f. scott fitzgerald quote about there went my old, safe secure world. what do you think prompted the men on both sides -- >> i'm sorry? >> what do you think prompted the men on both sides to be able to withstand sub human conditions over and over again and keep coming back? what's different between the soldiers of world war i, and the soldiers of world war ii? >> well, first of all, let me answer that backwards. i think the soldiers of world war ii were equally heroic. they certainly died in much greater numbers. when i think of the eastern front, the slaughter that went on there right to the very end, down to the subways and the very basement of the parliament building in berlin. it was horrendous. these men had been trained. they'd been trained to march in close order. which accounts for much of the suffering, beginning with the storms at liege. they had discipline. they had an absolutely hard, tough, noncommissioned army officer corps a back bone of any army, i will argue. but to retired generals, i apologize. we can lose 100 of you and it doesn't ma

f. scott fitzgerald is awful. standing in the men's room and comparing sizes of peniss. i can't read hemmingway anymore. fitzgerald will last. maybe only the great gatsby and a couple of short stores. literary oopinion is very harsh. books don't last very along. i'm not sure that there's a single american writer still alive who will be read at the end of this century. i would be a little surprised. i think norman mailer is fast taking a nosedive. occasionally you're sorry. i have always felt that theodore drieser was one thereof most important and valuable american detroiters but not read outside overlight classes in college. and anybody -- any general reader can read that book. literary reputation is a strange thing, and so many of the books i was reading in the '50s, when i was in college, those writers, nobody reads them anymore. i thing john cheater, who was a wonderful writer is fading. the people who wrote for the "the new yorker," a lot of really, really wonderful writing in the 1950s but most of it is disappearing. >> host: how would publishers approach you? woul

f. scott fitzgerald, and charles bukowski, they too have learned that more alcohol first thing will oftenole hog, sweet jerk chicken and brisket. hell, i feel better already. >> the mississippi i perceived is not the mississippi that i've had in my head. i was surprised how sold i was off the bat. if you want to write, come to oxford. >> you think that's true? well, apparently, yes. >> like that line in barton fink, you can't throw a rock without hitting a writer? then he says, do me a favor, throw it hard. >> it's easy to look at mississippi and go that just happens down there, so we're good, our hands are clean. it's a totally misperceived place. when i came, i fell in love with the place. i never thought that i would. there's something to it, but you can't put your finger on what it is. >> what it is can be found in the dark spaces across the tracks and on the other side of town. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the lounge right by the cemetery and back by the river. ♪ ♪ [ cheers and applause ] ♪ >>> what is a juke joint? you've heard reference to them no doubt, but wh

nothing by f scott fitzgerald? in history, periods writers lives i would like to touch on.hing i like to do about the transcendentalist. thorough, emerson. there might be something there. they do not make good movies. >> why is that? >> i do not know. some things are just more literary that's what -- should stay there. cs.another genre is biopi you have stephen hawking, alan turing. james brown. >> little moments of someone's life, we are fascinated with big characters in history. to take you back to those times is always fascinating. it is a hard storytelling genre to pull off. you can take a very wonderful life and make a mediocre movie. >> what about the movies you made with ethan, after sunset and four sunrise? what is that about for you? >> it is a depiction of connection between two people over 18 years? >> was that the idea from the beginning? on personaled experience. like so many of my films, they do not feel like a film. the plot never kicks in. it is about something small, a people leteen two your connection. i want to do a movie about that. you do not make a mov

f. scott fitzgerald, but that would have been i appropriate, because that would have been a faint copy of personality, his style, his accomplishments, his instincts and his love for everything in life. there are so many stories about ben. and we've been hearing here this morning. mine are small, but i think it is telling. in the late 60's or early 70's, ben joined a softball game we were having out on the island. he came to bat. he immediately had a sharp hit to right field. running to first, he noticed that the right fielder wasn't hustling. so benjamin took off for second, stretching a single into a double. and sliding in. when the dust settled, there was ben, prone and safe at second. that killer smile on his face as he raised his fist in triumph. i remember watching all this and thinking maybe i should have gone to harvard. [laughter] it was not possible, of course because i was being raised at a time and a place when we thought ramen was a bull in a rodeo. and although the brokaw family tree there was an -- there was no crowning shield. so the end of his life and the end of the days

f. scott fitzgerald put it really well. he said the parties were bigger in '27, buildings were higher, morals were looser, liquor was cheaper the jazz age now raced on under its own power served by great filling stations full of money. man, i wish i could have written that. and new york then is, in this year and in this decade, in the vanguard of cultural and technological transformations that would make the 20th century the american century and make new york the quintessential city of the early 20th century. what was happening here? well, i mentioned one thing, the rise of commercial radio and talking movies. first talking movie was made and shown in new york city in 1927. you have the invention, although very primitive form, of television. you had the beginning of tabloid journalism with "the new york daily news," the first american tabloid founded by joseph patterson, the newspaper family. you have the spread, the radio, and phonographic records of this pulsating new urban music called jazz. and i feature duke ellington

f. scott fitzgerald quote about there went my old, safe secure world. what do you think prompted the men on both sides -- >> i'm sorry? >> what do you think prompted the men on both sides to be able to withstand sub human conditions over and over again and keep coming back? what's different between the soldiers of world war i, and the soldiers of world war ii? >> well, first of all, let me answer that backwards. i think the soldiers of world war ii were equally heroic. they certainly died in much greater numbers. when i think of the eastern front, the slaughter that went on there, right to the very end, down to the subways and the very basement of the parliament building in berlin. it was horrendous. these men had been trained. they'd been trained to march in close order. which accounts for much of the suffering, beginning with the storms at liege. they had discipline. they had an absolutely hard, tough, noncommissioned army officer corps, a back bone of any army, i will argue. but to retired generals, i apologize. we can lose 100 of you and it doesn't