'Star Wars' Ends With 'The Sith'

DATE May 19, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Philip Caputo talks about his memoir, "A Rumor of War,"
and the war experiences that shaped the writing of his novel
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Philip Caputo, is best known for his memoir, "A Rumor of War," about
serving in Vietnam in 1965. After the war, he became a journalist. He was
part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered election fraud for the
Chicago Tribune. When he covered the Middle East, he was shot in Beirut and
held captive by a militant Palestinian group. We'll talk about that later.
He's continued to report from around the world. His journalism has also
inspired his novels. His new novel, "Acts of Faith," takes place in Sudan in
the '90s during the civil war. The main characters are aid workers and
missionaries helping the rebels who are fighting the extremist Islamic
government.

New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani wrote, quote, "`Acts of Faith'
will be to the era of the Iraq War what Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet
American" became to the Vietnam era, a parable about American excursions
abroad and the dangers of missionary zeal, a Conradian tale about idealism run
amok, capitalistic greed sold as paternalistic benevolence, ignorance
disguised as compassion," unquote.

Let's start with a short reading. A multiracial Kenyan, who is the president
of a small airline in Kenya, is talking to an American journalist about his
business, which is flying aid, food, medicine, clothing to the victims of the
civil war in southern Sudan. He's told her that in Africa, there's no
difference between God and the devil.

Mr. PHILIP CAPUTO (Journalist): `She paused to flip through her notebook to
make sure she had covered all her questions. That was when, apropos of
nothing, he made his remark about the synonymousness of God and the devil in
Africa. Now she glances at him, perplexed. To her, it isn't clear which god
and which devil he is talking about. There are a multiplicity of divinities
and demons and demon divinities in the vast forests, swamps and plains lying
south of the Sahara, north of which Allah has an almost exclusive franchise.
Each tribe--and there are thousands--possesses its own pantheon of spirits
that dwell in numinous trees and on sacred rocks--ancestral spirits,
malevolent spirits, evil spirits and capricious spirits, whose goodwill could
be bribed with certain sacrifices or charms, though such gratuities are paid
without guarantees, for those supernatural beings reserve the right to turn
malevolent on a whim, rather like African politicians. "Is Fitzhugh referring
to them?" she wonders. "Or does he mean that the God of Abraham and the
prince of darkness have joined forces to reign united over the continent?"'

GROSS: That's Philip Caputo reading from his new novel, "Acts of Faith."

Philip Caputo, welcome to FRESH AIR. That phrase about the--how there's no
difference between God and the devil in Africa, did you hear that phrase in
Africa?

Mr. CAPUTO: I heard an idea like it. I didn't hear it phrased quite that
way. But I did hear an idea that was expressed to me by a guy I was talking
to in a bar in Nairobi to the effect of the different conception that
Africans, or at least East Africans--because that's where we were at the
time--have toward good and evil, compared to the Western concept.

GROSS: And what's that comparison?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, in the West we still have a kind of Manichaean outlook on
good and evil. I mean, over here is good and over there is evil. The--in
effect, there's God. There's the devil. There's the angel. There's Satan.
Whereas the--this guy's notion, or his idea, was that, for the African, good
and evil are intertwined in a much more--well, let me put it this way: that
they're like a Janus-faced god, or, perhaps, like two serpents, good and evil
twined together, and it's very difficult to separate the two.

GROSS: Why did you want to set your novel in Sudan and have the main
characters be aid workers and missionaries?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, I happen to have been in Kenya and Sudan a number of
times, and on the last time that I was there I was on a magazine assignment
for National Geographic Adventure magazine covering the airlift of
humanitarian aid into southern Sudan from Kenya. And while I was covering
that I discovered that a few of the pilots and some of the NGOs, who were
sending the aid, were running guns and heavy weapons into the Sudanese rebels
under the guise of humanitarian aid. And that, along with, perhaps, a couple
of other encounters that I had, persuaded me that I would want to write a
novel, so I set it there.

GROSS: Without getting too deep into the book, how is--how does the pilot aid
worker in your novel start to cross the line between flying in humanitarian
things like food and flying in guns?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, that would be Douglas Braithwaite, and he is the founder
and president of a small airline called Knight Air services. And he begins to
cross the line after he has staged an event in a remote part of Sudan called
the Nuba Mountains to attract more NGOs, non-governmental organizations, and
aid organizations to send aid. And shortly after this event, the Sudanese
army attacks some of the participants with mortar fire, and they are wounded,
and then they're taken to a hospital--and that's a bush hospital that's some
distance away--and later on the Sudanese air force bombs this hospital. And
the commander, the local commander of the Sudanese rebel forces--in a rather
long scene--but, in so many words, he approaches him and says, `You know,
it's very nice that you're sending us all of this rice and cooking oil and oil
presses and even Bibles, and Lord knows what else, but we really need
something to shoot those bombers down with.' And that's how Douglas and his
colleagues become involved in gunrunning.

GROSS: And when you were flown by someone in Sudan, by a pilot who had not
only been running food to the rebels but also guns, were you troubled or was
he troubled by the fact that his mission had somewhere along the line crossed
the line into something else?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, it varied. I mean, a lot of the pilots were motivated by a
kind of idealism. They really felt that the southern Sudanese needed more
help than could be gotten, again, through humanitarian aid. Others were pure
mercenaries. They would get twice as much money for flying guns in as they
would for non-lethal aid. I think it was $18,000 to $20,000 per flight. And,
in fact, one of these pilots in something like a year had amassed a fortune of
some $10 million in an offshore bank. And still others were in it for the
thrill of it.

GROSS: One character in your novel, Quinette, who's an evangelical Christian
missionary in Africa, sees things that causes her to question the very
fundamentals of her faith. After witnessing a lot of mutilation, she's
thinking about that, and here's what you write.

`It was the fact of mutilation that caused her to think the inappropriate
thought, "There is no life after death." The mortar shells had laid bodies
open, seeming to expose a terrible truth: A human being is only skin, muscle,
bone, blood, organs and slimy viscera--no fit dwelling for an immortal soul.'

What got you to think about how mutilation might cause someone to question
their view of the afterlife or their view of the body and the soul?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, that probably came from my own experience in Vietnam many,
many years ago. I was raised a Roman Catholic and educated for the most part
in Roman Catholic schools. And I always remember the first time I was in
action in Vietnam and seeing people torn apart by artillery shells and by
rifle and machine gun fire, and how that haunted me, that--I mean, I don't
want to make any of your listeners sick or anything, but they looked, in
essence, no different than you would see a dog or a deer that's been killed at
the roadside and, perhaps, run over a couple of times by trucks. And I fell
into a sort of materialistic view of the human animal. Again, that's--I
doubted whether there was such a thing as a human spirit or a human soul.

GROSS: Did you maintain those doubts over the years?

Mr. CAPUTO: Yeah, I have. I still do. I probably have--in fact, as I know
I have--returned to my Roman Catholic faith, but it's a faith that is
constantly plagued by, or, perhaps, I should say tested by, doubt.

GROSS: My guest is Philip Caputo. His new novel is called "Acts of Faith."
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, I'm talking with Philip Caputo, and his new
novel is called "Acts of Faith."

You've been in war zones as a Marine and as a journalist. Can you talk a
little bit about the difference between being there as a fighter and being
there as somebody just covering the fighting?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, probably the major difference is that the war correspondent
can get out of there almost whenever he chooses, or she chooses. The soldier
is stuck there, is under orders. And there's no return ticket. There's no
going back to the hotel in another day, or two, or three. The soldier has to
confront that situation, constantly under orders, often against his or her own
will. And also the journalist, generally, has some kind of picture of what's
going on, a big picture of what's happening. Quite often, if you're an
enlisted soldier, or even a junior officer, say, in--on the level of a
lieutenant or a captain, all you know about what's going on is what's going on
directly in front of you, and this can often give you a certain sense or
feeling of powerlessness, no control over your fate or your destiny--that,
say, somebody like a war correspondent can maintain that sense, although it
may be an illusion, even on a war correspondent's part.

GROSS: Did you respect war correspondents when you were fighting in Vietnam,
or did you see them as, like, guys with pens and cameras who were onlookers?

Mr. CAPUTO: I think I was agnostic about them. I mean, I didn't particularly
dislike them. I always remember feeling--and I think there were probably--in
four operations I was on--that there were journalists along, either TV or
print journalists. I could never figure out why they were there. It seemed
just peculiar to me. It seemed very odd, and sometimes I got a little annoyed
with them because I would be--especially if they were with the unit that I was
with or that I was in command of, which in this case was a rifle platoon--I
would feel somewhat responsible for them and for their safety. And that would
be a distraction to me. But, in general, you might say I could have taken
them or left them.

GROSS: You know, as we were saying, your new novel, "Acts of Faith," which is
about aid workers and missionaries in Sudan, is in part about how idealistic
motives can become really changed once you're in a foreign war, where you
don't really understand the culture. And you wrote in your memoir about
fighting in Vietnam, "A Rumor of War," `war is always attractive to young men
who know nothing about it. But we had also been seduced into uniform by
Kennedy's challenge to ask what you can do for your country and by the
missionary idealism he had awakened in us.' I guess I'm wondering if fighting
in Vietnam made you skeptical of idealism?

Mr. CAPUTO: Oh, yes, it did. I'll just freely admit that, and like a lot of
people my age, I was indelibly marked by that experience and by that era.
Yes, I'm profoundly skeptical of idealism, profoundly skeptical about
government pronouncements, profoundly skeptical about the honesty and
integrity of our elected officials, profoundly skeptical about what generals
and military leaders tell us is happening as opposed to what may really be
happening. And I would not want to speak for the entire baby boom
generation--I forgot how many millions of people that is--but I think a
significant number of people in that age group think that way, and as a result
of what happened in Vietnam, and in the '60s. And I can't--there's no sense
in my trying to pretend somehow that that didn't happen to me, because it did.

GROSS: You know, it's interesting. You managed to--as you pointed out in
your writing, you managed to get through your tour of duty in Vietnam without
any wounds, but then as a journalist covering Beirut you were shot several
times in one episode. What happened to you?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, it's one of those proverbial long stories that I will
endeavor to make short. I was covering the Lebanese civil war. I was the
Chicago Tribune's Middle East corespondent, based in Beirut. I was filing a
story to the paper when the building I was in came under heavy machine gun
fire. I then exited the building, ran into some Muslim militiamen from some
strange street militia that was active in Beirut at that time. They tried to
take my press card away from me. The press card was very precious to us, as
that--without it, you could get killed fairly easily. And I remember I
grabbed it from one of the--one of these guys that was trying to take it from
me, and I put it back in my wallet, and they says, `All right,' you know,
`Get out of here. Go.'

And as I was walking away, they started to open fire at me as--open fire on
me, and hit me in the ankle, in my left ankle. It hit me in the left leg. I
got hit superficially in the head, the back, the shoulders, but just by, say,
superficial shrapnel wounds. And, fortunately, I was--these were Muslim
militiamen, and I was right near a street controlled by Christians--because it
was a sectarian war--and--or at least in part a sectarian war--and, although I
was down because of the wounds in my legs--I couldn't walk; I was able to
crawl--and I crawled onto this Christian-controlled street, and probably I
just owe my life to that because I think had they not been afraid to pursue
me, they would have. And that would have been the end of me.

GROSS: You're a writer. You use your imagination all the time. And I'm sure
during the war in Vietnam you must have imagined what it would have been like
to be shot or injured there. How did actually getting shot compare to what
you'd always imagined it would feel like?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, it--I suppose--I used to wonder, like anybody who's been
in there, will it hurt?--even if it is an instantly fatal wound, let's say one
to the brain. I remember I used to think sometimes in Vietnam, especially if
I'd seen comrades who were killed, if they felt somehow in the--in that last,
flashing instant of their life, some enormous amount of pain was compressed.
Well, as I discovered is that you actually don't feel a thing. The impact is
so stunning from a high-caliber, high--I mean, a high-velocity bullet that
something happens to your system, and I didn't feel any pain, in fact, for
probably two or three hours after I was shot.

GROSS: By then, were you in a medical setting?

Mr. CAPUTO: Yeah, I was in a hospital.

GROSS: You did some of your recovery back at your parents' house, the house
you grew up in. And you've said that you wrote some of "A Rumor of War," your
Vietnam memoir, in the bedroom that you grew up in. And when I read that, I
thought, `Wow, that's so weird,' because, I mean, a lot of people I know feel,
or used to feel, that if they went--that when they went back to the bedroom
that they grew up in after they were an adult, they feel like a child again,
you know, that--you see that same furniture, stuff that's still on the wall.

Mr. CAPUTO: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: Your parents are there, and somehow, you know, you're kind of a kid
again. But what was it like for you to be in that kind of setting, yet
writing this--I mean, this really complicated memoir of war?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, I think considering that I was then confined either to a
wheelchair or to crutches, that I was almost naturally in a childlike
situation. I mean, I had my wife and two kids with me, so we were all living
in the same house. It was almost like one of those old immigrant families.
And it was so intensely boring, you know, to be confined to a wheelchair in a
rather ordinary suburb of Chicago that, as a matter of fact, oddly enough,
writing that book gave me some focus of purpose in life and was also partly an
antidote to this intense boredom. I mean, I think I would have either been,
perhaps, reading some of the time, but probably, most of the time, I would
have been sitting in that wheelchair, or on a chair, with my legs up, in
casts, watching TV.

GROSS: Philip Caputo--His new novel is called "Acts of Faith." He'll be back
in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, Philip Caputo reflects on the experience of being held
captive for a week by a radical Palestinian group. Also, jazz critic Kevin
Whitehead reviews a new CD-DVD collection of Billie Holiday performances. And
film critic David Edelstein looks at the final installment of "Star Wars."

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with journalist and novelist
Philip Caputo. He's best known for his 1977 memoir "A Rumor of War," about
serving in Vietnam. He's reported from several war zones. His new novel is
called "Acts of Faith."

Some of your new novel, "Acts of Faith," is about extremism. And, you know,
again, it's set in the civil war in Sudan and the government in Khartoum is an
extremist Islamist government. You've had firsthand experience with
extremists. When you were covering Lebanon, you were captured for a week.
Who captured you and what did they do to you?

Mr. CAPUTO: I was captured by a faction of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization. It was called the PDFLP, Popular Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine. An essential of being any revolutionary movement, by
the way, is to throw in as many initials and alphabet soup as you can. This
was an extremist Marxist organization, not an extremist Islamist organization.
In fact, they were actually quite militantly secular. They captured me
because they thought that I was a CIA agent, which is a rather frequent
accusation made against journalists, particularly American journalists in the
Middle East and in--elsewhere but particularly in the Middle East.

GROSS: So what did they do to you in the week that you were held hostage?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, I wasn't held hostage. They weren't holding me for
ransom...

GROSS: Captive. Captive is the...

Mr. CAPUTO: ...or anything.

GROSS: Captive.

Mr. CAPUTO: Yeah. It was...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. CAPUTO: Yeah. Yeah. They interrogated me over and over and over again,
often with questions that were ludicrous. They--I was subjected to mild
physical and, at times, severe psychological torture--you know, things like
having my hands tied behind my back and then my ankles--my legs bent back so
my ankles were then tied to my hands. It was--you bent like a bow. And then
a guy sticks an AK-47 in your temple and says, `You must now answer these
questions truthfully,' you know. No kidding. And then--or they stuffed me in
a hole in the ground that wa--where rats were crawling around and things like
that for 24 hours with no food, no water, no light, hardly any air, that sort
of thing, all of which--they were trying to break me down, convinced that I
was a CIA agent and at any moment, I would suddenly, you know, like a person
in the courtroom melodrama, leap up and scream, `I did it! I did it!' Of
course, I didn't, since I wasn't one.

GROSS: So what were some of the things that went through your mind about what
you should tell them? I mean, you had told them the truth, that you weren't a
CIA agent. But you did risk getting killed during this week. I'm sure that
that was a real possibility. So did you think of, like, lying and making
stuff up to give them or...

Mr. CAPUTO: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I sure did. And there were a couple
of times I actually thought about telling them what I figured they wanted to
hear, 'cause you get the feeling that they're going to hold you there forever
and that you're going to go through 10, 12, 14 hours of grilling every single
day for the indefinite future and that you'll be driven crazy, to which was
added the extra stress as the Palestinian camp they were keeping me in was
under fire from the Lebanese air force and the Lebanese army. It was being
bombed and shelled at the same time. So while I'm answering these questions,
every now and then, the interrogation would be interrupted by a 250-pound bomb
going off in the next block or something like that. So, yeah, I was tempted
at times to just lie to them.

And, in fact, after I was released, a CIA agent from the American Embassy
called me in to his office and wanted to know if I had done just that and if I
might have, you know, started to throw out names of people I knew in the
embassy just to give my captors names and say, `Yeah, these guys are CIA
agents, too.' So that was, you know, one of the things I did think of, but I
decided that it would be a bad idea to lie to them, because--for that very
reason.

GROSS: You know, people talk about war as a crucible that will test you and
shape you. Probably being in a hole in the ground, held captive, is a
crucible, too? Do you feel like you were tested and learned things about
yourself and even about, like, your threshold of pain when you were held
captive for that week in Lebanon?

Mr. CAPUTO: Oh, certainly. When you've had experiences like that and then
you encounter the more or less ordinary stresses of life, even what one could
consider, say, extreme stresses--I don't know, like, say, you're broke or you
can't make the mortgage payment or whatever--you know, that's nothing to
sneeze at, nothing to laugh at. But when you've been through something like
that, you--in the midst of a more ordinary crisis, you will stop, you'll say,
`Oh, my God,' you know, `I got through that. This is absolutely nothing
compared to that and I'll get through this easy enough.'

GROSS: So what are--if this isn't too personal, what are some of the things
you feel you learned about yourself in the extreme and dangerous situations
you were in, you know, as a journalist, as a Marine, as a captive?

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, I think, you know, let's say on the flattering side.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. CAPUTO: On the flattering side, I certainly learned that I was tougher
than I thought, not in the sense of a, you know, chest-thumping macho tough
guy, but I meant that I could endure and keep my head under extreme stress
better than I would have thought.

On the unflattering side, I know in Vietnam--and it's described fully in "A
Rumor of War," and it would take me way to long to go into a full, like, you
know, description of it. But when I was in Vietnam, I had discovered that I
had a capacity to be violent and dark in my actions in a way that totally
shocked me, and I didn't think that that sort of thing was in me.

And, you know, I've got this main character here in the novel, in "Acts of
Faith," Douglas Braithwaite, about--who never--who does have a dark force
within him, but he denies that it exists, and consequently thinks that
everything he does is right. And his partner, Fitzhugh Martin, later says of
him that `Those who deny the dark angel in their natures will become prey to
it, and they won't recognize that dark force when it summons you, when it
knocks at the door and summons you to do something that is really
reprehensible,' which, by the way, this character does do.

And I think that arises out of a discovery that I made about myself when I was
in Vietnam.

GROSS: You know, since your Vietnam memoir, "A Rumor of War," was such an
important book about the war, I'm just wondering what you made of the whole
debate about John Kerry's service in Vietnam during the election and how
divided the country still seemed to be about the meaning of that war and the
justness of that war.

Mr. CAPUTO: The Vietnam War and the 1960s will not be over until, oh, I'll
predict, let's say 2040. That is roughly when the last baby boomer will die.
And I just think that the divisions that were aroused during that era and by
that war will continue to be fought by that particular generation, again,
until they've--either until they're actually dead or they are so elderly and
infirm that they no longer have any effect on the daily and political life of
the country.

GROSS: Philip Caputo, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. CAPUTO: Well, thank you, Terry. Thanks. Good to be here.

GROSS: Philip Caputo's new novel is called "Acts of Faith."

Coming up, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a new CD/DVD of Billie Holiday
performances. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New CD/DVD "Billie Holiday: The Ultimate Collection"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Last month marked the 90th anniversary of the birth of Billie Holiday, the
occasion for a commemorative CD and DVD collection that surveys her 25-year
recording career and various film and television appearances. Jazz critic
Kevin Whitehead says it offers plenty of good stuff to listen to and look at.

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) Rich relations give crust of bread and such.
You can help yourself, but don't take too much. Mama may have, Papa may have,
but God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own.

KEVIN WHITEHEAD:

Folks talk of Billie Holiday as though her life were an open book. But few
jazz giants, let alone defining artists of the 20th century, have been so
willfully misrepresented, in life or after. Many people still think she was a
blues specialist, maybe because her autobiography was called "Lady Sings the
Blues".

The best thing about the new Holiday "Ultimate Collection," so called, is a
DVD including her appearances on three 1950s TV shows, where she trots out a
few of the blues she did sing. She does "Fine and Mellow" on a famous CBS
special, and "Billie's Blues" on ABC's forgotten series "Stars of Jazz," which
played up the blues angle to plug the autobiography.

(Soundbite of "Billie's Blues")

Ms. BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) Some men like me 'cause I'm happy, some 'cause
I'm snappy. Some call me honey. Others think I've got money. Some tell me,
`Billie, baby, you're built for speed.' Now if you put that all together,
makes me everything a good man needs.

WHITEHEAD: "Lady Sings the Blues," the book, eventually became a howlingly
bad Diana Ross movie, a bathrobed herring display designed to elicit more
admiration for Ross than Holiday. The book is actually pretty good, even if
it's not particularly accurate, and was, in fact, written and pieced together
from old interviews by Bill Dufty of the New York Post. A loyal friend to the
end, Dufty brought out Billie's sense of humor. `To me, she was the funniest
woman in the world,' he said. It's one key to her greatness lost on some
Holiday-ologists.

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) Don't lose your head then lose your guy. You
can't lose a broken heart. If you ever break up then try to make up, it's
tough to make a brand-new start. Take a walk, think it over while strolling
'neath the moon. Don't say things in December you'll regret in June.

WHITEHEAD: Also on that DVD are clips from a 1933 Duke Ellington short in
which `Lady sings the blues' after being unceremoniously dumped on her tush by
a faithless lover. `The director called for 50 takes,' she complained later.

There are also a couple of songs from the dreadful 1947 birth-of-jazz film
"New Orleans," which cast Holiday as a housemaid. I haven't seen that turkey
in ages, but seeing her briefly josh with Louis Armstrong's band or gracefully
lift an eyebrow to lean on a lyric, it's clear Holiday had real glamour and
screen presence. She might even have made it in Hollywood had there been more
decent parts for African-Americans. When a movie of her life was discussed in
the '50s, Ava Gardner and the blonde Lana Turner were in the running.

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) I fell in love with you the first time I looked
into them there eyes. And you have a certain little cute way of flirting with
them there eyes. They make me feel so happy. They make me feel so blue. I'm
falling, no stalling, in a great big way for you. My heart is jumping. You
started something with them there eyes. You better look out, little brown
eyes, if you're wise. They sparkle, they bubble. They're going to get you in
a whole lot of trouble, oh, baby, them there eyes.

WHITEHEAD: Billie Holiday, 1949. The two CDs in the 90th birthday set are a
respectable survey of her recordings, drawing on all her major phases and
label deals. There are a few too many medium tempos, and it skimps on the
early stuff, but no grievous omissions.

Holiday fans used to be sharply divided between partisans of her girlish '30s
records and fans of her weathered later years, when you could hear every
cigarette, heartbreak and drug bust in her cracking voice. Hearing her at
every stage, you realize the middle years of the 1940s was the real cream.
She still had the young singer's agility, but was already wading into the
emotional depths.

With some rare research interviews tucked onto the DVD, alongside tinsel like
an eyestrain-inducing biographical sketch, this set's like a Viking portable
Billie Holiday, a standard collection of major works for easy reference.

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. BILLIE HOLIDAY: (Singing) For you, maybe I'm a fool, but it's fun.
People say you rule me with one wave of your hand. Baby, it's grand. They
just don't understand. Living for you is easy living. It's easy to live
when you're in love, and I'm so in love. There's nothing in life but you.

GROSS: Kevin Whitehead teaches English and American studies at the University
of Kansas, and is a jazz columnist for EMusic.com. He reviewed the CD/DVD set
"Billie Holiday: The Ultimate Collection."

Coming up, David Edelstein reviews the new "Star Wars" movie. This is FRESH
AIR.

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Review: "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"
TERRY GROSS, host:

We've entered into another season of "Star Wars" mania. The saga's final
episode, "Revenge of the Sith," is the story of how handsome juvenile action
hero Anakin Skywalker transforms into one of cinema's most memorable villains,
Darth Vader. Before we hear a review, we'll play you a few of our favorite
"Star Wars" parodies. See if you can recognize where they're from.

(Soundbite of "Saturday Night Live")

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BILL MURRAY: (As Nick the Lounge Singer) (Singing) "Star Wars," if they
should bar wars, please let these "Star Wars" stay.

(Soundbite of "Saturday Night Live")

(Soundbite of applause)

Unidentified Man: Christopher Walken, Han Solo screen test.

Mr. KEVIN SPACEY: (As Christopher Walken) OK.

Unidentified Man: OK, Chris. Whenever you're ready.

Mr. SPACEY: (As Christopher Walken as Han Solo) I'm captain of the Millennium
Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan
system.

(Soundbite of laughing)

Unidentified Man: (As Obi-Wan Kenobi) Yes, indeed, if it's a fast ship.

Mr. SPACEY: (As Christopher Walken as Han Solo) Fast ship? You've never
heard of the Millennium Falcon?

Unidentified Man: (As Obi-Wan Kenobi) Should I have?

Mr. SPACEY: (As Christopher Walken as Han Solo) It's the ship that made the
Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. She's fast enough for you, old man.

(As Christopher Walken) That sucked. I'm sorry. Forgive me.
(Unintelligible).

(Soundbite of cheer and applause)

(Soundbite of "Spaceballs")

Mr. MEL BROOKS: (As President Skroob) And may the schwartz be with you!

(Soundbite of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien")

Mr. CONAN O'BRIEN: We sent Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to the Ziegfeld
Theater right here in New York City, and we had him check out the line of
diehard "Star Wars" fans. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is his report.

Mr. ROBERT SMIGEL: (As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) Yes, it's premiere night
here for "Attack of the Clones," but outside the Ziegfeld Theater is the real
show, `Return of the Dorks.'

So what's going on here? You've got a little future nerd in here?

Unidentified Woman: Yes, yes, future nerd, future Jedi.

Mr. SMIGEL: (As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) When is he due?

Unidentified Woman: June 27th, six weeks.

Mr. SMIGEL: (As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) Wow, that's the last time he'll
ever see female genitalia.

Very exciting, Darth Vader himself is here. All the other nerds tremble in
his presence.

Unidentified Man #5: This would be my chest box that helps me to breathe.

Mr. SMIGEL: (As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) So this is to help you breathe,
yes?

Unidentified Man #5: Yes.

Mr. SMIGEL: (As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) And which of these buttons
calls your parents to pick you up?

Our work here is over. We have enjoyed our stay, but the forces of reality
and the demands of a normal sex life compel us to depart. May the force be
with you. For me ...(unintelligible).

(Soundbite of cheers and applause)

GROSS: OK, starting from the final clip, we heard Triumph the Insult Comic
Dog on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"; Mel Brooks in a scene from
"Spaceballs"; Kevin Spacey on "Saturday Night Live," doing his impression of
how Christopher Walken would have sounded at a "Star Wars" screen test; and we
opened with a parody of the "Star Wars" theme. I know our film critic David
Edelstein recognized it. Here's David.

DAVID EDELSTEIN:

(Singing) "Star Wars," nothing but "Star Wars."

Sorry, I've had Bill Murray's Lounge Singer running through my head, because
out there, there is nothing but "Star Wars." People have even pitched tents
in front of theaters. I envy their faith, because George Lucas's last two
"Star Wars" episodes, "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones," were
barely movies. That wonderful "Flash Gordon" giddiness from the first cycle
was long gone, and in its place was this stiff, almost Kabuki theater
pageantry tricked to life with vast amounts of computer-generated busyness and
Medusa dialogue, lines that turned actors to stone.

After seeing "Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," I thought, `Finally,
finally, we get to the point.' This is not just the summation of the last two
films. It's the prelude to the summer 1977 blockbuster that changed pop
culture. If for no other reason that that, the movie delivers.

It should be said that the first third is pretty bad. The effects are as
beautiful and fluid as money can buy, but there's zero suspense, and Lucas
still has runaway digititis, the compulsion to sprinkle every pixel with
cyber-MSG so that the simplest conversation is upstaged by a backdrop of
darting shuttle crafts. It's like the actors are competing with hundreds of
goldfish on speed, and what they say speak is barely speakable. The word is
that Lucas was persuaded to bring in a real writer, Tom Stoppard, to punch up
the dialogue, but there's only so much you can do with a line like, `Hold me
like you did by the lake on Naboo.'

On a brighter note, the big ideas come into dramatic focus. The conflict is
between the light and dark sides of the force. In the light--that is Zen
Buddhist L-I-T-E--corner is Yoda, who lectures Anakin Skywalker, father of
Luke, played by Hayden Christensen, that a Jedi must let go of all attachments
which only lead to jealousy and resentment.

In the dark corner is Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, played
by Ian McDiarmid, who tells Anakin that the Sith believe not in denying one's
emotions, but going all the way with them. He plays on Anakin's fears for his
true love, Padme, played by Natalie Portman, and stirs Anakin's jealousy.

Jedis' Yoda, voiced by Frank Oz, and Mace Windu, played by Samuel L. Jackson,
don't trust Anakin, even though Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan Kenobi still believes
in his pupil.

(Soundbite of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith")

Mr. EWAN McGREGOR: (As Obi Wan Kenobi) Anakin did not take to his new
assignment with much enthusiasm.

Mr. SAMUEL L. JACKSON: (As Mace Windu) It's very dangerous, putting them
together. I don't think the boy can handle it. I don't trust him.

Mr. McGREGOR: (As Obi Wan Kenobi) With all due respect, Master, is he not the
chosen one? Is he not to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the force?

Mr. JACKSON: (As Mace Windu) So the prophecy said.

Mr. FRANK OZ: (As Yoda) A prophecy that misread could have been.

Mr. McGREGOR: (As Obi Wan Kenobi) He will not let me down. He never has.

Mr. OZ: (As Yoda) I hope right you are.

EDELSTEIN: You know, in the history of the medium, there has never been a
visual disconnect like Samuel L. Jackson whispering into the ear of Yoda.

As the dark side seizes Anakin, Christensen tilts his forehead into the
camera, rolls his eyeballs up and tries to look like Malcolm McDowell in "A
Clockwork Orange," but the acting force just isn't with him. Still, the movie
comes to life. Those humorless Jedis get picked off. The lean, hard visuals
of the empire reappear, and John Williams' old musical motifs from the first
film creep back in.

The final movement, `the last temptation of Ani,' fills you with both
excitement and dread as Obi Wan and Anakin plunge into an epic battle on a
planet of volcanos, and Williams pulls out the Wagnerian stops, and the
effects finally amplify the emotions instead of distracting you from them.
When Anakin goes to his hellish fate amidst swirls of lava, you know why, for
the Darth Vader he becomes, there is no going back.

This is when Lucas's anti-fascist politics come into focus, too, when the
Senate cheers the new galactic empire and Padme realizes that in the name of
security, she and everyone else aided in the dismantling of a democracy,
handing over the reins to an unscrupulous dictator.

In the end, it's wroth doffing our beanies to a buy who wouldn't settle for
"Flash Gordon," who was driven to turn Saturday matinee space junk into a
six-part epic that needed the combined forces of Milton and Shakespeare to do
it full justice. There's a breadth, a fullness to this saga that makes it
more than the sum of its clunks. Now that it's over, we can still dream of
Jedi.

GROSS: David Edelstein is film critic for the online magazine Slate.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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