WEBVTT - #22 Marchel 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:06.840 No, this is the operator. I have a collect phone 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.080 call from Jonathan Goldstein for doctor Jackie Cohen. Do you 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:11.200 accept the charges? 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.880 No, I don't accept the pay Jackie. That wasn't even 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.959 the operator. I know it wasn't the operator. That was 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:19.160 my assistant, Khalila. 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:20.760 Hi, Khalila, I remember you. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:21.360 How are you? 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:22.240 Don't answer? 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:24.200 I'm fine, don't I'm in. 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.239 The middle of trying to get the kids do their homework. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:27.800 I'm in the middle of dinner. 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:30.920 I play. This is just a test. What are you 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.479 going to do when I'm in trouble? Someday? In a 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:33.440 real operator call. 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:35.519 There are real operators anymore. 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.160 John, wouldn't you say that I'm a real operator? 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:39.959 Would you say you're a real operator. 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:49.479 I don't know. I think I'd like to think. I 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:55.279 don't know. Maybe not a big time operator, small time operator. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:56.200 Okay, Can I go now? 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:57.040 Yeah? 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:08.120 You can go now? Can I go to Yeah? From 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:13.960 Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:29.039 episode Marshall. In the late nineties, I was working on 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.319 an experimental novella, an erotic coming of age story told 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.720 as a series of picuresque vignettes that so defied categorization 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.080 that even now, almost twenty years later, the best description 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.840 I can come up with for it is an erotic 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.440 coming of age story told as a series of picuresque vignettes. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.640 To support myself during this prolonged parents nightmare, I got 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.720 a job reviewing movies for a local alternative weekly. It 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.000 didn't pay much, but after spending all day working on 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.320 my novella, hating my writing and myself, it felt good 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.480 to direct my critical gaze outward for a while. Because 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.720 for me, nothing was ever quite right food, music, clothing. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.839 I'd made it into my late twenties only having ever 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.960 found one T shirt that met my strict sartorial standards. 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.959 Material was always too scratchy, neck holes always too tight. 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:31.800 Reviewing films gave my negativity a place to prance free. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.959 Some of my headlines from the time include Ted Demi's 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:45.080 Blow Blows and American Beauty is No Beauty. Because I 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:47.880 was from Montreal, my editor put me in charge of 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.720 the foreign film reviews, and even though I understood zero French, 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.800 I still found a way to be critical, focusing on 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.960 less plot related criteria like runtime and lighting. Of Suleasaba, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.640 I wrote nothing of Charlotte Rampling's intense performance. Instead, I 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.320 complained that the ninety two minute film was too bright. 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.600 It was around this time that I discovered the ninety 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:19.239 nine minute film Russian Arc. What drew me to this 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.799 Russian film was its willingness to experiment in the name 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:27.840 of art. Directed by Alexander Sokarov, Russian Arc takes place 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:32.120 in Saint Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, and it depicts three hundred 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.839 years of Russian history. But here's the thing. It does 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:43.000 so in one continuous, unedited, ninety minute long shot. This 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:48.160 means thirty three rooms, nearly two thousand actors, two different orchestras, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:53.960 fifty makeup artists, sixty five costume designers, three centuries of 0:03:54.040 --> 0:04:04.680 Russian history, all presented in a single seamless take. At 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.960 the time, directors competed with one another to create the 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.400 longest unedited shots they could. Paul Thomas Anderson clocked in 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.160 at two minutes and fifty four seconds with the opening 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:19.120 discothech scene in Boogie Nights, and Martin Scorsese tipped the 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.040 scales at just over three minutes with Rayliota's entrance into 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:28.000 the Kopa in Goodfellas and here came Sokarov, saying, I 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.000 see your measley little scenes and raise you one entire 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.600 movie only. He probably said it in Russian. If the 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.400 accomplishment of an uninterrupted shot that spans ninety minutes is 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.000 still lost on you, let me just say, as someone 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.000 who works in the recorded arts, it's really hard to 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:54.720 make anything good without editing. Without editing editing, I screw it, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.200 my good looking editor, Jorge, we'll fix that in post. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.280 Though they'd been planning the movie for over two years, 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.400 Sokarov and his crew had only one day to shoot 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.800 the entire film, the twenty third of December two thousand 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.560 and one, with only three hours of sunlight. It's one 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.320 of the shortest days of the Russian year, which gave 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.840 them just a few hours to pull off a perfect 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.800 work of art, and as I remember it, they succeeded 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:32.760 almost The film is structured as a series of vignettes. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.440 The camera drifts from room to room, catching glimpses of 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:46.080 historic sceness. The Shaw's grandson apologizes to tar Nicholas the 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.359 First for an attack on the Russian embassy. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.119 That's been better with them. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:56.200 The camera lingers as Peter the Great reprimands a courtier. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.279 The camera moves on, capturing a man as he builds 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:12.200 a coffin during the Siege of Leningrad. It catches Catherine 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:23.440 the Great watching a play, then follows her as she 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:30.640 runs off to find a bathroom. The movie is virtually 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.200 no storyline, so the central drama, the thing that keeps 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:39.560 you watching, is this simple question wheel the filmmakers actually 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:44.080 pull off their crazy stunt at any instant. An actor 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.799 could stumble a line, a dancer miss a que, a boom, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:52.279 mic could fall, a piece of lighting crash, someone could cough. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.719 At the twenty minute mark, you think this is doomed. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.919 At thirty you grip the theater armress. At one hour, 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.720 you can't help but get on board, rooting at every 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:08.039 turn for the film's success. And when there's only ten 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.120 minutes to go, you realize that, against all odds, they 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:20.360 might actually pull it off. In the film's last remaining minutes, 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.080 the camera enters upon an elaborate recreation of the last 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:28.480 Grand Royal Ball before the Bolshevik Revolution. The room, in 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:49.320 this critics opinion is bright. The orchestra begins playing the Mazurka. 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.280 The camera swirls between white columns dozens of men in 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.120 formal military regalia mill about with women in freely white 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:05.480 dresses and feathers in their hair. And then it happens. 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.400 As the orchestra plays the final notes, one of the musicians, 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.960 a violinist, puts down his violin and, with the look 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:21.200 of a startled deer about to become roadkill, turns around 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:33.120 and stares directly into the camera. When you're watching a movie, 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.480 the real world disappears, but if an actor accidentally looks 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.720 into the camera and breaks the fourth wall, the whole 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.840 illusion is destroyed. It's a screw up so profound that 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:49.800 it actually has a name, spiking the camera, and because 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.040 Russian Arc was otherwise so perfect, the spike felt all 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.960 the more shocking. The film spell was broken, and I 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.560 was instantly plopped back into my crummy theater scene in 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:05.480 crummy reality, wearing a crummy malfitting T shirt, strangling me 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:14.079 at the neck hole. The same year Russian Arc was filmed, 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.679 I finally completed my novella. There was no book to her, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.800 no advance, but none of that mattered. After a decade 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.000 of writing, my work had been published, and I was 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.880 on top of the world. For all of three weeks 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:34.080 at which point the first review appeared. The reviewer chose 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:38.640 not to focus on the unconventional structure, the scatological wordplay, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.400 nor even the cover art, which was based on a 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:46.000 photograph I'd found in a pawnshop shoe box. Instead, she 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.840 directed her attention onto the one part of the book 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.199 that I'd barely put any thought into it, all three 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.240 short words printed at the center of the very first page, 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:04.679 the dedication for my sister. There's something offbeat, the reviewer 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.240 mused about dedicating the weird and lurid memories of a 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:13.520 sex obsessed Jewish teenage boy to one's sister. Here, I 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.440 was thinking I was all set to be the next 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.040 Luke Reinhardt, but instead I just outed myself as the 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.880 next Luke Skywalker in that first Star Wars movie, the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.240 one where he totally wants to bang his sister Jedi style. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.079 All of this to say, I understood the grand experiment 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.640 that ends in failure due to one small blemish. I 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.560 never wrote a novel again. In Alexander Soakroov, a man 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.760 who once said I want to screen real time, I 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.760 don't want to cut it or shrink it, never made 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.720 a single shot movie again. Was it all due to 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:59.480 the bungling violinist. When my novella was published in America, 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.000 I only got a chance to revisit the dedication. I 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.679 cut it out and moved on. But the filmmakers didn't 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.040 have the luxury of editing out their one mistake, and 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.240 they can't redo that day, can't shut down the second 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.200 largest art museum in the world for another try at 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:21.160 probably the biggest, most ambitious shoot of any of their careers. 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:22.840 But what if they could? 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:27.320 Good morning? 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.559 Hi? Is this Tilman Buttner? 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:30.800 Yeah? 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:36.600 Hello, Tilman Butner is Russian art cinematographer, the man behind 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.400 the camera that the heedless violinist had violently spiked into 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:47.600 the marble Mosaic museum floor that day. Butner only speaks German, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.319 so he asked his son to translate our conversation. What 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.160 is your name, konste. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:56.120 Constantine? 0:11:57.840 --> 0:11:59.959 Okay, great, so Butner. 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:07.360 My name is not Buner. My name is Temple, Constant, Temple, Constantine. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:13.800 Okay, Constantine Temple. The camera Buttner used for Russian Arc 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.400 was one of the first HD cameras in the world, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.080 and it required one terabyte of disk space to save 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:21.280 all ninety minutes. 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.040 Back then, the disc was as big as a giant 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.840 bag for an astronaut that wants to go to the moon, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.959 a giant recorded that a different person had to carry 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:31.880 next to him. 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.520 A half dozen technicians followed Buttner around, hauling cable and 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.040 silently shooing people out of the way. By the end 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.240 of the shoot, Butner was left limping. At the time, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.240 there was only one other HD camera that was lighter, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.880 but another indie art house director already had DIBs. 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.640 George Lucas. He didn't give the camera. Yeah, we give her. 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.280 They asked him for it, but he wanted to keep it. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.360 Lucas wanted to keep it for Star Wars episode two, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.199 Attack of the Clones. Although I've not seen it, I 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.239 assume it's about that same Randy Jedi traveling the Macroverse, 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.319 fighting the Evil Empire and the equally evil urged Abang 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:19.160 his sister Jedi style. If any Canadian theaters had screened 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.839 it in French rather than in its original Ewokees, my 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.840 headline might have read Attack of the Clones is an 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:31.120 attack on decent lighting. Constant Constantine explains his father's emotional 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.520 state around the time of Russian Arcs filming. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.400 The night before he couldn't sleep. It was really focused 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.000 and really not nervous, but in a good way, you know. 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.480 Yeah, he knew that it was something really special, and 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.079 he was one hundred percent short that everything would work 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:48.920 out exactly the way they planned. 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.200 Except it didn't. I saw this movie when it first 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.040 came out, and there was one moment in it that 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.360 stands out to me. There's only a few minutes left. 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.480 I run him through the last few minutes of the film. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:09.079 The orchestra, the mazurka, the feckless violinist, the incident looks 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:15.480 directly into the camera. I'm wondering if you remember that moment. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.520 No, not this violinist that you were interested in. He 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.400 couldn't remember that this happened. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.600 I can imagine the casual viewer, distracted by popcorn and 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:36.040 milk duds, not noticing the conspicuous violinist. But I was 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.960 surprised that one of the filmmakers had missed it. Maybe 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.080 Tillman Buttner was too encumbered by his giant camera to 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.360 see the mistake. So I decided to try another member 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:47.840 of the crew who was there that day, someone whose 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.760 job it was to keep track of every air in shadow. 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:56.160 I'm speaking, of course, of the film's lighting designer, Barn Fisher. 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.080 As my past film re viewing suggests, I've long held 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.040 a passion for man made light. As a boy, I'd 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.760 monkey with a dimmer knob until my fingers were raw, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.640 sit down and eat your buttered Noodle's father would roar, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.760 but alas too much dimness and melancholia would slowly descend 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.720 like a Sabbath elevator and a molasses factory. Too little dimness, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.760 and I felt denuded, shivering like a vampire in the 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.640 frozen goods ayle. If only there was something with fewer 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.680 gradations than a knob, I'd lament some means by which 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:39.320 I could toggle between dimnesses emphatically, on off, on off, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:46.320 some kind of light switch, if you will. I was 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:55.040 eager to speak with Fisher. Uh yes, Hello, is this baron? Yet? 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:56.280 Hi? Is this baron? 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.240 Once we corrected for the standard European two second time delay, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.080 I properly introduced myself. Hello, sir, my name is Jonathan Goldstein. 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.080 I'm calling from the podcast in the United States. 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:13.560 That's the radio show What are you Doing? 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:14.040 What is that? 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.280 Or a texture? Fisher gets my work about as well 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.160 as I get his I ask him about the day 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:22.680 of the shoot. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.360 The quantity of lights is just enormous because we have 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.560 to light I don't know, fifty rooms in a ballroom 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:31.080 and all at the same time. 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.040 So just aside from the sheer number of lights, there 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.080 was the setting. Most museums don't even let you take 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.440 flash photography, let alone make a movie that's bright enough 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.240 to win a coveted Lighty, the lighting award name for 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.480 Alfred J. Lightman that I've just invented. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.160 So there was always someone standing next to us telling 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.560 us where to be able to put the light. Not 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.600 too close to the paintings, not too close to the wall. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.120 They were scared that you would destroy things. 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.760 Fisher ended up using giant helium balloons to float his 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.760 lights just below the ceiling. And if the risk of 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.800 destroying priceless artwork during the shoot scared him, the possibility 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.040 of a slowly deflating balloon sinking into view of the 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.360 camera absolutely terrified him. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.320 There was only one chance, so there was such a pressure. 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.520 Everyone's so concentrated and you know you're not supposed to fail. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:31.879 So I know when the whole thing was done, everyone 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.080 was so happy. A lot of people were crying. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.159 I didn't want to hear about tears of joy. I 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.320 wanted to hear about the sad kind, the bitter kind 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.040 that get caught in your throat like tiny clumps of 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.520 rye bread. So I brought up the bumbling violinists cameo, like, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:52.680 do you know the moment I'm talking about? 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.399 You know what I actually did. I just put the 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.320 film on my computer because I it here and I'm 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.280 just watching the scene as we're walking through the. 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.000 Hell are you are you watching that moment right now? 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:10.280 Right now? I'm watching this moment. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.840 How do you remember where it is? 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.640 Well, I'm believing I know this ninety minutes, very very well. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.120 I was dreaming of this nineteen minutes, walking it over 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.640 and over again. But there was no way to change 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.560 it anyway, you know, because it was like a ship, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.760 you know, like a tangship which cannot break. Once we started, 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.720 there was no way to stop it. I think that 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:40.000 we were just happy that it worked. Hey, it worked, unbelievable, 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:41.040 it worked. 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:50.920 Except it didn't. Throughout my life, I've justifiably been called 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:55.359 a fuss pot, fussy, gus, fuss budget and by one 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.959 high school physed instructor who I believe might have been 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.920 an anti semite, A little miss fussy pants had my 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:07.520 fussiness finally gone too far. That night I rewatched the movie, 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:25.280 and the moment I rewatch it a couple times, it's 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.320 even worse than I'd remembered. Seconds before the adult violinist 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.800 turns back to the camera, we see him in a 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.959 long shot, seated among his fellow violinists, swiveling his head around. 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.640 It's as if he's searching for the camera, like he's 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.440 scanning a restaurant looking for a tardy dinner companion, except 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.119 in this case, his dinner companion is an elephantine camera 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.200 being hauled around by a crew of six to eight people. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.840 We would be allowed to take over the museum for 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:56.560 a whole day. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.280 Yen's mirror is Russian arcs producer. Perhaps he can produce 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.840 some answers for me. He explains that, aside from holidays, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.440 the Hermitage Museum has not been closed since the Second 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.399 World War, but in spite of that, they agreed to 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.119 give the films director Alexander Sokarov a day to shoot, 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.520 and once Sokorov explained the plan to film everything in 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.680 a single take, they offered an additional day. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.119 But Sikorov said, no, it doesn't want that day. And 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.480 I looked at him and said, Sasha, you what you 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.240 don't want a day? He said, no, that would be 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.399 tempting Fate. It would be tempting God. It must be 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.879 done in the one shot, in the single day. And 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:37.719 that's what happened. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.120 Well, yes, it did technically happen. MRR offers no accounting 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.320 for the twitchy violinist, but his beautiful accent intimidates me. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:52.440 So like Barishnikov on an icy sidewalk, a tippy toe carefully, 0:20:53.600 --> 0:21:00.320 and it's an incredible accomplishment. And yet, and I know 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.080 I'm going to sound sort of like nitpicky, but there's 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:09.840 this moment at the end where this violinist turns towards 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.520 the camera. And do you know the moment that I'm 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:15.520 talking about. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:17.600 Now? 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.040 Of course, I mean you are nitpicking, but it's peculiar. 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:23.840 I mean, you look at this film that there's only 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.080 one such moment in the whole film. There isn't another 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.840 one that is peculiar. Why is there only one? 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.760 Mirror tells me that they explicitly instructed all the performers 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.960 not to look into the camera and only one person 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:46.080 paid the instructions. Absolutely, no mind. He just has a 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.240 very kind of hapless look about him. 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.080 Well, don't you imagine that at that moment he must 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.359 have caught himself thinking, Damn, that's the one thing I 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.760 swore to myself I wouldn't be doing look into the camera. 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.280 We talked about it back then because of course it's 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:08.080 an imperfection. 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.720 So the basic tone of it when Tuckerov would bring 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.040 it up, was it like something that was kind of 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:15.000 like joked about. 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:23.000 You've never met Alexander Takorov. Obviously there's never much joking. 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.240 He's not like a prankster on the set like George 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:27.159 Clooney or something. 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:33.200 No, Alexander worked on every single image of this film, 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:36.399 and so it's definitely nothing that would ever be joked about. 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.640 To the question of the redo, Mirror says he lives 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:42.720 with it. It's just one of those things you have 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:47.400 to accept. What about Soakarov, I wonder how could a serious, 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.879 non pranking, non clooney asque artists like him deal with imperfection? 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:54.960 And so do you think if I put the question 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:59.000 to him, you know, would you redo this movie if 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.480 you had a chance? He would do it. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.480 Huh, that's an interesting thought. 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.600 Would he redo this film because he is such a perfectionist. 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.119 Yeah, I don't know, God knows, you know, maybe we 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:14.119 should reshoot it. 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:20.600 Pose that question, that question being with Sokarov. Re rent 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.480 the costumes, re rent the helium balloons, rehire the actors, 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.639 musicians and dancers by a brand new tub of garlic 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.480 homas for the craft's service table, all because of a 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:34.160 fuddled violinist had a wandering eye and a morbid curiosity 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.920 about the art of filmmaking. I ask Mirror if he 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:39.399 can connect me with Sokarov. 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.119 I could try and put you in touch. He is 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:47.159 not an easy person to arrange for. 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.159 I imagine a large Russian bear of a man, a 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.280 beard so pointy it could stab your flesh, and so 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.639 long that, once inside, you were to have a camera 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.720 mounted at its tip, could in one long, uninterrupted take 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.840 film all of your inner demons and then screen them 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.720 at the Berlin Film Festival and win an award. You 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:13.840 try to get a ticket and a plus one to 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.040 go see the movie about how gross you are on 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:19.720 the inside, because why not. But you'd never be able 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:21.920 to reach him, as he'd be filming a new project 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:26.520 at the North Pool. I wanted to sit opposite mister Sokarov, 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:38.239 artist to artist, experimental outeur to experimental outeur. I am 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.080 not flying you to Russia, says CEO and Gimblet Media 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:46.200 founder Alex Bloomberg. But Yen says it's hard to get 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:50.520 the great Alexander Sokarov on the phone. I say, who's Yen's, 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:55.160 demands Bloomberg, and who is the great Alexander Sokarov. He's 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:58.439 Russian and he gets me. I say, maybe it's our 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:01.760 shared Russian blood. Family lore has it that great great 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.960 Grandpa Goldstein had a beard so wispy and delicate it 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:09.320 was spun into dainties for the Tsar's wife. Alex says 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:12.800 that a good old fashioned telephone call will accomplish everything 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:18.119 I need, and so I email Sokarov asking if, like 0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:23.120 children playing broken telephone like businessmen in a nineteen forties musical, 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:26.600 we can talk on the phone. And a few days 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:32.679 later Sokarov replies, of course, He writes, it is necessary 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:38.760 only to determine the day and the hour after the 0:25:38.840 --> 0:25:52.080 break the day and the hour. Thank you for coming in. 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:53.159 Thank you. 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.440 Sokarov does not speak English, and I try as hard 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:00.560 as I may and yelling at as loud as I 0:26:00.680 --> 0:26:05.640 can prove incapable of speaking Russian. We would need a translator, 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:08.840 and so I've hired Sasha, who has been translating in 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:11.200 one form or another since she was a kid. 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:15.680 Well, when I was younger, my uncle loved to go 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.359 shopping to the open market and get stuff when he 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:20.480 was super drunk, like to the point of like it's 0:26:20.480 --> 0:26:22.560 hard to talk. So he had to take me with 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:28.120 him because this would be three kilograms of tomatoes, which 0:26:28.160 --> 0:26:31.480 I could understand but nobody else could. So I was like, 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:33.639 I get you. I know what you're trying to do. 0:26:34.600 --> 0:26:37.200 Once we get set up in the studio, Sasha tells 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:40.879 me she's excited to be translating for Alexander Sukarov, one 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:49.600 of the most well respected renowned Russian filmmakers in America. 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:53.919 Custom ring tone rings for phone owner in Russia, custom 0:26:54.040 --> 0:27:02.080 ring tone rings for you that hello, mister sokarof Hello, 0:27:04.760 --> 0:27:07.840 good day, I'm listening to you. To avoid confusion, I 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:10.680 begin with the basics. Do you have podcasts? 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:12.719 Yes? 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:18.480 What is a podcast? 0:27:18.520 --> 0:27:21.920 I don't know, Rather than getting into how their sound 0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:25.800 files owned by capitalist dogs like alex Bloomberg. I instead 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:28.720 proceed straight to the source of all of Sokarov's troubles, 0:27:29.280 --> 0:27:31.640 his decision to shoot a movie in one long take. 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:33.320 Why do it that way? 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:41.359 Had a really important desire to remove editing. It was 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:44.960