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Lost and Found in Cleveland
48 Plays10 months ago
In this episode Ben Miller welcomes Keith Gerchak and Marisa Guterman, makers of the upcoming film Lost and Found in Cleveland. Featuring beloved stars like Martin Sheen and Jon Lovitz, along with *checks notes* “Constipated Appraiser” (Denise Dal Vera), the film follows a cast of characters intertwined with and connected to the world of antiques. Miller, Gerchak, and Guterman dig into the nitty-gritty behind the picture, the post-industrial American Dream in the Midwest, and the inspiration aplenty that came from Antiques Roadshow.
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Transcript
Introduction to Curious Objects Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Curious Objects brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
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This is the podcast about art, decorative arts and antiques, the stories behind them and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
00:00:23
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It's good to be back these last few months.
00:00:25
Speaker
They've been pretty slow for Curious Objects, and I'm sorry that we haven't been delivering as many episodes as usual.
00:00:31
Speaker
I mentioned this before, but I've been struggling with a vocal issue, which has made it tough for me to record new episodes.
00:00:38
Speaker
But the good news is I've found a treatment that seems to be working really well.
00:00:41
Speaker
It will be a process of trial and error, but I'm on the right track.
00:00:44
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And long story short, I can talk again, which means I'm very excited to get the ball rolling on some new interviews for you.
Introduction to 'Lost and Found in Cleveland'
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starting today.
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Speaker
And this is one that I've been really looking forward to for a long time, ever since I heard about a new film called Lost and Found in Cleveland.
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And at heart, this is an antiques roadshow tribute.
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Speaker
It follows a variety of sort of charming everyday American characters who bring their prized treasures to be appraised by eccentric experts on public TV.
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And
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It's described as best in show meets The Wizard of Oz.
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The cast is delightful, including Martin Sheen and Real Life Antiques Roadshow host Mark Wahlberg, among many others.
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And Lost and Founded in Cleveland was created as a labor of love by Marissa Gutterman and Keith Gerchak.
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And it debuted last September at the Newport Beach Film Festival and is looking forward to a theatrical release this coming fall.
Creators' Oldest Possessions Discussion
00:01:48
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So I'm absolutely thrilled to have the chance to talk with Marissa and Keith about this movie.
00:01:53
Speaker
Welcome to Curious Objects.
00:01:56
Speaker
Thank you so much, Ben.
00:01:57
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It's over.
00:02:00
Speaker
Sorry, what's that?
00:02:01
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We're saying the same thing.
00:02:03
Speaker
We're going to keep doing it.
00:02:06
Speaker
We're one person.
00:02:07
Speaker
That's right.
00:02:07
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Sort of like finishing each other's sentences.
00:02:10
Speaker
All the time.
00:02:12
Speaker
Okay, so let's start with some rapid fire questions.
00:02:15
Speaker
Oh, dear.
00:02:17
Speaker
What, and I'll let you answer these together or separately, and whoever has the best answer will keep in and edit out the other one.
00:02:25
Speaker
Seems like we want to do them together.
00:02:27
Speaker
That's right.
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At the same time.
00:02:29
Speaker
Actually, if you could answer them simultaneously, that would be perfect.
00:02:34
Speaker
So what is the oldest object that you personally own?
00:02:38
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Actually, this one is a contest between the two of you.
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I have a coin that is from when King George, Mad King George, was returned to sanity.
00:02:51
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So 17, I can't speak to which year that was off the top of my head, 1784, maybe, something in that respect.
00:02:58
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I had it appraised for, I think it was $10, but it was my grandmother's and that's why I kept it.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:03:07
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That's so... Well, Keith wins this round.
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I don't even know.
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I have so many different objects.
00:03:12
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I'm thinking about this, Ben.
00:03:15
Speaker
It's a silver tea set that my great-grandfather brought from Poland when he was escaping.
Sentimental Value of Antiques
00:03:24
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But he came prior to...
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the 30s.
00:03:29
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That was, I think the tea set is from the late 1800s.
00:03:33
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So sentimental and silver, which is appropriate for today.
00:03:38
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Absolutely.
00:03:38
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Yeah.
00:03:39
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Well, you're just pandering now, but I'll take it.
00:03:43
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Well, that always works.
00:03:46
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Flattery will get you everywhere.
00:03:47
Speaker
There's an asteroid headed for Earth.
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You two are lucky enough to be on the escape pod.
00:03:54
Speaker
What one object or artwork are you bringing with you?
00:03:58
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Well, this is really easy because I just went through this with the fire evacuation in Los Angeles.
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So this is very real.
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And what I grabbed was my grandmother's wedding picture from 1939 in its original Art Nouveau frame.
00:04:14
Speaker
Wow.
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That's so nice.
00:04:17
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I know it's like it feels very apropos that you should ask about an asteroid hitting the Earth when everything is going on right now.
00:04:25
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And objects seem so important because they really are kind of just these tethers for us.
00:04:36
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God, what a great question.
00:04:37
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I'm a bit of a clothes horse myself.
00:04:40
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I don't know if that's formally considered an antique, but in my family, we love clothing.
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And my great grandmother kind of was a big
Significance of Film's Digital Cinema Package
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Speaker
champion in the early 50s.
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She was a big buyer at one of the first stores in Rodeo of this designer named Galanos.
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And so there are these fabulous Galanos coats.
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Nancy Reagan used to wear them.
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And I think I definitely preserve one of those.
00:05:08
Speaker
Fantastic.
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I love that.
00:05:09
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So what's the, what's the most valuable object or, or just the most exciting object or artwork that you've ever physically touched?
00:05:18
Speaker
Touched.
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Hmm.
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Hmm.
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I love that.
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I mean, I think that touch is such a great question because often art feels kind of like, uh,
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you have to stand behind the rope.
00:05:36
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And that's what's so fun about antiques is it's this middle ground of accessibility in a way that is tangible.
00:05:46
Speaker
But I'm gonna make a silly, it's not an antique, it's something valuable.
00:05:52
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It's a valuable object for us, which would be the DCP, the digital camera package of our film.
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That to me is our most valuable object.
00:06:02
Speaker
Fabulous.
00:06:03
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What is that like physically?
00:06:05
Speaker
What does it actually look like or feel like?
00:06:08
Speaker
Well, I'll give two answers to this.
00:06:10
Speaker
This will go back to the fire as well.
00:06:13
Speaker
So the DCP is actually what is put in the server for the projection when you have it in a
Preservation of Film During Fire Evacuation
00:06:23
Speaker
movie theater.
00:06:23
Speaker
And so it is basically a large hard drive.
00:06:26
Speaker
that, I don't know, it's six to eight inches long and you just put it in there.
00:06:30
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But it is in a hard case, kind of like almost this football, you know, like with the nuclear code.
00:06:37
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That's kind of what it looks like in the boxes, maybe 10 inches long by four inches deep and six inches high.
00:06:44
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And it's all wrapped in foam and you drop it off.
00:06:48
Speaker
But the other thing outside of the clothes on my back and the go bag and the fires, the other thing that I grabbed in the evacuation was the hard drive of the film, which is like almost the size of a CPU that has all of the raw footage that we shot.
00:07:07
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So and unfortunately, I have both both of the hard drives of the film.
00:07:12
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And so I grabbed one because we have it on the cloud.
00:07:15
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But the last physical drive that we have of everything we ever filmed and all the behind the scenes and footage is on that.
00:07:24
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So that and my grandmother's wedding picture were the two things that I said, OK, I'm.
00:07:29
Speaker
If the asteroid's hitting, to go back to that question, these are the two things that we need.
00:07:33
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And there was something, but if there is something very tangible, even though it's electronic, of recognizing that that represents 12 years of work and everything behind it and the execution and the delivery of all of that dream, that vision can all be summarized in this electronic piece that goes into a server.
00:07:58
Speaker
If the DCP is putting the mausoleum with you, how long do you think that's going to last?
00:08:05
Speaker
Longer than our bodies.
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Speaker
Dark.
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Speaker
archaeologists will be decoding the hard drive and rediscovering lost and found in Cleveland.
00:08:17
Speaker
It is like a little time capsule.
00:08:18
Speaker
I think that's what's so fun is it's this kind of intermediate between something tangible and something digital.
Emotional Connection to Film Props
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Speaker
And so the physical aspect of it is really...
00:08:31
Speaker
There's something grounding about it.
00:08:34
Speaker
The other fun thing I would say is in terms of touching these objects, one of the things that over the years for the holidays, I buy a prop.
00:08:46
Speaker
for the film that we had written as a gift for Marissa, which I have to get all of these to you, Marissa, and I didn't bring them the last time I was in Cleveland.
00:08:54
Speaker
But it'll be, it's like, you know, we have a reference to William McKinley, our martyred president, in the book by Murat Halstead.
00:09:02
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written in 1901.
00:09:04
Speaker
Like, yeah, we have the first edition of that, that when to get that from Etsy and to have that arrive and go, Oh my God, like this thing that we wrote about is real.
00:09:14
Speaker
The base at the end of the film that Martin Sheen appraises is a real early modernism from Vienna that I found on Etsy that we got like the day before we started shooting.
00:09:27
Speaker
And when these things start to arrive and you realize, Oh wow,
00:09:30
Speaker
Wow, everything that we did this deep dive research into for this film, but also other films like we have the original edition of the Kavode investigation into James Buchanan when he was being investigated by Congress.
00:09:48
Speaker
And it's like an 800 page document.
00:09:50
Speaker
You know, and when that arrives, that is truly like touching a piece of history and realizing, oh, this is the bound edition of what everybody had on their desks in Congress.
00:10:01
Speaker
It's kind of a fascinating, you know, history and research coming to life when those objects arrive.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:09
Speaker
You're becoming less...
Film Storage Unit as a Time Capsule
00:10:12
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:10:12
Speaker
Less rapid fire.
00:10:14
Speaker
But I think to just tag on to that, you know, what's amazing in making a film about antiques roadshow and objects is then we've created all of these objects and we've created this road, our own fictionalized roadshow.
00:10:31
Speaker
So it comes with its own banners and set pieces and
00:10:35
Speaker
And so then Keith and I kind of inherited all of these objects because we're incredibly sentimental towards them and they are really outside of the DCP.
00:10:46
Speaker
They they're the film.
00:10:47
Speaker
I mean, in a film about objects, we then we kept all of the objects because they all they all had me next.
00:10:55
Speaker
And it was really interesting to go back to the story.
00:10:58
Speaker
Apologies for the long fire.
00:11:00
Speaker
But we went back to the storage unit over the holidays and the storage unit adjacent to ours had a fire.
00:11:07
Speaker
So like fire is also a running theme in this.
00:11:10
Speaker
But to open up that garage door where everything from the film is stored and to kind of step back.
00:11:17
Speaker
Talk about a time capsule.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:18
Speaker
It was stepping back and thinking about, oh, my gosh, I remember the day we brought that to set or the moment we were filming that particular scene or when we first procured that particular object.
00:11:32
Speaker
And to take that walk through and to see it all in this unit is really kind of mothballed and fascinating.
00:11:43
Speaker
OK, so aside from Lost and Found, what movie would you say has the most interesting depiction of antiques?
00:11:52
Speaker
Or just of decorative arts, material culture, that sort of thing?
Favorite Museums and Disliked Design Periods
00:11:58
Speaker
God, it's a brilliant question.
00:12:00
Speaker
And I felt like something like this was going to come up.
00:12:02
Speaker
And I was like, you got to have an answer for Ben.
00:12:05
Speaker
I'm going to noodle on this.
00:12:06
Speaker
Keith, do you have something?
00:12:08
Speaker
What was the film that Ellen Burstyn and Jon Hamm did that?
00:12:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:12:14
Speaker
Was it Nostalgia?
00:12:15
Speaker
Nostalgia.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:17
Speaker
Which I am ashamed to say I didn't see.
00:12:20
Speaker
But the clips that I had seen, there was something very poignant, you know, touched on similar themes of loss and the meaning of these objects and how they're they're tying us to loved ones that have passed or the change of our own lives.
00:12:37
Speaker
um you know which are really the the themes that we explore in this film uh and so that that i think was just an interesting uh approach and very human you know i've been asking this question to a number of guests over the uh over the years and i'm sorry to say that nobody has yet gotten the correct answer oh good good luck which is obviously lord of the rings
00:13:06
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:13:07
Speaker
Hilarious.
00:13:09
Speaker
Right in front of us.
00:13:10
Speaker
We were staring at the answer, Keith.
00:13:12
Speaker
Just missed it by a little.
00:13:14
Speaker
You're right.
00:13:16
Speaker
Anyway, I guess I have to retire that question now.
00:13:20
Speaker
What's your favorite museum to visit?
00:13:24
Speaker
I mean, I think that we can say from a sentimental point of view that the Cleveland Museum of Art is absolutely an astounding collection and the breadth of the collection and the fact that it's a free museum.
00:13:37
Speaker
I think it's
00:13:38
Speaker
It's such a wonderful resource for people who live in the city.
00:13:43
Speaker
They have a tremendous impressionist gallery.
00:13:47
Speaker
It's the Egyptian collection.
00:13:51
Speaker
It's really astounding.
00:13:52
Speaker
And I think the building itself speaks to the history of the city and the wealth of the city at the turn of the last century.
00:14:01
Speaker
For a city of the population that it has currently to have this level of a museum is incredible.
00:14:08
Speaker
It really speaks to the history and the legacy of the city.
00:14:12
Speaker
So as a Clevelander now, I would say it's a phenomenal museum.
00:14:17
Speaker
And anyone that has the opportunity to come to town should absolutely check it out.
Inspiration from The Wizard of Oz
00:14:22
Speaker
A great vestige of the period of public philanthropy.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yes, Rockefeller, all of that.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:34
Speaker
What is a period of design that you would happily live without?
00:14:44
Speaker
You always are throwing the 80s under the bus.
00:14:48
Speaker
Well, he asked it.
00:14:49
Speaker
That's true.
00:14:50
Speaker
My answer.
00:14:52
Speaker
Well, I'm an architect who started his career in the 90s.
00:14:57
Speaker
And Marissa also, rightly so, throws the 90s design period under the bus, too.
00:15:03
Speaker
Early 90s.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, right when I started, I go back and visit some of the things I did.
00:15:09
Speaker
And it's like, oof.
00:15:10
Speaker
Dear.
00:15:12
Speaker
Well, that was just a hangover from the 80s.
00:15:13
Speaker
So it really was.
00:15:17
Speaker
You know, it's interesting.
00:15:19
Speaker
When I was in architecture school, I was not the biggest fan of brutalism because it felt very.
00:15:32
Speaker
You know, I mean, everything was raised on a plinth.
00:15:35
Speaker
It was the austerity.
00:15:37
Speaker
It was the minimalization of the fenestration.
00:15:41
Speaker
It was the kind of rough texture of the materiality.
00:15:45
Speaker
Now I'm sounding really like an architect.
00:15:47
Speaker
I haven't said these words in years.
00:15:50
Speaker
But yeah.
00:15:52
Speaker
Those buildings right now are seeing a resurgence and a kind of reinvention that is bringing humanity to them, which I think was their failure.
00:16:03
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:05
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:07
Speaker
And I appreciate, I think now with a little distance, I appreciate what it was a design approach of its time.
00:16:18
Speaker
And that the reinvention and the humanization of those buildings, I think there's been a kind of beautiful melding of what they were trying to accomplish and what we're currently doing with that particular design period.
00:16:36
Speaker
What's one object that you regret not buying when you had the chance?
00:16:43
Speaker
The one that got away?
00:16:49
Speaker
We dealers have, you know, our memories are just overflowing with examples.
00:16:55
Speaker
I'm sure.
00:16:57
Speaker
But for somebody not in the trade, I'm interested if there's something that sticks out in your mind, you know, something you saw somewhere and that you still dream about from time to time.
00:17:09
Speaker
There was a piece of jewelry when I was 19 and studied abroad in Rome.
00:17:15
Speaker
I went to this school.
00:17:17
Speaker
broquette in Venice and it was incredible and this one piece of jewelry it was costume jewelry but I absolutely loved it and I didn't get it but I did get these like vintage Gucci glasses that I loved
Personal Stories with Family Antiques
00:17:37
Speaker
and then left in Rome when the semester ended but that's my answer
00:17:44
Speaker
Anything to add, Keith, or no?
00:17:46
Speaker
No, it's interesting.
00:17:48
Speaker
Outside of, you know, there was a... Fires!
00:17:54
Speaker
Not that there wasn't... I always was like, oh, gosh, why didn't I buy a house in Los Angeles when I first got here and it was affordable?
00:18:02
Speaker
And now I kind of go, you know, glad I didn't buy.
00:18:06
Speaker
I didn't know that real estate could be one of the objects.
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'll let... Sorry, whoops.
00:18:11
Speaker
Let me throw that in there.
00:18:13
Speaker
wish I had bought a brownstone in Park Slope in 1988.
00:18:19
Speaker
Exactly.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
But otherwise, I can't say that I have too many regrets.
00:18:29
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:18:29
Speaker
OK.
00:18:30
Speaker
Well, we will be right back with Marissa Guterman and Keith Gercheck in just a second.
Engaging with the Podcast and Supporting It
00:18:39
Speaker
First, I always like to take a minute to say thanks for listening.
00:18:43
Speaker
And that feels especially meaningful now coming back from my absence.
00:18:47
Speaker
It's really good to be back with you again.
00:18:49
Speaker
I have a lot of pent-up energy, and we have some great interviews coming up, starting, of course, with this one.
00:18:55
Speaker
I'm always interested to hear your thoughts, topics you'd like to hear about on Curious Objects, guests you think would be a good fit, something you'd like to tell me about an episode you listened to.
00:19:06
Speaker
You can reach me on Instagram at Objective Interest or on email, curiousobjectspodcast.gmail.com.
00:19:14
Speaker
And of course, I can't not remind you that if you'd like to support the work we're doing, which we bring to you
00:19:21
Speaker
totally free and ad-free.
00:19:24
Speaker
The simplest thing you can do that has a big impact is to go into your podcast app and give Curious Objects a five-star rating.
00:19:32
Speaker
And while you're there, share a few words about why you like it so that other people can find the show.
00:19:39
Speaker
Peter at Hughes Auction recently left a review saying that even when it doesn't sound like a topic that he'd be interested in, the perspective, context, and knowledge of the guests invariably makes it a compelling episode.
00:19:53
Speaker
Thank you so much, Peter.
00:19:54
Speaker
Now, if you haven't left this review yet, you can do that right now in your podcast app without even pausing the show.
00:20:02
Speaker
And while you're there, make sure you've subscribed to Curious Objects so you get new episodes in your feed automatically.
00:20:08
Speaker
All of that will take no more than one or two minutes, but it really helps out me and the team.
00:20:13
Speaker
So thank you so much for doing it.
00:20:15
Speaker
Unless you're driving, in which case, please keep your eyes on the road.
00:20:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:23
Speaker
With all that said, I think it's time to talk about Lost and Found in Cleveland.
Celebrating Cleveland and Antiques Roadshow
00:20:27
Speaker
So Keith and Marissa, first off, is it safe to say that you're both Antiques Roadshow fans?
00:20:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:36
Speaker
Super fans.
00:20:36
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:38
Speaker
Super fans.
00:20:39
Speaker
Now, the film, it explicitly draws parallels to The Wizard of Oz, where characters, they're seeking external validation on the path towards discovering their inner strength.
00:20:52
Speaker
how did you approach selecting or designing the antiques that represent each character's journey?
00:20:59
Speaker
And are these based on real objects or are these sort of entirely fictional constructs?
00:21:07
Speaker
It's a great question.
00:21:08
Speaker
I think, you know, this goes back to the origin of our approach to the film itself.
00:21:15
Speaker
As you had stated, like, there's a lot of best in show in this film.
00:21:20
Speaker
But once you get to know Cleveland itself, there's this earnestness that kind of is just very much woven into the people who live in that city and their dreams and ambitions and, you know,
00:21:34
Speaker
I mean, even in the architecture.
00:21:36
Speaker
And so with the approach, we didn't want to mock the people that live there.
00:21:40
Speaker
We wanted to celebrate the people that live there.
00:21:43
Speaker
And this really is a film where Cleveland is ultimately the protagonist.
00:21:48
Speaker
And so these objects, Cleveland is...
00:21:52
Speaker
for me, my touchstone is always Los Angeles because I'm from there.
00:21:55
Speaker
It's a collection of different neighborhoods and each neighborhood has a real personality.
00:22:00
Speaker
And so then each neighborhood kind of, we selected an object that would embody the attributes of a neighborhood and the people who live there and
00:22:14
Speaker
For one example, we picked these Greco-Roman plates that were antiquities and it belonged to, Stacy Keech plays the character, but he is a Korean war vet and he lives in Slavic village.
00:22:35
Speaker
is actually fairly well known because it is ground zero for the housing crisis in 2008.
00:22:41
Speaker
But it also was this vibrant community where people would work in steel mills and thriving Main Street.
00:22:49
Speaker
And a lot of the Slavic immigrants came to
00:22:53
Speaker
uh this neighborhood and built you know the american dream but the the neighborhood doesn't look like that anymore it's a shifting demographic and these plates um that were given to this character from a lost army buddy then take on potentially a new meaning and i think uh each each uh neighborhood we really tried to approach the object with um
00:23:19
Speaker
these questions that come up with the tension of in that neighborhood, whether it be society, status, classism, racism, all of that, all of these questions that we're dealing with as a society are reflected in the objects and the neighborhoods that we picked.
00:23:40
Speaker
Keith, do you want to talk about The Wizard of Oz, maybe?
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, Wizard of Oz and I think the Dennis' character, too.
00:23:47
Speaker
So the part of the genesis of the film, Marissa used to watch Antiques Roadshow growing up with her dad and had originally approached me to write the film and didn't want to set it in Los Angeles because that's so familiar.
00:24:02
Speaker
There's so many films set here in L.A.
00:24:04
Speaker
And I said, I'm from Cleveland.
00:24:06
Speaker
And, you know, that sounded funny because, you know,
00:24:08
Speaker
In the zeitgeist, you know, Cleveland's always been the butt of jokes and it's the mistake on the lake and the burning river and the mayor's hair catching on fire and its own default in the 1970s when I was a little kid under Kucinich.
00:24:22
Speaker
And so there.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, I.
00:24:25
Speaker
Marissa always says I'm like the unofficial mayor of Cleveland.
00:24:28
Speaker
I've been this ambassador no matter where I've lived around the country.
00:24:31
Speaker
And I said, hey, don't knock Cleveland until you try it.
00:24:34
Speaker
And so we had decided on these neighborhoods and I was describing what they were like and these objects and went back to Cleveland and took my mom to the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, which isn't even in Cleveland.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's like 45 minutes south in Canton.
00:24:49
Speaker
Next to the football hall.
00:24:50
Speaker
It's featured prominently in the film.
00:24:53
Speaker
It is.
00:24:53
Speaker
It's real.
00:24:54
Speaker
I called Marissa from the parking lot and I said, OK, we've got the tone of the film.
00:24:59
Speaker
William McKinley didn't write anything.
00:25:01
Speaker
Presidential libraries empty, just empty shelves.
00:25:04
Speaker
Planetarium, a dinosaur exhibit with wires coming out of it.
00:25:07
Speaker
The two animatrons of McKinley and his wife dressed to go to the Pan-American Exposition where he's assassinated.
00:25:13
Speaker
But they had this exhibit about the Wizard of Oz there.
00:25:16
Speaker
And as it turned out, at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland as well.
00:25:19
Speaker
And this exhibit said that it was a Cleveland story, which really had blown our minds.
00:25:25
Speaker
And that McKinley, well, Dorothy was the common man.
00:25:29
Speaker
The scarecrow were the farmers and Tin Man, the factory workers.
00:25:33
Speaker
And the yellow brick road was the gold standard.
00:25:35
Speaker
Oz stood for Ounce.
00:25:37
Speaker
And McKinley was the wizard.
00:25:38
Speaker
And the guy behind the curtain, Professor Marvel, was Marcus Hanna, who was this Cleveland politician, his campaign manager, McKinley's.
00:25:47
Speaker
Uh, and he was, you know, there were talks of he's the puppet president and it's Marcus Hanna who's behind there in Cleveland pulling the strings.
00:25:54
Speaker
Uh, and we said, what if we did a wizard of Oz?
00:25:57
Speaker
And, you know, so that got into what you were speaking to earlier, Ben, of this, uh, the parallels of, uh, you know, that the answer to self-worth lies within, you know, instead of a scarecrow or 10 man, it's this mail carrier and the little boy and the retired steel
Antiques' Personal Significance and Memory
00:26:11
Speaker
plant worker.
00:26:11
Speaker
And instead of a harder brain, it's these objects, uh,
00:26:15
Speaker
And the wizards would say it's the meaning that we attach to them that's really important in our own self-identity, not the monetary value.
00:26:23
Speaker
So that was the genesis, actually, of the letter the little boy has that is purported to be handed down by his father from William McKinley.
00:26:33
Speaker
And that if it has been passed down through generations, does it mean that he therefore is part of, you know, American royalty?
00:26:40
Speaker
Does he have a lineage?
00:26:41
Speaker
If his father is deceased, he's just trying to find his identity and his place in the world.
00:26:50
Speaker
And there is this little house that overlooks downtown Cleveland.
00:26:55
Speaker
That's the opening shot of the film with a drone shot that he lives with his widowed mother.
00:27:02
Speaker
And it's this land of opportunity that's spread out in front of him like Oz.
00:27:06
Speaker
And he's Dorothy in the poppy field scanning the side yard with a metal detector looking for any loose change to help his mom make ends meet.
00:27:15
Speaker
But that land of opportunity and the promise of the American dream is just without reach across the bluff and this chasm of the Cuyahoga River, which, again, historically caught on fire.
00:27:27
Speaker
And so that there was a poignancy to the location of that house and the specificity of the museum and the idea that the letter could be this connection and this talisman that's left from his father that could tie to his identity.
00:27:44
Speaker
the mail carrier character played by Dennis Haysbert, that was originated with the idea of a mail carrier that we don't necessarily know our mail carriers.
00:27:58
Speaker
This is a profession that knows our details intimately.
00:28:02
Speaker
They know our names, our addresses, everybody that lives in the house, whether we've gone on a Viking river cruise, and we don't know their names.
00:28:10
Speaker
We don't know their faces necessarily.
00:28:13
Speaker
And so this invisibility of the person that shows up on your doorstep every day was something that we really wanted to explore.
00:28:21
Speaker
And there's a whole inner life going on.
00:28:24
Speaker
There's a whole history.
00:28:25
Speaker
There are the dreams of this intimate stranger.
00:28:30
Speaker
that we thought would be very poignant in something that had the transparency.
00:28:35
Speaker
And there's also, there was an honesty and a purity and innocence, something that hadn't been jaded by the hardships of life and the hardships of his own personal history that we wanted to explore through the fragility and strength of something that was glass.
00:28:58
Speaker
That is truly the things that that appraisal by Martin Sheen explores towards the end of the film.
00:29:06
Speaker
I think listeners are going to be fully on board with the idea that antiques often carry deep personal meaning for their owners.
00:29:15
Speaker
Each of your main characters is struggling with loss.
00:29:18
Speaker
There's someone deceased or absent, and each of their objects somehow connects with the person that they're missing.
00:29:26
Speaker
And I'm curious whether you see a fundamental connection between antiques and laws.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think we do.
00:29:37
Speaker
I think that is absolutely, that is one of the theses of this film is that the people who have left us
00:29:51
Speaker
their memories are entangled in these objects.
00:29:55
Speaker
And we decided to set the film.
00:29:57
Speaker
It's not a holiday film, but it's a holiday film.
Research and Art History in Film Creation
00:29:59
Speaker
And, um, there's something really bittersweet about the holidays that most films often don't explore.
00:30:08
Speaker
Um, it's the, it's, it's the ornament left behind.
00:30:13
Speaker
Um, it, it is these physical, uh,
00:30:19
Speaker
Remnants and also rituals that we have that are really woven into that this particular time of year and.
00:30:28
Speaker
And I think for us.
00:30:33
Speaker
Exploring loss is really.
00:30:38
Speaker
it's really powerful through the lens of these objects and that that is something that we really truly wanted to explore.
00:30:47
Speaker
And loss doesn't have to be present loss.
00:30:54
Speaker
The Stacey Keech character is dealing with something that he's been going through
00:30:58
Speaker
through for the last 60 years and it's still so visceral for him.
00:31:04
Speaker
And these plates just serve as this reminder, this daily reminder for him.
00:31:11
Speaker
And so, you know, one,
00:31:15
Speaker
one storyline that we really reconcile with is loss and inheritance of a really uncomfortable collection.
00:31:24
Speaker
And the idea that even though this person, you know, held on to this, what would be,
00:31:32
Speaker
perceived as a very racist and complicated collection that, you know, just because they're gone doesn't mean we, we, the collection is gone too.
00:31:43
Speaker
We have to reconcile with the, with the,
00:31:48
Speaker
with the physical reality of them.
00:31:51
Speaker
And so these boxes just piling up in this one character's living room and then also in his psyche as well, the loss is kind of a state of mind and yeah, it's completely pervasive and it is critical to each storyline really.
00:32:13
Speaker
I was just going to share the personal story about Bubby's coin collection as a kind of like...
00:32:20
Speaker
antidote that when my grandmother in the 50s and 60s was working in a candy store, and so she would collect all the interesting coins that would come through, and she would switch them out for a contemporary quarter nickel, and she would put them in a cigar box.
00:32:38
Speaker
And that was meant to pay for her grandchildren's college education.
00:32:44
Speaker
And I ended up being the only grandchild.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I didn't need the collection for that.
00:32:50
Speaker
I got a free ride to college, which was great.
00:32:53
Speaker
But when she passed away, I held on to the coin collection.
00:32:57
Speaker
And when I got to be in my 30s, I said, oh, you know, I'm supposed to leave Cleveland.
00:33:02
Speaker
I need to move to New York.
00:33:04
Speaker
I'm supposed to be in the entertainment industry.
00:33:06
Speaker
But in order to afford that, I had to sell the coin collection.
00:33:10
Speaker
And the appraiser came to the house and it was very comical, actually, because he had broken his foot.
00:33:17
Speaker
Not that that's comical, but it kind of was because he had to, like, take the crutches and climb upstairs.
00:33:21
Speaker
His mother dropped him off at the house and he's sitting with his leg up and he's going through all of Bubby's coins in these cigar boxes strewn across the living room.
00:33:30
Speaker
And I'm like, I'm sorry.
00:33:32
Speaker
Selling off all of this.
00:33:34
Speaker
And I'm crying up on the balcony and my mom finds me and she says, what's wrong?
00:33:39
Speaker
And I said, that's my last connection to Bubby.
00:33:41
Speaker
It's outside of this wedding picture of hers that I took with me in the fire.
00:33:47
Speaker
That was the last physical connection I had to her.
00:33:52
Speaker
And my mom said, you would be honoring her dream.
00:33:55
Speaker
Her American dream was for her grandchildren to realize their own.
00:33:59
Speaker
And that is what the coin collection was for.
00:34:01
Speaker
It didn't have to be for your college education.
00:34:04
Speaker
If it meant you being able to move and start a new career, that's honoring her American dream is to pursue your own.
00:34:12
Speaker
And that ultimately is what led me personally to California, to meeting Marissa, to us working on this film, and to the physical realization of it at this point.
00:34:24
Speaker
And so for me personally, the film is my American dream and an honor to my grandmother and her own collecting that she did throughout my childhood and beforehand.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, so you've been working on this film for quite a long time, as I said.
00:34:43
Speaker
I could say that.
00:34:45
Speaker
A lady never tells.
00:34:46
Speaker
That's right.
00:34:48
Speaker
But it is a labor of love for both of you, I think.
00:34:53
Speaker
And I'm curious to hear a little about the research process.
00:34:59
Speaker
You've mentioned some of these objects, the Greco-Roman plates, this problematic Aunt Jemima figurine collection, the glass vase that Martin Sheehan's character ends up appraising.
00:35:15
Speaker
And these are fairly sophisticated objects with fairly complex backstory.
00:35:21
Speaker
I mean, this vase is in the film, you connect it to the Vienna Secession, and Martin Sheen gives this sort of mini art history lecture about it, which I love, and which I think it's trusting your listeners maybe to give a shit, to have a bit of curiosity about
00:35:44
Speaker
actual art history.
00:35:46
Speaker
But I'd love to hear from your perspective what that process was like of sort of investigating and settling on these particular pieces.
Audience Curiosity and Cultural Stories
00:35:57
Speaker
I mean, not to be one of those like, I took a lot of art history in college, but I really did.
00:36:03
Speaker
Oh, but your thesis, I am always obsessed with what Marissa's thesis was in college.
00:36:11
Speaker
Well, thank you.
00:36:12
Speaker
I only get to bring this up at cocktail parties and when I slip teeth at five so that I can't hear it.
00:36:19
Speaker
But my thesis was around art and social change.
00:36:26
Speaker
And so the thesis that I ultimately did was about God, this is so boring.
00:36:33
Speaker
Italian, futurist art, and fascism.
00:36:36
Speaker
So that was really...
00:36:38
Speaker
I loved the connection between that.
00:36:40
Speaker
And I think that regardless of that specific case study, this is truly this is a case study in kind of the American condition and what we're dealing with as a society.
00:36:54
Speaker
And so to tag on to the other question about why did the objects come first or the characters, it's kind of, well, they
00:37:03
Speaker
they kind of informed each other.
00:37:05
Speaker
And so I think you're right.
00:37:08
Speaker
There is an erudite quality to some of the appraisals, but we trust our audience that we've earned this point in the film to kind of give the objects the weight that they deserve and the history that they deserve.
00:37:25
Speaker
And the problematic Aunt Jemima collection, for example, is,
00:37:30
Speaker
You know, this is something even I did a ton of research on spoke to a lot of experts in the field, and it was it was dangerous for us to even think that we could tackle the subject.
00:37:44
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
We had to kind of roll up our sleeves and make sure that we were communicating kind of just the most honest representation of what these collections are, even though they're painful for some people, they're some people's childhood memories.
00:38:02
Speaker
pancake memories that, you know, as the audience, we have to trust them that, you know, I think that people kind of, it's a misnomer to think that art history is like, sophisticated and not for everybody.
00:38:17
Speaker
It is the story really of these objects.
00:38:20
Speaker
That's,
00:38:21
Speaker
that's the crux of art history.
00:38:23
Speaker
And so we like to give our audience a little bit of credit here that they, they have the ability to go there with us and that they want that.
00:38:33
Speaker
And that is really, you know, that's what's so fascinating about antiques roadshow is the demographics that it hits.
00:38:40
Speaker
It's, I was at a bridal shower of 30 year olds and everybody was talking about an episode of antiques roadshow.
00:38:48
Speaker
You know, it's not just,
00:38:52
Speaker
It is amazing.
00:38:53
Speaker
It hits.
00:38:54
Speaker
And that's why we really wanted to reflect that in the characters that we have.
00:38:58
Speaker
We have a nine year old boy and we have a 90 year old couple.
00:39:02
Speaker
And there's something about Antiques Roadshow that just appeals in this broad swath.
00:39:07
Speaker
But, you know, just to speak to the origin of the project and the research there, Keith and I interviewed
00:39:14
Speaker
several of the appraisers before we even attempted to write the script, because we really wanted to understand the world of the road show that, you know,
00:39:28
Speaker
the world of the Roadshow is separate from the world of Cleveland and these characters.
00:39:32
Speaker
And we wanted to understand the pacing and that there is this competition between appraisers, which is so funny and subtle.
00:39:40
Speaker
And you wouldn't know that necessarily from watching the show that they're vying for spots.
00:39:47
Speaker
But we really, you know, the mobile reference library that we have
00:39:54
Speaker
got to
Crafting Authentic Film Props
00:39:55
Speaker
learn a lot about.
00:39:55
Speaker
I don't know if it's maybe modernized itself since we originally wrote the script, but it was really a library of books.
00:40:05
Speaker
And that is fascinating.
00:40:07
Speaker
And that's why people, I think, are going to be really excited to see the film is because we did such an accurate depiction of what the actual roadshow was like.
00:40:16
Speaker
So it is a peeling back of the curtain for super fans.
00:40:20
Speaker
And there's something Marissa and I often say, the biggest goal, and you kind of said this, Ben, in watching the film, is we are hoping that audiences will laugh and cry at the same time.
00:40:33
Speaker
That's been our experience in the screenings.
00:40:36
Speaker
And that would be the greatest testament and the highest compliment as an audience reaction to the film, because that is the most human thing possible.
00:40:44
Speaker
Experiencing it just in the last week, Marissa and I, that in the darkest moments of the lives that Marissa and I have shared, there is always that one moment where we start laughing, because it is so intense that it is almost like the release valve.
00:41:01
Speaker
And there was something in the appraisals themselves, even the seriousness of
00:41:07
Speaker
The themes of the Greco-Roman plates and this kind of the will character of Stacey Keech being, you know, an antiquity within his own neighborhood as the world changes around him and nothing is quite what it seems for somebody who's, you know, on onset dementia.
00:41:24
Speaker
But, you know, exploring what the themes and subject matters were for Greco-Roman plates.
00:41:29
Speaker
Like, this is very human.
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:31
Speaker
the kinds of depictions on there that the letter of William McKinley, he didn't write much, but he did have this family in Cleveland and he was a commissary sergeant.
00:41:45
Speaker
He wasn't out there in the battlefields like as a general, you know, leading the charge.
00:41:50
Speaker
He was out there serving coffee like it.
00:41:52
Speaker
There is this kind of added layer of ridiculousness and absurdity that's all based in truth that I think is just a kind of fascinating mix that brings a relatability and an accessibility that at one level is erudite and then at the other level is about as human as one can get.
00:42:15
Speaker
I would love to hear a little about the props that you used for these pieces.
00:42:22
Speaker
Well, let's start with the easy ones.
00:42:25
Speaker
So the hero vase that's appraised by Martin Sheen is actually an early modernism.
00:42:39
Speaker
I can't say that it's specifically from the Wiener Secession, but it is of that time period.
00:42:44
Speaker
And it was from Vienna and arrived right before the filming.
00:42:49
Speaker
The giant statue of Juno and actually the giant cookie jar were made by our amazing props in our department.
00:43:00
Speaker
So they are physically- As were the plates.
00:43:03
Speaker
As were the plates, yeah.
00:43:06
Speaker
As was the letter, frankly.
00:43:08
Speaker
So a lot of them were actually created by the props department.
00:43:14
Speaker
You should have seen the earlier version of the plates.
00:43:18
Speaker
True.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:18
Speaker
Actually, after we filmed, we were like, this isn't quite graphic enough.
00:43:25
Speaker
And then the giant collection is, you know, those were real as well.
00:43:30
Speaker
The cooking jars.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
Amazing.
00:43:33
Speaker
What some, I mean, no spoilers, but one piece turns out to be fake.
00:43:40
Speaker
Obviously that's disappointing for the character who owns it, but maybe it's also a humbling sort of learning experience.
00:43:48
Speaker
I wonder if you can relate to that experience somehow or sort of where the emotional foundation for that comes from.
Emotional and Narrative Value of Objects
00:43:58
Speaker
Oh, of course.
00:43:59
Speaker
I mean, I think that that is if you didn't have one of those moments at the end of this film, I think you'd be almost disappointed as a as a viewer, because that's why we watch the road show.
00:44:12
Speaker
Of course, we watch for the storytelling, but we also want to know what the value is.
00:44:17
Speaker
And we're kind of all clutching our pearls until we get there.
00:44:20
Speaker
And so it's fun to see kind of.
00:44:23
Speaker
one of them has to explode in your face.
00:44:25
Speaker
But my, my grandmother, who I adored, got married seven times and she had these Indonesian figurines from her, I want to say fourth honeymoon.
00:44:39
Speaker
And so we were all convinced that they were worth a ton of money.
00:44:44
Speaker
And then when Keith and I went to the road show ourselves, we went Palm Springs one year, we, we,
00:44:52
Speaker
we brought them and they, uh, they were not worth anything, but they were worth a hundred dollars.
00:44:57
Speaker
But, you know, at the end of the day, it's really just like an opportunity for me to tell you how much I love my grandmother and what a wild ride she was and what a fun person she was.
00:45:08
Speaker
And so there's no loss.
00:45:10
Speaker
And I think the, uh, the value of the, of the object, not being, you know, the financial, the,
00:45:19
Speaker
That's why we watch the feedback booth at the end of the roadshow where people are say, you know, well, I thought this was going to be worth $2,000, but it was $20.
00:45:28
Speaker
And I came here and, and I had a great time.
00:45:31
Speaker
And that's what, that's what we hope the audience will get from this film also.
00:45:38
Speaker
So for an audience like the Curious Objects audience, who are generally, I think, safe to say passionate about antiques, what would you hope for them to take away from this film about the objects that they treasure and the significance of those pieces in the broader cultural narrative?
00:46:00
Speaker
Well, the only thing that immediately comes to mind for me is this experience of the fire evacuation, which will then be history as listeners are listening in the future.
00:46:13
Speaker
But when I was driving away and on the phone with Marissa, I really wasn't thinking about the
00:46:23
Speaker
the houses much or the furniture.
00:46:26
Speaker
It was the pieces that were tied to my own history and identity and the things that were tied to the loved ones that were no longer with us.
00:46:35
Speaker
So it really was my grandfather's cufflink collection.
00:46:40
Speaker
It really was
00:46:41
Speaker
The pictures that I drew as a second grader that Mrs. Gibbons, who really was a very influential person in my life, would grade with an A plus to encourage me to keep drawing and writing, you know, and that I really give her testament to the career path that I took in the rest of my life was this one teacher on one day.
00:47:03
Speaker
And the prospect of, you know, you're watching the flames behind your head as you're driving away thinking you'll never be back home, that it's those things, those touchstones, those talismans that connect us that –
00:47:18
Speaker
potential of them evaporating and not being able to have them again.
00:47:23
Speaker
It was the weight of the meaning that those objects had in my own personal life that overshadowed any other material possession.
00:47:32
Speaker
It wasn't about their monetary value, really.
00:47:34
Speaker
Honestly, it really was about the emotional and spiritual value that they had.
00:47:43
Speaker
I would say, you know, listeners of this podcast, like this movie is for you.
00:47:48
Speaker
It's really a love letter to people like I want to say us.
00:47:53
Speaker
And it's just a lot of fun.
00:47:56
Speaker
I think that it's a lot of fun about a very specific world and a world that we all treasure.
00:48:03
Speaker
And I just hope you enjoy it.
00:48:05
Speaker
That would be meaningful for us.
Theatrical Release and Theater Experience
00:48:09
Speaker
So for listeners who are now sold and want to see this movie, when and how can they do that?
00:48:18
Speaker
The movie's going to be coming out in theaters.
00:48:21
Speaker
We are waiting to announce the official release date, but it'll be probably sometime in November.
00:48:28
Speaker
So we can't wait for people to
00:48:32
Speaker
go to theaters and have an experience.
00:48:34
Speaker
I just to expand on that, I think you films are really targeted for people who care about things who have the attention span in the depth.
00:48:48
Speaker
I think Hollywood is really underestimated what viewers are hungry for.
00:48:53
Speaker
And I think if you have a passion for this subject matter, you have a passion for storytelling and there's something that, um,
00:49:02
Speaker
can't really be replaced by the communal experience of going to the theater and seeing something for the first time.
00:49:09
Speaker
So in terms of preservation, Keith and I really care about preserving the theater experience.
00:49:18
Speaker
So it'll first start out there and to be followed by streaming.
00:49:24
Speaker
Well, Keith and Marissa, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.
00:49:29
Speaker
It's been a lot of fun and a huge congratulations on the film, which again, I just adored.
00:49:36
Speaker
And I can't wait for it to come out this fall.
00:49:40
Speaker
It's going to be very exciting to see the kind of momentum that that builds around this little funny little world that we all care about.
00:49:49
Speaker
Thanks for such a joyful conversation.
00:49:55
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with web support from Sarah Bellotta.
00:50:00
Speaker
Christine Hildebrand is our digital media and editorial associate.
00:50:04
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:50:06
Speaker
And I'm Ben Miller.