| Howard Zinn: ‘As disheartening as it is, this is an interesting period to live in’
Howard Zinn has lived through and written about some of the most eventful times in American history. But the 85-year-old author of “A People’s History of the United States” is more in the present than he’s ever been. Tonight he hosts a taping of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States” at the Cutler Majestic, bringing in some of the biggest names in show business to play the part of activists, as they read works from underrepresented voices in this history of our country.
You must be really excited about this event at the Cutler Majestic. You’ve been working at getting a television series based on “A People’s History of the United States” for quite a while, right? Yeah, I am excited. And yes, for years, there have been attempts to get a television series based on “A People’s History,” and for years Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore and I have tried to do something. First it was with Fox television, which took an option on it, HBO, which went so far as HBO hiring writers to write scripts on “A People’s History.” We hired John Sayles and Howard Fast, but none of those things ever worked out. The studios or the networks dropped them after a while, for reasons that remain obscure. I think it has something to do with the difficulty of doing this, or the boldness. Maybe it was too bold for Fox. Well, the head of Fox is Rupert Murdoch, after all. My thought was, “Well, after a couple years with Fox, maybe Murdoch actually read the book, and that was the end!” [Laughter]. HBO, that was more complicated. It was a very ambitious thing to actually make feature films based on “A People’s History.” So, none of this was working, and last year, Chris Moore, who was one of the producers of “Good Will Hunting” decided that he would take the project, and he approached me, and I said sure, and we approached Anthony Arnold, who is my co-editor and co-writer on “Voices of a People’s History,” so the three of us have been working on this, and decided we would do it in a much simpler form than trying to make actual movie screenplays of fictional things based on history. We figured we’d actually use the historical documents, and actual letters, and memoirs and poems and songs read by well-known actors, and in some cases, not well-known actors. How did you decide who to assign to each document? We had a number of these events throughout the country in these past five years. In 2003 we had a reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and it seemed sort of natural to ask James Earle Jones to read Frederick Douglass and Marisa Tomei to read the words of a New England mill girl, and have Kurt Vonnegut read [labor leader] Eugene Debs and Alice Walker to read some of the voices out of the Southern movement, and so on. …Through these experiences we’ve gotten to know a number of actors who are so enthusiastic about doing this; these are actors who act very often in things that are not very meaningful to them. But you know actors are very often victims of circumstance, or of directors and producers and scripts and the need to work. And they don’t get that much of a chance to work on things that they truly care about. We find actors who have really strong social consciences have been waiting for something like this, and their response has been just terrific. Viggo Mortensen has very strong beliefs about the world and about war. He wrote a book about the war in Iraq. And Danny Glover has been going around the country and the world and very boldly speaking out about issues of the day, and Josh Brolin has only recently started to do these readings. And Kerry Washington, who played Ray Charles’ wife in that movie, “Ray” is also involved. And she feels very strongly about social injustice and the war economy. So, it’s fun matching up readings with people. We consult them and ask them what they’re comfortable with. Viggo Mortensen is bilingual and he loves to read [Barolome’ de] Las Casas — the man who blew the whistle on [Christopher] Columbus — in Spanish and in English. We have a guy from “The Wire” named Reg E. Cathey, and he’s going to read Martin Luther King Jr., and John Legend is going to sing [Nina Simone’s] “Mississippi Goddam.” I think Kerry Washington is going to sing [Billie Holiday’s] “Strange Fruit,” and Jasmine Guy will be singing some songs of the civil rights movement, like “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.” We’re going to have music, poetry. It should be an interesting set. Who is reading the Mark Twain passage about Teddy Roosevelt and the Moro Massacre? Josh Brolin. That would be perfect for him. Plus, if he kept the moustache from “No Country for Old Men” he’ll look like a young Mark Twain. Nobody’s trying to impersonate anybody. I haven’t seen that film yet, but I’ve seen photos from that and know he does have that moustache. [Laughs]. It will be interesting to see. I haven’t seen him for a while, so I don’t know if he does have a moustache or not. Until I read “A People’s History” I had no idea that Helen Keller was a political agitator. Who is reading that passage? Yes. That’s Kathleen Chalfant. She’s a wonderful stage actress from New York. Does the writer’s strike free up people who wouldn’t otherwise be available? You might say that since our movement is in favor of strikes, we’re helped by this. [Laughs]. Danny Glover was freed up for this, but I don’t know if other people were affected. And you’re not crossing any picket lines because this material has already been written! That’s right. It was written by people who lived a hundred years ago. You mention Vonnegut reading Debs, which makes sense, but that’s interesting because Vonnegut himself made it into “Voices of a People’s History” with his 2004 essay about Debs. Was having people read their own work ever an option. Well, yeah, we considered it, but he’s hard to put in a reading, because he’s wonderful on the printed page, but he’s so quirky and strange that it’s hard to get a handle on it as a reading. You have to read him for about 15 to 20 minutes before you catch on to his very bizarre humor. I also found it interesting that you included Bruce Springsteen’s “Sinaloa Cowboys” in there. Is he involved at all in the readings? We have approached him. He gave my book, “A People’s History” a big plug in an interview he did with Rolling Stone, and said that the book had influenced him very much, and so we did approach him. There are a number of people who weren’t free at this time, but will later contribute something and Bruce Springsteen will probably contribute a song. Eddie Vedder will certainly contribute a song. Matt Damon is shooting a film somewhere, so he can’t be here, but he will record something for us in a studio at some point, and all of this raw material will then be edited into the final TV production. What are you looking at as far as a timeline? We’re thinking of four one-hour programs. … We’re aiming for the fall of this year, just when people are getting tired of listening to candidates. There was a talk you gave called “Stories Hollywood Never Tells” at the Taos Film Festival a few years back. I find it interesting that now a large group of Hollywood types are involved in this project. Does that feel like a coup? Well, we’re trying. I think what we’re seeing is there are more films being made during the Iraq War about the Iraq War than were made about the Vietnam War during that war. Major films about the Vietnam War were made after the war, and in this case, you have something like “In the Valley of Elah,” Paul Haggis’s film about returning Iraqi veterans, and the film “Redacted,” which Brian De Palma made about a very ugly incident in Iraq. And, of course huge numbers of documentaries are being made, and I think that’s encouraging that the culture is more open to dissenting views. What is your favorite historical movie? “Burn.” Ever hear of it? I’ll probably take some heat for this, but no. It proves my point. The best movies are unknown. It’s especially interesting, because the star of “Burn” is Marlon Brando. Damn. I knew it was something I should know. You would think that a Marlon Brando film would not be unknown, but there’s a reason for that, and that it was a very bold, revolutionary film. It’s actually about a slave revolt on an island in the Caribbean in the 19th century. It really is about colonialism, imperialism and rebellion, and the need of indigenous people to carry on their own rebellion rather than have it done for them by somebody who’s then going to betray them. It’s a very powerful film. It’s on DVD now, but for a long time it was just out of circulation. United Artists just did not seem to want to advertise it, publicize it or make it available. I think it’s interesting you’re doing these tapings on the day of the New Hampshire primary. Well, we didn’t plan it that way, but there it is. What are your thoughts on the current candidates? Well, none of them are ideal. In your mind though, is there such a thing or was there ever such a thing as an ideal candidate? No. I mean, there are candidates who are better than other candidates, but our hope is for candidates who may be more sensitive to the people in the country and the wishes of the people than other candidates. So, I think we’re forced to make choices on Election Day, and sure, we try to choose somebody who will be a little more open to what people want and what people need. That’s the best we can hope for. Who do you think has been the most effective president in the U.S. history as far as this goes? I think about Franklin D. Roosevelt. He did not come into office as a great social reformer. His record as governor of New York State did not indicate that he would become a leader in social reform as he became when he entered the White House. With Roosevelt though, he was sensitive to the currents that were swirling around the country at the time he took office. The economic crisis, the lines of hungry people looking for jobs and the strikes that were going on in the country, and all the turmoil, and he responded to that. Another president might not have responded as well, or as creatively as Roosevelt did. It was a very creative response to create a federal arts project that would give jobs and work to writers and artists and musicians and playwrights. And, to be willing, against all of these complaints about “the government can’t do this” or “the government can’t do that”…to be willing to say, “No, if a free market is not going to do anything for people, then the government is going to do it, and we’ll put several million people to work. We’ll organize social security and unemployment insurance etc.” So, yeah, Roosevelt was certainly the best of the lot. You’ve studied history so effectively and gone to great lengths to unearth more points of view to shed light on the fact that things were often very dark. If you could live in any period of time that you’ve written about, which era would you choose? I’ve lived in some of the best periods. In the ‘60s, which are still the object of stereotyping and are maligned, but the ‘60s were an exciting and inspiring period of rebellion by black people, by people who wanted to end the war in Vietnam, by women, and by Native Americans. So, I’m happy to have lived through that period, and the truth is, the present period, as disheartening as it is with this war going on and the country being taken over by corporate power, as disheartening as it is, this is an interesting period to live in. Because it’s a period that requires citizen action and it demands citizen action perhaps more than we ever needed it before. As far as your own involvement with war, do you think you would have explored history and examined the cruelties and inaccuracies within it as much if you yourself weren’t dropping bombs in the second world war? Well, maybe not. There’s no doubt that personal experience has a profound effect on what you care about, and certainly being in the war and looking at my experience and the war experience afterward, certainly that had a very powerful effect on my thinking. Being in the South and being involved in the Southern movement also shaped the way I then looked at history. It’s like you were always in the right place at the wrong time. Yes, right. With all your insight into political leaders, did you ever consider running for office yourself, and trying to fix some of what is so wrong with the government? No. It goes against my belief, which is that the important history is made by people who don’t let themselves be corrupted by political office. I think there’s a reason why Martin Luther King Jr. never ran for political office. Or Marian Wright Edelman, who advocates for children in Washington D.C., she doesn’t run for office even though she’s been urged to. I think one thing that’s wrong with our culture is that people are so dragooned into thinking elections are the key to social change. The truth is that social movements you have in the country will have an effect on whoever is elected. It’s a healthier environment to be in, to be in a movement, than Washington. Back |
|