Film critic Robert Daniels (RogerEbert.com, The New York Times) joins Michael Phillips to test one of Hollywood's most enduring bits of studio wisdom, attributed to producer Samuel Goldwyn: "Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union." From I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, High Noon, and The Best Years of Our Lives to Origin, Don't Look Up, and Triangle of Sadness, Michael and Robert discuss why some films are elevated by their ideas while others collapse under them, and whether the most effective message movies are the ones that never look like message movies at all. Join the conversation by emailing movieracket@filmspotting.net.
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello all, we're back at the Movie Racket here, and
here is wherever you are.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I'm here in Chicago, roughly equidistant from Wrigley Field to
the west and Lake Michigan to the east, and this
is Episode 7, the 7th In our series of podcasts
this season, we're calling it The Laws of Motion Pictures.
Each week, we take on an unofficial, non-binding rule of
what makes a good movie, or a wise-ass axiom about
(01:26):
how Hollywood and the film industry work, or maybe a
deeply held personal North Star for a great filmmaker. We
take those on and dissect them. This week's extraordinarily special
guest is Robert Daniels. He's Associate Editor at at the very,
very worthwhile RogerEbert.com. He's a film critic there and many
other places, including the New York Times, for which he
(01:48):
writes a regular column on action cinema, now streaming near you. Also,
Robert is a fiend on the International Film Festival circuit.
That's right, a fiend. Recently returned from Locarno in Switzerland.
So here's what we take on, cruelly but fairly, this week.
There's an oft-quoted nugget of wisdom behind or shrewd business model, both, neither,
(02:11):
that you may have heard. It's attributed to Samuel Goldwyn
of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and while the wording changes depending on who's
recounting this quote, it's something like this. Movies are for entertainment.
Messages should be delivered by Western Union. Now, the history
is a little fuzzy on the origin story behind that quote,
(02:31):
but in a 1940 Pittsburgh press column by Aileen Wettstein,
The writer quoted an unnamed screenwriter who was recounting a
meeting that took place in Goldman's office. The subject of
that meeting was a gangster picture in pre-production. And when
someone proposed punching up the script of that film with
some material that dealt with things that were, you know, important, meaningful,
(02:56):
something in this case about labor's battle against capitalism, Goldwyn
said this in reply, Messages, messages. From Western Union, you
get messages. From me, you get pictures. The column's headline
that week was, If Goldwyn has a message, he'll keep
it on a telegram. Wettstein, by the way, went Hollywood
a few years later. She went West in the early 1940s,
(03:19):
talked her way into a writing job at Columbia Pictures,
got her name on some Three Stooges shorts, and then features,
including some of the Henry Aldrich movies. Those were based
on a popular radio show. And she wrote a feature
called Father Was a Fullback, starring Fred McMurray. And she
was a creator of the radio show A Date with Judy,
which was ultimately musicalized and filmed in 1948 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
(03:44):
So let's assume Goldwyn said it. Robert Daniels and I
assumed as much when we talked about what message movies
are exactly and which ones we think are basically sunk
by the weight of their own preachiness or didacticism. and
which films actually work every which way because they're effective
and maybe a little sneaky about dealing with something in
(04:07):
the air or on the minds of the screenwriters or
directors by creating stories and characters that aren't simply mouthpieces
for this social cause or that political party. So what
else can we say, really, at this point, except off
to the telegraph office. Let's go.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
¶ ¶.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Thank you for listening in once again. A lot of
these wise sayings we're looking at are completely full of it.
Some of them are full of sneaky bits of wisdom
inside the BS. And at the very least, it's a
very interesting kind of look back and also some interesting
information that does pertain to today and maybe a few
(04:52):
things to learn from for filmmakers in the future. If
Hollywood even has a future. So with that bit of
optimism out of the way, our guest, thanks, Robert Daniels,
for joining us today. Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk about
the grim future of Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well, let's not, you know, it's not all that way.
So this week's sort of axiom, Hollywood bit of lore
that we can kind of actually call a bit of
Hollywood history at this point, I think, is a saying
that was attributed to the film producer and studio head
Samuel Goldwyn, the middle component of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, also an independent
(05:31):
producer in many cases. And the phrase is simply, pictures
are for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union.
Is this a phrase, Robert, that you feel has any
validity to it or is it complete nonsense?
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Yeah, it's fascinating because message movies, when you asked me
about this initially, I was trying to think well, how
would I define a message movie? You know, message movies
almost kind of in the eye of the beholder, right?
Like some people, the message goes right over their head.
And sometimes it's incredibly obvious. It's other people. And so
(06:09):
whether they can be successful or not, I don't think
it's dependent upon the quality of the message, which we'll
get into. But I do think it's dependent upon the
quality of the filmmaking, the package that you put that
message in. And whether that message is obvious through the
dialogue or through the cinematography or the editing, what have you.
(06:29):
And so I do think message fixtures have the ability
to be high art and not just be seen as didactic,
you know, kind of drivel or award season fodder. Right, right, right.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
An improving motion picture, yes.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Yes, which is where we kind of... tend to see
these kind of movies kind of come to the forefront
is during award season when it's like there's this comedy
that did well but there's this really important picture emphasis
on important that just came on and we should really
push it to the forefront.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Right right it seems to me when i look back
at even if you just look at filmmaking from the
probable origin point of this quote 1940 we're past the
era of pre-production code filmmaking in the early 30s where
Filmmaking in Hollywood was just a lot wilder before they
started really cracking down on the production code. It was
also a lot more, in some ways, certainly adventurous, certainly nervy.
(07:26):
And you also had films, especially coming from Warner Brothers Studio,
really above all other studios, that were just absolutely determined
to dramatize the worst ills of the Depression and what
was going on in America right then, where other people
were taking other studios and certainly audiences were taking refuge
(07:49):
in making money off anything but fantasy. Even if that meant,
you know, everything from musicals to comedies to kind of
the birth of Screwball, all that. But if you look
at a movie like I Am a Fugitive from a
Chain Gang, Mervyn LeRoy's film, 1932, Paul Muni's playing just
a man on the run. And that did a lot
(08:11):
to just expose a penal system that was shocking. And
there were other films like that as well that confronted
audiences and gripped them too, because I would argue in
something like Chain Gang, which is a film I just
saw again recently. And I was kind of astounded at
(08:31):
this ending that it just leaves you with an incredible chill,
but continues the story when Paul Muni says his last line,
and then he sort of shoots off into the darkness
on the run again. And I thought, man, that works
every which way. And is it a message movie? Yeah, sure,
I guess. Other studios would not have probably touched that property.
(08:53):
It also made money. And so from a commercial point
of view, it was like, all right, well, preachy, maybe.
I don't know. But to me, that was an example
of a film where it didn't feel like it was
message forward and leaden. It was like alive and electric
and really deeply felt, too, I thought. So, I mean,
that was possible back then. And for me, that's a
(09:15):
movie that just plain works. That's a message movie that works.
And you could describe it as message forward or at
least socially aware, but it doesn't just settle for that.
Do you know what I mean? I mean, that's one
for me anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
I mean, message movies, as you point out, I mean,
really almost at the outset of movie making, right? Whether
it's like Lois Webber's Shoes in 1916 or King of
the Doors, The Crowd, 1928, I want to say. And
it continues through the 1930s. The 1930s, of course, is
probably the peak of the message movies. You start getting
stuff like, you know, Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington, which
(09:52):
is a very message-forward movie. where the message is quite
literally like top level.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Mr.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
President, I stand guilty as framed because Section 40 is graft.
And I was ready to say so. I was ready
to tell you that a certain man in my state,
a Mr. James Taylor, wanted to put through this dam
for his own profit. A man who controls a political
machine and controls everything else worth controlling in my state. Yes,
and a man even powerful enough to control congressmen. And
(10:21):
I saw three of them in his room the day
I went up to see him.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Will the senator yield?
Speaker 7 (10:25):
No, sir, I will not yield.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Grapes of Wrath is around that time as well. And
then you get to the 1940s and it just kind
of starts petering out. Almost like, it feels like what
How Green Is My Valley is kind of like the
last really big message movie that comes out and finds
wide acclaim. Now I would say, actually, I'd make the
point that maybe the message movie now is more like
(10:47):
the satire. Like the satire has actually overtaken the message
movie in the last 20 to 25 years with our glum,
cynical viewers.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Do you think, I mean, do you think sometimes it's
in the guise of social protest or social content, but
it sort of goes through satire? Or do you think
it's just like literally denuded of like politics and ideology
and simply just a satire without a lot of anything
to kind of chew on or think about or be
provoked by.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
Really depends, right, on how you take it to satire, right?
But yeah, no, I think a lot of the satire,
at least today, particularly I would say in the last five,
10 years, have really been to grapple with the crumbling
of the environment, the eat the rich satires, there's like
that kind of economic edge to those kind of movies,
you know? So I don't think the satire is necessarily...
(11:39):
socially based. I think most of the modern satires are
more economic and kind of big idea based, which can,
I think, make them a bit unwieldy in the way
that they land. I think one of the best modern
message pictures is probably Ava DuVernay's Origin, which is her
adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's nonfiction work that's connecting India's caste
(12:02):
system with racism in America.
Speaker 8 (12:05):
People say... I had nothing to do with how this
all started. I never owned slaves. I didn't mistreat untouchables.
I didn't gas Jews. And yes, not one of us
was around when this house was built.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I think that film is totally messaged from the beginning
to end. I mean, it's literally based around Anjanue Ellis-Taylor,
who plays Isabel Wilkinson, talking through the thesis, her thesis,
and her process of proving her thesis. which is the
thesis is just a total message. This is how we
started here, and this is how we are here now.
Speaker 8 (12:44):
Cast is not simply hatred.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
It is the worn grooves of routine and expectation, patterns
of a social order that have been in place so
long it looks natural when it isn't.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That's a fantastic film, and I caught that very late
that year. It was the last film I saw... I think,
before putting together a top 10 or 20 or whatever
we did that year. And it was instantly in sort
of the top five. And it sort of works every
which way. And as you point out, it's like a
film about a writer working through a very difficult project.
(13:21):
And it's also about these huge issues outside that. And
I think because of the grace of the filmmaking and
just the real kind of the delicate ferocity of the acting.
I mean, in every scene, it's just, you don't feel
like you're getting spoon-fed a damn thing, right? Yeah, I'd
feel the same way about Chain Gang. So if you
look at the category of a message movie that really
(13:43):
does work for us, and again, I don't love that
phrase either, message movie. This is just an honor or
dishonor of Samuel Goldwyn, but it's a film that works
through its story and its people and its ideas, not...
not sort of throwing them at it.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
They're still after me.
Speaker 9 (14:01):
They'll always be after me. I've had jobs, but I
can't keep them.
Speaker 10 (14:05):
Something happens, someone turns up.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
I hide in rooms all day and travel by night.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
No friends, no rest, no peace. Oh, dear me.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Keep moving.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
That's all that's left for me.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
To me, that's a great bookend, actually, if you have
a chain game, one with an origin and another, but yeah. Now,
is there a film, Robert, do you think that, for you,
that I mean, I've said this about film sometimes. You
see a movie that basically votes the way you do,
whichever way you vote. Okay. It aligns with your personal whatever,
political beliefs, socioeconomic background, whatever it is. But nonetheless, it
(14:41):
just doesn't work for you. You just resist it. It's not, yes,
I agree, but I don't care. Or I agree, but
who cares if I agree? It doesn't work as a film.
Do you have anything that comes to mind on that?
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I have a few, and it's mostly, I kind of
tease this, but like the spat of the Eat the
Rich movies that came out in the last five years,
whether it's the menu. Is that going to fit everyone? Easily.
12 customers total.
Speaker 8 (15:08):
How do they turn a profit?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
$ 12. 50 a head, that's how.
Speaker 8 (15:11):
What, are we eating a Rolex?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Welcome to Hawthorne.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
What the hell is going on?
Speaker 9 (15:19):
We now offer you a 45-second head start.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
No, we're going to die today. Yes, we are.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Or it's glass onion and eyes out mystery or salt burn.
But in particular, Triangle of Sadness, which I just think
is an absolutely terribly written film. It's just spoon feeding
you everything. If you feel seafood, you should try and
eat something, ma'am.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
Oh, are you okay?
Speaker 11 (15:52):
Are you all right, sir?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh, sir.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
And the filmmaking is sure a fine. There's a bit
of gloss to it. You know, it's a Ruben Ostlund film,
which could be a red flag for some people out there.
And yeah, so it's tackling a lot of different things.
Begins with male models and stuff like that, and really
is tackling the idea of white beauty and richness and overconsumption.
(16:23):
But ultimately, it ends up on a kind of ultra-rich
cruise ship that then ends up sinking. On its face,
there's something kind of interesting in there. And I'm all
for putting the rich in their place. I just don't
think the writing's particularly compelling. There are a couple of
great performances in there. It's Ballydeleon, right? I want to
(16:45):
say is the actress in it.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah. Oscar nominee, actually, which made good sense to me.
That was the best, certainly the strongest element of the
film from my point of view.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
Definitely the strongest element of the film. But I think
there's like a kind of point where, and I think
the reason that a lot of the eat the rich
satires don't necessarily work is I think the most of
the eat the rich satires are made by people who
have always been pretty well off. So there's always this
kind of component that you feel like, oh, they're holding
(17:16):
back a little, right? They're just holding back just enough,
or they just don't have the background to be as
incisive about their observations as they think they're being. And
with Aslan, I really think he falls into the latter,
where he just doesn't kind of have a handle on
it in this film. And so a lot of it
just kind of comes off as needlessly grubby and just
(17:41):
obtuse at points and he kind of like lets the
comedy of the satire overwork the message in many ways
and so it's a film that like if you described
it to me at a bar I'd be like this
is going to be my favorite film of the year
maybe of my lifetime And then I saw it and
I was like, this is absolute trash. It's drivel, forgettable.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And long and not short about it. It's not like
a tight little narrative or anything. It's, you know, it goes.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
It's funny because I think a lot of critics have
gone after McKay's Don't Look Up.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I'm about to, but go ahead. I want to hear
what's funny about that.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Which I think actually both of those scripts of quality,
the exact same. It's just that Triangle of Sadness is
a glossier package. McKay can't direct to save his life,
but Triangle Sadness is a glossier package, and so for
more people, I would say, like, the satire works better,
the message works better because of the package that's coming in.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, I see your point. Yeah, well, so in that category, Robert,
I think in a movie that essentially aligns with my beliefs,
however you want to define them around climate change and
political denial in any number of directions right now, it
is Don't Look Up for me. That's a film that just...
This is Adam McKay, co-wrote it with David Sirota and
(18:59):
directed it, as you say. This is Leonardo DiCaprio and
Jennifer Lawrence trying to save the world from this imminent
apocalyptic disaster, right? And there's a political resistance from a
Trump-like figure in the White House and just sort of
a not our problem, not our problem until it's so
(19:21):
much their problem, it's too late. But yes, satire forward.
There's something about McKay who I do think is quite
funny in so many ways in other contexts that don't
really matter. The first Anchorman, for example. I mean, I
hate to say it, but there it is. I do
like a lot of that stupidly funny movie, let's call it.
But there's something about the satire in Don't Look Up
(19:46):
that absolutely kind of serves as like a numbing effect.
agent like you're getting okay it's too late we can't
care it's there's no point in caring.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I'm grateful grateful we tried.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Man oh man did we try well we're not the
most religious here in the Mindy household, but maybe we,
should we say amen?
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Should we do that?
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I mean, don't look at me.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
I don't know how to say it.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Why don't you just say amen?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yeah, Don't Look Up, I hated.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
I hated it.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And that movie was allegedly made for somebody like me.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
I think I like it just a little bit more
than you do. I have no idea why either. Like,
I can't really put my finger on it. Maybe it's
just the vision of seeing people being messy, people being exactly...
I mean, I feel like I'm, like, at my heart
a cynic. At my heart, I'm just like, there's nothing
we can do. We're all screwed. So maybe that just
(20:59):
kind of, like, feeds into my, like, doomsday proclivities, you know?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Don't look up as a disaster movie. And I will
say I am the easiest target for a disaster movie.
I love disaster and post-apocalyptic films. So I think that
probably sung to my heart a bit more.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Okay.
Speaker 12 (21:19):
All right.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
All right. I got it. Well, it, you know, and
it had a huge audience on Netflix as far as
we can never determine what makes a huge audience on Netflix,
but yeah, yeah. Well, okay. So that, There's another category
of what Samuel Goldwyn would probably describe as a message
movie with a sneer in his mouth and a cigar.
(21:41):
And that's a film that really was didactic, maybe even
some sort of, you know, left-wing or right-wing propaganda in
some sort of obvious way that we, you and I,
fell for when we were younger. Well, maybe it was
the first movie on that subject that was sort of
(22:02):
a window into the, quote, adult world when we were whatever,
adolescents or younger or whatever. But a film that you
really bought into big time that could be described as
a message picture that you look at it now and
you think, well, I was young then.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Well, I think about Forrest Gump. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Why?
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Which is, you know, is a film with many messages, actually.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Well, let's break them down. I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Well, you know, because Forrest Gump has this kind of
fly on the wall, like historical kind of almost like
intimate epic through like this unlikely protagonist, very much kind
of like a Jimmy Stewart kind of mold. That's kind of,
I think, the prototypical Tom Hanks is Jimmy Stewart kind
of figure is Forrest Gump. And so there's this idea
(22:47):
that I liked at the time was like, oh, we're
kind of going through counterculture and we're seeing like the
progression of America and going through these kind of liberal spaces.
And it's only been recently, maybe in the last 10 years,
that I rewatched it and I was like, this is
a deeply conservative movie. How did we all not see?
(23:09):
This movie is so conservative.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
I'd love to hear the concrete image or scene or
whatever or line that comes to mind when you say that.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Well, I think it's the whole storyline with Jenny, right,
of Forrest is in love with Jenny. Jenny is in
love with Forrest. Forrest mostly stays home, remains a kind
of good old Southern boy son. Jenny goes off into
the counterculture, which is a big no-no in this film,
and gets basically punished for it, right?
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
With the unnamed fatal disease, aka AIDS. Yes.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
But not even just that, right? One of the counterculture
men she dates is, you know, a woman beater. She
goes into the Black Panthers and they're violent against her.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Shut that blonde, man, and get your white ass away
from that window. Don't you know we in a war here?
Speaker 7 (24:00):
Hey, man, he's cool.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
He's cool.
Speaker 9 (24:02):
He's one of us.
Speaker 12 (24:02):
Let me tell you about us.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
What the hell is this?
Speaker 7 (24:04):
Our purpose here is to protect our Black leaders from
the racial onslaught of the pig who wishes to brutalize
our Black leaders, rape our women, and destroy our Black community.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Like, she's going into all these different spaces, and every
space that we equate to freedom from that decade, Forrest
Gump chose to be like, no, no, no, this is
actually the worst thing she could have done, you know?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Right, right. And, I mean, that's coming from the novel itself,
is my memory of it, yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Yeah, so the novel is even more conservative, if we
really had enough.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Well, before we get to my example in that same category,
I want to go back to what you said. You
mentioned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the Capra film. as
a film that had like a message in it and
a warning about creeping authoritarianism, right? In that case, in
sort of the late Depression era America. I think a
lot of the tension in Capra's films comes from the
(24:58):
fact that, and I actually think it's very useful for
the end result. Capra was a rock-ribbed Republican and never changed.
And he was working frequently with screenwriters, particularly the films
he made with Robert Riskin. Meet John Doe, Mr. Deeds,
and it's in the same sort of general ideological camp,
(25:20):
I guess, as Mr. Smith. But I think that tension
between the two primary authors of those movies is kind
of what makes them fascinatingly unstable a little bit and
a little tricky to pin down politically. And I think
that's actually... a good complication. You know, it is a
(25:40):
very good complication, I think. I don't know if we,
I don't know if those movies would have worked if
it had been like a unified front left or right
trying to make a film on that theme, you know?
I don't know. And they all went over just ducky
with the depression audiences, you know?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Well, I mean, I think that you could make the
point that that's why Don't Look Up doesn't work, right?
Is that it has this one lens that is looking
through the world and it doesn't give you there's no
complications in its view of the world right it's a
very there's very stable in that sense whereas like mr
smith goes to washington i'm the least patriotic person you'll
ever meet and yet i love like movies like the
(26:18):
last hurrah spencer tracy oh yeah or yankee doodle dandy
and i love mr smith goes to washington i should
be like the last person who should be like oh
you know what there there is one good man who
can uphold a broken system Right, right. But the end, right,
is just, Mr. Smith is just, as you said, so
complicated and so destabilized. Jimmy Stewart wins. But what's winning
(26:44):
in this film? We know these politicians who were dirty
and crooked aren't going to change. One did because he
had a personal connection. And it's actually like pretty bleak
because Claude Rains is supposed to be personally connected with
the Jimmy Stewart character. And yet he has to literally
(27:05):
see the Jimmy Stewart character come close to dying on
the Senate floor before he's able, like his humanity awakens.
What vision of that is that for our politicians that
you can see someone who's close to you dying on
the Senate floor and you're like, I don't know if
I'll jump in yet. Right.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
And bleak as that is, I don't know if you'd
even find that much going on in terms of 11th
hour empathy to a situation in today's Congress. You know,
I just don't feel it, you know. But that's another story,
and we haven't filmed that yet.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Waiting for the very soft-hearted John McCain, where he's the
affordable care actor. He comes onto the floor and votes
no and upholds it, you know, and everyone gave him
a rah-rah for that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yeah, I keep waiting for that line in the sand
to be drawn by somebody in politics. So my feeling
about something I saw where I kind of responded to
both messages is not the same way and certainly not equally.
And then I had a very different reaction to re-seeing
these not that long ago. It was the same year,
although they came out almost a year apart, Coming Home
(28:09):
and The Deer Hunter. Okay, Vietnam War is in the
rear view mirror, but not that many years in the
rear view mirror. And you have a very, very, you know,
kind of feelings and for my adolescence, very gratefully sex
forward picture, like Coming Home, which hopefully taught a lot
of us a few things. But that was an extremely
(28:31):
simple political divide depicted, right? You have Bruce Dern playing
the returning military man who is literally shaken up, lost
his mind. And unfortunately, Bruce Dern is the kind of actor,
good as he is in so many things, where he
just goes in that direction completely, 100%. And the script,
(28:52):
you know, the role is what it is. And it
does paint An awful lot of people like he's the
emblem for why we can't really trust the rights and
why the military operation in Vietnam was a mistake. Now,
I might agree with the latter. I don't agree with
the former.
Speaker 11 (29:11):
And I know some of you guys are going to
look at that uniform, man, and you're going to remember
all the films and you're going to think about the
glory of other wars and think about some vague patriotic
feeling and go off and fight this turkey, too. I'm
telling you, it ain't like it's in the movies. That's
all I want to tell you, because I didn't have
(29:31):
a choice. When I was your age, all I got
was some guy standing up like that, man, and giving
me a lot of bullshit, man, which I caught. I
was really in good shape.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Then, man.
Speaker 11 (29:41):
I was a captain of the football team, and I
wanted to be a war hero, man. I wanted to
go out and kill for my country.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
And it's just a wet kiss to liberalism and to
a wonderfully, profoundly humanist filmmaker who, yes, was a lefty,
you know, Hal Ashby, right? Didn't really notice any of
that when I was 17. I'm older than you. so
I can say that. But then seeing it again, it's like, hmm,
limited to the whole experience. As good as the acting is,
(30:08):
especially from Voight and Jane Fonda, both very good. Deer Hunter,
arguably much, almost inarguably, I think a much more kind of,
not less overt, politically, but essentially a conservative view, essentially
also trafficking borderline caricature the way Coming Home does with
the Bruce Dern character in all its depictions of the enemy,
(30:32):
you know, the North Vietnamese we see, and also this
incredible kind of leap of pure invention that I resisted
on some level then and really hate now as an adult.
This whole idea of the Russian roulette spiel you know
which which gives the movie an unbearable amount of tension
no question about it right i mean it's like gripping
(30:54):
as hell and i think as i got older despite
a lot of good things in that film in the
deer hunter i started to kind of really resent how
easy it is for a skillful filmmaker to really grind
an audience's guts with that kind of suspense and it's
also i think just becoming a kind of melodrama that
(31:15):
is undeniably gripping and just kind of full of crap,
I think, in the end. I was a little surprised
at how thin and not as dimensional as I remembered,
even as a 17-year-old, you know? I mean, I was
probably a stupider 17-year-old than the average, but I remember thinking, well,
these films kind of hit me in totally opposite directions,
but I like them both. You know, they're saying something.
(31:36):
And in that case, Goldwyn would have been wrong to
not back them because they both made a handsome profit.
Deer Hunter, more conspicuously, cost more, made more. Coming Home
still made back, I don't know, a good like multiple
times its production budget. And they both were like Oscar bait,
Oscar bait, and Deer Hunter wins that year. So that's
(31:57):
my two. When did you encounter those films? Because it
would have been at some point later. I don't know
if you've seen both, but.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Actually, I feel like it's like, Deer Hunter's a rite
of passage for all 17-year-olds. Because I'm pretty sure that's
about the age when I watched it. And then coming
home a bit later, because I got into Hal Ashby
much later. Like, for a while, I'd only seen Harold Amon,
and that was kind of it. As you were describing, like,
the precision-based filmmaker who's able to grind the audience down.
(32:26):
In relation to Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket is very
much the kind of Kubrick film that's, It's aged the
worst for me. It was a film I saw when
I was the same 17. I thought it was so
cool and radical and was really trying to say something
about war and the army and violence. And I rewatched
it maybe 10 years ago and I was like, huh,
(32:48):
I think this is a lot of fluff. Marine, what
is that button on your body armor? A peace symbol, sir.
Where'd you get it?
Speaker 11 (32:55):
I don't remember, sir.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
What is that you've got written on your helmet?
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Born to kill, sir.
Speaker 12 (33:01):
You write born to kill on your helmet and you
wear a peace button.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke? No, sir.
Speaker 9 (33:07):
What is it supposed to mean?
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I don't know, sir. You don't know very much, do you?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
No, sir.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
I actually don't think there's like, once you get past
the Vincent D'Onofrio section, it's.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, I'd agree with you on that. I agree with you.
And as you describe it, you respond to it at
a certain age. Many, many Kubrick fans especially, but even
people who don't know Kubrick very well, respond very strongly
to that film. maybe because they think it is, in
your words, saying something about Vietnam War. There's a Lily
Tomlin line in Search for Signs of Intelligent Life where
she says, all my life I wanted to be somebody,
(33:40):
but now I realize I should have been more specific.
And it's a little how I feel about what Full
Metal Jack is up to. Now, Kubrick is not necessarily
a polemical filmmaker, politically at all, I think. But I
read that book. It's based on the short timers. And
that's an infinitely sort of more effective way version of
whatever the short timers and or full metal jacket is
(34:02):
really up to and yeah you know we change but
we don't have the same feelings right my favorite turnaround
time was my friend eric saw billy jack when he
was 11 and it was like this is i'll never
see a better thing in my life because it was
a really rough i mean it's a rough movie for
pg that anything went in pg back then and he
saw it four years later at 15 he was like
(34:24):
what the hell was i thinking you know So sometimes,
you know, adolescents will do that to you. But there's
one other category I'd love to get you on, and
these would be movies that we've talked a little bit about,
some that might qualify already, but movies, old and new,
that are really crafty at smuggling, if you want to
(34:47):
look at it that way, smuggling their ideological or sociological,
political content, message, whatever you want to say, inside the
story or inside just a whole, maybe it's only happening visually.
Maybe it's happening despite what you're looking at. Maybe it's
happening just through characters that kind of sing so well
that it just becomes harder to kind of dismiss as
(35:10):
a message film.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Well, it's funny enough, like, Locarno every year does a
great retrospective. The first show I went to Locarno, they
did a Columbia Pictures 100 retrospective with, like, Columbia Pictures
for about $ 30. I think 1929 to 1950-something. And then
last year was like post-war British cinema, 1946 to 1960.
This year was the Hollywood Blacklist, which was.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Ah, good years for film. I mean, interesting.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Yes, phenomenal. And of course, all those films are chock
full of messages that they're just trying to get past.
But of course, I think the film that's most emblematic
of that era is High Noon, right? which is on
its face just a simple Western lone sheriff against a
horde of outsiders, criminal outsiders, who are threatening to destroy
(36:02):
the peace of a quaint little town. But of course,
when you look deeper into it, it's very much a film,
a message film, about America. It's a film about HUAC.
It's a film about the Blacklist. It's one man standing
up against these authoritarians who are looking to have him
(36:23):
basically betray everyone else in order to save his own hide.
Speaker 9 (36:27):
Listen, the judge has left town, Harvey's quit, and I'm
having trouble getting deputies. It figures.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's all happened too sudden.
Speaker 9 (36:35):
People got to talk themselves into law and order before
they do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Maybe because down deep they don't care. They just don't care.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
And it's such a powerful, I mean, such a powerful,
especially like that, the iconic crane where it's Gary Cooper.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Gary Cooper alone. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
And, you know, and it's just the visual power of
that message of this lone man, this one man of
principles who's not willing to deny his principles, who's not
willing to betray the thing that he's built and the
ideals that he stood up for. It's just, you know,
it's incredible, right? And, of course, some people think it's
just a Western, and, of course, you know, John Wayne
(37:16):
and Howard Hawks were angry at it.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, and, in fact, made a movie as a result, right? Yes.
It's Rio Bravo, right? Yeah, Rio Bravo. Hawks especially was like,
I don't, what's this sheriff? His explanation of it was
not political why he hated it. He just says, what's
this thing about this lily-livered sheriff running around town asking
for help to fight these guys? You know, it just
offended his sense of, machismo, I think.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Yeah, I want to say for Wayne it was political.
I want to say Wayne was just like, that's the
most un-American picture I've ever seen. Like, I've never known
an American not to come help his fellow American. And
it's like, well, buddy, I've got a story for you.
But you have the blacklist retrospective was so good because
it was, you had a few of those. You also had,
of course, the John Garfield pictures. He ran all the
(38:02):
way and body and soul and even the stuff like
the women pictures like John Cronwell, Cronwell's caged about a
women's prison. You know, there's just a whole spat of
these movies that are coming out in the late 40s
through the 50s that are pushing back against censorship, some
in quiet ways and some in very loud ways.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
You know, my pick in this category would be it's
basically part of the High Noon story. It's a matter
of what a difference a few years can make. And
it sort of puts the screws to Samuel Goldwyn because
Goldwyn produced... The Best Years of Our Lives, based on
a short story. And it was not considered worth a
(38:46):
bet in Hollywood. It was like the war was over.
All the fighting forces were coming home in various conditions.
And there were elements in the story that really felt
like you are risking charges of un-Americanism. With Frederick March,
the banker character, kind of talking about what the hell
we can't do alone. We can't cut a loan to
(39:06):
a returning vet. What do you mean?
Speaker 9 (39:09):
We have every desire to extend a helping hand to
returning veterans whenever possible. But we must all remember that
this is not our money we're doling out. It belongs
to our depositors. We can't gamble with it.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
I'll remember, Mr. Milton. Certainly the... depictions of PTSD with
the Dan Andrews character. Risky for Hollywood to kind of
be that frank with it. And then Harold Russell, you know,
an actual military figure who had lost a hand, not
in combat, but as a member of the service. And
he's playing kind of the lead character in this third storyline.
(39:48):
Tough stuff to get by. But Goldwyn believed in it.
He just sort of, I almost wonder if he didn't
sort of feel like, I can just market this as like,
we got a love story with Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright.
We have a starry cast, A-list cast, up and down.
And he had a hunch that this is the time
for this film. You know, we don't need only fantasy
(40:09):
or take your mind off the war, everything's fine now.
It's more like, it's hard for these people to come home.
And it's hard for this whole outer circle of family
and friends and all of it. And as it's been
pointed out by, is it Frankl, I think is his name,
who wrote the book on High Noon? Yeah. It's just
a page or two, and it devoted to kind of like, well,
(40:31):
what would have happened to the best years of our
lives if they had tried to green light that, even
among the most powerful producers in Hollywood? three years later,
it would not have happened because it would have been like,
this movie is communist, you know? And it just would
not have been greenlit three years later. It was a
(40:51):
crazy time, you know? And the studios then, like, as
we know, the studios now, buckle under to political pressure
from the federal administration to varying degrees about what is
going to get made and what will not. And that,
is a blessing right there. You know, I think for
all of us, it looks like the past does not
(41:13):
stay past, you know, and we're kind of living it again,
I think. But I think the best use of our
lives works because it doesn't apologize for the themes and
it doesn't foreground them any more than it needs to.
It's in every scene. I mean, we are just, we're coming,
we literally come home with these guys on the plane
back to their small Midwestern town in the beginning and
(41:34):
just see what life is like. Now, some of it's
a little soapy, some of it's a little contrived. Some
of it's a little this and that. The film is actually,
in many people's viewpoint, it is a perfect film, and
it's a film that actually means the most to them
of almost any film. I'm not sure it's quite up
there for me, but the way William Wyler and Greg Tolan,
the cinematographer, just shoot the simplest scenes of conversation, it's
(41:58):
just kind of riveting in ways you don't even know
why you're sort of so in there with them until
you just break it down more about what's happening visually.
The fact that There's not a single flashy camera move
at all until that. Speaking of the crane shot in
High Noon, right? The crane shot with Dana Andrews in
the fighter plane graveyard. When you do that, that's sparingly
(42:19):
and that's sort of strategically, it's just like you really
notice it. That's my kind of message movie, if it
is one, I guess. And for the same reasons you
like High Noon almost, but yeah. Well, I mean, where
are we today, do you think? In terms of like
people saying things that could be described, as message movies, but,
you know, may actually be, I don't know, have you
(42:39):
seen anything recently that sort of says, actually, that film
had something to say, and it sort of put it
over in a way that wasn't just its message?
Speaker 5 (42:47):
You know, it's fascinating, because at the indie and international level,
this stuff always exists, you know, continues to exist. At
the Hollywood, like the big budget Hollywood level, not nearly
as much. I mean, last year, I think, was a
fascinating return, because I think Sinner's of course has definitely
has something to say. One battle after another, definitely has
(43:09):
something to say. It's difficult to describe how surprising that
a studio would back one battle after another and give
it a wide release. And I guess something like the
Odyssey to a point is a message picture because so
much of it is kind of an anti-war film in
many ways. Odysseus being very guilt written about his role
(43:29):
in the war and his role in the sacking of Troy. Yeah,
there's been quite a few hits, but I'm not sure
there's been much in terms of, like, message. I feel
like most of the big kind of hits this year, Hollywood-wise,
have been more psychologically geared, you know, whether it's Back
Rooms or Obsession. I think Back Rooms does have something
to say, but I think its message is more on
the internal than the external in terms of the internal
(43:52):
psychology of people as opposed to, like, external culture. Mm-hmm. So, yeah,
I'd say there hasn't been much yet. But you know what?
We haven't answered fall. And fall is when most of
these films tend to come out, you know, in terms
of like trying to vie for Academy Awards, whether as
Oscar bait or as legitimate surprises that do well in
(44:13):
the box office and have something to say.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
I think in this category of a film that it's
from people, it comes from people who have something on
their mind and they have a way to really vividly
dramatize it. The reason I love that, and I know
you're a big fan too, Nia DaCosta's Hedda from last year. Oh, yeah.
Based on Hedda Gabler. I mean, Ibsen was really stepping
(44:35):
out onto a limb that not many people had gone
out on, just about to say, this is what we
do in a patriarchy. This is how women live. shrivel
and die or act out. And then DaCosta comes along
and sort of gives it a whole new set of
interesting complications that I just thought worked so much better
(44:56):
than relocating adaptations where you're relocating the action to a
different time and place. But do I call that a
message picture? Is Hedda Gabler a message play? No, not
to me. I don't know, but I just want more
of it.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
Yeah, Hedda has big sieves, you know, like class and
racism and sexism they're not necessarily so much of it
is based in that kind of party atmosphere and the
atmosphere of sex and desire that i agree that it's
not necessarily on its face a message picture but there
are messages in it.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Right right right okay speed round here for you robert
this we didn't talk about this in advance so this
is the game show part of it i guess i'm
just going to throw out a title this is sort
of in a category of movies that came along too
late or maybe weren't any good to begin with from
my point of view. But actually, in the face of
Goldwyn's idea, like, don't bother with message pictures. It's not
(45:55):
what we want. But they, in fact, found an audience.
Guess who's coming to dinner?
Speaker 5 (46:00):
1967.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
It's a terrible film.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
And it's fascinating how that film's talked about today where
it's just like, oh, well, you know, it was very
radical for its time. And it's like, no, it wasn't.
It was regressive when it came out. It was very
regressive when it came out, you know, in terms of
its depiction of race relations and its depiction of the
good black man who's trying to integrate into this white
(46:25):
family and how he has to grovel for their acceptance.
And it's just, it's a terrible film. And Baldwin writes
incredibly about it in The Devil Finds Work.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
You know, I haven't read that. James Baldwin's Joker?
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Yeah, he writes a lot about what portier represents as
an actor between that and and the defiant ones where
he talks about being in a theater i want to
say in harlem and everyone was yelling get back on
the trade at the screen to portier and and the
defiant ones.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yeah right that's right i do remember reading about that
yeah yeah a film like philadelphia jonathan demi that comes
along and For some people in America and maybe around
the world, it was some sort of empathizing machine that
(47:16):
made them realize, okay, I don't hate all gay people
now because this one's played by Tom Hanks and he's
learning to accept and vice versa, you know, Denzel Washington's character.
And it found an audience and won an Oscar for Hanks.
Message movie of what effectiveness for you?
Speaker 5 (47:36):
You know, high effectiveness, you know, it's fascinating of the
two message pictures that Tom Hanks won Oscars for back
to back. I think it's by far the better one.
And I think it's mostly because of the way that
Antonio Banderas plays Tom Hanks' partner is really, really incredible.
And I think Demi, a very empathetic filmmaker and our
(47:56):
mutual friend, my partner, Mariah E. Gates, we talked about
Philadelphia recently about like how when it came out, I
think a lot of people in the gay queer community
were very suspicious of it and critiqued it as being
kind of like a straight washing of like the AIDS epidemic.
But I think looking back on it and seeing as
being not like the film about AIDS, but one of
(48:18):
many films now about AIDS, HIV AIDS, I think it
very much allows one to have like a kind of
a clear eyed kind of look at, oh, this film was,
I think, very radical for the moment. was incredibly radical
and doesn't, I don't think the Denzel character of him
trying to be like, no, I like gay people now.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Maybe I'm crudely characterizing that.
Speaker 6 (48:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
You're right.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
You're right. No, no, I don't think you're crudely. I
think that's exactly what the movie's doing, but I do
think it does it in a way that doesn't, that
doesn't feel like Tom Hanks has to beg for empathy
where that character has to beg and has to say,
please see me as human. There's no pleading with the
Denzel character. The change of the Denzel character is actually
(49:03):
quite organic.
Speaker 12 (49:04):
The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against
otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the
duties required by their employment. although the ruling did not
address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination.
Speaker 10 (49:21):
Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a
handicap under law not only because of the physical limitations
it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a
social death which precedes the actual physical one.
Speaker 12 (49:41):
This is the essence of discrimination. Formulating opinions about others
not based on their individual merits, but rather on their
membership in a group with assumed characteristics.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
I owe that one a re-watch. Well, Robert, it's been
great talking this theme through here. So, in the end,
Samuel Goldwyn's maybe dismissive, possibly apocryphal, but it sounds like legitimate,
but paraphrased phrase, you know, they send it by Western
Union if you want to mess with it. What's the
BS to truth ratio on that for you now?
Speaker 5 (50:13):
On a one to 10? Hmm.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
You know, I don't think it holds water. I think
most films are message films in many sense. Most, you know.
I would just even say even like the dumbest action
movie is a message, you know, like something like Top
Gun Maverick is a message picture in its own way.
You know, the message might be the might of the
American military, but it's still a message. And so to
(50:38):
go back, I think it really kind of depends on
the package and whether it is didactic. And I think
going back to what you talked about and in terms
of like Capra, whether there is something that destabilizes the
viewer and destabilizes the picture and really kind of makes
you think, not necessarily agreeing with your views, but makes
(50:59):
you and allows you to think, whether about yourself or
the next person or what have you. I think when
movies can get to that point, I think the goal
one quote holds no weight, but I do think that
it holds weight when it comes to maybe the picture
shouldn't only be a message.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Robert, where can people read you right now besides everywhere?
I mean, you've had streaks where you've literally been in
every surviving film coverage outlet in the world at the
same time. Where are you writing for mostly right now?
Speaker 5 (51:27):
Mostly I write for three publications, RogerRupert.com, where I'm associate editor.
I'm also a columnist for the New York Times. So
I have a monthly action streaming column where I highlight
five action movies that have been recently released or streaming
that you can find. And then usually when I'm at
a festival, like I'm going to be at Toronto International
Film Festival soon, I'll be covering that for Screen Daily,
(51:51):
which is a great UK-based magazine trade that I write for.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Excellent. I sure appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
Thank you for having me. This has been a fun discussion.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
And all movies, to your point about action films, every
kind of film, all films are saying something and hopefully
many things. And it's just a question of how... carefully
you look at it.
Speaker 6 (52:13):
After we talked, I thought about Robert's experience re-seeing High Noon.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Director Fred Zinnemann's film had and has plenty of detractors.
It also has plenty of admirers who see it as
a model for a movie, a Western in this case,
that says not one thing but many things and is
not simply the sum of its messages. When it came out,
High Noon won Gary Cooper an Academy Award, and this
(53:02):
was in early 1953 when Joe McCarthy's Commie Hunt was raging.
It was also a time not friendly enough to storylines
coming out of Hollywood that could be read as uneasy
regarding an Old West community, an emblem of America and
Americana that does not step up when the going gets rough.
(53:22):
With so much of contemporary moviemaking and streaming service production today,
the corporate directive is clear and unapologetic. It's time to
appease the current presidential administration and keep an American eagle
eye out for anything that might anger the That administration.
That's what we're told, anyway. But we, the viewers, the
(53:43):
ticket buyers, the streaming subscribers, we do have a choice.
The choice of what we want to pay for. Anyway,
what's that William Faulkner line from Requiem for a Nun?
The past is never dead. It's not even past. But
all's not lost. It wasn't so long ago that one
battle after another and sinners were the big wows at
(54:04):
the Oscars in the same year. Now, people have all
sorts of opinions about those pictures. and what they're saying, but,
you know, those films were real movies, and they risked
something like effrontery. Were they message pictures?
Speaker 5 (54:17):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
But every film we see is saying something, as Robert
Daniels reminded me. The Movie Racket is produced by Joe
Disseau and Michael Phillips. The executive producers are Adam Kempinar
and Sam VanHalgren. Special thanks to Robert Daniels, worth reading
and hearing in any shape, form, or medium. I'm very
happy to say lots of you have written to us
(54:39):
here at the Movie Racket. That address, movieracket at filmspotting.net.
So write us, write me, just me, just write me,
and we'll get to some of those missives of yours
full of pith and vinegar next week. I'm Michael Phillips.
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Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello all, we're back at the Movie Racket here, and
here is wherever you are.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I'm here in Chicago, roughly equidistant from Wrigley Field to
the west and Lake Michigan to the east, and this
is Episode 7, the 7th In our series of podcasts
this season, we're calling it The Laws of Motion Pictures.
Each week, we take on an unofficial, non-binding rule of
what makes a good movie, or a wise-ass axiom about
(01:26):
how Hollywood and the film industry work, or maybe a
deeply held personal North Star for a great filmmaker. We
take those on and dissect them. This week's extraordinarily special
guest is Robert Daniels. He's Associate Editor at at the very,
very worthwhile RogerEbert.com. He's a film critic there and many
other places, including the New York Times, for which he
(01:48):
writes a regular column on action cinema, now streaming near you. Also,
Robert is a fiend on the International Film Festival circuit.
That's right, a fiend. Recently returned from Locarno in Switzerland.
So here's what we take on, cruelly but fairly, this week.
There's an oft-quoted nugget of wisdom behind or shrewd business model, both, neither,
(02:11):
that you may have heard. It's attributed to Samuel Goldwyn
of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and while the wording changes depending on who's
recounting this quote, it's something like this. Movies are for entertainment.
Messages should be delivered by Western Union. Now, the history
is a little fuzzy on the origin story behind that quote,
(02:31):
but in a 1940 Pittsburgh press column by Aileen Wettstein,
The writer quoted an unnamed screenwriter who was recounting a
meeting that took place in Goldman's office. The subject of
that meeting was a gangster picture in pre-production. And when
someone proposed punching up the script of that film with
some material that dealt with things that were, you know, important, meaningful,
(02:56):
something in this case about labor's battle against capitalism, Goldwyn
said this in reply, Messages, messages. From Western Union, you
get messages. From me, you get pictures. The column's headline
that week was, If Goldwyn has a message, he'll keep
it on a telegram. Wettstein, by the way, went Hollywood
a few years later. She went West in the early 1940s,
(03:19):
talked her way into a writing job at Columbia Pictures,
got her name on some Three Stooges shorts, and then features,
including some of the Henry Aldrich movies. Those were based
on a popular radio show. And she wrote a feature
called Father Was a Fullback, starring Fred McMurray. And she
was a creator of the radio show A Date with Judy,
which was ultimately musicalized and filmed in 1948 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
(03:44):
So let's assume Goldwyn said it. Robert Daniels and I
assumed as much when we talked about what message movies
are exactly and which ones we think are basically sunk
by the weight of their own preachiness or didacticism. and
which films actually work every which way because they're effective
and maybe a little sneaky about dealing with something in
(04:07):
the air or on the minds of the screenwriters or
directors by creating stories and characters that aren't simply mouthpieces
for this social cause or that political party. So what
else can we say, really, at this point, except off
to the telegraph office. Let's go.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
¶ ¶.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Thank you for listening in once again. A lot of
these wise sayings we're looking at are completely full of it.
Some of them are full of sneaky bits of wisdom
inside the BS. And at the very least, it's a
very interesting kind of look back and also some interesting
information that does pertain to today and maybe a few
(04:52):
things to learn from for filmmakers in the future. If
Hollywood even has a future. So with that bit of
optimism out of the way, our guest, thanks, Robert Daniels,
for joining us today. Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk about
the grim future of Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well, let's not, you know, it's not all that way.
So this week's sort of axiom, Hollywood bit of lore
that we can kind of actually call a bit of
Hollywood history at this point, I think, is a saying
that was attributed to the film producer and studio head
Samuel Goldwyn, the middle component of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, also an independent
(05:31):
producer in many cases. And the phrase is simply, pictures
are for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union.
Is this a phrase, Robert, that you feel has any
validity to it or is it complete nonsense?
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Yeah, it's fascinating because message movies, when you asked me
about this initially, I was trying to think well, how
would I define a message movie? You know, message movies
almost kind of in the eye of the beholder, right?
Like some people, the message goes right over their head.
And sometimes it's incredibly obvious. It's other people. And so
(06:09):
whether they can be successful or not, I don't think
it's dependent upon the quality of the message, which we'll
get into. But I do think it's dependent upon the
quality of the filmmaking, the package that you put that
message in. And whether that message is obvious through the
dialogue or through the cinematography or the editing, what have you.
(06:29):
And so I do think message fixtures have the ability
to be high art and not just be seen as didactic,
you know, kind of drivel or award season fodder. Right, right, right.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
An improving motion picture, yes.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Yes, which is where we kind of... tend to see
these kind of movies kind of come to the forefront
is during award season when it's like there's this comedy
that did well but there's this really important picture emphasis
on important that just came on and we should really
push it to the forefront.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Right right it seems to me when i look back
at even if you just look at filmmaking from the
probable origin point of this quote 1940 we're past the
era of pre-production code filmmaking in the early 30s where
Filmmaking in Hollywood was just a lot wilder before they
started really cracking down on the production code. It was
also a lot more, in some ways, certainly adventurous, certainly nervy.
(07:26):
And you also had films, especially coming from Warner Brothers Studio,
really above all other studios, that were just absolutely determined
to dramatize the worst ills of the Depression and what
was going on in America right then, where other people
were taking other studios and certainly audiences were taking refuge
(07:49):
in making money off anything but fantasy. Even if that meant,
you know, everything from musicals to comedies to kind of
the birth of Screwball, all that. But if you look
at a movie like I Am a Fugitive from a
Chain Gang, Mervyn LeRoy's film, 1932, Paul Muni's playing just
a man on the run. And that did a lot
(08:11):
to just expose a penal system that was shocking. And
there were other films like that as well that confronted
audiences and gripped them too, because I would argue in
something like Chain Gang, which is a film I just
saw again recently. And I was kind of astounded at
(08:31):
this ending that it just leaves you with an incredible chill,
but continues the story when Paul Muni says his last line,
and then he sort of shoots off into the darkness
on the run again. And I thought, man, that works
every which way. And is it a message movie? Yeah, sure,
I guess. Other studios would not have probably touched that property.
(08:53):
It also made money. And so from a commercial point
of view, it was like, all right, well, preachy, maybe.
I don't know. But to me, that was an example
of a film where it didn't feel like it was
message forward and leaden. It was like alive and electric
and really deeply felt, too, I thought. So, I mean,
that was possible back then. And for me, that's a
(09:15):
movie that just plain works. That's a message movie that works.
And you could describe it as message forward or at
least socially aware, but it doesn't just settle for that.
Do you know what I mean? I mean, that's one
for me anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
I mean, message movies, as you point out, I mean,
really almost at the outset of movie making, right? Whether
it's like Lois Webber's Shoes in 1916 or King of
the Doors, The Crowd, 1928, I want to say. And
it continues through the 1930s. The 1930s, of course, is
probably the peak of the message movies. You start getting
stuff like, you know, Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington, which
(09:52):
is a very message-forward movie. where the message is quite
literally like top level.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Mr.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
President, I stand guilty as framed because Section 40 is graft.
And I was ready to say so. I was ready
to tell you that a certain man in my state,
a Mr. James Taylor, wanted to put through this dam
for his own profit. A man who controls a political
machine and controls everything else worth controlling in my state. Yes,
and a man even powerful enough to control congressmen. And
(10:21):
I saw three of them in his room the day
I went up to see him.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Will the senator yield?
Speaker 7 (10:25):
No, sir, I will not yield.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Grapes of Wrath is around that time as well. And
then you get to the 1940s and it just kind
of starts petering out. Almost like, it feels like what
How Green Is My Valley is kind of like the
last really big message movie that comes out and finds
wide acclaim. Now I would say, actually, I'd make the
point that maybe the message movie now is more like
(10:47):
the satire. Like the satire has actually overtaken the message
movie in the last 20 to 25 years with our glum,
cynical viewers.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Do you think, I mean, do you think sometimes it's
in the guise of social protest or social content, but
it sort of goes through satire? Or do you think
it's just like literally denuded of like politics and ideology
and simply just a satire without a lot of anything
to kind of chew on or think about or be
provoked by.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
Really depends, right, on how you take it to satire, right?
But yeah, no, I think a lot of the satire,
at least today, particularly I would say in the last five,
10 years, have really been to grapple with the crumbling
of the environment, the eat the rich satires, there's like
that kind of economic edge to those kind of movies,
you know? So I don't think the satire is necessarily...
(11:39):
socially based. I think most of the modern satires are
more economic and kind of big idea based, which can,
I think, make them a bit unwieldy in the way
that they land. I think one of the best modern
message pictures is probably Ava DuVernay's Origin, which is her
adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's nonfiction work that's connecting India's caste
(12:02):
system with racism in America.
Speaker 8 (12:05):
People say... I had nothing to do with how this
all started. I never owned slaves. I didn't mistreat untouchables.
I didn't gas Jews. And yes, not one of us
was around when this house was built.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I think that film is totally messaged from the beginning
to end. I mean, it's literally based around Anjanue Ellis-Taylor,
who plays Isabel Wilkinson, talking through the thesis, her thesis,
and her process of proving her thesis. which is the
thesis is just a total message. This is how we
started here, and this is how we are here now.
Speaker 8 (12:44):
Cast is not simply hatred.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
It is the worn grooves of routine and expectation, patterns
of a social order that have been in place so
long it looks natural when it isn't.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That's a fantastic film, and I caught that very late
that year. It was the last film I saw... I think,
before putting together a top 10 or 20 or whatever
we did that year. And it was instantly in sort
of the top five. And it sort of works every
which way. And as you point out, it's like a
film about a writer working through a very difficult project.
(13:21):
And it's also about these huge issues outside that. And
I think because of the grace of the filmmaking and
just the real kind of the delicate ferocity of the acting.
I mean, in every scene, it's just, you don't feel
like you're getting spoon-fed a damn thing, right? Yeah, I'd
feel the same way about Chain Gang. So if you
look at the category of a message movie that really
(13:43):
does work for us, and again, I don't love that
phrase either, message movie. This is just an honor or
dishonor of Samuel Goldwyn, but it's a film that works
through its story and its people and its ideas, not...
not sort of throwing them at it.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
They're still after me.
Speaker 9 (14:01):
They'll always be after me. I've had jobs, but I
can't keep them.
Speaker 10 (14:05):
Something happens, someone turns up.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
I hide in rooms all day and travel by night.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
No friends, no rest, no peace. Oh, dear me.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Keep moving.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
That's all that's left for me.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
To me, that's a great bookend, actually, if you have
a chain game, one with an origin and another, but yeah. Now,
is there a film, Robert, do you think that, for you,
that I mean, I've said this about film sometimes. You
see a movie that basically votes the way you do,
whichever way you vote. Okay. It aligns with your personal whatever,
political beliefs, socioeconomic background, whatever it is. But nonetheless, it
(14:41):
just doesn't work for you. You just resist it. It's not, yes,
I agree, but I don't care. Or I agree, but
who cares if I agree? It doesn't work as a film.
Do you have anything that comes to mind on that?
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I have a few, and it's mostly, I kind of
tease this, but like the spat of the Eat the
Rich movies that came out in the last five years,
whether it's the menu. Is that going to fit everyone? Easily.
12 customers total.
Speaker 8 (15:08):
How do they turn a profit?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
$ 12. 50 a head, that's how.
Speaker 8 (15:11):
What, are we eating a Rolex?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Welcome to Hawthorne.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
What the hell is going on?
Speaker 9 (15:19):
We now offer you a 45-second head start.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
No, we're going to die today. Yes, we are.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Or it's glass onion and eyes out mystery or salt burn.
But in particular, Triangle of Sadness, which I just think
is an absolutely terribly written film. It's just spoon feeding
you everything. If you feel seafood, you should try and
eat something, ma'am.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
Oh, are you okay?
Speaker 11 (15:52):
Are you all right, sir?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh, sir.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
And the filmmaking is sure a fine. There's a bit
of gloss to it. You know, it's a Ruben Ostlund film,
which could be a red flag for some people out there.
And yeah, so it's tackling a lot of different things.
Begins with male models and stuff like that, and really
is tackling the idea of white beauty and richness and overconsumption.
(16:23):
But ultimately, it ends up on a kind of ultra-rich
cruise ship that then ends up sinking. On its face,
there's something kind of interesting in there. And I'm all
for putting the rich in their place. I just don't
think the writing's particularly compelling. There are a couple of
great performances in there. It's Ballydeleon, right? I want to
(16:45):
say is the actress in it.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah. Oscar nominee, actually, which made good sense to me.
That was the best, certainly the strongest element of the
film from my point of view.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
Definitely the strongest element of the film. But I think
there's like a kind of point where, and I think
the reason that a lot of the eat the rich
satires don't necessarily work is I think the most of
the eat the rich satires are made by people who
have always been pretty well off. So there's always this
kind of component that you feel like, oh, they're holding
(17:16):
back a little, right? They're just holding back just enough,
or they just don't have the background to be as
incisive about their observations as they think they're being. And
with Aslan, I really think he falls into the latter,
where he just doesn't kind of have a handle on
it in this film. And so a lot of it
just kind of comes off as needlessly grubby and just
(17:41):
obtuse at points and he kind of like lets the
comedy of the satire overwork the message in many ways
and so it's a film that like if you described
it to me at a bar I'd be like this
is going to be my favorite film of the year
maybe of my lifetime And then I saw it and
I was like, this is absolute trash. It's drivel, forgettable.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And long and not short about it. It's not like
a tight little narrative or anything. It's, you know, it goes.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
It's funny because I think a lot of critics have
gone after McKay's Don't Look Up.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I'm about to, but go ahead. I want to hear
what's funny about that.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Which I think actually both of those scripts of quality,
the exact same. It's just that Triangle of Sadness is
a glossier package. McKay can't direct to save his life,
but Triangle Sadness is a glossier package, and so for
more people, I would say, like, the satire works better,
the message works better because of the package that's coming in.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, I see your point. Yeah, well, so in that category, Robert,
I think in a movie that essentially aligns with my beliefs,
however you want to define them around climate change and
political denial in any number of directions right now, it
is Don't Look Up for me. That's a film that just...
This is Adam McKay, co-wrote it with David Sirota and
(18:59):
directed it, as you say. This is Leonardo DiCaprio and
Jennifer Lawrence trying to save the world from this imminent
apocalyptic disaster, right? And there's a political resistance from a
Trump-like figure in the White House and just sort of
a not our problem, not our problem until it's so
(19:21):
much their problem, it's too late. But yes, satire forward.
There's something about McKay who I do think is quite
funny in so many ways in other contexts that don't
really matter. The first Anchorman, for example. I mean, I
hate to say it, but there it is. I do
like a lot of that stupidly funny movie, let's call it.
But there's something about the satire in Don't Look Up
(19:46):
that absolutely kind of serves as like a numbing effect.
agent like you're getting okay it's too late we can't
care it's there's no point in caring.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I'm grateful grateful we tried.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Man oh man did we try well we're not the
most religious here in the Mindy household, but maybe we,
should we say amen?
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Should we do that?
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I mean, don't look at me.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
I don't know how to say it.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Why don't you just say amen?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yeah, Don't Look Up, I hated.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
I hated it.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And that movie was allegedly made for somebody like me.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
I think I like it just a little bit more
than you do. I have no idea why either. Like,
I can't really put my finger on it. Maybe it's
just the vision of seeing people being messy, people being exactly...
I mean, I feel like I'm, like, at my heart
a cynic. At my heart, I'm just like, there's nothing
we can do. We're all screwed. So maybe that just
(20:59):
kind of, like, feeds into my, like, doomsday proclivities, you know?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Don't look up as a disaster movie. And I will
say I am the easiest target for a disaster movie.
I love disaster and post-apocalyptic films. So I think that
probably sung to my heart a bit more.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Okay.
Speaker 12 (21:19):
All right.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
All right. I got it. Well, it, you know, and
it had a huge audience on Netflix as far as
we can never determine what makes a huge audience on Netflix,
but yeah, yeah. Well, okay. So that, There's another category
of what Samuel Goldwyn would probably describe as a message
movie with a sneer in his mouth and a cigar.
(21:41):
And that's a film that really was didactic, maybe even
some sort of, you know, left-wing or right-wing propaganda in
some sort of obvious way that we, you and I,
fell for when we were younger. Well, maybe it was
the first movie on that subject that was sort of
(22:02):
a window into the, quote, adult world when we were whatever,
adolescents or younger or whatever. But a film that you
really bought into big time that could be described as
a message picture that you look at it now and
you think, well, I was young then.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Well, I think about Forrest Gump. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Why?
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Which is, you know, is a film with many messages, actually.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Well, let's break them down. I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Well, you know, because Forrest Gump has this kind of
fly on the wall, like historical kind of almost like
intimate epic through like this unlikely protagonist, very much kind
of like a Jimmy Stewart kind of mold. That's kind of,
I think, the prototypical Tom Hanks is Jimmy Stewart kind
of figure is Forrest Gump. And so there's this idea
(22:47):
that I liked at the time was like, oh, we're
kind of going through counterculture and we're seeing like the
progression of America and going through these kind of liberal spaces.
And it's only been recently, maybe in the last 10 years,
that I rewatched it and I was like, this is
a deeply conservative movie. How did we all not see?
(23:09):
This movie is so conservative.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
I'd love to hear the concrete image or scene or
whatever or line that comes to mind when you say that.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Well, I think it's the whole storyline with Jenny, right,
of Forrest is in love with Jenny. Jenny is in
love with Forrest. Forrest mostly stays home, remains a kind
of good old Southern boy son. Jenny goes off into
the counterculture, which is a big no-no in this film,
and gets basically punished for it, right?
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
With the unnamed fatal disease, aka AIDS. Yes.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
But not even just that, right? One of the counterculture
men she dates is, you know, a woman beater. She
goes into the Black Panthers and they're violent against her.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Shut that blonde, man, and get your white ass away
from that window. Don't you know we in a war here?
Speaker 7 (24:00):
Hey, man, he's cool.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
He's cool.
Speaker 9 (24:02):
He's one of us.
Speaker 12 (24:02):
Let me tell you about us.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
What the hell is this?
Speaker 7 (24:04):
Our purpose here is to protect our Black leaders from
the racial onslaught of the pig who wishes to brutalize
our Black leaders, rape our women, and destroy our Black community.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Like, she's going into all these different spaces, and every
space that we equate to freedom from that decade, Forrest
Gump chose to be like, no, no, no, this is
actually the worst thing she could have done, you know?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Right, right. And, I mean, that's coming from the novel itself,
is my memory of it, yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Yeah, so the novel is even more conservative, if we
really had enough.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Well, before we get to my example in that same category,
I want to go back to what you said. You
mentioned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the Capra film. as
a film that had like a message in it and
a warning about creeping authoritarianism, right? In that case, in
sort of the late Depression era America. I think a
lot of the tension in Capra's films comes from the
(24:58):
fact that, and I actually think it's very useful for
the end result. Capra was a rock-ribbed Republican and never changed.
And he was working frequently with screenwriters, particularly the films
he made with Robert Riskin. Meet John Doe, Mr. Deeds,
and it's in the same sort of general ideological camp,
(25:20):
I guess, as Mr. Smith. But I think that tension
between the two primary authors of those movies is kind
of what makes them fascinatingly unstable a little bit and
a little tricky to pin down politically. And I think
that's actually... a good complication. You know, it is a
(25:40):
very good complication, I think. I don't know if we,
I don't know if those movies would have worked if
it had been like a unified front left or right
trying to make a film on that theme, you know?
I don't know. And they all went over just ducky
with the depression audiences, you know?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Well, I mean, I think that you could make the
point that that's why Don't Look Up doesn't work, right?
Is that it has this one lens that is looking
through the world and it doesn't give you there's no
complications in its view of the world right it's a
very there's very stable in that sense whereas like mr
smith goes to washington i'm the least patriotic person you'll
ever meet and yet i love like movies like the
(26:18):
last hurrah spencer tracy oh yeah or yankee doodle dandy
and i love mr smith goes to washington i should
be like the last person who should be like oh
you know what there there is one good man who
can uphold a broken system Right, right. But the end, right,
is just, Mr. Smith is just, as you said, so
complicated and so destabilized. Jimmy Stewart wins. But what's winning
(26:44):
in this film? We know these politicians who were dirty
and crooked aren't going to change. One did because he
had a personal connection. And it's actually like pretty bleak
because Claude Rains is supposed to be personally connected with
the Jimmy Stewart character. And yet he has to literally
(27:05):
see the Jimmy Stewart character come close to dying on
the Senate floor before he's able, like his humanity awakens.
What vision of that is that for our politicians that
you can see someone who's close to you dying on
the Senate floor and you're like, I don't know if
I'll jump in yet. Right.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
And bleak as that is, I don't know if you'd
even find that much going on in terms of 11th
hour empathy to a situation in today's Congress. You know,
I just don't feel it, you know. But that's another story,
and we haven't filmed that yet.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Waiting for the very soft-hearted John McCain, where he's the
affordable care actor. He comes onto the floor and votes
no and upholds it, you know, and everyone gave him
a rah-rah for that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yeah, I keep waiting for that line in the sand
to be drawn by somebody in politics. So my feeling
about something I saw where I kind of responded to
both messages is not the same way and certainly not equally.
And then I had a very different reaction to re-seeing
these not that long ago. It was the same year,
although they came out almost a year apart, Coming Home
(28:09):
and The Deer Hunter. Okay, Vietnam War is in the
rear view mirror, but not that many years in the
rear view mirror. And you have a very, very, you know,
kind of feelings and for my adolescence, very gratefully sex
forward picture, like Coming Home, which hopefully taught a lot
of us a few things. But that was an extremely
(28:31):
simple political divide depicted, right? You have Bruce Dern playing
the returning military man who is literally shaken up, lost
his mind. And unfortunately, Bruce Dern is the kind of actor,
good as he is in so many things, where he
just goes in that direction completely, 100%. And the script,
(28:52):
you know, the role is what it is. And it
does paint An awful lot of people like he's the
emblem for why we can't really trust the rights and
why the military operation in Vietnam was a mistake. Now,
I might agree with the latter. I don't agree with
the former.
Speaker 11 (29:11):
And I know some of you guys are going to
look at that uniform, man, and you're going to remember
all the films and you're going to think about the
glory of other wars and think about some vague patriotic
feeling and go off and fight this turkey, too. I'm
telling you, it ain't like it's in the movies. That's
all I want to tell you, because I didn't have
(29:31):
a choice. When I was your age, all I got
was some guy standing up like that, man, and giving
me a lot of bullshit, man, which I caught. I
was really in good shape.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Then, man.
Speaker 11 (29:41):
I was a captain of the football team, and I
wanted to be a war hero, man. I wanted to
go out and kill for my country.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
And it's just a wet kiss to liberalism and to
a wonderfully, profoundly humanist filmmaker who, yes, was a lefty,
you know, Hal Ashby, right? Didn't really notice any of
that when I was 17. I'm older than you. so
I can say that. But then seeing it again, it's like, hmm,
limited to the whole experience. As good as the acting is,
(30:08):
especially from Voight and Jane Fonda, both very good. Deer Hunter,
arguably much, almost inarguably, I think a much more kind of,
not less overt, politically, but essentially a conservative view, essentially
also trafficking borderline caricature the way Coming Home does with
the Bruce Dern character in all its depictions of the enemy,
(30:32):
you know, the North Vietnamese we see, and also this
incredible kind of leap of pure invention that I resisted
on some level then and really hate now as an adult.
This whole idea of the Russian roulette spiel you know
which which gives the movie an unbearable amount of tension
no question about it right i mean it's like gripping
(30:54):
as hell and i think as i got older despite
a lot of good things in that film in the
deer hunter i started to kind of really resent how
easy it is for a skillful filmmaker to really grind
an audience's guts with that kind of suspense and it's
also i think just becoming a kind of melodrama that
(31:15):
is undeniably gripping and just kind of full of crap,
I think, in the end. I was a little surprised
at how thin and not as dimensional as I remembered,
even as a 17-year-old, you know? I mean, I was
probably a stupider 17-year-old than the average, but I remember thinking, well,
these films kind of hit me in totally opposite directions,
but I like them both. You know, they're saying something.
(31:36):
And in that case, Goldwyn would have been wrong to
not back them because they both made a handsome profit.
Deer Hunter, more conspicuously, cost more, made more. Coming Home
still made back, I don't know, a good like multiple
times its production budget. And they both were like Oscar bait,
Oscar bait, and Deer Hunter wins that year. So that's
(31:57):
my two. When did you encounter those films? Because it
would have been at some point later. I don't know
if you've seen both, but.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Actually, I feel like it's like, Deer Hunter's a rite
of passage for all 17-year-olds. Because I'm pretty sure that's
about the age when I watched it. And then coming
home a bit later, because I got into Hal Ashby
much later. Like, for a while, I'd only seen Harold Amon,
and that was kind of it. As you were describing, like,
the precision-based filmmaker who's able to grind the audience down.
(32:26):
In relation to Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket is very
much the kind of Kubrick film that's, It's aged the
worst for me. It was a film I saw when
I was the same 17. I thought it was so
cool and radical and was really trying to say something
about war and the army and violence. And I rewatched
it maybe 10 years ago and I was like, huh,
(32:48):
I think this is a lot of fluff. Marine, what
is that button on your body armor? A peace symbol, sir.
Where'd you get it?
Speaker 11 (32:55):
I don't remember, sir.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
What is that you've got written on your helmet?
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Born to kill, sir.
Speaker 12 (33:01):
You write born to kill on your helmet and you
wear a peace button.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke? No, sir.
Speaker 9 (33:07):
What is it supposed to mean?
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I don't know, sir. You don't know very much, do you?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
No, sir.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
I actually don't think there's like, once you get past
the Vincent D'Onofrio section, it's.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, I'd agree with you on that. I agree with you.
And as you describe it, you respond to it at
a certain age. Many, many Kubrick fans especially, but even
people who don't know Kubrick very well, respond very strongly
to that film. maybe because they think it is, in
your words, saying something about Vietnam War. There's a Lily
Tomlin line in Search for Signs of Intelligent Life where
she says, all my life I wanted to be somebody,
(33:40):
but now I realize I should have been more specific.
And it's a little how I feel about what Full
Metal Jack is up to. Now, Kubrick is not necessarily
a polemical filmmaker, politically at all, I think. But I
read that book. It's based on the short timers. And
that's an infinitely sort of more effective way version of
whatever the short timers and or full metal jacket is
(34:02):
really up to and yeah you know we change but
we don't have the same feelings right my favorite turnaround
time was my friend eric saw billy jack when he
was 11 and it was like this is i'll never
see a better thing in my life because it was
a really rough i mean it's a rough movie for
pg that anything went in pg back then and he
saw it four years later at 15 he was like
(34:24):
what the hell was i thinking you know So sometimes,
you know, adolescents will do that to you. But there's
one other category I'd love to get you on, and
these would be movies that we've talked a little bit about,
some that might qualify already, but movies, old and new,
that are really crafty at smuggling, if you want to
(34:47):
look at it that way, smuggling their ideological or sociological,
political content, message, whatever you want to say, inside the
story or inside just a whole, maybe it's only happening visually.
Maybe it's happening despite what you're looking at. Maybe it's
happening just through characters that kind of sing so well
that it just becomes harder to kind of dismiss as
(35:10):
a message film.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Well, it's funny enough, like, Locarno every year does a
great retrospective. The first show I went to Locarno, they
did a Columbia Pictures 100 retrospective with, like, Columbia Pictures
for about $ 30. I think 1929 to 1950-something. And then
last year was like post-war British cinema, 1946 to 1960.
This year was the Hollywood Blacklist, which was.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Ah, good years for film. I mean, interesting.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Yes, phenomenal. And of course, all those films are chock
full of messages that they're just trying to get past.
But of course, I think the film that's most emblematic
of that era is High Noon, right? which is on
its face just a simple Western lone sheriff against a
horde of outsiders, criminal outsiders, who are threatening to destroy
(36:02):
the peace of a quaint little town. But of course,
when you look deeper into it, it's very much a film,
a message film, about America. It's a film about HUAC.
It's a film about the Blacklist. It's one man standing
up against these authoritarians who are looking to have him
(36:23):
basically betray everyone else in order to save his own hide.
Speaker 9 (36:27):
Listen, the judge has left town, Harvey's quit, and I'm
having trouble getting deputies. It figures.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's all happened too sudden.
Speaker 9 (36:35):
People got to talk themselves into law and order before
they do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Maybe because down deep they don't care. They just don't care.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
And it's such a powerful, I mean, such a powerful,
especially like that, the iconic crane where it's Gary Cooper.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Gary Cooper alone. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
And, you know, and it's just the visual power of
that message of this lone man, this one man of
principles who's not willing to deny his principles, who's not
willing to betray the thing that he's built and the
ideals that he stood up for. It's just, you know,
it's incredible, right? And, of course, some people think it's
just a Western, and, of course, you know, John Wayne
(37:16):
and Howard Hawks were angry at it.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, and, in fact, made a movie as a result, right? Yes.
It's Rio Bravo, right? Yeah, Rio Bravo. Hawks especially was like,
I don't, what's this sheriff? His explanation of it was
not political why he hated it. He just says, what's
this thing about this lily-livered sheriff running around town asking
for help to fight these guys? You know, it just
offended his sense of, machismo, I think.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Yeah, I want to say for Wayne it was political.
I want to say Wayne was just like, that's the
most un-American picture I've ever seen. Like, I've never known
an American not to come help his fellow American. And
it's like, well, buddy, I've got a story for you.
But you have the blacklist retrospective was so good because
it was, you had a few of those. You also had,
of course, the John Garfield pictures. He ran all the
(38:02):
way and body and soul and even the stuff like
the women pictures like John Cronwell, Cronwell's caged about a
women's prison. You know, there's just a whole spat of
these movies that are coming out in the late 40s
through the 50s that are pushing back against censorship, some
in quiet ways and some in very loud ways.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
You know, my pick in this category would be it's
basically part of the High Noon story. It's a matter
of what a difference a few years can make. And
it sort of puts the screws to Samuel Goldwyn because
Goldwyn produced... The Best Years of Our Lives, based on
a short story. And it was not considered worth a
(38:46):
bet in Hollywood. It was like the war was over.
All the fighting forces were coming home in various conditions.
And there were elements in the story that really felt
like you are risking charges of un-Americanism. With Frederick March,
the banker character, kind of talking about what the hell
we can't do alone. We can't cut a loan to
(39:06):
a returning vet. What do you mean?
Speaker 9 (39:09):
We have every desire to extend a helping hand to
returning veterans whenever possible. But we must all remember that
this is not our money we're doling out. It belongs
to our depositors. We can't gamble with it.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
I'll remember, Mr. Milton. Certainly the... depictions of PTSD with
the Dan Andrews character. Risky for Hollywood to kind of
be that frank with it. And then Harold Russell, you know,
an actual military figure who had lost a hand, not
in combat, but as a member of the service. And
he's playing kind of the lead character in this third storyline.
(39:48):
Tough stuff to get by. But Goldwyn believed in it.
He just sort of, I almost wonder if he didn't
sort of feel like, I can just market this as like,
we got a love story with Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright.
We have a starry cast, A-list cast, up and down.
And he had a hunch that this is the time
for this film. You know, we don't need only fantasy
(40:09):
or take your mind off the war, everything's fine now.
It's more like, it's hard for these people to come home.
And it's hard for this whole outer circle of family
and friends and all of it. And as it's been
pointed out by, is it Frankl, I think is his name,
who wrote the book on High Noon? Yeah. It's just
a page or two, and it devoted to kind of like, well,
(40:31):
what would have happened to the best years of our
lives if they had tried to green light that, even
among the most powerful producers in Hollywood? three years later,
it would not have happened because it would have been like,
this movie is communist, you know? And it just would
not have been greenlit three years later. It was a
(40:51):
crazy time, you know? And the studios then, like, as
we know, the studios now, buckle under to political pressure
from the federal administration to varying degrees about what is
going to get made and what will not. And that,
is a blessing right there. You know, I think for
all of us, it looks like the past does not
(41:13):
stay past, you know, and we're kind of living it again,
I think. But I think the best use of our
lives works because it doesn't apologize for the themes and
it doesn't foreground them any more than it needs to.
It's in every scene. I mean, we are just, we're coming,
we literally come home with these guys on the plane
back to their small Midwestern town in the beginning and
(41:34):
just see what life is like. Now, some of it's
a little soapy, some of it's a little contrived. Some
of it's a little this and that. The film is actually,
in many people's viewpoint, it is a perfect film, and
it's a film that actually means the most to them
of almost any film. I'm not sure it's quite up
there for me, but the way William Wyler and Greg Tolan,
the cinematographer, just shoot the simplest scenes of conversation, it's
(41:58):
just kind of riveting in ways you don't even know
why you're sort of so in there with them until
you just break it down more about what's happening visually.
The fact that There's not a single flashy camera move
at all until that. Speaking of the crane shot in
High Noon, right? The crane shot with Dana Andrews in
the fighter plane graveyard. When you do that, that's sparingly
(42:19):
and that's sort of strategically, it's just like you really
notice it. That's my kind of message movie, if it
is one, I guess. And for the same reasons you
like High Noon almost, but yeah. Well, I mean, where
are we today, do you think? In terms of like
people saying things that could be described, as message movies, but,
you know, may actually be, I don't know, have you
(42:39):
seen anything recently that sort of says, actually, that film
had something to say, and it sort of put it
over in a way that wasn't just its message?
Speaker 5 (42:47):
You know, it's fascinating, because at the indie and international level,
this stuff always exists, you know, continues to exist. At
the Hollywood, like the big budget Hollywood level, not nearly
as much. I mean, last year, I think, was a
fascinating return, because I think Sinner's of course has definitely
has something to say. One battle after another, definitely has
(43:09):
something to say. It's difficult to describe how surprising that
a studio would back one battle after another and give
it a wide release. And I guess something like the
Odyssey to a point is a message picture because so
much of it is kind of an anti-war film in
many ways. Odysseus being very guilt written about his role
(43:29):
in the war and his role in the sacking of Troy. Yeah,
there's been quite a few hits, but I'm not sure
there's been much in terms of, like, message. I feel
like most of the big kind of hits this year, Hollywood-wise,
have been more psychologically geared, you know, whether it's Back
Rooms or Obsession. I think Back Rooms does have something
to say, but I think its message is more on
the internal than the external in terms of the internal
(43:52):
psychology of people as opposed to, like, external culture. Mm-hmm. So, yeah,
I'd say there hasn't been much yet. But you know what?
We haven't answered fall. And fall is when most of
these films tend to come out, you know, in terms
of like trying to vie for Academy Awards, whether as
Oscar bait or as legitimate surprises that do well in
(44:13):
the box office and have something to say.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
I think in this category of a film that it's
from people, it comes from people who have something on
their mind and they have a way to really vividly
dramatize it. The reason I love that, and I know
you're a big fan too, Nia DaCosta's Hedda from last year. Oh, yeah.
Based on Hedda Gabler. I mean, Ibsen was really stepping
(44:35):
out onto a limb that not many people had gone
out on, just about to say, this is what we
do in a patriarchy. This is how women live. shrivel
and die or act out. And then DaCosta comes along
and sort of gives it a whole new set of
interesting complications that I just thought worked so much better
(44:56):
than relocating adaptations where you're relocating the action to a
different time and place. But do I call that a
message picture? Is Hedda Gabler a message play? No, not
to me. I don't know, but I just want more
of it.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
Yeah, Hedda has big sieves, you know, like class and
racism and sexism they're not necessarily so much of it
is based in that kind of party atmosphere and the
atmosphere of sex and desire that i agree that it's
not necessarily on its face a message picture but there
are messages in it.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Right right right okay speed round here for you robert
this we didn't talk about this in advance so this
is the game show part of it i guess i'm
just going to throw out a title this is sort
of in a category of movies that came along too
late or maybe weren't any good to begin with from
my point of view. But actually, in the face of
Goldwyn's idea, like, don't bother with message pictures. It's not
(45:55):
what we want. But they, in fact, found an audience.
Guess who's coming to dinner?
Speaker 5 (46:00):
1967.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
It's a terrible film.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
And it's fascinating how that film's talked about today where
it's just like, oh, well, you know, it was very
radical for its time. And it's like, no, it wasn't.
It was regressive when it came out. It was very
regressive when it came out, you know, in terms of
its depiction of race relations and its depiction of the
good black man who's trying to integrate into this white
(46:25):
family and how he has to grovel for their acceptance.
And it's just, it's a terrible film. And Baldwin writes
incredibly about it in The Devil Finds Work.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
You know, I haven't read that. James Baldwin's Joker?
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Yeah, he writes a lot about what portier represents as
an actor between that and and the defiant ones where
he talks about being in a theater i want to
say in harlem and everyone was yelling get back on
the trade at the screen to portier and and the
defiant ones.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yeah right that's right i do remember reading about that
yeah yeah a film like philadelphia jonathan demi that comes
along and For some people in America and maybe around
the world, it was some sort of empathizing machine that
(47:16):
made them realize, okay, I don't hate all gay people
now because this one's played by Tom Hanks and he's
learning to accept and vice versa, you know, Denzel Washington's character.
And it found an audience and won an Oscar for Hanks.
Message movie of what effectiveness for you?
Speaker 5 (47:36):
You know, high effectiveness, you know, it's fascinating of the
two message pictures that Tom Hanks won Oscars for back
to back. I think it's by far the better one.
And I think it's mostly because of the way that
Antonio Banderas plays Tom Hanks' partner is really, really incredible.
And I think Demi, a very empathetic filmmaker and our
(47:56):
mutual friend, my partner, Mariah E. Gates, we talked about
Philadelphia recently about like how when it came out, I
think a lot of people in the gay queer community
were very suspicious of it and critiqued it as being
kind of like a straight washing of like the AIDS epidemic.
But I think looking back on it and seeing as
being not like the film about AIDS, but one of
(48:18):
many films now about AIDS, HIV AIDS, I think it
very much allows one to have like a kind of
a clear eyed kind of look at, oh, this film was,
I think, very radical for the moment. was incredibly radical
and doesn't, I don't think the Denzel character of him
trying to be like, no, I like gay people now.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Maybe I'm crudely characterizing that.
Speaker 6 (48:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
You're right.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
You're right. No, no, I don't think you're crudely. I
think that's exactly what the movie's doing, but I do
think it does it in a way that doesn't, that
doesn't feel like Tom Hanks has to beg for empathy
where that character has to beg and has to say,
please see me as human. There's no pleading with the
Denzel character. The change of the Denzel character is actually
(49:03):
quite organic.
Speaker 12 (49:04):
The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against
otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the
duties required by their employment. although the ruling did not
address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination.
Speaker 10 (49:21):
Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a
handicap under law not only because of the physical limitations
it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a
social death which precedes the actual physical one.
Speaker 12 (49:41):
This is the essence of discrimination. Formulating opinions about others
not based on their individual merits, but rather on their
membership in a group with assumed characteristics.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
I owe that one a re-watch. Well, Robert, it's been
great talking this theme through here. So, in the end,
Samuel Goldwyn's maybe dismissive, possibly apocryphal, but it sounds like legitimate,
but paraphrased phrase, you know, they send it by Western
Union if you want to mess with it. What's the
BS to truth ratio on that for you now?
Speaker 5 (50:13):
On a one to 10? Hmm.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
You know, I don't think it holds water. I think
most films are message films in many sense. Most, you know.
I would just even say even like the dumbest action
movie is a message, you know, like something like Top
Gun Maverick is a message picture in its own way.
You know, the message might be the might of the
American military, but it's still a message. And so to
(50:38):
go back, I think it really kind of depends on
the package and whether it is didactic. And I think
going back to what you talked about and in terms
of like Capra, whether there is something that destabilizes the
viewer and destabilizes the picture and really kind of makes
you think, not necessarily agreeing with your views, but makes
(50:59):
you and allows you to think, whether about yourself or
the next person or what have you. I think when
movies can get to that point, I think the goal
one quote holds no weight, but I do think that
it holds weight when it comes to maybe the picture
shouldn't only be a message.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Robert, where can people read you right now besides everywhere?
I mean, you've had streaks where you've literally been in
every surviving film coverage outlet in the world at the
same time. Where are you writing for mostly right now?
Speaker 5 (51:27):
Mostly I write for three publications, RogerRupert.com, where I'm associate editor.
I'm also a columnist for the New York Times. So
I have a monthly action streaming column where I highlight
five action movies that have been recently released or streaming
that you can find. And then usually when I'm at
a festival, like I'm going to be at Toronto International
Film Festival soon, I'll be covering that for Screen Daily,
(51:51):
which is a great UK-based magazine trade that I write for.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Excellent. I sure appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
Thank you for having me. This has been a fun discussion.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
And all movies, to your point about action films, every
kind of film, all films are saying something and hopefully
many things. And it's just a question of how... carefully
you look at it.
Speaker 6 (52:13):
After we talked, I thought about Robert's experience re-seeing High Noon.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Director Fred Zinnemann's film had and has plenty of detractors.
It also has plenty of admirers who see it as
a model for a movie, a Western in this case,
that says not one thing but many things and is
not simply the sum of its messages. When it came out,
High Noon won Gary Cooper an Academy Award, and this
(53:02):
was in early 1953 when Joe McCarthy's Commie Hunt was raging.
It was also a time not friendly enough to storylines
coming out of Hollywood that could be read as uneasy
regarding an Old West community, an emblem of America and
Americana that does not step up when the going gets rough.
(53:22):
With so much of contemporary moviemaking and streaming service production today,
the corporate directive is clear and unapologetic. It's time to
appease the current presidential administration and keep an American eagle
eye out for anything that might anger the That administration.
That's what we're told, anyway. But we, the viewers, the
(53:43):
ticket buyers, the streaming subscribers, we do have a choice.
The choice of what we want to pay for. Anyway,
what's that William Faulkner line from Requiem for a Nun?
The past is never dead. It's not even past. But
all's not lost. It wasn't so long ago that one
battle after another and sinners were the big wows at
(54:04):
the Oscars in the same year. Now, people have all
sorts of opinions about those pictures. and what they're saying, but,
you know, those films were real movies, and they risked
something like effrontery. Were they message pictures?
Speaker 5 (54:17):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
But every film we see is saying something, as Robert
Daniels reminded me. The Movie Racket is produced by Joe
Disseau and Michael Phillips. The executive producers are Adam Kempinar
and Sam VanHalgren. Special thanks to Robert Daniels, worth reading
and hearing in any shape, form, or medium. I'm very
happy to say lots of you have written to us
(54:39):
here at the Movie Racket. That address, movieracket at filmspotting.net.
So write us, write me, just me, just write me,
and we'll get to some of those missives of yours
full of pith and vinegar next week. I'm Michael Phillips.
This is a Film Spotting production.
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