Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview edition.
Speaker 1: In here with Paul again after it seems like it's
Speaker 1: been a minute, Paul, I think it's been since before
Speaker 1: I moved to New York, which is where I'm Lord's
Speaker 1: where I'm coming to you now from. That's right, you're
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, I am, Yeah, in a little closet right
Speaker 1: now in Brooklyn. Come out of the closet, Paul, already,
Speaker 1: come on. Maybe maybe by the end of this episode,
Speaker 1: I will that right, And you know we've spoken since then, obviously,
Speaker 1: but I'm everyone should know that you're doing well. You've
Speaker 1: got a great place, you're happy, you're living with with
Speaker 1: your lady friend now finally after quite a while apart.
Speaker 1: So congratulations, thanks man. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm enjoying
Speaker 1: New York. It's hot though, and I'm getting used to
Speaker 1: having window air conditioners instead of central a C. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those windows they can pump it out sometimes though, if
Speaker 1: they're good, they can. But it's just it's just an adjustment,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, sometimes you have to wait wait to
Speaker 1: get cool, just than having it right away. New York
Speaker 1: Hut is different too. It's pretty steamy. The concrete makes
Speaker 1: it very unpleasant. Yes, agreed, But enough about New York City,
Speaker 1: because we're here to talk about a Western. We haven't
Speaker 1: done then many westerns on this show. And when you
Speaker 1: threw out a short list of movies, Unforgiven was on there,
Speaker 1: and it had been a while since I've seen it,
Speaker 1: so I jumped all over this one. I'm glad man,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a Western fan and um I in
Speaker 1: fact Unforgiven though I didn't see this for the first
Speaker 1: time until a couple of months ago. I've kind of
Speaker 1: been going on in Clint Eastwood kick and uh, mostly
Speaker 1: like the films he's directed himself, and Unforgiven has always
Speaker 1: has always kind of been considered one of his top movies,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know, just like a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, I watched it and I was just like
Speaker 1: blown away by how great it was and really excited
Speaker 1: to talk about it today. Dude, that's great. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that this was new to you. Clint Eastwood is
Speaker 1: a legend. He uh, he is someone who's politics I
Speaker 1: don't agree with, but I just I love the guy
Speaker 1: even so you know it's I forget about all that stuff.
Speaker 1: He um this. I believe his movie coming out this
Speaker 1: year will be either his thirty ninth or film as director,
Speaker 1: which is just crazy. Man, he's not. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like he's on the short list for a lot of
Speaker 1: people for best directors, and he should be. At the
Speaker 1: tender age of ninety one. I think, uh, he's pumping
Speaker 1: out movies one one every year at this rate. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's just it's honestly, it's pretty inspiring to like
Speaker 1: watch at this point because um uh, you know, some
Speaker 1: of them are hit and miss, but I like a
Speaker 1: lot of them, especially his recent work and just the
Speaker 1: way he works. And like, like you mentioned, I I
Speaker 1: tend to disagree with his politics as well, but I
Speaker 1: think that that will make this conversation richer because despite
Speaker 1: his politics, I personally find a lot more ambivalence and
Speaker 1: uh nuance in his movies then you might think from
Speaker 1: somebody who too sort of character tries him, you might
Speaker 1: think of as like a crotchety old conservative guy telling
Speaker 1: young people to get off my lawn. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's really not doing a lot of that
Speaker 1: in his movie. He's I guess Grand Torino had had
Speaker 1: a bit of that element to it, but Great Arena
Speaker 1: was fucking great. I love that movie. Yeah, I actually
Speaker 1: just watched it on a plane a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: ago for the first time. Yeah. Man, it's good, and
Speaker 1: it's it's so fun to dive into like sort of
Speaker 1: his psyche because again, he has these like surprisingly like
Speaker 1: progressive views or things he shows in his movies despite
Speaker 1: him sort of being like a sort of old fashioned
Speaker 1: guy who believes in like say, you know, strong men
Speaker 1: and and you know, uh, he thinks, you know, America
Speaker 1: has become a nation of pussies and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you know. But uh, and I think and Unforgiven is
Speaker 1: is a great example of sort of how he sort
Speaker 1: of deconstructs a genre that is known for sort of
Speaker 1: the strong silent man, you know. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: a movie that was I think everyone kind of thought
Speaker 1: this was his his goodbye to westerns uh, and it
Speaker 1: kind of had been. Although his new movie coming out
Speaker 1: is sort of a Western um not quite like this,
Speaker 1: I think it's said in the seventies, but it definitely
Speaker 1: is a is a bit of a Western um. But
Speaker 1: this definitely is is his last sort of Hurrah to
Speaker 1: the the pale writer character. This the Josie Whale's strong
Speaker 1: silent type, and um, I remember when it came out,
Speaker 1: it was it seemed very much a sort of a
Speaker 1: statement movie, like this is it, This is gonna be
Speaker 1: my my swan song for this kind of movie, And
Speaker 1: what a statement it is. First of all, the fact
Speaker 1: that it won four Oscars, including Best Picture, surprises me
Speaker 1: just because how great it is. And um, meaning like
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of the times, the Best
Speaker 1: Picture often goes to a film that might be good
Speaker 1: in my opinion, but not the best of that year,
Speaker 1: and I forget what else would have been nominated that year.
Speaker 1: But when I look at like the I looked recently
Speaker 1: at the list of like all the Best Picture winners
Speaker 1: for the past forty years, Like I can think of
Speaker 1: a handful of them that I consider like canon movies
Speaker 1: that like people still talk about and I would still
Speaker 1: go back to, and movies that just have stood the
Speaker 1: test of time, and I think Unforgiven as one of
Speaker 1: them for sure. Yeah, so this one best pure huh yeah,
Speaker 1: best Picture, and I've got it somewhere here. Best Director.
Speaker 1: I meant to look that up. Okay, Best Editing and
Speaker 1: Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman, and then He's Good,
Speaker 1: and then Eastwood himself was nominated for Best Actor but
Speaker 1: lost to al Pacino for Scent of a Woman. Wow,
Speaker 1: a movie I still haven't seen. I saw it ages ago,
Speaker 1: but I need to need to revisit it. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny the a couple of comments on that one
Speaker 1: best Editing. I love that this one best editing because
Speaker 1: it is such a thoughtfully edited and paced movie, and
Speaker 1: I think that they don't get recognized as much. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no thing flashy about this movie. It is a
Speaker 1: very very simple story. Was that a fly? There's a
Speaker 1: gigantic fly in my closet here? Yeah? Uh? And then
Speaker 1: the with with Hackman. It's funny you mentioned Pacino because
Speaker 1: I was thinking when I was watching this, how people
Speaker 1: make such hay out of like when de Niro and
Speaker 1: Pacino finally got together in Heat and they shared the
Speaker 1: screen and and it was great, and they've done that
Speaker 1: I think since then. But like, why isn't even anyone
Speaker 1: talking about Eastwood and Hackman sharing the screen? And then
Speaker 1: throw in a Morgan Freeman like a third legend on
Speaker 1: top of it. It's like to me, that was seeing
Speaker 1: those two guys go toe to toe is just as
Speaker 1: big a deal to me. Gene Hackman is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite of all time. I'm like, I miss him
Speaker 1: so so much. I know, I know, yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: so good in it, and uh, the role he plays,
Speaker 1: it's easy to sort of say, like, oh, you can't
Speaker 1: imagine this role being played by anybody else, but I
Speaker 1: really feel that with this owl. And and like you said,
Speaker 1: I don't have they worked him and him and Eastwood
Speaker 1: work together on any other films, not that I can
Speaker 1: think of. I can't. I mean, there's probably some obvious
Speaker 1: one that everyone is like going to make fun of
Speaker 1: us for forgetting, but I can't really think of anything.
Speaker 1: And then Richard Harris is in it too. It's like,
Speaker 1: good lord, yeah, it's it's funny because like I or
Speaker 1: what I most know Richard Harris for is playing Dumbledore
Speaker 1: in the first two Harry Potter movies. Get out right now,
Speaker 1: get out of that closet and leave before he passed away.
Speaker 1: He was Dumbledore for two movies, and so he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, this wise and old gentle soul in Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: And then seeing him I and I i've since I
Speaker 1: know he has had a long and illustrious career aside
Speaker 1: from Harry Potter. But seeing him in that another role,
Speaker 1: he really sort of choose up the scenery in a
Speaker 1: great way. Yeah. I love English Bob. He's he's pretty great.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I thought it was funny, how in another
Speaker 1: great role from Saul Rubenek as but Champ the writer, Um,
Speaker 1: the writer who has no stomach for this stuff. He
Speaker 1: wants to record the Old West. He wants to be
Speaker 1: the biographer of these guys that I think he feels
Speaker 1: like he admires. But I think he admired Bob because
Speaker 1: Bob was this sort of winning, fun, jovial Englishman when
Speaker 1: the tables are turned and then he is the back
Speaker 1: for a little bill uh, He's he's in over his
Speaker 1: head and he knows it, and that he's a sadist
Speaker 1: in a and a genuinely evil person, and that's not
Speaker 1: who English Bob was. The boat Champ character. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: fascinates me for for a lot of reasons. And I
Speaker 1: think you hit on it, Um when you're talking about
Speaker 1: like the myth of the Old West and how I
Speaker 1: feel like the Western compared to some other genres as
Speaker 1: kind of very much a genre of cinema, right, that
Speaker 1: cinema really created the Western, and so we have this
Speaker 1: sort of archetypes, the archetypes of Westerns, you know, the
Speaker 1: good gun slinger staring down out gunned out man, staring
Speaker 1: down a room of bad guys and taking them all
Speaker 1: out against the odds. Uh. And bow Champ is writing
Speaker 1: these basically very much fictitious stories, as we learn with
Speaker 1: English Bob when little Bill sort of corrects him on
Speaker 1: the story he was writing about. Okay, here's what actually happened.
Speaker 1: It was not heroic at all. Bob was drunk, and
Speaker 1: the story about Parky that was pretty funny. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the duck, the Duck of Death really the Duke, the
Speaker 1: Duke of Death. Yeah, the Duck of Death really just
Speaker 1: uh kind of got lucky and took his time and
Speaker 1: shot the guy sort of unarmed and without any honor
Speaker 1: in quotation marks. And then though the sort of bow
Speaker 1: Champ switches allegiances and he stays with Hackman because he's
Speaker 1: enamored with hearing Hackman stories. And then you see them
Speaker 1: sort of uh in in Hackman's Leaky House with the
Speaker 1: roof leaking water, and he's telling more stories and you
Speaker 1: can tell that he's embellishing them himself, right, that's yea.
Speaker 1: And then finally, so what I think is interesting is
Speaker 1: during the final shootout when when Eastwood shows up and
Speaker 1: he you know, he kills the room of quote unquote
Speaker 1: bad guys and and bow Champ is in the back.
Speaker 1: And you see though his face like light up when
Speaker 1: he enters the room, and once he starts taking out guys,
Speaker 1: he's like he's he's sort of twisted lee fascinated by it,
Speaker 1: and he's almost like, oh, this is this is the
Speaker 1: best one of them all. This is the king of
Speaker 1: gun slingers. And he immediately says, Okay, who did you
Speaker 1: shoot first? And uh, it's usually traditionally the the fastest
Speaker 1: gun you want to take out of the most lethal
Speaker 1: and Eastwood just like, oh, I just got lucky, you know.
Speaker 1: But he's clearly like still fascinated by this, and even
Speaker 1: though he's witnessed this horrific violence, he still wants to
Speaker 1: sort of embellish it and write more books about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Eastwood, I mean that scene is so key because
Speaker 1: they're they're all like Bill, Little Bill is kind of
Speaker 1: poopooing the whole biographer thing until he is his biographer,
Speaker 1: and then he's way into it and he's embellishing, like
Speaker 1: you said, and adding to the mystifying of these of
Speaker 1: himself and people like him. But but Money just will
Speaker 1: Money doesn't care about any of that stuff like that.
Speaker 1: His chance, his entry point is to go right, like
Speaker 1: he has the chance the doors open, to start telling
Speaker 1: his story to this guy, and he just doesn't give
Speaker 1: a ship. He didn't want to, he didn't want to
Speaker 1: kill people anymore. He doesn't want to glorify killing people anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what this whole movie is about, is
Speaker 1: about the the guilt that this man feels about the
Speaker 1: horrible things he's done in his past and how he
Speaker 1: feels he is a bad guy, and he was a
Speaker 1: bad guy. He killed women and children and was a drunk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of late in the film Revelation
Speaker 1: where I think one of the prostitutes says, oh, you're
Speaker 1: the guy. Little Bill said, You're the I who dynamited
Speaker 1: so and so's place and killed women and children. And suddenly,
Speaker 1: as a viewer, you immediately it's suddenly like your worldview
Speaker 1: is rocked because you wanted to think of Eastwood's character
Speaker 1: as this like stoic guy who probably killed for good
Speaker 1: reasons in his past, and yeah, things got a little dirty,
Speaker 1: but he always did maybe not the right thing, but
Speaker 1: the thing that needed to be done. And suddenly you're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this guy is not nearly as heroic
Speaker 1: and worth admiration as I might have thought. It makes
Speaker 1: you make a choice, m you know, like, because you
Speaker 1: know something was up, because he's a man clearly haunted
Speaker 1: from his past. They sort of lead you to believe
Speaker 1: that it's only because of his wife who had passed away. Um,
Speaker 1: but you could tell that there's something more. He's not
Speaker 1: drinking anymore. Alcoholism is different back then because annoyed me
Speaker 1: how much Morgan Freeman kept trying to get him to
Speaker 1: drink again, and I was like, stop, you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to do that. Don't enable them, Like I don't think
Speaker 1: enabling was a word back then. Uh, but boy, that
Speaker 1: makes it so powerful when he takes that bottle at
Speaker 1: the end and finally starts drinking. You know. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I'm very curious that that sort of ending. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about a little bit where he finally shows up
Speaker 1: to the saloon and he basically he's outmanned, out gunned,
Speaker 1: and yet he takes out I don't know, six guys,
Speaker 1: let's say, who knows, maybe more without a scratch on him. Like,
Speaker 1: when you're watching that, what is your reaction to it?
Speaker 1: I was into it because I like a good revenge
Speaker 1: killing in a movie. Uh, little Bill was a bad guy.
Speaker 1: I think they set it up such that you would
Speaker 1: definitely root for that because of the um. The beginning
Speaker 1: was so brutal when they cut that woman up. Uh,
Speaker 1: that was a brutal scene to see, and so you
Speaker 1: really want those fucking guys to to get theirs. Um,
Speaker 1: but those guys had already gotten There's so interesting, like
Speaker 1: he kills the bar, the saloon owner. Uh, in cold blood.
Speaker 1: It just for you know, having Morgan Freeman's body displayed
Speaker 1: out in front, which he didn't really have a choice of.
Speaker 1: I imagine Little Bill was you know, he's calling all
Speaker 1: the shots in that town. So, I mean that's kind
Speaker 1: of one of the things I like about this movie
Speaker 1: is that there it's not so clear cut and they
Speaker 1: are a little ambiguous with who you should be rooting for.
Speaker 1: But he one of the best parts of that whole
Speaker 1: scene is when he's like, you know, any any any
Speaker 1: man that doesn't want to get shot and just go
Speaker 1: on out in the back and all those fucking guys
Speaker 1: just get the hell out of there, and they have
Speaker 1: a chance to kill him too, and they're just there,
Speaker 1: you know, they're scared. Yeah, And it kind of goes
Speaker 1: back to to what Little Bob was saying to to
Speaker 1: bow Champ earlier about how it's not the who who's
Speaker 1: the fastest gun, it's who stays the coolest under pressure.
Speaker 1: I think, God, that scene. Can we talk about that scene? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that scene. Yeah, when he Little Bob gives him the
Speaker 1: gun basically, and I mean that whole scene is great
Speaker 1: because that's when he sort of reveals that Bob English
Speaker 1: Bob had been stretching the truth. It's a really long
Speaker 1: scene and then he gives him that gun and he's
Speaker 1: just he tells him to cock it and he points
Speaker 1: it right at his chest and all that guy's gotta
Speaker 1: do is squeeze the trigger and he knows he won't,
Speaker 1: and then he tells him the hand of English Bob
Speaker 1: and it's just such a power play, you know, in
Speaker 1: my mind it links up to the Schofield kid character,
Speaker 1: who who has actually never killed anybody, but sees himself
Speaker 1: or tells everybody he's this this bad man killer. And ultimately, though,
Speaker 1: like very I think it shows with the boat champ
Speaker 1: taking the gun, it's like very few of us would
Speaker 1: actually have the nerve or have the whatever you call
Speaker 1: it to be able to do that, you know, And
Speaker 1: it takes a certain kind of person to be able
Speaker 1: to do that, and even back then, and you know,
Speaker 1: I I don't think there's much of a moral judgment
Speaker 1: placed on what type of person that is. Is it
Speaker 1: somebody who like because all the guys we see who
Speaker 1: are able to kill are kind of psychopaths a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, or they have like they're they're not the
Speaker 1: best people. So it's like the ability to kill people, what,
Speaker 1: you know, do you lose your soul in the process
Speaker 1: or something like that? You know? Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: again that's sort of the central premise of this movie
Speaker 1: is what does it take to do this? What does
Speaker 1: it do to you? Like, how does it change you
Speaker 1: as a person in this case as a man to
Speaker 1: do it? Ah, I mean, it's one of the classic
Speaker 1: lines in movie history. You know, is is Clint at
Speaker 1: that one point when and this is that's what I
Speaker 1: texted you immediately when he said unforgiven, it's a hell
Speaker 1: of a thing killing a man. Take away, you take
Speaker 1: away everything he's gotten, everything he's ever going to have.
Speaker 1: And I think you just see on the kid's face
Speaker 1: like he never even considered what it would feel like
Speaker 1: because he was drawn in by the by Billy the
Speaker 1: Kid and all these stories. You know, he wanted all
Speaker 1: the all the notoriety and stuff until it actually happened,
Speaker 1: and then it just wrecked him. Yeah, and the stories
Speaker 1: that somebody like bow Champ probably makes money off of writing,
Speaker 1: you know. And yeah, the performance, So the actor I
Speaker 1: had to look him up, James Wolvett, who plays the
Speaker 1: Schofield kid, I haven't. Yeah, he's great and I love
Speaker 1: that he's so grading and annoying for like most of
Speaker 1: the movie intentionally, and then the performance he gives in
Speaker 1: that scene where he breaks down after killing one of
Speaker 1: the guys, like it's just hard. It's it's a great
Speaker 1: performance and it's just heartbreaking because you see you can
Speaker 1: literally see the psyche shift in that scene. And then
Speaker 1: you know the moment where he says, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not picking up a gun again, and I'm
Speaker 1: never killing anyone again. If there's any sort of hope
Speaker 1: to be found in a movie like this, it's the
Speaker 1: fact that somebody like him takes that view and and
Speaker 1: sort of decides to leave this life behind, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you get the feeling that that's gonna hide him
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, even though that guy
Speaker 1: really deserved what he had come and h which leads
Speaker 1: me to another one of my favorite lines about you know,
Speaker 1: the guy kind of deserving It is when little Bill
Speaker 1: is dying on the floor of the saloon and he
Speaker 1: says that, you know, I don't deserve to die like this,
Speaker 1: and uh, Money just says deserves got nothing to do
Speaker 1: with it. This is such a good line, And that's
Speaker 1: a close as close as this movie comes to, like
Speaker 1: a not pithy, but just sort of because he plays
Speaker 1: it so straight. You know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: times this would have been a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger
Speaker 1: or something is the retired old guy would have just
Speaker 1: been chock full of corny lines. But that's as close
Speaker 1: as it comes. And I thought it was a good line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it's sort of a metal line, right. It's
Speaker 1: like we like to think of our our Westerns, especially
Speaker 1: having clear cut good guys and bad guys, and the
Speaker 1: bad guys deserve what's coming to them, and Eastwood just says,
Speaker 1: you know, deserves, got nothing to do with it. It's
Speaker 1: just a matter of doing it, you know. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: should talk a little bit about just how beautiful of
Speaker 1: a film this is. Those gorgeous shots at dusk and dawn,
Speaker 1: the silhouette of he and uh ned when they're riding
Speaker 1: those horses at sunset, it's just he pulls out all
Speaker 1: the stops of kind of the beautiful old Western. Um
Speaker 1: like that. That's what you want to see when you
Speaker 1: see a movie like this, if you want to see
Speaker 1: horses silhouetted against a red setting sun, shout out to
Speaker 1: let's see. The DP was Jack Green who uh I
Speaker 1: looked him up. He's he's deep. Had a lot of
Speaker 1: Eastwood stuff, especially his stuff in the nineties. But yeah,
Speaker 1: beautiful film. Um. I love the opening and closing shots
Speaker 1: of the sun setting with the tree and Eastwood at
Speaker 1: the the grave of his wife. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: very sort of classical looking frame like something you'd see
Speaker 1: in a movie from the fifties or something, and um,
Speaker 1: I had to look it up. They shot it mostly
Speaker 1: in Alberta, Canada, which is where a lot of westerns
Speaker 1: are shot, like Days of Heaven was shot there. I think,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, planes, big open planes. Um, I will say that. Uh.
Speaker 1: A fun tidbit is that they say William Money lives
Speaker 1: in and it's mentioned he lives in Hodgman County, Kansas,
Speaker 1: which is literally two counties away from where I grew
Speaker 1: up in no Way. Yeah, yeah, it's a real county. Um.
Speaker 1: Just a fun little thing. But yeah, they didn't shoot
Speaker 1: it in Kansas as far as I can tell. You
Speaker 1: think they came all the way from Kansas just to
Speaker 1: fuck us. That was a great line, um, I was.
Speaker 1: It was a little like disconcerting and and really hammers
Speaker 1: home like how sexual assault his uh sometimes not even
Speaker 1: changed that much. Like the the excuse that Sheriff Bill
Speaker 1: uses after the assault is like these are pretty good guys,
Speaker 1: like you know, what's what good is it gonna do
Speaker 1: to go after for them than and ruin their lives?
Speaker 1: And I heard that. I was just like, God, do
Speaker 1: you hear that same ship today? When it's like, you
Speaker 1: know that I can't remember was that the duke student
Speaker 1: from the from the Good Family behind the dumpster And
Speaker 1: you hear that same thing trotted out, like well, why
Speaker 1: ruin his life now for this one mistake? And it's
Speaker 1: just so maddening. It's crazy because like you expect to
Speaker 1: hear and a ligne like that echoed in a movie
Speaker 1: that's coming out. Maybe it's like hitting the pulse of
Speaker 1: what's you know, current in the culture, and you have
Speaker 1: to hear it in a movie from which is you know?
Speaker 1: And it's basically a word for word of what, like
Speaker 1: you said, these these lines that get trotted out in
Speaker 1: cases today. It's it's a very smart script. Uh, Violet's
Speaker 1: see David Webb Peoples who also wrote Blade Runner and Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: the role of the women in this film is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I think, you know because after after the cuting happens
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the film, they first of all say,
Speaker 1: a little bill, you're only going to whip them, And
Speaker 1: then once they agree to bring the ponies, he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't even need to whip him. Yeah, And like
Speaker 1: you said, they're good boys who don't want to ruin
Speaker 1: their lives and the fact that um, during that scene,
Speaker 1: Skinny the bartender says, Oh, I've got a contract here.
Speaker 1: These women are property. They are an investment of capital.
Speaker 1: You know. All the men here see them as less
Speaker 1: than human, as the equivalent of horses. Right, And the
Speaker 1: fact that the women really have no recourse through quote
Speaker 1: unquote legal means is ultimately why they turned to pooling
Speaker 1: their money and trying to get somebody to come and
Speaker 1: uh and kill these two guys. Yeah, like all the
Speaker 1: money they have, it feels like, and you know, they
Speaker 1: do love that they gave them some agency. There is
Speaker 1: a you know, a very brief albeit feminist message in
Speaker 1: this and that they're not going to take it anymore,
Speaker 1: like this was one step too far and they're not
Speaker 1: gonna sit down and take this lightly and let these
Speaker 1: guys go. Like, you know, at any point they could
Speaker 1: have called this off, because things really go sideways. You know,
Speaker 1: once Bill learns that they have put out money to
Speaker 1: to get some assassins in there and they're there, they
Speaker 1: stick to their guns. What I really would have liked
Speaker 1: to have seen was one of them ended up sort
Speaker 1: of doing one of the killings themselves. I think that
Speaker 1: would have Um, I would have liked to have seen that,
Speaker 1: but you know that wasn't this movie. Yeah. And by
Speaker 1: the end of it though, you know, at the very end,
Speaker 1: once once Eastwood's kind of killed all these guys and
Speaker 1: starts to leave town, you see all the women watching
Speaker 1: him right away, and they all kind of have this
Speaker 1: look of like, shit, was this really worth it? You know,
Speaker 1: even though justice was achieved, Like, look at the violence
Speaker 1: that was perpetuated. And I don't know if if you
Speaker 1: saw it this way, but the woman who has the
Speaker 1: the assault committed against her, I think her name is Lilah.
Speaker 1: She there's a shot of her at the very end
Speaker 1: when Eastwoods riding away, and she almost has this like
Speaker 1: smile on her face, like she's and it's very haunting
Speaker 1: because it's like, I don't quite know what to make
Speaker 1: of it. They got justice, she and she's the one
Speaker 1: who's almost seemed the most ambiguous about whether she actually
Speaker 1: wants this or not. You know, even though she's the
Speaker 1: one who had it done to her, it's all the
Speaker 1: other women who immediately said, Okay, we need to we
Speaker 1: need to have these guys killed. She's silent for most
Speaker 1: of the movie. You always kind of wonder what she's thinking, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Francis Fisher really leads the charge as the eldest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and rightfully so, like you said, but it does kind
Speaker 1: of call into question the idea just of like violence
Speaker 1: be getting violence, you know what I mean. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Bill even has that one line like, you know, haven't
Speaker 1: we seen enough killing for one day? And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because that's the line. I mean, I think that shows
Speaker 1: the depth of this movie and that it's not so
Speaker 1: clear cut because that message is one that the guy
Speaker 1: should say, you know, like this, that's enough killing. And
Speaker 1: and this is coming from the sadest of the movie,
Speaker 1: you know who, who clearly delights and like humiliating and
Speaker 1: beating up these other guys just to sort of fill
Speaker 1: his own ego because he can't build a house, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A lot of this movie seems to stem from like
Speaker 1: the fragility of the male ego. Totally. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: even the fact that what leads to the sexual assault
Speaker 1: is the prostitute laughing because the guy had a small
Speaker 1: penis Yeah, totally. I forgot about that line. That's key.
Speaker 1: He said he had a small pecker and she giggled
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I looked down and saw
Speaker 1: a small pecker and started giggling. That's what started this
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, that's a very key piece of information. Actually,
Speaker 1: mm hmm. Um, Clint Eastwood has the number one best
Speaker 1: face in movie history. I think, uh, this Clint, I
Speaker 1: call it medium old Clint. I thought it was super
Speaker 1: old Clint. But who knew that, you know, he was
Speaker 1: going to keep doing this into his nineties. But I
Speaker 1: really loved this version of Clint, this medium old Clint
Speaker 1: when he's I went to look up how old he was,
Speaker 1: which I do a lot now, and it's always a
Speaker 1: little bit unnerving once you turned fifty, where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, they were like a year older than me.
Speaker 1: And I was looking up. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: please tell me Clinty Sowood wasn't like fifty three. He
Speaker 1: was in the sixties. He was sixty two or sixty
Speaker 1: three when he made it. Thank god. Um. But I
Speaker 1: love that era of Clint to play a character like
Speaker 1: this and sort of like in Grand Torino. Now he's
Speaker 1: he's clearly working out his own mortality and uh, leaving
Speaker 1: these sort of statement films behind him. Uh, like I
Speaker 1: guess alone kind of did it too with the Final
Speaker 1: Rockies and the Final Rambos. Even though heard that Rainbow
Speaker 1: movie was terrible. UM like their their legacy is sort
Speaker 1: of they're they're controlling their own legacy and what they
Speaker 1: leave behind. I think with movies like this, I read
Speaker 1: some where that um so, first of all, I read
Speaker 1: that the concept for the movie started sometime in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. Yeah, it was from a book, I think, right,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, it could be yeah, but I
Speaker 1: guess Eastwood came across the script sometime in the eighties,
Speaker 1: but apparently he didn't want to do it right away
Speaker 1: until he felt like he had aged enough to play
Speaker 1: the part. Which is funny because, like this movie comes out,
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is his swan song, and then thirty years later he's
Speaker 1: pumping him out one a year. Um, it's really But
Speaker 1: I I do really want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about this idea of Eastwood as as actor but as
Speaker 1: also as icon, you know, because I feel like anytime
Speaker 1: Eastwood is in a movie, he's not just playing the character,
Speaker 1: but he's bringing his whole history of characters he's played
Speaker 1: in the past. Right, And so Clint Eastwood like somebody
Speaker 1: is Somebody is a lot like somebody like John Wayne,
Speaker 1: who like they're always linked to their characters in the westerns, right,
Speaker 1: And Clint, you think of you know, the side the
Speaker 1: man with no name, the guy who comes into town,
Speaker 1: sets things right and leaves on a horse, and I think,
Speaker 1: here he does He technically does do all of those things,
Speaker 1: but it's a movie where he sort of interrogates his
Speaker 1: own Like you said, it's sort of a self inquiry
Speaker 1: and interrogating his own persona as that icon and what
Speaker 1: it means to sort of have been like the quote
Speaker 1: unquote badass guy who goes and just kills a bunch
Speaker 1: of people. But now we're seeing again the exact same
Speaker 1: things happening sort of on paper. And yet my reaction
Speaker 1: to it is very different. It's not one of like
Speaker 1: raw raw cheering him on. It's one of like kind
Speaker 1: of being horrified and chilling, you know, And I think, um, nothing,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no more chilling shot in the movie
Speaker 1: for me is when he leaves the saloon and there's
Speaker 1: like a low shot looking up to him and there's
Speaker 1: the American flag draped in the background. And the rains falling,
Speaker 1: and he says like, or I'll come back here and
Speaker 1: kill every one of you sons of bitches. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then your wives, and I'll burn your house down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: First of all, the fact that the American flag is
Speaker 1: behind it. It's like linking the idea of violence in
Speaker 1: American history with sort of the myth of the West,
Speaker 1: you know. And to me, like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: other people read it, but to me, I find it
Speaker 1: like very chilling and not necessarily like, oh, this is awesome,
Speaker 1: badass guy taking him out again, Clint got you know,
Speaker 1: Clint got it on him over again. You know. It's
Speaker 1: sort of an anti violence, anti gun movie. It's weird.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, he's he's really making a big statement
Speaker 1: about like you said, I mean, not even within the
Speaker 1: context of this film, but his whole career. And I
Speaker 1: don't think it I would go so far as to
Speaker 1: say it serves as an apology for serving up all
Speaker 1: these movies. I think it's just more of a re
Speaker 1: examination of of this stuff and what does it mean
Speaker 1: to to have this kind of violence in movies and
Speaker 1: then in a character's life on screen? Really pretty heavy stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's there's a lot more going on
Speaker 1: for such a simple story than meets the eye. And
Speaker 1: like you said, yeah, I would agree. I wouldn't say apology,
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, re examination and and and inquiry into
Speaker 1: his own role in sort of creating that icon and
Speaker 1: asking what what does it mean? What is this leaving behind?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, he definitely did not do anything to
Speaker 1: glorify any of this or to make him seem like
Speaker 1: this uh great character like he makes. He takes great
Speaker 1: pains to to make sure this character isn't put on
Speaker 1: any pedestal, even with I mean, I guess the one
Speaker 1: scene where it shows him the most sympathetic is when
Speaker 1: he's having that really sweet talk with the woman who
Speaker 1: was assaulted and she offers him the freebee and he
Speaker 1: says no and then feels bad because she takes it
Speaker 1: as like that. You know, she's ugly now because her
Speaker 1: face was cut up, and it was just such a
Speaker 1: sweet scene. He's like, you know, if I was to
Speaker 1: want a freeb I guess it would be with you
Speaker 1: because you're beautiful and we both have scars, and that
Speaker 1: line we both have scars was like just just fantastic.
Speaker 1: I love that scene. Like you said, it's so tender,
Speaker 1: and yet it's before the information has been revealed that
Speaker 1: Clint Eastwood is somebody who's killed women and children. And
Speaker 1: so again it's it's such a smart, subtle script in
Speaker 1: the way it sort of reverses our expectations. I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, because he is capable of tenderness, and he
Speaker 1: is somebody who apparently when he got married and quote
Speaker 1: unquote settled down, he didn't pick up a gun for
Speaker 1: a decade, and his wife, he says, cured him of
Speaker 1: of drink and wickedness. And and the movie maybe the
Speaker 1: movie is saying, like what it really takes as a
Speaker 1: good woman to to sort of stem the tide of
Speaker 1: this violence or something. I don't know. Yeah, And you
Speaker 1: know we even see it with Ned. I mean, the
Speaker 1: whole uh message of this movie is just all over
Speaker 1: the place because Ned, I can't kill that guy. And
Speaker 1: Ned is a great shot, and he can't bring himself
Speaker 1: to kill this guy who was laying there sort of
Speaker 1: helpless under his horse. And I think that scene is
Speaker 1: the peak of annoyance from the Schofield kid, when you
Speaker 1: know he can't see what's going on, so he's like,
Speaker 1: did you kill him? Did you kill him? Weren't you
Speaker 1: killing him? Aren't you shoot him? What's going on? What's
Speaker 1: he doing? Why aren't you gonna kill him? Didn't you
Speaker 1: kill him? And I was just I wanted somebody just said,
Speaker 1: shut the funk up for a second, like you have
Speaker 1: no idea what you're talking about right now, kid. The
Speaker 1: annoyance of the Schofield kid juxtapose against sort of Morgan
Speaker 1: Freeman's face where, without almost saying anything, you see him
Speaker 1: sort of working through like, oh god, I can't do
Speaker 1: this anymore. Yes, I'm not the face acting in that scene.
Speaker 1: It's just phenomenal. Yeah, it's so good. And also I
Speaker 1: love that scene. We're talking about sort of the idea
Speaker 1: of of movies glorifying violence. You know this they this
Speaker 1: is where they're killing the first guy who's sort of
Speaker 1: the the accomplice to the crime. Really yeah, who in
Speaker 1: my mind, Like I'm not saying he's a good guy,
Speaker 1: but he's far less you know, he's far less deserving
Speaker 1: of death in my opinion than the guy who actually
Speaker 1: did the crime. And yet when they kill him, it's
Speaker 1: another it's another one of those scenes where you're kind
Speaker 1: of like you expect to get some sort of satisfactory killing,
Speaker 1: and yet what happens is they kind of he falls
Speaker 1: on his horse, and then it's this long, agonizing scene
Speaker 1: of him trying to crawl to safety and they finally
Speaker 1: shoot him in the gut and then he takes like
Speaker 1: five more minutes to die, and it's like unglamorous and
Speaker 1: just really kind of pitiful. Uh. It actually bizarrely reminded
Speaker 1: me of do you remember that scene in Austin Powers,
Speaker 1: the first one I swear I'm going somewhere with us,
Speaker 1: where Will Ferrell's character gets Yeah, he pushes the button,
Speaker 1: he gets like attacked. They're fed to the sharks or something,
Speaker 1: and then you think he's dead and you keep caring go, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm badly burned but not dead yet. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the drama version of that where it sort of
Speaker 1: plays up the idea of like movie killings and violence
Speaker 1: in films, and it's like, this doesn't play out like
Speaker 1: that in real life. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going back
Speaker 1: to that question you asked earlier about how I felt
Speaker 1: at the end there there really isn't a satisfying death
Speaker 1: in this movie. Uh, they really take all that away
Speaker 1: from the viewer, and I guess Bill came as close
Speaker 1: as possible because he was a truly evil guy. And
Speaker 1: when he died at the end, I was kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like you deserve this, but that's kind of it.
Speaker 1: Like even even when they kill the guy in the outhouse,
Speaker 1: the really bad guy who did the assault, like you
Speaker 1: want to see him dead, but they don't let you
Speaker 1: sit there and enjoy that as a viewer, you know,
Speaker 1: because the kid is immediately horrified with what he had done,
Speaker 1: and and Clint is just so cool about it all.
Speaker 1: He doesn't like he didn't play into any of his
Speaker 1: kid's bravado or even even give him a lot of like, uh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't laud him at all for what he'd done,
Speaker 1: like good job or anything like something simple as that
Speaker 1: he didn't even really do. Again, this killing of the
Speaker 1: guy who if anybody does deserve it, it's him, and
Speaker 1: it's it's literally he's sitting on the toilet like the
Speaker 1: most vulnerable position a man can be in, so to speak,
Speaker 1: and he's like terrified when you know Schofield kids got
Speaker 1: the gun on him. I think he says, please don't
Speaker 1: and then it's not satisfying because you can see the
Speaker 1: Schofield kid just like taking everything he has just to
Speaker 1: pull that trigger. And then immediately afterwards, when they're talking
Speaker 1: about it by the tree, I think the Schofield kids
Speaker 1: says something like he went for his gun, but I
Speaker 1: got him first. And you can already see him sort
Speaker 1: of changing the facts to build his own myth up
Speaker 1: because when we see the scene, as far as you
Speaker 1: can tell, the guy wasn't going for his gun. He
Speaker 1: I think had his hands up. I think it was
Speaker 1: hanging on the door, even I don't think he could
Speaker 1: like could get to it. Even Yeah, it's just no
Speaker 1: satisfying deaths in this movie really, except Gene Hagman a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's interesting you say that because, like I
Speaker 1: agree with you on how I view his character as
Speaker 1: like the sadist who's clearly like drunk with power over
Speaker 1: these people. And yet to me, I still find Eastwood's
Speaker 1: character the most chilling by the end, By the end,
Speaker 1: you know, um, And I just think it goes to
Speaker 1: show how there are no clear cut answers in this
Speaker 1: film and how different folks can sort of see different
Speaker 1: things in it, you know. Yeah, And and Bill is
Speaker 1: uh I thought it was interesting that he didn't allow
Speaker 1: the retribution against the cowboys for what they had done.
Speaker 1: Like from the very beginning, he steps in almost like
Speaker 1: a peacemaker. Again he says, there's been enough bloodshed. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's really intent on not allowing this to take place.
Speaker 1: And I guess it's a power move, is the only
Speaker 1: thing I could figure out, because it seems like the
Speaker 1: old West, eye for an eye, he would have let
Speaker 1: that happen, let it die with these two cowboys getting killed.
Speaker 1: There end up being way more people killed than that
Speaker 1: because he didn't allow it. And then you know, taking
Speaker 1: everyone's guns when they came into town like that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in westerns either. So this this movie just it's
Speaker 1: a it's I don't know about mixed messages, but it's
Speaker 1: sort of an anti Western in some ways too, as
Speaker 1: much as as it is a Western, yeah, or or
Speaker 1: a revisionist Western, yeah you know. Um, But I think
Speaker 1: you know that that scene at the beginning where he
Speaker 1: talks about where you mentioned, you know, um, settling the piece,
Speaker 1: Like I think it's also because again little Bill doesn't
Speaker 1: see the prostitutes as equal to the men who committed
Speaker 1: this crime. Yea He equates them with again property, much
Speaker 1: like the horses. So in his mind he's made a
Speaker 1: square deal, you know, trade a couple of horses for
Speaker 1: taking away the skinnies chance to make more money. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't think he was gonna kill Skinny. I think
Speaker 1: I forgot that when I was watching it this morning. Um,
Speaker 1: and I was a little surprised when he killed Skinny,
Speaker 1: but he he went, you know, he broke bad. He
Speaker 1: went right back to the old guy. As soon as
Speaker 1: he you know, everything's turned and you know, and that
Speaker 1: that great set up for the third act. As soon
Speaker 1: as that the woman tells him that Ned was dead,
Speaker 1: He's like, no, no, no, Ned went south, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: he's dead. He beat him to death, and he's displayed
Speaker 1: outside of Greeley's and you just see that switch get
Speaker 1: flicked and Clint starts drinking again, and you know it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be bloodshed from there on out. And it's
Speaker 1: so complicated because Ned is in air quotes. I'm using
Speaker 1: this innocent in the sense that he didn't kill any
Speaker 1: of the folks he was arrested for. It was done
Speaker 1: by money and the school field kid. So he's sort
Speaker 1: of like Eastwood in a sense is justified to come
Speaker 1: take revenge on that, and yet there's nothing satisfying about it.
Speaker 1: I also, I think it is worth mentioning sort of
Speaker 1: Morgan Freeman's role in how race plays a part in
Speaker 1: this film, and I think it's it's super interesting because
Speaker 1: the film never explicitly comments on race, at least not verbally,
Speaker 1: but I do think it's very consciously through its imagery
Speaker 1: evoking racial issues. And I think the obvious one is
Speaker 1: when you see Ned getting whipped by Gene Hackman, it
Speaker 1: like immediately makes you think of like lynching, you know,
Speaker 1: and the fact that the black man is whipped for
Speaker 1: something he didn't do, and then he's he's proudly displayed
Speaker 1: the way like you know, a lynching would hang somebody
Speaker 1: and then show it off, you know. And again the
Speaker 1: film never really mentions it, and it's script, but it's
Speaker 1: very much there. Obviously, Ned was a killer in his past,
Speaker 1: just like Eastwood was. Yeah, but he's retired to you know,
Speaker 1: he's retired too. And as far as the characters in
Speaker 1: this in this Town, no, they probably don't know anything
Speaker 1: about that, you know, And so in that sense, he
Speaker 1: is sort of an innocent, wrongly killed. Yeah. Absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: You know I mentioned earlier about Clinton, there were so
Speaker 1: many opportunities, I think for him to have these tough
Speaker 1: guy lines that like Arnold would have, and he just
Speaker 1: he never does it. And I started to think that, like,
Speaker 1: that's that's sort of Clint Eastwood period. Like he's an
Speaker 1: actor who has built a career out of, uh, not
Speaker 1: a lot of dialogue. I bet if you like had
Speaker 1: some algorithm that ran like total total words spoken by
Speaker 1: major actors, he would be at the well, I guess,
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the list of few as words spoken.
Speaker 1: And that's just sort of one of the hallmarks of
Speaker 1: him as an actor, I think is I can't think
Speaker 1: of many movies where he's had a monologue you know
Speaker 1: you've and like it's always these sort of clipped lines
Speaker 1: and clipped answers. He says so much with that fucking
Speaker 1: face of his and the one at the end where
Speaker 1: he says, you know, I'll see you in hell, you
Speaker 1: know that I mentioned earlier from Hackman, and he just
Speaker 1: goes yeah, and that's it. Like any other movie, they
Speaker 1: would write some super cool thing or something tough or
Speaker 1: a great comeback or whatever, and you just you don't
Speaker 1: need that stuff. He strips all that away. I really
Speaker 1: love it. That's how how expressive his face is, and
Speaker 1: yet it's like it's a it's a face that's not
Speaker 1: really expressive at all in the traditional sense. It's very stoic.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but it also I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's the baggage he carries as a sort of that
Speaker 1: icon of of Western masculinity. You know, like every line
Speaker 1: or line he doesn't say it is imbued with all
Speaker 1: the movies he's been in before. It's it's imbued with
Speaker 1: the go ahead, make my Day's imbued with all the
Speaker 1: sort of classic you know, one liners he said in
Speaker 1: Films of the Past. Yeah, he did have some pretty
Speaker 1: great one liners back then, but they were still pretty
Speaker 1: short but pretty sure. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't think that our boss will mind if I tell
Speaker 1: this story. But our boss Connell that everyone's probably heard
Speaker 1: us mentioned. He's the one that founded and started stuff
Speaker 1: you should know in all of the shows many many
Speaker 1: years ago, and now he's our boss again. At I
Speaker 1: heart great guy, good friend. He is good friends with
Speaker 1: Bradley Cooper and I've mentioned that on the show, and
Speaker 1: he told me a story a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: about going to a barbecue at the house Clint east
Speaker 1: it was renting. They were shooting what movie would it
Speaker 1: have been? They were shooting something here in Atlanta. I
Speaker 1: know they shot a um was it the Mule or um? Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe it was part of Yeah. Bradley Cooper was in there, right, Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I know they shot that in Atlanta. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: shooting The Mule here. And he had a little you know,
Speaker 1: they a lot of the actors have rented houses here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta when they work, and Clint had one rented
Speaker 1: and had an afternoon barbecue on like a Sunday, and
Speaker 1: brad invited Connal to come in his family. So Connal
Speaker 1: is there barbecuing with Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper and
Speaker 1: Krasinski and Emily Blunt are there with their kids, and uh,
Speaker 1: a couple of other actors. The other guy from the
Speaker 1: meal that I love so much, I can never think
Speaker 1: of his name, and uh, he said, man, it's crazy,
Speaker 1: and he's been to stuff like this before, now through Bradley, Um,
Speaker 1: but he's still he's like, you know, you still don't
Speaker 1: get used to it. And he said I look over
Speaker 1: at one point and and eighty eight year old or
Speaker 1: eighty seven year old Clint Eastwood at the time. It's
Speaker 1: just standing there having a conversation with Connell's like six
Speaker 1: year old daughter, and it's the cutest thing in the world.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, this is nuts man that like
Speaker 1: you get to peek in on these scenes like that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he just he was a really good guy. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure you've heard the legend of his
Speaker 1: movie sets and what they're like to work on. But
Speaker 1: for the benefit of the listener, Clint Eastwood movie sets
Speaker 1: are very calm, very meticulously planned out, so there's no drama. Uh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't. I think all the Walkees either have to
Speaker 1: be off or turn really low. No one's yelling and screaming,
Speaker 1: no one's rushing. He's just legendarily known for for running
Speaker 1: a really friendly, calm, humane set where you work, like,
Speaker 1: you know, eight or nine hours and get it done
Speaker 1: quickly and efficiently and just kind of move on with
Speaker 1: your life. And that kind of says it all I
Speaker 1: think about the guy. And he's also known for not
Speaker 1: doing a lot of takes. Yeah, he'll knock a shot
Speaker 1: out in two or three takes and say Okay, we
Speaker 1: got it. Sure, he started thirty movies like you don't
Speaker 1: want to, and he said, like, part of that comes
Speaker 1: from his experiences as an actor, sort of the things
Speaker 1: he learned, like, Okay, I like being directed this way,
Speaker 1: I don't like being directed this way. And that's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me as as also somebody who directs and has directed,
Speaker 1: Like I would love the idea to be able to
Speaker 1: knock out a scene a shot in just two or
Speaker 1: three takes. And I would love to do that. But
Speaker 1: it's so hard to do that, you know, because you
Speaker 1: like to have a lot of confidence in what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you know, and that comes with doing it a lot.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't feel too bad, I know. But but
Speaker 1: and the fact that he gets such great performances out
Speaker 1: of whether he is the one acting, or it's Bradley
Speaker 1: Cooper or Paul Walter Houser and Richard Jewel or just
Speaker 1: these wonderful performances, And I'm like, man, how do you
Speaker 1: do and he's yeah, he's known for not doing a
Speaker 1: lot of takes, uh, like normal ish work hours and
Speaker 1: usually finishing a film on time and under budget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know he's gotten like the Lifetime a
Speaker 1: Chief and award as director and stuff like that now,
Speaker 1: But I just think for a lot of years he
Speaker 1: just everyone sort of thought as I thought of him
Speaker 1: as an actor, and I think maybe some people maybe
Speaker 1: not didn't even realize he directed Play Misty for Me
Speaker 1: and Outlaw Josie Wales and uh, just some of his
Speaker 1: like all time classics. He was behind the camera for
Speaker 1: those movies, kind of quietly behind the camera. He's not
Speaker 1: a a chess thumper when it comes to pumping himself
Speaker 1: up in his movies or you know, in the press
Speaker 1: after he's made his movies. So I have a ton
Speaker 1: of respect for the guy. Uh. I wish he was
Speaker 1: one of these great old grizzled liberal Democrats. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the old hippie fantastic. I think part of that is
Speaker 1: why I think his movies continue to fascinate me, Because
Speaker 1: to see somebody who has almost polar opposite politics as myself,
Speaker 1: to find things to really love and admire in somebody
Speaker 1: who inherently sort of disagrees with me, probably on a
Speaker 1: lot of fundamental things, I think shows a lot of
Speaker 1: maturity as a as a director, as an actor. To
Speaker 1: you know, question the traditional you know, conservative pillars of
Speaker 1: what conservativism stands for. Yeah, he's not. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like he has an agenda as a filmmaker, and that
Speaker 1: kind of sums it up best. You know, he um
Speaker 1: because he very much could anytime someone is so upfront
Speaker 1: about their politics and and held public office for God's sake.
Speaker 1: He was the mayor of Carmel at the Sea, Mayor
Speaker 1: of Carmel. Yeah, Carmel's lovely, lovely area out there. I'll
Speaker 1: have to check it out. I love the couple of
Speaker 1: bits of humor. There's two running jokes in this movie
Speaker 1: which are kind of fun and a pretty bleak movie.
Speaker 1: Is him and that horse trying to get up on
Speaker 1: the horse was kind of fun. And then in Jane
Speaker 1: and then Bill's Poor Carpentry, they get a few good
Speaker 1: chuckles out of that, uh that stuff as well. Oh
Speaker 1: and also the duck of death. Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: There were three jokes that they played in this movie,
Speaker 1: because they did hit that one a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but just so low five, very little fanfare, almost like
Speaker 1: a trope of a plot. You know, grizzled old veterans
Speaker 1: come out of retirement to do one last job. It's
Speaker 1: like The Ocean's eleven, the Anti Oceans eleven. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he just he gets away with it without feeling
Speaker 1: like a trope, because it's just there's more subtext and
Speaker 1: there's more under the surface, and the pacing of it
Speaker 1: is so languid and just really lets you as a viewer.
Speaker 1: He I feel like he always sort of gives a
Speaker 1: lot of credit to the viewers to make up their
Speaker 1: own mind about stuff. He doesn't. He's not Oliver Stone
Speaker 1: hammering your over the head with like you should feel
Speaker 1: this way about this. Yeah. Man, just a very conscientious filmmaker.
Speaker 1: I think you know when you said he he's not
Speaker 1: showing about his politics or like at least in his films,
Speaker 1: or like what he believes. I think he's just very
Speaker 1: much like a humanist in a sense of like he rarely,
Speaker 1: despite showing terrible characters, sometimes he rarely will outwardly judge
Speaker 1: a character in his films, and he'll often just show
Speaker 1: what they did and maybe show how they view themselves
Speaker 1: in the world. Yeah. And I think if you ask
Speaker 1: Clint Eastwood, he he was well known for playing vigilantees,
Speaker 1: whether they were out West or dirty Harry style guys.
Speaker 1: And I think he probably became a champion of some
Speaker 1: of these, you know, sort of gun toting, good guy
Speaker 1: with a gun out on the street dudes. I don't
Speaker 1: think Clint would endorse that in real life, even though
Speaker 1: he is, you know, a strong conservative, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think he really thinks people should go out
Speaker 1: and take the law into their own hands and do
Speaker 1: that stuff. He's not beating his chest about vigilanteism, you know,
Speaker 1: even though we play those roles. Maybe I'm wrong, but
Speaker 1: I just I don't see him as as that guy,
Speaker 1: no man, and just to see him sort of question
Speaker 1: that violence in a film like Unforgiven, in a film
Speaker 1: like Some people might disagree with me, but I think
Speaker 1: American Sniper also questions that violence. Yeah. Now some people,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are divided on that film,
Speaker 1: but I think it actually does question sort of that
Speaker 1: idea of that violence wrapped up in sort of American culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, no other think of it. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of ambiguity of feeling and in a lot of his films,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, and that's to me the mark of
Speaker 1: a really confident filmmaker, because I feel like so so
Speaker 1: many times a filmmaker has a point of view they
Speaker 1: really want to get across and try so hard to
Speaker 1: make it super clear, and I feel like he's he's
Speaker 1: more comfortable waiting into ambiguous waters, which is what you
Speaker 1: do in your in your eighties and nineties and you've
Speaker 1: directed thirty nine movies. There's someone who said some I
Speaker 1: think director somebody famous who ages ago, said like, the
Speaker 1: more something along the lines of the more important of
Speaker 1: a theme or a point you want to make in
Speaker 1: a movie, the less obvious it should be. Like you
Speaker 1: should have an inverse correlation where the more important the theme,
Speaker 1: the more hidden it should be. So speak, And I
Speaker 1: think Eastwood is a great example of that, totally. Man,
Speaker 1: that's a good yeah for anyone out there trying to
Speaker 1: write stuff. That's a very good lesson, uh, Because I
Speaker 1: think the instinct is to is to want people to
Speaker 1: see things like you see things as a writer or filmmaker,
Speaker 1: whether it's you should fall in love with this person
Speaker 1: or you should want to kill this person. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to sort of do convincing ambiguity or convincing
Speaker 1: ambivalence where it's not telling the viewer how they should
Speaker 1: feel or think. Yeah, good stuff. Uh well, my docket
Speaker 1: is empty. Do you have anything any other notes you
Speaker 1: want to hit? Um? Let me see here. I think
Speaker 1: that about does it for me. Uh great movie, great movie.
Speaker 1: I Actually Eastwood's birthday was just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I think he's yeah, he just turned one, and there
Speaker 1: was some Twitter Twitter thing going around where it was
Speaker 1: like hashtag four favorite Eastwoods or something, so people were
Speaker 1: posting their four favorite Clint Eastwood movies. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot I've seen of his. There's a lot I haven't
Speaker 1: seen of his, I know, But as of now, my
Speaker 1: four favorites are this, Bridges of Madison County, j Edgar
Speaker 1: I never saw that. It's good. Leo Leonardo DiCaprio great,
Speaker 1: And it's another one where it's about like j Edgar,
Speaker 1: this like very complicated man, and it's another sort of
Speaker 1: ambiguous film. And then a movie called White Hunter Black Heart.
Speaker 1: Heard that we've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: great again. I just that's another one I just watched
Speaker 1: for the first time a few weeks ago and just
Speaker 1: loved it. And I'm like excited to just keep going
Speaker 1: through his filmography, because there's like probably twenty I still
Speaker 1: haven't seen. Yeah, boy, I don't know if I could.
Speaker 1: That would be very hard for me because I grew
Speaker 1: up with those dirty Harry movies and I love the
Speaker 1: ship out of him. Uh, Pale Rider is awesome. Play
Speaker 1: Misty for me is great. I haven't seen those, so
Speaker 1: that I got something to look forward to. Have you
Speaker 1: seen Million Dollar Baby? Yes, I have a great movie. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a tear jerker. No spoilers that movie jerk the
Speaker 1: Rug out from under me? Did not see this coming? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: awesome man, that's so good to see you again and
Speaker 1: good to get you back in here. Uh. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should start doing Ah. I don't know about a full
Speaker 1: Eastwood series, but I'd be game for doing another one.
Speaker 1: Adcent man, I'm so glad we got to talk about
Speaker 1: east Wood today, and I would be more than happy
Speaker 1: to talk about another film by him. Yeah. He's one
Speaker 1: of those where when he passes, I will put him
Speaker 1: in the category of like the Willie Nelson's and he's
Speaker 1: sort of icons of culture that kept doing great things,
Speaker 1: you know, and inspiring people to do great things because
Speaker 1: I think there's so much ages um in in culture
Speaker 1: and music and entertainment that like, I love seeing these
Speaker 1: olds up there still killing it. It's great, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: And the fact that, like I think you mentioned, he's
Speaker 1: he got a Lifetime Achievement Award at the OSCARS. I
Speaker 1: want to say he got that in like the nineties.
Speaker 1: Probably give him another one. Gave him another one, because
Speaker 1: that's twenty five years later and he's still out there
Speaker 1: killing it. Man. All right, good stuff, Paul, And thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone for listening. Go check out Unforgiven if you
Speaker 1: have not, or any Clinties Wood movie for that matter,
Speaker 1: even every which Way but Loose and any Which Great again,
Speaker 1: those are kind of fun too, in a seventies way. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we'll see you guys next week. Movie Crash is
Speaker 1: produced and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited
Speaker 1: and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, scored by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: Here in our home student you at Punksy Market, Atlanta,
Speaker 1: Georgia for I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.