‘Wild Horse Nine’ Is a Hilarious American Tragedy. Plus: ‘Possible Love’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Harlem’.

On today’s show, Sean and Amanda cover ‘Wild Horse Nine’, Martin McDonagh’s wonderful new dark comedy. They break down why it’s one of the best movies of the year, celebrate Sam Rockwell’s incredible performance, and wonder if John Malkovich will win Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Then, they discuss Lee Chang-dong’s new film ‘Possible Love’ and try to unpack why it’s a movie they really like, but don’t absolutely love. Finally, they briefly talk about ‘Once Upon a Time in Harlem’ before Sean is joined by David Greaves and Anne de Mare to explore the incredibly complicated and rewarding journey behind bringing the documentary to life. (0:00) Intro (3:40) Joel Coen’s ‘Jack of Spades’ acquired by Netflix (6:43) ‘Wild Horse Nine’ (22:03) SPOILER WARNING (52:15) ‘Possible Love’ (1:08:06) ‘Once Upon a Time in Harlem’ (1:12:00) David Greaves and Anne de Mare join the show! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: David Greaves and Anne de Mare Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Get a Sausage McMuffin with Egg, PLUS hash browns AND a small coffee, for just $5. Only at McDonald’s for a limited time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessy.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Right Conversation Show about three bangers. Today on the show, we're digging into three terrific new movies. The first is writer-director Martin McDonagh's latest film, Wild Horse 9. It's a buddy comedy about aging, America, the CIA, friendship, Chile, and love, among other things. Then we discuss Possible Love, Li Changdong's novelistic portrait of two couples from very different stations in life, what they share and how they diverge. It's Lee's first film since 2018's masterful Burning and is now available to watch on Netflix. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by David Greaves and Anne DeMeere, the director and editor, respectively, of Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a documentary 50 years in the making. Started by Greaves's father, William, a legendary figure in nonfiction American filmmaking, the film gathered the surviving artists of the Harlem Renaissance in 1976.

• 0:59Sean Fennessey?

  For a spirited day at Duke Ellington's house, half a century later, the movie is an amazing document of black history, American artistic communities, and the dialectic inside them. David and Anne shared some incredible stories about salvaging, restoring, and arranging this incredible movie. Stick around for that. But first, some movie news, right after this. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like re-watching a director's entire catalog in the lead-up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents.

• 1:44Sean Fennessey?

  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Even the greatest movies you can only watch so many times. Breakfast, on the other hand, every day the same craving, something hot, something filling, and a moment to enjoy it. The sausage McMuffin with egg pretty much covers it. Adding a hash brown and coffee for just $5, even better. Get a sausage McMuffin with egg, plus hash browns and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Excludes delivery.

• 2:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, tough day for you. George is officially blue. How are you feeling?

• 2:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel great.

• 2:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's not even purple. It's just blue.

• 2:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I prefer blue to purple.

• 2:25Sean Fennessey?

  As do I.

• 2:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No, great news. Woke is back. I got my iced coffee, which is like not totally a woke thing, but it's related in terms of the people bringing their iced coffee to the thing and...

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  We will file iced coffee under woke 3.0 officially.

• 2:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm here.

• 2:40Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great time in America.

• 2:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You will celebrate by naming 26 female directors. Go.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  Credit Gerwig.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  I tell you what, I wonder if this national shift will have any impact on our popular culture. And I wonder if Trump actually had a meaningful impact on our popular culture before that.

• 3:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:04Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe a conversation for a later date.

• 3:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So you think this is Obama optimism 2.0?

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder.

• 3:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Or our optimism is back?

• 3:12Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 3:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Katy Perry about to drop a banger? Teenage Dream 2.0? Let's go.

• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I don't know if she's gonna be capable of doing that right now.

• 3:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, I mean, listen, she and Justin Trudeau are having a beautiful life together.

• 3:24Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like it's really Olivia and Chappelle's time, so if someone's gonna do it, it's probably them. I don't know if anything is gonna change meaningfully in the popular culture. It usually doesn't. They're usually not that related. There are a couple of movies every year that are speaking to the moment.

• 3:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's, movies are several years behind. So in a couple of years, maybe we'll think about it. Our friend Joanna floated to me an interesting theory, I think from a, or a question floated by a friend of hers and ours, Katie Rich, which is just kind of, how does this affect the Oscar race? Which is more immediate. And does the optimism mean anything in terms of people who might previously have voted with cynicism, negativity? Maybe that's something we'll talk about in this episode and one of these films.

• 4:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great question, and I think there's something fascinating about that. My reading of The End of the Odyssey, which feels like a movie in which Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas just go out and leave America.

• 4:18Amanda Dobbins?

  But they do say civilization will rise again.

• 4:21Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. And maybe we are here.

• 4:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Here we are.

• 4:23Sean Fennessey?

  Six months later, we did it, America.

• 4:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Just in time for The Odyssey to start its Oscar campaign once again.

• 4:28Sean Fennessey?

  It is truly happening. Um, there's gonna be a lot of Oscars over the next three months on this show. We don't have to spend too much time on it today, other than the fortunes of the movies that we'll be discussing. But there was some interesting news, which is that Joel Coen's Jack of Spades was acquired by Netflix and will officially be getting a theatrical release in the fall of 2027.

• 4:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 4:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think I, this was on my most anticipated movies of the year list, and I think I got it in the auction as well. I did.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yes, that's correct.

• 4:53Sean Fennessey?

  And it's gonna come out 18 months after I picked it.

• 4:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Sean Fennessey?

  Not ideal, but you know what? Looking forward to seeing it.

• 4:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Josh O'Connor, right?

• 4:59Sean Fennessey?

  Josh O'Connor is the star. This is a sort of a Gothic mystery, I think, is the pitch on it. It being notably a theatrical release, does that tell you anything?

• 5:09Amanda Dobbins?

  No, because did they lay out the specific number of screens? The size of the screens? How many weeks will it be in this? No. And listen, we're already seeing this a little bit with Cliff Booth, right? Where they're rolling back some of the, like, the promise to IMAX or...

• 5:25Sean Fennessey?

  Regal and Cinemark will not be making their IMAX screens available for Cliff Booth.

• 5:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Listen, I'm not a distributor, you know? I'm not a movie studio, nor do I own a movie theater, so I just really can't be in the weeds too much about this right now. I guess theater is better than no theaters.

• 5:39Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with that. Would you like to own a movie theater?

• 5:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd, not a chain.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  Just one theater?

• 5:46Amanda Dobbins?

  If we're really, if really rich, and also, like, I'm gonna do it by myself.

• 5:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 5:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But owning it, and then I could finally put on my singles events in the lobby for people, more as like a community thing.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  Why not just open in a nightclub?

• 6:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, because then you have to stay out late, you know?

• 6:02Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 6:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, this could at least...

• 6:04Sean Fennessey?

  Right, we could wrap it all up by 10:00 PM.

• 6:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was gonna say, even 11:00, you know, would really push things in a different way. I feel like I could do a great job with programming and community and vibes.

• 6:16Sean Fennessey?

  Many people are saying, you're really all about community. You love to connect with new people.

• 6:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you heard Si say "community" yet? Did we get this on video for you?

• 6:24Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so.

• 6:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really, really good, because the firefighters help the community, but he has to really concentrate when he says it. It's wonderful.

• 6:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's a lot of syllables.

• 6:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's challenging. Well, he'll be an elocutioner yet. I think this is cool. I mean, I love Joel Coen, and I do want him and his brother to make a movie again.

• 6:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Sean Fennessey?

  And I hope that's what's gonna happen after this, is that they will reunite. The Ethan Coen films haven't gone over so great. But I look forward to this movie, and I'm glad somebody's putting it out. It's, for whatever reason, I thought it was Apple for the longest time, and then that didn't seem to be the case.

• 6:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Wasn't that because Joel Coen's last solo film, The Tragedy of Macbeth?

• 6:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, which means that, you know, Ethan Coen's, I believe both of his films were with Focus, but The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, of course, was also a Netflix movie. And then he made The Tragedy of Macbeth with Apple, so he actually hasn't had a theatrical rollout in 10 years on a movie. Crazy to think about as a, you know, I'm a Coens boy. That's one of my things.

• 7:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I know. Listen, I admire the work. I will go to a theater. I went to see the Netflix movie we're gonna discuss in theaters again this week.

• 7:24Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you saw it in theaters the second time?

• 7:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, because I'm gonna be honest, don't know how Possible Love is gonna play at home. We can talk about it.

• 7:30Sean Fennessey?

  Ah, it's a very good point. I watched it at home.

• 7:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So I was like, I'm gonna lock in. I'm gonna take myself to the landmark Pasadena and focus on this great film.

• 7:39Sean Fennessey?

  This is a great entree into Wild Horse 9, because this is a movie I've now had the good fortune of seeing three times. And I've seen it in three different ways. One was in a preview screening in a screening room with press. The other was in a festival setting, and then at home.

• 7:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 7:53Sean Fennessey?

  And it worked all three times.

• 7:57Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a wonderful, wonderful movie.

• 7:59Sean Fennessey?

  And that's, I mean, that does say something, and I like that point you're making about Possible Love. So let's talk about Wild Horse 9. We're gonna get right into it. We will spoil the movie, but we'll wait a little while before we start giving in to the nitty-gritty of the story. It is Martin McDonagh's new film, written and directed, of course. Stars John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Marianna DeJahrelomo, and Parker Posey. This is what it's about. If you don't wanna know what Wild Horse 9 is about, I, like, you should definitely see it. It's like a high, high recommend for me. This is like in my top five movies of the year right now.

• 8:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Same. Yeah, which I, and now I'm just kinda needling with it. Is it too boring and predictable that it's just gonna be in our both, our top five?

• 8:33Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I know.

• 8:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think we both came out of the festivals and we're just like, well, this is as wonderful as everyone is saying and as we expected.

• 8:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, go see it.

• 8:41Sean Fennessey?

  Go see it. Otherwise, here we go. Shortly before, the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat CIA bureau chief MJ dispatches officers Chris and Lee from Santiago to Easter Island. Among the island's iconic Moai, the longtime partners wrestle with their dark past and present conspiracies, while Chris's newfound bond with a rebellious student threatens to send everyone's trip to this remote paradise sideways. So, you love the movie.

• 9:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 9:06Sean Fennessey?

  I forget, we did, of course, talk about The Banshees of Inisherin on this show. I don't think we actually did a full episode about Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

• 9:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 9:13Sean Fennessey?

  So we haven't had a ton of Martin McDonagh conversations over the years. I, if I recall, you liked But We're Not Over the Moon for Banshees?

• 9:21Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I really liked it.

• 9:23Sean Fennessey?

  Were you very into it?

• 9:23Amanda Dobbins?

  But the interesting thing about, you know, in that movie, you have two male characters, and then you have the Carrie Condon character. And we did the podcast with Chris, and I was like, this is a great movie about you two. And I related more to the, to the woman character on the side, being like, well, you guys are a bunch of idiots, and I'm leaving, which is a valid representation of experience in my life and in the world at large.

• 9:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's somewhat echoed again in this movie. I think that perspective.

• 9:51Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, but I feel more connected to these characters.

• 9:54Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 9:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And so I guess what I'm saying is that I'm, I'm a huge fan of McDonagh, but have usually been watching at a distance. And that's a little bit because he mostly, with the exception of Three Billboards, makes movies about men, like, dealing with stuff. And men have feelings, too, sometimes.

• 10:13Sean Fennessey?

  We do.

• 10:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And...

• 10:14Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for acknowledging that.

• 10:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It's helpful to learn about them, and sometimes I even experience them the same way. But there is something about this one, whether it's the Malkovich performance, or whether it's the subject matters created, that even though it is, just again, about men dealing with stuff, and there are women in the film, and they're just kinda sitting on the side or in the US in a beautiful home, being like, what's wrong with you?

• 10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I, like, I just, I felt very close to this film. So it's wonderful. It's one, it's my, maybe my favorite McDonagh?

• 10:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the movie is very neatly paired with In Bruges, which I think I've mentioned on the show before. It is about an older guy and a younger guy. They work in this kind of illicit world, and they're on a journey, a very important quest, sort of away from their homes. And along the way, they encounter all of these interesting experiences and come to some major emotional realizations along the way. It's a very American movie, unlike In Bruges.

• 11:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 11:14Sean Fennessey?

  And it's about American history, and it's about imperialism.

• 11:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:19Sean Fennessey?

  And I think it's also maybe more specifically about... The American psyche and like what, what we think we represent and whether we feel good about that or not. And he's kind of woven it into these two CIA agents, one of whom is in his seventies seemingly and near the end of his life. The other is in his forties and kind of like, just trying to get through the day.

• 11:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and, and the movie is very tightly focused on Malkovich's character.

• 11:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Sean Fennessey?

  And Malkovich, who is of course, an actor we love, but has not been at the center of Hollywood in a while. But we bring to the movie like all of our relationship to him, you know, the, the, the great parts that he's played over the years and the kind of oddity of his performance style. And I think one of the things that will get a little overlooked about this movie, but that I'm just going to cite right up front is that Sam Rockwell is unbelievably good in this film. And that this character is so important because he kind of represents like a, like a transitional phase in American history as well.

• 12:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 12:14Sean Fennessey?

  And the like part he plays kind of shepherding out one generation, but then being stuck and not knowing what to do as the 48 year old guy who's like, wife doesn't love him and you know, he's dealing with his bosses who are annoying and he doesn't really think hard about the purpose of his life. And so I found that dynamic of like one person's regret and another person's lostness, such a special combination.

• 12:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And he also, in terms of the nature of the performance, Malkovich is the center of the film and gets the punchlines and the big speeches and Rockwell's job is to react and to provide, provide the foundation for Malkovich to kind of, to do his thing. And Rockwell does that and does it beautifully. And some of the funniest movie moments in the movie are the reaction shot that just holds a little bit long for him. But even though he is, for lack of a better, better phrase, the straight man, like he is still also having fun with it and adding his own complexities to, he's not just a backboard

• 13:14Amanda Dobbins?

  for Malkovich. So, and, and much of the movie is about the two of them and maybe not them as, as people, people, but as what they represent in terms of your outlook on the world and certainly your outlook on governments and, and, and what we are supposed to do as people and what our responsibility is to each other, to the world at large.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. I mean, I think a lot of his work, almost all of his work, especially his work on the stage is very philosophical. And because it's a lot of his work originated on the stage, there's a lot more room to kind of announce the meaning of things, you know, with, with the action that the characters are taking. And because this is a movie about, you know, nearing the final stage of someone's life, it's reasonable for a character to be writing their memoir and to be remembering things and what impact they had. And to think deeply about who you are and what this all represents and to sit in the majesty of a beautiful space in the world. And it doesn't feel like ham handed, the way that it would. And actually like In Bruges, which is a movie I love and made me fall in love with McDonough.

• 14:22Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's like, it's like assassins on the run and it feels like very post pulp fiction. And it's kind of iterating on a tone and style of American cinema. And this, while it is similarly using people who have perhaps participated in assassinations, feels much looser to me and much more spiritual. And it helps that it's shot in one of the most beautiful places in the world and photographed so beautifully that it gives the movie more weight. It's not just like an antic satire.

• 14:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Well, I mean, some of it is that, you know, In Bruges is about two men in different phases of life, but what have they done in, in their particular lives? And the, the scope is very small. I mean, it is still life or death, but it's like this group of people.

• 15:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  This broadens the scope to be, you know, American history, international history, and possibly like the world at large. It is also an end of empire movie, right? And so, and, and it knows that and it is writing in the grand tradition of the like decline and fall of the Roman Empire. So there is like this beauty and this decayingness of these people, this world, and this, this sense of regret, but also maybe not even regret, just uncertainty. Like, did we do the right thing?

• 15:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. There's a little bit of like, what are we going to do? Like, it happened, you know, like, and, and I do think that that is kind of the American posture a lot of the time where like, ah, we kind of fucked that one up.

• 15:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Sean Fennessey?

  Like, gotta go, gotta move forward. And that's certainly true of all empires and all imperialistic pursuit. But this one's, it's really funny to locate it inside of these two guys who, you know, all McDonough protagonists seem pretty smart and pretty stupid at the same time. They kind of share the Coen Brothers thing. There's a similar thing in Coen Brothers characterizations. And that allows us to kind of like, get inside of their feeling, like where we don't feel like they're outwitting us, but we also feel like we can feel a little better than them too, which is something we like to do sometimes with our movie characters. This one in particular, I think that Rockwell seems a little bit more dim, for lack of a better phrase, than Malkovich. But Malkovich, because he's sick, he's kind of losing it a little bit.

• 16:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Sean Fennessey?

  So we're like, a couple of paces ahead of him, except when he's really right on top of things and explodes. There's one very memorable moment where he's being photographed by someone while he's on this trip to Easter Island. And he, he figures out what's, that he's being tracked, he's being spied on. And he explains it to Rockwell and he explodes at him. And it's the only like, I thought the only like real old school Malkovichian, like, like, like, uh, yell tirade, which is something he's very well known for.

• 17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. There's no, there's no heat in this one. It is meandering and even he does get all the punchlines and he does lean into the punchlines, but he puts a very different spin on them than certainly you expect from like a McDonough character or just, I guess, like basic comedy. And everything is a little slower, I mean, morphed out for like both, both literally and emotionally. And surprising.

• 17:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. His, we talked about this with Gene Hackman.

• 17:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:39Sean Fennessey?

  His line readings, his elocution, his points of emphasis as an acting communicator are just so weird.

• 17:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Wonderful.

• 17:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's great. I mean, it's great. It's just, it's always unexpected. Like he, he does make you lean forward because you're kind of waiting to hear how he's going to finish saying what he's saying in a way that like, I can't really think of anybody else that does that. And you make, you make a good point, which is that in a lot of McDonough films, and even in this film with somebody like Steve Buscemi, or you think about like what Brendan Gleeson can do, they're kind of like punching style actors, you know, where they like hit, they like land hard on the, the punchline that is also usually the line that like hurts the most. That's a real McDonough signature is like, something's funny and it's painful at the same time.

• 18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And the-

• 18:22Sean Fennessey?

  Malkovich is all over though. He's like, so he's like, you can never put your arms around him in the movie.

• 18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and also there often is kind of like a, a softer philosophical character who's like off to the side. And for this to be the main character that the movie is built around is surprising in its own way. You know, McDonough is a very exacting writer. And so I know that all of these were written just so. But they do have an improvisational quality, at least in the delivery.

• 18:55Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely.

• 18:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right? And I'm curious, I'm curious what it was like on set between Malkovich and McDonough. Cause I don't think that Malkovich is making anything up. If anything, I think that he's like really understanding and working with the text, which is an incredible script and very funny and very precise and, you know, has a lot going on in between the lines. But it's amazing what he does in terms of making it feel just like it, you know, he plucked it off a tree or something.

• 19:24Sean Fennessey?

  Completely. I mean, he, he often has that, but he often plays characters who are like very in control, like in The Line of Fire, Dangerous Liaisons, like some of his best known parts. He is a very kind of manipulative and scheming kind of figure in movies. And in this movie, he's responsible for some of the great schemes in the world. But you, you always feel like he's just kind of landed in place there somehow. It, it's a really, really special performance.

• 19:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he's also the, the character that's over, right? Like the, that is, it is in decline. And everything that he's done, he is still responsible for, even if he can't remember it, you know? And he has like pieces of paper in his pocket to keep on to very specific details because like the, the world has passed him by, the world that he created. And he's there, he has, you know, the woman in this film is, or one of the two, with all respect to Parker Posey. But the young woman is, represents the future. And he's trying to advise and like, keep on with what's going on with her and, but also knows that

• 20:33Amanda Dobbins?

  he has no more power over it. So it's, you know, even when he's talking about strategies and manipulations, there is just kind of, there's a loss to everything that I, I mean, this is, this is a great movie about, this is a great end of life movie.

• 20:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. The, the character you're referring to is Mariana De Girolomo's character. And she plays a kind of young, hard left leaning Chilean woman who at this exact moment in history, there is a new government in place and there's this sense of, you know, real democratic change in, in the nation. And-

• 21:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And they, they went to, they met at a women's march.

• 21:08Sean Fennessey?

  They met at a women, these two, these two friends met at a women's march and they encounter these two CIA agents in the airport, which is a very funny and memorable scene that's in the trailer. So it's not really giving anything away. And you see that these two CIA agents become very interested in these two women. And these two women regard these two guys as pretty weird. But the one thing that Malkovich's character has and that he does begin to convey to De Girolomo's character is wisdom. Like he knows things about how the world can and will change in a way that very few people in the world do. And he starts saying things out loud that could only be uttered on the JFK rewatch rules, you know, like, there's like, there's a certain kind of conspiratorial strategy

• 21:50Sean Fennessey?

  that he has a firsthand experience with. So it makes the movie seem somehow more comic and more real at the same time. Like there, he does put, like, I think you put that this is a movie that has stakes. And like those stakes go in the ground in this movie. Like they are really, really intense. But it's also just fun to be around these characters. And I think, I don't want to oversell the movie as this like weighty philosophical end of life movie, because it's also a one hour and 50 minute comedy.

• 22:16Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 22:16Sean Fennessey?

  Really fun.

• 22:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it is the closest we're gonna get to JFK rewatchables in the movie theaters this year. And when I realized that the first time I saw it, and I was like, oh, my God, they're just doing, they're doing Dallas bits.

• 22:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I was so excited.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 22:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, not, listen, it was a terrible tragedy, and I had nothing to do with it. But like.

• 22:34Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing? Are you 100% sure about that, generationally?

• 22:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I guess.

• 22:40Sean Fennessey?

  You have any family in Texas?

• 22:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I did, and they lived in Dallas, but they moved there after. They moved there after in my lifetime.

• 22:48Sean Fennessey?

  Because it was safe to live there then.

• 22:50Amanda Dobbins?

  But also, like, no one in Dallas. Listen, my belief system, you know, has a lot more to do with the CIA.

• 22:55Sean Fennessey?

  Where were you during the Bay of Pigs?

• 22:57Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I, I think maybe we can start just spoiling the movie a little bit more now, as we're kind of insinuating something that is at the core of this movie, which is that Lee, the Lee character, has been center stage for not just the JFK assassination.

• 23:15Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Lee is Rockwell.

• 23:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I'm sorry, Chris.

• 23:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is really funny. By the way, I just, bless them.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, right. Lee is obviously an allusion to Lee Harvey Oswald, but Chris is Malkovich's character. Thank you for correcting me. And he has been center stage for, for many international assassinations.

• 23:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, which he just rattles off during a photo shoot in the first three minutes of the movie. I think Guatemala, Bay of Pigs, he was there, something else I've forgotten.

• 23:38Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't go so well, Bay of Pigs, yeah.

• 23:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 23:40Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I mean, he talks in the film about Lumumba in the Congo. And, um, obviously, he is participating in the eventual, the imminent overthrow of the Chilean government.

• 23:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:50Sean Fennessey?

  And the rise of a new fascist state. And, you know, these are obviously tragic and brutal real life events, but you kind of have to remember that they were executed by real people. And those people were like, probably like, a little dip shitty at times, you know? And to put, to put their actions and words and identities in the bodies of these characters makes the movie both weightier and a lot more fun, too, you know? And there is something really funny about them doing Dallas bits. And this, the movie is kind of centered around how much was Chris responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And like, what role did he actually play?

• 24:32Sean Fennessey?

  And because he's kind of a forgetful and unreliable narrator, the truth kind of shifts through the movie the same way it has shifted through history over the last 65 years. And so there's something kind of delicious about that, too.

• 24:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And then he's also the live wire of, he's writing his memoirs. And so there, the entire rest of the CIA apparatus embodied by Steve Semien as MJ is trying to keep a lid on it. And keep a lid on what he has to say.

• 25:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, because despite like, the, the changing story, it's clear he was in the area.

• 25:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he participated in some way. And he has, he does not seem to have a lot of regrets, although there's all of this discussion about, there's a hysterical conversation about who gets into heaven in the movie. And, uh, what the, what the rules of engagement are for getting in, and how many people you can kill before getting into heaven.

• 25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:24Sean Fennessey?

  And what, what, what Nazis will be allowed into heaven or not allowed into heaven.

• 25:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And that conversation starts with Chris starting his memoirs with the dinosaurs. Because do dinosaurs have souls? And will there be dinosaurs in heaven? Will there be moths?

• 25:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and what do you say about that, dinosaurs? Do they have souls? Are there dinosaurs in heaven right now?

• 25:44Amanda Dobbins?

  That would be very exciting.

• 25:46Sean Fennessey?

  Would it? It'd be a little intimidating.

• 25:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. I mean, I, I would hope that the rules of heaven mean that we can all coexist, you know?

• 25:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, in theory, you can't die again, right? So you're just chilling with the dinosaurs.

• 25:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, like.

• 25:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, they don't speak, right?

• 25:59Amanda Dobbins?

  My concept that we know.

• 26:00Sean Fennessey?

  This isn't the land before time.

• 26:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, listen, I have a lot of books that say the contrary right now.

• 26:05Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 26:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I would imagine that the, the rules of heaven mean, I don't imagine there's pain in heaven. If we're, if we believe in heaven, so even if the dinosaur is ripping you apart.

• 26:18Sean Fennessey?

  And you do believe in heaven?

• 26:21Sean Fennessey?

  That, I mean, that's the other thing, too, is that Chris's character is, is deeply faithful. He's Catholic, Catholic, right?

• 26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:27Sean Fennessey?

  And obviously, there are a great many Catholics in the works of Martin McDonagh.

• 26:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 26:31Sean Fennessey?

  And, um, the idea of a man like, who has done these awful things. I mean, he, he, he, he goes into detail about his relationship with Lumumba and what he tells him before he's assassinated, and then leads to this decades long reign of fascism in the Congo. And then, you know, you're like meant to love him and think about whether or not he can get into heaven, which is one of the, just like, the great magic tricks of the Martin McDonagh writing style, which is that despite all of these horrible things that have happened, you're kind of able to get on the wavelength of these guys and want to spend more time with them. But there is something.

• 27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And also because they are, it is an end of life movie, so they are in their own ways taking stock. And the Chris character in particular is trying to process what he's done, why he's done it, what he is leaving behind, what, what it means for his life to be over. And so, and part of the, like, the endearing and amusing part of the movie is that he's not really, he doesn't even feel the need to justify his actions. He's kind of like, well, it happened, what are we gonna do? And what does it mean? And, but, you know, there still are the questions. He's reckoning in his own way with the, uh, the Nazi and whether the Nazi who jumped on a grenade to save his mom will also be in heaven, you know?

• 27:44Sean Fennessey?

  And do you think he will?

• 27:47Sean Fennessey?

  The movie is also very self consciously, as are many of McDonagh's movies, a Western. And this one may be more literally, even though it takes place in Easter Island, it's literally described as a downbeat Western near the end of the film. And there's a sequence where Monument Valley appears, John Ford's famous terrain. There's a kind of, you know, mythology to these assassinations, and also to the idea of the assassin who kind of like carries this information and this burden through their life. And then the other thing that is really interesting to me is just like McDonagh's perception of American justice, which I, I tried really hard in good faith through the three billboards moment. To try to like, look at that movie in a non hysterical way. Because it came out, it got a lot of acclaim, and then it got a lot of hate.

• 28:31Sean Fennessey?

  It was Oscar winning, and then there were some people like, well, this is a portrait of white hatred, and it doesn't really adequately reckon with this moment that we're in in our, in our history. Which was, I guess, was that 17 or 18, Three Billboards, 18?

• 28:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Sean Fennessey?

  And I wrote a piece about it for The Ringer, and I, I focused really closely on Streets of Laredo, which is this song that is, plays at the very beginning of the song, at the very beginning of the movie, which is sort of about, like outlaw justice, and whether or not there's value in that. And this movie is kind of a, a recurrence of that theme, and of whether like, there's value in this kind of work or not. And I think he's very skeptical of it, obviously.

• 29:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:11Sean Fennessey?

  But he's also like, this is a fact of life, that this is something that transpires, and we should portray it, we should think about it and pull it apart. I'm, I'm not saying Three Billboards is a masterpiece, I didn't think that it was, but I think it was a movie that was sort of like, especially in that moment in history, was dismissed completely without exploring some of what it was trying to do, even if it was doing it clumsily. This movie, I think, because it's using like, proper history, instead of trying to refashion something that we felt like was happening in real time, it can do it a little bit more elegantly.

• 29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And it also zooms out. I mean, McDonagh is not an American. And so Three Billboards had a little bit of that quality of a non-American writing the, you know, their own dissertation and trying to feel some of things out, but from an outsider quality.

• 29:59Sean Fennessey?

  A foreign perspective, yeah.

• 30:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And this is still about Americans, but it's about the havoc that America has wrought across the world. And it, like, they are international stakes, and it is kind of, it is about America from the perspective of the people outside of it, as much as the people end. So I, I think some of it is just like, subject matter, and it's the right amount of distance for McDonagh, as opposed to, uh, trying to recreate something that like, even you and I don't have a ton of, you know, we don't live outside of Missouri, you know?

• 30:29Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, no. I, I think, I thought of this because of the way that Hank Williams kind of like bookends the movie and that, the idea of that song, and it kind of lingering in, in Chris's mind, and what it means to him is very similar to how a lot of the framing of Three Billboards. And, you know, the thing is, is like, I just had James Gray in here this week, and we talked a lot about the kind of recurrences in his storytelling, and how he has motifs and these, like, the brother figures and the looming gangster threat and a lot of these ideas. And McDonagh is the same way. He kind of keeps coming back to very similar dynamics and similar frameworks, but every time he does, he puts a little new spin on it, or he takes it in a slightly different direction. And so I, I find it to be really exciting that someone is like, you know what you're gonna get in a Martin McDonagh movie, even if you don't know what you're gonna get?

• 31:11Sean Fennessey?

  There's something kind of pleasing to me about that, as I get into my, I'm entering my mid 40s, I don't know if you know this? And I want to feel safe all the time, even if I know that we have a riddled history of assassination around the world.

• 31:24Sean Fennessey?

  And then the other thing that I kind of alluded to is just shooting this movie on location, and letting Malkovich just kind of wander the landscape at the end of his character's life, is just beautiful cinematic storytelling.

• 31:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 31:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I like a place with wild horses.

• 31:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, is the idea there that he was once a wild horse?

• 31:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:47Sean Fennessey?

  Or, but was he, though?

• 31:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know.

• 31:50Sean Fennessey?

  Or was he somebody who fell in line and did his job, and maybe never really lived as freely as he wanted to live?

• 31:55Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and then one of the horses that he communes with also. Meets its end.

• 32:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's true.

• 32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Sean Fennessey?

  I just, I love the way that this movie looks. I think it's so beautiful. And I think some, a lot of times his movies, and this was true of Banshees too, because it's shot on location and it was so beautiful to look at the Irish landscape. But it, it, it's just like, it is what separates writing something for the stage for him versus making a film. Like, it, it really is going to a place you've never been to before. This is something you advocate for on the show all the time, that not enough movies are willing to show us that space. And you watch so many streaming movies now and it's just like, this was shot in a warehouse.

• 32:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep.

• 32:31Sean Fennessey?

  There's no sense of character.

• 32:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Shot with the drone and here's another set.

• 32:36Sean Fennessey?

  Somebody's driving on a lonely road and that's all you get.

• 32:38Amanda Dobbins?

  This does have a little bit of driving on a lonely road as well and some drone stuff. But, I mean, it is also the specific choice of place and what the Moai, which are the, is the indigenous name for the...

• 32:49Sean Fennessey?

  The Big Heads.

• 32:50Amanda Dobbins?

  The Big Heads, as Chris's character puts it. You're too young to know the word indigenous. But, like, what those, what the Moai and what this place represents in terms of a past civilization and what is left is like, I mean, it is just a visual signpost right there that also happens to be very beautiful. So this is about like writing to your location as well. It's not just picking, you know, a rando place.

• 33:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and there's that very memorable sequence where Lee and Chris go to visit the Big Heads one day and they're filming them with the, with the camera and Chris starts telling a story about them, sort of mocking story about their size and why they've been shaped the way that they have. And the two young women who they had met at the airport kind of wander into their conversation unbeknownst to them. And it just becomes clear like how much disrespect they have for the local history and for the intention and this kind of spiritual connectivity of these sculptures. And that, that is how Americans are perceived broadly. You know, that we wander into places where we don't belong and we puff our chests out and sometimes we kill people. I mean, the, the reality in many cases.

• 33:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You and I went to Canada. Many people don't feel that we learned enough about Canadian films.

• 34:06Sean Fennessey?

  They said, never come back, you fucking fools. And so, but I, I will return.

• 34:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:09Sean Fennessey?

  I can't be deterred, you know? I made a great many friends there.

• 34:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Like Mrs. Doom?

• 34:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's right, like Mrs. Like Jane Doom.

• 34:17Sean Fennessey?

  What else do you want to say about this movie? Parker Posey?

• 34:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Very funny.

• 34:21Sean Fennessey?

  Could've used one more scene with her. It's tricky because the women in this movie are used as plot engines. And so they don't get to be people as much as these two men get to be, which is obviously another recurrence in a lot of McDonough films. But like, if you get one more scene of Parker Posey, you kind of lose that important thread of the story where her, her being in danger kind of pushes the action forward.

• 34:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 34:43Sean Fennessey?

  But her talking to Rockwell on the phone is some of the funniest stuff in the movie.

• 34:47Amanda Dobbins?

  It is. I, I think it's like a lovely grace note and she's in a beautiful house, completely separate and the, the film knows that the women are not the subject and they are there, maybe, maybe I guess in the case of the younger activist for plot. But, and I guess Parker Posey, you're right, she's in danger, though that doesn't really seem to be anybody's concern. It honestly just sets up a great joke about the Super 8 at the end.

• 35:13Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's amazing because it does seem like at the end of the day, Lee and Chris are like, ah, maybe she died.

• 35:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of speaks to their, how they think about humanity as well.

• 35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  He just, he's like, it'll help with the...

• 35:27Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right, right.

• 35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  With the thing.

• 35:29Sean Fennessey?

  With extracting her, yeah.

• 35:31Amanda Dobbins?

  But, um, you know, I think the movie knows that. Like, the, the film knows what it's about and what it's not about. And I, and I, I don't mind that sometime, once, as I said, sometimes men gotta work through their things and their responsibilities to history and the world at large.

• 35:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I think women are usually the collateral damage of those feelings, you know? And I think that a lot of his movies are kind of about that, you know? Like the way that Carrie Connan's character is edged to the side without much agency except when she's rejecting Barry Keoghan.

• 36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Sean Fennessey?

  It kind of speaks to that, that historical dynamic.

• 36:07Sean Fennessey?

  Tom Waits has one scene in the movie.

• 36:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Amazing.

• 36:10Sean Fennessey?

  Which is an incredible moment and I think there's something beautiful about the way that that action by Chris's character, assuming he did in fact assassinate John F. Kennedy, could truly like break his relationship with his own brother, you know? And that, that this idea of like, everything went to shit after Kennedy died, which is, you know, something that is kind of uttered throughout the movie.

• 36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:32Sean Fennessey?

  Like, and even MJ, this fascistic CIA, you know, director, even he liked Kennedy.

• 36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:40Sean Fennessey?

  And that, like, that is, that is another recurrence of the Oliver Stone film, is that kind of like, everything basically broke here after he was killed?

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Except that Chris's character does have that line in response to his brother, which is like, it was already shit, you just didn't notice.

• 36:56Sean Fennessey?

  And that may very well be true. And Chris had more information than his brother did. But like, it's such, this is such an interesting moment, as you said, to watch this movie because if you're a progressive person...

• 37:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:06Sean Fennessey?

  Over this week.

• 37:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:08Sean Fennessey?

  For the first time in many years, feels very exciting, feels very hopeful. And this is a movie that 99.9% of the time would be exactly right for this time, which is that like, you live in a country founded on lies and treachery throughout its 250 year-long history. It has enacted some of the most horrible international incidents. It is often cavalier and kind of smug about it. And there's not much you can do about it because it's been so powerful for so long. And yet, maybe not. Like, maybe, maybe things can change.

• 37:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, maybe they can. I, I was telling you guys that I rewatched this film on election night. You and my husband and Chris were just absolutely living out with the...

• 37:58Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible JMO shit.

• 37:59Amanda Dobbins?

  With the MSNBC on like, Zach was actually texting me from downstairs being like, I'm watching Kornacki, you know? And I absolutely, like, happy with the outcome, way better than the alternative. But I found my response to be cynical or just, not even cynical, but not optimistic, pessimistic. It's, you know, really, it's very much echoed by the, um, this speech that Malkovich gives in, in the car when he's like, at least you died on a beach with the, the wind in your hair. And just, and more about protecting my own heart. And so then I went and watched this movie and I was like, yeah, this seems exactly right.

• 38:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, things keep happening and maybe we'll all, maybe we'll have good days and maybe we'll have bad days. But I, I don't know. I, I, I, I'm resistant and I don't want to believe.

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I understand that.

• 38:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Or I do want to believe, but I can't let myself believe.

• 39:00Sean Fennessey?

  I think the movie is actually like a really nice object for this exploration because, you know, at a certain point, Malkovich is having misgivings about this decision that he has enacted, which is that he wants to die on Easter Island. And that he wants Lee to kill him so that he doesn't do it himself, so that he doesn't, so he can go to heaven by not committing suicide. And it, as he's there and as he's kind of losing his faculties, he says, it's lonely here. It'd be a lonely place to die here.

• 39:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Instead, he wants to die in Venice.

• 39:32Sean Fennessey?

  He wants to go to Venice and of course I thought of you.

• 39:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I saw this for the first time in Venice.

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and would you want to die in Venice? Obviously, that's also the subject of a, of a great work of fiction as well, Death in Venice.

• 39:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It, it seems nice. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to die near the water, so, but...

• 39:48Sean Fennessey?

  Near the water.

• 39:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but Easter Island also provides some of that, nice beaches.

• 39:53Sean Fennessey?

  I think we should mention democracy leads to gay leads to cheese.

• 40:00Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe the funny, have you seen this movie, Jack?

• 40:02Speaker 02

  We both have.

• 40:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You know, this is probably the funniest movie, movie in the movie. I love a grand eloquent theory. This is a very Tarantino-esque sequence as well.

• 40:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course, yeah.

• 40:13Sean Fennessey?

  Where Chris's character notes the union between the wonderful cheeses and the exploration, the flourishing of democracy in those nations.

• 40:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, I know, and he diagrams it. And like, you noted, this is a very physical and specifically like a hands performance for Malkovich, like a lot of waving just so. And then the democracy leads to gay leads to cheese. There's, there is like surreal direction. I laughed out loud many, many, many times in this movie and not always from like a very dark sense of humor, not just the Dallas jokes.

• 40:50Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 40:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Though I did, you know, laugh at all of the Dallas jokes.

• 40:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's plenty of gallows humor, but there's also plenty of just like really funny stuff. Some of the best, one of my favorite things about that scene is how, we don't even know how much of it is a performance or not, but how much Lee is just like rolling with and setting up Chris's like bits. It reminded me a lot of podcasting. A lot of McDonough stuff reminds me of podcasting where you're like, sometimes you've just got to lay out.

• 41:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 41:16Sean Fennessey?

  So that your person can do their thing, you know what I mean? Like, I, I think of this with talking to you over the years, talking to Chris, like...

• 41:22Amanda Dobbins?

  So you identify as the Lee in this particular film?

• 41:26Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's a coin flip, you know? On the right day, you're Chris, on the wrong day, you're Lee, you know? Like, it doesn't really matter. But Rockwell is so good at kind of like feeding the moment where he's like, I've got one of my bits going, please let me do my bit. So that stuff is all really wonderful. And then there's also these kind of tragic, cone-like, you know, philosophical gemstones. There's that scene in the nightclub between the young Chilean woman and Malkovich and he's explaining, like, he's kind of explaining like what's going to happen and how her optimism is about to be completely destroyed by what they're going to enact in her country.

• 42:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And he's like, if I were you, I would go somewhere else.

• 42:03Sean Fennessey?

  I, I teared up twice when he said, don't ever let them get you in a car. You fight, you die in the street, don't ever let them get you in a car. And, and then of course the film leans into that.

• 42:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's, oh God, it's so beautiful. I really, the, the speech that he gives her on the ride before, which is...

• 42:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, which is about what to do or what can be done. And, you know, it's the option of like, kill everybody in a, in a uniform. Or go to the beach and at least you'll die with the, when, you know, but make sure you start shooting first. And there is like, he, he has found in her either like an individual, something to root for, or just the possibility of life going on, you know? He has that other great line of she's life and I'm leaving it. And so she does represent this thing that he's just not going to have, which is a future.

• 42:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, I think there's also something like, I certainly had this with older relatives, like great aunts and uncles, where they know that they're kind of near the end of something and they, they need like a repository for all this stuff that they've accumulated. Like there's, some of them are strong ideas, some of them are just personal stories. But it's like, I kind of have to clear the ledger here before I go. And you can kind of feel him transferring a lot of that on to her.

• 43:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Sean Fennessey?

  And it's too much for her to bear, you know? It's like, it's just too heavy. Like she's, he, he's giving her too much information. Like it's, it really is like a shattering of innocence of her character. And yeah, and he's also writing this memoir, which of course will never be published. Unless, I wish I could remember the name of the figure who was the key source for Oliver Stone through his.

• 43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Professor X?

• 43:42Sean Fennessey?

  Or Mr. X.

• 43:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Professor X.

• 43:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I can't remember the real Mr. X's name, but there's, there's a lot of stuff out there about him. And there's interviews of him like sitting in a library and just like prattling on about what really happened to our country. But those kinds of characters too, like they do crop up and they're often seen as quacks and unreliable figures. Sometimes they have a little kernel of truth inside them too.

• 44:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course. And they also have beautiful poems about horses.

• 44:06Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe they do, maybe they do. You like horses? I forget.

• 44:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I respect them, but like they, like they have power. It's kind of like the ocean, you know?

• 44:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Where.

• 44:17Sean Fennessey?

  You love the ocean.

• 44:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I do love the ocean, but I respect it.

• 44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And like in the space or submarine, I'm choosing space every time. Because we really, really don't know what's going on down at the bottom of the ocean. Anyway, horses, they, you know, they have their own power structure. They have their own way of life and I, they don't like it when we take too much control. So I respect them.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  L Fletcher Proudey, by the way, is Mr. X.

• 44:43Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you very much.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  And I also really love that when Malkovich leaves the nightclub and he sees the girls driving off and obviously the back window is shattered, like just very small, like we don't need anything more than that. It's literally two shots, that, him reacting, like the attention to detail and the subtlety is very nice.

• 44:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and he's, he's always like a step ahead of almost every other character. The other thing, the other little grace note in the movie I love is when he's singing Both Sides Now while holding the sniper rifle and shooting people in the street.

• 45:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, also the dwarf of the basketball.

• 45:12Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's good stuff.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Oh, that was so good.

• 45:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really, really good.

• 45:14Sean Fennessey?

  And you know, we haven't even really talked about Buscemi, but um, you know, he's great. I think I was expecting more from him because there was like some pre-release, like it's Buscemi's time for an Academy Award. And I'm not totally sure that there's enough there, but there's an amazing reveal for his character too. Where, once again, Chris kind of knows all and Chris kind of, he indicates clearly that, you know, he's a junkie. He's addicted to heroin and.

• 45:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not a junkie, I just like heroin.

• 45:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, we do find that great moment where he sits down in the airport bathroom and rolls up his sleeves and we see the track marks.

• 45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  The airplane bathroom, after being like, I don't drink.

• 45:45Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry. So good. Yeah, this is a great movie. And I'm delighted that it exists. And we've spent probably two months saying Malkovich is probably a lock for best actor. I don't know if your opinion on that is changing much.

• 45:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It is the season where everyone else mounts their campaigns and tries. But I think we found in the acting categories that things get declared pretty quickly. And it's just so wonderful. And I haven't met really anyone who isn't completely taken by this movie and also doesn't like root for Malkovich. Because this is the thing, it's a great performance and a great movie. And it, there is also the it's time narrative.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  I have one for you. Adam Naaman on X.com says it's pretty weak.

• 46:31Amanda Dobbins?

  The performance or the film?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  The film.

• 46:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, Justin Chang at The New Yorker, who's also a great critic, did not really respond to it. So there, there are people, um, obviously, including some of the best working critics. But I don't think those guys vote for Oscars.

• 46:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think Madonna has always been um, mostly admired with some very sharp critics. Who do, who think he's, can be a little smug and a little cavalier with the way that he frames his stories about humanity. I've always been on his wavelength. I'm a huge fan of his.

• 47:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it is a little cavalier. That is like part of the, the characters and the story and the outlook. I am curious whether you think this movie is too pessimistic or nihilistic uh, for, for JMO land and everyone living out.

• 47:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's possible.

• 47:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:18Sean Fennessey?

  It's very possible. I think that there are not very many films running for best picture this year that are optimistic. I think maybe La Bola Negra, which shows extraordinary toll, but I think has a more optimistic end note. Is one of the only movies that you would walk out of feeling like, you know, you can see everything is not like that. Even The Odyssey is like, civilization is falling.

• 47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Sean Fennessey?

  Like it's about the end of something. And so.

• 47:47Amanda Dobbins?

  We are the people from the sea.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 47:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Good ending to a movie. Except for the, except for Civilization Will Rise Again.

• 47:56Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah, as we saw on MS Now.

• 48:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't believe we're fucking calling it MS Now.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's what it's called.

• 48:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but I just.

• 48:05Sean Fennessey?

  MS Now, the everything app.

• 48:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't.

• 48:09Sean Fennessey?

  Has everything. Maddow, Chris Hayes.

• 48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  How much time did you, how much of that have you watched?

• 48:16Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I literally, I texted Chris and Zach this yesterday morning. I turned on cable news yesterday morning for probably the first time in like 10 years in the morning. Like I, I can't remember the last, I don't, I don't watch fucking cable news.

• 48:30Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I don't.

• 48:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Malkovich?

• 48:36Sean Fennessey?

  Funny one, right? Because we talked about him when Opus came out, our buddy Mark Anthony Green's movie, and he's so great in that movie. And, you know, he's really well known for like Rounders and In the Line of Fire. And he's kind of like big Hollywood movies where he plays a villain.

• 48:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, they're not, they're not always like his most uh, subtle parts. He's a very big performer, but like, I remember very vividly watching, this is a weird, this is a weird story. I was staying at my dad's house and I was like 12 or 13. And it was really boring when I went to go visit my dad every other weekend.

• 49:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the dads didn't really have the infrastructure.

• 49:13Sean Fennessey?

  They didn't have the toys or whatever it was that you were doing with your time.

• 49:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and they also like weren't in the habit of being the camp counselor by themselves, which is kind of what you are on the weekends.

• 49:22Sean Fennessey?

  But my stepmom um, is, still is an English teacher. And she just had a stray, like one of those hard bound, like laminated uh, copies of Of Mice and Men in the house. And I read Of Mice and Men in one sitting in like 90 minutes. Like I just tore through, I'd never read it before. I don't even know why I read it, but I just tore through it. And then the next, that maybe the next day, we went and rented the Of Mice and Men with Malkovich. Is it Malkovich and Gary Sinise? I think it is. And I was fucking blown away by that.

• 49:55Sean Fennessey?

  And that's probably one of the first times I really saw him in a movie. And then Being John Malkovich came out and kind of like, we all got kind of pulled into, pulled us into his world in a big way. But he doesn't have like that thing, you know, like Matt Damon, it's like, he's never won best actor. Look at all these amazing movies he's been in. Malkovich, his CV is a little bit more ragged, you know? It's not, he's always been present.

• 50:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Sean Fennessey?

  But he's not at the center, like he's the villain in Con Air.

• 50:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's an important role to everyone.

• 50:22Sean Fennessey?

  I love that movie.

• 50:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Except for Tracy Latt, you know, who just doesn't respect 90's cinema. That's okay.

• 50:27Sean Fennessey?

  Really rough.

• 50:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I'm learning now, looking at Malkovich's Wikipedia page, that he's also a Croatian citizen since 2026. So, okay, congratulations to him.

• 50:36Sean Fennessey?

  He, he recognized that it was, it was the end of an era and he's a person from the sea.

• 50:43Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean, he does so much, he's always working. He likes doing stuff that Con Air thinks speaks to it. Like there's no part that he's too good for. Uh, you know, he's always like doing theater in random places. When he's not in a movie, there is just sort of like a, a journeyman quality to the, I like to be in things. And, and it's surprising, which is why I think this is a good performance to reward him for.

• 51:09Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. A couple of, of his roles that I'll point people towards if they haven't seen them before. He has a small but crucial role in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, which I just revisited earlier this year because of uh, Disclosure Day. And he's incredible in The Sheltering Sky, the Bertolucci movie.

• 51:30Sean Fennessey?

  What else? What are, what are some other classic Malkovich movies?

• 51:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just looking at the number of credits that he has in any given year, starting in like 2016. It's really good stuff. He pops up everywhere. He'll do everything.

• 51:46Sean Fennessey?

  Burn After Reading, he's really funny in Burn After Reading.

• 51:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really good in Burn After Reading. Let's see, I mean, we mentioned Being John Malkovich, we mentioned Rounders. You know, Cortex, Dangerous Liaisons, but most people have probably seen that.

• 52:02Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about this movie's other Oscar chances? You think Rockwell will be nominated?

• 52:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Supporting actor is pretty um, crowded and he has already won a supporting actor Oscar for a McDonough movie. That said, you're right to identify that, I mean, this is Malkovich's movie, but it doesn't work without Rockwell. It, like it is a two-hander.

• 52:24Sean Fennessey?

  It really is.

• 52:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So I think if there's enough warmth for it, he probably does get it. And I do think for sure, best picture. For sure screenplay.

• 52:33Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like he could win screenplay.

• 52:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think that McDonough could be in the mix for director.

• 52:39Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. It depends on how this is received. I don't even know how many, you know, I'm having such a hard time trying to figure out when to do episodes of the show right now because it's so unclear to me when movies are expanding or not. And we've been doing this for years and it's always challenging. But is this movie opening wide? I don't even know. But it's like, we just got to do it because it's, it's one of the best movies of the year.

• 52:56Amanda Dobbins?

  It's out there. And also it's been, you know, in the ether for a while because it debuted at all the festivals and was just kind of, and, and Malkovich is, it's happening.

• 53:05Sean Fennessey?

  It's happening. Okay, any closing thoughts before we go to Possible Love?

• 53:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Wonderful film.

• 53:11Sean Fennessey?

  Great movie. Okay, Possible Love.

• 53:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Sean Fennessey?

  You saw this at Venice, correct?

• 53:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 53:16Sean Fennessey?

  As I said, this is Lee Chang Dong's new movie. It stars John Do Yeon, Sol Kang Gu, Seo In Sung and Cho Yo Jong. So this is.

• 53:28Sean Fennessey?

  Very deep and wide movie. And I don't know, is it more deep or is it more wide? Is like my big question about it.

• 53:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, okay.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  So the, the logline of the movie is after a coworker's suicide brings two families together, Ye Jee decides to make a documentary chronicling Ho-Suk's, Ho-Suk and the aftermath of a local strike as the two couples spend more time together, the boundary between observer and observed blurs, complex emotional entanglements, class envy, hidden desires and quiet resentment surface, revealing how stark economic inequality can turn human connections into fragile and transactional dynamics. So I think we both really like this movie and there's something holding us back from being completely in love with it. What do you think that is?

• 54:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, I felt a similar way about Burning. So there may just be something about, I don't think it's the remove. Because I do think ultimately possible love at least gets to the heart of one of the characters and I think it has one of the great characters and great performances of the year. But I, there's something about the remove and then, and then the pacing and that everything is so, so intentional. And given so much time, there's, there's nothing that's a glance, the way that, you

• 54:58Amanda Dobbins?

  know, that Jack was speaking to in Wild Horse Night where it's just like we flick at something and then we move on. Everything really, really, really, really cooks.

• 55:07Sean Fennessey?

  We linger.

• 55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  For a long, long time. And I do think that that works when you get to an explosive reveal or not even explosive, but when, you know, there are films that really, really deliver on that slow cook promise. All of a sudden being another example this year, which is three hours about the healthcare system. And you find yourself just like in an emotional boiling over, or at least you and I did and many people who see it. This doesn't boil over. And I, I don't think it's supposed to. I think it does exactly what it wants you to do. And you spend a lot of time in it, thinking about what you're seeing and all the different

• 55:53Amanda Dobbins?

  places. It can go to your point about it being wide and deep. I mean, it is both. And many people have compared this to a novel. And what I, what I think that they mean by that is that there, it is a core story about four people. And those four people show you everything about modern Korean society and you do get small vignettes or flashbacks or moments that stand alone and that are excellent on their own in the way that there is like a paragraph in the middle of, and a koreanana that teaches you everything about farming. That's actually a hundred pages, but whatever. Like that there, it has so much moment to moment that is really very beautiful.

• 56:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But I did find kind of at the end, both times I watched it, I was like, okay. So I've, I've been on a lot and I've learned a lot of things about these people, but there wasn't a crescendo.

• 56:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny that you say, I think I have a slightly different experience of it because I found it to be unlike Burning, just a little bit too diagrammatic for me, where it was like two couples.

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:03Sean Fennessey?

  From two sides of the world and they're headed on a collision course. And I know exactly what that collision course is, which is that like this artistic wealthy woman sees them as a vessel to a deeper understanding of the human experience, one that is outside of her own. And her husband is a wealthy guy who doesn't really have a strong perspective in the world and kind of sees people as something he can use and not really, he doesn't really have like a real human understanding of relationships. And John Do Young's character is this kind of sensitive and complex woman who is, has a really hard job of being herself and being a parent and having her own inner life and

• 57:45Sean Fennessey?

  getting attention from this beautiful and accomplished and interesting woman and wanting to feed that while also trying to care for her husband who's been traumatized by something in his life and trying to figure out how to kind of get him, get him back to a normal state of grace. And I guess within the first 45 minutes, I was like, ah, this is all just like leading to a thing where they get too close to each other and then it explodes. Whereas with Burning, and this was true, this is true of a couple of his other movies. This is true of poetry. This is true of Secret Sunshine, which is the last movie that John Do Young made with, with Lee. I had no idea where those movies were going. Like Burning, I find, I still find to be such a mysterious film and I, I still don't totally understand what I'm supposed to take away from it.

• 58:29Sean Fennessey?

  And I looked at Secret Sunshine a little bit this week too, and I was like, oh yeah. And then like this, this happens and then she moves and then this other insane thing happens to this character. Whereas this movie, for the first time, it felt like a little bit like a dollhouse where I was like, oh, you're like moving these people over here and moving these people over here. It doesn't mean that like those vignettes are not powerful.

• 58:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:47Sean Fennessey?

  The performances are so strong. The movie is so beautiful. Like he has such a sense of, in another filmmaker's hands, like Sam Mendes, the like, the bag flying out of the car at the very beginning of the film and the kid lets it go could be so hacky. And in this movie, it feels so, so, so beautiful and so simple. And so he has such, such great tools as a film director, but I felt him get like a little bit overwhelmed by his structure, which is based on a real event, right?

• 59:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:16Sean Fennessey?

  This, this, um, this strike that, that happened in 2009 in South Korea and then led to a lot of the events that are kind of, that, that defined this movie.

• 59:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I think that we, we agree, which is sort of that what it adds up to is excellent moment to moment. But when then, when it ends, it gets to exactly where you thought it was going to go. And where you knew it was going to go and like what, what you have learned is from all of the vignettes rather than the actual ending itself. Where it's like, okay, all right. And maybe the point is that we knew exactly what was going to happen and it was a foregone conclusion and that it is all of the small observations along the way.

• 59:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it's the friends we made along the way or didn't make or tried to make and got like very complicated entanglements with.

• 1:00:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many memorable scenes in the movie, like when Ho-Suk gets like too drunk and tries to drive home and.

• 1:00:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:00:17Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the, the, his wife and their child realize that they need to walk home and that they don't want to be in the car with him and that he's struggling with alcoholism because of what's happened with him at work.

• 1:00:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And before that, that he's called a driver and then it's someone he used to work with who won't drive him.

• 1:00:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:00:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And that, which says so much more about his life than the climactic scene in which, you know, the basic structure is that there's one family who's very done on their luck and traumatized. And then the other couple is making a documentary about them.

• 1:00:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:00:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And so finally their paths collide where he's like, I'm the, the husband who has been like fired from a company and like mass layoffs and then participated in a strike and beaten in the strike and featured on the news and is just absolutely like a true definition of the word traumatized. He agrees to sit down for an interview. And he's resisted therapy and he's resisted talking about it and he's resisted this couple and this entire social world that his wife has created for him. He sits down in front of the camera and then like he just loses it and it all comes spilling out.

• 1:01:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think that you feel a lot of things about the ethics of it. I mean, this is a film about ethics and documentary filmmaking.

• 1:01:43Sean Fennessey?

  It is. What a time for that idea.

• 1:01:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And, but even in that moment, you're thinking more about the filmmaker character and the documentary, like you're not learning anything that you didn't already know about this character and what's.

• 1:01:57Sean Fennessey?

  His pain was clear even if you didn't explain it.

• 1:01:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And has been elegantly shown in, in many different ways and, and the causes of it and how it affects his everyday life is way more developed in the first two thirds.

• 1:02:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's the flip side of that. And I believe these, the sequences are intercut with each other is where the filmmaker's husband and Ho-Suk's wife are on the beach together. And there seems to be some kind of attraction between them and the power dynamics are kind of rising to the surface. And it seems like maybe she is sending him a message of some kind. And then he, because he gets everything that he wants aggressively pursues what he believes that message to be. And there's like almost a literal kind of cat and mouse sequence that is very scary and very exciting.

• 1:02:46Amanda Dobbins?

  There's, I mean, it's literal. She's like waving him like a tory or a bullfighting.

• 1:02:51Sean Fennessey?

  Like a bull, yes, that's right.

• 1:02:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And then all of that's being captured on security cameras.

• 1:02:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:02:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is the final reveal.

• 1:02:57Sean Fennessey?

  And that, that stuff and the way that those, that, this part of the movie, which is, we're now two hours and 25 minutes into the movie by the time this arrives, but it has been leading to this and it is, the, both of those sequences are so strong, but then it leads to like a confrontation inside the house where that was when the movie, like the air completely came out of the movie for me, where that like they're all kind of confronting each other and then they just decide they need to leave and go their separate ways. And then our takeaway as well, these people can never really understand each other because they live different lives and they see the world differently and class, you know, does overwhelm the ability for people to connect, which is something that I think I often agree with.

• 1:03:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  But it felt unusually simplistic for a filmmaker who I think is so sophisticated.

• 1:03:35Sean Fennessey?

  But I think that there are more than enough moments in the movie that are so delicately staged and finely wrought that, you know, it's like, it's a very much a cut above most of what you'll see this year.

• 1:03:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  But I, I also think you're right, that watching it at home will be a challenge. This movie's two hours and 45 minutes. That novelistic sense, there's a lot of time spent with characters just kind of gazing into the middle distance and telling a story. And you kind of need to be on board with that.

• 1:04:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And the documentary within a film quality of the movie, they spend a lot of time making that documentary and they recreate some parts of it. And I don't think it's supposed to be a good documentary.

• 1:04:15Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you.

• 1:04:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Because the filmmaker, and you know, and I think there is some sort of like stand in for the responsibilities of a filmmaker in something, you know, very knowing and self-conscious from Lee Chang Dong, it put on that character.

• 1:04:32Amanda Dobbins?

  You just watch a lot of like a pretty mediocre documentary.

• 1:04:35Sean Fennessey?

  She's a dilettante. Yeah, she's not, she's not like a real filmmaker, but I think you pointed this out, like a little bit of self-recrimination, maybe from the filmmaker.

• 1:04:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think the movie is so, so good and interesting when it's about Myouk, the John Do Yeon character, and which it kind of also is, for the most part, for 90 minutes, if not two hours, because her husband is so reticent. And it's about what is she gonna do? And how is she gonna interact with this documentary and this world? And, and she's interested in it, you know? And she is, she's a participant, and she's not completely helpless at any point, which, which is cool. And the problem is that the, the other half isn't as fully baked. And I think that's not as fully baked, but just isn't as dynamic.

• 1:05:27Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:05:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is by definition, again, that's like, part of the movie. But so, when it all has to come together, it's a little uneven.

• 1:05:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's surprisingly over explained. I think that, you know, her husband's struggles and what, what he represents. And I think when we spend more time thinking about her and how she is responsible for managing his crisis, which, you know, is something you echoed in A Wild Horse 9, there's a lot of, not a lot of films spend a lot of time thinking, spending time with the woman who has that job.

• 1:05:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:05:57Sean Fennessey?

  They just make that woman a side character, you know, like in First Man or something, where you're just like.

• 1:06:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's, First Man is a good version of it.

• 1:06:04Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. Uh, yeah. Fascinating movie. A truly great performance. It would be cool to see John Do Yeon be recognized. I think it's possible. You know, you pointed out that this movie does have a tremendous amount in common with Parasite and No Other Choice.

• 1:06:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:06:20Sean Fennessey?

  But they're in completely different genres. You know, that this is a pure languorous drama. And, you know, it's humorous at times, but it's mostly quite serious. And it, it a little bit of lacking the metaphysical thing that I really like in his movies. But like, No Other Choice is sort of about the same thing. You know, that a guy put out a bit, put out of work, looking for more work.

• 1:06:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Corporate layoffs.

• 1:06:43Sean Fennessey?

  Corporate layoffs. Yeah. And how that impacts, you know, an ever capitalized South Korean society.

• 1:06:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's, I mean, Parasite has been invoked the most as a comp because, you know, Korean class anxiety and that film won Best Picture. So I guess more people have seen it.

• 1:06:58Sean Fennessey?

  And also because Cho Young Jong is in that movie. She plays the rich wife in both movies.

• 1:07:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But this has just been, it's been revelatory to me, like how few people saw No Other Choice. I don't know what happened there. That's a great movie.

• 1:07:09Sean Fennessey?

  Weird one. Yeah, I know. That's one of my favorite movies of the year. Um, yeah. But that's, there is now, this is a movement in South Korean cinema, of course, too, where this is just the kind of class consciousness across genre in this film, in these films is really fascinating. And we don't quite have this as much in American cinema right now. It's not as much of a focus. A lot of our, like, action oriented movies are about things like climate change, you know? Would, they're not.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You mean issue oriented?

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  Issue, yeah. What did I say?

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, action. And I thought you meant like, sure.

• 1:07:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Um, but yeah, I like this movie. I think Netflix is an interesting home for it. And this is not, this movie is not an acquisition. This is a movie that Netflix has been behind from the very beginning, which I find, I think is really great.

• 1:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  It's cool.

• 1:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's really cool. It played well for you in theaters the second time?

• 1:07:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I was still, I felt the two hours and 45 minutes. I felt every single group therapy session, you know? Which, again, is part of the point, because I think that this film is pretty skeptical about, you know, all of the ways in which people try to cope with the systemic inequality that is forced upon them. But yeah, I was like, wow, this is really going.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, I still recommend the movie.

• 1:08:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Great House. I also recommend the movie. It's a really, really great movie. And, you know, two for two on Great Houses in this, in this episode.

• 1:08:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. We're going to a third house, but we're gonna take a quick break and get into Once Upon a Time in Harlem right after this.

• 1:08:35Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:09:47Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life. With great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 1:10:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, we can talk about this quickly before getting to the interview. So we talked about this, we saw it together at Cannes. I believe it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. And as I mentioned in the intro, 50 years in the making, the house in question is Duke Ellington's apartment?

• 1:10:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Three for three on Good Houses.

• 1:10:29Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible apartment in Harlem. He's not featured in the film. But it is this collection of artists and writers and thinkers and actors and all of these figures. And, and a lot of figure, I knew almost none of the names featured in this film. You know, everyone knows Langston Hughes. That's not, you know, or Paul Robeson. This is a class of American artists that is very rarely portrayed, that is very rarely historicized in the way that they are in this movie. And the thing that I love about the movie and that I talked to David and Anne about is we just get to watch them talk, and specifically watch them disagree. And I loved seeing the ways in which, like, what their definition of the

• 1:11:11Sean Fennessey?

  Harlem Renaissance was, was different for every person, you know? And they create these nice avenues because the, this event took place over two days where they have this kind of party, this kind of cocktail party with all these people interacting. And then the second day are these sort of individual interviews. And then those interviews are intercut into the movie. But I just liked hearing these people tell their stories.

• 1:11:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Sean Fennessey?

  And, and learning about them.

• 1:11:33Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's incredibly well conceived and edited, and just is in stark contrast to the way that we're all taught about the Harlem Renaissance in school, if we are, which we should be. But yeah, getting the people who are there, you know? And not everyone who is like, the headline, but just have a lot of people talk about it and their experiences and the things that you find in between in conversation between two people is way more vivid than whatever you get in a textbook.

• 1:11:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And the movie, I guess the event is originally in 1972, and the film was being constructed and William Greaves just never finished it. And then eventually, they were able to restore the footage and actually make this possible. But there's clearly, you know, there, I think there were four cameras operating across the first day. And so there was dozens of hours of footage that needed, and it was not sync sound. So they needed to go find the audio and then sync it up, which is like, fucking nightmare. You can hear David and Anne talk about that a little bit. But it's, it's an amazing act of journalism, of preservation, of spotlighting, and a really cool, and like you said, well edited, piece

• 1:12:44Sean Fennessey?

  of filmmaking, you know? Like, there is, it has a real style and a vibe and a, like a tone to it. And like, the, the way that the music operates inside of it is really beautiful. And like I said, like, I pointed this out to David, but Lee Whipper, who is the actor who acted on stage and then acted in films, who's like the really, really old guy in the movie. There are some people who just pop in that movie here, who are just like, I just spent 45 minutes on that person's Wikipedia page. You know what I mean? So the movie is also this, like, nice little portal and like, rabbit hole into a lot of different places. So I encourage people to check that out. It's interesting for a movie like this to hit at this time in nonfiction. And we just talked about a movie that portrays the act of nonfiction.

• 1:13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Sean Fennessey?

  And we've been talking nonstop about You Can See Everything, which is also kind of an act of nonfiction.

• 1:13:24Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, this is scholarship nonfiction. There are like, different ways to, this is not so much a narrative.

• 1:13:30Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:31Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, uh, like, a testimonial and, and educational, but like, not in, that makes it sound like you're supposed to be eating your vegetables. And that's not what it is. It brings it to life.

• 1:13:42Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's, it's a bunch of people who are overloaded with charisma hanging out.

• 1:13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Sean Fennessey?

  They're older, but they're, they're, they were famous in their time.

• 1:13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it is quite literally an oral history, you know? But then they've animated it and put it on the screen.

• 1:13:56Sean Fennessey?

  Highly encourage people to check this movie out. Highly encourage you to stick around for my conversation with David Greaves and Anne De Meere.

• 1:14:06Sean Fennessey?

  David Greaves and Demarez here. We're here to talk about Once Upon a Time in Harlem. Thank you for being here. David, I thought we could start with you.

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:14:12Sean Fennessey?

  I just wanted to go back to the actual events that are captured in the film. You were 26 years old.

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  During this two-day period, effectively.

• 1:14:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:22Sean Fennessey?

  Tell me what it was like. Was your head exploding? Obviously, you'd been working with your father, and so doing the work wasn't surprising. But the experience of it, can you bring us back to it?

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  Well, I'll bring you back to it. What I remember most is the preparation for it. That is, my father telling me that I was gonna be one of the cameramen, those four camera people. And that was a, I knew it was an important event. I had read about a number of these people. But the day of the event itself is not really ingrained in my head because I was working. You know, I was on the camera, so I couldn't be a fly on the wall and revel in the environment. But afterward, though, when you're going through the footage, that's when you get awed. I was awed, holy cow, what we've captured, you know, what the other camera people had captured.

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  So that was when the immensity of what it is that my father had conceived was really brought home to me.

• 1:15:24Sean Fennessey?

  I'm curious about this for you, Anne, as well, but maybe you can talk a little bit about how strategic you were while you were shooting. Did you know the layout of Duke Ellington's apartment very well? Did you know how you were gonna kind of block the movie in a way?

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  Well, it was three main rooms, you know, the discussion room, middle room, and what we call the white room. There were two crews, and we just moved around fluidly, finding the conversations. And wherever those conversations were, that's where we were. If it was in the white room, or had to transition to around the bar, or wherever it was. So it was a very fluid situation. It wasn't a thing of, okay, you guys are only handling this. You guys are only handling that. No, we were moving around, following the energy, if you will, of the event.

• 1:16:16Sean Fennessey?

  You mentioned looking at the footage. Did you look at the footage immediately after you'd shot it? Because obviously, this is 50 years in the making, so.

• 1:16:23Speaker 04

  Well, we originally, and they say it wasn't sunk, but I say it was sunk up originally. We did do a syncing on it. And so that was my first look at it. That was, as you'd say, 50 odd years ago.

• 1:16:36Sean Fennessey?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:16:36Speaker 04

  So then it was a little bit of a break, a 50-year break.

• 1:16:44Speaker 04

  And then brought back into it by my stepmother, by her, what was it, her passion?

• 1:16:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, she was just a force of nature with this project.

• 1:16:55Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She covered, she did the restoration. You know, she funded the restoration. Well, she got the money to do the restoration. And then when she passed, it was left to us, to us being, Leoni, my daughter, and Anne, and Lynn, Lynn True, to put it together, you know, edit it, put it together. So that was the, that was the journey, I guess I could say.

• 1:17:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Anne, I'm curious how you come into the project in general.

• 1:17:29Speaker 05

  I came into the project when Louise was still alive. I was introduced to her by John Cesry-Goff, who works for the Ford Foundation, who's a wonderful filmmaker in his own right. And he put us together for me to kind of help her manage that preservation process. And I just completely fell in love with her and completely fell in love with the project. And then we were able to get all of the footage sort of organized and cataloged and scanned with preservation scans, and to locate the audio, which was a journey. And then, and then she passed, and David and Leoni came in, and that's how we got here today.

• 1:18:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm curious about some of the very practical components of this. Where was the footage?

• 1:18:19Speaker 05

  The footage was, so it's an interesting story. So back in the late 80s, early 90s, Bill and Louise Greaves had given most of the film elements from all of Bill's films to the Schaumburg Collection, which is in Harlem, which is the public library in Harlem. And except for this material, because Bill and Louise had been working on this film until each of them passed. I mean, it was the last film that William worked on, where he died in 2014, and making sure that the footage was saved was sort of the last. I mean, Louise worked on this project quite literally until her last breath. She, this was the most important thing to her, to save this footage for the next generation

• 1:19:00Speaker 05

  and to bring it to the world. So that was the, that was the journey on that.

• 1:19:06Sean Fennessey?

  I know you've spoken to your father many times over the years about the project. And I know your daughter also was really very close with him and talked to him a lot about his creative and intellectual pursuits. Do you remember recent conversations with him, you know, before he passed? Like, or was it something that was sitting for a long period of time that you hadn't discussed?

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  We had not discussed it. No, really, not at all. As you mentioned, we did not talk about, because he and I, obviously Louise, after my father's passed, and Louise and I had spoken about. But I did not, I was not really speaking with him about this, about this, about this project.

• 1:19:50Sean Fennessey?

  So then how do you both interpret intention, scope? You know, how long should a film like this be? How many, what should it include? You know, how do you make decisions, effectively, to honor it?

• 1:20:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, you know, it's a 60,000 feet of film, and you screen it, you go through it, find the things. My father always said, as I say, David, if something affects you viscerally, use it, you know, go with it. And so going through, going through the footage, finding the things that really resonated, you know, and just working with brilliant editors. You just, bring it down, bring it down, take this out, put this in, and that kind of thing. And come to the point when, from the 60,000 feet, I'm saying to Anne, can we have six more frames of this? Or three more frames I find?

• 1:20:45Speaker 04

  She said, it's a hundred-minute, David, it's done. I said, oh, thank God.

• 1:20:51Sean Fennessey?

  Do you feel like the, what you're selecting to be included

• 1:20:57Sean Fennessey?

  would have been dramatically different at all from what would have been included 50 years ago, relative to how, maybe how we think about the world now and the things that matter that were said over those two days, as opposed to if you had made it a more, like, contemporary document to its time?

• 1:21:12Speaker 04

  At that time, if it had come out then?

• 1:21:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:15Speaker 04

  I don't know that things would have changed. I would have, no, I mean, things become more meaningful now. Like when Richard Morris says, what shall it be to night straight socialism with Negroology? That becomes very current now, you know. But other than that, pretty much everything would be.

• 1:21:35Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, David was really clear what he wanted in the film, like, super clear. You know, the choices were really strong. I think the bigger challenge we had in the edit room was sort of how to make, how to make that flow into a film. You know, how to, how to find the rhythm that worked to bring the audience along in a snappy pace, as your father liked to say, at a snappy pace and in an entertaining way.

• 1:22:01Sean Fennessey?

  And it has energy. It has, it has a kind of a vibe to it. But one of the greatest things about it for me is just getting to watch this dialectic happening in real time. You know, you're really feeling this, these sort of like gentle disputes in ideology amongst this close cohort.

• 1:22:16Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:22:17Sean Fennessey?

  So I'm curious, like, how you thought about representing that when you're cutting it together?

• 1:22:20Speaker 05

  Well, we leaned into all the conflict.

• 1:22:22Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Wherever there was the, that energy, you know, back and forth, that's in the film. That's why you make movies.

• 1:22:32Sean Fennessey?

  Do you remember, did you sense that in the room that you felt like this was? There was a kind of like, it's not, it's not taking sides, per se, but it is really representing strongly your point of view in an individual way, while also speaking to a collective movement that is really, really interesting.

• 1:22:48Speaker 04

  At that time?

• 1:22:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, when you were filming.

• 1:22:50Speaker 04

  Oh, no, no, no, not at all. It was a matter of, they're talking. They're talking, and the camera's catching this one and that one. And the participants, those folks, were driving it. You know, they were driving it by their energy, by who they were. They just went right into it. And our job with the four cameras was to capture them, you know, and they did all the work, if you will. They did all the work in terms of, gee, this will be, this is gonna look very theatrical, such, such. That's them.

• 1:23:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess it helps when you have a group of performers as well, right?

• 1:23:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, and it's very direct. Like, everyone is extremely direct in the film. And I think that that's, you know, one of the things that helps it move so well is that, you know, and when you were asking about the, the party is shot unbelievably well. I just have to say, like, as an editor, the, the filming is really dynamic. I mean, Bill's directing the camera crews, but the action is, is happening, you know? Every moment where Bill prompts or talks to people and tries to guide the conversation, almost every frame of him is in the film you see. So there's nothing else going on. Like, he's not, he's not doing any other magic there, except for directing the camera crews

• 1:24:10Speaker 05

  and, and really allowing people to, to inhabit this conversation fully. And allowing us to see it.

• 1:24:19Sean Fennessey?

  Well, tell me about, like, structuring then, because you, you have these two different components where you have the, the party atmosphere and then you have the one-on-ones.

• 1:24:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:28Sean Fennessey?

  And putting those two things in balance and letting the, it feels like the one-on-ones are used as sort of like, um, B-plots, C-plots, D-plots to kind of learn more about our characters.

• 1:24:38Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And I, I like to tell the story that when, um, we were working with this wonderful editor, Lynn Tru, who got us through, like, the first, the first chunk of, like, just shaping it. And then we ran out of money. And so David and I didn't want to stop working and, and I, I took over the edit and I, we were, and that's kind of where we found the rhythm of the piece. I called a, a dear friend of mine who's a mentor, Jean Chen, who's a wonderful, wonderful documentary editor, and she knew the footage because she knew Bill and Louise. And she said to me this thing that kind of opened the film up. She said, "With this material, don't worry so much about narrative arc. She said, "Treat the footage like jazz. Let it find its rhythm."

• 1:25:21Speaker 05

  And I think that, so we used everything we could to make that rhythm happen, like the, the mood of the party, the tension of the people, the emotion, the moments of silence. And those interviews, the way we moved in and out of those interviews became part of that. It became like, "Oh, we need a breath. We need to sit alone with somebody." Okay, yeah, exactly. So, so it became part of how we approached the footage.

• 1:25:42Sean Fennessey?

  How'd you think about archival and when to show us someone from that time?

• 1:25:46Speaker 04

  Oh, the archival. Well, um, the archival was, um, pulled, pulled together by, um, Matt Hoffman and, um, who was the other?

• 1:25:54Speaker 05

  Bella Rackland.

• 1:25:54Speaker 04

  And Bella, Bella Rackland, yes. So researching all the, um, you know, archival material, finding the folks at, at a young, young age, that kind of thing. And, um, uh, yeah, so that was, that was done by folks bringing in archival footage.

• 1:26:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, and we, and we knew, we knew we wanted to use the split screen a lot because we knew we didn't want to leave the room. You know, once we were in that room, you really didn't want to go away. You wanted, we wanted the archival to feel like memory, to feel like, um, we chose everything very emotionally, not, we didn't want to illustrate things. We wanted to bring people to an emotional place.

• 1:26:32Sean Fennessey?

  How educated did you feel, both of you feel, about the figures who were in the film? I mean, for me, it's, there's a lot of learning going on in the movie.

• 1:26:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, absolutely. Oh, yeah, no, there, there is. We had done the film previously from, from these roots that, um, had, like, uh, it was all, all archival. And so Aaron Douglas was in, in there a lot, Carl McKay was in there a lot, Langston Hughes was in there a lot. So those are the main folks who I was familiar with. But, um, the other people, I never knew Frank Horn or Bruce Nugent, you know, uh, Louise Patterson, you know, William Patterson. I didn't know who those, those folks were. That's why I say it wasn't until afterward, when you're looking at the footage, that you realize that, gee, well, these, these people are incredible. And then when you read their backstories, you go on Wikipedia and read, read their backstories,

• 1:27:26Speaker 04

  you say, "Holy cow, you know, these, these folks were doing it."

• 1:27:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:31Speaker 04

  As I say, in the 20s and 30s, they were a major, major, major players on the cultural scene.

• 1:27:36Sean Fennessey?

  What about for you, Anne?

• 1:27:37Speaker 05

  Oh, it was a huge education. I mean, my knowledge of the Harlem Renaissance was mostly from what you would learn in high school. So it was a big education for me. I knew the big names, you know, Aaron Douglas, Hubie Blake, Count Cullen, Langston Hughes, obviously, Zora Neale Hurston, but all, most of the people in the room I'd never heard of.

• 1:27:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's something amazing, too, about someone like Lee Whipper in the movie, who, you know, has this huge body of work, but not much of it is extant, you know? It's live theater. And so it's just, all we really have is people talking about it or him kind of explaining some of his experiences.

• 1:28:11Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:28:12Sean Fennessey?

  And so there's just not a lot of documentation of so much of this work. I guess, you know, you don't realize that until you, once you hear someone talking about their experience.

• 1:28:20Speaker 05

  It was really hard to find that, a picture of him as a young man. We ended up finding it at the Schaumburg Collection. He had given them a, a scrapbook of his, of his family. And that's where that photograph came from of him as a young man. But there, you know, he, as you say, because it was mostly live performance, there's just almost no record. And he's in a number of very famous films. He's in the Oxbow Incident, but he's not credited in a lot of these films. And so you don't, you know, you don't have him as part of that legacy. We don't, we don't think of him that way. He's kind of my favorite, one of my favorite discoveries in the film.

• 1:28:55Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, he's wonderful. He really, he jumps off the screen. In terms of preserving the footage before you start editing it, what, what goes into that process? I mean, it's, it's a very technical process, but I'm kind of curious, like, what work needs to be done.

• 1:29:08Speaker 05

  We worked with this wonderful film preservationist, Bill Brand, um, who's also a phenomenal filmmaker in his own right and a wonderful painter and an artist. But, you know, a lot of it was, you know, a big piece of it was actually making sure we had it all. Like, we had the work prints, which had been cut up a lot. And then we had the camera reversal, uh, which was in really, really good shape because it had been kept, you know, by Bill and Louise in their cold storage in Iron Mountain. But a lot of the job was kind of making sure that we had the whole collection, that everything and that we, because we had the, the work print to work off of, we could make sure we had all the original material.

• 1:29:49Speaker 05

  And then it was a matter of sort of cleaning the footage and scanning it and doing preservation scans. So we did overscans, which is why you see in some of the, um, in some of the shots, you see the sprockets. So, you know, we, you shoot over the image.

• 1:30:02Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:30:03Speaker 05

  So, uh, so that's, that's what that is.

• 1:30:05Speaker 04

  And, and Bill, um, when I was talking with him yesterday, um, I said, "Oh, tell me about the rest," you know, I want to know more. "Tell me about the restoration." He said, "The sound, the sound was the, was the huge challenge." Because the cameras were starting and stopping and slates were not given because, you know, Jeff Ward wasn't there.

• 1:30:26Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:30:27Speaker 05

  It was a giant jigsaw puzzle.

• 1:30:28Speaker 04

  It was a giant jigsaw puzzle, eye syncing.

• 1:30:30Speaker 05

  Oh, we, we, we sunk everything by eye, the whole film. And that's four cameras with two sound, with two sound recordings by eye. It took Bill and I together, it must've been six months, to just do, to just do the syncing.

• 1:30:41Sean Fennessey?

  Is it just an extended period of sifting to make sure that you're finding the right thing?

• 1:30:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, it is. And listening, and, you know, listening to the, listening to the audio for...

• 1:30:53Sean Fennessey?

  And realizing it's matching?

• 1:30:55Speaker 05

  For anything that would be unusual, for a glass clinking, for a clap sync, for, for someone laughing. Laughter was really big because you could see people laugh in the footage, right? So you could, like, you could, you could, you could go, "Oh, wait a minute." We used that a lot. And some people had really, um, you know, memorable laughs, like Lee Whipper. But so you, you would, that was what it was. And you would listen through and listen through and you had to just get familiar enough with the footage to be able to go, "Oh, wait a minute." You know, that's where George Schuyler walks in the room or what, but so it was, it was a long process.

• 1:31:32Sean Fennessey?

  David, I was wondering if you could talk just a little bit about why it was so important to your father for this to be completed and why it's important for you to complete it?

• 1:31:40Speaker 04

  Sure. Well, um, my father wanted to, um, capture the, these people before they had passed. He, um, uh, didn't want, he wanted folks to know about the Harlem Renaissance. He wanted them to know about these people because they were big figures in his, his life. They were big figures in the culture of Harlem, culture of New York, culture of America. And he wanted to be sure that it was captured. And that's why he had four, four cameras there. If that, you know, that, that was the purpose of those, of those cameras, was to capture these people. And he understood that if you bring all these creative people together into one spot, you're going to see, see, see something. And he just wanted to be prepared to capture it.

• 1:32:25Speaker 04

  And, um, and that's what, um, that, that's what we were, we were doing, um, fulfilling his, if you will, vision. And it's very satisfying for me, of course, to, um, to do that, you know? To say, "Hey, that is done," you know? So that, that's, um, yeah, so it's very good feeling.

• 1:32:44Sean Fennessey?

  I'm curious about that particular strategy of creating an event to capture history.

• 1:32:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:51Sean Fennessey?

  You know, obviously, there's a very famous photograph that does the same thing for the Harlem Renaissance, right? There, there are some instances where we feel like we're capturing these moments, but they're pretty rare and necessitates like a kind of orchestrator's mind. And it did seem like your father had that, if you look at his work. But maybe this feels also distinct from his body work, too?

• 1:33:10Speaker 04

  Uh, no, I don't think so. I don't think it was. I think that, um, uh, well, first of all, if you saw Symbio, I don't know if you saw Symbio, and, um, Symbio was the same kind of, um, uh, looking for, but in Symbio, he was, he created the tension, you know? He deliberately created the tension. In this film, um, he still brought, brought together creative folks, but he did not have to create the, the, the tension in this one. That, that just came naturally from the, from, from the people themselves.

• 1:33:45Speaker 05

  One, one of the things that we always talked about in the edit room about this is that, you know, there...

• 1:33:53Speaker 05

  Bill had a very strong sense of Eastern philosophy. And he was really fascinated by chaos theory and how, how things change, how, how the dynamic of conflict and how that changes the situation. And I think that this film really, it's almost like the perfect example of that, of that theory, because, you know, when we come in, you know, the conversations are a little bit slow, but as things move, you start to see how, how the dynamic of how everyone's bouncing off each other really shapes what happens in that room. And we, we always kept symbio very much close to our hearts in the edit.

• 1:34:37Speaker 05

  I mean, it was really that film, and he made a wonderful film called The First World Festival of Negro Arts, which is like a cinematic poem to the creative power of, of, of African, of the African spirit. And also from these roots, because that was where the history was. But this was never, in fact, at the top of, of the treatment, one of the treatments of this film that he wrote was the sentence, this Once Upon a Time in Harlem is not a historical documentary. And he never wanted it to be the telling of, of, of the story. He wanted it to really be this portrait of this generation. And to give us now, I mean, I love what you always say when you say that he made the film for the future.

• 1:35:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:35:18Speaker 05

  And the future is now, because it really is, you know?

• 1:35:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 1:35:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm fascinated by what else can be done with his work? Because I do think for younger generations, symbio, nation time, like, these are films that, if you study documentary, you have to watch these movies, you have to understand them and their lineage and their importance. But he made so many other movies. You've both also made many other works. But even just getting your hands on some of them is challenging. Like, I don't, I'm curious, like, how you think about, will more of his work be more widely distributed, you know?

• 1:35:49Speaker 05

  There's actually a retrospective of his work happening right now in several places. I had Film Forum in New York, and there's a one coming up in Amsterdam in the fall.

• 1:35:59Speaker 04

  And one in London.

• 1:36:00Speaker 05

  One in London. So I think that it's, I think it's really amazing that, you know, he would have been 100 this year. And I think that the fact that he is having a resurgence with a new work after he's been gone for 12 years is kind of an extraordinary thing. So I do think, and Criterion Collection has 16 of the films. They've been, one of the last things that Louise did was she did this, she created this opportunity with Criterion for, for those films to be accessible to people. So hopefully he will continue, people will continue to seek him out and find him.

• 1:36:37Sean Fennessey?

  What's the hardest thing about doing this?

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  The hardest thing about doing it, pick one.

• 1:36:44Sean Fennessey?

  Because it seems very physically and kind of like structurally difficult, right? The tonnage of everything that you had.

• 1:36:50Speaker 04

  The tonnage of everything, yes. That is, because the hardest part is making, making the decisions. And hardest part is making, you said it, like thousands of decisions.

• 1:37:02Speaker 05

  Thousands and thousands and thousands of decisions.

• 1:37:03Speaker 04

  Go into making a film.

• 1:37:05Speaker 05

  And every decision affects everything else.

• 1:37:07Speaker 04

  Everything else.

• 1:37:08Speaker 05

  You know, like, we, we had a pretty solid rough cut in the fall of 2025. And we did a screening. And it was a good screening, and Richard Brody was at that screening. And he wrote this wonderful article about the film, which is how we secured the funding for, to finish it.

• 1:37:24Sean Fennessey?

  Was it fairly close to where you landed, or no?

• 1:37:26Speaker 05

  It was fairly close, but we broke the whole thing apart structurally after that screening and put it back together. You know, there was something about seeing it in that room and realizing, oh, this has to move up here, and this has to go there, and we have to, we have to get to this moment faster. And so, you know, it, it, it's a long process. I mean, I think one of the wisest things anyone ever told me about documentary film is that you're finished the seventh time you think you're finished.

• 1:37:52Sean Fennessey?

  Check out with you?

• 1:37:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you look at it, and then you look at it, then you show it to a group, a group of people, and various reactions. And you say, okay, back to the starting point.

• 1:38:07Sean Fennessey?

  So funny. I mean, is that, has that been common for you, doing that work over the years? That's not how you conceive of a work of art, right? It's this very kind of monastic, vision-driven idea.

• 1:38:17Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I remember Dad used to always have screenings, screenings for the film, and he'd give everybody a pad and a pencil. And he'd always invite very critical people. He'd always invite critical people to the screening. There was always screening room. And they'd watch the film, write down that stuff. And so, yeah, that was a part of the, part of, just part of the process. It was part of the process, getting the reactions of folks, and then say, okay, how can we, you know, make it, make it better?

• 1:38:50Speaker 05

  I think, I always think there's two films. There's the film that you see in your head before you make it. And then there's the film that presents itself to you. And sometimes they're very close, and sometimes they're not very close. You know, and so it's, it's a matter of that dance of like, what you want the film to be, but you, it always comes down to what you have on camera. And, you know, and what's actually there to build from. And I mean, you know, Bill and Louise kept working on this project for years. And they didn't just sit in the edit room and like, move things around. They were filming. I mean, they continued to film in Harlem, you know, trying to sort of trace the impact of the Renaissance.

• 1:39:33Speaker 05

  And, and there's a wonderful piece of audio that we found on one of their old hard drives of Bill in his older voice. Someone had asked him, they were shooting some event in Harlem, and someone had asked him what he was doing and why he was doing it. And he said this thing that, he said, I've spent my life trying to live up to the expectation of the Harlem Renaissance. And that's a hell of a statement for someone who had the kind of prolific, unbelievably brilliant career that, that William Greaves had. You know, to still be saying, I'm still trying to live up to that expectation of this generation of people.

• 1:40:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's been an interesting period of time for documentary, for nonfiction. And it, there's been some real ups and some real downs over the last 10 years. And it's kind of in a constant state of flux in terms of, I think it's commerciality, it's purpose, what people want versus what work needs to be done. I'm curious how you both think about it, maybe like what the state of the art is. You know, are you still thinking about it as this like actively evolving form? Because your, because your dad did so much work to kind of break it and rebuild it in such an exciting way. So I'm curious how you think about it.

• 1:40:45Speaker 05

  Wow, that's a big question.

• 1:40:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a big question.

• 1:40:47Speaker 05

  That's a really big question. I think one of the reasons why this film, why people are responding so strongly to this film, is that it's so direct. You know, we, we had some framing mechanisms in the beginning. David had written a narration at the beginning. We were trying to bring people in with a certain frame. And at one point, we're just like, no, get them there, get them in the room.

• 1:41:12Speaker 04

  Get them in the room, and let their genius drive it. Not smarter than they are.

• 1:41:19Speaker 05

  But that kind of directness is something that we don't have a lot of right now in documentary, I don't think. I'm trying to think of like a film that has that. But I think that people are responding to that in this film. That we're not, that we're really, to the best of our ability, letting them be a fly on that wall and experience what's happening in that room. And also with a little bit of insight into why Bill Greaves made this happen.

• 1:41:46Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:41:47Speaker 05

  You know, but I don't know. I mean, the documentary industry is, is in, in trouble. I mean, it's interesting financially, like we, you know, now we have this movie that everybody loves, and it's wonderful. But, you know, we, it was really hard for us to raise the money for this. Everybody turned us down, you know? And so it's kind of, it's, it's an interesting place to be. And you think about someone, a young person, starting out with a really amazing story to tell, how do they get, how do they break into this universe that we've created for documentary?

• 1:42:25Speaker 04

  And it's harder with the administration cutting back on the

• 1:42:28Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:29Speaker 04

  Funding for the arts, or, and it just trickles down to the person sitting at the kitchen table saying, I didn't get that grant. That's what, that's what it boils down to.

• 1:42:40Sean Fennessey?

  And that's how so much of the work gets done, is that kind of funding, right?

• 1:42:43Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:42:43Speaker 05

  It has been for the last, for the, I mean, public television's been a huge funder for the last, you know, I don't know, four or five decades. So it's, it's a, it's a challenge.

• 1:42:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, a couple of quick ones. What's your favorite thing in the movie?

• 1:42:57Speaker 04

  Favorite thing? Every time James Van Der Zee sits down at that piano, I think it's magic. That's, I mean, that's, every, every single time when he starts off with, you haven't touched a piano for four or five years now? I don't know if I can do much of anything at all. And then he sits down and starts to play. That's, that to me is all, has always been a magic, magic moment.

• 1:43:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think for me, Richard B. Moore reciting If We Must Die. I remember viscerally the first time I saw that footage. And I just, my heart stopped, because it was so good. You know, because it's a similar thing. He's like, let me see, I hope I can remember it. And he starts, and he's a little tentative. And by the time he finishes that poem, oh my God.

• 1:43:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they all have the soul of a performer, you can tell. Like, they, when you, when the lights go on, like, they know how to do it. You know, there's something intrinsic there that is really cool. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen?

• 1:43:55Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:43:56Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen anything that you really liked recently?

• 1:43:58Speaker 04

  Wild Horse 9.

• 1:43:59Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah. What did you like about it?

• 1:44:00Speaker 04

  Oh, I liked very much. I thought that, two, two things. Malkovich is, was, was, was amazing. But his co-star, Stan Rockwell, his expressions.

• 1:44:14Speaker 05

  So good.

• 1:44:15Speaker 04

  Were just so, just, were just so wonderful. You know, just so, Jesus Christ.

• 1:44:20Sean Fennessey?

  He's like our surrogate in the movie, right? Like, every time.

• 1:44:23Speaker 05

  And he also just breaks your heart like Seven Ways to Sunday. And, and it's so understated in some moments, and then it's so over the top in moments. I, I loved Wild Horse 9, but I just saw The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.

• 1:44:38Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:39Speaker 05

  Which, as a New Yorker, first of all, I think Noah's script is brilliant. But, and John Turturro is, I mean, I've always been a John Turturro fan, but he's phenomenal. And there's so much heart in that film. And there's so much love of New York and love of humanity, and also love of what we're losing in the modern world that I just

• 1:45:03Sean Fennessey?

  Very analog film.

• 1:45:04Speaker 05

  I really loved that film, yeah.

• 1:45:06Sean Fennessey?

  Those are great recommendations. Hey, congratulations on Once Upon a Time in Harlem. And David, thank you.

• 1:45:10Speaker 05

  Thank you for having us.

• 1:45:11Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:45:14Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to David and Anne. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanagh for production support. Next week, we're digging into two more new movies. Club Kid and Godzilla Minus Zero. Have you seen that yet?

• 1:45:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going this afternoon.

• 1:45:27Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:45:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm Max. You want to come?

• 1:45:29Sean Fennessey?

  I wish I could.

• 1:45:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:45:30Sean Fennessey?

  I have to interview two filmmakers.

• 1:45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, how exciting.

• 1:45:33Sean Fennessey?

  I won't tell you who they are, but we'll see you next week.

• 1:45:55Speaker 06

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