Hello there, everybody, and welcome back to the disc Connected. I am
here with a very special guest for me, and that is the esteemed Sam
Degan. Sam, how are you good? How are you doing well?
I have always admired your work, and I don't want to lay it on
too thick or anything right now, but there are so many people out there
that just the name Sam Degan being associated with a piece of physical media of
any sort lately is almost a reason to pick it up by itself. So
first of all, from the community, a humble thank you, and for
me personally, thank you for agreeing to come onto the show. I mean
a huge thank you for me for all the support. It's very appreciated.
For those that don't know Sam has been involved in it seems like almost everything
at this point, from appearing on basically every label from eighty eight Films to
Vinegar Syndrome and Arrow and even some of the more obscure ones. You've done
quite a lot for something like Second Run and breaking into some of the other
more interesting titles lately, and I appreciate you for that. But you also
are a writer. You've put out is it just three books so far on
your own yeah. So I did a book on gen Rolin with spectacular optical
as an editor, and I co wrote a big chunk of the book.
But then I have done two solo books. One is on Fritzlan's film m
and the other is called The Legacy of World War Two and European Art House
Cinema, which came out last year. Maybe COVID time is blended or crazy.
The other big thing is Sam is always present on Twitch of the Death
Nerve, which is a podcast and which has led to a very robust Patreon,
and I just the amount of content that gets pushed out there is astonishing.
I don't know how you do it. I don't either, because I
do also have a day job, and it's there are definitely days like today
where I just it's like I'm excited and I'm actually right now in the middle
of researching something for the next book I'm working on. So it's like I'm
excited, but I'm tired. Oh yeah, this weather can't help with that
at all. No, it is. It is miserable out there, and
we just past the fourth of July and I think we got up to ninety
eight here. But I hear out by you in some places got to like
one oh five even Yeah, we I think it's like it gets around that
temperature here, but it's also just so humid, Like that's the real problem.
Step outside feels like you're in a gross shower. Yes, uh so
the big thing obviously, I talk about physical media constantly, and obviously with
what's behind you and what you contribute the bulk of your life to, you
seem to appreciate it as well. So had you originally get into physical media
and appreciating it, Well, I guess it started from a pretty early age.
I mean, you know, I've loved weird movies since I was a
kid, and pretty much the only way I could watch them was either by
finding some weird shit on TV at two in the morning or going to a
video store and running them. And later, when I, you know,
had an allowance, I could buy tapes, which I wish I still had
those, but same But as you could see, I, you know,
have replaced it with plenty of things, and there are still tapes around the
house. I've only got a handful left. But man, I really want
to try to keep at least one piece from each of the physical media like
eras, just to be able to show the evolution and it is exciting to
see you talk about things like that. And I'm curious, how did you
originally I mean, you said you liked weird movies from when you were young.
Is there a couple that really set that off when you were younger?
Definitely Vincent Price. I'm not sure what the first Vincent Price movie I saw
was always watching Over Me from Behind? Ah, yeah, it probably was
also on Haunted Hill, but oh nice. I know that there were those
like, you know, those great blocks of programming in October where the whole
month you could find horror movies on TV, and that I think is how
I was introduced to him. But then it just sort of turned into trying
to find every Vincent Price movie I could, and classic universal horror as well,
and right just sort of went out of con roll from there. So
on the contributing side, how did you originally get into contributing to some of
these physical media releases? So? I think my first contribution was for Mondo
Maccabre's release of Symptoms. I did an essay for it, and this is
probably six years ago, maybe six or seven years ago, and at that
point I had been on this crazy project where I had this blog where I
started this like monthly challenge for myself to see if I could write a review
every day, which is basically how I trained myself to be a writer.
Like I went to school. I have a degree in English literature, so
it's like I have formal training. But when you're trying to be really prolific
making yourself write every day seen crazy. But it helped so much. And
I think even though it was really a project that I started just for myself,
it sort of got my name out there and I pitched them at one
point blindly and said, hey, if you ever need essays, you know,
I'm this dumb idiot who has a blog, and they were like,
you know who you are. She's like what. So then they hired me
to do Symptoms. And around that time, I also had just started the
Daughters of Darkness podcat podcast with Kat Ellinger, and so she and I kind
of got into commentaries and things like essays or right around the same time.
Right, and both of you seemingly, I mean, you use the word
prolific, and that is to a point, it's kind of understating it,
especially when you have a true daytime job. And I mean, if you
just look at like Keino Lobert, do you know how many commentaries you've done
for Keno? Offhand? I don't, but when I first started, so
my Patreon is a little over a year old. And part of why I
started it is because people kept writing me saying like, you don't have a
website. Is there a list? Is there somewhere I can go to find
all of your work? And I was like, okay, well I'll start
this. Probably no one is gonna be interested. And I think I've published
maybe two or three versions of the list now. It is very long.
It's kind of embarrassing. But I have this problem where when people ask me
like, oh, tell me some things that you've done, I'm like,
I don't know, I don't know what my name is. I have to
look at the list. It's way too long. I believe the last version
is almost exactly a year ago now, was July of last year, and
I've got that linked in the description below. And for the number of titles
that you've posted on, I mean, it is astonishing that you're able to
keep a straight thought like you just said, is it is beyond prolific and
literally just hearing the name Sam Degan on a commentary, I always say on
this channel that that alone is a reason to buy the release. And I'm
curious, because the commentaries are so well thought out, can you share even
a hint of what your process is, because they appear to be so well
researched that it genuinely sounds like film school sometimes, Well, thank you,
I really appreciate that, And I do think having academic training helped because I
approach doing commentaries the way I like Basically, I set them up like I'm
giving a lecture, and I usually watched the movie and note down like key
scenes that I want to talk about. I'm not a big fan of of
the commentary style where you're just like constantly telling people what's on screen a great
so I usually it's like, if if something important is happening that I know
I want to discuss, Like if at the hour mark, you know,
Peter Cushing cuts Christopher Lee's head off, which you know spoilers that never happens,
but if it did, it's something I would want to talk about in
a commentary. But generally I just try to frame it the way I would
a lecture, So, like, what are the major points I want to
cover, like the people involved, the time period, like what other films
does this relate to? How is it different? And so I mean they
are basically like little mini film classes. They are. And when you're when
you're constructing these, are there a handful of sources that you go to or
do you genuinely just have all of the stored in your brain because at this
point it can't be that second one now. So it's so I try to
like balance it because doing commentaries is a lot of work. And there are
some films that I could talk about just like off the cuff because it's a
subgenre that I know really well, or maybe it's a director I know super
well. And in that case, usually I'll just make notes reminding myself of
like names that I have to bring up and dates and things like that.
But there are times where I'll take commentaries where I have to do more research
because otherwise it's not fun for me. It's like, if I'm not getting
to constantly I'm addicted to doing research. I think it's the problem. A
lot of good read excuse me, a lot of good writers are that the
same way. So it shows and I just appreciate that approach because really with
commentaries, there is that fine line between two scholarly and also entertaining, and
that perfect balance in the middle. There's a handful of people that get there.
You get there, and kat Ellinger can get there, and you know
that Nathaniel Thompson does really well, and there's a handful of others. But
I appreciate that voice that can come in there and make me feel entertained just
by listening to things that I'm learning, and I, yeah, it is
a wonderful gift on some of these disks. Yeah, I think it's a
difficult balance to strike because, like, my brain does tend towards the academic
right. But I also like the reason I wound up not and I've been
to grad school like four times. I love grad school. It's very expensive,
but I also find academia to be not a very creatively productive place.
It is exclusionary. And you know, the way I feel about cinema and
film knowledge is like everybody and art in general is everyone should be able to
access it. And there are definitely certain things where you know, watching a
film or looking at a painting, your appreciation of it might be enriched if
you understand some of the background, which is where commentaries come in. But
it's like when it's too dry and academic and you're throwing out jargon that people
might not have any context for, it's like you're trying to turn them off,
right, which is why I think I enjoy being able to like let
my enthusiasm come out sometimes, which sometimes it's difficult to repress. I will
say the liner notes that you have contributed to as well, and even there's
been some video essays as well that you've done. That really they give that
extra context. But my favorite thing is when they it's hard to explain.
It's like they start building a bridge and make me want to go do my
own research because they're just that taste into either a certain genre or era of
film, and you go, damn, I just want to know more.
All she did was make me excited. That's great to hear because that's usually
how I like. I have chronic lifelong insomnia, and there are nights where
like I could have gone to sleep early, but instead I went down some
like link clicking rabbit hole trying to just you know, read more articles what
I feel like my life is turned into because just glimpsing of me. I've
got two special needs kids, so I'm at home a lot and caring for
them, and I'll be, you know, one of them falling asleep or
something, and I'll put on a commentary and I'll open a tab on something
that I need to read later, and then five days later, I've got
like seventeen links that I just go through and read for hours at a time.
In a way, I appreciate that so much with the process. One
of the things that I try to do on here is sort of bring positivity
and quell some of the entitlement in the hobby. And there are a lot
of people that are this cost you much, or it didn't get to me
fast enough, or why am I seeking out this movie for the fourth time,
And just to sort of dive into why this is so important, could
you share perhaps how long some of these take, Like if you're doing all
the research for some of these commentaries. A lot of people think that you
just go in and record and it's two hours and you're done and you got
a paycheck, so why should you be worried about it? But there's a
real story behind it. Yeah, it's not like that at all. I
mean, there probably are some movies like it hasn't been announced, so I
can't say what it is. But I recently did like a dream commentary on
a movie that I have watched obsessively for like twenty years now, so I
know everything about this movie. And basically that's what I did. I just
like hit record and just talked and was like, okay, well now we're
done. It's almost never like that though, right. Sometimes it's easier when
you're recording with another person that you're familiar with, because you're basically having a
discussion with them. But I prefer to do solo commentaries because they're just easier
to prepare for, right. And I mean, so you watch the movie
once or twice, and presumably it's a movie you've already seen a few times,
and then it's I don't know, five or six hours to make notes,
Like I make one page of notes for every ten minutes of runtime,
and that takes a long time. And if it's something that's more obscure,
like I recently did two commentaries for Keino's Miklos Young show box Set and Hungarian
Cinema. Thing that not a lot of people are familiar with is a niche.
It's an academic specialty. And years ago Kat and I did an episode
on one of his films and we wound up going down this rabbit hole and
watching like twenty films in a week and a half. And so sometimes that's
what happens. It's like you spend the whole week doing research because the thing
that you want to talk about is so obscure, and there's very little information
online or in libraries, and so it's like you just have to pull from
whatever sources you can. And it's like the more obscure it is, the
more work it takes, for sure. And obviously I'm not going to ask
you to dive into figures here, but a lot of people are under the
assumption that people doing this are loaded now because commentaries make good money, and
that's not true. Some of the people I've spoken to behind, you know,
off camera, they'll share at least a little bit of what they got
paid getting into it. And it is astonishing how how much this art takes
and really can't give. And it's hard because to keep these releases at you
know, somewhere between twenty five and fifty dollars per release, Otherwise they'd have
to charge almost twice that to pay these people even a living wage. Yeah,
So I will say there are a couple, maybe like three or four
regular film commentary people who probably can make a living from it because they charge
high rates and companies will pay them. They will not pay me that.
So I was thinking about this recently because people ask me all the time,
like why do you still have a day job, And the reality is like,
we live in an awful society where health insurance is extremely expensive, and
you know, the cost of living has shot up, and so it's like
a lot of I actually wrote about this recently in my Patreon and people seem
very surprised. But a lot of the people I know who do film commentaries
full time either have a spouse who supports them, or they're getting some sort
of financial support from family, and it's like, we don't make much money
at all. I would say the average price for a commentary is three to
five hundred dollars and the work. Certainly, there are companies I work with.
I love working with them, but they don't pay that much and so
it's like do I just cut them off entirely and not have the opportunity to
speak about certain films that I love or do. I just sort of accept
making less money for certain films. So it's like the inconsistency of how often
people give you projects where like unlike a day job, where it's like you
have generally a consistent amount of work that you know is coming in, and
whether it comes in or not, you're getting a paycheck. And this is
just so different. And that's one of the other biggest things is this is
a part of an industry that has been told it's dying for fifteen or sixteen
years now, so there's always that question mark at the end of next year,
who knows. Yeah, But at the same time, you know,
I always think about a company like Vinegar Syndrome, who has grown so exponentially
in the last five years. It's like, now they are able to distribute
for all these sub labels, and so they're getting all these incredible releases out
and facilitating that in a way that likely a lot of these small labels wouldn't
be able to afford to do on their own. And so it's like,
obviously it's not dying, right, And I, yeah, I'm a firm
believer that it's not. I honestly still think that we are in probably either
the golden era or maybe trickling down from over the last couple of years.
I almost feel like the pandemic really led to a real golden period because we
got some dream titles that people were able to release and more people were buying
them. Print runs even doubled for some of these labels. So it's an
astonishing time. Yeah, people were trapped at home with nothing to do but
watch movies, and they got those stimulus checks and that, and then they
got tired of streaming, so they turned to vinegar syndrome. So one of
the ways that we can support people doing this is supporting their other ventures.
And one of your other ventures is these books. What can you tell me
about this newest book. So years ago I started writing a book with the
vague idea that I wanted to talk about World War two and cult cinema.
And this covered everything from like sci fi and horror movies made during the war
years to movies later on after the war that dealt with that time period and
the subject matter, and it just became so insane and so sprawling that I
realized, Okay, this is just like if I am ever actually going to
have a book that I can put out in the world, I need to
find a focused topic. So I probably still have a whole second book that
could be published after this, but this one focuses on films made from nineteen
forty five to about nineteen eighty five, and they're all films that were made
in countries who actively purchased painted in the war. So for example, I
don't really talk about US cinema. I don't talk about a cinema because it
just the scope would be too broad. It's like those are separate books on
their own, of course, and I try to move loosely chronologically from Italian
neorealism through to things like Come and See and some of the like the rare
Soviet protest films that came out in the eighties. That is, I mean,
obviously a very broad topic, but it leads to so many other feelings,
at least in myself when I'm looking at something like this, because of
whether you look at as inspiring or terrifying or whatever, that there is so
much art that can come out of these tragic times and depressing times and hard
times, and that has happened time and time again, and not even just
in film. But I mean even for you know, the history of mankind,
there are so many movements that have happened. Yeah, people turn pain
and suffering into art, and I think when they don't, then it just
turns into more suffering. Right, And a lot of what you seem to
deal with and highlight and even talk about in a lot of your commentaries seems
to center around this idea of protest cinema. So can you share what that
would mean to you if you were explaining it to somebody who's never thought of
that? So basically what that means to me. And I didn't really go
in this direction on purpose. I just sort of realized one day, like,
oh, I seem to be writing about all of these films that have
kind of shared political themes or shared goals. And so a lot of the
movies in my World War two book fit under this umbrella as well, where
they're basically movies that are made in protest of some sort of political or governmental
oppression. And I think sometimes they kick back against things like war and genocide
and public traumas. But also, you know, a lot of the films
that I wrote about in the World War two book, the reason I wanted
to write about the legacy of the war is because war is so often used
as a propaganda tool in media. Oh yeah, so the movies I like,
even if you watch the Hollywood movies that came out in the forties,
they're just it's like so hard to find a movie that doesn't just reek of
propaganda. I mean, even Casablanca, which I love, it's a propaganda
film. And so these movies are generally looking at the ways in which politicians
and governments and whole communities use the sort of wartime myth making for their own
ends. Like people like Jean Pierre Melville would talk about how like with a
film like Army of Shadows, he's basically saying not every person in France was
in the resistance, even though that's what people want you to believe in the
sixties and seventies, and really it was terrible. And so I think I
tend to gravitate towards those kinds of films that either overtly or sort of more
subtly have that message that something just isn't right and it needs to be addressed,
and that theme I mean continues through like I said, every art form.
There are multiple eras of punk music that have come out through certain levels
of uprising and literal oppression, and it's not just war. And that leads
to today that there is still a lot of protests ininema being made, and
in recent times the US has been hit with a lot of things that there's
reason a protest. I mean, there's still discrimination across the board, and
that is not just based on things like race, but now we are finding
this gender gap where women are feeling like they are second class citizens because the
Supreme Court has turned over something that has been in place for more than what
forty years, forty five years and I think close to fifty. Yeah,
people are now losing rights that their grandmother fought for. And it's depressing.
Yeah, I don't even know if depressing is the word for it. It
just And that's something that I found really interesting about a lot of these post
war films that were ostensibly about World War Two. It's like, really,
they're about something else. Really, they're about what's going on in your current
time and using this much more dramatic historical event as this sort of parallel to
that. And it just it's also the sort of time where I tend to
associate that kind of protest cinema with really daring transgressive directors, like in my
book, I write a lot about Pasolini. He pretty much inspired the whole
thing with his film Solo, among others, but also like Reiner Erner Fassbender
and Lena Vertmueller and just so many people who are exploring the boundaries of mainstream
cinema but also sexuality and politics and gender roles and things like that. And
I just don't know that we're going to get the same quality of protest films
today because I think you just don't have the same kind of freedom to be
tasteless that you did in the seventies and to be offensive is better and for
worse. Is there an example of a fairly modern protest cinema that you would
point people towards to really dive into the genre. This is a difficult question
to answer. Yeah, I feel like, off the top of my head,
one of the only people whose films have consistently excited me and I don't
even know if you could call it protest cinema, but definitely transgressive cinema is
somebody like Peter Strickland, the English filmmaker, and his films I think,
do something interesting where they're not quite settled into a genre. Like he made
this movie called Abarian Sound Studio that's like kind of a horror film but not
totally. And Duke of Burgundy, which is influenced by Jess Franco movies,
but it's not euro cult. It's just like clearly thinking about those sorts of
films in their humming in the background. But right, honestly, I don't
know. I find a lot of contemporary cinema to be pretty disappointing, and
usually if I enjoy it, it's in kind of a mindless way, which
I know kisses people off. I get that, and it's all I mean
to be blunt, it's all watered down. I mean, even if there
is an original voice that they are seeking to portray, it really gets lost,
especially if it's associated with the studio, because they seemingly have final say
and they don't want something like that going to you know, four thousand screens
across the US. Oh totally. And this is something that we talked about
pretty recently on tw to the Death Nerve. Is this idea that you know,
people, I think Americans in particular are always sort of fed this line
about you know, China is evil, don't go to It's like it's the
new replacement for the Cold War rhetoric. It's like, here's this obvious villain.
You don't want to go there because we have freedom and they don't.
But like, yes, certainly China represses people and doesn't allow certain films or
political protests to happen, but like we don't hear either. We just swipe
things under the rug in much more covert ways. And it all has to
do with money. So it's like, would I rather be living in a
country that says, in a blunt way, you can't do this and you
can't make this film or a country that says you can do whatever you want,
except that you actually can, and the rules seem to change based on
who's involved. And so it's like, if you're white and middle class or
affluent in some way, you could probably get away with more things. But
even then, to your point, it's like the stuff coming out in Hollywood
is so watered down. It's like we're so far away from some of those
new Hollywood films of the seventies and even into the eighties where they felt like
daring, an edgy even in the early nineties. It's like, we're so
far from that. I agree, Is there, you know, as as
a person that's living in society today that is female, that is not an
oligarch or anything like that? Is there? How do you know? Is
there a protest cinema revolution that you could point to that you hope is uprising?
Because there's I mean to be super there's not a lot of hope for
a lot of people right now. No, there's really not. And it's
funny because I this hasn't been announced yet, so I'm going to try to
find a way to talk about it without like talking about it, which is
a little a little bit challenging. But my next project that should be out
hopefully sometime next year, has to do with representations of political violence and cinema,
and so the research I'm doing right now is all about the Japanese New
Wave and the sort of associated filmmakers, and it's fascinating to me the way
that people like Nikisa Oshima and Shoai Imamura and even Koji Wakamatsu, who is
like far to the stream, which I'll explain what I mean by that in
a second, they're all basically leftists some more active than others at this very
frustrating time when you know, Japan was doing all sorts of awful things to
its citizens, like people were getting super sick because of all these unregulated chemicals
in the water, and we're basically letting the US trample all over them.
And so there's this like wild protest movement that I think felt frustrating for a
lot of people. So the films in the late sixties and early seventies do
this interesting thing where they are these amazing protest movies, but a lot of
them are also movies that are critical of left wing movements and are sort of
they're not afraid to say, here's where you're doing it wrong, and here's
where you're getting caught up in bullshit. And it feels strangely hopeful to me.
I I'm not sure why, but it's like I think too often movements
get like this whole idea of cancel culture that frustrates people. It's like it
comes from a good place, which is people shouldn't be allowed to say whatever
racist, sexist bullshit they want on the internet or in person with no consequences,
and that idea of entitlement, like well, this is America. It's
a free country. I can say whatever horrible thing to you I want.
It's like, technically you can, but there should be consequences for that,
even social consequences. And so I just I think people get so narrowly focused
on either you're doing the thing or you're not doing the thing, and if
you're not doing everything we want you to do, then you're against us.
And then it just cuts out so much nuance. And I think nuance is
where hope lives. Nuance is what allows people to lead the kind of diversified,
free lives of their choosing right. And so to see these different filmmakers
kind of exploring nuance and not being afraid to argue with each other and argue
with their own movements, to me, that feels like a really healthy thing.
And it's like if some old Japanese dudes can do it in the late
sixties, surely some people can do it now. I wholeheartedly agree. And
that was such a beautiful way to explain the nuance because I mean, especially
with cancel culture, this is the time for that where everybody is saying,
you know, it's time to boycott X, and if you don't and boycott
it one hundred percent across the board, you're also a bad person. Not
reality, every single thing that we all buy from and support, there's a
piece of shit behind it somewhere. Yeah. Period, It is nearly impossible
to find a company that is, you know, morally true through and through.
And this nuance that can allow somebody to call out something that seemingly aligns
with their beliefs on their own bullshit, that's where the genuine side of things
can really shine. Yeah, And it just I think placing blame is this
thing that makes people feel better. And so it's like, rather than actually
trying to figure out who, who or what is the cause of some sort
of misfortune or suffering or what have you, it's way easier to just like
point your finger and say, you know, I was reading I read some
headline and was like, no, I can't go down this rabbit hole.
But I saw some headline today that this musician who was popular like twenty years
ago was trying to blame trans women for women's rights being taken away. And
it was like like, basically she was saying that now that we can't just
say women, we have to say people with uteruses or people who can give
birth that somehow has has stripped away my ability to be a woman. It's
like, it just means that being a woman isn't this like narrow nineteen fifties
box where you can't get a job, you can't have your own bank account,
you can't buy property. It's like pointing the finger at some person that
you don't understand or some sort of group that you're afraid of for whatever reason.
I don't know why. That seems to be such a human impulse,
but it's like, this is not helpful, this is just making things worse.
Also, it's so illogical. Yes most of the time, as always
about to say, it's astonishing to me that it's not bringing about a shared
celebration like others around you are just trying to be treated as good as you
are. That's something that we should celebrate. And I think if you ask
people flat out like, well, maybe this is too optimistic of me,
But I assume if you ask most people flat out like does everyone deserve to
live life the way they want and have the same sort of basic rights,
I have to think that most people would say yes, unless they have some
like real extreme conservative views. But for some reason. It's like there's a
disconnect and people forget that core thing and they try to like twist and turn
it into like, well, it's this person's fault that I can't get an
abortion. It's like, no, I think we all know whose fault it
is, and it's not all women. I also feel like some of these
people are thinking that because they're getting equal rights, they're viewing it as this
person having more rights than them, which doesn't make any sense. Yes,
yeah, I definitely read some kind of reactionary thought like that in the nineties,
where it was along the lines of like women having equal rights, especially
in terms of equal pay, and it was like, well, if they
start paying women equally, then they're going to pay me less. And it's
like that, how did your brain? How did your brain make that leap.
It's not like it's anyone's saying, well, in order for me to
be paid equally, it's not that you set some sort of company policy.
It's that I want you to take money out of Joe's paycheck and give it
to me, exactly. And that's that's where this entitlement that we're seeing today
and the employment culture is so astonishing to me as well, because you know,
just because they're offering starting positions at McDonald's for sixteen dollars an hour and
you're only making nineteen, that doesn't mean that you're supposed to be mad at
the guy at McDonald's, be mad at your employer. They should be paying
you more. But this is capitalism. This is how it works and how
it functions is instead of people clearly looking at the source of their suffering,
they view other working class people as competition exactly. It's like, no,
I don't understand why so many people are willing to punch below them when in
all reality, if you're looking for help, those people aren't gonna be able
to do anything for you because they're treated worse than you. You should be
punching up. Yeah, but punching below you is safe and easy, and
do this dopamine. Why do you think people become cops right? Punching below
you is absolutely on that note. This is a great time to go back
to protest cinema. And I'm curious, what are a handful that you would
recommend for people now, not just contemporary, just something that can strike emotion
and have somebody really grab onto a movement. I would say, definitely,
Battle of Algiers is a good one, the Patakorvo film. There are so
many Pasolini films that fit under this. Definitely something so Something that I think
is one of his more underrated films. Like if you're a Pasolini film you
probably already will have seen this. But Teorema, which is usually translated as
theorem, is this like wild anti capitalist protest allegory about this really hot guy
who infiltrates this like bourgeois factory owner businessman's family and proceeds to seduce everyone in
the household, from the husband to the wife, to his two adult children
to the maid, and he makes them sort of radically rethink their lives,
which has different outcomes for each of the characters. But it's like it's that
sort of thing that it's just like, yes, there are plenty of protest
cinema movies where it's literally about a protest, Like there are some goodar films
that you could watch like that, and those I think are great too,
But the films that really excite me are the ones that do it in more
subtle ways where you sort of get yet like holed into the film before you
really realize what's happening. Like, I don't think political messaging is as effective
when you're just beaten over the head with it. It's like you want someone
to tell you a good story. Definitely, a lot of Fastbenders films are
like this. Certainly, I would say I don't even know where to start
with Fastbender. He made like forty five films, they're all masterpieces. I
would say Fox and his Friends is a great one to start with because it
also has all these themes about class and how money makes people terrible, and
even if you love someone and have a relationship with them, that doesn't mean
that class isn't still gonna win out in the end, or class ideology.
Definitely, all kinds of history. Yeah, all kinds of his stuff just
came out through Arrow, and that is seemingly the best way to get most
of those right now. Yeah, Criterion put out a bunch, but I
think those two Arrow sets are so far the biggest collections. Ye, So
are there any that not that those are, you know, not great?
Are there any that are more geared towards women and what we seem to be
fighting as a culture in society in America right now? With the news OFO
V. Wade just a couple of weeks ago. Because obviously a lot of
people will go to the easy answer of black Christmas. It was so progressive
of talking about abortion before others would. Is there anything that you would point
to? I mean, Rough Cut Cinema just made a great dirty dancing shirt,
which people are gonna think I'm crazy. I wish I could pick up
my camera. It won't it probably won't pick up. I have a tie
movie poster for dirty Dancing in this like Dark Corner in the Far other Remove
My House. But it's a movie that I think you would never think of
as a protest movie. It has obvious class themes, but it's another one
that brings up this issue of abortion. And there are some great more obvious
ones like Born in Flames. Weirdly, also, these might not all specifically
be abortion themed. But most people know Paul Verhoven from his Hollywood movies like
Showgirls, for example, which I think is extremely feminist. But a lot
of Verhoven's early Dutch films are really interesting and like super relevant for right now.
A lot of them are films about headstrong women who just don't fit in
with society, or they're about sex workers who want to live by their own
terms, and they're incredibly well written, well acted, super sensitive. Like
it's clear that he was making feminist cinema from an early age, and that
I think whenever I tell people to check out those early movies, they're always
like, we're hoven, like Starship Troopers and like, yes, that one,
which is also a protest movie, a very good one and seems to
be wreaking a propaganda But when you really look into it, the subtlety is
there, and it's so much of that subtlety is so important for things that
bring out empathy when people if they win in the movie, knowing that they
wouldn't give that empathy, but when you're invested in it and it's oh shit,
I'm sixty four minutes into this and suddenly I really care what happens to
this character. Yeah, that's where we find that humanity. Yeah, And
I do think there are a lot of filmmakers who through the use of like
more transgressive themes, like andre Juwabski is another great one, the Polish director
who wound up working in France for most of his career. Most people know
Possession, which he made, but he made many other incredible films that just
look at how awful society is and how difficult of a time women have just
trying to live, which still true, unfortunately. Well, happy to be
here. Well, speaking of happiness, let's branch out to one more really
quick happy topic, and that is I put out the beacon to people on
my Patreon that I was going to have you on and they could ask some
questions, and I got some interesting ones for you, and I knew at
least one or two of my patrons are also patrons of yours, so some
that we got. One says I've only ever heard you talk about movies that
are at at least thirty years old. Are there filmmakers who started working like
in the mid nineties or later that you are really associated with or a fan
of somebody that you find true value in. Definitely Peter Strickland, who I
mentioned. I'm trying to think I like a lot of Ben Wheatley's films that
they've worked together before. I think Ben Wheatley has actually produced some of Peter
Strickland's films. Trying to think of other recent filmmakers. I am a little
sleep deprived, and this is these sorts of questions I almost never get,
so I don't have I don't have like an obvious answer. I mean,
I saw Crimes of the Future and I'm kind of obsessed with it. So
I feel like, even though David Cronenberg was not born thirty years ago,
he just made a movie and I was shocked that I loved it. This
is a thing that really frustrates me, Like I wish there were younger filmmakers
whose work I was excited about. And some of it is it's difficult for
me to find the time to see new movies that are harder to seek out,
like where I might have to actually make it to an in person screening
just with my work schedule, Like so much of what I watch revolves around
either what I'm being hired to talk about or something for book research. And
so it's like when I have a day off watching a new movie that very
well might make me angry, it's usually not a gamble I want to take.
I feel like there have to be more people though, like Brandon Cronenberg,
I like his movies nice. As soon as we get off this call,
I'm going to think of things and be like, god, damn it.
Well, one thing I would say about that subject, which we don't
really hear a lot of people talking about, is that now, with the
proliferation of cell phone cameras that can shoot in four K, we have this
odd like switch of power where everybody can shoot a movie in four K theoretically
with you know, just sitting at home. However, because of the bias
in the system, everything is still leaning towards the studio films for mostly established
directors or people that are in the system for some other reasons. So now
it is easier to shoot a film theoretically, but I almost feel like nowadays
it's much more difficult to break through. Yeah, and I think some of
it is like people who are probably making interesting films that I would like are
being distributed through small companies and I'm just not seeing the titles or like maybe
I'll hear about them later. Like there's this movie that came out a couple
of years ago that I wound up introducing at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival called
Blue My Mind. It's a Swiss film that it's a coming of age horror
movie about a girl who turns into a mermaid, but in a really grotesque
body horror way. And I liked that, but until they said, hey,
will you introduce this? I was like, I don't even know what
the fuck that is? Right, Yeah, So it's like they're out there.
There's also another movie from around that time called The Falling that I really
liked, which it has some picnic it hanging rock vibes. So it's like
people are trying to make these more interesting movies. Knife plus Heart I loved
so good. Hey, I told you they would come out eventually. They
don't get the big distribution exactly. And I will use that as a sort
of bat signal moment to say, when you get an opportunity, please take
the moment to not only support these labels. I mean, shout Factory gets
a lot of money. I don't need that, but if you have the
opportunity things like INDIEGGO, young filmmakers that are doing something and trying to fundraise
to support even a short film, it goes a long wait because a lot
of these people that you love nowadays, they started as filmmakers that were doing
short films and could barely cobble together a couple thousand dollars from friends and family,
and you might be supporting the next Fastbender or the next Ben Wheatley or
somebody like that. Yeah, please, people, I need to see the
next Deathbed, which is a movie that I genuinely love, but like,
nobody's gonna make it if they can't, if they can't get the funding to
buy a four K phone. Well, I would be remiss right now to
not shout out another young filmmaker named Michael Keaneho's another YouTuber who has a film
that he's trying to fundraise for right now, and his tagline is literally feed
the bed and he's going to have a giant bed shaped vagina, I think
is how it's gonna be, and it sounds incredible, So please please go
seek him out. Next question is you post some one ully in depth articles
on your Patreon. Is there ever a plan to maybe collect all of them
and release it as a book. H So, this is an interesting question
that I have thought about. It's so I would actually probably have to talk
to someone with law experience, like an entertainment lawyer or a publishing lawyer.
But sometimes I post things on my Patreon that are for a book that's going
to come out, Like a couple days ago, I posted an essay on
men Behind the Sun, which is for a book that I'm working on about
extreme Hong Kong cinema, and it's honestly become a really good barometer for me
to sort of like balloon test, like what do people think about And it's
not even a full chapter, it's just like a section of a chapter.
It's like what do people think about this? And people seem to love it,
which, like I ultimately write because I enjoy writing, so it's like
I'm writing the fucking book anyway. But it's like if I hear that people
are happy about it, it's like, Okay, I sort of have an
idea of here's what I did in this chapter. I can do similar things
in other later chapters. But there are all these older essays that I've written
that just like a lot of them I wrote for Diabolique, which you don't
make any money through them. So like, theoretically, I guess I could
collect things and publish them as a book. It I didn't know that people
would really have interest in that, but I guess if someone's asking you,
maybe they do. Absolutely. I mean I pre order that absolutely just to
be able to have it all together. It would be wonderful. I would
have to figure out how to pack, like what theme. That's a good
point, Yeah, and that's that's the hard thing is And that leads into
the next question, beautifully, is you you have this knowledge for everything,
but it seems like throughout a lot of these releases, you're you're simply tied
to like euro cult stuff, And I'm curious how you know You're you're diving
deep into euro cult after eurocult after euro cult, and then suddenly they announced
Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy and Sam Degan is doing a commentary on there.
How how do those you know, beyond genres compared to what your normal
titles? How do those come about for you? I mean, I really
hate being pigeonholed in euro cult and I love a lot of euro cult movies.
But there are two reasons I hate it. The first is I just
don't like being pigeonholed. It's only ever researching and talking about one thing is
boring, and boredom is like the ultimate evil for me. Absolutely. The
other reason is like not to you know, say anything too off color.
But I think among these sort of cult movie label releases, the euro cult
titles are in really high demand. And so a lot of film critics are
really territorial about it, and so there's just like a lot of drama and
cattiness, and like, at the end of the day, I just want
to do research and write and talk about movies. I don't want to deal
with people's bullshit. So it's like I would rather not do euro cult movies
and not be involved in it. So it's but it's sort of It's also
like once I make it clear to people, and not always, but definitely
sometimes, when I make it clear to people that I, you know,
can do commentaries about hardcore films or about Hong Kong cinema, it's like those
opportunities have started to show up, which is great. I mean, Vinegar
Syndrome, they're my favorite company to work with. They've always treated me really
well. They usually if I say, you know, I want to do
something, or if they ask me, hey, we need a commentary for
this, it's like they're you know, I think they're open to me doing
different things than euro cult. And part of the reason why I've really enjoyed
working with eighty eight Films is because they were the first people to offer me
a Hong Kong commentary on the Shaw Brothers Come Drink with Me, which is
like the first sixties Wouja film. And I wrote them back, this is
a couple of years ago, and I wrote them back. I was like
this, like I grew up watching these movies. I love them, but
like this is not my established area of expertise, Like are you sure,
And they were like, yeah, go for it. And now now I'm
writing a book on Hong Kong movies. So sometimes I think having people show
in you it it like helps you have more confidence in yourself. That's very
true, which is a really like reading Rainbow answer, But I mean to
a point, it kind of ties into a lot of the stuff that we
were talking about too, with the oppression and if you are so hopeless in
so many of these situations and you get that opportunity, it can literally change
your life, just one simple opportunity. Yeah, And I think a lot
of it is about connection and community and people supporting your work or offering you
opportunities or listening to your podcast or you're watching your YouTube show. It's like
it. I think a lot of the time it costs people nothing to support
each other, to show enthusiasm for what makes someone else excited, But it
means so much more than this sort of awful capitalists like individualistic, like I
just have to get ahead of everyone. It's like, do you well there's
nothing up there? Yeah, that's that's the biggest thing. And a lot
of times nowadays, the biggest thing that you can do is just share so
that more people can get eyes on it. And it literally takes ten seconds
and not a dime from you. So if you can share some of Sam's
work, if you can share you know, excitement about a release, if
you can do something to you know, somebody is interested in World War two,
bring up the book that she wrote. It's not that hard just to
share good art. Thank you. Yeah. I think in starting my Patreon,
I have definitely seen that side of people come out so much more.
We started a discord where people are super enthusiastic. And even so, I
primarily a couple of years ago, used Facebook as my most frequent form of
social media and it just was so toxic right that I left and went on
Instagram. And so far, all I've seen is just like people sharing each
other's stuff. And maybe it's just because I'm following movie nerds and not not
any like diet or gym culture people. But uh, well, I will
leave with one last really cliche easy question here is, I'm sure there's a
handful of amazing Grail titles that you would love to do a commentary or a
liner essay for other than the one that you said that hasn't been announced yet.
Is there anything out there that you would just love to put in the
ether that hopefully someday you can do some work up any single Fastbender film.
I've watched them all, I've written about all of them for my old blog.
I wrote a big, huge chapter on his work for my World War
two book. But I've never gotten to do anything with an official Fastbender release,
And so that's my like, like, yes, there are probably two
dozen things that I could list off, but that's like the one reeal And
so many of his films don't not even just don't have a release, but
they don't have a good release, they don't have anything on recent formats.
There's so much out there that still could be done. Yeah. He he
made this totally crazy Western movie called Whitey that I am obsessed with. And
so it's like, if I had to pick one, knowing that it hasn't.
I don't think it's had a proper release yet. Like, come on,
world, people want a fastbender Whitey, a fastbender Western called Whitey on
Blu Ray. I would agree with that, and it sounds like something that
a lot of people would buy into almost immediately. Uh So that's that's pretty
much it. Sam, Thank you so much for your time. I know
that you are extremely busy in doing something like this, take a lot of
time and prep and uh negotiating, sleep and sweat and everything for so I
appreciate you. Everybody. All of sam links for the Sam's links for Patreon
for the book, for anything else that I can find is below. Is
there is Instagram You're preferred, everybody should follow you theirs or somewhere else that
you would recommend. That's the easiest, got it well as usual. Thank
you everybody for watching and tune in next time. Thanks for everything. Have
a good night. You me