Episode #27: Born In Flames (1983)

[Music] Welcome, fellow cinephiles, to season 4 of Blind Spotting, a film discovery podcast, in which two dear friends and film festival colleagues attempt to bridge the gaps of their long-distance relationship and their own filmic educations through a screening and discussion phone call project devoted to the gap films that have thus far eluded their cinematic discovery. Shout out to Moby, and that's right, Moby for our opening theme music. I am your co-host, Jack Hamley, Academic Film Festival programmer and passionate cinephile. Join us always by my forever cinematic partnering crime and forever co-host, Scott Agner, also an academic, also a film festival programmer, and an equally if not more passionate cinephile, Scott, welcome back to the podcast and welcome to season 4. Hey, I am so excited that we are starting our season 4 journey. As those of you who have listened for a while know this is one of the highlights of every time we get to do this, every time we have one of these conversations, always a highlight of my time throughout the days. And, you know, we have consistently had amazing seasons, so I'm really excited for what we might find throughout season 4. I'm thrilled, Scott, because we first came up with this modest little idea back in the day, which is really just an excuse for us to be able to just expand beyond those amazing three days we used to spend together, discussing film, a Christian-beautful film festival, and doing talk-backs, and just kind of like indulging in all things, deconstruction of cinema, together, non-stop, basically 24 hours a day, waking up, discussing film, drinking, talking film into the night, doing it all again. We wanted to find a way to expand this, and when we kind of envisioned this project, I thought this could be, this would be fun, of course, it would be a wonderful excuse for us to keep doing together, what we love doing best together, but I never thought it would expand to season 4, this is exciting, and especially given the listenership that we have discovered has joined us along the way. So, to our listeners, we welcome you as well. We cannot tell you how much we value you, that you have joined us in this little filmic education project, and that you allow us into your lives to share together in our passion for cinema, and ultimately that you continue to join us in this grand experiment. So, season 4, Scott, it's going to be a bit different. Let's just throw this out there. We've had some amazing seasons, as you said, we built some amazing things. Each one of them is like a child now in our lives. How could we pick a favorite child of our different seasons? But Scott, listeners, I challenge that season 4 could be our best yet. I would like to think that we have done some amazing curation of the films we were going to discuss, and it's going to be, as I said, a little bit different this season. We are going to have more films we discuss, and if there is a seasonal theme, I was trying to look together over this astonishing list that we put together. And just the word radical came to mind for me. I think for me, I'm very excited for the season, because we are going to explore some radical departures into different types of films we have in seasons past. We are going to go into different filmic eras than we've explored, different parts of the world, and explore some radically different subcultures. This is a season coming up in which we managed to put under one umbrella drifting into some areas of more avant-garde cinema, playing with more surrealism, some slow cinema. We are going to play with some feminist counter-synema, as we are about to discuss with our opening salvo, some post-colonial critiques, some humanist minimalism. We are going to go all around the world in different times, and I'm excited about this batch of films. Tell our listeners a bit what led to how we curated this season. Yeah, I think as we were kind of thinking about previous seasons, and obviously our goal is to always be consistent with finding these films that are blind spots for us, but I think you're right. We were kind of noticing that it would maybe be a beneficial attempt to figure out how we could, I don't know, maybe round things out a little bit more. And really, as you said, think about these radical outliers, not just in terms of time periods, but in terms of locations, in terms of subject matter, and just trying to swing a little bit bigger. So rather than pigeonhole ourselves into some specific themes or ideas, really just trying to swing big on these. Looking over our list that we've got planned for season four, I think we've managed to really kind of do some pretty big, vast, deep knowledge that's happening here, but it's also interesting because I was noticing that even within that, we have lots of names that you'll recognize looking through our list. And we've got, it's kind of an interesting situation because some of the names on our list are films that we absolutely, you and I, for sure, have seen most of their catalogs. And yet their names are popping up here. And so it's kind of also interesting in that way that we're going to be looking at more than once this season, people that we are familiar with their work, but are not familiar with these particular films. And I think that should be fun also. It is going to be the most radical of deep dives for season four. And again, if each season is like a child birth to us, this is going to be our dangerously radical child of a season Scott. Dare I say perhaps a favorite coming in? And if you as a listener, if this is your first season joining us, we not only welcome you wholeheartedly and remind you that this podcast is a safe place of no shame. There's never shame in having a blind spot, of course. Only perhaps the shame of not trying to remedy it among fellow cinephelias. So you are among family here. But yeah, I suspect a bit that this is like a great season to kind of come into if this is your first time joining us. Because I think it could be we're going to go down some pretty amazing rabbit holes. Yeah, yeah, I think it could be. And of course to kick us off in said radical fashion. This episode's film is of course born in flames. A 1983 American dystopian docu-fiction drama film, right? Directed, produced and co-written by radical intersexual feminist Lizzie Borden set in a speculative near future America 10 years after a peaceful socialist revolution. Lizzie Borden's born in flames follows a loose coalition of feminist activists, underground pirate radio host, queer revolutionaries and grassroots organizers who begin to realize that the supposed utopia promised by institutional progress has merely been repackaged by patriarchal power structures in the language of liberal reform. What emerges is not merely a docu-drama and science fiction but a furious cinematic manifesto assembled from the fragments of cinema veritate documentary realism, guerrilla filmmaking and revolutionary rage. Scott, I am so excited that we are launching with this film. Yeah. To begin with, right? And I think I have so much to say here about it. Namely because one thing out of the gate is that with Lizzie Borden, a director that shamefully I did not know much about and I think as we'll discuss on the podcast, that's kind of by design for how the Hollywood system really kind of blacklisted her and kind of really kind of shut down her ambitious innovative style of filmmaking and her guerrilla filmmaking and political risky filmmaking. So, you know, that was, I thought I was astonishing shamefully that I did not know her but I think one thing that's fascinating is this is we talk a lot about how directors are formed and whether they come from the great film school traditions. So I'm very anxious to talk to you because this is a director born of art school over film school. And so I'm very excited to get your take on this given your academic milieu and to hear what you have to say. Yeah. But I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, I'll wait to say it. But yeah, I do have some notes on that. I assume you have multiple pages of notes. Too many. I've got some pages here. Again, sitting on the couch looking at this, watching this, I was like, "Scott is going to eat this up and I cannot wait." So, Tor, Lizzie is released, of course, Born in Flames released in 1983. After nearly five years, I mean, it took like seven total years to make. But about five years of piecemeal shooting production, Born in Flames emerged directly from the downtown New York art and punk scenes of the late 70s and early 80s. This was made on an extraordinarily small budget with a largely non-professional cast, which included amazing cameos from famous activist musicians, artists and theorists. The film wound up functioning much less as traditional narrative production, more than evolving collective act of political rebellion and imagination. It premiered at the 1983 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Reader jury prize and to comb the Grand Prix at the Kriteja International Women's women's film festival that same year. Scott though initially, critically divisive, of course, born in flames gradually came to be recognized as a cornerstone of feminist and queer counter cinema. It experienced something of a critical renaissance after a very famed and much discussed 35 millimeter restoration print premiered in 2016 at the anthology film archives, followed by acquisition and promotion by our beloved friend of the podcast criterion channel and a re-release that took board and screenings all around the world, allowing her to introduce her film to so many people for the first time. In 2022, the film was ranked a joint 243rd in the site and sounds greatest films of all time, Paul, tying with 21 other films in that position, films that include a clockwork orange, any hall and possession. Lastly, it was named one of the most important 50 independent films ever made by filmmaker magazine. So as per tradition, we begin by asking, Scott, how did born in flames become a blind spot for you? - I think much like you said, just the intentional gatekeeping of a filmmaker like this and sort of pushing it out. I'm not surprised that it's a film that I would guess most people have not seen. I think it's great that we've got people like criterion channel and the others that you mentioned doing the work to bring films like this back into the spotlight because in my case, I would have never probably known about this film. And then as you said, I think that's really intentional that it had that space removed until a little bit more recently where it's gained that traction back. - Yeah. - Just not something I'm known about, really. - Exactly, the same. And most of the time, just given our entire life's work and our life's passion, we watch hundreds of films every single year, whether for pleasure, whether for our professional lives, whether for programming at festivals, right? And the nature of blind spotting for us was always like, too, like yeah, sometimes things just slip through the cracks and we've known that we've had to come around to them many times somewhat embarrassingly, it can take quite a long time before we revisit a film that we had always booked marked and said, all right, we've got to come back to this. This is one of those rare occurrences where I had truly just never heard of the film. And much less and more embarrassingly so the filmmaker, which I am so thankful this project has now remedied for me because I'm gonna be going down a rabbit hole, not only of this director, but of some of the people that have shown up in this amazing film, which we'll talk about soon, but yeah, I think it was, it's kind of just shocking how, that not only just kind of like realizing how much of the gatekeeping prevents us, right? But also just accessibility. If something is not getting a platform, if it's not being distributed, if it's not being talked about by critics or curated by, you know, sight and sound pull lists, right? These are the mechanisms by which we get introduced to some great pieces of cinema, some daring and radical piece of cinema that aren't just gonna just be out there in the mainstream, right? You're not gonna come across this film, basically in a lot of the venues, right? It's not gonna be a Netflix pick of the week people. - No. - So I'm also proud that we are joining in that grand tradition of like Marty, our beloved Marty, and some other great curators that we are trying to go out there and hopefully introduce you as well to this film. One that we had really just kind of both of us never heard of before. So now as usual, before we plunge into our deconstruction of this radical offering, this is a moment where we remind you our dear listeners that there be spoilers ahead. If like us, Born Inflames has also been a blind spot. And by the way, if it was not a blind spot for you, Kudos, and you're welcome to, - Yeah. - You're one of the great listeners. - Yeah. - And we appreciate you. If you knew about this film coming in and we're kind of like, yeah, or do you see this, reach out to us. We'd love to hear some of your other recommendations because we're impressed. But we strongly encourage you at this point to pause the podcast now if you've not yet seen it. Seek this film out and return to us once you've watched. You can join us in the discussion, which is of course the entire point of this project. We promise we'll be here right here when you get back. Scott, I found this on, as we mentioned before, Criterion channel, and I know that prime video has it available for streaming for rental. Did you find this anywhere else? - It was Criterion for me, but I did in my search discovered that if you have access to Canopy, which a lot of people have through academics, it's a part of the Criterion Canopy collection as well. So, which is not all Criterion's films, but they have a selected curation of Criterion films on Canopy. So that might be another way to access it too. - Fantastic. If our listeners, if you've not yet discovered the sheer joy and magic that is Canopy, all you need is a computer and a library card, and you can join us on a lot of these. Almost every single film we've talked about in all four of our seasons now has typically shown upon Canopy as well. - Yeah, it's a good place to go. If it's in one of those services sometimes that you don't necessarily have access to check Canopy for sure. - That's right. I promise you, get into Canopy, it will radically change your life. So, okay, well here we go. Pause now. Watch it. And we are back. So, as per tradition, we always begin with a short synopsis. We are friends at the Criterion Collection, set in America 10 years after a democratic cultural revolution, Lizzy Borden's explosive post-punk provocation imagines a coalition of women across racial, sexual, and class lines who decide that equality has not arrived after all. So, one little element that we love to begin with on each episode is viewing notes where, and we urge you to do the same. If you're kind of new to the idea of kind of, you know, really taking that next step in your film education and becoming a real student of cinema, of really doing that deconstruction, this is a process that all the great critics have done over time. I remember, there's a marvelous essay out there by our dear beloved and late friend of the show Roger Ebert talking about how the process of incorporating your notebook into your screenings and jotting down the notes. And so we urge you like us. I take great comforts, listeners, in knowing that across the country, far away, we're watching this film the same time. I know that Scott is likewise sitting down on a sofa watching a film, small notebook in hand, furiously jotting down ideas and small viewing notes and impressions as we watch. It's the only way to watch cinema and letting you reframe it and revisit it earlier and later again. So Scott, viewing notes, what were some first, overall jotting down impressions for you? - Yeah, and I think that's just to give a little bit of context to that. I wanna spend too much time on this, but like we all have our process, right, too. And so mine is that I will oftentimes my first round of kind of those notes tends to be these sort of bigger, generic, not really diving into a ton of, you know, analysis, they're these bigger moments. From there, I take that and I start to pull apart some of those other like more subjects type pieces that I want to explore. I take all those handwritten notes then. I type them all out after that, so that I've got a nice document that I can rely on and then I kind of structure it and organize it in a way that I think is useful for the way my brain operates. So it's a multi-step process for me. - I love that. Just a guy, but I think that's also the academic side, right? Like that's just how I cross that's information. - Or listeners can also, who is the vastly more organized member of this outfit? You know, but I love that idea too as well. I kind of always appreciated it kind of, you know, like you said it perfectly. There needs to be somewhat multiple passes of a film, right? You kind of like enjoy it the first time just for its viewing experience. I watch it for pleasure initially, but I always like to jot down big ideas at strength that you should bet perfectly, right? We're not going to go into some nuance, you know, deconstruction in the dark and our small notebook, writing paragraphs, but I love to just jot down big ideas as they hit or something that strikes me in the moment that I'm like, okay, oh my God, I have to remember this. So Scott, what were some of these for you? - Yeah, so unlike the surface level, you know, I have notes talking about how great honey is as a character. I have notes about the soundtrack, amazing, right? The title coming from that Red Crayola song, which is used multiple times throughout the film. So I got a note about that. I have a note that I really absolutely loved that bike gang scene when they were attacking on their bikes. - Yes, yes, one of the great scenes already. - As a scene, it was a phenomenal scene, but then I do have some notes just about the things that, again, I would later explore these in a little bit more depth in my notes, but I really loved this idea of using the pirate radio stations, not only as a plot device, but as this argument about counter public spheres and who controls media and those kinds of things. So I definitely had some notes about that. I mean, obviously there's tons of genre subversion that's happening here. I love that effect of it being kind of this, this agit prop film. So I've got tons of notes on that. And then I have a couple quotes that I wrote down as well. We'll get to those, I'm sure a little bit later on. - Oh, fit. - Nice. - I love that. I'm with you. One of my first ones is that astonishing light motif of the song, but keeps coming through, that kind of guides us through this entire. It gives us a little bit of a narrative thread in a film that very consciously doesn't want to have a narrative thread. So I thought that was brilliant. I kind of jotted down to it. It's almost like it was discovering like a pirate radio transmission from a future that never happened, but yet somehow feels very familiar to where we're at. Kind of a Molotov cocktail I jotted kind of disguise as public access television. A revolution here, a cinematic artistic fragmentary revolution, right? And the fact that this is a film that for many people, if you are just in that stage of your film in education where you're used to much more linear and traditional narratives, which is fine. This is how you, by the way, expand your cinematic education, just do films like this. Let me tell you. But even though for how fragment it was, how vibrantly alive it is, purposely contradictory at times, it is a collision of image and form. It is purposely messy. It's horny, angry, it's human, it's revolution. Yeah, loved all of that aspect of it. A scene also that popped out for me is that glorious montage of just showing women's hands, doing women's work, and marvelous, and how that broke apart. I also jotted down to the end that this would make a perfect double feature with this past years Academy Award Winner One Battle after another. I think it's clear that Paul Thomas Anderson has seen this film and knows his cinematic history. There were a few shots that I think were that he referenced in direct homage, and I was just joyful to see them on there. And then my last thing I jotted down was just three words with exclamation points, fucking flow, Kennedy. Just amazing. She is just my hero of all time, and just so shocking to kind of just see her here, her little, that small monologue, very short monologue she has about the rights to violence, and equating it with like taking a piss, it's the location and time that matters was just absolutely marvelous. - Well, that's one of the quotes I have written down is that all oppressed people have a right to violence. I was like, hell yeah. - It was absolutely amazing. You're just seeing her. I was just like, oh my God, you are just the coolest human being that possibly ever lived and is on cinema. So yeah, all of those as well, I found. So as we're about to jump in and just kind of discuss the film in general, we like to always kind of examine a little bit about the background of, and again, this is a filmmaker's you mentioned, Scott that I honestly did not know much about. So it was actually such a delight to be able to kind of go down and really study Lizzy Borden, who I think obviously deserves so much more recognition. And if we can play even but a small part in trying to remedy that obscurity for her, I'm gonna be super thrilled. So as we mentioned before, she is a daughter of a stockbroker. So of course, and that's the way you rebel when you've been dad's a stockbroker. She wound up majoring in fine arts at Westling College of Massachusetts before moving to New York and began her career first as a writer and an art critic. So Scott, I knew immediately that you had a kindred spirit here. Her first initial die was not in film school but in art school as a painter. Now here's where I also had kind of jotted down on my notes earlier too, that I really felt a Jean-Luc Goudard, which I think, you know, that's a drinking game for listeners when every time Jack mentions Jean-Luc Goudard. And but yeah, she after attending a retrospective of the films of Jean-Luc Goudard, she said she became first inspired to become a filmmaker. And that experimental and political spirit of Jean-Luc is so elegant here, you know, or so present, right? But tried to, so it's really kind of favoring like an agi-prope as you said, but like a naive approach to general film production. She began by making an experimental documentary film, the first film from 1976 called "Regruping," which chronicled the fracturing of a women's collective. And then of course, "Born in Fames" is her first narrative feature. Scott, this was shot and edited over seven years with a budget of $30,000, which is insane. Unbelievable. She wrote, directed, "Produce the Film," which premiered as we mentioned at the 39th Cannes Film Festival after being selected for directors for tonight. The following January, it also debuted at the 87 Sundance Film Festival. We're at one a special jury prize. And then later it was picked up for distribution. By her second film was called "Working Girls." And that was her follow-up, which is much more of a traditional, a linear-style narrative film, which explored women working in a brothel. And that was the one that was later picked up for distribution by Miramax films. And so it's kind of shocking that, you know, from an early onset, such a radical filmmaker is first approached by the Weinstein's, right? And they, they Scott are just, and they're terrifically excited to be working with her. They love her raw political angry energy. And then, of course, once she is under contract and corralled in, immediately they began to be turned off by, by, said, politics and radical inability to have her fenced in and to play ball, because, of course, she wouldn't. She's an artist. And she did make some subsequent films after that. But both of those were super controlled by Miramax in the studio, so much so that they later on was considered a flop and kind of shelved to the side. And then, it was kind of purposely blacklisted by the system. And wound up just having to go into some TV work. And then, later on, just into some later, she kind of did a return, left film, and went back into the art world a bit. So, for Lizzy herself, and I was able to go and actually discover a couple of her, her, like, Q&As, or out there as this film. As we mentioned, this film had a resurgence. It went back out around the world after Criterion, after the special 35-millimeter reprint. And so, she was kind of reintroduced again to the world. And, looking at that time period of what she calls her Hollywood film period, there's a quote from her where she said, "Born in flames and working girls are the only two films I consider my own." The others, especially Love Crimes and The Rathik, were so radically recut and interfered with by producers. They are no longer mine in any sense of the word. And so, we are dealing here with a astonishing radical autorscott that really has, if we go by Lizzy's own definition, and I am bound to do so, really only has two films in her entire uva, right? So, and so exciting to kind of see that first one. I'm gonna damn well go visit working girls immediately after we do this podcast and go and explore that one. So, yeah, just really interesting as a filmmaker, someone kind of in the Charles Lawton side of things where it's like just come out of the gate, have this real astonishingly beautiful debut, make only one other great film, and then are kind of pulled away and taken from us. So, we didn't get to see the rest of their body of work or sadly more of their artistic vision. So, knowing all of that, Scott, let's talk about this film. Start us off, tell me about Born in Flames. And first of all, my friend, did you love this film? Did you like it? - I did, I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. And I think a big part of it is a connection to the art world, which I found vastly intentional in so much of that film, but also as a punk rocker myself. I can't watch a film like this and not be like, this is a film for punk rockers, right? Like it speaks to everything I've been listening to music about for the past 30 years of my life, right? Like it's there. And so, yeah, it's really cool to kind of find something that has the same ethos as so many of the things that I care about. Like it's revolutionary artistically, it's got all the references to art that I love, it's a byproduct of that same era where all that stuff is hitting hard in the art world. It's got the references to all the punk subculture stuff that I'm in love with. And so, really just embodies so much of the stuff I care about. Performance art even is very blatantly sort of obvious in this film to me. So there's just so much good stuff here. - I do. And I so knew that this would also speak to you, but also just our background together, knowing that we come both from a generally similar time period, but with similar background, right? For us, the idea of like, pirate radio broadcast and outside or cinema and zines, we both, I'm sure, have published our own individual zines in our time. Scott, and then we're gonna confuse a lot of our younger listeners with that. These were Xeroxed Manifesto's listeners, and they were wonderful. So yeah, I love this idea. Granny Street reported, like, yeah, this spoke so much to also the rebelliousness of both of our youth that are both childhood experience that we know each other's backgrounds and history. I was like, oh yeah, we kind of, we know this, right? So yeah, it was beautiful in that sense, 'cause it was almost like not watching a, some sort of narrative, but it was this, like, kind of, like, purposely and radically disjointed. How was it put this? It was almost like stumbling in some sort of, like, living political ecosystem that was just out there, you know, daring. And it's in a one way, right? This is like an alternate reality. You could almost put this within a genre of like, what is it? So it's like dystopian docu-fiction, sure, but it's almost like an alternate history. It opens with the idea very plainly that this is the 10th anniversary of a peaceful revolution of a democratic people's republic. So there is that. But you know, and also just what struck me immediately, two scott is just how raw, how raw and grainy and real and bloody it all feels. Yeah, the aesthetic of it, you know, that's obviously like, I mean, obviously that's partially a byproduct of the limitations of you know, funding and the way it was filmed and how long it took and all those kinds of things. But I think it's, you know, equally it's super intentional in terms of what the references are, right? The handheld cameras, the 16 millimeter stock footage, the talking head interviews, the clear references to documentary and news media aesthetics. Like all of that stuff is designed to also borrow that visual language, not just because of what it is, but it's that language of the world. It's that language of legitimacy to imagine this illegitimate political framework. And I think like that's all really interesting to explore. And it also just looks cool, right? Like that's the flip side to it is like in that in that world of independent cinema and in that world of the connections to the sort of 70s art aesthetic and the punk rock scene. It also just, I mean, it feels like you're watching a scene. It feels like you're watching 70s performance art. Like it feels like all of these things that are a byproduct of that era. And that's really cool. There is such an energy to it. And right? And you're so right. It's gorilla. It's truly real gorilla filmmaker. I think that the phrase that gets tossed around quite a bit. But this is one of those rare examples where like, oh yeah, motherfucker. This is what gorilla filmmaker. Yeah, right. And you said this perfectly, too. There's such there's a punk sort of like punk refusal of audience comfort here that I am just so enamored of. The film does not particularly give a fuck whether you like it, right? It's not what it's about. It is the main engagement. Yeah, you know, I'm part of that like punk rock piece is also the, you know, true punk rock, like the real ethos of that is that it's not going to be satisfied right? It never has been satisfied. And so it's never going to look at the situation and say, oh, you know, everything's solved. Everything's copacetic now. You know, like we're done. It's it's always about like pushing further. It's always about what is that next sort of analytical move of punk rock. And I think like that works so well here because this utopia that's being imagined here. Right. The idea here is that like, although it's described as this sort of near future US after social democratic revolution plotline. The discovery is that, you know, in fact, women had not been liberated. It's a really intentional analytical move to not to not let. I mean, you know, it's a left wing progressive film, but there's this assumption that the left wing progressive governance didn't work. Right? Like it didn't it didn't solve it. And I just love that it's sort of taking that journey and saying like, no, like the words had been solved, right? The sort of verbal aspect of it has been solved, but the real revolution has not taken place. And that's just such a punk rock ethos. Exactly so right? Yeah. Or or that in other words that that realization of never me. Right. Again, you know, referring back here to PTA's film that immediate understanding that the battle never ends. You have to continue the fight every time it is consistently one battle after another. You cannot settle or be you know, be arrest on any idea that you've actually won something. And so, you know, it plays around back and forth with this, but yeah, kind of let's talk that visual language for a second too, because I think for some of our listeners, if again, if you're kind of early in your film, I think this is going to be a film that hopefully reaches out through the screen and flow Kennedy just kind of smacks you in the head. And forces you to wake up and examine this, but it will be somewhat difficult, I think, as an entry point, right? Because the visual language here is purposely provocative, as you mentioned. It is wildly oscillating between like, and I love this idea of kind of like playing with like the immediacy of cinema verite, a documentary feel, but then also with like speculative dystopia. And it's the way that the scene Scott come crashing into each other, I thought we're just spectacular, like you would somewhat get kind of settled into, okay, here's a section that I'm watching, the soundtrack is kind of guiding me that I'm going to be with them for a moment. And then you are, it is like a slash, it is a punch in the gut sudden shift over to then being inside of a pirate radio station having honey staring at you dead in the face with immediacy trying to tell you about what's happening. Like, you know, like said, you know, the way that the camera work itself kind of just feels like kind of stolen from reality itself, right? You mentioned there's a handheld street photography. It is all natural lighting, right? This is almost like dogma, dogma 95, and it's feel, right? It reminded me too, I mean, this is hurt saw, gorilla filmmaking. I don't know for any of our listeners out there, delightful, funerard saw. Like, you know, I think all one of his famous quotes and I'm, it's going to be a terrible misquote here, but you know, basically saying is it what's more important film school or, you know, studying the traditional masters and hurts all go always said no, what's more important is getting a camera and a set of bolt cutters and just going out into the world and shooting everything illegally never asking permission, right? And it reminded me of a time I've had the opportunity one of my great cinematic idols. I think it's no mystery to anyone out there that knows me well is the great Pam Greer. I adore her. I think she's freaking awesome. And such such an American, such an icon of American cinema. And I've had a privilege of interviewing her several times. And one of my favorite stories that I, you know, and by the way, this this woman has some astonishing stories out there in the world. She's like, she's like the forest gump of just coolness all throughout American history. She's just if there's some cool great events that you wish you were part of somehow Pam was either leading it or just in the periphery. And, but she tells of all that time that early filmmaking when they would just load up people into vans, you would have these handhelds, some small lighting crew, someone just with a boom, they would take a van and screech it into downtown New York traffic in the 1970s. First into a scene of a location, everyone would jump out and they would do a makeshift, you know, a filming set and then just dive back in before authorities could come check for the permits they didn't have and be off. And I'm just like, what an exhilarating, exciting feel. And that is where the whole Jean-Luc Goudard, but I think also comes back of understanding that film is supposed to be raw, authentic, but also political and daring. And punk, as you mentioned. So, yeah, I just, I mean, I just, I loved it. I loved, I loved the idea too in that it kind of proposes that authoritarianism or like the settled form of government rarely looks cinematic while it's occurring, right? It is, you know, that's boring and that's bureaucratic, but this, this type of energy and live feel makes you feel part of the revolution. And I think that was actually just gorgeous the way that it was shot. Yeah. Yeah, I, yeah, it's, I don't know, it's, there's, I really don't think I've seen much like it, right? And I think that again is like that's by design, this, this DIY aesthetic is all over the place here. I have in my notes, even that it's like, and this is an interesting thing now that I'm looking back and reading this because I kind of know what I meant by this, but it's also just kind of an interesting way that I wrote it. I wrote, it's hard to believe this is a film since so much of it feels like it can be a documentary. Sure. And like that's an interesting way now that I'm even just looking at that to, to kind of phrase and think about that because like what we're describing even in terms of the process, like the process was a documentary, right? Like how this film was made literally was a documentary. Like it makes sense not only that that that aesthetic is intentional, right? Like it's, it's obviously intentionally playing with genre tropes and, and making those references, but it's also because that's literally just how it was made. It was made in the same way that you make a documentary film. So it's really, I don't know, it's, it's kind of interesting in that it plays with both of those things, both intentionally and kind of just as a byproduct of the system. Yeah, yeah, with made. I agree. And I mean, especially whenever you would hear like, you know, a boarden would mention many times that, you know, that she would raise just enough money and get just enough of a group of friends that would commit to some random weekend. And she had like raised, you know, here I just got $200. We've got a car. We've got some one. That's thank God. We borrowed the camera. Let's shoot this segment. And then it might be a few weeks before she could repeat the process. So you said that perfectly like it's almost like yes, there is intentionality of this overall vision, but this aesthetic is also created by the, the necessity, right? The subsidiary necessity of how it had to be cobbled together. So then what makes it authentically rebellious and radical in punk? Because it's a byproduct of the only way that it can be to write. This isn't covered by a studio. There's no large budget here. So that's it. That was amazing. The flipping between the activist pirate stations also to give it that little punch. I have to think that also, like I said, I think you see small bits of that done later on in great films too, or concurrent films like Spike Lee's would do the right thing. Punching back between these little moments of community and civil unrest, but then having this wonderful little narrative thread of the dueling pirate radio stations with Honey and it's about each kind of giving their own narrative ideology and narrating the events to bring you. While the film is slowly radicalizing as it continues, right? Let's see the look at the editing on here. What did you feel about the editing on this? It appears so chaotic. Someone could easily Scott think there was not really editing here, right? But that would be so wrong because it is, I think that it is purposely mental chaotic. Let's be clear that this is really kind of what we had mentioned before. It's almost like editing through collision rather than flow. I think, right? But yeah, how did that work for you? I mean, I tied it all back to the references that I was already thinking about. So I have, it's all over my notes. I could talk for another day about the artistic reference present here. I've got written down Martha Rosler's Bringing the War Home Photo Montages. It's a series of photo montages from 1967 to 1972 or so taking these sort of images from these interior beautiful houses and splicing them with photographs from Vietnam War to hybridized domesticity and violence in the same frame. But then also her deeply feminist video work, semiotics of the kitchen from 1975, this sort of deadpan feminist deconstructing video. But then there's also like Barbara Kruger all over this place, right? That is great. The bold text overlaid on appropriated photographs. Your body is a battleground. I shot there for I am. These super feminist messages with this kind of like cut and paste aesthetic. But then there's also like, you know, the guerrilla girls that founded 1985, this like feminist collective working subversively in the art system to use humor as a tool to sort of agitate and be angry about the sort of feminist problems and race problems and all kinds of things that are present in the art world. It's just like all over there's these artistic references and every single one of them. And then I mean, you could even talk music, right? So like when I'm thinking, I was thinking musically, you, it's like you're watching, you know, the riot girl movement of music. So you, it's like you're watching something that looks like how bikini kill and sleeter kiddie. It's like how they sound, right? So you're right, right. You're hearing, you know, the slits and x-ray specs and these other feminist punk musicians. This looks like what they sound like. And so when I think about the aesthetics of the editing in addition to everything else, we just mentioned about the way it looks. The editing also looks like that stuff. It's punk rock editing. It's, you know, it takes the collage references of Rossler and Barbara Krueger. It takes the audio references of these feminist punk musicians and it edits it in this punk rock way. So it like the only way I can see it is that that has to be intentional, right? So it's crazy and chaotic and as unnecessary as it might seem, it's a reference to everything that the film represents anyway, which in which if that's, you know, if that's really the connecting thread there, then it's like masterful in what it does. Of course it is, right? And so influential. I mean, you know, yeah, you go back to these early references, these brilliant references that you brought in and then it take me all the way to something like a pussy ride video from years ago. You can see that same aesthetic being brought over. I think you're 100% correct. And you know, and as we kind of, you know, with editing finally with this too, this is also a sort of like a doc, a documentation of coalition politics, right? It's trying to bring together all of these, these marginalized groups into some sort of coherent solidarity. And so by necessity coalition politics itself, right? As an idea are messy, they're decentralized, they're unstable. So I love that that becomes then the language, right? It's so fucking meta because, you know, like traditional continuating editing, like when it's done proper, when it's done well, it tends to kind of reinforce unconsciously. Some systems of like order, right? There's a narrative control here, but this is a fractured grammar of editing that is just like I said, it is radical in its revolutionary by design. I could not agree with you more. And I love the idea of some of these earlier references, which we hope we'll put out, we'll put out either on site or through, you know, we'll put these out for people to explore because I think you're right there. But all right, yeah, well, then let's turn to that soundscape. Because in addition, dear listeners to my partner here, creative partner, being a genius on all things art and art history, there is no one that I, that I turn to to help understand filmic soundtracks more than, than Scott Agner and Scott, this soundtrack is like so essential, right? This is like one of the great, the great sound movies, you know, music and voices string along and dominate, perhaps even more than the images do one can argue, right? This is sensitive. High-rate broadcasts are kind of, you know, setting the tone for ideological battlegrounds and emotional, you know, through points. This is a punk funk and no wave texture. Like, okay, talk to me about this. What, what, what else am I missing on the genius of how the music is presented here? No, I think that's, I think that's said it exactly, right? Like it's, and it goes back to everything I just said to you. Like there's the intentionality of those choices of the songs specifically, but then you're right, there's also this collage of voices, there's this collage of sounds, there's this, this busy New York soundscape, right? Like it has all these other pieces and all of those other pieces, again, they only call to mind everything I think about when I think about cut and paste zines and punk rock and, you know, the history of like music concrete and this, this like extremely punk rock way of interpreting sound. It's all there and it just ties into everything we already said. So it's, it's phenomenal. And the vastly difference, yet somehow, you know, equally competing, like, you know, like different sounds will come to it. It's such this beautiful reminder that, again, within a collective of coalition politics, there are whole musical ecosystems, each coexisting, right? Yeah. Like we're in the world, you know, we kind of went through a thing now with like, you know, streaming era where algorithms try to predict this one monoculture of this is what we're supposed to be listening to. And this is a glorious mashup, as you said, a cut and paste reminder that all of these dick and different ecosystems and competing realities all exist. And kind of as it's also done through the broadcast themselves, each, you know, what are great different DJs kind of like introducing these different elements are just that is so cool. And that all, and that all ties into the film, one of the film's central arguments too, right? Which is like this question of whose feminism gets to count as feminism. Like, like, you know, you've, you've got this sort of coalition that emerges and it's not unified by like one singular agenda, but by this sort of like shared recognition that their oppressions are linked, right? And so although they disagree on some pieces within that, there is that acknowledgement that like it is that coalition. And so, you know, it was, it was, I think of really intentional choice to keep those two radio stations sort of not merging into one, right? It's not merging into what you just said is like a monoculture, right? That's right. Their difference is, is important. And their difference is important because I think what it's suggesting is that like genuine, feminist solidarity doesn't require that everyone agree on everything. It's, it's, it's really important to understand that there is this like collective action taking place here. I find that really interesting. Okay. And you're saying that and again, an example of why you are just my eternal cinematic soulmate and philosophical one is where it goes. How appreciative it, I have that in my notes that the film allows us to experience, you know, a confrontational dialogue, thoughtful dialogue that like openly allows us to see disagreement within solidarity. Again, as you said, this is the messiness, the reality of coalition politics at play. And it can be messy and frustrating and be tense, right? And divided it. But and I love that we get to drop in on the small fragments of conversations happening, right? Right. We can do this amazing jump cut and then have our actors in here and then this might be the perfect segue to kind of talk about something. these performances, you know, is that you get to like drop in on both actors and non-acting activists select. Sometimes you're dropping into real arguments, philosophical arguments and political arguments between real activists. Let's talk about this for a second here, because this is kind of like these, let's talk about who is filmed here. I mean, you have some act, you have actors, you have non-actors, you have startling guest appearances. I was shocked to the, the Catherine Bigelow is featured. Catherine Bigelow, she's the big one, yeah. Yeah. Jeff, it's an interesting note about that, a whole separate rant about that. Right, of all of these. It's like, who's who list? And shamefully, you know, right, again, like there's so many, you know, even when I think I spotted something and I'm so proud of myself, you realize, oh no, you've missed the like 19 other famous, you know, artist or queer activists or, you know, great, you know, socialist revolutionaries that are wandering in and out of frame, future actors coming through and that I'm just like, oh my god, I wasn't even aware. And then also just tells you what an astonishing collection and collective that Lizzie Borden had assembled there in New York, right? You're really framed in this time period of all of these activists and revolutionaries co-existing with their competing narratives, but trying, you know, having a space within this film. So in its own sense, it also then meta turns on itself again and just becomes a documentary of the very people in this place and time trying to articulate their idea of revolution, which is just another layer of how astonishing this is. So you have like these great characters like honey, as you mentioned, right? Come on. Honey is fantastic. You've got like Adele Berthe, Gene Satterfield, of course, we mentioned my all time hero, Flo Kennedy. They are just bringing insanely different energies into the film. So it creates kind of like rather than like this, I guess, um, unified, like we mentioned, kind of like a, even like a mono culture of what feminism stands for. This is a gorgeous mosaic of feminist thoughts than a monolith. And I think that's important, right? And in era two, when the enemies of feminism and my god are they out in full force right now again. Um, they love to have this reduction to some sort of ideological monolith. And this is such a reminder of what a true mosaic of radical feminism looks like. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And allow them to argue with each other and make their points. Um, like that even that scene where Flo Kennedy is kind of just, you know, spitting out the knowledge of, you know, the rights to violent revolution, getting to see the startled look on another character's face who may not agree with that, but just still watch that interaction is so fucking authentic and beautiful. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. And let's just finally there. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, and I love that that's juxtaposed with these other moments of, of kind of, I, I don't know, I almost found it kind of humorous in a way. There's this one scene with it with this sort of complacency of the white construction worker. Right. I think the quote that I think that he throws out is, I don't got nothing to do with that. I just need to do my job. Right? It's like when he's presented with this idea of becoming an ally, that's his response. So I love that there's like this super rich tapestry of the coalition. And then you juxtapose it with this like this guy that's like, I don't know, nothing to do with that. It's like, whoa, whoa. So I just thought I found that was, that was super funny to me. One other thing too, man, there's so much I could rant about here. We've got a whole, we've got a whole two pages of my notes that I've not touched on yet. We have a whole course we could teach on this. But there was one other thing that I thought was really interesting about that idea of the coalition. And that's that there's a quote also where they're talking about how they can't find out who's in charge. And I'd love that because it's like, you can't find out who's in charge because this isn't a movement led by a leader, right? Like it's read by it's led by everyone. And so I just loved that these moments are pointed out, like the construction worker and like this quote about not being able to find out who's in charge. It gives us those moments of like, yes, yes, and yes, and that's why. Yes, and because of this. So I found those really kind of awesome moments. I love that you cite that. In fact, to to that to that point with that too, if I had one complaint, one minor complaint about this film is that I so loved those moments where suddenly your, your eavesdropping on the FBI doing reporting on their, their little case files, their own briefings. And they think these revolutionaries were, I could have used more of that inner space because I thought that was so beautiful. You know, you just like hear these, you just rubbed on FBI, you just go, oh, and she's a lesbian, eh? You know, I just like, yeah, always a jack, you know, those are so cool. It's so great. But also just like chilling, knowing what we know now of how, you know, hovers, hovers FBI, you know, went about, you know, murdering these revolutionaries in time, yeah, knowing that that was existing and the ultimate, you know, as the famed book revolutionary suicide that has to emerge from such, from such movements. So I wanted, I wanted to ask you, um, are there, are there visual references? Are there visual kind of like filmic references that, that, that came to mind when you were watching it? Like did it make you think of like the aesthetic of other films or at all or other? Yeah, you know, and I think that's a great question as we kind of like, you know, wrap up toward the end with this as kind of like, you know, looking and overarching of the film. Yeah, I did see that. And again, I 100%. I could see that there were some homage to like some of the, the very, I want to say kind of like, because it's not his first work, but it's more of kind of like some of the, the mid-level kind of the emerging political films of Jean-Luc Cedar. I think that there's an absolute, like it's very clear that, that Lizzie, be, you know, again, bringing her own art aesthetic and making it far more kind of like radically dirty, I would argue. You know, like, okay, first of all, what, what a feat for an author to somehow make some films by Jean-Luc Cedar almost seem sanitized in a way, right? Because, you know, she's so punk about it. But yeah, I saw some references there. I think that there's some obvious references to a battle of, of, of Algiers in some of the frames. And I mean, okay, my goodness, there's even like some inner, the inner placing there. One of those great scenes where it actually shows women training, you know, when it kind of switches to some documentary footage that they that she was able to acquire that was shot of showing some of these, you know, foreign, foreign radicals preparing of women going to battle and fighting, firing guns, I said, that is such a astonishing through line. So I'd say yeah, battle about years is a great one. Films of Jean-Luc Cedar, did you spot any that you found really good out there? So I really thought about like a big one that I was kind of recognizing, which I thought was kind of fun in a way, was I was thinking, I was thinking a little bit also about a film from a previous season of ours, "Doters of the Dust." And I was thinking about like it's also got that like that film also has this kind of non-linear collective protagonist centering on black women's sort of interiority outside of Hollywood conventions. It's, you know, it's poetic. It's in a different way poetic, right? It's a much more kind of at least the verbal poetry is a much more calm poetry, but it is still very much a punk rock ethos also. So I kind of was thinking about that, which I thought was really kind of a neat, that's where my brain went. One of the ways my brain went. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah. No, you go ahead. I was going to say, yeah, I think in you know, it's kind of ending in that piece with like kind of like again, some of the French new wave, which was so fundamental to these different new waves, right? There's a Gdarian, like, but it's specifically kind of like the Gdar political cinema from the late 60s political modernism. So I'm thinking more of like the films of like, you know, the later films like Weekend or something, you know, wink wink that, you know, we may be revisiting later on in one of our seasons here. Films like that, I think we're very, very important and very clear there. But let's also talk a little bit about Afro-futurism. I think I really loved this idea here of kind of that homage and influence of some of the media activists and frame through our two, you know, women of color DJs kind of anticipate later Afro-futurist and intersectional media traditions, right? And you met, you met, you already brought us some of this for like, Riot Girl Culture. And then you know, you take films that were later on, you know, you'd be about like kind of like, co-existing films like The Water, Melon Woman as a film. Yeah. Also like really just jump to mind is like, okay, this is a kindred spirit. But you can also then feel the through line all the way up to our beloved boots Riley and like films like Sorry to Bobby. Oh yeah. For sure. Which I think we're just, you know, fantastic. But also gone. No, it was going to say, and lastly, you know, I you know, now jumping to this, this is a film and I'm throwing this out as a shot. I did also see a little bit of kind of like some homages to early political science fiction, right? Where it's like the futuristic, futurism of speculative cinema. So I think a film's like Alphaville or even Lodge the King, which I think was kind of, you know, so I think Lodge the King for me was pretty much one that I thought was really, really well referenced there too. But I mean, my god, and we're still missing, we're still missing scores, right? Oh, yeah. For sure. You know that there's so many other big references because Lizzy's a genius. Yeah. I think there's so many, you mentioned like pairing this up as a double feature before. There's so many cool double features I can think of that would work on like some really interesting levels, not just as alike. Here's the same film twice level. Right. Right. You know, we mentioned Catherine Bigelow in this film. film. How cool would it be to see this paired up with either like strange days or even point break? Both films doing their own kind of subversive things in some really interesting ways. I mean, as someone who just revisited strange days, I think I probably would have said like a few months ago. Yes. That would be an amazing parent. It's explicitly about that. It's explicitly got that connection to media surveillance and who controls representation and who gets recorded and profits from it. That would be really interesting. I think that would be really fascinating. I also was thinking aesthetically and this would be really interesting, not because they're the same at all, other than aesthetically. I was thinking about the warriors. Thank you for saying that. There were so many. Okay. Yes. I'm sorry. I mean, visually, right? Yes. They've got the same DNA for sure. Visually, they share that DNA, right? They're imagining this sort of fractured, New York future, New York City-ish kind of a thing. But where it will become interesting to like play them against each other is that you've got this sort of like inverted politics taking place, right? Warriors essentially like this Hobsy and Nightmare, right? The goal is survival. The goal is return home. It's this very tribal, this tribal type thing. And then there's like, we compare that to this, which it's less about how to move through this hostile territory, but about this kind of survival on this other level. Which I don't know, that could be really fascinating. And then you can also just argue, that's like a gender dichotomy, right? These are two different approaches to this idea done through gender. And for listeners, if you've not ever encountered Walter Hill's 1979 masterpiece that is the warrior. It's obvious. And I'm just like, okay, the reason I had to shout out and I'm sorry, I interrupted you that way, but I was so excited that you brought that out is because I almost, I didn't even bring it up because I thought perhaps Jack, this is too much of a reach. There were sequences where it would go from like this musical interlude to the sharp cut of two of these female activists kind of like maybe draped over a bed having this, you know, kind of like, you know, questioned an answer session back and forth that reminded me of that astonishing opening subway sequence of the war where you cut through and it would suddenly cut to the closeness of two of the gang members being like, what have you heard about Cyrus, right? It was so cool. And yes, it was so so close to that. I'm so glad you mentioned that. And then you can take it in my seat here. Unperfably. I might double feature those together. That would be awesome. And then you could also, you could also take that one step further. And if people aren't familiar with this, you need to check it out. You should check out Lin-Manuel Miranda's like gender bent musical version of the Warriors that he's been working on, which is fun, fucking phenomenal. So like, it only exists in audio form right now. He's working on turning it into an actual, you know, Broadway performance piece. But he's, yeah, he's got this, this gender bent musical version of the Warriors. And it's phenomenal because what it does, right, is, and it's still different than this. I don't, I don't want to sort of, I'm not trying to say that they are the same because they're still radically different. But they do this, they do this interesting thing where by changing the gender of, these, these performers written as male gang members, originally, like it fundamentally changes what it is. Because it's about now you're watching, you're hearing these women move through the city with this kind of like territorial confidence, claiming these public spaces back as their own. And so in that way, it like it does become a little bit closer to what's happening here in this film. But like Borden's film also is about women's relationship to the city, right? Like this question of who owns the street, who can move through the streets safely, who gets people to organize publicly. And so although that tribalism is still there, the narrative gets just a little bit closer to this like this woman perspective of the streets. I don't know, it's just super fun stuff. I think you're dead on and that's brilliant. And could that be better personified than that sequence of women like guardian angels on bicycles with their whistles, right? With these overheads. That is just a scene that's seen as never escaping. Yeah, that scene was for no forever. Yeah, it was, it was incredible. Um, okay, so just as we begin to rep, we could talk about this for hours. I could go on so much more. As we approach this final one, let's just also kind of like bring it down again. I think I'm coming back around for me too. Um, I really, and this is kind of, and I mean this in a good way, kind of like a tie-in, because I think that a film like one battle after another kind of at least got for a moment to seep into the American consciousness again. Um, and at least introduced a lot of Americans again into the idea of of the, the revolutionary, you know, radical film and it's commentary on where we are, right? So, you know, watching Born in Flames in 2026, um, it's like oddly, it's less kind of like saying, Oh, this is like some radical counter culture, a found footage horror film where it's almost like you can imagine this being pocketed transmissions coming from pirate radio stations right now in our own exhausted political moment, right? So I think that, that's a big thing right there. And it is, I think it, it doesn't collapse into a form of nihilism because of, and this is where I'm going to do a final kind of like companion comparison piece with one battle after another, which is that Bob's version, you're first given in that film, an overview of kind of like the timeless. Notice that whenever you're first watching the early sequences with the French 75 that it almost seems like timeless. You know, it's anchored in our courage, geopolitic by, by the camps that they're liberating, but in a sense, it also seems like this could be any time, right? It's a, it could be the, you know, the, the weathering on the weather underground groups or, you know, something from the 60s or 70s. There's almost like an impermeance of time between which, which segment they're in that's purposeful that the revolution represents. But there is also a, a fundamental kind of critique of Bob's, Bob's ultimate failure in, or a generation's failure there because what we see that dichotomy of how ineffective Bob is when compared then with Benicio del Toro's, Com, right, Sensei, who is operating in a sense of the collective. It offers you a vision of two competing forms of, of, of revolution, right? And I think one is framed in what, you know, Bob represents like the failed white, you know, woodstock era kind of appropriated, sanitized sense of revolution. But then you have the very organized, you know, decentralized, but networks of solidarity of people of color, right? that that come together into form his works because it is a collective resistance. You know what I mean? That was, it was communal action here. There were networks, solidarity, you know, exhausted bodies. And seeing all of that play out, it reminded me so much of the centralized point and argument I think of one battle after another is that is the future of, of the next battle going forward, right? So I really love that here because I think that this is like a beautiful dichotomy to be like, Oh yeah, how Bob's world operates. This is an entire film kind of showing you an examination there. But I think at the very end as we kind of close on this, I think we have to turn much like Spike Lee's do the right thing, which we already mentioned. The film is really much more about questions on Lizzy Borden herself sets. The idea was not to provide answers at all. I was merely asking questions that I want people to have to grapple with. And one of the grand, you know, I think the final centralized question becomes is violence inevitable when institutional reform is just performing its inclusion while still maintaining its own patriarchal domination, right? It goes back to flow Kennedy's assertion. Is violence inevitable? Is it justified? The ending makes its own statement, right? What it tries to claim? It's an uncomfortable question, but I think it's one that the anxiety it inspired at least for me too is knowing that we're in these moments again. Another battle has now occurred. We are in the midst of it and we have to face that challenge. And that question too, you know, yeah, I don't know. Did you have any final thoughts on this, man? Yeah, I mean, the final thing about it for me, sort of touching on that sort of like overarching message of not having that answer and leaving us sort of questioning things like, you know, the film, the film intentionally does not idealize the women's army present in the film, right? It presents this idea of the coalition. It's not saying it's frictionless, right? We talked about that. Like there's there are these tensions there. And so really the film earns its radicalism. It earns its punk rock badges by staying honest about how hard revolution actually is. And I love that. Like I love that it does not paint it in an easy light. It does not paint it in a solved light. It says no. Like the honest route of talking about this is to also point out those struggles. It's not an easy thing, right? And it will continue to not be an easy thing forever. That's inevitable. So yeah, I really love those kind of overarching ending points of it. Yeah, no, I did too. By the way, how many films that we have now covered in these many great seasons are just left with that ambiguous ending, right? That, that, you know, I don't know. To me, it felt like the component of violence and the very last shot, it felt less for me like some sort of warning, but actually much more like a challenge, right? It is asking, you know, it's asking, okay, progressive society, like to kind of book into that, which is at the very beginning. Do progressive societies genuinely want real transformation and all the messiness inherent in what it takes to achieve it? Or do we become complacent with merely having the aesthetics of transformation? And that is, that is a challenge that we are faced with right now, and you know, 40 plus now years later, I'm not convinced we've answered that question still and we need to grapple with it still. And for making me grapple with that, I, such a thanks to Lizzie Borden, what an astonishing author. I am disgusted that we only really have two personal films that we can examine. I can't wait to go watch the other one. I know Roger Ebert was a big fan of her secondary film that I'm gonna go explore after this, but. Yeah, I also, I also want to see if I can give my hands on that experimental documentary finish. Yes, that's what I mean. The regrouping one that came before, I think that one came before working girls even regrouping, right? Like I want to, I don't know if I can track that down, but I'm like super interested in trying to find that out. And all aspects of this, I need to kind of go through now an Easter egg deconstruction of every single person that appears on there, 'cause I'm so now terrified that I've missed some insanely important figure, right? In our history or politics, or just some really hip or cool artist or musician that is having a cameo that would have been so known by everyone with that circle that I'm woefully ignorant about. So, listeners, we wanna hear back from you on this. Listen, did Born in Flames work for you in the same way that it clearly worked for us? Did it's fragmented style and it's kind of provocative filmmaking nature? Did that invigorate you? Did it make you feel alive? Or did it alienate you? I mean, do you view this film as hopeful? Or fundamentally pessimistic about institutional reform? Does it feel dated to you? Or does it feel alarmingly prescient? We wanna hear from you. We would love to know your thoughts on that. Please visit our social sites and tell us because again, that's what this is all about. That exchange we wanna hear from you. As we close out, Scott, we always give some few films, superlatives. Did you have any particularly for this film to hand out? I just really love the dichotomy of the pirate radio stations. I think that just as a narrative tool, but also just because of what it represents, that's a subordinate for me. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I only had two for this time. I'm awarding Best Learics that sound like they were spray painted on the side of a burning police van. I'd proffer the lie that I had to stop, go back and rewind twice, which is the lyric, we broke the hidden tyrannies of reptilian joint stock companies. Scott, that is my mantra forever. Fantastic. So there. And then also I give the Wheels of Revolution award to that astonishing scene, women on bicycles, patrolling the city, like two-wheeled guardian angels, drifting through urban collapse with their whistles, protecting women. I mean, my God, it was both whimsical and absurdist, but also so good. Oh, it was so good. That's true. It was a dagger. It was a dagger in the heart to watch that. I just fucking love this film. Yeah, thank you, listeners for that. Scott, as we close out here, we always love to kind of give each other a little parting gift of some things that we have picked out for each other. And if you don't mind, let me begin, because I have a little gift I have picked out for you this episode. Awesome. Sounds good. And to share with you my new favorite obsession that I know you will love, cinematically adjacent. This is a TV series, but it is one that I know comes from everything that makes up Scott Agner. This is an '80s inspired comic horror delight. This is a series, Scott. Think Jaws meets John Carpenter's The Fog. I know where we're going with this. By way of crafted in the aesthetic of Atlanta and throwing a little twin peaks and murder she wrote. Oh, and include a C-Hag. Thank me, later, Scott. This is Widow's Bay, currently streaming on Apple TV. It is just, it is delightful. This is amazing throwback but filled with a beautiful homage to play in the world of all of those '80s aesthetic films that I know mean so much to you and to me. We both know how much Jaws meets so it's in our life. The Fog is pretty much the foundational horror film that first shared me as a child. We're both such fans of Atlanta. Anyway, and Twin Peaks, I just knew the moment again as I discovered this. My thoughts immediately turned to, I have to gift wrap this. If he already doesn't know about it, too Scott. I know about it, I have not watched it yet, but just to, this is so easy to hear what you have to say. It's a lot of your story. If I need to convince you anymore, Matthew, Rayce, and Steven Root, that's all I gotta say. Those two actors alone are extraordinary. It's so much fun, it's delightful. It's not heavy, it's just sharp and witty. And if you grew up watching the films that meant so much to Scott and I, you're gonna be Kindred Spirits and Love This Too. Widow's Bay, right now on Apple TV, Scott might give for you this episode. - I'll be digging in 'cause you're not the only one who has told me that I need to watch this. - It's you, David. - That time will be digging in. I will be digging in. My gift to you is something that I think you're familiar with, but I'm gonna sort of make it a little bit more isolated and intentional. I have been listening to the, here we go with the music, the scores again. Why do I do this all the time? I don't know. - I have been no other way. - I have been devouring over and over and over repeatedly on my record player, the score to a phenomenal film, I believe it is a film you love, recent film called The Plague. And Composer, Composer Johann Lennox does a phenomenal job of underscoring tension and the sort of feral atmosphere presented in this film. So if you have not yet had a chance to isolate that score out for yourself, it's very different than watching it just with the film, but it is a phenomenal score. So The Plague, Composer Johann Lennox, it actually just was released not too long ago on vinyl courtesy of Waxworks Records on a really, really, really beautiful pool water blue P. So. - Okay. - You should be listening to it. What a gift because I adored that film. This is also where you will be able to not hear the muffled screams, if done correctly, of our producer, Shay Westcott, who in the theater next to me on the screen at our Bodecra theater at the Our Belovederriard Center turned to me and was like, we have to get this score immediately on vinyl when it comes out. It is so good. And I had no idea that it has actually come out on the vinyl pressing, which we will acquire immediately. Oh no, your taste is exquisite as ever, my friend. Yeah, we knew that that was something special in the theater at the time. So I can't wait to hear it isolated because yeah, paired with the imagery, it was so profoundly beautiful and eerie and soul shattering anyway. I cannot wait now to just play it over here. So, and you can just purchase that pretty much directly online anywhere. What's waxworkrecord.com, one of really phenomenal record pressing label that does tons of film scores and really kind of takes their time with some really great horror films as well. So it's a record label that I love. Listeners, if this podcast is even giving you a glimpse of anything, I hope you understand how jealous you need to be of me, of having a friends and beloved eternal friend like Scott, a partner like Scott. This is the type of partner who will one day randomly send you a vinyl pressing of the soundtrack to Dark Knight of the Scaracro that will fundamentally change your life. That is what this guy brings to every gigant and to life. This is what he brings to life. A friendship with this guy is the greatest thing in the world and I love him dearly. And listeners, we love you for joining us and listening to us. What a way to kick off a new season with this film is such a radical film that we're going to be thinking about and talking about long after we turn this off and Shay wraps up this episode. You and I are going to be talking a lot about it. We will be sharing things on our social sites, come visit us on Facebook, where we will put down different things and put together a little syllabus of the films that matter to us. Oh my God, I have still just blown away you mentioned in the Warriors. Thank you again for that. (laughing) And thank you for joining me and yet another episode that this is going to be a phenomenal season as we leave. Tell our listeners, what's our next episode? - We're gonna, like we said at the top, we're gonna swing a big here. We've got something really, really, I don't know what to expect here. We have a Brazilian Portuguese film from 1931, Brazilian silent experimental psychological drama called Limite, directed, written and produced by Mario Peixoto. And yeah, I'm really, really excited to dig into this one. - Okay, that's gonna be fantastic. This season listeners is going to be amazing. Thank you for joining us on this ride. Thank you for being part of this family and this experiment. We love that you're here. Please write to us, talk about these films with us, share your questions and ideas with us and with each other, and do us a favor over there. It really matters. We need to grow this cinematic family. Season three was a remarkable year for listener growth, but come on, we want more family members involved in this. Please go and like this wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, give us a rating, give us a review, that means the world to us, but it also helps us be found. And please share this with some other great cinephile that in your life that you love. Think of that person out there that you love being in the dark with and then walking out, getting a drink and discussing film into all hours of the night, because chances are that's a person who will also love our podcast, 'cause they sound a lot like us. Thank you for being a part of this. My brother, it is always amazing to hear you. Thank you for being with me on this grand adventure. Thank you again to Moby for our theme song and thank you to Shay Westcott, joining us for our fourth season as our amazing friend, producer, and beloved co-cinephile in this great adventure of filmic education. - Right. We love you all guys. Scott, love you brother, and let's talk again soon to discuss the next film. - Okay, I'll show you the next one. - All right, buddy, good night. (beep) (beep) (upbeat music) - This has been Blind Spotting, a film discovery podcast. I am your producer, Shay Westcott. Look for Blind Spotting on the BuzzFrault Podcasting Network, or wherever you get your favorite podcast. Like and follow us on our official Facebook page and thank you for listening.