Speaker 1: Hold yours both it show die.
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1: When they go out to a theater, they want cloth, sodas,
Speaker 1: hot popcorn and no monsters in the protection booths.
Speaker 3: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring? So why did you come
Speaker 3: to London? Were you bored in Manchester?
Speaker 4: Oh? Sash, I didn't see you?
Speaker 5: Eh so bored?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 6: I wasn't bored.
Speaker 5: I'm never bored.
Speaker 6: That's the trouble with everybody, and also bored. Do you
Speaker 6: want to come in?
Speaker 3: All right? What's funny?
Speaker 5: I used to be a wearewolf, but I'm all right now?
Speaker 1: Do you want to come in?
Speaker 6: You've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it.
Speaker 6: You've had a living body explained to you and you're
Speaker 6: board with it. You've had a universe explain to your.
Speaker 5: And your board with it.
Speaker 1: Do you want to come in?
Speaker 3: Right? So?
Speaker 6: Now you just want cheap thrills and like plenty of them,
Speaker 6: And it doesn't matter out chargery or vacuous guard, as
Speaker 6: long as it's new. As long as it's new, as
Speaker 6: long as it flashes and bleeps in botty different colors,
Speaker 6: or whatever else you can say about me. I'm not
Speaker 6: bored see more life in an open grave. Come on,
Speaker 6: I don't have a future. Nobody has a future. We're
Speaker 6: not important, We're just a crap idea. You know the
Speaker 6: sense of jungle out there?
Speaker 4: Have you seen it in air?
Speaker 5: If God just put us here for his own entertainment,
Speaker 5: there's some things in this world that you never ever
Speaker 5: ever understand.
Speaker 6: So I was all going for you spitboring, otular.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host. Mike White
Speaker 2: joined me for the first time. Is miss Ellie Levy, Hello,
Speaker 2: nice to be here. Also making his premier appearance in
Speaker 2: the booth is mister and Nick Kuyava.
Speaker 4: Resolve is never stronger than in the morning after the night.
Speaker 4: It was never weaker. What do you think of that?
Speaker 2: We continue Art House August with a look at Mike
Speaker 2: Lee's naked No, Mike Lee is not naked in this film,
Speaker 2: and there's not really a ton of nudity. If anything,
Speaker 2: it's about naked, raw emotions, especially those of Johnny, played
Speaker 2: brilliantly by David Doulas. We follow Johnny, who flees to
Speaker 2: London from Manchester after raping a woman and stealing a car.
Speaker 2: We also follow Jeremy, who's played by Greg Kruttwell, an
Speaker 2: unrepentant bastard and interesting counterpoint to Johnny. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if this film can be spoiled, but it really just
Speaker 2: needs to be experienced, so we're going to try our
Speaker 2: best to spoil it, though, so you have been warned.
Speaker 2: So Ellie, when was the first time you saw Naked
Speaker 2: and what did you think?
Speaker 3: I think I first saw in high school. I probably
Speaker 3: read up about it somewhere in some now forgotten film
Speaker 3: site in the early two thousands, and I rented it
Speaker 3: on my own and I really liked how enigmatic it was,
Speaker 3: but I also wasn't surely able to take it in
Speaker 3: I don't think as a teenager, especially the character of Johnny.
Speaker 3: So it also might have been my very first michaelisim
Speaker 3: which didn't quite prepare me for the rest of his work,
Speaker 3: which is quite different because Naked is quite a lot
Speaker 3: darker and more nihilistic than a lot of his work.
Speaker 3: So this film. Scholar Professor Nikolai Lubecker has a concept
Speaker 3: called the shield badge film. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: know this, and this, like films that deadlock are desired for,
Speaker 3: Catharsis and I really think that this film can be
Speaker 3: categorized as a feel bad film, and watching it now
Speaker 3: was tough again but fascinating. Mike Lee is definitely one
Speaker 3: of my favorite British directors, and he really has a
Speaker 3: naturally showcasing complex humanity and relationship dynamics which are really
Speaker 3: loved to see. So those are my first thoughts.
Speaker 2: And Nick, how about yourself.
Speaker 3: Actually, I was.
Speaker 4: Working in a bookstore at the time and a coworker
Speaker 4: of mine kept quoting the film. She said, you, really,
Speaker 4: of all people, need to watch this film, she said,
Speaker 4: because a lot of the times when this character speaks,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm listening to you in retrospect. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure whether that was a compliment, but I did
Speaker 4: certainly take her advice and I rented it. It was
Speaker 4: a night that I was just settling in. I had
Speaker 4: an old stack of movies and I'd watched one already,
Speaker 4: and I was like, Okay, I'm going to go into
Speaker 4: this one. You have that first opening scene, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: let's go on one here, and then of course the
Speaker 4: phone rings and all of a sudden, it was eleven
Speaker 4: o'clock at night, but I found myself with my own
Speaker 4: Little Johnny Adventure for the rest of that evening. But
Speaker 4: as soon as I got back home, I always feel
Speaker 4: like I've got to see where this movie's going. I
Speaker 4: got in probably about three point thirty in the morning
Speaker 4: and immediately just went right back into it and just
Speaker 4: was intrigued whole way through.
Speaker 3: Are you sittings?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: I saw this one at the Detroit Film Theater back
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety three or ninety four, whenever it actually
Speaker 2: was touring around the United States, and I had never
Speaker 2: seen a Mike Lee film. I think this might be
Speaker 2: the only Mike Lee film that I've seen other than
Speaker 2: the short that was on the Criterion version of this
Speaker 2: the short and Curlies. Otherwise, I just I knew the titles.
Speaker 2: He was a pretty big sensation, art house sensation in
Speaker 2: the nineties, late eighties, even going into the two thousands,
Speaker 2: so I know. Before we started recording, Nick was reading
Speaker 2: some of the titles of some of the other films
Speaker 2: that he's seen. I'm like, I've heard these titles, I
Speaker 2: know these titles, but I've never actually sat down and
Speaker 2: watched them. And I don't know why, because I can't
Speaker 2: say I enjoy Naked. I was actually dreading rewatching this
Speaker 2: one for the episode, just because it is such a
Speaker 2: visceral film and it just kicks you in the gut.
Speaker 2: I had a friend, Mike Thompson, who's been on the
Speaker 2: show many times before. He took his wife to see
Speaker 2: this on a date not a good date movie. Not
Speaker 2: a good date movie. And they've been married for I
Speaker 2: don't know how many decades now, have two wonderful children.
Speaker 2: But they almost didn't make it after they saw Naked
Speaker 2: because they were.
Speaker 4: Just going at it.
Speaker 2: And this film, like you said, it's a feel bad
Speaker 2: movie for sure. And what a way to start this
Speaker 2: film in an alleyway with the camera just rushing up
Speaker 2: to this couple who's having sex, very rough sex turns violent,
Speaker 2: turns into a rape. Next thing you know, this guy's
Speaker 2: running away, grabs a car, gets in, steals it, drives
Speaker 2: off and that's how the credits start. Wow, what a
Speaker 2: way to start a movie. And it just plunges you
Speaker 2: right into this world. And we don't even see Johnny's face,
Speaker 2: David Doulas's face until I think he gets to London.
Speaker 2: The rest of it is shot from the back of
Speaker 2: his head. He's pretty blurred inside of the car and
Speaker 2: once we get to know him. I can't say this enough,
Speaker 2: and I know I'm going to be saying it through
Speaker 2: this entire episode. This movie lives and dies by David
Speaker 2: Doulass's performance, and he's fucking amazing.
Speaker 4: As soon as I saw this movie, then I went
Speaker 4: purposely to try and find anything else that he was in.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I had seen Life as Sweet before, and you had
Speaker 4: that small part in that. I was so like, I
Speaker 4: just need to know more about this guy after this performance,
Speaker 4: and I honestly, I would say until he did the
Speaker 4: recent Fargo television series, I feel like there's never been
Speaker 4: another vehicle which spotlights just how incredible he can. May
Speaker 4: I feel like Naked and the Fargo Show or like
Speaker 4: his top performance is in my opinion, and just I
Speaker 4: always feel like there's so much of his potential in
Speaker 4: other films that just is not allowed to break through.
Speaker 3: I think also owes a lot to the way Mike
Speaker 3: Lee his process, like what he let David Thuliz also do,
Speaker 3: and his whole improvisation and this whole phase of working
Speaker 3: together and really collaborating, because that's how Mike Lee works.
Speaker 3: He works like no one else basically, which is really fascinating.
Speaker 3: He has this long process of finding his actors without
Speaker 3: a casting agent, just like purely because he finds something
Speaker 3: in them. And then I think letting them talk about
Speaker 3: a person they know that's his audition and like trying
Speaker 3: to mimic who they are and getting a shield for them,
Speaker 3: and then just like months and months of just trying
Speaker 3: to whittle down like who this character is and basing
Speaker 3: it off of their own experience is probably Mike Lee's experience.
Speaker 3: So I think John he also has quite a bit
Speaker 3: of Mike Lee in him, I would imagine, So I
Speaker 3: think it brings something very unique out of all the
Speaker 3: actors and in his film basically as you say, like
Speaker 3: he's never been like this but again and never had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to really show himself like this again.
Speaker 2: So it's really sad because Fulis is so amazing in
Speaker 2: this movie, and just like you, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: what else has this guy been in? I got to
Speaker 2: see this. I think it was just a few years
Speaker 2: after this that The Island of Doctor Moreau, the ill
Speaker 2: Fated Island of Doctor Moreau was coming out. I was like,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Oh this is going to be great.
Speaker 2: Val Kilmer Marlon Brando for us a bulk David Dolist,
Speaker 2: he's got nothing to do. You could pass the wooden
Speaker 2: pole in that movie, and that does the same job
Speaker 2: that David does in that film. Not criticizing him necessarily,
Speaker 2: but just he's never had the opportunity to be this
Speaker 2: amazing again, and he just gets shuttled into these movies.
Speaker 2: It's sad because I think most people these days would
Speaker 2: know him from either being remiss loupin and we'll talk
Speaker 2: about were wolves. So I think that's pretty funny that
Speaker 2: he's playing a were wolf in the Harry Potter films,
Speaker 2: or that horrific role as Sir Patrick in Wonder Woman
Speaker 2: where he turns into spoilers for Wonder Woman where he
Speaker 2: turns into aries with that fucking mustache. Oh man, I've
Speaker 2: never seen him reach these heights. And I agree with you.
Speaker 2: The Fargo TV show he does a great job in that.
Speaker 2: Of course, his tiny role in The Big Lebowski he's
Speaker 2: amazing in. But I've never seen him live up to
Speaker 2: this height again because he's he's not on screen every
Speaker 2: single moment. We do have the secondary story with Jeremy,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, Johnny's on screen. That's say
Speaker 2: seventy five percent of this film. And he's riveting, and
Speaker 2: he's a bastard, he's a jerk, he's incredibly funny. He
Speaker 2: has turns a phrase are so incredibly quick. I've read
Speaker 2: so many people just saying I don't know if I
Speaker 2: want to be Johnny or if I want to punch
Speaker 2: him in the face. And that's my impression as well.
Speaker 3: Be Johnny. Wow, that's the that's revealing, that's the people.
Speaker 4: There's definitely elements of Johnny which I would love to have. Certainly,
Speaker 4: his way obviously is just top notch. But here you've
Speaker 4: got this is somebody you wouldn't necessarily, just based off
Speaker 4: of first sight, say this is a charismatic individual. But
Speaker 4: as he's traveling through the film, he does have this
Speaker 4: charisma that just comes across to all these people that
Speaker 4: he encounters. I mean, he's able to weasel his way
Speaker 4: into people's homes and travel in their lives for you know,
Speaker 4: even just a few hours, and that's not something I
Speaker 4: would ever be able to do. So, I mean there's
Speaker 4: aspects of this character which usually I wouldn't mind, being
Speaker 4: that Hair's maggot of an individual that I could pull
Speaker 4: something like this off. I mean, I think, how well
Speaker 4: you could, you know, use that in your workplace, just
Speaker 4: being able to manipulate things, you know, to your liking,
Speaker 4: if you have that sort of charisma.
Speaker 2: I think that what I enjoy about him the most
Speaker 2: is that ability to turn a phrase and just how
Speaker 2: quick witted he is about things. And I'm curious because
Speaker 2: you were talking about the method that Mike Lee uses
Speaker 2: and what they say, like, there's one scene in this
Speaker 2: film that is actually improvised in front of the camera,
Speaker 2: and the rest of the entire movie has already been
Speaker 2: plotted out and done through rehearsals and through improvisation and
Speaker 2: through just figuring out how all this is going to go.
Speaker 2: Because when you read about Mike Lee, you read about
Speaker 2: the process so much because that is it is very
Speaker 2: unique to him, and just that way that he allows
Speaker 2: the actors to I imagine that as an actor, it's
Speaker 2: probably the most satisfaction that you would ever get is
Speaker 2: by working with somebody like Mike Lee who allows you
Speaker 2: to find the character and work with you and put
Speaker 2: you in these situations. I think about the scene later
Speaker 2: in the film with the limo driver, the chauffeur and
Speaker 2: just how quick that scene happens, and just the tension
Speaker 2: between the two characters, and that's all been worked out
Speaker 2: prior to this, but it just feels so natural. It
Speaker 2: just feels so documentarian as far as the way that
Speaker 2: this film comes together.
Speaker 4: I had read actually that during the rehearsals the improvisations
Speaker 4: that David Thiller said he just had his entire floor
Speaker 4: of his house was just scattered with all these books,
Speaker 4: and that he was actually reading the Bible and he
Speaker 4: was actually reading, you know, about chaos theory, all these
Speaker 4: things that come up throughout the course of the movie.
Speaker 4: He was just sat rating himself with information so that
Speaker 4: it would just percolaid up when it needed to. Definitely
Speaker 4: served him well, because you get those riveting dialogues, especially
Speaker 4: like with Brian the knight Watchman, where that whole diatribe
Speaker 4: all this stuff that's coming out, and that's in no
Speaker 4: small part, i'm sure, to everything that he was absorbing
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 3: Like what you said about it being a documentary or
Speaker 3: some part of it, I feel like that's one of
Speaker 3: Mike Lee's sets him apart as well as that, I
Speaker 3: feel like he is focused on the external rather than
Speaker 3: the internal, so we don't really see characters, you know,
Speaker 3: looking at the window wistfully and trying to get into
Speaker 3: their soul. That's really how they interact, is what makes
Speaker 3: them up. So in a way, it's like this observational perspective,
Speaker 3: which in a way makes being in the midst of
Speaker 3: we're being near and someone like Johnny for so long
Speaker 3: variable because we're not. It is really looking at what's
Speaker 3: happening through his eyes. That's at least how I saw it.
Speaker 3: We're perceiving it or just letting it happen, basically like
Speaker 3: a documentary, which I think is the right way to go,
Speaker 3: especially when we're talking about such complicated, tough, unbearable people,
Speaker 3: and so also when we talk about Moss's face. Jeremy
Speaker 3: slash Sebastian I love.
Speaker 2: I always got the multiple names because you don't know
Speaker 2: who this guy is what he is. He claims at
Speaker 2: one point to be a landlord, and I'm not even
Speaker 2: sure if I believe that. Which one is the one
Speaker 2: that's missing? Sondra, right, Sondra the missing roommate who comes
Speaker 2: back at the end of the film. Sandra seems to
Speaker 2: be the only one who knows who he is, but
Speaker 2: she doesn't even know him for who he actually is.
Speaker 2: He introduces himself in one way, but she's looking at
Speaker 2: all these ideas, going who is this person? What is
Speaker 2: happening here? And they're under the impression that he's the landlord.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if that's true, or maybe he's
Speaker 2: like a former boyfriend. I don't know what the story is.
Speaker 2: Just the way that he comes into this house, shows
Speaker 2: up there, and then terrorizes these people. With Jeremy, it
Speaker 2: almost feels like we're getting more into like funny Games
Speaker 2: territory than the rest of the film. It's almost like
Speaker 2: a different movie inside of the movie.
Speaker 4: First to the names thing, I've always wondered about that
Speaker 4: as well, and even though still you don't know for certain,
Speaker 4: I think I read at some point that there was
Speaker 4: a thing in England where people would get properties under
Speaker 4: different names for legal reasons, so they would have several
Speaker 4: different identities within their property holdings. So that's where this
Speaker 4: whole Jeremy Sebastian kind of thing comes through. But I
Speaker 4: also got the impression definitely that he had some sort
Speaker 4: of dating history with Soundra, even whether it was just
Speaker 4: a single date or because any date you're going to
Speaker 4: go on with that guy is going to be burned
Speaker 4: in your brain for the rest of your life. So
Speaker 4: even if it was just a dinner, I'm sure she
Speaker 4: was here like I know exactly you are. But she
Speaker 4: also didn't seem to recoil from him, as every other
Speaker 4: character pretty much does, which kind of indicates that somehow
Speaker 4: she was able to maintain some control with him, whatever
Speaker 4: however way they passed before this film, you know, or
Speaker 4: the events of this film.
Speaker 2: I do seem to remember that thing about the property stuff.
Speaker 2: I think Mike Lee might have talked about that in
Speaker 2: the audio commentary as well, And that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2: It feels so well to do. And this is nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three. It feels like we're little north of the
Speaker 2: yuppie era, but it feels like he's the ultimate yuppie
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 4: The way that he.
Speaker 2: Enjoys the good life, getting the massage after he's working
Speaker 2: out of the restaurant, that he goes to, the way
Speaker 2: that he switches women constantly, that he picks up the masseuse,
Speaker 2: takes her to dinner, doesn't find her interesting anymore, goes
Speaker 2: to the waitress, takes her home. Don't know what happens
Speaker 2: with her, but I'm shirt it's not good. You see
Speaker 2: him in the car later on with another woman, and
Speaker 2: then he shows up at the apartment and you're just like, wow,
Speaker 2: he is just moving from person to person, probably just
Speaker 2: ruining all of their lives. He drives a very sporty
Speaker 2: little car, probably cost a fortune, and just him and
Speaker 2: his confidence and walking around in those little black bikini
Speaker 2: briefs and not a care in the world. Hats off
Speaker 2: to this actor for just being exposed through so much
Speaker 2: of this film. The last third of the movie, he
Speaker 2: just wears these little briefs and that's all and just
Speaker 2: struts around in that look of condescension on his face,
Speaker 2: and he just thinks that he's better than everybody else
Speaker 2: in the world, and they're just all there to be playthings.
Speaker 2: He just is playing with everybody. And the way that
Speaker 2: he and it's rough play, the way that he and
Speaker 2: Louise interact. Oh, that scene of her whipping him with
Speaker 2: her hair while he's laying down, that image was just
Speaker 2: burned into my brain all the way from nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: and I just kept wondering, what's the context of that shot.
Speaker 2: You don't really get that much context that's cut to
Speaker 2: her in bed with him whipping him with her hair,
Speaker 2: and it just feels, oh wow, he started some weird
Speaker 2: game before we even got here, and this is what
Speaker 2: he wants her to do and she has no control.
Speaker 4: That's actually Sophie, not Louise. It's funny you bring up
Speaker 4: from a woman to woman. And talking about with Sondra,
Speaker 4: I almost felt like that scene in the car with
Speaker 4: the very timid woman when he's just cursing to whoever
Speaker 4: on the phone in different languages and the bastards cost
Speaker 4: me fifty thousand dollars or whatever. I almost felt like
Speaker 4: she was so turned off by that. But she also
Speaker 4: seemed like she wasn't the waitress type or the masseuse type.
Speaker 4: It seems like he almost dates different types of women
Speaker 4: depending on things like what sort of mood he had.
Speaker 4: And this woman that was in the car, he had
Speaker 4: to play a little nicer, but I feel like it
Speaker 4: didn't go so well for him, and then he probably
Speaker 4: thought about Sondra and I'm going to drop in Sondra,
Speaker 4: Sondra and Sophie. But so I feel like he was
Speaker 4: so like, I'm going to drop in on Sondra, and
Speaker 4: that's what brought him into these events. I just always
Speaker 4: had that is a little bit of the thread of
Speaker 4: how this happened, because you have to wonder how do
Speaker 4: these how do all these criss crossings of interactions, how
Speaker 4: did they begin, how do they end? Where did they start?
Speaker 3: Also feel like there's also his scenes are often intercut
Speaker 3: with Johnny's scenes. Obviously in a way, it lends to
Speaker 3: us comparing the two kind of spicckle men, And that
Speaker 3: always made me feel uncomfortable in a way because in
Speaker 3: a way it's showing this man is really bad, but
Speaker 3: Johnny does not so bad. Actually, when you think about it,
Speaker 3: I find that a little questionable, to say the least,
Speaker 3: because both of them are rapists. Just because we get
Speaker 3: to know Johnny better and he has different sides to him, potentially,
Speaker 3: if you want to look at it that way, it
Speaker 3: doesn't actually change that shack.
Speaker 4: I think that was absolutely intentional. I think that it
Speaker 4: was definiteent Like if you did not have a Jeremy
Speaker 4: and you just had a Johnny, you are going to
Speaker 4: be much harder on Johnny as a character because you
Speaker 4: don't have anybody else to make him look good. There's
Speaker 4: moments at least with Johnny where he almost seems sensitive
Speaker 4: and soft and almost caring, like when he's taking Maggie
Speaker 4: around looking for Archie, and even when he's settling down
Speaker 4: with the waitress from the coffee shop for a little bit,
Speaker 4: and you know, you can tell that he really fancies
Speaker 4: her in a way and is going to be softer
Speaker 4: than he was with Sophie when they first met. So
Speaker 4: having those little moments and then comparing them to Jeremy,
Speaker 4: who's just horrific every scene that he's in. There's not
Speaker 4: one spec of redemption in that character at all. And
Speaker 4: it's funny too because there are times when they even
Speaker 4: frame Johnny out he looks more angelic, like when he's
Speaker 4: with the waitress and he's got the big clock behind
Speaker 4: him and it just frames him like a halo. It
Speaker 4: plays little tricks with you in that sense where things
Speaker 4: are trying to make this guy more likable than really
Speaker 4: we should feel about him, you know, because like I said,
Speaker 4: he's got a charisma to him, but really at the end,
Speaker 4: he's a pastard.
Speaker 2: But I do agree with you, Ellie, as far as
Speaker 2: look at Jeremy, look at Johnny, he's just so not
Speaker 2: that bad compared to Jeremy, but he's awful. He is
Speaker 2: absolutely awful. If he was cleaner, if he shaved that horrible,
Speaker 2: scraggly beard off, if he became in outward appearance that
Speaker 2: yuppie that Jeremy is. I think he could be successful
Speaker 2: in that same world and just carry himself through that,
Speaker 2: but he's not interested in that. But yes, I agree
Speaker 2: he's an awful human being. And he uses violence, yes,
Speaker 2: but especially against women and especially in sexual situations. But
Speaker 2: more than that violence, the violence of the horrible things
Speaker 2: he says to people, and just the way that he
Speaker 2: has to tear everyone down, And that's very similar to
Speaker 2: Jeremy as well. But that scene with the waitress is
Speaker 2: it's really like this almost domestic bliss that they have
Speaker 2: going on. Something is going on with her and she's
Speaker 2: a fascinating character. And the way that when he leaves
Speaker 2: he has to just completely tear her down. And that
Speaker 2: whole thing about.
Speaker 6: Top tonight of snug and warm underneath your tears, sudden
Speaker 6: fucking do in your ankle and Emily b onto your winding.
Speaker 2: Sheet is spared apart for me with my head, and
Speaker 2: I put on a cold dog's.
Speaker 4: Piss and I hope that you dream about me, and
Speaker 4: I hope.
Speaker 6: That you wake up screaming, and I hope that all
Speaker 6: your fucking children are bond blind, bullet and hallette, homeless hunchbacks.
Speaker 2: He always has to twist the knife, not physically but verbally,
Speaker 2: like the thing that he does with the woman across
Speaker 2: the way from Bryan's building, and how he calls he
Speaker 2: says that she reminds him of his mother. You know,
Speaker 2: that just hit her as hard as a slap across
Speaker 2: the face. But when he grabs her hair and it
Speaker 2: feels like hair is a real big theme to this
Speaker 2: movie because when he grabs her hair, that's like his move,
Speaker 2: his bedroom.
Speaker 4: Move, it really is. And stepping back again to when
Speaker 4: the waitress throws him out and how you know he's
Speaker 4: not used to rejection, and that's where that outburst is
Speaker 4: coming from. He's like, I can't believe that I'm being
Speaker 4: cast out onto the street. So if you're going to
Speaker 4: cast me out, I'm going to give you something to
Speaker 4: remember me by. It's interesting, though, because his violence is
Speaker 4: strictly sexual violence. Within this film. He's never raising a
Speaker 4: hand against anybody in any other way, so his violent
Speaker 4: tendencies are always sexual so in a situation like this
Speaker 4: where she's kicking him out, you're almost here, like, why
Speaker 4: is he putting his hands up against the wall and
Speaker 4: rubbing his head on her belly which is almost tender,
Speaker 4: like her almost about ready to stroke his hair, and
Speaker 4: then she pulls it back and thinks the better of
Speaker 4: it is this way, he's trying to manipulate the situation,
Speaker 4: thinking maybe she will take pity on me, or is
Speaker 4: it just It's almost like he gives himself some sort
Speaker 4: of code on how he behaves with this. He's not
Speaker 4: going to raise a hand to a woman, but in
Speaker 4: the context of sexual intercourse, he can justify, oh, it's
Speaker 4: just rough, instead of actually outwardly being violent. So in
Speaker 4: that case, his violence comes through words.
Speaker 3: Interesting he said that you don't feel like she ever
Speaker 3: was rejected. I feel like in a way, he goes
Speaker 3: around life feeling like a rejected person. Maybe not in
Speaker 3: this form like with a woman. And it seems like
Speaker 3: all the women are finding pretty resistible in someway or
Speaker 3: another in this film. But I do feel like he
Speaker 3: knows what it's like to be on the margins. He
Speaker 3: also wants to be. He chooses to be in a
Speaker 3: way right, because he's obviously in some ways educated himself,
Speaker 3: either institutionally or just self taught, and he would technically
Speaker 3: be able to be a worthwhile member of society, so
Speaker 3: to speak, But he is not. It's hard to say,
Speaker 3: at least for me. That's my perspective on it. I
Speaker 3: don't know if he's really lived life without feeling much rejection.
Speaker 2: Talking about the way that women interact with Johnny, I
Speaker 2: have to say that the one thing, there's a few
Speaker 2: things in this movie that ring a little false to me,
Speaker 2: And I don't know if it's via the Mike Lee
Speaker 2: method or something else, but just you feel at times,
Speaker 2: like I was talking about the limo scene earlier, you
Speaker 2: feel at times like, Okay, here's these two actors and
Speaker 2: they're going to now interact and we'll see how this
Speaker 2: plays out. And you get that a few times, like
Speaker 2: throughout this film, the whole thing is just Okay, here's
Speaker 2: these two people, these three people, these four people, how
Speaker 2: are they going to interact and what's this going to
Speaker 2: be like? But I have to say sometimes the characters
Speaker 2: don't feel like they're the same from scene to scene,
Speaker 2: Like the Catherine Partlage character Sophie She's a very interesting character,
Speaker 2: but the way that she falls in love with Johnny
Speaker 2: and just is almost speaking of hair pulling her hair out,
Speaker 2: just as far as oh my god, I love this
Speaker 2: guy so much, and Louise, I'm so jealous of you
Speaker 2: because you had this relationship with him, and oh my god,
Speaker 2: if only I could have had a year with this guy,
Speaker 2: and she just just so overly dramatic about it, and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, this doesn't feel right, like you fell
Speaker 2: in love with him like that and just not just
Speaker 2: in love with him, but just infatuation. And it just
Speaker 2: every time she gets put into this position to talk
Speaker 2: about Johnny or to think about Johnny, she just loses
Speaker 2: her shit. And I'm like, this doesn't feel like the
Speaker 2: same Sophie that I saw two scenes ago, or in
Speaker 2: this scene. It just feels like they shot that maybe
Speaker 2: early on and said, Okay, your character is obsessed with
Speaker 2: Johnny after you have this one encounter with him. I
Speaker 2: don't know that's my feeling anyway. And I feel like
Speaker 2: this movie's great, but there are certain things where I'm
Speaker 2: just like, this doesn't really.
Speaker 4: Add up for me. I've thought about that sometimes as well.
Speaker 4: And the one thing I keep coming back to with
Speaker 4: that is that she mentions later on when she's in
Speaker 4: the bar with Louise and talking about how she had
Speaker 4: an abortion by a lover who was a philosopher or
Speaker 4: something like that, and you hear her say that, and
Speaker 4: you like, I don't see you with a philosopher. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, maybe that's just like this whole
Speaker 4: other dimension to Sophie that we just don't know about historically,
Speaker 4: Like maybe she really deep down is like incredibly attracted
Speaker 4: to intelligent people and this is like the first one
Speaker 4: that's come her way in a really long time, and
Speaker 4: that's what's making it for her. This is the moment
Speaker 4: I've been waiting for, and she falls head over heels
Speaker 4: because this is what she's built up in head to
Speaker 4: being what she's wanted all this time. And I feel like, though,
Speaker 4: if that's the case, then the entire movie kind of
Speaker 4: probably is encapsulates everything that her life has been so
Speaker 4: far within that our realm where it's like I've with
Speaker 4: the intelligent person, but I lost the intelligent person, so
Speaker 4: I've just got these assholes who are going to be
Speaker 4: abusing me and using me for sex to the point
Speaker 4: where I just lose my shit because everything she's experienced
Speaker 4: has just happened to her in such a compressed amount
Speaker 4: of time. And that's like why she's like screaming and
Speaker 4: hitting Johnny at the end. You know, you just don't
Speaker 4: know because he doesn't know what her life is and
Speaker 4: especially what's happened to her in the past twenty four hours,
Speaker 4: because he never bothers to find that out. And then
Speaker 4: she just loses it because it's like I've just watched
Speaker 4: my entire life unfold over the past few days again,
Speaker 4: and it is shit, and I need to go. I
Speaker 4: don't even know where I'm going, but I got to go.
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel very it's not like an empowering move.
Speaker 3: I guess her move out. You're gonna end up maybe
Speaker 3: a bit like Maggie or something, hopefully not. But it's
Speaker 3: interesting with Soshi. I also was a little confused about
Speaker 3: the intensity right away. That's just like you are everything
Speaker 3: to me. But it does seem like she unfortunately does
Speaker 3: not have a lot going on currently in her life,
Speaker 3: and it seems like she really is like a desperate
Speaker 3: person just needing anything and something, some connection to someone.
Speaker 3: And even though she's not really seeing Johnny for who
Speaker 3: he is, but she's seeing him for maybe the potential
Speaker 3: he holds for her or a way out of this life,
Speaker 3: so I think, because obviously she doesn't know him, so
Speaker 3: it's all about like projection.
Speaker 4: Right what And that's actually said between the two of them,
Speaker 4: where she's feel like I love you, I know you,
Speaker 4: and he's you don't know me, And she's built who
Speaker 4: he is up in her own head, so she's not
Speaker 4: even seeing him, she's seeing what he represents to her,
Speaker 4: whatever that is. And unfortunate. I've known people who are
Speaker 4: like that, not in my own personal relationships, but I've
Speaker 4: had roommates who have acted like Sophie has, where it's
Speaker 4: just this is somebody that I just find so intriguing
Speaker 4: and I need to be with this person, and you, like,
Speaker 4: you went on one date with this person. Yes, and
Speaker 4: calm down. In that sense, it's certainly possible, but it
Speaker 4: is a little problematic as far as for how the
Speaker 4: plot develops.
Speaker 3: I was very grateful for the scene It's Sophie and
Speaker 3: now I'm forgetting it, Louise, where they and Sophie really
Speaker 3: does show a lot of in a way reflection about
Speaker 3: the situation and just like relationships and how you can't
Speaker 3: really please mend this way or that way, and really
Speaker 3: has this clear eyed because she is actually quite clear
Speaker 3: eyed the whole way through a very interesting mix because
Speaker 3: she knows what's going on, but she also is in
Speaker 3: this pretend world at the same time. So it's very.
Speaker 4: Intriguing when Jeremy pulls her onto the case and she
Speaker 4: just gets that look of here we go again. She
Speaker 4: knows she's been down this road unfortunately before, and so
Speaker 4: it's with a life like that, and it's stated that
Speaker 4: she's on the doll and she's got nothing going on,
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden, you have this person
Speaker 4: come in and you're speaking with them and sharing an
Speaker 4: afternoon with them and feeling like maybe I have more
Speaker 4: than two brain cells to contribute to a conversation. Finally again,
Speaker 4: and she's just built it up. This is what it's
Speaker 4: all been for. Now I've got him.
Speaker 2: She gives it to Johnny as well as he gives
Speaker 2: it to her, as far as the philosophy and the
Speaker 2: quick wit and all of that, which is surprising because
Speaker 2: I think there's something that as Americans we probably missed
Speaker 2: in this film, which is the voices and the class
Speaker 2: distinctions and what the accents mean. Because obviously Jeremy is
Speaker 2: very posh and he has that accent, and we can
Speaker 2: tell that even as Americans. But what does a man
Speaker 2: Cunion accent bring to us? What does the way that
Speaker 2: Sophie talks like, what does that tell us? What's the
Speaker 2: way that Brian talks like? Everybody has their little thing.
Speaker 2: We've got a lot about Scottish people and Irish people.
Speaker 2: We've got ewen Bremer and I can't remember the name
Speaker 2: of the actress that plays Maggie, but that whole thing
Speaker 2: about them being Scott's is a big deal in this
Speaker 2: and all of these displaced people inside of London, this
Speaker 2: melting pot of all these different I guess London is
Speaker 2: probably not a melting pot, especially with all of the
Speaker 2: things that have been going on in England lately. We
Speaker 2: don't like the outsiders, but we're okay with ourselves. But
Speaker 2: yet there's the class distinctions between all of these different
Speaker 2: strata of accents and people. I am curious if the
Speaker 2: way Sophie talks in a very distinct way, and that's
Speaker 2: one of the things I really like about that actress.
Speaker 2: I'd recognize her voice more than I recognize her as
Speaker 2: a body. Just to hear that voice, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I've seen her before, I know this person. And I'm
Speaker 2: curious as far what her accent brings to the table,
Speaker 2: as far as what her class is and what her
Speaker 2: background is.
Speaker 4: That's a good question. I certainly wouldn't consider it an
Speaker 4: upper level accent or even middle class. And that's funny too,
Speaker 4: because like outside of Jeremy, pretty much everybody's really like
Speaker 4: if you're going to say anybody's even middle class in
Speaker 4: this like the security guards like the closest shot you've
Speaker 4: got to that, and I wouldn't even say that he's
Speaker 4: probably all that affluent. But so you've got all these
Speaker 4: people who are on the dole, who are working stiffs,
Speaker 4: but all are showing greater intellect, then you would necessarily
Speaker 4: expect if you just say somebody's lower class. And I
Speaker 4: think that's I really like that actually about this film,
Speaker 4: because it's you can't judge somebody's mental abilities based off
Speaker 4: of their social stratu.
Speaker 3: Michael himself grew up in Manchester and he was middle
Speaker 3: class when he was all surrounded by working class people.
Speaker 3: So he went to school with working class kit Ken's
Speaker 3: he knows this world very well, so I never feel
Speaker 3: like he's.
Speaker 2: Talking down And I don't know what this means other
Speaker 2: than there's a lot of stairs in England, but this
Speaker 2: movie's filled with stairs. There are stairs everywhere, so much
Speaker 2: of the everything that's shot at the apartment, I would
Speaker 2: say probably a third of it takes place on a stairwell.
Speaker 2: And then you get over to Brian, and Brian's my
Speaker 2: second favorite part of this film, or the second biggest memory,
Speaker 2: I should say, because the hair whipping is not a
Speaker 2: favorite part, but that was burning my brain. The other
Speaker 2: stuff was just the entire Brian scene. And with that,
Speaker 2: I love how they start while he's on his little stairwell.
Speaker 2: When they meet, he's sitting outside on the stoop, and
Speaker 2: so much of their big conversation starts in a stairwell
Speaker 2: ends in a starewell. And I don't know exactly what
Speaker 2: all of that is, but just if you watch this
Speaker 2: movie with stares in mind, you're going to see him
Speaker 2: like crazy. Between that and the other thing I picked
Speaker 2: up on a lot was alliteration. There's so much alliteration
Speaker 2: in this and I think that helps with the way
Speaker 2: that Johnny could just speak these lines and speak them
Speaker 2: so quickly, and he just latches onto a consonant sound
Speaker 2: and just like starts hitting it over and over again,
Speaker 2: and it's almost like poetry at ryan'sn No, it's almost
Speaker 2: like poetry the way that he speaks, which is wonderful
Speaker 2: to hear. And that's one reason why I can tolerate
Speaker 2: Johnny a lot more than I think I could Otherwise
Speaker 2: if he wasn't as well spoken as he is, I
Speaker 2: would just be like, get away from this county now,
Speaker 2: he's awful.
Speaker 4: That's really the dialogue is what keeps you riveted throughout it.
Speaker 4: Like it's not it's not the events even necessarily that
Speaker 4: are happening, it's how they're how the dialogue that happens
Speaker 4: in the course the events, that's what makes everything. That's
Speaker 4: what makes you want to continue to watch it. Because
Speaker 4: if it wasn't there and you were just watching these
Speaker 4: events unfold without that kind of banter going on, without
Speaker 4: those rants, you would shut it off. Let's face it,
Speaker 4: it just wouldn't. You would be like, I don't want
Speaker 4: to watch this. So it's the dialogue and the rants
Speaker 4: that just help keep you fixed on this film throughout
Speaker 4: even but it's two hour and ten minute timeline.
Speaker 3: I think that's quite the moment in all of his films.
Speaker 3: The dialogue is what you're there for, really, like just
Speaker 3: interaction with the people and how they express themselves and
Speaker 3: are able to really seness what they're about just by talking,
Speaker 3: because we don't see a lot of interior, so it's
Speaker 3: really just how they talk to each other, and.
Speaker 4: If there is an interior, there's a stare.
Speaker 2: And the way that he talks with Uhin Bremer. He's
Speaker 2: talking and Bremer is just not getting it. He is
Speaker 2: not hearing him because he's just monologuing and telling these
Speaker 2: stories and just giving all these quips and doing all
Speaker 2: this stuff while Bremer is there looking for Maggie, and
Speaker 2: Bremer is just like, who is this weird guy? And
Speaker 2: he eventually starts to tag along. I wrote in my
Speaker 2: note at one point that Johnny is like a dark
Speaker 2: shadow the way that he follows people along, because he's
Speaker 2: following w. Bremer's character. He's following Brian throughout the building,
Speaker 2: He's following the waitress as she goes home. He's just
Speaker 2: I don't want to say he's a puppy, because he's not.
Speaker 2: He's to me he's that dark shadow, and I think
Speaker 2: Jeremy's the shadow version of Johnny, but he's the dark version.
Speaker 2: Johnny is a dark presence, and he's I don't want
Speaker 2: to use the N word. I don't want to say
Speaker 2: that he's nihilistic, but I think that's as close to
Speaker 2: Brian gets pretty darn close to call him a nihilist.
Speaker 2: And I think that there are a lot of nihilistic
Speaker 2: aspects of Johnny, but I think more than anything, he's
Speaker 2: obsessed with the apocalypse, and he will use things like Nostrodamus,
Speaker 2: like Book of Revelation, spinning all of these things together
Speaker 2: to try to come up with this very apocalyptic vision
Speaker 2: of the world and that everything is going to end.
Speaker 2: No matter what he's talking about, he seems to lean
Speaker 2: towards that and just bring things to the bad. Even
Speaker 2: when he's talking about the butterfly theory and chaos theory
Speaker 2: and the butterfly effect, it's always something happens here and
Speaker 2: then something bad happens over there.
Speaker 4: Interesting you bring up the whole nihilistic aspect of this,
Speaker 4: because the one thing that I've done some of my
Speaker 4: viewings of this movie is just playing Devil's advocate and saying,
Speaker 4: what if Johnny's dying? What if all of this is
Speaker 4: so much of his motivation and so much of his
Speaker 4: reaction is because he's actually dying. He gets that coughing
Speaker 4: jag when he's reading the chaos theory, which of course
Speaker 4: lends itself to the butterfly flapped its wings somewhere comment.
Speaker 4: Also when he's with the woman from the window, you
Speaker 4: don't want to fuck me or you're going to catch
Speaker 4: something cruel, and like his reaction even to seeing the
Speaker 4: skull and crossbones on her shoulder, like it's taken aback
Speaker 4: by that. Who's this? How dare you remind me again
Speaker 4: that I'm not in control and that I'm going to die,
Speaker 4: And I'm just like, I'm sorry, I have to like
Speaker 4: this whole notion. I just I follow it sometimes and
Speaker 4: thinking is this where this misogyny is coming from? Is
Speaker 4: he like, is he pissed off that he was born
Speaker 4: and that he's just like hate fucking anybody with a
Speaker 4: womb because he's pissed off that he's born and he's dying.
Speaker 4: And then you get to that scene where he's on
Speaker 4: the stairs and he's freaking out and Jeremy comes out
Speaker 4: and Johnny's got this glaze in his eyes. Well he's
Speaker 4: not seeing reality as it is and reaching out to
Speaker 4: Jeremy and saying things like, why not, my brother? Is
Speaker 4: it going to be quiet now? I'm still wet yet
Speaker 4: almost sounds like somebody who's seeing Jeremy and thinking, is
Speaker 4: this the angel who's come to take me? And then
Speaker 4: when he reaches out to him and he pulls back,
Speaker 4: and it's just jolted back into this reality and even
Speaker 4: to the point of the ending of this film where
Speaker 4: it's like he seems like he's going to be going
Speaker 4: back with Louise and maybe there's a happy ending after
Speaker 4: all and all this craziness, but instead he scoops the
Speaker 4: money and just goes down the street. Is that because
Speaker 4: he doesn't want Maybe this is a moment of kindness
Speaker 4: to her, saving her from what he might be going through.
Speaker 4: And it would also explain why he's constantly absorbing information
Speaker 4: and trying to find out what's it all about?
Speaker 1: And then he.
Speaker 4: Loses his books and as soon as he says, it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter how many books you read, there's just some
Speaker 4: things you're never ever gonna understand, And then pretty much
Speaker 4: the next with him in it, he loses lose books,
Speaker 4: he's losing his ability to try and understand through the
Speaker 4: written word. But because of this crazy series of events
Speaker 4: that he's gone through, maybe he's trying to find meaning
Speaker 4: an understanding by continuing this journey at the end outside
Speaker 4: of books and through experience. Is an interaction just something
Speaker 4: that I've come to look at and just be know, like,
Speaker 4: what if this is not such a simple thing of
Speaker 4: just persecute's just an absolute bastard. Maybe there's some sort
Speaker 4: of subtext underneath of all this which is controlling him.
Speaker 2: I really like what you're saying there, especially because one
Speaker 2: of the early scenes of Johnny, when he's going up
Speaker 2: the stairs in order to see I think Sophie, he
Speaker 2: starts to walk up and he almost falls down and
Speaker 2: he's just like, oh, bloody hell, and then he moves
Speaker 2: back up the stairs. I'm like, Oh, that was weird.
Speaker 2: That was an odd thing to happen, And why even
Speaker 2: keep that in the movie other than that fitting with
Speaker 2: your theory? And I really like that.
Speaker 4: I see that is just he's just chilling. God. I
Speaker 4: can't believe I'm going to have to go through this.
Speaker 4: I slept with her once or I can't believe that
Speaker 4: I've got to go and suffer checking out this room
Speaker 4: so that I have someplace to be right now kind
Speaker 4: of things. And then he goes up and he's just
Speaker 4: croll and gets out of there and goes right on
Speaker 4: back down again.
Speaker 3: I really like this theory. I think when you say
Speaker 3: he's doing kindness to Louise, like he's doing kindness either way,
Speaker 3: whether he's dying, Mark just get away from me, so
Speaker 3: it makes sense what you're saying. I just feel like
Speaker 3: he has this relentlessness about Usually people who are so
Speaker 3: witty and educated, they want a reaction like they're they're
Speaker 3: also to be impressed by me, and this guy doesn't care.
Speaker 3: He just does the He's the same with everyone, and
Speaker 3: that's quite fascinating. What is this urge? He wants to
Speaker 3: shake people up and don't you see things the way
Speaker 3: I do? But also he doesn't actually want to connect
Speaker 3: with people, so it's just like push and pull thing
Speaker 3: the whole time. It's really he's quite an enigma.
Speaker 4: It's really quite sad too. You're talking about like how
Speaker 4: a lot of times he's just talking at people, just
Speaker 4: he was talking at Archie. All of it's going over
Speaker 4: his head. Times he talks to Sophie and be like,
Speaker 4: did you get that, And she'll be like, of course
Speaker 4: I got it, but you don't really get it because
Speaker 4: you're not really listening. So he just pretty much during
Speaker 4: most of the film just talks at people.
Speaker 2: Oh God, like the guy hanging the posters. That guy
Speaker 2: barely says a word and is so tired of hearing
Speaker 2: Johnny that he eventually just kicks his ass.
Speaker 4: But the one person he does have a dialogue with
Speaker 4: is Brian, and it's again sad that it's like the
Speaker 4: only time he has a dialogue with somebody, it's with
Speaker 4: another man instead of with woman. Really, but I'm also
Speaker 4: wondering whether it's because he saw a bit of himself
Speaker 4: and Brian in the fact of here's this guy and
Speaker 4: he's got this stack of books. Maybe he's trying to
Speaker 4: find answers to thing. But once Brian starts talking about
Speaker 4: the future, his gleeful occupation with the future, then it's
Speaker 4: just no glove's off. I'm gonna knock you down and
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you how there is no future,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to not let you ever think that
Speaker 4: positively ever again, and which then you get the next
Speaker 4: day when they're in that cafe and Brian says, don't
Speaker 4: waste your life, and he's like, what he almost took
Speaker 4: that as an insult, it seems, and again that kind
Speaker 4: of makes me heel like I don't have a life.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to have you now. Whether that's just
Speaker 4: his apocalyptic view or whether there's an actual medical thing
Speaker 4: going on with them, that's all to interpretation.
Speaker 2: Of course, that thing with Brian, so Brian. The stuff
Speaker 2: with Brian I absolutely love. Like I said, that could
Speaker 2: be a movie. Unto itself, is just these two guys
Speaker 2: doing the back and forth and sharing their philosophies, and
Speaker 2: it feels like there's almost a moment for people when
Speaker 2: we meet them to share their philosophy. Things like Jeremy
Speaker 2: talking about how he's going to commit suicide when he's forty,
Speaker 2: if he's still alive when he's forty, he's going to
Speaker 2: commit suicide because he doesn't want to get old. He
Speaker 2: doesn't want to be in that future, the future that
Speaker 2: Brian keeps talking about, and then Brian just being obsessed
Speaker 2: with that, and then Brian also wanting to be alone,
Speaker 2: like this whole idea of him being secluded in this
Speaker 2: massive office building where he's guarding the space. And I
Speaker 2: love that whole thing about what happens if they come
Speaker 2: in and steal the space, You're out of a job.
Speaker 2: And the way that he has to go around and
Speaker 2: record his movements inside of the building with that little device,
Speaker 2: and how he calls that device's boss, and just that
Speaker 2: he is on a regulated schedule. He has to go
Speaker 2: around twenty three times every hour and swipe these things
Speaker 2: in order to keep that job, in order to show
Speaker 2: that he was a certain place at a certain time
Speaker 2: and have it recorded for all history. And just I
Speaker 2: love that he has this whole thing with living in
Speaker 2: that future. He wants to move away and go to
Speaker 2: that isolated cabin that's right on the side of the sea,
Speaker 2: looks like something out of Emily Bronte or something. And
Speaker 2: then how he we've got that one round window in
Speaker 2: the building, and the way that he walks to that
Speaker 2: round window with Johnny in tow following him like his
Speaker 2: little dark shadow, gets to that window, and then we
Speaker 2: see what he's looking at and that he It's very
Speaker 2: It's funny. There's a couple of Hitchcock references in this movie.
Speaker 2: There's one about don't dress up like your mother and
Speaker 2: stab me in the shower that happens with the waitress.
Speaker 2: But then there's the whole thing of rear window, and
Speaker 2: Johnny does basically that Grace Kelly thing by breaking the
Speaker 2: voyeurism and going from the building over across the street
Speaker 2: and actually meeting the woman in the window that seems
Speaker 2: to be obsessing Brian. And that's a real violation for me.
Speaker 2: The way that he now suddenly becomes the object of
Speaker 2: Brian's gaze. Does he know that Brian's watching? At one point, yes,
Speaker 2: he very much confirms that Brian is watching. And then
Speaker 2: it becomes the I need to put on a show
Speaker 2: for Brian, which is just a bizarro thing. And just
Speaker 2: the way that he interacts with that lady, and is
Speaker 2: it tender she's drunk off her ass. He knows that
Speaker 2: he's drunk, she's drunk off her ass. He's going to
Speaker 2: try to be kind, but then he ends up with
Speaker 2: the whole hair pulling thing and then the insult. She's
Speaker 2: trying to make herself look attracted to him, and he
Speaker 2: wants nothing to do with her other than to just
Speaker 2: tear her down.
Speaker 4: For sure, Absolutely no reason you have to wonder about that,
Speaker 4: like why the different reactions to the different characters. Why
Speaker 4: is it that this woman he just immediately is cruel
Speaker 4: to whereas the waitress he's showing tenderness too. Is it
Speaker 4: because that waitress is more attractive to him? Is that
Speaker 4: he feels like he had some sort of bait and
Speaker 4: switch situation with looking through the window and he's upset
Speaker 4: about that. He seems to genuinely like Sophie at first,
Speaker 4: but then as soon as she becomes too clingy that
Speaker 4: he's still he got buyer's remorse on this one now,
Speaker 4: and then that's when he starts to be cruel to her,
Speaker 4: and of course poor Luise who just wrote him a postcard.
Speaker 4: He's just cruel to out until he gets the shit
Speaker 4: kicked down. You really have to wonder what for him
Speaker 4: is I'm going to be civil or I'm going to
Speaker 4: be nasty, because he never really is nasty to Maggie,
Speaker 4: never mean to her. If anything, he takes care of.
Speaker 3: Her neighbor or character. He tells her that he does
Speaker 3: not read, which is obviously I can't really believe that.
Speaker 3: And then with the litltrice, he is very much talking
Speaker 3: about his literature and his what he knows and when
Speaker 3: he doesn't know, and so he feels more like he
Speaker 3: can be himself and we or feels more comfortable maybe
Speaker 3: in this more glamorous setting with all these books and
Speaker 3: nice art and sculptures, and I feel he's able to
Speaker 3: show different sides depending on as obviously who he is
Speaker 3: with and with Maggie even felt something a bit like
Speaker 3: paternal there, which is very weird, because she's like a
Speaker 3: maybe soon to be homeless youth or a homeless youth.
Speaker 3: And that's what I was gonna ask you too as well.
Speaker 3: Why is he so nice to certain people?
Speaker 4: Do you think the one thing I can't help but
Speaker 4: make comparison. I'm not the first one who've done this, obviously,
Speaker 4: but I see that there's a kindred spirit between Johnny
Speaker 4: and look Back in Anger and the main character from that,
Speaker 4: and how they go on these rants and can be
Speaker 4: just viciously cruel and within look Back and Angry, It's
Speaker 4: always been a matter of class. His wife comes from
Speaker 4: a higher class family, but he's constantly cruel to her.
Speaker 3: Still.
Speaker 4: It was a great victory for him to steal a
Speaker 4: woman from the upper class, but at the same time,
Speaker 4: she's never completely come to his level. He's biting and
Speaker 4: cruel to her, where he's got this buddy who comes
Speaker 4: over and reads newspapers with them all through the day.
Speaker 4: But he's Welsh, He's okay, I can be kinder to him.
Speaker 4: He's my buddy. And I wonder if there's a little
Speaker 4: bit of that with Johnny as well, where it's like
Speaker 4: sometimes these people that he's feeling more kindred towards somebody
Speaker 4: like Maggie because this is somebody who just doesn't have
Speaker 4: a shot, and I'm gonna shield her, I'm going to
Speaker 4: take care of her other people. I feel like he
Speaker 4: saw the woman in the window, this is on you.
Speaker 4: You screwed up your life on it. And so I
Speaker 4: don't have any pity s because she's drinking and she's
Speaker 4: in a place where she doesn't even know that there
Speaker 4: is a map of Ireland on the wall. So it's
Speaker 4: obviously this is all your fault. You brought this arms,
Speaker 4: Whereas I don't think he necessarily feels that same way
Speaker 4: about Maggie, And I think he's just got this weird
Speaker 4: way of interacting with people, and it's based off of
Speaker 4: his first impressions with them. And a lot of times
Speaker 4: he will change his attitude towards them as is impressional
Speaker 4: and changes too. That definitely seems to happen quite a
Speaker 4: bit as well.
Speaker 2: This whole idea of the might Lee method and how
Speaker 2: these characters come into existence is fascinating for me too,
Speaker 2: especially because whenever I interview an actor, I'm just like,
Speaker 2: how do you get into this character? How do you
Speaker 2: find this character? Is it all just on the page?
Speaker 2: What do you bring to the party. And some actors,
Speaker 2: of course, will do the whole thing of I've written
Speaker 2: a backstory about this character. I want to know everything
Speaker 2: that happened before we got to the movie. And this
Speaker 2: Mike Lee stuff, it really feels like all of these
Speaker 2: characters have been thought through to the nth degree that
Speaker 2: we would know if I talked with the gentleman that
Speaker 2: played Brian, that he would tell me, oh, Brian grew
Speaker 2: up here and he had this, and his wife divorced
Speaker 2: him because of this, that and the other thing, and
Speaker 2: just like, give me the entire life of Sorry for
Speaker 2: the pund in the life of Brian, but just give
Speaker 2: me all of that stuff. So even when it comes
Speaker 2: to the woman across the way and that map of
Speaker 2: Ireland on the audio commentary, they're like, oh, she is
Speaker 2: living in a flat that used to be occupied by
Speaker 2: a couple of IRA people, and it's like, oh okay,
Speaker 2: like we know they know all of these things about
Speaker 2: all of them, Like they probably know what business Brian
Speaker 2: is protecting from that postmodernist gas chamber that they're talking about.
Speaker 2: There's so much to this, So when things don't add up,
Speaker 2: like with some of the stuff that I was talking
Speaker 2: about with, I don't buy that reaction type of thing.
Speaker 2: That's what makes a little bit more disappointing. But what
Speaker 2: makes us such a rich story, and what I think
Speaker 2: makes all of these Mike leevefilms so rich, which now
Speaker 2: I need to watch more of them, is that these
Speaker 2: characters are so well thought through and so well crafted,
Speaker 2: and that we do get those little things like oh,
Speaker 2: this apartment happened to be this beforehand, which then plays
Speaker 2: into the troubles in place to this whole idea of
Speaker 2: people from outside of London and what are these guys
Speaker 2: doing here. They're plotting things against the government to do
Speaker 2: some terrorist acts, which in ninety three that was still
Speaker 2: definitely going on. The thing too with the woman across
Speaker 2: the way is fascinating with you were talking about the
Speaker 2: death head tattoo, and that's when it feels like the
Speaker 2: worm turns and suddenly he goes from trying to have
Speaker 2: sex with her to oh, keep away from me, you
Speaker 2: are a bad omen type thing. And then once he do,
Speaker 2: he fucking steals her books. I think it's the only
Speaker 2: time he steals something other than the money at the end,
Speaker 2: but definitely showing his lack of moral fiber, but that
Speaker 2: he steals her fucking books. And she says, that's my
Speaker 2: favorite book. I've read it so many times, and he
Speaker 2: takes it. It's what a fucking bastard. Well, he stole
Speaker 2: a car, that's true. That's true. And let's not forget
Speaker 2: the rapes, the three big crimes of naked, the car,
Speaker 2: the books, and then the money at the end. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of rape, a lot of fucking rape in here.
Speaker 2: When he's banging Sophie's head against the arm of the couch,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, what is your fucking problem, dude?
Speaker 4: That one almost is more troubling to me than Jeremy
Speaker 4: when he rapes Sophie, because it's just like you could
Speaker 4: just be breaking the personall open. The way you're doing this,
Speaker 4: It's like that one hits me harder just because I'm like,
Speaker 4: this is crazy how you're doing this right now. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of rough scenes in this movie, there's no
Speaker 4: doubt about that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's nineteen ninety three, this is before the era
Speaker 2: of tattoos really has taken off. So these two female
Speaker 2: characters have tattoos between the woman in the window and
Speaker 2: then Sophie, and both Johnny and Jeremy call out that
Speaker 2: tattoo on Sophie's arm as well, what is this your
Speaker 2: tribal initiation? Or she says it's a tribal initiation because
Speaker 2: like I said, she can give it to Johnny as
Speaker 2: much as he gives. And then later on when Jeremy's
Speaker 2: oh did you tattoo hurt good? He's such a piece
Speaker 2: of shit, Jeremy man, oh man, what an amazing performance
Speaker 2: to be able to make me hate someone who's a
Speaker 2: fictional character so much.
Speaker 4: We never ever see Jeremy get his come upons at all.
Speaker 4: He just drives off into another thing. And whereas with
Speaker 4: Johnny it's and it just seems like there's always this
Speaker 4: fatalistic thread throughout the whole thing. And cause and effect
Speaker 4: and almost like an examination of determinism, and even so
Speaker 4: much so that Johnny came to London because he thought
Speaker 4: he was going to get a beating, and so he
Speaker 4: comes to London to avoid a beating. What happens, he
Speaker 4: gets a beating, and it's just so it's he can't
Speaker 4: escape this fate.
Speaker 3: That's it. Quite a random beating, totally beating someone he pissed.
Speaker 2: Off, just random group of kids, just beat the shit
Speaker 2: out of them. Seriously, Amy, it's what you're beat Nick
Speaker 2: friends call karma. The way that he comes to London
Speaker 2: just to catch that beating that he was going to
Speaker 2: get in Manchester, that there is that follow through that
Speaker 2: he does see this as almost a cosmic punishment and
Speaker 2: it's well deserved. And him running away at the end,
Speaker 2: or hopping or limping however you want to put that
Speaker 2: away from the apartment where so much of this has
Speaker 2: taken place, and or row House, i should say, and
Speaker 2: just the beautiful sunrise that's going on, and him limping
Speaker 2: down the middle of the street, just trying to run
Speaker 2: away as quickly as he can from everything, because there's
Speaker 2: no reason why he's running. It's not like Louise is
Speaker 2: going to chase after him for this money. He just
Speaker 2: gets up and takes it and should be able to
Speaker 2: slowly limp his way around, but instead we have almost
Speaker 2: the it's almost a triumphant shot, but it's not because
Speaker 2: he has had the shit kicked out of him, and
Speaker 2: just the way that he's limping along and the way
Speaker 2: that his ankle looks in this movie. Holy Kyle, whoever
Speaker 2: did the prosthetics on that good job, because that's disgusting.
Speaker 4: But once again, this is the classest to me. But
Speaker 4: it's just once again the rich fucker gets away, which
Speaker 4: everything has no come up in it all. Johnny, he's
Speaker 4: lower class, so you know he's going to get the
Speaker 4: shit kicked down. As rough of a movie as this is,
Speaker 4: it's always been like ever since I've seen it, it's
Speaker 4: always been within my top ten, just because the performance
Speaker 4: is amazing and I really just find it riveting, and
Speaker 4: so many of the scenes are just shot so well,
Speaker 4: and even the score that just the cello in that harp,
Speaker 4: not since the Marx Brothers has a heart been used
Speaker 4: so well in film. It's just amazing. It just has
Speaker 4: so many great elements. But I've never seen it on
Speaker 4: the big screen, and the time when it was coming
Speaker 4: around on a revival at my local movie theater two
Speaker 4: weeks before that, I broke my gulp and so I
Speaker 4: was sadly no, at least that would have been a
Speaker 4: better story. So it was just like, that's a little
Speaker 4: ironic that this movie that I've never seen on the
Speaker 4: big screen, which has been was something that I used
Speaker 4: to make an annual viewing of. I finally get the
Speaker 4: chance to see it on the big screen, and I
Speaker 4: can't do it because I've broken my ankle.
Speaker 3: So would you say, Jen your favorite? Mike Lee Chung, Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Yes, definitely. I think I'd seen Life as Sweet before,
Speaker 4: and so when this film was recommended to me, I
Speaker 4: was dubious because I didn't think that film necessarily would
Speaker 4: be my kind of like it wasn't exactly my kindest film.
Speaker 4: But then, of course, after I watched this one, then
Speaker 4: I started delving into a little bit of the back catalog,
Speaker 4: and it is such a radically different film than see
Speaker 4: every single other film that He's ever doe, And honestly,
Speaker 4: to me, that's probably why it's my favorite. All these
Speaker 4: other films at least have some note of optimism at
Speaker 4: the end, whereas this one gatting back to your feel
Speaker 4: bad movie. You get to that last scene and he's
Speaker 4: hobbling down the street and he's just framed by that
Speaker 4: street and you see the house behind and he's just
Speaker 4: limping along and the camera's getting further and further away
Speaker 4: from him because he can't keep up. And then you
Speaker 4: get to that final chord and it just cuts to
Speaker 4: black and you just feel like, Ah, what's going to
Speaker 4: happen next? There's no resolution, makes you keep thinking about
Speaker 4: it afterwards too. There is no resolution to this at
Speaker 4: all for any of these care except for maybe Sounder.
Speaker 4: She's had her bath and she's tied in the house
Speaker 4: and she'll go back to work as Immerse. It's everything's
Speaker 4: just so open ended, but it and it leaves you
Speaker 4: just with so much to digest. There's so much that
Speaker 4: happens in such limited period, and a lot of it's
Speaker 4: very miseral and very rough. It just it's not something
Speaker 4: that's going to leave you quickly.
Speaker 3: This variation, this one unique one off, and also the
Speaker 3: rest of his bis Law ENSEMBLEI shells too. But I
Speaker 3: guess if you watch this first in a way, you
Speaker 3: have this really different idea of what to expect from
Speaker 3: the rest of the films.
Speaker 2: This movie, even though I've only seen it two three times,
Speaker 2: this movie always tricks me because we have We've got Jeremy,
Speaker 2: who's just this uncontrollable force of nature, and he's just
Speaker 2: snoozing in their bedroom. It's basically like they've got a
Speaker 2: tiger in their house and he's the tiger. And Louise
Speaker 2: and Sophie go out to the pub and it's a
Speaker 2: wonderful scene of those two talking and talking about some
Speaker 2: of their past romances and things that have happened to them,
Speaker 2: and finally it feels like Louise is giving some of
Speaker 2: the sympathy to Sophie that she needs. Because when Louise
Speaker 2: comes in and doesn't know that Sophie has been raped,
Speaker 2: it is one of the worst things ever because she
Speaker 2: just starts to lay in on Sophie and you're just like,
Speaker 2: for fuck's sakes, Louise, she just had the most horrible
Speaker 2: day that she'll ever have and she just comes in
Speaker 2: and starts picking on her. Once they get through that,
Speaker 2: once they get to the pub, you've still got Jeremy
Speaker 2: back at the place and they're like, do you think
Speaker 2: he's gone. Now we're not sure. And then you see
Speaker 2: Johnny coming and I'm just like, oh, okay, great, Johnny's
Speaker 2: going to walk into the house or go back to
Speaker 2: the house while Jeremy's there, and We're going to have
Speaker 2: the biggest rout in the world. But that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: He gets shit kicked out of him.
Speaker 4: Like we said.
Speaker 2: The next time we see me falls into the door,
Speaker 2: and we still have Jeremy in that house, we still
Speaker 2: have the tiger in the bedroom. But nothing like that happens.
Speaker 2: There is no big final confrontation Johnny and Jeremy, Like
Speaker 2: you said, there's that whole thing where he mistakes Jeremy
Speaker 2: for somebody else and is just hallucinating through all of this.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's the interaction that we get. We don't
Speaker 2: get them having a conversation like of the two people
Speaker 2: in the entire movie, where I'm just like, I'm very
Speaker 2: curious what these two people would interact like. It's a
Speaker 2: very different situation than what I was expecting.
Speaker 4: At least. The one little aspect of cold comfort with
Speaker 4: Jeremy is when Louise plays him at his own game
Speaker 4: and just feeds into his narcissism and then grabs the
Speaker 4: and she'll like, what you don't want me to cut
Speaker 4: your prick off? And then as he's leaving the room,
Speaker 4: calling him a maggot dick, and just like the look
Speaker 4: on his face, it's like, for one brief second, he's
Speaker 4: been taken down a moment. It's just going to feed
Speaker 4: into his misogyny and make him probably even worse, but
Speaker 4: at least for like that one second, he saw how
Speaker 4: other people see it, and it's fitting.
Speaker 3: Did they take care of it rather than Johnny in
Speaker 3: a sense.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, thank goodness that they're the ones that take
Speaker 2: care of it. Though he just eventually leaves, it's not
Speaker 2: like he had to. He could stay there forever.
Speaker 4: I think I think Sondra is the one that really
Speaker 4: kicked him out. And again that's they had some different
Speaker 4: dynamic than he had with Sophie and Louise definitely.
Speaker 2: Undress in a rom com. The way that she comes
Speaker 2: in is just look at my place. Oh this is terrible.
Speaker 2: It's don't tell mom the babysitters dead type of thing.
Speaker 2: It's just what did you kids do to my place?
Speaker 2: Everything is a mess. I'm gonna have to clean the
Speaker 2: bathroom and now I'll clean the kitchen and she just
Speaker 2: becomes this cleaning machine and again doesn't understand what's going on.
Speaker 2: I just talked about the way that Louise reacts to Sophie,
Speaker 2: and now it's the way that Sondra acts when she
Speaker 2: comes in and she's just like, what kind of crazy
Speaker 2: antics have you guys been getting up to? Who's this
Speaker 2: strange man in my bed? I'm so upset because he's
Speaker 2: got his dirty boots on my bed, and I'm just like, Wow,
Speaker 2: you are not reading the room whatsoever. And it's almost
Speaker 2: funny the way she comes in and does that, and
Speaker 2: other times it's very frustrating. And it's just an interesting
Speaker 2: dynamic to have in this movie, this character who just
Speaker 2: drops in at the end, and she is the one
Speaker 2: that eventually solves the problem, not with violence, but just hey,
Speaker 2: get out of here type of thing. And it's her
Speaker 2: appearance in this movie is not something I was expecting.
Speaker 2: I didn't expect to see Sondra come back and to
Speaker 2: have her be this type of.
Speaker 4: Character completely by design as well. You've gone through so
Speaker 4: much rough stuff that you just needed something to break
Speaker 4: it up with a little bit of levity. And the
Speaker 4: fact that she can't finish a sentence and just and
Speaker 4: is a completely different character than anybody else that we've
Speaker 4: seen in this entire thing. Like she's the one person
Speaker 4: in this whole film who probably has a happy little
Speaker 4: life in a way. Everybody else has got their misery
Speaker 4: and their darkness. She's able to, you know, take time
Speaker 4: off of work and go on safaris to Africa, and
Speaker 4: you know, she has a professional job, and you know,
Speaker 4: she's the one person who probably can't relate to anybody
Speaker 4: else in this movie. I always want to say solemn drafts.
Speaker 3: Also, it's tiny that you observed this in a way
Speaker 3: because I read that Mike Lee wanted Claire Skinner the
Speaker 3: actress thing Sandra, so you wanted but she had another job,
Speaker 3: so you can really involve her the whole rehearsal process.
Speaker 3: That he left this space open, like he knew he
Speaker 3: wanted her to come back, and that's why he made
Speaker 3: this whole thing of her being on this troop. But
Speaker 3: then that's why in a way, there's this kind of
Speaker 3: amusing clash and it becomes a sort of farce. But
Speaker 3: it's funny that these styles also maybe are due to
Speaker 3: this kind of late addition to the whole process.
Speaker 2: Doesn't do Let's say, a line in Big Lebowski about
Speaker 2: Sandra's on holiday in Africa or something.
Speaker 6: It's Sandra, look, I have to take this.
Speaker 4: Do you still have that doctor's number?
Speaker 3: Oh? No, really it's and I've improog anymore.
Speaker 4: Oh please, Jeffrey, I don't want to be responsible for
Speaker 4: any delayed after effects.
Speaker 2: See another interesting thing that I found I was very
Speaker 2: purposeful when I watched this last where I paused the
Speaker 2: movie to see exactly when Johnny leaves their apartment versus
Speaker 2: when he comes back, And it's almost exactly at thirty
Speaker 2: minutes that he leaves, and almost exactly thirty minutes are
Speaker 2: left in the movie when he comes back. So it's
Speaker 2: interesting that we have this very distinct structure in a
Speaker 2: movie that is essentially a series of vignettes, but it
Speaker 2: is very carefully crafted. I appreciate that as well. We're
Speaker 2: talking all about this method and the way that Mike
Speaker 2: Lee does all these things, but yet he fits all
Speaker 2: of this into a very cinematic world and is able
Speaker 2: to make traditional ish movies out of the way that
Speaker 2: he has these characters interact and that he puts them
Speaker 2: in these situations where you can have very clean act
Speaker 2: breaks and say, okay, thirty minutes he leaves the house
Speaker 2: for that whole dark Knight of the Soul, and even
Speaker 2: within that there are little acts between the vignettes of
Speaker 2: him meeting with Maggie and Archie, and then we see
Speaker 2: him the next day in front of the subway and
Speaker 2: watching all of those people, and you get that real
Speaker 2: London feel.
Speaker 4: You get that.
Speaker 2: I get the feeling that a lot of this movie
Speaker 2: was probably stolen or maybe they had permits, but it
Speaker 2: feels a lot of it like it was just here
Speaker 2: we are, let's set up the camera, let's go. And
Speaker 2: I think they talk about that a little on the
Speaker 2: commentary too. As far as I want to say, it
Speaker 2: was Archie and Johnny got into a fight, and eventually
Speaker 2: Lee intervened, like the police recalled, and Lee came in
Speaker 2: and was just like, okay, you need to get out
Speaker 2: of character now, so that they wouldn't continue with this
Speaker 2: row that they were having in front of the public.
Speaker 4: That was actually during the improblemizational rehearsals that happened, because
Speaker 4: I think that I forget one of them had a
Speaker 4: screwdriver and was brandishing it on the other one or
Speaker 4: something that effect as well. But that that whole scene though,
Speaker 4: Like when they're on that street when Archie and Johnny
Speaker 4: initially meet, there weren't any extras. They didn't block off
Speaker 4: the street at all. Same thing for when he's standing
Speaker 4: outside of the underground. Those scenes were just normal people
Speaker 4: walking by. But then you have the scene where he's
Speaker 4: walking with Maggie underneath a bridge or wherever he's got
Speaker 4: the flaming trash can and the person with the dog.
Speaker 4: That was all very contell. I like that aspect. I
Speaker 4: always think that's funny, Like when you're watching old Monty
Speaker 4: Python flying circuses and they're obviously on the street, and
Speaker 4: these are people who are not extras, and they're just like,
Speaker 4: why is this person in this get up running down
Speaker 4: the street this way? You don't have that here obviously,
Speaker 4: but think about it, and you could be on some
Speaker 4: street in London and all of a sudden you just
Speaker 4: here see this guy just constantly screaming by, and then
Speaker 4: it's just gonna be like, little what was this guy's problem?
Speaker 4: That probably happens frequent enough that you just you have
Speaker 4: no idea that this is somebody acting right now, there's
Speaker 4: so much hacked in there, but I don't know where
Speaker 4: else you can go with that. You start picking out
Speaker 4: little bits of dialogue here and there, but really you
Speaker 4: can hash that out all day. One of the things
Speaker 4: that I of course now that it's not nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: three or even nineteen ninety six, now it's twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: and that whole apocalyptic thread of these constellations are going
Speaker 4: to align on August eighteenth, nineteen ninety nine. And this
Speaker 4: is good. The end of the world is not because
Speaker 4: of this. It's a shame that kind of it was
Speaker 4: something else to be watching when are you seeing it
Speaker 4: in the mid nineties and you're, oh, shit, is this
Speaker 4: really really? Yeah, I gotta look this. Does Wormwood really
Speaker 4: mean Chre Nobyle? I gotta look this up, because damn
Speaker 4: this is I don't know about that. And of course
Speaker 4: we've gone past that, but it aged itself that way,
Speaker 4: which is a little bit of a pity. But the
Speaker 4: performances are just still so solid throughout that you can
Speaker 4: still get so much out of it too. And again
Speaker 4: we've touched on it, but the scene between Brian and
Speaker 4: Johnny and just Johnny's full if he where he's not
Speaker 4: nihilistic in saying that the apocalypse by definition is that
Speaker 4: man will cease to exist as he is. But he's
Speaker 4: like trying to even be a little optimistic for a
Speaker 4: moment there. But then of course he gets Brian on
Speaker 4: the stairs and talks about that omelet that stinks because
Speaker 4: God hates you. There are so many lines that you
Speaker 4: could talk about, but really, anybody who's listening to this
Speaker 4: who hasn't seen the movie, those lines are the lights
Speaker 4: that you find by watching it.
Speaker 2: You could have a whole discussion just about the guy
Speaker 2: who's putting up the posters and where they start, where
Speaker 2: they end the Therapy posters, and that it's the band
Speaker 2: called Therapy is interesting. And then when he comes back
Speaker 2: by and somebody else has already plastered something over it,
Speaker 2: and then he plasters to canceled over what somebody plastered
Speaker 2: over his thing. It's just oh okay, And first off,
Speaker 2: Therapy is canceled maybe by just that they use Therapy
Speaker 2: as the Navy as the band, and I realized they're
Speaker 2: a real band. I recognized that album art and that
Speaker 2: was that was That was something I found very fascinating
Speaker 2: about London is the use of those posters and the
Speaker 2: way that those posters because people just come by and
Speaker 2: they post, and then they post again, and then the
Speaker 2: post again, and you're looking at inches. It's like an
Speaker 2: archaeological dig with all of these inches of posters that
Speaker 2: are just stuck there. They would do the same thing
Speaker 2: at the University of Michigan. There were these big concrete
Speaker 2: pillars where people would put up all of their posters
Speaker 2: and it would just get thicker and thicker. But their
Speaker 2: solution was to come along with flamethrowers and just burn
Speaker 2: them off. And I don't think that they're doing that
Speaker 2: in London.
Speaker 4: No, we don't need London's burning for real.
Speaker 2: But no, we've had that once already. We don't need
Speaker 2: it again.
Speaker 3: You're talking about and not being so apocalyptic anymore, not relevant.
Speaker 3: I do feel like watching it also now in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four. Of course it's not a popa publish this way,
Speaker 3: there is the sense of doom that is consistent, and
Speaker 3: watching it again this past few months, it does feel
Speaker 3: still quite relevant. Unfortunately, this way of trying to get
Speaker 3: people's attentions about certain things in our world. Wendy andess
Speaker 3: I wanted to mention just about starting this is way
Speaker 3: back the way the Shilip starts, but for merely watching
Speaker 3: being introduced to Johnny in this way, this very violent way,
Speaker 3: also creates this tension throughout the whole show. What are
Speaker 3: be capable of doing? So no matter who he's interacting with,
Speaker 3: I'm always feeling so tense. And obviously it's purposeful and
Speaker 3: there's a reason why, but I found it really and
Speaker 3: also just the way it's handheld, which Mike Lee actually
Speaker 3: never really does, so it really distinguishes like this is
Speaker 3: its own show. Mike Lee is going through something he
Speaker 3: wants to show a certain kind of world that he
Speaker 3: has not shown before, and he's really making it clear
Speaker 3: this is like nothing else I have done. You know,
Speaker 3: he started his career in the seventies or even the
Speaker 3: late sixties, so he's really been around for a long time.
Speaker 3: And this is also I guess the question is why
Speaker 3: was this like his breakout in a way? He won
Speaker 3: the con for Best Director, the con Prize and David
Speaker 3: Luiswan for Best Actor, and since then he's also won
Speaker 3: quite a few after that, but this really was his
Speaker 3: breakout film and I wonder why that is. Of course
Speaker 3: is exceptional, but I also personally think that his previous
Speaker 3: films like High Hopes and All the Life Is Sweet
Speaker 3: and Nuts in May, even like you know, waid Back When,
Speaker 3: are quite special as well. So it's interesting how it
Speaker 3: struck a chord also in that time that era.
Speaker 4: It definitely struck a chord because when it was made, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's very apparent. It's is funny you mentioned that the
Speaker 4: tension that Johnny brings within everywhere he goes. But yet
Speaker 4: he says to Archie, what's it like up in there?
Speaker 4: Bit hectic, and that it's just what should light being new?
Speaker 4: That just casting that shadow, like you're saying, like throughout
Speaker 4: every life that he touches, course in nature.
Speaker 2: This one was distributed by Fine Line here in the
Speaker 2: States back in ninety three, and I think one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why it hit so hard was because this
Speaker 2: was such the time of independent films here in the States,
Speaker 2: and it did get the art house circuit. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it got outside of that, but that was
Speaker 2: the time where we were seeing this is right around
Speaker 2: the time of Reservoir Dogs, a year before pulp fiction
Speaker 2: was coming out, and it's just like this golden era
Speaker 2: of independent filmmakers. And I think Mike Lee, if anything,
Speaker 2: is a very independent filmmaker, and I think that this
Speaker 2: hit at the exact right time for us to be
Speaker 2: talking about this movie still today. Even if it came
Speaker 2: out a few years earlier, a few years later, I
Speaker 2: don't know if it would have had the same impact
Speaker 2: that it did in nineteen ninety three. But I think
Speaker 2: just the stars, to Johnny's ploint, the stars were aligning
Speaker 2: with all of the things that were happening in our
Speaker 2: cinema as well as with just this movie itself too,
Speaker 2: And that is such a because, like I said, I
Speaker 2: take it back as far as not seeing any other
Speaker 2: Mike Lee, I think I started to watch Toxis Turvy.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I never made it all the
Speaker 2: way through that, but I was like, Oh, this is
Speaker 2: the same guy that did Naked.
Speaker 4: What the Fuck's I was reading an interview with Mike
Speaker 4: Lee that's in the forward of the scripture Naked, and like,
Speaker 4: at the time when he was making this movie, he
Speaker 4: was forty nine, so he's just about to turn fifty,
Speaker 4: and he had been making films since the sixties and
Speaker 4: the seventies, and even talks about the attitude that when
Speaker 4: I was a young adult in the sixties, we had
Speaker 4: all this optimism and we felt like by the time
Speaker 4: I would get to the point where I was fifty
Speaker 4: years old, we would all be living a lot better
Speaker 4: and the world would have changed for the better. And
Speaker 4: he said, instead, we got this, And that's where he
Speaker 4: projected himself into Johnny, that disappointment and that frustration of
Speaker 4: where the world has gone instead of where he thought
Speaker 4: it was going to go. So I think that's another
Speaker 4: reason why it just was that movie for him at
Speaker 4: that time, because he was at that point in his
Speaker 4: life versus where he had been as a younger man,
Speaker 4: and where the state of the world had gone, and
Speaker 4: how he was so disappointed when you just take that
Speaker 4: one line of the interview and then throw it against
Speaker 4: how Johnny acts and see where he's projected himself into
Speaker 4: Johnny as far as that just disappointment with humanity, and
Speaker 4: I think that's good of a place that I can
Speaker 4: sum up and finish this discussion as any All.
Speaker 2: Right, we're going to take a break and play a
Speaker 2: preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
Speaker 5: Okay, organist, that's your part in the book. A part,
Speaker 5: of course, is a good.
Speaker 1: To the ship police photo. If you'll come on.
Speaker 3: Record that's.
Speaker 2: Seen a vision.
Speaker 3: Supposed the represented, should be.
Speaker 2: Sure could make a mad but my little go on
Speaker 2: for thetibuty sham this ission.
Speaker 4: But just call down there list, just get a briefing
Speaker 4: inmit should.
Speaker 2: That's right, We are wrapping up Art House August with
Speaker 2: a look at Jean Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows. Until then,
Speaker 2: I want to think my co host Ellie and Nick. Nick,
Speaker 2: what's been keeping you busy lately?
Speaker 1: Sir?
Speaker 4: Actually I've begun to put a metaphorical pen to paper
Speaker 4: again and just finished a first chapter jil new book
Speaker 4: that I'm rather excited about because I was thinking did
Speaker 4: I have anything left to say? And it appears that
Speaker 4: maybe I have one last thing to write about, So
Speaker 4: I'm happy that's moving ash for me.
Speaker 2: Old man Nick, one last thing I have to say.
Speaker 2: You're not even sixty yet. Come on and Ellie, what's
Speaker 2: the latest with you?
Speaker 3: So I have my own film podcast call Somebody's Watching,
Speaker 3: which you can find on Instagram and Spottish Eye and
Speaker 3: anyplace else you listen to podcasts, And I also am
Speaker 3: the co director of the film festival called Final Girls
Speaker 3: Berlin's which is showcasing horror made by women and non
Speaker 3: binary filmmakers. Next year's our tenth edition, so pretty exciting,
Speaker 3: and submissions are open as anyone wants to submit a
Speaker 3: horror film or anything like that, very open to that.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much folks for being on the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody for listening. If you want to hear more
Speaker 2: of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of
Speaker 2: the other shows that I work on. The are all
Speaker 2: available at weirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community.
Speaker 2: If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot
Speaker 2: com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the
Speaker 2: Projection Booth take over the world.
Speaker 4: A I.
Speaker 1: Am at the top in a flame of bail had