04/05/04

LC040405

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The bitter election fight that could decide Wal-Mart's fate in
Southern California. The city is small, but the stakes are
huge.

Roosevelt Dorn>> It will create from $3 million to $5 million
dollars a year in sales tax. This city needs that money.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> I think it's a lose-lose for Inglewood.

Val>> And then, as Passover begins, a story of memories and
videotape focused on survivors of the Holocaust. Plus, we'll
meet one of Hollywood's great composers, Hans Zimmer.

It's all next on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> There's a good reason why the biggest company in the
world and scores of cities and towns have their eye on the
election tomorrow in Inglewood. It will decide whether Wal-Mart
can appeal directly to the voters and bypass city officials
there. If the giant discounter wins, the company goes ahead
with plans to build one of those giant Wal-Mart Supercenters
which sells everything from tires to groceries and, as Toni
Guinyard reports, the shockwaves from this political fight are
echoing far beyond Inglewood.

Toni Guinyard>> This sixty-acre site at the corner of 90th and
Prairie in Inglewood is at the heart of what has become a
vicious fight. Voters must decide if the project, Homestretch
at Hollywood Park, should be built here. The centerpiece of the
project is Wal-Mart.

Peter Kanelos>> The unions were able to bully the council into
not supporting this and we wanted to take it directly to the
people. By taking it to the people, we created more public
discourse on this issue and ultimately the people will be able
to decide in Inglewood what's best for Inglewood.

Roosevelt Dorn>> You realize that it took Wal-Mart that long to
get ten thousand signatures that wanted this development. That
long. Now there's a great controversy. The controversy is
purely and simply because of the possibility of selling
groceries and them being non-union. That's the only issue.
Pure and simple as that.

Toni Guinyard>> If you try holding a conversation about Measure
4-A, it's difficult if not impossible to avoid talking about the
union. Wal-Mart is non-union. Its Supercenters sell groceries,
a direct threat to unionized grocery stores. During the recent
Southern California grocery story strike, competition from cost-
cutting Wal-Mart was blamed for store management fighting to
trim costs in preparation for Wal-Mart's growth in California.
It is a big issue, but not the only issue.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> I think it's a lose-lose for Inglewood.

Toni Guinyard>> Earl Ofari Hutchinson lives and works in
Inglewood. He says if Measure 4-A passes, it could have a
national impact on how cities do business with big business.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> If Wal-Mart is allowed to get away with
this, company X, company Y, company Z can turn around to any --
I'm not just talking about Inglewood. We're talking about any
governmental agency or city or county or anywhere -- and say,
look, in Inglewood, Wal-Mart came in. They didn't have to file
an environmental impact report. They didn't have to adhere to
any of the administrative requirements, public hearings and so
forth to give the public an opportunity. That's the process,
the tried and true process. They didn't have to do any of that.
Why should we?

Toni Guinyard>> Hutchinson says Wal-Mart didn't circumvent the
process. It was reinvented.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> What they did was essentially tell the
city of Inglewood get out of here. We are going to because we
are the biggest corporation in the world, we have more money
than is anywhere in creation, we can go in and essentially buy
an election.

Roosevelt Dorn>> Our Planning Department helped develop the
project that's going to be placed over there. They complied
with everything that our Planning Department asked for. They
even went above and beyond what our Planning Department asked
for and they did this for months.

Toni Guinyard>> For months, Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt Dorn has
kept silent about the issue until now.

Roosevelt Dorn>> I am a union member. My family are all union
members. So I tried to take a neutral position and let the
residents make their decision, but they wanted a decision from
me, so that is the reason I came out and I came out and am
supporting Measure 4-A, as I said, one thousand percent and I'm
doing it because of the fact that this is a great development
for the city of Inglewood, creating thousands of jobs. Let's
face it. This is a high unemployment area. We needs jobs in
this area.

Peter Kanelos>> The project is expected to generate between $3
million and $5 million dollars in sales tax revenue, which is
very important, and thousands of jobs for the community.

Toni Guinyard>> The mayor is adamant that putting out the
welcome mat for Wal-Mart will not hurt other businesses.

Roosevelt Dorn>> I'll bet you that you won't find two or three
businesses in this entire city that is opposing this. It's not
the businesses that are opposing this development. This
development is going to be good for the businesses. Why?
Because it's going to bring more people into the city. The more
people that come in, they'll stop and shop.

Toni Guinyard>> But in Inglewood's Market Street shopping
district, some residents and business owners make it clear how
they feel without being asked.

>> "No on Wal-Mart, no on Wal-Mart."

Toni Guinyard>> Several businesses are displaying signs urging
residents not to support Measure 4-A. Terry Williams owns a
clothing store. He opened less than one year ago.

Terry Williams>> We don't want Wal-Mart because we don't need
it in our community. We already have a Costco, you know. We've
got a Super K. You know, both of those are competing with Wal-
Mart. Why would you have three on the same block?

Toni Guinyard>> And a short walk away at Queen Aminah's
Clothing --

Aminah Muhammed>> Usually, from what I've been told about Wal-
Mart, when they come into a community, it devastates that
community. As far as the entrepreneurs are concerned, once a
Wal-Mart is in an area, then all of the entrepreneurs in that
area are really at risk.

Roosevelt Dorn>> Those businesses aren't going to be hurt. We
know that. That's the reason the Chamber supports this. Those
businesses, probably no one has explained to them how, instead
of being hurt, they're going to be helped.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> It doesn't even make sense from a
logical standpoint, let alone an economic standpoint, that
shoppers that are drawn to a Supercenter are going to all of a
sudden go to all of these small businesses to get those items
that they could get right there. It's a nonsensical argument,
and there's no evidence to support that.

Toni Guinyard>> While the community is clearly divided over
this issue, there is some question about who is leading the
fight against the project. We met Beatrice Ortegon and Tracey
Jackson going door to door handing out campaign flyers against
Wal-Mart being distributed by the Coalition for a Better
Inglewood, flyers paid for by the Los Angeles County Federation
of Labor.

Beatrice Ortegon>> We have these posters right here, "What is
Measure 4-A?", and exactly tells you what it can do, what the
costs may be, what Wal-Mart can take away.

Toni Guinyard>> What kind of response are you getting when you
go door to door?

Beatrice Ortegon>> We're getting that they don't like it
because they know that it's going to hurt them one way or
another.

Toni Guinyard>> Ortegon describes herself as a community
activist working with the coalition, but she is not an Inglewood
resident. Tracey Jackson is.

Tracey Jackson>> We're going to the voters' house to get them
to say no on the measure because, for one thing, they're not
doing what they're supposed to do. They didn't come to the
community.

Toni Guinyard>> At first, Jackson seemed confused and unclear
on what to say. Wal-Mart spokesperson, Peter Kanelos, accuses
outsiders of trying to influence residents.

Peter Kanelos>> The organizations that are opposed to this
project have strong ties to labor and that's where the
opposition is coming from.

Toni Guinyard>> And there is opposition, residents who say that
Wal-Mart is bullying its way into this community.

Peter Kanelos>> The reality is that the bully is the labor
union. Organized labor has continued to bully Wal-Mart and its
customers and, if the unions and the elected officials that they
put in office think they're going to be able to attack Wal-Mart,
they'd better expect Wal-Mart to fight back.

Toni Guinyard>> Wal-Mart CEO, Lee Scott, appeared on KCET's
Tavis Smiley Show.

Lee Scott>> "Ultimately, it seems to me, Tavis, the consumer
determines what it is that should exist to serve them."

Toni Guinyard>> Tomorrow the people will decide on Measure 4-A.
Voters in Inglewood will have their say whether Wal-Mart will
have a place in this city.

Val>> Wal-Mart has announced its intentions to build forty
Supercenters across Southern California. So far, only one has
opened in San Diego County.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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Val>> Passover begins this evening commemorating the
deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in ancient Egypt
and some of the people observing Passover tonight know what
slavery is like. They are survivors of the Holocaust. With the
passing of each year, their numbers are dwindling. But a new
short film called "Memory and Videotape" shows how the
survivors' stories are being preserved forever. It's part of
the Veritas Collection. The filmmaker is Ray Greene.

Ray Greene>> Memory for most of us is something we carry around
inside of our heads.

>> "Inspired by the filming of Schindler's List, Stephen
Spielberg established survivors of the Shoah Foundation."

Ray Greene>> Memory is how we know who we are. If we had no
memories, we would have no identity. The same thing is actually
true of memories that we encode in videotape. If we didn't have
the interviews on tape, we would have no memory of the events
that we record and that would interfere, it seems to me, with
our identities not simply as Jews, but really for all of us.

>> "Welcome, welcome to the Foundation. Follow me, please.
The Foundation was established in 1994 and it was essentially an
outgrowth of the movie "Schindler's List". Stephen Spielberg
was in Poland and he literally had survivors approach him on set
wanting to talk about their life experiences in the war. He was
so moved by that experience that he wanted to do something about
it and he did. He established the Shoah Foundation charged with
the mission of collecting testimony from survivors and other
witnesses of the war."

>> "Half of my body is always there."

>> "Now in eight and a half years, a little more at this point,
we have collected nearly 52,000 testimonies worldwide. That's
in fifty-six countries and thirty-two different languages that
will take you over thirteen years to view and that's twenty-four
hours a day. We're now focusing actually on our new mission,
which is to overcome intolerance, prejudice and bigotry through
the educational use of the Foundation's visual history."

Ghi Hart>> My name is Ghi Hart and I'm working here as a
volunteer at the Shoah Foundation for the last eight years. The
memory for me is, well, I don't have to go far. When I wash my
hands or something, the number reminds me every day of my
experience.

>> "Well, that will be fun. I'll meet him."

Ghi Hart>> Mr. Spielberg made fifty thousand tapes. When you
think of it and when you listen to all of them together, it's
all the same story. To get rid of the race. You see it in
Yugoslavia where the Serbs killed the Muslims, you know, and in
Rwanda or wherever. They're killing hundreds of thousands of
people, women and children, for what? Why?

>> "What I'm going to do now is play a few minutes of footage
for you to give you an idea of what it is I'm talking about."

>> A videotape, in a way, changes when different people watch
it. I think about the survivors that I've watched on the video
and then find out that they've passed away. You realize that
that's just a moment in time captured. You know, it's sort of
like holding two mirrors up to each other because it's also, in
that moment in time, capturing that moment in time that they're
telling us about. I don't know if "Memory and Videotape" is the
title I would choose because both of those things feel very
static. I just feel that the work I do is so organic.

>> "This is what we call our robot."

Ray Greene>> Any technology can be used for evil. Any
technology can be used for good.

>> "Behind these glass panels, all of the testimonies are
stored."

Ray Greene>> The video camera is a tool that can be used for
good or for evil.

>> "Our entire archive -- and I'm not very technical -- covers
180 terabytes actually."

Ray Greene>> I think that that interaction, that experience of
looking into a television screen and seeing somebody look back
at you and say let me tell you what happened in my life is an
experience that changes you absolutely irrevocably. The day
will come when Stephen Spielberg isn't here anymore, when I'm
not here anymore, when nobody who works at the Shoah Foundation
will be here anymore, when all the survivors will be gone, but
the 52,000 testimonies have to be permanent. They have to exist
for all time.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
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Val>> You may not know his name, but if you watch movies, you
definitely know Hans Zimmer's music. For the past two decades,
he has scored dozens of movies and he's won every major award in
film and music. Vicki Curry shows us how Hans Zimmer creates
the sounds that Hollywood loves.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> His music is as epic as the images it
accompanies.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Or as intimate as the moment requires.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> These are the sounds of Hans Zimmer, film
composer and creator of sonic landscapes as varied as the people
and places on the screen.

Hans Zimmer>> Every time somebody comes with a project, it's a
whole new world of adventure. You get to go on these journeys.
You get to go and visit centuries. You know, you get to live in
a fantasy world.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Hans Zimmer has scored over a hundred films
covering the spectrum in scopes and style. He's particularly
known for his innovative use of synthesized music.

Hans Zimmer>> I just thought computers and synthesizing was a
better tool. They are technologies just like a violin is
technology. I mean, if it makes a gorgeous noise, use it. You
know, if it can tell a story, if it looks like it's appropriate,
use it.

Vicki Curry>> His interest in synthesizers began early in his
career. Born in Germany, Zimmer made his way to England and
joined The Buggles, the group behind the first music video aired
on MTV.

[Film Clip]

Hans Zimmer>> I instantly got bored with the whole thing
because the problem is, as soon as you have a hit record, the
record company really asks you to repeat yourself ad nauseam. I
love film. When I was about twelve, I saw "Once Upon A Time In
The West". I snuck into the cinema even though I was definitely
not allowed. It just blew me away and that idea of music and
pictures together sort of stuck with me. You know, you can have
all these lights and colors and tell a story with music and
images.

Vicki Curry>> He made the switch to film music with the help of
composer, Stanley Myers, but Zimmer soon broke out on his own
and his career took off when he came to Los Angeles to score
"Rain Man".

Hans Zimmer>> We actually made a rule up right at the beginning
which was whenever you see people driving in a car across
America, either jangling guitars or the fingers sweeping, so no
jangling guitars or no strings (laughter).

Vicki Curry>> His next big picture was "Driving Miss Daisy", a
completely electronic score.

[Film Clip]

Hans Zimmer>> I originally set out to write a big orchestral
score for "Driving Miss Daisy" and I just realized that it
became a sort of heavy thing which I think young people love the
classical music with older people and I realized I was killing
the actors. I thought, hang on, she's feisty, she needs
something, you know, so that's why we came to this little thing,
this little pulse, this little nagging thing going on all the
time which came straight out of hip-hop or electronic or
whatever.

Vicki Curry>> Zimmer hasn't shied away from using orchestras in
his other scores or whatever sound suits the film.

Hans Zimmer>> I tend to read scripts less and less and have the
director tell me the story because you get what his vision is.

[Film Clip]

Hans Zimmer>> But at the end of the day, I think my job is to
surprise them, to write something that I think they can't
possibly think of themselves. That's the job. You know,
otherwise they can do it themselves. I never write anything
down. I do most of my writing in my head and a lot of it
happens in the tub or whatever. I always think, you know, if I
can't remember it by the time I get to the studio, it can't be
any good.

I never approach film as a musician, really. I always approach
it as a filmmaker. I always approach it from the story and
stuff like that because that's what interests me. It just so
happens that the language I speak is music. I mean, here you
are sitting across from a German who's trying to sort his
English out somehow or the other when really what I know is, if
we could just speak in music, we'd be having a much better time
here (laughter).

Vicki Curry>> Before he gets around to writing, Zimmer spends
months and sometimes years researching the subjects of his
films.

Hans Zimmer>> I can give you a thousand theories on every
little nook and cranny of "Gladiator" or "The Last Samurai".
You know, I spent forever trying to research Japanese culture,
Japanese music, and surrounding myself with pictures and such.
So I got something that just pops into my head, you know. Try
to write your melodies from yourself, you know, informed by
Japanese aesthetics, at which point I went "What does that
mean?" You know, I'm giving myself even more punishment. So
the second thing that popped into my head which was slightly
simpler was hang on, they hired you to invent, so invent. Stop
with all that stuff and write from the heart. It might not be
the universal language, but there is something. There is a
common humanity that we can all understand, that we can get to
with music.

Vicki Curry>> Zimmer works out of a state of the art studio in
Santa Monica that is also home to many young musicians. Called
"Media Ventures", it's a kind of cooperative of composers
sharing resources and ideas. It's his version of the mentoring
he received in Europe.

Hans Zimmer>> That vent of apprenticeship didn't really exist
in Los Angeles, so I really put this place together with friends
who were musicians, composers, you know, and try to get them off
the ground in one way or the other. The other thing is,
composing is something for lonely persons. You know, usually
you just sit there and knock your head against a wall and hope
things happen. It's great having other composers around,
especially because they come in and they're merciless. "Oh,
Hans, you can do better than that" or you walk into their room
and they're doing something and you go, "Oh, this is great. I'd
better crawl back into my room and see if -- you know, throw
everything out."

Vicki Curry>> And what is the purpose of music in film?

Hans Zimmer>> It's a question I find impossible to answer. A
man walks down the street and you hear music. Why do you hear
music? What's it supposed to tell you? It can tell you things.

[Film Clip]

Hans Zimmer>> I have no idea how this works. I have no idea
how to write a score. I have no idea how to say anything in the
scene that is remotely meaningful. You know, how am I going to
get through this? Most of the time, you know, you're just
desperate. It's only twelve notes. That's all we've got and
everybody seems to have played all of them. Beyond that, you're
trying to actually describe something indescribable. It's this
funny process that I can never quite work out, but there comes
that moment when you suddenly go, hang on, this is right and
literally you will not have an argument from anybody.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Hans Zimmer's next project is an action adventure film
called "Thunderbird". And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala.
For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see
you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times, caught on tape, cheating in
handicapped parking. We'll ride with the taskforce that's
handing out some stiff fines.

>> My dad, I just drove him to court this morning and I
happened to be in his car.

>> They always have an excuse. They always have an excuse.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.