WEBVTT - Adam McKay / "Vice" 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.480 You're listening to playback a Variety I Heart Radio podcast. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.880 I'm your host, Variety Awards Editor Chris Tapley. I hope 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.000 you're having a happy new Year. This is our first 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.960 episode of two thousand nineteen. Today I'm talking to Adam McKay, 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.720 the writer and director of Vice. Adam won the adapted 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.720 screenplay Oscar for his last film, The Big Short, and 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.400 this is yet another dive into the decay and dysfunction 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.360 of U. S. Government as he sees it, only this 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.120 is far more epic and scope, centered on former Vice 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.320 President Dick Cheney. Christian Bale plays the part and yet 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:54.080 another uncanny performance. But if you've noted the critical reaction 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.960 to this film, it's been incredibly split. I've frankly been 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:01.600 a bit taken aback by some of the more grandstandy 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.399 proclamations I'll call it. Adam pointed this out himself on 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:07.319 Twitter recently. Some find it to be one of the 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.360 finest films of the year. I'm one of them. Others 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:14.880 have literally called it the worst. So there's a spectrum 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:16.920 for you. I guess I found it to be brilliant, 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.600 a movie that sank into my bones, honestly, and I 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.119 was very eager to catch up with Adam to talk 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.919 about it. If you haven't seen the film, i'd encourage 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.840 you to do so before listening to this particular episode. However, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.840 when I got together with Christian Bale and Sam Rockwell 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.480 a few weeks ago, Sam plays George W. Bush in 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.840 the film, we steered pretty clear of too much detail, 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.280 so that's a safe bet, and i'd encourage you to 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.240 listen to that anyway, because those two guys are delight together. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.520 But for now, here's Adam McKay and a deep dive 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.320 into Vice. I hope you enjoy. All Right, everyone, I'm 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.120 here today with Adam McKay, the writer and director of Vice, 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.880 which is, uh, you know, the wholesome story of Dick 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.880 Cheney and his Shenanigans. And we're happy to have him 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:02.640 here today. Thank you, Adam for coming on the show. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.840 My pleasure, Thanks for having me quite the holiday movie Christmas. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.440 Whatever kid wants in the Christmas Tree is a curmudgeonly 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.560 bureaucratic vice president snarling at them, so we deliver absolutely. 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.160 I love the movie. As I was saying earlier, Bravo 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.000 on it. It had to be just like, is this 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.920 the kind of movie that when you embark on an 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.600 undertaking like this, it's going to have a huge spotlight 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.200 on it for obvious reasons. Are you just freaked out, scared, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.040 or just excited ready to just tell people what you think? Essentially? 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.840 You know, it's more that you get excited by the opportunity, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.079 And I feel like, you know, after movies I've done before, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.000 I sort of had a little bit of room to 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.639 give this a shot. Um, So No, I get excited 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.720 about the open field of it. And as soon as 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.520 I caught wind of this and and really started to 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.360 see who Dick Cheney was and really started to research them, 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:03.360 I just kept getting more and more excited. So you 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.480 don't really think about that part of it. I guess 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.480 the first time you really feel that way is when 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.520 the movie like Gonna be released or people start seeing it. 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:13.400 Then it hits you a little bit. People start to 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.959 have takes exactly, and the word take becomes involved, and 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.000 it's a little worries exactly. We'll tell me, like, give 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:21.960 me a little bit of chronology here. When does the 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.320 idea to do a movie about Dick Cheney first hit you? 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.519 So it's like two weeks after the end of the 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.280 Academy Awards, uh, and the run on the Big Short 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.920 and my body does that thing that bodies tend to 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:38.680 do where it's like, oh, I've been holding onto this 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.520 horrible flu for months. Here it is all at once, 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.560 and I think I was set for three straight weeks, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.560 like it was really crazy. So I was just laid 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.920 up and I started looking at the bookshelf and it's 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.320 all these books that friends have given you through the years. 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.600 And I've always been kind of intrigued by Channing. I 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.120 always felt like there was more more there than than 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.000 we knew about sides the shooting the guy in the 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.360 face and the Darth Vader jokes. So I just started 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.440 reading the book and every four or five pages I 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.400 was going, oh my god, Oh my god. And uh. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.119 Pretty soon, I, you know, did what we do. And 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.160 at that time, I guess what, two thousand sixteen, I 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:22.640 went online and ordered like five other books, and all 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.680 of the books had me doing the same thing, like 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.960 this is an epic American story. This is crazy. I 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.520 didn't know any of this about this guy. I knew 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.719 he had affected history, but the manner in which he 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.320 did it just blew me away. Because there's something that like, 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.400 as you're reading all of this material, is there a 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.360 certain thread that you're trying to track down because it's 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.960 obfuscated in this book or you know whatever, like trying 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.360 trying to put it together with the various source materials. Essentially, 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.039 that was exactly the trick. There were tons of great 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.720 books that were written about them, but each one kind 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.680 of had its own take on who he was, and 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.040 they were looking at certain chapters in his life for 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.040 certain through lines of what he did when he was 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.880 in office as vice president. So between reading all of them, 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.920 it really started giving a full portrait. And then there's 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.120 also you know, interviews, and there's the documentary Chainey in 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.120 his own words, and and you just start looking at 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.279 all of that and and that's really how we got 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.080 the complete picture. And then at that point, when you're 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.719 trying to track down this mysterious character, then you kind 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.280 of break glass in case of emergency and you call 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.359 Christian Bale and you know he's going to get to 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.800 the center of it. Um. So that was the final move. Well, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:42.360 at the beginning of the movie, you know, you get 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.080 the standard this is based on the true story, and 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.719 then you say, or is as close as it can 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.360 be given how secretive a leader he was. We tried 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.560 our fucking best. As as you say at the beginning. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.159 What that leads in the whole movie in general left 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.760 me wondering, is how bulletproof do you have to be 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.400 with your screenplay essentially to avoid any kind of litigation 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.760 or something like that. Well, you know, I mean that 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.040 statement kind of says it all. Like we did our 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.200 absolute best. He's so secretive. There are hundreds of thousands 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.039 of documents that he's never handed over. There over twenty 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.400 million emails that have disappeared. There are things he just 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.880 won't talk about. You know. He tends to only do 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:29.400 interviews with very sympathetic journalists. So yeah, we had to 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.680 research our butts off, and we had to triple check everything. 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.760 We hired fact checkers. We actually hired our own journalists 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.000 at one point who interviewed people from Chenese Circle was 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.440 all off the records, so they would talk to us, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.880 but just to make sure we weren't crazy people. The 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.040 good news is it's out there. You can find it. 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.320 It's just took a lot of work. Um, but yeah, 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:57.520 anything you see that's like policy, times, dates, actions has 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.360 all been quadruple checked, and then there are those couple 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:06.360 scenes where just no one else was there besides Jenny 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.840 and Rumsfeld or Janey and his wife. And in those cases, 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:12.880 you just do the best you can. You know, you 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.280 look about people that talked about that moment, you look 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.120 for little flickers of what they said about it, and 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.320 you try and go conservative. You try not to do 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.000 anything too crazy, like let's not have Channy breakdown in 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.200 tears here. He hasn't really done that in the rest 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.840 of the movie, so you play a kind of straight 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:33.120 line at that point. But yeah, he's a secretive dude. Man. 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.480 He covers his tracks. I mean, I kept joking with 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.320 my editor, Hank Corwin. I was like, this guy did 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.000 not want a movie made about him, Like, I mean, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.280 that's just the truth. There's nothing he left out there 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.280 for anyone to go, Hey, let's make a movie about 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:51.800 this guy. Um. I want to just tell you about 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:53.960 my react. What what what? What I felt after I 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:55.720 saw the movie. And I don't know if it's what 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.000 you were going for hoping people would take away, but this, 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:02.760 this was what I took away. I felt unbelievable emptiness. 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.040 I felt like I I stared into the void for 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.040 a bit afterwards, I felt like I had just I 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.280 said this to Christian and Sam. I felt like I 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.280 had just seen a portrait of a soulless individual. And 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.120 did you feel that way when you were making it? 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:18.760 Is that? What is that what you were aiming to 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.440 kind of portray? I know what you mean. I mean 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.720 what really surprised me about the movie was that we 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.640 looked for his humanity. We wanted to find out who 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.760 he was, and we wanted to find out who Lynn 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.320 was and the family, and we feel like we found it, 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.480 like there were real people there, There was a real 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.200 family that cared about each other. And then in the end, 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.559 just when those daughters were split and it it I 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.199 wouldn't say emptiness, but it made me really sad. That's 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.640 what struck me about it. And I never expected to 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:54.600 feel that way at the end of a story about 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.120 Dick Cheney, but I felt I felt sad for him. 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.160 I felt sad for his daughters. I felt sad all 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.400 the people who had suffered because of his policies. I 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.600 felt sad for a crazy country which seems to have 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:10.640 no faith in its own government right now. Uh. And 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:12.880 I remember the first time we watched it with a 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.199 really big crowd. I remember having tears in my eyes, 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:20.079 and I did not expect that. Yeah, Christian said something similar, 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.800 just profound sadness. I think what what I'm What I 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.920 was taking away was you know, he says things like 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.160 when he sees Rumsfeld for the first time, what's he 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.800 that's a Republican? That's what I am? Uh, he asks, 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.040 what do we believe? There's nothing there? Right? And then 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:41.440 and then I I come away wondering, why, uh this 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.280 this huge push for power to what end? You're not 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.920 the president, so you don't get the credit per se, 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.760 you don't need the money. Why And and you know, 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.240 in some sense, maybe it's he thought he was being 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.320 a patriot, but it's just not what I came away feeling. 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.520 And maybe that's my personal politics coming into play. But 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.199 I just to kind of put that to you and 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.280 ask you, like, what's the why of it for you? 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.480 I think, you know, there used to be I feel 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.240 like when I was a kid in the seventies and 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.360 the early eighties, we used to talk about the toll 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.560 that power would take on people. I feel like we 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.640 don't talk about it that much anymore, and like power 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.840 screws you up like it's the It's the biggest drug 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.240 there is. I mean, there's nothing better than power, not 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.480 even money, sex, anything else you can think of. Power 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.000 is the one I Originally in the very first draft 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.400 of the script, I had some voice over talking about 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:38.160 how power is the thing that comes closest to disguising 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:43.120 itself as love, because you're needed. People look at you with, 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.400 you know, a want in their eyes, and it really 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:50.720 feels close to love. And I think what you saw 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:52.960 was out of the sixties and seventies, not just with 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:54.520 the Chinese, but I think a lot of people in 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:59.600 America like this idea of career and ambition and this 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.760 idea climbing ladders came about and and just some degree 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.679 that's fine, But I think with the Chinese it just 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.319 it took an extra step. It became about this kind 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:16.240 of the fatherhood, the father le nature of the presidency, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.360 mixed with this desire for his wife to love him, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.040 for his family to be proud of him. And these 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.360 are all kind of like decent things to want. And 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.480 then when you threw nine eleven in there, and the 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.280 paranoia and fear of that, I just feel like it detonated. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.080 I feel like it became a very scary individual in 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:41.280 a lot of ways. From that point one definitely, um 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.480 how much was left on the cutting room floor. This 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:44.840 is a movie I look at and I feel like 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.600 they shot so much, but there's there's like because just 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.640 I love the editing style, but it just if you 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:54.559 know what you're looking for, you can see where, Okay, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.360 they shot a lot of stuff that's around this image 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.800 or that scene, and I'm just curious, like what you're 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.000 editing process was like what you found through the editing 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.480 things like that? Well, I was, you know, obviously, you know, 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.040 Hank Corwin is one of the great living editors. He's 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:16.320 a genius. And uh and we definitely had quite a 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.839 chore on our hands once again to tell the story 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.880 of the man who doesn't want his story told. The 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.800 big two things we lost. There was one thing I 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:26.880 really didn't want to give up was the story of 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.959 them as teenagers, Dick and Lynn Cheney, and how they 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.760 met and how they fell and fell in love. And 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.680 Greg Frasier, our DP, just shot that so beautifully. Man, 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.840 it looked like Splendor in the grass. It was just 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.920 like luscious film. And then Nick Brittell, our composer, put 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.200 this beautiful music over it, and the audience was just 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:51.280 not into it. They just did not care about fifteen 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:55.000 year old sixteen seventeen year old Dick Cheney. So we 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.640 tried so many times. We did it long, we did 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.840 a medium, short, we put in different places, and that 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.480 was probably the biggest loss. And then the other one 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.880 that was pretty ambitious was we had a musical number. 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.800 You know, I had people telling me it was the 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:10.959 musical number in there. I was like, no, tell me 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.880 about the musical number. Thought about the musical I couldn't 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.600 get that one to work either. Those are the two 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.560 things I couldn't get to work. Um. It was kind 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.679 of when Runs felt his teaching Cheney about Washington, d c. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.440 And how to get ahead, and it's sort of like 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.000 neither a borrower nor lender b is kind of giving 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.880 him that speech. But the speech is basically like who 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.640 cares about anything? You gotta just get ahead of people, like, 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.360 you know, making your moves. I think there was a 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.800 line in it like the means justify the ends, which 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.360 I always loved just and we have Brittany Howard from 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.280 the Alabama Shakes just wailing on it. Nick Brittel wrote 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:53.880 this just beautiful song. Uh. We had to composed. The 0:13:54.240 --> 0:14:00.240 choreographer from Hamilton choreographed it. It's breathticking, it's incredible, and 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.079 it just didn't work. It was like you didn't need it. 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.640 It was too long in that area of the movie. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:09.920 You know, storytelling beats everything we tried. Oh my god, 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.320 we tried fifteen versions of it. I mean, we moved 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.439 it here, we moved it there, We played it really short, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.680 we played it way longer. We put scenes in the 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.200 middle of it. I mean, we tried every single thing 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.680 you could do. I mean, the only reason it doesn't 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.560 pain me to this moment is because I know we 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.200 tried everything we could do. But but those were the two. 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:30.600 Those were the two like when you were in the 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.880 edit room, you're like, well, this is amazing, this is 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.040 gonna work, and you just forget, like the movie tells 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.160 you what it wants. And in that case, it was 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.000 like get rid of these two things. Other than that, 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.200 we did pretty well. Other than that, it was just 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.600 those two chunks that could not make their way in 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.880 the movie. Special features on the DVD maybe darn right. Well, 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.120 what I did was I took um then as teenagers 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.040 and actually cut it into a short film, a black 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.760 and white short film, a little bit in the spirit 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.360 of trying to think of the anyway. It's its own 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.400 little kind of short film about their young love. Do 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.160 we have a title for that yet? It's called best 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.240 of All He Loves Me Back, That's what it's called. 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.800 Looking forward to that? Yeah, Yeah, and the musicals on 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:13.800 there too. And there's another little scene we cut out 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.080 too that's on there. So you mentioned Greg Fraser there. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.080 I've done Greg for ten years, one of the best 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.440 dps working. I feel I could not agree with you more. 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:26.200 I want to talk about the visual approach to the movie. Um, 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:28.400 you know, i'm i'm. I often ask filmmakers if there 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.880 were references in any kind of inspiration, not just in film, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:36.800 but artwork, uh, photography, anything like that. What kind of 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:38.760 a visual approach did you guys sit down and talk about. 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.720 You know, the big trick we had was that we 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:47.360 wanted an evolution to the visual approach without looking gimmicky. 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.760 You know, the very lazy first thought would be, you 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.480 shoot the early wyoming stuff in black and white. When 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.200 you go to DC, you go to color. It's like, well, 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.600 that's kind of lame. So what we just talked about 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.720 was just subtle gradients in the color palette. As we 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.360 moved ahead, you know, we were looking at stuff like 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.680 Eggleston still photographs for the early days, kind of what 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:09.920 you would think you would look at. And you know, 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.080 we looked at a bunch of the famous seventies movies, 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.440 as far as offices in Washington, d C. We looked 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.360 at all of that. But uh, and then because we 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.360 were shooting on film, we also talked about how we 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.760 were gonna let some of the dirt stay in the 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.360 film and the early stuff. But really the big breakthrough 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.320 was when Greg was like, we should use sixteen, we 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.280 should use Super eight, we should use the vintage old 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.800 TV cameras whenever we can. And once that came into 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:39.680 the movie, I feel like the movie really kind of 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.680 found its its visual style. UM. So the thirty five 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.000 was always the lush reality the bottom of the movie. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.240 I mean that was the movie. Man oh man. When 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.840 that's sixteen and that Super eight started getting him there, 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.040 we were just like, oh, I can't get enough of this. 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.560 Um And that gave enough diversity to the look that 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.720 because you know, the movie covers six decades UM and 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.560 we just needed something to reflect that. And you know, 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.560 obviously as we got later, you start seeing video, you 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.920 start seeing more modern looks. It was always complimentary, was 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.439 always off to the side. Um, but yeah, it was. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.760 He just loved it. You know, he's such a camera geek. 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.359 He knows every one of those cameras, He knows everyone 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.520 how they work. He gets every look like perfect. I mean, 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.160 I still can't believe the way he shot Colin pal 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.240 like Tyler Perry. I mean, it looks like it's the 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:34.720 real footage of Colin pal speech. It just blows me away. Um. Yeah, 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:39.080 he's something special man, that guy. Wow. How about color palette. 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.040 You talk about what colors would mean, color palette, but 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.120 you know, we we definitely had richer, kind of earthier 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.160 tones in the beginning. That was closer to wyoming, closer 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.200 to like a man, an American man, kind of forming himself. 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.720 Our idea was that once you have a fully formed 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:02.680 chainey's a cooler, colder, kind of more sie uh palette 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.240 to it. That came about, But at the same time, 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.440 we didn't want it to feel like a giant gear jump. 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.600 You know, we wanted them all to be a little 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.040 bit close to each other. So it was pretty subtle stuff. 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.600 But uh, and a lot of that. The way it 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:18.680 came out was just in the modern day stuff. With 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:20.959 the thirty five, I would say, okay, now clean all 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.000 the dirt out. Now, let's get a little sharper, and 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.399 we would hit some of those blues and grays a 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.560 little bit harder in the more modern stuff. Um, but yeah, 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.040 I think we just let the earlier stuff be dirty 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.400 and little mange gear, and it mixed in a little 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.720 that Super eight and a little bit of that sixteen, 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:39.800 and then as it was moving forward, it was just 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:45.080 getting like a little bit colder, a little bit you know, cleaner. Um. 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.960 But hopefully our our goal was that the audience never 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.119 consciously was aware of it, just it's just happening. Was 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.440 it always like on the page? Was it written like 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:58.040 in a scattered, temporally speaking kind of way, Like, was 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.639 it always going to just bounce all around, you know, 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.920 starting with nine eleven, then going back and then things 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.480 like this. Um, there's a few of the things we 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.360 discovered in the edit room and actually originally did. That's 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.720 not true. The first draft of the script did start 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:16.439 with nine eleven. I then switched it out and we 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.600 then started more on them as kids. So actually then 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.520 we went back to nine eleven for the beginning part. 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.280 But yeah, there were always little time jumps back and forth. 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:28.159 I mean, one of the things we were aware of 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.840 is just the biopic structure is a tough one. It's 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.000 something we've all probably seen hundreds of biopics throughout our life, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.200 and when it's when it's um sequential like that, when 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.440 it's just lined up, it can get a little tiring, 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.520 a little pounding. So that was a big thing that 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.399 Hank and I were playing around with in the edit 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.199 room was when do we time jump? How much do 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.760 we time jump? Is it okay to sometimes stay semi 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:58.320 sequential um? And what we found was just like a 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:00.879 little bit of a time to ash, a little bit 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.760 of a jump would go a long way, just taking 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.000 it a little bit out of sequence, then let it 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.400 go back to sequence, a little bit out of sequence, 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.520 back to sequence. UM. That was a lot of our 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:12.840 experimenting in the edit room is just trying to get 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.680 that exactly right. How much jumping, how little jumping, when 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.440 to let it play out? Very tricky, very tricky, but man, 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.040 you could feel it when it would get too sequential. 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:25.760 It's just all of a sudden, you just start feeling 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.280 like you're watching a biopick, like you've seen three hundred 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:29.640 of them. So we would have to go and mess 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.159 with it at that point, even within scenes. And you 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:33.960 know when it said it's most radical if it'll just 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.240 throw something in there, it's almost expressionistic. And in the 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.560 way it's do have the editorial, it's there's a it's 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.639 kind of an interesting tradition. JFK to me is one 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.440 of the most exquisitely crafted films of all time, especially 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.000 in the editing, So I kind of think of that, 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.080 you know, the way it's just it's shards, you know, 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:51.280 at times, I think that's kind of I think that's 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.560 one of Hank's signatures. I think that's he does it 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.680 probably better than anyone. There's a moment in the movie 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:00.720 I really love where Dick says, let's make sure to 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.920 get my daughter Liz into the State Department, and Hank 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.040 just did this quick cut to Liz at the table 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.480 going okay, Dad, and it's like the table from like 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.600 a scene ten minutes before, and he's like, okay, Dad, 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.280 and then it goes right back to the scene. But 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.080