Susan Lacy—the iconic creator of PBS’s American Masters and one of the most influential voices in biographical documentary filmmaking joins us. From her early roots in journalism to building a landmark series that reshaped cultural storytelling on public television, Lacy shares the real behind-the-scenes truth of what it took to launch American Masters, fight for ambitious filmmaking, and evolve from producer to director.

Together, Christian and Susan dig into what makes a documentary last: deep research, emotional access, trust with subjects, and interviews that go beyond “good questions” to uncover the soul of a story. Lacy also reflects on being a woman leading at the highest levels of the industry, the power of mentorship, and how shifting economics—from the DVD era to today’s streaming landscape—have changed development, financing, and distribution.

If you care about documentary storytelling, PBS history, HBO documentaries, or how to direct intimate, character-driven films that preserve legacy and culture, this conversation is essential listening.

No DocuView Déjà Vu

Links:

American Masters: American Masters (TV Series 1985– ) ⭐ 8.2 | Documentary, Biography, History

Pentimento Productions: HOME

Spielberg: Spielberg (TV Movie 2017) ⭐ 7.7 | Documentary, Biography

Billy Joel: And So It Goes: Billy Joel: And So It Goes (TV Mini Series 2025) ⭐ 8.6 | Documentary, Biography, Music

Episode 256 | HBO Max "Billy Joel And So It Goes" Interview with Executive Producer, Steve Cohen - Part 1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1v6X33Wu3IPCczl0uL4SvN?si=cc53ba405c254126

Episode 264 | Billy Joel: Telling the Story Behind the Musician (with Jessica Levin): https://open.spotify.com/episode/5GRU4wDlnYa9cmXBAo3eKz?si=1d721c5270ed4a37

Time Codes

00:00 — Welcome + Susan Lacy Intro

05:38 — Journalism roots and learning the value of truth

08:55 — Breaking into PBS (Channel 13) and the art of public television

12:06 — Launching a cultural institution: American Masters in 1986

22:08 — HBO era + Directing Debut

32:16 — Billy Joel: And So It Goes Documentary

43:00 — Interview + Story Tips

57:12 — Final thoughts, American history

Sponsor: Virgil Films http://www.virgilfilms.com/

Support us by buying merch or watching our films: https://documentaryfirst.com/

Alright.

2

Welcome to Documentary First, an inside look at documentary filmmaking.

3

I'm your host, Christian Taylor, a documentary filmmaker myself.

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This podcast is where we hope to help filmmakers make better stories.

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And I can tell you, I can't think of a better guest to help us achieve our goals than the

guest we have today.

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Today, I am thrilled to have the guest, the gift of time from the remarkable Susan Lacey,

one of the most respected and influential documentary filmmakers working today.

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She is best known as the creator of American Masters, the groundbreaking PBS series she

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cultural icons who helped shape our American story.

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Under her leadership, American Masters earned dozens of Emmy and Peabody awards, and she

set a new standard for biography and documentary filmmaking.

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In 2013, she began a new chapter, founding Pintamento Productions.

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where she shifted her focus entirely to directing and producing her own films.

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Since then, she's created an extraordinary body of work for HBO, including Spielberg, Jane

Fonda in Five Acts, Barry Routh, The Janes, and most recently, one of my personal

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favorites, Billy Joel, and So It Goes, which premiered as the opening night film in the

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Her films have also been nominated for and won multiple Emmys, Peabody Awards, and even

Grammys.

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But beyond the award, Susan has spent her career preserving the creative legacies of

others while continually redefining her own.

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Today, we'll talk about that incredible journey from producing to directing, from American

Masters to HBO, and explore what it takes to tell the stories of living legends like

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Steven Spielberg and Billy Joel.

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Welcome, Susan.

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I am delighted to have

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here.

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I am delighted to be here.

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Thank you so much.

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Yes, you know, we had to jump right in because we've now spent too much time getting to

know each other before I hit the record button.

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And I thank you for your time.

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You've been a delight just to give me your time today.

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I have been waiting for this interview now for weeks.

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I've spoken to Steve Cohen and I've spoken to Jessica Levin, your co-director of Billy

Joel and So It Goes.

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ah But I've just been waiting to speak with you because I thought this film was a

masterpiece.

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Thank you.

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It was a masterpiece uh of directing.

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And I say that because I started watching it at like 8 p.m.

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the night that I received the screener and I couldn't stop watching it until it ended at

like 2 a.m.

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And I was just blown away by the depth of the interviews and how um Billy Joel was so open

and honest and revelatory about his own life.

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And then how

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the people in his life where he had difficult and tumultuous relationships were included

in the film, willing to be interviewed, which I know could not have been easy.

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And then how creatively you wove his story together with uh unique pieces.

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I loved how you used graphics of his own handwritten notes of the lyrics and his own

photos or the archival video no one had ever seen before.

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um Man, that is just incredible storytelling.

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So ah thank you for that film.

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And I do want to talk about how you came up to all of that, but we need to start at the

beginning.

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So you were telling me when we first jumped on, I told you I was from Chicago.

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We talked a little bit about what's happening in Chicago today.

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And today is October 22nd, 2025.

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And there's a lot happening in downtown Chicago right now.

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And you mentioned that in 1968, was that it?

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I was at the Democratic convention in 1968.

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well, guy named Frank Mankiewicz, who might not mean much to people listening to this

podcast today, but he was a very big deal politically back in the day in the 60s, very

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connected with Kennedy.

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And there was a man named Dick Tuck, who was a well-known political prankster.

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Anyway, they decided that there should be a student newspaper put out on a daily basis

during the convention.

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and they picked 10 college newspaper editors.

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And I was the one of the 10, the only woman and the only one from a weekly paper.

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Everybody else was big dailies, you Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Penn, know, Michigan, and a

lot of editors who went on to, you know, make names for themselves as well.

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But I was from a weekly and I was the only woman and they gave us one room at the

Blackstone Hotel.

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And so it was it was a learning experience and incredibly fascinating my job was to write

a story about the people that the the Pinkerton's and the National Guard people that were

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being brought in to supplement the Chicago police.

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And and that was fascinating because that I put myself in some dangerous places I was in

fact I was hit over the head and dragged across the street about to be thrown in a paddy

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wagon until.

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famous uh ABC correspondent who I had gotten to know at the early breakfast in the hotel

where all the reporters were staying.

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And he came over and he flashed his badge and he pulled me out of the wagon.

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His name was Luciaffi, was ABC News.

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And uh anyway, it was an incredible experience because I had never, you know, written

under that kind of pressure.

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um And

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But I also realized how important it was to have that point of view em from the students,

from the young people.

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They were out in the streets being beaten up and we were reporting it from our point of

view.

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uh We never did come up with a name for it because we couldn't think of one.

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was just that every day was the date.

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And somewhere I have all those newspapers.

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I'd love to read that.

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How old were you?

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I was a junior in college.

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was probably, you know, 18 or 19 years old, not more than 19.

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Unbelievable.

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Well, that's documentary storytelling at its finest.

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Just was with a pen and paper and not a camera.

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I remember that I ran into my father's cousin was the head of the B'nai B'rith for South

America and they were having a meeting in Washington and both presidential candidates were

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speaking to them on the same day.

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So it was Nixon and Humphrey.

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And I saw, I went with my, we were invited and my parents and I went and there was

Luciaffi and he saw me and he came over to my parents and he said,

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you have to watch out, take care of that young girl there.

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She put herself in a lot of danger and I was like, Lou, I'm a reporter too.

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I was insulted that he was not taking me seriously as a reporter because I was out there

being a reporter.

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Anyway, uh but I always wanted to write and I was a journalist.

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uh I I thought I was gonna be a journalist.

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Then I thought I was gonna be a scholar.

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And when I got to college, I ended up majoring in American studies.

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And I went far along with that.

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I've got a master's and, you know, almost a PhD, everything, but actually writing the

dissertation.

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Yeah.

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I really, and I loved, I loved, I loved school.

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I was one those weird people that loved school.

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Anyway, then I was living in Rome because my first husband was the head of the American

Academy in Rome, which is a very prestigious place of.

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scholars and artists, a residential community of artists and scholars that are selected.

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You have to be very, very talented.

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It's called the Prix de Rome when you win, when you get to go there.

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Yeah.

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And so uh we were living in Rome.

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Not a good life.

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And then, which was not bad, and uh I wrote, I was writing stuff, did a, know, anyway,

doesn't matter.

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And then um I got a call one day because my first husband was, it was rumored that we were

coming back to New York because he was becoming president of Cooper Union, which is a very

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prestigious college.

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And I had written an article about television and the arts for the American studies,

something or other, and about how it could be better.

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I was not even 30 years old.

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Wow.

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And uh anyway, I get a call from the president of channel 13 saying, how'd you like to

come put your money where your mouth is?

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Wow.

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That is how I ended up at channel 13.

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I did not think I was going into television.

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It was going to be a scholar.

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And uh so I got there and it turned out I was, I have some kind of a knack for it.

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mean, partly because I had worked at both the NEA and the N.E.A.

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I've worked at both NEA and NEH, which are probably both gonna go out of business at some

point, but.

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Unfortunately.

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ah So I learned how to write a grant proposal and that made me extremely popular.

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Listen, you still need that today.

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eh

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I was, you know, doing that and then one day the man who was the head of Arts and

Performance Programs, a kind of legend named Jack Venza, said, I want her to be in my

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department.

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I want her only for me.

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So I would say within, I don't know, eight months of arriving there in 1979, I was a

deputy head of Arts and Performance Programs.

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And we were doing things like great performances and theater in America and dance in

America and

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You know, a full-scale artistic department and great performances was a pretty big deal.

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We bought things like Brideshead Revisited and I don't know if that means anything to

anybody.

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no, well, mean, well, does to me.

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Yeah, of course.

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I'm not sure who's listening.

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uh But one day I said to myself, you know, I'm so much more interested in the stories of

the people who create the works that we're putting on.

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uh The lives of the creators fascinating.

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And since I had majored in American studies and all background American studies, said, I'm

going to focus on America.

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I came up with this idea to do something called American Masters and nobody thought it was

a good idea.

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Nobody.

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I mean, they practically laughed at me at PBS, because I had never produced anything.

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I just had good instincts about stuff.

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so they didn't really take me seriously.

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And I got no support.

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This was back in, no, not not, but about 83.

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And at the station, they were very indulgent, but nobody ever thought this was really

going to happen.

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So I got my first little grant to develop this from NEA, National Endowment for the Arts.

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And at same time, I got a call from Robert Redford.

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No way, how did that happen?

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because somebody had told him and the guy who was the executive director of Sundance at

the time, remember this is 83.

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No, is this 83?

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Yeah, this is 83.

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So anyway, they were starting a new program and they said, best person to run this program

should be Susan Lacey because I had been involved in helping to develop and get on the

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American Playhouse, which was the first.

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Remember American Playhouse.

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independent films made for public television.

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So they kind of connected with Sundance's mission.

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Anyway, I met with him and I said, uh I'm really committed to developing this thing called

American Masters.

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If I take this job, could I continue to do that?

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And he said, yeah, as long as it doesn't affect your job.

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So I left 13, I moved down the street, took offices with American Playhouse, and I had my

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Sundance desk over there and, you know, my American Masters little corner and continued to

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I basically, willed this series into being.

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And I say that with all due humility, because I didn't get help from anybody.

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But the thing that when I asked 13 if I could continue to do this,

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And basically said, you don't even have to pay me.

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I mean, that's how committed I was.

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I was walking out the door and said, yeah, but Susan, if it ever does happen, remember we

own it because you had the idea while you were on our payroll.

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And that was maybe one of stupidest things I ever did in my life was not say, well, let's

have some groundwork because I have ground rules about that.

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Because I raised all the money myself and uh I did that for the next 30 years.

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So then did you just pay yourself through the money you raised and that's the only way you

ever were renumerated?

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Yeah, well, we had a budget and then I have salary on that budget,

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and they owned all the things you made.

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yeah, absolutely.

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And then when I left Sundance after the first season, which was a big success, I had a

choice uh to make and we had just started the Sundance Film Festival.

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And I don't think I had any idea what was gonna happen with that.

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And I sometimes say to myself, if you'd know what was gonna happen, would you have stayed

or would you have...

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The answer is I'm really glad I did what I did because I was able to make my own thing

and...

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uh

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And I was really committed to it.

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And I believed fervently in the importance of creating a cultural library of American

cultural history.

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And because I knew that one day all these important people would be gone and their stories

wouldn't be out there and people would forget who they were, which is happening so fast in

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this culture right now.

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My head is spinning.

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I mean, I'm trying to develop a film on Mike Nichols, who's one of the greatest American

directors ever.

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And I'm told that most people don't know who he is anymore.

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And he's only been gone like five years.

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Yeah.

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It is.

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And before we know it, people won't remember Robert Redford, you know?

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I know.

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that's, and I was committed to doing that.

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Now, obviously I came from it from an academic background, but um my job for the next 30

years to keep PBS appeased was to always balance, always making sure I had a couple of

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really popular subjects along with the things that really were the hugely important

foundation of American cultural history.

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You know the Balanchines and the Ernie's Hemingway's and you know balanced against film

stars and pop stars, which is basically was the appetite that people want you had and

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except that Because you know PBS would say I mean nobody's gonna watch these I see well

the problem is you put them on at four o'clock in the morning and nobody watches them at

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four o'clock in the morning so You know and and and nobody can get them made because

there's no place to put them So nobody can get funding because they can't guarantee

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they're gonna have broadcasts

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So a filmmaker will do it on their credit card and it'll show.

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It won't be worthy of prime time.

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But these are great stories and uh the stories of people who are transcending the often uh

convention, their times, trying to create something new, overcoming their own demons.

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mean, endless, endless stories of creators that are captivating, which has proven true.

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Look at how many...

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how many of our films we made in American Masters ended up becoming feature films.

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Yeah.

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Truman Capote, Ray Charles, Edward R.

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Murrow, Leonard Bernstein, I could go on.

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But at the time, nobody was doing that.

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mean, that had gone out in the 40s, you know, in a way to kind of make those biopics, the

Cole Porter story, that wasn't a true story at all.

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It was very Hollywoodized.

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Anyway, so I fought that battle.

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And I said, look, can't have a series called American Masters.

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That doesn't have the integrity of being a about American Masters.

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can't all be pop stars and film stars.

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so, but we turned out to hit a nerve and people loved the series and we had an audience

and we won a ton of awards.

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I think we won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary Series 10 years in a row.

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Yeah, so that was the vindication was that there was an audience for this and I knew there

would be and there were people who just uh

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You know, we didn't approach the films.

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got about maybe $150,000 a show from PBS.

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And these films cost well over million dollars.

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So you can imagine.

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Fundraising that had to go uh on.

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um But it wasn't worth making.

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That's what other TV series did.

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I'm not going to mention who.

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They would do them for very little money in six weeks.

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We would do the work that went into making something that was lasting.

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And I said, if we can't.

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make films that are as excellent as the people we're making films about, we shouldn't be

in this business.

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So that's what we did.

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Well, you I want to go back to the point where you said it, took three years, you willed

it into being, ah you faced a lot of headwind.

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There are so many filmmakers that are in that position right now.

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And, you know, talk about what headwinds you faced, you know, how you willed it into being

and why, uh and, you know, what it took to get it there.

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Oh, that's such a complex, don't want to get too much in the weeds, it's a very different

story today, which is why I think it's a lot.

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Well, that's true.

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First of all, I was creating something that had not been done before.

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And as much as there was no support for it, that was an entry, know, like this is going to

happen.

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And I never believed it wasn't going to happen.

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So I would approach people and say, you know, I mean, I went to every market, I went to

every film festival, I went to Europe.

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created contacts with BBC and, you know, the South Bank Show, was the equivalent of

something like American Masters in England, met commissioning editors from all over the

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world when documentaries still had a place on the schedule.

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And, you know, I had good relations at NEA and NEH.

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And I mean, I just mosaiced this thing together, you know, in any way that I could,

whether it was a co-production or an NEH grant or, you

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a lot of that I'm hearing was probably on your own dime as you were saying.

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No, one on my own dime, because I was on a salary there.

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Not a big one, but I was on a salary.

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Oh, before getting it up to that point.

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Yeah.

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I went to uh Cannes for what was called, god, it wasn't the film festival.

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It was the television, a MIP back in those days.

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And I owned my own dime.

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I got a hotel.

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I went around.

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I met all the commissioning editors from all the different countries.

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And I'm going to do this series called American Masters.

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And I didn't have a penny.

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I mean, seriously.

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uh But I formed relationships and somehow cobbled together a 15-week series and offered it

almost for nothing to PBS.

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uh But from the very beginning, you have to go once a year and tell the stations what's

coming up.

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And my first one that I had to go and tell them what was happening.

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I was so nervous.

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mean, literally my knees were knocking.

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I'd never spoken publicly before.

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never done this.

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I had to get up and tell people why this was going to be an important series.

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and you know who loved it from the beginning was the press, the press.

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They, oh, oh, oh, this was, this was, this was, this is how it finally got on the air.

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My mentor, Jack Venza had said to me, just don't let them put it on Sunday afternoon.

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Cause it won't last there.

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You have to be in prime time.

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So I told him when I said this has to be in prime time.

263

And they said, well, we're not going to give that to you because uh people probably don't

know that prime time on public television is 10 hours a week.

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It's not a schedule.

265

It's, you know, from some time to some time, five days a week or whatever.

266

And that's one of the stations have to carry it all at the same time.

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That's very limited.

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And I said, hmm, why don't you put it on in the summer when everybody else is in reruns?

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launch a new series in the summer.

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Never been done before.

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And that's what happened.

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And so that's why the press was so happy about it, because they had something to write

about that they could sink their teeth into.

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And from the beginning, they were behind the series and behind Saucy Susan, one of them

called me.

274

That's so smart.

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So smart.

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Beautiful.

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That's outside the box thinking.

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And a lot of those tactics actually, I think still can apply today.

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I was talking to Nicholas Bruckman of People's TV yesterday.

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His podcast will come out before yours.

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And actually your daughter is his sales rep.

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That's one of the reasons I have him.

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He's got a new series coming out called The Price of Milk.

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I don't know if you've heard of it.

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uh I watched it yesterday.

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Phenomenal series.

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um And he was saying the exact same thing to filmmakers that it is really important that

you just go to these markets, that if you have some sort of film, some idea, you need to

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get into the markets, you need to meet people, you need to make relationships.

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It all starts with networking and getting to know people.

290

And the most important ingredient?

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Passion.

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It's the single most important ingredient.

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If you're climbing an uphill battle, you do it because you've got to.

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Because something in you is saying, I've got to make this happen.

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And uh that keeps you going.

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It's something you love, something you have a passion about.

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That passion can get across to people.

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eventually,

299

Eventually, it was never very much, but when Pat Mitchell became president of PBS while I

was still there, she saw its potential and she gave a little bit more money.

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But it was not at the level that I wanted these films to be at.

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So I went out and supplemented all the funding to get the films that we wanted to make

made.

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And that led to all kinds of interesting partnerships too.

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I mean, when we did Dylan, which was

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the biggest thing we had done.

305

You've seen the director.

306

And we hired Martin Scorsese to do it.

307

uh You know, that involved partnerships from around the world and Paramount at very high

levels.

308

So it, you know, the series went from the little engine that could to sort of becoming an

institution.

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And it was, but then some important things happened.

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The DVD market died.

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uh

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changed the picture for people piecing funding together to do these because like on Dylan,

we got a huge DVD advance from Paramount.

313

That market disappeared.

314

And when that disappeared, I kind of knew that I really wouldn't be able to compete in the

marketplace anymore to get the kind of names that kept the series alive, know, the

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balancing off with the Dylans and the Paul Simons and with the Balanchines and the

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Ernest Hemingway's, um and I knew that I wouldn't be able to compete and I wouldn't be

able to bringing the kind of titles in that had come to be associated with us.

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um that's when I, but by the way, I should mention that I started directing films at

American Masters.

318

I waited a long time, but I waited like at least 10 years to do that.

319

And in the 215 films that were made during my tenure there, I only directed six of them.

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I wasn't hiring myself all the time.

321

want to move into that directing piece actually because I know I didn't know it started

there didn't know how much so was it really towards the end was it somewhere in the

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middle.

323

It's after the first 10 years, but before I go then, I want to say that the other reason

that American Masters uh became what it became is that I sought out the best filmmakers in

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the country, the best documentary filmmakers, and people who had a passion for something.

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I gave uh first directing to many, many women directors.

326

mean, a phenomenal number of women were first-time directors under American Masters who

went on to create big names, and I'm very proud of that.

327

But the series, I didn't make every film in American Masters.

328

I did choose them.

329

I chose who we were gonna make films about.

330

um And I had kind of an ongoing list of the most important people in the fields,

photography, architecture, dance.

331

And I would see whether we had done those things.

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um Sorry.

333

But um it was...

334

It was the filmmaking talents of many, many, people that made the series what it was.

335

I am proud of the selections that I made, because I think it's sort of, if you look at

that list, you go, my God, that's a phenomenal library that is irreplaceable.

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uh And it won't ever happen again, I'm afraid.

337

anyway, at certain point, I decided that I needed to flex the directing muscle.

338

um I sat in a lot of edit rooms.

339

uh

340

with very talented filmmakers, learned a lot.

341

Sometimes I was able to make some very good suggestions and I realized that I was pretty

good at it.

342

uh so I directed my first film, which I believe, trying to remember, but it was Rod

Serling.

343

And I did it very creatively, I think, know, with kind of creating an open that looked

actually like a Twilight Zone.

344

It was shot in 35 millimeter black and white.

345

and it really did and it was anyway it's very interesting film.

346

I haven't seen it, so now I'm interested.

347

Yeah, well, I'll have to send you a link because it's out of rights.

348

Now their partnership couldn't do that without CBS, who own all the Twilight Zones.

349

that I was able to make, say, give me all the clips for free.

350

You have the DVD rights.

351

And we did a lot of that kind of stuff.

352

I mean, that's why I'm saying that the loss of the DVD market, I think has had a huge

impact on documentaries today.

353

We've got nearly as many tools for getting this stuff.

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I agree, agree.

355

You know, we are still selling DVDs of my film, uh remarkably so, but I'm having to do it

personally, and I only am because my film is very popular among the older generation and

356

in Europe.

357

And so that's where the DVD market is still alive.

358

They still have DVD players and they still are interested in watching them because it's

easier technology for them.

359

without those things, nobody's watching DVDs, you know.

360

No, I don't even have a DVD machine anymore.

361

Well, I will tell you, you can get them on Amazon for about $15.

362

Because I had to buy one to review my DVD.

363

It was pretty interesting.

364

Is there any place where people can watch your American Masters episodes now?

365

Only the ones that are still in rights.

366

that's, you know, we've been on the air now.

367

I I left after 30 years and that was 12 years ago and American Masters is still on the

air.

368

So I don't know how they're clearing rights now.

369

When I first started the series, we really couldn't afford to clear anything for more than

10 years.

370

And so after 10 years, a lot of these masterpieces, and I mean masterpieces uh of films

are out of rights.

371

uh

372

I have been, I haven't put this away.

373

I believe I still would like to put a lot of effort into trying to find somebody, somebody

out there who says, I want to preserve this library and give it to the library of Congress

374

and give it to the Smithsonian and, you know, we clear all the rights in perpetuity, but

give it away, put my name on it.

375

It cost about $10 million to do what I'm talking about for the best of these, like

probably a hundred.

376

50 or so of these films, maybe less.

377

And then if somebody wanted to take it on as a marketing idea, they could say, okay, well,

we got these five films about photographers.

378

That could be then taken out and tried to sell, the rights would be cleared already.

379

So it could go on the air for relatively little money if there was a distributor

interested in trying

380

idea.

381

I'm going to this out there.

382

Everybody listen.

383

This is a great idea.

384

I know everybody loves the series.

385

Everybody's admired it.

386

It's been awarded.

387

I've gotten tons and tons of individual awards for it and all that.

388

And it's going to die.

389

These masterpieces of films and the history that goes with them will die.

390

On a shelf somewhere and it just breaks my heart.

391

We're not gonna let that happen.

392

We're not gonna let that happen.

393

We're gonna put out a request for somebody to hear what you just said.

394

So from your lips to God's ears and the internet's ears as well, we're gonna hopefully

make that happen.

395

All right, so moving on to-

396

started directing some films and I did about six and then I did Leonard Bernstein, which

was in my heart from the very beginning of starting the series.

397

I wanted to have a film about Leonard Bernstein.

398

I had a list, by the way, of the 10 people that absolutely had to have in the series if it

ever happened.

399

Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Martha Graham.

400

I can't remember exactly.

401

We ended up doing almost everybody on that list except Elvis Presley.

402

And when the year 2000, the turn of the century, Time Magazine came out with the 100 Most

Important Americans of the Century.

403

And I was so excited to see that list because I was always fighting with PBS about this.

404

And I took the list of 30 % cultural figures and we had done almost all of them, including

people like Alfred Stieglitz, which are PBS saying, who is Alfred Stieglitz?

405

And I said, he's one of the most important people in America.

406

Modern art and history, you know, he's the one who brought modern art to America, blah,

blah, blah.

407

And he was on the list.

408

So I took it.

409

I showed it to him.

410

said, look.

411

uh

412

love it.

413

I would really do have to save the serious people.

414

Listen up.

415

All right.

416

So you've got the six at American Masters and then you decided that you wanted to start

your own thing.

417

This was 2013.

418

So let's talk about that.

419

How did that begin?

420

Well, it actually began with a phone call from the head of HBO who called me and said he'd

like to meet me for lunch.

421

And I was a really big admirer of HBO documentary films was legendary and a little bit of

a competition.

422

and anyway, he invited me to lunch and asked me if I would make films that have been HBO.

423

And I said, well, I can't.

424

I'm an employee of Channel 13 in New York City.

425

And he said, hmm.

426

I thought you were independent.

427

Everybody thought I was independent, including, it made Channel 13 crazy, by the way,

because I had to keep reminding people, she's here, she's at 13.

428

Because I was so out there and had spent so many years putting this thing together on my

own.

429

But then I was at 13 for a long, physically there.

430

And anyway, he asked what it would take to get him and I had no idea.

431

So I called David Geffen, who I'd made a film about it.

432

I love that one.

433

And I said, David, I have no idea what to ask for.

434

I was a graduate student, and then I was at 13 for 35 years.

435

I have no idea what I should ask for in this.

436

he said, will you do my deal?

437

And he laughed at me, and he said no.

438

But he introduced me to his lawyer, who was a big entertainment lawyer.

439

And somehow an arrangement was made, and I jumped ship with heavy heart in some ways, but

very excited in another.

440

I mean, I was...

441

giving up something that I practically opened a vein for every year and loved and it was

very much my identity.

442

And to, you know, an unknown new world, setting up a company and being on my own.

443

But I wasn't completely on my own.

444

um I had two women who had worked with me on films I had directed.

445

They were not employees of 13, but they had been my line producers and...

446

uh Jessica Levin and Emma Pildes, who's also producer on Billie Joel.

447

And uh I said to them, I've got this opportunity, but I can't do it without you guys.

448

So will you make a commitment to me?

449

And they made a five-year commitment, and that was 12 years ago.

450

So it looks like, and we're very connected to each other and a real team, and we all bring

something very vital to that team.

451

I to run uh a different podcast.

452

And if you guys haven't watched or listened to that when you should, but yes, she, she

kept saying, you just have to talk to her because she talks about how influential you have

453

been in, know, in teaching her em and what she has learned from you.

454

So yeah, it sounds like you guys have had amazing partnership and working together there.

455

But what I gleaned from listening to her,

456

and from like reading about you was just your uh desire and gift for mentoring women,

young women filmmakers.

457

And uh just what a gift that is, I think um that is so needed in our, uh you know,

industry.

458

uh Speaking as a woman filmmaker myself, I still have found it so difficult to make

inroads um in this industry and um just yearn for.

459

leadership like yours.

460

So I know that that is just so such a blessing to whoever finds you.

461

well, thank you.

462

I mean, that was important to me because I was a young woman who had to fight really hard

against...

463

in much more difficult times.

464

Much more difficult times.

465

Yes, in some ways, yes, in some ways, you know, I mean, I don't think that even at his

heyday, mean, if there weren't all this nonsense going on with Trump wanting to eliminate

466

any alternative voice to his and PBS wasn't under such attack and NEA and NEH, I think

even if all that wasn't happening, it would be impossible to make American masters happen

467

today.

468

Too much out there.

469

There is so much competition.

470

Yeah.

471

There's so, you know, it's really, I was doing something at a time when there were three

networks in PBS and there had never been a biography series on television.

472

That didn't make it easy.

473

It just meant that at least there was that opening that had never been done before.

474

And there wasn't that much competition.

475

We created our own competition.

476

we did Dylan and we sold a million DVDs, everybody went, whoa, there's something out here.

477

But all of sudden we had a lot of competition.

478

And then of course the DVD market died.

479

That's a whole other story.

480

I think it's hard to make anything happen right now.

481

This is a very challenging time for filmmakers, no question.

482

But before we get to that, I want to talk a little bit about your evolution as a director

and a producer.

483

I could be, I thought I saw some of it as I watched two different films and maybe I'm

right, maybe I'm wrong.

484

So I'm going to ask you, um I'd like to compare and contrast Spielberg with Billy Joel and

so it goes.

485

because I've now watched both of these and Spielberg was earlier in your time, 2017, Billy

Joel is more recent.

486

They are very different people.

487

So it could just be that they're very different people, but they also are very different

films.

488

Billy Joel, super revelatory, know, just very open and he's not an open person.

489

He's not somebody that really wants to talk, but somehow you were able to get in there and

he really shared.

490

um

491

On the other hand, Steven Spielberg, um also a private person, also has lots of difficult

stuff in his history, barely could crack that nut, it felt.

492

And we spent a lot of time.

493

Well, everybody said at the time, I did 40 hours of interviews with Stephen.

494

I could tell there was lots of different times because he was shot in different places and

in different clothes.

495

So I could tell that.

496

But I, you know, when people saw the film who know him, they said, you got him to tell

more than he's ever told before.

497

You know, I'm of a belief that there are about 10 layers of every person.

498

And if you can get through seven of them, you've done a good job.

499

I think the only person who, I'll tell you what's really fascinating.

500

My Spielberg film opened at the New York Film Festival and it was big deal.

501

and there was a dinner afterwards HBO put on, blah, All his children were there and every

single one of them said, we never knew any of this.

502

I said, what did you talk about?

503

The dinner table, you know?

504

We didn't know any of this.

505

So I think you have to rethink that.

506

I Yeah.

507

were still stories he'd never told.

508

My job, what I wanted to do in the Spielberg film was to find Steven Spielberg in his

movies.

509

And.

510

and so much of it was actually autobiographical at the beginning.

511

uh And it was very personal.

512

think his choices were very personal to his own story up through Schindler's List, where

he comes to terms with his Judaism and uh makes, finally wins an Oscar, but he makes a

513

grown-up masterpiece.

514

And the second part of his story is, now he's an elder and he has a responsibility to...

515

you know, to make films that his children will remember.

516

So he kind of changes where he's going in that direction.

517

But he's not, listen, he's not as emotional.

518

uh

519

a good point.

520

That's a good point.

521

And I think you're right.

522

his, you know, it's true.

523

Billy Joel's life is evident in his music.

524

There is no question about it.

525

It's all there now.

526

And you showed that Steven Spielberg's life is evident in his films as well.

527

You wouldn't know it unless he tells it to you, but once you got it out of him, you can

see it there.

528

had never been sort of done before in a film.

529

There'd been some writing about it, you know, but I mean, he brought all his experience

into those early movies.

530

Well, not Jaws.

531

Now, that's why Jaws is a very different movie.

532

uh Jaws was a 23-year-old kid trying to prove himself and every single day thought he was

going to get fired because he made the...

533

I had never heard that story before.

534

That was completely.

535

Yeah, so but but when you know and it was this monster monster hit which put him into the

pantheon almost from the beginning but uh He was compelled, you know, I Don't know this to

536

be the like the case but it would appear to be the case that After this movie when he

wrote me a letter by the way that I want to be buried with I'm you know Very private

537

letter about what he felt about the film.

538

Hmm what it meant to watch it

539

watch it with the woman he loved and to watch it with his father.

540

oh He personally and privately watched it with them and he wrote me afterwards about what

that had meant to him and you know complimentary about my filmmaking and stuff and I want

541

to be buried with that letter but I think that that inspired him that movie inspired him

to make the Fableman's.

542

Interesting.

543

I think he saw, I mean maybe he'd seen it before, I don't know, but uh he made Fableman's

after this documentary.

544

And uh we did like 12 or 13 interviews, mean, each every one over two hours and all over

the place, the office here, home there, Berlin.

545

He was excited.

546

What I did notice, there was a joy in his countenance when he was talking to you.

547

It was never, he didn't want to talk to you.

548

So what I noticed is you had cultivated a relationship with him that was comfortable and

he liked talking to you.

549

He loved sharing his stories.

550

That I could see.

551

Yeah, it did.

552

And I must say, when we start these things, it's always, we get oh a sign off that they

are approving us making this film, because nobody's going to put up that kind of money and

553

then find out that the subject says, don't want this on the air.

554

So you always have to get that agreement and no editorial control, which is a part of that

agreement that they do not have editorial control.

555

And they have to agree to at least four interviews.

556

So after the first interview,

557

He said this was fun.

558

Why are we doing this again?

559

And that kept happening until like 12 or 13 interviews.

560

It was always him.

561

Why are we doing this again?

562

This was fun.

563

And the only request he had made, which I think was very smart on his part, and he's a

very smart guy and I adore him, was that it be chronological.

564

Because he's got this steel trap memory.

565

And so he would know before each interview, okay, this is what we did last time.

566

This is what we're gonna do now.

567

And he could mentally prepare himself.

568

Wow.

569

Isn't that interesting?

570

Yeah.

571

mean, that's what I took away from your film is how his mind works so differently from

every other filmmaker I've ever studied.

572

And even, you know, that he's ever in like, you know, in his world, how different he is

from all the other filmmakers that you briefly profiled or briefly in the film.

573

He's just a different beast the way he thinks.

574

um

575

very articulate and he's very smart and he's a very prepared director.

576

mean he doesn't, you know, he knows what he knows exactly what he's doing.

577

And yet...

578

Yet he'll show up to set and say he doesn't.

579

oh He'll say that he's terrified before he starts every movie.

580

And that's how it's good.

581

Yeah, fear is a great motivator.

582

Absolutely.

583

Like Billy says, pain is a great, you know, love is a great, you can put that into music.

584

Now, I think that there was a difference with Billy in that I did not do it

chronologically on purpose.

585

But I mean, didn't even do the interviews chronologically.

586

I realized that he was going to be a tough nut to crack.

587

And um that he, think he was really doing this because his management said you should do

this, you know, and he wasn't really into it.

588

But there were two points of personal connection that I thought I could develop with him.

589

And I started with the Holocaust story because my father and his father came over from

Germany and exactly Nazi Germany the same year.

590

And they both, as Jews, became American soldiers, went back to Germany as American

soldiers.

591

I lost family in the Holocaust.

592

He lost family in the Holocaust.

593

So we had a, I started everything with that story.

594

And we kind of connected, and the other thing of really big point of connection is my

mother was a concert pianist.

595

So all the music that Billy loved and grew up with and inspired him, the romantic piano

music, you know,

596

That's what I grew up with and I knew it really well.

597

I could talk classical music with him in a way that probably not that many people had ever

tried to do.

598

know, things have had long interviews with Billy about classical music.

599

So we kind of had these two points of, and I think he realized after those two interviews,

okay, I trust this person and I now see that this is not a fly-by-night film.

600

This isn't, you know,

601

behind the music.

602

This is a serious uh exploration of my music and my life.

603

And he opened up, uh gradually re-interviewed, opened up a little more, a little more, a

little more, until finally we got to some really tough territory.

604

But I saved it for the end.

605

you did.

606

You know, it's funny, I said that I loved the fact that you did not do it chronologically.

607

um And it was so masterful because at some point I'm like, we haven't heard it all about

his dad.

608

mean, when are we going to learn anything about his father?

609

And like the next thing was about his dad.

610

And I was like, you you brought these things along just when my mind was wondering, you

know, asking that question.

611

your timing in storytelling was just perfect.

612

um

613

Well, I knew from the beginning that I not want to start with the baby pictures.

614

I didn't want to start the film that way.

615

I wanted to start the film, and you'll find this interesting.

616

I don't know whether Jessica told you this or not, but Billy had written a memoir, which

he then gave back the advance and did not want to publish.

617

It was too personal.

618

But I had access to that memoir.

619

And I designed the open and the close of the film.

620

The opening of the film is the opening of the memoir.

621

Closing of the film is the last words in his memoir.

622

And I knew I wanted to do that.

623

And he was great.

624

directed him into it.

625

You know the first conversation I had with him, I asked him if there were any

sensitivities.

626

And I said, not that I'm gonna stay away from them.

627

I just wanna know what they are.

628

And he said, Susan.

629

tell the truth.

630

Tell the truth.

631

And I think we were faithful to that.

632

There's a lot of ups and downs in that.

633

But I knew from the beginning that I wanted to tell the story of his childhood when he

goes back to New York from California after all kinds of Michigan in his life and whatever

634

and he's gone to California has not found his voice in California.

635

But he does now have a new deal with Columbia Records and he comes back to New York and I

knew that's when we were going to, I was going to tell that story.

636

um And I also knew that I was going to tell the Holocaust story after Nylon Curtain when

he has uh begun to branch out from just writing very personal songs to, you know, kind of

637

tackling issues like, uh you know, the Allentown, closing of the steel mills and the

effect that it was having on people and then the Vietnam.

638

you know, a song, he was tackling different issues.

639

And even though was a little bit out of time that he wrote Vienna, I said, I'm gonna go

from those, you know, looking out at the world stories to him saying, I never wanted to be

640

overtly political, but then something happened that was beyond the pale.

641

And he walks out on stage with a yellow car.

642

I knew that from the beginning too.

643

There's certain things that you kind of know.

644

that you're really gonna do and then you kind of work.

645

mean, did an outline of this film early on and strangely enough, we almost completely did

that outline.

646

At one point it was gonna be three parts and...

647

um

648

I had to make a tough decision.

649

We did make three parts.

650

That I felt that the way it was gonna be broadcast was a week, a week, a week, not

dropping it all at one time, like the way the Scorsese documentary is being dropped on

651

Apple.

652

And I thought, I designed this for the opening shot to match the final shot.

653

And by the time people get to episode three, they will have forgotten that.

654

Also, I think HBO felt two parts was what they wanted.

655

So we made the tough decision to make it two parts.

656

We took quite a bit out of the film.

657

ah But sometimes less is more.

658

Yeah.

659

And you know, it's five hours altogether.

660

It's two and a half for the first part, two and a half for the second.

661

And I will tell you, I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

662

So if that, if that makes you feel better, I don't feel like I was missing anything.

663

And I didn't feel I watched it all in one city.

664

So I,

665

That's what I want.

666

That's why I made that decision.

667

Also, you know, we had stories in there that we didn't necessarily move the story along,

like Movin' Out, the Broadway show that Twyla Tharp made brilliantly based on Billy's

668

music.

669

That was really her story more than his story.

670

I it wouldn't happen without, I I wanted it terribly because I thought it made him like

Rodgers and Hammerstein because she was able to take these lyrics and these words and

671

create a dance.

672

out of it, which I thought was amazing.

673

But anyway, we had to drop things like anything that didn't directly, the rule was if it's

not directly related to the music, it doesn't go in the film.

674

And the that he wrote about everything in his life, very little was not okay.

675

Right.

676

Exactly.

677

You had a wide swath of things to choose from.

678

So you told me how you started with Billy and how you kind of had those points of contact.

679

also had Long Island.

680

So you had that.

681

He has a house in St.

682

Harbor, totally coincidental.

683

Now it's pandemic, I live here full time.

684

And I've seen him around town, but I'd never met him.

685

And I never met him.

686

And the truth is, I got into this film because Tom Hanks and his company approached me and

asked me to make this film.

687

um And I didn't know Billy's music that well.

688

Really?

689

No, I really didn't.

690

I was, know, I mean, I've made films about Joni Mitchell.

691

I've made films about Paul Simon.

692

I mean, I love making films, Leonard Bernstein, but I really didn't know Billy's music

that well.

693

And uh yeah, was, she wasn't a co-director from the beginning.

694

I kind of realized at a certain point down the road that this was massive and that her

knowledge of his music was really, really, really, really helpful.

695

a uh fan perspective.

696

Right.

697

She brought the fan perspective to this that, you know, I wasn't a fan.

698

I wasn't not a fan.

699

I just wasn't a fan.

700

And uh she's a different era.

701

She grew up with this music.

702

I really didn't didn't grow up with it.

703

uh So for me, delving into the lyrics and the autobiographical part of how incredibly I

mean, I couldn't get over it was like a page from a diary, you uh

704

and this connection to classical music and the Holocaust, I began to really explore and

realize there was a man of incredible depth there.

705

Incredible depth, incredible talent that had been uh made fun of, not appreciated, the

fact that it came so easy to him, the fact that he had all these hits, you know, and he

706

had to face tremendous criticism and non-acceptance for a long time.

707

I mean, I just connected emotionally to him.

708

really a lot.

709

So talk to me then about, go back to Steven Spielberg then.

710

So how then, and I would have thought just like his children said that he would have been

a harder nut to crack because in that movie, there's a lot about his movies and there's

711

not as much talking about his life.

712

There is, but not like in the Billy Joel film.

713

um So that's why I thought he was a harder nut to crack.

714

Um, now explain to me then how you developed with the relationship with Steven, because as

I said earlier, I could tell when he did talk to you, he was happy about it and he wanted

715

to talk to you about it.

716

So how do you normally like break the ice with a subject and get their trust like that and

get them to open up?

717

You know, that's a really hard question to answer because everyone is so different.

718

think I have, I really prepare very carefully for this.

719

I mean, I don't just walk in there, read one article about it and go in and do an

interview.

720

I really work hard at it and I read everything.

721

look at, I listened to all the music, I watched all the movies.

722

And I think with Stephen, it was because he knew that I really knew his work and could

talk, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't,

723

with bullshitting and I wasn't off the cuff.

724

I took it very seriously.

725

I took his work seriously.

726

And most people really appreciate if you take their work seriously.

727

mean, sometimes it's as simple as that.

728

Not only did I know it, I loved it.

729

And I wanted all the stories he could tell about the making of these films.

730

And I then found ways to say, well, let's talk about your dad.

731

Because you know that...

732

the divorce, is, you know, scenes in, in the close encounters are right out of his life.

733

I know.

734

ET are right out of his life.

735

Um, so that wasn't, that wasn't that hard after a while.

736

I think Steven is more used to public speaking.

737

And I think that he probably has a, kind of a disconnected way of doing a lot of

interviews.

738

you know, and responses he's given over and over and over before.

739

I tried to break through that.

740

I think I got as far as is possible to get.

741

I think I did.

742

I know.

743

mean, but the fact that his children didn't know any of these stories kind of shocked me.

744

Yeah.

745

I mean, they said, we know our dad so much better now, you know, from watching a movie.

746

That kind of surprised me, but also tells you not everybody likes to talk about themselves

all the time.

747

But by the way, don't think that a lot of, I think most people, unless you live Billy's

life, knew any of this about Billy.

748

Even the big fans didn't know about our story really.

749

fan and there was so much in there that I had no clue about, particularly about his first

wife and how much all of those songs were about their relationship and the beginning of

750

it.

751

I mean, had no idea plus ever seen any pictures of her and the fact that she was in your

movie telling those stories.

752

That was just jaw dropping for me.

753

It really, really was.

754

Well, I gotta tell you that when she left Billy and left that marriage and moved 3,000

miles away, she spent 40 years not mentioning Billy Joel's name.

755

I don't know how you got her back in that movie.

756

I made a lot of effort.

757

I went out to California several times.

758

We had lunch, we had dinner, we talked on the phone a lot.

759

And I basically said, listen, you were his manager, you're the muse for some of his most

famous songs.

760

I think what you did to help his career and to help him become Billy Joel has been

misunderstood in social media.

761

I think you've been mistreated in social media.

762

I think this is an incredible woman's story, a feminist story, and I want to tell that

story.

763

And I hope that you'll help me do it because I want your voice in this film.

764

This story is going to be told.

765

I would like your voice to be part of telling it.

766

And then of course, we did four interviews.

767

So, when it finally convinced her, then we did four interviews.

768

And she was a little reluctant at first to talk about the music.

769

I think she kept saying, well, Billy should talk about the music.

770

I'm going to talk about the other things.

771

And we did three interviews, they very good interviews.

772

And uh then she called me and she said, I think I held back maybe a little too much.

773

Let's do another interview.

774

that's amazing.

775

Wow.

776

Well, I mean, that was that that interview really, um I think, added so much to the film,

like you said, and it was wonderful to get the female perspective, even Christie, frankly,

777

to have her there, hearing their perspective.

778

I mean, the great thing about Billy is he was broken.

779

He was heartbroken about what happened in all those relationships, especially now.

780

And that's what's so great about Billy.

781

He learned from those mistakes.

782

It's not like he's this hardened man and never realized that he didn't do wrong in all of

those things.

783

He realizes he wasn't what he should have been.

784

And so I think it was good to hear him say that.

785

And it was also good to hear their perspective um of what happened.

786

Yeah, no, no, it was incredible.

787

I mean, listen, all four wives are in this film.

788

One of the things that surprised so many critics, you know, I mean, and they were all

wonderful interviews and they were all honest.

789

They were so honest and so generous with their storytelling and their vulnerability, you

know.

790

think that's a testament to of you wanting to give women a voice.

791

And I'm so grateful for that.

792

It just adds a rounded dynamic to the whole story.

793

um And I really am appreciative of that.

794

um And, you know, speaking of a woman's voice, you have given us so much of your time

today.

795

I'm so grateful for that.

796

And I feel like we have learned a lot, particularly about how to talk to, you know,

797

filmmakers who are anyone who we want to interview.

798

I think that's a really important uh aspect, knowing your subject, knowing what they're

interested in.

799

I learned that skill from Flo Plana, a Frenchman in my film, The Girl Who Wore Freedom.

800

He is uh a French tour guide, but really he's a historian of World War II.

801

And he studies the battles intricately of every World War II veteran he's going to

interview.

802

and he knows the battle so well, it's like he was in the division, brigade, regiment,

whatever, know, in this battle with the veterans so that when he interviews them, it's

803

like they're battle buddies and they're in the foxhole together.

804

And I watched them, the veterans open up to him in that way.

805

That's how I learned that same thing.

806

You've got to know oh your subject and be in the foxhole with them.

807

Absolutely.

808

It's the most important thing uh is to not be winging it and to genuinely have

conversations.

809

I don't approach these things.

810

I have like reams of notes and I sit down with them in my pen and never look at them

again.

811

Because it's here.

812

here.

813

mean, it's all written down, but it's here because I've spent so much time into it.

814

And then I just go with a conversation.

815

It works so much better than, okay.

816

I I've watched interviews where I just want to go, my God, I can't believe that she'd go

into the next question because somebody has something really interesting that you need to

817

follow up on.

818

uh But it's, I think the comfort of being able to have that kind of conversation comes

from knowing what you're, knowing the work, knowing the person, knowing as much as you can

819

and try to go deeper with that.

820

uh

821

I'd be genuinely interested.

822

Exactly.

823

was going to say that.

824

What I love about you so much, and I've known you now a little over an hour, but what I've

watched your work is you are a curious person.

825

And you started this interview by saying that you thought you were going to be a scholar

and that you loved going to school.

826

Well, Susan, you've been in school.

827

You've been in school forever because what you're doing is you're constantly studying

every single person that you interview.

828

And all of these things are related to American history.

829

Everyone that you have interviewed and they all have some, they're woven into the fabric

of our American society.

830

And so you are continuing to be a student.

831

And you are continuously curious.

832

And I think that is one of your greatest gifts that we can take away from this podcast is

to be.

833

I think you're a great interviewer too, by the way, and I wish you so much luck with your

films.

834

And I'm sorry, it's a tough time for everybody.

835

But if you ever want to have an offline conversation about some of this, I'm happy to.

836

I would love that so much.

837

Thank you so much for your time today.

838

We are blessed to have you and it's been a great conversation.

839

So everybody, thank you so much for listening and watching documentary first.

840

We really appreciate your time.

841

We believe that everybody has a story to tell and you can be the one to tell it.

842

Bye everybody.

843

Don't hang up, Susan.

844

Don't hang up.

845

This has to upload first before we stop.

846

Yep, so I'm going to just stop recording and then.