'Nation' filmmaker Nate Parker; comedians for Sanders; music producer Larry Klein

Nat Turner to me means, as a person, someone who sacrificed everything for something that he knew that he would never see. He was someone that put his people in front of himself. He was someone that had a riotous disposition toward injustice. And to me, that means identity. That means access to heroism in my community as a man of color. It means loving my people enough to want them to heal, and to do my part. It means knowing the importance of legacy and what I will leave — the condition I'll leave this country and this world in when I'm gone, for my children, and the children of other people that are around me. It means having a desperate sense of self, and understanding that I have purpose and I have capacity that can be used for good. These are all the things that come to mind when you ask what I think about him and what he did, and what I feel like I'm called to do — not only as a person of color but a human being. 

Well, I think one, and the most important thing for me, is healing. I think this film can promote and facilitate healing in a country that has wounds that were afflicted during the legacy of slavery and that still affect us today. There are so many things — we deal with the racial tension, we deal with pervasive racism in American culture, pervasive racism in Hollywood. The reality is this comes from somewhere. Whether it be D.W. Griffith's propaganda film that came at such a fragile time in American history, that screamed the mantra, Oppress and embrace white supremacy, or die. People felt that by buying into this idea of white supremacy, they would ensure their preservation.



As we know now, that was misguided, but the reality is, that was our foundation. So for this film I want us to address that trauma. I think this film is an opportunity for us to look at this dark past, see not only the implications of the time, but the themes and parallels of where we are right now. And ask ourselves what systems that parallel those systems exist? And what is our responsibility with respect to addressing those systems and the injustices that those systems carry? So my hope is that this film creates change agents, that people will see it and — if they are moved — that they will know and be encouraged to step into that place of responsibility. That it will create activists of everyone. Because the reality is, there's racial tension that's affecting us all. And there's no one that will deny that. Which means that we all want to heal, that we all want to confront this issue, collectively. 



I didn't make this film for black people to only stand up and say, I have something to do, and I have a responsibility. I want all people to say that. I want people to say, What happened during this time was not only wrong. But it created systems that affect us today. And I have a responsibility to deal with those systems when they exist in my environment.

I think it's quite simple. One, that true healing requires honest confrontation — confronting injustice where it stands. That's what Nat Turner did. And he did it through a standpoint of love and faith. How do we pull that into 2016? Well, this is what I think: if there's a system that exists and there are injustices throughout that system, we have to know that they will corrupt us completely. We will be further corrupted and corroded, right? The moral fabric of who we are will be corroded to nothing. 



That's what happened in this time. That's what happened to [slave owner] Samuel Turner. That's what happened to the people that — even in their benevolence — became complicit, and did things that we look at now as terroristic. So, if someone's watching this film, I would hope and challenge them to ask themselves: In 2016, are there things happening that I know for a fact are wrong, that go against the ideology that I support as a patriot of this country? Whether it be the prison industrial complex that holds people in captivity, that has great injustices that are happening against people. Or whether it be racial inequality, or gender ID inequality, sexual inequality. Where are those injustices and iniquities that raise their head and how can I be effective in stomping those things out? 



And be bullish in doing so. I think that Nat Turner did what he did with the tools that he had in his possession. He was a man who could not leave his plantation. He was a man who did not have access to weapons. He couldn't form a labor union that could address the injustice. All he could do is deal with it with the violence, with axes and broom handles, and meet it where he stood in that place. If Nat Turner had Twitter, if Nat Turner had Facebook, or some of the incredible access to technology that we have, then he probably could've had different options with how to deal with the revolution. But he used what he had. But whatever he used, it was resistance. 



So the message I think is: Resist! Resist, subvert, disrupt. All things that support injustice. The second we shrug things off, we become apathetic and our ability to be compassionate, to empathize, goes away. Which is why when young men, regardless of the color, but in this instance, when young people of color are getting killed with their hands up, and police brutality is just destroying our youth — the fact that people can shrug their shoulders, and change the subject and don't identify or empathize as if these children were their children. The fact that the value system is based on a hue of skin. That's a system that we need to deal with. So I think it boils down to challenging systems that are oppressive. Nat Turner lived in a time that was deeply oppressive. And he stood up and said, I will do something about it in the name of God. I live in a time in 2016 that has oppression. That is very real. So as an activist first, I have to ask myself: Am I willing to shrug it off and become active in the complicity of this system, or will I use the only tool I know, which is film, to address those issues?



And I'm not saying my job is the most important. There are people that do brain surgery every day and know a lot more than me. But this is my tool, this is my weapon. Nat Turner used an axe. My axe is a camera, and sound equipment, and an incredible crew.

Well, I think it's important to recognize, there's never been a "good ol' days" for people of color in this country. There's never been a time where there has been racial harmony and peace where we say, Oh, there are no problems, everything's fine. There's never been, even up until this moment. To say that things have gotten worse under President Obama I think is a bit unfair. I think technology has gotten better and the access to recording devices and things, I think that access to technology that has allowed us to be able to see the injustices in a more in-your-face way have grown.



So I think that while there's the Trayvon Martin thing or the Michael Brown thing, while a lot of these injustices are happening — and it seems even more often than not — once it's all said-and- done and the dust settles and the research is done, we'll find that these injustices, these murders, have been happening, probably at a similar rate. It's just that now they're really — because of technology and our ability to communicate with each other in such a real and instantaneous way— bubbling to the surface of our consciousness. We're having a difficult time now being able to shrug off these situations and bypass the conversation, because we're so well-connected globally. 



So in that respect, yes, it's very timely. Because it is at the surface. It is on our tongue. It's in the conversation. 

I think what separated Fox Searchlight from the others, for me personally, was their desperation to get this film out to the global market — their understanding that this is a film for everyone. That you can watch this film in a village in Australia, at some Aboriginal village, and you can see it on mute and people will understand what is being said. You can take this to Beirut and put it on mute and people will watch it. You can take this to Afghanistan, to South America, to Compton. You can take it to Detroit. You will have the same type of potential impact in the sense that they will watch and understand that this film is about one thing: standing up against injustice.



So [Fox Searchlight was] fervent in their desire to make sure this has the impact that it needs to have globally, so there can be healing, and there can be real, sustainable change. I connected with them on a human level when it came to strategy, when it came to options and ideas about how to think outside the box, think inside the box, pull the box apart, tape it up, put it back together — in an effort to use this film itself as a change agent, as a conversation starter, and as a system-disrupter. 

Well, imagine a Rick Santorum rally with fewer people and more prostate jokes. I'm kidding — only kind of. It was actually pretty low-key. Given that it was five o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon, I think any key was kind of impressive. The house was about half full, maybe 150 people. I'm sure the late show sold out, but there were a lot of Bernie Sanders t-shirts and at least one Bernie Sanders wig and a lot of ernest young people with clipboards working the sidewalk making sure people had signed up for all sorts of Bernie Sanders-related activities. 

Well, in a comic way, he admits that part of him just wants Trump to win. 

Rodriguez: To be totally honest, my heart is kind of divided. The Latino in me hates Trump, but wants him to win for comedic reasons.

But the thing I realized is that the comics aren't this homogeneous blob of liberal funny people. There are actually a lot of shades of gray and opinions out there. And if they have one true loyalty, it's getting a laugh. I also had a chance to speak with Maz Jobrani — not a Donald Trump fan. And I asked him if comics aren't kind of helping Trump's campaign by always talking about him, making jokes about him and just boosting his profile. 

Jobrani: Well, I think, unfortunately, you can't just send out a memo to everybody who's in the media and say, Don't talk about Trump, and have everyone agree to not talk about Trump. He says some very outrageous stuff. I think the real culpability goes to the people that support him. And I think the unfortunate thing is we thought that we made so much progress when it comes to race and understanding and being an open society. But you realize there was a lot of people behind closed doors that had racist values, racist ideas, racist thoughts — and they've come out. 

I'm not even sure how you would quantitate that. People that have signed on to the Sanders bandwagon include Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Margaret Cho, Patton Oswalt, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Piven, Danny DeVito ... it's pretty evenly divided in terms of the ways Hollywood people seem to be going. I don't know whether they're all going to rally around the eventual nominee when the time comes, because there's a saying that Sanders doesn't have followers, he has true believers. And you really get that feeling when you're out there. 

For me, it involves identifying and locating what in an artist is magical. I think that the job has changed through the years. Perhaps in the '50s, the producer was the guy to make sure that things didn't go over budget. I remember talking to Herbie [Hancock] about Creed Taylor. When I was growing up, CTI...

Yeah, he did all those great records and I asked Herbie, "What was he like? What would you see him doing in the studio?" And he said, "Well, he read the paper a lot." I said, "Okay, there must have been more than that." Because there's a consistency aesthetically through all those records that holds true in every way. [Hancock] said, "Well, you know, actually what he would do is he would quietly go around to each player and whisper things in their ear and say something. He might say just a few words or a little bit of a nudge one way or another."  



As I've been doing this job longer and longer, I see how valuable it is to know when not to say a lot. Getting back to the Herbie record, one of the big challenges for me on that record was that I was directing — here I had Herbie, Wayne Shorter and Dave Holland in the studio. That was a bit spooky for me because these are my heroes. 



We had been having a tough time. It was the toughest tune on the record, a song called "Amelia," which is kind of a complex song. I remember saying over the [intercom] to Dave Holland, "Can you just hold a note through those two bars?" And silence [laughs]. So I knew that I had reached the end of his patience. 

Oh yeah! Certainly Joni Mitchell. I couldn't quantify how much I learned from working with her, which was not easy because she had never had a producer before and she asked me to be a part of these records that we made together. 

Well, the first one that I played on was "Wild Things Run Fast," and she ended up wanting me to occupy a producer-place with her on that. All of the following records we collaborated together. A lot of that was my education, in many ways, of how to do the job. I certainly made plenty of mistakes and was called on the carpet for every single one of them and learned very quickly.

Well, the first example that comes to mind is on the record, "Both Sides Now." Our initial idea was to do a record of standards that follow the arc of a relationship. It was an appropriate record for us to work on together because we had been through it. Then we decided to put two of her songs into that group of songs. One was "A Case of You," which we put at the halfway point, and then one was "Both Sides Now" which we put as a summation at the end. 



We had Herbie Hancock play on the record, as we did Wayne Shorter. Herbie told me that he and Wayne sat through both of those tracks and just cried all the way through. We really hit on something with both of these things. I knew that because it made me feel the same way every time I heard it. When it went out into the world, it really had the same affect on a lot of people and seemed to strike that same nerve inside most people who heard those tracks.