Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour & Company.

Here's what's coming up.

As the Israel-Hamas ceasefire appears to hold, we ask what the future looks like for Palestinians in Gaza.

I speak to Arab Balgouti.

He's the son of imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Balgouti, about his father's detention and hopes for a Palestinian state.

Then... Who creates lemmings?

Who creates lemmings?

I think we do.

Boundary-breaking Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic debuts what she's calling her most insane project yet.

A look back at our 2023 conversation about death, sexuality, and the drive to create.

Plus... This is a lovable guy.

This is a guy who the minute you see his face, you're going to smile.

A comic legacy that inspired a generation.

Actor and director Colin Hanks tells Hari Sreenivasan what inspired him to reimagine the light and the darkness in the life of beloved Canadian actor John Candy.

Amanpour & Company is made possible by The Anderson Family Endowment Jim Atwood & Leslie Williams Candace King Weir The Sylvia A.

& Simon B. Poita Programming Endowment to Fight Anti-Semitism The Family Foundation of Layla & Mickey Strauss The Philemon M. D'Agostino Foundation Jeffrey Katz & Beth Rogers The Peter G. Peterson & Joan Gantz Cooney Fund Charles Rosenblum Monique Schoen-Warschaus Kou and Patricia Ewan Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities Barbara Hope Zuckerberg And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you Thank you Welcome to the program everyone, I'm Christiane Amanpour in London The world breathes a sigh of relief as one week on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appears to still be holding But amid the jubilation in the streets of Israel and in Gaza and the West Bank the future of Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians is still far from secure Talks have already started in Egypt to decide a post-war governance plan for Gaza and the Egyptian government has already named 15 Palestinian technocrats to be those transitional leaders.

But Marwan Barghouti will not be one of them.

Israel has refused to release him despite many Palestinians saying he is the only one right now who could unite them.

Imprisoned in Israel since 2002, he is considered a terrorist responsible for planning attacks which killed five Israeli civilians during the second intifada in the early 2000s.

He was convicted in 2004, but he denies all the accusations.

But it's not just Palestinians calling for his release.

In our recent conversations with senior Israelis, a number have advocated for Barghouti to be freed now.

He is the most popular Palestinian right now, and he is the hope of those who want to have an agreement at the end of the day.

Only people who don't want an agreement with the Palestinians would keep him in prison right now.

I was asked what the mainstream Israelis think about Marwan, and I brought the opinion of about 20 senior Israelis, former military people, generals, a couple of prime ministers, heads of the Shindad, heads of the Mossad.

Not everyone agreed, but the majority was that Marwan needs to be released.

This week, Barghouti's son told the media that he's concerned for his father's life after hearing from Palestinian detainees that he had been beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards.

They deny that.

The authorities deny that.

Earlier, I spoke to Barghouti's son, Arab, who joined me from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Arab Barghouti, welcome to our program.

Thank you so much for having me.

So let me just start by asking you, we know that your father's name was on the list that Hamas gave for being released, even though he's not a member of Hamas.

In fact, he opposes them.

And the Israeli government refused.

What is your feeling when you saw the others coming out, some of them hardened, convicted criminals?

I mean, it's mixed feelings.

I think that I wouldn't be lying if I talk on behalf of my family that the last few days have been some of the heaviest in our lives.

And we've been through a lot.

We've been through my father's assassination attempts, my father's imprisonment, putting him in solitary confinement at the beginning of his imprisonment for three years and so on.

But these were some of the heaviest because, first of all, we expected, to be honest, and we were very positive that he would be with us by now.

The second thing is the horrific and horrible stories that we've heard from the released detainees that were with him, around him, in other cells in the same solitary confinement in Majiddoh, and the torture that he's been and been through.

It's unbelievable and really, really hard for us to listen to those stories.

So Arab, I do want to ask you about that because there have been reports, as you say, you have talked about it, some of the released detainees have talked about how he was, they say, beaten and knocked unconscious, in fact, in this process of being transferred from one prison to the next.

Do you know who might have done that, why that might have happened, why he was even being transferred?

So they transfer prisoners regularly from prison to prison.

This happens every few months and he's been in a remand prison for a few months and then they wanted to transfer him into Majiddo prison.

On the way, the Nahshon unit, which is responsible for transferring the detainees, and these known for being the most vicious and brutal and attacking the detainees on the way, they stopped at Al Jalami prison and eight different guards of that unit, they handcuffed him, they put him on the ground, they started beating him up, they started kicking him, and they focused on the head area, on the chest, and on his legs.

And we know all these stories from the detainees who, when he got to Majiddo prison, they said he came unconscious, and he was bleeding, and he was bruised.

And they took him into the clinic of that prison, and it took him hours to regain consciousness, and days and weeks to recover from that, because there is no proper medical treatment.

Why they do it?

It's because they know they have the green light to do it.

They've already killed more than 77 Palestinian detainees inside prison in the last two years.

Unfortunately, there is no accountability whatsoever on them, and this is exactly why they keep doing it.

Because no one is stopping them.

So, you know, the Israeli National Security Minister, Ismail Ben-Gavir, denies this totally.

He denies the allegations, but added that he was "proud" that Barghouti's situation has changed radically during my tenure.

He said, "Playtime is over.

Holiday camps are over."

This is a video clip from when Ben-Gavir visited Barghouti in prison.

Let me just play these 15 seconds.

You will not win.

Whoever will mess with the people of Israel, whoever will murder our kids, whoever will murder women, we will erase them.

You need to know that throughout history.

Wow.

That's actually the first time I've seen that video.

I know it's been out.

But number one, your father appears unrecognizable.

And that is, I mean, that's harsh.

When you saw that, what was your reaction to the words and the way your father looks?

- I mean, I was shocked.

I was shocked a lot because, you know, my father has been through a lot and you can see that from his body and how he looks.

He lost a lot of weight.

He looked as if he aged.

I think, you know, then when I processed that, I remembered my father's words when he used to always say that they will use the ugliest tactics to try and break me.

And I think someone like him who has been struggling for the cause for more than 50 years will never be broken by someone like Ben-Gvir.

I think this video and this picture that you just saw will go down in history as a great representation and a perfect representation of the face of the Palestinian struggle, the embodiment of the Palestinian struggle in my father and the face of the current and the reflection of the current Israeli government.

This is a fascist government that is calling for the killing and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

And I think I'm sending this message to the Trump administration and to international and Western governments.

What are you waiting for?

This is a man who is my father, who has been calling for the two-state solution, who has been calling for co-existence, who is the most popular Palestinian leader.

And he has been targeted.

This is the fourth time that he gets assaulted by the Israeli prison authority under the supervision of Ben-Gvir, who is bragging about that.

What are we waiting for?

This is a politician, a parliament member.

Where is his protection?

It's unbelievable to see all of this and only silence from Western governments on this.

And introducing you, we actually have shown a number of people, especially senior Israelis, who've said that Marwan Barghouti should be released now.

But your father was sentenced in 2004 to five life terms plus 40 years for planning attacks that killed five civilians during the Second Intifada.

He has obviously denied them.

He refuses to recognize the court's legitimacy.

And I know that you all deny all this.

However, as you said, he does remain the most popular leader.

I just want to play this one clip of Marwan Barghouti from the documentary Tomorrow's Freedom, a long time before this picture of him we saw from this summer in his jail cell.

Here's this clip.

Israel succeeded to arrest my body, but not my head and not my soul.

They will not succeed to do that.

They will not broke our will for independence and for freedom.

Some people call him a resistance hero, a freedom fighter who could come out, and including as I said some senior Israelis in the national security and political space.

Why do you think that all these years in jail, 22 years, and unable to see his family for a long time, unable to speak publicly to anybody, why has he maintained this popularity amongst the Palestinian people?

What do they see in him?

First of all, as I said, like my father embodies the Palestinian struggle, and this story is a great representation of the Palestinian struggle and what we've been through as a people.

You're talking about someone who was put in prison the first time at the age of 15, and then at the age of 18, and then decade after decade going to prison in and out because he was always calling for Palestinians' rights.

The second thing is that I think people see in him a unifying figure.

We need unity and I think that unity in Palestine represents a positive force for stability and peace in the region.

We can't get to any political settlement as Palestinians without our unity and he's someone who has all the credibility to unite the Palestinian people, including the prisoners' document.

In 2006, when he brought every single faction, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and signed on the first and only until today, a document that was signed amongst all Palestinian factions that stated that the Palestinian state will be built on the 1967 borders, resistance will be limited to within the 1967 borders, and the targeting of civilians is forbidden.

The third thing is that he's someone who's very progressive.

He has a political vision that is inclusive of the whole of the Palestinian people, and that is what we need.

We need credibility, we need trustworthy leadership, and that is why I think it is very, very important to have our elections as soon as we can and as soon as possible.

So, now that you are watching, and essentially you say he is for a two-state solution, something that certainly Benjamin Netanyahu and the Ben-Gaviris of his coalition do not want, despite the Trump 20-point plan.

So, in a way, do you think he's being kept in precisely because he might be some kind of either transitional or figure who could unify all these disparate factions, at this time, for a political resolution that includes that two-state solution?

100%.

I think if you look at, you know, there has been 800 Palestinians freed, detainees with life sentences since my father went to prison.

800.

And most of them have way more complicated, according to the Israeli courts, of course, way more complicated security cases, and yet they keep him and they make sure that his name is dropped and they make sure that he's vetoed.

It's not because he's never been a security threat.

My father is a politician and he's never been, even when you mentioned this court, this court was reviewed by many independent legal teams and they said that it would be impossible to say that this man has been given a fair trial.

He never confessed to any of those allegations because he's a politician and he has nothing to do with the military work.

And I think this is precisely why the Israeli government sees in him a political threat.

They don't want co-existence.

They don't want two-state solution and they say it.

It's not my words.

It's their words.

And I think the international community has to make a decision.

Either they agree and accept the Israeli dominance on the land, the apartheid regime, and the slow and ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people, or they impose on the Israelis to accept sitting on the table and working for a political settlement.

My father can do the latter.

My father can bring and gather all the Palestinian people, and he has the credibility and the track record to do so.

You know, I tell you, from somebody who's covered a lot of these wars and then transitional justice and on to peace, we know that a lot of people with a lot of blood on their hands have come out, we're Northern Ireland, wherever you want to look, and become political actors to end these wars.

So it would help Israel's security as well, according to the senior Israelis who say that, you know, he would be that kind of a unifying factor.

But how do you think, have you ever sort of thought about how Marwan Barghouti would come out and even try governance?

I mean, there's massive corruption, we know, that has to be reformed and changed.

There's so much disparate and disunity amongst the Palestinian factions.

There's a complete breakdown in government, even in the recognized Palestinian Authority, not to mention Hamas and its horrendous record in Gaza.

Could he actually govern?

Is that the kind of person your father is?

I think he is.

If you go back, you need to remember that my father holds a PhD.

He's an educator.

He's someone who's very academic.

I remember that he's been working in the last few years on a very comprehensive political vision.

And my father takes his writings very seriously.

He wrote 120 pages of his political vision about Palestine.

And it focuses on reform.

It focuses on having more women in power because he's a feminist and he's been working for women's rights and supporting my mother's work in that field for decades.

He wants the youth participation in politics.

He's someone who's very democratic.

You know, when we were young, he used to, whenever we go to a restaurant or any place that we want to go to, my siblings and I would have to vote for the place that we want to go for, and we have to accept the voting to instill the democratic principles in us.

This is the type of leader that he is.

And yes, he is qualified to lead the Palestinian people.

And that's why you will find in every single poll, he's by far the most popular Palestinian leader.

Not because he's promised us with schools and buildings, but he knows how to lead and he's been in politics for decades now.

Have you appealed to President Trump?

I mean, President Trump is really right now focusing on this region and on so-called phase two, which involves governance.

Have you appealed to President Trump?

I mean, we're trying, we're trying our best to do so.

And if I can send a message to President Trump, if he wants to end this conflict, as he said a few days ago, that said, you know, 3,000 years of conflict, I want to end that and so on.

I think that my father represents a reasonable leadership, someone who has, as I said, like a unified Palestinian political vision and can bring all Palestinians towards that vision that is based on co-existence, but he will never compromise on Palestinians' rights of freedom, living with dignity, and so on.

So we are trying our best, and I think that there is a great opportunity that international powers, including the U.S.

administration, can understand the importance of my father if they really are serious about ending this conflict once and for all.

Ara Barguti, thank you so much indeed.

And you even and your family haven't seen him for years.

So thank you very much.

My next guest is calling her upcoming project her most insane yet.

And for Serbian artist Marina Abramovi , that is no mean feat.

She has built her reputation on radical, thought-provoking work, which has seen her scream until she's hoarse, stand naked in public, and stare into the eyes of strangers for hours at a time.

Her new show, Balkan Erotic Epic, just launched in the UK.

It's an exploration of sexuality and folklore through dance, music, and song.

When we met in 2023, she told me that for her, art is about finding limits and then pushing right past them.

Marina Abramovich, welcome to the program.

There is performance art and then there is you.

Just to walk around this exhibition really makes me wonder, are there any limits that you will not go to?

Your body is your tool and it is extraordinary what you do to it.

But this question I can answer with another question.

Who creates limits?

Who creates limits?

I think we do, you know, and I think it's very important to when I get an idea that I am not interested in the idea I like, I'm interested in the idea I hate and I'm incredibly scared of because that means there is a problem that I have to solve and then I like to do it.

So the only thing that I'm doing, I'm using my own body in order to stage that kind of fears in the front of the public.

I'm going through, if I can go through, you can go through.

So the way you've performed going through is through a door, where originally you and your lover at the time stood in a doorway, naked.

And the challenge was for the visitors to walk through you.

What fear were you addressing there and what did you aim to accomplish?

First of all, the main idea was there was a big performance festival in Italy at that time, very early, in 1977.

And we were thinking what we're going to do with this festival.

But you know, the idea was if there's no artists, there will not be museums.

So artists are the door of the museum.

So we want to be, in a very poetical way, the door of the museum.

To do that, we have to rebuild the door smaller.

So this really narrow entrance, in those days it was impossible.

In MoMA it was already not possible.

In many other museums you have to have a second entrance, that people have alternative.

But in 1977 we had a radical way of doing stuff, which now because of political correctness and so on, we are not able to do anymore.

So we have lots of restrictions of art today.

And then the idea was, we go through, and the fear was really to be naked and to have hundreds and hundreds of people passing so close, chatting your body and have this intimacy.

Not easy.

Not even mention stepping on your feet.

And did that happen?

Oh yes, many times.

And did people, either intentionally or not, touch you in areas that you didn't want?

In that particular work, there were people so intimidated, they would go very close, they would try to avoid eye contact, and they would say "scusa me" in Italian, "excuse me," which was beside the point.

We cleared the situation.

There was one only man who had a small camera and just passed very fast and took photos of our genitals.

- That is very weird.

But here's a question, Marina.

You say that in the intervening years, you've had to provide alternative spaces for people who are uncomfortable to experience that close intimacy.

A) Is that a censorship?

And B) Self-censorship?

And B) How do you react to society's "How could she do that?

This is just so naked.

This is so, you know, too revealing," etc.?

If I will read the criticism from the '70s, I will never leave the house.

I was completely crucified.

My mother and father, first of all, when I was doing stuff like a Bernie Star, Communist Star on the square in Belgrade, there was a question in the Communist Party about the kind of education I had.

Professors were thinking that I should be put in a mental hospital.

Everybody was against it.

I had to believe so much in this kind of form of art until now that actually this form of art really I think is incredibly important because it's immaterial, it's time-based, you have to be there to watch it and see it, and it's highly, highly emotional.

And it's the only way I can do it.

What are you saying here, Marina?

This is quite... I made the skeleton exactly my size and by lying, I'm lying, the skeleton is breathing.

I just want to know, you know, how that feels, this transition.

Sufi said, "Life is a dream and death is waking up."

I just want to know that moment, because the moment that I want to die is without fear, without anger, and consciously.

Three things.

And that's something that you need to train during the life.

It doesn't come just like that.

Death is a huge part of your life and your work.

Yeah.

You're always thinking about death.

All the time.

So how do you stay happy and positive?

I'm hilarious in real life.

I'm honestly ready to stand up comedy.

I have so much I need to love, because work is so heavy.

And this here is dramatic.

What caused you to do-- this is your reflection on the Balkan Wars.

Yeah.

And I covered the Bosnia War.

Yeah.

You know you can't clean the blood.

And I'm cleaning blood which is never clean.

But also create a metaphor that this can be in any war anywhere.

Here when we open the show, Palestinians, Israelis, Ukrainians, Russians, they're all here in this room.

And the drama of the performance was you sitting on these bones, which are real cow bones, real meat, real blood.

Real blood.

Six days I do this, six hours a day.

How did that affect you spiritually?

I really am very proud of this piece because I know this piece could be forever.

It was my war that I was showing on the Balkans, but after that you can be used anywhere.

And this is so important that artists should not create something which is temporary.

You have to create something which is transitory, that has a position to any war, any time, any place.

So we're sitting in this room, which is very important because it has almost your signature piece of the Great Wall in China.

And it was designed for you and your lover, Ole, to walk from each end.

That's a total of 5,000 plus kilometers.

You walked about 2,000 each.

Exactly.

It took you, what, three months or so to walk.

What were you meant to do when you met, and what did you actually do?

So, this project started after we lived with Aborigines of Central Australia, one year in the desert.

And we realized at the time, the astronauts, when they landed on the moon, said that only two visible buildings made by human hands is the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China.

And we had the idea at that time in the desert, let's walk the Great Wall of China.

We were writing to Chinese government letters.

And for eight years we were getting very friendly answers, but we didn't move anywhere.

The idea was to walk this Chinese wall, and we meet in the middle, and we married.

And for eight years, the Chinese didn't answer.

So we finally found one man who was a specialist in China politics, and we showed him all these letters.

And he said, he started laughing, I said, "What is so funny about it?"

He said, "You know, Chinese have 17 ways to say no, and in these 8 years, they exercised all 17 ways."

I mean, so we have to go through the government, the Dutch government and the Chinese government, and finally after 8 years, we got permission to walk the Great Wall of China.

But at that time, our relation was ending.

But as we never give up anything, we say, "Okay, now we're going to walk, instead of saying, "Goodbye, Mary," we're going to say, "Goodbye."

And one of our friends, a American, said to us, "Why don't you just make a phone call?"

He missed the whole point.

But, I mean, seriously, it must have been very painful, no, when you finally met after all those years of work, after something that was meant to be a celebration of your love and your unity, actually was the dissolution.

Was it emotional?

Did you cry?

It was incredibly emotional.

First, emotional for a few reasons.

Because before, if you lose the love of your life, you still can go back to your own work.

But at this time, I was 40 exactly, and all our work for 12 years was signed with two names.

So, both of us didn't have any more of our own work.

So for me, it was just, I lost the love, but it also was the work.

I was nowhere to come back.

And this was an incredibly depressing moment of my life.

And then a few years later, you went back to an amazing performance that went viral around the world, The Artist is Present.

It first showed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I think.

And what happened, because something like 1,500 people came and sat next to you and tried to stare you out.

But on one occasion, your former lover came.

Yes, but actually I invited him as the guest of honor at that moment, with absolutely no idea he was going to ever sit with me, this was not even a question.

So when he came and just appeared in front of me, you know, I never break the rules.

I am like, I am a soldier, I am a warrior, I do things absolutely as I decide.

This was the only time I broke the rules.

Because in front of me, there was a man I love so much, and in front of me was somebody, it was not the public, it was life itself.

So I put my hand on the table and touched him and just cried.

It was one of these moments that is so intense.

And it's so interesting how the young people become kind of viral everywhere because people realize real emotions.

Because I have a flashback of 12 years, all the goods, all the bads, relations were easy, it was not easy, it was hell, it was wonderful, it was passionate, it was all at once.

And it was a rule that you broke because I was one of them who came and sat in front of you and I know people tried to make you laugh, tried to make you break your gaze, tried to make you not be as disciplined as you were, and I was staggered by how passive and unemotional.

But your eyes talked.

So it was something for you to break that wall.

Yeah, that was really high emotions.

But also, I had lots of emotion with the people sitting in front of me, because I could see solitude, I could see pain, I could see unhappiness, I could see happiness, I could see so many different emotions.

What was interesting about the sitting, just that moment, and why it's so simple, is when you're waiting for the line for a long time, finally you come to sit in front of me, and you are watched by the people waiting, you're watched by cameras, you're watched by a photographer, and you're watched by me.

Basically, you're nowhere to escape except into yourself.

And when that happened, you kind of show me the true self.

And I could see it.

And you can see yourself.

And then all the people start crying.

I mean, we have so much people crying.

It was really a very emotional moment.

And you know, Klaus Biesenbach, who's a curator on the show, he said to me, when I gave him the idea, he said, this is ridiculous.

Nobody going to sit on this chair, because it's New York.

Nobody have time.

The chair will be always empty.

The chair was never empty.

And there were lines around the block, and people sleeping outside.

And last week, it was really something to remember.

So if that was kind of gentle and communicative, one of your exhibitions, which is here now, is a table of 72 objects that you say, "Do what you will with these objects.

I am the tool.

Do whatever you want to me.

Tell me how that played out, because it turned out pretty violent at one point.

But you know, I was 23 years old.

I was so angry.

I was so angry on the public not understanding what performance art is.

And whatever I was doing, I was always judged.

And they say, "Okay, what if I don't do absolutely nothing?

I am the tool.

I'm there with you, and there are the objects, and you do stuff.

I'm not doing it.

And it was incredible to see that.

Because I'd done this in Naples, and in Naples, with objects that were for pleasure and for violence, including bullets and pistols, it was incredible.

In the first, it was six hours, the first one, two hours, nothing really happened.

Then they cut my, they give me rolls.

Then they cut my shirt.

Then they put the pins in the rolls into my body.

Then they cut and steal a scarf and they suck my blood on my neck.

Then they, you know, carry me around.

There was so much, the violence.

Very interesting thing happened.

Women didn't do anything.

Women told men what to do.

And women took, when I was crying, they would take handkerchief and wash my face from the tears.

How do you interpret that?

I don't.

I have no question.

I'm shocked this will happen.

And then the moment after six hours, the gallery said to me, "It's finished."

Because I was like absolutely statue.

You put the hand like this, I stay like this.

Whatever you do, I'm in this position.

After the six hours, he says, "It's over."

I was full of blood, water, half naked.

I was walking towards the public as me.

They ran away, all of them.

And then I came to the hotel and I look myself in the mirror and I have just a piece of white hair, straight.

Just white hair, one night.

Your hair turned white in one night, one streak?

After this piece.

This was a piece that I realized that I really could be killed.

loaded gun at you.

Yes.

And then another person came and took the gun, threw it out of the window.

It was so much violence.

But at what point did the guards have a responsibility?

Marina, you could have been killed.

I know.

Somebody could have not just nicked your neck, they could have got your jugular.

But now we're talking about performance.

When you go into a state of performance, you're not you.

You're not little Marina who can start thinking what all hell can happen.

You're super Marina.

You're the higher form of yourself.

And then everything's possible.

It's almost as if an out-of-body experience.

Another performance that you did with Ulay was so dramatic as well.

And you explained to me what it's called, but essentially you're both standing, leaning, he's got the arrow, you've got the bow, and one false move could have killed you.

What was that about?

This was all about trust.

We were born the same day, Ulay and me, which is 13 November.

We are both Sagittarius, which is Sagittarius.

The boy in Iroh is a symbol of Sagittarius.

And we decide to do this thing.

And at one point in one interview, when we split a long time ago, they asked Ulay, "But why Iroh is facing her and not you?"

And you know what he said?

He said, "But this is my heart too."

Had he just flinched a little bit and lost his grip, the arrow would have gone into your heart.

Sure.

But normally, our performances are mostly very long.

This was the shortest performance in my life.

It's four minutes and 20 seconds.

It was a lifetime.

Lifetime.

Were you scared?

Not when I'm doing it.

My fear is always before I get into the front of the public.

So, is this about you and your fears and your extremes of boundaries?

Or is it about what you're trying to communicate with other people?

What is your absolute motivation beyond taking things that scare you so much and trying to conquer it?

To me, the most important is really to be an example that you can overcome the fear of pain, the fear of dying, the fear of suffering, especially emotional suffering, that you can actually overcome.

I'm showing them in my own example.

Then also not to be afraid of failure.

You can fail.

Everything can go wrong, but failures are so important because failures is the main learning material.

You fail, you stand up and do it again.

And that's something that I need to show to the audience.

It's all about how to learn to lift spirit up.

It's so easy to put spirit down.

It's so difficult to put it up.

You know, I was very, very actually, it's a completely different subject, but during the Second World War, when everybody was painting atrocities and difficulties of the war and reflecting the situation, you know Matisse, he was the only one who painted flowers, entire four years of the war.

And I start understanding only now with my 78 years old, why is that?

Because you need to live the spirit of humanity.

You don't need to reflect what is already in front of you.

Well, that's a really good place to end, because right now there's a lot of war, a lot of discord, a lot of inability to communicate.

It's really important to hear you say that.

Thank you, Marina Abramovich.

Thank you.

And next up, he was known for his big smile and his even bigger heart.

The actor John Candy was beloved for his roles in family favorites like Splash, Home Alone and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

His joy filled performances inspired generations of comedians and actors.

And now a documentary, John Candy I Like Me is taking a look back at his legacy.

I can't tell you what was right about John Candy or what was wrong.

But he was my friend and I don't want to cry, but when I see him, when you see his face, I mean it.

Who are you?

I'm a mob.

Half man, half dog.

Gus Walensky, poker king of the Midwest.

Al Griffith, director of sales, shower curtain ring division.

This is a lovable guy.

This is a guy who the minute you see his face, you're going to smile.

Now, the film premiered last month at the Toronto International Film Festival and was directed by actor and filmmaker Colin Hanks.

He sat down with Hari Sreenivasan to discuss what drew him to Candy.

Christiane, thanks.

Colin Hanks, thanks so much for joining us.

You just did a documentary on John Candy, a beloved comedian across North America, Canada and the United States.

One of the first things you start out with is a line from Bill Murray, a friend of his, and he says, "I wish I had some more bad things to say about him."

But that's the problem when you talk about John.

In all the research that you did, I guess, what kind of man was John Candy?

Well, he was everything you expected him to be, for sure.

There is so much about John that we celebrate, the kind of person he was.

He was very, very genuine, gregarious, outgoing, caring, all of those things, all of those elements that you wish John was, he was.

He was the genuine article.

But at the same time, when you're telling a story and you're trying to do a film about the guy, yeah, you've got to find some dirt in a way.

And that was sort of one of the challenges for us as the people making the film.

What is the story that we're telling?

That inside story that was John's struggles.

What was that inside story?

What did you discover?

Well, I was really shocked to find out about his childhood.

His father died on his fifth birthday.

And the amount of effect that that had on his life, I think, can't be understated.

And I don't necessarily mean in horribly dramatic ways.

I'm talking about just essential life trauma, which everybody has, you know, big T or little T, doesn't matter.

But all of the coping mechanisms that John had that kept him alive, that kept him, you know, that turned him into who he was, those were all very special and very unique and is what made John so, you know, kind of perfect in a way.

But it also was the thing that was starting to not work for him, you know, as he got more and more famous and as he sort of progressed in his career.

And he had just started to do that work when he passed away.

So all of that just seemed to be just so relatable and that was the thing that I really wanted to explore.

We are not of the age where that was, they weren't our contemporaries by a long shot.

You and your producer Ryan Reynolds, I mean, what made you guys such super fans?

What made you want to be part of this kind of storytelling in the first place?

Well Ryan is just a massive John Candy fan for sure.

And he kind of has willed this into existence and he's been very vocal about it for years.

And for me, you know, look, it's kind of just a generational, you know, comedy icon kind of situation, you know, I mean, I grew up watching them in movies.

You know, I've seen so many movies with Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, I mean, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, the list goes on and on and on.

There, I always kind of equate it as like special high school classes, right?

For me, being fortunate enough to become an actor, a working actor that's been in movies, they are the ones that preceded.

They are the class from a couple of decades before that you look up to and you admire.

And I know that Ryan was absolutely tickled by the fact that we were able to essentially speak with our idols.

And he even got in on the interviews because he was just so tickled at the chance to be able to talk with Bill Murray.

He got his start in he's a Canadian.

He was working on SCTV.

He was working in Toronto at Second City.

What were those early years like?

Because when you look at the alumni, so to speak, his cohort, the people that were working with him, most of them turned out to be enormous stars in their own right.

It is a special, special time and a special place, Toronto, in the early 70s, without a doubt.

There was something in the air.

I don't know what it is.

I'm sure Malcolm Gladwell could probably write a book about it if he hasn't already.

But there was just something about Toronto at that time.

And it was a supportive environment.

Andrea Martin speaks beautifully in the movie.

It was a time and a place where everyone came together and was supportive.

And I think that also sort of stems from this ethos of improv in Second City.

You know, it's not an individual achievement.

It's a team achievement.

You know, yes and.

You know, so the fact that there were as many people, you know, in Second City and SCTV and, you know, the infamous Godspell production there in Toronto as well.

I mean, it was just an all-star team.

But they became the all-star team.

I mean, that's the thing.

Like, you've got to keep in mind, for me, I'm always thinking about, those are just young adults.

They're all friends.

Like, there's no guarantee that even one of them is going to become successful.

And yet, they all did.

I mean, it's just such a special time and special place.

There was a period in Hollywood in the 80s and 90s where John Candy was in kind of every other movie.

We had comedic hits like Stripes, Splash, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Spaceballs, Uncle Buck, just to name a few.

A lot of people hate this hat.

It angers a lot of people, just the sight of it.

I'll tell you a story about that on the way to school.

Give us a sense of what that period was like, how big John was.

There was a period there where comedies just were king and they were everywhere and they were being made nonstop.

It was a boom.

And so John sort of found himself in the right place at the right time with the right attitude and he took advantage of that.

Not only because he was a savvy guy, but he was also a funny, talented guy and people wanted that in their films.

So John found himself in demand and being the person that he was, he said yes to everything and it didn't matter what the size was.

That's the other really amazing thing about John is he could be Uncle Buck, he could be that lead actor, the name of the film, but he could also be the security guard in National Lampoon's Vacation, or he could be the Polka King in Home Alone.

He just found a way to always be ready to work.

And people loved him for it.

One of the interviews that you do is your father, who worked with John Candy on Volunteers and Splash.

And I wonder, did you ever hear descriptions of who this guy was?

Did your dad ever talk about what's happening at the office, so to speak?

And did that match what you learned in the documentary?

Not so much.

I mean, I was there.

I mean, I have memories of going on the set of Splash and of Volunteers.

And so John was around.

I didn't know him as John Candy, the actor.

He was just John.

But he was, he made me feel special even as a seven-year-old kid.

He made me feel seen.

He made me feel heard.

There's just something about John and the way that he carried himself.

He made everyone feel that way regardless of what they did, regardless of how old they were.

Catherine O'Hara said something in there that he had such a good sense of others and what they needed.

And there's this through line that you see ever since kind of from his father's death at an early age all the way through later in his life that he really was the guy who took care of everyone around him, almost to his fault.

Yeah, and that was actually one of the very first things I spoke about with Chris Candy and Jennifer Candy, his two kids, they spoke with us for the film and they were really instrumental in sort of helping me understand exactly who John was and what it was that he was struggling with.

And one of the things that Chris said very, very early on was he took care of everyone but himself.

And that really struck a chord with me.

You know, that feeling of putting everyone else first and sort of putting himself at risk.

You know, look, this is just small personality stuff, right?

But this is also humanity.

And that's the kind of stuff that I really like exploring.

And that's really, to me, that's the meat of documentaries, is let me try and give you an essence of who these people are or were so that you feel like you can understand them as humans a little bit better.

And when Chris said that about John, I was just like, wow, OK, there's a lot here to explore.

And it really made me incredibly grateful to be able to be the one to tell that story.

And you have a ton of archival footage in there, and you have these sort of candid, these home videos.

And I wonder, I mean, there were these moments where you just saw this character that we've seen, John Candy, but then you see this human being behind him that is actually visibly going through these struggles, whether they're on interviews where people are kind of asking him very rude questions about his weight or about his success, etc.

And you just kind of feel for the guy that's there, not the actor anymore.

Yeah, and again, that's that humanity that I always want to try and present.

I don't know exactly why I just assumed that John would be the happy-go-lucky, gregorious John Canyon mind for all his interviews.

You just sort of assume that he was like that.

But I was shocked to see how uncomfortable he was in interviews, how ill at ease he was.

And I think ultimately it was because deep down he knew eventually they're going to be asking me about my weight.

Eventually they're going to be asking me to talk about something that he didn't want to talk about.

Not because, for the only reason, it wasn't that important to him.

It was so important to everyone else.

And so I think deep down he was just always waiting for that next question.

And to be honest, I was incredibly shocked at how those questions were asked.

And that to me really said a lot about the kind of things that John was struggling with at the time.

Because it's not just that they're picking him apart and saying, you know, you're big and you're heavy and you're fat or any of those things.

But the manner in which they did it is soul crushing, really, when you think about it.

And it's stuff that wouldn't fly these days.

I mean, people just wouldn't ask questions like that in that manner anymore.

I was surprised when his son was talking about how his dad had sort of crippling self-doubt and anxiety, because, again, what he projects to the world is, "Oh, this gregarious, funny guy who must be so confident, lights up a room," etc.

And you kind of catch these glimpses of, and tell us about these times that he was almost paralyzed.

Yeah, and again, I think this speaks to one of the things that really attracted me to telling this story.

John was the everyman.

You know, there's not a person on earth that says, "I don't like John Candy."

You know, I mean, I would tell people I'm doing a documentary and they would instantly go, "I love John Candy."

And there's this thing about him, but, you know, behind all of that, we all have our own struggles.

And it turns out John's everyman sort of quality, he had the same struggles that we all have.

And I thought that that was just so incredibly touching that I wanted to sort of celebrate that, you know, and show that, you know, all of that stuff's okay, you know, that we all struggle, even the guys that look like they don't have a care in the world.

And it's also kind of important to remember the context that, you know, at the time of this after it just before, I mean, a conversation about mental health just was not certainly what it is today, right?

And then this idea of taking care of yourself or going to therapy that that didn't really people didn't talk about that.

No, not at all.

And that that when I was able to sort of pinpoint that, that was when I got really excited about the possibility of making this movie.

There was no doubt that John's career and his personality was, you know, warranted a documentary.

I understood that.

But I needed something very, very specific to sort of get my interests because, you know, I was going to spend the next three years making the movie.

But that idea, that very idea that you're talking about, that mental health nowadays is open discussion.

The term mental health in and of itself is very, very common.

It's understood now.

The conversation is out in public and it doesn't have that same stigma.

But in the '90s, not so much, and definitely not in the '60s when he's going through losing his father at a young age and all that stuff.

It's just not discussed.

And so when we would say, "Hey, did John ever talk with you about him going to therapy?"

People of that generation would go, "No, we just don't talk about that."

And I just found that to be such an interesting generational shift.

It was, again, that was something I was like, I really want to work with that.

Like most people, my biggest introduction to him was the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

And while I thought that was extraordinary acting on his part, after watching your film and in the context of your film, the kind of monologue that he has in there where he says the name of the movie that you have, "I Like Me," it was just so touching and gripping.

I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you, but I don't like to hurt people's feelings.

Well, you think what you want about me.

I'm not changing.

I like me.

My wife likes me.

My customers like me.

Because I'm the real article.

What you see is what you get.

All of a sudden I was seeing like how much of this is John Candy the human being and how much of it is now the actor speaking because it was just his performance was so sincere.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

And you know, I really, you know, as someone who wears makeup and pretends to be other people as the other half of my job to look at John's performances, knowing what I know now about his life and how he was able to inject parts of himself into every role, you know, not just in Plain Strains and Automobiles, as silly as it may sound, I can see it in, you know, a lot of his even broader stuff as well.

But, you know, just the little things that John was able to put into each one of his performances, there's real soul there.

There's real humanity there.

And when you look at Plains Trains and Automobiles now, I don't think there's any other actor on earth that could have given that performance.

Mel Brooks, the phenomenal director, has an actor, he says, "John, two generations passed and his memory is still as lovely as ever."

Why do you think it is that we're still able to remember and discuss John Candy, what, 31 years after?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's the thing.

I think it's because of that connection that he made.

I think there was something so genuine about John that it sort of surpassed any other kind of presentation, if you will.

He was real, and people felt that.

And I think regardless of whether they met him in person or if they just saw him on the movie screen, there was just this inherent sense in you.

It's like, "That's a good guy."

And that's unique, man.

That's special.

A lot of people like to call my dad the nicest guy in Hollywood.

I just go, "Well, clearly you never met John Candy."

Because John was really the title, the champ on that.

The film is called John Candy, I Like Me, director Colin Hayes.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

That's it for our program tonight.

If you want to find out what's coming up every night, sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org/amanpour.

Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.

- Amanpour & Company is made possible by committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

You're watching PBS.

[MUSIC PLAYING]