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The Dig (2021) Reaction | Sutton Who? - Ep 26
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In this episode, we give a big welcome to our new Project Assistant, Izzie, and discuss the new Netflix movie, The Dig! Just a warning this episode contains spoilers for The Dig. Tune in as we introduce Izzie, initial reactions/thoughts of The Dig, and chats on the accuracy of the film in contrast with the actual site and archaeology!
Recorded: 03/07/2021
Links
- La Brea Tar Pits:
- The Dig
- History vs Hollywood
- Show
- Twitter: @idigitpodcast
- Email: [email protected]
- Alyssa
- Instagram: aal.archaeology
- Twitter: Lyssakemi
- Michaela
- Instagram: mm_digitalized
- Twitter: m_mauriello
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Team
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to the iDicket Podcast, a podcast where we talk about the student perspective of navigating the world of archaeology and anthropology. I'm your host, Michaela. And I'm your host, Alyssa. Hey there, welcome into today's episode.
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome in. Yeah, that works. Welcome in. Like you're inside the podcast now. How does it feel to be some data?
00:00:40
Speaker
So today we have a special event for you guys. First, we will be welcoming our new project assistant, Izzy. Say hi, Izzy, really quick. Hi, everyone. And then the second half of the episode, we will be talking about
Discussion of 'The Dig' Movie Plans
00:00:58
Speaker
the movie, The Dig, recently out on Netflix. We just had a live watch session on our Discord with live reactions too, so we'll be giving our thoughts on that as well. All right, Izzy, welcome to the project. That is, I dig it. I guess we're a project now.
00:01:23
Speaker
This is Izzy, and she kind of came onto the project unexpectedly and very quickly. We got connected through my tattoo artist, who is her roommate. And Izzy, tell us a little bit about what you're studying, what you do.
Izzy's Background and Experiences
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, yes, first of all, I'm so excited to be here. This is great. I'm so happy that we had such an unexpected but
00:01:51
Speaker
super just welcome meeting. But yeah, right now, I recently graduated from UC Davis. I have my majors were in anthropology and art history. And my specific focus is in archaeology. And for the past couple months, I've been messing around in cultural resource management, and doing a lot of like, you know, fieldwork, and eventually, in the next couple weeks, like lab work,
00:02:21
Speaker
And what's next for me is I'm going to be going to grad school at officially University in Vadarino for the MA in archaeology. That's a new announcement as of today, right? Yes, it took a long time to decide.
00:02:38
Speaker
But I am strong in my conviction for this decision. So exciting. Amazing. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you so much. The long path of grad school awaits you. It's very exciting. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing now with your CRM work. What are your projects?
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, so I spent a lot of time in the El Dorado National Forest with the Great Basin Institute. It's the AmeriCorps program. And I worked a lot with the Forest Service. So that was really, really cool. We were just doing a lot of ground survey. Well, more like
00:03:18
Speaker
a lot of leaf survey because there was like no ground there. It was really dense forest. Oh man. It was really fun though. It was really good. I felt very in shape by the end of it. So that was good for me, I think, physically. That's always fun. But yeah, no, it was a great experience. We had a lot of canned sites because cans are everywhere. Yes. Anyone who does syrup. Indeed. Yes. Exciting stuff.
00:03:46
Speaker
But I we also had some pretty cool prehistoric stuff like you know a lot of typical like small things like lithic scatters and We had some really cool new sites that I you know the Forest Service was super excited about And then after that I ended up working at some CRM firms in the Bay Area and I'm just a you know a couple little things here and there I worked with
00:04:11
Speaker
these human remains from this random grave site that was found in San Francisco, and it's from the whole cemetery move that happened in the 30s, and we were at just a construction site and stumbled upon a bunch of bones, and we're like, oh no, and a headstone, and we're like, oh no.
00:04:31
Speaker
We got to do something about this. It was really one of those moments like, oh, we forgot another person. Oops. That's what I'm kind of, what I've been up to now and then in the next coming weeks, I will be working in a lab for another firm that's been
00:04:52
Speaker
working on this shell mound and it's a really amazing project and I'm so excited to see the materials on it and I don't really know what to expect at this point but I'm just so I love being in the world of CRM work and it's just a really good time.
00:05:08
Speaker
I'm excited for you. Keep us updated on how that project goes. That sounds exciting. I know. Oh, yeah. It's always fun to be a part of projects that are just always stimulating. And it's just like, what's going on? OK, what's next? Let's go. Try to get some cool pictures. We'll share them with the Instagram and everything. Most definitely. That can't be shared. Yeah, all the ethically good photos that aren't problematic.
00:05:35
Speaker
for sharing. I do want to share pictures as much as I can, but I'm always sort of conscious about, you know, being sort of respectful. But if it's cool and it's allowed, I will definitely share. Maybe like the scenery of where the project is. Yeah.
iDigit Blog and Childhood Interests
00:05:55
Speaker
That's good. Well, we are so happy to have you and you've been such a big help already in the short week that you've been with us. It's only been a week. It's like barely been a week. Barely been a week. Oh my gosh. I feel like we've known you forever. I'm so honored. We're honored. Yeah. So some of the new projects we have is we started an iDigit blog on Tumblr. I blog it. I blog it.
00:06:25
Speaker
So we have a couple posts on there too. And I know Izzy wants to do a lot of blogging. If you want to like share some ideas of what you have in mind, I know you had a couple. Oh, yeah, no, because I really like the idea of condensing some of the episodes into smaller, you know, more easily consumable, like little tiny articles. So it's people who may not have the time to like
00:06:51
Speaker
re-listen to an episode or listen to the full thing, they can just get a quick rundown. And then when they do have time, they can go back and listen to the full podcast. But I think it'd be fun to just disseminate it out to people who are just on Tumblr, reading through their dash, and they can stumble upon a nice short post that's really informative.
00:07:11
Speaker
Well, you know, give them a taste of the podcast and then maybe, you know, entice them in and get them to become one of us. I love it. Hear the banter along with it. Yeah. Every post can have a nice little Canva banner. That's amazing. I'm so excited. Yeah. I think we have a lot of cool potential with the blog, so I'm excited to get it.
00:07:34
Speaker
all going up and running. I don't really understand Tumblr. I've never really tumbled before. I was mainly on Reddit as a kid, I mean teenager. As a child. As a five-year-old, I was on the good old Reddit. No.
00:07:50
Speaker
No, I actually didn't start using Tumblr until my master's degree. So it's a very recent thing for me, even though it's been around for so long. But there are so many archaeologists on Tumblr. Most of our fan base has come from my Tumblr posts on that site. So it's crazy how many of you guys are on there. I love it. What got you really interested in archaeology?
00:08:21
Speaker
Ooh, I'm trying to remember. I think it started as I was really interested in paleontology. And I really don't know what got me into that. Maybe Jurassic Park, who knows? It's a good movie. But I remember, I think my earliest memory of really wanting to do paleontology was sometime probably in the first grade. I read some sort of book about it. And I love dinosaurs. And that was my thing for a while.
00:08:50
Speaker
And then by fourth grade rolls around and my teacher was absolutely wonderful. And she, I told her how much I wanted to do paleontology one day. And it was like, you know, like a little kid dream, but she took it really seriously. And she like, like helped me look up like UCLA is like PhD programs in like paleontology as I was like a fourth grader. That's amazing. But it was so, so sweet. And she printed out this page for me.
00:09:19
Speaker
And I remember I took it home to my mom and I was like, I'm going to do this. And I was so, so, so set on it. And I think somewhere along the line, I don't know what happened.
00:09:29
Speaker
I, not that it fell out of my interest, but I feel like someone told me, I think it was probably like a high school counselor, like, oh, this isn't a really viable career option for you. Like, you're not gonna, you're not gonna make any money like this, like, you might want to choose something more practical. And I sort of diverge. Yep, that's where archaeology comes in. Just on them, because I have three jobs. But yeah, that's, that's really where it all started.
00:09:55
Speaker
I don't think I really knew what I was going to end up getting into. When I entered college, I sort of knew anthropology was the track. And then I stumbled into archaeology for real. And I was like, wow, this is actually a viable thing I can do. And then I just sent it from there. I was like, I'm fully in the excavation pit on this one. There's no turning back. You dug yourself into that hole. I really did.
00:10:26
Speaker
This is the proverbial mound I will die on. Yeah. And then you just keep digging in there because you're like, I don't want to get out. It's like, yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not leaving. Here to stay. Then it turns into the book Journey to the Center of the Earth. And then instead of like magma, magma, what am I trying to say? Instead of lava, it's just like weird fluorescent world with giant insects.
00:10:53
Speaker
I'm trying to say magma. Magma lava. Magma lava. Yes. Josh Hutcheson. Childhood dream. Childhood crush.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, except in Bridge to Charabithia, rest in peace. Even I don't know. Tip a second. No, he didn't alert the other girl. I mean, I mean, spoiler alert. I mean, it came out in like, what, 2005, 2006? Yeah, the book was older than that too. It's fine. Yeah. But that's amazing. That's so cool.
00:11:32
Speaker
Oh, thank you. I have a good time with it. That's the most important part. I love the switch from not viable career to archaeology was like the most natural move for counselor. Like I feel like I don't think even this counselor even like did it. I think it was just me. Like I was just like, well, if I can't do paleontology, I'm just going to do the next thing. The next dirt. The next best thing. Yeah.
00:12:02
Speaker
I'm trying to think what that place is called. So there's like the museum in LA, the La Brea Tar Pits. Yeah, I don't know if either of you have ever gone there, but it's like the museum is on top of like actual tar pits that were in the center of LA. And I don't remember like when they were digging in there and stuff, but they actually found like
00:12:23
Speaker
animal bones like mammoth bones and saber-toothed tigers, at least that was in the museum. I think that was like my earliest experience to like tar pits and archaeology like because
00:12:37
Speaker
going to school in like the LA area as a kid, it would just be like, okay, let's go to the La Brea tar pits. And I remember during one of like the field trips, this mom had like, like a way for us to be grouped together. And it was like, you would have our arm up kind of like an elephant trunk. And then we would use our other hand to like wave goodbye. And then we would wave goodbye from our armpits because it stank because tar pits.
00:13:04
Speaker
are very stinky. So then it would be like a bile a branch or pits and then take your armpit and then it stinks. So you're blowing like the stinkiness to it. It was very cute. And I just had that memory come into my head just thinking about like childhood dreams of like paleontology, archaeology.
00:13:24
Speaker
Let me tell you, I also grew up in the LA area and I dragged my parents to the La Brea Tar Pits. Yes. So many times. So many times. Oh my gosh. I love that place. It's beautiful. I've never been. I need to go. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they had the
00:13:46
Speaker
I think it was just a, it's been so long since I've been there, but it was like a reconstruction of a woman. I think it was like just an indigenous woman and just like the outfit that she would have worn and like everything around her that was like saber-toothed tigers and wherever, like inside the museum. And I remember, I think the first time I went was like after the movie Ice Age came out. So I was like, it's like in the movie.
00:14:13
Speaker
And then of course you go to the LACMA right after, and you go look at art for a while. Great contrast to one another, from art of archaeology and artifacts to modern paintings. Yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
I think it's a good juxtaposition. It's so much fun to do. I mean, because when you look at the actual, like, if you look on Google maps and you Google La Brea Tar Pits and you look right next to, and you see this like giant modern art museum, and then you just see this like tar ground with these fake mammoths being sunk into it, and there's this little teeny museum right next to it. It's just such, yeah, the juxtaposition between like the two is crazy. I need to Google this.
00:15:04
Speaker
I'm going based off of memory and it's been a long time. It's like I've been to LACMA recently. Yeah, it's been a while for me too. I'm like, wow, it's really just like nostalgic childhood memories. I'm like, wow. Yeah. I used to love this place. Really though, there's so many good museums in Los Angeles. Are you looking at photos, Alyssa? Yeah, I looked them up. It's exactly what you said. It's like a mammoth falling into the carpet.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that's just very sad. It's like, I know you're just trying to convey something here, but also... There's a little baby. Oh my gosh. It's very depressing. Sad for its mom falling in the tar pit. Mama be dying. That's so sad. All right, peace to peace. That's so sad.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, so if you want to be sad for a little bit, just look up the La Brea Tar Pits. Okay. And just think about all the animals that got stuck in tar.
00:16:11
Speaker
Maybe not. Don't think about it. I need to not think about it. What's the difference between tar and a bog? What is carbon? What is bog? Hydrocarbons and free carbon obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through deconstructive distillation.
00:16:31
Speaker
Mm. Oh, and a bog is just a wetland. Yeah. I would not I mean, I kind of would rather find a bog than a tar pit because if you get stuck in there, ouchie, because it can be hot. Mike, can I also just point out that like, La Brea tar pits really just means tar tar pits. That's Oh, is that the word for tar? It's the word for tar in Spanish. I remember my mom told me that I'm just like, wait,
00:17:00
Speaker
So it's just named tar tar. Tar tar. Wow. So do you think, oh dude, if they had a restaurant, they should serve tar tar. Like some steak tar tar. They're missing out on those beautiful tar nips. Yeah. Serving tar nips. Tar nips. Tar nips.
00:17:26
Speaker
If they char something, it's been, um, it's carbonized. I don't know. It's whatever, tar, tar, tarinized. Carbonized. So that was our, our bit about tar. We're going to take a break now. And then when we come back, we'll be talking about the movie The Dig.
Review of 'The Dig' Film
00:17:50
Speaker
And welcome to our next segment of talking about the dig and what we thought about it and everything about it, I suppose. All right. General thoughts. And then we'll get into some details. Should we give a little summary about what the dig is? Sure. Okay. Out of, out of 10, I give it like a eight-ish, I think, I think is my rating.
00:18:20
Speaker
I think I gave it a 7.5. It made me cry, so that's why it's on the higher scale. That's fair. I agree with 8. 8 sounds good to me. Fantastic. Who wants to give the...
00:18:36
Speaker
of the rundown. The date was based in the 1930s, 1938, right before World War II really started kicking off. It's about the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon burial site of Sutton Hoo and just kind of everything that went along with that excavation and discovery. And so it starts off in this woman's backyard, basically, Mrs. Pretty's backyard.
00:19:06
Speaker
Then she hired an excavator, Mr. Brown, who has been a local excavator, archeologist. Well, they call him like an amateur archeologist and no formal training, you know, even though he has, his father has, and his grandfather have all been digging in this region of England for like their entire lives, but you know, amateur.
00:19:29
Speaker
and kind of going along with that and then having the archaeologists come in and taking over the site and just kind of the politics behind that.
00:19:40
Speaker
And yeah, anything else with that summary? Okay. Decent overview. I personally really liked it. I didn't think it was too dramatized like many archaeology movies often are. We did find out from the discord that there were a couple new love triangles and love stories in the film that weren't real.
00:20:07
Speaker
But I feel like that's pretty minor in general, like as a love story. But then we found out that some of the characters were replaced with like males when they were originally female, just to introduce love into the picture. But overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was beautiful. The cinematography, amazing score.
00:20:34
Speaker
It was good. I mean, I was enjoying listening to the music alongside of the imagery that was happening. I thought they had some really interesting choices of having the footage being shot while there's voiceovers of the scene that was happening, and it would focus in on a specific individual in the film.
00:20:56
Speaker
while some other people would be talking. And so it was kind of just like things that happened in the background and just kind of showing Mrs. Pretty while they were talking about the ship that was found at the site and kind of like, cause it's on her land and it's technically her property. And they're talking about like, okay, well, we're going to do this with this. We're going to do this with that. And just kind of like, not just her grief, but her illness and
00:21:23
Speaker
anxiety maybe towards it and having everything kind of taken out of her control but I don't you don't really know if that's actually how she's feeling but
00:21:32
Speaker
you can kind of make your own ideas about that with the portrayal of her during those conversations as well because they never specifically state anything. Yeah, I think they also did that to kind of emphasize the like tension between the characters also because I remember there was one part where he was talking about like the beauty of the ship or whatever and it was showing her
00:21:57
Speaker
in the window. And so I think they they did that really well to like emphasize the connection they had, even if it was like a fake connection that didn't happen in real life. But I thought it was really beautifully done how they would mirror those images with voiceovers too. No, yeah, I totally agree. Because it's like, I think the movie cinematically was extremely beautiful. And I agree that, you know,
00:22:22
Speaker
they did add some drama to it. And the typical kind of Hollywood style, which is, it's Hollywood and I think I can forgive that because archeologically it was pretty decent for the time period and pretty decent for Hollywood in general to actually sort of show the politics of archeology in the earlier part of the 20th century. And I
00:22:48
Speaker
I, I'm sort of a sucker for the romantic side of archeology, like this beautiful notion of like, you know, humans and our story. And, you know, it's, it's, it's just a very beautiful notion and it's, it's so much more complicated than like that. But when you, you know, if I'm thinking about it in a very simple and just romantic term, I'm always just like blown away by how like wonderful and how extraordinary it is to have
00:23:16
Speaker
a site like this and to be a part of something like this. And I think they captured that spirit extremely well in this movie. Yeah, they had some great quotes from the movie too. I know you were typing them down as they came, but it was stuff about, we're doing this so that future generations can know where they come from and stuff along those lines too that really tingle the heartstrings of the archaeologists for sure. That's why we're all doing this.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'm tempted to read the book and see the comparisons between the book that was made, I think it was 2009 or 2007. And the movie and see kind of like how where they took things are from the book and stuff like that too. Because I'm like, I can tell that this was a book before and I was like, I'm glad I want to see like how the imagery from the book and just like the visuals that you can portray on your own.
00:24:11
Speaker
were captured in the movie like you were saying as you like just like the sheer beauty of the site even though it's like you know that wasn't actually filmed there but we can still imagine oh there's this one shot of Mr. Brown sitting on the river after he discovered the
00:24:28
Speaker
ship and there is a ship going in the river. And I thought it was just going to be like this imagination of like a Viking ship or not Viking ship, like English action ship going through this river and just kind of like what it would have been like when this ship was at its full glory. And it was just like a normal ship.
00:24:50
Speaker
But it had really cool sales, but... Yeah, that was a cool scene. Also, another thing I appreciated about the film was how they brought up the issue of women in the field, or not issue of women in the field, but the issues that women face when they're in the field. We saw a little bit of that, for example.
00:25:14
Speaker
What's her name? The actress. Lily James? Yes, Lily James. She plays a female archaeologist and basically the main archaeology guy in the white suit. He's like, yeah, you're here because you're lightweight and you won't break anything. Nice and dainty. And she's like, oh, you just picked me because of my size. And he's like, yep.
00:25:38
Speaker
And then just consistently throughout the movie, they were just like being like, Oh, you clever girl. And it's like, she's a girl, not a woman. And she's only really there not only because of her size, but because of her husband, who's also an archeologist. And so it'd be like, you have a great wife there. It's like, you can't tell her to her face that she did an amazing job and that she did a great discovery. And she's standing right there. She's sitting right there. Yeah. I mean, that's a good point because she, she makes such a big discovery in this excavation. And it's like,
00:26:07
Speaker
they're all celebrating her, but they still sort of treat her as this like, yeah, they're just like, Oh, this girl is your clever girl, like you said, it's just like, it's a little, it's a little condescending when she obviously does have
00:26:20
Speaker
skill in her own right as an archaeologist and deserves to be treated as such. That brought in really good portrayals of just kind of how some women can be treated in the field, especially in the early 1900s. And then part of her new love story that was introduced to the film was the photographer
00:26:40
Speaker
took pictures of her discovering things. And then she was like front and center when all the photos were like printed and displayed in front of everyone. So that was cool. But apparently the photographers originally were women and then they were swapped out for a man so that they could fall in love. And so that her and her husband did divorce.
00:27:08
Speaker
We should put a spoiler alert before... I mean, obviously it's a spoiler alert. Yeah, we're just giving all of it away. Also, it was an interesting realization of this kind of like, not realization, but bringing up the elitism within the archaeological industry and how they're looking down on Mr. Brown in the movie and it's just like, well,
00:27:32
Speaker
Not all of us have a fellowship at Cambridge. And just because you have a fellowship at Cambridge means that you are kind of looked better upon and your opinions are more valid than another. And it's just like, oh, do you know this soil? This man, Mr. Brown, knows the soil better than any of you. Because you all probably participate in armchair archaeology, don't you? Mr. Phillips.
00:27:59
Speaker
Oh, man, it's I really got a good sense of that through the whole film, just that, you know, the issue really of local knowledge versus that elite academic knowledge that I think is particularly, particularly pervasive in the realm of, you know, indigenous archaeology, when we're, you know, working with indigenous communities, like, obviously, these people, these communities are going to have their local and indigenous knowledge. And oftentimes, it's so much better than, you know, these
00:28:29
Speaker
fancy scientists with all our like degrees and everything. And it's, it's important to just recognize that we obviously don't have all the answers and we don't have all the knowledge and there's other forms of knowledge out there. And I think, you know, they did such a good job representing that with Mr. Brown because it's like he very clearly
00:28:48
Speaker
who was really good at excavating. He knew the land and he knew what kind of site this was going to be. I've experienced this myself in the field with my field school out in Peru.
Themes and Philosophical Reflections
00:29:00
Speaker
The IMR people we worked with to excavate burials were incredible excavators. They were incredible archaeologists. I learned from them because they could teach me and they were more knowledgeable than I was. I really respect that.
00:29:16
Speaker
I think this movie did such a good job of capturing that issue. It's obviously a different time period, a different era in a different space than what I know and I work with, but it's still an important issue for today.
00:29:32
Speaker
And just even that like still translates to today as well. So it can still be transferred. And we were talking about community archaeology in one episode and how important it is to talk to the people in the community and be a part of it.
00:29:50
Speaker
and just have just the local engagement because they know more than anyone. There's no real experts because everyone can still continue to learn and it's like if we're not learning, are we even really living anymore?
00:30:06
Speaker
I did really appreciate how they painted the most established archaeologists as kind of like the bad guy of the scene because I feel like that's how a lot of archaeology was back in the day is very like dictatorship over the field site, you know, like he started calling it his ship and like, you're not allowed to go into the site unless I give you explicit permission and blah, blah, blah.
00:30:32
Speaker
And he was just like sitting there at his desk as this tubby guy in a white suit and pointing fingers. But yeah, so I did like how, I feel like in places like Indiana Jones and like that sort of thing, you still get this very like elite, I know everything vibe from like the archeologists. And yeah, like you said, this did a really good job at painting a different picture.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah. I think also the, there was kind of a little bit of character development for Mr. Phillips when the little gold coin came about because he was just like, Oh, there is no coins before the ninth century, sixth century, dark ages. And then it's like, wait a minute. This is money. They had culture. They got art. They got money. And now they're civilized. And it's just like, wait, really? That's all it took for you to be like, Oh, they had this beautiful culture. All right, dude.
00:31:34
Speaker
But that was an interesting thing because I feel like so many archaeologists are so quick to assume that ancient people didn't have culture. They were just hunter-gatherers that made fire and then moved to a different place and then made another fire. And that's as much humanity as we give them when people haven't really changed all too much in the last tens of thousands of years.
00:31:53
Speaker
But then after that, his opinions towards Mr. Brown changed a bit.
00:32:02
Speaker
like our technology has changed here but like there hasn't been much difference that we can tell in like the way our brains operate and so people definitely had like relationships and culture and politics and all of that and I think we're just now getting good at assuming that first instead of assuming like this ancient people or savage people and that sort of thing.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, so so that was cool to kind of have that like, unveiled a little bit. Yeah, I think honestly, it reminds me so much of like, the romantic notions I hold, which is, I think the romantic notions that are everywhere. It's really such like, I'm such a sap. I'm the biggest sap. But I think there's there's a quote somewhere where it's someone's life once revealed. And that's why we dig. And it's, you know, there's a lot of beautiful quotes in this movie.
00:32:58
Speaker
But you think about people who live 10,000, 20,000 years before you. And it is hard to try to figure out and have just not necessarily evidence, but just have some sort of tangible idea of what their life was. But like you were saying, they were still people very similar to us. They might have lived incredibly different life ways than we did.
00:33:28
Speaker
They ultimately had joys and they had loves and they had, you know, sorrows and all the things that come with being human. It's like we won't be able to know those, but it's we get a piece of it. We really get a piece of it. That's what we're chasing is that tiny piece. And it's so it's so like, you know, it's just such a disservice to assume that they weren't, you know, just as complex as us and complexity in itself is such a
00:33:55
Speaker
You know, it's such an, just an arbitral notion of just like, it doesn't matter. It's like they're, they were human too. And you should, you should treat them with respect. One of the quotes we wrote down was from the first human handprint on a cave wall, we're part of something continuous. Life is always changing, evolving and progressing. And it's like,
00:34:17
Speaker
In the movie, the kid was just so infatuated with the sky and just space and time and being like, even in 500 years, things are still going to keep going on in this space. It's going to just be in a blink of an eye. So it's like, we are looking at these mounds that have been existing for thousands of years and we dig it up only for a brief period of time. And then we're soon going to be in those mounds and it's just kind of like, what is life? And there's a lot of
00:34:47
Speaker
philosophical thoughts that you can go into.
00:34:50
Speaker
with the movie and with everything. Or you can just like take it at face value and be like, huh, digging. Well, in part of that romance too, the guy who's going after war, what was his name? Rob Rory. He was like, thousands of years from now, what will be left of us? And she's like, well, this coin, some bits of your watch and like that sort of thing. And it was basically like,
00:35:18
Speaker
of like leading into like let's make the most out of this moment because we're all going to be gone someday um like that yeah but yeah a lot of great metaphors in this movie yeah just living your best life as it comes and trying not to spend too much time dwelling on things that we can't control
00:35:45
Speaker
You know, I think because of that, I'm raising my rating from a 7.5 to an 8.5. Yay! After this discussion. There's a lot of good metaphors, yes. And so I'm like... Yeah, but based on the real events, I give it like a 5 out of 10. But we'll talk about that after this break.
00:36:05
Speaker
So in this last segment, we're going to be wrapping up a little bit and talking about the movie versus reality, which is always the fun one to critique. I mean, the other one's really fun too, but we can go and I have a website up. It's called history versus Hollywood.com. I think, well, when you go through like this website, which we will link, you can see the older photos that were taken
00:36:35
Speaker
at the site and everything. It's really cool. I kind of thought Ben Chaplin looked like Antonio Banderas. Did anyone else think that? Oh yeah, a little bit. That's why I thought he looked so familiar. I was like, wait, that's not Antonio. Antonio.
00:36:59
Speaker
historical accuracy of the dig to the dig. So in the movie Edith is shown to have a great interest in archaeology and Egyptology and she's like seen reading this book on Egyptology and she's quoting being like, oh, like when they were finding King Tut's tomb, they found fingerprints still there on the sides or on the walls or wherever it was. And
00:37:25
Speaker
She actually was very interested in Egypt and would always travel around throughout Europe, apparently. And she just had this fascination with history for her whole life. And kind of going in with, yes, Basil Brown was an archaeologist, but he wasn't considered to be a professional.
00:37:46
Speaker
I think some of the biggest inconsistencies were the love interests. There was no sort of love triangle with Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Pretty, and they added that in as well as Rory and Peggy. I think it was just meant to show that Peggy and her husband
00:38:09
Speaker
were not on really the best of terms throughout their marriage, and they ended up divorcing in the 1950s, I think, if I remember off the top of my head. Also in this article, they mentioned how there was no real animosity between Mr. Phillips and Mr. Brown, and how they kind of just worked side by side on the site at Sutton Hoo. So they weren't sworn enemies? Does not seem like it.
00:38:38
Speaker
Well, there was a bit at the end that talked about how Brown wasn't mentioned in the discovery of all of the Sutton Hoo bits until pretty recently, right? That's what it said.
00:38:55
Speaker
I'm in the movie when Mr. Phillips took charge of the site. He was like, no, Mr. Brown, you're not to do anything here anymore. We're kicking you off the project, basically, or off like the ship. You can't like step foot in it. And there's like a thing on this article that says like, was Basil Brown allowed to continue work at the site? And it's like, yes.
00:39:17
Speaker
But the big true story reveals that Charles Phillips was also now in charge of the excavation of the ships burial chamber that Mr. Brown discovered. But in real life, Charles Phillips and Basil Brown were respectful to one another during the excavation. Phillips even complimented Brown on the meticulous manner which he had excavated in the ship.
00:39:43
Speaker
But I'm like, I don't know like how accurate this is in comparison to what actually happened. I mean, like are there like documents about it or like firsthand accounts and written stuff because like Mr. Phillips can be saying like, oh, you know, I did this. Like I, yeah, he did a great job. But then Mr. Brown can be like, he didn't say anything to me. Honestly, it's decently accurate. You know,
00:40:12
Speaker
If I'm being honest, I think it did a good job at staying factually true throughout the whole thing. I didn't notice a couple of things, like the whole dramatic haven or moment where Basil, he gets buried by a mound that is improperly shored and supported, and that didn't actually happen.
00:40:37
Speaker
It was a dramatic moment. It really was shocking in the moment. I literally jumped when it happened. I was like, ah! Yeah. And then we're just like, oh my God, is Mr. Brown dead? Really? We just started falling in love with him. But also it shows the dangers of earlier archaeology and just how there was no regulations and really safety precautions.
00:41:04
Speaker
After that, he was just like, I know how to dig now. And like, here's some poles in the sides. And yeah, I think like how they're showing the digging being done as well and then needing to protect the area with what they could. So they like covered the wood with tarp during the rainy periods. I feel like if it rained that hard on that thing, it would have disintegrated because like that pit
00:41:28
Speaker
was full of water in the movie. Because isn't it just like a sand impression of the boat? Because it wasn't like actual wood left over, right? Yeah, because wood wouldn't have survived that, would it? It looked like a wooded. It wouldn't. It wouldn't. Because they find things like that at Stonehenge too, the impressions of wooden posts that are nearby that indicate
00:41:56
Speaker
other structures that were made of wood instead of the stone and they don't survive, but you can still
00:42:01
Speaker
you know, figure out the general layout because we have those impressions. I want to see what the actual site look like. It's cool seeing. Yeah. It's the sand impressions, like seeing the photographs in comparison to the movie as well. Cause it was just like, they like tried to do it spot on and it was really cool. I really want to go back to the scene where they're showing all the photos that Rory had taken and see if they actually tried to just recreate this.
00:42:27
Speaker
the photographs that were taken throughout the excavation. The cool thing about movies like this too is even just as we're Googling through it, I bet Sutton Hoo has gotten so much traction on Google after this movie came out.
Impact and Public Interest
00:42:42
Speaker
And I think in that respect, it's really cool to have movies like this, even if they are
00:42:49
Speaker
accurate or inaccurate or whatever it brings traffic to archaeology, which is really cool to get people interested in this sort of stuff. So I can just like imagine actually I can't imagine what it was like just to bring it out of the ground, like fully intact and just
00:43:08
Speaker
being like, what is this amazing thing? Like just being completely shocked because like they didn't know what they're getting themselves into. Especially Mr. Brown. He was just like, I'ma just dig. We got some mounds here.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's, I think what they got really right is like the excitement of like finding something on a dig and everyone's just like, oh my goodness me, we got something, we got something. It's just such a good moment. It's a coin. I feel like I didn't really look into anything about like the booby before, so I can't really speak on like what was accurate or not.
00:43:50
Speaker
because I wanted to be surpassed. But yeah, I remember learning about Sutton Hoo when we were doing our master's in the UK. And they were actually really accurate on how they excavated the mound, too, because I remember one of my professors talking about how they usually go about excavating those big, tall, vertical, triangle cutouts of the mound that's
00:44:13
Speaker
Like a piece of pie. Yeah. Or like, what was it called? Like a step trench? Step trench. That sounds right. But basically like cutting into like steps and the layers of the mound since it's so tall and you want to get like a bit of everything. I do like how in the movie it would like, there'd be a guy in the background just kind of raking through dirt that had been excavated. So all the spoils and just being like, who wants your anything in here? In conclusion, go watch it.
00:44:43
Speaker
I liked it a lot. Yeah, I recommend this movie. I think it was really beautifully done, the acting phenomenal. I mean, it got Lily James and it's got, it has Ralph Vinnius, Carey Mulligan, I'm just going to be naming everyone. But it's just like, I don't know, like the actors, the scenery, the imagery, everything kind of about it was really beautifully done.
00:45:07
Speaker
I think by having it go directly to Netflix as like a Netflix original, it brings a lot of traction in with archaeology and it's kind of great because it's not just like a giant dramaticized like Indiana Jones adventure, but it's like the actuality and the excitement of it all and just kind of like, hey, this could be in your backyard, but not probably, but maybe there's always something under there.
00:45:33
Speaker
Have you dig hard enough? But don't do that. Probably not. I don't really recommend it. You could, like, burst some sort of pipe or something. We should do another movie night. That was really fun. Yeah. It was cool having some people interact with us, too, in the chat. Thank you to those who joined us. We should look up what movie. We should do, like, the, what is it, King's Kings.
00:46:03
Speaker
What's the movie? With the British guy and they fight crime and then it goes to... Kingsman? Kingsman, there we go. It was problematic because it ended up taking place in like a Cambodian temple where the evil lair was and
00:46:23
Speaker
like the whole part of that part of the movie, they were like shooting at these ancient ruins and like breaking things. And like, it was exactly replicated off of like a famous Cambodian temple. And so a lot of people got, I think it was like banned in Cambodia too, because it was like so disrespectful to like the ruins and everything. So.
00:46:48
Speaker
We should watch, we should watch a bad movie next time.
Future Plans and Movie Critiques
00:46:53
Speaker
Indiana Jones. What's some bad movies so we can have some firm critiques on it. Yeah. It's just reassuring to have like a good archeology movie. It was cool. I don't know. I have hopes. High hopes.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah, we'll talk about bad archaeology and media eventually. Next time on our next movie night. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to check out our socials. I did get podcasts almost everywhere now. Be sure to check out our blog, I guess. That's pretty cool. And big welcome to Izzy.
00:47:38
Speaker
Looking forward to all the things we're going to be doing. Hopefully. So stay tuned. And if you're following us on Instagram, we'll have like these consistent ish. Yeah. Consistent updates about things that are going on. And that's where we'll also be saying stuff for our next movie night. Okay. See you guys. Bye.
00:48:11
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.