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1952 - Confronting Death IN 3-D!
45 Plays26 days ago
Film explodes off the screen in a whole new dimension! This episode we discuss the beginning of the 1950s 3-D boom, Oscar winning anti-war experimental film, cold war paranoia cartoons, the widest of widescreen, iconic old west showdowns, DeMille circus propaganda, and meditations on mortality from Chaplin and Kurosawa!
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 1952 Films Discussed playlist right here!
Norman McLaren sound on film video
00:00:00 - Intro
00:03:34 - The News of the Year!
00:07:05 - Duck and Cover
00:16:40 - Neighbours
00:32:36 - High Noon
00:52:31 - Limelight
01:05:26 - Ikiru
01:32:13 - The Greatest Show on Earth
01:53:34 - Bwana Devil
02:09:31 - This is Cinerama
02:27:12 - Favorites and Outro
See you next year!
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Concept
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week, One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order, starting in
Focus on 1952 and 3D Cinema
00:00:19
Speaker
1895, the dawn cinema. This episode 1952, the dawn of three-dimensional cinema. Oh,
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist and joining me as always is... I'm Glenn Covell, a filmmaker. And we're reshooting this part because we forgot to do it with 3D glasses on. And what is the point of this entire episode if we don't do it wearing 3D glasses?
00:00:46
Speaker
How many dimensions are you feeling like, Glenn? You know, i was only feeling like two. But right now, feeling a whole third dimension. My God, he's gone to 3D.
00:00:58
Speaker
My God. And that's how you get continuity with the stuff we filmed earlier.
Personal Updates and Listener Clarifications
00:01:06
Speaker
What's up, Glenn? What's going on in your filmmaker world? Not a whole lot. I got a couple pokers in the fire. Is that a thing people say?
00:01:15
Speaker
But as as per usual, I only want to make things that are difficult to produce. so Monster related. Generally monster related, yeah I think everything that I'm currently working on is somehow monster related.
00:01:31
Speaker
related or adjacent. So, yeah. Why don't they make any less expensive monsters? I mean, there's monsters. It costs money to make monsters, you know?
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah. as i it's I actually feel like the monsters are not the problem i'm running into. It's more of the places than the monsters themselves. But why don't they make less expensive places that I agree with that? i I very much agree with both in film locations and also just places to live.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, man, you're in New York City, the the the place where ah it costs money to just stand there. Yeah, pretty much. I just ah ah wrapped up a little trip to the Pacific Northwest and I went to a lovely video store, not Scarecrow video. I should ah i should have gone to Scarecrow video, but I wasn't able to go. i was in Seattle and I wasn't able to go. But I went to a different video store that was also lovely. it was in Portland, which has so many cool little indie theaters. And i ah ah I regret to say that I'm becoming the tote bag and I'm really, i i really liked liked it. But projection related, I guess we're still ah doing some prints from the Library of Congress or...
00:02:46
Speaker
ah doing Doing some musicals coming up soon. Some that we've covered on the podcast. Actually, a number that we've covered on the podcast, including ah Say in the Rain, ah which is ostensibly this year. True.
00:03:02
Speaker
And America Paris, which is last year. nice ah But yeah, ah speaking of movies, we're a movie podcast, if you don't know. We're not a filmmaker and projectionist podcast. We don't matter. I know there's so many of those already.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, what the world needs is another podcast that's about movies. ah But it's also a little bit about a history, just a little bit. So we like to give ourselves a little bit of context for what's going on in 1952.
00:03:32
Speaker
Glenn, what is that context? The News of Year, 1952.
Key Events and Cultural References from 1952
00:03:38
Speaker
Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen, beginning the longest reign of any British monarch in history.
00:03:44
Speaker
Cyborgs among us! The mechanical heart is used on a human. Fallout of the ungraceful end of colonialism. Marginalization based on Bengali and Urdu languages erupts into violence and protests in Dhaka.
00:03:57
Speaker
Fulgencio Batista, lagging in the polls in his bid for re-election, stages a coup in Cuba and establishes friendly relations with U.S. businesses. John Cage's 433 premieres.
00:04:10
Speaker
The United States develops and tests the first hydrogen bomb. The Bolivian national revolution occurs with shared support from liberals and communists. They establish universal suffrage and nationalize the minds.
00:04:22
Speaker
XGI becomes blonde beauty. Christine Jorgensen makes headlines as the first American to undergo sex reassignment surgery. The Screen Actors Guild negotiates the first actor contracts that include residuals.
00:04:34
Speaker
In Burstyn v. Wilson, the Supreme Court unanimously overturns its previous president, declaring that films are fully protected free speech under the First Amendment. And that is all the news that is fit to print.
00:04:50
Speaker
Apologies to Chris for rewriting some of his very funny jokes in the headlines. yeah Do I just say what my joke is now? yeah that's That's the only way you're going get it on the show. so It premiered, John Cage's 433 premiered in Woodstock. It's the first Woodstock not music festival.
00:05:12
Speaker
But that isn't a thing. Of course it's not a thing. Is every joke a thing? Jokes are about things that aren't things. I know, but don't know. A joke doesn't work for me. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:24
Speaker
Write in, audience. Tell me if you think my 433 joke is funny um with the explanation that I gave of the joke. I mean, it is it is also confusing that the music festival Woodstock is not in the town Woodstock.
00:05:41
Speaker
But John Cage's 433 did premiere in the actual town Woodstock. yeah Not at Bethel Woods where the music festival is. Yeah, 433, by the way. um This is all getting cut from the episode. No! What? You're going to do me like this again?
00:05:59
Speaker
the other thing Once you say something's cut from the episode, that guarantees that it stays in. Right. my My little anecdote about 433 is that on the dating app Tinder, you can set a song as your anthem, and I set it as 433. Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
That is A plus trolling right there. That is. Isn't it? Isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, i was very pleased with myself also because it was, it was kind of hard to make it work. Like, uh, like I had to, I had to do some, like, it's hard to tell if it's playing or not.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, but it's like it's like I had to do some like weird search strings in order to get it to like connect to a Spotify recording of 433. There is a Spotify recording of 433? Of course. Okay.
00:06:51
Speaker
Why did you say it like Bane? Of course. Anyway, ah movies. Anyway, we're here to talk about movies today. And let's start with One Week, One Reel.
00:07:04
Speaker
Indeed. Let's start with Duck and Cover. Yeah. Well, this short is famous, right? Not just the concept of ducking and covering. like this I think that this short is the most well-known, you know, iteration of the phrase duck and cover. I think duck and cover is immortally linked with Bert the Turtle.
00:07:29
Speaker
Especially to people who've seen The Iron Giant. Right. Yeah. Which was probably... I mean, definitely where I first saw this short in any form. Certainly i as well.
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, this is a ah film that was ah commissioned or put together by the United States government. Only seven years after the Trinity test, already how much the world has changed. um Educational films going out to students in schools, advising them on how to respond and be vigilant for...
00:08:05
Speaker
Nuclear Holocaust. Yeah, no no big deal. Great vibes. You got to wonder if I feel like I need to to talk to some people who were children in the 50s and ask them like how much the kind of Cold War paranoia influenced them. Mm hmm.
00:08:25
Speaker
yeah I wonder if they all have generalized anxiety disorders. Hmm. I'm just going to go. I just assume everyone has some sort of generalized anxiety.
00:08:36
Speaker
No, I'm chill. Yeah. leave you Yeah, I was. It's funny watching this. It feels kind of both both kind of sensational sensationalistic in it. Sort of like you got to you got to be ready. like like You have to be ready at all times just to like an atom bomb might go off like at any point. You can't ever like not be ready.
00:09:00
Speaker
But at the same time, it also feels kind of almost like a little naive and a little kind of... Just hide under your desk and you'll be okay. Right. Which, I mean, i i was trying to like read up on this. like there is If you're far enough away where it's going to blow out the windows and things like that, that is good advice.
00:09:18
Speaker
But yeah, but yeah it leaves completely unstated the fact that if you are in the direct blast zone, right you will be vaporized. There's no high opportunity to duck and cover because you won't exist anymore.
00:09:33
Speaker
Right. That part, right. they And it is, even though this is meant to educate people about the dangers of the atomic bomb, it it is so, it feels so kind of sanitized at the same time of just like, yeah You know, yeah they'll there'll be a bright flash and you gotta, you know, get stand under a window, you know, a doorway or something. And it's like, well, if you're like thousands of miles away, sure.
00:10:03
Speaker
Well, not thousands, but like if you're ah if you're maybe dozens or hundreds or a hundred miles away. and I mean, I think it's slightly hyperbolic. perhaps Something something about this that feels a little rich is that they filmed this in Astoria. They filmed this in New York City.
00:10:22
Speaker
All of those children would be vaporized. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like this is intended for children outside of New York City because all the children in New York City in an event of an ah atomic bomb would not be the ones who would have the opportunities to duck and cover. Right.
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The other thing about this is that like this responding to the kind of concussive blasts and heat related to atomic bombs and atomic bomb explosion, but not the nuclear part. It's basically like, i guess what I was reading is that anybody who is close enough to the initial explosion ah to be affected by the radiation immediately would more or less be, you're going to have bigger problems than ducking and covering. And so this is for people in like the outer area where before the nuclear fallout reaches you,
00:11:23
Speaker
you can protect yourselves from the heat and concussion by, I guess the radiation does not travel as far as fast. ah But, you know, that is definitely beyond my understanding.
00:11:36
Speaker
Yeah. ah But yeah, like, ah even though it is like 50s educational film, it feels quite, quite grim. yeah especially because it's all about children yeah turtles notwithstanding right yeah that too and it definitely made me just kind of like think about uh just you know schools should be a safe place and they're not um true and also god yeah oh man like our modern day version of this is like a some don't it's like a school shooter like video like here's how to protect yourself with this it is like cool duck and cover is like hey get on your desk now kids have to do like full-on like drills of like what to do oh my god yeah uh awful terrifying hate it um i was also reminded of like the blitz in in england i don't know i've seen any like educational films about that but right just like the concept of just like you're going about your everyday life and you might get bombed like at any point
00:12:35
Speaker
which is a thing that I think just Americans don't really have much experience with. And this is like one of the only examples that I know of, of like that kind of being put out into the culture of just like. Trying to get people to be more aware or just like, you know, yeah.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, right. Like we are in the early era of ICBMs and like the concept of America being bombed is is like just a brand new concept basically. Yeah.
00:13:09
Speaker
And yeah, the, the geographic isolation definitely gave America a lot of privilege in the, the world wars in terms of not having to directly confront things like the blitz. um But yeah, it's, it's interesting just seeing this as like a piece of,
00:13:28
Speaker
Cold War paranoia, you know? um Yeah. It's called for, like you're saying, it's like overstating and understating. It's called for and it's uncalled for. Like, this did never happen, but like everybody was worried that it would and maybe it was realistic to think that it would at a certain point in history.
00:13:45
Speaker
It's interesting. it's It's an interesting watch. There's also a cartoon turtle that hides in his shell. Right. Yeah. And even that like that kind of that adds to that kind of slightly uncanny tone that it has too, I think. um Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:03
Speaker
I did. I mean, I think the animation feels very like distinctly 1950s compared to like, like I think in a similar way to some of the animation in the Alice in Wonderland movie.
00:14:15
Speaker
and i'm i'm I'm starting to see sort of like animation trends kind of shifting in the early 1950s where it's like the animation in this short feels very 1950s as opposed to like the like whatever like private snafu or something which feels distinctly Yeah, I guess that's true. And like, you know, there's a lot of other things that have this 1950s feel about them. I feel like these educational films, like we've seen a lot of them from the 50s.
00:14:44
Speaker
ah There's the Cold War aspect of it. um And then like, the even the music, they're like, dum-dum, dee-dee-dum-dum, there was a turtle by the name of Bert. It's ahs a very, yeah, very 50s.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. um Which is, it's funny to see that like, how much stuff kind of, I guess we associate with like fifties culture is like, it feels like there was a pretty quick shift in like between 1950 and like 51, 52, where it's like all that fifties stuff gets established really quickly. Yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah. And like, I mean, it's just shocking to me. Like, I think that part of the byproduct of doing this year by year is getting a bit more of like a lived sense of the pace of how world events move. And I think one of the more shocking things to me lately is just like,
00:15:36
Speaker
how quickly we launched from like the war is over to like another war. We're scared of Russia. Like it's like it, it became the cold war so quickly and they were like so fully in it.
00:15:50
Speaker
Um, with this, with the day the earth stood still, um, it's like, you know, barely had any time to rest after, after Hitler died and like, um,
00:16:03
Speaker
And now like we're in the middle of the Korean War with at this point. Yeah. The 1950s, bad times. Funny that a certain type of person often cites 1950s as like the good old days. Yeah. ah Make America afraid of nuclear weapons.
00:16:26
Speaker
Oh, dear. Oh, dear. yeah glad glad I've never actually watched Duck and Cover all the way through. So glad to have. I think i had seen it. but Yeah, yeah it's an interesting it's a very interesting kind of cultural artifact for sure. Definitely.
00:16:41
Speaker
So speaking of U.S. and Soviet relations, let's hop over to our other short, which is Neighbors. B-O-U-R-S, because this is a Canadian film from a Scottish director. So we're not none of that B-O-R-S crap. ah We're going to we're going have some extra use in there just for fun.
00:17:04
Speaker
or Just for a little color. yeah This is by Norman McLaren, a kind of famous.
00:17:15
Speaker
What do you call it? Like um ah experimental filmmaker. Sure. Almost like i't know it I don't know. Not really. video I was going to say video artists, but if they're not videos. They're films, but art using film as much as they are films. Yeah, and this film ah certainly has, I think you're watching it, and maybe less so than some of his others. but i mean, this is like seems like this is pretty pretty traditional for
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah, but like there's certainly an awareness of the film, right? This is a film that uses pixelation. um Not to be confused pixelization, pix what we did which is a different thing.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yes. P-I-X-I-L. We're doing a lot of spelling in this episode. is motion animating using human beings. a pixelation which is the the using which is stop motion animating using ah human beings yeah in particular it's using a technique which i remember seeing for the first time in some like very early youtube videos in 2005 or 6 of uh people floating in the air by like jumping up and down and over again and yeah and just using the part where they're in the air uh yeah what what happened it it makes their makes their legs kind of vibrate This is about two fellas who live next to each other in a sort of heightened cartoon lawn. And a flower grows between their two houses. And at first, they they love the flower. They're dancing around it. They're like, what what a great time we're having with this flower. It's so great.
00:19:01
Speaker
And then... They each tried to kind of lay claim to the flower by drawing a line across like their property line. Like, no, the flower is on my side. No, no, no, the flower is on my side. And then they one tries to build a fence and the other one tries to build a fence. And it escalates and eque escalates to the point where they have destroyed each other's houses.
00:19:23
Speaker
ah and each other's families and ah ripped each other to pieces and and and also destroyed the flower. And then the movie ends with ah the phrase, love thy neighbor in like eight different languages.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, this is ah this movie has a very kind of... um It's like a ah lot of dualities going on. It starts with them reading newspapers and one says war certain if no peace and the other one says peace certain if no war. right Which right are like different phrases that mean the exact same thing kind of. And or there's kind of a yin yang quality to it. yeah It is about like war and peace and yours and mine and ah like division and and oneness and Yeah. And there's no no dialogue.
00:20:13
Speaker
um Yes. it's all like It is a silent picture. And then stop motion. Well, it's and it's got synchronized sound effects and yeah music and that kind of thing. but um ah and And the sound effects do kind of emphasize a lot of the action in a pleasing way. but Sound effects are very interesting. I feel like we'll we'll get into that in in a second.
00:20:34
Speaker
Or maybe we'll get into it now. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, this movie is... ah It's very... It's very didactic, but I don't think that it is, like... It doesn't have the vibe of something that's preaching, I guess. I think it's artfully done enough yeah that, like, it it feels like it's kind of getting at big themes rather than saying, like, hey, don't be selfish, you know? Right, but it's I think it's, like, it...
00:21:05
Speaker
um It is, it's very, right, it's I think I just used the word heightened already, but it's like, it is very heightened. It's very almost kind of cartoonish. Mm, iconographic.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah, and it is, it's not subtle in its points, right? It like ends with like a phrase being repeated in lots different languages, being like, this is the thesis. Even though it's very kind of couched in kind of like North American early 50s kind of iconography.
00:21:34
Speaker
it it does feel like it is such a sort of like broad universal themes of just sort of like cut, cut, cut that out. Ward, ward, dumb. Like yeah the, the, the things that we fight over are so kind of ah arbitrary and pointless. And it's like, it is, it is a a almost kind of like childlike approach. And it's just, it is boiled down to its absolute, like simplest form.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, and and like I think there's a lot of good stuff in this that sort of... it like Subtle things that take the simple message and make it a bit richer. um like There's implications that like that kind of suburban...
00:22:20
Speaker
pipe smoking father knows best kind of like archetype is sort of built and and like suburbia you know nineteen fifty s suburbia is built around some kind of inherent violence uh almost like blue velvet it has like there is a violence a lurking in the suburbs you know in this idyllic american suburbs um And there is like, you know, that it starts in this like like harmonious space where people are able to share and be free. And the moment that possession becomes a factor, it starts getting aggressive. The the the the wholeness, the oneness is separated into different people. And speaking to what i was saying before, it is visualizing that with a white picket fence.
00:23:14
Speaker
Right. Which like, yeah, it, it, it, it it all, it all gels. It all really gels. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I also think like that, that like sense of harmoniousness in like the kind of suburbia setting.
00:23:29
Speaker
ah to me, I, I really felt like it, it is like very, it's really like putting a pin in the idea like this, everyone could be fine. Like if we all just like,
00:23:41
Speaker
Like truly, if if we could all get along, everything would be okay. And just like, ah that someone has to go and ruin it. You know, like things are fine. Like there isn't some external force coming in.
00:23:53
Speaker
It is like two people that go from just like sitting next to each other, reading the paper and like having ah having a nice afternoon to turning into like crazed, violent creatures almost. Yeah.
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, there is like a... ah They become brutes. They become animals ah when they're like taken over by this feeling of possession, right? I think notable, this is kind of feeding into ah a silent... Not silent, day a short film trend that makes a lot of sense for why people write them this way, but like ends up bothering me, is having like a cute little ironic ending, right?
00:24:35
Speaker
That being said, like, I think what, you know, it it makes sense here, which is like they're living in ah in a, you know, peaceful zone. Something beautiful comes into that zone. At first, they appreciate it on its own terms. They are like, wow, look at this beautiful thing.
00:24:52
Speaker
When they get possessive over it, in the end, they crush the flower. And in their quest to... They destroy the very thing they were fighting over. Exactly. In their quest to possess...
00:25:04
Speaker
the thing of beauty, they destroy the beauty and destroy themselves in the process. And everything else that each of them love and and have, right? They each have a house. Those get destroyed. there are There is a wife and child in each of the houses. Those are both killed in in ah in a bit that was cut out, I found out later. Yeah.
00:25:26
Speaker
Because it was deemed too violent. and it well I will say that bit did sort of surprise me. When like they're like punting a baby off screen.
00:25:37
Speaker
which Because it's stop motion. the get away with it. But it was sort of like. Oh damn. This movie went is going harder than I expected it to. Yeah. i mean you know Definitely having implications. Of like you know standard suburban life. Like having domestic violence. Built inside. Although they're attacking. The the murdering of a baby is yeah not something i don't think has ever been. i don't know if I've seen portrayed in a movie this early.
00:26:08
Speaker
There had definitely been, ah you know, in infanticide in films before this, but I feel like it's always ah maybe a little bit more ah subtly alluded to. Whereas in this, it is like, it's just someone throwing a baby off screen. They also, I don't think it's a mistake that it's a little bit funny.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. Just a little bit. I mean, the thing is, like you're saying, it's live action, but it's cartoony. Yeah. It's slapstick. There's a lot of slapstick in this, too. Right. Yeah. Like like the ways that they start drawing the lines, right? that Speaking of, like the ways they start drawing the lines are like they can like there use it there they're using the animation of the human beings to like they move their hand through the air. And as they move it, the fence is sort of built where they're pointing. Yeah. Really cool. They're using that stuff for like Yeah. Cartoon-y purposes, I suppose.
00:27:01
Speaker
I forgot to mention earlier that like the end end is they crush the flower and then they both die and they only get what they want in death, which is that like flowers grow on their graves. ah Yeah, I think I think this is a a very, a very good film.
00:27:22
Speaker
Me too. And ah ah so did the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1953 because they gave it ah the Academy Award for Best Short Film. Live action.
00:27:34
Speaker
Right. Which is ah ah a bit of ah a bit of a possible category fraud to call this live action because it is it is live actors, but it is also animation.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, the Academy put out a press release in 2005 saying that this ah was among a group of films that not only competed, but won Academy Awards in what were clearly inappropriate categories. I didn't know that. That's really funny. So even the Academy acknowledged that it didn't didn't really belong in that category.
00:28:07
Speaker
Oh, i guess I guess I should mention also that the... Although I think the the one that won the Oscar was the censored one without the event aside. Yeah. Yeah. The Americans wouldn't have gone for that.
00:28:18
Speaker
Sure. i will. I also think is a bit surprising that. This movie won the Oscar in that is so. ah i mean, I think it is.
00:28:30
Speaker
Very it is very, like i said, like very big and broad in its themes, but it does feel it was made by a communist and it feel like that comes through. Like it does feel like it is a at least somewhat communist leaning movie in its kind of worldview. Yeah, in particular, um talking about like, it's going from like a pure state of no private property to the existence of private property. And the existence of private property, like, it is showing the inherent violence of the creation of a concept of private property, as opposed to personal property. Maybe this movie isn't necessarily communist, it seems, but it it does feel certainly anti-capitalist.
00:29:13
Speaker
Oh, it's communist. No, I mean, like, I don't think it's like, i do think that was the intention, but I think it' it's, so it's kind of so broad that. Right. It's like not advocating for communism specifically. It is just like clearly coming from con like it is a critique of something that you can critique from many angles, but it is coming from an angle that is decidedly communist. Sure. Yeah.
00:29:38
Speaker
and then that's i i I find it somewhat surprising that like in 1952, in Hollywood, a place that was not not a safe place to be openly communist. What?
00:29:50
Speaker
That this won the Oscar. some Somehow a a rascally Scottish-Canadian. Speaking of those filthy reds, do you want to get to our... We've got to talk about the sound.
00:30:04
Speaker
Oh, the sound. OK. Yeah. Because the sound, i think, is really interesting in that the sound, the sound and the music are both done by painting directly onto the strip of film, like where the soundtrack is. Oh, I didn't know that he did the sound with that technique in this film. Yeah. And it it gives it this very weird, almost like video gamey, like bleeps and bloops.
00:30:28
Speaker
<unk> to kind of kind of sounds. But just just the fact that that is, the way that like sound on film works, that you can just like paint shapes onto it and it will make sounds, I think is very cool. Yeah, I would love to play around with that kind of thing more. I've drawn on film a little bit.
00:30:46
Speaker
ah Nothing important. But... I didn't really get it to sound like anything, ah but ah you sent me a really interesting video that was detailing his his process.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, we'll link that in the description or something, too. Yes, it's a technique that, I mean, pixel pixelation and drawing sound on film are both not techniques that he invented, but definitely it was all in the kind of scene of the experimental film stuff going on at the time. And yeah, it's like, I think it's interesting. it reminds me of that like whole like Brian Eno quote about how the kind of like,
00:31:25
Speaker
peculiarities that I'm completely massacring this quote right now, but it's like the peculiarities and the, the specificity of a certain medium will end up becoming, it's like defining traits, you know, like hiss becomes the defining trait of tape, which people might end like using, uh, intentionally. Right. Right. Uh, and like the medium, the, the yeah film itself becomes the, so almost the most essential expression of film, I suppose. Pixelation, especially done this way, it is calling attention to the artifice, right? Like you are um not looking at this and having any thought that it is a real recording because it's very obviously fake.
00:32:17
Speaker
And so you are inspired to think about like the creation of it. and the process of creating it. Yeah. Good stuff.
00:32:29
Speaker
i'm I'm a fan. Yeah. yeahriss Good movie. Yeah. Then I suppose we shall move on to our feature presentation. And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.
00:32:43
Speaker
Speaking of those filthy reds, let's talk about High Noon. High Noon a commie picture? ah Some say it is.
00:32:54
Speaker
John Wayne thinks it is. Howard Hawks thinks it is. John Wayne, I think, thinks a lot of things. And I'm not sure if we should be listening to his opinions. But ah yeah, High Noon, pretty ah pretty famous Western. Yeah, I first heard about this in like a college English class a very long time ago.
00:33:13
Speaker
and and And like the the professor was kind of touting this as like an interesting or good movie. I don't really remember any of the details, but ah I remember thinking like someday I'll watch this. And I thought it was quite good. i like this was This was your first watch. Yes.
00:33:31
Speaker
Oh, nice. Nice. It's funny, i I had seen this movie before, I think either in college or maybe like right before. And I remember thinking similar, I've been like, oh, this is like this is a really good Western.
00:33:43
Speaker
And I don't know, for whatever reason, I i feel like my my reaction felt muted on on this watch. Wow. um I don't know if I was just in the wrong mood or whatever. I just, you know.
00:33:57
Speaker
But yeah, I was sort of like, oh, yeah, High Noon is not not hitting the same way I remember it. Well, baby, I'm riding high on a first time watch. And I, yeah, I thought that it was I thought that was really good. mean, this is a lot of great stuff in this movie to talk about. So, yeah, this is there's ah ah there's many interesting things about High Noon. Something that it shares with neighbors is that it is about ah people not getting along with each other. Sure. There is a sheriff of a town who has kind of been a part of the town he like helped to really clean up the town. He was a fixture in in the town and he's getting married to a Quaker and moving away and giving up his position. Uh, Gasp, Quaker. Yeah. And right when he is leaving ah town, there's a one day gap in protection by sheriffs. And it turns out that some old bad guys who are so evil that he absolutely knows that they're going to come back and get revenge have been let out of prison and they're coming back to get revenge. Yeah. On the noon train. On the noon train. So has until noon that day to figure his shit out. Yes, this is a real-time movie, which is really interestingly high concept ah for something like this. Yeah, and then the story is that he um is the kind of force to protect the town ah is in shambles. The town is not equipped to defend themselves against these scoundrels, and they're going to turn the town back into a bad place. Nobody wants to go back to the way the town was, ah but nobody... But he as he goes around town trying to find people to deputize, no one is brave enough to help stop him from...
00:35:52
Speaker
allowing the town to fall back into ruin. No one appreciates all of the work that he did ah they do in in words, but not in actions. Right. Everyone everyone talks hawks big like, hey, you say this town, I'm with you, like whatever you need. And then he's like hey, I need you to to stand with me to fight these people who are going to kind of come back to kill me. And they're like, am busy that day. Sorry. Yeah, exactly.
00:36:19
Speaker
And it is it is quite, like, you feel the frustration of, like, he's going through all these people that are, like, so, you know, verbally grateful to him and are saying how, like, yeah he yeah, he's, like, he's the best and just, but won't actually actively stand with him when he asks them.
00:36:37
Speaker
People say that this is about you know the the House Un-American Activities Committee and like um like standing up for standing up for people. And and somebody you know somebody's trying to do the right thing or there's like a witch hunt or something like that. and no one and And these people are being excommunicated, which did happen to the screenwriter. But what this movie is actually about is flaky friends you can't get to. get to come to any event right it's like hey man like uh are you are you free at noon i got a big thing going on like oh you know got church that day sorry i'm busy oh wait and then there's right there is the one guy he is who like is like hey i'm with you like let's go rock and roll like i'm ready and then he finds out that no one else has shown up and he's like if we're the only two i'm not hang i'm not gonna fight with you i'm not gonna hang out at this party if it's only us two Yeah, this movie, um you know, I don't really directly read it as communist themes, but like, I feel like you can read it that way, especially given the kind of context. Absolutely. um
00:37:43
Speaker
Of like solidarity and specifically a lack of solidarity between people, between the good people, quote unquote, of this town. Right. Like there is like a kind of aspect of this where, know,
00:37:58
Speaker
Like everybody is being so individualistic. They will like reap the rewards of other people's hard work, but not contribute. And I think along those lines, like, you know, this movie, I think stands out a lot.
00:38:14
Speaker
around its peers, but it doesn't stand out that much among Westerns because this feels like a spaghetti Western. You know, this is a, this is a really cynical movie. This is a really cynical movie and it's not about good guys and bad guys so much. It's about like gray morals and people not being that good, you know? Right. It's almost like situational morals and like,
00:38:41
Speaker
how people's morals will change depending on the situation they're in Yeah. mean, I do think it it does have, like, I do think, gary cooper who's the sheriff is presented as a pretty pretty stand-up guy like i don't know if his character is really i'm not trying to think of like are there any points where he's really kind of actively portrayed as a sort of like morally gray person yeah i mean i guess not i think there are like like there are like good guys and bad guys but like the the movie does not have a simplistic view of the world right there is a lot of like murkiness in this right
00:39:14
Speaker
I think also like, that's the thing is like Westerns often sort of get things like, oh, all the good guys have like white hats. A lot bad guys have black hats. I feel like maybe it's the fact we've only really been watching like really good Westerns on this show, but it's like, no, like Westerns, even from like in very early ones are like,
00:39:32
Speaker
ah very willing to like have a lot of moral ambiguity in them. guess there's like antiheroes and like stagecoach. Regardless of, sort you know, the, the context of this movie when it was made and by whom is very important. But I do think it is like much like neighbors. It is the, the themes of it are kind of you universal enough and that they're just about like one guy is willing to um,
00:39:57
Speaker
the The hard thing that is also the right thing. And everyone. Almost everyone else around him is like. No it's too hard. Like we're going to take the easy way out. We're going to leave town. We're going to you know.
00:40:10
Speaker
Do whatever. Which is I think is. You can apply to so many things. Of just sort of like. when and also When actually confronted with something like that. Are you willing to. You know.
00:40:21
Speaker
do Do the hard thing. Even if it's. yeah even if it Yeah, and you can you can apply this to mundane situations, and you can also apply it to like really big situations in that like he is willing to risk his life in order to do the right thing, and nobody else is willing to do that. like It's not just like, can you do the right thing? It's like, can you do something really scary to do the right thing? Right, yeah. yeah I mean, I think this movie does a pretty good job of sort of like...
00:40:55
Speaker
Presenting with all of these like kind of chess pieces and kind of just seeing seeing where they where they land. What a cast also. ah The aforementioned um Gary Cooper, but also Grace Kelly is the the the Quaker wife.
00:41:10
Speaker
Hmm. I mean, I would marry Quaker, too, if she was Grace Kelly. Yeah. Let's let so uss be honest. um ah Lee Van Cleef, speaking of spaghetti westerns. Yeah. is like One of the henchmen.
00:41:22
Speaker
Mr. Spaghetti himself. Of the big bad. Thomas Mitchell, who's it just in every movie from the 30s and 40s. Yeah. one And ah Lloyd Bridges.
00:41:33
Speaker
Babyface Lloyd Bridges as the ah sort of flaky deputy. Huh. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I'm not good at faces, I guess. We got like we got, you know, Gail Cooper, who's like back in, you know, started in silent movies. And we got Lee Van Cleef and ah Lloyd Bridges who in Airplane. Like this this movie spans a wide, its cast spans a very wide range of like movie history. which i think That's true. Yeah, I um Speaking of me not being able to recognize faces, I could I barely recognize Gary Cooper in this. Like, I feel like the last movie we saw Gary Cooper in is...
00:42:13
Speaker
I don't know if we watched any movies with him in the 40s. We might have just watched 30s movies. Maybe not. It's funny because I'm pretty sure this is the first movie I ever saw Gary Cooper in. And so this this kind of set the standard like what Gary Cooper is as an actor for me, which is not, I think, very ah a very universal like picture of who he is as an actor. like I think this is very much him in sort of like elder statesman mode. This is him as an older kind of like steady hand actor. Right.
00:42:41
Speaker
I mean, that's the thing, honestly, is that like, you know, we've watched this happen before, but with a couple of movies in this in this episode, we're watching people who we knew as young people earlier on in this podcast. Now old people, you know? Yeah.
00:42:57
Speaker
And this is also, this is like, it very much acknowledges the fact that he is old. Like that is part of his character. ah He went to a beach. It turned him old. Exactly. Exactly.
00:43:08
Speaker
That reference will be remembered years for for years to come. By me, yes. I mean, i think we should talk about the kind of gimmick of this movie, of it being in real time. is a very literal ticking clock movie. Yeah. This movie, that did this slaps. This is awesome. yeah Like, I think that... It is probably my favorite thing about the movie which is a very nerdy, filmmaker-y thing for to be my favorite part, is, like, yeah the structure. Yeah. But it it works so well. And like, you know, at first it's, it's so good. Like it starts and you're like, Oh man, this big confrontation is going to happen in like an hour and a half, you know? And then there are so many parts and so many scenes, someone glances to the clock. It's getting worse. It's getting worse. It's getting worse. It's getting worse. it's getting worse. And then you're like, Jesus Christ, there's 10 minutes until this guy gets here, you know? And, It so naturally builds tension so gracefully. And so it's like at the beginning, you're just watching a movie and then you're like getting more and more stressed out as you keep looking at this clock. And i was really feeling it by the end of the movie. I was on the edge of my seat ah when the confrontation was was happening. And it was and it was really because of the formal aspect. Yeah, yeah. It builds tension really well. And when like when that final confrontation does happen, it it does feel like the fireworks factory. It is like it ratchets the tension up so much. And then there is like a long extended gunfight through the town.
00:44:44
Speaker
And it's like this, its it pays off that tension well, you know? Yeah. It's not a one-to-one comparison, but I was, this made me think of the movie Crank, the Jason Statham movie.
00:44:56
Speaker
Sure, I can see why, yeah. It's like, it's like this kind of device that is like forcing ah like high octane stuff to happen at all moments, you know? Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
You gotta to do everything you can to like make it to this big confrontation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feels, feels very crank. Also, even its like the the concept of like a showdown at high noon is like such a like Western staple, you know?
00:45:26
Speaker
Yeah. And so and I think this movie does for being built entirely around that concept. Um, Yeah, it does a good job. Yeah, I mean, um you know what it kind of kind of reminds me of ah is um The Day of the Fight, which we just watched the Stanley Kubrick movie. Hey, you know? Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
Like, it is... this movie Almost the same movie, yeah. the The, like, building anticipation to the big moment that you're kind of dreading, you know? Yeah, yeah. Big moment of violence. Yeah, and another, like great like, very small but, like, cool, like, formal thing in this is, like, there's a bit where...
00:46:03
Speaker
Like the the way that they build up the villain, whose name is Frank Miller, which made me chuckle um because of the comic book artist. is like you don't actually see him until he shows up on the train, but everyone is like talking about him the whole movie. yeah This guy is bad news. Like, oh shit. Like you do not.
00:46:23
Speaker
He's like just the worst person. Like he's so scary. He's going to like completely changed by 9-11 and write a really racist book. You know, the early Daredevil Batman stuff, real good. But then like something happened. We don't know what went down.
00:46:39
Speaker
ah a real thought I had while watching the movie. And there's a bit where I forget who is if it's like the town. One of the people in the town is like, remember when you like sent us him to jail? He sat in that chair and they like do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dolly move in on it just an empty chair. And you're like, oh, like I feel just this ominous empty chair.
00:47:03
Speaker
and then they bring it back. It's scary. Yeah. And then then when he' he's coming back and everybody's like the clock is ticking and it starts cutting really fast. It cuts back to that chair and you're like it's like the specter of him is getting closer and arriving. It's it's so good. ru good. Real good. Oh, yeah. Another sort of interesting, I guess, like filmmaking flourish, like the opening credits.
00:47:24
Speaker
There's like a song playing over the opening credits, but no like diegetic sound, which feels very modern to me. Like it doesn't, don't for whatever reason, it's like having like scenes of like, you know, the the posse riding up on horses, but there only being music playing under it and no sound throughout the whole thing. Because it's like a very quiet song too.
00:47:44
Speaker
don't know, that felt, that didn't feel like typical 50s filmmaking to me. they've got a um They've got an original song for this movie that's about the story. and That's called The Day Robert Palin Shot Me Down. wow Yeah, we haven't even mentioned the skeletons coming to life. i mean that's a whole We keep hearing, like, kind of little motifs. I mean, like, this like of the of the kind of title track that are sort of, like, done in the background music. There's is a bit of ah a bit of a leitmotif from that song throughout the movie. It's a bit of a heavy motif. i
00:48:23
Speaker
ah You know, this the song is about the story and of the of the film. It's about like the having to have having to confront this this guy and nobody is supporting you. And so it does kind of come in... They basically sing you the story of the movie before starts. And so it kind of, ah in in appropriate moments, kind of returns. yeah I like when a movie has a song that is also the story of the movie. Here come the men in black! Exactly.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yeah, more movies should have that. More movies should have a song at the end credits that just tells you what happened. Thanks. ah we Let's enlist Demi Adijuwebe to make more Will Smith and credits songs.
00:49:05
Speaker
I don't know if he needs any help. He's already doing a lot of things. He's got to make more. I agree. I agree. You know, I had like a thought that was like very like, ooh, but like, um what was it?
00:49:18
Speaker
This, this like, it was like, listen what sound did you make? Anyway, what I was saying was that while I was watching this, I was thinking, like, about the device, about the gimmick, and how it feels so essential to what cinema is, right? Like, cinema is time, and you can't tell... i mean, this story is based on a book, but, like, I was... Or, like, ah like a short story. But, like, I was...
00:49:44
Speaker
Thinking about like all of this like cutting back to the clock and how like time is so tangible in this movie. Yeah, and it's like you can't do that in other mediums, you know, there is something that is essentially film about this movie. Mm-hmm Yeah, I mean, I'm curious. Like, if you try to do this on stage, how would it play? Like, you could still take plays in real time. But, yeah, I feel like it wouldn't necessarily have that same... I mean, yeah, the... the You gotta have, like, a big 24 o'clock above the stage. Right, yeah. kind I'm actually curious now how that would... If you tried to do High Noon on stage, if that's ever been attempted.
00:50:21
Speaker
Um... Yeah, certainly like in like as a novel, you would not feel it in the same way in that like you're youre experiencing the story at the same rate as the as the characters. I'm sure Chris Nolan loves this movie. Like I loves loves time. I just love and appreciate time.
00:50:40
Speaker
Oh, and and i one other little note about this movie is that there are... and this feels like a classic like cowboy or samurai sort of situation. It's like, there's a big showdown happening.
00:50:54
Speaker
The coffin maker is going to be is goingnna be making gangbusters. like in Right. The classic thing of you walk into a store and... the right he's like He's gone around town trying to get people to help and the coffin maker making a coffin. Being like... you never know like yeah that's it's like kai cough maker can you like wait a little bit before you make my coffin sir like i can see you yeah yeah like i like and and it's it's this like more ominousness like ah this whole movie is just building ominousness yeah and uh there is yeah like the part where he is
00:51:31
Speaker
not like even like seeing his coffin being made. He's getting shaved at the barber and like he is hearing his coffin being made like the the nails going into the into the wood in the background. And he has like a blade up to his neck around the same time. You know, yeah like there's all of this stuff. All this stuff is just so loaded with ominous. Yeah.
00:51:56
Speaker
Loaded with ominousness is a great way to describe this movie. Yeah. ah But yeah, High Noon was super good. I liked it. In this you know movie, we we saw an aging Gary Cooper, which was, i was given it was giving me kind of feelings in a way. Look at look at how our our boy has grown up. And... There's another film that is really directly confronting, talking about like elder statesman sort of situation, really directly confronting the aging of Hollywood stars, ah which we've been seeing a lot of stuff about. But this one is Limelight, made by Charlie Chaplin.
00:52:35
Speaker
Well, Charles Chaplin, he's in he's in drama mode on in this one. This movie is still like, yeah, it's still doing the Charles Chaplin situation of a laugh and maybe a tear, you know? ah Yeah, that very much. He's definitely not a lot of people go like so sappy and so silly at the same time. Right. As Charlie Chaplin. Well, because I think this one especially feels I think this one is by more leaning towards the the the like being like a a serious dramatic film than like city lights or the kid or one of those this movie opens on a suicide right but not as much as like a woman of paris right that's what it's called yeah which that almost felt like he had like proof either to himself to whether it's like i could i could do drama whereas this is like this lets a lot more of the silliness back in
00:53:30
Speaker
Because it is about a clown. so But it's about a sad clown. Of course. Of course. She's beautiful, but she's dying.
00:53:41
Speaker
um I got i got to can it with these references. um ah i So this is, i mean, this this movie is so kind of metatextual.
00:53:55
Speaker
Very, very much. Yeah. It is so like because a a like him reflecting on his own career. And it very very much feels like I am like taking my own career.
00:54:06
Speaker
Like I'm taking stock of my own life, my Charlie Chaplin's life, and I am kind of putting a button on it. I'm making my last statement and I'm like making room for the next generation. But I have feelings about it and we're going to explore those feelings. you know Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:23
Speaker
Right. Because it it is. It's about Charlie Chaplin is playing an an aging clown who is is, you know, does not have the career that he once had. Which, hey you know, is is a very clear sort of, you know, parallel with his own life. But then it is also set, the time period in which it's set is like when he grew up.
00:54:42
Speaker
It's set like when he started acting. Right. So it's sort of also, he's like looking back and looking forward almost kind of. so Yeah. Yeah. It's doing a lot for sure. And like, yeah, ah yeah it's almost like he is imagining himself as,
00:55:00
Speaker
the person who is patch it, passing the torch to himself. And he's also imagining himself passing the torch to his,
00:55:12
Speaker
young wife quick synopsis sad sad clown he's drunk he gets drunk his life is not the way that it used to be and he knows that his time is kind of over uh he lives in the same apartment as a uh young dancer who uh is passionate about her craft but was she has issues with her legs. Yeah, but it's they're like psychosomatic. Yes. So she has issues with her legs that are stopping her from being able to dance. And she's so dedicated to her craft.
00:55:46
Speaker
The film opens with him drunkenly arriving home, smelling gas, looking through a keyhole and seeing that she is attempting suicide. ah This person who...
00:55:59
Speaker
is in the same apartment building as him, but he doesn't know. He bursts the door open and rescues her. And then she kind of becomes attached to him as he brings her back to health. And he, you know, kind of gives her some words of advice as an elder artist to a younger artist. He's like, hey, you know, don't kill yourself. You got your whole life ahead of you. You can fix any of this situation. Me, I'm over, you know? And they kind of become emotionally entwined and then they become...
00:56:29
Speaker
sort of romantically entwined, but he sort of resists it a little bit because she's so much younger than him And they talk about how real rich Charlie. Yeah. They talk about you.
00:56:41
Speaker
i know. i mean, this does, it does feel like he is sort of commenting on his own situation. It does feel kind of self-reflective in that way, which I did think was very interesting. Yeah, because in the movie, he's saying, you are too young for me. And she is younger than... She is older than his wife is. Right.
00:57:04
Speaker
So, there yeah, there's definitely there's definitely that, you know, this kind of, like, calling attention to... you know, maybe, so who knows, you know, maybe he had some kind of anxiety about this aspect of himself. um And there's a way that he's like defending himself. There's a way that he's like writing a narrative in which he's like, it's okay that I did this, you know? Yeah, it's sort of like, on one hand, it feels like it might be self-reflective. but On the other hand, it might feel almost like he's kind of trying to kind of... Oh, she came on to me, you know? Right, yeah. And it's like, no, no, I'm too old for you. oh And it's like,
00:57:41
Speaker
come on charlie so yeah don't know that that aspect to it is weird and kind of uncomfortable because of who charlie chaplin is i mean the the movie i thought of while watching this a lot of the time is a star is born it's it's very a very similar kind of plot i guess yeah just plot in terms of like is about you know ah an aging male performer and a younger female performer and they're sort of like you know, crossing paths as the star grows. Even the idea that, right, like the, uh, Chaplin's character is an alcoholic. Like that's another sort of big thing. And so, you know, for all of his many, uh, personal problems, Charlie Chaplin, very good director.
00:58:25
Speaker
Um, and I think this, I, this movie does, I think a good job of like that, the meta thing of like using his very well-known like persona as a way to kind of like,
00:58:38
Speaker
don't give this movie and this character, like, a ah lot of added depth. um Without yeah using it as a crutch. It's like, the movie, I think, would work if you didn't know who Charlie Chaplin was, but...
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that a movie that is being this self-referential ah on a meta level, I feel like if it came out today, i would probably be rolling my eyes at it. you know It's like, oh, it's another parallel with Charlie Chaplin's life. Whoa. you know But like it pulls it off, I think. you know it's And maybe i'm just maybe I just have a soft spot. I'm not sure. But like you know this movie...
00:59:14
Speaker
It definitely feels, i mean, like Modern Times did, it it feels like a ah referendum on who he is. And it's just wrapping everything up. The thing that would have bothered me in a newer movie and some for some reason didn't is there's a point where he goes like, it must be the tramp in me. You know, it's like, we get it.
00:59:35
Speaker
we get it I always do a very bad job at keeping my synopses concise. But um this this movie ends with... ah you know There's like a bit of back and forth about like whether he is able to succeed still. like like Nobody wants to book him. But like finally, he gets the recognition that he deserves. He finally... like like Everyone's like, oh, wow. like Why did we forget about this guy? He's so great. And then he
01:00:06
Speaker
has a heart attack on stage and the show must go on nobody knows but then right as he is watching the the the young star rise uh he dies spoilers and um and so like it it does have this kind of like i got my last moment but uh a bit of the kind of uh knife knife in your gut sentimentality and as well it's it's really leaning into the the bittersweetness that we know that old old old chuck loves loves to put into his movies i think this is maybe the most like very very directly like leaning on bittersweet like almost the whole time yeah you feel i definitely don't like it as much as all of his earlier stuff
01:00:57
Speaker
But I think they sort of like... Exactly, right? Although I think like there's a lot of writing in this that I like. There was some really good, some some good lines and bits. there's a um There was a line I wrote down. ah I hate the sight of blood, but it's in my veins, which I'm like... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:01:16
Speaker
Sure. There, there, there are some Charlie Chaplin isms in this, like people getting kicked in the butt, of which is, uh, including more of his butt based humor. There's, there's, uh, somebody says that shows your asinine. And then she said, and then he goes, I should have worn my overcoat. And it's like, that's a, that's a a bit raunchy, uh, as far as you know, 50 standards, but also like that is a dialogue joke, you know, that's not, that's not a silent film joke. Trying some new things.
01:01:47
Speaker
I guess also the other big aspect of this movie that we haven't mentioned is that it it features a it's ah it's a crossover episode with Buster Keaton. Yeah. Extended Chaplin Keaton double act. Oh, it was so good. i really like that. It is definitely the best part of the movie is like them to doing bits for like an extended scene is like you definitely feel that the movie is almost like stopping just for them to like do a show.
01:02:17
Speaker
yeah But I'm also like, yeah, this is like what I'm here for. So I want this to last as long as possible. Yes. And it was great. It was like, it's another thing that it's like, it is the outside awareness of what you're bringing to the movie that really like loads that scene up with more meaning than it has within the film. But like, yeah, getting these two like titans of silent slapstick comedy together for the only time, you know, And they are just getting to be silly and do slapstick together as like a kind of final send off of that era is it's so good. I loved it. Yeah. yeah
01:02:56
Speaker
Yeah. I appreciate it a lot. of Like the optimism of this movie, I think. Optimism. I think this movie has ah a general, even though it's like very bittersweet. i i I got a real sense of kind of optimism from it.
01:03:08
Speaker
it's got essentially like the things that you're looking for will come to you. You know, you just need to, you just need to not kill yourself in order for that to happen. yeah and it's And I think it's also, it I do think this movie is sort of partially about kind of like aging gracefully and kind of like, yes, kind of seeding the floor to like the next generation.
01:03:30
Speaker
um And like knowing knowing when it's time to kind of step back and be like, all right, I'm like, i've I've had my I've had my time in the limelight. And right. So it's like it's about the character in this. It is also, yeah, Chaplin, like acknowledging that, like, I'm i'm good.
01:03:45
Speaker
Like, I think, you know, I've made my movies. I've made I've done my stuff. Yeah. one other thing about this film this probably is drawn from experience is that even after he's you know no one wants to book him he's not a performing clown anymore uh he it keeps jumping to his dreams like every time he falls asleep it shows his dreams in the movie and he's dreaming of like new acts and routines to do like he he has the drive to perform Right. I think that is one of the kind of sad things about the movie is like you see like he he's still he's still in it like he's still doing bits. He's still coming up with new stuff.
01:04:26
Speaker
But it's just like his audience isn't there or the way he used to be like his his style of performance isn't what's popular. his His bit that he comes up with is a a flea circus, some flea circus antics. and I've got to say, it was not until quite recently that I realized what the joke of a flea circus is. Like, I really thought for much of my life that some people trained fleas and that it wasn't the joke that there is nothing there. Brown fleas and high wire fleas and fleas on parade.
01:05:04
Speaker
I guess I just never thought like, oh, like the joke is that you can't see them, but there's actually fleas there, you know, like it never, it never connected for me. That's that's why John Hammond wanted to make something that his grandkids could see and touch.
01:05:18
Speaker
Like velociraptors. Now I see, now I see what you're doing. Okay. Anytime someone says fleas circus, that's immediately what I think of. So another film about the harsh realities of the aging process is is Akira Kurosawa's film Ikiru.
01:05:38
Speaker
Yes. one of One of his most ah famous and well-liked. Pretty movie. Hot take. Spoilers for Ikiru, which is Japanese for to live. Mm-hmm.
01:05:52
Speaker
Which is Japanese for to live and die in Los Angeles. Yeah. yeah ah ah ah a sort of a different genre from definitely what akira course i was known for and what we've watched for the show already this is like a pretty straightforward like contemporary drama about like about life and also how annoying bureaucracy is yeah yeah this movie is kafka-esque oh sure yeah This, ah yeah, you want to sure i mean give me that? An older gentleman played by ah Kenji Watanabe.
01:06:32
Speaker
ah He's my eternal Japanese grandpa, you know? what what i Like one of the best to ever act. Like that guy kills it every single time. It's like the head of the, what is it, like the human resources department?
01:06:46
Speaker
It's like, it's like a, yeah, it's a, the, easily he's like, he's in city government in the, like, at like the help desk. And he finds out that he has a stomach cancer and doesn't have long to live.
01:06:58
Speaker
ah i'm Immediately kind of, kind of crashes and burns and doesn't take the news. Well, and reflects on his life and what he has or hasn't accomplished as a person, but then decides that he's going to, as sort of like his his final mission in life, he is going to get get this empty lot turned into a park Which he does. and then and And then dies of cancer without telling people that he was sick.
01:07:27
Speaker
Which happens, don't know, two thirds away through the movie? Yeah. And then the rest of the movie all the people in his life that we've met over the course the movie sort of like reflecting on him as a person and how they knew him and sort of their takeaways of who he was and like why he did what he did.
01:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. This is similar it ah in certain ways to both of the movies that we just talked about because it is... optimistic and rather cynical at the same time sure right it's it's yeah know i don't i didn't really get a lot of like cynicism from this but it's it's it's not i think that like a rosy picture of a lot of institutions i guess the i mean the cynicism is that you know, well, actually, you're right. There is a real sense of cynicism in the ending. Yeah. Yeah. ah Yeah. The ending being that like everybody is just like, oh, wow, it's so beautiful that he like really decided to care and like really tried to make an impact. Like and he like just left he cut through all this red tape to get this thing done because you knew it would benefit the people around him, even though he wouldn't live to see it.
01:08:36
Speaker
Yeah. And so everyone in his office. How beautiful. We should all live like that. We should all live like that. Everyone in his is like, tomorrow morning, we're all going to go into the office. We're going to actually do our jobs. We're not just going to sit around and pretend we're working like we normally do.
01:08:49
Speaker
And we're going to find meaning in what we're going to do. And we're going to do good. And then it's just like, ugh. Yeah. And they all walk into the office and they're all like, yeah, I'm still just going to kind of coast today, I think. Yeah.
01:09:02
Speaker
Right. Yeah. it There is like a, like there's one person who is inspired and maybe that's all you need. Right. You need, yeah you need one other person to be inspired and you need to ah make,
01:09:18
Speaker
a playground as a metaphor for doing good in your life, you know? And yeah, it definitely plays with a lot of, yeah, those kinds of heavy. It's pretty heavy movies. Yeah. Uh, but of just like, how do you make meaning?
01:09:33
Speaker
i guess, especially in the face of death. Yeah. And also, like, I, for whatever reason, i another thing that sort of seemed oddly modern about this movie is just the fact it's about cancer.
01:09:48
Speaker
Yeah. wasn't a thing that I, again, like, i'm there I'm sure there are probably movies that use that as a plot device or, you know, incorporate that into the story somehow that were made before this.
01:10:00
Speaker
But it still it it's doesn't connect with what I think a lot of the other movies in this time period that I've seen or know about are about. i don't know. For whatever reason, even like, you know, Cancer existed in the 50s, but there weren't as many stories being told about...
01:10:17
Speaker
that as a disease or as like a life experience, I guess. And it's a very like down to earth kind of look at it. It's not right. It's not melodramatic per se. It's like, yeah, it's just like I'm dying.
01:10:31
Speaker
Like, what do I do about that? And like, here are my symptoms, you know? it It talks a lot about like like the difficulty has even just going through life while he has stomach cancer. Also, he like before he had cancer, he ah he already was like not not the happiest guy. You know, he was not living his best life before that either.
01:10:56
Speaker
And then like when he finds out that he is dying. He doesn't have like an immediate epiphany. It like takes a while. And like he has a real sort of like he goes on a bender and like hits the town. And i know, like he has a real kind of like a descent before he kind of has the the more, I guess, kind of traditionally like hero moment of like, no, I'm going to like make this park. I'm going to help people. I'm going to like use the time I have left to make positive change. Yeah, I mean, this is I mean, you you say the word coasting, right? Like this is somebody who was completely not just coasting in his job, but he was coasting through his entire life. Like he never made any impact. and
01:11:41
Speaker
when he is just, you know, confronted so directly with something that is so existentially challenging, like. Maybe like like he he had he immediately just has like a different perspective on life and realizing that he never lived his life. At first, he like tries like maybe a more shallow way of living your life. Right. He's like, I'm going drink. going to hit the town. I'm going to go dancing. I'm going to like try to like hook up with a prostitute.
01:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, and then there's somebody who kind of like confronts him on his bullshit. you know It's like, what are you doing? yeah you know And he he ends up you know acting in these like really weird ways ah because he's dying.
01:12:28
Speaker
And like you can see that he... is unable to fully grapple with his feelings. And this this ah co-worker, he just starts hanging out with her all the time. and like he's almost trying to leech her youth. you know like Yeah. Well, out of leeching, it sort of starts to turn into that. But it's like...
01:12:49
Speaker
Right. She's like, a she kind of represents everything that he feels he's missing. Like youth, energy, like exuberance, fun, like optimism. Ability to quit your job. That too. but yeah, like it gets to a point where she's like, you like, we can't hang out. Oh, like we gotta to hang. Like it's too much. Like you can't live your life vicariously through me, which is like, ah, I found that scene very heartbreaking because it is like,
01:13:17
Speaker
She 100% has a ah very good point and is like correct in that moment. And yet I feel so bad for the guy of just like... yeah he she Yeah. She is life and he is clinging to life because he knows he's about to lose it.
01:13:34
Speaker
There's so many like great little moments in this similar to High Noon. like There's a part where like he he's winding a clock and then he like cries from winding a clock. yeah Thinking about like preparing for tomorrow that might not come. you know yeah Or just so like a clock. This being a Kurosawa movie, it is also like very watchable.
01:13:55
Speaker
You know, it's like it. Yeah, it really. Even though it is like about these pretty like heavy themes and such, it it it never feels like a slog to watch. I didn't think there's like a lot of like just little poetic things in it.
01:14:09
Speaker
Like like the clock. There's there's I forget if it's the narrator or one of the characters who who they go to a pachinko parlor. They call it a vending machine for dreams and aspirations. I'm like, that's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's a bit where ah when he's when he's drinking excessively, he says he's drinking poison to get back at himself. Oh, that's a that's a good line.
01:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, there's like, I mean, there is a narrator in this movie who pops up every once in a while. It opens. I think that this movie opens in a very striking way, ah which is a photo of his x-ray and then a narrator telling you, like, this is our hero and this is the cancer in him. yeah He's going to die. you know Right. It's a movie's very upfront. Like, that's what the story is like. He's not getting out of this. uh and yeah there are points where the narrator is sort of just like musing about life and death uh yeah like while like sort of echoing some of the thoughts that uh that the the main character is having
01:15:14
Speaker
I guess movie has so much like great moments of like mundanity to either either showing this sort of like kind of mind numbing mundanity of like of life or like working in an office and that kind of thing.
01:15:26
Speaker
But also just these like little little kind of moments of of joy or of just like a funny thing happening that that I really appreciated. And like very well observed, like real life things.
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah. Real life moments. I mean, I just keep thinking of like little moments, like right after he gets his diagnosis, ah he's kind of like dazed a la... Walter White staring at mustard on somebody's shirt.
01:15:53
Speaker
He is dazed walking out of the the hospital and then he like almost walks into traffic. Right. Like so many ways that he's just like almost dying. He's already dead. And like, what difference would it make if he just died right there? You know, or but like he's just he's about to die and he just comes right out.
01:16:14
Speaker
But he's going to die anyway. There's like so many ways of taking that like one little moment. And yeah, this movie just about it's about big stuff um and it's able to just approach it from so many different angles. It's about big stuff, but it's like we're seeing it through such like small stuff, so such small, like everyday mundane stuff.
01:16:33
Speaker
Yeah, it reminds me of ah It's Such a Beautiful Day, the Don Hertzfeld movie. Interesting. Which, um it's another movie about somebody with a terminal illness.
01:16:45
Speaker
um And it's a movie that kind of posits that ah the stuff of life is these small mundane moments it is like well i mean this movie does say like oh you give meaning to your life by like making a good impact on the world but it also focuses a lot on these little moments and i mean something i think about from that movie it's such a beautiful day is that like in death the character is thinking about the texture on paper towels, you know, like, like this very, very small, like sensorial things of being alive. Right. Yeah. And this captures a lot of that.
01:17:27
Speaker
but That's also like, that's the stuff that I feel like when, when it gets taken away, you miss, you know, it's like these like very things you don't even think about that are like, end up feeling so kind of important. Also, I was I mean, I was very surprised having not seen this movie before that, like how early in the movie he dies, like there's like a ah hard cut and it's like he died.
01:17:48
Speaker
The narrator is just like, yeah, that's that's done. Like it happens off screen. Like it's not there isn't like a big scene of him, you know, like having a big moment of death. It's just sort of like it happens between two scenes and it's like, oh, now now we're at a funeral.
01:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's shocking. It's very shocking. And like, that's, I guess, what real death is like, you know? Sure. like Yeah, it happens. um Or at least it can. Someone says, don't be so sentimental while at his funeral, which I think is a very funny thing to say. They're like talking shit at his wake. It's kind of. They are. Yeah. ah There's also a bit where he says, ah i can't afford to hate people. I don't have. I don't have. the i don't have that. i don't have the time.
01:18:28
Speaker
And I was like, oh, that's this. That's that's saying some stuff. Yeah, and it's like you know it's saying stuff that's like applicable to our own lives, but also he literally does not have the time. he's like it's He's like, I have a mission now, and it's not worth it to sit there being mad about stuff because I only have so much time to build this park and feel like I did something meaningful with my life instead of just sleepwalk through it. the The movie opens with, because it's kind of montage of the like mind-numbing...
01:19:00
Speaker
awfulness of like bureaucratic office stuff of this group of people come into the office to complain about this cesspool in the middle of the street that is like causing all these problems and they keep getting sent to different offices of different departments who are all saying, oh no, like that's because it's on a street.
Reflections on Bureaucracy and Personal Experiences
01:19:21
Speaker
You have to go to like the roads and streets to burn them. Oh, well, because it's water, that's sewage. That's their problem. And that's it.
01:19:27
Speaker
They get sent to that office and they yeah they get sent to all these different offices and they end up right back to where they started. They end up doing a bureaucratic loop. Yeah. Right. Which is like a thing that I have like genuinely experienced in life so many times of just like,
01:19:41
Speaker
No one actually wants to do the work. So they all like put it off onto someone else or send, send you to different department. That's the thing that gets him to kind of break out of it is that he's like, I'm going to actually do the work for once. Yeah. Like, like high noon. yeah It's a movie about like, you know, a guy who's just like, everyone doesn't want to do this thing, but I'm going to do it. hmm.
01:20:01
Speaker
Yeah, true. Yeah, i it's it's also funny. i I don't know how much directly the the first season of Parks and Recreation is based on this movie. Because it is also about turning a pit into a park and the various like departmental problems that that leads to.
01:20:19
Speaker
um It wouldn't surprise me if that was i like, that is this movie is where that came from. And then there's the um there's the the story about a pit turning into a pendulum. I think that's what that one's about. I think that that predates this one, too. um Yeah. lot like I feel like there's a lot about this movie that's just straightforward. It's just exploring yeah these themes. And like you can find little moments. But it's got a lot going on. It's not just about one thing. It is about...
01:20:49
Speaker
aging and and death and accepting death and like your place in the world and also like how people are going to remember you and like it is about like finding meaning in life and you know right it i think ultimately it is right it's about how to how to live well which is is something that i think everyone can relate to and learn from Yeah, man, I wonder, i mean, ah you know, this is kind of combines thoughts that I had with Duck and Cover and this movie, h which is that and I forgot I forgot to mention with Duck and Cover I was going to. But like in in 2018, I had a brush with death that made me see life a different way.
01:21:34
Speaker
right and so like i it was a brush of death a brush with death specifically relating to ah ballistic missiles and right yeah yeah and so like i was thinking about like duck and cover and thinking about like you know being confronted with like what happens if you know that an atomic weapon could drop and you could die and so Long story short, i don't know. I don't know if this is interesting, but like this definitely like brings brings this kind of stuff up, I i guess. It's not super movie related, but whatever. I was in Hawaii with my family um and they had ah accidentally sent out a message to everybody's cell phones on the island. Incoming ballistic missile, seek shelter.
01:22:22
Speaker
What a thing to accidentally send out in mass. Yeah. people Yeah. Every single person on the island got this as a text. and And we were flying from, we were about to fly from one island to another. We were flying to Kauai. Yeah. And ah we were on a plane and we were ah like just getting getting seated and everybody's phones went off. it was like an Amber Alert type situation. Everybody's phones went off and then a bunch of alarms went off on the plane, too. It seemed like maybe they were connected somehow. At first, nobody knew what to do. We all left the plane and went back inside and ah into the airport. where like The internet was not working. like The cell phones were not working. Everybody was trying to use their phones at the same time. And we were at the airport pretty close to Pearl Harbor, right? Yeah.
01:23:16
Speaker
the information that we were getting was like, okay, maybe you have somewhere between 15 and 40 minutes. Like we had, we were like assuming that this was coming from North Korea. So we're like, these are our last moments to be alive. Like that, this might be it.
01:23:31
Speaker
And, but I was struck with, how calm I felt when I knew that I was going to die, when I thought I was going to die any second. It could it might just, I would blink and then I would be gone. you know I'd always thought until that point that I'd be filled with regret or that um i would be scared but my family was right there like like yeah like i i who did i have to say goodbye to exactly you know like they like the people who i needed to say goodbye to no offense glenn but like you know yeah i would like to say goodbye to you too but um uh
01:24:11
Speaker
The people that I would need to say goodbye to were right there. And so I was just like, oh, I guess I'm going to die now. You know, like I was at peace in a way. But like one of the bizarre things about it was, you know, because we were right next to Pearl Harbor, ah there was like a big window in the airport. And my dad was like, we are going to be close enough to where the explosion is that we're we are probably going to die instantly. But if we don't die instantly, then we don't want to die. who
01:24:42
Speaker
we But we we don't want to die horribly. We want to die instantly. And so my dad encouraged us to stand next to the window um so that we could just be vaporized instead of horribly.
01:24:56
Speaker
instead of die horribly Yeah. It turned out to not be true. They sent a retraction about 40 minutes later. And that's like, that's the sort of thing of like, they got to like send people a check or something. Like do something after that. That is like such...
01:25:14
Speaker
What a horrifying thing just to what a horrifying mistake to make. ah Yeah, definitely. And, you know, i think at the time, the most notable thing about it to me was that I was like, oh, the most notable thing about it to me was that I didn't feel so perturbed by it. I didn't I didn't have fear. I didn't have regret. I was just like, oh, I guess we're moving on with our day now. We're on vacation. You know, like um I don't know if you agree, mate.
01:25:42
Speaker
Do you feel like ah on some level you're sort of like you're grateful to have been able to have that experience and then not die? Yes. Yeah. I mean, it shaped ah it shaped a lot of my life in some way afterwards, in some ways, in some bad ways, but ah mostly in good ways, I think. yeah you know at first i felt very comforted by the fact that i knew that i was i felt at peace with dying which i very much did not when i was little when i was a kid i used to be up at night afraid of death the the kind of reality of it did not sink in until about half a year later there was like a moment about half a year later where
01:26:27
Speaker
You know, I had just moved on. And then there was a moment where somehow it all just kind kind of came crashing in. And i was just like being confronted with like, like existential horror, like very, like very unexpectedly, ah like half a year later.
01:26:44
Speaker
And that was when I actually started making changes in my life relating to that experience yeah and one of the first things you know one of the big changes was that i kind of became very interested in living my life as much as possible uh because you could die any second for some reason um and you know, part of that involved ah going out to parties more, you know, like like doing what he did, you know, in the movie.
01:27:22
Speaker
Part of it ended up like embracing a sort of hedonistic aspect, but ah but there's more to it than that, you know? i think it's also just like having an awareness of death.
01:27:35
Speaker
It just brings so much perspective into the um the the the the demand for immediacy in in your life in a way.
01:27:48
Speaker
And maybe this is just my own perspective. Meaning is something that ah finding meaning in your life is something that is almost a distraction from living your life.
01:27:59
Speaker
um And mean, I do think that the impermanence of life is sort of part of what gives it meaning, right? Like if people lived forever,
01:28:10
Speaker
The things we did wouldn't, you know, wouldn't feel as impactful. They wouldn't feel like they they meant as much, I suppose. Yeah. Not to get too existential, but. Yeah. Well, no. is It calls for it.
01:28:23
Speaker
um I think definitely an impending awareness of my own death made me feel like my life had more meaning. Like, it made or it gave it some kind of sense of meaning. Meaning is a kind of tricky word. Sure, yeah. ah that This is all to say a very long story to say that like ah there was a lot of what he went through in this film that I kind of personally recognized. Right. Yeah. that That had happened in some form in me.
01:28:55
Speaker
Not all of it and not all of it the same way. But being confronted with death can cause you to reexamine your life differently. And I think at least in my case, and I think in his case, ah maybe live a better life.
01:29:12
Speaker
So there were points where I was like, in some ways, I hope that everyone can have that experience that I had, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I have a question about that actually, which is after, after you got, after they sent the retraction out after, you know, after the whatever, 45 minutes of living in that moment,
01:29:35
Speaker
what did you what like what was the rest What did the rest of the day look like? Were you just like, all right, go back to the hotel, I guess. i told I'll tell you what the rest of the day looked like. Me, my mom, dad, and sister were all like, okay, moving on, you know?
01:29:50
Speaker
and Yeah, you weren't like, all right, we're going to go eat like the the most lavish meal we've ever eaten. Then like like go swim in the ocean at Moonlight something like that. No, yeah you weren't filled with like, oh, and we need to do the best thing now that we've like.
01:30:05
Speaker
Not immediately. No. okay I mean, like, and but like the thing the thing that happened on that day was that my brother was very shaken up by the whole thing and continued to be shaken up for the rest of the day. And we were like, come on get over it.
01:30:23
Speaker
So, yeah, we got back on the plane and then we just had the day that we were going to have otherwise. But we were just observing all of the strange like because this happened to everybody. Right. It's everyone around you is staring. And everyone like basically everyone around us, unless they weren't awake, like had this same experience. And so like we went to a grocery store and like people like had this like eerie, strange vibe about them in the grocery store. There were people talking about the experience. Somebody made parody song, like they did Stayin' Alive, but about this thing. And it came out while we were still in Hawaii. Like somebody done like a really fast turnaround of the song and we heard it playing in a store while we were there. We were like, oh my, is this about the missile thing that just happened like four days ago?
01:31:15
Speaker
But yeah, like that so the first thing that I took away from it was, oh, I'm not scared of death. That's cool. like that's ah That's a way that I'm building myself. you know That is something that I'm getting out of this. And I thought that was like the thing to get out of it was like I don't have to be scared of death anymore.
01:31:31
Speaker
But then once the kind of existential weight of it kind of came crashing onto me, later, like, I think I got some new and different lessons from it also. But yeah, no, we just went on with our life. we What is not a story. We just continued being on vacation. Yeah.
01:31:48
Speaker
I don't know how to transition from that to any of the other movies, but I'm going to try. Yeah, we could also cut that whole thing out. i don't know. I think we should keep at least some of it in because it is a it's a you know, if you're OK with it, it's a crazy story. And I think sure does it does definitely relate to the film and and to how you watched it.
01:32:07
Speaker
So
Critique of 'The Greatest Show on Earth'
01:32:08
Speaker
Akira, very good movie. A movie that is not good or smart is the greatest show on Earth. The greatest showman. Not the greatest showman. Not, in fact, a musical. Probably would have been more fun if it was a musical.
01:32:21
Speaker
Yeah. ah But the another Oscar winner, this one best picture for the year 1952 at the Academy of Awards. This is considered one of the worst best picture winners. Right. Which I i guess I didn't really know going into it.
01:32:37
Speaker
i i knew that it was not a super well liked movie, I guess. And now I know why. It's because it's not very good. I don't know. All the people saying that this is the worst picture best picture winner have not seen the Broadway melody. i agree. I agree. For sure. I think Broadway melody is much worse than this. um I think this at least has some some stuff going on for it.
01:32:57
Speaker
i find I found this would of be a pretty a very strange film. Yeah. It's structurally weird. Structurally is bananas. um It is also a movie about the sort of like the spectacle and the like quote unquote importance of of the circus as like live entertainment and as like a thing that people experience. And it is not a circus. It's a movie.
01:33:22
Speaker
It's like filmed circus acts about how like important it is that like the circus is a live thing. Which is just a very, it is much like we' we're saying how like the medium of film in Neighbors or High Noon is like, is used in such a way to like heighten the story it's telling. And it's like telling a story in a way that only film really can.
01:33:44
Speaker
This almost feels like it's the opposite where it's like the fact that it's a movie is almost counter to like the things that the movie is trying to say. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't think that's like the only thing that the movie is saying is about it being live specifically. um But um I mean, this movie is very much circus propaganda.
01:34:04
Speaker
yeah there's Yeah, there's a lot of strange things this movie's doing. one of them One of them is the fact that it's basically like a two and a half hour long commercial for the circus. Yeah. um And also not for like... this right it is it Right, it is for a specific circus, but it it does feel like the movie is like a big ad just for like the circus, like in general, like the concept of the circus.
01:34:31
Speaker
Okay, but so here's the thing about this movie. and that I think is kind of strange. It is about the w Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, specifically. And we've seen a number of circus movies. We've seen Nightmare Alley, we've seen Freaks, we've seen Charlie Chaplin's The Circus.
01:34:50
Speaker
All of these... movies, circus movies, as I've kind of come to know them, know them are about marginal people. you know They are about like scrappy bohemians who ah who like this is what they do. They live on the edge of society. They live on the rails. They have no fixed home.
01:35:11
Speaker
Yeah. And this movie... It wouldn't maybe be necessarily be accepted other places besides the circus. Yeah. Yeah, this is this is a movie that, like Ikiru, has a rather like idiosyncratically placed narrator in it. But unlike Ikiru, the narrator is for propaganda purposes of big circus. And that's the thing. It's like, i I think that the difference with this is that it is not about the circus. It's about big circus, like big pharma, you know? Sure. And and so much of the narration is about, like...
01:35:53
Speaker
Look at these giant tents that we build. We build these giant monuments to the circus every night. We, um ah you know, like look at the might and industry of the four, the 1400 people who build this circus. It's, it's not scrappy. It's not bohemian. It's industry. And the driving force of this movie is like inside baseball boardroom talks about like, yeah it's like business decisions about the Yes. It's like, it's like, it's so weirdly inside baseball of like, of, of like, if we tour for the whole summer, then that follows our dreams. But if we tour for just 10 weeks, then like, like that can is guaranteed to be profitable. ah But like, do we, you know, can we make ourselves profitable by being open the whole summer? or it's it's, it's like, who cares? you know Right. Yeah. um One of many things that I think kind of doesn't work about this movie.
01:36:53
Speaker
um I guess like the the main kind of like plot structure of this movie is it is kind of a love triangle movie me ah between two circus acrobats and also the like director question mark of the circus uh who dresses like indian indiana jones which is yeah notable for a couple reasons which played by charlton heston yeah and then he's right he's he he's in a romantic relationship with this one acrobat and then he hires this new acrobat who's like the famous
01:37:25
Speaker
You know, it was going to like bring more crowds in. But this new acrobat is a real a real ladies man. A real a real flirt. He's a Pepe Le Pew type. Very much so.
01:37:36
Speaker
Despite being Italian and not French. And and all the problems that that causes. And then there's also a subplot about Jimmy Stewart as a clown who is actually a doctor who's on the run from the police because ah he's ah wanted for murder because he ah he euthanized his wife.
01:37:58
Speaker
he did He helped with assisted suicide. on yeah his wife This movie is insane. But it also, this I feel like we're making it sound more interesting than it is. like this I also find this movie weirdly boring for how crazy it is.
01:38:12
Speaker
Okay, you know what? i I thought this movie was okay. I didn't hate it. You hated it. you I didn't hate it, but I think it's very dumb and not good. i I was enjoying myself the whole time. And I think that if I was in a different mood and I watched this movie, there is So one of the other things that is in this movie, a big thing that is in this movie is just.
01:38:37
Speaker
Uncut circus footage. 70% of this movie is just footage of a circus act happening. And like I, you know, there is, and then the plot just stops while we like watch. It doesn't affect anything that happens to the characters before or after. It's just, and here is the thing that happened at the circus. so Sometimes it does, but like, okay, we're going to watch this like pageant of people walk by. ah We're going to watch some elephants do their thing now. And then we're going to like cut to the crowd and say, wow, isn't this cool? I want to go to the Barnum and Bailey ah circuit. I want to go to the PT cruiser circus or whatever it's called. And, And I think if I was in a different mood and I was watching this, I would be like checking my watch and I'd be like, come on, like, like, let's watch the actual movie.
01:39:26
Speaker
This time I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to sink into the circusy vibes. I'm just going to like, I'm just going to just enjoy it as sensation, you know? And so i was having fun. Yeah. I mean, i was this is Cecil B. DeMille known for sensation. Yeah.
01:39:41
Speaker
Although I think I really watched a lot of the think movies for this episode in kind of a bad mood, which isn't a good way to do it. I did find like a lot of the like spectacle of this movie to be kind of lacking too. I mean, there's a lot of, yeah there is a lot of just like, we're showing you the circus thing, but it's not filmed in an interesting way. It's just like a single wide shot.
01:40:01
Speaker
And I'm like, you're not using the, you're like, this is less exciting than being at a circus. And like, you could be, You could be filming this from the perspective of the trapeze artist. You could be doing like POV stuff. you could be There's so much you could do filming a circus act. And this movie is doing none of it.
01:40:16
Speaker
Yeah. And then it also has like some of just like atrocious effects in it. Like really terrible effects stuff. This is like Arrested Development Season 5 green screen. Right. And like bad, like straight up bad editing is in this movie. Which is a thing where it is like...
01:40:34
Speaker
You rarely ever see, like, truly horrendous editing that it's, like, bad enough that you notice it. And that, like, oh, that cut just fully doesn't work. It's weird that Cecil B. DeMille is, like, held up as this, like, he's, like, this the great Hollywood director.
01:40:48
Speaker
And he has done some, like, you know, some cool stuff for sure. But, like, I find this movie to be shockingly but poorly directed for sort of...
01:41:00
Speaker
I, you know, big spectacle male movie. It does. It does feel like, you know, oh cat pretty phoned in in many ways. um Like we got a bunch of circus footage. I mean, if you were to think of this as an advertisement for um the PT Cruiser Circus, like it and and and you see it as like 70. It's not 70 percent, but like 70 percent circus footage with like a very thin narrative wrapped around it. It's just like we did lot of there a lot of trapeze drama.
01:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, we we did the bare minimum to make this a story. Right. Yeah. But like, you know, it is the bare minimum. Yeah. and It feels like the bare minimum. I did not find any of it to be particularly...
01:41:44
Speaker
compelling, I guess, like the plot stuff. yeah No. Like, you've got some very, I mean, that's that's why i was just kind of turning my brain off for this, because it's like you got some very thin drama that is surrounding a bunch of spectacle, and it's not particularly engagingly filmed spectacle, but it is spectacle that was filmed. yeah It was spectacular things that happened. sure And I don't necessarily need the cinematography to ah emphasize that, even though it would be better if it did. I also just got my sense of like a very nineteen fifty s sense of where it's just like, hey, look, we filmed the lion.
01:42:24
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, i've I've seen lions before. It's like the movie kind of expects you to be like, whoa, a lion is in this movie. wow, I'm looking at a lion right now. i'm like yeah, I've seen the MGM logo already.
01:42:36
Speaker
I mean, this movie is also like i've seen expecting you to be like, wow, there's a tent in this movie. True, yes. Look at the size of this tent. Can you believe there is like this tent is? A whole thing, just like, they wake up early in the morning and sew the holes in the tent. They raise up tons and tons of tent material for your viewing pleasure. Yeah, yeah.
01:43:00
Speaker
Like I said, it feels like propagandistic, very much so. It's very circus propaganda. Also, yeah there for a thing, like I kind of think the circus shouldn't exist also. like At least in its it like all the animal stuff. like there yeah There's just teens of animal abuse in this movie where they're poking elephants with hooks and shit. I'm like, this is bad and gross and this should never have been a thing.
01:43:25
Speaker
But on the other hand... Like, if I could just erase my awareness of all the bad things about the circus and be one of those baby boomer children in the audience, like, who are watching ah elephants do handstands, I would just be like, this is so cool. Well, sure, everyone loves to see an elephant do a handstand. I'm not arguing against that.
01:43:45
Speaker
I'm just saying we could preferably do it without abusing the elephant. Well, that's the thing. Visibly on the screen. Yeah, i think that I think that elephants doing handstands and elephants do being abused are the same thing. i mean, yeah, ultimately it's true. You can't really get an elephant to do a handstand without hitting it. So, yeah.
01:44:04
Speaker
But yeah, another thing also, and maybe this was because I watched it right after a black and white movie. Like I was able to kind of ah feel the sensation of it more because ah it has very poppy tech colors.
01:44:20
Speaker
There's it's a it's a the color in this movie is very good. um It is. Yeah. And I will say I do think it has one standout scene in it, which is like one of the most famous things about it, which is the big train crash, which I did think was cool.
01:44:33
Speaker
Which made me go, whoa. Yeah. Like, I think it is an extremely hectic and violent and extreme train crash. Yeah. It's it's really it's like a lot lot of miniatures and some I think some there's some some there's some pretty fancy compositing. I will say for all of the complaints I had about a lot of the other lack of spectacle in the rest of the movie, the train crash is pretty rare. Yeah. um So rad, in fact, that it inspired a little a little boy named stevie spielberg uh to crash his trains at home and film them with a super 8 camera and and the rest is history which does make me think like how much of film history is just people being afraid of trains yeah you're not wrong you know something to think about there's a i appreciate this movie for inspiring stevie spielberg to make movies
01:45:28
Speaker
I'm thankful that it exists for that reason. And again, right, that's like when Charlton Heston shows up in a leather jacket and fedora, you're like, hmm... Interesting. But also that costume existed for Indiana Jones before Spielberg joined as director. So not a direct reference. Oh, interesting. Of course you would know that. Some other things about this film.
01:45:49
Speaker
I think that we have ah an understanding of like the end of the studio system as like Hollywood movies became too big and bloated when they were trying to ah compete with television.
01:46:04
Speaker
And this feels like emblematic of that. Right. Like this is a movie that is destroyed by its bloat. I mean, it's like it would be bad if it wasn't bloated. But like, right. This feels like, you know, Doolittle, you know, like an like an oversized nineteen fifty s movie. I will say Doolittle is so much crazier than this movie.
01:46:31
Speaker
it's But it's like, it's got like a bunch of stuff going on. yeah You could cut two hours out of this movie and it would still work, you know? Right. Yeah. ah Because it's just like, yeah, we're just going to like put stuff on the screen. It's going to meander. Like, yeah. If it's a big fifties movie, it's going to meander.
01:46:49
Speaker
Right. It's like, and you do get the sense like this was, people showed up to this because they like wanted, this was like, this was their whole evening. It was like we're going to watch a three hour movie about the circus. Yeah.
01:47:01
Speaker
I think Steven Spielberg even said when he first sat down to watch it, he didn't, i mean, he didn't know what a movie was. So he was like, I thought I was going to see a circus. This is just like a flat representation of a circus on a screen. This sucks. Wait, he didn't know what a movie was, but he had a super eight camera to shoot back at home. His dad had a super eight camera.
01:47:21
Speaker
Watch the Fablemans and it will, it will explain all of this. We'll get to it eventually. um um well, The circus manager, I've actually never seen a Charlton Heston movie before, so I was kind of noting his appearance. I was like, what's up with this guy? He looks strange. He's a distinctive range man. It's true. His name is Brad, and the um trapeze artist who is in love with him is constantly going like, oh, Brad, oh, Brad, oh, Brad. He's like, oh, Brad, so glad, you know? It's a... I kept thinking about Rocky Horror ah through this through through this movie. also One other thing I did like in this movie is the the sort of like romantic rival trapeze artist. ah Sebastian ah is ah is introduced.
01:48:06
Speaker
He like arrives at the circus like in a police chase. Like he like drives up in a sports car and there are cops actively chasing him as when he What swag. What swag. like that is That is a great character introduction to be like...
01:48:21
Speaker
They arrive mid-police chase. Casually, yeah. And then at some point, I forget, I think it's Brad who says, he's like I got sawdust in my veins. ah To say that, like, you know, he's he's ah he's a circus man through and through.
01:48:36
Speaker
yeah i love that essay, like, right, sawdust representing the circus is... A funny turn of phrase. Yeah, another kind of wild thing that is said in this movie. There's a point after the train crash where Brad needs a blood transfusion and he gets it from his romantic rival, Sebastian. And then he says, if you make love later, it will be your blood in me. If you have kids, you'll see me in them, which is...
01:49:07
Speaker
so nuts that's crazy a crazy thing to say to someone absolutely like like yeah sure he's your rival and you're giving blood to him but like that is a wild place to go Yeah, right. there There is some some just kind of bananas dialogue on this, which does make it fun. Yeah. um Like for as long and as meandering as this movie is, it is kind of like every periodically will just throw something batshit at you where you're like, oh, I got to sit up again. i got to pay attention. some Yeah. nice Yeah.
01:49:42
Speaker
Yeah, there's like a like there are just random moments where the movie gets like insanely misogynistic and then just oh yeah do that. every once in a while There are some big old red flags in this movie. I never knew a woman could fill a pipe.
01:49:56
Speaker
right and ah there's There's also a line which is like is not intended to be suggestive. I don't think just because like the differences in 1950s slang to modern slang where a woman says like whenever he's around, I'm all wet.
01:50:11
Speaker
Which is to... Yeah. Can I even saying I'm all wet means something very different? Wait, what does it mean? It means like ah you're you're... I forget what it is, but it's it's it's not sexual. Like, there's no sexual connotation to it.
01:50:26
Speaker
But in a... To modern ears, there for sure is. And so it may be... Well, because she's also lusting after him Exactly. and so I was like, wait, is that like a double entendre? Like, how did they how do they get that through the censors? And I was like, oh, it's the 50s, like...
01:50:40
Speaker
They weren't even... Their minds weren't in the gutter like like mine is. Yeah, I mean, there's there's another part. You know, this happens all the time when we're watching these old movies, is people using the word gay differently. But they're talking about how they want to make the circus fresh and new and gay and hot. I'm like, Oh But everyone wants the circus to be, right? I mean, maybe that's what the circus is like these days. But I don't know...
01:51:09
Speaker
Last thing that I have to say. We talked about this a second ago, but like the green screen, because we're seeing it in color, we can see the like green fringes of light around people. it's pretty It's pretty bad green screen.
01:51:24
Speaker
And there's a lot of scenes... where they have sets that they could have used. Like, it's like the tent, the circus tent background that they like yeah shot a lot of stuff inside of that circus tent. And then they're just like inserting buttons, the clown, like into a so static frame yeah of the circus tent.
01:51:47
Speaker
We haven't seen green screen used in a lot of movies. I mean, like green screen, blue screen was used in Thief of Baghdad, the 1940 version. But like, this is a very, yeah, a very conspicuous use of chroma key. yeah And it's also like being used, it seems, to like patch up holes. like Things that they very easily could have filmed and then filmed on a set instead. Much like how it's still used today.
01:52:16
Speaker
i guess, yeah. Like, oh, this is a scene of a guy in a room. Clearly green screen, but whatever. Yeah, it's it's weird. Like I haven't seen. i mean, this is, I think, notable for just being like a really old movie that like, yeah, has green screen used in like a way that you would see a really sloppy modern production use it. Right. Yeah, no, it is. It's like a high school film usage of green screen. It's like very obvious, very conspicuous, not artfully done whatsoever.
01:52:50
Speaker
so mean i'm like I was annoyed at this movie for for like being sloppy, I guess. Yeah, so it's definitely sloppy. it's ah When it comes by, I'm all wet. Yeah, there you go.
01:53:01
Speaker
This movie actually won not just Best Picture, but a now defunct Oscar for Best Story, which I think is... ah i I don't know why. Like ah once again, isn' this movie, any Oscars like best stories, crazy choice.
01:53:16
Speaker
But I mean, once again, like Oscar voters being dazzled by whatever is new and spectacular. Yeah. And ah voting for the the dumbest possible thing that they could. Speaking of
Introduction to 'Bwana Devil' and 3D Film Impact
01:53:30
Speaker
things that are new and spectacular.
01:53:31
Speaker
Also, lions Three dimensions. All right. Everyone watching on YouTube. Now is the time to put on your 3D glasses. Because we're going to show a clip.
01:53:43
Speaker
In 3D. Are you going to put a clip in? I gotta. Okay. I'll at least put a screen grab in 3D in. So you can see still image in 3D.
01:53:55
Speaker
Do a screen grab of them coming toward each other make out. With the camera. Okay. I think genuinely the only time where something was like coming at the screen in a real like conspicuous 3D way is both actors trying to kiss the camera. Like leaning in and getting closer and closer. i literally screamed. screamed. It was like the the train arriving at, let's see, a station. you you You would never have expected.
01:54:28
Speaker
ah Robert Stack's big ol' face coming out of the screen at you. the plan Well, apparently, apparently... We're talking, of course, about the Comboana Devil.
01:54:39
Speaker
Oh, that's right, yes. The movie. Apparently, this the 2D version of this movie was passed by the censors, and according to... i couldn't find a good source for this, but according to Wikipedia, the 3D version was not because of that scene in 3D. Wow. Wow. Because it's too steamy.
01:55:01
Speaker
there is There is an added steaminess with like the kind of making out toward the camera. The actors aren't just kissing each other in this picture. They're kissing the audience.
01:55:12
Speaker
Oh, my. Robert Stack. This movie sucks. Well, sure. Absolutely. But it is notable for being, what, the first narrative 3D feature film?
01:55:25
Speaker
the asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. But for, I guess, for for all intents and purposes of, like, um a narrative movie that plays in theaters in 3D, this is, like,
01:55:36
Speaker
The first one. There was a silent film that is lost that did that. But. ah Oh, let's say not first oldest existing. It's ah ah the phrase we always got to keep coming back to. Yeah. What we can say is that this was the thing that ushered in the early 50s era. Everyone was.
01:55:59
Speaker
grasping for whatever gimmick they could to get people away from their idiot boxes and into theaters. And the widescreen was one of them. And 3d was one of them. And buzzers in your seats was another one. Yeah. This was a three d film that is based on a true story of yeah two lions called the man eaters of Savo, uh,
01:56:24
Speaker
Basically, in Kenya, while ah it was being colonized by England and they were building a railway, ah the colonizers were building a railway.
01:56:34
Speaker
There were two local lions who kept eating people. I mean, kind of awesome. Yeah. Yes. It's like this is in some way, the like ah to modern eyes, the lions are the heroes of the story. Sure. I mean, it was, you know, the a symbol of of Africa eating colonizers is. ah Yeah, there's there's there's something poetic to that.
01:57:03
Speaker
there's the There's the tricky aspect, the confounding aspect that um in the this movie and in real life, the lions were mainly eating the migrant Indian laborers. Right. Weren't a lot of English colonizers getting eaten. The part in the movie where the lions start eating all of the asshole British people, they're having their tea time or whatever, and the lion bursts into their tent and rips them up. that I was like, hell yeah. no that That scene did definitely play as sort of like ah a bit of a fist pump moment. he because Cool to have a lion bust into a train car. I don't know. That's the cool thing to happen. I don't want it happen to me, but it's like seeing it on screen. I was i was ah i was a happy camper.
01:57:48
Speaker
Also, in in Natural Vision 3 Dimension, which is what they call it. We got to talk about this movie has a like opening to kind of explain what 3d even is to the audience. I think the opening is kind of interesting. I think the opening is way more interesting than the movie. i do. I think the opening was kind of my favorite part because it is, it has a much greater sense of humor about itself than the rest of the movie does.
01:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, let's talk about the opening first. There's a guy that is introducing the concept of like a 3D film. He's talking. He's sitting in a suit and he's talking to the camera. He's talking about like how how it works. You know, you've got two lenses in the camera, their eye with the part, all this kind of stuff. It's introducing the concept of 3D to people. And it does something and it's a it's black and white and two d And then it does something which I think is pretty cool where it goes, now, Mr. Projectionist up there in the booth, would you be so kind as to give us the third dimension? And then it just snaps into 3D, which is honestly a little jarring. Sure. Yeah. Probably better ways to do that than... I watched that part where it transitions to 3D like three times and it's like not smooth at all. It's just like... And then it's suddenly 3D and it's like, oh, God. Whoa.
01:59:05
Speaker
And then he says the most bananas thing that I have that I have that they say in this movie. He brings out Miss Universe or whatever Miss Miss America. And this you know, this sexy lady comes onto screen. And while he's starting to talk about the 3D and then he said, first we have the silence. Then we had the talkies.
01:59:30
Speaker
And now we have the roundies. And it's like, my bro, like, you're like the like the first... Like, this is our introduction to 3D, and we're like, hey boys, you know what you want to see. We know what you want to see.
01:59:46
Speaker
ah Crazy. Crazy. yeah The chutzpah of it is... is Wild. I thought it was hilarious. And also, at the same time, there's like a little puppet show happening. And one of the puppets is trying to like puts on like, like 12 pairs of 3D glasses so that he can see her in extra 3D. But in a like, it like cuts back and forth between the puppets and the guy. Yeah. And there's like jokes where it's like, it cuts back to the puppet wearing more glasses.
02:00:17
Speaker
yeah That stuff, I actually thought that was like really... That's a funny joke. I thought that was very fun, the puppet stuff. Yeah. ah The puppet stuff was and directed are produced by Bob Clampett.
02:00:28
Speaker
and Maybe the same Bob Clampett from Looney Tunes, but that's kind of interesting. Yeah, he's got he's got these roundies in his face, and he is ah he's putting trying to put on more pairs of 3D glasses to make them more round. Yeah.
02:00:44
Speaker
Right. A ah very 1950s way to introduce audiences to the concept of 3D movies. sir Yeah. And then we get this 90 minute ish movie about lions, which is it i was shot with 3D cameras.
02:01:01
Speaker
Like it wasn't, you know, like the the actual 3D on location in ah in Africa. Yeah. So I think the 3D is is it holds up pretty well. It's also very not. It's other than that one make out scene. It's not really very gimmicky in how it's using. There's not a lot of like lions jumping at the camera, like knives being brandished.
02:01:22
Speaker
There's a spear that goes for the camera once. But even that, feel it doesn't feel like. like like the three stooges 3d shorts where they're like you poking the camera like directly like it's it didn't it it was there but it didn't feel necessarily super gimmicky um which kind of surprised me that it's like the actual usage of 3d was surprisingly tasteful considering how not tasteful so much the rest of the movie right This movie is uncritically pro-colonialism. Yeah, this whole movie feels like a Pulp magazine cover.
02:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, it is about like a muscly man with like a shirt ripped fighting lions while a woman cowers next to him. Like, yeah, that's entire vibe of this movie.
02:02:09
Speaker
That's a nice way of looking at it. And then the less nice way of looking at it is that it is about a guy who sucks so much, who is our main character, who is trying to defend these people who are doing the wrong thing from these lions who are just lions. Right. And lions already live there.
02:02:32
Speaker
I hate everybody in this movie. Yeah. and it's not just like for political reasons of like, they're doing something wrong. They just like, it's, it's wild to me how many times the movie takes the opportunity for the main character to just be a dick.
02:02:49
Speaker
Like there's. Yeah. It's like the movie was almost going out of its way to be like, this guy sucks. Yeah. But there's no there's no critique. It's just like it thinks he's cool, I guess. It's it's very strange.
02:03:03
Speaker
um This movie has a lot of stock footage in it, um but which obviously was not shot in 3D, so that the way that they kind of give that an added sort of depth is they'll they'll add something to the foreground the stock footage so yeah put like brush in the stock footage like a lion walking something like that they'll put like a yeah like some some bushes like in the foreground so that there's crazy how much that doesn't work I was kind of surprised. Like, it's very obvious what they're doing, but I also appreciated the effort that was being put in. Like, we have to give this shot some depth, otherwise going to really stick out from the rest of the movie. It still does. It still does. I mean, that's the thing. was just looking at that, and I was like, you just can't do this, you know? Sure, yeah.
02:03:47
Speaker
It's interesting that they tried. It looks so much more fake. Like, like in 2D, it would look relatively fine. Right, yeah. When you're having a flat plane of 2D behind some 3D stuff, the 3D effects almost made it worse, I think. Because it really just pointed out, like, this is stock footage.
02:04:08
Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of the 3D, which is the only thing that's worth talking about with this movie, i I have recently watched two movies ah with the like red and cyan 3D glasses. I screened Creature from the Black Lagoon in my backyard ah like ah two years ago. um And that's what I bought these glasses for. Also, the same exact movie why I have my pair of 3D glasses is I went to a screening of it in 3D.
02:04:37
Speaker
Nice. And then, yeah, I had them kicking around, so I was able to watch this in 3D. And something that I was... really noticing is that you know we're used to in our era of watching 3d glasses with polarized 3d um where which was the kind of you know late aughts early 2010s resurgence of 3d the kind of original 3d fad with these red and cyan glasses you having to look through colors
02:05:11
Speaker
Really causes problems. Sure. ah It warps all of the colors of the movie. And something that I was noticing is that it warps it very differently depending on what your dominant eye is. um my left eye is dominant and so the whole movie looked red to me I showed them to other people and some people like like some people who were right eye dominant the movie was tinted blue which seems a lot less aggressive than a movie that is red the whole time and it's crazy that it can just vary so much yeah I mean this movie is in color yeah because there are colors besides red and blue
02:05:56
Speaker
in Yeah. Film. I think i think it it does tend to kind of skewed toward because it's a lot of like desert and ah I guess there's a lot of sky, which might be more towards blue.
02:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, i don't know. I feel like it kind of maybe skews warm colors anyway. I don't know. I mean, with Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is black and white, yeah it looked like it was just red and red and white, or like black and red, you know? yeah But like a black and white movie with a cool blue tone is like a lot, you know, it's a lot more approachable. yeah when When I was watching this movie, I was trying to squint my left eye As much as I could.
02:06:35
Speaker
And I was able to almost like bring the colors back into balance by squinting my left eye. Which, yeah, it just goes to show like the flaws in this obviously flawed technology. I definitely noticed something where I think...
02:06:50
Speaker
on the the red side, i i I would see like sort of ghosting from the other image from. Yeah, there was. Yeah, there was definitely some ghosting with this, which I think is also just like an inherent kind of limitation to this version of three d Every version of 3D, pretty much. But yeah, it's a weird thing to film something with two cameras simultaneously and one for each eyeball.
02:07:13
Speaker
ah Also, this movie weirdly is like 70 minutes long and it has an intermission. Yeah. There's so much that's bad about this. its Truly, but I do also kind of think it's it's it's an interesting cultural object. Like it is as this sort of like yes this thing that kicked off the 3D craze of the 50s. It is just so it's so of its time, mostly in bad ways.
02:07:38
Speaker
But it is just like it's something to behold. This is structured a bit like a monster movie. ah It's like, you know, they're getting stalked by these creatures. There's a creature lurking in the background. It's picking off one person at a time. There was another movie in the 90s based on the same historical lion attacks with ah Val Kilmer.
02:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, I was curious to take a look at it. Also a bit silly. It's like Val Kimmer and Michael Douglas hunting lions. um Better than this, but it's still still sort of not great, I guess.
02:08:12
Speaker
i I like how, um you know, before the tropes of um horror movies were cemented, this kind of subverts it in a way because, you know, the scene where the white people do get eaten by the lions, it is the people who are not having sex who are punished by by being killed by a monster. Right, right.
02:08:33
Speaker
Yeah. ah One other thing that I ought to say about this is that ah these real lions, once they were finally killed by the real life guy that um Robert Stack is playing, he kept them. He kept their their stuffed or like their furs ah in his house and then sold them to the Field Museum in Chicago. And I just passed through Chicago accidentally ah like a week ago. And I went to the Field Museum and I saw the real lions. Damn. So right after I watched Buona Devil, i would we can we can throw that picture in there, too. There you go.
02:09:10
Speaker
I
Exploration of 'This is Cinerama' and Widescreen Technology
02:09:11
Speaker
got to see the real Buona Devils and salute them for their anti-colonial action.
02:09:22
Speaker
i guess and another Movie that is ah gimmicky, gimmicky, trying some new ah cinema technology is this is Cinerama.
02:09:33
Speaker
Welcome to Cinerama. This is Cinerama. This is Cinerama. Welcome to you to Cinerama.
02:09:44
Speaker
Cinerama. Niche reference. This is less of a movie and more of a tech demo, I would say. Yeah. As it is not narrative. It's sort of a travelogue documentary sort of variety show. don't know.
02:09:58
Speaker
But Cinerama is ah notable, I suppose, for it. Early widescreen format. The first, I believe. The actual. Well, OK. Well, there were there were wider screens in like the 10s and 20s. They didn't really catch on. Right.
02:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess that like 1896 boxing match right was widescreen. But this is also notable in that it's such a sort of effortful and sort of extreme example of widescreen. And it's like the widest screen.
02:10:29
Speaker
And yeah, it is. So Cinerama, we don't need to so summarize any plot here, but we're going to summarize technology. either yeah Cinerama is three projector process where um the film is ah like portrait mode on essentially ah to use a new terminology. It is portrait orientation on three projectors that are projecting onto a curved screen.
02:10:58
Speaker
So ah that's using that to get extra width. um ah with the three projectors and then they have seams in the middle that are meant to kind of perfectly sync line up with each other and it's a very cumbersome thing to film and it's a very cumbersome thing to project mean it's three cameras that have to be perfectly synchronized and then three projectors need to be perfectly synchronized And three film prints that need to have not aged at different rates that they can mesh with each other. and and And even when they were new, they had to go through the chemical bath. Exactly. Right. Like they had to be as close as possible because then you'd see a seam if like the color is slightly off.
02:11:41
Speaker
Yeah. and you know, these restorations are working with elements that have seen the test of time. yeah It's possible they were always not perfect. But like mostly you're not seeing the seams. But every once in a while, the film is old enough that you can just see the seams. And I mean, I think this movie has been restored really nicely and very well. And I'm really glad that we can watch it.
02:12:07
Speaker
I do think watching this on my TV at home, it feels like watching ah one of those. This is DVD commercials, but on a VHS tape, which is also where those existed, where it's like DVD is so much clearer. The sound is so much better. And I'm like, it isn't, though, because I'm watching it on VHS, which is what like watching this on a TV feels like. I'm like, I'm not really getting any of the actual benefits of what this format is for.
02:12:34
Speaker
I've always wanted to see a true Cinerama projection. And my understanding is that there hasn't been one done in at least 14 years. Right. Well, I mean...
02:12:47
Speaker
there There is, what, two in the country? I think there's there's the one in l LA, which has closed since COVID. ah My understanding, I don't know this for certainly, but my understanding is that the Cinerama Dome in LA no longer has the Cinerama equipment.
02:13:05
Speaker
Really? Interesting. And the one in Seattle has the equipment, but hasn't used it in a long time and cannot call itself Cinerama for licensing reasons. Interesting. Right. So it is, I mean... i Effectively as a dead format, like movies are not shot or shown in Cinerama until they make brutalist to in Cinerama. Yeah.
02:13:29
Speaker
So the the way in which it's usually kind of presented on a flat movie screen or TV is in smile box, which is letterbox of like having bars at the top and bottom. It had it's,
02:13:42
Speaker
It's sort of of extrapolating. Is that the right word? Yeah. It's trying to give him a sense of the curved screen by yeah sort of warping the image in a. Yeah, there was a a funky way.
02:13:55
Speaker
There was a lot of, and I mean, I've played a DCP of How the West Was Won, ah which is ah basically the only other notable Cinerama movie. its one This is Cinerama and How the West Was Won.
02:14:10
Speaker
I think there might have been a couple other narrative movies. I believe there were only two. um Right. Yeah. They were like the full proper three camera system. Yeah, I played you a DCP of how the West was won and the DCP came as a smile box. Yeah, this film like Cinerama is doing a lot of new things. It's really pulling out all the stops. It's three projectors. It's widescreen. It is a surround sound and it's a curved screen.
02:14:40
Speaker
And like Buona Devil, ah this is Cinerama starts with a black and white four by three. Like it's like here is the cinema you're used to. Get ready for the new cinema. Yeah. yeah And it's a very similar presentation of like a guy in a suit talking to a camera. Right. I think this one was pretty interesting, actually, because it was sort of showing the like a kind of circa 1951 or like historiography of film. Yeah. Right. It like it, the it says the first film was made in the black Mariah, the kiss. It's like, that's not true. Yeah.
02:15:21
Speaker
right great train and then it called Great train robbery the first feature film. Not true. right and um i i was thinking the same. that like We know all this stuff isn't true because we've done this show. I think there was so much interesting so much so much interesting stuff about like the way that this early part was presented.
02:15:37
Speaker
like it It is like an art history thing too. It's like talking about... like like the earliest cave paintings. It's like talking about like the history of depiction of things, which is kind of wild, you know? Yeah.
02:15:50
Speaker
It shows like silent film. And I think that's also like a kind of interesting thing is that it shows silent film with a soundtrack. And it is a soundtrack that they like added on to this film.
02:16:05
Speaker
um But it's showing like, it's showing silent film soundtracks, to people who have heard silent film soundtracks before, right? It is not like, here's what we're imagining silent film sounded like. It's like, here's what silent film sounded like from 30 years ago. Some of you remember this, you know?
02:16:26
Speaker
But yeah. And and then, like Buona Devil, it also has a moment where it goes... All right, get ready. But here we go. Much. It's much better done in this. This is like it's yeah really making a big moment out of it. And it it is doing a great job, I think, where it is starting.
02:16:43
Speaker
is showing a film of ah like the front POV of ah being on a roller coaster. And as the roller coaster goes up the, you know, the the tower whatever, the screen gets wider and wider and wider until it's.
02:16:58
Speaker
Well, if you were actually watching it in a cinema theater, it'd be all around you. It'd be like curving into your peripheral vision. Yes, and I watched, I put this on in a movie theater, and I sat in the front row. get as close as possible. to get it little And yeah I gotta say, when they went from that, like, that 137 picture, and then pulled it out to the Cinerama, I was enthralled. I was, like, I was on board for it. I was like, I feel like I'm in this role. I was, I was, it was great. yeah I really liked it. So, funny thing about that, that exact gimmick of like, the screen widening widening out
02:17:35
Speaker
Which is also funny that that is sort of kind of getting brought back a bit now with like ah in Sinners having the IMAX scenes actually, you know, getting taller.
02:17:47
Speaker
Yeah. Like the, the you know, the the letterbox getting actually physically moving. Cinerama was ah partially developed or like one of the big kind of proponents of it who helped it get off run was Marion C. Cooper, co-director of King Kong.
02:18:02
Speaker
um And one of his early pre-King Kong sort of silent sort of semi-documentary movies had a scene of an elephant stampede that he did a similar thing where he had.
02:18:13
Speaker
I'm not sure how they actually did it. think they might have just cropped the movie and then like uncropped it or something like that. But they had a thing of like elephants coming at the camera and that the screen physically widening as the elephants were coming at it.
02:18:26
Speaker
And it's, know, think it's interesting that he's like, he's been doing that trick for decades at this point, right? He did it in like the 20s and I was doing it in the 50s and being like, yeah, but what if the screen gets bigger while you're watching it? Like, that was just a thing that he like kept coming back to, which is kind of cool.
02:18:42
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah, definitely. That roller coaster, I think, is at the beginning is definitely like the most iconic part of this movie. Right. And it's a banger way of introducing you. Is it so that roller coaster thing is great? And then it's like, oh, yeah, there's also like a ah there's like two more hours of this. Yeah, I was definitely getting pretty bored by the end. Right. I think, right. It is a thing where it's like, i think if you were to sit in a theater and watch this whole thing,
02:19:10
Speaker
In proper Cinerama. It would be a lot more interesting. It would still get a little slow. I still think it is a bit. It's laying in on too thick. right It's laying on too thick. It's a bit overestimating how interesting the stuff they're filming is sometimes. I think a lot of the travelogue stuff. like In Venice.
02:19:27
Speaker
Is very pretty. and's these like great like They're like panorama photos. Because they're so wide. So you're seeing this like huge expanse. Of just space.
02:19:38
Speaker
That is really cool to see, even if it's in this sort of, we're seeing a, you know, a facsimile of what this is supposed to be. It says, this is like watching Buonadevil in 2D. It's sort of like, well, it's,
02:19:51
Speaker
you know It's approximating what this thing actually is supposed to be. But it's still... I think some of the stuff is pretty cool. Even if it is sort of like... I'm like, I get how cool this would be if I was watching it properly.
02:20:03
Speaker
You know? Yeah, I think the thing When they... when i when they Pulled the screen out. And it was. it It went to the roller coaster. I have seen widescreen movies before. And so it wasn't yeah brand new to me. Right. Yeah. But like I still was able to be like. Whoa. But there's like a showmanship. But but like.
02:20:27
Speaker
It simply being widescreen. Was not enough for me. For it to carry me through the rest of the movie. And then once it gets to the extended water ski section. i was I was starting to feel a bit... Starting to lose lose my focus a bit.
02:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, there is a lot of this movie that is water skiing. And i don't know why. Yeah, I mean... I'm sure it was... I'm sure it would be cooler to see if you've never seen widescreen or, you know, that stuff. like but um It kind of like co-branding, ah like a co-branding exercise with this specific water ski place in like water ski show in yeah Florida. I think they make so many mentions of like the specific place and the guy who owns it. And they make like a little fake story of like one of the water ski ladies is late for her shift. Oh, no. You know, it's because she tried to help someone who fell. Like, come on. Why is she getting punished?
02:21:31
Speaker
It's heartbreaking. I mean, some like that right that kind of tries to give you a bit of a bit of a narrative to like follow through that stuff. I actually like the kind of less narrative stuff that was just sort of like, look at this landscape.
02:21:43
Speaker
right There's like helicopter shots that are really... starting to look at. um Yeah. The end of the film is, or it's not a helicopter. It's like an airplane, like flying. It's an airplane. or Yeah.
02:21:55
Speaker
Very cool. And over very um American landscapes. And then my country tis of these. Right. Which is right. It's like, all right, land on a little thick, but like some of that stuff reminded me of,
02:22:08
Speaker
like the really early, like actuality movies where it's just like, we're going to write because the camera rig is so massive and heavy, like they can't really move it at all. So it's just sort of like, here's a single static shot of just like a street, but look how wide it is.
02:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's just like, I mean, just like those, it is like those ones were like, here's a static shot of a street. It's moving. Right. You know, yeah um it's like a new technology. It's a cumbersome technology. And so you're just like, hey, just soak in the technology itself. I mean one thing i i mean, i I asked you about this and I did some more reading up on it. Like watching this reminded me it is it felt like the kind of the the 1950s equivalent of VR. Yeah.
02:22:52
Speaker
And that made me think like, oh, is there a way to watch this in VR? Because then you would actually get the 3D effect of it, of like yeah the screen is is curving around you.
02:23:05
Speaker
As far as I know, no one has like, you know, taken a DCP of this movie or like a file of it and like actually made a sort of like VR version of it. If anyone's listening to this and knows how to do that, that's that's a good project to do. I support it.
02:23:21
Speaker
That might be like one of the only ways to like properly experience this format outside of and a real theater. Yeah, true. um One thing that I also thought about VR, but in a different context, is that you know there are there is this light narrative stuff. There are places there are times when it's trying to like have your eye look in a particular part of the screen. But similar to VR filmmaking, there is an issue with focus here, right? where And not like camera focus, but like, like visual focus, you know, of like, where am I supposed to look, you know? Because this is, they, these are all such wide pulled back objective shots that like,
02:24:09
Speaker
so when they're trying to like have you look at a certain thing, it's like floating in this big mass of other stuff because they're more concerned with showing you the bigness of everything than showing you a specific piece of it.
02:24:26
Speaker
And so, yeah, like, like, like the shot composition is actually like kind of strange in this because it's just so oriented toward like what,
02:24:38
Speaker
is So oriented toward the technology and not like even the thin story. Right. I'm really curious to watch how the West was one, because that is just like a narrative film using the same yeah format. And I remember it not being too much of a problem. It's been a long time since I watched it. um But even that, that was like 10 years after this movie.
02:24:58
Speaker
Something like yes And of course, you know, next, next year, next episode, ah We'll talk about CinemaScope, the widescreen format that stuck, I guess.
02:25:13
Speaker
um Yeah. It was a lot less cumbersome. Yeah, VistaVision, CinemaScope, just like there were a bunch of competing 3D systems, but there were also a bunch of competing widescreen systems. Yeah.
02:25:25
Speaker
And yes, CinemaScope... is definitely the most practical because all you need is a new lens, not a new projector or two new projectors.
02:25:36
Speaker
But yeah, that's Cinerama. That is Cinerama. That was Cinerama. That was Cinerama. Yeah. Right. Like I said, like I'm glad that we were able to watch it, but it felt... It's like it I'm not able to actually experience what they're trying to sell with it, which which is kind of frustrating.
02:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, I would really like a VR version. I think that'd be fun. Right, because it's like that. Or like,
Favorite Movies and Closing Remarks
02:26:01
Speaker
you know, open that dome back up, which hopefully will happen someday. But right, even then, they probably won't be showing Cinerama movies there.
02:26:09
Speaker
I mean, can also, mean, truer than VR, could recreate Cinerama by putting up a real curved screen at the same curve angle just setting up three digital projector. That's the thing is like if the museum of the moving image, even if they had like a really small curved screen in like a little room that they would just show this movie in a loop on just to like, this is what this format is. This is a thing that, you know, existed.
02:26:40
Speaker
I think that could also be really cool. I believe that somebody has, there is some like home theater that exists somewhere that has functioning Cinerama.
02:26:51
Speaker
um Like, I think I saw a picture of it. It's like a small thing. It's a private screening room, but there is functioning Cinerama, like, in one place. I think i think the Museum of the Maving Image should do that. I think that'd be a good...
02:27:06
Speaker
A good venue for that. Get on it, Momi. Yeah. Big fan of Momi over here. What is, ah what was your favorite movie? I think it was Akira. Yeah, it definitely was Akira.
02:27:18
Speaker
That's the only one that I got the most kind of emotionally invested in. I was the most impressed with, like, the filmmaking of it. And it was the one i think I've just kind of thought about the most since also.
02:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, I thought Akira was good. I think that it didn't make as much of an impact on me as I had expected it Mm-hmm. Because there is something a little reserved about it. ah And i like movies that go for my guts and grab them. And ah that was High Noon for me. I i thought High Noon is such a banger. I thought it was. You're pretty good. But what if it had more like gunfights in it?
02:27:54
Speaker
what if What if? What if there was like a big fight? what What if that happened? What if there was like a Cowboys and stuff? Sorry, I don't mean to i think it's call me stupid. I think that is that is a very worthy favorite film.
02:28:08
Speaker
It's very good. High noon is so cool. And i mean, i was kind of just vibing with it for a while. And then I was experiencing it getting more and more intense. And i was really impressed with how like gripping and intense that movie got. and I got to give it got to give it its flowers for that.
02:28:29
Speaker
Nice. ah It's joined the hallowed halls of the favorite movies ah segment of our podcast. You know, deserved. ah Well, that is about it for that episode. oh I guess we should mention also, we already covered Singing in the Rain. I rewatched Singing in the Rain. Right.
02:28:52
Speaker
the movie that was robbed when greatest showman one or whatever you call it. yeah the The elephant in the room. We conspicuously are not talking about. ah Yeah. brain This episode. Yeah.
02:29:04
Speaker
Yes. I love singing in the rain. Five out of five. It's an incredible movie. It's one of the best movies ever made. Yeah. But I feel like I said everything about it that I that I am going to say about. it Yeah. We like had almost a whole episode about it. So consult our 20s decade in review episode if you would like to see us talk about singing in the rain.
02:29:25
Speaker
But yes, if if OK, you know what? If singing in the rain was in this episode, it would be my favorite. It is not. ah So it's high noon.
02:29:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It probably would be my favorite too, but Akira's out there. I like Akira a lot. Well, okay, thanks everybody for watching and listening, and...
02:29:48
Speaker
dude seeing, tasting, smelling this episode. ah Thank for smelling this episode. We're, we're, we're the podcasts are getting so much competition from other media sources. So we got to yeah introduce smell-o-vision widescreen podcasts. And also I do want to start referring to 3d movies as roundies.
02:30:10
Speaker
ah I just went to go see the, ah the James Cameron, Billy Eilish roundy. Yeah.
02:30:20
Speaker
ah we got We got our social medias. ah Click on those with your telephone or your computer if you would like to ah see what we're up to or post some or see us post a little bonus stuff every once a while on on Instagram. And um ah yeah, stick around for 1953. There are so many movies that we need to look at in 1953. I have no idea how we're going to pick what we're doing. ah You...
02:30:48
Speaker
We'll see us talk about some of them, but know that there are so many more that that are worth talking about that we as increasingly. i feel like every episode is is that way. But yeah, 53, especially it's going to be going to be a rough to work out the lineup.
02:31:06
Speaker
Yeah. um Well, ah stick around for that. And Glenn. Thanks for joining me and i will see you next year.
02:31:17
Speaker
See you next year.