Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Preeminent political documentary maker whose films chronicle conflicts and political upheavals, from Watergate to Putin's Russia.
On the island
Eight records
It's be prepared. Be prepared. That's the Boy Scouts marching song, Be Prepared. As through life you march along, be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well. Don't write naughty words on wall. It's Don't Make Book.
Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2
It's Chopin's Walsingham C-sharp minor, which stems partly from my very sophisticated school time in New York... Chopin's Walsingham C-sharp minor, which was introduced to me by one of my sophisticated friends when I was in high school, also was the music for one of our recitals.
My next record has to be a song from that [High Society], which my sister and I knew by heart, and we performed it this fantastic duet, Well, Did You Ever.
Well, I kind of felt I brought the Beatles to America because Hard Days Night opened that summer in New York and I took my sister and our two closest friends to see it.
New Off-Broadway cast of The Fantasticks
At Oberlin we had a very good theatre group... my favourite performance during my time at Oberlin was a show called The Fantastics. And the story of this musical is two fathers, friends, wanting their children to get married. And they came up with a brilliant strategy. They forbid them having anything to do with each other. And the reasoning is explained in this very charming song, Never Say No.
This was this very important coup against Gorbachev. When the coup happened, the signal to the people of Moscow was suddenly the ordinary programming stopped. And until it was sorted out whether the coup was going to work or not, there was Swanley on the television.
It Ain't Me BabeFavourite
Well, I was at Oberlin in the 60s and it was a time of civil rights movements and folk songs and I was particularly keen on the culture that was symbolized by Gen Bias. It was hard to pick a Gen Bias song, but the one I've chosen is It's Not Rebec.
It's Randy Newman, and you could say he's almost responsible for me never getting together with my husband, because the first time he approached me was to invite me to a dinner party. And I said, I'd love to come, but I've got tickets for a Randy Newman concert, thinking any serious person would be absolutely understood why that was so important.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:12So you've been fascinated by politics and the workings of power since you were just a student. Why exactly?
I'm not so s sure it's politics. It's it's secrets maybe. It's it's secrets, gossip. It's um wanting to know what really happened and particularly anything that anyone wants to try to keep from me.
Presenter asks
2:43How do you get [the big political hitters] to open up to you?
Well, we say, and we mean it, that we give everybody a level playing field. We ask what happened, what did you say, how did he reply? We don't point fingers and say, you are a terrorist. Generally, if they are, it will probably come out and the viewers aren't idiots and they'll be able to see from what they said and how they described it, that they are. But we give them a chance to put their point of view. And persuading them that we're going to make the program, the other side is talking. You should as well. And it's worth the trouble. You'll have a wide audience because it is trouble to answer our questions because you have to do research in your papers. You can't just turn up and say, I believe the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is that. You have to say, I was at that meeting when he said. And so you have to research it. It's hard work. But nowhere will you get a fairer hearing. We're not going to make it totally from your point of view.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
Well, I've chosen Proust in Search of Lost Time because my husband and I have completely different tastes in books, but we had both read Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, which people said was based on Proust. And it was something we had to talk about when we first met. And then everybody said that was really not as good as Proust. So when we first went on holiday, I took it under my arm and I carried it everywhere. We had a nice two-week holiday on Greek Island, the most unusual thing in our relationship. But I never got past page 50. So I thought, well, this is the moment to read it all.
The luxury
a shower, a fluffy toweling robe, and sun tan lotion
I'm quite an enthusiastic swimmer, but I'm it's not cold water swimming pools for me. I I like warm water and sunbathing. But it it will be salty water, of course, so I think I'll need a shower if I could also have a fluffy toweling robe and maybe some sun tandlers.
You mentioned your father died when you were four. He was killed in a plane crash. What happened?
Gosh, it was extraordinary. I learnt about this mostly when my mother died going through her papers and finding the newspaper cuttings and things. He was a chemist working for Colgate Pomolive. He invented a kind of detergent hand soap and things like that. But he was a very brilliant chemist. And he was going with a group of American scientists after the war to Germany to try and steal industrial secrets. And the plane took off from what was then Idlewild Airport, Kennedy Airport. And there's a picture of me and my one and a half year old sister holding his hand, saying goodbye to him at the airport, which is my strongest memory of him. I saw that. It's so poignant. Every time I look at it. And the plane took off from Kennedy. It stopped to refuel as planes did then in Newfoundland. Perfectly nice, clear day. And then it took off again and the pilots flew straight into a rock and the plane fell into the sea and everybody on it was killed.
Presenter asks
17:30What was your relationship with your mother like as you were growing up?
She had had no religious training because her parents in this small town in Long Island had quarrelled with the rabbis. So she was totally secular and we had very little religious education. But she had every characteristic of a Jewish mother. So my rebellion, of course, which is a typically stupid one, was I started smoking at university. Oh dear. Which, if you could pick one thing to upset her. But of course, being a wishy-washy rebeller, I thought I kept it from her. When I stopped smoking, I discovered that she must have known all along, because you can tell when you're around a smoker, even if she never smokes in front of you. She chose not to know. She looks the other way. Yes, or sniff the other way.
Presenter asks
19:36One of your teachers at Oberlin had a profound impact on you. Who was he and why did he play such an important part in your life?
George Lanyi. He was a Hungarian who made international relations as much fun as gossip. And it was the time of the Cold War, and it was a truly interesting time to be studying international relations. But he had a weekly seminar for honour students that flouted all the conventions of boring lectures. His wife would make you cookies and he would sneak a gin and tonic to someone who was nervous when about to give a seminar paper. And he knew when you broke up with your boyfriend. And he really did treat his students as family.
Presenter asks
30:35Tell me about the Norma Percy method. Talk me through it.
The essence of the method is what we do is try and show what goes on behind closed doors inside the room when the big political decisions are made, by getting people who were there, only those who were there, and asking them what happened. But there are lots of things that are important, but perhaps I think the most important is speaking to everyone first off the record and getting them to tell the story and edit their stories together to make a script, and then we start to film.
“I'm not so s sure it's politics. It's it's secrets maybe. It's it's secrets, gossip. It's um wanting to know what really happened and particularly anything that anyone wants to try to keep from me.”
“The essence of the method is what we do is try and show what goes on behind closed doors inside the room when the big political decisions are made, by getting people who were there, only those who were there, and asking them what happened.”
“I consider the off-the-record research interviews sacrosanct. And in order to stop some enthusiastic researcher just sipping them to the Hague, I took them home and put them under my bed.”
“So I said, without having to think about it, well, oh, take the bigger fee, because, I mean, my programmes are never repeated, which was true at the time. I used to finish a programme and go off to the pub in Manchester and watch it, and that was it. Of course, the schools programmes were repeated and repeated. I think you might even see them now, this young man with green paint under his fingers. It's the worst advice he ever got.”
“Looking like I wouldn't hurt a fly has stood me in good stead. But it's awfully hard reaching to the top shelves.”