June 25, 2025 • 55 mins
Mike is joined by Robert Bellissimo and Philip Marinello to explore O Pagador de Promessas (1962), the landmark Brazilian drama from director Anselmo Duarte. Also known internationally as The Given Word, the film adapts Dias Gomes’s acclaimed stage play into a sharp critique of institutional power.
The story centers on Zé do Burro, a simple farmer who treks over 20 miles into Salvador while bearing a heavy cross—honoring a vow to Saint Barbara after his donkey, Nicholas, falls ill. What begins as a devout act of gratitude becomes a battleground of bureaucracy, media exploitation, and religious gatekeeping. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Duarte’s film remains a bold and timely meditation on class, faith, and the politics of devotion.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.
The story centers on Zé do Burro, a simple farmer who treks over 20 miles into Salvador while bearing a heavy cross—honoring a vow to Saint Barbara after his donkey, Nicholas, falls ill. What begins as a devout act of gratitude becomes a battleground of bureaucracy, media exploitation, and religious gatekeeping. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Duarte’s film remains a bold and timely meditation on class, faith, and the politics of devotion.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh he is, folks, it's show tied.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they are cold sodas,
hot popcorn, and no monsters.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
In the protection booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Got it off, My folk.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Will give you mother that that you boys space that
basually my smiles.
Speaker 6 (01:32):
Measureable to knowing that my gross.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
But that's the who's the negress?
Speaker 6 (01:51):
Who's to be used as a boss on the plantation?
(02:21):
That's not my prosing carriage. Just do it now, Just
do it out, now, just do it out. That was
a sixty movie.
Speaker 7 (02:30):
I hate to know me oceanal more for me at
the Gagra part would be a story too mass form.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Ready forming a part that's recreation.
Speaker 7 (02:39):
The prince to give me all the parts, he goes,
shut up.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Here at ghetto.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Try now, my Gooski go cattle had to come back sea.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And now love now and hope to go back to
get Oh did not any day.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
But see.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
People, Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host.
Speaker 8 (03:57):
Mike White joined me once again. It's mister Philip Marin. Hey,
everybody also joining us is mister Robert Polissimo.
Speaker 7 (04:05):
Hello Mike and Philip, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 8 (04:08):
This week we're looking at the nineteen sixty two film
from director and Selmo Duarte o Pagador Dee Promesas, also
known as The Given Word. It's a Brazilian drama based
on the novel by Dias Gomez.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
The film tells the.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
Story of a man who has traveled over twenty miles
from his little village to the big city, making a
promise to a saint that he'll walk all the way
there with a cross on his shoulder if only his
best friend, a donkey named Nicholas, is saved. This film
looks at propriety, religion, class, gosh, just all those kind
of things that we love to discuss around here.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So, Philip, was this the first time watch for you?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I will say, I don't know when this episode will
be published, but little bit of whiplash projection booth style.
Last time I was on a month or two ago,
we talked about a very silly and fun B movie
about a killer fish. And I didn't really look into
this movie before I press play, and I was like, oh,
this is like a substance of cinema. This is right
up my alley, but I was not ready for what
(05:06):
I saw. But spoiler alert, I thought this was phenomenal.
But yeah, I was unaware of this.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No killer fish in this film, and Robert, how about yourself?
Speaker 7 (05:14):
This was the first time for me as well. I
hadn't even heard of it before. I liked it a
lot the first time, and I watched it again. I
think the seconds i've really actually blew my mind. And
to think that it won the Palm Door in sixty
two and that was like that year you had like
Lese the Exterminating Angel, you had Cleo from five to seven,
(05:36):
like these masterpieces that people talk about endlessly. But yet
this film is so obscure, Like I found so little
about it. So I'm looking forward to diving in with
you guys.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I had like three or four friends on letterbox who
had this log and then immediately it's like, when are
the Palm d'Ors? So like I was like, okay, I
need to pay attention. I didn't realize that's what we
were doing.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, I have never heard of this film before.
Speaker 8 (05:58):
I was doing a lot of searching last year as
far as interesting movies that people don't talk about or
great foreign films and just kind of scouring these love
them or hate them, but listical sometimes actually work. And
this was on one and I said, I had never
heard of this film before I heard it was Brazilian.
I had done a series of Cinema Novo a few
(06:20):
years ago. Really enjoyed that this was a lot earlier
before the Cinema Novo movement happened, which was kind of cool.
But this is right around the time of the French
New Wave, and I feel like there's a little bit
of influence there. Yeah, completely obscure to me. It's a
little tough to search up because the given word isn't
(06:41):
a direct translation. I don't know why it's called the
given word. The Promise Keeper is the literal translation. I
think that's a much better title than the given Word.
But yeah, what a fascinating story this is. It's so
compelling and it just grabs you right from the beginning.
We've got this kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Prelude with all this local music, and then to cut
to this guy peering across this kind of barren landscape
with his wife and you're like, what the hell is happening?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, in the first image, I went back Robert and
rewatch part of it as well. I don't know how
literal it was supposed to be or what, but the
first image we actually see of him, like this house
is on fire behind him and he's like walking, and
I was like, wait a second, I don't remember that
from the first time I watched it. But when I
queued it up to play it again and like watch
(07:30):
certain scenes, I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 7 (07:33):
Yeah, I think it was like a foreshadowing of what
was to come for him. And I mean, I think
what was so fascinating about the film is that if
you're a religious person, I mean I was brought up Catholic,
I would consider myself agnostic now, but you know, if
I lean into my chestling believes I could look at
this film from purely a spiritual angle and you cannot
(07:55):
shake his faith. And you know, you can really lean
into is that pimp the devil who like sleeps with
his wife? You know, is the fire like the devil
like gonna be following him the whole time? Or is
that Santa Barbara or you can give you're totally you
know eighties, you think this guy's just insane.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
This was such a well written movie. I'd never heard
of the story, and I did a little letterboxed IMDb
search of both the writer and the director, and maybe
some stuff was lost and maybe some hidden gems in there,
but a lot of the other stuff they did did
not look like it made much of a splash at all.
And then you have this like spectacular thing that feels
(08:35):
like an immense hidden gym. Wait, it won the Palm d'Or.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
Also, it was at one time recognized, and now it's
like we're very film literate, I would think, and you know,
the three of us, like, what the hell is this movie?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It's like, yeah, no it's not. You mentioned the Exterminating Angel.
Speaker 8 (08:51):
We just did an episode about that, Like that's obviously
something that has carried through since nineteen sixty two. That
didn't win the Palm d'Or. How come this movie that
did is for us lost the time.
Speaker 7 (09:04):
The only thing I get thig of is maybe because
it's a deeply spiritual film, so it's not necessarily universally relatable.
But then again, you look at you know, Joan of
Arc the film and everyone, I mean, that's a very
similar christlike figure, and everyone talks about that movie. I
don't know, for some reason, it got lost in the cracks.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
In addition to being like a deeply spiritual and religious movie,
it's a deeply social and political movie that watching this
in twenty twenty five, I was like, man, you throw
this on the rep cinema rounds. I think this will
do very well with people cinephiles, regardless of their religious affiliation.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
It's so beautifully filmed. It looks amazing, and the print
that I got to see the version looked incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I'm like, this is ready for blu. Ray, come on,
let's get going here.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
This is not un raight antswers, let's do it.
Speaker 8 (09:57):
The location they found I think it was Salvador, Brazil.
This location with the main thoroughfare and then the church
that's up all of these steps, and just those steps
become this amazing metaphor of this poor guy's say, just
going up and down these steps constantly and trying to
make his way inside of the church. Because the simple
(10:18):
version of the story is this guy made a promise.
He said, hey, listen, if you save my best friend,
I will carry this cross all the way from my
little village to this church. On the day of the
celebration of Saint Barbara and I will bring the cross
inside and I will give my blessing and all this,
(10:41):
and this is my promise to you, Saint Barbara. Then
it becomes okay, well, who's your friend? When he finally
makes his way up to the door of the church
and starts talking with the priest like the day after
because it gets there at night, and that whole story,
how he's telling the whole story about his best friend, Nicholas,
(11:02):
and when they revealed that Nicholas is a donkey, I
was like, okay, is that going.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
To be the final straw.
Speaker 8 (11:07):
No, it's that in Brazil there is a mixture of
native religion like the religion brought over by the Africans,
because there's an incredible mix of people in Brazil, and
those gods that they have in that religion would get
kind of mixed up with Catholic religion. And that was
(11:28):
such an ethema to the priest. He's like, no, you
can't come into this building. There's no way I'm going
to allow this. This is sacrilege, and that becomes the
whole central struggle to the film.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
It's great that in and of itself. The version I watched,
how a little scroll at the beginning that especially the
second time, made a little bit more sense or added
some context. That's fascinating, So especially socio politically, like it
wasn't just oh, over time things got mixed in me
(12:00):
did as a pluralistic society does. It was a survival
mechanism that when the Africans who are in Brazil primarily
as slaves, wanted to try to stay faithful to their religion,
they did it and basically exchanged the names. Like when
they would pray to their deities, they would be like, oh,
(12:20):
this is Saint Christopher, this is Saint Barbara, this is
Saint Matthew. The movie described it as like the spirits
got confused, which is in and of itself, like that's
all you need to say narratively. So it's these people
trying to keep their identity in an oppressive system, like
outwardly acquiesced to Christianity Catholicism while maintaining their religion and
(12:44):
this unintentional melding. And that's that's a fascinating like you
could write a thesis on that in and of itself.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
Yeah, at the beginning, as they're dancing and there's like
the celebration and we see zed praying. Yeah, there's that
screenshot of what their religion is can and I hope
I have that right.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
They tell you what it is.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
And then we have that conversation between Zed and the
priest where you know, Zen tells him exactly what he
did that he prayed to Santa Barbara and the connection.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
We're honest to a fault. Guy did not need to
say all that crap because like you're in, drop the
cross off and leave my guy.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
He's just so open.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
I don't know if it's naivete, but yes, he's super
pure and that he's doing this all of love for
his donkey. I mean his name is Ze de Buau,
the main guy's name, you know, like the donkey, and
so Nicholas, you know, like how he talks about like,
oh yeah, people see me with my with Nicholas and
they like, oh, there goes a with this burrow blah
blah blah, you know, and he's like, I don't mind tho,
(13:46):
it's okay.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Nicholas is my best friend. It's like all done out
of purity, and he just really you know.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
He's so open with the priests, just like yeah, non
I tried this and this happened. And he's just such
a lovable guy. Don't be mad. But like I I
also they're like, I had everybody pray for me basically
to cover my basis. See what worked. And now he's like, wait,
you pray to everybody, not just us.
Speaker 7 (14:09):
Just from a writing standpoint, I wonder if they thought,
oh God, I hope the audiences is going to understand this,
like who are not from Brazil? Because he's such an honest,
innocent guy. He just lays it all out. We get
the gist of it. The only thing I looked up
that because I thought, okay, so he went to like
this other and I was like, okay, we would you.
And then as Zed says, oh, there's a connection between
(14:32):
Yanza and Santa Barbara. He doesn't explain it, but you see,
the priests is like, no, there's no connection. So the
only thing I looked up was that the connection is
based on their shared association with firestorms than lightning, as
well as their image as powerful female figures we're not
afraid to fight. So Zed is like, it's the same thing.
If the priest is like, no, it's not the same day,
(14:53):
you know, but you get the divient you might you know,
someone may want to throw a little deeper and understand everything.
But if I thought, for writing standpoint, I thought that
was perfect. We get it, we know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And then that maybe goes like if you know that
going into it, or you look it up, like the
fire at the beginning, you can kind of group that together,
at least thematically.
Speaker 8 (15:14):
The whole thing of him being so open and so
naive and just driving his wife crazy, and especially his
wife who doesn't really need to be there once she
realizes like, oh, I wasn't part of the promise, Like
what the hell did you do? I would just walk
twenty one miles for you?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
That caused so many problems if she just left her
at home, take care of the farm. I'll be back
in a week. Like man didn't need to happen.
Speaker 8 (15:39):
Unless he had to burn down the farm on the
way there.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I don't.
Speaker 8 (15:43):
Yeah, that amazing image with the fire and everything, that's
cool one for the ages.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
I initially thought that card was pointless, but then I thought, well,
actually no, he was. If we're leaning into the spiritual
side of things, and like they shot a big fire
at the beginning, there's got to be a purpose for it, right,
and like if there's this character, who's this pimp who
sleeps with her? You know, at first I thought, well,
why did we need any of that? But again, if
(16:10):
we're leaning into these spiritual aspects, is this guy just
cursed from the minute he starts going there? She believes
that it's Santa Barbara forcing her to do this, and
then you know, he's like, well, she's like, maybe I'm
making an excuse. But I thought that was interesting. You know,
you could really kind of lean into the spiritual aspects
of the film, and he does wind up dying. You know,
(16:31):
so is he completely cursed or is this just the
fault of everyone there?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, and that's wide open, And especially like viewing that now,
I don't think it is that people like to throw
the terminialism around, And I feel like a lot of
people who do, like they took like philosophy one on
one and never really thought much beyond that. Like the
movie did not strike me as that, but more a
like a sadness on the people who are pure hearted
(16:59):
and who because like it's not even that he's like, oh,
Everything's gonna be okay, because he doesn't even necessarily have
that point of view, say, but rather I'm going to
only do, like I'm only going to act within this
and to a large degree that's admirable. But when the
rubber meets the road of reality, not that we give
(17:21):
up all of our ethics and morals or things like that,
but there were many times where as somebody who is
like who is more like actively spiritual'll be like, guy, walk,
go way, you make your promise. The cross is there.
If a priest is stopping you from fulfilling your promise,
that's on him. Drop it off in the courtyard and
(17:42):
go home. That's not on you. But again, like watching
that now, like people living in this world with all
these broken systems, and the movie highlights several of them,
Like there's the media, there's the cops. There's the hierarchical
organized religion, not just religion, but like the organized hierarchical,
(18:02):
Like they bring in the monsignor, like that's part of
the religion. You got the business people, you got the hustlers,
like all of this stuff in a society together. And
then this guy just very narrowly saying like these are
the only things that I'm going to do and hope
for like a good result. And it's like I don't
(18:22):
know how tenable that is.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
That's where it really compares to like a christ like story,
because you know, Jesus' faith was unshakable, you know, like
we mentioned earlier Joan of Arc. You know, they'd rather
die than abandon their faith. And he's the same way.
You know, it's like, I made this promise, I don't
want to. But in his case, you know, because I
was brought up Catholic as well, and fear is such
(18:45):
a big part of Catholicism, and so sometimes it's like
he also wants to make sure he follows through with
his promise because he thinks that he'll be punished. He's like, well,
I don't want to go back, and my donkey's dead,
and so I thought it's also based on fear that
he's it's faith and fear, which again another layer to
the film.
Speaker 8 (19:02):
Well, and it's not just that Nicholas is his friend.
I imagine that Nicholas somehow contributes to this man's living.
He probably uses Nicholas to I don't know, plow fields
or do something. So it's like if he breaks this promise,
if he doesn't fulfill this one thing that he promised
to Saint Barbara. Yeah, he might lose his best friend Nicholas,
but he might also lose his way of earning a wage.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And the way they tell this story too, it's just.
Speaker 8 (19:28):
Masterful as fire as them arriving at night and them
the only people that are around are these night people,
so the pimp and his prostitute are the ones that
they interact with the most.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And yeah, we see how put out the wife.
Speaker 8 (19:44):
Is and having this very dashing imp there all in
his white suit and everything. Pretty handsome guy as well,
and just like, oh yeah, I'll take care of this lady,
like she doesn't need to sleep on these steps. Oh yeah, everything.
And I love the way that you interpret him as
the devil. I think that's absolutely perfect because he's very
very you know.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Oh yeah, I can definitely help you, and he doesn't
even hide it on the rewatch I was like, oh yeah,
Like the first thing he tells, this guy's oh yeah,
I made a promise too, because I wanted this woman's
husband out of the way. And then I didn't even
make it because then I'd be implicating the saint. Haaa, hey,
can I take your wife to a hotel? And he goes, ah, sure,
(20:25):
and it's like, God, well, what are you doing? Like
that's how he actively introduced, like he put that out
there about himself, and this man's like, oh honey, why
don't you go with him to the hotel?
Speaker 7 (20:35):
Or he's so innocent that he thought that literally the
guy was just going to find a place for her
to sleep. It's like, oh God, like he's totally taken,
totally took advantage of his innocence.
Speaker 8 (20:44):
And then having that as our like little story at
the beginning, and then breaking it out slowly as we
go through, like here's the next day, and we get
to see more of these people that are inside of
this town, and we get the little old guy who
I guess sells books.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
He looks little.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Charlie Chaplin ask to me, no mustache, but that kind
of tramp look to him. And he's just almost like
there's this little imp going around and he's like, oh, yeah,
the priest doesn't want me selling books outside of the.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Church, like my dirty books. Yes exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (21:14):
It took me a while to figure out that he
was selling books. I was like, oh, okay, that's a
whose of a different color.
Speaker 7 (21:20):
I initially thought he meant that he had books about
that religion. Uh, and that's what I thought he was.
I'm like, oh no, no, he's not. He's way too
much of a you know, sinister kind of character to
be doing anything pure. You know, it's interesting because I
thought maybe this was something rooted in racism, because you see,
like the priest, because he says, oh, you know, this
(21:43):
cannonble was how the black slaves used to trick the
white masters, and they would say, oh, yeah, we're praying
to the saints, but really they're creating to these voodoo figures,
which is that's the way the priest sees it. And
I thought, are they against this just because these people
are black? Because you notice that all of these all
the people banding around him were the African Brazilian community.
(22:07):
And I even like those images of like they're watching
the steps as he's there, you know, I just thought.
And he gave his land away to the peasants, which
was part of his promise, and they banned the run.
But then again they're banding around it because of what
the media is writing that he's like this working class hero,
not because they think he's really for them.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I think they recognize and again it was done so
minimally and masterfully and more like show don't tell. I
think it was really like them recognizing like the underdog
status for lack of a better where like this is
a persecuted like demeaned person and doesn't matter if we
(22:49):
believe the same thing or pray the same people like
the woman, like middle aged lady who was kind of
like who appeared to be some sort of priestess or
what have you. She was his biggest champion, and he's like, no,
like I want to fulfill my thing as Saint Barbara,
and she's like all right, man, like I'm gonna help you.
Speaker 8 (23:07):
Well, it's like all these people start putting things onto him.
You know, we've seen this kind of thing before in
some of my favorite films, you know, like we talked
about being there, you know, taking the guy who lived
in isolation for all these years. He is a little
bit of a Chauncey Gardener type as far as like
he he is so naive, doesn't have harmful thought to
me anyway for anybody, and you know, everybody starts putting
(23:29):
stuff on him.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Oh, this guy's a genius. This is amazing.
Speaker 8 (23:32):
Or even like you know, the big dig or something
where it's a crazy person who's out there digging up
the street with a jackhammer, and everybody starts to be like, well,
what's this guy doing.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Does he have a permit?
Speaker 8 (23:43):
You know, pretty soon it's like, oh, well, leave this
guy alone.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
He obviously knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
He doesn't.
Speaker 8 (23:47):
He just loves jackhammers. So here we have with Zay
and he's just like, I just need to bring this
cross inside. I just need to leave this cross inside
of this church. And then suddenly he becomes you know,
thanks to the media, thanks to all these people that
are in the city, he becomes this like folk hero
and you know, oh, I think he's a commists.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
No, he's this, he's that.
Speaker 8 (24:08):
You know, he's like he's going to start a whole
new political party. And it's like, what he just wants
to take his cross inside of the.
Speaker 7 (24:14):
Church, something so simple would just turn it into something
so ridiculous, And on the one hand, people exploit it,
and then other people are afraid of it, like the priest,
and you just think there's something funny about it, Like
I did the second time. I did find myself laughing
at times because it's like, you know, it's almost satirical
in a sense of the film.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, the priests there like, oh, so you carried this
cross seven.
Speaker 8 (24:40):
Leagues and you know, show me your shoulder and his
shoulders all just corn up the hell. And then it's like, oh,
do you think you're like Christ? Are you mocking God?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And say, how could you say that? This guy clearly
is devout? And you're like, I don't know, though, are you?
And literally how hard would it have been to let
him go in there drop it off and then when
he's gone, dispose of it? How that would have been
the easiest thing in the.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
World for them, even waiting between services or something. People
don't even have to witness this, but you're making such
a big deal out of it.
Speaker 7 (25:17):
Again, it goes to how time and time again people
who have I mean, the story resembles the story of Jesus,
and of course no one believed him, and again no
one learned from that. And here to someone who's like,
you know, he's not saying he's the king of the
Jewish people or something, but he's similar with the un
you know, his faith cannot be broken. And you think
(25:39):
that as a kind of like priest, he would appreciate
that he would revere that he would love to see somebody. No,
it's rejected. It's like, you know, it turns into something ridiculous, right,
So it's like we just we don't learn in Joan
of Arc same thing. You know, it's very similar, persecuted
for similar reasons.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yes, Zay's devotion was stronger than anybody else is that
we see in the film by a long shot. And
I mean the Jesus parallels. Jesus's most ardent enemies were
also the organized religion at the time.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, the Pharisees and the priests.
Speaker 7 (26:14):
Absolutely. This was also a play which I just read,
which makes sense one location, oh totally cafe and of
course at the beginning where he's walking in the dancing
but I was like, you know what, this would be
really good to do or see on I would love
to see.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
A version of this just to be an incredible play.
Speaker 7 (26:31):
Yeah, the google that I wonder if it's still done.
Speaker 8 (26:34):
I like what you're saying as far as the people
that support him seem to be the ones that are
much closer to African descent, And so then you bring
in the whole racial aspect of this film as well,
where it's like all right, So we've got these subclasses versus.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
The upper class, and it's the upper class.
Speaker 8 (26:51):
It's the much more white looking people, the European descendants
that are the ones that are like, oh.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I got to get involved in this.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
I'm the you know, the newspaper man and theographer and
all this, like all right, yeah, let's let's get in here,
start making a folk here out of this guy. And
it's like, oh, I really don't think that your intentions
are pure at all.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
The newspapers clearly were like, well, we've already spent money up.
We are sensationalizing this in order to get more eyes
in the ears to sell more papers.
Speaker 7 (27:18):
Right or he'd laughed at and he's laughed at only
by the non black people. You don't blave person laugh
at him in this That was really interesting. Must have
been intentional, I'm sure.
Speaker 8 (27:29):
I am so curious if they must have made a
prop for this cross, like something a lot lighter than
the way that it looks. Oh, totally, Our main act,
our main actor gives such an amazing performance. Oh wow,
Leonardo Vilar. He is so good and just the he
really makes you feel like that cross is as heavy
(27:52):
as the one that Jesus was carrying through town. He
does such a good job, and like I said, just
the sincerity. You feel the emotions, like when the priest
starts yelling at him, you can just tell how disappointed
he is, how sad he is. But he's just he
knows in his heart that he has to do this
and that he can't enter the church. You know, I
think we already spoiled this a little bit, and I
(28:14):
probably should have given a spoiler warning. I didn't for
this one, but that he can only.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Enter the church after he's dead, and that he's on
the cross when he is put in here. That shot
after he gets shot, with the crowd and the big
open space with his body and the cross next to it.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Another one. I mean, wonderful images through this whole thing.
This beautiful black and white photography as.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Well, incredibly strong. Yeah, when he's just sitting there on
the steps, the landing in between the two steps, very cinematic,
would also be great on a stage like that was
an extremely powerful image.
Speaker 8 (28:51):
And for those guys to put him on the cross
and then use it as a battering ram and finally
get him across the way.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
Oh, because there's also this violence in him that's brewing
through this And there's that moment where he says he's
going to just burn the church down because he's getting
so angry. And then as soon as he says you
see the look of shame on his face. Either, how
could I have said that? You know, it's just been
nutances in his performance. I got to see him in
more films, because man, this guy's an incredible actor. Yeah,
(29:21):
some incredible looks.
Speaker 8 (29:23):
It's so much him. But then when his wife comes back,
when the prostitute comes back, I was wondering if the
prostitute was going to have an easier time getting into
church than him, you know, because that's the way that
it feels like, Oh, well, if you're not if you're
staying away from what's it called kind don't blay. Yeah,
you're fine with us. I don't care what you do.
(29:44):
But as long as you're not doing that bad stuff,
stay away from that.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
The irony and the satire of that is those folks
that they are looking down on are seeking to be
faithful and the only way they can do it because
of the system, is by being a little deceptive. But
they're not trying to take down the Catholic Church. They're
not enemies of the Catholic Church. They're just saying, hey,
(30:10):
like we want to stay faithful to our traditions. The
Catholic Church that wasn't okay with them, so like, okay, yeah, sure,
we're all Catholic. Like I'm praying to Saint Barbara, like wink.
And that's the only reason they're doing that to begin with,
Like the Catholic Church literally created that problem.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
Well, yeah, I'm always curious about the whole idea of
sainthood because I don't think that they talk about saints
in the Bible.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Do they?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yes, but not like we traditionally a little substance a
cinema hour here. I would say my understanding is that
what came from the Bible, particularly in Hebrews, is nothing supernatural.
It's like we look back on people who lived exemplaryal
lives in some way like these are humans, not like sainthood,
(30:55):
like some sort of perfection, but like people who did
certain things that were very ad that are worth emulating,
and there are particular passages that get looked at like
these are kind of the people that in scripture are
being put forth as saints, and that idea I think
has a lot of value. But over time, particularly when
(31:17):
economics and business went into the church selling images of
saints in order to be like if you buy this
image of the saint, then you're gonna get a special blessing.
All that stuff can kind of complicate things that are
at their heart have a lot of value and have purity.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
I just quickly google does the Bible talk about saints
and it says it does, but not in the way
we do now, just mainly as like broadly defined as
like someone who's a holy one. But what Philip was saying, yeah,
it turned into something mythical and for business purposes and
selling religion and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Well, I feel like it helps it go down a
little bit easier.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
It's kind of like with Islam, where it's like, okay, yeah,
we recognize like Adam and Moses and this, and that
will build upon that. It's kind of like a nice
no offense to anybody from Islam or Christianity or Judaism,
but it just feels like it is a way to
make the medicine go down a little bit easier as
far as like, oh, yeah, we recognize all these people.
(32:15):
Jesus was a prophet. You know, he wasn't the son
of God, he was a prophet. David was a prophet,
Moses was a prophet, Noah, et cetera. Some of these
big names. Mohammad was a prophet. Mohammed is the seal
of the prophets. There's no more prophets after Mohammed, which
is okay, you know, like we're putting an end cap
on this thing, so nothing more. And then you get
(32:37):
into Catholicism and isn't like Peter the one of the
first saints. It's like, okay, this guy made major strides
for our religion. He's a saint, you know, and this
person's a saint, and this person's a saint.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
But that's for me.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
It doesn't feel like that's outside of the New Testament
rather than all inside of it. As far as like, yeah, no,
this is baked into our religion. Yeah, what it has
become is and yeah, it's it is complex and well
I'm sure wars have been fought over it been thrown
out of windows over it.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, look at us get crazy theological on
the projection booth.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Hey, there's room for everybody.
Speaker 7 (33:17):
It certainly makes you think. I mean it about all
you know. But again, on the flip side, it's interesting
because if someone is a complete atheist, I mean, you
can see what's going on from his point of view,
but you can also just take it from a critical
point of view and just say, this guy's insane, The
church is insane everyone's, which is still true even if
(33:37):
you are more spiritual when you look at it from
a couple of different ways. But the film doesn't necessarily
I mean you feel that it's literally on Zen's side,
but I don't necessarily feel that they make the priests
like a villain of the piece. I mean, you get
his perspective right, And actually, the second time I was
watching it, I was finding myself empathizing more with him.
It's just like, this is what this guy's been Dodd,
(33:59):
this is what you know, this is what you think.
Even his superiors agree with him, you know. So I
like that because it doesn't just tell you, yeah, believe
this guy and these guys are the antagonists. These guys
the protagonist. It is that to an extent, but I
appreciate the nuance which makes for these kind of rich conversations.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
It's a unstoppable force versus the immovable object. You know,
the priest is the immovable object. This is what I believe,
and it's diametrically opposed to what you believe. I cannot
abide this.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Well, it was so interesting you brought up earlier, Mike,
the conversation where it is slowly revealed. Zay's story was
slowly revealed as he was walking up with the priest.
When he finally revealed, oh, like we prayed to other
things too, Like the priest stops him, goes up a
couple steps and literally looks down on him, saying, hey,
(34:54):
this is unorthodox. Like you're out of bounds now, like
Robert was saying, there's a way to empathize with that, going, hey,
like I am the safeguard of like I'm the person
who's supposed to be shepherding these people, blah blah blah,
and like this is out of bounds. But then you
go farther of like the pride of you're not meeting
(35:15):
my standards, because it's not just about the priest's devotion
to God. It's kind of about the priest going like
this is my parish, this is my church, and you're
going against me. And that's where the problem is because
he could say, hey, brother, like that's a little bit
out of bounds, Like why don't you He did not
invite him in, he didn't walk with him, he didn't
(35:36):
meet him where he was. He's like, you need to
meet my orthodoxy before I show you any grace. And
he escalated it and escalated and escalated it, and like
you can point out a lot of different things, but ultimately, pragmatically,
like I feel like the priest is the.
Speaker 8 (35:53):
Most culpable for howse ended up. Well, it's like he's
Saint Peter barring this guy from entering heaven, being up
there at that top of those steps, you know, and
just the constant up and down that keeps going up
and down these steps through this entire film. And every
time he gets back up there, there's somebody telling him, no,
you've got to go back down. You know, you are
(36:14):
not allowed to enter into heaven here, you cannot ascend fullight.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And they're creating the maliceon in. Like we've said over
and over in this hour, he is the most pure hearted,
focused guy. Let him do it and let him go. Oh,
you don't need to have everybody else put their stamp
of agreement on you. That's not real emotional or even
spiritual maturity. If a priest or, a pastor or a bishop,
(36:40):
if somebody in spiritual authority cannot abide somebody disagreeing with them,
that's a problem.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
You know.
Speaker 8 (36:47):
And that's the thing, is this whole like there's no
room for debate talking about making a flip or mark,
about throwing people out of a window. You know, I
can't remember which if it was the Council of Worms
or Nicea or Trent or which one of it was.
By It's like, literally people have killed over small things,
like was Christ demand? Was he always said?
Speaker 4 (37:08):
God?
Speaker 6 (37:08):
Was he?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (37:09):
People got burned at the stake if they didn't affirm
certain creeds. Yeah, no, it's it's awful.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:15):
And the poors is just one example of one person
who thinks they're doing the right thing and is told
time and again, and then, like I said, the story
just builds and builds, and pretty soon we've got just
all of these people that are outside of the church.
We've got the army being brought in. We've got them
questioning now, like you know, when they came up and
they're like, where are your papers? And I was like,
(37:36):
oh wow, this feels very twenty twenty five. I know
that was insane.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I thought it was a very interesting decision to make
the local law enforcement kind of be like level headed
and actually decent guy. He's the local guys like they
brought in bigger guys who were awful, had the guns,
had the force. But the local guys like, he hasn't
he didn't steal, hasn't hurt anybody, Like, she's just can
(38:02):
you let him in please? Like it's causing a public
ruckus because he's not being let in. The police went
to the priest on Zay's behalf, going hey, man, like
this is starting to disturb the peacet. I'm not going
to arrest him because he hasn't committed any crimes. Let
him in so we can get this done. But the
priest is like, no, this is my church.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
Was believed that someone was level headed, But is it
just that it is the local car Yeah.
Speaker 8 (38:29):
Who's I'm curious what happens to Zay's wife after this
all takes place. I mean, she's stuck out here in
the city, twenty miles from home, no way of getting
back other than possibly walking her hitching a riot somehow.
But has she fallen under the spell of the pimp?
Is she going to be the next girl in his stable?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I don't think so, But that is an interesting open
ended because like she walked is very powerful and very cinematic,
like it was heightened, everybody else cleared out, and the
final shots are just her slowly walking by herself up
the steps into where her husband's final resting is and
(39:11):
also extremely powerful just imagery.
Speaker 7 (39:15):
After she initially slept with him. When she sees him
a little later on, I thought she was going to
go with him again because he's like smiling and calling
her over and she looks tempted. But then when she
goes up to him, she's like telling him to, like,
you know, try to help her husband and like stop
all of this. So I don't necessarily think she'll follow
that roots again. And we're leading into the spiritual aspects.
(39:38):
It's like the devil's work is done. He's gonna leave him.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah, chaos has been sowed and he's moved on.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
It is interesting too.
Speaker 8 (39:45):
You talked about how there was a play of it,
but there was actually a I keep reading different things.
It's a remake about ten years ago. Well, there was
one from nineteen ninety eight that I.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Was aware of it.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Oh you know, you posted that, and though I saw
something on YouTube from twenty fifteen, but that could have
also been see there's so much to be uh I
got here. I don't even know for sure yet twenty
fifteen an adaptation of the series shown in ninety eight.
Speaker 8 (40:13):
So yeah, okay, yeah, because I was reading mini series,
but then I found an hour and a half film
version of it or video. It looks like, definitely looks
like it was shot on video. Unfortunately, that just lends
a real cheapness to it, but you know, it was
basically made for TV. It looks like and you can
(40:33):
feel that the sets look nice and everything, but it
just doesn't feel as lush and especially compared to the
sixty two version, which is just such a.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Pleasure to look at.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
It's incredibly Yeah.
Speaker 8 (40:43):
Yeah, but the ninety eight version feels much more almost
telenovella as far as like the video quality, and then
there's much more like the type acting just like you
know that it startled in Spanish, right, or that that
meme of the woman's face and it says startled in
Spanish on it.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Clearly you want one hundred percent of the letterbox logs
of the twenty fifth turn Spanish, so it looked like
it was some sort of special in twenty fifteen. And
I can't tell if it was literally just a rebroadcast
or a new adaptation with new people.
Speaker 7 (41:16):
Yeah, all I see is the mini series when I
google it.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Well on letterbox it's called loose camera fifty ayos and
then oh, pagadorde premeasos. So I don't know if it
was like a celebration of the legacy of the story,
which I didn't know about the story until I get
the email from you, Mike.
Speaker 8 (41:36):
I like that the way that the sixty two story starts,
like I said, in media, you know, we've got them
already going, whereas the ninety eight actually starts with them
in the village and the whole thing with Nicholas and everything,
and it's like, all right, Nicholas seems okay in this version,
but there's also a murder that takes place, and then
(41:58):
they make their track their trek at the end of
the first act, you know, So it's told in a
very different way. And I have to say, the sixty
two version it's an hour and a half long, but God,
its zips along. It feels like it is an hour
at most. I am absorbed.
Speaker 7 (42:15):
Well, there's so many elements to it and layers, and
what's incredible to me is like it's done with the
utmost simplicity as well. I mean, it just flows and
all of these characters come in and out, and all
these arguments are made, arguments for, arguments against. You know,
you got the media, the police officer, all these point
of views, and I'm like, Jesus, how did they do
(42:35):
this without making it like three hours?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Like this my again, some of our last few conversations
very fuller esque, and it's a social commentary and pacing.
Speaker 7 (42:45):
Yeah, or even like I just recently did a written
review for Chaplain's City Lights, and I was like, man,
this is hard to write about in a way because
it's so plot heavy in a good sense, and he's
seeing so much. But it's so true, so funny, and
yet so simple. But that was his genius. It's hard
to write about because it's that good and this is simple.
(43:07):
This reminds me of that.
Speaker 8 (43:09):
I love the shot at the beginning of the sixty
two version where it's the and I'm sorry, just keep
calling her the prostitute, I keep calling him the pimp.
But they're outside of this club and you see the
silhouettes inside behind the window of a guy playing the trumpet,
another guy maybe playing the drums, and you just get
those silhouettes on there. That's wonderful because I mean, I
(43:31):
imagine that they shot that. Hopefully all mos are not
actually playing music in the club and they're just recording
the you know, the dialogue and then adding in the
music later. The music was great by the way in
this movie too, but just that nice way of conveying
this is a rock and club by having those silhouettes
on the window and again the black and white. Just oh,
(43:53):
the cinematography is so lush in this film. And yeah,
please I want to see this on the big screen
because it looks great.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah. It did some really cool tricks too, like when
they were filming them through the bars, there were a
few great shots. And then towards the end, after Day
had died and they had put them on the cross,
the camera being under the cross as it was lifted
up like that would be a stunning, stunning shot. If
this got like a HD or four K restoration on
(44:23):
the big screen, that would be a breathtaking shot.
Speaker 7 (44:25):
But the character we call a pimp, his name is
Bonie de Bonie, mister Hansom, and I guess it was
like his wife slash prostitute or I think that's Marley. Yeah, yeah,
so that's the names.
Speaker 8 (44:40):
She was so striking and I love they emphasize her
curves so much. It's like her bottom is another character
in this movie. The way that they has so much
screen time.
Speaker 7 (44:50):
But they certainly were devilish, like, you know, in a
way it was almost caricature, like the way they were
just like tackling at the end to it. I think
that was intentional, right, because if we're just that another
suggestion that there's something, you know, evil at play here
from from hell or you know, what have you.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Oh that was the lady from Planet of the Vampires.
Speaker 8 (45:10):
I didn't realize that. Oh wow, that's amazing. I love
how they have the proper parade of Saint Barbara, but
then they also have the celebration of the African God
at the same time, and it's like that one has
the native instruments that they're playing. Yeah, and it just
(45:30):
goes back to the very beginning that prelude with the
African inspired music. I mean, it's fascinating Ami Brazil. It's
a fascinating place as far as all the mixture of
cultures that all come together in this one gigantic country.
We forget about how huge Brazil is, but this, you know,
we're talking about melting pot, like this bizarro melting pot
(45:51):
of all of these different cultures and everything bizarre in
a good way, you know, like there is always tension
in everything, but you know, it's interesting to see the
way that tension plays out, and to see that tension
playing out here in the six to two film, I mean,
it's great. It's very similar to some of those Cinema
novo films that I was talking about where you still
get to see like all right. I found the fastening too,
(46:12):
because it kept saying Makumba all through this whole thing,
and I was like, oh, I wonder if that's similar
to Makunaima, which is this other Brazilian film that we
watched a couple of years ago where it's like this,
this is great stuff. I mean, Brazilian cinema, for me,
is such an untapped vein of world cinema that just
needs more exploration, and.
Speaker 7 (46:31):
So often I see something from Brazil like City of
God or be Shoddy, and I'm blown away.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
You don't see.
Speaker 7 (46:37):
It's kind of like with the check Like, of course, Mike,
you're well versed and you know there's only so many
people talking about certain countries, which gives opportunities for people
like us.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
The only one other scene you reminded me of a
moment ago that was also really great that I think
would be even more striking with a great restoration on
the big screen is the procession of Saint Barbara, Like
the actual parade, the icon of Saint Barbara, the statue
and him walking up side by side. You're like, oh,
is he going to sneak in? But like the cutting
back and forth and just how effusive he was. He's like, oh,
(47:08):
like I'm going to get in. That was just also
a very powerful visual scene.
Speaker 7 (47:13):
And just the gratitude pouring out of him as he's
looking at the statue. I was like, you put me
in a spell.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I was like, man, that was it.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Like that's as close as he gets in this film. Yeah,
it is really weird.
Speaker 8 (47:25):
Sorry to go back to the whole Saint thing. I
was just remembering you. I worked at a cable company
right out of college, and we played you know, local
origination commercials, and I remember there was one commercial and
I can't remember what religion it was for, if it
was for Eastern Orthodox or if it was for Catholicism
(47:45):
or some sort of Protestantism, but it was like, perhaps
you've heard of the healing icon of Saint so and so,
and it's like this whole like, come to our church
and pray to this icon of this saint and you
will be healed. And I'm just like, how is that
any different than just selling, like you said, selling icons
of saints and having your almost like hard collection of
(48:07):
saints and things and having a saint for so many
different things is so reminiscent to me of like Eastern religions,
where it's like okay, well there's the God of the kitchen,
there's the God of the hearth, there's the God of.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
The entrance to the door.
Speaker 8 (48:20):
It's so similar for me as like, well there's the
Saint of pets, there's the Saint of lost causes, there's
a saint of this, And it's like, Okay, which one
are you going to pray to?
Speaker 7 (48:28):
Now?
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Like you oh, oh, you want to.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Sell your house.
Speaker 8 (48:31):
We'll take Saint Joseph and go bury him in the
backyard and do this little prayer, and that way you'll
sell your house. It's like, what the fuck are you
talking about?
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Life?
Speaker 8 (48:40):
There's no way that that can be condoned. It sounds
like voodoo superstition stuff, you know, and it's probably very
bad on my part. When I talk about things being unknown,
I usually say it's voodoo. That's a religion as well.
So yeah, you should pay as much respect to them
as I do to everybody else.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Thanks in thanks for the intro to this movie, Mike.
I think that we should all push some of our
contacts to take a look at this and maybe put
a good restoration out there. All right, we're going to
take a break and play a preview for next week's
show right after these brief messages.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
For Gloria, the danger is always getting closer. I want tickets,
and getting closer is always the danger.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Gloria.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
All we want is the book, and the kid from
Jenner Rowlans is Gloria, so she's trying to read the
mom at their own game. Gloria Grated PG coming soon
to a theater near you.
Speaker 8 (49:38):
As I We'll be back next week with a look
at John Cassavetti's Gloria. Until then, I want to thank
my co host Robert and Philip. So Robert, what's the
latest with you, sir?
Speaker 4 (49:46):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (49:47):
Well, as I was saying just before we recorded, I
was fortunate to meet the great Charles Burnett recently at
TIFF in Toronto, and I made a little video about it,
and I recorded his Q and A with the Tiff
artistic director Cameron Bailey after the screening of Killer of Sheep,
which was just restored by Criterion as a new four
K restoration, So that was a great experience, So you
(50:09):
could check that out. And I just dropped an episode
today on the film called Humoresque with Joan Crawford and
John Garfield, which is a film I love the Blue.
We just came out late last year from Warner Brothers Archives,
so I just reviewed that today. So yeah, that's the
latest two episodes, And you can check me out on
(50:31):
YouTube dot com slash Robert Bellissimo at the Movies, and
all of my social media handles are at linktree dot
com slash Robert Bellissimo at the Movies, as well as
my Patreon page and my YouTube channel link is there
as well.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
And Philip, What's going on in your world?
Speaker 3 (50:50):
You can find me over at the Substance Podcast and
we cover both film on our Substance of Cinema episodes
and then on our regular episodes we have professors, historians,
face leaders talking about these of substance. Recently we covered Panicfests,
which is one of the larger genre festivals in the
US held here in Kansas City. Had filmmakers like Joe
(51:10):
Lynch and other folks talking about some of their movies
and the films that premiered there. Recently had a New
York Times film critic Alyssa Wilkinson talking about her new
book about Joan Didion and John Wayne and yeah, just
a nice variety of folks talking about film and matters
of substance at the Substance Pod on the Socials and
the Substance where you find your podcasts.
Speaker 8 (51:31):
Well, thank you so much 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 work on. They're all
available at weirdingwaymedia 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 Booth take over the world.
Speaker 9 (52:04):
Brim yeh.
Speaker 10 (52:13):
Next the good I'm like, fat, what shall we by
shot and be don feel sting.
Speaker 9 (52:31):
Yepens shall there's areas and them.
Speaker 11 (52:41):
At the backstore to the show and I was like,
oh man that you get going go do you believes all.
Speaker 9 (52:56):
Prussian good thing? Then I'm alive, come.
Speaker 11 (53:00):
Thing thing, Oh my cats.
Speaker 6 (53:04):
And moon and room and then room and and the
room and room and then room got UPO.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (53:27):
Next God, I'm like god those lead thing fast shop,
wait my shot and by don't just finish?
Speaker 9 (53:45):
Yeah, And there was the mother shalline there's a clear
sun room and then and at the backstop show, I
was in, oh the shaman, such a gag ad come
(54:06):
to believe so much Prussian god things.
Speaker 12 (54:12):
I think I'm allowed notty thing my casa and ever
dom and there's ever and and and then and then
we want.
Speaker 9 (54:30):
That boy
Speaker 6 (54:57):
Sho he
Oh he is, folks, it's show tied.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they are cold sodas,
hot popcorn, and no monsters.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
In the protection booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Got it off, My folk.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Will give you mother that that you boys space that
basually my smiles.
Speaker 6 (01:32):
Measureable to knowing that my gross.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
But that's the who's the negress?
Speaker 6 (01:51):
Who's to be used as a boss on the plantation?
(02:21):
That's not my prosing carriage. Just do it now, Just
do it out, now, just do it out. That was
a sixty movie.
Speaker 7 (02:30):
I hate to know me oceanal more for me at
the Gagra part would be a story too mass form.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Ready forming a part that's recreation.
Speaker 7 (02:39):
The prince to give me all the parts, he goes,
shut up.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Here at ghetto.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Try now, my Gooski go cattle had to come back sea.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And now love now and hope to go back to
get Oh did not any day.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
But see.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
People, Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host.
Speaker 8 (03:57):
Mike White joined me once again. It's mister Philip Marin. Hey,
everybody also joining us is mister Robert Polissimo.
Speaker 7 (04:05):
Hello Mike and Philip, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 8 (04:08):
This week we're looking at the nineteen sixty two film
from director and Selmo Duarte o Pagador Dee Promesas, also
known as The Given Word. It's a Brazilian drama based
on the novel by Dias Gomez.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
The film tells the.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
Story of a man who has traveled over twenty miles
from his little village to the big city, making a
promise to a saint that he'll walk all the way
there with a cross on his shoulder if only his
best friend, a donkey named Nicholas, is saved. This film
looks at propriety, religion, class, gosh, just all those kind
of things that we love to discuss around here.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So, Philip, was this the first time watch for you?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I will say, I don't know when this episode will
be published, but little bit of whiplash projection booth style.
Last time I was on a month or two ago,
we talked about a very silly and fun B movie
about a killer fish. And I didn't really look into
this movie before I press play, and I was like, oh,
this is like a substance of cinema. This is right
up my alley, but I was not ready for what
(05:06):
I saw. But spoiler alert, I thought this was phenomenal.
But yeah, I was unaware of this.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No killer fish in this film, and Robert, how about yourself?
Speaker 7 (05:14):
This was the first time for me as well. I
hadn't even heard of it before. I liked it a
lot the first time, and I watched it again. I
think the seconds i've really actually blew my mind. And
to think that it won the Palm Door in sixty
two and that was like that year you had like
Lese the Exterminating Angel, you had Cleo from five to seven,
(05:36):
like these masterpieces that people talk about endlessly. But yet
this film is so obscure, Like I found so little
about it. So I'm looking forward to diving in with
you guys.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I had like three or four friends on letterbox who
had this log and then immediately it's like, when are
the Palm d'Ors? So like I was like, okay, I
need to pay attention. I didn't realize that's what we
were doing.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, I have never heard of this film before.
Speaker 8 (05:58):
I was doing a lot of searching last year as
far as interesting movies that people don't talk about or
great foreign films and just kind of scouring these love
them or hate them, but listical sometimes actually work. And
this was on one and I said, I had never
heard of this film before I heard it was Brazilian.
I had done a series of Cinema Novo a few
(06:20):
years ago. Really enjoyed that this was a lot earlier
before the Cinema Novo movement happened, which was kind of cool.
But this is right around the time of the French
New Wave, and I feel like there's a little bit
of influence there. Yeah, completely obscure to me. It's a
little tough to search up because the given word isn't
(06:41):
a direct translation. I don't know why it's called the
given word. The Promise Keeper is the literal translation. I
think that's a much better title than the given Word.
But yeah, what a fascinating story this is. It's so
compelling and it just grabs you right from the beginning.
We've got this kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Prelude with all this local music, and then to cut
to this guy peering across this kind of barren landscape
with his wife and you're like, what the hell is happening?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, in the first image, I went back Robert and
rewatch part of it as well. I don't know how
literal it was supposed to be or what, but the
first image we actually see of him, like this house
is on fire behind him and he's like walking, and
I was like, wait a second, I don't remember that
from the first time I watched it. But when I
queued it up to play it again and like watch
(07:30):
certain scenes, I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 7 (07:33):
Yeah, I think it was like a foreshadowing of what
was to come for him. And I mean, I think
what was so fascinating about the film is that if
you're a religious person, I mean I was brought up Catholic,
I would consider myself agnostic now, but you know, if
I lean into my chestling believes I could look at
this film from purely a spiritual angle and you cannot
(07:55):
shake his faith. And you know, you can really lean
into is that pimp the devil who like sleeps with
his wife? You know, is the fire like the devil
like gonna be following him the whole time? Or is
that Santa Barbara or you can give you're totally you
know eighties, you think this guy's just insane.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
This was such a well written movie. I'd never heard
of the story, and I did a little letterboxed IMDb
search of both the writer and the director, and maybe
some stuff was lost and maybe some hidden gems in there,
but a lot of the other stuff they did did
not look like it made much of a splash at all.
And then you have this like spectacular thing that feels
(08:35):
like an immense hidden gym. Wait, it won the Palm d'Or.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
Also, it was at one time recognized, and now it's
like we're very film literate, I would think, and you know,
the three of us, like, what the hell is this movie?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It's like, yeah, no it's not. You mentioned the Exterminating Angel.
Speaker 8 (08:51):
We just did an episode about that, Like that's obviously
something that has carried through since nineteen sixty two. That
didn't win the Palm d'Or. How come this movie that
did is for us lost the time.
Speaker 7 (09:04):
The only thing I get thig of is maybe because
it's a deeply spiritual film, so it's not necessarily universally relatable.
But then again, you look at you know, Joan of
Arc the film and everyone, I mean, that's a very
similar christlike figure, and everyone talks about that movie. I
don't know, for some reason, it got lost in the cracks.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
In addition to being like a deeply spiritual and religious movie,
it's a deeply social and political movie that watching this
in twenty twenty five, I was like, man, you throw
this on the rep cinema rounds. I think this will
do very well with people cinephiles, regardless of their religious affiliation.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
It's so beautifully filmed. It looks amazing, and the print
that I got to see the version looked incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I'm like, this is ready for blu. Ray, come on,
let's get going here.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
This is not un raight antswers, let's do it.
Speaker 8 (09:57):
The location they found I think it was Salvador, Brazil.
This location with the main thoroughfare and then the church
that's up all of these steps, and just those steps
become this amazing metaphor of this poor guy's say, just
going up and down these steps constantly and trying to
make his way inside of the church. Because the simple
(10:18):
version of the story is this guy made a promise.
He said, hey, listen, if you save my best friend,
I will carry this cross all the way from my
little village to this church. On the day of the
celebration of Saint Barbara and I will bring the cross
inside and I will give my blessing and all this,
(10:41):
and this is my promise to you, Saint Barbara. Then
it becomes okay, well, who's your friend? When he finally
makes his way up to the door of the church
and starts talking with the priest like the day after
because it gets there at night, and that whole story,
how he's telling the whole story about his best friend, Nicholas,
(11:02):
and when they revealed that Nicholas is a donkey, I
was like, okay, is that going.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
To be the final straw.
Speaker 8 (11:07):
No, it's that in Brazil there is a mixture of
native religion like the religion brought over by the Africans,
because there's an incredible mix of people in Brazil, and
those gods that they have in that religion would get
kind of mixed up with Catholic religion. And that was
(11:28):
such an ethema to the priest. He's like, no, you
can't come into this building. There's no way I'm going
to allow this. This is sacrilege, and that becomes the
whole central struggle to the film.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
It's great that in and of itself. The version I watched,
how a little scroll at the beginning that especially the
second time, made a little bit more sense or added
some context. That's fascinating, So especially socio politically, like it
wasn't just oh, over time things got mixed in me
(12:00):
did as a pluralistic society does. It was a survival
mechanism that when the Africans who are in Brazil primarily
as slaves, wanted to try to stay faithful to their religion,
they did it and basically exchanged the names. Like when
they would pray to their deities, they would be like, oh,
(12:20):
this is Saint Christopher, this is Saint Barbara, this is
Saint Matthew. The movie described it as like the spirits
got confused, which is in and of itself, like that's
all you need to say narratively. So it's these people
trying to keep their identity in an oppressive system, like
outwardly acquiesced to Christianity Catholicism while maintaining their religion and
(12:44):
this unintentional melding. And that's that's a fascinating like you
could write a thesis on that in and of itself.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
Yeah, at the beginning, as they're dancing and there's like
the celebration and we see zed praying. Yeah, there's that
screenshot of what their religion is can and I hope
I have that right.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
They tell you what it is.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
And then we have that conversation between Zed and the
priest where you know, Zen tells him exactly what he
did that he prayed to Santa Barbara and the connection.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
We're honest to a fault. Guy did not need to
say all that crap because like you're in, drop the
cross off and leave my guy.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
He's just so open.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
I don't know if it's naivete, but yes, he's super
pure and that he's doing this all of love for
his donkey. I mean his name is Ze de Buau,
the main guy's name, you know, like the donkey, and
so Nicholas, you know, like how he talks about like,
oh yeah, people see me with my with Nicholas and
they like, oh, there goes a with this burrow blah
blah blah, you know, and he's like, I don't mind tho,
(13:46):
it's okay.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Nicholas is my best friend. It's like all done out
of purity, and he just really you know.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
He's so open with the priests, just like yeah, non
I tried this and this happened. And he's just such
a lovable guy. Don't be mad. But like I I
also they're like, I had everybody pray for me basically
to cover my basis. See what worked. And now he's like, wait,
you pray to everybody, not just us.
Speaker 7 (14:09):
Just from a writing standpoint, I wonder if they thought,
oh God, I hope the audiences is going to understand this,
like who are not from Brazil? Because he's such an honest,
innocent guy. He just lays it all out. We get
the gist of it. The only thing I looked up
that because I thought, okay, so he went to like
this other and I was like, okay, we would you.
And then as Zed says, oh, there's a connection between
(14:32):
Yanza and Santa Barbara. He doesn't explain it, but you see,
the priests is like, no, there's no connection. So the
only thing I looked up was that the connection is
based on their shared association with firestorms than lightning, as
well as their image as powerful female figures we're not
afraid to fight. So Zed is like, it's the same thing.
If the priest is like, no, it's not the same day,
(14:53):
you know, but you get the divient you might you know,
someone may want to throw a little deeper and understand everything.
But if I thought, for writing standpoint, I thought that
was perfect. We get it, we know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And then that maybe goes like if you know that
going into it, or you look it up, like the
fire at the beginning, you can kind of group that together,
at least thematically.
Speaker 8 (15:14):
The whole thing of him being so open and so
naive and just driving his wife crazy, and especially his
wife who doesn't really need to be there once she
realizes like, oh, I wasn't part of the promise, Like
what the hell did you do? I would just walk
twenty one miles for you?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
That caused so many problems if she just left her
at home, take care of the farm. I'll be back
in a week. Like man didn't need to happen.
Speaker 8 (15:39):
Unless he had to burn down the farm on the
way there.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I don't.
Speaker 8 (15:43):
Yeah, that amazing image with the fire and everything, that's
cool one for the ages.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
I initially thought that card was pointless, but then I thought, well,
actually no, he was. If we're leaning into the spiritual
side of things, and like they shot a big fire
at the beginning, there's got to be a purpose for it, right,
and like if there's this character, who's this pimp who
sleeps with her? You know, at first I thought, well,
why did we need any of that? But again, if
(16:10):
we're leaning into these spiritual aspects, is this guy just
cursed from the minute he starts going there? She believes
that it's Santa Barbara forcing her to do this, and
then you know, he's like, well, she's like, maybe I'm
making an excuse. But I thought that was interesting. You know,
you could really kind of lean into the spiritual aspects
of the film, and he does wind up dying. You know,
(16:31):
so is he completely cursed or is this just the
fault of everyone there?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, and that's wide open, And especially like viewing that now,
I don't think it is that people like to throw
the terminialism around, And I feel like a lot of
people who do, like they took like philosophy one on
one and never really thought much beyond that. Like the
movie did not strike me as that, but more a
like a sadness on the people who are pure hearted
(16:59):
and who because like it's not even that he's like, oh,
Everything's gonna be okay, because he doesn't even necessarily have
that point of view, say, but rather I'm going to
only do, like I'm only going to act within this
and to a large degree that's admirable. But when the
rubber meets the road of reality, not that we give
(17:21):
up all of our ethics and morals or things like that,
but there were many times where as somebody who is
like who is more like actively spiritual'll be like, guy, walk,
go way, you make your promise. The cross is there.
If a priest is stopping you from fulfilling your promise,
that's on him. Drop it off in the courtyard and
(17:42):
go home. That's not on you. But again, like watching
that now, like people living in this world with all
these broken systems, and the movie highlights several of them,
Like there's the media, there's the cops. There's the hierarchical
organized religion, not just religion, but like the organized hierarchical,
(18:02):
Like they bring in the monsignor, like that's part of
the religion. You got the business people, you got the hustlers,
like all of this stuff in a society together. And
then this guy just very narrowly saying like these are
the only things that I'm going to do and hope
for like a good result. And it's like I don't
(18:22):
know how tenable that is.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
That's where it really compares to like a christ like story,
because you know, Jesus' faith was unshakable, you know, like
we mentioned earlier Joan of Arc. You know, they'd rather
die than abandon their faith. And he's the same way.
You know, it's like, I made this promise, I don't
want to. But in his case, you know, because I
was brought up Catholic as well, and fear is such
(18:45):
a big part of Catholicism, and so sometimes it's like
he also wants to make sure he follows through with
his promise because he thinks that he'll be punished. He's like, well,
I don't want to go back, and my donkey's dead,
and so I thought it's also based on fear that
he's it's faith and fear, which again another layer to
the film.
Speaker 8 (19:02):
Well, and it's not just that Nicholas is his friend.
I imagine that Nicholas somehow contributes to this man's living.
He probably uses Nicholas to I don't know, plow fields
or do something. So it's like if he breaks this promise,
if he doesn't fulfill this one thing that he promised
to Saint Barbara. Yeah, he might lose his best friend Nicholas,
but he might also lose his way of earning a wage.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And the way they tell this story too, it's just.
Speaker 8 (19:28):
Masterful as fire as them arriving at night and them
the only people that are around are these night people,
so the pimp and his prostitute are the ones that
they interact with the most.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And yeah, we see how put out the wife.
Speaker 8 (19:44):
Is and having this very dashing imp there all in
his white suit and everything. Pretty handsome guy as well,
and just like, oh yeah, I'll take care of this lady,
like she doesn't need to sleep on these steps. Oh yeah, everything.
And I love the way that you interpret him as
the devil. I think that's absolutely perfect because he's very
very you know.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Oh yeah, I can definitely help you, and he doesn't
even hide it on the rewatch I was like, oh yeah,
Like the first thing he tells, this guy's oh yeah,
I made a promise too, because I wanted this woman's
husband out of the way. And then I didn't even
make it because then I'd be implicating the saint. Haaa, hey,
can I take your wife to a hotel? And he goes, ah, sure,
(20:25):
and it's like, God, well, what are you doing? Like
that's how he actively introduced, like he put that out
there about himself, and this man's like, oh honey, why
don't you go with him to the hotel?
Speaker 7 (20:35):
Or he's so innocent that he thought that literally the
guy was just going to find a place for her
to sleep. It's like, oh God, like he's totally taken,
totally took advantage of his innocence.
Speaker 8 (20:44):
And then having that as our like little story at
the beginning, and then breaking it out slowly as we
go through, like here's the next day, and we get
to see more of these people that are inside of
this town, and we get the little old guy who
I guess sells books.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
He looks little.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Charlie Chaplin ask to me, no mustache, but that kind
of tramp look to him. And he's just almost like
there's this little imp going around and he's like, oh, yeah,
the priest doesn't want me selling books outside of the.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Church, like my dirty books. Yes exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (21:14):
It took me a while to figure out that he
was selling books. I was like, oh, okay, that's a
whose of a different color.
Speaker 7 (21:20):
I initially thought he meant that he had books about
that religion. Uh, and that's what I thought he was.
I'm like, oh no, no, he's not. He's way too
much of a you know, sinister kind of character to
be doing anything pure. You know, it's interesting because I
thought maybe this was something rooted in racism, because you see,
like the priest, because he says, oh, you know, this
(21:43):
cannonble was how the black slaves used to trick the
white masters, and they would say, oh, yeah, we're praying
to the saints, but really they're creating to these voodoo figures,
which is that's the way the priest sees it. And
I thought, are they against this just because these people
are black? Because you notice that all of these all
the people banding around him were the African Brazilian community.
(22:07):
And I even like those images of like they're watching
the steps as he's there, you know, I just thought.
And he gave his land away to the peasants, which
was part of his promise, and they banned the run.
But then again they're banding around it because of what
the media is writing that he's like this working class hero,
not because they think he's really for them.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I think they recognize and again it was done so
minimally and masterfully and more like show don't tell. I
think it was really like them recognizing like the underdog
status for lack of a better where like this is
a persecuted like demeaned person and doesn't matter if we
(22:49):
believe the same thing or pray the same people like
the woman, like middle aged lady who was kind of
like who appeared to be some sort of priestess or
what have you. She was his biggest champion, and he's like, no,
like I want to fulfill my thing as Saint Barbara,
and she's like all right, man, like I'm gonna help you.
Speaker 8 (23:07):
Well, it's like all these people start putting things onto him.
You know, we've seen this kind of thing before in
some of my favorite films, you know, like we talked
about being there, you know, taking the guy who lived
in isolation for all these years. He is a little
bit of a Chauncey Gardener type as far as like
he he is so naive, doesn't have harmful thought to
me anyway for anybody, and you know, everybody starts putting
(23:29):
stuff on him.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Oh, this guy's a genius. This is amazing.
Speaker 8 (23:32):
Or even like you know, the big dig or something
where it's a crazy person who's out there digging up
the street with a jackhammer, and everybody starts to be like, well,
what's this guy doing.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Does he have a permit?
Speaker 8 (23:43):
You know, pretty soon it's like, oh, well, leave this
guy alone.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
He obviously knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
He doesn't.
Speaker 8 (23:47):
He just loves jackhammers. So here we have with Zay
and he's just like, I just need to bring this
cross inside. I just need to leave this cross inside
of this church. And then suddenly he becomes you know,
thanks to the media, thanks to all these people that
are in the city, he becomes this like folk hero
and you know, oh, I think he's a commists.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
No, he's this, he's that.
Speaker 8 (24:08):
You know, he's like he's going to start a whole
new political party. And it's like, what he just wants
to take his cross inside of the.
Speaker 7 (24:14):
Church, something so simple would just turn it into something
so ridiculous, And on the one hand, people exploit it,
and then other people are afraid of it, like the priest,
and you just think there's something funny about it, Like
I did the second time. I did find myself laughing
at times because it's like, you know, it's almost satirical
in a sense of the film.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, the priests there like, oh, so you carried this
cross seven.
Speaker 8 (24:40):
Leagues and you know, show me your shoulder and his
shoulders all just corn up the hell. And then it's like, oh,
do you think you're like Christ? Are you mocking God?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And say, how could you say that? This guy clearly
is devout? And you're like, I don't know, though, are you?
And literally how hard would it have been to let
him go in there drop it off and then when
he's gone, dispose of it? How that would have been
the easiest thing in the.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
World for them, even waiting between services or something. People
don't even have to witness this, but you're making such
a big deal out of it.
Speaker 7 (25:17):
Again, it goes to how time and time again people
who have I mean, the story resembles the story of Jesus,
and of course no one believed him, and again no
one learned from that. And here to someone who's like,
you know, he's not saying he's the king of the
Jewish people or something, but he's similar with the un
you know, his faith cannot be broken. And you think
(25:39):
that as a kind of like priest, he would appreciate
that he would revere that he would love to see somebody. No,
it's rejected. It's like, you know, it turns into something ridiculous, right,
So it's like we just we don't learn in Joan
of Arc same thing. You know, it's very similar, persecuted
for similar reasons.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yes, Zay's devotion was stronger than anybody else is that
we see in the film by a long shot. And
I mean the Jesus parallels. Jesus's most ardent enemies were
also the organized religion at the time.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, the Pharisees and the priests.
Speaker 7 (26:14):
Absolutely. This was also a play which I just read,
which makes sense one location, oh totally cafe and of
course at the beginning where he's walking in the dancing
but I was like, you know what, this would be
really good to do or see on I would love
to see.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
A version of this just to be an incredible play.
Speaker 7 (26:31):
Yeah, the google that I wonder if it's still done.
Speaker 8 (26:34):
I like what you're saying as far as the people
that support him seem to be the ones that are
much closer to African descent, And so then you bring
in the whole racial aspect of this film as well,
where it's like all right, So we've got these subclasses versus.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
The upper class, and it's the upper class.
Speaker 8 (26:51):
It's the much more white looking people, the European descendants
that are the ones that are like, oh.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I got to get involved in this.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
I'm the you know, the newspaper man and theographer and
all this, like all right, yeah, let's let's get in here,
start making a folk here out of this guy. And
it's like, oh, I really don't think that your intentions
are pure at all.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
The newspapers clearly were like, well, we've already spent money up.
We are sensationalizing this in order to get more eyes
in the ears to sell more papers.
Speaker 7 (27:18):
Right or he'd laughed at and he's laughed at only
by the non black people. You don't blave person laugh
at him in this That was really interesting. Must have
been intentional, I'm sure.
Speaker 8 (27:29):
I am so curious if they must have made a
prop for this cross, like something a lot lighter than
the way that it looks. Oh, totally, Our main act,
our main actor gives such an amazing performance. Oh wow,
Leonardo Vilar. He is so good and just the he
really makes you feel like that cross is as heavy
(27:52):
as the one that Jesus was carrying through town. He
does such a good job, and like I said, just
the sincerity. You feel the emotions, like when the priest
starts yelling at him, you can just tell how disappointed
he is, how sad he is. But he's just he
knows in his heart that he has to do this
and that he can't enter the church. You know, I
think we already spoiled this a little bit, and I
(28:14):
probably should have given a spoiler warning. I didn't for
this one, but that he can only.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Enter the church after he's dead, and that he's on
the cross when he is put in here. That shot
after he gets shot, with the crowd and the big
open space with his body and the cross next to it.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Another one. I mean, wonderful images through this whole thing.
This beautiful black and white photography as.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Well, incredibly strong. Yeah, when he's just sitting there on
the steps, the landing in between the two steps, very cinematic,
would also be great on a stage like that was
an extremely powerful image.
Speaker 8 (28:51):
And for those guys to put him on the cross
and then use it as a battering ram and finally
get him across the way.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
Oh, because there's also this violence in him that's brewing
through this And there's that moment where he says he's
going to just burn the church down because he's getting
so angry. And then as soon as he says you
see the look of shame on his face. Either, how
could I have said that? You know, it's just been
nutances in his performance. I got to see him in
more films, because man, this guy's an incredible actor. Yeah,
(29:21):
some incredible looks.
Speaker 8 (29:23):
It's so much him. But then when his wife comes back,
when the prostitute comes back, I was wondering if the
prostitute was going to have an easier time getting into
church than him, you know, because that's the way that
it feels like, Oh, well, if you're not if you're
staying away from what's it called kind don't blay. Yeah,
you're fine with us. I don't care what you do.
(29:44):
But as long as you're not doing that bad stuff,
stay away from that.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
The irony and the satire of that is those folks
that they are looking down on are seeking to be
faithful and the only way they can do it because
of the system, is by being a little deceptive. But
they're not trying to take down the Catholic Church. They're
not enemies of the Catholic Church. They're just saying, hey,
(30:10):
like we want to stay faithful to our traditions. The
Catholic Church that wasn't okay with them, so like, okay, yeah, sure,
we're all Catholic. Like I'm praying to Saint Barbara, like wink.
And that's the only reason they're doing that to begin with,
Like the Catholic Church literally created that problem.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
Well, yeah, I'm always curious about the whole idea of
sainthood because I don't think that they talk about saints
in the Bible.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Do they?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yes, but not like we traditionally a little substance a
cinema hour here. I would say my understanding is that
what came from the Bible, particularly in Hebrews, is nothing supernatural.
It's like we look back on people who lived exemplaryal
lives in some way like these are humans, not like sainthood,
(30:55):
like some sort of perfection, but like people who did
certain things that were very ad that are worth emulating,
and there are particular passages that get looked at like
these are kind of the people that in scripture are
being put forth as saints, and that idea I think
has a lot of value. But over time, particularly when
(31:17):
economics and business went into the church selling images of
saints in order to be like if you buy this
image of the saint, then you're gonna get a special blessing.
All that stuff can kind of complicate things that are
at their heart have a lot of value and have purity.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
I just quickly google does the Bible talk about saints
and it says it does, but not in the way
we do now, just mainly as like broadly defined as
like someone who's a holy one. But what Philip was saying, yeah,
it turned into something mythical and for business purposes and
selling religion and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Well, I feel like it helps it go down a
little bit easier.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
It's kind of like with Islam, where it's like, okay, yeah,
we recognize like Adam and Moses and this, and that
will build upon that. It's kind of like a nice
no offense to anybody from Islam or Christianity or Judaism,
but it just feels like it is a way to
make the medicine go down a little bit easier as
far as like, oh, yeah, we recognize all these people.
(32:15):
Jesus was a prophet. You know, he wasn't the son
of God, he was a prophet. David was a prophet,
Moses was a prophet, Noah, et cetera. Some of these
big names. Mohammad was a prophet. Mohammed is the seal
of the prophets. There's no more prophets after Mohammed, which
is okay, you know, like we're putting an end cap
on this thing, so nothing more. And then you get
(32:37):
into Catholicism and isn't like Peter the one of the
first saints. It's like, okay, this guy made major strides
for our religion. He's a saint, you know, and this
person's a saint, and this person's a saint.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
But that's for me.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
It doesn't feel like that's outside of the New Testament
rather than all inside of it. As far as like, yeah, no,
this is baked into our religion. Yeah, what it has
become is and yeah, it's it is complex and well
I'm sure wars have been fought over it been thrown
out of windows over it.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, look at us get crazy theological on
the projection booth.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Hey, there's room for everybody.
Speaker 7 (33:17):
It certainly makes you think. I mean it about all
you know. But again, on the flip side, it's interesting
because if someone is a complete atheist, I mean, you
can see what's going on from his point of view,
but you can also just take it from a critical
point of view and just say, this guy's insane, The
church is insane everyone's, which is still true even if
(33:37):
you are more spiritual when you look at it from
a couple of different ways. But the film doesn't necessarily
I mean you feel that it's literally on Zen's side,
but I don't necessarily feel that they make the priests
like a villain of the piece. I mean, you get
his perspective right, And actually, the second time I was
watching it, I was finding myself empathizing more with him.
It's just like, this is what this guy's been Dodd,
(33:59):
this is what you know, this is what you think.
Even his superiors agree with him, you know. So I
like that because it doesn't just tell you, yeah, believe
this guy and these guys are the antagonists. These guys
the protagonist. It is that to an extent, but I
appreciate the nuance which makes for these kind of rich conversations.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
It's a unstoppable force versus the immovable object. You know,
the priest is the immovable object. This is what I believe,
and it's diametrically opposed to what you believe. I cannot
abide this.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Well, it was so interesting you brought up earlier, Mike,
the conversation where it is slowly revealed. Zay's story was
slowly revealed as he was walking up with the priest.
When he finally revealed, oh, like we prayed to other
things too, Like the priest stops him, goes up a
couple steps and literally looks down on him, saying, hey,
(34:54):
this is unorthodox. Like you're out of bounds now, like
Robert was saying, there's a way to empathize with that, going, hey,
like I am the safeguard of like I'm the person
who's supposed to be shepherding these people, blah blah blah,
and like this is out of bounds. But then you
go farther of like the pride of you're not meeting
(35:15):
my standards, because it's not just about the priest's devotion
to God. It's kind of about the priest going like
this is my parish, this is my church, and you're
going against me. And that's where the problem is because
he could say, hey, brother, like that's a little bit
out of bounds, Like why don't you He did not
invite him in, he didn't walk with him, he didn't
(35:36):
meet him where he was. He's like, you need to
meet my orthodoxy before I show you any grace. And
he escalated it and escalated and escalated it, and like
you can point out a lot of different things, but ultimately, pragmatically,
like I feel like the priest is the.
Speaker 8 (35:53):
Most culpable for howse ended up. Well, it's like he's
Saint Peter barring this guy from entering heaven, being up
there at that top of those steps, you know, and
just the constant up and down that keeps going up
and down these steps through this entire film. And every
time he gets back up there, there's somebody telling him, no,
you've got to go back down. You know, you are
(36:14):
not allowed to enter into heaven here, you cannot ascend fullight.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And they're creating the maliceon in. Like we've said over
and over in this hour, he is the most pure hearted,
focused guy. Let him do it and let him go. Oh,
you don't need to have everybody else put their stamp
of agreement on you. That's not real emotional or even
spiritual maturity. If a priest or, a pastor or a bishop,
(36:40):
if somebody in spiritual authority cannot abide somebody disagreeing with them,
that's a problem.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
You know.
Speaker 8 (36:47):
And that's the thing, is this whole like there's no
room for debate talking about making a flip or mark,
about throwing people out of a window. You know, I
can't remember which if it was the Council of Worms
or Nicea or Trent or which one of it was.
By It's like, literally people have killed over small things,
like was Christ demand? Was he always said?
Speaker 4 (37:08):
God?
Speaker 6 (37:08):
Was he?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (37:09):
People got burned at the stake if they didn't affirm
certain creeds. Yeah, no, it's it's awful.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:15):
And the poors is just one example of one person
who thinks they're doing the right thing and is told
time and again, and then, like I said, the story
just builds and builds, and pretty soon we've got just
all of these people that are outside of the church.
We've got the army being brought in. We've got them
questioning now, like you know, when they came up and
they're like, where are your papers? And I was like,
(37:36):
oh wow, this feels very twenty twenty five. I know
that was insane.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I thought it was a very interesting decision to make
the local law enforcement kind of be like level headed
and actually decent guy. He's the local guys like they
brought in bigger guys who were awful, had the guns,
had the force. But the local guys like, he hasn't
he didn't steal, hasn't hurt anybody, Like, she's just can
(38:02):
you let him in please? Like it's causing a public
ruckus because he's not being let in. The police went
to the priest on Zay's behalf, going hey, man, like
this is starting to disturb the peacet. I'm not going
to arrest him because he hasn't committed any crimes. Let
him in so we can get this done. But the
priest is like, no, this is my church.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
Was believed that someone was level headed, But is it
just that it is the local car Yeah.
Speaker 8 (38:29):
Who's I'm curious what happens to Zay's wife after this
all takes place. I mean, she's stuck out here in
the city, twenty miles from home, no way of getting
back other than possibly walking her hitching a riot somehow.
But has she fallen under the spell of the pimp?
Is she going to be the next girl in his stable?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I don't think so, But that is an interesting open
ended because like she walked is very powerful and very cinematic,
like it was heightened, everybody else cleared out, and the
final shots are just her slowly walking by herself up
the steps into where her husband's final resting is and
(39:11):
also extremely powerful just imagery.
Speaker 7 (39:15):
After she initially slept with him. When she sees him
a little later on, I thought she was going to
go with him again because he's like smiling and calling
her over and she looks tempted. But then when she
goes up to him, she's like telling him to, like,
you know, try to help her husband and like stop
all of this. So I don't necessarily think she'll follow
that roots again. And we're leading into the spiritual aspects.
(39:38):
It's like the devil's work is done. He's gonna leave him.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah, chaos has been sowed and he's moved on.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
It is interesting too.
Speaker 8 (39:45):
You talked about how there was a play of it,
but there was actually a I keep reading different things.
It's a remake about ten years ago. Well, there was
one from nineteen ninety eight that I.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Was aware of it.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Oh you know, you posted that, and though I saw
something on YouTube from twenty fifteen, but that could have
also been see there's so much to be uh I
got here. I don't even know for sure yet twenty
fifteen an adaptation of the series shown in ninety eight.
Speaker 8 (40:13):
So yeah, okay, yeah, because I was reading mini series,
but then I found an hour and a half film
version of it or video. It looks like, definitely looks
like it was shot on video. Unfortunately, that just lends
a real cheapness to it, but you know, it was
basically made for TV. It looks like and you can
(40:33):
feel that the sets look nice and everything, but it
just doesn't feel as lush and especially compared to the
sixty two version, which is just such a.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Pleasure to look at.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
It's incredibly Yeah.
Speaker 8 (40:43):
Yeah, but the ninety eight version feels much more almost
telenovella as far as like the video quality, and then
there's much more like the type acting just like you
know that it startled in Spanish, right, or that that
meme of the woman's face and it says startled in
Spanish on it.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Clearly you want one hundred percent of the letterbox logs
of the twenty fifth turn Spanish, so it looked like
it was some sort of special in twenty fifteen. And
I can't tell if it was literally just a rebroadcast
or a new adaptation with new people.
Speaker 7 (41:16):
Yeah, all I see is the mini series when I
google it.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Well on letterbox it's called loose camera fifty ayos and
then oh, pagadorde premeasos. So I don't know if it
was like a celebration of the legacy of the story,
which I didn't know about the story until I get
the email from you, Mike.
Speaker 8 (41:36):
I like that the way that the sixty two story starts,
like I said, in media, you know, we've got them
already going, whereas the ninety eight actually starts with them
in the village and the whole thing with Nicholas and everything,
and it's like, all right, Nicholas seems okay in this version,
but there's also a murder that takes place, and then
(41:58):
they make their track their trek at the end of
the first act, you know, So it's told in a
very different way. And I have to say, the sixty
two version it's an hour and a half long, but God,
its zips along. It feels like it is an hour
at most. I am absorbed.
Speaker 7 (42:15):
Well, there's so many elements to it and layers, and
what's incredible to me is like it's done with the
utmost simplicity as well. I mean, it just flows and
all of these characters come in and out, and all
these arguments are made, arguments for, arguments against. You know,
you got the media, the police officer, all these point
of views, and I'm like, Jesus, how did they do
(42:35):
this without making it like three hours?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Like this my again, some of our last few conversations
very fuller esque, and it's a social commentary and pacing.
Speaker 7 (42:45):
Yeah, or even like I just recently did a written
review for Chaplain's City Lights, and I was like, man,
this is hard to write about in a way because
it's so plot heavy in a good sense, and he's
seeing so much. But it's so true, so funny, and
yet so simple. But that was his genius. It's hard
to write about because it's that good and this is simple.
(43:07):
This reminds me of that.
Speaker 8 (43:09):
I love the shot at the beginning of the sixty
two version where it's the and I'm sorry, just keep
calling her the prostitute, I keep calling him the pimp.
But they're outside of this club and you see the
silhouettes inside behind the window of a guy playing the trumpet,
another guy maybe playing the drums, and you just get
those silhouettes on there. That's wonderful because I mean, I
(43:31):
imagine that they shot that. Hopefully all mos are not
actually playing music in the club and they're just recording
the you know, the dialogue and then adding in the
music later. The music was great by the way in
this movie too, but just that nice way of conveying
this is a rock and club by having those silhouettes
on the window and again the black and white. Just oh,
(43:53):
the cinematography is so lush in this film. And yeah,
please I want to see this on the big screen
because it looks great.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah. It did some really cool tricks too, like when
they were filming them through the bars, there were a
few great shots. And then towards the end, after Day
had died and they had put them on the cross,
the camera being under the cross as it was lifted
up like that would be a stunning, stunning shot. If
this got like a HD or four K restoration on
(44:23):
the big screen, that would be a breathtaking shot.
Speaker 7 (44:25):
But the character we call a pimp, his name is
Bonie de Bonie, mister Hansom, and I guess it was
like his wife slash prostitute or I think that's Marley. Yeah, yeah,
so that's the names.
Speaker 8 (44:40):
She was so striking and I love they emphasize her
curves so much. It's like her bottom is another character
in this movie. The way that they has so much
screen time.
Speaker 7 (44:50):
But they certainly were devilish, like, you know, in a
way it was almost caricature, like the way they were
just like tackling at the end to it. I think
that was intentional, right, because if we're just that another
suggestion that there's something, you know, evil at play here
from from hell or you know, what have you.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Oh that was the lady from Planet of the Vampires.
Speaker 8 (45:10):
I didn't realize that. Oh wow, that's amazing. I love
how they have the proper parade of Saint Barbara, but
then they also have the celebration of the African God
at the same time, and it's like that one has
the native instruments that they're playing. Yeah, and it just
(45:30):
goes back to the very beginning that prelude with the
African inspired music. I mean, it's fascinating Ami Brazil. It's
a fascinating place as far as all the mixture of
cultures that all come together in this one gigantic country.
We forget about how huge Brazil is, but this, you know,
we're talking about melting pot, like this bizarro melting pot
(45:51):
of all of these different cultures and everything bizarre in
a good way, you know, like there is always tension
in everything, but you know, it's interesting to see the
way that tension plays out, and to see that tension
playing out here in the six to two film, I mean,
it's great. It's very similar to some of those Cinema
novo films that I was talking about where you still
get to see like all right. I found the fastening too,
(46:12):
because it kept saying Makumba all through this whole thing,
and I was like, oh, I wonder if that's similar
to Makunaima, which is this other Brazilian film that we
watched a couple of years ago where it's like this,
this is great stuff. I mean, Brazilian cinema, for me,
is such an untapped vein of world cinema that just
needs more exploration, and.
Speaker 7 (46:31):
So often I see something from Brazil like City of
God or be Shoddy, and I'm blown away.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
You don't see.
Speaker 7 (46:37):
It's kind of like with the check Like, of course, Mike,
you're well versed and you know there's only so many
people talking about certain countries, which gives opportunities for people
like us.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
The only one other scene you reminded me of a
moment ago that was also really great that I think
would be even more striking with a great restoration on
the big screen is the procession of Saint Barbara, Like
the actual parade, the icon of Saint Barbara, the statue
and him walking up side by side. You're like, oh,
is he going to sneak in? But like the cutting
back and forth and just how effusive he was. He's like, oh,
(47:08):
like I'm going to get in. That was just also
a very powerful visual scene.
Speaker 7 (47:13):
And just the gratitude pouring out of him as he's
looking at the statue. I was like, you put me
in a spell.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I was like, man, that was it.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Like that's as close as he gets in this film. Yeah,
it is really weird.
Speaker 8 (47:25):
Sorry to go back to the whole Saint thing. I
was just remembering you. I worked at a cable company
right out of college, and we played you know, local
origination commercials, and I remember there was one commercial and
I can't remember what religion it was for, if it
was for Eastern Orthodox or if it was for Catholicism
(47:45):
or some sort of Protestantism, but it was like, perhaps
you've heard of the healing icon of Saint so and so,
and it's like this whole like, come to our church
and pray to this icon of this saint and you
will be healed. And I'm just like, how is that
any different than just selling, like you said, selling icons
of saints and having your almost like hard collection of
(48:07):
saints and things and having a saint for so many
different things is so reminiscent to me of like Eastern religions,
where it's like okay, well there's the God of the kitchen,
there's the God of the hearth, there's the God of.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
The entrance to the door.
Speaker 8 (48:20):
It's so similar for me as like, well there's the
Saint of pets, there's the Saint of lost causes, there's
a saint of this, And it's like, Okay, which one
are you going to pray to?
Speaker 7 (48:28):
Now?
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Like you oh, oh, you want to.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Sell your house.
Speaker 8 (48:31):
We'll take Saint Joseph and go bury him in the
backyard and do this little prayer, and that way you'll
sell your house. It's like, what the fuck are you
talking about?
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Life?
Speaker 8 (48:40):
There's no way that that can be condoned. It sounds
like voodoo superstition stuff, you know, and it's probably very
bad on my part. When I talk about things being unknown,
I usually say it's voodoo. That's a religion as well.
So yeah, you should pay as much respect to them
as I do to everybody else.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Thanks in thanks for the intro to this movie, Mike.
I think that we should all push some of our
contacts to take a look at this and maybe put
a good restoration out there. All right, we're going to
take a break and play a preview for next week's
show right after these brief messages.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
For Gloria, the danger is always getting closer. I want tickets,
and getting closer is always the danger.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Gloria.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
All we want is the book, and the kid from
Jenner Rowlans is Gloria, so she's trying to read the
mom at their own game. Gloria Grated PG coming soon
to a theater near you.
Speaker 8 (49:38):
As I We'll be back next week with a look
at John Cassavetti's Gloria. Until then, I want to thank
my co host Robert and Philip. So Robert, what's the
latest with you, sir?
Speaker 4 (49:46):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (49:47):
Well, as I was saying just before we recorded, I
was fortunate to meet the great Charles Burnett recently at
TIFF in Toronto, and I made a little video about it,
and I recorded his Q and A with the Tiff
artistic director Cameron Bailey after the screening of Killer of Sheep,
which was just restored by Criterion as a new four
K restoration, So that was a great experience, So you
(50:09):
could check that out. And I just dropped an episode
today on the film called Humoresque with Joan Crawford and
John Garfield, which is a film I love the Blue.
We just came out late last year from Warner Brothers Archives,
so I just reviewed that today. So yeah, that's the
latest two episodes, And you can check me out on
(50:31):
YouTube dot com slash Robert Bellissimo at the Movies, and
all of my social media handles are at linktree dot
com slash Robert Bellissimo at the Movies, as well as
my Patreon page and my YouTube channel link is there
as well.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
And Philip, What's going on in your world?
Speaker 3 (50:50):
You can find me over at the Substance Podcast and
we cover both film on our Substance of Cinema episodes
and then on our regular episodes we have professors, historians,
face leaders talking about these of substance. Recently we covered Panicfests,
which is one of the larger genre festivals in the
US held here in Kansas City. Had filmmakers like Joe
(51:10):
Lynch and other folks talking about some of their movies
and the films that premiered there. Recently had a New
York Times film critic Alyssa Wilkinson talking about her new
book about Joan Didion and John Wayne and yeah, just
a nice variety of folks talking about film and matters
of substance at the Substance Pod on the Socials and
the Substance where you find your podcasts.
Speaker 8 (51:31):
Well, thank you so much 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 work on. They're all
available at weirdingwaymedia 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 Booth take over the world.
Speaker 9 (52:04):
Brim yeh.
Speaker 10 (52:13):
Next the good I'm like, fat, what shall we by
shot and be don feel sting.
Speaker 9 (52:31):
Yepens shall there's areas and them.
Speaker 11 (52:41):
At the backstore to the show and I was like,
oh man that you get going go do you believes all.
Speaker 9 (52:56):
Prussian good thing? Then I'm alive, come.
Speaker 11 (53:00):
Thing thing, Oh my cats.
Speaker 6 (53:04):
And moon and room and then room and and the
room and room and then room got UPO.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (53:27):
Next God, I'm like god those lead thing fast shop,
wait my shot and by don't just finish?
Speaker 9 (53:45):
Yeah, And there was the mother shalline there's a clear
sun room and then and at the backstop show, I
was in, oh the shaman, such a gag ad come
(54:06):
to believe so much Prussian god things.
Speaker 12 (54:12):
I think I'm allowed notty thing my casa and ever
dom and there's ever and and and then and then
we want.
Speaker 9 (54:30):
That boy
Speaker 6 (54:57):
Sho he
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