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The Amanpour Hour

Interview with Director James Cameron; Interview with Former Energy Secretary and Nuclear Physicist Ernest Moniz; Interview with "Kyoto" Actor Stephen Kunken; Interview with "Kyoto" Writer Joe Murphy; Interview with Artist Linder; Interview with "The Room Next Door" Director Pedro Almodovar; "Nixon in China": The Opera that Captured U.S. Politics. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired December 27, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:41]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: A special show for the festive season on art with a message.

First, the king of the blockbuster and "Avatar" mastermind, James Cameron takes me inside his new film and the horror of nuclear war.

Then my onstage conversation about "Kyoto", a hit play on both sides of the pond, finding humor and hope in climate negotiations.

Also ahead, a punk take on feminism with one of a kind, the artist Linder.

And the Spanish master Pedro Almodovar on delivering beauty and vibrancy in even our toughest moments.

Plus, how we use art to understand each other. As Hong Kong staged an opera about Trump this year, from my archive my night at the New York Opera about "Nixon in China".

And finally unveiling a mural with special meaning at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York. It's a tribute to migrants.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London with a special program on some of this year's greatest artists and their messages.

First, one of the most commercially successful directors of all time. Right now, all across the world, people are flocking to cinemas to see "Avatar: Fire and Ash". It's the third in James Camerons series. It's a not-so-subtle critique of colonialism and the perils of destroying the natural world.

This year, he told me about a new project, his first non-"Avatar" film since "Titanic" back in 1997. This time, Cameron's raising the alarm about nuclear war.

And I spoke to him, along with former U.S. Energy secretary and nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz. It was 80 years after America dropped the first and only atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An important memory and a warning as the global conversation veers off towards nuclear weapons again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Let me first ask you, James Cameron, adapting the book, "Ghost of Hiroshima," by Charles Pellegrino, it will be your first, you know, non-"Avatar" feature since "Titanic". What drew you to that book? What were the stories in that book? What about Charles Pellegrino drew you to it? Tell me.

JAMES CAMERON, FILMMAKER: Well, let me set this, the table for this. I've known Charlie, as I call him, Pellegrino for a long time. He was actually one of our consultants on "Titanic".

I've read a lot of his historical, archeological, and scientific books. I know him quite well. I know what a meticulous researcher he is. He's talked about this book for ages and ages and sent me early versions of it.

So, I've read it with interest, great interest a number of times now. What compels me out of all that and what I think the human hook for understanding this tragedy is, is to follow a handful, specifically two will be featured, of survivors that actually survived not only the Hiroshima blast, but then went to Nagasaki and three days later were hit again.

And in the case of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, he, in the latter part of his life, actually traveled the world making public addresses and so on.

And he spread one very simple message, which is, I've been the recipient of the impact of a nuclear weapon twice, not once, but twice. And I can forgive that.

I can forgive that. And as a result, I believe you, everybody in the audience, you can forgive anything.

AMANPOUR: So, Secretary, your NTI -- I mean, you're trying to change people's, you know, perspectives and get them serious about this. Do you think it's hard work? Do you think people have forgotten the idea of what these terrible bombs did and could do again?

ERNEST MONIZ, FORMER U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY AND CO-CHAIR AND CEO, NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE: I think the -- there remains a false narrative that the possession of these nuclear weapons is actually making us safer when they're not.

[11:04:48] MONIZ: That's the narrative I think, ultimately, we need to change.

Harry Truman said, quite correctly, these nuclear weapons, they are not military weapons. Dropped on a city, they indiscriminately kill combatants, non-combatants, women, children, et cetera. They should not be thought of as military weapons, but as weapons of mass destruction, indiscriminate mass destruction when certainly dropped in an urban center.

AMANPOUR: Now, you talked about survivors. So, James, I want to ask you about survivors. First of all, I mean, it's incredible to think that there were survivors of two bombs.

What -- how did they get from Hiroshima to Nagasaki anyway, and why? And secondly, what about the man that you visited in hospital, also a survivor, and you made a pledge to him I think?

CAMERON: That's absolutely true. So, I'll start with -- I'll do Yamaguchi-san second. He's the one that I actually met in person and I believe he sort of passed a baton, a sacred duty to me.

There's another young man that I wanted -- I want to tell his story, named Kenchi Harata (ph), who was a bit away from the hypo center or the -- or sort of ground zero. When the bomb went off, he was injured. He fought his way back into a total firestorm.

The city was flattened, it was on fire. He tried to get back to his home where his young bride, they've only been married a few months was -- and he found -- he was almost unable to identify where (AUDIO GAP).

He spent two days digging through the rubble. He found her bones still hot, still, you know, burned. He found a bowl that had been given to them by her parents as a wedding gift. He put her bones into the bowl. He covered it up with a towel or a shirt, and he got on the train to take it to her parents in Nagasaki.

And he got there just in time to explain to them what had happened, and then there was a second flash.

What must have been going through that young man's mind, I cannot even conceive.

And, you know, this film scares me. I fear making this film. I fear the images that I'm going to have to create to be honest and to be truthful.

I talked to Steven Spielberg about this. And when he was making "Saving Private Ryan", and you remember that opens with about a 25- minute sequence of U.S. forces storming the beach, you know, Normandy --

He said, I wanted to use every cinematic trick I could to make it as intense as possible because I knew I would fail to even come close to what it was really like for those men on that beach.

And I think, ok, that's a clue for how to do this. Now, make the film hard to watch. But as I said, I've made this pledge to this double bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi. He was lying on his death, but he was dying of cancer, of course. I think all the survivors ultimately died of cancer.

You know, Yamaguchi told me his story. He knew why I was there, to explore making this film, and he took my hands and he said, I'm done. This -- I've done everything I can do. I now pass this to you.

AMANPOUR: Well, look, I want to ask you, Secretary Moniz, because -- let me just ask you this because it's quite worrying.

J. D. Vance recently called the military, you know, violence between the nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, quote, "fundamentally, none of our business".

Apparently, Trump did not agree with him, thank goodness, and called them and told them to, you know -- basically told them to stop this.

Can you tell me what kind of diplomacy should be the proper diplomacy right now, and particularly in terms of the only other one we've known, and that is the Cuban Missile Crisis?

MONIZ: My problem is what happens when the rules are not being followed? When people make big mistakes, as we have had in the past? The United States, since the end of the Cold War, this wasn't data, we had a mistaken chain of command with nuclear weapons left unguarded in the United States.

We've had a nuclear bomb dropped accidentally by the United States domestically. We've had a training tape in the United States, left in the wrong computer.

My problem is, if you create this kind of tense relationship and one of these accidents occurs, you may get the wrong outcome.

AMANPOUR: James Cameron, I want to ask you about, again, culture and reality. The book, "The Ghost of Hiroshima", discussed the overlap between sci-fi and reality.

[11:09:47]

AMANPOUR: What do you make of this relationship between fiction and reality, and sci-fi and reality?

CAMERON: I'm at a point right now where I have a hard time writing science fiction. I've -- I'm tasked with writing a new "Terminator" story. I've been unable to get started on that very far because I don't know what to say that won't be overtaken by real events.

We are in -- we are living in a science fiction age right now. And the only way out is through -- by using our intelligence, by using our curiosity, by using our command of technology, but also, by really understanding the stark probabilities that we face.

(END VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Coming up later on the show. He's the Oscar winning director who refused to be confined to a genre. Pedro Almodovar tells me about finding a deeper truth in his film "The Room Next Door".

Also ahead, putting the drama of the fight against climate change onto the stage. My conversation with the team behind the hit play "Kyoto". That's when we come back.

[11:10:51]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Our road to climate progress has been bumpy, to say the least. This year, the United States under Donald Trump didn't even send a team to Brazil for the latest COP summit. And while the key benchmark committing global warming to 1.5 degrees is at risk, there has also been good news that renewables, for the first time ever, have taken over coal as the main source of energy production.

Nearly 30 years ago, the ill-fated Kyoto Protocol was the first global treaty that set the stage for the world to cut carbon emissions. And those fraught negotiations between world leaders ended up on stage here in London and in New York in a hit play aptly titled "Kyoto".

Turns out, behind the scenes drama of getting to that deal was surprisingly compelling to audiences and critics alike.

And earlier this year, I went to the London set to talk with actor Stephen Kunken and writer Joe Murphy about capturing the chaos and the compromise of global diplomacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Joe Murphy, Stephen Kunken -- welcome to the program.

So, first I want to ask you, what was the, you know, inspiration? Because you've done a lot of very timely and political plays.

Why this?

JOE MURPHY, CO-WRITER, "KYOTO": You know, we live in a society of culture wars, of entrenched polarization. And how do you write something that speaks to that as a problem?

So, we were searching for stories about agreement. And it was through that lens that we came to Kyoto, which, you know, back in 1997, the first time that the world agreed unanimously to do something about climate change, to reduce carbon emissions.

And it felt to us like a kind of romance story, in a way. Something beautiful, something that would be an important thing to strive towards, especially in the times that we live in.

AMANPOUR: Stephen, you played Don Pearlman, who is a real-life Reagan- era oil lobbyist, and he's the narrator.

And it didn't seem like a rom-com to me. I mean, it was a bit of a thriller. Very fast paced, very humorous. How did you approach basically being the baddie?

STEPHEN KUNKEN, ACTOR, "KYOTO": It's a great question. I don't think baddies think of themselves as baddies.

AMANPOUR: Right.

KUNKEN: I think that everybody tries to find their own music and their own path forward. And Don is clearly in integrity with his own ideas and provides zealous representation for his clients.

Whether or not he falls on the right side of history or ideas, I think is for other people to determine.

But I was looking for something that as an actor that really started to deal with how do we get through this time period?

How do we find commonality with people that we find distasteful?

I wanted to try to get inside of people who I found their ideas disagreeable and see if I could find connective tissue with them.

AMANPOUR: So, that's interesting. This play was written before Trump won, where there was actually some hope, whether it's the Biden administration, whether it's the E.U., who out of COVID, had really made a green economy the agenda.

So, I mean, when you were writing it, there was -- were you hopeful?

MURPHY: Gosh, that's a really good question. I think we were, actually, to be honest, slightly fearful. We were fearful of -- that the election may go the way that it eventually did.

And we were trying to, I suppose, to contribute to the dialectic of a different side of the argument and go, we've got to understand where these people are coming from.

We have to understand our opponents in the creation of society. So, we have to get to what the nub of this argument is.

And I think it's something like, what Trump is offering is a kind of short termism that is attractive and avoids the complexity of the challenge. And we know that we cannot do that any longer, but we have to provide a language to people that persuades them that doing something complicated is better than doing something -- than ignoring the problem.

[11:19:45]

MURPHY: And hopefully, the play admits to the complexities of climate change and of political polarization and can welcome an audience of all different political persuasions. AMANPOUR: I mean, this play might have not been a protest play had

Kamala Harris won. You know, "The Jungle" or "The Handmaid's Tale," which you were in, might not have been so incredibly difficult to bear had Hillary Clinton not lost when you were playing and Trump had won with all his, you know, misogyny and all the rest of it.

But let's just go back to "Handmaid's Tale," because again, it's a real issue, the rights of women. And you can see with the new, quote/unquote," manosphere", with the, you know, bros, with all these people, from Mark Zuckerberg to, I don't know, of course, Donald Trump.

I mean, it's what Margaret Atwood foretold. Tell me what it was like to play that when you thought maybe Hillary was going to win and then when she didn't and all of that progress was rolled back and is now being rolled back -- a lot of it.

KUNKEN: It's hard. It's invigorating to work on those things. It's interesting though because we went through an entire cycle in the six years that we

made that show. We had the moment of protest and then we came back out and we thought, wow, we -- something was achieved here. These voices were heard.

We saw those red outfits, those crimson clothes appear outside of Congress and we were making an effect. And then, the show has just wrapped, and we're in a different world again.

And I think one of the pieces of solace that we can take in this moment is that time is long. You hit a certain age, I think, where you look at -- you look at the cycles, and things will change. There is hope.

The arc of this is going to be long. This is a problem that another generation is going to have to deal with. How do we help that generation to have the tools to deal with it?

And art is a very powerful educating mechanism.

AMANPOUR: Well, on that hopeful note -- it is generational, this struggle -- Stephen Kunken, Joe Murphy, thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up, when art meets feminism, or vice versa. My conversation with Linder about her seminal work, five decades of punk, profanity and provocation.

[11:22:00]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

And now to someone who has put her stamp on the art world with risque photo montages that dared to challenge the status quo. Her name is simply Linder. She's best known for cutting and pasting images from popular culture, creating provocative pieces that make a statement on everything from female empowerment to consumerism.

This year, she finally got a major British retrospective after decades of groundbreaking work. The poster for the exhibit "Danger Came Smiling", is from her most recognizable piece and one especially familiar to music fans as an album cover for the British punk rock band Buzzcocks.

And when I met her at the Hayward Gallery, I asked about the statements she's been making all along.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: You created the album cover, which is the illustration for this exhibition. I just love it because it's the female body which you've decorated, but as you say, with a domestic appliance in front of her face. So, in this case, an iron.

Talk to me about how you've done that. You've used the culture around women as part of your art.

LINDER, ARTIST: I suppose it's almost -- you could say almost homeopathic. In homeopathy you use like to kill like. So, in a way, I suppose even in those early years, looking at magazines around me, looking at men's magazines and women's magazines and the expectations in both.

So, I just really simply found this warm, naked woman and her body actually is quite avant-garde. It wasn't a body typical of that time. It feels very now, because the body is very lean. It's very -- it's oiled. The body was not typical of 1976. So, that was interesting.

Viscerally, I got such a thrill, when I glued that together. And the original is quite tiny. We see it here. And it's quite tiny, almost like a little icon as the decades go by.

And it was only when it went out into popular culture via the sleeve, via posters that this extraordinary feedback was coming.

AMANPOUR: Was it positive feedback or was it negative?

LINDER: Positive. In the main, positive feedback.

AMANPOUR: People didn't worry that you were trashing trad wives, so to speak, as we might call them now?

(CROSSTALKING)

LINDER: No, I think people were intrigued. I think there was something about -- it was such a simple act. You know, gluing on three motifs onto, you know, a page farm (ph). It wasn't Playboy, but from whatever. I think it was so -- very elegant.

AMANPOUR: And that actually brings me to the way you've described it. You know, it's a Playboy model in the magazine. And then you did the applique, I'm going to say.

LINDER: Applique, applique.

AMANPOUR: But is it that? Because, you know, people have said, is this collage, is this -- but it's photo montage.

LINDER: I'm quite strict about calling it photo montage.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

LINDER: Because collage can be -- you know, you can stick anything together for collage. It's quite a wide remit.

But photo montage is very, very purist. It really is just cutting up and gluing together photographs. And that history, we can trace right back to the early 20th century when Dada and surrealism was happening.

[11:29:48]

LINTER: And now, I'm particularly interested that this medium, photo montage, it coincides with soldiers coming back from World War I, whose bodies are cut up in ways that we have never witnessed before.

So, you have artists in Zurich, et cetera, who go on to form Dada, but they're watching these cut up bodies coming back, the mechanization of war.

And so, photo montage comes out of that, where you can find photographs of bodies and you can cut them up rather like a surgeon will cut up a body.

AMANPOUR: Tell me how you do it, because you've just talked about surgical precision. And you use a scalpel. Is there a reason why you use a scalpel? Is there anything else that could be just as sharp and just as effective?

LINDER: I sometimes use scissors, but there's something about using the scalpel that's so, so precise. And you have to have a very, very good skill set to be able to use it.

And now, I've had, you know, half a century of working with a scalpel. So, it's quite Pavlovian. The minute I have a scalpel in my hand, that part of the psyche gets quite exciting and think, ok, now we're going to be doing our sort of operations upon books and magazine from the last -- well, from the last hundred years.

So, the scalpel feels clean. Something I can say it makes a clean cut. And this seems to be very --

AMANPOUR: It's not violent?

LINDER: No. It feels reparative. No, it feels the opposite of violent. No, it feels almost like a surgeon doing heart surgery.

So, that cut doesn't feel violent. That cut feels very life enhancing. And it allows me to make images that go out into the world upon which each person can have their own meaning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: When we come back, finding the light in the darkest times. My conversation with the legendary and always colorful Spanish director Pedro Almodovar about his acclaimed film "The Room Next Door".

[11:31:44]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Our next guest has focused his camera on matadors, mothers and women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodovar has always used his art to reveal a deeper truth. This year, his film "The Room Next Door", beautifully captured our constant dialog with death. How we die with grace and dignity and even joy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TILDA SWINTON, ACTRESS: I will not go out in mortifying anguish.

JULIANNE MOORE, ACTRESS: I don't know what to say.

SWINTON: I'm hoping you'll say yes.

MOORE: Yes to what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to need a lawyer.

MOORE: No. This is an absolute secret.

SWINTON: I'll sleep with my door open. And the day that you find it closed is the day it's already happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: It starred Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. It's his first film in the English language.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Pedro Almodovar, welcome to the program.

You are such a legend in this industry and in the cultural world. You're a two-time Oscar winner.

Your latest film, which we want to talk about, is called "The Room Next Door". It's really quite an amazing film. You have two massive actresses -- Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. And it's about death.

Why did you choose the subject of death?

PEDRO ALMODOVAR, DIRECTOR AND WRITER, "THE ROOM NEXT DOOR": Yes. Well, everything started when I read the book of Sigrid Nunez called "What Are You Going Through". Tn the middle of the book, then I found a chapter when there is a character, the character of Tilda, "Martha", that is very sick. And Julianne Moore character, "Ingrid", goes to visit her. Basically, I made and I select this novel -- I mean, the adaptation of this novel.

When Martha has a meeting with her friend and tells her that she decided just to make euthanasia and that she both appeal to do it and that she asked her to be living with her in the room next door.

AMANPOUR: I want to know how you're feeling about death and mortality.

ALMODOVAR: I feel like a kid, like a child. I cannot accept it and also, I cannot understand it.

It's true that with this movie, I was very close to the Ingrid -- to Ingrid's character, and I also -- I was closer to accept death and to understand it.

But after making the movie, you know, I -- in my -- among the friends of mine, there was a big loss. And then I realized that I feel the same in front of mortality.

I feel that the like -- she said, I don't understand it. And I think it's like a contradiction for -- that something that is alive should die.

AMANPOUR: You know, you mentioned your friend, and we know because it was reported, and of course, we give you our sympathies.

[11:39:50]

AMANPOUR: Marisa Paredes, who died suddenly in December. I guess you must be processing her death and the loss of this friend and this person who you worked with so much.

You have her, Penelope Cruz, a group of women I, I don't know, the "Chicas Almodovar", who are so identified with you, with your film, with your work, and who are so faithful and loyal to you and your vision.

It's really an incredible grouping, really. How does that figure in your life?

ALMODOVAR: I think I was very lucky because all of them, they are very good actresses. I was lucky to work with the best Spanish actresses. There are more that I didn't work, but I mean, Penelope, Julieta Serrano, Marisa Paredes, Chus Lampreave, Elena Anaya -- many, many, many of the actresses I was very lucky.

And it's -- you know, we leave our work like in the theater. I mean, you have a company of theater and a stable company. We feel like being part of one stable company to make movies.

So, we still been friends. And if there is always a character that they can do it, I always -- absolutely, I asked them. And yes, the last of Marisa was, you know, this -- the example that are something that I can't understand. I didn't believe that that she died like that in one day for another day.

I mean -- so, well, I'm working on that, you know, because I don't want to -- because that feeling -- that feeling make me feel weak.

And this is a sensation that I don't want to have. Because I want to -- I mean, to keep on working, and without any fear.

AMANPOUR: I understand. I want to ask you something because I think it's related. You know, this film and what you've just gone through, obviously a very deep, very tragic, deals with death. Many of your other films have dealt with, you know, a lot of very, very difficult parts of the human experience and yet, we always, always, always see you emblazoned in color.

You're wearing an incredible sweater right now. Your background is bright pink. Tilda Swinton was dressed in bright, bright colors.

Tell me about color, because it's unavoidable. We can't avoid commenting about it and luxuriating in it.

ALMODOVAR: This is the way that I make movies, with bright colors.

And the -- and also, in this case, I want that not to be dark or creepy because the decision to die is a sign of vitalism. I mean, it is taken by Martha in a very vital way.

So, I wanted to give the impression of vitality in this last period of her life in the house of the (INAUDIBLE), just to represent the character of Martha.

Because I think, really, that -- I mean, the person should have the honor of our life or his life or our life, but we also have to be the owner of our death just when -- in the case of Martha -- when life only offers you an awful pain. So, I think this is a human right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Next year, the Spanish maestro will reveal his own spin on the festive season with "Bitter Christmas".

Coming up when politics meets performance. From my archive, we revisit "Nixon in China" and the opera that changed how the world heard diplomacy.

[11:44:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Sometimes art is our most accessible way of understanding each other and overcoming barriers of language, culture, and even state of mind. This year, a Hong Kong opera did that about President Trump with a

traditional Cantonese opera. It's not the first time the U.S.-China relationship has sent in the tenors.

Nearly 30 years ago, the famous American theater director Peter Sellars put on a show called "Nixon in China". And it's been in opera houses all over the world ever since.

From my archive this week, we go back to its New York debut to look and listen to why it continues to inspire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: If Watergate was Richard Nixon's darkest hour, then China was his shining triumph. And if all the world's a stage, then this is his biggest accolade. "Nixon in China", the opera.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your flight was smooth, I hope. Oh, yes better than usual.

[11:49:46]

JAMES MADDALENA, ACTOR, "NIXON IN CHINA": He is just on top of the world. This is such a great coup. It's a great -- he's made it -- he's making his mark in history.

(MUSIC)

AMANPOUR: Historical operas are not unusual, but it is rare to see such recent stagecraft hit the stage, with most of the lyrics taken from transcripts of the real thing.

(MUSIC)

PETER SELLARS, DIRECTOR, "NIXON IN CHINA": He has the greatness of that, that flawed and interesting huge political figure.

AMANPOUR: If an opera starring Richard Nixon sounds like it should be a skit for "Saturday Night Live", this is neither spoof nor satire. Its creators call it a heroic opera.

JOHN ADAMS, COMPOSER, "NIXON IN CHINA": This upsets a lot of Americans who don't -- who feel very uncomfortable with the idea of Richard Nixon being treated as a hero. But we feel that he is hamstrung by his own paranoia, his own vanity.

AMANPOUR: Although much of it is funny. Take Nixon's historic meeting with an old and ailing Chairman Mao.

(MUSIC)

SELLARS: It has to be funny. I mean, because all things are funny.

(MUSIC)

CAROLANN PAGE, ACTOR, "NIXON IN CHINA": Whether or not the real Pat had those feelings, who will ever know? But I would like to think that maybe she did.

AMANPOUR: But in the end, artistic license plays second fiddle to the central theme.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Tensions with China have only got worse.

Now coming up, how one man brought a celebration of immigration to the walls of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

[11:51:49]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, 'tis the season of faith and festivity, compassion and unity. Or so it should be. Certainly, this major artistic endeavor at Saint Patrick's Cathedral reflects that. This year, a brand-new mural at the entrance celebrates the communities of immigrants who filled the ranks of New York's patron saints, first responders, poets and farmers. It is more than 20 feet high and spans three walls of what's known as America's parish.

And imagine this, the painting takes its name from a song by the band Brinsley Schwarz that Elvis Costello also covered. "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"

Adam Cvijanovic is the mind behind this masterpiece. And when I visited him, he told me about the symbolism of the mural and why it is most definitely not political.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM CVIJANOVIC, ARTIST, ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL MURAL: This is not a political painting. And whatever my politics are about immigration are not in that painting except in that. And this is a place where the church and I were kind of in alignment.

It's a painting about showing the dignity of all people and, I think that becomes political only in that the dehumanification (ph) of people is the first step towards a whole lot of very, very bad things.

And as long as you understand the basic humanity of somebody who is other, the whole dialog winds up being in a much better place.

So it's -- it has political implications, but it itself is not political.

AMANPOUR: Tell me about your own immigrant experience, because I do think what you just said is interesting because, you know, every single day, not only are there the tourists here, but the people who come to mass here, and they're all going out that way.

That may not be the front door, but they're all going out and they're all going to see it.

CVIJANOVIC: Right.

AMANPOUR: That's quite humbling.

CVIJANOVIC: It is. It is. And my own, my own family's experience is that my father came on a boat, like for real? One of the last people who actually came on a boat.

AMANPOUR: Through Ellis Island.

CVIJANOVIC: Yes, just before it closed down. So, Yes. So he came in in the early 50s, and his whole family came. And so they were all piled in a small sort of tenement building in Cambridge, where I grew up, before people got a little more prosperous.

And, I didn't even understand I was in America, so I was about five years old because all I heard were these other languages and everything and all the customs in the house were different, with the exception of my mother, who was vastly outnumbered by my father's family.

But she -- her family came mostly in the 1630s north shore of Massachusetts. Puritans.

AMANPOUR: Mayflower types?

CVIJANOVIC: Yes. Mayflower types. Very stern Protestants, you know, built this country and all that. And the thing, the lesson that I got from my mother which stuck with me when I was making this painting, is that -- is that she was a teacher her whole life and a very serious, like a double masters, really thought about education.

And when she retired, she spent all her time helping immigrants learn how to read English, helping them try to get jobs, how to try to get green cards.

[11:59:43]

CVIJANOVIC: And somebody asked her once, she said, well, you could be in the DAR (ph), you could be all these -- and she was like, I don't want to do that. She said these people are just like me. You know, we're all immigrants here if you're not Native American. And it's just like, there's no difference.

And so that -- she really saw it that way, and that vision of hers was something that I've always carried with me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And that is really something we should all take to heart this festive season.

That is also all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all our shows online as podcasts at cnn.com/audio and on all other major platforms. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and I'll see

you again next week.