to get away from some of the excessive payments to health insurance companies that are being made in medicare. and i think every exnaert's looked at it says that there's a lot of federal spending that can be curtailed in that area without adversely affecting benefits of medicare beneficiaries. >> rose: how will this bill affect the quality of health care? >> well, we hope that the payment reforms in medicare and in medicaid, particularly medicare, sthans where's the federal government weights in the heaviest, we hope that those

payment reforms will cause provideers to focus more on quality, focus less on quantity tee or volume of services provided. and that that will carry through the entire health care delivery system. we believe strongly that there's been too much focus on... since medicare currently reimburses providers on the basis of how many procedures they perform in many cases, that tends to emphasize quantity instead of quality. we're trying to get away from that. >> rose: what were the challenges in terms of addressing the cost element? >> oh, i think challenges are substantial in addressing the cost element. again, i think part of the problem is that everyone likes what they have now, when you try to say "we're going to save some

money in medicare by cutting back on the excessive profits some companies have been able to on main that area," that's a challenge. you get a lot of pushback on that. i think that containing costs also is how do you build into the delivery system so disincentives to overuse the system? and unfortunately we got a lot of encouragement of people to overuse the system. people with extremely good health care coverage really have no reason to think about what it costs, no reason to concern themselves with that. and we need to find some way to send a signal to everybody that there is a cost involved every time you ring up the physician or you go by your physician's office and people need to understand that.

>> rose: as you obviously know as a practicing politician, there has been this rising... that this has taken center place the domestic equation of american political life in washington and around the country with demonstrations and all the other things that have happened at town meetings. what do you think has influenced in the public debate... has had the most influence on what happened in washington? >> well, i don't know. i think there are forces on all sides of it. i do think that the public... there's a genuine concern about the size of deficits. >> rose: right. >> and this is coming up at a time when the federal government has taken on a lot of additional spending in order to help us get the economy growing again. we passed the stimulus package earlier this year which i think was the right thing to do in

order to get us out of the recession. but there are many in the public who doubt that and who disagree with that point of view. so there's legitimate concerns. i think there's also some element of politics involved in this. and i do think that there are folks... some in the congress who pretty much made it clear that they don't want this president to have this kind of an achievement when he gets around to running again and they think that's another reason why we should oppose this. >> rose: how large an element is that, do you think? >> well, i don't know that it's the overwhelming element, but i do think there's some of that that you pick up in statements that members of congress have made. >> rose: that they can't imagine any health care reform that they would support. >> well, i think the position is they wouldn't want to support

any major health care reform on this president's watch. >> rose: do you have any thoughts about the fact that... what jimmy carter said and what some columns have been writing about race has become an element in the opposition to president obama? >> i don't have any real insight into that, quite frankly. i don't think it's a significant factor in this health care debate. i have not in any way picked it up as a factor in this health care debate. i do think there's some real politics involved, as i indicated. but i think that we've got a democratic president here who is encountering very stiff opposition from some who are very anxious to see him fail and i hope that that's not a majority. and i believe it's not a majority. i think that most people in congress are trying to deal with the issue on the merits, most democrats are, most republicans

are, and i hope that that's the way it comes out in the end. >> rose: you think you'll get olympia snowe's support? >> i certainly hope senator snowe will support this bill once it goes through a markup process. she is clearly concerned about the problem in a very genuine way and i've spent the last couple of months in a lot of hours of meetings with senator snowe and the rest of that group of six she is genuinely trying to find a solution that she can support. and so i have no doubts about her bona fides on this issue. >> rose: so she's looking for something she can support. she's clearly on the side of someone who believes we ought to have health care reform and present me, mr. president, congress, with a bill that i can support because that's where i want to be. >> that's my reading of the situation. i think she's genuinely anxious to support major health care reform because she recognizes

the problems that exist in our current system. >> rose: finally this. the gang of six was a good idea? >> i think it was a good idea. i think that the bill is a better product now than it would have been had we just gone directly to a markup in the finance committee without the input of different point of views. i can't say... you know, this is one step? a multistep process but i think senator baucus deserves some credit for having put together a very credible proposal. and i think this group of six process that he devised helped him do that. >> rose: senator bingaman, thank you very much on this day for talking with us. >> nice to talk to you. >> rose: senator jeff bingaman from new mexico. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: jane campion is here.

she is an acardmy award winning director and writer. he films have examined human passion, mental illness and the artistic temperament. in 1993 she won the best screenplay oscar for her film "the piano." here's a look at some of her earlier work. >> sweetie, i'm afraid you can't come this time. i want you to stay, okay? come on, princess. if you're dad's real girl, you know that, don't you? come on, out you go. >> no! >> it's not musty at all. you taste one. >> we shouldn't be doing this. >> no, go on.

>> she says it's per piano and she won't have him touch it. he can't read, he's ignorant. >> you'll be able to play it. teach him how to look after it. >> go on like this. >> i made a plan years ago and i'm acting on it today. >> it must have been a very pleasant one. >> it was, very simple. it was to be as quiet as possible. >> as quiet? >> not to worry, not to strive

nor struggle. to content myself with little. i've spent a great many years here on that plan and been not at all unhappy. >> came from behind you? >> i don't know. >> did you turn? >> he just... he grabbed my head in his arm. he had his arm around my neck. >> so he must have come up from behind you, then. was it his right arm or his left >> it was his right. >> rose: comp i don't know's newest film may be her best yet. "bright star" recounts the two life romance between doomed poet john keats and the love of his life, fanny brawne. sheer a look at the trailer. >> i had such a dream last night. i was floating above the trees

with my lips connected to those of a beautiful figure. >> whose lips? where they my lips? ♪ >> i'm sure he really likes me. >> mr. keats knows he cannot like you. he has no living and no income. >> he was a dreamer. >> have you got john keats' poem book? >> my sister has met the author. she wants to read it for herself to see if he's an idiot or not. >> she was a realist. >> all i wear i've sewn and designed myself. >> poet's got to do a bit of writing. >> my stitching has more merit and admirers than your two scribbling put together. >> and i can make money for it. >> but every word he wrote inspired the rapture of first love. >> "a thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases it will never part into nothingness." >> this fall, from academy award

winner jane campion comes a romance that would live forever. >> i get anxious if i don't see you. >> when i don't hear from him, it's as if i died. as if the air is sucked out from my lungs. mr. keats is very brilliant. >> is he successful? >> you taught me to love, you never said only the rich. >> i must warn you the trap that you're walking into. >> you'll lose your freedom permanently, for what? >> you've already the source of so much gossip. >> apparentlying there there's nothing i can do to persuade you of the gravity of this situation. >> we must cut the threads. >> no, i can't! i never will. you know i would do anything. >> it is a game. it is a game to her. there is a holiness to the heart's affection. you know nothing of that. >> rose: based on the true story of a brilliant poet and the bright star who was his shining light. >> i almost wish we were butterflies and lived but fly

summer days. three such days with you i could fill with more delight than 50 common years could ever contain. >> rose: i am pleased to have jane campion back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, thank you very much. >> rose: is this one of the great love stories simply because keats was such a great poet? >> well, yeah. i mean, i think possibly so. i think it's also more particularly because the letters survived t-3 3 love letters and notice that keep wrote to fanny. fanny kept after his death and when she finally died her children sold them. so you can actually read what he wrote to her. i mean, to me the story is passionate and extraordinary first love story as romeo and juliet, exthey want is one's real. >> rose: how did you come to decide to make the movie. >> you know, i read... when i

turned 50 i thought, you know, it's about time i.... >> rose: did what? (laughs) >> understood poetry better. so i was not so afraid of it. poetry has a way of making me feel stupid. i didn't feel like i understand it. so i decided to read andrew motion's biography. i read a richard holmes biography of carla rich which i just loved. >> rose: right. >> and halfway through the biography of keats i came across this love story. i didn't know about it and i was just completely overwhelmed by it. and when keats died and they had to be separated, i just... something about the purity and the tenderness of it just got through to me. and i didn't at the time think i knew of a way of making it into a film, but it had such an impact, it stayed with me and i kept returning to the idea until i thought of the idea of telling it through fanny brawne. >> rose: you have always loved the romantic impulse.

>> yes. >> rose: (laughs) in every film. >> yes, sometimes in a gothic way, sometimes in an absurd way. i think it's my, you know, attempt... i feel i'm monday ising to what happened between them which just fell so pure. i think one of the qualities of this one is that it was a real heart connection and because they were young and unmarried, yeah, no, they didn't get the consummate the affair, which is another tragedy, i guess. >> rose: how did you go about casting? >> oh, casting is a really exciting and scary decision for the director because you make it so much in advance of making the movie and you don't know your film so well then. but in this case, i was in england and our fainseer's business is there, and they said "we like your script, now let's make it." i sod, said, oh, okay. well, we have to have a keats.

we can't do this film without somebody who has some charisma or some feeling... some young man who you could believe might have written these poems. and they told me about ben wishaw who had recently done a stunning "hamlet." perhaps one of the youngest hamlets ever and people still talk about it almost like that was legend, that the hair came up on their arms and, you know, when i finally did get to meet ben, i had a very visceral reaction to him. it was like just such a beautiful creature. and, you know, you cross your fingers and say "oh, i hope he does a good audition." >> rose: and he did? >> yes, he was beautiful. he really wanted it. >> rose: how, did you require your actors to read keats' poetly. >> yeah, i did. i expected ben after i told him he had the role. ben, like me, felt intimidated by poetry and, you know, some of the romantics from a different

era, you need do a little bit of study because they're not using illusions to classical literature, etc., that isn't common for us. but, we set him up with some poetry experts and i asked them to learn some poems he liked best by heart and took me through the bigger poems, more complicated ones like "hyperion" but the odes, i think, are poems that are very easy for anyone to understand and "la belle merci" is a beautiful simple ballad and ben, i guess, learned like i did about it. >> rose: died at what age? >> he died atta. >> rose: incredible >> yes. >> rose: all right, take a look at this. this is when fanny discusses keats with her mother. here is it. >> mr. skets very brilliant...

mr. keats is very brilliant i'm sure he really likes me. even if our cat is he's always petting him to death. >> mr. keats knows he cannot like you. he has no living and no income. >> rose: tell me about her. >> abbie corn serb an australian actor who is well known and very much loved, especially by the younger generation. i think's something in abbie's spirit. she's a really strong independent young woman who... you know, i think she left school at 15 and she sort of took on the world. and she's... she's got a kind of mystery to her. and a determination to be her own person.

when she read the script, she took a shine to it. i remember her saying something like "when i read it i felt this was a story that was breathing, it was alive. and i really wanted to do it." and i was thinking "you're australian. i should have an english actress." >> rose: and? >> but she just did the... she's so clever, that girl. she just did this brilliant audition and ben's got a perfect voice for keats because it's not upper class, it's slightly northern. >> rose: now did you, after reading andrew's book, did you go out and read all of keats' poetly. >> first of all i read the letters. >> rose: that fanny had? >> no, the letters not only the love letters but there's a collection of all his letters. and so what happened was that keats' brother george immigrated to america with his wife around the time that fanny and keats first met and so keats wrote

these really long letters that went on for months while they were waiting for the next boat to go. because he's writing to his brother, they were very expansive. and you really got the feeling of how keats might have actually spoken. and he was so funny, he was light, he was gossippy, he was indignant sometimes, wrestled with philosophical subjects. and i think it's a very different voice than you hear in his poetry. but then out of nowhere he would say "i've been writing this." and out would come a poem. so it was a very beautiful way to sort of experience how the poems just came quite naturally out of his life. and so i read the letters first and then the poems last of all. but i think the poems are the most long lasting. but once again i'm back to the letters. >> rose: and "bright star," though? >> oh, "bright star," i just

thought it was a beautiful name for a film and for... well, obviously.... >> rose: and for a poem. >> yes. (laughs) ment and it's the poem that many people believe he wrote for fanny and, you know, it's about wanting a steadfastness of a star when you're in love, you want something to be completely safe and steadfast but also to be... feel the breath on your cheek and be as close as possible. >> rose: take a look at this. this is charles brown and fanny talking about keith. >> i've seen the baby. it looks like abigail. they quarantined his ship, he wrote that he made more poems out of december nation two weeks

than he had in any eight years of his life. i shou been there. >> you could have had you gone. (baby cries) >> it's not that simple. the baby. and my funds reduced. and then there's this issue of... >> the lack of will. >> shall i say it aloud? will that satisfy you? shall i say i have failed john

keats? i failed john keats. i failed i don't know keats! i failed him! i failed him! i do not know till now how tightly he'd wound himself around my heart. >> rose: back to fanny. when you look at all the heroines that you have written about and directed, what is it... is there something there that has a common link? >> you know, i think other people probably commented on it. >> rose: yeah, they have. >> they have more penetration than i have. i'm completely confuse. i just love them. they just... i don't know if it's alter ego stuff or it's probably... (laughs) i don't know. i just... i love fanny, i love in a way.... >> rose: you love about fanny what? >> well, i think to me when i

think about those women i think about how disempowered they were in some ways. you know, like their lives were just sewing and waiting. it's... yeah, i feel tenderness towards them, i suppose. i'm someone who loved collect old sewing or table cloths because i realize these women have put maybe a year's work into it and yet they'll sell for $20 or something like that. it's just sort of contentedness with making beautiful things that nobody ever sees. >> rose: here is "bright star." "bright star" what our, steadfast as though art, aloft the night in watching with eternal lids apart like nature's patient, sleepless, the moving waters at their priest like task while pure ablution round earth human shores or gazing of the soft fallen mask of snow upon the mountains and the moors.

know yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, till it upon my fair love ripening breast to feel forever its soft fall and swell, await forever in a sweet unrest. still, still to hear her tender taken breath and so live ever or else swoon to death. congratulations. >> rose: >> thank you very much. >> rose: great to see you again. >> yes. thank you for having me. >> rose: thank you. >> rose: the film hurricane katrina has been met with wide acclaim since it was releaseded in late june. scott of the "new york times" calls it the best non-documentary american feature made yet about the war in iraq. it follows an army unit whose job is detect de text and diffuse i.e.d.s. here's a look at the film. >> it's nice and hot in here. >> laying on the charge.

nice and sweet. i'm coming back. >> 25. >> 25 meters, roger that. >> 2:00, dude has a phone. >> why is eldridge running? come on, guys, talk to me. >> drop the phone! drop your phone! >> i can't get a shot! >> rose: joining me now are the film's director catherine bigelow and its screen writer mark boal. i'm pleased to have them here. as many of you know, catherine was here and we had a conversation about this film. i wanted to know more so we've asked her to come back along with the writer because he had a lot to do with this. thank you very much for coming back >> thank you for having us. >> rose: tell me what happened to you in iraq. >> well, i was there in the end of 2004 and i was embedded with a u.s. army bomb squad and the

idea was to write a piece about what was then one of the front line units in the war and continues to be one of the front line units because the war has become largely a tactical battle of i.e.d.s, fought with i.e.d.s, improvised explosive devices. and so the bomb squad.... >> rose: even today? >> still today. still today. and much more so... a little less so in iraq, but much.... >> rose: more so in afghanistan. >> in afghanistan and in some ways afghanistan in terms of the terrain is more naturally suited to that kind of insurgency warfare because the roads in afghanistan are largely dirt roads. so it's even easier to find them. but anyway, i went there to do a piece that would essentially be a straightup topical piece of repar taj profiling a bomb squad to see what they did since they had this very important job and what was actually one of the most dangerous jobs, if not the most dangerous job in the military at the time because they were going towards what

everybody else was walking away from and by definition, an i.e.d. is the beginning of an ambush in terms of military tactical definition. so they're going into what's already established to be an ambush situation because the insurgents have planted it. they know that either it's going go off and hit its target or someone's going to come and try to diffuse it or disarm it. so they know that at a certain point they can rain down sniper fire or call in mortar rounds on that particular location and there will be somebody there. so it was an important unit and i did the piece and came back... it was a couple of weeks at the end of 2004 in baghdad and i came back and started talking to kathryn. >> rose: who you knew before? >> who i knew before. we had collaborated together on a t.v. project that was a classic hollywood sort of high expectations low results story. >> rose: (laughs) you do high expectations low results kind of stories?

>> that was once in a lifetime. (laughs) >> our reach exceeded our grasp on that one. but we'd had this conversation and began to think of the bomb squad as maybe an interest point for a war movie. for a movie would be about that. >> rose: you have said that if you want to do a movie about iraq, you have to do it about this. you wouldn't do it about planes. and you wouldn't do it about, you know, it was as much where the cutting edge of the war was as the jungle was in vietnam. >> yeah, i think so. i mean, when i was a kid and watching movies about the vietnam war, you would see in "platoon" or what have you the sniper patrols, the guys patrolling jungle. and that's real play that war on a logistical level was like. it was about small groups of infantry battling it out with other infantry groups in the jungle. and this war is really about finding i.e.d.s before they find

you. and so it's not a war that's... not to take anything away from the air force or the navy, but it's not a war that's really being fought by the navy or by the air force. it's being fought by guys on the ground who essentially drive around looking for i.e.d.s. >> rose: and how many of them are there? >> well, when i was in baghdad, there were about 150. >> rose: 2004 there were so. >> in 2004. i don't know how many there are now. they've since ramped it up. but it's not just... i mean, the entire u.s. infantry presence in baghdad at that time was devoted to patrolling the neighborhoods. and what that essentially means is you're driving around looking for bombs. and then when you find one, if you're in, say, like some unit in the first cav or something, you call in the bomb squad and they go and deal with it. so it did seem like a fairly... it did seem to me to crystal size what the war was like on a very notes-and-bolts level. >> rose: why do you call it "the hurt locker"? >> "the hurt locker."

well, this is a term that mark heard when he was on his embed. it's actually a slang term that the military used meaning basically describing a painful place, a dangerous place. if i put in the a sentence, "if this bomb were to go off, we'd all be in the hurt locker." so it's not a place you want to be. >> rose: talk about that notion of the 150, 25 meters away from the target. or yards, which is it, i forgot? >> meters. >> rose: meters. no, that's a sense of kind of charting your progression. it's what the e.o.d. techs term "the lonely walk." and at about 100 meters out from the i.e.d.... basically, the ground troops have stopped the war for you to go up and analyze this particular suspicious rubble pile. at about 100 meters out, you're maybe aware of the heat of the suit, the weight of the suit, the fan either working or malfunctioning in your helmet. and then as you get closer, you begin to think "i'm... these are

generalizations but you begin to think about your family. >> rose: that's about 50 or 75 out? >> i've been told it's about 50 or 57 from various e.o.d. techs. but that's an opportunity to kind of make piece. and this they're doing so, 12, a times a day. make piece with whatever they are then presented with. and then the closer they get, at 25 meters it's apparently i guess referred to as a place... the point of no return. and at that point, nothing can k help you. no armature, no... i mean, other than your own cunning and skill and ability to make an absolutely perfect decision under extreme pressure. but you're in a place that's so approximate.... >> rose: if the bomb goes off there, you're going die. >> exactly. >> rose: it's amazing because we have so much technology and a lot of it is deployed in afghanistan and iraq. and robots and high end trucks and all sorts of stuff. but at the end of the day, there are still human beings engaged

in this very mechanical tactile sense with the bombs. so even... it's incredible to me that even in 2009 this kind of thing is going on. but it these do with the complexity of the bombs and the way that they are made that decides to deal with them or the air force. but that's what the movie really captures. >> you got to know some of these guys are they by definition different personalities? and on the one hand you have a cowboy, on the other hand you have someone who's deeply intro speck i have the and self-centered? >> s that the nature of it or are they all of one kind? >> i don't know. it's hard to generalize. i don't think they're all of one kind. but it is a self-selecting group the sense that you do have to volunteer for that position. and anyone who volunteers for it now is sort of going into a job that you know has a very high mortality rate. >> rose: and what is the skill set involved? >> it's a number of skills. there's a lot of mechanical intelligence involved. the ability to look at, say, a

circuit board and diagnose it very quickly in terms of how it could be shut down without adverse consequences. so there's a mechanical engineering intelligence. and there's a kind of biochemical ability to do that sort of thinking while under a lot of stress. so it's cool under fire, basically. but it's a hard thing to teach and it's a hard thing to develop. it seems almost you either have it or you don't. but there's lots of people in have the intelligence to do the work because it does require a fairly high intelligence level, but not necessarily the ability to exercise that intelligence when they're getting shot at. >> rose: and control your emotions. >> i think of them like surgeons where they have an extraordinary motor skill. >> rose: dexterity. >> extraordinary dexterity. there's absolutely no margin for error. so in other words if a surgeon is working on a patient, they make a mistake, the patient dies. in this case, if the surgeon makes a mistake, he dies. >> rose: take a look at this. this is where staff sergeant

will james, played by jafrmy renner and specialist on the eldridge look through a box of things, including... you'll see. take a look. >> what do we have here? >> they're, you know, bomb parts signatures. >> i see that. but what are they doing under your bed? >> well, there's one. this one is from the u.n. building, flaming car, dead man switch, boom. this guy was good, i like him. >> and this one? >> this one, y'all, is from our first call together. this box is full of stuff that almost killed me. >> and what about this one? what's this one from, will? >> it's my reading ring. like i said, stuff that almost killed me. (laughter) >> rose: tell me about your actors. >> well, i think they're the next wave.

i think they're pretty extraordinary. sergeant james, played by jeremy renner, is... well, all three of them are really astounding talents. he's somebody that has an ability to convey a truth and honest they i think is really... probably singular for his generation. just really an extraordinary.... >> rose: for his generation? >> i think he's really amazing. i think actually all three of them i can say the same thing. and anthony mackie has a charisma and a kind of bravado and a presence that is really pretty distinct and sets him apart. and then brian garrety has both his vulnerability and his kind of... i don't know, there's a kind of fierceness to that... in that kind of paradox of his vulnerability at the same time is really astounding. >> rose: this is one more, renner attempts to remove the explosives strapped to a man but

realizes he will not have enough time. here it is. >> i got the suit, just go. sanborn, you have 45 seconds. you have 45 seconds, sanborn. >> damn, man, go! go! >> everybody get back! >> go! go! go! (screaming) >> take cover! >> go! get back! just get back! >> there's too many locks. there's too many... i can't do it. i can't get it off. i'm sorry, okay. you understand? i'm sorry. you hear me? i'm sorry. i'm sorry! get down, now! get down! go! >> rose: tell me about the scene. >> well, this was actually one of the more difficult ones to shoot emotionally for both cast and crew. i remember at the end of the day when i say "wrap" and everybody usually grabs the equipment and

hurries off to their various homes or places that they live and nobody moved. and people had tears in their eyes. i think just somehow both... i don't know, perhaps the reality of it or the imagined reality of it. i think performances were really pretty extraordinary. but i think the writing because extremely emotionally.... >> rose: taut. >> taut, exactly. >> rose: (laughs) >> and it affected all of us. >> soheil, the gentleman who plays the reluctant suicide bomber, i think he uncorked this performance. and it was like... you could tell with jeremy.... >> rose: he was great. >> he kind of got this moment where jeremy was like, gee, he really was sorry about it all. and there was no take two. there was no... it was like that was it. it was one of those one takes. >> rose: you were said to direct what w a light hand. i never quite know what that means other than saying to the actors "you know what you're

supposed to do, do it." (laughs) or saying, you know... >> if you've cast the movie right.... >> rose: exactly. >> i think there's, in a way... not that you've completely done your job as a director because you still have to block, choreograph and make sure cameras are in the right position, make sure the editors have exactly what they need to work with. but i think if you've cast it correctly and you've got the right actor playing the right part, you're... you know, it's like... i don't know, you're in a very privileged position, let's put it that way. >> rose: what is it about kathryn bigelow? >> (laughs) >> rose: that makes her like making these kinds of movies? >> kathryn? >> rose: you know her, you work with her, you're her colleague. >> well, i think... that's a good question.

i think when you say "these kinds of movies," i think you're probably talking about sort of action, exciting.... >> rose: not that a woman shouldn't make them, but i'm asking about this particular woman. >> right. well, i mean, in some sense i think if you're in the business of hollywood, it always helps to fish where the fish are. in other words, put your rod in where the fish are. and that's... big action movies are kind of the... that's sort of the "a" ticket, or the big leagues of the business. so i think part of it is a structural thing. but i think it's also that she's fundamentally coming from the art world and coming from viewing... it's a little bit of a complicated explanation. but coming from viewing movies as a medium. and when you're talking about a moving image and what's the most powerful way to push the medium of film as a series of rapidly moving pictures, basically, action film making, i think, provides you with the most potential to push the medium.

as opposed to, say, a story where it's largely me and you sitting at a table and talking. which could still be very dramatic and sin matally powerful and everything. but in terms of pushing the capability of the medium, you look to action if you were kind of coming from that artist perspective. >> rose: >> it could be very draw mat if i can a car fell through the caeling and landed on the table. (laughter) >> rose: burned up or something like that. and you rescued me. (laughs) here's what else you said. "being female is an asset in some ways because she doesn't have a dog in the fight in terms of masculinity." >> i think that's part of it as well. i think it's also that, you know it's... being able to step back and say "let's look at males that are in this kind of intense supermacho environment in a nuanced way, in a they is

humanistic but also ironic. i think that's something that maybe, again, not having a dog in the fight.... >> rose: the "washington post" sums up the intriguing opposition. "she is slim,'m peer y'allly slim, she has big eyes and big hair and the sort of woman who looks good in restaurants or on the cover of magazines how would she know so much about him?" meaning the character in your movie. >> um, well, that's very flattering. >> rose: you did not do a good job explaining this before, that's why i'm coming back to it. >> well.... >> rose: talk about yourself and what it is it that makes you go and why are all these people intrigued may be stephen just said and this enormously finely tuned skill to make this kind of movie that almost everybody that is raving about. >> i... well, thank you.

... i am attracted to film making that has the capacity to be expeer yen shl. in other words, my interest is to be able to take you and put you in this case in the soldier's shoes, make you feel like you're literally there, you're walking on that baghdad street. you're walking toward that i.e.d. you've got heat and sun and sand in your face. and just... i don't know, bring those moments to life in a they's physiological, that's almost pre-conscious. so it's... you know the, it's a completely expeer yen shl look at any particular environment. now to do that you have to kind of choreograph cameras a certain way, you also have to choose material that can give you that kind of... i don't know, that kind of... not just kinetics but that kind of emotional availability that can put you in the person's shoes. so in other words characters that are well crafted, highly nuanced. so it's really an interest in

not just muscular film making, that's perhaps too simplistic. >> rose: why have you made only three himself in a decade? >> well, they take time. this we started in 2005. "the hurt locker" we began at that time. he just came back having been in iraq the end of 2004. and it took about a year to write, about a year to raise the money. another six, seven, eight months to cast. five months to shoot. six months to cut. so, you know, it kind of begins and then you mix and... i mean, they take time. >> well, especially way you do them. i think that's part of it as well that will many directors you give them a script, they'll go shoot it. you like to develop material from scratch that adds a lot of time on the... on one end. >> rose: i shoot fast, though. (laughs) >> rose: you also like final cut and you also raise your own

money and ghon to studio and say "here's my film, you want to distribute it or not." correct? >> right. we were very fortunate that. this was a piece that we wanted to have... the two of us wanted to have complete creative control. it's a movie that i don't think could have succeeded with much interference. it had to be shot in the middle east so i think that alone was kind of a non-starter if we had gone the more conventional route financially speaking. that gave us parameter wes couldn't deviate from. >> rose: it's great to see you and meet you. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time.

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