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Nikola Kavaja: Hunter on Tito
BELGRADE, Serbia - Nikola Kavaja, who hijacked a U.S. passenger jet in 1979 with the intention of crashing it into Yugoslav Communist Party headquarters, has died. Kavaja, 76, died of a heart attack at his home in Belgrade late Monday.
The self-declared anti-communist hijacked an American Airlines Boeing 707 in New York and flew it over the Atlantic with the aim of crashing it into the party headquarters in a high-rise in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
He abandoned his hijack mission in Ireland, saying at the time he was not sure of the exact location of the downtown party office and did not want innocent civilians to die if the jet missed the target.
Kavaja was extradited to the U.S. and spent 18 years in a federal prison on hijack charges. He was released on parole before returning to Serbia in 1999. His parole was to expire in 2019.
Kavaja claimed in a number of interviews with Serbia's newspapers that Osama bin Laden must have "stolen" his idea of crashing jets into tall buildings during the 9/11 attack in New York and Washington.
FBI dosie
Nikola Kavaja was born in the Zeta Banate of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1933, in the Old Serbia area of modern-day Montenegro to a family drawing descent from Dečani in Metohija (western Kosovo). He is best known for his anti-communist activities, including one of the first attempts to turn an airliner into a weapon.
As a child he lived in Peć, Yugoslavia. In April 1941, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia and his family was split up and sent to different prison camps in Albania. In 1944 he returned to Peć to find his family. By his own account, he killed for the first time that year when he pushed a wounded German soldier into a well.
Military and intelligence career
Kavaja joined the air force and fought against the Germans. He also joined a secret Anti-communist group. In June 1953, as part of his clandestine activities, he sabotaged gas tanks at the Sombor airport. He evaded arrest, and a man who wasn't involved in the explosion was tried and executed. When his commander in the secret group was arrested, he deserted the air force. He was arrested by Yugoslav authorities while attempting to cross the border into Austria. After serving four years of an 18-and-a-half year sentence, Kavaja escaped and made it to Austria. He was detained by Austrian authorities and transferred to an American Army base.
After seven months of investigation by American authorities who suspected him of ties to the KGB, Kavaja began to carry out missions for the CIA against Yugoslavia and the USSR, including "sabotage, spying, exposing double agents, assassinations."
According to Kavaja, one of his major assignments from the CIA was to assassinate Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia. Tito traveled to Brazil and Kavaja followed, but the chance to kill the president was foiled when Tito stayed indoors for his entire stay. Kavaja followed Tito from Brazil to Chile, Mexico and the United States. Upon arrival in America, he and his companions had to be especially careful because he was wanted by the FBI, which didn't always share sources with the CIA. Kavaja claimed that in 1971 he staked out Camp David, disguised as a Maryland State Trooper, in order to kill Tito, who was visiting United States President Richard Nixon. Once again, he was foiled when Tito stayed indoors.
Freedom for the Serbian Fatherland
Kavaja was a central figure in an allegedly CIA-funded group called Freedom for the Serbian Fatherland (also known as SOPO). Kavaja claimed that this organization bombed Yugoslav embassies in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, Canada, and consulates in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto.
In 1978, Kavaja and "over a hundred" of his Sopo companions, including Stojilko Kajevic, were arrested in New York by American law enforcement. Kavaja was released on $250,000 bail, and after visiting his family in New York he promptly hijacked an American Airlines 727 (Flight 293 from New York City to Chicago).[2] He planned to demand Kajevic's release, then fly to Belgrade, Yugoslavia and crash into Ušće Tower, the Communist Central Committee Building. When he realized that Kajevic wouldn't be released, he let the plane's passengers go, retaining only a pilot, a co-pilot, a flight attendant and his own lawyer. He forced the crew to fly from Chicago to JFK Airport in New York City. There, he transferred to a larger plane. Initially hoping to still fly to Belgrade, on the advice of his lawyer he flew to Ireland, which didn't have an extradition agreement with the United States. Hoping for political asylum, Kavaja surrendered in Ireland and was returned to America to again face a criminal trial.
Kavaja was in prison from 1979 to 1997 and remains on parole until 2019. He violated parole by returning to Serbia; if he returns to the United States he would be arrested and returned to jail.
Arrest in 2003
Nikola Kavaja was arrested on April 1, 2003 during the investigation of Zoran Đinđić assassination.
Nikola Kavaja: Interview with an assassin
Nikola Kavaja lives in a drab, Communist-era high-rise in Belgrade, Serbia's crumbling capital. His two-room apartment is sparsely furnished: a single mattress and dresser in one room, and a scratched-up wooden desk, a couch, and a bench press in the other. The white walls are cluttered with pictures of the people who figure most strongly in his personal iconography: General Ratko Mladic, Saint Sava, Hitler, Jimmy Carter, and a young pin-up who is his current girlfriend. Guns and old military gear provide further ornamentation. A blue thermal blanket covers the street window.
By Christopher S Stewart
Sunday, 10 December 2006
Kavaja is 73, but he looks no older than 60. He adheres to a strict weight-training routine that gets him up every weekday before the sun. He is squarely built and muscular, with white hair cut to a military trim-line and a fighter's mashed-up nose. Except for the fine white thread of moustache, he is cleanly shaven. In his dress, he favours black trousers, black shirts and black combat boots.
Our conversation took place over three mornings, with classical music playing softly in the background. Kavaja spoke slowly and quietly, with an air of determined precision. At times, he paused to place his hand on his forehead in search of a long-forgotten detail. As he spoke, Kavaja stared off in the distance at nothing at all, or else looked down at his booted feet.
Stewart: You were a Second World War prisoner, a Communist soldier, a CIA hitman, a hijacker, and now a fugitive on the run (among other things). Where to begin?
Kavaja: Write down my name. N-I-K-O-L-A K-A-V-A-J-A. You can call me Nik.
Stewart: That's a start.
Kavaja: It is a long story. Do you want some schnapps?
Stewart: No thanks. I'm fine with water.
Kavaja: Water's for pussies.
Stewart: Most of the time I'd agree. But 10.30 in the morning is a little early for me to be drinking shots of schnapps.
Kavaja: It's a hello. You drink some schnapps with me. We drink together.
Stewart: OK.
Kavaja: That's better. Salud. So - I was born in Montenegro in 1933. In 1941, when Hitler attacked Yugoslavia, my father and mother and I were all transferred to separate prison camps in Albania. My brothers went to the war. In October 1944, when the Russians forced the Germans out of the Balkans, I went back to Pec to find my mother. But she wasn't there. No one was there. I had to fight for myself. The first time I killed someone was that year - a German soldier. He was heavily wounded and leaning over the top of a well. He was getting water. I walked up to him, took him by the legs and tossed him in like garbage.
Stewart: You weren't afraid?
Kavaja: My dick, was I ever afraid. I hated them. I couldn't find my family anywhere. I searched for months. Eventually, I found my mother in Vojvodina. I learned that two of my brothers were killed in the war. I joined the air-force academy. They made me a war pilot. Around that time, my brother was thrown in jail for being anti-Communist. He wasn't. But Tito was a suspicious man. Tens of thousands of military officers finished their careers in prison. They all fought for Tito and then they were thrown in jail for bullshit reasons. What kind of leader does that?
Stewart: You never liked Tito?
Kavaja: I hated him. Around that time, I became a member of an underground anti-Communist group. That's where my life really started. My commander, Milutin Abramovic, was in the air force with me in Sombor. He knew about my brothers who were imprisoned and killed. I had cousins that went to jail too. That's why he started giving me top-secret missions, I think. Because my hatred was so personal.
Stewart: What was the first job?
Kavaja: He had me paint on the walls of the military barracks "Long live the Soviet Union"; "Down with Tito"; "Down with the Communist Party". It was a test, I think. But I did it. And for me, it was funny - a what-the-fuck kind of thing, you know?
Stewart: How did Tito like your sense of humour?
Kavaja: When I wrote that, it was Saturday evening. By Sunday morning, military intelligence officers were searching for who did it. There was a huge alarm. There were 4,000 soldiers at our barracks and none of us could leave. After two or three days of investigations, they started to lock people up. They arrested a major who was in charge of security that evening, and he got seven years in prison. Two of my friends were also arrested and sentenced to jail.
Stewart: You weren't afraid you'd get caught?
Kavaja: Who would have known? I was into football and girls. It made me laugh. The big assignment came next. It was June 1953. The order was to burn the gas tanks at the airport in Sombor. I knew all of those bases like I know my room. My commander gave me some time bombs and I set them up near the tanks, which held a million gallons of petrol. I placed the bombs around the tanks and walked away. When they went off, there was a massive explosion. It was incredible. I was far away but I could see huge yellow flames in the sky. I realised it wasn't a joke anymore. I was in big shit. Police swarmed to the base and all the towns nearby. They arrested hundreds. I knew seven of them. One was a major hero. He got the death penalty. For nothing! The others died in prison.
Stewart: You didn't feel guilty at all about this?
Kavaja: Guilt? My dick. You don't know about guilt. Schnapps?
Stewart: I'm still working on this one, thanks.
Kavaja: After my commander was arrested, I was told that a lot of officers were arrested at the airport, and they also asked about me and my friend Sveto. I took my machine gun, a pistol, three grenades, a compass, binoculars, and a bag of clothes, and I became a deserter. That's a very serious thing, punishable by death. I knew they would chase us. Sveto and I decided to cross the border illegally into Austria.
To get to the border, we walked only at night. It wasn't easy terrain. There were mountains and canyons and lots of snow. We slept in the woods. Sveto got so tired he couldn't walk. So I put him on my back. Then we came to this mountain. It was covered in heavy snow, up to my waist in places, and the temperatures were below zero. It would have taken days to go over. But there was a tunnel through the mountain for trains. I decided to take a risk and go through the tunnel. I put Sveto down and he followed. The tunnel was a kilometre long. Sveto kept falling, but I pretended not to see him because I couldn't carry him anymore. Somehow we got through.
Just before we got to the border, there was a canyon. If you made one wrong step you'd fall to your death. The darkness was deep and I couldn't see much. I heard footsteps. I turned and there was a shadow moving along the mountain road. We couldn't run away because we were so tired. I aimed my machine gun in the shadow's direction. It came nearer and I saw that it was a woman. She said to us, "Bless you." She had a hood on, and I pulled back her hood and asked who she was. "I'm a teacher," she said. I asked for her documents. She was telling the truth, so I let her go. I should have killed her because I knew she was going to report us. I don't know why I didn't.
We had trouble at the border. Someone shouted stop. Then there were shots in our direction. We were in open space. Behind us were woods. We got down and fired back. The fight went on for 10 minutes. I went through two clips and threw three hand grenades. But we managed to get back into the woods and retreat to our border. I fired all but seven bullets.
We walked for an hour or so, then tried the border again. That time was worse. We got ambushed from three different directions. It was the Yugoslav People's Army, my own fucking army. They surrounded us, three of them with machine guns. The commander approached and asked where we were going. I reached into my leather jacket and said, "We were just visiting Svatko Lacovic." The commander said, 'There's no one here with that name. Where are your arms?" I said, "We don't have any. I just have gloves." When I took out the gloves, I drew my pistol, put it to his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Stewart: What about the guys with guns?
Kavaja: I had seven bullets left. I could have taken them all. But my gun jammed. From behind, I was hit with a machine gun and I lost consciousness. Sveto just stood there. When I came to, there were 20 or so soldiers around.
We were moved to a jail on the border. One morning, they took us out and put us against a wall outside of the barracks. I thought they were going to shoot us. My legs and my hands were in chains. The commander of the division marched out all of the troops - all 5,000 of them - and gave a speech. He said: "From our Communist hands, no one will escape. These men were organising against our nation. We will spit on these traitors." After that, all of them lined up and spat on us, one at a time. One of my cousins came around four times. I couldn't believe it! Five thousand people spat on me. It was a psychological thing, a show to boost morale.
Stewart: Pour me some schnapps.
Kavaja: I don't want to talk about the trial, about being beaten up every day and every night. I was sentenced to 18 and a half years. After four years I escaped into Austria, where I was picked up and shipped to a US Army base in Stuttgart. They thought I was KGB, but after months of interviews, three intelligence officers introduced themselves and offered me political asylum.
Stewart: Is that how you started working for the CIA? How did they ask you to join them?
Kavaja: They asked me, my dick. They didn't ask. They checked me out for seven months. They thought I was KGB. I had to prove myself. I bombed some Communist buses - Yugoslavian buses - in Vienna. It was their way of testing my loyalty. They liked me because of my history. I was young and fearless and hated Communism.
So I started to work dirty jobs against Yugoslavia, against Russia - sabotage, spying, exposing double agents, assassinations. I did some very bad things, but I accepted my destiny. In 1959, I uncovered a gang of Yugoslavians smuggling arms to Algeria. They would come in dressed up like priests. I tracked them down and killed them. There were never any reports about the people who disappeared. They might as well have never lived.
Stewart: So you were like God, deciding who would and wouldn't die?
Kavaja: My superiors made the final decisions. I killed. One person is on my conscience. She was a double agent from East Germany. I was sleeping in the desert in a tent because that was the only place safe from the war. I received an order from military intelligence to kill this woman. When I got her, she didn't know what I was going to do. She was probably 23 years old. I asked for her family name and where she lived. There would be no official report - she would just disappear - and I wanted to send a message to her family and say where they could find her.
Stewart: Why her?
Kavaja: There was something about her. I just wanted to do her a favour. Even when I was in prison in the United States I dreamt about her. She was not the first one or the last one. But I felt sorry for her. She was so young. But she was a proud girl. She spat on me.
Stewart: And you shot her?
Kavaja: What do you think? I didn't rape her. I told her to walk ahead of me. And I shot her in the back.
Stewart: Did you think she deserved that?
Kavaja: I never worried about killing an innocent person. I wasn't trained to kill innocent people. I killed people on my level - soldier to soldier, agent to agent. It is not my job to think about innocence or guilt. She didn't ask for mercy. She was probably guilty. But she stays with me. No one else does.
Stewart: How were you paid?
Kavaja: By the job. For the bigger jobs, like assassinating Tito, I would be paid US$15,000. For most jobs, US$10,000. They dropped the money off at my house.
Stewart: You didn't assassinate Tito - but you tried?
Kavaja: Killing Tito was a big mission. For almost a decade, I hunted him. I was never a traitor - I wanted to save my country. That's why I was good for this mission. I was ready to give my life for it. If I died one second after I killed Tito I wouldn't care. He killed my three brothers. He destroyed my country. I went to jail. I lost everything.
In 1963 I got information that Tito was coming to North and South America for a tour. Our intelligence said it would be easier to kill him in South America because the security would be much thinner down there. Tito always travelled with his own agents, about 125 State Security Service men. These men went a few months in advance to clean up all the political dissidents. When I say clean up, I mean jail or kill. They had files on these people. Of course, they had a big file on me, too. The government wanted me dead. The State Security Service sent people to try to assassinate me. When I returned to Serbia in the 1990s, a Montenegrin man came and said to me, I was supposed to kill you in 1976 in the States, but I couldn't find you. We laughed about it.
Anyway, to kill Tito, I worked with Dragica Kacikovic and a third Serbian guy that I won't name because he is still undercover. We weren't maniacs. We didn't just decide, "Hey, we're going to go kill Tito." We got our orders from the CIA and planned it out carefully.
Rio de Janeiro was our first shot. Dragica went first. He got fake documents and travelled as a Mexican journalist with a sombrero and a video camera. I followed with the third guy. I took a Colt .45 and a .357 Magnum and I was disguised as a Catholic priest - with a long black robe and a black hat.
We had informants in the town who provided us with information. We knew Tito liked to go out on the town, eat, and see chicks. I waited for word that he was out on the town and then I would shoot him. But Brazil was not our time. Tito stayed in the house throughout his stay. He didn't move from the building for two days. We didn't see him come and we didn't see him go. One day he was there and then he was gone. Like a ghost.
Stewart: Was that a major letdown for you?
Kavaja: I didn't panic. From Brazil, I followed him to Santiago, Chile, then Mexico City. Then I got a message to come to Washington DC right away, because Tito was on his way. That was the most dangerous place for us as a group. The FBI was searching for us. They were working with the Yugoslav State Security Service.
Stewart: I thought you worked with the CIA?
Kavaja: But the CIA and the FBI didn't share informants. They were rival organisations. There were rewards for our capture from the FBI. My last attempt to kill him was 1971 at Camp David in Maryland. He was going there to visit Richard Nixon. No one can carry a gun around Camp David, but I went alone, dressed as a Maryland State Trooper. I couldn't get on the actual property, but I got up into a tree where I could see the chopper with binoculars. I had my sniper rifle with me. My thought was that at some point Tito would take a walk into the woods. He liked to take walks. It was beautiful, I thought. Who wouldn't take a walk? I waited all day and night.
Stewart: In the tree? You didn't sleep?
Kavaja: No. I couldn't kill him if I was asleep. You don't know anything about this kind of thing. Sleep! What a fucking joker.
Stewart: Did Tito ever go for a walk?
Kavaja: Never. After two days, he left. And that was it. Nothing. So I didn't get him. But I did a lot of damage to his regime and to Communism.
Stewart: You had a Serbian terrorist organisation didn't you?
Kavaja: It was a freedom group. I called it Freedom for the Serbian Fatherland - Sopo. We got money from the CIA. We bombed the Yugoslav embassies in Washington and Ottawa, and the consulates in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto. Bin Laden stole our strategies. But after that the State Department got a lot of pressure from Tito to track us down and extradite us. It was a big mess.
Stewart: Did they catch up with you?
Kavaja: Not until 1978. I was in New York on my way to a friend's house and more than 20 agents with guns ambushed me on
Third Avenue. They arrested over a hundred of us. A judge in Chicago found us guilty but delayed the sentencing for a month. I got out on $250,000 bail. The judge released everyone except for Stojilko Kajevic, who went by the name Priest. He helped me lead Sopo. The FBI thought he was the most dangerous. That was a mistake. After the trial I told Priest that I was ready to do a hijacking I'd been talking about. My plan was to land in Chicago, pick Priest up, and then fly to Belgrade and crash into the Communist Central Committee building.
Stewart: So that's what you did when you got out on bail - hijacked a plane?
Kavaja: First I returned home to see my family. One day I got a call from Priest. He said, "Send me the memorandum." I said, "For whom?" "President Carter," he said. That night, I went into my basement, where I made bombs. I made two of them built into two beer bottles. The telephone rang - this is funny - it was an FBI agent from Chicago, Al King. He said, "Hi Nik, how are you?" I told him, "I'm making a bomb for tomorrow." He thought I was joking. It was a big scandal in the trial later on. You can check the court files. It's all there. After I finished, I went upstairs. I took some long socks from my daughter's room and stuffed the bottles in my trouser legs. I put on my trousers and looked in the mirror and you couldn't see that anything was in there. I was ready. I went to sleep at around 1am.
Stewart: How could you sleep?
Kavaja: I had done a hundred more difficult operations. I never feared that I would make a mistake. I woke up at five, just like any other day. My wife woke up with me. She cooked me a steak for breakfast. That's all I eat - steaks. I said goodbye like any other morning. I had the bombs strapped to my leg and dynamite in a leather suitcase. A cab took me to the airport. I ordered a brandy at the airport bar and relaxed. I checked in and waited by security for the right moment to pass. I knew if a police officer stopped me, I would have to kill him. I was going to get on that plane. That's all that was on my mind. I saw an albino couple with a lot of camping equipment passing through security. So I went with them. They set the alarm off. The police stopped them, but not me.
I got on the plane to Chicago. It was an American Airlines 727. My seat was number 23 on the left side of the plane. Next to me was a woman from Poland who had never been to the United States. Imagine that. She has to get on my plane! We drank a brandy together. We talked. Fifteen minutes before we landed, I said goodbye to the her and went to the bathroom.
I got the bombs ready, then went to the cockpit. The stewardess asked me what I needed. I said, "Give me the key to the cabin." She was paralysed. I put my hand in her pocket, took the key, and opened the cabin. There were four pilots. They didn't hear me open the door. When one of them tried to stand up, I forced him down. His name was Mitchell. I showed them the explosives and said, "This is my plane now, I am responsible for your lives, if you make a mistake, we will all go to God."
After a few minutes, Mitchell asked me what I wanted - money or what? I told him to get me in touch with the FBI. Al King got on the line. He was absolutely crazy! He said, "Nik, you're late for court." I said, "Listen, in five minutes I'm going to fly over the courthouse. I told you last night that I was making bombs." He said, "Why do you make jokes?" I said, "You'll see me in five minutes."
I flew over the courthouse three or four times. The stewardess brought me a brandy. Eventually, we landed and I parked the plane at the far edge of the airport. There were 128 passengers and eight crew members. Hundreds of police surrounded the plane on the runway. The FBI asked me what I wanted. I said, "I want Priest." Passengers kept asking for things. One woman said she was going to give birth and I said, "What the fuck is going on? I'm not a doctor, I'm a terrorist."
The FBI sent a lawyer out to the plane to talk me out of it, but I said it was too late. Then he begged me to release the passengers. That was the riskiest moment. I worried that the FBI would attack. But I had the bomb trigger in hand and I told them not to mess around because I could blow the plane up in a second. The briefcase of dynamite was at my chest. I gave the passengers five minutes to get off. You should have seen these fat Negroes! It was hilarious. Looking at them you wouldn't expect them to be so fast. But they were off in seconds. At the end there were four people left: Mitchell, a co-pilot, my lawyer, and the stewardess.
Stewart: What about Priest?
Kavaja: Priest finally called me. But it wasn't good. He said, "Brother Nikola, I'm not coming with you." That was the most difficult moment. I sacrificed everything for this, my wife, my kids, my life. We had a deal. We were going to take the plane to Yugoslavia. It was his job to show me the building we were going to hit. I hadn't been back to Yugoslavia for decades. The Communist Central Committee building was built in the 1960s. I didn't know the land. I didn't know what to do at that point. But he got off the phone and it was over.
I told them to fuel the plane and then I told Mitchell we were leaving. There were 40 or 50 cars following the plane as we drove down the runway. Mitchell asked me what the plan was and I said, "New York." On the way, I demanded a 707, a much bigger plane, and a new crew to meet me at JFK. No one knew what I was going to do. When we landed, the 707 was there. We pulled up. I took Mitchell and the co-pilot and tied them to me. I wanted to make sure I didn't get killed on the way across and that the new pilots were not impostors. There were hundreds of police snipers. But I had this living wall around me.
After we left New York, I finally told my lawyer the plan. You should have seen his eyes. He was a baby. We flew for hours. But then I had second thoughts. I was ready to die. But I didn't know where the Central Communist building was in Belgrade. I didn't want to kill regular civilians. That was never my job. I wanted to kill Tito and the biggest symbol of the Communist Party - not go down as the guy who killed innocent people. My friend betrayed me and I lost the target.
Stewart: So you're up there with a stolen 707, a bunch of hostages, and nowhere to go.
Kavaja: I didn't want to lose my life for nothing. That was the point. But you don't have time to think. My lawyer said that Ireland didn't have an extradition agreement with the United States. I'd get political asylum, I'd be safe. So we landed there. I gave up the explosives and let everyone go. Then the negotiations started between the authorities of Ireland, my lawyer, and the States. Of course, they all betrayed me. Ireland sent me back to the US. That was it. This time it was over for real.
I was in prison from 1979 to 1997. First, I went to Marion prison in Illinois. Solitary confinement. Noriega was in the same place. I never left my cell. I had three shirts, three pairs of trousers, three towels, and two blankets from like World War One. I had a mouse friend who visited me at night. There was no regular toilet - it was in the floor and you had to be a good pilot to get everything in there. I did push-ups - thousands of them a day - and thought about my wife and kids, and I thought about Tito.
Stewart: After 20 years, they let you out.
Kavaja: Yeah. It was a long time. And I'm on parole until 2019.
Stewart: So how did you get back to Serbia?
Kavaja: I'm supposed to be in the States. But I left. I didn't ask anybody. Now I can't go back or they'd send me to prison. I can't see my wife or kids. I went to Mexico and then Brazil and then South Africa. From there, I went to Athens, then Serbia.
Stewart: How were you treated when you returned to Serbia?
Kavaja: I had a reception at a military bunker in the mountains. It was early 1999, when Kosovo was going on. They were cooking mushrooms. That shit's not for me. I only eat steak. I told them, "We need to fight on their territory. Let's go to Albania and Macedonia and fight the Albanians that way. That's the only way we are going to win." They didn't listen. A few months later, they bombed Belgrade. And the war was over.
Stewart: Do you have enemies?
Kavaja: I have lots of enemies - ex-Communists, State Security Service from Tito's day - but I'm not afraid. I have protection. And I can take care of myself. If someone wanted to assassinate me, I know how they'd do it because I was an assassin myself. See this? This is my best friend in all my life. It's a German gun from before World War Two, made in 1938. A Luger 9mm. Very good gun.
Stewart: Is it loaded?
Kavaja: Not right now.
Stewart: What's the point of having a gun under your table if it's not loaded?
Kavaja: You know nothing about guns! There are bullets in it, but they aren't engaged. I can engage it in a second. My dick. You're a silly man!
Stewart: So you're still ready to fight?
Kavaja: I'm still strong. I work out every day except Saturday and Sunday. My hands are scarred from explosives, but I can still get down on the floor and do push-ups. I do 200 push-ups, squats, like this, off the side of bed. At one time, I could do 3,000.
Stewart: How many people have you killed so far?
Kavaja: There are so many things that I can't even tell you. How many I killed is not important. I count to 17 and then stop counting.
Stewart: Seventeen?
Kavaja: It's just a number. My first kill was when I was 14 and my last was, I don't know, maybe in 1976. But I'm not going to talk about that. I probably shouldn't have said a lot of the things I said. I have my wife and kids in the United States still.
Stewart: What does it feel like to assassinate someone?
Kavaja: What the fuck?
Stewart: After such an extreme life, it must be hard to settle down and call it quits?
Kavaja: It's not over. I still fuck good. I've got a couple of young girls. You see this one here? Her tits! Her hair! I also have other jobs to do, but we won't talk about that. I have money and girls and that's a good life for me. I've got a house in Montenegro, a big apartment in Novi Sad. I got this apartment in Belgrade. I'm set up.
Stewart: I see pictures on your wall of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. Are they idols?
Kavaja: These are big men.
Stewart: And big murderers.
Kavaja: American presidents killed too.
Stewart: How do you think you'll be remembered?
Kavaja: Evil.
Original article can be found here
Documentary: Nikola Kavaja - Hunter on Tito (1:27)
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Mad as Hell
"There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no Third Worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems! One vast and immane, interwoven, interacting multi-variant, multinational dominion of dollars! Petrol dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reich Marks, Rins, Rubles, Pounds, and Shekels!"
"It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you Mr. Beale?"
"You get up on your 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT and AT&T and Du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."
"What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do."
"We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime."
"And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit in which men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."
"....At the bottom of all our terrified souls, we know that democracy is a dying giant. A sick, sick, dying, decaying political concept, writhing in it's final pain. I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power. The United States is the richest, most advanced country in the world, light-years ahead of any other country, and the Communists won't take over the world because the Communists are deader than we are. What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200 odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods. Well, the time has come to say is "Dehumanization" such a bad word. Whether it's good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid. Creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world, not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass produced, programmed, numbered......"
"......I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their jobs. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. The banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep guns under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street. Nobody anywhere seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. We sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides, and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad. They're worse than bad, they're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world were living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "please at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster, and my TV, and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything, just leave us alone!" Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest, and I don't want you to riot, and I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression, and the inflation, the Russians, and the crime in the streets. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being godamit! My life has value!..... So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"
"It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you Mr. Beale?"
"You get up on your 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT and AT&T and Du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."
"What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do."
"We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime."
"And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit in which men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."
"....At the bottom of all our terrified souls, we know that democracy is a dying giant. A sick, sick, dying, decaying political concept, writhing in it's final pain. I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power. The United States is the richest, most advanced country in the world, light-years ahead of any other country, and the Communists won't take over the world because the Communists are deader than we are. What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200 odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods. Well, the time has come to say is "Dehumanization" such a bad word. Whether it's good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid. Creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world, not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass produced, programmed, numbered......"
"......I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their jobs. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. The banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep guns under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street. Nobody anywhere seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. We sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides, and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad. They're worse than bad, they're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world were living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "please at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster, and my TV, and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything, just leave us alone!" Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest, and I don't want you to riot, and I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression, and the inflation, the Russians, and the crime in the streets. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being godamit! My life has value!..... So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
One Way Road To Heaven
This is one of my personal Top Ten movies, and Robert Duvall is on my Top Five Best Actors List. I don't remember seeing him in a bad movie, or in a bad role.
"The Apostle" is a 1997 movie, written, directed and produced by Robert Duvall, who stars in the title role. It was filmed in and around Dallas, Texas, as well as in Louisiana. Duvall wrote the script in the 1980s but could not find a studio willing to film it. He eventually decided to direct and finance it himself. It was first screened at the Toronto Film Festival. The film went on to have a $21.3 million worldwide theatrical gross, with a combined production and advertising budget of $8 million.
Duvall plays main character the preacher, good man with a bad luck and temper. For his performance, Duvall was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. I cut from the movie only scenes where Duvall is preaching. It's so impressive and he looks so natural in the role of preacher. I can't decide is it improvisation, or written and well executed scenes.
An Interview with Robert Duvall at Journal of Religion and Film
Conversation Charlie Rose with Robert Duvall January 29, 1998
"The Apostle" is a 1997 movie, written, directed and produced by Robert Duvall, who stars in the title role. It was filmed in and around Dallas, Texas, as well as in Louisiana. Duvall wrote the script in the 1980s but could not find a studio willing to film it. He eventually decided to direct and finance it himself. It was first screened at the Toronto Film Festival. The film went on to have a $21.3 million worldwide theatrical gross, with a combined production and advertising budget of $8 million.
Duvall plays main character the preacher, good man with a bad luck and temper. For his performance, Duvall was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. I cut from the movie only scenes where Duvall is preaching. It's so impressive and he looks so natural in the role of preacher. I can't decide is it improvisation, or written and well executed scenes.
| The major themes of The Apostle include forgiveness and accountability. Duvall sympathetically portrays Sonny as a sincere gospel preacher whose passions get the better of him. After fleeing from Texas, he re-baptizes himself -- symbolizing a fresh start -- and seeks to accomplish as much good as possible before his inevitable capture. Sonny's arrest closes the moral circle of the narrative, showing that evil acts do not go unpunished. Yet, his final sermon motivates the fledgling church to carry on a life of faith and good deeds. |
An Interview with Robert Duvall at Journal of Religion and Film
"The Apostle": An Interview with Robert Duvall
by Bill Blizek and Ronald Burke
[1] The JOURNAL editors recently had the opportunity to interview Robert Duvall about his new movie, "The Apostle". The interview was especially interesting because it is so much Duvall’s own film. He wrote the script, starred as the lead character, and directed the film. When no Hollywood studio would produce it, he also turned to his own production company (Butchers Run Films), put up his own money (five million dollars), and produced the film himself.
[2] Many people have interviewed Duvall in recent months about the film and about his entire movie and stage career. We focused our interview more narrowly on the picture of religion in the film and on the morality of the lead character Duvall plays, the preacher, Eulis "Sonny" Dewey.
Some Fake; Some Great
[3] What does Duvall think of southern Christianity and revivalist preachers in general? He has a fascination for them which began more than thirty years ago when he visited a Holiness church in the small town of Hughes, Arkansas. He says that he was intrigued by the cadence, rhythms and honest faith he witnessed in the songs and tent-meetings there. For Duvall, these revivalist tent-meetings are "an important part of American culture." The preaching is "a distinct American art-form."
[4] "The best preacher I ever met," says Duvall, "was a 96 year-old black man from a little church in Hamilton, Virginia. He seemed to me more spiritual than the Dalai Lama or Mahatma Gandhi. This guy was great. He had a great cadence of preaching, a great honesty." Duvall invited a Jewish film-director friend and his Catholic wife to hear him preach. "It was terrific," Duvall recounts. "The director told me a year and a half later that he could never get the preacher entirely out of his mind. He was that impressive."
[5] "A lot of these preachers are phony, but a lot of them are not."
[6] It was from the same black preacher that Duvall borrowed an introduction and a song. The preacher ended every sermon with the same words: one day he expected, he said, to get into a little airplane. He would fly off not to London or Chicago or New York or any earthly city. He expected on that day, his last day, to fly past the sun and the stars and directly into heaven. Then the preacher would pause and the whole congregation would begin to sing, "I’ll Fly Away."
[7] That kind of borrowing, from the actual preachers and congregations of Holiness churches, is typical of the film.
Sonny is an ordinary guy
[8] What about the lead character, Sonny himself? Sometimes he seems pretty good, sometimes he is pretty bad. What was Duvall saying about Sonny?
[9] He pointed out there have been other movies about Pentecostal religions, but they never gave the people and their religion their due. Movies such as "Leap of Faith" (Steve Martin and Debra Winger) and "Elmer Gantry" (Burt Lancaster) were fakes. "They patronize," Duvall says. "They put quotation marks around the preacher. They don’t give the minister or his congregation their due."
[10] "Some religious people might ask why I would make such a movie and emphasize that this evangelical preacher has weaknesses. And my answer is that we either accept weaknesses in good people or we have to tear pages out of the bible. I would have to rip the Psalms out of the bible and never read them again. Because no one less than the greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife. And that was a far more evil thing than anything Sonny would ever, ever do.
[11] "So here’s King David, the great poet of the Psalms that we laud and he did something that was far worse than anything this present preacher would do. But because this is today, and not removed romantically to the past, we judge Sonny quickly and harshly. But, you know, he’s just an ordinary guy. He did not commit premeditated murder. He didn’t go to that church social and the baseball game with the intention of killing the young preacher. It just happened. Smack!
[12] "I still wanted to show that crime doesn’t pay. He didn’t have a great lawyer, and he didn’t get off without punishment. No more than Karla Faye Tucker should have gotten off without punishment in Texas, despite what Pat Robertson might have thought. Crime does not pay. If you are saved and accept the Lord, you cannot use that as an excuse to avoid punishment.
[13] "Sonny doesn’t escape punishment. But he’s a man of action. After killing the man, guys like us would probably wait around to be caught, but Sonny takes action. He knows he’s done something wrong. It happened involuntarily, and so he leaves. He kneels at the crossroads and prays, ‘Lord, lead me.’ He abandons his car and goes off to do something to make himself better.
[14] "No, he was never a bad guy. He was a good guy. But he did something bad. So he is full of good and bad. Sonny’s a good guy; he believed he had a calling from the time he was twelve; and he errs like most characters do, you know?
[15] "He’s a kind of percentage mixture at the beginning and at the end. There’s a certain percentage chance he will do good and a percentage chance he will again err. But he knows he has erred and that he needs confession and redemption.
[16] "He’s working in the restaurant in Bayou Butte, Louisiana and he sees his new woman-friend, Toosie (Miranda Richardson), whom he has dated a couple of times. She’s together again with her family at the restaurant. That really hits him. He suffers a broken heart. Humanly, he knows he has defeated himself. He has himself sent her back to her husband, back to her family. But that "success" hurts him. He has the pain of a man losing something, his relation to Toosie. It was something he had thought might become beautiful. But he knows it’s right that she’s back with her husband and her children.
The Power of the Holy Ghost
[17] We asked what Duvall thought about the value of the Pentecostal revivalist religions. In the movie’s beginning, Sonny stops at an accident scene, finds a wrecked car, and a guy and girl lying motionless inside it. He reaches through a window, puts the girl’s hand on the boy’s, prays for them, and then her hand moves. Was there a message in that?
[18] Duvall: "Definitely. When we did it, I said to the cameraman, ‘Frame down to her.’ And so we showed her, and I put her hand on her boyfriend’s hand so we are all connected. And I wanted that look: her hand to move, to show that the power of prayer works. The healing of someone. The movement of something. God moving in mysterious ways. Exactly. This power is based on the biblical authority, ‘Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there’. Every time I saw that I got goose pimples on my arms. That scene really tells a lot: that Sonny is doing good work and that the power of the Holy Ghost was there.
[19] "Sonny knows he is serving the Lord. He walks back over to his own car, where his mother is waiting. ‘Mama,’ he says, ‘we made news in heaven this morning, we made news in heaven!’ Yeah, that scene was meant to be there. It was the power of the Holy Ghost.
[20] "There was a guy there, a tough old Holiness church guy, watching us film. And he said later that when he heard Sonny say those words he also got chill bumps. That told me those were the right words. It meant something to those people themselves, in their churches. It was definitely meant to be there. The power of the Spirit.
[21] "The scene sets the stage for the rest of the movie. Sonny tries to help people and God can heal. God does guide the lives of individuals and does fill them with the Holy Ghost."
People’s Own Religion
[22] In "giving people their due," Duvall used many non-actors who were part of the small-town Holiness churches. What was the objective there?
[23] Duvall: "I tried to mix the non-actors with the actors. I tried to turn the whole film-making thing around as much as possible. I didn’t want to come in and tell them what to do. I wanted them to show me what they do. That is why we used non-actors with that kind of background.
[24] "The assistant director, who helps coordinates the scenes, holds the non-actors within certain limits, but within those limits their performances are a very spontaneous thing. Like those little twin boys, playing in the church aisle. How are you going to direct them? You don’t direct them. They were born into these churches. So when they want to jump up and down, they are going to jump up and down. That’s why we used so many non-actors. We tried to let the story come out from their own community.
[25] We asked Duvall about two of the most prominent characters in the church scenes, Sister Johnson and Sister Jewell. We learned that neither was a professional actor and that both exemplified the religion to which they belonged.
[26] Duvall: "One we got from one of the Holiness churches in Lafayette and one came from Shreveport. There was a state-wide convention of churches. Ed Johnson, the casting director, and I went there and watched. And the whole Louisiana mass choir -- we got them for the movie. We chose a guy who had just been confirmed as a minister and another from way out in the country in Louisiana. We tracked him down after he had been at the state convention.
[27] "And Sister Jewell, who gave testimony, that was all her own testimony. She came up with it herself. That is what the people in the Holiness churches do. So we just planned it as much as we needed. We put the camera on long lens and just let things happen. We wouldn’t say ‘Now it’s your close-up time. Are you ready?’. Instead of doing it that way, like in most movies, these people never necessarily knew when the camera was coming on them."
Off the bulldozer and accept the Lord
[28] We asked where Duvall had gotten material for the script. Again it came from the people themselves. He said he had been collecting stories and phrases for more than thirteen years, in pretty disorganized fashion. But he collected a lot of stories and phrases he used in the film.
[29] Duvall: "Yeah, I know a preacher, Paul Baggett, who was with us in the team-preaching scene (in New Boston, Texas, outside Fort Worth). He told me that years ago a guy came on a bulldozer, planning to destroy his meeting tent. So Paul took out the bible and put it in front of the bulldozer. He said, ‘Go ahead and go over my bible.’ And the guy wouldn’t do it. He had a pistol and everything, but he wouldn’t do it. Later he was saved, but the reason he was coming there with the bulldozer was because his girlfriend had already come to the tent and been saved. And so now she wouldn’t shack up with him anymore! That’s why he was so mad.
[30] "So I pieced Paul's story together with another one that reinforced it. This story was about a guy who was going to put a firebomb in a church in the Bronx. The preacher dared him to come in and the guy got down and accepted the Lord. So maybe we are all on a kind of search . . ."
Sonny’s strength
[31] We asked about Sonny’s strength. He seemed to weather so many storms and disappointments and yet come out with happiness and re-dedication.
[32] Duvall: "Yeah, he does. He sees things positively. You are the first ones to say that, but I remember way back, when I first thought of the character, I knew I wanted him to be really sanguine. I envisioned a guy who would just keep going, seeing the will of the Lord, and not be like those that might just sit on their hands.
[33] "Sonny always has one foot in really trusting what he believes in, even though he errs. If someone took your church, like Jessie took his, and if someone took your wife, like the youth minister took Jessie, it would be a hard thing to deal with. He didn’t intend to kill anybody, but it happened on the spur of the moment. ‘Oh, my God!’, he knows he’s done something wrong.
[34] ‘I gotta leave,’ he thinks; ‘what do I do?’ ‘Lord, lead me,’ he says. He still depends on the Lord, you know, even though he has sinned. So he begins an odyssey, the whole film is an odyssey journey.
Both loud and soft
[35] We saw there was a lot of shouting in the film, loud singing and Sonny shouting personally at God. And yet there also were some important moments of quiet. Did that have special meaning?
[36] Duvall: "You’re sure right. It did. Sonny shouted as loud as Job ever did. There was nothing wrong with shouting at God. I like that scene where I go through the commandments. And then I say, ‘The 11th commandment, "thou shalt not shout," (pause) does not exist!’ Yeah, I made that up. Right there. That’s the way he felt and the way these people felt.
[37] "But I wanted to make something else obvious. Sometimes these people yell and carry on, and sometimes they get quiet and are sincere. There’s that time I was sitting alone in the borrowed pup-tent. We re-edited that scene to make it clear. I am sitting there, meditating, listening for "the still, small voice" [I Kings 19] of Jesus. As it says in the bible, there is a time to ‘Go in thy closet and the Father will reward thee openly.’ There are two sides to these guys.
[38] "And then, just before I go into the church to preach with Brother Blackwell (John Beasley from Omaha), I step back. I just want a moment to myself. I got that from watching these preachers. They often want to be alone for a second. They turn around and bow their heads. And then they go to do something."
Different religions, same goal
[39] "Another thing I want to emphasize is the cultural contrast I saw between religions. By the time we were finished cutting, that was not obvious. Like Catholics have a lot of mediators, going through saints and Mary or whatever. But I love the directness of these people. They relate directly with God, not going through anything.
[40] "Protestants in general, but especially these people, say things to God directly, like I do in the film: ‘I always call you "Jesus"; you always call me "Sonny".’ ‘I’m on the devil’s hit-list; I’m gonna get on Jesus’ mailing-list!’ ‘Holy Ghost explosion,’ ‘Short-circuit the devil!’ ‘I’m a genuine Holy Ghost Jesus-filled preaching machine here this morning!’ I use those phrases in the film. I heard them from the preachers and from the people. These were their terms. God is immediate to their lives.’
[41] "Sonny sees a Catholic priest blessing fishing boats as they leave the harbor. He says, ‘You do it your way, and we do it mine. But we get it done, don't we.’ That’s the tension between religions. There are different forms and prejudices, but I wanted Sonny to show an acceptance of another religion because both were trying to achieve the same end.
[42] "Faith helps Sonny feel positive about the future. That was something I wanted to show in the movie. We all have a cradle-to-the-grave journey to make and, in between, what do you do? There’s got to be something hereafter. And I think, underneath, what Sonny wants to do is constantly to make amends so that he is ready for that day when he is called home. So that’s kind of like the underlying thing and we all think of it."
The Final Product
[43] Last of all, we wanted to know if Duvall was happy with the final product. How did the final editing go?
[44] Duvall: "Just before release, we got another opinion, and thirty minutes were cut, but the cuts stung me. We lost the ethnic points, the religious differences. Previously, things had added up and it’s so easy to mess them up. So it was a tough time for me. I had painted myself into a corner: the shorter the film the more showings you can get and the more money it would make. But some things I didn’t want to lose.
[45] "So, I sat down and addressed sixty things I didn’t like about the cuts, explaining them, and so on. Then the final version went to about two hours and fourteen minutes and it was, to my eye, like a trimming process rather than a degutting, which is what I felt before had happened. That would’ve been death. I would’ve gone crazy.
[46] "But this way I like it. It’s more trimming than slashing. Cutting here, this, that, taking a little out of the flat patter scene. Oh, it’s okay. It’s better.
[47] "But the thing about it, which is really nice, is that people understood the film. Like in New York, in hip New York, they got it. And then I was worried about the religious side, but the 700 Club wants me to talk on it. So like, you know, it’s being accepted. It is a strange crossover. Very often some of the religious miracle plays you see on television can be very corny, I find. And so simplistic. But here’s one that’s different.
[48] "Somebody said, ‘Well, maybe you’re finally showing the south the way it is instead of making L’il Abner out of it.’ And you know, that was my intention. I wouldn’t even want to go near the subject if I didn’t give people -- these people -- their due. Whether you totally agree or not, you don’t have to. There’s a lot of it I do like, a lot of it, but I want to give them their due and once again turn film-making around so that the story comes out from them. It is very important to me.
[49] "I even heard that David Denby, in the New York Review, said it was the best film ever made in America on a religious subject. He’s a guy who usually rips everything and he really ripped Tender Mercies. But he knows you can’t write those people off. You get below the Mason-Dixon line and you have some of the best music, culture, the two races, the literature, and it’s so rich, so deeply rich in many things. So why not try to get it right if you’re going to make a film of southern religion? That’s what I wanted to do."
by Bill Blizek and Ronald Burke
[1] The JOURNAL editors recently had the opportunity to interview Robert Duvall about his new movie, "The Apostle". The interview was especially interesting because it is so much Duvall’s own film. He wrote the script, starred as the lead character, and directed the film. When no Hollywood studio would produce it, he also turned to his own production company (Butchers Run Films), put up his own money (five million dollars), and produced the film himself.
[2] Many people have interviewed Duvall in recent months about the film and about his entire movie and stage career. We focused our interview more narrowly on the picture of religion in the film and on the morality of the lead character Duvall plays, the preacher, Eulis "Sonny" Dewey.
Some Fake; Some Great
[3] What does Duvall think of southern Christianity and revivalist preachers in general? He has a fascination for them which began more than thirty years ago when he visited a Holiness church in the small town of Hughes, Arkansas. He says that he was intrigued by the cadence, rhythms and honest faith he witnessed in the songs and tent-meetings there. For Duvall, these revivalist tent-meetings are "an important part of American culture." The preaching is "a distinct American art-form."
[4] "The best preacher I ever met," says Duvall, "was a 96 year-old black man from a little church in Hamilton, Virginia. He seemed to me more spiritual than the Dalai Lama or Mahatma Gandhi. This guy was great. He had a great cadence of preaching, a great honesty." Duvall invited a Jewish film-director friend and his Catholic wife to hear him preach. "It was terrific," Duvall recounts. "The director told me a year and a half later that he could never get the preacher entirely out of his mind. He was that impressive."
[5] "A lot of these preachers are phony, but a lot of them are not."
[6] It was from the same black preacher that Duvall borrowed an introduction and a song. The preacher ended every sermon with the same words: one day he expected, he said, to get into a little airplane. He would fly off not to London or Chicago or New York or any earthly city. He expected on that day, his last day, to fly past the sun and the stars and directly into heaven. Then the preacher would pause and the whole congregation would begin to sing, "I’ll Fly Away."
[7] That kind of borrowing, from the actual preachers and congregations of Holiness churches, is typical of the film.
Sonny is an ordinary guy
[8] What about the lead character, Sonny himself? Sometimes he seems pretty good, sometimes he is pretty bad. What was Duvall saying about Sonny?
[9] He pointed out there have been other movies about Pentecostal religions, but they never gave the people and their religion their due. Movies such as "Leap of Faith" (Steve Martin and Debra Winger) and "Elmer Gantry" (Burt Lancaster) were fakes. "They patronize," Duvall says. "They put quotation marks around the preacher. They don’t give the minister or his congregation their due."
[10] "Some religious people might ask why I would make such a movie and emphasize that this evangelical preacher has weaknesses. And my answer is that we either accept weaknesses in good people or we have to tear pages out of the bible. I would have to rip the Psalms out of the bible and never read them again. Because no one less than the greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife. And that was a far more evil thing than anything Sonny would ever, ever do.
[11] "So here’s King David, the great poet of the Psalms that we laud and he did something that was far worse than anything this present preacher would do. But because this is today, and not removed romantically to the past, we judge Sonny quickly and harshly. But, you know, he’s just an ordinary guy. He did not commit premeditated murder. He didn’t go to that church social and the baseball game with the intention of killing the young preacher. It just happened. Smack!
[12] "I still wanted to show that crime doesn’t pay. He didn’t have a great lawyer, and he didn’t get off without punishment. No more than Karla Faye Tucker should have gotten off without punishment in Texas, despite what Pat Robertson might have thought. Crime does not pay. If you are saved and accept the Lord, you cannot use that as an excuse to avoid punishment.
[13] "Sonny doesn’t escape punishment. But he’s a man of action. After killing the man, guys like us would probably wait around to be caught, but Sonny takes action. He knows he’s done something wrong. It happened involuntarily, and so he leaves. He kneels at the crossroads and prays, ‘Lord, lead me.’ He abandons his car and goes off to do something to make himself better.
[14] "No, he was never a bad guy. He was a good guy. But he did something bad. So he is full of good and bad. Sonny’s a good guy; he believed he had a calling from the time he was twelve; and he errs like most characters do, you know?
[15] "He’s a kind of percentage mixture at the beginning and at the end. There’s a certain percentage chance he will do good and a percentage chance he will again err. But he knows he has erred and that he needs confession and redemption.
[16] "He’s working in the restaurant in Bayou Butte, Louisiana and he sees his new woman-friend, Toosie (Miranda Richardson), whom he has dated a couple of times. She’s together again with her family at the restaurant. That really hits him. He suffers a broken heart. Humanly, he knows he has defeated himself. He has himself sent her back to her husband, back to her family. But that "success" hurts him. He has the pain of a man losing something, his relation to Toosie. It was something he had thought might become beautiful. But he knows it’s right that she’s back with her husband and her children.
The Power of the Holy Ghost
[17] We asked what Duvall thought about the value of the Pentecostal revivalist religions. In the movie’s beginning, Sonny stops at an accident scene, finds a wrecked car, and a guy and girl lying motionless inside it. He reaches through a window, puts the girl’s hand on the boy’s, prays for them, and then her hand moves. Was there a message in that?
[18] Duvall: "Definitely. When we did it, I said to the cameraman, ‘Frame down to her.’ And so we showed her, and I put her hand on her boyfriend’s hand so we are all connected. And I wanted that look: her hand to move, to show that the power of prayer works. The healing of someone. The movement of something. God moving in mysterious ways. Exactly. This power is based on the biblical authority, ‘Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there’. Every time I saw that I got goose pimples on my arms. That scene really tells a lot: that Sonny is doing good work and that the power of the Holy Ghost was there.
[19] "Sonny knows he is serving the Lord. He walks back over to his own car, where his mother is waiting. ‘Mama,’ he says, ‘we made news in heaven this morning, we made news in heaven!’ Yeah, that scene was meant to be there. It was the power of the Holy Ghost.
[20] "There was a guy there, a tough old Holiness church guy, watching us film. And he said later that when he heard Sonny say those words he also got chill bumps. That told me those were the right words. It meant something to those people themselves, in their churches. It was definitely meant to be there. The power of the Spirit.
[21] "The scene sets the stage for the rest of the movie. Sonny tries to help people and God can heal. God does guide the lives of individuals and does fill them with the Holy Ghost."
People’s Own Religion
[22] In "giving people their due," Duvall used many non-actors who were part of the small-town Holiness churches. What was the objective there?
[23] Duvall: "I tried to mix the non-actors with the actors. I tried to turn the whole film-making thing around as much as possible. I didn’t want to come in and tell them what to do. I wanted them to show me what they do. That is why we used non-actors with that kind of background.
[24] "The assistant director, who helps coordinates the scenes, holds the non-actors within certain limits, but within those limits their performances are a very spontaneous thing. Like those little twin boys, playing in the church aisle. How are you going to direct them? You don’t direct them. They were born into these churches. So when they want to jump up and down, they are going to jump up and down. That’s why we used so many non-actors. We tried to let the story come out from their own community.
[25] We asked Duvall about two of the most prominent characters in the church scenes, Sister Johnson and Sister Jewell. We learned that neither was a professional actor and that both exemplified the religion to which they belonged.
[26] Duvall: "One we got from one of the Holiness churches in Lafayette and one came from Shreveport. There was a state-wide convention of churches. Ed Johnson, the casting director, and I went there and watched. And the whole Louisiana mass choir -- we got them for the movie. We chose a guy who had just been confirmed as a minister and another from way out in the country in Louisiana. We tracked him down after he had been at the state convention.
[27] "And Sister Jewell, who gave testimony, that was all her own testimony. She came up with it herself. That is what the people in the Holiness churches do. So we just planned it as much as we needed. We put the camera on long lens and just let things happen. We wouldn’t say ‘Now it’s your close-up time. Are you ready?’. Instead of doing it that way, like in most movies, these people never necessarily knew when the camera was coming on them."
Off the bulldozer and accept the Lord
[28] We asked where Duvall had gotten material for the script. Again it came from the people themselves. He said he had been collecting stories and phrases for more than thirteen years, in pretty disorganized fashion. But he collected a lot of stories and phrases he used in the film.
[29] Duvall: "Yeah, I know a preacher, Paul Baggett, who was with us in the team-preaching scene (in New Boston, Texas, outside Fort Worth). He told me that years ago a guy came on a bulldozer, planning to destroy his meeting tent. So Paul took out the bible and put it in front of the bulldozer. He said, ‘Go ahead and go over my bible.’ And the guy wouldn’t do it. He had a pistol and everything, but he wouldn’t do it. Later he was saved, but the reason he was coming there with the bulldozer was because his girlfriend had already come to the tent and been saved. And so now she wouldn’t shack up with him anymore! That’s why he was so mad.
[30] "So I pieced Paul's story together with another one that reinforced it. This story was about a guy who was going to put a firebomb in a church in the Bronx. The preacher dared him to come in and the guy got down and accepted the Lord. So maybe we are all on a kind of search . . ."
Sonny’s strength
[31] We asked about Sonny’s strength. He seemed to weather so many storms and disappointments and yet come out with happiness and re-dedication.
[32] Duvall: "Yeah, he does. He sees things positively. You are the first ones to say that, but I remember way back, when I first thought of the character, I knew I wanted him to be really sanguine. I envisioned a guy who would just keep going, seeing the will of the Lord, and not be like those that might just sit on their hands.
[33] "Sonny always has one foot in really trusting what he believes in, even though he errs. If someone took your church, like Jessie took his, and if someone took your wife, like the youth minister took Jessie, it would be a hard thing to deal with. He didn’t intend to kill anybody, but it happened on the spur of the moment. ‘Oh, my God!’, he knows he’s done something wrong.
[34] ‘I gotta leave,’ he thinks; ‘what do I do?’ ‘Lord, lead me,’ he says. He still depends on the Lord, you know, even though he has sinned. So he begins an odyssey, the whole film is an odyssey journey.
Both loud and soft
[35] We saw there was a lot of shouting in the film, loud singing and Sonny shouting personally at God. And yet there also were some important moments of quiet. Did that have special meaning?
[36] Duvall: "You’re sure right. It did. Sonny shouted as loud as Job ever did. There was nothing wrong with shouting at God. I like that scene where I go through the commandments. And then I say, ‘The 11th commandment, "thou shalt not shout," (pause) does not exist!’ Yeah, I made that up. Right there. That’s the way he felt and the way these people felt.
[37] "But I wanted to make something else obvious. Sometimes these people yell and carry on, and sometimes they get quiet and are sincere. There’s that time I was sitting alone in the borrowed pup-tent. We re-edited that scene to make it clear. I am sitting there, meditating, listening for "the still, small voice" [I Kings 19] of Jesus. As it says in the bible, there is a time to ‘Go in thy closet and the Father will reward thee openly.’ There are two sides to these guys.
[38] "And then, just before I go into the church to preach with Brother Blackwell (John Beasley from Omaha), I step back. I just want a moment to myself. I got that from watching these preachers. They often want to be alone for a second. They turn around and bow their heads. And then they go to do something."
Different religions, same goal
[39] "Another thing I want to emphasize is the cultural contrast I saw between religions. By the time we were finished cutting, that was not obvious. Like Catholics have a lot of mediators, going through saints and Mary or whatever. But I love the directness of these people. They relate directly with God, not going through anything.
[40] "Protestants in general, but especially these people, say things to God directly, like I do in the film: ‘I always call you "Jesus"; you always call me "Sonny".’ ‘I’m on the devil’s hit-list; I’m gonna get on Jesus’ mailing-list!’ ‘Holy Ghost explosion,’ ‘Short-circuit the devil!’ ‘I’m a genuine Holy Ghost Jesus-filled preaching machine here this morning!’ I use those phrases in the film. I heard them from the preachers and from the people. These were their terms. God is immediate to their lives.’
[41] "Sonny sees a Catholic priest blessing fishing boats as they leave the harbor. He says, ‘You do it your way, and we do it mine. But we get it done, don't we.’ That’s the tension between religions. There are different forms and prejudices, but I wanted Sonny to show an acceptance of another religion because both were trying to achieve the same end.
[42] "Faith helps Sonny feel positive about the future. That was something I wanted to show in the movie. We all have a cradle-to-the-grave journey to make and, in between, what do you do? There’s got to be something hereafter. And I think, underneath, what Sonny wants to do is constantly to make amends so that he is ready for that day when he is called home. So that’s kind of like the underlying thing and we all think of it."
The Final Product
[43] Last of all, we wanted to know if Duvall was happy with the final product. How did the final editing go?
[44] Duvall: "Just before release, we got another opinion, and thirty minutes were cut, but the cuts stung me. We lost the ethnic points, the religious differences. Previously, things had added up and it’s so easy to mess them up. So it was a tough time for me. I had painted myself into a corner: the shorter the film the more showings you can get and the more money it would make. But some things I didn’t want to lose.
[45] "So, I sat down and addressed sixty things I didn’t like about the cuts, explaining them, and so on. Then the final version went to about two hours and fourteen minutes and it was, to my eye, like a trimming process rather than a degutting, which is what I felt before had happened. That would’ve been death. I would’ve gone crazy.
[46] "But this way I like it. It’s more trimming than slashing. Cutting here, this, that, taking a little out of the flat patter scene. Oh, it’s okay. It’s better.
[47] "But the thing about it, which is really nice, is that people understood the film. Like in New York, in hip New York, they got it. And then I was worried about the religious side, but the 700 Club wants me to talk on it. So like, you know, it’s being accepted. It is a strange crossover. Very often some of the religious miracle plays you see on television can be very corny, I find. And so simplistic. But here’s one that’s different.
[48] "Somebody said, ‘Well, maybe you’re finally showing the south the way it is instead of making L’il Abner out of it.’ And you know, that was my intention. I wouldn’t even want to go near the subject if I didn’t give people -- these people -- their due. Whether you totally agree or not, you don’t have to. There’s a lot of it I do like, a lot of it, but I want to give them their due and once again turn film-making around so that the story comes out from them. It is very important to me.
[49] "I even heard that David Denby, in the New York Review, said it was the best film ever made in America on a religious subject. He’s a guy who usually rips everything and he really ripped Tender Mercies. But he knows you can’t write those people off. You get below the Mason-Dixon line and you have some of the best music, culture, the two races, the literature, and it’s so rich, so deeply rich in many things. So why not try to get it right if you’re going to make a film of southern religion? That’s what I wanted to do."
Conversation Charlie Rose with Robert Duvall January 29, 1998
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Cowboy Code by Gene Autry
“The Cowboy Code”
1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man or take an unfair advantage.
2. A Cowboy must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. A Cowboy must always tell the truth.
4. A Cowboy must be gentle with children, the elderly and small animals.
5. A Cowboy must not advocate or possess racially or religiously interolerant views and ideas.
6. A Cowboy must help people in distress.
7. A Cowboy must be a good worker.
8. A Cowboy must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. A Cowboy must respect women, parents and his nations’ views.
10. A Cowboy is a patriot.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Four Women
Nina Simone
My skin is black
My arms are long
My hair is wooly
My back is strong
Strong enough to take the pain
Its been inflicted again and again
What do they call me
My name is aunt sarah
My name is aunt sarah
My skin is yellow
My hair is long
Between two worlds
I do belong
My father was rich and white
He forced my mother late one night
What do they call me
My name is siffronia
My name is siffronia
My skin is tan
My hairs alright, its fine
My hips invite you
And my lips are like wine
Whose little girl am i?
Well yours if you have some money to buy
What do they call me
My name is sweet thing
My name is sweet thing
My skin is brown
And my manner is tough
Ill kill the first mother I see
Cos my life has been too rough
Im awfully bitter these days
Because my parents were slaves
What do they call me
My
Name
Is
Peaches
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
SONG BEFORE BREAKFAST
by Ogden Nash
Hopeful each morning I arise
And splash the cobwebs from my eyes.
I brush my teeth and scrape my chin
And bravely at the mirror grin.
Sternly I force myself to say,
Huzza! Huzza! Another day!
Oh happy me! Oh lucky I!
Another chance with life to vie!
Another golden opportunity
To rise and shine in the community!
Another target for my aim!
Another whack at wealth and fame!
Almost I feel within me stir
A budding force of character,
Who knows, indeed, but what I might
Perhaps have altered over night?
Today may be the day, who knows,
That sees me triumph o'er my foes:
Gluttony, simony, and sloth,
And drawing on the table cloth;
Perjury, arson, envy, pride,
And renting tales of homicide;
Barratry, avarice and wrath
And blowing bubbles in the bath.
The differences this day may bring!
Perhaps I'll work like anything;
I'll travel to my tasks on foot,
And in the bank the carfare put,
And buy a haircut when I need it,
And if I get a letter, read it.
And every eve improve myself
by inching through the Five Foot Shelf.
The things I want to do I won't,
And only do the things I don't.
What lordly aspirations dawn
The while I draw my trousers on!
Oh beamish morning, big with hope
And noble tasks with which to cope,
If I should fail you, do not sorrow;
I'll be a better man tomorrow.
Hopeful each morning I arise
And splash the cobwebs from my eyes.
I brush my teeth and scrape my chin
And bravely at the mirror grin.
Sternly I force myself to say,
Huzza! Huzza! Another day!
Oh happy me! Oh lucky I!
Another chance with life to vie!
Another golden opportunity
To rise and shine in the community!
Another target for my aim!
Another whack at wealth and fame!
Almost I feel within me stir
A budding force of character,
Who knows, indeed, but what I might
Perhaps have altered over night?
Today may be the day, who knows,
That sees me triumph o'er my foes:
Gluttony, simony, and sloth,
And drawing on the table cloth;
Perjury, arson, envy, pride,
And renting tales of homicide;
Barratry, avarice and wrath
And blowing bubbles in the bath.
The differences this day may bring!
Perhaps I'll work like anything;
I'll travel to my tasks on foot,
And in the bank the carfare put,
And buy a haircut when I need it,
And if I get a letter, read it.
And every eve improve myself
by inching through the Five Foot Shelf.
The things I want to do I won't,
And only do the things I don't.
What lordly aspirations dawn
The while I draw my trousers on!
Oh beamish morning, big with hope
And noble tasks with which to cope,
If I should fail you, do not sorrow;
I'll be a better man tomorrow.
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