Ari Aster’s ‘Eddington’ Is a Mirror. Like What You See?

Sean and Amanda are joined by “Mean Pod Guy” Adam Nayman to unpack Ari Aster’s divisive new film, ‘Eddington’—starring Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal. They discuss why they all thoroughly enjoyed the film, how Aster successfully captures our present world with a cinematic use of phones, screens, and social media, and wonder how it will perform commercially and critically (7:53). Then, they briefly cover Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s twenty-seventh feature film, ‘Cloud,’ and explain why Kurosawa matters to cinema at large (1:03:57). Finally, Sean is joined by Aster to talk through what makes this movie different from his previous work, why he wanted to make this now, where he sees his career moving forward, and what projects he wants to make next (1:16:03). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Ari Aster and Adam Nayman Producer: Jack Sanders THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY. ORDER NOW | STARBUCKS. COM/MENU 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.

• 0:00Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Starbucks. We are big Starbucks Frappuccino fans over here. So when we heard about the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage, we had to try it. It's a crave worthy iced blended beverage topped with cold foam, making for delicious layers of flavor.

• 0:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I love how Starbucks leans into the seasons, especially summer. From vibrant refreshers to cold blended beverages, there's always something exciting to sip on.

• 0:24Sean Fennessey?

  Available now for a limited time only, your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks.

• 0:39Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:41Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Eddington. Adam Nayman joins us today to break down Ari Aster's fourth feature film. It's a powder keg that we're going to try to diffuse, as well as shine a light on Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japanese master, whose hilariously bleak new film Cloud finally opens in the US this week. Later in this episode, Ari Aster is back on the show. This is his fifth time on the podcast for his fourth feature film. He's come by for every movie. He is, I think, one of the signature filmmakers of the run of this podcast.

• 1:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I ask you something about this interview?

• 1:13Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly.

• 1:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You were recording it when news broke that Aaron Sorkin would be remaking The Social Network, or making part two about Jan 6. Did you ask Ari about this live during your interview?

• 1:27Sean Fennessey?

  No, I turn notifications off when I'm conducting an interview.

• 1:30Amanda Dobbins?

  You were, I knew that you were unable to respond to my hysterical text messages because you were with Ari Aster. But also, it's a little Eddington coded, that news.

• 1:39Sean Fennessey?

  It certainly is. We talked about things that informed the decision, maybe, to enact a Jan 6, and also to enact a film about it. Ari, of course, one of my favorite guests on the show, somebody I've gotten to know a little bit over the years, and I always learn something about what he's trying to do. After the interview, I mentioned him, like, I try to ask semi-dumb questions so that you can elucidate what you were actually thinking. And he was like, no, no dumb questions. But he was, he was lying to me. I was, I was asking dumb questions. So hopefully, people will flow with that. I hope you will flow with it.

• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  Before we get into this, this big new divisive movie this week, we have a little bit of news. So one, the trailer for After the Hunt.

• 2:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:18Sean Fennessey?

  The new Luca Guadagnino movie hit this week.

• 2:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Seen it.

• 2:21Sean Fennessey?

  We had seen it in April and we were excited about the movie. We talked about the movie.

• 2:25Amanda Dobbins?

  We bid it up pretty high.

• 2:26Sean Fennessey?

  Acquired the film in an auction.

• 2:30Sean Fennessey?

  So this movie comes out October 10th and then it goes wide on the 17th.

• 2:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's a campus sexual assault slash cancel culture drama seemingly.

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  Is this a commercial enterprise?

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It does star Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield and Iowa Debray. So three people who have their fans, have their fanbases.

• 2:56Sean Fennessey?

  They do.

• 2:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Are they aligned? I'm not really sure. It's directed by Luca Guadagnino, who is commercial to me.

• 3:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 3:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And Challengers was not, not successful.

• 3:06Sean Fennessey?

  I think it was a hit.

• 3:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So people are aware. It brought people into the tent. Welcome. Thank you so much. I, you know, I don't think it's going to beat Superman.

• 3:17Sean Fennessey?

  No, certainly not. It, it is arriving in a very kind of busy and interesting first couple of weeks of October. We tend to get a lot of good movies to break down on this show. That means it's almost certainly going to be a fall festival premiere.

• 3:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:29Sean Fennessey?

  Feels like Venice.

• 3:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure does. Challengers was slated for the opening night of the Venice Film Festival in 2023 and then did not premiere because of that actor strike.

• 3:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 3:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you couldn't get Zendaya there. But, you know, Luca, Luca likes, likes some glitz, some glamour.

• 3:48Sean Fennessey?

  He does.

• 3:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think Julia Roberts on the red carpet in Venice is certainly, let's, let's put it this way. I'll be mad. I'll be mad if it's not there.

• 3:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 3:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think this, this and J. Kelly are the only ones where I would consider like changing my flight. You know?

• 4:04Sean Fennessey?

  To stay longer.

• 4:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:06Sean Fennessey?

  To see those films.

• 4:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 4:07Sean Fennessey?

  Well, interesting. So I would say next week on our Fantastic Four episode.

• 4:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 4:13Sean Fennessey?

  We will know the slate of Venice films. We can break it down then.

• 4:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:17Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's likely that this one will be at Venice and probably at Telluride, too, if I had to guess.

• 4:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 4:21Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like a good fit for that festival as well, a kind of talky drama about sensitive issues in our modern times. We did get some news about some Toronto International World Premiers, which we can, we can float to Adam when he pops on, too, because he, of course, will be there because he lives in Toronto. But some movies that are world premiering there include Roofman.

• 4:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:39Sean Fennessey?

  The Dirkstein France movie that, did you get it? Or you got it in the auction, right?

• 4:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, yes, because, you know, I stand with Kiki.

• 4:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 4:45Amanda Dobbins?

  In all things.

• 4:46Sean Fennessey?

  Um, The Lost Bus, which is a new movie starring Matthew McConaughey, directed by Paul Greengrass, made by Apple, which is based in part, I, if it's not the Paradise Fires, it is the, the, the Los Angeles Fires, um, some years ago.

• 5:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and Okay.

• 5:01Sean Fennessey?

  And a terrifying story of, uh, someone trying to escape that circumstance. Um, Greengrass, I don't think has made a movie since News of the World, so it's been

• 5:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 5:10Sean Fennessey?

  Almost five years since he put a movie out.

• 5:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's a deep pandemic cut.

• 5:14Sean Fennessey?

  It was. I think a, a pretty good movie that is a little bit forgotten

• 5:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 5:18Sean Fennessey?

  because of when it was released into the world. Now, there's a movie called Rental Family. I made a proclamation, I think during our auction episode, about how Searchlight didn't have an Oscar contender.

• 5:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:25Sean Fennessey?

  I neglected to mention Rental Family. That, I think, is actually Searchlight's big Oscar contender. It's directed by Hikari and it stars Brendan Fraser.

• 5:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 5:33Sean Fennessey?

  And this has a very apparent reportedly strong crowd pleaser-y vibes. Maybe coming for that audience prize, we shall see. Uh, and then Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out film, will world premiere at TIFF.

• 5:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Glass Onion was also a TIFF premiere.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  It was. Knives Out is a very, uh, TIFF-coded

• 5:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 5:48Sean Fennessey?

  series. And Hamlet, directed by Chloe Zhao, which I got in the auction, is going to have its Canadian premiere.

• 5:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 5:57Sean Fennessey?

  So that means

• 5:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So if, if it were not at Telluride, they would say North American premiere. But because they have to specify, it's definitely a Telluride. Do you think, I don't know whether it'll be Venice. It's, that seems like, she's so deeply Telluride-coded.

• 6:15Sean Fennessey?

  A European tale, though.

• 6:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Well, not anymore.

• 6:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 6:19Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 6:19Sean Fennessey?

  Chloe, I've seen Chloe a Telluride before. I think it's likely to be a Telluride kind of a movie, so I think it'll be there. It'll clearly be a TIFF as well. More TIFF stuff to come. The, we can get into that as we start talking more about the festival, sort of like where each festival sits in the hierarchy and what kind of movies make sense there. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

• 7:00Sean Fennessey?

  LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bullspend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply. Speaking of Toronto, let's bring in our Canadian correspondent to talk about a deeply American movie. Adam Naaman is here. Hi, Adam.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Hey, guys. How you doing?

• 7:35Amanda Dobbins?

  We're wonderful. I'm glad to see you.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  I'm glad to see you, too. I heard you guys, I kept hearing the word Toronto. I was paying attention to something else, but I heard like Toronto five times while you guys were talking.

• 7:45Sean Fennessey?

  It was your Siren song.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do have a, we do have a film festival here, apparently.

• 7:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You excited for Roof Man?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  I can't wait. You know, there was Roof Man, there was Pool Man. You know, a movie that, a movie that no one has forgotten?

• 7:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Remember Pool, remember Pool Man?

• 7:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, yeah.

• 8:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Chris Pine with lots of facial hair.

• 8:03Sean Fennessey?

  That didn't go well.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  No. You know, the, the period, right, when all these festivals are kind of jockeying for, for premieres, always very interesting when you're sort of someone here on the ground. I heard Sean say something like TIFF-coded for Knives Out. I will just, without, without saying anything, I'm like, that is exactly correct. So, you know, I heard you guys talking a little bit about Venice. I would like to see some Venice-coded movies. I would like to not see some Netflix murder mysteries, but I'll probably see both because there's just so many movies at our, at our festival, you know?

• 8:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you will be back for sure after TIFF concludes, which I'm excited for. We've got you here for some thorny ones, some sticky wickets that I'm really excited to talk about. So Eddington is the fourth film by Ari, as I mentioned, stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O'Connell, Michael Ward, Clifton Collins Jr. It's shot for the first time in an Aster movie by Darius Kanji, one of the great living cinematographers. You may recall his work in movies such as Seven. Our researcher here has suggested he may be the best living director of photography who has not won an Academy Award. An interesting idea we can explore in this episode. Music by Daniel Pemberton and Bobby Krillick. This is an 824 movie. The story is as follows.

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly May 2020, a standoff between a small town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico. Amanda, I'll start with you. What did you think of the movie Eddington?

• 9:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you mentioned that this is a divisive movie and it premiered at Cannes to honestly just like not very nice reviews. But I don't want to speak for everyone. I don't know if this podcast is going to be that divisive. I am pro. I don't know if I get it, but I think that I quote, get it. And this is definitely the funniest movie that I have seen in 2025. And the way that it uses humor says a lot about, I think, Ari Aster's worldview and my worldview and the state of the world that we're in. But I think, to me, it's very effective.

• 10:14Sean Fennessey?

  Adam, what about you? You've had an interesting relationship to Ari's filmography over the years.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  In that I've had mixed feelings.

• 10:21Sean Fennessey?

  You've had mixed feelings.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Mixed feelings, but I also think the films by their nature are kind of self-divided, you know, whether people like to divide them along the lines of, you know, are they funny? Or are they insincere? Or is he mean spirited? Or is this sort of the subject? And I'm always impressed formally, and I'm always left a little bit. Again, mixed feelings. I like this one. And one of the reasons I like it actually is because it's very much an Ari Aster movie. People talked about it as a kind of a detour, you know? He's moving away from horror. He's taking on reality. It's it's social commentary. To its very core, there's about the same thing as other movies are about, which doesn't mean it's not a social media movie or a COVID movie. But I mean, it's a movie about, you know, like

• 11:05Speaker 02

  family and the anxiety of inheritance and things that people take from their parents. I said in the piece I did for Ringer, you could call it hereditary, and it's not like a joke. I think that's pretty deeply sort of encoded in it. I also think we have a tendency now, or there's a tendency in film culture for filmmakers to show their influences or tweet syllabuses of movies that they think are in their movie. And I think that with Ari Aster.

• 11:30Sean Fennessey?

  Leave that to me. That's my job, Adam.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Well, you didn't. You didn't make the movie or provide the syllable. Filmmaker did that. But this idea of kind of showing your work, and it comes from an honest place, because I think these are cinephile filmmakers. They want to place themselves in a tradition. I really like Ari Aster's taste because it's closer to my own, it's close to my own. And when I've talked to him about certain filmmakers in depth, we have a lot of the same. That's different than how a filmmaker synthesizes and like sublimate those influences. This is the movie where I hear his own voice the most. Not for the first time, but I think he kind of comes through loud and clear here. And even though the influences are worth talking about, whether it's the Coens or John Ford or or John Sales, there's kind of less noise, if that makes sense. And I think that not being a horror movie

• 12:15Speaker 02

  is kind of what what helps that come through clearly. It's like you're dealing with a different genre framework. And I think the filmmaker comes through pretty, pretty clear.

• 12:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I am starting to think that this is my favorite of his four films, or at least I feel it's his most assured. I think it will be his least, maybe his second least satisfactory for general audiences, but I was afraid was not widely seen and many people did not enjoy the experience of watching that movie. It's interesting how you're saying that this is, it feels like an expression of himself, because it also feels like the first movie he's ever made that is not just about a personal worldview, but is representing, it's an us and not a me movie. And it's hard to make an us movie, whether or not he's actually representing. Every point of view, I don't, I think that's obviously impossible, but it's a movie

• 13:06Sean Fennessey?

  that seems more interested in problems at large instead of problems of the self. Like, I find the first three movies are very psychological, internal movies. This movie has that.

• 13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:16Sean Fennessey?

  We do get Joe Cross, the sheriff character played by Joaquin Phoenix's internal struggles on his face.

• 13:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and he's a classic Aster character in a lot of ways, which is someone who is beaten down by the circumstances and the world around them and then kind of driven, spoiler alert, insane by it.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  Quite insane, yes.

• 13:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Or, or maybe the insanity is revealed, you know, like how much of that is, the Joe Cross character is interesting and how he's positioned in the movie is, is purposeful and interesting and we can talk about it. But, yeah, I agree, there are, there are more people in the frame, I guess.

• 13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a tableau. It's not a singularly focused movie. Um, it's, it's meant to be representative of this entire town and this entire town is obviously representative of the American experience.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Well, I want to give a shout out to a really great programmer and a critic and a friend, Adam Piran, who wrote something about this film from Cannes where he, I mean, his piece speaks for itself, but he's like, Aster's kind of from New Mexico, not kind of, he is, and Adam knows something of the place too. And it's like, when you deal with this kind of cartoony, and it is kind of like an editorial cartoon of a movie. It is stylized and it's cartoonified in places, but he says that none of that should undermine that this is a well-observed film. This is not an opportunistic movie where he's like, well, this is the American Midwest or the Mid-South, and so I can kind of do rednecks or I can do misguided liberals, like, what if the local Black Lives Matter chapter, you know, is all white people? Like, that's where some of the real antipathy toward the movie at Cannes came from, was

• 14:48Speaker 02

  the idea that this is somehow opportunistic, that because Aster has a blank check, he's now like, you know, taking cheap shots. This is where he's from, or he spent a lot of time there. And, and Adam Piran wrote about how for him and his experience of that place and the way that, let's say, different subgroups interact, different racial enclaves, different levels of class, different kinds of conservatism. He said he thought it told no lies, you know? Which doesn't mean that it's necessarily a realistic movie, but I think it drills down to some pretty realistic things, particularly the way that the Phoenix character and his campaign, which is supposed to be this idea of punching up. Against these kind of mask mandates, this like sparmy virtue signaling guy.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  It doesn't come from a bad faith place at first, right? But as soon as, what's one of the lines in the movie I really like where someone's like, this isn't denial, it's denial of denial.

• 15:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Where someone sort of says at one point, like, I am listening to you, shut up. You know? That it's like, it's not enough to sort of just have your viewpoint. It's your viewpoint is dependent on the complete denial. And also just the complete vilification of all other viewpoints. And the idea that Joe Cross might be coming from like a kind of okay place when he starts this, the movie plays havoc with that idea, I think. So I don't find them to be cheap shots. I find it to be sociologically pretty smart, even if it is in a cartoon register.

• 16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, when we talked, he mentioned not only that he's from New Mexico, but that he went back to New Mexico and interviewed sheriffs and interviewed townspeople in communities like Eddington and interviewed folks at the Pueblo's there. Like that he just talked to people about how they were feeling and how they felt during this period of time, which this is obviously not an act of journalism. It's a hugely heightened genre movie.

• 16:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 16:33Sean Fennessey?

  But I, the idea that it's like dishonest or opportunistic, I find, I find that to be a strange accusation.

• 16:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's, it is provocative.

• 16:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's also certainly bleak. Like it's, it's not like he go, went and did all of these interviews to produce like an empathetic portrait, although portrait of a community going through change and like, you know, our, our community makes us stronger or whatever like this, it's hell. Like he uses all of that to build, as you said, like a very heightened, um, nightmarish take on the world that we are currently living in. But just because it's uncomfortable and unflattering doesn't mean that it's like unearned.

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  I agree, and I think it's an interesting, there's a structural decision here that even though it's based in a real world, it's very much about a time in which a lot of life was lived through screens. Like the relationship between the screens in the movie and the idea of watching a movie on a screen is this very snake eating its tail idea. So it's like, how comfortable are we with watching what's happening in the world recalls how uncomfortable it was to be watching the world unfold during 2020? It's a very sophisticated idea that he's kind of baked into the movie. I do understand why it makes people unhappy. To be back in this time, I don't understand the criticism that it's too soon to go back to this time. That doesn't, I'm not sure that it's ever too soon to like, try to portray

• 18:01Sean Fennessey?

  a genuine feeling. And I think that this is a movie born of really genuine feelings.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Well, you try and talk about it diplomatically, but also there's not a lot of diplomacy when it comes to Aster. Like, people aren't normal about his movies. And there's an interesting conversation about why, which is because it seems like from the very beginning, he's had a lot of hype. It's partially the distributor that he works for, which a couple of people have heard of and have opinions about. And the kind of acclaim his movies have gotten, and the feeling that this is like a young filmmaker who just kind of came in, like, makes movies with impunity, right? And that the industry has bent to accommodate directors like this. So for people who consider themselves really deep core horror fans, or filmmakers who see other filmmakers getting less light on them, like, they find this annoying. And then they also sort of think, well, there's like a bit of a flop sweat here. It's like, well, you're this famous name filmmaker. So now you have to get political to kind

• 18:51Speaker 02

  of feel like you've earned it. I just sort of reiterate that, for me, where this movie started coming together, I mean, I enjoyed it the whole time. And in a way, it is pleasurable. It's a very nasty kind of pleasure, you know? He's always been good at that. And he's got really, real showman instincts. But I just started, came together for where I thought, this is just the kind of movie he makes. The things that are uncomfortable about it, again, about these, like, the parental relationship, or the stepparental relationship, like, I love that Phoenix's character, you know, it's the pandemic. So as a plot point, his mother in law is living with them, played by Jericho O'Connell, who met his wife Emma Stone. She's like, doing like, pizza gate printouts and leaving them on the table. But he also has to eat breakfast under this picture of his father in law, who used to be a sheriff.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  And it's like a shrine to this guy who was cut down sort of prematurely. And he's Googling YouTube videos on how to like, ask your partner if you want to have a kid. And none of that is culture war stuff or memes. It's like a very uncomfortable family unit that you see as a source of real vulnerability. And that that's like where the brain worms start to start to sort of come in. Cause people are living with trauma and bad stuff in their past and everything they read about protests. And COVID becomes like an outlet for them to channel that stuff. I don't find that to be cheap, shoddy, social commentary at all. It's smart, even if it's played for laughs, it's it's it's intelligent.

• 20:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's also just so consistent with what all of his other movies are about, which is just like buried histories inside of families. And then what manifests out of those buried histories? It's really funny. I don't think I noticed this the first time, but I'm fairly certain that the voice that you hear delivering the kind of numerology podcast. When Joe Cross returns to enters his home for the first time in the film is Ari's voice, you know, where he's sort of like explaining that on the 56. It's the 56th birthday of Tom Hanks, who was the first celebrity to contract COVID. And then 56 is the number when you dissect it. And this idea of like questing for answers inside of illusory ideas, because everything is so confusing and frustrating all the time. Especially if you have unmanaged or unlocated pain in your life.

• 21:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 21:01Sean Fennessey?

  Which is kind of what all of these characters are experiencing a version of that.

• 21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  They're all, they all have something in their real lives that they cannot deal with related to their family. And then they explore some sort of nether world or other, you know, social structure. That entraps and ultimately like screws them up even further, but like to a character, to a movie. This one just happens to be the internet during 2020.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Well, he and he does such wonderful things visually with that.

• 21:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Like, I think it's when Joe is recording one of his videos, I think it's where he announces his mayoral campaign. He uses the iPhone by like isolating the iPhone in the middle of the frame, which is already a narrow aspect ratio. And there's just all this empty space of, I think it's his dashboard or something. It's just like here is a guy in his kind of little echo chamber. And then you cut to his wife watching the announcement and she's Emma Stone is represented in the second shaft. That's kind of right next to his visually a screen and a screen and then all the negative space on either side of them. I mean, no one communicates. And you almost feel like it's a cliche when you say that, but he's so smart about showing that tension between too much communication and absolutely no exchange.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Cause it's also funny at the beginning of the film where people say there's no COVID in Eddington. And like, they're probably right because geographically it is so isolated, but it's also just the middle of America because of the internet. So you start seeing the George Floyd protests going on in the background, which is very loaded material for any filmmaker to deal with, for a white filmmaker to, to, to, to deal with. You see the protests going on and what I took from that is just this idea that something's happening somewhere else. It's connected. It's like, well, this needs to happen here now too, where this is happening here now too. We actually don't have distance or difference from the rest of the country. We are the middle of America and how that empowers people to act or compels people to act and the way that that spirals is again, smart.

• 22:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think also when you keep showing these moments of panic in our society, that always reveals like something underneath the surface of how people, about the way that people really are. So in this case, you know, you mentioned the idea of genre, Adam. This movie is, has multiple genres, like it's pitched as a Western, as a modern Western, where it seems like the loyal and noble sheriff would be the hero, would be the white hat and the, the wealth backed politician would be the villain who's kind of controlling the town. But then within like five minutes, he's kind of completely subverted that. And it's unclear if anyone here is really the, the significant figure and something,

• 23:39Sean Fennessey?

  especially seeing this movie a second time, that really jumped out to me as critical to understanding the story and understanding why I think this is not an opportunistic movie at all, is the way that both of those characters engage with Lodge, who is this homeless man, who is clearly mentally unwell in some way. He's the first character we see in the movie, the first character we hear from. He is sort of like rambling and, and, and kind of coming apart throughout the film. We very rarely can logically understand what he's trying to say, but he is causing a disturbance at the bar that it seems like Ted Garcia owns, where he's conducting a city council meeting at the height of COVID. And they called Joe Cross the sheriff to come handle this disturbance after he's had an encounter with the Pueblo police officers.

• 24:23Sean Fennessey?

  And the way that both men talk about and engage with this character Lodge, kind of unlocked the movie for me in a big way. He also becomes a kind of Deus ex machina figure in the story in terms of what happens to Lodge, but no one is listening to him. No one is actually trying to help him. Mayor Ted Garcia, the Pedro Pascal character, is basically saying that this guy needs to be detained, that he's aggressive and there's something wrong with him, which is just an obvious code for

• 24:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 24:50Sean Fennessey?

  "We don't know how to deal with the homeless situation, the unhoused problem in our community, and we just want to just scuttle these people away so we don't have to deal with it." And Joe Cross's response to this issue is just to physically engage him and drag him to the ground to try to get him to exit the bar. This is fascinating in part because of what happens to Joe Cross because he does this. I won't spoil it yet, but we can get into spoilers shortly. And it just reveals that both of these characters, who are both men of power in this community, just have no empathy whatsoever for the experience. That doesn't mean that there is a better solution to the problem that they were having, but the way that they talked about the issue in particular, the way that that scene is written, two men between glass, trying to solve a problem even though they have personal

• 25:33Sean Fennessey?

  animus between them, as I said, completely made me understand what he was going for, which is like, we just lost the ability to feel for other people completely. And like, a big part of what happened during that isolation, when we were literally between glass between each other, is we yelled at each other about our problems, and we never got a sense of how to solve them. I don't think Ari's trying to solve any problems, but he's at least locating something that I think is at least like on the verge of a personal sympathy, on the verge of, it would be a lot better if we were approaching these things less from a place of our own panic and frustration and more thinking about other people. I don't think the movie is attempting to be Pollyanna in any way, but that's right under the surface. And then the Lodge character becomes critically important to the story as time goes on.

• 26:16Sean Fennessey?

  But he's someone who no one ever really genuinely attempts to interact with.

• 26:19Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 26:20Sean Fennessey?

  That includes the young white protesters, that includes Joe Cross, that includes Ted Garcia, that includes anybody the encounters in the community.

• 26:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, there is a scene where the young white protesters are kneeling to reenact the

• 26:33Amanda Dobbins?

  The amount of time from the George Floyd video and he is like, put in between them and they are, they are while like showing some sort of protest or empathy for one American figure are also like screaming like, get away. I don't have any money to him, like right in front of their face, which, you know, is on the nose, but is also, and the lodge character shows up throughout the film in like in those moments. He's kind of always there. He and then Officer Jimenez, who are the one is, is one of the Pueblo investigators. He shows up at the movie and then he keeps showing up throughout the, the investigation

• 27:15Amanda Dobbins?

  and is just, is kind of the only person who knows what's going on and, and, and is just often just standing there being like, what are you talking about? Like, but there, there, he is a character who still is grounded to reality, in reality, and his relationship to Eddington as, you know, a officer with, for the Pueblo. And then ultimately what happens to him is also, well, you know, it's of a piece with the movie, but it's not like, it's, he doesn't, he doesn't save the day either. He doesn't solve.

• 27:48Sean Fennessey?

  No good deed unjustified.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  There's so much stuff about jurisdiction and territory and like political authority versus community authority versus, you know, who's, I mean, whose story is being told, whose land it is. This really links it to a lot of Westerns, like a revisionist Western, like John Sale's Lone Star, which isn't going to be the first thing that people mention with this movie, but I think it's a structural twin of Lone Star. Ari, if you're listening, I'm sure you watched Lone Star when you're making this movie. And it's a high compliment, right? It's just sales comes at it from a kind of left liberal perspective. And I think Eddington's politics are considerably slipperier. And that's why I think even though I don't think the movie is opportunistic, I think it uses bad faith kind of as a weapon. It's

• 28:33Speaker 02

  not just about the bad faith of that period. It's kind of weaponizing that bad faith. Cause again, we want to tread lightly with spoilers. And you're right, the lodge character is extremely important. As a symbol, because I think the movie is instrumentalizing that character symbolically to show the way their community sees him or doesn't see him. But there's a structural trick hidden in this movie. I don't think it's that subtle, but if people miss it, the way that people might read this movie, I'm not saying maybe people who are going to write 2,000 words on it, but people who are going to tweet on it, there is a really bad faith way to misread this movie when it comes to the idea of protest and Antifa and, you know, anti-police, anti-police violence. I thought it's quite daring what he did with that because that's the part of the film

• 29:16Speaker 02

  that is just begging for people to be mad instead of seeing what it's really actually saying.

• 29:22Sean Fennessey?

  We do need to at some point discuss it in depth, maybe a little bit later in this conversation because it was the thing that I think both Amanda and I, the second time we went to go see it kind of popped and we're like, let's explore the intention, how much of this is a joke and not, and you know, I think you're right that it obviously has shades of a revisionist Western, but it's also very clearly a conspiracy thriller. It very quickly becomes a movie about paranoia and violence.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  He's a conspiracy filmmaker.

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  And they are always hiding in plain sight. Like people's issues with Mitz Tamar is like, oh, come on, we know they're bad. It's like, yes, we do know they're bad from the second you, you, you, you show up. I mean, in Hereditary, you see the cultists in the first scene at the, at the funeral and in Bo is afraid, he kind of suspects his mother's messing with him and it's like, that's all that's happening. I mean, in some ways, the joke is that there's no conspiracy behind the conspiracy. It's just very obviously what it is. So you mentioned Lodge, the homeless guy at the beginning. He's the first shot of the movie, walking along a street, a highway demarcation, which is very significant in terms of a movie about slipping over boundaries and sides. The second shot of the movie is like this AI data center or a power plant that's going

• 30:31Speaker 02

  to be put down possibly where they want to build this AI center. The whole movie is under the shadow of big tech. So it is not a surprise when that is the conspiracy that's in plain sight throughout the movie. And he's also not choosing his targets badly in terms of what the root of all of these problems. There's not just a social media movie, it's an AI movie. And if you pay attention to his interviews, that's what he seems to want to talk about because I think he knows how encoded that is into the world of Eddington, even if it's not the obvious subject. This incredible reliance on AI and technology that I think is really the main, one of the main subjects here.

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's amazing, you said this is the funniest movie of the year and that's the other thing that is fascinating about it is that it is a true blue-black comedy. I mean, there are many laugh-out-loud moments. Some of that laughing is from absurdity at the absolute insanity on screen. Or the, there's a lot of self-owning, you know, people are constantly saying things in this movie that are like, what? You know, and that includes the people that you would perceive to be like, good guys, and there are really very few good guys in this movie. But it is, it does have that hint of like, I felt a little bit of like Albert Brooks and even a little bit of like Larry David. There's a kind of cringing quality to hearing, you know, the, I think one of the reasons why this movie has pissed a lot of people off

• 31:53Sean Fennessey?

  is because there's a lot of time spent on well-meaning young protesters.

• 31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 31:59Sean Fennessey?

  And kind of what they, what happened to a certain class of young, especially white kid during this time. And the way that they're, but the funniest moment in the movie to me by far is when the young white kid, I believe his name, is his name Michael?

• 32:16Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Brian.

• 32:17Sean Fennessey?

  Brian, Brian, excuse me, Brian.

• 32:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Brian, we'll come back to Brian.

• 32:19Sean Fennessey?

  Brian is sitting at his dinner table and it's like, it's a smash cut shot. It's like, we haven't spent any time in this kid's home, we don't know anything about it. We smash cut to him lecturing his own parents about his whiteness and how his whiteness needs to be dimmed and stepped down and we need to eliminate it from our culture. And there's a long beat and his dad says, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you fucking R-word? You're white. And when he delivers this, it's in a, it's in a dining room and behind him is an artillery rack full of guns. And it's like, it is a very broad comic move. Like, it's not subtle, it's, it's, you know, ridiculous, but everything that is happening in this community at that time, and frankly, in our world at that time, seemed kind of ridiculous.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  And its willingness to kind of poke fun at it while also, I think, trying to reveal like a genuine pain and anxiety.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Is an amazing magic trick. Like, not a lot of filmmakers can kind of balance those tones. And I know for some people, they'll disagree that the tone doesn't quite hit. But I laughed a lot, especially the first time I watched it. I was laughing a lot.

• 33:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think I was laughing more. I thought it was genuinely funny, but it was being funny in terms of what it reveals or locates about very recent history that we all lived through. And we're confused and like addled like the people in this movie in our own ways at the time. I mean, I hope not fully like the, like anyone in this movie. But, um, so when you were talking about how there are some complaints about how it's it's too soon and do we really want to watch COVID or 2020 or any of this stuff? I honestly felt a little bit that way when I heard the logline of this movie announced. I was like, I don't really want to live through COVID again. I'm good.

• 34:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But I found this, if not cathartic, then at least, um, revealing in terms of like, the humor is, and the bleakness of the humor and the humor basically is thesis statement of this movie is, is what got me along on the, on the train ride and being like, okay, I like, I accept. And the way you're looking through this, because it was, in addition to being tragic and horrific, completely absurd, you know? It was, it was just an absolute horror movie of a time that we lived in, not in the traditional formal jumpscare sense, but in the, in the vibes. And, you know, in that sense to me, that's a funny movie, but to me, a horror movie as well.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Well, talk about moving goalposts when we talk about filmmakers, right? There's a lot of discourse a couple of years ago prompted by Paul Schrader, where he's like, I don't like phones in movies and young filmmakers don't want to make movies about the present, which is not wrong. And we've talked even on this podcast about how sometimes the best, brightest, most- Lavishly subsidized American filmmakers have a thing for period pieces. This is all under the shadow of Tarantino and revisionist nostalgia and all that. So here's a filmmaker who's doing two of these things. He is dealing with the present a couple of years removed. And again, the issue of AI, or I don't know, the issue of incredible paranoia about elite pedophilia rings. Good thing that's not important at the moment, you know? Certainly that's old news in terms of Eddington.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  But so he's dealing with the present tense and he is finding a visually novel way to use social media and texting and personal technology in a way that serves rather than stymies the narrative. Is it inherently great that he's doing these things? No. And if it doesn't work for you, then that's fine. But it's like, here's a youngish filmmaker dealing with the present. Here's a youngish filmmaker who's using social media kind of as texture and as subject. So then when I just see the reflexive kind of, yeah, you know, I remember four years ago too. I'm like, yeah, well, that's not a film review. You know, there can be a negative review to be written of this movie or an ambivalent one. In fact, I think that given the kind of filmmaker Aster is, if people aren't ambivalent, he's kind of doing something wrong.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  This is not a crowd pleasing filmmaker. That's kind of to his benefit. There's a lot of filmmakers who can make stuff that make people feel nice and that kindness is the new punk or whatever nonsense like, you know? What are you referring to? Nothing, nothing. Not referring to anything. Is kindness not punk, Adam? Certainly not that completely non cynical, non opportunistic filmmaker and movie. But in terms of, in terms of Eddington, of course it's going to get mixed responses. If it didn't, it wouldn't work. But I do think that when people get mad at this idea that filmmakers are fleeing from the present and then someone actually tries to deal with it, they're like, well, but not that way.

• 36:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very good point. I mean, dealing with the present has created some of the best movies of all time. In fact, it's actually often fascinating, not always successful, but fascinating when a filmmaker tries to represent something in a recent past. Like All the President's Men was made less than five years after the events of Watergate. You know, The Big Short, Margin Call, those films were within five or six years of the financial crisis. Apocalypse Now was made basically concurrent to Vietnam.

• 37:16Amanda Dobbins?

  One of these is not like the other, with all respect to Margin Call, which I love, but...

• 37:20Sean Fennessey?

  No, but I mean, these are, but these are all like relevant films in the last 50 years, you know?

• 37:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally, totally.

• 37:25Sean Fennessey?

  And I just, yeah. Obviously Apocalypse Now and All the President's Men are forever movies, but they're, Margin Call is a good movie. You know, The Big Short is a good movie, or at least an interesting film to look at. So that alone, for that to be disqualifying, I find absurd. Whether or not it's successful is a completely different question. You know, the, the other unusual and interesting choice in this movie is the way that Aster uses stardom, which is not really like a tool that he has applied before, to portraying some of these archetypes of angst in our culture. I think a lot of people will walk away from this movie and say like, there was not enough Emma Stone. You know, like, I wanted more of this because

• 38:07Sean Fennessey?

  the movie's being sold on this kind of rogues' gallery cast, where Joaquin is back after his collaboration with Bo, but Pedro Pascal, who is among the biggest names in Hollywood this summer, you know, Stone and Austin Butler, Austin Butler especially, like a rising young star, whose stardom I think is like expertly deployed in this movie. He's not in very much of this movie, but his kind of like locked gaze, you know, slithery charm is, is, is weaponized so smartly. And Emma Stone, who often is playing these like deeply charismatic and empathetic people, is a really like a woman in crisis in this movie, a very like

• 38:50Sean Fennessey?

  Bergman-esque female character. And that's gonna like upset people.

• 38:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that's, they're gonna feel like they're being poked a little bit, or they're purposefully being like shown a piece of steak and then throwing it in the garbage. And maybe that is like pure provocation, but I thought it was just a smart sort of strategic use of certain actors.

• 39:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Can we talk about Joaquin in that context for a minute? Because I, the second time I saw it, I was going back and forth between... Is this using Joaquin and I mean, he's, he's a great actor. But is it using his innate movie star appeal? Like smartly because you're supposed to be drawn to Joe Cross despite literally everything in this whole movie? Or is it working against what's going on here because Joaquin is Joaquin? I am on record as, as finding Joaquin magnet magnetic even in the Joker. But and I, you know, I think it's smart. I he Joaquin makes more sense to me as Bo and Bo is afraid.

• 39:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think that is maybe, and that is more of like a character study of a movie. And I think, I guess I expect like, you know, loser mama's boys from Ari Aster at this point. So it's not that I think he's miscast in this. I just, I realized that I spent a lot of time thinking about like, this is Joaquin Phoenix playing Joe Cross and how is he playing him? And the choices that he's making. And I don't know whether that is intentional or whether that is just, you know, the hazard of working with movie stars.

• 40:25Sean Fennessey?

  I thought you wrote very smartly about this. What do you think, Adam?

• 40:29Speaker 02

  I think Phoenix, and I don't know if it's a byproduct of working with one or two or three filmmakers, but it's like DiCaprio and, and Phoenix, they're generationally kind of equivalent. Daniel Day Lewis is older than those people. And I'm not just saying that, you know, the, the, it goes through the gateway of a Tarantino or an Anderson or, or Scorsese. But this is kind of how film culture works in America now. Phoenix can never just show up in a movie. He could never do To Die For Again, and I don't just mean because he's too big a name. There's all kinds of big stars who are able to do supporting parts. He is like an actor as event. He's the whole movie. Daniel Day Lewis will never show up in a movie as a guy who's meeting the main character at Starbucks, right? Like he's, he's too spectacular. All you can do with him now is play Abraham Lincoln and then he has to retire, you know?

• 41:13Speaker 02

  And, and, and DiCaprio is like that, too. So Phoenix is a guy where the whole movie has to be an event. Her or the master or Joker. I like in this film how it uses that, which is he's kind of the whole movie and the movie is filtered through him and there's not a ton there. He's paralyzed by indecision and anxiety. He doesn't have a strong force of personality. There is never a point where the movie decides Joe Cross is a commanding or, or, orator. Or where he really has like people in the palm of his hand, he tries and fails. It's hard. We don't want to keep like tiptoeing around spoilers, but let's just say there is a point in the movie that is designed with all of Aster's showmanship in mind to break faith with the character of Joe Cross, but you are still stuck with him as the protagonist.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  And Phoenix's performance to me really locks in once you realize that that is the deal.

• 42:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's, we don't have to talk around, let's, let's spoil the movie because there's a lot of events in the movie that I don't think people who haven't seen it won't want to hear. We've, we've given it a good 30 minutes here.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  I also want to talk about Stone, but we can talk about her later, but, but we'll talk about this.

• 42:16Sean Fennessey?

  What is the event for you that, that unlocks Joe Cross?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Well, there, well, it's two moments and you kind of alluded to it earlier too. So I think we're in deep spoiler territory now. So you talk about Lodge, the unhoused character who at the beginning of the movie is already a prop. You know, he's already being filmed with cell phones at the beginning to sort of show that Phoenix is doing his job. And then that backfires. When you talk about self owning, there's a lot of self owning through like going on video. And then it's like, actually that's not how people see this at all.

• 42:46Sean Fennessey?

  Who can relate to that? Yes. Self-ownage by going to video? Sheesh.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  I mean, I mean, back to back, Joe basically kills the weakest person in this community. And then the strongest one. And he does so, I think the first time it is more impulsive, which has to do with the weapon he uses and the proximity and the distance. And the second time deeply calculated, you know, at a distance with a sniper rifle, he takes down the mayor or the incumbent Ted Garcia. And then waits long enough to take, to shoot the mayor's son, which is the moment at which I'm like, oh, this is hugely what this movie is about. This is completely impotent character. And he's worried he's not going to have a kid, so might as well kill this teenage boy, you know, too, which I think is really awful. After Joe does those two things, you are with him.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  And it's a cliche to say that that's Hitchcockian, like it's not just a guilty protagonist is inherently Hitchcockian. And it's like, oh, there's no release valve now. This character, whatever we thought of his motives, or whatever we thought of his reasons for doing this, they have now manifested in like cold blooded murder. And the tension in the movie now is I guess he's going to cover it up. And yet still, and maybe you guys want to talk about it, we still have an extent to which Joe is if not sympathetic at the mercy of larger forces, which is where the second half of the movie is really fascinating to me.

• 44:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's the right read of the movie, which is that the movie insists on putting you in the driver's seat with a deeply struggling person who has no idea how to communicate that. And his breaking point is tremendously violent, but it doesn't leave him. It does not escape to a more sympathetic space. It keeps you close to him. And even at the end of the movie, we watch him go through a tremendously violent trauma. And then the movie doesn't end. We see him in the aftermath of the tremendously violent trauma. And the movie is constantly provoking you to say, do you have any empathy for this experience or any sympathy for this experience through these characters? Because all of these things that this guy has done, which are all manifested of being unable to communicate and basically like live freely in the world in the way that

• 44:49Sean Fennessey?

  he wants to, lead him to the worst things in the world. And yet, even if he had expressed himself as clearly and as cleanly as he wanted to, even if he was able to have a kid with his wife, even if his wife had not experienced tremendous trauma, which then kind of ruined her life, if none of those things happened, you still might be at the whims of more powerful forces that are literally flying above you and enacting great violence and struggle. And that is where the movie gets into a very interesting question of, is this movie nihilistic? Is this movie a warning? Is it satire? Is it verite? It starts to kind of blur up these words that we lean on on the show to kind of define

• 45:34Sean Fennessey?

  what we think something is. And part of the reason why I think it's such a special movie is,

• 45:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 45:39Sean Fennessey?

  it doesn't force you to, it doesn't demand that you understand exactly what it's saying. It's more saying that there is chaos in this life. We are subject to the forces of chaos all the time. We talked about melancholia in 25 for 25, kind of a similar vibe to me, very different kinds of movies.

• 45:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And well, also like a very, very funny movie, just in the sense of everything is so fucked up that the only way to process it is to make jokes about it.

• 46:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 46:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But like really dark jokes. I, I think.

• 46:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so there are two plot points that I want to talk about here that we've alluded to. Number one is of course Antifa, Antifa ex machina. And, and then number two is actually like the final, well, the almost final, the second to last shot or series of shots in the movie, which are not of Joe. Though he really, he gets an incredible send off in bed with two other people. But then after, after watching Young Mr. Lincoln and, and cry, I mean, it's, this movie is so sadistic, but like in the right way.

• 46:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And then the, the, the second, the second to last shot is a TikTok video on its side of the third most important character in the film, who is Brian? The aforementioned guy who's going to defeat his whiteness until he winds up in Florida. As like, you know, a MAGA kid with a new home.

• 47:20Sean Fennessey?

  A re-radicalized young Republican.

• 47:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Celebrating the first anniversary of the Eddington terrorist attacks. Because once again, Antifa showed up. Let's, we gotta start with Antifa though.

• 47:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Because this is what I said to you when I went to see the movie. And I, and we have been very positive about this movie. I really like this movie. It is two and a half hours long and it does about two hours in, find itself to like a very long, like raid and violent standoff between, between Joe Cross and several Antifa terrorists who have just flown in on their private jet. And just structurally, I did find my, my mind wandering both times. That's, which is just a little bit about pacing and how much you're trying to crowd in. But so then maybe to Adam's earlier point, I, maybe I missed the,

• 48:19Amanda Dobbins?

  the, the key that unlocks Antifa as like the, the great, as, as the, the thing, the piece that solves this puzzle. So I was hoping that you could go back for me on that one.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Well, you said it yourself, which is the private plane.

• 48:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Okay.

• 48:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're crisis actors.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  They're, they're, they're, they're crisis actors. And it's funny because. You know, we had last year in Alex Garland's Civil War, you know, we had a reference to the Antifa massacre. And I just like to think Eddington is the sequel to that, but it puts it in quotes while poking you through the screen to be like, not a thing, right? Right. Where as Eddington becomes the center of this culture war, because the joke is that first, the first half of the movie, they're seeing America on their screens. And then the second half of the movie, everyone's screens are going to turn to tune to Eddington, right? That this becomes a place where these people are converging. In a way, I mean, critics' jobs aren't to re-edit movies ever, but I'm like, I would love the private jet bit taken out.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Because I still think you could read what is going on, just the level of like militarization. And why they would be trying to take Joe out of the picture at that point and the spectacle of what they're doing. And really force people to think through what's actually going on here.

• 49:38Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we see, we first see it when we see Joe is looking at his phone and he sees the footage of the Antifa attack in Portland. And that, because of even just the, the, um, the angle from which we see that video, instantaneously, I was like, this is a crisis actor situation. Like I felt like I understood exactly what he was trying to do. And the private plane is a little bit gilding the lily, particularly the hand over the globe on the private plane. You know, that symbol that's on the tail of the plane, which is very funny. But it takes a movie that at times is playing things very straight. It's absurd feeling, but doesn't feel fantastical. And it's a majorly fantastical or seemingly fantastical element.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  That's Aster's cultists showing up.

• 50:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  You know, in Hereditary, it's naked old people. In Midsommar, it's, you know, an ABBA cover band. And here it's, you know, these heavily militarized. Whatever, which is where you do get that incredible, because I mean, the end of the film becomes, and this is going to be interesting, when we talk about Cloud in a couple of minutes, it becomes like first-person shooter aesthetics.

• 50:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Almost, with Phoenix is kind of back to the wall, and the way that it's filmed is interesting. He just keeps looking around him. It's sort of that idea.

• 50:50Sean Fennessey?

  There's that moment right before the final, the final moment of violence, when the camera is spinning around and we're seeing his perspective, and then they get this kind of quasar light effect, you know, Steven Spielberg style, that is just like, to me, I was like, this is a magical experience of formal filmmaking, like, very rarely do movies look and feel this good. The movie I cited to you, I know you'll appreciate this, is I was like, this is kind of in Robocop territory, where you're just like so immersed in an absurd world, that you get so, it's hard for me as an older man to get excited by a sequence like that, but that was very, very special and unusual, but also meaningful to the story. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  No, no, not at all, because what he's doing is it's a mix of first-person shooter, and this deeply militarized, like, you know, Call of Duty mentality you kind of have at American life, which is kind of aspirational and kind of, but it's also a Western. I mean, it's a shootout on Main Street, and just in case you don't get it, he has just crashed through the ceiling and run through the sort of Native American History Museum, which is hugely mobilized in the movie in terms of symbols of the American West. And again, whose territory or town or legacy is kind of being fought over. I mean, he's staging the end of a Western, and the end of an action movie, and the end of a video game. And then, yeah, in that final coda, you have the thing that he is most terrified of, which

• 52:07Speaker 02

  is paralysis. Hereditary is all about waking up into a body that's not yours. At the end of Midsommar, you get a his and hers version of that, both with Florence Pugh and, what's his name, Jack Rayner, kind of stuck as a witness to what's happened to them. Bo is afraid, takes that and makes it horrible at the end, because there's a whole audience kind of watching you. So that idea that all all Joe can do is like, watch TV and look at screens at the end of the movie, he's kind of where he started. It's just the physical paralysis has been realized. And man, I'm so glad you mentioned Young Mr. Lincoln, because that's the thing that's going to bother some cinephiles so much is they're going to feel that this is a bastardization of John Ford and that he's like stealing valor from John Ford to do

• 52:52Speaker 02

  this. I don't think that he's a 40 and filmmaker, but I mean, that bit really hits. And I'm glad it was Young Mr. Lincoln, not Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, because other movies have done balance. The Young Mr. Lincoln thing is is good.

• 53:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's perfect because it's a, you know, that's a movie about decency and honesty in the face of the the violent hordes. And Deirdre O'Connell's character, she's also wonderful in this movie, Emma Stone's mother's character. The idea that they are representing the same ideals is the kind of delusion that powers people through these stages of life, through these experiences, you know, that's a very neatly communicated idea. If you've seen Young Mr. Lincoln, and if you haven't, then maybe you should go watch it. It's really funny that Ari Aster keeps making these movies that demand this level of interrogation and that ultimately so many of them are about how like, it's it's so terrifying to be seen

• 53:47Sean Fennessey?

  and to be understood. And then he like makes the movie and then millions of people see them and he keeps doing interviews and people keep asking him about all those feelings. He's in this kind of deathless cycle of self examination. It just feels very dangerous. I applaud him for putting himself out there, but it just seems kind of crazy to me.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the horror, the horror of being perceived, I think that's true. And I think that what we haven't really touched on, and you know, you guys are an industry podcast as well. So it's, I wonder what you guys think about this. I wonder how this will do, not in the echo chamber of social media, or you kind of know what critics are going to give a good or bad reviews without putting too fine a point on it, like battle lines are drawn about this filmmaker, which I think is is interesting. But I mean, Bo is afraid was was a talking point in some ways because it's like, oh, that's what a blank check movie. Looks like, you know, I feel like the check in this one is blanker. I mean, this has got to at least be comparable in terms of, you know, in, in, in terms of cause. I haven't seen this movie promoted much like I'm not trying to open a can of worms when I say this,

• 54:47Speaker 02

  but like I, it's a hard movie to market and a hard movie to open wide. And I, I wonder how you guys think or how it's tracking and sort of how it's going to do. Because this is the kind of movie people say no one makes anymore. And then when people make them, the talk you put, well, they don't make them anymore. Well, someone just did. So how's it going to do?

• 55:06Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I don't, I don't think it's going to make a lot of money.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 55:08Sean Fennessey?

  If that's the question, I think it's obviously tracking for somewhere in the neighborhood of like $5 million this weekend, which is not great. His movies are fairly modest. Um, they're bigger on the higher end for a, a mini studio like eight 24. But I think it's a hard movie to market and also an easy movie to market. The hard part is COVID because there are a lot of people who just do not want to go back to that and think about that time. But you might've said the same thing about Vietnam, but then you see the images from Apocalypse Now, and you think like, this is thrilling filmmaking. And there is a lot of thrilling filmmaking and frankly violent filmmaking in this movie that is excitable for audiences.

• 55:50Sean Fennessey?

  But a lot of it happens in ways that you cannot show or market before you see the movie and would give away, I think, significant aspects of the story. So it's a, it's a typical conundrum in like, how do you sell?

• 56:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:01Sean Fennessey?

  A movie that's really ultimately a thriller with, with, with huge Western inflection. But then also try to appeal to the eight 24, like this is a movie about right now kind of energy that they want to have.

• 56:13Speaker 02

  What's the, what's the highest grossing eight 24 movie of all time? I think this is very significant to talk about editing. Civil War, right? That made, was it Civil War? Yeah. Came out a year ago, which is sort of a thriller and sort of a genre movie. It's an idea movie. It's about America's contested territory. It also has an Antifa massacre in it and not a movie that I would have thought would be a blockbuster. And it didn't make like, you know, Avatar money, but that's their biggest hit. And I really wonder what the real difference is between those movies. And I'm not going to use this as a excuse to say, I know what the difference between these movies is. Cause as, as a critic, I definitely have my opinions. But I wouldn't have thought Civil War was a slam dunk either. But in a way, the war movie part of it and the promise of some kind of heavy artillery

• 56:57Speaker 02

  and violence on the trailers, even for the A24 audience, which I don't think considers themselves to be, you know, hard right. It's still got people into the theater. And with this one, I think the idea that it's somehow polarizing or both sidesing, or God forbid, you know, a left liberal satire, this is not boding hugely well in the marketplace for it. I think that comparison's interesting because it's the same studio.

• 57:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  And they're kind of similar movies.

• 57:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, some of it, I do also think that to a certain audience, and it's a smaller audience, but Ari Aster is a brand name. And so I think on the one hand, there are a lot of people who will also defend Bo is afraid, who will go seek this out because it's Ari. And then there are people who saw Hereditary and have been mad ever since at every single Ari Aster movie because it's, you know, you're not chopping someone's head off halfway, even though sort of you are.

• 57:56Sean Fennessey?

  There's head trauma in all four of his movies, and it is unmistakable.

• 57:59Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is not their understanding of like a classic horror movie.

• 58:04Sean Fennessey?

  He's using genre as a mode, as a tool. He's not like sitting deep in the Screen Gems style Sony programmer horror movie style. I think Bo is a lot more impenetrable than this movie.

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Agree.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  Bo is three hours. It was stylistically really audacious, animated sequence, this sort of like unreality of Bo's experience. This movie is way more grounded, way more approachable, and it does have this kind of bravura, third act, violent sequence. It does not have battle sequences. Civil War could put in its trailer. A dozen army men shooting at a building, you know, and that appeals in a different way.

• 58:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, we live in hell, but in a different way.

• 58:45Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's just something that people want at the movies. It's and it is something that they've always wanted at the movies. Going all the way back to All Quiet on the Western Front. It's just something that people are is appealing to people. So to me, they are a little bit different. Civil War is a more expensive movie to make. I think they marketed that movie very well. There was also something inherently experiential about going to see Civil War loud in IMAX. I believe that was the first time they secured the kind of like wide IMAX experience for eight 24. So there were some other things that were working in its favor. I think it's also a movie that probably that played a little bit better overseas. Because it was about America and how stupid America could be. And that was appealing in some ways. And also, I don't think Civil War, both sides things per se. But there was a an interpretable aspect of both sides thing.

• 59:31Sean Fennessey?

  This movie, kind of no one's good.

• 59:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know, if you're far right and you go see this movie and you see what Joe Cross does. You're not going to be like, yeah, great. You're gonna be like, why am I being indicted? And if you're far left and you see these young white protesters.

• 59:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 59:45Sean Fennessey?

  Basically being lampooned.

• 59:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 59:47Sean Fennessey?

  You're gonna be annoyed. You're gonna be mad.

• 59:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And then you're also.

• 59:50Sean Fennessey?

  Far left critics of this movie don't like it.

• 59:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And then you're also asked for the first half to Adam's point to sort of to empathize with Joe Cross and for the second half to sit with him. After he's done all of these things that. Well, he's done like in in the first half, he's asking questions and saying things that are not like appropriate according to like a leftist mindset. And but you're like, oh, maybe like, maybe, maybe he's not so wrong. And then and then he like kills several people psychotically and covers it up. And you're like, oh, now I'm in a boat with this guy.

• 1:00:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Amanda Dobbins?

  For for like a very, very long time. And then.

• 1:00:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Crisis actors like named as Antifa show up.

• 1:00:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We forgot to mention the Ted Garcia campaign advertisement and virtue signaling, which is another like incredible aspect of this movie that again, like I think reveals a narcissism and an insincerity in a lot of the characters. And sometimes the most sincere characters in the movie are those with bad values. So we don't want to hear their values, but those who portend, you know, who tend to suggest good values, communicate them in such a cringey and dishonest way that there's really no safe landing place for anybody's political, social feeling in the movie.

• 1:01:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Speaking of insincerity, the Katy Perry firework needle drop. Once again, Ari Aster is the king of using pop songs to, you know, unlock everything.

• 1:01:18Sean Fennessey?

  There's like a hundred things in this movie like that, where I was like, that's funny. Like, that's a good idea.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  What I was gonna say about Pascal is I think that in some ways, I'm gonna try and frame this nicely, he's so overexposed at the moment. He's just so stretched. He's in so many things and there's also so much like parasocial interest in him and internet interest, which by the way, I like, I tend to enjoy his interviews more than like literally any performances. But here, that overexposed quality works because it does suggest a guy who is kind of stretching himself thin. And I think Sean, what you guys were both saying about the use of movie stars in this movie, it's very smart because using them in these small little, these small little blips, they retain a sense of mystery or ambiguity. So I just want to say about Emma Stone, you know, she's also a producer on a lot of stuff recently too.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  And she seemed to have cultivated this little corner of the sandbox with some weird kids. You know, she's worked with Ari Aster, Nathan Fielder on The Curse. That performance in The Curse, which is also set in New Mexico and which is hugely thematically side by side with Eddington. In fact, if I'm gonna double bill it with anything made in the last couple of years, it's Eddington and The Curse. That performance in The Curse is one of the best things I've seen in years. That is a tour de force of like misplaced charisma and narcissism and this character who needs to be seen. And to see her completely invert that in this movie, not just the lack of screen time, but someone who does not want to be looked at, someone who does not want to be heard, someone who does not want to be listened to for fear of what she might say if someone pays attention.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  To her and the way that the movie uses her, she's the like, one of the first things we see in the movie. I mean, her picture is on his dash cam for the entire film. And again, a bit of a spoiler formally, she's the last thing Joe sees and she's off in her own version of Midsommar. You know, it's like he's turned the TV on. It's like, oh, cool. A cult where everyone's getting pregnant, you know? She's used really well and she, it's a high compliment. She reminded me of Sissy Spacek in Carrie, except she doesn't get to go crazy, but it's like she was playing Carrie and her mother at the same time, or between her and Deirdre O'Connell, there was a lot of Carrie in what the two of them.

• 1:03:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she's Piper Laurie in this equation for sure.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  Piper Laurie in this equation. So again, Aster showing his influences, but like, they're good influences. And I think the fact that Stone can sublimate that incredible charisma she has, because she's one of the most electric movie stars on the planet to play a character who like, you barely recognize when she's there. There's actually an important plot point in this movie that hinges on her being misrecognized briefly for someone else when he's in his house and he thinks he sees his wife and it's the, the mother-in-law like.

• 1:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  A classic Ari Aster horror movie sequence. Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Classic, but for a movie star like her to make herself that indistinct is, is impressive. I think that when she's in the right role, she's, she's amazing.

• 1:04:03Sean Fennessey?

  As you know, she is my goat.

• 1:04:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Sean Fennessey?

  She's truly great.

• 1:04:06Amanda Dobbins?

  She's great. And it's, she just, she has cool taste and she's just doing cool stuff all of the time.

• 1:04:12Sean Fennessey?

  Using her power for good. A very rare creative, hugely successful person, just making really interesting art on a consistent basis. Awards, I don't think this movie's gonna win any awards.

• 1:04:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think in a, in a, in a greater world, it would at least be explored as a potentiality, because there's very good performances in this movie. It looks beautiful. As I said, Kanji is amazing and Ari is what in theory we're asking for, right? Writer-director with strong vision, making original movies. That's, that's the whole ballgame. 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 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.

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• 1:06:25Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of writer-directors making original movies with strong visions, let's, let's talk about Kiyoshi Kurosawa. So we did talk a bit about Chime last year at our mid-period, which was a short film that Kurosawa kind of, sort of released. I think I watched it sort of legally. Never got proper wide distribution here. He's been making movies for over 30 years. If Sight and San does a list of the greatest NFTs ever made, I vote, I vote, I vote for Chime. I'm sure that list will grow longer and longer as time goes by. Longer and longer, yeah. This new movie is called Cloud. It is his 27th movie. I will not claim I have seen more than five. I think I've seen five or six, maybe six of his movies.

• 1:07:08Sean Fennessey?

  We talked about this a little bit off mic last time I saw you, Adam. And why don't you tell us why Kiyoshi Kurosawa matters to you and to the listeners of this show?

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I think we try and keep a lid on hyperbole over here at The Ringer. You know, we never, never say that things are

• 1:07:25Amanda Dobbins?

  What are you suggesting?

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  No, I mean, for me, this is one of the 10 greatest living filmmakers, you know? And he's older than I think people think he is, you know, because he really came to international prominence almost in the second half of his career. I mean, in the late 90s, because of Cure and Pulse, which are movies that I'm pretty sure through Criterion Channel are somewhat familiar to the listenership of this show. This is a guy who made a lot of films, at least eight, nine, 10, a dozen films, just pumping them out within the studio system. And you called, you used this phrase earlier for a different kind of movie, like kind of programmers, you know, like comedies. He made a couple of pink films, you know, genre pieces, the director working on assignment. And the short version is he just learned how to make movies very efficiently.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Like, I think he just imbibed and just ingested the process of working on a set and coming in under budget. And then you have this second half of his career where it just turns out also, whether he writes his own scripts or not, but when he writes his own script, he's this visionary poet of light and shadow. And he is on par with anybody you want to put in that category of genre masters. I've spoken to him a couple of times, which have been among the great pleasures of my professional life, because I think he's a genius. He's the world's biggest John Carpenter fan. He was moved, he was moved during the shooting of Cloud, he told me, when there was a shot of two people walking and he's like, that was a bit like a shot in a John Carpenter movie. And I was very overwhelmed, like, this is awesome.

• 1:08:52Speaker 02

  I mean, he loves John Carpenter, he loves David Cronenberg, he's spoken about Jacques Tournault. That's the level we're talking about here because of what he does with his frames. He does not have to make a horror movie to make his frames scary. I know Ari is a Curacao fan. When he makes a horror movie and he wants to scare you, he's as good at it as anybody I have ever seen. But even when he shoots a domestic drama like Tokyo Sonata or a period piece like Degara type, he has a way of

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  Putting space on screen where you were looking at the wall, you were looking at the window, you were having layers peeled away, people are opening doors, they're opening closets, they're peeling back curtains, and you feel like the frame could kind of reveal anything to you. That's the thing about Chime, when I watched it last year, is you're looking at nothing and you're terrified, you know? So, I think he's a brilliant filmmaker, and Cloud, which is being hailed as a return to form, which is silly, because it's not like his form has ever abandoned him. This is the biggest release he's gotten for, in the States, I think, ever, for a film, with Sideshow putting it out. I mean, I can talk more about it, but what did you guys think? I wanted to talk about Cloud, I wanted you guys to watch it, or were you gonna watch it anyway?

• 1:10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, I haven't got to see it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna see it this weekend, but...

• 1:10:05Sean Fennessey?

  Um, my joke to you was that this is heat for dumb fucks, which I stand by. I think it's a, it's a perfect match in discussion with this movie, because it is also a movie about life through screens and the consequences thereof. Like, that is the whole idea of the movie. It's a movie about a young, uh, kind of internet, uh, reseller, counterfeiter type, who is constantly building a business by identifying rare goods and reselling them at exorbitant rates. And this leads to, um, him quitting his day job and moving out into

• 1:10:45Sean Fennessey?

  the country with his girlfriend and building his business up, and not quite realizing the way that his business will come back on him. And the movie starts out as this kind, this very, to me, what felt like a very Kurosawa-esque, um, unnerving thriller, that even maybe I thought could have had some sort of supernatural turn at some point.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  Oh, totally.

• 1:11:07Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like Pulse 2, where you're, when you're watching Pulse, you're like, is this actually a horror movie through the first 10 minutes, or is it just a movie about paranoid people? And then it becomes like a very violent and pretty funny movie of, like, it's like Three Stooges with guns at times, and, uh, I really liked it quite a bit. What did you think?

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, shout, shout out to, I wrote about this film for, uh, not, not, not for you guys, but for, um, New Republic. So my editor there, Lorraine Catamortori, was working through my piece. She pointed out that Rattel, which is his screen name for this reselling business, I was writing about it, like, a kind of rodent name. She's like, that's also another word for honey badger. Which is pretty funny, given the way he conducts himself online. Like, this is a guy who's just proud of the fact that he has no ethics. He doesn't care what he's selling. He's happy to sort of raise and lower and screw with prices. He's like a middleman who's, who's cutting out the other middlemen, you know? Like, he's ruthless. And he really deserves everything that's coming to him. But then the movie is also about like, well, what would it look like if all the rage of the internet

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  kind of became literalized and be the kind of like group chats you have where you're like angry at someone together? You want to dock someone? Like, what if that just climbed out of the computer? And the result is it kind of looks like a Park Chan Wook movie that's even funnier. It's like those Park Chan Wook Lady Vengeance, Mr. Vengeance movies, but like torqued like 20% more towards being funny when this because people just keep coming out of the woodwork to try and hunt this guy down. And it's hilarious. The guy in the mask is incredible. The guy in the mask is incredible. When you say it's like heat for dumb fucks, I mean, it's also kind of like Fargo in Japan at one point where it's just, you know, like wandering around. Yeah, wandering around this kind of frozen forest. And then, you know, he keeps shifting the genre.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  He told me that he wanted this movie to have, again, he's such a modest filmmaker. The ratio of mastery to modesty is like, often you talk to filmmakers, they know how good they are, you know? And you talk to Kiyoshi Kurosawa and he's like, that's interesting. I didn't know that about my own films and whether that's sincere or not, it's very charming. He said he wanted this to have movie logic. He said something interesting. He said Americans are good at movie logic. Eddington's an example of that, too, where it's not just movie logic, but like a character succumbs to movie logic. He said, I want this to feel like it could happen because you're watching a movie. Like realism is out the window, which is why even though things that happen in Cloud are ridiculous, I didn't doubt any of it. And that really takes on a pretty apocalyptic cast.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Here, I want to be careful because I don't want to spoil the movie for Amanda, but like. If people have seen some of the more apocalyptic Kurosawa movies like Charisma and Pulse, or even a movie like Bright Future, which is just about releasing jellyfish into the sewers, but you kind of watch it at the end and you're like, is the world gonna end now? Like, what is going on? He finds a way to lower this veil of suggestion over what's happening where it's kind of not funny anymore by the end, or it's funny in a deeply bleak way. The last scenes of Eddington and Cloud talk to each other, I think. And huge shout out to the secondary character in Cloud. He's my favorite character in any movie this year. His like henchman, who comes to work for him when he moves his business out to the country,

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  just this like local high school dropout who just like will happily kick the shit out of people for him and just do whatever he's told. And you're sort of like, yeah, you need those people, don't you? You know, if the worst people in the world have the loyalty of those kinds of people, there is no telling the level of damage that can sort of be done, which is, I think, where Cloud goes at the end. I'm trying to not spoil it because of, you know, Amanda's in the room, but like-

• 1:14:40Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that is-

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  That late conversation is the funniest, scariest, most politicized bit. It's so great.

• 1:14:48Sean Fennessey?

  We did not really talk about Michael Ward's character in Eddington, but they have, he has something in common. He's a little bit less of a trickster, you know, Loki type figure than the one in Cloud, but this like unfailing loyalty to a bad person, you know, to a person who's breaking the rules and even breaking the law and doesn't totally realize the consequences of his actions. And the way that those people can be pawns or can control situations. You know, you mentioned that final moment in Eddington of, you know, seeing Emma Stone's character. And we also didn't mention, like, one of the last things you see is Michael still with his sniper rifle, practicing, staying ready, traumatized by the experience that he's had

• 1:15:32Sean Fennessey?

  falling into everyone else's web. And there are other characters in Cloud who've experienced similar fates, who become kind of ensnared in Rattell's-

• 1:15:42Sean Fennessey?

  Schemes and suffer grisly fates. It's crazy that they're coming out on the same day because they have a lot in common. And two very uncompromising directors. So for people who are listening at home, you know, Cure is in the Criterion Collection. Pulse is probably the most well-known of his movies. Aside from the like Cure boom that happened in the last 10 years where everyone kind of discovered that movie because Pulse was remade in America in a horror movie starring Kristen Bell. The original Pulse is extraordinary to me. It is like, it is one of the horror movies of the century, like it's excellent film. But as I said, I've only seen a couple of other of his movies. So what would you recommend for people at home, for Amanda, for any of us?

• 1:16:23Speaker 02

  I'll recommend, and then I'll look forward to like some photo of this standard DVD showing up on your social media feed, Sean. You should watch Tokyo Sonata from 2008, which is not a horror film. It's actually a movie that is so in conversation with like, I don't know, the Lorraine, Lorraine Conte film Time Out, or you know, these films kind of about economic collapse. It's about a family. Let's just say that the dad loses his job, but he keeps going to work and where he's actually going is unknown. And no one in the family is talking to or listening to each other. No one knows who is where during the day. And it all sort of builds towards this younger son wanting to play piano. And a lot of people have written about the ending of Tokyo Sonata as one of Kurosawa's great films. And this isn't a plot spoiler.

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  I mean, the plot of the film is strange and unpredictable and the arcs of the characters are things you sort of camp into it when you start watching it. But there's a piano recital at the end of that movie. I just looked at it again the other night because I wanted to watch that scene. It's one of the most uncanny things I've ever seen in a movie. And it's just simply the camera observing this kid playing Clair de Lune while these people watch. And how we are supposed to feel about it is never told. And I think that's something that Kurosawa is incredibly good at, which is we are so used to, I mean, Eddington in a way is very nudgy movie in a good way. That's very American. Kurosawa has an ability to show you things. You are not given any idea how you're supposed to feel about it, but you feel something. And that ambivalence and that ambiguity is a rare thing.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  So if people are interested in him as a horror filmmaker and they want to see how he can conjure that same scariness without having a single horror element, I think Tokyo Sennata is like, if not his best movie, it's right up there. I just hope people go see Cloud because again, it's cool that it got an American release. It was hard to see his movies theatrically for the last 15 or 20 years. They don't come out, even though he's very respected. So I hope if people are listening to this, they'll, they'll, they'll go see it wherever it's opening.

• 1:18:18Sean Fennessey?

  A hearty recommendation. Thank you, Adam. So good to see you.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Good to see you guys, too.

• 1:18:23Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go to my conversation now with Ari Aster. Ari Aster, back on the show. Very excited to talk with you. I've just seen your movie and I really liked it. I have a million questions. Here's the first question. Do you remember the day you started writing the movie?

• 1:18:41Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't remember the day, but I remember the, the month.

• 1:18:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:18:46Speaker 05

  It was, it was early June 2020.

• 1:18:50Sean Fennessey?

  What had you most recently consumed when you started writing? Do you remember? Were you watching the news? Were you looking at your phone?

• 1:18:56Speaker 05

  Uh, I was, I was like, I was really on Twitter. I wasn't posting much on Twitter. Um, although I might've been like retweeting. Uh, but yeah, Twitter was the, the space that I was living in. And, and this is sort of the movie that Twitter built.

• 1:19:17Sean Fennessey?

  True. Um, Twitter is not, it's not the same as it was specifically in 2020.

• 1:19:23Speaker 05

  No, it's gotten, it's gotten a little gnarlier.

• 1:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  I, I didn't think it could get worse, but it's a, it's a lot worse. It's very different.

• 1:19:32Speaker 05

  Um, yeah.

• 1:19:33Sean Fennessey?

  The chaos that I'm sure you were feeling at that time, but stuck in your house presumably in June of 2020. Spurred you to make something about what was actually happening in the world, which feels very different from your three previous films. So maybe you can talk me a little bit through like the desire to show us our world, literally, in some ways?

• 1:19:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, in some ways it's different, you know? It's always, I mean, it's all world building in one way or another. And it's, and they're, and they're all personal. But yes, this is, after something like Bo is Afraid, this is, yeah, this is a big pivot in that it is very much grounded in this world. And it's, I, I, I wanted to make a movie about what it feels like to live in a world where nobody agrees on what is happening. And so that was the, that was the impetus.

• 1:20:41Speaker 05

  And it really just came out of wanting to make something that was kind of inflected by like a, a modern realism. Which I, I, I, I've seen some of, but I, but I, but there's something I've been wanting to see. And I think this was my attempt at doing that. And I'm a genre filmmaker and, and so, you know, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm somebody who, you know, I grew up in New Mexico. I've always wanted to make a film about the Southwest, but in, but, but New Mexico in particular.

• 1:21:25Speaker 05

  And so it, it, it, it, it kind of naturally became a Western.

• 1:21:34Sean Fennessey?

  So I wanted to ask you about New Mexico specifically, like why, not just why you said it there, but kind of what is the character of the state? What are the aspects of growing up there that stuck with you? That you wanted to try to recreate and made it the right setting for this kind of a story?

• 1:21:49Speaker 05

  Well, you know, I, I, I grew up in Santa Fe and my, my family lives in Albuquerque now, and they have for about, about 20 years.

• 1:22:02Speaker 05

  But I, it's, it's a place that I didn't love when I was there, when I was growing up. I was born in New York and I just, I, I didn't like living in the desert in isolation. And it is a very specific place with like a very specific history. And it's a, it's, it's, it's a fraught place politically. So I, I, I wrote a draft of this very quickly in June, just to kind of get everything down on paper.

• 1:22:43Speaker 05

  And then I made Bo Was Afraid, and then while I was editing Bo Was Afraid, I went back to the script, polished it, and then I came back to New Mexico and I drove all across the state. And I went to different small towns to talk to sheriffs, police chiefs, mayors, public officials, I went to pueblos, and I was just trying to get as broad a picture of the state and, and its political climate as possible, you know? And it's, it's a very interesting place, you know? It's a blue state, but the small towns are mostly red.

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  And, and there, there was at the time, a lot of animosity.

• 1:23:32Sean Fennessey?

  The contentiousness that we see in the film at that time, yeah.

• 1:23:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, and the governor was like a figure of controversy. And it was really, really useful to meet all those people. And there are a lot of characters in the film that are modeled on different people that I met, especially Joaquin Phoenix's character. There was a sheriff that I met in a small town. I won't say his name, just to protect his anonymity, but I mean, who knows? Maybe he'd like me to say his name. And he, he was sort of in this ideological war with the mayor of, of, of his, I mean, of, of a town in the county that he was sheriff of and, and.

• 1:24:23Speaker 05

  I introduced him to Joaquin. Joaquin loved him and, you know, his wardrobe is identical, basically.

• 1:24:32Sean Fennessey?

  Can I, let me ask you a, what might seem like a pedantic question, but you'll hear filmmakers say like, I went and I interviewed people who were in this world. How do you, how are you meeting local mayors in New Mexico and sheriffs? Like, who is the go-between? Do you have a vast network of contacts that can show you the inside of this world?

• 1:24:51Speaker 05

  No, you know, it's pretty simple. I mean, I, I had an assistant who was helping me. But, you know, I'm making a Hollywood movie and you're living in a small town.

• 1:25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:01Speaker 05

  And, and you're, you're available.

• 1:25:03Sean Fennessey?

  You were, you were welcomed into those worlds. People were comfortable telling you about their lives and

• 1:25:07Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, no.

• 1:25:08Sean Fennessey?

  The work that they do.

• 1:25:09Speaker 05

  They, and, and, and they, they, they, they were not only willing, but they were like eager to talk about what was bothering them. And, and, and it was really, really useful. And at the time, you know, Biden was president, it was a Democratic governor, and it was very interesting to go to, to talk to these people who were on the right, who were very, very upset about what was happening. And, and I, you know, I, I, I, I found a lot of them like really, really sympathetic. And that was interesting. And that found its

• 1:25:51Speaker 05

  way into the film, you know, where I didn't, I don't know, I didn't want to make an ideological screed, like that's too narrow. I didn't want to, I, I didn't want to be just like making another film where I'm, you know, where it's only going to reach the choir that it's preaching to, you know, that's just not, I, I wanted to make a film about the environment and I wanted to do it without judging anybody. And that, that was the project, really.

• 1:26:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's one of my big takeaways from it is at times when you're watching it, you feel like everyone is guilty. And at times when you're watching it, you feel like everyone is innocent and stuck in this kind of quagmire that we find ourselves in. But that's hard to sell to the world. I mean, even, even to your actors, when you're showing them the script, do they have questions where like, where do you stand on these things? Or do they just felt like this recognizes a moment in our history and we need to represent it somehow?

• 1:26:44Speaker 05

  Well, no, I mean, they, they knew where I stood because we all kind of stood in the same place. But I, but no, there wasn't a lot of

• 1:26:53Speaker 05

  There wasn't that much talk like that. It was mostly just about how do we, in some ways it was about how do we keep from falling into the same trap as, you know, so many of, so much, not just so many films, but just so much media, where just like, again, it was about the environment. I wanted to make a film with the landscape and about what it feels like to live in a world where nobody agrees on what's happening and everybody distrusts everybody else. And, you know, I mean, first, I think you just have to kind of agree that everybody

• 1:27:34Speaker 05

  in this world cares about the world, you know? And that, that's where, kind of, we started with everybody, with every character in the film. And, you know, and the idea was, I wanted to pull back as far as I could to include as many instruments in the cacophony as possible without sacrificing coherence and, you know, without neglecting to tell a story. I would have, I would have had more characters if I could have, you know, that in one way or another represented, I mean, honestly, like a different corner of the internet. Because that's, that's really where we're all living.

• 1:28:17Speaker 05

  We're all living in the internet right now. We have been for a while. And COVID, you know, feels to me like, it wasn't, it wasn't the beginning of anything, but it was an inflection point. And it feels to me like the moment at which that, that last link to the old, to whatever that old world was, you know, was permanently severed.

• 1:28:42Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:43Speaker 05

  And...

• 1:28:47Speaker 05

  And I don't think any of us have really metabolized what happened in, you know, in 2020 because I think we're still living through it. We're still, it's, we're still in the process of, of what is happening.

• 1:29:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was the accelerant for sure. I, you called yourself a genre filmmaker, which I think is an interesting way to define yourself. The genres in this movie that I recognized were obviously a Western, which you mentioned. I guess conspiracy thriller, for lack of a better term, and political drama, which is an interesting flavor through your lens, too. Did you, were you overt in thinking about the ways to use the tropes of those kinds of stories to apply them to what we were living through at that time?

• 1:29:37Speaker 05

  Uh, you know, I think it's just, I just know, I don't know, genre is like a language that I think we're all kind of fluent in, you know? And so it's, I wasn't thinking about any specific films. There's no like, you know, I'm not like nodding to anything, but I am aware of the tropes. And I think, in particular, this is a film about, about people who are also all fluent in all that stuff. Like Joaquin Phoenix's character, Joe Cross, you know, the sheriff of Seville County. He has watched all those old Westerns. And, and, you know, he's a very sentimental guy, which in some ways means that he's not actually looking at his own life, right? He's very romantic, but I think he's, you

• 1:30:21Speaker 05

  know, he's informed by those, those, you know, by, by, by movies like High Noon, or, you know, My Darling Clementine, or, you know, these, you know, he's, he, he has this very romantic notion of what he's doing, of where, of, of the West, you know, he's-

• 1:30:39Sean Fennessey?

  Like the moral protector in his mind, yeah.

• 1:30:42Speaker 05

  Moral protector, man of action, like, you know, a man of integrity. He loves his wife, cares about his community. And, and, you know, that, that, that, that gives him a lot of armor. And it also, it, it, it allows him to kind of not see himself. And, and, you know, he's like a 50-year-old man. He would have grown up with the action movies of the 80s and the 90s. And at the end of the movie, he gets to live through one, right? I mean, he's shooting at Phantoms, but he's, but he's- He's in an action movie.

• 1:31:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:13Speaker 05

  And then you have a kid who's younger than him and he gets to live through it. And he's and and and there's that that kind of that video game language kind of comes in. It's like he's he's he it it it should be inflected by almost like this like Call of Duty, you know.

• 1:31:32Speaker 05

  I wanted the film to kind of incorporate a lot of that language. Those different lang- those different languages and all of these characters are kind of living in different movies.

• 1:31:44Sean Fennessey?

  Because.

• 1:31:45Speaker 05

  In their heads.

• 1:31:45Sean Fennessey?

  Is that because the media that they're consuming is informing the way that they see the world, but we don't all consume the same things anymore? And so like, were you thinking that schematically?

• 1:31:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're all they're all

• 1:32:05Speaker 05

  being pumped full of different things.

• 1:32:09Speaker 05

  And they totally distrust anybody who's receiving anything different. And and so I wanted the film to be kind of, you know, I wanted to make a very empathic film, but I wanted to be empathic in multiple different directions, including directions that are directly oppositional. Right? And so it's um.

• 1:32:30Speaker 05

  And and yeah, I I I definitely do see the film as like a conspiracy thriller, but it's also it's it's it's about people who are kind of like living in their own little conspiracy thriller. Like, you know, I I I thought a lot about like that movie JFK, which I I love. And it feels like we're living in a world of like, you know, everybody's a Jim Garrison.

• 1:32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, our own little assassination plot that we're trying to unpack.

• 1:32:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I love that film too for just, I think it taps into the the fever of conspiracy thinking and like the mania of it in a very special way, you know? It's a it's a controversial film because it's kind of a hodgepodge of different conspiracies and it's been discredited far and wide. But but for me, that's not what makes it a valuable film. It like really, really taps into this like spirit of distrust in in a a in like a really infectious.

• 1:33:21Speaker 05

  Uh, like possessed way.

• 1:33:24Sean Fennessey?

  There's a, there's kind of like a counter feeling in the movie too, though, that is about this sense of being left out of something, being left out of a movement, being not understanding the rhetoric of a certain way of thinking about the world too, that I thought was really smart and acute and like the young male character who sort of joins the Black Lives Matter movement, the protest movement in the film, that I have not seen that rendered really at all in a smart way in media, but it was so felt very bang on.

• 1:33:53Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:33:54Sean Fennessey?

  And memorable in a, in recent history. And that is actually kind of the opposite of what you're describing with these kind of individual conspiracies. There's this sense that like something is happening and you are not a part of it. And so you were almost like outcast.

• 1:34:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:07Sean Fennessey?

  From your community because you aren't joining. And those two things being in conflict, I thought was really interesting.

• 1:34:12Speaker 05

  Or because you're not doing it the right way.

• 1:34:13Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:34:14Speaker 05

  And or, or, and, and so there is this, uh, this, uh, this like moral coercion there and, and they're right, you know, and some of them really, they're right, but, but some of them are, are, but they're, but they're also inadvertently alienating people that they could be reaching.

• 1:34:29Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:30Speaker 05

  And so, you know, a lot of those kids, you know, really do, uh, feel the things.

• 1:34:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's sincere.

• 1:34:37Speaker 05

  Well, it's sincere, it's, it's more sincere for other, for some than for others. And, you know, with, with the kid you're talking about, you know, he's looking for a community, you know, that's really what he's doing. And, and in the end he's, you know, he's, uh, he doesn't have the, the fortitude that, that some, some of these other kids do.

• 1:34:57Sean Fennessey?

  Um, the hardest I've laughed in a movie this year is him explaining the movement to his father, sitting behind a rack of guns is like, that's the best image. That was really good. Um, the other thing that I noticed is it felt like. And tell me if I'm wrong about this, that the actual filmmaking style, the technique, was just a little bit different than what you'd done before. I know you're working with Darius Kanji, but it felt like a lot of handheld, a lot of perspectival movement with the camera, where as opposed to like, I think of your movies, and I think of like, big wide shot, body falling off the mountain, you know what I mean? Like, the violent action is in full view, and this felt like it was like, really in your face. And every time we're moving through the store with Joe, we're right on top of his shoulder, you know, he's right in Pedro Pascal's

• 1:35:42Sean Fennessey?

  face. Like, did you feel like you were shifting the style of filmmaking you were doing at all, trying new things?

• 1:35:48Speaker 05

  Not really. I mean, it's funny you say a lot of handheld, because I'm racking my brain to think of where there's handheld. I know that there's, where is there handheld? It's, uh, I kick into handheld on almost all the films, but I try to be very strategic about it. Like, in Midsommar, it's when they're all kind of crying together, and kind of the film is kind of, it's, it's been kind of tilted off its axis, right?

• 1:36:17Sean Fennessey?

  Getting hazy, yeah.

• 1:36:18Speaker 05

  And then, Bo is afraid, I think, we only did handheld for the scene where the girl drinks the paint. And then, and I know we did handheld at some point here, but I'm forgetting where.

• 1:36:30Sean Fennessey?

  No handheld at the end, in the kind of final dramatic sequence.

• 1:36:33Speaker 05

  That's, that's really, really, but it's, but it's great that it feels that way, because I, because we want it to feel alive, you know? But no, that's all, that's all like crane stuff, or, or camera on, on.

• 1:36:45Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. It just feels a little bit more chaotic, I would say.

• 1:36:49Speaker 05

  Good. Well, you know, it should. I mean, it's, uh, that's great.

• 1:36:52Sean Fennessey?

  Or even during the protest sequence, when everyone's sort of in each other's face at that moment, where you feel like you've been thrust inside of a storm.

• 1:37:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:01Sean Fennessey?

  That also just felt different.

• 1:37:03Speaker 05

  Oh, good.

• 1:37:04Sean Fennessey?

  Felt more upsetting in a way.

• 1:37:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, you know, I think, I think if anything, I didn't, I mean, this was my first time working with Darius, and I, I love him so much, and. Obviously, I, you know, I, I get a kick out of the fact that I was, that I just made a film with Darius Kanji. He's, you know. A legend. Yeah, he's one of the greatest to, to ever do it. And he's, and, and I was really surprised by what a, uh, what a sweet, like lovely, open man he was. We, we became really close and, um, he was, I, I found him, especially for somebody who's, you know, older. He's really just, uh, just, he's, he, he, he's, he, he wants to be taken somewhere.

• 1:37:49Speaker 05

  He's not, he's, he's not like in any way stuck in his ways, you know? He's, he's somebody who was, was, what, was excited to work with me on my terms. And, um, and I, I was, uh, really eager to, to learn whatever I could from him. But I just found that it was a really easy, fun collaboration, um, and not, and it didn't feel much different from what I was doing before, uh, with Pavel. Mm-hmm. Um, it was a very, very similar dynamic.

• 1:38:27Speaker 05

  Um, and, uh, yeah, I would say, you know, I think the, the way, the way we shot the film is not that different from how I tend to shoot. Uh, if anything, it was just the, uh, the limitations on, uh, you know, world creation where like, you know, we, we were just, we wanted this thing to feel very real and be rooted in New Mexico. You know, um, and, and that, that, that was its own fun challenge because I'm from New Mexico and I, and I, I, I know the state so well. And, and, and there was so much I wanted to pack into the film.

• 1:39:03Speaker 05

  But, but yeah, it was a textural thing. I just wanted it to have, uh, uh, wanted it to be, oh, just, oh, just get rid of the artifice as much as I could. Even, even though the film does kind of get gripped by its own paranoia and like kind of, uh,

• 1:39:22Sean Fennessey?

  It touches the absurd, yeah, for sure. So I described it to a friend as Chayefsky with a machine gun. And I don't know, I'm curious how you actually see the world. Like, I really like Chayefsky's writing, and I find that you get to the conclusion of a lot of his best work. And it's usually that there is something very sour and broken in people because of the circumstances of society and like kind of what we've all built together.

• 1:39:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:39:52Sean Fennessey?

  And 2020 felt like that, felt very Chayefsky. And I got to the end of this movie and I still, I'm still kind of turning over in my head like, does Ari think that we are all fucked? Or that like, maybe there is a little tinge of hope? Like, do you consider yourself a hopeful person?

• 1:40:07Speaker 05

  Well, you know, so Chayefsky, I love. And, uh, and I would say, you know, the, the one thing about Chayefsky, you know, he's the, the greatest monologue writer, um, like the last, whatever, century. Um, but, uh, but I, I do find his work to be sometimes a little like sermonizing.

• 1:40:28Sean Fennessey?

  Very much.

• 1:40:29Speaker 05

  Um, like to a fault. I think Network falls into that. I think The Hospital falls into that, um, where like finally the point of the movie.

• 1:40:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, he puts a thesis in the movie.

• 1:40:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, and I, and that's where he loses me. Um, you know, and sometimes it's not political, sometimes it's in Marty, you know, and I, which I love as well. Um, uh, and so that's something I did not want to do here, but I, I, but I mean, uh, I, I love those films, but you know, there's a, there's an element of Howard Beale in Patty Chayefsky.

• 1:41:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:02Speaker 05

  Um, I wrote this film in like a state of anxiety and worry and, uh, uh, fear. And I, I feel like that's a place, place that, that, uh, most of us are living in now. Like, you know, I, I, I, I feel totally powerless. And, um, everything feels like impossibly corrupt and just, uh, compromised. And it feels like we're living out this experiment that has obviously failed. And nobody at the Levers has any interest in slowing it down. In fact, it just keeps accelerating. So.

• 1:41:46Speaker 05

  For me, it's like, I, but I, I, I do wonder, like, what would an olive branch look like, right? And it like, is there, can there be some solidarity in just pulling back and collectively seeing the insanity of this moment? And I don't know, like, I, we're all kind of unreachable to each other. And I, I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that, that we, we need to reengage with each other somehow. And, uh,

• 1:42:24Speaker 05

  you know, I, I, I don't know. I, I, I don't, I, I have a lot of hope, but I have very little confidence.

• 1:42:35Sean Fennessey?

  Do you, I don't think that's what this movie is gonna do. I don't think it's gonna be an olive branch, but it's interesting to, to have that desire and for you to express that by making a movie like this. Because there's a part of me that at the end of this movie, I was like, there is no hope, you know, that this is all an absurd game that we're stuck inside of and we're probably gonna lose. On the other hand, people do escape the pain in the movie in interesting and unique ways. I was trying to, as we were, as sort of like three quarters of the way through the movie, I was like, is everyone gonna die in this film? Is this, is this that kind of movie? And that's not quite what happens in the storytelling. But I'm not sure. What do you think that a movie

• 1:43:17Sean Fennessey?

  like this can do? Like, should it alert people to this system that we're stuck in, this moment in time, this irretrievable feeling? Should it just be an exercise for you, like an exorcism for you to get the feeling across? Like, how do you think about what it, what it means to put it in the world?

• 1:43:39Speaker 05

  I was trying to

• 1:43:43Speaker 05

  make a film that felt like that time to me and that feels like this country. And what I know is that when I see something reflected back to me, that I, that, that, that, that, that kind of, in any way, just confirms what I'm feeling. Or it, it just makes me feel less alone. Right? And I

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  I feel like there's this like big retreat happening, like we're retreating into the past, retreating into nostalgia, or even into our trauma, right? And I, I here we are, like, we're at this unprecedented moment, we're at the cusp of something, we're in the collapse of something, but we're on the cusp of something, something new is coming as well. And I am afraid, and I don't know where we're going, and I want to see work that is reflecting that. So that's what I'm trying to do, is I'm just trying to make a film about this moment in, in whatever way, like in, with, with the limited

• 1:44:52Speaker 05

  vantage points that I have, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm just trying to, you know,

• 1:45:02Speaker 05

  talk about it, but I, but, and, and I, and I think, you know, the film also is like, sort of just like a narrative experiment of just like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna create all these, I'm gonna have all these different characters who are living in different corners, different realities. And when they start bumping up against each other, what, what hap, like, what comes out of that? You know, like, what, what, what is the logic that comes out of that, that grips all of them?

• 1:45:27Speaker 05

  And you know, I'm doing it as a dark comedy.

• 1:45:34Speaker 05

  Western, because that also gives me a sort of freedom to like,

• 1:45:40Speaker 05

  to spin out of where we are and, you know, use my imagination. But I, but you know, in the end, I also, you know, the movie is not like, it's not like vegetables. Like, I want, I want the film to be fun and exciting and surprising. And, you know, it's a movie, you know? So I, I, I hope I'm not sounding too lofty in any of this, because I'm not, you know?

• 1:46:07Sean Fennessey?

  No, I don't think so at all. I mean, I think it is, it's, I thought it was very funny. But it is, you will be asking people to put themselves back into a time that many people don't want to spend time with. Yeah. Did you, did you find yourself thinking about that? Do you worry about that with making a commercial art form like you do?

• 1:46:26Speaker 05

  Well, you know, in some ways, I'm going back to that time and I'm, it's not like really, it's not a kitchen sink drama, you know? In some ways, I'm going back to that time and I'm sticking like dynamite in it and blowing it up. You know? So there's almost an aspect of like revenge in it.

• 1:46:43Sean Fennessey?

  I know what you mean.

• 1:46:45Sean Fennessey?

  Tell me about how you're feeling about your career. I think I've talked to you about after every movie.

• 1:46:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, every film.

• 1:46:51Sean Fennessey?

  And

• 1:46:54Sean Fennessey?

  I noticed something interesting. The first two films are about grieving women and then the next two films are about these like wounded avatars of masculinity.

• 1:47:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, interesting.

• 1:47:05Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, what's that? What is, what, how did you get there?

• 1:47:10Speaker 05

  I don't know. Yeah.

• 1:47:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's no, there's no strategy, so it's hard to talk about. It just sort of, you know, it's like,

• 1:47:21Speaker 05

  they felt like the right surrogates for those, for those films.

• 1:47:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this one obviously is, couldn't have been part of some grand plan because it is such a reflection of the times. But like, I'm sure I've asked you this before when we've talked about like, is there a certain kind of a genre that you've ever wanted to make? I don't remember if you'd ever said, yeah, I'd like to make a Western one day and then a Western. Found you, but are you thinking at this point? Okay, I've done a film like this. I've done a film like this. I'd like to try to do something that takes place in this world or in this kind of tone.

• 1:47:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've got sort of like a sequel I've been cooking up for Eddington.

• 1:47:56Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:47:56Speaker 05

  I've got, I've, I've got a horror movie that I'm interested in doing. There's a, a sci-fi film. It's sort of an adaptation that I, that I'm thinking about.

• 1:48:12Sean Fennessey?

  So yes, you have a

• 1:48:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:14Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of a roadmap.

• 1:48:15Speaker 05

  Well, not a roadmap so much as I've, I've got, I've got ideas and I'm, if anything, I'm trying to determine what the right thing is next.

• 1:48:24Sean Fennessey?

  What about, um, Square Peg? I've been, I've closely following what you're choosing to produce, which I, I think is all really interesting, especially the next couple of things that you, I don't, and I don't know how much you are an active participant in those projects, but I love the last Christopher Borgley movie. I'm very excited about the new one.

• 1:48:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's great.

• 1:48:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I know you, you, you guys are on Yorgos's new movie in some way.

• 1:48:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, Begonia.

• 1:48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:53Sean Fennessey?

  How, what part is that taking up in your creative life now? Like, what are you hoping to do with Square Peg?

• 1:48:59Speaker 05

  Uh, I mean, I'm, I'm like, I'm, I, you know, that, that's Lars Knudsen and I and, and, and, and we've got a couple of other producers we work with. Um, Emily Hildner is, is, is, is a producer that's, that's at Square Peg, uh, who we love and, um,

• 1:49:22Speaker 05

  I, uh, I don't know. I, I, I see it as sort of just like a little, I don't know, like a clubhouse. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's great to, to be able to, uh, not get totally swallowed up by your own films and be able to work with other people and help them if you can help them. And, uh, and a lot of these filmmakers are people that I grew up loving, you know? Like we're working with Don Hertzfeld and we're working with Guy Madden and Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson. And they're

• 1:49:52Sean Fennessey?

  Are you making a Don Hertzfeld movie?

• 1:49:54Speaker 05

  Well, we're, we're, we're, yeah, it, it seems to be, it seems to be moving. I'm, I really, I'm, I'm excited about it. It's, it's, it's a brilliant script. It's one of the best scripts I've ever read, uh, period.

• 1:50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Done in the Don Hertzfeld, the like, I'm doing it all myself way?

• 1:50:10Speaker 05

  I don't want to say too much.

• 1:50:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, okay. But I'm such a big fan of this.

• 1:50:15Speaker 05

  But I will say, it's, it's, uh,

• 1:50:20Speaker 05

  it's going to be amazing.

• 1:50:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:50:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, and, yeah, I mean, there's so many other filmmakers. And I, uh,

• 1:50:30Speaker 05

  and we're just lucky. We're working with Lance Oppenheim. We're working with, um, uh, yeah, I, I'll, I, it, it's, it's, it's been great and, uh.

• 1:50:43Sean Fennessey?

  Can you give me an example of something that you do as a producer on a project like that? Because I think people hear that and they're like, oh, yeah, that's a name attached to something, but don't, maybe don't understand the nuts and bolts of how you might participate.

• 1:50:55Speaker 05

  Well, on some, I'm more passive than on others, you know?

• 1:50:59Speaker 05

  And I think, you know, sometimes it's just as simple as me, you know, sending the script around and, and, and writing letters to actors or to studios, urging them to pay attention to it. Um, you know, I'm, I, I haven't been on the ground for any of these films. So I've been, if anything, just like a, uh,

• 1:51:23Speaker 05

  a supporter and, um, and, and a champion and, uh,

• 1:51:32Speaker 05

  yeah, I, I, I,

• 1:51:36Speaker 05

  if any, you know, I, I, I would say that on my first film, without getting into it, I had a very bad experience with a, with, uh, somebody.

• 1:51:48Speaker 05

  And it was horrible and, uh, it made the process of finishing the film like utterly joyless. I mean, that's, that's to say that, that's an understatement. It was torture.

• 1:52:04Speaker 05

  And I really, uh,

• 1:52:08Speaker 05

  I really liked the idea when Lars, my producer, came to me with the idea of starting a production company. I really liked the idea of being a place where we would just kind of protect filmmakers and if we get behind them, it's because we want them to have autonomy and make their film. Like, I'm not going into the, I'm not going into the cut and like, and imposing my will. If anything, I'm trying to protect them from that.

• 1:52:40Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:52:41Speaker 05

  If I can. But, you know, it's just, it's hard. It's hard out there.

• 1:52:46Sean Fennessey?

  I've always been amazed by how you've been able to retain that for yourself because you don't, you don't make movies that have traditional narrative expectation, I'll say. You know, you're always kind of upending where we think we're going. But you have, pretty consistently, it seems like, been able to make the movies that you want to make.

• 1:53:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've been really lucky, you know. I've been lucky that I haven't had to really compromise the films, you know. The argument in post is always about length, you know, that's it. And just because I make, you know, big, long, unwieldy, you know, movies, I like a, I like a novel, you know.

• 1:53:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:28Speaker 05

  But I-

• 1:53:29Sean Fennessey?

  This one's shorter than the last one.

• 1:53:30Speaker 05

  This one's, this one's a lot shorter than the last one. It's a, and, and I, and I think this one's pretty tight.

• 1:53:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:39Speaker 05

  It was a, it was a long process getting it to its final shape.

• 1:53:44Sean Fennessey?

  Is there a lot that was conceived or even written that didn't make it into the movie?

• 1:53:49Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:53:50Sean Fennessey?

  Other strands and ideas that just didn't fit?

• 1:53:53Speaker 05

  Characters, stories, I mean, and there are just a lot of scenes on the, on the cutting room floor. But, but it's all shaping. That's all normal. Actually, there aren't that many scenes on the cutting room floor on this one, to be honest. It's mostly just, it's just been-

• 1:54:13Speaker 05

  It's just, it's just, you know, been made more efficient. So just.

• 1:54:19Sean Fennessey?

  Saving it for the sequel. I get it.

• 1:54:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, the sequel, we'll see. I, it's not really a sequel. It's, but, but there are returning characters.

• 1:54:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Do you see your movies as all happening in the same universe? A Tarantino-esque imagination?

• 1:54:37Speaker 05

  No, no, well, no, but they're all, you know, I,

• 1:54:42Speaker 05

  I, I, I have my sense of humor and I, I like, you know, like I, I, I notice things like, oh, I like, I like to take a head off. You know, that's, that's not going anywhere.

• 1:54:54Sean Fennessey?

  You do like to take a head off.

• 1:54:55Speaker 05

  Which also feels like, the more I think about it, the more that really does actually feel like a relevant image right now is an, is an exploding head. Yeah, I feel like, and, and that's definitely, I think, as.

• 1:55:10Sean Fennessey?

  There's more than one headshot in this new movie.

• 1:55:13Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:55:13Sean Fennessey?

  Multiple headshots.

• 1:55:14Speaker 05

  And really every character's head is exploding in this movie.

• 1:55:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. All right, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen?

• 1:55:25Sean Fennessey?

  You're a cinephile.

• 1:55:27Speaker 05

  Last great thing I've seen, um, I just watched Adam Curtis's Shifty.

• 1:55:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:34Speaker 05

  Fucking amazing.

• 1:55:34Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it too. So, um, can you explain it a little bit for the audience? You don't have to explain what Adam does, but just this one in particular.

• 1:55:42Speaker 05

  Well, it's, it's, uh, it's comprised of archival footage, uh, from basically the end of 1970s to, uh, the, the very end of the 20th century in England. And it functions kind of as like a mirror from the past where you just see, like, you see where we are. In what was happening then, there's a lot of Thatcher. And a lot of, it's really about how nobody knew what was happening. Especially the people in power who are kind of scrambling to hold on to their power.

• 1:56:26Speaker 05

  But it had left them and in some ways they had forfeited it, right? Like that the politicians had forfeited their power. And it's really, you know, tech and finance that was taking everything over. And which of course is where we are now. And, you know, Adam Curtis is just, he's a very sardonic commentator. Usually you have his voice.

• 1:56:56Sean Fennessey?

  I was gonna ask you about this. How do you feel not having his narration in the movie?

• 1:56:59Speaker 05

  Well, the last one, Trauma Zone, didn't have, didn't have anything.

• 1:57:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, same thing as sort of like a five hour expansive nationally located analysis of the end of the century.

• 1:57:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, and also just, just, you know, strictly comprised of archival footage.

• 1:57:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17Speaker 05

  And, you know, he's just an amazing editor and a really great storyteller. And the connections he makes just by putting one video up against another. The connections are just kind of brilliant and provocative and exciting. And he's very funny. And he's, Trauma Zone didn't have any of the things that he likes to do. Like it had no music. It had none of that commentary.

• 1:57:42Sean Fennessey?

  I watched it in a festival setting and it was kind of punishing, like in a good way, but it was, because it was not what I was expecting. But Shifty, I think, sets you, if you've seen Trauma Zone, Shifty, you're like, ready for Shifty.

• 1:57:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, and Shifty feels to me very much like, I mean, I wouldn't say, for me, my, probably my favorite is Can't Get You Out of My Head. That's, but this, this is like a close second. And you still have his voice, it just shows up in text, but that also feels perfect. Because that's sort of, that's a language that the internet has kind of, especially Instagram, you know, where like, where you're just, everything has captions now, even, even when there's sound, you know? And so, and it, I don't know, he's using the language of the moment to tell these stories. And there's something very haunting and eerie.

• 1:58:32Speaker 05

  And ghostly about what he's doing here. I, I, I, I, I loved, I loved Shifty. Everybody should watch it.

• 1:58:38Sean Fennessey?

  It would be an interesting kind of, I don't know if it would be an appetizer because it's five hours long, but something to start with before going to your movie. Cause they're in, in conversation with each other in some ways.

• 1:58:49Speaker 05

  Absolutely. I'm, yeah, he's, he's one of the great, one of the great filmmakers, thinkers,

• 1:58:57Speaker 05

  working right now.

• 1:58:58Sean Fennessey?

  Just like you are. Thanks for doing the show.

• 1:59:00Speaker 05

  No, thank you. Good to see you. Thank you.

• 1:59:07Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Ari Aster. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. We will see some of you live in Chicago. We are screening our number 14 entry in the 25 for 25 series, followed immediately by our conversation on the show. For non-Chicago listeners, we'll see you next week with a draft, recorded live in Chicago. Are you excited? How are you feeling?

• 1:59:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm really excited. I got a pack, so.

• 1:59:30Sean Fennessey?

  I got a pack.

• 1:59:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:31Sean Fennessey?

  What are we doing in Chicago? What else are we doing?

• 1:59:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, we are gonna go to a Cubs game.

• 1:59:35Sean Fennessey?

  Go to a Cubs game.

• 1:59:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I want to go to the Art Institute. I've never been to Chicago. This is my first time.

• 1:59:39Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:59:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm getting some tips about where to get, you know, deep dish and, and stuff. But if there's anything else, like, send us some, send us some recs.

• 1:59:46Sean Fennessey?

  I could go use a restaurant recommendation.

• 1:59:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. When are we going? That's a different combo. Yeah. Cause we kind of have events, but that's okay. We'll work it out.

• 1:59:56Sean Fennessey?

  Should we cancel the events?

• 1:59:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:57Sean Fennessey?

  Just go to dinner? Okay. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.

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