MonitoRadio Conversations; #84; Burns and Squires - Statue of Liberty [1985-10-24]

Hello, I'm Lisa Taylor. Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor show number 84, October 24, 1985. The segment times for the show are as follows. Number 1, 44 seconds, number 2, 852, number 3, 501, number 4, 6, 19, and number 5, 104. The promo tonight is 37 seconds long to be used tomorrow to promo tomorrow night show. The following times are based on a running show time, and we're also assuming that each commercial break is two minutes long. The times following are denoting when each commercial break starts. Number 1 at 44 seconds, number 2 at 11, 36, number 3 at 18, 37, and number 4 at 26, 56. The promos will follow the show feed by 10 seconds, as usual. Please pull off your appropriate promo. The show will start in about one minute, and have a real good Thursday night. The

show will start in about one minute, and have a real good Thursday night. This is Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor, your host, Bob McDonnell. Good evening, we're glad you could join us. One of the finest historical filmmakers working today is Ken Burns. Ken's highly acclaimed documentary on the Brooklyn Bridge won a dozen honors and awards and was nominated for an Academy Award. This coming Monday night, his new film on

the Statue of Liberty will be broadcast on public television stations nationwide. Tonight we'll be talking with Ken and his collaborator and co -producer Buddy Squires about this new film which is kicking off the statue's Centennial Year celebration. Please stay with us, I'll be back with Ken Burns and Buddy Squires right after this. This is Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor. Ken Burns is one of the finest historical filmmakers working today. Along with Ken in the studio tonight, I have his collaborator and co -producer Buddy Squires. Gentlemen, welcome to Conversations. Glad to be here, thank you. Why did you both choose to spend three years of your lives working on a film about the Statue of Liberty? How'd that come about? Well, I think we saw the upcoming Centennial and we also saw the fact that the statue was being

buried in a kind of sea of commercialism and some of the real original message of the statue was being lost and it was an opportunity for us through public television and with the sponsorship of Liberty Mutual to do something that would last a little bit longer than the scaffolding and the media hype that will attend to her Centennial Year. The principles that underlie the statue are so important and if they get glossed over, then we will have done a disservice to her and to her Centennial. Buddy, anything to add? Just that it was an opportunity to re -examine those ideals that we claim this country was built on, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Given that, that was the basis that attracted you both to the project. What did you decide to do with this hour of film that you were going to get to present three years from that point? You've got the problem right there. I mean, you've got an hour of film and what do you say about the most familiar image in our landscape? This is everything and so cliche that there's almost nothing to say about her. We've designed an hour of public

television that is first of all a history of how the statue came to be. I think an incredibly fascinating history involving all sorts of wonderful complications and humor and a good deal of emotion and good personalities. Then we wrap this with a real exploration of what liberty means, what the idea, the concept of liberty means. To that end, we approached a dozen or so extraordinary citizens and an equal number of ordinary citizens and asked them this very obvious and yet very difficult question. What is liberty and the responses intercut with movie clips and we think some very original photography of the statue really combined to make a great hour of television and new and different and not the cliché superficial look? But the final product looked anything like what you originally imagined that you and Ken were going to be putting together? Yes, the historical section does. I think what we really planned out was scripted and and

came together the way that we expected. But the wonderful part about the film was pursuing this question of liberty and it allowed us to tap into the whole range of American experience from James Baldwin who thinks the statue of liberty is a bitter joke that it's not for black Americans, not for his black Americans, to Amilos Foreman or Jersey Kaczynski. Jersey Kaczynski says the statue of liberty is the only woman I have ever been in love with since the age of 12 and I never thought that I would get to meet her because he was a child growing up behind the iron curtain and he felt the repression of that society and this symbol of the statue of liberty though he had never physically seen it resonated behind the iron curtain to him as a symbol of hope and freedom and promise and that's really what the statue means for an awful lot of people. After you you know you spent three years on this project Ken what's the statue mean to you now after doing this film? Well I think it's a whole combination of all the responses you know I think we sort of

retreat with that question to a journalist one we've tried to put our arm around the statue and how she's manifested herself through the years and the ideas and in the history and I think I just remember some of the things Baldwin's very poignant somewhat negative view to Foreman's exuberant liberty is the most civilized and least of evils in this world he said Barbara Jordan a black woman growing up this this statue was a symbol for her of what she could attain that there were no barriers and she said liberty is the absence of constraints and barriers and impediments. For Mario Cuomo it's a an emotional tie to his mothers becoming an American is she and he recalls how she came through Ellis Island and he says any really points out that we're not a melting pot that this country we're a mosaic we didn't ask people to stop being Italians or Jews we asked them to start being Americans and in that coming together we produced a fabric unlike any other country in the world and she's the symbol

she's the thread in a way or the concept of liberty is the thread that ties all those pieces together and that's great stuff. I'm talking to historical filmmakers Ken Burns and Buddy Squires. Did you find your thoughts and feelings then changing as you interview these people I'm sure that must have been a whole metamorphosis in your feelings about the statue but what was experienced like for you? For me she grew from being just sort of something out there in the harbor that school kids were supposed to say oh isn't that wonderful we have a statue of liberty to something which really is the conscience in many ways of our society that says we do believe certain things and she is a very strong and silent reminder that when we begin to feel repressive about things Mario Cuomo says as a governor he feels the temptation every day to squash a little bit of liberty here to deny a little bit of freedom there and she makes him think she makes him think that that's not what we're about. You know getting to this historical the historical background of the statue you you both become experts in the process of doing

this film how did the whole idea come about how you know how do that all start? The Statue of Liberty the story of it is really quite an interesting one it's of course a gift from one country to another that's a great thing right in there the first time a country had really given a gift sincerely it was born over Brandean cigars outside of Paris in 1865 in the late spring the Civil War was over the union was preserved the French were suffering under the tyrannical regime of Napoleon III and wondering how to make a gesture to the United States to celebrate their upcoming in 11 years Centennial and at the same time helped to spur France to restore liberty at home so the gift of the statue of liberty from Frenchman to Americans had this double edge to it that may be by extending this acknowledgement of the superiority of a democratic society to the Americans that the French would restore some at home around this table was a man named Frederick August Bartoli a sculptor and

entrepreneur and the story of getting the statue done is a wonderful contradiction between the entrepreneur and this man and the sculptor in him he ultimately made one of the greatest pieces of sculptor in the world time would say the best and it's standing there in New York Harbor with the assistance of Gustave of Eiffel the great engineer who designed the tower who helped design the structural aspect of the statue and ensure that it would stand these hundred years and we hope longer and it's a great story tell me a little bit about the sculptor himself buddy Bartoli was an Alsacean and that being an Alsacean gave him a very sharp sense of liberty because that piece of territory bordering between France and Germany has often been contested between the Germans and the French and in fact he had done a monumental sculpture of a lion a 90 -foot long lion carved into a mountainside in the town of Bellfort very near his home in Alsace to commemorate the loss of the local people

to the Germans in the Franco -Pression War in 1871 so magnificent large statuary was was something that he was already into when this whole idea was conceived for the Statue of Liberty this was the age of monumental statuary and he had this extra added reason to do it his his homeland had been overrun and nothing could be closer to his heart than the idea of liberty did he determine the size yes the way that the statue actually came about a group of people liberals in France were sitting around in 1865 and as we said trying to decide what to do and Bartoli tripped up and said how about a statue this gift this idea of a statue and then he took it and ran with it he was not the intellect behind it he was the artist and the promoter let's pause right here i'll be back with documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and buddy squires right after this welcome back to conversations i'm talking to

documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and buddy squires about their new documentary on the Statue of Liberty which we'll all be able to see this coming Monday night on public television stations around the country how long did it take to build the statue you know once it was determined Bertoli had designed it the funds were raised in France to erect it when did work start and how long did it take to complete it was about a 10 -year process the idea came in 65 and Bartoli worked behind the scenes to to get the support that he needed but it wasn't until 1875 the things really came together and he could really begin work to the final dedication there in bedlow's island in 86 so it was a 10 -11 year actual construction process and a fascinating one at that he spent all the time on the site supervising and he was very actively involved not just with the technical questions which were overwhelming and necessitated the involvement of the fell but also the political questions because as we all

know these things don't get done without greasing a few wheels and on the American side there was great question whether the statue would even be built we were supposed to pay for the pedestal which is the same size as the actual statue i mean it's a huge piece of masonry and was it supposed to be a symbol of relations between the two countries or i think it was since it was a cooperative venture the French would build the actual copper statue and then it would be mounted on an American base and it was designed by Richard Morris Hunt but the money wasn't there and on top of it people were relatively blasé this was the age of monuments and they weren't you know ready to cough up the money to do this buddy how was the money raised for the base well the funds language for quite a while when the statue actually arrived in this country in 1884 there was less than three thousand dollars in the pedestal committees coffers and only the foundation stone had been laid Joseph Pulitzer seeing an opportunity to increase the circulation of his own newspaper came to the rescue and

he took up the cause of the statue promising that he would publish the name of every man woman in child in the country who contributed to the statue's foundation and in doing so in a very short period of time he raised a hundred and twenty thousand dollars to complete the pedestal of the statue without which it's possible the statue would not now be standing in New York Harbor how was the money raised in France very similar but with a a good deal less difficulty through subscriptions through lotteries many towns chambers of commerce and municipal societies got together and sent the money in to do that what's so significant that on both sides and especially on the American side it's really the contributions of ordinary people most of Pulitzer's contributions came from people who contributed a dollar or less and we have one we've come across wonderful testimony of people who in fact are little girls sending in their pennies a man saying that he was sending in he lost 25 pounds since he quit smoking so he was sending in a penny for each pound I mean it's a really

wonderful human story about it but what was the reaction when the statue was erected what was the reaction of the American public there was a great gala opening day affair in the rain fireworks all sorts of wonderful speeches by presidents and the Freemasons and everyone else and then it was forgotten about forgotten forgotten it literally took its place on without any any real appreciation by the American public as just another great monument in New York Harbor you have to remember this was the age the broken bridge had been completed three years before there were all these huge works happening and it really languished there in obscurity until the immigrants began to arrive some years later Ken was that the significant event that really created its symbolic nature absolutely and this is what sort of initiates the second half of our film the much more emotional one as we end our first part we said nobody set a thing at these opening ceremonies about welcoming immigrants and that was true that was it there was no amalazras no

anything and then all of a sudden as these wave after wave of immigrants from mostly southern and Eastern European Eastern Europe came they would see this statue as they came into New York Harbor and it became the symbol of why they came and they began to endow it with the poignancy that they felt at this moment at beginning a new life of starting over of becoming a new place and and that's where the whole story of the statue in some ways really begins general we need to pause right here for a couple of moments i'll be back with Ken Burns and buddy squires with more about their documentary on the Statue of Liberty right after this this is Bob Mcdonald and you're listening to conversations with the Christian Science Monitor my conversation with documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and buddy squires continues we're talking about their new

documentary on the Statue of Liberty which you can see Monday night on public television stations around the country that feeling we were just talking about that the statue got endowed with as those waves of immigrants came early in the 1900s and the feelings that brought up about the statue how do those feelings back then that the immigrants had how do how do they compare to the feelings that the people you interviewed today have about the statue very good question it's very interesting that we found that the people who were most articulate most poignant today about the statue were immigrants themselves the Milo Shformans the Jersey Kaczynski's and at one point fourman looks up and says if this show is for American audiences forget it you hear in America are too complacent you don't realize how important she is which he means to all the people who are still over there and who will come and the people who even won't come into those who have and in a way when he said that he began to remind us that we have to as Americans who have enjoyed that liberty try and reinvigorate her meaning today

and so I think that it's double edged there are people who experience it today and they remember that day that they came as if it was yesterday and there are people who have taken it for granted and the greatest danger to liberty might be that lack of attention that complacency to it I was just going to add there are still people coming today it's not over and the statue still resonates as a symbol in answer to the question of what is liberty a gentleman who we met working as an usher at Fenway Park said well I can't exactly tell you what liberty is but you don't know what it means until you have it taken away from you and a Haitian immigrant told us in Haitian that he came because he could not live anymore in his country and he had to come here this was the place of refuge the place to actually survive one of the things that you cover in your film is how that image and those feelings have been used in commercial contexts and and

by organizations that want to use that symbol what's that part of your documentary like well we try to look at it as a kind of benign phenomenon I mean it really isn't you have to object at some point and put your foot down to the crass commercialism that it tends to how our our symbols are being appropriated but in fact we create our symbols it's much by the way our commercial side takes it in and so in some ways that whole message of the statue of Larry since the day it was dedicated has been used to sell products from hairbrushes in the United States to cognac in France to macaroni in Italy to cognac in France to funeral homes in the United States and still more cognac in France and it goes on and on and on and we try to treat that playfully but also say if you really want to know her you have to begin with a question what is liberty and try to strip away a little bit of those layers but I think something of

the pure liberty survives even the most crass and commercial usage I'm talking to Ken Burns and Buddy Squires documentary filmmakers and we're talking about their new documentary in the statue of liberty I was reading that you both spent a night with the statue that I know Ken I read one quote where you said that you had the best night of your life doing this tell me what what were the circumstances well we had been pleading with the park service to let us spend a night on the island the fairy that takes you to and from the statue does not allow on island filming of the sunset and the sunrise something we really wanted and we're very proud of our cinematography and we wanted to do night photography and get the sunrise and the sunset from the island and it just wasn't happening they finally allowed us to do they were very nice and we went out there and it was at the beginning of the project before his buddy said the statue really got under our skin and she got under our skin that night we sat there alone filming

working we brought along some barbecued spare ribs and some cookies and we really thought we were just going to film it and then go to sleep and she kept us up all night we were in awe of her we felt protective we felt her vulnerability we felt her strength and at that moment the project changed for us and I think that the cliche of the statue had sort of subsided and we were dealt with how we were going to really approach the film then and I know that buddy felt many of the same things but what was it like well the only way that I can describe it is that one walks around all the time and see stars in the skies but you don't appreciate it until you go camping and you lay out there and you stare up at the stars and it was the same way with the statue we slept in our sleeping bags at her alternately looking at Manhattan glowing off in the distance and looking up at her face staring down at us and protecting us and that there was some communication that happens there as you look back up at her that you cannot really describe without sounding silly but I think that that spurred us

on to make a film which would try to give some of that same sense to people watching it at home so Ken that was the change you wanted to take the feeling that you had that night and that kind of altered your perception of the film that you were going to be making absolutely I approached the statue the way most Americans do is that oh yeah that's the statue of Liberty our statue of Liberty took it for granted and even though I was doing a film suddenly we were liberated in a way from the ordinary and we were able to touch I think that well of genuine feeling that some of the immigrants must have felt as they pass by that some of the people even who just dream about Liberty experience when they think about it gentlemen thank you both for joining me tonight on conversations thank you been a pleasure I'll be back with a preview of tomorrow night show right after this

that's it for tonight's edition of Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor with all the focus on the world series this week tomorrow night we're going to be looking at another side of professional baseball that of the minor leagues sports writer Roger Khan will be with us to talk about his new book Good Enough to Dream and with daylight savings time ending this Saturday night we'll be talking to James Benfield lobbyist for a group that wants seven months of daylight savings time next year instead of six for those of you who missed our call in number last night if you're interested in sharing your comments on our program please give us a call at our toll free number 1 -800 -372 -699 that's 1 -800 -372 -699 feel free to call us anytime day or night thanks for listening this is Bob McDonald for the Christian Science Monitor have a good night this has been Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor produced in Boston, Massachusetts and is a copyrighted broadcast

Hi this is Bob McDonald join me for Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor with all the focus on the world series this week tonight we're going to be looking at another side of professional baseball that of the minor leagues sports writer Roger Khan will be with us to talk about his new book Good Enough to Dream and we'll be talking to James Benfield lobbyist for a group that wants seven months of daylight savings time next year instead of six I hope you can join us tune in tonight at 11 .30 for Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor on WOR 710AM Hi this is Bob McDonald join me for Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor with all the focus on the world series this week

tonight we're going to be looking at another side of professional baseball that of the minor leagues sports writer Roger Khan will be with us to talk about his new book Good Enough to Dream and we'll be talking to James Benfield lobbyist for a group that wants seven months of daylight savings time next year instead of six I hope you can join us tune in tonight at 10 .30 for Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor on WNIB 97 .1 FM and we'll be talking to James Benfield lobbyist for a group that wants seven months of daylight savings time next year instead of six I hope you can join us tune in tonight at 10 .30 for the Christian Science Monitor with all the focus on the world series this week tonight we're going to be looking at another side of professional baseball that of the minor leagues sports writer Roger Khan will be with us to talk about his new book Good Enough to Dream and we'll be talking to James Benfield lobbyist for a group that wants seven months of daylight savings time next year instead of six I hope you can join us tune in tonight at 9 .30 for Conversations with the

Christian Science Monitor on KIEV 870 AM Hi this is Bob McDonald join me for Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor with all the focus on the world series this week tonight we're going to be looking at another side of professional baseball that of the minor leagues sports writer Roger Khan will be with us to talk about his new book Good Enough to Dream and we'll be talking to James Benfield lobbyist for a group that wants seven months of daylight savings time next year instead of six I hope you can join us tune in tonight at 8 .30 and 11 .30 for Conversations with the Christian Science Monitor on KXLR 1260 AM