Speaker 1: Oh he is, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie. When they
Speaker 2: go out to a theater, they want clod Sodas pop
Speaker 2: popcorn in no monsters.
Speaker 1: In the Projection Booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 2: Got it off?
Speaker 1: Hey, folks, we can.
Speaker 2: Do a very special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm
Speaker 2: you ost Mike White. On this episode, I am talking
Speaker 2: with Daniel Kremer. He has been a co host many
Speaker 2: times on the show before I sat down to talk
Speaker 2: with him all about his documentary Cruel Unusual Necessary The
Speaker 2: Passion of Silvio and Narrazano. It is a documentary that
Speaker 2: is part of a release of Blue from nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: eight and Fade In from nineteen seventy three, all from
Speaker 2: Imprint Films that is available over at diabolicdvd dot com.
Speaker 2: And while I was talking with Daniel, I found out
Speaker 2: that he is also writing a new book which just
Speaker 2: came out. It is called Adventures in Auturism, A Crusade
Speaker 2: for the Critically Neglected. If you know anything about me,
Speaker 2: you know that I love critically neglected films. This book
Speaker 2: sounds fantastic. I can't wait to dive into it. I
Speaker 2: had a great time talking with Daniel. I hope you
Speaker 2: have a great time listening to it, and I would
Speaker 2: highly recommend that you pick up Adventures in Auturism. I
Speaker 2: think it'll make a great well, I can't say stocking
Speaker 2: stuff because this sucker's five hundred pages. It's going to
Speaker 2: be a great book for you to read and a wonderful,
Speaker 2: wonderful gift for the holidays. Thanks so much for listening,
Speaker 2: and I hope you enjoyed the interview.
Speaker 1: Have you been I've been good. I'd been busy. I'm
Speaker 1: finishing this book at which I mentioned I was index
Speaker 1: which is tedious, and I'm very tired and I'm very sore.
Speaker 1: I've been in this chair through the last two days
Speaker 1: because it's just anyway, it's almost done, so happy about that.
Speaker 2: What is the book about?
Speaker 1: My collected writings on Overlooked Filmmakers. So the script for
Speaker 1: this movie that we're doing it on today is in
Speaker 1: there as like a text essay. So he's in there
Speaker 1: with twenty four other full case studies and then dozens
Speaker 1: of other guys and girls. It's Paul Cronin's press who's
Speaker 1: doing it. I'm not sure if you know that press.
Speaker 1: It's a great new imprint. A lot of great people
Speaker 1: are publishing through him nowadays. Jonathan Rosenbaum, Joe McBride, Major Bamulton,
Speaker 1: and Nott Sigaloff just did a volume together. I think
Speaker 1: people are basically flocking to Paul because they've had it
Speaker 1: up to here with academic presses jerking them around the process.
Speaker 1: Paul has been wonderful. It's been very easy and it's
Speaker 1: been very quick. Actually, there's no board that has to
Speaker 1: review or approve everything that you do. That's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: I love that about it as well. But yeah, it'd
Speaker 1: be out like the end of October. I think actually
Speaker 1: since coming up, we just did copy editing, we just
Speaker 1: did picture placement, type setting. It's consumed two months. I
Speaker 1: basically used what I earned my part of our wedding funds,
Speaker 1: what people gave us as gifts, and then just like
Speaker 1: taking the last two months off from doing commentary tracks
Speaker 1: and video essays for discs and then just putting it
Speaker 1: into doing this book. So yeah, I haven't been as active,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking to get back into it after this
Speaker 1: is all over.
Speaker 2: Tell me about this documentary you did about Silvio Nerizano,
Speaker 2: and I'm so curious, how did you come across him
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 1: Years ago, when I was first doing the book on
Speaker 1: Sidney Fury, I always knew that Naredzano was a name
Speaker 1: out there in the ether. I knew that, you know.
Speaker 1: I think you hear me in the documentary itself, my
Speaker 1: recording with Sidney Fury when he's talking about there was
Speaker 1: a director at the CBC who had gone over to
Speaker 1: England to Pioneer Granada Television. You'll know the name Sylvia Narzano.
Speaker 1: And I guess I knew at the time because I was, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy who did Georgia Girl. Of Course, Sidney really
Speaker 1: talked him up, and then I got to know Ted Katcheff,
Speaker 1: and Ted also talked him up. He was like a
Speaker 1: bit of a daddy figure in a sense to the
Speaker 1: Canadians who were coming over to the UK to forge
Speaker 1: ahead with their careers and helping them get set up,
Speaker 1: helping them get their foothold. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he seems like a sweet guy. Of course I had
Speaker 1: seen Georgia Girl, but it took probably his most controversial movie,
Speaker 1: The Sky's Falling, which was released on VHS in the
Speaker 1: eighties under the dubious title Bloodbath, which I had seen
Speaker 1: in the VHS version, which you'll see the comparison in
Speaker 1: the documentary. It is unwatchable. It is so dark you
Speaker 1: cannot see what's going on. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine what this would look like in a good transfer,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It's so it's just like one
Speaker 1: of the movies that you watch in a bad bootleg
Speaker 1: and then it's like you move on, and then it's
Speaker 1: like you don't think much about it. And then when
Speaker 1: Vinegar Syndrome came along and then they did this new
Speaker 1: beautiful film scan of it, I was like, Wow, what
Speaker 1: a fucked up, demented movie this is. And it really
Speaker 1: fascinating film, very personal, it feels, and it also feels
Speaker 1: very gay. Kenn Anderson says there's far more male flesh
Speaker 1: on display than female, and just the way that it
Speaker 1: carries itself off feels very gay or very queer. And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's true. But then, of course
Speaker 1: I had seen Blue along the Line. I still have
Speaker 1: my VHS of Glue, which is the pan and scan
Speaker 1: this one. It's a scope movie, so you're missing a
Speaker 1: lot in the VHS, but I got the Paramount DVD.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is a really also a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting movie, just in terms of the pictorial quality, the
Speaker 1: visual the visuals, and I want to dig a little
Speaker 1: deeper into him because he seems like an interesting type
Speaker 1: of guy, maybe just like a subject for further study,
Speaker 1: never dreaming at the time that I'd be doing this
Speaker 1: whole film about him. And then it was around that
Speaker 1: time that I moved to LA that I caught up
Speaker 1: with my aforementioned friend, David del Valle, who does a
Speaker 1: number of commentaries and whatnot, and I was over his
Speaker 1: place and we were just hanging out. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: did you see that crazy DNA popper Carol Baker movie?
Speaker 1: And I was like yes, and we talked about it,
Speaker 1: and he was also very fascinated by it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, isn't he interesting? And I've been less
Speaker 1: in touch with Sid Fury the last couple of years
Speaker 1: because of the health issues on his part, but every
Speaker 1: once in a while I still talk to him and
Speaker 1: he can do maybe just a few minutes at a time.
Speaker 1: But I was like one of those calls, I was like,
Speaker 1: tell me more about Sylvia and Arazzano and I came
Speaker 1: out in the course of that conversation. It's like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: he was gay. He had a partner before I knew
Speaker 1: that gay men could have partners, and he was married
Speaker 1: to a woman for a time, and then that didn't
Speaker 1: hand out because he was very even though I knew
Speaker 1: then that he was not interested in woman. That's what
Speaker 1: you did. It was kind of like a beard. I
Speaker 1: began to dig more than like I saw Redneck. I
Speaker 1: was like, jeez, this is another crazy one written by
Speaker 1: the guy I learned was his partner, win Wells, his
Speaker 1: life partner. So win Wells writes these two demented movies
Speaker 1: with very strong gay slash queer undertones, and not even undertones.
Speaker 1: It's just like the subtext became text after a while.
Speaker 1: And then by the time I finally got to Young Shoulders,
Speaker 1: which Blew Me Away, which is his last movie, or
Speaker 1: one of the unless he cunt the Body in the Library,
Speaker 1: Young Shoulders being his last major work, I gotta do
Speaker 1: something about this guy. I don't know what that's going
Speaker 1: to look like. I can't imagine ever being able to
Speaker 1: sell a book on there Atsano. No one would pay
Speaker 1: me for it. That's for sure, and then there'd be
Speaker 1: a question about it, who would print it? I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to do something about Sylvia. And it
Speaker 1: was around that time that Josh Hibberd at Imprint Films,
Speaker 1: who likes to ask me every now and then, like
Speaker 1: what I'd like to see come down the pike on
Speaker 1: the label mostly from Paramount, and because they have a
Speaker 1: nice sweet deal of Paramount, I was like, if you
Speaker 1: could get Blue, and if you could get the film
Speaker 1: that was shot on the back of Blue, which is
Speaker 1: called fade in for those there's a movie shot on
Speaker 1: the set of another movie, another fiction movie shot as
Speaker 1: a behind the scenes movie on the set of this
Speaker 1: western that Sylvia Arzano made called Blue, with Burt Reynolds
Speaker 1: who's hired by the movie company as a driver and
Speaker 1: as a gopher. He's a local cowhand in Utah and
Speaker 1: he falls in love with the film editor on Blue,
Speaker 1: played by Barbara Loden Wanda Barbara Loden, Elia Kazant's wife,
Speaker 1: Barbara Loden. So I was like, if you can get
Speaker 1: those two movies in a pack together, I could give
Speaker 1: you something really good as an extra about the director
Speaker 1: of Blue. So he began to poke around at paramount,
Speaker 1: what do you have is blue available? Because sometimes the
Speaker 1: elements aren't really in good shape or whatever. There's one
Speaker 1: title in particular that is not in good shape and
Speaker 1: it really rankles me. But Blue they had, it was
Speaker 1: in good shape. Fade in they also had. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're green lit, but it's not going to be for
Speaker 1: a while. So I went to work and what I
Speaker 1: originally envisioned as a kind of extended video essay, I
Speaker 1: was like, I was quoting other people that I had
Speaker 1: right on my fingertips, like David el Val and like
Speaker 1: Howard Berger and like Nathaniel Thompson. Was like, why don't
Speaker 1: I just interview them on camera and do something a
Speaker 1: little more formal and not just like a video essay
Speaker 1: with me narrating, but do a documentary hybridized with a
Speaker 1: kind of video essay that form and make this kind
Speaker 1: of big hoosey wats it's about the kind of the
Speaker 1: definitive text about Sivia and Rzana for the total lack
Speaker 1: of one. So my husband went away for six months
Speaker 1: of last year because he worked on the election. He's
Speaker 1: a statistician and very interested in political methodology and all that.
Speaker 1: So he was off in the field and I was
Speaker 1: left all by my lonesome in Pasadena and not having
Speaker 1: an easy time of it because you begin to miss
Speaker 1: your spouse or your partner. But I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: why don't I just sublimate all this or devote all
Speaker 1: my energy into doing this thing. So that's what I
Speaker 1: did while my husband was away. Movie. Before I knew it,
Speaker 1: I had a two and a quarter hour cut and
Speaker 1: it would seem to be playing well enough where I
Speaker 1: was just like, Okay, this is probably going to be
Speaker 1: the only thing ever done about this guy, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave it at this length. And yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how it happened, which.
Speaker 2: Is really remarkable because so much these days when I
Speaker 2: see extras, they seem to be almost purposefully broken into
Speaker 2: small chunks, almost like we don't want to pay you
Speaker 2: for making a documentary, You're just making a short extra.
Speaker 1: I'm in that market of making video essays for I
Speaker 1: guess now nearly twenty companies, and it's the pay is
Speaker 1: high and low, depending on who it is and what
Speaker 1: the movie is. Oftentimes, if it's a movie that they
Speaker 1: think is going to sell, you can normally get a
Speaker 1: better rate but yeah, it's not a lucrative endeavor to
Speaker 1: do a documentary about a filmmaker no one's ever heard of,
Speaker 1: let's say the least. Josh is very nice about it
Speaker 1: and very sweet about it, but you know, that's not
Speaker 1: why you at the end of the day, that's not
Speaker 1: exactly why you do these things. I feel like I
Speaker 1: almost had to. It's like kind of like I needed
Speaker 1: to understand this guy more because, let's say, also, as
Speaker 1: much as it's about a filmography and a filmmaker and
Speaker 1: an artist, it's a chronicle of a gay man in
Speaker 1: this time in the business and how he covertly, sometimes
Speaker 1: overtly infused his work with things that he was fired
Speaker 1: off of a movie for making it too gay, fired
Speaker 1: off of the man who had power over women because
Speaker 1: they didn't the studio didn't like that he was making
Speaker 1: it like extremely capital h homosexual and funny. When I
Speaker 1: was at Ted Kotcheff's memorial over the summer, I got
Speaker 1: to meet the editor, Tom Noble, who is ninety years old,
Speaker 1: nearly in Knockwood. Great shape for a guylight age. It
Speaker 1: was pretty unbelievable. We met at that it was gathering
Speaker 1: at the katchaf house afterwards with food and everything. And
Speaker 1: I honed in on him like a guided missile because
Speaker 1: Tom Noble edited Redneck, and I wanted to hear everything
Speaker 1: about that crazy movie. And he goes, if you think
Speaker 1: the movie was crazy, way do you hear about the
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. It's like, God, damn it, I wish
Speaker 1: I had interviewed you on the camera. But he was
Speaker 1: the editor on the man who had power over women
Speaker 1: as well, and so he was able to confirm to
Speaker 1: me that, oh, yes, the AVCO did. There was a
Speaker 1: big edict passed down, was like, get rid of this guy.
Speaker 1: No matter what we tell him, no matter how much
Speaker 1: we warn or admonish him, he cannot lay out all
Speaker 1: the gay stuff. He was fired for that reason. It's
Speaker 1: like I felt like I had to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of a guy who felt he could be that
Speaker 1: bold with that type of thing in that era and
Speaker 1: living with his partner or partner who was very if
Speaker 1: you might want to say, flamboyant. Tom Noble told me
Speaker 1: that win Wells, who was Sylvia's partner, wanted to open
Speaker 1: gay bar called Sissy's, and this was a long time
Speaker 1: ambition of his. And I was like, There's really a
Speaker 1: lot of facts that are now that didn't make it
Speaker 1: into the film because I didn't know Tom at that
Speaker 1: time and there was no means to get in touch
Speaker 1: with him then. But of course him showing up at
Speaker 1: this memorial was like, oh, I need to talk to you.
Speaker 1: But it made its way into the book version, which
Speaker 1: is a collection of my writings on the Overlook directors.
Speaker 1: A lot of these whole stories and factoris in the
Speaker 1: Narratano chapter make it into this book. But yeah, Tom
Speaker 1: had a lot of crazy stories and it was very
Speaker 1: fond of Silvio. He really enjoyed the documentary because I
Speaker 1: shared it with him later on, And yeah, I felt
Speaker 1: like it was a personal project that I had to
Speaker 1: explore what this guy was all about, how he felt
Speaker 1: so compelled to make the movies he made, really out
Speaker 1: bold and proud about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was so shocked to see some of those
Speaker 2: scenes from Blue and then Loot looked like an absolute
Speaker 2: just crazy hoot. I am so excited to now. I
Speaker 2: think your documentary is doing exactly what you would hope
Speaker 2: it is, which is now I want to see all
Speaker 2: of these movies.
Speaker 1: No, that's the best that you could hope for and
Speaker 1: as I say, you might not like everything that you see,
Speaker 1: but it's it is one voice. It's unified as one
Speaker 1: man saying there's something very consistent through the course with
Speaker 1: a particular set of vocal cords. But no, he went
Speaker 1: from the movie was fired from too Gay on right
Speaker 1: to Loot and he put all of that spunk, if
Speaker 1: you want to call it that, and to Loot. And then,
Speaker 1: as I say, Loot is like to stop at the
Speaker 1: amusement park before on the road to elector of shock therapy.
Speaker 1: Because Redneck and the following are definitely cold reckonings, I
Speaker 1: guess you might say.
Speaker 2: Again, even with some of the unpleasantness of Redneck, just
Speaker 2: to see that performance by Telly Savalis just looks amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my husband's who saw the movie. That came out
Speaker 1: of his absence when he came back finally from the
Speaker 1: election season and everything else. He watched it. I wound
Speaker 1: up dedicating the movie to my husband, which is if
Speaker 1: he's watched till the very end, you'll see, but he
Speaker 1: was watching it. This movie that is of course he
Speaker 1: dedicated to him. And there's the scene that I showed
Speaker 1: from Redneck of Pelly Savadalis cold bloodily killing a child
Speaker 1: and saying you.
Speaker 2: Made me do it?
Speaker 1: Why did he run away? And like my husband's did
Speaker 1: he just kill a child? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sorry, but it's like Maggot from the Dirty Dozen having
Speaker 2: his own movie.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly. It is like that, and that's a good
Speaker 1: way of putting it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing that I've always admired about you,
Speaker 2: is just the way that you champion some of these
Speaker 2: underseen films, some of the stuff that we've talked about
Speaker 2: on the show. It's so nice to give light to this.
Speaker 2: I'm super excited about this book project as well.
Speaker 1: It's my bag. I guess he might say, that's what
Speaker 1: I do. I'm not as interested at all in writing
Speaker 1: the thousandth book on Kubrick or john Ford or Hitchcock,
Speaker 1: one of these guys. I really don't know what new
Speaker 1: there is to say about a guy like that, saying
Speaker 1: that there isn't it's just not my bag. But I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in digging up buried treasure and making kind
Speaker 1: of correlations and charting the kind of constellation of a
Speaker 1: career and looking at people that most everyone is ignored
Speaker 1: and being like, there's more here that you should look
Speaker 1: closer at it, look closer at it, and you'll see.
Speaker 1: Like I was telling, I think it was Ryan Beryl,
Speaker 1: I was not with Ryan Beryl, and I was like,
Speaker 1: the word I hate the most is journeyman. Fuck journeyman.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about Journeyman. It's like every
Speaker 1: every scene, in every shot in a movie, there are
Speaker 1: choices being made. Some shout louder than others. Marizan shouted
Speaker 1: very loud, but there are things to decode at every juncture,
Speaker 1: and Journeyman, to me, is just too much of a burden.
Speaker 1: You should be looking closer at these things. I should
Speaker 1: be looking at what ties this all together, if anything.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes the twenties, I think twenty six full
Speaker 1: case studies, you got guys like Clive Downer in there
Speaker 1: that Andrew Sarah's champion but dropped off the map. You
Speaker 1: have Joe mclin silver, who I was on I've been
Speaker 1: on your show before, and I got to know Joan
Speaker 1: and was doing a book on her for a time.
Speaker 1: And Joan is in there. And Sidney Fury, who's Patient
Speaker 1: zero as I call him. He's the kind of the
Speaker 1: locus of my interest in overlooked O Tears, head Catchers,
Speaker 1: Sylvia Harvey Hart is another one, Harvey Hart. No one
Speaker 1: gave a damn about Harvey Hart, as Gibbs I should say,
Speaker 1: And maybe the hope the book will open up some eyes.
Speaker 1: But if you look at Fortunate of Men's Eyes and
Speaker 1: the Picks, which I think is one of the great
Speaker 1: horror oddities of its day, or Mahoney's Last Stand, or
Speaker 1: bus Riley, there's a pretty distinctive voice here. Yvonne Passer
Speaker 1: is in there, and I hope that that public is
Speaker 1: very happy and very excited about it. He thinks it's
Speaker 1: like one of the books of the year because it's
Speaker 1: it's wow. These are like really very the essays really
Speaker 1: make clear connections that aren't like too far fetched. Your
Speaker 1: you're responsible, but you're also it's very observant. Now, I
Speaker 1: hope people connect with them. And it's like dozens of
Speaker 1: others in an appendix with short kind of capsule hey studies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people in that. Charles B.
Speaker 1: Pearce is one. Philip Leacock is another, great pet cause
Speaker 1: of Mind. Yeah, there's a lot of guys in there,
Speaker 1: Muriel Box, Wendy Coy, the great you know, they were
Speaker 1: working female feature directors in the UK in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: and they're both extraordinary. They're clearly extremely talented visually and otherwise,
Speaker 1: and they've just been by and large ignored, and there
Speaker 1: are things that connect all of them. And I hope
Speaker 1: I demonstrate how that is with here E years ago.
Speaker 1: When I began in twenty twelve, I guess that was
Speaker 1: I was like, I couldn't fathom how am I the
Speaker 1: first guy to ever really study him, and how he'd
Speaker 1: been this lacuna in the kind of oh tier studies
Speaker 1: that I've read so much of, And I was like,
Speaker 1: I guess more for me than more stake for me
Speaker 1: to put down on I think with Narnzana it was
Speaker 1: really like I think Sarus and a lot of these
Speaker 1: people are maybe slightly put off by the kind of
Speaker 1: blamingness of narbskay voice, so I think they just it
Speaker 1: was easier just to dismiss it rather than dealing with
Speaker 1: any of it. I think that's why he was passed
Speaker 1: over mainly, and chatting with a big wig film a
Speaker 1: story and film scholar film critic who I will not
Speaker 1: name of the older set said some pretty alarming things
Speaker 1: to me. When I shared the film with him, he
Speaker 1: did watch it and then it was just like basically
Speaker 1: vaguely homophobic remarks. I was just like, Yeah, it's no
Speaker 1: wonder he's been ignored for so long when the likes
Speaker 1: of you have been the only ones to have had
Speaker 1: to go at him and deemed him too much himself
Speaker 1: for your taste.
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty five people. Let's let's get a grip here.
Speaker 1: As my husband says, they're in his field as well.
Speaker 1: He's in academia, so sclerotic, super anuated film scholars who
Speaker 1: see what has already been carved out, what's already been charted.
Speaker 1: If you are at the least but heterodox, then you
Speaker 1: know they might as well be the alien replacements from
Speaker 1: invasion of the body statures pointing and screeching. As I
Speaker 1: point out in the book, is that they're not one
Speaker 1: of us. I want to chart my own path. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of There are thousands of filmmakers out there
Speaker 1: and millions of films to concentrate at these like koshered
Speaker 1: items at the expense of all else distinct. There's too
Speaker 1: much out there to ignore certain things that have not
Speaker 1: been given the light.
Speaker 2: They're not in the pantheon. What are you talking about
Speaker 2: unless it's Felini or Antonio ya.
Speaker 1: A lot of that. The opening of the book is
Speaker 1: I do my own Andrew Seris list the categories as
Speaker 1: he defined them in the American cinema, and I do
Speaker 1: my own categories, my own personal pantheon, which I call
Speaker 1: the personals. So fury is in there, of course, never really,
Speaker 1: and then I go to the solids. Let me find
Speaker 1: the what I think I put it best in the text,
Speaker 1: quoted accurately, the generally unassailable filmmakers all are great, and
Speaker 1: they don't need me to cheer lead for them. We
Speaker 1: know they're great. I would never deny it, so hooray
Speaker 1: for them. But this volume really isn't about them. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to be like, these guys are great and
Speaker 1: your legends are bullshit. And I was like, no, this
Speaker 1: is these are solid I'm granting you something. This book
Speaker 1: isn't about that.
Speaker 2: They're not tearing down the old idols. You're just trying
Speaker 2: to install some new ones in the temple.
Speaker 1: I tear down a couple, but that's just out. As
Speaker 1: I say in the opening introduction, like this is completely subjective,
Speaker 1: but as I quote him Lucas who as a quote
Speaker 1: that I love reusing and repurposing whenever I get the opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's it's like any list of a favorite movie or
Speaker 1: filmmaker or anything could be like a mixtape that you
Speaker 1: exchange with other people, as if to say, this is
Speaker 1: who I am. You shouldn't be afraid. There's no guilty players.
Speaker 1: This is me in this mixtape. This is who I am. Like,
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be this kind of like Leonard Zelig. This
Speaker 1: has been sanctioned, so I should include it. This has
Speaker 1: not been sanctioned, so I should leave it off. Don't
Speaker 1: be Leonard Zelig. Don't be the human chameleon. Be like,
Speaker 1: make your own mixtape handed off with pride, and be like,
Speaker 1: this is me. This is what I value, this is
Speaker 1: what I like. And that's I talk about that in
Speaker 1: the intro chapter. You might not like the fact that
Speaker 1: I don't can with these whatever guys. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to spoil who they are. You think up the book
Speaker 1: to find out. But I was like, that's my reality.
Speaker 1: This is all completely subjective. I talk about what feeds
Speaker 1: into our subjectivity and what feeds into its experience, its culture.
Speaker 1: I offer an example of this. Leaving a screening of
Speaker 1: the Revenue. At one point we were my friend and
Speaker 1: I were trying to glean why did we not connect
Speaker 1: with that film at all? And then we had this
Speaker 1: really interesting conversation that I talk about is it's like
Speaker 1: it's where we both came from, comparing her with the
Speaker 1: other movies that I say, the same content, a man
Speaker 1: alone in the wild, fighting back the elements type of thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: that other movie works, Why does that work? And this
Speaker 1: one that we just saw does not? And then we
Speaker 1: had a really great conversation about that. It's partly its cultural,
Speaker 1: partly its experience. It's a lot of things. And like
Speaker 1: Joe Dante, who wrote the forward, which I was very
Speaker 1: grateful for, talks a little about this as well. It's
Speaker 1: like where does all this come from? And Rosenbaum and
Speaker 1: Jonathan Rosemeuld he should see films as guides for how
Speaker 1: to live, and the films that you value should show
Speaker 1: you some type of path about you know what. It
Speaker 1: should demonstrate or give body to the values that you
Speaker 1: hold here and you Richard Rody saying the film is
Speaker 1: like a book. It's like every film is like a
Speaker 1: book of philosophy, like what is the author or what
Speaker 1: is the directory or the filmmaker saying I put it
Speaker 1: in a Jewish mystical context, which is John Borman says
Speaker 1: that filmmaking is translating money into light and the judism
Speaker 1: I team of agent. It's translating goshas, which is the
Speaker 1: material world, into Rooknius, which is the spiritual world. So
Speaker 1: we're taking this cold substance of either silas assitaate or
Speaker 1: ones and zeros on the drive and we're turning that
Speaker 1: into something that is spiritual, something that connects us to
Speaker 1: dreams and dream states and everything else. And so with
Speaker 1: that in mind, I said, if filmmakers are clergy people,
Speaker 1: what do their churches or temples look like? And then
Speaker 1: it comes this exercise of John Ford. He's the most
Speaker 1: ritually oriented Catholic priest you ever did meet, but his
Speaker 1: true self comes out at the church socials where the
Speaker 1: women leave early and the men sit around it in
Speaker 1: their uniforms, drinking tear infused beer, memorializing their mothers. And
Speaker 1: that became a kind of a fun exercise to open with.
Speaker 1: But it's all very personal and the point of the
Speaker 1: book is I value these people I've fucked them out
Speaker 1: of this obscure form, and I've given them to you,
Speaker 1: fed them back to you. Now, if you're interested based
Speaker 1: on what I've written, seek them out and look for
Speaker 1: these things. If not, move on and find what appeals
Speaker 1: to you. Called adventures and o terorism, a crusade for
Speaker 1: the critically neglected, That's what it is.
Speaker 2: When it came to the Arizanto films, you know, you
Speaker 2: touch about the restoration of the Sky's falling, and you know,
Speaker 2: coming out with this new version of Blue and Fade
Speaker 2: in on which this documentary lives, which is freaking fantastic
Speaker 2: having that as this kind of companion piece to those
Speaker 2: two films. How difficult or easy was it to find
Speaker 2: the rest of these films? Because those the clips from
Speaker 2: that clips from some of the other films in your
Speaker 2: documentary the gorgeous. But how easy or difficult is it
Speaker 2: to find these films?
Speaker 1: I'm a gray market here, so I'm constantly sourcing these
Speaker 1: things from sometimes sketchy places. I guess you say so,
Speaker 1: d Die, my darling is out there. You can get
Speaker 1: that pretty handily. Georgia Girl is of course out there.
Speaker 1: Blue is now out there again, and Redneck and The
Speaker 1: Sky Is Falling is out there, so you got a
Speaker 1: big chunk the movies that are available. Then you have
Speaker 1: the films that I call the Trilogy of Pedagogy, which
Speaker 1: are Why Shoot the Teacher, which I'm hoping a certain
Speaker 1: company is working on finding the elements of that. There's
Speaker 1: been the conversation about that, so hopefully maybe they'll dig
Speaker 1: that one up, which only had a VHS release in
Speaker 1: the early to mid eighties from Embassy Home Video. You
Speaker 1: had the Class of Miss McMichael once again VHS from
Speaker 1: CBS Fox hasn't been out on video since then. And Choices,
Speaker 1: which has been out on every fucking video label known demand.
Speaker 1: I'm talking Bargain Bin label with Demi Moore's mug plastered
Speaker 1: on the front of it, so that one's really been
Speaker 1: that one's gotten around. It is neither one of Narzana's
Speaker 1: better films, nor is the transfer on it very good,
Speaker 1: So that's not a good barometer for whether or not
Speaker 1: you will groove with Naratzano. But and then Young Shoulders,
Speaker 1: which you can watch on YouTube, but which was a
Speaker 1: play for Today, which I'm convinced should have gotten theatrical
Speaker 1: oversees the much in the way that Mike Lee and
Speaker 1: Alan Clark and kind of loached it. That one is
Speaker 1: out there. You can watch that on YouTube pretty easily.
Speaker 1: And then the Body in the Library I think is
Speaker 1: part of a Miss Marple set, which actually that's a
Speaker 1: very handsome Agatha Christie adaptation that na Daniel Thompson wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that he got some nice words in
Speaker 1: for so I was happy that he was the one
Speaker 1: guy to be like, no, we have to talk about
Speaker 1: the Body in the Library. Absolutely crucial. I was like, oh, yeah, great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: no one's talked about the Body Library. Let's look, let's
Speaker 1: do it. But yeah, there are a few titles that
Speaker 1: haven't really seen the light of day since the days,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that maybe one day I can go
Speaker 1: back and replace a lot of the faultier clips, mainly
Speaker 1: Why Shoot the Teacher, which is an almost unsightly HS
Speaker 1: transfer but it's workable for the purposes of a documentary
Speaker 1: like this, but it's a bit of an eye sore.
Speaker 1: So if that comes along in a nicer scan, which
Speaker 1: I'm hoping the Canadian archives, which are fairly well kept,
Speaker 1: that would be nice to go back and do some
Speaker 1: flip replacements.
Speaker 2: So, as I said, the documentary's part of this larger
Speaker 2: box when it comes to these other films. But is
Speaker 2: it going to be released separately on its own?
Speaker 1: I own the rights to the documentary, so I own
Speaker 1: the license. I never thought that. Maybe I'm just down
Speaker 1: on the film festival scene perhaps, And I don't think
Speaker 1: the prospect of showing a two and a quarter hour
Speaker 1: movie at one of their events would really I don't
Speaker 1: think they would prick up their errors on that. But
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue to seek out. There is another
Speaker 1: potential offer in the workings, so hopefully that bears some fruit.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'll make it available on the private torn
Speaker 1: sites for people to act us. The Church of Near
Speaker 1: Zano Gospel has to be spread somehow. Hopefully it'll get
Speaker 1: more legs and get out there more. You know.
Speaker 2: Is there a place for people to keep up with
Speaker 2: you and your work online?
Speaker 1: And unfortunately don't have much of a website anymore, been
Speaker 1: on my list of things to do. But if you
Speaker 1: google me or look me up on IMDb or on Facebook,
Speaker 1: it's also a good way. I normally friend people if
Speaker 1: we have enough in common. So yeah, those are the
Speaker 1: best ways for right now.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, sir. This was always great
Speaker 2: talking with you.
Speaker 1: It's been a few years, so it's been nice to return.
Speaker 1: I think the last time I was on was over
Speaker 1: on the Sky Here's twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know we need to get back together and
Speaker 2: talk about some of these movies here especially, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to go through your book and pick out
Speaker 2: some titles and have a little film festival.
Speaker 1: It's a big volume, I know. I think we're going
Speaker 1: to be around like five hundred and forty pages, so
Speaker 1: it's a big volume. Yeah, but I would like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't wait to read it. I've been thinking
Speaker 2: that I would love to do either a maybe both
Speaker 2: those weird PN Dennis Hopper movies, because he was in
Speaker 2: what was that one, crush Proof I think it was called, Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of like odd ones, and then Terrence Stamp
Speaker 2: was in a bunch of weird stuff too, like that
Speaker 2: one Human. That's like, let somebody needs to talk about
Speaker 2: these things, So why not us.
Speaker 1: Exiles of Stamp and Hopper some pretty odd results there's
Speaker 1: Stamp also did the kind of proto totally clips movie
Speaker 1: where he played Rambau to Jean claud Riali's Verlaine, and
Speaker 1: that's a Season in Hell, which was an Italian film
Speaker 1: that he made it in his European days or European exile.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there are a lot of movies in that.
Speaker 1: Flush Color is the one that's the lost Hopper movie
Speaker 1: in Europe, I think in mainland Europe, but which I
Speaker 1: know anyone has been able to track down. That's another
Speaker 1: Popper out of the Henry Jaguline was a very close
Speaker 1: friend of mine and passed on recently. And Henry hated
Speaker 1: saying passed on. He went on the record multiple times
Speaker 1: and I don't want to pass on when I die,
Speaker 1: I want to die say that I died. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: Henry died recently. I remember him telling me a story
Speaker 1: about Popper before I think it was before they went
Speaker 1: to work on tracks. He went to lunch with Dennis
Speaker 1: and Dennis was in a kind of a hopped up
Speaker 1: state of some kind, and Henry commented or made some
Speaker 1: remark to Dennis's date, who was also out of it,
Speaker 1: and it was a pretty bit innocuous remark and Dennis,
Speaker 1: what did you say? And then oh, I just said
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and Dennis plunged over the table and
Speaker 1: tried to choke Henry in the restaurant. This is Henry.
Speaker 1: It's on tapes with him somewhere. I taped them telling
Speaker 1: this story. But I was like, were you ever afraid
Speaker 1: of Dennis at any point?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: Of course I was. It's like even when you were
Speaker 1: making cracks. I was like, when he was working, he
Speaker 1: was on better behavior, But no, he was crazy. He
Speaker 1: was crazy for a time, with no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll let you get back to indexing. I know
Speaker 2: there's nothing better to do.
Speaker 1: I know I only have a few left, Thank god.
Speaker 1: Hey the georgy swinging down the streets, so fancy greed,
Speaker 1: nobody you meet.
Speaker 2: Alone inside you? Hey the Georgie.
Speaker 1: Come, why do all the boys just passed you by?
Speaker 1: Couldny you just don't try?
Speaker 2: Or is it the colley.
Speaker 1: You're always windows shopping but never stopping you by, So
Speaker 1: just stop a little bit.
Speaker 2: Georgy girl, there's another georgy be inside.
Speaker 1: Bring out all.
Speaker 2: The love you hide and a lot of.
Speaker 1: Change that be to age a new georgy girl. Georgy
Speaker 1: girl dreaming of of someone you could be. Life is
Speaker 1: a reality. You can always run away.
Speaker 2: Don't be so scared of changing, envy, arranging yourself.
Speaker 1: It's time for jumping down from the shell a little bit.
Speaker 2: Pay there, Georgy go, there's another Georgy deep inside.
Speaker 1: Bring have all the love.
Speaker 2: You have a lot of change, and let's see an
Speaker 2: George George, George
Speaker 1: George,