Episode 748: The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh jeez, books shoot.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
People pay good money to see this movie.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they are cold sodas,
hot popcorn and no monsters.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
In the protection booths. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Or land Elios are not taking us out for the seasons.
Amiga Syria. It goes west to Pendaca.

Speaker 5 (00:51):
Del menu amasacs, he said, goes to Marilla is.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Let's see become more dee Paris, gabrila, petitoto, miel al mandras,
ignasa la signor, turnkeys, curricula media ka extra.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
M calm and signors.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
They are panic, no innother and as it was you
costa man, mister Thomas, cantaos amigo.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
It's the noise cartillombrujo mi dagi no ela combe noise.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
It sees the mas stalking sliply, said he the younger man.

(02:35):
Well you stay, agena, said he say, okay, well you
stay again, said.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Sad Vitia.

Speaker 6 (03:36):
Sorry in nomine.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Patrick, but conda bakss.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host. Mike White
joined me once again. Mister rob sa Mary, you.

Speaker 6 (04:01):
Know I think lower classes are less sensitive to pain.
It's true.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Also joining us as mister Miguel Janzo.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Hey, I'm here back to the Mediterranean area.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
This week we are looking at Louis Benwell's The Exterminating Angel,
re leased in nineteen sixty two. The film stars unruly
number of actors in an unusual situation. The situation really
is the movie. So I'm going to give a spoiler
warning before we go any further. If you do want
anything ruined, go ahead, turn off the podcast and come
back after you've seen the film. So, rob when was
the first time we saw The Exterminating Angel? And what

(04:35):
did you think?

Speaker 6 (04:37):
I have to think that this may have been another
one of those that I got deeper in after. They
talk a lot about working at the bookstore, and I
worked at the bookstore. I had a coworker named Mike
who was very much into film. He's the one who
got me into Jurowski and Herzog and all of this.
So I remember at the time it was always easier
to get the later French films, those were much easier

(04:58):
to get in the stage, the Mexican air films, there
was a couple you could get. I remember I held
off on Robinson Caruso for a long time, so I'm like,
I don't know, but there was this, and I believe
that if my memory serves, they were. Again we've talked
about New Yorker, So New Yorker. I remember those box designs,
and I think it was probably I went to Thomas

(05:19):
Videos before I worked there, and I remember getting it,
and I think at the time, kind of like the
first time I watched Discreet Charm, I was like, I
don't know if I get it. I don't know if
I like it, but I like some of the humor.
Like I say, opening, No, I don't personally feel that
lower classes are less sensitive to pain. That is actually
one of the quotes from the movie.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
I thought that's just how you felt about things and
really needed to express it here in this podcast. Okay, Yes,
I'm glad you clarified.

Speaker 6 (05:48):
Yeah, you know, I just want to make sure that
people understand. You know, I'm not a class trader. I'm
as poor as y'all. When you're not used to a
movie that is plot driven. Basically, American film is very
plot centric, So to see a movie like this for
the first time, or like I said when I said
discreet term, you can go back and listen to that episode,
I was like, I don't understand what's going on, Like,

(06:10):
why isn't this progressing? I mean this does progress, so
seriously it does, but I think even more so than
just green Chart. But it was just this feeling of
I'm trying to get what's in here, I'm trying to
understand certain aspects, and it's like, of course, on repeated viewings,
much more really enjoy it. It's one of you know,

(06:31):
my favorite suppose going to do a tier of when
Will films, But sadly again it's like it's you know,
Criterion has it. You can watch it on streaming or
I used to have it on DVD and Blu ray.
I think they did a Blu ray of it. But
it's like all that Mexican era stuff, there's some of
them that are still really hard to get in the States,
even like Los Aldadaldos, you know, which should be lauded

(06:52):
as an important film, and for some reason that thing
is not available. So there must be some sort of
rights issues with a lot of these, you know, Mexican
era fil because I know that a lot of them
he did for just a job. He was just working,
so some of them don't have his quote unquote stamp
on it in the way that this does and connects

(07:12):
to other movies, like we talked about before we started rolling,
and we'll obviously get into that.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
And Migaul, how about yourself when it was the first
time we saw it? And what did you think?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It wasn't TV in Spain? It was very you know,
there was this movie. They were sawing it at night,
the classic host Classics, and it was with my mother
after dinner. You had this tuesdays that you watch films
with your parents on TV, and ah, this is a
very important film, they told me, and we were watching

(07:41):
and of course I didn't understand the plot, but it
was very funny. It was very funny, and somehow, if
you're from Spain, I think you understand it. I mean
in another way, because you laugh a lot. You understand
the type of jokes, the type of howple get stuck.
They are kind of very very kind of classical Mediterranean jokes.

(08:05):
Know that they are there. So even if the plot
was not, it was not a thriller, you know. But
to be honest, the first time, you know, I think
I was fifteen or fourteen, and he was like okay,
And then it took me some time, and then I
started to study film and I started making my own films,

(08:27):
and in the last ten years I really understand it again.
You know, I watch it like three or four times
in my life, I guess four times, and I really know,
I really kind of feel it and understand it in
a very deep way. It's not that you don't have
to qualify any symbol, so there is nothing behind the movie.
You know, there is nothing secret, But I think I

(08:50):
somehow connect with the humor, connect with what is portrayed there.
You know, I know why he's doing that, and I
kind of feel it and I understand what is it
coming from.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
This was only maybe second third watch. I remember definitely
watching the film before when we talked about this great
Charm of the Bourgeoisie, just because I had heard that
the two films were so similar. So I definitely checked
that out then, but I didn't remember it very well.
So it's really glad to be able to go back
to this. I find it very interesting that this is
based on I don't know if it was a play

(09:23):
or another script, because at the very beginning it talks
about how it's based on a cnadrama from Louis el
Coriza and Louis Bounoil called the castaways of Providence Street
and rob You brought up Robinson Crusoe, which is the
ultimate castaway story. But I find it very interesting how
this is the way this movie plays out reminds me

(09:47):
of Itchcock's Life Vote, just it's got the little group
of people in all of their interactions, any sort of
tensions that come out. I mean, with Life Vote, you've
got people from all these different strata. Here in this one,
you have everybody who's everybody except for Julio the major Domo.
Everyone is in the same class, but they still find
things they're right about and a bitch about. And just

(10:10):
the way that they're stuck in here also reminded me
a little bit of melbur Tweet with the whole thing
of all of the people that are stuck in this
house and they can never leave. But that's a whole house.
This is basically one room where they just cannot escape from.
And it's such an interesting premise as far as the
way that people's tensions rise, the way that they handle
themselves in here, and then you add on top of

(10:33):
it the way that it's being made the whole repetition thing.
I find fascinating. It almost reminds me a little bit
of Groundhog Day too. As far as the how long
have these people been here, we have no idea. Towards
the end of the movie. I'm just like, Okay, I've
seen daytime and nighttime maybe four times, but it definitely
feels like way more than four days. It feels like

(10:55):
they've been stuck in this place for a month or more,
just because of the but stink that they have. Of course,
there's a dead body that they also are contending with
and just trying to even go to the bathroom and
the way that they talk about that will definitely talk
about the vases in the closet kind of thing. But Yeah,

(11:15):
fascinating film, and I was really glad to be able
to come back to this one.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
I think it's amazing that I think we have to
frame in more, yeah movies like the Marx Brothers, all
the shortest movies that we have seen, even in the
American and Hollywood context that makes no sense, and escalate
in a very exaggerated and surreal way. But it happens
a lot in Spain that you say, look, I have

(11:42):
to leave you no, I have to leave this party,
I know. Do you want to stay? Yes? Only five minutes?
And next the scene is like six am.

Speaker 6 (11:51):
Like you you have to leave? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well yeah, in five minutes, I'm living. No, And then
suddenly you realize that it's nine am, and it's like fuck,
I had to leave at at eleven pm, you know,
and it's nine a m. And you don't know why
are you still there?

Speaker 3 (12:07):
You know?

Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so it's just a very common feeling, you know.
It's nothing strange or reality in that sense.

Speaker 6 (12:14):
I'm glad that Miguel brought up the absurd in the
idea of Camu, but also I would say no exit,
you know Sartre and the idea of being stuck in
a place and you're like, I'm here, but you know
what am I doing here? And obviously that can play
into philosophical concepts of just human existence. Why are we here?

(12:35):
What are we doing here? How do we get along together?
The idea of creating these manners and what happens when
the manners fall away? Or what do you do when
you're under stress? Which I think I've talked about this
before when we've talked about zombie movies and why I
love the Romero films because it's not so much about
the zombies, about putting people under a stressful situation and

(12:58):
then seeing how they react versus who they think they are,
versus what they become. There's a lot of that in there.
I brought a couple of books here in my last SI,
which is his autobiography. But as he notes in the
front our guest Jehan Claulkerrier wrote with a series of
interviews he did he said Exterminating Angel was made in Mexico,

(13:20):
though I regret I was unable to shoot it in
Paris or London with European actors and adequate costumes. Despite
the beauty of the house where it was shot my
effort to select actors who didn't look particularly Mexican, there
were certain tawdriness in these aspects. Who couldn't get any
really fine tablecloth or table napkins, for example, and the
only one that I show on camera was barred from

(13:41):
a makeup artists. The screenplay, however, was entirely original. It
was a story of a group of friends who have
dinner together after seeing a play. When they go into
the living room after dinner, they find that for some
inexplicable reason that can't leave. In the early stages, the
working title was the Tassaways Providence Street. But then I
remembered a magnificent title that Jose Beajureman had mentioned when

(14:05):
we talked in Madrid in previous year about a play
that he wanted to write. If I saw the Exterminating
Angel on a marquis, I told him I would go
in and see it on the spot. When I wrote
him from Mexico asking him for news of the play,
he replied to he hadn't written it yet, and that
in any case, the title wasn't his. It came from
a friend from the Apocalypse and therefore was in public domain.

(14:29):
Apocalypse is in uppercase, so I don't know what that means.
It doesn't seem like a title or anything.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Probably from like Book of Revelation. I mean, the original
Exterminating Angel, from what I was able to discern, was
from the Book of Samuel. So I made the sacrifice
and listened to a audio recording of the entire Book
of Samuel, which was actually very fascinating. I was not
familiar with Samuel, who actually is in the line of
David and all this stuff, so I was like, okay,
so it was interesting. There's a lot of stuff that

(14:56):
happens in that book.

Speaker 6 (14:58):
There were many things in the film taken to directly
from life. I went to a large dinner party in
New York where the hostess had decided to amuse the
guests by staging various surprises. For example, a waiter was
stretched out to take a nap on the carpet in
the middle of dinner while he was carrying a tray
of food. Of course, the guests don't find the antics
quite as amusing. She also brought in a bear in
two Sheep, a scene in the film which has prompted

(15:20):
several critics to symbolic excess, including that the bear is Bolshevism,
waiting to ambush capitalistic society, which had been paralyzed by
its own contradictions. As in the film. I've always been
fascinated by repetition, which is why certain things tend to
repeat themselves over and over again. I have no idea,
but the phenomenon intrigues me enormously. There were at least

(15:44):
a dozen repetitions in Exterminating Angel, two men introduce themselves,
shake hands, say delighted, and then they meet each other
a moment later and repeat the routine as if they've
never met each other before, and the third time they
greet each other with great enthusiasm like old friends. Another
repetition inccurs when the guests enter the Great Hall and
the host calls for the butler twice, and in fact
it's the exact same scene, but shot from a different angle. Luis,

(16:08):
the chief cameraman, said to me as we were filming,
there's something very wrong here. What I asked, the scene
where they enter the house, it's in here twice. Since
he was the one who filmed both sequences, I still
wonder how he could have possibly thought that it was
such a colossal error that it escaped me and the editor.
Sterminating Angel is one of the rare films that I've

(16:28):
sat through more than once. Each time I regret its weakness,
not to mention, is very short time we had to
work on it. Basically, I simply see it as a
group of people who can't do what they wanted to do,
leave a room. It's that kind of dilemma, the possibility
of satisfying a simple desire that often occurs in my
movies and Lodge Door, for example, two people want to

(16:50):
get together, but they can't, and that obscure object of desire.
It's an aging man who can't satisfy his sexual desire. Similarly,
Archibala de la Cruz tries in vain to commit suicide,
while the characters of the discreet Charm of the Bourgeois
he tried hard to eat dinner together but never managed to.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
This idea of a repetition, this idea of the failure
of will, is a very recurrent thing in the failure
of will. Instead of you a how is it calling
English the triumph for the lenny of it and starts
triumph of the will, drive of the will for us
is the opposite. No, it's like the failure of will.

(17:29):
And this is like happens every day.

Speaker 7 (17:31):
No.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
I see my for instance, my father trying to push
the whole family to the family car to go on vacation.
Nothing moves. He has to call us twenty five times
push it into the car. In his word. There is
a word here that every family repeats, is what a
cross or what the cruciffects? And I think if you

(17:52):
think about the end of Simon of the Deserts, there
is this discal party where Simon is with the wife.
The wife is the evil.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
They finally get together and they are in this party
and Simony is really hard and really wants to go.
They said to the wife, please can we go? And
the wife says, you will stay here until the party
is over, and and my father are like, whoa, you know,
the failure of will. I really cannot you know, do

(18:24):
what I want. I'm always in a family that doesn't
allow me to do anything, in a society that is
super catholic, to have any agency. And I think that's
why the this Exterminator Angel represents when in all the
movies that kind of unbearable repetition of protocol, an unbearable

(18:46):
repetition of things that I cannot do, you know that
they really had to do because it's, you know, because
my mother in law is coming to visit me and
I really cannot escape this terrible like like a family dinner.
They're really connected with that type of things, and all
they speak cruss effects like impulse into your life every day.

Speaker 6 (19:10):
The thing that's interesting to me is, you know, Miguel,
you have obviously the connection to your culture, and you
know in that way with Gnoel who shares the heritage
with you. I look at it as the son of
a Scottish immigrant, and you were talking about it from
the Kappac angle. I look at it from Protestant angle.
My grandmother was very proper. There were certain things you

(19:30):
did not say in public. There are certain things you
did not talk about, and it was about keeping up appearances.
It was about maintaining manners.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
You know.

Speaker 6 (19:38):
One of the earliest memories I have, and this used
to blow the mind of the workers at the fast
food restaurants when I was in high school, was my
grandmother sat me down when I don't know, four or
five years old at dinner table and said, okay, put
a bowl of ice cream in front of me and say, okay,
what do we say? Please? May I, yes, you may,
thank you, You're welcome, and just will run through manners.

(19:58):
Until recently when I've or to kind of deconstruct some
of this and allow for a little bit more flexibility
in my life. I used to be like Hannibal Lecter
when it came to manners, Like if somebody was very rude,
you know, I would just you know, I want to,
you know, rip their face off, you know, Yeah, I
just have this very visceral reaction to rudeness and to impropriety,

(20:20):
and you know, we just still talk about those things.
And so to me, I think this is probably what
Bwin wilds films, you know, if I were to get
into my psychology, and why they resonate is that he's
breaking down those bits. He's looking at the cultures in
which we live in and the manners in which we
have and going to what end, Like, what do these

(20:41):
things do? Do they just cover up the you know,
the snarling, vicious animal that's underneath. Maybe if we were
a bit more honest with ourselves and with each other,
then maybe we wouldn't tear each other apart. You know,
I think he leaves us with those questions, and I
think that's what great art does.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yes, still I think some sort of a comedian anarchist.
So he felt all these constrictions, the social manners, as
something imposed but that we cannot escape, you know, and
it's really like a barden, and he likes to laugh
about it. If we think about, for instance, the beginning

(21:18):
of the twentieth century, when he was in Madrid, he
was studying with Lota and Dali in the student's residency.
They were the three of them together, and it was
a very strict society, but they were in a very
liberal institution. So they will go every night dressless nuns.
As to joke, and an Andalusian dog they use. All

(21:39):
these jokes, All these jokes are related to repress desires
to do whatever they wanted to do and escape from
that kind of very strong Catholic society. You know that
makes you, you know, repeat, you can really see the
Andalusian dog is a collection of these jokes of how
to escape through that very protocol society, which is the

(22:03):
Catholic society. And I have the same grandma that you
have Rob saying, Grandma, say, I think I have a
picture here I show you. So that's the connection, you know,
here he sees.

Speaker 6 (22:17):
See, but that's the connection Catholics and Protestants not so
much different. There you go see exactly.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Talking about religion. I find it very interesting. Well, first off,
I find it interesting that this whole thing's supposed to
be a dinner party. We never actually see them eat dinner.
We see the one servant come in with the tray
and fall over, which is big joke for everybody. Everybody's
super happy, and it's all at the expense of this
poor servant doesn't like jokes. So she goes into this

(22:46):
little room and sees the bear there and these sheep
that are under a table. Is like, yeah, yeah, no,
no sheep, no bear, We're not going to play our joke.
And I'm like, well, what the hell joke was this
that you were doing the way you needed a bear
in three sheep.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
You know.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
And then we come back to the room eventually to
the dining room, and nobody's there except for the one woman.
And like I said at the beginning, I'm not going
to try to give people names because it's just I
think it's ridiculous, and I think that it's very much
on purpose ridiculous that we have so many characters in
this movie and they kind of seem to exchange with
each other as well. But yeah, she picks up something

(23:22):
and throws it through a window, and you cut to
these two guys who are talking, and the one guy goes, ah,
must have been the Jews, and I'm.

Speaker 6 (23:29):
Like, what didn't I I'm from And I thought about
it as an inversion of like Chrystal knocks right, you know,
So that was my you know, it's like, oh, you
do it from the opposite angle.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
You know, it can be it can be yeah, yeah,
something Tom. You know, I think he was a joke collector,
so they're probably a joke that comes in the last
ten years of his life and say like, Okay, I'm
gonna write it down, put it somewhere.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
There was a great story that I heard Carrier talk
about out when he was working with Bunwell, where they
would work all day, they would stop at a certain point,
go off, have a drink, come back together, and then
they had to tell each other a story, like something
completely made up, almost on the spot, and so that
would kind of like just continue that cycle of imagination.

(24:19):
Like to hear Bonwell talk about how he trained his
imagination and the subconscious and was so into surrealism that
he's like, no, I have to do these exercises because
my imagination is a muscle and I need to have
this muscle very well toned.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
He was very obsessed with muscles. He was a very
athletic person and he needed that stamina.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
He was a person obsessed with energy. He was himself
saying when I was a kid, there was an atlet
do you know, when he was in Madrid, he was
really trained. He was one of the leaders of the
you know whatever football team. I don't know who was
football or no, I think it was running team. He
was an athlete. Basically he was flying in the walls
of the resident, the students residency, I mean, and he

(25:02):
was really obsessed with that, So I guess he needed
that constant confrontation, dialectic confrontation and joking to keep It's
like a little bit like, yeah, the third mind in
the words of who said that it was Alam Ginsberg
or it was William Borrows.

Speaker 6 (25:19):
I think it's with the third mind the board to
get back to whatever plot we do have here. I
just love the fact that all of the help appears
to understand something.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
They sense it, like somebody says like reds from the
sinking ship, though I don't think that's very fair.

Speaker 6 (25:36):
And I loved how like in my last side, which
I read, he talked about like symbolic overreading. You know,
he feels that critics are us, you know, who get
into his movies overread. But I do have a feeling
like when I look at the range of his work,
that it always is those who are the most honest

(25:56):
with themselves. This is where I think he shares with
John Waller. You know, the heroes are those who are
honest about their maladies or their filth or whatever.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
You know.

Speaker 6 (26:07):
They're into feat or you know, and they embrace it
than they're fine, you know. So to me, it's like
the animals, the bear and the sheep are the most
pure because they're pure instinct, which is what I think
the surrealists also wrote about in the twenties, but also
that the workers would be closer down to that, that

(26:28):
they would be more engaged with their own base instinct,
and therefore they could be more honest than those who
have to keep up appearances. So of course they would
understand that, oh, well there's something happening, we got to
get the fuck out of here, you know. So whatever
that thing is that's in the ether, if they could
possibly pick up on it better than those who are

(26:49):
in the ruling class who have to keep on these
appearances and keep up the play. You know, they have
to keep up the play even though they're not the
play anymore.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
FilmLA are kind of inherit from you know. There a
next step on another variant of neorealist films, you know,
where the humble class are more conscious about the nature
of power, the nature of destiny, the nature of faith,
you know. And I believe Mediterranean films are very much

(27:18):
tragic in the sense that the characters they are always
managed by forces that they cannot control, you know, being God,
the powers, political powers, or the rich you know. So
I think the humble they cannot control these powers, and
they are tragic. They just have to survive, you know,

(27:40):
while the rich guys they don't because they are normally
in control and they are normally in power, they don't
understand that they have been doomed, that they are really
in a situation they cannot control. And only when the
film kind of evolves they realize the real condition, the
real life content, which is like we cannot control faith,

(28:03):
we cannot control anything. You know. There is a strong
a force there is stronger than our d This force
is kind of disintegrating us, exterminating us, you know, and
this is I think the true exterminator angel. You know
that even the richest people, they're gonna die, They're gonna
be exterminated, They're gonna be controlled by a bigger force,

(28:25):
you know. And if you look at the Spanish literature.
We were talking in our chat about the Esque novels,
the Big Carrext novel. This hero, the anti hero is
a person that tries to survive in a situation he
or she never has the control, you know. They yes
have to leave. They are conscious that they don't have
any power, and they fight to survive. And the result

(28:49):
is not tragic. As many other Mexican films, the result
is kind of dramatic or very sad, but the result
in the case of Bunuel is really tragic comic, you know,
because the humble understands there, hey, well, their own condition.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
I think Julio to be a fascinating character because he's
a servant, but he's above the other servants, you know,
and he's the only one that sticks around, and he's
the last one who can leave the room. When he
leaves and goes to get coffee and comes back, he's
the last one that has left that room to come

(29:27):
back in. And then they really find out when they
tell him, hey, go get some spoons and he tries
to leave the room, just can't do it. And then
of course he starts to get into trouble, like hey,
I told you to go get spoons. What the hell's
going on. He's kind of the exception as far as
the other people are now starting to have problems leaving
the room, but yet he's the one that gets yelled
at for that. I was also very surprised as far

(29:51):
as that we leave the house at one point. I
know it's a ways into this movie that we leave,
but to have stuff outside of the house and the
reactions from the rest of the town, the reactions from
the rest of the servants. I really like that the
servants all come back and they're just kind of out there,
like I wonder what's going on inside drinking. They've got

(30:12):
the little flasks and stuff, and I'm like, oh, okay,
this is kind of nice. But yeah, it's just so
unusual as far as you know, we're talking about religion
and things, and even to think about I know this
is in a religious order, but the guys who recognize
each other and kind of give each other the high sign,
I guess they're both Masons, is what I would think of.
It's right around that same time that we and over

(30:35):
and there's this woman sitting there and she opens up
her purse and she's got chicken feet inside chicken feet
and feathers and all this stuff, and then that will
come back later on when they're trying to basically do
magic and they start talking about the kabbala, It's like, WHOA,
I didn't see this coming.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Feels like sue yourself as small jokes, not that you
know all this in the sense that all these rich
people are kind of stuck in some sort of an
absurd world that is not the real world, and that's
why the servants can come and go while the others
are kind of trying to find out what the real
world is. And that's why only through their suffering the

(31:12):
destruction of the world. I remember when they start drilling
the wall, it's almost like a bustard kit on seeing,
you know, to get water, because they don't even have water,
and they start drilling the walls like a bastard kitten style.
It seems like everyone around is kind of giving them
some sort of lesson or saying. Even the service is

(31:34):
telling them, like they have to discover by themselves what
the real world is about, and the real world is
that small games. They're small shared The scabal of thing
means nothing when you have to survive and you are
facing the real survival that you will never have to
face aristocrats. And this is for me very funny because

(31:56):
we empathize with the servants, but we never empathize with rich.
We are glad they actually we had a little bit like, yeah,
it's good they suffer, you know. And I don't think
we are glad because a person suffers, but we are
glad because somehow they realize about something. There is a
very interesting painting in Taling. It's called the Dance of Death,

(32:21):
and the Dance of Death every skeleton goes hand in
hand with It's a medieval painting with a peasant. But
if they all also are taken to death, the nobels
say like, no, no, I don't have to go because
I have this nobility title and I don't have to die.
And the skeletons say, yes, you also die. All the rich,

(32:43):
the poor, and the peasons they accept it. They just
go with the skeletons. They accepted. The rich they can
protest saying like I am accept I have this special
paper saying that I don't have to go. They don't
really accept the fate. This is funny because I think
we take the position of the reality and we say like, yes,

(33:04):
you have to pass through this, you have to learn
from this. You also die. You are also weak, and
this is something you know that is funny, you know,
And we look at the bigger picture of the world
and we see these big politicians and presidents that they
believe they will never die, you know, and they will
never know the truth that they are small and how

(33:27):
and they are not almighty. And I think when you all,
it's it's conscious that there is something even if he's
somehow anti Catholic, but he's conscious there is something big
on the top of everyone and you cannot you know,
you are not almighty, and you will have to go
through this process. And that's why the film becomes so

(33:48):
funny in my opinion, because the rich got totally crashed
and destroy.

Speaker 6 (33:53):
The thing that's interesting about him in his biography, in
his background is that he was part of that class
he was raised is, you know, relatively well off, even
in a small town. I remember when we did the
Discrete Charm episode. I think it's John Baxter who did
the biography on him and talked about, you know, kind

(34:13):
of his background in that way, and that I think
it's probably that tension within him where he was raised
in that probably around some of these types. So he
of course is most apt to point at them and
be you know, lacerating in his humor because he can
point it out easier than I guess if you weren't

(34:36):
raised around it, you would just be like, but you
can get into the fine grain detail of how these
people think, how they are in that way.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
But you had to consider as well that he was
a war refugee and he suffered from this wealthy you know,
because he went to a studying Madrid. The mother was
paying him the studies and everything, and everything was going
quite well. He goes to parties with Ali and you know,
living the great life, and suddenly this Fanny civil war

(35:03):
comes and he has to go to America. He goes
to New York. He goes to Los Angeles because he
has to find a very simple job, you know, translating
films actually from the Golden Age until the next film
Great Casino is sixteen years past. Almost he doesn't direct
anything sixteen years you know. He helps a little bit

(35:27):
with La Sourde and a little bit with a film
that is shot in Madrid as a call director, or
that he is sixteen years without directing, and he goes
to Los Angeles, a guy that comes from a wealthy family,
and he has to work as a translator. And then
he goes to ask the help of a Dali, and
Ali says, fuck you, you know, because if I help you,

(35:50):
friends don't help each other economically, because then you will
depend on me, and it's better. We will be better
friends if we don't help each other. While Ali was
organizing this big parties in New York, you know, with
all the high class, and Bunuel was really really suffering
the same destruction then the people from the Exterminator Angel

(36:12):
suffering in that room.

Speaker 6 (36:14):
I think if the timeline I remember is he went
to New York and ended up in la and he
worked for MoMA, which this loops back to the Triumph
of the Will in that he edited a version of
The Triumph of the Will for Museum of Modern Art.
I don't know if that's ever been released in some way,
if anyone can see it. I heard it was just
he did some sort of he just edited it down.
He didn't do anything that was bizarre with it or

(36:37):
anything like that. It was just this thing is too
long in these speeches, so he condensed it or something
like that. But when he was working at MoMA, word
got around that he was an atheist, and this led
to a scandal and he got fired and then he
had to go find something. And then in la As
you were saying, he couldn't really make a living, so
he was like, where am I going to go? He

(36:58):
couldn't go back to Spain because he hated Franco and
you know, Larka disappeared and when you read my last sigh,
like just Larka was so close to him. This is
the thing that always bugs me about Will that I
love so much. I mean, I love him so much
as as a creative person, but I guess everybody has

(37:19):
their foibles as the personality. Is that he could never
get himself to accept the fact that Lorca was queer,
Like it was just too it was a bridge too
far for him. But in terms of writer, in terms
of poet, and you know, they were best friends and
he cared about him deeply, and when he was disappeared,
you know, it was just such a loss. And I

(37:39):
think that part of why existentialism and the absurd becomes
so important is that it was built off of World
War One. But it went even further after World War Two,
where it was just like we lived through all of
these shocks, nothing matters, everything is fucked basically, so would
you lived through those horrible shocks. And he was born

(38:01):
in like nineteen hundred, you really see him as kind
of the embodiment of what happens when you've gone through
that much horror between World War One, the Spanish Civil War,
and World War Two. But he ends up in Mexico,
and as you were saying, Miguel, it's like he has
to be a journeyman. He has to be like, you know,
the equivalent in film of like being an electrician or

(38:25):
a you know, plumber, where it's just like I just work,
I just have jobs. This isn't really so much about
my own personal vision. Like his own personal vision sneaks
in for time in some of those Mexican films, but
he's not able to do what he did earlier or
what he would later do in France, where you know,
basically from Verdiana on from like sixty to mid sixties.

(38:47):
Really I'd say, I don't know, maybe like Diary Chamber
made forward to the end, you know, his last fifteen
years or so of his career where it was just
like he had producers and they gave him money and
they say, here, just go do whatever you want. That's
not what the Makin period was. And I think that's
why there's certain movies in there that stand out in
that period. And like I say, I haven't seen all
of them because they're already your hands.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Up if he calls them survival films, actually they are not.
But you know, I had to do commercial films, so
we call it the survival films. But it's very it's
really amazing because this idea of I cannot do what
I want to do in all the films, you know,
from El to how is it called in English habit's
mostly passion call, which is based on that book Calling,

(39:31):
and I don't remember as mostly pasion like a patient
abits or something. There is always this impossibility, you know,
but also not only the impossibility or the failure of
the will or failure will, but also the people dragged
by their own passions that they cannot control. It's not
only the imposition, how you know, power imposts gets on

(39:56):
the top of you, but you don't even can control yourself,
which is even more interesting, you know, because he was
humble enough not to blame others and to say, like,
you know, I had all this period, you know, from
MoMA and to to you know, where everybody was like,
you know, destroying me. No, it was like, it's my own,

(40:18):
my own internal flame, for my own fire that destroys me,
because I cannot even control my own films. None. You
can see that in I think one hundred percent of
his films, you know, from everything, you know, the Obscure
of the Laso to this sketto and Canto Laburgacia. You

(40:41):
know about the woman that gets you know, she's from
the aristocracy and she likes to prostitute herself in order
to find certain freedom. In that warhouse no or Burdell no.
And so there is always a flame inside and nobody
can repress. And that is sometimes a crazy flame, flame
of craziness because you cannot really you know, I think

(41:03):
he himself put in control, you know, like if somebody
had a little bit more of brains or logic, it
will stop. But he was sent to the US and
then to Mexico and then try to survive in Mexico.
Then he goes to France, make one film in Spain
to Franco aloud, which is Prillianna. I think it was
sorted in Spain Piana. But it's as a filmmaker I

(41:28):
understand sometimes he's like, God, I mean, I'm totally nuts
because you know why I'm doing this. You know, where
is this flame burning me? He suffer more than anything else.
That's a very interesting thing. No, that he was not blaming.
It's a guy. You read the memories. He never blames anyone. Actually,
he was one of the best friends of the Franco.

(41:51):
Favorite filmmaker which was a friend of him. That makes
this movie about francois it's his name, you know, and
they were friends and the end of their life, you know,
and he knew he was kind of praising Franco and
making all these films for Franco. Still, it's not blaming him.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Abu Moos de Passion is Wathering Heights exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
That is based on the novel of Yes.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
One of the really nice things that we have in
this movie is the whole idea of them being trapped
in this room by something they don't know what it is,
and it's not like there's a physical barrier. They don't
explain it, which I really appreciate that they don't explain
exactly what's going on. You mentioned the Romero films. We

(42:39):
don't know exactly why the zombies happened in any of
those movies. There's always the theories, you know, when there's
no more room in hell kind of thing, you know,
to go back to Miguel's painting that he was talking
about with the skeletons, it's like, yeah, we don't know
exactly what's going on, and so it could be magic.
And the way that they get out of this situation
feels very much like a magical situation as far as, oh, look,

(43:02):
everybody's sitting in the same spots that they were when
this initially happened, which isn't true, so now we can
leave again. It just they suddenly decide like, okay, everybody's
in the same spots, let's go. But they're trying, like
you know, witchcraft and all of these things to try
to get out of the space, though it doesn't feel
like they're trying very hard or very logically. We see

(43:24):
them trying to get the water out of the pipes
by breaking through the wall, like Miguel was saying, but
they're not trying to break through the wall. They're not
trying to get out that way. It's not like I
ever see anybody try to open up a window and
try to go out that way. There's no experimentation. They
just kind of accept their fate, which I find to
be fascinating. There was a movie from twenty thirteen called

(43:46):
The Last Days Los Ultimos Dias, which was very interesting
because it's kind of a post apocalyptic type movie. You know,
it's kind of like what was that bird bath, bird,
Watch bird whatever, where it's just like, Okay, something happens
in the world, and one you can't look at these
creatures bur alsoll attack you, like some of those things
like a bird box, and so this is kind of

(44:07):
a similar thing. It's like all of a sudden people
start to not be able to go outside. Like it
starts off at this company and there's a guy who's
firing all these people, and there's one guy who gets fired.
He's just like, no, I can't leave, and they're like what.
They're like, this guy hasn't showered in days, he's been
at the office, he sleeps here, What the hell's going on?

(44:27):
And then they force him out of the building. Security
takes him out, the guy dies, and it's again it's
like there's no experimentation. At one point they're like, oh, yeah,
this guy who was in a car he died because
he's still outsides. I'm like, Okay, I don't know what
the rules are, but after a while, I'm like, I
don't care what the rules are. And same thing with
this movie.

Speaker 6 (44:45):
I don't care what the rules are.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
They're stuck in a situation and this is all that
they have and they have to abide by these rules.
It's like one of these puzzle movies where it's like, okay, now,
if we turn this thing to the left and then
move over here, then something will happen. But with these guys,
they're just like, we're stuck in this room. We have
to put up with it. And they're stuck there. They

(45:08):
don't really try to escape. It feels like they're ants
in an ant colony.

Speaker 6 (45:13):
I also find funny that the people who society deems
can enforce the rules, which are the police right in
the military, they're outside, but they will do anything. They're
standing around like they're not trying to open the door,
they're not trying to figure out a way to get
them out, but they're just hanging out. One of the
things I find funny it's like their kids come and

(45:35):
it's like here, here's the balloons for you. You know,
it's like nobody's trying to do anything.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yes, send the kid in.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
But guys, it's not the world like that. It happens
every day.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
You don't get divorced or you don't get you know,
against some fascists. They don't can take in over the system,
you know what I mean, like click like on Facebook,
you know, like I know, I don't know, okay this No, no,
don't do it. Don't click like you know you're gonna
get prosecuted. They put you in jail. You know, you
put a like there, oh Jesus Christ, No, I don't

(46:08):
not gonna like it really happening, you know. Again, it's
very spunnish kind of attitude we have. We say, like
in Spain, there is a guy doing some you know,
road work, and there is like seventy five people having
their opinions if the guy is doing it well or not.
Instead of helping there it's like no, no, but this
guy said, no, do it more to the right. No,

(46:30):
I mean, you're not doing it right. What is this thing,
you know, but everybody is speaking and commenting like if
we somehow where And that happens with the people in
the aristocrats there. They are somehow spectators of their own destiny.
You know, they cannot just stand up and live the house,
because they got you know, they could just stand up
or live. But sometimes we got dropped in our mental

(46:53):
looks and we don't even say like, you know, like
I have to stop smoking, or it's as simple as
that on the smoke. You know, that's totally life, you know,
it happens like that.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, the cops are standing around like they've just been
called to a school shooting or something. They just don't
want to do anything.

Speaker 6 (47:13):
Or it's a hostage situation. That's the way I remember
the first time I saw it. It feels like a
police procedural for a hostage movie. You know, we're all
standing outside and I am I waiting for someone to
pick up a bullhorn and say, okay, what do you want?
And they're like, nobody's doing anything. They're just standing there.
They're drinking, they're you know, waiting the servants show up again.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
You know.

Speaker 6 (47:36):
At one point I find that funny, like it's like eh,
come back to work after whatever happened. I guess you know.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
That's the probably you delivery of screenplaying Hollywood. That will
be pretty I mean the biggest hole. What what is
the life? You know? In life we take a road
and we don't turn right. You know how many times
you go from home to the house and say like, hey,
but have you walked left and there is a sub
there with a great Ethiopian food. Oh man, I never

(48:08):
enter in that sho why. I mean, it is like
you could I die it someth.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
I just go.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
My ex and I were watching I tried to show
her film and she made fun of me mercilessly for
my love with film. And I remember that she said
to me, you know, there's enough ambiguity in life. I
don't want it in my art and in my entertainment.
I got to deal with enough ambiguous things like this

(48:35):
is not helping me. She's like, I want to watch
old Case Files or the homicide Life on the Street.
You know, Marathon, I don't want to watch this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Wow. How many times people watch Home alone and they
keep watching Home alone and there is this sense of security,
you know that it is so much needed in the
population and then it's a I think very few percentage
of the population that are open to adventures, to new stuff.
And the movie is about that, you know, everybody. The

(49:06):
police could come, that the guys could jump all through
the window, but they will never do it, as we
will never do and we will keep watching home alone.
And this is ABC, you know, and this is will
feel secure. Security sometimes is something it's a very concept
that we take like okay, like the police or the army.

(49:27):
But security is corn flex in the morning. I don't
have my favorite Cristmas. And you know, people you can
kill for that, you know, really can cup for that,
and you will put it in a movie. And that
was that's surreal. It's not surreal. It all is happening
every day, you know. So I find the exterminateardy Angel.
It is a documentary. Don thing strange is there, you know,

(49:51):
is that we want to see things that are very safe.
We want to feel that safety, like your girlfriend. But
actually life is like a stern angel. I see it
totally normal. I see like a normal movie, like a
documentary movie.

Speaker 6 (50:04):
I wanted to loop back, Mike to see because you
had mentioned up the front things about luge door and
there's a couple of great images in here that have
stuff with me over the years, and I kind of
wanted to get into that, Like I said, a symbolic overreading,
but still, you know, does the bear represent the rise
of communism Bolshevism.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, there are some really good images in there, especially
it's really quick. But the bear at one point is
seen by some other people and he stands up on
his back legs and I'm just like, oh wow, I
didn't realize just how tall that bear is and how
human he looks when he gets up on his hind legs.
But yeah, he's interested because he just kind of hangs out.

(50:45):
I kept thinking, like, Okay, that bear's going to eat
those sheep, but no, that's the people that eat the sheep,
and the way that they bring them in and just
get them ready for the slaughter. And the one guy
who's like nuzzling up against the sheep that's tied to
like a piano leg and he's being super nice to it,
and I'm just like, that sheep only has a few
hours to live because these people are going to slaughter

(51:06):
this poor thing because they have no food. They finally
have water, and I love the whole thing too with
the bathroom where they go into the closet and there's
all those vases, just beautiful Chinese, huge vasas that are
just stuck in a closet. But I'm the story that
the ladies tell about when they go in to use

(51:27):
the bathroom and how one saw an eagle and the
other one had wind rush up in her face and
leaves and things, And I guess I was related to
people I guess in Bounuel's town where they would have
the bathroom over a cliff and just everything would drop
out so you could have these incredible vistas through the
bottom of your toilet.

Speaker 6 (51:49):
It's a small thing where she talked about what he
sees at the bottom of the toilet, which ties me
to another absurdist or was another guy that I referenced
too much, Bob Downey in Putney Swaped, where it's like
we're gonna work gun selling the advertising that can come
out of our toilets. But also like you were talking
about the buzz so it's like, okay, you can read
it symbolism where it's like, yeah, art is a very

(52:09):
beautiful thing. You know, we care about art until we don't.
And then the whole thing with them breaking up.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Beautiful for me to coupon.

Speaker 6 (52:17):
Or the cello thing you know where they break up
the cello and use it for firewood, you know, which
to me is a great image. And again I want
to say, is it a discreet term? There's some sort
of thing with like a cello or you know, and
minimum the use of classical music. Again, this this comes
up with the conductor who you know, they you called
him maestro.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
It's in the Golden Edge that suddenly he's listening to
that concert and he has a terrible headache and he
had to go to the garden. He can of get
blots in this kind of bourgeois gardens with like Chauchet
garden and start like oh, and he goes and I
think finally he started leaking the feet of some statue

(52:59):
on on a statue or something like that, because the
guy cannot bear this shell or something. I think there
is no serial symbolism there. I think there's surreally kind
of these forces same symbolism as paste, Tito, you know
what you do, you laugh, There is nothing symbolic there.
I mean there is something deeper which is kind of
this spontaneity of life these weird connections between the things

(53:24):
that make you feel the freedom, freedom of something unseen precisely,
the danger of something insecure, something that kind of bursts
like a storm, like a light bulb or something. And
I think this is what gets us, you know, in
that moment, not that the guy had a terrible headache,
you know, like see why why why is that you

(53:47):
know that bursting, like like the bird you mentioned, like
there is no there is not there is no domestication.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
You know.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
We trend even when we write, to domesticate our ideas,
to make them understandable, to go through logic. Try to
kill that domestication or the pure idea as it comes.
If it makes you love is powerful enough to be there.
This is something as so poetical that it doesn't have
our reference now because we are so used to the Bible.

(54:16):
Nor there is a symbol and the meaning. But when
there is something really poetical, we cannot there is no measure,
We cannot pin it down. Something that is happening, and
we are astonished and we are wondering what the hell. No,
but we still feel it, still love still say this
is wonderful, this is so it goes into our subconsciousness.

Speaker 6 (54:40):
The use of sheep throughout his movies keep coming up,
and I know that as a kid, they always say, oh,
count sheep, you know, go to sleep. So the idea
of dreams and things like that, but also you could go, well,
you know the sheep, the shepherd praised, you know, all
of that piece. But the one in here that I
really liked and I have like Sam, did Sam see

(55:03):
this is the hand crawling on the floor. I was
like that thing from Adam's family. And then also you
know Evil Dead, so I was like, where they go
after the hand that's crawling on the floor.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
I'm really curious because I heard a story that boon
Weell was involved with the Beast with five Fingers. I
cannot find anything to substantiate that, but it even came
up during the audio commentary where there was comparisons of
this with the Beast with five Fingers, and that boon
Weell didn't like the skittering of the hand as if

(55:36):
it was walking on its fingertips like Evil Dead to
like thing those things, and he preferred the sliding hand,
and that's what he's got in this one. And I
like how the hand you know, well, for me, the
hand is usually symbolic of a penis. We talked about
the castration anxiety inside of the Star Wars films. But
the hand is the conductor. I think it's the conductor

(55:56):
whoever it is that that dies first, who's stuck in
a closet in the hand just plops out and then
the lady sees that, and she kind of freaks out,
and then I think it's another night. She imagines now
the hand is free, free form, free roaming, and comes
after and goes up and starts a choker, and then
she goes to like stab the hand, and she almost

(56:19):
stabs the hand of one of her fellow guests, and
it's like, okay, yeah, she's really starting to lose it.
But that hand sequence, when it's sliding, I think it
is actually scarier to have the hand slide than skid.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
Her because, like you were saying, like an evil dead too,
it's always you know, walking and then it gets stabbed,
you know in the boards. You know, it's always one
of those images because like I say, I mean he
has hands in Shenandelou, you know with the hand and
the ants coming out, you know, oh.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
And the disembodied hand there that he's poking with a stick.
You know, it's like on the sidewalk and the guy's
poking at it.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Yeah, it's just when the traffic accident. Knowing the Yeah, yeah,
we had it in the inside the box the biker,
I think he had the hand. I don't remember, but
I think it comes. It goes with this back biking
and inside there is the hand. No again, something the
uncontrollable hand again, something that you know, even you cannot

(57:17):
control your body.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Know if this is like increasing and they can't, they
literally can't control the situation they're in. You know, I
love that image that you're talking about with the rich people,
because there's always the rich guy who thinks he can
buy his way out of any situation. And here we
have an entire room of rich people that think they
can buy their way.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Out of this.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
You know, I'm surprised they're not like, okay, all right,
how much you get out of this room, you know,
or worried about the stock market and like, oh I
need a phone, I need to hear how United Affiliation
is doing or whatever.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
I think that's the biggest truth. Yes, it's called momentum
in Latin, which is remember that you die a little
bit like the trumpets of Apocalypse that at the end
nobody gets you know, nobody gets safe. Yes, it goes.
And it was in the medieval times a way of
saying like even these rich guys are fucking you will

(58:12):
don't worries they will go. And I think somehow mentality
in Spain is very medieval, because the God is kind
of the father is not this father which is very cruel,
sometimes loves you, sometimes destroys you. And I think this
is also the relation that people have in Spain with
the state. You know, we try to trick the state.

(58:34):
The state tried to trick us. There is always you know,
you will ask for a grant for a film and
you always have to trick him. You have the you know,
if there is this game of eruption, and you know,
at the same time you hate the state or you
hate the government, but someono how you love the government.
You know, all this fight I think it comes from fieldalism,

(58:55):
you know, like this father that tells you, you know,
like now one day it's slopping you in the next
day is bringing you the food.

Speaker 6 (59:04):
The thing that's really interesting to me also in watching
this is that you know, I hadn't seen it in
a while, ten years or more. And this thing is
more badshit than I remember. Like I thought, it was
a bit more subdued, to be honest, compared to even
some of the later French film this one is a

(59:25):
bit more hung crock, you know, and energetic that I remember.
So it seems like when he went back to France.
I mean things like Beldejoux or Discreet Charm or even
Fantom of Liberty is a bit more French relaxed. It's
not as the hyper. There's definite anxiety in there, I

(59:46):
guess for lack but better. It's like there really is
a tension in here that in some of the other movies.
I don't feel as tensed as I do when I
wants this one.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
I think Mexico reality was quite more brutal than than
the French reality, also the Spanish reality. You know, when
you do the most punk films are The Golden Age,
and and and The Lucian Dog. You know, he starts
really punk talking about passions, and then yes, and then

(01:00:17):
I think the Consecration of the Mexican period is really punk.
It's really strong, and it goes a little bit to
France and you know, French dyke back in time, they
were more intellectualist a little bit after the novel bag.
I mean, they are very strong films and very powerful films,
but I found the more elite films or more intellectual

(01:00:37):
films Mexican period that they were more commercial. But you
can see this kind of more Latin passion there and
more you know, not so domesticated. That's the French period,
I believe. I think you are totally right.

Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Yeah, I guess they're not connected. Maybe they are in
certain ways. We're talking about manners. But I was watching
a YouTube say about of all things Office Space, and
it was talking about like the original ending of Office Space,
the character it feels like a loop. There's a character
who they cut that would basically be similar to the

(01:01:14):
previous boss that he had at the other place. So
it's like, you just can't win, you just loop yourself.
And so to me, the ending of the movie where
it's like, okay, they all get out, they go to
the church, and now they can't get out of the church.
It's happening again, and just that last shot of the
sheep heading off towards the church, it's like, oh, we

(01:01:34):
got a duty to do. We got to do our part. Yeah,
the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I'm like, well, it was three sheep to feed this
many people. Now you need this many sheep to feed
all of the congregation. I guess that was the explanation
that Juan Luis boon Weell provided that he said to
his father had said, I'm so curious though, as far
as the end scene with what I only can assume
is a police massacre, the what's going on? They're shooting

(01:02:01):
a bunch of people and I don't know what's happening
with that. Do you guys? What do you guys make
of that whole thing with the shots being fired and
all the people running around, Because now suddenly the police
are very active, but they're not helping again with any
of the actual problems that are going on.

Speaker 6 (01:02:16):
I mean, if I wanted to read symbolism, I could say, well,
it's it's those who are wealthy and don't have to
deal with police violence. State of violence, you know, which
is usually metered out on the less fortunate that they're
locked away somewhere, and I think they're ineffectual, Like they
could be effectual, they could do something, they could help

(01:02:37):
start the revolution, but they're not going to You could
read again this is the Bear and the Bolshevik piece,
where you could read you know, class communist socialists, less
thing in there. But to me, I mean not to
say that there weren't violent, you know, revolutions throughout Europe
before this point, but this movie, in that scene feels

(01:02:58):
of a piece that maybe sixty eight that would be
a commentary. It feels a few years early.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
I agree with Robert, I don't think you can find
the kind of a political commentary so early. Probably for
police sharing or you know, it's probably there's hunting the bear,
some sort of you know, these things are not proper.
You know, what happened here is not proper. So some
some sort of coming back to the you know, most

(01:03:26):
conservative you know forces, because that's what the police represents,
like he we had to put some order here. We
didn't do a ship, but you know, let's hunt the bears.
Or maybe they couldn't, maybe they didn't even recognize them.
You know what it is this you know a bunch

(01:03:46):
of punks getting out of the you know, so much deprivation.
You know that, you know, it's some it's somehow unbearable,
you know, I won't say it's a simpol it's more
like what I what I feel. But you know, to
my probation, too much uncontrol, too much anarchy there, like
it's not proper somehow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Before they get out, I think it's one of the
last scenes before they actually break through the barrier, there's
actual like going around to all of the different people
and seeing a lot of their dreams, which you know,
I mean, it's surrealist film, but we actually get to
see some of their dreams. Some of them are just
the one guy's face over the clouds and his face

(01:04:29):
is spinning and the clouds are moving at the same time.
And then I'm just like, oh, okay, this is nice
that we finally get to see inside of them and
what they're thinking about. And yeah, there's clouds. It's a
lot of nature stuff. I wonder if it's just because
they are not allowed right now to see nature, so
they dream of Oh gosh, there's mountains. There's a whole

(01:04:50):
thing with like some sawing that's going on over lightning
and thunder. I mean, it's just some very strong dream
imagery and you even get it almost like it's two
people as if they were sharing the same dream.

Speaker 6 (01:05:04):
Which isn't that unusual within well filmed with people waking
up in the dreams of others whose reality are we in.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
I'm not sure what I make of the whole thing
with the cops at the end, in just the way
that they're shooting. I like the idea of them trying
to hunt the bear because I don't know if we
ever see what happens with that poor bear. I just
feel bad for it because it feels like such a
party favor type of thing. I'm like, who who brought
the bear? Did you have to go to a store?

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Okay, who brought the dog?

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
How do you even get a bear in three sheets?
To show up at a party? And that feels like
the beginning of a joke.

Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
I just love the fact that, in my last sight
he said that somebody actually did that, so he based
that on someone. Yeah, about the bear and she do
it party?

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
She's so strange, what a party that would have been.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
He was kind of a way surprising people with the
weird stuff, you know, like unpredictable stuff there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Well, it's like when he showed up and Dick Kevin
had his little artwork that he threw out and was
just like, oh yeah, that's my pet.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
I'm like, okay, Well, rich people do this stravagun things,
you know, as a way of feeling like the danger
because they know everything is under control and they get
really out of rail and control. But yeah, you know,
it's very common, all this ideas rich people have, you know,
like I don't know you have seen an oral, but

(01:06:26):
it's the first movie. It came to my head like
lately because of these extravaganzas that the rich people have
and like I'm not I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna
do that. For them, everything is a joke, not because
they can get out of it with no problems. So
somebody brings a bear's like oh fantastic, you know why not,
you know, exotic enough. And at the end, the poor

(01:06:47):
animal is hunted by the police. Now the poor wild,
innocent animal. But they could start hunting the rich, but
not they probably hunt this poor animal.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
It's not clear, but the end of the movie it's
almost like a triumph when you have the bells ringing
and all this. It's like that's what you see and
like it's a wonderful life or something that ends with
like oh everything's great, now we've got the church bells going,
and it's like, no, this is just starting another chapter.
And it's like, what is this strange phenomenon? You mentioned
the word simulkra and that immediately throws my mind to

(01:07:20):
Philip K. Dick, and I'm just like, yeah, I can
see Philip K. Dick writing a story about this. Just
was like this weird thing happened one day. I mean,
it's almost a science fiction premise where it's like these
people were in this room and they couldn't leave the room,
So now what you know, what's the situation. And that's
the thing I like, is that butnwell it's like okay,
well yeah that's our premise.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
Now where do we go with it?

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
What's happening? And he doesn't talk about the barrier that
much as far as the human relationships, and I think
that's where it differs from like a science fiction story
is they would be like, Okay, now we're going to
get a robot or something to go through here, Like
somebody you know, hires a chipmunk to try to go
up to the house. Can I make it through the barrier?
Like okay, well the rules here and like you know,

(01:08:01):
having a whiteboard where you have to write down like
well we tried this, and like no, they don't go
through things logically. These people, once this happens, they're more
concerned about themselves and more concerned about the relationships that
are going on, more concerned about the carnality. I think
there's a lot of fucking that happens in this movie.
Not to be crude, but that's very true.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:08:22):
One thing that I sent over because I wanted to
talk a little bit. I mean, we've talked a little
bit about influences, like cultural influences, like you know when
you live through those great shocks, and but one of
the things that I noted was a Suvice documentary last
fall here in Albuquerque that was the is Tudo servants
had they do a Spanish film series and it was

(01:08:42):
called Benito Peris Banouel, and it talked about this writer
who I didn't know, a Spanish writer, and talked about
him as an influence, especially in this early era. Like
they used footage from Lagdoor and then a lot of
it from Extremity Angel. Basically the thesis of the director

(01:09:02):
is basically that like once went back to Europe and
he kind of moved away from this direct influence of
this writer. So I'm not familiar with this. My Spanish
is Galdos.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Is that his name Benitopeter Galdos. Yes. The very amazing
thing is that Benito Galdos was a quite realistic writer.
You know, you read it in the high school. I
don't read it from my high school time. So when
you mentioned it, it was like, WHOA, he didn't know.
Now I'm going to go back to him. And yes,
he has a very fine or a very detailed psychological landscape.

(01:09:40):
I mean he's able to portray psychological relations in a
very deep way. And this is why I think people
knew how God all nuances of desire and reluctance and
all this kind of human relations. And then maybe that
was passed through the real off in process and ex

(01:10:02):
spontaneity and should realism and he got. But yeah, I
should go back to Galdos. I don't know. It's a
very famous writer here.

Speaker 6 (01:10:12):
The documentary was quite good hy written in terms of
what it does, and what the director tries to do
is try to blend the two, which is where the
title comes from. You know that the idea that they
shared these commonalities I found it really interesting. Like I said,
I had no idea who this writer was. I only
went because, you know, related to Bunuel and was down
the street from our lips. So I thought, you know,

(01:10:34):
this is this is worth checking out. So I would
include that, like if you put the trailer up and
link to that mic on the show notes, give people
an opportunity to check that out. Hopefully it gets a
bit of a broader release. I don't know if it's
available anywhere else, but I know it's a Spanish director
who created it, so and it's been out I think
maybe about two years. So I think it was like
two thousand and two or three that it came out.

(01:10:55):
The one thing that was interesting that I remember in
there was it wasn't that when Well at him. I
guess there was an opportunity for him to meet him,
but he didn't go, but Lorca did. And then Lorca
told him there's this story that I guess like LRCA
shares with when Well and they had been reading his work,
like he said, maybe it was part of what they
were doing. And you know when they were in the

(01:11:16):
Residentia school or something, because I think it was around
that period.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Yes, I read they met once, but I'm not sure.
He made two films from his novels. One is Tristana
and the other is I don't remember the second one,
and I think they met briefly.

Speaker 6 (01:11:33):
The other thing I wanted to point to you, I
wanted to thank our old friend of the show, el
Goro from Talk Without Rhythm podcast, because many years ago,
I don't know how many years ago, and it's been
current this thing around. But he sent me this book.
He found this Whenwell book. This is from nineteen seventy nine.
It was written by Higginbobham from University of Texas in
the late seventies. And so el Goro, who had been

(01:11:56):
on the show many times, he found this in I
think like a dollar bin some and was like, you
want this book on Bouonewell And I was like sure.
So he sent it to me and there's like I
read from my last side, there's just a short piece
at the end. I wanted to share. This says filmmaker
is moralist. It says the division of Bounwell's master works
into two groups, character studies and social satires is arbitrary,

(01:12:17):
but can illustrate some important features of his art. It
reveals that Boonwell evolves from preoccupation in the sixties with
a series of character as Verdiama Simon Bildejer to a
wider satiric view in the seventies, in which he made
only one character study, Tristiana. Since then, Buonwell has concentrated
upon the bourgeoisie as a social class, rather than representing

(01:12:41):
it as an individual. Even in his last film, which
stresses upon the individual, is diffused through two actresses and
portraying the same role, which is obscure object of desire. Thus,
Bonwell can be seen as developing away from the creation
of characters in a larger canvas of a social panorama.
It says, evaluating Bundwell's art will depend to a large

(01:13:01):
extent on which of his films will best endure the
passage of time and changes in cinema. Assessment is complicated
by reviewers and critics who have for years proclaimed that
his latest film, whatever it may be, is his best
so far. Critical esteem appears to favor the films which
focus upon a central character. Bounwell's dissect Society best when

(01:13:25):
it looms as a matrix from which springs a personification
of the bizarre behavior tolerated or demanded by its codes.
The later satires, however, while depriving the viewer of the
pleasure of identifying with the central character, continue to amaze
by their technical brilliance and the ease in which Buonowell

(01:13:45):
controls his craft. The originality of Bunwell's contribution has been
to translate one of the richest artistic languages of his
or of any time, Surrealism, into a film language, and
thus make a film a compelling moral force. The era
of Discovery, in which filmmakers were enthralled with the technical

(01:14:07):
capacity of cinema, Boundwell never lost sight of this conception
of film as a social instrument as well as a
visual toy. He owes his determination to disturb and provoke
rather than to merely display to surrealism, sustaining his early
achievement over fifty years by making more accessible to the
wider public. Bounwell constantly updates his vision of a society

(01:14:32):
paralyzed by a worn out formulae. Like a kaleidoscope, his
art renders his few basic themes in infinite variations. His
visual probe into the obsessions of the humankind and the
social consequences is as thorough as an inquiry into society today,
and it can be that for the first time one
of the great moralists of our cententury happens to be

(01:14:54):
a filmmaker. The thing that's interesting about this book is
that it was, like I said, published in seventy nine,
and of course he is listed as one of the
great film surrealists. But I think that if you want
to talk about someone who took film surrealism and surrealism
visual further into the mainstream, it would be interesting to
take him up against Lynch and see how an American

(01:15:18):
surrealist evolves in that way.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
I think both they were tackling very well the society
they grow up in, you know, and they find that
Lynch an amazing way of describing American society with these
two sides, you know, the darkness and the surface. And
I think in Buela there is also this shurface and darkness,

(01:15:42):
which is the Catholic environment he grow We know where
we were talking about this very strong forces coming from
the subconscious to try to dismember and destroy what is
always the conservative, a very conservative environment. And if you
see that the two of them together, they don't have

(01:16:03):
anything to do. They are totally different than the way
they render the images, but somehow they drink from the
same source. I say, it will be for another program, but.

Speaker 6 (01:16:16):
It was just something that I thought about because you know,
this writer obviously writing in the late seventies, Bunuel was
still live, he in dine till eighty three, and that
he represents kind of the apex at that time of
what film's realism was, you know, or the use of
that type of imagery. The only other person that comes
close to me in my mind outside of Lynch is

(01:16:36):
like I said, films have been so scattered and so
small over the years, has been to jodor Rowski. Certain
ties I feel between them as well in terms of
dealing with some of these issues.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
I never put on laoskil together. For me, they don't,
for they are not part of the same landscape. For
some reason, these seem to play a similar game, but
back to they don't because also Mexicans and we were
gonna talk about col Kitty, you know, and I think

(01:17:08):
it's a total different landscape because I don't think Yodrowski
is a tragic comedy is. He is much more critical,
it's much more dry, but it's very funny. His films
are really anchoring a Mediterranean culture of tragic comedy of
you know, the survival person. And I don't think this

(01:17:30):
connects at all with Holdowski, even if they are sharing
the Catholic tradition, I don't find any similarity way they
understand art.

Speaker 6 (01:17:42):
For instance, nine out of ten I would pick a
Boomhell film over Dyoorowski film. But I do have a
self spot for Holy Mountain.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
It was really interesting. I enjoyed a lot. It was amazing.
The reference to Robe was bringing totally knew to me
and very super interesting perspective of looking at them. Also, Mike,
where you were conduct him. But it was great, But
I think I'm a bit empty now we really put

(01:18:11):
it was very beautiful because I think we really went
to the essence of what brings emotionally from a wider
perspective culture and philosophical perspective through I think it's a
really beautiful program.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
All right, we're going to take a break and play
a preview for next week's show. Right after these brief messages, Lack.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
Just agrees ab.

Speaker 3 (01:18:55):
Agress through any deal as a no bus. They shouted
him that what's his hipkin buss? And my yes, I
can't said, min my cousin you do.

Speaker 6 (01:19:07):
That's a cousin.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
You don't a spouse as he does. My girls, I
hate to know me.

Speaker 8 (01:19:16):
You don't.

Speaker 7 (01:19:18):
Oh, dear boys to me, Mama heard the formula part like.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
He has a back load of do man, what he
you mind? That's imagine us to about dies. You got
air to bother? You just spookt.

Speaker 8 (01:19:54):
Ha been your son?

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Now water is shot? What? No flag of the watch astrong?

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
As a kid here?

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
Oh no, I don't know. Bruise take grazy.

Speaker 6 (01:20:34):
To be pushed down.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
That's right. We'll be back next week with a look
at O Pagador de promise us. Until then, I want
to thank my co host Rob and Miguel. So Rob,
what's been keeping you busy lately, sir.

Speaker 6 (01:20:54):
I'm just enjoying my time up in the high desert.
I think the last time I talked, they finished this novel.
I'm outlining a few other things tray and ended that one.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:21:01):
Maybe I'll put it out, maybe I won't. Who knows.
Just writing and it's always good to be on the show.
I think I've been on the show more this year
than I have quite a well, so thanks Mike and Miguel.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
I don't think we've really chatted since the release of
Infinite Summer. How is everything going for.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
You, Cohen, Well, I really want to go to the
next step. I'm a bit tired of the film, but
I'm reading a lot about Mickey Mouse and about Disney,
and about the last days of our Walt Disney, which
is very interesting with Epcott and all this corporate utahps.
And we were talking about Simulacra before. This is a

(01:21:37):
very big Simulacra and I think and I'm reading a
lot about Walt Disney.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Well, thank you again guys for being on the show.
Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear
more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some
of the other shows that I've worked on. They're all
available at Willinglymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community.
If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com.
Slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the projection
booths take over the world.

Speaker 9 (01:22:12):
Here it comes again, taste of jagged glass and rusty can.

Speaker 7 (01:22:22):
There are just black holes where the stars would be watching,
Just black holes where the stars should have bes.

Speaker 5 (01:22:33):
Food caressing, you're incoloxon, swans of vangels come to kill
your sons, and this is.

Speaker 7 (01:22:43):
A lab black holes where the star should have been,
black oas where the stars would be watching.

Speaker 9 (01:23:02):
On, the strange noise stinging again in your beat, Cover
this in menstress stream.

Speaker 8 (01:23:16):
Cover this black gold.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
Plunge, then.

Speaker 8 (01:23:23):
Choking gods, dripping food you minstrels stream.

Speaker 9 (01:23:31):
Rising up, the taste of rustic cat and dragging glass.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
Feeling against Here it comes.

Speaker 5 (01:23:41):
Againsts of loocas not I can served.

Speaker 8 (01:23:50):
Lang on everyone, please a little undern I'm thinking of it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
And not.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
One of about it.

Speaker 8 (01:24:16):
Instead of it just the night out it I want
a m les say.

Speaker 5 (01:24:48):
Let's say, I say, stay the sad time, the good.

Speaker 6 (01:25:01):
Raining, a.

Speaker 8 (01:25:06):
Little rest for a little bleeding kiss on skis on.

Speaker 5 (01:25:22):
A single, A bit in the prisoner, a prisoner by
one of bucking up for a girl, A bit will
embracement pa a beds kind of bit, I say, out
of a side, SI gets on it.

Speaker 8 (01:25:46):
I'm sick of it.

Speaker 10 (01:25:52):
Here it comes again, teaste of jagged glass, rusty can.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
There are just.

Speaker 10 (01:26:03):
Black holes where the star should have been, just like
holes with the star watching pis on it pis on it.

Speaker 8 (01:26:15):
I'm slick of it, sicker, I want to fucking in that.

Speaker 6 (01:26:22):
For the ell be.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
And no visit.

Speaker 8 (01:26:29):
No, well, it makes me love in spite of this.
It makes me love

Speaker 3 (01:26:53):
Love,

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Episode 748: The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Fudd Around And Find Out