Speaker 1: Meaning a light.
Speaker 2: Man like this, man letting butterfly flapping and wing. They've
Speaker 2: down in a forest. Man, it gonna cause the tree fall,
Speaker 2: letting five thousand miles away. Man, nobody seen it. Nobody see.
Speaker 3: You don't need no man black. You follow let and
Speaker 3: you got bacted like that.
Speaker 1: That's the point.
Speaker 2: Man, don't black and name on the panel.
Speaker 3: Man, Now you don't matter.
Speaker 1: Man all right, George Bagbee, welcome to Jay Burdenshow how
Speaker 1: you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. It's good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very excited to have you. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: another episode in my unofficial series of If I talk
Speaker 1: about the Iran War every day, I will go crazy
Speaker 1: and so deliberately deciding to talk about something that is
Speaker 1: not relevant, at least explicitly to what's happening in the headlines.
Speaker 1: And so Bagbee, we're here to discuss the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: film Hail Caesar, and it's a good absurdist way to
Speaker 1: get away from the current thing. The Cohen Brothers are
Speaker 1: my favorite comic writers of the day. Their comedies are
Speaker 1: some of my oldest favorites.
Speaker 3: My wife and I, as a kind of guilty pleasure,
Speaker 3: we get no end of enjoyment out of The Big Lebowski,
Speaker 3: which is one of our favorite films, and it's it's
Speaker 3: just a classic. It's not for everyone, especially those who
Speaker 3: are adverse to the language. It's it's very colorful, and
Speaker 3: it's language notoriously, but it's such an absurd comic masterpiece.
Speaker 3: And that's something that I really love about the Cohen's.
Speaker 3: There's such a dynamic, a dynamic force in movie making.
Speaker 3: They go from masterpieces, just stupendous achievements like No Country
Speaker 3: for Old Men, and they've also made these really slapstick
Speaker 3: sorts of comic movies, like Raising Arizona with Nicholas Cage
Speaker 3: doing one of his Madman routines. They've also made these
Speaker 3: really distinctive regional films, which is something that I particularly
Speaker 3: love about them. They've made They made Miller's Crossing, which
Speaker 3: was one of their earlier movies, one of my favorites.
Speaker 3: It's a really good one. Did you know that one
Speaker 3: was shot almost entirely in Louisiana, specifically New Orleans?
Speaker 1: Huh? But I didn't, But that actually makes quite a
Speaker 1: lot of sense.
Speaker 3: You you wouldn't know it by watching the film. I
Speaker 3: don't think they ever referenced Louisiana and the film, but
Speaker 3: it was all shot in Louisiana. I found out that
Speaker 3: that one of the scenes, the distinctive forest scene in
Speaker 3: Miller's Crossing where he takes John to Truro. Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: Gabriel Byrne takes John to Truro out into the forest
Speaker 3: and and John Taturo's pitifully begging for his life. He
Speaker 3: knows what what everyone expects to happen. He's supposed to
Speaker 3: kill him. That was that was shot in a place
Speaker 3: that I know, and it's all very familiar to me,
Speaker 3: but outside of the city obviously it's a forest, but
Speaker 3: in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Well, and that it's actually funny because I did not
Speaker 1: know that. Several things about that film. One, it is
Speaker 1: one of the funniest non comedy films, Like there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of jokes in it per se, but it's
Speaker 1: genuinely hilarious. Like there's one moment I always think where,
Speaker 1: you know, Gabriel Burns is tied to a chair, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're sort of expecting him to get you know this,
Speaker 1: you know, beaten, you know, with the swinging light, and
Speaker 1: he just gets up, grabs the chair, and breaks it
Speaker 1: over one of the guys interrogating him, and the reaction
Speaker 1: the man just looks so genuinely offended he's been hit
Speaker 1: with the chair. Very very funny. But additionally, it's funny
Speaker 1: you mentioned that because I just assumed, because of the
Speaker 1: subject matter that it was set in Chicago. You know,
Speaker 1: it seems like a Chicago esque film, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about that when they're walking through the woods, I
Speaker 1: was like, this doesn't look anything like Illinois, right, this
Speaker 1: looks like the middle of nowhere in the Deep South.
Speaker 1: And so that actually makes a good bit of sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they actually talked about that, and they said New
Speaker 3: Orleans is this unchanged like nineteenth century relic and they
Speaker 3: didn't have to dress up the streets where they were shooting.
Speaker 3: They actually interviewed about that and said, yeah, we didn't
Speaker 3: have to replace the windows or the shutters or anything
Speaker 3: because they're all original. No one has renovated these old buildings,
Speaker 3: and so it looks just like it did at the
Speaker 3: turn of the century, which is one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why I adore New Orleans. It's this untouched old city.
Speaker 3: In a way, it's simultaneously New Orleans best selling point
Speaker 3: and its downfall that they haven't invested in their own
Speaker 3: city in such obvious ways, but it's also the charm
Speaker 3: of the place. But they've made, as I said, all
Speaker 3: these really interesting regional films, and I think this is
Speaker 3: the best testimony in spite of the Cohen's being very
Speaker 3: famously amish, uh, the the regional work that they've done
Speaker 3: with with Fargo, with Oh Brother, where Art Thou? It
Speaker 3: comes from a place of love and affection. Even the
Speaker 3: Big Lebowski as as like a set piece for Southern California,
Speaker 3: Southern California hippie characters, deadbeats, stuff like that. It comes
Speaker 3: from a place of real affection. And the easiest way
Speaker 3: to tell that is do you come out of Oh
Speaker 3: Brother or Art Thou hating Mississippi or do you come
Speaker 3: out of Oh Brother or Art Thou thinking, Wow, I
Speaker 3: really like Mississippi. Like there's there are a lot of
Speaker 3: winsome points and beauty and and curiosity about these these funny,
Speaker 3: you know, country white people. And I think that that's
Speaker 3: the best tell about the Cohens, that they love their
Speaker 3: subject matter. And they've also they also produced a personal
Speaker 3: favorite of mine, which is a serious man. Have you
Speaker 3: seen that one.
Speaker 1: No, I haven't, but I need to.
Speaker 3: Oh, that is a really good one. It's it's set
Speaker 3: in some Jewish community in Minnesota or something, I guess
Speaker 3: Bob Dylan's diaspora, way up there in the distant North.
Speaker 3: And it introduced to me the term goy, which is
Speaker 3: used very frequently in that film. That film is a
Speaker 3: a black comedy, and it's kind of a retelling of
Speaker 3: the story of Job, a man who faces like every
Speaker 3: possible personal disaster and is meditating on the mystery of
Speaker 3: his situation. And it's it's extremely good just in its
Speaker 3: own right. But I really like that one. So about
Speaker 3: the Cohen's they they have a great affection for Americana,
Speaker 3: for American regions, for the gentile majority of the United States.
Speaker 3: They really seem to like these people, and that's really
Speaker 3: my brief for them. The fact that they are famously
Speaker 3: Amish is an interesting factor in the film that we
Speaker 3: have for discussion today. It's the twenty sixteen film Hail Caesar,
Speaker 3: and the image of Christ haunts this film in a
Speaker 3: really surprising way, especially because it comes from non Christian writers.
Speaker 3: The very first image that you see when the title
Speaker 3: fades is a crucifix in a Catholic church and the
Speaker 3: very first scene is the protagonist, who is a Hollywood fixer,
Speaker 3: a real historical character by the way, who worked for
Speaker 3: Big Studios in la Eddie Mannix, who's kind of fictionalized
Speaker 3: for this. He's kind of a legend in Hollywood, as
Speaker 3: I understand it, portrayed by Josh Brolin, and he is.
Speaker 3: He does a wonderful job in this role, you know,
Speaker 3: the stoic and strong Josh Brolin. He's sitting in a
Speaker 3: confessional and he's a very scrupulous Catholic. He's going to
Speaker 3: confession with spans of hours between his confessions. He's, uh,
Speaker 3: he's obviously a man that takes his religious ritual very seriously.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: The priest in the confessional is is telling him, oh,
Speaker 3: my son, you're you're doing this too much. You're not
Speaker 3: this bad, you know. And he goes to the confessional
Speaker 3: to say, you know, I lied to my wife. I
Speaker 3: snuck a cigarette. I told her I was quitting, and
Speaker 3: and he he breaks down and he says, I'm trying.
Speaker 3: I'm trying, and then he leaves the confessional. And he's
Speaker 3: this completely stoical, driven, tough guy of the the force
Speaker 3: of order and justice in the film.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think that that opening is is really
Speaker 1: dramatic on it to sort of set up that that
Speaker 1: sort of diet. Because he leaves, it's this sort of
Speaker 1: you know, gloomy, rainy night and he walks into this
Speaker 1: you know, l a Bungalow kicks the door open, and
Speaker 1: you know, one of the the the studio's starlets is
Speaker 1: taking is it kind of a racy photo shoot with this?
Speaker 1: Is it Steep Buchmy the photographer or some other kind
Speaker 1: of like similarly scummy looking actor. And he walks up,
Speaker 1: you know, pulls out the negatives, tells the guys to leave,
Speaker 1: smacks her in a moment that's very kind of like
Speaker 1: silver age Hollywood. Right, you know, you can almost imagine
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart, right, you know, holding her close and kind
Speaker 1: of slapping her across the face. And then when the
Speaker 1: police come in, he's given her a fake story. He
Speaker 1: hands a bribe to the policeman and they leave, right,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of contrasting that, you know, how he
Speaker 1: is at work. It is this kind of laying down
Speaker 1: the law and then you know this very tender family
Speaker 1: man right in the confessional booth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's this great contrast, and and this is a
Speaker 3: contrast that we see through the rest of the picture
Speaker 3: and the the big questions in the film are about
Speaker 3: dream and reality, about fantasy and truth, about what is
Speaker 3: real and what we believe in, what we believe is real,
Speaker 3: and this is the This is one of the major
Speaker 3: elements that we encounter through the entire film, and we're
Speaker 3: drawn back to that distinction repeatedly in the dialogue. It's
Speaker 3: it's a really fast paced film. There there are lots
Speaker 3: of different characters and a bunch of different little subplots,
Speaker 3: of many of which are just comic gold. But it's
Speaker 3: always turning back to that what what do we understand
Speaker 3: to be, what is going on? What is real is
Speaker 3: what are we projecting about ourselves? What do we believe
Speaker 3: about the circumstances. So faith turns out to be one
Speaker 3: of the key themes of the film. And as I said,
Speaker 3: the character of Jesus Christ literally portrayed in the film
Speaker 3: in the context of the movie within the movie. So
Speaker 3: Eddie Mannix is managing the production of this big tent
Speaker 3: pole production for the studio. It's a film called Haile Caesar,
Speaker 3: and this is the source of most of the drama
Speaker 3: in this picture, also called Haile Caesar. But like the
Speaker 3: movie within the movie, this is obviously a satire of
Speaker 3: ben Her and some other nineteen fifties epic biblical films
Speaker 3: like The Robe and Cuovadis and things like that.
Speaker 1: Well, it hails. It's called the other one, right, It's
Speaker 1: like the Is it the Tablets of Noah or tap, sorry,
Speaker 1: the Tablets of Moses? Is that what I'm thinking of? Oh?
Speaker 3: The Ten Commandments?
Speaker 1: Maybe? Yes, yes, that's what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Charlton Heston, is that a that must be cecil
Speaker 3: d de mill or something, one of one of those
Speaker 3: great old epics. I've uh, I've got these things on
Speaker 3: on the list. I just uh, I just uh played
Speaker 3: Ben Her for my children recently because I remember watching
Speaker 3: it at about their age and it having a major
Speaker 3: impact on me. So it's kind of fresh on my
Speaker 3: mind right now. But we we see with the production
Speaker 3: of this film that the set or the setting for
Speaker 3: this movie is the fifties. It's like the Golden age
Speaker 3: of Hollywood and some of the things that we see
Speaker 3: in the context. It's a Christian country and the Hollywood
Speaker 3: studios are wanting to present an image of themselves and
Speaker 3: of their stars, who are certainly not like traditional moral
Speaker 3: kinds of people. They want to present an image of
Speaker 3: moral norms, they want to present an image of spiritual norms.
Speaker 3: And of course there's a cynical reading of this film
Speaker 3: that it's it's meant to discredit the society in that
Speaker 3: it's portraying right, that it's these dissolute Hollywood people who
Speaker 3: are projecting a sense of normalcy on the screen when
Speaker 3: the reality is moral degradation in Hollywood. Nix Is is
Speaker 3: constantly encountering that paradox. So he has he has gossip columnists,
Speaker 3: columnists coming up to him, uh constantly, and they're saying, oh,
Speaker 3: I know about this scandal. I'm going to publicize it tomorrow,
Speaker 3: And he says, no, No, the actor is a good
Speaker 3: family man. Everyone knows that. And and this is a
Speaker 3: and this is a really interesting element here. But I
Speaker 3: think that the Cohens really have a general, uh a
Speaker 3: genuine affection for the the mainstream that they're presenting here.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're they're trying to take them down
Speaker 3: a peg. They're they're attacking the corruption in Hollywood. They're
Speaker 3: lampooning it. In the film, especially the writers, which we're
Speaker 3: going to get to, but we see the Hollywood is
Speaker 3: in the business of making dreams, of projecting images on
Speaker 3: the side of Plato's cave, and Eddie Mannix is dealing
Speaker 3: with the real problems at the base of this projection apparatus.
Speaker 3: So these themes of what is true, what is fantasy?
Speaker 3: What do we believe? And the whole time Jesus Christ
Speaker 3: is lurking in the background. Jesus Christ very clearly services
Speaker 3: in several important discussions in the film as the key
Speaker 3: question to all of this is Jesus Christ significant? Is
Speaker 3: he real? Does he demand faith of us or not?
Speaker 3: Even the question is Jesus Christ God? Is a serious
Speaker 3: question that's presented in this satirical context.
Speaker 1: Well, and at that point, yes, if I can just
Speaker 1: break in if if it's not the immediate next scene
Speaker 1: to the one I just described, it's it's very shortly
Speaker 1: after that is the which is of course played for laughs,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, Mannix's meeting with you know, the
Speaker 1: Protestant pastor, the Orthodox bishop and then a Catholic priest
Speaker 1: in a rabbi, and of course they're there to discuss
Speaker 1: you know, the presence of Christ in this film. And
Speaker 1: there are several things because in a cheaper movie, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean it is comedic, right, it is played for laughs.
Speaker 1: You know that all four of these religious figures are
Speaker 1: offering me. You know that this man effectively uh, you know,
Speaker 1: your kind of scraps of you know, Christology, right, and
Speaker 1: he's deeply confused. But at the same time we see
Speaker 1: that same sort of love for America. That all four
Speaker 1: of these men they're not caricatures, you know, they're positive characters,
Speaker 1: and particularly coming from the Cohen's it's interesting that the
Speaker 1: uh if anyone comes out of that interaction looking badly, right,
Speaker 1: it's the kind of very nebbish uh nebbish rabbi And
Speaker 1: you know that's not the focus or the goal of
Speaker 1: this film. But again, right, that's that's where from almost
Speaker 1: the very beginning you see the presence of Christ in
Speaker 1: Hail Caesar.
Speaker 3: And that that scene is my personal favorite in the film.
Speaker 3: It's also the most daring thing I think Hollywood has
Speaker 3: put on this in a very long time. It's a
Speaker 3: comic scene. Anyone watching that scene is going to find
Speaker 3: it hilarious, no matter what they believe. I think, I
Speaker 3: think it's naturally hysterical. But will come around to that
Speaker 3: here in just a minute. I do have some notes
Speaker 3: on it, but but that that scene you mentioned is
Speaker 3: absolutely brilliant. So one of the themes I told you
Speaker 3: faith is the key word in the film. It appears
Speaker 3: in the climax of the film at the very end,
Speaker 3: and it's uh, it's the forgotten line that an actor
Speaker 3: is delivering a speech in front of the crucified Christ
Speaker 3: in the climax of the movie within the movie, and
Speaker 3: he forgets the pinnacle of his each and the word
Speaker 3: he forgets is faith. And this is intentional. Obviously, they're
Speaker 3: trying to emphasize the point the one thing that they lack,
Speaker 3: as the actor almost gets to say when he forgets
Speaker 3: the last word, if we could only have this one
Speaker 3: final thing, and that is faith, then we could see
Speaker 3: what is true. And so we see it all come
Speaker 3: together there at the end. But we see conflicts of
Speaker 3: faith in the film in a big way, and that's
Speaker 3: with the communist subversives in Hollywood, and so they present
Speaker 3: a different kind of faith. This is the faith in
Speaker 3: ideological materialism and Marxism and their their faith and what
Speaker 3: it leads them to is also played for laughs. Their
Speaker 3: their ham fisted uh sort of attempts to to blackmail
Speaker 3: Hollywood and UH to fund the Soviet Union, which is
Speaker 3: what their their ultimate goal is. It comes to nothing,
Speaker 3: uh in the end, and it's all and it's all
Speaker 3: very absurd, but that is another element. So we see
Speaker 3: the Cohen's they're they're framing the the two faiths presented
Speaker 3: in the film. You have traditional Christianity, you know, faith
Speaker 3: in the doctrine of Christ, and then you have an
Speaker 3: innovative new ideology, which is Communism, which they they don't
Speaker 3: hold back on for their disdain.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: They they think that these people maybe don't even deserve
Speaker 3: to be taken seriously. There's such ridiculous characters. They don't
Speaker 3: portray the clergy this way at all. The clergy are
Speaker 3: are taking these things more seriously. They're very confused, and
Speaker 3: the scene with the clergy is absurdist and it's meant
Speaker 3: to create laughs, but they're obviously talking about serious things.
Speaker 3: So we see this bifurcation. You have destructive faith of
Speaker 3: faith that is finally motivated by vengeance. In the case
Speaker 3: of the Communists. The communists pretend to portray themselves or
Speaker 3: they want to portray themselves as these believers in materialist dogma.
Speaker 3: They are actually motivated by very low, vengeful pecuniary interests
Speaker 3: and this well and from really obviously with them well.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's another part of this that
Speaker 1: I found particularly funny is obviously the sort of drama
Speaker 1: of this. You know, the inciting incident is that the
Speaker 1: main actor in Hail Caesar has been captured and held
Speaker 1: for ransom by these communist writers, and some of the
Speaker 1: best comedy in the film is him talking to these
Speaker 1: Marxist writers and sort of they are mutually convincing themselves
Speaker 1: that he is a Marxist. But the funny thing is
Speaker 1: this character played by Clooney is such an abject narcissist
Speaker 1: that he is. He is recreating everything in his own life, right,
Speaker 1: so it is all, you know, his sort of like
Speaker 1: background Hollywood, you know, relationships explained through Marxist theory. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the only way he can under standard. You know,
Speaker 1: he has no way to conceptualize really outside of like
Speaker 1: his incredibly petty foibles. It's very, very funny, and to
Speaker 1: that point, there's there's a really hilarious moment where you
Speaker 1: know that they've sort of told him that they're kidnapped,
Speaker 1: that he has been kidnapped, which happens after this kind
Speaker 1: of absurd uh. It kind of like Marxist debate over
Speaker 1: finger sandwiches, where you know, they're sitting across the room
Speaker 1: and he's he basically says, he's like, well, what happens
Speaker 1: if I just tell everyone who you are? And it
Speaker 1: becomes very clear that these these Marxists have not even
Speaker 1: considered this. This is the most poorly conceived plan. And
Speaker 1: so to your point, right, obviously, you know, there is
Speaker 1: at least some level of sympathy for these men because
Speaker 1: we see that they are from a certain perspective, they're
Speaker 1: sort of being ripped off, but they're so so sort
Speaker 1: of like so sort of incompetent and bumbling and as
Speaker 1: you said, greedy that they come off really as say,
Speaker 1: villains isn't quite the right term, because there is, you know,
Speaker 1: a more villainous character who sort of serves as the ringleader.
Speaker 1: But they are they're painted much much more harshly than
Speaker 1: the clergy or you know, the normal Americans. You know,
Speaker 1: as we see one of the other kind of rising stars,
Speaker 1: you know, the character of of you know, Hobby Doyle,
Speaker 1: who is this sort of like you know, small town
Speaker 1: actual cowboy who's become you know, a lead in westerns
Speaker 1: and in a cheaper movie, you know, he would be
Speaker 1: the bumbling rube, the idiot, you know, the redneck. But
Speaker 1: he's played very sympathetically, right. He is a character that
Speaker 1: you are supposed to feel for and the kind of
Speaker 1: you know, sinister homosexual Hollywood mafia is really the villain
Speaker 1: of this movie, which, to your point, is a very
Speaker 1: brave thing for Hollywood to say in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and that again, it just goes back to my point.
Speaker 3: I genuinely believe the Cohens like Toby Doyle. They like
Speaker 3: the old stock American cowboy character, the very simple guy
Speaker 3: who isn't very good talking on screen, and yet he's
Speaker 3: a movie star. He's he's one of the more compelling
Speaker 3: characters in the film. So about the about the communist
Speaker 3: meeting with George Clooney's character. George Clooney is the lead
Speaker 3: in this swordin Sandals epic Hail Caesar.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 3: The the film within the film is subtitled A Tale
Speaker 3: of the Christ, which is kind of an illusion to
Speaker 3: Ben her That was the subtitle for ben Her as well,
Speaker 3: and there are lots of different in jokes that are
Speaker 3: related to ben Her, such as the tactic of never
Speaker 3: showing the face of the actor portraying Jesus Christ or
Speaker 3: in Georgia.
Speaker 1: Kind of well. And the one quote we get from
Speaker 1: you know, the the Orthodox Clergy, it's when he says,
Speaker 1: I liked it, but I thought jumping from one chariot
Speaker 1: to the other seemed a bit fake, which you know,
Speaker 1: of course, is both a reference and kind of a
Speaker 1: comedic moment. But sorry, I've interrupted you for probably a
Speaker 1: tenth time, George.
Speaker 3: Yes, Indeed, the the meeting with the clergy, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: I'm gonna compare these two meetings, the meeting with Mannix
Speaker 3: in the Christian Clergy and the meeting with Clooney's character
Speaker 3: which his name is Whitlock with the Communists. There are
Speaker 3: certain parallels between these two meetings. When Mannix meets with
Speaker 3: the clergy, it's very interesting that the Protestant pastor and
Speaker 3: the Catholic priest are both going towards the theology. They're
Speaker 3: trying to argue about the details of the theology, and
Speaker 3: the rabbi gets involved with that and he says well,
Speaker 3: this is all nonsense. The Trinity is nonsense. Christ was
Speaker 3: not God. He says that, which is a really incredible
Speaker 3: thing to portray on screen just by itself, was a
Speaker 3: very courageous thing to do. To put that on screen.
Speaker 3: And of course it's played for laps, which kind of
Speaker 3: diffuses the tension, which I think is necessary in order
Speaker 3: to present such a thing, but it's also so very valuable.
Speaker 3: The Orthodox bishop who is in this scene is obviously
Speaker 3: my favorite. That's my representation here. The Orthodox bishop, I think,
Speaker 3: is the one that takes it as seriously as it
Speaker 3: needs to be taken. He is not arguing theological points
Speaker 3: it Curiously, Eddie Mannix, after interacting with the Catholic priest,
Speaker 3: the Catholic priest is trying to talk about the dual
Speaker 3: nature of Christ, that he's both completely God and completely Man,
Speaker 3: and this is Christian dogma. There's nothing controversial about saying this.
Speaker 3: Mannix is confused. Now he's observing Catholic but he's also
Speaker 3: not very deep in the theology. So he says, so
Speaker 3: God is split, and the Catholic priest says, well, yes
Speaker 3: and no, which is also the Christian answer, that he's
Speaker 3: one being with two complete natures at the same time,
Speaker 3: which is kind of paradoxical, but that's the that's the
Speaker 3: doctrine of the trinity. The Orthodox bishop he references the Bible.
Speaker 3: He says, well, we have the Bible, you know, and
Speaker 3: and Mannix says, well, yeah, but we we have pictures too,
Speaker 3: and that's what we're doing here. And that's what I'm
Speaker 3: getting your vice on. He's kind of try to refocus.
Speaker 3: The Orthodox bishop says, h, he says some mystical things.
Speaker 3: He says, well, God is who he is, and this
Speaker 3: this uh infuriates the rabbi. He says, you think that's
Speaker 3: special who isn't who he is? But his his take
Speaker 3: is entirely mystical. And and then the Mannix he asked
Speaker 3: them all, well, would any reasonable person object to our portrayal?
Speaker 3: And they all say no, No. I think I think
Speaker 3: this is all fine. I think it's tastefully done. The
Speaker 3: Orthodox pre says, oh, I've seen worse, which is just
Speaker 3: a wonderful, uh sort of detached, h sort of approach,
Speaker 3: which I much appreciate. I think that he comes out
Speaker 3: of that maybe make maybe looking less serious than any
Speaker 3: of his comrades there, but from a certain perspective may
Speaker 3: be more serious than all the rest of them put together. Now,
Speaker 3: when the Communists when they assembol with Whitlock after they've
Speaker 3: kidnapped him, of they they've employed the villain from Jurassic
Speaker 3: Park to drug Whitlock's wine in a movie scene. Did
Speaker 3: you notice that that actor?
Speaker 1: No, I actually had. I didn't even think about that,
Speaker 1: but now remembering it, that's exactly yeah.
Speaker 3: I looked him up because I thought I recognized him.
Speaker 3: He's he's the big round guy from Jurassic Park who's
Speaker 3: who's trying to blackmail the park. I forget exactly what
Speaker 3: he was doing, but he he meets his untimely end
Speaker 3: with the giant frill lizard. He's he makes a little
Speaker 3: appearance there and he poisons George Clooney's wine and then
Speaker 3: carries him off into captivity. Clooney wakes up and he
Speaker 3: spends the entire film in his Roman legionary costume, which
Speaker 3: is is also very comic, like he's carrying a sword
Speaker 3: in every scene. He sits down with these these communists
Speaker 3: and they say, oh, we're a we're a reading group,
Speaker 3: you know, And he goes, oh, what what are you
Speaker 3: talking about? And they say, we're talking about history and
Speaker 3: economics because it's the same thing, you know, don't you agree,
Speaker 3: And and they say, well, history is science of history
Speaker 3: is determined by materialistic formula, so we can explain everything
Speaker 3: that has happened and everything that will happen according to
Speaker 3: our formula. So we know what the future will be.
Speaker 3: This is inevitable, and we are on the side of
Speaker 3: the future. And once they get into the discussion, we
Speaker 3: see the parallel emerge. Clooney is asking for clarification and
Speaker 3: he asks one of the communists, so man is split,
Speaker 3: and the communist says, yes, we have two classes. We've
Speaker 3: got the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and they're in conflict
Speaker 3: with one another. And we know the means to resolve
Speaker 3: this conflict. It's going to be, you know, the future utopia,
Speaker 3: and it's going to solve the dialectic of history. And
Speaker 3: this is just all orthodox Marxism. But in the background
Speaker 3: of the meeting we have all these Communist members. They're
Speaker 3: all Hollywood writers. Uh, they're also all Amish, which is
Speaker 3: coincident here. Many of these are these are kind of
Speaker 3: minor Hollywood actors that as as is the case with
Speaker 3: a lot of Cohen Brothers movies. They've they've appeared in
Speaker 3: other uh previous uh elements in their filmography, and a
Speaker 3: lot of those in the communist group had previously been
Speaker 3: in A Serious Man, which portrays this Amish community in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: So they're they're you know, ethnic actors, and they're portraying
Speaker 3: Communist subversives in Hollywood, and they and they brag that
Speaker 3: they've they've inserted their Marxist doctrine into their screenwriting. But
Speaker 3: they're all personally personally vindictive. They want to loot the
Speaker 3: studios because they believe they deserve more. And this this
Speaker 3: comes out really clearly that there are several members of
Speaker 3: the group that are perpetually angry and they just randomly
Speaker 3: belt out things, screaming out there. They're exploiters, they deserve
Speaker 3: to be destroyed, and they're just randomly shouting in the background,
Speaker 3: and another character is constantly telling them to shut up.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what one of these guys says, whatever
Speaker 3: he says, another character is always telling him to shut up.
Speaker 3: And it's very funny, but we see that this this
Speaker 3: kind of faith is a belief that man is split
Speaker 3: into two distinct classes, into warring classes, and this explosans
Speaker 3: everything whereas the clergy are talking about the nature of God,
Speaker 3: that God is split, and this determines man's relation to God,
Speaker 3: so that God became man, and this is a kind
Speaker 3: of split in the divinity that we insist this is unity,
Speaker 3: this is the doctrine of the trinity, but that God
Speaker 3: is both completely man and completely God in the person
Speaker 3: of Jesus Christ. So it's a complex theological dogma, but
Speaker 3: it's also a fig feature in the film, and we're
Speaker 3: invited to consider it, and that's really extraordinary. Now that
Speaker 3: this isn't a Christian film given its makers, but I
Speaker 3: think they were taking it seriously. They're presenting it fairly.
Speaker 3: One reading of the film, which I've encountered in the
Speaker 3: reviews is that this is all played cynically.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think it has to be read this way.
Speaker 3: I certainly enjoy it. As an orthodox Christian. I take
Speaker 3: these dog dog most entirely seriously, and I find the
Speaker 3: film extremely entertaining because I don't think it's it's doing
Speaker 3: it any discredit well.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly, and I feel like the the the reason
Speaker 1: that I know this film is not cynical is the
Speaker 1: the sort of you know, rising star, you know, small
Speaker 1: town American we mentioned earlier, because that character is played
Speaker 1: for laughs. You know, for instance, he he sort of
Speaker 1: you know, goes through He's cast in this sort of
Speaker 1: you know, period ballroom drama. You know, the other actors,
Speaker 1: the director, very proper trained British actors, and you know,
Speaker 1: while clearly he is a fish out of water, the
Speaker 1: relationship between him and the director, which is Lawrence Lawrence
Speaker 1: in the film, but I mean it's it seems to
Speaker 1: be sort of a pastiche of like Lawrence Olivier, is
Speaker 1: that the brid is acting horribly to him, you feel
Speaker 1: for him. And later, you know, he goes on this
Speaker 1: sort of studio arranged date with this other star and
Speaker 1: we see him again acting very genuinely. He likes this girl.
Speaker 1: He is, you know, interacting with her in a very
Speaker 1: non cynical, non predatory way, and he is in fact
Speaker 1: that the man who you know returns George Gluney to
Speaker 1: the studio. He ends up rescuing him. And it would
Speaker 1: be very easy to play that character as a rube,
Speaker 1: to play him, you know, as an untalented moron. But
Speaker 1: you know, at this this date he goes on this woman.
Speaker 1: This premiere, we see that he's actually a very talented musician,
Speaker 1: and obviously there is some dissonance because while he is
Speaker 1: singing this sort of beautiful song, there's the kind of
Speaker 1: stock you know, Prospector Pete character in the background, you know,
Speaker 1: fumbling around and you know, falling into the pig trough
Speaker 1: and we see the crowd laughing and he's looking around like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny, but also, you know, I did I sang
Speaker 1: this song. You know, it was an emotional moment. And
Speaker 1: you know, he is you know, sort of on the
Speaker 1: b plot for at least most of this. But again,
Speaker 1: this is normal small town American, you know, he's he
Speaker 1: is shown to be very naive, but he is a
Speaker 1: force for good in the film and is honestly better
Speaker 1: than pretty much any other actor on a moral level
Speaker 1: we see in this film.
Speaker 3: And he's obviously the outsider in Hollywood as well. And
Speaker 3: he's he's not a victim either. He could be victimized
Speaker 3: easily by these these cynical power players that he's interacting with.
Speaker 3: He is very resourceful. He's also trustworthy. Eddie Mannix just
Speaker 3: instinctively trusts him. Uh though he's aware of his limitations
Speaker 3: because he's a he's like a comic Western actor. The
Speaker 3: kinds of films they they see, Uh, you see Hobie
Speaker 3: Doyle acting in at at the very beginning, What what
Speaker 3: he got his his start in?
Speaker 1: What made him?
Speaker 3: Uh a minor you know western star in Hollywood. It's
Speaker 3: a corresponded to how John Wayne got his start. Did
Speaker 3: you ever see those really early John Wayne movies, those
Speaker 3: old black and white ones where he's young man, He
Speaker 3: invariably like jumps off of a cliff on horseback into water.
Speaker 3: They they redo that shot. They probably recycled one shot
Speaker 3: and put it in a dozen movies or something, because
Speaker 3: it must have been so very dangerous to pull off
Speaker 3: this horse jumping over a vertical cliff or something. This
Speaker 3: is the kind of thing that they're they're portraying Hobby
Speaker 3: Daniels performing or Hobby Doyle performing. It doesn't require much
Speaker 3: in the way of dialogue. It's gunfights and horse races
Speaker 3: and stuff. But he gets he gets cast on on
Speaker 3: the sound stage and he's trying to adapt to it
Speaker 3: and as part of the comic element of the movie.
Speaker 3: But it's one of the the subplots involved Scarlett Johansson
Speaker 3: is also in a subplot as a starlet who has
Speaker 3: unexpectedly come down pregnant and has no husband, and Mannix
Speaker 3: is trying to manage this for her, and that's and
Speaker 3: that's part of the comedy of it, and it also
Speaker 3: it also refocuses the theme of fantasy versus reality. Mannix
Speaker 3: goes and sees Scarlett Johansson. He says, have you thought
Speaker 3: about who you're going to marry? Because you got to
Speaker 3: marry somebody and this this speaks to the social norms
Speaker 3: of the time. He says, well, we have to have
Speaker 3: you married to somebody because your your image is that
Speaker 3: of the innocent woman. But we can't have a single mother,
Speaker 3: you know, replace your Hollywood image. And she's compliant to
Speaker 3: some degree. They come up with this crazy scheme and such,
Speaker 3: but it ends up working out. I don't have to
Speaker 3: spoil it for you that that's one you should go
Speaker 3: and find for yourself.
Speaker 1: Well. Interestingly, on that minor plot again, it's it's an
Speaker 1: interesting moment when there's a sort of how we're introduced
Speaker 1: to her as she is starring in this sort of
Speaker 1: h I guess you could say kind of like mythically
Speaker 1: informed synchronized swimming film, right, you know, it's very you know, elegant,
Speaker 1: and there's an orchestra next to the swimming pool, and
Speaker 1: you know she ends up sort of at the climactic moment,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting repeat right that, over and over again.
Speaker 1: We see these climactic moments and scene sort of subverted
Speaker 1: at the last minute. And when she's talking to Matt's
Speaker 1: on the side, she says, I just need a reliable man.
Speaker 1: You know. He goes through sort of comedically, the other
Speaker 1: figures she's been married to. You know, he's been married
Speaker 1: to a major mom mob figure, you know, a drug
Speaker 1: addicted musician. And now she's been you know, gotten pregnant
Speaker 1: with another director probably and you know, at first they think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll have this director, you know, marry her,
Speaker 1: only to find out that he is, in fact Mary.
Speaker 1: He has a wife back in Sweden. Obviously it's impossible,
Speaker 1: but scarletor Henson is not necessarily playing the most sympathetic character,
Speaker 1: at least initially. But you see a very interesting inversion
Speaker 1: where when she is faced with or when she interacts
Speaker 1: with a genuinely reliable man, right, the most reliable man
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. We see her character change in a very
Speaker 1: interesting direction. And like I said, I won't spoil it.
Speaker 1: You should watch it. It's a fun film. It's one
Speaker 1: you can watch with your wife. Your wife will like
Speaker 1: this film to you listener. But again, it's a moment
Speaker 1: where this movie is less cynical than it initially appears,
Speaker 1: and less cynical than many have read it to be.
Speaker 3: Yes, certainly it comes into focus in curious minor scenes.
Speaker 3: There are these interacts Mannix has with gossip columnists, both
Speaker 3: portrayed by Tilda Swinton, who always does a fantastic job.
Speaker 3: She's such a great actress. She comes to Mannix and
Speaker 3: she says, well, I've got I've got the goods on
Speaker 3: Baird Whitlock. I'm going to write my column tomorrow and
Speaker 3: I'm I'm fishing about for more information here. I'm giving
Speaker 3: you an opportunity to change my story here if you
Speaker 3: give me more information. And she tells Mannix the people
Speaker 3: want the truth, and Mannix replies, people don't want the facts.
Speaker 3: They want to believe, again emphasizing faith. And we've got
Speaker 3: to have something worthy to believe in. And what is
Speaker 3: what is Hollywood offering? You know, it's it's Plato's cave.
Speaker 3: It's believing in believing that Baird Whitlock is an upright
Speaker 3: family man, which anyone that looks into the details of
Speaker 3: his life is going to know. And he's not the
Speaker 3: same with Scarlett Johansson's she's not an innocent person the
Speaker 3: way that Mannix kind of casually says, well, that's your image,
Speaker 3: you know, that's what we've made you to be. You're
Speaker 3: an innocent woman. That's why everyone loves you. And then
Speaker 3: they absurdly talk about the sort of details of her
Speaker 3: personal life. But it's it's true. Nevertheless, people do want
Speaker 3: something to believe. Richard Weaver, who is one of my
Speaker 3: favorite writers, a great Southern agrarian writer, he said, it's
Speaker 3: the raw stuff of life that is exactly what civilized
Speaker 3: people want and need to have refined. And we don't
Speaker 3: want the mere, undigested facts. We want something higher to
Speaker 3: believe in. We want to order these things, we want
Speaker 3: a system to have faith in. And this is the
Speaker 3: major conflict in the major groups we've encountered already in
Speaker 3: the film, the Communists, the religious Christians. So the the
Speaker 3: plot comes to a head with the curious character Bert
Speaker 3: Gurney portrayed by that that flaky looking fellow. I guess
Speaker 3: he has a great profile. Is his name Channing Tatum?
Speaker 3: Is that his name?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And the the way that this character is introduced is
Speaker 1: legitimately hilarious because so that he is a you know,
Speaker 1: he is one of these kind of you know, gay
Speaker 1: Hollywood actors, and you're introduced to him in this sort
Speaker 1: of you know, Roger and a Hammerstein musical. And at first,
Speaker 1: it's from the film's perspective, played relatively straight double and
Speaker 1: tundra is intended, but as you get further and further
Speaker 1: through the musical number, it's it's a group of sailors
Speaker 1: singing about how they aren't going to see any women
Speaker 1: while they're out at sea, and then dancing getting more
Speaker 1: and more comedically homo erotic. Uh, it's genuinely it's a
Speaker 1: hilarious and relatively subtle joke in the film, right, they
Speaker 1: never go out and say it, but it is sort
Speaker 1: of funny. The dissonance you see between this you know
Speaker 1: more and more kind of fabulous glee club style dance
Speaker 1: and then the very kind of like dour Norman Rockwell
Speaker 1: esque film director and also Josh Brolin's reaction. It's legitimately hilarious.
Speaker 3: Yes it is. It's one of the one of the
Speaker 3: great old lampoons of the Golden Age of Hollywood. In
Speaker 3: this film. The synchronized swimming is another element that's just
Speaker 3: beautifully done, and it's remarkable that it really can be
Speaker 3: done anymore. The huge synchronized dance number with Tatum and
Speaker 3: and the whole sick crew that is, that is also
Speaker 3: very well done as well well. Bert Gurney, the channing
Speaker 3: Tatum's character is actually the ringleader of the communists, and
Speaker 3: his house is the setting for the communist book reading
Speaker 3: group and uh Clooney's captivity. Uh Gurney returns to his
Speaker 3: house with the intention of defecting to the Soviets, and
Speaker 3: he's actually arranged for a Soviet nuclear submarine to come
Speaker 3: pick him up. It might not be a nuclear submarine,
Speaker 3: it's certainly a Soviet submarine, I believe it's it's a
Speaker 3: minor role. And you don't never never see this guy,
Speaker 3: Dolf Gungrin, who is the he's the guy from the
Speaker 3: Rocky film. He portrays the Soviet superboxer.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, i'van Drego. He's also actually if he's not
Speaker 1: a chemical engineer. I think he's a nuclear physicist. He's
Speaker 1: ugitimately a very intelligent man.
Speaker 3: He's a very curious character. My brother loves this guy.
Speaker 3: And and uh, he hasn't been in very many movies.
Speaker 3: I think he played at James Bond villain once back
Speaker 3: in the seventies, but he only you never see his face,
Speaker 3: but he portrays the Soviet captain of the submarine. So
Speaker 3: the Communists they row Bert Gurney out into Malibu Bay
Speaker 3: and they rendezvous with the submarine, and in the process
Speaker 3: they lose the ransom that they got for Whitlock. They're
Speaker 3: supposed to send it to the commentary and it's incredibly funny.
Speaker 3: There's multiple layers of jokes to this. One of them,
Speaker 3: which is kind of just a background joke, is that
Speaker 3: they have to row him out in this old timey
Speaker 3: row boat, and because they're all academics and writers, they
Speaker 3: have to wear gloves to row a boat one hundred yards,
Speaker 3: which is funny. They're also, despite being Communists, they don't
Speaker 3: like they row in the most unsynchronized way possible. There's
Speaker 3: literally no coordination between them, which is a joke, but
Speaker 3: also Tatum's dog. Is Is it named Engles? I think,
Speaker 3: isn't it? Yes? Yes, his dog, his name is Ingles.
Speaker 1: It's this little, like white, fluffy dog. And there's this
Speaker 1: very grand, dramatic moment where the you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of second in command of the communists says, you know, hear, hear, brother,
Speaker 1: you know, take this as our small donation to the
Speaker 1: common turn. So he takes it. He's supposed to leave
Speaker 1: his little flufy dog. And then the dog breaks out,
Speaker 1: runs away, and Tatum, who's been at least to this
Speaker 1: point very you know austere, you know, kind of strong jawed,
Speaker 1: you know, flips his wrists out, catches the dog, and
Speaker 1: then the money drops into the ocean. And the last
Speaker 1: thing we see of this summarine is them walking in
Speaker 1: at just the sound of this barking dog get get
Speaker 1: quieter and quieter as they close the the you know,
Speaker 1: the hatch to the submarine. It's a very funny moment.
Speaker 3: And there they distinctively play Soviet era choral music in
Speaker 3: the scene. It always wants me to always stimulates me
Speaker 3: to go and find playlists on YouTube of of that
Speaker 3: Soviet era music because I like it. I have a
Speaker 3: guilty pleasure in listening to it. But it illustrates something
Speaker 3: important that, as Weaver said, the Soviets were the first
Speaker 3: true realists in hundreds of years, and no dodging about
Speaker 3: in the excluded middle will save Western liberalism. A possible
Speaker 3: allusion to James Burnham there, who Weaver was familiar with.
Speaker 3: The Soviets are very hard logical believers in a doctrine,
Speaker 3: and they believe that they're going to save the world,
Speaker 3: that this is going to Their success will mean the
Speaker 3: end of history, which means the end of conflict, the
Speaker 3: end of war, the end of suffering and evil. It
Speaker 3: is an apocalyptic vision, the solution of all of history,
Speaker 3: and this inspires them to feats of sacrifice, courage, and
Speaker 3: the art that surrounds it, which has certain religious kinds
Speaker 3: of undertones. Of course, these are not people who believe
Speaker 3: in the spiritual world. They deny that this soul exists.
Speaker 3: You know, they're completely thoroughgoing materialists. But they're also messi
Speaker 3: and that that is part of the dichotomy here with
Speaker 3: the two systems of belief presented in the film. The
Speaker 3: communist system, which uh isn't isn't given much serious treatment.
Speaker 3: I think they present orthodox Marxism more or less. It's
Speaker 3: it's very clear what these people are talking about, even
Speaker 3: though the dialogue is unfortunately short. I would have liked
Speaker 3: more in the communist reading group, but it's it's one
Speaker 3: of the one of these two systems presented here that
Speaker 3: are in conflict. Obviously, but Hollywood isn't isn't representing you know,
Speaker 3: Christian belief or social norms. They're they're kind of representing
Speaker 3: it in spite of themselves. Well, we finally get to
Speaker 3: the the climactic scenes of the film, after the defection
Speaker 3: of Gurney. He gets on the submarine, he goes away.
Speaker 3: The communists are all rounded up by the police. Immediately
Speaker 3: after the cell is busted. Whitlock is returned by Hobie Doyle,
Speaker 3: who goes to the house in the nick of time,
Speaker 3: gets Whitlock out of there, and then Whitlock confronts or
Speaker 3: Whitlock is confronted by Eddie Mannix. Whitlock mindlessly and he's
Speaker 3: just an absurd character with no ideas of his own.
Speaker 3: He is explaining Marxism to Mannix in his office and
Speaker 3: he says, oh, well, I found out you know how
Speaker 3: the world works, that history is science, that we know
Speaker 3: what's going to happen next. And all we're doing here
Speaker 3: is we're manufacturing lollipops for the masses, so the fat
Speaker 3: cats can get rich and exploit the proletariat. And this
Speaker 3: is all this all amounts to what they used to
Speaker 3: call bread and circuses, just to distract the masses of
Speaker 3: people and to take their money. And in the midst
Speaker 3: of this, of this thoughtless stream of consciousness from Clooney,
Speaker 3: Josh Brolin gets up and starts slapping him across the
Speaker 3: face and says, I hear another word out of you
Speaker 3: on this nonsense. I'm going to have you arrested for
Speaker 3: colluding in your own abduction. And Clooney, in the midst
Speaker 3: of his explanation, he says, we have this delusion that
Speaker 3: we're producing something of artistic value, or that there's some
Speaker 3: spiritual significance to what we're doing. And of course, the
Speaker 3: the implication here is the Marxist denial of the spiritual realm.
Speaker 3: They're completely materialist. Brolin gets up and then gives this
Speaker 3: really interesting and spirited command to Clooning. He says, you're
Speaker 3: going to go and give your speech at the foot
Speaker 3: of the Cross, and you're going to believe every word
Speaker 3: you say. And then Brolin gives what I think amounts
Speaker 3: to another, you know, another sort of philosophical realism. He says,
Speaker 3: you're going to do it because you are an actor,
Speaker 3: and you do what you do just like the director
Speaker 3: does what he does. You do it because the picture
Speaker 3: has worth, and you have worth when you serve the picture.
Speaker 3: Now go out there and be a star. And ultimately,
Speaker 3: is charge is you got to believe there's something bigger
Speaker 3: in life. It's more than money. It's more than the
Speaker 3: material world. It's not about the owner of the of
Speaker 3: the studio. It's not about the money that we make
Speaker 3: from the picture. It's about intrinsic worth that this is
Speaker 3: actually something. Ultimately, we're trying to do something beautiful here,
Speaker 3: and it's only gonna be beautiful, it's only gonna be
Speaker 3: worthy if we believe, which is a wonderful comparison to
Speaker 3: what a worthwhile life looks like, that our actions have
Speaker 3: significance when we have faith in the ultimate meaning. And ironically,
Speaker 3: just before this scene with Mannix, we have this absurd
Speaker 3: little vignette of a man on the set of the Crucifixion.
Speaker 3: They're getting ready, you know, to shoot this climactic scene
Speaker 3: in Hail Caesar, and the one of the Errand boys,
Speaker 3: he's distributing lunch to the set and he goes up
Speaker 3: to the actor who's all strapped to the cross, you know,
Speaker 3: and he's he's crucified on the cruss. You know, it's
Speaker 3: an incredible difficult position to hold, and who knows how
Speaker 3: long he's been there. They're obviously all exhausted because the
Speaker 3: star hasn't shown up yet. They're all just waiting for
Speaker 3: the moment. And he goes up to the man portraying
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, and he says, well, what kind of lunch
Speaker 3: do you have anyway? And he goes, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, he's obviously very exhausted and in pain. And
Speaker 3: he says, well, are you a principle or are you
Speaker 3: an extra? And this is uh, this is ultimately, you know,
Speaker 3: this is obviously the major question of the whole film.
Speaker 3: It seems to me, the fact that it's put right
Speaker 3: right where it is to stick into our heads, you know,
Speaker 3: the absurdity of it which makes us laugh. Is the
Speaker 3: man portraying Jesus Christ in this Hollywood epic is he
Speaker 3: a principal actor? Is he the point and the illusion,
Speaker 3: of course is the broader one. Is he the point
Speaker 3: of human life? Is he supposed to be the point
Speaker 3: of our lives? Or is he just an extra? And
Speaker 3: the actor says no, I'm a principle and goes, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: well you get the better lunch then, not that he
Speaker 3: can eat it, you know, he's strapped to the cross. Well,
Speaker 3: then Clooney, after his meeting with Mannix, he shows up.
Speaker 3: He gives his speech. It's a you know, it's rather
Speaker 3: what you would expect from from a Hollywood piece of
Speaker 3: the of the day, but it it gives. It gives
Speaker 3: like basic Christian affirmation. A Roman legionary who has come
Speaker 3: into faith in Jesus Christ at the moment of his crucifixion,
Speaker 3: and George Clooney gives this this speech in front of
Speaker 3: the cross, and he says, Christ came to ease the
Speaker 3: suffering of all men. He loves sinners. He knows all
Speaker 3: that I've done, and yet he loved me. That he
Speaker 3: is God revealed to us in this strange people, in
Speaker 3: this distant land, and we could see the truth of
Speaker 3: God if we had. And then he forgets his line,
Speaker 3: and of course the missing word faith. If we only
Speaker 3: had faith, then we could see the point of human existence.
Speaker 3: We would have the ultimate meaning that we can have
Speaker 3: in our lives. And I think that if we interpret
Speaker 3: this straightforwardly, we see this as actually a very encouraging film,
Speaker 3: encouraging to people of faith. Though it is obviously a
Speaker 3: comedy and it makes us laugh. I think that it
Speaker 3: does what it does brilliantly. I think it's insightful, it's
Speaker 3: moreover entertaining, but it's getting at the most fundamental questions
Speaker 3: of life. And that's one of the reasons why I
Speaker 3: immediately enjoyed it when I saw it some years ago.
Speaker 3: I guess it's ten years old, now, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: You had shown it in class, I mean a decade ago,
Speaker 1: and I was what sixteen seventeen at the time, and
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, but I didn't absorb much. I understood
Speaker 1: the Marxism angle. I thought it was funny that Herbert
Speaker 1: Mark Cusa is in this film, which is admittedly quite funny,
Speaker 1: but I didn't take away a lot much more than that.
Speaker 1: And then rewatching it, I think my review mirrors yours.
Speaker 1: It's genuinely a very touching film. It has the same
Speaker 1: Cohen Brothers regionalism that makes me love so many of
Speaker 1: their movies. And honestly, this movie's not particularly well reviewed.
Speaker 1: It sort of has, you know, middling to low praise
Speaker 1: if you look at the critics, which you shouldn't. But
Speaker 1: I think it's quite a good film. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: And honestly, George, this has been a fascinating discussion. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on to discuss it.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of fun. I really appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 3: It's pleasure to talk about this stuff. Thanks for having
Speaker 3: me well.
Speaker 1: Definitely. Of course, as you said off air, you have
Speaker 1: added many more books to Tall Men Books, So if
Speaker 1: you're interested in deep historical primary sources that you cannot
Speaker 1: get anywhere else, I highly recommend you check out Tall
Speaker 1: Men Books. You also have a social media presence on
Speaker 1: substack and Twitter, as well as your Telegram, which is
Speaker 1: I find incredibly amusing. It's very good. Those will all
Speaker 1: be linked down to the description. As far as my stuff,
Speaker 1: Jayburdin Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: this is what I do now. If you want the
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Speaker 1: sort of fund this whole thing. It's five bucks a
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Speaker 1: Remote Fitness Coaching. Jad's a good guy. You should support him.
Speaker 1: His business is very good. He knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: And again, Bagbie, thank you so much. It was great
Speaker 1: talking to you.
Speaker 3: Good talk to you too.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone at home. Keep your head up.
Speaker 1: I can't last forever. Good Night,