Mean Streets with Miriam Bale

We're heading to Little Italy's San Gennaro festival this week with Griffy Parm, David Bags, and the great Miriam Bale as we chat about 1973's Mean Streets - a major breakthrough for both Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro. Join us as we chat about the seismic impact this film had on American cinema, DeNiro's screen persona, those iconic needledrops, and the ways racism and misogyny permeate the film's atmosphere. Also - did you know this movie was mostly filmed in Los Angeles!?! Listen to Bobby on Off Menu https://open.spotify.com/episode/4IyFppwu5CALsSIijJAy99 Follow @judis.annie on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/judis.annie/?hl=en Read the Next Scorsese series in Esquire https://classic.esquire.com/article/2000/3/1/the-next-scorsese-wes-anderson Listen to SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE https://spiritofthebeehive.bandcamp.com/ Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  We're not paying because this guy, this guy's a fucking podcast.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  But I ain't saying nothing.

• 0:26Griffin Newman?

  And we don't pay podcasts.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Podcast, I'm a podcast.

• 0:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  What's a podcast?

• 0:31David Sims?

  A podcast, what's a podcast? Oh, there's a fourth character, Griffin. This is a disaster.

• 0:38Griffin Newman?

  Ben, take that one, take that line. I don't know.

• 0:41David Sims?

  What's a podcast?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  You can't call me a podcast?

• 0:44Griffin Newman?

  I can't?

• 0:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 0:46Griffin Newman?

  I'll give you podcasts.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 0:50Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 0:51David Sims?

  I guess this is not a movie with like.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Should we all just clap for ourselves?

• 0:55David Sims?

  That was really good. So good.

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  It was a little, a little scene lit. What? What, David? What?

• 1:00David Sims?

  No, I'm thinking about Mean Streets. I'm thinking about how I guess, yeah, it's not, I mean, it has some of the, the, the inner dialogue is very iconic. But the dialogue is iconic just because it's that. It's all them going like, ah, like, you know, like they're just all yelling at each other.

• 1:14Griffin Newman?

  There's a lot of iconic dialogue. I mean, IMDb, of course, points out, uh, repeated line, what's the matter with you?

• 1:20David Sims?

  What's the matter with you?

• 1:21Griffin Newman?

  I just like brackets, repeated line.

• 1:24David Sims?

  That's not even what it's like.

• 1:25Griffin Newman?

  What's the matter with you?

• 1:27David Sims?

  Honorable men go with honorable. Honorable podcasters go with honorable podcasters. That's pretty good.

• 1:32Griffin Newman?

  Attitude of I picked the wrong thing. This was, this was fun. This was a little act out.

• 1:37David Sims?

  I'm just looking at the mean streets lines.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Repeat the word over and over again.

• 1:42David Sims?

  You know what the queen said? If I had balls, I'd be king. I don't remember that.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  This is our first Scorsese session and I gotta tell you.

• 1:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51David Sims?

  Disaster. Off the rails.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  I, watching this movie, it's been a minute. I am feeling so comforted.

• 1:58David Sims?

  If a Ben movie.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  It's not just that it's a Ben movie, but it's reminding me of growing up in northern New Jersey.

• 2:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, hey.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  And the characters that I used to know. And I'm just, I'm thrilled to dive back in.

• 2:11Griffin Newman?

  Are you telling me Mean Streets is autobiographical to your life?

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 2:16Griffin Newman?

  I just like that this movie, I was, I was, I was watching some of the special features on the Criterion Disc. And there is like a promotional featurette, um, that is, let me see what the name of it is. It's called, uh, uh, Martin Scorsese, colon, back on the block. And it almost feels like a National Geographic documentary. They're like, New York City, city of dreams, where some of the wealthiest live. But it also has little neighborhoods. And one of those little neighborhoods is called Little Italy. And would you believe it? A filmmaker came from there named Martin Scorsese.

• 2:53Griffin Newman?

  And now he's back on the block. And it's like Scorsese explaining what his childhood was to create a frame of reference for the movie. You know, that like.

• 3:04David Sims?

  I hear you. I hear you.

• 3:05Griffin Newman?

  The marketing of this film was like, this guy came from a place you can't even imagine. These people that he grew up with, you'd never seen them in movies before.

• 3:15David Sims?

  That was the vibe, right?

• 3:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:17David Sims?

  It's just funny cause like, there's lots of neighborhoods in New York that, uh, were very, very, very Italian.

• 3:23Griffin Newman?

  And some of them were little.

• 3:24David Sims?

  Well, only one of them gets to be a little Italy.

• 3:26Griffin Newman?

  It's rude. Yeah. I remember my parents, uh, saying Little Italy once and I was like, what do you mean Little Italy? And they're like, it's this neighborhood, it's kind of informally called Little Italy. And I was like, why? And they're like, cause the Italians live there. It's so weird. I was like, aren't they?

• 3:41David Sims?

  You put it that way, it sounds patronizing.

• 3:42Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. I was like, what do you mean?

• 3:44David Sims?

  You got your Little Italy, right?

• 3:46Griffin Newman?

  And they're like, no, but it's where the Italian restaurants are. I'm like, I've been to Italian restaurants in other parts of New York City. But this was a little neighborhood.

• 3:54David Sims?

  You can talk, uh, a friend of the show who's on the show. You can, you can jump in.

• 3:58Griffin Newman?

  Guest is the term we usually use. Yeah.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 4:02David Sims?

  Do you like Little Italy?

• 4:04Speaker 03

  I, I, do I like Little Italy?

• 4:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  I mean, sure. I mean, I would say the same when I lived here, when I lived in New York, I liked Little Italy, except for the festival.

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  The festival.

• 4:16David Sims?

  The festival's tough.

• 4:17Griffin Newman?

  Is quite annoying and it's, it's kind of the best part of this movie is it's sort of frustration at.

• 4:22David Sims?

  Like, ah, fucking San Gennaro.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're talking about the San Gennaro festival.

• 4:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Uh, which takes over probably like three, four blocks.

• 4:30David Sims?

  It's really just a couple of blocks. Yeah. It's Mulberry and Mott probably between like now and.

• 4:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, Little Italy is quite small.

• 4:36David Sims?

  Well, Little Italy now is right, is like a historically protected, like two to three block thing. Cause no Italian, not that many Italians actually live there anymore. It's all Chinatown.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  Sure. And then also like Soho and yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  And some restaurants.

• 4:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:51David Sims?

  It's just, there's just those couple of blocks where there's still the, the, you know, you wanna pay a lot of money for red sauce, even though there's a million other places you can get red sauce?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:59David Sims?

  Go there if you want to.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  It feels so touristy these days.

• 5:01David Sims?

  But I mean, it's still kinda fun. Sure. Get some mutz, you know?

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Wait, I saw an interview, um, it was before this, uh, with Scorsese and he was talking about, um, he, it was important for him to set it at the festival. Because it was about the malevolent nature of a celebration.

• 5:19David Sims?

  Fuck yeah. See, he gets it.

• 5:21Griffin Newman?

  That's also a very New York thing where anytime there's a celebration like that, you're like, this city can't handle this right now. This is getting in the way of too many things. We're not a town that can stop and shut down and be like, today is just about San Gennaro.

• 5:36David Sims?

  Didn't you live in an apartment for like a month during San Gennaro?

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show, Ray Tintori.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, when I was going through a breakup, I was couch surfing and our friend Ray was gracious enough to let me stay in his apartment in Little Italy.

• 5:50Griffin Newman?

  And it felt like, oh, this is like a miracle. What a nice place to stay. He's gonna be out of town, working. This is perfect. How, I couldn't have a better setup.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  I realized why he had left town. Because.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  The festival.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  The festival was quite loud and there, it just felt like there was a floodlight directly outside of the window where the bed was.

• 6:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There was, there was like a week or two of you coming into records very frazzled.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 6:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes. This is.

• 6:16David Sims?

  Yes.

• 6:17Griffin Newman?

  Blank check with Griffin and David.

• 6:18David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 6:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm Griffin. You're welcome.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  What's your nickname? Come on.

• 6:23Griffin Newman?

  What's my nickname?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Griff the Grip.

• 6:26Griffin Newman?

  Oh, we're using my, my sportscaster nickname for sure.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  He needs a new one. He's like.

• 6:31David Sims?

  Get a new one.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Griffy, Griffy Parm.

• 6:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure. My name's Griffy Parm.

• 6:36David Sims?

  That's actually really good.

• 6:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, I'm here with my co-host, David Spaghetti.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  I feel like we can plus that up.

• 6:44David Sims?

  That's actually a little offensive.

• 6:48Griffin Newman?

  David's Bag.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  David Gobagool Sims.

• 6:51Griffin Newman?

  I, I think David Spaghetti is really sticky.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  No, I think it's, I think it's David Bags, cause he's got bags on his side.

• 6:57David Sims?

  That's actually pretty good.

• 6:58Griffin Newman?

  What if it's David Bags O-Spaghetti?

• 7:00David Sims?

  No, I, I, I'm not a big spaghetti guy. It's not like, it's like, oh, David, he's always eating his.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  He's always slurping up spaghetti.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  David, what is the matter with you? It's not about what you like. It's about honoring Little Italy.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Of course. David Bags. I love David Bags.

• 7:16Griffin Newman?

  David's Bags, I would say. Uh, it's a podcast about filmography. It's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini-series on the films of Martin Scorsese. And of course it is called Podcast Fellas.

• 7:35David Sims?

  I think it's the best title we've ever come up with.

• 7:37Griffin Newman?

  Podcast Fellas.

• 7:38David Sims?

  Podcast Fellas.

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  One word, rolls off the tongue trippingly.

• 7:41David Sims?

  Do you think we should all just, the, the cover should just be us, you know?

• 7:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, arms crossed.

• 7:45David Sims?

  Arms crossed or?

• 7:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It should be all of us back to back to back, arms crossed, but I wanna be, uh, Ellen Burstyn and Alice doesn't live here anymore.

• 7:53David Sims?

  Cool. And I wanna be, uh, the, the clockwork thing in Hugo.

• 7:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, automaton.

• 7:58David Sims?

  Yeah, that's what I wanna be.

• 8:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And he's, he's writing down the name David Spaghetti. That's what the, that's what the automaton's doing with its pen.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  All right. Well, if we're calling it out, then I wanna be De Niro in Casino with those big sunglasses.

• 8:11David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. That'd be good. Maybe I wanna be Sharon Stone in Casino, actually. Maybe we should just all be in Casino.

• 8:17Griffin Newman?

  Maybe we should just be Casino.

• 8:18David Sims?

  Well, I like Pesci in the Casino. When I was a kid and Casino came out.

• 8:21Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:22David Sims?

  And I was nine or, yeah, nine, 95, right?

• 8:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:26David Sims?

  And I was like, well, I know Casino has dice. And so I really appreciated that Joe Pesci was holding a pair of dice on the poster.

• 8:33Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 8:33David Sims?

  Cause I was like, ah, this, what's this movie about? Dice? Like they make dice? They roll dice?

• 8:37Griffin Newman?

  If I'm paying eight dollars, I better get dice. I don't wanna just see cards. Um.

• 8:42David Sims?

  I remember my mom being like, it's really violent. And I'm like, why? Like, aren't they roll, like playing board games?

• 8:48Griffin Newman?

  They roll the dice and they win or they lose.

• 8:49David Sims?

  They play, well, he's dice. He's literally holding a pair of fucking dice on the poster.

• 8:54Griffin Newman?

  How violent can Yotzy get?

• 8:56David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 8:57Griffin Newman?

  We'll get to that in, in some months from now, but, uh, watching Casino in 4K is quite an experience because you can see, uh, that Joe Pesci's face is literally being pulled back by strings.

• 9:09David Sims?

  He looks crazy in that movie.

• 9:11Griffin Newman?

  That whole era of Pesci, he like, wouldn't get a facelift.

• 9:14David Sims?

  No.

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  But would put like

• 9:16David Sims?

  Rubber bands.

• 9:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 9:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Griffin Newman?

  Underneath a wig. And all those movies now, like, uh, uh, my cousin Vinny's the same way. Were you watching, you're like, what the fuck is going on with his face? We were never supposed to see this this clearly.

• 9:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:30David Sims?

  Beautiful.

• 9:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:31David Sims?

  Who's our guest? She's, she, we have to introduce our guest. Or are we talking about the movie first?

• 9:36Griffin Newman?

  We have to say that this is an episode on Mean Streets.

• 9:38David Sims?

  Mean Streets.

• 9:40Griffin Newman?

  The guarantor.

• 9:41David Sims?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 9:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes. A phenomenon I would maybe call the second first film.

• 9:48David Sims?

  Uh, sure.

• 9:49Griffin Newman?

  Your first

• 9:50David Sims?

  First real debut.

• 9:51Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 9:51David Sims?

  You make other movies, but this is your debut, like Cameron with the Terminator or

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and the Chomolam with Sixth Sense.

• 9:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 9:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. Where this is the first, most people on the street, if you ask them, would say this is the first film. But it's also because this is the movie where everything clicks and the rest of the career is off to the races. We're talking about Mean Streets.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Wait, is Bo- Boxcar Bertha?

• 10:11David Sims?

  Doesn't count. I mean, of course it counts.

• 10:14Griffin Newman?

  Boxcar Bertha. Yeah.

• 10:15David Sims?

  But like, you know, this is kind of also his debut. You know what I mean?

• 10:19Speaker 03

  I mean, I think Who's That Knocking is like very him.

• 10:22David Sims?

  It is. So that's, that's kind of is the spanner in the wrench.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, some of those, yeah, the, the, the like party scenes and stuff. You know, I would make an argument even more than being the debut of, uh, it was like Scorsese's style. It is. I mean, especially with the movement and the music, which we'll get into, but like, I actually, this is a, this is a more of a wild take.

• 10:47Griffin Newman?

  I'm excited to hear this.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  I think this is the debut of De Niro.

• 10:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Oh, yes. That's the big thing.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  He made a lot of movies.

• 10:54David Sims?

  He'd been in stuff, but not, right. Not in any significant way.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  And I think it's almost accidental. Like, cause like, you know, he was maybe gonna play Charlie or like wanted to, and then the only thing left was, um, playing this role. And it wasn't what he was going towards before. Before that, he was like, you know, in the De Palma movies and, you know, he's this guy.

• 11:16Griffin Newman?

  Which are so experimental and yeah, yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  But he's also kind of like a cipher. He's always this like weird creep. And then all of a sudden he comes and he's this like crazy Italian American and that's who he is.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  It's not what he becomes known for. This performance is kind of unique in his career. Undeniably is like what makes him stick.

• 11:36David Sims?

  Yeah. Did he ever play like this kind of wild card? Cause it's like The Untouchables or whatever, where he's over the top. That's different.

• 11:44Griffin Newman?

  It's different. He's gone big before and he's played like charismatic before, but I do think the wild card thing is kind of unique. And it's like off of this Coppola cast him in Godfather Part Two, which is more what we think of.

• 11:57David Sims?

  Yeah, that's, that's

• 11:58Griffin Newman?

  It's the focus, taciturn, right. There's a scariness, but it's, it's quiet.

• 12:03David Sims?

  What's he like? I've never seen The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:07David Sims?

  What's he like in that?

• 12:08Speaker 03

  I was hoping you'd bring that up because I feel like I'm one of 30 people who have seen this.

• 12:11David Sims?

  It's like a couple of years before.

• 12:12Griffin Newman?

  Let's say our guest today is Miriam Bell, maybe breaking the record for longest time in between appearances. But incredibly excited we could get you on this because I feel like you have a lot of early Scorsese context takes.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 12:25Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is one of your

• 12:28Speaker 03

  My guys?

• 12:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  You're not supposed to say that here.

• 12:31Griffin Newman?

  No, we say that here. We say that proudly here.

• 12:33David Sims?

  Of course.

• 12:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I love him. I mean, this was like, I could, I mean, I should, could just get into it. This was, um, for, well, I saw Goodfellas like way too young, way too young. And like, it, it kind of changed my life in a way. But I saw Mean Streets when I was in, as I was studying film production.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm. Okay.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  And this is such a, you're in film school. You love this movie. It has like lines and a bar and sheets, you know, just has all these like accessible things.

• 13:03Griffin Newman?

  It also kind of has the story of like, this, this is kind of the patron saint movie of just like, go out and just make the movie that only you can make. You know, this ethos of what this comes out of and how it does feel like the full emergence of a person. Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. But even more importantly, it's sort of, I mean, it's, it's the personal film, like the, you know, the Cassavetes personal film. And Cassavetes really encouraged him to make this movie because he'd made Boxcar Bertha and he was like, you're just spending a year of your life.

• 13:36David Sims?

  He shat all over it.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:37David Sims?

  Cassavetes is so mean.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  I know. He said that he gave him a big hug. He was always remembered. He gave Manny a big hug.

• 13:43David Sims?

  It's so, it's, I've never forgotten it whenever I've, you know, cause it's, it does feel like something you would be really, you know, made him make Mean Streets, right? The Cassavetes was like, you wasted a year of your life on this shit.

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  The legendary story is that Cassavetes was a mentor of Scorsese's and he shows in Boxcar Bertha, which is like the first movie he does for hire. And he goes, congratulations, you just wasted a year of your life making a piece of shit.

• 14:06David Sims?

  Damn.

• 14:07Griffin Newman?

  And then from there, basically kind of like grabs him by the lapels and says like, you need to make the movie that only you can make, the personal film, the film about you, the thing that comes from you. And, and Scorsese says like that, I never would have, it would have been difficult for me to feel emboldened enough to prioritize Mean Streets, which we'll get into. He had spent like seven years kind of drafting and noodling on. Had, had Cassavetes not said that to him. Yeah. Anyway, sorry.

• 14:36David Sims?

  But it is, you know, do you think Scorsese is good at something? You know, come on, vinegar syndrome is gonna put out a really nice edition of Boxcar Bertha.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  This will be interesting.

• 14:44David Sims?

  It's right. People will watch it and be like, oh, there's stuff here.

• 14:47Griffin Newman?

  It's not nothing.

• 14:48David Sims?

  Come on, John. Give me a break.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  I think John said there's stuff here. It's like the actors are good, but it's a piece of shit.

• 14:53Griffin Newman?

  It also feels like, Cassavetes, like that's what he was like as a director with actors. Like he was a very keen psychological manipulator of knowing what's the thing I need to say to a person to get what I need out of them. And I think that the subtext of that story is he knew that's the way it would fire up Scorsese to actually make the move.

• 15:14David Sims?

  Totally. Right. But Gang Who Shouldn't Shoot, Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, the 1971 James Cole.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Um, yeah. Oh, wait, I was gonna say about this film. Can I finish?

• 15:23Griffin Newman?

  Finish in film school.

• 15:24David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, right. We were

• 15:25Speaker 03

  No, it's okay. I can go all the way. Um, all the way back. Um, so, uh, yeah, I saw this in film school and, um, I loved it and I was, uh, in a sound class, Dan Olmstead, the, the greatest sound mixer. So I wrote a paper on this and, um, was really interested in like the music and like, and how so much of the movement was cut to music. And I was like so into that. And unfortunately, or fortunately, no, I think unfortunately, it led me down a path of writing about movies.

• 15:58Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 15:59David Sims?

  Terrible, terrible news.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I kept going. And then also I would say that this film is like a personal film, like we were saying about Cassavetes, but it's also a genre film. It's like, and the combination of that is why this is like, yeah, the films, like this is, this is the urtext for these kinds of things. It's like, and that was the next step for me, as you guys might know, as I was here before, just listing off films from the 40s. Um,

• 16:23David Sims?

  Hell yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  This is, I'm gonna go back to that. Um, this is like, he, he was really inspired by these like, you know, these especially Warner Brothers crime films of the 30s and, um,

• 16:35David Sims?

  He loves the Cagney movies, right? Like morning 20s.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

• 16:39Griffin Newman?

  But what if you take the plot mechanics out of it? What if it's also a hangout movie?

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, no. And then, so for me, the next step for me for Scorsese is like, he, I, I think he is as important as like a film scholar as he is a filmmaker. Like, I think like, and a, and a film preservationist, like I think that that, so soon after this, I watched like the personal journey through American film.

• 17:01David Sims?

  The best.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  Scorsese, yeah. And then it was just like, my life was changed. Like I was, you know, and so that's my origins where I

• 17:07Griffin Newman?

  No, when, I mean, when I said it's the, the second first film, it's not that I, I, cause I like Who's That Knocking My Door a lot. And I think Boxcar Bertha is interesting, but it's more that thing of like, right, he makes kind of a traditional first film that is like a small, personal focused thing. And then he makes an impersonal genre exercise. And then this is the movie where he's like, I've figured out the entire thing. I have figured out how I can use genre to make my personal statements. Here's the style. Here's one of my key collaborators, you know, something in, it's, it's fascinating to have this be the like, you know, Keitel, De Niro two-hander movie. It's not like those two guys don't coexist in the same movie ever again.

• 17:53Griffin Newman?

  But it does feel like there's a bit of a baton pass here. He always says like, the three actors I had this kind of like primal connection with in my career were Keitel, De Niro and DiCaprio. There's three guys where there's just been the unspoken language. And Keitel starts out as like his Antoine Danielle. It's like, this is my representation on screen. This is the prism through which I'm expressing my things. And then, you know, it's, it's one of those moments where an actor enters a movie, where a character enters a movie and a star is born definitively, inarguably, in a moment. De Niro at the bar in Jumping Jack Flash like changes the course of American movies.

• 18:32David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 18:33Griffin Newman?

  You see Scorsese watch what's happening on screen and going like, there's shit I can do if I have this piece of technology here that I never even considered before.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Well, I think his intro is also the, um, the mailbox, the, the, you see him and to me it's like

• 18:49Griffin Newman?

  It's the thing, it's

• 18:50Speaker 03

  That's like, you see him and it's like, like, I mean, let's just take a moment to appreciate how good looking he is.

• 18:57Griffin Newman?

  He's so hot in this movie.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  He is so hot.

• 18:59Griffin Newman?

  The haircut.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  Robert De Niro.

• 19:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes, incredible.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 19:02Griffin Newman?

  I was obsessed with it in high school.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  And like the bits, it's like Oasis. You know Oasis.

• 19:07David Sims?

  I know Oasis. Entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

• 19:10Griffin Newman?

  Like, uh, you know, on the sideburns.

• 19:12David Sims?

  Yes.

• 19:13Griffin Newman?

  It's, but it has the, like, the kind of like severe bang. It's so good.

• 19:17David Sims?

  What I love about it is that it is the haircut of a guy who probably doesn't think that hard about the haircut he's getting, but he still looks like cute.

• 19:23Griffin Newman?

  A mod roster.

• 19:24David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Kind of casual. It's great. But he's so, yeah, I would say Robert De Niro, he's sort of the mascot of many black women. We love him.

• 19:34David Sims?

  Well, he obviously

• 19:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:37David Sims?

  He's got, he's got a type that is, you know.

• 19:41Griffin Newman?

  Miriam, do you know the awakening story?

• 19:43Speaker 03

  No.

• 19:43Griffin Newman?

  I think I've told this anecdote like five times on a podcast because I do think it's one of the funniest things to ever happen.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:49Griffin Newman?

  But you know, awakenings where he plays this guy with this medical condition who was like frozen in his body.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:56Griffin Newman?

  Basically fully paralyzed for like years and years and years. And there was a scene they were shooting where Robin Williams and De Niro were in a cab or in the back of a car at least. And it was in the period before he has the awakening. So here's De Niro, this incredibly focused, famously sort of intense, methody actor. And he's fully, you know, frozen. And they're just driving around New York City and this guy on the street corner is yelling stuff out, oh, hey, Mark, hey, De Niro. And De Niro is just locked in, you know, unconcerned. Robin Williams is like focused. And then the guy goes, Bobby, you still like that black pussy?

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Did he break?

• 20:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 20:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And Robin Williams was like, it was the only time he ever broke. And he kind of just looked at the guy and like nodded.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Spag.

• 20:48David Sims?

  He's the best.

• 20:48Griffin Newman?

  He's the king.

• 20:49David Sims?

  He's my, I mean, I always shout out to his off menu podcast appearance where they, they ask him, so what's your favorite appetizer? He's like, oh, I don't know, whatever they want to give me. And he, they're like, well, no, you have to pick.

• 21:00Griffin Newman?

  The premise of this show is your dream menu. And he's like, I'd ask the chef whatever's good.

• 21:06David Sims?

  I haven't.

• 21:06Griffin Newman?

  And they're like, don't you own restaurants? And he's like, yeah, just tell them to do whatever they want.

• 21:10David Sims?

  Yeah. And they're like, okay, well, what about the food at your restaurants? Like, yeah, it's good. Yeah.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  You guys, this, this is what I mean. I'm not saying this was the, the birth of De Niro, like his type.

• 21:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  I'm saying this is the birth of him as a person.

• 21:23David Sims?

  Do you remember?

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Because he has zero personality.

• 21:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes, Miriam. It's so fascinating.

• 21:27David Sims?

  Do you remember the who's hotter, De Niro or Pacino debate on Twitter? Do you remember that?

• 21:30Speaker 03

  I don't think, I think I missed it.

• 21:32David Sims?

  It was such a war. It was a few years ago.

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 21:35David Sims?

  And it is just one of those things where it's like, I don't know, like, pick your day. You know, like, you know, like, aren't we who you prefer?

• 21:41Griffin Newman?

  They're such different guys.

• 21:42David Sims?

  They're both sexy. They're also both kind of odd. Like they're both like these funny little guys, but they both can also kind of shock you with how, you know, beautiful they are.

• 21:51Griffin Newman?

  De Niro was more conventionally handsome.

• 21:54David Sims?

  De Niro's a little more handsome.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Oh, you think so?

• 21:55Griffin Newman?

  I think so. Yeah.

• 21:57David Sims?

  Because Pacino's so pretty.

• 21:59Griffin Newman?

  I think Pacino's more pretty and Pacino's a little scary, you know?

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Ah, I prefer De Niro, but I think that Pacino's beautiful. Yeah.

• 22:09Griffin Newman?

  Pacino's beautiful.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  He's gorgeous.

• 22:10David Sims?

  He's so beautiful.

• 22:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  That's like.

• 22:13David Sims?

  I guess we're not going to talk about it.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Talk about what?

• 22:16Griffin Newman?

  We're not going to talk about young Pacino?

• 22:17David Sims?

  No, young Pacino in Scorsese's career. It's, you know, you gotta wait for old Pacino.

• 22:20Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I just spent the weekend in Wisconsin with J.J. Bersh, our researcher.

• 22:26David Sims?

  That's right.

• 22:26Griffin Newman?

  And he was saying, I don't know if he made it, made into the dossier because J.J. vets his information very thoroughly. But he, he asked me, he was like, had you ever heard this anecdote that Scorsese wanted Pacino to play Johnny boy?

• 22:42David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 22:42Griffin Newman?

  And Pacino just straight up turned it down? And then they don't work together, obviously for like 40 years?

• 22:48David Sims?

  I mean, like Pacino had already been in The Godfather. So like, it would have been like, right. I mean.

• 22:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Well, Pacino was supposed to be in The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight. And that's how.

• 22:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  And then De Niro got it because he was making The Godfather. But I, I hadn't heard that about, about for Mean Streets and Pacino, who was, who he wanted to play, which doesn't make sense at all, John Voight.

• 23:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:11Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 23:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:13David Sims?

  That's interesting.

• 23:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. But I think that was also a little bit of like, would that appease the studio?

• 23:18David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 23:19David Sims?

  And we can look at the dossier, but like, wait, as, because you mentioned again, The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight. I just want to ask, what is De Niro? That's in, Jerry Orbach is the star of that.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, that's the crazy thing. This is the crazy thing is like, it was written for Marcello Mastriani.

• 23:32David Sims?

  That sounds pretty good.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then he, he admitted towards when they were getting close to production that he couldn't speak English.

• 23:41Griffin Newman?

  Perfect.

• 23:42David Sims?

  Perdone.

• 23:43Griffin Newman?

  It's the right time.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  So they replaced him with Jerry Orbach.

• 23:47David Sims?

  I mean, we love.

• 23:48Griffin Newman?

  One to one. Yeah.

• 23:50David Sims?

  I mean, Jerry Orbach makes more sense as like a New York tough. He's not Italian, but he was, you know.

• 23:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:56David Sims?

  He was close enough.

• 23:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. It would have been weirder to have Marcello Mastriani. Yeah, but yeah, okay.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Well, and, and De Niro actually plays in Italian. He plays in Italian, like a kleptomaniac Italian.

• 24:05David Sims?

  Mario Trontino.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:07David Sims?

  So is he silly? Like, is he kind of in more of a silly mode?

• 24:10Speaker 03

  So this is the weird thing is like, I've interviewed De Niro and I think one of the things he really hate, I mean, you know, he, he barely says anything in an interview, but he, I think you can tell he's annoyed with this idea that he started comedy in the 2000s with analysis or with like Midnight Run or something. Because he was doing comedy in the beginning and like, he was doing comedy with, with De Palma. And this is like a straight up comedy. Is it good? No, it's not. It's very bad.

• 24:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  It's so bad. It's like very, it doesn't work. So they were thinking at first Mean Streets would be kind of like the gangster comedy.

• 24:47Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  And they were like, oh, like the gang who couldn't shoot straight. But then the gang who couldn't shoot straight was, didn't work.

• 24:53Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  Like it was a failure. So at first they were like, oh yeah, De Niro will be in like shorts and shooting. And, you know, when we see him, when he walks down that street, you're talking, the, in the bar, he's like in his boxers. So I think in the beginning, he was like doing these kind of zany comedy roles. I mean, this is the thing, he's like, we're talking about Little Italy, but like, De Niro's from the village.

• 25:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  He's from like, he has artist parents. He went to the Little Red School.

• 25:21Griffin Newman?

  It's very different.

• 25:22Speaker 03

  He's like, he's like, it's so, it's like a couple of blocks, but it's such a difference. And I like.

• 25:27David Sims?

  He talks about, I didn't know those guys as well, like in the, the Marty doc.

• 25:31Griffin Newman?

  He had proximity. He understood it. He saw these things.

• 25:34David Sims?

  And he's Irish Italian.

• 25:35Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 25:36David Sims?

  He's let, he's not full Italian.

• 25:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  He's Irish? His mom is Irish?

• 25:39David Sims?

  His father is Irish Italian. His mother is like a sort of Dutch English.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Like WASP-y.

• 25:46David Sims?

  Uh, and his dad was like a lapsed Catholic. So there was no real like religion in the same way. Like it's not like, it's not the Marty thing of like, I mean, Marty is just like a child's cartoon of a little Italian American boy. Well, you know, with his, with his vaguely mobbed up dad and his mom just like constantly stirring a big pot of sauce.

• 26:06Griffin Newman?

  And him looking at a window with asthma.

• 26:08David Sims?

  Right. And then living in a tiny apartment with a bunch of people and like, you know, like everyone in the neighborhood knows each other and they play stickball and shit.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  But there's something to De Niro.

• 26:17David Sims?

  He knows priests.

• 26:18Griffin Newman?

  De Niro having like the same reference points without the same lived experiences in a way.

• 26:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Griffin Newman?

  That, that I do think gives him this sort of like, this expressive elasticity and what he can put on screen that's different than Scorsese's very like personal experience.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I think that they're both kind of outsiders because of the whole asthma thing. So they're both kind of like, know the thing, but I don't see either of these guys getting in big stakes, big fights, you know? I think they're there.

• 26:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  They're like, they're observers. They're insider outsider. So that's like, where they overlap.

• 26:51Griffin Newman?

  It's a thing Scorsese said that, well, I'm making the movie about my experiences and being this age and growing up with these people and all of this. And then he said, I think years later, when he rewatched the movie, he's like, this is actually about like my dad and my uncle.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Well, Charlie, that's his dad.

• 27:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's like, this isn't my lived experience. I said it in the present day. I gave it the milieu of the songs I grew up on and the outfits and, and the language. But actually in terms of the characters.

• 27:17David Sims?

  He didn't have this crisis of like, am I too close to this criminal life and all that?

• 27:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 27:23David Sims?

  Like in the same way.

• 27:24Griffin Newman?

  Right. He was like, am I going to be a priest or a director? It wasn't.

• 27:28David Sims?

  He was too little to get in trouble.

• 27:30Griffin Newman?

  But it is this thing that is a little lost time. I think you're right, Miriam, which is like those early De Palma movies, because what De Niro and De Palma go on to do separately are so different and loom so large. People forget that those early movies are like closer to like Matt Johnson films, that they're like weird sort of exercises. They're almost like multimedia projects and they're really kind of using De Niro as like, if not a purely comedic figure, it's like, this is a guy who's just like boundless energy, pushing boundaries. I said bound fucking twice. And then, and then, you know, like Mean Streets is harnessing that into a dramatic context.

• 28:14Griffin Newman?

  And then Godfather part two, like just sets the mold for how he's seen forever.

• 28:20David Sims?

  Little bit.

• 28:21Griffin Newman?

  I feel like he was like a phenom. There was obviously Panic at Needle Park happened pretty early. And even when people were like, are audiences ready for this guy as a leading man? There was a type he had established in the way he could sort of hold the center and the focus and this nervy sort of unconventional protagonist that was very different than what De Niro was doing up until this point.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  You know, I have a question. What do you think his like, natural accent is? Because I don't think-

• 28:52Griffin Newman?

  That's a really good question.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  I don't think he has one. I mean, I think it's, I think he has a voice.

• 28:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  And I think like you hear it in those-

• 28:58Griffin Newman?

  He talks like this. Right, right.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  He talks like this and he has like, he's kind of gravelly and you hear it in the things and it's like, great. But I think that he obviously, you know, from his Italian-American family, he heard some of this in his neighborhood.

• 29:09Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  But I think it's kind of, I think it's kind of a role. I think he's sort of like, um, you know, what you hear about Peter Sellers, like, just kind of a blank.

• 29:18David Sims?

  Right, and then like, he would just reflect something, you know, but he was, right? If there was no real guy that you could find.

• 29:24Griffin Newman?

  It's interesting, I mean, he is famously one of the worst interviewers. Interview subjects alive, right?

• 29:29David Sims?

  Essentially always, although once in a while, you'll see like, someone he knows essentially get a little more out of him.

• 29:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:36David Sims?

  I mean, and don't ask him about our President Donald Trump, who I support, but De Niro seems to have a-

• 29:40Griffin Newman?

  What does he do? He applauds him, he hands him medals?

• 29:42David Sims?

  He has a couple nitpicks about it.

• 29:43Griffin Newman?

  His favorite thing about De Niro is just, and it's-

• 29:46Speaker 03

  It's so crazy.

• 29:46David Sims?

  Any of these guys, to be clear, I don't support Donald Trump. Um, but like, you know, just like when you're like, he's such an amazing actor, he's got such a long legacy. He's like, oh, I watch MSNBC all day, I think Trump sucks. You know, like, they're just so like, regular boomer dad about politics.

• 30:02Griffin Newman?

  And also every time he gets up and is like, I'm presenting the breakout artist award to Harris Dickinson. Fuck Donald Trump. He does it with an energy as like, maybe this takes him down?

• 30:13David Sims?

  Yeah, right, like, you know, I think it might be time to say it, uh, Trump no good.

• 30:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  He's so crazy about it, but then maybe he's the only one who's not crazy about it.

• 30:20David Sims?

  That's right. I think Bobby's right.

• 30:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  He absolutely is.

• 30:24Griffin Newman?

  I was going to say that I have heard people who have worked with De Niro in interviews been like, he's very protective of his process.

• 30:33David Sims?

  Totally.

• 30:33Griffin Newman?

  That unlike Peter Sellers where there was this kind of like, there is no me. I am just weirdly like a conduit for these things. I can't talk about this shit. That De Niro, there like, is a very specific process, but it's entirely, entirely internalized. And that part of it for him is that he feels like it needs to be private.

• 30:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Griffin Newman?

  So that even the people who are right up next to him are like, there's something going on. It's not just that he's like, a savant. It's not just that he's like, a cipher. There's intentionality and there's like, work and there's effort. But he really doesn't want to talk about what he's pulling from.

• 31:11David Sims?

  But I wouldn't be able to go up to him and be like, would I be able to talk to him about the Mets or something? Like, what I've never, like-

• 31:18Griffin Newman?

  That's my feel.

• 31:18David Sims?

  Like, can I get him just chatting?

• 31:20Speaker 03

  I think like, just from like, the brief times I tried to interview him, he's communicating, but it's not in words. It's all in body language. Which is really hard to transcribe.

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  But he's communicating really well. I just think he's sort of somewhat non-verbal. And so you got this kind of like, non-verbal guy who meets motor mouth Marty.

• 31:38Griffin Newman?

  That's also what's so interesting about him being a motor mouth in this. I was struggling to think of another performance where he is this verbal.

• 31:46David Sims?

  I mean, like, I think of, hmm, I don't know.

• 31:50Griffin Newman?

  Where he's non-stop, you know?

• 31:52David Sims?

  Where is he non-stop? Cause there's like, stuff in his later career, like Silver Linings Playbook, where he has like, big kind of like, yelly speeches and stuff.

• 32:00Griffin Newman?

  But that's, that's the, that's the De Niro explosion.

• 32:02David Sims?

  It's the explosion, it's not-

• 32:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 32:03David Sims?

  What about The Comedian? Uh?

• 32:06Griffin Newman?

  I haven't seen his set yet.

• 32:08David Sims?

  Have you seen Taylor Hackford's The Comedian?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  No, I missed it. I heard, I remember it.

• 32:12David Sims?

  He does a lot of stand-up comedy. And my memory, it's De Niro-esque, but he's still doing, you know, this.

• 32:18Griffin Newman?

  But I was gonna say, isn't that like, a movie where people go, it feels unnatural to watch you do this?

• 32:23David Sims?

  I mean, my brain has erased it, clearly as a trauma response, so yes, uh-

• 32:27Griffin Newman?

  That movie's co-written by Jeff Ross?

• 32:30David Sims?

  Good.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Does he talk a lot in Dirty Grandpa?

• 32:33David Sims?

  Oh, let me, uh, let me, uh, see your ass. That's what I imagine Dirty Grandpa saying.

• 32:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you know, I have seen it.

• 32:40David Sims?

  There's the part in Dirty Grandpa where he raps, right? Doing karaoke.

• 32:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:44David Sims?

  And he asks the audience if he can say the N-word and they say that he can and then he does, right? I've seen that clip. Well, I've just seen that clip because people have posted, because the whole thing with De Niro is like, he made 200 movies.

• 32:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:56David Sims?

  140 of them are bad.

• 32:58Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 32:58David Sims?

  And so you can find these clips where it's like, do you know that De Niro did this?

• 33:01Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 33:02David Sims?

  You know, it's like, people post Al Pacino doing Dunkachino.

• 33:04Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say.

• 33:05David Sims?

  I'm like, give it a break. De Niro has endless that, you know?

• 33:09Griffin Newman?

  The stuff that De Niro has done on screen is wild. But I think you're right that when he does something that feels outside of these sort of basic cultural understanding of the De Niro archetype, it basically just gets memory washed. People just don't keep that shit in their head.

• 33:26David Sims?

  It doesn't matter, he's still bulletproof.

• 33:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 33:28David Sims?

  He could make shit for another 100 years, maybe he will.

• 33:31Griffin Newman?

  But even when he does it well, like, even when he stretches outside of his sort of obvious movie star persona successfully, I feel like within five years, people are still just reducing him to the 10 big.

• 33:41David Sims?

  You've seen Alton Knight?

• 33:43Griffin Newman?

  I have.

• 33:44David Sims?

  So he's two characters in that, or either of them big?

• 33:47Griffin Newman?

  You know what, yes. I actually-

• 33:49David Sims?

  Like, one of them's big?

• 33:49Griffin Newman?

  I actually think he's very good in Alton Knight.

• 33:51David Sims?

  Frank Costello is probably the bigger one, or like, which of the two guys?

• 33:55Griffin Newman?

  One of them, he is clearly playing Pesci.

• 33:58David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 33:59Griffin Newman?

  One of them, he's playing like, more the elderly De Niro archetype.

• 34:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 34:03Griffin Newman?

  And one of them feels like him doing, trying, it, it looks so fun to be the Joe Pesci guy in a movie. Cause I guess that's the other part of it, is Pesci starts to be the Johnny boy, standing next to De Niro as the strong silent type, right? As the person who's struggling to communicate with words.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  That's true, actually. Well, so I think, like, I think there's some conflicting stuff in, as far as biographies I've said, I've read. But I think that they started shooting with Harvey Keitel and, so basically like, it was October. The festival was coming. They didn't have all the funding, they didn't have everything together. So they're like, if we don't shoot now, we have to wait till next year in October to do it. So they shot some stuff with Harvey Keitel and, um, I, I'm not, this is where I'm not sure, but I think he met De Niro, like, De Niro met Scorsese or officially really met at some-

• 34:59Griffin Newman?

  Remet, yeah.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Or at some party at Christmas after that October. And so then he was like, oh, you can play anything, but you can't play Charlie because it's already this. And he was annoyed.

• 35:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he wanted to play Charlie.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  He wanted to play Charlie. But then he ran into, um, Harvey Keitel on the street and they were just like, they started laughing. They were just like, okay, you're, you're an actor too, this is gonna be fine. But I think, yeah, so he played the Joe Pesci, he played the crazy guy.

• 35:24Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, and-

• 35:25David Sims?

  And that's just something he doesn't get to do much.

• 35:28Griffin Newman?

  Alton Knight, he does play the old man version of it.

• 35:30David Sims?

  And Alton Knight is as good as Mean Streets, right?

• 35:33Griffin Newman?

  No, it's better than Mean Streets.

• 35:35David Sims?

  Okay, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Marty could never, um-

• 35:38David Sims?

  Do you think Marty saw Alton Knight? Do you think Marty sees everything De Niro makes?

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Definitely not.

• 35:42David Sims?

  Like, De Niro's like, I made a movie with Sebastian Minsko, you gotta watch it. And Marty's like, okay, all right.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Life is short.

• 35:48Griffin Newman?

  I think he watches most of it.

• 35:50David Sims?

  Cause he watches a lot of movies.

• 35:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it does feel like he's very invested in Bob's career, you know? Like, it does feel like there's a sense of like, I want to keep up with what Bob's doing. I think, I think De Niro hasn't seen all the movies De Niro's done.

• 36:08David Sims?

  I'm sure he hasn't.

• 36:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:09David Sims?

  That's all good.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Wait, you guys keep saying that there aren't a lot of like, wild card roles for De Niro. But what about like, Cape Fear and Taxi Driver?

• 36:17David Sims?

  But those are all like, scary guys, right? And it's like, Cape Fear, he is so, so big, that's just so true. But like, by wild card, I mean the kind of jokey, like, character in a group of guys where there's the wild card who's kind of like, he might put a fucking firecracker in a mailbox, right?

• 36:34Griffin Newman?

  The guy who's, and the guy who's the motor.

• 36:36David Sims?

  Yeah, who's just like, ah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? And it's like, so often, yes, there's stuff like Cape Fear, but like, in like, Brazil, he's so funny and weird.

• 36:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:45David Sims?

  But that movie is not a reality-based movie.

• 36:50Griffin Newman?

  Those also feel like when he's doing kind of character actor-y stuff. Even Cape Fear where he's like, a lead, but he's obviously not the protagonist of the story.

• 36:58David Sims?

  But like, in the 80s, in the 70s, it's the Godfather 2 stuff. So it's like, 1900 and last, right, like, all that. The 80s, it's the Raging Bull stuff, so I feel like it's like-

• 37:08Griffin Newman?

  Transformation.

• 37:09David Sims?

  Um, that's true, but also just like, you know, more like, intense scary characters. I want to sort him by, uh, chronology here, cause actually, this is- There's so much to talk about.

• 37:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  I know, we haven't even started.

• 37:23David Sims?

  I know, God.

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is all about it.

• 37:25David Sims?

  We're talking about De Niro.

• 37:27Griffin Newman?

  No, because I think you are right, Miriam.

• 37:29David Sims?

  I guess he really didn't make a lot of movies in the eighties. But like, Once Upon a Time in America is like that, the mission is like that. Like Angel Heart, these like stoic characters. And then like, the nineties, I've never seen Jackknife. Have you ever seen Jackknife?

• 37:42Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen Jackknife.

• 37:43David Sims?

  That is a classic. I would pull that off the shelf at Blockbuster or at the video store all the time, being like, what is this movie?

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:49David Sims?

  Vietnam Vet Movie.

• 37:50Griffin Newman?

  And it's just, the poster is just a painting of De Niro with a beard and a Boston Red Sox hat?

• 37:54David Sims?

  He does have a Red Sox hat. But you know, the nineties of like, Goodfellas, let's, let's put Cape Fear aside, but like, Goodfellas, Bronx Tale, you know, Casino Heat, Sleepers, like these movies, Ronin, where he's just like the, the impassive guy.

• 38:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:09David Sims?

  And he also did do like Jackie Brown in This Boy's Life and Frankenstein. He did a lot of weird shit too.

• 38:14Griffin Newman?

  Jackie Brown, he's so funny. And but Jackie Brown, the whole thing is how withdrawn.

• 38:17David Sims?

  I know, it's hysterical.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  And then he breaks, oh yeah, that's another kind of wild card. But I mean, it's like, it's a silent until he breaks.

• 38:24David Sims?

  Sexy in that movie makes me laugh so hard.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  Please, thank you, I, it was in, you read my mind. This is his sexiest era, Heat and Jackie Brown, for me. I think this is, I mean, I've thought this-

• 38:34Griffin Newman?

  The nineties era is for you the sexiest.

• 38:36David Sims?

  What about, what about Midnight Run? I always go back for him. He's so hot in Midnight Run.

• 38:42Griffin Newman?

  He's so hot.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Midnight Run is one of his best performances, but I wouldn't say his hottest. I feel like there's something about that little bit later, yeah, just that nineties, like that, that, there's, uh, yeah.

• 38:51Griffin Newman?

  You like sad mustache De Niro, like hopland, yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that it's just, I mean, I just think it's objectively his hottest. I mean, some might say this is Mean Streets, I don't know.

• 39:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I guess Wag the Dog is almost him doing something similar-

• 39:07David Sims?

  He's fucking great in Wag the Dog.

• 39:09Griffin Newman?

  To this.

• 39:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 39:10Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 39:10David Sims?

  I love that performance.

• 39:12Griffin Newman?

  Like, it's-

• 39:13David Sims?

  He rocks. You know what? De Niro's not so bad.

• 39:15Griffin Newman?

  We think De Niro's a good actor.

• 39:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 39:17Griffin Newman?

  That's our official stance on Blank Check. I, I think what is Miriam is what you're saying, that like, Coppola was mentor to all of these guys, right? He watches Mean Streets and is like, fuck, that's my young Corleone. And that's not an obvious move. It was kind of genius to see him and go like, if this guy stops talking, but that energy is still there, it's going to be really captivating to watch. And that's a performance where he doesn't talk that much, and all the talking he does is in Italian. And he wins an Oscar basically for physical presence. And for how much he's able to communicate just in his body silently.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, before the gang who couldn't shoot straight, he went to Sicily, so-

• 39:57David Sims?

  To learn Italian.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  To like, to practice Italian. But the, the character is from Calabria, so I think, like, was he, was he gaming for this? Like, was he?

• 40:06David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:07David Sims?

  I think they're gonna do a prequel. I'm gonna be Brando.

• 40:21Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 40:21David Sims?

  Yes?

• 40:25David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's Cow?

• 40:27Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's Cow is back.

• 40:28David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 40:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 40:34David Sims?

  Okay.

• 40:35Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 40:39David Sims?

  Wow.

• 40:40Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 40:42David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up. While, while you, while you tell the, the great listeners about the great stuff on MUBI.

• 40:48Griffin Newman?

  Well, MUBI is a global film company, bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what MUBI does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 41:02David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 41:03Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 41:09David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 41:10Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 41:12David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest, a great friend.

• 41:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:18David Sims?

  Um, this movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 41:23Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 41:24David Sims?

  Legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 41:26Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show-

• 41:27David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 41:29Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 41:30David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 41:31Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 41:32David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, won the Queer Palmitin. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like, it obviously has, it was out in theaters, uh, this summer, and now it's on MUBI.

• 41:42Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to, to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 41:56David Sims?

  At Camp Miasma, yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 42:01Griffin Newman?

  What happens? It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being, uh, an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 42:13David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on MUBI, and you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/blankcheck. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 42:30David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 42:36Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 42:37David Sims?

  Yes?

• 42:37Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 42:41David Sims?

  When I was younger,

• 42:42Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:43David Sims?

  I really would have benefited from a bank that did not charge me fees anytime I did anything, basically, which is, I feel like, what I was always dealing with.

• 42:51Griffin Newman?

  Chime, that's where Chime comes in. Chime.

• 42:54David Sims?

  They're changing the way people bank. They're not like traditional banks who charge fees and get keep perks and rewards. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, and no minimum balance fees, okay?

• 43:08Griffin Newman?

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• 43:10David Sims?

  You're gonna get 5% cash back on a Chime card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries.

• 43:15Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 43:16David Sims?

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• 43:30Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free.

• 43:30David Sims?

  So, join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/blankcheck. That is chime.com/blankcheck. Sign up now, it only takes a few minutes.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 44:09David Sims?

  All right, I'm gonna open the dossier, actually, just so we can stay on track a little bit. So, Mean Streets, originally called, Miriam, do you know?

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Season of the Witch.

• 44:16Griffin Newman?

  Fascinating.

• 44:17David Sims?

  You know, and they, Marty correctly was like, Cage is gonna want that. I assume Nicholas Coppola was what, like, five years old?

• 44:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 44:25David Sims?

  He was like, we'll save that for Nick Cage.

• 44:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Is it a reference to the Donovan song?

• 44:29David Sims?

  I think it's a reference to the song and to the festival, right? And all that, you know, and it's like, the kind of like, you know, you're playing with the devil.

• 44:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:37David Sims?

  I mean, the way the club is like all red, and it's like the underworld, or, you know, like, Mean Streets is better. Mean Streets is a great title. I don't think Mean Streets can really be beat as a title. Um, this is his long gestating passion project. Uh, he works on it with his college classmate, Mardik Martin.

• 44:54Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, I just want, I, I want to-

• 44:56David Sims?

  He's interrupting me.

• 44:58Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I, I wanted to be correct about this. The, the movie they're watching with Vincent Price.

• 45:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 45:08Griffin Newman?

  That's, is that the Witchfinder general?

• 45:10David Sims?

  I mean, that's a classic Vincent Price movie, but-

• 45:12Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  No.

• 45:13David Sims?

  I don't think it would be now. It looks like a dumber Vincent Price movie.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  It's a Roger Corman movie.

• 45:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right, okay.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  It's, um, which is a-

• 45:20David Sims?

  Witchfinder General is the Vincent Price movie that's like really intense. And like, his performance in it is so magnificent, it's not trashy.

• 45:28Griffin Newman?

  Right, but there is the Season of the Witch movie.

• 45:32David Sims?

  Well, that is a Romero movie that has two titles. No, it's not.

• 45:36Griffin Newman?

  Okay, okay.

• 45:37David Sims?

  It's not a reference to anything.

• 45:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 45:39David Sims?

  So, uh, Mardik Martin, so Mardik Martin worked on what? On Who's That Knocking at My Door, on New York, New York, on Raging Bull.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  And What You Want.

• 45:46David Sims?

  You know, like, the, the early Scorsese collaborator.

• 45:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 45:49David Sims?

  Am I saying it right? This is our first episode.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Martin Scorsese?

• 45:55David Sims?

  How do I say it?

• 45:55Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese.

• 45:56David Sims?

  Scorsese. Miriam, I feel like you.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  I feel like it's Scorsese.

• 46:01David Sims?

  Scorsese.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  I feel like I've heard him say Scorsese and like.

• 46:04David Sims?

  He's one of those guys who's going, oh, it's fine.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  You know what's funny? I saw an old comedian talking like on the David Letterman Show and he was like Coppola. And he was like Coppola? It's like he doesn't know how to pronounce his name. This was in like the early eighties. And he's actually right. It's actually Coppola.

• 46:21David Sims?

  Americans don't know how to pronounce their. I mean, his name is a transcription error.

• 46:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:26David Sims?

  The family was Scossazi or what is it? Scossi with double Z's in Sicily, which means Scottish or something like, you know, in Italian. And then it was changed when they, you know, moved.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:38David Sims?

  Because someone wrote it down wrong or whatever.

• 46:40Griffin Newman?

  I feel like the effort to correct the last 15 years has been towards Scorsese versus Scorsese.

• 46:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:47David Sims?

  Yeah. It used to, everyone used to say Scorsese and that's wrong.

• 46:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:50David Sims?

  I think.

• 46:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:52David Sims?

  Ben?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  I've just been saying that the whole time.

• 46:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:54David Sims?

  You're wrong! All right. I think. Uh, Scorsese, okay, so.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  Do you feel okay? How do you, do you feel familiar enough to say Marty?

• 47:03Griffin Newman?

  Can we just, can we give ourselves permission to call him Marty?

• 47:06David Sims?

  Marty, of course. You've worked with him.

• 47:08Griffin Newman?

  I have, I called him Marty.

• 47:09David Sims?

  I have been in his office and screening room, but he wasn't there.

• 47:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:14David Sims?

  Uh, but I watched Killers of the Flower Moon in his office. I'm sure I'll bring it up a million more times.

• 47:18Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, that's where you saw the Super Mario Galaxy movie?

• 47:23David Sims?

  So, uh, Mardik, uh, and him sat down, they work out the structure of this movie. They work out the characters, they work out the incidents. Uh, I guess, who's that knocking at my door?

• 47:32Griffin Newman?

  This was originally meant to be a continuation.

• 47:36David Sims?

  A continuation of that.

• 47:36Griffin Newman?

  Anton D'Oniel style. I'm following this guy Charlie will be my analog across stages.

• 47:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 47:42Griffin Newman?

  In life. And when this movie came out, he said he was going to make a third film of him settling down and having a family that was.

• 47:49David Sims?

  Fucking bed and board or whatever, like the third.

• 47:51Griffin Newman?

  But also like Italian American, like I want to represent my family life that I've put into this documentary through this fictional character.

• 47:58David Sims?

  That's interesting.

• 47:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it was, I think it was written but never made.

• 48:02David Sims?

  Sounds kind of boring, but it's kind of in a fun way.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  I don't think I read it, but I, so he started this Mean Streets season of The Witch in like, did you say the date? Like mid 60s, right?

• 48:11David Sims?

  It's like 65 is where he puts it, basically maybe 66, like, and obviously it's inspired by his, his life a little bit. But as you guys already said, like, he wasn't in a gang. They didn't really get in fights. They hung out in bars and picked up girls or whatever, but like they didn't even smoke pot, he said, like, really? Like, you know, we were not like.

• 48:31Griffin Newman?

  He's got asthma, for God's sake.

• 48:32David Sims?

  He's got asthma. He didn't really do the hard stuff.

• 48:35Griffin Newman?

  No. Years later, Martin Scorsese would, yes, identify his nose and the possibilities.

• 48:41David Sims?

  Ah, my lungs aren't connected. Well, they are, but I mean.

• 48:45Griffin Newman?

  It's a less direct route, yeah.

• 48:48David Sims?

  Marty has been working, to be clear, was working on Mean Streets for a long time before like The Godfather was ever thought of. Because when this movie comes out, I think it draws comparisons to The Godfather because like, press is probably a little like.

• 49:00Griffin Newman?

  Italian American gangster.

• 49:02David Sims?

  Yeah, right, you know? That's an epic film, obviously this is the opposite. The priest, uh, who has the young man test his hand against the flame of a candle, that comes from like a retreat he went on, uh, with, you know, other boys, you know? So that's, that's a memory that's, uh, that's real. As you said, Miriam, right? Did you, some, one of, one of you two said like, it's really his father, he realized.

• 49:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 49:25David Sims?

  Is the story, right? Film screenplay initially was much harder on the religious aspects, uh, to make a story of a modern saint in his own society, where the society happens to be gangsters.

• 49:37Griffin Newman?

  But also more reflective of our friend Marty's personal experience, which was like, do I, do I go into the parish or do I make movies? You know, really being pulled between the two as equal forces rather than in this where it just feels like it's kind of a thing hanging over his head, but not the active tug.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, so I think like some of the difference, so I think some of the religious stuff changed. And then also he developed the Teresa character a little more. Um, and then I think, I think a big influence on developing the screenplay was, um, uh, Sandy Weintrip was his girlfriend at the time.

• 50:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  And her dad was a studio exec and, uh, she's in the film, I think, playing Heather Weintrip.

• 50:23Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:23Speaker 03

  So she said, you gotta put some more of your funny stories in there. You know, like, I think he had his like thing, he's like, put in the mooc story, put in the firecracker story, put in this kind of stuff. So I think, um, yeah, what do you guys think? I mean, maybe we're not ready for that, but what do you think of the women in this film?

• 50:40Griffin Newman?

  Look, it is, and, and he talks about it. It's why he went straight to Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore after this, because even from this film, people were saying, eh, this guy doesn't really know how to put women on screen.

• 50:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 50:54Griffin Newman?

  Like this early on, he felt the need to combat that.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:57Griffin Newman?

  It definitely feels like, um, it's interesting. I, I think Amy Robinson's really fucking good in this movie.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:04Griffin Newman?

  I also think it's interesting that in the way we're talking about this being positioned as an autobiographical film, but him acknowledging, I didn't actually really live, you know, walk the walk and talk the talk of these characters. I watched these guys. That her and her epilepsy does feel.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Okay, she's, Amy Robinson's Teresa.

• 51:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Who is De Niro's cousin in the film.

• 51:31Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. And, and Charlie's love interest.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she was friends with, I think she worked with De Palma, so she knew like Margot.

• 51:38David Sims?

  Yeah, she worked on Sisters and stuff.

• 51:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:40Griffin Newman?

  But her epilepsy feels a little bit like an analog for Scorsese's, uh, asthma to me.

• 51:47David Sims?

  Maybe, yeah.

• 51:48Griffin Newman?

  This feeling of, here is someone in and of this community who's looking to get just a little bit out.

• 51:54David Sims?

  And one is treated a little, like, it's not a community that knows how to, like, empathetically deal with someone who has a condition.

• 52:01Griffin Newman?

  But like, you can't be tough, you can't be in this action because you're too delicate and everyone being, right, yeah.

• 52:10David Sims?

  Read the women. I also just think it's like, it is fairly reflective of what I imagine these men, like how they perceived women.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  Maybe, I mean, it's not like, who's that knocking? Straight up sexist, just garbage, like someone named Girl, like just real bad.

• 52:24David Sims?

  I would say, I mean, I think Marty is pretty down on Who's That Knocking, right? Like, he's like, it's kind of sucks, like, I mean, in a nice way, but he's sort of like, it's kind of a mess. Uh, I agree. Who's That Knocking is so juvenile, like not, and not in like a, the humor way or anything. It's just like, it's just all these juvenile ideas bouncing around in his head. But yeah, I mean, like, you know, look, Anna Paquin will be silently sitting for every episode. I already made that clear, right?

• 52:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 52:49David Sims?

  Uh, of course, she's sitting right there, Anna Paquin, she won't speak at any point during these.

• 52:53Griffin Newman?

  She's a guest on every episode. And we don't want to hear you complaining about how rarely we ask her questions.

• 53:00David Sims?

  Uh, right, so, okay, uh, Scorsese, um.

• 53:03Griffin Newman?

  That, that's what's interesting to me though, is I think he relates a lot to the Teresa character, but he's obviously not building the movie around her and she's kind of treated almost like a secret in the film.

• 53:12David Sims?

  Totally. Yeah, he's ashamed of her.

• 53:14Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:15David Sims?

  Or ashamed of the relationship.

• 53:16Griffin Newman?

  But the movie hides her in a way that's similar to the way that Charlie treats her.

• 53:21David Sims?

  Yes.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  Which is a thing you get into with Scorsese. It's, it's, it is the same with the Anna Paquin thing, literally will be a running discussion for like decades of his career of if he is sidelining women, when is that an oversight or failing of his? And when is it a very pointed statement?

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I think like, um, uh, yeah, it's, I, something, like, people will say that about like PTA and I don't, I don't agree with it there, but with Scorsese, it's hard, you know, it's not his strength. I mean, he's gotten into it, like, he's obviously, um, like more recently, Killers of the Flower Moon, interesting.

• 54:00David Sims?

  He's grown into it, sure.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  He's grown, he's like done that, but like for this film, it kind of feels like, oh, you make a movie, you gotta have a woman. Like, you know, like, you got, it's kind of like, you make a dish, put a little salt in it.

• 54:12David Sims?

  She's a conflict, she's a story element, not really a character.

• 54:15Griffin Newman?

  I think, by the way, that's why he says yes to Alice. It's not an I'll prove them thing. It's a, I should work on this, right? Like, if I want to be an actor's director, let me figure out different rhythms of actors, not just working with like actors of a different gender, but also just like, here's a different milieu, here's a different like cultural type, uh, I need to have that range.

• 54:38Griffin Newman?

  At this point, he's making films where the women represent what women were when he was growing up, which was, these men are obsessed and driven by sex, but also kind of need to compartmentalize it.

• 54:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know. It's not as, as interested as the, the, the bromance, if you will. But I want to talk about the other woman, um, who was probably what first drew me to this film.

• 55:03Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  In that, there's that opening scene where, um, or it's very early on where Charlie Kaitel is like watching the woman who's a stripper, Jeannie Bell, playing Diane, I think, Diane. And, um, yeah, Diane. And it's so beautiful. And you've got these like really beautiful close-ups that are kind of abstracted. And, um, I love this woman. She's so beautiful. I looked her up. She is a fitness influencer.

• 55:32Griffin Newman?

  Currently?

• 55:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:34Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  On Instagram. She was the world's oldest competitive jump rope skipper.

• 55:38Griffin Newman?

  Good for her.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. She's, she was a play, at the time, she was a Playboy model. I mean, she's just gorgeous. And she goes by Annie Judas now. You can find her on Instagram. But, um, yeah, I think, I love her. I love her presence in this. But, you know, so there's that scene where he's like, well, she's really good looking, but she's black.

• 55:56Griffin Newman?

  She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Right, but.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  But he's like, but she's black. Like, obviously, it doesn't make a difference. And that's, that's Scorsese's. I'm pretty sure that's his, because you know, they, they alternate.

• 56:06Griffin Newman?

  He's intertangibly cutting between Kaitel doing voiceover and him doing voiceover.

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, this really personal thing. It's like, he's saying that. So I'm gonna say, this is my other wild take, is like, this is a film about race. Like, you know, like there, there's that with like.

• 56:21David Sims?

  It's in there.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  But then he like, he stands her up. The, what is it? Mulinyon? Do you know? Is that it? Mulinyon? It's another.

• 56:27David Sims?

  It's a slur.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a slur. And then he's like, and then there's somebody who's kissing an N-word and like.

• 56:32David Sims?

  Mulinyon means eggplant. Like, that's, that's the, you know, it's from the Sicilian, I mean, it's a nasty thing.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  That is a nasty thing to say. I know. And, um, so maybe I should have said the M-word. I don't know. But like, I feel like that's part of the religious thing. The changing of this Italian-American family, you know, talking about Francis of Assisi, but like, what is his real sense of empathy? Because there's these like dueling ethnic groups. I think that's a key theme in this.

• 56:57Griffin Newman?

  I think it's also going back to the, the Little Italy talk. What confounded me about Little Italy as a child, but what I, I didn't understand is like, this is this idea of almost fighting against the melting pot of not just America, but New York specifically.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:13Griffin Newman?

  Where that's the great promise, but then also it's like, eh, but these five blocks, it's just us.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:19Griffin Newman?

  It's just us, and we're gonna maintain tradition and evolve tradition to figure out what the Italian-American experience is versus the Italian experience, but also Italian gets first billing over American. And so there's that feeling of like, we gotta keep everyone at a distance because we can't lose what we are. And even if it's not driven by like racial animosity, I think there's that protectiveness.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:44Griffin Newman?

  Where even just to make a gangster film, a crime film in the seventies and not keeping those things on the sidelines in the same way that you're keeping the women's at the sidelines, is like what this movie is really about, which is sort of like, uh, a masculinity crisis of its time.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, masculinity crisis, but it's so much of identity. So I say it's about race, but really what I mean is it's about racism.

• 58:09Griffin Newman?

  It's a really interesting thing about this movie is that he goes and tries to pitch it to Corman to finance.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:17Griffin Newman?

  And Corman's like, yeah, I love that. Can you make it a blaxploitation movie?

• 58:21Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:22Griffin Newman?

  Can you take the same script and like cast it with black actors? Because that is in vogue right now. That, that there had been enough successful blaxploitation films that he was like, that's sellable. The Italian-American version of this movie doesn't really have a precedent, especially before Godfather came out. But even post-Godfather, it's like, well, that's Tony, that's sort of the class of the old mafioso kind of thing. Um, you know, he says like, I said I'd consider it because you always have to say you'd consider anything. But I don't know that I really would have known how to make that movie. And it goes against the exercise of what's driving to make this in the first place, which is what we're saying, like, what's the most personal thing I can make? What's the thing

• 59:07Griffin Newman?

  I understand the most? And the blind spots of this movie are, I think, a self-conscious awareness of what he doesn't understand, if that makes sense?

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, like, he was, um, the, one of his teachers at NYU, or maybe it was just called Washington Square University or something, but like, had said, you know, make, make what you know. But he said there was no one else like him in his classes. Like, there's no one else that was from this like, you know, lower.

• 59:35David Sims?

  From the neighborhood.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  I don't know. And like, again, a few blocks away.

• 59:38Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yes, yes. It was a whole different world. Yeah.

• 59:41David Sims?

  Uh, and, and NYU was not what we think of it as, you know, now at all.

• 59:46Griffin Newman?

  No, he also said like, he'd be going and like studying like English literature and then meeting his childhood friends at clubs that are like the clubs you see in this movie.

• 59:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:56Griffin Newman?

  Like, they were two completely disconnected worlds, even though they were five blocks away from each other.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. He said, they're like, De Niro says, when he brings the wine truck girls, he's like, they're from the village. You know, like, there's this other world.

• 1:00:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09David Sims?

  So he brings Mean Streets to AFI. They are just starting their feature program. And he says the outline he'd written was ridiculous. There was no female character basically at all. It had no characters. It had basic elements. Gets turned down there. He takes it to Joe Brenner, who's a sex film distributor, who's the guy who distributed Who's That Knocking?

• 1:00:26Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:27David Sims?

  And he said, no, uh, probably because it's just not, you know, sexy enough.

• 1:00:31Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:32David Sims?

  One of the old professors at NYU told him, hey, no one wants to see films about Italian-Americans anyway, so forget about it. So that's like, I assume not the guy who's encouraging him.

• 1:00:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's like he's shopping around a genre film that doesn't conform into any of the sellable areas of genre at this point in time.

• 1:00:49David Sims?

  Totally. I mean, he invents a kind of movie here.

• 1:00:51Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:00:51David Sims?

  He does.

• 1:00:52Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:00:52David Sims?

  Um, so instead, he works obviously on Woodstock, uh, editing Woodstock, which is, you know, a formative Scorsese thing.

• 1:00:59Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:00David Sims?

  And he enters Roger Corman's orbit. Uh, we, you know, we, we talked about all that last week, I'm sure. So, uh, boxcar worth a. Jay Cox, who was working at the New York Times.

• 1:01:09Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:09David Sims?

  Cox spelled like the cool way.

• 1:01:12Griffin Newman?

  Multiple penises.

• 1:01:13David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:01:13Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:15David Sims?

  He's the one who shows John Cassavetes Who's That Knocking in my door. And Cassavetes responds to it and says like, what's the film you're dying to make? And he's like, I have this thing, but it needs a rewrite. And Cassavetes says, well, rewrite it then.

• 1:01:27Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:01:28David Sims?

  You know, like, what are you waiting for? Cox, obviously, is a guy who works with Scorsese a bunch.

• 1:01:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32David Sims?

  You know, over the years.

• 1:01:33Griffin Newman?

  But, but that's also very indicative about why Scorsese, or why Cassavetes said the like, you wasted a year of your life making a piece of shit, because he knows the thing he wants to make.

• 1:01:45David Sims?

  Right. Totally. So Sandy Weintrub, obviously, uh, he's dating at the time. Uh, she's the one who says, right, put in, put in the funny stuff, take out the religious stuff. So he puts in the pool hall. He puts in the, the mooc scene and the firecrackers and all that stuff. It ends up in Corman's hands. Corman is basically like, I've just made The Cool Breeze, which is like, it was sort of like a blaxploitation asphalt jungle.

• 1:02:09Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:10David Sims?

  And so he's the one who's like, yeah, could we make this a, a blaxploitation movie, essentially, like an all-black cast? And Scorsese's like, I don't think so. He's still, Corman does still eventually agree to distribute the film, but then Warner Brothers ends up distributing it. So I guess like Corman backs out when it becomes more of a real thing.

• 1:02:26Griffin Newman?

  And Scorsese pulls.

• 1:02:27David Sims?

  But there's a tribute to Corman in there.

• 1:02:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes. A lot of Corman crew. I mean, this is one of those movies where when you get into it, it's like the money appeared and then disappeared like six times. It kept coming together and falling apart, but it would happen in quick enough rotations that the movie never fully collapsed. Uh, Jay Cox was married to Verna Bloom.

• 1:02:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:02:45Griffin Newman?

  Who I remember best as being Dean Wormser's wife in, uh, Animal House.

• 1:02:49David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:02:50Griffin Newman?

  My version of the way you're describing, uh, Goodfellas Miriam, a movie I watched way too many times before I was, uh, 10, uh, because my father basically treated it as the Bible.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:00Griffin Newman?

  Um, but she was the one who I think helped locate the money that freed him from being dependent on Corman.

• 1:03:09David Sims?

  It cost about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I think. Jonathan Taplin is also very important, who is the touring manager for the band.

• 1:03:17Griffin Newman?

  That's who I believe Verna Bloom connected with.

• 1:03:19David Sims?

  Bloom introduces them.

• 1:03:20Griffin Newman?

  Right. She saw that he was talking to Corman and that he was.

• 1:03:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Griffin Newman?

  That he felt like, I can see Marty in, in a month, starting to bend on his principles in order to get the money he needs, and it's gonna dilute the movie he actually wants to make. So she goes and finds.

• 1:03:36David Sims?

  300 grand. 300 grand. Yeah.

• 1:03:37Griffin Newman?

  She finds the money. In a way that wouldn't make him have to

• 1:03:41David Sims?

  Well.

• 1:03:42Griffin Newman?

  Constantly justify his decisions.

• 1:03:43David Sims?

  You'll make it in Cleveland.

• 1:03:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46David Sims?

  Then the money falls through. And then, right, and then they end up with a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars and they get some other stuff from like CFI Labs. I don't know, you know, they scrape money together. They, obviously, he had written Charlie for Harvey Keitel because it was essentially going to be a sequel to Who's That Knocking, like you guys said.

• 1:04:05Griffin Newman?

  And then he decides to separate it, which is smart.

• 1:04:08David Sims?

  Right. At one point, John Voight is involved. But then they shoot the festival stuff before they even start doing pre-production. And at that point, Harvey is basically locked in. John had already done Midnight Cowboy. And apparently Voight says to Scorsese, like, I'm too famous. Like, you need unknowns. Like, you need, like, this needs to feel real or whatever.

• 1:04:27Griffin Newman?

  There's the other thing, which is, we were talking about it when you came in, David, and I was watching, there's a

• 1:04:34Griffin Newman?

  Q and A discussion between.

• 1:04:37David Sims?

  We were watching Linklater interview.

• 1:04:38Griffin Newman?

  Linklater and Scorsese, Rick and Morty.

• 1:04:42Griffin Newman?

  And it was a series called Game Changers that the DGA was curating of like movies that changed the industry. And Linklater was like, this is the definitive game changer for like filmmakers taking their careers into their own hands and self-realizing what they want to do. But he was talking to him about how much of this movie was shot in LA, which is the craziest fucking thing. That like more than ninety percent of this film was shot in Los Angeles.

• 1:05:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:07Griffin Newman?

  And the New York exterior stuff they did, especially San Gennaro, is so impactful. And then Scorsese finds the right locations in LA without building sets that he can sort of double, that you don't question it when you're watching it. And Linklater's asking him, were you concerned at all about like the concession of needing to move to LA? And if you were gonna lose some of the authenticity in the character. And Scorsese was like, well, I wasn't concerned because we just didn't have money. So.

• 1:05:33David Sims?

  Right, it's like, you need to make a movie.

• 1:05:34Griffin Newman?

  We just need to make the movie. There was like no principal stance that could be taken.

• 1:05:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:39Griffin Newman?

  But the other thing he said was, he kept saying, but I got the guys. I knew I cast the right people.

• 1:05:44David Sims?

  De Niro and Keitel are.

• 1:05:45Griffin Newman?

  It's not an act.

• 1:05:46David Sims?

  They're New York guys. David Proval, they find him at this John Voight workshop, as with Richard Romanos, but they're both Brooklyn, they're New York guys.

• 1:05:54Griffin Newman?

  These guys have a shared language.

• 1:05:55David Sims?

  From New York.

• 1:05:56Griffin Newman?

  If I put them in the same room, even if that room's in LA instead of New York, they're gonna talk like they're in New York. That's what the audience will connect to.

• 1:06:04David Sims?

  They shot, they did ten days of rehearsals in New York. They shot all the interiors in Los Angeles, a fair amount of the exteriors, including the big crash at the end, too. Then they did some hallways and the beach in New York. And the weirdest, we were talking about this before we recorded, the, when De Niro's shooting the gun on the roof, the roof is New York. Because you can see the Empress Day building, but the window is Los Angeles.

• 1:06:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:28David Sims?

  And so, like, there's no establishing shots, right? There's no, like, they didn't have time for that. They shot the whole movie in about twenty seven days.

• 1:06:38Griffin Newman?

  This movie has so much accidental language like that, where there's something that you don't even clock the first time about the fact that it's not giving you those establishing shots. That you're just in the places without a feeling of being eased into them, that is just a result of them not having the time to shoot establishing shots in New York, but it becomes its own language. And then the handheld stuff is just like, we didn't have time for fucking tracking shots. We didn't have money for the equipment to do anything more complicated. And you need longer shots, you need scenes playing out in longer takes. And you need the camera being able to just move really quickly from one focus to the other, because that's the only way we're getting our pages done. And the DP on this movie, remind me his name.

• 1:07:22David Sims?

  So the DP on this movie's name is Kent L. Wakeford, who's his first movie. He was like a commercial director.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  And documentaries and stuff. I think like with the handheld, Altman famously saw it at, or I don't know how famously. But saw it at New York Film Festival and said that if he, he would have done tracking shots instead of the handheld. And, and Scorsese was just like, well, if we had, we'd still be shooting it now.

• 1:07:46Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. The other thing Wakefield said was, like, there wasn't. Wakeford, that there was no intentional strategy, but then even when they started watching dailies, it was like, oh, this feels anxious.

• 1:07:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Griffin Newman?

  This is a camera language that we've landed on just out of necessity, but it actually is reflecting the energy we want. So then they lean into it. And everything is like that, where it's like, we're doing it this way because we don't have any other options. And then they look at it and they're like, this is a miracle. This actually is better than we could have planned.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  I don't know how he feels about it now, but I think immediately afterwards, he kind of thought, Scorsese thought it was like a little sloppy, you know? But like, it's, what I love about it is how like handmade it is. And for me, this is gonna be my wildest take of all, but to me, I prefer this to The Godfather. To me, they're very similarly about like.

• 1:08:32David Sims?

  Different movie.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  It's like, this is the termite godfather.

• 1:08:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  This is like.

• 1:08:38David Sims?

  Right, The Godfather's like the porterhouse and this is a burger or whatever. You know, like, I mean, they're, they're so different. Like, I love them together.

• 1:08:45Griffin Newman?

  I've never loved The Godfather while also never denying its power. Like, I have no complaints about it, but it's just not.

• 1:08:52David Sims?

  It's pretty.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  Wow, we're gonna get killed.

• 1:08:54Griffin Newman?

  Movie.

• 1:08:54David Sims?

  No, it's fine.

• 1:08:55Griffin Newman?

  Slash movies, yeah.

• 1:08:56David Sims?

  Yeah, it's not, that was a big movie for Teen David. I cannot.

• 1:08:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:59David Sims?

  I love The Godfather. Godfather's great.

• 1:09:01Griffin Newman?

  But I, this is way more my vibe. It's also like that roughness you're talking about is like what people are still chasing today. Like, the Safdie's careers are built on, can we figure out a way to get back to that feeling?

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  Wait, which, I was wondering, which Safdie's movie is Mean Streets? Is it Daddy Longlegs?

• 1:09:20David Sims?

  Yeah, it's Daddy Longlegs.

• 1:09:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. Right, because that's the personal one. That's the.

• 1:09:24David Sims?

  Yeah, it's the personal one. And like, it's like, something like Heaven Knows What is so about like drugs and like addiction and stuff, like that's more fucking, you know, New York, New York, I don't know.

• 1:09:34Griffin Newman?

  And that they all weirdly become like.

• 1:09:35David Sims?

  Heaven knows what is there, New York, New York. What am I talking about? I sound like an idiot.

• 1:09:41David Sims?

  Go, go ahead, Daddy Longlegs.

• 1:09:43Griffin Newman?

  No, Marty Suprem is there, couldn't done. No, I was, I was just gonna say that the, the other movies become kind of genre movies.

• 1:09:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Griffin Newman?

  Because they start to get so into the kind of like chase structure.

• 1:09:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:56Griffin Newman?

  The outrunning thing.

• 1:09:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:58Griffin Newman?

  Which this has that narratively of like, when is shit gonna catch up to Johnny Boy? But the movie doesn't have the narrative engine of they're getting closer.

• 1:10:06David Sims?

  I said this to you when I came in. Read the Wikipedia synopsis. It's four paragraphs. The final three paragraphs of the last fifteen minutes of the movie. There's nothing else. There's no plot in the movie before them, because it's just hanging out.

• 1:10:17Griffin Newman?

  The first paragraph is a bird's eye overview of the table setting of the movie.

• 1:10:22David Sims?

  And he's dating this girl and he's got Johnny Boy and all that. And then he's torn between Catholicism and gangsterism and then it's like.

• 1:10:28Griffin Newman?

  To fifteen minutes.

• 1:10:29David Sims?

  Anyway, at the end, they try to fucking get some money from Johnny Boy and it all pops off. Like, that's all that happens in the movie. There's no complex structure here, like.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  I mean, it's just about like the ending, the end or banish. And I feel like that happens in, like, not to bring back the Safdie's, I feel like that happens in it too. They like end up leaving, that is like, like Daddy Longlegs. But yeah, like, it's, yeah, not all that happens. It's just, it is kind of a hangout movie and I think.

• 1:10:54David Sims?

  You hang out in the club with Johnny Boy and the boys. You hang out with the mob a little bit. Or you have the, and then you hang out in the church and you hang out with Teresa in her apartment.

• 1:11:02Griffin Newman?

  I, I was also thinking a lot while watching this of Mikey and Nikki.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Oh, me too, in the graveyard.

• 1:11:07Griffin Newman?

  Right, it's like, here's the one who's a little bit more of a straight arrow. Here's the fuck up.

• 1:11:11David Sims?

  Can't you fucking stop it?

• 1:11:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. And as much as that's like a One Crazy Night movie that has hangout elements, that movie's also a funereal march. That movie has the narrative engine of, you know, this is going somewhere bad. And Mean Streets, even though everyone's kind of saying like, you gotta get Johnny Boy under control. It doesn't feel like it's pushing you towards some obvious outcome.

• 1:11:34David Sims?

  In Mikey and Nikki also, you're kind of like, they've been doing this dance for so long. They're older.

• 1:11:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:11:39David Sims?

  This has become untenable, like. It rage, Mean Streets is a little, right, they're young and it's just kind of this like, you gotta pick your friends moment of like, are you really gonna stick with this guy? Like, can you be a grown up?

• 1:11:50Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing. It doesn't feel like, well, obviously this movie is going to end with either Johnny Boy getting killed or killing everyone else. You're like, there's a scenario in which this guy just stops hanging out with Johnny Boy and that's the end of the movie.

• 1:12:01David Sims?

  Is Johnny Boy fun? Do we wanna hang out with Johnny Boy?

• 1:12:03Griffin Newman?

  He's really fun to watch.

• 1:12:04Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:12:05David Sims?

  Fun to watch.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  When I was a younger man, I used to just love the chaos of this character.

• 1:12:11David Sims?

  Like, is it, I mean, this movie's sort of about when you start to get a little bit, you know, like, hey, could we actually just hang out without you doing something insane? Like, one time, right? Getting a little bored of it.

• 1:12:22Griffin Newman?

  One of my best friends in high school was very much a Johnny Boy.

• 1:12:24David Sims?

  A Johnny Boy.

• 1:12:25Griffin Newman?

  And I was, I was very much the Charlie to his side.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would gravitate to those types. Because they're fun and exciting.

• 1:12:33Griffin Newman?

  There was something about the like adjacency to danger. Even if I never was the person getting into danger, and if anything, I felt like I was the one sort of trying to moderate him. But there was something, I don't know, as a very neurotic, anxious person about watching someone right next to you cross the lines constantly, you know?

• 1:12:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Griffin Newman?

  Or just like push things to the extreme.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  But I see it now and he's just so sad and clearly suffering.

• 1:13:00Speaker 03

  Johnny Boy?

• 1:13:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  It's easy, wow.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Because I think he's suffering because he is stuck. He is stuck. He has no like path. Yeah, he really, he can't get the job, right?

• 1:13:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  With Charlie's uncle. Charlie keeps denying him.

• 1:13:20David Sims?

  Because he's too chaotic. The mob doesn't want that. Like, they don't want those guys.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  Right. But he, he can't be honorable like his friends.

• 1:13:26David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:13:27Griffin Newman?

  Sure. I, my take is slightly different, which is that he everyone's looking at him like, is this guy fucking dumb? Doesn't he realize that he's like putting his neck out there, right? That, that he's not playing this.

• 1:13:44Griffin Newman?

  That, that he, shit's gonna catch up to him eventually. And I think for him, it's like, what's the fucking alternative?

• 1:13:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:13:50Griffin Newman?

  What's the end game? There's not, like, none of the options available to me seem interesting, so why don't I just do what's fun to me? Like, I think it's less that he's sad and that he's trapped and more that there's something he finds freeing in the idea of like, then I'll just like fucking be an instinctual hedonist in a way, you know? Like, let me do whatever is most interesting to me at any given moment, because the long game just doesn't seem worth playing to me.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  The long game is a dead end job.

• 1:14:17Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, yes.

• 1:14:20David Sims?

  So they're, when they're making this movie, I just want to say, in the Lower East Side, the few days that they are, people would come up to them and see the title on the clapper and be like, the movie, nothing wrong with these streets.

• 1:14:31Griffin Newman?

  Call it nice streets.

• 1:14:32David Sims?

  Yeah, these streets aren't so mean.

• 1:14:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35David Sims?

  What's your fucking problem?

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  They get into a fight with them.

• 1:14:37Griffin Newman?

  What is the matter with you?

• 1:14:41David Sims?

  He sees the title as an homage to like a Cagney movie. You know, right? Like, you know, like to a Warner Brothers gangster movie or whatever.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  Wait, I think it has a different reference.

• 1:14:51Griffin Newman?

  It's a Raymond Chandler essay called The Simple Art of Murder. And it has the line, "But down these mean streets, a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid."

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  So it's about, it's about, it's about Charlie.

• 1:15:04David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:15:05Speaker 03

  So Mean Streets is about like, yeah.

• 1:15:07David Sims?

  But it also, I mean, Scorsese is the one saying like, "I was trying to make a kind of homage to those gangster movies of like, you know, it's a punchy title."

• 1:15:14Griffin Newman?

  But J. Cox showed him the essay and said, "Like, that's a good fucking title."

• 1:15:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:15:18Griffin Newman?

  And it does have that kind of-

• 1:15:19David Sims?

  It's better than Season of the Witch.

• 1:15:20Griffin Newman?

  But it has that thing like White Heat where you're just like, "Those two words are interesting together."

• 1:15:24David Sims?

  Oh, man. White Heat's so normal.

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  I love that movie. Well, speaking of, can we talk about the gangster movies?

• 1:15:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes, please.

• 1:15:32David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:15:32Speaker 03

  I think something that's, that he said is that the big movies, the big like Warner's movies that they would watch were Public Enemy and Little Caesar. And he said that he hated Little Caesar. He thought it was like vulgar, very overdone, heavily acted, but loved Public Enemy.

• 1:15:50David Sims?

  Little Caesar is Edward G. Robbins, right?

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  Edward G. Robbins, so that's Mervyn LeRoy. And then, and then Public Enemy is William Wellman. So this was, the other person who's really important for this movie and for Scorsese is Andrew Saris and the, and the pioneer cinema guy, the auteurist. Cause when these guys were coming up, it was Andrew Saris and these French guys were appreciating all these like movies that they grew up with. They were like-

• 1:16:17David Sims?

  These like junky movies, like movies that at the time were not seen as like prestigious.

• 1:16:21Speaker 03

  They were just on TV.

• 1:16:22David Sims?

  Crime movies, westerns.

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  Totally. They're, yeah, they were like, and so like, and so he was figuring out the ones that he liked and the ones he didn't. And so he was gonna, you know, no offense to Mervyn LeRoy, but he was not a Mervyn LeRoy guy. He was like a William Wellman guy. He was a Fuller guy. He was a Hawks and Ford guy. And so that, that's really important to figuring out the films, that these same films that all feel junky, but some of them are really good and some of them are not. And he was specifically, Public Enemy was about Irish people, but he was like, "We can still relate with this." Like even though it's about Irish gangsters.

• 1:16:58David Sims?

  Right. Cause that's Cagney. Public Enemy is like young Cagney.

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  Public, yeah, exactly. And it's like, what he was really, there's actually also some like street noises. I don't think it's a festival, but something like that. He said he was really influenced by the way that film used popular, uh, popular music in the background. So it was not score, it was source music. The last shot is a record player.

• 1:17:19Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:17:20Speaker 03

  And like, that was like important for him. So it was important for him to bring in the music. Cause we talked about Jonathan Caplan, but Jonathan Caplan probably also helped get all this music.

• 1:17:31Griffin Newman?

  No, he totally did.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  He was the music supervisor.

• 1:17:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. This was the soundtrack he wanted for Who's That Knocking at My Door? He was always like, "My movies are gonna have a soundtrack that reflects the music of my life." He did not have the budget to get any songs for that movie.

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:43Griffin Newman?

  This one, he said it somehow was only like $65,000, $75,000 for the soundtrack, of which $15,000 was just to the Rolling Stones.

• 1:17:53Speaker 03

  Thirty.

• 1:17:54Griffin Newman?

  Thirty, right. It was fifteen each.

• 1:17:56David Sims?

  The Stones was fifteen each. And they have both Jumpin' Jack Flash and Tell Me.

• 1:17:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00David Sims?

  They have Be My Baby, which is the most important one.

• 1:18:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03David Sims?

  And they have various other, you know, but like Be My Baby was the one that he was like, "That obviously was the song." Like, "We needed that one."

• 1:18:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:11David Sims?

  Those female singing groups right before The Beatles, like that's his music.

• 1:18:14Griffin Newman?

  Linklater said a thing in that DJA talk I thought was really interesting where he was like, "There's, um, there are things like Easy Rider that come before this that have famous soundtracks and contemporary soundtracks." He was like, "Every other music, movie that used popular songs, uh, up until this point, it felt like the soundtrack was above the movie."

• 1:18:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:36Griffin Newman?

  And Mean Streets, to me, feels like the first movie where the music is coming out of the film.

• 1:18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:41Griffin Newman?

  And Scorsese said like, "Yeah, it's, it was important that it's like, you're seeing, even when it's not supposed to be diegetic within a scene, that you get the sense that it could be." And that often enough, you point at, "This is coming from a jukebox" or whatever.

• 1:18:55David Sims?

  It does invent this shit.

• 1:18:57Griffin Newman?

  It does.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  You can hear the pop in the hiss. He said this was actually his record.

• 1:19:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  Like with, with Bringing a Baby.

• 1:19:04Griffin Newman?

  Which is a huge difference, right? It's not just-

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  No, not Bringing a Baby.

• 1:19:07David Sims?

  Bringing a, Bringing a Baby. Um, the music thing, I just, it's, I, I was saying it to my wife last night. I'm like, I was just like, "I know this sounds so boring," but like, no one had ever done this before.

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  No, it's so true.

• 1:19:21David Sims?

  Like, it's, and it seems like the most, like, what do you mean, no one had ever like put pop music in a movie before? But it's like, kind of no one had really done that yet.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  Not this way. Not in this sort of, um, but the thing is, it's hard to watch this movie and not see all the people who ripped it off. Like Sam Levinson.

• 1:19:40David Sims?

  Of what?

• 1:19:40Speaker 03

  You know, all the terrible copies that we've gotten. We've gotten so far. All the, all the-

• 1:19:45David Sims?

  Sam Levinson is one of our great returns. He just released a magnificent new season of his great show Euphoria, right?

• 1:19:51Speaker 03

  We've got like, we've, and the, you know, the horror movies with the ironic pop music, you know, and like this sort of-

• 1:19:57David Sims?

  And every trailer with like the slowed down, like hit song or whatever. Be my, be my- Has someone definitely done that, right? Has someone done that?

• 1:20:06Griffin Newman?

  And then the film flickers and then a knife cuts through.

• 1:20:09Speaker 03

  I think it's in, I haven't seen it, but I think it's in like Barbarian or something, right? I think, maybe? Is there a-

• 1:20:15Griffin Newman?

  There's a lot of baby stuff in that movie. It would make sense.

• 1:20:18David Sims?

  Yeah, it's in Barbarian.

• 1:20:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 03

  Okay. And so, um, but like, the thing that's interesting is that, like, and then all the, the guys, the better than Sam Levinson, I feel like all the, um, the Gen X guys, all these like mixtape guys, you know, all these like-

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  I kept thinking while watching this, it is crazy how much of this movie is in the DNA of the early Wes Anderson stuff.

• 1:20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, Wes Anderson, PGA, honestly, Tarantino.

• 1:20:43Griffin Newman?

  And Rushmore.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  Also Sofia Coppola. Like, these are people who wrote to mixes, to like pop mixes. But the thing is, those were from all over. Those were like from all over, you know, and that was, they were from all eras. And it really was like a mixtape or something. And it was like, and they would, they would write in the same way Scorsese would to like write this, the scenes to these songs. But the thing that's different about Mean Streets is it's capturing a specific era. It's like present tense. It's capturing the sixties and the early seventies. And like, those songs, Phil Spector and those Stones have been used in these like other kind of mixtape things, but this is something we've gotten away from, which is like capturing a specific era.

• 1:21:27Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that's what like Linklater does with Dazed and Confused. You know, it makes sense that he talks about how much that soundtrack felt like eye-opening to him. But, you know, Scorsese won our Mark Madness thing.

• 1:21:41David Sims?

  Marty.

• 1:21:42Griffin Newman?

  It almost came down to him and Wes Anderson.

• 1:21:45David Sims?

  True.

• 1:21:45Griffin Newman?

  And there was a nerd part of me that really wanted to see that matchup happen for the final two.

• 1:21:49David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:21:50Griffin Newman?

  Because there's that article I'm obsessed with that I think Esquire magazine did in 1999, that was, "Who's the next Scorsese?" We've decided-

• 1:21:57Speaker 03

  I know it.

• 1:21:58Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese is the definitive filmmaker of the last 50 years. You know, the second half of the 20th century.

• 1:22:04Speaker 03

  This was after Bottle Rocket.

• 1:22:05David Sims?

  And they had like a bunch, it was like the Wachowskis were in this.

• 1:22:08Griffin Newman?

  People made their case. They asked like a bunch of different film scholars and critics, and then they asked Scorsese, and he said Wes Anderson. He said Wes Anderson off of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. And when he-

• 1:22:19David Sims?

  Shall I tell you all the nominees? Cause it's crazy.

• 1:22:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I know.

• 1:22:21David Sims?

  Andrew Saris nominated Kevin Smith.

• 1:22:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Which, his essay is fascinating because he's like, "I know this one sounds crazy."

• 1:22:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:29Griffin Newman?

  It's basically on the strength of Chasing Amy and if he pursues this. Yeah.

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  Is he far from paradise? What is he?

• 1:22:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:39David Sims?

  Kevin Turan nominated David O. Russell, which is interesting, cause David O. Russell, I could see that at that time.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  But that's a more obvious, this guy is going for that nervy comic energy. Yeah.

• 1:22:49David Sims?

  Todd McCarthy nominated Paul Thomas Anderson, sure. Uh, Tom Carson nominated Alexander Payne. Sure. Although I don't really see that in Payne's work at all, but okay. Elvis Mitchell nominated the Wachowskis, which I think is a fun pick by Elvis. And then Marty says Wes.

• 1:23:03Griffin Newman?

  And he, you know, after Gene Siskel dies, Scorsese, uh, does the best of the decade episode with Ebert.

• 1:23:12David Sims?

  Yes. That, I've watched it multiple times. It's so good.

• 1:23:16Griffin Newman?

  But he puts Bottle Rocket on his like top 10 of the nineties. He was like one of the early champions. And I think versus a lot of these filmmakers who were more clearly influenced by Scorsese and the type of film they were making and the subject matter, uh, he saw like, "This guy is making movies about his own life and his own worldview that is more analogous to what I did." And also the way he is experimenting with form and language. And this movie is, it's obviously not symmetrical, but like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore are a lot rougher around the edges than everything becomes from World War II bombs on. And even just like the colors of the bar and the energy of the characters and their costumes.

• 1:23:59David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:24:00Griffin Newman?

  It, it's like so much of, of Wes Anderson starts here weirdly.

• 1:24:05David Sims?

  You know, I've never seen The Horse Thief.

• 1:24:07Griffin Newman?

  I haven't either.

• 1:24:08David Sims?

  You know, that, on that list. And he's like, "I mean, number one is this like Tibetan movie called The Horse Thief." And I'm like, I'm always like, "I gotta watch that."

• 1:24:13Griffin Newman?

  What else did he have on that? The Puppet Master, Heat?

• 1:24:15David Sims?

  Uh, he's got Malcolm X, Fargo, Crash, Bottle Rocket, Breaking the Waves, Bad Lieutenant, Eyes Wide Shut, Thin Red Line, Borrowed Life, and The Horse Thief. Borrowed Life is a, is a Chinese or Taiwanese movie that I've also never seen.

• 1:24:41David Sims?

  Mean Streets, should we talk about it? Because I mean, I've talked about, we talked about the production just, just plenty.

• 1:24:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, let's talk about, let's, well, like, back to the, what you were saying about, about Wes Anderson and about this as being a very personal thing. I mean, I think they're both also big fans. They're big supporters of like classic films. You see those references there. But they're also just like finding like a color and movement to express emotion and biography.

• 1:25:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  And that's kind of what Scorsese has said about this and like the, you know, the commentary for The Criterion, I think from the old commentary when I first saw it in like 2004 or something. He says, "It's hard for, to describe this as a film. He feels like instead it's like the final culmination of everything I was to do and who I am."

• 1:25:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, there's that synthesizing of personal experience and all the films he had studied. And even you talking about him trying to study and figure out which gangster films dug in on him and which ones bounced off of him. It's like, well, there's two silos. It feels like there are the people where he's recognizing the craft. He's recognizing the formalism of what they're doing and how they're able to express contradictory things through the language of the filmmaking. And then there's the people like Fuller where it's like, what's going on with this guy? You know, there's like some psychology that's seeping into the movie of a personality that you cannot get out of their system, even if they're doing for higher work.

• 1:26:13Speaker 03

  For sure, but for Fuller was also specifically the movement. And that's when we're talking about this film and we're talking about the difference between like, who's that knocking? This film moves. It has like this like dynamic, and I think he called it like an involved camera. And obviously we talked about it's like handheld. We've got that weird, he's got Harvey Keitel like on a dolly and in some way.

• 1:26:35David Sims?

  Yeah, where he's like going through.

• 1:26:36Griffin Newman?

  But he's drunk. It's like wearing like a harness.

• 1:26:39David Sims?

  Yeah, I love that shot.

• 1:26:40Speaker 03

  Like before there was Steadicam, they invented it, there's this thing. But he said he was really inspired by Fuller, specifically like Shock Corridor and like Park Row. Because there's all this like movement part.

• 1:26:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:26:51Speaker 03

  Are you kidding me?

• 1:26:52David Sims?

  I've seen it. I've seen Shock Corridor.

• 1:26:54Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen Park Row.

• 1:26:55Speaker 03

  Master, oh my god, it's a masterpiece.

• 1:26:57David Sims?

  I'm not a huge Fuller, like, not, not, I like Fuller a lot, but I'm not an expert on Fuller. I feel like I've seen like three or four Fuller movies.

• 1:27:03Griffin Newman?

  I want to hit some more of those thriller blind spots before Shutter Island.

• 1:27:08David Sims?

  I mean, I've seen like Shock Corridor, Naked Kiss, obviously I've seen, you know, Big Red One and you know, the later ones, but.

• 1:27:14Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, so Park Row, like.

• 1:27:16David Sims?

  Park Row is an early one. I mean, I love Park Row, I used to work on Park Row.

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:19David Sims?

  It's like a newspaper movie, I assume.

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  It's totally a newspaper movie. It's like the newspaper movie. It also has, okay, we'll do another thing in there. It also has, like, I would like to do a review of that film, just listing all the classic cocktails.

• 1:27:32Griffin Newman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:27:33Speaker 03

  There's so many. Anyway, it's a great movie. Yeah, so it was again, like, for Fuller, it was like the movement.

• 1:27:39Griffin Newman?

  But hiring a documentary DP and Scorsese also having come off of being a cameraman himself on Woodstock, where he's holding a camera and feeling that urgency of fuck, something's happening here. Can we catch it in time?

• 1:27:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:56Griffin Newman?

  It feels like the movie has that energy despite being a scripted film.

• 1:28:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:02Griffin Newman?

  The camera being worried it's not going to catch the thing.

• 1:28:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, he was editing docs, Scorsese was, so it totally makes sense that that combination of that. But it's interesting because this guy, I don't know, he, I saw an interview and he was talking, they were asking him about like the lighting setups and stuff. I, I, I just get the feeling that Scorsese told him what to do because he was saying, oh, why the red in the, in the bar? And he's like, that's just what it seemed like to me. I'm like, you liar. I, this is totally Marty. This is, this is, this is Duel in the Sun. This is the red shoes. This is like Gone with the Wind. This is Marty.

• 1:28:39Griffin Newman?

  I do also agree with him that that's how bars feel. If you take a picture in a bar, it might not look like this.

• 1:28:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:46Griffin Newman?

  But that's what it feels to be inside a bar.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  No, it's true.

• 1:28:50Griffin Newman?

  It's also there, the movement and the energy of the movie feels like, versus Altman, who's like, you know, a god for me, but what I love about the Altman tracking shots is they do feel like a god telling you, this is the interesting thing. This, you might not be drawn to this at first, but I'm slowly going to push your focus over here. Mean Streets is like a panic of can this movie keep up with its characters?

• 1:29:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:18Griffin Newman?

  You know, you feel the urgency and also the stress of they might be moving too fast. They might leave the frame.

• 1:29:25David Sims?

  Well, and Charlie is so alienated from, or is it so increasingly alienated from his, his only world, which is these bars and these, these streets, these.

• 1:29:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:34David Sims?

  Mean Streets. And like, I think it's just like shots like the dolly shot, just so good at making him feel a little alienated or separate in a way, like it's so.

• 1:29:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:44David Sims?

  And just then the calm of the church, like you, I, I would hang out at the fucking church. Like if I was, like, if I had to grow up in Mulberry Street.

• 1:29:52Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:29:53David Sims?

  It's quiet.

• 1:29:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:29:54David Sims?

  It's just like, okay, finally I can like read a book and sit down.

• 1:29:58Griffin Newman?

  Also, Scorsese is like a kid where the asthma is so bad that it's like, if I get in a fight, I might die. You know, like if someone punches me the wrong way and it takes a while for someone to pull my body up.

• 1:30:08David Sims?

  It's, it's in the dock and it's in all, you know, it's like they, he was born in Flushing, right? And they lived in Queens and then they were kicked out of Queens because his dad like got in a fight with the local, like mob.

• 1:30:18Griffin Newman?

  And in the dock, he's like, that felt like being kicked out of paradise.

• 1:30:21David Sims?

  And like you could, like you feel it in this movie, you're just like, I just want the wide open streets of Flushing. It's like, still an urban environment, but I just, I long for like the relatively open skies.

• 1:30:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33David Sims?

  I mean, and you know, that's not a plot in this movie, but like the way he makes New York feel in the, like the San Gennaro's like shots and all that, just like it's, it's alive and it's cool. And I'm watching it being like, ah, fuck it, yeah, New York, this rocks, but like it's overwhelming.

• 1:30:48Griffin Newman?

  But he also, I mean, I saw him say in an interview, maybe it was in the Linklater thing as well, that like the entire social life was built around these after hours clubs.

• 1:30:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:58Griffin Newman?

  Where ostensibly what was driving you was the pursuit of women.

• 1:31:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:31:02Griffin Newman?

  But women were rarely at these places.

• 1:31:04David Sims?

  Why would they fucking go?

• 1:31:05Griffin Newman?

  You were hoping that one might show up almost by accident that night.

• 1:31:08David Sims?

  Drinking Rolling Rock with degenerates?

• 1:31:09Griffin Newman?

  Right, so he's like, more often you're there with degenerates and you're either recounting your victories with women in the past, which are probably bullshit.

• 1:31:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:31:18Griffin Newman?

  Or you're telling people your aspirations of what you want to do with women someday.

• 1:31:23David Sims?

  Yeah, or you're just like getting in a fight over pool.

• 1:31:25Griffin Newman?

  Right, and he said, all these people still basically live with their parents because even though they were driven by sex, it was like, if you're living on your own, that's an admission that you're living in sin, right? It's like, the only reason you would have your own apartment is so you could have sex there, which is a thing you like can't do. Even if you're talking about it all the time, you can't be that visible about it. And like, he was like, the guys who moved, moved around the corner, you know? Like, the idea of moving to the village.

• 1:31:53David Sims?

  Well, it's the old Joker, like you, you bid your mother good, tearful goodbye, give her a big hug and then you move downstairs.

• 1:31:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:31:59David Sims?

  You move to the apartment downstairs.

• 1:32:01Griffin Newman?

  And the implication is you need your own space, you know? And maybe it's more, you need private space because the work you're doing is violent and unseemly and you need to hide that from your parents, but also they're close enough that your mom's going to fucking come over and make your bed and do your laundry? You're still basically, it's like living in their garage, you know?

• 1:32:18David Sims?

  Does Johnny Boy just need money because he's a gambler? Like that's where he's blowing his money?

• 1:32:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:32:24David Sims?

  It's mostly just that, right? Like it's just like on the horses or whatever.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  Because he's always trying to get ahead.

• 1:32:28David Sims?

  I know.

• 1:32:30Griffin Newman?

  But I, but there's no end goal, like it's important that he's not.

• 1:32:34David Sims?

  Right, Johnny doesn't want to like open a barber shop.

• 1:32:36Griffin Newman?

  Right, he's not, you know what my dream is to someday make enough money that I can move to Boise, you know?

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  But he doesn't, he can't dream because he just doesn't see any path forward. His friend's a business owner, right? The other one's working for his uncle, the other one is like, I guess, making his way up as far as being a made guy and he's just kind of stuck. He's the loser of the group.

• 1:32:56Griffin Newman?

  The Carradine bar fight, right? That basically plays out without dialogue largely and is like brother actors and ending in a death.

• 1:33:04Speaker 03

  Carradine on Carradine violence.

• 1:33:06David Sims?

  David and Robert.

• 1:33:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:08David Sims?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:33:09Griffin Newman?

  Um, and that's what these guys.

• 1:33:11David Sims?

  Recently dead died, Robert, right?

• 1:33:13Griffin Newman?

  R I P.

• 1:33:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:33:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But that's what these guys are witnessing and it's like, so right, at any fucking moment, a guy can just walk in here drunk with some petty grievance and shoot you and it's over. Like, what's the fucking point? There is that, like, even if you're trying to stay clean out of this stuff and you're not becoming a made man or working, you're, you're adjacent to these things puts you on like the battlefront to a certain degree. And Scorsese said that that scene is based off of a thing that happened at one of those clubs in his twenties and he was like, and we went to the other club that night. But it was like a coin flip. There were two places that we went back and forth to and we picked the other one and then heard the next day, did you hear some guy just came in?

• 1:33:58Griffin Newman?

  He got drunk and he was upset and he shot that dude and that guy's dead. And it's like, that's, it could have been us by the difference of like, which block we walked down.

• 1:34:08Speaker 03

  Are we in trouble? Are we off course?

• 1:34:10Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:34:10David Sims?

  No, we're fine.

• 1:34:11Griffin Newman?

  This is what this podcast is.

• 1:34:11David Sims?

  No, I mean, like, well, also, like, what other big scenes should we be talking about? Because again, this is not a film with a very, very, you know,

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  Let's talk.

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  heavy plot.

• 1:34:19Speaker 03

  Let's talk about just how personal it is. Like, from the very beginning, we have like, a scene about German lenses and JAP adapters. Like, you know, we've got, we've got Super 8 footage. We've got, you know, it's so about Marty. I just, yeah, I love the, I love the mooc scene.

• 1:34:35David Sims?

  Uh, the mooc scene, uh, there's the, a fight that he witnesses at a bar, which is what happens in the movie. And it starts with bartender called you a mooc. Called me a mooc, and everyone starts fighting. And then someone says, what's a mooc? And the guy's like, I don't know.

• 1:34:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49Speaker 03

  What's a mooc? You know, I looked it up. Like, what, is it?

• 1:34:52David Sims?

  It means big mouth.

• 1:34:53Speaker 03

  Big, is it?

• 1:34:54David Sims?

  Yeah, it's like Neapolitan, like, sort of slang for like, talking too much. Big mouth.

• 1:34:59Speaker 03

  Interesting. There's a Reddit thread that is like, every possible iteration of, like, they're like, did, did Scorsese invent it? Or where did it come from? And it, and it's, it obviously goes somewhere, but it's, it's, um,

• 1:35:12David Sims?

  According to Marty, he later realized, he didn't know at the time.

• 1:35:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  That it's Neapolitan.

• 1:35:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:18David Sims?

  And he is a Sicilian, you know, the Sicilians, the Neapol- Neapolitans always hated each other, and Neapolitans, you know, Naples. And like, uh, it was a Neapolitan word for like, a loudmouth Sicilian, a mooc, like, moocca.

• 1:35:30Griffin Newman?

  I mean, it is that thing, and I've learned this a couple times, unfortunately, on mic, on this podcast. But as someone who was raised on like Bugs Bunny and like old comedy shit, I was like so obsessed with all the slang of mid 20th century guys. And then you unpack it and you're like, nine out of 10 are like racially charged.

• 1:35:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:48Griffin Newman?

  Like, all these sort of, uh, up yours names that the wise crack and characters will throw at people. But you're right, that people don't even understand what they're saying.

• 1:35:57Speaker 03

  It's, yeah.

• 1:35:58Griffin Newman?

  Throwing these Molotov cocktails and not quite sure what the impact of them are.

• 1:36:02Speaker 03

  But you brought Wes Anderson, one of my favorite sort of generic, unknown racial epithets is when, um, in Royal Tenenbaums, when he's like, did you just call me Coltrane?

• 1:36:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:12David Sims?

  And one of the fucking funniest things is in any Wes Anderson movie ever.

• 1:36:17Speaker 03

  It's so good.

• 1:36:18Griffin Newman?

  But those kind of things where you're like, is that racist?

• 1:36:20David Sims?

  The way that Catherine reacts, it feels pretty racist, yes.

• 1:36:24Speaker 03

  Right. No, it's so great, though, but I love these sort of like,

• 1:36:26David Sims?

  It's so funny.

• 1:36:27Speaker 03

  It sort of abstracts some of the language we use. But I have to say, I did say it was about racism. I do wanna do my due diligence and say that Mean Streets was the first film to be rated by Core, the Congressional, um, Congress on Racial Equity.

• 1:36:44Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 1:36:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was the first one, um, and it, uh, was declared extremely offensive, uh, from, for its black perspective and, uh, because of, of the stripper and the policeman who's like, takes a ride.

• 1:36:59Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  And like, I, I don't know if I agree with that. I mean, I think, I would think, I would say, I mean, I, again, I really do think it's about these like, you know, these unknown racial epithets. It's about, it's about racism, it's about like that with morality. But I will say what I do find really offensive is the gay couple. That's just

• 1:37:15Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:37:16David Sims?

  That's, I mean, like, and that must be so far from Marty's understanding at this point.

• 1:37:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  I don't think of gay characters in Marty movies.

• 1:37:22Griffin Newman?

  Also, we should call it, De Niro's father was gay.

• 1:37:25Speaker 03

  De Niro's father was gay.

• 1:37:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes, that's another fascinating part of it.

• 1:37:29David Sims?

  I don't know how much that's being discussed at the time.

• 1:37:31Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no, but that's what I'm saying. Like, De Niro does have a model in his life. And obviously, he was married to a woman at one point. He was out later in his life, although it was sort of more quietly. Who knows what De Niro knows about his father at this point, what his father self identifies as and whatever. But his father was a man he lived with who was a more realistic, uh, you know, version of a West Village artistic homosexual man in the 60s, 70s. And this movie presents what like, feels like the most kind of laugh-in version of that character.

• 1:38:06Speaker 03

  Totally. Wait, sidetrack, do you know his mom dated Manny Farber?

• 1:38:10Griffin Newman?

  No, De Niro's mom?

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and like, when they were just like, you know, bohemians in the village and stuff. So I had said that this was like the termite, uh, like to The Godfather. So that's like Manny Farber is one of the great film critics and the whole termite versus white elephant is him. And I guess Manny Farber came up to, uh, he, he really liked Mean Streets. I don't know at what point he reviewed it, but he really liked it. At one point, he came up to De Niro at a party and was like, oh, I remember you when you were a kid in like 14th Street. And De Niro just ran away.

• 1:38:41Griffin Newman?

  Wow. Yeah, cuz I guess his parents split up pretty early, right?

• 1:38:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:46Griffin Newman?

  I think there's something to of like, what, I guess these guys would be like third generation Americans, theoretically.

• 1:38:54David Sims?

  These guys?

• 1:38:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  Like, like the, they're, like, their, their, their grandparents came, you're saying? Their grandparents immigrated? Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  Their grandparents immigrated probably with their parents as young adults.

• 1:39:05David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, well, Marty's parents were, Catherine was born in New York. I forget about the dad, uh, Charles.

• 1:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Second or third.

• 1:39:12David Sims?

  Yeah, he was born in New York. Their, their parents were immigrants.

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  This sense of this inherited tribalism that isn't even actually motivated by anger in talking about like the racial dynamics of this movie, that it feels more like they're just worried about, I don't understand what's going on outside of these three blocks, these clothes, the 10 people I know, you know?

• 1:39:34Speaker 03

  It feels deliberate. Yeah, it feels like really this changing, like you were saying, like this time period.

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  And, and even the kind of like corrupt black cop character, it feels like what is driving him is just like, I just don't even wanna have to deal with you guys.

• 1:39:47Speaker 03

  I love that guy.

• 1:39:48Griffin Newman?

  The way he like accepts the bribery is just like, can you please just make it easy for me to disengage from this?

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Griffin Newman?

  I wanna just let this be whatever the fuck it is.

• 1:39:58David Sims?

  It's so funny. He's like, yeah, I'm going to Jersey. You know what? Actually, I'm going to Philly.

• 1:40:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. But the way he sort of is just kind of exhausted in being like, actually, more money.

• 1:40:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:07Griffin Newman?

  I changed, I changed the ride home. That, that's where I think the movie is kind of knowingly about how limited their worldview is.

• 1:40:18David Sims?

  I mean, that they, they live in like forced blocks.

• 1:40:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:40:22David Sims?

  The way, um, Teresa's character talks about moving uptown, it's like she's leaving the country.

• 1:40:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:40:28Speaker 03

  Good call, yeah.

• 1:40:29Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese said, that'd be the equivalent of a girl telling you she was moving to Ohio. You're never gonna see her again. That's impossible.

• 1:40:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:40:37Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about Keitel a bit?

• 1:40:39David Sims?

  Yeah, you know what? I mean, I assume we, this is, we're recording this one a week before, is that knocking? Cuz Miriam's in town. Soon we talked about Harvey a little there, but Harvey, very important.

• 1:40:49Griffin Newman?

  From this moment on, now that he's discovered De Niro, Keitel becomes more of a stock company player. And more often, he is presented as a villain or a rival.

• 1:40:59David Sims?

  Like, he's in Alice.

• 1:41:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:00David Sims?

  Uh, and, and Taxi Driver.

• 1:41:02Griffin Newman?

  But he's, right, he's a fucking pedophile pimp and taxi driver. He's literally Judas.

• 1:41:07David Sims?

  But between Taxi Driver and Last Temptation, he doesn't work with Marty.

• 1:41:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then is there anything between Last Temptation and Irishman?

• 1:41:16David Sims?

  I was trying to remember if there was like one thing. Maybe not.

• 1:41:19Griffin Newman?

  It feels like every time he uses him after that, other than Irishman, which feels like a kind of like, isn't this nice to put them all at the same table again?

• 1:41:26David Sims?

  I know.

• 1:41:27Griffin Newman?

  The other ones, it feels like what he's using Keitel to be like, I wanna show that this guy has range. Right? I wanna, I wanna test him and, and put him in a different light.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  Obviously, like, Scorsese was such a, you know, um, he loved Bad Lieutenant or whatever, like, he would, he would pump, you know, praise other Harvey stuff.

• 1:41:45Griffin Newman?

  And I think they remain very close and still do.

• 1:41:48David Sims?

  I wonder if Harvey's like, fuck you, why am I not, you know, why do I not get to be your De Niro? Like, why does De Niro get to be your star?

• 1:41:56Speaker 03

  On my rewatch, I really had that. I'm like, what happened to Harvey? Like, what happened to Keitel after this?

• 1:42:01Griffin Newman?

  This is what struck me watching it, right?

• 1:42:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:03Griffin Newman?

  Is like, it's interesting that he had this guy who was so much the stand-in for him. And then he picks this other guy who was so different from him, who becomes the driving force of his movies going forward, or at least a majority of them. And then you look at the filmography and you're like, all of these movies are personal in that they are explorations of the things that clearly Scorsese wrestles with constantly. But his movies no longer pass this point really feel like they're about characters that reflect him. They become explorations of his worldview.

• 1:42:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:35Griffin Newman?

  And of his interests.

• 1:42:37David Sims?

  But like, and also, right, he doesn't write as many movies.

• 1:42:39Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:42:40David Sims?

  And when he does write, it's often adaptation, you know, like something like, um, Age of Innocence, or, you know, like, um, Gangs of New York.

• 1:42:48Griffin Newman?

  But I wonder if part of that is him recognizing in the sort of like, the forcefulness of what De Niro is able to do as Johnny Boy and putting a character that's sort of exciting, that much of a wild card into the mix, that he's like, I'm kind of a passive protagonist. I'm a guy who looks out the window and watches what's happening, who thinks about it, who will stand a little close to the danger but never actually place myself, you know, in real harms way. And he wants to start to build movies around characters who are actively moving the plot. Uh, so then Keitel becomes sort of an odd duck, you know? In a way that maybe his association with him was too strong at the beginning.

• 1:43:32David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe you don't wanna get locked into it, but then he gets locked into it with De Niro to some extent.

• 1:43:36Griffin Newman?

  Which is why he then from that point on is like, Harvey, I'm gonna ask you to play all sorts of wild, different things.

• 1:43:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:41Griffin Newman?

  You're just an actor I'm like throwing interesting challenges at.

• 1:43:45David Sims?

  How do you feel about Harvey Miriam?

• 1:43:46Speaker 03

  I, I like him. I mean, I was really like, what happened? Like, you know, I was thinking about, he's got some great roles. I mean, he's Jewish, right, Harvey? And that, so that was the whole thing, was this like Polish Jew?

• 1:43:56David Sims?

  His parents were Russian Jews.

• 1:43:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he, or, so he was like stand-

• 1:44:00David Sims?

  Brighton Beach guy.

• 1:44:01Speaker 03

  So first she was the stand-in for Marty and then, but I was, you know, just when, now when we were talking, I'm like, could Harvey Keitel have been in Casino?

• 1:44:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09David Sims?

  Totally. Like, in either role.

• 1:44:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:12David Sims?

  I mean, it's interesting, like, Harvey Keitel is a good actor.

• 1:44:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:17David Sims?

  If he's in a movie, it's usually good.

• 1:44:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:20David Sims?

  I mean, his performance. He's in lots of bad movies. Like, I mean, he just was one of those guys who I feel like just made five movies a year for 30 years, right? Like,

• 1:44:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  80s and 90s, like, he just says, zillion credits. And he can do big, or he can do restrained, like, you know, he-

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Doesn't feel like an egotistical actor to me.

• 1:44:40Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I, there's a part of it, and some of this is conjecture on my part, right? But you look at him in like the seventies and the eighties, you look at the stuff he did with Tobak, which is very Tobakian, you know?

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  Of course, yes.

• 1:44:54Griffin Newman?

  It is that he, for a while, I would say until the nineties, really wants to be the lead or the co-lead of the movie. And sometimes these guys do just get into a place where they're like, I'm willing to play the dilemma, I'm willing to play the side character or the villain for Marty, but otherwise I'd rather be the guy. And that sometimes can dictate the choices, you know?

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  There's a lot of weird stuff in the eighties.

• 1:45:24Speaker 03

  With, with, with Keitel?

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:25Speaker 03

  Was he, was, when was piano, was that the nineties?

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  Ninety-three. I love that performance.

• 1:45:30Speaker 03

  It's a great performance.

• 1:45:31Griffin Newman?

  We've talked about a fair amount of nineties and two thousands, Keitel.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Right, because we've done Campion, so there's multiple, you know, Campion performances from him. What else have we talked about?

• 1:45:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, we did the National Treasure movies on Patreon, probably his two finest performances as guy behind desk.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  But that's the thing, it's like, what's he doing there?

• 1:45:47Griffin Newman?

  Declaration of Independence.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  I mean, there's like, right, and which is like, that's just like Thelma and Louise, right? Like, it's like, he does Thelma and Louise, and then he'll just like do that every so often, ever since. Of like, do you want me to play the tired cop, like Clockers? He's good in Clockers.

• 1:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  Like, and he's sort of the lead of Clockers, but he's not really, like Mekhi Pfeiffer is the lead of Clockers. But Harvey's like, the face and the narrator.

• 1:46:10Griffin Newman?

  Right, Tarantino and Spike Lee and all these other filmmakers using him almost in a mixtape way.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  He is so good in Reservoir Dogs.

• 1:46:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's incredible.

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:46:20Speaker 03

  I've never seen it.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  You've never seen, why have you never seen Reservoir Dogs?

• 1:46:26Griffin Newman?

  Is there, is there an act of avoidance, or have you just not gotten around to it?

• 1:46:29Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:46:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:31Speaker 03

  I don't know, it's just.

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  It's like ninety minutes long. They play it in rep cinemas constantly.

• 1:46:38Griffin Newman?

  And bars and like, yeah.

• 1:46:42Griffin Newman?

  Keitel is incredibly good in it.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  The whole thing with Reservoir Dogs, like Michael Madsen, I assume, you know, is kind of like the character that pops or whatever, and Bishemi is being so funny.

• 1:46:51Griffin Newman?

  Kind of thing.

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  Right, you know, and, but, and Keitel is the lead, and he has this super emotional role, and he's so good.

• 1:46:57Griffin Newman?

  And it's, it's different, but it does feel like Tarantino is casting him because it's like using an impactful pop song, you know?

• 1:47:06Speaker 03

  Aye.

• 1:47:06Griffin Newman?

  There, there is, he becomes somewhat representational by the nineties for a lot of filmmakers who grew up inspired by the Scorsese movies. And then I think they'll, I don't know, they'll rework him in interesting ways. Even the way Wes Anderson uses him is very fascinating.

• 1:47:22Speaker 03

  Hey, which one Wes Anderson is in?

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  Fun in Budapest.

• 1:47:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:47:26Speaker 03

  Oh, I forgot about that.

• 1:47:27Griffin Newman?

  And he's also in Moonrise Kingdom as like the major troop leader at the end. They keep going up the ladder to who's the ultimate troop leader. And then you reveal like old Harvey Keitel in little khaki shorts. And Keitel's like, just have to say it, it's not even that he has a great face, he has one of the most fascinating skulls in history. Where you're just like, who has a head like this, right? He just doesn't look like anybody else. And it's, it's hard to read him. It's really kind of fascinating to watch him listen to people because you can't really tell what's going on. And I think similarly, when he talks, it sort of feels like a struggle to him.

• 1:48:10Griffin Newman?

  Not that it's non-verbal, but that it's really like an effort to get things out. It's funny because I feel like in press interviews, he's far more gregarious, that he is not a guy who's like incredibly self-serious or protective about.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:48:26Griffin Newman?

  His process. But then on screen, he plays things that feel often a little bit closer to De Niro maybe as a guy. Where this guy doesn't have the language to get what he wants to say out of his system. And also so much of that is just like Keitel's insane body, right?

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like he can also, I mean, maybe I'm just misjudging from certain roles, but I feel like there's like a dangerous eroticism to a lot of his performances. But I don't really see with De Niro, like, I feel like De Niro, I mean, De Niro's like, I'm sure a sexy guy, but there's not like a real sensuality within his world.

• 1:48:59Griffin Newman?

  Weirdly sexual and feels transgressive, and he also looks.

• 1:49:02Speaker 01

  And he moves towards that.

• 1:49:04Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  Like in the roles he takes.

• 1:49:05Griffin Newman?

  But he's got this fucking pit bull thing, you know? He's got this kind of like perma-frown.

• 1:49:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love his walk.

• 1:49:11Griffin Newman?

  And this furrowed brow, and he's so kind of weirdly like compressed.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like stocky, although I don't know if he was really stocky, like, because they're all little guys.

• 1:49:20Griffin Newman?

  This is all just how things read on camera, right? But he's just a guy where you're just like, it's just fucking shoulders and biceps at a time where people in American movies aren't really built, you know? And it's not like he's like a jacked bodybuilder, but he always just had kind of like a weird spilling of muscles in his upper body.

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  He's a funny body, and he shows it off a lot.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  He likes to show his penis.

• 1:49:42Speaker 03

  I've never thought about.

• 1:49:43Griffin Newman?

  Within the context of art.

• 1:49:44Speaker 03

  Harvey Keitel's body this much.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Well, like, if you think of like Bad Lieutenant, this sort of iconic him, like, you know, when he's like, you know, they, it's on the, you know, he has a fun, and then the piano and stuff.

• 1:49:55Griffin Newman?

  As Marie would, would call out, a very deep V too. I feel like those movies like Bad Lieutenant and the piano where he's getting naked, he's got, he's got the V.

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  Okay, he's got like a tiny little ripped tongue.

• 1:50:08Griffin Newman?

  Miriam is covering her mouth in shock and shame.

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  As she should.

• 1:50:13Speaker 03

  I'm blushing.

• 1:50:14Griffin Newman?

  It's Miriam, on the desk there, we have a postcard of Austin Powers frozen in ice, because when we watched that movie, Marie Barty said, is Mike Myers cut? And then just kept calling out the deep V.

• 1:50:29Griffin Newman?

  Keitel obviously doesn't have the Austin Powers chest hair.

• 1:50:33Speaker 01

  Okay, other scenes we should talk about. How about the Vietnam Vet party? That feels significant.

• 1:50:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, is that where?

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Speaks to the time that it's at. I mean, it's still, we're still in Vietnam, yeah, what, was that, what, sorry?

• 1:50:45Speaker 03

  But then he gets drunk, is that where he gets drunk and he walks, and he's like blessing? I think he's like, he's baptizing people, he's like.

• 1:50:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  Going around with water and like baptizing people. But you were thinking specifically of the, the, of the Vietnam thing, of, of the era of what?

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  And then the vet is clearly suffering from, you know, his experience there, and he attacks that woman. And then Keitel has that moment where he dances with her in the closet.

• 1:51:12Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh, that's weird.

• 1:51:14Speaker 01

  It's so weird. I don't know what to read from it.

• 1:51:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  It feels like another story, like that, you know, Scorsese remembered or whatever, and it like makes so much sense, obviously, if you threw a party for a Vietnam Vet, and we're like, let's set off a bunch of loud noises and streamers and shit, that it was like, obviously like, could be very traumatic for them.

• 1:51:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, the literal opening of this movie is him lighting the candles in church, right? Is that the opening shot?

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, the, the opening is the monologue.

• 1:51:43Griffin Newman?

  And the narration, which is Scorsese's voice, is you don't make up for your sins in church, you do it in the streets, you do it at home, the rest is bullshit and you know it. Rather than it being a movie where the pull is, is this guy going to follow faith? The movie's telling you upfront while the guy is going through the motions and the rituals, that this is kind of all, not that it's bullshit, but that it can't overpower the rest. It's, it's actually like an impossible battle that you've already lost.

• 1:52:09Speaker 03

  It's not that it's bullshit, it's just that you have like all these opportunities for like empathy and savior, and saving people and like, and, and real testing of stuff.

• 1:52:21Griffin Newman?

  And then, the real work isn't going to happen here in a theoretical space, it's going to happen in your actions outside in the world.

• 1:52:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:28Speaker 03

  One scene that we didn't talk about is most of this is scripted, but they would do like, kind of like, you know, they would do like little sessions, then add into the script, but there is one like improv scene, and it's like right after.

• 1:52:40Griffin Newman?

  The trash can.

• 1:52:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, oh no, yeah, that might be, but I was thinking about when they go into the back room. So when De Niro first walks in, it's the, it's the stones and, you know, it's the slow motion, and we're really in a Scorsese movie. And then they go into the back room, and that's when they're like, they're like, the Tuesday after, the Tuesday after this Tuesday, or, you know, and they're doing all this wordplay and talking about Joey Clambs, no Joey Skellet, no, they're the same person, yay! And like this whole thing, that was all improvised. And that was something that Scorsese said he was really, I feel like he, he needed something there, and he needed something to set the tone in the comedy. And he was really influenced by like Abbott and Costello and Who's On First.

• 1:53:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:53:19Speaker 03

  But also like the road movies and Bob Hope and, and Bing Crosby and this like, you know, someone always trying to get one over. But I think the wordplay is really key in this. I love that scene.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  The line where he, he's like, which girl? He's like, my left or your left? We were sitting, we were on the same side.

• 1:53:36Speaker 03

  My left or your left? It's so good.

• 1:53:38Griffin Newman?

  The same shit, it's like, it's rock music, and it's like old vaudeville comedy dynamics, and it's the language of how people fight with each other verbally, you know, it's all rhythm shit. It's rhythm and word selection, which I feel like are always the thing, like the metronome that his movies go off of.

• 1:53:57Griffin Newman?

  David Denby, when this came out, said that Scorsese has used improvisation better than anyone in American movies so far. Which is an interesting line to me, because A, less of this movie is improvised than people think. It's really those two big moments, but a lot of what you said, there was a really solid script, then they would do rehearsals, and then if they came up with something good, an improv exercise, they would transcribe it and tighten it and just writing. A lot of times when there are these fucking famous moments in movies where people go like, and, and do you know that was actually improvised? It's like, that was improvised when they did the blocking rehearsal.

• 1:54:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then they wrote it.

• 1:54:31Griffin Newman?

  And then they wrote it into the sides, and then they did it eighty times, and they refined it. It's not like the moment you're watching is the one time that happened. And this is one where the improvisation is happening developmentally. But I think what they're getting at, and even just the way Denby words that, it's like they're talking about improvisation like it's three D or something. Like there's this new technology in movies, and people are like, is this a gimmick? Do you make whole movies out of improv? Is this something that you can use as part of the language?

• 1:55:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:00Speaker 03

  It's been going, it was going on for so long, like Gregory Lukava was doing it. Like, it's so interesting when people like, people are, I mean, you know, if you guys have ever been to an awful Q and A,

• 1:55:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:09Speaker 03

  they're always like, was that improvised?

• 1:55:11Griffin Newman?

  Fucking first question. It's so annoying.

• 1:55:14David Sims?

  Just let the cameras roll, you know?

• 1:55:16Griffin Newman?

  But the answer is always if people see something that

• 1:55:19David Sims?

  That feels natural.

• 1:55:20Griffin Newman?

  It sounds to them like real dialogue. They wanna believe it's improv. And, you know, movies, you do fucking a thousand takes of everything. Things are like iterative, you know? It's rarely like improv in the way you think of seeing a fucking improv show where two people are making up a scene from the get go. But I think versus a lot of these other things we're talking about where improv was used as like, this is like an interesting formal experiment. Scorsese kind of figured out a way to harness the energy of improv into more conventional.

• 1:55:53David Sims?

  Seasoning.

• 1:55:54Speaker 03

  Well, lightning in a bottle, the whole thing is.

• 1:55:56Griffin Newman?

  That's the other part of it.

• 1:55:57Speaker 03

  Especially De Niro.

• 1:55:58Griffin Newman?

  Right. If you're like Cassavetes, where those films are less improvised than people think.

• 1:56:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:03Griffin Newman?

  But they have the energy of, the main purpose of the camera here is to capture what the actors are doing, rather than say something with the camera themselves. I think in later Cassavetes movies, he does meaningful things visually, but it's really like serving the performances first and foremost. And to have a movie that has improv energy in it, but also has complicated camera moves, you know? Has like three minute traveling shots through an apartment and things like that is where people start to feel like, oh, improv isn't an either or thing. It, I mean, once, all these conversations just fucking cycle themselves. But it's like, what kind of kills the American comedy movie in a way? Is they all felt really stagnant and high concept?

• 1:56:47Griffin Newman?

  And then improv comes in, back into them. And people enjoy that these movies feel riffy, but then they all start to feel really visually static. Because they need three cameras running at the same time to get what actually is a real improv riff.

• 1:57:13Speaker 03

  So are you guys all the Charlie in your bromance?

• 1:57:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17David Sims?

  Or I'm, I'm not even Charlie. I'm like.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Am I the Charlie?

• 1:57:20Speaker 03

  Are you the Charlie in your male friendships?

• 1:57:22David Sims?

  I don't wanna go out with these people.

• 1:57:23Speaker 03

  Or maybe you're a, I feel like you might, you have a little Johnny boy sympathy.

• 1:57:27Griffin Newman?

  I think I'm Amy Robinson. You're Johnny boy, David's Charlie.

• 1:57:31Speaker 03

  I love this.

• 1:57:33David Sims?

  I mean, I definitely, I always had less tolerance for the, the guy who is like, let's throw a firecracker in a mailbox. I'd be like, I'm going home. Um, I find this movie invigorating because I love like New York movies. I love how Marty tells any story or whatever. This has never been like my favorite Marty because I don't relate to it very much.

• 1:57:56Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:57:57David Sims?

  Um, but I do, I love this movie though. I got a beef with this movie. This is a big movie for my mom. My mom loves this movie.

• 1:58:02Speaker 03

  Why does your mom love it?

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  Cause she's a New York girl. Like, you know, I don't know. She, I think it was probably, she, what, this is 73, so she was 22.

• 1:58:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:10David Sims?

  Like, you know, she saw it at the right time and it was thunder crack kind of movie for her, like. The later Marty's are too fucked up, I think. Stuff like Taxi Driver, like she's seen Taxi Driver, but like, she's like, oh, but those are so dark, like, and those are so violent. Mean Streets is sort of the appropriate amount of violent.

• 1:58:25Griffin Newman?

  It is fascinating too, where it is a movie where even living 50 years past its release date, in, in a media landscape that is like permanently influenced by what this movie does. You feel like you're watching the Big Bang. It doesn't, you understand that what you're seeing is all of these things starting to crystallize for the first time. Everything he's synthesizing together and what he'll do in the rest of his career and how other people will be influenced by it. Like Bonnie and Clyde feels that way to me too, where even if you've seen all the movies that come after it, when you watch Bonnie and Clyde for the first time, you're like, I can tell this is them breaking the sound barrier in certain areas.

• 1:59:04David Sims?

  Totally, you're right.

• 1:59:05Griffin Newman?

  And there's stuff like MASH, which for how much I love Robert Altman, that's a movie that I think like you cannot watch without context of what it was coming out of and actually fully understand it. Because so much of what people, like my father, who saw it in 1970 and were like, this is just, no one talked like this, stories weren't structured like this. When you watch it now, it just feels kind of sloppy. And there's stuff in MASH that I think is incredible. There's stuff in MASH that is beyond retrograde.

• 1:59:33David Sims?

  Sure. I haven't seen MASH in 20 years.

• 1:59:36Griffin Newman?

  But there's also a lot of it that's just kind of mushy and you're.

• 1:59:38David Sims?

  Mashy almost.

• 1:59:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, David, five profundity points. But at the time, every single thing people were seeing was, that's never been on screen before. Nothing's ever felt like this. It's never sounded like this. It's never looked like this. And Mean Streets still has all of that power, even though we've seen everything it's influenced after.

• 1:59:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. It also, I feel like, you know, your mom was the right age, like 20, 22 or whatever. Like, it's just so captures the like in-jokes and language of a friendship group in your like late teens and early twenties. You know, doesn't it?

• 2:00:11David Sims?

  Of course. And though I never worked for the mob, nor hung out at Italian American social club.

• 2:00:17Griffin Newman?

  And say that again. Let's make sure we have that on the record.

• 2:00:19David Sims?

  Yet. My phone number is 1234567910.

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  I never yet is a funny sentence structure.

• 2:00:27David Sims?

  They wanna call me and offer me a job.

• 2:00:28Griffin Newman?

  I have never, and I mean never, worked for the mob.

• 2:00:31David Sims?

  Jobs and maybe tons hills of school here where you do not show up to it and get the money anyway. A no-show job. If they give me one of those, one of those, please.

• 2:00:42Griffin Newman?

  Like a mob desk job?

• 2:00:44David Sims?

  No, you know, a no-show job, like the, like the whole thing the mob does where they're like, you know, we run this union now and you're gonna have five extra salaries.

• 2:00:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, yes.

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  I wonder if the mob is in on podcasting yet.

• 2:00:55David Sims?

  What? I'm in the audio business. What do you want from me? The legitimate business.

• 2:00:59Speaker 01

  Hey, I talked to my friends. What do you want from me?

• 2:01:01Griffin Newman?

  I make audio go boom. I turn heads into gum.

• 2:01:06David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:01:07Griffin Newman?

  Wow. I was looking up, uh, Letterboxd logs for this movie. And there was, uh, one from Paul Schrader from 2019, the before times. Uh, where he just wrote, all caps, Mean Streets. Watched it tonight for the first time in almost 50 years. I'd first seen it in rough cut. What struck me most was how well I remembered it, line for line, scene for scene, needle drop for needle drop, and how in place Marty's aesthetic was. I was tempted to think, quote, this director's been watching a lot of Scorsese films. Way back then, I knew it was very good. I fancied myself a film critic after all, but I didn't realize it was a fucking Roman candle.

• 2:01:46Speaker 03

  Perfect.

• 2:01:46Griffin Newman?

  The Roman candle thing really stuck with me.

• 2:01:48David Sims?

  Because it is not, you know, a movie with like this very clear direction to it. It is firing off in all directions.

• 2:01:54Griffin Newman?

  And he wasn't seeing it for what it was at the time because also he was part of the movement that it was coming out of.

• 2:02:00David Sims?

  It's so funny.

• 2:02:01Griffin Newman?

  Happening.

• 2:02:01David Sims?

  I know. It is so funny that Schrader and him find, and Scorsese like start working together. Cause like Scorsese's like the Catholic thing versus the Calvinist thing, like very different approaches to religious sort of guilt and fervor and yeah.

• 2:02:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:16David Sims?

  Uh, they've made some good movies together.

• 2:02:18Speaker 03

  But speaking of Schrader, do you think that, like, I mean, cause obviously.

• 2:02:23David Sims?

  Do you think that his AI Facebook posts are good? Of course they do. I think they're hilarious.

• 2:02:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. We love him.

• 2:02:27Speaker 03

  But do you think Scorsese, like, obviously, I, I don't think his screenplays are his strengths. And I actually think this is one of his strongest screenplays, even though you're right, it doesn't do anything.

• 2:02:38David Sims?

  Goodfellas.

• 2:02:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, the language.

• 2:02:41David Sims?

  The most incredible screenplay and at the same, like in the same way of where you're like, is this just improvised? Like, all these guys talking, like, did Scorsese really write this down?

• 2:02:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:50David Sims?

  Um, I mean, what are his other screenplays? Now I wanna look.

• 2:02:53Griffin Newman?

  But this is, when Departed came out, I feel like he kept making the joke of like, it, it took me 40 years, but I finally made a movie with a plot.

• 2:03:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:02Griffin Newman?

  That he always was this guy who, you know, and he's very self-effacing about it, but he talks about it like, it's not even that I don't find that stuff interesting. I'm not good at it.

• 2:03:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:03:11Griffin Newman?

  I don't know how to do it. I feel like I've told this story before.

• 2:03:15David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:03:15Griffin Newman?

  But on the set of Vinyl, there was this point, I was, I was in the worst thing Scorsese ever directed, Miriam, and.

• 2:03:21David Sims?

  Let's wait to see Shine a Light.

• 2:03:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:03:24David Sims?

  Let's wait to watch Shine a Light.

• 2:03:25Griffin Newman?

  There was a moment in the pilot where there was a boardroom scene with like 15 speaking roles, which is the worst fucking thing in the world to shoot. It's stagnant. Everyone's at chairs. You have to get so much cross-coverage and then the angles are like, fuck. He delivers most of his lines to this guy at one end of the table, but one line to the other end of the table. So we need to get coverage from the other side as well, just for that one line. And he comes in and they're like, Marty, what should we get next? And he stands there and he's sort of muttering to himself and he's like pointing and doing directions. And he's trying to figure out the math on like, what coverage are we still owed? What do I need? What would help me? And he just looks up and he goes, I've just never been good at this stuff.

• 2:04:04David Sims?

  Right. Okay, so his scripts are Mean Streets, Goodfellas. Wow. No screenplay credit between those two movies.

• 2:04:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:13David Sims?

  Age of Innocence, Casino.

• 2:04:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:15David Sims?

  Yeah, it's like, you know, and then like Silence, Killers of the Flower Moon, like more recently.

• 2:04:21Griffin Newman?

  It's also obviously very hands-on with his writers are his closest friends, his closest collaborators. He works with the same people often.

• 2:04:28David Sims?

  Jay Cox.

• 2:04:29Griffin Newman?

  It's years and years of development. Cannavale was like, Marty, what the fuck are you talking about? You're Martin Scorsese. You know what coverage you need. And he was like, I really, I just don't have a head for that. And, and you realize, not that he's being like falsely modest, but much in the same way that like the anxious camera work is a byproduct of we don't have time to set up multiple shots. That a lot of his language comes out of like, I'm just not gonna do the stuff that doesn't come to me innately. I'm gonna go to the stuff I feel like I can do better than anyone else. And I think similarly, he's like, I'm not a tight plot construction guy.

• 2:05:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:06Griffin Newman?

  You know, and I can do it when I need to. And when he does it, it's usually the things that are more conventional genre riffs like Cape Fear or Shutter Island, where he's playing in the tradition of a type of movie. And then what he's doing is having fun stylistically or making the performances unconventional within it. But left to his own devices, it's like what he likes is finding a world. What he likes is like digging into the corners. What he likes is exploring every little sub dynamic. But he's not someone who is into, I think, tight story construction.

• 2:05:37Speaker 03

  I do wanna say as far as like coverage for this one, I think because he'd worked on it for so long, for like whatever, eight, seven years, he had drawn everything.

• 2:05:47Griffin Newman?

  He's an incredible fucking artist.

• 2:05:48Speaker 03

  So he's had done shots, so, but as far as like the actual coverage, he brought in the Boxcar Bertha Corman team to be like, okay, how do we do this? Like efficiently and stuff. But yeah, so he had drawn like every, every scene. And so.

• 2:06:04Griffin Newman?

  He had a version in his head of what his perfect movie would look like. But then the reason you bring in the Corman people is they are like the A team. They are like the weirdos who know how to just like, fuck, well, actually, if we only have five minutes, here's the way to do it. Like they exceed under pressure.

• 2:06:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:06:22Speaker 03

  Also, I wanna say the different, like what makes this film a little different than the rest is he edited it. He edited this and Boxcar Bertha.

• 2:06:32David Sims?

  He's not credited because of Guild rules, but he says the original editor who is credited.

• 2:06:38Griffin Newman?

  He's got a co-credit, but there was a Guild rule that you couldn't be the sole editor of your own movie.

• 2:06:42David Sims?

  No, he's not credited.

• 2:06:43Griffin Newman?

  I thought I saw like an additional editing or something.

• 2:06:46Speaker 03

  I don't think he is credited, but he did, he said he edited it, but you couldn't take credit.

• 2:06:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:50David Sims?

  The original edit was terrible, like by whoever gets credit.

• 2:06:53Speaker 03

  So this is like, so, so Shoemaker, Thelma Shoemaker did, did his first one, Who's That Knocking? But, and then, so, and this one is, is like, is Marty without Thelma?

• 2:07:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Right, well, she's also like working on Woodstock for years?

• 2:07:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:10David Sims?

  Uh, but no, but Woodstock comes out in seventy.

• 2:07:12Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:07:13David Sims?

  Which he worked on too, obviously, but she is sort of what, and that's where they reconnect or, yeah. But she doesn't come back to him until Raging Bull.

• 2:07:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, which is crazy.

• 2:07:21David Sims?

  Uh, like Taxi Driver is edited by somebody else, I forget, uh, yeah, Marshall Lucas and Todd Rolfe.

• 2:07:27Speaker 03

  Oh, I forgot.

• 2:07:27Griffin Newman?

  Wait, I actually have some interesting points about Marshall Lucas I'm gonna make in the next episode. What were you gonna say, Miriam?

• 2:07:32Speaker 03

  Well, you can edit this out because it's probably, you're gonna get to it. But is New York, New York very bounced?

• 2:07:38Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 2:07:38David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, New York, New York is the first bounce.

• 2:07:42Griffin Newman?

  This is a classic, I mean, this is an arc of, no, but the way we used to, when the show started and things were more narrow and we were like, we need people who fit into these very classic tight arcs. The first ten years of his career are so thoroughly that of like, you have two developmental movies, then you have the movie where it all comes together. That's the guarantor to like, we're gonna let you elevate to Taxi Driver, which is the crazy breakthrough. And then he cashes that in on New York, New York, where people are like, you're fucking done.

• 2:08:18David Sims?

  And New York, New York is just the classic bounce of like, he spent too much money on a movie that didn't need to be expensive. And he had like.

• 2:08:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:08:24David Sims?

  A whole artistic idea of like how to present this story and do a musical differently.

• 2:08:29Griffin Newman?

  It's very similar.

• 2:08:29David Sims?

  And everyone's like, ah.

• 2:08:31Griffin Newman?

  It's very similar to Spielberg with nineteen forty-one, where it's like overloaded with ideas and passion.

• 2:08:36David Sims?

  I can do a different genre.

• 2:08:37Griffin Newman?

  You have overthought this movie.

• 2:08:39Speaker 03

  And cocaine.

• 2:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and cocaine.

• 2:08:41David Sims?

  There's a little bit of cocaine.

• 2:08:42Griffin Newman?

  And then Raging Bull is the like, I gotta show people I can just like focus it up again.

• 2:08:47David Sims?

  But like, King of Comedy is a bounce. I mean, he's got a lot of bounces.

• 2:08:51Griffin Newman?

  I'm saying just that arc of.

• 2:08:52David Sims?

  No, I know, you're, I, I agree with you.

• 2:08:54Griffin Newman?

  Cause who, Who's That Knocking is sixty-nine or seventy?

• 2:08:56David Sims?

  Sixty-seven.

• 2:08:57Griffin Newman?

  So it's sixty-seven to, and then Raging Bull's eighty?

• 2:09:00David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's where there's a real tight, like sort of, this is how a career develops, grows.

• 2:09:05David Sims?

  I guess.

• 2:09:06Griffin Newman?

  Crashes, rebounds, and then the eighties are up and down.

• 2:09:09Speaker 03

  You disagree, David? I see, I.

• 2:09:11David Sims?

  No, I don't disagree. I, the eighties are more up, I mean, like Last Temptation nominally made money.

• 2:09:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:19David Sims?

  Like it, it did ruin things for him a little bit.

• 2:09:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:22David Sims?

  And like his other big bombs are King of Comedy, that's a huge bomb. Like that makes no money.

• 2:09:27Griffin Newman?

  And was framed as an embarrassment. Like people were like, shame on you.

• 2:09:30David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, right. And Bringing Out the Dead was like, honestly, like a really big bomb.

• 2:09:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:35David Sims?

  Cause that movie's also pretty expensive. And that was, I feel like Bringing Out the Dead is another kind of low point for him career-wise of like, why should studios keep giving you money? You know, like.

• 2:09:45Griffin Newman?

  When we were talking about.

• 2:09:46David Sims?

  After that, he's been able to do whatever he wants.

• 2:09:48Griffin Newman?

  We were talking about, because the series is so long, did we like split it in half? And do we do a little short series in between so that there's a little bit of a break in Marty?

• 2:09:57David Sims?

  That's probably not gonna do.

• 2:09:58Griffin Newman?

  It, it feels like there's enough new releases coming out the end of this year and the beginning of next, so that will kind of naturally happen.

• 2:10:04David Sims?

  Yeah, it's fine.

• 2:10:05Griffin Newman?

  But when we talked about it, I was always adamant, the only place to break it up is nineteen ninety-nine to two thousand and one. Because like what happens between the twentieth century and the twenty-first century is Leo unlocks everything. And it feels like from Gangs of New York on, he's working with bigger budgets than he's ever worked with.

• 2:10:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:10:22Griffin Newman?

  He's got this hot young star who will do anything for him. And everyone is like, it's time, when's he getting the fucking Oscar? And then after he gets the Oscar, it's like he gets to do whatever he wants. And Bringing Out the Dead feels like the last time there is like an attempt at doing a classic Scorsese movie that doesn't work for people.

• 2:10:41David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:10:42Griffin Newman?

  A movie I love and think is a masterpiece.

• 2:10:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:10:45Griffin Newman?

  But his other films in the twenty-first century are him going way outside of his wheelhouse.

• 2:10:52David Sims?

  Miriam, are there movies you don't like or love?

• 2:10:55Griffin Newman?

  Good question.

• 2:10:55David Sims?

  Are there Marty's you sort of respect or stick up for or whatever?

• 2:10:58Speaker 03

  I do not like The Aviator, but that might be partly because I'm too loyal to the source material. I do not like seeing a Catherine Hepburn invitation. I need to see it again.

• 2:11:08Griffin Newman?

  I, but also, I'm very curious to rewatch.

• 2:11:10David Sims?

  I'm excited to rewatch it.

• 2:11:11Griffin Newman?

  Also haven't seen it since.

• 2:11:12David Sims?

  It's never been a favorite. I've seen it since release, but it does so many bananas visual things that I bet I will enjoy on rewatch.

• 2:11:19Speaker 03

  I think I would too. And it's like early Leo, like you were saying, that transition.

• 2:11:23David Sims?

  It's really good Leo.

• 2:11:24Speaker 03

  I was like, um, let's see, wait, is there anything? I, I don't remember loving Bringing, uh, Bringing Out the Dead, but, and.

• 2:11:32David Sims?

  Possibly worth a rewatch.

• 2:11:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then, but, and so I think the only one I haven't seen is The Color of Money.

• 2:11:37David Sims?

  Color of Money rocks.

• 2:11:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:39Speaker 03

  I bet.

• 2:11:39David Sims?

  Hot movie.

• 2:11:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:11:40Speaker 03

  I bet. I never think of it as a real Scorsese, but I know it is. I know it is.

• 2:11:44Griffin Newman?

  His eighties are so weird, cause that's kind of like a commercial play of like, you gotta get back in the good graces of the studio. And it's a big hit and he gets Newman an Oscar, but there was a little bit of like, Scorsese sold out, right? And then After Hours is him trying to be like, I can be responsible, I can make a low budget thing, I can like get on base. But it's like a comedy. It's not seen as like a major work. It's, it's fascinating how up and down he was there. Yeah.

• 2:12:10Speaker 03

  And, yeah, I like, but the rest I love. I love, I love, I was, I was saying, if I didn't do this, I would do Shutter Island. Love that film.

• 2:12:16David Sims?

  I fucking love Shutter Island so much. That's gonna be a fun app.

• 2:12:20Speaker 03

  I love you guys. I'm in good company.

• 2:12:22David Sims?

  Oh, Miriam, we love you too.

• 2:12:23Speaker 03

  I can't wait to see who's gonna do Kundun.

• 2:12:26David Sims?

  We have, we have, we have guests lining up around the block.

• 2:12:30Griffin Newman?

  Well, let's, let's just say it, the Dalai Lama is a blankie.

• 2:12:34Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if we can get him because, you know, we ask people to be in person. We don't wanna do a Zoom episode, but yeah.

• 2:12:39Speaker 03

  Kundun famously filmed in the same place as Ishtar.

• 2:12:42Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 2:12:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, same studio in Morocco.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  That, that fucking rules.

• 2:12:46Speaker 03

  I've visited the Kundun set. It's amazing.

• 2:12:48Griffin Newman?

  And, and Kundun, the soundtrack is mostly Rogers and Clark, right? They use mostly their, yeah.

• 2:12:54Speaker 03

  That's the director's guy.

• 2:12:56Griffin Newman?

  I, I've never seen Kundun before and I've never seen Last Temptation. I'm very eager to see.

• 2:13:00David Sims?

  You've never seen Last Temptation?

• 2:13:01Griffin Newman?

  Never seen it.

• 2:13:02Speaker 03

  Last Temptation is amazing.

• 2:13:04David Sims?

  It's the best. I just rewatched it, which caused our fans to go insane, being like, they're recording out of order. I was like, nope, we watched it not because of the podcast.

• 2:13:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let us, let us watch movies, please.

• 2:13:15David Sims?

  Let me watch my movies.

• 2:13:15Griffin Newman?

  Please let us watch movies.

• 2:13:17David Sims?

  Let's do the box office game for Mean Streets, which came out. And I should, well, actually, before I do the box office game, I should just notice release. It premiered, kind of a surprising choice here, at the New York Film Festival. I don't know why they picked that one.

• 2:13:30Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 2:13:31David Sims?

  No, yeah, so it premieres in fall of seventy-three at the New York Film Festival. Warner Brothers had, you know, it does end up distributing it. They get shopped around and they pick it up.

• 2:13:46Griffin Newman?

  And you know what? In that Linklater thing, Scorsese was saying, they showed it to Columbia, maybe, and they passed on it. They showed it to a different studio first.

• 2:13:54Speaker 03

  Paramount.

• 2:13:54Griffin Newman?

  Paramount, thank you. And then they went over to Warner Brothers and he was like, we're there with all the Warner Brothers execs, and they're getting their sandwiches delivered. We're screening the movie for the second time in two days. The first day, they were like, this is well-made, kid, but there's no money here, right?

• 2:14:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:14:10Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, I'm spooling my movie up. It's starting, and the guys are arguing over like, is that the corned beef? I got the corned beef. And he was like, I'm losing them. And then De Niro came on screen.

• 2:14:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:14:24Griffin Newman?

  And one of the guys looked up and went like, oh, this guy's interesting. And then they all started looking and they all started engaging with the movie and they bought it. You have to imagine that's a moment that changes his entire life where he's like, huh, this guy unlocks doors for me?

• 2:14:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:39Griffin Newman?

  There's something here that is undeniable, that translates across audiences, where if I have this guy in my movies, people are going to watch. Even if he's not famous yet, he makes people lift their heads up and stop paying attention to their sandwiches.

• 2:14:54Speaker 03

  Totally. That's so true and such a good story. But also, I think what was happening then is that the guys were like, these Warner Brothers guys were like, oh, I know a guy like that. I know, I mean, like, he's just like a guy from back home. And that was also the thing for Scorsese. He was like, yes, like, if this works, if this is familiar to people, then this works.

• 2:15:14Griffin Newman?

  People don't want to watch a movie about a guy like me. They want to watch a movie about the guys I know. And the movies can still be personal. But yes, if I can put those guys on screen, I really have something.

• 2:15:25David Sims?

  So the release strategy Scorsese was not very happy with.

• 2:15:30David Sims?

  You know, Warner Brothers didn't really know what to do and was against them opening in New York because I think New York Film Festival was not really as glitzy back then, maybe.

• 2:15:40Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:15:42David Sims?

  And they had no idea how to sell the picture. I mean, it's funny because the poster's so iconic. But don't you think? I mean, like, it's such a famous poster.

• 2:15:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but they don't have stars yet.

• 2:15:51David Sims?

  No.

• 2:15:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:53David Sims?

  The Exorcist is coming out around the same time. Although it is not in the top five, so that's not a spoiler, thank God.

• 2:15:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:15:59David Sims?

  And Warner Brothers is more worried about that. They don't really care about Mean Streets. So the film comes out, it gets nice reviews, it makes three million dollars domestically, but it maybe doesn't, it's not like a huge hit. And it was interesting in that Linklater convo we watched, where Linklater, they were talking about how it got no Oscar nominations. De Niro got a couple of critics. He got like the New York and National Critics Awards.

• 2:16:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he got National Society and New York Film Critics Circle supporting actor, and it got a WGA nom.

• 2:16:30David Sims?

  But like, the Oscars ignored it, but Marty was like, nobody saw it. Like, it was just not like a widely seen movie. The Academy was different, but also just, it wasn't like really out there very much.

• 2:16:38Griffin Newman?

  It didn't feel like we were in the conversation. He wasn't surprised it didn't get the nominations.

• 2:16:43David Sims?

  Right. So, when this film was coming out, number one at the box office, this is crazy, is, I believe, I think it's a double feature, the way I'm reading this chart.

• 2:16:55Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a double feature.

• 2:16:56David Sims?

  Well, I don't think that this chart is trying to tell me it's a tie. I think that these were double features, because the first is like an erotic comedy.

• 2:17:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:17:03Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 2:17:05David Sims?

  You know, I think a bit of a fun, sexy movie for you to go see.

• 2:17:08Griffin Newman?

  Humana, humana, humana.

• 2:17:09David Sims?

  And then the other is an animated film that is famously raunchy. And I imagine they were being presented together.

• 2:17:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so Fritz the Cat.

• 2:17:17David Sims?

  Fritz the Cat is the animated film, the first one, the nineteen seventy-two, you know, the back she Fritz the Cat.

• 2:17:22Griffin Newman?

  And then it was on a double bill with a sex comedy?

• 2:17:24David Sims?

  I doubt you've heard. The other, it's a sex comedy directed by Paul Glickler.

• 2:17:30David Sims?

  I don't know why I'm trying to give you guys clues. It's called The Cheerleaders.

• 2:17:33Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, I was gonna say Paul Glick, or was it The Cheerleaders? I love this movie.

• 2:17:36David Sims?

  I was wondering, Miriam, I was like, make Miriam know, but I didn't want to patronize her.

• 2:17:40Speaker 03

  I didn't know. No, I love this movie.

• 2:17:42David Sims?

  Okay, tell me about The Cheerleaders. Let me, let me see. They don't bring it on, they take it off. Okay, I'm guessing that that tagline was put on a DVD later.

• 2:17:49Griffin Newman?

  Ah, that's pretty good, though.

• 2:17:50Speaker 03

  The Cheerleaders, they're this like,

• 2:17:51David Sims?

  Pretty fucking good.

• 2:17:52Speaker 03

  These great softcore films that, hey, that they'd made like, I think, three of them, and all of these like experimental filmmakers like worked on these.

• 2:17:59David Sims?

  Yes, The Swingin' Cheerleaders in seventy-four, and then Cheerleaders Wild Weekend at one point. I don't know, there's a bunch of them.

• 2:18:07Speaker 03

  Abstract TNA. Love these films.

• 2:18:09David Sims?

  It's just Cheerleaders having fun.

• 2:18:12Speaker 03

  So that was the same week that Mistrice came out?

• 2:18:14David Sims?

  So this is the, right, that is number one at the box office.

• 2:18:16Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:18:17David Sims?

  So that is number one. Number two is a martial arts film, probably the most famous martial arts film ever made.

• 2:18:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, I'm on the Cheerleaders Wikipedia page. Right up at the top, this article needs additional citations for verifications, July twenty thirteen. Someone flagged this thirteen years ago and has not followed up on it. But also, there's a section at the bottom that says, streaming media. And then it just says, the film is often available at licensed streaming movie sites, with two citations.

• 2:18:46David Sims?

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:18:47Griffin Newman?

  Feels like a real abandoned wiki page. Sorry, number two at the box office.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  What's the most famous martial arts movie ever made?

• 2:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Enter the Dragon?

• 2:18:54David Sims?

  So that's number two.

• 2:18:56Griffin Newman?

  Austin Ness, right?

• 2:18:57David Sims?

  Correct. And that's been in the box office for three months at this point, and it's a huge hit.

• 2:19:02Griffin Newman?

  That's another example, though, of like, his other films had been, you know, kind of cult successes. And it was like, he's finally seeded into the consciousness enough that everyone's ready for the big mainstream breakthrough. Warner Brothers makes a Bruce Lee movie, and then he dies and it becomes a phenomenon, because it's like, fuck, this is the final object.

• 2:19:22David Sims?

  Do you like Enter the Dragon?

• 2:19:24Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it.

• 2:19:25David Sims?

  Fair enough.

• 2:19:25Speaker 03

  I need to do a double feature with,

• 2:19:27Griffin Newman?

  Pretty fucking awesome.

• 2:19:28Speaker 03

  With Reservoir Dogs.

• 2:19:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:30David Sims?

  Number three at the box office is a porn film. So like, I think Cheerleaders is more like softcore, but like, this is like a classic, like, golden age of porn movie.

• 2:19:39Griffin Newman?

  Is it Green Door?

• 2:19:40David Sims?

  Not Behind the Green Door.

• 2:19:43Speaker 03

  Misty Beethoven?

• 2:19:44David Sims?

  Not Misty Beethoven, not Deep Throat.

• 2:19:46Griffin Newman?

  It's not Emmanuel.

• 2:19:47David Sims?

  Not, no.

• 2:19:48Griffin Newman?

  It's not, it's not The Horny Alice from Wonderland?

• 2:19:51David Sims?

  No. No.

• 2:19:55Speaker 03

  Devil in Miss Jones?

• 2:19:56David Sims?

  I knew, I knew, just like, name the big ones.

• 2:19:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:59Speaker 03

  The Devil in Miss Jones.

• 2:20:00David Sims?

  In Miss Jones, the Gerard Damiano, is that his name?

• 2:20:04Griffin Newman?

  Right, who's the guy that Kurt Reynolds' character is basically based on.

• 2:20:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:20:10Griffin Newman?

  Who also made a movie.

• 2:20:13Griffin Newman?

  I apologize in advance to all of our listeners and our guests. Let My Puppets Come?

• 2:20:19Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:20:19Griffin Newman?

  Gerard Damiano made a puppet porn film?

• 2:20:22Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:20:23David Sims?

  Let My Puppets Come.

• 2:20:24Griffin Newman?

  That was not presented as like, this is like a parody of porn. It was like, do people want to jerk off to puppets?

• 2:20:31Griffin Newman?

  And so the parody, the title's a parody of Let My People Come, and instead it's just horny puppets.

• 2:20:37David Sims?

  I like an apology as well.

• 2:20:40Griffin Newman?

  Own it on Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray?

• 2:20:44Griffin Newman?

  Didn't get the slipcover.

• 2:20:45David Sims?

  It's just,

• 2:20:46Griffin Newman?

  Need to speak my truth.

• 2:20:47David Sims?

  Do you own it?

• 2:20:48Griffin Newman?

  This movie made, It's an interesting artifact of film history. I'm not saying I get my rocks off watching it. I don't look at puppets that way.

• 2:20:57Speaker 03

  He bought it for the liner notes.

• 2:20:58David Sims?

  Friedkin calls Devil in Miss Jones, says Devil in Miss Jones is the best, like, porn movie of those, of that era, because it like has a plot.

• 2:21:06Speaker 03

  I saw it at Bologna, at this film festival for restorations. It was so, it was weird to watch a film with like, you know, all these like academics and stuff.

• 2:21:17David Sims?

  It is, right.

• 2:21:18Speaker 03

  It was, it was weird, but no, it's a, it's a good film.

• 2:21:20David Sims?

  I've seen it. She kills herself, and then like, the devil, right, is like, or the, like, an angel or is basically like, there's like, you can earn your place in hell by being a horny lady on earth.

• 2:21:33Speaker 03

  Something, I think so.

• 2:21:35David Sims?

  There's sort of a celestial element to it.

• 2:21:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, The Cheerleaders has a better plot, where like, if you want to win the football game, you have to like, outfuck the other team.

• 2:21:45David Sims?

  Right. I mean, look, we love a good plot.

• 2:21:48Griffin Newman?

  Let My Puppets Come has a plot, owning, owing a mob boss half a million dollars that must be paid within twenty-four hours. A group of executives come up with ideas for in films, a pornographic movie, but the characters are puppets. It's kind of, I, I, I watched the movie for the story.

• 2:22:05David Sims?

  Of course.

• 2:22:06Griffin Newman?

  That's what I watch it for.

• 2:22:07David Sims?

  Number four at the box office, this is a crazy box office, because it's all kind of like, you know, undergroundy kind of movies, is like, a Chinese action movie starring the female Bruce Lee as she was billed.

• 2:22:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Is this?

• 2:22:30Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, sorry, tell me.

• 2:22:32David Sims?

  The actor is called Judy Lee.

• 2:22:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:22:34David Sims?

  The film is called Queen Boxer.

• 2:22:36Griffin Newman?

  Okay, yep.

• 2:22:37David Sims?

  And I've never seen it, but she's like a kickboxer who's taking revenge or whatever.

• 2:22:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:22:43David Sims?

  And, yeah, that's number four. That's new this week. And then number five is, well, it's a film that you just told me that the director wanted Marty to be in.

• 2:22:52Griffin Newman?

  Let My Puppets Come?

• 2:22:56Griffin Newman?

  This was another thing revealed in the Linklater thing, that American Graffiti is basically filming the same time as Mean Streets, and that George Lucas wanted Scorsese as an actor in the film. To be the leader of the Pharaohs, he said.

• 2:23:10David Sims?

  In American Graffiti, which of course is one of the biggest hits of seventy-three.

• 2:23:13Griffin Newman?

  And he said, George, I don't even drive. I'm from New York. I'm not a Californian.

• 2:23:17David Sims?

  We should note, of course, that Marty is in Mean Streets and does shoot Robert De Niro in the neck with a gun.

• 2:23:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Nice work if you could catch.

• 2:23:24David Sims?

  We didn't really talk about the ending, but the ending is so fucking insane. Like, it really, I love that you just don't know. What happens to Johnny Boy, or really to any of them. You know that they're making it to the hospital.

• 2:23:35Griffin Newman?

  It's the other part that was making me think of Mikey and Nikki, that it just like the, the big dramatic burst of violence happens and the movie ends like immediately.

• 2:23:42Speaker 03

  And then you get your other clip, you get the big heat when the wife dies and like it's so devastating. So you're like, I don't know. And the weird music, that's such a crazy ending. What were you gonna say, Ben?

• 2:23:55Speaker 01

  When they're on their way to Brooklyn, I wrote down this really funny quote from Keitel. Do I know Brooklyn? Do I know the jungle? And I just love that at that time, Brooklyn, all of the outer boroughs were truly just like no man's land for people in Manhattan.

• 2:24:10Griffin Newman?

  It's not even that, it's just you don't leave your place.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:24:13Griffin Newman?

  You got your spot. This is your neighborhood. This is where your people are, you know?

• 2:24:18Speaker 03

  They filmed it in Brooklyn. I mean, it was, it took place in Brooklyn so they could film it in LA. I think David already talked about that.

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:23David Sims?

  Uh, yes, um, so.

• 2:24:25Griffin Newman?

  How long has American Graffiti been out at this point?

• 2:24:27David Sims?

  American Graffiti's been out for 11 weeks.

• 2:24:29Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:24:31David Sims?

  Three months.

• 2:24:32Speaker 03

  I stand.

• 2:24:33David Sims?

  So other films, a reissue of Clockwork Orange is number six.

• 2:24:36Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:24:36David Sims?

  That's obviously a couple of years old at this point. A reissue of Camelot, the musical is at number seven, and a reissue of The Last of Sheila.

• 2:24:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:24:44David Sims?

  With Richard Benjamin is number eight.

• 2:24:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:46David Sims?

  Then you have Electra Glide in Blue at number nine, uh, which is, um, I wanna just double check. You know, this movie, uh, that's like.

• 2:24:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  The sort of biker movie, but it's like a sort of spoof of biker movies.

• 2:25:00Griffin Newman?

  A little bit, yeah.

• 2:25:01David Sims?

  With Robert Blake.

• 2:25:02Griffin Newman?

  Close modern, yeah.

• 2:25:03David Sims?

  And then there's the movie Hit with Billy Dee Williams, the Sidney Fury movie.

• 2:25:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:25:08David Sims?

  That's like, uh, you know, it's maybe not even blaxploitation, but it's like a sort of like all black cast, action thriller, uh, from Paramount, like a big sort of actiony movie. With Billy Dee Williams and a young Richard Pryor.

• 2:25:23Speaker 03

  I just remembered that when we were talking about the soundtrack, I wanted to, um, mention, uh, Michael Schultz's Cooley High, which was two years later.

• 2:25:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:25:31Speaker 03

  And that used all these Motown songs and that he said, recently, he said, like, it was dirt cheap to get those songs then. And then just like right after this and that.

• 2:25:40Griffin Newman?

  Then they went out.

• 2:25:41Speaker 03

  They were everywhere. I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?

• 2:25:43Griffin Newman?

  No, I was just gonna say, Scorsese in, in that DGA thing said, um, Badlands was the closing night film at New York Film Festival the same year.

• 2:25:53David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

• 2:25:54Speaker 03

  What a year.

• 2:25:55Griffin Newman?

  And those two guys being roughly the same age.

• 2:25:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:58Griffin Newman?

  Feeling like putting on the board new methods of like film language, uh, for American artists. And he was like, that was the one that had all the heat and the energy behind it. Like, we were in the festival and we got a good reception, but the energy was something incredible is happening over here with Badlands. But I guess Badlands ends up actually releasing a little bit later.

• 2:26:18David Sims?

  It released in 74, I believe, but, but it was the closing film of the 73 New York Film Festival.

• 2:26:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:24David Sims?

  Yeah, the big 73 movie is obviously Exorcist.

• 2:26:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:28David Sims?

  Well, I don't know what wins best picture that year, um.

• 2:26:31Griffin Newman?

  Uh, for 73?

• 2:26:36David Sims?

  It's not The Godfather, I'll tell you that much, because that was 72. It is The Sting, yeah, it's The Sting, which, you know, was a giant hit that everybody loved.

• 2:26:43Griffin Newman?

  But also is, is a very old fashioned movie, not just in being a period piece, but feels.

• 2:26:48David Sims?

  Piano like do, do, do, do, do, do, you know, they do that.

• 2:26:52Griffin Newman?

  It's just interesting that you've already had like Midnight Cowboy winning best picture and being like, oh shit, is everything different now? And a couple of years later, they're like, we watch, like watching movie stars in expensive costumes pull off cons.

• 2:27:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:27:04Speaker 03

  We've been going through that in the last 10 years, too.

• 2:27:06Griffin Newman?

  We keep swinging back and forth.

• 2:27:07Speaker 03

  And then Mean Streets plays Director's Fortnite at Cannes, right? And that's like, you still see it if you guys go, like, they do this, like, kind of screensaver, sort of like iPhone kind of collage of all the films that have played. And they always play Mean Streets and, uh, John Dillman. And so it's, it's an iconic Director's Fortnite film.

• 2:27:26Griffin Newman?

  So funny, because it must've been like six months after the movie came out in the States, right?

• 2:27:31Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 2:27:32David Sims?

  But back then.

• 2:27:32Griffin Newman?

  No, no, totally, yeah.

• 2:27:34David Sims?

  So the film obviously holds a special place in Marty's heart because it's so personal, but he says he's never really sat down and watched it from beginning to end because it's too close. And indeed, he wanted to make a sequel about Charlie living on Staten Island with a couple of kids. Again, I am kinda like, and what is the story of this film? Like, it can't just be Charlie hanging out.

• 2:27:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:57David Sims?

  Like, has Johnny Boy come back?

• 2:27:59Griffin Newman?

  He's dead, you're talking robo Johnny Boy?

• 2:28:02David Sims?

  Well, you don't know that he's dead. You don't, you don't know what happened.

• 2:28:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:05David Sims?

  Like, you, he gets shot, he's bleeding out and he like runs into the street. You assume Johnny Boy is probably not making it, but like.

• 2:28:11Speaker 03

  I've heard him say that nobody dies, but that they can never go back. And like, that's how he reads it, is that they don't die, or maybe we don't know, but that they can't go back.

• 2:28:21Griffin Newman?

  People basically to think that he's dead, at the very least.

• 2:28:24Speaker 03

  They just can't go back and so they're exiled and stuff.

• 2:28:27Griffin Newman?

  That's interesting.

• 2:28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:28Griffin Newman?

  Instead, instead, uh, Warner Brothers, who had released this film and found him very promising.

• 2:28:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Uh, threw him Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore as a challenge.

• 2:28:38David Sims?

  Right, which comes out basically like one year later. Like, so it's like, he goes right to that. And whereas I assume Taxi Driver, well, but that's Schrader's thing. So like, I don't even know that he's like nursing taxi, like, it's like, I don't think after this, Scorsese's like, okay, and now.

• 2:28:53Speaker 03

  New York, New York, that was his thing.

• 2:28:55David Sims?

  That's the next fixation.

• 2:28:56Speaker 03

  I read an interview and he's like, the next thing on his mind is New York, New York. And it's another genre. I did the gangster film, now I do the musical.

• 2:29:03Griffin Newman?

  He knows it's gonna take a lot of money and a lot of production resources to put that movie together. He needs to play the studio game.

• 2:29:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:29:10Griffin Newman?

  To be able to be entrusted with those things.

• 2:29:12David Sims?

  The only game back then.

• 2:29:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:13David Sims?

  And like, it's funny, because it's like, all right, so Jaws is what, 75?

• 2:29:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:18David Sims?

  And American Graffiti is 73. De Palma's, like Sisters is what, 72? Like, what's De Palma doing? De Palma's probably in the weirdest place.

• 2:29:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Cause what, Carrie's not until 78?

• 2:29:28David Sims?

  Carrie's 76.

• 2:29:29Griffin Newman?

  76, okay.

• 2:29:30David Sims?

  But so, you know, all these guys are trying shit and doing exciting stuff.

• 2:29:34Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:29:35David Sims?

  But they're not quite, you know, they're not quite atop the Hollywood pile yet. Whereas Coppola is like immediately atop the Hollywood pile after he does Godfather.

• 2:29:42Griffin Newman?

  He was also older than all of them.

• 2:29:44David Sims?

  And he's in San Francisco and he's like doing his own thing.

• 2:29:46Griffin Newman?

  He had made more films before Godfather. He had gone through a whole sort of arc and he was like the mentor to all of them. He was kind of like the camp counselor, trying to encourage all of them to follow their things.

• 2:29:57David Sims?

  My 73 list is, I mean, like my favorite movies that year are Don't Look Now and Long Goodbye and The Exorcist. And Spirit of the Beehive and shit like that, which, you know, like the great horror movies.

• 2:30:07Griffin Newman?

  Fucking roles.

• 2:30:08David Sims?

  Spirit of the Beehive's pretty cool.

• 2:30:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:10David Sims?

  That guy rocks.

• 2:30:12Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if I've seen any of his other films, actually.

• 2:30:14David Sims?

  They're all good. I mean, he only made like three.

• 2:30:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:16David Sims?

  Do you like Victor Hiriay?

• 2:30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:30:18David Sims?

  What do you say, Hiriay?

• 2:30:20Griffin Newman?

  Also a great band. Spirit of the Beehive, really?

• 2:30:24David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, let's be done. Let's stop talking about Mean Streets.

• 2:30:27Griffin Newman?

  Are there any other sort of, uh, general overarching, uh, Scorsese, uh, takes or thoughts in your relationship with him and his work that you wanna throw out as we start this journey for months?

• 2:30:39Speaker 03

  I think I've, I've, I've drained the Scorsese love for now, but I, I.

• 2:30:44David Sims?

  We love him forever.

• 2:30:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, he's the best. He's like, uh, the one thing I'll say, The Departed, I was wrong about it. People say, like, I used to think it was like, he just got the award because, you know, it's a career achievement. Departed is, is, is amazing. Like, now there's so more Hong Kong movies, I'm like, this movie fucking rocks.

• 2:31:04Griffin Newman?

  It's also, it's, it's just so watchable.

• 2:31:07Speaker 03

  When will he work with, with, uh, Mark Wahlberg again?

• 2:31:11Griffin Newman?

  It's crazy because.

• 2:31:12David Sims?

  Nice for him to rescue Wahlberg, yeah.

• 2:31:14Griffin Newman?

  It would be nice, but also I'm like, how disappointed would it be to see them work together again and not reactivate the same thing? I mean, this is, this is another thing I remember, sorry, just, but, uh, this was public knowledge. But at the time, we were shooting vinyl, it was pretty recent that he, William Monahan wrote a Departed sequel to star Wahlberg.

• 2:31:40David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:31:40Griffin Newman?

  And Scorsese.

• 2:31:42David Sims?

  Pre-production.

• 2:31:42Griffin Newman?

  Was on board to direct it. And Warner Brothers said, we don't believe that Wahlberg can carry this movie.

• 2:31:49David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:31:49Griffin Newman?

  It was gonna be, De Niro was.

• 2:31:51Speaker 03

  Only one nominated in that film, that's crazy.

• 2:31:54David Sims?

  Although that is also crazy that that happened.

• 2:31:56Griffin Newman?

  But De Niro was going to play, it was gonna be the fucking rat in Congress, right? Like, the, the final shot, De Niro was gonna play like a corrupt congressman.

• 2:32:05Speaker 03

  I just died.

• 2:32:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and it was gonna be Wahlberg, all this, I'm not saying anything prior to it, but I just remember him.

• 2:32:11David Sims?

  It's like the stupidest thing, like, turns out Martin Sheen didn't die, he's just like in traction. I'm trying to think of like the worst Departed sequel.

• 2:32:18Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:32:18David Sims?

  Like, you know, what else happened?

• 2:32:20Griffin Newman?

  But he was, I think it was at the wrap party and he was like holding court with a bunch of us youngins and he was like, I, I was ready to make it. The film won best picture, it was a big hit, I had Mark Wahlberg, he's a movie star, they wouldn't, they wouldn't do it. He said, Marty, you don't see the vision.

• 2:32:32David Sims?

  Uh, sure, well, I mean, that's funny.

• 2:32:34Griffin Newman?

  He, he was like, I've given up on it, I spent five years trying, I, I'm not, it's over. Miriam, is there anything you wanna plug?

• 2:32:41Speaker 03

  Um, no, I'm just, uh.

• 2:32:44David Sims?

  You're vibing.

• 2:32:44Speaker 03

  I'm vibing.

• 2:32:45David Sims?

  We love it, we love to see you vibe.

• 2:32:47Griffin Newman?

  We're here to vibe.

• 2:32:48David Sims?

  It's very nice to have you on the show again, Miriam.

• 2:32:49Speaker 03

  It's so nice to be back. It's, uh, yeah.

• 2:32:53Griffin Newman?

  Years long project, there've been other episodes we've circled and then trips changed and.

• 2:32:57Speaker 03

  I know, I'm sorry.

• 2:32:59Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:33:00Speaker 03

  I would have loved to do, like Vamps.

• 2:33:02Griffin Newman?

  Vamps.

• 2:33:03David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, that's right, yeah.

• 2:33:05Griffin Newman?

  Which now we've both said, I fucking love Vamps.

• 2:33:08Speaker 03

  Vamps, yeah, I told you.

• 2:33:09Griffin Newman?

  Hosted a Vamps screening in LA, I think that movie's awesome.

• 2:33:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, anyway, it's such an honor to be on this episode for this series and.

• 2:33:18David Sims?

  Nice to have you.

• 2:33:19Griffin Newman?

  So glad we're down. Um, and thank you all for listening, please remember to rate, review and subscribe, uh, as we go through five more months of Martin Scorsese.

• 2:33:28David Sims?

  Yes, next week will be Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

• 2:33:32Griffin Newman?

  Another gangster picture?

• 2:33:34David Sims?

  Oh, God.

• 2:33:35Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the same thing every week?

• 2:33:38David Sims?

  Why don't you try silence?

• 2:33:41Griffin Newman?

  We are gonna try.

• 2:33:42David Sims?

  Burson.

• 2:33:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:33:43David Sims?

  She once told Griffin to shut the fuck up, in a nice way. Well, it wasn't nice, but in a, in a more polite way.

• 2:33:49Griffin Newman?

  The way she said it was, Griffin, try silence.

• 2:33:51Speaker 03

  Who said that?

• 2:33:52Griffin Newman?

  Ellen Burstyn, Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn?

• 2:33:54Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 2:33:56Griffin Newman?

  Devastating things that has ever happened.

• 2:33:58David Sims?

  To anyone, I think to anyone.

• 2:34:00Griffin Newman?

  It was incre, I wear it as a badge of honor, but, uh.

• 2:34:03David Sims?

  And then you went on to become a professional talker.

• 2:34:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yeah, you know what? You know what, Ellen?

• 2:34:08David Sims?

  You know what, Ellen? And it's good that you didn't.

• 2:34:10Griffin Newman?

  Anyway, tune in next week. Tune in next week as against her wishes, we talk extensively about Ellen Burstyn. And as always, I wanna say, I only watch Let My Puppets Come as a student of cinema. That is the only thing, that's the prism through which it's just important, it's film history, Ben.

• 2:34:34David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:34:35Griffin Newman?

  And there's some good puppetry in it. I don't endorse what the puppets are doing, I don't like it.

• 2:34:42Griffin Newman?

  They can do it if they want, I'm not telling them they can't do it.

• 2:34:46Speaker 01

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:35:31Speaker 01

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.