>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> welcome to the program. tonight, we close the year by remembering some of the people we lost in 2014. these men and women led lives of purpose and consequence. they enriched our culture through their inventions, their art and their enterprise. they have appeared on this program in the past 24 years and passed away this year. >> every israeli, every jew wants peace. generals are suspected to like wars. myself, i was branded that generals are always looking for wars. something personal -- i've been participating in all wars of the state of israel and i went through the ranks. i started as a private first class and i saw all the battles, all the horrors of the battles. i felt all the fears of the battles. we lost our -- myself, i lost most of my friends. i was very seriously wounded twice and i felt being in terrible pain being in the hospital. i hate to take decisions of life and death of myself and of others. believe me, i understand the importance of peace better than those politicians that speak about peace and never had this experience. >> i'm interested when i direct a movie always to make a step forward. all the films i directed have not been a good family story or something. i always try to invent something new like in "the pedestrian" or "first love." i think it should be something new. to discover this new aspect in a play or movie, that is what interests me. >> acting is a weird thing because acting is a day-to-day thing. that is why doing theater is so important to me because you're only as good as what you are doing right then and i truly believe it. acting is not something that is put on a canvas that you can put on the wall and people can see it. it is really what you do in that day is when i am satisfied. i'm as good as what i am showing you right now because in the theater, it is something that will humble you in a second because you will be as bad as you can be at certain times in the theater. >> where did the gibberish start from? >> it started when i was a kid. my father had a restaurant in yonkers. i used to pick up dishes at lunchtime. i would help my father out. each table had a different ethnic group. there were frenchmen over here bunch of germans over here bunch of italians over here, a bunch of greeks. i used to walk over and they'd talk to me. they'd say [speaking french]. i'd say [speaking gibberish]. then, i'd go the italian table and go [speaking gibberish]. >> it means nothing. >> they would go [speaking italian]. you want two eggs, too? then, i go to the german table. [laughter] >> you always wanted to go overseas? >> i did. isn't it strange? i had brothers, older and younger, that both wanted to go into the academic world involved with international affairs. i went over and it stuck. i knew from -- when was it? i guess my freshman year in college i wanted to be on television -- a foreign correspondent. >> when you were there at the beginning, was it hard to get on the air because you have to get the footage from vietnam? you couldn't get it transmitted by satellite so you had to fly it back. >> when the half-hour shows came on in september of 1963. it was cronkite on cbs and huntley brinkley on nbc. abc was not yet a competitor. there were no satellites and very few correspondents who really knew how to do the work how to go out and package a story as well as report a story. work with the camera team, write the script, put it on a pan am flight and send it back across the pacific. you are left totally to your own devices. there was no producer's shadow looming over you. you were given a free hand and those were heady days. >> there are a lot of theories that have been written about the comic spirit in people. there are freudian explanations of it. they say that funny people perceive their mothers as being troubled and they spent their early childhoods trying to amuse their mothers. >> is that what they say? >> yeah. >> do you buy that? >> i think that's your first audience. it's your mom in the kitchen. doing something goofy and making your mom laugh. >> you are trying to make her happy and laugh. >> yeah. >> or make her love you. one or the other. >> that's probably all rolled together. other people talk about the absurd child syndrome. that children perceive insanity in the world. we are told things as children that are clearly not true. as soon as you open your eyes and look at the newspaper -- we are told policemen are good. we're told that bad people go to jail. kids, they are not blind and deaf. they see not all policemen are good, they are indicting all these policemen or innocent people are being executed in jail. so, the child has two choices -- this is a small child -- either i'm crazy or the world is crazy. the kid who decides the world is crazy he now has two choices. he can be crushed by that or he can find the comedy in it. he sees it either as tragedy or comedy. once you decide it is comedy you are an absurd child. [laughter] >> no, i think the greatest thing i have done in my life charlie, is to take care of sick people. to my great regret, when i die the obituary is going to be headlined something about the writing. it is not going to talk about all of those people whom one on one i had the opportunity to care for. when i say care for, i mean not just in the medical sense because that is what being a doctor is really all about. >> the satisfaction of making a difference in somebody's life? >> the satisfaction of making a difference in someone's life but you know, each time it makes a difference in your own life, too. the sense of healing which covers so many things is actually something that benefits the healer just as much as it does the person healed. >> what i wouldn't like is that opera is considered something of the past. i always try to show that even a piece is something very much about our time. you must display them not necessarily in modern costumes but played a way in which people are moved by it. i always think when people go to the opera and they don't come out with eyes a little bit wet because they have laughed a lot or cried, the opera didn't work. i'm very afraid that opera can lose its impact on the modern public if you don't make an opera feeling as something of our time and not something of the past. that's difficult nowadays. >> i come to care about people i get involved with. i come to care, i'm genuinely curious about what happens inside the heads and hearts of other people. i think the people who i'm dealing with as a writer can sense that this is not an act, this is not something i'm faking. i really do become curious and concerned about what's going on in their lives. >> what's the hardest part? >> writing. >> the writing of it? >> yeah. >> getting the story is easy compared to writing it and putting it together and telling the story in a way -- because frequently you're dealing with stories in which you already know the end. >> that's true. this is not a high-profile case. it's not a famous story. the mcdonald book was more well known, people knew the end. but, the writing for me is much harder. that's not to say the research is fun. that last time i had fun doing research was my book on alaska. these last 14 years of research hasn't been fun. >> i love the thing that jim wright supposedly said. "i don't know who the next president is going to be, but i know who his best friend's going to be." >> yes. >> it's bob strauss. he said that not about jimmy carter, but about somebody else. what is it about you that these powerful men are attracted to? >> well, i don't have any desire to run for public office. i was non-threatening and i had a reputation of being very, very loyal. and, i had a reputation of having pretty good judgment. >> judgment is what it's about. >> that's what it's -- that's the main thing. >> somebody you can trust. and, somebody that has good judgment. >> not in business just for himself, but in business for the country's good and the president's good. >> i think they have understood at the end of the day the double standard world in which the united states and eight other powers have nuclear weapons and give lectures and try to put pressure on the rest of the world not to have those is an unworkable thing. it is a self-defeating policy. it is not going to stop proliferation. it really can't be until the nuclear powers, they are saying and i warmly agree with them -- it is odd company for me to be in, but here i am. >> schell and kissinger together at last. >> yes, at last. what they are really saying is or what i am saying is if you bring your own arsenals to the negotiating table -- that is america and russia and so on -- that is the biggest bargaining chip anybody has put on a diplomatic table. you say we are willing to go down to zero. we are willing to live in such a world so you proliferators better not get in that business. >> people say why does he write fiction, but i think fiction is the heart of my work. >> you would think you will be remembered in time for your fiction. >> i do. maybe i'm whistling in the dark, but i don't think so. first, i began as a short story writer. i wrote about 30 short stories before i wrote any nonfiction. my first three of my four books were novels. not very good, but nonetheless the stories were being published. it was really a financial decision. i was a commercial fisherman. i had a new wife and young kids and i really had to make some money. i went over to writing nonfiction about what i knew about -- boats and wildlife. >> you would fish during the summer and write in the winter. >> yeah. then, i got mr. shawn to agree to send me around the world to all the wild places. i said everybody is writing about europe but who is writing about these wonderful wildernesses that are going down the tube? he agreed and i rushed to south america before he could change his mind. that was really the beginning. that produced a fiction book and a nonfiction book. >> the real issue is adaptation. the world is changing so fast. >> adapting to what? >> adapting to what it is that students ought to be prepared for as the world changes. i read an article a couple of weeks ago that said this is all a con game. you used to say if you went to college and got out, you got a better job and a higher salary. what is happening now? people are coming out and they are prepared, but not for the jobs. that's interesting because colleges sent ourselves down that road. we tried to tell parents and everybody else if you come to universities, you will make a lot of money. listen, you will have a good life and learn a good deal. who says a plumber can't read "moby dick?" who says a plumber can't be interested in shakespeare? we need to widen the sense of where college people are going to go. >> many of the great editors on the times went abroad to be war correspondents. many of them went to washington, national bureaus. i stayed in that one place. once i became a cultural reporter, i loved doing what i was doing. many of my friends who have become foreign correspondents, including abe rosenthal, they felt that they were surprised that i wanted to go into what was regarded as a sissified occupation. cultural critic. >> sissified occupation? [laughter] >> yes -- >> the real men were covering wars and you were there covering theater and opera and museums. >> it was a male world, in those days, journalism. you had get out and do some real tough reporting. i was about to go overseas but brooks atkinson persuaded me -- he said, you can always go overseas. why don't you try it? you are doing a lot of articles on a freelance basis for the sunday drama section. he said try it out for a year. you might become a critic someday. you will enjoy doing that. >> you think that poetry is music for the voice. >> that's right. it is all music. i go back to edgar allen poe nikki giovanni -- all poetry is music written for the human voice. it only comes into its own when it is spoken. it is wonderful to see professors of literature and the ivy league universities and colleges looking at what is called concrete poetry. that is poetry which is to be seen. how it is shaped is so important to the poetry. that is fine. but for me, until the human voice gives it elevation, it does not really sing. it doesn't come into its own. it doesn't lift the heart and make the blood race. >> of all the talents you have what one of them resonates most with you? what is the clearest expression of who you are and what you are? >> i'm a writer. that's what i am. that's who i am. that is how i describe myself to myself and to god in prayer. when i say, lord, do you remember me? maya angelou, six foot tall black female. i write lord, remember. when i feel i really have to describe myself to the lord i always include what i do -- i write. that's what i do. i thank the lord that i am able to do other things. i'm grateful, but that is how i describe myself to myself. >> is it in your judgment a learned craft or is it -- >> everything is learned charlie rose. i don't know how you learn it, but everything is learned. it is said that some people are born great, some achieve it and some have it thrust upon them. i think that is true of all the things you are. you are born that thing, you earn it and some of it is thrust upon you. i believe that to be so. >> tell me what it means to you -- this game having spent seven decades in. >> i think the book sums it up pretty good -- a life. i've never earned a dollar bill outside of baseball. when i tell that to people they say, what did you do? come from a rich family? i say, no. when i was a young kid and finally signed out of high school with the brooklyn dodgers, went to the minor leagues, i was a pretty decent player at a very young age. i was asked to go to havana, cuba to play in the winter league in cuba. they wanted big-league players at that time, but al campanis recommended me at a young age to go to cuba. i played there for two or three years and then when castro came in, that was the end of baseball. i went to puerto rico and played in the wintertime. played there for two or three years and then they started having instructional leagues in florida. i always wound up as an instructor or something in florida where i lived. that's why i can say i've never drawn a paycheck outside of baseball. >> the defining event of my life was being raised in harlem. >> really? shaped by the black cultural experience. >> yes, but i was not even thinking about the culture so much as the total life experience there and the people i met. my mother, stepmother -- how that all came to be. i came out of harlem and in that i tried to put into perspective why it has a claim on you, that place. it did then and i suppose it still does. the rhythm of the people and the sounds, the ideas -- everything was at a crossroads there. prejudice and discrimination as well as love and freedom and fun. the most meaningful thing has been this relationship with ozzie. i've learned and we wrote each other a letter in the book. >> did you read your letter to him? >> no, i have not read it since i wrote it. >> you wrote each other a letter. what did you say? >> we talked about love and sex and beginnings of things and scratching through to each other. it is like coming out from deep murky waters out to the surface of life where we could both see each other. that has been meaningful. how to -- how does love flourish? how does love work? that has been -- i have come to the conclusion that maybe that is why we got put here on earth in the first place. to make love work. >> here was a man who never harmed anyone in his life, was totally anti-violent. there were no politics ever involved in our house. the only pictures in our house were religious pictures. the enormous shock of not only myself being arrested and tortured, but then finding that not only was my father arrested but several members of my family as well with evidence that was obviously fabricated. >> you pointed out this father-son relationship. it is that you grew to understand, know, appreciate love more deeply your father because of your association in prison. is that fair? >> that is totally true because all of my dealings with my father up until that period was on a superficial level. give me some money or tell me what horse is going to win the next race. it was only when we were together in prison that i got a deeper understanding of the true man and the spirit that was in the man. that deeply affected me. my father gave up the ultimate sacrifice for me. >> life. >> his life. he came to prison and went through the brutal hardships of prison to give me an understanding and a maturity about what life was all about. >> you were the definer onstage of tennessee williams, more than anybody i can think of. >> he is a great poet and a great writer. i was fortunate enough to do "the rose tattoo." >> that was early in your career. >> 1950. >> 48 years ago. >> the next play i did of his was "camino real." the first film i made was written by tennessee williams so i feel real rich. >> you are reminding me of a quote about living. >> tennessee -- as lord byron says in the play -- lately i've been listening to hired musicians behind a row of artificial palm trees instead of the single pure-stringed instrument of my heart. for what is the heart but an instrument that turns noise into order and chaos -- chaos into order and noise into music. make voyages, attempt them -- there is nothing else. i have taken that as my philosophy. keep making the voyages even though there may be a leak in the ship. >> stay on the journey. >> yes. >> how was he to work with mary? >> he was wonderful because he was so bossy. he was a captain. >> he knew what he wanted. >> yes, and you didn't get to argue. you could say, well, george -- i was one of the few people to call him george because i'd known him for so long. >> everyone else said mr. abbott? >> yes, except his daughter. she called him george. but, you'd say can we try this and he'd say you can try it once and if it doesn't work, that's out. he was completely fair and a pragmatist about everything. he would've been so bored with the idea of his dying. dying was very dull to him. when we were in our orchestrial read-throughs, the musical director's mother died and he had no sympathy for that. one day out, that's enough. he should be back in. >> ronald reagan once said, "i don't dare call him george because i'm temporarily between jobs." [laughter] it is said that he liked to work with people who weren't stars. >> that's absolutely true. we had a very sad story about that because -- nancy walker and she was thrilled to do it. she heard the score, everything was fine. george had the entire production group in the room and said, how many people here want nancy walker in this part? 19 hands went up and he said well, all right, i guess i lose, but i'm not going to like it. it had nothing to do with nancy. he loved nancy, but he wanted to make stars, not work with them. >> i treasure every moment of my service in the senate and my service in the white house. the majority leader of the united states senate may be the very best job in the city. you have real power, you can really accomplish things, but you still don't have the trappings of security and the things that distort your life. >> you don't miss it though. >> i really don't miss it. i look back on it with great pleasure but i don't miss it. >> i have 30 seconds left. will you always regret that you weren't president? >> i regret that. that is the one ambition that was unfulfilled. >> is there anything that would cure that regret? >> i would very much liked to have been president of the united states but i wasn't. i obviously will not be now. so, i will help others. >> have i been right about iraq? i don't think anybody has been right about iraq. i think iraq has been full of surprises and it surprises everyone. it surprises people who prosecuted the war, the people who launched the war. it surprised liberals that criticized the war. it surprised the hawks who thought iraq would redeem the best hopes. looking back on what i wrote about iraq and the logic of the war and the logic i subscribed to, you'll remember i was not one of the people that was beating the drums of war. the war came and i would say i was a 9/11 person. i was working on 9/11 and then the iraq war was launched. i caught up with the war and i followed the war. i went to iraq because i didn't want to write and think about the war from a distance. i plunged myself into this war and i thought i had some advantages. the advantage of language because here is this irony -- we are deeply invested in the arab world and deeply invested in iraq, but many of the people who write about the war, the people who write for or against the war know very little about that culture. i felt i had that advantage at least. i tried my best to understand this war. i'm sympathetic to the war. i think it is a noble effort. our friend bernard once said he thought the war was morally right and politically wrong. he asked me what i would say if i had a big soundbite about the war? i said it is a noble war. the question will be will it be a noble success or a noble failure? sometimes a noble effort can also fail. >> i have been in love with magazines ever since i bumped into them professionally by selling them on the street in the kings row when my hair was down to my pants. i have loved them ever since. i will probably go on publishing magazines until the day i die. >> i think the death of martin king and bob kennedy in 1968 -- i think the snuffing out of those two lights -- i think the beginning of the age of cynicism began with that six-week period. perhaps we did not realize it at the time, but much of the idealism that has grown out of politics is not seen today by many people as an honorable profession. i think the doubts and the questions that people have about whether the political process is meaningful. the tremendous falloff of people participating in the political process in terms of voting because people who have money give money, but that has added to the cynicism. i think bob's position, polls aside, political leaders can change minds and change lives. i think that began to diminish with his death. the chicago convention which was dramatic and filled with turmoil and trouble was the first recognition of just how deep the cynicism was and how passionately people felt the loss was. from there, it seems to me there has been a steady downhill flow of the idea that politics was an honorable pursuit and a way to solve the problems of society and the world. >> the war that he wanted to end continued and watergate followed. >> exactly. that's right, charlie. >> characterize the charlie haden style. what is the signature? >> oh, my goodness. just honesty, i guess. i mean the people that usually characterize my style are the guys that write about the music. i'm just involved in playing. it is very important to me to communicate as much as i can beautiful music to as many people as i can. that is my goal. >> look at this. this is a bass player from august 1996. charlie haden, jazz legend. does legend sit comfortably on your shoulders? >> i really can't answer that. i'm not the person to say if i am a legend or not. the thing that matters to me is the music that we play. all the titles and categories are for someone else to write about. i think that a great musician is a musician that plays beyond the level of category. >> beyond category. >> beyond category. >> what does that mean? >> it means playing at a level where you are willing to give your life for your art form. there is no -- you don't think about categorizing it. it is just unbelievably beautiful music that has to do with enhancing this planet making it a better place allowing people to touch deeper parts inside their souls. >> i didn't think of my writing as trying to express anything. my writing is an exploration. >> an exploration? >> an exploration of life, the meaning of life and in particular of the meaning of life, its manifestations, where i find myself and where i am living it. >> it is where you are in that moment in terms of an exploration of questions you are asking yourself? >> to a certain extent. the questions other people are asking themselves as well. writers don't give answers, we ask questions. >> like interviewers. [laughter] does it get easier for you? writing? >> no, it's never been either particularly easy or particularly difficult. many writers say it is painful. for me, it is not painful. it is a necessity. >> a necessity. >> yes. >> what is it about music that brings you the most satisfaction? >> people. i love to interact with humans. i remember as a youngster, a young conductor in my 20's, i would accept engagements in some very odd corners of the earth simply to be able to go to that corner and learn something about people i would never have had contact with otherwise. like villages in mexico, i would conduct concerts in really lost places. meet wonderful people, learn something, add to my language facility and just grow. >> the best time is now. i don't think there is anything else but now. this is it. i'm having the best time with you. i don't -- i put it in the cabaret because they seem to get a kick out of it. somebody talks to me an awful lot about serenity. it is wonderful to have serenity. somebody asked me to give them a definition of serenity in my life. and i said something that i think was genuinely funny. they asked me and i said call waiting. [laughter] honest to god, it may be sad to a lot of people but i like it. the day i can admit to myself that this is it. for instance, when you think charlie, that you complain all the time about this, about that, about life, about everything -- if i can get myself to admit -- this is sobriety -- this is it. this is it. it is like how do you like me so far? i love that line. this is it. there is going to be good times in your life and there is going to be bad times. there would not be any good times if there weren't bad times. >> when i was 25 when i first started acting, and i had been around the world a little bit, i'd travel to a lot of societies. and, i felt i knew as much as any of these actors that went to acting school or more. >> life's experience. >> i think of acting as common sense. >> you do. >> i don't think of myself as an actor. i think of myself as a reactor. show me an actor, i will show you somebody climbing the scenery and trying to impress. give me someone who will react to the situation of the person or the dialogue. give me a reactor rather than an actor. ♪ >> there is no question in my mind that you cannot be a success in business if you don't love what you are doing. if you come to work believe me, somebody with a 20% inferior iq will kill you because you'll be thinking about business and you won't. you have to like what you are doing. if you're at a job or you don't like what you're doing, do some thing else because you won't make it. it is a very competitive world with a lot of smart people. smart people who enjoy coming to work will murder you. i don't believe in working 20 hours a day. i get up in the morning, i go to work and the minute i leave, i forget it and do what i do. very really do i think about business after i leave the office but i give it 100% when i am there. i eat lunch in the office everyday. that is the total key to success. >> when did you know you wanted to at least entertain, if not be whatever you are? [laughter] >> i think it was after high school. the first year of college. i had slight tendencies that way. >> you did. [laughter] >> i think when it took an improvisational acting class. i flunked out of my political science course. we did very well. yes. lord, yes. that's that thing i do well now. my mind will flow. no, my friend, in the end, you must suppose he says no. that was the beginning. it has been from then on. >> when i was a kid, i always wanted to play act. i wanted to perform. i wanted to be on stage. and, it seemed to be a total part of my being not because it was ever in my family. no member of my family came even close. >> if people want the friendship of yours they have to know what about you? >> they have to know how racist i am. >> what does that mean? >> i believe without laughter there is no point at all. i think everything is a joke. that doesn't sit well with everybody. there are a lot of humorless people in the world but i don't want to know them because i cannot imagine being a friend of anyone who has no humor. they have to not take themselves seriously. you have to work seriously but not your health. i think that wit is one of the guiding factors for me. it is one of the most important things for me in any relationship. >> did bogie have wit? >> and how. you can remember me because of our great conversations and because you and i are on the same wavelength and page as they say. let the chips fall where they may. i won't be around to worry about it, but i hope it is kind of positive in one way or another. >> i know very little about yoga. what is important for me to know? >> you know, it is the integration of body and the mind. intelligence and self. it keeps the body healthy, the mind healthy, the energy flowing. intellectual health. when i started learning after several years i wrote the first book which is building the skeletal and physiological body. i went on practicing with the movement. thenn,, i presented that to people. being a seeker in the art of yoga that there is a parallel between body, mind and self. i wanted to know how to get to this by doing different positions and techniques. i realized that i am no more a seeker, but i am actually seeing what i am doing. that made me realize because he gave me the light on self. >> how do you choose what you do because you have done shadowlands -- ghandi, we all know why you did that. >> what i am most interested in -- i don't read much fiction. >> is there another gandhi in your mind? >> do you really want to know? thomas payne. >> really? the american dissident. >> englishman actually. he came over with ben franklin in 1773. he was appointed -- when he w rote the great crisis and then with jefferson he framed the american declaration of independence. >> what is it about you, you think, that gives you this tenacity to survive and to bounce back? fear. >> you know this business. the tenacity is i never thought that i am so terrific that anything is beneath me truly. i've never been one to say that is not my job or i am a star and i don't do that. that has never crossed my mind. that is number one. number two, i have to make a living. i go to make a living. this is what i do. i'm up for hire. i love my work. i love my work. when they are filming a commercial, i stand on the street and watch it. that is what makes me stay in this business. >> give me some sense of how you think what this first 100 days says about this presidency and this president and what it might indicate. >> i think part of it is what it says about us. there is always an enormous rush to judgment in washington. i keep waiting for the first columnist to call the bill clinton presidency a failure because. >> i'm a painter by profession. that is how i make my living. >> you make your living as a painter. >> oh yes. >> you will in an eddie murphy movie if you want. >> it has made me independent. >> is it your first love? >> all my loves, i don't want to choose. i stole my brother's paint when i was 15. i used to play hooky from school intranet -- in trinadad. i was the baby of the family. >> how many children? >> i was the last of five. you know how i was born. after god made adam and eve, he made jeffrey. >> they want jon gotti almost as much as they wanted to win the persian gulf. i think they wanted him very badly. he had been them three times. he had become a bit of a folk hero. people talked about him on the street. >> as a folk hero? >> yes. he was on television programs and on and on. >> you made the projection that fashion gives you because you will show that it is done in new york and paris and it covers the world. especially france. you get worldwide attention. that is very important for your business. at the same time, you know the clothes has to serve a purpose. there has to be a reality. women want to wear those close to create credibility. i think sometimes today we forget the fact that a woman has to wear those clothes. it is only fashion once a woman wears those clothes. >> most people say this -- what bradley has his great instinct. that is what you had in abundance. what do you think it is that has served you well? >> i think i was curious. i think i came along at the perfect time. you cannot just quibble with my sense of timing. just as katharine graham was interested in expanding the post and spending money on the news product, the conversation about the post -- it now sounds that the post was a nothing, no good little paper when i went there which is not true. >> it was not the best paper in town though. >> it was a good paper. it had a wonderful editorial page and a wonderful editor. >> it remains, of course the most important and central experience of my life and my professional life certainly. it was an inspiring time. it brought us things that i think we have not seen since. i found in robert kennedy a unique human being who almost alone among all politicians i have ever met almost along every human being i have met was a person who continued to learn and educate himself as he grew older. most of us bank our intellectual capital may be in our mid-20's and we try to live off it for the rest of our lives, but he had none of that. he was constantly interested in new things. who is writing good stuff now about this or that about crime or poverty or race or even monday and things like housing or welfare. he wanted to know. sometimes you would look up in the office one day and see some professor you were talking about a few days before because he called him and said he was writing good stuff and wanted to talk. >> we began a remembrance with him reading his poem at the 92nd street y in new york in 1988. >> something like a field in hungary with all its innocence. >> you have something that he wrote that i would like you to read us. >> it is a place in sweden. there is a meadow in sweden where i lie smitten. eyes stained with clouds whites ins and outs. about that meadow roams my widow pleading a clover read for her lover. i took her in marriage in a granite parish. the snow lent her whiteness and among was a witness. she swam in the lake which mirror fell happy and broken. in night, the stubborn son of her auburn hair shined from my pillow at post and pillar. in the distance, i hear her camp. she sings blue swallow but i can't follow. the evening shadow robs the meadow of width and color. it is getting colder. as i lie dying here, here is venus. no one between us. >> what is the magnet of directing for you? >> the magnet of directing a movie is you beat the hell out of a script and you do it again and again. you say over and over, then what happens and what happens next and then what? what is after that? that is what the audience says. they always say then what? you cast it as well as you can and you work with the director of photography. you do all of this and then it takes you over. it starts to tell you what to do. at a certain point of shooting the movie, it takes you up. >> even with the movie you shot out of sequence? >> absolutely. it creates its own life. it decides what it wants to be. just like in the cutting room -- there are pieces that are jumping because it is alive. you automatically learn to cut out the dead pieces and let the light feed the light. ♪ >> he invented the self driving car, he is considered the godfather of artificial intelligence. he cofounded google x, google's innovation laboratory. googlers. -- home to google glass. he helped launch broadband balloons to connect to the internet through the stratosphere. now, sebastian thrun is on to his greatest ambition yet, democratizing a higher education, by sharing knowledge with people that can't afford it via the internet. joining me on "studio 1.0," inventor, professor, and founder, sebastian thrun.