Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out How "The Odyssey" Outsmarts Itself, with Wesley Morris About this episode A three-hour puzzle in IMAX makes for great storytelling, but does Christopher Nolan make going to the movies feel like homework? The New York Times critic at large joins Pablo for a (relatively spoiler-free) cinematic sparring session: What goes wrong when an auteur plays with too many Hollywood toys? What goes right when Homeric text aligns with classic Damon? Is the casting really so "woke" after all? And why were those Greek islands so... neutered?
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Transcript 9,641 words · 12 speakers
0:00 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.
0:06 SCRIBE_speaker_1 He's telling you in the opening minutes, his movie is not gonna go zzz. It's gonna go rrr.
0:15 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Right after this.
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2:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 We should get a drink. It's time.
2:23 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It's time.
2:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It's time.
2:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 We have props. You, you, oh my-
2:27 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I don't mean drinking in here, Pablo.
2:29 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. In, in life.
2:32 SCRIBE_speaker_1 In life.
2:32 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I, I don't know the difference between this and life anymore. This is, this is where I live. I live in here.
2:37 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It's fair. Uh, by the way, I just wanna say, the background makes me ... It just makes me so happy.
2:44 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The visuals of the studio.
2:46 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh my God, I love that design.
2:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The design's glad to have you back.
2:49 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It just puts me in a great mood. I don't know if you have tested this out scientifically.
2:55 SCRIBE_speaker_0 We're doing it right now. Scientists behind the glass are watching Wesley Morris, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism, smile.
3:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It's true.
3:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I wanna describe the visuals beyond what's behind me-
3:06 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay
3:06 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... that the audio audience may not be totally caught up on. We have some helmets that I was told were more Bronze Age than they have turned out to be.
3:15 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, people are getting a lot of ... This movie's getting a lot of helmet blowback.
3:19 SCRIBE_speaker_0 We, like Christopher Nolan, are managing expectations for historical accuracy, as we have some, some red, um, boa feathers sticking out of the Spirit Halloween helmets that are on dusk.
3:32 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I love these. I love these.
3:33 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I also wanna clarify, uh, that-
3:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay
3:36 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... I defer to you on- ... spoiler policy.
3:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh-
3:40 SCRIBE_speaker_0 How do we handle this?
3:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I think, I think you know your listeners better than I know your listeners. I tend to not ... On the one hand, I love talking about the wh- like, the whole thing.
3:49 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
3:49 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But I'm also sensitive, like, two weeks after a movie's been out, to just be ... You know, I just saw The Invite fairly recently. I mean, there's no spoilers there really, but, like, just I didn't know anything-
4:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Right
4:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... except who was in it and what the basic premise was. So I, you know, I try to just avoid information-
4:10 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah
4:10 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... about movies. I cover my eyes during trailers.
4:13 SCRIBE_speaker_0 So the point being that we are mindful of the fact that there are some people out there who have-
4:18 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes, yes, yes
4:18 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... not yet seen what is apparently the most popular movie in the world according to the latest metrics.
4:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, yeah.
4:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 If you're doing the math.
4:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 That's the, that's the biggest movie, it's the biggest movie in the world right now.
4:27 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But I wanna have a conversation that has value to people who have not seen it-
4:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes
4:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... who have already seen it-
4:32 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes
4:32 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and frankly, don't give a maybe about Christopher Nolan in general. The things-
4:37 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But are going to see it or won't see it because they don't give a about Christopher Nolan?
4:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 People who, uh, on principle, already hate this premise- ... for an episode on this show- ... and people who may be so peer pressured-
4:50 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh
4:50 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... into giving in and finding out, because this is what's happening, Wesley.
4:53 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Right.
4:54 SCRIBE_speaker_0 A true blockbuster has once again emerged-
4:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, yeah
4:57 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... from the sea.
4:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 From the sea.
4:59 SCRIBE_speaker_0 From the sea. And it's forcing people to figure out, am I gonna find out what this is all about?
5:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I did something that I feel so privileged in getting to tell you about, which is I got an invitation from a friend. This was last week.
5:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm.
5:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 "Hey, do you wanna see The Odyssey? There's a screening in Lincoln Square, 70 millimeter."
5:44 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, yeah, okay. This is probably where I wound up.
5:47 SCRIBE_speaker_0 So I went to a fancy screening-
5:49 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh-huh
5:49 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and saw it on the biggest possible and also preferred-
5:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hm
5:56 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... size screen.
5:57 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hm.
5:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The, the, the, the, the only true IMAX in New York City is what I got to see this on in row E.
6:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay. Okay.
6:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I Have been thinking about it ever since, which is why I texted you, Wesley Morris, and I was like, "Have you seen this yet?" And so where did you see it?
6:13 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh, I saw it at the same theater, 'cause, you know, there aren't very many places, depending on where you live on Earth. You know, this movie was shot entirely in IMAX. That's part of its, uh, I d- claim to fame feels a little strong-
6:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Its lore
6:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... but, like, it's o- one of the selling points here is that you have to see it in IMAX. So it was shot in IMAX, whole thing, unlike, you know, what you normally get, which is, like, a climactic scene in IMAX, and the rest goes back to its pitiful regular movie aspect ratio.
6:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Right.
6:42 SCRIBE_speaker_1 In which, you know, in, in the old days, when our... Like, when I was a kid, um, 'cause I'm older than you are. When I was a kid, there would be somebody in the theater, there wasn't a lot of aspect ratio switching, but when you'd get two movies showing in the same theater and the aspect ratios did differ, you'd have somebody whose job it was to adjust the edge curtains.
7:04 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes.
7:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 And you-
7:04 SCRIBE_speaker_0 They, they had to say, uh, uh, "I'm sorry, we are a, a grower, not a show-er."
7:09 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Right. "We're gonna cover up."
7:10 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
7:10 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Put a little fig leaf. But that no longer happens, and I think I, I would love to hear the exhibitor's rationale for this, but they just probably assume that we are so used to letterboxing. Because also when I was a kid, people were like, "What are those black lines? I don't like it. I'm not getting the full picture." And it wasn't until Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel did a whole segment on their show about letterboxing-
7:32 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, I di- I didn't know this
7:33 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... and the glories of letterboxing that, you know, I don't know if it calmed people down, but I was like, "I got a high, I got a new high horse to be on."
7:40 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Right.
7:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Amen.
7:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 A wide-ass horse.
7:43 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes.
7:43 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The w- that's widescreen, though. That's, that's-
7:45 SCRIBE_speaker_1 We're gonna wa- and we'll talk about some horses in a minute.
7:47 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I hope so.
7:47 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes, but that is widescreen. IMAX or 70 millimeter are your, like, primo movie-going options. And I saw it in IMAX, and I have to say, like, I was probably too close. I also left not sure that I needed to have the entire three-hour Odyssey experience in IMAX. It didn't alter... Why do I, why do I care? I just wonder what Nolan... I think the achievement of it, uh, is sort of what inter- can I do this, and how can I do it with some of the best actors and, and movie stars we have? Because, you know, do you know about, like, the IMAX camera, the hassle of the IMAX camera?
8:29 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Uh, how enormous it is.
8:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes, A, but B, it's loud. So y- like, it's not a great-
8:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 On set
8:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... it's not a great device for capturing dialogue. So a lot of IMAX sequences have to be looped in, in post, so to speak, because the, you're picking up a lot of noise from the camera itself.
8:50 SCRIBE_speaker_4 The, so the IMAX camera's so noisy that they built the giant blimp. So the blimp goes around the IMAX, and so the blimp is, like, that wide, with the camera sitting in the middle. So if I'm gonna put my face next to the camera to do my scene with Steve, it's gonna be way over here, which means your eye line is gonna be like that, and you're not gonna be l- I'm not gonna be seeing both of your eyes and seeing you. So the mirror system works like this. The camera's here. The big box is here. I'm here, and you're Anne Hathaway. I look into a mirror, which reflects into another mirror, and my full face is in a mirror right next to the camera lens, where it needs to be for you, for, for us to have that intimate view of your face.
9:30 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Christopher Nolan, because of course it would be either him or James Cameron or Steven Spielberg, one of those three people would have figured out a way sh- to shoot a movie entirely in IMAX and live action movie in IMAX, sorry, James Cameron, and also make sure that you can record your dialogue in situ.
9:49 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I mean, the question of, like, is the medium of IMAX at its highest point, 70 millimeter, is that part of the message here?
9:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm.
9:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I want that to sort of also run through-
9:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm, hmm
9:59 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... what we're describing as, by the way, people are struggling to find the preferred way to watch this, because there just aren't that many 70 millimeter IMAX theaters at all. I mean, there are 41 in the world, 25 in the US, one in New York, as I said.
10:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Wait, we have 25 of the 41?
10:17 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
10:18 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Wow.
10:19 SCRIBE_speaker_0 That's right.
10:20 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Holy . Okay.
10:20 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Nine in Canada-
10:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm
10:21 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... three in the UK, three across Europe-
10:23 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm
10:23 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... scattered somewhere, one in all of Australia.
10:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I didn't know that. You found out.
10:27 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I mean, this is eight of them in California, incidentally. Um-
10:30 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, that's, that's fair. That is fair
10:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... uh, which feels fair. And so what we're really doing is we're talking about, like, okay, it's a true blockbuster-
10:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes
10:39 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and the scale of all of this for you as my friend who I think of when I wanna determine, like, what is a person with taste's view of something that is meant to be so broadly consumed, but also critically acclaimed-
10:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, yeah, yeah
11:00 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... um, uh, for you, is the scale of this interesting?
11:05 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, yeah, for sure. I think that any time you get a director, even one that I'm not crazy about the way I'm not crazy about Christopher Nolan, who is taking the time and care to build a world that he thinks is so, for his purposes, visionary, that, you know, he's gotta try to reinvent an old format to express it and realize it, I'm already curious about what is going on here. But having sat through it, through this particular use of an innovation, of a piece of, you know, of technology that has been made to evolve in th- in this part of the 21st century, I don't... I just wanna say to the people who can't get to one of the 41 IMAXs-
11:51 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The true 70 millimeter ones, yes
11:52 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... you are fine watching it wherever, wherever you get your movies. Just let it be someplace you trust, because, you know, even I've heard nightmare experiences just from people watching it at theaters where I know I don't wanna watch the Odyssey. I will not name names here today-
12:08 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Hmm
12:08 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... because I still depend on some of these theaters. But I don't, I'm not going-
12:12 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Wait, hold on. Let's, let's generally describe-
12:15 SCRIBE_speaker_1 All right
12:15 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... what a terrible place to watch The Odyssey might be.
12:19 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Um-
12:19 SCRIBE_speaker_0 'Cause some of the great places I've seen movies, and this is, I think, key to this whole thing is You really should see this in a theater
12:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, for sure
12:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 We agree on this
12:27 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Sure. Definitely see it in a theater for all kinds of reasons. Yes
12:30 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Well, I, I just think of, like, one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this on the show is because I had, while watching this, at that 70 millimeter IMAX, one of my favorite movie-going experiences
12:42 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm. Mm
12:43 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And so what else is on that list? I want-
12:46 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh
12:46 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... to pick your brain about that, 'cause for me-
12:47 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Sure
12:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... I mean, I watched, uh, I, I, my brain immediately goes to watching, uh, Django Unchained in downtown Brooklyn
12:54 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, S-H-I-T. Okay, I see where you're going
12:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I'm like, something was so essential about watching this with others-
13:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
13:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... in this setting
13:06 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Man, I wish-
13:07 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Do you have a favorite movie-going experience where you're like, "If I could recreate what it felt like to be-
13:13 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm
13:13 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... in this room watching this film."
13:15 SCRIBE_speaker_1 How old were you when you saw Django?
13:17 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It was when it came out, so-
13:18 SCRIBE_speaker_1 2012
13:19 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah, so that was 14 years ago. I was 26?
13:23 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay. I think that if you were alive while Tarantino was alive and making movies, it's gonna be a Tarantino movie, is my guess
13:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Mm
13:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Because even if you didn't like Django, and I know a lot of people in my life who did not like Django-
13:37 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Sure
13:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... they remember the experience of watching it with other people. And part of the thrill of the movie, I can't speak for the people who hate it 'cause I don't hate it, but the I hate Django movie in my life is Green Book. And I will tell you, I watched Green Book in a packed theater three times because, for a variety of reasons we don't need to get into-
14:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Sure
14:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... I wa- I've seen it, I saw it in the theater three times, and every time, I saw it with an audience that just loved it, and that was thrilling to me. I loved watching it with people who love that terrible movie. Tarantino, for me, is the person who gives you that, 'cause you're high, you're in suspense, and I mean, like, the movie is making you high. You're on a high. There's suspense, there's comedy, there's uncertainty-
14:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And there's also the permission that you're seeking from others maybe to enjoy the part that you're not sure if you should be enjoying
14:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Well, maybe yes, but you're definitely all in whatever this is physically together, and the great thing about Tarantino is you're mostly on the same page in a lot of cases. So I would say the answer to your question is Pulp Fiction
14:51 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Mm
14:52 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Because I think you never forget your first... I mean, I'd seen Reservoir Dogs in the movie theater, but, but Pulp Fiction was the one where I was like, "I gotta go see the Reservoir Dogs guy's new movie." And it was that. And, like, the first, that first sequence where sh- you know, Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth jump up on the counter and, you know, hand over all your money
15:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 .
15:14 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Everybody be cool, this is a robbery. Any of you pricks move, and I'll execute every mother last one of you.
15:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Then they free- he freezes the frame on them-
15:27 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes
15:27 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... and her line still, Amanda Plummer's line is still going, but she is frozen, and you're, and that surf guitar starts.
15:34 SCRIBE_speaker_0 So that is a level of formal-
15:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I just got a chill
15:36 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, no, it's formal-
15:37 SCRIBE_speaker_1 By the way
15:37 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... invention-
15:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, yeah
15:39 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... that Tarantino was doing, as well as, like, this comedic-
15:42 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But energy
15:42 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And, and, and energy
15:43 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Energy
15:44 SCRIBE_speaker_0 This is, to be very clear, this is not that
15:48 SCRIBE_speaker_1 No
15:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But I wanna point out that, like, and maybe this is a mini spoiler, but I don't think it is, the first words that you see on screen are a disclosure. The text on screen says, "A time of apparent magic." And now you're into Christopher Nolan's version of Greek mythology
16:06 SCRIBE_speaker_1 You're not in Greece Greece
16:08 SCRIBE_speaker_0 You're remembering stuff vaguely from school. Like, okay, I kinda know what happens with the Cyclops. I remember the sheep stuff. I remember some parts about Penelope, you know, who's played by Anne Hathaway, his wife, who's left behind on, you know, his uh, land-
16:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Ithaca
16:22 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... his castle. Ithaca. In Ithaca
16:23 SCRIBE_speaker_1 His kingdom of Ithaca
16:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 His kingdom
16:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 His little kingdom
16:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Um, this is how articulate I am about, uh- ... what I learned throughout high school. But the point being that once you've gotten the terms and conditions about what might happen-
16:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I love that. I love that
16:38 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... apparent magic-
16:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah
16:39 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... suspension of your disbelief is to come
16:45 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Pablo, we are so past suspension of disbelief. I mean, every once in a while, I'll wind up in a Reddit thread. You wind up in a Reddit thread for, like, a movie, the comment sections on, just, like, as a person who works for The New York Times, you sometimes get a person who just, just can't,
17:06 SCRIBE_speaker_1 can't sus- like, doesn't have the physical strength to, like, sus- like, can't put the disbelief on the hook. Like, can't put it in the overhead bin. "Hey, can you help me? I, my, my disbelief is too, I packed too much."
17:19 SCRIBE_speaker_0 No
17:19 SCRIBE_speaker_1 "Can you help me?"
17:20 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The disbelief has these-
17:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 "Can you pick it up for me?"
17:22 SCRIBE_speaker_0 They have the extender seatbelt on it- ... and it's taken up the most space to the inconvenience of all around them
17:28 SCRIBE_speaker_1 You shoulda checked it. I don't even know how you got it on the plane
17:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 This is my emotional support disbelief
17:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I mean, I'm not checking this
17:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I am legally obligated to complain
17:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I, I need to hold it the whole flight
17:40 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah, no, that hell-
17:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I need to hold it the whole flight.
17:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I, uh-
17:42 SCRIBE_speaker_1 How much did you know going in about what you could possibly experience?
17:46 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I thought so little about this going in-
17:49 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm
17:49 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... to the point where I was like, "Okay." I didn't even really register that the whole 70 millimeter thing was this big a deal. I knew generally, frankly, about the discourse-
17:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh-huh
17:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... on my Twitter feed-
18:00 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay
18:00 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... about how mad people were about casting
18:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, Lord. I don't even wanna indulge that, but go on
18:07 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But it's just, the Odyssey is woke
18:10 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I'm sorry, MFs, this is also a movie with giant Cyclopses. I did not read it before I saw this movie, but I've read it a couple of times. And, um, you know, this is, like, we, he can do whatever he wants with this
18:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Everybody here on Delta Airlines needs to know- ... that Helen of Troy needs to be white Lupita Nyong'o cannot play her?
18:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Not only can Academy Award winner and truly one of Earth's most stunning births of all time-
18:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 By any golden symmetry, mathematical-
18:43 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Just what are we even-
18:44 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It's just not even-
18:44 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Like, the science-
18:45 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It's debatable
18:45 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... the science sup- like, science supports this.
18:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes, even a eugenicist- ... would be like, "See-"
18:51 SCRIBE_speaker_1 "Damn, I can't do nothing about her."
18:52 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I, I s- I see-
18:53 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Ugh
18:53 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... this guy's got a point.
18:55 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I love knowing what upsets us about adaptation and the idea that, you know, I mean, why is Bernthal here? You wanna complain about a Jew being in this thing? Like, what are we doing?
19:07 SCRIBE_speaker_0 A, a New, a New York, a New York accented-
19:09 SCRIBE_speaker_1 A big old, like-
19:10 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... John Bernthal
19:10 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... pseudo Pacino, like, Jew? Ugh, come on. What are we doing?
19:15 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Right.
19:15 SCRIBE_speaker_1 John Leguizamo?
19:17 SCRIBE_speaker_0 John Leguizamo is literally -
19:19 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Marlon Brando
19:20 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... a key character as, like, a blind Greek man.
19:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 He's great though.
19:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 He is great.
19:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 He's really good.
19:27 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Can I, can I... I, I feel like we have a choice right now- ... as people talking about this, doing our own-
19:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah
19:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... uh, adaptation
19:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Sorry, I'm, like, herding a cat.
19:37 SCRIBE_speaker_0 No, but it's, but it's like, should we say whether you liked it or not?
19:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I, I think it's fine. I didn't love it. I think the, the Christopher Nolan movie-going experience, I used to call him a fraud, right?
19:49 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Mm.
19:49 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I used to say, like-
19:50 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, I love this
19:51 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... you, you think, you think you're deep-
19:53 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I love that I've inadvertently invited the guy who called, the Pulitzer Prize winner, excuse me, who called Christopher Nolan a fraud. I've totally- ... overlooked this part of your oeuvre. But please, I did not mean to interrupt. I love this.
20:05 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I, I, I just never believed him as, i- in terms of the themes, and sometimes when you'd get an idea, the ideas. I just, 'cause they're not successfully or for- or fulfillingly, at least for me, explored enough. And, you know, a smart person can do the work of connecting something like what is happening in his version of The Odyssey to other
20:30 SCRIBE_speaker_1 depictions of war and war as we've experienced it, you know, in the last 3,000 years. And I'm not saying that those things are not there, these ideas. Some of them are very, are quite obvious. I've only seen it once. But I, I think that, you know, my problems with Christopher Nolan are very present in this movie. I mean, like, my actual, what makes him frustrating as a, as a filmmaker who makes
20:55 SCRIBE_speaker_1 movies about people who, but they're not about people, right? They're about an idea, but they're never really about an idea. They're about a theme. We reach concept, we reach themes, but we don't ever really get psychologies, sexualities. You know, 'cause there's a version of The Odyssey that is just, you know, we are watching, we're watching Penelope really make some choices. We're watching Odysseus make some cho- I mean, I'm sorry, Circe, Calypso?
21:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
21:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I don't know what we're... We're not gonna take any, we're really not gonna take any sex risks here-
21:30 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I was gonna say-
21:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... at all, Mr. Nolan
21:32 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... I have a feeling that Wesley's going to point out how little there was in this adaptation of The Odyssey.
21:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I guess my reputation precedes me.
21:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But, but, but I should say, so, uh- Again, Matt Damon as Odysseus, when he shows up on these magical islands and he encounters these women, who in lore, and this is not even wish casting, it's literally what Homer wrote.
21:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Inspires. Yeah. Well, I mean-
21:57 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I mean, it's allegedly
21:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... quote, unquote.
21:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah, collectively through the concept, the theme of Homer, put down through an oral tradition that carries through 2026. Um, Odysseus is supposed to have sex with all these people, very graphically. And in this case, we're fairly neutered actually.
22:13 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah. I mean, they took the Bob Barker approach. "Make sure you have your pet spayed and neutered." We'll see you tomorrow. Um, I, you know, but that didn't bother me too much because I understand the world that I'm going into. I definitely enjoyed the experience of watching it. I think that there are a lot of, there are a lot of wonderful moments in this film. I was impressed that for a movie where, and this is true in Nolan, 'cause I watched one, two, three, four, I watched four Nolans in the, like, before and after I watched The Odyssey-
22:51 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Hmm
22:51 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... for the first time. It is not the journey that appeals to him, although he has been making The Odyssey the entire time. Christopher Nolan, every movie is about a man trying to get somewhere-
23:02 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Uh, uh, yes
23:02 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... back to himself-
23:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Who, who is alienated from-
23:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Back to Earth
23:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... his family and-
23:06 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes
23:06 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... is grappling with what he has done.
23:09 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes. And I guess something that I'd never considered until this movie was just how much his characters speak expositionally. It works in this movie. This is the first time it, it's made sense, right?
23:22 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Because it's actually part of the premise.
23:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes, exactly.
23:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It's a spoken oral tradition.
23:27 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But I also think that one of the draws for him is how, like, what are some ways in which I can tell this story? I can use a device that I love using. I don't even know that he knows he's using it, but, like, let's have Odysseus talk to Calypso about things that happened be- that transpired before he arrived on her island.
23:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes.
23:48 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Um-
23:49 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And now we're gonna see it.
23:50 SCRIBE_speaker_1 And now we're gonna see it. I don't know, it just, it's such a, it's such a great use of what, to me, is a tick in a filmmaker's-
23:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I love that you're-
23:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... style
23:59 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... I love that you're pointing this out. Um, I should say that I am not here to convince you to love this film as much as I loved it, obviously.
24:07 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, please speak.
24:08 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But I adore Christopher Nolan- ... for the very reason that you have identified as his tick.
24:16 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm. Hmm.
24:16 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Which is not the exposition-
24:17 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay
24:18 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... but I think of him as an architect, as an engineer.
24:20 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, 1,000%, yes.
24:21 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And so the, the reliance on device-
24:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes
24:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... is to me, like, it's always a question of how is he gonna end this thing?
24:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm.
24:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And how is he gonna make it so that that ending catches you by surprise and makes you feel something, and- Makes you think, that was clever.
24:43 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm, mm, mm.
24:44 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And admittedly, those are all pretty inhuman-
24:50 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes
24:50 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... standards of success.
24:51 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes, yes.
24:51 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But they are feats of engineering to me.
24:54 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Huh.
24:54 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I love how consistently he tries and succeeds to make his ending
25:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 l- leave the sound in your head where you're like, "He got me again."
25:09 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Well, say more about that because, I mean, you know, for me, I find his endings, I kinda roll my eyes a little bit. Because, you know, we spend all this time here, and really this is just about a g- this is about a guy who
25:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 m- misses his daddy and feels s- it's always about daddy is such an issue for him, right? Like, Inception really just annoyed me f- because we find out that the whole point of this thing was this old-
25:38 SCRIBE_speaker_0 His dad
25:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... this old moneybags.
25:39 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
25:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Eh. Um, but I, you know, because also, we know, we know where you got this, sir. It's, you didn't, you could, you could not have it be a sled, but -
25:51 SCRIBE_speaker_0 So ex- exactly. So the whole, the whole rosebudding of, of the payoff, um-
25:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 This is Inception that we're talking about, or at least I'm talking about.
26:01 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah, yeah. But it's-
26:02 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But-
26:02 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But it's also-
26:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But it happens, it recurs
26:04 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... it's how do you, how do you catch people at the end in a way that makes you think, "I should've seen it. It was there the whole time."
26:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh.
26:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 "And now it's clicking in."
26:16 SCRIBE_speaker_1 You like that.
26:17 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I, so I am a simple-
26:18 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I mean, I, no, no, yeah.
26:20 SCRIBE_speaker_0 No, no, but, but as, as somebody who appreciates story, I'm always, I fetishize endings.
26:28 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
26:28 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Often, as I have learned over the years, at the expense of character development.
26:33 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm.
26:34 SCRIBE_speaker_0 At the expense of the, the humanity-
26:37 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm
26:37 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... of even the characters who are really, you know, a wheel spinning to get us to that last reveal.
26:45 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh-huh, uh-huh.
26:46 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And so for this, I should say that, like, we all know how The Odyssey generally ends.
26:52 SCRIBE_speaker_1 That's creative you to, to think that. Proceed.
26:55 SCRIBE_speaker_0 He, he, he gets, he gets back home.
26:57 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, oh, that's what you mean. Sure.
26:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
26:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah.
26:59 SCRIBE_speaker_0 He, he's back home.
26:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I'm sorry.
27:00 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I mean-
27:00 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I thought you meant the-
27:01 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But, but the film-
27:02 SCRIBE_speaker_1 The, yeah
27:02 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... the film, like of course the, the theme of it, the, the, the big takeaway, which is funny to say out loud because it is, now that I see it through your lens- ... not the most original insight-
27:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... is that people who kill other people should probably feel guilty about it.
27:19 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh-huh. Yeah.
27:21 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But when you enter the world of apparent magic and you go through-
27:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm
27:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and you watch him-
27:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, Pablo
27:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and he gets us, the audience broadly speaking, the royal we-
27:30 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I like where you're going
27:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... to root for Odysseus, only to realize far too late that wait a minute, uh, he is, he's war criming.
27:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes.
27:40 SCRIBE_speaker_0 We're the bad guys?
27:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I mean, for me, I would've liked more of that. 'Cause it's too subtle in the movie.
27:47 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Mm.
27:47 SCRIBE_speaker_1 One of the ingenious things about the casting is that this very astute observation that you have perceived in this, in Nolan's text is completely overridden by ingenious casting. He gets away with a lot of these choices because it's such shrewd casting. Like, you'll forgive this movie a lot because we've been with Matt Damon for, like, 30 years. Matt Damon's the oldest person in this movie-
28:15 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Mm
28:15 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... by the way. Crazy, crazy. And he means something to us, and what he does not mean. If this were Michael Douglas playing playing Odysseus, we'd have a different story on our hands. Jamie Foxx.
28:36 SCRIBE_speaker_0 This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases like groceries or merch or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today, subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
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30:09 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I think the theme, though, that, that Nolan is getting at is, is in communication with the audience.
30:17 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm.
30:17 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And the theme is, you know that meme, this is, this is, this is a terrible way to, to, to make a point that I hope has some level of insight. But you know that meme from Euphoria where they're watching the play and the thing-
30:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh
30:31 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and, and it's like, "Wait a minute, this play is about us"?
30:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah.
30:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes.
30:39 SCRIBE_speaker_0 That's what I felt watching this, where it was like- Surprise. Uh, the reason-
30:45 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Interesting
30:45 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... that we can't have nice things anymore as a civilization is because the thing we valorized, the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse, was both genius and also the breaking of what has been framed in this film as Zeus' law, but is fundamentally the Christian principle of-
31:02 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Do unto others
31:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... do unto others, right?
31:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Do unto others.
31:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Jesus was a beggar, right? That whole notion. And in our celebration of that, we have caused the downfall of our own civilization, and infected everyone who perpetrated those war crimes with fundamentally a PTSD, which would've been more apparent from the start if the setting-
31:23 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah
31:23 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... was not a time of apparent magic, but Vietnam.
31:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, man. I just wish the movie had more thoroughly excavated and explored that. I'm gonna see it again, and I think, you know, I think my second viewing is probably gonna focus a lot more on what some of these actors are doing. Lupita Nyong'o is playing Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, and-
31:45 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It's her twin sister, yeah
31:46 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... I don't, I don't, I'm, I'll s- m- But not real- I mean, N- Nolan is clearly making some choices here with these texts, you know, importing this woman from, from the Iliad-
31:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah
31:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... and then giving her a twin that's really just her very complicated sister. Um, there are choices being made here. I wish one of the choices was, like, give Lupita 15 minutes. Just 15 minutes more.
32:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Let her say a second line.
32:18 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I should point out that one of the funny things about people being like, "Helen of Troy can't be Black," is that, like, and this is a through line in all of these sort of, like, allegedly woke casting choices. Lupita Nyong'o is es- essentially a possession. She's an object in this film.
32:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah.
32:34 SCRIBE_speaker_0 There is no interiority.
32:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
32:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 She is effectively a, a captured creature
32:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
32:42 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... that serves this larger masculine plot line.
32:45 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes, yes.
32:46 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And so the idea of, like, you cast a Black woman to do that, I'm like, there's a world in which the opposite argument is being made, of like, "How dare you cast Lupita Nyong'o-
32:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, please
32:57 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... to play this role?"
32:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Pablo, I give that argument 15 more minutes until the gates go up.
33:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And by the way-
33:05 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I mean-
33:06 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... so, parallel, parallel argument, right? Elliot Page-
33:08 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm
33:09 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... trans actor, plays, uh, Sinon, who is, in the film, the paragon of the weak soldier.
33:20 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I have no problem with the way people are used in this film.
33:23 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, yeah, I'm just pointing out-
33:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Um-
33:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... that there's another way to argue the opposite.
33:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Right. Right, right. But I, I'm r- I'm ready for the trans community comments about... I just wanna hear the conversation about, um, Sinon, because I think this character is really interesting and, you know, he dies. He's the first death.
33:42 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes.
33:42 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Right? And I'm like, "Oh, my..." I, I don't get to see Elliot Page do much of anything.
33:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, oh, so, so this is the question I have for you. For you, the consistent lack of character development
33:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes.
33:56 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Which admittedly, now that you put it like this, I had under-weighted in my viewing, and I am-
34:01 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It's-
34:01 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... struggling to spin in a positive direction.
34:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Well, I wonder what I'm gonna enjoy about it the second time I watch it, is really my question.
34:07 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But y- you sort of see in bursts these characters come to life, and in the case of Sinon, it's in literal, the afterlife, um, in which they finally get to be interesting, uh, really, um, or vocalize their own interiority. Um, but that's a deal breaker for you
34:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Uh-
34:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Is charac- character development as a feature of cinema.
34:29 SCRIBE_speaker_1 This is a great question. Um, no, because I also believe that there is a way to be the kind of artist that you like Christopher Nolan for being, right? I love your, and appreciate and understand your love of him as an engineer and architect.
34:47 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And that was Memento that radicalized me to him, and I was just like, "Oh, shit."
34:51 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I mean, and that is a movie where, where you come to understand, hey, the movies do not have to go from point A to point B to every other chronological spot on the, on the spectrum. You can skip letters. He's telling you in the opening minutes, his movie is not gonna go zzz. It's gonna go
35:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 rr. And people are gonna be like, "Oh." But he's also not James Cameron, who can also be like, "Okay, here's what I'm about to do. You're about to spend three hours with... I'm gonna tell you in the first 10 minutes, I am sinking this boat. I'ma show you how I'ma sink the boat. Here's the bo- Here is actually the boat, and just zoop, here's how, here's how the Ti- Ta- Titanic sank." And then two and a
35:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 half hours pass and you're like, "Oh my God, this boat is gonna... He's gonna do it." He's not quite, to me, the magician that James Cameron is in terms of making you forget that something wild is about to happen, or you're seeing something you've never seen before, in part because the people are just pieces on a board to him.
36:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 This is, I think, the fairest criticism of Christopher Nolan, is that the main character in a Christopher Nolan film is Christopher Nolan.
36:13 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Sure. Yeah, yeah.
36:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 You're, like, marveling at, like... Even, even the whole notion of this is an experience that you must appreciate in the way that I am basically incentivizing you-
36:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
36:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... forcing you even, to consume, is about the auteur.
36:29 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, and even that is enough for me. You know, I, e- that, even that is enough for me. I think that, like, one of the virtues of this movie really is the thing that's a, that's a vice as far as, or, like, a weakness for me in the other movies, which is all the, all the expository talking to me here is about- The power of the story itself. There's real belief in the power of these assorted people telling each other stories of how what happened happened.
36:59 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Right.
37:00 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Right? The myth within the myth, the myth-making within the myth-making, is a huge part of The Odyssey as a Homeric text and as a Nolanistic text.
37:12 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Yes.
37:12 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Um-
37:13 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Yes.
37:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 And it, that part works for me here.
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39:46 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I liked The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight really works for me. I think parts of, um, th- the, the, what's the third Batman movie of his? Uh-
39:56 SCRIBE_speaker_5 The Dark Knight Rises?
39:57 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Dark Knight Rises, yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved all the Catwoman stuff in that. Whatever Anne Hathaway is doing in that movie-
40:03 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Big superhero fan of Catwoman. Catwoman
40:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... Bane, Bane is, Bane is also, the use of Bane is simultaneously ridiculous and s- like, it's, it's ... That is a scary character. Like, it gets me viscerally what Nolan and Tom Hardy come up with for Bane in that movie. But Dunkirk was the movie where I was like, "Okay, this guy is a classicist." He really has only ever wanted to
40:29 SCRIBE_speaker_1 be making old Hollywood genre movies, right? And I just feel like this is the truest depiction of his soul, which is I've got a bunch of toys that make a kind of historical sense, and I can just play with them. Not quite ad nauseam, because I'm dealing with a real historical event here. I can play by history's rules and use my own personal style. So that movie, f- maybe it worked for you, maybe it didn't. I don't know, Devin.
41:02 SCRIBE_speaker_5 I enjoyed, I enjoyed Dunkirk. Yeah.
41:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Um, I loved that his signature formal ideas with respect to time and space are operating full steam ahead in Dunkirk. I love that. I love the way that he takes that mode of expression and applies it to The Odyssey, where for more than two hours you've got one, two, three, four, maybe four different moments in time operating. You know, he's juggling these four, these four time zones.
41:40 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Mm-hmm.
41:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 And you're involved in all of them. I love that. I love the engineering and problem-solving and puzzle-making aspect of him. It does cost you something as a moviegoer. It really depends case by case whether it was enough for me to have enjoyed it when I don't get what I, some other things I want, because the priorities here are really involving the puzzle.
42:09 SCRIBE_speaker_5 You know, again, I am the sort of person who, uh, until quite recently, had seen everything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
42:17 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay.
42:18 SCRIBE_speaker_5 And then-
42:18 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Until quite recently.
42:19 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Yeah, yeah.
42:20 SCRIBE_speaker_1 That's a, that's a whole other conversation.
42:21 SCRIBE_speaker_5 I, I think it was, like, the, it was the whole multiverse saga where I was like-
42:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Sure
42:24 SCRIBE_speaker_5 ... this, there are no stakes. Nothing matters.
42:27 SCRIBE_speaker_1 There are no stakes.
42:28 SCRIBE_speaker_5 Nothing matters.
42:28 SCRIBE_speaker_1 There are no stakes.
42:30 SCRIBE_speaker_5 And that was familiar to me from comic book fandom-
42:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm
42:34 SCRIBE_speaker_5 ... whereas, like, you've run out of ways to create stakes because-
42:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I like this
42:39 SCRIBE_speaker_5 ... you've broken all of the... Again, our disbelief and the suspension therein, we have, we have, we have maxed out. Like, we can't, I can't believe that this matters to anyone anymore
42:52 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And that was my superhero cinematic universe experience.
42:54 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay.
42:55 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And so this, part of it was like how is Christopher Nolan gonna bring to life the Cyclops?
43:02 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm.
43:02 SCRIBE_speaker_0 How is he gonna bring to life all of these-
43:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm
43:04 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... apparent magical creatures and villains and horror, figures from horror-
43:12 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm
43:12 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... it turns out-
43:13 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm
43:13 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... as he approached Circe's island, and how you do that, I was like, "I wanna know how Christopher Nolan tackles these."
43:19 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm.
43:19 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I found it all quite satisfying. The sound design, the whole, like, close encounters-ness-
43:27 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm
43:27 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... of the Cyclops.
43:29 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, yeah.
43:29 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The, the, the, the alien noise that's, like, drilling into you.
43:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, I loved that.
43:36 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
43:36 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I loved... I mean, there's some real great choices here. I, I love when the priorities of the Homeric text, the Nolan text, and the Matt Damon text f- completely align. There are a couple just real, um... W- there's a great moment, you know, during the sirens call when they're on the ship.
43:58 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I love this scene.
43:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 And this is just every Matt... Like, a really great Matt Damon moviegoing experience involves something that I describe as classic Damon, and here it's when he, when all the men have sort of put wax in their ears to avoid the sirens' call so they don't crash the ship or, you know, all die because they've gone to try to jump in the ocean to have sex with these ladies. Damon's like, "I want to be the one who survives their call."
44:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 By what- by the way, when I watched that sequence, I was like, "W- you're, you're a movie critic who's writing down, like, lines that, like, you're gonna put into, into, into the paper of record."
44:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, I'm just gonna-
44:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 What I was doing was being like, "Oh, this Asian guy that people are mad at-
44:39 SCRIBE_speaker_1 He's the first to go. He's red-shirted
44:42 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... I am him for Halloween." I'm gonna wear this helmet. I'm gonna be the Asian guy everyone's mad at for being Greek-
44:48 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Ooh.
44:48 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... who takes the wax out of his ears and runs towards the ocean.
44:52 SCRIBE_speaker_1 He's like, "I'm getting in."
44:54 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I am these white women. And that's, if that's how this ends, I'm cool.
45:02 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It's funny because we know that guy. What's that?
45:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes.
45:05 SCRIBE_speaker_1 That's an actor we know.
45:06 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes, Will Yun Lee.
45:08 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Ah, yeah. I mean-
45:09 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Pardon me, Will, for being, uh, your, your, your Halloween costume.
45:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Sorry to see him go 'cause... And not that this movie needs all the beauty it could get, but, like, you're just sorry to see a hot person-
45:20 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I mean
45:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... leave the movie.
45:22 SCRIBE_speaker_0 A hot multiracial, a, a rainbow coalition-
45:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah
45:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... of Greeks.
45:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I think one of the reasons that this is gonna be such a big hit is that people like me are gonna go back to it and be like, "Okay, changed my mind. Changed my mind. Expand my mind. What did I mi- you know, did I miss, did I miss something?" The thing about Nolan is I don't really ever think I missed anything. The question is, did I understand what I saw the first time?
45:45 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Well, I think that's a fascinating way to judge a movie. Like, is it the job of the auteur to communicate-
45:52 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, no. No. I don't... No. Well, yeah, to communicate-
45:56 SCRIBE_speaker_0 With, with, with the audience such that they get what you're going for.
46:01 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, sure. Uh-
46:03 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Does the puzzle need to be solved by the audience member in order for it to have worked?
46:11 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I actually, a practice that I've got now is I watch these movies and I'm like, "Wesley, write the plot down. Like, just write, like, write in your notebook what the plot of... Like, if you were reviewing this, how would you describe the plot of this thing?" And
46:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 that's one question, but then the other question is, like, what does the plot mean, say, or speak to or allude to? Sometimes it is the filmmaker's fault for being unclear, and then sometimes you know, you know the way I know with a movie like Oppenheimer, like, where do I begin to dislike it? And-
46:50 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yes
46:51 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... that's a movie that is such a, for me, um, confused coalition of theme, idea, and vision, right? Because when you're doing a movie biography, how do we get these visions if we're talking about, you know, Robert Oppenheimer? How do we get his vision to correspond to Nolan's vision?
47:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I don't think you can do Oppenheimer with the text A Time of Apparent Magic. I don't think you have the same license-
47:22 SCRIBE_speaker_1 No
47:22 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... for a nonfiction adaptation.
47:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But that is the problem with Oppenheimer.
47:25 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I, I, I-
47:26 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Like-
47:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I didn't, frankly, I didn't love Oppenheimer.
47:30 SCRIBE_speaker_1 D- well, there is apparent magic.
47:32 SCRIBE_speaker_0 But they're also-
47:33 SCRIBE_speaker_1 It's just a moral atrocity.
47:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And, and by the way, that is also in this, the magic being the moral atrocity.
47:41 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
47:42 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And part of what-
47:43 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
47:43 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... you know, what you're describing, and you mentioned Reddit before, it brings it all together for me because what Christopher Nolan does is make movies that compel you to not only show up in the IMAX theater that he has prescribed for you-
47:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes. You wanna run-
47:57 SCRIBE_speaker_0 He sends you to Reddit
47:58 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... Run tell 'em. Run tell 'em.
48:00 SCRIBE_speaker_0 He sends you to message board threads that are pointing out all the things you missed because everyone becomes Sherlock Holmes-
48:07 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah
48:07 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... doing the postmortem.
48:07 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Do you like that experience?
48:09 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I have come to appreciate that I am one of these people that will go, and I don't do this literally for escape rooms-
48:17 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm. Mm
48:17 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... but I feel like I am a puzzle solver when I'm watching-
48:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm
48:21 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... Christopher Nolan, and that has been what stuck with me. Did I appreciate what the puzzle was? Did I catch all of the things, the breadcrumbs he dropped? And also, I think this is the thing that I was feeling towards the end when I'm watching Will Hunting- ... grapple with post-traumatic stress disorder, was this sort of reveal of the intelligence that has historically been ascribed to Odysseus as being this clever trickster.
48:49 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
48:50 SCRIBE_speaker_0 His intelligence in the, in the climax of this film is revealed to be not the strategic, uh, deviousness of, like, ooh, the guy who came up with the Trojan Horse, 'cause that part is actually kind of, like, underplayed.
49:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yes.
49:04 SCRIBE_speaker_0 You're not really getting, like, the, the, the blackboard in which he's writing all the plans out.
49:09 SCRIBE_speaker_1 There's a whole other book for y'all out there that'll explain how the Trojan Horse-
49:13 SCRIBE_speaker_0 That's right
49:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 ... how he comes up with that plot.
49:15 SCRIBE_speaker_0 That's not in this, but what is is the reveal, so to speak, that Odysseus's real intelligence was all along the self-awareness he had along the way.
49:29 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah.
49:30 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And it was guilt.
49:31 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm.
49:32 SCRIBE_speaker_0 It was this relatably Catholic guilt-
49:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm
49:36 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... around, "Oh-
49:37 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh
49:37 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... no-
49:38 SCRIBE_speaker_1 So interesting
49:38 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... I can't...
49:41 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I, I am up-
49:44 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah. Yeah
49:45 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... by how I've treated others." And that self-awareness ends up being the thing of like, oh, man, that's what... He was ahead of us on that. The audience, for me, he was ahead of me on that.
49:59 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Nolan.
49:59 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Nolan was.
50:00 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay. Yeah, yeah.
50:01 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I should've seen that earlier." So here's the question at the end-
50:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I-
50:04 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... Wesley Morris.
50:04 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Okay.
50:05 SCRIBE_speaker_0 All right? As we try to, as, as, as the, as the foremost movie critic-
50:11 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I like guilt though
50:12 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... who's won a couple Pulitzer Prizes
50:12 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I'm gonna sit with, I'm gonna sit with guilt
50:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... and, you know, stuff. Who has called previously Christopher Nolan, my favorite director, I think, um, quote-unquote, "A fraud."
50:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But I don't feel that way anymore.
50:22 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Well, that's the question.
50:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh.
50:24 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Is did this film do anything? If we're gonna consider him the main character of this film, what does this do for your estimation of his work?
50:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I love that this movie is what it, what it, what its popularity, and you know, I knew, we've known, 'cause we now live in an age where there's one or two movies a year that we are told as moviegoers are going to be the movies that conquer the box office.
50:55 SCRIBE_speaker_0 That save movies.
50:56 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Right, right, right. Um, I mean, in this, in Christopher Nolan's case, it's a Christopher Nolan movie, like, shocker. But I kind of love, as a person who loves storytelling, Nolan has never... He might be a virgin, right? He might only see the world according to whether or not
51:21 SCRIBE_speaker_1 it can be diagrammed. Um, he might not really even have left the house to buy a coffee on his own in 20 years. But he can make a movie that is operating according to a very complicated formal design that
51:47 SCRIBE_speaker_1 someone will give him 200, or, you know, some company will give him a quarter of a billion dollars to make, and we, the first weekend it comes out, will erase the $250 million debt that this, or, or gamble that this studio has taken on this man. And, you know, plus additional marketing costs, which I'm sure this movie will make up next weekend. I love that he has taken this
52:13 SCRIBE_speaker_1 old-ass, ancient-ass, classics-oriented-ass, you know, great text, and he has got us all on his timelines. He has got us all understanding his visual language. Uh, I think the people like you, the Nolan fans, are also conversing in a, in a particular kind of cinema that is,
52:44 SCRIBE_speaker_1 it makes me so happy that it exists. I don't need to like this man's movies. Um, I don't need for him to be my favorite filmmaker to appreciate the importance of what it means to get us feeling like we are watching something that really is formally complicated.
53:02 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Yeah.
53:03 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Um, I just wish there were more going on in the complication than, than what, than what is actually happening. But sometimes I'm here for the math. I'm here for the math.
53:13 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Oh, no.
53:14 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I'm here for the math.
53:14 SCRIBE_speaker_0 The most devastating dismount from Wesley Morris. I mean, "I'm here for the math" is the least romantic, least, ugh, ugh.
53:24 SCRIBE_speaker_1 But where's the romance here?
53:26 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I mean, what I'm hearing you say at the end here, if I may allude to the way we started-
53:33 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm
53:33 SCRIBE_speaker_0 ... in Christopher Nolan fashion.
53:34 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
53:35 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Um, when you were talking about that scene in Pulp Fiction, you know, someone's pointing a gun at you and saying, "If you pricks move, I'm gonna execute every last one of you." And you're like, "If I'm gonna have to sit here, at least why don't, why don't you have a little more sex, a little more skin, a little more heart, a little more human stuff?"
54:00 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Hmm.
54:01 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And instead it's just like you're, you... I'm hearing you say just like, "This is a whole, this is a whole lot of homework."
54:08 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Yeah, but for some people, the homework is the sex.
54:12 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And this is the most devastating criticism- ... that has ever been made of me. Um, Wesley Morris, I hate and love you. Um, thank you for cutting to the core of what me and this show apparently has been all along.
54:25 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Oh, I don't believe that. Not as a regular listener of the show, I definitely don't believe that.
54:33 SCRIBE_speaker_1 Thanks for having me.
54:34 SCRIBE_speaker_0 I'll see you on Reddit.
54:35 SCRIBE_speaker_1 I'll see you on Reddit.
54:46 SCRIBE_speaker_0 Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Aparoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumminello. Studio engineering by RD Systems, sound design by Andrew Birsick, digital strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern. Theme song, as always, by John Bravo.
55:07 SCRIBE_speaker_0 And we'll talk to you next time.
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