Sarah Montague (for it is she, 15 minutes in (RealAudio)) : “Sean Penn, we’ve discussed your new film, now tell us about your politics, you’re known for your strong views, you’re opposed to the Iraq war, you’re opposed to the way America’s dealing with Iran … why aren’t your films more overtly political ?”
SP: “There’s nothing more political than to be proactively human …”
SM: “And your project for Iran is to .. to get the way that America – the administration – President Bush’s administration – is dealing with it changed. What would you have them do ?”
SP: “Understand that people are people everywhere … shared humanity that we all have …”
SM: “But President Bush wouldn’t say that”
SP: “Yes, he would lie that way … spin and fear … people give in to letting killers kill”
SM:
“Sean Penn, it took a long time, but we got there in the end. Thank you.”
James Naughtie (for it is he, 20 mins in (RealAudio) : “You will know that Norman Mailer is dead … well last year he wrote a book about the trials and tribulations of George W. Bush … here’s a reminder of what he said …”
The late NM: “Bush uses “evil” as a narcotic …”
JN: “And there’s plenty more where that came from – you can hear the whole thing on our website”
This may not be a verbatim transcript. But it “illustrates a wider truth”.
(See also Ry Cooder, Burt Bacharach, Randy Newman, John Prine, Patti Smith).
It’s the money shot: as soon as the word BUSH springs from the interviewees lips, they can consider it over and start counting the receipts.
“This may not be a verbatim transcript. But it “illustrates a wider truth”.”
Would the “wider truth” be that B-BBC is increasingly dominated not by verbatim examples and hard facts but by the “impressions” of posters?
Some people don’t understand irony.
Yes David, it’s just Laban’s “impression” that Sean Penn was invited by the BBC to air his anti-Bush views. No doubt other had the impression it was actually a visiting American economist who was asked about the virtues of the free market.
David Gregory
There is a Real Audio version there for you to listen to. How’s about you have a listen to it and then let us know whether the way Laban’s scripted it is close enough to the truth? Then maybe address the issue – in what sense are 2nd rate fading actors qualified to give political analysis? And to think before typing. For a BBC commenter whose contribution is honest and rarely disingenuous – unlike Reith and Nick Reynolds – your comments are surprising.
Mr. Gregory and Mr. Reynolds,
In the Today programme under discussion, Sean Penn was being interviewed about a film he has just made about a young man who decided to drop out and live in a broken-down bus somewhere in the wilderness. There was really no reason whatsoever to turn the interview from a discussion of alternative lifestyles into a debate on international politics. Sean Penn is well known for being a left-wing activist and for criticising Bush; the interview seemed to be set up specifically to encourage him to air his anti-Bush sentiments, since there was very little focus on the film (the ostensible reason for inviting him onto the programme).
In the case of the tribute to Norman Mailer, again, the emphasis was firmly on his status as anti-Bush activist. The death of Kurt Vonnegut earlier this year was treated similarly. Both Mailer and Vonnegut had long and illustrious literary careers – why was the emphasis of the Today programme on their political views and writings in particular?
Please do go through the transcripts or podcasts of the relevant sections of the Today programme (this week and last) and check for yourselves, before putting this down to ‘impressions’ on the part of Biased BBC posters.
David Gregory
So? Have you bothered to listen to the audio, and if so, have you any sensible comment to make on this hilarious display of propagandist bias?
Gosh what a loyal chap you are.
The only irony I can see there is that Montague raised the point that Penn’s films aren’t as strongly political as his own personal views are, but otherwise it was nothing more than an invitation for Penn to spout off.
For a BBC commenter whose contribution is honest and rarely disingenuous – unlike Reith and Nick Reynolds – your comments are surprising.
Heron | 13.11.07 – 9:36 am
I have also noticed that David Gregory has begun to adopt a cynical tone here. This is a great pity. The internet is overloaded with people who sneer and jeer as a poor substitute for valid argument. There is no need to add to this category of “debate”. As others have suggested, why don’t you simply debate the issues, Mr. Gregory?
Hi Guys
Yes I did try and listen to the links. I clicked to 15 mins and no sign of Mr Penn.
I’m going to try and listen using the internal system here and will get a transcript up. It’s quite possible this is exactly what was said but I just thought the post fell quite a way short of the usual B-BBC standards.
I’m sorry if this sounds cynical, Bryan. But it’s hard to debate with posters “impressions” of what the BBC does. There have been quite a few “did you hear the sneering tone” or similar posts recently. “Tones” are usually in the mind of the listener…
But I’ll get a transcript up and it will probably turn out to be verbatim and serve me right for being grumpy! We’ll see!
This really gives me confidence in the BBC News team, David Gregory pronounces that this is a load of rubbish and then it turns out that he hasn’t even heard the interview! And that he hasn’t even been able to find it!
The item starts 16:30 in, Penn starts talking at 17:00.
I expect Reith to turn up next saying “I thought it was a clever move of the BBC to give Penn enough rope to hang himself”. Penn did sound like a driveling idiot to me, but to the average lefty BBC radio listener it was just more confirmation of their views.
>”Tones” are usually in the mind of the listener…
What’s only in the mind is the belief of many BBC presenters that they can keep any trace of their political views out of their voice.
Why is what Sean Penn thinks and does news anyway? Did he kill someone?
Rob
Sean Penn is news cos he hates Bush and therefore supports the Beeboid agenda which of course is all that matters.
I agree with Rob. Quite why Penn is being interview about his politics eludes me.
But this is no evidence of bias.
The “wider truth” this illustrates is that many American writers, musicians and actors are liberals or democrats and want to talk about it. It says nothing about the BBC.
Polemical comment (e.g. “Why Are We In Vietnam?”) was a key part of Mailer’s life and work. It would be daft not to reflect this in obits and other features.
Mind you Mailer was over rated in my opinion as a writer and a thinker. Basically he just liked a good fight.
David Gregory’s performance here speaks volumes. Supposedly the nice one out of the “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” triumvirate of wise BBC monkeys, he just dismisses criticism without even bothering to listen to the interview under discussion, and then he can’t even be fagged to listen for a couple of minutes once he’s gone to 15 minutes and not found Penn immediately speaking.
Shallow, slapdash and sneering, that pretty much sums up the BBC these days.
Nick
Regarding Mailer, why did the Today Programme select just one quote (you know, the “I hate George Bush” one) that had nothing to do with literature.
How are things in the BBC UI (Useful Idiot) department? I hear you’re the one area that’s recruiting.
Nick, the bias is that the BBC always manages to find a lot more leftists to interview than rightists.
The bias is also that the interview was supposed to be about the film, yet the interviewer deliberately steered it to give Penn the chance to talk about his politics. Unlike what you suggest, Penn didn’t bring it up.
I’m surprised the Today interviewer didn’t bring this up, given that the subject was, loosely, Iran:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2859606.ece
Oh, actually I’m not surprised at all.
“Quite why Penn is being interview about his politics eludes me.”
You seem to be puzzled about a lot of things to do with the BBC, Nick, yet most other people have no problem identifying what’s going on. Perhaps it’s time to hand over to someone more clued-up about the media.
yep, unlike Mr Gregory, did give the interview a listen. Did seem to switch to politics rather than the new film at an early stage and probably a little more time could have been spent on this or even on the film industry in general.
The desire to talk about politics could be just the preferences of Montague who is used to talking about this sort of thing; it could be bias. I’m not sure.
Note: Having given up on listening to the Today programme due to the harping on about Iraq by Humphreys, I’m not so sure about Montague’s political quibles or issues, so there may be a degree of ignorance in my listen to it.
David Gregory:
Thanks for the response – I look forward to hearing your views on the interview.
Nick Reynolds:
I agree with your point on Mailer, and feel we should be very careful levelling accusations of bias here. As you say, it was a defining feature of Mailer’s life, so the BBC are right to cover it.
Your remarks on Penn are more puzzling. On the one hand, you admit that the BBC is wrong to engage Penn in a political discussion; on the other you appear to be absolving the BBC of blame. It may be a “wider truth” that many like Penn are left-wing and want everyone to know about it. In fact I am sure of it. But this comes back to the essential point that the BBC should never be in the position of promoting any individual or organisation. There is no earthly reason why it is in the public interest to know about Penn’s political views. It follows, therefore, that inviting Penn to talk like this is in effect allowing him to promote himself. So even if it isn’t bias (which I doubt), it is still acting against the BBC charter.
It would be interesting to know whether the BBC took such an interest in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s politics all those years ago when he must have been talking about his movies.
If we didn’t already know that David Gregory was a real person I’d think he was a parody out to give the BBC a bad name: “You guys are all about hazy impressions of what you hear. And that’s just my hazy impression of what I didn’t even hear”.
I thought I was the nice one, not David.
I didn’t say the BBC was wrong, I said I was confused.
If the film is about Iran than Penn’s view are relevant, and in the public interest.
I am perennially puzzled about the BBC. That doesn’t mean the BBC is biased, just that I am too dim to understand it all.
Have you read the BBC’s Charter, Heron?
“If the film is about Iran than Penn’s view are relevant, and in the public interest”
Was the film about Iran? Well, there’s another Beeboid who hasn’t heard the interview. (Try ‘a deluded idiot who tries to live rough in Alaska for spiritual reasons, and dies’ — not exactly the Ayatollah).
Sean Penn?
Well he is an acknowledged script writer for none other than Hugo Chavez – who recently used Penns letters & doodlings for the ultra uber liberal San Francisco Chronicle in one of his numerous, long winded TV lectures – why are you all surprised he is the darling of Broadcasting House?
I only listen to the Today programme occassionally now – I find the left wing bias too much these days, rather like listening to State broadcasts from North Korea, Cuba or dear old Venezuala.
‘Polemical comment (e.g. “Why Are We In Vietnam?”) was a key part of Mailer’s life and work. It would be daft not to reflect this in obits and other features.
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | Homepage | 13.11.07 – 11:20 am | #’
Norman Mailer was a much more complicated figure than James Naughtie’s portrayal would indicate.
Yes, he wrote one of the great anti-war novels (though if you name a great PRO-war novel, I’ll be impressed) and wasn’t a fan of Bush, but equally he supported the right to bear arms and spoke out in defence of Salman Rushdie over ‘The Satanic Verses’ fatwa nonsense.
Mailer, if he is remembered, will go down as the author of a one great novel (The Naked And The Dead), a couple of good ones (The Executiuoner’s Song, Ancient Evenings) and as the founder of ‘The Village Voice’.
Mailer wasn’t perhaps, quite as influential as he liked to think he was, but only a BBC employee with little understanding of American literature and Mailer’s place in it would suggest that he’s most famous for his political polemic.
SM: I spoke to Sean Penn and asked how he first came across this book.
SP: The cover of this book caught my eye. The picture of the bus that’s the central kid of physical character in the movie and there was something familiar and something kind of longing about it. So I read it and then I picked it up and read it again because I thought I had seen a movie by accident.
SM: Now we should say in a way it’s not an obviously cinematic story. In that its a such a solitary journey. It’s a young man. 22 years old. Who basically drops out gives all his money to charity. Who goes on a mission.
SP: You said it just as I responded to it, in that it’s not an obviously cinematic story. I never liked obvious cinema. So finally there was something I wanted to see as a movie I wanted to see
SM: Because this is the true story of Christopher McCandless. Tell us what he did. What he was after that caught you at least.
SP: I think that I don’t apologise in that the film and the way that John repesented it was an unapologetic persuit of authwenticity. So that played out against the majestic landscape of the back roads of the US up to Alaska was just too good not to be a movie.
SM When you watch the movie there’s an anti-consumerist message that comes accross, but it struck me that you are known.. you are known also for your politics. You are known for your stong views, you are opposed to the Iraq war. You are opposed to the way America is dealing with Iran. Why have you not chosen to use your films in a more overtly political way?
SP: Well I don’t know that there’s anything more overtly political than to be proactively human. I’m again I would say I’m not interested in the word politics as an academic notion. I think that its got to be something that a certain quality of life for some people. For one individual as this story is focused on or for all individuals for every country for every family for everybody. And that’s what politics ought to be about, it’s really a one issue world. It’s really about quality of life.
SM: Is that one of the reasons that you chose to go to Iran? You went to Iran I suppose almost as a journalist didn’t you?
SP SOme would say almost, others… *laughter* I would say
SM Did you come across stories there that you thought I could make into a film?
SP: No. The notions of films to me … I don’t analyse it. To me its similar to somebody going out every night in search of love and once every five years you might stumble on somebody you might feel that way about.
SM: And your project for Iran is to get the way President Bush’s administration is dealing with it changed. But what would you have them do?
SP: MY project is to cut through some of the meaningless spin that has numbed people from understanding that people are people everywhere and that to be able to go there and to report back some of the you know very shared humanity that we all have no matter where we are coming from
SM: But President Bush would say that just look at the leader President Ahmadinejad this is somebody who is a danger to the world.
SP: Yes, he would lie that way saying that because he doesn’t even recognise that Ahmadinejad is only a fraction a leader there. You know. This is all a kind of spinafer (?) and its never been properly debated as Iraq was not properly debated and in the meantime the damage that is being done in the way these things are being approached. Prior to any kind of military engagement is to make erm life so much cheaper in the first place that people give in to letting the killers kill
SM: Sean Penn thank you.
Hmmmm. Well let the debate begin allowing for my touch typing that’s pretty much the interview verbatim
Thanks David, what a marvellous use of publicly-funded time. But I thank you for your effort. Now what are your conclusions?
Dr R
All done in my coffee break. My conclusion? That
“SP: “Understand that people are people everywhere … shared humanity that we all have …”
SM: “But President Bush wouldn’t say that”
Is very different to
“SM: And your project for Iran is to get the way President Bush’s administration is dealing with it changed. But what would you have them do?
SP: MY project is to cut through some of the meaningless spin that has numbed people from understanding that people are people everywhere and that to be able to go there and to report back some of the you know very shared humanity that we all have no matter where we are coming from
SM: But President Bush would say that just look at the leader President Ahmadinejad this is somebody who is a danger to the world.”
The original post (like the original suggested time for the interview) is approximate to the point of being meaningless.
Well thanks for that David G.
Maybe Spencer’s right: it was a clever move of the BBC to give Penn enough rope to hang himself. 🙂
But, actually, I don’ think so.
My take on Montague’s abrupt turn to Bush + Politics is that it was born of desperation.
Up ’til that point, this was heading towards being a car-wreck of an interview. It had certainly gone off-road and was heading heaven knows where into the bundu.
Penn – from David’s transcript – seems rambling and barely coherent.
When he does achieve coherence, he comes across as ludicrously pretentious.
It’s as if a maudlin drunk had come staggering out of Private Eye’s Pseuds’ Corner.
La Montague could clearly feel this one slipping away. Like the true broadcasting professional she is, she took firm control of the wheel and steered the item onto familiar terrain.
Even if we may disagree with what Penn then began to say, we have to admit that it was way more lucid than what went before.
Did I miss something? Why is Spicoli on the BBC discussing Iraq and Iran?
In reference to This may not be a verbatim transcript. But it “illustrates a wider truth”.
David Gregory (BBC) posts “xxx is very different to yyy”.
As Nick Reynolds(BBC) said:
Some people don’t understand irony.
Anonymous: I’m clearly missing the reference, so lets paint a big “whoosh” over my head! That done could someone please enlighten me?
I think she should have asked him about Madonna!
JR
“a Montague could clearly feel this one slipping away. Like the true broadcasting professional she is, she took firm control of the wheel and steered the item onto familiar terrain.”
And just what was that ‘familiar terrain’…..Bush bashing. Unfortunately you are right, it is very familiar terrain on Today.
Not that I’m remotely concerned about protecting BBC staff integrity, but I do think it’s a little unfair to gang up on Sir David Gregory (Crusading BBC Knight of the Realm) for not paying proper attention to Penn’s blatherings. After all Gregory is only one of a handful of full time Beeboids that can be bothered to come to this site and he does at least post under his REAL name, without resorting to esoteric irony, like fellow pseud Nick Reynolds.
Reith doesn’t post under his real name because that would mean he’d have to drop the terse, snobby and holier-than-thou persona he has, less one of his BBC paymasters gives him a stiff telling off.
As for Sean Penn, the real irony here is that in his younger days he liked nothing more than to lob a brick or two at a journalists head. And now here he is cosying up to them pontificating on issues he is totally unaffected by as only a true champagne socialist can.
And why aren’t the BBC to blame for yet another piece of transmitted lefty propaganda? Haven’t they heard of editing?
I don’t think what Reith says is true at all. I think the complete opposite is true. Penn was talking fine until Montague steered him to politics, and it was only then that he started to go off the deep end, and Montague must have known what she was going to get. If she had kept him talking about specifics to do with the film, and making it, and the character he plays, it would have been a fairly standard interview.
If you want to know who to believe, me or Reith, just look at the transcript. There had only been three questions up until the point that Montague crudely brought up politics, and Penn had answered them all straightforwardly.
It looks to me like Montague (and/or her production team) never had much interest in what was a rather dull, “worthy” film, and had Penn on merely to wind him up and get some Bush-bashing out of it, either for political reasons, or for entertainment value.
Reg: I do appreciate what you say… but when it comes to Reith… erm is Reg Hammer your real name?
(PS if it is you really should start writing airport block-busters!)
Blithering Bunny | Homepage | 13.11.07 – 10:28 pm
Penn was talking fine until Montague steered him to politics
Here are some of the bits I have a problem with Bunnykins:
The picture of the bus that’s the central kid of physical character in the movie
Just don’t get that.
(I guess if kid were kind it would just about make sense.)
there was something familiar and something kind of longing about it.
About a picture of a bus?
I think that I don’t apologise in that the film and the way that John represented it was an unapologetic pursuit of authenticity.
This is an answer to a question asking what Christopher McCandless did that was noteworthy? Beats me.
It’s wasn’t Tolstoy, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for an actor. (And I think Gregory’s transcript makes Penn sound a little more inarticulate than he actually was at this point).
The end of the third question, before Montague derails it all, was “What he was after that caught you at least?”, which is an open invitation for an abstract, touchy-feely response, which is what she got, but Penn then added “So that played out against the majestic landscape of the back roads of the US up to Alaska was just too good not to be a movie”. Perfect opportunity for a standard question about filming in Alaska here. But no, instead she moves onto what was clearly a pre-scripted question.
Aren’t we forgetting that when someone gives an interview there’s usually a pretty well laid out plan of what they’re going to be talking about. Particularly someone like Penn, who’s hardly Mrs Miggens complaining about the bin-men. Penn is obviously promoting his film and this interview has been set up to let him do that. It’s no different from all the other puff pieces that we hear every other morning of the week. Authors promoting books. Playwrights plays. It’s basic radio program feedstock.
Our two BBC experts will know how this works. The interview will have been set up by Penn’s publicists. The interview goes around five minutes. Montague has a prearranged set of questions to which Penn responds with equally prearranged responses. No publicist worth a damn would let his property walk into an interview blind. They could have ended up talking about some waitress he’s been porking in LA for God’s sake!
The questions relating to the film were over and done with in the first two minutes. “So that played out against the majestic landscape of the back roads of the US up to Alaska was just too good not to be a movie.” is a scripted line that neatly ties the bow on Penn’s otherwise slightly incoherent account of his masterpiece. If he was doing the entire interview on the film it would have come in minute four not two. The guy is suposed to be an actor after all.
What we have then is a neat segue into the political stuff.
SM – “…Why have you not chosen to use your films in a more overtly political way?”
SP – “Well I don’t know that there’s anything more overtly political than to be proactively human…..”
Does that rather neat philosophical insight square with the vague ramblings further on in the interview?
Lastly, have look at Penn’s final response:
SP: ” ….and in the meantime the damage that is being done in the way these things are being approached. Prior to any kind of military engagement is to make erm life so much cheaper in the first place that people give in to letting the killers kill.”
And cut!
OK, he didn’t get the words out quite right but it’s ending on the message that he set out to give.
Penn’s problem is that he’s not actually a very good actor. If it’d been one of our Shakespearian luvvies they’d have sailed through the thing and it would have all sounded natural. Nevertheless, with a bit of help from our Sarah he managed to finish what he’d missed his hotel breakfast for.
“Into the Wild” is actually a pretty good movie, and it’s not really all that lefty. It’s more of an old-fashioned Jack London-type “outdoor adventure” yarn. The book it’s based on is fantastic.
That said, Penn is simply a champagne socialist poseur — no wonder Al-Beeb loves him, he’s somebody they understand.
I drive by the suburb where he lives often on my way to work, and it’s one of the richest, whitest towns in all of California. Even a small, old wooden frame house in Penn’s neighborhood would cost considerably upwards of a million dollars.
I think it’s a bit of a body swerve as interviews go, but I thought the stuff about Iran was interesting. I didn’t know he’d been there.
But I do think the original B-BBC post which quotes SM as saying “”But President Bush wouldn’t say that [that people have a shared humanity presumably]”
Is very different to the actual quote “But President Bush would say that just look at the leader President Ahmadinejad this is somebody who is a danger to the world.”
Which is something I can imagine Bill O Reilly saying!
Thing is, the item started off as a piece about Christopher McCandless and the film about him. But we never got to hear much about him, only a short time in and suddenly it’s all about Sean Penn’s views on Iran.
I have just listened to the interview again and compared it to David Gregory’s transcript and Gregory’s transcript is appallingly bad. This guy is entrusted with science reporting? At least Laban said that his transcript was not verbatim, whereas Gregory’s creates the impression that it is.
It’s also clear that Montague’s performance is that of someone smoothly delivering pre-scripted lines, not a desperate interviewer trying somehow to engage with her guest.
Blithering Bunny: Well I did qualify it saying “allowing for my touch typing”. Which bits did I miss out get wrong? (Looking back I’m guess “kid” should actually be “kind” I’ll give you that one!)
Some examples. First Penn answer — Gregory has Penn saying:
“The picture of the bus that’s the central kid of physical character in the movie”
He actually said:
“In black and white picture of the bus that’s the central kind of physical character in the movie”.
———–
SP: I picked it up
should be
SP: I picked it right back up
———–
SM: Now we should say in a way it’s not an obviously cinematic story
should be
SM: Now we should say this story that caught you, in a way I mean it’s not an obviously cinematic story
———–
This:
SM: Who goes on a mission
should be
SM: And goes off on a quest, a mission.
———–
This:
SP: So finally there was something I wanted to see as a movie I wanted to see
should be:
SP: So finally there was something here that I really saw as a movie I wanted to see.
———–
SP: I think that I don’t apologise in that the film and the way that John repesented it
should be:
SP: I think that I don’t apologise in saying that the film as well as my best sense of Chris’s life and the way that John presented it
———–
SP: just too good not to be a movie.
should be
SP: just too good to be true for a movie.
———–
SM: When you watch the movie
should be
SM: When you watch the film
———–
SP: It’s really about quality of life.
should be
SP: It’s quality of life.
Blithering… wow! Are you serious?
David, you’re the one who complained about inaccurate transcriptions, and claimed to have provided a verbatim one.
(And as a journalist, you must know that this sort of sloppiness can sometimes have serious implications.)
Rob – probably off topic to go into a discussion about Mailer, but I said that polemic was an important part of his work, not the only part.
(I speak as a student of American Literature)