Harvey Keitel on The Well-educated

Harvey Keitel on The Well-educated

Charlie Rose : 

I said this to you before we started 

and I wanna explore it now : the notion of -- 

I was struck by your own.... 

In reading a lot about you, 

before this conversation, 

uh, yesterday and this morning, 

this journey, this exploration, 

this constant sense of being able to 

descend into The Darkness, where 

you don't know what's the next move, 

and you mentioned, you said to me : 

You're struck by how few people do that, 

and especially people who've 

had um -- Superior education, 

who've had much more education --

The Wolf :

.....yes, well, you know, um -- 

I'm not well-educated, um --

Therein, lies the rub, in a sense : 

I'm not well-educated, uh --

I left school when I was 16. 

Um -- I hardly --

....joined The Marine Corps. 

-- joined the Marines. I had hardly 

picked a book up until that time --

I didn't begin my reading until 

I was into in the Marine Corps, and 

one of the first books I read was 

on mythology, interestingly..... 

enough um people like myself from lower middle class I have a tendency to worship people from the upper middle class upper class and I'm speaking in terms of Education not only wealth although wealth for the underclass is something to uh to worship so yes I was surprised um as I began to educate myself into these um this mythology this this journey this necessary Journey on the raises Edge in order to um uh be to evolve I was surprised about the reaction from a lot of uh well educated people like yourself you know um um who I was surprised were struck by who was really withdrawn to your journey yes something that was fulfilling for you yes and and it just um let me on enter upon a new area here which I have not thought about but your question is prompting I guess so I might stutter a bit here but let me let me try um we We the People have to um take more responsibility for what exists in our social structures we cannot Advocate responsibility by turning it over to the formerly educated all the wisdom is not necessarily the um the uh the uh the land the playground of the superior to use your word educated experience could perhaps be the best educator I'm reminded [Music] um uh politics now seems to me to have center stage in everything it seems to me to be a circus the world revolves around politics I was Politics caught up in it myself watching these political debates all the time this and that and having been going back and forth and I said to myself who is behind all the wars that are going on today behind all the killing maiming burning of poverty that's being committed today people who have a superior education formally that is right formally and I said to myself if politics is the business of the people then theater must be the soul of the people and enough with politics I might like to see Bill Clinton and the uh the uh the leaders of the Nations involved in the war in Bosnia get up and do a piece from a play rather than talk so much about peace and that experience of the theater that experience of being perhaps is the area we really have to go not up but in what is relevant what is really relevant in your experience as a human being I mean what what is one supposed to say you know I was in Sarajevo recently with Vanessa Redgrave through the auspices of the U.N and um uh I'm there and I'm looking around I'm saying my God we went to every Community a Muslim Serbian Croatian Jewish well the members of these communities want to be together they want to be together and they want the same things they want the same family that's right shelter job communication to create they want the same things who is hurling the bullets and the bombs the leaders of the nations are ordering this to be done so you asked me what experience might they have one other than the ability to say fire Experience as acting for you been an expert an exploration into self totally there's no other reason to uh to be be enacted but may I come back for a moment to what we're talking about because I'm a little concerned that I'm sounding like everyone else that's ever appeared and talked about the uh the uh subject I mean it when I say I rather see them create a scene from some great play do some great theater they even have an experience there they might bring them closer to some reality they might that might make them more hospitable to one another instead of worshiping their local gods and saying I'm a servant you're a Croatian you're a Muslim instead of worshiping their their their local gods they might discover that there is one Creator and one God and therefore we all do have something in common but I think as long as they talk as long as they want another they will go no further than they have gone already I'm saying this pointedly in the experience of of trying to get along together in the experience and theater provides an experience creation provides an experience that is at best at its best unspeakable I'm reminded of one of the prophets which I researched but we did The Last Temptation Of Christ either Jeremiah or Isaiah uh brilliant Brilliant Minds who exclaimed at one point uh in his writings I don't have the words to express my experience I think it's that experience that I'm talking about in the experience something else would Art happen if they if they experience them I think if I hear you correctly no you are but let me tell you if I'm hearing you goodness and that's what art does yes art is a capacity of an artist to say through his or her art the experience that others feel yes yes can show the common experience to come in elements that bind us right coming Universe we all come from that were all made of star stuff listen uh I'm sorry again I say this because I come from the other side as a young Marine I was more than willing to kill from my country and die from my country and at times I believe that's very worthwhile to stand up for what you believe in back then I was a young ignorant ignorant young man and um don't stop there because I wanted to you came coming back on the boat from Lebanon on the ship is where you became you introduced yourself to reading maybe you began to I I recall some women there yes I read this book on mythology on on on Greek gods I don't know I mean today it's interesting to me that I came up with that book back then when I was 18 years old and 19. I don't know where I got the book from even but you don't want to talk about Korea but I do just for a second um because you've made 45 films or 46 I mean I don't know right over 40 films their people how many do you know all that all that really indicates is that I didn't have leads a lot of leads because if you do you can't do that many films there is somehow now people will look at you and there's a celebration of you talking about people writing about you and they're talking about you and I get a sense you feel that too that somehow there is an acceptance um and when you look at what what it took to get where you are now any reservations any regrets any you know or do you look at that as the unfolding of a life um and it and you're just happy with it if I can quote one of the one of the great talents that I admire regrets I have a few um who was that Frank Sinatra yeah oh Frank Sinatra yes um no everything that has occurred appears to me to be right everything that occurs because everything that occurred has provided an opportunity for me to see where I'm going to run this way or run that way um luckily enough I've chosen the path where I ran into myself and locked myself over many times but I got up I had great friends along the way because you can't do it without support Martin Scorsese Robert De Niro and me that I don't know many of you don't know you know yes I've certainly arrived from some other place to where I am now yes um we're out of time I want to do this again as you know I've been trying to do it for a while me too and it's a pleasure to have you I've enjoyed your show really thank you great to have you