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Excerpted from The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever, written by Peter Ward and published by Melville House.

Since the 1980s, wave after wave of technological change originating from Silicon Valley has crashed over the world. Each jump in progress has spawned new industries, fortunes, and even universes. A growing band of geeks steadily grew wealthier, and their influence expanded alongwith their bank balances. Behind each multibillion-dollar company was a flock of venturecapitalists who readied their checkbooks when young startups needed them most and reaped therewards when they grew into the monoliths that now prop up the American economy. Since the birth of the personal computer, the moment when high-technology made its way into the home,Silicon Valley has swallowed industries whole, one by one. The internet changed commerce forever, enabling all-conquering profit machines like Jeff Bezos Amazon. Ride-hailing apps likeUber and Lyft quickly engulfed the transportation industry, while Airbnb and Seamlessrevolutionized hospitality. Technology transformed finance, logistics, media, and entertainment.It was only a matter of time before Silicon Valley turned its now all-seeing eye to the health care industry, Americas most broken, and profitable, institution. Biotech companies have always fitsnugly into the startup template. They begin as cash-hungry long shots, and when theirtreatments are approved, they pay gigantic dividends. When the men with the money sensed aquickening in anti-aging, they fell over each other to pump cash into young companiesaddressing just the kinds of fields that make immortalists so hopeful.

And so the world of immortalism crashed headlong into Silicon Valley and all its billions, guided by the man who has done more for the cause of immortality than anyone else.Aubrey de Grey, already mentioned in previous chapters, enjoys god-like status in theimmortalist community. Over time hes publicized the goal of defeating aging and even made itsomewhat fashionable. His rejuvenation theories, once scoffed at, were slowly accepted as fact by the scientific community, and he now sits at the center of a network patiently built overdecades, in the middle of the science, the money, and the immortalists, his adoring fans.

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De Grey has always appreciated the value of the media in his quest and has been interviewed for magazines, newspapers, websites, and documentaries countless times. He makes for a great spokesperson for such an eccentric community. Past articles noted his Rasputin-like beard, wild auburn hair, and tendency to crack open a beer at all times of the day. When wespoke on a video call, de Grey dialing in from his Silicon Valley base, I was relieved to see helived up to all the hype. His beard was suitably wizardly, his red hair graying but still untamed, and not long into our call I heard the sound of a beer bottle hissing open at midday, Californiatime. He talked like an idiosyncratic member of the old English aristocracy, rapidly and withoutpause, and at times I got the sense Id signed up for a lecture rather than an interview.

When de Grey was between eight and nine years old, his mother pressured him to practice the piano. The young Englishman resisted, and even at that tender age that instinct intrigued him and warranted further introspection. He concluded he didnt want to practice thepiano because he wanted to improve the quality of life for the whole of humanity. He still doesnt know where that urge comes from, but it has driven him his whole life. It led me to bevery sure I never wanted to have kids, because for sure thats a very time-consuming thing that prevents you from doing other stuff, he told me.

After deciding scientists were the people who made the biggest difference to the world inthe long run, de Grey began learning computer programming when he was fifteen and quicklyfound he was extremely adept at it. He went to the University of Cambridge to study computerscience in the early 1980s, then worked for six or seven years in artificial intelligence research.De Grey always considered aging to be the greatest challenge of humanity but was contentknowing it was covered by the worlds biologists, and he began fixing another issue, the fact that people had to spend so much of their time doing stuff they wouldnt do unless they werebeing paid for it.

But at a graduate party in Cambridge, de Grey met the fruit fly geneticist AdelaideCarpenter, who he later married. His relationship took him into the world of biology academia,and he was shocked when he discovered aging was way down the list of priorities in thediscipline. It took me a couple of years to come to terms with that, really, but once I did Irealized I had no choice, I just had to switch fields, he recalled.

De Grey first gained notoriety when he published his 1999 book The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging, in which he argued immortality was theoretically possible for humans.At the center of his thinking was a concept called strategies for engineered negligible senescence, abbreviated to SENS. In 2005, MIT Technology Review announced a $20,000 prizefor anyone who could successfully argue that de Greys theories were more fantasy than science.To claim the prize, the entrants had to prove that SENS was so wrong it was unworthy oflearned debate. There were five submissions, of which three met the terms of the challenge. But the judges decided none of them met the criteria for victory and disproved SENS.

The scientific process requires evidence through independent experimentation orobservation in order to accord credibility to a hypothesis. SENS is a collection of hypotheses thathave mostly not been subjected to that process and thus cannot rise to the level of beingscientifically verified. However, by the same token, the ideas of SENS have not beenconclusively disproved. SENS exists in a middle ground of yet-to-be-tested ideas that somepeople may find intriguing but which others are free to doubt, Nathan Myhrvold, one of thejudges and cofounder of Intellectual Ventures and former chief technology officer of Microsoft,wrote.

In 2009, de Grey set up the SENS Foundation, a nonprofit and the worlds first organization dedicated to curing aging. Through the charity, de Grey was able to place himself ina position to link the scientists working on rejuvenation who could prove him right with sources of investment. None of the labs that received money were required to declare they were workingtoward immortality, or even extended life, and some of the most respected scientists in thegerontology field received funding.

SENS is based in Silicon Valley, where the billionaires have deep pockets and dont shy away from a difficult challenge. De Grey thinks the Valleys forgiving attitude toward failure is the secret to its success. That made Silicon Valley what it is today in IT, and more recently inbiotech, he said. And it continues to be an absolutely essential ingredient for anything whereyoure in the real vanguard. Anything that isnt really a thing yet but is on the way to becoming athing. Of course, longevity is very, very much that.

It does help to have money, as well. More and more of Silicon Valleys billionaires havedeveloped a personal passion in health and extended life over the past decade. Tad Friends 2017 New Yorker article titled Silicon Valleys Quest to Live Forever most notably described theobsession through Friends reporting from a symposium held in an aging experts living room inLos Angeles, where celebrities and Silicon Valley elites gathered to grill the biologists on theirchances of making death optional. Some of the wealthiest people in the technology industry have spent huge sums of money on projects attempting to defeat aging. Some see this as analtruistic endeavor which can help the whole of humanity, others as the quickest route to living longer themselves, while some see it merely as a profitable industry of the future. The technology industrys participation in the field of aging, both in a personal and professional capacity, has been relentlessly mocked the world over. The HBO comedy dramaSilicon Valley featured moguls pumping the blood of the young into their veins to extend theirlifespan, one of the many practices touted as the next big thing in life extension.

One of the characters who is heavily rumored to have invested in this field is Peter Thiel. Thiel cofounded the payment giant PayPal and several other successful startups but is perhapsbest known for his litigiousness and pseudo-libertarianism. He bankrolled the former wrestlerHulk Hogans lawsuit that bankrupted the publisher of Gawker in revenge for an article written about Thiel years earlier that outed him as a homosexual. A self-declared libertarian and asupporter of the Libertarian Party, he migrated quickly in 2016 to feed off Donald Trumps bare faced nationalism and xenophobia. In recent times, his name has been repeatedly linked tostartups offering young blood transfusions similar to those seen on TV, which has only bolsteredhis reputation of having something of the night about him. In short, if ever there was a powerful reason to abandon life extension research, it might be the thought of Peter Thiel living forever.

Experiments in young blood transfusions have shown early promise. In tests on mice, older subjects injected with youthful blood were found to be more active, although any testing inhumans has been less encouraging. That hasnt stopped people profiting from the practice. California-based startup Ambrosia captures the most attention in this field. The company,founded in 2016 by CEO Jesse Karmazin, began by charging patients $8,000 for one liter ofyouthful plasma. Karmazin leaned heavily on the prospect of immortality to sell its services. Thestartup is named after the mythical food that made Greek gods immortal, and the founder said ininterviews the treatment comes pretty close to immortality.

In February 2019, the FDA weighed in on young blood transfusions, declaring the benefits unproven and side effects potentially harmful. Were alerting consumers and healthcare providers that treatments using plasma from young donors have not gone through therigorous testing that the FDA normally requires in order to confirm the therapeutic benefit of a product and to ensure its safety, DA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and Peter Marks, Director ofFDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, wrote in a statement. Were concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasmafrom young donors as cures and remedies.

Karmazin said the FDA did not contact him directly before or after issuing the statement and didnt take any action against Ambrosia. Regardless, he put his business on hold almostimmediately after the statement was issued under an abundance of caution. In August thatyear, it was reported the company had shut down entirely and Karmazin had moved on toanother business, Ivy Plasma. The website for the new company suggested it would be offeringthe same services as Ambrosia, but the plasma would not be sourced specifically from youngerpeople. Karmazin later said the Ivy Plasma website was part of an effort to rebrand, but he soondecided customers wanted to buy their blood from Ambrosia, not Ivy Plasma. By October, theold website was operational again, and Ambrosia began to offer its services once more. Despite graduating from Stanford Medical School, Karmazin is not licensed to practice medicine and so cant perform the transfusions himself, so instead he contracts doctors to carry out the procedures. As of 2021, the Ambrosia website is still accepting customers, although the priceshave dropped, and one liter of young blood now costs only $5,000.

Young blood transfusions, despite apparently finding a consumer base in Silicon Valley, remain on the fringes of longevity offerings, and as of now can be safely considered similar to snake oil. But the technology industrys march into life extension is not limited to crazedopportunists; some of the biggest names in the world are involved. Like Google.

The founders of the search engine giant, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, announced theirintention to cure death in 2013, when they created Calico. Bill Maris, the CEO of Googles venture capital arm, did the initial legwork. His father died of a brain tumor when Maris wastwenty-six, an event that forced him to confront the finality of death. Maris built a reputation asa shrewd investor in young technology companies that went on to be massive like Uber and thesmart thermostat startup Nest. When he made the decision to build a company that would tackledeath, he consulted Ray Kurzweil, one of the most revered figures in the immortalist community.

Kurzweil first popularized the concept of the technological singularity, a single moment whereprogress explodes and artificial intelligence surpasses that of humans, leading to us merging with computers to become superpowered immortals. He is a renowned inventor and technologist whohas produced many best-selling books. In 2012, Page personally hired Kurzweil to work atGoogle. Kurzweil is also a registered member of Alcor and will be cryopreserved if he diesbefore the singularity. He predicted in the year 2000 that cryonics would figure out how toreanimate patients within forty to fifty years.

Kurzweil approved of the idea, but Andy Conrad, a geneticist who led Verily, the lifesciences division of Alphabet, Googles parent company, told Maris how difficult his task wouldbe to execute. Unperturbed, Maris pitched his idea to one of Googles top investors, John Doerr,in 2011, asking the billionaire why hed ever want to die if he was so wealthy. Of course, Doerrlapped it up and took the pitch to Googles founders, Brin and Page. The duo soon declared the plan would be executed in-house at Google.

Calico, which is short for the California Life Company, launched shortly after with $1 billion in funding. Anti-aging advocates, gerontologists, immortalists, and other groups grew excited at the thought of such a gigantic company entering into this field of work. Calico addeda tremendous amount of validation to aging research, George Vlasuk, the head of a biotechstartup called Navitor, told The New Yorker.

But their hopes were soon dashed when it became clear Calico intended to keep almost all of its progress completely secret. The company vacuumed up a lot of talent from labs all over the world but has released barely any details about its work.

And even for those with the inside track on what was going on, the company has turnedout to be a bitter disappointment. They have totally fucked it up. I mean, they have royallyfucked it up, de Grey told me. Basically, just by not listening to me and deciding that I wasactually a bit too crazy for their taste. And theyve ended up completely blowing it.

De Grey insisted it would be an extremely unlikely accident if Calico ever contributedanything significant to the quest to end aging, simply because of the way its organized. He said the company is set up to conduct discovery-based research, where researchers find things out for the sake of finding things out, the way people do in academia, and then develop the meansto turn proof of concept into a product at the end. But the middle section, where concept isconverted to proof of concept, is completely missing. De Grey is clearly furious at how the company turned out. Its fucked up. Its absolutely unforgivable, and its all Larry and Sergeysfault, he fumed.

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The Price of Immortality: Silicon Valley's obsession with living forever - Big Think

When a character quests for eternal life. Sometimes it's given to them, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's given to them and they regret the consequences, but their desire and actions towards immortality are what count towards this trope.Originally, this trope could be used for heroes and villains alike, as evidenced by quests for the Holy Grail and The Epic of Gilgamesh. Later it became one of the typical goals of an Evil Plan and thus the methods of achieving it were nasty, vile, and despicable. When heroes seek it they usually ultimately learn An Aesop and refocus their goals.See Immortality (and in particular Immortality Inducer) for ways to achieve it and Living Forever Is Awesome and Mortality Phobia for why they want to achieve it. Supertrope to Immortality Immorality, where seekers of immortality tend to resort to bad deeds to achieve it. Contrast Who Wants to Live Forever? for people that have immortality and hate it. Also Death Seeker for those seeking death instead. Not to be confused with Glory Seeker, someone who might want to go down in history, but doesn't seek literal immortality.Courtesy of The Epic of Gilgamesh, this trope is Older Than Dirt.

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Immortality Seeker - TV Tropes

Bee Gee Barry Gibb says his recent revelation about being a victim of attempted molestation as a child "just sort of came out," but believes it's important to speak out about it. (June 30)

There's more to the story of the Bee Gees than meets the eye.

Brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb formed the Bee Gees, known for hits like How Deep Is Your Love and Love So Right, and became masters of music andof reinvention.

The band's tumultuous early years,commercially successful disco era and everything in between (and after) are chronicled in a new HBO and HBO Max documentary, "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (Saturday, 8 p.m. EST/PST).

The film, directed by Frank Marshall,goes deep into the archives with never-before-seen footage from concerts, recording sessions and home videos. It also features interviews with Barry, 74, as well as archival interview footage with his twin brothers Maurice and Robin, who died in 2003 and 2012, respectively.

You never know really what's going to be a hit, you just know what you love, Barry Gibb tells USA TODAYby phone from his home in Miami. But you've got to want to do it more than anything else.

The story of the Bee Gees is chronicled in the 2020 HBO documentary "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart."(Photo: LENNOX MCLENDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Gibb says he isnt sure what the Bee Gees legacy will be, but he wants the songs to endure. His coming album, Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1 (out Jan. 8),features mainly country stars such as Dolly Parton and Keith Urban duetting with him on Bee Geeshits.

I just want the music to live, he says. I want people to maybe enjoy it years from now. Doesn't matter about whether people remember us or me or the Bee Gees. Its the music that counts.

For bothcasual listeners and fans who lived through it, the documentary is a trove of discoveries and memories.

Among the most poignant moments:

John Travolta and Barry Gibb on the CBS special "Stayin' Alive: A Grammy Salute to The Bee Gees."(Photo: MONTY BRINTON/CBS)

The Bee Gees navigated the trappings of fame and working with family, providing a blueprint for subsequent starson how to maneuver the industry.

Fame, the ego that comes with it, and sibling spats led to the trio disbanding briefly in early 1970.

We had this fascination with calling the newspapers up. You call NME or Disc or Music Echo and you say, Robin said this about me and I just want to be able to correct the record,'" Barry can be heard saying in the doc, as headlines like Robin Breaks the Silence and Barry says Robin extremely rude flash across the screen.

It wasnt until music executive Robert Stigwood formed a record label and took the Bee Gees with him that the brothers began to communicate again, reuniting and writing Lonely Days.

It was a whole strange episode of our lives, Robin said. We needed time apart to think about it. Wed always been boys growing up together, and I think we came back together as men.

Still, Barry has countless fond memories of making music with his brothers.

There's a lot of great moments between the three of us," he says. "Music always kept us happy and together."

Barry Gibb (from left) joins brothers Robin and Maurice in the studio in 1970.(Photo: MIRRORPIX VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Fellow sibling stars Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers and Noel Gallagher of Oasis appear in the film to talk about the perils and proud moments of working with your brothers.

Brothers in general, its a very complicated thing. Emotions are heightened and theres things that go back to childhood When you magnify that with the whole world, it changes the game a little bit, says Jonas, whose own band turmoil was chronicled in 2019s Chasing Happiness documentary. "Something about entering the world from the same place I think has an affect on your ability to sing together, your creative awareness and your artistic voice.

Making music with your family is equally the greatest strength and the greatest weakness you could ever have in a musical partnership, says Gallagher, who has had public disputes with brother Liam.

The brotherhood is the secret sauce, it seems:

You cant sing like the Bee Gees because when youve got family members singing together, its unique, Gallagher says.

The Bee Gees, photographed here in Britain in 1970, rank third among groups with the most No. 1 singles in Billboard Hot 100 history.(Photo: SOUTH COAST PRESS/SHUTTERSTOCK)

As the group fell into acreative rut in the years following their reconciliation, they decided to relocateto Miami in 1975, where theyfound a new, more Americanized sound and Barrys falsetto.

The result was Main Course, the album that spawned the hitsJive Talkin (the beat of which, Barry says in the documentary, was inspired by the sound of their car going over a bridge on the way to Miamis Criteria Recording Studio) and Nights on Broadway.

That was the turning point where we literally did find ourselves, because we never really knew what we were until that album, Barry says.

When recording Broadway, producer Arif Mardin asked the band to ad lib background vocals. Barrys signature falsetto was born, becoming part of the groups trademark sound.

My whole life, I didnt know I could do this, Barry says in archival footage.

Though Maurice noted we werent the first to sing falsetto, listing The Stylistics and The Delfonics as inspirations, the group made the new sound its own.

The Bee Gees as photographed on June 5, 1979, in Los Angeles.(Photo: ED CARAEFF/MORGAN MEDIA/GETTY IMAGES)

Tragedy and You Should Be Dancing were on rotation at clubs as the then-underground disco scene thrived,when Stigwood tapped the Bee Geesto write songs for 1977s Saturday Night Fever, starring a young John Travolta. Stayin Alive was among the five songs the group penned for the film's soundtrack.

All at once, disco rocketed the trioto the top. The soundtrack was certified 16 times platinum and won album of the year at the Grammys.

Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb formed the Bee Gees, known for hits including "How Deep Is Your Love" and "Stayin' Alive."(Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK)

But just as suddenly, the '80s revolt against disco, in part because of racism and homophobia, wrapped them in backlash.

Initially, the cultural and musical phenomenon of disco was based primarily in Black, brown and LGBTQ communities, but that didnt stop critics like Chicago DJ Steve Dahl from lumping the Bee Gees and their music in with the takedown of the genre.

A lot of straight people feeling threatened and the corporatization of disco was the straw that broke the camels back, former Studio 54 resident DJ Nicky Siano says in the documentary.

'Stayin' Alive': Bee Gees tune helps hand washing for coronavirus prevention

Even those who think theyve never heardthe Bee Gees have almost certainly heard one of their songs.

Barry reveals the group would write our lyrics in the studio itself instead of composing them ahead of time. The unconventional approach led them to create countless chart-topping hits, with the trio ranking third under groups with the most No. 1 singles in Billboard Hot 100history.

Its very hard to describe how we write, but the only way I can describe how we work at it is by becoming one mind, Maurice said.

Reinventing themselves once again, the band turned to songwriting for other musicians in the 80s and 90s. They wrote songs for Barbra Streisands 1980 albumGuilty, with Barry singing alongside her on the title track; Dionne WarwicksHeartbreaker single; Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers Islands in the Stream duet; Diana Ross Eaten Alive album; and the group'sImmortality duet with Celine Dion.

We just decided to write for other people and to ignore the slings and arrows, Barry says. "You know, let's just write songs (for other artists) and make sure the songs are great songs, and we prove ourselves to be songwriters more than anything else."

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'I just want the music to live': Barry Gibb reflects on the Bee Gees' new HBO documentary - USA TODAY

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. One of the summer's big movie hits, a summer with movie theaters closed, is the Netflix film "The Old Guard," directed by my guest, Gina Prince-Bythewood. It reached nearly 72 million households in its first four weeks and is already among the top 10 most popular Netflix films ever. She is the first Black woman to direct an adaptation of a comic book. "The Old Guard" is kind of a superhero film. When the film opens, we see several people lying dead, shot up with bullets. But soon, these bodies start moving. They eject bullets from their bodies, rapidly heal their wounds and get back up.

These people, the heroes of the film, are immortals. They've lived for centuries, some dating back to the Crusades. Immortality may sound great. Who wouldn't want to live forever? But these immortals are warriors. And they've been killed over and over again through the centuries. They experienced physical pain and the emotional pain of watching friends and family die. And they know that their immortality will eventually wear out. But they never know when. The first voice we hear in the film is the immortal played by Charlize Theron after she's been killed yet again on a mission.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE OLD GUARD")

CHARLIZE THERON: (As Andy) I've been here before - over and over again - and each time, the same question. Is this it? Will this time be the one? And each time, the same answer. And I'm just tired of it.

GROSS: The plot of "The Old Guard" revolves around a young woman, a Marine, who's killed in Afghanistan but miraculously heals and doesn't understand why. The immortals find her and initiate her into the immortal world that she initially wants no part of. Meanwhile, the head of a pharmaceutical company is trying to capture and study the immortals and figure out how to duplicate their DNA so that they can market immortality. Gina Prince-Bythewood also directed the films "Love And Basketball," about a young woman trying to be good enough to become a professional basketball player, and "Beyond The Lights," about a singer who's pressured into creating her image around her sexuality.

Gina Prince-Bythewood, welcome to FRESH AIR. And congratulations on the new movie. You know, I've been thinking about having a movie about immortality and the pain of outliving loved ones, having that released during the pandemic - I mean, you couldn't have understood the context that this would be released in. Does it change or deepen the meaning for you of the film?

GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: You know, it did. There were two things that, you know, became highlighted for me having this film come out now. It was, you know, both the pandemic and, you know, this certainty of how connected globally we are. You know, for me, one of the beautiful things about the script when I first read it and what I was excited to put into the world was that it was this group of warriors from different cultures and backgrounds and sexual orientations and genders that have come together to protect humanity. And, you know, it just feels, you know, even more relevant. And then the other is this national reckoning that we're having in this moment, which I certainly believe is tied to the pandemic as well.

But the - how important it is to have characters like Nile in the world given how, you know, complicit, really, Hollywood has been in the images of Black people that have been put out that damage our humanity, as well as the invisibility, which does the same damage, certainly of Black women - and so again, you know, to have these images suddenly, not only here but globally, has been, you know, I think, a really beautiful thing and I hope, you know, has given people some inspiration or aspiration.

GROSS: Nile is the young Marine who becomes one of the immortals. And she wears a cross. She believes in God. And Charlize Theron's character watches the young woman pray and basically says, yeah, you know, give up. God doesn't exist. And then when Nile the young woman doesn't believe in the supernatural story about immortality, Charlize Theron says, you already believe in the supernatural. Meaning, you already believe in a supernatural God. So you should be able to believe in this story of immortality. How does that part strike you? How does that part speak to you?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: It's interesting because that was something that I brought to Nile's character is her faith. And it really started with what I felt was truthful to this young, Black woman and knowing how important the church is in the Black community. So it just felt real that she would believe in God. And that goes to, you know, when you take on a project and you take on characters, to really do the work and really dig deep on who they are and the truth of who they are. So in adding that, then suddenly it sparked so many really good conversations with Greg and I about spirituality and about religion. And...

GROSS: Greg Rucka is the screenwriter who also wrote the book that the movie is adapted from.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah. He - the conversations were so great because he believes - and it makes perfect sense - a character like Andy, who has lived for so long, would not be religious. She would not really have any faith in religion because she's seen the way, you know, religion has been used for thousands of years for - honestly, for negativity and for evil, and the way that, you know, certain religious societies have really denigrated different people. And then on a (laughter) whole nother level, the fact that when people saw that she couldn't die, you know, early on, that she herself was worshipped as a god. But she knows she's not a god.

You know, to her, despite her immortality, she is just a person. And so she saw the hypocrisy in religion for so long that there's no way that she believes in that. And she wouldn't even call yourself spiritual. I think that reconnection to spirituality comes in meeting Nile and her relationship with Nile. But I just felt that that was a really interesting contrast between the two women. And, again, everything that's happening to Nile, the first thing she would do is try to connect with her spirituality and her belief in God to try and understand the why. But that's also why she doesn't stop asking why, because of her faith.

GROSS: Are you thinking any differently about life and death now after having (laughter) made the film and having to think so much about life and death and immortality?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: (Laughter) I've always been afraid of death. Like, ever since I was a little kid, it was just a thing that's always in the back of my mind. And so - so many times in my life, I have said I wish I could live forever because you just think about the courage that that would give you, all the things that you would do if you didn't have that fear. I mean, I have an incredible fear of flying. I have claustrophobia.

So in doing this film, it was so interesting because, you know, early on, there was some pushback in that some wanted to focus more on the aspirational aspects of immortality. And I just think that that is what makes it interesting to talk about the opposite side of what we all envision immortality to be. And the thought of outliving everyone and the loneliness, I think, alone would be so hard to live with. But also, at what point does the - you're just seeing the world just hurt itself on a loop. And, you know, what would that feel like, especially if you, you know, have this ability you think you can protect and save, yet you just feel helpless in that? That just felt so interesting and real to me and did make me kind of question. Maybe I don't want to live forever. Now, I'd love to have immortality for, you know, a couple of years (laughter) so that I could, you know, jump out of a plane, which is something I've always wanted to do. But it really did make me think about - that having a finite end is actually a good thing.

GROSS: I just think it's kind of strange you have a fear of flying, but you want to jump out of a plane. I'll process that later.

(LAUGHTER)

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: I think so that I could get over the fear, but I think that's the wrong way to get over it.

GROSS: Yeah, it might be the wrong way (laughter). OK. Was it ever your ambition to make an action film?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yes (laughter). I love the genre, and I've always loved it. It's just the nature of Hollywood. You - there was a long time where it was just a thing of - I like action films, but I'd never thought I'd get the opportunity to make one just because those doors were not open at all to women. It wasn't even in the conversation. And it really wasn't until Patty Jenkins did what she did with "Wonder Woman" and had such success not only making such a good film under such incredible pressure but the success of the film. And that absolutely cracked the door open.

And then suddenly, this thing of, oh, I love those movies - you know, I turned it into, I want to make that movie. And just putting that into the ether and now suddenly having, you know, a specific path - OK, how do I get there? What decisions do I need to make to get to that place? - and really started doing that for myself.

GROSS: So how did the door open to making "The Old Guard?"

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: It started with doing the pilot for Marvel's "Cloak And Dagger." And once you do that first one, then suddenly, people think, oh, that's what she does or that - or she can do that also. And that suddenly put me into the conversation of some of those percolating superhero films that were starting to be made and people starting to think, oh, maybe we should have a female director. And that got me to "Silver And Black," which was the Marvel-Sony film that was going to be the first, you know, Marvel film with female characters at the heart of it.

Unfortunately, that didn't go, but that year and a half of my life absolutely prepared me for the moment when Skydance sent me the script "The Old Guard." And they were very intentional on wanting a female director. And it was my previous work that got me in the room, and that is such a different thing because as I've said, it's so hard for women to get into the room because we don't have action on our resume. But how do you get action on your resume if you're not hired to do films with action? And it's such a catch-22, and it's so frustrating.

But the fact that - they loved my previous work with "Beyond The Lights" and "Love And Basketball" and wanted to bring that kind of character and story to "The Old Guard" so that it didn't feel just like an action film but felt like an action-drama, which was what I was so excited about. And so that really connected us, and, you know, we went from there.

GROSS: Do you think that having directed basketball scenes in "Love And Basketball" helped convince people who needed to be convinced that you could create - that you could direct fight scenes?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: You know what? It was interesting. In the meeting with Skydance, I remember Don Granger - it was Don Granger, Dana Goldberg and Matt Grimm and David Ellison. They had talked about - they were so impressed with how I got Sanaa Lathan, who had never touched a basketball in her life, to look so good as a ballplayer in "Love And Basketball." And they knew that this big action film with two women at the heart of it needed to have that same, you know, for lack of better words, dopeness. Like, you had to believe these women as warriors and fighters. And so they felt because I could get that out of Sanaa, I knew how to do that and felt like I could bring that to the two female actors that we cast for these two roles.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Gina Prince-Bythewood. She directed the new hit film "The Old Guard." We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIG LAZY'S "CURB URCHIN")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Gina Prince-Bythewood. She wrote and directed the films "Love And Basketball" and "Beyond The Lights" and directed the new film "The Old Guard," which is now streaming on Netflix. It's about a small group of immortals, warriors who have lived for centuries but have had to experience their deaths over and over again before coming back to life.

So I take it you've seen a lot of action films. What do you like and not like about how - and this is a generalization here - but about how women have typically been depicted in action films? - because I'm thinking, like, sometimes there aren't any (laughter) or there's very few of them. And sometimes the ones that are there are, like, just very sexualized.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah. So when I say this - and you said as well - I'm going to give a generalization. There have been anomalies throughout the years - very few, but there have been. But it is - the female characters are not the center of the story. They're not integral to the plot or the climax. They are usually, if they do have superpowers, are sidekicks or comic relief or do not have full arcs or stories. And the fight scenes, the costume - it is about sexualizing the characters. And that - whenever there's a - you know, a cool fight between two women, it always has to turn into this sexy catfight as opposed to just - these two women are warriors. Let them fight. Let's marvel at their athleticism. That's what excites me, and, you know, I know it's because I am an athlete and grew up an athlete. And those were the women that I grew up with around me. And, also, there tends to be a thought that - OK, we cast this woman in this action role. Let's just design the fights - it doesn't matter that she's a woman; let's just design the coolest fight, as opposed to being true to what a fight with a woman would look like. A woman does not have the strength to pick somebody up and throw them up against a wall, like a man could. But there are different ways that a woman would fight and look cool.

GROSS: What are some of the different ways you had women fight?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: You know, first, I started with the true ways that they were taught to fight. So Nile is a Marine, and there is a specific martial arts that Marines are taught and that female Marines are taught. And so that's what we taught Nile, and that's what we designed her fights around.

GROSS: And she's the young woman. Yeah.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah, she's the young woman played by KiKi Layne. And, you know, with Andy, Charlize Theron's character, we - she's a little different. She knows every fighting style known to man because she's been around for so long. But, you know, we were very intentional on just the conflict between them and making sure, again, that it stayed true to their strengths, what they could truthfully do. Even if they're stronger than most women, again, they're not superheroes; they just have a supernatural ability to not die.

GROSS: The actors had to learn a lot about fighting for the film. There was a fight choreographer for the film. What did you have to learn about various forms of fighting to direct the film?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: I mean, I certainly had an advantage because I did kickbox for two years, and so I know what it feels like to hit and be hit, which is not fun. But, also, I just know what it looks like, and I know what good fighting looks like. So I wanted it to feel grounded and real. And so that certainly, you know, starts with the action, that things were going to be hand-held. They were going to be at eye-level. I wanted the audience to feel like they were in the fight. I never wanted to have the camera be a character. So for the most part, the camera, you know, was never up high or really down low or swinging around. I wanted you to feel like these are real fights and not - honestly, not movie fights.

So we would talk about, also, the story of each fight, and that was incredibly important because, for me, that's what makes a great action scene, that it has a beginning, middle and end, that it's character-driven, that it's emotional. And so when talking about the story of each one, that helped design the fight and what should happen within the fight. It also helped the actors know what they were doing in the fight so that, you know, it's not just two people punching each other or people just shooting each other. There's got to be stakes to it.

And so it's - you know, it's a fascinating thing to sit and talk about the story, and then they start to build a fight, and then I look at it. And, you know, you know what? I think I want more of this. Like in the plane fight, I wanted a shift in the fight. I wanted Nile to get a couple of shots in, to surprise Andy, to impress Andy, but also to give herself swagger, you know? But then I wanted, you know, Andy to take that back. And that was that face-grab - that was something that I really wanted to push the humiliation in that moment.

GROSS: Sometimes the editing in fight scenes is so - sometimes it's so highly edited that, speaking for myself, I have no idea who's doing what to who. All I see is, like, you know, guns and bullets and arms swinging and chaos, but I don't know, like, who's killing, who is getting wounded.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Is that something you tried to avoid?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Oh, absolutely. It's fascinating. You know, you see how action, it evolves, and it goes in cycles, and people get excited about one thing that an auteur creates, and then everyone tries to copy it for a while. You know, you look at Bourne - the Bourne movies. You know, that first one created a new style of action in - not only just the action itself, but how to shoot it. And it was that super quick-cutting, when you don't quite get what's going on, but it was so well done that you still understood it. But so many people tried to copy it without that same - having that same aesthetic. And it - I think a lot of action following that became this kind of mess, you know, or you're using it to try and hide the fact that you're using a lot of stunt doubles.

And then "John Wick" came, and they suddenly pulled the camera back. And you saw that it is really Keanu, and you could start to understand the choreography, which I think is a really beautiful thing because it just keeps you in it. You're not confused, and you're not having to think. The images are doing that for you. So - but what that takes is an actor willing to put in the incredible work it takes to be able to do, you know, most of your choreography and most of your fights and most of your stunts. And not every actor is - can do that or is willing to put in that work. So, you know, that's a big part of it as well.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Gina Prince-Bythewood. She directed the new film "The Old Guard," which is streaming on Netflix. We'll be right back. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Gina Prince-Bythewood. She directed the new hit film "The Old Guard," which stars Charlize Theron as the oldest member of a small group of immortals, people who have lived for centuries, fought many battles and died many times before coming back to life. These are warriors. KiKi Layne plays Nile, a Marine who's killed in Afghanistan but comes back to life. The immortals claim her as their own and initiate her into a life she doesn't really want. Meanwhile, the head of a pharmaceutical company is trying to kidnap the immortals so that he can replicate their DNA and market immortality.

Gina Prince-Bythewood also directed the films "Love & Basketball," about a young woman trying to be good enough to become a professional basketball player, and "Beyond The Lights," about a singer who's pressured into creating her image around her sexuality.

In some action films there's, you know, like, two characters who might start as adversaries but fall in love or there's a will-they or won't-they kind of friction going on. But in "The Old Guard," the love story part is that two of the male immortals have been a couple for centuries, and they deeply love each other. And in one scene where they're kidnapped, one of the kidnappers basically says in a mocking way, what are you guys, gay? And so one of the gay guys basically gives a long talk about how, yeah, we are. We've loved each other for centuries. His kiss still means everything to me, even after all these years. And it's a pretty interesting scene for an action film. So talk about that scene a little bit. Was that in the original book?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah, that was in the graphic novel and in the script. And it was just something I hadn't seen before. And I hadn't seen characters like that before. And you know, I think, you know, there's a recognition I think in what I bring as a Black female to my craft in being a director and in recognizing how important it is that everybody deserves to be seen as a hero given that I know how rare it is for myself to look up on screen in these films and see myself reflected that way. It was the same for these characters. And I just felt that they were so different and so distinct and so badass. And their love just felt real and special.

GROSS: What kind of reaction have you gotten to that scene? Well, it's not like you're in movie theaters with people 'cause movie theaters aren't open now. But without generalizing too much, I don't know that the action film audience is the most, like, gay-friendly audience in movie theaters. Is that too stereotyping there?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: No, that's - so it's interesting you say that because we had two - before COVID shut everything down, we had two audience previews of the film. So I actually got to see it in a theater with, you know, 250 people per screening. And you know, they target an audience of people they think will see the film for the previews. And I knew there would be nothing to get me to cut that scene, but we did not know what the audience reaction was going to be - at all.

And I remember sitting in the theater and as we're getting closer to the scene, just having - what is the reaction? And he gives that speech, and they kiss. And the audience erupted in applause both screenings. It was such an amazing moment and surprising, I think, given our generalization of the audience. But it honestly was tied to, I feel, this moment when we were shooting. After we'd finished shooting the scene, two different guys from the crew came up to me and said that they - how much they loved the scene and that when they were watching, like, they didn't see two men; they just saw two people in love. And that, you know - I was like, wow. I think, you know, maybe we did do our jobs here because that's what they felt, and that's what we wanted to feel - love is love.

I didn't actually know, but I guess there is a trope out there where when you have a - often when there's a gay character in the film or a film like this - and foremost, it's never been this overt; it's always been hinted at - but that they die or their partner dies. And I just - again, I had no idea that that was a thing. And so many have spoke out about how happy they were - and surprised - that these two characters got to have a happy existence and a happy relationship and live to tell another day.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Gina Prince-Bythewood. She directed the new hit film "The Old Guard." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Gina Prince-Bythewood. She wrote and directed the films "Love & Basketball" and "Beyond The Lights" and directed the new film "The Old Guard," which is streaming on Netflix. It's about a small group of immortals, warriors who have lived for centuries but have had to experience their deaths over and over again before coming back to life.

I want to ask you about your film "Beyond The Lights" from 2014.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Mmm hmm.

GROSS: And this is about a singer in the hip-hop world who has to do, like, music videos and make stage appearances in very sexualized clothes and do very sexualized choreography. And she doesn't really want to do it. But you know, her mother is kind of like a stage mother and is basically functioning as her manager, too - you know, doesn't flinch about the whole thing and keeps pushing her. No, you got to do this if you want to be a star. And you have, like, a music video in it that is so perfect...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: ...In terms of that kind of sexualized music video. So I want you to explain what you put into that video and why you put it in and how you feel about that kind of video.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah, I mean so many things sparked that film, some personal things, but also, you know, the love that I had for hip-hop, but seeing what was happening with female artists and the way that it felt like there was a blueprint, that you come out hypersexualized. And even young singers - 17, 18, 19 - come out hypersexualized make a name for yourself there. But then they seemed to get locked into that. And they were unable to break free because they break free from that and then, suddenly, people are thinking they're not being authentic, where, actually, the way that they came out was not authentic to them. I wanted to put all of that into the video. And it was a fascinating day on set. It was tough for me as a female to be directing that scene. And, you know, Gugu - and all props to her - you know, she went there.

GROSS: She's the star. She's the leading actress.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah. And it was uncomfortable for her. And she had - but that was the thing of what I love about actors like her - the work ethic, but also the boldness. And as I said, it was my job to make her feel safe in that environment. And she felt safe because she knew the vision. She knew the story. She knew that we had to go there with this scene because what we are trying to say with this film is I can strip all that away and allow artists to be authentic and stop hypersexualizing, you know, our female artists and, certainly, our Black female artists. But it's - that was a hard day to shoot because there was a couple of times where I just - I'm looking at the monitor and saying, am I really doing this with a couple of the moves that she had? But that's really what we had to do with that video. And it was interesting. In the rehearsals for her, it was something that she had to tap into. You have to tap into a narcissism and a just - I mean, her teacher was Laurieann Gibson, who was so great, who, you know, worked with Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga. You know, I wanted people at that level to work with her and bring that reality to it.

And, you know, early on, we realized that Gugu had to train in front of a mirror. And it was something she balked at initially because it is hard to look at yourself doing that. But we knew she needed to do that. You look at yourself, tap into that, you know, and feed it, you know, feed it from the mirror back to you. And in doing that, that was - that kind of rehearsal was about building the character. And so by the time, you know, we did get to that set, again, she could access that. But, again, it doesn't take away from the fact that, you know, it was hard. And as soon as I would say cut, I'd be the first one there with her robe (laughter), you know, to put it around her.

GROSS: (Laughter) You mentioned the word narcissism. You have to have a certain amount of narcissism to do that kind of choreography for real, to do that kind of performance for real. And I think some women see it as, like, empowerment. And so did you get into conversations with people about, like, is that female empowerment? Or is that just hypersexualization (ph)?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Oh, yeah (laughter). Those were ongoing conversations about - you know, because that is the argument that a lot of people give, that I'm empowering myself. But how is that, you know - the issue is there are some who it is authentic, you know? I don't look at Beyonce and think that she is being exploited. Like, Beyonce has full agency in what she's doing. It is the younger artists who do not have that, who are being told to - oh, you have a magazine cover? Take off your shirt. You don't take off your shirt, you don't get the cover, you know?

And that's happened. In the research in talking to these artists, it was heartbreaking to hear. And a couple of them had that - they had that story of the first time they were told to take off their shirt for a magazine shoot. They all had that same story. And no one around them is stepping up and saying, you know what? Let's not do that. Every single one was, you know, turned a blind eye, was silent in the moment. And then you just - as young artists, you go with it. So that's not empowering. That is exploitation.

GROSS: Your film from 2000, "Love And Basketball," is about a girl who becomes a young woman soon in the film. And she's obsessed with basketball. She's really good. But her temper, her arguments with the refs, kind of hold her back. You are an athlete. You played basketball. What did basketball mean in your life when you were in your teens and 20s?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: It was - sports was everything and especially basketball and track because that's where I had the most success and excelled at, I mean, for so many reasons. But I was very, very shy, foremost, and an introvert and also struggling with self-esteem given the way that I grew up in terms of, you know, being Black and then adopted by white parents and being raised in, you know, mostly all white towns. You just - you never see yourself reflected anywhere. And even more than that, dealing with the racism. And, you know, so much of your existence is that you are other or, you know, it's just a very tough thing.

And so off the court, off the track, I was just this quiet person. But on the track, on the court, I could - it felt like I could be myself - and I am on volume 10 on both of those - where all the beautiful things about being an athlete, everything it teaches you and allows you to be, you know, to tap into, you know, your aggression and your ambition and, you know, this belief that you are the best. I mean, you have to have that as an athlete. That's what pushes you to work hard.

And just outworking everybody and having this incredible passion and just bigness and loudness, like, I loved that. And I wish that I could be that person in every aspect of my life. But I do bring so many of the things that I did learn on the court and on the track to being a director because you do need - especially as a female director, you need those attributes to compete and to succeed in this environment which is, you know, so male driven.

GROSS: Yeah. So competing in basketball, which is so male driven, helped you compete in filmmaking for jobs when most directors were male?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah. I mean, you have to - it's so much about perception in Hollywood. And not only perception, but it's also such inbred biases, where there's an assumption that men can do this and women are not equipped to do it. It makes no sense, but it's just there. So when you walk in a room and you're up for a job, they are looking at you to see, does this person - can I trust this person with millions of dollars? Can this person control a crew of, you know, 200, 300 - in the case of "Old Guard," you know, there's a thousand people that worked on that movie. You know, can this person do it? Can we trust them?

And so you have to come in with a confidence and a swagger that they can feel and believe. And that's me walking on the court or walking on the track because there I knew I was the best person out there. And so I literally bring that mentality into the meetings because, I mean, those things are scary. It's scary to sit across from, you know, this group of folks, most often men and already having a preconceived idea of who you are or what you're capable of, and I got to come in there and twist that immediately.

And so outside that room, I am putting myself back on the court so that when I walk in, I've got that little bop, and I've got that swagger, and I sit down, and it's the way I sit and where I sit and how I present myself that then makes them feel like, oh, damn, you know, I trust her; I think she can do this.

GROSS: How far did you get in basketball?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: With basketball, I got recruited by a couple schools but not UCLA, where I knew I wanted to go to film school. So I ended up running track at UCLA - I did triple jump - for my sophomore year and made it to the Pac-12 Championships. But after that, then I got into film school and finally had to make that definitive choice, that I think I can have a career in film. And I didn't think I had enough talent to get through to the Olympics.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Gina Prince-Bythewood. She directed the new hit film "The Old Guard," as well as the films "Beyond The Lights" and "Love & Basketball." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JAY-Z SONG, "'03 BONNIE AND CLYDE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Gina Prince-Bythewood. She wrote and directed the films "Love & Basketball" and "Beyond The Lights" and directed the new film "The Old Guard," which is now streaming on Netflix.

So I want to talk with you a little about growing up. As you mentioned, you were adopted by white parents. Tell us the story, to the extent that you know the story, of why your birth mother gave you up.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: It's - you know, it's a fascinating thing because you grow up with being told one story. And it was just - I was told the story that, you know, her and my birth father loved each other, but they were young, and they knew they couldn't handle it, and so they, you know, gave me up to, you know, for the good - the betterment of me. But the truth of it was, in meeting with my birth mother, that their - her parents did not want her to have a Black child.

And I was very close to being aborted, which is just mind-boggling to me. And it was the fact that she had a best friend who was really religious who convinced her not to. And I've always found that fascinating because I'm pro-choice, I mean, incredibly pro-choice. Yet here is an instance where I would not be in the world if it wasn't for, you know, this best friend convincing her of that. Though I have to believe there is a part of her, then, that, you know, wanted me to be in the world as well because she did, ultimately, make that decision. But yeah, her parents were not going to let her have or raise this Black child, and so I was given up.

GROSS: So your biological mother is white, and your biological father is or was Black. I don't know if he's still alive anymore.

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah, I don't know.

GROSS: Have you ever met him? Do you know who he is?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: No, I tried to track him down, and I have not been successful. She was easy, but he - I have not been able to.

GROSS: So you didn't know the real story about why your biological mother gave you up until...

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yes.

GROSS: ...You found her...

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Yeah.

GROSS: ...And talked with her? Did your parents know the real story? Did they just keep it from you, or did they not know, either?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: They didn't know, either.

GROSS: Do you think it's just as well that you didn't know, that you didn't grow up knowing that?

PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: Oh, absolutely. It's - I think it was - because there's so much - when you're adopted, there's so many questions when you're little, and it really keeps centering around why were you given up? Why were you tossed away? You know, my parents were very good at making me believe I was chosen, but I still had those questions and that wonder of what was wrong because how do you give up a child? How do you give up your child? So in this - in creating this very positive narrative absolutely helped, it didn't temper the fact that I had this urge and need to find my biological parents, to know where I came from. And I didn't find find her till I was in my 20s. So I think I was better equipped to handle that as well at that age, as opposed to when I was little.

Read the original:
'Everybody Deserves To Be Seen As A Hero,' Says 'Old Guard' Director - NPR

Want a great antidote to distress over current events? Julian Barnes found it in his immersive plunge into the incredible flowering of sexual and artistic expression in Belle Epoque France, and into one man's mostly admirable life in particular. His 24th book (and eighth volume of nonfiction) The Man in the Red Coat, is a wonderful demonstration of the sort of free-range intellectual curiosity Barnes feels has been stymied by the xenophobia and national chauvinism behind Brexit.

In part a biography of Samuel Jean Pozzi, a celebrated French gynecologist and Don Juan who is the red-robed subject of John Singer Sargent's sumptuous full-length portrait, "Dr. Pozzi at Home," Barnes' book expands into an erudite, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated disquisition on the period between 1870 and 1914, which actually bears some interesting parallels with our own times.

The son of two French language teachers and a longtime Francophile who sealed his literary stature with his third novel, Flaubert's Parrot (1984), Barnes is in his element writing about Dr. Pozzi's dazzling circle of contemporaries, which included Guy de Maupassant, Colette, Stphane Mallarm, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Marcel Proust. Sarah Bernhardt was a patient and lover, who called him "Dr. Dieu." Close medical colleagues included Proust's father and brother. Most of these notables made it onto collectible photographic cards that were included with Flix Potin chocolate bars between 1898 and 1922, rather like baseball trading cards, and are reproduced throughout Red Coat.

The book begins with what at first seems to be the start of a joke: Three Frenchmen a prince, a count, and a celebrity gynecologist head to London in 1885 for some "intellectual and decorative shopping." But this is no joke. They're all aesthetes, and they've crossed the Channel to bask in Handel at the Crystal Palace and stock up on Liberty curtain fabric. They come bearing an introductory letter from Sargent to Henry James.

With the doctor, Barnes has found an unusual, largely forgotten hero. Pozzi, Barnes writes, was a pathbreaking surgeon, the person to call to extract a bullet or suture intestinal lesions after a duel (an all-too-common occurrence at the time, and, Barnes notes, cheaper than today's libel suits) or to remove a massive ovarian cyst, as he did from Bernhardt. In his seminal textbook, Treatise of Gynaecology, Pozzi established guidelines for gynecological exams with the patient's comfort in mind. He also saved countless lives by introducing British surgeon Joseph Lister's antiseptic methods to colleagues who didn't see the need to wash their hands before operating.

But Dr. Pozzi wasn't all work and no play, as Barnes makes clear. Rational, energetic, and personable, he was also an unhappily married Lothario who seduced many of his female patients, earning him the sobriquet Dr. Love ("L'Amour mdicin"). In one of many delicious tidbits, Barnes reports that the Princess of Monaco dubbed Pozzi "disgustingly handsome." Barnes doesn't shy from discussing the doctor's sexual transgressions including a decades-long affair with a married Austrian Jew or his daughter's distress over her strained relationship with her father, which she wrote about in her intimate and often histrionic diaries, from which Barnes quotes at length. But he cautions that it is inappropriate to judge Pozzi by today's standards.

The two aristocratic chums who accompanied Pozzi on that cultural jaunt to London are less admirable but no less interesting. Prince Edmond de Polignac was one of many Belle Epoque gold diggers who married American heiresses to refill their financial coffers. He was also a closeted gay man whose "aristocratic horse trade" with sewing heiress Winnaretta Singer, a lesbian 31 years his junior, turned out to be a win-win (or Winn-Winn) situation she got a title, he got funding for his lavish lifestyle, and they got along.

Barnes flits through the sexual gossip, petulant duels, violent outbursts, medical advances, anti-English jibes, and lurid excesses of the Belle Epoque, seasoning it all with wry interjections on art and literature.

The flamboyant Count Robert de Montesquiou personified dandyism. A mediocre poet and avid collector of curiosities, he found a measure of immortality in other artists' work including James Whistler, Giovanni Boldini, and Proust. He was also the model for the central character in Huysmans' dark, fantastical "bible of French Decadence,"Against Nature (A Rebours) (1884).

Like his meditations on death and grieving, Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2008) and Levels of Life (2013), there's both an elegance and informality to Red Coat rather like Pozzi's dashing dressing gown in Sargent's famous portrait. But this is a more cheerful book which, although deeply researched, announces itself as a freewheeling study by eschewing the usual trappings of scholarship, including bibliography, footnotes, and even chapters.

Barnes flits through the sexual gossip, petulant duels, violent outbursts, medical advances, anti-English jibes, and lurid excesses of the Belle Epoque, seasoning it all with wry interjections on art and literature. He reminds us that "there are more uncertainties in nonfiction than in fiction" and so much we cannot know. He declares memorably, "Biography is a collection of holes tied together with string, and nowhere more so than with the sexual and amatory life."

Among the unanswerable questions Red Coat raises: "Do gynecologists make better lovers?" (Barnes admits this sounds like a bumper sticker.) Was Sarah Bernhardt, purportedly a nymphomaniac, anorgasmic? What actually happened to cause the chill between Pozzi and his wife? He writes, "All of these matters could, of course, be solved in a novel."

Barnes also considers Pozzi's violent end from a novelist's point of view:

A Don Juan shot dead by a man who blamed him for not curing his impotence. What sort of morality tale is that? In fiction, it would seem cutely snug. Nonfiction is where we allow things to happen because they did which are glib and implausible and moralistic.

Nothing glib about this delightful, consummately open-minded book.

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Review: 'The Man In The Red Coat,' By Julian Barnes - NPR