Lyrics Born: 'Same !@#$, Different Day'

DATE May 20, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Filler: By policy of WHYY, this information is restricted and has
been omitted from this transcript

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: French actress Jeanne Moreau discusses her life and
career
DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies filling in for Terry Gross.

Actress Jeanne Moreau has made more than 110 films and was an icon of the
French New Wave directors. The Francois Truffaut film "Jules and Jim,"
regarded by many as the most important of Moreau's career, has just been
released on DVD. The disk includes and audio commentary by Moreau. In the
film, Moreau plays Catherine, a Bohemian woman who's adored by two men.
Critic Pauline Kael said of "Jules and Jim," `Elliptical, full of wit and
radiance, this is the best movie ever made about what most of us think of as
the Scott Fitzgerald period.'

Today we'll listen back to Terry Gross' interview with Moreau. As we'll hear,
Moreau broke the rules on screen and off. As a young woman, she kept her
acting a secret from her father, who disapproved. When he found out, he hit
her and kicked her out of the house. She never returned. Later she starred
in Louis Malle's early films "Elevator to the Gallows" and "The Lovers"
and in Truffaut's "The Bride Wore Black," Brunel's "Diary of a Chamber Maid"
and Orson Welles' "The Trial." Four years ago, at the age of 73, Moreau
became the first woman to be inducted into France's Academy of Fine Arts.
Terry spoke with her in 1993.

TERRY GROSS, host:

Well, I think you've lived your life a step ahead of the times. For example,
the first time you got married, you got married just a few days before you
gave birth to your child.

Ms. JEANNE MOREAU (French Film Legend): On the day before.

GROSS: The day before.

Ms. MOREAU: The day before.

GROSS: And...

Ms. MOREAU: That's not breaking the rules. It's just that we didn't want to
get married, and then we complied because the families were so worried because
of the name of the child. So at the last moment, we said yes just to please
the others.

GROSS: And you've had lovers over the years who you didn't marry.

Ms. MOREAU: Well, I'm not the only one.

GROSS: Absolutely, but...

Ms. MOREAU: But I didn't marry each time. That's the difference.

GROSS: Right. Right. But do you feel that the times have caught up to you?
That you were ahead of the times?

Ms. MOREAU: Well, it's a very personal approach to life. I don't know if
things have changed so much.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Ms. MOREAU: And besides--excuse me.

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. MOREAU: And besides, there are other things that--I've never been
promiscuous. I just always let my heart speak and came close to people who
wanted to be close to me. I didn't expect to be scandalous just for the sake
of scandal.

GROSS: Were there consequences that you feel you paid during your life,
either in your personal life or in your career, as a result of having broken
certain social conventions?

Ms. MOREAU: Well, let's see. Well, maybe at some point, some people
considered me as an outsider. But as I didn't mix with that sort of people, I
didn't mind really. So I think even if I had to pay some price, it didn't
hurt me really because deeply rooted in me was the belief that I had to be
true to myself or true to that inner voice. I don't relate only with material
things. I don't only rely on what I see and what I hear. I'm always--I try
always to be very closely in relationship with my intuition and in what is
beyond what is seen, what is heard and what is shown. I believe in the life
of the spirit.

GROSS: You starred in the early films of Louis Malle.

Ms. MOREAU: The first films, the first film.

GROSS: Yes. The first film. Yeah, like "Elevator to the Gallows," and then
his film "The Lovers."

Ms. MOREAU: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: You starred in Truffaut's early film "Jules and Jim..."

Ms. MOREAU: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...and then "The Bride Wore Black." You had been in at least one film
before that--or in several films before that. Was it different to work with
the New Wave directors than it was to work in your earlier films?

Ms. MOREAU: It was totally different. In fact, I started filming at the same
time as I started acting on stage. I'm from the stage. My only ambition was
to be on stage. I had never seen a film. It was forbidden. It was
considered scandalous. I was not allowed to go to see films, and I was not
allowed to read the newspapers. That's the way I was brought up. As you can
see, it's a very, very restricted discipline. So I started filming. And I
must say, the New Wave brought about a total different approach, a total
freedom.

The old films I had made, I never met the director. I was contacted by the
producer. I would meet the costume designer, the cameraman. And then maybe
two or three days before the first day of shoot, I would have a meeting with
the director. The director is on the set--besides Jacques Becker, I was not
well-known here--but was a great, great film director. They never gave an
explanation, never asked something special. And I remember one day, I
approached the director, and I said, `Well, please tell me exactly what you
would like me to do in that scene.' And the man looked at me, and he said,
`Well, aren't you an actress?' I said, `Yes.' `Well, you were hired to act.
Just do it.' So, you know, I was quite flabbergasted because on stage in the
theater, the Comedie Francaise was very, very different.

And when I was approached by Louis Malle--at the time, I was doing "Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof," Tennessee Williams, on stage directed by Peter Brook. A very
young man came to visit me with his two producers. And he was 24, and I was
29. And he came up, and he explained me what sort of film he wanted to do,
very small budget, very small crew, hand camera, no makeup, shooting with very
light electrical group in the Champs Elysees at night. Oh, I thought, `God,
isn't that marvelous? No makeup,' because the big problem, I didn't look like
any of the stars of the time. I was supposed to be not very good looking. I
had those signs under my eyes, the drooping mouth, and it took hours to make
me up.

GROSS: Did they try to make you look more conventional when they made you up?

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah. I mean, everything had to be erased. And when I looked
at myself in the mirror, good God. And then suddenly, that was freedom, you
know, just a base and a little powder, and I just had to look myself. That's
all. And that was a great change. And the fact that it was a very small crew
meant that there were no delays. We were moving on.

GROSS: It must have been interesting to you to go from a family that forbade
you to read newspapers and forbade you to see movies because they thought it
was--What?--trashy...

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah.

GROSS: ...and they acting was like prostitution. Now you were working with a
director who was incredibly serious about film and who saw film as a great art
form, as I'm sure you did, too.

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah.

GROSS: Did that change your whole perception of the world?

Ms. MOREAU: It did. Well, I knew it must have been like that. But I do not
regret the first films I did, because later on--rarely it happened to me to
work with people that were less talented than all the names you've given. And
at least I could be in charge of myself, you know? I had a knowledge of the
camera, of the lenses, of tracks, of movements, of what was--technically
cinema was about, and I could be in charge of myself. But it's true that
opening up with the New Wave confirmed what I was seeking for. And there's
something very, very strange.

GROSS: What?

Ms. MOREAU: While talking with you, I'm thinking about how my father was
violently against. In fact--now he's gone since about 10 years--I discover
while speaking with you that all my life I always tried to prove to him that I
was right. You know, it's funny. Really, it give me such an impulse. In
fact, it helped me.

GROSS: What? To take movies that seriously to help prove that you were
right?

Ms. MOREAU: It helped me that he reacted so violently. It give me the drive
to resist. I resisted him, and now he's gone. I'm grateful, I thank him.
He made things difficult, but then it forced me to go further, you know?

GROSS: Further and deeper.

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah, and deeper. I wanted to be amongst the best.

DAVIES: French actress Jeanne Moreau speaking with Terry Gross in 1993. One
of her most famous films, "Jules and Jim," has just been released on DVD.
We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

DAVIES: Let's get back to Terry's 1993 interview with French actress Jeanne
Moreau. She starred in the Francois Truffaut film "Jules and Jim," which has
just been released on DVD.

GROSS: In the second movie that you made with Louis Malle, "The Lovers,"
there's a long and very sensual, very romantic scene toward the end of the
film...

Ms. MOREAU: Oh, yeah.

GROSS: ...in which you meet a man, and after a little bit of, like,
resistance, the two of you, like, fall in love and take a long, voluptuous...

Ms. MOREAU: Well, they make love everywhere, and they make love all night
long.

GROSS: Right. Right. Right.

Ms. MOREAU: And it's very kind of you to say that it's romantic. Now it's
considered as romantic--I mean, compared to what one is able to see in films.
But when it came out in the 60s, it was considered a real scandal. There are
some countries where it was forbidden.

GROSS: Well, the camera--you know, it's very clear that the couple is making
love, but the camera is on your face and on your hands the whole time. And
through the movements of your hands and the expression on your face, you know
exactly what's happening although you don't see it.

Ms. MOREAU: I think we should go back to that nowadays. I'm fed up with
seeing buttocks and things, you know?

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So what did you think of the scene when it was shot?
Did you feel that it crossed a boundary that it shouldn't have crossed? Or
did you think it was beautiful?

Ms. MOREAU: No. It didn't come to my mind. My main preoccupation was my
relationship with Louis Malle at the time. We were lovers, and I was, I mean,
I was passionately in love with him. And immediately we started the film, I
had a very strange feeling. It was as though the more I would give to Louis
Malle as a director, the more I would open up to that character on screen, the
less would be left of our personal relationship, you know? You understand
what I mean? I don't know how you call those things that counts the time,
those strange, little objects.

GROSS: An hourglass?

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah. And I had the impression that as the sand was falling on
the lower part, then the last grain of sand would be the end of our
relationship, and I was right.

GROSS: Why did you think that...

Ms. MOREAU: I don't know.

GROSS: ...acting out love in front of the camera as Malle directed was...

Ms. MOREAU: Because I was giving up something that was very personal and
secret and intimate between me and him. And it's as though it was sacred.
And I had the impression I was giving it to him as a film director to go
exactly where he wanted to go as a filmmaker, and I had to pay the price.
Maybe it's my Christian background, you know, Catholic background, but it
worked that way. So I didn't bother to think about is it going to be
scandalous or what? No. I wanted to be as close to the truth, the beautiful
truth of lovemaking and sensuality. And I say sensuality.

I do not say `sexuality,' because the thing I regret nowadays, it's that sex
has deprived how people relate to sex of their beauties, of that sacred,
spiritual, beautiful glory of each human being, just to be considered like a
piece of meat, a slice of steak. What is great in making love, it's that you
mix both, the senses and the love, and that's it. So I didn't think about
scandal.

GROSS: Do you think that Louis Malle had the same fears, that somehow making
the movie would end the real relationship?

Ms. MOREAU: Yes. Later on, we spoke about it, and he said that he felt the
same. And I asked for something. Usually I'm never keen on asking things,
special things, to be on the set or in a frame in a film. At the end of the
film, when she leaves the house with her lover, she's in one of those old
little French cars, and they cross the landscape, and on the left side,
there's a white horse. And I asked for the white horse, because when I was a
child, my grandmother and mother, when they saw a white horse, they would spit
on the floor and say, `White horse, white horse, give me good luck, good luck
to me, good luck to you, and good luck to every white horse like you.' And I
wanted the last image to be goodbye to that love, but, at the same time, good
luck to the white horse and to me.

GROSS: Was it worth the sacrifice of a relationship to make a great film?

Ms. MOREAU: Of course. It was not a sacrifice. It was symbolic, because no
love lasts as long as that, and it ended there, and we made, not only these
two films, but later on, he had another lover, had another lover. He came up,
and he asked me to play a part in another film of his. And we love each other
in a different way.

GROSS: I want to get back to your childhood. You told us that your father
was dead set against you becoming an actress, that acting was like
prostitution to him. But your mother, didn't she dance on the Follies
Bergere, which was...

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah, of course. She was a dancer.

GROSS: And what did he think of that?

Ms. MOREAU: I loved it.

GROSS: What did your father think of it?

Ms. MOREAU: Well, my father fell in love with her maybe because she was a
dancer, and she was--you know. And she got pregnant. I mean, she
married--she didn't marry a year before I was born. She married a few months
before I was born. I think that she became a Catholic to be able to marry my
father in the church while she was already pregnant. But you see, in the
family, they always considered my mother like a strange person, a foreigner.
She always spoke French with a lovely, adorable English accent, and she...

GROSS: Now your mother was from England.

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah. And she was a--she had been a dancer. And of course, I'm
sure that I was part of the game between my father and my mother, because on
one side, my father was against it, and on the other side, my mother helped
me.

GROSS: Helped you to act? Or helped you...

Ms. MOREAU: Well, she covered my lies, because very early, I led a double
life.

GROSS: Oh, what did you do?

Ms. MOREAU: Well, I studied to be an actress, and my father didn't know.

GROSS: Oh.

Ms. MOREAU: And I acted on the stage, and my father didn't know. He
discovered it when he saw my picture on the front page of a newspaper.

GROSS: Wow, 'cause you were in the Comedie Francaise. It would be hard to
keep it that secret.

Ms. MOREAU: And my first play was a huge success, and I was on the front page
of all the daily newspapers.

GROSS: Well, he must have been mighty angry.

Ms. MOREAU: Well, he threw me out.

GROSS: Where'd you go?

Ms. MOREAU: In a hotel.

GROSS: How long did you have to stay there?

Ms. MOREAU: Six months.

GROSS: That's a long time. Did you ever go back home after that?

Ms. MOREAU: No, never. But I made up with my father when I heard he was
sick. About four years later, he was in hospital, and I went, and I took him
out. And after that, I always took care of him, and he spent the 10 last
years of his life in my property--you would call that a ranch--in the south of
France.

GROSS: Did he ever say to you, `You're actually a really good actress, and
you've made some fine films?'

Ms. MOREAU: Never. Never. Never. He was proud when I had an official
decoration, you know the Legion of Honor and things like that. But he used to
say, `I can't understand. What has she got that is so special?' He thought I
was a very good cook. That he appreciated. And it's true, I'm a very good
cook. That was his limit. I had to do things with my hands, and I did.

GROSS: You're living in France now?

Ms. MOREAU: I'm living in Paris.

GROSS: In Paris. OK.

Ms. MOREAU: I'm living alone, and...

GROSS: Do you like living alone?

Ms. MOREAU: I need it.

GROSS: There are a lot of pleasures in living alone. What do you enjoy about
it?

Ms. MOREAU: Oh, the freedom to ask somebody to share my solitude.

GROSS: That's very nicely put.

Ms. MOREAU: Yeah, and so good sometimes just to spread oneself in one's bed,
get up at whatever time you wish. Oh, there are lots of pleasures.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much...

Ms. MOREAU: I thank...

GROSS: ...for talking with us. I really appreciate it a lot.

Ms. MOREAU: I thank you very much. And to me, it was not like an interview.
It was just like a conversation, and I think I'm very privileged to be able to
speak about things that are important to me, and I thank you very much.

DAVIES: French actress Jeanne Moreau speaking with Terry Gross in 1993. Her
film "Jules and Jim" has just been released on a special edition DVD with an
audio commentary by Moreau.

Coming up, Ken Tucker on the new CD by hip-hop artist Lyrics Born. This is
FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New CD "Same !@#$ Different Day" from Lyrics Born
DAVE DAVIES, host:

Lyrics Born is the hip-hop name for the Asian-born Berkeley, California-based
rapper-producer Tom Shimura. Two years ago, he released his debut called
"Later That Day," an album that went against the grain of then prevalent
gangsta rap, drawing on funk, soul and the experimental production styles of
colleague friends such as DJ Shadow and Blackalicious. Lyrics Born's new
release has a title that's tricky to say on the radio. It's called
"Same"--followed by a string of symbols denoting a profanity--"Different Day."
Our rock critic, Ken Tucker, has a review.

(Soundbite of music)

LYRICS BORN: (Rapping) Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Hello! You know
that's right. You know that's right. Hello! You know that's right. You
know that's wrong. Now ...(unintelligible)...

KEN TUCKER:

As you can hear from the funky raucous way Lyrics Born commences his new
album, he's out to throw a good party while making a few social, political and
romantic points. On that track, he says, `One life to live, and you got to
live it right,' and later, `We're representing the whole entire world.' Such
bragging harks back to the very roots of rap, and Lyrics Born is exuberantly
respectful of his elders. He gets the rap veteran KRS-One, who 20 years ago
was enunciating similar exhortations to both learn about the world and explore
it, to chime in on a cut.

(Soundbite of music)

KRS-ONE: (Rapping) We teach hip-hop courses constantly at the university,
giving my philosophy. Don't try stopping me, lyrics monopoly. All you iced
out rappers, you just ain't hot to me. ...(Unintelligible) hip-hopping me,
that's all I'm saying. We at the birth of a nation, and y'all don't get it.
All that kiddie titty talk, yo, I ain't with it. If you ain't ready to die,
then don't ...(unintelligible). Where the critics? Where they at now? We're
losing them. Got all these conscious rappers. Guess who influenced them? To
them young cats ...(unintelligible), but I remember you when you tried to ruin
them. Knowledge does ...(unintelligible) your brain. When you're sitting in
that cell, then you'll see what it means. While you're living in hell, you
can count your ...(unintelligible). Does this ring a bell? `I have a dream!'

TUCKER: That Lyrics Born generously letting KRS-One take the stage. For a
pure dose of the man himself, a perfect example of the way Lyrics Born raps
about matters other than life on the streets or high times in posh hotel
rooms, you can't do better than "I'm Just Raw." On this and other songs here,
he converts his music into open field where puns and wry understatement
prevail. There are exhortations to enjoy life, but to have a goal, preferably
a creative one. And he name checks everyone from David Letterman to the
Harlem Globetrotters to Pat Benatar.

(Soundbite of "I'm Just Raw")

Unidentified Man #1: His name is...

Unidentified Man #2: ...Lyrics Born...

Unidentified Man #1: ...and he is, as they say, wild and crazy. As a
composer, arranger and producer, he's exploring it all from the furthest
reaches of musical outer space to the most down-to-earth funk, and he
sounds--well, he sounds exactly like this.

BORN: (Rapping) Nobody 'members those rhapsodic episodes from 20 years ago
when you were the guest host. Past history. Let it go. Get off all the
medical. Pack a duffel bag with all your wrinkled clothes and pedal home.
Get a little Dictaphone and sit alone in the middle of the room and let it
flow. Wouldn't it be better if you went and chose a new career path, like the
shepherd of a flight attendant on an aircraft? You're pitiful,
(unintelligible) fishing in the smaller pond. All the Barbie dolls have
leftover beads from from the Mardi Gras. ...(Unintelligible) have a heart,
but it's just poppycock, 'cause inside you're ever soft like a Jolly Rancher
lollypop. I'll give you cauliflower here, stupid. You're weird, feelin'
blue, on the stew, somewhere ...(unintelligible) beers ...(unintelligible)
moaning like a hot cow, crying on the shoulder of some old man you met just
now. I'm smarter than you. I'm hotter than you. I'm better than you. I'm
just raw. I'm hotter than you.

TUCKER: The little fib I'm telling here is in suggesting that this is a new
album. It's actually a collection of extensively remixed cuts from his debut,
"Later That Day," plus five new songs. For our purposes, though, it is a new
album. This creative thriftiness makes a point of its own. Lyrics Born and
his producer pals, including the witty Dan the Automater, see the entire
history of popular music as a ripe garden of pleasure from which they pluck
guitar riffs, drumbeats, vocal phrasing and constantly shifting tempos. Over
and over, he samples the sonorous announcer saying `Same (censored) different
day' when actually nothing is ever the same.

(Soundbite of music)

BORN: (Singing) Well, I came at you a young boy, girl, with no experience.
Year in year out. We had our ups and downs, but I always took it serious. I
made a joke. I played the fool. I took time, made all the plans. I know I
told you that we were supposed to have something made for this weekend, but I
changed my mind. I changed my mind. I changed my mind. I changed my mind.
And I changed my mind. Well, it started getting...

TUCKER: Lyrics Born will argue progressive politics and the, quote,
"collective strength of the family unit" then chide the, quote, "elitist
media" for marginalizing albums like his in favor of the thug fantasies of
what he refers to as gangsta'd-out music. As the man says, he likes to
debate, to change his mind and argue the opposite point of view a verse later.
As an artist, he's an autodidact. As an entertainer, he's what he claims
David Letterman called him, `Tight, very tight.'

DAVIES: Ken Tucker is film critic for New York magazine.

(Credits)

DAVIES: For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.