THIS SUNDAY ON “60 MINUTES”: BIG-PICTURE ARTIST “JR” USES HIS MASSIVE PHOTOS TO SHOWCASE THE DIGNITY IN ORDINARY PEOPLE
An artist known for his huge photographs pasted on public structures throughout the world says he is trying to display the dignity in human beings. The French artist, who goes by the name “JR,” blows up photos of ordinary people, some of them victims of extraordinary circumstances, such as war or crime, so people can look at them and see themselves. Anderson Cooper interviews JR and examines his work on the next edition of 60 MINUTES, Sunday, Feb. 25 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Among the examples of his art from early in his career was a campaign to humanize youths in a Paris suburb. Images from riots there in 2005 showed young rioters destroying property. JR photographed young people from the neighborhood with tight framing, many with hoods on their heads, some making faces. He blew them up and pasted them in Paris with the subjects’ names, ages and addresses.
JR said he was trying to break a stereotype, not feed it with the images. “By feeding it, it breaks [the stereotype]…the humanity. When you look at those faces,” he tells Cooper, “it makes you want to smile. By playing the monster, they don’t look like a monster anymore.”
More recently, amid the hot-button issues of immigration and border security in America, JR erected a giant billboard on the Mexican side of the U.S. border, high enough to be visible from the U.S. side over a high fence. The image was that of a smiling Mexican toddler.
In 2007, at the wall separating Israelis and Palestinians, he pasted pictures on the wall of everyday people from both sides but with the same profession. JR says bystanders approached him, curious as to who the people were. “I say, ‘One is Israeli and one is Palestinian.’ And …a big silence on the crowd. And I say, ‘Who is who?’ And they couldn’t even recognize their enemy or their brother.”
JENNIFER LAWRENCE TALKS ON “60 MINUTES” ABOUT DROPPING OUT OF MIDDLE SCHOOL WITH NO REGRETS
Her New Film Contains Nude Scenes She Says Are Empowering and Have Helped Her Overcome the 2014 Hacking Incident
Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence talks about giving up middle school at the age of 14 to pursue her acting career, in a candid interview with Bill Whitaker on 60 MINUTES, Sunday, Feb. 25 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The 27-year-old A-list star says she struggled in school and “never felt very smart.” She began modeling, and when she started to read scripts and relate to the characters in them, something clicked. “I know exactly what it would look like if somebody felt that way. That was a whole part of my brain that I didn’t even know existed,” she tells Whitaker. “And I didn’t want to let it go.”
So she gave up on school. “I dropped out of middle school. I don’t technically have a GED or a diploma. I am self-educated.”
Asked by Whitaker if she regrets the decision, she says, “No. I really don’t. I wanted to forge my own path. I found what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want anything getting in the way of it,” she says. “Even friends, for many years, were not as important to me as my career.”
That career is now in full bloom. She has been doing two films a year since the age of 20 and was the youngest actress ever nominated for four Academy Awards. She won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Tiffany Maxwell in “Silver Linings Playbook.” Now she is cast as a Russian ballerina coerced into becoming a spy in the upcoming “Red Sparrow.”
She tells Whitaker the one thing between her and the new role was the nudity it required. She was reluctant because she had been hacked in 2014 and was devastated when nude photos of her were spread across the internet. “I realized that there was a difference between consent and not, and I showed up for the first day and I did it, and I felt empowered,” she says. “I feel like something that was taken from me, I got back and am using in my art.”
EXCLUSIVELY ON “60 MINUTES”: RARE VIDEO OF A 2017 SARIN GAS ATTACK ON SYRIAN CIVILIANS SHOWS THE HORRORS OF THE WAR THAT CONTINUES TO RAGE IN SYRIA
100 Killed, 200 Injured – Mostly Women and Children -- in the Syrian Town
of Khan Shaykhun
“Like the Apocalypse,” Says Doctor Treating Victims
60 MINUTES has obtained rare video of the Syrian gas attack on civilians that drew a 59-missile response by the U.S. military last year. The disturbing high-definition video, shown publicly for the first time, exposes the horrible effects of these internationally banned weapons that the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad continues to use to massacre his people. There have been six known gas attacks by the Syrian government since the New Year and approximately 200 since 2011. Scott Pelley’s story about this sarin nerve gas attack that killed an estimated 100 people and injured 200 in a Syrian town will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Feb. 25 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The farming village of Khan Shaykhun in rebel-held territory was bombed with sarin gas on April 4, 2017, says Edmond Mulet, who led an investigation by the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons into the attack. “We have the big crater, sarin was released…around a hundred were killed,” he tells Pelley. “More than 200 were affected, mainly children and women.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders, better known as the “White Helmets,” came to the aid of the victims and took much of the graphic video seen in Pelley’s report. “People were fainting, completely unconscious…trembling and convulsions, foam coming out of the… mouth. Some people were already dead,” recalls Mustafa al-Haj Yousef, the White Helmets supervisor.
Pelley spoke to a doctor who treated the victims. Dr. Mamoun Morad inhaled traces of the gas as well. His throat was still raspy months after the attack. Those closest to the bombing, especially children, suffered the most. “We washed the boy…washed…washed…washed…but he didn’t make it….There are no words. It was like Judgment Day, the Apocalypse.”
Pelley spoke to Mulet a few hours before he lost his job; Syrian ally Russia used its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to end Mulet’s investigation into Syrian chemical weapons. “The investigations we have conducted have proven that the sarin that has been used in Syria has come from an original stockpile…distilled by the Syrian government some years ago,” he says.
The Syrians claim the rebels staged the attack to make the government look bad. But Mulet says it would have been too difficult for them. “You need very sophisticated and big laboratories to [make sarin]…one single drop here right now would be killing everybody in this studio.”
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