While it was first published in the mid-1850s, the themes that emerge from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” remain vital.
Travel can expose people to different attitudes, ideas and experiences, helping to create a culture more accepting of that which is different, profoundly impacting one’s worldview.
From “Song of the Open Road,” the words “come travel with me,” are amongst the first uttered by Bill Murray in New Worlds: The Cradle of Civilization, a film which captures the actor and comedian’s 2017 and 2018 concert performances alongside cellist Jan Vogler, violinist Mira Wang and pianist Vanessa Perez.
Directed by Andrew Muscato, the film premiered last summer at the Cannes Film Festival and makes its U.S. debut starting Wednesday, February 2, 2022, in theaters across the country throughout the month courtesy of CineLife Entertainment.
“To be shaken out of your ordinary circumstances and to see a different reality - which challenges your perception of reality - is very good for all of us,” said Murray of the value of travel during a Zoom call earlier this month. “For us, to travel with this music and to bring this music to different cities - and even different countries and continents - was an experience where it felt like we’re showing up with something. We’re not just receiving impressions, we’re giving some too. It was even more an exchange as a traveler than usual,” he recalled of touring the live performances. “I remember someone saying to me once, ‘Don’t forget, you bring something to the mountain.’ And I’ve never forgotten that. Even the littlest person walking up the mountain brings something to it. So when we come with this show, we’re bringing the great American writers and great composers from all over the world and we’re bringing some great musicians that perform it.”
The 90 minute performance sees the actor and comedian sing and speak his way through the American literary experience, a performance driven by the classical stylings of Vogler, Wang and Perez who feature musical compositions ranging anywhere from traditional Scottish song to that of Jimmy Durante, while hitting upon pianists like Shastakovich and Bruce Hornsby.
The “New Worlds” tour featured performances at famed venues around the globe like New York’s Carnegie Hall and The Sydney Opera House in Australia.
The final show of the European run, captured by Muscato in the film, takes place on stage at Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a theater made of stone built in 161 AD and set within the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, just a short walk from the Parthenon.
It makes for an unparalleled backdrop in the film, Murray channeling his inner-Mick Jagger as he jokingly attempts to climb the venue’s picturesque rock walls at one point during the concert.
“I thought about it this morning. I was trying to get a picture in my head of what it looks like,” said Murray of the Acropolis. “And if I was moving on the stage, I’d walk next to or behind Mira and Vanessa and over by Jan. All of the time, the walls of this amazing place were part of the picture. And wherever we were on the stage was just a sort of a dazzling, shimmering moment in time thrown against the backdrop of this ancient building that’s lived a couple of thousand years. And you saw it - how ephemeral it was and how momentarily special it was and how necessary it was to do it and see it and play it. And to be a part of it.”
“I had seen the show in Carnegie Hall and then by coincidence, travel had brought me to Athens, Greece the following week. And I hadn’t put two and two together but of course I saw where ultimately they were going to play,” said Muscato. “After I returned from Greece, I was looking at their tour schedule with a mutual friend of Bill’s and happened to notice that the last date on their European tour happened to be at this theater. And I said to her, ‘They’re playing the Acropolis!’ It just seemed like the appropriate place for them to conclude this incredible tour with this incredible material. And I’m very fortunate that we were able to capture it on film.”
Powerful storytelling lies at the heart of New Worlds. Sometimes it’s via Murray’s singing and speaking, while in other moments it’s purely musical. Words and sounds combine to drive the narrative throughout the unique experience.
“I started out as just a friend and a fan of the show. And what struck me about going to the shows was this energy that they brought to it every night. And the goal really was to capture that energy. So, from a filmmaking standpoint, the plan was to get out of the way,” said Muscato of directing New Worlds. “They didn’t need any help. They didn’t need any camera tricks or anything to keep the audience interested. It was already all there on the stage. And my job was really just to get enough coverage and shoot it in a way where we captured the energy but did homage to the performers and the material.”
Vogler arranged what ultimately became the New Worlds set. From a musical family, the cellist developed an early appreciation for the arts thanks to exposure to music, film and more by his parents at a young age. Despite growing up in East Berlin, Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Vogler came to appreciate a variety of different forms of storytelling.
“At that time, behind the Iron Curtain was not maybe such a great place. But I had a great childhood,” said Vogler. “I feel very fortunate in a way. My family would discuss music every day. We would go to the theater and we would go to the opera. We would read great literature and we would see great avant-garde films by [Russian director Andrei] Tarkovsky, great movie classics and French avant-garde movies. My father was interested mostly in Italian avant-garde movies - [Italian director Federico] Fellini. So we grew up in a very rich, cultural surrounding. And I think that informed me,” said the cellist. “But only when I met Bill did it all come to fruition. Because I was a classical cellist who had to be very focused on this particular task to get to where I wanted to go. And, at that time, I was really craving a friendship like this where somebody comes in with a bigger picture and helps me to put it into a bigger puzzle. And I think that’s the freeing experience of this show - that I got to put in some pieces of the puzzle that I had never used.”
Murray’s deep appreciation for American literature lies at the heart of New Worlds. Born just outside Chicago, his love of poetry in particular was stoked as his career began to flourish in New York.
“I had a great friend in New York named Frank Platt. I was already something like a movie actor, kind of like a semi-known movie actor. And he was my neighbor. And he was probably the most well read person I’ve ever met in my life. And yet, he didn’t trip on you at all, he just was that,” said the actor and comedian looking back. “He began to ask me to read things aloud out in the countryside and to read pieces that were kind of challenging in front of small groups of like brainiac kind of people - cultured types. And the sort of oddness of performing not for a bunch of teenagers or hipsters but for people of a different sort, and different kind of interest, made me think, ‘Wow, perhaps there’s a lot more possible,’” Murray said. “He was one of the founders of Poets House in New York and he would drag me along there and to the Century Association and make me do this stuff - he’d give me like a handful of poems to read in front of these people who had read everything and listened to everything. And it forced me to - well, it allowed me and encouraged me to read. Somehow he saw something - the possibility that I could do something,” he continued. “I was too embarrassed to say no. So I just kept doing it. And it got so I love to read poetry. I really like to read poetry.”
New Worlds features the quartet performing songs from West Side Story. While the concerts were staged and captured for the film well prior to his death, it nevertheless manages to honor the legacy of lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in November at the age of 91. While the partnership of Sondheim and composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein defines that music, the collaboration between Murray and Vogler drives it in the new film.
“In this case, it’s one of the greatest collaborations: Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. That marriage is made in heaven,” said Vogler, referencing another moment in New Worlds where the idea of travel is examined. “If you listen to ‘America,’ the groove and then to those words, which describe basically immigration and what America means for everyone who makes a life here, it’s amazing.”
“That song ‘Somewhere.’ That song, I know that that’s one that even he struggled with. He struggled with the writing of that song and what it meant and what he was trying to perceive in himself about it,” said Murray of Sondheim. “And I’m not the greatest singer in the world but I felt the same thing when I had to sing it. That I had to go someplace I’d never been before each time singing it. Because those words aspire to a life that is unknown. It’s unknown. And yet it’s possible. It’s wildly possible - but very difficult. And to reach for it in your life, it’s the obligation that we have. And it is very difficult to face. But necessary.”
During turbulent times amidst an uncertain future, Americans have turned to storytelling during pandemic, consuming music, film, stand-up comedy and more in record numbers. New Worlds contains elements of all of that, allowing it to speak uniquely to the American experience whether it's in terms of offering entertainment as escape or a little better understanding of where we’ve been and where we’re headed.
“I think what’s exciting - and I think it was driven partly by the internet even before the pandemic - but the way we consume media is decentralized,” said Muscato. “And I think also with it, genre or form has kind of dissolved as far as people saying, ‘Oh, I only watch movies, I don’t watch TV.’ Now it’s documentaries and podcasts. If you can tell a story, people are willing to consume it in different packages. And I think that’s why right now is a great time for a show like this,” said the director. “There’s comedy, there’s great music and there’s also tension too in the way that they constructed the flow of the show - all of those kind of classic elements. So it’s unlike anything people have seen before but I think the themes are ultimately all very familiar. And very important - that we kind of stop and reflect. And that’s maybe what also the last two years have done - gotten everybody to slow down a bit. And I think this film is intentionally a bit of a slow burn in the sense that you settle in and commit for an hour and a half. But I think you’ll come away ultimately feeling moved and feeling better about yourself and better about the world - that works of art like this do exist and will continue to exist and help us through difficult times.”
Murray and Vogler first met amidst travel, Murray marveling as he watched this man attempt to navigate airport security with a massive cello, buying it it a ticket and strapping it into a seat of its own as if it was an actual person, all of which led first to a humorous exchange and ultimately a deep friendship based upon mutual admiration.
It’s clear in conversation that the pair continue to learn one from one another. And, for Murray, 71, the New Worlds film chronicles what now stands as a life changing series of events.
“I learned to loosen up more. To let other things come into your art. And to let life come in more to it. And to not fear too much about the detail that maybe most listeners actually don’t hear - thinking more about the bigger feeling of it. And I was just inspired,” said Vogler, 57. “I think I grew as an artist. And I have to thank Bill.”
“I don’t know if I can put it in words. I mean, we rarely have an experience in our lives that we’re able to recreate 50 or 60 times - like an extraordinary event. ‘What a night!’ You don’t get to do that 50 or 60 times, you know? ‘That was crazy! That was so much fun!’ But we did it. We did it like 65 times! And you can’t put that into words,” said Murray. “You just can’t. What that energy is like in that room… the power of that music and those words and what the power of the shape of the show has - and then you throw it to someone? You throw it at an audience and they catch it. And they throw it back to you. It’s an amazing exchange of energy. And I can’t… It changed who I am. There’s all kinds of twitches and all kinds of little light bulbs inside of me that I got from doing that tour. Just playing that music and playing with this band has made me something more than I was - and much more appreciative of all of the various notes and emotions that the words and music had. I guess I can kind of represent that. And not just to an audience but to myself. That I can admire that and see it.”
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