An Indigenous Community Is Drawn Into The Drug Trade In 'Birds Of Passage'

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. We're continuing our series of interviews with some of this year's Oscar nominees. Our guests today are two Hollywood veterans who are getting some of the first major Oscar nominations of their long careers. Later on, we'll visit with Paul Schrader, the writer-director whose movie "First Reformed" has him nominated for best original screenplay, the first time he's ever been nominated, even though his other (inaudible) to deal with the Klan by phone. John David Washington plays Stallworth and Adam Driver plays Flip Zimmerman, the white Jewish cop who ends up meeting with the Klan and being less than comfortable with the situation and the danger involved.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

ADAM DRIVER: (As Flip) I didn't want to say it with Trapp, but that peckerwood had a gun in my face. And he was an ass hair away from pulling the trigger.

JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) And he didn't.

DRIVER: (As Flip) But he could have, and then I would've been dead - for what? Stopping some jerk from playing dress up?

WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) Flip, it's intel.

DRIVER: (As Flip) Well, I'm not risking my life to prevent some rednecks from lighting a couple sticks on fire.

WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) This is the job. What's your problem?

DRIVER: (As Flip) That's my problem. For you, it's a crusade. For me, it's a job. It's not personal, nor should it be.

WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) Why haven't you bought into this?

DRIVER: (As Flip) Why should I?

WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) Because you're Jewish, brother - the so-called chosen people. You've been passing for a WASP - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, cherry pie, hot dog white boy. It's what some light-skinned black folks do. They pass for white. Doesn't that hatred you've been hearing the Klan say - doesn't that piss you off?

DRIVER: (As Flip) Course it does.

WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) Then why you acting like you ain't got skin in the game, brother?

DRIVER: (As Flip) Rookie, that's my [expletive] business.

WASHINGTON: (As Stallworth) It's our business. I'm going to get you your membership card so you can go to the cross burning and get in deeper with these guys, right, partner?

BIANCULLI: Terry interviewed Spike Lee in 2017 when BlacKkKlansman was in production. He had just released his 10-part Netflix series "She's Gotta Have It," an expanded and updated TV version of his first feature film of the same name, which he made in 1986. He's since written and directed many films, including "Do The Right Thing," "Mo' Better Blues," "Jungle Fever" and "Malcolm X." But not until "BlacKkKlansman" has he been nominated for best director or best picture. When Terry spoke with Spike Lee, she asked him about his father, Bill Lee, who is a noted jazz bassist and composer.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

So what did you learn about what it means to be an artist and try to support a family from watching your father?

SPIKE LEE: Oh. Well, I learned that there's nothing poetic about being a starving artist. I knew that. And I knew that - one of the greatest lines from "The Godfather" - I wanted to wet my beak. If my films made money, I wanted to be able to get my fair share of the money that's being made from my artwork. I just saw my father struggle - great, great, great musician - that there's nothing cute about being poor. At one time, my father was a leading jazz bassist - jazz folk bass - played Bob Dylan, Judy Collins. That's my father on Peter, Paul and Mary's "Puff The Magic Dragon," Theo Bikel, Odetta, all those things.

When Bob Dylan decided that he wanted to go electric, everybody else in the folk world did, too. And so my father, to this day, has never played one Fender bass or one electric instrument ever. Up to that point, my mother didn't have to work 'cause my father was most - he was in demand. But when he made the decision that he was not going to play electric bass, my mother had to become a teacher. You know, in a lot of ways, I looked at my father's integrity. But on the other hand, he had five kids. But to him, it didn't matter. He wasn't going to play electric bass.

GROSS: Did you resent that? Did you want him to play electric bass so that the family...

LEE: No.

GROSS: ...Would have more money?

LEE: No. And even today, I don't hold that against my father. I mean, he - his integrity said, I cannot play electric bass. I'm not going to do it. I can only play acoustic bass. I'm just very fortunate that I was able to use the great talents my father - he scored all my films - did the score for "She's Gotta Have It," "School Daze" - great, great, great score for "Do The Right Thing," "Mo' Better Blues." So I was very happy that it came around so I was able to employ my father.

GROSS: What kind of music did your father introduce you to?

LEE: Jazz.

GROSS: And you have shout-outs to jazz in the series. Yeah.

LEE: I mean, here's the thing, though. We - growing up, we had to sneak to listen to Motown and the Beatles. My father would hear that and say, turn that bad music off.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEE: Only music could be played out loud when he was in the house was jazz. And if it wasn't jazz, you had to turn that mess off. I mean, he even played with them. But he knew everybody. Everybody knew him. I mean, I'll give example. Late in his life, I did a video for Miles Davis. It was called "Tutu" and did the album called "Tutu."

GROSS: Oh, you did the video for "Tutu." Oh, yeah. OK.

LEE: Yes. And the first thing - he says, Spike, I know your father. I love your father's work so I'm not going to curse you out.

(LAUGHTER)

LEE: First of all, it'd been an honor for Miles Davis to call me MFer (ph). That was his favorite word. I wish he would've called me MFer, but he said, you know what? I know your father's Bill Lee - great musician, great composer. So I'm going to leave you alone - true story.

GROSS: So in the 1986 original "She's Gotta Have It," you played Mars Blackmon. You played - describe your character, and describe what he wears in that film.

LEE: Well, Mars Blackmon is the original b-boy, the original sneakerhead. He wears a chain around his neck that says Mars, wearing the fresh Air Jordans. We'd call them FOBs - fresh out the box. I mean, Mars is just crazy. And I didn't have a name for this character, and I asked my grandma, who lived to be a hundred years old. My grandmother put me through Morehouse and NYU and gave me the seed money for "She's Gotta Have It." Not that she was rich - she just saved the Social Security check for 50 years. She taught art. And I was the first grandchild. But I said, still need a name. She said, I had a crazy uncle named Mars. Said - I said, bang. All right, that's what it's going to be. His name is Mars. So the only reason why I played in the film was because we didn't have any money to pay for an actor to play Mars.

GROSS: So I get the impression from this that you never planned on acting.

LEE: Nope.

GROSS: Well, you...

LEE: I don't even like it, really, to tell the truth. I don't even do it anymore.

GROSS: Why don't you like it?

LEE: 'Cause I'm not an actor.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: OK.

LEE: But the pop-up - but Mars Blackmon became so popular that, you know, people wanted me seen in other stuff. So I played Half-Pint and Shorty. My best performance, if I may say, of my limited acting skills is Mookie in "Do The Right Thing." I was good in that one.

GROSS: So I want to hear a - I want to play a scene with you in it from the original 1986 "She's Gotta Have It." And this is a scene where it's the first time Nola invites your character Mars up to her apartment. And Mars is surprised at how spacious and nice it is and how much of her artwork is around. So here's the scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT")

LEE: (As Mars) So this whole place is yours, huh?

TRACY CAMILLA JOHNS: (As Nola) Whole place.

LEE: (As Mars) I likes. I likes. What's the rent?

JOHNS: (As Nola) It's cheap.

LEE: (As Mars) Yeah?

JOHNS: (As Nola) Yeah.

LEE: (As Mars) You know, we could put a divider right here. And you'll have a roommate - me - and never know I'm here.

JOHNS: (As Nola) You're right. I'll never know. How come every time I let a guy up here, the first thing they want to do is move in?

LEE: (As Mars) Well, you work, you got a nice crib and you're fine.

JOHNS: (As Nola) What makes you think I want somebody to take care of?

LEE: (As Mars) I didn't say that. You know, I didn't say that. I pay my own way. I'm not looking for no meal ticket. So what do you do? What's your job?

JOHNS: (As Nola) I'm a layout paste-up artist. I do mechanics for magazines.

LEE: (As Mars) Yeah, yeah. I know what that [expletive] is.

JOHNS: (As Nola) There's something about you.

LEE: (As Mars) About me? Good or bad?

JOHNS: (As Nola) I haven't figured it out yet.

LEE: (As Mars) You'll let me know, though, right?

JOHNS: (As Nola) You'll be the first to know.

LEE: (As Mars) You'll let me know? You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola) Yeah.

LEE: (As Mars) You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola) Sure.

LEE: (As Mars) You'll let me know?

JOHNS: (As Nola) (Laughing) Yeah.

LEE: (As Mars) Good.

GROSS: (Laughter) That's Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon in "Do The Right Thing." So your character, as we heard in that scene, repeats certain lines over and over - most famously, please, baby, please. How did you come up with that kind of repetition for your character?

LEE: I couldn't remember what the next line was (laughter).

GROSS: Oh, seriously?

LEE: True (laughter). I kid you not.

GROSS: Oh, so that's why you kept repeating.

LEE: I couldn't remember what the next line was, so I was going to keep repeating the line I'm on (laughter).

GROSS: That's hilarious 'cause it's such a kind of quirky, funny characteristic. So it really works.

LEE: Well, it's an accident (laughter).

BIANCULLI: Spike Lee speaking with Terry Gross in 2017. More after a break - this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF TERENCE BLANCHARD'S "RON'S THEME")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2017 interview with writer-director Spike Lee, whose film "Black Klansman" is up for several Academy Awards this year, including Best Director and Best Picture.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: So Brooklyn is so important in your life and in your movies and on your hats (laughter).

LEE: Oh, can I just...

GROSS: Yeah, go ahead.

LEE: ...Say something real quick?

GROSS: Yeah.

LEE: It's the republic of Brooklyn...

GROSS: (Laughter) OK.

LEE: ...The republic.

GROSS: So anyways, Brooklyn was not - no one was claiming that Brooklyn was kind of hip or cool or a republic that I was aware of when I was growing up (laughter). And so it's just interesting to see what Brooklyn has come to signify. Like, so that's quite a change. So when you were young, before you lived in Fort Greene, you lived in another neighborhood, right? - Cobble Hill.

LEE: Yes, Cobble Hill. The Lees were the first black family to move into Cobble Hill. Cobble Hill, up to that point, had been historically Italian-American, working-class neighborhood.

GROSS: And why did your parents move there, knowing they'd be the only African-Americans in the neighborhood?

LEE: It was a - my mother, you know, who was running things - my mother always wanted a brownstone. So we rented two floors in a brownstone - Warren Street between Henry Street and Clinton Street in Cobble Hill. And then my mother said, you know, we got to buy a brownstone. So we bought a brownstone on Washington Park between Myrtle and Willoughby in 1968 for, like, $45,000. Back then, the realtors wouldn't even use the name Fort Greene. They would just say downtown vicinity.

GROSS: So when you were probably very young, when your parents moved to Cobble Hill and it was an Italian-American neighborhood, what was that like for you as a young African-American boy?

LEE: Well, we got called the N-word for, like, two weeks. And then when it finally dawned on them there were not going to be hundreds of black families filing lease and the neighborhood was going to go black all overnight, then we were just like any other kid. A lot of my friends today are these guys I grew up - you know, in Cobble Hill at a very young age, especially the Tuccis (ph) - Louie (ph) and Joe (ph) Tucci - shoutout.

GROSS: (Laughter) So what was the school like? Was the school mostly white?

LEE: I went to public school - PS 29. After a couple years, you know, some Puerto Ricans moved in into the neighborhood. But it was - I had a great, wonderful childhood. I mean, we - forget these video games. We played street games. We weren't doing - just sitting in front of the television. We were playing stickball, stoop ball, softball, two-hand touch, Johnny on the Pony, Ringolevio, down the sewers. I mean, we just played...

GROSS: Down in the sewer, was that the last one?

LEE: Down - it's a top game. You know spinning tops.

GROSS: Yeah.

LEE: Well, the sewers had a hole in it. And the goal was to knock the other guy's...

(LAUGHTER)

LEE: ...Top down the sewer. I mean...

GROSS: We never played that one.

LEE: We were imaginative.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEE: We - it was creative. We made up games. We played on the streets. We were running around. We - there was physicality. I mean, running bases - I mean, we had fun. And the summertime was the best because it wasn't - it didn't get dark till, like, 9:30. So you leave the morning - you leave the house in the morning (laughter) and you didn't have to show up till it got dark.

GROSS: So when your family moved to Fort Greene, you were probably - what? - around 10.

LEE: Eleven.

GROSS: Eleven, OK. So what was it like for you to move to a predominately African-American neighborhood after living in Cobble Hill?

LEE: It was great. Fort Greene, it was black and Puerto Rican. It was great because we were living - we weren't renting anymore. We had a big, old house right across the street from Fort Greene Park.

GROSS: Did you ever take piano lessons, since your father had a piano and played?

LEE: For a minute - the one that was a really good pianist was my brother David. And it was my - his piano teacher was in Harlem. So as - since I'm the oldest, I had to drag his ass on the subway every Saturday to take him for piano lessons. Boy, did I hate doing that. (Laughter) Do I have to do it? Yes, you do. You're the oldest. Back in the day, when your parents told you to do something, you had to do it. There's no negotiating or none of that stuff. You had to do it. If you said something, my mother said, I'll slap the black off you (laughter).

And what was worse - because like many black families in the North, when summertime came, your parents shipped your black ass down south to get a break. So you would spend the summer down south with your grandparents. And down south, they don't play. They get the switch. You know what a switch is. It was brutal because they make you choose the switch you get beat with. And if you choose a too-little switch, they'll get - they'll pick their own switch - was three times the length of the small one you picked. Oh, boy (laughter).

GROSS: What earned you getting hit with a switch?

LEE: Oh, it didn't matter. They didn't like something, you had to - go get that switch, son.

GROSS: So was that...

LEE: What'd I do? (Laughter).

GROSS: Was that an effective form of punishment for you or was - did it just, like, really make you angry and want to rebel more?

LEE: No, no. That switch hurt. Oh, Lord. And it would be so hot. And there was no air conditioning. And those mosquitoes would eat you alive. Oh, my God (laughter). And then we - the area made fun of us because we talked different. And I - we couldn't understand what people were saying. I remember one summer, we came down south with afros because afros took a while - everything takes a while to get down south.

(LAUGHTER)

LEE: And when we got off - when they saw us with afros, they looked at us like we were three-headed Martians.

GROSS: Were there things you were told you couldn't do in Alabama because of racism? Was the line different than it was in Brooklyn?

LEE: It - we never - see; there weren't any white people in Snow, Ala. So we didn't have - it was not like we were in Selma or Montgomery or Birmingham. We were in Snow. We were in the sticks. So we rarely ever saw white folks when we went down South. So people might call me Mr. Brooklyn, but my parents are from the South. I was born in Atlanta, Ga., spent many summers there and also went to college in Atlanta.

GROSS: In Morehouse.

LEE: Yeah. My father went to Morehouse. My grandfather went to Morehouse. And my mother and grandmother went to Spelman - these two historically black schools that are across the street from each other. In fact, my grandma lived to be 100 years old. I know said that before. I'm being redundant. But her grandmother was a slave. Yet she had a college degree. So I come from a long line of edumacated (ph) black folks (laughter).

GROSS: Where were your parents always stressing the important (ph) of education when you were growing up?

LEE: Oh, yes. I mean, my - yes, educators, educators - that's why I...

GROSS: So what did they do to make sure that you got a good education?

LEE: Well, the best thing my parents did - not just for me, but my siblings though - was they exposed us to so much stuff, and it paid off. My mother was dragging me to Broadway plays, off-Broadway plays, museums. Man, I didn't want to go to stuff. I wanted to run up and down the streets. But every - my mother would take me and my siblings - I mean, she was dragging us while we're screaming. But every time we came home on the subway, we would say, you know what? That was good. The reason why...

GROSS: What's one of the shows that you saw that you really loved?

LEE: Oh, one thing was memorable. My mother took me to see "Bye Bye Birdie" at Radio City Music Hall Easter Show.

GROSS: So this was the movie.

LEE: The movie. And the reason why the opening credit sequence of "Do The Right Thing" with Rosie Perez's dancing - that came from Ann-Margret dancing in the beginning of "Bye Bye Birdie."

GROSS: Oh, that's great (laughter).

LEE: But here's the thing that my mother was - so my love of cinema came from my mother. My father hated movies. And so I - since I was the oldest, I was my mother's movie date. If my mother went, it'd just be Martin Scorsese. She took me to see "Mean Streets" when that film came out. I was like, Mom, are you a...

GROSS: What impact did that have on you?

LEE: (Laughter) I said, Mommy, this movie's crazy. What - if you - if somebody could Google what year "Mean Streets" came out - I was definitely underage to see that film. And I've told Martin Scorsese that story many times, and he laughs.

GROSS: (Laughter) Spike Lee, it's been great to talk with you. Thank you so much.

LEE: Well, thank you so much. And again, I'm a fan.

GROSS: Thank you.

LEE: And it's been a minute, so let's do it every time I have a project, all right?

GROSS: Let's do it again, absolutely.

BIANCULLI: Writer-director Spike Lee speaking to Terry Gross in 2017. Among the Oscar categories in which his latest film BlacKkKlansman is nominated are best picture and best director - his first time in either category. After a break, we'll hear from Paul Schrader, who's gotten his first nod for a screenplay he's written, even though his previous films include "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull." And Justin Chang will review the new movie "Birds Of Passage." And I'll review the new Amazon documentary series "Lorena" about the infamous case of John Wayne and Lorena Bobbit. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF TERENCE BLANCHARD'S "RON MEETS FBI AGENT")
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. Today Amazon Prime Video presents a new four-part documentary series called "Lorena." It's about the infamous 1993 case in which John Wayne Bobbitt's wife Lorena violently reacted to what she claimed was a long-term pattern of marital abuse - sexual and otherwise - by severing his penis as he lay in bed then driving away and tossing the remnant out her car window. This unusual act made national headlines and resulted in a pair of high-profile trials - his for marital sexual assault, hers for malicious wounding. This new nonfiction miniseries called "Lorena" recounts both trials and the national furor surrounding them. And it does so without being lurid or exploitive, which could hardly be said of the media and pop culture at the time.

Those too young to remember the particulars of the Bobbitt case may be morbidly curious about it. But if you were around and aware back in the '90s, you may well ask, why revisit this infamous and familiar story. And why now? I asked similar questions when ESPN announced a few years ago that it was presenting a multipart documentary series on O.J. Simpson called "O.J.: Made In America." But then I previewed it and saw what those filmmakers were up to. With the passage and perspective of time, they were telling a larger more involved and important story about fame, the media and race.

In "Lorena," the director Joshua Rofe is just as fascinated by fame in the media. But instead of race, he focuses on gender and on the very different treatments of men and women in the courts and in the headlines. In the #MeToo era, this examination couldn't be more relevant. The research and homework here are impressive. The program provides fresh interviews with both John and Lorena Bobbitt and many of the lawyers, jurors, character witnesses and journalists involved in the case.

It also does a deep dive into newspaper and television archives, showing just how the case was covered at the time. No headline was too tasteless and norms were being challenged and changed, not only what graphic words could be used in the papers but also who could be identified in sexual assault cases. As one reporter covering the Bobbitt trials, Carlos Sanchez of The Washington Post recalls, followed by a current reaction from Lorena herself.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LORENA")

CARLOS SANCHEZ: Most newspapers had a practice that if you were the victim of a sex crime, you were never identified. And then I learned one day that Lorena had hired a public relations firm. And I called my editors and let them know of this development. And the editor said, OK. Well, if she's hired a publicist, then she knows that we're going to use her name. She wants her name used.

LORENA BOBBITT: When they learned about my name, it was a nightmare. Everybody wanted a piece of me.

BIANCULLI: Lorena Bobbitt using the phrase piece of me in this context is a little jarring. But what's most jarring about this documentary and perhaps most memorable is the parade of TV hosts and comics shown weighing in on the Bobbitt case back in the '90s. Some of them, like Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and Al Franken, have since been ensnared by their own high-profile scandals. Others, like Whoopi Goldberg, Howard Stern and David Letterman, can look back at the jokes they made then and either be proud or cringe. And at least one high-profile celebrity then - Barbara Walters, when talking to her co-host Hugh Downs on ABC's news magazine "20/20" - was admirably ahead of her time.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "20/20")

BARBARA WALTERS: I do think that men and women see this very differently. And men see it as a man being mutilated, I think, in the most awful way a man can imagine. Many women see it as a woman abused to such a degree that she struck out at the area that was doing her the most harm.

HUGH DOWNS: You can still be very sensitive to the need to cut down on abuse of women and see this act as different from the act of many women who are abused who may kill their husbands.

WALTERS: If you're a man, you may.

DOWNS: (Laughter).

WALTERS: And you are.

DOWNS: I guess I can't help looking at it that way - fascinating.

BIANCULLI: Fascinating, indeed - Amazon's "Lorena," as you might guess from its title, ultimately extends more sympathy to her than her ex-husband. But since the documentary ends by following both of their actions in the decades since, including John Wayne Bobbitt's forays into porn films and other attempts to cash in on his so-called celebrity, that's a justifiable conclusion. But the primary verdict delivered by "Lorena" the documentary is that the media were guilty of a lot, too, and so were our society's attitudes about when to believe women who come forward with tales of abuse. Watch the TV show "Lorena," then decide for yourself whether in the 26 years since the Bobbitt case, our attitudes and our tabloid culture have changed that much and changed enough.

After a break, we'll hear from Paul Schrader. His film "First Reformed," which he wrote and directed, is nominated for Best Original Screenplay. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF WES MONTGOMERY'S "4 ON 6")
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Even though his credits as screenwriter include the phenomenal "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver," writer-director Paul Schrader has never been nominated for any of his screenplays until now. His film "First Reformed," which he wrote and directed, is nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The film stars Ethan Hawke as the Reverend Ernest Toller. He's the pastor of a small, historic Dutch Reformed church that's operated as a sort of quaint tourist attraction by the megachurch that owns it. Reverend Toller is suffering from depression, something he shares with several of the few congregants attending his church.

One churchgoer asks the reverend for help and to counsel her husband. She's pregnant, and her husband Michael, a radical environmental activist, wants her to have an abortion because he's convinced the world basically would be unlivable by the time their child was grown. In this scene, Reverend Toller tries to convince Michael that his suffering isn't just about the environment. It's also about his own inner despair and depression. Michael is played by Philip Ettinger. The reverend, played by Ethan Hawke, speaks first.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIRST REFORMED")

ETHAN HAWKE: (As Ernest) Courage is the solution to despair. Reason provides no answers. I can't know what the future will bring. We have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind simultaneously - hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.

PHILIP ETTINGER: (As Michael) Are you a drinking man, Reverend?

HAWKE: (As Ernest) It doesn't help.

ETTINGER: (As Michael) No, I suppose not. Can God forgive us for what we've done to this world?

HAWKE: (As Ernest) Who could know the mind of God? But we can choose a righteous life - belief, forgiveness, grace covers us all. I believe that.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

Paul Schrader, welcome to FRESH AIR. And congratulations on this film. I really love this film. Thank you for making it. The movie is so much about living with hope and despair and whether faith can enable you to deal with despair and what happens if despair starts to win. Paul Schrader, what was the kernel of the idea for this film? What came to you first? Was it the idea of dealing with the environmental crisis or the crisis of faith?

PAUL SCHRADER: Ironically, Terry, the kernel was an intellectual decision. I had, as a young man, as a film critic, written about spiritual films but claimed that I would never make one. It wasn't me. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I liked those films, but I didn't want to make one. And then about three years ago, after a conversation, I said it's time now. You're going to be 70 next year. It's time to write a spiritual script not only in the time of my life but also in the life of this planet.

And so once I made the intellectual decision to go there to the place where I swore I would never go, then things started to fall in, and the various pieces - the lone man in his room, the despair we all feel over the environmental crisis, the need to do something even if it's destructive - those pieces started to fall in.

GROSS: You were a religious young man. You grew up in the Dutch Reformed Church. You proselytized when you were young. But I guess when you when you left the church, you really left it. You went to the other side (laughter).

SCHRADER: Well, you have to - you know, the only way you get out of an environment like that is the way a bullet gets out of a gun. And so there's a lot of impetus. You know, I was in Grand Rapids, Mich., the Christian Reformed Church there. And if you don't get out fast and furiously, you get about as far as Kalamazoo, and they pull you back.

GROSS: What were the pastors like who you knew?

SCHRADER: I do remember a couple episodes where I did go to the parsonage, you know, went to counseling. And they were always very considerate and generous because, you know, for a lot of Americans, the pastor is the stand in for the therapist, you know? They don't go to a therapist. They don't go to a psychiatrist. So where do you go? Well, you'd go to your pastor and say, look; I'm having these problems. You know, you need to tell somebody, and oft times that person is not your parent.

GROSS: So what would you tell your pastor that you wouldn't tell your parents?

SCHRADER: Just the anger you feel. And that was an issue for me as a young man, just wanting to do something - an explosion. A line in "Taxi Driver" all those years ago where Travis Bickle says, I just want to go out and do something, which means, you know, this urge is becoming violent. And so that's one thing you could talk about. This film has been compared to "Taxi Driver," and I think rightly so. Except that "Taxi Driver" is essentially an ignorant person, and Reverend Toller is an intellectual, and there's 40 years between them. So it's not the same movie.

GROSS: Well, I'm going to further the comparison (laughter). At the very beginning of the film, the pastor has started a journal. And he writes in the journal, and Ethan Hawke does the voiceover. And he says, the journal has some thoughts I confide in God when He's listening. It's a form of prayer without prostration. If only I could pray. So I want to compare that a little bit with one of the "Taxi Driver" journals. So this is from the soundtrack of "Taxi Driver."

And to refresh everyone's memory or if you haven't seen the movie, you know, Travis Bickle is a Vietnam war veteran who's come home. He has a job driving a taxi. He drives around the streets of Manhattan, through Times Square and looks out, and what he sees is sleaze. And he finds it all very disturbing. So here's part of Travis Bickle's diary from "Taxi Driver."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")

ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) May 10 - thank God for the rain, which has helped wash away the garbage and the trash off the sidewalks. I'm working long hours now, six days a week, sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle, but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, 350 a week, sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night - buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take them to Harlem.

I don't care, don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks - don't make no difference to me. Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the back seat. Some nights I clean out the blood. Twelve hours of work, and I still can't sleep. Damn, days go on and on; they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention. I believe that someone should become a person like other people.

GROSS: I hear so many echoes in "First Reformed" from that "Taxi Driver" journal. Travis is obsessed with all of the garbage on the street, meaning, like, the people who he sees as garbage, the people who he sees as the animals, the sleaze. Someday a real rain will come along and wash the scum off the streets.

Of course, in your new movie, it's the environmental crisis. It's not - it's like miles and miles and miles of junked tires and empty plastic bottles and trash fires and oil pollution. And God's lonely man - that could be the title for your new movie, God's lonely man. You know, Travis is lonely. That's one of the themes of the movie, and it kind of drives him to the good he tries to do and to the bad that he does. So I was wondering if you were thinking of, you know, the Travis diaries as you were writing the Reverend Toller diaries.

SCHRADER: Not too much. And I did a film in between those two called "Light Sleeper," which is also a diary film. And that's a drug dealer is writing in his diary, the same composition book as the other two. But I think that, you know, Travis being a juvenile, really, is experiencing loneliness in a very narcissistic way, whereas Reverend Toller, as an older man, is feeling that in an existential way. And so the expression is different.

GROSS: Paul Schrader, you proselytized when you were young. I mean, you went door to door, didn't you?

SCHRADER: Yeah, I went through a phase where - my father was a frustrated minister. He had to drop out because of the depression. So I was raised to fill that slot. And so it came quite naturally to go out, you know, with tracks in your hand and go door to door give people tracks. Ask them, you know, even though you're a kid, and...

GROSS: Ask them what?

SCHRADER: Have you met Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? You know, that's a good place to start. And, you know, it's amazing how many people will actually talk to a kid who wouldn't talk to an adult. And my mother - it's a wonderful story because back then, a lot of people would go door to door. And so right next to the front door, she had put up a whole list of refutation texts for all of the various denominations. So if the Catholics came by or if the Christian Scientists came by, she would have a refutation text for them. And so she would invite them in and give them coffee and then start giving them the refutation text. And then they had to find a way out.

GROSS: (Laughter).

SCHRADER: And I remember watching this, so that was kind of the environment.

GROSS: What's a refutation text?

SCHRADER: A refutation text, you know, says why you're wrong. You know, the Bible is nothing but refutation texts, as we've learned. You know, you can use almost any text to counteract any other text.

GROSS: Paul Schrader, you became, like, an antiwar activist in the late-'60s. And I should mention here that, you know, both Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" is a veteran, and in the new movie "First Reformed," Ethan Hawke's character, the minister - his family had a tradition of being in the military. He talked his son into going into the military, and then his son was killed in Iraq after six months. So were you afraid - were you at risk of being drafted? Did you not want to be drafted?

SCHRADER: I was asthmatic and - even though our family was very patriotic. But I had to go to Detroit for the physical. My mother took me to the - a post office where the bus was. And my father didn't come, and I was surprised by that. And she took me. And just before I got on the bus, she gave me a brown paper bag. And she said, now, I want you to put this under your pillow tonight when you sleep 'cause the next morning was the physical. I got in the bus. I opened the bag, and it was a ragweed. And I did put it under my pillow. And by the time I had the physical, I was having a full-fledged asthma attack.

GROSS: Wow. That's really interesting. So your mother strongly did not want you to be drafted and go to Vietnam.

SCHRADER: Yes, but she couldn't say those words.

GROSS: Because...

SCHRADER: Because, you know, that conservative environment.

BIANCULLI: Paul Schrader speaking to Terry Gross last year. He wrote and directed "First Reformed," which has garnered his first ever Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews the new foreign language film "Birds Of Passage." This is FRESH AIR.

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DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. A number of films and TV shows have taken on the Colombian drug cartels, including Netflix's hit series "Narcos" about Pablo Escobar and the recent Tom Cruise action movie "American Made." But the new Spanish-language drama "Birds Of Passage" is the rare project to show us the impact of the Colombian drug trade of the 1960s and '70s from the perspective of an indigenous tribe. Film critic Justin Chang has this review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: In 2016, the Colombian director Ciro Guerra received an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film for "Embrace Of The Serpent," a drama set in the Amazon jungle during the early 20th century. It was political filmmaking at its most poetic, starkly photographed in black and white and unflinching in its empathy for the indigenous cultures destroyed by white European and American settlers. With his equally stunning new movie "Birds Of Passage," directed with his longtime producer Cristina Gallego, Guerra rings a variation on the same theme several decades later, this time against the vast, arid backdrop of the Guajira Desert in northern Colombia. But unlike "Embrace Of The Serpent," "Birds Of Passage" unfolds in gorgeous color in staggering widescreen compositions where you can see miles of dust stretching out to the horizon.

This is the home of the Wayuu people, a community governed by strict traditions and spiritual beliefs. In a striking early sequence, a 14-year-old Wayuu girl named Zaida performs a public dance to celebrate her womanhood. A handsome older suitor named Rapayet approaches, and the two proceed to dance surrounded by a circle of noisy onlookers, their movement suggesting a kind of mating ritual between two birds.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BIRDS OF PASSAGE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, foreign language spoken).

CHANG: Rapayet, played by Jose Acosta, is the nephew of a word messenger, a respected elder in Wayuu culture. Still, Zaida's formidable mother, Ursula, distrusts him and demands a near impossible dowry that includes 30 goats, 20 cows and five necklaces. But while Rapayet can't fulfill the dowry at first, he soon runs into some American hippies who are looking for marijuana, a demand that Rapayet and his livewire friend Moises are able to meet. Before long, Rapayet has married Zaida and become a successful drug dealer, establishing their family as one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the region. But while Rapayet himself is a peaceful, levelheaded sort, it's clear that Moises' hair-trigger temper and violent streak will soon bring chaos upon them.

Although it runs a swift, tightly plotted two hours, "Birds Of Passage" is genuinely epic in scope. The story, which is told in a mix of Spanish and the indigenous Wayuu language, unfolds across five chapters set between 1968 and 1980. During those 12 years, we will witness the rise and fall of Rapayet, his family and the entire Wayuu community. Even after the threat of Moises has been neutralized, there's another frightening young sociopath in the family ready to take his place. Fatal clashes of ego and a bloody war with a rival clan will soon follow. Meanwhile Rapayet and his family move into a big, new house, a white-walled mansion that looks surreally out of place standing on the flat desert ground.

Like those great American mob sagas "The Godfather" and "The Sopranos," "Birds Of Passage" is about the eternal tension between business and family. With its striking landscapes and colorful costumes, it's also a ravishing visual showcase for a culture we rarely see in the movies. But Guerra and Gallego refuse to sanctify or romanticize that culture or to suggest that the Wayuu are too innocent and pure for this world. Although Rapayet and his family never dreamed they would command this much power or endure this much tragedy, they are very much the agents of their own destruction, as susceptible to the temptations of greed, cruelty and violence as anyone.

The most intriguing and complicated character is Ursula, the family matriarch who's played in a coolly transfixing performance by Carmina Martinez. Ursula often scolds her son-in-law Rapayet when he violates Wayuu protocol, saying, this is not the way we do things. There's a moving sense of loss in her words. "Birds Of Passage" is about what happens when ancient practices and beliefs are subsumed by the cruel capitalist machinery of the drug trade, when a community that is already tribal in nature meets the much more vicious tribalism of organized crime. Ursula knows the old ways will soon vanish, that her entire world will be gone and forgotten. But for at least two hours in "Birds Of Passage," it lives again on the screen gloriously.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for the LA Times.

On Monday's FRESH AIR, we look at some forgotten episodes in the history of U.S. territorial expansion. Daniel Immerwahr, author of "How To Hide An Empire: A History Of The Greater United States," talks with Dave Davies about the complexities of the American experience ruling foreign lands. U.S. territories today include Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas - hope you can join us.

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BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR'S executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs today's show. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

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Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.