WEBVTT - Top 5 Unreliable Narrators and Kurosawa’s Rashomon | #1055 0:00:21.244 --> 0:00:24.604 Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you 0:00:24.645 --> 0:00:27.565 can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in 0:00:27.685 --> 0:00:31.365 just two visits. See any standard two D movie anytime 0:00:31.725 --> 0:00:34.845 with no blackoutdates or restrictions. Sign up now on the 0:00:34.885 --> 0:00:37.245 Regal app or at the link in our description and 0:00:37.405 --> 0:00:41.685 use code film spot twenty six to receive fifteen percent off. 0:00:45.885 --> 0:00:48.325 What kind of a show you guys putting on here today? 0:00:48.445 --> 0:00:49.565 You're not interested in art? 0:00:49.724 --> 0:00:49.884 Now? 0:00:50.084 --> 0:00:51.724 No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going 0:00:51.724 --> 0:00:57.124 to have a conversation from Chicago. This is film Spotting. 0:00:57.285 --> 0:01:01.765 I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar Teddy. 0:01:01.965 --> 0:01:03.164 Don't believe he's lies. 0:01:03.325 --> 0:01:05.604 He's the one kill him. 0:01:06.205 --> 0:01:09.205 I finally found him if I've been looking. 0:01:10.125 --> 0:01:13.725 Not all movie narrators are created equal. Some talk to 0:01:13.804 --> 0:01:17.685 us straight, and some turn out to be not so trustworthy. 0:01:17.845 --> 0:01:22.005 This week's Film Spotting Top five unreliable narrative plus a 0:01:22.084 --> 0:01:26.325 curakura saw was nineteen fifty masterpiece Raschoman. By my count, 0:01:26.444 --> 0:01:30.285 four unreliable narrators in that one. It's all ahead on 0:01:30.365 --> 0:01:40.685 film Spotting. Welcome to film Spotting. I think Josh, the 0:01:40.765 --> 0:01:44.045 disclaimer should be don't believe anything you hear on this 0:01:44.084 --> 0:01:44.885 week's show. 0:01:45.164 --> 0:01:47.725 Just this week. Okay, you're giving us a lot of credit. 0:01:47.845 --> 0:01:51.204 Yes, yes, Later in the show, a husband, a wife, 0:01:51.245 --> 0:01:54.365 a bandit, and a woodcutter all walk into a forest, 0:01:54.485 --> 0:01:57.525 and the joke has to end there because we don't 0:01:57.565 --> 0:01:59.245 know what really happened after that. 0:01:59.685 --> 0:02:01.005 You're not gonna respond. 0:02:00.605 --> 0:02:05.645 To Raschoman's been been confounding people for Oh man, do 0:02:05.685 --> 0:02:08.365 we want to do this seventy six years now? 0:02:08.485 --> 0:02:10.325 Seventy six years? Indeed? 0:02:10.645 --> 0:02:11.325 Yeah, look at that. 0:02:11.285 --> 0:02:12.245 Math nineteen fifty. 0:02:12.285 --> 0:02:14.804 It at least gave you an even nice even year 0:02:14.885 --> 0:02:19.005 to do the math with confounding people like my joke. 0:02:19.045 --> 0:02:21.325 Apparently did there a curra cur i was? 0:02:21.405 --> 0:02:25.925 Rashamon is a twenty twenty six film Spotting Pantheon nominee. 0:02:26.445 --> 0:02:29.285 We are taking another look at it, and we're gonna 0:02:29.285 --> 0:02:32.645 ask listeners to choose one and only one eighties Rob 0:02:32.725 --> 0:02:37.684 Reiner movie and take just a second and consider what 0:02:37.725 --> 0:02:39.485 that means. We don't even have to give you the 0:02:39.565 --> 0:02:44.085 titles potentially the best Documentary, best Coming of age movie, 0:02:44.165 --> 0:02:46.804 Best Romantic Comedy, and best Fantasy. 0:02:47.325 --> 0:02:47.885 That's your choice. 0:02:47.924 --> 0:02:49.605 Pretty good run, pretty good run. 0:02:49.644 --> 0:02:52.325 There a quick reminder Film Spotting is now available as 0:02:52.365 --> 0:02:55.404 a video podcast. You can now watch the show on YouTube, 0:02:55.484 --> 0:02:58.485 YouTube dot com slash film Spotting. For a link to 0:02:58.644 --> 0:03:00.925 those video episodes and all of our episodes, you can 0:03:00.965 --> 0:03:06.285 go to filmspotting dot net slash episodes. Josh, speaking of video, 0:03:05.805 --> 0:03:08.524 what backdrop are you giving us this week? 0:03:08.565 --> 0:03:09.845 What layer are you in? 0:03:09.965 --> 0:03:10.125 Yeah? 0:03:10.845 --> 0:03:12.085 Where in the world is. 0:03:12.125 --> 0:03:17.965 Josh Larson explained to our loyal video viewers. This is 0:03:18.005 --> 0:03:22.405 not I haven't upgraded the Scotland flat. I'm very flat. 0:03:22.445 --> 0:03:24.484 We are back on the road. It's my spring break. 0:03:24.525 --> 0:03:28.005 Apparently they do spring break end of February. Adam here 0:03:28.085 --> 0:03:30.445 at University of St. Andrews. So Debbie and I are 0:03:30.605 --> 0:03:34.044 yes off as I mentioned on an earlier show, and 0:03:34.125 --> 0:03:36.844 I am coming to live from Scotland. The hotel where 0:03:36.845 --> 0:03:39.965 I was kind enough, Scotland, Stockholm. I don't even remember 0:03:40.005 --> 0:03:40.885 where I am anymore. 0:03:41.005 --> 0:03:42.965 I was going to correct you. You didn't catch it. 0:03:43.205 --> 0:03:47.245 Yeah, yes, in Stockholm for this evening tomorrow we had 0:03:47.245 --> 0:03:49.365 to Copenhagen, where in a couple of days we'll be 0:03:49.405 --> 0:03:51.765 having a film Spotting meetup. So looking forward to that. 0:03:52.365 --> 0:03:56.404 It's coming up this weekend. And yeah, this is where 0:03:56.405 --> 0:03:59.805 we're doing the show tonight, very excited to get into it. 0:04:00.045 --> 0:04:01.325 I'm excited as well. 0:04:01.565 --> 0:04:06.645 First up, here is the film spotting Top five Unreliable Narrators. 0:04:06.725 --> 0:04:10.685 Of course inspired by the movie. We will discuss a 0:04:10.685 --> 0:04:14.765 bit later. Ras Oman, Josh, how did you go about 0:04:14.805 --> 0:04:16.285 approaching this list? 0:04:16.645 --> 0:04:19.565 First off, I'm glad you said that for those who 0:04:19.645 --> 0:04:21.525 in the future might just be jump being in for 0:04:21.565 --> 0:04:24.045 this top five list right and not knowing that we 0:04:24.165 --> 0:04:28.085 paired it to Raschaman. What would they have thought if 0:04:28.085 --> 0:04:31.565 they listened to this whole list and we never we 0:04:31.685 --> 0:04:34.165 never mentioned it. So this is, you know, essentially what 0:04:34.205 --> 0:04:36.965 we'd like to call a Raschaman memorial list. I'm a 0:04:37.005 --> 0:04:39.645 little more hesitant to do that than you are when 0:04:39.685 --> 0:04:45.445 it seems like there's an obvious shared number one. And yeah, 0:04:45.485 --> 0:04:47.604 it's because I don't like in retrospect if someone looked 0:04:47.605 --> 0:04:49.445 at the list and it is like, where is that title? 0:04:49.525 --> 0:04:54.165 So we are doing this inspired by Raschoman, And you know, 0:04:54.445 --> 0:04:57.125 I kind of felt, Adam when I sat down to 0:04:57.205 --> 0:04:59.885 make this list, that there were a handful of other 0:05:00.765 --> 0:05:04.765 obvious had to be their titles. So it'll be interesting 0:05:04.805 --> 0:05:08.045 to see what we share and maybe what listeners think 0:05:08.445 --> 0:05:11.125 we might have missed. I also realized, when I put 0:05:11.125 --> 0:05:13.405 together that had to be their list, that almost all 0:05:13.445 --> 0:05:17.245 of them came out around the year two thousand. I 0:05:17.284 --> 0:05:22.885 could have easily compiled a very worthy top five unreliable 0:05:22.964 --> 0:05:27.245 narrators from that era. I don't know. Was there something 0:05:27.284 --> 0:05:29.245 about the turn of the millennium that we were just, 0:05:29.445 --> 0:05:35.085 you know, insecurity in the air instability anticipated that the 0:05:35.125 --> 0:05:39.924 movies turned to these unreliable narrators. I'll leave that essay 0:05:39.925 --> 0:05:43.565 for someone else to write. But I didn't want to 0:05:43.725 --> 0:05:46.445 just do that. I wanted to spread the wealth historically, 0:05:46.605 --> 0:05:50.085 so I did look elsewhere for a couple of my picks. 0:05:50.085 --> 0:05:52.565 Hopefully between the two of this we have circa two 0:05:52.605 --> 0:05:57.885 thousand well covered. Now, as far as the terminology we're 0:05:57.964 --> 0:06:01.885 using here, what an unreliable mean to me? I think, basically, 0:06:02.485 --> 0:06:04.005 you know, it's self evident, but I did want to 0:06:04.005 --> 0:06:07.125 move beyond just the narrator of a movie. I do 0:06:07.245 --> 0:06:10.085 have some cases of that, but I also wanted to 0:06:10.125 --> 0:06:14.445 allow the movie itself to be unreliable. And my top 0:06:14.445 --> 0:06:18.284 two are actually unreliable in their very form, again not 0:06:18.365 --> 0:06:20.804 just because of a certain character, but actually how they're made. 0:06:21.085 --> 0:06:25.805 So that will be something I'm looking forward to getting into. Also, 0:06:26.005 --> 0:06:28.365 just want to stay from the top because this involves 0:06:28.365 --> 0:06:30.445 a lot of spoilers a list like this, right, we're 0:06:30.485 --> 0:06:33.924 gonna okay, some of these unreliable narrators are plot twists, 0:06:33.925 --> 0:06:37.445 so fair warning. There might be a chance that there's 0:06:37.445 --> 0:06:39.564 a movie you haven't quite seen we're going to talk about. 0:06:39.605 --> 0:06:41.164 And I don't think either of us are going to 0:06:41.284 --> 0:06:45.164 necessarily hold back if we feel like we need to 0:06:45.205 --> 0:06:47.125 talk about that. No spoiler element. 0:06:47.645 --> 0:06:50.164 No, all of these movies have been out for a 0:06:50.205 --> 0:06:54.525 while and it will be essential in some cases. Now 0:06:54.605 --> 0:06:58.525 other than the fact that, as we did previously discuss 0:06:58.565 --> 0:07:01.525 when we were teasing this top five, we're calling it 0:07:01.605 --> 0:07:04.925 unreliable narrators, but we are talking about the movies. Our 0:07:04.964 --> 0:07:09.805 picks are movies, not the characters or narrators themselves. Other 0:07:09.845 --> 0:07:12.565 than that, I was fairly literal, Josh, and not picking 0:07:12.805 --> 0:07:16.965 unreliable narratives. So I'll be interested in seeing how how 0:07:17.005 --> 0:07:19.565 you make your case. I mean, it did have to 0:07:19.645 --> 0:07:22.885 have a narrator for me in order to pick it. 0:07:23.125 --> 0:07:27.205 Now that said, I got this email. We got this 0:07:27.285 --> 0:07:30.805 email from Josh Ashen Miller in la who said, speaking 0:07:30.845 --> 0:07:34.525 of other maybe obvious picks. I know it's in the pantheon, 0:07:34.765 --> 0:07:38.245 but I have to suggest Apocalypse Now, that opening scene 0:07:38.285 --> 0:07:41.365 breakdown makes us wonder about Captain Willard for the whole 0:07:41.445 --> 0:07:44.725 length of the movie. So in doing my research, this 0:07:45.085 --> 0:07:49.765 did come up, not Apocalypse Now specifically, but Captain Willard, 0:07:49.885 --> 0:07:52.525 or the Captain Willard question, I suppose you could say, 0:07:52.805 --> 0:07:54.565 came up again and again, and it was one I 0:07:54.645 --> 0:07:57.165 had to wrestle with because I think you could ask 0:07:57.245 --> 0:08:01.445 it about this movie as well in an even more 0:08:01.445 --> 0:08:05.565 explicit way about another Pantheon pick, and that's Taxi Driver 0:08:06.245 --> 0:08:11.925 with Travis Bikel as your narrator, where their point of view, 0:08:12.845 --> 0:08:16.445 because of their state of mind, you could say it 0:08:16.485 --> 0:08:20.645 calls into question everything that they are relaying to us. 0:08:21.045 --> 0:08:23.725 I think that that's very fair, and I understand why 0:08:24.325 --> 0:08:28.605 Josh might propose that he is an unreliable narrator. I 0:08:28.685 --> 0:08:33.285 understand why they come up on lists of unreliable narrators, 0:08:33.365 --> 0:08:36.165 or at least I definitely saw Travis Bickle come up 0:08:36.165 --> 0:08:38.645 on those types of lists. For me, beyond the fact 0:08:38.645 --> 0:08:40.804 that those two movies are in the pantheon and thus 0:08:40.845 --> 0:08:45.165 ineligible for sure, either of our lists. It actually did 0:08:45.205 --> 0:08:49.365 help me crystallize how I wanted to approach this top five, 0:08:49.445 --> 0:08:54.405 and for me, I had to go beyond mere recognition 0:08:54.725 --> 0:08:58.925 of subjectivity. And in the case of the two films 0:08:58.965 --> 0:09:04.405 I just mentioned and many others skewered subjectivity, the audience 0:09:04.725 --> 0:09:08.444 has to be engaged in the act of questioning, and 0:09:08.485 --> 0:09:10.605 I'm going to go so far as to say aggressively 0:09:10.765 --> 0:09:16.405 confronted with the absence of the narrator's objectivity. So basically, 0:09:16.445 --> 0:09:19.165 from an early point in the film, if not the 0:09:19.205 --> 0:09:25.005 opening scene, you're writing along that edge the entire time. 0:09:25.125 --> 0:09:29.364 Whereas a viewer you have some skepticism, and that skepticism 0:09:29.525 --> 0:09:34.165 ends up actually being a crucial part of the viewing process. 0:09:34.205 --> 0:09:37.925 You're almost interacting with the film on that level. And 0:09:38.005 --> 0:09:41.325 because of that, I had a really good reason to 0:09:41.445 --> 0:09:46.645 leave off any movie that with the narrator has a 0:09:46.725 --> 0:09:54.125 major twist ending, because with twist ending movies that's completely absent. 0:09:55.165 --> 0:09:58.965 There's no twist with those films. The twist works because 0:09:59.125 --> 0:10:04.005 you buy into the reliability of the narrator from the jump. 0:10:04.165 --> 0:10:06.525 That's the whole point, other than the fact that you're 0:10:06.525 --> 0:10:10.765 suspending disbelief because it's a movie you are believing everything 0:10:10.845 --> 0:10:13.325 you're being fed, and so you're shocked at the end 0:10:13.365 --> 0:10:15.485 when the rug is pulled out from under you with 0:10:15.605 --> 0:10:20.285 my picks. There's no rug. No, there's nothing, there's no 0:10:20.365 --> 0:10:23.925 foundation really from the very beginning. Of course, we've also 0:10:24.005 --> 0:10:27.845 already done our favorite movies with twist ending, so that 0:10:27.925 --> 0:10:30.084 just felt like a different list to me. Now, I 0:10:30.125 --> 0:10:33.965 don't want to mention them here because one may or 0:10:34.325 --> 0:10:37.965 maybe more may come up between our lists, and I'll 0:10:38.005 --> 0:10:40.605 just save them for the end anyway, because it is 0:10:40.804 --> 0:10:47.605 very hard to separate twist ending movies and unreliable narrator movies, 0:10:47.645 --> 0:10:51.084 so we'll probably cover some by the time we get 0:10:51.085 --> 0:10:51.925 through this top five. 0:10:52.165 --> 0:10:55.445 Yeah, I think that's an interesting distinction and certainly probably 0:10:55.485 --> 0:10:58.045 helpful and narrowing down a list, as it sounds like 0:10:58.165 --> 0:11:01.005 it was for you. I didn't restrict myself that way, 0:11:01.045 --> 0:11:04.485 so I think I have I probably have two, as 0:11:04.525 --> 0:11:07.965 I think about it, that qualify as twists, but both 0:11:08.045 --> 0:11:11.245 in interesting ways, especially the one as we get higher 0:11:11.325 --> 0:11:13.965 up on my list. But yeah, my number five actually 0:11:13.965 --> 0:11:18.365 involves a twist, so perhaps a good place to start. 0:11:18.445 --> 0:11:22.525 This is also where I get quite historical, because I'm 0:11:22.564 --> 0:11:25.765 going back to nineteen twenty For this one. My number 0:11:25.765 --> 0:11:30.965 five is the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, This silent horror landmark. 0:11:31.045 --> 0:11:34.565 It's remembered, I mean the title. It's remembered as the 0:11:34.605 --> 0:11:38.645 story of doctor Caligari and his sideshow attraction, Sayzar, this 0:11:39.245 --> 0:11:43.685 somnambulist who answers questions from the crowd while in a 0:11:43.765 --> 0:11:48.925 catatonic state. But the movie is actually a narrated flashback 0:11:49.005 --> 0:11:53.045 the entire thing by a different character, this despondent young 0:11:53.125 --> 0:11:59.405 man named Francis, and Francis his friend, was mysteriously murdered. 0:11:59.564 --> 0:12:02.005 We hear at the beginning after a visit to the 0:12:02.045 --> 0:12:07.445 town fair where doctor Caligary was performing, and in Francis's telling, 0:12:08.325 --> 0:12:11.045 he goes on to discover that Calgary, yes, has been 0:12:11.085 --> 0:12:15.245 instructing Czar to kill So this movie essentially becomes a 0:12:15.365 --> 0:12:20.165 very early serial killer thriller that essentially as Francis as 0:12:20.165 --> 0:12:25.125 the hero slash investigator. But yeah, remember I said, in 0:12:25.205 --> 0:12:30.325 Francis's telling, which may not be so trustworthy, and this 0:12:30.525 --> 0:12:33.285 is a twist ending Adam, it has one of the 0:12:33.285 --> 0:12:37.285 first shock twist endings that did reveal the extent of 0:12:37.325 --> 0:12:42.804 Francis's unreliability. That's why it counted for me for this list. 0:12:42.845 --> 0:12:46.445 But honestly, I just wanted another excuse to nudge anyone 0:12:46.445 --> 0:12:48.804 who hasn't seen Caligauri to make the time for it. 0:12:48.804 --> 0:12:51.725 It's my number three horror film of all time. The 0:12:51.804 --> 0:12:55.885 expressionism that it's you know, mostly known for, I would say, 0:12:55.925 --> 0:12:58.485 has rarely ever been matched, and not just in the 0:12:58.564 --> 0:13:02.085 jagged sets that people are probably already picturing, but also 0:13:02.165 --> 0:13:06.045 that color tinting that's employed on certain frames, and really 0:13:06.085 --> 0:13:10.605 even the scrawl design of the intertitles have their own, yeah, 0:13:10.684 --> 0:13:15.845 ferocity to them, but really that reveal that we get 0:13:16.005 --> 0:13:21.085 I feel like it works on more than a gotcha level. Well, 0:13:21.205 --> 0:13:25.204 the unreliability at play is quite disturbing. It's the sort 0:13:25.245 --> 0:13:28.365 that just has you has you questioning your own mind 0:13:28.645 --> 0:13:31.445 in a lot of ways. So that's why for me, 0:13:31.605 --> 0:13:35.485 the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari was good enough, good enough 0:13:35.525 --> 0:13:36.845 to qualify here at number five. 0:13:37.445 --> 0:13:40.525 Yeah, it's a really interesting choice, one that was completely 0:13:40.564 --> 0:13:43.405 out of mind for me, and one that's been out 0:13:43.405 --> 0:13:46.125 of mind for a long time because I haven't seen 0:13:46.165 --> 0:13:48.405 it in so long. I think it might have been 0:13:48.485 --> 0:13:51.405 part of a pretty early film spotting marathon. But it's 0:13:51.445 --> 0:13:54.325 also one I remember having to watch in film school. 0:13:54.405 --> 0:13:57.485 Being glad I watched it in film school, so it 0:13:57.564 --> 0:14:00.565 was nice to be reminded of it. I'm kind of 0:14:00.804 --> 0:14:04.285 mad at you, though, for reminding me or bringing up 0:14:04.325 --> 0:14:07.085 this notion of movies around the year two thousand, because 0:14:07.365 --> 0:14:10.965 fortunately I didn't pay attention to that. I didn't note 0:14:11.125 --> 0:14:15.245 the years with my movies, Josh, at all, except for 0:14:15.725 --> 0:14:19.085 my number five pick. And so as you said that, 0:14:19.445 --> 0:14:22.765 I kind of glanced at my other choice and I realized, Oh, 0:14:22.805 --> 0:14:23.765 all of my picks. 0:14:23.965 --> 0:14:25.045 I like my list a lot. 0:14:25.165 --> 0:14:27.725 All of my picks are from the two thousands, and 0:14:27.965 --> 0:14:31.765 four of them are from right around the year two thousand. 0:14:32.045 --> 0:14:34.005 So I don't know. 0:14:34.405 --> 0:14:37.085 I like your hypothesis, yeah, but I don't know. If 0:14:37.125 --> 0:14:38.725 I had been aware of it, maybe I would have 0:14:38.805 --> 0:14:41.685 forced myself in different directions. Nevertheless, I'm going to stick 0:14:41.725 --> 0:14:43.485 with my list, and I'm going to stick with my 0:14:43.565 --> 0:14:47.685 number five, a film from the year two thousand. It's 0:14:47.965 --> 0:14:52.085 Mary Heron's American Psycho, a movie that I liked the 0:14:52.125 --> 0:14:55.325 one time I saw it back in the year two thousand, 0:14:55.445 --> 0:14:59.645 but I didn't love it, ironically, perhaps because I didn't 0:14:59.765 --> 0:15:04.485 enjoy the ambiguity of the conclusion. I couldn't rely on 0:15:04.565 --> 0:15:08.085 what Heron, as the storyteller wanted the main character and 0:15:08.125 --> 0:15:12.325 thus me as the viewer, to understand what was reality 0:15:12.485 --> 0:15:14.925 versus what was fantasy. And not only would I just 0:15:15.045 --> 0:15:18.325 generally like to revisit it because it has been twenty 0:15:18.365 --> 0:15:21.885 six years, I just wonder if I would appreciate that 0:15:22.045 --> 0:15:26.925 ambiguity much more now. What I did appreciate then, and 0:15:26.965 --> 0:15:31.365 what so many people did, was Bail's performance as Patrick 0:15:31.365 --> 0:15:35.845 Bateman and his narration adapted by Heron and Guenevere Turner 0:15:35.925 --> 0:15:38.645 from the Brett Easton Ellis novel. 0:15:39.205 --> 0:15:42.765 There are no more barriers to cross. All I have 0:15:42.845 --> 0:15:46.685 in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious 0:15:46.685 --> 0:15:49.805 and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused, am 0:15:49.805 --> 0:15:51.405 I utter indifference toward it? 0:15:51.725 --> 0:15:52.485 I have now. 0:15:52.365 --> 0:15:57.765 Surpassed that gentle precision, that too gentle precision of his voice, 0:15:58.205 --> 0:16:00.925 the hyper superficiality. 0:15:59.965 --> 0:16:00.605 Of his thoughts. 0:16:00.965 --> 0:16:05.925 They all do suggest that there has to be a 0:16:06.005 --> 0:16:10.525 much darker being lurking behind that herb mint facial mask 0:16:10.565 --> 0:16:13.885 and after shave lotion with little or no alcohol. You 0:16:13.925 --> 0:16:16.405 know that he puts on in the morning, then moisturizer, 0:16:16.525 --> 0:16:20.685 then an anti aging EYEBALLMB followed by a final moisturizing 0:16:20.685 --> 0:16:23.205 protect lotion. You know, Josh, the same routine you go 0:16:23.325 --> 0:16:24.885 through every single morning. 0:16:25.205 --> 0:16:25.405 Right. 0:16:26.485 --> 0:16:30.605 We immediately have a sense that something is very off 0:16:30.965 --> 0:16:35.245 and that his perspective isn't to be totally trusted, whether 0:16:35.325 --> 0:16:39.005 he's aware of it or not. But guess what, he 0:16:39.165 --> 0:16:41.685 is aware of it, and he calls our attention to it. 0:16:42.045 --> 0:16:47.285 In the opening narration, he tells us there is an 0:16:47.285 --> 0:16:51.725 idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but 0:16:51.765 --> 0:16:55.485 there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory. 0:16:55.885 --> 0:16:57.965 And though I can hide my cold gaze and you 0:16:58.005 --> 0:17:01.045 can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and 0:17:01.085 --> 0:17:04.085 maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, 0:17:04.605 --> 0:17:08.965 I simply am not there. That's the beginning of the film, Josh. 0:17:09.165 --> 0:17:13.004 How can you trust the musings and memories of an 0:17:13.005 --> 0:17:18.244 abstraction of a ghost at best? And also, just thinking 0:17:18.245 --> 0:17:20.445 about this movie, I have been thinking about it a 0:17:20.485 --> 0:17:24.005 lot because in terms of oppressions, I don't know sadly 0:17:24.085 --> 0:17:27.245 that this movie in some ways has ever not been. 0:17:27.085 --> 0:17:30.005 Relevant since it came out. But tell me that. 0:17:30.485 --> 0:17:33.725 If you're even familiar with this person, and in Josh, 0:17:33.885 --> 0:17:37.485 I largely hope you're not. You're leading a happier life 0:17:37.525 --> 0:17:40.045 if you're not. But tell me that some douche like 0:17:40.205 --> 0:17:45.205 clavicular isn't Jess Patrick Bateman. You know, Patrick Bateman is 0:17:45.245 --> 0:17:50.045 just the patron saint of every MAHA influencer bro on TikTok. 0:17:50.125 --> 0:17:54.605 I feel like I'm seeing Patrick Bateman every time. I'm 0:17:54.685 --> 0:17:57.645 usually not fortunately seeing them pop up on my feed. 0:17:57.885 --> 0:17:59.845 I'm seeing them pop up on my feed only when 0:17:59.845 --> 0:18:04.565 I'm seeing other people annihilating them for how douchey they are. 0:18:04.845 --> 0:18:08.085 So they're out there, man, there's way too many Patrick 0:18:08.085 --> 0:18:08.965 Bateman's out there. 0:18:09.405 --> 0:18:11.885 Yeah, I hadn't you know what. I hadn't thought about 0:18:11.925 --> 0:18:13.885 that connection in a long time. I haven't seen this 0:18:13.965 --> 0:18:16.725 movie since it came out, but that tracks that tracks 0:18:16.805 --> 0:18:17.445 for my memory. 0:18:17.445 --> 0:18:19.685 No, Ironey, lots of Patrick Bateman. 0:18:21.165 --> 0:18:23.605 We're still stuck with guys like that, aren't we. Yeah, 0:18:23.645 --> 0:18:26.445 it's an interesting scenario for the unreliable narrative because this 0:18:26.525 --> 0:18:30.405 is almost one where there isn't a twist ending, because 0:18:31.605 --> 0:18:33.405 especially going to see the movie, if you're aware of 0:18:33.405 --> 0:18:36.485 the book, you know, you just know who this guy is, 0:18:36.925 --> 0:18:41.045 and it is more about, yeah, watching the facade and 0:18:41.085 --> 0:18:43.325 how he tries to keep it up and how it crumbles. 0:18:43.525 --> 0:18:45.965 Also one that I should probably revisit because, like I said, 0:18:46.005 --> 0:18:48.365 it's been since it first came out, and I think 0:18:48.365 --> 0:18:51.965 I was probably yeah, mixed to mild on it as 0:18:52.005 --> 0:18:55.045 it sounds like you were, so do for a revisit. 0:18:55.725 --> 0:18:58.125 I'm so excited to throw this number for at you 0:18:58.165 --> 0:19:01.685 ad him because another sort of theory here that I'm 0:19:01.845 --> 0:19:05.405 very curious to hear what you think of it. It's 0:19:05.405 --> 0:19:09.445 a curveball pick the top five idea prompted it for me, 0:19:09.525 --> 0:19:11.725 and then I was also prompted by the fact that 0:19:11.845 --> 0:19:15.285 there's this new documentary out Ghost Elephants Nature documentary, but 0:19:15.965 --> 0:19:20.525 directed by Werner Herzog. So here's my question. Is Werner 0:19:20.565 --> 0:19:27.845 Herzog one of cinema's foremost unreliable narrators. He is notorious 0:19:28.405 --> 0:19:33.605 for his narrations of his documentaries. Right, They're absolutely singular these, 0:19:33.645 --> 0:19:37.765 aren't you know, a calm voice delivering facts. This is 0:19:38.285 --> 0:19:43.125 someone filtering factual things the real world through his own 0:19:43.245 --> 0:19:46.845 distinctly interpretive lens. This is this is one element of 0:19:46.885 --> 0:19:51.925 what everyone calls Herzog's ecstatic truth right. His narration is 0:19:52.005 --> 0:19:55.485 part of that. So this made me wonder, do we 0:19:55.605 --> 0:19:59.365 really know Timothy Treadwell of Grizzly Man, or do we 0:19:59.405 --> 0:20:04.285 only know Herzog's particular version of him? Is there a 0:20:04.325 --> 0:20:07.125 certain unreliability in what we're being told as well in 0:20:07.165 --> 0:20:12.285 how it's being framed, especially by Herzog the on screen narrator. 0:20:12.885 --> 0:20:17.565 Treadwell is gone, the argument how wrong, how right? 0:20:17.605 --> 0:20:18.045 He was? 0:20:18.245 --> 0:20:23.925 Disappears into a distance, into a what remains is his footage. 0:20:24.925 --> 0:20:27.645 My pick isn't Grizzly Man, because I think there might 0:20:27.685 --> 0:20:30.125 be a better test case for this for this question, 0:20:30.325 --> 0:20:33.565 and it's my best fiend, So that's where I'm going 0:20:33.605 --> 0:20:36.645 here with my number four pick. This is Herzog's documentary 0:20:37.085 --> 0:20:42.325 account of his tumultuous relationship with volatile actor Klaus Kinski, 0:20:42.365 --> 0:20:45.565 who is the star of five Herzog films like Ageara 0:20:45.565 --> 0:20:49.085 of the Wrath of God Knows Fratu and Fitzkaraldo my 0:20:49.165 --> 0:20:51.125 best theme. It was made a number of years after 0:20:51.205 --> 0:20:54.365 Kinski's death, and there isn't a lot of room here 0:20:54.405 --> 0:20:59.085 for Kinski's own voice. Herzog does read a passage from 0:20:59.405 --> 0:21:03.005 Kinsky's autobiography at one point. And it's very amusing because 0:21:03.725 --> 0:21:07.085 in that passage, Kinsky is basically describing Herzog in the 0:21:07.205 --> 0:21:11.605 same egomaniacal terms that Herzog in the documentary, has been 0:21:11.685 --> 0:21:13.925 using to describe Kinsky. So you do get a real 0:21:14.005 --> 0:21:17.005 sense of, you know, the back and forth between these 0:21:17.045 --> 0:21:20.325 two men. I don't think this is a hatchet job 0:21:20.445 --> 0:21:22.365 add all. I mean you get a real sense of 0:21:22.405 --> 0:21:24.765 their relationship, of the love and respect the two of 0:21:24.765 --> 0:21:28.645 them had. But there is something inherently unreliable about trying 0:21:28.685 --> 0:21:31.925 to capture the fullness of a man through such a 0:21:31.925 --> 0:21:36.685 particularly personal lens. So yes, this is a very different 0:21:36.725 --> 0:21:39.485 kind of unreliability that we're mostly going to be talking 0:21:39.485 --> 0:21:42.725 about here. But I think it fits. I was kind 0:21:42.725 --> 0:21:45.805 of more intrigued to probe the question the more I 0:21:45.885 --> 0:21:48.125 thought about it. But I'm thrown at you because you're 0:21:48.165 --> 0:21:51.045 a huge Herzoga fan and just loved to get your 0:21:51.045 --> 0:21:53.365 thoughts on us. Yeah. 0:21:53.485 --> 0:21:58.365 My immediate response is I'm angry at you for, on 0:21:58.365 --> 0:22:03.445 one level, violating the integrity of the top five. And 0:22:03.485 --> 0:22:06.405 I say that that. I say that because kind of 0:22:06.405 --> 0:22:09.365 going back to what I was alluding to earlier, that 0:22:09.525 --> 0:22:13.405 line of even though you know you're watching a narrative, 0:22:13.485 --> 0:22:16.965 you know you're watching a fiction. We as viewers are 0:22:17.405 --> 0:22:22.525 so buying into the reality of it, but then the 0:22:22.525 --> 0:22:26.685 the unreliability of the narrator and that tension is at 0:22:26.685 --> 0:22:28.765 the core of what this top five is all about. 0:22:28.925 --> 0:22:32.525 So if you bring quote unquote actual reality into it, 0:22:32.885 --> 0:22:36.085 then it it kind of undercuts that. Though we can 0:22:36.085 --> 0:22:38.725 all we can also go into that realm of yes, 0:22:38.805 --> 0:22:44.605 but we also now know and discuss constantly how even 0:22:44.645 --> 0:22:49.205 documentaries are their own version of subjective truths. Beyond that, though, 0:22:49.685 --> 0:22:52.925 I will just say my other reaction is I'm angry 0:22:52.925 --> 0:22:57.405 at you for having thought of it first and not me, 0:22:57.965 --> 0:23:00.245 because I think it's I think it's pretty I think 0:23:00.285 --> 0:23:04.845 it's pretty brilliant, and and I think it it makes 0:23:04.885 --> 0:23:07.485 sense if you if you're willing to go into the 0:23:07.525 --> 0:23:11.845 realm of documentary for this top five. Herzog's obviously the 0:23:11.885 --> 0:23:15.485 place to go because of what you said, because he 0:23:16.365 --> 0:23:22.365 so succumbs to his notion of the extent truth, because 0:23:22.405 --> 0:23:26.925 he buys into that so wholeheartedly, he believes in it 0:23:27.045 --> 0:23:33.045 so devotedly, and he again and again displays it in 0:23:33.085 --> 0:23:38.125 his films, whether it's on grandiose levels and has grandiose 0:23:38.165 --> 0:23:41.525 displays of it or these very small displays of it 0:23:41.605 --> 0:23:45.205 that honestly, unless you're doing research on the film later 0:23:45.605 --> 0:23:47.885 or someone points it out to you, or Herzog himself 0:23:47.925 --> 0:23:50.965 points it out, you wouldn't even know it was some 0:23:51.085 --> 0:23:55.445 kind of manufacturing of the truth or a modification of 0:23:55.525 --> 0:23:58.925 the truth. But he can't help it. He likes to lie. 0:23:59.245 --> 0:24:01.485 He likes to lie within his movies. He sees a 0:24:01.525 --> 0:24:05.165 purpose to his lies within his films. And I actually 0:24:05.245 --> 0:24:08.244 was just watching it's on YouTube. I highly recommend it. 0:24:08.285 --> 0:24:09.005 Just a few weeks ago. 0:24:09.125 --> 0:24:09.525 I watched. 0:24:09.525 --> 0:24:12.085 It's only about forty five minutes long, and I think 0:24:12.125 --> 0:24:16.365 it's from I think it's from the nineteen seventies. Yeah, 0:24:16.405 --> 0:24:21.765 nineteen seventy four, Herzog made a documentary about a skier, 0:24:22.285 --> 0:24:26.405 a ski jumper, you know those like the Winter Olympics, 0:24:26.405 --> 0:24:27.885 you know where they just go down the ramp and 0:24:27.885 --> 0:24:30.405 then they jump, and it's just all about distance. About 0:24:30.445 --> 0:24:33.925 this guy named Gunther Steiner, and it's called the Great 0:24:34.045 --> 0:24:37.085 Ecstasy of wood Carver Steiner and it's just about this 0:24:37.165 --> 0:24:40.244 guy and talk about ecstatic truth. This guy can just 0:24:40.525 --> 0:24:43.485 or the ecstasy right that he captures the guy can 0:24:43.565 --> 0:24:48.565 just soar farther than everybody, And the way Herzog depicts 0:24:48.645 --> 0:24:53.725 that soaring in slow motion, it is something amazing. You 0:24:53.805 --> 0:24:57.565 understand why that word ecstasy is in the title and 0:24:58.285 --> 0:25:00.285 you're watching it and at the end there's there's a 0:25:00.405 --> 0:25:05.445 poem that Herzog reads and it's like about Steiner, and 0:25:05.925 --> 0:25:08.885 you think, is that a real poem? Did Steiner write that? 0:25:09.925 --> 0:25:12.405 Where did that come from? And You're like, Herzog just 0:25:12.405 --> 0:25:14.885 made that up, you know, like none of it it's 0:25:15.085 --> 0:25:16.565 you know, like that doesn't. 0:25:16.245 --> 0:25:17.045 Come from anything. 0:25:17.125 --> 0:25:19.245 Herzog just thought it was poetic and he decided to 0:25:19.245 --> 0:25:21.925 throw it in And I can't. I feel so bad 0:25:21.925 --> 0:25:25.005 because it was just like a month ago. But Steiner 0:25:25.045 --> 0:25:27.765 at one point tells a story about growing up with 0:25:28.525 --> 0:25:32.205 some kind of bird, you know, he had, like a pet, 0:25:32.365 --> 0:25:35.045 and I wish I could remember what it was. And 0:25:35.085 --> 0:25:40.005 the story is so pedestrian in a way, but also bizarre, 0:25:40.125 --> 0:25:43.885 like things like stories and Herzog movies are that, Josh. 0:25:43.925 --> 0:25:45.845 As soon as the movie got over, all I did 0:25:45.925 --> 0:25:49.405 was start googling because I was sure Herzog made that 0:25:49.645 --> 0:25:53.565 up and made Gunther Steiner read it in his film 0:25:53.725 --> 0:25:56.365 because there was no way that was true. That seemed 0:25:56.405 --> 0:25:59.165 like one of those things that Herzog said, Hey, I 0:25:59.565 --> 0:26:02.565 think this, I think this works for my movie. Would 0:26:02.605 --> 0:26:04.525 you say this and recount this like it was part 0:26:04.525 --> 0:26:07.805 of your childhood? As far as I can tell, it's 0:26:07.885 --> 0:26:11.765 real that Steiner really grew up with that pet, But 0:26:12.765 --> 0:26:15.125 who really knows, you know. So all of that is 0:26:15.165 --> 0:26:17.445 to say, I wholeheartedly support your pick. 0:26:17.885 --> 0:26:20.485 Well, I'm so relieved. I thought I thought you might 0:26:20.485 --> 0:26:23.965 throw me out of court, so I'm glad we can proceed. 0:26:24.485 --> 0:26:27.445 No, I'm in. I like it. I like it a lot. Okay. 0:26:27.845 --> 0:26:32.285 My number four unreliable narrator is Tony Wilson. The movie 0:26:32.485 --> 0:26:35.885 is twenty four hour Party People from two thousand and two, 0:26:36.685 --> 0:26:40.205 so right around there one of my favorite cinematic pairings 0:26:40.605 --> 0:26:43.605 Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan and what I'm pretty sure 0:26:43.685 --> 0:26:48.525 was their first cinematic pairing, their first collaboration in a 0:26:48.565 --> 0:26:51.765 movie written by Frank Cottrell Boyce some may remember from 0:26:52.125 --> 0:26:55.925 the Danny Boyle movie Millions, among other movies, and this 0:26:56.045 --> 0:27:00.245 is the film that tells the story of that Manchester 0:27:00.445 --> 0:27:04.125 music scene that sprung up, you know, in the wake 0:27:04.165 --> 0:27:06.445 of the sex pistols and his music was changing. In 0:27:06.485 --> 0:27:10.245 England in the late nineteen seventies, Tony Wilson was this 0:27:10.365 --> 0:27:15.005 local TV news reporter who saw the sex pistols and said, 0:27:15.805 --> 0:27:18.165 I want to start a record label. I want to 0:27:18.165 --> 0:27:22.045 promote bands. I want to do something really important, and 0:27:22.085 --> 0:27:24.965 he ended up creating this label called Factory Records and 0:27:26.125 --> 0:27:30.485 starting or being the instigator behind a bunch of new 0:27:30.525 --> 0:27:35.725 bands and this new sound coming into fruition. He's a 0:27:35.885 --> 0:27:39.005 TV personality, as I said, a real life Tony Wilson, 0:27:39.045 --> 0:27:43.725 a real life TV personality. He's obviously ambitious and he 0:27:43.845 --> 0:27:47.885 did as he's looking back Steve Coogan playing Tony Wilson. 0:27:48.405 --> 0:27:51.925 Tony Wilson did make a major mark on popular music 0:27:52.005 --> 0:27:54.845 in Britain in the eighties, primarily And you put all 0:27:54.885 --> 0:27:57.485 of that together, Josh, and of course the person portraying 0:27:57.565 --> 0:28:02.445 him is in the way it's written. It's gonna be 0:28:03.325 --> 0:28:05.085 written in a way and performed in a way to 0:28:05.125 --> 0:28:08.285 push a certain narrative that's a little bit self aggrandizing. 0:28:08.645 --> 0:28:11.085 You know, it's going to favor what makes him look 0:28:11.205 --> 0:28:16.165 good over quote unquote what really happened. And that's easy 0:28:16.205 --> 0:28:20.685 to do when he Coogan as Tony Wilson is literally 0:28:20.765 --> 0:28:24.405 tell the story, not just with narration, but he's breaking 0:28:24.445 --> 0:28:27.645 the fourth wall. He's talking directly to the audience in 0:28:27.685 --> 0:28:32.965 many instances, and throughout winter Bottom and Cougan are constantly 0:28:33.045 --> 0:28:36.165 reminding you too, And this is not a surprise for 0:28:36.205 --> 0:28:39.525 people who know winter Bottom's work, and often his work 0:28:39.565 --> 0:28:44.685 with Kugan. They're reminding you of the mechanics of the story. 0:28:44.765 --> 0:28:48.285 They're reminding you of the fact that it is a story. 0:28:48.725 --> 0:28:51.805 So I think about a scene in this movie where 0:28:52.565 --> 0:28:55.845 Tony recounts meeting Sean and Paul Ryder of the group 0:28:56.165 --> 0:29:00.085 The Happy Mondays on a roof where they're trying to 0:29:00.125 --> 0:29:07.005 poison pigeons, and Cougan's explaining to us right that popular 0:29:07.125 --> 0:29:10.445 music's like a double helix, waves that intertwine and all 0:29:10.485 --> 0:29:13.725 this stuff, and he says, when one musical movement's descendant 0:29:13.725 --> 0:29:15.525 and other one's us send it. And so right now 0:29:15.565 --> 0:29:17.725 we're in kind of a crisscross, a kind of hiatus. 0:29:17.765 --> 0:29:19.605 But the two guys they're going to be on the 0:29:19.645 --> 0:29:22.605 crest of it are these two guys, Paul and Sean Ryder. 0:29:23.245 --> 0:29:26.125 This is a true incident. But like the Hanglining, which 0:29:26.125 --> 0:29:28.885 remember works on two levels. This takes place in nineteen 0:29:28.965 --> 0:29:31.845 eighty when Short and Paul put rock poison into some 0:29:31.885 --> 0:29:34.045 bread and fed it to three thousand pigeons. 0:29:34.485 --> 0:29:41.365 Yeah, here we are in our narrative, this narrative of 0:29:41.445 --> 0:29:46.045 the movie twenty four hour party people, one musical movement's ascendant, 0:29:46.365 --> 0:29:49.805 one's descendant. We're at this crisscross, right, but the next 0:29:49.885 --> 0:29:53.485 wave is coming, he's telling you, Right, it's because of 0:29:53.525 --> 0:29:56.445 these guys that the next wave is coming and they're 0:29:56.485 --> 0:29:59.165 going to be at the crux of it. Okay, that's 0:29:59.205 --> 0:30:02.885 why we're on this roof. There's the storytelling mechanics. Then 0:30:03.045 --> 0:30:05.565 he has to make sure we understand that, oh, this 0:30:05.725 --> 0:30:09.045 is true. You know this really happened. But then it's 0:30:09.085 --> 0:30:13.205 not completely true because you know, no pigeons were harmed 0:30:13.245 --> 0:30:15.085 in the making of this film. He does let us 0:30:15.165 --> 0:30:18.325 know that it's a reconstruction. He tells us the reconstruction 0:30:18.645 --> 0:30:21.405 that no pigeons were harmed. He wants us to be 0:30:21.445 --> 0:30:21.805 sure that. 0:30:21.765 --> 0:30:22.525 We understand that. 0:30:22.965 --> 0:30:26.045 But when he says this is true, like the hang 0:30:26.085 --> 0:30:28.685 gliding incident, it is one of those things where even 0:30:28.765 --> 0:30:30.925 if we're aware of it sort of from the beginning, 0:30:30.925 --> 0:30:34.885 because we understand the mechanism, the mechanics of storytelling. We 0:30:34.965 --> 0:30:39.565 understand the personality of Coogan and Tony Wilson and everything 0:30:39.605 --> 0:30:42.725 that's happening before us. You still can't help but believe 0:30:42.845 --> 0:30:45.525 what you're seeing before you, and that it's a true, 0:30:45.605 --> 0:30:49.405 quote unquote true story. But when he draws attention to 0:30:49.445 --> 0:30:53.685 the fact that, well, this is true and that was true, 0:30:53.885 --> 0:30:56.925 then all of a sudden you're thinking, well, then, which 0:30:56.925 --> 0:31:01.445 ones aren't true? And why are some more true than others? 0:31:01.685 --> 0:31:01.845 Right? 0:31:01.925 --> 0:31:08.165 And so the entire movie, you're in this nebulous zone, right, 0:31:08.245 --> 0:31:12.405 this gray area, wondering what really am I being fed here? 0:31:12.485 --> 0:31:15.205 And doesn't matter at all because at the end of 0:31:15.245 --> 0:31:17.925 the day, it's entertaining as hell, and who cares if 0:31:17.965 --> 0:31:21.645 any of it's factually true. So I do remember watching 0:31:21.845 --> 0:31:25.085 twenty four Hour Party People in a movie theater in Chicago. 0:31:25.485 --> 0:31:28.525 I wasn't living in Chicago yet when this movie came out, 0:31:28.965 --> 0:31:31.405 just before I moved here, but coming to Chicago to 0:31:31.485 --> 0:31:33.725 visit seeing this movie in a theater and it being 0:31:33.805 --> 0:31:36.205 one of the first movies I really remember that that 0:31:36.525 --> 0:31:40.965 challenged me, not in a super challenging way, but was 0:31:41.045 --> 0:31:45.165 doing something semi sophisticated in this way with its narra, 0:31:45.365 --> 0:31:48.165 with its narrative, you know, with that breaking the fourth wall, 0:31:48.565 --> 0:31:52.045 the unreliable narrator, and it being something that I felt 0:31:52.085 --> 0:31:54.205 like was was new to me at the time. 0:31:54.645 --> 0:31:58.885 I'm so glad you called out the Happy Monday's sequence 0:31:58.925 --> 0:32:01.205 because I have fond memories of twenty four Hour Party. 0:32:01.205 --> 0:32:03.325 People have not seen it since that. I was thinking 0:32:03.365 --> 0:32:05.485 as you started talking about it about the bands that 0:32:05.485 --> 0:32:08.085 were covered, It's like, is that was that Happy Mondays? 0:32:08.165 --> 0:32:08.325 Man? 0:32:08.885 --> 0:32:12.165 I miss Happy Mondays? So yeah, a good movie, good movie, 0:32:12.205 --> 0:32:15.565 and yeah, definitely works for this list. All right. My 0:32:15.965 --> 0:32:22.125 number three is let's see here. Oh yeah, this was 0:32:22.165 --> 0:32:26.805 part of our family's COVID coping strategy a few years 0:32:26.805 --> 0:32:30.645 ago now. Thankfully we went on a Joan Crawford marathon 0:32:30.925 --> 0:32:35.285 and one of the highlights was nineteen forty seven's Possessed, 0:32:35.365 --> 0:32:40.365 which I think counts as an unreliable narrator movie for 0:32:40.565 --> 0:32:43.005 reasons I'll get to first. I want to clarify though, 0:32:43.005 --> 0:32:46.005 we also in that marathon did nineteen thirty one's Possessed 0:32:46.045 --> 0:32:48.805 with Joan Crawford. I think this one's a little better. 0:32:48.845 --> 0:32:50.885 So if you're going to choose the Possessed go with 0:32:50.965 --> 0:32:55.965 forty seven here. In this one, Crawford plays Louise Howell, 0:32:56.125 --> 0:32:59.205 who is the unreliable narrator. We basically first meet her 0:32:59.325 --> 0:33:02.965 in this incredible opening sequence where she's just wandering the 0:33:02.965 --> 0:33:06.245 streets of Los Angeles in a daze and mumbling the 0:33:06.325 --> 0:33:11.565 name David. She ends up being hospitalized and begins piecing 0:33:11.605 --> 0:33:15.725 together her past in these flashbacks that involve an engineer 0:33:16.165 --> 0:33:18.445 she was in love with who rejected her, played by 0:33:18.565 --> 0:33:21.245 Van Heflin. If I were in love with anybody else, 0:33:21.285 --> 0:33:24.125 believe me. I tell you there is another woman. 0:33:24.165 --> 0:33:24.605 I know it. 0:33:25.405 --> 0:33:28.245 Otherwise, why should you suddenly decide to go out to Canada. 0:33:28.565 --> 0:33:29.645 I do know about Canada. 0:33:29.845 --> 0:33:31.445 You didn't think i'd find out about that, did you? 0:33:31.605 --> 0:33:32.045 But I did. 0:33:32.205 --> 0:33:33.885 I listened at the door. 0:33:34.245 --> 0:33:35.725 Do you see the things you make me do? All right? 0:33:35.725 --> 0:33:37.605 I'll do them. I'll do anything because I don't care anymore. 0:33:38.045 --> 0:33:39.925 You can't go away without me, David. I won't let you. 0:33:40.445 --> 0:33:41.845 I'll find a way alive. 0:33:41.965 --> 0:33:43.125 I have to, but I'll find a way. 0:33:43.965 --> 0:33:50.365 So that unspools a pretty wild plot of betrayal, potential suicide, 0:33:50.525 --> 0:33:53.965 possible murder, and this is all through the foggy memory 0:33:54.045 --> 0:33:58.565 and even the hallucinations at one point of Louise. So yeah, 0:33:58.845 --> 0:34:01.685 this fits your criteria, Adam. Of like, we know obviously 0:34:01.725 --> 0:34:05.485 from that opening scene this is a struggling woman. How 0:34:05.565 --> 0:34:09.605 much can we believe of her story? Crawford, this will 0:34:09.645 --> 0:34:13.165 not surprise you to hear commits. I don't find that 0:34:13.605 --> 0:34:17.645 this particular performance leans all the way into camp. I 0:34:18.005 --> 0:34:20.524 think the movie'll overall. I mean, this is forty seven, 0:34:20.605 --> 0:34:23.085 so it's not perfect, but I think it deals with 0:34:23.125 --> 0:34:28.645 her mental illness fairly progressively for the time. And Crawford, 0:34:28.925 --> 0:34:33.565 you know, definitely is taking this woman in her predicament seriously. 0:34:34.325 --> 0:34:39.485 The director is Curtis Bernhardt. Not incredibly familiar with Curtis Bernhardt, 0:34:39.565 --> 0:34:42.884 but there are some nice employments of point of view 0:34:42.885 --> 0:34:46.125 shots in the movie, which I especially like for this 0:34:46.205 --> 0:34:49.605 list because they emphasize the unreliable narrator element. The first 0:34:49.645 --> 0:34:53.925 one comes when she's Louise's being hospitalized, and so she's 0:34:53.965 --> 0:34:56.765 wheeled into the hospital on this gurney and we suddenly 0:34:56.765 --> 0:34:59.325 see her from her point of view, like the ceiling 0:34:59.405 --> 0:35:03.685 lamps passing overhead, and so even though we've initially become 0:35:03.765 --> 0:35:07.205 suspicious of her because we've watched her from Afar in 0:35:07.285 --> 0:35:11.045 this daze and we're either you know, nervous for her 0:35:11.125 --> 0:35:15.285 or maybe even scared by her. Here then we're put 0:35:15.325 --> 0:35:19.525 into her body and her panic becomes ours. So it's 0:35:19.565 --> 0:35:21.405 kind of messing with you in that way of what 0:35:21.445 --> 0:35:23.645 should I believe? What should I not believe? And well 0:35:23.645 --> 0:35:27.805 now I'm now I'm actually experiencing this story, so that 0:35:27.885 --> 0:35:31.805 invests us even more. Yeah, I highly recommend Possessed. I 0:35:31.845 --> 0:35:34.765 think of it as the Hitchcock film that Joan Crawford 0:35:34.805 --> 0:35:36.445 never made. So it's a good one. 0:35:37.085 --> 0:35:40.845 Joan Crawford should be. It sounds like it will never be. 0:35:41.045 --> 0:35:44.125 She will never be a marathon subject on this show 0:35:44.165 --> 0:35:46.525 because you did that marathon without me. You did that 0:35:46.565 --> 0:35:48.885 with your other family. Yeah, you did that with your 0:35:48.925 --> 0:35:53.885 actual family. Should have been a marathon topic on this show. 0:35:53.965 --> 0:35:57.645 Because I need to see a lot of Joan Crawford movies, 0:35:57.685 --> 0:36:00.285 and that, unfortunately is one of them. And you know, 0:36:00.325 --> 0:36:03.205 I already wanted to see those films, but now you've 0:36:03.205 --> 0:36:05.085 really sold me on wanting to see Possessed. 0:36:05.245 --> 0:36:10.005 So a good pick, Josh. 0:36:10.045 --> 0:36:12.925 Looking over the slate of movies that are playing or 0:36:13.005 --> 0:36:16.565 coming soon to a Regal Cinema near you. I kind 0:36:16.565 --> 0:36:18.844 of like seeing that. With the Oscars approaching, you can 0:36:18.885 --> 0:36:21.245 still go to the theater and see Marty Supreme, one 0:36:21.245 --> 0:36:23.844 of the Best Picture nominees. If you haven't already seen 0:36:24.325 --> 0:36:28.525 that movie, catch it before it's no longer available on 0:36:28.965 --> 0:36:31.565 the big screen. And of course the movie that we 0:36:31.845 --> 0:36:35.045 will be discussing next week. Look for it in your feed. 0:36:35.445 --> 0:36:38.285 Maggie jillen Hall's The Bride I have to share. 0:36:38.405 --> 0:36:38.885 I love that. 0:36:38.925 --> 0:36:42.205 I just randomly got this video served to me. You 0:36:42.245 --> 0:36:44.925 know that John mullaney story he told on the Oscars 0:36:44.965 --> 0:36:49.005 about reading putting himself on tape for Young Cop. It 0:36:49.125 --> 0:36:52.005 was so memorable as a really funny story. It was 0:36:52.085 --> 0:36:56.485 for this movie, and Jesse Buckley and Maggie Jillenhall got 0:36:56.525 --> 0:36:59.125 asked about it and they were great sports about it, 0:36:59.525 --> 0:37:03.085 and they laughed and said it was really funny. And 0:37:03.565 --> 0:37:07.525 Maggie did point out, Maggie Jillenhall that it's a good role. 0:37:07.845 --> 0:37:09.885 And Lewis can Sell Me is the actor who plays 0:37:09.965 --> 0:37:12.365 Young Cop in the movie, and she ended up giving 0:37:12.485 --> 0:37:16.285 Young Cop a name, I think after John Mulaney told 0:37:16.485 --> 0:37:18.685 that story. But she says it's a good role. It's 0:37:18.765 --> 0:37:21.245 quite a big part, so maybe John mulaney should have 0:37:21.245 --> 0:37:23.525 taken it more seriously so we can see that on 0:37:23.565 --> 0:37:27.525 the big screen, and maybe we'll discuss just how good 0:37:27.765 --> 0:37:30.924 the actor is performing Young Cop, though I think we'll 0:37:30.965 --> 0:37:34.245 be spending most of our time looking at Jesse Buckley 0:37:34.285 --> 0:37:37.485 and Christian Bale and considering their performances. I am very 0:37:37.525 --> 0:37:41.565 excited to see that one. You can see both of 0:37:41.565 --> 0:37:44.285 those films at a Regal cinema near you, and you 0:37:44.565 --> 0:37:47.325 just might be able to see them for free. Regal 0:37:47.405 --> 0:37:50.165 Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass 0:37:50.205 --> 0:37:52.765 that pays for itself in just two visits. Right now, 0:37:52.805 --> 0:37:56.125 Regal is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less. 0:37:56.165 --> 0:37:57.605 All you have to do is sign up for Regal 0:37:57.645 --> 0:38:01.085 Unlimited using code film spot twenty six and you'll get 0:38:01.165 --> 0:38:05.365 fifteen percent off. Regal Unlimited is the only truly limitless 0:38:05.365 --> 0:38:08.325 movie subscription pass. You can see any standard two D 0:38:08.485 --> 0:38:11.565 movie anytime with no blockout dates or restrictions. And with 0:38:11.725 --> 0:38:14.205 Regal Unlimited you won't just save money on tickets, you 0:38:14.285 --> 0:38:18.085 also save on snacks. Members get ten percent off all 0:38:18.245 --> 0:38:20.965 non alcoholic concessions. So sign up now in the regal 0:38:21.125 --> 0:38:24.005 lap or at the link in our podcast description and 0:38:24.085 --> 0:38:27.525 use code film Spot twenty six that's film Spot twenty 0:38:27.565 --> 0:38:36.805 six to receive your discu my number three. This is 0:38:37.925 --> 0:38:41.125 the only one of my picks that doesn't come from 0:38:41.245 --> 0:38:43.845 right around the turn of the century. It's from twenty fourteen. 0:38:43.925 --> 0:38:47.565 And here's where things get really fun, because David Fincher 0:38:48.325 --> 0:38:52.885 takes Allian Flynn's Gone Girl Conceit from the book and 0:38:52.925 --> 0:38:58.645 I think really employs it so perfectly. First, we assume 0:38:59.045 --> 0:39:01.925 that this is going to be the story as told 0:39:01.965 --> 0:39:06.645 completely from Nick Dunn's perspective. Ben Affleck, can he be trusted? 0:39:06.725 --> 0:39:12.165 Josh Well? In the opening narration, we hear him talk 0:39:12.205 --> 0:39:17.165 about cracking his wife Amy's lovely skull open. 0:39:18.525 --> 0:39:22.685 When I think of my wife, I always think of 0:39:22.725 --> 0:39:29.765 her head a picture of cracking or lovely skull unspooling 0:39:29.805 --> 0:39:32.485 her brains trying to get answers. 0:39:33.405 --> 0:39:35.924 Though it's not as bad as it sounds, right right, 0:39:36.165 --> 0:39:39.205 I mean he just means he just really wants to 0:39:39.285 --> 0:39:42.045 understand what his wife is really thinking. He just wants 0:39:42.085 --> 0:39:44.005 to get inside her head. I mean we've all had 0:39:44.045 --> 0:39:48.325 the same thought about our wives, right, but sure, something 0:39:48.365 --> 0:39:51.765 about that phrasing and kind of the way that just 0:39:51.845 --> 0:39:56.485 slightly menacing way he says it. You know, it's perfect. 0:39:56.525 --> 0:39:59.884 We're immediately not sure what to think about this guy. 0:39:59.885 --> 0:40:02.765 And of course, as more details unfold, like the fact 0:40:02.765 --> 0:40:05.805 that she's missing, what happened to her? Is he in 0:40:05.845 --> 0:40:09.605 fact responsible for her disappearance? How much can we trust 0:40:09.605 --> 0:40:12.725 what he's telling the police, not just us, the people 0:40:12.765 --> 0:40:16.205 around him, what they think and what he's telling them. 0:40:16.685 --> 0:40:21.125 And then of course it gets really really interesting. We 0:40:21.205 --> 0:40:27.485 learn that Amy's still alive, and that becomes a fact 0:40:27.605 --> 0:40:30.884 that becomes something we're aware of when we get introduced 0:40:31.205 --> 0:40:36.685 to Amy and we get the famous cool girl speech. 0:40:36.845 --> 0:40:39.484 Nick and Amy will be gone. But then we never 0:40:39.565 --> 0:40:42.925 really existed. Nick loved a girl. I was pretending to 0:40:42.965 --> 0:40:47.525 be cool girl. Men always use that, don't they, as 0:40:47.605 --> 0:40:52.565 their defining compliment. She's a cool girl, coog girl is hotly, 0:40:52.725 --> 0:40:56.005 cool girl is gay, cool girl is fun. Cool girl 0:40:56.085 --> 0:40:57.404 never gets angry at her man. 0:40:57.845 --> 0:40:59.485 She only smiles. 0:40:59.125 --> 0:41:02.884 Other than the fact Josh that she faked her death 0:41:02.925 --> 0:41:05.085 and is obviously willing to go to great lengths to 0:41:05.125 --> 0:41:09.404 deceive the entire world, not just her husband. What does 0:41:09.445 --> 0:41:13.405 Amy immediately start telling us in that monologue Nick and 0:41:13.445 --> 0:41:16.165 Amy will be gone. But then we never really existed. 0:41:16.645 --> 0:41:19.485 Nick loved a girl I was pretending to be. We 0:41:19.485 --> 0:41:22.005 were happy, pretending to be other people. We were the 0:41:22.045 --> 0:41:25.844 happiest couple we knew her in her entire marriage, her 0:41:25.885 --> 0:41:30.005 her life really up to this point. And and as 0:41:30.045 --> 0:41:32.365 we you know, quickly learned too from the beginning of 0:41:32.405 --> 0:41:34.805 the film, so has his has been about deception. 0:41:35.245 --> 0:41:37.725 Right, We're in a in that movie. 0:41:37.765 --> 0:41:40.965 We are in a constant state of having to recalibrate 0:41:42.445 --> 0:41:45.645 what we think, what we believe, what we feel, who 0:41:45.725 --> 0:41:49.525 we can trust, what we can trust not trust, and 0:41:49.565 --> 0:41:53.245 certainly what's coming out of the mouths of either Nick 0:41:53.805 --> 0:41:58.765 or Amy. And in some cases in Flashbacks, Fincher understands 0:41:58.805 --> 0:42:03.365 that because we've seen it happen, because he's shown us something, 0:42:03.765 --> 0:42:07.364 it's then impossible, almost impossible for our brains to then 0:42:07.485 --> 0:42:11.525 disassociate it from reality, that that what we saw in 0:42:11.565 --> 0:42:15.045 flashback could in fact be just their version of the 0:42:15.045 --> 0:42:19.165 truth or a complete fabrication. It could be a complete deception. 0:42:19.845 --> 0:42:23.845 And I think I think that movie is so disorienting 0:42:23.965 --> 0:42:26.325 in the best way a movie can be, because Fincher 0:42:26.365 --> 0:42:30.165 does turn it back on us that way, like there 0:42:30.165 --> 0:42:34.565 are things we know that that people within the movie 0:42:34.565 --> 0:42:38.525 world don't know. We're privy to information that they're not. 0:42:39.085 --> 0:42:42.285 And yet with every new revelation within the movie world 0:42:42.685 --> 0:42:48.645 or as characters on television or anyone who's questioning the 0:42:48.725 --> 0:42:54.085 reality or or raising doubt about who did what. As 0:42:54.125 --> 0:42:57.285 those questions get raised, you can't help as a viewer 0:42:57.605 --> 0:43:00.165 start to start to question it yourself. You start to 0:43:00.245 --> 0:43:03.285 question the truth that you think you believe, the things 0:43:03.325 --> 0:43:05.485 that you've been clinging to, what you think you know 0:43:05.565 --> 0:43:08.925 from what you saw. And I think I think that 0:43:08.925 --> 0:43:11.845 that's that line again, that edge that you're you're walking 0:43:12.005 --> 0:43:14.245 that entire time with that movie, and I think that's 0:43:14.405 --> 0:43:16.605 that's one of the things that really elevates Gone Girl. 0:43:16.925 --> 0:43:19.045 Yeah, I think Fincher had to get recognition with this 0:43:19.165 --> 0:43:22.125 top five. He's one of those filmmakers and we might 0:43:22.165 --> 0:43:25.165 touch on one or maybe two others who have a 0:43:25.285 --> 0:43:29.525 number of unreliable narrator movies in their filmography. I was 0:43:29.725 --> 0:43:33.605 leaning towards Fight Club. Didn't end up spoiler on my list, 0:43:33.645 --> 0:43:36.285 It's it's probably my number, my number six, But I 0:43:36.325 --> 0:43:39.125 think I think you probably nailed the better one here. Adam, 0:43:38.965 --> 0:43:41.685 I'm just looking up. I was a little I wasn't 0:43:41.725 --> 0:43:44.765 quite as high on Gone Girl as I was Fight Club, 0:43:44.805 --> 0:43:47.365 which is probably why I didn't lean that way. But 0:43:47.765 --> 0:43:50.685 here's the first phrase of my review. I forgot about 0:43:50.685 --> 0:43:55.485 this a viper's nest of unreliable narrators. So apparently I 0:43:55.525 --> 0:43:58.005 should have just, you know, went into my my search 0:43:58.085 --> 0:44:01.205 field and typed in unreliable narrators and see what popped. 0:44:01.205 --> 0:44:05.444 Come on, therefore, Josh to use that tepneque next time. 0:44:05.445 --> 0:44:10.405 But yeah, absolutely a fitting pick there with Gone Girl. Okay, 0:44:10.485 --> 0:44:13.285 at number two, however, and here's where we really need 0:44:13.325 --> 0:44:16.005 to put the spoilers out there, even though it seems ridiculous. 0:44:16.485 --> 0:44:19.445 My number two pick is The Sixth Sense. But Adam, 0:44:19.565 --> 0:44:23.045 I've I've watched The Sixth Sense with you know, teenagers 0:44:23.045 --> 0:44:28.245 who somehow didn't know the reveal. So I'm just gonna say, 0:44:28.285 --> 0:44:30.805 if that's you and you happen to be listening, you 0:44:30.925 --> 0:44:32.885 need to experience the sixth Sons if it's at all 0:44:32.925 --> 0:44:37.085 possible without knowing what goes down. But as we discussed 0:44:37.085 --> 0:44:38.725 when we did our nine from ninety nine review a 0:44:38.765 --> 0:44:41.485 number of years ago, it's not just the twist that 0:44:41.645 --> 0:44:45.844 makes m Night Chamlan's breakout ghost story so incredible. It 0:44:45.925 --> 0:44:51.365 has those performances, which across the board are brilliant Haley Joel, Osmond, 0:44:51.365 --> 0:44:55.245 Bruce Willis, maybe above all Tony Collette. It has good creeps, 0:44:55.485 --> 0:45:01.685 good scares, They're all expertly crafted. But all that being said, 0:45:02.365 --> 0:45:05.525 it's the twist that I think does elevate the Six Sons, 0:45:05.605 --> 0:45:09.005 and for me is what really makes it eligible for 0:45:09.085 --> 0:45:13.245 this list. And this is the fact that here's the spoiler. 0:45:13.445 --> 0:45:17.285 Willis's child psychologist Malcolm Crow is in fact trying to 0:45:17.325 --> 0:45:22.085 help Osmond's traumatized boy from beyond the grave. Now we 0:45:22.165 --> 0:45:25.525 don't know he's a ghost until the end, of course, 0:45:25.565 --> 0:45:28.325 so there's maybe not that ambiguity you are looking for, Adham. 0:45:28.845 --> 0:45:31.165 But I think the brilliance of the twist here is 0:45:31.165 --> 0:45:36.645 that Malcolm doesn't realize it himself until we do. And 0:45:36.765 --> 0:45:38.525 this is when he tries to talk to his wife 0:45:38.925 --> 0:45:41.805 played by Olivia Williams, who's also very good, and discovers 0:45:41.805 --> 0:45:44.325 that he can't because he's dead. 0:45:44.805 --> 0:45:46.085 I see people. 0:45:49.005 --> 0:45:50.085 They don't know they're dead. 0:45:55.005 --> 0:46:01.165 How often do you see that of time? So Malcolm 0:46:01.365 --> 0:46:07.405 is unknowingly unreliable to himself, and for me, that adds 0:46:07.405 --> 0:46:10.645 a certain pathos to the narrative, and to me, that's 0:46:10.725 --> 0:46:14.365 also what gives the sixth sense. It's crowning achievement that 0:46:14.485 --> 0:46:17.685 this movie has everything I talked about as well as 0:46:17.725 --> 0:46:21.685 a powerful emotional punch. So it is clever and it 0:46:21.725 --> 0:46:26.285 is intricate. Right. The unreliability is baked into the actual 0:46:26.485 --> 0:46:31.605 composition of certain scenes, which is also revealed in retrospect. 0:46:31.685 --> 0:46:34.485 But for me, it's also moving as well because just 0:46:34.525 --> 0:46:38.405 because of the very nature of the unreliability of its narrator. 0:46:38.885 --> 0:46:42.964 Yeah, we will come back briefly to the sixth sense 0:46:42.965 --> 0:46:45.605 here when we get to the end of our picks. 0:46:45.725 --> 0:46:48.165 Absolutely understand why it's on your list, and I think 0:46:48.205 --> 0:46:51.805 it has to come up in any conversation of unreliable narrators. 0:46:51.885 --> 0:46:53.405 I'm as big of a fan of that movie as 0:46:53.485 --> 0:46:55.965 you are, going back to that conversation that we had 0:46:55.965 --> 0:46:58.445 about it during that nine from ninety nine series. Before 0:46:58.485 --> 0:47:00.205 I get to my number two pick, I do just 0:47:00.285 --> 0:47:04.085 want to to state, because I finally remembered it, and 0:47:04.125 --> 0:47:07.285 I know everyone's dying to hear it. Wood Carver Steiner, 0:47:07.525 --> 0:47:09.845 it was a pet raven. It was a pet Raven 0:47:09.965 --> 0:47:12.245 and who has a pet Raven? You see why you 0:47:12.325 --> 0:47:13.885 can't believe that's true. 0:47:13.885 --> 0:47:18.085 Right, yeah, but they should be pets who are way 0:47:18.125 --> 0:47:21.125 too smart. I mean, that's all dangerous. 0:47:21.085 --> 0:47:21.885 I know, I know. 0:47:22.325 --> 0:47:25.924 So my number two, okay, my final two picks here, 0:47:26.085 --> 0:47:29.884 I'm gonna call the children of Rashomon. And I say 0:47:29.925 --> 0:47:32.685 that in spirit. I guess all of these movies in 0:47:32.725 --> 0:47:35.245 some way are the children of Rashomon, but especially these 0:47:35.245 --> 0:47:38.605 two picks Josh, in spirit, but also in their own 0:47:38.645 --> 0:47:42.885 distinct ways form. This is another movie, and this is 0:47:42.965 --> 0:47:45.605 nineteen ninety nine, so right around two thousand and again, 0:47:45.805 --> 0:47:48.285 another movie I have only seen once when it came 0:47:48.285 --> 0:47:50.645 out in the theater, and I would love to revisit it. 0:47:50.685 --> 0:47:52.645 I know it's a beloved film by a lot of 0:47:52.685 --> 0:47:55.484 our listeners, rightfully, so I have only seen it that once. 0:47:56.245 --> 0:48:01.205 It's not a direct parallel obviously to Rashomon. But not 0:48:01.285 --> 0:48:10.085 only does Alexander Payne's Election have four narrators, unreliable narrators, Jim, Tracy, 0:48:10.285 --> 0:48:15.005 Tammy and Paul, but they are recounting a single event 0:48:15.085 --> 0:48:20.325 in their collective pass that whole election mess. As Matthew 0:48:20.325 --> 0:48:24.165 Broderick's Jim puts it at the beginning. Like Gone Girl. 0:48:24.445 --> 0:48:28.525 This was a book construct that drew Alexander Payne and 0:48:28.645 --> 0:48:32.125 Jim Taylor, the co writer to the project. The Tom 0:48:32.125 --> 0:48:35.045 Pratta book, which I haven't read but I know it, 0:48:35.085 --> 0:48:39.285 gave each chapter over to a different character. It's all 0:48:39.365 --> 0:48:43.725 first person, different chapters, different characters, so they get to 0:48:43.805 --> 0:48:49.365 tell their own version of events and beyond recounting details 0:48:49.405 --> 0:48:52.245 of what happened as they remember it. The voice over 0:48:52.405 --> 0:48:56.165 here in Election, it's so good. It essentially functions to 0:48:56.245 --> 0:48:59.085 reveal what I think the commoner and we're going to 0:48:59.125 --> 0:49:01.845 get to Rashomon, but essentially what the commoner in Rachoman 0:49:01.965 --> 0:49:04.885 says most of the time, we can't even be honest 0:49:04.885 --> 0:49:09.844 with ourselves. Whatever these characters claim in voiceover, we as 0:49:09.885 --> 0:49:14.925 the viewer figure out pretty quickly that the opposite must 0:49:14.925 --> 0:49:19.924 in fact be true. Like take when Jim is at 0:49:19.925 --> 0:49:25.365 dinner with his wife it has to be what is 0:49:25.485 --> 0:49:29.364 yet another silent dinner where they're just looking down at 0:49:29.365 --> 0:49:32.805 their plates across from each other, and the voiceover says, 0:49:33.605 --> 0:49:36.965 thank God for Diane. She was my best friend, my 0:49:37.125 --> 0:49:39.805 source of love and strength. Oh sure we had our 0:49:39.805 --> 0:49:42.805 share of bumpy times, but we'd always seen them through 0:49:43.045 --> 0:49:47.445 after years of marriage, we were closer than ever. There's 0:49:47.605 --> 0:49:51.205 no way that's true based on what we're seeing, that clash, 0:49:51.285 --> 0:49:54.844 that ironic clash of the words to the visual, what 0:49:54.845 --> 0:49:56.965 we're actually seeing play out in terms of the action 0:49:57.245 --> 0:50:01.885 of their marriage. It's the expression of the fantasy version 0:50:01.925 --> 0:50:04.125 of his life. Or maybe Josh is not even the 0:50:04.125 --> 0:50:07.645 fantasy version of his life. It's just it's just the 0:50:07.765 --> 0:50:11.085 version of his life that he has to believe in 0:50:11.205 --> 0:50:16.245 order to get through the day. And what's funny is 0:50:16.285 --> 0:50:21.045 he says she's his source of love and strength, and 0:50:21.285 --> 0:50:25.365 so even just beyond that clash that's clearly there, he says, 0:50:26.245 --> 0:50:28.924 you know, my source of love and strength. But when 0:50:28.965 --> 0:50:33.965 she actually says to him, is anything wrong, he says, no, no, 0:50:34.565 --> 0:50:38.365 just you know school, Well, if if she was actually 0:50:38.445 --> 0:50:41.045 this source that you could confide in who helped you 0:50:41.085 --> 0:50:44.485 through your problems, then why wouldn't you share what was 0:50:44.485 --> 0:50:46.925 troubling you and maybe she'd help you. But of course 0:50:47.005 --> 0:50:50.525 he doesn't do that, So there's another layer of that irony. 0:50:50.725 --> 0:50:52.805 But it isn't just Jim, of course, it's all the 0:50:52.845 --> 0:50:57.205 other characters. I mean, there's a YouTube clip that's labeled 0:50:57.645 --> 0:50:59.365 Tracy Flick isn't upset? 0:50:59.725 --> 0:51:00.565 Who put you up to this? 0:51:01.485 --> 0:51:03.485 What do you mean you just woke up this morning 0:51:03.725 --> 0:51:05.565 and suddenly decided to run for president? 0:51:06.085 --> 0:51:08.685 No? No, I just thought that. 0:51:08.845 --> 0:51:09.525 Uh what. 0:51:10.245 --> 0:51:15.005 It starts with her haranguing Chris Kleins Paul right, so 0:51:15.485 --> 0:51:18.525 right there you get the irony, but it ends, or 0:51:18.565 --> 0:51:20.765 the voiceover begins what they're saying. You might think it 0:51:20.845 --> 0:51:23.285 up me that Paul Metzler had decided to run against me, 0:51:23.365 --> 0:51:25.005 but nothing could be further from the truth. 0:51:25.245 --> 0:51:26.685 He was no competition for me. 0:51:26.805 --> 0:51:29.925 It was like apples and oranges again, though this immediately 0:51:29.965 --> 0:51:34.965 follows her haranguing him. You know, she's just just yelled 0:51:34.965 --> 0:51:36.885 at him in front of everyone there in the gym 0:51:36.925 --> 0:51:39.285 because he's going to run against her. So there we 0:51:39.365 --> 0:51:43.645 have that clash once again. But back to Jim because 0:51:43.645 --> 0:51:46.725 he is kind of, you know, the movie's main punching bag. 0:51:47.445 --> 0:51:51.325 Just like Raschoman. This movie does eventually bring us sort 0:51:51.325 --> 0:51:53.045 of out of this time warp or out of this 0:51:53.645 --> 0:51:58.165 limbo into the present day. You know, the narration becomes 0:51:58.245 --> 0:52:02.285 present tense. We see and hear what everyone is up 0:52:02.325 --> 0:52:07.045 to now, because in theory, everyone has moved on everyone's 0:52:07.085 --> 0:52:09.925 moved on with their lives and they've improved their lives, right, 0:52:10.005 --> 0:52:15.685 they've gotten past the whole messiness of that. But we 0:52:15.725 --> 0:52:18.685 see that that's not really the case. And in particular 0:52:18.725 --> 0:52:21.605 with Jim, he says, you might wonder if I ever 0:52:22.165 --> 0:52:25.485 if I ever saw Tracy Flick again. And he's he's 0:52:25.805 --> 0:52:30.925 at a museum educator's conference in DC, right, and he randomly, 0:52:31.565 --> 0:52:35.645 he randomly sees her. She's working for a congressman. She's 0:52:35.685 --> 0:52:40.645 getting into a limo, and the voiceover again Josh where 0:52:40.685 --> 0:52:43.125 he's like, he's talking about how his impulse was to 0:52:43.205 --> 0:52:46.645 run over there and pound on her window, and he 0:52:46.685 --> 0:52:50.085 wanted to confront her about lying and cheating. But instead 0:52:50.645 --> 0:52:53.885 I just stood there and I realized I wasn't angry anymore. 0:52:54.205 --> 0:52:56.285 I just felt sorry for her. And he starts, he 0:52:56.325 --> 0:53:00.725 starts trying to convince us, the audience, the imaginary audience 0:53:00.765 --> 0:53:04.245 that he's talking to Slash himself right about his new 0:53:04.285 --> 0:53:07.685 life and all the exciting things he's doing, and how 0:53:07.845 --> 0:53:11.645 her life must really be pathetic, you know. And that's 0:53:11.685 --> 0:53:14.285 what's so funny is, of course he's not really angry, 0:53:14.365 --> 0:53:17.165 just like Tracy Flick wasn't really angry, and yet what 0:53:17.165 --> 0:53:20.205 do we see him do throw his drink at the limo, 0:53:20.685 --> 0:53:25.605 you know, because he's actually still crushed by all of 0:53:25.645 --> 0:53:30.285 this and just overcome with hostility towards her. So that 0:53:30.325 --> 0:53:33.805 irony and the way the voiceovers are deployed in Election 0:53:34.205 --> 0:53:38.645 is I mean, you obviously you can't imagine Election without it. 0:53:38.725 --> 0:53:41.005 I mean, it's so essential to that film and the 0:53:41.045 --> 0:53:42.325 success of that movie. 0:53:42.685 --> 0:53:45.925 Love the Rachaman parallels. I'd never thought of that before, 0:53:46.685 --> 0:53:49.125 but yeah, they're absolutely there. And this is a good 0:53:49.205 --> 0:53:52.205 case too, maybe because we've framed this as the movies 0:53:52.245 --> 0:53:55.045 and not necessarily the characters, but to give credit to 0:53:55.085 --> 0:53:58.085 the performances that are needed for a movie like this. 0:53:58.325 --> 0:54:02.045 I mean, how good are Broaderick and Witherspoon is so 0:54:02.125 --> 0:54:05.045 good in these parts and hitting all those levels that 0:54:05.085 --> 0:54:08.485 you've been describing having to perform that sort of self 0:54:08.525 --> 0:54:13.725 deception as well as they do. Man nineteen ninety nine, 0:54:13.805 --> 0:54:16.365 I don't think, I know, we probably considered this in 0:54:16.405 --> 0:54:18.765 the mix for our nine from ninety nine series dam 0:54:18.805 --> 0:54:20.925 and we just felt like there were others we had 0:54:21.085 --> 0:54:25.005 to get to before it. What a great film that 0:54:25.085 --> 0:54:26.565 we would have been able to get to, What an 0:54:26.565 --> 0:54:32.245 incredible year. All right, we are at number one. Okay, well, 0:54:32.925 --> 0:54:37.125 almost every Christopher Nolan film could be considered for this list. 0:54:37.165 --> 0:54:40.245 I feel like, I mean, certainly the prestige, certainly, inception. 0:54:40.805 --> 0:54:42.965 I'm going to guess tenant, but I had no idea 0:54:42.965 --> 0:54:45.445 what's going on, So I'm just going to say probably. 0:54:46.285 --> 0:54:51.645 I think when you consider the very notion of unreliability, 0:54:51.685 --> 0:54:55.605 you're inherently dealing with things. You're dealing with complication, you're 0:54:55.645 --> 0:55:02.205 dealing with artifice, you're dealing with deception. Unreliability also creates, 0:55:02.365 --> 0:55:05.405 in a lot of ways, a multiverse, and Nolan makes 0:55:05.485 --> 0:55:10.485 movie multiverses, not non Marvel movie multiverses, but either literally 0:55:10.525 --> 0:55:13.085 in some cases, or just in the way your mind 0:55:13.165 --> 0:55:16.125 is required to function to keep up with his films. 0:55:17.125 --> 0:55:20.205 So I have a Nolan film at number one, and 0:55:20.725 --> 0:55:25.765 it is is Memento. Memento, where Guy Pierce plays Leonard Shelby, 0:55:26.605 --> 0:55:30.125 a man who has short term memory loss. While trying 0:55:30.165 --> 0:55:33.565 to solve his wife's murder, He's basically relying on a 0:55:33.565 --> 0:55:38.885 polaroid and his own tattoos as clues. Here again, Adam, 0:55:38.925 --> 0:55:42.645 the unreliability baked into the movies very form. Think about 0:55:42.685 --> 0:55:47.045 that Polaroid, the brilliant opening shot where it fades out 0:55:47.245 --> 0:55:51.165 rather than in as a Polaroid should, and really the 0:55:51.285 --> 0:55:54.285 editing throughout this movie Nolan here working with Dodie Dorn. 0:55:54.765 --> 0:55:58.045 There is that flick of a shot, just an instance 0:55:58.165 --> 0:56:01.205 where we see Leonard getting into the car of Sammy 0:56:01.285 --> 0:56:05.605 Jenkis and what that means and pretends for the levels 0:56:05.645 --> 0:56:09.404 of unreliability at play. I was thinking about this as 0:56:09.405 --> 0:56:12.525 I was putting together my list too, and I was 0:56:12.565 --> 0:56:17.485 thinking about Leonard in comparison to Malcolm in the sixth sense, 0:56:17.765 --> 0:56:21.405 and I thought, man, there are some fascinating levels and 0:56:21.485 --> 0:56:25.245 comparisons at play here because they're both They're both unreliable 0:56:25.285 --> 0:56:29.325 to the audience at different phases you know of their films, 0:56:29.925 --> 0:56:35.005 Leonard obviously earlier than Malcolm, but they're both unreliable. Unlike Malcolm, though, 0:56:35.085 --> 0:56:40.085 Leonard is knowingly unreliable to himself. That's what the tattoos 0:56:40.085 --> 0:56:43.805 are about. But this is a Christopher Nolan movie, so 0:56:43.885 --> 0:56:46.245 it gets even more complicated with the ending and we 0:56:46.325 --> 0:56:50.765 learn that Leonard is also at the same time unknowingly 0:56:51.645 --> 0:56:55.605 unreliable to himself. And I'm not even gonna get into 0:56:55.645 --> 0:56:58.605 how or why we'll just leave that there. But I 0:56:58.685 --> 0:57:01.125 do think it was that level of sophistication when I 0:57:01.165 --> 0:57:04.165 started shaking things out here where I was like, Okay, 0:57:04.405 --> 0:57:07.365 this is not only on theme, this not only fits, 0:57:07.405 --> 0:57:11.485 but it's it's got to be number one. 0:57:11.605 --> 0:57:14.205 Yeah, And I'm just laughing because as you say that, 0:57:14.365 --> 0:57:17.165 I know what you mean, Like I wanted to contradict you, 0:57:17.245 --> 0:57:20.485 but it's actually this is the. 0:57:19.405 --> 0:57:22.165 The layer that you're speaking to. 0:57:22.445 --> 0:57:26.605 It's it's unknowingly because it's like knowingly unknowingly you know. 0:57:26.645 --> 0:57:29.925 That's the beauty of this film, right, yep, And that's 0:57:29.925 --> 0:57:32.965 why it's at number one for me. Deception self and 0:57:33.005 --> 0:57:37.165 otherwise are at the core of everything that Nolan does. 0:57:37.405 --> 0:57:39.965 And I'm not denying that this film has a twist, 0:57:40.365 --> 0:57:43.445 but unlike The Sixth Sense or some other movies that 0:57:43.485 --> 0:57:45.885 I'm gonna mention in a minute, you said it, the 0:57:45.965 --> 0:57:49.205 unreliability is baked into the form from the beginning. I 0:57:49.325 --> 0:57:54.285 never believed Leonard or felt like I could believe him 0:57:53.485 --> 0:57:57.805 from the outset, and that's the essential criterion for me. 0:57:57.925 --> 0:58:00.605 That's why it qualifies. And you even get a great 0:58:01.165 --> 0:58:05.205 you get a great joke out of the narration and 0:58:05.245 --> 0:58:08.685 a great joke out of the unreliability of the narration, 0:58:08.845 --> 0:58:11.605 out of the form, maybe the only real comedic moment 0:58:11.645 --> 0:58:14.085 in the entire movie. And I remember seeing this movie 0:58:14.085 --> 0:58:19.845 in the theater and everybody laughing at it, and rewatching 0:58:19.885 --> 0:58:22.405 this scene and it's still funny. Josh, It's still funny 0:58:22.485 --> 0:58:26.285 even though I know it's coming. When when the scene 0:58:26.285 --> 0:58:29.085 begins and Leonard's running. 0:58:29.205 --> 0:58:30.525 Okay, so what am I doing? 0:58:33.165 --> 0:58:40.085 Oh, I'm chasing this guy, don't He's chasing. 0:58:39.885 --> 0:58:43.405 Me right as the gun then fires it him. The 0:58:43.405 --> 0:58:46.045 guy fires a gun at him, So that's really funny. 0:58:46.325 --> 0:58:51.045 It's it's also though, a perfect microcosm for the discombobulated 0:58:51.125 --> 0:58:55.725 state that Leonard and the audience start every single scene. 0:58:56.005 --> 0:58:59.205 But I think I think thematically too. You can put 0:58:59.205 --> 0:59:03.765 yourself in those shoes and wonder do you automatically assume 0:59:03.805 --> 0:59:06.605 that you're the good guy chasing down the bad guy. 0:59:07.285 --> 0:59:10.245 That's his first instinct, or maybe you know, you you 0:59:10.285 --> 0:59:13.285 imagine that you're in a narrative. You might even see 0:59:13.325 --> 0:59:16.165 yourself like you're in a noir, which he is, but 0:59:16.445 --> 0:59:18.525 you know he doesn't know that, but you might imagine 0:59:18.565 --> 0:59:21.565 yourself like that, right, So that's the instinct or maybe 0:59:21.605 --> 0:59:25.325 he's the bad guy getting chased by a good guy. 0:59:25.445 --> 0:59:28.885 In either case, he's the honorable one, right, except all 0:59:28.925 --> 0:59:31.605 of us would think, no, there's a there's a bad 0:59:31.605 --> 0:59:34.565 guy who's who's chasing me for for some reason, you know, 0:59:34.725 --> 0:59:35.725 or or whatever it is. 0:59:35.925 --> 0:59:38.805 So let me let me restate. 0:59:38.445 --> 0:59:40.645 That, right, he's he could be the bad guy getting 0:59:40.685 --> 0:59:42.645 chased by a good guy. But the way he thinks 0:59:42.885 --> 0:59:45.605 about it or may and the way we would is that, no, 0:59:46.365 --> 0:59:49.045 there's a bad guy chasing us. Right, no matter how 0:59:49.085 --> 0:59:51.645 you look at it, we're always going to be good 0:59:51.805 --> 0:59:54.645 in that scenario. And that's that's at the core of 0:59:55.005 --> 0:59:58.045 the film. And I'm going to tie it back to Rashamon, 0:59:58.165 --> 1:00:01.125 I said the Children of Rashaman, the movie that I 1:00:01.245 --> 1:00:04.285 think here again, the form is distinct, but I don't 1:00:04.285 --> 1:00:12.445 know that any movie more directly expresses what Rashamn expresses 1:00:13.605 --> 1:00:17.685 for eighty five minutes of its run time, let's put 1:00:17.685 --> 1:00:19.845 it that way. Maybe not eighty eight minutes of its 1:00:19.925 --> 1:00:22.845 run time, Josh, but five minutes of runtime. I don't 1:00:22.845 --> 1:00:28.885 know that any movie expresses it more cynically, more more 1:00:28.925 --> 1:00:35.525 explicitly than Memento. I think it's the perfect modern distillation 1:00:36.445 --> 1:00:41.605 of raw Choman, taking the form in a new, completely 1:00:41.605 --> 1:00:46.045 original way, a completely fractured way. But it is expressing 1:00:47.405 --> 1:00:51.125 the fundamental idea of raw Choman. And I'm going to 1:00:51.205 --> 1:00:55.645 quote the commoner yet again. Tell me this line isn't 1:00:55.645 --> 1:00:58.325 something you think is in Memento, And in fact a 1:00:58.405 --> 1:01:00.805 version of it is in Memento. But the commoner in 1:01:00.885 --> 1:01:04.605 Rachoman says it. We all want to forget something, so 1:01:04.685 --> 1:01:08.845 we tell stories. It's easier that way. That's Memento. 1:01:09.405 --> 1:01:12.605 Yeah, I like that. You said fracturing. It is really 1:01:13.645 --> 1:01:17.005 a fracturing of Memento, which is in some ways classically 1:01:17.285 --> 1:01:20.925 we might get into this, but classically structured. As inventive 1:01:21.405 --> 1:01:23.365 as it is in terms of perspective and that sort 1:01:23.405 --> 1:01:26.325 of thing, it's fairly classically structured. We follow, you know, 1:01:27.205 --> 1:01:28.885 point A to B, then we go back to point A, 1:01:29.205 --> 1:01:30.925 and then we take it to ce. Then we go 1:01:30.965 --> 1:01:32.365 back to point A and then we take you know, 1:01:32.725 --> 1:01:36.045 and whereas Memento is just like glass, it takes and 1:01:36.085 --> 1:01:38.325 just breaks it into glass shards of glass. 1:01:38.685 --> 1:01:39.645 Yeah, exactly. 1:01:40.285 --> 1:01:46.645 Well, those are our top five unreliable narrators. Josh, do 1:01:46.725 --> 1:01:49.925 you have some additional films you would like to mention. 1:01:50.165 --> 1:01:53.005 Yeah, I did a fight Club at number six, though 1:01:53.125 --> 1:01:55.325 I think probably, as I said, gone girl, you had 1:01:55.325 --> 1:02:00.885 the right Fincher choice. Usual suspects again kind of around 1:02:00.885 --> 1:02:03.565 that era, maybe a little bit earlier. I forget exactly 1:02:03.565 --> 1:02:10.005 what year, but I considered I you mentioned Scorsese already, 1:02:10.085 --> 1:02:14.405 but yes, Goodfellas Taxi Driver. Shutter Island I think falls 1:02:14.445 --> 1:02:18.245 into this category, maybe even more classically so in terms 1:02:18.245 --> 1:02:21.845 of the unreliable narrator. But one I really like Shutter Island. 1:02:22.285 --> 1:02:24.165 Other ones I gave a passing thought too, but just 1:02:24.205 --> 1:02:27.005 couldn't hold up to these must haves. But Trainspotting, which 1:02:27.045 --> 1:02:30.925 we you know, recently discussed in a way we could 1:02:31.005 --> 1:02:35.645 question our main narrator there and his reliability Blade Runner, 1:02:36.165 --> 1:02:40.405 Big Fish, the Tim Burton film, and The Fall, which 1:02:40.645 --> 1:02:45.485 is a Tarsum Singh film that has an unreliable narrator 1:02:45.645 --> 1:02:48.845 in addition to its lush visuals. Those were the ones 1:02:48.885 --> 1:02:49.525 I considered. 1:02:50.005 --> 1:02:50.245 Yeah. 1:02:50.285 --> 1:02:53.485 The four big honorable mentions for me are the four 1:02:53.725 --> 1:02:57.685 Big Twist movies, and I truly do think they are 1:02:58.645 --> 1:03:02.525 among the best unreliable narrator movies because of the way 1:03:02.605 --> 1:03:04.685 they do pull the rug out from under you you 1:03:04.725 --> 1:03:08.645 mentioned it, the sixth sense, the usual Suspects, Fight Club, 1:03:09.285 --> 1:03:12.085 and I would put ahead of all of those my 1:03:12.245 --> 1:03:18.645 beloved Atonement directed by Joe Wright, three different Brian's at 1:03:18.645 --> 1:03:22.245 three different ages, and the impact, especially because I didn't 1:03:22.245 --> 1:03:26.005 know it was coming of the reveal of that, of 1:03:26.045 --> 1:03:29.645 the ending, and the construct that I didn't know was 1:03:29.645 --> 1:03:32.885 the construct. Yeah, Atonement would be in the mix for me. 1:03:32.925 --> 1:03:36.845 It would be really my number one unreliable narrator if 1:03:36.845 --> 1:03:39.605 I was counting twists in that way, and I could 1:03:39.685 --> 1:03:41.885 go back and try to retrofit it and say, am 1:03:41.965 --> 1:03:43.685 I questioning Briany throughout? 1:03:43.765 --> 1:03:46.165 Maybe? But I wasn't. That's the key. 1:03:46.285 --> 1:03:48.885 I wasn't the way I was with these other characters 1:03:49.165 --> 1:03:52.245 when I watched these films. Another interesting one to think 1:03:52.285 --> 1:03:55.245 about in this Both of these fall more into the 1:03:55.285 --> 1:04:00.925 category of Apocalypse Now Taxi driver what I was referencing earlier, 1:04:01.725 --> 1:04:04.845 a clockwork orange might be one that fits right where 1:04:04.885 --> 1:04:09.125 if you think about his perspective, his psyche, do you 1:04:09.205 --> 1:04:11.965 want to believe do you want to believe that character? 1:04:12.325 --> 1:04:16.445 Can you believe Alex? How mushy is his brain? 1:04:17.005 --> 1:04:17.205 You know? 1:04:17.325 --> 1:04:21.485 At that point it's it's a fair question with him, 1:04:21.685 --> 1:04:23.805 and I even thought it was interesting. Josh, I'd never 1:04:23.885 --> 1:04:28.605 thought about this film in this way, and I obviously 1:04:28.645 --> 1:04:31.685 didn't totally buy it because I didn't put it on 1:04:31.685 --> 1:04:33.205 my list, despite the fact that it's one of my 1:04:33.245 --> 1:04:35.925 all time favorite movies, and I'm not even sure I'm 1:04:35.925 --> 1:04:38.565 including it truly as an honorable mention. I do want 1:04:38.605 --> 1:04:41.005 to at least mention it because I think it's an 1:04:41.005 --> 1:04:44.685 interesting question. I saw on at least one list this 1:04:44.805 --> 1:04:48.845 movie presented as an unreliable narrator movie, and that was 1:04:48.885 --> 1:04:56.525 Amadaeus and how much we should trust Sallyari's version of events. 1:04:56.805 --> 1:05:01.725 I think the argument was more though, again like like 1:05:01.805 --> 1:05:09.605 Apocalypse now, you know, where he's clearly a little bit deranged, unsettled, 1:05:09.885 --> 1:05:12.325 you know, can we fully believe him? 1:05:12.405 --> 1:05:14.165 Should we believe him? That kind of thing. 1:05:14.205 --> 1:05:18.605 But my experience watching the movie isn't one where as 1:05:18.645 --> 1:05:21.485 I said, I'm actively engaged in that question anyway. 1:05:21.685 --> 1:05:23.805 Yeah, yeah, I like it. I think you could make 1:05:23.885 --> 1:05:29.085 the case for it. You know, it's skewed, but I 1:05:29.085 --> 1:05:32.445 guess it's a matter of the degree and whether you're 1:05:32.485 --> 1:05:37.365 getting completely misrepresentation of these actual events or it's just 1:05:37.725 --> 1:05:40.125 or if they're just bitter versions right. 1:05:40.085 --> 1:05:44.485 Yes, yeah, again, those are our top five unreliable narrators. 1:05:44.765 --> 1:05:47.165 We would love to hear your picks or any other 1:05:47.205 --> 1:05:50.085 thoughts about the show. You can email us feedback at 1:05:50.085 --> 1:05:52.565 film spotting dot net and you can find all of 1:05:52.605 --> 1:05:56.045 our picks and see some clips that support our choices, 1:05:56.325 --> 1:06:01.125 the ones we referenced at film spotting dot net slash lists. 1:06:01.205 --> 1:06:03.245 Adam, let's take a moment to thank a couple of 1:06:03.245 --> 1:06:07.245 our film Spotting family members, those folks who support the 1:06:07.325 --> 1:06:11.445 show with their memberships and their donations. Both of these 1:06:11.485 --> 1:06:15.325 family members come from Chicago Jake and Chicago and Carrie. 1:06:15.805 --> 1:06:20.005 Jake share this first episode. He remembers listening to episode 1:06:20.005 --> 1:06:24.005 seven thirty nine, Blair Witch Project discussion. I had seen 1:06:24.005 --> 1:06:26.885 this movie in middle school and vowed one never to 1:06:26.925 --> 1:06:30.405 go camping again, and two never to rewatch the movie. 1:06:31.005 --> 1:06:33.965 For the rewatch, I can thank Adam and Josh's discussion 1:06:34.045 --> 1:06:35.805 of the film as I met a commentary on the 1:06:35.885 --> 1:06:41.125 nature of spectator and violent spectacle. Armed with this analytical frame, 1:06:41.205 --> 1:06:43.965 I went to revisit it. It didn't work. I was 1:06:44.005 --> 1:06:47.285 still terrified, but I have been able to go camping again. 1:06:47.405 --> 1:06:51.205 Oh well, that's nice to hear Jake Carrie shared this. 1:06:51.765 --> 1:06:53.845 I'm fairly new to the podcast. A couple of years ago. 1:06:53.925 --> 1:06:56.925 I typed reddit best Film podcast into a search engine 1:06:56.965 --> 1:07:00.005 and found your show recommended quite a few times. I 1:07:00.045 --> 1:07:01.885 saw that you were based out of Chicago, and I 1:07:01.965 --> 1:07:04.525 was immediately sold. I listened to a ton of your 1:07:04.525 --> 1:07:07.645 episodes during my driving shifts on a road trip to Asheville. 1:07:07.885 --> 1:07:10.165 During that drive, I heard you were doing a review 1:07:10.165 --> 1:07:13.125 of De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise for the Film 1:07:13.205 --> 1:07:16.605 Spotting Family. When I was back in the passenger seat, 1:07:16.645 --> 1:07:19.725 I signed up and never looked back. I don't always 1:07:19.765 --> 1:07:23.245 agree with your takes, but I always appreciate your analysis, expertise, 1:07:23.325 --> 1:07:26.245 and passion. I recommend your podcast often and tell my 1:07:26.325 --> 1:07:28.965 friends it's the closest thing to listening to Cisco and 1:07:29.005 --> 1:07:32.125 Ebert do a podcast, though I think you guys like 1:07:32.205 --> 1:07:35.965 each other much more. Yeah, how about that Adaly probably 1:07:36.325 --> 1:07:39.085 Phantom who do Phantom of the Paradise was going to 1:07:39.165 --> 1:07:42.845 bring in Film Spotting Family members, I mean, yeah, programming. 1:07:43.845 --> 1:07:46.765 When I read that, I got a little nervous, and 1:07:46.805 --> 1:07:50.685 it was surprised that Carrie ended up being a family member. 1:07:50.805 --> 1:07:54.245 But to prove that Carrie doesn't just talk the talk, 1:07:54.325 --> 1:07:57.245 but she walks the walk a review we got wrong. 1:07:57.445 --> 1:07:59.685 She says, you know, Phantom of the Paradise is. 1:07:59.645 --> 1:08:00.685 A perfect movie. 1:08:00.925 --> 1:08:04.125 This movie improves with each rewatch, especially if you're ever 1:08:04.165 --> 1:08:05.845 blessed enough to watch it with a room full of 1:08:05.845 --> 1:08:08.245 sickos at the music box who can sing along to 1:08:08.325 --> 1:08:11.405 the opening number. So she thinks it's a perfect movie. 1:08:11.685 --> 1:08:14.445 We were, eh, I'm Phantom of the Paradise. 1:08:14.485 --> 1:08:14.885 We didn't. 1:08:15.125 --> 1:08:17.724 We didn't quite have the experience clearly that Carrie has 1:08:17.765 --> 1:08:22.645 with that movie. And yet she still did, as she suggests, 1:08:23.365 --> 1:08:27.045 enjoy the analysis, despite the fact that she probably didn't 1:08:27.125 --> 1:08:27.804 agree with us. 1:08:27.805 --> 1:08:29.485 Now I will agree with her on this. 1:08:30.125 --> 1:08:30.564 I would. 1:08:30.805 --> 1:08:33.485 I would truly like to be blessed enough to watch 1:08:33.485 --> 1:08:35.285 it with a room full of sickos at the music 1:08:35.285 --> 1:08:37.604 box who can sing along to the opening number. I 1:08:37.685 --> 1:08:40.605 would genuinely love to have that. But I haven't. I 1:08:40.605 --> 1:08:41.925 haven't been lucky enough yet. 1:08:42.485 --> 1:08:45.724 Well, just thanks Carrie for not demanding a refund that. 1:08:45.805 --> 1:08:47.085 Yeah, all I could say. 1:08:47.125 --> 1:08:50.205 Man, here's Jake, who says, you guys were both too kind. 1:08:50.525 --> 1:08:52.725 This is an interesting one. You're both too kind to 1:08:52.765 --> 1:08:56.565 Steve McQueen's blitz. If the Small Act series teeters on 1:08:56.605 --> 1:08:59.245 the edge of being Maudlin, blitz is steeped in it, 1:08:59.445 --> 1:09:02.644 from the period PC lighting to the cliche dialogue. It's 1:09:02.645 --> 1:09:05.045 a hard watch for me. McQueen is at his best 1:09:05.045 --> 1:09:07.765 in Widows, where he stays gritty and focused. 1:09:08.725 --> 1:09:10.685 Yeah, I think I like that one quite a bit 1:09:10.725 --> 1:09:11.644 more than you, Adams. 1:09:11.725 --> 1:09:12.125 She did. 1:09:12.325 --> 1:09:15.644 Yeah, maybe this is falling falling on my lap, which 1:09:15.765 --> 1:09:19.365 I get where you're coming from. Jake. It's definitely McQueen 1:09:19.405 --> 1:09:22.085 working in a different register, and I don't know if 1:09:22.085 --> 1:09:25.085 that's trying to reach a different audience, But yeah, I 1:09:25.125 --> 1:09:28.205 found it interested enough in some of his same concerns 1:09:28.245 --> 1:09:31.965 that I really went for. All right, let's get some 1:09:31.965 --> 1:09:35.325 more positive stuff here. Carrie's favorite show segment. I may 1:09:35.365 --> 1:09:37.365 be biased because I was able to attend the last 1:09:37.365 --> 1:09:39.885 one in person, but I love the year under Wrap party. 1:09:40.085 --> 1:09:42.325 Thank you for introducing me to do not Expect too 1:09:42.365 --> 1:09:44.325 much from the End of the World, and also, of 1:09:44.365 --> 1:09:48.604 course Massacre Theater. All right, here's Jake's favorite segment. Top 1:09:48.685 --> 1:09:53.205 five bad Dads All right list we did a while back. 1:09:53.325 --> 1:09:56.245 Jake says, having recently become a dad, myself. I hope 1:09:56.285 --> 1:09:59.844 to never behave like the main character in Force Maseur 1:10:00.125 --> 1:10:02.845 Josh's fourth pick, or it should be said any of 1:10:02.845 --> 1:10:03.564 the other dads. 1:10:03.965 --> 1:10:06.684 You know, though, Jake, until the avalanche is coming? 1:10:07.205 --> 1:10:09.485 How do you know? How do you really know? 1:10:10.685 --> 1:10:13.764 A movie you credit with becoming a cinophile? Jake says Vertigo, 1:10:14.005 --> 1:10:17.005 great choice. Carrie says, Eternal Sunshine. 1:10:16.485 --> 1:10:17.445 For the Spotless Mind. 1:10:17.445 --> 1:10:19.285 I was working in a movie theater during that time 1:10:19.325 --> 1:10:21.485 period and was able to watch movies for free at 1:10:21.485 --> 1:10:23.125 any of the theaters in the chain, so I saw 1:10:23.125 --> 1:10:26.485 it probably five times. The movie completely entranced me. I 1:10:26.485 --> 1:10:28.365 had never seen anything like it at the time. I 1:10:28.405 --> 1:10:29.925 watched it so many times that I had to take 1:10:29.925 --> 1:10:32.245 at least a ten year break from it. I finally 1:10:32.285 --> 1:10:34.445 saw it again at last year's Crying at the Salt 1:10:34.485 --> 1:10:37.925 Shed series over Valentine's Day, where John Brian performed and 1:10:37.965 --> 1:10:41.685 gave an engaging and enlightening talkback. I still love it. 1:10:41.725 --> 1:10:46.205 That sounds wonderful, doesn't it, We do, think, Carrie. We 1:10:46.285 --> 1:10:48.565 thank Jake for being family members and for all of 1:10:48.605 --> 1:10:50.325 those years of listening. And if you think they have 1:10:50.445 --> 1:10:53.005 good taste, it sounds like they do. You can follow 1:10:53.085 --> 1:10:58.405 Carrie on Letterboxed at Cinema Mendax So Cinema m E 1:10:58.685 --> 1:11:03.005 N Dax, and you can follow Jake at JP nineteen 1:11:03.165 --> 1:11:06.285 sixty five. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, 1:11:06.325 --> 1:11:08.525 membership does come with perks. You get to listen early 1:11:08.525 --> 1:11:10.925 in ad free, You get our weekly newsletter, You get 1:11:10.965 --> 1:11:14.285 exclusive opportunities like being part of the Film Spotting Family discord, 1:11:14.805 --> 1:11:18.405 and you get monthly bonus shows. We have Trivia Spotting 1:11:18.445 --> 1:11:21.525 coming on March nineteenth. You get to part twoticipate in 1:11:21.605 --> 1:11:26.604 events like that. You also get voting opportunities like being 1:11:26.645 --> 1:11:29.925 the group that gets to select the next Film Spotting Marathon. 1:11:30.045 --> 1:11:34.005 You get to determine show programming. If that all sounds 1:11:34.045 --> 1:11:37.325 like fun to you. More information about joining the Film 1:11:37.325 --> 1:11:42.125 Spotting Family is available at Film Spottingfamily dot com. You 1:11:42.125 --> 1:11:45.125 can also help us by taking a minute to rate 1:11:45.365 --> 1:11:49.445 or review us over at Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It 1:11:49.485 --> 1:11:52.845 does help us reach new listeners. 1:11:52.405 --> 1:11:57.724 And the OSCAR goes to they playing us. 1:11:57.605 --> 1:12:04.165 All Maybe pop Quiz hotshot? What film won the Oscar 1:12:04.205 --> 1:12:05.445 for Best Picture last year? 1:12:05.885 --> 1:12:08.325 Oh? Come on, Honora, Sean Baker's Big Night. 1:12:08.925 --> 1:12:11.045 Okay, do you actually remember that or did you see 1:12:11.085 --> 1:12:11.965 the notes in front of you? 1:12:12.525 --> 1:12:15.245 Yeah? No, I yeah, I mean that would come on 1:12:15.525 --> 1:12:20.245 like a come on. But we're pretty excited about. 1:12:20.045 --> 1:12:22.644 That, okay, But you know, we're also at that age 1:12:22.645 --> 1:12:25.684 where we don't remember what we had for breakfast yesterday. 1:12:25.725 --> 1:12:28.525 And when I read this, when I read this part 1:12:28.565 --> 1:12:32.245 of the script that Sam prepared for us, until I 1:12:32.285 --> 1:12:36.085 read the bullet points below it, I couldn't have pulled 1:12:36.125 --> 1:12:36.684 out anora. 1:12:37.085 --> 1:12:39.885 I mean, firutly had forgotten. It's not like either of 1:12:39.965 --> 1:12:43.885 us in most Oscar years. Yeah, complete blank. So it's 1:12:43.925 --> 1:12:46.684 not like I managed to keep track of a lot 1:12:46.685 --> 1:12:49.005 of these things. And ask me who's nominated for this 1:12:49.125 --> 1:12:53.125 year's Best Picture. I'm out of luck. I'm okay, which 1:12:53.205 --> 1:12:54.885 is not going to be helpful on next week's show. 1:12:54.885 --> 1:12:59.205 But I have been paying so little attention to awards 1:12:59.565 --> 1:13:03.005 shenanigans that I'm going to be really useless next week. 1:13:03.365 --> 1:13:04.165 Yeah. 1:13:04.325 --> 1:13:06.965 Well, that was the one that all three of us, you, me, 1:13:07.085 --> 1:13:10.405 and Michael Phillips got right on last year's Oscar special. 1:13:10.765 --> 1:13:13.245 Next week we will try to do it again. Who 1:13:13.285 --> 1:13:16.245 will win, who should win, and who should have been nominated? Now, 1:13:16.285 --> 1:13:19.605 last year we did all think Anora would win, but 1:13:19.805 --> 1:13:24.684 we disagreed about the movie that should. When you picked Anora, 1:13:25.205 --> 1:13:27.285 I picked the Brutalist I love Donora. I think we 1:13:27.325 --> 1:13:29.845 all three were big fans of Anora, but I did 1:13:29.885 --> 1:13:34.045 have the Brutalists slightly higher. Michael had Nickelboys as his 1:13:34.205 --> 1:13:38.045 favorite of the Best Picture nominees. Next week we will 1:13:38.045 --> 1:13:41.604 have our Oscars special and we will share results from 1:13:41.605 --> 1:13:45.965 the official Film Spotting Best Picture survey our ballot. We 1:13:46.005 --> 1:13:49.405 invited our listeners Josh to imagine themselves as members of 1:13:49.445 --> 1:13:53.325 the Academy and submit their ranked choice Best Picture ballots, 1:13:54.005 --> 1:13:58.645 so we'll see how they all stack up there somehow. 1:13:58.805 --> 1:14:01.405 We're also going to try to fit in here. It 1:14:01.485 --> 1:14:05.165 is the play and round of Film Spotting Madness, best 1:14:05.165 --> 1:14:07.605 of the nineteen forties. It is March. That means that 1:14:07.645 --> 1:14:09.445 Film Spotting Madness is upon us. 1:14:09.685 --> 1:14:11.245 Oh my gosh, here we go. 1:14:11.725 --> 1:14:12.005 Yes. 1:14:12.125 --> 1:14:15.525 In two weeks we'll have a Sacred Cow review of 1:14:15.565 --> 1:14:18.724 a film that we had penciled in for a review 1:14:18.925 --> 1:14:21.285 later in the year. It's a movie that not only I, 1:14:21.405 --> 1:14:24.325 but I think most people associate with Summer when I 1:14:24.365 --> 1:14:28.525 saw it when it was originally released. Rob Reiner's Stand 1:14:28.525 --> 1:14:31.405 By Me it turns forty this year. It is though, 1:14:31.445 --> 1:14:36.285 getting a theatrical re release this month, and that has 1:14:36.325 --> 1:14:39.644 inspired the new not at All Flawed Film Spotting Poll 1:14:39.725 --> 1:14:45.405 question eighties Rob Reiner movies. You can only choose one, 1:14:45.645 --> 1:14:50.525 and this, as we said earlier, is just so not easy, Josh. 1:14:50.925 --> 1:14:54.845 Maybe it's helpful that we do have distinct genres here, 1:14:54.885 --> 1:14:56.964 as you called out at the top of the show, Adams. 1:14:56.965 --> 1:15:00.564 So our four options this is Spinal Tap nineteen eighty four, 1:15:00.845 --> 1:15:04.365 stand By Me from eighty six, The Princess Bride from 1:15:04.445 --> 1:15:07.764 nineteen eighty seven, and then When Harry Met Sally nineteen 1:15:07.885 --> 1:15:10.925 eighty nine. So if you're completely flummixed you love all 1:15:10.965 --> 1:15:14.245 those movies, maybe maybe just go with your favorite genre 1:15:14.365 --> 1:15:16.725 among them. I don't know, that might be what I 1:15:16.765 --> 1:15:19.125 have to do. We have a comment here that will 1:15:19.165 --> 1:15:23.125 help set up your deliberations. Andy Bucatti and Kansas City. 1:15:23.645 --> 1:15:26.445 I've shown stand By Me to both my teenage children 1:15:26.605 --> 1:15:30.165 and it still lands amazingly well. I've never seen a 1:15:30.205 --> 1:15:32.885 movie better capture the weird way boys and young men 1:15:32.885 --> 1:15:35.085 relate to each other. I tend to be very stingy 1:15:35.125 --> 1:15:38.285 with high letterboxed rankings, and I give it four and 1:15:38.325 --> 1:15:40.965 a half stars, a rating that I only tend to 1:15:40.965 --> 1:15:43.685 give to one to three films annually. That means it 1:15:43.765 --> 1:15:48.245 lands fourth in this poll. Spinal Tap invented a genre 1:15:48.325 --> 1:15:50.644 and is still hilarious, which is saying so much since 1:15:50.685 --> 1:15:53.684 humor built around gags and bits doesn't often carry over 1:15:53.725 --> 1:15:56.925 forty plus years later. And while it obviously led to 1:15:56.925 --> 1:15:59.685 the Christopher Guest films and other bangers such as What 1:15:59.765 --> 1:16:02.205 We Do in the Shadows and Nirvana the Band, The 1:16:02.205 --> 1:16:05.525 Show the Movie, it had an arguably even greater influence 1:16:05.565 --> 1:16:08.405 on the past two decades of television. Do we have 1:16:08.485 --> 1:16:11.925 the Office Parks and rec all the others without it? 1:16:12.285 --> 1:16:17.165 Five stars? That puts it third on this list. When 1:16:17.205 --> 1:16:19.445 Harry met Sally for My Money is the best roundcom 1:16:19.445 --> 1:16:22.445 ever made. Nora f Friends right in peak form, star 1:16:22.525 --> 1:16:26.765 chemistry never better, the perfect tone five stars. That's your 1:16:26.845 --> 1:16:30.325 number two on this list. If I asked every person 1:16:30.365 --> 1:16:33.125 I know what their favorite movie is, I am quite 1:16:33.165 --> 1:16:36.724 confident the most common answer will be The Princess Bride, 1:16:37.125 --> 1:16:40.205 and the age ranges and life experiences of those people 1:16:40.205 --> 1:16:43.005 will be vast. Every single person who has the ability 1:16:43.045 --> 1:16:45.445 to sit through a feature length film has the potential 1:16:45.485 --> 1:16:48.205 to not only like but love this film, whether that 1:16:48.245 --> 1:16:51.564 person is six, twenty six, fifty six, or eighty six. 1:16:51.845 --> 1:16:53.925 I'm not sure I can name another film that I 1:16:53.965 --> 1:16:57.085 could fit, that I feel could fit that description. Has 1:16:57.125 --> 1:17:00.045 there ever been a perfect movie? Probably not, but maybe 1:17:00.085 --> 1:17:05.045 The Princess Bride is five stars number one on this list. 1:17:05.845 --> 1:17:09.245 So I align with Andy a little bit here. It 1:17:09.285 --> 1:17:13.325 definitely comes down Josh for me to Spinal Tap in 1:17:13.365 --> 1:17:16.525 The Princess Bride as much as I also really like, 1:17:17.005 --> 1:17:18.724 or at least I did when it came out stand 1:17:18.765 --> 1:17:21.644 by me, And I also do appreciate when har thattt Sally. 1:17:22.085 --> 1:17:24.725 Those two Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride are just 1:17:25.365 --> 1:17:29.005 my personal affection, not necessarily thinking about how well made 1:17:29.045 --> 1:17:32.205 they are, quote unquote, just my affection for those films. 1:17:32.245 --> 1:17:35.085 Those those are in another category. Those are those are 1:17:35.125 --> 1:17:41.485 in that pantheon of just all time personal favorites. I 1:17:41.525 --> 1:17:45.604 can't imagine life without those two films. So I don't 1:17:45.605 --> 1:17:47.205 know how I would pick between him and I guess 1:17:47.245 --> 1:17:50.325 I have a week or so to think about it, 1:17:50.485 --> 1:17:52.445 and I'm going to take every bit of that time. 1:17:52.925 --> 1:17:55.405 Is it fair to say that something like personal affection 1:17:55.485 --> 1:17:59.644 should be maybe given more weight. Yeah, among Rob Reiner films. 1:17:59.725 --> 1:18:02.564 I mean, I just think that's something he he had 1:18:02.565 --> 1:18:04.965 a knack for. He had a knack for making movies 1:18:05.005 --> 1:18:07.965 that audience has responded to in that way, which shouldn't 1:18:08.005 --> 1:18:11.125 be discounted. So maybe maybe in this in this case 1:18:11.205 --> 1:18:13.765 more than most, let your heart lead the way. 1:18:14.365 --> 1:18:16.205 There you go vote in that poll and leave a 1:18:16.245 --> 1:18:18.405 comment at film spotting dot net. 1:18:18.485 --> 1:18:21.485 Let your heart lead the way. As Josh said, for. 1:18:21.365 --> 1:18:23.845 Future episodes, if you want to see what's coming up, 1:18:23.885 --> 1:18:25.564 you can go to film spotting dot net. You can 1:18:25.565 --> 1:18:29.285 click on episodes and hopefully get a sense of what 1:18:29.805 --> 1:18:30.765 is in store. 1:18:30.965 --> 1:18:33.205 What's happening right now, not just coming up. On our 1:18:33.245 --> 1:18:36.205 sister podcast, The Next Picture Show is part two of 1:18:36.245 --> 1:18:40.565 their Pop Classics pairing, So they've gotten to their discussion 1:18:40.725 --> 1:18:44.325 of Wuthering Heights, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Previously 1:18:44.925 --> 1:18:48.405 they talked about Boz Lahurman's Romeo plus Juliet from nineteen 1:18:48.485 --> 1:18:51.525 ninety six, so on this part two they're getting into 1:18:51.565 --> 1:18:55.245 the good comparisons between those two. New episodes of the 1:18:55.245 --> 1:18:58.165 Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday and you can find 1:18:58.165 --> 1:19:02.805 them wherever you get your podcasts. 1:19:03.645 --> 1:19:04.525 Well, pats you up. 1:19:08.165 --> 1:19:19.085 All the pigoy The Pantheon project continues, Josh. A couple 1:19:19.125 --> 1:19:23.085 of weeks ago, me you, Producer Sam, we nominated nine 1:19:23.125 --> 1:19:28.564 films for the illustrious Film Spotting Pantheon. Two of those 1:19:28.685 --> 1:19:33.845 nine will be our twenty twenty six inductees. Before we 1:19:33.925 --> 1:19:36.245 turn those nine titles over to the committee, the Film 1:19:36.285 --> 1:19:38.685 Spotting family members, we do need to make sure that 1:19:39.325 --> 1:19:43.925 we are on record having discussed every one of those films. 1:19:43.965 --> 1:19:48.045 Now we have done that with six of those films, 1:19:48.605 --> 1:19:51.325 Cleo from five to seven, Harlan County, USA, The best 1:19:51.365 --> 1:19:54.485 years of our lives, The Battle of Algiers Stopped making sense. 1:19:54.605 --> 1:19:58.285 Close up, great lineup, And just a couple of weeks ago, 1:19:58.285 --> 1:20:01.765 we knocked off one more one of your nominations, john 1:20:01.805 --> 1:20:04.725 Ford's How Green Was My Valley? It is true that 1:20:04.805 --> 1:20:10.045 john Ford currently not represented in the Film Spotting Pantheon. 1:20:10.885 --> 1:20:13.445 Now we get to a film from another director who 1:20:13.525 --> 1:20:18.885 is conspicuously missing from the pantheon, a Kurri Kurosawa and 1:20:19.245 --> 1:20:23.965 the movie Raschoman, one of producer Sam's picks. This was 1:20:25.165 --> 1:20:28.485 part of a marathon that preceded your time on the show, 1:20:28.725 --> 1:20:31.205 and Rashaman is a film that made my top ten 1:20:31.525 --> 1:20:34.325 films of all time when we did that Cit and 1:20:34.405 --> 1:20:37.525 Sound exercise back in twenty twelve. On the last Sight 1:20:37.605 --> 1:20:39.604 and Sound Best Films of All Time list in twenty 1:20:39.645 --> 1:20:42.965 twenty two, it came in at number forty one, and 1:20:43.165 --> 1:20:47.485 on the director's pull it was number twenty. We have 1:20:48.005 --> 1:20:51.885 been talking about Kerrosawa a lot lately. Our February blind 1:20:51.885 --> 1:20:54.525 Spotting review for family members was nineteen forty eight s 1:20:54.565 --> 1:20:57.885 Drunken Angel. Last August we talked about nineteen forty nine 1:20:57.925 --> 1:21:00.765 Stray Dog. That was another blind Spotting review. Here we 1:21:00.805 --> 1:21:04.764 are at nineteen fifty talking about rasham On, a film 1:21:04.845 --> 1:21:09.565 as famous for perhaps more famous for its multiple unreliable narrators, 1:21:09.685 --> 1:21:13.804 its examination of subjective truth than for the film itself. 1:21:14.125 --> 1:21:17.125 How long has it been, Josh since you've seen the movie? 1:21:17.565 --> 1:21:19.724 How did it play for you this time? 1:21:21.165 --> 1:21:24.525 Going through that history of our Kirosawa discussions lately, I 1:21:24.565 --> 1:21:26.924 don't think we should be allowed to have another Kurrosawa 1:21:26.925 --> 1:21:29.644 discussion until one of his movies gets in the pantheon. 1:21:30.005 --> 1:21:33.604 It's kind of ridiculous. Yeah, So somehow maybe the voting 1:21:33.645 --> 1:21:37.325 will go that way. We'll see this is a movie yeah, 1:21:37.325 --> 1:21:39.085 I think it came up when we first talked about 1:21:39.285 --> 1:21:42.525 watching this again. Is sort of a college if you 1:21:42.565 --> 1:21:46.005 did any sort of you know, cinema class or maybe 1:21:46.005 --> 1:21:48.644 even just an English class, where you ended up watching 1:21:48.685 --> 1:21:53.285 a lot of movies. You'll see Raschamon. That's the setting 1:21:53.285 --> 1:21:58.325 where I first sawt Then I saw it again. Oh 1:21:58.405 --> 1:22:00.245 this is this is amusing. What was the movie it 1:22:00.285 --> 1:22:01.765 was tied to? So when I was writing for The 1:22:01.805 --> 1:22:04.205 Naperville Sun, when I was the movie critic, I had 1:22:04.205 --> 1:22:07.285 a DVD library column, and I would basically take the 1:22:07.365 --> 1:22:12.564 excuse of a recent release to look at an older 1:22:12.765 --> 1:22:15.485 beloved movie, kind of like, you know, maybe a Sacred 1:22:15.525 --> 1:22:19.765 Cow review something like that that connected to it. The 1:22:19.765 --> 1:22:24.564 movie that I connect to Rashaman was vantage Point, which 1:22:25.165 --> 1:22:31.285 I forgot even existed. This is who's the guy from Lost? 1:22:31.605 --> 1:22:34.125 What was his name? That that actor? I know I'm 1:22:34.125 --> 1:22:36.285 putting on spotting here and I can't even remember. I 1:22:36.285 --> 1:22:37.045 should have known. 1:22:36.925 --> 1:22:39.844 This barking up the wrong tree. 1:22:40.085 --> 1:22:45.485 Okay, two thousand and eight, vantage Point, starring Matthew Fox, 1:22:46.485 --> 1:22:49.085 an unreliable narrator thriller, did not come up at him 1:22:49.125 --> 1:22:52.685 on our top five list, but at any rate, I 1:22:52.765 --> 1:22:55.725 used it as the excuse to write about Rashaman, and 1:22:55.885 --> 1:22:59.565 I still second time I saw it ostensibly a professional 1:22:59.565 --> 1:23:02.245 critic at that point, I still don't think I appreciate 1:23:02.285 --> 1:23:04.885 it as fully as I should have. I think I 1:23:04.965 --> 1:23:09.965 was still adjusting to the type of performance that you 1:23:10.045 --> 1:23:14.604 got in mid century Japanese cinema and Mafune you know, 1:23:15.205 --> 1:23:18.845 we know gave you that in full, like this very 1:23:18.885 --> 1:23:22.725 heightened style of performance. And also looking back at some 1:23:22.845 --> 1:23:27.725 of what I wrote a little bit, the talkiness of 1:23:27.965 --> 1:23:32.285 the not necessarily moralism, which we touched on in our 1:23:32.325 --> 1:23:37.045 earlier discussion of Drunken Angel, but more just talking about 1:23:37.045 --> 1:23:40.885 the themes of the film among those three characters who 1:23:41.085 --> 1:23:44.325 offer our framework at the ruined Gate, the Raschauman Gate, 1:23:44.325 --> 1:23:48.125 where the storm is the commoner, the priest, and the woodcutter, 1:23:48.645 --> 1:23:52.005 and how they would explicate the themes for us that 1:23:52.045 --> 1:23:55.085 we've just seen. I think I have more space for 1:23:55.245 --> 1:23:58.405 understanding what's going on there now and the framework for that, 1:23:58.605 --> 1:24:02.085 and of course have come to understand the type of 1:24:02.125 --> 1:24:04.205 performance that we're getting this film. So all that to 1:24:04.205 --> 1:24:07.525 say is, yeah, this just keeps getting better. Rassaman keeps 1:24:07.525 --> 1:24:10.125 getting better, and it is so much more than those 1:24:10.165 --> 1:24:13.604 ideas and then those themes. It's just so beautiful. It's 1:24:13.605 --> 1:24:18.565 so visual, not shocking to hear when we're talking about Kurasawa. 1:24:18.605 --> 1:24:21.845 But maybe you forget that because at least I tend 1:24:21.885 --> 1:24:26.045 to think about his other movies being the Spectacles, whereas 1:24:26.085 --> 1:24:30.245 here you get some composition and imagery that's as gorgeous 1:24:30.285 --> 1:24:31.285 as anything he's done. 1:24:31.565 --> 1:24:32.685 Yeah, you definitely do. 1:24:33.045 --> 1:24:36.165 It's interesting what you said about performance and adjusting to that, 1:24:36.245 --> 1:24:38.325 because I went back and looked at my notes from 1:24:39.565 --> 1:24:43.885 the marathon that we did whatever year that was two 1:24:43.885 --> 1:24:47.125 thousand and eight or nine or ten, somewhere in there, 1:24:47.605 --> 1:24:50.285 and I mentioned that as good as Muffune is, that 1:24:51.005 --> 1:24:53.644 I found myself for the second time in a row, 1:24:53.725 --> 1:24:58.005 whatever the movie was that preceded it, appreciating Takashe Shimura 1:24:58.045 --> 1:25:01.005 a little bit more. And we've recently, in these Blind 1:25:01.045 --> 1:25:06.565 Spotting reviews, been really praising Shamura in addition to praising Muffune. 1:25:06.805 --> 1:25:14.085 And it is such an animated performance. Still, it's one 1:25:14.085 --> 1:25:18.005 that's interesting for me to watch and consider and try 1:25:18.045 --> 1:25:23.245 to try to against some of his other performances, and 1:25:23.285 --> 1:25:29.565 certainly try to consider and compare against the other performances 1:25:29.605 --> 1:25:32.405 in the film like Shimuras, right, which are at just 1:25:32.805 --> 1:25:36.405 at such a different level, right, in such a different volume. 1:25:36.845 --> 1:25:39.045 But something I'll at least throw out. 1:25:38.885 --> 1:25:43.565 There that that I've been wrestling with since I rewatched 1:25:43.605 --> 1:25:50.285 this movie in preparation for this review, this recurring habit. 1:25:50.725 --> 1:25:58.325 I'll say, of his bandit character, who is named Tajamaru, 1:25:58.525 --> 1:26:03.805 his bandit, what's the defining characteristic of that character? What 1:26:03.965 --> 1:26:08.045 is the vocal tick almost that he has and the 1:26:08.045 --> 1:26:12.805 thing that makes him seem so big? And it's that laugh, right, 1:26:12.925 --> 1:26:20.405 that exaggerated laugh, the way he admonishes those he's speaking 1:26:20.445 --> 1:26:23.325 to or tries to rebuke them in some way with 1:26:23.405 --> 1:26:26.845 that laugh. And what I noticed throughout Josh is other 1:26:27.005 --> 1:26:31.925 characters in the movie actually take on a similar kind 1:26:31.965 --> 1:26:36.965 of laugh, including the wife. It's not it's not just him, 1:26:37.245 --> 1:26:40.725 And I started to wonder, I mean, of course the 1:26:40.765 --> 1:26:45.365 commoner as well, does it in response to Shimer's wood cutter. 1:26:45.925 --> 1:26:52.644 And I wonder if I'm wondering if that that laugh 1:26:53.685 --> 1:27:00.525 here takes on what Usa in Stray Dog, that yelp, 1:27:00.765 --> 1:27:03.165 that that cry that he lets out at the end 1:27:03.165 --> 1:27:07.045 of that film, that almost becomes as we talked about it, 1:27:07.125 --> 1:27:12.564 in a way this like this, this scream against or 1:27:12.885 --> 1:27:17.965 reflecting the human condition. It's almost this this animalistic yelp. Right, 1:27:18.005 --> 1:27:21.764 there's no other way to express the of the human 1:27:21.765 --> 1:27:27.564 condition and hear this cruelty of humanity, the cruelty of 1:27:27.605 --> 1:27:31.725 the universe that the men at the beginning of this 1:27:31.805 --> 1:27:37.564 movie are saying. This story depicts and proves it's almost 1:27:37.605 --> 1:27:42.845 like that that laugh is is almost the only way 1:27:42.925 --> 1:27:47.325 these characters can can react in the face of a 1:27:47.325 --> 1:27:48.165 cruel universe. 1:27:49.645 --> 1:27:54.245 Yeah, I'm glad you noted that the other characters offer 1:27:54.765 --> 1:27:58.805 a different shade on that, because it is important to 1:27:58.845 --> 1:28:01.805 see this in the context of the mode of performance 1:28:01.925 --> 1:28:05.245 that was being given in these sorts of movies, not 1:28:05.365 --> 1:28:08.325 even just the period ones that you know, Chris I 1:28:08.365 --> 1:28:10.085 was making, but as you as you pointed out, we 1:28:10.125 --> 1:28:13.724 see some of this in the more contemporary set films 1:28:14.165 --> 1:28:17.085 of his. So yeah, it is it's a generally a 1:28:17.165 --> 1:28:20.804 mode of performance that you, as you know, a generally 1:28:21.085 --> 1:28:23.845 Hollywood viewer has to adjust to, and I think the 1:28:23.845 --> 1:28:27.085 more films that I've seen of his or in Japan 1:28:27.205 --> 1:28:30.965 from that era, generally it was helpful also in this context, 1:28:31.005 --> 1:28:33.765 specifically in Rascha Man Roussia Man I did think that 1:28:34.325 --> 1:28:38.045 the bandit is when he is most maniacal in his laughter. 1:28:38.765 --> 1:28:41.445 I believe it's when he's before the court, before the 1:28:41.525 --> 1:28:47.445 judge and he's tied, right, he's subdued and it, and 1:28:47.525 --> 1:28:50.564 yet he's not cowed by any of this. But the 1:28:50.645 --> 1:28:53.645 only expression he really has in that scenario. 1:28:53.365 --> 1:28:54.045 Is his voice. 1:28:54.085 --> 1:28:56.085 So so I did come to see that he was 1:28:56.125 --> 1:28:59.965 almost using that laugh as a weapon. Or this is 1:29:00.005 --> 1:29:02.045 tied to what you were saying about, like, it's right, 1:29:02.085 --> 1:29:05.125 it's his power, it's it's like an expression of defiance. 1:29:05.245 --> 1:29:07.365 So so yeah, all that to say is, you know, 1:29:07.445 --> 1:29:10.205 it was it was way easier this time to not 1:29:10.645 --> 1:29:13.125 have that be just a little bit of something I 1:29:13.165 --> 1:29:16.005 had to move past. It was more something I saw 1:29:16.205 --> 1:29:19.644 its relevance to this particular film and have a better 1:29:19.685 --> 1:29:23.884 understand of its context with in this genre of cinema. 1:29:23.925 --> 1:29:28.085 Was there anything on this viewing we tend to talk 1:29:28.125 --> 1:29:32.285 about this. There tend to be aspects of these films 1:29:32.285 --> 1:29:33.965 and we haven't seen them in a long time that 1:29:34.045 --> 1:29:37.405 stand out. Was there anything that surprised you? I think 1:29:37.405 --> 1:29:39.605 they didn't remember or just surprised you. 1:29:40.085 --> 1:29:42.965 Yeah, Yeah, it's more you know, you basically you know 1:29:43.045 --> 1:29:45.564 the idea of Raschamon, right, So you're not all that surprise, 1:29:45.645 --> 1:29:48.405 even though I didn't remember exactly what every witness's story 1:29:48.565 --> 1:29:50.565 was sure or what we find out the end, so 1:29:50.885 --> 1:29:53.005 it wasn't that so much. I think, going back to 1:29:53.045 --> 1:29:59.125 that beauty that's always striking, there is one shot here 1:29:59.205 --> 1:30:01.765 that could be out of a fairy tale where the 1:30:01.845 --> 1:30:05.285 wife has been left alone by a brook with her horse, 1:30:05.885 --> 1:30:08.525 and we've been somewhere else, I forget who we're following, 1:30:08.565 --> 1:30:11.005 perhaps the husband for a bit, and it just cuts 1:30:11.045 --> 1:30:15.645 back to this, you know, wide screen, full shot, that 1:30:15.885 --> 1:30:20.325 sunlight coming through the forest trees above on her as 1:30:20.365 --> 1:30:24.445 she's in stillness, kneeling by this brook. I mean, it's 1:30:24.805 --> 1:30:30.804 just like something unreal, like something from an imaginary fantasy novel. 1:30:30.885 --> 1:30:33.885 So it was moments like that. But also I think 1:30:33.965 --> 1:30:38.445 the cleverness what you're surprised by is it's not just 1:30:38.485 --> 1:30:41.845 that you're getting different stories, but it's the cleverness in it. 1:30:41.885 --> 1:30:44.005 And the one element that stood out to me in 1:30:44.045 --> 1:30:46.405 this way were the two fight scenes we get. We 1:30:46.525 --> 1:30:50.445 get incredible fight scenes between the husband and the bandit right, 1:30:50.525 --> 1:30:57.325 The first one so thrilling, just intricately choreographed, athletically performed 1:30:57.485 --> 1:31:01.724 the camera movement here so exciting and sophisticated. I loved 1:31:01.925 --> 1:31:05.805 also how they used the levels of ground, like the 1:31:05.845 --> 1:31:09.485 topography where one character would be up above the other 1:31:09.565 --> 1:31:12.844 and the camera would be below to generate suspense and excitement. 1:31:13.725 --> 1:31:16.525 Then we get the second one later in the film, 1:31:17.165 --> 1:31:21.605 completely awkward, so clumsy. They both seem scared. It's like 1:31:21.645 --> 1:31:24.365 the scene you talked about in Drunken Angel right where 1:31:24.365 --> 1:31:27.445 they're slipping among the paint on the floor. And of 1:31:27.485 --> 1:31:31.365 course that second fight that's the Woodcutter's version of the 1:31:31.405 --> 1:31:34.605 story where they look like fools whose version was the 1:31:34.605 --> 1:31:37.925 first one? That the The Adventures of Robin Hood version 1:31:38.085 --> 1:31:42.045 like slashbuckling, it's the bandit right. So it's just the 1:31:42.125 --> 1:31:47.285 cleverness of, you know, emphasizing the degree of the unreliability 1:31:47.885 --> 1:31:51.845 in that sort of staging that catches you afresh and 1:31:51.965 --> 1:31:55.564 you're kind of like, oh, yeah, this really was brilliant. 1:31:56.205 --> 1:31:56.644 Yeah. 1:31:56.685 --> 1:31:59.125 Well, it's like you read my mind because that's exactly 1:31:59.165 --> 1:32:02.805 where I wanted to go, and and I do kind 1:32:02.805 --> 1:32:06.285 of have, maybe even more than usual, the long winded 1:32:06.285 --> 1:32:08.564 thought here. So Josh, please just jump in at any 1:32:08.605 --> 1:32:12.005 point but before I get to that, I will also 1:32:12.085 --> 1:32:16.125 say the biggest surprise for me, and you said it. 1:32:16.205 --> 1:32:19.165 I didn't remember, of course, every little permutation or distinction 1:32:19.245 --> 1:32:23.405 between the stories, but one major thing I forgot. I 1:32:23.485 --> 1:32:26.845 did forget that the Dead Man had their story told 1:32:27.565 --> 1:32:31.165 and he was told through a Shinto medium. 1:32:31.205 --> 1:32:31.965 Incredible. 1:32:32.125 --> 1:32:35.965 I had completely forgotten that that that we were going 1:32:36.045 --> 1:32:39.525 to have a story told by someone who was getting 1:32:39.565 --> 1:32:42.005 that that voice, who was getting that story told to 1:32:42.045 --> 1:32:47.245 them from from the the afterlife. I had somehow, Josh 1:32:47.285 --> 1:32:48.205 completely forgotten. 1:32:48.245 --> 1:32:49.405 What a wild sequence. 1:32:49.485 --> 1:32:52.485 I still don't completely know what to make of that. 1:32:54.045 --> 1:32:56.604 It puts this movie in a different in a different 1:32:56.645 --> 1:32:59.445 type of reality. Obviously, Oh yeah. 1:32:59.365 --> 1:33:01.725 Yeah, well, yeah, proceed, But I do want to come 1:33:01.805 --> 1:33:04.644 back to that because I think, yeah, there was something 1:33:04.685 --> 1:33:07.844 that was tied to the sophistication of the film related 1:33:07.845 --> 1:33:08.564 to that sequence. 1:33:08.645 --> 1:33:12.005 Yeah, okay, Well here's here's the other thing I suppose 1:33:12.045 --> 1:33:14.525 I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to throw 1:33:14.525 --> 1:33:17.604 out there as what was for me a surprise about 1:33:17.605 --> 1:33:19.685 the film. I want to throw out for discussion the 1:33:19.685 --> 1:33:26.525 possibility of Raschoman as a feminist text, or one that 1:33:26.605 --> 1:33:32.085 is at least skewering fragile masculinity. And even before I 1:33:32.085 --> 1:33:34.205 get there, I'm also going to say, on our topic 1:33:34.245 --> 1:33:37.285 of unreliable narrators, how about the fact that we do 1:33:37.325 --> 1:33:42.245 have four different versions of events, but don't we also 1:33:42.325 --> 1:33:49.684 have to acknowledge that ultimately there is one meta story 1:33:49.765 --> 1:33:53.485 being told, and it's the story that's being told at 1:33:53.525 --> 1:33:58.325 the Rachoman gate. And so even the version of the 1:33:58.365 --> 1:34:01.604 bandit's story, the wife story and the husband story that's 1:34:01.645 --> 1:34:07.965 being told, is still being filtered through the woodcutter, the priest, right, 1:34:08.085 --> 1:34:10.564 or what that character is like like, it's still their 1:34:10.725 --> 1:34:14.604 version of what they saw or what they heard. It's 1:34:14.645 --> 1:34:18.684 not really completely there is either, So there's potential flaws 1:34:18.725 --> 1:34:22.365 and subjectivity even in there and versions of those stories. 1:34:22.485 --> 1:34:25.285 But what is interesting, and of course this is the 1:34:25.645 --> 1:34:29.045 I'm not breaking any ground here with this, but I 1:34:29.125 --> 1:34:31.885 want to use this as a springboard here. The thing 1:34:31.885 --> 1:34:34.725 about Raschamn, right, it's not that they recall events that 1:34:34.765 --> 1:34:38.445 they were involved in differently. It's that they recall events 1:34:38.485 --> 1:34:42.644 they were involved in differently because, as you spoke to already, 1:34:43.085 --> 1:34:49.245 their versions protect their sense of self and restore or elevate. 1:34:49.805 --> 1:34:53.045 But for the most part, restore their honor. And what 1:34:53.125 --> 1:34:56.765 I found ironic, Josh, is that if you remove for 1:34:56.805 --> 1:35:00.564 a second the abhorrent crime of rape at the center 1:35:00.605 --> 1:35:03.205 of this story, not because I want to, but because 1:35:03.245 --> 1:35:08.125 the characters within the story do, they set it aside completely, 1:35:08.565 --> 1:35:11.805 almost completely, in favor of apparently the far more egregious 1:35:11.805 --> 1:35:15.965 crime of killing the husband. Protecting their sense of self 1:35:16.045 --> 1:35:20.844 and restoring their honor actually means taking responsible for the killing. 1:35:21.525 --> 1:35:24.285 That just strikes me as interesting because if you think 1:35:24.285 --> 1:35:27.764 about it, Taja Maru says, the bandit says he kills 1:35:27.805 --> 1:35:32.085 the samurai. He claims that he kills him in that 1:35:32.205 --> 1:35:35.285 honorable battle that you spoke about after cutting him loose 1:35:35.765 --> 1:35:38.885 man de man battle. It was a throwdown and it 1:35:38.925 --> 1:35:43.045 was amazing, But I won. I killed him because I'm 1:35:43.365 --> 1:35:44.845 I'm a bigger badass than he is. 1:35:45.245 --> 1:35:46.405 Yeah, the wife. 1:35:46.485 --> 1:35:50.604 Says, Even though she does say she doesn't really remember 1:35:50.685 --> 1:35:54.165 doing it and she fainted, she basically says I did it. 1:35:54.285 --> 1:35:57.085 And she says she did it because her husband stared 1:35:57.085 --> 1:36:02.085 at her with contempt, he shamed her unfairly obviously, and 1:36:02.165 --> 1:36:05.445 between that and then trying to drown herself later even 1:36:05.485 --> 1:36:09.525 though she failed, she was driven in both acts by 1:36:09.565 --> 1:36:14.245 honor by trying to reclaim some honor. The husband then 1:36:14.325 --> 1:36:17.405 says also that he killed himself, because what is a 1:36:17.445 --> 1:36:19.804 husband to do now that his wife has been so shamed. 1:36:20.005 --> 1:36:24.285 So all three cases, you know, they claim responsibility, but 1:36:24.325 --> 1:36:27.525 it's all about serving their honor, even though that's the crime. 1:36:28.205 --> 1:36:30.845 So it's just interesting to me. But if you ask 1:36:30.925 --> 1:36:34.765 the question, does Krasawa give us at any point, does 1:36:34.765 --> 1:36:38.085 he actually give us an objective truth? Like is there 1:36:38.165 --> 1:36:42.485 an overarching true version that we don't ever get? Do 1:36:42.565 --> 1:36:44.205 we still by the end of the movie know what 1:36:44.365 --> 1:36:47.165 really happened? Or do we just know the three versions 1:36:47.165 --> 1:36:50.965 and the Woodcutter's version, or is the Woodcutter's version supposed 1:36:51.005 --> 1:36:53.405 to supposed to be true? Well, we know it's false, 1:36:53.445 --> 1:36:56.245 and at least one regard right because he gets called 1:36:56.245 --> 1:36:59.724 out for that he took the dagger. He lied about 1:36:59.725 --> 1:37:03.245 that he wasn't killed by the sword, He was killed 1:37:03.245 --> 1:37:06.604 by a dagger, and he took the dagger. And this, Josh, 1:37:06.645 --> 1:37:10.884 was my favorite shot watching it this time, I definitely 1:37:10.885 --> 1:37:13.125 did not remember this and my favorite shot in this movie. 1:37:13.125 --> 1:37:18.005 How great is the match action cut we get from 1:37:18.045 --> 1:37:20.125 I think it might be if I missed it. Someone 1:37:20.125 --> 1:37:21.805 could call me out on it, but it might be 1:37:21.845 --> 1:37:26.485 the only true shot we get where Kurosawa very blatantly 1:37:27.285 --> 1:37:31.285 makes it clear that it's the woodcutter's point of view. 1:37:32.245 --> 1:37:35.125 It's the shot he's he's in the he's behind trees 1:37:35.565 --> 1:37:38.445 and is he's behind trees, and he is watching this 1:37:38.565 --> 1:37:42.805 all play out, right, And so before he goes to 1:37:42.925 --> 1:37:47.685 kill the husband, supposedly right, the band it's standing in 1:37:47.725 --> 1:37:50.684 the middle, and we know it's his point of view 1:37:50.725 --> 1:37:53.005 because of the way it's framed. But then there's a 1:37:53.085 --> 1:37:57.005 match action cut where it's now a different angle and 1:37:57.045 --> 1:38:00.805 we're back into the movie world point of view, and 1:38:00.805 --> 1:38:03.845 and in that new point of view, we see that 1:38:04.525 --> 1:38:08.005 the woodcutter can't actually see the husband. The husband doesn't 1:38:08.045 --> 1:38:12.245 know exactly what happened. The woodcutter doesn't see the husband die. 1:38:12.805 --> 1:38:15.405 He doesn't he can't see it from where he's From 1:38:15.405 --> 1:38:20.165 where he's at, that's that's shuddered to him. So then 1:38:20.325 --> 1:38:24.445 we don't don't actually see the act either. In that moment, 1:38:24.685 --> 1:38:28.125 we don't see the bandit kill the husband because the 1:38:28.125 --> 1:38:31.805 woodcutter doesn't see it. So you know, here he's at 1:38:31.885 --> 1:38:36.684 least partially unreliable because he lied right, And he also 1:38:36.845 --> 1:38:39.805 doesn't actually know exactly what happened to the husband because 1:38:39.805 --> 1:38:43.965 he didn't see it completely unfold. But that cut and 1:38:44.005 --> 1:38:46.885 that point of viewshot I think are really remarkable. Here's 1:38:46.925 --> 1:38:49.485 another question I'll throw out. What about the fact that 1:38:49.525 --> 1:38:53.325 the woodcutter, in terms of just unreliability and honor, what 1:38:53.365 --> 1:38:55.365 about the fact that the woodcutter is just a voyeur 1:38:57.045 --> 1:39:01.525 who does nothing. He watches all of this madness play out, 1:39:01.725 --> 1:39:04.564 all of this pain play out, and doesn't do anything. 1:39:05.085 --> 1:39:08.005 How are we supposed to interpret that about his character? 1:39:08.645 --> 1:39:12.085 Yeah, I wonder for that, I wonder if it was 1:39:12.205 --> 1:39:15.365 more I get the sense from this film and a 1:39:15.405 --> 1:39:18.125 lot of films set in this period, if it's a 1:39:18.165 --> 1:39:21.885 societal role thing where you just you do not cross 1:39:22.405 --> 1:39:24.605 you know that what was happening in that Obviously the 1:39:24.645 --> 1:39:28.485 bandit is crossing societal roles. But that's why he's a bandit, right, 1:39:28.565 --> 1:39:30.925 you know, And so maybe the Woodcutter just would not 1:39:31.085 --> 1:39:33.684 step into that realm. But right, Yeah, that's a good question. 1:39:33.725 --> 1:39:34.684 It's entirely possible. 1:39:34.725 --> 1:39:38.645 But so back to the question of is there is 1:39:38.685 --> 1:39:42.564 there a single objective version of truth here? And I 1:39:42.565 --> 1:39:45.245 think you could argue that it is probably the Woodcutter's 1:39:45.245 --> 1:39:48.885 account minus the part about the dagger, and not just 1:39:49.005 --> 1:39:51.485 because it's the last one we hear, and because the 1:39:51.525 --> 1:39:56.925 movie obviously ultimately is sympathetic to that character, to Shimura's character. 1:39:57.645 --> 1:40:03.604 But the commoner who's played by kitchizuru Uweita, he asks, 1:40:03.645 --> 1:40:06.205 I think the crucial question of the movie. He says, 1:40:07.045 --> 1:40:10.325 out of these three, whose story is believable? 1:40:10.925 --> 1:40:11.285 Okay? 1:40:11.565 --> 1:40:14.564 And and for me, Josh that question so before he's 1:40:14.565 --> 1:40:17.205 even heard you know, the Woodcutter. That's kind of like 1:40:17.245 --> 1:40:20.245 Okham's raisor right, whenever you're presented with the situation that 1:40:20.245 --> 1:40:21.765 doesn't make sense, and you got to figure out an 1:40:21.765 --> 1:40:26.045 explanation like which one requires the fewest assumptions, which one 1:40:26.085 --> 1:40:29.245 seems the most believable, just based on the fewest amount 1:40:29.245 --> 1:40:32.005 of hoops to jump through and the fewest amount of 1:40:32.085 --> 1:40:35.165 things that had to occur, those assumptions that had to 1:40:35.525 --> 1:40:39.085 all play out. And in all the previous accounts, the 1:40:39.125 --> 1:40:42.045 three previous accounts that we heard, not only do those 1:40:42.125 --> 1:40:45.805 all have those elements of redemption for the storyteller, right, 1:40:45.925 --> 1:40:50.245 which is huge and undercuts their story. There are choices 1:40:50.325 --> 1:40:53.165 throughout all three of them, that just seem out of 1:40:53.205 --> 1:40:57.365 touch with human nature, whereas in the Woodcutter story, I 1:40:57.365 --> 1:41:00.725 think everything checks out at least for me. Okay, So, 1:41:00.885 --> 1:41:06.285 like the bandit after the act proclaiming that he'll marry her, 1:41:07.045 --> 1:41:11.645 her breaking free, and her instinct being to release her 1:41:11.725 --> 1:41:15.325 husband and wanting the husband to then defend her honor 1:41:15.725 --> 1:41:18.965 and kill the bandit, that seems logical to me. 1:41:19.485 --> 1:41:21.365 The husband. 1:41:22.645 --> 1:41:26.125 Not defending her in this time and place and instead 1:41:26.205 --> 1:41:31.005 thinking she's no use to him anymore because he's so 1:41:31.245 --> 1:41:34.605 shamed because of her shame, as absurd as that is, 1:41:35.005 --> 1:41:38.365 and not wanting her, and then the bandit seeing that 1:41:38.525 --> 1:41:41.205 and thinking, well, if if he doesn't see any value 1:41:41.205 --> 1:41:43.564 in her, then I don't see any value in her, 1:41:43.885 --> 1:41:46.725 and kind of retracting his promise to marry her. And 1:41:46.765 --> 1:41:49.925 then her response to all of that is to taunt them, 1:41:50.365 --> 1:41:54.485 right and and like demanding, demanding that they fight for 1:41:54.525 --> 1:41:57.564 her and actually like trying to claim some some honor. 1:41:57.605 --> 1:42:00.405 And then here's the key, Josh, you said it that fight, 1:42:01.005 --> 1:42:07.085 that that like clumsy fight that they have with each other. Okay, 1:42:07.525 --> 1:42:13.564 both men in this case act deplorably, but one acts 1:42:13.605 --> 1:42:17.045 like a bandit like a notorious bandit would one acts 1:42:17.125 --> 1:42:20.604 like a man would in a completely male dominated society. 1:42:20.805 --> 1:42:26.285 I think the woman acts justifiably irrationally, like someone who 1:42:26.325 --> 1:42:30.685 has just suffered a sexual assault might write. And then 1:42:30.725 --> 1:42:32.205 I go back, you said it, I go back to 1:42:32.285 --> 1:42:35.325 Drunken Angel. Why make a movie set in twelfth century 1:42:35.365 --> 1:42:40.925 Japan if you aren't intending to comment on conditions today 1:42:41.205 --> 1:42:45.085 in nineteen fifty Japan, right, and twelfth century Japan is 1:42:45.085 --> 1:42:49.405 when feudalism emerged. And during our conversation about Drunken Angel, 1:42:49.405 --> 1:42:53.005 I referenced the Criterion essay that talked about trying to 1:42:53.245 --> 1:42:56.125 wrestle with the war and the aftermath of the war 1:42:56.245 --> 1:43:01.205 and the militarists and this feudalistic warrior tradition of male 1:43:01.285 --> 1:43:06.365 domination and sacrificing for samurai honor. This is what Krasawa's 1:43:06.405 --> 1:43:11.005 wrestling with. You know this, this idea, And you have 1:43:11.685 --> 1:43:15.604 the characters in Drunken Angel, those men who he depicts, 1:43:16.005 --> 1:43:20.925 these tough, gangster characters who act like children fighting each other. 1:43:21.285 --> 1:43:25.085 It's comical how they actually fight each other. We laugh 1:43:25.125 --> 1:43:28.045 at them as viewers, and we laugh at these two 1:43:28.085 --> 1:43:32.005 men the exact same way. It's the complete opposite of 1:43:32.125 --> 1:43:37.365 any kind of virile display of masculinity. And I just 1:43:37.485 --> 1:43:43.245 think I think Carasawa intends for us to laugh at them, 1:43:43.365 --> 1:43:46.085 and I think Cursaw was asking us to align with 1:43:46.125 --> 1:43:50.445 the outrage of the wife in that final version. And 1:43:50.485 --> 1:43:54.045 I also think, Josh, for me, I'm predisposed to this 1:43:54.085 --> 1:43:56.365 a little bit, or I'm aligning with this version of 1:43:56.365 --> 1:43:59.885 events or how I see it, because one of the 1:43:59.885 --> 1:44:04.045 most striking images, lasting images, that I'll take away from 1:44:04.045 --> 1:44:07.805 this viewing of Raschoman is in her version of the 1:44:07.805 --> 1:44:14.085 story that look he gives her and her covering of 1:44:14.085 --> 1:44:17.845 her eyes. You know, just that that image of her 1:44:18.205 --> 1:44:21.685 shielding herself. Whether it happened exactly like that or not, 1:44:22.445 --> 1:44:25.564 in every one of these stories, she still is in 1:44:25.605 --> 1:44:30.045 a position. One universal truth is that woman having to 1:44:30.645 --> 1:44:35.045 is being not only objectified but violated and then having 1:44:35.085 --> 1:44:40.405 to somehow still defend her honor right. And that that 1:44:40.605 --> 1:44:43.245 image of her covering her eyes as if she's trying 1:44:43.245 --> 1:44:49.045 to shield herself from the judgment of the men, that that, 1:44:49.165 --> 1:44:51.205 to me is like the lasting image of this film. 1:44:51.565 --> 1:44:55.205 Yeah, I Machico Kio playing the wife, and you know, 1:44:55.285 --> 1:44:58.405 all these performances again, as we talked about in our 1:44:58.405 --> 1:45:01.325 top five list having to work and at least double levels, 1:45:01.485 --> 1:45:05.925 right if there are movies about deception or unreliable narrators. 1:45:06.405 --> 1:45:08.564 I was wondering about that too. You know, this is 1:45:08.685 --> 1:45:12.085 obviously being set in this time and place, a culture 1:45:12.085 --> 1:45:15.285 of extreme victim blaming. What happens to this woman, and 1:45:15.325 --> 1:45:17.845 then the discussions of you know, how it is it 1:45:17.925 --> 1:45:20.365 is her shame, what they've essentially done to her, what 1:45:20.405 --> 1:45:23.405 the band is under her? And I was thinking, you know, well, 1:45:23.445 --> 1:45:27.645 how does that transfer to these movies that curs I 1:45:27.805 --> 1:45:32.564 was also making set in the present contemporary times, And yeah, 1:45:32.565 --> 1:45:35.205 I think you're onto something there. Is it's the machismo, 1:45:35.365 --> 1:45:39.845 it's the you know, that is being exposed in both 1:45:39.925 --> 1:45:43.684 times and places. And certainly victim blaming did not go away, 1:45:43.805 --> 1:45:47.085 you know it. It maybe didn't doesn't take place or 1:45:47.165 --> 1:45:50.205 in mid century didn't take place in the same blatant 1:45:50.245 --> 1:45:54.564 way it might have in this more time way further 1:45:54.605 --> 1:45:57.725 in the past, but it's still a reality, and it's 1:45:57.765 --> 1:46:02.765 built in that same macho, you know, chauvinistic society. So 1:46:02.805 --> 1:46:06.085 I think that's one thing that's being critiqued here for sure. 1:46:06.245 --> 1:46:08.564 I also think to your point, about what is the 1:46:08.565 --> 1:46:14.005 objective truth the movie wants us to assume. Another piece 1:46:14.005 --> 1:46:16.725 of evidence why we should believe for the most part, 1:46:16.765 --> 1:46:20.685 the Woodcutter is that, as in Drunken Angel Curse, I 1:46:20.685 --> 1:46:24.005 Will wants a maybe not a hero, not a perfect 1:46:24.885 --> 1:46:29.604 heroic figure, but someone who does the honorable moral thing. 1:46:29.885 --> 1:46:33.325 And where does the movie end with the Woodcutter claiming 1:46:34.045 --> 1:46:37.844 the baby who has been abandoned? Right, So that's another signal. 1:46:37.965 --> 1:46:41.445 I feel like that this is a man who's not perfect. 1:46:42.365 --> 1:46:47.325 He obviously, like everyone, is not telling the complete story, 1:46:47.405 --> 1:46:50.445 but his story may be the closest to the truth 1:46:50.485 --> 1:46:52.965 that we're going to get, and it's the most honorable, 1:46:53.685 --> 1:46:56.405 truly honorable, not in the sense of honor that as 1:46:56.445 --> 1:46:59.724 you describe the characters are searching in this time and place. 1:47:00.325 --> 1:47:03.365 Complicating this though, Adam is, I'm so glad you brought 1:47:03.445 --> 1:47:07.925 up the medium played by Narko Hamah, which how about 1:47:08.245 --> 1:47:10.805 the performance in that sequence? I mean, this is like 1:47:11.325 --> 1:47:15.725 performance art that Hamma is giving us. It reminded me 1:47:15.965 --> 1:47:19.125 very much of Catherine Hunter's Witch in Joel Cohen's The 1:47:19.165 --> 1:47:23.085 Tragedy of Macbeth. And of course we know Crosala would 1:47:23.285 --> 1:47:26.325 adapt Macbeth as Throne of Blood in nineteen fifty seven. 1:47:27.165 --> 1:47:32.005 But just this creating some a body that seems to 1:47:32.045 --> 1:47:36.005 truly be from another world and then filtering, in this case, 1:47:36.165 --> 1:47:39.564 another body through it, which is the dead husband. I 1:47:39.605 --> 1:47:47.005 think it's also just intensely complicated in how it gives 1:47:47.085 --> 1:47:51.684 us another level of unreliability, because are we to take 1:47:52.565 --> 1:47:56.045 the dead husband at his word because he's dead? No? 1:47:56.125 --> 1:47:58.045 We you know, we already talked about that. He's just 1:47:58.085 --> 1:48:01.285 as unreliable as the others. But just as you said, 1:48:01.565 --> 1:48:06.005 think about the meta level of unreliability of we're hearing 1:48:06.085 --> 1:48:10.725 all of these eyewitness reports secondhand. Can we trust the medium? 1:48:11.165 --> 1:48:13.604 Is she translating the dead husband accurately? 1:48:13.685 --> 1:48:14.445 It's another layer. 1:48:15.005 --> 1:48:16.245 Is she translating at all? 1:48:16.685 --> 1:48:17.205 Is is she? 1:48:17.485 --> 1:48:20.085 I don't know how this works? Like this her job? 1:48:20.405 --> 1:48:25.205 Does she get? She hangs out at the needs a witness, 1:48:25.605 --> 1:48:29.005 and who knows what her motivation is. So not only 1:48:29.045 --> 1:48:32.924 is this, you know, a dramatically arresting and visually arresting sequence, 1:48:33.005 --> 1:48:35.685 I think it just kind of like starts piling up 1:48:35.725 --> 1:48:38.365 more levels of unreliability as well. 1:48:38.845 --> 1:48:41.805 Yeah, a couple other just points I wanted to touch on, 1:48:41.885 --> 1:48:45.405 really quickly, and it goes with what you just said, actually, 1:48:46.085 --> 1:48:50.325 because I think Krasawa also plays tricks on us a 1:48:50.325 --> 1:48:54.205 little bit within some of the narratives, within some of 1:48:54.245 --> 1:48:59.165 the retellings of this from certain perspectives, For example, within 1:48:59.765 --> 1:49:06.245 the Bandits retelling of the story, when we understand why 1:49:06.485 --> 1:49:08.405 from his point of view he would want to tell 1:49:08.445 --> 1:49:12.125 it in such a way where she she pushes back 1:49:12.165 --> 1:49:16.685 against him fiercely at first, but then succumbs. Yeah, and 1:49:17.485 --> 1:49:21.685 she embraces him, putting her hand behind his head and 1:49:22.085 --> 1:49:25.245 kisses him deeply, right against the wall. You know all 1:49:25.285 --> 1:49:28.644 that stuff. We get that part, But why, Josh, then 1:49:29.485 --> 1:49:33.885 why does Krasawa show us from her point of view 1:49:35.365 --> 1:49:40.685 the sun as she's looking up at the sun, she's 1:49:40.845 --> 1:49:44.085 while he's embracing her. Why would we see her point 1:49:44.085 --> 1:49:47.564 of view? That's not something that the Bandit could see 1:49:47.765 --> 1:49:53.165 or theoretically could even fantasize about or imagine right in 1:49:53.245 --> 1:49:57.045 this in this construct. So it's an odd thing. And 1:49:57.525 --> 1:50:02.445 it's also odd because in that scenario he is he 1:50:02.525 --> 1:50:06.885 is effectively assaulting her again, and what's happening there in 1:50:06.885 --> 1:50:10.485 that moment is not unlike something we've seen in other 1:50:10.525 --> 1:50:13.445 depictions of that on screen and in other scenarios we've 1:50:13.485 --> 1:50:16.445 heard about in real life where it's almost like she's disassociating. 1:50:16.885 --> 1:50:19.604 It's almost like what we see is her is her 1:50:19.645 --> 1:50:22.085 just giving herself over and staring up at the sun 1:50:22.525 --> 1:50:25.125 while he's doing that. And it's just interesting that we 1:50:25.285 --> 1:50:28.285 get that. But it's it's within his version of the 1:50:28.285 --> 1:50:29.165 telling of the story. 1:50:29.565 --> 1:50:31.765 I mean, maybe I think you read on it is right, 1:50:31.805 --> 1:50:35.205 That's how it struck me as disassociation. And maybe this 1:50:35.245 --> 1:50:38.085 speaks to your point about we're not getting this directly 1:50:38.125 --> 1:50:40.845 from the bandit. We're getting it from you know, in 1:50:40.885 --> 1:50:43.644 this case, the woodcutter telling what he heard the band 1:50:43.645 --> 1:50:46.445 it say. And maybe it's like Cutter wanted to layer 1:50:46.525 --> 1:50:49.325 in a bit of empathy for the woman. There you go, 1:50:49.445 --> 1:50:52.405 and Chris I was giving us that visually. I mean maybe. 1:50:52.205 --> 1:50:53.125 Maybe so right. 1:50:53.525 --> 1:50:56.684 Of course, the other great formal choice that Chris Awa 1:50:56.685 --> 1:51:03.045 makes here is never showing us and never letting us 1:51:03.125 --> 1:51:05.245 hear the inquisitors. 1:51:05.405 --> 1:51:08.165 I'm asking the question about, right, Yeah. 1:51:07.845 --> 1:51:12.685 What a conceit just just making it so it it 1:51:12.805 --> 1:51:17.565 is us, the camera, the audience who become the inquisitors, 1:51:17.605 --> 1:51:20.525 the ones who are asking the questions. The judges who 1:51:20.525 --> 1:51:23.564 are dying to know the information, who effectively are asking 1:51:23.605 --> 1:51:27.724 those questions of the bandits, dying to know even more information, 1:51:27.885 --> 1:51:28.525 right to the. 1:51:28.445 --> 1:51:31.965 Point that characters will say, what but we don't hear 1:51:32.325 --> 1:51:35.644 the question, but they respond as if so, even more 1:51:35.685 --> 1:51:38.764 so to your point, puts us in that judge's seat. 1:51:39.285 --> 1:51:42.445 Yeah, I don't know totally if this matters or not, 1:51:42.485 --> 1:51:44.485 if there's any significance to it. It's just something that 1:51:44.565 --> 1:51:48.245 hit me at the last minute today. The fact that 1:51:48.565 --> 1:51:52.965 all of this again revolves effectively around the dead husband. 1:51:54.165 --> 1:51:58.205 That's the crime that matters most within this movie world. 1:51:58.965 --> 1:52:02.605 And how does the husband how is he positioned the 1:52:02.845 --> 1:52:06.805 entire film? He's that figure that has his arms tied 1:52:06.805 --> 1:52:10.725 behind his back or and or he's kneeling the entire time, right, 1:52:10.965 --> 1:52:14.564 And how do all the storytellers except the woodcutter, how 1:52:14.565 --> 1:52:17.125 are they positioned when they tell their stories? They're always 1:52:17.165 --> 1:52:19.564 in that same position, right, And the bandit has his 1:52:19.685 --> 1:52:22.645 arms tied similar But they all are kneeling in that 1:52:22.685 --> 1:52:26.045 same kind of position before the There's there's a symmetry 1:52:26.045 --> 1:52:28.045 there that, again I don't totally know what to do with, 1:52:28.325 --> 1:52:30.804 but but they're mirroring each other. 1:52:31.365 --> 1:52:34.684 It brings to mind just the incredible blocking throughout this movie. 1:52:34.765 --> 1:52:38.845 I know that's something we discussed or at least referenced 1:52:39.205 --> 1:52:42.045 in conversations about High and Low. You know, those early 1:52:42.125 --> 1:52:44.485 scenes in the apartment where the police team was there 1:52:44.485 --> 1:52:48.165 with the family, and how incredibly dramatic Krosawa made them 1:52:48.205 --> 1:52:51.724 just by positioning characters within the frame. These witness scenes, 1:52:52.045 --> 1:52:54.525 you know, will often have the speaker in the in 1:52:54.565 --> 1:52:58.085 the foreground looking right at us or just slightly off camera, 1:52:58.405 --> 1:53:02.125 and there's almost always a witness or two in the background, 1:53:02.165 --> 1:53:05.445 but position just off center a little bit. All in 1:53:05.485 --> 1:53:09.525 these you know, kneeling positions you describe, or sitting positions. 1:53:09.965 --> 1:53:14.405 But the yeah, just the blocking throughout this movie is 1:53:15.165 --> 1:53:17.325 exquisite and on point in every frame. 1:53:17.845 --> 1:53:22.045 I also love the outsized nature of it all. And 1:53:22.045 --> 1:53:25.045 what I mean is, think about how we're introduced to 1:53:26.325 --> 1:53:30.684 these characters, the lowly characters, who we know are lowly 1:53:30.805 --> 1:53:32.245 characters from the very beginning. 1:53:32.285 --> 1:53:33.645 The way they're depicted. 1:53:33.605 --> 1:53:36.965 Part of the part of the reason we know they're lowly, though, Josh, 1:53:37.085 --> 1:53:41.644 isn't just their clothes and and their appearance. It's it's 1:53:41.685 --> 1:53:47.365 how they're they're so dwarfed by the Raschoman Gate and 1:53:47.405 --> 1:53:51.765 the way Krasa films the Rachomn Gate. The size of 1:53:51.805 --> 1:53:56.085 the temple in relation to the men is just so striking. 1:53:56.245 --> 1:53:59.724 And then even the rain itself, the rain isn't rain. 1:54:00.045 --> 1:54:02.925 The rain is like biblical in this movie. Right, it 1:54:02.965 --> 1:54:06.805 looks biblical, it sounds biblical, and of course it only 1:54:06.965 --> 1:54:10.725 ends at a point when we finally get some moral clarity. Right, 1:54:10.845 --> 1:54:13.525 That's that's the kind of level we're dealing with in Raschoman. 1:54:14.365 --> 1:54:16.965 It's it's the scale that Kurosaw was working. And from 1:54:16.965 --> 1:54:19.965 the beginning, the way they're selling this story before we 1:54:20.005 --> 1:54:23.445 as viewers have even the commoner who's our surrogate, before 1:54:23.485 --> 1:54:26.725 we've even gotten into the story, they're setting this up 1:54:26.845 --> 1:54:31.165 like it's what we saw will make you lose all 1:54:31.205 --> 1:54:34.005 your faith in humanity if those are the words. It's 1:54:34.045 --> 1:54:37.965 worse than famine or plague. And you're going and build up. 1:54:39.645 --> 1:54:41.565 Could it possibly live up to the hype? 1:54:41.565 --> 1:54:43.805 And you know what, Kursawa pulls it off? 1:54:44.285 --> 1:54:47.525 Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say he sets a high bar there, 1:54:47.565 --> 1:54:50.245 but I think, yes, I think we're equally despairing. As 1:54:50.645 --> 1:54:52.365 the movie goes on and part of it is that 1:54:52.405 --> 1:54:55.405 backdrop of the gate, you know, just that it's in 1:54:55.485 --> 1:55:00.725 complete disrepair, crumbled. It's the symbol for humanity itself in 1:55:00.805 --> 1:55:04.205 this crumbled, despairing state, which the weather, as you said, 1:55:04.325 --> 1:55:05.085 mirrors as well. 1:55:05.605 --> 1:55:05.845 Yeah. 1:55:06.365 --> 1:55:10.005 Less point when we go from that time and place 1:55:10.205 --> 1:55:15.125 the beginning fully into the past, we'd finally dive into 1:55:15.125 --> 1:55:20.565 that story. The cut from the rain and the sound 1:55:20.605 --> 1:55:23.045 of the rain to the sun and the absence of 1:55:23.085 --> 1:55:26.125 the sound of the rain, right, and we get some drums, 1:55:26.165 --> 1:55:29.285 and we get the sound of the woods. The disparity 1:55:29.565 --> 1:55:33.485 and the difference right between that world going in immediately 1:55:33.525 --> 1:55:36.085 to this world, and it feeling truly like we've thrust 1:55:36.165 --> 1:55:38.325 into some kind of different realm. And it's all just 1:55:38.365 --> 1:55:42.365 because of the It's largely just because of the sound. 1:55:42.645 --> 1:55:45.765 Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned the drums, because I 1:55:45.805 --> 1:55:49.605 did want to call out the score as well. Fumio Hayasaka. 1:55:49.645 --> 1:55:54.765 It has this sort of propulsion, just slow propulsion to it, 1:55:54.845 --> 1:55:58.165 like we're leading towards somewhere and we don't even it 1:55:58.205 --> 1:56:00.765 doesn't even feel like we're leading toward a revelation. I 1:56:00.765 --> 1:56:03.205 mean to a larger question of what's the objective truth. 1:56:03.685 --> 1:56:06.325 Part of you feels like we're we aren't ever going 1:56:06.365 --> 1:56:09.565 to get to it because human nature is so naughty 1:56:09.565 --> 1:56:15.245 and complicated and duplicitous. But there's an inexorable forward thrust 1:56:15.285 --> 1:56:19.165 to the score and those drums that drags us along 1:56:19.685 --> 1:56:22.405 as well through each air that I really liked. 1:56:22.845 --> 1:56:26.805 Raschaman is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and HBO Max. 1:56:27.085 --> 1:56:31.405 It's also available VOD and maybe it's your local library. 1:56:31.525 --> 1:56:32.445 Why not check it out? 1:56:32.765 --> 1:56:36.845 One more Pantheon review to get to it is well, 1:56:36.925 --> 1:56:39.325 we're not going to stop the bleakness, are we? Josh, 1:56:39.365 --> 1:56:41.165 I don't know. Is there there's hope at the end 1:56:41.205 --> 1:56:43.845 of Rashomon? Is there hope at the end of Meek's Cutoff? 1:56:44.285 --> 1:56:45.045 It's been a while. 1:56:45.725 --> 1:56:48.245 We'll have to discuss. Depends how you read it. I think, 1:56:48.645 --> 1:56:50.445 I guess probably not. 1:56:51.245 --> 1:56:51.645 Yeah. 1:56:51.805 --> 1:56:56.645 It's turning fifteen this year and Meek's Cutoff is currently 1:56:56.685 --> 1:57:00.605 streaming on Mobe and Peacock, also available VOD if you 1:57:00.645 --> 1:57:02.725 have homework to do and you do have some time. 1:57:02.965 --> 1:57:05.685 We have such a busy show calendar here over the 1:57:05.765 --> 1:57:07.565 next few weeks that we are not going to get 1:57:07.565 --> 1:57:11.605 to that conversation about Meek's cutoff for at least two shows. 1:57:11.605 --> 1:57:13.645 I think it's going to be three shows actually before 1:57:13.685 --> 1:57:16.245 we fit that in. So you have some time and 1:57:16.285 --> 1:57:19.245 you can find more information about the Film Spotting Pantheon 1:57:19.525 --> 1:57:24.245 at filmspotting dot net slash pantheon Josh, that is our show. 1:57:24.685 --> 1:57:26.885 If you would like to connect with Adam and the 1:57:26.925 --> 1:57:31.765 show on social media, he's on Instagram, Facebook, letterbox, and YouTube. 1:57:32.445 --> 1:57:35.245 As film Spotting, I'm at those places as well as 1:57:35.325 --> 1:57:40.245 Larsen on film We are independently produced and listener supported. 1:57:40.365 --> 1:57:42.565 You can support the show by joining the film Spotting 1:57:42.605 --> 1:57:46.085 Family at film spottingfamily dot com. You'll be able to 1:57:46.125 --> 1:57:49.685 listen early and ad free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter, 1:57:49.885 --> 1:57:53.965 monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. 1:57:54.365 --> 1:57:56.525 For show t shirts at other merch go to film 1:57:56.605 --> 1:57:58.965 spotting dot net slash shop. 1:57:59.525 --> 1:58:03.245 In the film Spotting archive, you can check out last 1:58:03.245 --> 1:58:05.725 month's bonus show if you're a film Spotting Family member, 1:58:05.925 --> 1:58:09.845 that Drunken Angel Conversation or the Stray Dog Conversation. July 1:58:09.965 --> 1:58:13.245 twenty twenty, Josh, we did seven Samurai so yeah, a 1:58:13.285 --> 1:58:16.525 lot of Krasawa Hey family members and all those cases 1:58:16.685 --> 1:58:19.645 voted for that, so we're striving the people what they want. Yup, 1:58:19.725 --> 1:58:22.565 you know it's true, they want Krosawa And yeah, it 1:58:22.605 --> 1:58:24.445 was two thousand and nine, it turns out was that 1:58:24.525 --> 1:58:28.805 Kirosawa marathon back before you joined the show. In limited release, 1:58:28.845 --> 1:58:32.285 there is a four K restoration of Satura Raised nineteen 1:58:32.405 --> 1:58:35.085 seventy film Days and Nights in the Forest that's playing 1:58:35.085 --> 1:58:37.485 at the Cisco Film Center, and Josh, at this point 1:58:37.525 --> 1:58:40.205 we both wish we were in Chicago to see. 1:58:40.045 --> 1:58:42.805 Get it one blind Spot, I think for both of us. 1:58:42.925 --> 1:58:43.725 M Yeah. 1:58:44.165 --> 1:58:47.765 In wide release, scientists have discovered how to hop human 1:58:47.845 --> 1:58:52.965 consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with 1:58:53.045 --> 1:58:56.565 animals as animals. That's in Pixar's Hoppers. 1:58:57.285 --> 1:59:01.365 Pixar, how about that was not even aware new Pixar. 1:59:01.565 --> 1:59:04.565 Obviously it doesn't necessarily mean what it used to. But 1:59:04.725 --> 1:59:07.325 I think I'm still gonna have to check this out. 1:59:07.565 --> 1:59:09.765 See, I didn't read the Pixar part at first. I 1:59:09.805 --> 1:59:13.165 just saw below it Melia Jovovic and that really seemed 1:59:13.205 --> 1:59:18.325 like Amelia Jovovic film, like some futuristic, really bizarre sci 1:59:18.325 --> 1:59:22.365 fi scientists have discovered, you know, and it goes it 1:59:22.405 --> 1:59:25.725 all goes terribly wrong. Guns are involved, but no. Mealy 1:59:25.805 --> 1:59:28.205 Joviovich is a former war hero whose peaceful life is 1:59:28.205 --> 1:59:31.765 shattered when her daughter is kidnapped. That's in Protector and 1:59:31.965 --> 1:59:33.725 we have Yeah, what are you gonna do? You gonna 1:59:33.725 --> 1:59:34.125 see that one? 1:59:34.165 --> 1:59:34.765 Josh? 1:59:34.805 --> 1:59:37.045 No, I just that makes sense. There you go, that. 1:59:36.965 --> 1:59:37.645 Does check it r. 1:59:37.685 --> 1:59:38.165 Yeah. 1:59:38.245 --> 1:59:40.365 We also have Maggie Gillenhall's The Bride. 1:59:41.045 --> 1:59:41.765 Yes, that's out. 1:59:43.045 --> 1:59:43.645 I'm excited. 1:59:43.805 --> 1:59:44.325 We're excited. 1:59:45.365 --> 1:59:49.205 Point next week we are planning to see that film. 1:59:49.485 --> 1:59:53.565 We will have our Oscar special with Michael Phillips and Yeah, 1:59:53.685 --> 1:59:56.285 believe it or not, it's film Spotting madness, best of 1:59:56.325 --> 1:59:58.445 the nineteen forties playing round. 1:59:59.245 --> 2:00:00.805 It's a big, big show, big week. 2:00:01.445 --> 2:00:04.365 Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Disso and Sam 2:00:04.445 --> 2:00:07.765 Van Hogren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. 2:00:08.245 --> 2:00:11.885 Our production assistant is Sophie kempinar Special. Thanks to everyone 2:00:11.925 --> 2:00:16.325 at wb easy Chicago. More information is available at wbeazy 2:00:16.605 --> 2:00:20.125 dot org for Film Spotting. I'm Josh Larson and. 2:00:20.085 --> 2:00:21.885 I'm Adam Kempenar. Thanks for listening. 2:00:22.085 --> 2:00:25.045 This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. 2:00:25.885 --> 2:00:29.885 Good Bye,