No, no, h okay. That is heavy, okay . If that anvil, all of a sudden, started like scooting across the table, you will look for some reason for that, wouldnt you . Maybe youll look for maybe a rope that you cant see or maybe a magnet or something. This is just not gonna move of itself, is it . Theres gonna be a reason for it to move. Hey, this is the 20th century, we know there are reasons for things, right . I take this ball, okay . This ball. Put this ball. That ball starts all of a sudden going up in the air. You will look for maybe a string that you cannot see or something, right . Things dont move of themselves, do they . Or do they . Poltergeist. Yeah, or do they . Okay. Were gonna talk about that. A fellow by the name of aristotle, who was a giant for the human intellect and the advancing humankind, way back fourth century b. C. Classified many things and brought knowledge to a very, very high point. But aristotle made some mistakes and not to emphasize his mistakes, but one of the mistakes aristotle made was that if somethings moving, again, there gotta be a reason for it. Things dont move of themselves, and so we said if something moves, its because theres a force pushing or pulling. These things started moving, youd look for a force, wouldnt you . Aristotle also. And so he made that one of the dictums, that if somethings moving that doesnt ordinarily move, then theres a force acting. And, boom, that was carved in stone in the medieval years. But it bothered some people, because, take for example a cannonball shot from a cannon. Heres a cannonball, okay . You put that inside the cannon, what makes the cannonball move . Well, you got some gunpowder back here. You ignite the gunpowder, it expands. Got no room to expand, whats on the way . The cannonball. And so whats the cannonball do . Moves. And the gunpowder pushes the cannonball out. No mystery. Here was the mystery. Once the gunpowder has spent itself and the cannonball was outside, its still moving. Whats keeping it moving now . Boo. You take a bow and an arrow. You pull the arrow back, you let go. Its easy to see what makes the arrow moved. That string is stretched ready. That string is pushing on it. Thats what moves. Fine. But when the string is no longer pushing, guess what, gang . It keeps on moving. If its moving, there gotta be a force. Gotta be a force . Wheres the force . And so the scholars of those years tried to find where the force was. And they came up with this idea. When that cannonballs going through the air, its parting the air in front. The air is gonna get out of the way. This likeyou guys dont be knowing about snowbanks, but if i take this thing and throw it into a snowbank you guys know what that is, a snowbank . A bank of snow . You know what would be left behind . A hole in the snow. Okay . And it was reasoned that as this moves through the air, it leaves behind a hole in the air. I mean, the air is around us, right . Okay . It leaves behind a hole in the air. Aha, but wait a minute, the scholars said, you cant have a hole in the air, because nature abhors a vacuum. So that vacuum gonna be filled up by the air. So youre gonna squeeze down in back and squeeze it right along. And so theres the force. The air squeezes it along. Saturday night when youre taking your bath, try ivory soap, the kind that floats. And you sit in the bathtub and there is a soap right there and you go to grab it. Youve done it before and you go, oh, i have it it keeps going away from you, right . [laughter] you squeeze it right through the water. Well, it was thought that cannonballs were squeezed similarly through the air and arrows too. What do you guys think about that . Not too many people were satisfied with that, but thats the best they could do at the time. There gotta be some explanation. Whats a better one . And along came an italian type by the name of galileo who turned it all upside down. Everyones looking for the force responsible for the motion, galileo said, hey, gang, guess what . No force. If i took this thing out in outer space where gravity was very, very small, i took this thing in outer space and i threw it, it might take a force to get it going, but when i let go, itll go of itself. No force required. And so this idea, that once things are moving, theyll keep moving, is invoked in whats called newtons first law. Isaac newton came along right after galileo. And newtons first law says, hey, gang, if theres no force acting on something, it will stay as it is. We call that the law of inertia. If somethings at rest, dont mess with it, itll stay at rest. If somethings moving, dont mess with it, itll keep right on moving. In what kind of path . Straight. A Straight Line path. To say it will move in a Straight Line path at steady speed is to say it will move with constant begin with the v, check your neighbor. Try again. What is it . All together. A booming resounding of all the scholars of hawaii, all together, whats the word . Begins with a v. Velocity. All right, all right. I thought you were gonna be wimps there for a while. Velocity. See. Constant velocity says constant speed and constant direction too. Aint that true . So something will move at Constant Velocity in the absence of a force. Thats if its moving anyway, but if it happen to be at rest. No force . Whats it gonna do . Stay at rest. So we called that idea the law of inertia, newtons first law of motion. Things tend to stay put. Make sense . I get a couple of blobs. These are blobs of clay. These clays have inertia. Right now, theyre at rest. They tend to stay at rest. I put this clay on the top of my head like this, and i can see this one very clearly. But you know what, gang . I cant see this one back here. How can i see that one without touching . So if you turn around. [laughter] aint that neat . Things tend to stay put. You ever get a bowl of soup, right, and you got the alphabet and you want this alphabet over here, near you. So you turn the soup bowl, and what happens . The alphabet stays there. You keep turning the soup bowl inertia. Things at rest tend to stay at rest. Aint that neat . Okay. Heres block of wood. Heres a block of wood. This block of wood tends to stay at rest because it has inertia. By the way, inertia is another for mass. Mass is another for matter. This block of wood has mass. Gravity is pulling on it, so it also has weight. But to say it has mass is to say it has inertia. To say it has inertia is to say it tends to stay right there. Thats a tendency. Now what im gonna do is im going to flip this tablecloth and im gonna pull it like this. And youre gonna guess what is gonna happen to the block. Will the block stay essentially where it is . Will it recoil, come down here and hit the cylinder or will it follow along in the direction its pulled . Check your neighbor. Take a guesstimate, make a hypothesis. All right. Here we go, gang. Which way . Aone, two, three. [laughter] stapled, theyre stapled. Hey, this illustrates newtons zeroth law of motion. Thats stay on your toes, gang. Be skeptical. These little staples provided a force that made it move, see . So there was a force. But what if the staples werent there . And what do we have down here, gang . We have some plates. No staples, no velcro, the tablecloth. This is what i want you to do over the weekend when you get invited to dinner at someone elses house, okay . They say, hey, what are you learning at the university . Say, ill tell you what ive been doing at the university. [laughter] okay. And get the table all set. Grab the tablecloth like this and say, do you believe in the first law of inertia . And they say, yes, we do. Hey, how about that . Not even a quiver of motion. Did you see that . Okay . [laughter] see, something at rest tends to stay at rest. Now, theres a little bit of friction. A little bit of Friction Force there. Now a little bit of force does move it a little bit. And you saw the motion a little bit, yeah . But if you had something really, really heavy oh, look at this here. Look at this. Boom. Look at that thing. This has a lot of inertia. A lot. Some people get mixed up, they say, no, no, no, hewitt. Its not got a lot of inertia, it got a lot of weight. That thing is heavy. Is it heavy . Its very heavy. Okay . You can kind of just feel it, okay . And i take this thing and i get it moving. Whats keep whats pushing it now, gang . Whats pushing it . Nothings pushing it. Nothing. And that idea that itll keep moving with steady speed with no push, it moves of its own. Inertia. Dig this, gang, inertia doesnt tell you why. Oop, boom. Sorry, gang. [laughter] thanks for telling me at the last minute, gang. Sometimes you find out who your friends are, huh . How would you guys like it if i was standing like this . Oh, boy. Okay. [laughter] this room will be filled with people next time, right . People like violence, right . Right . Okay. This must have touched the wall. And the wall touched it, pushed it back, huh . Yeah. So whats the force keeping that going . Inertia. No force. We dont know why it keeps going. But we call that ignorance inertia. Get the idea . Nobody knows why it keeps going. We just know that it does and so we call that inertia. Any forces acting on this ball, by the way, on this cylinder . Any forces acting on it, right now . Yeah. Yeah. Force of gravity. And force of gravity is pulling it straight down. Isnt that true . Okay. If the force of gravity is pulling it straight down, why doesnt it go straight down . By the way, is that accelerating right now . No, its not. And if its not accelerating, what does newton say about the forces that act on it . Theory of equilibrium. Zero. Zero net force. In fact, thats the idea of the law of inertia. If you see anything thats not accelerating, then all the forces that may enact on it, all balanced out. Let me show you how this thing looks. Heres a cylinder like that. Now theres no force this way, no force this way. But there is a force down and thats the force of gravity. And that force of gravity acting straight down right toward the center of the world, okay, thats its weight. If that were the only force acting, newton says, hey, in the presence of a force, it will change how its moving. Itll start to move, but it doesnt. That means there must be something pushing which way again . Up. Up. And whats pushing up on that . The table. It turns the table out. It turns out the table. The table is holding it up. And guess how hard the tables holding it up with just as much force as this is pulling down with. And, so the two forces cancel out. See. If i push on this thing over here with the force maybe of 10 newtons, and someone else pushes over here with 10 newtons. Whats the net force on the object . Oh, you cant do that. Let me try this one then. Lets suppose someone pushes over here with a force of 1 newton and someone else pushes here 1 newton. Can you guys know what the net force would be . Begin with z. Zero. Zero. End with p. Zip. Zip, another word for zero, okay. Thered be a zero net force. Whats the net force up and down over here . Zip. Zip. So whats the change in motion . Zip. And what do we call the change in motion, beginning with the a. Acceleration. Acceleration. So whats the acceleration if theres no net force . Zero. Zero, thats right. Thats newtons first law. That if no net force acts on an object then the object wont accelerate. And we learned last time that acceleration is a 50cent word for what . Change. You remember that . See. If theres no change then theres no acceleration. And newton says, therell be no acceleration if theres no net force. Thats why things that are sitting at rest, no force acting, no net force, can stay at rest. You get something moving, no net force acting, whats it gonna keep doing . Stay moving. Its going to avoid change. And thats the idea of inertia. People that way too. Some years ago, i was working in i used to be a silkscreen printer, sign painter. I used to work for a living before i got into this. And i used to work in a factory, silkscreen printing tshirts. And we have these great big drums of paint and were putting over these buckets bring over these buckets to get our little bucket filled up. And theres great big guy this big guy over here with these big things here, he would dole out the paint. And he used to do it with this little, little spoon. And sometimes, our screen will be drying up and harry, hurry up please. My screens gonna dry up. And hes going, im fast as i can. Hes got this spoon and hes trying to get the spoon, put paint from one bucket to another. This is a true story. And i said to harry, harry, why dont you get one of those great big soup ladles, a great big thing, two or three scoops and you got it filled up. And he looked at me kinda funny and he says, but ive always used a spoon. And i thought to myself, wow, this inertia. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. Do you have friends like that . People that keep doing the same thing day after day after they dont change. Theres a resistance to change, inertia. In fact, inertia in italian is a 50cent word for being lazy. Yeah, im told that lazy in italian is inertia or Something Like that. Anyway, thats the idea. If you are riding in a car, someones gonna take you for a car trip across the mainland. Youre gonna go from one coast to the other. And they say, hey, we can go in a little volkswagen or we can go in a great big cadillac limousine, take your pick. And you wanna be comfortable. Which would you pick . How is itwell, either one, it dont make any difference. Depends on the color of the car. [laughter] which do you suppose would give you a more comfortable ride . All right, let me give you a hint, begin with c. Cadillac. The cadillac. Why would the cadillac give you a more comfortable ride . Suspension. Its got more. Mass. Inertia, more mass. You see . When that cadillac go over the Railroad Track lets suppose youre going over the Railroad Tracks in your little volkswagen and in the backseat, you got crates of eggs, just come from the farm, okay . And now youre gonna go over the Railroad Tracks in that little car, what happens is, blblblbl and the eggs all fly around. What happens in that cadillac, it got a lot more mass, a lot more inertia, a lot more tendency to keep going straight . You go over those Railroad Tracks, blblblbl and you just keep going like that. Airplanes which is more comfortable to fly in, a little airplane or a big one . Which one has the barf bags, the little ones or the big ones . The little ones be having the barf bags, why . What happens to the little plane, a little wind come . [whistling like the wind] right, doesnt have much inertia. What happened to that big plane like this, move right on through, honey, how do they move . Very smooth. So more inertia means more tendency to keep on going in a Straight Line. You go to the store, getting some groceries at the store. You get the baggies, huh, you get the baggies all set and you get all your bananas right here and youre gonna get the baggy. Do you have to put all the bananas down . Put one hand on top of the baggy thing and then pull the other one. Do you have to do that . Oh, you dont do that. You keep the bananas in one hand, you grab the baggy and you snap it. Now, when you snap it, what happens . The bagthe roll of bag has so much inertia stays right there, doesnt it . And, boom, itll snap away from you, huh . How about when youre reading your book and youre on the toilet, huh . What happens . Youre on a toilet reading a book like this . Do you have to stop when youre all through, put this down, hold the top of the toilet paper and tear the bottom piece . Do you have to do that . You dont have to do that. You can keep reading the book, reach over and snap down quick. And you rely on the inertia to hold it still, isnt that true . I can kinda show you that here. Heres a ball, its got a lot of weight. To say it has a lot of weight is to say it has a lot of what . Begin with m. Mass. Mass. Say it has a lot of mass, say it has a lot of, begin with. I. I. So this thing has two things weight, it also has mass. You measure mass by how hard it is to change. You measure weight by how heavy it is. See this is quite heavy here, but if i take this on the moon, its not so heavy. You know why . How heavy had to do with gravity and the mass. On the moon, theres less gravity so itll be easier to lift. And if i took it to a part of the universe where all the gravities cancel out, put it on a bathroom scale, what would it have . No weight at all, but it still has stuff. It still has mass. If you were in some orbiting space vehicle where the gravity is like seems nonexistent and this thing came by like this and it hit your head, boom, its gonna hurt. You know why its gonna hurt . Because a body in motion tends to. Stay in motion. You got a bunch of groceries in your hand in a bag. And the bag is very, very heavy or very, very massive. And you take a hand and you bump into the wall, ooh, youre crunched, youre hurt. But if youre carrying a bag of paper towels, no problem. And you hit just the same, the same speed. Why is it when youre carrying the bag of heavy stuff, your hand get smashed, and when youre carrying the light stuff, its okay . Why . Any reason for that . How many say, oh, theres probably no reason. Its just come on, you guys, do you see it, huh . Well, lets see what happens here. Heres a ball hanging by a string. Heres another string here. What im gonna do is im gonna pull the ball, harder, harder, harder, harder and snap. One of those strings is gonna break. You gotta be guessing which string will break. Well get the scene like this. Okay. I pull down, pull down, pull down, which string breaks this one or this one . Check your neighbor. Take a guess. How many be saying, its the top string gonna break cause hes got the other one over here for the next trial. [laughter] lets try again, here we go. It was the top string. Hc, how come . Lets look at it. When i pull this down, dont i set up a tension in the string here . And doesnt that tension also transmitted up to here . So dont i have that tension in both strings, huh . Aint that true . So it could be either one, maybe sometimes itd be the bottom, maybe sometimes the top. Except for. The weight of the ball. What with the ball, its weight or its inertia . Its weight. Beginning with the w, end with eight. Try it. Weight. Weight. The weight of the ball acts on which string, this one or this one . Top. Top. So on the top, you have the weight of the ball plus the tension of pulling. And over here, only the tension. So sure enough, the top one breaks. Okay . Shall we try it again . Im gonna whip the string down very, very quickly. Im gonna ask that ball to accelerate more than 10 meters per second per second because im gonnafoom go down like that. Not slowly like before. And watch what happens. Sure enough the bottom string breaks. Aint that nice . See that, huh . We can kind of do the very, very same thing here. It turns out if its done quickly, the top one is protected, isnt it . We can do the same kind of thing with this anvil, okay . This anvil if i ask you to put your head underneath here, okay, and i hit it with a sledgehammer like this. [laughter] and if i hit thisi mean quickly, youd be okay. Right . Because the top string will but the bottom wouldnt break, would it . See . Can i have a volunteer, please. [laughter] okay, ill tell you what. Ill try it. I wont put it on my head. But everything we just did with that hanging ball, were gonna do with the anvil. Same physics, okay . Can i have a volunteer to man the hammer . Volunteer, please. Okay. This has got a lot of mass, gang. To say its got a lot of mass, it says its got a lot of tendencies to stay right where it is. Okay, im gonna lay on here. And would you put the anvil right on my stomach, please . Right on my chest. Okay. Okay. Right here. Okay. Now, would you get on the other side and slam that thing as hard as you can . Over here. Go over here. [laughter] oh. Dont please, dont miss the anvil. [laughter] all right. Do you have any grudges against your teachers . [laughter] okay. Hit it harder. Okay. Take it off. [laughter] all right. How come im okay . Would you guys do that . Are you really okay . Yeah, im okay. Hey, he can hit as hard as he wants, makes no difference. Ill tell you, theres a lot of things going on here. First of all, is it important that this thing be heavy . To say its heavy is to say that its also massive. To say its massive is to say that it has a tendency to stay right where it is. And when you hit it, boom, whats the tendency of this to stay right where it is . Lets suppose instead of using this, we use a quarter. [laughter] and i put a quarter in there. How much tendency does a quarter have to stay where it is . See. So some say, gee, i dont want the heavy thing. Ill try with a nickel or penny, okay . Boom. Youre wiped out, okay . See what i mean . See . See . So its the mass. The mass of that thing protects you. So its all right. Okay . Nothing to when you guys get a hammer, huh . This is a small hammer. Remember when youre a little kid and you would try to tighten this because its a little loose and youre going like this. Remember that . And old uncle harry come by and uncle harry says, no, no, child. You dont do it like that. What you do is you hold it like this. And you look up at uncle harry and you said, i see. And what uncle harry say . You guys have an uncle harry . [laughter] didnt uncle harry say, this hammerhead has a lot of inertia. To say it has a lot of inertia, when its moving, it tends to keep. Moving. Moving. Okay . And so when this part stops, what does this part tend to keep doing . Moving. Andskkrcch right down. Boom and every time you hit itskkrcch it tightens right up. Hey, huh . Theres inertia. Another thing, too. Guess which acts the same way . This little hammerhead thats in your back. How tall are you guys . You got your drivers license. Your drivers license tells how tall you be, right . Is that the morning figure or the night figure . Do you guys know that at nighttime you are shorter than you are in the morning time . Did you know that . Its true. Scouts honor, its true. Now, have you checked it over the weekend . You have in your back, you have a little sack you have all these little bones like these. And as you keep going like this, walking along, boom, boom, boom, through the day. [laughter] at the end of the day, youre a little bit ever see those jogger types . They start off, wow, lets go for a run, gang. And they run, boom, boom, boom. At the end of the day, oh, boy, that was a good workout. [laughter] they get shorter. Hey, its true. You settle right down. And then at nighttime, you get in your bed, youwhooop. You come right back out again, youre all right, huh . Now, i got something for you guys to check. I want you to check this out. Tonight, before you hit the sack, i want you to find some part of your house thats just about out of your reach. Find someplace where you can reach up and find a place like i used to have a room that had beamed ceilings, okay . And at nighttime, i could reach up and i couldnt touch those beams. Reach, reach, i couldnt touch them. Go to bed. [whistles] get up in the morning. Ziiip touch them easy, easily. Try it yourself. You really are shorter at the end of the day. Aint that neat . Whats that . Begin with ph . Sound like f. Physics. Physics, honey, physics. Yeah. Your height depends it has to do with inertia. One of the rules of the game of the physical world is this law of inertia, the idea that if something isnt changing then the forces all balance out. So if something stays in equilibrium as we say, then whatever forces act, they must all balance out to zero. Okay . We saw that with the weight over here, the cylinder. The cylinder is pushing down on the table. Gravity is pulling it down, but the table is holding it up so all the forces balance out. In fact, you can say if theres no acceleration, the net force is zero. You understand that rule . I can remember when i didnt understand that rule. Let me tell you a true story, a thing that changed my life. When i was 25 years old, i was a sign painter in boston. Anyone here ever paint signs in boston in january on the shady side of the street . Honey, your paint gets really gummy. When youre trying to paint those billboards, the paint is terrible, and youre freezing and its cold. So you know what i did . I went to miami, florida. And down in florida, i joined a sign painting crew. We used to paint billboards. You know, driving down you see the billboards, the pineapple and all that stuff. Okay . I used to do that and thats what i did for a living. I was a professional. And i was the new man in the company, and i was assigned to paint with a painter who no one else wanted to paint with. And the reason they didnt want to paint with this guy is because there was a rumor going around about him and it turned out the rumor was true. He was accused, of all the guys in the yard, of being an intellectual and he was. Yeah, he was an intellectual. You want to paint with an intellectual . You want to paint with the boys, honey. You dont want to paint with an intellectual. You paint with the boys. You talk about what . You talk about your sex fantasies. You talk about cars, you know. Or you talk about sports, mostly sports, right . What else is in the world, huh . Thats what you talk about. This guy was burl grey. Yeah, we talked a little about those things. But my friend burl grey turned out to be my friend. My friend burl grey talked about ideas, ideas eight hours a day massaging my brain. I loved it. He changed my life. Scouts honor, he changed my life. And let me tell you one of the Little Things we talked about one day. It took a whole afternoon and we talked about and the afternoon it flew right by. And it was this. Were up there painting. We had a scaffold like this, you know . And the scaffold hangs and heres the billboard back here, okay . And burl will be back here, painting here and id be over here. Painting here. And burl was heavier than me. He weighed more. I was lighter. And burl one day said, you know what . These ropes are holding us up. If you take the rope and twang it, theres a tension in the rope. Its tight. And he asked, hey, would there be more tension on my side than your side because im a heavier guy than you are . And let me ask that question. If you were out there in the scaffold and you got a heavyset guy here and this is you over here, will there be more tension in his cable than yours . Which is to say if you put like a little scale here that can read how much is being stressed the spring scale, huh . And you put one over here, too. Okay . And he asked that question. And we had no way of proving that right then, so its all mental massaging, huh . Well, what about a game . Check your neighbor. How many people say, yeah, thered be more tension here than here . Yes or no . How many say, oh, its gonna be about the same. Everything the same. Everything in the world is the same, man. Theres no distinctions to be made. How many say, no, no, i think over here this guy is heavier. I think it pulled down harder than this guy over here. Show of hands. Well, thats what we said, too. Thats what we said. Because we reasoned if these things were about to break, burls side would break first. [laughter] okay . Yeah. Heres another thing that was kind of neat. So i started walking over toward burl because i wanted to fill up my paint can, okay . Im walking over toward burl and burl says, hey, hewitt, as you walk over toward me, will the tension in my cable get more or will it stay the same . What do you guys think . Check it with your neighbors. [students talking] how many people say, oh, it will stay the same. Everything stays the same. Im the same. Youre the same. Were all the same. Everything is the same. Show of hands. How many people say, no, no, no, as you get closer and closer, this tension is gonna increase, because if this rope was about to break and you got closer and closer, pretty soon the combined weight would break the rope. Thered be more tension the closer you get, the more the tension. Well, thats what we figured out, too. We figured that it would get more. If we both got here, it will really get a lot higher, right . We kind of figured that out. But you know what . Burl was an intellectual, but burl didnt know his physics. Hed never taken a physics course. He didnt know the very rules by which the physical world was governed. He didnt know no physics. Very, very bright, but ignorant, okay . So we kind of talked about that. But heres the question that really got us. And burl was good at asking questions. Burl says, hey, hewitt, if you walk over here and the tension here gets bigger, like maybe 50 pounds, will the tension on your side get less or stay the same as it was before . What do you guys say . How many say, i aint saying anything. I aint saying anything, hewitt, cause im good at just remembering whats said. You do the thinking, hewitt, ill do the remembering. Im good at remembering . Show of hands. [laughter] all right. Check your neighbor. Do you think that the tension over here would get less as it gets more over here . Take a reason to guess. Let me go over that again, gang. Let me go over that again. Im not gonna introduce the 50 this time. I think thats confusing people. Let me just say this. Burl asks this question, hewitt, as you walk over, we agreed that the tension on this side will get more. Does that mean the tension on this side will get less . Check your neighbor. Hey. Well, you know what we reason, gang . We reason that it would get less. And you know what our reasoning was . If we both got over on this side here and leaned out, this side here might even go up like a seesaw. See, its kind of balancing here. And we reasoned that this side here might even lift up and thered be no tension at all. So we reasoned that, yeah, as this side gets more, this side gets less. And heres the question that blew us out of the water that we never came up with an answer to, at least not that day, and that was, burl said, if this side here gets more by, say, 50, will this side get less by 50 . Heavy, heavy, heavy. Yes, no, maybe . Or theres no way to tell. Take a guess, gang. Oh, how about this . If this gets heavier by 50. 1, will this lose exactly 50. 1 . How many people in here say, yeah, im thinking thats the case . Show of hands. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8 out of 50. Well, you guys are doing better than we could do cause we didnt know. And you know why we didnt know . cause we didnt have any framework to hang our thoughts on. And you know what the framework to hang your thoughts on is . Heres the framework. The framework is if you have any system thats not changing, thats not accelerating, all the forces that act on that system this is physics, gang all the forces that act on that system will balance out to be. Zero. Zero. Okay . That weight over there is not accelerating. What do all the forces balance out to be . Zero. That means you know the weight acting down is just as hard as the table pushing back up. The table is holding up just as hard as the gravity is pulling down. When you step on bathroom scales, thats what youre doing. Weight is pulling you down scrunching the spring and thats holding you up. And that bathroom scale is holding you up just as hard as gravity is pushing you down. So really, the bathroom scale takes a measure of how hard its holding you up and you call that your weight. But youre using newtons first law, that youre at rest, theres no acceleration, so the forces cancel out to zero, and thats what happens over here. Theres three forces acting down. Theres the weight of burl, theres the weight of me and theres the weight of the board and those act down. Now we dont go down. We stay here. Why . Because Something Else got to be holding it up. And whats holding it up . This ones holding it up and this ones holding it up. Now let me ask you a question. If i add up this weight, this weight and this weight, im gonna get a number. Hows that number gonna compare to this force and this force added together . Check your neighbor. How many say same same . Thats right. Its a same same, see . So thats why if this one gained a little bit, this one have to lose cause this and this both add up to these three. Isnt that neat . Boy, i wish someone told us that. We didnt know that. I didnt learn that until i started going to school. And burl grey got me so interested in physics, really. I didnt even know it was physics. He never used the word physics. But just the world, the world is a very interesting place. And its even more interesting if you know what to look for. And we didnt know what to look for here. It was kind of interesting but we were unsatisfied that we can never figure it out. And you guys can figure it out cause you know what the rule is. The up is equal to down thats why it stays still. What happenedif you cut these ropes, what happens . Boom, down it goes, okay . But because now you dont have the forces holding up, so it holds up just as much as it pulls. Oh. And you can figure these things out. Youre standing on a couple of bathroom scales, huh . You got one here and one here. Lets suppose you weigh 150 pounds. I stand equally. Whats each scale read . Check your neighbor. Oh, 150, thats bad. Let me say 200. Come on, you guys. You can do 150 divided by 2. What is it . 75 here, 75 here, right, if its 150, yeah . Now heres the question, heres the question. What if you lean over on one said so you got, like, 100 here . Oh, whats that one read . Check your neighbor. Whats the rule . Those bathroom scales got to hold you up as gravity pulling you down. So if you know one side is 100, the other side got to be the rest. Aint that neat . All right. Heres a little girl hanging by a system. Shes hanging by a rope draped over a pulley. And over here, we have a little meat market scale, okay . And that scale will be reading some value. She weighs 100. What be the reading over here . 50 . One day, were out painting with our friend harry. And our friend harry was like very, very inertiaoriented. All those time doing the same thing. And were always telling harry, harry, you know what . Your life is one of inertia. You never make a change. Youre always doing the same thing. Why dont you have a little variety in your life . Well, unfortunately, harry took our advice. It turns out that harry was painting in a bosuns chair like this. And you know how those bosuns chairs are . Youre supported by both strands of rope and youre like that. And you wanna go up a little bit, you unhook it, you. Clickclickclick and you hook it right on and you kind of swing right there. You wanna go back down a little bit, you missed a little bit of paint, you. Clickclickclick. You tie it right on there and you kind of swing by the two strands and youre painting away, right . Well, it turned out that harry had a weight of 200. And later on, we found out that the breaking point of the rope was 150 pounds. It turned out the rope had a dry rot inside, looked like a pretty good rope but it would break with 150 pounds of tension. You hear me . Okay. Is the rope gonna break . Is harry okay . Let me ask you a question. Or let me ask you to ask your neighbor a question, whats the tension in the rope . How many of you are saying the tension in that rope is 100 pounds . This sides pulling up 100, this side is pulling up 100. Hes being pulled up by both sides, and 100 and 100 is two. And two down, its a wash. Honey, hes okay. Okay . Do you see that . All right. One day, harry is painting, painting away here and he comes up to a flagpole. He says, maybe i should Pay Attention to paul and burl. Theyre always telling me im doing the same thing. What am i gonna do . Im gonna tie my rope right back in the same old place. Why dont i get off the beaten path and tie one end of the rope right to the flagpole here . Thats harrys last day on the job. Hc. Check your neighbor. Whats the tension in the rope if he do that . How many say hes in trouble . He shouldnt have taken our advice. Stick with the tried and the true. Dont venture off. Okay. Thats it, gang. Think about that. [music] badampadam patootlydo dam pooh i wanna be loved by you just you and nobody else but you it was straight, sevenyear contracts and you were owned, body and soul. I give you heart, soul, blood and guts, as much as i can do, the best that i can do it. And thats a lot. If they had the choice, would you be more famous in 20 years because you died, i am convinced some of them would have said yes, the true stars would have. Annenberg media and with additional funding from these foundations and individuals and by and the annual Financial Support of hello, im john lithgow. Welcome to american cinema. Some people say the star is the greatest invention of american cinema. American films have to have big names in bright lights. In the old days of the studio system, there was a structure for developing stars. They were owned, body and soul, signed to longterm contracts. A powerful publicity machine, run by the studio, they could reach an audience of millions. But that alone did not guarantee success. The problem for the studio was to find the one personna out of many possible characters to boost an actor to stardom. Humphrey bogart, for instance, played as a cheap hood before he was recast and ultimately immortalized as rick in casablanca. Stars today are still a unique match of individual flair and audience aspiration. With the studio collapse, stars catapulted to power and became the most bankable commodities in hollywood, who can often determine whether or not a film is made. In this program, narrated by kathleen turner, we look at how this reversal of roles came about, starting with an oldfashioned star like Joan Crawford who was shaped by the studio system. Youll also hear from contemporary stars like jack lemmon and Julia Roberts and find the answer to that elusive question what makes the star . dramatic music playing narrator the names on movie marquees draw the audience in like moths to a flame. The publics love affair with stars lasts forever. Movie stars exist in a beauty that transcends time. john waters a movie star is mythic, a movie star is like no one youve ever seen Walking Around in your daily life. America invented the star. And theres a specific time when that happened, it happened in 1910. Thats when the star was born. thunder crashing music playing narrator from the early days of motion pictures, stars have incarnated the visions of directors, provided the story elements for audiences and bankrolled more films than any other financial asset. Hi, nice meeting you. How do you feel about coming tonight . Nervous. Why shouldnt i be nervous . Theres a lot of people here. Im nervous im human, what can i tell you . Stephen Schiff Julia Roberts is a star. Julia roberts is pure, cornfed american star. So what happened after . He climbed up the tower and rescued her . She rescues him right back. And that comes from dazzle, and that comes from the smile, that comes from the eyes, and that comes from the entire package is sort of an instant dream to a certain number of people. I mean, people want it. They want to see it, they want to be exposed to it, they want to when they pay their money get that thing. thunder crashing narrator the launch of a star career signals a love affair between the public and a movie persona. For the public, its a new infatuation, for the star, the end of life as theyve known it. Well, you sort of say, oh, s, you know. Its strange because its i mean its sort of its like the ebb and tide, it will come and it will go but there are moments when you sort of just have to choke it down and say, well, i guess people think that im good at this. narrator the greatest stars were often the ones that lasted lifetimes, extraordinary individuals, refining their image with age. Karl Malden Gary cooper had a style all his own. He knew the camera, he knew himself. And his style was less is more. Whats that . Whats what . That . Oh, thats an anklet. New . No, its platinum. I never noticed it before. Well, i only wear it when i dont have stockings on. Whered you get it . In spain. From whom . An anklet isnt exactly something a sister gives you. A man . Ill say. He was a bullfighter. A bullfighter. Hmph. His name was sebastian. Say, whats this with you and those sebastians . I mean, his name was michel, it happened in san sebastian. Oh, it happened in sebastian. Any dimples on his knees . Nope. Just scars. He was very brave, and he had the narrowest hips. You should have seen him in the ring. He had more grace, more style. Ah owww. im sorry, i didnt mean to do that. Did i say anthing wrong . No, its just that i dont like anklets on women. You dont . I think theyre very vulgar. Well, why didnt you say so . It doesnt mean so much to me. Not anymore. Audrey hepburn is a great example. She was just so incredible and so brilliant. It was the way i felt watching an Audrey Hepburn movie, thats something that i wanted to do, make somebody laugh like that or maybe make Somebody Just die if this couple doesnt get together. So thats what i was aspiring to. Tell me, what kind of money do you girls make these days . Ballpark. Cant take less than a hundred dollars. Hundred dollars a night . An hour. An hour . you make 100 an hour and youve got a safety pin holding your boot up . I just want to be an actor, i dont want to be a star, and i certainly dont want to be a celebrity. You know, you look at a star like Julia Roberts, and shes talking about how she just wants to act, she wants to just be left alone and just let her do her job and all that sort of thing. And you look back at someone like Joan Crawford, and theyre saying im a star, im a star, look at me you say, what happened here, whats the difference . What makes a star go on . Surely, the danger of a success and difficulty of following it . The endless enmity surrounding success in our business, is this worth going on with, do you know what i mean . Oh, yes, indeed, every minute of it. The old kind put up with it, they were trained, they went to school to learn how to be famous in the studio. This is your first lesson. First thing i want to see you do is walk. The heel comes down first and then the ball of the foot, like that. Do either one of you know what was wrong . No. First, your posture. Im going to have Virginia Grey a young featured player, show you the correct way of walking, sitting down, going up the stairs and coming down again. We had what amounted to a finishing school on the lot. We had a drama school. They went to school regularly and they became good enough so that they were turned over to directors and used on films. You see, we were trained with a stable of stars. When i was growing up and in my teens, i used to sneak over my set when i was playing an extra and sneak over and watch the lewis stones, wally beery, greta garbo, three barrymores. narrator many young hopefuls came here seeking stardom, but only the lucky few were introduced to the public as potential stars. Heres one of my favorites, and i know you like her too, shes the personification of youth and beauty and joy and happiness Joan Crawford. music playing douglas fairbanks, jr. how did Joan Crawford become a star . Well, she was determined to be a star. She learned to dance, she learned to sing, she went to drama school, learned voice placement. She worked all the time. She was only happy working. On our honeymoon together, she enjoyed a few days of it. But the main thing she wanted is get back to work again. She just loved getting back to the job. Youre a little stenographer yes, im a little stenographer. Fascinating. I dont suppose youd take a dictation from me sometime . Well, how about some tea then . Tea would spoil my dinner. I only have one meal a day and i rather not spoil it. Why, are you reducing . Reducing . Me . Do i need to . Stars have to have the Genuine Article to be one, but then youve got to push it a little longer, and you have to have people to work on them to decide what will make them a little bit unlifelike. soft music playing Sidney Guilaroff she was arguably the biggest star of her time, for young people. Each one is an individual, theyre all different. They become stars because of their difference. Sidney Guilaroff they dont match the crowd at all, they dont even come close. People used to go to the movies to get away from everyday life. There was an illusion about what they saw on the screen, and that was very nice then, that distinguished them. Nobody really looks like the kinds of movie stars that become stars. No one looks like that. The women are drag queens, female femaleimpersonators. They have to get in drag too. Everybody has to get in drag to be a movie star, some kind of drag. Toughguy drag. Because no one is really like that. Tell me. Dont, chip. Dont what . I dont want to die. If i have to die, im going to die last. You may need me and this winchester, curly. Ill make it worth your while. A few tiny people have what it takes to get there. But then you have to go that extra level to make them a movie star. You dont see these people walking to the drug store, and the ones that you do arent stars, theyre actors. A star in the old days was someone taken by a studio, trained, processed. The studio had its feelers out at all times and whenever information came in they said, well, we do this to this star, put em together with this star move this star this way. I guess i was born out of my time, miss judith. I should have lived in the days when it counted to be a man. I just heard the oklahoma kid is old man kincaids son im starting to take over the numbers game. gunshot humphrey bogart. Before he became a star, before they knew what to do with him, he was in a lot of lousy roles and every now and then he would do something crazy like play the irish stable hand. Morning, ladies. I managed to get you up . Dont be fresh. Well, i hear youve got the finest string of horses. The least you could do is let them look at you. If the little horses can get up to run and jump for you, you can get up to watch em. They made so many movies, 4 and 5 a year sometimes; and if you go back and look at all the movies, only a small percent of them really fit what we believe. But the public remembered those films, embraced them in those films, discarded the others. And then they were smart enough to start casting them as bogie. man from s. Charles einfeld, advertising and publicity, to martin weisser. Dear marty bogart has been typed as a gangster character. Now, we want to undo this. Sell bogart romantically. No matter what the future brings as time goes by sam, i thought i told you never to play that i consider myself lucky that i got a taste of what we would now call the old studio system. While we complained about harry cohen or jack warner or whoever was running a studio with an iron fist, these guys knew film; they invented film. narrator the investments studios made in individual stars had to last long enough for the largest payoff. There were straight sevenyear contracts and you were owned, body and soul. narrator the studios goal with their ironclad contracts was to test potential stars in roles the public might buy. Boys. Im still getting letters from people, i have no idea why. But. Its very nice. Im looking for trouble and i dont care what people say it doesnt matter what the people say what the people say what the people say jane russell was a comic sexpot. And you see her, and you have funny ideas, in, in more, in more ways than one. And though im riding for a fall it doesnt matter jane russell i would like to have done different characterizations. I was working with men as directors, they were picking the pictures and did the casting, you know. music playing casting is a very, very important thing. When i was a kid i used to think, h, if youre an actor you can play anything, you should be able to play anything why wont they let me play lear . I may be only 26 years old, but nevertheless, give me a beard and ill play lear. You know. Nonsense. Casting is very, very important, theres going to be some actors that are better for that part. Excuse me, the 27th please. Youre carrying precious cargo. 27. You may not realize it miss kirkaby, but i am in the top ten, efficiencywise, and this may be my day promotionwise. Youre beginning to sound like mr. Kirkaby already. Why not now that theyre kicking me upstairs. Couldnt happen to a nicer guy. You know, youre the only guy that ever takes his hat off. Really . Something happens to men in elevators. Must be the altitude, the blood rushes to their head. I could tell you stories that would id love to hear them. Maybe we could have lunch in the cafeteria some time or some evening after work . 27, i hope everything goes all right. I hope so. Calling me on a day like this, what with a cold . How do i look . Fine. Thank you. Thats the first thing i ever noticed about you. When you were in the elevator you always wore a flower. Good luck and wipe your nose. It seems derogatory to say, oh, hes a personality actor, or he plays the same thing all the time. How well does he do it . man all those in favor. jack lemmon tracy, when hes just sitting and listening to somebody, i would say the son of a b is hearing for the first time. He hasnt heard that before, hes thinking about it. Gary cooper had such distinctive characteristics in his behavior pattern. Well, jimmy, with, ah, eh, ah, ooh, um, eh, you know, and the hesitations and this and that. But, god, you look back on some of those, and how he used them. Oh, i, im sorry, gentlemen, i. I know im being disrespectful to this honorable body, i know that, i. A guy like me should never be allowed to get here in the first place, i know that and i hate to stand here and try your patience like this but i. Either im dead right or im crazy all of the big, male hollywood stars, clark gable, spencer tracy, gary cooper, james stewart, all of them dont seem to be acting very much, and some of the later people, william holden, rock hudson, and i think that effortlessness of masculinity is really quite important. A good example of that is duke wayne. Well, i dont favor talking to vermin, but ill talk to you just this once. Youre not just Getting Started the lines been drawn. What billy did balanced the books so far. But if one of your men crosses my land, or even touches one of my cows, or do anything to that store, im not going to the sheriff, the governor or the president im coming to see you. Mr. Chisum, that sounds like a threat. smack wrong word fact most of hollywood, or art, is after authenticity. But yesterdays authenticity is todays artifice. So the whole history of hollywood is a new authenticity, and brando is clearly a new authenticity. Watch streetcar, watch on the waterfront. He changed a whole style of acting. Dont be afraid of me, im not going to bite you. I guess they dont let you walk with fellows, huh . You know how sisters are. Yeah, you training to be a nun . Its just a regular college. Its run by the sisters of saint anne. Where is that . In tarrytown. Where is that . The country. I dont like the country, the crickets make me nervous. He was helpful, he was charming, he would give me his coat on the waterfront. It was very cold at night. He was a prince. I think i can say this he was one of my favorite leading men. I want you to stay away from me. I aint gonna do it so forget it. I dont want you to do anything. You let your conscience tell you what to do. Shut up about that. Conscience, thats all ive been hearing i havent mentioned the word before. You just stay away from me. Edie, you love me i never said i didnt love you. I said stay away from me say it to me. Stay away from me very often what stars are doing is kind of giving of humanity, an inflection, an individuality to what is still a stereotype. They seem to represent sex, or integrity, or americanism, or virtue, or whatever. It was not too difficult to play the frustration of the character in this scene. Because marilyn was an incredibly attractive lady, there was no question about it. Daphne, daphne, thud i wanted to thank you for covering up for me, youre a real pal. Sugar, its nothing. I just thought that us girls should stick together. And if it wasnt for you, they would have kicked me off. Id be in the middle of nowhere sitting on my ukelele. Oh, its freezing outside, i mean, when i think about you, and your poor ukelele. If theres ever anything i can do for you. I can think of a million things. Thats one of em and i still like movie stars who are not like real people, that you will go out all day and not see someone like that. All my life, ive been a symbol. A symbol as eternal and changeless, an obstruction. A human being is mortal and changeable, with desires and impulses. Hopes and despairs. Im tired of being a symbol, chancellor. I long to be a human being. Jeanine Basinger marlene dietrich, greta garbo, theyre like some kind of. Other. If you come closer, ill scream. It would be easier to scream without a straw in your mouth. music playing Jeanine Basinger its a romantic kind of woman, that isnt one we connect to as easily as we do crawford wanting something for herself, and whos very realistic and downtoearth. You dont own me nobody does. My life belongs to me. And youll make one fine mess of it. Itll still belong to me. Marian, you frighten me when you talk like that. If i were a man it wouldnt frighten you, youd think it was right to go out and get anything. Use anything i had to get it. Why should men be so different . All theyve got is their brains theyre not afraid to use them. Neither am i. The key to the star image is that it is only an image, and yet we know there is a real person and that knowledge that we have that there is a real person makes us believe in the image. You see, pictures have given me all the education i ever had, since i never went beyond the fifth grade. No formal education whatsoever. I used to have to read scripts and then look up the words how to pronounce them and what they meant, before i could learn the lines. I left school when i was only twelve. Never learned how to spell regret. Well be late. richard dyer she always managed to keep a fit between all the different parts of the image, and that was always difficult for stars, to keep a fit between what they were like off screen, how they were sold, what the pinups were like, what roles they played. man the celebrities include Joan Crawford. Heres Richard Green arriving with actress wendy barry. richard dyer well, in the socalled golden age of hollywood, studios certainly did control the image of stars strongly, they determined what films they would make, how that would be advertised, what they would wear, what stories about them went to the press and so on. So in that sense they, they controlled the image very strongly, indeed. We would bring people together that worked at the studio, and insist that they date and send a photographer along and a reporter from a magazine, along on the date. They went along with it. They did the fake dates once a week if they wanted to, and then they went out and took opium or did whatever they did on the side, and nobody would report that, as long as theyd play the game as long as theyd talk to hedda and louella and mouth stuff that they wanted to hear. john waters they would leave em alone if they did the other stuff. Sylvia Wallace fan magazines were fannywanny, they catered to the children, to the teenagers, and to people who wanted to love these dream people. Mmm. Oh, boy. Darling, how i love my darling i love my beautiful. They didnt allow a photograph of anyone with a glass in hand. It might have been orange juice but it might be misinterpreted. Because they never drank, and they never smoked, and they never s. In the old Hollywood Pictures they couldnt do anything. They couldnt have babies when they werent married, they couldnt be gay, they couldnt take drugs, they couldnt do anything, had to live this fake life. But the Publicity Department took care of that; if they had a life that wasnt acceptable, they dreamed up a fake life for them. And the press knew it was fake, but they reported it. It was completely a rigged game in the old days. man here is what its like inside the cabin of the luxurious airliner. arthur wilde there isnt really too much news in hollywood, and it has to be manufactured. If i had to guess how many were written in a year, i would say 20 or 30 a day times 365. man must be getting near the big village. Paulettes putting on her war paint. It was as important that they do the publicity as it was that they stand up in front of the cameras to act. clark gables wedding john waters being a star. Eventually, you could never go out of your house, you could never have a good love affair, all the things most people want you have to give up if you become that famous. And they gladly do it. And i admire those kind of people. john waters ive always been a big fan of jayne mansfield. The best things in life are free but you can give them to the birds and bees john waters i mean, she just was publicitycrazed. She loved it, and she fed on it, and she needed more and more, it was like a drug, publicity, to jayne mansfield. She used to drop invitations to her wedding from helicopter. I mean, she was truly publicity insanity. Your love gave me such a thrill she was so over the top about being a movie star that it drove her crazy. She got a taste of publicity, she wanted more and more, where every day she would just be running around in bikinis, she walked down hollywood blvd. In a bikini walking an ocelot, handing out signed pictures of her to startled passersby. She was insane. And so i respect that. jazz music playing Jeanine Basinger one thing that happens is accessibility to stars grows. As you move into the 50s, and the studios are collapsing, you have stars not being protected by the machinery of the studio any longer. Theyre out on the streets, theyre getting interviews that arent controlled, television is picking them up and showing them to you, so they become more known for who they really are. Their private life was another role they were playing. narrator when lana turners daughter stabbed her mothers lover, the public was avid for the lurid details of a star career seemingly in trouble. What they saw televised was tourdeforce performance. I said, dont, dont ever touch me again. Im. Im absolutely finished, this is the end. And i want you to get out. And after i said that, i was walking towards the door, and he was right behind me, and i opened it. john waters with a million photographers, and shes on the stand, she is lana turner. You cant not be lana turner when youre lana turner. It was effective testimony; cheryl got off. It was so fast. I, i truthfully thought she had hit him in the stomach. But lana also was a major star that let her public life, certainly, when it got out, she went along with it and used it. narrator public crucifixions were turned by superstars into resurrections of their star careers, recycled in star performances in movies. Did your daughter ever tell you she saw lucas beating selina . No. Now, dont you think if she had seen such incident, she would have mentioned it to you . I dont know. Well, wouldnt she . john waters rather than let it kill her, she, she kept it up, and, and used it. Well, doesnt your daughter ever bring home her problems . How many times do i have to answer your questions . The public is really fickle, and can be vitriolic as far as their likes and dislikes with a movie star. Thats why there are ups and downs in long careers. And theyre the ones that survive it, that can survive a bad one, and then good. Then bad, then good. The audience likes to see comebacks and all that stuff. The star system is dangerous, it takes a tremendous toll on the minds and the emotions of people. henry rogers we lost james dean that way; he couldnt handle it. I have never done anything right. Ive been going around with my head in the sling. I dnt want to drag you in but i cant help it. See, i think that you cant just go around proving things, pretending like youre tough. And you cant even though you look a certain way, you cant thats right, youre absolutely right. Youre not listening to me Henry Rogers Clift was a perfect example. He was emotionally disturbed. He would have been better off running a Grocery Store in some little town in the midwest, where the public wouldnt pay any attention to him, than he would as a film star. scary music playing henry rogers he was a fine outstanding actor, but emotionally, he couldnt stand the strain. I wanna be loved by you just you and nobody else but you i wanna be loved by you alone jane Russell Marilyn was very fragile. God, if id lived in 7 different foster homes, i would have been a totally different person. Do you think 3 sleeping pills are enough . Threes quite a lot, thats pretty potent stuff. If a things worth doing, its worth doing well. Well, there were a lot of tragedies of people in, so involved in the business and not having the home life. There are still tragedies now, but its, its different, and i think it would be a terrible life to have to be in a cocoon as a star without. Not having your life. Does fame ruin peoples lives, are you saying . Well, maybe, but, why did they become actors . I dont understand that. People that dont want fame shouldnt go into the business. Thats part of it, thats what you get. If it works. If it doesnt work, you never get jobs; if it works, you get famous. So you have to sort of choose between the two. I had an agent once who always made me cry because he wanted me to do film after film after film. And he kept telling me, you wont be a superstar unless you work constantly. I kept saying to him, i dont want to be a star, i dont want to be a superstar, im a working actress. And he never really understood me. I had 2 children at the time, he didnt understand i was every time i got on a plane to go somewhere, i was torn. And i always took my children with me. When i made exodus, i took my children, my husband, my motherinlaw and my parents. But that was my choice, so i worked about once a year. So superstar. I, i, i do not know what that would be like. I think the aspects of it that interferes with my life is peoples inability to accept what i have to offer, which is, i, i make movies, and i make movies for you. So i make a movie and i give you heart, soul, blood and guts, the whole nine yards, as much as i can do, the best that i can do it; and thats a lot. narrator in hollywood today, the stars, make the major decisions. Stars are no longer employees, but independent artists operating through powerful agencies. Asta la vista, baby. shattering glass everything now is a package, it has to be a package, and very often that package will start with a star that commands an incredible salary. machine gun firing aaaahhhhh knock this s off i have been having a very bad day. I just got out of jail today, already i have been shot at, i was on a bus that flipped over 17 times, been stabbed in the bathroom, and somebody blew up my porsche. I am in a bad d mood. When the studios broke down, they lost their power and gave it to the artists, as independent contractors, so then the artists, in turn, gave it to the agents by enabling them to do it. orchestra song using touchtone phone sounds okay, so monday we get a script and an offer, meaning its his. rick nicita all the agents in town are scrambling to get an offer for their client. Have you read it . Its not bad. Its not bad. But firsttime director is gonna be the big problem. Hello. Yeah. rick nicita the most difficult thing is advising the client, youve got these to pick from, heres the one to pick. Yes, yeah, be yeah, yeah, lets, yes. rick nicita thats the difference between agents. When youre representing stars, there are many opportunities. Bye. Its my, you know, its ultimately my choice. It doesnt matter how many people say, do it, you should do it, its perfect, its great. If i dont want to do it im not gonna do it, no matter how many people are telling me to. I think the key is the agents dont have power in themselves, their power is ceded to them by who they represent. When the actor has that much control, then he really now is taking on more than just the performance; hes taking on the whole load. And i think all too often that can affect the performance because hes carrying this massive thing, theres this, theres that, or whatever. It very often can lead to his having control beyond that, way beyond that of the producer or the director or the writer about what happens to a film the writing, the rewriting, how its directed, et cetera. The studios have no security, theres nobody to count on; theyre just, theyre just waiting in line. Whatever their relationship really was with a given star, in the absence of a contract its at ground zero again. Heres our script, please take a look. I certainly read scripts and i make my choices, and all the choices have been no, but i think that they will agree with me that i say to people who say, why havent you worked in two years . Well, show me a movie in the last year and a half i should have been in . In my opinion, the agents role isnt making the most money. Im not a business manager, im not a financial advisor, im not their banker im giving them the choices. Because i really love acting, you want to be able to do as many different parts as and be challenged by roles and different types of movies as you can. As soon as the studios see you in a certain way, that doesnt enable you to do the different types of roles that you would like to do. shattering glass hi, charlie. Ray. Ray has made a real strong mark in a certain kind of part; edgy, violent, or near violent or capable of violence. And he, hes doing great and very well respected, the movies are, are, are doing well. He is so much more than that, in terms of the guy he is, and the performance that he can deliver. You were born first. 12 minutes later i was born. Youre the big brother. And our mother died when we were born. Theres a few projects now i want to do that arent edgy. Its just getting in the room with these people. Out of sight, out of mind, they dont remember some of the softer things, they remember the successes so thats where they stay. I would think its the same as anyone who does comedy and wants to do something more serious. lip syncing to womans voice if i should wake and find your arms around me i know ill never have to dream again if i should wake and feel your lips surrender to mine id just be wasting time in dreaming all the pressure in this business on actors is to put them into as small a box as possible, and absolutely caged in, where they only do one thing. I dont think that im playing the same character over again, that would be boring, i hope im not doing that. But i think that there, there is truth in that, and i think that that has as much to do with its what i think is the best of whats there. Do i look okay . Somethings missing. Well, nothing else is going to fit into this dress, ill tell you that. Maybe something in this box. Dont get too excited, its only a loan. Julia roberts is someone who has played a similar role. I mean, there are some obvious differences between pretty woman and sleeping with the enemy, but nonetheless theres this continuity of character. Look, at this point, every character that i play is gonna be sort of a young, nice, whatever, white, theyre all gonna have certain, things that are gonna be there, that just is inevitable, you know. And its my job to make it different and more interesting. Did i mention that my leg is 44 inches from hip to toe . Were talking about 88 inches of therapy wrapped around you for the bargain price of 3000. 00. Yeah. Julia, of course we want her to be sexy and beautiful, but we dont want her to be naughty. You know, i mean, the only virgin prostitute in, not in american films, there are dozens but the latest version of that is julia in pretty woman. And it works and works and works and works. playing upbeat music richard dyer society has lots of ideas about what it is to be a person what it is to be a male, a female, and so on, and stars are simply giving a kind of twist to that, which is either finding a new dimension to it, humanizing it, individualizing it, but very often in a sense affirming it. Hollywood wants the sure thing, the star, the genre and so on. But, the sure thing not exactly the same thing. They want the same, only different. And thats the really, really difficult thing to do. Come quickly. Ive just killed an intruder. multiple gunshots fired gunshot dramatic music playing gunshots David David David david here you are, making your 74th picture, a picture that will be seen by millions all over the world, many of the people that you have worked with, talented as they have been, have not survived. Its interesting, i think, to consider why you have, what it is you have, what quality for the public, that makes it go on wanting to see your pictures . First of all, im stagestruck and i think they all know that. Secondly, i try to get a film with audience identification. Some stars, like Joan Crawford, did develop an awareness that because she had learned the business, that she had to keep reinventing herself to a degree as she aged, and as times changed, without losing what it was that appealed to people. Joan crawford, at the time i represented her in 1945, had just had her contract dropped by mgm. L. B. Mayer, the head of mgm, had just branded her as one of a number of actresses who was boxoffice poison. And she was at a turning point in her film career. Just at that time, a man named jerry wald, who was a producer at the Warner Brothers studio decided that despite what l. B. Mayer had said, he was going to put her in the starring role of a movie called mildred pierce. Mildred. announder mildred. A name gasped in the night. The one last word of a dying man. But one word that tells a thousand stories of a woman who left her mark on every man she met. henry rogers the morning of the awards, she called me and said, henry, i have a terrible cold, im in bed. I wont be able to go to the awards. And sure enough, she was announced the winner, a halfhour later this horde of photographers and reporters were all walking into her house and up to her bedroom, where there she was, the queen, holding her oscar. Stephen Schiff in terms of career management, the Joan Crawford story is a great shining example, at every stage of her career, as she grew older, as what she was doing faltered and the next thing took over, she could be the woman scorned in mildred pierce and come back and win the oscar. She could adjust her morality in a way, to her looks, to her image. You know, that face changed more than any face in movie history. She knew how to keep an audience going madonnalike. We think of madonna as being kind of immortally in touch with the public pulse; not like Joan Crawford, that was decades. I think once the public has embraced you, unless youre a momentary fad or you physically change a lot, or youve done something. Loathsome, that will forever turn them off one of those three, which are all rare. Other than that, once a star, you can probably be one again. Youre just orbiting around the dark side of the moon. You just have to find the intersection between what you want to do and what the public accepts. Jeanine Basinger so she goes from shop girl to grand lady to gargoyle. At a certain point the public wanted her to be a gargoyle. crashing of dishes what their image becomes gets very complicated because its also drawing on what they used to be. Please try to understand. I married you because i was knocked silly, and. Jeanine Basinger when you get out to whatever happened to baby jane, you have a movie in which joan sits in a wheelchair, looking at herself playing in her old movies. Oh, he should have held that shot longer. I told him that when we were rehearsing also when we shot it. He wouldnt listen. Stephen Schiff that sense of the changing is important in star images. Theyre not just one thing for all time. Star images themselves have a history. A successful star career was finding a new reflection to their image. Something that was the same yet different enough to be interesting. Julia Roberts i dont look for any particular character. I dont look for something thats funny or dramatic. Its just what appeals me. I read it and i know thats what i want. Nobody ever goes, ive got it all, i want to stay right here. Its not human nature. This business is human nature exponentially amplified. rick nicita they all are looking for something. Critical acceptance. Public acclaim. Industry respect. Theyre all looking for respect. That will always be there. Its not going to disappear. Annenberg media and with additional funding from these foundations and individuals and by and the annual Financial Support of for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1800learner and visit us at www. Learner. Org
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