Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant aka Ciskel.
Speaker 3: And Ebert save it's the I'll see.
Speaker 2: And Jerry's over there. I guess she's Gene Shallett. That's
Speaker 2: the stuff you should know, triumph for.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that took on me so much
Speaker 1: because Jeane Salat's a funny looking I guess, yeah, Jerry's not.
Speaker 1: I'm just picturing her with a big afro and a
Speaker 1: mustache and like a tweet jacket and bad opinions about movies.
Speaker 3: Geene Shllett had a look for sure.
Speaker 1: Still thought he's around right, Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Rip both Ciskel and Ebert, so sad. I know, have
Speaker 1: you seen the Roger Ebert documentary?
Speaker 2: No, I've heard nothing but good things.
Speaker 3: Really really good, very touching.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is it a something life?
Speaker 3: Life? Uh like mine, Life with Me, Life on top,
Speaker 3: Life itself, Life with thumbs, Life itself, Life itself, Life
Speaker 3: with thumbs.
Speaker 1: It was really great and I watched it on made
Speaker 1: the mistake of watching on a plane, and I was
Speaker 1: just like.
Speaker 3: My allergies were acting up. Oh yeah, oh yeah I was.
Speaker 1: I was watering because of your allergies. No, because it
Speaker 1: was sad. I was crying. Do you want me to
Speaker 1: say it?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, crying on a plane. I was confused there
Speaker 3: for a second.
Speaker 1: That's better than when I watch other movies that are
Speaker 1: on my laptop that are like like bad violence or
Speaker 1: nudity or something. I'm always just like oh, and I
Speaker 1: kind of lower the laptop and it's like I.
Speaker 3: Didn't realize this was in here, and the lady next
Speaker 3: to me is just.
Speaker 2: Like, ugh, you disgust me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I don't. I want to be sensitive people
Speaker 1: around me. You know, I'm not one of those jerks.
Speaker 1: It's like just lives in my own bubble.
Speaker 3: It's like watching some sex scene on a plane, You're
Speaker 3: like elbowing the lady.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I hate it. It was so embarras
Speaker 1: happened to me a couple of times. I'm like I
Speaker 1: needed to start going PG on movies airplanes.
Speaker 2: Judd Apatow huh am, I right, he's unpredictable.
Speaker 3: Yeah all right, So Chuck, this is your episode to
Speaker 3: shine man, is it? Yes, you're a movie guy too, though,
Speaker 3: I like movies.
Speaker 2: But I've I almost consciously don't let myself watch movies
Speaker 2: on a like a film aficionado.
Speaker 3: Level, your pure enjoyment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't ever want to see the individual shots
Speaker 2: and just be like, oh, well that could have been
Speaker 2: better whatever. Yeah, and just missed the movie as a whole.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I fall somewhere in the middle of that. I
Speaker 3: try to let go.
Speaker 1: But like our our video producer director Casey is is
Speaker 1: pretty bad about that. And our buddy Scotty who shot
Speaker 1: our TV show, Oh he's the worst. Yeah, he's just
Speaker 1: the camera working that lighting in that scene.
Speaker 3: Scott's awesome. Hey Scott, Hey Casey.
Speaker 1: They're all in here with this in spirit. And hey,
Speaker 1: this is the last show in the studio. Yeah, last
Speaker 1: episode in the old office.
Speaker 3: Yep, Murder Room.
Speaker 2: Couldn't feel more neutral about it.
Speaker 3: I actually feel less than neutral, less than zero. It's
Speaker 3: it's weird. That was a good movie. Thank you, great shots.
Speaker 3: I say thank you as if I directed it.
Speaker 2: I not only directed it, I also played Andrew McCarthy. Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm ready to get the heck out of here. Man.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get in that new office and
Speaker 1: that Yeah, it's gonna be good, tiny little dedicated studio.
Speaker 3: Whole new world. All right, let's do this.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, Chuck films, you've seen one or two of
Speaker 2: them in your time? Sure, have you seen any of
Speaker 2: the ones in this list? I know you've seen a
Speaker 2: few of them, but have you seen like some of
Speaker 2: the early ones I've seen.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll just go piece by piece because I have
Speaker 1: not seen Battleship Patankn.
Speaker 3: Okay, but I do love Mandy Patankin.
Speaker 2: It's a little different, yes, in spelling pronunciation meaning the
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: But it's close, I guess.
Speaker 1: But we're talking, of course, about films that change filmmaking
Speaker 1: somewhere or another. And the first one on the list
Speaker 1: is from nineteen twenty five, Battleship Patinkin.
Speaker 3: That's hard for me to say, which is.
Speaker 2: Not the first movie, by the way. The first screen
Speaker 2: movie was Workers Leaving the Lumieer Factory, which is forty
Speaker 2: seven seconds long and the most boring piece of celluloid
Speaker 2: anyone's ever picked together. But it was the first, that's right.
Speaker 2: This was many years. That was a full thirty years
Speaker 2: before Battleship Potempkin. By the time thirty years had passed,
Speaker 2: like we were doing like narratives, and there was banning
Speaker 2: and all sorts of great stuff. Yeah, and Battleship Patinkin
Speaker 2: fell under both of those umbrellas. It was a narrative story.
Speaker 2: It was a silent movie, that's right, But it told
Speaker 2: a pretty clear story. And it was a bit of
Speaker 2: Russian propaganda as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it tells a story of a nineteen oh five
Speaker 1: uprising in where there were Russian sailors. Basically, there was
Speaker 1: a mutiny aboard a ship and then the bad guys,
Speaker 1: the Cossacks, came in looking for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nineteen oh five, that would have been rising up
Speaker 2: against tyranny, would have been rising up against the Romanov monarchy.
Speaker 2: I guess nice. But it was made in nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: so this is a time when you know, Lenin and
Speaker 2: Trotsky and all those dudes were running around trying to
Speaker 2: do the great experiment. Yeah, and it ends up it
Speaker 2: turns out that the Battleship Petempkin was banned in some countries.
Speaker 2: Some countries are like, we don't want this Rusky propaganda, right,
Speaker 2: But Russia itself later on banned it when Stalin came
Speaker 2: to power because he was a self aware dictator.
Speaker 3: Was that the deal? Yeah, okay, he knew.
Speaker 2: This could be a metaphor for rising up against my dictatorship.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to just ban the uh yeah, even
Speaker 2: though it's Russian propaganda.
Speaker 1: Well, filmatically, I need to bring the history, by the way.
Speaker 1: Filmatically speaking, it was a landmark film because of the
Speaker 1: montage and most notably the Russi or Soviet theory of montage,
Speaker 1: which is basically that your impact is going to come
Speaker 1: from juxtaposition of shots and not necessarily a smooth sequence
Speaker 1: of shots, right, and it should be rhythmic instead of
Speaker 1: necessarily being tied to the story. It was like a
Speaker 1: rhythmic series of shots. And this one is popular. It
Speaker 1: was the Odessa Steps sequence as one of the five acts,
Speaker 1: and it is huge because it has been aped and
Speaker 1: mimicked and mocked and homaged probably more than about more
Speaker 1: but a lot of times in film history.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the montage it's like a go to editing technique, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well the montage in general, but specifically the
Speaker 1: Odessa Steps.
Speaker 3: Oh, there are two notable parts in that sequence.
Speaker 1: One is the you know, it's basically a big charge
Speaker 1: on these these grand steps leading up to a building
Speaker 1: in a big battle.
Speaker 3: Odessa, Texas.
Speaker 1: And there's a part of it where there's the old
Speaker 1: the old baby carriage going down the steps. You know
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen to the baby? And it sounds tired
Speaker 1: because we've seen that in uh, you know, The Untouchables.
Speaker 3: Yeah, notably, I did not find it tiresome.
Speaker 1: Naked Gun thirty three and the third Yeah, everything is illuminated,
Speaker 1: the great movie by Leeb Schreiber. That was from directly
Speaker 1: from the Odessa step sequence in Battleship Patinkin the baby carriage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the old shot through the shot in the eye
Speaker 1: through the glasses, Oh cool, that comes from this movie too.
Speaker 3: They were the first ones to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've seen that in Woody Allen's Love and
Speaker 1: Death and Bananas and.
Speaker 3: Of course The Godfather.
Speaker 1: The great sequence where Moe Green's getting the massage and
Speaker 1: he looks up and puts on.
Speaker 3: His glasses during a montage. Yeah, that's exactly the whole
Speaker 3: sequence montage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there was an assassination on the steps as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, that was definitely was a double.
Speaker 3: Who was that? That was Francis Ford Coppola.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he was clearly aware of Battleship Pat Tempkin, clearly.
Speaker 2: I was trying to think of other examples of montages
Speaker 2: and the only thing I could come up with was
Speaker 2: the eighteen building something. But that counts as a montage, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like some related in some way related shots that
Speaker 2: are kind of put together that a little bit transcend like.
Speaker 3: Story in itself. Yeah, like Rocky training for a fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another good A lot of times just.
Speaker 3: Set to music. Yeah, I love it. That's the only
Speaker 3: one you can think of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the great movie Brazil too has the shot
Speaker 1: through the glasses bit, as I like to call it.
Speaker 3: So that's Battleship of Dinkin, doesn't it. One of the
Speaker 3: Nazis and Raiders of the Lost Dark gets shot through
Speaker 3: the glasses.
Speaker 1: Maybe that wouldn't surprise me. It's been it's been off homaged,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Battleship Pat Tempkin was a It made a
Speaker 2: pretty big splash in nineteen twenty five. In nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 2: the following year, the next movie on the list. It
Speaker 2: wasn't his first, but it really solidified I think his
Speaker 2: stardom Buster Keaton stardom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the general rightfully so too. Yeah, he was one
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 1: Great Well, some people call him the greatest stuntman to
Speaker 1: ever live.
Speaker 3: He's done some stuff that I think earns him that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I mean this is.
Speaker 1: Back in the day too, where he was legitimately risking
Speaker 1: his life, right, you know, like.
Speaker 2: That the very famously where he's standing on the street
Speaker 2: in front of a house and then the whole front
Speaker 2: of the house falls over him and the window just
Speaker 2: goes right around him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I watch that again today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: I can't believe he did that. And there's actually a
Speaker 2: half of a second where his arm jerks up because
Speaker 2: he's startled as the house finally makes its way like
Speaker 2: into his peripheral vision. Yeah, and it has to be
Speaker 2: one of the most dangerous things that human beings ever
Speaker 2: done on film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure the whole time before that was like
Speaker 1: we did the math, right, he did the math.
Speaker 2: Do the math again, Do.
Speaker 1: The math again, Show me the math, Show me the math,
Speaker 1: because that's all it was. It was math in measurements, right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he could have been squashed and killed very easily, and.
Speaker 2: He had a lot of faith in everybody who was
Speaker 2: pulling off this stunt with him. You know, he had
Speaker 2: to just stand there. That was his whole thing is
Speaker 2: he had to just stand there, and his bit was
Speaker 2: that he was he played it straight constantly. He was
Speaker 2: a stonefaced actor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, deadpan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he kind of started that whole thing because his
Speaker 1: big I was about to say rival, but I guess
Speaker 1: just contemporary Charlie Chaplin, while similar in some ways, was
Speaker 1: completely different because Chaplin was constantly mugging for the camera
Speaker 1: and like asking for the audience sympathy.
Speaker 2: Right, raising his eyebrows or yeah.
Speaker 3: Like look, what's happening to me? Come on, come on?
Speaker 3: Where his Buster Keaton would just he had that dead
Speaker 3: pan look the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would go from like a house falling around
Speaker 2: him to jumping on a train or something like that
Speaker 2: with just the same blank facial expression.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the reason this is a highly influential film the
Speaker 1: generals because it kind of showcases the best of both
Speaker 1: the amazing stunts that would be mimicked and throughout the
Speaker 1: years and built upon, and then the deadpan style that
Speaker 1: influenced everyone from obviously Bill Murray is one of the great.
Speaker 3: Deadpan actors of all time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you can count the number of times Bill
Speaker 1: Murray even smiles in a movie on like two hands,
Speaker 1: sure much less like apes or laughs or anything.
Speaker 2: Michael Sarah's mentioned in here, and I'm like, he, I
Speaker 2: think he might have Bill Murray beat as far as
Speaker 2: the dead pan pan actor goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Zach galafan Actus is on the list, he's
Speaker 1: super deadpan.
Speaker 3: Leslie Nielsen, of course. Amy Poehler, I think is a
Speaker 3: woman that's a very dead pan has a deadpan style.
Speaker 3: Jason Schwartzman.
Speaker 1: Yes, but people say, is this all is a direct
Speaker 1: descendant of Buster Keaton's work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you think we're overstating this, go watch
Speaker 2: any Buster Keaton movie. Yeah, you will be thrilled and delighted.
Speaker 2: And if your attention span has been shredded to ribbons
Speaker 2: by the Internet, just go on onto YouTube and type
Speaker 2: in Buster Keaton and it'll bring up all sorts of
Speaker 2: clips of his awesome stunts.
Speaker 3: Pretty great.
Speaker 2: He will be thrilled in as I promise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I made a note here, by
Speaker 1: the way, that we have a fatty arbuckle retraction to
Speaker 1: make Remember when we called him out as the rapist.
Speaker 3: Murderer, I didn't say murderer. Well we said rapist at least, right,
Speaker 3: but we were taking the task by fan he was,
Speaker 3: he had, he was acquitted of all that stuff, and
Speaker 3: apparently he didn't do either act and his career in
Speaker 3: life and family name were ruined forever. So he was
Speaker 3: evidently done a grave miss justice, and we sort of
Speaker 3: cavalierly just still called him that today. Yeah, I need
Speaker 3: to look into it more, all right. So next up
Speaker 3: we have the Jazz Singer, the nineteen twenty seven edition.
Speaker 2: Not the Neil diamond one.
Speaker 3: No, and there was one in between two with Danny Thomas.
Speaker 3: I believe I like Neil Diamonds. It's good. I never
Speaker 3: saw you ever see it? No, No, it's not bad.
Speaker 1: But this is the original from Alan Crossland, and it
Speaker 1: is notable because it was.
Speaker 3: The first feature length.
Speaker 1: Movie that was at least twenty five spoken dialogue.
Speaker 2: Right, does that make sense? Yeah, it's totally new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't the first talkie because they had short
Speaker 1: films that were talkies, and there was a movie the
Speaker 1: next year I'm sorry, yeah, in nineteen twenty eight called
Speaker 1: Lights of New York that had one hundred percent full
Speaker 1: spoken dialogue. But the Jazz singer had a mix of
Speaker 1: music and spoken dialogue. Right, the first big, big daddy
Speaker 1: feature length film to.
Speaker 3: Do so right with substantial dialogue, right. Yeah. And they.
Speaker 2: Did it in the most roundabout difficult way that you
Speaker 2: could possibly do it, which is to record the audio
Speaker 2: and the soundtrack, both the dialogue and the music, onto
Speaker 2: vinyl records.
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably wax records.
Speaker 2: Really, and then the projectionists had to sync the record
Speaker 2: up with the film strip so everything was in sync.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was a device called a vitaphone that Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: sunk about half a million into this company called Western
Speaker 1: Electric who invented it, and it was actually physically connected
Speaker 1: to the projector's motor, so they did while they did
Speaker 1: have to sink it was it was a physical connection
Speaker 1: between the phonograph player and the projection.
Speaker 3: Real, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it went on to gross three and a half
Speaker 1: million bucks for nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 3: That's man, a lot of dough. That's a ton of dough.
Speaker 3: That's like five six million dollars today, at least, yeah,
Speaker 3: at least, but was ineligible for the Best Picture because
Speaker 3: they were just like, you can't compete with the rest,
Speaker 3: it's not fair. Oh wow, because everything else is silent
Speaker 3: and everyone's going to vote for you. Yeah, so that
Speaker 3: changed the whole game for sure.
Speaker 2: We will continue on with our awesome and engrossing list
Speaker 2: right after this. So, Chuck, if you'll notice, the first
Speaker 2: three movies in our list, the first three films that
Speaker 2: changed everything happened in nineteen twenty five, twenty six, and
Speaker 2: twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Things were changing fast.
Speaker 2: They really were. I mean, like we by leaps and bounds. Sure,
Speaker 2: but you can also make the case that there was
Speaker 2: a lot of new ground to cover. So just about
Speaker 2: anybody who did anything new that was noteworthy of the innovation. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a big innovation. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Harder to innovate these days, it is.
Speaker 2: And if you'll notice on the list, so the earliest
Speaker 2: ones were like technical editing innovations. Now, starting with Citizen
Speaker 2: Kane from nineteen forty one, we started to get into
Speaker 2: innovations in storytelling, which is a lot more nuanced than
Speaker 2: you know, doing your own stunts or using a montage
Speaker 2: or something. It's figuring out how to tell a story
Speaker 2: in a much less linear narrative fashion. And Citizen Kme
Speaker 2: was one of the early ones to pioneer a non
Speaker 2: linear narrative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you you saw this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't see it untill I mean it was
Speaker 1: probably like probably about fifteen years ago, but like way
Speaker 1: later than you would think I would have seen.
Speaker 3: This is a big film, buff.
Speaker 2: I saw it in college at a in a film class.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure. Often. Yeah, if you sign up for a
Speaker 3: film class, you're going to study Citizen exactly pretty much.
Speaker 3: And I finally found out what Rosebud was. Don't ruin it.
Speaker 3: I won't.
Speaker 1: But it is a landmark film in every way, and
Speaker 1: it has often been top of best Films of All
Speaker 1: Time lists for great reasons, one of which, like you said,
Speaker 1: the non linear narrative was a really unique thing at
Speaker 1: the time. Although flashback wasn't brand new, it was the
Speaker 1: first time it had been this extensive and effective in
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because, I mean it's substantial enough that it really
Speaker 2: cuts up the flow. Oh yeah, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: like a quick flashback and then come back and the
Speaker 2: actors like staring off into space to transition back into
Speaker 2: the present again. I mean like it was all over
Speaker 2: the place.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some of the more concrete cinematic landmarks, one was using
Speaker 1: deep focus.
Speaker 3: Director of photography.
Speaker 1: Greg Toland legend used he had used deep focus before
Speaker 1: on a movie called Long Voyage Home, but it's all
Speaker 1: over the place in Citizen Kane. And that basically means
Speaker 1: if you see a shot where something very far away
Speaker 1: is in focus in the shot, basically where everything's in
Speaker 1: focus with.
Speaker 2: The background in the foreground or yeah, and focus so
Speaker 2: you can press pause and look around like you're sticking
Speaker 2: your head into a box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's called deep focus.
Speaker 1: And it was brand new as far as Citizen Gain goes,
Speaker 1: is how extensive it used it.
Speaker 3: One of the other things was off center framing.
Speaker 1: It was a big, you know, pretty common thing to
Speaker 1: just center whatever the main action was, either the character
Speaker 1: or the object, And Citizen Kaine had a lot of
Speaker 1: things where the main focus of the scene the character,
Speaker 1: maybe even off screen, which was really weird at the time.
Speaker 1: People didn't know what to think of it. Expressionistic lighting
Speaker 1: back then, everything they just lit it. They're like, make
Speaker 1: sure everything's well lit.
Speaker 2: But it was an autopremeter. Also like a big pioneer
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: With Dalm for Murder, I think he.
Speaker 3: Directed that was it Hitchcock.
Speaker 2: I think that was Hitchcock was it okay, Well, autopremmeter
Speaker 2: directed stuff like that, though, right he was. He used
Speaker 2: moody lighting and shot yeah and stuff a lot.
Speaker 3: I probably messed that up. People are gonna be for murder.
Speaker 3: I think it was preventy okay.
Speaker 1: But orson Welles, of course, I don't think we even mentioned.
Speaker 1: That's who wrote, directed, and starred and produced. And I
Speaker 1: think he even edited a Citizen Kane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just assumed everybody knew that, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he came from the theater where you create mood
Speaker 1: with lighting only.
Speaker 3: Certain parts of the stage.
Speaker 1: So he brought that into the movies and it was
Speaker 1: very evocative and set the mood well, and people are like, man,
Speaker 1: why we lighten everything all bright all the time?
Speaker 3: Look at Citizen Kane. It really worked a couple of
Speaker 3: other things, One of which.
Speaker 1: I know you will appreciate, sir, is that he pretty
Speaker 1: much invented the wipe.
Speaker 3: Oh the star white, not the star white, but it followed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the star wipe followed, which I know is your
Speaker 1: favorite transition in cinema.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's all Star.
Speaker 2: Wars star because it almost makes a sound, you know.
Speaker 2: And one of the way I want to say, you're right,
Speaker 2: Dallen for Murder it was Hitchcock.
Speaker 3: Oh was it? Yeah? Okay, what was premature? Did you
Speaker 3: look that up?
Speaker 2: He did one called Laura the Man with the Golden Arm.
Speaker 2: It's not who I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of a
Speaker 2: director named Auto who directed in like the twenties or thirties,
Speaker 2: and he directed like moody, like like moody movies, like yeah,
Speaker 2: murder movies. Yeah, like fil noir, Yes, film noir. That's
Speaker 2: exactly what I was going for. And I don't remember
Speaker 2: who it was.
Speaker 3: Maybe his name was Auto film Moore. He's French.
Speaker 1: And then one final thing, of course, that you could
Speaker 1: study Citizen Kane for a week in the film class.
Speaker 1: So this is an overview. But the low angle shots.
Speaker 1: People didn't use a lot of lower high angle shots
Speaker 1: back then. It was kind of just shot from straight
Speaker 1: on and Orson Welles even dug out cut out the
Speaker 1: floor a lot of times to get the camera lower.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And for the first time we saw ceilings in view
Speaker 1: in a movie, because quite often things were shot on
Speaker 1: a sound stage where you don't have ceilings, and he
Speaker 1: wanted those low angle shots. So they used fabric most
Speaker 1: times to act as a ceiling, but very effective shots
Speaker 1: of from below of Orson Wells as. I mean, it
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly William Randolphurst, but it was an approximation of
Speaker 1: William Randolphurst, right, so very effective low angle stuff that Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, we take for granted all these things, but
Speaker 1: you know, there would be no pulp fiction in that
Speaker 1: nonlinear storytelling. If there was no well maybe somebody would
Speaker 1: have done it, but maybe eventually.
Speaker 2: But he was the first. He did the first, and
Speaker 2: that's why it was innovative.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: It's Fritz Lang.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go, Fritz Lang, Metropolis and Am just them.
Speaker 3: That's okay, Yeah, it's all making sense now.
Speaker 2: You get confused.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you were right on, You were right there.
Speaker 2: Fritz and Auto are not close. I mean they're both German,
Speaker 2: but that's about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know the difference between and dial M
Speaker 1: just a telephone.
Speaker 3: What's up next, Chuck Breathless one of my faves.
Speaker 2: So I am going to rely on you mostly for
Speaker 2: this one because I looked up what the French new
Speaker 2: wave really did, what it accounted for. Yeah, and like
Speaker 2: all of the essays I found were hard to they
Speaker 2: were dense. Yeah, and I didn't really understand. I understood
Speaker 2: that the French New Wave like changed everything, and that
Speaker 2: a lot of the movies that I know and love
Speaker 2: today are the offspring of the French New Wave, but
Speaker 2: I still didn't get exactly specifically what the French New
Speaker 2: Wave did.
Speaker 3: And you're going to allow me to summarize, says yeah,
Speaker 3: no pressure.
Speaker 1: Well, for me, the French New Wave basically ushered in
Speaker 1: an era of what now I think most people might
Speaker 1: associate with indie filmmaking okay, okay, like handheld camera work
Speaker 1: and what some people at the time considered amateurish camera work,
Speaker 1: movies where maybe not a lot seemingly happens, you know,
Speaker 1: nothing grand happens, which was the case in Breathless. A
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't like it at the time because
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, not much happens. You know
Speaker 1: that the two leads in the movie, Jean Paul Belmondo
Speaker 1: and Geene c Berg, weren't really like, didn't show express
Speaker 1: a whole lot of deep love, and there weren't these
Speaker 1: big moments of love and affection and these huge action sequences,
Speaker 1: And it was described as flat by a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of indie movies do that
Speaker 1: just kind of show life as it happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so without Breathless, who wouldn't have like Fallow Rocket.
Speaker 3: Maybe.
Speaker 1: Wes Anderson's definitely a big French New wave guy, Yeah
Speaker 1: for sure. But godar John lu Goodard who directed it,
Speaker 1: and Truffau and some other French New Wave forefathers were
Speaker 1: film critics at first.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. They decided as a.
Speaker 1: Group, like, we want to look at cinnamon a new
Speaker 1: way and do something different.
Speaker 3: So they went and started making their own movies.
Speaker 2: That's like James Fenimore Cooper, Yeah, the guy who wrote
Speaker 2: Last of the Mohicans.
Speaker 3: Oh really Yeah.
Speaker 2: He apparently used to complain that like nobody wrote good
Speaker 2: books anymore, and so I think his wife or something said, well,
Speaker 2: why don't you do it, big shot? And he did.
Speaker 2: In the books he wrote really were so great. But
Speaker 2: he went and wrote them, and he wrote a bunch
Speaker 2: of them too.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite foresides ever is the second to
Speaker 1: the Last of the Mohicans. It's just a line of
Speaker 1: Native Americans and the second to the last one they're
Speaker 1: online facing away. He just sort of turning around and
Speaker 1: waving camera. I guess the camera at Gary Larson's hand,
Speaker 1: So Breathless is notable for those reasons. It kind of
Speaker 1: kicked off the French New Wave. But the use of
Speaker 1: jump cut editing, which we see so much now, it
Speaker 1: was the first movie and it was very jarring at
Speaker 1: the time to see jump cuts in a movie. And
Speaker 1: that's when you're showing, like, uh, I guess the best
Speaker 1: way to describe it as multiple shots of the same
Speaker 1: subject or thing from different angles.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like you indicate the progression of time or
Speaker 2: movement or something by just cutting quickly rather than focusing
Speaker 2: on somebody walking down the street for five minutes, you
Speaker 2: cut a couple of times, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they're just closer to the camera, and then closer and closer,
Speaker 2: and then they're past the camera.
Speaker 1: It's a jump cut, yeah, Or even as simple as
Speaker 1: something as simple as like you're going to leave the house,
Speaker 1: so you go and pick up your keys and you
Speaker 1: put on your coat. Instead of showing all that you
Speaker 1: come out of the bedroom, Boom, you're putting on your coat. Boom,
Speaker 1: you're putting the keys in the door.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: You're just showing the high highlights of this progression of
Speaker 2: stuff where that would otherwise be boring to watch the
Speaker 2: whole thing. But it also is used to create tension too,
Speaker 2: because it's it's jarring. I guess it's probably why it
Speaker 2: creates tension. And Scorsese famously used it in Good Fellow.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, at the end when Henry Hill is like,
Speaker 2: like trying to sell some guns to Nero. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: to the gills, right, and he's like trying to sell
Speaker 2: some guns to NERO, but they don't fit the silencers,
Speaker 2: and like he's the helicopters following them. He's got the
Speaker 2: sauce going, and all this stuff is being represented and
Speaker 2: compressed in a very short amount of time by the
Speaker 2: use of jump cuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very effective, and for budding filmmakers it's a great
Speaker 1: way to hide mistakes of things you may not have
Speaker 1: gotten that you thought you got. Jump cutting is a
Speaker 1: really easy way to just sort of, yeah, to hide
Speaker 1: your errors. Yeah, I did it a lot. In other words,
Speaker 1: when I was making those.
Speaker 2: Shorts, I I was I realized that in my head
Speaker 2: I was referencing the shot in Soul Taker. You know,
Speaker 2: have you ever seen that mystery signs three thousand with
Speaker 2: uh uh? It's his last name is Estevez is Martin
Speaker 2: Sheen's brother and he is the soul taker and he's
Speaker 2: next to this guy who's a soul taker.
Speaker 3: You just have to see this.
Speaker 2: But anyway, they're they're walking down the road in this
Speaker 2: jump cut, like has this progression of them. It's so unnecessary,
Speaker 2: but it's like a great use of jump cut. You
Speaker 2: could tell the director was like, I can't wait to
Speaker 2: use a jump cut, and this is what she did.
Speaker 2: She used it on.
Speaker 3: But go watch the MSc three K it's a good one. Man.
Speaker 3: Did you see every single one of those episodes?
Speaker 2: No, it's still I still run across the ones that
Speaker 2: I haven't seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nice, hey in then shout out to Bill Corbett,
Speaker 1: who I know is a listener.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah he is, isn't he?
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's going to hear this one,
Speaker 1: but the great Bill Corbett, so taker. Next, we're gonna
Speaker 1: move on.
Speaker 3: To Frederico Fellini's Eight and a half. Have you ever
Speaker 3: seen this one? No?
Speaker 2: I haven't. Now I understand why it's called that though.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first, although not the first,
Speaker 1: movies about movie making and starring the great Marcelo Masteriania
Speaker 1: Masi from ladulcea vita a muse of Fellini's over the
Speaker 1: years too, And this one, this one really kicked off
Speaker 1: the surrealist filmmaking and sort of saying you can play
Speaker 1: around and shoot a dream sequence where the guy's in
Speaker 1: traffic and then he leaves his car and floats up
Speaker 1: in the air and is you know, being pulled down
Speaker 1: to the ground on the beach from a rope tight
Speaker 1: around his ankle, just like go nuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And successive filmmakers did go nuts, like Gondry did
Speaker 2: Eternal Center of the Spotless Mind.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's hugely influenced.
Speaker 2: Darren Aronofsky did some weird stuff here or.
Speaker 3: There, yeah, David Lynch and Terry Gilliam of course. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just basically surrealism is what I'm taking Fellini introduced into.
Speaker 3: This, yeah, for real.
Speaker 1: And besides the surrealism, that opening sequence of Eight and
Speaker 1: a Half where the director, he's the director in the movie,
Speaker 1: Guido is.
Speaker 3: Stuck in traffic.
Speaker 1: It's really claustrophobic feeling, and that's why he floats.
Speaker 3: Away and escapes, you know that that.
Speaker 1: Traffic jam, But that was directly mimicked in like Rams
Speaker 1: Everybody Hurts video. Oh yeah, and the beginning of the
Speaker 1: movie Falling Down. Do you remember that huh that started
Speaker 1: with the traffic jam. Yeah, Michael Douglass just left. He
Speaker 1: doesn't float, he gets like an oozy.
Speaker 3: I saw that again the other day. Most of it
Speaker 3: it's weird.
Speaker 1: It alternately felt way ahead of its time and also
Speaker 1: very dated because the stuff that Michael Douglas is doing
Speaker 1: felt way ahead of its time.
Speaker 3: But then there was I just forgot about that whole
Speaker 3: weird subplots with Robert Duvall retiring and he had this
Speaker 3: wife that was hinpecking them, and like this retirement party
Speaker 3: they were trying to throw them. I forget about that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just so unnecessary. It felt really weird
Speaker 1: and out of place. The other day when I was watching.
Speaker 2: It, there like a jump cut montage where he's putting
Speaker 2: on his watch, his gold retirement watch.
Speaker 1: No, but then too, the Barbara hershey know, is in
Speaker 1: venice at home with the daughter and he spends a
Speaker 1: whole day coming there to grab them basically, and the
Speaker 1: whole time she just keeps calling the cops.
Speaker 3: Like the no, he's coming and now he's coming.
Speaker 1: And I was watching the other day, I was like
Speaker 1: freaking leave. Oh yeah, what are you doing there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a movie character thing.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: You know that's just bad writing, bad directing. When you
Speaker 2: just walk right past the ability to leave. You missed
Speaker 2: a huge step.
Speaker 3: Where were we falling down?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think that pretty much sums up eight and a half.
Speaker 2: I think so too. Falling down boom, so chuck. We
Speaker 2: got a little more left, we got more films. Is
Speaker 2: this making you want to watch films?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Me too.
Speaker 2: I feel like eating ice cream, watching a film and
Speaker 2: scratching from poison ivy lately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and burning this office down. You know, if that.
Speaker 2: Happens now, suspicion's gonna fall on you for saying that.
Speaker 3: That's all right, we'll be right back after that.
Speaker 2: All right, So we're back with our awesome jingles, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, we have to thank John Began, John
Speaker 2: begin Begin. He even emailed with the pronunciation of his name.
Speaker 2: But he the original guy who did our jingle, the
Speaker 2: first jingle ever, Rusty Mattias or Matthias Man, I'm not
Speaker 2: good with the pronunciation. Uh well, anyway, Rusty who's banned
Speaker 2: the sheep Dogs are on tour right now. Just because
Speaker 2: his work was so original, we contacted him and said, Hey,
Speaker 2: we got this other guy who's done like covers of
Speaker 2: your work.
Speaker 3: Can we use these. It's like totally mash it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and John's been making awesome like versions of it
Speaker 2: ever since.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They're both great and talented.
Speaker 2: Thanks to you both.
Speaker 3: And go check out I think that what you say.
Speaker 3: They're on tour right, yeah, the sheep Dogs. Yeah, go
Speaker 3: check out the Sheep Dogs. Yeah, and in town near you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: All right, let's finish with these two in reverse order.
Speaker 2: Okay, Toy Story was a big one, hugely innovative, huge,
Speaker 2: and again it's one of those things where now almost
Speaker 2: everything about it seems pedestrian.
Speaker 3: Su or what it did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, it's still a great movie, I'm sure, but
Speaker 2: the innovations that it undertook are just seemed pedestrian. But
Speaker 2: at the time it was totally groundbreaking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, game changer.
Speaker 2: It was the first, the first CGI movie, all CGI
Speaker 2: movie ever. Yeah, that was enormous.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and I remember at the time seeing it
Speaker 1: and just being like, Wow, this is the future of
Speaker 1: animated films.
Speaker 2: What's the best all CGI animated film? Seemed?
Speaker 1: Visually, Uh, well, I haven't seen a lot of them.
Speaker 1: These days because Emily doesn't like those, So I probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the best person to ask Holly from uh stuff.
Speaker 3: Or soyas in history class. She'd probably be the one to.
Speaker 2: Ask for my money. Have you seen The Adventures of Tintin?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, that was amazing, mind blowing. Yeah. I saw
Speaker 3: that on your recommendation and really really liked it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The story was great, the action was great, the characters
Speaker 2: were great. But the CGI, the computer animation, is I
Speaker 2: think possibly the best ever done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a bit of a different style than say,
Speaker 1: like UP or The Incredibles. It's not nearly as cartoons.
Speaker 1: It's like the I think it's the motion capture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's what they did for that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, with UP it would strictly be totally just animation, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean they're both animation, right. But yeah, man, Tintin,
Speaker 1: that was really good.
Speaker 2: It was good.
Speaker 3: I was surprised how much I liked that.
Speaker 2: But UP was good too, and Toy Story was good too.
Speaker 2: But all of these things came as a result of
Speaker 2: the ground that Toy Story.
Speaker 1: Broke absolutely in nineteen ninety five, Like you said, what
Speaker 1: seems like a common thing today I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: see cell animation anymore.
Speaker 3: It's almost I know, I kind.
Speaker 2: Of miss it.
Speaker 3: I totally miss it.
Speaker 2: Well, like the new Mickey Mouse is all weird and
Speaker 2: CG like stuff from our generation should have just been discontinued. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then you just come up with all new stuff
Speaker 2: that's CGI Starwberry Shortcake not supposed to be CGI. It
Speaker 2: just all looks weird now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish there would have people would have done
Speaker 3: the little bit of both still, because I think sell animation,
Speaker 3: Like I think The Iron Giant came out after Toy
Speaker 3: Story and they did sell animation. Yeah, and that was great. Yeah,
Speaker 3: great movie.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's really good. You'd like it.
Speaker 1: Like it was a movie for grown ups, and Toy
Speaker 1: Story sort of laid the way for that because it
Speaker 1: was one of the first movies, I guess, cartoony kids
Speaker 1: movies to really have a lot of dialogue that flew
Speaker 1: over kids heads that adults.
Speaker 3: Got a little nod in a wink.
Speaker 2: What Toy Story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not like dirty humor, but it's not like Fittz
Speaker 1: the Cat No no no, but a little entendre here
Speaker 1: and there that adults might appreciate. The kids won't understand, right,
Speaker 1: those are the best jokes.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: And now we have you know, best Animated Feature in
Speaker 1: the Oscars, which definitely came straight out of the original
Speaker 1: Toy Story because movies started being considered before they created
Speaker 1: its own category up and Toy Story three were actually
Speaker 1: nominated for regular Best Picture. Yeah, and I think everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need to get them in their own category because
Speaker 1: you can't have an animated movie when best Picture it came.
Speaker 2: Well, up would have come after the Best Animated Picture
Speaker 2: category came out. Oh really, so that kind of ghost
Speaker 2: as a testament to just how amazing that movie is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, those that it was still for Best Picture. Oh,
Speaker 3: it was both.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was up for it probably
Speaker 2: was up for Best Animated as well, but it was
Speaker 2: definitely also up for Best Picture while there was an
Speaker 2: animated cat category.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I never considered that. Bam, that was a good movie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was sweet. So I got nothing else on Toy Story.
Speaker 2: Well then what about the last one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, two thousand and one in Space Odyssey. Man, quite
Speaker 3: a film.
Speaker 2: You sent this essay on Criterion I think Criterion dot com,
Speaker 2: but you know, the Criterion collection. Yeah, it was written,
Speaker 2: I guess in nineteen eighty eight, even though it says
Speaker 2: posted in nineteen eighty eight. It's like there wasn't an
Speaker 2: internet to post it on in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3: Maybe it means posted like in the mail. Maybe.
Speaker 2: But I realized, like I can read film essays about
Speaker 2: Stanley Kubrick's work all day long. Yeah, me too, Like
Speaker 2: I love that documentary Room two two seven. It was
Speaker 2: two three seven, two four six seven, you know, the
Speaker 2: one about the shining conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the number of the room is amazing. I can't remember, though.
Speaker 2: I read a bunch of articles is I think two
Speaker 2: thirty seven. I read a bunch of articles around the
Speaker 2: release of that documentary, which we're basically like film essays
Speaker 2: on the Shining. I read this one amazing one from
Speaker 2: several years ago about Eyes Wide Shut, about how it's
Speaker 2: like a masterpiece of sociology. I love that movie theology.
Speaker 3: A lot of people hate that movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then now this like two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's tons out there to consume, but I
Speaker 2: can just read that stuff all day long because that
Speaker 2: guy was so just amazingly detailed as a director.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I can read more about his work critical essays on
Speaker 1: his work than any other director.
Speaker 3: Right, it's just unbelievable. It's almost like it's its own genre.
Speaker 3: It is, you know, Kubrickian. Yeah, just got a word
Speaker 3: name after it, and well it should so.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and one A Space Odyssey nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: blue minds back then, blows minds today one for it's
Speaker 1: just the amazing look in the technical achievement eight is
Speaker 1: really well. I mean, if you see a movie from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight about outer space, it still looks like
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, he don't expect it to hold up well,
Speaker 1: but it totally does. So much so that a lot
Speaker 1: of the you know, George Lucas and Ridley Scott were
Speaker 1: just like, it's done right, Like we might as well
Speaker 1: give up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: George Lucas when Star Wars came out said Star Wars
Speaker 2: is technically comparable, but for my money, two thousand and
Speaker 2: one is by far the better movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone was sort of intimidated, I think by how
Speaker 1: talented Kubrick was.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Plus also you have to take into account that he
Speaker 2: made this movie at a time when other sci fi
Speaker 2: movies were.
Speaker 3: Just pure schlock.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so not only to make the movie in
Speaker 2: this way, this visually amazing and amazing with an audio
Speaker 2: soundtrack and just totally innovative, it also took like that
Speaker 2: mindset is just completely going a different direction that everybody
Speaker 2: else has as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, think about Ridley Scott saying that, and
Speaker 1: then he goes on to make Alien and Blade Runner
Speaker 1: after that.
Speaker 3: So I mean he helped Prometheus. Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people don't like Prometheus. I don't care.
Speaker 3: It's a cool movie. No. I liked it too.
Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, one flaw, the big flaw to me was,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure it's like part of the subtext or
Speaker 2: the context or one of the texts, but the engineer
Speaker 2: coming back to life or coming out of hibernation after
Speaker 2: however long and just immediately like inflicting violence on these
Speaker 2: pe brained humans who are showing him no threat whatsoever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just thought it was a little It wasn't explained
Speaker 2: well enough, I think for my taste.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think I agree with you.
Speaker 2: But when I'm watching a Ridley Scott movie, I just
Speaker 2: assume if I'm missing something, he has an explanation for it.
Speaker 2: I'm just not catching it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: I'd like I think I read some stuff about how
Speaker 1: it tied into the alien cannon and realize I need
Speaker 1: to go see it again with all this knowledge that
Speaker 1: I wasn't really thinking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe i'd like it more. Yeah, but I
Speaker 3: haven't done that yet. So back to two thousand and one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was also notable for being bookended basically with thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of silence on both ends of the movie. The
Speaker 1: first thirty minutes or and when I say silent, I
Speaker 1: mean no dialogue, and the last thirty minutes have no dialogue.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The last line comes like a full thirty minutes before
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And over the one hundred and forty six minutes
Speaker 1: there are only forty minutes of dialogue and the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And that's why I just when people compare something like Interstellar,
Speaker 1: then call it Kuprickian.
Speaker 3: I just want to smash.
Speaker 2: Do you not like Interstellar?
Speaker 3: Not really?
Speaker 2: Oh, I liked it.
Speaker 3: I was super letdown.
Speaker 2: Despite McConaughey doing Waterson in the future, I still liked it.
Speaker 3: I even liked him in it.
Speaker 1: I liked a lot of the parts of it, But
Speaker 1: to me, it's anti Kubrickian because every ten minutes they're
Speaker 1: explaining everything that's going on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, again, that was another thing. Just like in.
Speaker 2: Susception, Ellen Page's entire character was written in to explain
Speaker 2: what was going on every ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like Interstellar was the same way.
Speaker 1: It's like Christopher Nollen needs to just trust his audience
Speaker 1: a little bit like Kubrick did and say you figure
Speaker 1: it out or don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Gonna stop every ten minutes just to explain everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just going on. I remember if you didn't
Speaker 3: get it right, here's what's going on again.
Speaker 2: Well, I think if they are labeling something like Interstellar
Speaker 2: is Kubrickian, right, one of the ways that you can
Speaker 2: interpret that is that he was he rooted his two
Speaker 2: thousand and one in science fact Yeah right, So like
Speaker 2: the stuff that the astronauts are like dealing with and
Speaker 2: the things that are going on and the conditions of space,
Speaker 2: it was all factual. Whereas with Interstellar, same thing. They
Speaker 2: went to really great links to do what they could
Speaker 2: to make everything scientifically factual. Aside from the fact that
Speaker 2: the idea that you could go into a black hole
Speaker 2: and then come back out or something like that. Sure,
Speaker 2: drifting in space, that's not gonna happen. But for the
Speaker 2: most part, Interstellar was scientifically accurate. So maybe that's what
Speaker 2: they meant when they called it Kubrickian, because you're absolutely right,
Speaker 2: like they did explain a lot and went to great
Speaker 2: links to explain a lot, whereas with two thousand and
Speaker 2: one you just watch it the first five times like
Speaker 2: what just happened? Yeah, and apparently Carrie Grant had that
Speaker 2: same reaction as well.
Speaker 3: That was rock Hudson, Rock Hudson, that's right. Yeah, the original.
Speaker 1: Screening that Roger Ebert was at in La Rock Hudson
Speaker 1: just left and said, can somebody tell me what the
Speaker 1: hell that was about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it wasn't even over yet. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason it it has science fact and not
Speaker 1: science fiction is because Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark, who
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it wasn't actually a book that was made
Speaker 1: into a movie. It was a movie. Our book made
Speaker 1: after movie, and they collaborated on both. And they went
Speaker 1: to Carl Sagan of course of Cosmos and said.
Speaker 2: He said, you're gonna make billions, And.
Speaker 3: That was pretty good, was it? Yeah? That sound a
Speaker 3: lot like them.
Speaker 1: They went to Carl Sagan said, Hey, we want to
Speaker 1: portray these extraterrestrials. Are they maybe the Star Child is
Speaker 1: or they turned Dave into the Star Child? Are they humanoids?
Speaker 1: What are they going to look like? And Sagan was like,
Speaker 1: they were very unlikely to be humanoid. So Kubrick did
Speaker 1: the smart thing and was just like, well, we just
Speaker 1: won't show him at all, instead of making a fool
Speaker 1: of myself like Signs and making some dumb looking out
Speaker 1: o man, man, let me just not show the aliens.
Speaker 3: Very smart move. Getting back to the story of two
Speaker 3: thousand and one, although I.
Speaker 2: Think the Village is underrated, Yeah, I can stomach that one.
Speaker 3: What about Well, you like the sixth sense? Right? Everybody
Speaker 3: like the sixth Sense? Sure, I guess that was it
Speaker 3: for him. I loved Unbreakable.
Speaker 2: Unbreakable, Yeah, that was one where like, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it was maybe even better the second time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I still like that movie.
Speaker 1: But then he also made that Lady in the Water
Speaker 1: movie and the the one with Marky Mark the people
Speaker 1: were jumping off four brothers, No, three kings?
Speaker 3: Is it the one in the Elevator? No, he just
Speaker 3: produced Oh I know what you're talking about, the one
Speaker 3: where people like jumping off of buildings and stuff inexplicably. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that I didn't even I didn't see that. You couldn't
Speaker 3: get through ten minutes of that movie.
Speaker 1: So two thousand and one Back to Good Movies was
Speaker 1: had a three acts, three part structure, but not a
Speaker 1: conventional three act structure that you might be used to
Speaker 1: in movies, which is why it confounded people like Rock Hudson.
Speaker 3: The first they called the movements.
Speaker 1: The first movement was the The Dawn of Man sequenced
Speaker 1: with the Apes with a monolith, and he has that
Speaker 1: great part where he throws his little bone tool up
Speaker 1: in the air and then it morphs into all lot morphs,
Speaker 1: but it maybe is a dissolve into the spinning in
Speaker 1: outer space.
Speaker 3: It's called the match cut. Yeah, match cut.
Speaker 1: And of the rotation of what we now know was
Speaker 1: a nuclear warhead.
Speaker 3: Because I read.
Speaker 1: That little article twenty Things you Didn't Know about two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, I didn't know those were nuclear warheads
Speaker 1: necessarily in outer space. They made it a little more vague,
Speaker 1: and initially it was going to be more explicit and
Speaker 1: they were going to explode it in outer space, right
Speaker 1: but he said, now it's a little too close to
Speaker 1: the ending of strange. Yeah, so let's not do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably a good choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But as a result, some people have taken it
Speaker 2: to mean that like it was that match cut was
Speaker 2: supposed to show how far humans have come, right from
Speaker 2: using a bone to murder somebody to satellites in space.
Speaker 2: But if you know that the satellite is actually loaded
Speaker 2: down with nuclear warheads, that match cut demonstrates how little
Speaker 2: humans have changed from using a bone to murder somebody
Speaker 2: to using satellites to murder somebody. The motif is still
Speaker 2: the same, and it's murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's going for some deep things. Oh yeah, a
Speaker 3: lot of metaphor happening. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean supposedly in every single shot, because he started
Speaker 2: out as a still photographer, right, Yeah, supposedly every frame
Speaker 2: of a Kubrick movie. There is nothing that isn't unintentionally
Speaker 2: placed there by him. He did a lot of his
Speaker 2: own set decorating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like the pencil holder on the desk in the
Speaker 3: office of the guy at the Shining Hotel, right was
Speaker 3: where it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Right, and if it has like a picture of a
Speaker 2: goatthead inscribed on it that means something.
Speaker 3: It's not accidental.
Speaker 1: Yeah, although we'll say Room two thirty seven, which I
Speaker 1: think may have been the point is a little bit
Speaker 1: like these people are crazy, not like, oh man, I
Speaker 1: just see what they're saying in all this, right, I
Speaker 1: was just thinking these people are nuts.
Speaker 2: Right, it's it was just kind of enjoyable to hear
Speaker 2: their interpretations of.
Speaker 1: It well, and I think it had It was a
Speaker 1: comment on obsession and fandom more so than the shining.
Speaker 2: For sure, but there I thought, there are some of
Speaker 2: their ideas were oh yeah, interesting totally. I said Room
Speaker 2: two two seven, didn't I like going out with conspiracy Theoris.
Speaker 2: It's like Mary.
Speaker 3: Was in Room two two seven, like a sitcom. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was just called two two seven. Okay, yeah, gotcha,
Speaker 3: remember it was Jack Kay. She'd be like Mary, Oh okay.
Speaker 2: That's what my impression was. What'd you think I was doing?
Speaker 3: Well? I wasn't sure what she meant being a weirdo. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: The second movement was, of course the How sequence, the computer,
Speaker 1: the how uh was it?
Speaker 3: The How nine thousand?
Speaker 1: Yeah, really creepy and How ended up being a lot
Speaker 1: of people's favorite character, even though it was just a
Speaker 1: voice the supercomputer on the Discovery ship.
Speaker 3: Like, what are you doing to It's so creepy.
Speaker 1: I had the Mad Magazine spoof of two thousand and
Speaker 1: one when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: It was great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the third movement is when Dave moves on
Speaker 1: to the next stage of human development with these extraterrestrials
Speaker 1: that you only hear, and basically it's when it comes
Speaker 1: full circle the third movement.
Speaker 2: And the third movement is the one that has almost
Speaker 2: well it's really just the second movement that's has a dialogue.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some of the alternate titles for two thousand and one
Speaker 1: Journey Beyond the Stars, terrible Universe not bad, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Tunnel to the Stars so great.
Speaker 3: Planet Fall that sounds bad.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a James Pond movie.
Speaker 1: And then How the Solar System was one as a
Speaker 1: play on how the West was won.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which like movie geeks would find that appealing, but
Speaker 2: everybody else would say, that's you ruined everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Kubrick was this is the last thing I have.
Speaker 1: He was so obsessive with protecting his material that he
Speaker 1: allegedly I don't think allegedly, I think he did ye.
Speaker 1: Have all the sets and props and miniatures destroyed after
Speaker 1: he shot it, so they would never be reused, which
Speaker 1: is a common thing at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, we're doing a space movie. Go get that,
Speaker 3: Go get that space ring from Stanley set. Yeah, let's
Speaker 3: reuse it for a planet fall.
Speaker 2: He also destroyed all of the footage that didn't make
Speaker 2: it into the original theatrical release.
Speaker 3: Yeah, destroyed. It's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they wouldn't one day after his death recut it,
Speaker 1: which they invariably probably would have done.
Speaker 2: Yep, he's a smart man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could. We should just do a podcast on Kubrick.
Speaker 2: Okay he was I'm down for that challenge.
Speaker 3: He'd be a dude. Yeah, one of my heroes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Cinematically, you got anything else? I got nothing else.
Speaker 2: If you want to know more about movies, if you
Speaker 2: like this, and you probably also love our exploitation episode,
Speaker 2: exploitation movie episode fun one. What else have we talked
Speaker 2: about movies in Cannonball Run? Oh yeah, I had a
Speaker 2: lot to do with the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Our James Bond episode. Yeah. Yeah. We've had a
Speaker 3: few of these, and people always respond to these real like,
Speaker 3: you guys should have a spin off.
Speaker 2: Should do an all movie podcast. Sure, maybe one day.
Speaker 3: Maybe.
Speaker 2: Remember if you're looking for any of these press control
Speaker 2: F or Apple F in your web browser and search
Speaker 2: that way on our podcast archive page. You can also
Speaker 2: search for this article on how stuff works by typing
Speaker 2: movies in and seeing what comes up. And since I
Speaker 2: said how stuff works, is time for a listener mail.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this Mike A. DuPont really clear something
Speaker 2: up for us on scientific method. Okay, hey guys, it
Speaker 2: was a great Well, actually, he doesn't say it was great.
Speaker 3: I think I just made that up.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, your Scientific Method podcast has a consistent misuse
Speaker 1: of what a scientific law is in relation to the
Speaker 1: working of the scientific method. It appears that you believe
Speaker 1: that a law e g. Newton's law of gravity is
Speaker 1: held in higher esteem than theory, that eventually a theory
Speaker 1: matures into a law. I think I probably did think
Speaker 1: that because of politics, right, you know, Bill becomes a
Speaker 1: law right exactly, he says, when in fact, theory is
Speaker 1: considerably more robust than a law.
Speaker 3: A law is a mathematical model.
Speaker 1: That describes observed behavior, does not answer the why. Theory
Speaker 1: does answer why something happens.
Speaker 3: Did we not say that.
Speaker 2: I thought we did well, Like I knew that. I
Speaker 2: remember finding that out from the research. I just can't
Speaker 2: believe it didn't come out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: He claims, we did not, And I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: learning this so I definitely did not.
Speaker 3: Okay, go ahead, but you may have. For example, Newton's law.
Speaker 1: Of gravitational attraction describes the action of two bodies that
Speaker 1: can be used for pretty much everything. It is perfect
Speaker 1: for describing what happens, but it cannot tell you why
Speaker 1: the two items are attracted or drilled down to the
Speaker 1: underlying mechanism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a law is like much more succinct.
Speaker 2: It just is what it is.
Speaker 1: Nor is the law even universal, and could not be
Speaker 1: used to explain the Parahelian procession of Mercury's orbit burn.
Speaker 1: In comparison, Einstein's theory of general relativity was eventually used
Speaker 1: to solve the Mercury issue.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the mercury issue.
Speaker 1: And the standard model, along with the recent discovery the
Speaker 1: Higgs posts on my stern can answer the why do
Speaker 1: these two masses attracted to each other?
Speaker 2: A question?
Speaker 3: I think what you mean is why are these two
Speaker 3: masses attracted to one another? Mike, it's pretty teleological theory
Speaker 3: is considerably more developed and richer than a scientific law,
Speaker 3: which is more of a tool that is applicable to
Speaker 3: a wide range of applications. Keep up the good work
Speaker 3: that is, Mike DuPont.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mike, thanks for that of the Valley Forge. DuPonts,
Speaker 2: I think, so, huh have you seen fox Catching?
Speaker 3: Oh? No, I've heard it's good. Is it good? No? Really,
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I hear it's kind of slow, it's beyond slow. Really?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I can understand why the academy loved it,
Speaker 2: or sure a lot of people. I'm sure, do you
Speaker 2: like it?
Speaker 3: I was not a fan of.
Speaker 1: Fo I think people generally seeing like a turn by
Speaker 1: an actor like Steve Girl doing something really different.
Speaker 3: They're knocked out by that. No, I still can't believe
Speaker 3: he didn't like Birdman. No spoiler alert for people who
Speaker 3: have not seen Birdman. The following conversation is full of spoilers.
Speaker 2: Yes, what didn't you like about it?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: I thought I thought Michael Keene was good?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Who plays his daughter Emily Blunt?
Speaker 3: Is that? Who that is? Emma Stone?
Speaker 2: Emma Stone? Excellent? Okay? Ed Norton even pretty good.
Speaker 3: Okay, so the acting was fine.
Speaker 2: Who is Naomi Watson was in it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: She did great? Okay, so yes, the acting. The acting
Speaker 2: was fine. Sure that the acting was fine. I thought
Speaker 2: the photography was amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole seemingly one take thing kind of knocked
Speaker 3: you out.
Speaker 2: Probably I didn't even pick up on that, but yes
Speaker 2: it did. It was more the uh, the for me,
Speaker 2: the juxtaposition of the story, which was pretty boring and
Speaker 2: realistic in everyday life, even though it was about a
Speaker 2: Broadway production, it was still about the everyday life of it, sure,
Speaker 2: against the surrealism that's like threaded and embedded in throughout
Speaker 2: the whole movie. I didn't like that. Okay, it was
Speaker 2: like choose one or the other men?
Speaker 3: Gotcha? It irked me.
Speaker 2: And uh and then just so that one part with
Speaker 2: the critic where Michael Keaton tells off the critic. I
Speaker 2: thought Michael Keaton did a wonderful job, But just the
Speaker 2: whole point that it was in there of like the director,
Speaker 2: you know, using Michael Keaton's character to tell off all
Speaker 2: the critics he's ever wanted to tell off in his movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just thought it was pretentious and I thought it
Speaker 2: was kind of clumsy in that sense too, and it
Speaker 2: was enough that it attainted it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then the ending. I did not like the
Speaker 3: ending at all, Yeah, at all. That'll ruin a good movie.
Speaker 2: Because it was it completely went contrary to all the
Speaker 2: other stuff that he went out of his way to
Speaker 2: point out was fake or fraudulent or not real. And
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden it is what Yeah, no
Speaker 2: choose one or the other. The director refused to make
Speaker 2: very important decisions, and I think that that ruined the movie.
Speaker 3: That is a very well thought out the criticism, I think,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you very much. Sure man, that was
Speaker 3: the end of listener mail even, wasn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because now I'm not like, she's Jush is weird? He
Speaker 1: didn't like Birdman. Now I'm like, just didn't like Birdman.
Speaker 1: He has good reasons.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: I like justifying my opinion, don't we all?
Speaker 2: So if you want to get in touch with Chuck
Speaker 2: and I or Jerry, who I apparently just spoiled Birdman for,
Speaker 2: you can contact us via Twitter, s y s K podcast.
Speaker 2: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 2: you should know. You can send us an email, this
Speaker 2: stuff podcast at how stuffworks dot com, and as always,
Speaker 2: joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you
Speaker 2: Should Know dot com.
Speaker 3: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 3: HowStuffWorks dot com.