YouSaid · the spoken record

Davis Guggenheim

lines on the record
67
first
2016-12-05
most recent
2016-12-05
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “When I was in college, I was taught about cycles. There's times when corruption. Comes through and it cycles out and um And I want to believe. We're going through a political cycle and that things will get better. But then I can't help but feel like the phenomenons that are causing what's happening now are here to stay. And I don't know the answer whether we're going to...”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “No, When Tik O'Neill would sit down with his opponents and Ronald Reagan and say, hey, let's figure this out and let's do it. You know, I'll give you a little bit. You give me a little bit, but let's do something that's right. And not in front of cameras.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “When people talk about backroom deals and smoke-filled rooms, that was when I was growing up, that was a negative connotation. That's where, you know, nefarious activities happened. Now I look at that a little differently.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “And losing sometimes in politics, being a good leader, you have to lose. You're saying I'm willing to lose. And I think less and less that's happening.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Do you think that that's Was always the case before media became such a big part of it? Do you think Washington in the 50s and 60s?”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “So you can answer honestly. I mean, they're both one industry towns. They're both, you know, you get further by networking, who you know. There's a kind of celebritiness in both. I also think that Not always the case, but often the case. There's something. There has to be something broken in you To want to be successful in Hollywood. And that brokenness, that itch that you can't scratch or that thing that you need to fix about yourself becomes that drive that you see all that extreme behavior. In Hollywood, you see it in actors and directors all the time. Celebrities. It's like needing”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Whilst clearly true, I mean, both are drawn to each other. And I have to say that I'm in the ghetto of Hollywood. I make documentaries. So I like to see my absolute”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “All of Bobby Kennedy's kid Chris Kennedy was in my class. Rory Kennedy was a couple classes below me, Max Kennedy. They were all there. Children of senators, children of congressmen, governors.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “It very much was that if you went to private school, you were in one strata and if you went to public school, you were in another strata.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Who Yeah, and I read her book that weekend and I came in and said, absolutely. Incredible experience. I mean, what is so incredible about this job I have is I'm a Jew from Washington, DC, and now I'm Spending two years of my life with a Pakistani family and sitting in their living room and sharing stories and learning what it means to be a Muslim in this world. One of the great privileges of my life. And she sees as good as you can imagine”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Your great films talk about. I got a call from Walter Parks and Laurie McDonald, who are Hollywood producers, they ran dreamworks, and they said, would you be interested in making the movie about Malala?”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, and I'm sure you felt that when you were working in the White House, that a complex idea could not be. Absorbed. Either were this or you were that. It was heartbreaking for me because I said, accept me as someone who loves teachers and who believes in But suddenly I became the pro charter guy, which is not the case, and the anti-union guy.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “and put them together. One is that teachers are the solution, they're a treasurer. The solution, but their unions are often not always an impediment to progress. That's what he says. It's in the movie. And it's sort of the pivot of the storytelling of the movie to helps me and you understand what's going on. The audience couldn't accept that. Or at least the conversation after the movie came out couldn't accept that in the”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Of saying the movie was anti-teacher. The movie is not anti-teacher. It criticizes the union. And there's a great moment that we worked really hard on the movie, Jonathan Alter, I'm sure, really thoughtful. Really good journalist. Fine journalists. A lefty criticizing the unions, criticizing a lot of the way public schools are done, really smart. One of my favorite writers on public education said you can hold two disparate ideas.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I agree. I agree. I learned something the limitations sometimes from a piece of media. The movie is I've since done other films in schools and I'll go in there and I'll scout a school and I'll meet the principal. And halfway through the meeting, they'll figure out that I made waiting for Superman. Half of them will take me around the school and introduce me to everyone because they're so proud of the movie, and half of them will kick me out because it's so loaded. The people who kick me out. Invariably say, Have you seen the movie? And they say no. The movie has, and we're really careful about this, the movie is very pro-teacher. It talks about the art of teaching. It talks about... It criticizes the unions. Randy did a really great job.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And time and time again, teachers, teachers and principals and other leaders were saying this is a big problem. And I said, look, if we're going to get into it. I've got to get into it. I got to get into the, even if it's gnarly, I'm going to get into it.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, I knew what I was doing. I knew it would be. To make a film criticizing the teachers union, but I also knew that it was true. I mean, what was true? You talk to any principal. Any prison, most principles, and ones that are trying to change the system, ones that are trying to do right for their kids, and they say unions and the rules they have are a huge impediment to what they're trying to do. It's just true. And I had to figure out how do I find a place for this because I'm a lefty. I believe in unions. And yet it was not only an impediment, it was the impediment. How long can you keep a teacher during the day? Can you fire a bad teacher? Can you just...”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “But other kids are not. And so that movie. Folllows these five kids and these five families trying to find a good school.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Because they're getting into a school where there's hope. And then families that are despondent because they're not in it. To me, I saw that as a metaphor for not just charter versus. Schools, and we'll probably get into that because that's a comp looking back another 10 years later or so if we look at charters differently now. I find that to be an incredible metaphor. And Warren Buffett called the ovarian lottery. My kids have won the ovarian letter. They're born to a family that can afford private school. So then I said, well, I don't know how to do this. And so the only way to do this is if I put myself in the movie. I've never done it before. I say I start the movie with I drive past three private schools. I drive by three public schools on the way to my kids' private school. And I'm lucky.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yes. And where they literally have a bingo. Basket and they're pulling out numbers. And if you win, these families are jumping. And in the article, I thought it was maybe overdone, but after doing the movie, it's not. Families are cheering as if they've won a million dollars because.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And so when I was asked to make this film by participant, they approached me and I said, no, I've made that film and I can't do it. I don't know how to do it. And then Thomas Friedman wrote an editorial in the New York Times about witnessing the lottery at the Baltimore Seed School. And this is a lot.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Well, Because my heart was with these original teachers who were there and I saw, I don't think if I'd not been in these five schools. East LA Watts Compton Other schools like that, where I just saw what's at stake. You see it in Chicago. Where you see the American dream either happening or not happening. You know, it is, and you see beautiful minds being either saved. And that sounds like a cliche, but it's absolutely true, saved by a great teacher. And then you see... Sometimes a school system crushing a kid. And so I'd had time. About ten years to watch And observe the political system having experienced it and been immersed in it. And I'd seen a lot of my friends who were teachers become principals and some of my friends who are now in, and I started to really examine the political system. And I said, wait a minute, there's.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Yeah, and I've done films, other music films as well. But to me, I see them very similarly, even in my political films, at the core of them are people. And in many ways, the guitar film, I might get loud as more about. The path of an artist than it is about how to play the guitar. You don't learn anything about how to play the guitar in that movie, but you certainly fall in love with these individuals. And so I feel like that's my job is to do what you're doing now to me, which is to. To drill into Hearts mostly their brains too, and extract their story. And almost like I'm a birth mother. And I say this sometimes when I start a movie. I was like, you know, let me help you tell your story.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah. So that film was with, it was called A Might Get Loud, Jimmy Page The Edge and Jack White. I did a film called Waiting for Superman, which was sort of that one.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “You can count them all, but he's better with time. And so the challenges for us was, how do you do something? I mean, challenge for you was how do you do it in 30-second commercials? And you did a brilliant job. We had longer. We had, what, I forget, 10 minutes. 10 minutes.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Incredibly eloquent, but sometimes like a law professor. Could get into the 12 shades of an idea. So his best moments for me is his speech on race. Speech to the convention this year, speech in Charleston? Charleston.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “And I think reserved About some of his personal First of all, you He has an aura about him in the same way Bobby Kennedy did that just a goodness and a sense of principledness and a sense of history. And just a natural eloquence that you just Was one of a kind I think as we were talking about this idea of having time to talk, I think he's better with time. Meaning, if you give them 45 minutes for a speech and he's that's where his full”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “They both followed natural politicians. And, you know. Yeah, and so I think about that a lot. You could hear it. I'm an acute ear for tone. I'm sure I know you do too. And I could hear. Her trying to find a more human tone. It was in her convention address. I thought she had a pretty good job. You could hear her. Going there and then pulling out. And I say that's really sympathetically. I feel like all the things that she was beat up for, many things, some things she deserves to be scrutinized for other things, she does not deserve to be punished for a lot of these things. So after that many years, I would be on guard as well. It is hard to open your heart if someone's going to step on it every time.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I mean, I think there's a similarity between her and Al, both very smart, both very impressive and accomplished. And I don't blame her. I mean,”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I thought about it all the time. I mean, first of all, there has to be a willingness, and I don't know her. So, I don't know. I certainly feel like my impression is”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Some of this, David, is. I always think about the venue at which we tell our stories. I mean, you must feel this with your podcast. You have the time. follow a tangent, to wander and discover something you never expected. And usually those are the most interesting things in the political world when you have 30 seconds. You know, that doesn't happen.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Was in her kitchen, her hair was down Metaphorically And Sean did probably did a really good job of interviewing. And she was speaking.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Yeah, and I've now done that with all my movies. I start every movie now with just audio interviews. So even if it's Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. And that's one of the ways I got him to do that movie was I said, Hey, let's, you know, don't worry about it. We'll just, you and I will sit and talk. And after three days of talking, he feels like, oh my gosh, I'm saying things I never thought I would say before.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah, and He was on stage for the slideshow, so you didn't see, and I find this now for most of my movies. I take people off camera. Much more, interestingly enough, I mean, your podcast is one of them. Sometimes you listen better When you're not looking”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “And we sat there and we were there for so long that the light that had been coming in the windows faded. And by the end of the interview, we were talking about the 2000 campaign and his loss. And it was heartfelt Deeply painful, and he revealed his struggle, and we both looked up and realized we were both in the dark. The interview had gone so long and so deeply we had both lost ourselves. And from that interview and one other became the heart of the movie. So”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “We did twelve interviews. And I would say the first nine are not in the movie. And what I quickly realized after interviewing him, we would. We'd interview him and he would be the guy that everyone knows. I have a lot of sympathy for it because He was a candidate his whole life. And you see this in Hillary, right? You see someone who's so programmed to get the right answer and punished for the wrong answer. That they become that way. And then when we turned off the camera, the lights went off, he'd say, come to dinner and we'd have dinner with him and Tipper and he'd be the most warm and funny. And so I said, hey, let's do interviews without a camera crew. So me and him with microphones in his hotel room. I'll never forget it. We were in the presidential suite of The hotel here in LA”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I think his true calling. is to be a great professor. I think he has an incredible skill to take really complex ideas. Communicate them to people like us. And he did that to me that day. And I think as much as I try to choose my movies, the good ones choose you. And I was like, I don't know how to do this, but let's do it. And we made that film from the day we got the money from Jeff Skoll. Founder of eBay and the production company participant. To Sundance, we made that movie in five and a half months, which Crazy fast. And the day I thought it was going to be a good idea was Sundance. I mean, people went. Crazy. There was a standing ovation that lasted half an hour. And it was a phenomenon.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Huge environmentalist and a political insider. And I said, this is a terrible idea. Climate change, I get. Any politician, not so much. Al Gore, particularly not because, you know, he wasn't popular at the time. I didn't know him. And a slideshow? And Laurie, to her credit, said, come to the Beverly Hilton where he's going to give his slideshow. And it was like a Thursday in the middle of the day, and it was like chicken. And, you know, and he's giving it while the waiters are bringing the food. And it was sort of like, what am I doing here? And he starts a slideshow, and you're like, well, this is interesting. And by the end I'm taken. I don't know how to do this.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Well, it was pitched to me We've got Al Gore giving a slideshow. And I said, This is to Lawrence. Lawrence Spender, famous producer and Laurie David, wife of Larry David, but a pretty... Smart”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Some of them are principles. A couple have dropped out. What are the latest update, but several are now leaders like they run charter schools, they run their principles of schools, some of them are out, but you know, you know, you kn I wanted what they had, which is a sense of purpose, and I hadn't had it yet. But now I'm making documentaries and I do feel a sense of purpose. And so I, you know. Now I'm on a run. I'm like, I'm in a hurry because I got films to make.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “I was so moved by these teachers. their dedication By having an idea and following through with it, by believing that every kid in America can be educated, you know, I was so moved that I had to tell their stories, but they were heroes. I mean, they were, you know, the heroes' journey.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Yeah, yes, so the story itself was how, what's it like to be a young, ambitious teacher with big ideals, throwing yourself into some of the toughest schools in America? To me, I knew that that was interesting. And how do they make it through? What happens to them? Do they get better? It could easily have been, what's it like to go to Iraq? You know, it's more akin to war than it was to... What you would imagine school to be. These were really tough schools. And two weeks of training and you're thrown in. But there's a theme that comes through in my movie since, which was not by any design, which is it. Finding heroes in unlikely places.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “The style of that movie is very different from my style now because it was very undeveloped. And a lot of people carried me. There were other camera people and a great editor who I ended up working with a lot named Jay Cassidy who cut the 2008 convention film who you've met. Great editor has since edited American hustle and Other great movies. But it wasn't me yet. So my style and my sense of voice.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “And you're right, with mobile cameras, you could just, I could put a wire on a teacher and sit on the floor and film them all day. Yeah. And so suddenly I was back in the game, but it was my game. And over time I realized I'm completely left alone. I have all my independence. And I am in charge, which by Hollywood standards is very rare. Even if you're very successful, you still have a bureaucracy, a studio, notes, a This huge machine, which is saying, okay, you do what you want until we decide that you're not allowed to anymore. And what I soon became was I started loving making documentaries. I was telling stories that I loved and they were mine, David. I could do, you know, and I was in heaven.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Which And so that's where documentaries, I think, have changed, which is that. Talking about the people who came before me that particularly Michael Moore and Errol Morris in that interim, documentaries are changing really fast. Michael Moore showed the documentaries could be entertaining and funny. Arrow Morris proved that you could Bring in traditional narrative elements into documentaries. Some people had done it before, but basically documentaries had been sort of a piece of journalism And stuff you would see on PBS and stuff my father had done, very worthy good stuff. But now it's like the genre was. was turned upside down, and you could do anything. And so a journalistic, my father had made several films about public education, but this was very different. This was”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “And this was like the second year of Teacher America, and they were driving into East LA and Watts, and they were becoming teachers. And I said, I'm going to make a movie about them. So I bought a camera. I remember $900. It's like a prosumer camera, a half consumer. half pro and spent a year following five first year teach”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “But I'll tell you so I went into huge depression. All my work I'd made making it work in Hollywood for so long, working my way from a PA to a director to a feature director. All my plans had crashed, and in fact weirdly the people I was working with, executives at Warner Brothers, kind of turned their backs on me. Rather than saying, hey, let's help this guy who got screwed over. It's like, well, let's pretend he doesn't exist. And about six months into my sort of morass, and I was doing nothing. spending the day in my pajamas. I was reading about friends of mine who were in Teach for America.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Ripping movie, I will say they screwed it up. But that's not, that may be the... That may be the bitter, but I could have made it better. I don't know you. I don't.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Mean, it's only hearsay. I mean, I was certainly not an A-list director at that point. I had done one film and a lot of good television, but he hired his wife's best friend's husband.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “The script for training day, the movie with Denzel Washington, and I'd sold it to Warner Brothers. I'll make a really long story short. And we fought over who the lead actor should be. And I wanted Denzel Washington. No one wanted him. Black actors don't sell overseas. Could it be Clint Eastwood? Could it be Kurt Russell? No, I insisted it has to be Denzel Washington. Finally we offer it to him on a Friday. On Monday he says yes, on Tuesday he fires me.”

    2016-12-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 102 - Davis Guggenheim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source