'The Brutalist' and 'Nickel Boys' are 2 ambitious and captivating dramas

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. One of this year's Kennedy Center honorees is singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt. She's a 10-time Grammy Award winner, best known for her soulful voice and her hit singles from the late 1980s - "Something To Talk About" and "I Can't Make You Love Me." She's also known for her depth of knowledge of classic blues. We're going to listen to Terry's 1996 interview with Raitt. At the time, she had released a live double CD called "Road Tested." That collection featured duets with some of the singer-songwriters and rhythm and blues performers who had shaped her musical style. Raitt was a 20-year-old college student when she got to know and learn from them. Terry invited Bonnie Raitt to bring and play some of the blues recordings that most influenced her. Before we hear them, let's listen to a song from her first album, which was released in 1971. This is the Robert Johnson song "Walking Blues."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WALKING BLUES")

BONNIE RAITT: (Singing) Woke up this morning, I'm feeling around for my shoes. You know 'bout that I must have had them old walking blues. Woke up this morning, people. I was feeling around for my shoes. Well, you know 'bout that I must have had them walking blues.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: Bonnie Raitt, welcome to FRESH AIR.

B RAITT: Hi, Terry. It's a pleasure to be here.

GROSS: You've brought with you some of your favorite recordings, some of the recordings that have really influenced you over the years. So I'd like to start with the recording that you brought by Mississippi Fred McDowell, "Write Me A Few Lines." Tell me why you've chosen this. This was recorded in 1964.

B RAITT: Well, I did because I've been performing that song, "Write Me A Few Of Your Lines," (ph) as well as his "Kokomo Blues, " probably since the first time I met Fred, I was about 19 in 1969, and he was part of the great blues rediscovery in the '60s of all these traditional delta blues men who a lot of times, like Fred, had spent the last 20 years being farmers and then suddenly were discovered by either British or white college kids coming over that just fell in love. And I got his record on our Hooley Records, and learned the song, and then I was honored enough to meet him and travel around with him. And I actually opened a lot of shows for him early on when I was still cutting my teeth and right before I got my first record deal. So he's really my favorite and my closest friend, and I miss him a lot. And I wanted people to know that when they hear my version on the live album, for example, that this is where we got it - the great Mississippi Fred McDowell.

GROSS: Oh, let's hear it - recorded in 1964.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WRITE ME A FEW LINES")

MISSISSIPPI FRED MCDOWELL: (Singing) Lord, when you get home, Baby, please write me a few of your lines. Lord, when you get home, Baby, sit down and write me a few of your lines. Lord, that-a be consolation Oh Lord, Mama, to my worryin' mind.

GROSS: That's Mississippi Fred McDowell - one of the records that Bonnie Raitt has brought with her today for us to listen to.

Now, what was it like when you were actually traveling with him and opening for him? I mean, was that one of the first times that you met one of the blues musicians who you liked so much from record?

B RAITT: Actually, I started out with the father of delta blues, making an appearance in Cambridge at the house of a man who helped rediscover him, Dick Waterman, who came to be a very important part of my life and a lot of the lives of blues people. Son House was staying with Dick Waterman in Cambridge, where I was going to college, and I heard through the Harvard radio station that he was going to be there and his other blues fanatic friend of mine said would you like to meet him? So I started with that, and then I met Dick Waterman that day and went on to get to hang out with Skip James and Big Boy Arthur Crudup and Fred McDowell and Mance Lipscomb, and then Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, were all people that Dick booked, and he had worked with Mississippi John Hurt, who unfortunately had passed away before I got a chance to meet him. But that was my entry into meeting all these great blues people. And part of the reason I took a semester off in my sophomore year was because I knew that these guys were up in age and that I wasn't going to have this opportunity to kind of get to know them and learn at their feet and be of service or just hang out and get - and soak this up. And that was when Fred and I just made this bond, and I'm sure he - as well as the other blues men - always got a big kick out of the fact that this little round-faced redhead was playing Robert Johnson songs and Son House songs. And I just sat there listening to their stories and learned to drink and, you know, try to be a blues woman at 20, which, you know, I managed to do by the time I was 40 and get recognized for it but...

(LAUGHTER)

B RAITT: ...I worked at it pretty hard there in the early days.

GROSS: Were you overwhelmed when you were 20 by the incredible differences between, you know, in age, race, gender, class, between you and the older blues musicians who you were understudying?

B RAITT: You know, I'm sure it was odd from the outside, but from the inside, most of the people that were in love with blues were white, middle-class kids that were just, you know, going to folk festivals and going around the South with tape recorders. And of course, the British interest in the blues and Big Bill Broonzy and Lead Belly, and that led to so many of these records being exposed to groups that became The Rolling Stones and The Animals and the Beatles, even. You know, the rhythm and blues music was on the radio at that time. Not delta blues, but rhythm and blues was on the radio right next to The Beatles and all the white groups. So it wasn't as segregated, and it didn't seem as culturally odd to me at the time. I just knew that I'd lucked into something.

GROSS: Now, on your latest album, your live album, you do a tribute to Fred McDowell. You play part of "Write Me A Few Of Your Lines," which we just heard. This is your "Kokomo" medley. Did you learn things from Fred McDowell in your guitar playing or your approach to song that you're still using today that you could describe for us?

B RAITT: Well, his particular - you know, my style is obviously a little different, and, of course, the key is different 'cause I sing in a woman's key. There was some chords that he used, you know, certain positions on the guitar that I wouldn't have been able to figure out because - until I watched him do it. But the basic way you learned guitar, for me, 'cause I didn't take lessons - was just listening and mimicking. And his soulfulness and just his abandon, the way he got into it - and when he played electric guitar, which he did a lot of the time in later years, because it cut through more to clubs where kids were noisy and, you know, that's what led me to the electric guitar was the way that the note would sustain and just sing and the way you could just - it's so funky when you get these, you know, cheap amps and, you know, that's just - you know, that's the stuff that makes David Lindley and Ry Cooder - Jackson Browne slide playing so great because they just use these really incredible amplification that duplicates the old, really inexpensive amps. And people want to know how to get that funky sound. Well, get a $25 guitar and the cheapest amp you can find.

GROSS: Let's hear your tribute to Fred McDowell, the "Kokomo" medley from your latest album, "Road Tested."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE KOKOMO MEDLEY")

B RAITT: (Singing) When you get home, baby, write me a few of your lines. When you get home, little baby, write me a few of your lines. That'll be consolation, Lord Honey, on my worried mind.

GROSS: That's Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie Raitt is my guest. Now, did he show you that opening riff?

B RAITT: No, I just heard it. You know, it's not that difficult to play. It's just one of the - whenever you're learning a song from somebody else, you don't really have to see it because you can just - unless you're playing some kind of amazing Jimi Hendrix thing, which I probably wouldn't even be able to tackle. These things that I play are really stuff that I can manage. It's the finesse of it and the soul that you put into it that makes him different from me, probably. And hopefully one day I'll get to be as funky as he is.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Now, I know when you were starting out, you were listening to folk music, as well as to blues. Now, women's voices in folk music at the time were kind of like clear, bell-like soprano voices. I'm thinking of, you know, Joan Baez, Judy Collins. And in blues, of course, it's a much kind of rougher voice that blues singers use. And I was wondering if - you have a beautiful, clear voice. I was wondering if you tried to also develop a gruffer voice for the blues singing?

B RAITT: Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought if I just drank Jim Beam and hung out with those guys...

GROSS: (Laughter).

B RAITT: ...And stayed up too late - and I couldn't stand the way I sounded when I was singing blues tunes. It just sounded the fruitiest, you know...

GROSS: (Laughter).

B RAITT: Whitest voice I'd ever heard, which I didn't mind singing Joan Baez songs. But, you know, I really did think that if I just lived that - you know, I went from being pretty much not a rabble-rouser as a teenager - I was a really good student. I went away to a Quaker school and went right to college. And I don't even think I partied at all until I was about 20. And the drinking age in Massachusetts wasn't even until 21. So I started hanging out with these hardcore guys.

And, you know, like any kid sitting at the feet of the masters - you know, I also got to go on tour hanging out with Buddy and Junior's band, on The Rolling Stones' tour of Europe. So that was some professional hound dogs there. So, you know, those first few years, it was very difficult to be as light sounding as I was. So I kind of made up for it by bravado and kind of swaggering around thinking I could be, you know, like Etta James in a minute.

GROSS: You know, when you started on the road and you were opening for a lot of older blues performers, you said that you had to kind of care for the alcohol for them, make sure they drank enough to get onstage, but not too much.

(LAUGHTER)

B RAITT: Yeah, that was an interesting position to be in. I'm sorry I cut you off, Terry. Go ahead.

GROSS: No, I was just going to ask you about that period and what it was like to realize that with some of the musicians, they needed to drink, but you had to make sure they didn't drink too much.

B RAITT: Yeah, there was one blues festival where it was kind of my job because there was a lot of different blues men in one backstage area, all of whom had not only different tastes on what to drink but could handle it differently. For example, Son House, if he had a couple of shots of vodka, he could remember all of his songs. And if he had too much, he couldn't remember them. So if he didn't have any at all, he usually didn't even want to play. So it was just one of these chemistry experiments that was kind of a funny anecdote for a young college student hanging out with these blues guys because it was kind of my job to help road manage.

And I had to be sure not to let somebody just pass a pint bottle to somebody that I knew was just going to get totally toasted, and he didn't play until four hours from now. You know, you're getting old guys that have been farmers and Pullman porters for 25 years, and suddenly everybody wants to give them anything they want in whatever quantity. And it did a lot of them in, you know? You have to be really careful. Otherwise, it's not helping anybody to give somebody who has a propensity to alcoholism too much alcohol. And we've all seen that in every lifestyle in rock 'n' roll.

BIANCULLI: Bonnie Raitt visiting with Terry Gross in 1996. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1996 interview with Bonnie Raitt, one of this year's Kennedy Center honorees. At the time, Raitt had just released a double CD collection called "Road Tested," in which she performed with blues artists who had strongly influenced her.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: Bonnie Raitt, the next record you've brought with you is by Sippie Wallace. And your fans will know that you've recorded a couple of her songs - "You Got To Know How," "Women Be Wise." Tell us about the record you've brought with you and why you've chosen it.

B RAITT: Well, this particular album, which has now been re-released on Alligator Records, it's from an album called, I think, "Sippie Sings The Blues," if they left the name the same. And I picked it up when I was 18. I spent the summer my freshman year on a college charter flight and traveled around Europe with a couple of girlfriends, went into the famous Dobell's record store in London and found this incredible picture of this woman in these rhinestone cat glasses. And it said Sippie Wallace. And I recognized the name from my old classic blues collection records, you know, compilations.

And I'd always really liked Sippie's music because she really didn't take any slack. You know, she didn't cut anybody any slack in terms of men at the time. She wasn't a victim. She was, you know, you can make me do what you want to do, but you got to know how. So I had bought the record, fell in love with her, had no idea she was still alive. And at that point, the record was only 2 or 3 years old, I think. And I'd recorded a couple of her songs, three actually, over my first two albums. And when I was invited to come to the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in 1972 to perform, I at that point had found out that that's where she was living in Detroit and invited her to come out onstage.

She said she would only do gospel because she was recovering from a stroke and had given up the blues and was playing in the church. And so I started playing "Women Be Wise" in the little trailer backstage, and she started kind of sashaying back and forth. And she said, well, maybe I'll just do one blues, you know? And the rest is kind of history because after that, she was the big hit of the festival, our duet of this song. And we went on to record it together on her subsequent album, "Sippie," on Atlantic Records. And we toured together for the next 15 years till she passed away at 86.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear that 1966 recording that you brought with you. And this is re-released on Alligator Records, Sippie Wallace.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMEN BE WISE")

SIPPIE WALLACE: (Singing) Now, women, be wise. Keep your mouth shut. Don't advertise your man. Don't ever sit around gossiping, explaining what your good man really can do. Now, these women nowadays, Lord, they ain't no good. They laugh in your face, then try to steal your man from you. Now, women, be wise, keep your mouth shut, and don't advertise your man. Don't be no fool. Don't advertise your man. Women be wise...

B RAITT: Man, oh, man.

GROSS: (Laughter) That's a wonderful recording.

B RAITT: That's really, really great.

GROSS: Yeah.

B RAITT: It just makes me smile so much to hear this again.

GROSS: Did Sippie Wallace give you any interesting advice about life or music?

B RAITT: Well, I'd say those lyrics, for starters. I mean, both "You Got To Know How" and "Women Be Wise" and "Mighty Tight Woman." All these tunes that she writes are real lessons, you know, and I learned a lot about what kind of songs appeal to me by what she chose to write about. And, yeah, I mean, just in terms of her love of family and her independence from men. I mean, she lost her husband many years previous to when I met her and seemed to have a very full life not being somebody's wife.

I'm sure she would have - you know, she missed her husband. He was the lover of her life, and she really had no desire to get connected again. And that was a very strong lesson to me as a young girl. Because I did grow up in a feminist era, and to have a blues woman or someone like Ruth Brown or Aretha Franklin as my role models, as well as Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. You know, these are women that just stood up for themselves and demanded respect.

GROSS: Bonnie Raitt is my guest, and we've asked her to bring with her some of her favorite recordings from the past, recordings that have really influenced her over the years. And Bonnie Raitt, the next album, the next recording that you brought with you is B. B. King. And this one goes back to 1958 - "Rock Me Baby." Tell me why you chose this one.

B RAITT: Well, I just - this is one of the greatest vocals I've ever heard. It's so simple. And the piano part and the arrangement. This is really early in - you know, even though B. B. started in the late '40s, early - and got a lot of his hits in the '50s. This was a record that was - that when I was 10 or 11 years old, I happened to hear on a radio station and later just was my - you know, everybody's got that one record that just turned their head around.

I mean, sometimes there's a Ray Charles tune that did it for me, and then later hearing John Lee Hooker when I was about 14. But B. B. King was a big star in Los Angeles on the Black radio, and "Rock Me Baby's" just a classic tune. I mean, many people have covered it, but I just wanted to bring it to let you know how unbelievably simple and pure and right to the bone this song can be. And B. B.'s still one of our greatest bluesmen, and I love him dearly.

GROSS: Let's hear it. "Rock Me Baby" B. B. King recorded in 1958 and reissued on the B. B. King box set.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK ME BABY")

B B KING: (Singing) Rock me, baby. Rock me all night long. Rock me, baby. Honey, rock me all night long. I want you to rock me, baby, like my back ain't got no bone. Roll me, baby, like you roll a wagon wheel. I want you to roll me, baby, like you roll a wagon wheel. I want you to roll me, baby. You don't know how it makes me feel.

GROSS: Bonnie Raitt, do you think that there's a specific influence B. B. King has had on your singing or guitar playing?

B RAITT: Well, I sure hope so. I don't know how to play single string lead on electric guitar as well as any of the guitar players that are currently out there. I play acoustic solos more, and I play pretty good rhythm guitar, but my lead playing tends to remain on the slide guitar, where I know what I'm doing better. So I just - it probably has more to do with phrasing and what to leave out, and just, you know, when you go crazy for somebody's style, it's not - unless you're doing a specific mimicking of what they're doing, which I don't do. I would say that my singing, just because of his restraint, his restraint, and his passion, I hope I got some influence from him because I just think he's one of the tastiest and most deep singers I've ever heard, as well as one of the greatest blues guitar players in the history of guitar players.

BIANCULLI: Bonnie Raitt, speaking to Terry Gross in 1996. After a break, we'll continue their conversation, and also hear from another of this year's Kennedy Center honorees, Francis Ford Coppola. Also, Justin Chang reviews two new films, "The Brutalist" and "Nickel Boys." Meanwhile, from Bonnie Raitt's latest CD, here's the track "Living For The Ones." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIVING FOR THE ONES")

B RAITT: (Singing) I can barely raise my head off the pillow. Some days I never get out of bed. I start out with the best of intentions and then shuck it instead. I don't think we'll get back how we use to. No use in trying to measure the loss. We better start getting used to it, and damn the cost. Go ahead and ask me how I make it through. Only way I know is to keep living for the ones (ones who didn't make it) Living for the ones...

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. Let's get back to Terry's 1996 interview with Bonnie Raitt, who is one of this year's Kennedy Center honorees. She grew up listening to Broadway songs. Her father, John Raitt, was a star in the Broadway musicals "Carousel," "Oklahoma!" and "The Pajama Game." Raitt sang with her father on his self-titled album, which was nominated for a Grammy in 1996.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: I'm interested if it took you a long time in your career to feel comfortable recording something like this - recording outside of the genre that you're known for.

B RAITT: Yeah, it took a long time to summon up the nerve. And I think, you know, somewhat a maturity and sobriety had something to do with it - you know, what comes with sobriety in terms of being able to have a perspective. And since that coincided with, you know, my late 30s, early 40s for me, it's hard to separate the two. I think that a great song has appealed to me, and I'd been in love with the songs of "Carousel" and "Oklahoma!" and "Pajama Game" since my dad has been singing them all my life. I just never really thought I would sing them in public. I certainly sung them enough in private just for fun and grew up singing them.

We started this idea out when we used to just practice, yeah, Christmas carols and would sing different Broadway songs in his pool. We'd be exercising together, and that was a good way to spend some father-daughter alone time. And next thing I knew, you know, he sort of suggested doing something together, maybe for the Pops. And before we knew it, we were performing with John Williams for "Evening At The Pops (ph)" a few years ago, and we did these songs that we ended up putting on my dad's album. And I enjoyed it so much and was terrified to sing in front of an orchestra in a town - in Boston that is - like, I got my start in. And I think it - the fact that it was a safe ground made it an easy first date.

And we went on to do David Letterman together, and he's been coming out over the - many years and singing "Oklahoma!" at the end of my shows. But I must say I was shivering in my boots the first time I sang "They Say That Falling In Love Is Wonderful (ph)" in front of my audience. But they, you know, stood up and cheered, and that gave me the confidence to put it on a record.

GROSS: OK, well, from the album "John Raitt Broadway Legend," let's hear Bonnie Raitt and her father singing "Hey There" from "The Pajama Game."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEY THERE")

B RAITT: (Singing) Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes. Love never made a fool of you. You used to be too wise. Hey there, you on that high-flying cloud. Though she won't throw a crumb to you, you think someday she'll come to you. Better forget her.

JOHN RAITT: Forget her.

B RAITT: (Singing) Her with her nose in the air.

J RAITT: (Singing) Her with her nose in the air.

B RAITT: (Singing) She has you dancing on a string.

J RAITT: (Singing) A puppet on a string.

B RAITT: (Singing) Break it, and she won't care.

J RAITT: (Singing) She won't care for me.

B RAITT: (Singing) Won't you...

JOHN RAITT AND BONNIE RAITT: (Singing) Take this advice I hand you like a brother?

J RAITT: (Singing) Or am I not seeing things too clear?

B RAITT: (Singing) Are you too much in love to hear?

J RAITT: (Singing) Is it all going in one ear...

J RAITT AND B RAITT: (Singing) And out the other?

GROSS: That's Bonnie Raitt and her father, John Raitt.

Well, I want to end with something from your "Road Tested" album. And this is, "I Can't Make You Love Me." It's a really beautiful ballad - very moving. Is this a favorite of yours, too?

B RAITT: Yeah, I'd have to say that, of all the tunes I've recorded, this one moves me the most, and I - it's the one that gets mentioned to me when I'm out and about and - you know, skycaps or people that are taking my reservation on the phone. You know, they're just - have spoken to me about how much that song means. And I just have to thank Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin for feeling as deeply as they did to come up with this because I definitely think this is one that's going to stand the test of time.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN'T MAKE YOU LOVE ME")

B RAITT: (Singing) Turn down the lights. Turn down the bed. Turn down these voices inside my head. Lay down with me. Tell me no lies. Just hold me close. Don't patronize. Don't patronize me. 'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't. Here in the dark, in these final hours, I will lay down my heart and feel the power. You won't. No, you won't. I can't make you love me if you don't.

BIANCULLI: Bonnie Raitt. Coming up, another of this year's Kennedy Center honorees - filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Francis Ford Coppola also is a Kennedy Center Honoree for 2024. We're going to listen to the story he told Terry Gross in 2016 about how Marlon Brando came to be cast in Coppola's masterpiece "The Godfather." At the time she spoke with him, he had published the notes he had written while he made that film. The notebook contained his thoughts about each scene, including the pitfalls he wanted to avoid. It also included pages from the novel on which the movie was based, Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," with Coppola's notes in the margin.

Let's begin with the opening scene in which the character Bonasera has come to the Godfather, Don Vito Corleone, seeking justice. Bonasera's daughter was brutally beaten after she resisted two boys who had tried to take advantage of her. Bonasera says he went to the police like a good American. The boys were tried in court, but the judge gave them a suspended sentence, and they went free that very day. Bonasera wants revenge against those boys. The Godfather, played by Marlon Brando, offers this response.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")

SALVATORE CORSITTO: (As Bonasera) I believe in America. Americans made my fortune.

MARLON BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) We've known each other many years, but this is the first time you ever came to me for counsel or for help. I can't remember the last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife was godmother to your child. But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. You were afraid to be in my debt.

CORSITTO: (As Bonasera) I didn't want to get into trouble.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) I understand. You found paradise in America. You have a good trade, made a good living. Police protected you, and there were courts of law. You didn't need a friend like me. But now you come to me and you say, Don Corleone, give me justice. But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter's to be married and you ask me to do murder for money.

CORSITTO: (As Bonasera) I ask you for justice.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) That is not justice. Your daughter is still alive.

CORSITTO: (As Bonasera) Let them suffer, then, as she suffers. How much shall I pay you?

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, then the scum that ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, then he would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.

CORSITTO: (As Bonasera) Be my friend, Godfather?

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) Good. Someday, and that day might never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this gesture as a gift on my daughter's wedding day.

CORSITTO: (As Bonasera) Grazie, Godfather.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) Prego.

BIANCULLI: That's a scene from "The Godfather" featuring Marlon Brando. Terry asked Francis Ford Coppola if Mario Puzo had first suggested casting Brando.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: Well, it's true that Mario had always liked the idea of Brando. But, you know, Mario was often at Bay Shore. He was not really on the scene so much as - even a lot of my work with him was my sending him drafts and him writing notes. So although he had posed the idea of the Godfather being Brando, I don't even know if he told me that 'cause I just was hit by a whole bunch of ideas from the studio. Danny Thomas was one, Ernest Borgnine - it was a whole bunch of ideas. Even Carlo Ponti was suggested.

And finally I came down to the thing about the character, of that character was that, you know, you couldn't find anyone new, as we had done for all the other parts. Al Pacino was totally unknown. Johnny Cazale was, well - Bobby Duval was relatively unknown. So a lot of new people got big parts. But, like, a man who was supposed to be in his 60s, it couldn't be new and, like, had never been in anything before because, what was he doing all those years? So finally, with my colleague in casting, Fred Roos, we said, well, who are the two greatest actors in the world? So we said, well, Laurence Olivier and Marlon Brando.

Each one had a difficulty for that part. Olivier was British. He was perfect age. He looked like one of the real guys, a Genovese. And Brando was only 47 years old. He was extremely handsome, as always. He had long, flowing blond hair. And most important, he had just been in some pictures, notably one by the great Pontecorvo called "Burn!" That was a huge flop, tremendous financial flop. So the studio felt that Brando was supposedly difficult to work with, sort of irresponsible, you know, would cause big delays. The film was only budgeted for $2.5 million dollars, you have to understand. It wasn't like we could throw money around. And my decision to make it in the '40s and have period cars and shoot in New York was already impacting the cost.

So that's one of the reasons why I was so unpopular. But they also hated my casting ideas. They hated Al Pacino for the role of Michael, and they hated Marlon Brando for the role of the Godfather. And I was told categorically by the president of Paramount - he says, Francis, as the president of Paramount Pictures, I tell you here and now Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture, and I forbid you to bring it up again.

TERRY GROSS: But you won. How did you win?

COPPOLA: Well, when he said, I forbid you to bring it up again I, like, feigned that I just fell on the floor on the carpet and, like, you know, as if, you know, what - and then I said, what am I supposed to do if you tell me I can't even discuss it? How can I be a director if I - if the part I think should be cast - that you won't even let me talk about it? And they said, all right, we'll tell you it this way. One, if he will do the movie for free; two, if he will put up - if he'll do a screen test; and three, if he'll put up a million-dollar bond that he will in no way have any misbehavior that causes the - you know, the overrun of the picture budget - then you can do it.

So I said, I accept (laughter), you know? So at least they were saying if I did three things - have a screen test, if I could get him to do the movie for nothing, and if I could have him put up a million dollars, which is absurd. But at least I said I accept, meaning, OK, now I can talk about it.

GROSS: So did he do the movie for free?

COPPOLA: No. I called him up and I said to Marlon, Marlon, you know, of course this is an Italian American. You know, wouldn't it be fun if we could, like, do a little experiment and kind of improv and see what playing an Italian might be like? That was my way to talk to an actor essentially asking for a screen test, but I didn't put it in those ways.

And I knew that if I could do something with this little screen test that was convincing, the absurd idea of him doing it for nothing - although they didn't pay him much more than nothing. I think they paid him scale, which was an insult. And obviously, the putting up a bond to prevent misbehavior was, you know - sometimes, you know, you say you accept terms meaning that you just have a way to continue. So the important thing was to do some sort of a little screen test that I could get on tape and show to all these executives.

GROSS: So you played this kind of little trick. And he did improv on - or whatever on film for you. What did he bring to that audition that he didn't realize was an audition?

COPPOLA: I had always heard the rumor that Marlon Brando didn't like loud noises and he always wore things in his ears, so I took a couple of my colleagues from San Francisco from this period of, you know, having young filmmakers all - have them come. And I told them all to dress in black. And no one was to speak. We would do sign language. And so we descended on Marlon's house early in the morning. He wasn't up.

And these dinges (ph) went to different corners and set up their cameras. And I also brought a whole bunch of, like, Italian salsiccia and little Italian cigars and provolone and little things, and I put them in dishes around just without even saying what I was doing. And then the door opened. They said he was going to wake up, and the door opened. Out came this beautiful man in a Japanese robe with long (laughter) flowing blond hair. And I'm - we're shooting all of this. And he came out and he didn't talk very much.

He - you know, he's - Marlon was a brilliant man, and he just knew what was going on instantly. And he - I remember he came and he took his hair, and he rolled it up and made it sort of like a bun in the back. And then he took shoe polish and he made - and he was mumbling the whole time. And he made shoe polish - and made his hair black. And then he put on the shirt that I had brought. And I remember him folding the lapel - those guys always - their lapel is always folded, he said.

And right in front of my eyes - but then he said, oh, he's shot in the throat in the story, (impersonating Brando) so he should talk like this. You know, his throat. And he started doing that. And right in front of my eyes, he transformed himself into this character. And I couldn't believe it. And then he started picking up the sausage and eating it. And he just gravitated to the props and was using it to create a kind of Italianness the way he did it. And the whole time he was just going like this, he was going (impersonating Italian accent) - he wasn't saying anything, which was funny because his phone rang. This was his home. His phone rang, and he picked up the phone and went (impersonating Italian accent). I said, my God, who was that who called? What are they going to think? But when it was all done, I had this tape, and it was quite remarkable.

BIANCULLI: Francis Ford Coppola speaking to Terry Gross in 2016. He and Bonnie Raitt are two of this year's Kennedy Center Honorees. The ceremony, held earlier this month, is scheduled to be televised Sunday on CBS. Other nominees for 2024 include the Grateful Dead, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the iconic Harlem theater The Apollo. After a break, Justin Chang reviews two new films that have made many critics end-of-year top-10 lists, "Nickel Boys" and "The Brutalist." This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our film critic, Justin Chang, recommends two new movies that have been hailed by critics groups as among the years' best. In "The Brutalist," Adrien Brody stars as a Hungarian Jewish architect who ends up in Pennsylvania after World War II. "Nickel Boys" is an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel set in a juvenile detention facility in the Jim Crow South. Both films are now in theaters.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: It's a common complaint among moviegoers that the best new films aren't released until the last few months or even weeks of the year so as to maximize their Oscar prospects. While that's not always the case - great movies are, in fact, released all year round - I do wish audiences hadn't had to wait until December to see "Nickel Boys" and "The Brutalist." They're both ambitious period dramas directed by two filmmakers of extraordinary talent and vision.

"Nickel Boys" is simply one of the most thrillingly inventive literary adaptations I've seen in years. It's based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel by Colson Whitehead about two black boys in 1960s Florida who were sent to a reform school called Nickel Academy. Elwood, played by Ethan Herisse, is a studious teenager who lands in Nickel after unwittingly hitching a ride in a stolen car. At Nickel, he meets Turner, played by Brandon Wilson. The two forge a close friendship that sustains them through the tedium and the terror of life at Nickel.

Whitehead based his story on real-life events at Florida's Dozier School for Boys, which operated from 1900 to 2011, and where many students were found to have been abused, tortured and, in some cases, murdered by staff. Elwood, an idealist deeply inspired by the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., believes he can get out of Nickel through legal channels with some help from his loving grandmother, wonderfully played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. But the more cynical streetwise Turner has his doubts.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NICKEL BOYS")

ETHAN HERISSE: (As Elwood) My grandmother got me that lawyer, man. Make a move there first.

BRANDON WILSON: (As Turner) Of course, play both the white and the black. They just move us around when they're ready.

HERISSE: (As Elwood) Then we have to be like knights. Checkmate.

WILSON: (As Turner) How many people you know done that, El? There are four ways out of Nickel - serve your time or age out. The court might intervene - if you believe in miracles. You could die. They could kill you. You could run.

CHANG: "Nickel Boys" is the first narrative feature written and directed by RaMell Ross, who previously made "Hale County This Morning, This Evening," a lyrical documentary about Black life in Alabama. Remarkably, Ross' filmmaking has lost none of its poetry here. He and his cinematographer, Jomo Fray, have boldly decided to tell the story in the visual equivalent of first person so that at any given moment, you're seeing the world through the eyes of either Elwood or Turner. The approach takes some getting used to, but the effect is astonishing. It calls on us to empathize in a radical new way with these two young men, their fleeting hopes and their crushing sense of entrapment.

By toggling between Elwood's and Turner's perspectives and showing us how much they depend on each other, the movie makes us feel as if their souls are truly connected. An achievement that becomes all the more heartbreaking as the film goes on. "The Brutalist" is no less beautifully shot than "Nickel Boys," but it's told in a more straightforward, classically sweeping fashion. Adrien Brody, in his best performance since he won an Oscar for "The Pianist," stars as Laszlo Toth, a Holocaust survivor who arrives in New York in 1947. Back in his native Hungary before the war, Laszlo was an architect famed for designing austere, unadorned buildings.

In the U.S., he winds up in Pennsylvania. He's a nobody, shoveling coal and struggling with a heroin addiction. But then Laszlo finds an unlikely benefactor in Harrison Lee Van Buren, a self-made titan of industry who lives in Doylestown just north of Philadelphia. He's played magnificently by Guy Pearce. Harrison learns of Laszlo's European reputation and hires him to design a local community center, a yearslong project that will become an expensive, all-consuming obsession. In time, Laszlo is reunited with his wife, Erzsebet, a very good Felicity Jones, from whom he was separated during the war. But her return can only do so much to ground him as he succumbs to the pull of ambition and addiction. "The Brutalist" is clearly in conversation with "The Fountainhead." Like Ayn Rand's architect protagonist, Howard Roark, Laszlo is a stubborn, uncompromising visionary. But the actor-turned-filmmaker Brady Corbet, who previously directed the corrosive popstar psychodrama, "Vox Lux," is chasing after some thorny ideas of his own.

"The Brutalist" is about the challenges of cultural assimilation, the crucial role that immigrant labor played in America's post-war boom and the inherent power imbalance between patrons and artists. It's also about antisemitism. Laszlo is tolerated - barely - within Harrison's waspy inner circle. His genius makes him interesting and valuable to them but it also makes him exploitable. Not everything about "The Brutalist" works. One late plot twist seems a touch literal minded, and I'm still chewing over the meaning of the final act. But Corbet, who's only 36, is already a director of startling confidence, and he's made a rare American film that feels genuinely worthy of the word epic. Here I should note that "The Brutalist" runs three hours and 35 minutes and holds you for every one of them. There is a 15-minute intermission, and I couldn't wait for it to end.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed "The Brutalist" and "Nickel Boys." On Monday's show, some great Christmas music. John Batiste will be at the piano to play, sing and talk about some of his favorite Christmas songs. It's part two of the session we recorded with him. And we'll listen back to Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson playing recordings from the Christmas playlist he put together for us. Hope you can join us. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

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