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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour and Company.” Here’s what’s coming up.
U.S.-China relations take a wild ride in a chaotic week. I ask the American sinologist, Jamie Metzl, did the U.S. get China all wrong from the
very start?
Then, under fire from the streets, French president, Macron, abandons his controversial fuel tax increases. But Paris still bracing for another
weekend of violent protest.
And from wildfires to cowboys, actor and playwright, Zoey Kazan, on her prolific career on stage and screen.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
And what a difference a week makes. Last weekend, the financial world breathed a sigh of relief as the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day truce in
their trade war. But confusion quickly arose about just what had been agreed and President Trump proclaimed himself a tariff man.
Global stock markets have been predictably unpredictable and volatile. Add to that, the United States has asked Canada to extradite a top executive
from the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei. All this complicates sky high tensions between the two countries, which in turn fuels investor concerns
about global growth.
So, what exactly is its stake in this rivalry between two economic superpowers and how did the United States get the rise of China so very
wrong from the get-go? Jamie Metzl has studied these questions up close, having worked in both the Clinton White House and in the Senate on foreign
policy and he joins me from New York to discuss the current state of affairs.
Jamie Metzl, welcome to the program.
JAMIE METZL, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Happy to be here.
AMANPOUR: So, let’s talk about China. And of course, let’s start by remembering that this is the week that the former President Bush 41 was
laid to rest and that China was a very big and important part of his foreign policy experience. Put into context the kind of China the
President Bush dealt with, first as envoy then as president.
METZL: Well, China at that time was a very different animal from what it is today. At that time, China was emerging from many decades of turmoil,
they weren’t that far out of their experience of Mao and the Great Leap Forward. And the reforms under Deng were just beginning.
And so, the U.S. and China had a pretty decent relationship at the end of the Cold War because the U.S. and China had come together in opposition of
the Soviet Union. And so, at that time the goal for the United States was to integrate China into the global economy as quickly as possible. And
certainly, China under Deng recognized that that was what China needed as well.
And so, there was this great moment of opportunity at the end of the Cold War when people, leaders like President Bush and others in the West thought
that the U.S. and China could really work together in a great way to build greater prosperity and peace and security for everybody. But as you know,
Christiane, as China has become more economically powerful, its ambitions have grown significantly and that’s led us into the situation we’re in
today.
AMANPOUR: It is extraordinary to think given today’s politics and given Trump’s politics on China that when Deng Xiaoping came to the United States
wearing, you know, a cowboy hat, going to NASA wearing an astronaut’s helmet or whatever it was, it was the U.S. which fueled the growth of
China, the economic giant, right?
METZL: Yes. The U.S. felt that we were stakeholders in China’s economic growth. And then to a certain extent, that exists in some ways today. So,
bringing China into the modern world and helping the development of China, both as a strong economy but potentially as a future partner and certainly,
as a market, was seen as something that was an inherent good at that time.
AMANPOUR: And what did the West, if I could put it this way, get a little wrong about what economic empowerment and embracing capitalism would
actually mean to China? I mean, did they think it would open it up in ways that the West would recognize?
METZL: Absolutely. There was this idea that as societies developed there was a certain per capita income level. At that time, I think it was at
around $6,000 or equivalent per person, when middle class society started demanding their rights and forcing the change of political system. So, a
lot of people thought that.
And people thought that if the U.S. invest in that kind of growth, it was inevitable that China would need to open up. And certainly, the beginning
of the information revolution and the advent of the internet made people feel that even more strongly, that people in China and around the world
would have access to information and that would be empowering.
And what people got wrong was, one, the ability of the Chinese government to manage the kind of economic growth while maintaining its centralize
political control. And two, was that these technology systems, including the internet and information technology tools were, in many ways,
politically agnostic, that in certain environments they could feed openness but in other environments they could be used to repress or at least surveil
a society in some very significant ways.
AMANPOUR: So, again, George Bush as president, was there — during that awful night in 1989 where people did rise up, they did want to little bit
more of that openness that they thought came with capitalism and the state crackdown with a ferocity that people hadn’t expected, that in a way was
the turning point, right? It was China putting the world on notice that we like your economic system, we don’t like anything else about you.
METZL: Tenement Square was a turning point for everybody, for the Chinese, it was a turn away from this kind of creeping openness. And for the West,
there was a big choice at that time and there was — there were people of two minds.
So, the business community was very much for a continued engagement with China, the human rights community, as you know, was pushing for being
tougher on human rights. And for a while, the business community prevailed and the U.S.-China relationship was primarily about business opportunities.
But then, later in the process, the business community started to sour on China because they recognized that there — that they were being robbed in
many ways of their intellectual property, being forced to — into partnerships with Chinese counterparts that were not behaving, at least,
according to the set of rules, that Western societies and companies were used to.
AMANPOUR: All right. So, which brings us fast forward to the present moment. President Donald Trump has put himself forth as the president who
is going to deal with these very issues that you’ve just spoken about once and for all, whether it’s what they believe to be economically ripped off
or intellectually ripped off, all of that kind of stuff.
So, here we are, just give us a reason, put it into context, why the stock markets all over the world have been plummeting over this last week having
briefly risen and breathes a sigh of relief after the G20 meeting between Xi Jinping paying and Donald Trump?
METZL: Yes. So, let’s talk about the jump because that happened first. So, the U.S.-China economic relations and frankly, all relations between
the United States and China have been on a downward trend for some time, even before President Trump took office.
And then there was the imposition of these tariffs by the United States with the idea that they would go up on January first unless China responded
in ways that were not clearly articulated by the Bush administration. So, that’s caused a lot of uncertainty.
AMANPOUR: The Trump administration?
METZL: Right. I’m sorry. My mistake. By the Trump administration. And that’s caused a lot of uncertainty both in China and the United States and
also around the world because the U.S. and Chinese economies are integrated in many ways, particularly through these global supply chains.
And so, when President Trump and Xi met in Buenos Aires and they agreed that there was going to be basically a three-month pause where some kind of
agreement could be negotiated and allegedly that China was going to do a lot of purchases of agricultural and perhaps energy resources from the
United States, immediately that caused a momentary sigh of relief.
But then, peep traders and others and people around the world looked at the underlying issues and recognized, I believe, that the issues were in many
ways structural, that it’s not a big deal for China to buy more soybeans, to buy liquefied natural gas from the United States and in many ways,
that’s a good deal for China because they need these agricultural products if they buy a lot more of products — product from the United States at the
expense of American allies like Canada and Australia and others China gets the resources, U.S. allies feel they’re being harmed by U.S. policy and
China has its eyes firmly set on building the economy of the 21st century based on advanced technology.
So, if China can buy off the United States with addressing that much easier issue of the budget — of the deficit just by these kinds of purchases,
that’s a win for China. But there are deeper structural issues that I hope, at least, that the administration is focusing on and that is the
theft of intellectual property, the forced technology transfer, the lack of reciprocity of access into the Chinese versus the American markets.
And to address those issues, it’s not cheaper because for China, they have essentially bet the shop on building those technologies of the future,
that’s what they Made in China 2025 program is about, that’s what all of their economic plans are.
And so, for them to change that, for them to return to recognize their economic growth to get — to realize their goals isn’t going to come from
force technology transfer and intellectual property theft and a state run system, which they now have but has to adapt to some kind of other system
based on U.S. demand, that’s a much more difficult path —
AMANPOUR: All right.
METZL: — less likely and I think the markets are reflecting that.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, some of the remedies that President Trump and his advisors have taken and believe will work are these tariffs, this whole
tariff war. And of course, the markets have plummeted, we are told, because the investor are not reassured anymore that this trade war is over
and a truce has been negotiated.
So, let us read a few of President Trump’s most recent tweets just this week, “I am a tariff man. When people or countries come in to raid the
great wealth of our nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are
right now taking in billions of dollars in tariffs. Make America rich again.” Then he says, of course, if there is a fair deal able to be made
with China, he will happily sign it on Make America Great Again.
So, is Donald Trump correct that his tariffs on the right way? You know, he said tariffs a good, a tariff war can be easily won. Is that the case
as we stand right now today?
METZL: Well, it’s certainly the case. I believe, at least, that China is raiding America. The IPR, the Intellectual Property Rights theft —
Intellectual Property Theft by China from the United States — from U.S. companies is probably the greatest technology transfer and forced theft of
national assets in the history of the global economy.
So, we shouldn’t under play the how China has benefited from breaking a lot of the “rules” of international trade and it’s been very aggressive in
doing so. But where the problem is in the response.
So, even if the prognosis of the problem is, in some ways, accurate, the response doesn’t make a lot of sense because tariffs aren’t — it’s not
just if we have a tariff, that’s some kind of tax that China pays and all of that money goes straight into the into the treasury. If the U.S. car
manufacturers, for example, are using parts that are made in China and those parts are more expensive because of these tariffs, it’s not the
Chinese who are paying that, that is the — auto manufacturers are becoming less competitive, U.S. consumers are needing to pay those prices.
So, it’s not that this is just some one way easy thing. And that’s a real problem, is that tariffs are in fact a tool of coercion. And so, we need
to recognize that. But of all of the different ways that the United States could pressure China, this is a very, very blunt instrument. And the way
that had been on the front burners, which is to build a global alliance of countries that believe in this — the kinds of standards of free and fair
and open trade that have laid the foundation for peace and prosperity in much of the world over past decades, if those countries could come together
and exert together pressure on China, whether it was through the transpacific partnership or the TTIP, the Europe-North American Free Trade
Agreement, that would have put a lot more pressure.
This is the — these tariffs are certainly creating some pressure but is — this is a much better — it is much better for China that Trump is — that
the Trump administration is doing it this way rather than doing it in the other more multilateral ways.
AMANPOUR: Wow. Well, that message needs to get to his economic advisors because they are talking up a storm about the victory that President Trump
scored over President Xi in Argentina.
And just to not put too fine a point on it. But given the fact that the United States misinterpreted or failed to recognize what China really could
do in opening up its economy and was sort of caught on the back foot and, you know, millions of U.S. jobs have gone since that opening up, have you
seen any evidence that — you know, you keep saying it could pressure China, it could be a good thing despite the risk, have you seen any
evidence of China buckling or looking like it’s moving towards bending?
METZL: Well, that’s the thing, is — so, China will throw some bones to the Trump administration, they will increase their purchases of soybeans
and liquefied natural gas, they will decrease their tariffs on U.S. autos, which was at 15 percent then it went up to 40 percent in retaliation. So,
maybe they’ll go down to something lower than 15 percent.
They will make some nominal, some head fakes, saying they’re going to address issues of IPR theft, Intellectual Property Theft, as they’ve done
this week. But the real question is, will they make the kinds of deep structural changes that will make China less of a toxic player in the
international system. And China can’t do that without a tremendous amount of pain at home.
And right now, if you’re President Xi, you’d much rather face the wrath of Donald Trump than face the wrath of some kind of unforeseen problem in your
domestic political context inside of China.
AMANPOUR: I just want to go back to this idea of political openness and using the internet. Remember that when the internet first emerged, you
know, President Clinton was in office and this is what he said about what it would mean for China and openness. Just listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, THEN-U.S. PRESIDENT: When China joins the WTO, by 2005 it will eliminate tariffs on information technology products, making the tools
of communication even cheaper, better and more widely available.
We know how much the internet has changed America and we are already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China.
Now, there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet. Good luck.
That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Whoops. There was a big miscalculation.
METZL: Exactly, exactly. Yes. No. So, that was what a lot of people thought and it was just wrong.
And the joke, in many ways, is on us, that the Chinese internet rather, in some ways — and certainly, people in China have a lot more access, the
internet has been used to bring a lot of people into the modern world but it is not in many, many ways a force of political freedom or liberation.
As a matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite. China is not only keeping foreign information out but these IT systems are being used as very
powerful and very effective tools of domestic control.
And China is now going to be moving towards this social credit system where everything that you do in the digital world and in the real world is
measured in a score. And your ability to get a loan or start a business or be on a dating site will all be impacted by how you — by your social
credit score. So, we certainly got that wrong.
And the other thing that’s critical to this is, we are moving toward a world where there are two competitive ecosystems that are competing with
each other to determine not just the future of the global economy but where the world hits, and that’s the U.S. and the Chinese.
And while the Chinese are very focused on their using technology and other means to build their world and try to build the world around them in their
image, the United States, rather than recognizing that we are, in many ways, in the fight of our life, to build a better future for ourselves and
for everybody, we have a president whose pitting Americans against each other, and that’s really dangerous especially now.
AMANPOUR: Well, also, I just want to — you know, of course, when we talk about the internet, they control it and yet they use it freely to conduct
billions and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of economic activity, they couldn’t do without the internet for their economic activity.
So, I want to just finish by asking you whether you are not alarmed that for decades the most powerful country in the world with the best
intelligence service, the best technology, the best human intelligence has simply got China wrong?
METZL: It’s true. And because we had a lot of hope. We had a lot of hope that the more they learned about us, the more they had access to our
systems, to our technologies, the more they would like to like us.
And we had that experience because we had many of the countries that we interacted with in the past who were inside of our security umbrella,
whether it’s Germany or Japan or Korea or Taiwan or others, that was what happened. But China was, in many ways, a very different animal. Like
Russia, it saw itself as a great civilization, with its own history and its own tradition, and it is all of all of those things, and it was perfectly
happy to get what we had to offer of the things that China wanted but to reject everything else.
AMANPOUR: It is amazing.
METZL: We — yes. So, this whole idea of the end of history, that it’s inevitable that everyone is going to move toward us, that was wrong. And
now, we need to recognize that we are fighting for history, we’re fighting to build the kind of future that we would like to live in, and that’s a
huge challenge for all of us and certainly, for everyone here in the United States.
AMANPOUR: Jamie Metzl, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, thank you for wrapping up the U.S.-China week.
METZL: My pleasure.
AMANPOUR: Now, while the U.S. and China tussle over trade, they are at least in sync on one thing, and that is pollution. Both countries saw
their carbon emissions rise substantially in 2018, resulting in global emissions, hitting an all-time high. But efforts to combat climate change
are facing challenges everywhere.
Nowhere is this clearer than in France right now where the government has abandoned its planned fuel tax rise after weeks of civil unrest. But
despite this concession, the French government anticipates this weekend bringing more protests and with it more violence.
She so-called “Yellowjacket” protests may have begun with the fuel tax but now, it’s about a whole raft of grievances, over inequality and injustice,
with the blame being laid firmly and personally at Emmanuel Macron’s door.
The president has deliberately cultivated a certain mystique around his office. But now, he faces criticism, that he’s too removed from the
concerns of ordinary French people.
Laurence Haim, one of France’s top journalists has covered politics both at home and in Washington D.C. and she served a spokeswoman for Macron during
his successful presidential run in 2017. She joins me from Paris to discuss what might happen and what’s at stake this weekend.
Laurence Haim, welcome to the program.
LAURENCE HAIM, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR EMMANUEL MACRON: Thank you so much, Christiane. It’s a pleasure to be with you.
AMANPOUR: Well, I really am — you know, I’m really glad to be speaking to you because you were his spokesman in the run up to the election and you
have been a long-time journalist, both in France and in the United States.
So, Mr. Marcon and his government have backed down after four weeks of protests and in the face of more this weekend, they have scrapped the fuel
tax. Are you surprised by that?
HAIM: We are all surprised. But it was inevitable. You had to do it because in front of this moment, this is what people are calling a
historical crisis. Nobody knows what’s going to happen on Saturday. The climate is extremely (INAUDIBLE). You have been, Christiane, in may
warzone, I have been with you on the road. And I can tell you that it’s the same atmosphere that before a big explosion.
This is extremely (INAUDIBLE). The Elize (ph) yesterday was saying that they fear for the worst on Saturday. And you cannot take this thing as so
many Americans are doing like, “Oh, my God. This is again the French, they’re striking.” This time, this is very different and this is very
serious.
AMANPOUR: So, tell me what you mean by its very different? And you use the word explosive and you talk about the Elize (ph) bracing for the worst.
Again, you are an insider or at least you have been. So, this is serious what you’re saying.
HAIM: It’s extremely serious. Again, yesterday, the spokesperson from the Eliza (ph) was saying that their fear for violence. The climate is
extremely volatile. And I’m very surprised coming from the United States on being friends (INAUDIBLE) American, I’m very surprised by the
personalization of the conflict.
People are protesting against taxes. But now, they are also protesting, personally speaking, against President Macron. There’s a real
personalization. (INAUDIBLE), this movement, which at that this time does not have leader, all over France and in Paris, when you talk to the people
they are saying, “We hate Macron. We don’t want him. He has to resign.”
In the demonstration last Saturday mixed with a lot of violence, you heard that, “Please, Macron, resign,” and that’s what’s scary.
Yesterday evening, on a news program in France, there was a leader who was asking the people to march on the Eliza (ph). You have to remember,
Christiane, something, France has a new story of revolution, and this is not like in the United States.
Here, in the past 200 years, when people are not happy, they’re going to the streets, they protest and sometimes, unfortunately, it’s extremely
violent.
AMANPOUR: I am though still extraordinarily bemused because I have covered France a lot, I’ve covered violent protests, I have watched presidents
backdown in the past. And I am still trying to figure out what makes this one so much different. And let me just read to you what some of the people
have been telling CNN. This is Terry Paul Valeti (ph), he’s a member of the gilet jaune. He said, “We want the fortune tax to be reinstated. The
government’s evaluation is not good enough. We need measures now. We can’t wait any longer or it will be a civil war.”
Another gilet jaune says, “The moratorium on the gas prices is useful — useless. People want a referendum on Macron, the Senate and the National
Assembly.” And then another person who’s not a gilet jaune but says he supports the movement, “I’ve been at the last two protests because I
sympathize with them. I can understand why they will continue to protest this Saturday, so they can get more concessions.”
All right. So, he’s given a concession, he backed down on the fuel tax, it’s out of the picture, at least, for the next few year, it’s out of the
2019. Now, it’s about the wealth tax. What is it that people want with this so-called wealth tax?
HAIM: They want job. They want an increase in their salary. You have to realize that here, most of the people in France are now making $1,500 a
month, they really want something else, they want to be heard. They (INAUDIBLE) global wear. Their income inequality.
And here in France, they cannot make it. That’s what the people are saying. When you speak to specially woman who are over 50, who are
mothers, they’re in the street at this moment and they are saying, “We cannot make it at the end of the month. We’re going to shop for food and
we have in our hands a wallet but we cannot pay because we do not have money.” There’s a lot poverty in France.
I know that when you come to Paris, it’s always this beautiful city, this is fantastic, the French accent, the good food, this is cliche, this is
over. There’s a terrible economic crisis at this moment in France.
President Macron wanted to come to reform. It was not done in the past by the predecessor, by Francois, b Nicolas Sarkozy, even by Jacques Chirac.
And people wanted him to reform and then he did — in my opinion and this is a personal opinion, he backed up several times, the created what it’s
called the Jupiter Effect, like he wanted to restart the image of a very great president, talking to world leaders.
But people in the street wanted him to be with them. He did not do that. And when he tried, it was not sometimes the best way to do it. He’s paying
in a way for his communication mistake, he’s paying for this image of a star trooper who wants to do something but does not understand what’s
happening in the street for people who are suffering.
And you know, Christiane, also, in the world we live in at this moment, the middle class is suffering, the democracy in many countries is at stake,
that’s what’s happening in the France. There’s a clash of two societies at this moment. And in France, it’s not Donald Trump but it’s almost a
revolution.
AMANPOUR: Well, again, these are incredibly apocalyptic views that you’re putting and very, very strange because President Macron, he said to me when
I got his first interview right after he was elected, he said, “I have to work to reform this country for my people. I have 10 percent unemployment.
I have 25 percent unemployment amongst the youth. I must make these reforms so they can benefit from the money,” that’s why he scrapped the
wealth tax as it was before and kept it on property because he thought — he said, “If I remove the tax on stocks, then French will invest in France
and not, you know, in foreign stocks,” and that was to be the benefit.
And then, when I asked him, “Will you back down like so many other presidents when there’s burning in the streets?” He said, “No.” Let me
play you this it will bit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Will you, like other French presidents I’ve asked, essentially back off if a protest get too strong?
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: No. I will deliver. Why? Because I was very clear during my campaign about the reforms. I explained these
reforms. I presented these reform during weeks and weeks and I was elected in these reforms. I do believe in democracy and democracy is not in the
street.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: He said, “And democracy is not in the streets.” And he has a point, right? And he’s also said recently that he believed his reforms
would take at least another 18 to 24 months to bear fruit.
HAIM: Yes. And people who are suffering while counting for food that cannot wait anymore. And that’s the paradox of this presidency. I just
want to tell you that I walked with candidate Macron. He really wanted to reform. He really wanted to bring hope and change in this country. He
really wanted to do something different for Europe.
And then after one year in power, you have something which never happened in the past 20 years in France. And as someone who believes in democracy,
I think at this moment he understands that there’s a disconnection between the base, the French working class which didn’t see anything changed in his
wallet and which cannot take it anymore and he has to back up because otherwise, he’s going to have a moral responsibility of seeing people dying
in the street.
It’s not to me we’re talking. It’s the people all over Paris. I can now hear. I took a cab driver when the cab driver was telling me, “I don’t
know what to tell to my kids. I’m not going to go out on Saturday because there are going to be dead people.” All over Paris, your poor, your rich,
your middle-class people are extremely scared about the violence on Saturday.
It’s not a joke. It’s very serious and President Macron knows that. And he had this week to give something because not in Paris, but also in many
cities in France. At this moment, I spoke with someone who is in the South of France and there was a guillotine which was built, the replica of
guillotine which was built in a freeway which is the symbol of we want to kill the king. And that’s extremely serious when it’s happening to our
democracy.
President Macron is extremely clever. He understands that at this moment, he had to back up because again, he wants to override the wall.
AMANPOUR: So back up, you mean back down. Let me ask you this. There have also been suggestions that bad actors are stirring up this part,
whether it’s bots, whether it’s the social media invaders as we’ve seen in many, many other instances of elections, and other such things. This whole
thing has been revved up on the social media.
We also hear, anecdotally I hear, that many members of the French Political Elite, the established parties that Macron turned upside down with his own
movement are sitting there loving this. They like to see him fail. How much of that do you believe?
HAIM: I would like to tell you two things, Christiane. You and me, we have been in the war zone. I was (INAUDIBLE) last Saturday and I saw not
ordinary people demonstrating. I saw with my own eyes. It was what we call black blocs. It was people, men dressed in black, extremely
organized, extremely coordinated moving to the (INAUDIBLE) like a political and all over Paris in a very fast way of communicating through the
internet. They were destroying what they called symbol of capitalism.
This is not again some regular people who are doing that. Then the regular people, the gilets jaunes joined the movement because they’re so angry.
But at the beginning, I personally strongly believe that it was a far left — far-right movement, extremely well-organized. That’s the first thing.
About the second that you mentioned, the political leaders who are including, that’s what’s happening maybe two weeks ago but absolutely not
now. People are extremely worried. People don’t know what to do. Marine Le Pen, of course, is watching. She doesn’t appear a lot on French TV at
this moment. When she’s appearing, she use very simplistic word explaining that the president did not do that, that she’s very worried about the
situation.
As you mentioned, President Macron does not have real democratic opposition. And that’s why also it’s very scary here because you don’t
have a strong opponent. This is an explosive situation. We’re all really worried about what’s going to happen.
AMANPOUR: Well, it’s obviously one that would demand a public intervention by all the political leaders to call for calm and we have not seen that
yet. So I think, you know, political leaders there, a lot of responsibility. But let me get back to you and you knowing Macron so well.
A while ago, you interviewed him. This was when he was Minister of the Economy under the Holland government back in 2015. And you asked him, “Who
is Macron?” And he said, “Look, I feel fully part of the left. It’s a deep conviction. Otherwise, I would not have been part of this government.
But what does it mean being part of the left? Is it to be a party member? Today, do you consider the political parties very identifiable values? I’m
from the left to the extent that the values I hold are those of emancipation, work, social mobility, redistribution, and the protection of
individuals.”
And when I asked you just after his election, you said this is true democracy. He is a Democrat and, you know, democratic revolutionary. Who
is Macron?
HAIM: He’s a Democrat who is trying to reform the country which is very difficult to reform. He is a Democrat who tried to do something who, in my
personal opinion, didn’t realize that people are suffering in this country he thought are suffering and who probably did some mistakes in terms of
communicating with the real people.
AMANPOUR: You know we don’t know what’s going to happen over the weekend. And we really do hope for the best because we don’t want to see violence.
But I wonder what it will mean in any event for Macron’s ability to govern. This is what Dominique Moisi told me, the political analyst this week about
the rest of his rule.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOMINIQUE MOISI, SPECIAL ADVISER, INSTITUT MONTAIGNE: There are people in France who believe seriously that the presidency of Macron has already
failed. I.E., he may remain president but he will be incapacitated to pursue further reforms because he failed to perceive the seriousness of the
suffering and the anger. And by failing to perceive that, he acted too late, he did too little, and it’s over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Well, that’s a dramatic obituary to a political career.
HAIM: Yes. And I’m not going to go there because it’s very personal at this moment, especially among intellectuals to say it’s over. It’s not
over. He has been elected. It’s a democracy. And that’s why it’s so serious because again, we really don’t know what’s going to happen on
Saturday. You know there’s a sentence in politics, people are saying that in politics, especially now with the 24-hours news channel, wonder is an
eternity.
Maybe the president is going to speak to the nation. Maybe he’s not going to speak. We don’t know. But what I would like to tell you is that at
this moment, the president has been elected in a democracy. It’s not over but it’s a very, very troubled time for him. And people do not know if he
is a able with his team to go on and to transform the country as he wanted to transform this country.
AMANPOUR: Just to point out that Dominique Moisi told me that he voted for him twice and he wants him to succeed but he’s concerned now. So if you
were still advising now President Macron at this particularly volatile time, what would you say? And are you in touch by the way?
HAIM: I will say listen to the people, Mr. President, talk to the people, go on T.V. to, just speak with your heart to the people, explain to them
what you want to do, be a human being. Be Emmanuel Macron with your heart. Speak to the heart of the people. It’s still possible.
I always say that, Christiane. I just also want to tell you something. When President Macron was elected, Yuan Daluv (ph) I remember we were
together. You know it was President Macron won against Marine Le Pen. But people forgot that two weeks prior to this final day of the election, there
was a first round. President Macron was in the first round at 21 percent, Marine Le Pen the far right, Jean-Luc Melenchon the far left altogether
were at 45 percent and that’s the figure we have to remember.
When President Macron arrived in Paris, the fast was already divided and it will be very difficult sometimes to reform a country, to reform a democracy
in the world we live in which is so divided by the extreme.
AMANPOUR: Indeed. And I guess it’s especially shocking because people believed that France might escape this terrible, toxic division that is
playing our western democracies right now. Well, we hope for the best and we thank you very much, Laurence Haim, for being with us with your unique
perspective. Thank you so much for joining us from Paris.
HAIM: Thank you so much.
AMANPOUR: Our next guest has filmmaking in her blood. She’s the daughter of two screenwriters and the granddaughter of two-time Oscar-winning
Director Elia Kazan. Zoe Kazan shines in front of and behind the camera. She’s best known for her role in The Big Sick. Here’s a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you judging Pakistan’s Next Top Model?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know how we have arranged marriage in my culture?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I’m so stupid. Can you imagine a world in which we end up together?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: This year, the actress and writer starred in the latest Coen Brothers Extravaganza The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and she wrote the film
Wildlife, a three-year passion project with her partner Paul Dano. She recently sat down with our Alicia Menendez saying that she wants to tiptoe
into her grandfather’s footsteps next as a director.
ALICIA MENENDEZ, CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you so much for joining us.
ZOE KAZAN, SCREENWRITER: Thanks for having me.
MENENDEZ: Your new film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, won Best Screenplay there. How would you describe
the project?
KAZAN: Gosh. I mean it’s a Coen Brothers movie. I mean like Fargo and Big Lebowski. Your viewers probably know who they are. And it’s an
anthology Western film. Its sort of six stories told like they’re chapters in a book. They’re only thematically joined and joined by their setting
which is the Old West. And I play a kind of a woman going west in one of those chapters.
MENENDEZ: And it was originally conceived as a six-part series. So it was actually —
KAZAN: It wasn’t. This is a misconception.
MENENDEZ: Good. Tell me what I learned wrong on the Internet.
KAZAN: No, truly. I think there’s a — I think because it’s such an odd format, it’s like — it’s one movie but it’s six stories. People really
didn’t know what to make of it until when it was first reported, it was reported as a mini-series. But it was never that, it was always the very
strange form that it is which is like a movie in chapters.
MENENDEZ: So tell me about your chapter.
KAZAN: I play a woman named Alice Longabaugh. She is going west with her brother who is a very controlling person and she sort of never had to have
a mind of her own. And then something bad happens and she’s cast on her own and sort of having to figure out how to survive.
MENENDEZ: Let’s take a look at the film.
KAZAN: Great
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALICE LONGABAUGH: My brother and I are setting off in the morning for Oregon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oregon? Oh, you have people out there? Are you —
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just scoop from her plate, Mrs. Holiday. Grandma Turner’s point down.
A. LONGABAUGH: No, I’m to be married or at least I’m maybe to Gilbert’s associate.
GILBERT LONGABAUGH: Who is well fixed up there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not certain whether you’re going to be married? Has the gentleman not proposed?
A. LONGABAUGH: He — well, he —
G. LONGABAUGH: He will propose. And once they meet each other, I’m sure Alice will pass muster with matters a good one. I’m joining him in a
business opportunity and has declared himself ready to marry when he finds a suitable match. And I was going to be very sociable and attractive when
he has a mind to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: That face reminds me of every woman who has ever been told to smile.
KAZAN: Yes, I think you’re right. I’m trying.
MENENDEZ: Was there a history there? Do you consider this a feminist character?
KAZAN: Oh my gosh. I don’t know. I think — I will say I’ve never been on a set that felt more gender-neutral than the Coen Brothers’ set. It
really felt like truly gender didn’t matter there at all which is extraordinarily unusual in any workplace, let alone on a movie set. Even
though I was the only woman in my chapter and there are very few women in the piece, I found that to be true.
And I think they write women really well. You can sort of see like that they’re coming at things from a humanist standpoint. And I am certainly
trying to bring empathy to every role I play. I don’t think that she’s a person who has any idea about anything that could even be remotely
construed as feminism. You know, it’s the late mid-1800s and first-way feminism hasn’t come around yet.
MENENDEZ: I guess what struck me is that this is a character who is very much hemmed in by her circumstances. And then as you said
something bad happens and in some ways, it liberates her.
KAZAN: Yes, I think of her like a little bird, like a pet bird inside of a cage and then the cage door opens and she really doesn’t know how to get —
how to go out of that open door. So she’s sort of like figuring it out and feeling the wind in her feathers and sort of like creeping towards that
open doorway. And it’s an interesting journey to watch someone take. She’s a very timid person. I don’t think we see timid people at the center
of movies that often. And she is just sort of very — in the very early stages of figuring out that she has a mind and a will of her own.
MENENDEZ: You gravitated towards roles like this before.
KAZAN: Yes.
MENENDEZ: Roles women who are finding their place in the world. You’re also writing those roles into existence for other people. You currently
have a film out Wildlife that you co-wrote with your partner. First, tell me what the film is about.
KAZAN: Wildlife, which I wrote with my boyfriend Paul Dano and he directed, is based on a novel by Richard Ford about a family in 1960 in
Montana and it’s sort of a coming of age story for the whole family. And the mother who’s played by Carey Mulligan has always sort of provided the
mother role for her family, the wife and mother role. And her husband who’s played by Jake Gyllenhaal hasn’t really held up his end of the
bargain in terms of like the 1960s ideal of a man in terms of providing for his family. And he feels disappointed in himself and sort of can’t pick
himself back up. And you watch their marriage kind of fall apart through the eyes of their teenage son.
MENENDEZ: Paul was really committed to this film, to the story.
KAZAN: Yes, he was.
MENENDEZ: But he really needed you to get it done.
KAZAN: I guess so. Paul loved the book and I think he felt really drawn to it and felt it’s a kind of like autobiographical pull towards it. I
think it reminded him of his family in many different ways. But yes, he had never written anything before and I have written for plays and I wrote
this movie Ruby Sparks that we’ve made the actors in together in 2012. So I knew a little bit more about how to do it than he did. And yes, helps
him — we wrote — we ended up writing it together.
MENENDEZ: You really put the structure on it.
KAZAN: Yes. I mean it’s hard to say. You know one of the beautiful things about how — we worked on it for three years together. One of the
beautiful things about working together on something for so long is that it’s hard for me to even say now what he wrote and what I wrote and what
comes from the book.
And when Richard Ford who wrote the novel saw the movie, he actually complimented Paul on something that came straight from the book. He was
like, “I love that line.” And we’re like, “Oh, yes.” So I feel like that’s probably a sign of a fruitful collaboration.
MENENDEZ: Tell me a little bit more about the character written for Carey Mulligan, the mother.
KAZAN: Yes.
MENENDEZ: She’s complicated.
KAZAN: Yes. She plays a character called Jeanette, Jeanette Brinson. She’s in her mid-30s and she had a child very young. And she’s sort of —
Carey, she was describing her as someone who is suddenly having regret about her life, like suddenly with her choices and realizing that her life
has calcified around men and feeling maybe like she likes made different choices for herself.
She’s not very well equipped in terms of her tools to individuate. So she’s a little — she’s sort of flailing around a little bit. She’s making
some maybe like poor choices or questionable choices for herself and her son bears witness to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEANETTE BRINSON: Well, how do you like this particular gown?
PAUL BRINSON: It’s nice.
BRINSON: I used to dress like a sultan when I was younger. I’d stand behind the bull chutes of the Rodeo and hope some cowboy would approve of
me. It made my father very mad. They called us chute beauties. Isn’t that an impressive thing to know about your mother, that she was a chute
beauty?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: You had a Q&A where essentially an audience member stood up and complained that that character was not likable. And it made me wonder why
audiences so often demand that a female character, in particular, be likable.
KAZAN: Yes, I find it strange. I mean look, I find it strange I have to say but sympathetic or likable is a rubric that we judge characters by it
all. Like is Hamlet likable? I don’t know. Is he sympathetic? Maybe. I think one of the things about drama is that you can’t make
dramas about people who are behaving correctly. Like if everyone is doing everything right, then you need like a plane crash to happen or something
to make any drama at all.
I do think that there is a greater onus on women than on men to seem likable on screen. I think that is true in our culture as well. I mean
look at what happened during the 2016 election and the fact that Hillary Clinton was considered unlikable and Donald Trump was considered likable
seems very strange to me. Even in a political way, just considering what their personalities seem to be. I think we just have very different
standards for women and for men.
This audience member took umbrage at the fact that she is exposing her child to some unsavory business. But Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jerry,
abandons his wife and child and leaves them entirely and sort of abdicates his parental responsibilities entirely. So the fact that he wasn’t holding
him to task for that but was holding her to task for her parenting choices seemed a little odd to me. Although not odd within the context of our
society.
MENENDEZ: What has been behind the camera taught you about being in front of the camera?
KAZAN: Oh, my God, so much. So much. You know, one thing it’s taught me is to say yes when the director gives you a note. Usually, they’re giving
you a note for a reason. I used to be a very — I used to like lead with my opinions on set much more aggressively than I do now because I’ve
learned like oh sometimes, it’s not about you. Sometimes they’re giving you the note because your scene part — to bring out a color in your scene
partner or because they really need — because of what the camera’s doing for you to pace it up. You know, things like that.
And then also just, you know, I think as an actor often when you’re going into audition rooms, you can take it really personally when you’re
rejected.
MENENDEZ: Yes.
KAZAN: And being on the other side of the table, it’s really taught me that often it has nothing to do with your talent. It has something to do
with like who you are as a person, the essence that you bring to the table. Sometimes people — like people can be the best actor in the world and
they’re just the wrong animal for the part. It’s a really ineffable thing, it’s not logical. And that has taken — it’s helped me take a little the
pressure off of myself.
MENENDEZ: It strikes me that you have a lot to say and yet you are a notoriously private person.
KAZAN: Yes.
MENENDEZ: Where is the line for you?
KAZAN: Oh, man, it’s a really good question. And I feel that — well, I feel this push and pull between the writing and acting side all the time
where I feel like as a writer, I want to really like express something deeply private and personal. And I sort of don’t see another reason to
write if you’re not writing from a very deep place.
But as an actor, I think when you know too much about the actor, it sort of interferes with your ability to see them as a different person. And so I
find myself in a way like trying to protect some part of myself in order to keep it private, in order to retain the ability to transform myself, I feel
like I’m constantly negotiating where that line is. And every other day I’m like I’m going to quit Twitter. Yes, as most people on Twitter I
think. I know I would be much happier actually.
MENENDEZ: Which title do you want to add next?
KAZAN: That’s to direct. I think I haven’t done that yet. I’m watching Paul put this movie together and being part of that of making Wildlife was
an incredible learning experience for me. I was in the editing room with him like you know three days a week, two days a week for most of their
process. And just, you know, I love to be in the editing room. Just that alone made me want to make my own movie someday but not yet.
MENENDEZ: Why not yet?
KAZAN: Because I have a baby. I have a three-month-old baby. I’ve got to do that for a little bit before I can then. Like, you know, it’s a lot of
work. We wrote wildlife for three years together and then it took another two years to get it made. So, you know, it was a lot of pushing the rock
up a hill.
MENENDEZ: You birthed a lot of creative projects and a baby.
KAZAN: Yes, indeed, all at once. It’s been a very strange fall.
MENENDEZ: Ambitious.
KAZAN: Yes. We didn’t plan it that way. It just happened that way.
MENENDEZ: Thank you so much.
KAZAN: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
AMANPOUR:
That’s it for our program tonight.
Thanks for watching Amanpour and Company on PBS and join us again tomorrow.
END