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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information, the

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Speaker 1: show that brings you the secret histories and little known

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Speaker 1: facts behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.

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Speaker 1: We are your prep school poets of pop culture podcasts,

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Speaker 1: your comparrees of karpe DM, singing the song of ourselves

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Speaker 1: because no one else wants to, and sounding our barbaric

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Speaker 1: yops over the streaming platforms of the world. My name

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Speaker 1: is Jordan run.

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Speaker 2: Tugg and I'm Alex Heigel. You very nearly hoisted yourself

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Speaker 2: on your own potograph that one, my friend.

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Speaker 1: I got it out there. You did, you did it

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Speaker 1: was I'm very proud.

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Speaker 2: We're all proud of you.

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Speaker 1: I would stand up on my desk for you. And

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Speaker 1: today we are celebrating the thirty fifth anniversary of a

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Speaker 1: classic of the crinkly eyed cinema, Cannon, a movie that

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Speaker 1: helped transform Robin Williams into the crown Prince of poignant dramas,

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Speaker 1: introduced an untold number to the joys of poetry and literature,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully encourage many more to listen to their inner voice,

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Speaker 1: pursue passion in its many forms, and suck the marrow

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Speaker 1: out of life. We are talking about dead Poet society.

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Speaker 1: It's a movie whose charms have not diminished with the

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Speaker 1: passage of time. Some writers and educators have their understandable

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Speaker 1: issues with it, which we'll talk about later, but to me,

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Speaker 1: it remains beautifully idealistic and hopeful, both of which are

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Speaker 1: hallmarks of the adolescent age that it spotlights, and qualities that,

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Speaker 1: for my money, should be cherished and protected at all costs.

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Speaker 1: The movie explores themes of conformity, rebellion, and the pursuit

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Speaker 1: of individuality. But more than that, it's a movie about

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Speaker 1: people learning to feel. Are you getting choked up talking

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Speaker 1: about this?

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Speaker 2: No? That spit in my mouth?

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Speaker 1: Or is that bile? I don't know, so hard to tell, higl.

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Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this movie? I can see

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Speaker 1: it being far too treaquily for you.

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Speaker 2: Yes it's that, and yeah you're correct, and.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Man. I Well, this was, first of all, this was

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Speaker 2: like a parent movie for me growing up, Like I remember, like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's like a very parent movie, and so I ignored

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Speaker 2: it on principle.

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Speaker 1: But also I don't give it about this world.

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Speaker 2: Uh sure, I couldn't care less like autumnal tweed bow tie,

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Speaker 2: mid century lit cannon well, I guess pre mid century

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Speaker 2: lit cannon uh in bred homo erotic hazing rituals, you know,

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Speaker 2: buggering in the in the yacht rowing club, locker rooms

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Speaker 2: like crew, private school crew. Sorry yeah, yeah, anyway, I

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Speaker 2: don't care about humanizing those people. I simply don't, and

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to watch a film that does that.

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Speaker 2: They are like chinless ghouls to me, Like did everyone

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Speaker 2: in this movie not grow up to be like a

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Speaker 2: Goldman Sachs banker, or like like a racist senator with

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Speaker 2: a secret family, Like that's what this socioeconomic class begets,

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Speaker 2: and I will not cotton to their cinematic rehabilitation.

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Speaker 1: This is all very interesting to me because you have

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Speaker 1: this amount of spite and bile towards them, yet you

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Speaker 1: didn't have to endure them like I did.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean that's fascinating to me. In a

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Speaker 2: more generous reading, is that I get all of my

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Speaker 2: mid century malaise through like people who wrote for The

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Speaker 2: New Yorker like her Raven Carver and John Cheever and uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, like John Berryman is one of my favorite

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Speaker 2: poets and.

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Speaker 1: I was very much. It's really sad.

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Speaker 2: Uh, you know, all those guys and surely some women

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Speaker 2: just kidding. So yeah, I don't care about it in cinema,

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Speaker 2: but you so were you Where did they show me

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Speaker 2: on the doll Jordan what your boarding school experience was like?

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Speaker 1: So you know, it's funny. I don't think we've ever

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Speaker 1: talked about this. I'm a veteran of the New England

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Speaker 1: prep school experience. I'm a prep school dropout actually, which

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Speaker 1: is a title that I wear with some degree of pride. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I guess to start the story,

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Speaker 1: I should just say, I mean, it really all gets

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Speaker 1: back to me being a very weird kid because my

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Speaker 1: parents could not have cared less about me going to

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Speaker 1: any kind of prep school situation. They just wanted me

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Speaker 1: to be happy. It was all part of my very

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Speaker 1: you know, stern, serious minded. I was like Alex p.

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Speaker 1: Keaton of my household. I had had it in my

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Speaker 1: head at age eleven or twelve, for god knows why,

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Speaker 1: that I was going to go to Harvard, be a historian,

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Speaker 1: wear a bunch of tweed jackets, and that was going

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Speaker 1: to be my life. And so I thought the best

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Speaker 1: way to do that was to go to one of

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Speaker 1: these prep schools and it would guarantee me some kind

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Speaker 1: of spot at one of these places. And as soon

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Speaker 1: as I was old enough, you know, seventh grade, the

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Speaker 1: end of seventh grade, I applied to the nostodgiest one

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Speaker 1: I can find, which I'm not going to name because

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Speaker 1: I bet you there in down it includes a sizeable

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Speaker 1: portion set aside for lawsuits. Presidents went there. It was

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Speaker 1: the British boarding school system with instead of grades, they

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Speaker 1: had forms and they had It was a boarding school.

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Speaker 1: But I lived down the street, so I didn't actually

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Speaker 1: board there. But they had older boys who were the

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Speaker 1: prefects and that were like, yeah, it was just a

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Speaker 1: weird but so you dodged a buggering. I well, let

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Speaker 1: me put it this way. My first day of school, it.

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Speaker 2: Alarms me that you hesitated so much to me making

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Speaker 2: that joke. You okay, buddy.

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Speaker 1: On my first day of school, there were news crews

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Speaker 1: out front because twenty twenty had just done an expose

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Speaker 1: on a sex abuse case from one of the older

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Speaker 1: boys to one of the younger boys.

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Speaker 2: So was shot in the dark riffing and I am,

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Speaker 2: you know, the shotgun approach boar fruit there.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, that was on my first day of school,

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Speaker 1: which was September tenth, two thousand and one, and it

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Speaker 1: got worse from there. Well, I mean, well, okay, to

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Speaker 1: explain in between the time that I applied there and

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Speaker 1: gained entrance through scholarship and financial aid and all these

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Speaker 1: things to which I'm immensely grateful to my parents. Over

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Speaker 1: the summer, I fell in love for the first time,

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Speaker 1: if you must know, on a family trip, and it

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Speaker 1: was like it was like a psychedelic experience. It completely

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Speaker 1: changed my life and my view and completely reprioritized everything

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Speaker 1: in my life. And then so when I came back

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Speaker 1: to school to this very like dark, hardwood, scary kind

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Speaker 1: of place with just very like it was dead poet society.

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Speaker 1: I mean it looked like it. The teachers were like it.

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Speaker 1: Everybody spoke in this weird like mid Atlantic accent they did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Sports was mandatory, which sucked. We lost a game once

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Speaker 1: really badly, and then the next day for practice it

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Speaker 1: was raining and the coach made us go outside anyway,

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Speaker 1: and he had us line up and he said, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to have you run into your crawling and your

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Speaker 1: own vomit, don't stop and do hear this whistle? And

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Speaker 1: he followed us on the scooter as we just ran

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Speaker 1: laps for I swear it was several hours.

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Speaker 2: Was this like a Rascal mobility scooter or yeah, he

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Speaker 2: had weight issues, so he was on a Rascal scooter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, same was OJ too.

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Speaker 2: This kid's more and more colorful, Like as we go on,

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Speaker 2: can we just cancel talking about the movie and just

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Speaker 2: talk about your prep school experience?

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Speaker 1: It was very I mean and the whole like having

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Speaker 1: older boys like as your prefect, which I don't even

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Speaker 1: know what the equivalent would be like they could boss

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Speaker 1: you around basically if you were sitting somewhere, they could

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Speaker 1: point and say get up. And I refused once and

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Speaker 1: a teacher called me over and I thought he was

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Speaker 1: going to say, good for you for standing your ground.

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Speaker 1: They said, no, it's tradition. You're supposed to give the

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Speaker 1: upper class in your seat. They did when they were

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Speaker 1: your age, and when you're their age, you'll be able

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Speaker 1: to boss people around too.

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Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't want to do that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just I don't want to as well

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Speaker 1: on it too too much. But yeah, it was a

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Speaker 1: very very very strange, antiquated and lord knows, I like

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Speaker 1: my throwback stuff, but antiquated in a bad way environment.

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Speaker 1: And what did they call you? Did?

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Speaker 2: They haven't been nicknamed for you, like Jordie or button ups.

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Speaker 1: Trust me. The dress code there was super strict, like

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Speaker 1: blue blazers and brass buttons, and for formal occasions you

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Speaker 1: had like straw boaters and ties and that kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was straw boaters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a lot. Dude.

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Speaker 2: How do you take a man in a straw boater

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Speaker 2: seriously unless he's like guiding you down the canals of Venice.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry. That's that is the most I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, it was pretty wild and I left.

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Speaker 2: And so that's why you like this movie?

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Speaker 1: No, but I feel a certain sense of kinship to

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Speaker 1: it because I sort of get it in a way.

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Speaker 1: I mean, everybody gets it, anybody who's stuck. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: catch people up on the plot of this movie.

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Speaker 2: For those I haven't seen it in a while.

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Speaker 1: It's set in my beloved nineteen fifties, and it follows

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Speaker 1: the journey of seven young men at a very rigid

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Speaker 1: all boys New England prep school and their lives are

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Speaker 1: changed by an inspiring, free thinking English teacher named John

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Speaker 1: Keating played by Robin Williams, who sparks their latent love

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Speaker 1: of literature and encourages them to yes seize the day

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Speaker 1: and make their lives extraordinary. There's the painfully shy Todd Anderson,

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Speaker 1: who's played by Ethan Hawke, who grew up in an

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Speaker 1: emotionally neglected household and struggles to find his own voice.

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Speaker 1: There's the troubled Neil Perry played by future House star

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Speaker 1: Robert Sean Leonard, who struggles to escape the expectations of

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Speaker 1: his strict father. And then there's the hilariously named Knox

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Speaker 1: over Street played by future Sports Night star Josh Charles,

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Speaker 1: who's a hopeless romantic who struggles to summon the courage

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Speaker 1: to ask out the girl of his dreams. The passion

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Speaker 1: provoked by Robin Williams's character inspired these boys to revive

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Speaker 1: a secret society, the Dead Poet Society, which was co

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Speaker 1: founded by Keating himself when he was a student at

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Speaker 1: the school, and each meeting, held in a cave in

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Speaker 1: the woods, which rules that's super Cool, is opened with

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Speaker 1: a quote from Henry David Throws Walden I went to

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Speaker 1: the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front

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Speaker 1: only the essential facts of life and see if I

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Speaker 1: could not learn what it had to teach, and not

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Speaker 1: when I came to die discover that I had not lived.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in a way, that's like the perfect

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Speaker 2: thing for this prep school because thorough went to town

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Speaker 2: all the time and like picked up cookies from his

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Speaker 2: mom's house, and I didn't know that. Yeah, he could

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Speaker 2: like walk back to town, which also occurred not far

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Speaker 2: from my house where I grew up. And this school

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Speaker 2: Walden Pond. Yeah, a bunch of people were hung there,

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Speaker 2: right or hanged I have to I have to assume.

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Speaker 1: I would guess, so, yes, hang on, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: New England. There's a fifty to fifty chance as somebody

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Speaker 1: was hanged wherever you happen to be.

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Speaker 2: That's very true.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm going to try to steer this back

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Speaker 1: towards the inspirational land right now. Sure, most of stirring

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Speaker 1: Robin Williams quotes from this movie are endless. Aside from

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Speaker 1: Carpe DM, A personal favorite is the following. Here, let

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Speaker 1: me know what you think about this here, this will

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Speaker 1: interest you. We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.

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Speaker 1: We read and write poetry because we're members of the

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Speaker 1: human race, and the human race is filled with passion

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Speaker 1: and medicine, law, business engineering. These are noble pursuits and

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Speaker 1: necessary to sustain life. The poetry, beauty, romance, love, these

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Speaker 1: are what we stay alive for. I appreciate that he'd

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Speaker 1: be brought in the scope to all sorts of passions,

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Speaker 1: not just poetry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I appreciate with that articulates and I

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Speaker 2: found myself becoming like a tremendous fan of Ethan Hawk

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Speaker 2: as like a personality in recent years. Like he's just

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Speaker 2: like constantly advocating for art in a really cute way.

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Speaker 1: For like, there was one reason that.

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Speaker 2: Was making a rounds on Twitter where he's like, people

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Speaker 2: say they don't need art. You don't need art to survive.

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Speaker 2: It's not shelter or what have you. But everyone has

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Speaker 2: certain universal experiences like when you love dying or heartbreak

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Speaker 2: or you know whatever, and when you are looking to

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Speaker 2: make sense of the world, that's when you need art.

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Speaker 1: I'm angled it, but you know, I you know, I've

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Speaker 1: always I think we've talked about this a lot of times.

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Speaker 1: How I find it interesting that when we look at

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Speaker 1: remains of ancient civilizations from times when we were just

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Speaker 1: struggling to eat and survive, we always see remnants of

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Speaker 1: musical instruments and you know, cave paintings and these things

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Speaker 1: have been a part of the human experience from these

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Speaker 1: early early moments. And I think that's one of the

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Speaker 1: cool mysteries of art, is like it's just always been there,

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Speaker 1: and this is something that's innate in all of us,

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Speaker 1: and it's probably a line in Dead Poe society. It's

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Speaker 1: part of what makes us human. And for me, the

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Speaker 1: crux of this movie is a line that's said by

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Speaker 1: Robert Sean Leonard's character. For the first time in my life,

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Speaker 1: I know what I want to do. And I think,

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Speaker 1: if you're lucky enough to find that thing, and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you do it professionally or just for yourself,

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Speaker 1: that's really rare and special moment. And you know, if

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Speaker 1: you haven't found it, keep looking and if you have

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Speaker 1: nurture it in whatever way you can. Heigel, have you

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Speaker 1: ever had any teachers who helped you discover your passions

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Speaker 1: or nurture your gifts? Are there any folks that you

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Speaker 1: would have stood on your desk for.

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Speaker 2: M No, really, I mean I had teachers I liked,

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Speaker 2: like I had teachers in like high school, especially two

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Speaker 2: teachers I really liked. But they were just like chilled,

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Speaker 2: middle aged men who didn't really give a about anything

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Speaker 2: and just like enjoyed teaching their subjects and congratulated me

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Speaker 2: when I got grades and like kind of talked to

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Speaker 2: me on a more adult level. But they weren't.

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Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this. I've never had any mentors.

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Speaker 2: Really. The closest might have been one of my like

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Speaker 2: my high school based teacher.

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Speaker 1: But say their names, stand on your desk, say their name.

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Speaker 2: Jim Miller, the most central PA name ever. Yeah, But

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Speaker 2: like you know, I never had someone like guide me

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Speaker 2: through a really profound realization about my life or career

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Speaker 2: in so many words over the course of a semester

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Speaker 2: or years. You know.

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Speaker 1: I took most of it from like books. But did

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Speaker 1: anybody show you those books?

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Speaker 2: No? I went to the library a lot by myself.

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Speaker 1: M same, Yeah, But I hit the jackpot when it

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Speaker 1: came to amazing teachers. I just got so spoiled with

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Speaker 1: teachers who just went above and beyond for really all

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Speaker 1: of us. I graduated from a place called in the

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Speaker 1: Showba Regional High School in the town called Bolton, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: and I say that in case there any parents listening

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Speaker 1: from central Massachusetts, please try to school choice your kids

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Speaker 1: over there, because it is the best. I feel like

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Speaker 1: there's probably two dozen names that I could think of off

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Speaker 1: the top of my head who are just incredible educators

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Speaker 1: and incredible people. I mean, a big one that comes

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Speaker 1: to mind for me is Kara Roach, who was my

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Speaker 1: English teacher my freshman year of high school. And before

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Speaker 1: I was in her class, I had no inclination of

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Speaker 1: being a writer or really even being a creative person whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: And she was just so enthusiastic about my assignments. She

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Speaker 1: just always encouraged me to go for it and then

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Speaker 1: would have me read whatever I had done for the class,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I'd do these little personal essays or

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Speaker 1: perform little monologues or have these little goofy scripts, and

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Speaker 1: it was like my first audience. And I was the

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Speaker 1: new kid at school. I just left this private school

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Speaker 1: situation and I was the new kid. So it was

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Speaker 1: kind of the way that my future friends got to

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Speaker 1: know me through sharing these creative things I never would

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Speaker 1: have done had they not been assigned. And then somebody,

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Speaker 1: an adult, said hey, this is really good, you should

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Speaker 1: share it with the class. And yeah, she gave me

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Speaker 1: my first platform. And I have no idea what my

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Speaker 1: life would be like without her. I can say that

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Speaker 1: pretty definitively. I'm really grateful to her. And yeah, just

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Speaker 1: so many great people at this school. The awesomely named

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Speaker 1: Leonidas Sacalarian, who always looked like a Civil War reenactor.

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Speaker 1: He worked nights at the Outback steakhouse. I don't know

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Speaker 1: when this guy slept, so we'd always get our papers

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Speaker 1: back with like burger grease splattered all over it. But

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Speaker 1: the most like he what was he?

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Speaker 2: It was a chef.

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Speaker 1: He was a chef. He was a chef. By day

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Speaker 1: he was a social studies and history teacher at my school,

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Speaker 1: and then by nights he was working as a chef

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Speaker 1: at the outback.

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Speaker 2: And retreat teachers so in this country.

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Speaker 1: He was just so brilliant. And of course, I mean

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Speaker 1: one of my all time favorite teacher's favorite people. One

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Speaker 1: of my dearest friends is the great DJ jbj. He

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Speaker 1: was my principal in third grade. I would wander into

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Speaker 1: his office sometimes after school and we'd talk and he

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Speaker 1: taught me how to play chess, if I recall, and

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Speaker 1: generally intimated that it was okay to be passionate about things,

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Speaker 1: which you know, when you're a little boy is not

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Speaker 1: always encouraged. And you know, I think the logical extension

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Speaker 1: of that is this show right now. He's sort of

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Speaker 1: the patron saint of this show for me. And we

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Speaker 1: fell out of touch for years after third grade, and

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Speaker 1: we reconnected when I was in college, and he just

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Speaker 1: was the most still is the most brilliant talented guy.

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Speaker 1: He's the trivia host at a local landmark called the

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Speaker 1: Old Timers Pub, which was the you know, like Kennedy

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Speaker 1: went there on the campaign trails, this really cool local

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Speaker 1: place and it was the most eagerly anticipated night of

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Speaker 1: the week where I grew up, and he would DJ

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Speaker 1: weddings in the summertime, and he would always have me

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Speaker 1: go with him to assist, which was extremely generous because

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Speaker 1: he didn't need the help. So we'd be driving all

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Speaker 1: over New England at all hours, and you know, because

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Speaker 1: we'd just come from a wedding, we'd usually have these

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Speaker 1: long talks about life and love and the future, and

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Speaker 1: he was just like a big brother to me, and

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Speaker 1: he just taught me so many things about music and

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Speaker 1: showmanship and writing and especially what it meant to be

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Speaker 1: just a good friend and a decent person with integrity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we used to dj this week long seminar at

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Speaker 1: the University Connecticut for teachers of gifted students and it

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Speaker 1: was so cool. I mean, you'd have hundreds of like

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Speaker 1: the most motivated, brilliant, enthusiastic educators in the country converging

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Speaker 1: at this one place for a week every summer, and

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Speaker 1: just to be around them. I was already out of

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Speaker 1: school by that point. I was, I was almost done

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Speaker 1: in college. But just to be around them was just

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Speaker 1: so rejuvenating. And I met some incredible people there, doctor

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Speaker 1: Brian Angela, Griffy V.

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Speaker 2: I think some of them listening, are you shaking these

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Speaker 2: up at this point, like are you just monologuing? And

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Speaker 2: they're Jones, Jones, go Crow, my old pal squirrel. No.

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Speaker 1: So I just thanks, sorry for letting me go off.

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Speaker 1: I just feel like these's the least we can do

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Speaker 1: to honor these people. And I think that you know,

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Speaker 1: they're they're really amazing. They've been amazing in my life

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Speaker 1: and so many others.

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Speaker 2: No, I mean I'm jealous. I had most of the

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Speaker 2: people in my high school sucked. I'm in judge with

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Speaker 2: any of them.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, all right, we should probably dive in right

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Speaker 1: about now. From a hilarious aborted start to this movie,

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Speaker 1: which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of sets

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Speaker 1: being torched after Robin Williams failed to show up, to

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Speaker 1: the sweet bonds that form between Robin and Ethan Hawke,

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Speaker 1: the lost ending that would have made this movie even

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Speaker 1: more tear inducing, and the real life teachers who inspired it.

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Speaker 1: Here's everything you didn't know about Dead Poet Society. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna start this episode with a real m Night Shamalan

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Speaker 1: worthy twist. Dead Poet Society was written by Tom Schulman,

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Speaker 1: who would later pen in the screenplays for Honey I

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Speaker 1: Shrunk the Kids, which he turned from a drama into

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Speaker 1: a comedy in seven Days. And what about Bob? This

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Speaker 1: is where you insert the Tim Allen I can't do it.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: That's very good, good, nicely tomb.

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Speaker 2: When I was in back in Pennsylvania, we were watching

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Speaker 2: a tree get trimmed in the in the backyard.

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Speaker 1: It was Friday night and we were watching a tree

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Speaker 1: get trimmed.

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Speaker 2: My dad and I were just sitting out on the

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Speaker 2: back porch with our hands in our pockets watching it.

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Speaker 2: It was just like, Yeah, this rules. I would show

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Speaker 2: up in that tree with a chainsaw. It was like

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Speaker 2: the closest I've gone to, actually tim out. I'm a

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Speaker 2: simple man. Just give me a tree and a chainsaw

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Speaker 2: and a cherry picker.

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Speaker 1: And that's amazing. This Tom Schulman guy. After writing Honey,

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Speaker 1: I Shrunk the Kids and What About Bob, he would

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Speaker 1: later write esteemed films such as Holy Man with Ednie Murphy,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Mooseport, also known as Gene Hackman's last film role,

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Speaker 1: and he directed Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag and

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Speaker 1: executive produced in Decent Proposal and Me Myself and Irene

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Speaker 1: So from the Halls of Higher Learning two eight Heads

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Speaker 1: in a Duffel Bag. This man's career is interesting, but

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Speaker 1: Dead Poet Society was the first screenplay he ever sold

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood, and an early version of this was written

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Speaker 1: while Shulman attended the Actor's Lab in Los Angeles, which

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Speaker 1: is sort of a creative workshop that, to my surprise

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Speaker 1: still exists. Would have thought that capitalism would have killed

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Speaker 1: that by now, A graduate of one of the schools

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Speaker 1: I meant to would have killed that by now. The

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Speaker 1: actor's lab class would occasionally by visited by the teacher's mentor,

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Speaker 1: a guy by the name of Howard Klerman, who was

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Speaker 1: a longtime theater director and drama critic. Clerman would inspire

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Speaker 1: the students with rousing speeches on the beauty of creativity,

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Speaker 1: and Schulman would later say, it was as if Howard

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Speaker 1: Clerman had been everywhere on earth throughout human history. I've

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Speaker 1: never seen or met a human being who knew so

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Speaker 1: much about everything. He was volcanic in his presentation. He

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Speaker 1: starts small and get huge. As a student, I was

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Speaker 1: so completely wowed by him. So as a student, I

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Speaker 1: think I thought, got to write something about this guy.

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Speaker 1: He was so enthralled that he wrote a story about

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Speaker 1: a thinly disguised version of Clerman. But a screenplay about

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Speaker 1: an inspiring screenwriting professor seemed a little bit on the nose,

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Speaker 1: so Shulman decided to put the script away for a

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Speaker 1: number of years. It would be close to a decade

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Speaker 1: before he revisited it. After telling his girlfriend about his

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Speaker 1: days at a Nashville prep school called Montgomery Bell Academy

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Speaker 1: in the late sixties. Schulman's girlfriend, whose name has sadly

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Speaker 1: been lost to history, suggested that he rework his former

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Speaker 1: script about an inspiring educator and said it at an

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Speaker 1: all boys prep school rather than a screenwriting camp.

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Speaker 2: Which.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. This proved to be the Eureka moment that he needed,

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Speaker 1: and the script began to take shape. An early version

434
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,919
Speaker 1: was mostly just the teacher in the classroom talking to

435
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,679
Speaker 1: his students, but eventually he shifted the focus to the

436
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 1: students themselves. Many of the characters were based on boys

437
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: he knew at school. For example, in an interview with

438
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: the University of California Television, Shulman said knocks Over Street,

439
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 1: played by Josh Charles, was based on a friend from

440
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 1: college who was in love with a girl named Chris.

441
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,919
Speaker 1: Schulman used himself as the model for Ethan Hawk's character

442
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: Todd Anderson, saying, I had short sighted thoughts of terror,

443
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 1: just like the Ethan Hawk character Todd, who's modeled after

444
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 1: me in high school. So in a way, this movie

445
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: brought me out of my shell, just like the way

446
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: Todd had to be cajoled out of his own repressed introversion.

447
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 1: In addition to the arts lab teacher Howard Klerman, the

448
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: real life John Keating, Rober Williams's character was a sophomore

449
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: English teacher, Samuel F. Pickering. Junior Tom Shulman would tell

450
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,199
Speaker 1: scripts dot com. I went to an all boys high school,

451
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: and I had an antique sophomore English teacher who was charming,

452
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: and he loved his students, but he was an iconoclast.

453
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 1: When we came back for our junior year, he wasn't

454
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: there anymore. Rumors spread that he had an affair with

455
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: the headmaster's daughter and or the headmaster's wife. The ant

456
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 1: or is mine. I'm not sure if it was. The

457
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 1: rumor was both, which would be impressive.

458
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 2: That's a real private school hat trick man. You get

459
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,919
Speaker 2: like the principal's wife in there, or like the you know,

460
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 2: or the head master's the principal secretary in there. What's

461
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 2: the prep school? What's the prep school? Hetero hat trick?

462
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 2: Headmaster's daughter, headmaster's wife, head master's mom.

463
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 1: We were all too scared to ask what really happened.

464
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: Had we done so, we would have learned that he

465
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 1: simply got a better job. Print the legend, but because

466
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:27,119
Speaker 1: we never knew that, it left an opening in my

467
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: imagination to write a whole other story around an eccentric

468
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: teacher than what.

469
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 2: Happened to him.

470
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 1: The idea of resistance traditional thinking bubbled up is a

471
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: part of that. When that'sked why the teacher in a

472
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: script top poetry rather than English, Schulman explained that it

473
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 1: was the influence of his father, who was a big

474
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: fan of Alfred Lord Tennyson and James Joyce. His father

475
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 1: would often quote the Ulysses line, come, my friends, tis

476
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 1: not too late to seek a newer world that do

477
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: anything for you?

478
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 2: Do you like the modernist writers of Joyce?

479
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: I don't you know. It's sad, and I'm embarrassed to

480
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 1: say this, especially given how much I like this movie.

481
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: My literary tastes are not very well developed. I'm mostly

482
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: a nonfiction guy and a history guy.

483
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a great bit in the rom com from

484
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: the Steak Guys called they Came Together? Did you ever

485
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 2: see that? The who guys know? It's like the Wet

486
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:26,239
Speaker 2: Hot Crew. Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's so funny. And

487
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 2: they have a whole bit where Amy Poehler's character likes

488
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 2: fiction books, and so like it's like a cough. Like

489
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 2: when she meets up with the guy before she meets

490
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 2: the good guy, he's like, I don't know, why would

491
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,719
Speaker 2: I read something that's not true? And so when she

492
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,159
Speaker 2: meets the man of her dreams, he tells her he

493
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 2: likes reading fiction, and she's like, you like reading fiction too.

494
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 2: It's I don't know, kills me everything. Why would I

495
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 2: read something that's not true? Paying someone to lie to me?

496
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: Now I feel bad that I privately sort of feel

497
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:03,680
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, I don't know, man.

498
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,159
Speaker 2: I am more interested in the writing of people who

499
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: grew up idolizing those guys and then make weird fractured

500
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 2: crisis of America, American masculinity stuff out of it. Like

501
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 2: all of the guys I mentioned in the.

502
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 1: Intro interesting what draws you to them?

503
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 2: I bet well A lot of it is sort of

504
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 2: like era related jealousy, like, uh, okay, can you imagine

505
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:32,679
Speaker 2: being like a poet these days? And then like the

506
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 2: level of poet that John Berryman was, where you teach

507
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 2: like one class a semester and you're hammer drunk, having

508
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 2: a fit, screwing anything on campus that moves, And then

509
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 2: you still wind up with a Nobel Prize and the

510
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 2: cover of Time magazine is comprehensible to me. And just

511
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 2: like this, I mean, like all the John Chiever like

512
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 2: it's just like the stories of the idol rich. I'm like,

513
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 2: what an incredible world. Like you're drunk by like four pm.

514
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 2: You have nothing to do but take the train back

515
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 2: upstate and then continue to get drunk. Your wife is

516
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 2: having all kinds of like pill addictions or like existential

517
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 2: crises up in an empty house. You don't know your

518
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 2: children's names. Like it's it's incredible. I don't know, I

519
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,679
Speaker 2: just eat it with a spoon. I think it was

520
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 2: like I just got in a Salinger all his like

521
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 2: Franian Zoe all that stuff at an early age, and

522
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 2: I was just like, oh, this is hilarious. And the

523
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 2: world in which I lived I wish I lived, you

524
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 2: know why?

525
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: And I say this as a guy who worships the

526
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, like that sounds like all the bad

527
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: stuff about it. Yeah, but it was just easier back then. Okay, sure, yeah, I.

528
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 2: Mean like I love John Chiever and I love Raymond Carver,

529
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 2: but that's not like, you know, Finnigan's Wake or like

530
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 2: Moby Dick. You can bang those out like three times

531
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 2: a week, live on live, on that for the rest

532
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 2: of your life, like come on again. If John Berryman

533
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 2: was able to score the cover of Time magazine and

534
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 2: a Nobel Prize while having like the bac of your

535
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 2: average why know, how hard could it have really been?

536
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 2: Like life on easy mode if you were a straight

537
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 2: white guy at that time.

538
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: There's something about the false promise that appeals to you.

539
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, I'm like not that good. I'm

540
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 2: a good writer, but like I'm not that good of

541
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,479
Speaker 2: a writer, But like back then, I would have been

542
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 2: a fucking star. Same as I'm like, not that good

543
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 2: of a bass player, but not true. Eh, it's just easier. Man.

544
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: Getting back to why Tom Shulman made the teacher teach

545
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: poetry said, from my father's perspective, poetry suggested better ways

546
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: to live. And I think there's a lot of truth

547
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: to that. How do you feel about that? I disagree.

548
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 1: I knew you would be like I was curious, Well.

549
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: I don't think. I mean what I get out of

550
00:28:55,800 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 2: poetry is like new maps of interiority, wow, frameworks of feeling.

551
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 2: And then Separate from that, I find like the formal

552
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 2: strictures of poetry really interesting, like in the aforementioned Berriment example,

553
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 2: like reading it aloud or scanning it without it. I

554
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 2: should mention some women poets like and Sexton, but like

555
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 2: the structure of it is is once you see what's

556
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 2: being done with the scanchin and the meter and the

557
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 2: line breaks, like it really is like a sculpture with words,

558
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 2: And that's what I find really beautiful about it on

559
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 2: the page. Listening to it read aloud is embarrassing and

560
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 2: nothing that slam poetry should not exist, Like it's just a.

561
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: Stupid that's really interesting for a musician who's in a songwriter,

562
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: that's fascinating for me to hear.

563
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 2: They're different art forms to me, you know. And yeah,

564
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: I mean I don't think there's anything. I don't think

565
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: there's any form of writing that achieves that, you know,

566
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 2: other than you're like really wildly experimental novels or something.

567
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know, it's cool. I like poetry.

568
00:29:57,880 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 2: I like the Confessionals because they were just talking about

569
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 2: how how bad their life was.

570
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I knew more about it. I really

571
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: don't other than like Sylvia Plath and Ted Heath and

572
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: the poets that have stories behind them that.

573
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 2: Dud John Berriman's got some stories.

574
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

575
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 2: He waved to someone on the way off the bridge. Yeah.

576
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: I recall reading that after he jumped. What bridge was

577
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: it again?

578
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 2: One of the ones in Minneapolis? And supposedly the worst

579
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 2: part about that. I think I've actually mentioned this on

580
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 2: this podcast. He missed the water hit like the Rocky shore,

581
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 2: broke both his legs and died slowly of exposure, yes,

582
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 2: and blood loss.

583
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: I thought this would have been like a real saccharine episode,

584
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: and I was worried about how this was gonna go.

585
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: But I'm glad that.

586
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: We really now.

587
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: I'm just here to plumb the depths. I suppose that's

588
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: the flip side of these kinds of you know, they

589
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: tell you to listen to your inner voice, and sometimes

590
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: your in a voice.

591
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 2: Uh mine, screaming all the time, sometimes crying coughs a

592
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 2: lot too.

593
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: You stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares back

594
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: of getting back to Tom Schulman's high school English teacher,

595
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: much like Robin Williams's character in Dead Poets Society. This

596
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: teacher Samuel F. Pickering Junior had a very unique teaching style.

597
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: He would occasionally teach classes while standing on his desk,

598
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: just like keating or in a trash can, for reasons

599
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: that I don't understand. One student remembers Pickering making him

600
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: stand on a chair and flap his arms every time

601
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: the class said the word never More. While reading Ed

602
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: Graham Poe's The Raven, Pickering would say, I did such

603
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: things not so much to awaken students as entertained myself.

604
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: If I had fun, I suppose I thought the boys

605
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: would have fun too, and maybe even enjoy reading and writing.

606
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: You know what, I think the.

607
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 2: Real problem with this movie is is that it did

608
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 2: not anticipate adorable.

609
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: Oh wow, please elaborate. It did not anticipate twee.

610
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 2: I believe adorable is actually traced back to like the

611
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 2: marketing department for the show New Girl starring Zoey Desh.

612
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right.

613
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 2: I think you're right. But like it is shorthand for

614
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 2: like a certain kind of bowler hat wearing, flower bedecked

615
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: bird enthusiast, usually of a female persuasion uh, who's just

616
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 2: like quirky and just like so random or I guess,

617
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 2: like also Natalie Portman in like Garden State, Yeah, so

618
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 2: likely it goes all the way back. Well I guess

619
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 2: that's true. Yeah, but I guess I didn't.

620
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you conflating manic pixie dream girl with adorkable

621
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: because I think those are different.

622
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 2: I'm just I want to zoom out and not even

623
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 2: get into the archetypes. And I just want to say,

624
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 2: like quirk like quirk, you know, quirk used to could

625
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 2: mean like a I feel like eccentric was quirky, and

626
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: eccentricity is like not necessarily cute, like eccentrics can be weird.

627
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: Sort of dangerous.

628
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: Yes, And then it somehow morphed into this, as you

629
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 2: put it, twinkly eyed brand of just like a little

630
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 2: bit random, like get up on your desk and flap

631
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 2: your wings and like. And somewhere along the line, the

632
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 2: cultural perception of that, and I'm including myself of this

633
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 2: became like revulsion rather than enthralled with the whimsy of

634
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 2: the world. Okay, no batter, I'm shooting a lot of

635
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 2: hot takes out of here to make up for my

636
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 2: lack of familiarity with this.

637
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: So uh, pickering Shulman's high school English teacher, was surprisingly

638
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: bashful and somewhat self deprecating when journalists interviewed him in

639
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: the wake of Dead Poets Society's success. In an interview

640
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: with The Times Daily, he said, whatever of me is

641
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: in that character has got to be small. I was

642
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,959
Speaker 1: a kid, and he was a child. The writer Tom Shulman,

643
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: twenty three years ago. How much of me can there

644
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: be in that movie? It's gonna sounds like a real

645
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: piece of work. Dead bo Society is rife with literary references,

646
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: both obvious and obscure. Keating tells the boys to sound

647
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 1: their barbaric yap from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He

648
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: quotes Henry David Throw's line from Walden the mass of

649
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: men lead lives of quiet desperation, which I'm sure resonates

650
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: with you.

651
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 2: I ain't the truth.

652
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: The boys chant lines from Vashal Lindsay's almost forgotten poem

653
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: The Congo. Then I saw the congo creeping through the black,

654
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: cutting through the forest with a golden track. There's Shakespeare,

655
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,240
Speaker 1: Robert Frost offered, Lord Tennyson and Lord Byron, and of course,

656
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: the most memorable literary reference is the use of Whitman's

657
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 1: lgy for Abraham Lincoln. At the end of the movie,

658
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,839
Speaker 1: after Keating's been fired, the boys famously climb on their

659
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: desks and declare their loyalty by saying, oh, captain, my captain,

660
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: this is wild to me, shockingly for such a twinkly eyed,

661
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: crinkly eyed or twinkly eyed. I think it's twinkly twinkly Okay,

662
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: twinkly eye delicate drama. The geniuses at Disney initially wanted

663
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 1: to transform this character study into a musical in the

664
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: style of Fame, which was a huge success at the time.

665
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: Fame takes place at a performing arts high school, so

666
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: at least those people who sing and dance diegetically there.

667
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: I don't know how you could have a musical with

668
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids writing yeah, so that's that's hilarious

669
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 1: in a factoid that almost seems like it was a

670
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: joke added to a listical many years ago and has

671
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,720
Speaker 1: been taken as gospel. The working title for this aborted

672
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: musical version of Dead Poets Society was The Sultans of Strut.

673
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 2: I love that.

674
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: Do you really know you?

675
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I'd like to see the script for that,

676
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 2: I don't think it got that far.

677
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: Who decided to go with that title? Like, have you

678
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: ever seen a writer strut?

679
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 2: Maybe at the time, but I feel like nowadays they're

680
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 2: either limping you're in the fetal position, or have stooped

681
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 2: shoulders and computer screen narrowed eyes like.

682
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 1: You have good posture, reminding me, everyone take a stretch break.

683
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a long episode. Okay, there we go,

684
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: All right, there we go.

685
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 2: Okay.

686
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 1: I was hoping I get the sound of a crack

687
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: get picked up in the microphone, but I guess not.

688
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: Some of the proposed leads for this early version of

689
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: Dead Poets Society were pretty wild. Disney's Touchdown Studios considered

690
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: Mel Gibson, Dustin Hoffman, Liam Neeson, and of course the

691
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: King of the Twinkly Eyes himself, Tom Hanks for the

692
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: part of John Keating. I'm not mad at Liam Neeson.

693
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: I could see him pulling that off.

694
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: No, but what would what would leam Neeson have been

695
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 2: in in the time? I don't know, because this was

696
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 2: eighty dark Man, not familiar eighty nine. Yeah, man, he no,

697
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have been in dark Man yet the mission.

698
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 2: He would have just come off doing the mission.

699
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: Oh wait, track factoid for later when they were filming

700
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: the famous you know, standing on desk scene the movie

701
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: that director Peter Weir played on the set to kind

702
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: of get everybody in the mood when they were filming

703
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 1: that scene. Was Anio Marconi's theme from the mission or

704
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: a soundtrack from the mission.

705
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 2: Oh Gabriel's obo I think so yah the haunting main

706
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 2: theme from that.

707
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:33,479
Speaker 1: Yes, well, we'll get.

708
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 2: To the Mendi's work.

709
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,879
Speaker 1: Robin Williams became the front runner, though, for the lead

710
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: of Good Poets Society, following the success of his dramatic

711
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 1: turn in nineteen eighty seven's Good Morning Vietnam, which is

712
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,280
Speaker 1: a favorite of mine. But there was a snag. Robin

713
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: was not enthusiastic about working with the director attached to

714
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: this early version of Dead Poets Society, Jeff Kanu a

715
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: Canoe I don't know you say his name, who had

716
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: recently found success as a director of Revenge of the Nerds.

717
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's good at what he does, but his

718
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,399
Speaker 1: prior work really does not bode well for what they

719
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: had in mind for Dead Poet Society. Oh, it's another

720
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: movie about a bunch of nerds got it. Yeah, I

721
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: can't imagine that he would have played this straight, but

722
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's a professional. Apparently, Robin Williams shared

723
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: my concern because he was bizarrely noncommittal about this project

724
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:26,720
Speaker 1: in a way that seems like something that couldn't happen

725
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 1: when you have major studios involved. As Shulman relates, the

726
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: studio wanted Robin Williams, and Robin wouldn't say no, but

727
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 1: he wouldn't say yes to working with that director. In fact,

728
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: we prepped the movie and built the sets. It was

729
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: going to be shot outside of Atlanta, and Robin just

730
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: didn't show up for the first day of shooting. He

731
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: never said he would, but Disney kept trying to pressure

732
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: him by moving things forward. After the first day he

733
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,280
Speaker 1: didn't show up, they canceled the production and burned the sets.

734
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: We actually, we actually have dailies of the sets burning.

735
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: Did they salt the Earth? A Civil War reenactment that

736
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: is priceless? Yeah, yeah, we couldn't.

737
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 2: That sounds like a like a like a Reynolds Like no, it.

738
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:19,800
Speaker 1: Sounds like a real cigar chopping executive moment.

739
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 2: Or I was gonna say, like Norm McDonald doing Burt

740
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,839
Speaker 2: Reynolds like, uh, yeah, we uh couldn't find the league guys,

741
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 2: so we uh we burned the set.

742
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 1: How long did you wait for him that day? That day?

743
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like that?

744
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 2: Why?

745
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,800
Speaker 1: Why is that the default mode of set?

746
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 2: Like, surely they could strike it in a way that

747
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 2: wouldn't be cartoonishly wasteful.

748
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 1: A transspectacle.

749
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 2: I have to imagine the union guys. Should we bring

750
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 2: in the union guys to take this down? No, dowsn't

751
00:39:54,680 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 2: gasoline and burn it like creative thrust your middle finger

752
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 2: against God.

753
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: I have to imagine there was rage involved, or or

754
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: it was a new England prep school built in the

755
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: South and the southern Union guys were like, torch it

756
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: the South, or.

757
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 2: Simply that I mean the probably we're dodging here is

758
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,280
Speaker 2: the simplest solution, which is that they did not feel

759
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 2: like paying union rates to get it torn down properly.

760
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 2: They're like, it's gonna caut that's a cigar trupy. It's

761
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 2: gonna cost me how much to take down the prep

762
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:33,800
Speaker 2: school set? Burn it?

763
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: Incredible? My favorite factoid about this I thought you'd like that. Yeah, uh,

764
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: after this debacle, I guess Somewhat predictably, jeff Canou retire

765
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: from the production. Dustin Hoffman reportedly signed on to direct,

766
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: as well as play the role of John Keating the

767
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: Robin Williams part, but there were scheduling conflicts and arguments

768
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: about when the shooting would start. Finally, the studio gave

769
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 1: the movie to six time Oscar nominee Peter Weir, who

770
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: would later direct The Truman Show and prior to that,

771
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: he directed The Year of Living Dangerously and the Harrison

772
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,359
Speaker 1: Ford Tour de Force Witness. You described that movie as

773
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:12,959
Speaker 1: a tour de force.

774
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a good movie, Okay, just checking Amish

775
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 2: people in peril. It's mostly puppy mills and meth farms now.

776
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 1: As Nancy Griffin wrote in a onset profile for Premier magazine,

777
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: Peter Weir's style combines the visual lyricism and mysticism of

778
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: an art filmmaker with commercial sensibility. The only true auteur

779
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: among his generation of Australian directors, Weir as only once

780
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: before agreed to take on a studio assignment Witness. Both

781
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 1: times it was Jeffrey Katzenberg who dangled the offer he

782
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 1: couldn't refuse. Last year, nineteen eighty eight, we are met

783
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: with a Disney boss. As the director was on his

784
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: way out the door, Katzenberg said, I got just the

785
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: film for you, and slipped him a copy of Dead

786
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: Poets Society. Weir was hooked at once by Tom Schulman's script.

787
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: It's the finest piece of writing I've ever worked with.

788
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: He said, Wow, I know he's the official enemy of

789
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:08,439
Speaker 1: the Pod, but Jeffrey Katzenberg was actually kind of cool

790
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 1: to Peter Weird during the shoot.

791
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 2: I mean, he you know, he has some heaters. He's

792
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:14,760
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Katzenberg.

793
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: We're I guess you know. Disney's very famously tight with

794
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: the purse strings. And Weir pushed himself to the point

795
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: of exhaustion to keep this shoot on schedule, and finally

796
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: he blew up and called Jeffrey Katzenburg. And according to

797
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: his version of the story, he says, jeff says, why

798
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: didn't you call me sooner? And he was fixed up

799
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: within twenty four hours, and yeah, we like that. Yeah,

800
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: where we go on to say that his relationship with

801
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: Disney added up to a very good experience, which is

802
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: a very diplomatic way of saying all this, so that

803
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:47,799
Speaker 1: was how they got Robin Williams as the lead, But

804
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: what about his students, As director Peter Weir told People magazine,

805
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 1: the boys were all very young. I was determined to

806
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: cast them at the true age of the characters they

807
00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,720
Speaker 1: were playing, so high school age. Seventeen eighteen. Oscar winner

808
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: Sam Rockwell auditioned for the role of Charlie Dalton, but

809
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: he couldn't nail the part because quote, I looked so young,

810
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: but I wasn't always good at playing young. Peter Weir's

811
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: favorite was a young Josh Charles, who would later go

812
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: on to act, most notably in Don't Tell Mom, The

813
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: Babysitter Is Dead, Sports Night, and the CBS legal drama

814
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: The Good Wife. So ouch, he seems like a nice guy.

815
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah he does, he does. He's not Ethan Hawk, but yeah,

816
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:37,439
Speaker 1: he was apparently Sam Rockwell or Robert Sean Leonard. I'm

817
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 1: a big House fan, so it was weird for me

818
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: to see him in here, right, Yes, I always forget

819
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, Josh Charles was cast as the love

820
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: struck romantic knocks Over Street, which is the most screenwriting

821
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: class name I have ever heard.

822
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:52,400
Speaker 2: That's bordering on pinchinn.

823
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was just seventeen and he only had

824
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: one prior credit, acting in John Waters' Hairspray.

825
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 2: Hell Y.

826
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 1: Charles grew up in Baltimore, and his godfather is supposedly

827
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: the real life inspiration for Mickey Rourke's character in the

828
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: movie Diner.

829
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 2: Is that nuts it is?

830
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: Remember the popcorn scene and Diner? He said that that

831
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:15,919
Speaker 1: really happened to his godfather. Remember at the movie theater,

832
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 1: Baltimore's Yeah, Baltimore's weird. Yeah. Google it, folks, google the

833
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 1: popcorn scene from Diner. The popcorn scene from from Diner.

834
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: Josh Charles was inspired by Kevin Bacon's performance in the

835
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: movie Diner. The aforementioned diner sang, I saw him on

836
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: the screen.

837
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 2: Did you ever see diner?

838
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: Stop saying stop saying the diner saying. When I saw

839
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: him on the screen, I said, now that guy is cool, okay, man, Yeah,

840
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: I forget how.

841
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 2: I always forget how much of juice old Bake's head

842
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 2: in the head in the nineties man like or around

843
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,959
Speaker 2: this time? Really yeah, I mean I like him because

844
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 2: of tremors, but yeah, you forget. He was like the

845
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 2: hottest property going around at one point, right, It used

846
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 2: to be easier. I left Roadhouse the other day and

847
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 2: it's like Patrick swayzey was considered like drop dead gorgeous

848
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 2: and like he's I.

849
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: Mean he's built.

850
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, he's like, well, he's got kind of

851
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,479
Speaker 2: a weird face, but more to the point, he's built

852
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 2: like a slight elf. Like nowadays, even poor Hugh Jackman,

853
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 2: who's like seventy years old, has to go on you know,

854
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 2: hormones and get unnecessarily swollen for his eighteenth attempted wolverine.

855
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 1: Do you think Patrick Swayze is a weird face?

856
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 2: He's getting out a real rubbery face. I mean, you're.

857
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: Measuring him against your beloved Kurt Russell, which I understand,

858
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:38,720
Speaker 1: but again even.

859
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 2: Kurt Russell like Kurt Russell and like, you know, it's

860
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 2: just I don't know. Male beauty standards are just so

861
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 2: much funnier now in for leading men.

862
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: Okay, who is it for?

863
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 2: You? Currently?

864
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: Are past both? Either I'm curious Patrick Swayze's a weird face.

865
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: You're Messo messol on Kurt Russell, I'm curious.

866
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 2: I'm not matso mattso on Kurt Russell. I just mean no,

867
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 2: I just mean, like their physique, it's not about face

868
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 2: at all. It's just about like when they take their

869
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 2: shirt off. There no no one back then was like

870
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 2: a rippling mass of you know, growth hormone and like

871
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 2: seventeen days in the gym, no carbs, diet. They just

872
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 2: look like dudes, just refreshing.

873
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: I don't know.

874
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 2: I watched a lot of martial arts movies as a kid,

875
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 2: like body image issues, so I'm like sensitive about this

876
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's bad to

877
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 2: expose young boys to Bruce Lee and be like, that's

878
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 2: a body type you could achieve, or even John Glad

879
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 2: Van dam Man. We should do blood Sport. There's such

880
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 2: a hilarious moment in that movie where the camera like

881
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 2: obviously and lovingly lingers on his butt. This is so

882
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:48,879
Speaker 2: goddamn funny to me what we were talking about.

883
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: This is an episode about boys talking about feelings, and

884
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:57,839
Speaker 1: gee golly, y'all are gonna hear a lot We were

885
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: talking about seventeen year old Josh Charles, who was kind

886
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: of poised to be the breakout star of this movie.

887
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: You can kind of tell from all the press attention

888
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 1: around this when it came out. He was the one

889
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: that a lot of the profiles were focused on there

890
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 1: as a profile on him and People magazine in this

891
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: movie came out, but the distinction for chief breakout Star

892
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:19,360
Speaker 1: of this movie went to Josh Charles co star and

893
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: friend Ethan Hawk. The pair met when they initially auditioned

894
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: for the first director of the film, The Revenge of

895
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: the Nerds Guy, and they've remained friends to this day.

896
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: It's adorable. Ethan Hawk is still close with like everybody

897
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: in this movie.

898
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 2: It's great.

899
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about that later. Ethan who had auditioned

900
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: with a monologue from Shakespeare's Richard the Third because he's

901
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: a nerd and I love him boy. He dropped out

902
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: of Carnegie Mellon to take the part, and his parents

903
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: were kind of a lot like the parents of the

904
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 1: doomed Neil character in this movie. Hawk would recall them

905
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: telling him, what I think you're gonna be Clint Eastwood.

906
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: That's never gonna work out. Never underestimate the power of spite, yeah,

907
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: I mean, to their credit. The only other movie that

908
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 1: he appeared in at that point was My beloved Explorers movie,

909
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: which tanked, and the failure was so bad that he

910
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: retired from acting for a time. When he was like

911
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: a tween, so I get it. He would later say,

912
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: I would never recommend that a kid act because the

913
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 1: experience was so brutal.

914
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, you got to.

915
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: Watch Explorers Man. It's directed by Joe Dante who directed Gremlins.

916
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: It has an industrial light and magic to all the

917
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: special effects. Rob Boutin, who did the thing, and I

918
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: forgot what else he did, does all the special effects makeup.

919
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: Jerry Goldsmith does the soundtrack. It's got a lot going

920
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: for it. You would really like it. But despite the

921
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: horrific experience of being an Explorers, Ethan Hawk knew that

922
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,320
Speaker 1: his role in Dead Poet Society was something special. In

923
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: the DVD commentary for the film, Hawk said, I was

924
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: eighteen years old and I thought getting this part would

925
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 1: change my life. I had instilled it with that kind

926
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 1: of importance. Narrator voice was right, So he initially planned

927
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: to go back to school and be a writer. He

928
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 1: decided to stick with the whole acting thing after getting

929
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 1: offered a string of quote interesting parts in the wake

930
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: of Dead Poet Society's success. I actually we talked about

931
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: this earlier. I really like Ethan Hawk, and I think

932
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 1: he's a cool guy and he comes across great in interviews.

933
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:20,359
Speaker 1: I just want to note that he split from Uma

934
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: Thurman in two thousand and five and married the family

935
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: nanny who looks just like Uma Thurman.

936
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that was like the middle road of his

937
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 2: career that I was like, we hate him, right, and

938
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 2: then he just became like ultra sincere and just super

939
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:39,879
Speaker 2: sincere talking about movies all the time. We're like, yeah,

940
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,760
Speaker 2: but you did you did that weird thing that middle

941
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 2: aged men do. Looks just like Uma, just like Uma.

942
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: It's really weird.

943
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 2: I mean that was Jude Law with Sienna Miller and

944
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 2: was married.

945
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:59,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, did you know that Ethan Hawk is distantly

946
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 1: related to Tennessee Williams.

947
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 2: I did not.

948
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: It's like second cousin once removed or something. Which good

949
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: for him. Yeah, I know, isn't that cool. I'm sure

950
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: he loves that. He loves that kind of thing. There

951
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 1: was a really cute uh whatever the Criterion collection thing

952
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: is where they go into the closet whatever that special thing.

953
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 1: Oh y yeah, yeah, And I just came out the

954
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: other day with Ethan and Mayahawk, his daughter, and it

955
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: was really sweet, like watching them interact and the movies

956
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: they picked were good. I seem like exactly none of them,

957
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: but they all seemed really good. My hawk seems cool. Yeah,

958
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 1: you can decode that any way you like, how would

959
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: she she's like twenty six.

960
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 2: Okayh yeah, okay, she's a reasonable age. Oh not like

961
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 2: a Drake Millie Bobby Brown situation.

962
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:44,879
Speaker 1: Oh is that a thing? Oh yeah, dude, you didn't

963
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 1: know that. No, I missed the whole discourse on Drake

964
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: and Kendrick.

965
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 2: Oh no, this is back before this is this predates

966
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,400
Speaker 2: that it was ammunition in the disc track certainly, but

967
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, revealed that Drake had like

968
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 2: a texting relationship with like an underage Millie Bobby Brown.

969
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 2: Oh she's like barely of age now yeah. Oh yeah, no,

970
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 2: it was like she was like fourteen or fifteen. Oh no,

971
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 2: it was like peak Stranger Things stuff. Yeah, he was

972
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:13,760
Speaker 2: like hardcore.

973
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 1: Is he gonna get like put away?

974
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 2: One can hope.

975
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right

976
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:33,959
Speaker 1: back with more too much information in just a moment. Wow.

977
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: We also got to talk about Robert Sean Leonard, who

978
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: is best known to me as doctor James Wilson on

979
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:47,000
Speaker 1: House the Watson to Hugh Laurie, Sherlock Holmes. Did you

980
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 1: realize that House and Wilson were at Holmes and Watson Analog?

981
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: Because it took me way too long.

982
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 2: To figure that out.

983
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: Oh, you don't watch House, you didn't care.

984
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:56,839
Speaker 2: No, The only episode I remember is when Ella Cool

985
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: Jay's on there and yeah, it's like a prison guy

986
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 2: and he gets put in the MRI machine, it pulls

987
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 2: out all his jailhouse tattoos. Yeah that was gross.

988
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're a heavily tatted man, so I can

989
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 1: imagine why that would that would stick with you.

990
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:14,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't ever say tatted again. By the way, Sorry,

991
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 2: is that bad for the community or is it just

992
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 2: bad coming from me? Booth Robert Sean Leonard played Neil Perry,

993
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 2: the central tragic figure of Dead Poets Society. He's the

994
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 2: I just want to be an actor, dad kid. To

995
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:32,720
Speaker 2: end all, I just want to be an actor, dad kids.

996
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 2: We will talk more about his fate later. In the

997
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 2: DVD commentary, Leonard said filming Dead Poets Society was to

998
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 2: me life changing. No word on whether or not he

999
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 2: felt that way after filming nineteen ninety three Swing Kids,

1000
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 2: which is a truly bizarre movie. Higel tell us about

1001
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:54,440
Speaker 2: the Swing Kids movie and this bizarre underground Nazi subculture.

1002
00:52:57,680 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 1: Thank you for throwing to me for that.

1003
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, Swing Kids, I think is mostly like I only

1004
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:07,800
Speaker 2: became aware of it when people started dredging up like

1005
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 2: the Christian Bale stuff, because yeah, yeah, I came of

1006
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 2: agent for like the Nolan Batman stuff, and everyone's like, yeah,

1007
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:16,479
Speaker 2: you're grim dark.

1008
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 1: Batman was like tap dancing and singing extravagantly. Where's Nuzzies? Oh?

1009
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 1: Are they not the same movie? One is a bunch

1010
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 1: of newsboys in New York City. Others are children in

1011
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,720
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany who love swing music.

1012
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 2: Huh, they'd morphed together. I think I knew that, but

1013
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 2: they'd morphed together in my mind.

1014
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're very, very different. But I would like

1015
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,720
Speaker 1: to see some kind of a cinematic mashup. Was Christian

1016
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: Bale in it?

1017
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1018
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: In Swing Kids?

1019
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 2: Yeah? So he was in Swing Kids and Newsies.

1020
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the gret thing about actors is that that

1021
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:58,800
Speaker 1: explains my confusion. Don't give me for that. How many.

1022
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 2: Read comedies musicals? Even read the thing I wrote for you?

1023
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 2: It's got swing right there in the title is set

1024
00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:18,240
Speaker 2: in Berlin in the late nineteen thirties, and it explores

1025
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 2: the subculture of teenagers who are obsessed with British and

1026
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 2: American pop culture, specifically swing music. These Hitler Youth were

1027
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 2: some of them.

1028
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: In Hitler Youth, surely there was an overlap, No, there

1029
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: was not. There was form as a reaction, there was

1030
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 1: a parody of Hitler Youth.

1031
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 2: Okay, well, they loosely structed themselves to clubs with name

1032
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 2: like the Harlem Club, the Okay Gang, that's the name

1033
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:45,840
Speaker 2: of my gang, and the Hot Club. Hot Club is

1034
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 2: actually I think I think traces to gypsy jazz because

1035
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 2: that's what like every single jazz manute group was called

1036
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 2: at one point, and people still named them that, Like

1037
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 2: there's like a Hot Club of Detroit, but all of

1038
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,719
Speaker 2: Django and Stephen Grippelli's bands were called like the Hot

1039
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 2: Club this, but I guess it also goes back to Yeah,

1040
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:08,280
Speaker 2: they probably got it from Louis Armstrong because Louis Armstrong

1041
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 2: had the Hot fives and sevens. Anyway, they were known

1042
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:17,360
Speaker 2: as the swing youth or swing Yugend, a parody of

1043
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 2: Hitler Youth. They also referred to themselves individually as swings

1044
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:28,120
Speaker 2: or swing henees, swinginnys, swingineas, swing, will we swing right,

1045
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 2: swing heins or swingety. Members were called swing boy, swing

1046
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 2: girl or old hot boy.

1047
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:38,239
Speaker 1: You gotta do it on the Matt Berry voice, My

1048
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:42,280
Speaker 1: Sweet Cheese by good Time, old hot, old hot.

1049
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:48,479
Speaker 2: Boy, swingety, and those we're called swing boy, swing girl

1050
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 2: or old hot boy. Participants were mainly from the upper

1051
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 2: middle class, as swing culture required the participants to have

1052
00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:58,439
Speaker 2: access to the music, which was not played on German radio,

1053
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 2: so extensive actions of imported or bootleg phonograph recordings were essential. Similarly,

1054
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 2: to understand the lyrics of the predominantly American songs like

1055
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:10,719
Speaker 2: the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company six or whatever,

1056
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 2: the garbage was, yeah twenty three sixty nine a train,

1057
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 2: and they had to have a rudimentary understanding of English,

1058
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:27,120
Speaker 2: which was not taught in the Volks school. The working

1059
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 2: class high school relative wealth also fostered a distinctive style

1060
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:33,320
Speaker 2: among the swing kids, which was in some ways comparable

1061
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:35,839
Speaker 2: to the zoot suit style popular in the United States

1062
00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 2: at the time, which I will remind everyone was a

1063
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:41,919
Speaker 2: racially motivated riot when all the sailors were going around

1064
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 2: the Hispanic sections trying to beat people up, immortalized by

1065
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 2: Brian Setzer. Oh no, my brother, Cherry Poppins still in

1066
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,919
Speaker 2: short sell cherry pop and that's disgusting all the time.

1067
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 2: Oh my god, those guys, uh, oh my god, just

1068
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:04,760
Speaker 2: think you about it makes me so mad. Um boys

1069
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 2: usually wore long jackets, often checkered shoes with crep soools

1070
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 2: for dancing, and flashy scarves. So they were like rude

1071
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 2: proto rude boys and like SKA guys. No teddy boy,

1072
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 2: it's like almost to a tee, what scars fast. They

1073
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:23,200
Speaker 2: almost always carried an umbrella and smoked pipes and added

1074
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 2: a dress shirt button with a semi precious stone. Girls

1075
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 2: generally wore their hair long and loose and added excessive makeup.

1076
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 2: Well that's a value judgment. Predictably, these groups were frowned

1077
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 2: upon by the Nazi regime since their America philia extended

1078
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 2: to hating Nazis like Indiana Jones. They hated those guys,

1079
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 2: and the movement became a sort of underground, non violent

1080
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 2: protest of Nazism. When these clubs and parties were busted

1081
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:49,640
Speaker 2: in the midst of a war, some of these swing

1082
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:53,400
Speaker 2: kids were deported to concentration camps, which is not a

1083
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 2: punishment that fits the crime of.

1084
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: Liking Benny Dudman.

1085
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 2: Anyway, Sweet Kids, and with Robert Shawn Leonard's character getting

1086
00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 2: hauled off to prison while shouting swinghile, So that's weird.

1087
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 2: And Christian Bale is in it. He's also in Newsi's

1088
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:12,240
Speaker 2: which is not the film Swing Kids.

1089
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 1: Wow. I learned so much today about you, about.

1090
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 2: Prep schools, about Nazis, about Nazis, about Christian Bale. Speaking

1091
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 2: of evil Nazis, we must speak to the bad guy

1092
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:32,760
Speaker 2: of Dead Poets Society, doctor Gail Nolan, the headmaster of

1093
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:36,640
Speaker 2: Welton Academy, played by veteran character actor to end all

1094
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 2: veteran character actors, Norman Lloyd, who has the distinction of

1095
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 2: being the oldest male actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

1096
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:46,560
Speaker 2: You're implying that he's still alive. No, he just died,

1097
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 2: oh three years ago. He was born in nineteen fourteen

1098
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 2: and died in May of twenty twenty one at the

1099
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 2: age of one hundred and six. I wonder if they

1100
00:58:55,320 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 2: showed him only fans. That's probably what killed them. I

1101
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 2: was going to say. He lived through the First World

1102
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:06,880
Speaker 2: War and COVID and Twitter. He was seventy five by

1103
00:59:06,920 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 2: the time Dead Poets came around, and he didn't want

1104
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 2: to put up with bullsh like auditioning. He'd just done

1105
00:59:12,120 --> 00:59:14,600
Speaker 2: six seasons on Saint Elsewhere and as he said in

1106
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:19,000
Speaker 2: the tenth anniversary Making of DVD special said, they have

1107
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 2: six years of film if they want to look at

1108
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:24,840
Speaker 2: and make a decision from that. What a crustier age

1109
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 2: of actor like Jackie Coogan watching his dad die in

1110
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:28,720
Speaker 2: a car accident.

1111
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: Did he like always suit his own mother? Yeah, that

1112
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 1: was what it was. Yeah.

1113
00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 2: He eventually caved into being in the film after winning

1114
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 2: a tennis match, a game he used to play with

1115
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:41,920
Speaker 2: Charlie Chaplin. That's how old this guy is. Since he

1116
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 2: was on a winning streak, he felt this would yield

1117
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:48,000
Speaker 2: a good audition, As he said during his interview for

1118
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 2: the DVD special feature, if I hadn't won that match,

1119
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 2: we wouldn't be sitting here.

1120
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 1: Legend model for us all. Shooting for Dead Poets Society

1121
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: began in November nineteen eighty eight and continued until January.

1122
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:04,320
Speaker 1: They originally intended to film in Rome, Georgia. You recall

1123
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:07,240
Speaker 1: that's what assests with Torch for the aborted beginning, but

1124
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:09,560
Speaker 1: director Peter Weir wanted to move the film to a

1125
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:12,400
Speaker 1: place that had snow to achieve that authentic New England

1126
01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 1: prep school feel, so they moved up to Delaware, where

1127
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:20,040
Speaker 1: snow would be more plentiful and free. After filming was complete,

1128
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: some actors complained that they found the city of Wilmington, Delaware,

1129
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,919
Speaker 1: a little bit tedious. Robin Williams said at the time

1130
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 1: that quote, staying in a hotel room in a town

1131
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 1: that shuts down at five o'clock at night can't be boring.

1132
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 1: They rived there several weeks early so that the boys

1133
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 1: would be able to bond, and the hope was actually

1134
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: feel like students. They block book rooms at the Radison

1135
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: Hotel in Wilmington, and where described their domicile as quote

1136
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:47,720
Speaker 1: the infamous floor seven. Go there at your own peril.

1137
01:00:48,360 --> 01:00:49,800
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever slept.

1138
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:51,800
Speaker 2: I haven't eaten any dinner yet, so I gonna need

1139
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 2: a bunch of saltwater taffy.

1140
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: If that's cool with you, I'm sorry.

1141
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 2: Oh a fawn, Oh that was your peanut butter and jelly.

1142
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 1: One Together, they basically did acting games and studied the fifties,

1143
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 1: which sounds like my personal heaven. Rob Ryder took a

1144
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 1: similar approach with the young male leads for the production

1145
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:21,480
Speaker 1: of stand By Me. A few years earlier, Peter Weirs

1146
01:01:21,520 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 1: schooled his young charges on the pop culture of the

1147
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:26,800
Speaker 1: fifties by giving them books detailing the biggest movies and

1148
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: TV shows of the decade and making them mixtapes of

1149
01:01:30,080 --> 01:01:34,560
Speaker 1: top forty songs, which I find absolutely adorable. As Ethan

1150
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 1: Hawk says, and the making of DVD feature, we really

1151
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 1: wanted to start getting us divorced from any kind of

1152
01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:43,400
Speaker 1: behavioralism that was locked into the late eighties. It's the

1153
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:45,960
Speaker 1: most complex way of saying a very simple thing.

1154
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:51,160
Speaker 2: You think they You think they had a circle jerk

1155
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:51,960
Speaker 2: at the Beatles.

1156
01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:57,200
Speaker 1: Oh that was one of the best headlines I've ever seen.

1157
01:01:57,280 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 1: I think it was your former employer, page six.

1158
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 2: Beat the Meedles.

1159
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, I save that classic.

1160
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, right up there with headless Botts.

1161
01:02:04,920 --> 01:02:05,640
Speaker 1: On the topless bar.

1162
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:06,000
Speaker 2: Yep.

1163
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 1: Classic. This is somebody's job who just writes headlines, specifically

1164
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 1: those headlines.

1165
01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have like they have like headline specialists there.

1166
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 2: It has to go so far up the chain to

1167
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 2: become a post headline. So funny considering how lazy half

1168
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:22,160
Speaker 2: of them are.

1169
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:24,640
Speaker 1: When you say headline, just like the front page headline

1170
01:02:24,680 --> 01:02:27,760
Speaker 1: or did they do all headlines? Yeah, that's so funny.

1171
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:29,160
Speaker 1: It's like you right upon a day.

1172
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 2: I think there's like a tiered system.

1173
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:34,840
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a lot of tears. Oh yeah, I

1174
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: never cried at that job. This begs the question we

1175
01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 1: never cried at people? That's good jobs.

1176
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:47,600
Speaker 2: Have I cried at probably a Blockbuster? God? People were

1177
01:02:47,640 --> 01:02:51,520
Speaker 2: so fucking mean to me, man, Oh no, what happened?

1178
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 2: I mean, I was there during the decline. Like a

1179
01:02:53,840 --> 01:02:56,840
Speaker 2: month after I quit, they were literally selling the fixtures

1180
01:02:56,920 --> 01:03:00,160
Speaker 2: out of the store like crazy, and it was but

1181
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:03,040
Speaker 2: you know, admittedly it was tough because they were changing

1182
01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 2: the hours all the time, they were changing the rules

1183
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:09,680
Speaker 2: for renting, and people would just tear into me. It

1184
01:03:09,800 --> 01:03:12,920
Speaker 2: was like it was like I overdrew my account getting

1185
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 2: an egg sandwich this morning, like please have pity on me,

1186
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 2: and they would not Retail sucks, dude, anybody. It should

1187
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 2: be mandatory. You gotta work a year of retail. You

1188
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:25,480
Speaker 2: got to work a year in a restaurant, and then

1189
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 2: you are allowed to be in society.

1190
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:30,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair, What are we talking about the boys on

1191
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:34,080
Speaker 1: their lessons of the nineteen fifties. I love this. Director

1192
01:03:34,120 --> 01:03:38,120
Speaker 1: Peter Weir suggested that the young actors, in order to

1193
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:41,640
Speaker 1: get into the whole fifties mode, stop using shampoo and

1194
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: instead use soap on their hair because that's I guess

1195
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:47,880
Speaker 1: what kids had to do back then, which seems incorrect

1196
01:03:48,120 --> 01:03:51,160
Speaker 1: unless he just means like prep school kids, or and

1197
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: he's from Australia, maybe it was an Australian prep school thing.

1198
01:03:53,840 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: I don't know. They didn't get soap until last week.

1199
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:01,560
Speaker 1: Did they use real c Yeah? They did? Yeah?

1200
01:04:02,320 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 2: Okay.

1201
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:06,720
Speaker 1: I wonder if he was like, start using slurs again. Boys.

1202
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:10,920
Speaker 1: We just have Frankie Avalon on the Paul Anka talk

1203
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 1: show that I produce, and he still uses bro cream,

1204
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how do you find it?

1205
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 2: Did you have it special ordered? Maybe?

1206
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:21,280
Speaker 1: Speaking of hair, Grector Peter were made all of the

1207
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:24,960
Speaker 1: young actors in Dead Poets Society get era appropriate haircuts,

1208
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:27,479
Speaker 1: which many of them hated. What was it is a DA?

1209
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 1: Did they get a DA that wouldn't have flown at

1210
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:33,240
Speaker 1: a prep school? They got like flat tops? I think

1211
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 1: I got a flat top And I don't know what

1212
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 1: the other terms were just like shortback and sides.

1213
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 2: Maybe that's an English term, but da for anyone who's unfamiliar,

1214
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 2: is it ducks ass? Popular haircut of the era, the.

1215
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 1: In greaser haircuts, the Elvis sort of right, Yeah.

1216
01:04:52,120 --> 01:04:54,760
Speaker 2: It was, I mean it was popularly associated with Elvis. Yeah,

1217
01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:56,360
Speaker 2: ducks ass.

1218
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:03,200
Speaker 1: On a slightly more wholesome note, director Peter Weir asked

1219
01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 1: a young actors to write their own poetry in order to,

1220
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: as Ethan Hawk says, opened our minds and wake us

1221
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:12,240
Speaker 1: up to what the characters would discover over the course

1222
01:05:12,280 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 1: of the movie Obligatory. Time is weird note. Dead Poets

1223
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,640
Speaker 1: Society was set in nineteen fifty nine and released in

1224
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:21,720
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. The equivalent of this is a movie

1225
01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 1: set in nineteen ninety four.

1226
01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:25,000
Speaker 2: You love doing this.

1227
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:27,720
Speaker 1: It's so weird. Time is so weird.

1228
01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:30,320
Speaker 2: They've already started doing that, isn't me? That Snackshack movie

1229
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 2: that came out that's like set around like early nineties.

1230
01:05:33,400 --> 01:05:36,120
Speaker 1: I saw a trailer for it, Penn fifteen. That TV

1231
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:39,680
Speaker 1: show is set in like two thousand or something. Okay,

1232
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:42,320
Speaker 1: like in middle school. Yeah, probably around the time I

1233
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:46,720
Speaker 1: was sticking it out of that prep school. The cave

1234
01:05:46,800 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 1: where the titular society meets, sadly wasn't an actual cave,

1235
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:53,720
Speaker 1: but a set piece made out of latex. It was, however,

1236
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:59,520
Speaker 1: based on a real location Wolf Cave in Delaware. Yeah, here,

1237
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:03,000
Speaker 1: this will interest you. There's a scene where students are

1238
01:06:03,080 --> 01:06:06,480
Speaker 1: running through the woods towards the cave. It's been noted

1239
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:09,440
Speaker 1: that their silhouettes resemble the Dance of Death scene in

1240
01:06:09,520 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 1: the Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman. As Peter Weir would say,

1241
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 1: it was absolutely an homage. I wanted to capture a

1242
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:19,600
Speaker 1: moment as if the boys were running through the ages,

1243
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:23,280
Speaker 1: a kind of pagan pre Christian mythology where they were

1244
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 1: crossing into another zone in which lies the mystery of art.

1245
01:06:27,600 --> 01:06:29,560
Speaker 1: This couldn't have happened in the basement of a building

1246
01:06:29,680 --> 01:06:31,960
Speaker 1: or on the horse stables. It really had to be

1247
01:06:32,080 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 1: a cave or in the slave quarters. It really had

1248
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:43,600
Speaker 1: to be a cave, which was writer Tom Shulman's idea.

1249
01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:47,200
Speaker 1: It was my job to illustrate that. Costume designer Wendy

1250
01:06:47,280 --> 01:06:51,480
Speaker 1: Style suggested dressing the boys in sub mariner jackets with hoods,

1251
01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:54,840
Speaker 1: as if they were like primitive monks engaged in some

1252
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: sort of ancient rite of passage. The story was so

1253
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:00,640
Speaker 1: pregnant with metaphors, you didn't have to try hard to

1254
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:01,240
Speaker 1: unearth them.

1255
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:04,919
Speaker 2: They just sprang to life. Jesus Christ, get a little

1256
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:05,560
Speaker 2: thick in here.

1257
01:07:07,400 --> 01:07:10,080
Speaker 1: The scenes at Welton Academy were filmed on location at

1258
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: real prep schools in the area. Director Peter Weir reportedly

1259
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: considered more than one hundred schools as the shooting location

1260
01:07:16,680 --> 01:07:21,800
Speaker 1: before laying eyes on Saint Andrew's Academy. Producer Stephen haftwould

1261
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:25,360
Speaker 1: recall when we first saw the place quote, his eyes

1262
01:07:25,400 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 1: got big as saucers. He turned to me and said,

1263
01:07:28,600 --> 01:07:32,520
Speaker 1: this is it. The movie was filmed primarily during Thanksgiving

1264
01:07:32,560 --> 01:07:35,400
Speaker 1: and Christmas break, so the production wouldn't disrupt the school's

1265
01:07:35,480 --> 01:07:36,400
Speaker 1: actual classes.

1266
01:07:36,680 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 2: Two generations of Loud and Wainwright attended that private school.

1267
01:07:40,960 --> 01:07:44,160
Speaker 1: Oh laudraiin Wright, the third the singer songwriter in Rufus's Dad,

1268
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: and Laude Rainmright, the second was a Life magazine editor.

1269
01:07:47,240 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 1: If I re call nailed it, h God, I love

1270
01:07:50,200 --> 01:07:55,480
Speaker 1: the wind Rights another episcopal We either go to chapel

1271
01:07:55,520 --> 01:07:57,400
Speaker 1: every morning at my school. My school six days a

1272
01:07:57,480 --> 01:07:59,440
Speaker 1: week and on they had Sunday off.

1273
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:00,840
Speaker 2: That's awful.

1274
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:01,960
Speaker 1: I was an altar boy.

1275
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 2: I was not molested. Really dodged a bullet there.

1276
01:08:06,080 --> 01:08:09,520
Speaker 1: Naturally, the students at St. Andrews Academy were extremely excited

1277
01:08:09,560 --> 01:08:12,479
Speaker 1: to catch a glimpse of Robin Williams. An extra named

1278
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:15,560
Speaker 1: Rob Ellis, who was a senior at Saint Andrews, told

1279
01:08:15,600 --> 01:08:18,639
Speaker 1: the News Journal of Delaware at the time, he Robin

1280
01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: never stops acting. He's always cracking us up. But I

1281
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 1: don't get a sense of who he is. Oh I

1282
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:29,880
Speaker 1: call that foreshadowing. Though he'd been nominated for an Oscar

1283
01:08:30,000 --> 01:08:32,519
Speaker 1: for his work in Good Morning Vietnam two years earlier.

1284
01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:36,320
Speaker 1: Dead Poet Society was one of Williams's earliest forays into

1285
01:08:36,400 --> 01:08:38,760
Speaker 1: his strictly dramatic role, where he was forced to dial

1286
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:43,479
Speaker 1: down as trademark improvisation somewhat. Director Peter Weir estimated that

1287
01:08:43,600 --> 01:08:47,519
Speaker 1: roughly fifteen percent of Robin's dialogue was improvised, which still

1288
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:50,400
Speaker 1: sounds pretty high to me for a drama. To help

1289
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:53,240
Speaker 1: Robin Williams settle into the role, we are set aside

1290
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:56,479
Speaker 1: an afternoon of filming just to abandon the script entirely

1291
01:08:56,560 --> 01:09:00,840
Speaker 1: and let Robin quote do his thing. He felt the

1292
01:09:00,920 --> 01:09:04,400
Speaker 1: need to hide this from Disney executives. Peter Weir recalled

1293
01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:07,240
Speaker 1: the script magazine. We set up three cameras in the

1294
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:09,559
Speaker 1: corner of the room, and I told the boys, Robin's

1295
01:09:09,600 --> 01:09:11,679
Speaker 1: coming in after lunch to do a scene that isn't

1296
01:09:11,720 --> 01:09:15,000
Speaker 1: in the script. Just remember he's still your teacher, mister Keating,

1297
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:17,320
Speaker 1: and you wreck the scene if you laugh like you're

1298
01:09:17,320 --> 01:09:20,000
Speaker 1: watching a stand up comic. So act the muse, but

1299
01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:25,880
Speaker 1: don't overdo it. And that's the scene, tough man Williams. Yeah,

1300
01:09:26,080 --> 01:09:29,600
Speaker 1: peak peek. It's the scene where mister Keating introduces the

1301
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:32,599
Speaker 1: kids the Shakespeare by pulling in impressions of John Wayne

1302
01:09:32,640 --> 01:09:37,000
Speaker 1: and Marlon Brando. Amazing to me that not only was

1303
01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:39,639
Speaker 1: Robin Williams able to riff like this off the cuff,

1304
01:09:40,080 --> 01:09:43,040
Speaker 1: but he also kept the riffs period accurate, Like that's

1305
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:46,479
Speaker 1: just to have that restraint is so wild to me.

1306
01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:49,880
Speaker 2: I mean, except for all the tragedy, Like they really

1307
01:09:49,880 --> 01:09:53,080
Speaker 2: should have studied that guy's brain. It just moved faster

1308
01:09:53,320 --> 01:09:57,160
Speaker 2: than like it is a weird analogy to grasp for,

1309
01:09:57,360 --> 01:10:00,559
Speaker 2: but it must be similar to like, really the good

1310
01:10:00,760 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 2: freestyle rappers just being able to come up with language

1311
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:09,120
Speaker 2: and and but it's different, Yeah, and on a different

1312
01:10:09,280 --> 01:10:11,280
Speaker 2: you know, but on a different scale because he's he's

1313
01:10:11,520 --> 01:10:14,800
Speaker 2: acting as well, like facially and everything. But yeah, how

1314
01:10:14,840 --> 01:10:17,360
Speaker 2: does the human brain move that fast? Cocaine must have

1315
01:10:17,479 --> 01:10:18,439
Speaker 2: slowed him down.

1316
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:20,920
Speaker 1: I mean, he might have been one of those people

1317
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,000
Speaker 1: that you know, has the brain chemistry where it actually

1318
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,040
Speaker 1: did like relax them. Because isn't that something that a

1319
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:29,760
Speaker 1: lot of people self medicate with when they're undiagnosed. I

1320
01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:31,560
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm adhd or.

1321
01:10:32,360 --> 01:10:33,080
Speaker 2: I have no idea.

1322
01:10:33,720 --> 01:10:38,479
Speaker 1: Should I start be good next chapter of my life?

1323
01:10:38,520 --> 01:10:42,439
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, I have a very good friend

1324
01:10:42,560 --> 01:10:46,479
Speaker 1: from from high school, my beloved high school, who's a

1325
01:10:47,840 --> 01:10:50,720
Speaker 1: stand up comedian, Chris Fleming, who's absolutely brilliant. I mean,

1326
01:10:50,760 --> 01:10:53,560
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna be the next Robert Williams. I

1327
01:10:53,560 --> 01:10:55,960
Speaker 1: think he's absolutely a genius. And I don't use that

1328
01:10:56,080 --> 01:10:58,840
Speaker 1: term lightly, and he would say that being on stage.

1329
01:10:58,880 --> 01:11:01,320
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's it's like bullet time in

1330
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:04,840
Speaker 1: the matrix, Like everything seems to slow down. It's not

1331
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:08,160
Speaker 1: that you're thinking faster, just everything else almost seems slower. Yeah,

1332
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: I get that.

1333
01:11:08,680 --> 01:11:10,920
Speaker 2: It's definitely some kind of time dilation, because like all

1334
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 2: the best shows that I've played, all the best sets

1335
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:15,120
Speaker 2: I've ever played, it's like you kind of like wake

1336
01:11:15,240 --> 01:11:18,719
Speaker 2: up and you're like, what just happened? Like forty minutes

1337
01:11:18,800 --> 01:11:21,519
Speaker 2: went by and I have no memory of them.

1338
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:24,599
Speaker 1: Did that happen with you? Or was I just bullying

1339
01:11:24,680 --> 01:11:27,200
Speaker 1: you too much for you to enter that story. That's

1340
01:11:27,240 --> 01:11:29,280
Speaker 1: how I know I'm not a real artist or musician

1341
01:11:29,520 --> 01:11:32,160
Speaker 1: is that I was always very much in my body

1342
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:34,519
Speaker 1: and those moments, and I was very much focused on

1343
01:11:34,760 --> 01:11:37,160
Speaker 1: trying to not make mistakes and try to get it right.

1344
01:11:37,280 --> 01:11:39,760
Speaker 1: And so you never bullied me. What do you tell

1345
01:11:39,760 --> 01:11:42,519
Speaker 1: you never bullied me? You had me in your band

1346
01:11:42,600 --> 01:11:46,759
Speaker 1: as a bass player when you yourself are a classically trained,

1347
01:11:47,240 --> 01:11:50,080
Speaker 1: extremely accomplished bass player, And I was just holding on

1348
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:52,960
Speaker 1: for I had a bass and I wasn't and I

1349
01:11:53,080 --> 01:11:55,479
Speaker 1: wasn't doing anything. And my only reason I had a

1350
01:11:55,520 --> 01:11:58,280
Speaker 1: bass was the cosplay as Paul McCartney. So it's basically

1351
01:11:58,360 --> 01:12:00,400
Speaker 1: a prop that I had on my wall that you

1352
01:12:00,520 --> 01:12:03,000
Speaker 1: were like, Hey, I need somebody, can you just do

1353
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:06,040
Speaker 1: like watch my fingers and do this? And you did

1354
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:09,320
Speaker 1: and I did, And I'm proud of myself for being

1355
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:11,679
Speaker 1: able to slightly keep up with the parts that you wrote.

1356
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 2: But hey, man, I didn't write anything easy.

1357
01:12:14,320 --> 01:12:19,559
Speaker 1: Narratively, he did not. Oh it's so much fun.

1358
01:12:19,640 --> 01:12:20,040
Speaker 2: I miss it.

1359
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, But getting back to Robin's riffing, as weird would

1360
01:12:25,320 --> 01:12:29,000
Speaker 1: add the Script Magazine. When Robin's improvising, he gives off

1361
01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:32,280
Speaker 1: an electric charge you can feel, and you can see

1362
01:12:32,360 --> 01:12:34,640
Speaker 1: it in the reaction shots of the students too. I

1363
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:37,080
Speaker 1: mean it's definitely like you could tell they're not acting.

1364
01:12:37,160 --> 01:12:41,080
Speaker 1: It's really sweet. The kids on set predictably loved Robin

1365
01:12:41,280 --> 01:12:44,200
Speaker 1: with one exception which we'll get to, and he made

1366
01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:47,200
Speaker 1: everyone laugh with Popeye and Richard Pryor impressions.

1367
01:12:47,320 --> 01:12:49,439
Speaker 2: Part of the reason why he's like, really the only

1368
01:12:49,560 --> 01:12:53,599
Speaker 2: celebrity death that's like hit me so hard, except well Bowie.

1369
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:58,479
Speaker 2: But another maybe a little Tom Petty too, because you know,

1370
01:12:58,520 --> 01:13:00,000
Speaker 2: I listened to a lot of Tom Petty growing up

1371
01:13:00,120 --> 01:13:05,040
Speaker 2: in Central Pia. Brother, but he's one of those guys

1372
01:13:05,040 --> 01:13:08,599
Speaker 2: where you could actually feel the chemistry of the room change. Oh,

1373
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:12,520
Speaker 2: he was like around him, even like in filmed performances,

1374
01:13:12,600 --> 01:13:15,120
Speaker 2: you were just like, actually, it's like when I saw

1375
01:13:15,240 --> 01:13:17,800
Speaker 2: Nick Kve for the first time, there was this woman

1376
01:13:17,920 --> 01:13:23,120
Speaker 2: being crowdsurfed up towards the stage, you know, and he

1377
01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:27,439
Speaker 2: because he's admittedly from himself, he's he can't see to

1378
01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:29,800
Speaker 2: the back, so he owned he talks about how he

1379
01:13:29,920 --> 01:13:32,559
Speaker 2: only plays to the crowd immediately in front of him,

1380
01:13:32,680 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 2: and so he like gets up on the railing and

1381
01:13:34,400 --> 01:13:37,360
Speaker 2: he's like touching people and singing directly to him. And

1382
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:41,320
Speaker 2: I got this like intensely set like this sense of

1383
01:13:41,479 --> 01:13:46,160
Speaker 2: like primal ritual where I was like, oh God, like

1384
01:13:46,280 --> 01:13:50,320
Speaker 2: if she touches him, she will die. I was like,

1385
01:13:50,439 --> 01:13:52,960
Speaker 2: she's being sacrificed right now. And it was like this

1386
01:13:53,400 --> 01:13:56,920
Speaker 2: lizard brain part with like this instinctual throwback to like

1387
01:13:57,400 --> 01:13:59,960
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of years ago buried in my lizard monkey,

1388
01:14:00,400 --> 01:14:03,160
Speaker 2: where I was like, don't don't let her touch him.

1389
01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:07,160
Speaker 2: But it's really, I mean, those are the geniuses, man,

1390
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:10,880
Speaker 2: When you can even just like through a screen from

1391
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,400
Speaker 2: fifty feet away whatever, you can just feel the air

1392
01:14:13,520 --> 01:14:14,439
Speaker 2: around them change.

1393
01:14:14,920 --> 01:14:16,720
Speaker 1: I felt that way about Amy Winehouse, which I know

1394
01:14:16,840 --> 01:14:19,760
Speaker 1: you probably have different feelings on, but I felt that

1395
01:14:19,800 --> 01:14:22,400
Speaker 1: way watching her saying too, yeah, I mean I get it.

1396
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:25,839
Speaker 2: I've never found her personally that magnetite mag but that's

1397
01:14:25,880 --> 01:14:29,479
Speaker 2: the beauty of subjective taste. Man, you know what are

1398
01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:30,080
Speaker 2: we talking about?

1399
01:14:32,840 --> 01:14:39,679
Speaker 1: Knocks Over Street lamming with a thud played by Josh

1400
01:14:39,800 --> 01:14:43,000
Speaker 1: Charles knocks Over Street. Technically we're talking about the actor

1401
01:14:43,040 --> 01:14:46,479
Speaker 1: who played him, Josh Charles. He was especially charmed by

1402
01:14:46,560 --> 01:14:49,280
Speaker 1: Robin Williams. He would tell the Hollywood Reporter. I was

1403
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:52,439
Speaker 1: most struck by how kind he was, Robin, and how

1404
01:14:52,560 --> 01:14:55,120
Speaker 1: nice he was to these seventeen or eighteen year old kids.

1405
01:14:55,920 --> 01:14:57,840
Speaker 1: And while he was clearly the star of the movie,

1406
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:00,799
Speaker 1: he made great effort to just be one part the ensemble.

1407
01:15:02,160 --> 01:15:04,719
Speaker 1: But despite all the laughs, it was apparent to everyone

1408
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:07,080
Speaker 1: on the set that Robin was going through a tough time.

1409
01:15:07,880 --> 01:15:11,240
Speaker 1: Ethan Hawk would tell CBC Radio. Even to me at eighteen,

1410
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:13,679
Speaker 1: it was obvious that he was in a tremendous amount

1411
01:15:13,680 --> 01:15:17,720
Speaker 1: of pain. Anybody who was watching knew. Norman Lloyd, who

1412
01:15:17,760 --> 01:15:20,960
Speaker 1: played Keating's nemesis the Headmaster, said to the Hollywood Reporter

1413
01:15:21,400 --> 01:15:24,320
Speaker 1: when we were doing Dead Poe Society, Robin's first marriage

1414
01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:26,040
Speaker 1: to Valley of the Larsie, it's.

1415
01:15:25,840 --> 01:15:28,080
Speaker 2: A divorce, right, like the worst thing that happened in

1416
01:15:28,160 --> 01:15:28,559
Speaker 2: his life.

1417
01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:31,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you got divorced twice.

1418
01:15:31,479 --> 01:15:33,560
Speaker 2: Oh, Yeah, that's true. But the first one was the

1419
01:15:33,600 --> 01:15:35,320
Speaker 2: one that he was like, because what other movie we

1420
01:15:35,360 --> 01:15:37,360
Speaker 2: were we talking about? Where he was just like shattered

1421
01:15:37,640 --> 01:15:38,360
Speaker 2: coming to the Sun?

1422
01:15:38,439 --> 01:15:41,160
Speaker 1: Oo might have been Hook would have been not long

1423
01:15:41,240 --> 01:15:44,759
Speaker 1: after this, Yeah, I think yeah, I would have probably

1424
01:15:44,800 --> 01:15:47,559
Speaker 1: been Hook. His first marriage, the value of the Lardie

1425
01:15:47,640 --> 01:15:49,240
Speaker 1: was breaking up, and it was then that he began

1426
01:15:49,400 --> 01:15:52,160
Speaker 1: to go with and then married the babysitter of his kids,

1427
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:55,320
Speaker 1: Marcia Garci's I think say you say her name. He

1428
01:15:55,479 --> 01:15:58,360
Speaker 1: masked the whole thing very carefully. It was never evident

1429
01:15:58,439 --> 01:16:02,960
Speaker 1: in the work. It was all kept under control, thankfully.

1430
01:16:03,040 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 2: Though.

1431
01:16:03,320 --> 01:16:06,040
Speaker 1: Robin himself would recall the shoot fondly and cite Dead

1432
01:16:06,080 --> 01:16:08,200
Speaker 1: Poets Society as one of his favorite movies that he

1433
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:11,680
Speaker 1: ever worked on, to which I say, thank God, I

1434
01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:12,960
Speaker 1: really want you to see this movie.

1435
01:16:13,000 --> 01:16:13,160
Speaker 2: Now.

1436
01:16:13,240 --> 01:16:14,800
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you'll think of it.

1437
01:16:15,200 --> 01:16:18,240
Speaker 2: Did I ever actually see it? I feel like through us,

1438
01:16:20,080 --> 01:16:23,200
Speaker 2: like on T and T, like some afternoon that would

1439
01:16:23,240 --> 01:16:27,960
Speaker 2: make sense. Yeah, God, I missed T and T afternoons. Yeah,

1440
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:30,280
Speaker 2: just channel surfing and being.

1441
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:32,599
Speaker 1: Like, what the hell is this? God, I missed channel

1442
01:16:32,640 --> 01:16:33,679
Speaker 1: surfing just period.

1443
01:16:33,920 --> 01:16:39,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't get that weird passive discovery anymore, No times.

1444
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:44,519
Speaker 2: An equally beloved presence on the set was.

1445
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:45,479
Speaker 1: Director Peter Weir.

1446
01:16:45,760 --> 01:16:49,000
Speaker 2: I keep getting him confused with Bob Weir, the guy

1447
01:16:49,040 --> 01:16:50,960
Speaker 2: who played RoboCop Peter Weller.

1448
01:16:51,640 --> 01:16:54,479
Speaker 1: Uh, I kept thinking Bob Weir, which makes us small?

1449
01:16:54,520 --> 01:16:59,880
Speaker 1: These anecdotes so much funnier it is, man, it is crazy.

1450
01:17:01,160 --> 01:17:03,519
Speaker 2: You know, Bobby Weir was like a child when they

1451
01:17:03,600 --> 01:17:04,679
Speaker 2: started The Grateful Dead.

1452
01:17:05,680 --> 01:17:06,479
Speaker 1: He's like seventeen.

1453
01:17:06,680 --> 01:17:10,360
Speaker 2: Not a good environment for no child. Do you know

1454
01:17:10,439 --> 01:17:14,760
Speaker 2: that Peter Weller has a PhD in Italian Renaissance Art

1455
01:17:14,920 --> 01:17:18,640
Speaker 2: history from uc LA. No I did not. Yeah, it

1456
01:17:18,720 --> 01:17:24,040
Speaker 2: is incredible, incredible RoboCop as an advanced advanced degree in

1457
01:17:24,200 --> 01:17:24,719
Speaker 2: art history.

1458
01:17:26,200 --> 01:17:26,439
Speaker 1: Sure.

1459
01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:32,639
Speaker 2: Oh Captain, my captain. Ethan Hawk would describe Peter Weir

1460
01:17:32,760 --> 01:17:37,599
Speaker 2: as a little folk hero which little condescend in there,

1461
01:17:37,720 --> 01:17:40,880
Speaker 2: Ethan who instilled in them visions of art and a

1462
01:17:41,040 --> 01:17:45,360
Speaker 2: sense that what we were doing was important and mattered cute,

1463
01:17:45,840 --> 01:17:47,599
Speaker 2: just as their characters do. The kids in the cast

1464
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:50,880
Speaker 2: referred to Weir as, oh, captain, my captain. According to

1465
01:17:51,000 --> 01:17:53,800
Speaker 2: Josh Charles, everything that Robin's character is to us in

1466
01:17:53,880 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 2: the film is everything that Peter was to us.

1467
01:17:56,000 --> 01:17:57,559
Speaker 1: As actors in the film.

1468
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:02,840
Speaker 2: That's cute. After this, I know he did the Truman Show.

1469
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:05,320
Speaker 2: I don't know what he did immediately after it, though. Okay,

1470
01:18:05,600 --> 01:18:08,960
Speaker 2: let's check. This may have been partially but design. As

1471
01:18:09,080 --> 01:18:11,760
Speaker 2: Robin Williams would recall, I don't know if it was symbiotic,

1472
01:18:11,840 --> 01:18:14,280
Speaker 2: but when we're picking out clothes, Weir picked out one

1473
01:18:14,320 --> 01:18:17,200
Speaker 2: school scarf for me and one for himself. He would

1474
01:18:17,200 --> 01:18:19,479
Speaker 2: wear the scarf like I wore it. Weir had a

1475
01:18:19,600 --> 01:18:22,439
Speaker 2: unique but effective way of working with the kids. Once

1476
01:18:22,479 --> 01:18:24,559
Speaker 2: the camera was rolling, I would throw a bald up

1477
01:18:24,600 --> 01:18:26,599
Speaker 2: piece of paper at the head of the person who

1478
01:18:26,680 --> 01:18:29,320
Speaker 2: was supposed to speak first, and I instructed them to

1479
01:18:29,360 --> 01:18:31,880
Speaker 2: say their line when they felt that paper hit the

1480
01:18:31,920 --> 01:18:32,679
Speaker 2: back of their necks.

1481
01:18:33,040 --> 01:18:35,360
Speaker 1: That does not seem like the best way to get

1482
01:18:35,360 --> 01:18:36,639
Speaker 1: a performance out of somebody.

1483
01:18:36,920 --> 01:18:42,560
Speaker 2: No, that's uniquely byzantine and borderline like brainwashy.

1484
01:18:43,040 --> 01:18:44,880
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very prep school.

1485
01:18:45,800 --> 01:18:49,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. On a similar note, instead of yelling cut at

1486
01:18:49,040 --> 01:18:51,439
Speaker 2: the end of a shot, Weir would wrap the side

1487
01:18:51,439 --> 01:18:54,040
Speaker 2: of his coffee cup with a teaspoon, which is literally

1488
01:18:54,160 --> 01:18:59,280
Speaker 2: the scene from get Out, which helped eliminate the sanctity

1489
01:18:59,320 --> 01:19:02,920
Speaker 2: of the situation and reduced the historical weight of making

1490
01:19:03,000 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 2: a movie.

1491
01:19:04,000 --> 01:19:08,640
Speaker 1: His wording, are you want to know what he did

1492
01:19:08,720 --> 01:19:10,439
Speaker 1: after Dead Post Society?

1493
01:19:10,760 --> 01:19:10,960
Speaker 2: Yes?

1494
01:19:11,040 --> 01:19:13,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, A thousand guesses you will you will never know

1495
01:19:15,439 --> 01:19:20,360
Speaker 1: Roadhouse Green Card, which is a romantic comedy starring Gerard

1496
01:19:20,400 --> 01:19:25,879
Speaker 1: Depardue American woman who enters into a marriage of convenience

1497
01:19:25,920 --> 01:19:30,320
Speaker 1: with a frenchman. That old, that old Saul.

1498
01:19:31,240 --> 01:19:33,439
Speaker 2: God, that's so sad.

1499
01:19:35,240 --> 01:19:37,320
Speaker 1: Wait a minute. He wrote it, he directed it, and

1500
01:19:37,400 --> 01:19:39,599
Speaker 1: he produced it. This was his This was his blank

1501
01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:43,679
Speaker 1: check movie. Oh my god, depart doo want a Golden

1502
01:19:43,760 --> 01:19:46,600
Speaker 1: Globe for Best Actor for this? The film won the

1503
01:19:46,640 --> 01:19:50,800
Speaker 1: Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture. Is going On? It

1504
01:19:50,960 --> 01:19:54,800
Speaker 1: was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Could

1505
01:19:54,880 --> 01:19:56,160
Speaker 1: this be good? Actually?

1506
01:19:56,560 --> 01:19:57,559
Speaker 2: I shuddered to think.

1507
01:19:58,080 --> 01:20:01,360
Speaker 1: The Deparduo of it all suggests no. Oh, there's no

1508
01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:03,759
Speaker 1: way it could be. I know everyone thinks for haters,

1509
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:06,600
Speaker 1: but come on, depart you you can't be in a

1510
01:20:06,760 --> 01:20:08,640
Speaker 1: movie and with druid depart do and get away with it.

1511
01:20:09,240 --> 01:20:14,920
Speaker 1: He looks like a bad bagette, like a lumpy stone.

1512
01:20:16,600 --> 01:20:17,479
Speaker 1: Uh weird.

1513
01:20:17,520 --> 01:20:20,120
Speaker 2: Strategy for working with his ensemble was to quote create

1514
01:20:20,160 --> 01:20:22,639
Speaker 2: an atmosphere where there was no real difference between off

1515
01:20:22,720 --> 01:20:26,599
Speaker 2: camera and on camera that they were those people. Once

1516
01:20:26,720 --> 01:20:28,680
Speaker 2: shooting started, they were not permitted to see their own

1517
01:20:28,720 --> 01:20:31,080
Speaker 2: dailies so that they could live it rather than make

1518
01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:33,800
Speaker 2: a movie. Weir was also so invested in making the

1519
01:20:33,840 --> 01:20:36,360
Speaker 2: growing bond between Keating and the poets realistic that he

1520
01:20:36,439 --> 01:20:39,479
Speaker 2: made the unusual choice to film the movie in chronological order.

1521
01:20:39,800 --> 01:20:41,320
Speaker 2: They did have a Planet of the Apes.

1522
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:43,439
Speaker 1: The original.

1523
01:20:44,320 --> 01:20:47,400
Speaker 2: No I'm kidding, ah, it seems strange in retrospect, but

1524
01:20:47,439 --> 01:20:49,400
Speaker 2: the kids were really the star of the movie. Mister

1525
01:20:49,520 --> 01:20:53,360
Speaker 2: Keating is the unifying link. Robin Williams is actually not

1526
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:56,840
Speaker 2: in this as much as you'd think. Can you pause it? Yeah?

1527
01:20:57,520 --> 01:21:00,200
Speaker 2: Is it anywhere near the like Hannibal Hannibal or like

1528
01:21:00,479 --> 01:21:04,840
Speaker 2: oh wow Ledger Heath Ledger in a joker loved role

1529
01:21:05,120 --> 01:21:08,400
Speaker 2: of being in the movie for like ten minutes aggregately.

1530
01:21:08,040 --> 01:21:11,040
Speaker 1: Ooh, I haven't timed it, you know what, I'm gonna

1531
01:21:11,120 --> 01:21:14,760
Speaker 1: check this right now, because why would you?

1532
01:21:14,960 --> 01:21:16,040
Speaker 2: Why would anyone do that?

1533
01:21:17,760 --> 01:21:21,439
Speaker 1: John Kenny, I would appear a mere thirty three minutes

1534
01:21:21,920 --> 01:21:23,360
Speaker 1: in a two hour, eight minute film.

1535
01:21:23,640 --> 01:21:27,519
Speaker 2: Okay, that's that's reasonable, But it's still not like Hannibal.

1536
01:21:27,520 --> 01:21:30,080
Speaker 2: Elector's on screen for twelve minutes or whatever. It's the

1537
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:35,680
Speaker 2: third Well, yeah, that's a quarter, that's true. There are

1538
01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:39,760
Speaker 2: four main narratives among the students. Charlie Dalton's transformation to

1539
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:43,320
Speaker 2: the rebellious Nuwanada.

1540
01:21:44,520 --> 01:21:44,720
Speaker 1: Is that?

1541
01:21:45,280 --> 01:21:46,720
Speaker 2: I what is with that?

1542
01:21:47,000 --> 01:21:51,160
Speaker 1: Explain that to me? It's a it's a persona that

1543
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:57,000
Speaker 1: he embraces for himself, a sensual, passionate persona. I know

1544
01:21:57,280 --> 01:21:59,280
Speaker 1: it's hard to explain. And where do you get the name?

1545
01:21:59,400 --> 01:22:00,360
Speaker 2: I forget?

1546
01:22:00,640 --> 01:22:02,320
Speaker 1: I don't please, don't do this to me and not

1547
01:22:02,360 --> 01:22:09,640
Speaker 1: in front of people like this is this is not

1548
01:22:09,800 --> 01:22:12,840
Speaker 1: all it was meant for. This was not meant to

1549
01:22:12,880 --> 01:22:18,000
Speaker 1: be scrutinized. He made set in fifty nine. The mistakes

1550
01:22:18,040 --> 01:22:18,439
Speaker 1: were made.

1551
01:22:20,720 --> 01:22:25,040
Speaker 2: His favorite album was what was the Drums of Passion?

1552
01:22:26,920 --> 01:22:30,160
Speaker 2: One of the most like formative albums for like a

1553
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:33,759
Speaker 2: certain generation of musician. Oh yeah, I think Ginger Baker

1554
01:22:33,840 --> 01:22:36,080
Speaker 2: talked about shooting up Heroin to that for the first time.

1555
01:22:37,520 --> 01:22:39,479
Speaker 2: Did you ever see the Devil in mister Baker or whatever?

1556
01:22:39,560 --> 01:22:42,799
Speaker 2: That movie is, how he's like the worst guy in existence.

1557
01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:45,719
Speaker 1: It opens with him like being chased off the property

1558
01:22:45,760 --> 01:22:48,320
Speaker 1: by Ginger hating the documentarium with his cane.

1559
01:22:49,960 --> 01:22:52,400
Speaker 2: Todd ethan hawk coming out of his shell and overcoming

1560
01:22:52,479 --> 01:22:55,120
Speaker 2: his shyness. Neil Perry's tragic story is the one to

1561
01:22:55,160 --> 01:22:57,639
Speaker 2: be actor whose ambitions are thwarted by his overbearing father

1562
01:22:58,120 --> 01:23:01,400
Speaker 2: and the romantic Knocks over stre trying to summon the

1563
01:23:01,479 --> 01:23:05,000
Speaker 2: courage to confess his love to Chris the cheerleader. Jordan,

1564
01:23:05,280 --> 01:23:07,040
Speaker 2: how did you relate to to Knocks?

1565
01:23:07,120 --> 01:23:08,840
Speaker 1: Oh? I was cute. Yeah, it was like my favorite

1566
01:23:08,880 --> 01:23:12,160
Speaker 1: threat of the movie. Knock seizes the day, if I recall,

1567
01:23:12,280 --> 01:23:16,640
Speaker 1: by trespassing into this girl's school to read her a

1568
01:23:16,720 --> 01:23:20,280
Speaker 1: poem that he wrote for her, which reminds me of

1569
01:23:20,360 --> 01:23:23,839
Speaker 1: that Onion headline romantic comedy behavior gets real life man arrested,

1570
01:23:24,040 --> 01:23:26,320
Speaker 1: But well, what'k that? Off to the side for now

1571
01:23:26,720 --> 01:23:28,800
Speaker 1: reads the poem, and then in the next scene is

1572
01:23:28,880 --> 01:23:32,040
Speaker 1: him returning to his school and all his friends are like,

1573
01:23:32,120 --> 01:23:35,679
Speaker 1: what did she say? Nothing? Nothing?

1574
01:23:36,760 --> 01:23:38,600
Speaker 2: Nothing? But I did it.

1575
01:23:39,360 --> 01:23:43,280
Speaker 1: It's cute. It's very cool, hand Luke. It's like, you know,

1576
01:23:43,720 --> 01:23:46,479
Speaker 1: it's not about anybody else, It's about you. It's about you, like,

1577
01:23:47,080 --> 01:23:51,120
Speaker 1: which is sweet, except in romantic comedy situations, when the

1578
01:23:51,240 --> 01:23:54,000
Speaker 1: situation you're putting somebody else in you should really consider that.

1579
01:23:54,520 --> 01:23:57,320
Speaker 2: So it's tough. It reads both list. Yeah, also like

1580
01:23:57,479 --> 01:24:01,360
Speaker 2: what teenage boy is like? That not on shan about romance?

1581
01:24:01,960 --> 01:24:03,320
Speaker 2: That was sure rushed to me.

1582
01:24:03,920 --> 01:24:06,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, I would have gone to bed for days.

1583
01:24:10,680 --> 01:24:12,280
Speaker 2: One of the more memorable scenes of the movie was

1584
01:24:12,320 --> 01:24:15,280
Speaker 2: not in the original script. You will recall that Todd

1585
01:24:15,520 --> 01:24:18,160
Speaker 2: Ethan Hawk gets sent a desk set for his birthday

1586
01:24:18,200 --> 01:24:20,680
Speaker 2: from his parents, identical to the one he'd gotten the

1587
01:24:20,760 --> 01:24:24,720
Speaker 2: year before and possibly the year before that. On top

1588
01:24:24,760 --> 01:24:26,920
Speaker 2: of being a sort of soulless gift, it's meant to

1589
01:24:26,960 --> 01:24:29,800
Speaker 2: telegraph how thoughtless it is and apparently how little the

1590
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 2: parents care about their son. Some people have real problem,

1591
01:24:33,240 --> 01:24:36,680
Speaker 2: but it's still a gift, and yeah, so I won't

1592
01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:40,519
Speaker 2: to recognize that. In the original script, Ethan Hawk delivers

1593
01:24:40,560 --> 01:24:44,200
Speaker 2: a lengthy monologue to Robert Sean Leonard four twenty eight?

1594
01:24:44,760 --> 01:24:47,120
Speaker 2: What's for twenty eight? That's what all the chemicals in

1595
01:24:47,200 --> 01:24:48,840
Speaker 2: my body would be worth if you bottled them up

1596
01:24:48,880 --> 01:24:51,360
Speaker 2: and sold them. That's what my father said I was worth.

1597
01:24:51,800 --> 01:24:53,360
Speaker 2: That's a crazy thing to say.

1598
01:24:54,640 --> 01:24:56,600
Speaker 1: Four dollars and twenty eight cents or four hundred and

1599
01:24:56,640 --> 01:24:58,360
Speaker 1: twenty eight dollars I think four hundred and twenty eight

1600
01:24:58,400 --> 01:25:02,639
Speaker 1: dollars nineteen fifties money. Let's say it's like four grands.

1601
01:25:03,000 --> 01:25:04,080
Speaker 1: I think it's about four grands.

1602
01:25:04,479 --> 01:25:08,360
Speaker 2: I'd be ecstatic if someone put that value in my body.

1603
01:25:09,400 --> 01:25:14,120
Speaker 2: My liver is worth like two cents in a crumpled io.

1604
01:25:14,320 --> 01:25:18,599
Speaker 1: U organ transplants procedures were in their infancy.

1605
01:25:18,960 --> 01:25:21,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's four hundred and twenty eight dollars in nineteen

1606
01:25:21,400 --> 01:25:22,280
Speaker 2: fifty nine money? Now?

1607
01:25:22,360 --> 01:25:24,639
Speaker 1: All right, prices, right, rules, I'm gonna say it's about

1608
01:25:25,560 --> 01:25:28,320
Speaker 1: it's about five. I musa say five grands. I'll say

1609
01:25:28,360 --> 01:25:32,320
Speaker 1: four four, five hundred and forty three. Does that mean

1610
01:25:32,360 --> 01:25:33,200
Speaker 1: I win? Yeah?

1611
01:25:33,240 --> 01:25:36,960
Speaker 2: I went over. Oh yeah, that's all that matters to me.

1612
01:25:39,280 --> 01:25:41,599
Speaker 2: But on set, everyone agreed that this exchange was too

1613
01:25:41,640 --> 01:25:44,960
Speaker 2: flat and unbelievable. Simply put, it felt like a scene

1614
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:47,920
Speaker 2: Ethan would say. I'd never be this self pitying in

1615
01:25:48,000 --> 01:25:50,639
Speaker 2: front of a guy my own age. So we're tasked

1616
01:25:50,680 --> 01:25:52,719
Speaker 2: them with coming up with something better, and the result

1617
01:25:52,800 --> 01:25:56,639
Speaker 2: was an authentic dose of male teenage expression. They suggested

1618
01:25:56,760 --> 01:25:59,880
Speaker 2: throwing the desk set off the roof, and to their shock,

1619
01:26:00,280 --> 01:26:03,160
Speaker 2: we're agreed. I remember Bob and I and the van

1620
01:26:03,280 --> 01:26:05,120
Speaker 2: ride home afterwards, were like, is he really going to

1621
01:26:05,200 --> 01:26:07,479
Speaker 2: put that in the movie? Hawk recalled it was too

1622
01:26:07,520 --> 01:26:08,920
Speaker 2: much fun to be sitting there and we were just

1623
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:12,720
Speaker 2: making up these lines and he was writing them down hilariously.

1624
01:26:12,920 --> 01:26:16,400
Speaker 2: Robert Sean Leonard snuck into David Letterman impression, presumably because

1625
01:26:16,400 --> 01:26:18,400
Speaker 2: one of Letterman's early bits was throwing stuff off the

1626
01:26:18,439 --> 01:26:19,080
Speaker 2: roof of buildings.

1627
01:26:19,200 --> 01:26:20,640
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. I mean you hear it. It's like,

1628
01:26:20,680 --> 01:26:22,920
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's he's totally doing David Letterman the.

1629
01:26:22,960 --> 01:26:25,720
Speaker 2: World's first unmanned flying desk set.

1630
01:26:26,960 --> 01:26:35,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my, remember you would like to throw stuff

1631
01:26:35,280 --> 01:26:37,479
Speaker 1: off in the that we'd close off, like the street

1632
01:26:37,520 --> 01:26:39,720
Speaker 1: by the studio, and he dumped stuff off the roof

1633
01:26:39,840 --> 01:26:42,040
Speaker 1: like super balls and tinball machines.

1634
01:26:42,080 --> 01:26:45,000
Speaker 2: And I did not watch Late Night as a kid. Interesting,

1635
01:26:46,120 --> 01:26:50,080
Speaker 2: I love to sleep too much. Oh my precious hours

1636
01:26:50,120 --> 01:26:54,080
Speaker 2: of unconsciousness. I thought you would have made up for

1637
01:26:54,160 --> 01:26:57,040
Speaker 2: him in the day though. Now that's when the screaming started.

1638
01:27:01,080 --> 01:27:01,439
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

1639
01:27:01,479 --> 01:27:04,120
Speaker 2: Hawk is still close with John Charles and Robert Sean Leonard.

1640
01:27:04,200 --> 01:27:06,640
Speaker 2: He formed a theater company with Leonard New York, and

1641
01:27:06,880 --> 01:27:09,799
Speaker 2: he appeared in a Taylor Swift music video with Charles.

1642
01:27:09,880 --> 01:27:14,000
Speaker 2: We'll get to that later begrudgingly. During the production of

1643
01:27:14,080 --> 01:27:16,320
Speaker 2: Ted Dead Poets, Ted Poets Society.

1644
01:27:16,560 --> 01:27:20,240
Speaker 1: That's funny, Ted Hughes, Ted Bundy, what are some good

1645
01:27:20,320 --> 01:27:24,519
Speaker 1: Ted Templeman, I can't believe that's where he went.

1646
01:27:25,040 --> 01:27:27,479
Speaker 2: There's a baseball player named Ted right that people love

1647
01:27:27,680 --> 01:27:28,360
Speaker 2: Teddy Williams.

1648
01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:32,920
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, Ted Williams. Yeah, Austin ghost Socks.

1649
01:27:33,000 --> 01:27:35,240
Speaker 2: During the production of Dead Poets Society, the Seven Poets

1650
01:27:35,280 --> 01:27:38,280
Speaker 2: took a weekend trip to New York, sitting together accompanying

1651
01:27:38,360 --> 01:27:41,519
Speaker 2: Hawk and Leonard as they auditioned for the same role

1652
01:27:41,680 --> 01:27:45,599
Speaker 2: in the film Dad, which Hawk ended up getting. There's

1653
01:27:45,600 --> 01:27:48,400
Speaker 2: a little mini documentary on the YouTube channel of actor

1654
01:27:48,479 --> 01:27:52,920
Speaker 2: Dylan Cussman the Turncoat Richard Cameron's taken from camcorder footage

1655
01:27:53,040 --> 01:27:56,080
Speaker 2: taken that weekend. It is adorable and a must watch

1656
01:27:56,240 --> 01:27:57,759
Speaker 2: for fan of this movie.

1657
01:27:58,240 --> 01:27:58,920
Speaker 1: That's really great.

1658
01:27:59,040 --> 01:28:00,680
Speaker 2: We mentioned earlier that they there's one person on the

1659
01:28:00,720 --> 01:28:03,880
Speaker 2: set of Dead Poets Society who wasn't amused by Robin

1660
01:28:03,920 --> 01:28:07,960
Speaker 2: Williams antics, and that was sweet baby Ethan Hawk. This

1661
01:28:08,160 --> 01:28:10,360
Speaker 2: was Ethan Hawk's second movie ever, and as such he

1662
01:28:10,400 --> 01:28:13,559
Speaker 2: had that new guy seriousness, mostly because he was nervous

1663
01:28:13,640 --> 01:28:15,960
Speaker 2: and deeply focused on doing the best job he possibly could.

1664
01:28:16,600 --> 01:28:19,320
Speaker 2: In the DVD extras, he explained, I was eighteen years

1665
01:28:19,360 --> 01:28:21,280
Speaker 2: old and I thought that getting this part would change

1666
01:28:21,360 --> 01:28:24,440
Speaker 2: my life. I had instilled it with that kind of importance,

1667
01:28:24,800 --> 01:28:27,200
Speaker 2: and as a result, Robin being Robin threw him in.

1668
01:28:27,200 --> 01:28:28,639
Speaker 1: A big way. He'd had.

1669
01:28:29,120 --> 01:28:31,080
Speaker 2: I really wanted to be a serious actor. I'd read

1670
01:28:31,120 --> 01:28:35,920
Speaker 2: Stanislavsky that should be banned before sir as. I had

1671
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:38,040
Speaker 2: read Stanislavsky, and I had what was supposed to be

1672
01:28:38,080 --> 01:28:40,400
Speaker 2: in my pockets, and I really wanted to be in character.

1673
01:28:40,720 --> 01:28:42,439
Speaker 2: And I really didn't want to laugh. The more I

1674
01:28:42,479 --> 01:28:45,280
Speaker 2: didn't laugh, the more insane Robin got. He would make

1675
01:28:45,320 --> 01:28:47,320
Speaker 2: fun of me, Oh, this one doesn't want to laugh,

1676
01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:49,639
Speaker 2: and then more smoke would come out of my ears.

1677
01:28:50,280 --> 01:28:52,559
Speaker 2: He didn't understand I was trying to do a good job.

1678
01:28:52,760 --> 01:28:55,800
Speaker 2: I wanted to be Montgomery Cliff over here. You're trying

1679
01:28:55,840 --> 01:28:58,920
Speaker 2: to be Zero Mostel or something that is a far

1680
01:28:59,160 --> 01:29:01,680
Speaker 2: and away reference, Jordan, do you want to explain to

1681
01:29:02,200 --> 01:29:05,280
Speaker 2: to We don't have any younger listeners. Should we explain

1682
01:29:05,320 --> 01:29:06,640
Speaker 2: who Zero Mostel is?

1683
01:29:08,240 --> 01:29:11,840
Speaker 1: Almost like a proto Jack Black, but skewing a bit older.

1684
01:29:11,920 --> 01:29:16,120
Speaker 1: He was in uh in the Original Producers, a funny

1685
01:29:16,160 --> 01:29:19,600
Speaker 1: thing happened on the way of the Forum. A rotund

1686
01:29:19,840 --> 01:29:24,200
Speaker 1: comedian with very expressive face, not very subtle.

1687
01:29:25,080 --> 01:29:27,920
Speaker 2: M M, that's just so funny. He was like, you're trying.

1688
01:29:28,400 --> 01:29:30,680
Speaker 2: I thought he hated me because he would constantly lay

1689
01:29:30,760 --> 01:29:34,920
Speaker 2: into me. Despite this one sided friction, Williams did indeed

1690
01:29:34,960 --> 01:29:37,400
Speaker 2: see something special in Hawk and personally got him his

1691
01:29:37,520 --> 01:29:41,639
Speaker 2: first agent, which came as a total surprise to young Ethan.

1692
01:29:42,000 --> 01:29:45,200
Speaker 2: The young Hawk just start calling him. One day, he

1693
01:29:45,320 --> 01:29:47,120
Speaker 2: got a call out of the blue by an agent

1694
01:29:47,160 --> 01:29:49,760
Speaker 2: who told him how Robin had hyped him up. He

1695
01:29:49,920 --> 01:29:52,760
Speaker 2: called saying, Robin Williams says, you're going to do really well,

1696
01:29:53,120 --> 01:29:56,519
Speaker 2: and that agent still works with Ethan Hawk to this day.

1697
01:29:57,120 --> 01:29:59,920
Speaker 2: Helped him get roles in increasingly bigger movies like White Fan,

1698
01:30:00,479 --> 01:30:03,680
Speaker 2: A Midnight Clear, Reality Bites, and then of course he

1699
01:30:03,760 --> 01:30:06,320
Speaker 2: going to win OSCAR nominations for roles in Training Day

1700
01:30:06,360 --> 01:30:10,479
Speaker 2: and Boyhood. The big moment between Robin and Ethan in

1701
01:30:10,560 --> 01:30:13,000
Speaker 2: the movie and real life occurs in the scene where

1702
01:30:13,040 --> 01:30:15,640
Speaker 2: mister Keating tries to get the reserve Todd Anderson out

1703
01:30:15,680 --> 01:30:17,840
Speaker 2: of his shell by asking him to come to the

1704
01:30:17,880 --> 01:30:21,400
Speaker 2: front of the class and unleash his internal barbaric yop

1705
01:30:22,040 --> 01:30:26,280
Speaker 2: by reciting an impromptu poem. He's terrified at first, but

1706
01:30:26,439 --> 01:30:28,840
Speaker 2: Keating gets him to close his eyes and share free

1707
01:30:28,960 --> 01:30:32,360
Speaker 2: verse that provides an insight into his psyche. It's a

1708
01:30:32,400 --> 01:30:34,840
Speaker 2: little shop that this kid is being forced to lay

1709
01:30:34,920 --> 01:30:39,240
Speaker 2: bare his interiority in front of his teenager boy peers

1710
01:30:39,439 --> 01:30:40,880
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties.

1711
01:30:42,160 --> 01:30:47,040
Speaker 1: But it's a movie. This whole scene is not as

1712
01:30:47,120 --> 01:30:49,760
Speaker 1: cringey as describing it makes it sound.

1713
01:30:49,840 --> 01:30:51,760
Speaker 2: No, but it's a realized That's a valid point, man,

1714
01:30:51,800 --> 01:30:54,280
Speaker 2: I mean like, yeah, well, you have to recite free

1715
01:30:54,400 --> 01:30:57,800
Speaker 2: verse in front of your nineteen fifties male teen classmates.

1716
01:30:57,840 --> 01:31:03,120
Speaker 2: You'll be strung up at up preps school. Yeah, sodomized

1717
01:31:03,160 --> 01:31:06,840
Speaker 2: and strung up. The powerful scene is captured in a

1718
01:31:06,960 --> 01:31:09,479
Speaker 2: single shot what we in the industry call a wanner,

1719
01:31:10,600 --> 01:31:12,760
Speaker 2: with the camera circling Williams and Hawk as I have

1720
01:31:12,840 --> 01:31:16,200
Speaker 2: this breakthrough moment. Hawk would later tell CBC Radio it

1721
01:31:16,360 --> 01:31:18,120
Speaker 2: was the first time in my life I ever experienced

1722
01:31:18,160 --> 01:31:20,679
Speaker 2: the thrill of acting and the thrill of losing yourself.

1723
01:31:21,320 --> 01:31:22,880
Speaker 2: You know, there's this whole thing in the public that

1724
01:31:23,000 --> 01:31:27,280
Speaker 2: acting is this huge celebration of personality and ego, of course,

1725
01:31:27,600 --> 01:31:29,639
Speaker 2: and the irony is that whenever it's any good, it's

1726
01:31:29,680 --> 01:31:32,280
Speaker 2: devoid of ego. It's a high I've chased my whole

1727
01:31:32,320 --> 01:31:34,519
Speaker 2: life since that day of Robin. It's this way of

1728
01:31:34,600 --> 01:31:37,680
Speaker 2: losing yourself where you lose yourself inside a story, a

1729
01:31:37,760 --> 01:31:40,479
Speaker 2: story that's in service of something way beyond you. And

1730
01:31:40,600 --> 01:31:42,040
Speaker 2: I felt that in Dead Poets.

1731
01:31:41,720 --> 01:31:45,360
Speaker 1: Society Dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dunt dun,

1732
01:31:45,479 --> 01:31:48,200
Speaker 1: dun dun dun dun dun. Yeah.

1733
01:31:50,360 --> 01:31:53,040
Speaker 2: Uh, he would add to can you imagine Dead Post

1734
01:31:53,120 --> 01:31:56,920
Speaker 2: Society with Denzel from training day as Robin Williams.

1735
01:31:56,960 --> 01:31:59,439
Speaker 1: It would almost be like Dangerous Minds where he's just

1736
01:31:59,560 --> 01:32:02,360
Speaker 1: like trying to get through to like the tough kids. Yeah,

1737
01:32:02,439 --> 01:32:04,000
Speaker 1: the inverse, the inverse of that.

1738
01:32:04,240 --> 01:32:06,759
Speaker 2: Yeah. He would ad to Script Magazine that it remains

1739
01:32:06,800 --> 01:32:09,640
Speaker 2: one of the most significant days of my life professionally

1740
01:32:09,800 --> 01:32:13,759
Speaker 2: for sure. He added that because he's married and has children.

1741
01:32:14,320 --> 01:32:16,200
Speaker 2: Ethan also theorized this was the moment when he and

1742
01:32:16,280 --> 01:32:19,200
Speaker 2: Robin clicked creatively. Robin made this joke at the end

1743
01:32:19,200 --> 01:32:21,760
Speaker 2: of the scene, he said, saying he found me intimidating.

1744
01:32:22,160 --> 01:32:23,040
Speaker 1: I thought it was a joke.

1745
01:32:23,640 --> 01:32:26,040
Speaker 2: As I get older, I realized there is something intimidating

1746
01:32:26,080 --> 01:32:30,080
Speaker 2: about young people's earnestness, their intensity. It is intimidating to

1747
01:32:30,200 --> 01:32:32,880
Speaker 2: be the person they think you are. Robin was that

1748
01:32:33,040 --> 01:32:34,799
Speaker 2: for me? That's a good insight.

1749
01:32:35,000 --> 01:32:36,760
Speaker 1: I think that's really yeah, oh yeah.

1750
01:32:37,200 --> 01:32:38,840
Speaker 2: You know, while we're on the topic of Robin Williams

1751
01:32:38,920 --> 01:32:41,840
Speaker 2: changing young people's lives with poetry, we're gonna throw it

1752
01:32:41,880 --> 01:32:44,360
Speaker 2: back to hook the very first episode of this podcast

1753
01:32:44,520 --> 01:32:46,960
Speaker 2: we ever taped nearly three years ago.

1754
01:32:52,920 --> 01:32:54,160
Speaker 1: It's not some violent math.

1755
01:32:54,240 --> 01:32:58,840
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, screaming started again. Robin took the actor who

1756
01:32:58,880 --> 01:33:02,400
Speaker 2: played Rufio Dante Basco under his wing during the production.

1757
01:33:02,960 --> 01:33:05,839
Speaker 2: The two used to speak at length about Dead Poets Society,

1758
01:33:06,160 --> 01:33:08,800
Speaker 2: as this film had been highly influential on Basco, who's

1759
01:33:08,800 --> 01:33:12,519
Speaker 2: an aspiring poet at the time, and as a rap present,

1760
01:33:12,680 --> 01:33:15,720
Speaker 2: Robin Williams gave the young Rufeo actor a limited edition

1761
01:33:15,880 --> 01:33:20,000
Speaker 2: copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a work heavily

1762
01:33:20,080 --> 01:33:24,880
Speaker 2: featured in Dead Poet Society. Basco added. Consequently, I ended

1763
01:33:24,960 --> 01:33:27,120
Speaker 2: up opening a poetry venue out of my living room,

1764
01:33:27,280 --> 01:33:30,599
Speaker 2: which is now the largest open mic poetry venue in America,

1765
01:33:30,800 --> 01:33:34,160
Speaker 2: called the Poetry Lounge. So all things considered, it was

1766
01:33:34,200 --> 01:33:38,800
Speaker 2: a wash. It's a cute story. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm

1767
01:33:38,840 --> 01:33:39,400
Speaker 2: a bad person.

1768
01:33:40,439 --> 01:33:42,320
Speaker 1: Well we need to savor that cute moment for a

1769
01:33:42,600 --> 01:33:45,120
Speaker 1: bit because we're about to talk about the saddest point

1770
01:33:45,200 --> 01:33:48,519
Speaker 1: of this film, arguably one of the saddest moments in

1771
01:33:48,640 --> 01:33:53,040
Speaker 1: eighty cinema, which you have not seen. So I'm spoilers.

1772
01:33:53,160 --> 01:33:57,320
Speaker 1: I guess gives a shit. I actually think you would

1773
01:33:57,400 --> 01:33:59,360
Speaker 1: like this movie. Is it sadder than the Horse Dying

1774
01:33:59,400 --> 01:34:03,080
Speaker 1: and Never ending? Oh? It's up there, it's Oh. Here,

1775
01:34:03,160 --> 01:34:07,040
Speaker 1: I'll explain the bright light known as Neil Perry, probably

1776
01:34:07,120 --> 01:34:10,280
Speaker 1: the most popular of the kids in the Dead Poets Society.

1777
01:34:10,600 --> 01:34:13,040
Speaker 1: He just made his debut as Puck in A Midsummer

1778
01:34:13,120 --> 01:34:15,760
Speaker 1: Nights Dream when he was met by his disapproving father

1779
01:34:16,479 --> 01:34:18,560
Speaker 1: played by the guy who played Red Foreman on that

1780
01:34:18,720 --> 01:34:23,240
Speaker 1: seventy show, which is weird. I was in RoboCop. Oh yes, Oh,

1781
01:34:23,320 --> 01:34:24,360
Speaker 1: that makes total sense.

1782
01:34:24,479 --> 01:34:26,240
Speaker 2: He's the guy who has the best line of the eighties.

1783
01:34:26,280 --> 01:34:28,519
Speaker 2: Where he comes he's he's like a heavy and he

1784
01:34:29,360 --> 01:34:33,560
Speaker 2: comes in to when the corporation one of their executives

1785
01:34:33,600 --> 01:34:35,800
Speaker 2: is celebrating with a few ladies like doing coke off

1786
01:34:35,800 --> 01:34:39,400
Speaker 2: their boobs and stuff, and Red Foreman walks in with

1787
01:34:39,479 --> 01:34:47,640
Speaker 2: a gun and just goes. Bitches leave, Bitches leave. Transcendent.

1788
01:34:50,160 --> 01:34:56,160
Speaker 1: Oh, it's really hard to get back into the story

1789
01:34:56,240 --> 01:34:58,960
Speaker 1: after that anecdote. They should do a sequet of Dead

1790
01:34:58,960 --> 01:35:04,400
Speaker 1: Poet's Society, but it's like Debtor Poets. It's like Poet Harder.

1791
01:35:04,200 --> 01:35:09,920
Speaker 2: Good Poet Society. To the revenge, the return to go

1792
01:35:10,040 --> 01:35:14,360
Speaker 2: back to the school to blow it up, and Red's

1793
01:35:14,360 --> 01:35:16,680
Speaker 2: still alive, so the dad may have to join the

1794
01:35:16,760 --> 01:35:18,920
Speaker 2: team and like avenge his son.

1795
01:35:20,680 --> 01:35:25,360
Speaker 1: Or whatever happens. On that Paul Anker show that I produced,

1796
01:35:25,400 --> 01:35:28,040
Speaker 1: we had the second of our two part interview with

1797
01:35:28,439 --> 01:35:31,640
Speaker 1: Frankie Avalon, and I sent the edit over to the

1798
01:35:31,680 --> 01:35:33,360
Speaker 1: person who's going to mix it and master it, and

1799
01:35:33,960 --> 01:35:36,280
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, here it is Frankie Avalon too,

1800
01:35:36,640 --> 01:35:39,519
Speaker 1: Frankie Harder. A good day to Frankie. And I just

1801
01:35:39,600 --> 01:35:41,880
Speaker 1: had this like series of like saying and I like,

1802
01:35:41,920 --> 01:35:45,160
Speaker 1: I momentarily forgot it wasn't to you, and I got

1803
01:35:45,280 --> 01:35:48,599
Speaker 1: no just crickets, no response whatsoever, Which was the one

1804
01:35:48,640 --> 01:35:49,840
Speaker 1: that we had to add to it.

1805
01:35:50,080 --> 01:35:55,479
Speaker 2: Recently, we filed it was an underrated Oh beneath beneath

1806
01:35:55,520 --> 01:35:59,080
Speaker 2: the oh yeah, beneath the Planet of the Frankies. Actually

1807
01:35:59,160 --> 01:36:02,320
Speaker 2: that's a good one. Beneath the Planet of Dead Poets Society. Yeah,

1808
01:36:02,479 --> 01:36:05,360
Speaker 2: ooh yeah, all right, he kills himself or something. Yeah,

1809
01:36:05,720 --> 01:36:09,320
Speaker 2: all right, fine, fine, fine, so okay. This guy even

1810
01:36:09,439 --> 01:36:11,720
Speaker 2: wants to be an actor. He goes on stage, he's

1811
01:36:11,800 --> 01:36:15,240
Speaker 2: really good. His dad sees him. His dad is pissed.

1812
01:36:15,320 --> 01:36:17,639
Speaker 1: His dad wants him to put aside his silly acting

1813
01:36:17,760 --> 01:36:20,400
Speaker 1: dreams and to make sure this happens, he says he's

1814
01:36:20,400 --> 01:36:23,360
Speaker 1: going to withdraw him from Welton Academy, take him away

1815
01:36:23,439 --> 01:36:26,160
Speaker 1: from the Robin Williams teacher character, and send him the

1816
01:36:26,240 --> 01:36:29,559
Speaker 1: military school. And this kid, young Neil, played by Robert

1817
01:36:29,600 --> 01:36:33,000
Speaker 1: Shawn Leonard, He's so distraught that he takes his own life.

1818
01:36:33,080 --> 01:36:36,880
Speaker 1: It's a very very upsetting scene in this movie. Director

1819
01:36:36,920 --> 01:36:40,880
Speaker 1: Peter Weird depicts the tragedy in a very elegantly obtuse way,

1820
01:36:41,040 --> 01:36:43,720
Speaker 1: with most of the action occurring off screen. I think

1821
01:36:43,760 --> 01:36:45,719
Speaker 1: the most we see as a puff of gun smoke.

1822
01:36:46,360 --> 01:36:48,080
Speaker 1: Weird knew that this was going to be the most

1823
01:36:48,120 --> 01:36:50,519
Speaker 1: sensitive moment of the film, and he went so far

1824
01:36:50,600 --> 01:36:53,479
Speaker 1: as to consult a psychologist to ensure that it didn't

1825
01:36:53,479 --> 01:36:56,880
Speaker 1: look like he was glamorizing suicide, which I think is

1826
01:36:57,000 --> 01:36:57,760
Speaker 1: very responsible.

1827
01:36:58,240 --> 01:37:00,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more than I would have given him for

1828
01:37:00,439 --> 01:37:01,320
Speaker 2: as an Australian.

1829
01:37:03,760 --> 01:37:06,280
Speaker 1: Excuse me, friend of the pod fills in Australia, and

1830
01:37:06,320 --> 01:37:08,679
Speaker 1: we have to be nice to our Southern hemisphere brethren.

1831
01:37:09,280 --> 01:37:10,240
Speaker 2: Opinions differ.

1832
01:37:11,760 --> 01:37:13,960
Speaker 1: We're asked a psychologist, how could I shoot this in

1833
01:37:14,000 --> 01:37:16,160
Speaker 1: a way that made it clear that Neil wasn't making

1834
01:37:16,200 --> 01:37:20,280
Speaker 1: a heroic choice by shooting himself. The psychologist suggested providing

1835
01:37:20,360 --> 01:37:23,080
Speaker 1: Neil with quote a moment where he has the opportunity

1836
01:37:23,160 --> 01:37:25,599
Speaker 1: to speak up where you should speak up to his father,

1837
01:37:26,160 --> 01:37:30,160
Speaker 1: but he can't find the courage. That's more depressing.

1838
01:37:31,720 --> 01:37:38,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, having your your suicide elucidated by a moment

1839
01:37:38,080 --> 01:37:38,760
Speaker 2: of cowardice.

1840
01:37:40,840 --> 01:37:43,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't make this decision.

1841
01:37:43,160 --> 01:37:46,760
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm for you in so many different ways. You

1842
01:37:47,439 --> 01:37:50,519
Speaker 2: were so sincere about loving it. I'm just sitting here

1843
01:37:50,600 --> 01:37:52,720
Speaker 2: poking holes and everything about it. I mean, I do

1844
01:37:52,880 --> 01:37:54,200
Speaker 2: have like three pages at the end.

1845
01:37:54,240 --> 01:37:57,000
Speaker 1: They're all like taken from articles saying that this is

1846
01:37:57,040 --> 01:38:00,760
Speaker 1: a movie that's irresponsible. Uh, I give you you can

1847
01:38:00,840 --> 01:38:03,920
Speaker 1: read those You can read that section. Go here. As

1848
01:38:03,960 --> 01:38:07,600
Speaker 1: I'm finishing this, like authentic stuff, go scroll down and

1849
01:38:08,120 --> 01:38:11,080
Speaker 1: scan that section. The section is called the blowback.

1850
01:38:12,080 --> 01:38:12,400
Speaker 2: There you go.

1851
01:38:13,800 --> 01:38:17,240
Speaker 1: We're accentuated this effect by keeping the camera angled hide

1852
01:38:17,320 --> 01:38:19,200
Speaker 1: during the conversation with his father to.

1853
01:38:19,240 --> 01:38:21,000
Speaker 2: Make him look diminished and small.

1854
01:38:22,320 --> 01:38:27,640
Speaker 1: Jesus, because worse and worse. I'm gonna make this.

1855
01:38:27,920 --> 01:38:32,600
Speaker 2: Uh this is not glorify suicide. Shoot it so he's humiliated.

1856
01:38:34,560 --> 01:38:42,559
Speaker 2: Really lay into him, make him move like a total pussy, right,

1857
01:38:43,200 --> 01:38:43,800
Speaker 2: I could do that.

1858
01:38:46,200 --> 01:38:47,400
Speaker 1: No, I don't think that was the intent.

1859
01:38:47,720 --> 01:38:48,320
Speaker 2: I think that.

1860
01:38:49,840 --> 01:38:57,759
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay. Man. This plot point, as you would expect,

1861
01:38:57,960 --> 01:39:02,240
Speaker 1: was a controversial one. Script writer Tom Shulman said, Peter

1862
01:39:02,400 --> 01:39:04,640
Speaker 1: told me that Ingmar Bergman once said that if you

1863
01:39:04,760 --> 01:39:07,439
Speaker 1: kill off one of your lead characters, the audience will

1864
01:39:07,439 --> 01:39:09,720
Speaker 1: hate you. So I asked him what we should do,

1865
01:39:10,280 --> 01:39:15,160
Speaker 1: and he said, hope Bergman is wrong. Shulman adds, I

1866
01:39:15,240 --> 01:39:17,559
Speaker 1: think the suicide does turn off a lot of people.

1867
01:39:17,880 --> 01:39:21,080
Speaker 1: It's a tough one. Robert Sean Leonard, the guy who

1868
01:39:21,120 --> 01:39:23,439
Speaker 1: played Neil, would recall woman coming up to him at

1869
01:39:23,439 --> 01:39:26,760
Speaker 1: a theater once and berating him for supposedly showing suicide

1870
01:39:26,800 --> 01:39:30,439
Speaker 1: in a heroic light. Ethan Hawk played Neil's roommate and

1871
01:39:30,479 --> 01:39:32,320
Speaker 1: close friend in the movie, and the scene where he

1872
01:39:32,439 --> 01:39:34,160
Speaker 1: learns of the suicide was to be one of the

1873
01:39:34,240 --> 01:39:37,200
Speaker 1: anchors of the film. The script called for him to

1874
01:39:37,240 --> 01:39:40,200
Speaker 1: be informed by his friends while still in bed, and

1875
01:39:40,280 --> 01:39:42,439
Speaker 1: then run to the bathroom where he would throw up

1876
01:39:42,520 --> 01:39:45,799
Speaker 1: and deliver a monologue blaming Neil's dad for this drastic,

1877
01:39:45,960 --> 01:39:49,439
Speaker 1: terrible act. But then the morning of the shoot, the

1878
01:39:49,560 --> 01:39:51,640
Speaker 1: cast and crew drove to the set as snow was

1879
01:39:51,720 --> 01:39:54,640
Speaker 1: coming down. Peter Weir decided that it would be much

1880
01:39:54,680 --> 01:39:57,840
Speaker 1: more realistic to have Ethan's character flee his dorm and

1881
01:39:57,960 --> 01:40:00,560
Speaker 1: head out into the snow to have his emotion catharsis.

1882
01:40:01,160 --> 01:40:03,720
Speaker 1: The only trouble was due to the snow, they could

1883
01:40:03,760 --> 01:40:06,479
Speaker 1: only shoot at once, otherwise they really wouldn't have time

1884
01:40:06,560 --> 01:40:09,800
Speaker 1: to cover up the footprints. Don't worry, Ethan can do

1885
01:40:09,880 --> 01:40:13,040
Speaker 1: it in one take, Peter declared, which left Ethan immensely

1886
01:40:13,160 --> 01:40:14,519
Speaker 1: proud but also terrified.

1887
01:40:15,520 --> 01:40:18,040
Speaker 2: No pressure, Yeah, we will burn the set down after

1888
01:40:18,120 --> 01:40:18,559
Speaker 2: this take.

1889
01:40:20,479 --> 01:40:22,640
Speaker 1: The other problem Ethan had was that he objected to

1890
01:40:22,720 --> 01:40:26,439
Speaker 1: this lengthy speech which Peter Weir happened to love. He

1891
01:40:26,600 --> 01:40:28,639
Speaker 1: just felt again it read like a scene. It didn't

1892
01:40:28,640 --> 01:40:30,400
Speaker 1: seem like something that would be real. You know, when

1893
01:40:30,400 --> 01:40:32,760
Speaker 1: you're in a moment of grief and catharsis, you're not

1894
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:37,519
Speaker 1: really delivering fully formed paragraphs and having definitive thoughts and

1895
01:40:37,600 --> 01:40:40,360
Speaker 1: opinions on why something like this would have happened. You're

1896
01:40:40,439 --> 01:40:44,240
Speaker 1: just reacting. So we're to his credit, let the young

1897
01:40:44,320 --> 01:40:47,840
Speaker 1: star do the scene his way, saying you cannot say

1898
01:40:47,920 --> 01:40:50,519
Speaker 1: the speech, but you have to make me think you

1899
01:40:50,680 --> 01:40:54,200
Speaker 1: said the speech. Hmmmm. Ethan was like, well, great, now

1900
01:40:54,240 --> 01:40:55,640
Speaker 1: I have all this pressure on me and I have

1901
01:40:55,760 --> 01:41:00,479
Speaker 1: to decode this cryptic comment. For my director, all was

1902
01:41:00,520 --> 01:41:03,479
Speaker 1: the half coherent, largely ad libbed result that you see

1903
01:41:03,520 --> 01:41:06,080
Speaker 1: in the final film, which I feel accurately depicts a

1904
01:41:06,120 --> 01:41:08,920
Speaker 1: grief stricken teen boy in a state of shock. It's

1905
01:41:08,960 --> 01:41:14,360
Speaker 1: a very, very affecting scene as you meditate on that.

1906
01:41:14,760 --> 01:41:17,439
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more too much information after

1907
01:41:17,560 --> 01:41:37,000
Speaker 1: these messages. The original version of Dead Poets Society very

1908
01:41:37,040 --> 01:41:40,880
Speaker 1: nearly ended with another death, that of Robin Williams's character

1909
01:41:41,040 --> 01:41:45,400
Speaker 1: John Keating. The original version of Tom Shulman's script included

1910
01:41:45,439 --> 01:41:48,120
Speaker 1: a scene of Keating dying in a hospital after being

1911
01:41:48,200 --> 01:41:52,600
Speaker 1: diagnosed with Hodgkins's disease, christ, which was revealed to be

1912
01:41:52,760 --> 01:41:57,080
Speaker 1: the driving force behind his Seize the Day Mantra. As

1913
01:41:57,120 --> 01:41:59,559
Speaker 1: Shulman would explain, when I got to a later stage

1914
01:41:59,560 --> 01:42:02,280
Speaker 1: of the screen play, around page seventy or eighty, I

1915
01:42:02,439 --> 01:42:05,160
Speaker 1: started to feel a need to explain why Keating had

1916
01:42:05,200 --> 01:42:07,960
Speaker 1: this carpe dm philosophy that was so important to him.

1917
01:42:08,320 --> 01:42:10,960
Speaker 1: So I decided he'd have a fatal disease, but wasn't

1918
01:42:11,000 --> 01:42:14,160
Speaker 1: like Handrey's lymphoma, where you can live twenty or thirty years,

1919
01:42:14,240 --> 01:42:17,120
Speaker 1: but it'll ultimately shorten your life and you'll die prematurely.

1920
01:42:17,800 --> 01:42:19,439
Speaker 1: So I wrote a scene where the boys come to

1921
01:42:19,520 --> 01:42:22,240
Speaker 1: class and Keating isn't there, and then they find out

1922
01:42:22,280 --> 01:42:25,080
Speaker 1: he's in the hospital. They go see him, and that's

1923
01:42:25,080 --> 01:42:27,960
Speaker 1: when they learn about his disease. Then the next day

1924
01:42:28,000 --> 01:42:31,040
Speaker 1: he's back in class after surviving his latest acute attack

1925
01:42:31,360 --> 01:42:34,559
Speaker 1: and back to his old self. Weir hated this ending

1926
01:42:34,680 --> 01:42:39,000
Speaker 1: for many reasons. It's cliche, it's trite, it's manipulative, plus

1927
01:42:39,040 --> 01:42:41,639
Speaker 1: it cheap. In the message of the movie, The Seas

1928
01:42:41,720 --> 01:42:45,280
Speaker 1: the Day Lesson is arguably much more impactful without this

1929
01:42:45,400 --> 01:42:49,439
Speaker 1: dramatic catalyst. Weir hated the scene so much that he

1930
01:42:49,560 --> 01:42:53,280
Speaker 1: initially passed on directing this movie because of it. When

1931
01:42:53,320 --> 01:42:55,880
Speaker 1: Katzenberg asked him why he didn't want to direct the movie,

1932
01:42:55,880 --> 01:42:58,439
Speaker 1: he explained, because you go through the whole story and

1933
01:42:58,520 --> 01:43:01,720
Speaker 1: it's about seizing the day. You have this wonderful, inspiring

1934
01:43:01,880 --> 01:43:04,280
Speaker 1: teacher who I would have followed and I would have

1935
01:43:04,360 --> 01:43:07,200
Speaker 1: definitely become part of the Dead Poets society. But then

1936
01:43:07,240 --> 01:43:09,360
Speaker 1: you come to the scene with Keating in the hospital

1937
01:43:09,400 --> 01:43:12,120
Speaker 1: and you realize he's got leukemia and that's why he's

1938
01:43:12,160 --> 01:43:16,240
Speaker 1: saying sees the day. Well, who wouldn't under those circumstances,

1939
01:43:17,439 --> 01:43:21,559
Speaker 1: And as Peter Weir remembered it, Katzenberg said, well, why

1940
01:43:21,600 --> 01:43:23,040
Speaker 1: don't you just cut the cancer out?

1941
01:43:23,320 --> 01:43:24,960
Speaker 2: And so that's what they did.

1942
01:43:25,240 --> 01:43:27,639
Speaker 1: Took several days of back and forth with the screenwriter

1943
01:43:27,760 --> 01:43:29,960
Speaker 1: Tom Shulman, but he finally convinced him to cut it.

1944
01:43:30,520 --> 01:43:32,599
Speaker 1: Shulman would later admit that this was the right call

1945
01:43:32,880 --> 01:43:35,280
Speaker 1: and heighten the emotional punch of the last image of

1946
01:43:35,360 --> 01:43:38,200
Speaker 1: the movie, a student standing on their desks and tribute

1947
01:43:38,240 --> 01:43:41,639
Speaker 1: to Keating in defiance of their rigid new English Teacher.

1948
01:43:42,640 --> 01:43:45,840
Speaker 1: Now Shulman would admit, if Keating's not dying, then we

1949
01:43:45,960 --> 01:43:48,559
Speaker 1: know they're standing up for the values he's taught them,

1950
01:43:49,000 --> 01:43:50,479
Speaker 1: which is much more powerful.

1951
01:43:50,840 --> 01:43:51,320
Speaker 2: I agree.

1952
01:43:52,439 --> 01:43:54,160
Speaker 1: The only one of the seven members of the Dead

1953
01:43:54,200 --> 01:43:57,559
Speaker 1: Poet Society who doesn't stand on his desk is Richard Cameron,

1954
01:43:57,920 --> 01:44:00,639
Speaker 1: the weasel, who rated out Keating the same his own ass.

1955
01:44:01,360 --> 01:44:04,280
Speaker 1: This was a choice by actor Dylan Cuspin, who made

1956
01:44:04,320 --> 01:44:07,679
Speaker 1: this call during his audition. Of all places, Weird asked

1957
01:44:07,720 --> 01:44:09,880
Speaker 1: him if there were lass ones on him I know.

1958
01:44:10,120 --> 01:44:12,040
Speaker 1: Weird asked him if there was anything he didn't like

1959
01:44:12,120 --> 01:44:15,960
Speaker 1: about the character, and Cuspin boldly confessed that he thought

1960
01:44:16,000 --> 01:44:18,200
Speaker 1: it was not true to his character to stand on

1961
01:44:18,320 --> 01:44:19,439
Speaker 1: his desk in salute.

1962
01:44:20,439 --> 01:44:20,640
Speaker 2: We are.

1963
01:44:20,680 --> 01:44:23,759
Speaker 1: Agreed and ultimately gave the kid the part as a result,

1964
01:44:24,960 --> 01:44:27,320
Speaker 1: and now here's something to make hye will cry. As

1965
01:44:27,360 --> 01:44:30,040
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, when they shot that scene, Peter Weir

1966
01:44:30,160 --> 01:44:33,160
Speaker 1: blasted the set with Innio Marconi's music from the Mission

1967
01:44:33,439 --> 01:45:00,639
Speaker 1: to get everybody in the mood we are, I guess,

1968
01:45:00,680 --> 01:45:02,800
Speaker 1: playing a lot of Irish music on the set during

1969
01:45:02,840 --> 01:45:05,559
Speaker 1: the production, and also when he was showing dailies, he said,

1970
01:45:05,920 --> 01:45:08,400
Speaker 1: I use the music mainly to psych myself into the

1971
01:45:08,479 --> 01:45:11,840
Speaker 1: company of the muse as a weapon against the overwhelming

1972
01:45:12,080 --> 01:45:15,400
Speaker 1: ordinariness that surrounds the film set. And I found over

1973
01:45:15,439 --> 01:45:18,960
Speaker 1: the years that music helps others. Ethan Hawk would recall

1974
01:45:19,720 --> 01:45:21,679
Speaker 1: that whole day was I hate the Irish.

1975
01:45:23,560 --> 01:45:27,719
Speaker 2: Many years later, Ethan Hawk would require developing a searing

1976
01:45:27,840 --> 01:45:30,000
Speaker 2: hatred of the Irish on this film.

1977
01:45:32,520 --> 01:45:35,600
Speaker 1: He would recall, the whole day was so exciting. The

1978
01:45:35,720 --> 01:45:38,599
Speaker 1: back wall was filled with speakers cranking out the soundtrack

1979
01:45:38,680 --> 01:45:41,400
Speaker 1: to the mission. It was all so emotional in that room,

1980
01:45:42,040 --> 01:45:44,840
Speaker 1: and when Robin said is goodbye boys line, he had

1981
01:45:44,920 --> 01:45:48,280
Speaker 1: tears streaming down his face. But Peter was like, no,

1982
01:45:48,640 --> 01:45:51,519
Speaker 1: you can't cry. The audience will be crying, but not you.

1983
01:45:52,160 --> 01:45:54,920
Speaker 1: You don't cry until after you leave and you're alone

1984
01:45:54,960 --> 01:45:57,760
Speaker 1: in your car right now. You want those boys to

1985
01:45:57,840 --> 01:45:59,880
Speaker 1: take care of themselves, so you keep it together for that,

1986
01:46:00,760 --> 01:46:05,160
Speaker 1: Just say thank you and get out. Uh. There's nowhere

1987
01:46:05,200 --> 01:46:09,799
Speaker 1: else to really put this, but apparently Laura Flynn Boyle

1988
01:46:10,120 --> 01:46:12,880
Speaker 1: originally had a minor role in this film as the

1989
01:46:13,040 --> 01:46:16,760
Speaker 1: sister of Chet Danbury, the football player who's dating the

1990
01:46:16,840 --> 01:46:20,719
Speaker 1: girl that knocks Over Street is what Over heels for Ultimately,

1991
01:46:20,800 --> 01:46:23,040
Speaker 1: she was cut from the film, and she learned about

1992
01:46:23,080 --> 01:46:26,639
Speaker 1: this sad fact in the most brutal way imaginable. Boyle

1993
01:46:26,720 --> 01:46:29,200
Speaker 1: told David Letterman that she wasn't aware her scenes were

1994
01:46:29,240 --> 01:46:32,519
Speaker 1: cut until someone from Disney called her saying that she

1995
01:46:32,640 --> 01:46:36,040
Speaker 1: might want to skip the premiere, which was occurring that night.

1996
01:46:36,960 --> 01:46:41,880
Speaker 1: Oh to quote her, someone from Disney called up and

1997
01:46:41,920 --> 01:46:44,439
Speaker 1: said I wouldn't want to go, and said I wasn't

1998
01:46:44,479 --> 01:46:48,280
Speaker 1: in it anymore and adding insult to injury. The studio

1999
01:46:48,320 --> 01:46:51,519
Speaker 1: representative offered no explanation for why her role was cut,

2000
01:46:52,479 --> 01:46:56,280
Speaker 1: and making matters worse, she apparently decided to cheer herself

2001
01:46:56,360 --> 01:46:58,600
Speaker 1: up by going to see another movie called How I

2002
01:46:58,680 --> 01:47:02,000
Speaker 1: Got Into College? Should Just come out. When she got

2003
01:47:02,040 --> 01:47:04,400
Speaker 1: to the theater, she recalled, they said it wasn't going

2004
01:47:04,479 --> 01:47:09,000
Speaker 1: to be playing because Dead Poets was opening. There was

2005
01:47:09,040 --> 01:47:10,160
Speaker 1: she in Twin Peaks at this time?

2006
01:47:10,200 --> 01:47:12,599
Speaker 2: Went in Twin Peaks. Oh, I think that was ninety

2007
01:47:12,680 --> 01:47:13,280
Speaker 2: or ninety one.

2008
01:47:13,880 --> 01:47:14,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I thought.

2009
01:47:15,080 --> 01:47:17,960
Speaker 2: So, yeah, she didn't have a few money back there,

2010
01:47:18,040 --> 01:47:21,920
Speaker 2: yeah at that point ninety Yeah, premiere in ninety oh Man.

2011
01:47:22,560 --> 01:47:25,559
Speaker 2: Brutal Dead Poet Society was released on June second, nineteen

2012
01:47:25,600 --> 01:47:27,880
Speaker 2: eighty nine in the United States, Hopes for it were

2013
01:47:27,920 --> 01:47:31,439
Speaker 2: not exactly high. Premiere Magazine wrote, it is extraordinary to

2014
01:47:31,479 --> 01:47:33,640
Speaker 2: ask a star who gets paid around four million a

2015
01:47:33,680 --> 01:47:35,599
Speaker 2: picture for being one of the funniest people in the world,

2016
01:47:35,640 --> 01:47:38,720
Speaker 2: to recite poetry instead of crack jokes. But there's very

2017
01:47:38,760 --> 01:47:42,000
Speaker 2: little that isn't unusual about Dead Poets Society, the wild

2018
01:47:42,160 --> 01:47:45,360
Speaker 2: card in this summer's shuffle of films a cat two

2019
01:47:45,439 --> 01:47:51,240
Speaker 2: hour plus Boffo, a two hour plus drama. It is

2020
01:47:51,280 --> 01:47:55,000
Speaker 2: a maverick for Walt Disney Studios Touchstone Pictures, defying two

2021
01:47:55,120 --> 01:47:59,519
Speaker 2: commandments of the studio's development catechism, no rural settings and

2022
01:47:59,680 --> 01:48:03,040
Speaker 2: no no The title scarcely conjures up the sort of

2023
01:48:03,200 --> 01:48:07,719
Speaker 2: escapist entertainment that generally means hot weather, box office bucks boffo.

2024
01:48:09,200 --> 01:48:12,880
Speaker 2: They didn't write Boffo. Weird's two time collaborator Harrison Ford

2025
01:48:12,960 --> 01:48:15,040
Speaker 2: jokes darkly that the film would be harder to sell

2026
01:48:15,160 --> 01:48:18,280
Speaker 2: only if it were called Dead Poets Society in Winter,

2027
01:48:20,280 --> 01:48:22,760
Speaker 2: but Touchstone got the last laugh. Although it never hit

2028
01:48:22,920 --> 01:48:25,679
Speaker 2: number one at the box office, Dead Poets Society grossed

2029
01:48:25,720 --> 01:48:29,280
Speaker 2: over two hundred and twenty five million dollars internationally, making

2030
01:48:29,360 --> 01:48:32,439
Speaker 2: it the fifth highest grossing movie in the world that year.

2031
01:48:32,680 --> 01:48:35,000
Speaker 1: That's crazy money for something like that.

2032
01:48:35,520 --> 01:48:38,040
Speaker 2: Absolutely for a movie that no longer gets made, it

2033
01:48:38,080 --> 01:48:42,800
Speaker 2: gets shuffled directly to Hulu. Yeah, outgrossing Little Mermaid, Honey

2034
01:48:42,920 --> 01:48:45,840
Speaker 2: Shrunk the Kids, and it picked up the studio the

2035
01:48:45,880 --> 01:48:50,000
Speaker 2: subsidiary Touchstones first Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Peter Weir

2036
01:48:50,120 --> 01:48:52,880
Speaker 2: was nominated for Best Director. Robin Williams was nominated for

2037
01:48:52,920 --> 01:48:55,639
Speaker 2: Best Actor, and though Williams would lose it, it would

2038
01:48:55,680 --> 01:48:59,080
Speaker 2: set him on a trajectory towards projects like Awakenings, The

2039
01:48:59,120 --> 01:49:02,320
Speaker 2: Fisher King, and Goodwill Hunting, which would ultimately earn him

2040
01:49:02,360 --> 01:49:05,800
Speaker 2: his one and only Golden Man Jersey Fisher King.

2041
01:49:06,560 --> 01:49:08,920
Speaker 1: Oh a long time ago. I remember liking it. I

2042
01:49:08,960 --> 01:49:10,920
Speaker 1: want to resee it. Was that Terry Gilliam Yeah it

2043
01:49:10,960 --> 01:49:12,120
Speaker 1: must yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

2044
01:49:12,200 --> 01:49:15,799
Speaker 2: And Jeff Bridge is playing like a obvious Howard Stern analog.

2045
01:49:16,000 --> 01:49:16,200
Speaker 1: Yeah.

2046
01:49:16,960 --> 01:49:19,000
Speaker 2: It's a weird movie. It doesn't fully come off, but

2047
01:49:19,240 --> 01:49:21,720
Speaker 2: it's got great stuff. Robin would later say about the

2048
01:49:21,760 --> 01:49:24,400
Speaker 2: plot of Dead Poets Society, I can't describe it in

2049
01:49:24,439 --> 01:49:26,560
Speaker 2: fifteen words or less. It would be like saying the

2050
01:49:26,640 --> 01:49:29,800
Speaker 2: Bible is about a young boy. The only Oscar that

2051
01:49:29,880 --> 01:49:32,600
Speaker 2: Dead Poets Society would win was for Tom Schulman's screenplay

2052
01:49:33,400 --> 01:49:39,800
Speaker 2: that guy wrote, Holy Man. Obviously, this film has gone

2053
01:49:39,840 --> 01:49:42,800
Speaker 2: on to become a beloved classic, but critics had some notes.

2054
01:49:43,400 --> 01:49:45,759
Speaker 2: Vincent Canby, who reviewed the film for The New York Times,

2055
01:49:46,080 --> 01:49:48,240
Speaker 2: wanted the film to center on Keating and less on

2056
01:49:48,320 --> 01:49:51,400
Speaker 2: the students, saying John Keating is the most vivid, most

2057
01:49:51,479 --> 01:49:54,680
Speaker 2: complex character in it, but he's not around long enough.

2058
01:49:55,439 --> 01:49:58,679
Speaker 2: Roger Ebert disagreed, calling Keating more of a plot device

2059
01:49:58,760 --> 01:50:01,280
Speaker 2: than a human being. He gave the film two stars,

2060
01:50:01,360 --> 01:50:04,240
Speaker 2: writing it is of course inevitable that the brilliant teacher

2061
01:50:04,280 --> 01:50:06,600
Speaker 2: will eventually be fired from the school. And when his

2062
01:50:06,680 --> 01:50:09,320
Speaker 2: students stood on their desk to protest his dismissal, I

2063
01:50:09,479 --> 01:50:11,640
Speaker 2: was so moved, I wanted to throw up.

2064
01:50:13,720 --> 01:50:15,639
Speaker 1: I love Ebert man so many heaters.

2065
01:50:16,240 --> 01:50:18,360
Speaker 2: Ebert was not alone in sipping hater ad for Dead

2066
01:50:18,400 --> 01:50:25,800
Speaker 2: Poet Society in recent years. Read the early twenty ten,

2067
01:50:25,960 --> 01:50:28,920
Speaker 2: before Robert William's heartbreaking death made it less fashionable to

2068
01:50:29,360 --> 01:50:32,720
Speaker 2: his movies, there were a slew of think pieces that,

2069
01:50:33,120 --> 01:50:36,320
Speaker 2: while not strictly wrong, do raise some interesting points. Some

2070
01:50:36,479 --> 01:50:40,240
Speaker 2: pedantic some contrarian and some actually quite good. In an

2071
01:50:40,320 --> 01:50:43,080
Speaker 2: article for The Atlantic titled I've never hated a film

2072
01:50:43,200 --> 01:50:46,360
Speaker 2: quite the way I hate Dead Poets Society, writer Kevin

2073
01:50:46,400 --> 01:50:49,439
Speaker 2: Detmar it must be said, a PhD in English lit,

2074
01:50:49,920 --> 01:50:53,839
Speaker 2: criticized the film for being anti intellectual and popularizing poetry

2075
01:50:54,200 --> 01:50:57,720
Speaker 2: fandom rather than the serious criticism and close readings that

2076
01:50:57,840 --> 01:51:02,080
Speaker 2: students of literature practice in academia. Writer Stephen Marsh makes

2077
01:51:02,080 --> 01:51:04,240
Speaker 2: a similar point in a piece for Esquire with a

2078
01:51:04,280 --> 01:51:08,760
Speaker 2: similarly measured title, Dead Poets Society provided the fantasy that

2079
01:51:08,840 --> 01:51:12,240
Speaker 2: the glories of literature amount to a huge prep school circle.

2080
01:51:12,360 --> 01:51:18,000
Speaker 2: Jerk well done, Sir March writes, literature in Dead Poets

2081
01:51:18,040 --> 01:51:21,840
Speaker 2: Society is essentially a type of collective narcissism. Look around

2082
01:51:21,920 --> 01:51:24,639
Speaker 2: any group of white writers or scholars today and tell

2083
01:51:24,680 --> 01:51:27,760
Speaker 2: me that view hasn't utterly triumphed. The real trick of

2084
01:51:27,800 --> 01:51:30,519
Speaker 2: the movie, though, its most vital selling point, was how

2085
01:51:30,720 --> 01:51:34,439
Speaker 2: easy it made writing and studying writing. Look, Understanding the

2086
01:51:34,520 --> 01:51:37,880
Speaker 2: literary tradition was not a task. Nobody had to learn

2087
01:51:37,960 --> 01:51:41,040
Speaker 2: foreign languages or philology. Nobody had to work at it.

2088
01:51:41,479 --> 01:51:43,160
Speaker 2: What you really needed to be a writer was to

2089
01:51:43,200 --> 01:51:46,040
Speaker 2: be sensitive and to overcome the traditional strictures of mom

2090
01:51:46,080 --> 01:51:48,320
Speaker 2: and dad. You really just needed to be a rebel.

2091
01:51:48,760 --> 01:51:50,439
Speaker 2: You needed to figure out a way to be yourself.

2092
01:51:51,040 --> 01:51:53,599
Speaker 2: What Dead Poets Society and the vision of creative writing

2093
01:51:53,640 --> 01:51:56,639
Speaker 2: that emerged in its wake offered was a simplified, fair

2094
01:51:56,720 --> 01:51:59,120
Speaker 2: ground version of the act of reading and writing books.

2095
01:52:00,080 --> 01:52:02,640
Speaker 2: Poets Society ends with all the students standing on their

2096
01:52:02,680 --> 01:52:05,880
Speaker 2: desks shouting, Oh Captain, my captain. If they were smart,

2097
01:52:06,120 --> 01:52:08,280
Speaker 2: they would sit down at those desks, shut up for

2098
01:52:08,320 --> 01:52:13,280
Speaker 2: a while, and listen. March continues in the piece, accusing

2099
01:52:13,320 --> 01:52:15,439
Speaker 2: Robin William's character of being a figure onto which the

2100
01:52:15,439 --> 01:52:20,599
Speaker 2: screenwriter could project his quote writerly ego mania. I don't disagree,

2101
01:52:20,840 --> 01:52:24,519
Speaker 2: he continues. Instead of having the students read interpretations of literature,

2102
01:52:24,720 --> 01:52:26,920
Speaker 2: he begins his class by having them rip out the

2103
01:52:26,960 --> 01:52:30,519
Speaker 2: pages of the introduction. He modestly suggests that they call him,

2104
01:52:30,560 --> 01:52:33,439
Speaker 2: oh Captain, my captain, a title that Walt Rittman originally

2105
01:52:33,479 --> 01:52:37,480
Speaker 2: intended for a murdered Abraham Lincoln martyred Savior of the Republic.

2106
01:52:38,320 --> 01:52:41,320
Speaker 2: Keating is entitled to his student's adulation in the film

2107
01:52:41,479 --> 01:52:43,800
Speaker 2: because he abused in them a sense of self worth

2108
01:52:44,240 --> 01:52:48,040
Speaker 2: totally unrelated to their accomplishments. What do you think about

2109
01:52:48,040 --> 01:52:48,920
Speaker 2: all this, Jordan.

2110
01:52:52,920 --> 01:52:56,280
Speaker 1: There's a fine line between let me let me put

2111
01:52:56,280 --> 01:53:00,320
Speaker 1: it this way. I went to NYU for screenwriting and IO, so.

2112
01:53:00,320 --> 01:53:01,680
Speaker 2: You're just qualified. Why am i as well?

2113
01:53:01,720 --> 01:53:04,320
Speaker 1: No? No, no, I spent most of my time there

2114
01:53:05,160 --> 01:53:07,600
Speaker 1: thinking I don't want to be taught anything. I have

2115
01:53:07,800 --> 01:53:09,920
Speaker 1: my voice, I have my point of view. It's unique

2116
01:53:09,960 --> 01:53:11,800
Speaker 1: to me, and I don't want it to be diluted

2117
01:53:11,880 --> 01:53:14,160
Speaker 1: with everything that came before. I want you to give

2118
01:53:14,200 --> 01:53:15,680
Speaker 1: me my piece of paper so I could move on

2119
01:53:16,000 --> 01:53:18,880
Speaker 1: and like get my credentials and make whatever is in

2120
01:53:18,960 --> 01:53:20,920
Speaker 1: my heart to make, which is a very young person

2121
01:53:21,080 --> 01:53:23,880
Speaker 1: way to think. Looking back on it, I wish that

2122
01:53:24,080 --> 01:53:27,680
Speaker 1: I had learned from these smart people who you know.

2123
01:53:27,800 --> 01:53:29,120
Speaker 1: It's the thing that my dad would say to me,

2124
01:53:29,160 --> 01:53:31,280
Speaker 1: I can't teach you anything. It's okay that you don't

2125
01:53:31,320 --> 01:53:35,840
Speaker 1: know everything. Jordan. You know, and I you know it's yeah.

2126
01:53:36,040 --> 01:53:38,360
Speaker 1: I definitely had a streak of that youthful maturity of

2127
01:53:38,439 --> 01:53:40,080
Speaker 1: thinking that I knew everything. It was nothing I could

2128
01:53:40,160 --> 01:53:42,560
Speaker 1: learn from anybody. And I think as a kid, I

2129
01:53:42,600 --> 01:53:44,639
Speaker 1: would have loved to have had an adult be like, yeah,

2130
01:53:44,720 --> 01:53:47,280
Speaker 1: you're right, yeah, just listen to yourself. But now that

2131
01:53:47,360 --> 01:53:49,720
Speaker 1: I'm older, I do have that sense of, oh, I

2132
01:53:49,760 --> 01:53:52,280
Speaker 1: would love for somebody who really knows what they're talking

2133
01:53:52,320 --> 01:53:54,360
Speaker 1: about to like show me or teach me.

2134
01:53:55,880 --> 01:53:56,519
Speaker 2: It's interesting.

2135
01:53:56,680 --> 01:53:58,639
Speaker 1: I see both sides of it, you know. I remember

2136
01:53:58,760 --> 01:54:02,360
Speaker 1: being that age, the feeling that way, and I you know, yeah,

2137
01:54:02,479 --> 01:54:04,559
Speaker 1: there is something that comes with age where you start

2138
01:54:04,600 --> 01:54:07,519
Speaker 1: to you realize how little you know the older you get,

2139
01:54:07,760 --> 01:54:07,920
Speaker 1: you know.

2140
01:54:08,800 --> 01:54:11,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean my take on it is in a

2141
01:54:11,280 --> 01:54:14,040
Speaker 2: completely different trajectory, which is that I don't think writers

2142
01:54:14,040 --> 01:54:17,679
Speaker 2: should ever be lauded because this is what will.

2143
01:54:17,560 --> 01:54:18,200
Speaker 1: Happen to them.

2144
01:54:19,800 --> 01:54:22,480
Speaker 2: I as much as I as much as I similarly

2145
01:54:22,720 --> 01:54:26,360
Speaker 2: am enthused about the transformative powers of art, there is

2146
01:54:26,520 --> 01:54:28,760
Speaker 2: really a point at which you do want to tell

2147
01:54:28,920 --> 01:54:33,680
Speaker 2: every single artist to shut up. And this movie approaches

2148
01:54:33,800 --> 01:54:37,360
Speaker 2: that and may or may not have like established that

2149
01:54:37,560 --> 01:54:40,440
Speaker 2: in the Cannon. You know, I had a girlfriend once

2150
01:54:40,480 --> 01:54:47,480
Speaker 2: who inserts him Allen. Yeah. She was French and we

2151
01:54:48,440 --> 01:54:50,120
Speaker 2: we had a lot of overlapping taste and stuff, like

2152
01:54:50,160 --> 01:54:52,200
Speaker 2: she introduced me to the recently departed Paul Auster.

2153
01:54:52,480 --> 01:54:53,080
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

2154
01:54:53,280 --> 01:54:56,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. She at one point was like, you know, you're

2155
01:54:57,400 --> 01:54:59,920
Speaker 2: very American. In the sense that all of your are

2156
01:55:00,080 --> 01:55:03,040
Speaker 2: or all the stuff that you're interested is in men

2157
01:55:03,680 --> 01:55:05,120
Speaker 2: trumpeting about themselves.

2158
01:55:06,400 --> 01:55:10,040
Speaker 1: And that was so devastating that I broke up with her. No, no,

2159
01:55:10,160 --> 01:55:10,680
Speaker 1: that's not true.

2160
01:55:11,720 --> 01:55:14,960
Speaker 2: But that's like the sense that you get about this film.

2161
01:55:14,960 --> 01:55:19,440
Speaker 2: And I declined going into getting a higher degree. But like,

2162
01:55:19,880 --> 01:55:21,640
Speaker 2: I do think that it does kind of short sell

2163
01:55:21,680 --> 01:55:24,240
Speaker 2: the rigor that a lot of people put into academia

2164
01:55:24,280 --> 01:55:28,040
Speaker 2: and studying this stuff. And it isn't like, you know,

2165
01:55:28,280 --> 01:55:31,480
Speaker 2: it's not like a free ride, Like there is work involved,

2166
01:55:31,560 --> 01:55:35,880
Speaker 2: and ultimately, like intense academics like that are responsible for

2167
01:55:36,000 --> 01:55:41,480
Speaker 2: preserving and illustrating a lot of work in really essential

2168
01:55:41,560 --> 01:55:45,480
Speaker 2: ways and boiling it down to like you just got

2169
01:55:45,600 --> 01:55:47,920
Speaker 2: to have a free spirit and seize the day. Man

2170
01:55:48,360 --> 01:55:50,880
Speaker 2: is like, I agree that that does a disservice to

2171
01:55:51,080 --> 01:55:55,680
Speaker 2: actual poetry and writing. You know, I don't know what

2172
01:55:55,800 --> 01:55:58,240
Speaker 2: do you think about that. Let's keep bandying this about.

2173
01:55:58,720 --> 01:56:00,520
Speaker 2: We're gonna get to the bottom of it. Put a

2174
01:56:00,600 --> 01:56:02,040
Speaker 2: pot of coffee, you and I are going to solve

2175
01:56:02,080 --> 01:56:02,640
Speaker 2: this thing tonight.

2176
01:56:02,760 --> 01:56:04,840
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, okay, here's another way of looking at it.

2177
01:56:04,920 --> 01:56:06,600
Speaker 1: I mean, you know how much I love music, so

2178
01:56:06,760 --> 01:56:08,920
Speaker 1: so much, and I do play instruments, but I have

2179
01:56:09,080 --> 01:56:12,680
Speaker 1: never been able to write a song my entire life.

2180
01:56:12,920 --> 01:56:15,160
Speaker 1: I've never been able to write a song for years,

2181
01:56:15,200 --> 01:56:18,080
Speaker 1: and for the twenty plus years that I played piano

2182
01:56:18,120 --> 01:56:21,320
Speaker 1: and guitar and whatever. And as a music journalist, I've

2183
01:56:21,320 --> 01:56:23,160
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to talk to some really great musicians,

2184
01:56:23,200 --> 01:56:26,120
Speaker 1: and a lot of times it's come up organically, like hey, like,

2185
01:56:26,560 --> 01:56:29,120
Speaker 1: I have always wanted to write music. I love music

2186
01:56:29,200 --> 01:56:31,360
Speaker 1: with everything, every five of my being, and I've never

2187
01:56:31,480 --> 01:56:36,400
Speaker 1: been able to what's some advice for me? And they'll

2188
01:56:36,560 --> 01:56:40,320
Speaker 1: all say, almost across the board varying forms of just

2189
01:56:40,400 --> 01:56:41,120
Speaker 1: let go and do it.

2190
01:56:41,440 --> 01:56:42,200
Speaker 2: Just let go and do it.

2191
01:56:42,520 --> 01:56:44,520
Speaker 1: And like, I know I'm not going to be Paul McCartney.

2192
01:56:44,600 --> 01:56:45,920
Speaker 1: I know I'm not gonna be Bob Dylan. I know

2193
01:56:46,000 --> 01:56:47,400
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be any Brian Wilson or any of

2194
01:56:47,440 --> 01:56:52,520
Speaker 1: these people. Maybe Brian Wilson. But they're just trying to

2195
01:56:53,640 --> 01:56:56,120
Speaker 1: help get me to express myself in the way that

2196
01:56:56,120 --> 01:56:58,400
Speaker 1: I want to express myself because it feels good. So

2197
01:56:58,800 --> 01:57:03,360
Speaker 1: to that extent, their advice almost sounds the same to

2198
01:57:03,480 --> 01:57:06,240
Speaker 1: what Robin Williams's character saysn't Dead Poe society.

2199
01:57:06,240 --> 01:57:07,320
Speaker 2: Just let go and do it.

2200
01:57:07,520 --> 01:57:09,680
Speaker 1: And you are a songwriter, so I'm sure you have

2201
01:57:09,800 --> 01:57:14,200
Speaker 1: some thoughts on that too. I mean, poetry writing, fiction writing,

2202
01:57:14,760 --> 01:57:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm sure, nonfiction writing, music, I mean it's all the

2203
01:57:17,000 --> 01:57:19,760
Speaker 1: same thing. We're all talking about passion and creativity and

2204
01:57:19,880 --> 01:57:21,120
Speaker 1: in any form you want to take.

2205
01:57:21,200 --> 01:57:26,520
Speaker 2: Acting. No, acting doesn't count. No, I mean there is

2206
01:57:26,640 --> 01:57:29,920
Speaker 2: a unrelated there's a great part in one of the

2207
01:57:30,000 --> 01:57:34,400
Speaker 2: Nick Cave documentaries where he says the worth of an

2208
01:57:34,480 --> 01:57:38,880
Speaker 2: idea is only in its doing. Oh I always loved

2209
01:57:39,040 --> 01:57:43,280
Speaker 2: and was like so crushing to me because it's like, yeah,

2210
01:57:43,360 --> 01:57:45,040
Speaker 2: you can be sitting on all the great ideas in

2211
01:57:45,080 --> 01:57:49,480
Speaker 2: the world, but who cares unless you show the receipts.

2212
01:57:49,560 --> 01:57:51,880
Speaker 2: You know. Here's what it actually gets down to for

2213
01:57:52,040 --> 01:57:56,680
Speaker 2: me is that with everything, with any immersion into art,

2214
01:57:56,880 --> 01:58:00,520
Speaker 2: to get to that period of that place of like

2215
01:58:00,680 --> 01:58:03,200
Speaker 2: losing yourself, like the flow state, if you want to

2216
01:58:03,240 --> 01:58:06,280
Speaker 2: put like the actual pop psychology term onto it, there

2217
01:58:06,400 --> 01:58:08,520
Speaker 2: is like a high degree of rigor that you have

2218
01:58:08,640 --> 01:58:09,320
Speaker 2: to put into.

2219
01:58:09,160 --> 01:58:11,040
Speaker 1: It before that, Yeah, put it in.

2220
01:58:11,040 --> 01:58:13,160
Speaker 2: A less you know, in a less eloquent way. You

2221
01:58:13,240 --> 01:58:15,360
Speaker 2: have to suck at something before you can be good

2222
01:58:15,400 --> 01:58:19,160
Speaker 2: at it. And most people don't want to suck, especially adults.

2223
01:58:19,440 --> 01:58:22,080
Speaker 2: Like kids don't mind kind of sucking at something if

2224
01:58:22,120 --> 01:58:24,080
Speaker 2: they have like a certain mindset and can be told,

2225
01:58:24,200 --> 01:58:25,800
Speaker 2: like just do this over and over again.

2226
01:58:25,880 --> 01:58:26,000
Speaker 1: You know.

2227
01:58:26,120 --> 01:58:28,240
Speaker 2: Adults have a much shorter attention span for that kind

2228
01:58:28,240 --> 01:58:30,320
Speaker 2: of stuff because they're bringing all of their insecurity and

2229
01:58:30,440 --> 01:58:33,080
Speaker 2: ego to it. But like you have to be the

2230
01:58:33,280 --> 01:58:37,480
Speaker 2: intense serious dork reading Stanislavsky and put that kind of

2231
01:58:37,560 --> 01:58:40,320
Speaker 2: work into it to get to the place that Robin

2232
01:58:40,520 --> 01:58:44,640
Speaker 2: so effortlessly occupied of like always being in that flow state,

2233
01:58:44,720 --> 01:58:48,560
Speaker 2: you know, And it's not really fun or interesting in

2234
01:58:48,840 --> 01:58:50,400
Speaker 2: art to glamorize rigor.

2235
01:58:51,120 --> 01:58:52,520
Speaker 1: You know, you have whiplash.

2236
01:58:52,920 --> 01:58:54,760
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, but that swings the opposite way, where

2237
01:58:54,760 --> 01:58:57,600
Speaker 2: it's glamorizing the toxicity of it, right, you know, But

2238
01:58:57,840 --> 01:59:01,080
Speaker 2: like the middle ground between the talkxicity and then then

2239
01:59:01,200 --> 01:59:03,800
Speaker 2: like the free spirit, every fart you take is a

2240
01:59:03,880 --> 01:59:06,560
Speaker 2: work of art, there's a middle ground there which is

2241
01:59:06,640 --> 01:59:09,960
Speaker 2: like art is work, And I don't think this movie

2242
01:59:10,320 --> 01:59:13,240
Speaker 2: adequately sells that from what I understand. I never saw it,

2243
01:59:13,480 --> 01:59:15,520
Speaker 2: But like I don't think this twinkly eyed view of

2244
01:59:15,640 --> 01:59:18,600
Speaker 2: like just live man and that'll be your art that

2245
01:59:18,720 --> 01:59:21,000
Speaker 2: doesn't get at it, and nor does the flip side

2246
01:59:21,040 --> 01:59:23,240
Speaker 2: of it with whiplash, where it's like art is misery.

2247
01:59:23,680 --> 01:59:26,160
Speaker 2: I mean, art is misery, but that's because of capitalism,

2248
01:59:26,320 --> 01:59:28,120
Speaker 2: not because of art. I blame that on art.

2249
01:59:28,480 --> 01:59:31,720
Speaker 1: I agree with you, but I think you're implying that

2250
01:59:32,200 --> 01:59:36,280
Speaker 1: these kids are trying to be slash, are being told

2251
01:59:36,360 --> 01:59:39,320
Speaker 1: that they are good. Sure, and I think that's different.

2252
01:59:39,360 --> 01:59:41,000
Speaker 1: I think it's the same with me trying to write

2253
01:59:41,040 --> 01:59:42,960
Speaker 1: a song, not because I want to make that my

2254
01:59:43,120 --> 01:59:45,040
Speaker 1: be all and all in life or make a living

2255
01:59:45,080 --> 01:59:46,560
Speaker 1: at it or whatever. It's something I want to do

2256
01:59:46,680 --> 01:59:48,920
Speaker 1: because I just want to express myself that way, and

2257
01:59:49,120 --> 01:59:52,800
Speaker 1: I feel locked up personally inside of me. That's something

2258
01:59:52,880 --> 01:59:54,640
Speaker 1: that is just I'm not able to let go for

2259
01:59:54,760 --> 01:59:56,200
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and I wish I could.

2260
01:59:56,720 --> 01:59:57,520
Speaker 2: I don't know why.

2261
01:59:57,640 --> 01:59:59,440
Speaker 1: I don't know why I feel compelled to write a

2262
01:59:59,520 --> 02:00:02,120
Speaker 1: song due it's just something, you know. I love these

2263
02:00:02,120 --> 02:00:04,120
Speaker 1: beautiful noises and I want to make one of my own.

2264
02:00:04,560 --> 02:00:08,760
Speaker 1: And I think that I would argue that Robin's character

2265
02:00:09,520 --> 02:00:13,800
Speaker 1: is trying to help these kids unlock themselves find their

2266
02:00:13,840 --> 02:00:17,440
Speaker 1: own voice, not because he's not saying that they're going

2267
02:00:17,520 --> 02:00:19,600
Speaker 1: to be poet Laurie's I think it's just the same

2268
02:00:19,680 --> 02:00:21,680
Speaker 1: reason I want to write a song. It's just you

2269
02:00:21,800 --> 02:00:24,320
Speaker 1: have something inside of you that you want to get out. Yeah, exactly.

2270
02:00:24,840 --> 02:00:26,840
Speaker 1: And that's the scene we were talking about earlier with

2271
02:00:26,920 --> 02:00:29,400
Speaker 1: Ethan Hawk when he gets up in class and delivers

2272
02:00:29,440 --> 02:00:34,560
Speaker 1: a just a free verse poem extemporaneously. And let me

2273
02:00:34,600 --> 02:00:36,640
Speaker 1: put it this way, the plot of the movie wasn't

2274
02:00:36,680 --> 02:00:39,320
Speaker 1: to get Ethan Hawk to write a poem down on

2275
02:00:39,480 --> 02:00:42,840
Speaker 1: paper that he sent off to the Paris Review that

2276
02:00:42,960 --> 02:00:44,960
Speaker 1: then got to Yeah, it wasn't that at all. It

2277
02:00:45,120 --> 02:00:49,160
Speaker 1: was get up in class, say some weird nonsense. Some

2278
02:00:49,360 --> 02:00:51,880
Speaker 1: of it had little gems of letting us see you

2279
02:00:52,080 --> 02:00:54,840
Speaker 1: for who you were and get a look at for

2280
02:00:54,880 --> 02:00:56,800
Speaker 1: who you are and get a look at your psyche

2281
02:00:56,880 --> 02:01:00,280
Speaker 1: and what's inside of you, and was revealing. That was it.

2282
02:01:00,440 --> 02:01:03,520
Speaker 1: And then this movie it wasn't like that didn't come back.

2283
02:01:03,720 --> 02:01:06,760
Speaker 1: That wasn't like something that was used as a you know,

2284
02:01:07,400 --> 02:01:09,160
Speaker 1: I decided I'm going to do this for the rest.

2285
02:01:09,040 --> 02:01:09,440
Speaker 2: Of my life.

2286
02:01:09,480 --> 02:01:11,960
Speaker 1: It was not that. It was just you found your voice,

2287
02:01:12,160 --> 02:01:14,120
Speaker 1: like you spoke up here, you said what was inside you?

2288
02:01:14,320 --> 02:01:16,000
Speaker 1: That's cool? Like end of story.

2289
02:01:16,720 --> 02:01:18,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that is really beautiful, and I think

2290
02:01:18,880 --> 02:01:21,320
Speaker 2: I maybe you know what's interesting about this movie is

2291
02:01:21,360 --> 02:01:26,160
Speaker 2: everyone brings their like completely and their own baggage to it,

2292
02:01:26,400 --> 02:01:30,720
Speaker 2: and that colors their interpretation, and I think all of

2293
02:01:30,800 --> 02:01:31,440
Speaker 2: them are valid.

2294
02:01:31,880 --> 02:01:33,760
Speaker 1: You know, I really want you to say it now,

2295
02:01:33,840 --> 02:01:40,640
Speaker 1: because I am curious what you know, eighties cheese, twinkly

2296
02:01:40,720 --> 02:01:44,600
Speaker 1: eyed whatever aside. I'm curious of what you would take

2297
02:01:44,720 --> 02:01:46,200
Speaker 1: from the specifics of it.

2298
02:01:46,320 --> 02:01:49,560
Speaker 2: Oh dude, I a sucker for this kind of like

2299
02:01:49,640 --> 02:01:51,960
Speaker 2: I talked such a jaded game, but I'm also the

2300
02:01:52,040 --> 02:01:55,920
Speaker 2: person like a child who watched Karate Kid constantly and like,

2301
02:01:56,400 --> 02:02:00,440
Speaker 2: we'll still weep at any underdog fighting story. I cried

2302
02:02:00,480 --> 02:02:03,040
Speaker 2: at the end of Real Steel, which is the Hugh

2303
02:02:03,240 --> 02:02:07,840
Speaker 2: Jackman Rockham Sockham Robots movie, because the little robot was

2304
02:02:07,880 --> 02:02:12,360
Speaker 2: the underdog and he won. Like that's so ingrained in me.

2305
02:02:12,960 --> 02:02:15,840
Speaker 2: But like, you know, Warrior, have you ever seen that movie?

2306
02:02:15,920 --> 02:02:19,560
Speaker 2: That movie fucking crushes me, dude. Joel Edgerton is like

2307
02:02:19,600 --> 02:02:22,480
Speaker 2: a middle aged guy doing mma cage fights and his

2308
02:02:22,600 --> 02:02:25,240
Speaker 2: brother is like is Tom Hardy, who's like a shocked

2309
02:02:25,360 --> 02:02:29,240
Speaker 2: veteran incredible film, but like again, just like the whole

2310
02:02:29,640 --> 02:02:32,200
Speaker 2: under I don't know, I'm just rambling.

2311
02:02:32,280 --> 02:02:35,280
Speaker 1: Now, what are you talking about? Yeah, we've got more

2312
02:02:35,920 --> 02:02:40,760
Speaker 1: contrarian takes for kay Society. Are you I feel like

2313
02:02:40,800 --> 02:02:42,640
Speaker 1: you should read these. You're better at the contrarian.

2314
02:02:44,440 --> 02:02:46,600
Speaker 2: Many writers have debated whether or not Keating was an

2315
02:02:46,600 --> 02:02:50,640
Speaker 2: irresponsible teacher, allowing inexperienced teenagers to run them up rather

2316
02:02:50,760 --> 02:02:54,320
Speaker 2: than provide stronger structure and guidance. In a twenty eleven

2317
02:02:54,440 --> 02:02:56,800
Speaker 2: article for The Guardian in which he cites Dead Pote

2318
02:02:56,840 --> 02:03:00,880
Speaker 2: Society as his favorite film, writer safras Manzo admits, as

2319
02:03:00,920 --> 02:03:03,240
Speaker 2: a forty year old recent father, I found in some

2320
02:03:03,360 --> 02:03:06,160
Speaker 2: ways the film had not aged well. The adult characters

2321
02:03:06,200 --> 02:03:09,240
Speaker 2: seemed too crudely drawn. The hopes and dreams of the fathers,

2322
02:03:09,440 --> 02:03:13,240
Speaker 2: and one assumes the mothers too easily dismissed. My looties

2323
02:03:13,280 --> 02:03:16,240
Speaker 2: were now more divided. I sympathized with Neil Perry's dreams

2324
02:03:16,240 --> 02:03:18,680
Speaker 2: of becoming an actor, but I also understood why his

2325
02:03:18,760 --> 02:03:22,000
Speaker 2: father had reservations come and a dad makes you lame.

2326
02:03:22,760 --> 02:03:25,840
Speaker 2: Writer Elizabeth Grace Matthew takes on an even stronger stance

2327
02:03:25,880 --> 02:03:28,920
Speaker 2: in her piece The Case against Dead Poets Society. In

2328
02:03:29,000 --> 02:03:32,320
Speaker 2: the wake of Neil's death, she writes, the well administration

2329
02:03:32,480 --> 02:03:36,520
Speaker 2: dismisses mister Keating, blaming his unorthodox instructional methods and the

2330
02:03:36,600 --> 02:03:39,600
Speaker 2: dead poet's society for the tragedy. This is, of course

2331
02:03:40,040 --> 02:03:42,440
Speaker 2: unfair to the well intentioned Keating, who is trying to

2332
02:03:42,520 --> 02:03:44,640
Speaker 2: help Neil explain to his father just how much he

2333
02:03:44,760 --> 02:03:48,120
Speaker 2: loves acting. Still, as anyone who has spent any time

2334
02:03:48,160 --> 02:03:52,720
Speaker 2: around teenagers, especially teenage boys, knows, their primary limitation is

2335
02:03:52,760 --> 02:03:54,960
Speaker 2: not an inability to seize the day. It is an

2336
02:03:55,000 --> 02:03:59,400
Speaker 2: inability to plan for the future. Indeed, teen's impulsivity and

2337
02:03:59,480 --> 02:04:03,560
Speaker 2: recklessness is best met with exactly the kind of regimentation, order,

2338
02:04:03,680 --> 02:04:06,760
Speaker 2: and authority that Welton as a whole was attempting to provide.

2339
02:04:08,200 --> 02:04:12,680
Speaker 2: That's square square as hell. Any claim to mathematically measure

2340
02:04:12,760 --> 02:04:15,960
Speaker 2: the greatness of poems, She continues, as outlined in the

2341
02:04:16,000 --> 02:04:19,120
Speaker 2: page of the textbook that Keating dismisses as excrement and

2342
02:04:19,320 --> 02:04:24,000
Speaker 2: orders torn out is self evidently asinine. More important, a

2343
02:04:24,080 --> 02:04:27,400
Speaker 2: father's attempt to make significant life decisions for his healthy

2344
02:04:27,520 --> 02:04:31,000
Speaker 2: and self aware teenage son without his input was bound

2345
02:04:31,080 --> 02:04:34,200
Speaker 2: to be counterproductive in every possible way. Are these people

2346
02:04:34,280 --> 02:04:37,240
Speaker 2: really siding on the no No, no, nineteen fifties boarding school.

2347
02:04:37,440 --> 02:04:40,680
Speaker 1: No no, they're saying that they're admitting that these things

2348
02:04:41,280 --> 02:04:45,360
Speaker 1: are obviously bad. But she continues in this piece. Sure,

2349
02:04:45,640 --> 02:04:49,280
Speaker 1: these excesses of the nineteen fifties educational order, as depicted

2350
02:04:49,360 --> 02:04:52,840
Speaker 1: in Dead Poets Society, are made up exceptions that prove

2351
02:04:52,960 --> 02:04:57,080
Speaker 1: the overwhelming rule healthy teens need order if they are

2352
02:04:57,200 --> 02:05:01,600
Speaker 1: to court and create developmentally healthy dis order. Being without

2353
02:05:01,680 --> 02:05:05,080
Speaker 1: boundaries to push against and structures to push against leads

2354
02:05:05,120 --> 02:05:08,760
Speaker 1: to exactly the type of sulpcistic faux introspection that gives

2355
02:05:08,880 --> 02:05:12,080
Speaker 1: rise to the existential angst for which teens have been

2356
02:05:12,160 --> 02:05:14,920
Speaker 1: known ever since. We accept it as a cultural rule that,

2357
02:05:15,400 --> 02:05:18,440
Speaker 1: in the words of Bob Dylan, mothers and fathers throughout

2358
02:05:18,480 --> 02:05:22,160
Speaker 1: the land should not criticize what you can't understand. But

2359
02:05:22,280 --> 02:05:25,800
Speaker 1: of course mothers and fathers can understand just fine. The

2360
02:05:25,920 --> 02:05:29,240
Speaker 1: only thing more anti intellectual than some self important college

2361
02:05:29,320 --> 02:05:32,880
Speaker 1: professor presuming to quantify the greatness of Shakespeare is some

2362
02:05:33,080 --> 02:05:36,840
Speaker 1: self important English teacher presuming to teach impressionable boys to

2363
02:05:36,920 --> 02:05:40,320
Speaker 1: think for themselves by using them to unquestioningly validate his

2364
02:05:40,480 --> 02:05:45,240
Speaker 1: own credulous and oversimplified relationship to romantic verse, God is ass.

2365
02:05:45,480 --> 02:05:49,760
Speaker 1: Keating demanded remember that as students rip out understanding poetry,

2366
02:05:50,240 --> 02:05:53,560
Speaker 1: not that they develop arguments for refuting it or forbid

2367
02:05:53,640 --> 02:05:56,840
Speaker 1: the thought or agreeing with it. Keating doesn't want the

2368
02:05:56,880 --> 02:06:00,360
Speaker 1: boys to think for themselves. Not really is I want

2369
02:06:00,360 --> 02:06:02,520
Speaker 1: them to think at all. In fact, he wants them

2370
02:06:02,560 --> 02:06:06,760
Speaker 1: to feel as he does. Absent strict boundaries and consistent discipline,

2371
02:06:07,240 --> 02:06:10,520
Speaker 1: privileged teens like those in Dead Poets Society might develop

2372
02:06:10,600 --> 02:06:14,360
Speaker 1: the kind of sophomoric self importance that causes themselves angst

2373
02:06:14,920 --> 02:06:18,640
Speaker 1: and others annoyance. Yeah, that's a measured take. Yeah, I'm

2374
02:06:18,680 --> 02:06:20,880
Speaker 1: glad the word privilege was in there because I feel

2375
02:06:20,880 --> 02:06:23,080
Speaker 1: like that's something that is you know, I mean, it

2376
02:06:23,240 --> 02:06:24,640
Speaker 1: is a prep school after all.

2377
02:06:25,360 --> 02:06:25,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

2378
02:06:27,200 --> 02:06:30,200
Speaker 1: And then there's the novelist Nicholson Baker, who argues that

2379
02:06:30,320 --> 02:06:33,640
Speaker 1: the central motto of the movie has been entirely misinterpreted

2380
02:06:33,960 --> 02:06:38,960
Speaker 1: and mistranslated. I love this, he writes, Yes, linguistic pageantry.

2381
02:06:39,280 --> 02:06:40,480
Speaker 1: Do you want to read or to take this one?

2382
02:06:42,800 --> 02:06:45,760
Speaker 2: Carpe DM doesn't mean seize the day. It means something

2383
02:06:45,880 --> 02:06:49,680
Speaker 2: gentler and more possible. Carpei dm means pluck the day.

2384
02:06:50,320 --> 02:06:54,040
Speaker 2: Carpe pluck seize the day would be kpe DM if

2385
02:06:54,080 --> 02:06:57,960
Speaker 2: my school Latin serves no R very different piece of advice.

2386
02:06:58,480 --> 02:07:01,240
Speaker 2: What Horace hadn't mind was that you should gently pool

2387
02:07:01,320 --> 02:07:04,040
Speaker 2: on the day's stem, as if it were say a

2388
02:07:04,160 --> 02:07:07,520
Speaker 2: wild flower or an olive, holding with all the practice

2389
02:07:07,560 --> 02:07:10,440
Speaker 2: care of your thumb inside of your finger, which knows

2390
02:07:10,760 --> 02:07:14,120
Speaker 2: how to not crush easily crushed things, so that the

2391
02:07:14,200 --> 02:07:18,320
Speaker 2: day's stalk or stem undergoes increasing tension and draws to

2392
02:07:18,400 --> 02:07:21,880
Speaker 2: a thinness and a tightness, and then snaps softly away

2393
02:07:22,000 --> 02:07:25,440
Speaker 2: at its weakest point, perhaps leaking a little milky sap,

2394
02:07:26,080 --> 02:07:28,400
Speaker 2: and the flour or the fruit is released in your hand.

2395
02:07:29,120 --> 02:07:31,960
Speaker 2: Pluck the cranberry or blueberry of the day, tenderly, free,

2396
02:07:32,080 --> 02:07:35,200
Speaker 2: without damaging it. Is what Horace meant. Pick the day,

2397
02:07:35,480 --> 02:07:38,760
Speaker 2: harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage

2398
02:07:38,800 --> 02:07:41,640
Speaker 2: the day. Don't freaking grab the day in your fist

2399
02:07:41,760 --> 02:07:43,480
Speaker 2: like a burger at a fair ground and take a

2400
02:07:43,560 --> 02:07:44,920
Speaker 2: big chomping bite out of it.

2401
02:07:48,080 --> 02:07:48,800
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?

2402
02:07:49,480 --> 02:07:53,000
Speaker 2: I like that. I think that's measured. Yeah, I mean, really,

2403
02:07:53,200 --> 02:07:56,440
Speaker 2: just this all every take on this thread is really

2404
02:07:56,600 --> 02:08:00,920
Speaker 2: just like tread the middle path, like via a free flowing,

2405
02:08:01,680 --> 02:08:04,320
Speaker 2: lunatic and don't be a complete square.

2406
02:08:05,040 --> 02:08:09,840
Speaker 1: But sometimes breaking down those internal walls require some a force,

2407
02:08:10,440 --> 02:08:13,520
Speaker 1: you know, that is extreme. Yeah, it's a fascinating episode.

2408
02:08:13,560 --> 02:08:14,960
Speaker 2: We've got into a lot of heavy stuff.

2409
02:08:15,160 --> 02:08:17,880
Speaker 1: You know. One of these boys took his own life.

2410
02:08:18,000 --> 02:08:18,600
Speaker 2: I mean I think that.

2411
02:08:18,760 --> 02:08:22,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, a sad and as almost unfair as that scene

2412
02:08:22,160 --> 02:08:24,680
Speaker 1: seems to be in this movie, it kind of does

2413
02:08:25,560 --> 02:08:29,120
Speaker 1: obliquely show the other side of what happens when you

2414
02:08:29,280 --> 02:08:32,040
Speaker 1: are just so blithely ruled by your passions that you

2415
02:08:32,160 --> 02:08:36,360
Speaker 1: aren't forging the day or whatever the phrase was, You

2416
02:08:36,480 --> 02:08:38,880
Speaker 1: aren't like better to burn out or fraight away man,

2417
02:08:40,040 --> 02:08:40,200
Speaker 1: you know.

2418
02:08:41,920 --> 02:08:44,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like I think if Hunter s Thompson, like, yeah,

2419
02:08:45,080 --> 02:08:49,640
Speaker 2: consciously being like I'm not doing this anymore because of X,

2420
02:08:49,760 --> 02:08:53,760
Speaker 2: Y and Z, the entirely predictable consequences of my own actions.

2421
02:08:55,040 --> 02:08:59,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, his his farewell note was crazy. Yeah, well,

2422
02:08:59,680 --> 02:09:00,240
Speaker 1: he's a thing.

2423
02:09:00,360 --> 02:09:03,800
Speaker 2: Was basically like, I got more mileage out of this

2424
02:09:03,960 --> 02:09:07,040
Speaker 2: than I wanted, and I feel myself getting like soft

2425
02:09:07,280 --> 02:09:09,560
Speaker 2: and unable to do this to the degree that I

2426
02:09:09,680 --> 02:09:12,560
Speaker 2: wanted to, So I am going to shoot myself.

2427
02:09:13,200 --> 02:09:16,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, the no, the heading of it was. Football season

2428
02:09:16,520 --> 02:09:20,280
Speaker 1: is over. No more games, no more bombs, no more walking,

2429
02:09:20,440 --> 02:09:24,680
Speaker 1: no more fun, no more swimming. Sixty seven at seventeen

2430
02:09:24,760 --> 02:09:29,120
Speaker 1: years past fifty seventeen more than I needed or wanted. Boring,

2431
02:09:29,760 --> 02:09:34,600
Speaker 1: I'm always bitchy, No fun for anybody. Sixty seven, you're

2432
02:09:34,640 --> 02:09:39,840
Speaker 1: getting greedy. Act your old age. Relax the swelling hurt. Yeah.

2433
02:09:39,920 --> 02:09:42,400
Speaker 2: God, that's so fucking crushing, I know.

2434
02:09:43,600 --> 02:09:43,840
Speaker 1: God.

2435
02:09:45,480 --> 02:09:47,240
Speaker 2: And again he's one of those guys who's also like

2436
02:09:47,920 --> 02:09:50,560
Speaker 2: arguably an incredible apple who should yeah, who should not

2437
02:09:50,680 --> 02:09:54,080
Speaker 2: have been lionized in the first place. But yeah, yeah, man,

2438
02:09:54,160 --> 02:09:56,360
Speaker 2: don't let your kid mama's don't, mama, don't let your

2439
02:09:56,440 --> 02:10:02,720
Speaker 2: children become artists. Honestly, what's that from, mama? Don't let

2440
02:10:02,760 --> 02:10:05,920
Speaker 2: your babies grow up to be cowboys? Oh yeah, right, yeah,

2441
02:10:05,960 --> 02:10:08,800
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, artistry is not inherently cinematic.

2442
02:10:08,920 --> 02:10:09,680
Speaker 1: It is kind of the thing.

2443
02:10:09,800 --> 02:10:13,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like you can't capture all the glories and

2444
02:10:13,600 --> 02:10:17,960
Speaker 2: excesses and crushing lows and nothing. Also in this world

2445
02:10:18,080 --> 02:10:22,920
Speaker 2: compares highs of art into like a two hour movie. Yeah,

2446
02:10:23,080 --> 02:10:26,640
Speaker 2: especially when made in the eighties by an Australian What

2447
02:10:26,760 --> 02:10:29,280
Speaker 2: are those people gonna tell me? You say, this after

2448
02:10:29,360 --> 02:10:31,640
Speaker 2: being like, well, Nick Cave taught me this, and like,

2449
02:10:32,280 --> 02:10:35,440
Speaker 2: you know, God, there's this amazing scene in one of

2450
02:10:35,520 --> 02:10:38,400
Speaker 2: those movies. He's like in the front row and he's

2451
02:10:38,480 --> 02:10:41,800
Speaker 2: like practically embracing this woman and the lyrics to the

2452
02:10:41,880 --> 02:10:44,640
Speaker 2: song or can you feel My heart Beat? And he

2453
02:10:44,800 --> 02:10:48,240
Speaker 2: like places her hand over his heart as he sings that,

2454
02:10:48,680 --> 02:10:52,120
Speaker 2: and this girl is weeping, and I'm just like, yeah,

2455
02:10:52,280 --> 02:10:56,480
Speaker 2: that is one of the most transparently powerful things I've

2456
02:10:56,640 --> 02:11:00,520
Speaker 2: ever seen in my life. I don't know where I

2457
02:11:00,600 --> 02:11:03,920
Speaker 2: was going with that other than the fact that it is.

2458
02:11:04,520 --> 02:11:07,320
Speaker 2: You know, he also has to answer for like a

2459
02:11:07,480 --> 02:11:10,360
Speaker 2: generation of bastard sons of his who thought, like a

2460
02:11:10,520 --> 02:11:15,080
Speaker 2: cheap suit and bad poetry, that their cheap suits and

2461
02:11:15,200 --> 02:11:17,000
Speaker 2: bad poetry were as valid as his.

2462
02:11:18,200 --> 02:11:20,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're gring this one home, Jordan,

2463
02:11:20,400 --> 02:11:22,640
Speaker 1: and the transcendence of art, I think is what you're

2464
02:11:22,640 --> 02:11:25,760
Speaker 1: getting too. We've talked about what happens when people aren't

2465
02:11:25,840 --> 02:11:27,680
Speaker 1: good at it try it, and what happens when good

2466
02:11:27,720 --> 02:11:30,360
Speaker 1: people do it. There we go, That's what that was.

2467
02:11:31,080 --> 02:11:36,680
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, brother, it's Miller time punching out of the

2468
02:11:36,720 --> 02:11:38,120
Speaker 2: old podcast factory.

2469
02:11:42,800 --> 02:11:47,000
Speaker 1: Despite these contrarian takes Dead Poets Society is generally remembered

2470
02:11:47,240 --> 02:11:52,360
Speaker 1: extremely fondly as such execs do what studio execs do,

2471
02:11:53,120 --> 02:11:55,080
Speaker 1: and tried to figure out a way to capitalize on

2472
02:11:55,200 --> 02:12:01,720
Speaker 1: this love. For years, people pitched a Dead Poet Society music, which, ironically,

2473
02:12:01,800 --> 02:12:04,320
Speaker 1: you recall four hours ago when we started this episode,

2474
02:12:04,480 --> 02:12:06,440
Speaker 1: was what Disney wanted to do in the first place,

2475
02:12:07,080 --> 02:12:10,680
Speaker 1: but right Tom Schulman just never saw it. However, an

2476
02:12:10,720 --> 02:12:15,760
Speaker 1: off Broadway play premiered in twenty sixteen, with Jason Sedakas

2477
02:12:15,960 --> 02:12:21,160
Speaker 1: playing the Robin william part, But that same year, Sadeikas's

2478
02:12:21,240 --> 02:12:24,360
Speaker 1: ex colleague Fred Armison made a much better tribute to

2479
02:12:24,440 --> 02:12:27,800
Speaker 1: Dead Poet Society and a pre taped segment on SNL

2480
02:12:28,160 --> 02:12:31,200
Speaker 1: in a parody of the stirring final scene, the desk

2481
02:12:31,320 --> 02:12:35,760
Speaker 1: standing routine takes a deadly turn due to some ceiling fans.

2482
02:12:36,280 --> 02:12:40,400
Speaker 1: It is very good stuff. That was really good. And

2483
02:12:40,520 --> 02:12:43,400
Speaker 1: it was Pete Davidson who got decapitated too, so that

2484
02:12:43,560 --> 02:12:43,880
Speaker 1: was good.

2485
02:12:44,160 --> 02:12:47,920
Speaker 2: Yes, the grudgingly give it to him for that. Yes.

2486
02:12:48,720 --> 02:12:51,160
Speaker 1: The most recent tribute to Dead Poe's Society came from

2487
02:12:51,240 --> 02:12:54,720
Speaker 1: none other than Taylor Swift following the release of her

2488
02:12:54,760 --> 02:13:00,200
Speaker 1: Appropriately titled Tortured Poets Department. She reunited old friends and

2489
02:13:00,280 --> 02:13:03,440
Speaker 1: Dead Poets Society castmates Ethan Hawk and Josh Charles for

2490
02:13:03,480 --> 02:13:07,680
Speaker 1: her music video Fortnite. The connection came through Ethan's daughter,

2491
02:13:07,800 --> 02:13:11,320
Speaker 1: Maya Hawk, who's friendly with Taylor. Is she on the squad?

2492
02:13:11,400 --> 02:13:12,839
Speaker 1: Does Taylor have a squad anymore?

2493
02:13:13,120 --> 02:13:16,520
Speaker 2: I think this squad doesn't exist anymore. But also everything

2494
02:13:16,600 --> 02:13:19,040
Speaker 2: that you're saying right now makes me want.

2495
02:13:18,920 --> 02:13:21,200
Speaker 1: To like, you don't want to do this. I go,

2496
02:13:21,440 --> 02:13:24,040
Speaker 1: you don't want to do this, not her, not her?

2497
02:13:25,200 --> 02:13:27,480
Speaker 2: I know, but he also kisses me off about it,

2498
02:13:27,640 --> 02:13:29,560
Speaker 2: like you can't we could gon forbi it. This should

2499
02:13:29,600 --> 02:13:32,160
Speaker 2: be the entire bleeped We've always talked about doing the

2500
02:13:32,320 --> 02:13:34,240
Speaker 2: entire bleep thing. And it's like and then Jordan pops

2501
02:13:34,240 --> 02:13:35,800
Speaker 2: in at the end and he's like, and I censored

2502
02:13:35,840 --> 02:13:38,880
Speaker 2: that because your fans are insane and I want my

2503
02:13:39,000 --> 02:13:39,680
Speaker 2: friend to live.

2504
02:13:41,040 --> 02:13:44,120
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're getting a new apartment soon. Yeah.

2505
02:13:44,240 --> 02:13:51,440
Speaker 2: What what a dumb world we live in. Oh, surely

2506
02:13:51,560 --> 02:13:53,800
Speaker 2: you cannot co sign this. I know you have a weak,

2507
02:13:53,960 --> 02:13:56,360
Speaker 2: like timid part of you that likes Taylor Swift, but

2508
02:13:58,560 --> 02:14:01,840
Speaker 2: come on, man, you see how gross this is right.

2509
02:14:02,520 --> 02:14:04,680
Speaker 1: I haven't engaged with it much. To be honest with you,

2510
02:14:05,640 --> 02:14:13,400
Speaker 1: I tortured Poets Department. Hah yeah, I don't think we

2511
02:14:13,480 --> 02:14:15,440
Speaker 1: need the rest of this. Honestly, we can cut right

2512
02:14:15,520 --> 02:14:19,480
Speaker 1: to the out shrow, go right to the outtrow. But

2513
02:14:19,600 --> 02:14:24,080
Speaker 1: you know what, no, Josh Charles praise Taylor Swift's directorial

2514
02:14:24,160 --> 02:14:28,040
Speaker 1: skills in general, Cools, I was already a fan of

2515
02:14:28,120 --> 02:14:30,600
Speaker 1: her music, but if any of you ever get to

2516
02:14:30,720 --> 02:14:33,240
Speaker 1: meet her, your fandom for her will just go up

2517
02:14:33,280 --> 02:14:36,640
Speaker 1: through the roof. She's just such a genuine, cool, approachable person,

2518
02:14:37,040 --> 02:14:39,760
Speaker 1: and that's nice to see because that's not always the case.

2519
02:14:40,440 --> 02:14:43,320
Speaker 2: Blink twice, buddy, if you know you're saying this all

2520
02:14:43,440 --> 02:14:48,200
Speaker 2: at gunpoint, I bet her Yeah, And wasn't she like

2521
02:14:48,560 --> 02:14:50,480
Speaker 2: and she was like personally nice? But then didn't you

2522
02:14:50,560 --> 02:14:57,560
Speaker 2: have like seventeen hours of negotiation with tree pain? Yeah right, yeah,

2523
02:14:57,720 --> 02:15:02,200
Speaker 2: don't mention the name. Oh my go god, oh my god.

2524
02:15:02,720 --> 02:15:05,840
Speaker 1: All right, the rite out here we go. I'm pleased

2525
02:15:05,880 --> 02:15:08,480
Speaker 1: to say that Robin Williams cite A Dead Poet Society

2526
02:15:08,800 --> 02:15:10,840
Speaker 1: as one of his favorite movies he ever appeared in.

2527
02:15:11,840 --> 02:15:14,160
Speaker 1: He said, there's something in that movie that affected people

2528
02:15:14,360 --> 02:15:16,800
Speaker 1: just beyond the movie. I met a guy who said,

2529
02:15:16,880 --> 02:15:19,520
Speaker 1: mister Williams, I saw the movie Dead Poets Society, and

2530
02:15:19,600 --> 02:15:21,920
Speaker 1: I used to work for a major corporation. I took

2531
02:15:21,960 --> 02:15:23,960
Speaker 1: off my business suit, I burned it, and now I

2532
02:15:24,080 --> 02:15:26,760
Speaker 1: own an art gallery. I went, I have to buy

2533
02:15:26,800 --> 02:15:27,560
Speaker 1: a lot of art from you.

2534
02:15:27,680 --> 02:15:27,800
Speaker 2: Now.

2535
02:15:28,320 --> 02:15:32,000
Speaker 1: Just hear Robin Williams say that you know? And that

2536
02:15:32,200 --> 02:15:34,600
Speaker 1: is I think the best part of Dead Poets Society.

2537
02:15:35,280 --> 02:15:39,160
Speaker 1: It directs your attention inward. As Ethan Hawk said, you

2538
02:15:39,240 --> 02:15:41,680
Speaker 1: don't leave this film thinking wow, I wish I was

2539
02:15:41,760 --> 02:15:45,040
Speaker 1: Robin Williams. You leave thinking where am I at?

2540
02:15:45,400 --> 02:15:46,160
Speaker 2: What am I doing?

2541
02:15:47,080 --> 02:15:49,720
Speaker 1: The film is a well needed reminder that, no matter

2542
02:15:49,800 --> 02:15:54,120
Speaker 1: what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

2543
02:15:54,960 --> 02:15:59,000
Speaker 1: As Walt Whitman via John Keating says, the powerful play

2544
02:15:59,120 --> 02:16:03,160
Speaker 1: goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will

2545
02:16:03,200 --> 02:16:03,840
Speaker 1: your verse be?

2546
02:16:04,360 --> 02:16:06,720
Speaker 2: I do love that quote? Yeah, and I also like

2547
02:16:06,800 --> 02:16:08,440
Speaker 2: what witmen. I have a copy of Leaves of Grass

2548
02:16:08,480 --> 02:16:12,040
Speaker 2: on my shelf right now. Oh yeah, did you know

2549
02:16:13,040 --> 02:16:16,160
Speaker 2: that our boy, uh Daniel day Lewis based the bill

2550
02:16:16,240 --> 02:16:21,440
Speaker 2: a butcher voice on what Whitman? No, Yeah, he found

2551
02:16:21,480 --> 02:16:24,480
Speaker 2: like old wax cylinder recordings of what women reading his

2552
02:16:24,560 --> 02:16:28,520
Speaker 2: own poetry and like no way, it's like have you

2553
02:16:28,640 --> 02:16:31,680
Speaker 2: heard Henry Miller read? Like no, it's like all of

2554
02:16:31,720 --> 02:16:34,039
Speaker 2: this stuff coming out in like a like a grizzled

2555
02:16:34,080 --> 02:16:37,160
Speaker 2: Brooklyn fire Marshall's accent. And it's the same way with

2556
02:16:37,320 --> 02:16:40,560
Speaker 2: like Walt Whitman. It's like very much like you know,

2557
02:16:41,080 --> 02:16:47,160
Speaker 2: the Song of Myself, like deeply old New York kind

2558
02:16:47,200 --> 02:16:47,720
Speaker 2: of accent.

2559
02:16:48,040 --> 02:16:51,040
Speaker 1: He died in eighteen ninety two, so he must that. Wow,

2560
02:16:51,160 --> 02:16:53,920
Speaker 1: that must have been seriously early audio.

2561
02:16:53,640 --> 02:16:57,400
Speaker 2: Records, unadulterated Brooklyn accent. Wow or New York I guess.

2562
02:16:57,520 --> 02:16:59,600
Speaker 1: But anyway, I ruin your outro? Was I supposed to

2563
02:16:59,640 --> 02:17:00,600
Speaker 1: say that's good?

2564
02:17:00,640 --> 02:17:00,760
Speaker 2: Oh?

2565
02:17:00,840 --> 02:17:02,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry? Uh?

2566
02:17:02,360 --> 02:17:03,720
Speaker 2: This has been too much information?

2567
02:17:04,240 --> 02:17:07,320
Speaker 1: Uh? I write a poem or don't.

2568
02:17:07,400 --> 02:17:15,560
Speaker 2: I don't give it dump It'll be AI at some point, right,

2569
02:17:15,760 --> 02:17:18,400
Speaker 2: Like you know, my version of this is is like

2570
02:17:19,520 --> 02:17:22,240
Speaker 2: from Moby Dick, where he's like from Hell, I stab

2571
02:17:22,320 --> 02:17:25,440
Speaker 2: at the Actually, that's that's gonna be my epitaph with

2572
02:17:25,560 --> 02:17:28,280
Speaker 2: my last breath, I curse THEE from Hell's heart.

2573
02:17:28,440 --> 02:17:31,400
Speaker 1: I stab at THEE. But it'll be misattributed to con

2574
02:17:34,440 --> 02:17:36,400
Speaker 1: you don't want a tombstone, do you so? Well? Where

2575
02:17:36,400 --> 02:17:36,960
Speaker 1: can we put that?

2576
02:17:37,760 --> 02:17:40,120
Speaker 2: I just want the note to read no burial or

2577
02:17:40,200 --> 02:17:45,720
Speaker 2: no funeral like Moe and the Simpsons. Now, actually, you

2578
02:17:45,760 --> 02:17:48,119
Speaker 2: know what sincerely I want like, and I've talked about

2579
02:17:48,160 --> 02:17:50,080
Speaker 2: this with Lowe, is like I want to be a tree.

2580
02:17:50,280 --> 02:17:53,200
Speaker 2: I want those expensive things where your remains get like

2581
02:17:53,480 --> 02:17:55,880
Speaker 2: potted into like a ready to plant tree.

2582
02:17:57,240 --> 02:18:01,320
Speaker 1: Okay, didn't you want to an eternal like feedback loop

2583
02:18:01,360 --> 02:18:04,279
Speaker 1: with like guitars and distortions and amplifiers.

2584
02:18:04,680 --> 02:18:09,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, a five thousand year feedback drone performance? Yeah, yes,

2585
02:18:09,959 --> 02:18:13,320
Speaker 2: I also want that, so, you know, modest goals, It

2586
02:18:13,320 --> 02:18:14,280
Speaker 2: would be a two part thing.

2587
02:18:14,440 --> 02:18:16,320
Speaker 1: I want to have my remains put in the firework,

2588
02:18:16,360 --> 02:18:19,360
Speaker 1: which they do now oh hell yeah, that's pretty cool. Right.

2589
02:18:20,120 --> 02:18:21,240
Speaker 1: We can't even talk about the Hunter.

2590
02:18:21,280 --> 02:18:24,040
Speaker 2: As Thompson ashes shot into a ka.

2591
02:18:24,440 --> 02:18:28,080
Speaker 1: It was enabled by you know, one of the worst men.

2592
02:18:30,959 --> 02:18:31,680
Speaker 1: Was this depressing?

2593
02:18:31,879 --> 02:18:39,200
Speaker 2: Was this uplifting? Who knows the TMI promise? Go watch RoboCop. Uh,

2594
02:18:40,000 --> 02:18:44,280
Speaker 2: RoboCop is about art, get a get a PhD in

2595
02:18:44,320 --> 02:18:45,760
Speaker 2: Italian Renaissance literature?

2596
02:18:45,840 --> 02:18:48,000
Speaker 1: Who gives it? We're all going to be dead soon.

2597
02:18:50,000 --> 02:18:50,959
Speaker 1: Your your kids are going to be.

2598
02:18:50,959 --> 02:18:57,240
Speaker 2: Fighting each other for water. You know, Just go out swinging, man,

2599
02:18:58,640 --> 02:19:01,640
Speaker 2: learn martial arts. Don't ever pay your credit card bills

2600
02:19:01,840 --> 02:19:07,000
Speaker 2: like you know, brood over slights real and imagined. I

2601
02:19:07,080 --> 02:19:08,520
Speaker 2: can boot do more of these. I can do this

2602
02:19:08,600 --> 02:19:13,120
Speaker 2: all day. That's the Captain America punch it. This is

2603
02:19:13,240 --> 02:19:16,000
Speaker 2: like Alex being bitter and hateful. I can do this

2604
02:19:16,120 --> 02:19:16,560
Speaker 2: all day.

2605
02:19:17,280 --> 02:19:22,160
Speaker 1: And I'm Jordan Runtagg. And and don't forget to seize

2606
02:19:22,200 --> 02:19:31,840
Speaker 1: the day and make your lives extraordinary. Too Much Information

2607
02:19:32,000 --> 02:19:33,520
Speaker 1: was a production of iHeart Radio.

2608
02:19:33,760 --> 02:19:37,000
Speaker 2: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg.

2609
02:19:37,200 --> 02:19:40,640
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show

2610
02:19:40,760 --> 02:19:44,240
Speaker 1: was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan Runtagg and Alex Heigel,

2611
02:19:44,400 --> 02:19:47,600
Speaker 1: with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

2612
02:19:47,959 --> 02:19:50,000
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

2613
02:19:50,040 --> 02:19:53,000
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

2614
02:19:53,040 --> 02:19:56,320
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

2615
02:19:56,360 --> 02:20:06,400
Speaker 1: favorite shows that blur them that black Fatima and said