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Speaker 1: Bushkin.

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Speaker 2: Hey friends, Malcolm here. I hope you're enjoying the Development

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Speaker 2: Hell series as much as we are. We've got more

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Speaker 2: great ones in the pipeline. Well, well, we've got our

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Speaker 2: heads in Hollywood and the Oscars coming up this weekend.

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Speaker 2: I want to share a great interview from our friends

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Speaker 2: over at Talk Easy. Sam Fragoso talks with the brilliant

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Speaker 2: New York Times critic Wesley Morris all about this year's

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Speaker 2: Oscar contenders and the movies that should have made the

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Speaker 2: cut but didn't, plus the state of the industry in general.

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Speaker 2: It's a great listen, and don't worry. We'll be back

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Speaker 2: on Thursday with the next episode from Development Hell.

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Speaker 3: This is Talk Easy. I'm stud Forgoso.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 4: Today.

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Speaker 3: I am joined by writer and fellow podcaster Wesley Morris.

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Speaker 3: Since twenty fifteen, Morris has served as the critic at

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Speaker 3: large for The New York Times, where he's also co

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Speaker 3: hosted the popular podcast Still Processing alongside Jay Wortham. While

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Speaker 3: the show has been on hiatus, Wesley has continued publishing

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Speaker 3: searching and often moving essays that explore the intersection of

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Speaker 3: race and pop culture. His work was first awarded the

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Speaker 3: pull to Prize for Criticism in twenty twelve his ten

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Speaker 3: year at The Boston Globe, and then again most recently

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, at the height of the pandemic.

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Speaker 3: But what I think makes his work special, and you'll

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Speaker 3: hear it a fair bit in this conversation is not

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Speaker 3: only his ability to connect the dots or to see

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Speaker 3: the bigger picture, but to do so in real time

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Speaker 3: with readers and listeners alike. Wesley doesn't come to the

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Speaker 3: page or the microphone with the puzzle pre assembled. The

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Speaker 3: pieces of the story or the theory are always there, yes,

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Speaker 3: But the road to a good idea, the discovery process,

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Speaker 3: which can often be vulnerable and vexing, is one he

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Speaker 3: invites us into with wit, wisdom, and warmth. And so

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Speaker 3: this week I want him to sit with Morris on

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Speaker 3: the heels of this year's Academy Award nominations to try

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Speaker 3: to make sense of what these ten films both say

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Speaker 3: and represent about movies in twenty twenty four. Pictures like

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Speaker 3: Barbie Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, the Holdovers, are

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Speaker 3: they a window into the future of cinema or merely

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Speaker 3: a reflection of this precarious moment in Hollywood. We also

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Speaker 3: discuss his early adventures in moviegoing growing up in Philadelphia,

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Speaker 3: the indie boom of the late nineties, the gradual erosion

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Speaker 3: of what he calls the middle brow movie in the

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Speaker 3: wake of Marvel now Mattel, and how the film industry

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Speaker 3: has continued to struggle in its attempts to create a

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Speaker 3: more diverse and equitable ecosystem, both in front and behind

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Speaker 3: the camera. When Wesley accepted his second pull To prize

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, he said, at its most essential,

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Speaker 3: criticism does save people money and it can expose them

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Speaker 3: to new, mind blowing work. It doesn't save lives, but

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Speaker 3: it can give life. And so by the end of

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Speaker 3: this conversation, it's my hope that this episode will do

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Speaker 3: the same for you. And with that, this is Wesleymore.

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Speaker 4: Yes, Hi Westley, Hello Sam, how are you? Thanks for

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Speaker 4: having me?

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Speaker 3: That sounded a little labored?

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Speaker 4: Sounds I mean, this is the year of our Lord,

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. I think we're all in for some labor.

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Speaker 4: If I've sound like this in January, I think you

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Speaker 4: just check with me in eleven months or ten months.

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Speaker 5: And see where I am.

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Speaker 3: Do you want to schedule a time to come back

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Speaker 3: on November fifteenth, twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 4: That guess should not be me. You can do you

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Speaker 4: can do better than me.

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Speaker 3: I think David Remnick has signed up for that slot.

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Speaker 4: Remnick for better or Worse. Oh all right, well, then

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Speaker 4: bring your tissues.

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Speaker 3: We can do a panel. We can do a panel.

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Speaker 4: Have you ever you've never done a panel on this show.

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Speaker 3: Oh, we don't do panels.

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Speaker 4: I mean, that's not how this works.

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Speaker 3: I want to start with maybe less apocalyptic news in

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Speaker 3: the recent Oscar nominations.

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Speaker 4: I mean, it depends on who you're talking.

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Speaker 3: To what we're talking to you, So we're going to

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Speaker 3: start there.

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Speaker 4: I mean it was apocalyptic for Greta Gerwig.

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Speaker 3: Yes, well, we'll have to get into them. In the past,

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Speaker 3: you've called the Oscars quote a diagnosis of the health

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Speaker 3: of the movies and the five the ten films nominated

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Speaker 3: for Best Picture operate as a class that doubles as

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Speaker 3: an x ray of the Academy and the movie business

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Speaker 3: at large. So, now that we have the nominations and

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Speaker 3: the dust has settled a little bit, what is your diagnosis.

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Speaker 4: I was thinking about the pandemic years and the Oscars

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Speaker 4: and all the rule bending that the Academy did in

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Speaker 4: order to not have a show. Moving dates, expanding the

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Speaker 4: release are the sort of eligibility windows what constituted a

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Speaker 4: motion picture. There are all these adjustments the Academy was

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Speaker 4: trying to do in order to keep the show going on,

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Speaker 4: and it was pretty funny because things looked really bad,

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Speaker 4: and how things looked a couple of years ago was

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Speaker 4: that we weren't going to go to the movies again,

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Speaker 4: and every Best Picture nominee was probably going to be

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Speaker 4: watched on a TV by more people than saw it

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Speaker 4: in a movie theater during its initial run. And that

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Speaker 4: is how, in some ways, you wind up with a

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Speaker 4: movie like Coda winning Best Picture, which is the kind

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Speaker 4: of movie where, like, you know, I watched it the

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Speaker 4: way pretty much everybody in the Academy who voted for it,

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Speaker 4: and you just got to think, like with your eyes closed,

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Speaker 4: I liked that movie. And it's funny because I watched

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Speaker 4: it and I knew instantly by the time, like when

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Speaker 4: they go to the audition and she does the song

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Speaker 4: and the family's up in the balcony and you experience

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Speaker 4: it from their point of view, I was like, there's

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Speaker 4: no way in the world this movie does not win

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Speaker 4: the Oscar for Best Picture, it's your winner. I felt

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Speaker 4: like this is what the movies deserve. The movies deserve

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Speaker 4: codea winning Best Picture. The point is I feel comfortable

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Speaker 4: with where we are now versus where we were in

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Speaker 4: two thousand, nineteen to twenty twenty two twenty one, mostly

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Speaker 4: because the movies are better. I think the movie attendance

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Speaker 4: is not as bad as it seemed like it was

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Speaker 4: going to be. You know, it's funny. Coco Goff, in

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Speaker 4: her press conference the other day after she lost to

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Speaker 4: Arena Sablanca in the semifinals of the Australian Open, was

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Speaker 4: talking about how bad, how she wasn't gonna get too

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Speaker 4: down on herself, and she's like, you know, I'm Tomorrow's

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Speaker 4: another day. I'm just gonna go see a movie and

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Speaker 4: say that I didn't do so bad. And I was like,

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Speaker 4: this is a nineteen year old person saying they're gonna

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Speaker 4: cheer up by going to a movie.

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Speaker 3: Incredible.

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Speaker 4: That just kind of kind of gladdened my heart a

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Speaker 4: little bit. It made me feel like it was possibly

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Speaker 4: nineteen eighty nine. And I just think that for one thing.

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Speaker 4: The Best Picture nominees include the two movies that made

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Speaker 4: people believe that movie going was gonna be okay and

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Speaker 4: would survive and would be would remain profitable, and not

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Speaker 4: just it's not just the money, it's also just the

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Speaker 4: cultural lifespan of what Barbie and Oppenheimer managed to do.

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Speaker 4: You know, it created a sort of side imagination in

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Speaker 4: the culture where we could not stop mocking, meaning overthinking, rethinking,

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Speaker 4: defending some aspect of both those movies. And there their

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Speaker 4: Best Picture nominees.

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Speaker 3: Well, let's start with those two, because as the nominations

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Speaker 3: came out, people once again came to the defense of Barbie,

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Speaker 3: in part because Greta Gerrig was not not nominated for

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Speaker 3: Best Director, and also because Margot Robbie was not recognized

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Speaker 3: in the Best Actress category. Even former Secretary Hillary Clinton

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Speaker 3: chimed in on Barbie Gate with the sentence that I'm

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Speaker 3: going to read for you here.

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Speaker 4: Oh I did not know this hit me.

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Speaker 3: She wrote, Greta and Margo, while it can, sting to

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Speaker 3: win the box office but not take home.

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Speaker 4: Oh no, Hillary went there.

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Speaker 3: Let me try to get.

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Speaker 5: Lord.

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Speaker 4: I'm sorry, keep going.

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Speaker 3: Greta and Margo, Oh God, while it can. You know,

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Speaker 3: sometimes being a Democrat is so embarrassing, so embarrassing.

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Speaker 4: But at least Democrats seem to watch things and then

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Speaker 4: have feelings about them. Yes, anyway, just go on.

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Speaker 3: Okay, Greta and Margo take three. Well it can sting

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Speaker 3: to win the box office, but not take home the

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Speaker 3: You're millions of fans love you. You're both so much

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Speaker 3: more than kanough hashtag Hillary Barbie.

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Speaker 4: Oh you know, as Hallmark cards go. I mean, I

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Speaker 4: don't know any other presidential loser who would do a

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Speaker 4: better job, frankly, but Hillary Clinton is more than entitled

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Speaker 4: to look at the results of the Oscar nominations and

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Speaker 4: go to a place. I think that it's a little

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Speaker 4: I've been thinking about, like, well, what do I actually

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Speaker 4: think about the fact that Grete Gerwork's not a Best

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Speaker 4: Director nominee having watched the movie like three days.

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Speaker 3: Ago, And what do you think?

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Speaker 4: Oh? I mean, first of all, I think that Barbie

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Speaker 4: is extremely well made. It's so well made in some

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Speaker 4: ways that you kind of can't believe that the things

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Speaker 4: that are interesting about it are even in the movie.

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Speaker 4: There are avant garde sequences in this movie. There are

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Speaker 4: things that come out of beach movies from the sixties

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Speaker 4: and John Water, and I mean, they are all kinds

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Speaker 4: of influences being pulled from here in a movie that

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Speaker 4: is very funny. There's a line I don't know at

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Speaker 4: some point she wants up in the boardroom. I don't

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Speaker 4: know who's speaking, but at some point the lowly guy

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Speaker 4: who is the only person who is a free thinker

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Speaker 4: in the in the in the Land of Suits doesn't

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Speaker 4: even have a suit. I think he's in a vest

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Speaker 4: or a sweater. He's like, I'm a man with no power.

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Speaker 4: Does that make me a woman? And he meekly asks it.

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Speaker 4: I just think that line is really funny. There's I mean,

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Speaker 4: the speech that the America Ferrara's speech is really good.

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Speaker 4: I think that the big problem with the movie, in

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Speaker 4: a weird way, it's that Ken Ryan Gosling as Ken

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Speaker 4: Is is too good, and it's hard in some ways

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Speaker 4: to not see past what he's doing because it's just

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Speaker 4: so much better and richer and more shaded. There's something

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Speaker 4: underneath that person he's playing, something like he's tapping into

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Speaker 4: it to a pain that's not dissimilar, or or like

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Speaker 4: an aspect of being a particular kind of human that

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Speaker 4: is not dissimilar from what Margot Robbie is finding and

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Speaker 4: she's got like two really good scenes where she's connecting

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Speaker 4: her dullness, that the character's dullness to the character's humanists.

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Speaker 4: But the problem with the Ken thing is that, like

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Speaker 4: the keenness kind of overwhelms the Barbinus in a particular way,

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Speaker 4: but not the sort of politics of the movie itself. Right,

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Speaker 4: the movie's politics are completely intact and very coherent and

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Speaker 4: legible and funny and right in so many ways. I mean, Okay,

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Speaker 4: they're bald, they're a little bit blatant, but there's so

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Speaker 4: much humor to be had. I watched Nine to five

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Speaker 4: and it's so funny those movies. You could play Barbie

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Speaker 4: in nine to five movies that are twenty Sorry, forty

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Speaker 4: four years is a part and nothing really would have

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Speaker 4: changed about them except how much better the filmmaking is.

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Speaker 3: It sounds like you and Hillary are on the same

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Speaker 3: side of history.

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Speaker 4: No, because I mean, I don't think that it's a

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Speaker 4: crime what happened to her. Right, there are nine thousand

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Speaker 4: something voting members in the Academy. They don't nominate the individual.

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Speaker 4: The guilds nominate each other. Right, The craft categories nominate

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Speaker 4: each other. So nine thousand people don't have a say

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Speaker 4: and whether Greg Gurrigg is the Best Director nominee five

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Speaker 4: hundred and maybe sixty or eighty something people do, and

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Speaker 4: they don't really care to see the achievement of what

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Speaker 4: it is that she managed to do. I mean, just

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Speaker 4: the colors alone, I don't like if you look at

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Speaker 4: the color palette of the five Best Picture of the

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Speaker 4: Best Director nominees movies, I mean, hers is the one

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Speaker 4: that you know came from a candy shop, And even

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Speaker 4: that alone is probably a deterrent for an entire class

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Speaker 4: of director's branch member. It isn't explicitly her being a woman,

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Speaker 4: but it's her interests as a woman that are kind

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Speaker 4: of alien. I mean, she should have been nominated for

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Speaker 4: Little Women, and it wasn't. But you know, this is her,

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Speaker 4: like all three of her movies have been Best Picture nominees,

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Speaker 4: as all three of her movies as a director have

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Speaker 4: been Best Picture nominees, and they've all been screenplay nominees.

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Speaker 4: She'll probably win. She and NOELH. Bambach will probably win

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Speaker 4: in the in the adapted in the hilarious adapted screenplay category.

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Speaker 4: I don't know what this movie's adapted from.

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Speaker 3: When we look at these ten films nominated and how

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Speaker 3: they are, as you say, an x ray of the industry.

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Speaker 3: I wonder if we can't divide the list into three groups,

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Speaker 3: because the first one to me are historical dramas that

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Speaker 3: have arrived at the right place and the right time

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Speaker 3: and speak to the country we live in and the

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Speaker 3: politics of the moment. Those are Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan,

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Speaker 3: Killers of Flower Moon by Scorsese, and Zone of Interest

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Speaker 3: by Jonathan Glazer. Oppenheimer is the prohibitive favorite. But what

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Speaker 3: in that cluster stands out to you?

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Speaker 4: I mean, it's funny. I think all these movies operate,

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Speaker 4: I should say, in different moods. Alphabetically. We'll start with

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Speaker 4: Killers of the Flower Moon. I think Killers of Flower

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Speaker 4: Moon is a perversely effective movie. It's a weird movie

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Speaker 4: for more in Scorsese, because it's not a lot of

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Speaker 4: his priorities aren't apparent. A lot of his typical priorities

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Speaker 4: aren't parent orlthough they're not four grounded in this movie.

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Speaker 4: He's not interested in acting here. It's one of the

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Speaker 4: rare instances to me in which his interest in acting

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Speaker 4: and actors is kind of secondary to the politics and

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Speaker 4: the sort of thematic urgency of what it is he's

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Speaker 4: trying to do. I am not surprised that Lenardo DiCaprio

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Speaker 4: is not a Best Actor nominee. For instance, if we're

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Speaker 4: going to keep this in the realm of the Academy Awards,

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Speaker 4: this is maybe his least convincing performance of the of

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Speaker 4: you know, all the ones he's given in Scorsese movies alone.

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Speaker 4: This is an impossible part to play. He's playing a

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Speaker 4: truly stupid person who is also truly in love and

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Speaker 4: truly evil, easily duped into doing horrible things to people.

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Speaker 3: On that I want to play a little bit of

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Speaker 3: this clip featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and actress Lily Gladstone and

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Speaker 3: the new film Killers of the Flower Mountain.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a listen. Why did you come here for?

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Speaker 6: What?

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Speaker 3: To live here?

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Speaker 6: Yes?

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Speaker 4: I'll live here?

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Speaker 3: Why?

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Speaker 4: Oh? From my uncle.

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Speaker 1: William?

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Speaker 5: Your brother is Brian Byron. That's right, you're scared of him?

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Speaker 4: My brother?

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Speaker 3: Who your uncle?

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Speaker 4: Well? No, oh, he's a He's a king of the

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Speaker 4: o Sage heels.

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Speaker 5: He's the nicest man.

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Speaker 4: In the world. I know if you cross him, what

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Speaker 4: he can do mm hmm.

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Speaker 7: No.

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Speaker 5: I'm my own man.

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Speaker 4: I do my own work.

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Speaker 5: I'm a businessman.

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Speaker 4: In a weird way. The thing that sort of comes

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Speaker 4: through in this movie to me is the thing that

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Speaker 4: in reading January sixth reports really leapt out at me,

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Speaker 4: which is like all the people who stormed the capitol,

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Speaker 4: who were like, I don't know, oh, I was just

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Speaker 4: following the crowd, and the crowd went up the steps

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Speaker 4: and into the capitol, So I did. And this movie

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Speaker 4: is really to me about so I did. It's people

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Speaker 4: sort of betraying their own souls, selling their souls, I mean,

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Speaker 4: and really for nothing, honestly for nothing. I mean it's land,

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Speaker 4: but I mean there's land everywhere for oil. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I don't know, go find some oil with some land

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Speaker 4: on it. I mean the movie is steeped in such

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Speaker 4: such incredible, vivid pettiness. But I would say, god, you know,

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think that the Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer doesn't really

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Speaker 4: interest me as a movie, And part of it is

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Speaker 4: it doesn't really feel like it's living. I felt like

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Speaker 4: Oppenheimer to me was a series of talking heads. The

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Speaker 4: movie isn't really asking any questions. It's just recapitulating, and

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Speaker 4: the recapitulation just never got me as filmmaking. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I don't know, I just sort of feel like the

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Speaker 4: introduction of the communist end of things was way more,

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Speaker 4: was more than the movie necessarily needed. And I feel

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Speaker 4: like if you're gonna do that, you kind of have

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Speaker 4: to make Oppenheimer more of who he actually was to

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Speaker 4: the culture. I mean, there was a period during which

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Speaker 4: he was an extremely famous American and lots of people

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Speaker 4: admired the turn that he took away from the building

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Speaker 4: of the bomb and his outspokenness against it. So all

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Speaker 4: the stuff with Lewis Strauss and the McCarthy hearings, I

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Speaker 4: just feel like there's a bridge from the creation of

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Speaker 4: the bomb to those hearings that's missing. And it can't

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Speaker 4: be that it's Albert Einstein on the lawn with a pipe.

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Speaker 3: I actually liked the film, but I mean, when you

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Speaker 3: describe it like that, I don't even know how I

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Speaker 3: like it because I was moved by the Albert Einstein

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Speaker 3: with the pipe.

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Speaker 4: Well, let's talk about that, Like what got you? What

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Speaker 4: I mean, I always what about the movie worked for you?

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Speaker 3: There's a lot that got Okay. I feel probably the

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Speaker 3: same as you about him, which is it's pretty hit

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Speaker 3: or miss and mileage varies. And I don't like the

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Speaker 3: movies that seem to feel soulless, and I felt that

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Speaker 3: this one did have a kind of beating heart, an

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Speaker 3: emotion that I had not found in Dunkirk or Interstellar.

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Speaker 3: Oh sure, none of those. So I was moved by it.

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Speaker 3: But I want to ask you, because the second group

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Speaker 3: that I had divided for us is Barbie and Maestro,

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Speaker 3: both our actors turned directors. Both are making big, ambitious

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Speaker 3: films that are kind of upending the genre that they're

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Speaker 3: working in. Even in time. This week there was an

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Speaker 3: article by Stephanie Zacharach titled Greta Gerwick, Bradley Cooper and

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Speaker 3: This Strange Curse of Ambition. Do those two pictures feel

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Speaker 3: linked to you?

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Speaker 4: I feel like Maestro solves a lot of the problems

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Speaker 4: that I have with biographical movie making. I did not

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Speaker 4: need a movie about Leonard Bernstein. But I think the

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Speaker 4: reason that it works as well as it does is

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Speaker 4: because the movie really isn't about Leonard Bernstein. I mean,

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Speaker 4: let's just talk about the movie formally for a second.

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Speaker 4: I mean, it spans time, there are shifts in aspect ratio,

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Speaker 4: which if you do that, you know you have my heart.

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Speaker 4: But it also is really I mean, the movie is

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Speaker 4: being sold to us as being about a marriage, and

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Speaker 4: I don't really know if I mean, it's not about

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Speaker 4: a marriage. It's about a man's behavior's effect on a

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Speaker 4: marriage and all of its impulses. To avoid showing Leonard

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Speaker 4: Bernstein really doing the thing that makes him one of

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Speaker 4: the great Americans of the twentieth century, and to focus

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Speaker 4: on his energy, his insatiable, unquenchable thirst for all kinds

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Speaker 4: of things and people, his unembarrassability, and it's I guess

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Speaker 4: it's shamelessness, his shamelessness. I don't know. I just love

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Speaker 4: that It wasn't a love letter to Leonard Bernstein. It

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Speaker 4: was a real portrait of an asshole, and the asshole

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Speaker 4: happens to be a musical genius. But the movie isn't

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Speaker 4: about what a musical genius it is. It's actually about

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Speaker 4: what an asshole he is.

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Speaker 3: Definitely, it's definitely not about what a genius is.

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Speaker 4: And I actually liked that, and in that way it

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Speaker 4: kind of frees the movie to be whatever it is.

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Speaker 4: The person who made it want it to be and

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Speaker 4: I also feel that way. I mean, it's funny because

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Speaker 4: now that you put me in this position, like I mean,

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Speaker 4: I think Barbie is also doing a similar thing. Where

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Speaker 4: at no point in watching it, although at every moment

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Speaker 4: up until the point I actually saw the movie, did

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Speaker 4: I think that Greta Gerwig was beholden to Mattel and

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Speaker 4: doing its bidding. She clearly had thought about had had

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Speaker 4: some connection to not only the dolls, but like the

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Speaker 4: politics of girlhood itself and the politics of the evolution

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Speaker 4: of girlhood into womanhood. I think that there is such

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Speaker 4: a struggle happening in that movie that's about living with

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Speaker 4: the capitalist impulse to own, consume, buy things that are

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Speaker 4: not in your political or in some cases onto logical

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Speaker 4: self interest, things that are designed to oppress, dehumanize, demotivate,

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Speaker 4: even when you start putting glasses on them in lab

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Speaker 4: coats and give them clipboards and stuff. I don't know.

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Speaker 4: There's a real conflict here about what it means to

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Speaker 4: have a consumerist girlhood. And I thought it was so

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Speaker 4: smart to invent the America fer Our character finding herself

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Speaker 4: estranged from her daughter. There's so many layers of conflict

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Speaker 4: here that are sort of Barbie adjacent but entirely human.

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Speaker 4: Part of the reason that, like, you know, if you're

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Speaker 4: some serious filmmaker from Japan or I don't know, some

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Speaker 4: other part of the world and you are looking at

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Speaker 4: this movie and you like have to say the words

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Speaker 4: Barbie Land, I can see you being like, I don't

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Speaker 4: know whose movie really is this, but to me, it

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Speaker 4: is entirely Greta Gerwig's. I mean, it's like this movie

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Speaker 4: is of a piece with Ladybird and little Women, and

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Speaker 4: they're all dealing with the same themes of girls and

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Speaker 4: mothers and cummings of age of various sorts, the arrival

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Speaker 4: at womanhood, even if you have been invented to automatically

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Speaker 4: look like a woman, which to me, he aligns Barbie

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Speaker 4: more with poor things than Maestro. I can think of

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Speaker 4: very few better examples of how to both integrate and

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Speaker 4: subvert corporate interests into your a tour sensibility than Barbie.

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Speaker 3: I think Greta should have had you on the campaign

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Speaker 3: trail with her.

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Speaker 5: Ha ha ha.

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Speaker 4: It's funny because I don't really I think a lot

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Speaker 4: about these awards. I've been thinking about these awards that

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Speaker 4: the Oscars, especially since I was six years old, seven

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Speaker 4: years old, and it always just seemed so final and binding,

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Speaker 4: you know, these certificates of bestness. And now that I'm older,

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Speaker 4: I can see in it the kind of bogusness of it.

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Speaker 4: I mean, the thing that like everybody always knows about.

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Speaker 4: It's like it's like I discovered that Santa Claus is

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Speaker 4: also my dad, my very human, extremely fallible dad, who

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Speaker 4: also just wants me to not have my fantasy disturbed

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Speaker 4: about where the grifts, where the gifts come from.

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Speaker 3: But the Wesley at boarding school who walked around with

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Speaker 3: a contraband walkman listening to the nominees. This person believed

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Speaker 3: in the oscars.

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Speaker 4: Ah, I did, I mean, and I still I mean,

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Speaker 4: I guess professionally now I do still believe in the

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Speaker 4: oscars because they're important and in the ways that you

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Speaker 4: said when we started this conversation, I mean, I still

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Speaker 4: believe that they're an important framing mechanism for now, not

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Speaker 4: just American movies, really just like the American stop on

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Speaker 4: the movie station, the global movie station.

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Speaker 3: After the break. More from Wesley Morris. You know, there's

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Speaker 3: a way in which any discussion about these movies or

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Speaker 3: contemporary cinema in general turns into an elegy for the

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Speaker 3: medium itself, and so in that spirit, I want to

434
00:27:31,516 --> 00:27:35,396
Speaker 3: understand exactly what we may be losing by talking about

435
00:27:35,476 --> 00:27:40,036
Speaker 3: what we had, or what specifically you had, because growing

436
00:27:40,116 --> 00:27:42,876
Speaker 3: up you went to boarding school much like the characters

437
00:27:42,876 --> 00:27:48,676
Speaker 3: in The Holdovers in North Philadelphia. Okay, it was this

438
00:27:48,876 --> 00:27:52,996
Speaker 3: enclosed campus with giant walls, but eventually you were able

439
00:27:52,996 --> 00:27:54,876
Speaker 3: to go back home on the weekends and stay with

440
00:27:54,956 --> 00:27:58,756
Speaker 3: your mother, Judith, and I think it's with her in

441
00:27:58,796 --> 00:28:02,796
Speaker 3: that house that your love of movies was born. Because

442
00:28:03,116 --> 00:28:08,156
Speaker 3: your parents got a VCR and then two video store memberships,

443
00:28:08,156 --> 00:28:12,596
Speaker 3: one Blockbuster and one to West Coast Video. What did

444
00:28:12,636 --> 00:28:17,116
Speaker 3: that early fascination look and feel like to you?

445
00:28:17,116 --> 00:28:20,076
Speaker 4: You were discovering that there was a world that was

446
00:28:20,116 --> 00:28:21,916
Speaker 4: bigger than the world you were living in. It was

447
00:28:21,996 --> 00:28:24,156
Speaker 4: very different from the world you were living in. The

448
00:28:24,156 --> 00:28:27,836
Speaker 4: school that I went to, we'd group movies and we'd

449
00:28:27,876 --> 00:28:31,436
Speaker 4: watch this movie called Digby the something Wonder Dog or something,

450
00:28:31,436 --> 00:28:33,796
Speaker 4: I don't know. It was about a giant dog and

451
00:28:33,876 --> 00:28:37,276
Speaker 4: I was like, Wow, they made this shaggy dog really big.

452
00:28:37,556 --> 00:28:40,516
Speaker 4: I don't know. There was just something about seeing with

453
00:28:40,596 --> 00:28:46,196
Speaker 4: your own eyes someone imagine other ways of being or

454
00:28:46,236 --> 00:28:49,596
Speaker 4: other options for life that just, I don't know, it

455
00:28:49,756 --> 00:28:52,876
Speaker 4: just really captivated me. I mean it's the same experience

456
00:28:52,916 --> 00:28:56,196
Speaker 4: I had becoming a reader, but this was a different

457
00:28:56,236 --> 00:28:59,356
Speaker 4: thing because you, in a weird way, it's kind of

458
00:28:59,396 --> 00:29:04,116
Speaker 4: preimagined for you. And then you can take this thing,

459
00:29:04,276 --> 00:29:07,196
Speaker 4: these images that you've been given and sort of rethink

460
00:29:07,236 --> 00:29:10,716
Speaker 4: what their meetings are and and how they relate to

461
00:29:10,756 --> 00:29:13,796
Speaker 4: your life or don't relate to your life, or you know,

462
00:29:13,956 --> 00:29:16,236
Speaker 4: have nothing to do with relating to anything. It's just

463
00:29:16,276 --> 00:29:18,956
Speaker 4: a world that exists and you don't You'll never really

464
00:29:18,996 --> 00:29:20,996
Speaker 4: be a part of it. But it's great to think

465
00:29:20,996 --> 00:29:22,156
Speaker 4: about every once in a while.

466
00:29:22,396 --> 00:29:26,316
Speaker 3: But like Cocoa Goff on her off day, you in

467
00:29:26,396 --> 00:29:30,796
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven seeing Fatal Attraction five times in a theater?

468
00:29:31,636 --> 00:29:33,916
Speaker 3: What did that do for like an eleven year old

469
00:29:34,476 --> 00:29:36,356
Speaker 3: Wesley Morris, it was.

470
00:29:36,356 --> 00:29:39,436
Speaker 4: A I probably it turned twelve by the fifth time,

471
00:29:39,476 --> 00:29:41,796
Speaker 4: because I'm my birthdays in December, so I was probably

472
00:29:41,836 --> 00:29:46,476
Speaker 4: eleven and twelve. There's just nothing that like operates like

473
00:29:46,516 --> 00:29:48,996
Speaker 4: this now, like where you were, It's something a movie

474
00:29:49,076 --> 00:29:52,076
Speaker 4: really is a like that movie is a straight up

475
00:29:52,156 --> 00:29:56,556
Speaker 4: contraption right, Like, you get on the ride and very

476
00:29:56,636 --> 00:29:59,516
Speaker 4: slowly you go up and up and up the incline,

477
00:29:59,956 --> 00:30:01,996
Speaker 4: and then at some point you reach a peak and

478
00:30:01,996 --> 00:30:03,956
Speaker 4: it just drops you off. And the movie is so

479
00:30:04,516 --> 00:30:07,356
Speaker 4: blatantly aware of what it is that it throws in

480
00:30:07,436 --> 00:30:11,396
Speaker 4: an actual roller coaster sequence. Right, there's an actual ride

481
00:30:11,436 --> 00:30:15,196
Speaker 4: in the movie, and it's perverse in that way. And

482
00:30:15,276 --> 00:30:17,876
Speaker 4: I sort of loved the perversity of it. I loved that,

483
00:30:18,076 --> 00:30:23,516
Speaker 4: like you were watching adult behavior that is recognizably adult. Like,

484
00:30:23,556 --> 00:30:27,316
Speaker 4: I didn't watch that movie and want to fuck Michael Douglas.

485
00:30:27,556 --> 00:30:32,316
Speaker 4: I just knew, though, that there was a power in attraction, right,

486
00:30:32,356 --> 00:30:37,236
Speaker 4: There was a power in two people meeting and responding

487
00:30:37,596 --> 00:30:40,476
Speaker 4: to the desire that they felt for each other.

488
00:30:44,716 --> 00:30:48,516
Speaker 1: Can I ask you something? Why don't you have a

489
00:30:48,596 --> 00:30:52,396
Speaker 1: date to night Saturday night? I stood him up. That

490
00:30:52,516 --> 00:30:58,716
Speaker 1: was this long call I made that might keep feel good,

491
00:31:01,276 --> 00:31:02,436
Speaker 1: doesn't make me feel bad.

492
00:31:05,596 --> 00:31:07,116
Speaker 6: So where's your wife?

493
00:31:08,196 --> 00:31:09,636
Speaker 1: Where's my wife?

494
00:31:12,396 --> 00:31:18,676
Speaker 4: My wife is in the country with her parents visiting weekend, and.

495
00:31:18,636 --> 00:31:20,916
Speaker 8: You're here with a strange girl being a naughty boy.

496
00:31:21,276 --> 00:31:23,516
Speaker 1: I don't think having dinner with anybody's a crime.

497
00:31:25,156 --> 00:31:30,596
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's right around that time when the

498
00:31:30,596 --> 00:31:33,636
Speaker 3: film comes out that you write your first review. It's

499
00:31:33,676 --> 00:31:36,476
Speaker 3: in the eighth grade. It's an assignment given to you

500
00:31:36,516 --> 00:31:40,436
Speaker 3: by a social studies teacher named John Kozemple. You write

501
00:31:40,436 --> 00:31:43,156
Speaker 3: that review in eighth grade. You continue writing through high school.

502
00:31:43,676 --> 00:31:46,756
Speaker 3: You go to Yale in the late nineties, you graduate,

503
00:31:46,876 --> 00:31:49,556
Speaker 3: you quickly land a job at the Examiner. Then the Chronicle.

504
00:31:50,276 --> 00:31:53,796
Speaker 3: Movies are at a pretty fascinating place. At that point,

505
00:31:53,996 --> 00:31:56,916
Speaker 3: there's a wave of young independent filmmakers and thinking about

506
00:31:56,956 --> 00:32:01,396
Speaker 3: Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Steven Soderberg, Tarantino. Those are

507
00:32:01,396 --> 00:32:03,436
Speaker 3: just the white straight men, but there's many more.

508
00:32:05,436 --> 00:32:07,236
Speaker 4: Those are some pretty good white street men.

509
00:32:08,316 --> 00:32:10,676
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, year. Let mean, you know, back at

510
00:32:10,676 --> 00:32:13,836
Speaker 3: the late nineties, you had Booge Knights, you had Rushmore,

511
00:32:13,956 --> 00:32:16,076
Speaker 3: you had Out of Sight, you had Jackie Brown. But

512
00:32:16,156 --> 00:32:19,636
Speaker 3: when you hold this period in cinema, especially when you

513
00:32:19,676 --> 00:32:23,676
Speaker 3: started writing professionally, did you see it as something that

514
00:32:23,716 --> 00:32:28,196
Speaker 3: would continue to expand. Did you think that the form

515
00:32:28,316 --> 00:32:31,796
Speaker 3: would continue to evolve or did it feel like perhaps

516
00:32:31,876 --> 00:32:35,556
Speaker 3: movies were peaking in the late nineties early two thousands.

517
00:32:35,876 --> 00:32:38,956
Speaker 4: I don't know that I felt that. I definitely knew

518
00:32:38,996 --> 00:32:42,756
Speaker 4: that something like the year nineteen ninety nine, which has

519
00:32:42,836 --> 00:32:44,796
Speaker 4: been acknowledged has been a great movie year. It was

520
00:32:44,836 --> 00:32:48,436
Speaker 4: clear in nineteen ninety nine itself, how good a movie

521
00:32:48,516 --> 00:32:51,916
Speaker 4: year that was. I didn't think that there couldn't have

522
00:32:51,996 --> 00:32:56,036
Speaker 4: been like another year that was as good as ninety nine,

523
00:32:56,076 --> 00:32:58,716
Speaker 4: and there's probably there. I mean, two thousand and eight

524
00:32:58,916 --> 00:33:01,956
Speaker 4: was also a really good year for movies too. I mean,

525
00:33:02,036 --> 00:33:03,956
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight I think is also the year

526
00:33:03,996 --> 00:33:05,156
Speaker 4: that Ironman comes out.

527
00:33:06,876 --> 00:33:10,516
Speaker 3: Iron Man to me is the beginning of that sea change.

528
00:33:10,996 --> 00:33:13,636
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean, I mean the reason to mention

529
00:33:13,756 --> 00:33:15,876
Speaker 4: it at all is that it is the beginning. It's

530
00:33:15,916 --> 00:33:19,276
Speaker 4: definitely the beginning of what we what people call the

531
00:33:19,316 --> 00:33:20,676
Speaker 4: Marvel cinematic universe.

532
00:33:20,796 --> 00:33:22,876
Speaker 3: Two thousand and eight was a fraught year in general,

533
00:33:23,156 --> 00:33:24,036
Speaker 3: I'd say.

534
00:33:24,076 --> 00:33:28,436
Speaker 4: Oh well, I mean yes, in that movie itself is

535
00:33:28,476 --> 00:33:32,716
Speaker 4: a depiction of Afghanistan that is kind of troubling, right,

536
00:33:33,116 --> 00:33:36,316
Speaker 4: like the way it kind of runs rough shot over

537
00:33:36,356 --> 00:33:39,996
Speaker 4: the war essentially, But it's clear it was clear at

538
00:33:39,996 --> 00:33:42,396
Speaker 4: that moment, by two thousand and eight at least, that

539
00:33:42,556 --> 00:33:46,596
Speaker 4: like things were changing in all kinds of ways, right,

540
00:33:46,756 --> 00:33:52,196
Speaker 4: I mean, Obama's election is the beginning of this divergence,

541
00:33:52,556 --> 00:33:56,476
Speaker 4: right where like some people saw a glorious horizon and

542
00:33:56,516 --> 00:33:58,596
Speaker 4: some people saw the end of the world. It just

543
00:33:59,396 --> 00:34:01,796
Speaker 4: is a pivotal year. But I also think that in

544
00:34:01,876 --> 00:34:05,996
Speaker 4: terms of movies, again, like the forces of capitalism were

545
00:34:06,316 --> 00:34:10,196
Speaker 4: much stronger than the forces of culture and the idea

546
00:34:10,236 --> 00:34:12,836
Speaker 4: that Iron Man. You could take a movie like Iron Man,

547
00:34:12,876 --> 00:34:15,716
Speaker 4: although it's hardly the first example of this, but like

548
00:34:16,076 --> 00:34:19,916
Speaker 4: you could just play it everywhere, and then you could

549
00:34:19,916 --> 00:34:22,836
Speaker 4: start making versions of these movies where you would cater

550
00:34:23,036 --> 00:34:26,636
Speaker 4: to the places whose money you wanted most, because if

551
00:34:26,756 --> 00:34:28,436
Speaker 4: you know, in the case of China, it just has

552
00:34:28,476 --> 00:34:32,836
Speaker 4: the most people. So you start doing what the Chinese

553
00:34:32,876 --> 00:34:33,716
Speaker 4: government wants.

554
00:34:33,556 --> 00:34:34,596
Speaker 3: You to do to these movies.

555
00:34:35,196 --> 00:34:38,916
Speaker 4: It just, I don't know, it's like something you lose something,

556
00:34:38,956 --> 00:34:42,356
Speaker 4: and right, like the thing that that tially got lost

557
00:34:42,796 --> 00:34:46,356
Speaker 4: was a whole class of movies that just wouldn't get

558
00:34:46,396 --> 00:34:48,956
Speaker 4: made anymore. I mean we're talking about like the entire

559
00:34:49,236 --> 00:34:52,796
Speaker 4: middle of the American movie going ecosystem. I mean, you

560
00:34:52,796 --> 00:34:55,316
Speaker 4: look at these Best Picture nominees in two thousand for

561
00:34:55,356 --> 00:34:59,956
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three, and really the only one of these

562
00:35:00,596 --> 00:35:04,156
Speaker 4: that I can see being something that would have come

563
00:35:04,196 --> 00:35:09,036
Speaker 4: out in May and like had no real Oscar aspiration

564
00:35:09,716 --> 00:35:12,156
Speaker 4: except for the fact that it was made by Alexander Paine,

565
00:35:12,156 --> 00:35:14,196
Speaker 4: who's been nominated for a bunch of Oscars. Is the

566
00:35:14,236 --> 00:35:17,356
Speaker 4: holdovers the rest of these movies. I mean, I guess

567
00:35:17,396 --> 00:35:20,116
Speaker 4: Barbie is kind of innocent of this. And Oppenheimer, to

568
00:35:20,196 --> 00:35:22,836
Speaker 4: its credit, did open in the middle of summer. And

569
00:35:22,916 --> 00:35:25,156
Speaker 4: it's not that these other movies are guilty, but I mean,

570
00:35:25,196 --> 00:35:30,076
Speaker 4: it's more like these movies would have been recognizable in

571
00:35:30,156 --> 00:35:34,476
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty seven. Is movies bound for Academy Awards in

572
00:35:34,516 --> 00:35:36,516
Speaker 4: one way or another, whether it was the intent of

573
00:35:36,556 --> 00:35:39,676
Speaker 4: the studio or the thing or a thing the Academy

574
00:35:39,716 --> 00:35:42,436
Speaker 4: couldn't resist. But if you look at a year like

575
00:35:42,516 --> 00:35:45,956
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty eight and what was nominated for Best Picture,

576
00:35:46,076 --> 00:35:47,756
Speaker 4: and I'm going to try to do this off the

577
00:35:47,756 --> 00:35:50,516
Speaker 4: top of my head, it was like the Accidental Tourist.

578
00:35:53,756 --> 00:35:56,996
Speaker 4: What the fuck? It's like a travel writer who was

579
00:35:57,076 --> 00:36:00,796
Speaker 4: getting a divorce and starts having a relationship with a

580
00:36:00,796 --> 00:36:03,516
Speaker 4: woman who walks his dog or trains his dog. Best

581
00:36:03,556 --> 00:36:09,756
Speaker 4: Picture nominee Dangerous Liaisons, costume drama about two people manipulating

582
00:36:09,756 --> 00:36:12,236
Speaker 4: each other because they can't have sex with each other anymore,

583
00:36:12,916 --> 00:36:17,156
Speaker 4: what Mississippi Mississippi Burning. I don't even know if that

584
00:36:17,236 --> 00:36:19,556
Speaker 4: movie would get made now. Given his point of view,

585
00:36:19,636 --> 00:36:24,716
Speaker 4: which is the FBI rain Man, the winner, would that

586
00:36:24,756 --> 00:36:27,156
Speaker 4: movie would definitely not get made now. It just would

587
00:36:27,196 --> 00:36:29,516
Speaker 4: like that style of movie just does not exist. It's

588
00:36:29,516 --> 00:36:33,116
Speaker 4: not based on real people. You have Dustin Hoffman playing

589
00:36:33,116 --> 00:36:35,596
Speaker 4: an autistic person. I don't know how that would go

590
00:36:35,636 --> 00:36:36,156
Speaker 4: over now.

591
00:36:36,276 --> 00:36:38,236
Speaker 3: And the last one was Working Girl.

592
00:36:38,476 --> 00:36:43,116
Speaker 4: My favorite of the five. I love Working Girl. And

593
00:36:43,196 --> 00:36:45,716
Speaker 4: again a movie that just wouldn't get made now. It

594
00:36:45,756 --> 00:36:49,556
Speaker 4: would probably show up on some streaming service, maybe even

595
00:36:49,596 --> 00:36:52,796
Speaker 4: in six parts or something. It would be a show.

596
00:36:52,916 --> 00:36:55,436
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean eighty eight, it's an interesting year.

597
00:36:55,476 --> 00:36:58,076
Speaker 4: I mean you could, you could do this like across,

598
00:36:58,116 --> 00:37:01,316
Speaker 4: but not one of those movies, of those five movies,

599
00:37:01,836 --> 00:37:05,356
Speaker 4: is a movie that's screaming. Nominate me for a bunch

600
00:37:05,396 --> 00:37:10,196
Speaker 4: of oscars, maybe dangerously aisons, but even that movie is

601
00:37:10,236 --> 00:37:13,636
Speaker 4: so weirdly done. I mean, John Malkovich is the is

602
00:37:13,716 --> 00:37:19,636
Speaker 4: the sex interest in that film. Glenn Close is you know,

603
00:37:19,836 --> 00:37:22,076
Speaker 4: still at her at her, you know, movie star Peak

604
00:37:23,596 --> 00:37:25,836
Speaker 4: is the other you know, sex star of that movie,

605
00:37:25,876 --> 00:37:28,236
Speaker 4: which makes sense given that it comes after fatal attraction.

606
00:37:28,356 --> 00:37:32,476
Speaker 4: There was real interest in her, there was real belief

607
00:37:32,556 --> 00:37:36,476
Speaker 4: in her erotic power because she actually had erotic power.

608
00:37:37,276 --> 00:37:42,396
Speaker 4: Those movies just don't get made now. And I'm not nostalgic.

609
00:37:42,516 --> 00:37:47,356
Speaker 4: I'm actually angry right because there's a whole realm. There

610
00:37:47,356 --> 00:37:51,636
Speaker 4: are whole realms of human experience, of American life, American

611
00:37:51,836 --> 00:37:54,556
Speaker 4: regional life. There are places we don't see in movies

612
00:37:54,596 --> 00:37:56,676
Speaker 4: anymore that you used to see all the time in movies.

613
00:37:57,276 --> 00:38:01,156
Speaker 4: Places the movies just don't go. You're either in la

614
00:38:01,356 --> 00:38:03,556
Speaker 4: or you're in New York, or you're in outer space

615
00:38:03,956 --> 00:38:08,676
Speaker 4: or wherever Nick Fury lives, or you're in the past. Right,

616
00:38:08,836 --> 00:38:11,596
Speaker 4: you're the deep past during the past in order to

617
00:38:11,636 --> 00:38:15,036
Speaker 4: not be in the present. And one of the things

618
00:38:15,116 --> 00:38:18,276
Speaker 4: about Killers of the Flower Moon that I love is

619
00:38:18,316 --> 00:38:21,756
Speaker 4: that it's so aware that it's being made in twenty

620
00:38:21,796 --> 00:38:25,516
Speaker 4: twenty four or twenty twenty three. It's so much about

621
00:38:26,196 --> 00:38:31,516
Speaker 4: looking at these incidents with the osage from the vantage

622
00:38:32,396 --> 00:38:37,116
Speaker 4: of its present, of that of the filmmaker's present.

623
00:38:37,956 --> 00:38:40,556
Speaker 3: I think the thesis here is what we've lost is

624
00:38:40,596 --> 00:38:44,396
Speaker 3: the middle of movies. What we've lost is the drama

625
00:38:44,916 --> 00:38:49,836
Speaker 3: or the comedy that has no Great Aspirations was not

626
00:38:49,956 --> 00:38:52,276
Speaker 3: made to win a bunch of awards or be nominated

627
00:38:52,276 --> 00:38:55,356
Speaker 3: for awards. I want to try to unpack how and

628
00:38:55,396 --> 00:38:59,356
Speaker 3: why we're here. Do you see any parallels between the

629
00:38:59,396 --> 00:39:03,316
Speaker 3: decline and film criticism with the decline in movie making?

630
00:39:03,396 --> 00:39:05,236
Speaker 3: Did one precipitate the other?

631
00:39:05,796 --> 00:39:10,556
Speaker 4: Well that's a more complicated proposition, right, because is the

632
00:39:10,596 --> 00:39:14,916
Speaker 4: decline in film criticism is related to the decline of periodicals?

633
00:39:14,916 --> 00:39:17,316
Speaker 4: That how were film criticism thrived?

634
00:39:17,476 --> 00:39:17,676
Speaker 7: Right?

635
00:39:18,356 --> 00:39:21,436
Speaker 4: I think the two things are related, but not necessarily

636
00:39:21,956 --> 00:39:27,236
Speaker 4: causal of each other. I do, however, I do think

637
00:39:27,476 --> 00:39:30,876
Speaker 4: that they're in the last I don't. I don't know.

638
00:39:30,956 --> 00:39:34,836
Speaker 4: Let's say the last fifteen years, the last sixteen years,

639
00:39:35,316 --> 00:39:39,516
Speaker 4: there's been a sort of downgrading of what a review

640
00:39:40,596 --> 00:39:44,236
Speaker 4: can do and should do you know there's this tension

641
00:39:44,316 --> 00:39:48,116
Speaker 4: between coming up with a review or like liking something

642
00:39:48,156 --> 00:39:52,036
Speaker 4: a lot, they love that, or like really panning something.

643
00:39:52,356 --> 00:39:54,316
Speaker 4: You know, when I worked at the Boston Globe, for instance,

644
00:39:54,356 --> 00:39:56,436
Speaker 4: we gave things stars. If I was like Killers of

645
00:39:56,476 --> 00:40:01,716
Speaker 4: the Flower Moon two stars, that would have superseded anything

646
00:40:01,796 --> 00:40:04,636
Speaker 4: I necessarily wrote about it. I think many people would

647
00:40:04,676 --> 00:40:08,276
Speaker 4: have read the review. But I think that that middle

648
00:40:08,436 --> 00:40:10,716
Speaker 4: place you the middle of movie making has gone. I

649
00:40:10,796 --> 00:40:14,356
Speaker 4: think like a kind of mixed criticism. People sort of

650
00:40:14,396 --> 00:40:17,356
Speaker 4: lost patience for that, you know, like that a movie

651
00:40:18,116 --> 00:40:21,796
Speaker 4: can't have things that work and don't work. I mean

652
00:40:21,836 --> 00:40:24,876
Speaker 4: the middle. The disappearance of the middle is there's so

653
00:40:24,916 --> 00:40:29,356
Speaker 4: many middles that have disappeared, right middle ground, middle brow,

654
00:40:30,236 --> 00:40:37,916
Speaker 4: middle class. There's either there's either or there's no. There's

655
00:40:38,116 --> 00:40:43,316
Speaker 4: very little room for not even debate, disagreement, but like

656
00:40:43,516 --> 00:40:48,156
Speaker 4: just complexity, you know, Like, I find it really interesting

657
00:40:48,196 --> 00:40:52,036
Speaker 4: that none of the ten movies on this Best Picture

658
00:40:52,036 --> 00:40:53,316
Speaker 4: list include May December.

659
00:40:53,796 --> 00:40:54,116
Speaker 5: I don't know.

660
00:40:54,196 --> 00:40:55,036
Speaker 4: Did you see that movie?

661
00:40:55,116 --> 00:40:55,636
Speaker 3: I love it?

662
00:40:55,836 --> 00:40:58,676
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did not the first time I saw it,

663
00:40:58,716 --> 00:41:00,436
Speaker 4: and then I went and saw it again and was like,

664
00:41:00,596 --> 00:41:02,756
Speaker 4: what was my problem? I saw it the next day.

665
00:41:03,436 --> 00:41:05,516
Speaker 4: I don't know. I just I think that's a movie

666
00:41:05,756 --> 00:41:08,676
Speaker 4: that that has so much going on, that is so

667
00:41:08,836 --> 00:41:13,276
Speaker 4: some it's so of a piece with where we are

668
00:41:13,356 --> 00:41:17,596
Speaker 4: right now. It just doesn't it's not telling you what

669
00:41:17,636 --> 00:41:20,116
Speaker 4: it's doing or how it's feeling, or what even it is.

670
00:41:20,796 --> 00:41:24,316
Speaker 4: It's like the weird touchlessness of Todd Haynes, even though

671
00:41:24,316 --> 00:41:27,716
Speaker 4: there's so much touching in this movie. The music is touching,

672
00:41:28,316 --> 00:41:33,036
Speaker 4: like the butterfly metaphors are touching you, like his fingerprints

673
00:41:33,076 --> 00:41:36,676
Speaker 4: are all over this thing. But it still feels like

674
00:41:37,516 --> 00:41:41,516
Speaker 4: the hand guiding it is completely invisible, and these characters

675
00:41:41,556 --> 00:41:44,916
Speaker 4: are just doing They're just doing whatever it is that

676
00:41:44,956 --> 00:41:48,476
Speaker 4: they've been set on this earth to do. To sit

677
00:41:48,556 --> 00:41:51,036
Speaker 4: down and talk about this movie and like what is

678
00:41:51,196 --> 00:41:56,436
Speaker 4: happening here? It's really deep and really satisfying to unpack

679
00:41:56,516 --> 00:41:59,236
Speaker 4: it or argue with people about it, I don't. I mean,

680
00:41:59,276 --> 00:42:02,036
Speaker 4: there's some movies where you just I and it doesn't

681
00:42:02,036 --> 00:42:04,596
Speaker 4: happen very often, like you leave them. I leave a

682
00:42:04,636 --> 00:42:08,036
Speaker 4: movie and I do not trust my response to it.

683
00:42:08,436 --> 00:42:10,356
Speaker 4: And in the case in December, I just went the

684
00:42:10,396 --> 00:42:13,076
Speaker 4: next day and saw it again. It was like seeing

685
00:42:13,156 --> 00:42:17,916
Speaker 4: something dead come to life right before your eyes. I

686
00:42:17,996 --> 00:42:22,236
Speaker 4: found that expansion of my mind exhilarating. But we don't

687
00:42:22,276 --> 00:42:24,156
Speaker 4: have time for that movie now. It's just like it's

688
00:42:24,196 --> 00:42:27,716
Speaker 4: too it asks too much, It asks too much.

689
00:42:28,076 --> 00:42:31,116
Speaker 3: It's funny that line you had right there, that watching

690
00:42:31,156 --> 00:42:33,996
Speaker 3: something dead come to life. I think in some ways

691
00:42:33,996 --> 00:42:36,756
Speaker 3: that's kind of what we've been trying to do in

692
00:42:36,796 --> 00:42:41,236
Speaker 3: this conversation, talking about something that's dead, trying to will

693
00:42:41,276 --> 00:42:46,516
Speaker 3: it back into existence. And in this last decade in Hollywood,

694
00:42:46,956 --> 00:42:50,996
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about twenty fourteen to now, because back then

695
00:42:51,236 --> 00:42:55,876
Speaker 3: in fourteen, you wrote this really beautiful review of Selma

696
00:42:56,276 --> 00:43:00,156
Speaker 3: Oh Wow, Okay, a film directed by Ava Duvernet. I

697
00:43:00,236 --> 00:43:02,076
Speaker 3: reread the piece last night, and I was thinking about

698
00:43:02,076 --> 00:43:06,316
Speaker 3: how that picture, in so many ways, jump started the

699
00:43:06,396 --> 00:43:11,596
Speaker 3: Oscar So White campaign, which for some to finally reckon

700
00:43:11,676 --> 00:43:15,876
Speaker 3: with how the academy in the industry treats artists of color.

701
00:43:16,436 --> 00:43:21,316
Speaker 3: And oddly enough, exactly a decade later, Duvernet is releasing

702
00:43:21,356 --> 00:43:24,916
Speaker 3: a new film right now. It's called Origin. It got

703
00:43:24,956 --> 00:43:28,436
Speaker 3: completely shut out at the Oscars. Funny how Hillary Clinton

704
00:43:28,476 --> 00:43:29,796
Speaker 3: did not tweet about Origin.

705
00:43:31,596 --> 00:43:32,516
Speaker 4: She's the Origin.

706
00:43:32,996 --> 00:43:36,596
Speaker 3: Nevertheless, I sat with Ava a couple of weeks back

707
00:43:36,596 --> 00:43:38,916
Speaker 3: on the show. I asked her about the state of

708
00:43:38,956 --> 00:43:42,556
Speaker 3: movies and how the industry seems to be backsliding into

709
00:43:42,596 --> 00:43:46,476
Speaker 3: a kind of conservatism, and I just wanted to take

710
00:43:46,516 --> 00:43:49,396
Speaker 3: a listen to that passage for a second. So this

711
00:43:49,516 --> 00:43:52,716
Speaker 3: is her reflecting on the last decade of working in Hollywood,

712
00:43:52,956 --> 00:43:55,996
Speaker 3: in the system, through the system, and how she's starting

713
00:43:56,036 --> 00:43:58,476
Speaker 3: to think about her future as a filmmaker.

714
00:43:59,756 --> 00:44:01,276
Speaker 8: I don't know, I'm not sure about the way that

715
00:44:01,356 --> 00:44:04,076
Speaker 8: I how to define how I'm doing it now. All

716
00:44:04,116 --> 00:44:06,116
Speaker 8: I know is that I feel like I'm tapping out.

717
00:44:06,836 --> 00:44:09,636
Speaker 8: I've tried to work within the system for the last

718
00:44:09,676 --> 00:44:12,716
Speaker 8: ten years. I've sat on the boards of Sun Dance,

719
00:44:12,956 --> 00:44:16,876
Speaker 8: I am DJA board, I am I am a governor

720
00:44:16,916 --> 00:44:19,636
Speaker 8: of the Academy. In my second term, I really wanted

721
00:44:19,676 --> 00:44:23,276
Speaker 8: to learn. I wanted to understand how these institutions worked.

722
00:44:23,716 --> 00:44:27,676
Speaker 8: And there's some great people there and beautiful legacy, but ultimately,

723
00:44:28,076 --> 00:44:34,116
Speaker 8: the shifts in the cumulative effect of this, like how

724
00:44:34,156 --> 00:44:40,956
Speaker 8: the overall industry works are so insignificant in their velocity,

725
00:44:41,236 --> 00:44:46,076
Speaker 8: in their scope, in their real impact, that I feel like,

726
00:44:46,236 --> 00:44:48,156
Speaker 8: you know, what, I've done what I could because it

727
00:44:48,236 --> 00:44:50,556
Speaker 8: was a lot. It's a lot of extra time, a

728
00:44:50,556 --> 00:44:53,036
Speaker 8: lot of extra effort, a lot of calls, a lot

729
00:44:53,036 --> 00:44:55,356
Speaker 8: of meetings, a lot of thinking, a lot of trying,

730
00:44:55,956 --> 00:44:58,276
Speaker 8: and it's time to pack the baton to someone else

731
00:44:58,276 --> 00:45:00,996
Speaker 8: who has a fresh energy and who wants to take

732
00:45:01,196 --> 00:45:04,516
Speaker 8: And I've achieved some things within those organizations that I'm

733
00:45:04,516 --> 00:45:07,916
Speaker 8: proud of, but for me, it's just not I feel

734
00:45:07,956 --> 00:45:12,276
Speaker 8: like I'm tilling ground, that I'm like an old pioneer

735
00:45:12,396 --> 00:45:13,436
Speaker 8: on a bad plot.

736
00:45:13,996 --> 00:45:16,076
Speaker 5: It's like and I.

737
00:45:15,996 --> 00:45:17,636
Speaker 8: Think that I started and I was like, oh, this

738
00:45:17,676 --> 00:45:19,756
Speaker 8: place can change, like Pete, there are people here, this

739
00:45:19,836 --> 00:45:22,276
Speaker 8: is a little time, like it'll change, and that there

740
00:45:22,276 --> 00:45:25,316
Speaker 8: have been some beautiful things that happened. But my success

741
00:45:25,436 --> 00:45:29,236
Speaker 8: is not change Nia Dacosta's success. Gina Prince bythewould suggests,

742
00:45:29,236 --> 00:45:32,596
Speaker 8: when you can name us all on two hands, that's

743
00:45:32,636 --> 00:45:36,156
Speaker 8: not change. That's a few lovely things that happened to

744
00:45:36,196 --> 00:45:39,156
Speaker 8: a few people, And for me, that's not worth it.

745
00:45:39,556 --> 00:45:42,956
Speaker 8: I would rather just try to build something sustainable and

746
00:45:42,996 --> 00:45:47,556
Speaker 8: beautiful and smaller and lovely in my own likeness with

747
00:45:47,636 --> 00:45:49,756
Speaker 8: people who think like me. And in some ways I

748
00:45:49,756 --> 00:45:52,236
Speaker 8: think eyes that small minded. Is that just closing ranks?

749
00:45:52,716 --> 00:45:55,436
Speaker 8: But at some point it just becomes what's healthy.

750
00:45:56,716 --> 00:45:58,396
Speaker 4: What does that look like for her?

751
00:45:58,476 --> 00:45:58,716
Speaker 5: Though?

752
00:45:58,756 --> 00:46:00,516
Speaker 4: Does she say what it looked like for her?

753
00:46:00,756 --> 00:46:03,596
Speaker 3: Well, in the case of Origin, it looked like getting

754
00:46:03,716 --> 00:46:08,836
Speaker 3: funding from jobs, the Ford Foundation, Melinda Gates. But she

755
00:46:08,876 --> 00:46:11,676
Speaker 3: went the kind of route that Soderberk has done, getting

756
00:46:11,876 --> 00:46:15,396
Speaker 3: financial investments from private sources and stuff like that. But

757
00:46:15,436 --> 00:46:16,316
Speaker 3: what did you make of that?

758
00:46:16,596 --> 00:46:20,796
Speaker 4: I'm not surprised. I also think that it's funny because

759
00:46:21,076 --> 00:46:26,476
Speaker 4: I think Ava DuVernay is the apotheosis of black American

760
00:46:27,156 --> 00:46:32,036
Speaker 4: woman filmmaker. She's the person that people automatically think of,

761
00:46:32,196 --> 00:46:35,796
Speaker 4: reflexively think of when they think those things. And I

762
00:46:35,836 --> 00:46:39,076
Speaker 4: think there's a burden that's on her that doesn't have

763
00:46:39,116 --> 00:46:42,156
Speaker 4: anything to do with her personal ambitions. I think that

764
00:46:42,476 --> 00:46:46,716
Speaker 4: she feels responsible for ensuring that she's not the last

765
00:46:46,796 --> 00:46:51,156
Speaker 4: person to get through the door. And I don't know,

766
00:46:51,396 --> 00:46:53,516
Speaker 4: I mean, I have a lot of sympathy for her

767
00:46:53,636 --> 00:46:58,316
Speaker 4: because she's She's taken on a lot. I'm curious what

768
00:46:59,116 --> 00:47:05,756
Speaker 4: being done handing the clipboard and the frolodex to somebody else.

769
00:47:06,156 --> 00:47:10,116
Speaker 4: What do those things look like for her art? I

770
00:47:10,156 --> 00:47:14,556
Speaker 4: think that there are people like me out there. We

771
00:47:14,836 --> 00:47:19,956
Speaker 4: actually believe that this movie is a turning point in

772
00:47:19,996 --> 00:47:24,276
Speaker 4: some way, which movie origin like, who knows what she's

773
00:47:24,356 --> 00:47:27,636
Speaker 4: going to do? We're it'll lead. But the reason you

774
00:47:27,676 --> 00:47:33,596
Speaker 4: bring her up right is that this idea of what

775
00:47:33,636 --> 00:47:38,036
Speaker 4: the Academy Awards are in terms of thinking about how

776
00:47:38,076 --> 00:47:42,836
Speaker 4: they're a snapshot of a business. It's also kind of

777
00:47:42,876 --> 00:47:45,756
Speaker 4: a game, right, Like it's a system you have to

778
00:47:45,796 --> 00:47:48,676
Speaker 4: know how to work. And for many years David was

779
00:47:48,676 --> 00:47:50,636
Speaker 4: a publicist. She knows how to work the system. She

780
00:47:50,676 --> 00:47:54,356
Speaker 4: knows how the system works. And at some point, you

781
00:47:55,556 --> 00:47:58,996
Speaker 4: don't want to keep doing that. If the thing on

782
00:47:59,036 --> 00:48:06,796
Speaker 4: your business card says filmmaker, if it says artist, you

783
00:48:06,876 --> 00:48:11,356
Speaker 4: want to make things, you don't want to bureaucratize the

784
00:48:11,396 --> 00:48:12,636
Speaker 4: making of things.

785
00:48:12,756 --> 00:48:12,916
Speaker 7: Right.

786
00:48:13,636 --> 00:48:16,516
Speaker 4: But I mean, she's so historically minded, she's so much

787
00:48:16,516 --> 00:48:20,276
Speaker 4: about you know, she's so aware of history and the

788
00:48:20,516 --> 00:48:26,356
Speaker 4: and the archives and the record that she does feel

789
00:48:26,396 --> 00:48:31,436
Speaker 4: responsible for making sure that it has as many black woman,

790
00:48:32,196 --> 00:48:36,596
Speaker 4: non white, non straight names as can be put. And

791
00:48:36,756 --> 00:48:39,876
Speaker 4: you know that work. You know, ask ask the civil

792
00:48:39,996 --> 00:48:42,836
Speaker 4: rights folks. They will tell you it takes a toll.

793
00:48:43,196 --> 00:48:46,716
Speaker 4: If it doesn't actually literally get you killed, it definitely

794
00:48:46,756 --> 00:48:49,956
Speaker 4: burns you the fuck out. And especially when you can

795
00:48:50,076 --> 00:48:56,996
Speaker 4: look at the labor, the struggle, the everything, right like Selma,

796
00:48:57,316 --> 00:48:59,716
Speaker 4: I mean, what was some about it was about getting

797
00:48:59,796 --> 00:49:03,396
Speaker 4: one thing passed. It was about getting like the voting

798
00:49:03,516 --> 00:49:07,516
Speaker 4: rights bill passed. That was one thing, and look at

799
00:49:07,556 --> 00:49:10,676
Speaker 4: all that shit that had to happen and to get that. Think,

800
00:49:10,716 --> 00:49:12,196
Speaker 4: I mean, the movie's at about any of this stuff,

801
00:49:12,236 --> 00:49:14,196
Speaker 4: but like, think about all of the sudden that happens in

802
00:49:14,236 --> 00:49:17,756
Speaker 4: the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting

803
00:49:17,836 --> 00:49:20,196
Speaker 4: Rights Act happened, and then all the shit that happens

804
00:49:20,236 --> 00:49:24,036
Speaker 4: after that happens, and people were just like, what the fuck?

805
00:49:25,916 --> 00:49:26,716
Speaker 5: What do we just do?

806
00:49:27,076 --> 00:49:30,636
Speaker 4: And now y'all are killing people, like actually assassinating our

807
00:49:30,716 --> 00:49:34,076
Speaker 4: leaders for what for us to be able to just

808
00:49:34,156 --> 00:49:38,276
Speaker 4: like have a say and who runs our county? That's it.

809
00:49:38,996 --> 00:49:44,276
Speaker 4: So what if they have to do with board of governors. Well,

810
00:49:45,076 --> 00:49:49,276
Speaker 4: it means that change is hard and people don't like it,

811
00:49:49,876 --> 00:49:53,116
Speaker 4: and it's hard to make the change, but it's hard

812
00:49:53,156 --> 00:49:56,396
Speaker 4: for the change makers, and so the change makers eventually

813
00:49:56,436 --> 00:49:59,796
Speaker 4: just want to change things for themselves because the making

814
00:49:59,876 --> 00:50:02,836
Speaker 4: of the change writ large. It's just too much at stake.

815
00:50:02,916 --> 00:50:06,516
Speaker 4: It costs too much. People are so resistant. The Academy's

816
00:50:06,556 --> 00:50:10,316
Speaker 4: membership just to sort of come back to the it

817
00:50:10,356 --> 00:50:15,556
Speaker 4: has expanded meaningfully in the last ten years. Right, They've

818
00:50:15,596 --> 00:50:19,556
Speaker 4: gone out of their way to recruit all these younger, browner,

819
00:50:20,916 --> 00:50:26,556
Speaker 4: more international like, less American eyes voices tastes.

820
00:50:26,396 --> 00:50:28,596
Speaker 3: Which Ava is partly responsible for.

821
00:50:29,076 --> 00:50:32,396
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean to her point, I mean it's interesting, right,

822
00:50:32,676 --> 00:50:34,836
Speaker 4: like just to stay with black people for one second.

823
00:50:34,996 --> 00:50:37,516
Speaker 4: The math on this is tricky, but like there have

824
00:50:37,596 --> 00:50:42,836
Speaker 4: been more Asian and people of Asian descent winning the

825
00:50:42,996 --> 00:50:45,916
Speaker 4: directing Oscar in the last few years, I think than

826
00:50:46,036 --> 00:50:49,596
Speaker 4: black people have ever been nominated. And I don't know

827
00:50:49,596 --> 00:50:52,796
Speaker 4: what to do with that number. I mean it's great

828
00:50:53,156 --> 00:50:57,956
Speaker 4: for changing the scope of who is in that club.

829
00:50:58,636 --> 00:51:01,276
Speaker 4: I mean, the same is true for the three Mexicans,

830
00:51:01,316 --> 00:51:06,796
Speaker 4: you know, del Toro and Inyanitu and in Quirne. I

831
00:51:06,836 --> 00:51:10,556
Speaker 4: think that the sort of expansion of like what a

832
00:51:10,716 --> 00:51:14,196
Speaker 4: best director is has chained is like it's grown so wide,

833
00:51:14,916 --> 00:51:20,316
Speaker 4: but not wide enough to say that a Black American

834
00:51:20,836 --> 00:51:25,996
Speaker 4: also best directed something. And there is like a real, real,

835
00:51:26,956 --> 00:51:33,116
Speaker 4: real resistance to thinking about black people in a new way.

836
00:51:34,516 --> 00:51:36,236
Speaker 3: Right, what do you what do you mean by by

837
00:51:36,316 --> 00:51:36,716
Speaker 3: new way?

838
00:51:37,436 --> 00:51:42,076
Speaker 4: I mean I've been really struggling with Oh god, I

839
00:51:42,076 --> 00:51:43,076
Speaker 4: can't even get into that.

840
00:51:43,356 --> 00:51:46,196
Speaker 3: Well what can't we get into? But we're here to get.

841
00:51:46,396 --> 00:51:49,316
Speaker 4: I just I don't know, it's just it's too thorny.

842
00:51:49,356 --> 00:51:51,236
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not too thorny, like I'm scared to

843
00:51:51,276 --> 00:51:54,396
Speaker 4: say a bad thing, but like I have to like

844
00:51:54,476 --> 00:51:57,076
Speaker 4: sort of work out exactly what it is I'm saying.

845
00:51:57,076 --> 00:51:59,996
Speaker 4: But just all right, just think about the best supporting

846
00:51:59,996 --> 00:52:04,716
Speaker 4: actress nominees across the history of the Academy Awards. Okay,

847
00:52:04,876 --> 00:52:09,036
Speaker 4: what have those women been nominated doing? That's too Jenner.

848
00:52:09,396 --> 00:52:13,556
Speaker 4: I mean they're housekeepers, they are cooks, they are servants.

849
00:52:13,876 --> 00:52:17,356
Speaker 4: They work in the Jim Crow South as people who

850
00:52:17,356 --> 00:52:19,876
Speaker 4: would have been doing that work. I mean daniel Brooks

851
00:52:19,876 --> 00:52:23,436
Speaker 4: playing Sofia in the color Purple, I mean that's her job.

852
00:52:23,636 --> 00:52:25,956
Speaker 4: Her business car would say, working for white people.

853
00:52:26,716 --> 00:52:27,916
Speaker 3: Divine Joy Randa.

854
00:52:28,236 --> 00:52:30,636
Speaker 4: I mean she's a cook at the at the school.

855
00:52:30,876 --> 00:52:32,956
Speaker 4: I mean. It is not about the quality of the

856
00:52:32,996 --> 00:52:37,516
Speaker 4: performances of these women. Divine Davine joint Randolph is fantastic.

857
00:52:38,596 --> 00:52:42,476
Speaker 4: Danielle Brooks, I mean she is doing Sofia karaoke like

858
00:52:42,756 --> 00:52:45,676
Speaker 4: nobody has ever Sofia karaoke before.

859
00:52:45,956 --> 00:52:47,516
Speaker 3: It's about the job they have in the film.

860
00:52:47,676 --> 00:52:51,756
Speaker 4: It's about their function in the movie. Right And how

861
00:52:51,796 --> 00:52:57,036
Speaker 4: many Best Actress? How many Black American women have been

862
00:52:57,076 --> 00:53:01,316
Speaker 4: nominated for carrying a movie regardless of their job. We'll

863
00:53:01,356 --> 00:53:06,076
Speaker 4: start there, But if you make them something other than

864
00:53:06,596 --> 00:53:08,196
Speaker 4: working for white people.

865
00:53:08,236 --> 00:53:10,996
Speaker 3: How many have that fact at hand here?

866
00:53:11,196 --> 00:53:13,516
Speaker 4: I mean, you don't need it, because I'm telling you

867
00:53:13,756 --> 00:53:16,716
Speaker 4: we wouldn't get to this many fingers for best Actress, right,

868
00:53:17,116 --> 00:53:19,676
Speaker 4: I wouldn't use them all. But my point is that

869
00:53:19,916 --> 00:53:23,036
Speaker 4: I wouldn't need all ten of my fingers. A B.

870
00:53:24,076 --> 00:53:26,876
Speaker 4: The real point is that the thing that's great about

871
00:53:26,916 --> 00:53:29,676
Speaker 4: the oscars is they're telling the truth about the movies, right.

872
00:53:30,076 --> 00:53:33,276
Speaker 4: They're telling the truth about what the priorities actually are,

873
00:53:34,196 --> 00:53:38,836
Speaker 4: and who counts, who belongs, what gets made, who stars

874
00:53:38,876 --> 00:53:42,196
Speaker 4: in it, how much do they make, Who writes these things,

875
00:53:42,356 --> 00:53:46,076
Speaker 4: who does the costumes. It is like the whole industry.

876
00:53:46,156 --> 00:53:48,396
Speaker 4: I mean, the reports come out from the Annenberg Center

877
00:53:48,396 --> 00:53:51,036
Speaker 4: of the USC and Berg Center. We know the numbers,

878
00:53:51,356 --> 00:53:53,796
Speaker 4: the numbers. The numbers are the numbers, but the numbers

879
00:53:53,796 --> 00:53:57,836
Speaker 4: tell a story. And that's where people like you know

880
00:53:58,036 --> 00:54:01,436
Speaker 4: I guess me, and you because you will have people

881
00:54:01,436 --> 00:54:03,916
Speaker 4: on to talk about this sort of stuff. But my

882
00:54:04,036 --> 00:54:07,236
Speaker 4: only point connected to the way Avra DuVernay is thinking

883
00:54:07,276 --> 00:54:09,836
Speaker 4: about what she ought to be doing with her time

884
00:54:09,876 --> 00:54:16,196
Speaker 4: in life, is that these are stubborn, stubborn, deep, deep,

885
00:54:16,516 --> 00:54:21,476
Speaker 4: deep historical problems. And there's so many of us who

886
00:54:21,716 --> 00:54:27,556
Speaker 4: honestly believe that if we just got in there, if

887
00:54:27,556 --> 00:54:30,036
Speaker 4: we just got in there and made the calls and

888
00:54:30,116 --> 00:54:34,636
Speaker 4: sent the emails and had the meetings and it would

889
00:54:34,716 --> 00:54:38,076
Speaker 4: just be better. It would just be better. But this

890
00:54:38,236 --> 00:54:40,916
Speaker 4: is now a woman Aver Duvernet who is as far

891
00:54:40,956 --> 00:54:44,596
Speaker 4: away from being a Best Director nominee. And I'm laughing

892
00:54:44,676 --> 00:54:49,436
Speaker 4: because it's fucking tragic and sad. She's as far away

893
00:54:49,756 --> 00:54:52,756
Speaker 4: ten years after, like the closest she was ever gonna

894
00:54:52,756 --> 00:54:57,156
Speaker 4: get to being a Best Director and not getting nominated

895
00:54:57,876 --> 00:55:00,996
Speaker 4: now as she was that. And I'm not this is

896
00:55:01,036 --> 00:55:03,636
Speaker 4: not about origin of the quality of origin or should

897
00:55:03,636 --> 00:55:06,276
Speaker 4: she even be nominated. It's like the the It's just

898
00:55:06,316 --> 00:55:11,396
Speaker 4: about the scope and intrenched of the problem. And I

899
00:55:11,436 --> 00:55:14,836
Speaker 4: think in some ways in her case she's thinking it through.

900
00:55:15,676 --> 00:55:18,436
Speaker 4: Is she's at least thinking through this question of justice

901
00:55:18,436 --> 00:55:21,956
Speaker 4: in her work. And you know, why why are we

902
00:55:22,276 --> 00:55:26,636
Speaker 4: like this? America? Why are we like this? But you know,

903
00:55:26,716 --> 00:55:29,916
Speaker 4: the tidy fact of the Academy Awards is that it

904
00:55:30,036 --> 00:55:31,716
Speaker 4: tells us that we are.

905
00:55:31,676 --> 00:55:36,356
Speaker 3: Still like this, Amir and Awinda well and a ceiling

906
00:55:39,596 --> 00:55:40,476
Speaker 3: and what are we like.

907
00:55:41,916 --> 00:55:45,236
Speaker 4: Diluted? I mean, you know, we we think we're one way,

908
00:55:45,396 --> 00:55:48,236
Speaker 4: but like I have a report that says we're not,

909
00:55:48,556 --> 00:55:51,996
Speaker 4: We're this other way, but we keep saying we're not.

910
00:55:52,356 --> 00:55:55,116
Speaker 4: Like the report we're like these other things. We're these

911
00:55:55,156 --> 00:55:58,196
Speaker 4: other people. We don't have the values this report is

912
00:55:58,236 --> 00:56:01,516
Speaker 4: saying we have. We've got different values. Look at us

913
00:56:01,596 --> 00:56:05,316
Speaker 4: changing our values. But it doesn't matter how many more

914
00:56:05,316 --> 00:56:10,796
Speaker 4: people you bring in. They're bringing the values right. And

915
00:56:10,876 --> 00:56:16,516
Speaker 4: a lot of the times those values have just been installed.

916
00:56:16,636 --> 00:56:18,596
Speaker 4: I mean, this is sort of Barbie, This is Greta

917
00:56:18,676 --> 00:56:21,796
Speaker 4: Gerwick thinking here, right. They've been they've been installed in

918
00:56:21,836 --> 00:56:25,116
Speaker 4: you from birth, and it's hard to let them go.

919
00:56:25,556 --> 00:56:28,356
Speaker 4: Barbie is about how hard it is to let some

920
00:56:28,476 --> 00:56:33,796
Speaker 4: toxic ass shit go, and sometimes how good toxic shit feels,

921
00:56:34,236 --> 00:56:37,196
Speaker 4: how good it feels to just be a fucking asshole.

922
00:56:39,636 --> 00:56:41,836
Speaker 4: I don't know what you do with that. I don't

923
00:56:41,836 --> 00:56:43,716
Speaker 4: know what you do with how good it feels to

924
00:56:43,916 --> 00:56:47,876
Speaker 4: just oppress people because it's easy and fun to like

925
00:56:48,356 --> 00:56:55,236
Speaker 4: bend an entire country's attention to your dysfunctional personality because

926
00:56:55,316 --> 00:56:58,796
Speaker 4: you can't. It's just, I don't know. It's a really

927
00:56:58,996 --> 00:57:04,556
Speaker 4: really crazy time to be an American, to be a

928
00:57:04,636 --> 00:57:07,316
Speaker 4: new arrival to this country and to see what people

929
00:57:07,316 --> 00:57:10,436
Speaker 4: are saying about you and what you're doing here.

930
00:57:10,756 --> 00:57:15,116
Speaker 3: To be a critic at large at the New York Times, Uh.

931
00:57:15,476 --> 00:57:17,356
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know so much about critic I mean,

932
00:57:17,396 --> 00:57:19,956
Speaker 4: I guess if my brain is applied to some of this,

933
00:57:20,476 --> 00:57:22,636
Speaker 4: some of these problems. Sure, I mean, but one of

934
00:57:22,636 --> 00:57:24,636
Speaker 4: the great things that I love about my job is

935
00:57:24,876 --> 00:57:28,276
Speaker 4: I don't have to I get to think about the

936
00:57:28,356 --> 00:57:31,436
Speaker 4: meaning of the stuff that people make for us to enjoy,

937
00:57:32,276 --> 00:57:34,956
Speaker 4: and I get to think about how the stuff that

938
00:57:34,996 --> 00:57:38,876
Speaker 4: people make makes me feel. I don't have to, like

939
00:57:39,276 --> 00:57:43,676
Speaker 4: weigh in on things. I just don't like that. I

940
00:57:43,716 --> 00:57:47,996
Speaker 4: don't believe in having takes right. I mean, I believe

941
00:57:48,036 --> 00:57:50,356
Speaker 4: in the having of takes. I just don't believe that

942
00:57:50,596 --> 00:57:52,356
Speaker 4: I need to be having one.

943
00:57:52,836 --> 00:57:54,796
Speaker 3: We've done a podcast of takes.

944
00:57:55,036 --> 00:58:00,076
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, you and me just now, yeah, I

945
00:58:00,116 --> 00:58:03,396
Speaker 4: mean I think that we've been doing We've been really

946
00:58:03,436 --> 00:58:05,836
Speaker 4: thinking through these problems. These aren't really takes.

947
00:58:06,156 --> 00:58:09,996
Speaker 3: I want to understand how you see your role and

948
00:58:10,156 --> 00:58:13,396
Speaker 3: job in this moment, how you're thinking about it, how

949
00:58:13,436 --> 00:58:16,116
Speaker 3: you're thinking about doing it, what it means to do

950
00:58:16,156 --> 00:58:19,556
Speaker 3: it in this country in twenty twenty four, and where

951
00:58:19,556 --> 00:58:22,316
Speaker 3: you're at with what you've committed your life to.

952
00:58:23,316 --> 00:58:28,196
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I mean, I feel like

953
00:58:28,276 --> 00:58:32,356
Speaker 4: everybody tells you that you're you know, the therapist qualities

954
00:58:32,356 --> 00:58:35,796
Speaker 4: that you have are intense. It's like I'm talking to

955
00:58:35,836 --> 00:58:38,196
Speaker 4: a person that I that I mean. You know, we

956
00:58:38,276 --> 00:58:40,996
Speaker 4: and I have had conversations before, but I think there's

957
00:58:41,036 --> 00:58:45,636
Speaker 4: something kind of unburdening in a weird way about, you know,

958
00:58:45,676 --> 00:58:49,396
Speaker 4: being asked to think about your life to answer your question.

959
00:58:49,596 --> 00:58:52,996
Speaker 4: I feel like my job hasn't changed, like the nature

960
00:58:53,076 --> 00:58:56,156
Speaker 4: of my job has not changed. I feel more certain

961
00:58:56,676 --> 00:58:59,436
Speaker 4: about the way I want to do my job.

962
00:58:59,636 --> 00:59:02,156
Speaker 3: I've that I've ever felt. What does that mean?

963
00:59:02,476 --> 00:59:04,916
Speaker 4: The people whose work I like to read, the people

964
00:59:05,516 --> 00:59:09,036
Speaker 4: that I love talking to, the people I love hearing

965
00:59:09,276 --> 00:59:14,596
Speaker 4: talk to other people. We're all trying to figure out

966
00:59:14,956 --> 00:59:19,156
Speaker 4: how to live in whatever way it means it to

967
00:59:19,236 --> 00:59:24,076
Speaker 4: be alive. And so much of the creation of art,

968
00:59:24,356 --> 00:59:28,596
Speaker 4: the making, the writing, recording of a song, the labor

969
00:59:28,596 --> 00:59:33,316
Speaker 4: that goes into making a book, especially a good book, filmmaking,

970
00:59:34,076 --> 00:59:39,516
Speaker 4: any kind of any kind of art. It's hard and

971
00:59:39,756 --> 00:59:44,556
Speaker 4: it takes something really special to make something that touches

972
00:59:44,836 --> 00:59:49,036
Speaker 4: other people. And that, to me, it's life giving. You

973
00:59:49,116 --> 00:59:53,396
Speaker 4: are giving part of you to the rest of us.

974
00:59:53,396 --> 00:59:55,516
Speaker 4: And you know, the way I think about my job

975
00:59:55,716 --> 01:00:00,556
Speaker 4: is to respond to that offering sometimes I wish you

976
01:00:00,676 --> 01:00:04,916
Speaker 4: had given me more, maybe maybe given me less, giving

977
01:00:04,956 --> 01:00:10,236
Speaker 4: me something different, but I'm always grateful to have received it.

978
01:00:11,076 --> 01:00:13,636
Speaker 4: I mean, I do think that's so much of the

979
01:00:13,716 --> 01:00:16,836
Speaker 4: thing that I want to try to do is never

980
01:00:16,956 --> 01:00:22,756
Speaker 4: lose sight of the biggest picture that we have, especially

981
01:00:22,756 --> 01:00:26,076
Speaker 4: as Americans, because it's so easy to do that. Again,

982
01:00:26,276 --> 01:00:28,556
Speaker 4: I hate to keep going back to Barbie, but Barbie

983
01:00:28,596 --> 01:00:33,196
Speaker 4: is secretly deep. Barbie is really about like lost connections,

984
01:00:34,036 --> 01:00:41,076
Speaker 4: displaced desires, like personal revelation, epiphany. And these are white

985
01:00:41,116 --> 01:00:44,716
Speaker 4: people having these revelations too, right, These are white people

986
01:00:44,756 --> 01:00:48,116
Speaker 4: waking up to the reality of themselves. And Barbie doesn't

987
01:00:48,116 --> 01:00:50,516
Speaker 4: even know she's white, but she discovers it. I mean,

988
01:00:50,836 --> 01:00:53,596
Speaker 4: not necessarily in the movie, but part of this the

989
01:00:53,716 --> 01:00:57,836
Speaker 4: schematic of awakening and Barbie has to eventually involve her

990
01:00:57,916 --> 01:01:02,196
Speaker 4: being aware that she is a white woman. Stereotypical. Stereotypical

991
01:01:02,196 --> 01:01:04,516
Speaker 4: Barbie is what they call her, and I feel like

992
01:01:04,556 --> 01:01:10,916
Speaker 4: that's a great euphemism for white. But I just feel

993
01:01:10,916 --> 01:01:15,836
Speaker 4: like trying to make these connections between where we currently

994
01:01:15,876 --> 01:01:19,756
Speaker 4: are and where we've been. You know, I don't always

995
01:01:19,796 --> 01:01:23,156
Speaker 4: want to be like but you know, thirty five years

996
01:01:23,196 --> 01:01:26,676
Speaker 4: ago x y Z E think because sometimes an experience

997
01:01:27,196 --> 01:01:31,476
Speaker 4: just doesn't have a historical corollary, or even if it does,

998
01:01:31,676 --> 01:01:35,796
Speaker 4: it can't be used to cheapen the intensity of the

999
01:01:35,796 --> 01:01:40,956
Speaker 4: thing you're experiencing. Now, if you're seventeen years old and

1000
01:01:41,076 --> 01:01:43,516
Speaker 4: you know, hearing in the air tonight for the first time,

1001
01:01:43,516 --> 01:01:47,916
Speaker 4: it's new to you. So let's sit with it. I mean,

1002
01:01:47,956 --> 01:01:53,196
Speaker 4: I so deeply want to capture the sensation of, Oh

1003
01:01:53,196 --> 01:01:57,276
Speaker 4: my God, holy shit, Jesus fucking Christ, why did you

1004
01:01:57,796 --> 01:02:06,196
Speaker 4: do it? Again? Try to just think as historically as

1005
01:02:06,196 --> 01:02:10,876
Speaker 4: I can about the present with out like using the

1006
01:02:11,036 --> 01:02:14,636
Speaker 4: history to oppress our enjoyment of what we are currently doing,

1007
01:02:15,596 --> 01:02:18,676
Speaker 4: but to say that like we're on a continuum, and

1008
01:02:18,836 --> 01:02:21,996
Speaker 4: to figure out where on the continuum we currently are

1009
01:02:22,036 --> 01:02:26,156
Speaker 4: at a given moment in present time with respect to

1010
01:02:26,196 --> 01:02:28,996
Speaker 4: the past, and to always keep that awareness with us.

1011
01:02:29,076 --> 01:02:33,396
Speaker 4: We don't want to bring it with us is the problem?

1012
01:02:33,716 --> 01:02:36,996
Speaker 3: You know. I wanted to ask you that because when

1013
01:02:36,996 --> 01:02:40,076
Speaker 3: we first sat down in twenty sixteen.

1014
01:02:40,036 --> 01:02:41,676
Speaker 4: Was that in San Francisco? Was that at the San

1015
01:02:41,716 --> 01:02:44,996
Speaker 4: Francisco Film Festival, at the headquarters of the San Francisco

1016
01:02:44,996 --> 01:02:46,196
Speaker 4: International Film Festival.

1017
01:02:46,196 --> 01:02:50,436
Speaker 3: That's right, it was episode five of the podcast.

1018
01:02:50,676 --> 01:02:53,316
Speaker 4: Congratulations to you, by the way, I just you know,

1019
01:02:53,596 --> 01:02:55,276
Speaker 4: it's a funny, Like I'm just gonna rupt you for

1020
01:02:55,316 --> 01:02:58,796
Speaker 4: one second to say that I got very moved when

1021
01:02:58,796 --> 01:03:01,996
Speaker 4: I saw the art of the guests at some point,

1022
01:03:02,036 --> 01:03:05,556
Speaker 4: this is like four or five years ago, I was like, huh,

1023
01:03:05,956 --> 01:03:08,516
Speaker 4: look at all this, So like once a month, I'm

1024
01:03:08,596 --> 01:03:11,436
Speaker 4: just like, well, I didn't I missed that one. Oh look,

1025
01:03:11,916 --> 01:03:14,116
Speaker 4: mention Lee looks really good, you know what I mean, Like,

1026
01:03:14,796 --> 01:03:17,396
Speaker 4: I just I'd love that. So congratulations, I mean, just

1027
01:03:17,476 --> 01:03:19,796
Speaker 4: congratulations on eight years.

1028
01:03:20,036 --> 01:03:23,356
Speaker 3: But go on, well, thank you. In that conversation that

1029
01:03:23,396 --> 01:03:27,396
Speaker 3: we had, I kind of asked you this same question

1030
01:03:28,196 --> 01:03:31,996
Speaker 3: back then about purpose and why and where you were at,

1031
01:03:32,796 --> 01:03:36,276
Speaker 3: and I thought perhaps we should take a listen to

1032
01:03:36,276 --> 01:03:36,956
Speaker 3: that for a second.

1033
01:03:37,116 --> 01:03:38,956
Speaker 4: Oh my god, what the fuck?

1034
01:03:39,476 --> 01:03:42,676
Speaker 3: Really, this is Wesley Morris in twenty sixteen.

1035
01:03:43,596 --> 01:03:46,996
Speaker 7: I think, and you you know, if anybody who spends

1036
01:03:47,076 --> 01:03:49,756
Speaker 7: enough time writing about directors should know this, Like, at

1037
01:03:49,756 --> 01:03:50,596
Speaker 7: some point.

1038
01:03:50,916 --> 01:03:53,516
Speaker 4: You just start to start to lose it. I mean

1039
01:03:53,796 --> 01:03:55,156
Speaker 4: I might have already peated.

1040
01:03:55,556 --> 01:03:57,956
Speaker 7: I don't know, but I'm somewhere in that, like somewhere

1041
01:03:57,956 --> 01:03:59,556
Speaker 7: between thirty five and fifty.

1042
01:04:00,156 --> 01:04:02,876
Speaker 4: Is that zone. I mean, if some of it's subjective,

1043
01:04:04,276 --> 01:04:05,356
Speaker 4: it's probably.

1044
01:04:04,956 --> 01:04:07,396
Speaker 7: All entirely subjective when it comes to the question I'm

1045
01:04:07,476 --> 01:04:11,036
Speaker 7: actually asking, which is like what happens to does the

1046
01:04:11,196 --> 01:04:15,556
Speaker 7: energy run out? Like do I suddenly just get bored

1047
01:04:15,636 --> 01:04:17,476
Speaker 7: doing this? And there are a lot of days where

1048
01:04:17,476 --> 01:04:18,996
Speaker 7: I'm like this is dumb?

1049
01:04:19,196 --> 01:04:20,796
Speaker 4: Really no, I mean.

1050
01:04:20,756 --> 01:04:25,036
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, no, like really like, I mean I believe

1051
01:04:25,076 --> 01:04:27,556
Speaker 6: in it, but you know, it's like six o'clock in

1052
01:04:27,596 --> 01:04:30,836
Speaker 6: the morning and you're like dragging yourself across your apartment,

1053
01:04:30,956 --> 01:04:32,956
Speaker 6: You're like getting dressed to go to work, and You're

1054
01:04:32,996 --> 01:04:34,116
Speaker 6: just like, what do I have to do today?

1055
01:04:34,676 --> 01:04:35,156
Speaker 5: Oh?

1056
01:04:35,316 --> 01:04:40,436
Speaker 7: Right, I have to write something that sounds smart about girls?

1057
01:04:41,036 --> 01:04:43,076
Speaker 4: Is that really important?

1058
01:04:43,796 --> 01:04:46,276
Speaker 7: And then I'm like, yes it is. I get to

1059
01:04:46,316 --> 01:04:50,116
Speaker 7: a point where like, yes, it's fucking important. But it

1060
01:04:50,196 --> 01:04:52,636
Speaker 7: takes it Like sometimes there are days when it just

1061
01:04:52,676 --> 01:04:54,716
Speaker 7: takes a little bit longer to get to like, guess

1062
01:04:54,716 --> 01:04:57,076
Speaker 7: this is important. Some days it's like instant, like I

1063
01:04:57,076 --> 01:04:58,956
Speaker 7: don't even have to There is no sort of meta

1064
01:04:58,956 --> 01:05:00,876
Speaker 7: conversation you have to have with yourself about whether or

1065
01:05:00,916 --> 01:05:04,356
Speaker 7: not you should be doing what you're doing. But I

1066
01:05:04,356 --> 01:05:09,796
Speaker 7: I will never really ever be satisfied with what I'm

1067
01:05:09,796 --> 01:05:13,156
Speaker 7: doing because I live in constant fear that I will

1068
01:05:13,676 --> 01:05:15,996
Speaker 7: lose the will to do it.

1069
01:05:17,276 --> 01:05:20,916
Speaker 4: I still feel that way. I still feel that way,

1070
01:05:21,076 --> 01:05:24,116
Speaker 4: I truly do. I don't know. Every day that I

1071
01:05:24,156 --> 01:05:28,196
Speaker 4: wake up, Sam, I think, is today the day that

1072
01:05:28,316 --> 01:05:31,756
Speaker 4: it won't be there? Will it not be there today? Like,

1073
01:05:32,156 --> 01:05:34,036
Speaker 4: not only the will to do it, the will to

1074
01:05:34,116 --> 01:05:36,396
Speaker 4: do it that is that is a that is eight

1075
01:05:36,476 --> 01:05:39,876
Speaker 4: years ago me. Like, now I'm like, is there still

1076
01:05:40,076 --> 01:05:43,196
Speaker 4: ink in the well? Can I still get it up?

1077
01:05:44,116 --> 01:05:47,196
Speaker 4: Is the magic still there? Because it's really what we're

1078
01:05:47,196 --> 01:05:49,636
Speaker 4: talking about. Honest to God, I swear to God, Sam,

1079
01:05:49,836 --> 01:05:52,836
Speaker 4: it's magic. Like, there's a lot of work that goes

1080
01:05:52,836 --> 01:05:56,036
Speaker 4: into it. There's a lot of suffering and you know,

1081
01:05:56,556 --> 01:06:02,236
Speaker 4: revising and you know false star every everything that involves

1082
01:06:02,396 --> 01:06:06,396
Speaker 4: you the creative process entails. But at the end of

1083
01:06:06,396 --> 01:06:09,916
Speaker 4: the day, at the beginning of the day, it's magic.

1084
01:06:10,716 --> 01:06:13,156
Speaker 4: I still have the will to do it. But now

1085
01:06:13,236 --> 01:06:16,236
Speaker 4: I'm like, it's not even about the will. It's just

1086
01:06:16,396 --> 01:06:20,436
Speaker 4: truly about is the sparkle of the thinking and the

1087
01:06:20,436 --> 01:06:23,116
Speaker 4: writing is still gonna be there even if I want

1088
01:06:23,156 --> 01:06:27,396
Speaker 4: to still be wiggling my fingers across the keyboard and

1089
01:06:27,476 --> 01:06:34,436
Speaker 4: I just I just think the universe that and my ancestors,

1090
01:06:34,476 --> 01:06:39,076
Speaker 4: somebody in my family had had this. I really believe

1091
01:06:39,116 --> 01:06:42,876
Speaker 4: that somebody in my family who never got a chance to,

1092
01:06:43,396 --> 01:06:46,476
Speaker 4: somebody in my in my in my genealogy, in my

1093
01:06:46,676 --> 01:06:53,516
Speaker 4: in my family history, somebody was cooking and really loved it,

1094
01:06:54,036 --> 01:06:57,836
Speaker 4: and whatever that was. I really feel like I got

1095
01:06:57,876 --> 01:07:00,756
Speaker 4: it from them. I got it from them, and hopefully

1096
01:07:00,796 --> 01:07:03,316
Speaker 4: I will have it so that when I die, it

1097
01:07:03,396 --> 01:07:06,796
Speaker 4: is a through line to my sister's kids or in

1098
01:07:06,876 --> 01:07:09,916
Speaker 4: their kids and their kids' kids. I don't know, I'm

1099
01:07:09,956 --> 01:07:12,796
Speaker 4: holding on to something really old. I'm not even holding

1100
01:07:12,796 --> 01:07:16,996
Speaker 4: onto it. It's just what's passing through me feels really old.

1101
01:07:17,076 --> 01:07:19,556
Speaker 4: I hope it outlives me essentially.

1102
01:07:19,716 --> 01:07:22,036
Speaker 3: Well. I feel like the only way we can end

1103
01:07:22,076 --> 01:07:26,876
Speaker 3: this is on a piece that that magic produced, a

1104
01:07:26,876 --> 01:07:30,236
Speaker 3: piece of writing that came out last year about the

1105
01:07:30,276 --> 01:07:34,716
Speaker 3: film that we keep mentioning but not discussing. This is

1106
01:07:34,756 --> 01:07:39,676
Speaker 3: your review of The Holdovers, ha ha, And I have

1107
01:07:39,796 --> 01:07:44,796
Speaker 3: to say, these last three paragraphs are maybe some of

1108
01:07:44,796 --> 01:07:48,316
Speaker 3: my favorite bits of writing that you've ever done. So

1109
01:07:48,356 --> 01:07:52,356
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, thank you. Perhaps you'd want to read

1110
01:07:52,396 --> 01:07:54,876
Speaker 3: it for people as we leave me.

1111
01:07:55,476 --> 01:07:59,716
Speaker 4: Uh, Okay, I have not seen these words, by the way, Sam,

1112
01:08:00,756 --> 01:08:03,716
Speaker 4: since they entered the New York time.

1113
01:08:04,636 --> 01:08:07,836
Speaker 3: Okay, well, this is Wesley Morris on the new film

1114
01:08:07,876 --> 01:08:10,796
Speaker 3: The Holdovers by Alexander Pain.

1115
01:08:11,356 --> 01:08:14,956
Speaker 4: Once it's all over and the movie is reminded you

1116
01:08:15,076 --> 01:08:17,836
Speaker 4: of Dead Poet Society, or maybe half a dozen films

1117
01:08:17,876 --> 01:08:21,196
Speaker 4: from the nineteen seventies like The Paper Chase, you might

1118
01:08:21,436 --> 01:08:24,956
Speaker 4: also feel what I did, Like you've seen an inversion

1119
01:08:24,996 --> 01:08:28,156
Speaker 4: of Wes Anderson's Rushmore, which opened twenty five years ago.

1120
01:08:28,756 --> 01:08:31,196
Speaker 4: Pain and Anderson arrived at roughly the same moment in

1121
01:08:31,236 --> 01:08:36,676
Speaker 4: the mid nineteen nineties. Only Pain's milieu is world weary, harsh,

1122
01:08:37,036 --> 01:08:41,636
Speaker 4: slouched blue or collared grayer. I saw Rushmore when I

1123
01:08:41,716 --> 01:08:44,956
Speaker 4: was loosely older than Max Fisher. The movie's go getting

1124
01:08:44,996 --> 01:08:50,556
Speaker 4: adolescent old soul protagonist. Anderson's declarative archness and rigorous eye

1125
01:08:50,636 --> 01:08:55,076
Speaker 4: rocked my world. A geek had gotten his revenge opening

1126
01:08:55,156 --> 01:09:00,076
Speaker 4: a nerd core Floodgate, but more important, his romanticism felt

1127
01:09:00,156 --> 01:09:05,476
Speaker 4: true cruelly. My peer is now Paul Hunnam, a figure

1128
01:09:05,556 --> 01:09:09,636
Speaker 4: humbled by principle, hampered by pride, and by the end

1129
01:09:09,636 --> 01:09:14,356
Speaker 4: of The Holdovers humboldt. Some more he's Max Fisher slumped.

1130
01:09:14,916 --> 01:09:18,396
Speaker 4: Watching Anderson's films has steadily made me the ogler. Matthew

1131
01:09:18,476 --> 01:09:22,316
Speaker 4: McConaughey plays and dazed and confused. I keep getting older

1132
01:09:22,676 --> 01:09:26,476
Speaker 4: and they just stay the same. The romanticism is calcified.

1133
01:09:27,156 --> 01:09:30,556
Speaker 4: His movies are less ardened. As much sculpture as to

1134
01:09:30,556 --> 01:09:36,356
Speaker 4: passion is passionate themselves. Paine's weakness was for pessimism, a hardened,

1135
01:09:36,556 --> 01:09:41,036
Speaker 4: freewheeling version. His movies were about cynics, the native born,

1136
01:09:41,476 --> 01:09:44,676
Speaker 4: the Ara Easts. But somewhere along the way he and

1137
01:09:44,556 --> 01:09:50,196
Speaker 4: Anderson swapped and the romantic intruded. Paine's characters began needling

1138
01:09:50,236 --> 01:09:55,116
Speaker 4: each other and connecting, and that crackle kicked in. That's

1139
01:09:55,196 --> 01:09:58,716
Speaker 4: especially true of his last two. The other is Downsizing,

1140
01:09:59,076 --> 01:10:02,236
Speaker 4: a soulful futurist sat tire with Matt Damon and Hong

1141
01:10:02,396 --> 01:10:06,156
Speaker 4: Child that nobody saw in middle age. Pain has come

1142
01:10:06,236 --> 01:10:09,716
Speaker 4: newly to life, whereas the Anderson of two thousand twenty ones,

1143
01:10:09,796 --> 01:10:13,716
Speaker 4: The French Dispatch and this Year's Asteroid City seems to

1144
01:10:13,756 --> 01:10:19,156
Speaker 4: me as alienated from sensation as ever, hiding in and

1145
01:10:19,196 --> 01:10:22,636
Speaker 4: fussing over the past rather than interrogating or inhabiting it.

1146
01:10:23,356 --> 01:10:26,356
Speaker 4: The Holdovers kicks off with the same kind of torpie

1147
01:10:26,556 --> 01:10:30,436
Speaker 4: entitled under an upper class folk that dominate Rushmore, but

1148
01:10:30,516 --> 01:10:32,796
Speaker 4: he sends them away to get down to a more pungent,

1149
01:10:33,076 --> 01:10:36,676
Speaker 4: nitty gritty kind of comedy. One character tells another his

1150
01:10:36,796 --> 01:10:39,876
Speaker 4: near murderous sob story, and at some point a different

1151
01:10:39,996 --> 01:10:43,556
Speaker 4: character deadpans to him, here you go, killer. This is

1152
01:10:43,596 --> 01:10:46,516
Speaker 4: Pain's first movie set in any kind of past. It's

1153
01:10:46,636 --> 01:10:50,036
Speaker 4: using the old MPAA rating card and was shot digitally

1154
01:10:50,156 --> 01:10:54,636
Speaker 4: by Igel Brild to achieve thirty five millimeters coziness. But

1155
01:10:54,716 --> 01:10:58,236
Speaker 4: it doesn't feel stuck there. Pain's not locking us out.

1156
01:10:58,516 --> 01:11:01,836
Speaker 4: He's letting us in practicing what I suspect is Paul

1157
01:11:01,916 --> 01:11:05,476
Speaker 4: Hunum's stock in trade during the school year, bringing ancient

1158
01:11:05,556 --> 01:11:11,316
Speaker 4: civilizations to aching life. All right, what was your point?

1159
01:11:14,316 --> 01:11:16,436
Speaker 3: Annoyed? Is this an annoyed Wesley?

1160
01:11:16,516 --> 01:11:19,316
Speaker 4: I see no, I mean thank you for that. I

1161
01:11:19,356 --> 01:11:21,356
Speaker 4: appreciate it. I really appreciate it.

1162
01:11:21,356 --> 01:11:24,876
Speaker 3: It's a moving piece of writing, in part because you

1163
01:11:24,996 --> 01:11:28,316
Speaker 3: kind of put yourself in there. You saw some of

1164
01:11:28,356 --> 01:11:33,676
Speaker 3: yourself in the Geomadi character, in disposition, in spirit, not

1165
01:11:33,796 --> 01:11:37,756
Speaker 3: quite age, but perhaps in vocation as well. I don't know,

1166
01:11:37,796 --> 01:11:41,596
Speaker 3: because his job as a teacher in that film is

1167
01:11:41,636 --> 01:11:45,916
Speaker 3: too as you write, bring ancient civilizations to aching life.

1168
01:11:46,436 --> 01:11:50,676
Speaker 3: And I was thinking, like, at its best, at your best,

1169
01:11:51,356 --> 01:11:54,276
Speaker 3: isn't that kind of what you do in writing?

1170
01:11:54,796 --> 01:11:58,956
Speaker 4: I mean, Faarah, it's well observed. I mean sure, yes,

1171
01:11:59,796 --> 01:12:04,156
Speaker 4: I mean it can't come at the expense of the new.

1172
01:12:04,436 --> 01:12:07,716
Speaker 4: I would just want to emphasize that, right, like, it

1173
01:12:07,756 --> 01:12:11,076
Speaker 4: can't come at the expense of not being in the present.

1174
01:12:11,836 --> 01:12:14,196
Speaker 4: And the thing that I kind of admire about The

1175
01:12:14,196 --> 01:12:19,036
Speaker 4: Holdovers is it's like Tom, It's Thomas Payne, Alexander Payne

1176
01:12:19,356 --> 01:12:22,116
Speaker 4: sort of thinking about what it would mean for him

1177
01:12:22,156 --> 01:12:24,716
Speaker 4: to go back to the nineteen seventies. I don't know

1178
01:12:24,956 --> 01:12:27,956
Speaker 4: this guy is. This is a filmmaker who's only ever

1179
01:12:28,316 --> 01:12:32,796
Speaker 4: wanted to tell us who we are as a culture,

1180
01:12:32,996 --> 01:12:37,756
Speaker 4: as a people, as a national civilization. So if that

1181
01:12:37,836 --> 01:12:42,036
Speaker 4: guy wants to spend one movie in nineteen seventy something

1182
01:12:43,036 --> 01:12:47,316
Speaker 4: thinking about these you know, spoiled people who have to

1183
01:12:47,356 --> 01:12:50,276
Speaker 4: like eke out a life in a real city like

1184
01:12:50,316 --> 01:12:52,916
Speaker 4: Boston during the end of the Civil Rights movement and

1185
01:12:52,996 --> 01:12:57,076
Speaker 4: the Vietnam War, he gets to do it because he's

1186
01:12:57,116 --> 01:12:59,236
Speaker 4: earned it. And it again, it does not feel like

1187
01:12:59,556 --> 01:13:01,276
Speaker 4: he wants to stay there at all.

1188
01:13:01,556 --> 01:13:04,676
Speaker 3: I bring this up because to end, does this new

1189
01:13:04,876 --> 01:13:06,836
Speaker 3: film that is very much the kind of film that

1190
01:13:06,876 --> 01:13:10,356
Speaker 3: has vanished from the landscape, does it give you hope

1191
01:13:10,676 --> 01:13:12,476
Speaker 3: for the future of this medium?

1192
01:13:12,956 --> 01:13:17,396
Speaker 4: I mean maybe? But how old is Alexander Payne too?

1193
01:13:17,436 --> 01:13:17,796
Speaker 3: I think?

1194
01:13:19,276 --> 01:13:22,756
Speaker 4: I mean, where's the equivalent now of the guy who

1195
01:13:22,756 --> 01:13:26,756
Speaker 4: made Citizen Roof? Where's that person? Because that's the thing

1196
01:13:26,756 --> 01:13:29,596
Speaker 4: that's giving me hope, not that this great director who's

1197
01:13:29,756 --> 01:13:33,716
Speaker 4: done his work right Where is you know, a thirty

1198
01:13:33,796 --> 01:13:35,796
Speaker 4: year old person who wants to give me an abortion

1199
01:13:35,956 --> 01:13:39,716
Speaker 4: comedy right now, who wants to give me a really

1200
01:13:39,916 --> 01:13:45,076
Speaker 4: perfectly etched comedy about reproductive rights in America and the

1201
01:13:45,196 --> 01:13:53,316
Speaker 4: hypocrisy's therein utterly cynical, very funny. Where's that person? Because

1202
01:13:53,316 --> 01:13:55,356
Speaker 4: I'm waiting for him and I don't know where they are.

1203
01:13:55,676 --> 01:13:58,396
Speaker 3: Well, I think right now there are a lot of

1204
01:13:58,396 --> 01:14:01,996
Speaker 3: people listening to this conversation that are going to try

1205
01:14:02,556 --> 01:14:03,516
Speaker 3: to answer the call.

1206
01:14:04,396 --> 01:14:08,516
Speaker 4: Ha ha ha, God bless you and God help you. But

1207
01:14:08,596 --> 01:14:11,356
Speaker 4: I'm here when you're ready, When you do it, I

1208
01:14:11,436 --> 01:14:13,596
Speaker 4: want to be the first person to see it, read

1209
01:14:13,636 --> 01:14:15,116
Speaker 4: it something.

1210
01:14:15,316 --> 01:14:17,836
Speaker 3: And whenever you write about it, I am excited to

1211
01:14:17,876 --> 01:14:21,916
Speaker 3: read it. You talked about how filmmakers at their best

1212
01:14:22,596 --> 01:14:25,636
Speaker 3: make work that shows us how to live, what it

1213
01:14:25,716 --> 01:14:28,876
Speaker 3: means to be alive. That's what you said, and I

1214
01:14:28,916 --> 01:14:31,756
Speaker 3: think you have done that a whole lot in the

1215
01:14:31,836 --> 01:14:35,756
Speaker 3: last eight years since we first spoke. So I want

1216
01:14:35,756 --> 01:14:37,156
Speaker 3: to thank you for that, and I want to thank

1217
01:14:37,196 --> 01:14:40,556
Speaker 3: you as always my god, eight years. Thank you for the.

1218
01:14:40,556 --> 01:14:44,796
Speaker 4: Time I know, don't do that. Thank you, Sam, Thanks

1219
01:14:44,836 --> 01:14:45,516
Speaker 4: for having.

1220
01:14:45,276 --> 01:14:46,316
Speaker 3: Me, Lesley Morris.

1221
01:14:46,876 --> 01:15:56,716
Speaker 5: Take care, Take care, Sam.

1222
01:15:22,556 --> 01:15:24,676
Speaker 3: And that's our show. I want to give a special

1223
01:15:24,676 --> 01:15:27,636
Speaker 3: thanks this week to Devon Darby and of course our

1224
01:15:27,676 --> 01:15:31,836
Speaker 3: guest today, Wesley Morris. To read or to learn more

1225
01:15:31,876 --> 01:15:34,716
Speaker 3: about any of the ten films nominated for Best Picture,

1226
01:15:35,036 --> 01:15:39,036
Speaker 3: be sure to visit our website at talk easypod dot com.

1227
01:15:39,316 --> 01:15:42,556
Speaker 3: If you enjoyed today's conversation, I'd recommend our episodes with

1228
01:15:42,676 --> 01:15:46,756
Speaker 3: David Remnick, Jay Wortham Matt Bellanie and Ava du Verne

1229
01:15:47,196 --> 01:15:52,156
Speaker 3: to hear those and more. Pushkin Podcasts listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

1230
01:15:52,396 --> 01:15:54,876
Speaker 3: or wherever you like to listen. If you want to

1231
01:15:54,876 --> 01:15:56,556
Speaker 3: help us out, be sure to leave us a review

1232
01:15:56,636 --> 01:15:59,716
Speaker 3: on Apple or Spotify, or wherever you are listening to

1233
01:15:59,796 --> 01:16:02,516
Speaker 3: this right now. If you want to go above and beyond,

1234
01:16:02,876 --> 01:16:06,156
Speaker 3: sharing the program on social media, sharing it with a friend,

1235
01:16:06,476 --> 01:16:09,716
Speaker 3: all of it really does help us continue doing the

1236
01:16:09,756 --> 01:16:13,116
Speaker 3: work we do here every Sunday. You can follow us

1237
01:16:13,156 --> 01:16:17,716
Speaker 3: on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk easy Pod. If you

1238
01:16:17,716 --> 01:16:19,276
Speaker 3: want to buy one of our mugs, they come and

1239
01:16:19,356 --> 01:16:22,196
Speaker 3: Cream or Navy, or the vinyl record we made with

1240
01:16:22,316 --> 01:16:26,076
Speaker 3: writer fran Leebowitz, you can do so at talk easypod

1241
01:16:26,156 --> 01:16:30,956
Speaker 3: dot com slash shop. Talk easy is produced by Caroline Reebok.

1242
01:16:31,196 --> 01:16:34,476
Speaker 3: Our executive producer is Jennick Sabravo. Our associate producer is

1243
01:16:34,556 --> 01:16:37,836
Speaker 3: Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by c J. Mitchell

1244
01:16:37,916 --> 01:16:41,436
Speaker 3: and Kitlin Dryden and mixed by Andrew Vastola, who was

1245
01:16:41,476 --> 01:16:45,556
Speaker 3: taped at Spotify Studios here in Los Angeles, California. Our

1246
01:16:45,636 --> 01:16:49,276
Speaker 3: music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Kristashenoe.

1247
01:16:49,316 --> 01:16:52,316
Speaker 3: Our video and graphics are by Ian Chang, Derek Gaberzac,

1248
01:16:52,356 --> 01:16:54,956
Speaker 3: Ian Jones, and Ethan Seneca. I also want to thank

1249
01:16:54,996 --> 01:16:59,276
Speaker 3: our team at Pushkin Industries. They include Justin Richmond, Julia Barton,

1250
01:16:59,356 --> 01:17:02,956
Speaker 3: John Shnars, Kerrie Brody, Eric Sandler, Jona McMillan, Kira Posey,

1251
01:17:02,996 --> 01:17:07,396
Speaker 3: Tara Machado, Jason Gambrell, Justine Lang, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen

1252
01:17:07,596 --> 01:17:11,516
Speaker 3: and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening

1253
01:17:11,596 --> 01:17:14,076
Speaker 3: to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week

1254
01:17:14,156 --> 01:17:19,556
Speaker 3: with filmmaker Lulu Wong. Until then, stay safe and so

1255
01:17:19,676 --> 01:17:19,916
Speaker 3: long