This is the kind of television you can talk about in your book group. There’s no shame in watching. In fact, intellectual integrity pours from the small screen.
What can be better than popular media with snob appeal?
“Iconoclasts,” in its third season on Sundance Channel, regularly pairs innovators, creators and talented performers from different disciplines, and lets us hear them chat. The idea is partly to alter our idea of celebrity.
Luminaries in unconnected fields think aloud, bounce ideas back and forth and get to the heart of what matters. If you can’t sit down with them individually, at least sit down with them sitting down with each other.
Earlier this season, actor-filmmaker Sean Penn and author Jon Krakauer trekked on a glacier while reflecting on their work. Last week, singer- songwriter Alicia Keys and actor Ruby Dee strolled through Harlem and talked about the days of the civil rights struggle. This Thursday (at 11 p.m. on Sundance, Comcast digital channel 505), Mike Myers and Deepak Chopra hang onstage, on the streets of New York and in a meditation room. Next, Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz and producer Norman Lear visit in Seattle. Coming soon, Ashley Judd and Madeleine Albright spend a day in Washington, D.C., talking international causes.
In each instance, the notables check out each other’s creative processes, compare motivations and generally find common ground in disparate circles.
When dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and chef Alice Waters chat, they provide nourishing insight into art and creativity. When producer Brian Grazer interviews Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone, they talk about their decision-making process (and Redstone’s tropical fish collection).
Think of it as a conscious hour of television away from the more mind- numbing fare.
Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky direct the series, focusing, as Sinofsky says, on “people who are comfortable in their own skin.”
For the Myers-Chopra hour, the common thread turns out to be the connection between “Aha!” and “Ha! Ha!”
“This is a happening,” comedian-actor Myers says, introducing the free- form get together.
“We don’t know where we’re going but we are on our way,” physician/ author/philosopher Chopra observes. As usual, there is deeper meaning in everything he says.
“A lot of his humor comes from existential angst,” Chopra says of Myers.
They end up riffing on the role of jokes in the transformation of consciousness.
Myers also offers what he sees as the deeper meaning of Austin Powers (namely, he says, the sexual revolution is an unsustainable lifestyle). He’s not just in it for the laugh lines; there is meaning and wisdom to be imparted, too.
For Chopra it’s all about healing and human potential. He’s a compulsive writer, some of his best sellers composed on international flights. “Iconoclasts” follows him to meetings with his Random House editor and with his son Gotham, who oversees a line of graphic novels.
Myers isn’t a sage but the cutup is a more serious student of the creative process than you might guess.
The “Saturday Night Live” veteran quotes the old Lenny Bruce saying, “Comedy is pain plus time,” before fawning over Chopra. When Myers’ father died, he met the doctor-philosopher and began a spiritual quest.
Of course, he’s not above plugging his upcoming film, “The Love Guru,” which was partly inspired by a Chopra book and in which the best-selling philosopher has a small role.
Onstage with a sitar player, they laugh about death and note that everything is inseparably correlated with everything else.
How is movie-making like meditation? They share a certain act structure. (Joseph Campbell said it better.)
There’s a bit too much Mike Myers in this film for the thinking consumer. And the “synchronicity” talk seems absurd in a planned meeting with cameras rolling. Still, the discussion is lively. To seek enlightenment, lighten up!
Meanwhile, a topic for the book group: Watch this hour and discuss how comedy and storytelling are both expressions of higher consciousness.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
