Before he landed on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart had kicked around as the host of several short-lived shows; a lifelong fascination with Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" led to Salma Hayek turning the book into an animated film; composer Reinhold Heil provides the tense score for the Sundance Channel's "Deutschland 83"
A look at Jon Stewart’s numerous pre-’Daily Show’ gigs
Aug. 6 is Jon Stewart’s last night on “The Daily Show.” Fans love him for his 16 years hosting the show, during which time he’s called out politicians, hosted presidential candidates and fostered the careers of Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Steve Carell, among many others.
But Stewart wasn’t a well-known quantity when he took over “The Daily Show” in 1999. After paying his dues at stand-up clubs in New York, he landed his first hosting gig on Comedy Central in 1990. It was for “Short Attention Span Theater” — the kind of show where they'd read viewers' letters on air.
Unfortunately for Stewart, he wouldn’t escape viewer letters anytime soon. One of his next shows was MTV’s “You Wrote It, You Watch It,” an early attempt at crowdsourcing, where viewers’ letters were turned into sketch comedy segments.
“You Wrote It, You Watch It” lasted for only one season and before long Stewart was back on MTV to host his own talk show, aptly named “The Jon Stewart Show.” Even though it was canceled after two years, Stewart's next show was a step in the right direction. He hosted “Where’s Elvis This Week?” — a BBC panel show that took on some of the most important political topics of the day. Notable guests on the show included Eddie Izzard and Dave Chappelle.
“Where’s Elvis This Week?” was short-lived too. It would seem the perfect transition to the political satire of “The Daily Show,” but not before Stewart tried his hand at acting in films such as “The Faculty.”
Stewart even signed a deal with Miramax to star in a slew of films, including opposite Gillian Anderson in 1998’s “Playing by Heart.”
Stewart would be getting another shot at host very soon though. In 1998 he was named to replace then-“Daily Show” host Craig Kilborn.
On Jan. 11, 1999, Stewart began his tenure as host of "The Daily Show" and the rest is history. Trevor Noah gets his shot as host, starting Sept. 28.
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Composer Reinhold Heil gives Cold War-era tension a modern twist in 'Deutschland 83'
NOTE: Listen to this interview to hear samples of Reinhold's score.
As the title suggests, the Sundance Channel’s critically acclaimed spy series, “Deutschland 83," takes place in 1983, near the border between communist East Germany and the democratic West.
At the time, tensions between the two nations were running particularly high as the arms race escalated.
At the center of the story is Martin Rauch, a 24-year-old East German border patrol agent who is sent undercover to spy on the West. As you can imagine, there are a lot of tense moments as the inexperienced and naive agent pursues his mission behind enemy lines.
The man behind the equally tense score for the show is composer Reinhold Heil.
The series hits close to home for Heil, who now lives and works in Los Angeles. Back in the 1980s, though, he was a young man living in West Berlin.
"There was a lot going on, there were terrorist activities, there was nuclear armament and mid-range missiles on both sides of the Iron Curtain," said Heil on The Frame. "I think a growing percentage of the population felt pretty threatened and expressed it. There was a huge peace movement going on. Stuff that's pretty unimaginable right now ... millions of people out in the street demonstrating."
Interview Highlights:
When this show came along, as a composer, somebody who was there at the time, what was your reaction to the material?
I was sitting here in L.A. and working on American TV shows. TV seems to be what's going on right now. TV has resurged. So I feel fairly content and they call me up and say, "Do you want to do a German TV show?" I'm thinking I'm not sure if I want to do it, because I didn't think much of the quality of German TV making. Filmmaking yes, but TV I haven't really seen much that really blew me away. So they sent me the opening scene and it immediately grabbed me because I had actually lived through that scene, and the way it was depicted was really really authentic.
So this happened to you?
I had bought a whole bunch of music and it was all confiscated. They interrogated me for a good hour and my girlfriend was very worried outside.
This is a show set in 1983 and a lot of songs are used that are contemporary to that day, [but] the score is a more modern, electronic sound. Tell us what you thought the sound design of the score should sound like.
Of course I have my ideas and the show runners have their ideas, so it takes a while to come to a consensus and speak the same language about music. And they said from the get-go they [didn't] want a score that has the sound of the period. Although I was active at the time, I was producing pop music and all that kind of stuff. They didn't want that, they wanted a contemporary score. Of course there was a lot of suspense because there's a lot at stake. This boy who is being thrown into this job of spying on behalf of the East German secret service, he's in constant danger of being found out. So you could say it has a little bit of a James Bond kind of vibe, it could have a little bit [of] darkness and threat on a constant basis. There's a huge emotional component also because it's at the same time a coming-of-age story. So there's a lot of nuance to the score. There's one or two little things where the '80s crept in and they let me get away with it.
The song "99 Luftballoons" by Nena shows up a few times in the show. You have a very personal connection to that song.
Yeah, I was the producer of that record. I had my own band and was successful and started producing other artists at that time. One of them was Nena, and ["99 Luftballoons"] wasn't a throwaway. I understood how talented she was, but it was a super-crazy runaway success all around the world [from] a piece that we just did in three days. I think the German lyric is better than the English translation. The English translation has a bit more of an infantile aspect to it. The strength of the song is that it addresses this really dark subject matter in some sort of an innocent way, which was fitting her as a personality and an artist and her age group. At the same time it evokes the quite real threat of thermonuclear destruction. That's what happens, basically at the end of the song, that one balloon flies away and the world is in ashes.
Do you play on it?
I do, actually. There were some keyboard parts where we didn't want to do it with machines and the keyboarder, himself, wasn't quite happy with how he played, so I actually did it.
You are a classically trained musician, but you use a wide array of digital instruments. In the track "Burial," it sounds like you're using a real cello.
This has both. It has human voices, and it has a real cello, and it has a Hammond organ, which isn't a particularly contemporary instrument, but I'm using it in a very textural way, just droning away with it and using whatever specifics of a Hammond B3 can do. You could say I'm a hybrid composer. I don't distinguish — whatever sound source works, whatever evokes the right emotion, I will use. All instruments are valued the same.
This is the first German language series on an American cable channel and it's been incredibly well-reviewed. What does its success say about German TV coming to the United States?
Germans have always had a bit of a chip on their shoulder about the quality of their TV, and quite rightly so. There's a lot of bad stuff produced over there. But the facilities are there, Babelsberg is a big studio, [Showtime's] "Homeland" is currently shooting there. So, we have the infrastructure, we have the manpower, we have the creativity — why not actually come up with a German-made product that could be interesting for the rest of the world?
Salma Hayek turns Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet' into an animated film
“The Prophet” is a book of 26 poems written by Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran. Published in 1923, the book follows an exiled poet named Almustafa, who — as he journeys home — talks with passersby about the human condition.
The book is now an animated feature film, which features eight poems from the book, each illustrated by different artists. Among the actors lending their voices to the film are Liam Neeson and Salma Hayek.
Hayek is also one of the producers on “The Prophet,” and she told The Frame about her personal connection to the story, via her Lebanese paternal grandfather.
"I was very, very close to him," said Hayek, whose grandfather died when she was six. "I was the favorite grandchild. On his bedside table he always kept a book. On the cover there was an image of a man that was very haunting to me. It made me think of my grandfather."
That book was "The Prophet." For Hayek, reading "The Prophet" as an adult reforged the connection with her grandfather, which inspired her to further elaborate on the work.
"When I read this book for the first time," Hayek said, "it was as if my grandfather was answering all my questions."
"Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet" stars Salma Hayek and Liam Neeson in the cinematic recreation of the popular book.
In making the film, the goal was to cinematically deliver Gibran's message through the eyes of a young girl, while pairing it with imagery. Hayek believes this is a delivery that makes Gibran's message accessible to all viewers.
"The story of this girl is the story of a little girl trying to find her voice," Hayek said. "It's a very personal thing for me. I think that we're all looking for our voice. We all lost something. In the case of this little girl, it's her father. When she finds a real purpose and she understands what her place is in this world. She finds the courage to find her own voice."
Neeson voices Almustafa in the film. For Hayek, having Neeson voice the character was the perfect match in more than one way.
"Liam Neeson is an extraordinary actor," Hayek said. "He's also an extraordinary man. It was important for the spirit of the film that there was some beauty in the human being that was playing Mustafa, which is the poet in the movie. There is so much warmth and wisdom in the sound of his voice."
"Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet" features the voices of Salma Hayek as Kamila and Liam Neeson as Mustafa.
Neeson was also able to read the poetry in a way that felt accessible to children. It also helped that he was a fan of Gibran's work.
"We were very impressed," Hayek said, "because he told us that he loved the book. But when it was time to read the poetry he'd put the script away because he knew them all by heart."
Hayek said her goal with the film is to bring the poetry to life: "I wanted people to stop thinking about the movie and listening to the story I was telling them. I wanted them to take a journey inside of themselves."
Hayek believes this task shouldn't be difficult because "The Prophet" covers topics that all individuals face everyday.
"His poems in this movie and in this book are about the simple things that we all share — death, love, children," Hayek said. "This helped me to take the audience to that place inside of themselves."
As far as Hayek's purpose for making the movie, she believes the words of Gibran can highlight essential factors that bind together a compassionate global community.
"Through my work as an activist I've seen so much sorrow and how the value of life has diminished," Hayek said. "I wanted to make a film that brought us all together."