Reflecting on Will and Grace

This is Fresh air. I'm Dave Davies Today we remember James Burrroughs, one of the most respected and sought after directors of TV comedies. In over five decades, he directed more than a thousand episodes episodes of Taxi, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Will and Grace, and many other sitcoms. Burrows died june nineteenth at the age of eighty five A statement by the Director' Guild of America described him as an incredibly generous colleague. sharing his wisdom and warm humor with all he worked with In a statement, his family said, Burrows understood that great comedy was never simply about laughter It was about humanity, connection and truth We're going to listen to Terry's two thousand six interview with James Burrroughs in a few minutes. But first we have this appreciation by our TV critic, David Ban Cooley James Burrows was born in LA in nineteen forty, but didn't live there long His family moved to New York when he was five His father, Abe Burrroughs, had written for radio and television, but found his biggest success on Broadway as a director and especially as a writer. A Burrows wrote the books for the musicals Gu and dolls, How to Succeed in Business withithout Really Ting, and Can Can His son James became a director too but went back to Los Angeles to do so His big break was directing an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore showow. A which James Burrows landed jobs directing multiple episodes of many popular sitcoms of the nineteen seventies including the Bob Newhart Show, the Tony Randall Show, Laverne and Shirley, and Taxi. By the time he co created cheers with Glen and Les Charles in nineteen eighty two James Burrows was considered the best sitcom director in the business a title he maintained for decades The reasons were obvious James Burrroughs made one of the most significant improvements to the sitcom genre since I loveve Lucy popularized the three camera format of shooting before a studio audience Burrows added a fourth camera which allowed him to capture more close ups and frame the action as naturally as he could. Burrows was a master at setting the tone for a new series. working with young actors to shape their characters and find just the right comic flow. Over his career, he won eleven Emmy awwards and directed a staggering number of TV pilots Specifically seventy five But it isn't just the quantity of premiere episodes directed by James Burrroughs that's so amazing It's the quality He directed the introductory episodes of Taxi, Cheers, and Frasier Not just the original nineteen ninety three Frasier, but the twenty twenty three remake as well thirty years later He also directed the first episodes of the Big Bang Theory, Night Court, Wings, News Radio, Third Rock from the Sun Darma and Greg, two and a half men friends and will and grace. And sometimes, James Burroughs stuck around for quite a while For more than two hundred episodes of both Will and Grace and Cheers, and seventy five episodes of Taxi For me, the absolute best example of Jim Burrows's gifts as a TV director. came in a nineteen seventy nine episode of Taxi, written by Glenn and Less Charles It was an episode written to showcase Christopher Lloyd, who had guest starred in a previous episode as Reverend Jim a hippie preacher from the sixties who was laid back, confused, and dealing with a long history of recreational drug use At the time, Reverend Jim was an outrageous character to introduce to a primetime TV show. The Taxi already had triumphed by mixing types of comic styles that shouldn't have worked Jud Hirch, Tony Danza, Mary Lou Henner Andy Kaufman Conaway, Danny Devito. All were part of the Brooklyn cab outfit that was eager for Reverend Jim to join its ranks. But to do that, he'd have to go to the DMV and pass a driver's exam not just behind the wheel, but on paper It's in that DMV office where Burroughs help shape what I consider the funniest scene in TV history He allows the comedy to build at its own pace. and encourages the young Christopher Lloyd to steal the show as Reverend Jim And most important of all, James Burrows places his cameras and frames the action to catch it all not only intense close ups of an increasingly frustrated Reverend Jim, Group shots, capturing the reactions of Jeff Conaway's Bobby, Mary Lou Henner's Elaine and everyone else trying to help him take the test Bobby tries to speed things up by reading the application to Reverend Jim As Elane stands nearby. He, let me help you out, okay? Have you ever experienced loss of consciousness, hallucinations, dizzy spells, convulsive disorders, fainting, or periods of loss of memory? Ien everyone. But no. U Mental illness or narcotic addiction That's a tough choice. No. Okay, that's it You're ready for the test I thought this was a. No no, this is the application. Oh man It's getting rougher look Eventually, Reverend Jim gets a copy of the test, slumps in his classroom style desk, and get stuck on the first question His cabby friends are standing on the other side of the room, but he asks for help anyway louder and more angrily every time Christopher Lloyd is brilliant Burrows lets the scene build and flow. And listen to the studio audience. They're not just laughing. They how What does a yellow light mean? Slow down Okayay What ow down. Okay. Wh? Y me slo I'm guessing you had your own favorite memories and favorite laughs from a sitcom directed by James Burrroughows. Fr friends, from Cheers, from Fraser, from Big Bang theory, or from so many others And that's the point, really The legacy of James Buroughs, no matter where you look is bound to make you smile David Ban Cooley is our TV critic Cerry Gross spoke to James Burrroughs in two thousand six. He got his start in television directing episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, the Bob Newhart Show, and La Vernon Shirley But before that, he worked on some of his father's musicals His father A Burrroughs wrote the books for the musicals Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business withithout Really tryrying and cactus fllower I was an assistant stage manager or an assistant to the assistant on an ill fated musical called Breakfast Tiffany's where I met Mary Tallamore and Mary Tyla Moo and Richard Chamberlain were the stars And I went on subsequently to stage manage for my father on this flour the production on the road and then in New York City in forty carrots. So I got to see My father who really wrote on his feet because he would write a scene and then when he would get in a rehearsal he would changed the scene just on his feet and you began to see how fascinating he was. That's when I You know, I kind of have his style of directing. I'm a listener. I'm not necessarily a watcher and Abe would always He would say to me when he went to a run through of one of his shows or went to see one of his shows in in the theater, he would always walk behind the set He wouldn't watch because he wanted to know that there was always noise happening on stage. He listened for the noise. He knew if there was noise that he was in trouble So I do that when I I direct my shows. So that, you know, that is The essence of the experience with my father, I In subsequent years A lot of his gift and a lot of his skills seem to come out of me at the strangest times. It's not like I I learned them as much as you know they were like osmosis. I absorbed them and they kind of seep out of my skin in certain situations So when you're directing a TV show, you're sometimes backstage and're not looking at the action or at the monitor? Well, I don't I never look at the monitor because it's about the shows I do are in front of a lightide audience, so it's about the play. about what's happening there. I've been doing it long enough to know that I don't have to worry about the camera shots. because I know they'll all be there So I listen and watch, you know, I'll walk behind the cameras, not watching the action necessarily But a lot, you know most of the time I watch the play because and I make my writers watch the play or they can watch the cut on the screen But I they don't watch the quad split. A quad split is a is a television screen that has the four cameras that I use to shoot the show on on that And if they watch the quad split, they're always worried about mics and shots and shots not matching. So I make all the writers watch the play because that's eventually what makes a hit show So what made you realize that you wanted to switch from the stage to television? In the course of doing cactus flowers and forty carrots around the country, I would work at a lot of dinner theaters, a lot of reg not regional theatater, dinner theaters, some are stock theaters I would do these u these situ these not situation comedies. comedies odd couple barefoot in the park, Even Bly Spirit I did U I I'm trying to say never too light all these plays the comedies that have been in Broadway and I do them with stars And had about eight days to stage the whole thing and I could get it done. I was good at that And then one night I was At home after rehearsal, I turned on the television, there was a Mary Tyla Moore show and they were doing twenty minutes a week in front of a live audience and here I was doing one hundred and twenty minutes a week to get ready for a live audience And I thought I could I could do that. I thought I could u Um translate my skills on stage to the skills required to do that television show because it was like filming a theatrical show. So I wrote a letter to Mary Tyla Moore. As I said before, I had the connection because I was a stage manager on her first Broadway show. So she kind of knew me. And Grant Tinker called me And he said, We're interested in theatrical directors at MTM. Would you come out and do one show And um I don't know what's faster than the New York second, but whatever it was, I said, yes. And I was That was and the rest of' history So you got started directing MTM productions like the Bob Newhart Sh, Mary Tyl La Moore Show, Phyllis. Yes It is. No, Were you at first like under studying other directors or that youre just at it? Well, Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to learn the technical stuff. So they brought me out here and You you kind of have to observe Being an observer is you sit in the stands and you watch a week of rehearsals And the first three days are with actors and writers alone and the fourth day the cameras come in and the fifth day you shoot the show And for me with the actors and writers, I kind of got that. It was when the cameras came in that it became daunting. So I watch for Maybe two months straight, I watched the newew Heart Show. Then I went over to the Mary Tellaamore S showow and I watched Jay Sandrich, who to me, is the true genius of this medium I watched him and became very good friends with him. Uh, and, um So I kind of started to get a knowledge of what to do with cameras, how to figure them out And then they they assign me to called friendriends and loovers, which was Paul Sand show and I would coach, I was Paul Sand's dialogue coach. I would help him run lines But in the times when I wasn't doing that, I would watch cameras. and eventually They called me and they said we're going to give you a shot. and I figured it would be on the Paul Sanh, and all of a sudden it was Mary Tyler Mooreh show. Do you remember that first show that you did? I do Vividly. How did it go? What sticks out in your mind Oh my God. uh Well, we read the script. it was a show where Lou Lou Grant moves into Rhoda's apartment. So he's living above Mary, which means that he They work together and they live together which wasn't good for the relationship And so we read the script around the table and it was D minus, it was awful. And I said to Grant. I said, in the seea of Danish, I get a bagel And it was literally it was It was literally just a the show was awful. I mean, the initial reading, they made it better because you would rewrite the writers would rewrite all the time And so I had to go down back in those days you rehearsed immediately after you read. You just went down and started running scenes and So I was dealing with a cast who hated the Sript two, and yet I had to run these scenes And so I would do it. And I I can't tell you, I invoke Chekov. I invoke Strindberg I invoke Kafman and Hawk. I did anything to try to ease it for them, to try to come up with some comic business. anything that would help them get through this process. and So I was working I was working the first three days with the actors and cameras and I guess we finally got the show in some sort of semblance. and then The cameras came in and that was daunting enough for me. It was very difficult. I did it on my own. I didn't want any help And on the on the fifth day just before we shot Mary Tyler Moore came over to me and they said, we feel our investment in you has worked out And that was even before I shot the show And I couldn't have been higher figuratively And we shot the show and it turned out all right and Jay Sandrers was there and helped me a little bit and, um The minute that show was over, I got two new Hearts and I got a Bob Crane and a Paul Sand and next year I was on the Phillers S show. So I was on my way Was the show as bad after it was shot as it was when you were doing the reading? It was it's it's a C plus show. It's not a very good show. you know. I I in fact after me won an Emmy. So I by the luck by the luck of the draw, by the luck of the draw, I got I didn't get the Emmy S show. I got an OK show, and it might have helped me because of the amount of work I had to do and the amount of the amount of talking and inspiring I had to do might have in hindsight might have really helped me succeed. in there and impress the actors Okay, so you start off at MTM in television, and then you do taxi. And about how many episodes would you estimate you did of taxi I think I did seventy five And you were there right from the beginning with taxi, right? I was there. It was After I kind of left MTM after about three, four years and started to Go other places. I went on La Vern and Shirley where I had a ball, although that was that was a tough show and then I did a show with Ned Ned Baty and I was all a hired hand. I didn't do many pilots or anything like that And then the boys from MTM Ed Weinberger, Jim Brooks, Stan Daniels and Dave Davis had created a show called Taxi and they called me to direct it and, uh, Probably the most difficult show I ever did because U the cast was so divergent The writing was so outrageous The set was so gigantic and I it was my first really big show where I was in charge from the beginning, but it was like U gettingetting all these egos in the same room, there wasn't a room big enough And it was it was a struggle and yet I was heard. I I got out there and I said what I wanted to say and I was heard. It was tough at times to be heard, but I fought. and The great thing about that show was that the the producers of that show And the head riders were Glenn Charles and Les Charles who I had first met on on Phyllis And then they were brought in on um, taxi so We we struck up a friendship. We were both handled by the same agent. And he thought it would be good for us to do a show together. So I think about the third year of taxi, we started to think about a show. Taxi, if you go back and watch that show, there is some of the funniest television I think I've ever done. The standard out of that show is Reverend Jim, what does the yellow light mean? sllow down And that is to me, one of the biggest lives I'd ever done on taxi And so have I have fond memories of that show. It's also a great learning experience James Burrows, speaking with Terry Gross in two thousand six He died last week at the age of eighty five Here's one of the scenes from Episode threeree of Cheers with Ted Danson and Shelley Long, which Burrroughs directed Are you so upset You know This week, I have gone out with all the women I know. I mean, all the women I really enjoy And all of a sudden, all I can think about is how stupid they are I mean, my life isn't fun anymore It's because of you Because of me? Yeah You're a smob A snob That's right. Well, you're a rapidly aging adolescent Well, I would rather be that than a snob. And I would rather be a snob. Well, could because you are But Sam, do yourself a favor. Go back to your tootsies and your rat parts. I'd hate to see the bowling alleys close on my account. Heit wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you saying that I'm too dumb to date smart women I'm saying that it would be very difficult for you A really intelligent woman would see your line of BS a mile away. You think so? Uhuh? Uuh. Yeah, well, u, you know, I've never met an intelligent woman that I'd want to date On behalf of the intelligent women around the world, may I just say Coming up, we'll hear about Burrow's work on Cheers and Frasier, and later, Justin Chang reviews the new film The Invite. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. you like to get This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. We are remembering James Burrroughs, who was one of the most respected TV directors in the business. He directed over a thousand episodes of Cheers, Taxi, Friends, Frasier, Will and Grace, and also the Big Bang Theory, Third Rock fromrom the Sun, Mike and Molly, and two Broke Girls Burrows died last week at the age of eighty five. He spoke with Terry Gross in two thousand six after Taxi, you left with a couple of the creators of Taxi, Glenn Charles and Less Charles and started cheers And on cheers and on taxi, you had a chance to direct characters from the very start and therefore to shape them, to help shape them through your direction as opposed to inheriting characters on an already existing series. canan you talk a little bit about what it's like to actually create a character from scratch, a character that you hope will endure for years in a series? Well, the first thing that has to happen it has to be on the page So I'm very careful when I select scripts and when We talked about Glen Less and I talked about doing cheers. We spent two months talking about these characters And then the boys went off and wrote the script and when a month later when I read it, it was I said to the boys, you have brought radio back to television, which is what they did. They wrote a really smart show that literally could have been a radio show because it wasn't that much move It was all about attitudes and all about intonations and nuances and stuff like that and U Can I just tell you that would be a terrible insult. to a lot of people If you said there are a lot of TV people, if you said to them, youve just produced this brilliant radio show. you've just written a brilliant radio show They would think that was a terrible insult because they're working on television. And sometimes when you say radio to television people It's like saying, don't you don't know what you're doing, You're blind. You can hear, but you're blind No If you watch that show, people cross occasionally, Norm comes into the bar But you got to listen to that show. It's all about listening. Absolutely. Yeah. There's no eye candy in that show. There's no I'll never forget originally the boys in the first draft had some kind of hurdle race in there that we took out It was. They came in, they sat down, they told their stories. And that's what it is. You could have done that show in radio you wouldn't have to worry about how the actors looked as long as their voices were good It was a television show, but when I meant brought radio to television was it was smart It was a smart show. It was an upscale smart show with jokes about Schopenhauer and Updke and and Freud and young and we didn't care if the audience knew who those people were And they they there was a genius job. And so it was my job to shape this cast. You cast them You cast these people individually, but You don't know what you have until you put them together. So I always in pilots, I always will begin by sitting around a big table and in fact, on cheers, we sat around the bar And we talked about where everybody came from their characters. You know, I carried I carried a conversation on with Sam and Diane and Norm and Cliff and everybody like that and we talked and it's not only good for me, it's good for the actor because They're going to want to talk anyway And if I can do it now and get them to talk and get them they'll only grow into to the rollles more. So we spent You know, we spent half a day just sitting around probably a day sitting around talking and then I went to work on it and u It was You know, I did two hundred and forty out of like two hundred and seventy five shows And I had a great time. I love that show. That's that to me, that's my baby And I was there from the beginning for the cast and I was there at the end and they trusted me and We you know, after a while, we knew what worked and what didn't work, we didn't have to spend a lot of time on stuff that didn't work and we, you know, we could make the stuff work that worked really quickly Cheers are shot in front of a live audience. Do Do the laughs help The actors And does it ever work against the show. In other words, like Because the actors can't pick up and say the next line until the laughs fade. And of course, the audience at home isn't in the studio audience. So the timing, do you think the timing when you're watching at home is any different than the timing when you're in the theater? Laughter is communal So it really helps to have to have an audience because Movies are so much better. I try to go see comedies in a theater rather than try to watch them at home in the movies because you just it's really tough to laugh at home. or I'll get the family in to watch and then you can all laugh But' it's infectious and it's communal. so Those were true laughs and you can tell they're true laughs because you can see the actors eyes glint on cheers. You can see the glint in their eyes, the excitement and hearing such a big reaction to something they've said and they had to wait to be heard. and sometimes They wouldn't wait and have to back up and say, you know, let's go back a little bit and so they would be heard Those are true laughs. That show was a truly funny show Okay, we'll say you had to backup because they were unheard or say you want another take because It didn't work what happens when the audience is hearing the joke the second time and their laughter It's not going to be the same a second time around. they've already heard the joke, they've already laughed it your're Yeah, they've laugh at that joke, but then you you You go the second time so that you can get the reaction of the other person to that joke And then you can hear the other line from the person because they have previously said it into a laugh and you didn't hear it. So that's why you have to do that. But you'll use the first take of that joke because the laughter was so big So do you ever use the laughter from one take and and roll it for a second take So yeah, you use when you cross takes,ll you'll you'll take the laughter from the first take and play it over the reaction in the second take. Right, R. So you have to do that. Owise you couldn't make sense of the show of people saying lines into laughs. you have to hear every line So we we didn't do that a lot. Back in the cheheers days, we only ran the scene twice. I would back up occasionally if somebody said something to laugh, but we didn't run the scene twice like we do now. We werean into cheers scenes only once and then I would go back if we missed something or we wanted to change one joke. I would go back and just shoot a piece of the scene again O Will and Grace, we do every scene twice and in between each scene, the writers rewrite some jokes Really Yeah So so the audience gets to hear gets to see two different versions of the scene. Yes, if you're gonna to do a scene twice, it really helps to change the jokes Is that typical that the writers are around the set? It typical for you? Is it typical for other shows Oh yeah. NH sitcom, you got to see what. I mean, if you're not on the set, you don't know whether to show bombs or not. You got to be there to see It's either your it's either euphoria or it's your funeral, but you got to be there and you got to You got to fix what doesn't work because that's going off on that's going on the air You don't want something that's no good going on the air, so you better fix it James Burrow, speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in two thousand six. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break This is fresh air. This is Fresh Air, and we're listening to Terry's two thousand six interview with TV director James Burrroughs, who directed over a thousand episodes of Cheers, taxi, Friends, Frasier, and other sitcoms. He died last week Now, you know, we were talking about cheers. And of course, after cheheers, you worked on the spinoff Frasier, and you directed lots of episodes of that. You were there right at the start. Why was Frasier did the character that you all decided to spin off We didn't, I did not spin him off David Angel Peter Casey and David Lee, who were the producers of Cheers from years had talked to Kelsey about doing a spin off So they wrote the script And they spun him off. They asked us if he if they could, and we said, sure. And they wrote a brilliant script. They they they their genius in that script was taking an actor who had this incredible ability, which Kelsey has Taking Frasier, making him Sam alone. because he had to be the center and taking David Hyde Pierce's Niles and making him Frasier. So that was brilliant on their part And the tone of that show was brilliant to the So much more upper crust and cheers be because other than Martin The father, there was no other samalones or norms or cliffs on that show. They were all upp across smart people And they did a brilliant job. And I directed the pilot, which was huge. And I think I directed about twenty, twenty five episodes They did a great job and they had a great actor and the lead and a great cast I want to play a short scene from the pilot, which you directed of Frasier. And this is a scene from early in the episode, Niles and Frasier are at a coffee shop And Niles is suggesting it's time to find a convalescent home for their father to live in. We have a problem, and that's why I thought we should talk Is a dad Afraid so. onene of his B buddies from the police force called this morning. You went over to see him and found him on the bathroom floor. Oh my God. I don't. It's okay. He's fine. What is his hip again Fraser, I don't think he can live alone anymore What can we do? Well I know this isn't going to be anyone's favorite solution, but I took the liberty of checking out a few convalescent homes for him. Mile's a home. He's still a young man. Well, you certainly can't take care of him. You're just getting your new life together. Absolutely. But besides, we were never since Potty C. Of course, I can't take care of him. C, Yes, yes, of course course Why? Because Dad doesn't get along with Maris. Who does? I thought you liked my Maris. I do. Id like her from a distance. You know, the way you like the sun. Maris is like the sun, except without the warmth Well then we're agreed about what to do with Dad. Golden acres. We care so you don't have to It says that well, it might as well Allright, I'll make up this spare bedroom. Oh You're a good son, Frasier. God, I am, It I. Two Cfe Spremos? Anything to eat? No, I seem to have lost my appetite. I'll have a large piece of cheesecink. It's a scene from the pilot of Frasier, directed by my guest James Burrows, and you know, great scene, great series One of the things that's really interesting to me about that scene and about like the early Fraser is that Niles sounds completely different than he did later on He is not talking with that, you know, kind of a feet clipped. style of speech that he develops later in the series I did not notice that I I always thought that he was There was no other word to describe Nils than a feat for me because he was a personification of Frasier. and if Frasier was certainly a feat on cheers So I did not know that.. I guess I Well, you know what, Niles was a minor character. If you if you talk to the boys Originally, Niles only had one scene in the pilot And he was an afterthought. They thought the strong relationship would be between father and son And then because of David, that part expanded rapidly And God because it was a wonderful relationship No, you know, a lot of people thought that Niles and Frasier were really too Gayen cast as brothers. Do you know what I mean? that the Brothers was just a cover that this was a story about really two gay guys. Did you feel that way when you were directing it Oh yeah, it's a husband and wife They are. They're a couple. They're a couple. and it's great I never thought gay as much as a married couple. They talk like a married couple a snobbish married couple and a feat married couple. So I totally agree with that Now, Unwill and Grace, there really is a gay character, and it was ammong the first really popular gay regular characters uh in on sitcom and on sitcoms and on broadcast wereere there issues about How broad to make the character? and, you know How a character should be depicted Well You know, the genius of that show is the script. is that Max and David wrote a script where there's a love affair between a woman and a man that can't be consummated So the dialogue is brilliant in that script and very smart. So You have you have a gay man who you don't play gay which gives you the liberty to play gay with the other character Jack, Jack can be incredibly outrageous because Will is will is not will, you know, he gives you credibility mainly among the gay community because I think if Will wasn't on the show, we would get notes we get letters from the gay community about how Jack's portrayed how that character is portrayed, but because of will, it allows us to do that So I always thought of the show u as a really funny show that happens to have two gay characters in it. And I firmly believed that, you know, the pilot was through the roof when we ran it in front of an audience. They loved it. we shot it, they loved it. And I went to the network and I said, please don't put us on the don't put us after Seinfeld We cannot survive there. because people are not going to watch us. Please put us somewhere where we can kind of sneak into town And people can you know find us eventually because there's no reason to watch this show And then I wanted there's a kiss in the pilot between Will and Grace And u I wanted that in there because I felt that u if we could convince the part of the country that that doesn't appreciate gays or does not like gays or has some problems with gays If we could convince that part of the country that maybe will we'll take the super drugs and get over his gayness and marry Grace and get if they if we if we let them think that that they'll get together that they maybe tune in to watch the show because they've heard how funny it was and then once they're in there and see how funny it is, they're never going to leave. So are you really glad you've been able to have a career in TV I've been blessed. I did In nineteen eighty one, I tried a movie. If I had tried it in ' ninety one, the movie probably been more successful because I would have had much more self esteem than I had in ' eighty one This is before cheers I didn't like the process because it took two years to get a result. I didn't like the hours. I'm not a guy who's meticulous with how the set looks and doing each scene three times so that you can cut it. I'm a guy who likes to do it live in front of an audience And I have been blessed to be able to work in this medium Um that I I don't have to work anymore. I didn't have to do willill and Grace. I'm I'm financially sound and But I do it because I love it. I do it because U Will and grrace makes me feel twenty years younger U I've been in the business bout thirty five years so I just turned twenty five last year.'s and u I I I love laughing. I love to hear the laughter. I've done and I've been lucky enough to be associated with some extraordinary shows and shows that may not be as extraordinary, but we're were so wonderful like News Radio, which I did the pilot of and third Rck with Johnny Liskow and um I've had You know, these wonderful shows and it just I'm going to go on next year. I'm not when Mulling Grace is off the air, I'm going to try to find another show because I have so much fun doing it James Burrs, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you so much for all the great programs that you've given us. Thank you. And thank you for some questions I've never been asked before. TV director James Burrow, speaking with Terry Gross in two thousand six Burrows died june nineteenth at the age of eighty five Burrows played a fictional version of himself in the HBO series The Comeback, starring Lisa Cudru In his last appearance in May, his character is asked to direct a pilot of a show written by AI. And he makes a plea for the creativity and unpredictability of human script writers. Surprising only comes from a group of writers huddled in a corner beating themselves up Beat down a better joke Okay, No, no about. It's the chubby guy who's a secret alcoholic. It's the gay guy who despite all the work he's done still hates himself a little Or the funny woman who's been invisible for way too long, they turn all that pain into a joke And v, those broken, beautiful souls are what made something great Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new film The Invite. This is fresh air. This is fresh air In the new comedy The Invite, Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde play a San Francisco couple who spend an evening getting to know their upstairs neighbors, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton It's Wilde's third directorial effort, after her earlier films Book smmart, and Don't worry Darling. The invite opens in theaters this week Our film critic Justin Chang has this review In the Annals of movies about Bickersome couples spending an ill advised evening together Olivia Wilde's The Invite falls somewhere between two poles No, it isn't as good as Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf Mike Nichols Saling nineteen sixty six adaptation of Edward Alby's classic play But it's significantly better than Carnage, Roman Polansky's annoying twenty ten film of the Asmina Reza play, God of Carnage All these movies have a tricky needle to thread How do you open up a story for the screen when the story is claustrophobic by design How do you get an audience to feel the tension and heat of marital rage without driving them toward the exit. In the case of the invite Whild than her screenwriters, Will McCormack and Rashida Jones are working from proven material This is a remake of a Spanish stage to screen adaptation, The People Upstairs which was released in twenty twenty It's already inspired remakes set in Italy, Switzerland, France, and South Korea In this new version Wilde plays Angela who lives in a San Fancisco apartment with her husband, Joe Played by Seth Rogan The film unfolds over a single evening Their twelve year old daughter is away at a sleepover And Angela has invited their upstairs neighbors, Pina and her boyfriend, Hawk Over for wine and Chcoutri The knives come out even before the guests show up Angela is a ball of nerves, anxious to make a good impression Joe, by contrast, couldn't care less what they think. and he means to confront them about their very noisy sex life which has woken Joe and Angela up at odd hours of the night Wilde is a terrific director of actors, herself included And she and Rogan are all too persuasive as a long married couple who know just how to push each other's buttons. Rogan is especially strong booisterous good vibes that once powered many a Jud Appataal comedy hardened into a shell of middle aged discontent Pina and Haw play by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton eventually arrive Not long afterward, who's nothing, if not direct It tries to either diffuse or exacerbate the obvious tension in the room. It took a while come to the door. And it sounded like you were arguing. Noor f? No, I just want to be honest. we were at the door before we rang and we could hear you were fighting Oh, we were tal we were, um We were fighting. We were fighting ye. A bit of a contentious environment in here. so I understand if that's repellent to you, no hard feelings, you know what I mean? Completely understand, you know? We love a contentious environment. We love it Well, really, it's fine. You hit the jackpot then, my friend. As the couples get to know each other, we get to know them too. And we come to understand the roots of Joe and Angela's unhappiness. Joe was a once promising indie rock artist. whose career flamed out after one big hit. He now teaches music at a Bay Area Cervatory and his sense of failure is eating him alive And Angela hasn't made much use of her art school degree Fpar from renovating and redecorating the apartment her sole creative outlet these days Kina and Hawk are a model couple by comparison which makes them irritating and amusing in equal measure. Hawk lays on the flattery and the newew age sensitivity awfully thick And Norton, not for the first time expertly blurs the lines between charm and smarm Kina is a psychotherapist and sexologist And at first, she might seem to veer toward a hot blooded Eururoseductrouous caricature Cruise is too vivid to be reduced to a stereotype Pina is ultimately the one character the movie refuses to mock She's too comfortable in her own skin and too ruthlessly accurate in her assessments of Joe and Angela's troubled marriage Wild previously directed, the enjoyable teen comedy Bookmart And thus successfully, the domestic dystopian satire, don't worry darling An ambitious movie that ultimately proved less interesting then it's much publicized behind the scenes shenanigans It was smart of while to scale back with an intimate chamber piece like the Invite Though here, as and don't worry, darling Her stylistic ticks sometimes get the better of her. Early on Joe and Angela's arguments are almost drowned out by the score's frenzied cello strings. And Wild is a bit too fond of using the apartment's many, many mirrors to isolate the characters visually as if we needed reminding. how fragmented their relationship has become. Pina and Haw have their own ideas about how to help And it's worth seeing the movie yourself to discover what they are. Suffice to say that the title the invite, has more than one meaning. It's disappointing, though not surprising But the film pulls back from those ideas After dangling a more audacious outcome, The invite retreats to a zone of emotional safety. One that's poignant in its own way though it also feels like a missed opportunity. The movie could have been Dare I say it A little wilder Justin Chenangg is a film critic at the New Yorker On Monday show, Chris Evet and Martina Navrat Tolova. They were tennis champions, the two biggest stars of their generation They were friends, they were rivals, and after retiring, they got cancer at the same time Now they're the subject of a new Netflix documentary I hope you can join us Freshare's executive producer Sam Briger Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorach Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Julian Hertzfeld, Dianna Martinez, and Charlie Kyer Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krerenzel, Theeresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Tha Challener, Susan Yakundi, An A Baumann and Nico Gonzaes Whistler Our digital media producer is Molly CVine Nesper Terry Gross Antona Moseley. I'm Dave Davies. Support for NPR comes from the station. 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