November 12, 2024 • 25 mins
Wayne talks about the subjectivity of film and the common habit of not distinguishing the world of the of the movie from the real world
> Wayne's movie list:
https://www.waynejones.ca/movies/movies/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Wayne Jones.
Welcome to Newfoundland Boy, apodcast about me and the
Canadian province ofNewfoundland.
This is episode 32.
What makes a great movie anyway?
Taste and interpretation arenotoriously difficult things to
nail down, in the sense that bytheir very nature they're
(00:26):
subjective and that's a kind ofthing that's judged from one
person to the next.
Some people think that A is Aand some people think that A is
actually Z.
For example, as an obviousexample, a week ago a new
president was elected in theUnited States and there are a
(00:48):
lot of people who think that wasa great choice and there are a
lot of people who think that itwas a not-so-great a choice.
And unfortunately in the UnitedStates it's close to 50-50 on
who gets chosen as candidates.
But I use that just as a kindof a base example of how
(01:11):
interpretation differs amongpeople.
It's sort of astounding, in away, that opinions could be so
diverse on that and on othertopics, but perhaps that's the
nature of what humans are like.
The same thing applies in artthe thing about interpretation
(01:32):
and subjectivity, of course, atleast equally so and perhaps
even more so.
Sometimes things are obviousand sometimes they're not so
obvious, and different peoplewill agree on different things.
A lot of people will disagreeon a lot of things.
(01:54):
As for movies, I saw my firstmovie.
I'm 65 now and I saw my firstmovie probably in about the
mid-1960s.
I was living in Cornerbrook,newfoundland, canada, same
province I'm living in now,though in a different city, and
there was a Regent Theatre,which no longer exists, and what
(02:18):
I remember is a I don't know ifschlocky is the right word a
low-quality horror movie fromthat era called Die, monster,
die, and I'm not even surewhether I was allowed to be in
that movie, but in any case Ire-watched it several years ago
and it's fairly I would describelame, average, that kind of
(02:42):
thing, but I certainly rememberit.
I remember scenes from it thateven after all these years well
over, well close to 60 years,certainly well over 50 years ago
I remember, for example, onething about a body that was
against the window, some kind ofmonster or something trying to
(03:05):
get in, and its face was sort ofthis rough texture and I
remember blood forming at onepoint on the face, I don't know,
because it hit the building orhit the window or whatever it
might be, but I still rememberthose scenes and that's kind of.
(03:25):
All I remember is little sortof snapshots from it like that,
but that's the first movie orone of the first movies I've
ever seen, and certainly thefirst one I remember having seen
.
So I was on the only socialmedia that I'm on is Instagram.
The only social media that I'mon is Instagram and one of the
(03:48):
things that I came up throughwhatever checking my feed, I
suppose was that someone hadposted a question about what are
lines that characters have saidin movies that are so good that
they deserve an Oscar inthemselves, and there was a very
long, lots of comments on thatand it reminded me that how
(04:15):
different I suppose, my ownsubjective taste is compared to
certainly a lot of the peoplethat were posting there,
certainly a lot of the peoplethat were posting there.
One of the ones that got posteda lot was this very it was from
the movie Gladiator and thecharacter was saying I am
(04:39):
Maximus, someone or other, I'vegot a.
He said something in very sortof I would call very written
kind of way, where it wasobviously a kind of a set speech
in a very sort of I would callvery written kind of way where
it was obviously a kind of a setspeech, and a lot of people
commented on that as being oneof the greatest lines or
speeches or set lines thatthey'd ever heard in a movie and
(04:59):
that would deserve its ownOscar.
I found it difficult to believe.
I remember one guy saying thathe was so taken by it that he
named one of his dogs Maximus,and it was very powerful and
grandiose and admirable in lifethat someone would be a strong
(05:20):
character like that, and I'vealways thought in cases like
that that the idea is.
I really think it's a kind of aconfusion that people would tend
to lines like that.
It's a confusion of the twoworlds, because you have what's
going on in art, in the piece ofart, and you have the real
(05:43):
world.
And it might be true thatsomeone like Maximus or someone
who's a great leader may have agreat speech and that's
something that's quite admirable.
But in film and in any piece ofart, that's really irrelevant.
It's very possible that in afilm, for example, someone has
(06:04):
something very sad happen tothem, or someone is a character
who's extremely weak and hisreactions are shown in the movie
, or anything like that.
I remember years and years agoit was a comment that someone
made about a prison memoir thathad come out, I think, in Canada
(06:28):
, about this prisoner.
And one of the things, as youprobably know, as I know anyway,
or I think I know as much asyou can glean from anything you
watch or believe in anything youwatch is that there's a certain
society that gets set up inprisons and certain men, in
order to be protected, have togive oral sex to the, the leader
(06:55):
of the gang sector group of menthat are in one end of the, the
cell block or whatever it mightbe.
And the comment was you know,everyone sort of focuses on the
bravery or the don't-care-ednessof the person who says there's
(07:16):
no way, I'm going to do that.
I think it actually happens inwhat's that movie called?
In?
What's that movie called withthe Shawshank Redemption, where
he refuses and gets beat up, butafter that it apparently is
(07:37):
that determines the fact thathe's not going to be the person
that's giving oral sex to theleader.
But for this other book, thisother Canadian book, what I
heard a commentator read wasthat, yeah, sure, it's very
interesting to read about thestrong man who stands up to the
(07:59):
bully, the leader, the despot,whatever it is.
But what about the person whodefers and the person who simply
says I need to protect myselfand even though I'm heterosexual
, I will do this in order toprotect my safety?
How interesting that would be.
(08:20):
And I think what sometimeshappens is that people get mixed
up with again with the real andthe art.
That would be in the real world.
That would be sort ofinteresting, kind of factually,
(08:40):
but in the world of art, in abook that you're doing, that
would be something that can beinteresting and it says nothing
about you as a person to beinterested in that.
But that would be aninteresting thing to observe and
to see what the reactions wereby the person.
Would they get fairly inured toit and find that it's something
(09:02):
that they can do quite easily,even though it's, I mean,
completely against their natureif they're a heterosexual person
?
And I've always remembered thatafter all these years and I
thought the same thing when Iwas looking at this list of you
know great lines from movies andyou know, yeah, about the
(09:29):
confusing of the two worlds, Ithought that was really
something that's happening there.
I remember also this is againfrom several years ago, if not
decades ago where somecommentator I don't think it was
anyone with a lot ofqualifications, frankly, but was
(09:51):
talking about the Vin Dieselcharacter in the Fast and
Furious franchise, as they callit, and there's one scene
apparently where he's I don'tknow he's wearing a fur coat or
some kind of big coat of somekind and he has a kind of a
macho power about him and theperson was admiring that scene
(10:13):
and admiring that character.
And I really think thecommentator that is, and I
really think that's gettingthings mixed up.
That's, yeah, it might be good.
It might be pretty cool ifthere was this character who was
dressed in a funny way.
It might be pretty cool ifthere was this character who was
dressed in a funny way but itwas still enough not to deny his
macho-ness, and then he wouldsort of carry out and do what he
(10:36):
wanted to do and that would bevery sexy and people would
admire his bravery.
But again, I think that'sgetting things mixed up Again.
I think that's getting thingsmixed up.
That's not really.
That's judging art by thestandards of real life and not
by the standards or the criteriathat are used in art itself.
(10:57):
And another one I reallyremember, and this was from a I
would interpret as being a veryunqualified commentator on much
music or something like thatqualified commentator on much
music or something like that.
And she was saying somethinglike there were these two
characters on stage on a movieand you know they were lovers in
(11:21):
the movie or a partner, youknow, girlfriend, boyfriend,
whatever it might be and she wasmore interested girlfriend,
boyfriend, whatever it might beand she was more interested.
She was also getting mixed upin or tending to be more
interested in what the actorswere at in real life.
So I remember her sayingsomething like oh, they had such
chemistry on screen and Ireally don't think that's
(11:43):
something you can fake.
That's something you can fake.
And that was, you know, whatshe was making.
The comment was that now shecould scoop us all with the
information that those twocharacters on screen were
actually having a love affair inreal life.
And that's not only silly to bedoing that with what you see in
a movie, but there's no truthin it, there's no necessary
(12:11):
cause and effect in it.
And it reminds me, as I said.
She said you can't fake thatand that again reminded me
there's a lot of reminding megoing on here of a line or an
apparent incident.
(12:32):
That happened when Hitchcock wasfilming a movie with Sean
Connery in it and one of theactors actresses, as they called
them at the time came up to himand said that Sean Connery was
so attractive that it would be.
How was she to go aboutpretending that she didn't like
(12:53):
him or that she was, you know,disgusted by his actions?
And Hitchcock was said to havetold her it's called acting my
dear, and that's anunderstanding on Hitchcock's
part of how things work.
Basically, you have to set yourmind in a different way so that
(13:15):
you could look at a handsomeman and be repulsed by him, or
at least pretend to be.
It's not as if, oh, handsomeman, how can I possibly pretend
to be as if, oh, handsome man?
How can I possibly pretend tobe taken aback by this person?
It's really ridiculous when youthink about it for more than
(13:41):
five seconds.
I also recently was looking ata description of a class that a
teacher of fiction was puttingon, and one of the things that
she was saying that sheconsidered the what was it?
The truest of truisms in fictionwas that the writer has to make
(14:07):
it so that the reader caresabout the main character or
cares about some character inthe book or cares about the
narrator, and those were theterms cares about, and I was
struck by that because I havenever felt that way and I think
(14:28):
even in obvious terms.
I mean, there's lots of greatnovels and short stories and
movies, certainly that I've seenthat have absolutely
reprehensible characters and Idon't care about them in the
sense that in fact I don't careabout, as it were, any
(14:50):
characters in film.
I mean, the whole idea is tosee the thing as a total thing
that's outside of life andcaring about them is really
irrelevant.
But even to take her sort ofpremise like that, I've watched
lots of movies where I don'tcare about the evil person, the
(15:14):
evil main character.
But I was suggesting that sheuse terminology, something like
to be curious about or to beinterested in.
That's what you're interested,that's what the true thing is.
There's this very bad man, forexample, and you don't care
about him in the sense of, inher sense of.
(15:35):
You know what happens to himand is he going to make it
through, is he going to bereformed and things like that.
You're interested in seeingwhat happens, you're curious
about it, and what you'recurious about may be pretty
hardcore, negative, maybe how aserial killer works, maybe how a
(15:57):
butchering serial killer works.
It may be how just a man withno morals, a sociopath, works.
You can be curious about thatwithout caring about it, in the
sense of saying, like, theproblem is that if you insist
that you care about it, then anymovie that has a sociopath as
(16:19):
the main character then you'renever going to, I guess, like
that movie because you can nevercare about that person,
presumably unless you're asociopath yourself.
And I'm not, as far as I know,a sociopath.
But I've seen several moviesthat I could name with
sociopaths as their maincharacters and I've cared about
(16:42):
them and be curious about themand wanted to learn sort of how
they operate, at least accordingto how the director could
interpret them.
So I mean, the criteria I haveis that when I watch a movie or
when I watch characters in amovie, is that I always call it
(17:07):
and maybe this, I don't know Ialways call it that you should
be able to watch a movie and thespell should never be broken,
and what I mean by that is thatyou should never see the actor,
you should never hear thewriting of the writer, hear the
(17:35):
writing of the writer and youshould never feel and see what
the director is doing.
That should all be very, veryinvisible and what you should
see is a kind of un, a depictedstory with depicted characters,
and all you see is that youdon't see someone trying to be
that character.
(17:55):
That would be extremely pooracting.
I've seen a lot of that and youdon't see a director, for
example, focusing on a certainthing.
I've seen lots of very sillythings in movies where I don't
know someone leaves the car keysbehind and then there'll be a
(18:18):
three-second shot and perhapsominous music about and a focus
on the car keys, aboutdun-dun-dun kind of thing, and
to remind the listener or toremind the viewer that this is
an important thing and there areways of doing that.
That's a lot less, a lot morenuanced, a lot more subtle, a
(18:39):
lot more intelligent, I wouldsay as well.
And the same thing about thewriting.
This is something that's veryit gets back to what I was
talking about earlier.
It's the same thing in thewriting where, yeah, of course
Maximus may have had this, thisreally great speech, but when I
(19:00):
heard it, it it had the, it hadthe feeling of writing about, it
had the feeling of beingwritten, had the feeling about
something no one would ever sayit had the feeling of being
written, had the feeling aboutsomething no one would ever say,
and perhaps, perhaps I'm justnot understanding very possible
or not appreciating the, thenorms of fantasy, whatever you
(19:23):
call it, those movies like that,uh, that you, you do have those
norms where you have to sort ofaccept a certain kind of
language or a certain way ofsaying things, and that's
eminently possible.
But that's not the way I seefilm, that's not the way,
(19:43):
certainly, I watch it.
I just want to give a quickcouple of examples of what I'm
talking about and then to wrapup and to point you to a list of
my favorite movies that youcould probably watch and see
what, at least I think are thebest of the best of movies.
There's a great movie that a lotof people maybe not have seen,
(20:06):
called Glen Gary Glen Ross,directed by the great David
Mamet, scene called glengarryglen ross, directed by the great
david memet, and there's acertain scene in that where jack
lemon not, frankly, an actorthat I'd ever kind of admired in
any way in his older stuff thisis a glengarry glen ross is a
fairly modern movie and you knowthe old jack lemon movies I
(20:27):
could probably take or leave.
But there's a scene in it wherehe gets caught doing a certain
thing and, um, his, there'sabout a minute or two of him
pretending to his boss that hehas not been caught.
And the facial expressions thathe uses and the language where
(20:52):
he's trying to fake his way outof it and not admit that he's
done that is just exquisitelydone, just amazing.
It looks exactly how a personwould do that and I've always
been super impressed by that andfor God's sake, just those bits
(21:12):
in the movie is enough to makeit worthwhile for me.
There's another movie very muchon the opposite end, called man
Bites Dog.
I think it was made in Belgiumand that is an extremely extreme
movie, extremely extreme.
That is an extremely unfetteredmovie.
(21:35):
It's basically the premise isthat there's a documentary crew
making a documentary about,about, effectively, a serial
killer.
But this is not one of theseskulking serial killers with a
little black hat on.
This is just this veryobnoxious man who happens to
(21:56):
kill people Like he'll kill thepostman on a certain day because
then he can collect all thechecks and it basically reduces
serial killing to a very prosaiclevel.
He's crude, he goes out andgets drunk, for example, with
the people, and then throws upon the table and completely
caught up in himself.
(22:16):
There's this short scene wherehe's trying to kill this older
woman and he basically shouts ather loudly and the movie is
just really excellent.
It basically, you know it hasthis sort of if I can say it
(22:38):
message in it about thecrossover between real life and
we're making a documentary.
Like at what point do we stopdoing this?
Because here's the guy killingpeople.
How much are we accomplices?
And in fact I believe there arescenes where the cameraman is
helping drag a body away for theguy.
It's a very powerful and very,extremely well-made movie.
When I first saw it in Ottawaat the National Library of
(23:00):
Canada, there's a very extremescene in it where people walked
out.
I remember in this GrandAuditorium at the National
Library in Ottawa, peoplewalking out of the movie because
this was so bad.
And maybe one of the last moviesI'll cite is a movie called
(23:20):
Safe, and this is a movie thatprobably not a lot of people
have seen.
There's a lot of movies withthat title, but this is the one
with Julianne Moore where shedevelops this illness.
She's the epitome of the middleclass, proper woman and she
(23:41):
develops this illness just fromsort of living in the city.
It's like she's sort ofhypersensitive and it's a long
story and it's worthwhilewatching how all this develops.
But it develops to the pointwhere she feels she has to leave
her family and live on thiskind of commune in the desert
(24:02):
where you know she's wearing amask and things like that and
eating only the best gruel orwhatever it might be, and she
can feel sort of safe from theworld and you can take whatever
message you want from that.
I don't usually like to takemessages from movies, but the
whole thing is depicted in a waythat's just extremely,
(24:27):
extremely great.
You don't see movies that wellmade very often.
Of course.
According to my calculationsyou see them about one in every
100 movies.
I've kept calculations since1996 of ratings of movies and
(24:49):
this is this is one of the fewthat's in the one out of 100.
So it's not.
I guess the main thing I wouldsay, just sort of wrapping up,
is that it's, it's the it's.
(25:11):
These are two worlds.
Art and real life are twoworlds and it's something that
you hate in the real world issomething that you could
something the depiction of whichyou could really appreciate it
and be enthusiasticallyinterested in in the real world,
(25:32):
and that's no reflection onyour character.
You can go safely to the nexthappy movie and still feel that
you're a good person.
And that's all for this episode.
Thanks for listening and pleasejoin me again next Tuesday.
Hi, I'm Wayne Jones.
Welcome to Newfoundland Boy, apodcast about me and the
Canadian province ofNewfoundland.
This is episode 32.
What makes a great movie anyway?
Taste and interpretation arenotoriously difficult things to
nail down, in the sense that bytheir very nature they're
(00:26):
subjective and that's a kind ofthing that's judged from one
person to the next.
Some people think that A is Aand some people think that A is
actually Z.
For example, as an obviousexample, a week ago a new
president was elected in theUnited States and there are a
(00:48):
lot of people who think that wasa great choice and there are a
lot of people who think that itwas a not-so-great a choice.
And unfortunately in the UnitedStates it's close to 50-50 on
who gets chosen as candidates.
But I use that just as a kindof a base example of how
(01:11):
interpretation differs amongpeople.
It's sort of astounding, in away, that opinions could be so
diverse on that and on othertopics, but perhaps that's the
nature of what humans are like.
The same thing applies in artthe thing about interpretation
(01:32):
and subjectivity, of course, atleast equally so and perhaps
even more so.
Sometimes things are obviousand sometimes they're not so
obvious, and different peoplewill agree on different things.
A lot of people will disagreeon a lot of things.
(01:54):
As for movies, I saw my firstmovie.
I'm 65 now and I saw my firstmovie probably in about the
mid-1960s.
I was living in Cornerbrook,newfoundland, canada, same
province I'm living in now,though in a different city, and
there was a Regent Theatre,which no longer exists, and what
(02:18):
I remember is a I don't know ifschlocky is the right word a
low-quality horror movie fromthat era called Die, monster,
die, and I'm not even surewhether I was allowed to be in
that movie, but in any case Ire-watched it several years ago
and it's fairly I would describelame, average, that kind of
(02:42):
thing, but I certainly rememberit.
I remember scenes from it thateven after all these years well
over, well close to 60 years,certainly well over 50 years ago
I remember, for example, onething about a body that was
against the window, some kind ofmonster or something trying to
(03:05):
get in, and its face was sort ofthis rough texture and I
remember blood forming at onepoint on the face, I don't know,
because it hit the building orhit the window or whatever it
might be, but I still rememberthose scenes and that's kind of.
(03:25):
All I remember is little sortof snapshots from it like that,
but that's the first movie orone of the first movies I've
ever seen, and certainly thefirst one I remember having seen
.
So I was on the only socialmedia that I'm on is Instagram.
The only social media that I'mon is Instagram and one of the
(03:48):
things that I came up throughwhatever checking my feed, I
suppose was that someone hadposted a question about what are
lines that characters have saidin movies that are so good that
they deserve an Oscar inthemselves, and there was a very
long, lots of comments on thatand it reminded me that how
(04:15):
different I suppose, my ownsubjective taste is compared to
certainly a lot of the peoplethat were posting there,
certainly a lot of the peoplethat were posting there.
One of the ones that got posteda lot was this very it was from
the movie Gladiator and thecharacter was saying I am
(04:39):
Maximus, someone or other, I'vegot a.
He said something in very sortof I would call very written
kind of way, where it wasobviously a kind of a set speech
in a very sort of I would callvery written kind of way where
it was obviously a kind of a setspeech, and a lot of people
commented on that as being oneof the greatest lines or
speeches or set lines thatthey'd ever heard in a movie and
(04:59):
that would deserve its ownOscar.
I found it difficult to believe.
I remember one guy saying thathe was so taken by it that he
named one of his dogs Maximus,and it was very powerful and
grandiose and admirable in lifethat someone would be a strong
(05:20):
character like that, and I'vealways thought in cases like
that that the idea is.
I really think it's a kind of aconfusion that people would tend
to lines like that.
It's a confusion of the twoworlds, because you have what's
going on in art, in the piece ofart, and you have the real
(05:43):
world.
And it might be true thatsomeone like Maximus or someone
who's a great leader may have agreat speech and that's
something that's quite admirable.
But in film and in any piece ofart, that's really irrelevant.
It's very possible that in afilm, for example, someone has
(06:04):
something very sad happen tothem, or someone is a character
who's extremely weak and hisreactions are shown in the movie
, or anything like that.
I remember years and years agoit was a comment that someone
made about a prison memoir thathad come out, I think, in Canada
(06:28):
, about this prisoner.
And one of the things, as youprobably know, as I know anyway,
or I think I know as much asyou can glean from anything you
watch or believe in anything youwatch is that there's a certain
society that gets set up inprisons and certain men, in
order to be protected, have togive oral sex to the, the leader
(06:55):
of the gang sector group of menthat are in one end of the, the
cell block or whatever it mightbe.
And the comment was you know,everyone sort of focuses on the
bravery or the don't-care-ednessof the person who says there's
(07:16):
no way, I'm going to do that.
I think it actually happens inwhat's that movie called?
In?
What's that movie called withthe Shawshank Redemption, where
he refuses and gets beat up, butafter that it apparently is
(07:37):
that determines the fact thathe's not going to be the person
that's giving oral sex to theleader.
But for this other book, thisother Canadian book, what I
heard a commentator read wasthat, yeah, sure, it's very
interesting to read about thestrong man who stands up to the
(07:59):
bully, the leader, the despot,whatever it is.
But what about the person whodefers and the person who simply
says I need to protect myselfand even though I'm heterosexual
, I will do this in order toprotect my safety?
How interesting that would be.
(08:20):
And I think what sometimeshappens is that people get mixed
up with again with the real andthe art.
That would be in the real world.
That would be sort ofinteresting, kind of factually,
(08:40):
but in the world of art, in abook that you're doing, that
would be something that can beinteresting and it says nothing
about you as a person to beinterested in that.
But that would be aninteresting thing to observe and
to see what the reactions wereby the person.
Would they get fairly inured toit and find that it's something
(09:02):
that they can do quite easily,even though it's, I mean,
completely against their natureif they're a heterosexual person
?
And I've always remembered thatafter all these years and I
thought the same thing when Iwas looking at this list of you
know great lines from movies andyou know, yeah, about the
(09:29):
confusing of the two worlds, Ithought that was really
something that's happening there.
I remember also this is againfrom several years ago, if not
decades ago where somecommentator I don't think it was
anyone with a lot ofqualifications, frankly, but was
(09:51):
talking about the Vin Dieselcharacter in the Fast and
Furious franchise, as they callit, and there's one scene
apparently where he's I don'tknow he's wearing a fur coat or
some kind of big coat of somekind and he has a kind of a
macho power about him and theperson was admiring that scene
(10:13):
and admiring that character.
And I really think thecommentator that is, and I
really think that's gettingthings mixed up.
That's, yeah, it might be good.
It might be pretty cool ifthere was this character who was
dressed in a funny way.
It might be pretty cool ifthere was this character who was
dressed in a funny way but itwas still enough not to deny his
macho-ness, and then he wouldsort of carry out and do what he
(10:36):
wanted to do and that would bevery sexy and people would
admire his bravery.
But again, I think that'sgetting things mixed up Again.
I think that's getting thingsmixed up.
That's not really.
That's judging art by thestandards of real life and not
by the standards or the criteriathat are used in art itself.
(10:57):
And another one I reallyremember, and this was from a I
would interpret as being a veryunqualified commentator on much
music or something like thatqualified commentator on much
music or something like that.
And she was saying somethinglike there were these two
characters on stage on a movieand you know they were lovers in
(11:21):
the movie or a partner, youknow, girlfriend, boyfriend,
whatever it might be and she wasmore interested girlfriend,
boyfriend, whatever it might beand she was more interested.
She was also getting mixed upin or tending to be more
interested in what the actorswere at in real life.
So I remember her sayingsomething like oh, they had such
chemistry on screen and Ireally don't think that's
(11:43):
something you can fake.
That's something you can fake.
And that was, you know, whatshe was making.
The comment was that now shecould scoop us all with the
information that those twocharacters on screen were
actually having a love affair inreal life.
And that's not only silly to bedoing that with what you see in
a movie, but there's no truthin it, there's no necessary
(12:11):
cause and effect in it.
And it reminds me, as I said.
She said you can't fake thatand that again reminded me
there's a lot of reminding megoing on here of a line or an
apparent incident.
(12:32):
That happened when Hitchcock wasfilming a movie with Sean
Connery in it and one of theactors actresses, as they called
them at the time came up to himand said that Sean Connery was
so attractive that it would be.
How was she to go aboutpretending that she didn't like
(12:53):
him or that she was, you know,disgusted by his actions?
And Hitchcock was said to havetold her it's called acting my
dear, and that's anunderstanding on Hitchcock's
part of how things work.
Basically, you have to set yourmind in a different way so that
(13:15):
you could look at a handsomeman and be repulsed by him, or
at least pretend to be.
It's not as if, oh, handsomeman, how can I possibly pretend
to be as if, oh, handsome man?
How can I possibly pretend tobe taken aback by this person?
It's really ridiculous when youthink about it for more than
(13:41):
five seconds.
I also recently was looking ata description of a class that a
teacher of fiction was puttingon, and one of the things that
she was saying that sheconsidered the what was it?
The truest of truisms in fictionwas that the writer has to make
(14:07):
it so that the reader caresabout the main character or
cares about some character inthe book or cares about the
narrator, and those were theterms cares about, and I was
struck by that because I havenever felt that way and I think
(14:28):
even in obvious terms.
I mean, there's lots of greatnovels and short stories and
movies, certainly that I've seenthat have absolutely
reprehensible characters and Idon't care about them in the
sense that in fact I don't careabout, as it were, any
(14:50):
characters in film.
I mean, the whole idea is tosee the thing as a total thing
that's outside of life andcaring about them is really
irrelevant.
But even to take her sort ofpremise like that, I've watched
lots of movies where I don'tcare about the evil person, the
(15:14):
evil main character.
But I was suggesting that sheuse terminology, something like
to be curious about or to beinterested in.
That's what you're interested,that's what the true thing is.
There's this very bad man, forexample, and you don't care
about him in the sense of, inher sense of.
(15:35):
You know what happens to himand is he going to make it
through, is he going to bereformed and things like that.
You're interested in seeingwhat happens, you're curious
about it, and what you'recurious about may be pretty
hardcore, negative, maybe how aserial killer works, maybe how a
(15:57):
butchering serial killer works.
It may be how just a man withno morals, a sociopath, works.
You can be curious about thatwithout caring about it, in the
sense of saying, like, theproblem is that if you insist
that you care about it, then anymovie that has a sociopath as
(16:19):
the main character then you'renever going to, I guess, like
that movie because you can nevercare about that person,
presumably unless you're asociopath yourself.
And I'm not, as far as I know,a sociopath.
But I've seen several moviesthat I could name with
sociopaths as their maincharacters and I've cared about
(16:42):
them and be curious about themand wanted to learn sort of how
they operate, at least accordingto how the director could
interpret them.
So I mean, the criteria I haveis that when I watch a movie or
when I watch characters in amovie, is that I always call it
(17:07):
and maybe this, I don't know Ialways call it that you should
be able to watch a movie and thespell should never be broken,
and what I mean by that is thatyou should never see the actor,
you should never hear thewriting of the writer, hear the
(17:35):
writing of the writer and youshould never feel and see what
the director is doing.
That should all be very, veryinvisible and what you should
see is a kind of un, a depictedstory with depicted characters,
and all you see is that youdon't see someone trying to be
that character.
(17:55):
That would be extremely pooracting.
I've seen a lot of that and youdon't see a director, for
example, focusing on a certainthing.
I've seen lots of very sillythings in movies where I don't
know someone leaves the car keysbehind and then there'll be a
(18:18):
three-second shot and perhapsominous music about and a focus
on the car keys, aboutdun-dun-dun kind of thing, and
to remind the listener or toremind the viewer that this is
an important thing and there areways of doing that.
That's a lot less, a lot morenuanced, a lot more subtle, a
(18:39):
lot more intelligent, I wouldsay as well.
And the same thing about thewriting.
This is something that's veryit gets back to what I was
talking about earlier.
It's the same thing in thewriting where, yeah, of course
Maximus may have had this, thisreally great speech, but when I
(19:00):
heard it, it it had the, it hadthe feeling of writing about, it
had the feeling of beingwritten, had the feeling about
something no one would ever sayit had the feeling of being
written, had the feeling aboutsomething no one would ever say,
and perhaps, perhaps I'm justnot understanding very possible
or not appreciating the, thenorms of fantasy, whatever you
(19:23):
call it, those movies like that,uh, that you, you do have those
norms where you have to sort ofaccept a certain kind of
language or a certain way ofsaying things, and that's
eminently possible.
But that's not the way I seefilm, that's not the way,
(19:43):
certainly, I watch it.
I just want to give a quickcouple of examples of what I'm
talking about and then to wrapup and to point you to a list of
my favorite movies that youcould probably watch and see
what, at least I think are thebest of the best of movies.
There's a great movie that a lotof people maybe not have seen,
(20:06):
called Glen Gary Glen Ross,directed by the great David
Mamet, scene called glengarryglen ross, directed by the great
david memet, and there's acertain scene in that where jack
lemon not, frankly, an actorthat I'd ever kind of admired in
any way in his older stuff thisis a glengarry glen ross is a
fairly modern movie and you knowthe old jack lemon movies I
(20:27):
could probably take or leave.
But there's a scene in it wherehe gets caught doing a certain
thing and, um, his, there'sabout a minute or two of him
pretending to his boss that hehas not been caught.
And the facial expressions thathe uses and the language where
(20:52):
he's trying to fake his way outof it and not admit that he's
done that is just exquisitelydone, just amazing.
It looks exactly how a personwould do that and I've always
been super impressed by that andfor God's sake, just those bits
(21:12):
in the movie is enough to makeit worthwhile for me.
There's another movie very muchon the opposite end, called man
Bites Dog.
I think it was made in Belgiumand that is an extremely extreme
movie, extremely extreme.
That is an extremely unfetteredmovie.
(21:35):
It's basically the premise isthat there's a documentary crew
making a documentary about,about, effectively, a serial
killer.
But this is not one of theseskulking serial killers with a
little black hat on.
This is just this veryobnoxious man who happens to
(21:56):
kill people Like he'll kill thepostman on a certain day because
then he can collect all thechecks and it basically reduces
serial killing to a very prosaiclevel.
He's crude, he goes out andgets drunk, for example, with
the people, and then throws upon the table and completely
caught up in himself.
(22:16):
There's this short scene wherehe's trying to kill this older
woman and he basically shouts ather loudly and the movie is
just really excellent.
It basically, you know it hasthis sort of if I can say it
(22:38):
message in it about thecrossover between real life and
we're making a documentary.
Like at what point do we stopdoing this?
Because here's the guy killingpeople.
How much are we accomplices?
And in fact I believe there arescenes where the cameraman is
helping drag a body away for theguy.
It's a very powerful and very,extremely well-made movie.
When I first saw it in Ottawaat the National Library of
(23:00):
Canada, there's a very extremescene in it where people walked
out.
I remember in this GrandAuditorium at the National
Library in Ottawa, peoplewalking out of the movie because
this was so bad.
And maybe one of the last moviesI'll cite is a movie called
(23:20):
Safe, and this is a movie thatprobably not a lot of people
have seen.
There's a lot of movies withthat title, but this is the one
with Julianne Moore where shedevelops this illness.
She's the epitome of the middleclass, proper woman and she
(23:41):
develops this illness just fromsort of living in the city.
It's like she's sort ofhypersensitive and it's a long
story and it's worthwhilewatching how all this develops.
But it develops to the pointwhere she feels she has to leave
her family and live on thiskind of commune in the desert
(24:02):
where you know she's wearing amask and things like that and
eating only the best gruel orwhatever it might be, and she
can feel sort of safe from theworld and you can take whatever
message you want from that.
I don't usually like to takemessages from movies, but the
whole thing is depicted in a waythat's just extremely,
(24:27):
extremely great.
You don't see movies that wellmade very often.
Of course.
According to my calculationsyou see them about one in every
100 movies.
I've kept calculations since1996 of ratings of movies and
(24:49):
this is this is one of the fewthat's in the one out of 100.
So it's not.
I guess the main thing I wouldsay, just sort of wrapping up,
is that it's, it's the it's.
(25:11):
These are two worlds.
Art and real life are twoworlds and it's something that
you hate in the real world issomething that you could
something the depiction of whichyou could really appreciate it
and be enthusiasticallyinterested in in the real world,
(25:32):
and that's no reflection onyour character.
You can go safely to the nexthappy movie and still feel that
you're a good person.
And that's all for this episode.
Thanks for listening and pleasejoin me again next Tuesday.
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