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- Interview: Linda Greenlaw, author "The Hungry Ocean," discusses her fishing experiences Commentary: Recommended books for summer reading Interview: Director John Woo discusses his movie style and some of his influences Review: New film "Mission: Impossible 2" the summer's first blockbuster in spite of a dull story line
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- DATE May 26, 2000 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A NETWORK NPR PROGRAM Fresh Air Interview: Linda Greenlaw, author "The Hungry Ocean," discusses her fishing experiences BARBARA BOGAEV, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev in for Terry Gross. It's rare for a woman to work on a fishing boat and virtually unheard of for a woman to captain one. Despite that, Linda Greenlaw has a reputation as one of the best on the East Coast. For a decade, Greenlaw captained swordfishing boats off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland from May to October and in the Caribbean and the mid-Atlantic in the winter months. A few years ago she took some time off from fishing to write a book. "The Hungry Ocean," which has just come out in paperback, tells the story of a monthlong fishing trip aboard the Hannah Boden, a hundred-foot, steel-hulled boat that Greenlaw skippered for seven years. The Hannah Boden was the sister ship to the Andrea Gail, which was lost in a hurricane in 1991. Sebastian Junger's book about the Andrea Gail, "The Perfect Storm," has just been adapted to the screen and features a character based on Greenlaw. It's due out June 30th. I spoke with Linda Greenlaw last year. Since the captain and crew's paycheck depend on the haul, I asked her how much fish she had to catch just to break even. Ms. LINDA GREENLAW (Author, "The Hungry Ocean"): An average Grand Banks swordfishing trip is 30 days dock to dock, and it's about $40,000 that the owner of the boat would have invested just to get the boat away from the dock. And to pay the expenses, you'd have to catch, you know--generally speaking, at $4 a pound, obviously you'd have 10,000 pounds to cover the expenses. BOGAEV: Have you ever not caught enough to break even? Ms. GREENLAW: Absolutely, I have. And I think that the best example of that was a trip I made halibut fishing to the Grand Banks one winter. We hadn't been doing that well swordfishing and thought we'd just nail them halibut fishing. We thought we'd kind of bail ourselves out. My boss had done very well halibut fishing in the past, so I was very anxious to go, anxious try to it, had never done it before. It was probably the worst fishing I can remember in my life. We couldn't catch anything. We fished all the way around the tail of the bank, up around this thing called the Flemish Cap, went everywhere that we could, covered every inch of bottom that we could legally cover and just couldn't come up with any fish at any point. I mean, we'd get a little sign here and there, `Well, maybe we'll be able to bail ourselves out. This is it. We're on them,' and then nothing. Empty hooks, empty hooks, empty hooks. And that trip lingered into 40-odd days. It was a long, disastrous trip. And when we reached shore, a couple of my guys actually kissed the ground when they jumped ashore and never went fishing again. BOGAEV: How do you hold a crew together under circumstances like that? Ms. GREENLAW: Well, it's tough during the extreme circumstances like that. I stay very optimistic. Usually, the crew will follow the captain's lead. If I, you know, think there's fish around the next corner, then, you know, can usually convince the crew that there's a chance. Unfortunately, in that trip, you know, we just sort of ran out of corners. BOGAEV: You write about something called the fishing mentality. Why don't you tell us what that is? Ms. GREENLAW: OK. When things are going very well, fishermen start getting very suspicious about their good fortune and wonder when the tide is going to turn: `Oh, absolutely, there's no way this good fortune can go on forever. So it's just a matter of when. When is our luck going to turn to being very bad?' And on the other hand, when things are going very bad, you sort of almost feel like you're due some good luck. And, you know, `Well, gee, if we stay out here long enough, things have got to turn around. Our luck just can't stay bad forever.' BOGAEV: Where would you put yourself on the fishing mentality scale? Are you on the high end in superstition? Ms. GREENLAW: In superstition, I'll tell you what, I'm kind of weird when it comes to the fishing superstitions. I obviously don't believe that women are bad luck on boats. That's the one that I absolutely won't believe at all because I've proven that one to be wrong. People are sometimes surprised that I'm still fishing and actually return from every trip. You know, I should definitely have been lost at sea long ago if I'd been bad luck. The other superstitions, though, I'm not like a real believer in them, but they're sort of like the horoscope. You know, if I get up in the morning and I read my horoscope and I like it, I think, `Cool, today's going to be a great day.' And if I read my horoscope and I don't like it, I think, `Eh, that's a bunch of bull. Who believes that stuff anyway?' BOGAEV: Besides women being bad luck on boats, what are some of the cardinal superstitions in fishing lore? Ms. GREENLAW: Number-one superstition in a fisherman's life is the word `pig.' You're not allowed to say the word `pig' on a boat, aboard a boat anytime, anywhere. The couple of different reasons that I've heard for that--and, I mean, I grew up with this superstition, so I definitely would never say it on a boat. A couple of different reasons for a pig being bad luck on a boat that I've heard: that--they seem a little ridiculous, but one is that pigs can't swim, and they roll over onto their backs and drown. And the other one is that, `Oh, yeah, pigs do swim, but they do the dog paddle and they cut their own throats with their hooves and bleed to death.' So that's the foremost of fishing superstitions. There are others. I mean, you never turn a hatch cover upside-down. Bananas are forbidden on a boat. The color blue is an unlucky hull color. There are many, but those are the main ones. BOGAEV: What's with the bananas? Ms. GREENLAW: I don't know. I never heard any reason for that, but I definitely don't allow bananas on any boat that I'm aboard. BOGAEV: Also no whistling, right? Ms. GREENLAW: Yeah. No whistling. Whistling is said to whistle up the wind. BOGAEV: Mm-hmm. That's a bad thing. Ms. GREENLAW: That would be a bad thing, yeah. BOGAEV: How well do you sleep when you're at sea? Ms. GREENLAW: Well, I like to think that I sleep well aboard a boat, but it's sort of sleeping with your ears open. You definitely get very accustomed to the sound of a boat and the sound that the engine makes and the sound of the generator running. I know that when I'm sleeping aboard the Hannah Boden, I can hear when a pump kicks in. You know, it changes the sound of the generator. I can hear the guys opening the engine room door. For instance, if they're taking a watch, they're supposed to be checking the engine room every 30 minutes, and I hear the door opening and closing. I know who's checking the engine room and who is not. I have an ear open for the radio. I like to listen to what's going on, you know, on the VHF or the single-sideband radio. As far as traffic in the area, other boats and maybe other fishermen chit-chatting, I like to keep an ear on that, too. BOGAEV: Sounds like you don't sleep at all. Ms. GREENLAW: Well, I know it sounds that way, but maybe it's more or less just resting because fishing's very physical. And when you do get a chance to lie down, giving your body a rest is just as important as giving your mind a rest. BOGAEV: I imagine, since there's always a man on watch, that it must be your nightmare as captain that he fall asleep. Has that happened to you? Ms. GREENLAW: That is a cardinal sin. Yes, it has. Yes, it has. Bad experience. I was actually in my bunk and had a man on watch. I heard somebody on the VHF radio calling the boat three miles from them and then a little later two miles and then a little later one mile, a little later, a half a mile. And I thought, `You know, this voice on the radio is starting to sound kind of panicky.' So I thought maybe I'd get up and listen to the rest of the conversation, just see, you know, someone's going to be in trouble. Two boats are getting way too close to each other at sea. When I heard the voice on the radio saying a quarter of a mile, I jumped out of my bunk and looked out the wheelhouse windows, and all I could see was white lights. The voice on the radio was calling my boat. My man, who was on watch, was sound asleep, never heard a thing. It looked to me like we were about to have a collision. I turned the helm hard to starboard, and we just missed this other thing. All I could see was lights we were so close to it. And then, of course, I was sort of woken up by this. Just missed, very near miss collision. Got away from it far enough to see on radar that there were actually two targets. It was a tugboat pulling a barge behind it. So we were either going to go between the two, which would have been disastrous, or smash into one or the other, which also would have been disastrous. This man slept through the whole thing. And I was so upset, you know, all I could imagine was, you know, `Here we are, we're on our way in. It was a good trip. And we could have all died if I hadn't jumped up.' You know, there was a very good chance we all would have been in the water. I actually slapped the guy across the face, and, of course, he woke up, `Oh, what's going on?' kind of thing. And, well, that was the last trip he made with us. BOGAEV: He was fired on the spot? Ms. GREENLAW: Yeah, he was. And he didn't even have to ask why. BOGAEV: We're featuring a 1999 interview with boat Captain Linda Greenlaw. Her book, "The Hungry Ocean," has just been released in paperback. We'll continue our conversation after this break. This is FRESH AIR. (Soundbite of music) BOGAEV: Let's get back to our 1999 interview with commercial fishing Captain Linda Greenlaw. She's featured as one of the characters in the upcoming film adaptation of Sebastian Junger's book "The Perfect Storm." You tell a story about arriving on ship first on the day you're going to head out on a trip, and you notice a body in the water. Why don't you tell us what that was all about? Ms. GREENLAW: OK. I actually climbed aboard the boat. We were doing some work aboard the boat at the dock. I was the first one there in the morning. Went down and did my engine room chores and decided it was going to be a while before the crew showed up, so maybe I'd go up the street for a cup of coffee. While I was climbing off of the boat, I noticed a body in the water below me between the boat and the dock. All that was breaking the surface of the water was the crown of this man's head. I figured he was dead, and this was in the middle of the winter, very cold. There's no way this guy should have been alive. I reached over the rail. All I could reach was the top of his head. I pulled his hair and pulled his head out of the water, and I almost died myself because he started talking to me. He was alive. I managed to get him aboard the boat, and he was very intoxicated. About the time that I got him on the boat, I thought he was dead again. He just sort of laid on the deck like a dead fish. And two of my crew members showed up, referred to this guy that I had on the deck as Uncle Patty. So to make a long story short, my first mate had hired this man to go as cook the following trip, unbeknownst to me. So my first introduction to my cook was pulling him out of the icy ocean. BOGAEV: His name was Uncle Patty, right? What happened to him? Ms. GREENLAW: Yes. Well, Uncle Patty went fishing with us and, unfortunately, he really must have been a lot deeper into the alcohol than any of us knew. We reached the fishing grounds and were just getting ready to set the first hooks, and I sent the cook down below to wake the guys up. You know, `Hey, we're here finally,' after five or six days of steaming. `Go get everybody up and, you know, get ready. We're going to set the gear out for the first set.' We were halibut fishing. The cook came back into the wheelhouse and said, `I think Uncle Patty's dead.' And I said, `You know, I've heard some pretty good excuses for not wanting to get up in the morning, but, really, you know, go get him up.' And, you know, he disappeared and came back and said, `No, really, Linda, you need to come down and check. I really think he's dead.' And I said, `Oh, my God. All right.' Well, we went down and, sure enough, Patty had died in his bunk. BOGAEV: I assume that's the end of that fishing trip. Is that right? What did you do? Ms. GREENLAW: That was the end of that fishing trip. I really didn't know what to do at that point. Obviously, I'd never encountered this kind of problem: `Hey, I've got a corpse on the boat.' The first thing I did was I called the Canadian Coast Guard--we were fishing off the coast of Newfoundland--and told them, you know, I had a man that passed away and could they come get him. And they said, `No, absolutely not. We don't come get dead bodies.' So I tried the US Coast Guard and got the same response. You know, `We don't come get dead bodies. You'll have to bring him in yourself.' So I did. We turned around--without putting one hook in the water, turned around and steamed all the way back to Portland. In the meantime, we had to decide what to do with the body, and that was either--choices are few. It's either burial at sea, which means throw him overboard, or put him in the bait freezer. His nephew was on the boat--that's why we called him Uncle Patty--and we decided that we would have to go in, we would have to have the body with us, so we would put him in the bait freezer, which we did. It was a long trip home. You know, we encountered a very severe ocean storm on the way home. It kind of slowed our progress. It was like seven days with, you know, Uncle Patty in the freezer. Long trip home. BOGAEV: My guest is Linda Greenlaw. Her new book about her experiences as a fisherman off the Newfoundland coast, fishing for swordfish, is called "The Hungry Ocean." In the fall of 1991, a storm devastated your sister ship called the Andrea Gail. Sebastian Junger told the story of the shipwreck in "The Perfect Storm," his novel, and you were also at sea in the storm, you mention in the book. What was your experience during the gale? Ms. GREENLAW: People are generally a little disappointed after they read "The Perfect Storm" and then ask me about my personal experience during that storm. I was 600 miles east of where the Andrea Gail is suspected to have gone down. Of course, we'll never know exactly where because nothing was ever really found. They pretty much disappeared without a trace. Probably two really bad parts of the storm for me were, one, listening to the guys west of me who were struggling with the weather. These are men that I'd fished around and talked to on the radio every day for years. They weren't saying, `Oh, you know, we're scared,' but you could tell from their voices and the types of things that they were saying that they were having a very hard time. And a couple of them said that it was the worst weather they'd ever seen, and I know what kind of weather these guys are used to. Knowing that weather moves from west to east, I knew that weather was coming--that that bad storm was coming towards me. So what they had I was going to get. So, obviously, I was scared. My crew was very busy preparing the boat for the weather. There's a whole list of things that you do to make a boat as seaworthy as you can make it. Fortunately, by the time the storm reached my position, it had diminished somewhat. We had 70 knots of wind for a couple of days. It was miserable. It was, by no means, life-threatening for us aboard the Hannah Boden. Fortunately, we were just in a better place, you know, at the time. The other really bad thing, other than listening to they guys west of me, of that whole episode for me was returning to Gloucester. The day that I returned to Gloucester was the day that the Coast Guard canceled the search for the Andrea Gail. So, at that point, there really was no reason to hope or, you know, wonder if they were going to show up. So that was a very, very sad time for me. Usually homecomings are a very joyous occasion. You know, you're glad to be coming in. But during this homecoming, you know, many of the family members and friends of the guys who were lost aboard the Andrea Gail were coming around the dock and asking questions. They understood that I was, you know, the person to have the last conversation with Billy Tyne, the captain of the Andrea Gail, and they wanted to know exactly what he said, and they wanted to know if I knew anything that the Coast Guard had not relayed to them. And I really didn't have any answers for them. It was very sad. BOGAEV: In that last conversation that you had with the captain of that boat, did you get the sense that he knew how bad their situation was? Ms. GREENLAW: No. The last conversation I had with Billy Tyne was a very typical conversation. Billy Tyne had been steaming towards Gloucester for three days. He was on his way home with a trip of swordfish. And it's very common for the guy to the west to call the other fishermen and let them know what the weather's doing. It's your best predictor of what the weather's going to do, the guy west of you. So he pretty much called me up that evening and warned me that his weather had gotten--you know, he had like 50 knots of wind. It had gone from about flat calm to 50 very quickly. And he was warning me, you know, that maybe I would want to consider not fishing that night because the weather was moving towards me. And I had already received some faxes, weather maps and had decided to not fish, and I appreciated him calling me and giving me that advice and information. That was pretty much the end of the conversation. It was a very typical conversation between fishermen. Conversations always include weather information, the sharing of weather information, so it was not out of the ordinary in any way. BOGAEV: My guest is commercial fisherman Linda Greenlaw. She has a new book about her experiences at sea, fishing for swordfish on other trips. It's called "The Hungry Ocean." What kind of trouble did you run into because of your gender on the boat, either as a crew member or as a captain, which I imagine brought different challenges to the job? Ms. GREENLAW: Well, to be honest with you, I've been fishing for 18 years, and I've never really thought about being female that much until recently, because obviously I am asked that type of question a lot. So I've had to think about it, and I can honestly say that I can't think of any time that I thought that being female was an obstacle to any success that I've achieved. And, by the same token, I really can't really use being female as an excuse for any failures that I've accumulated because I've surely accumulated a few of those also. But gender just hasn't been a factor. The obstacles that challenge fishermen are bad weather, crew problems and mechanical breakdowns, and they're certainly ignorant of gender. They haven't been any tougher for me than they have been for the men in the same business. BOGAEV: Do you find that you have to go through any kind of hazing procedure with every new crew member; that you have to be tough on them at the beginning so they know they're not just messing around with some woman? Ms. GREENLAW: No, I've never felt that way. I think that's due to a couple of different things, one is which I hire my own crew. So any guy who doesn't like the idea of working for a woman definitely is not going to ask me for a job. The other is just the title of captain brings with it, you know, obviously the ultimate authority aboard the boat and some respect. I mean, even the lowliest captains, the dirtbaggy captains that I know, when the crew climbs aboard in the morning, they say, `Hello, Captain.' BOGAEV: Are there any basic, everyday tasks that you find a little difficult or uncomfortable because you're a woman? I'm thinking about going to the head or any kind of issues that involve modesty. Ms. GREENLAW: Yeah, if you want to get into that, that's fine. This is the one thing that I did mention in my book. I've always been very careful to go on boats where I have privacy. Even working on deck, I only went as crew member aboard a boat where I would have my own stateroom. You know, I did not share a room with any guys. As captain, I've always had my own stateroom and my own head, my own shower. It's very important because, you know, being the only female on the boat, I have to have some privacy. I will say the one thing--you know, if you're going to push me on this about, you know, there's got to be something about being more difficult for a female, it probably is using the head. You know, in rough weather, it's kind of difficult. You have to brace yourself and try and stay on the head, and sometimes it can be very difficult in bad weather. BOGAEV: Is there a moratorium on swordfishing now? I think environmentalists are concerned that the swordfish are overfished. What's your take on that? Ms. GREENLAW: No. There's no moratorium. There's a moratorium on permits. So somebody wants to get in the swordfishing business, it's impossible to get a permit to go, but the boats who already have permits are allowed to go. There are all kinds of management plans and regulations in place to ensure that the swordfish stock remain healthy. US fishermen--not just swordfishermen, all US fishermen are among the most-regulated fishermen in the world. I would like to add that regulations are a good thing. Fishermen of today are conservationists. I like to know there's going to be a future in fishing. I'm happy to abide by all laws. Sometimes the laws seem a little extreme. And I guess the one gripe that I have is when sort of radical conservationists, who maybe don't know that much about the fish stocks, when they come up with a reason to boycott swordfish, such as the "Give Swordfish a Break"(ph) campaign, without knowing all the facts--you know, I find it hard to believe that chefs from restaurants in New York City would know enough about swordfishing to make a really good decision about boycotting it. BOGAEV: Linda Greenlaw, thanks so much for talking with me today. Ms. GREENLAW: Thank you. BOGAEV: Linda Greenlaw is currently a lobster fisherman living on an island off the coast of Maine. She's working on her second book. I'm Barbara Bogaev, and this is FRESH AIR. (Soundbite of music) BOGAEV: Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan gives us some ideas for summer reading. Director Jon Woo talks about making action films in Hollywood and Hong Kong. And film critic John Powers gives us his take on Woo's new film, "Mission Impossible 2." (Soundbite of music) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Commentary: Recommended books for summer reading (Soundbite from "Mission: Impossible") BARBARA BOGAEV, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev. Summer is the time for travel, and book critic Maureen Corrigan has a few recommendations for some armchair travels through time. MAUREEN CORRIGAN (Georgetown University): Usually, I'm the one desperately shouting out summer reading suggestions to my students on the last day of class as they're making a break for the door, many of them in a rush to get to the campus bookstore to sell all the books they allegedly just read for my course. But that situation was somewhat reversed recently when I got a letter from an old student, making one of the most persuasive reading recommendations I've ever received. Knowing of my native daughter's love for New York City, this former student sent me a brand-new copy of Jack Finney's 1970 cult classic "Time and Again." Other people have recommended this novel to me over the years, but they've never done so in an eloquent three-page letter. My old student said the novel shaped his view that the only thing cooler than New York City was the New York City of the past. He said he thought I would be as amazed by this novel as he was each time he read it. He was right. "Time and Again" became my first read of this summer, the perfect summer novel, in fact, because it's old and therefore in paperback, and because it's deftly crafted, suspenseful, emotionally absorbing and totally escapist. Actually, the first thing that surprised me about the novel was the list opposite the title page of other stories written by Finney. I didn't know he wrote that classic tale of terror "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." I've only seen the movie versions, so I don't know how his original story compares, but its horrifying premise that people you love can change overnight into strangers extends beyond sci-fi fantasy into the chilled reality of relationships changed by the fast-acting agents of betrayal, sickness and old age. Finney wrote that story--originally entitled "The Body Snatchers"--in 1955, and he was irritated until his death in 1995 by critics who read it as a Cold War allegory dramatizing America's fear of Communist infiltration. I think in "Time and Again," Finney responded to those critics because the novel contains an explicit anti-military, anti-big government message. The plot revolves around the time travel adventures of an advertising artist named Si Morley, who participates in a government project that transports him back to New York City in the winter of 1882. "Time and Again" may be classified dismissively as `genre fiction,' but I don't think I've read any other novel or history--including "The Alienist" and E.L. Doctorow's "Waterworks"--that's made New York of the 19th century come so vividly alive in my mind. Here's a passage where Morley describes a nighttime elevated train ride through Lower Manhattan. `There were lights, thousands of them, but of no brightness. They were gaslights, most of them, white at this distance and almost steady. But there was candlelight, too, and I supposed kerosene. No colors, no neon, nothing to read. Just a vast blackness pricked with lights.' That vision of a darkened and alien New York City gives me the chills, just like the idea of pod people does. "Time and Again," like all good fantasy fiction, makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar. Like my old student said, `Read it, and you'll be amazed.' My other two summer novel recommendations aren't time-travel tales, but they're set, at least partly, in the past and so give a reader that vacation sensation of having left home for far-off places. The appropriately titled "Last Days of Summer" by Steve Kluger is a 1998 novel now out in paperback. It's set in Brooklyn of the 1940s, and ingeniously tells its story of a lonely, nine-year-old juvenile delinquent named Joey Margolis, mostly through letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings and report cards. Like "Time and Again," it's chockful of period detail. But here, the obsessive references to antiquities like Nathan's Hot Dogs, the New York Giants and the old Paramount Theatre are used to mostly comic effect. "Last Days of Summer" is as sweet and ephemeral as a genuine egg cream. Enough about New York. My pick for this summer's must-read novel is "No Great Mischief" by Alistair MacCleod. And it's set in desolate Cape Breton, Canada, where descendents of Scottish highlanders still speak Gaelic and the past is as omnipresent as the sea. This is the 64-year-old MacCleod's first novel. He's been celebrated in Canada for his short story collections. I wish that adjectives like `luminous,' `spare' and `haunting' weren't such cliches because they're the perfect words for "No Great Mischief." The present-day story line takes place mostly during the few hours when a middle-aged orthodontist named Alexander MacDonald visits his alcoholic older brother who's living in a Toronto flophouse. Their brandy-fueled conversation arcs back to their childhood and beyond, to General Wolfe's(ph) Scottish troops dying on the Plains of Abraham(ph) and to their ancestor, Calum MacDonald, who left Scotland in 1779 with his wife and 12 children and landed in Cape Breton. There are unsentimental, poetic descriptions here of uranium miners hands and disemboweled whales and the deaths of Alexander's parents, who fell through the ice one evening crossing a not-quite-frozen sea channel. Commenting on the lesser grief, Alexander says, `Sometimes it is hard to choose or not to choose those things which bother us at the most inappropriate of times.' The only thing that bothered me about "No Great Mischief" is that it's too slim to last the whole summer long. BOGAEV: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "Time and Again" by Jack Finney, "Last Days of Summer" by Steve Kluger and "No Great Mischief" by Alistair MacCleod. Coming up, director John Woo. His new film is "Mission: Impossible 2." This is FRESH AIR. (Soundbite of music) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Interview: Director John Woo discusses his movie style and some of his influences (Soundbite from "Mission: Impossible 2") Unidentified Woman: You're a spy. But if you want me, you got to catch me. (Soundbite of motorcycle; cars screeching; crashing) Unidentified Man: Oh! BARBARA BOGAEV, host: "Mission: Impossible 2" has just hit the theaters. The film stars Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton, and it's directed by John Woo, who's best-known for his fast-paced, intricately choreographed action films. Before John Woo went Hollywood, he made 26 movies in Hong Kong, including comedies, martial arts films and gangster films. Some of Woo's Hong Kong films, such as "The Killer" and "Hard-Boiled," developed a cult following in the US. Quentin Tarantino was one of Woo's early champions. Woo made his first American film--"Hard Target"--in 1992 with Jean-Claude Van Damme. He followed that up with "Broken Arrow" and "Face/Off," which both starred John Travolta. A little later in the show, we'll have a review of his new film, "Mission: Impossible 2." First, let's hear Terry's 1997 interview with John Woo, recorded after the release of "Face/Off." TERRY GROSS, host: There's a scene toward the end of "Face/Off" in which all the characters--each have their gun out, and each person has their gun pointed at somebody else. So everybody's got a gun pointed and everybody's got a gun pointed at them. You had a very similar scene toward the end of "The Killer," in which the two men who have been pursuing each other through the film have their guns drawn on each other in a stalemate. And Quentin Tarantino borrowed that at the end of "Reservoir Dogs." Mr. JOHN WOO (Director, "Mission: Impossible 2"): Yeah. GROSS: How did this become an almost signature shot for you? Mr. WOO: Well, I just want to show, you know, all men are equal, you know, no matter the good guy or the bad guy. And they all only have one chance to live or die, you know. While making "The Killer," I tried to create a moment that said--to show that all mankind--they all pretty much the same, you know, no matter they're good and bad. And, also, the idea was--came from the Mad magazine, Spy vs. Spy. GROSS: No, really? Mr. WOO: Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the Mad magazine and the cartoon, you know. You know, in Spy vs. Spy, the black and white bird against each other, but even though they are enemies--but, actually, they are friend. So I tried to create a equal moment to show that. So that became my trademark. Listen, in my theory, I always believe there's no really a good guy or bad guy in this world. I think all of mankind, they all have a very special quality, you know. GROSS: So you read Mad magazine when you were in Hong Kong? Mr. WOO: Oh, yeah. I read Mad magazine for years, yeah. I'm a big fan. Yeah. GROSS: Now a lot of people describe your action scenes as looking beautifully choreographed. And you've said that you've been very influenced by Hollywood musicals in how you do the action scenes. Mr. WOO: Oh, yes. GROSS: What Hollywood musicals do you really love that have influenced your action scenes? Mr. WOO: Well, mostly the old classic musical, like "Singin' in the Rain." I saw lots and lots of Fred Astaire's musicals, "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "West Side Story," "All That Jazz," you know, and "The Wizard of Oz." I have seen a lot of musicals. And beside the musical, I also a big fan of the cartoon, you know. So that's why my kind of action sometimes is pretty much like a cartoon. GROSS: Well, it is like a cartoon in a sense that no matter how much a person is knocked down and beaten up, he springs back up again to fight some more if he's the leading man. If he's a secondary character, he's probably going to get killed. Mr. WOO: Yeah. GROSS: But, you know, some people would say that that's a bad thing because it leads people to think that violence doesn't really hurt and that violence doesn't really kill people; that violence can be fun. Mr. WOO: Well, I think some people may be a little too serious about my movies, you know. And, actually, the action in my movie, I always feel it's pretty much like ballet dancing or the cartoon. To be honest, I have never intends to selling violence. And, actually, I'm not a violent guy, you know. I have never learned any kung fu. I've never fight any people. I've never fired a real gun in my life, you know. I just make it fun, you know. You know, maybe the way I show it usually a little too strong. Before I start--if I think of something--you know, something from the news, something from the newspaper--like, if I read something, like, a little child having been murdered or some innocent people are being killed, you know, by a madman or by gangster or some people who lost their life in a war, then it usually make me very angry, very angry and painful. And then I put that emotional into the scene, and then I will let my hero hit the bad guy harder and harder, you know. So scenes that are so much emotional, so that's why the impact so strong. GROSS: In talking about how dance films, how musicals have influenced your action sequences... Mr. WOO: Yeah. GROSS: ...I would imagine that was even more true in some of the Hong Kong films, in which the fighting was martial arts fighting and you were doing a lot of, you know, hand-to-hand and foot-to-hand kind of combat. Mr. WOO: Yeah. GROSS: That's very choreographed. Mr. WOO: Yeah. Yeah. I--some of the kung fu films are very choreographed and, also, pretty much like dancing, as well. Of course, most of the Hong Kong director or stunt coordinator--they have been trained by the Peking Opera. So they are very good at those kind of, like, dancing action, you know. GROSS: Were you trained by the Peking Opera? Mr. WOO: No, never, never. I did... GROSS: Do you dance? Do you dance at all? Mr. WOO: Yeah, I dance a little. When I was in high school, I was a ballroom dance instructor, you know. I taught the folk dance, waltz, tango, you know. So I am--I feel myself as a dancer, you know. GROSS: That's great. Mr. WOO: So that's why when I said, you know, why I am choreographing the action, it seems like I'm dancing, you know. I'm dancing with the actors. GROSS: Now what were some of the things that you did with the camera and with the speed to make the fight scenes more dramatic, things like slowing up or speeding up or slowing down the scene? Mr. WOO: Well, each shot, I like to set five or six--or three or four camera. And each camera have a different kind of speed, you know. Like, one is the normal speed, the other maybe 120 frame, the other maybe 60 frame, you know. And then I put them together to see how it looks, how it feels. And then I edit it with the soundtrack. It means that I cut with the music. I just sort of use the soundtrack to cut with the scene. GROSS: Mm-hmm. Mr. WOO: So when a mood or when the music rhythm go, that will usually give me the feeling to use the normal speed or to using the slow motion or, you know, slow-motion shot. And after we put the whole scene together to go over the music, see how it feel. GROSS: Is there either an action scene or a fight scene that you can break down for us almost shot by shot and tell us how you made it? Mr. WOO: Well, it's real hard, you know. Of course, the first beginning we did some storyboard, you know. But I just said that I use it for reference. I like to create anything on a set. When I go to the set, I would like to see what I had. So I usually choreograph everything by myself, sometimes with my stunt coordinator. GROSS: Mm-hmm. Mr. WOO: And I put myself as a character, as a hero. So I usually see how I feel first. OK. For example, if I'm in a lobby and ambushed by 20 guys, OK, and I only got two guns in my hand, so how could I deal with all of those 20 guys? So I had to figure it out for myself first, and then I will choreograph with my stunt coordinator and demonstrate with my stunt man. And then I will rolling on the ground and get up and shooting some guy on the left side and then spin around and jumping in the air and taking care of some other guy on the right side. I like to keep the beauty of the body movement--keeping it low-grade. If I'm spinning in the air, then I would like to put some other two guys up on the ceiling and then I shoot them in the air, you know. If I feel I could do that, it will make me feel my actors also can do that. GROSS: Have you ever had an actor or a stunt man hurt while shooting a scene? Mr. WOO: No, never. I always concerned about safety. Safety's first. And I also know how to use the camera technique to make it look great and avoid the dangerous. You know, only a--sometimes they get slightly hurt, but--you know, a little cut, but it doesn't mean anything. And I have never liked my actors or stunt man risking their life to do all those dangerous things. I mean, it isn't worth it, you know. I always believe a movie is about editing, camera and lighting and the drama. It's not about risking your life to do some crazy thing, you know. But in "Face/Off," there's a scene--the speedboat chase, you know, at the ending. GROSS: Yeah? Mr. WOO: One of our stunt double, you know, he doubled for Nick Cage. The story was he fell off the boat and dragging alongside the boat and then he flip up on to the ski, you know, that famous scene. And he almost got killed, and that's all. Because the first time when he fell, his head went down first. So his head hit the side of the boat and he lost conscious about a few seconds, you know. And he almost lost his life. GROSS: Well, how did that make you feel? Mr. WOO: I feel very upset. I feel--and I did try to stop him and want him to do it again. But the guy was so brave, you know. Because that was his idea, you know. He wanted to make it. He wanted to do a great job, so he did try it again. GROSS: John Woo, I want to thank you so much for talking with us. Mr. WOO: Oh, thank you so much. BOGAEV: John Woo, speaking with Terry Gross in 1997. Coming up, a review of his new film, "Mission: Impossible 2." This is FRESH AIR. (Soundbite of music) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Review: New film "Mission: Impossible 2" the summer's first blockbuster in spite of a dull story line BARBARA BOGAEV, host: "Mission: Impossible 2," the first of the summer blockbuster movies, opened this week. It stars Tom Cruise. Our film critic John Powers says that director John Woo comes through with some satisfying action scenes, but is that enough? JOHN POWERS (Vogue): Back when I was an innocent, young film critic, I used to treat summer blockbusters like ordinary movies that could be judged on the basis of their plot, characterization and acting. But this was to miss the whole point of these blockbusters, which is to provide enough spectacle that the audience feels it simply has to see it. That's clearly the reasoning behind "Mission: Impossible 2." Tom Cruise stars as secret agent Ethan Hunt, who's assigned to recover a biological weapon stolen by Sean Ambrose, a renegade spy played by Dougray Scott. To get the stuff back, Hunt needs the assistance of Ambrose's ex-girlfriend and master thief, Nyah Nordoff-Hall, played by Thandie Newton, who had the title role in "Beloved." Hunt wins her help, but the two fall for each other, and suddenly the plot begins to look like Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious," where Cary Grant pushes Ingrid Bergman into the arms of Nazi Claude Rains. Here, Hunt sends the woman he loves into the villain's lair in Sydney, Australia. Of course, merely to mention "Notorious" is to be misleading, for Hitchcockian suspense has a rich sense of character. In contrast, there's no psychology at all in "MI 2" despite having a screenplay by Robert Towne, once famous for scripting movies like "Chinatown." Towne's now a little more than a well-paid lawn jockey for stars like Cruise. And though his screenplay is less inept than the one for the original "Mission: Impossible," it's still excruciatingly short on wit and drama. Stringing together action sequences, the script never gets any better than the formula beginning when a helicopter arrives to give the vacationing Hunt a message from his boss, played by Anthony Hopkins. (Soundbite from "Mission: Impossible 2") Unidentified Man: Good morning, Mr. Hunt. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves the recovery of a stolen item designated Chimera. You may select any two team members, but it is essential that the third team member by Nyah Nordoff-Hall. She is a civilian, and a highly capable professional thief. You have 48 hours to recruit Ms. Nordoff-Hall and meet me in Seville to receive your assignment. As always, should you or any member of your IM force be captured, the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions. And, Mr. Hunt, the next time you go on holiday, please be good enough to let us know where you're going. Computerized Voice: This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Mr. TOM CRUISE ("Ethan Hunt"): I'll let you know where I'm going. I won't be on holiday. (Soundbite of music) POWERS: "Mission: Impossible 2" was directed by John Woo, a master of operatic mayhem, whose original Hong Kong movies radically transformed Hollywood action pictures. Actors clearly love doing Woo's trademark shtick, like sliding across the floor on their back, guns blazing in both hands. But by now, I suspect that Woo shoots such scenes in the same spirit that The Rolling Stones perform "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" in concert. Which isn't to say that "MI 2" is badly directed. On the contrary, the movie is bursting with visual arias; an amazing rock climbing sequence, a vertiginous bit when Hunt dives off a helicopter into the belly of a high-rise and a preposterously entertaining final showdown when Hunt and Ambrose meet on a motorcycle. These scenes are enough to ensure that "MI 2" will become an international hit. Woo delivers the spectacle and touches on his familiar themes: alter egos, friendship and betrayal, the homoerotic bond linking villains and heroes. But the movie lacks the compelling story of pictures like "Face/Off" or "The Matrix," and it's impossible to care what happens. Even by the debased standards of blockbusters, Ethan Hunt's an absolute bore. Who is this guy? We know that James Bond has only two or three personality traits. He likes his martinis shaken, not stirred. He has sex with women, then kills them. But next to Hunt, Bond looks as complex as Hamlet. Although physically brave, Cruise brings nothing to the part except a bad haircut and his beaming, Teflon-coated Tom Cruiseness. He lacks the expressiveness of Woo's favorite star, the great Hong Kong actor Chow Yung Fat, who knows how to give tough guys a rich sense of human vulnerability. There's nothing remotely vulnerable about Cruise, who, as the movie's producer, insists on hogging all the glory. Thandie Newton's Nyah has nothing to do but simper, wear skimpy tank tops and gaze at Cruise adoringly. As Hunt's sidekick Luther, Ving Rhames spends the film clicking away at a computer. And as for the evil Ambrose, Dougray Scott fills the screen with self-hating hamminess in an attempt to balance Cruise's self-methologizing grandiosity. None of these actors has a chance, nor finally does Woo. He does everything in his power to turn "MI 2" into something more than a machine for making money. But as it turns out, that mission really is impossible. BOGAEV: John Powers is film critic for Vogue. (Station credits given) BOGAEV: For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.
- Description
- HALF: Linda Greenlaw (R) Corrigan (Summer Picks) TEN: John Woo (R) Powers (MI2)
- Description
- Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Each week, nearly 4.5 million people listen to the show's intimate conversations broadcast on more than 450 National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network. Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a "talk show," it hardly fits the mold. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with "probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights." And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country's leading interviewers. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators. Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR.
- Description
- Guest host: BB INT. 1: LINDA GREENLAW has worked on commercial fishing boats for nearly 20 years. She has written about her experience leading a sword fishing boat to Newfoundland in the book "The Hungry Ocean." Its just been released in paperback(Hyperion). GREENLAW is also featured in the best selling book, The Perfect Storm. That book is being made into a movie which will be released this summer. Boston magazine named GREENLAW one of the most intriguing women of 1997. She lives on Isle au Haut, Maine. (REBROADCAST FROM 6/21/99) REV. 1: Book Critic MAUREEN CORRIGAN gives us her picks for the best summer reading. INT. 2: Director JOHN WOO. He grew up in Hong Kong and directed numerous films there before coming to Hollywood. He has established himself as a master of action thrillers and is known for his elaborate action scenes. WOO has directed the American films Broken Arrow, Hard Target," and "Face/Off." His new film, Mission Impossible 2, came out this week. (REBROADCAST from 7/10/97) REV. : Film critic JOHN POWERS reviews Mission Impossible 2.
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- Sound
- Duration
- 00:59:30
- Credits
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: John Woo
: Linda Greenlaw
Distributor: NPR
Producing Organization: WHYY Public Media
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
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WHYY
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Format: audio/vnd.wave
Duration: 00:59:30
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WHYY
Identifier: FA20000526_GCD (WHYY)
Format: audio/vnd.wave
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Fresh Air,” WHYY, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 6, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-215-78tb31wv.
- MLA: “Fresh Air.” WHYY, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. June 6, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-215-78tb31wv>.
- APA: Fresh Air. Boston, MA: WHYY, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-215-78tb31wv