A Profile of Morgan Freeman
with analysis and commentary
When it is sailing season in the Caribbean, that is where you'll find Morgan Freeman, alone. Begins with interest, on a subordinate clause ("When it is sailing season"). The demonstrative pronoun ("that") refers back to "Caribbean," keeping coherence. Then we are introduced to the subject of the profile, Morgan Freeman, ending on the strong adjective, "alone."
"Him" in the next sentence refers back to the previous sentence, keeping coherence.
60 Minutes met him first in The Virgin Islands, aboard his boat.
"This boat is a Shannon 43. It's one of the 12 best-built boats in the entire world," explains Freeman.
Note the repeated motifs: "sailing," "boat," "alone," "by himself," "challenge," "life or death,"and "no quarter" ("mercy"), all related to the theme of "boating." Composers do the same thing, linking musical phrases to a greater compositional pattern to tell a (musical) story coherently:
Freeman goes out sailing by himself, saying he enjoys the challenge.
"If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn't worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge, because it's life or death. There's no quarter," says Freeman.
The quotes vividly sum up Freeman's personal philosophy, before, by the simple means of an antithetical conjunction ("But"), the writer continues to the main theme: acting, defining "acting" in contrast to boating as a "make-believe world," again keeping coherence (coherence always moves back and ahead, linking all ideas together, the way a composer refers back to a melody before but then develops it (does something different to it: instrumentation, volume, faster (diminution), slower (augmentation), thus taking the coherence forward too. For example, in Eric Carmen's "All By Myself," the theme is repeated, but at far greater volume when it is done so, thus referring back (it's the same theme as before) as well as moving forward (it's played differently).
But he spends most of his time in that make-believe world of acting.
Now the writer moves to a lower level of generality, from "acting" to a specific kind of acting: "character roles," also using the topic (commonplace) of "cause and effect" to develop the reasons WHY Freeman prefers character roles. Note also the use of contrast: "acting" and "stardom." Note too the musical repetition, like before. But now the motif is "acting" (and related words), not sailing (and related words):
"I like the character roles. Somewhere back there I really came to the conclusion in my mind that the difference between acting and stardom was major. And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in," says Freeman.
I've
Some of the stories he has played in are among the most memorable in film history, including "The Shawshank Redemption," alongside Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven," and opposite Jessica Tandy in "Driving Miss Daisy."
All those roles seem to be made for him.
The next paragraph starts with apposition ("a late bloomer"), which, of course, links with Freeman. The coherence here is simply chronology (sometimes the order of ideas is obvious, as here, moving from early to late career). "27" of course refers back to "late bloomer"; while "34" refers back to "27," to keep coherence, insured by the use of the preposition, "by." At the same time, the theme of acting is kept, with related words like "career" and "theatre." A lower level of generality follows with the name of his first show ("The Electric Company"). "Show" is also related to the acting vocabulary, again keeping coherence:
A late bloomer, Freeman began his professional career in theater when he was 27. By age 34, he was the "Easy Reader" on TV's "The Electric Company" kids' show.
Coherence is kept by simple chronology, as before. The acting theme is shown by underlined words. Note that "Million Dollar Baby" is a lower level of generality than "films" and "nominations" is a lower level of generality than "Academy Award," as "performance" is yet lower than "nomination" ("nomination" is general while "performance" is specific).
Thirty-three years, 41 films and four Oscar nominations later came his first Academy Award win last year, for his performance with Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby."
Then the writer returns to a main motif, that of "role," using the "cause and effect" topic to develop this motif differently. Note the repetition of related words "approach" (=acting), "role," "there" (=acting), and then a bunch of pronouncs that refer to this motif ("it," "those," "ones"), again keeping coherence. But also note how the simple pronoun, "I," links all these sentences (as does "you," which refers to "I" too in third-person case). "My" refers to "I" in possessive case. I have italicized these examples below. Of course, this is quoted speech, not the writer's work. But the writer knew when to quote because of the interest of the quote and its use in the whole profile:
How does he approach a role?
"Yeah, how do you get there? My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it. Those are the ones I say, 'I don't think this is the role for me.' They'll be 'But, oh, no you don't want to . . . ' I know."
Next we get to a higher level of generality (remember, lower levels of generality are not always better!). At the same time, coherence is kept because of a related family of ideas: roles, acting. The quote, "I was born to do it," may not be meaningful and disputed (most would doubt whether one is "born" to do anything), but it's a colorful quote and defines the subject, Freeman. Then we get another "cause and effect" topic ("going to movies" and "I can do that").
Freeman says he was drawn to acting by birth. "I was born to do it."
He says he realized his calling around the age of 12, going to movies and saying to himself, "I can do that."
"I can. Yeah. I had teachers tell me, 'You're magic, you're good. You found your calling,'" Freeman remembers.
I have no idea why the writer includes the clause, "but a region that recently escaped the wrath of Hurrican Katrina," since it has no relationship with the subject; I would have deleted that clause, as shown below. Even the appositive, "the birthplace of the blues" makes no sense, unless Freeman had claimed influence from the blues. So I'm crossing that out too. It's as if the writer lost inspiration, or focus, here, and didn't know how to develop his paragrah, so added on an unnecessary bunch of phrases. Still, "that calling" links back to "acting," which has been the main theme of the profile. Next the writer goes to yet higher levels of generality: the actor's birthplace and his current home:
Freeman heard that calling in northeastern Mississippi,
He and his wife Myrna share 120 acres with their horses. Down the road in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Freeman co-owns a restaurant and a blues club.
Some background of the actor's daily life, with two idiomatic phrases that the writer links by the word, "cutting." ("Cutting up"=clown; "cutting the rug"=dance.)
Between his movie shoots, he is a regular in Clarksdale, often cutting up with tourists and cutting the rug with locals in his club.
He and his business partner Bill Luckett have been bankrolling the blues club and the restaurant at a loss for almost five years now. His business interests here are labors of Freeman's love for his native Mississippi Delta.
Note a common coherence device of antithesis: Mississippi is mentioned in the last paragraph, followed by an antithetical reference to it in the next ("But Mississippi's history"). Then the writer uses indirect discourse ("Forgive, he says, but never forget") instead of direct quotation, allowing a smoother integration (inclusion) of the words into the paragraph. Like a composer, the writer then develops the new motif of "Mississippi," including using "cause and effect" to explain Freeman's attitude towards the state:
But Mississippi's history of racial conflict bothers him even to this day. Forgive, he says, but never forget.
For one, he thinks the Mississippi state flag, with its confederate emblem, should be changed.
"That flag has always represented, number one, treason and, number two, a separation of white people from Jews, niggers and homosexuals. And you can't change that. You can't tell me I'm never going to be able to look at that flag and think, 'Ah, it's my heritage, my, you know . . . ' Never," says Freeman.
Reference to Misssissippi now allows the writer to move to higher levels of generality (politics in general), again insuring coherence:
His social and political views are at times surprising and he pulls no punches.
Note that the writer selects just one word for direct quotation in the next paragraph sentence: "ridiculous." This makes for economy in writing and it also insures the reader that the writer is selectively in control of the material and choosing only the quoted words that are necessary, either in terms of color or content. After that one-word quote, the writer quotes a lengthy "cause and effect" argument from Freeman." But still he fills out the fairly lengthy quote with an indirect quote ("noting that there are no white or Jewish history months"). Then he indirectly quotes himself too ("How can we get rid of racism?), summing up what must have been a lengthy interview question. It is this variety of style devices that adds interest to a piece:
He says he finds Black History Month "ridiculous."
"You're going to relegate my history to a month?" asks Freeman. "I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history," he says, noting that there are no white or Jewish history months.
How can we get rid of racism?
This is a very simple but effective use of "cause and effect," linked to the word "racism" in the previous paragraph. Note, too, that the writer carefully includes Morgan's clipped pronounciation of the final "g" on "saying." This of course is not to make fun of Freeman's speech, but to make him come alive in speaking. It's possible that there were more of those clipped final consonants, but that the writer didn't wish to overdue it by cluttering Morgan's speech with a lot of "sayin'" and "doin'," etc. and instead selectively used a single instance to sum up all instances, thus making his point more simply. Always the key word is "selective." The writer is always selective, with a purpose.
"Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man," Freeman says to Wallace. "And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn't say, 'Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.' You know what I'm sayin'?"
Again the writer uses a strong coherence device, rising to higher levels of generality, from a specific discussion of "racism" to "convictions" in general, and linking them with Freeman's wife:
Freeman's convictions make for lively dinner conversation with his wife. Myrna and Morgan met 25 years ago when both were struggling in the world of New York theater. Today, few people know him better than she does.
Here the transition is more abrupt (there is no previous mention to the idea of Freeman's "narcissism"). Though a transition device would have been easy, this is not a fatal flaw, because the sudden introduction of Morgan's wife allows for a sudden change of topic. The reader assumes that there's a lot of conversation with the wife that the writer has omitted, because the focus is, as it should be, on Morgan Freeman, not his wife. Also, the use of indirect discourse ("asked if her husband is a naracissist") makes the sudden question seem less abrupt. Then the writer uses "definition" to further "define" Morgan's character by contrast of terms. The words are not the writer's, but Freeman's wife, but the writer selectively chose to include them at this point in his profile:
Asked if her husband is a narcissist, Myrna Freeman says he is an egoist.
"Narcissist strikes me as somebody who's in love with themselves. I don't see him as in love with himself. He's more full of himself," she says laughing. "He's self-absorbed."
Note again the use of indirect discourse, of the interviewer himself:
And criticism doesn't bother him?
The writer then develops the new motif of criticism, which is on a lower level of generality than "narcissism":
"Not that I've ever noticed," she says.
A writer is to some degree limited by his or her material, just like a documentary movie-maker, who needs interesting "footage" to make an interesting film. But if the questions are right, so will the responses. Here the writer gets a colorful quote from Freeman. "Joking" is a lower level of generality than "laughing," insuring coherence by repetition, as does the repetition of the word "criticized" from a previous paragraph:
"I don't get criticized. I'm the greatest living American actor," Morgan Freeman interjects, laughing. "Ask anybody."
Note two uses of the antithetical conjunction, "but" to develop ideas: "joking" vs. "but film critics"; and "have one," vs. "but he finds," etc. The simple possessive pronoun, "one," insures coherence as does the repetition of the word "Oscar," which "one" replaces:
He is joking, of course, but film critics say his Oscar last year was long overdue. Freeman acknowledges he's happy finally to have one, but he finds the annual Oscar race demeaning to the nominees.
The writer develops the Oscar motif by another "cause and effect" argument from Freeman: why he resents Oscar competition:
"At the end of this process four of us are going to be losers. I kind of resent it," says Freeman. "Who likes feeling like a loser, you know? That's why, you lost that one, you lost that time. Oh, you think it's finally your time to win one. Win . . . what are you going to win? I win a doorstop, you know?"
The transition in the next sentence is a little arbitrary; but good writers know how to make the arbitrary seem natural. We are to assume that Freeman was "at ease" during most of the interview, and this allows an antithesis to being "serious." The other antithesis, between on-camera and "off-camera" pursuits, also seems a little arbitrary, since there's no necessary relationship between being "at ease" and Hollywood film production. Still, the reader respects the writer at least attempting coherence even when that coherence is not entirely obvious:
When he's at ease, Freeman is playful, but when it comes to his off-camera pursuits, he's serious.
Here the coherence is more obvious, since the writer has mentioned "off-camera pursuits" in the previous paragraph and then moves to a lower level of generality ("learning to fly") in the next. "Pilot himself" takes the new theme to a still lower level of generality than "flying" (one assumes the write means he flies the plane not merely himself but alone, without a more experienced co-pilot). Of course, the topic (commonplace) used is Example ("for example"):
Take his pursuit of learning to fly, for example. He always wanted to learn to fly and finally decided to do it when he turned 65. Now, he can pilot himself across the country.
"One destination" moves to yet a lower level of generality. So the writer moves, progressively, from "pursuits," to "flying," to "pilot himself," and then, "to the Virgin Islands." All this insures coherence:
One destination he sometimes flies to is The Virgin Islands, to get back to that sailboat.
The specific idea of "flying" leads back to the general idea of "pursuits," and thus back again to the specific idea at the very beginning: sailing. This is developed by antithesis between the two main themes of the profile: pleasure pursuits ("sailboat") and acting ("movie" and "that").
Asked if he would rather be working or on his sailboat, Freeman says, "All my life, all my life that I can, as far back as I can remember, I saw my first movie when I was six years old. And since then I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a part of that."
The writer then neatly ties the two contrasts together: acting and pleasure, by the word "all," while at the same time ending on the main subject: the man himself: Morgan Freeman. This is shown by pronoun replacements (I, me, you) and a return to the highest level of generality of all: life itself, repeated in noun (life) and verb (live) forms, and once by omission ("[Life] Has been and is good"). Such a high level of generality of itself, without the previous profile to support it, would be meaningless, But a high level of generality at the conclusion is a neat way to tie all the pieces together for a smooth ending, since smooth endings are enjoyed by readers:
He is a man who makes you believe he has got it all.
"But I can say that life is good to me. [Life] Has been and is good. So I think my task is to be good to it. So how do you be good to life? You live it," says Freeman.
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