WEBVTT - Part One: The Twilight Zone Movie 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:11.480 Uh, that's all right. That's it, that's the whole thing. 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:16.280 How we're starting the episode. I welcomed Behind the Bastards, 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:21.600 the only podcast where the host, Robert Evans is sick. Uh, 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.320 Caitlyn DURRANTI, how are you doing? I'm doing quite well. Thanks. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.520 I'm sorry to hear that you're sick. Just as a 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.880 heads up, we're going to be relying entirely on you 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.960 for our our our frenetic energy this week, so all right, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:41.200 you better bring it. Yeah, everybody, it's Behind the Bastards. 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.760 Thank you, Caitlin. This is exactly what we needed now. Caitlin, 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.680 you are the host of a podcast while the co host. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:51.720 But I'm in a feud with your co host. So 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:53.800 I'm just gonna say you're the only host of the 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.320 Bechtel cast um to hell with James Loftus and it's 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:03.120 god damn Webby. I don't co sign that. Also, shout 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.920 out to shout out to our webby that we want 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:11.240 shout out to your webby. Indeed, huge congrats, very proud, Caitlin. 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:16.040 How do you feel about movies? Well, Robert, I'm so 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.640 glad you asked me about how I feel about movies, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:26.720 because I famously have cultivated an entire personality around movies 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.720 and loving them, and I really have nothing else going 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.080 for me. Yeah, I mean, your nickname famously is Caitlin. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:38.520 I think films are not at all problematic durante, which 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:40.320 is a little bit of a mouthful, but you know, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.840 too many syllables, too many syllables. But you know, we 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:54.480 respect your choices. Dad. Who do you got a favorite director? Um, 0:01:54.480 --> 0:02:01.400 honestly that I should. I should, for how I I 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.000 don't think anyone should, but I think, well, well, we'll 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:06.960 be talking a lot about au tour theory in a 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:08.880 little bit, But yeah, I think it's debatable as to 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.160 whether or not you should have a favorite director. That's 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.480 the thing I mean, because there's no one director who 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:23.440 has made like every movie in their repertoire. There they're 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:29.399 other words, maybe George Miller, George, Well, have you seen 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.880 Happy Feet? Though that I thought happy It was that 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.760 I am the only person apparently who thinks that Happy 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:44.360 Feet sucks shit? But wow, strong opinions on Happy Feet? Well, 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.680 what what's fun about? George Miller is number one? He 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:51.120 comes up in this episode, although negative way, but you know, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.120 he's one of those directors where if you're talking about 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.720 things you don't like, you're generally talking just about like, well, 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.640 this film didn't work for me. Right today are primarily 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:06.720 talking about a director who inspires rather more strong opinions 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.720 for for important reasons. Caitlin, what do you know about 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:15.520 John Landis? I know? Okay, here's everything I know about 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.200 John Landis, which is not very much. Um. I know 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:26.200 that he directed a film in which either some people 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:32.040 died or some horses died. Okay, that's it starts start 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:37.800 people dying and horses dying. Um. But we're all just animals, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:42.400 aren't we dying in the world on the earth? Um? 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.200 I just remember there being conditioned on his set which 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.320 were very dangerous and some living things. You're going to 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:55.200 have fun with this one. You talk a lot about 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.240 directors that are like their movies are problematic because of 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.520 issues with like jin or and other kinds of stuff 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.360 like that. With with John Landis, it is it is 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.200 problematic on a level of like human rights violations that 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.920 lead to this. It's a hoot. It's a hoot, Caitlin. 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.240 We're going to have fun with this one. Um. First, 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.440 we're going to talk a little bit about some film theory. Um. Now, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.640 you know you live in l A. Now, I lived 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.440 in l A for half a decade. We both worked 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.520 in and around the entertainment industry, and I think we 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.320 can both agree that the worst people on planet Earth 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.279 are film nerds. Right, there's film nerds and then war 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.560 criminals just a little bit lower than than film nerds. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.160 You know, That's that's how I tend to think about it. 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.480 As a film nerd certainly one of the worst people 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.599 walking on this earth. Yes, yeah, we need a Nuremberg 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:54.760 for people who think too much about Magnolia, P t 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.680 A and other director that. Sometimes I'm just like, what 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:03.719 are we all going to out for this guy so much? Uh? Man? 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.720 Tom Cruise in that movie is a pretty incredible performance, though, 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:12.440 you know what is as much as I love to 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.800 hate Tom Cruise, I also love to love a lot 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.920 of his performances. Look, you can't didn't. You can say 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.880 a lot of things about Tom Cruise, and most of 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.159 them are bad, but you can't deny the man is 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:29.000 a star. He's a star, and he's attempted performer. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:34.080 So we're talking about kind of aw tour theory, right, 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.039 which is a term that we get. I've read a 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:38.960 few things on this. I'm not an expert in any 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.560 of this, but it seems broadly agreed upon that like 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.560 the word emerged in its common usage in the forties 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.159 and fifties among a bunch of like French film nerds, 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.120 and the basic idea is that the director of a 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.599 film should be seen as the author of that film, 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.359 and thus films are primarily reflections of the specific vision 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.800 of whoever directs them. If you're looking at a film 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:01.839 made by a specific director, it's going to have themes 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.560 and visual cues that work as signatures. Um, this is obvious. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.760 Like this is not like particularly problematic. It's obviously true 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.400 of a lot of directors. At least. There's certainly directors 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.599 like Brett Ratner where it's like I could I couldn't 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:15.680 tell you if that was someone else's film or Brett 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.960 Ratner's film, because they're all they all look like a 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.640 million films. But then there's guys like like if if 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.039 you put a Quentin Tarantino film on that you've never 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.159 seen or heard of, you'll you'll immediately be like in tenments, oh, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.840 it's a Quentin Tarantino film, right, Um, same with like 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.360 Paul and Paul Thomas Anders, and same with even like 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.559 a guy you wouldn't most people wouldn't call an artist 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.719 like Michael Bay. You put a Michael Bay film on, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.800 most people are gonna be like this, this seems like 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:45.080 a Michael Bay movie. And yeah, absolutely, it has a 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:49.640 very recognizable conventions that he uses in his filmmaking and 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.040 storytelling and you know all that stuff. So as kind 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.200 of a basic sort of element of analyzing film, there's 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.359 nothing like high falutin nor even like problematic about the 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.880 idea of like an odd like autour theory. Right, it's not, Yeah, 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.120 it's it's just like a pretty neutral concept that's kind 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.640 of hard to argue with at its basic level. The 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.360 term itself was coined by again a bunch of French 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:15.600 film critics writing in a journal I'm not going to 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.120 try to pronounce um, and a lot of these guys 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.520 became French New wave directors. New York University professor Julian 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.480 Cornell points out that the basic idea of an aw 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.400 tour in a film had existed as long as films had, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.239 and it probably originally it's most clearly from a German 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.680 theater director Max Reinhardt in the nineteen teens. The concept 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.720 started to gain popularity though in the United States starting 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.920 in the sixties and seventies. UM and this came alongside 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.400 the rise of like the directors generally seen as like 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.960 the aw Tours, Right, guys like Alfred Hitchcock, Marty Scorsese, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.520 Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and William Friedkin. Right. And 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.160 these are the the area in which like this idea 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.400 of like the and it kind of expands from this 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.080 idea that like films have a recognizable author to like 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.920 the director is this kind of is like the god 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.800 of the movie they're making. Right, Um, they are the 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.160 only voice that matters. And if you if you want 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.960 to really make great film art, they have to just 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.920 be kind of followed blindly by the people on set. Um. 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.920 And this, you know, one thing you can't argue with 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:21.720 is that this is an era in which a lot 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.320 of the most influential films of all time are being made. Right. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.560 You're getting The Exorcist, You're getting Ship Like the Birds, Psycho. Um, 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.400 you're getting Easy Rider, Taxi Driver two thousand one of Spade, 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.760 The Godfather, UM, like some some pretty fucking good movies 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.240 are getting made in this Yeah, that's defining the language 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:46.199 of cinemas and yeah, exactly, yeah, the shining right. Um. 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.640 So yeah, this isn't the the era in which people 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.800 start to see directors this way. Is also the era 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.840 in which movies that are generally seen as like the 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.400 most famous movies of all time are getting made. Um. 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.720 And the sheer density of history making where of cinematic 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.360 art in this period leads people to get a little 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.000 bit carried away with kind of how important a director 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.600 is and how they should be treated. Right, man, how 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:18.080 giving an artist specifically not just giving a manpower, giving 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.880 a bunch of men in their mid thirties with access 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.559 to infinite money in cocaine ultimate power in any situation 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:33.560 is going to lead to problems, right yeah. And it 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:35.240 is not for nothing that this is the era in 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.480 which cocaine goes super viral too. But one of the 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.280 clearest examples of like how odd tour theory can lead 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.360 to some relief, or how the idea of like the 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:46.200 director is this kind of author of the film can 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.959 lead to some fund up behavior is Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Um. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:51.640 This is one of the most famous horror movies of 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.679 all time, and it relied heavily on the director's ability 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.800 to mentally and physically abuse actress Tippy Hedron. We've discussed 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.760 this at some length in our hitch Cock episodes, but 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:02.520 I'm going to read a brief summary from a write 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.640 up in People based on Hedren's recently released memoir quote. 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.319 Everything was building towards the famous bedroom scene, Hedron writes, 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:12.439 of the scene in which her character Melanie suffers a 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.280 vicious on camera attack by the birds. Up until the 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.520 day of the filming, Hedron says Hitchcock had promised her 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.360 they'd used mechanical birds, but on the day they started shooting, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.280 Hedron was informed by assistant director James H. Brown that 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:25.840 the mechanical birds aren't working, so we're going to have 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.079 to use live ones. Hedron writes that she endured five 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.920 days of filming where handlers hurled ravens, doves, and a 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.280 few pigeons at her. It was brutal and ugly and 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.719 relentless rites Hedron. Carrie Grant, one of Hitch's favorite leading men, 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:39.600 happened to be visiting the set that day and told 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.319 me between takes, you're the bravest woman I've ever seen. 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.080 On the final day of shooting the scene, live birds 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.920 were loosely tied to Hedron's costume while she lied on 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.760 the floor. The actress says, when action was called, the 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.880 birds that were tied to her started pecking her and 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.439 the wranglers again through live birds directly at her. So 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:03.240 that's good, great for the actor, great for the animals, 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.720 for everybody involved. For an idea of like how much 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.200 this fox with Tippy Hedron, the next big thing that 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.080 she will do is spend five years living on a 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:19.000 compound with several hundred adults lions and tigers and her 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.480 family and filming it. They all get horribly mauled. Several times. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.800 She has her legs shattered by an elephant. Um. But 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.440 it's it's oh my god, it is um a ship. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.720 What was the roar? It's called roar. It is incredible. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.400 It's an amazing because you're just watching. There's like maybe 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.880 thirty minutes of actual dialogue in the film, and most 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.240 of the movie is them struggling to get through their lines, 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:45.080 and every like ten seconds someone gets brutally mauled by 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:50.839 an animal. It's so good, it's amazing. Because like I 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.120 don't want to, but I mean her tell everyone involved 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.360 in it knows what they're getting into. Unlike The Birds, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:04.080 where Hitchcock like tricked her into traumatizing her. They knew 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.480 we're living in a house with two hundred lions and tigers, right, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:12.520 Like nobody's misled about the danger. And it's a mark 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.319 of like how much Hitchcock, how much damage he did that. 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:20.240 I don't think Tippy Hedron considers being repeatedly mauled by 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.080 giant animals to be the most traumatic event of her career, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:28.319 Like you know, like watching roar and realize like that 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.960 to her was a lot less bad than working with 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:36.839 Alfred often. I love this movie. It's the movie he 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:38.800 decided to put on, and my mom and I came 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.920 to his house. He was like, no volume, Yeah, you 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.640 don't need to hear the dialogue. It's not important. M hmm. 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.880 Such a good movie anyway. So there's nothing inherently problematic 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.320 or wrong about using on tour theory to analyze movies. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.280 But the obsession with these directors is the sole voice 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.520 and driving force behind their art. Lad repeatedly to whole 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.840 teams of adults just kind of standing by while again 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.160 dudes often think Hitchcock was older, but often just like 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.880 dudes in their thirties or forties, abused entire cruise full 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.520 of people in specifically generally female like actors like that's 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.120 where most of the violence comes down. And a really 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.040 good example of this would be the classic William Friedkin 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.800 film The Exorcist. Now, this is still considered to be 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.479 one of the scariest movies ever made. Friedkin was obsessed 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.920 with the idea that his movie wouldn't be frightening enough 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.439 to the audience if he didn't deeply traumatize his actors. 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.600 Ellen Burston played the mother of a possessed child in 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.480 the movie, and one day her daughter, played by Linda Blair, 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.840 pushes Burst into the ground. Now that doesn't seem like 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.439 it should be a super intense scene, but again, Linda 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.760 Blair is like possessed with a demonic spirit, right, so 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.640 she's super strong. So Friedkin wanted to have Burst and 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.840 basically yanked to the ground by a wire police system 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:04.080 to simulate being shoved by demonic super strike. Burston later 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.520 recalled quote when she knocks me to the ground, I 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.160 landed on my back, And William Friedkin said cut take two, 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.000 and I said, Billy, he's pulling me too hard because 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.120 I had a wire pulling me to the floor. And 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.040 Billy said, well, it has to look real, and I said, 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:19.800 I know it has to look real, but I'm telling 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.520 you I could get hurt. And so he said, Okay, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.000 don't pull her so hard. But then I'm not sure 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.240 that he didn't cancel that behind my back because the 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:31.400 guy smashed me into the floor. And this is hard 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.880 enough that she suffers a permanent spinal injury, right, Like 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.240 she's injured the rest of her life because of this scene. 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.680 And there's a bunch when The Exorcist comes out, a 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.600 whole lot's made about like most of the advertising campaign 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:52.240 has to do with like people have seizures in this movie, 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.160 Like you can't come in after it started. It's too scary, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.640 Like you won't be able to handle it. Like people 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.440 are like getting hospitalized like that. That's a whole big 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.240 part of like the push behind this movie is that 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:10.080 it's hurting the audience. And like I'm gonna say right here, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.680 as as someone who's watched to enjoyed The Exercist, Friedkin 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.000 was nuts because that movie was not scarier because they 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.640 permanently damaged Ellen Burston's spine, Like, no, they could have 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:26.240 done without that. There's like, look, there's some very frightening 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.240 movies that I have seen in my life. Um it 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.880 follows very scary movie get Out, very scary movie that 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.960 one VHS where their documentary crew when they come upon 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.240 a bunch of like a demon cult in the jungle. 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.800 Pretty scary. I don't think any of those movies permanently 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.920 damaged somebody's spine. Um, yeah, it's not just not necessary 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.920 for there to be horror in your movie. It's like 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:51.840 that famous I forget who it is who's supposed to 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:53.880 have said this about like method actors. But it's like 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.280 you could just like act instead, Like you don't need to, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.200 You don't need like a policys them to damage your 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.320 actress is spine. She could just act. That is the 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.480 thing about like method acting and aw tour directors who 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:16.960 abuse their power is just like it's not considering for 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:22.280 a second how your choices are affecting other people, because 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:28.000 you like seeing your vision into fruition and not compromising 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.080 your vision for any reason is like the most important thing, 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.080 And it's like, no, the most important thing is that 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:38.480 your workplace is safe and it is a movie, but 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:45.120 like the stakes are not. You don't want to nearly 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.720 kill people to see your vision come to life. Is 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:53.480 not how that works. You almost exclusively see it with 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.880 people directing horror, right, Like that's where really a lot 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.400 of the worst abuses come from. Um. Like you can 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.040 look at the show Ning Too, where it's not so 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.480 much physical, but Shelley Deval is like really mentally abused 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.880 in that movie. Um. And I guess because they want 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.280 realism or some ship. I'm a big Michael Man fan. Um, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.920 I you know, I'm a I'm a gun nerd um. 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.040 And the movie Heat is revered is regarded by like 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:24.159 people who are professional gun users as a perfectly accurate 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.480 movie with the gunfights that that big bank is just 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.600 like technically everything ideal. You noticed that Michael Mann did 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.320 not put life bullets in those guns and require his 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.280 actors to get shot for real, because again, you can 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:44.920 film an incredibly convincing gunfight without killing people, and that's 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.480 the beauty of cinema. Yeah, because it's a movie. It's 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.000 it's just wild to me that anyway, this is not 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:53.840 the only injury on the or even the most severe 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.879 one on the set of The Exorcist. Um, and I 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.560 want to note here to Burston, who suffered that permanent 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.919 spinal injury. Years later, she said, in an interview of 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.080 William Friedkin quote, Billy is one of those directors that 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.119 is so dedicated to getting the shot right that I 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.840 think some other considerations sort of fall by the wayside. 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.080 Sometimes he's a brilliant director, and I don't want to 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.359 knock him. However, I did injure my lower back and 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:17.960 I had to work with it ever since. But it's okay, 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.320 And like, it's not Ellen, it's not okay. You can 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.240 you can knock him, and you should. Yeah, he should 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.160 get knocked, especially because of the story we're about to tell. Um. 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.159 So at least Burston was an adult, right she is. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.760 She was not fully informed of how dangerous the scene 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.560 could be, but she was old enough to choose to 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.040 get injured on a set, right, Um. Stunt actors do 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.200 that all the time. Linda Blair was fourteen years old 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.280 when she played the possessed little girl in The Exorcist. Now. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.600 One famous scene called for her to shoot Bolt upright 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.600 in bed. Right. This is if you like, if you're 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.800 watching a documentary that talks about movies, and they show 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:57.480 a scene from the exerci Is. This is the scene 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.520 they're going to generally show where she like and it's 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.720 it's a very like sudden sharp movement. In order to 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.639 make the scene look kind of properly unnatural, freed Can 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.720 again used a mechanical rigging system to move her body. 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.040 Blair later explained quote, in this particular take, the lacing 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.320 came loose. I'm crying. I'm screaming. They think I'm acting 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.800 up a storm. It fractured my lower spine. No, they 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.160 didn't send me to the doctor. It's the footage that's 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.280 in the movie. So when you see that scene in 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:30.160 the Exorcist, her back is being broken, she is fourteen, 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:36.360 when she's so child and a spinal injury slash. Breaking 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:43.119 your back is so scary and has such high stakes. Yeah, 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.680 and I mean speaking of high stakes, now she does. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:47.760 She's in a couple of other movies later on that 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.639 she also gets hurt less hurt in but she winds 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.920 up suffering severe scoliosis as a result of her injuries. 0:19:54.880 --> 0:20:00.080 Um and yeah, this cavalier disregard for the safe d 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.320 of children in the name of shooting a good scary 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.800 movie only grew more pronounced over the next decade as 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.760 the tours increasingly took over in Hollywood. The Exorcist was 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.359 filmed in nineteen seventy two. The movie we're talking about today, 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.840 the Twilight Zone movie, was filmed in nineteen eighty two. 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.520 But before we get into that, you know, we should 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:25.480 get into some products and services. Products and services because 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.520 while the director, William Friedkin, the director of the Exorcist, 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.280 injured a fourteen year old girl without her consent, we 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.840 promise that all of our products and services only injured 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.879 children with their consent or the consent of their parents. 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:49.960 All Right, here's here's ads. Oh we're back. How are 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:55.040 we feeling? How's everybody doing? I mean, I feel I 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.119 feel like I usually do when I'm a guest on 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.440 this show, and it's just I mean, I'm I'm very 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.399 happy to be here, very happy to be with you. 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.680 But then I'm also like, oh, right, people are bad. 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:13.440 Although I do um this, this episode, this topic is 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:17.520 is far more in my wheelhouse than anything has been 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:19.160 any of the other times I've been on the show. 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.959 So I feel I'm feeling extremely confident. Honestly, that is 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.679 very good. You know, one of the documentaries I watched 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.840 preparing for this was it's called Cursed Films. There's a 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.240 series of like episodes about different movies that had horrible 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.200 things happen on set. And on the episode that is 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.200 about the Twilight Zone movie, one of the people they 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.040 interview as like a voice of sanity of how like 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.000 actually know all that matters is safety and it's crazy 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.040 to take these kind of risks to get a good 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.720 shot in a fucking movie. Um is like the one 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:55.399 of the dudes who ran um Trauma, which is one 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.160 of my favorite trauma. Oh my god, it's where m 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.080 James Gunn got a start. Among other things, they did 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:09.800 like really gory, violent, like like purposefully outrageous schlock like 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.119 sex and nudity and like puppets exploding and blood and 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.680 got like awesome shit. Um, but also had a very 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:21.240 good track record for like not killing people because they 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.000 at the end of the day, we're understood that they 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:29.080 were just making movies anyway. Good documentaries to watch. Also, 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:35.080 Trauma very fun film studio. So both actresses in the 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:37.800 Exorcist seemed to have the opinion that the artistic qualities 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.359 of the film at least mitigated their suffering, right. UM, 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:43.320 I'm not gonna make a judgment on that one way 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:45.879 or the other. It's there. They have the right to 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.160 feel however they want. Um, I have to imagine that, like, yeah, 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.359 if if you suffer, but the thing that gets made 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.639 is like a legendary work of art, then maybe that 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:57.840 makes it a little easier. It makes it feel like 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:01.480 more meaningful or something. It does justify it, certainly. But 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.280 I guess it's like, well, if I broke my back, 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:08.640 at least it wasn't for the worst movie ever made exactly, 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.919 And today, like we're gonna primarily be talking about people 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:18.800 sacrificing everything for an incredibly stupid movie. Um, it's so funny. 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.440 It's not funny children die anyway. Um, Before we get 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:24.879 into that, we should spend some time talking about the 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:31.560 autour behind the Twilight Zone movie. John Landis now John 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:36.639 David Landis, was born on August third, nineteen fifty in Chicago, Illinois. 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:40.400 His family were reasonably well off. His father was an 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:44.720 interior designer and decorator. Um. Also, his mother's original last 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:48.200 name was magazine Er, which is not something I realized 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:50.399 people had as a last name. I actually think it 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.159 was like her last name from previous marriage. But I 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:56.560 just never heard of magazine or as a last name, 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.679 and I think it's silly. Um. I think we need 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:02.720 to have an approved list of last names that people 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:06.439 are allowed to have. I like the idea of taking 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:10.800