www.npr.org Open in urlscan Pro
2a02:26f0:480:a82::1155  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Accessibility links
 * Skip to main content
 * Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

NPR 24 Hour Program StreamOn Air Now
 * Hourly News
 * Listen Live
 * Playlist

 * Open Navigation Menu
 * 
 * 
 * Newsletters
 * Sign In
 * NPR Shop
 * Donate

Close Navigation Menu
 * Home
 * News Expand/collapse submenu for News
   * National
   * World
   * Politics
   * Business
   * Health
   * Science
   * Climate
   * Race
 * Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture
   * Books
   * Movies
   * Television
   * Pop Culture
   * Food
   * Art & Design
   * Performing Arts
   * Life Kit
   * Gaming
 * Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music
   * Hip-Hop 50
   * Tiny Desk
   * All Songs Considered
   * Music Features
   * Live Sessions
 * Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows
   Daily
    * Morning Edition
    * Weekend Edition Saturday
    * Weekend Edition Sunday
    * All Things Considered
    * Fresh Air
    * Up First
   
   Featured
    * TED Radio Hour
    * Louder Than A Riot
    * It's Been a Minute
    * Life Kit
   
    * More Podcasts & Shows

 * Search
 * Newsletters
 * Sign In
 * NPR Shop

 * 
 * Hip-Hop 50
 * Tiny Desk
 * All Songs Considered
 * Music Features
 * Live Sessions

 * About NPR
 * Diversity
 * Organization
 * NPR Network
 * Support
 * Careers
 * Connect
 * Press
 * Ethics

Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen On Singing Cowboys And Working With Oxen The Coen
brothers pay homage to old Westerns with their new film, The Ballad of Buster
Scruggs. The movie is a collection of six stories that often subvert the
expectations of the genre.


MOVIE INTERVIEWS


FILMMAKERS JOEL AND ETHAN COEN ON SINGING COWBOYS AND WORKING WITH OXEN

November 19, 20181:19 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air



Terry Gross

FILMMAKERS JOEL AND ETHAN COEN ON SINGING COWBOYS AND WORKING WITH OXEN

Listen· 44:3044-Minute ListenPlaylist
Toggle more options
 * Download
 * Embed
   Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/669204732/669277348"
   width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded
   audio player">
 * Transcript

The Coen brothers pay homage to old Westerns with their new film, The Ballad of
Buster Scruggs. The movie is a collection of six stories that often subvert the
expectations of the genre.




MOVIE REVIEWS


LIFE'S CRUELTY IS A CONSTANT IN THE COEN BROTHERS' MIXED BAG WESTERN 'BALLAD'


MOVIE INTERVIEWS


THE COEN BROS. ON WRITING, 'LEBOWSKI' AND LITERALLY HERDING CATS

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guests are brothers Joel and Ethan Coen,
who wrote and directed such films as "Blood Simple," "Fargo," "O Brother, Where
Art Thou?", "No Country For Old Men," "A Serious Man" and "True Grit." Their
2016 film "Hail, Caesar!" was a comic homage to Hollywood in the late '40s and
'50s, including the biblical epics and musicals the studios produced. Their new
movie, "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs," is an homage to Westerns. The film is an
anthology of six stories, sometimes comic, involving staples of the Western
genre - a singing cowboy, gunfights, a wagon train, stagecoaches, hangings, a
grizzled prospector panning for gold. But what happens within each story is
typically not what you'd expect from a classic Western.

Reviewing the film in The New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, the brothers have
tended to treat whimsy and fatalism as sides of the same coin. The jokes that
the universe plays on hapless human creatures may be cruel, but they're also
funny. And the Coens are skilled and wily metaphysical pranksters.

Let's start with the opening voiceover from the first story in the film, in
which singing cowboy Buster Scruggs is riding through the desert on his horse.
His hands are not on the reins. They're wrapped around his guitar because he's a
singing cowboy. Buster Scruggs, played by Tim Blake Nelson, sings and introduces
himself to us.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS")

TIM BLAKE NELSON: (As Buster Scruggs, singing) And can you say that big green
tree where the water's running free, and it's waiting there for you and me?

(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE NEIGHING)

NELSON: (As Buster Scruggs) Whoa. A song never fails to ease my mind out here in
the West, where the distances are great and the scenery monotonous.
Additionally, my pleasing baritone seems to inspirit old Dan here and keep him
in good heart during the day's measure of hoof clops. Ain't that right, Dan?

(SOUNDBITE Of HORSE NEIGHING)

NELSON: (As Buster Scruggs) Maybe some of y'all have heard of me. Buster
Scruggs, known to some as the San Saba Songbird. I got other handles, nicknames,
appellations and cognomens, but this one here I don't consider to be even
halfway earned - misanthrope. I don't hate my fellow man. Even when he's
tiresome and surly and tries to cheat at poker, I figure that's just the human
material. And him that finds in it cause for anger and dismay is just a fool for
expecting better. Ain't that right, Dan?

(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE NEIGHING)

GROSS: Joel and Ethan Coen, welcome to FRESH AIR. Thanks for coming back on our
show. So how did this movie come together? Like, how did you end up stringing
together several different stories of the Old West in one film?

ETHAN COEN: Well, we started writing them - well, they weren't even them when we
started. We wrote the first of what turned out to be this collection at least 20
years ago. And it's actually the first one in the movie - the Tim Blake Nelson,
singing cowboy one. We just wrote it, kind of on a lark, not really thinking
about what we'd with it or that we would do anything with it 'cause you know,
there's not much of a market for short movies, and it was a short standalone
story. But then we found ourselves - we wrote a couple more over the years, and
at a certain point, we thought, there's almost enough that they kind of make
sense together, and maybe we'll write a couple more and make a feature - you
know, an anthology feature out of it.

JOEL COEN: But, you know, the genesis of it was pretty pure in the sense that we
were writing them without any real expectation or intention of making them. And
yeah, at a certain point, we said well, we have a - there's these, you know,
four or five stories in the drawer, and they all happen to be Westerns. And what
if we did make them all together? And what would that be?

COEN: It's interesting you said our motives were pure because we weren't
thinking about anything (laughter).

COEN: Yes, it true. But they weren't dirty by the marketplace (laughter).

COEN: Vincent Gallo self-financed it - I think his last movie, and he decided
not to release it because he didn't want to - and I think this is a verbatim
quote. He didn't want to expose it to the "dark energies of the public."

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Westerns usually end with the surviving good guys vanquishing the bad
guys and restoring order to the town. But your stories don't end that way in
this Western anthology. Death can come suddenly, no matter who you are. Did you
ever ask yourself, while you were writing and directing it, if you think you
might have survived living in the Old West? Like...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: How long you think you would've lasted?

COEN: (Laughter) We just barely survived living in the Midwest.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: That's funny. So each story is told as if it were a short story from a
collection of Western stories. In one of the stories, it's set in a stagecoach.
And we slowly - it's like a series of monologues within the stagecoach in which
each character tells us something about who they are and what they believe. And
one of the characters, played by Brendan Gleeson - without giving much away
about who they really are - one of the characters, played by Brendan Gleeson,
sings a version of the "Streets Of Laredo" that I've never heard before.

The lyric I'm familiar with is a song set in the Old West where the guy singing
the song sees a young cowboy in the streets of Laredo who's wrapped up in white
linen as cold as the clay. And the young cowboy explains that he's done wrong.
He's been shot in the chest, and he knows he's dying. And he instructs the other
man how he wants to be buried and what to tell his mother. Gleeson sings a
different version of it. This version is sung by a man killed by his lover. I
just want to play some of that song. So this is Brendan Gleeson.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS")

BRENDAN GLEESON: (As Irishman, singing) As I was a walking down by the Lock, as
I was walking one morning of late, who should I spy but my old dear comrade,
wrapped up in flannel, so hard is his fate. I boldly stepped up to and kindly
did ask him, why are you wrapped in flannel so white? My body is injured and
sadly disordered all by a young woman, my own heart's delight. Oh, had she but
told me when she disordered me, had she but told me of it at the time, I might
have got salts or pills of white mercury, but now I'm cut down in the height of
my prime.

GROSS: I think that's pretty beautiful. Did you know he could sing?

COEN: No. We sent him this song probably a month or two before we started
shooting, wasn't it?

COEN: Yeah. I hope.

COEN: And said, you know, take a crack at this. And Brendan sent it back, and we
thought, oh, beautiful. We knew that we wanted this song sung in the sequence,
but whether or not it was actually going to be Brendan who did it or - you know,
or we were going to replace it somehow, if he wasn't a - you know, couldn't sing
it. We didn't know. But it turned out, no, he sang it quite beautifully.

That's the original - well, I don't know about the original. These are - you
know, these are like folk songs. That ballad goes way back. That's an early
version of that song about a man who is - well, it's about a man whose lover
gives him a venereal disease, and he dies of it.

GROSS: The use of the word disordered is so interesting in it. Like, what did
she say? She disordered my body and...

COEN: Had she but told me before she disordered me.

GROSS: Yeah. That's...

COEN: I might have got pills - salts or pills of white mercury.

GROSS: Right. I didn't realize it was about syphilis or some STD.

COEN: Yeah.

GROSS: I was trying to figure out what the white mercury pills were about. Like,
those are not pills we take anymore.

(LAUGHTER)

COEN: Right. Other ways of treating syphilis.

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah. So and, you know - and you bookend the whole movie with an
instrumental version of the "Streets Of Laredo." So it is one of, like, the
classic death songs about the Old West. Is that why you chose it? Because there
is...

COEN: Yeah.

GROSS: ...So much death in the movie.

COEN: Yeah. It's a, you know, beautiful, elegiac song about death, and it's
familiar to almost everyone - at least the melody is. But it was interesting to
us to, you know, have it make its appearance in the movie, at least when you
hear this song with lyrics that people weren't familiar with and that probably
were more appropriate to the period.

GROSS: OK. Stupid question - did you ever hear the Allan Sherman parody version
of "Streets Of Laredo"?

COEN: Of course.

GROSS: Called "Streets Of Miami" - it's really horrible.

(LAUGHTER)

COEN: We're really - no, we're really big on that one.

(LAUGHTER)

COEN: No - yes, he was an absolute giant in our youth.

GROSS: (Laughter) Do you remember the lyrics?

COEN: Vaguely.

COEN: I don't remember the "Streets Of Miami" very - no, not really.

GROSS: He stays at the Fontainebleau, (laughter), the Fontainebleau hotel. He's
taking a trip with his - instead of, like, a sidekick or something, it's his,
like, partner, Sammy. It has the line - and paid to the firm $60 a day. No, no.
I mean charged to the firm $60 a day.

COEN: (Laughter) Sixty dollars a day.

GROSS: 'Cause he's expensing the trip (laughter).

OK. Let's take a short break here. Then we'll talk some more. If you're just
joining us, my guests are Joel and Ethan Coen, and they have a new movie that's
a Western anthology. It's a series of stories set in the Old West, and it's
called, "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs." We're going to take a short break then
we'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guests are Joel and
Ethan Coen, and their new movie, which is now streaming on Netflix, is called,
"The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs." It's an anthology of stories set in the Old
West.

So another story I want to talk about from your film takes place on a wagon
train. And that's another trope of Westerns. Why did you want to do a wagon
train story?

COEN: I think it really was our, sort of at a certain point, rummaging around in
the Western genre, thinking, well, we haven't, you know - and thinking about the
sort of subgenres. Well, we haven't done a wagon train movie, or we haven't done
a stagecoach movie. That might be interesting. So we came up with that. I have
to say that it might have been a good idea on paper, but when we discovered when
we went out to shoot this wagon train movie - and most of it was shot over about
a month in western Nebraska - we realized it was just an incredible pain.

GROSS: Well, sure. 'Cause you have, like, nearly - looks like, like, a mile of
wagons with people walking alongside of them and there's, like, horses and oxen
(laughter) and it's, like, a lot.

COEN: Yeah. And the problem is that you have, you know, essentially, sort of a
half-a-mile-long chain of wagons, and the camera's in a certain position. And
when you say action, the first wagon moves. And 10 minutes later...

GROSS: (Laughter).

COEN: ...The last wagon can start moving, and you finally got everything going
together. And then one oxen team will decide to cut sharply over to the right
and ruin the shot. So you then have a choice, which is to reposition all of the
wagons back where they were in relationship to the camera position, which will
take an hour or so, or move the camera back and reposition the wagons but in a
not-as-beautiful camera position for the shot. And this was, you know, over and
over and over.

GROSS: Well, I remember after we talked about your movie "Inside Llewyn Davis,"
where there was a cat who was a co-star of the film. You said you would never
work with a cat again. And so now you've put yourself in the position with this
film of working with, like, oxen and horses, a dog. There's an owl.

COEN: Yeah, but no cats.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: But it seems to me like you set yourself up for trouble.

COEN: Yes, we did.

GROSS: Had you forgotten how hard it was just to work with a cat?

COEN: The problem is when you're writing it, it's so easy to write. So you just
go, OK, you know, wagon train.

COEN: Yeah. There are 20 wagons. It's easy to write.

GROSS: How many wranglers did you have working on this?

COEN: Many. I don't even - you know, it varied. In the Nebraska thing, there
were wranglers for every team and every few horses. But they're great. But the
animals are - sadly, they're just animals. You know, sometimes, they play ball,
and, sometimes, they don't.

COEN: What did the oxen wrangler say to you at one point?

COEN: Oh, Travis, the oxen wrangler. Great guy. But, you know - so I asked him
if the oxen could - I don't know what it was - come to a mark and stop or
something. And he - it was something that seemed kind of simple to me. And he
rolled his eyes with a kind of silent idiot look. And he said, you know, driving
oxen is not as self-evident as people think it is.

GROSS: (Laughter).

COEN: I thought, man, that's - yeah. Why should that be different than anything
else on a movie?

GROSS: Are oxen responsive? I mean, I've never worked with an ox.

COEN: Exactly. There a considerable - or...

COEN: There's a lag time.

COEN: ...A specific lag time, yeah...

(LAUGHTER)

COEN: That's between when you, you know, use the little prod or give it a little
flicker on its rump with, you know, whatever they drive them with and when the
oxen actually decides to attend to your wishes.

COEN: They got a hell of a neural network there. It takes a while to travel.

GROSS: You know, the dog is a staple on a lot of westerns. Of course, there is,
like, "Lassie," which isn't a Western. But Lassie's always kind of, like,
rescuing people. Rin Tin Tin - always rescuing people. Then there's, like, the
beloved family dog in a lot of Westerns who's like the trusty companion. In your
story, there's a little dog who accompanies this brother and sister on the wagon
train. And it's the kind of dog that you usually think of as an apartment dog.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: And it's the kind of dog you - like, you're walking down the street. And
it's like this little dog who's kind of, like, really barking loudly and
neurotically (laughter). And so you've got this, like, little apartment dog on
the wagon train. And people are complaining about the barking almost as if they
live in an apartment building, and the dog's being really annoying. Were you
trying to, like, subvert the Western dog?

COEN: No, we weren't thinking about the Western dog, although I know you mean.
There is a Western dog. But it is interesting what you say about how the dog
classically rescues people. And not to give anything away, but this one does
kind of the...

GROSS: Does not (laughter).

COEN: Does not (laughter).

COEN: You know, to be - unless I'm misremembering, we were reading firsthand
accounts of...

COEN: Oh, yeah.

COEN: ...People who had done that trip in the wagons. And there are accounts of
fights and altercations about pets, about dogs.

COEN: Yeah. Actually, right. That's where it came from.

COEN: And that's where that came from because there were actually - these
arguments did flare up over those things and specifically about dogs. And we
took that from a book of firsthand accounts of these journeys.

COEN: The journey - yeah, it was kind of interesting because the - you know,
it's a traveling group of however many people - you know, scores of people
probably, not hundreds. And they were just a totally little, self-governing
community because that's all there was. And it became - you read about it, and
it's clear that it became as petty and small-minded as, you know, a condo board.
They're out there in the middle of nowhere, making up their own rules. And a lot
of people are jerks. And it all gets kind of horrible.

GROSS: I want to play some dialogue from this wagon train sequence. And one of
the leading characters in it is a young woman who's gone on the Oregon Trail
with this wagon train with her brother. And they're both - oh, I don't know -
probably in their 20s, early 20s. And he was the only family she had. And he
dies of some horrible cough early on. So she's left on her own, and she owes the
person who's driving the wagon all this money that her brother promised. But her
brother didn't leave any money. And she was supposed to marry someone who her
brother said was his business partner if her business partner found her, you
know, attractive enough.

So she's just totally lost. And one of the two wagon masters is being very
helpful to her. And in one scene, he says to her that he has, you know, a
crackpot idea that might be helpful to her. And so she asks him about it. And
this is Zoe Kazan as the young woman, Bill Heck as the wagon master.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS")

ZOE KAZAN: (As Alice Longabaugh) So your crackpot notion...

BILL HECK: (As Billy Knapp) Yes. Before I expose it, may I ask something?

KAZAN: (As Alice Longabaugh) Certainly.

HECK: (As Billy Knapp) What possibilities do you look forward to in Oregon?

KAZAN: (As Alice Longabaugh) I don't quite know. Gilbert knows - knew someone
there, a Mr. Vereen who owns an orchard or maybe more than one orchard and a
carriage company. He was vague about his connection with Mr. Vereen and about
his own perspective position. I don't wish to slight my brother's memory, but he
could exaggerate the nature of an opportunity and Mr. Vereen's interest in
myself. I fear that may also have been speculative.

HECK: (As Billy Knapp) I see. So this is no definite prospect of marriage, no
contract.

KAZAN: (As Alice Longabaugh) No.

HECK: (As Billy Knapp) Well, the idea then is this, and I submit it in respect,
Ms. Longabaugh. I propose to assume your brother's debt to the hired boy and to
- to ask you to marry me.

GROSS: The dialogue that you wrote for this is so much more formal and now
old-fashion sounding than the way people speak now. I don't wish to slight my
brother's memory. I submit this in respect. How did you get into the language?
Did writing "True Grit" help with that?

COEN: You know, it's kind of a - I don't know. It's just kind of a diction
that's kind of familiar to you from reading 19th century, you know, fiction.

COEN: There's another thing that Bill Heck says in that scene, which also came
from the same source that we were talking about a minute ago when we were
talking about the dog - these firsthand accounts, which was this idea he - at
one point, Bill Heck says, if I were to meet a widow or a maiden of honor, which
was an expression that was used in one of these accounts about women who did go
out to Oregon with the expectation of meeting a husband.

GROSS: Charles Portis wrote the novel "True Grit" that your movie "True Grit"
was adapted from.

COEN: Yes.

COEN: Right.

COEN: Right. Charles Portis had clearly done a lot of research, read a lot of
literature - well, literature - ephemeral literature of the period, like the
newspapers, magazines. And he was - I mean, that - I don't even know if it's
real, but it sounds so real - the dialogue in "True Grit."

GROSS: More with the Coen brothers after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CARTER BURWELL'S "RANDALL COLLINS")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with
the screenwriting, directing and producing duo, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.
Their films include "Blood Simple," "Fargo," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" "No
Country For Old Men," "A Serious Man," "True Grit" and "Hail, Caesar!" - a
satirical film about Hollywood in the late 40s and 50s. We'll talk about "Hail,
Caesar!" a little later. Their new film "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs" is a
sometimes comic homage to Westerns. It's an anthology of six stories set in the
West. It's showing in theaters and streaming on Netflix.

So this was shot in video instead of film. Is that right?

COEN: Video - well, digitally.

GROSS: Digitally. Digitally, I should say.

COEN: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: Yeah, yeah.

COEN: Yeah. Video, not - we didn't go quite that far.

GROSS: Right. Were you used to shooting digitally?

COEN: No, this is the first thing we shot not on film - first time for us.

GROSS: And is this because it's streaming on Netflix?

COEN: No, no. How it actually ends up getting put out - although it's also
coming out theatrically in a few cities. No, it was - I don't know what it was.
It was partly convenience, partly a matter of, you know, we knew we wanted to do
a lot of early morning, late afternoon, evening kind of, you know, magic-hour
shooting. And you get a little more in terms of the stop. You get a little more
latitude in terms of how much light you need shooting digitally as opposed to
film.

COEN: It was an experiment, really. We hadn't done it before. And, you know,
it's becoming overwhelmingly the norm. And this seemed like a reasonable movie
to give it a try.

You know, there were 800 visual effects shots in this movie. And when you're
doing a lot of visual effects shots for whatever reason, it's easier if the raw
material, so to speak, has been shot digitally as opposed to on film. It's not
necessary, but it's more convenient. I think that at the end of the day, we're
very happy with the way the movie looks. The sort of getting there isn't as much
fun. But the end result is, in certain ways, more convenient. And it's certainly
just as good.

GROSS: Does it change how you watch rushes?

COEN: Very much so.

GROSS: What's the difference?

COEN: You know, if you're shooting on film, there's something that happens
between when you're actually recording the information on the set and when you
see it for the first time. It goes to a lab. It's - you know, it's emulsion -
light exposing an emulsion that gets developed, goes to a lab, gets printed,
comes back usually the next day or a couple of days later. And in between that,
when you finally see it, it reveals something. And that - what it reveals is
interesting, and it's sort of unfolding as you go through the process. None of
that happens digitally.

You look at a monitor, and you see pretty much exactly what you're, you know,
going to get. In fact, watching dailies almost become superfluous. So watching
dailies, in the old days, if you're shooting on film, used to be a sort of
communal thing where, at the end of the day or sometimes during lunch, everyone
would get together. You would go into a theater, and you would watch the results
of the previous day's work with the whole crew, or much of the crew. Shooting
digitally, you almost stop watching dailies entirely. I mean, we almost stopped
watching them. We've seen them on the monitor as they were being shot.

COEN: Yeah, it's a funny thing. Shooting on film, you're actually making
decisions and committing to how it's going to look to a large degree. And
shooting digitally, you're - it's more like you're capturing information, and
you're deferring all those decisions. And you're going to decide later how it's
going to look. So that's kind of a...

COEN: Yeah.

COEN: As Joel is saying, that's kind of - it makes watching dailies pointless
because you haven't decided anything. You don't - you haven't - you haven't -
nobody actually took a picture. They just captured some information that they're
going to turn into a picture later.

GROSS: Is this because, like - why are you calling it just information when
you're shooting digitally...

COEN: Well, because what you're doing is you're...

GROSS: ...As opposed to having a look? Yeah.

COEN: Because boy, there's so much latitude in what you're capturing, you can
make it look like pretty much anything later in terms of contrast, in terms of
color, in terms of pretty much everything in terms of, you know... Really, half
of what you think you're doing when you're composing a picture, you're sort of
deferring decisions about how it's going to look until later because when you
capture it on film, there's - it's actually in the grain of the negative. And
what you're - it's actually in the negative. And when you're capturing it
digitally, you're just sort of recording pixels, all of which are negotiable
later.

GROSS: I've always wondered, though, how directors feel confident that they have
a good shot and a good take when they actually haven't seen the film itself.

COEN: Well, you know, that also gets into the - it gets into why DPs are so fond
of digital photography. Most of them will say - if you ask them the difference,
they'll say they can sleep at night...

GROSS: (Laughter).

COEN: Because they actually know what they're getting on the set. And - but from
my point of view, it's - that's not necessarily a good thing.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Joel and Ethan Coen. And they
wrote and directed the new movie "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs," which is an
anthology of stories set in the Old West. We'll be back after a short break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CARTER BURWELL'S "CERTAINTY")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guests are Joel and
Ethan Coen. They wrote and directed the new movie "The Ballad Of Buster
Scruggs," which is an anthology of stories set in the Old West. And it's now
streaming on Netflix.

I wanted to talk with you about the movie that you made before "The Ballad Of
Buster Scruggs." But I never got the chance to do it, so I'm going to take this
opportunity to talk to you a little bit about it now. And it's a movie from -
what? - two years ago called "Hail, Caesar!" And it's also, like, an homage to
movies in the same way that, like, your new movie is an homage to Westerns. This
is set in Hollywood, in a Hollywood studio where there's an epic being made
called "Hail, Caesar!" And it's a biblical epic starring George Clooney. And
George Clooney is a Roman who is becoming a believer of Jesus in Jesus' time.

But while he's shooting the movie - while the George Clooney character is
shooting the movie, he's kidnapped by Hollywood screenwriters who are communists
and want to destroy Hollywood because it's a capitalist system. And they give
him "Das Kapital" to read, Karl Marx's critique of the capitalist system.
Herbert Marcuse the philosopher is, like, one of the characters in this who's
trying to indoctrinate him. (Laughter) And in this scene, the George Clooney
character - the actor is telling a studio exec, played by Josh Brolin, about
everything he's learned about how, you know, destructive and exploitative the
Hollywood system is.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAIL, CAESAR!")

GEORGE CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) These guys are pretty interesting, though.
They've actually figured out the laws that dictate everything - history,
sociology, politics, morality - everything. It's all in a book called "Kapital,"
with a K.

JOSH BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) That right?

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) Yeah. And you're not going to believe this. These
guys even figured out what's going on here at the studio because the studio is
nothing more than an instrument of capitalism.

BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) Hmm.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) Yeah, so we blindly follow these laws like any
other institution - laws that these guys figured out. The studio makes pictures
to serve the system. That is its function. That's really what we're up to here.

BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) Is it?

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) Yeah, it's just confirming what they call the
status quo. I mean, we may tell ourselves that we're creating something of
artistic value or there's some sort of spiritual dimension to the picture
business, but what it really is is this fat cat Nick Skank out in New York,
running this factory of serving up these lollipops to the - what they used to
call the bread and circuses for the - the...

(SOUNDBITE OF SLAPPING)

BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) Now, you listen to me, buster. Nick Skank and this
studio have been good to you and to everyone else who works here. If I ever hear
you badmouthing Mr. Skank again, it'll be the last thing you say before I have
you tossed in jail for colluding in your own abduction.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) Eddie, I wouldn't - I would never do that.

(SOUNDBITE OF SLAPPING)

BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) Shut up. You're going to go out there. And you're
going to finish "Hail, Caesar!" You're going to give that speech at the feet of
the penitent thief, and you're going to believe every word you say.

(SOUNDBITE OF SLAPPING)

BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) You're going to do it because you're an actor, and
that's what you do, just like the director does what he does, and the writer and
the script girl and the guy who claps the slate. You're going to do it because
the picture has worth. And you have worth if you serve the picture. And you're
never going to forget that again.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) I won't forget, Eddie.

BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) You're damn right you won't - not as long as I run
this dump. Baird, go out, and be a star.

GROSS: That slapping around you heard was the Josh Brolin character, the studio
exec, slapping around George Clooney's character, the actor. You know, it's as
if this story is based on what the people who were blacklisting actors actually
believed or said they believed about the dangers of communism - you know, that
these communist sympathizers (laughter) or screenwriters - they're going to,
like, overturn the studio system in the country. And they're going to, like,
kidnap you and brainwash you. And we'll all be destroyed. It's kind of hilarious
in that respect. Did you think of it that way?

COEN: Yes.

COEN: Yeah. We thought of it in more, like, global apocalyptic terms. Well,
that's kind of global and apocalyptic. But it's - you know, Eddie Mannix is the
studio chief. But he's a good Catholic who believes in the system. And the
system is being threatened by communists - yeah, communist writers.

COEN: Who are godless.

GROSS: Right, yes. Have you met any of the blacklisted writers? Have you read a
lot about the blacklisting era and the fears that were behind it, the fears that
ruined so many lives, the fears that were spread, you know, around people who
weren't even communists?

COEN: Yes, we have - met them, not so much. But certainly we've read lots about
them. And we're very familiar with the period and the - you know, and what was
going on then. Look, obviously we have a lot of sympathy for the writers that -
and directors and everyone else. Lots of other people were involved in the film
business at that time and in entertainment in general - lots of other businesses
and other parts of life that were victims of the McCarthy era.

On the other hand, this was interesting to us sort of given what we had sort of
set up metaphorically in the picture, with the sort of believers and the
nonbelievers, that the people who were - who were kidnapping this character were
the - were the nonbelievers, you know, the communists, and also playing around
with this idea that to - in certain respects, what people were worried about or
thinking about, what their paranoia was about was - there were certain respects
in which it was actually true.

It's interesting because I have - I know people whose - they're actually the
sons and daughters of Hollywood screenwriters from that period. And two of them
have said to me (laughter) that they remember those meetings in their homes in
the Valley during that time. And they thought that we captured what got said
very accurately. (Laughter) So, you know, we were having a little bit of fun
with that aspect of it.

GROSS: OK, let's take a short break here. Then we'll talk some more. If you're
just joining us, my guests are Joel and Ethan Coen. And they have a new movie
that's a Western anthology. It's a series of stories set in the Old West. And
it's called "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs." We're going to take a short break,
then we'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CARTER BURWELL'S "SEEKING ALICE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with filmmaking
brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. Their new film, "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs," is
streaming on Netflix. When we left off, we were talking about their 2016 film,
"Hail, Caesar!", which is set in Hollywood in the late 1940s and '50s and is a
satire about the studio system, musicals, biblical epics and blacklisting.
George Clooney plays an actor who's starring in a biblical epic set in the time
of Jesus.

I want to play another scene from this sequence. So George Clooney and his
friend, Gracchus...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: ...Are in a crowd at the feet of Jesus, who's being crucified. And George
Clooney, a Roman who has become a follower of Jesus, a believer, is making this
impassioned speech about Jesus. So here is George Clooney from "Hail, Caesar!"

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAIL, CAESAR!")

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) This man was giving water to all. He saw no Roman.
He saw no slave. He saw only men - weak men - and gave suckle. He saw suffering,
which he sought to ease. He saw sin and gave love.

CLANCY BROWN: (As Gracchus) Love, Autolochus?

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) He saw my own sin, Gracchus, and greed. But in his
eyes, I saw no shadow of reproach. I saw only light, the light of God.

BROWN: (As Gracchus) You mean of the gods.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) I do not, friend Gracchus. This Hebrew is a son of
the one God, the God of his far-flung tribe. Why shouldn't God's anointed appear
here, among the strange people, to shoulder their sins? Here, Gracchus, in this
sun-drenched land. Why should he not take this form, the form of an ordinary
man, a man bringing us not the old truth but a new one?

BROWN: (As Gracchus) A new truth.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) A truth beyond the truth that we can see, a truth
beyond this world, a truth told not in words but in light, a truth that we could
see if we had but - if we had but...

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Cut. Cut. Faith - have but faith.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) Faith.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Faith, faith.

CLOONEY: (As Baird Whitlock) Isn't it...

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) They changed it.

BROWN: (As Gracchus) Got most of them, man. You're all right.

GROSS: I just can't hear that scene too many times.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Breaks me up every time.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Among the things I love about it is that it is a very stirring speech,
but it's also, like, such a Hollywood cliche the way it's done.

COEN: Yes.

COEN: George Clooney is good at those. We gave him a stirring speech at the end
of "Intolerable Cruelty"...

COEN: "Intolerable Cruelty."

COEN: ...This thing about divorce lawyers. He's - George goes whole hog.

(LAUGHTER)

COEN: Just to identify everybody, George Clooney was giving the stirring speech,
and Clancy Brown was his skeptical Roman sidekick.

GROSS: Did you have fun writing that - like, writing, like, biblical epic
language?

COEN: Yeah, you know - we've seen those movies, too. Let me tell you most of
those movies are pretty boring and pretty stiff.

GROSS: I've noticed that.

COEN: Yeah, it's...

GROSS: Like, if you watch them back, there's, like, so much boring dialogue in a
lot of them.

COEN: Oh, yeah.

COEN: Yeah.

COEN: Yeah. No, it's hard to sit through "Quo Vadis" or "Ben-Hur."

COEN: Yeah, so we tried to recreate that really boring dialogue.

GROSS: (Laughter).

COEN: I think we did pretty good.

GROSS: I still love watching "The Ten Commandments," though. I kind of grew up
on that film because it was always on TV around Easter or Passover.

COEN: Well, he's get a good beard, Chuck.

GROSS: (Laughter) So how did you prepare yourself to write biblical, epic
speech?

COEN: We kind of remember - as you do. You know, you remember that stuff. And
that style - it's not like you really have to prepare. You've kind of sat
through enough of it.

GROSS: So anyway, so you felt you didn't have to go back and rewatch them,
rewatch the biblical...

COEN: Well, no, we did rewatch them.

GROSS: Oh, you did?

COEN: But we rewatched them - we watched a lot of them, actually. It was
primarily for, you know, that opening scene where we see the, you know, the
Roman legions marching down the Appian Way to Rome and how those were done in
past sort of movies and, you know, the scene with the crucifixion of Christ. We
were looking at how those were sort of lit and how they were sort of - what the
sets were like in those movies because we were trying to recreate a version of
them. So yes, we did watch them.

COEN: And yeah, we actually watched a bunch of different kinds of movies for
when we were - not for writing but, as Joel said, kind of figuring out how we
were going to shoot the counterparts in "Hail, Caesar!" We saw some - you know,
we looked at Esther Williams movies again. We looked in a lot of song and dance
things, a lot of musicals. It was interesting seeing the unbelievable stuff that
they did practically in the '50s - 40s and 50s in Hollywood in terms of
musicals, water ballet. And, you know, even the Bible epics, some of them are -
boring as they are, they have some beautiful photography. "Ben-Hur" that - it's
"Ben-Hur" with the water battle, right?

COEN: Yes. "Ben-Hur" has the big water battle. And, you know, it's this idea of
this funny exercise when you're doing a movie like "Hail, Caesar!" where you're
essentially reverse engineering - you know, the way these things were done is
lost. The way the sort of - in the Esther Williams movies, the way these water
ballets, the Busby Berkeley-esque parts of them anyway, were done. It's just
irreproducible now.

The exercise is - as I said, it's sort of, how do you reverse engineer those
things with modern technology and digital effects so that you can make them look
like they were? But the performers aren't there anymore, for instance and a lot
of the tricks they used. And even the facilities - you know, the tanks that they
used that were built to shoot these things, which you need to actually shoot
them, no longer exist.

GROSS: Because you needed to shoot them as if the camera was underwater. You
need to see their size and their bottoms as they're submerged.

COEN: Yes. Not only underwater, but - correct, yes. We actually ended up
uncovering the tank in the largest soundstage at Sony.

COEN: Sony was MGM.

COEN: MGM.

COEN: So it was actually the Esther Williams tank.

COEN: So we actually shot in that tank, which had not been shot in in quite some
time. But yes, you can't actually find either the physical sort of plant to do
it in that was constructed for these types of shots or the know-how of, you
know, actually how they accomplished certain things. So you then are in this
funny position of trying to sort of figure out how to make it look like what
they did.

GROSS: Yeah. And just to explain to anyone who isn't familiar with Esther
Williams musicals, she was actually a great swimmer, in my opinion a kind of
mediocre singer. But (laughter) - but there were musicals in which instead of,
like, a big dance number for her there would be, like, a big swimming musical
sequence for her. And a lot of it was, like - you know, highly choreographed
stunt swimming with instead of a chorus of people other swimmers in the pool.
And...

COEN: It's kind of...

GROSS: Yeah.

COEN: It's another example of a kind of demented genre. Who invented the genre?
Like singing cowboy, why would there be water ballet musicals? It's just very
odd.

GROSS: I know.

COEN: (Unintelligible).

GROSS: I know. And just to explain, the reason why there are so many, like,
musical - different kinds of musical genres in "Hail, Caesar!" is because it's
set in a Hollywood studio. There are other films in addition to the biblical
epic that are being shot there. And we see some of those other films that are
being shot. And one of those films is a musical about sailors who are on leave
during World War II. And they're about to be called, like, back onto the ship.
And they're realizing, like, oh, it's going to be, like, eight months without
women. And so Channing Tatum as one of the sailors sings this song about, like,
no dames. There's going to be, like, no dames.

And it's a really fun sequence with, like, dancing that is so much like those
late '40s, early '50s musicals where, like, he dances with a broom, he dances
with a chorus of sailors, he dances on the bar, he does a soft shoe on sand. I
mean, just, like, every (laughter) - every trope from those dance numbers is in
this except with much more, like, gay overtones and double entendres. So...

COEN: Yeah, well, you got singing, dancing sailors. You - see; we're not big on
subtext. If there's a gay subtext, we're going to make it text.

GROSS: Right (laughter). OK, so let's hear some of the song. So this is Channing
Tatum. And he's doing his own singing, right?

COEN: Yeah.

COEN: Oh, yeah.

GROSS: Yeah.

COEN: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: And did you write the song?

COEN: No.

COEN: No. In fact, a couple of friends of ours, Willie Reale and Henry Krieger,
wrote this song.

GROSS: OK, well, let's hear it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAIL, CAESAR!")

E E BELL: (As bartender) The Swinging Dinghy is closing, folks - time for me to
clean up, time for you to clear out.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) So long, fellas. See you in eight months.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Toodle-loo.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) See you later, boys.

BELL: (As bartender) Eight months?

PETER BANIFAZ: (As sailor) Yeah, we're shipping out in the morning.

BRIAN MICHAEL JONES: (As sailor) Golly, eight months without a dame.

CHANNING TATUM: (As Burt Gurney) Can you beat it?

BELL: (As bartender) You're going to have to beat it.

TATUM: (As Burt Gurney, singing) We are heading out to sea. And however it'll
be, it ain't going to be the same 'cause no matter what we see, when we're out
there on the sea, we ain't going to see a dame. We'll be searching high and low,
on the deck and down below, but it's a crying shame. Oh, we'll see a lot of
fish, but we'll never clock a dish. We ain't going to see a dame. No dames.

BANIFAZ: (As sailor, singing) We might see some octopuses.

TATUM: (As Burt Gurney, singing) No dames.

JONES: (As sailor, singing) Or a half a dozen clams.

TATUM: (As Burt Gurney, singing) No dames.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character, singing) We might even see a mermaid.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) But mermaids got no gams.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character, singing) No gams.

GROSS: So did you love those old musicals?

COEN: Yeah.

COEN: Yeah. Unlike looking at the biblical epics again, looking at those
musicals again was a pleasure. I mean, they're great.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both for talking with us. Thank you so much.
It's always a pleasure to talk with you. Thanks for coming back to our show.

COEN: Thank you.

COEN: OK, thank you.

COEN: It was a pleasure for us, too.

GROSS: Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed the new film "The Ballad Of Buster
Scruggs." It's showing in theaters and is also streaming on Netflix. Tomorrow on
FRESH AIR, we'll talk about what it's like to climb a vertical rock thousands of
feet high using little cracks and edges of the wall on which to hold on and
balance your body weight. Our guests will be Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson.
Their historic free climb on El Capitan's notorious Dawn Wall in Yosemite is the
subject of a new documentary. I hope you'll join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director
and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our associate producer of digital media is Molly
Seavy Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)



Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and
permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text
may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future.
Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s
programming is the audio record.

 * Facebook
 * Flipboard
 * Email







MORE STORIES FROM NPR

MOVIE INTERVIEWS

BANNED IN IRAN, A FILMMAKER FINDS INSPIRATION IN HER MOTHER FOR 'THE PERSIAN
VERSION'

MOVIE INTERVIEWS

HOW BETHANN HARDISON CHANGED THE FACE OF FASHION - AND WHY THAT MATTERS

MOVIE INTERVIEWS

FROM 'FREAKS AND GEEKS' TO 'BARBIE,' THIS CASTING DIRECTOR DECIDES WHO GETS
ON-SCREEN

MUSIC INTERVIEWS

'BARBIE' MUSIC PRODUCER MARK RONSON OPENS UP ABOUT THE FILM'S 'BESPOKE' SOUND

MOVIE INTERVIEWS

'GOLDA' DEPICTS A KEY MOMENT IN ISRAELI HISTORY. ITS DIRECTOR SEES PARALLELS TO
TODAY

MOVIE INTERVIEWS

'LIKE IT OR NOT, WE LIVE IN OPPENHEIMER'S WORLD,' SAYS DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER
NOLAN


POPULAR ON NPR.ORG

NATIONAL

EVERYONE IN THE PARK KNEW HIM. IT WAS ONLY AFTER HE DIED THAT HIS STORY CAME TO
LIGHT

WORLD

HAMAS' ATTACK IS A STAGGERING FAILURE FOR ISRAEL'S INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY
FORCES

CLIMATE

IT'S A GLOBAL CLIMATE SOLUTION — IF IT CAN GET PAST CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND
NIMBYS

WORLD

ISRAEL IS TRYING TO REGAIN FULL CONTROL OF ITS TERRITORY FOLLOWING HAMAS ATTACK

HEALTH

READY TO COLD PLUNGE? WE DIVE INTO THE SCIENCE TO SEE IF IT'S WORTH IT

SPORTS

KELVIN KIPTUM BREAKS A WORLD RECORD IN HIS U.S. MARATHON DEBUT


NPR EDITORS' PICKS

MIDDLE EAST

9 U.S. CITIZENS HAVE DIED IN THE ISRAEL-GAZA CONFLICT, U.S. OFFICIALS SAY

GAMING

META QUEST 3 REVIEW: POWERFUL AUGMENTED REALITY LACKS THE GAMES TO BACK IT UP

SCIENCE

'CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE' GETS A REAL-WORLD MATH REBRAND

CLIMATE

HOW KIDS ARE MAKING SENSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME WEATHER

CLIMATE

INNOVATORS SHARE WHAT HELPED CONVINCE THEM TO TAKE CLIMATE ACTION

SPORTS

A DEAF FOOTBALL TEAM WILL DEBUT A 5G-CONNECTED AUGMENTED REALITY HELMET TO CALL
PLAYS



READ & LISTEN

 * Home
 * News
 * Culture
 * Music
 * Podcasts & Shows

CONNECT

 * Newsletters
 * Facebook
 * Instagram
 * Press
 * Public Editor
 * Corrections
 * Contact & Help

ABOUT NPR

 * Overview
 * Diversity
 * NPR Network
 * Accessibility
 * Ethics
 * Finances

GET INVOLVED

 * Support Public Radio
 * Sponsor NPR
 * NPR Careers
 * NPR Shop
 * NPR Events
 * NPR Extra

 * Terms of Use
 * Privacy
 * Your Privacy Choices
 * Text Only
 * © 2023 npr




Sponsor Message

Become an NPR sponsor




COOKIE CONSENT & SPONSORSHIP CHOICES

We and our partners store and access information on your device, such as unique
IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept and manage your choices
at any time by clicking `Manage Preferences`, including your right to object
where legitimate interest is relied upon. Your choices will be signaled to our
partners and will not affect your browsing.
By clicking “Accept All,” you agree to the use of cookies, similar tracking and
storage technologies, and information about your device to enhance your viewing,
listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from
NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This
information is shared with social media, sponsorship, analytics, and other
vendors or service providers.


WE AND OUR PARTNERS PROCESS DATA TO PROVIDE:

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access
information on a device. Personalised ads and content, ad and content
measurement, audience insights and product development. List of Partners
(service providers or vendors)

Accept All Reject All Manage Preferences



MANAGE PREFERENCES

We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the
delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our
website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent and
legitimate interest. You may exercise your right to consent or object to a
legitimate interest, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in
the link under each purpose. These choices will be signaled to our vendors
participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Allow All


MANAGE CONSENT PREFERENCES

STRICTLY NECESSARY OR ESSENTIAL COOKIES

Always Active

These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through the
NPR Services and to enable you to use some of their features. These cookies are
necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.
They are usually set in response to actions made by you that amount to a request
for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling
in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies,
but some parts of the site will not then work. Without these cookies, the
services that you have asked for cannot be provided, and we only use these
cookies to provide you with those services.

Cookies Details‎

PERFORMANCE AND ANALYTICS COOKIES

Performance and Analytics Cookies

These cookies are used to collect information about traffic to our Services and
how users interact with the NPR Services. The information collected includes the
number of visitors to the NPR Services, the websites that referred visitors to
the NPR Services, the pages that they visited on the NPR Services, what time of
day they visited the NPR Services, whether they have visited the NPR Services
before, and other similar information. We use this information to help operate
the NPR Services more efficiently, to gather broad demographic information and
to monitor the level of activity on the NPR Services. NPR's third-party service
providers that measure and analyze the use of the NPR Services for NPR also use
their own cookies. NPR's third-party analytics service providers use cookies
across multiple sites to collect visitor data (such as data related to age,
gender and visitor interests).

Cookies Details‎

TARGETING AND SPONSOR COOKIES

Targeting and Sponsor Cookies

These cookies track your browsing habits or other information, such as location,
to enable us to show sponsorship credits which are more likely to be of interest
to you. These cookies use information about your browsing history to group you
with other users who have similar interests. Based on that information, and with
our permission, we and our sponsors can place cookies to enable us or our
sponsors to show sponsorship credits and other messages that we think will be
relevant to your interests while you are using third-party services. NPR works
with third-party vendors that may serve sponsorship credits or other messages to
you on other websites after you visit the NPR Services. These third-party
vendors use their own cookies to recognize you as an NPR Services visitor and to
serve you sponsorship credits or other messages on other websites that they
believe you will find most relevant. If you do not allow these cookies, you may
still receive sponsorship or marketing messages, but they may not be targeted to
your interests.

Cookies Details‎

FUNCTIONAL COOKIES

Functional Cookies

These cookies allow NPR Services to remember choices you make when you use them,
such as remembering your Member station preferences and remembering your account
details. The purpose of these cookies is to provide you with a more personal
experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences every time you
visit the NPR Services. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose
services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some
or all of these services may not function properly.

Cookies Details‎

STORE AND/OR ACCESS INFORMATION ON A DEVICE

Store and/or access information on a device

Cookies, device identifiers, or other information can be stored or accessed on
your device for the purposes presented to you.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

PERSONALISED ADS AND CONTENT, AD AND CONTENT MEASUREMENT, AUDIENCE INSIGHTS AND
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and
product development

 * SELECT BASIC ADS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Ads can be shown to you based on the content you’re viewing, the app you’re
   using, your approximate location, or your device type.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED ADS PROFILE
   
   Switch Label
   
   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   ads that are relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED ADS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Personalised ads can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED CONTENT PROFILE
   
   Switch Label
   
   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   content that is relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED CONTENT
   
   Switch Label
   
   Personalised content can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE AD PERFORMANCE
   
   Switch Label
   
   The performance and effectiveness of ads that you see or interact with can be
   measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE CONTENT PERFORMANCE
   
   Switch Label
   
   The performance and effectiveness of content that you see or interact with
   can be measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * APPLY MARKET RESEARCH TO GENERATE AUDIENCE INSIGHTS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Market research can be used to learn more about the audiences who visit
   sites/apps and view ads.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * DEVELOP AND IMPROVE PRODUCTS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Your data can be used to improve existing systems and software, and to
   develop new products
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

ACTIVELY SCAN DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION

Actively scan device characteristics for identification

Your device can be identified based on a scan of your device's unique
combination of characteristics.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

ENSURE SECURITY, PREVENT FRAUD, AND DEBUG

Always Active

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent fraudulent activity, and ensure
systems and processes work properly and securely.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

TECHNICALLY DELIVER ADS OR CONTENT

Always Active

Your device can receive and send information that allows you to see and interact
with ads and content.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

MATCH AND COMBINE OFFLINE DATA SOURCES

Always Active

Data from offline data sources can be combined with your online activity in
support of one or more purposes

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

LINK DIFFERENT DEVICES

Always Active

Different devices can be determined as belonging to you or your household in
support of one or more of purposes.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

RECEIVE AND USE AUTOMATICALLY-SENT DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION

Always Active

Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it
automatically sends, such as IP address or browser type.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab
Back Button


COOKIE LIST



Search Icon
Filter Icon

Clear
checkbox label label
Apply Cancel
Consent Leg.Interest
checkbox label label
checkbox label label
checkbox label label

Reject All Confirm My Choices