Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and this is stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Just us today. Jerry's on vacation and that's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like Jerry's in the Disney World. Kind of went right
Speaker 1: after me. She's in in the d I said, hey, Jerry.
Speaker 1: In the south bathroom of Frontier Land, above the toilet,
Speaker 1: I've left. I've taped a gun. Go shoot Mo Green,
Speaker 1: Go shoot Mo Green in the restaurant booth. No, Moe
Speaker 1: Green got it in the on the massage tape. Oh
Speaker 1: that's right. The police commissioner or the police chief. He yea,
Speaker 1: he was. He was tangential to the hit with the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I don't remember who was trying to hit po I
Speaker 1: goofed that up. Hey, shout out to Uh, No, we're
Speaker 1: not done sorting this up. Okay, go ahead, name all
Speaker 1: the hits in the Godfather. Uh. Shout out to our
Speaker 1: pal and friend of the show, Kevin Pollock, because that
Speaker 1: made me think of the great, great show that is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite shows called Better Things from the
Speaker 1: wonderful talented Pamela ad Lawn. They're entering their final season,
Speaker 1: and I watched the first episode the other night and Pollock,
Speaker 1: who plays her brother on the show, had a great
Speaker 1: line that I knew was improved where he's he was
Speaker 1: getting in his car and I can't remember what they
Speaker 1: were talking about, and he said right in the eye
Speaker 1: like Mo Green. And I texted immediately and I was like,
Speaker 1: right in the eye like Mo Green. I was like,
Speaker 1: that was yours and he went, oh yeah, he said
Speaker 1: that was improv It was very fun. It's always fun
Speaker 1: to be able to watch a TV show and texture
Speaker 1: pal that's on that TV show. Yeah, he's got he's
Speaker 1: got the best parts. He just pops up and all
Speaker 1: the best stuff. You know. Yeah, he's in Mazel He's uh,
Speaker 1: I think. And I've talked to Polock about this and
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I agree. I think he could star
Speaker 1: in a really great indie film. I just think he's
Speaker 1: a really great actor, and uh, he's great at comedy,
Speaker 1: but I think he's, on top of that, just a
Speaker 1: really really great actor. Didn't you star in that Project
Speaker 1: green Light film? I don't know. Did he would pretty
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I think the first season, Oh boy,
Speaker 1: I don't remember those movies. I know that, uh Shyla
Speaker 1: Both that was where he got his start, is that right?
Speaker 1: Was he in one of those the Battle of Shaker
Speaker 1: Heights or something. I think that might have been the
Speaker 1: one that Polock was. Was he in that movie? But
Speaker 1: I mean a really good movie. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: the Project green Light movie. It was a cool show though,
Speaker 1: I dug it. Yeah, yeah, I had brought that back
Speaker 1: in the iPhone filmmaking age. Yeah, it's a little surprising
Speaker 1: who would be who would bring it back though? Now
Speaker 1: Ben and Mack and bringing back I mean they that's
Speaker 1: who did it the first time, right, sure? But I
Speaker 1: mean are they still relevant? Aren't there too? Like younger version?
Speaker 1: I don't know who the new been in mad Are?
Speaker 1: How about um Whiz Khalifa and Charlemagne the God? Sure there? Yeah? Alright, great? Anyway,
Speaker 1: Kep Box a great actor and a good dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agreed, And um, probably somebody I would guess who've
Speaker 1: seen the movie that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: I would be really surprised if he hasn't seen it,
Speaker 1: just because I feel like if you're into movies, if
Speaker 1: you're a movie maker, if you are if you consider
Speaker 1: yourself a cinema file if you want to get punched
Speaker 1: in the stomach. Um, you've probably seen Titty Cut Folies, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is one that I saw in film
Speaker 1: class in college. Um, it is one that you there's
Speaker 1: about a fifty fifty chance that you will see this
Speaker 1: if you've seen it in film class in the college.
Speaker 1: People like Casey, our colleague, Casey Pegram, no doubt is
Speaker 1: a Frederick Wiseman fan. I'm surely if I texted him
Speaker 1: he'd like, oh, sure Wiseman. Yeah. Although I found Titticut
Speaker 1: Follies was not one of his great at work. That
Speaker 1: sounds like Casey, God bless Casey all time greatest movie
Speaker 1: crush guest. But um, yeah, fred Fred Weiseman, uh made
Speaker 1: this film. He was a law professor in his thirties
Speaker 1: in the sixties and made this documentary film about a
Speaker 1: um a mental institution, specifically one for the criminally insane.
Speaker 1: It's what they called it. And it was a very
Speaker 1: you know, it was a movie that gained a lot
Speaker 1: of reputation as like the most disturbing film you've ever seen,
Speaker 1: and it's been banned in this many places and and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But when you kind of peel
Speaker 1: it back, it's just a very straight up, sort of
Speaker 1: cinema verite documentary about a institution that needed to get
Speaker 1: their act together right. And that was kind of Wiseman's
Speaker 1: told jam. Like he's made forty eight films. I think
Speaker 1: he just turned ninety two couple of months ago, amazing,
Speaker 1: and starting in nineteen sixty six, he made about a
Speaker 1: film a year, and he has his own style, Like
Speaker 1: you said, cinema verity, you, which I feel like we
Speaker 1: should probably kind of just go ahead and explain, don't you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead, go ahead, film guy. Uh, well, cinema verite.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the direct translation, direct cinema. Yeah, direct cinema.
Speaker 1: And it's the idea that you kind of set a
Speaker 1: camera up and let it let life happen in front
Speaker 1: of it for whatever your subject is. You don't you
Speaker 1: don't do interviews, you don't do talking head shots, you don't,
Speaker 1: um you it's really just uh. One good example is
Speaker 1: that documentary and that, of course now I can't think
Speaker 1: of it um in the seventies about the American family
Speaker 1: that ran on PBS that was so groundbreaking, where they
Speaker 1: just set up a camera and followed this family and
Speaker 1: if you're thinking it sounds a lot like reality TV,
Speaker 1: I think and it's pure ast form. Reality TV can
Speaker 1: be this, but it really turned into something else entirely. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just so deeply manipulated by producers behind the scenes
Speaker 1: who tell them to do this or that or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: cinema verites would would not would not want to do that.
Speaker 1: They they just shoot and hope hope also that people
Speaker 1: act like themselves. It's another thing and one thing Frederick Wiseman,
Speaker 1: the guy who made Titty Cut Follies, UM, said like
Speaker 1: he believed that people basically acted like themselves when the
Speaker 1: camera was around, because people are in general lousy actors
Speaker 1: and they're behaving like you would expect them to behave.
Speaker 1: So they're probably acting like they would without the cameras,
Speaker 1: especially in a cinema veryte kind of set up, because
Speaker 1: it's it's intrusive there's a camera there, but it's not
Speaker 1: nearly as intrusive as like a camera on like some
Speaker 1: rig that's flying around, like there's lighting people and gappers
Speaker 1: and craft services table that's calling your name. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's just much less intrusive than that. It's minimally intrusive
Speaker 1: as far as filmmaking goes. And that's the point of it,
Speaker 1: because they want to document reality without leading the viewer
Speaker 1: as much as possible. From what I understand, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: exactly it. And I love cinema verite documentaries, especially UM.
Speaker 1: And I also like sort of quasi cinema verite where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like I don't mind interviews being
Speaker 1: put in there, um, as long as there's a lot
Speaker 1: of just sort of watching life happen. It's really amazingly engrossing.
Speaker 1: There were these two filmmakers that I think inspired uh
Speaker 1: Weisseman Um, Richard Leacock and Robert Drew, who in the
Speaker 1: early I think in the fifties and early nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: were kind of dabbling in cinema verite documentaries. And they
Speaker 1: made one in particular called Mooney Versus Foul, which is
Speaker 1: about a high school football championship and Mooney and Fowl
Speaker 1: or the two coaches. And I watched the trailer for
Speaker 1: that today. I guess his I'm guessing it's his daughter
Speaker 1: that put this up on VIN, you know, along with
Speaker 1: some other like interviews with her dad, Drew's daughter that
Speaker 1: it's really engrossing just to watch, and especially because all
Speaker 1: you see if you're a modern person in two and
Speaker 1: you're like, what was life like in the nineteen fifties?
Speaker 1: You don't get that from I love Lucy and Dick
Speaker 1: Van Dyke, Like, those are great shows, but to be
Speaker 1: able to just sit in and take a peek at
Speaker 1: these high school football coaches and these people the community
Speaker 1: in the stands and these players, like, it's just so
Speaker 1: engrossing to me. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I
Speaker 1: really like it. Yeah, no, totally, but um yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like, even even if it isn't your cup of tea,
Speaker 1: you would, like you said, be engrossed by. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any way to just be like, no, I
Speaker 1: don't know, some people probably find it dull that I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are, but it's it's just it is engrossing.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any other way to universally describe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Drew, I sent you that one little interview snippet.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw it, but he sort
Speaker 1: of was talking about being a new form of journalism
Speaker 1: where he talked about you know, it's like a you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, well, what is this though, And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's like a play without a playwright, or a movie
Speaker 1: without actors, or journalism without opinions. And I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting to say in the nineteen fifties, yeah, all
Speaker 1: the way back then. Yeah, but it's um he they
Speaker 1: saw it as uh Lee lack, and I think Drew
Speaker 1: saw it more as a form of journalism. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that's what documentaries used to be, and that's
Speaker 1: changed a lot, sometimes for the better. It can be
Speaker 1: all things, I guess, but it seems like documentaries used
Speaker 1: to be way more journalism and less uh a big
Speaker 1: time entertainment. Yeah, what do you think about how do
Speaker 1: you feel about recreations and documentaries. I think it can
Speaker 1: be cool if you have a good, uh, like a
Speaker 1: new spin on it, kind of like when The Kids
Speaker 1: Stays in the Picture came out, the documentary about the
Speaker 1: producer what's his face, Robert? Yeah, exactly, full cool. They
Speaker 1: did those recreations through animation and this really cool style
Speaker 1: of animation that like it was really engaging and awesome,
Speaker 1: and like, recrease can be really cool if you do
Speaker 1: it right, I think, yeah, or really bad if it's
Speaker 1: like some dumb cop show on TV. Oh yeah, like um,
Speaker 1: but those are kind of fun too, Yeah, you mean
Speaker 1: like the one Headline News shows a hundred episodes today.
Speaker 1: Forensic Files. I haven't seen it, but if it's the
Speaker 1: recrease I'm thinking of where it's like, you know, they
Speaker 1: recreated murder on like you to shoot us. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: exactly right, you're thinking of forensic files. But still if
Speaker 1: you watch enough of it, it will really like your
Speaker 1: whole life will turn dark. Be careful with files, everybody.
Speaker 1: So should we go back and talk about Bridgewater State Hospital. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's the place where Frederick Wiseman showed up with
Speaker 1: his camera um with permission, as we'll see um. And
Speaker 1: by the time he got there in nineteen I think
Speaker 1: he shot in nineteen sixty five, maybe sixty six us Okay,
Speaker 1: when he got there, it had been around for over
Speaker 1: a hundred years. It didn't start out as a state hospital.
Speaker 1: It started out as a poor house in alms House,
Speaker 1: I think, all the way back in eighteen fifty four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting when you read these it's disturbing. But
Speaker 1: when you read these old timey classifications in medicine or
Speaker 1: especially in mental health where someone be you know, the
Speaker 1: description of someone that might be put there might just
Speaker 1: be bad, Like that's one of the descriptions, Like that'd
Speaker 1: be that beyond par with UM, like labeling them alcoholic
Speaker 1: or schizophrenia or something like that. Yeah. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you were if you had an alcohol problem, or
Speaker 1: you had legitimate you know, mental health issues, or if
Speaker 1: you were pregnant maybe or blind, or you had syphilis,
Speaker 1: you might have been put in this poorhouse into so
Speaker 1: UM in Massachusett by the way, Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if we said that or not. UM. So that's how
Speaker 1: it started out. And then over time they started adding criminals, uh,
Speaker 1: and focus more on criminals and the mentally ill. And
Speaker 1: then by the time eighteen rolled around, it became the
Speaker 1: State Asylum for insane criminals at the State Workhouse at Bridgewater,
Speaker 1: and then eventually um it became known as Bridgewater State Hospital,
Speaker 1: I think by nineteen o nine. And then very crucially
Speaker 1: here UM it was handed over from the State Board
Speaker 1: of Charity because remember it started out as a poorhouse,
Speaker 1: over to the Massachusetts Bureau of Prison. So for all
Speaker 1: intensive purposes at least berea bureaucratically speaking, it is a
Speaker 1: is a place where the criminally insane, how they were
Speaker 1: termed in the twentieth century is are held. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there were some bad criminals in there. I mean there
Speaker 1: were murderers, There were people who were convicted of cannon balls,
Speaker 1: um uh, of rape of children or just generally of rape.
Speaker 1: So there were some bad dudes in there for sure.
Speaker 1: But then they were also and this was sort of
Speaker 1: one of the saddest things about sort of that time
Speaker 1: in this country. Those people were right alongside other people
Speaker 1: who either committed a very minor crime or maybe didn't
Speaker 1: commit a crime at all, and they were just quote
Speaker 1: unquote being held there temporarily, but that could stretch on
Speaker 1: into years. Yeah, there's still something today called civil commitment,
Speaker 1: and it's basically that you were being held not because
Speaker 1: of a crimer, because of a minor crime, and you
Speaker 1: maybe you have even served your sentence, but you're being
Speaker 1: held because you had been deemed mentally unfit to return
Speaker 1: to society, even though maybe you didn't even start out
Speaker 1: like in a mental hospital, maybe you started out in jail,
Speaker 1: and then you're just a troublemaker. They considered you a
Speaker 1: troublemaker in jail, and you got sent to the hospital.
Speaker 1: At that point, your sentence was just it just went away.
Speaker 1: It was you were there until a doctor decided you
Speaker 1: should be let out. And the problem was getting the
Speaker 1: attention of a doctor long enough to say, oh, actually
Speaker 1: you're you're fine, to let you out was really difficult
Speaker 1: to do. And so it was a really desperate place,
Speaker 1: especially for people who didn't feel like they should be there,
Speaker 1: belong there, because after a while it seemed to exert
Speaker 1: its influence on your mind and your outlook, and it
Speaker 1: would it would bend you to to reflect it so
Speaker 1: that you kind of needed to be there after a while,
Speaker 1: even if you didn't start out that way. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: anyone who's ever seen one floor of the Cuckoos nests
Speaker 1: is kind of exactly that happens in the plot. Like
Speaker 1: people got worse at these places. Uh. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: the medical actual medical attention. Uh. President of the Massachusetts
Speaker 1: Bar Association at the time, Paul Timborello, and uh, big
Speaker 1: thanks to Livia for digging this up and putting us
Speaker 1: together for us. But he told the Harvard Crimson back
Speaker 1: then that of the six and fifty men held at
Speaker 1: the hospital at the time, actual medical staff were able
Speaker 1: to see less than half of them one time a
Speaker 1: year for about twenty minutes. Right, So other than that,
Speaker 1: you're like, well, then who was it. If it wasn't
Speaker 1: medical staff, it was like prison guards basically, yes. And
Speaker 1: even then when you did get that twenty minutes, you
Speaker 1: were confronted by a person or group of people who
Speaker 1: were going on the premise that everything you said came
Speaker 1: out of your mouth where was loony and not based
Speaker 1: in reality or fact. No matter how well you put
Speaker 1: your case or stated your case or complained, like any
Speaker 1: show of emotion would just prove to them that you
Speaker 1: were meant to be in there for another year until
Speaker 1: they could hopefully see you again and reevaluate you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was this one example Olivia found of jeez, it's
Speaker 1: hard to believe. Uh. Matteo uh Calacoci was arrested in
Speaker 1: at my daughter's age, almost seven years old for stealing
Speaker 1: seven bucks from a grocery store, which is pretty good
Speaker 1: taken by the day. Uh. And he was found incompetent
Speaker 1: to stand trial and then sent to uh kind of
Speaker 1: sent all around over the years to different institutions. After
Speaker 1: he tried to escape in nineteen thirty five, was eventually
Speaker 1: landed at Bridgewater, and this is another one of those
Speaker 1: archaic terms, was charged with bad habits uh and resisting
Speaker 1: authority and uh. This seven year old eventually ended up
Speaker 1: here later in life, but stayed there for twenty eight
Speaker 1: years uh and released in nineteen sixty three. So that's
Speaker 1: just just one example of how like sort of a
Speaker 1: small petty crime, but if you maybe have an attitude
Speaker 1: or your troublemaker as a kid, and you bounce around
Speaker 1: from place to place, you just might wind up here
Speaker 1: with no one advocating for you. Uh. Kind of this
Speaker 1: all made me think of like what families were doing.
Speaker 1: But I guess at the time some families were kind
Speaker 1: of like maybe convinced themselves they were off there, or
Speaker 1: they didn't want to deal with the trouble, or there
Speaker 1: were no family I don't know, yeah, or their family
Speaker 1: was poor and had no influence over anybody so they
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything about it. Very sad. Yeah, I say
Speaker 1: we take a break and we'll come back with Wiseman
Speaker 1: in his tenure while he was at Bridgewater. So Fredrick
Speaker 1: Wiseman had an interesting origin story as a filmmaker. He
Speaker 1: was um, he went to law school, at Yale supposedly
Speaker 1: to get out of the Korean War draft, but then
Speaker 1: when he graduated, he still ended up getting drafted any way,
Speaker 1: and he was in there for almost two years kind
Speaker 1: of after the war. But yeah, yeah, um, but I
Speaker 1: still I'll bet he was not happy about being drafted
Speaker 1: either way. Um, so he uh he went he I
Speaker 1: guess went to Korea for a couple of years. And
Speaker 1: then after the army he and his wife, um, uh
Speaker 1: what is her name, bat Shaw? Great name, Yeah, she
Speaker 1: she was a law professor as well. Um. They went
Speaker 1: to Paris, lived for a couple of years, and then
Speaker 1: decided they need to move back, so they moved back
Speaker 1: to the Boston area. But while there, Um, Fredrick Wiseman
Speaker 1: got into filmmaking. He started just shooting stuff with a
Speaker 1: little eight millimeter camera about the time that cinema verite
Speaker 1: was being developed in France. That's right. So, like he said,
Speaker 1: he came back from France, Uh started teaching law at
Speaker 1: b U and uh sort of had that filmmaking bug still.
Speaker 1: So he bought the rights to a book, a novel
Speaker 1: called The Cool World about poverty and Harlem, and he
Speaker 1: hired a woman named Shirley Clark Clark sorry to direct it.
Speaker 1: And it was very small and I don't think it
Speaker 1: was much of a big film at all. But it
Speaker 1: was a very small sort of indie film at the time,
Speaker 1: which is to say it was probably not seen much. Um.
Speaker 1: But Wiseman was like, hey, like, if if Shirley Clark
Speaker 1: can do this thing, I can do this thing. And
Speaker 1: I don't like law school. I don't like teaching law. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the things he did because he didn't
Speaker 1: love teaching law was take his class on a lot
Speaker 1: of field trips, I guess, just to mix things up.
Speaker 1: And they used to go to Bridgewater, and after a
Speaker 1: few visits, he was like, wait a minute, I think
Speaker 1: everything kind of came together. My love, his love of filmmaking,
Speaker 1: his cinema verite kind of becoming popular, and his interest
Speaker 1: in that, and then his interest disinterest in law and
Speaker 1: interest in Bridgewater. So he had this idea to make
Speaker 1: this film there. Yeah. So, as we'll see later, this
Speaker 1: is kind of crucial. He he got permission to show up,
Speaker 1: he said many times and later interviews, Bridge Warters nother
Speaker 1: kind of play. She just kind of parachute in at night.
Speaker 1: Do all your filming and then creep away at dawn
Speaker 1: with all of your footage. Um, Like, he had to
Speaker 1: get extensive permission from sounds that before though, yeah, from
Speaker 1: we've done that before too, and grocery stores, remember, um
Speaker 1: so uh. He got permission from the Lieutenant Governor, he
Speaker 1: got permission from the Department of Corrections head, he got
Speaker 1: permission of the Superintendent of Bridgewater. They all knew he
Speaker 1: was there, and they would have figured out eventually anyway,
Speaker 1: because he spent twenty nine days filming in Bridgewater and
Speaker 1: he would just do his his his cinema veritas style
Speaker 1: where he would just walk around and just film stuff,
Speaker 1: film whatever. He could, just film film film. And I
Speaker 1: saw something where he said that for his for his documentaries,
Speaker 1: he films anything from like seventy five hours at a
Speaker 1: minimum chuck to two hundred and fifty hours, and then
Speaker 1: he goes through it all and edits all the stuff
Speaker 1: he likes, and then after like month eight of editing,
Speaker 1: Hill start piecing it together into like an arc a
Speaker 1: story arc wow, which boiled down in this case to
Speaker 1: eighty three minutes of of a movie. And the name
Speaker 1: Titticut Follies comes from I think Titticut was a Native
Speaker 1: American name. I would guess somewhere in the region. I
Speaker 1: didn't really pink for the Bridgewater area. That's what they
Speaker 1: called it, okay, Uh, and the follies were that, you know.
Speaker 1: The film opens up with a musical performance by the
Speaker 1: um I guess there were inmates, uh, with a song
Speaker 1: strike up the band where all they're all dressed the
Speaker 1: same and you can see you can see quite a
Speaker 1: few clips on YouTube. But um, as Olivia points out,
Speaker 1: like Wiseman has always been really guarded with how his
Speaker 1: films are exhibited, and so I don't think you can
Speaker 1: just like go YouTube this thing up and watch the
Speaker 1: whole thing still, even I did last night on YouTube. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: not on YouTube vimeo. Oh interesting, all right, I wonder
Speaker 1: if that's like some sort of pirated upload. It was.
Speaker 1: It's too it was a VHS copied put on line,
Speaker 1: so I'm thinking, yeah, it was pirated. Did you watch
Speaker 1: it all? Yeah? I did. I watched I've never seen
Speaker 1: it before. I was familiar with it. The title. I
Speaker 1: had not a lot of idea of what it was about,
Speaker 1: but it was what do you think, certainly striking? It
Speaker 1: was really something like I had ups and downs and
Speaker 1: highs and lows, and I think I it was everything
Speaker 1: Wiseman wanted me to feel about it. It was pretty great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is great. It's even the eight three minutes.
Speaker 1: It's tough to sit through the whole thing because I
Speaker 1: think by its nature, cinema verite can be taxing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even while engrossing, it can be pretty taxing. That's the
Speaker 1: best way to put it. Um. But it's also obviously
Speaker 1: in this case, it's not about high school football championship.
Speaker 1: It's it's literally watching these people. Um. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess we should just talk about some of the scenes maybe, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And a lot of the people are going to go
Speaker 1: back and be like, just so this was great. Stare
Speaker 1: with us everybody. Yeah, I mean, hey, you're a cinephile.
Speaker 1: It's right in the face, but you know, the stomach
Speaker 1: face has way too hostile stomachs a little bit of
Speaker 1: friendliness left in it, you know, yeah, like Whodini style. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll do. Uh well. One of the scenes that Livia
Speaker 1: picked out that certainly stands out in my mind too,
Speaker 1: and I think you can actually find parts of this
Speaker 1: one on YouTube is a guard. I guess was he
Speaker 1: dry shaving him. It looked like dry shaving or was
Speaker 1: it a wet shave? Um. No, they put like shaving
Speaker 1: cream on him and everything, and everybody seems to characterize
Speaker 1: it as like really rough, like forceful, kind of almost
Speaker 1: like he's being tortured with the shave. It was fast.
Speaker 1: It was fast, Yeah, I didn't. It didn't look like
Speaker 1: it hurt the patient, so it didn't. And it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like the guy was trying to torture him. It
Speaker 1: just seemed like he was being very quick and efficient.
Speaker 1: And he does like cut him at the edge of
Speaker 1: one of his mouth, one of the edges of the
Speaker 1: corner of his mouth. Sorry. Um, so he's eating a
Speaker 1: little bit, but he he doesn't seem like he doesn't
Speaker 1: seem in distressed at all while he's shaving him. At
Speaker 1: the very least, he's not in distress because of the shaving, right,
Speaker 1: But then what happened, Well, there are these at least
Speaker 1: two guards, right, and this is made by the way
Speaker 1: his named Jim. He's probably the most famous character in
Speaker 1: the in the movie or patient. I should say, he's
Speaker 1: not character. Um, he has uh, he's very it's easy
Speaker 1: to get a rise out of Jim as hard as
Speaker 1: Jim tries to not let you get a rise out
Speaker 1: of him. If you press his buttons, he's gonna like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get mad. He's gonna try to contain himself.
Speaker 1: And there were a couple of guards that were guarding
Speaker 1: Jim while he was being like like washed and shaved
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, who just spent the entire scene
Speaker 1: trying to get a rise out of him by saying like,
Speaker 1: why is your room so dirty? Jim? Are you Is
Speaker 1: your room gonna be clean tomorrow? Jim, you gotta keep
Speaker 1: your room clean. Jim just ceaselessly and incessantly, and we
Speaker 1: see eventually when they take him back to his room,
Speaker 1: it's totally empty. There's a window, there's nothing in the room,
Speaker 1: and in fact, Jim has kept naked in his room,
Speaker 1: so there's no way for Jim for Jim's room to
Speaker 1: be dirty, and also for no way for Jim to
Speaker 1: keep his room clean. These guards, you realize, we're just
Speaker 1: trying to get a rise out of Jim, and they
Speaker 1: do over and over again, and it's really hard and
Speaker 1: sad to watch Jim like like just get upset. He's
Speaker 1: trying so hard to just not let these guys get
Speaker 1: to him because he knows what they're doing. He's fully
Speaker 1: aware of what they're doing, and he just can't help himself.
Speaker 1: Probably like five different times he he reacts and then
Speaker 1: tries to regain his composure again. Yeah, it's almost as
Speaker 1: if they're trying to drive him mad. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: also doing I saw somebody describe it as they're they're
Speaker 1: goading him with the kind of like board desensitization or
Speaker 1: de sensitivity of somebody who does this like every day
Speaker 1: and know exactly what he's gonna do and there's no
Speaker 1: fun in it anymore. But they just kind of do
Speaker 1: it to amuse themselves as much as they can from it,
Speaker 1: which is even worse, you know, because there's torturing this
Speaker 1: poor guy mentally. Yeah, and we should point out to that.
Speaker 1: You know, Wiseman showed scenes like this, but it wasn't um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a indictment on the people who work there,
Speaker 1: because he did also show some parts where there was
Speaker 1: some care taken. Um. I mean, what was your like,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the whole thing since college, so what
Speaker 1: was your net net on that? Um? So I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I got from it was that Wiseman
Speaker 1: treats everybody as human and equal in that he's not
Speaker 1: expressing like empathy necessarily, he's not trying to even get
Speaker 1: you to to empathize or sympathize. He's not trying to
Speaker 1: get you to form an opinion. He's just showing you
Speaker 1: what he found. And if he is trying to get
Speaker 1: you to form an opinion, it's so obtuse that it's
Speaker 1: tough to put your finger on. In retrospect, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: you respond exactly the way he wanted you too, but
Speaker 1: he's not very rarely does he like hammer you with it.
Speaker 1: So I feel like he just treats everybody the same.
Speaker 1: Like there's a guy, there's a patient who talks about
Speaker 1: all of the children he's raped, and he he knows
Speaker 1: that it's bad, he knows that it's like that that
Speaker 1: like what he's doing is wrong and he can't help himself. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's like Wiseman makes no effort to make this
Speaker 1: man seem despicable or evil or anything like that. He
Speaker 1: might as well be talking about like a car he's
Speaker 1: thinking about buying for for how Wiseman portrays it, and
Speaker 1: so like if he's treating that guy equal. He's definitely
Speaker 1: treating like the guards and the clinical staff and everybody equally.
Speaker 1: But I think more than that, he just turns the
Speaker 1: camera on and lets them behave as they're going to behave.
Speaker 1: He lets them present themselves to you, rather than him
Speaker 1: trying to manipulate it so that you see what Wiseman
Speaker 1: wants you to see. Yeah, I mean that's the purest
Speaker 1: form of cinema verity, which you know, it's interesting how
Speaker 1: conditioned we are to even hearing uh an ominous musical
Speaker 1: score during a scene where a guy might talk about
Speaker 1: crimes like that. Um, and when all that's stripped away
Speaker 1: like it's it can be like more unsettling, I think
Speaker 1: than hearing that creepy score. It reminds me and this
Speaker 1: is certainly not the same thing, but um. We went
Speaker 1: to a Cleveland Indians baseball game one time when Emily's
Speaker 1: family still lived in Ohio, and it was this throwback
Speaker 1: game where they didn't do any modern things at all,
Speaker 1: and you don't really think about that. You're like, when
Speaker 1: was a baseball game? What do they do? Like? All
Speaker 1: they had was the organ player and the announcer going,
Speaker 1: you know, all up to back number five so and
Speaker 1: so so and so awesome done. You didn't play a
Speaker 1: song when they came up that the batter picked out.
Speaker 1: They didn't have the the home depot hammer and nail
Speaker 1: and shovel chase each other around the field between endings
Speaker 1: in a race. They didn't. You know, there's you don't
Speaker 1: realize when you go to a pro sports game of
Speaker 1: all the extra boy, especially in an NBA game, all
Speaker 1: the extra stuff that's there until it's gone. And it
Speaker 1: was really really weird. I liked it. Our family was like,
Speaker 1: I'm bored, uh, And I was like, I think this
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. They at least oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they sold the stuff and it wasn't throwback prices,
Speaker 1: of course, but it was. It's weird when you're so
Speaker 1: conditioned though, kind of like with film, just to background
Speaker 1: noise and just sort of the things that we hear
Speaker 1: in movies, lighting or or a camera move or you know,
Speaker 1: cinema verite is all about sort of locking that camera
Speaker 1: down or hand holding it. Sometimes when all that artifice
Speaker 1: is gone, it can have a reverse effect that all
Speaker 1: the artifice has, like you're using it for. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think in addition to is added to kind of
Speaker 1: manipulate you emotionally or unconsciously. Um, there's also a lot
Speaker 1: that's removed, a lot of reality that's removed, like like
Speaker 1: the background noise. If they put background noise in, it's
Speaker 1: fully artists. It's not the actual background noise that was
Speaker 1: there when they were filming. That's not what Wiseman does.
Speaker 1: This film is replete with disturbing background noise, like televisions
Speaker 1: that are on that you can't see other people's conversations
Speaker 1: that you can't make out what they're saying. The lighting
Speaker 1: he uses is only the lighting at Bridgewater. He doesn't
Speaker 1: use any of his own light. It's all whatever it's
Speaker 1: called available light. And Yeah, when you when you just
Speaker 1: kind of watch it, you're like, this is just like
Speaker 1: looking in on real life, which makes what you're seeing
Speaker 1: all the more disturbing because in addition to to almost
Speaker 1: being there, you almost feel guilty, especially if you have
Speaker 1: half a conscience of witnessing the stuff that you're seeing,
Speaker 1: because you're seeing some of these people, like like Jim
Speaker 1: when he's taking back to his cell after those guards
Speaker 1: got a rise out of him while he was being shaved.
Speaker 1: He's naked, fully naked, stomping around basically throwing a tantrum, trying.
Speaker 1: You can tell he's trying to calm himself down. This
Speaker 1: is how he's like getting out his his anger, and
Speaker 1: Wiseman just sits there in films the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: you're forced to watch as the viewer. You're I saw
Speaker 1: somebody put it. It's basically like you're the one standing
Speaker 1: in the doorway. Even after the guards have left, you're
Speaker 1: still standing there watching this man in one of the
Speaker 1: probably one of the several worst points of his his
Speaker 1: recent life. UM, just gawking at him, basically, and it's
Speaker 1: it's that's the hard part of it for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or you know, at the other end of the spectrum, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a scene with a guy named Vladimir, and this
Speaker 1: guy is very lucid and he's speaking very clearly about UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I think my my deteriorated since I've been here.
Speaker 1: I think all this noise that you're hearing, all these
Speaker 1: TVs that are always turned on full blast, it's sort
Speaker 1: of driving me crazy. And I would like to go
Speaker 1: back to prison where I actually could work out in
Speaker 1: the gym and I could take classes and this medication
Speaker 1: that they're giving me is making me worse, Like I
Speaker 1: feel that it's harming me. And uh, when he's you know,
Speaker 1: when the guards take him out of the room, then
Speaker 1: there there's a scene of the clinicians like discussing things,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like it sounds like we need
Speaker 1: to up his medication, uh, and his tranquilizers because he's paranoid. Um.
Speaker 1: So when you see something like that, it's sort of
Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum from Jim equally disturbing.
Speaker 1: But part of the beauty of this and the rawness
Speaker 1: of this film is like, these people are all into
Speaker 1: here together. Yeah, he's never lost on you. His is
Speaker 1: a particularly sad case. Yeah, because you can tell, like
Speaker 1: you no, he's he's with it. This guy's he knows
Speaker 1: what he's saying. He's not trying to manipulate. He's pleading
Speaker 1: his case in a logical way. He's trying so hard
Speaker 1: not to get worked up. How would you not get
Speaker 1: worked up when you're when you're pleading your case to
Speaker 1: be released from a mental institution from somebody who's just
Speaker 1: taking you, as you know, nuts, So why should you
Speaker 1: be listened to? There's even um one of the one
Speaker 1: of the medical staff at that meeting. After he leaves
Speaker 1: the room and they're discussing him. Um, she says, uh,
Speaker 1: what did she say? She's like, if you take his
Speaker 1: basic premise as as true, then everything he says from
Speaker 1: that is totally logical. But of course his basic premise
Speaker 1: is total hogwash or whatever. She says something like that.
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing. So it's like that guy never had a chance.
Speaker 1: He just wasted his breath. He just like they were
Speaker 1: they were never going to listen to him, and um,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, yeah, what was he not supposed to be there?
Speaker 1: He was supposed to be there one day? Well yeah,
Speaker 1: but every time he came up for parole he would
Speaker 1: plead his case, they would deny it. And then finally
Speaker 1: in the end he was like, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what I say in here, you're not gonna let
Speaker 1: me out anyway. That's about Morgan Freeman. But that sound
Speaker 1: a little more like Boss Hog on tranquilizers. What yeah,
Speaker 1: that was Boss hogs edated. Oh man, let's hear again. No,
Speaker 1: I can't maybe try can edit that. I can have
Speaker 1: a new mom. Morgan Freeman again, one of the great voices.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he basically says, you know, um institutionalize, You're
Speaker 1: not You're gonna let me out no matter what I say.
Speaker 1: And of course that's when they let him out because
Speaker 1: it's a dramatic film and uh with a great, wonderful
Speaker 1: happy ending, not like to the cut follies. No. One
Speaker 1: other thing that I think we should point out to
Speaker 1: for people who haven't seen the movie, Like we know
Speaker 1: Vladimir's name and Jim's name just because it comes up
Speaker 1: like in discussion, like they're calling him Jim or somebody
Speaker 1: addresses Vladimir's Vladimir. There's no Chiron at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the screen says Vladimir or Jim. There's no no one
Speaker 1: explaining how Jim got here or what Vladimir did. There's
Speaker 1: no nothing, nothing is explained. It's just here's a scene.
Speaker 1: Here's another scene. Here's another scene. Here's another scene. Nothing
Speaker 1: necessarily leads into anything else. There's one part that see
Speaker 1: that Wiseman says he regrets because it was so he
Speaker 1: calls it ham fisted. Where there's it's really hard to watch.
Speaker 1: The main doctor, the main clinician, who's a recurring character
Speaker 1: whose name we have no idea who it is, at
Speaker 1: least if you just watch the movie. Um, he force
Speaker 1: feeds a patient who stopped eating and through with a
Speaker 1: naso gastric tube stuff down his nose all the way
Speaker 1: into his stomach. And this guy is just stoically taking this,
Speaker 1: like he's decided he is not going to eat. They
Speaker 1: even give him a choice, so like, you can drink
Speaker 1: the super you're gonna we're gonna force feed you. And
Speaker 1: he's like, you're gonna have to force feed, but I
Speaker 1: don't even think he says anything. So there's a there's
Speaker 1: a force feeding scene. You watch an emaciated man who's
Speaker 1: starving himself force fed, and um. He intercut that part
Speaker 1: with uh, scenes from the man's preparation for burial to
Speaker 1: kind of show like, you know, he didn't make it,
Speaker 1: he was successful in ending his own life through starvation. Um.
Speaker 1: And then also I think what Wiseman was trying to
Speaker 1: get across was that he was, you know, he's really
Speaker 1: being cared for. He's given like a decent burial and
Speaker 1: like I think eight that he has eight pall bearers
Speaker 1: from the institution and he's like treated very well compared
Speaker 1: especially to this this force feeding through a tube down
Speaker 1: his nose. Um, and Wiseman thought that was a little
Speaker 1: ham fisted. That is, that is the most cinematic part
Speaker 1: of the entire movie. Nothing else is anywhere remotely like that.
Speaker 1: It's all just scene, scene, scenes and scene, and like
Speaker 1: no explanation of who these people are, what they are
Speaker 1: trying to say. All right, should we take a break? Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: we'll take our second break, can be back right after this,
Speaker 1: so before we talk about the sort of court cases
Speaker 1: in the whether or not this film could be banned
Speaker 1: or exhibited. Um, it's interesting you talk about like it's
Speaker 1: just scene scene, scene scene, But um, on the flip
Speaker 1: side of that, it is like a such a carefully
Speaker 1: curated edit from all those hundreds of hours of footage
Speaker 1: down to eighty three minutes. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that Weisseman sort of talked about was he didn't
Speaker 1: apparently he didn't, I don't know if he came around,
Speaker 1: but he didn't even like the term cinema verite because
Speaker 1: he felt it sounded too much like you were shooting
Speaker 1: stuff and putting it in front of people. And he said,
Speaker 1: I am manipulating people. But it's through the edit. Um,
Speaker 1: so while you may not think that, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess he was a master at it, because you probably
Speaker 1: shouldn't feel manipulated. But he's still putting together that that
Speaker 1: careful edit. You know, it's interesting he is a master
Speaker 1: at it, and it's pretty remarkable. This was his first
Speaker 1: film and he was that masterful at it. So um
Speaker 1: I said earlier that it was crucial that he had
Speaker 1: gotten permission to film, and not only from you know,
Speaker 1: the Lieutenant Governor and the Superintendent of Bridgewater, but also
Speaker 1: from everyone he shot. He got either written permission from
Speaker 1: them or verbal permission audio visual I guess, on camera
Speaker 1: them giving him permission to use them in his film.
Speaker 1: So he was covered up in in permission. And don't
Speaker 1: forget he was a law professor to Um. And when
Speaker 1: the movie first came out, when he finished, he showed
Speaker 1: it to the Superintendent of Bridgewater and to the Lieutenant Governor.
Speaker 1: They both apparently liked it, according to Wiseman, But it
Speaker 1: wasn't until the Um the movie came out into wider
Speaker 1: release at the very beginning I think New York Film
Speaker 1: Festival or something like that, and people started responding by saying,
Speaker 1: like this is barbaric this treatment at Bridgewater. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with the state of Massachusetts that they suddenly turned on
Speaker 1: the film and Wiseman had on his hands. Uh what
Speaker 1: would come to become a banned film. Yeah. So one
Speaker 1: of the central players here is Elliott Richardson, who was
Speaker 1: that lieutenant governor you referenced at the time, had loftier
Speaker 1: political aspiration, so when it came time to run for
Speaker 1: an office higher than that, tried to suppress this film,
Speaker 1: thinking it would you know, count against him, and it
Speaker 1: became sort of like Livy calls it a political tool,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it became. And what in Uh, Richardson
Speaker 1: would end up accusing Wiseman of double crossing this eight Uh.
Speaker 1: And it all sort of hinged on the idea, not like, oh,
Speaker 1: you showed these awful things, but it hinged on the
Speaker 1: idea of permissions in privacy was sort of the legal
Speaker 1: framework of it, because the argument was, sure, you might
Speaker 1: have gotten the permission from these men, but um, they
Speaker 1: are in no state to give real permission. And so
Speaker 1: there were a series of court cases over the years
Speaker 1: it sort of debated this like for many many years. Um,
Speaker 1: in sixty eight, it was a judge spirit court judge
Speaker 1: named Harry Callis who found that it breached privacy. And uh,
Speaker 1: this was interesting though, because like I get that as
Speaker 1: a legal basis for argument, but this judge said he
Speaker 1: he kind of attacked the filmmaking process and said it's
Speaker 1: just a hodgepodge of sequences with no narrative and said
Speaker 1: each viewers left to his own devices as to what's
Speaker 1: being portrayed and and in what context. And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: Wiseman's over there going to a day like that's what
Speaker 1: cinema verite is. But um, I thought that was like
Speaker 1: this judge just said you should destroy that should like
Speaker 1: ordered it to be destroyed. Yeah. He also called it
Speaker 1: a nightmare of ghoulish obscenities and so the negative has
Speaker 1: to be burnt. Yeah, And of course Wiseman was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not burning my negative. I'm going to fight this
Speaker 1: an appeal it. That case, by the way, was the
Speaker 1: first one in Massachusetts history where a court affirmed that
Speaker 1: a right to privacy exists, like it had never been
Speaker 1: affirmed in a court case, and it was established in
Speaker 1: that case. So it was it was. It was not
Speaker 1: caught and dried though, because Wiseman has First Amendment right
Speaker 1: to freedom of expression. So it became freedom of expression
Speaker 1: versus freedom of privacy or right to privacy, I should say,
Speaker 1: and um, it's the I think the A c. L
Speaker 1: you got involved and they formed they submitted an amicus
Speaker 1: brief that basically said, we think that this film has value,
Speaker 1: but to a very limited number of people, specifically lawyers, judges,
Speaker 1: law students, medical students, um, psychiatrists, people in those fields
Speaker 1: should be able to see this, and that is about it.
Speaker 1: And so that kind of became the ruling shortly after
Speaker 1: that initial you need to burn the negatives on appeal,
Speaker 1: that's what they came up with. Yeah, and so for
Speaker 1: a number of years after that, for those reasons, Um,
Speaker 1: it was shown in like film class, it was shown
Speaker 1: in medical schools. It was shown, um in the library. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was shown in libraries. That was a great place
Speaker 1: to see something like this, or in Uh, different institutions
Speaker 1: would show this and say this is what not to do,
Speaker 1: like you can't do stuff like this. Uh. There was
Speaker 1: a belief and this was sort of through the seventies
Speaker 1: and then in the eighties some attorneys got involved that
Speaker 1: said there were some suicides at Bridgewater in the mid
Speaker 1: to late eighties, there were some class action lawsuits that
Speaker 1: followed by patients where the attorneys they could draw direct
Speaker 1: line basically between a patient dying by suicide and the
Speaker 1: fact that this film wasn't shown, like it should be
Speaker 1: allowed to be shown for these reasons. Yeah, Like had
Speaker 1: it been shown, there would have been a public outcry
Speaker 1: for more reforms, and that wouldn't have led you know,
Speaker 1: those reforms might have prevented those suicides and at Bridgewater
Speaker 1: and so Wiseman said that he never gave up on
Speaker 1: the film being released to a wider audience, and he
Speaker 1: he saw that that was a good time to bring
Speaker 1: this up again and it actually worked out. Um he
Speaker 1: he got he got a judge to basically say like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is Yes, you should be able to show this,
Speaker 1: but we need to blur the faces of the men
Speaker 1: out and Wiseman said that's impossible. This is film, it's
Speaker 1: not video. And then also work with me here man, right,
Speaker 1: he said, Also, it'll artistically ruin my my um my film,
Speaker 1: which you remember when we did that one guerrilla filming
Speaker 1: in the supermarket, we ended up having to go, I
Speaker 1: can blur every single thing in the supermarket audio show
Speaker 1: for us. I kind of screwed it up a little bit.
Speaker 1: I could see where he's coming from, right, And so
Speaker 1: he appealed again, and finally they said, you know what,
Speaker 1: not a single um inmate at Bridgewater, and none of
Speaker 1: their families has ever filed a formal objection to this
Speaker 1: film being shown, So how about this just show it.
Speaker 1: It's unbanned officially by the early nineties, right, that was
Speaker 1: a ninety one with the Judge Andrew gil Meyer of
Speaker 1: the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. And then after that it
Speaker 1: was still because Wiseman is, like I said earlier, very
Speaker 1: picky about how his films are exhibited, and so it
Speaker 1: wasn't like it was just everywhere. I think PBS aired
Speaker 1: it in ninety three in full. Uh, you could always
Speaker 1: buy the DVD from him, from his website or if
Speaker 1: there was a film festival or a film class. Like
Speaker 1: I said, when I saw it was in college film
Speaker 1: class from a VHS tape that the professor owned. Uh,
Speaker 1: probably bought it from Wiseman Um. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: how it lived its life. I mean, it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: that this like this still is a relevant topic and
Speaker 1: a relevant film and you know, is being talked about today,
Speaker 1: like I think he even tried to or I think
Speaker 1: he's successfully finally got it on a streaming service called
Speaker 1: Canopy with a K, which is also kind of through
Speaker 1: the library system, which is awesome. Yeah, you can watch
Speaker 1: it for free if you sign up for a Canopy
Speaker 1: account with your library card number. Um, you can go
Speaker 1: watch I think all of Wiseman's films all forty eight um,
Speaker 1: which is pretty great. But there's there seems to have
Speaker 1: been um, some direct effects of the film on Bridgewater,
Speaker 1: but still from what from what it sounds like, there's
Speaker 1: still a long way to go with Bridgewater too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they made a lot of strides and then
Speaker 1: they found even as recently as this year, uh that
Speaker 1: um they were using what they call chemical restraints basically
Speaker 1: just opening people up more than they said they were doing.
Speaker 1: So this is ongoing there. And then Weisman, like you said,
Speaker 1: made forty eight films and they had names like hospital
Speaker 1: or high school, and it's just sort of that very
Speaker 1: bare bones cinema verity look at a single topic that's
Speaker 1: uh sort of been his bread and butter. I think
Speaker 1: it's a really cool thing. Yeah, it is really cool.
Speaker 1: He's just fascinated with institutions, although he even says he
Speaker 1: has no idea how they work, and I think he's
Speaker 1: even said he's not quite sure he understands his film himself,
Speaker 1: which is pretty awesome to say. Yeah, and the Poorer
Speaker 1: Films is named after his wife, who passed away a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago at the age of ninety. And he's,
Speaker 1: like you said, still going strong. Yeah. Is what's his
Speaker 1: latest one? Um City Hall? Yeah about Boston City Hall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it came out in pretty cool. Well, if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about Tiddy Cut Follies, you should probably
Speaker 1: go watch it, but be warned it is really rough,
Speaker 1: even though it is great in the term of a
Speaker 1: cinema file would use it. How about that a cinephile
Speaker 1: I always had an extra syllable, So that, of course
Speaker 1: means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this follow up on the effective altruism. One of our
Speaker 1: favorite things is when we talk about a topic and
Speaker 1: someone from that topic gets in touch and as a listener. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's what happened in this case with Grace Adams. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: we are so excited that you covered effective altruism and
Speaker 1: you did so wonderfully. Uh and Grace is with giving
Speaker 1: what we can, giving what we can. Would love to
Speaker 1: give your listeners a free book on effective altruism viewing
Speaker 1: if you include this link in the show notes, which
Speaker 1: we don't have but we'll just say here, people can
Speaker 1: opt to have a free book sent to them, including
Speaker 1: the precipice by Toby Ord anywhere in the world. We
Speaker 1: love sending out books and things is a great way
Speaker 1: for people to engage more with the ideas. Wishing all
Speaker 1: the best from a big personal fan, Grace Adams and
Speaker 1: how I should have made this into a bit LEA
Speaker 1: should have do that real quick, al right, so you
Speaker 1: just talk to people while I do that. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: everybody actually could edit this together. But Toby Ord wrote
Speaker 1: in and said the same thing too. But he also
Speaker 1: said us well wishes and said we did we did
Speaker 1: a good job on the effective Altruism episode, which I
Speaker 1: thought was pretty good because I like to think we're
Speaker 1: fairly fair handed with it. We weren't two over the
Speaker 1: top subjective, don't you think I think so? Although we
Speaker 1: did get one email from someone it's like kind of
Speaker 1: acted like we didn't point out in any of the
Speaker 1: downsides which I disagree with. I disagree with that too,
Speaker 1: But anyway, how's that Bitley, come and chuck. Okay, my friend,
Speaker 1: I am done. I have the bit lee. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you go to bit b I T dot L y
Speaker 1: slash s y s K give, you can get your
Speaker 1: free book. Yes, pretty great free books on effective altruism
Speaker 1: and free books by Toby Ord on existential risks, which
Speaker 1: I mean, come on. Uh. If you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us, like Grace from GiveWell did uh,
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email whether you want to give away free
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