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1951 - Peacenik From Space
68 Plays3 months ago
The 1950s properly arrive with UFO movies and loud method acting! This episode we cover Stanley Kubrick's debut documentary short, Marlon Brando ushering in a whole new type of actor, Klaatu's plan for world peace, Billy Wilder's cynical take on exploitative news, a Disney animated movie that is NOT about drugs, Humphrey Bogart belt acting, and the romantic ideal of dancing in Paris.
You can watch along with our video version of the episode here on Youtube!
You can check out our social media crap here: http://linktr.ee/1w1y
And you can watch and form your own opinions from our 1951 Films Discussed playlist right here!
00:00:00 - Intro
00:03:08 - The News of the Year
00:04:23 - Day of the Fight
00:10:21 A Streetcar Named Desire
00:33:40 - The Day the Earth Stood Still
01:02:41 - Ace in the Hole
01:20:42 - Alice in Wonderland
01:33:50 - The African Queen
01:49:15 - An American in Paris
02:07:03 - Favorites and Outro
See you next year!
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Transcript
Introductions and Remote Recording
00:00:03
Speaker
Can't you hear me, Ella? You're putting me through, Ella. Stella. Stella! Well then hello and welcome to One Week, One Year, podcast where we watch and discuss every year film history in order, starting in 1895, the dawn of cinema. This episode is 1951. I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist, and joining me as always is...
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm Glenn Covail. I'm a filmmaker. And we are back to recording remotely again. It's true. last couple of times we ended up actually doing it both doing it in your apartment both times.
00:00:42
Speaker
Yeah. that was that was nice. we're Back to back to the screen. now we're back to ah a couple milliseconds more delay between us, but also on the flip side, a soundboard.
00:00:56
Speaker
Which I try and have restraint and not use. So it all evens out. ah What's up, Glenn? What's going on? ah Not a
Glenn's Screenplay and Chris's Training
00:01:06
Speaker
whole lot. Still looking for work. But I i finished the first draft of a ah short screenplay last night. So that's that's fun. Last night?
00:01:17
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. Feels good to to finish something, even in a rough ah form. but But out of that roughness, you shape something, you hone it. Yeah, yeah. To the most crystallized screenplay that there is. It's about ah about crystals. Not about crystals, about rats, but yeah. It's called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Rat.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. i e if we're talking about movie related stuff, because who cares about whatever else is going on in our lives. ah We're talking about movie related stuff. I just ah got back from Dallas, Texas, where I was going for to to be become certified and trained in barcode projector technician stuff. So I took a projector and stripped it down to its parts and then put it back together again.
00:02:11
Speaker
And that's it's pretty cool. pretty cool. Learned about um how the power flows from the distributors into the laser modules and then out to a laser module.
00:02:23
Speaker
They have laser driver modules, LDMs, they call them. um And yeah, that's for, you know, the new newfangled laser projectors. They got a different type of light source.
00:02:36
Speaker
But anyway, movie stuff. ah Well, we are a film history podcast and we we talk about films from history. So,
1951 Historical Context and Pop Culture
00:02:45
Speaker
ah but but we like to give ourselves a little bit ah more context. We like to kind of say, like, what's happening in 1951? Like, what was in the air? Hey, what's happening?
00:02:57
Speaker
they They invented that phrase in 1951. What's happened? But we like to give ourselves a little bit more context. So, Glenn, will you take it away with the news? Oh, sure The news of the year, 1951.
00:03:10
Speaker
The Constitution is amended, restricting presidents to two terms. Duck and cover no more. the first hydrogen bomb is tested in the Marshall Islands.
00:03:21
Speaker
Soviet pups Dezek and Zagan are launched into space on an R-1 rocket. Waitless for four minutes and safely landed back on Earth. Good boys. The UN convenes in Geneva to define international laws on refugees and seeking of asylum.
00:03:36
Speaker
A blue-colored sun rises over Europe, tinged by forest fires in Canada months earlier. Treaties officially end the Eastern and Western theaters of World War two Harnessing the atom, experimental breeder reactor EBR-1 comes online, the first nuclear power plant.
00:03:54
Speaker
TV in homes, Isle of Lucy's first episode debuts on television. Also, I Love Lucy, first episode, shot our old friend of the podcast. What's his name?
00:04:06
Speaker
See, didn't look this time, but it's Carl Freund.
00:04:12
Speaker
also i i love lucy first episode shot by our old patv not friend of the friend of the podcast um what's his name i see i didn't i didn't look this up ahead of time but it's um carlo carlare That's right.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. He's Freund of the podcast. Yes. Yeah. Making ah universal monster pictures and also ah Love Lucy. So we
Kubrick's Early Work and Brando's Influence
00:04:38
Speaker
um occasionally will throw a couple short films and in there. This time we've got one. It's ah it's a quite a notable one, though. It's the debut of a little guy called Stanley Kubrick.
00:04:51
Speaker
Indeed. So that's One Week, One Reel. And this is called The Day of the Fight. Yeah, a a documentary short. Sort of newsreel adjacent, I guess. It's not quite a newsreel. Yeah, it's like a little documentary portrait. It's the type of subject matter that you might see in a newsreel. But I think it's like maybe approached little more artfully. It's ah art sort of a bit a human interest newsreel.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I think that like, you know, this is called The Day of the Fight. It's about a boxer, but it focuses mainly on the day that he leads leading up to the right fight. It's him like going going to lunch and like getting ready. and yeah Yeah, it's interesting, though. like It creates a kind of good like sense of tension, I think, um because they have an and like a narrator who is kind of Either adding in their own musings about anticipation and life and death and all that kind of stuff. ah Or, you know, potentially like interpolating some of the things that the boxer has said. There points where the narrator says, like talks about how he finds the waiting
00:06:06
Speaker
all day like he gets up and then it's kind of agony of of waiting and time slows down up until the moment that uh the fight begins and i think that's like a it's like an interesting thing to focus on it's an interesting aspect of boxing that i feel like it's not really yeah explored often rather than i explored this specifically at least it is like an interesting little documentary short I feel like definitely the most notable thing about it is that it's just the first thing that Stanley Kubrick ever directed that like has his name on it.
'A Streetcar Named Desire' Themes and Impact
00:06:36
Speaker
Right. He started more as like a a photographer and you can kind of see some, I know, some of the framing is like very distinctive, I guess. It's like, you can tell there's real thought being put into it, but also like, i don't know, I don't watch this and I'm like, oh man, you can totally tell that like the guy who made the shining made this. It's like, nah, this is just a fifties little documentary thing. Yeah, I mean, you know, like I think like you're saying, it's like ah maybe a bit more elegantly composed, like like I would say like 15% more elegantly composed than you would expect something ah else like this. sure
00:07:10
Speaker
But it's not like, wow, we saw a glimmer of the the filmmaking genius. yeah Yeah. But I think also like especially early, the early Kubrick stuff I've seen, you can kind of see a little bit more of that like kind of documentary-esque background or like his sort of like street photography background coming through a bit I mean, the his second feature film, right? Second?
00:07:33
Speaker
I think is is also about a boxer. So it's like that's clearly something that he had an interest in. Yeah, I feel like I don't have a ah whole lot to say about this, but it's cool. I have often wondered about what the deal is with the cinematic obsession with boxers.
00:07:48
Speaker
like I think it's just it's just inherently kind of, it's like people punching each other. that's That's pretty cinematic. Like the the the the lighting of it, it's in this like very contained like square space.
00:08:01
Speaker
I guess, but it's like, you know, I think I feel this way about, and maybe these are just things that I might not particularly resonate with otherwise, but like the idea of like these two professions, like boxing and cowboy, like being like entire genres of movie. It's like, right. Why don't they have barista movies? Why don't they have zookeeper movies? You know, except for the Kevin James. Because baristas zookeepers aren't going around fighting people. That's why.
00:08:29
Speaker
But like, you know, you can find tension in all sorts of situations. Oh, no argument here. Yeah. And and like, you know, it is interesting that it's like a well that people keep returning to very specifically.
00:08:43
Speaker
I think it's low hanging fruit. you know, it's like it's it's easier to up for that. It's easier to inject the drama into the story of two people getting into a ring and punching each other's lights out than is to be, you know, necessarily about ah ah a barista. But...
00:09:00
Speaker
bringing it back to this, this short film, this short film isn't really about the fighting at all. It's about the, the going to coffee shops part. So I think one of my favorite moments from the movie Creed is when it feels like reminiscent of the sort of three boxing match jitters that this jitters or just kind of feelings that this movie, uh, touches on, which is like the moment where he's like about to go out.
00:09:32
Speaker
He's got like his boxing gloves, like taped to his hands. And then he's just suddenly like, get my, get my gloves off. Cut my gloves off. I gotta take a shit. And like, And it just feels like it's like such a a real moment in, you know, a sort of a heightened movie. And I feel like I think it's like an incredible moment in in the movie. Yeah, I do remember that moment really sticking out to me also. And I think that it gets called back in one or both of the sequels to where it's like.
00:10:00
Speaker
he has to He has to take a shit before every fight. That's like his thing. I haven't seen any of the sequels. I might be misremembering, but I feel like I have a memory of that coming back up in one of the other movies. Well, shall we move on to our feature presentation?
00:10:14
Speaker
Sure. And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.
00:10:21
Speaker
I think one that we can start out with maybe that feels like it evokes a kind of Kubrickian hostility is Streetcar Named Desire, maybe. be Okay, yeah.
00:10:36
Speaker
Definitely there's ah there's a little Jack Torrance in ah in Marlon Brando's performance. But whatever. Anyway, quick summary, ah because honestly, like I'd seen that Simpsons... I've seen the Simpsons episode... about this movie probably a dozen times and I never really picked up much of what actually happens in the movie but then once I watched the movie and then re-watched the Simpsons episode I was like ah it has all the beats in it okay but um yeah Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans. There's kind of a lot of mystery about her past. She hops on a streetcar named Desire to get to, which is a real streetcar, which is kind of wild. But it wasn't a real streetcar, right? I think even by the time movie came out, it wasn't like in service. At the time that it was written, it was a real streetcar.
00:11:26
Speaker
Right. And then it's went out of service within a couple of years. But she's um visiting her sister, or at least like there are mysterious reasons why she has ah had to leave town ah from their old kind of plantation home. And she keeps not really filling in the details, but feeling like a lot of kind of caginess and guilt about it.
00:11:49
Speaker
She moves into a small apartment with her younger sister and ah her new daughter. brother-in-law played by Marlon Brando. It's a Vivian Lee who is desire or not desire Blanche, um which ah the streetcar is named desire. She is named. She plays a streetcar.
00:12:10
Speaker
Her sister is Stella, and then her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is immediately very distrustful of her. There's lot in the beginning of the movie of, like, this back and forth of, like, everybody is kind of like a bad person in some way, but then, like,
00:12:28
Speaker
at some moments somebody's being a bit worse of a person and you're kind of like ah back and forth, like whose side you're on a little bit. And eventually more and more of Blanche's history starts coming out and her kind of pure image that she has presented of herself is is kind of cracking in in particular ways that make her departure seem under much more forced circumstances. And also, ah more and more is revealed of these kind of like psychological issues that she's having having sort of ah as a result of all of this.
00:13:05
Speaker
It sort of ends with, i don't know, like a sort of confrontation, I suppose, between Blanche and Stanley over ah but all of her lies, basically. And she kind of is creating a torrent in the in the already torrential lives of these people. And she ends up getting...
00:13:26
Speaker
kicked out kicked to the curb not just kicked out but institutionalized that's right yeah sent away to the to the the asylum which in the 1950s was uh not not a great fate if you if you've seen the movie shutter island you might get a i don't I don't get the sense you're being sent to Shutter Island, but... I mean, she yeah a very kind stranger brought her there. so Right. Yeah, this um this movie is like a lot of just really rough stuff happening. Right.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's so it's ah it's a bad vibes movie, I would say. um i think it is good. I don't love it. I think it is... I don't know i like i like respect this movie a lot, even though I don't necessarily like...
00:14:12
Speaker
I don't really enjoy watching it, I guess. I think this is like the second time I've seen it. oh Okay. Yeah, I like, I think I am in a similar page with you. I think I might have liked it a bit better than you did. But um it is, i think there are parts of the movie that don't fully come together for me. But like, I can look at it and go like, what's happening here is very like complex character work. and like complex theming that is happening. Like a lot of things that it's talking about, a lot of like sort of ambivalence toward right and wrong that the movie has.
00:14:47
Speaker
There are no heroes in this movie, really. Like like everybody, say so ah pretty much everybody is kind of sick and they end up sicker by the end of the movie. Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
I mean, there's I think there's a lot in this movie about like class and about... like ah Yeah, it's a layered to text, for sure. I mean, like Stanley and Stella like have a very clearly like abusive relationship.
00:15:14
Speaker
Stella being maybe like the purest person in the movie, she is completely doesn't mind being... ah abused basically and just goes right back to him every time yeah i i think it's a it's a pretty i mean it's a maybe slightly oversimplified depiction of it but i do think it's a generally pretty good like depiction of of kind of like domestic abuse and kind of like the cyclical nature of that yeah yeah i guess i shouldn't say like doesn't mind per se but like i think like right it's like it's very it's very defensive of stanley when blanche is like calling out it's like hey this guy sucks and is like really violent and scary and he's like ah that's just how he is yeah like i'm over it stop complaining you know yeah but then also is like
00:16:05
Speaker
Right, will run away to the upstairs neighbor. Leading to the iconic scene in the where the where Marlon Brando's going, Stella!
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah. heysella He's got to go outside and yell upstairs. Yeah. Speaking of Marlon Brando, I think he really stands out in this movie. Oh, sure. Yeah. he It really feels like he, just with this performance, is ushering in like a brand new form of acting that we have not seen anything before. It's kind of revelatory, I think. Right. Well, it is like...
00:16:42
Speaker
he didn't invent method acting, you know, he didn't necessarily like invent any of this stuff, but this does feel like a real kind of turning point in kind of Hollywood movies.
00:16:53
Speaker
Whereas like we've, Not really, i mean, we haven't watched every movie up to this point, but certainly in like the you know the broad sort of like popular big stuff that we've been watching. We've never really seen a performance like this or kind of character presented in quite the same way.
00:17:10
Speaker
like I do feel like Merlin Brando, specifically Merlin Brando's performance in this movie, did sort of create a shift in like performance style and also kind of somewhat, at least helped create, I think, along with... um James Dean, which we haven't gotten to yet.
00:17:26
Speaker
Kind of a whole, like, don't know, like, type of leading man actor and performance and character that I think is still pretty, like, persistent now.
00:17:38
Speaker
Like, the idea of this, like, very, like, internal, don't know, the the idea of the kind of, like, the the method actor who's, like, really intense and and like will like push himself really far. And that, I don't know, like I think before this, right like leading man actors in Hollywood are this are like much more the kind of, and the Cary Grant type, the Jimmy Stewart's, the kind of more like friendly, even if they're playing like difficult characters or villains even, have this kind of public image of like poise and and polish.
00:18:11
Speaker
And then Mullen Brennan comes up and is like chewing food in every scene and talking through it. And he's like, he's like, rumbling, ripping his shirt off. And everyone's like, whoa, holy shit.
00:18:23
Speaker
And I think that's almost still like an image of like, this is what acting is. Right. But I don't think it's not just intensity. It's, it's, it's like realism, you know? Right. Yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
Which is like, unway I think ah like a theme in this movie too, of like, Right. he His performance is like so juxtaposed against like his performance and his character juxtaposed against Blanche.
00:18:46
Speaker
who I think is... She's putting together things. She's got an image, right? like Right. But I think even, like, the performance of that character is much more of a kind of, don't know, 1940s-style performance. Yeah. I think pretty much pretty much everybody else is performing yeah in the way that most other movies are performed, or most other actors perform. And then, like, Marlon Brando just sticks way out. Yeah. like In a way that feels very nineteen fifty s like this, like...
00:19:15
Speaker
nineteen fifty s sort of like leading like young leading man actor who's like really intense is like to me it just seems like a very 1950s thing yeah yeah like and he feels like plucked out of reality right like he feels like a kind of like shitty boyfriend ah like but a real a real shitty boyfriend right now yeah like the way that he kind of like holds himself the way that he like leans against things it's like it's all green leaning in this movie Yeah, yeah.
00:19:45
Speaker
It's all these like subtle ways where he like, yeah, he just brings a ridiculous level of realism to this character. And I think even like, there are some ways that you can tell that like, yeah, he's ripping his shirt off. Like there is something that is
'The Day the Earth Stood Still' Analysis
00:19:57
Speaker
like a little heightened about what he's doing. It's not like, i feel like there has been like a more recent, maybe in the last like 30 years or so or 40 years sort of thing to say like, you know, have people sometimes stumble over their speech or say things like,
00:20:13
Speaker
incorrectly and then correct themselves. Like it's an occasional thing that people do to sort of bring like a realism to a script that doesn't feel so written, you know? ah And it feels like that is, this is like the equivalent of that from the um As yeah I aside briefly like briefly mentioned, he's eating in a lot of his scenes. He's like talking with his mouth full.
00:20:35
Speaker
um And also Brando just in general is you know not known for his like clear speech. he's like He's a very mumbly actor. Yeah. um And that does feel that feels very weird in this i'm just for this time period. like That wasn't really a thing people did.
00:20:53
Speaker
no that much like it was like no you're on screen like talk clearly and he was like mobileh blah blah but you know and it's just like it and that's i don't know i'm sort of of two minds about it because it it does feel more real and like i do think it's a really strong performance but there's there's a line that blanche says where she says i don't want realism i want magic sort of reflecting her character like her character is very much like in denial about herself in denial about the world she occupies is like very repressed. Whereas like Stanley's entirely not repressed. He has zero repression. He has zero chill.
00:21:27
Speaker
Zero chill, zero ah like inhibition. i got the sense maybe that like the, there's like a theme in this movie of that, of almost like we're trying to give you as an audience, like realism in a way that you haven't experienced before in a movie, which I think this movie is doing.
00:21:46
Speaker
And like, I, There's definite appeal to that. I think, you know, movies need to have some semblance of realism to them. But don't know. More and more, I'm sort of drawn to stuff that, like, actively pushes realism away. Sure.
00:21:59
Speaker
i mean I mean, you know, maybe there's like a maybe you know, ah to now is the time to swing back a little bit. But, like, you know, if we're looking at this in the context of the 40s and it's like...
00:22:11
Speaker
we're watching the beginning of something different, I think. Yeah, yeah. Which is really neat. You you mentioned like the the kind of, you know, Blanche's sort of delusions about herself. It's interesting how in this movie, like Blanche and ah Stanley are both...
00:22:29
Speaker
like monstrous people but they're monstrous people in like completely different ways one is a sort of outburst-y monstrous person another one is like a ah reserved kind of not even intentional but like i like like i don't think she's scheming but she like ah Definitely hiding things and being deliberate about like the way that she presents herself. And she knows that some of the things that she is inclined to do are you know something to be frowned upon and hides those things. Something that I had no idea about going into this movie and was quite...
00:23:12
Speaker
you know surprising, is to find out that the main character of the movie is a pedophile, you know? Like, that is a wild turn. And, like, we find out that more or less that is the reason why she lost her job and had to leave town, was that people, ah she was a high school English teacher and she got in trouble for getting with, like, a 17-year-old, you know? I mean, that'll do it Yeah.
00:23:42
Speaker
This movie, yeah, it's just it's just a lot of rough people that are bouncing off each other. And also a lot of rough people who, like, have a hard time not being rough, right? Like, Stanley can't stop himself from being the way that he is. Blanche, when she sees paperboy, she's just like, kiss me on the mouth. Yeah.
00:24:05
Speaker
It's true. I think I really i like about this movie is it feels it' like Blanche and Stanley immediately are like at odds with each other. Like, very antagonistic the entire time. um And it does feel like both of them...
00:24:20
Speaker
even though they don't like each other, they both kind of like see, each see through each other's like bullshit really quickly. Like Blanche, she's Stanley and Amelia is like, this guy is like a brute. Like this guy is, is he's, he's violent. He's angry. He's like all this stuff. And Stella's like, nice. You're like, I drink sometimes, but it's fine.
00:24:41
Speaker
And then Stanley immediately is like, she's lying to you. Like, she's a liar. Like, she is not on the up and up. And, like, they both have this thing where, like, they immediately kind of, like, see into the, like, heart of the other person.
00:24:54
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And so, like, there's a weird, like, intimacy that those two characters have of just, like, seeing each other, even though there's, there's like, so much intensity and, like, violence between them also.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, you know, their relationship culminates in, you know, a supposed violent intimacy, right? Yeah.
00:25:20
Speaker
Like, I actually, honestly, when I was watching the movie, did not put this together until afterward. I think it might be a little more explicit in the play that like... I believe so, yeah. it It is more explicitly hinted at in the play, but not like... I think that neither of them...
00:25:37
Speaker
fully tells you whether this happened or not. But there's like, it's like heavily implied that at this kind of crescendo of argument and tension and violence that Stanley rapes Blanche, you know, it's like a, it's like a really heavy thing to put, to, to put in there. It's also, it like coincides with this moment where,
00:26:02
Speaker
her mind entirely breaks. and ah And, it ah is coinciding also with this moment of everybody finding out like how much of a piece of shit she is and just taking her out of their lives. And so the ambiguity, I guess, is like, did she like go all the way from kooky to insane asylum as a result of her, uh,
00:26:30
Speaker
entire life crashing down or was it as a result of, you know, this kind of interaction with Stanley? It doesn't comment on it. And I kind of just assumed the former because I just didn't pick up on the, the hint that it was dropping, but it's definitely the film kind of ends with like the way that maybe these like,
00:26:51
Speaker
horrible people. I mean, there there isn't like a comeuppance so much. Stanley and Stella go back to their abusive lives together and Blanche is taken off to an asylum after she has almost gone catatonic.
00:27:09
Speaker
And yeah, some... i don't know. i don't really know what to say about it except it's just rough. that the The movie kind of ends on a a slightly more... I guess hopeful note of like the movie ends with Stella...
00:27:23
Speaker
with her newborn baby running into the other, the upstairs apartment, which we've seen before. And we've seen her like come back from that before. i feel like that, uh, apparently in the play, that's like, it's the play is much more of a kind of like, this is, this cycle is going to continue.
00:27:40
Speaker
Whereas I think the movie is like kind of trying to push a little bit more towards like, maybe, maybe this whole thing with her sister is going to break Stella out of her like abusive cycle.
00:27:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Which I think is sort of how this movie gets away with. Like, this movie does feel as like a code era movie. Like, it is. It's dealing with such heavy, dark subject matter and yet still kind of getting away with it. I guess mostly just by doing it all just through implication.
00:28:08
Speaker
Yeah, a one aspect of this movie that was cut out from the play that um was definitely code related is that like another kind of part of Blanche's past that is revealed is it in both versions is that her previous husband had killed himself.
00:28:29
Speaker
um And it had sort of happened as a result of an interaction with her. And like she takes she feels blame for it, or like blames herself for it.
00:28:39
Speaker
In the movie, it's like, we had an argument, and then he shot himself. And in the play, it is, i caught him with another man and told him he should be ashamed of himself, and then he shot himself. yeah That is definitely something that...
00:28:57
Speaker
would not be able to make it into this movie. But it it it feels like another kind of layer in like Blanche's sort of status-obsessed cruelty, I guess.
00:29:08
Speaker
Right, yeah. Her like self-imposed image of like the Southern Belle and like what that... And it's like almost that being kind of like stripped away from her is almost like as she loses that kind of like center of who she is.
00:29:25
Speaker
And it's even like other people bringing up stuff where it's like, oh, ah you don't live in like a plantation anymore. And she's like, no, but I did. I'm a Southern belle. That's who I am. She creates an image for herself that like nobody would be able to live up to, let alone somebody ah who has so many proclivities for cruelty yeah as her. Also, and know I don't think we mentioned Vivian Lee from ah Gone with the Wind playing another Southern Belle.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah. Kind of funny that it's like the two, the two like biggest depictions of like the Southern Belle character archetype are both Vivian Lee. Yeah. ah I was disappointed we didn't get any Cajun accents in this movie. that Sure. Yeah. We got the, oh, I'm i' just Blanche DuBois. Yeah. Which even that I also like as much as, you know, I think my own brand new performance is sort of exemplary of a certain type of like capital A acting.
00:30:21
Speaker
right i feel like baby and lee is also you know the sort of like i'm doing an accent and just being like very there's a lot of like affectation to her character and to her performance but like yeah and that is also one of those things where it's like the the i don't the the two poles the two kind of like opposite be equal like pop are you referencing how stanley kowalski is polish no the two poles oh no i i thought that was interesting Yeah, yeah, totally.
00:30:52
Speaker
And I mean, I think that it like that their their acting styles emphasize the the different things that are going on with these characters where like Brando's realism emphasizes Blanche's constructedness and Blanche's yeah kind of classic Hollywood acting emphasizes ah Stanley's roughness.
00:31:14
Speaker
So, yeah, it's good. Oh, I was going to talk about Ilya Kazan, but we've been talking a little bit ah about the blacklist. ah We've touched on it. Was there something that you wanted to say?
00:31:25
Speaker
Just that Ilya Kazan is sort of ah a divisive figure due to his um involvement in McCarthyism. but what What did he do related to the blacklist? you not know about this? Okay, I guess we got to get into it then.
00:31:41
Speaker
Lee Kazan, director of Strickland and Desire. Also, I mean, also, i think deserves a lot of credit for sort of like popularizing like the kind of like method acting in Hollywood stuff.
00:31:53
Speaker
I think it was like a year or two after this movie named named names to the House Un-American Activities Board. Yikes. And ah made made some enemies in Hollywood due to that.
00:32:07
Speaker
I know that like ah Orson Welles in some later interview called him a traitor and pointed out that like Ali Kazan could could work in in New York, like could still get work in New York in theater, while a lot of the people that he ah he named were like Hollywood screenwriters and like they're out of work.
00:32:27
Speaker
Definitely lost some friends over over that. um I think like a thing that Kazan sort of tried to defend himself with is like, he only named people that he knew on what Huac already knew about.
00:32:40
Speaker
So he was like, I'm not telling them anything they don't already know, but it's still like, I can definitely see people feeling very betrayed by him. Sure. And then when he got he got an honorary your Oscar in like the early ninety s I want to say. And there's like clips where you see like there's a lot of people in the audience who are not applauding. Oh, very distinctly.
00:32:58
Speaker
That's right. I remember. I remember this. Yeah. um But it's funny that even like I think in that same interview where Welles calls him a traitor, he like acknowledges like very good director, though.
00:33:09
Speaker
Like I got to I got to at least give him props for how good of a director he is. So I'm interested to like, I've seen a couple other leaks and movies and I'm, I'm curious, I guess just like with that knowledge of like, I don't know if it really applies to this movie at all, but some historical context outside of the news segment. That's what we're here for.
00:33:32
Speaker
Another movie that feels very distinctly 1950s in a way that I don't think we've really seen yet on the show is The Day the Earth Stood Still.
00:33:43
Speaker
Klaatu Barada Nikto. Directed by Robert Wise. Yeah. ah UFO picture. Last seen by us as the editor of Citizen Kane, but ah going to be going on to some more movies that we will surely cover. Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
Very notable director. What a picture. Yeah. I mean, this is our first like proper like 50s flying saucer movie. it It is like so immediately, like from the beginning, like, look at this flying saucers. Right. i mean, it's like this movie is like setting the standard for a 1950s alien movie.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. I guess kind of this and The Thing from Another World, which we didn't watch for the show, but I've seen before. so we can kind of maybe integrate some of that into the discussion. don't Have you seen the original the original The Thing? No.
00:34:32
Speaker
No, I've only seen the 2011 one. Oh, no. It's funny because that movie also feel like ah has some like unusual, like naturalistic acting in it, too.
00:34:46
Speaker
But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about Klaatu. um yeah Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the score, which is like right off the bat, you were just getting like theremin boom in your face. Like, yeah, this is this is a 50s sci fi movie. If ever there was one.
00:35:03
Speaker
It's kind of wild. Yeah. Just like looking at the looking at the robot. Gorf Gorf Gorf Gorf. ah gop um and its and And the spaceship, the the music, the the vibes, it all is just like, I mean, it's it's interesting because this movie has aesthetics that I think that we have associated with 50s sci-fi schlock, but it kind of has ambitions, you know? it's yeah i don't think it's like a low effort movie like a lot of those no not at all things like that. There are things about it that are campy, but maybe there can't be more in retrospect, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think so.
00:35:45
Speaker
little, uh, little synopsis is that, uh, in a flying saucer lands in Washington, DC ah gasp and yeah. yeah Oh my God. Um,
00:35:59
Speaker
Right, this this is a real Washington, D.C. movie. Yes, yes it is. And I should mention, while we're talking about it, I'll mention that I did the Leonardo DiCaprio meme at the TV while was watching Every scene. They show a shot of the front of the National Gallery of Art, ah like, very briefly as the UFOs landing. and I was like, that's my work! That's my work! like I was like, I walk up those stairs sometimes! Yeah! Perfect. And so, like, you know, the the the whole the military gets called. A man pops out, who we later to learn is named Klaatu, and the the army immediately shoots him.
00:36:40
Speaker
um But he's like, hey, I'm here to communicate with you. Like, I'm from another planet. I've got my robot here. Let's let's talk. So like right off the bat, there's there's tension. The army is not not doing a great job at first contact. And so Klaatu sort of escapes the hospital he's sort of being held at by the army and goes undercover as just the, ah ah you know, traveling weirdo. Yeah. And a sets up shop in, like ah I guess, like a boarding house or like an apartment building where he befriends ah the people living there.
00:37:14
Speaker
um And he's sort of like, teach me about your your ways. teach you know it it It is revealed that he is there to sort of like, I guess, sort of give Earth and humanity as a collective species a bit of an ultimatum. Be like, all the other planets...
00:37:30
Speaker
realize that you're making atomic bombs now and that's not cool and because you've done that and you're also building rockets that can reach other planets soon it's not just your problem anymore it's going to be all of our problems and so if you want to continue living you're going to have to follow our rules enforced by our race of invincible robots that we built to police ourselves and if and if you don't like it too bad And it's, i I think the sentiment of this movie is something I agree with, which is sort of like, humanity needs to collectively get their shit together and work together and like figure stuff out.
00:38:09
Speaker
I think the movie's presentation of sort of like, and this could be enforced with a impartial ah android race that will just vaporize you if you make a mistake.
00:38:23
Speaker
is maybe a little, I have some issues with that, with this sort of like interplanetary ah policing system. But overall, I think this movie is, ah as it's just a piece of like speculative fiction, is is very good.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, it it's ah along those lines, it feels extremely of its moment. Like this is a movie yeah that that is coming out a few years after the atom bomb was dropped and and a couple years into the Cold War.
00:38:56
Speaker
And already we get something that is just so fascinating. thoroughly Cold War influenced. Like, they snapped into a different era of existence so quickly ah right that this movie just fully exists in an era that is not even resembling pre-World War II. is kind of interesting that we started with the two movies that I feel like feel feel the most distinctly I think there are a couple other movies that were watched from this year that...
00:39:25
Speaker
If you told me it came out in like 1947 to 1949, I'd totally believe it. Whereas like this and Streetcar are both like they they could not have existed any earlier.
00:39:39
Speaker
And they feel like real kind of like not as their turning point movies, but they're they're introducing like a whole new type of movie almost. True. Yeah. Yeah. A new type of like ah acting with ah Brando and a new type of just like kind of genre more or less. I mean, there are definitely yeah um definitely sci-fi movies, but this type of sci-fi movie. Yeah. And especially of like, right, there's been like space travel movies, but this like having like aliens arriving on earth and like to teach us lessons and to like, you know, they're being conflicted, but they're being cooperation. If there are previous examples of that, I'd...
00:40:15
Speaker
They're certainly not that well known. I don't think they take it to kind of the degree this does. I do think this is kind of an interesting counterpoint to the thing from another world also, because that is also about like an alien visiting Earth.
00:40:29
Speaker
That is like so the opposite of like that is a creature that is coming to murder us. That is like in very much presented as inhuman, whereas like Klaatu is just kind of a guy.
00:40:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think he has some like weird organs going on but when they scan him. They find some you know Doctor Who-type stuff going on inside of him. But yeah, like there's an interesting thing about this movie, which is like how um it is set in our nation's capital. It's an American movie, but it is a movie that...
00:41:02
Speaker
You know, it is trying to advocate for a better version of the world that definitely did not come about. And it and I don't think the movie necessarily thinks that it will come about. And so it has a surprisingly cynical perspective, I think. Like, it is trying to, it is a movie that is like about a guy trying to do the right thing and everybody stopping him the the entire time.
00:41:27
Speaker
And, you know, we can quibble about like the sort of sci-fi rationale and and method. for Right. I think i think the the lore maybe I have a couple notes on, but like the actual like thematics that this movie is presenting, I i agree with.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, like, so, like, you know, this is a movie about first contact where it immediately begins with violence. Like, there's someone who comes in peace. on From Earth, not from... from and yeah Yeah, and Earth and the Americans are too trigger-happy. They're too, like, they're too distrustful. And... it feels so, so pointed that, like, he comes out of the spaceship, he, like, takes something out of his pocket, and, like, the immediate response is, shoot him, shoot him, shoot him.
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah. It's like in so incredibly fearful, um which I would also like do the feelings of the era. sir Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's it's not entirely like right. And it's it's easy to watch this movie and be like, they're wrong. But it's also like it is it's a human instinct to be like to be defensive and to be fearful of the unknown.
00:42:29
Speaker
But like there is also a point in this movie where, you know, he kind of makes friends with a little boy who's like ah part of the boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Golly, Jesus, mister!
00:42:42
Speaker
um Such a, like, fifty s little boy with his, like, hat and his striped shirt, and he's just like, oh boy, i love airplanes!
00:42:52
Speaker
ah So, like, he's kind of babysitting this kid, and he takes him across... the uh like across the the landmarks of washington dc they go to the um the arlington memorial and they go to other like they go to all these spots and it is like the mr smith goes to washington montage uh except it's kind of like a meditation on america and the world's failures ah ah like instead of it is kind of like cool america right it's this place it's full of monuments with these like great quotes of leaders and like platitudes and
00:43:26
Speaker
And it is, I mean, especially right now, it feels it feels so hollow to, like, look at that stuff, I think. I mean, it feels hollow and adult it does feel hopeful. Like, it is, it's nice to have monuments to to ideals, like,
00:43:41
Speaker
But i like if you're not going to actually follow those ideals, what's the point of having the monuments a little bit? Sure. And think that movie is at least questioning. that It's sort of like asking that question a little bit. of like it's I mean, it's taking a surprisingly, quote-unquote, un-American stance for a movie that's coming out during... you know, the McCarthyism, right? The movie starts mounting more and more, more and more elements that make Klaatu basically space Jesus. um They start off with him taking the, assuming the identity of a carpenter. And I was like, well, no, his, his, his, his, uh, earth alias is Carpenter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His name is Carpenter. And, like, when when I saw Which I say it's more on the nose than that being his profession. But, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Um, the part where they're at the Arlington Memorial, he's talking about, like, he's just stunned at all of the death in front of him.
00:44:38
Speaker
And he's like, this is from war? Like, this is, how awful, you know? Yeah. And, and he is this, like, this peacenik from space. And, ah you know, along more with the Jesus stuff, there's a point where he dies and is resurrected. um that Like it, and he is like, you know, preaching this message that the like institutional powers cannot handle and they kill him for it. It is.
00:45:06
Speaker
and the, the, the moral of the movie, despite the kind of complicated lore, which we'll talk about is that like, we are doing things the wrong way and we have the capability of being peaceful, but are just choosing not to be.
00:45:18
Speaker
um Yeah. Right. Like right when Klaatu shows up, he's like talking to the, you know, the army generals or whatever. And he is like, hey, I'm from space. I'm here to talk to humanity. Like get all your leaders together. Like you have a UN n already. Like get everyone get like, you know, round up everybody. Like I got to talk to everyone at once. Like I'm not just going to talk to you.
00:45:40
Speaker
and they're like, well, i don't know. That could be a little complicated. Which, you know, as someone from Earth, I'm like, yeah, I bet. um And Klaatu was like, what what are you talking about? like what What better time is there to do this? I'm from space.
00:45:56
Speaker
And he was like, whoa, whoa, you're being a little impatient, buddy. He goes, I'm impatient with stupidity, which is a great line. Also, to go off with like write all of the kind of like ah you know Christian symbolism in this movie, there's a moment where but after Klaatu returns, he's not really dead, they established. like, oh, no, he was like hibernating whatever.
00:46:15
Speaker
Because then like the boy's mother, the sort of I forget her name. um She was like, oh, like, wow, like you have the technology to like come back from death. And he goes, no, no, no, no. Only the almighty spirit can do that. And I'm like, whoa, Klaatu, what?
00:46:28
Speaker
Hang on. Are you confirming the existence of a god? Like what? What's going on? Like Klaatu, you can't just drop that in the middle. of Like it's it's a really weird moment in this movie that seems like.
00:46:41
Speaker
That was put in because of Breen. Was it like definitively like brain was like, that has to be in there. He was supposed to, that's not how it reads to me. Is it sort of like, yeah, he was, he was supposed to just die and come back. Um, but they sort of like wanted to carve out a, um, like this is the realm of God where, and so they added this line and like before they shot it, which was that like,
00:47:10
Speaker
No, i like but it's not that he was hibernating. He did die. And then was just like, I'm able to come back for like a couple days, which is what Jesus did. But like, like, I'm able to come back for a couple days.
00:47:24
Speaker
But I am dead. I will die. i will die fully soon. But like, yeah, that that line about the Almighty Spirit, ah definitely like, it's just like, You're not allowed to have people come back from the dead. It definitely read to me as sort of like, not necessarily being forced upon the movie, but sort of like the writing being like taking a pretty like explicitly like Christian stance on like the concept of life and death.
00:47:49
Speaker
well But i'm also in doing so, introducing lore into this movie that is insane. I don't know. I mean, I don't think they're taking a specifically Christian stance. There's a reason why he didn't say God and why he said the Almighty Spirit. But it's also combined with all of the other stuff. That's sort of how it and know was my takeaway.
00:48:07
Speaker
I don't think so. I think that I mean, I don't think they're trying to do anything Christian specifically with the Jesus symbolism. I think they're trying to emphasize that he is, is right. He's like, why are you booing me? I'm right. You know, yeah like,
00:48:23
Speaker
Like the the movie is trying to say like, hey, he is trying to do the right thing and he's getting punished for doing the right thing. Remind you of anybody? Remind you of somebody who you're supposed to be a fan of and now you want to bomb the Russians? You know, like like I think that's what the movie is doing with it. I don't i yeah i don't think it's trying to make a specifically Christian point. yeah there Speaking of him kind of being you know Christ-like and and everything, there's a point where Klaatu litters, and I'm just like, the woke alien is littering? Like, like come on.
00:48:56
Speaker
On his planet, the robots pick it all up. Yeah, um yeah. Who's to say? We should talk about the robots. ah which We got to we we got talk about Gort. Yeah. Gort iconic. Gort is an iconic robot first off. Yeah.
00:49:11
Speaker
Almost definitely going to be the thumbnail for this episode. We haven't actually mentioned that the yeah the actual title of the movie is referring to the fact that Klaatu stops like all technology except for hospitals and airplanes for a day.
00:49:26
Speaker
So it's like it is it is quite literal. It's like the day the earth stood still like stuff stopped moving. And he did this in order to... He was convening with some scientists. He he goodwill huntings ah an astrophysicist yeah to try and prove... Let me just make a solve some equations. Make a few notes here. Yeah. To try and like prove like, hey, I'm a legit alien and you should listen to me.
00:49:50
Speaker
Yeah. And he gets all the scientists together and they're like, I'm afraid that nobody's going to come together and hear you out, alien. We like we want to create some nonviolent way where you can where where you can like get the entire world's attention. He goes, I know.
00:50:08
Speaker
I'll make the Earth stand still. m and I can do that. It still makes everybody panicky and violent. Well, sure. i' surprised I do like how they specifically call out the, like, no, hospitals kept working. Like, airplanes in flight continued flying. Like...
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah. Because they'd have that question. like, hang on, Klaatu. Have you thought this through fully? And he did. He did. He's got magic alien powers. Right. But anyway, back to the the robot, which is how they say it in this movie.
00:50:40
Speaker
At least some of the time. Gort is the sort of like enforcer, the unspeaking giant android who has like a heat ray comes out of his face. Yeah, the only answer he doesn't speak. The only thing that he actually does is raise up his visor to go iron giant mode and just like vaporize some fools and then closes his visor once again. Yeah, very dispassionate killer. The only way to ah stop him is to, well, i don't know. In this specific very specific scenario is ah after Klaatu is dying, he tells, God, what's her name?
00:51:19
Speaker
The mom, Helen. He tells Helen ah to tell Gort Klaatu Barada Niktu. Nick toe.
00:51:30
Speaker
Nick toe. Excuse me. It's spelled with a U. So, Oh, is it? Excuse my, my space pronunciation. Maybe I said it wrong. i don't know. They say, Oh yeah. Oh, whatever. I'm not, and I'm not entirely sure of the specifics. It's spelled with an O. It's spelled with an Oh, well.
00:51:48
Speaker
Oh, well. Klaatu is spelled with a U. Yes. Yeah. Two A's. Which don't know. the The only other instance I think I've ever heard that line being spoken is in Army of Darkness. And it's have to say it to the Book of the Dead. But I guess it's yeah, it is just a thing that sort of has permeated pop culture. Like it's just it's it's around.
00:52:11
Speaker
I mean, like the the names Gort and Klaatu are some of the things that feel the most 50s sci-fi about this. The like the whole design of just being like a big guy who's made of metal who like clumps around and like has a big laser eye.
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's the, it's the um I mean, the the alien ship was, and we're getting a little distracted with from right now, but like the alien ship was partially like sort of designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And Gort's visual design is like a bit more of a kind of clean mid-century version of like Maria from Metropolis. I mean, i and they' in that they're both robots, sure. I don't know if there's that much similarity between their design. but They're not similar as much as, like I'm saying, like they're taking you know they're taking the robot from like a very different kind of design style. And he's kind of clean edges, just like like flat surfaces. No like kind of deco bells and whistles. Maria is very deco.
00:53:17
Speaker
Gort is very mid-century modern. But yes, anyway, so like it it it comes up at like at some point in the movie that like the the way that they have achieved this sort of like intergalactic peace is that Klaatu's planet found peace on their planet by creating a race. They call them a race of robots that kind of have this like zero tolerance policy for violence.
00:53:44
Speaker
ah like a kind of eye for an eye sort of situation, ah but not but more severe, I guess. yeah And ah it has basically, they come to their immediately Naturally, but also they know they have this thing hovering around that will stop them the moment that they think about some, you know, in any other way of being. And it sort of just through threats and fear forces them into doing the right thing, which, you know, again,
00:54:19
Speaker
1950s feels like this like metaphor for mutually assured destruction right right and i think as a metaphor it's sound as a metaphor for like right he has the line continue your present course and face destruction right Humanity, if we continue doing things the way we're doing in 1951, will likely destroy itself. That's the message to this movie is presenting.
00:54:46
Speaker
However, i think the idea of a just robot cops that kill people living under the the penalty of just like, well, you do something wrong, robot cops are going to show up and melt you.
00:54:58
Speaker
is like That's where i have I have some problems with that as a solution. As as an ethical solution. but Sure. but it But it is, I think, as with a lot of movies, I think you you have to kind of view it through the metaphorical lens.
00:55:13
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of problem with the movie. It only works through metaphor, I think, if you actually are trying to, like, unpack the reality of what that would be like. It's pretty terrible. I mean, it's taking the idea of a Cold War mutually assured destruction, which everybody is living in terror and it's not actually asking people to be any better.
00:55:31
Speaker
And it is saying, like, what if we had a mutually like what if we took the benefits of mutually assured destruction, as in we're not getting atom bombed right now and gave it to an indestructible, dispassionate third party? Yeah. Like maybe that would be the thing that would scare everybody into doing the right thing.
00:55:50
Speaker
And, you know, should clarify, it's not like, you know, you steal or something like that and he'll vaporize you. It's like... They're pretty vague about it. They're vague about it, but i think the implication is, like, don't be violent. Like, right the whole reason that Klaatu comes to Earth is, like, hey...
00:56:05
Speaker
You know, we were going to let you do your thing while you're here. but like now that you're capable of interstellar violence, ah now you have to live by these rules. He does have a line that I do really like, which is ah security for all or no one is secure, which I think is like that. That's all right. clat you i like I'm on board with that part.
00:56:25
Speaker
It is, you know, it's it's just playing a off of a lot of these ideas of like, yeah, self-defense and like being like why you do the right thing, why you'd be inclined to do the right thing. You know, I just recently rewatched Death Note and ah interesting it like Cloth or Gort and the other robots. The Netflix film, I'm assuming.
00:56:46
Speaker
No. And the ah Gort and the other aliens, or the other alien robots, are instituting a Death Note-like approach, where it is like, in the story of Death Note, he is like, I'm going to create a better world by making everybody so afraid of being telepathically murdered for doing the wrong thing, that the world will be peaceful.
00:57:09
Speaker
And, you know, I think a lot of Death Note, maybe not... as deeply as i would have liked but a lot of death note is exploring the kind of ah issues with that idea right um that's not is very much in exploring the idea that like there this is one guy deciding to do that to do that he's not really creating a just society he's just shaping society and in in his own image he's just sort of like he's just being a tyrannical figure at that point but but i think the yeah the idea of our criticism of gort is that he doesn't have the downfalls of light yagami as far as like but who built gort we don't know we don't know what agendas they have we don't know who programmed gort we don't know what kind of biases gort has as we as we find out the way that robot cars have to you know determine who lives and who dies ah precisely
00:58:03
Speaker
yeah that is The reality of having robots as impartial is is so not a thing. that i'm that's a But and they didn't know that in the 50s. How could they? didn't have robots. It's all a metaphor, Glenn. And that's what mean. trying to you know this if you're approaching this as, I guess, hard sci-fi, in quotes, it's got a lot of holes.
00:58:25
Speaker
But if you're approaching it as like this is a broad metaphor for like the Cold War and mutually asserted destruction and of just like trying to give a 1950s American audience this idea of sort of like cooperation is good.
00:58:42
Speaker
No one's safe unless we're all safe. I, you know, um that's good. Disarmament. I think this movie is arguing for disarmament. I think that's that's good. Yeah, I think one sort of other touch point that I forgot to mention about ah that from previously on the podcast is Himmelskibit is a journey to Mars or voyage to Mars or whatever it was called.
00:59:06
Speaker
Yeah. 1917 something like that silent silent uh film that involves a first contact with an alien race where the humans are like get too scared and shoot somebody and the aliens are these like proto hippies um who who like you know teach the the violent humans a a um a nicer, more peaceful way of being along with this kind of like bringing in sci-fi using sci-fi as metaphors for like what the things are going on, uh, in our world.
00:59:43
Speaker
There's nothing that makes your human squabbles feel more insignificant than intergalactic creatures. Right. And I think that part of what makes this movie feel like,
00:59:54
Speaker
it like needs to use the idea of intergalactic creatures in order to police the Earth. It's just like, you know, what if this was the thing that would fix it? Or like, look at how pathetic we are, that even in the presence of an alien, we can't get over our squabbles.
01:00:09
Speaker
Yeah, ah this movie was remade in, I think, like 2008, which I do not think that remake is particularly successful. But I do think a movie that i is sort of taking similar ideas as from this movie is Arrival.
01:00:26
Speaker
I think Arrival is a much better sort of like updated contemporary version of this type of story. Mm hmm. I definitely thought about Arrival a lot. We were watching this movie this time, having seen both previously.
01:00:37
Speaker
I've just... Right, like, the I very sort of, like, on a grounded approach to like, what a first contact would look like. um And also this idea of sort of, like...
01:00:48
Speaker
fix all your stuff, humans. Like this, you know, aliens are here. We gotta, gotta figure this out. The, the inability of humans to cooperate when, uh, humans and human governments to cooperate when it feels like the situation would call for it.
01:01:05
Speaker
Uh, except that in this movie, the alien just arrives speaking perfect English because he studied it Right. yeah i mean, it's the fifties. He's also just a guy. yeah. Two little ah fun little tidbits um is that Klaatu will occasionally say things like, ah, yes, you're like 500 of your miles. He doesn't actually say Earth miles, which I really wish he did. But that's just kind of a sci-fi trope that I really enjoy is when an alien shows up and is ah, yes, you're Earth miles or like, ah, you're Earth restaurants.
01:01:38
Speaker
It just always tickles me. Klaatu is a bit smug. He's got a bit of a smug attitude. He's very smug. Also, ah we find out that the aliens use diamonds as their money, which is just funny that he's just pulling diamonds out of his pocket left and right.
01:01:55
Speaker
You'd think that they would have evolved beyond the need for money, too, as other sci-fi futures have, but sure you can't go that far, I guess. Right. one One thing at a time. The 50s audiences couldn't handle that.
01:02:08
Speaker
And I mean something that this movie feels downstream of is War of the Worlds also. Like there's a lot of War of the Worlds kind of imagery in this movie. Sure. Even though it's kind of presenting a sort of flipped perspective on it in some ways.
01:02:23
Speaker
Right. Which I guess we possibly would be talking about the george powell or the world's film in few episodes maybe possibly so there's another movie that is pretty cynical about um human nature ah and it is called ace in the hole Oh, yeah.
01:02:44
Speaker
And yet, however, as much as this movie is presenting a a fairly cynical view of just like ah humanity, maybe in general or society. i don't know. I don't know. I really dug this movie.
01:02:55
Speaker
I thought this was like this really it. I hesitate to call it fun, but I enjoyed watching it very much. Yeah, it's um right. I know what you're talking about. It's not like. Well, because it's it's I don't know. This movie is maybe not like as full blown like noir as a lot of the other stuff we've watched recently. But it i would this is at least noir adjacent. It's like it has a lot of noir, big noir energy, I guess.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah. Just in its in its like characters and its like worldview. Yeah. But yeah, it's not it's not a particularly expansive movie. It's mostly set in one place. Right.
01:03:32
Speaker
And so like it's not like, yeah, it's kind of a bottle pressure cooker thing. um yeah So in this film, there is a newspaper writer who's a really good at his job, but he, uh, he's getting fired from every job that he's at because he plays, he plays things too loosely and he gets drunk all the time. And he's just like, I know that I'm the best.
01:03:59
Speaker
Uh, you'd be safe. Look at, look at you, buddy. that You're going to be saving thousands of dollars by hiring me because I'm worth thousands of dollars more than you're going to pay me. Yeah. He sort of self-imposed this like image of himself that is like, oh, he's he's a mess. But God damn it. He's the best. But it's like that isn't a thing that other people are saying. That's just a thing that he says about himself.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, he's in the small town newspaper and he has ambitions of getting his foot back in the door with these big New York papers. and he's on this ah assignment that he does not respect. And that he ends up kind of finding out or passing by the these cliff dwellings um where somebody has recently just gotten stuck.
01:04:46
Speaker
There was a cave in he was exploring and then got stuck inside of the cliff dwelling. And he goes, this is my moment. Like, somebody being stuck in a hole is perfect journalism, perfect perfect catnip for ah ah for news audiences. They want to return every day. What's the update on the Thai soccer team, you know, caught in the... What what did Elon Musk say?
01:05:13
Speaker
And like he even like talks about at one point how these are specifically good stories. So he is an extremely cynical newspaper man. And we see how cynical he is because um he is more interested in getting a good story than doing the right thing.
01:05:32
Speaker
When he is presented with the opportunity to get the guy out or get the guy out quickly and he's like suffering, he's like pinned on the ground, they can reach him and they can talk to him through a hole, but they can't get through the hole because rocks would collapse on him.
01:05:49
Speaker
So he makes a decision to it do a much more ostentatious and slower way of digging him out in order to manufacture a story of like building tension, the drills getting closer. they They could have gotten him out in like a day, but he makes a decision.
01:06:08
Speaker
Like to make it over a week and a half. Yeah. Yeah. and he ends up colluding with the local sheriff to like make make this happen and the guy is slowly dying more and more all the while he's got this fiance who is like trying to split the whole time and she kind of hates him and doesn't really even care that he's dying and is just trying to get out of there the fiance and the reporter are kind of framed as similarly cynical people who are just sort of out for themselves it becomes a giant news story he gets all these uh offers from people the collusion with the sheriff involves him the guaranteeing exclusivity over the story so he can have leverage basically and uh
01:06:53
Speaker
And this whole media circus happens, including like literal circus stuff. Like yeah set up people set up camp outside. Yeah, people set up camp outside. Ferris wheels. And like like Ferris wheels and stuff like arrive and people are going like singing songs. But like it it is not like...
01:07:13
Speaker
It's not like an earnest thing. it is. Look at the spectacle that's happening right now. Yeah. Well, it's like eventually draws a crowd and the just the crowd becomes this like self-sustaining thing where like people will show up just because they see a crowd. Yeah. And and yeah, eventually, right before they're about to reach him with the slower method, he dies.
01:07:33
Speaker
And well, also, because like they realize he's going to die imminently. He's like he's he's breathed too much of the the dust in the cave. And like he's like they don't get him out by a certain amount of time. Like he's he's going to die regardless of how much water or food they bring him with that, like looming death.
01:07:50
Speaker
ah Chuck, the main character, the reporter. starts to kind of realize like, oh shit, like I guess I, right. He's also like, it's, this is only a good story if, if he lives at the end, like people need a happy ending, right. I want to draw it out, but I also want, yeah know, people to get a good story out of this thing. And he's like all right, let's switch back to the old, the the fast way of doing Let's just get him out now. and they're like, well, now we can't do that anymore. We waited too long.
01:08:14
Speaker
And it's like, he has this of kind of moment of like realization of like, oh, I fucked this up. Yeah, right. Like he is. Cynical and and playing everything. He's like playing everyone like a fiddle the whole time. And he's like, I got this. I control life and death. very Like yeah he's not going to he's not going to die, whatever. Like I like he's he's fine with his leg pinned under a rock. And all these doctors are like, he's can't sit still for that. He is not going to die.
01:08:44
Speaker
And yeah, there is a moment where he realizes that he's done the wrong thing. And then it's too late. His soul is already tarnished, basically. And ah he ends up having this like this conflict with the fiancé. And she stabs him with some scissors. And at the end of the movie, he returns to the newspaper office and just collapses in the newspaper office. yeah He has sort of a little confession moment to the...
01:09:15
Speaker
the editor like the head of the newspaper and then yeah it just falls dead the end yeah i mean the bat the the guy is punished for his bad deeds as as is required by the haze code sure um but it's like it's it's a very satisfying ending i yeah i found it's a tight tightly constructed kind of thematic situation certainly but yeah so there's there's our synopsis what uh what yeah what do we got I know. It's like one of the first like thoughts I had while watching this. Chuck, the reporter who's played by Kirk Douglas, has like such a great character intro where we, the first time we see him, he's like sitting in the driver's seat of his like fancy car, but his car is being towed. Like he's like sitting in his car as if he's driving kind of like, like laid back. And yet he's like being pulled by a tow truck. Single image. This is a great character intro.
01:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, it seems metaphorical in some way. Right. Leave it to Billy Wilder, the director, to make a good movie. That's the thing I've kind of... I read about Billy Wilder, but also kind of noticed that it's that he will kind of switch back and forth between these like very cynical movies and like really wacky comedies.
01:10:28
Speaker
And I think like... You know, I think some of his slightly later movies like The Apartment kind of feel like they're a little bit like one foot in each little bit. This is definitely much more in the cynical ah realm.
01:10:40
Speaker
He has a ah line pretty early on where he's like, i bad news is the best news or bad news sells best Because ah good news is no news. And I'm like, ugh, I wish this movie didn't feel as like relevant to right now as it does. I mean, it's it's it's it's evergreen in some ways. I think you know it has these sort of, ah like, the the cynical views that it has toward the institution of news are, has been, or there are aspects of the the news media that have existed from the beginning.
01:11:12
Speaker
yeah like I feel like a a companion to this film is Nightcrawler, which yeah yeah is like another movie that is just very cynical. It's about somebody who wants to make good news and is not afraid of making doing the wrong thing and making reality making things worse for people in order to make a good new exploding an already bad situation in order to sort of like selfishly ah gain from it
01:11:45
Speaker
it feels like a ah well-observed critique of certain aspects of the news. Because no matter, you know, how reputable the newspaper, it is true that, like, good news doesn't sell, you know? what What news is, is bad things happening. As we have seen as we're trying to write the news segments of the show. Right, right. You know, it's like, is this a gimmicky segment where we just say a bunch of awful things? And it's like, well, that's what the news is, you know? It's not news. I mean, I think... We try to put some sort of good news, but just like some lighter stuff in there just to balance it out too. Yeah, but like but like as far as like the critique of what news is, it is uncommon things happening that are bad things. And we can see this in, you know, like you talk about today, like people get impressions of the way the world is based on the things that they see in the news. And even though the things that people are seeing in the news are things that really happen, they are by definition things that don't actually happen that much because otherwise they wouldn't be news. They wouldn't be notable. Yeah. um I mean, this this movie predates the entire you know concept of 24-hour news too, which I think is only...
01:13:02
Speaker
exacerbated that problem kind of made that like the exploitation that this movie shows kind of worse yeah i mean it it observed well a kind of fundamental flaw in the institution of newsmaking and right like i think people at the time it reviewing it felt that it was too cynical ah and And I think it's only borne out to be like pretty well observed. Right. Yeah.
01:13:30
Speaker
The Hollywood reporter ah called it ruthless and cynical, a distorted study of corruption and mob psychology. That is nothing more than a brazen uncalled for slap in the face of two respected and frequently effective American institutions, democratic government and the free press. And it's like these people are getting bent out of shape because it's like, saying like we shouldn't trust the news and and like the news might be evil and they're like no it's not but like you know turned out it was kind of right you know I mean because i also think this movie isn't I don't feel like this movie is necessarily i think this movie is very critical of like a certain type of
01:14:09
Speaker
journalism, right? Of like exploitive journalism. Whereas like, cause like the newspaper he works at, it seems like is right. It's small town. It's like local news. Yeah. Everything this guy hates about his job. He's like, I don't care about local news. I, I want money.
01:14:23
Speaker
I want to make all my money back. Cause he's been, he's worth it. All these big city newspapers where he's paid a lot of money and he was fired from all them because he's an asshole. And it's like, he shows up at this little small town and is's sort of like, Hey,
01:14:37
Speaker
I want to work here for like a month just so I have enough money to move back. Like he's not, he's very open about like, I don't care about doing a good job here. I'm purely here to like get out of my current financial situation. And then it like cuts ahead, what, like six months or, you know, longer than he said he wanted to be there for. And he's like, I hate it here. i didn't expect to be here this long. He's just like,
01:15:01
Speaker
blatantly telling everyone around him, like, I don't like working with any of you. I'm only doing this because I want more money. I mean, you know, in the um the ways that it's like you're right that like not every news person is like this in the movie. There are like it seems like honorable people who make cross stitches about the importance of the truth in the in the office that he works in and he finds them ah lame and dumb. But ah he um I think what this movie is talking about, what this movie is is kind of critiquing, are latent incentive structures that just exist within the institution of the news. And these incentive structures, you talk about he only cares about money, and he only cares about a good story. And like these incentive structures are going to be here for everyone, and it only takes an unscrupulous person to take advantage of them. Yeah.
01:15:58
Speaker
Because those incentive structures exist outside of the news and outside of, right, they're just like, those are kind of baked into so much about just America. I think this movie is very critical of like, almost like the concept of like, American individualism too.
01:16:15
Speaker
That this guy is kind of pulling himself up by his bootstraps by being unscrupulous, which is very kind of romanticized in American culture. And this movie is like, this guy... Very Nightcrawler. Yeah, but like, right.
01:16:27
Speaker
Very similar ideas in that in that movie. I think Nightcrawler more or less just like calls him the perfect capitalist. Yes. And like that is, yeah, sort of what's going on. And that character is i like a total psychopath. Like eve far more unscrupulous than I think ah this character is.
01:16:44
Speaker
This character right has his sort of moment of realization of like, oh shit, like I've really fucked this up. This guy's dead because of me, because I exploited the situation, because I wanted more money, because they created this whole media circus around it.
01:16:57
Speaker
So like he does have this sort of like moment of self-reflection. That I think feels does feel like a very sort of like 40s, 50s movie thing that like this character does learn a lesson before dying and, you know, getting his comeuppance.
01:17:12
Speaker
Nightcrawler is very much like, no, this guy just succeeds at everything he tries to do. Like the worse he is, the better things turn out for him. um which as I think we've we've seen in the real world, happens a lot where people just do awful things and only get rewarded for it.
01:17:30
Speaker
And yeah, I guess that's sort of like, it depends on what you're looking for out of a story, right? Like there is a satisfaction in watching this story in this guy learning he's made a mistake and being punished for it.
01:17:43
Speaker
Whereas something like Nightcrawler is like, there's a satisfaction to that movie acknowledging that just like people like this sometimes just get what they want. in spite of all of their misdeeds.
01:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, I think that, like, you know, the difference between this movie and Nightcrawler is that this movie is an indictment of the guy, and it is touching on the systemic things that the guy is taking advantage of, where Nightcrawler is a critique of the system, and so the guy succeeds because it's a critique of the system. Right.
01:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's more sort of like a critique of the system that allows this crazy psycho to succeed. Yeah. Yeah. The thing brought up in this movie is the the central kind of situation of the guy stuck in the cave is ah very similar as like stated by the characters in the movie. And I think this movie is directly inspired by the real guy, Floyd Collins, who was stuck at the bottom of a cave and did create a media circus.
01:18:43
Speaker
And they did try to like drill a hole down to get him out. And he did die. I don't know if there was necessarily a single like unscrupulous reporter, but there was that kind of like hype and hysteria around it. Like became this like long, you weeks long news story.
01:18:59
Speaker
It's funny. This movie is like a dramatization of that real event while acknowledging that that was a real event, you know? Right. I mean, reportage can in many situations be inherently exploitative.
01:19:15
Speaker
And in the same way that maybe like the the I don't know if Billy Wilder wrote this movie or not, but like the the writer of this movie might have seen that story and then like saw something like icky and like predatory in it. You know, it kind of reminds me of like the true crime era that we are in right now was like ushered in by the podcast serial.
Podcast Critique and Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland'
01:19:36
Speaker
And I remember, listening to serial when it was coming out and going like, this is fascinating, but also it's, there's something that feels a little icky about this, you know? and
01:19:48
Speaker
And, just like, maybe there was no unscrupulous person involved in like, ah doing something particularly icky with the real life story that's based on maybe they didn't have those kind of uh intentions with serial and now it uh there are people who exist in the post serial true crime space who are just like really doing the wrong thing and like um you know right taking at taking this incentive structure of giving people the catnip of true crime that they want and ruining people's lives often innocent people's lives uh to give it to them so yeah i don't know a parallel yeah another movie about going down holes i do i was thinking that too how else are we gonna transition uh alice in wonderland
01:20:45
Speaker
the The Disney animated film. Down and down the rabbit hole. Where it stops, nobody Nobody knows. no we know did We did watch a silent movie version of Alice in Wonderland at some point. Did we not?
01:20:59
Speaker
That's a good question. That sounds familiar. I know they exist they'd definitely made them. I don't know if we actually watched them for the show, though. Much like Cinderella, this is like, this does feel like the kind of biggest pop culture and ah instance of, outside of the original story by, um what's his name?
01:21:18
Speaker
Lewis Carroll. This is like kind of the the most, and the most famous, the most iconic film adaptation. I would say. Oh, definitely. Yeah. I mean, you know, although the Tim Burton one inexplicably made like a billion dollars. Sure. But even that is like riffing on this movie, you know, like it's pulling. Oh, it's a remake of this movie. Yes. Right. Right. Is it? it Is the Tim Burton one Disney? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the Disney live action remakes. Like, is it i I guess I hadn't put that together.
01:21:48
Speaker
My biggest takeaway from this movie is that Alice in Wonderland is such a such a great ah source for like crazy dreamlike surreal imagery.
01:22:01
Speaker
There is no narrative here to speak of. Oh, yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah, it is. It's a very strangely structured movie. ah By the way, yes, we watched 1903 Alice in Wonderland movie. I thought so. I thought so.
01:22:16
Speaker
I feel like there are parallel story issues in this movie with Cinderella, ah but they're very different at the same time. Yeah. I do feel like Cinderella is feels way more kind of like narratively focused than this does.
01:22:33
Speaker
this, yeah, like this. So Cinderella is a movie that has narrative problems as in like, they are, I don't know, struggling to have enough interesting stuff to do. And so they just throw a bunch of shit in there that barely is relevant. Uh, where in this movie,
01:22:50
Speaker
It is just a bunch of scenes and there is really no rhyme or reason. Right. Which I've never read like the original Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I'm assuming that's just kind of how that is. It's just like, here's a bunch of weird stuff that she sees and like characters that she meets. And that's the whole thing. And Disney, the the company or the the man naturally is sort of like, if we animated this, it would look real wild and we could really do a lot of fun animation stuff with it.
01:23:17
Speaker
And I mean, to be fair, it does. Like, i think that it looks amazing. Like visually, this movie is so cool. But then like the the actual like the actual like animation of it is just so gorgeous. I'm like, well, well done.
01:23:31
Speaker
I mean, you know, I feel like it's such a cliche thing to like go like, what drugs were you on when you made this? You know, Alice in Wonderland and psychedelics. No one's ever put those two things together.
01:23:42
Speaker
i mean, yes. Like, you know, she's like eating mushrooms or whatever in the original. What's in that hookah? Like in this movie, there is like psychedelic imagery that seems to like presage like a lot of the psychedelic imagery of the 60s and 70s.
01:23:57
Speaker
and seventy s Sure, like yeah, someone like like that the patterns and such. Yeah, there's stuff in this movie where I'm like... I was reading reading through the Wikipedia article about this movie, and it was talking about how Aldous Huxley worked on a version of Alice in Wonderland for a second with Disney. A guy notable for...
01:24:19
Speaker
doing mescaline and writing about it. And, like, I do kind of wonder, like, how much... How much of that is intentional? Yeah, like, how much how much of the visual stuff that happens in the movie, particularly, like, when she's falling into the rabbit hole and there's just all these, like, crazy colors everywhere. it's like, what...
01:24:37
Speaker
Like, I mean, what I tested it is there for this kind of imagery? I did write in my notes. This movie never beating the it's about drugs allegations like. Right. There's so right. Not just like right. Eating mushrooms.
01:24:51
Speaker
And like her changing size, like uppers and downers are like literally getting bigger or smaller. It's like so being handed so many weird bottles of unknown liquid. And he's like, I guess I'm going to find out what this does. And then I'm like, now I'm talking to a caterpillar.
01:25:05
Speaker
It's like that. It's it it's the shortest walk possible, you know? yeah i uh uh was looking at it i don't know if that's intentional or not like it might just be like here's much crazy stuff is it intentional that they were making a drug movie no uh like is it intentional that they like you know maybe some of these people uh you know they're artists who worked at disney like artists do drugs you know oh yeah like like maybe artists do drugs Yeah, it's like, I wouldn't be surprised if like some of the psychedelic imagery from this movie came from the animator's personal experience. um Right. Yeah.
01:25:47
Speaker
I guess that that's kind of what I'm curious about. Well, they're all dead now. So who knows? yeah But ah there was ah ah this movie because it has story problems um and is just not I think it's like not a very emotionally engaging movie. is problem. And disney kind of like Walt Disney is sort of ended up not being too fond of it. And so it never got a re-release until the 70s, I think. Good time for it. Exactly. there were all And so i was looking at a New York Times article from 1974 that was talking about the the re-issue. And they're talking about how it's being booked immediately In college film societies, discotheques, frat houses, and private homes. And, quote, the financial failure of 1951 had become the turn-on film of 1972, following its big brother Fantasia into a haze of marijuana and ash.
01:26:46
Speaker
Dude, this and Fantasia together, you got it. That's a, you know, that and some of the old devil's lettuce. It's a good night right there. Yeah.
01:26:58
Speaker
A haze of marijuana and hash, according to your time. Yeah, at the discotheque, no less. Yeah. So at the I think you might have seen this because we visited it. The the Church of Cannabis in Denver. Sure. I visited it on 420, which was hell of a hell of a way to visit.
01:27:16
Speaker
I don't remember if they actually played this when you were there, but they have like a kind of don't think so. Video light show type thing. Right. Yeah. She normally the thing that they play. And it's like a projection maps all over the surface, all over the ceiling of the church. And it has a lot of clips from this movie in that in that video.
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, anyway, i I can see why Alice in Wonderland. um Right. i mean, to talk about the like actual story of this, it's like, yeah, Alice doesn't really have any agency. She's kind of just like stumbling through different scenes and like talking to different characters.
01:27:51
Speaker
She doesn't really learn anything at the end. She doesn't change. She's pretty passive the whole time. No hugging, no learning. No hugging, no learning. ah She doesn't even seem particularly like engaged the whole time. She's just kind of like, oh oh, okay. I guess I'm going through this door now. like She's like mildly worried at times but like or or amused. but This movie is fairly whimsical, but also is sort of like... it There's some amount of stakes towards the end with like the the queen and the head chopping.
01:28:23
Speaker
But even that feels so... It's like so fantastical and so kind of like... surreal and dreamlike that it it it does and it does i do think it it captures a certain dreamlike quality of like this is how dreams feel often you're just sort of yeah wandering through different weird scenarios and then you wake up and you're like well okay that was cool yeah yeah i mean like another kind of like aspect of the psychedelia i feel like is the just like drifting from thing to thing it's just like you know yeah like definitely um
01:28:55
Speaker
ah dreamlike in terms of like yeah sort of accepting everything that's happening in front of you I'm curious if any of the people working on this movie were inspired by um Jean Cocteau and like all of the surrealism in those movies um Or if I'm just sort of like, hey these different people were making similarly dreamlike movies at the same time.
01:29:16
Speaker
I mean, certainly like any actual like realists, like like the surrealist painting, right? Yeah. Have imagery that is reminiscent of stuff in this movie. um I guess right.
01:29:27
Speaker
right Another thing I'm curious about is just sort of like if there was any awareness of like Cocteau's movies by the people making this movie and if that was any any actual like direct inspiration um or it's just like I'm watching these movies back to back. So naturally I'm sort of like, ah, yes, similar.
01:29:42
Speaker
it seems It seems like um at least like a a kind of issue with the way that it was made that was sort of cited was that like, like people were sort of assigned a certain scene and they were just trying to make their scene as like wacky as possible. And so it was just all of these scenes all trying to like top each other. And so like, there is just so much cool stuff in this movie in isolate.
01:30:07
Speaker
Right. This is a great movie to have on in the background at a party. Yes, indeed it is. yeah um But yeah, is it like a great movie to like sit down and watch and feel like you watched a movie at the end? Not really. Yeah, yeah. I i feel very much the same way. I will say I i did not realize that um Bill Pete, the ah children's book author and artist, has a story credit on this movie. I didn't realize that he worked at Disney in the 50s.
01:30:33
Speaker
So that's cool. If if ah you or any of the listeners have not checked out any of Bill Pete's work, I recommend it. that was big, big Bill Pete kid growing up. Oh, one thing I kind of noticed that I thought was interesting is like, especially at the beginning when in, you know, the quote real world, Alice herself, the character throughout is animated in a bit more of the kind of slightly more old fashioned Disney style of, um of rotoscoping and of like trying to kind of capture a a certain realism.
01:31:03
Speaker
Whereas like when she goes down the rabbit hole and all the other like animal characters and things and even human characters, when she's in Wonderland are animated in a much more cartoonish, ah less realistic way.
01:31:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. Because, you know, as I'm on record as not being a fan of the rotoscoping stuff that they do. And so this movie emphasizing the actual like bouncy, cartoony character animation is definitely Right. It's like emphasizes it even further by having it kind of start in a more rotoscoping like Cinderella-y style and then like yeah right having it getting crazier as the movie goes along, which I thought was cool.
01:31:43
Speaker
And, you know, as is the case with a lot of Disney stuff, speaking of the kind of animation style, this is a movie that is really trying to, like, you can tell that something that the thought that went into this movie is like, look at what the power of animation is, you know, like, like all of these scenes with all of the kind of reality warping, you know, things playing with scale and just like, things moving in ways that they couldn't move in real life, like the caterpillar's hookah smoke. like It is all of these things that are just like, it's taking this kind of non-real, crazy, psychedelic imagery and like using it as an expression of the potential of animation.
01:32:27
Speaker
I like that. ah Sort of, I guess, somewhat similar to the the fact that we probably both were first exposed to a Streetcar Named Desire through The Simpsons. I feel like, ah so Ed Wynn plays ah the Mad Hatter in this movie, does the voice.
01:32:46
Speaker
And as soon as I heard his, I don't think I was really familiar with any of his actual like comedy or voice or acting work before this. I was like, oh, that's a voice that Kona Brian does. Like Kona Brian clearly knows Edwin and is kind of like doing a version of his voice as like a silly voice.
01:33:04
Speaker
Oh, I don't know if I caught that. I don't think he's doing an impression of him, but I can see the lineage there. took me a while to figure that out. I feel like I've heard not this actual guy's voice, but I've heard people doing impressions or versions of it.
01:33:20
Speaker
And it took me like the whole day to be like, oh, that's just a thing Conan does when he's like being extra silly. He's kind of doing a bit of an Edwin voice. you have anything else on this?
01:33:33
Speaker
I like at the beginning when ah Alice is reading a book that only has pictures and she gets berated for it. And I'm like, hey, if Alice wants to read comic books, she should be allowed to. That is all.
01:33:44
Speaker
Well, um let's see. Another movie that has a queen in it. Hey. The African Queen. There you go. But get this. It's a boat.
01:33:57
Speaker
Directed by John Houston. Indeed. Of ah ah Treasure the Sierra Madre. and Yeah. Again, working with ah with Bogey. Yes. A a cigar chomping Humphrey Bogart doing a lot of his patented belt acting in this movie.
01:34:15
Speaker
His patented what? Belt acting.
'The African Queen' and Its Romantic Adventure
01:34:17
Speaker
i know if this is something you picked up on. He does a lot. of He does a lot of belt work. You know, he's does a lot. He's got a lot of business with his belt in movies. He's, you know, a lot of business. this don' you Do you know what I mean? I know. you're Like, I do know what you mean. Yes. Yeah.
01:34:31
Speaker
That's like a thing I've just noticed with Humphrey Bogart is that like... Yeah, he's always kind of like... He's always kind of adjusting his belt or just kind of, his you know, he does a lot of belt acting. it's an Yeah, it's a good prop. I mean, I feel like when... But I i mean if i can't think of another actor that does that. Like, that's not a thing I've seen other actors do. That's just like...
01:34:49
Speaker
Something he does. don't know. In this movie, he's doing a lot of boat acting. Also true. This is a pretty simple film in a lot of yeah ways. It's almost kind of a hangout movie for a lot of it.
01:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, more or less. Like more than an adventure in an adventure movie, which I think it's kind of billed as. Yeah. ah Bogart is a ah kind of grizzled guy who pilots a steamboat up and down a river in yeah German East Africa. sort of sort of a Han Solo type.
01:35:19
Speaker
He works at a mine, but only kind of sometimes. There is Catherine Hepburn and her brother are ah missionaries, and and they're trying to teach people the ways of Christ in ah in this remote village. the World War I starts, and ah the Germans come in and torch the entire place. ah She her brother dies and she decides to both support her country of England and also sort of get revenge for her brother. All this isn't really stated by saying I've got nothing else to live for now. Let's go and attack some Germans as our patriotic duty. Yeah. And let's turn your boat into a torpedo.
01:36:04
Speaker
Let's like how do you make a torpedo anyway? She's like my brother died earlier. How do you make a torpedo? yeah Like, my brother died earlier today. I'm over it. I'm time turning that grief into a vengeance. And so she's like, what is the way that we can fuck up the Germans as much as possible? Let's ah put a bunch of explosives inside of an air canister and turn it into a torpedo. So ah they take a a long and sometimes treacherous journey down a a river to try and attack
01:36:38
Speaker
ah this major kind of armored military boat that is in this large lake at the end of the river. On the path down, they fall in love with each other. And ah and then they try and attack the boat.
01:36:51
Speaker
They fail and get caught. But then the boat accidentally rams into their torpedoes of their capsized boat anyway. And just as the just ah ah as they're about to get hanged,
01:37:03
Speaker
ah The day is saved and ah they've conquered they've they've done their patriotic duty. And that's the whole movie. Yeah, that's basically everything in the movie. Right.
01:37:14
Speaker
um Right. It is like it's a sort of, you know, treacherous journey along the river. ah But right, it is, it's, the I think the main kind of hook of the movie, the the the reason why anyone watches it really is the is the the sort of mismatched romantic plot of like Humphrey Bogart is this like grizzled, you know, scar-smoking, gin-swilling boat captain, and Catherine Hepburn is this like very like uptight, proper English woman who was working at a ah church, um,
01:37:47
Speaker
And it's like, oh, heavens no, I can't i can't be in the jungle. And it's just like that. That's such a good dynamic to kind of build your movie off of. I think that's that's where this movie gets the most.
01:37:59
Speaker
That's where I think the the best stuff in this movie comes from. I think that it's kind of interesting, though, because this is maybe the least grizzled that we've ever seen. Well, sure. Compared to, I wouldn't say least grizzled. He's pretty clean cut in some of them noir movies. I'm not talking like visually. I'm talking like, you know, like in his five. Right. He's less friendly in this movie. He's quite friendly. Right.
01:38:24
Speaker
A lot of other, even when he's more clean cut in like The Big Sleep or whatever, it's like, he might kill you. yeah in this movie he's just like I'm trying to help out and like I didn't sign up for all of this like the the part where he's the most kind of cynical in the way that a lot of his other characters are is he's just like I didn't sign up to go on a suicide mission just because a war started and like I don't know board for that just want to be on my boat I'm i'm good like i'm I'm fine just you know taking my boat into a lagoon and waiting for this all to blow over yeah
01:38:59
Speaker
I have 25 cases of gin. I'm good. But then Catherine Hepburn throws all the gin overboard and we get sort of a yeah why is the gin gone moment?
01:39:12
Speaker
Which i almost feels like that scene in Pirates of the Caribbean is alluding to this or at least could could have been inspired by that scene in this movie where it's like the lady throws all the liquor away and the the drunkard is like, but no, that was, that was all I had.
01:39:33
Speaker
This, ah this, oh, I should also mention the boat is called the African queen. um There is no African queen in this. In fact, it is in Africa in terms of the animals in Africa.
01:39:48
Speaker
it is not in the ways that it is referring to the people in Africa. It's a little unfortunate, which I always kind of I saw the movie was called the African Queen. I was just like, this is what this is about. But uh- oh, yeah, it's like I can't say that I was proven wrong. It's definitely not. It basically just ignores regular African people enough that it doesn't have that much time to be racist, although it does take its time to be racist at points. It's basically the first thing that happens in the movie is just like, look at this Christian trying to like tame these savages, you know, and they're like, not even there. They can't sing. She's been like trying to teach them church stuff for a decade. and like, they can't, they can't follow along with the, it's like an almost a comedic thing meant to be of like these like tribe people like in this tribe, like can't sing along to these Jesus songs. They don't actually care. Songs are terrible.
01:40:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty bold of this movie for the first moment of it to be like a very long scene of just cacophonous bad singing. And then the scene right after that to be deliberately boring scene where everyone's just like, this is awkward and boring. Like, ah we don't care about what you're saying. Yeah.
01:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, it takes like seven minutes before anything pleasing happens in this movie. Yeah, it's it's funny because I was thinking about that during the opening scene of like, is this movie presenting this in a way in which me as an audience member am supposed to be laughing at or with either of these two groups of people, either the you know local tribes people or Catherine Hepburn.
01:41:34
Speaker
I certainly found Catherine Hepburn to be a much more absurd character in that moment. But i ah I don't know if the movie is necessarily presenting that to me. I don't see... Here's the thing.
01:41:46
Speaker
I don't think the movie is like taking a stance. I don't think the movie is saying, like, you should laugh at these people. Maybe it's like a light, like, you know, oh, they're different or whatever. But right like I don't think the movie is...
01:42:00
Speaker
hateful intentionally. I think it is a movie that is way too unconsidered for something that is being said in Africa. Right. And it is being made in the time that it is being made in. Right. It is entirely unconcerned with anyone who is actually from Africa.
01:42:17
Speaker
Yeah, the the the content. I mean, this may be set in the the ah vague region of German East Africa, which, you know, was a section that now is ah Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Mozambique.
01:42:33
Speaker
So it could be anywhere in there. and There's probably other like context clues to like exactly what like contemporary countries it takes place in. Yeah, it's basically just sort of like these two on a boat.
01:42:44
Speaker
And then there are some some ah some rascally Germans who are after them. It's basically the only characters in the movie. Yeah, I mean, so much of this movie is just Catherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in a boat and just hanging out. And, you know, I gotta say, i don't super buy their romance.
01:43:08
Speaker
like i I was actually surprised at how much I did. I mean, it... Right. It's... As, like, a realistic depiction of it, maybe not, but I found...
01:43:20
Speaker
them to have a charming enough chemistry and the, just the, the mismatched nature of their characters to be, fun enough for me to somewhat get on board. and think this movie is so kind of low energy that it is, it's hard to get that invested in it. It's surprisingly low energy. Yeah. yeah Right. For a movie with like rapids and like guns and explosions and like ah peril, it is, it, I found it to be very low energy. Yes. Yeah.
01:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think Hangout movie kind of makes sense. I see what they're doing with this like mismatched pair that grow to respect each other and then fall in love with each other.
01:43:56
Speaker
You know, it's like a nice moment when she's like, that they they get through the rapids and he kisses her. And then that's like ah the scene awkwardly ends. And then he's falling asleep. She makes breakfast for him. And she's she's like, ah she's calling, she's trying to wake him up and she calls his name and then she goes dear and like that's like it's like a cute little moment where it's like oh like is this uh you know is this real now and like i was almost afraid that like he was gonna get up and go like don't call me that like like this is this is this is not that serious lady you know
01:44:36
Speaker
But then they're just like immediately like, oh, oh, oh, oh. And right um yeah I think that, yeah, it doesn't super, super work for me. I get what they're doing.
01:44:48
Speaker
and And I think it kind of halfway comes together. um But I don't, I'm not swept up. what's no Yeah, I wasn't really swept up either. It was sort of like, oh, this is, this is, this is nice. This is charming enough.
01:45:01
Speaker
But yeah, I wasn't terribly emotionally invested. um there's a lot of so like There's a lot of this movie that is clearly shot on location an actual river. I'm not sure where it was shot.
01:45:15
Speaker
I think at least some of it was shot on the continent of Africa. i mean, there's a big there's a big title at the end that just says, filmed in Africa. Yeah. Where? We're not going to say.
01:45:27
Speaker
Filmed on Earth. But there's a lot of there's like a lot of VFX in this movie, which surprised me. like There's a lot of compositing. And i I'm not sure exactly how it was done. actually tried to find out more about the VFX in this movie and I couldn't find a lot of information on it of like,
01:45:43
Speaker
it doesn't really look like rear projection. It looks like actual, like some kind of like optical compositing. I think there are some parts that might be rear projection, but I think there are moments, particularly when they're in the rapids where you can kind of see like, yeah, there's like fringing around. Right. Yeah. But it's like, it doesn't look like matte lines is like sort of typically think of matte lines looking.
01:46:06
Speaker
So I'm, I am, I'm very curious of like, I think it's like, was I think it's green screen or blue screen. Yeah. But like, were they doing blue screen effects in 1951? they The first blue screen movie was ah the um Thief of Baghdad remake in 1940. Okay, well, there you go. um And also, I guess, worth saying, this movie a shot in color, in Technicolor, by ah by Jack Cardiff, who's ah the Powell and Pressburger DP. Shot a bunch of their movies. So it looks great. Like, the Technicolor in this movie, I think, is is very good.
01:46:39
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, there's there's a whole bit where they ah they like go through a swarm of bugs that looks awful. I think it's like very bad effects where they's just yeah it's just like a filter they put on top of it. ah yeah It was very. Yeah, it's very strange. Like it kind of just fades into existence of a bunch of like specs that are on the screen. right And like not even bugs, you just like, ra yeah, it's yeah. It'll spell the idea of bugs that well. Yeah, it's not not great. But that stuff seemed notable to me that like I hadn't seen like even they the Earth still still has like a lot of like VFX in it.
01:47:12
Speaker
But it's like stuff that I kind of I think it's much better done on that movie, but it's like stuff I associate much. It's like miniature effects and, you know, things like that. Whereas this I was like, I'm very curious just how this was.
01:47:26
Speaker
It doesn't always look good. A lot of it doesn't look good. But um yeah, and I guess the fact that it is shot in color means that they could have done some kind of blue screen or yeah i mean i can't i couldn't tell exactly what was going on but i think like i was getting like hints of color around the edges of them same like which that like meant to seem to indicate that it was like a blue screen or green right that it was not rear projection yeah yeah exactly there's a part where like there's like the all is lost moment in this movie uh where it turns out they're actually like just a hundred yards away from their destination but they give up
01:48:02
Speaker
And because they've been bitten by leeches and are and are ah sick and everything. And there's a part where, you know, she like is just like, we're about to die. But ah God, ah make sure we go to heaven and hope or fix this situation. I don't know. And then it's just like there is a literal like ray of sunshine. It's like it's a bit much, you know. Yeah.
01:48:27
Speaker
I kind of simultaneously hate this moment and love this moment where they are about to get hanged by the Germans and they're just like, wait, can you marry us first? Admirals on boats can marry people, right? You know, they're they're at the nooses and he and the German guy's like, okay. And then he goes...
01:48:52
Speaker
I now pronounce you man and wife proceed with the execution, which is a hilarious line. But I'm also just like, this is a little too stupid. like yeah i I really like that moment. I think by that point in the movie, I was just like, hey, this is like, again, this is fun and charming. Things are happening.
01:49:10
Speaker
I'm I'm on board. But ah speaking of movies that look great in Technicolor. An American in Paris. Ooh. Gene Kelly. Gene, another ah charming Gene Kelly musical romp.
01:49:25
Speaker
I just, I just love charming Gene Kelly. dude kelly so Gene Kelly can like charm his way through a brick wall. Like he, he just like smiles toward the camera. And I'm just like, I love this movie. I'm just like, I'm so happy. Same. Yeah. This one is directed by ah Vincent Minnelli.
01:49:44
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like this, maybe sensing a somewhat of a theme with the movies we watched for 51, not a lot of, like, narrative stuff going. there There is some. There's, like, you know, love triangles and such. But, like, that all kind of feels secondary to just, like, the atmosphere of this movie and just the general sort of, like, romanticism of living in Paris. Yeah.
01:50:05
Speaker
Yeah. Like, that's really what this movie is about at the end of the day. is just sort of like, ain't living in Paris swell. Gene Kelly, charming bastard, is an American living in Paris after World War two He stayed in France. He was just like, you know what?
01:50:22
Speaker
This place is great. He's a painter. He lives in ah a nice little apartment above a cafe, and he's just going about his life eating baguettes and painting pictures and having just a grand old time.
01:50:35
Speaker
He's approached by this like wealthy woman who offers to kind of like ah buy his paintings and to like show him around to to you know potential other buyers and kind of like Bring him into like her world of like high society a bit more. And he's like, whoa, whoa, lady, you don't own me. I'm just a painter.
01:50:56
Speaker
He's like very, very defensive about about all this. He's like, I can make my own way, which I get. He's a little like overly defensive. I think he's got some maybe ah some hangups about it. I think he's immediately suspicious that she wants to get with him, which is true.
01:51:11
Speaker
Which is true, right? he He was reading the situation correctly. um At the same time, he also ah very in a not cool way um sort of is trying to woo this woman that he randomly meets at a nightclub who repeatedly tells him she wants nothing to do with him, but he's just like, I'm going to keep showing up to your work.
01:51:32
Speaker
Oh, well, can't stop me. who And that woman, Lisa, is in fact dating and at some point engaged to like one of Gene Kelly's best friends who he hangs out with at the cafe. and so there's all this complicated romantic back and forth and who's dating who and what, who knows what and who does this and that.
01:51:54
Speaker
it kind of doesn't matter at the end of the day. And the movie almost it like acknowledges this. It's just like, eh, it's fine. Don't worry about it. There are some definitely like plot threads that it just sort of drops by the end of the movie. And the movie kind of recognizes that that's not really why you're watching this. You're watching this because you want to see fun, charming dance numbers and color and sweeping dance sequences.
'An American in Paris' Visuals and Narrative Critique
01:52:21
Speaker
And it gives you all that.
01:52:23
Speaker
yeah This movie ends with 17-minute dance sequence that is set to George Gershwin's An American in Paris. ah Definitely like evoking the sort of ballet scene in with The Red Shoes. ah Sure.
01:52:40
Speaker
I think that... It wordless the whole time. There are no yeah song lyrics. there There is no dialogue. It is a like purely music and dance and sequence. Yeah.
01:52:52
Speaker
I think if I'm to critique the music and that scene a bit, some of the songs like in the subject matter of the songs feel like not super motivated. Like, like, it's just like, I, we've decided that this is the thing that we're going to talk about now. And now we're going to sing about it, but it doesn't really like loop into the rest of the story. And likewise with that long dance sequence,
01:53:15
Speaker
I think there were really cool parts of it, but there were also parts where I was like getting a little bored because like the, stuff the imagery that you're seeing in the dance sequence is cool, but it doesn't feel super motivated. um Sure. Yeah.
01:53:31
Speaker
yeah And, and I think like, this is a problem that's definitely solved in, uh, an American or in singing in the rain, which where all of the music in that movie just feels like so linked in with the story in a really good way. And,
01:53:45
Speaker
the dance sequence in the red shoes it's taking you away from reality for 20 minutes but like it feels like it has a a good place in what's going on where like yeah la la land is kind of aping a lot of this movie but like in particular like the end scene of la land where they're fantasizing about this other kind of way that things are it's like more or less the same thing that's happening with the the genesis of that 17 minute dance scene. But Lala land, like keeps it a lot more relevant and keeps it a lot shorter.
01:54:21
Speaker
I don't want to be so down on this though. This is a fun, charming movie though. It's a very fun, charming movie, but i I also think it is like, I do think the red shoes is like a better film. It's a better piece of storytelling than this is.
01:54:33
Speaker
Although i this is definitely something I think I'm more likely to kind of throw on than The Red Shoes. The Red Shoes is like pretty heavy as a story. Whereas this is like ah Paris. It's fun. We're painting.
01:54:44
Speaker
Yeah. There's dancing. There's songs. Also, you can just put on Singing in the Rain, which is... All of that and also better movie. Yeah. Yeah. Like I like this. I like the New York movie with Miss Turnstiles that we watched couple of episodes ago. Oh, yeah. On the town. Yeah. On the town. But like these both feel like prototypes that would be perfected with Sigh in the Rain. Right. Sigh in the Rain is like taking all of the pieces of those of, you know, this and on the town and just making like a masterpiece out of it.
01:55:15
Speaker
But still, i i I was very charmed by this movie, even though I have a lot of like, I think narratively have lot of problems with it. I think it presents a very, a very bad form of trying to flirt with women and getting them to date you. I think Gene Kelly does not does not does not behave in a way that is very ah admirable.
01:55:38
Speaker
It's a good thing he's got that smile. Otherwise, I would have had bad feelings about him. Yeah, absolutely. um He does not behave in a very gentlemanly way, in my opinion. It's a very like, my grandpa has a story about how, like, he finally wore down my grandma until they got married. You don't want any any romantic story to contain the phrase wore down. That's just not, that's not it one of the more unromantic things something can be. But there's there's lots of just like great little moments of of joy in this movie. i love the way I love the way it looks, like the technicolor of it.
01:56:10
Speaker
Of course. Naturally. And just like the the romanticism around, I think, like the city of Paris, which I've never been to, but the kind of like this kind of romantic mid-century artist lifestyle where he lives in this like...
01:56:23
Speaker
Attic apartment above a cafe. All of his friends like live on the same street. He's like strolling down the street with his paintings under one arm and like grabbing a coffee and a baguette.
01:56:36
Speaker
Yeah, very romantic in that way. They're going they're going to all of these like highly themed parties at highly themed nightclubs. Yes, ah themed parties and nightclubs. Yes, please. But i'm the whole time watching this movie, I'm like, oh, why can't real life be like it is in the pictures? you know like that That was very much my my entire takeaway from this.
01:56:56
Speaker
There's lots of just like great moments. Like there's, this movie kind of has multiple POV characters outside of Gene Kelly. Also, one of whom is a, ah a musician and a songwriter.
01:57:07
Speaker
That's not Henri. That's ah Adam Cook played by Oscar Levant, who was an actual ah pianist and composer. And he has a line early in the movie where he's, he says something along the lines of, I'm a musician, which is a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed. And I'm like, Hmm. Can't relate to that at all.
01:57:26
Speaker
When introduce myself at the beginning saying I'm a filmmaker, it is a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed. So it's like i but even that is a kind of president in this like romantic way of just like, right. know, the yeah the struggle the struggling artist, right?
01:57:41
Speaker
For sure. And yeah do there there's there's repartee. Yeah, I like there's there's at one point somebody says, Monsieur le wise guy. And love that. Monsieur le wise guy.
01:57:54
Speaker
Someone says, ah you only find the right woman once, to which they respond that many times. Yeah, I find this movie incredibly joyful and charming. And yet, is it good?
01:58:07
Speaker
Right? It's like I struggle to call it good necessarily because I think like I think that a lot of the character writing is just wonky and weird and like the the narrative has for a little payoff.
01:58:18
Speaker
Yeah. But I had a good time. So, you know, does it matter? Who's to say? Yeah, that this movie, I mean, does some things that I appreciate about musicals, especially like Technicolor musicals, which is that it like, you know, does some kind of fun reality breaking sort of stuff as far as like visual kind of things like. There's a part where Lisa is being like imagined by the friends and she's like giving a different adjective to describe her every time. And then they like re-imagine her in like a different scene and all the scenes are like an entirely bright red world. This one's all yellow. This one's all green. And like, she's got like a themed dress or like, or like a dress that's like all like one kind of big solid color that like goes with this like scene that she's There's like one where like everything was red, including like these, um, Monstera plants that were like painted red. And it had like a, it was like Miss Turnstiles visualization. It reminded me a lot of the Miss Turnstiles scene.
01:59:24
Speaker
Yeah. Which is, it's justs just fun. It's just like movie the movie pauses for a second to just sculpt these images of these extremely bright colors and and herrs just kind of dancing in different scenarios. There is a part that references Charlie Chaplin, which I feel like we've got point out. Yeah. Where he's like tap dancing and like doing some stuff for kids and like some kids that pass by. They all love him because he gives them American candy. and ah
01:59:55
Speaker
they Like there's a point where he does like a sort of tap dance interpretation of Charlie Chaplin. You can just sort of tell from Gene Kelly is so good at moving his body that you can like just tell that it's Charlie Chaplin or the tramp.
02:00:09
Speaker
ah But he ah he also is walking through a bunch of tap dances and then he does the Shim Sham, which is the dance that I learned in my tap dancing class. Hey, there you go. So, you know, the Shim Sham. I don't know the Shim Sham. Yeah.
02:00:23
Speaker
That's a great name for a dance. We're dancing the shim sham over here. it's it's very It's very descriptive. You kind of just like shim sham back and forth. I do you feel also like Gene Kelly has a great like old movie voice where it's like, oh boy, look at that.
02:00:39
Speaker
Yeah. Here we go. He spent a lot of time going round and round the rugged rocks, the ragged rascal ran. Damn. Damn. I did that better than I could probably. I'm like, I'm not going to try.
02:00:53
Speaker
Rose. Most supposed to his toes are roses. That's all i'm saying. I, yeah, I feel like right because this movie doesn't have like a whole lot going on other than it's like really elaborate musical sequences.
02:01:08
Speaker
I kind of don't know what else to talk about. I mean, there's there's the one bit with the the the pianist where he's like imagining himself as like all parts of the orchestra. He's the conductor. He's the full orchestra. He's on the piano.
02:01:19
Speaker
That was like it was a cool scene, but did feel it's like shot with like it's like four different camera angles and it just kind of repeats. I feel like there wasn't it wasn't necessarily as dynamic as the other numbers in the movie.
02:01:29
Speaker
There's a part where he shakes hands with himself and it's like relatively seamless of him in both places. It's like a double um shaking hands with himself.
02:01:40
Speaker
I think they did that by like they they had like a plate of him with his arm behind him and then they just added in like a hand, ah like someone else's hand that he shook. But it works really well.
02:01:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. When you have a special effects double of somebody, you want to show off by doing something like that. Or like in Sinners where they're passing the cigarette back and forth. Right. Yeah. And that's like, don't it's like little moments like that of just like going above and beyond just to sell it of like, we don't have to do this. Like we can put to, you know, the same actor in the frame twice. I'm like, you get it. They're like, there's two of them.
02:02:15
Speaker
But like it's those little things where it's like, right, there's some quote where it's like actual magic is just ah doing something that no one would ever have expected you to like put the effort into.
02:02:27
Speaker
Like that's kind of like the whole Jackie Chan thing where he's just like, I did this crazy sequence of like stunts where like threw a pen up in the air and grabbed a thing and like flipped around. And it's just like the thing that's impressive about this is that it looks to like it's just done in the moment, but he did it 400 times in a row until he got it just right.
02:02:46
Speaker
and so it's sort of like yeah once you reveal the secret it's like oh he just did it 400 times there is a quote about this that is great that like sums it up better than i'm doing that that like that's what magic is like either like stage magic or just sort of ah that applies to a lot of filmmaking also of just like i think it's impressed i'll defer to you on this because you're the one that's been to the gothic castle yeah I've never been to the Gothic castle. I've been to the actual place, the magic castle. I mean, that that's a place full of things. i was like, i have no idea how anyone does any of the stuff I saw there. That was genuinely mind blowing. But like, I think about this a lot with like Roger Rabbit, where like,
02:03:25
Speaker
They would go out of their way so often to like do things that are really hard to do to blend live action and um animation. Just so then you're sort of like it sells it so much more that it's like we didn't have to do this. But the fact we put so much more like detail into it is now like, you know what i mean?
02:03:42
Speaker
i think like I think I'm doing a bad job of explaining this concept. but I think that it's like a fine line in a way, though. And maybe it's just because I'm too, like, aware of cinema. And maybe, like, what you're what they're going for is a, if it if it is done in a low effort way, then it might end up looking shoddy enough that any random person would be able to go, I see how that was done.
02:04:02
Speaker
And if they do it in a way that kind of tricks your brain into seamlessness, then maybe like an average person is not thinking like, how did they do this? They, that is just giving you, it it is not showing off. It's giving you the sense of, you know, suspension of disbelief. Honestly, that part in sinners where they were passing the cigarette back and forth, it took me out of the movie because I was like, you're showing off too much. Like, ah, I see. I now see how you're selling this effect. Yeah.
02:04:32
Speaker
Right. like It's like, you know, in Roger Rabbit, they're moving the camera in order to... And it's going to make things difficult. But they're not doing it to take you out of the movie and go, look, wow, look look at how difficult the thing they did is. They're doing it to...
02:04:48
Speaker
keep you bring you into the movie yeah and like that part in sinners and i've seen other examples where you know people do is in effect and then like or or like a in a in your face one or you know like right it's the kind of thing where it's like you're taking me out of the movie because what you're asking me to do is not believe in the movie anymore you're asking me to ah be impressed at what you're doing Right. Which I think in in some instances, I was talking to someone about this, about like, you know the difference between like a showy one-er and a sort of invisible or seemingly invisible one-er.
02:05:22
Speaker
Like the, the whatever, they're like the the scene in Jaws where they're on the the barge going across the the bay. yeah And it's just like the block, the camera stays in one place, but just like the acting, the actor blocking keeps changing. So it's like,
02:05:34
Speaker
it feels like it's like five shots in one and just there's no cuts, but you're not thinking about it, which I think is great. And then also like maybe the one of, if not the most famous, like one or in movies, the, um the bit in Goodfellas where they go in the back door into the restaurant. Like the thing that works about that is that it is very showy, but it's like the character is showing off. The character is being like, come, come this way. Come look, look, I i know all these people. I can go in the back way. And it's like that, like the camera work is mirroring,
02:06:04
Speaker
the character also being like, look what I can do. Look, look how cool I am. And it's like, that makes it work. Whereas if it's just like a guy going to get groceries and it's a wonder, I feel like I'm shitting on Shaun of the Dead because that's literally a scene in Shaun the Dead that's a wonder of him getting groceries. but didn see But in that case, like that's kind of a joke to be like, you know, we're gonna this really elaborate camera thing and it's like, but it's also done twice. I think that is a great moment in that movie.
02:06:30
Speaker
Anyway, for this movie, yeah No wonders in this movie, really. so In this movie, was so there is some long the moment talking about the moment that I'm talking about of him shaking his own hand lasts for a very short time. It's not like, this is how we got into all this. ah It lasts for a very short time.
02:06:49
Speaker
And you know it's just like, oh, cool. yeah Nice. you know But it's also like in a scene where you're trying, you know that it's not reality. So it doesn't need to be super realistic. Sure. What was your favorite movie that we watched from 1991? You know, ah it's a little tricky.
02:07:05
Speaker
i think that I'm very intrigued and I'm very impressed by Streetcar Named Desire. But I think that the movie that I just straight up like enjoyed the most and I feel like I got the most out of was probably The Day the Earth Stood Still.
02:07:24
Speaker
I mean, big surprise, same. Yeah. it's gotta be my favorite i mean it's it's too much it's just too up my alley for it not to be but i also i do think it's just it's uh um genuinely found it to be like the most engaging film even though i'd seen it already that just like it it pulls you in it keeps you keeps you locked in to what's going on so two thumbs up two thumbs way up we we can't we can't do that it's trademarked or whatever is that uh infringement of some kind ah Anyway, that'll do it for this episode. Thanks for um thanks for joining us. Hey, look, we just made 100 subscribers.
02:08:05
Speaker
This plaque could have been an email. We got this ah we got this lovely cardboard plaque ah for 100 subscribers. YouTube gave it to us. I didn't just draw this. Yeah. Anyway, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for watching.
02:08:25
Speaker
And I guess we'll see you the next one. Glenn? Indeed. See you next year. See you next year.