‘Wild Horse Nine’ Is a Hilarious American Tragedy. Plus: ‘Possible Love’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Harlem’.

I'm Sean Fennessy. And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture 8 Conversation Show about three bangers. Today on the show, we're digging into three terrific new movies. The first is writer-director Martin McDonagh's latest film, Wild Horse 9. It's a buddy comedy about aging America-the-CIA friendship, Chile, and love, among other things. Then we discuss possible love, Lee Chang-dong's novelistic portrait of two couples from very different stations in life, what they share, and how they diverge. It's Lee's first film since 2018's Masterful Burning and is now available to watch on Netflix. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by David Greaves and Anne DeMair, the director and editor, respectively, of Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a documentary 50 years in the making, started by Greaves' father, William, a legendary figure in nonfiction American filmmaking. The film? Gathered the surviving artists of the Harlem Renaissance in 1976 for a spirited day at Duke Ellington's house. Half a century later, the movie is an amazing document of Black history, American artistic communities, and the dialectic inside them. David and Anne shared some incredible stories about salvaging, restoring, and arranging this incredible movie. Stick around for that. But first, some movie news right after this. Holiday drinks are now at McDonald's. Like the new Red Bull Frosted Cranberry Energizer. It's Red Bull meets cranberry flavor. It's topped with cold foam and sprinkles. Made to charge your holiday spirit. Now at McDonald's. Finished your essay a day early? That deserves a. Finally folded that laundry? That deserves a. Parallel parked on the first try? That deserves a. No matter what you accomplish today, celebrate with an ice-cold Coca-Cola. Because even the little wins deserve a. Enjoy Coca-Cola. Okay, tough day for you. George is officially blue. How are you feeling? I feel great. It's not even purple. It's just blue. I prefer blue to purple. As do I. No, great news. Woke is back. I got my iced coffee, which is like not totally a woke thing, but it's related in terms of the people bring in their iced coffee to the thing. We will file. There's coffee under Woke 3.0 officially. I'm here. It's a great time in America. You will celebrate by naming 26 female directors. Go. Greta Gerwig. I tell you what. I wonder if this national shift will have any impact on our popular culture. And I wonder if Trump actually had a meaningful impact on our popular culture before that. Maybe a conversation for a later date. So you think this is. Obama optimism 2.0? I wonder. Or our optimism is back? I don't know. Katy Perry about to drop a banger? Teenage Dream 2.0? Let's go? I mean, I don't know if she's going to be capable of doing that right now. I mean, listen, she and Justin Trudeau are having a beautiful life together. It feels like it's really Olivia and Chappell's time. So if someone's going to do it, it's probably them. I don't know if anything is going to change, meaningfully, in the popular culture. It usually doesn't. They're usually not that related. There are a couple of movies every year that are speaking to the moment. But movies are several years behind. So in a couple of years, maybe we'll think about it. Our friend Joanna floated to me an interesting theory, I think, or a question floated by a friend of hers and ours, Katie Rich, which is just kind of how does this affect the Oscar race, which is more immediate. And does the optimism mean anything in terms of people who might previously have voted with cynicism, negativity? Maybe that's something we'll talk about in this episode and one of these films? It's a great question. And I think there's something fascinating about that. My reading of The End of the Odyssey, which feels like a movie in which Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas just go out and leave America. But they do say civilization will rise again. That's true. And maybe we are here. Here we are. Six months later, we did it, America. Just in time for The Odyssey to start its Oscar campaign once again. It is truly happening. There's going to be a lot of Oscars over the next three months on this show. We don't have to spend too much time on it today other than the fortunes of the movies that we'll be discussing. But there was some interesting news, which is that Joel Cohen's Jack of Spades was acquired by Netflix and will officially be getting a theatrical release in the fall of 2027. Great. I think this was on my most anticipated movies of the year list. I think I got it in the auction as well. I did. Yes, that's correct. And it's going to come out 18 months after I picked it. Yeah. Not ideal. But you know what? Looking forward to seeing it. Josh O'Connor, right? Josh O'Connor is the star. This is a sort of a gothic mystery, I think is the pitch on it. It being notably a theatrical release. Does that tell you anything? No, because did they lay out the specific number of screens, the size of the screens? How many weeks will it be in the screen? No. And listen, we're already seeing this a little bit with Cliff Booth, right? Where they're rolling back some of the like the promised IMAX or. Regal and Cinemark will not be making their IMAX screens available for Cliff Booth. Yeah. Listen, I'm not a distributor. You know, I'm not a movie studio, nor do I own a movie theater. So I just really can't be in the weeds too much about this. Right now, I guess theater is better than no theaters. I agree with that. Would you like to own a movie theater? I'm not a chain. Just one theater. If we're really, if really rich and also like I'm going to do it by myself. Okay. But owning it. And then I could finally put on my singles events in the lobby for people more as like a community thing. Why not just open a nightclub? Well, because then you have to stay out late, you know? Oh, interesting. I mean, this could at least. Right. We could wrap it all up by 10 p.m. Well, I was going to say. Even 11 p.m. Even 11, you know, would really push things in a different way. I feel like I could do a great job with programming and community and vibes. Many people are saying you're really all about community. You love to connect with new people. Have you heard Sy say community yet? Did we get this on video for you? It's really, really good because the firefighters help the community, but he has to really concentrate when he says it. It's wonderful. It's a lot of syllables. Yeah. It's challenging. Well, he'll be an elocutioner yet. I think this is. I think this is cool. I mean, I love Joel Cohen, and I do want him and his brother to make a movie again. Yeah. And I hope that's what's going to happen after this is that they will reunite. The Ethan Cohen films haven't gone over so great, but I look forward to this movie, and I'm glad somebody's putting it out. For whatever reason, I thought it was Apple for the longest time, and then that didn't seem to be the case. Wasn't that because Joel Cohen's last solo film? It was. The Tragedy of Macbeth? Yes, which means that, you know, Ethan Cohen's, I believe both of his films were with Focus, but The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, of course, was also a Netflix movie. And then he made The Tragedy of Macbeth with Apple. So he actually hasn't had a theatrical rollout in 10 years on a movie. Crazy to think about. You know, I'm a Cohen's boy. I know, I know. It's one of my things. Listen, I admire the work. I will go to a theater. I went to see the Netflix movie we're going to discuss in theaters again this week. Oh, you saw it in theaters a second time. I did, because I'm going to be honest, don't know how possible love is going to play at home. We can talk about it. It's a very good point. I watched it at home. So I was like, I'm going to lock in. I'm going to take myself to the landmark Pasadena. And focus on this great film. This is a great entree into Wild Horse 9. Because this is a movie I've now had the good fortune of seeing three times. And I've seen it in three different ways. One was in a preview screening in a screening room with press. The other was in a festival setting. And then at home. Yes. And it worked all three times. It's a wonderful, wonderful movie. And that's, I mean, that does say something. And I like that point you're making about possible love. So let's talk about Wild Horse 9. We're going to get right into it. We will spoil the movie, but we'll wait a little while before we start giving in to the nitty gritty of the story. It is Martin McDonagh's new film, written and directed, of course. It stars John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Mariana DiGirolamo, and Parker Posey. This is what it's about. If you don't want to know what Wild Horse 9 is about, you should definitely see it. It's like a high, high recommend for me. This is like in my top five movies of the year right now. Same. Yeah. And now I'm just kind of needling with it. Is it too boring and predictable that it's just going to be in our both of our top five? And I think we both came out of the festivals and we're just like, well, this is a wonderful as everyone is saying and as we expected. Yeah. Yeah. Go see it. Go see it. Otherwise, here we go. Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, CIA Bureau Chief MJ dispatches officers Chris and Lee from Santiago to Easter Island. Among the island's iconic Moai, the longtime partners wrestle with their dark past and present conspiracies while Chris's newfound bond with a rebellious student threatens to send everyone's trip to this remote paradise sideways. So you love the movie. Yes. I forget. We did, of course, talk about the Banshees have been a Sharon on this show. I don't think we actually did a full episode about three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. No. So we haven't had a ton of Martin McDonough conversations over the years. I if I recall, you liked but we're not over the moon for Banshees. No, I really liked it. The interesting thing about, you know, in that movie, you have two male characters and you have the Carrie Condon character. And we did the podcast with Chris and I was like, this is a great movie about you two. And I related more to the to the woman character on the side being like, well, you guys are bunch of idiots and I'm leaving, which is a valid representation of experience in my life and in the world at large. It's somewhat echoed again in this movie. I think that perspective is. But I feel more connected to these characters. Oh, interesting. And so I guess what I'm saying is that I'm I'm a huge fan of McDonough, but have usually been watching at a distance. And that's a little bit because he mostly with the exception of three billboards. Makes movies about men like dealing with stuff and men have feelings. too sometimes we do and thank you for acknowledging it's helpful to learn about them and sometimes I even experience them the same way but there is something about this one whether it's the Malkovich performance or whether it's the subject matters created that even though it is just again about men dealing with stuff and there are women in the film and they're just kind of sitting on the side or in the U.S. in a beautiful home being like what's wrong with you uh I like I just I felt very close to to this film so it's it's wonderful it's one it's my maybe my favorite McDonough yeah I the movie is very neatly paired with um in Bruges which I think I've mentioned in the show before it is about an older guy and a younger guy they work in this kind of illicit world and they're on a journey a very important quest sort of away from their homes and along the way they encounter all these interesting experiences and come to some major emotional realizations along the way um it's a very American movie unlike in Bruges yes and it's about American history and it's about imperialism and I think it's also maybe more specifically about the American psyche and like what we think we represent and whether we feel good about that or not and he's kind of woven it into these two CIA agents one of whom is in his 70s seemingly and near the end of his life the other is in his 40s and kind of like just trying to get through the day yeah you know and and the movie is very tightly focused on Malkovich's character yeah and Malkovich who is of course an actor we love but has not been at the center of Hollywood in a while but we bring to the movie like all of our relationship to him you know the the great parts that he's played over the years and the kind of oddity of his performance style and I think one of the things that will get a little overlooked about this movie but that I'm just going to cite right up front is that Sam Rockwell is unbelievably good in this film and this character is so important because he kind of represents like a like a transitional phase in American history as well yeah and the like part he plays kind of shepherding out one generation but then being stuck and not knowing what to do as the 48 year old guy who's like wife doesn't love him and you know he's dealing with his bosses who are annoying and he doesn't really think hard about the purpose of his life and so I found that dynamic of like one person's regret and another person's lostness such a special combination yeah and he also in terms of the nature of the performance Malkovich is the center of the film and gets the punchlines and the big speeches and Rockwell's job is to react and to provide provide the foundation for Malkovich to kind of to do his thing and Rockwell does that and does it beautifully and some of the funniest movie moments in the movie are the reaction shot that just holds a little bit long for him but even though he is for lack of a better phrase the straight man like he is still also having fun with it and adding his own complexities to he's not just a backboard for Malkovich um so and and much of the movie is about the two of them and maybe not them as as people people but as what they represent in terms of your outlook on the world and certainly your outlook on uh governments and and and what we are supposed to do as people and what our responsibility is to each other to the world at large that's right I mean I think a lot of his work almost all of his work especially his work on the stage is very philosophical and because it's a lot of his work originated on the stage there's a lot more room to kind of announce the meaning of things you know with with the action that the characters are taking and because this is a movie about you know nearing the final stage of someone's life it's reasonable for a character to be writing their memoir and to be remembering things and what impact they had and to think deeply about who you are and what this all represents and to sit in the majesty of a beautiful space in the world and it doesn't feel like ham-handed the way that it would and actually like In Bruges which is a movie I love and made me fall in love with McDonagh you know it's like it's like assassins on the run and it feels like very post-pulp fiction and it's kind of iterating on a tone and style of American cinema and this while it is similarly using people who have perhaps participated in assassinations feels much looser to me and much more spiritual and it helps that it's shot in one of the most beautiful places in the world and photographed so beautifully that it gives the movie more weight it's not just like an antic satire right well I mean some of it is that you know In Bruges is about two men in different phases of life but what have they done to them in their particular lives and the the scope is very small I mean it is still life or death but it's like this group of people yeah this broadens the scope to be you know American history international history and possibly like the world at large it is also an end of empire movie right and so and and it knows that and it is writing in the grand tradition of the like decline and fall of the Roman Empire so there is like this beauty and this decayingness of these people this world and um this uh this sense of uh regret but also maybe not even regret just uncertainty like did we do the right thing yeah there's a little bit of like what are we gonna do like it happened you know like and and I do think that that is kind of the American posture a lot of the time we're like oh we kind of fucked that one up yeah like gotta go we gotta move forward and that's certainly true of all empires and all imperialistic pursuit but this one's it's really funny to locate it inside of these two guys who you know all McDonough protagonists seem pretty smart and pretty stupid at the same time they kind of share the Coen brothers thing there's a similar thing in Coen brothers characterizations and that allows us to kind of like get inside of their feeling like where we don't feel like they're outwitting us but we also feel like we can feel a little better than them too which is something we'd like to do sometimes with our movie characters um this one in particular I think that Rockwell seems a little bit more dim for lack of a better phrase than Malkovich because he's sick he's kind of losing it a little bit yeah so we're like a couple of paces ahead of him except when he's really right on top of things and explodes there's one very memorable moment where he's being photographed by someone while he's on this trip to Easter Island and he he figures out what's that he's being tracked he's being spied on and he explains it to Rockwell and he explodes at him and it's the only like I thought the only like real old-school Malkovichian like like uh yell tirade which is something he's very well known for yeah there's no there's no heat in this one it is meandering and even he does get all the punch lines and he does lean into the punch lines but he puts a very different spin on them than certainly you expect from like a character or just I guess like basic comedy and everything is a little slower I mean morphined out for like both literally and emotionally and surprising yeah his we talked about this with Gene Hackman yeah his line readings his elocution his points of emphasis as a an acting communicator are just so weird wonderful it's great I mean it's great it's just it's always unexpected like he he does make you lean forward because you're kind of waiting to hear how he's going to finish saying what he's saying in a way that like I can't really think of anybody else that does that and you make you make a good point which is that in a lot of McDonough films and even in this film with somebody like Steve Buscemi um or you think about like what Brendan Gleeson can do they're kind of like punching style actors you know where they like hit they like land hard on the the punch line that is also usually the line that like hurts the most that's a real McDonough signature is like something's funny and it's painful at the same time and the Malkovich is all over though he's like so he's like you can never put your arms around him in the movie and and also there often is kind of like a softer philosophical character who's like off to the side uh and for this to be the main character that the movie is built around is surprising in its own way you know McDonough is a very exacting writer and so I know that all of these were written just so um but they do have an improv improvisational quality at least in the delivery definitely right um and I'm curious I'm curious what it was like on set but between Malkovich and McDonough because I don't think that Malkovich is making anything up if anything I think that he's like really understanding and working with the text which is an incredible script and very funny and very precise and um you know has a lot going on in between the lines but it's amazing what he does in terms of making it feel just like it you know he plucked it off a tree or something completely I mean he he often has that but he often plays characters who are like very in control like in the line of fire and he's like I don't know I don't care dangerous liaisons like some of his best known parts he is a very kind of manipulative and scheming kind of figure in movies and in this movie he's responsible for some of the great schemes in the world but you know you you always feel like he's just kind of landed in place there somehow it's a really really special performance well he's also the the character that's over right like the that is we it is in decline and everything that he's done he's still responsible for even if he can't do it he's still responsible for it he's still responsible for it he's still responsible for it you know and he has like pieces of paper in his pocket to keep on to very specific details because like the the world has passed him by the world that he created And he's there, he has, you know, the woman in this film is, or one of the two, with all respect to Parker Posey. But the young woman is, represents the future. And he's trying to advise and like keep on with what's going on with her. And, but also knows that he has no more power over it. So it's, you know, even when he's talking about strategies and manipulations, there is just kind of. There's a loss to everything that, I mean, this is, this is a great movie about, this is a great end of life movie. Yeah, the character you're referring to is Mariana DiGirolamo's character. And she plays a kind of young, hard left leaning Chilean woman who at this exact moment in history, there is a new government in place. And there's this sense of, you know, real democratic change in the nation. And they went to, they met at a women's march. They met at a women's, these two, these two friends met at a women's march. And they encounter these. These two CIA agents in the airport, which is a very funny and memorable scene that's in the trailer. So it's not really giving anything away. And you see that these two CIA agents become very interested in these two women. And these two women regard these two guys as pretty weird. But the one thing that Malkovich's character has and that he does begin to convey to DiGirolamo's character is wisdom. Like he knows things about how the world can and will change in a way that very few people in the world do. And he starts saying things out loud. And that could only be uttered on the JFK rewatch. You know, like there's a certain kind of conspiratorial strategy that he has a firsthand experience with. So it makes the movie seem somehow more comic and more real at the same time. Like he does put, like I think you put that this is a movie with real stakes. And like those stakes go in the ground in this movie. Like they are really, really intense. But it's also just fun to be around these characters. And I think I don't want to oversell the movie as this like weighty, philosophical end of life movie because it's also a one hour and 50 minute comedy that's like really fun. It is the closest we're going to get to JFK rewatchables in the movie theaters this year. And when I realized that the first time I saw it and I was like, oh, my God, they're just doing they're doing Dallas bits. Yeah. I was so excited. No, I mean, not listen. It was a terrible tragedy and I had nothing to do with it. But like nothing. Are you 100 percent sure about that generationally? I mean, I guess you have any family in Texas. Uh, I did. And they lived in Dallas, but they moved there after they moved there after my lifetime. Because it was safe to live there. Like no one in Dallas. Listen, my belief system, you know, has a lot more to do with the CIA. Where were you during the Bay of Pigs? Um, I, I think maybe we can start just spoiling the movie a little bit more now. You're kind of insinuating something that is at the core of this movie, which is that Lee, the Lee character has been center stage for. Um, I, I think maybe we can start just spoiling the movie a little bit more now as we're kind of insinuating something that is at the core of this movie, which is that, um, Lee, the Lee character has been center stage for. Not just the JFK assassination. No, Lee is, uh, Rockwell. Oh, I'm sorry, Chris. Which is really funny. By the way, I just, I just blessed them. Yes. Right. Lee is obviously an allusion to Lee Harvey Oswald, but Chris is Malkovich's character. Thank you for correcting me. And he has been center stage for, for many international assassinations. Sure, which he just rattles off during a photo shoot in the first three minutes of the movie. Yes. I think Guatemala, uh, Bay of Pigs, he was there. Something else I've forgotten. It didn't go so well, Bay of Pigs. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, I mean, he talks in the film about Lumumba and the Congo. Yes. And, um, obviously he is participating in the eventual, the imminent overthrow of the Chilean government. Yeah. And the rise of a new fascist state. And, you know, these are obviously tragic and brutal. Brutal real life events, but you kind of have to remember that they were executed by real people. And those people were like, probably like a little dipshitty at times, you know? And to put, to put their actions and words and identities in the bodies of these characters makes the movie both weightier and a lot more fun too, you know? And there was something really funny about them doing Dallas bids. And this, the movie is kind of centered around how much was Chris responsible? Was Chris responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And like, what role did he actually play? And because he's kind of a forgetful and unreliable narrator, the truth kind of shifts through the movie the same way it has shifted through history over the last 65 years. And so there's something kind of delicious about that too. And then he's also the live wire of, he's writing his memoirs. And so they're, the entire rest of the CIA apparatus embodied by Steve Buscemi as MJ is trying to keep a lid on it. Mm-hmm. And keep it alive. And keep a lid on what he has to say. Because, because despite like the, the, the changing story, it's clear he was in the area. Yeah. He participated in some way. And he has, he does not seem to have a lot of regrets, although there's all of this discussion about, there's a hysterical conversation about who gets into heaven in the movie. And what the, what the rules of engagement are for getting in. And how many people you can kill before getting into heaven. Right. And what, what, what Nazis will be allowed into heaven and not allowed into heaven. And that conversation starts with Chris starting his memoirs with the dinosaurs. Mm-hmm. Because do dinosaurs have souls? Mm-hmm. And will there be dinosaurs in heaven? Will there be moths? Yeah. And what do you say about that? Dinosaurs, do they have souls? Are there dinosaurs in heaven right now? That would be very exciting. Would it? It'd be a little intimidating. I guess so. I mean, I, I would hope that the rules of heaven mean that we can all coexist. Okay. You know? Sure. Yeah, in theory you can't die again, right? So you're just chilling with the dinosaurs. And also like. Yeah. Well, they don't speak. My concept that we know. This isn't the land before time. I mean, listen, I have a lot of books that say the contrary right now. I know. I would imagine that the, the rules of heaven mean, I don't imagine there's pain in heaven. If we're, if we believe in heaven. So even if the dinosaur is ripping you apart. And you do believe in heaven? I mean, that's the other thing too, is that Chris's character is, is, is deeply faithful. He's Catholic. Catholic, right? Yeah. And obviously there are a great many Catholics in the works of Martin McDonough. Sure. And, um, the idea of a man like who has done these awful things. I mean, he, he, he, he, he goes into detail about his relationship with Lumumba and what he tells him before he's assassinated and then leads to this decades long, uh, reign of fascism in the Congo. And then, you know, you're like meant to love him and think about whether or not he can get into heaven, which is one of the, just like the great magic tricks of the Martin McDonough writing style, which is that despite all of these horrible things that have happened, you're kind of able to get into heaven. You're able to get on the wavelength of these guys and want to spend more time with them. Um, but there is something. And also because they are, it is an end of life movie. So they are in their own ways taking stock and the Chris character in particular is trying to process what he's done, why he's done it, what he is leaving behind, what, what it means for his life to be over. And so, and part of the, like the endearing and amusing part of the movie is that he's kind of like, well, it happened, what are we going to do and what does it mean? And, but, you know, there still are the questions he's reckoning in his own way with the, uh, the Nazi and whether the Nazi who jumped on a grenade to save his mom will also be in heaven, you know? And do you think he will? Um, the movie is also very self-consciously as are many of McDonough's movies, uh, a Western and this one may be more literally, even though it takes place in Easter Island. Um, it's literally a Western. It's literally described as a downbeat Western near the end of the film. And there's a sequence of where Monument Valley appears, John Ford's famous terrain. Um, there's a kind of, you know, mythology to these assassinations and also to the idea of the assassin who kind of like carries this information and this burden through their life. Um, and then the other thing that is really interesting to me is just like McDonough's perception of American justice, which I, I tried really hard in good faith through the three billboards moment to try to like look at that movie in a non-hysterical way because it came out, it got a lot of acclaim and then it got a lot of hate. It was Oscar winning. And then there were some people like, well, this is a portrait of white hatred and it doesn't really adequately reckon with this moment that we're in, in our, in our history, which was, I guess it was at 17 or 18, three billboards, 18. Yeah. And I wrote a piece about it for the ringer and I focused really closely on, um, streets of Laredo, which is this song that is placed at the very beginning of the song at the very beginning of the movie, which is sort of about it. It's about law justice and whether or not there's value in that. And this movie is kind of a, a, a, a recurrence of that theme and of whether like there's value in this kind of work or not. And I think he's very skeptical of it, obviously, but he's also like, this is a fact of life that this is something that transpires and we should portray it. We should think about it and pull it apart. I'm not saying through three billboards is a masterpiece. I didn't think that it was, but I think it was a movie that was sort of like, especially in that moment in history was dismissed completely. Completely without exploring some of what it was trying to do, even if it was doing it clumsily, this movie, I think because it's using like proper history instead of trying to refashion something that we felt like was happening in real time, it can do it a little bit more elegant. And it also zooms out. I mean, McDonough is not an American. And so three billboards had a little bit of that quality of a non-American writing the, you know, their own dissertation and trying to feel some of things out. But from. An outsider perspective. And this is still about Americans, but it's about the havoc that America has wrought across the world. And like they are international stakes and it is kind of it is about America. From the perspective of the people outside of it as much as the people in. So I think some of it is just like subject matter and it's the right amount of distance for McDonough as opposed to trying to recreate something that like even you and I don't have a ton of, you know, we don't live outside of Missouri, you know? No, no, no. I think I thought of this because of the way that Hank Williams kind of like bookends the movie and the idea of that song and it kind of lingering in Chris's mind and what it means to him is very similar to how a lot of the framing of Three Billboards. And, you know, the thing is, is like I just had James Gray in here this week and we talked a lot about the kind of recurrences in his storytelling and how he has motifs and these are like the brother figures and the looming gangster threat and a lot of these ideas. And McDonough is the same way. He kind of keeps coming back to very similar dynamics and similar. Frameworks. But every time he does, he puts a little new spin on it or he takes it in a slightly different direction. And so I find it to be really exciting that someone is like, you know what you're going to get into Martin McDonough movie, even if you don't know what you're going to get. There's something kind of pleasing to me about that as I get into my mentoring, my mid 40s. I don't know if you know this. And I want to feel safe all the time, even if I know that we have a riddled history of assassination around the world. And then the other thing that I kind of alluded to is just shooting this movie on location. And letting. And letting Malkovich just kind of wander the landscape at the end of his character's life is just beautiful cinematic storytelling. Yeah. And. I like a place with wild horses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, is the idea there that he was once a wild horse? Yeah. Or. Yeah. But was he though? Well, I don't know. Or was he somebody who fell in line and did his job and maybe never really lived as freely as he wanted to live? You know, and then one of the horses that he communes with also. Yeah. Just meets its end. It's true. Yeah. I just I love the way that this movie looks. I think it's so beautiful. And I think some a lot of times his movies and this was true of Banshees, too, because it's shot on location. And it was so beautiful to look at the Irish landscape. But. It just like it is what separates writing something for the stage for him versus making a film like it. It really is going to a place you've never been to before. This is something you advocate for on the show all the time that not enough movies are willing to show us that space. And you watch so many streaming movies. Now, it's just like this was shot in a warehouse. Yeah. There's no here's the establishing shot with the drone. And here's another. Yeah. He's driving on a lonely road. And that's all you get. This does have a little bit of driving on a lonely road as well. And some drone stuff. But I mean, it is also the specific choice of place. And what the Moai, which are the is the indigenous name for the big heads, the big heads, as Chris's character puts it. You're too young to know the word indigenous. But like what those what the Moai. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Moai and what this place represents in terms of a past civilization and what is left is like, I mean, it's just a visual signpost right there that also happens to be very beautiful. So this is about like writing to your location as well. It's not just picking a, you know, a rando place. Yeah. And there's that very memorable sequence where Lee and Chris go to visit the big heads one day and they're filming them with the camera. And Chris starts telling a story about them, sort of mocking story. About their size and why they've been shaped the way that they have. And the two young women who they had met at the airport kind of wander into their conversation, unbeknownst to them. And it just becomes clear, like how much disrespect they have for the local history and for the intention and this kind of spiritual connectivity of these sculptures. And that that is how Americans are perceived broadly. You know, that we wander into places where we don't belong. We puff our chests out. Is that perception? Sometimes we kill people. I mean, this is the reality. In many cases. Yeah. You and I went to Canada. Many people don't feel that we learned enough about Canadian films. They said never come back. You fucking fools. And so, but I will return. Okay. I can't be deterred. You know, I made a great many friends there. Like Mrs. Doom. That's right. Like Mrs. Like Jane Doom. What else do you want to say about this movie? Parker Posey? Very funny. Could have used one more scene with her. It's tricky because the women in this movie are used as plot engines. And so they don't get to be people as much as they do. As these two men get to be, which is obviously another recurrence in a lot of McDonough's films. But like if you get one more scene of Parker Posey, you kind of lose that important thread of the story where her being in danger kind of pushes the action forward. But her talking to Rockwell on the phone is some of the funniest stuff in the movie. It is. I think it's like a lovely grace note. And she's in a beautiful house completely separate. And the film knows that the women are not the subjects. And they are there maybe, maybe I guess in the case of the younger activist for plot. But and I guess Parker Posey, you're right. She's in danger, though. That doesn't really seem to be anybody's concern. It honestly just sets up a great joke about the Super 8 at the end. Well, it's amazing because it does seem like at the end of the day, Lee and Chris are like, maybe she died. Kind of speaks to their how they think about humanity as well. No, he just said it's like it'll help with the. Right, right, right. With the. With extracting her. Yeah. But I think the movie knows that. Like the film knows what it's about and what it's not about. And I and I don't mind that. Sometime once, as I said, sometimes men got to work through their things and their responsibilities to history in the world at large. Yeah, I think women are usually the collateral damage of those feelings. You know, I think that a lot of his movies are kind of about that. You know, like the way that Kerry Condon's character is edged to the side without much agency, except when. When she's rejecting Barry Keoghan. Yeah. It kind of speaks to that, that historical dynamic. Tom Waits has one scene in the movie. Amazing. Which is an incredible moment. And I think there's something beautiful about the way that that. Action by Chris's character, assuming he did, in fact, assassinate John F. Kennedy, could truly like break his relationship with his own brother. You know, and that this idea of like everything went to shit after Kennedy. He died, which is, you know, something that is kind of uttered throughout the movie. Right. Like, and even MJ, this fascistic CIA, you know, director, even he liked Kennedy. Yeah. And that like that is that is another occurrence of the Oliver Stone film is that kind of like everything basically broke here after he was killed. Except that Chris character does have that line in response to his brother, which is like it was already shit. You just didn't notice. And that may very well be true. And Chris had more information than his brother did. But like, it's such this is such an interesting moment, as you said, to watch this movie, because if you're a progressive person. Yeah. Over this week. Yeah. For the first time in many years. Feels very exciting. Feels very hopeful. And this is a movie that ninety nine point nine percent of the time would be exactly right for this time, which is that like you live in a country founded on lies and treachery throughout its two hundred and fifty year long history. It has enacted some of the most horrible international incidents. It is often cavalier and kind of smug about it. And there's not much you can do about it because it's been so powerful for so long. And yet. Maybe not like maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Things can change. Maybe they can. I was telling you guys that I rewatched this film on election night. You and my husband and Chris were just absolutely living out with the incredible JMO. Yeah. With the MSNBC on. Zach was actually texting me from downstairs being like, I'm watching Kornacki, you know, and I absolutely like happy with the outcome. Way better than the alternative. But I found my response to be cynical or just not even cynical, but not optimistic, pessimistic. It's, you know, really it's very much echoed by the this speech that Malkovich gives. And in the car when he's like, at least you died on a beach with the wind in your hair and just and more about protecting my own heart. And so then I went and watched this movie and I was like, yeah, this seems exactly right. Like things keep happening. And maybe we'll all maybe we'll have good days and maybe we'll have bad days. But I don't know. I, I, I'm resistant and I don't want to believe. I understand that. I do want to believe. But I can't let myself believe. I think the movie is actually like a really nice object for this exploration because. You know, at a certain point, Malkovich is having misgivings about this decision that he has enacted, which is that he wants to die on Easter Island and that he wants Lee to kill him so that he doesn't do it himself, so that he doesn't so he can go to heaven by not committing suicide. And as he's there and as he's kind of losing his faculties, he says it's lonely here. It'd be a lonely place to die here. Instead, he wants to die in Venice. He wants to go to Venice. And I, of course, I thought of you. I mean, I saw this for the first time in Venice. Yeah. And would you want to die in Venice? Obviously, that's also the subject of a great work of fiction as well. Yes, it is. It seems nice. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to die near the water. Near the water. Sure. But Easter Island also provides some of that. Nice beaches. I think we should mention democracy leads to gay leads to cheese. Yeah. Yeah. Just maybe the funny. Have you seen this movie, Jack? We both have. Okay. You know, this is probably the funniest movie in the movie. I love a grand eloquent theory. This is a very Tarantino-esque sequence as well. Of course, yeah. Where Chris's character notes the union between the wonderful cheeses and the exploration of the flourishing of democracy in those nations. Right. And he diagrams it. And like you noted, this is a very physical and specifically like a hands performance for Malkovich, like a lot of waving just so. And in the democracy leads to gay leads to cheese. There's there's like some real direction. I laughed out loud many, many, many times in this movie and not always from like a very dark sense of humor, not just the Dallas jokes. Right. Though I did, you know, laugh at all of the Dallas jokes. Yeah, there's plenty of gallows humor, but there's also plenty of just like really funny stuff. Some of the best one of my favorite things about that scene is how we don't even know how much of it is a performance or not, but how much Lee is just like rolling with and setting up Chris's like bits. It reminded me a lot of podcasting. A lot of McDonough's stuff reminds me of podcasting where you're like, sometimes you just got to lay out. Sure. So that your person can do their thing. You know what I mean? Like, I think of this with talking to you over the years, talking to Chris. So you identify as the Lee in this particular film? I mean, it's a coin flip. You know, on the right day, you're Chris. On the wrong day, you're Lee. You know, like it doesn't really matter. But Rockwell is so good at kind of like feeding the moment where he's like, I've got one of my bits going. Please let me do my bit. So that stuff is all really wonderful. And then there's also these kind of. Tragic, cone-like, you know, philosophical gemstones. There's that scene in the nightclub between the young Chilean woman and Malkovich. And he's explaining, like, he's kind of explaining, like, what's going to happen and how her optimism is about to be completely destroyed by what they're going to enact in her country. And he's like, if I were you, I would go somewhere else. I teared up twice when he said, don't ever let them get you in a car. You fight, you die in the street. Don't ever let them get you in a car. And. And then, of course, the film leans into that. Yeah. It's. Oh, God, it's so beautiful. I really. The speech that he gives her on the ride before, which is. Which is about what to do or what can be done. And, you know, it is the option of, like, kill everybody in a in a uniform or go to the beach. And at least you'll die with the when, you know, but make sure you start shooting first. And there is like he he has found in her. Either like an individual, something to root for or just the possibility of life going on. You know, he has that other great line of she's life and I'm leaving it. And so she does represent this thing that he's just not going to have, which is a future. Yeah. I think there's also something like I certainly had this with older relatives, like great aunts and uncles, where they know that they're kind of near the end of something and they they need like a repository for all this stuff they've accumulated. Like there's some of them are strong ideas. Some of them are just personal stories. But it's like I kind of have to clear the ledger here before I go. And you can kind of feel him. Well, sure. Transferring a lot of that onto. Yeah. And also the memoir. You know, it's like it's just too heavy. Like she's he he's giving her too much information. Like it's it really is like a shattering of innocence of her character. And yeah. And he's also writing this memoir, which, of course, will never be published unless I wish I could remember the name of the figure who was the key source for Oliver Stone through his professor. Or Mr. X. Professor X. Yeah. I can't remember the real Mr. X's name, but there's there's a lot of stuff out there about him. And there's interviews of him like sitting in a library and just like prattling on about what really happened in our country. But those kinds of characters, too, like they do crop up and they're often seen as quacks and unreliable figures. Sometimes they have a little kernel of truth inside of them, too. Yeah, of course. And they also have beautiful poems about horses. Maybe they do. Maybe they do. You like horses? I forget. I respect them. But like they like they have power. It's kind of like the ocean, you know, where I do love the ocean, but I respect it. And like in the space or submarine, I'm choosing space every time because we really, really don't know what's going on down at the bottom of the ocean. Anyway, horses, they you know, they have their own power structure. They have their own way of life and they don't like it when we take too much control. So I respect them. Elf. Fletcher Prouty, by the way, is Mr. X. Thank you very much. And I also really love that when Malkovich leaves the nightclub and he sees the girls driving off and obviously the back window is shattered, like just very small. Like we don't need anything more than that. It's literally two shots that him reacting like the attention to detail and the subtlety is very nice. Yeah. And he's he's always like a step ahead of almost every other character. The other thing, the other little grace note in the movie I love is when he's singing both sides now while holding the sniper rifle, shooting people in the street. I mean, also the door for the basket. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was so good. It's really, really good. And, you know, we haven't even really talked about Buscemi, but, you know, he's great. I think I was expecting more from him because there was like some pre-release like it's Buscemi's time for an Academy Award. And I'm not totally sure that there's enough there, but there's an amazing reveal for his character, too. Or once again, Chris kind of knows all and Chris kind of he indicates clearly that, you know, he's a junkie. He's addicted to heroin. And I'm not a junkie. I just like heroin. Yes, we do find that great moment where he sits down in the airport bathroom and really. Pulls up his sleeves and we see the track. The airplane bathroom after being like, I don't drink. So good. Yeah, this is a great movie. And I'm delighted that it exists. And we've spent probably two months saying Malkovich is probably a lock for best actor. I don't know if your opinion on that is changing much. It is the season where everyone else mounts their campaigns and tries. But I think we found in the acting categories that things get declared pretty quickly. And it's just so wonderful. And I haven't met really anyone who isn't completely taken by this movie and also doesn't like root for Malkovich. Because this is the thing. It's a great performance in a great movie. And there is also the it's time narrative. I have one for you. Adam Naiman on X.com says it's pretty weak. The performance or the film? The film. You know, Justin Chang at The New Yorker, who's also a great critic, did not really respond to it. So there are people, obviously. Including. Some of the best working critics. But I don't think those guys vote for Oscars. I think McDonagh has always been mostly admired with some very sharp critics who think he can be a little smug and a little cavalier with the way that he frames his stories about humanity. I've always been on his wavelength. I'm a huge fan of his. It is a little cavalier. That is like part of the characters and the story and the outlook. I am curious whether you think this movie is too pessimistic. Or nihilistic for JMO land and everyone living out. It's possible. Okay. It's very possible. I think that there are not very many films running for Best Picture this year that are optimistic. I think maybe La Bola Negra, which shows extraordinary toll, but I think has a more optimistic end note, is one of the only movies that you would walk out of feeling like, you know, you can see everything is not like that. Even The Odyssey is like, civilization is falling. Yeah. Like it's about the end of something. And so. We are the people from the sea. Yeah. Good ending to a movie. Except for Civilization Will Rise Again. Yeah. As we saw on MS Now. I can't believe we're fucking calling it MS Now. That's what it's called. I know, but I just. MS Now, the everything app. I can't. Okay. That's everything. Madhouse. Chris Hayes. How much time did you. How much of that have you watched? I literally, I texted Chris and Zach this yesterday morning. I turned on cable news yesterday morning for probably the first time in like 10 years in the morning. Like, I can't remember the last. I don't, I don't watch fucking cable news. You know, I don't. Malkovich. Funny one, right? Because we talked about him when Opus came out. Our buddy Mark Anthony Green's movie. And he's so good. He's so great in that movie. And, you know, he's really well known for like Rounders and In the Line of Fire. And he's kind of like big Hollywood movies where he plays a villain. Yeah. They're not always like his most subtle parts. He's a very big performer. But like, I remember very vividly watching. This is a weird, this is a weird story. I was staying at my dad's house when I was like 12 or 13. And it was really boring when I went to go visit my dad every other weekend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the dad. Dads didn't really have the infrastructure. They didn't have the toys or whatever it was that you were doing with your time. Yeah, and they also like weren't in the habit of being the camp counselor by themselves. That's right. Which is kind of what you were on the weekends. But my stepmom is, still is an English teacher. And she just had a stray, like one of those hard bound, like laminated copies of Of Mice and Men in the house. And I read Of Mice and Men in one sitting in like 90 minutes. Like I just tore through. I'd never read it before. I don't even know. I read it, but I just tore through it. And then the next, that maybe the next day we went and rented the Of Mice and Men with Malkovich. Is it Malkovich and Gary Sinise? I think it is. And I was fucking blown away by that. And that's probably one of the first times I really saw him in a movie. And then being John Malkovich came out. Yeah. And kind of like. Important to us at that time. We all got kind of pulled into, pulled us into his world in a big way. But he doesn't have like that thing, you know, like Matt Damon. It's like he's never won best actor. Look at all these amazing movies he's been in. Malkovich doesn't, his CV is a little. a little bit more are ragged you know it's not he's always been present yeah but he's not at the center like he's the villain in con air well that's an important role to everyone except for tracy letts you know who just doesn't respect 90s cinema that's okay really rough uh i'm learning now looking at malkovich's wikipedia page that he's also a new um a croatian citizen since 2026 so okay congratulations to him he he recognized that it was it was the end of an era and he's a person from the sea um but i mean he does so much he's always working he likes doing stuff that con air think speaks to it like there's no part that he's too good for uh you know he's always like doing theater in random places when he's not in a movie there is just sort of like a a journeyman quality to the i'd like to be in things and and it's surprising which is why i think this is a good performance to reward him for i agree um a couple of of his roles that i'll point people towards if they haven't seen them before he has a small but crucial role in spielberg's empire of the sun which i just revisited earlier this year because of uh disclosure day and he's incredible in the sheltering sky the bertolucci movie um what else what are what are some other classic malkovich movies i'm just looking at the number of credits that he has in any given year starting like 2016 it's really good stuff he pops up everywhere he'll do everything uh after reading he's really funny in bird after reading really really good in bird after reading let's see i mean we mentioned being john malkovich we mentioned rounders you know cortex dangerous liaisons but most people have probably seen that what do you think about this movie's other oscar chances you think rockwell will be nominated supporting actors pretty um crowded and he has already won a supporting actor oscar for a mcdonough movie that said you're right to identify that i mean this is malkovich's movie but it doesn't work without rockwell it like it is a two-hander it really is so i think if there's enough warmth for it he probably does get it and i do think for sure best picture for sure screenplay feels like he could win screenplay and i think that mcdonough could be in the mix for director i agree it's on how this is received i don't even know how many you know i'm having such a hard time trying to figure out when to do episodes of the show right now because it's so unclear to me when movies are expanding or not we've been doing this for years and it's always challenging but is this movie opening wide i don't even know but it's like we just got to do it because it's it's one of the best movies of the year it's out there and also it's been you know in the ether for a while because it debuted at all the festivals and was just kind of and and and malkovich is it's happening it's happening um okay any closing thoughts before we go to possible love wonderful film great movie okay possible love yeah you saw this at venice correct i did um as i said this is lee chang dong's new movie it stars uh john do young uh sol kong gu so and sung and cho yo jung so this is very deep and wide movie and i don't know is it more deep or is it more wide is like my big question about it um okay so the the log line of the movie is they have to record it and they have to record it and they have to record it and they have to record it co-workers suicide brings two families together yeji decides to make a documentary chronicling ho sucks ho suck and the aftermath of a local strike as the two couples spend more time together the boundary between observer and observed blurs complex emotional entanglements class envy hidden desires and quiet resentment surface revealing how stark economic inequality can turn human connections into fragile and transactional dynamics so i think we both really like this movie and there's something holding us back from being completely in love with it and i think it's what do you think that is well i i felt a similar way about burning so there may just be something about i don't think it's the remove because i do think ultimately possible love at least gets to the heart of one of the characters and i think it has one of the great characters and great performances of the year but i i there's something about the remove and then and then the pacing and that everything is so so intentional and given so much time there's there's nothing that's a glance the way that you know that jack was speaking to in wild horse nine where it's just like we flick at something and then we move on everything really really really really cooks we linger for a long long time and i do think that that works when you get to an explosive reveal or not even explosive but when you know there are films that really really deliver on that slow cook promise all of a sudden being another example this year which is three hours about the health care system and you find yourself just like in an emotional boiling over or at least you and i did and many people who see it this doesn't boil over i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know and i it's i don't think it's supposed to i think it does exactly what it wants you to do and you spend a lot of time in it thinking about what you're seeing and all the different places it can go to your point about it being wide and deep i mean it is both and many people have compared this to a novel and what i what i think that they mean by that is that there it is a core story about four people and those four people show you everything about modern korean society and you do get small vignettes or flashbacks or moments that stand alone and that are excellent on their own in the way that there is like a paragraph in the middle of anna karenina that teaches you everything about farming that's actually 100 pages but whatever like that there it has so much moment to moment that is really very beautiful but i did find kind of at the end of both times i watched it but i was like okay so i've i've been on a lot and i've learned a lot of things about these people but there wasn't a crescendo it's funny that you say i think i have a slightly different experience of it because i found it to be unlike burning just a little bit too diagrammatic for me where it was like two couples yeah from two sides of the world and they're headed on a collision course and i know exactly what that collision course is which is like this artistic wealthy woman sees them as a vessel to a deeper understanding of the human experience one that is outside of her own and her husband is a wealthy guy who doesn't really have a strong perspective in the world he kind of sees people as something he can use and not really he doesn't really have like a real human understanding of relationships and john do young's character is this kind of sensitive and complex woman who is has a really hard job of being herself and being a parent and having her own inner life and getting attention from this beautiful and accomplished and interesting woman and wanting to feed that while also trying to care for her husband who's been traumatized by something in his life and trying to figure out how to kind of get him get him back to a normal state of grace and i guess within the first 45 minutes i was like ah this is all just like leading to a thing where they get too close to each other and then it explodes whereas with burning and this was true this is true of a couple of his other movies this is true of poetry this is true of um secret sunshine which is the last movie that uh john do young made with with lee i had no idea where those movies were going like i burning i found i still find to be such a mysterious film and i i still don't totally understand what i'm supposed to take away from it and i looked at secret sunshine a little bit this week too and i was like oh yeah and then like this this happens and then she moves and then this other insane thing happens to this character whereas this movie for the first time it felt like a little bit like a dollhouse where i was like oh you're like moving these people over here and moving these people over here it doesn't mean that like those vignettes are not powerful the performances are so strong the movie is so beautiful like he has such a sense of in another filmmaker's hands like sam mendes the like the bag flying out of the car at the very beginning of the film and the kid lets it go could be so hacky and in this movie it feels so so so beautiful and so simple and so he has such great tools as a film director but i felt him get like a little bit overwhelmed by his structure which is based on a real event right this this yeah this um this strike that that happened in 2009 in south korea and then led to a lot of the events that are kind of that define this movie yeah well i think that we we agree which is sort of that what it adds up to is excellent moment to moment but when then when it ends it gets to exactly where you thought it was going to go and where you knew it was going to go and it's like oh my god it's like oh my god it's knew it was going to go and like what what you have learned is from all of the vignettes rather than the actual ending itself where it's like okay all right and maybe the point is that we knew exactly what was going to happen and it was a foregone conclusion and that it is all of the small observations along the way yeah you know it's the friends we made along the way or didn't make or tried to make and got like very complicated uh entanglements with yeah yeah i mean there's so - There's so many memorable scenes in the movie. And Hoseok gets like too drunk and tries to drive home and, you know, his wife and their child realize that they need to walk home and that they don't want to be in the car with him and that he's struggling with alcoholism because of what's happened with him at work. Right. And before that, that he's called a driver and then it's someone he used to work with who won't drive him, you know, and that which says so much more about his life than the climactic scene in which. So, you know, the basic structure is that there's one family who's very down on their luck and traumatized and then the other couple is making a documentary about them. And so finally their paths collide where he's like, I'm the husband who has been like fired from a company and like mass layoffs and then participated in a strike and beaten in the strike and featured on the news. And it's just absolutely. Like a true definition of the word traumatized. He agrees to sit down for an interview and he's resisted therapy and he's resisted talking about it and he's resisted this couple in this entire social world that his wife has created for him. He sits down in front of the camera and like he just loses it and it all comes spilling out. And I think that you feel a lot of things about the ethics of it. I mean, this is a film about ethics and documentary filmmaking. It is. What a time for that idea. And but even in that moment, you're thinking more about the filmmaker character in the documentary. Like you're not learning anything that you didn't already know about this character and what's his pain was clear, even if you didn't explain it has been elegantly shown in and many different ways and the causes of it and how it affects his everyday life is way more developed in the first two thirds. Yeah, there's the flip side of that. And I believe these the sequences are intercut with each other is where the filmmakers husband and host sex wife on the beach together and there seems to be some kind of attraction between them and the power dynamics are kind of rising to the surface and it seems like maybe she is sending him a message of some kind and then he because he gets everything that he wants aggressively pursues what he believes that message to be. And there's like almost a literal kind of cat and mouse sequence that is very scary and very exciting. There's I mean, it's literal. She's like waving him like a turret or a bullfighting bull. Yes, that's right. And then all of that's being captured on security cameras. Yes. The final reveal and that's that stuff. And the way that those that this part of the movie, which is we're now two hours and 25 minutes by the time this arrives, but it has been leading to this and it is the both of those sequences are so strong. But then it leads to like a confrontation inside the house where that was when the movie like the air completely came out of the movie for me where that like they're all kind of confronting each other and then they just decide they need to leave and go their separate ways. And then our takeaway as well. These people can never really understand each other because they live different lives and they see the world differently in class, you know, does overwhelm the ability for people to connect, which is something that I think I often agree with. Yeah, but it felt unusually simplistic for a filmmaker who I think is so sophisticated. But I think that there are more than enough moments in the movie. That are so delicately staged and finally wrought that, you know, it's like it's a very much a cut above most of what you'll see this year. Yeah, but I also think you're right. They're watching it at home. Will be a challenge. This movie is two hours and 45 minutes that novelistic sense. There's a lot of time spent with characters just kind of gazing into the middle distance and telling a story and you kind of need to be on board with that. Right. And the documentary within a film quality of the movie. They spend a lot of time making that documentary and they recreate some parts of it. And I don't think it's supposed to be a good documentary because the filmmaker and, you know, and I think there is some sort of like stand in for the responsibilities of a filmmaker and something, you know, very knowing and self-conscious from Lee Chang Dong. It put on that character. You just watch a lot of like a pretty mediocre documentary. She's a dilettante. Yeah, she's not. She's not like a real filmmaker. But I think you pointed this out like a little bit of self-recrimination maybe from the filmmaker. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think the movie is so, so good and interesting when it's about Miok, the John Doe Young character, and which it kind of also is for the most part for 90 minutes, if not two hours, because her husband is so reticent and it's about what is she going to do and how is she going to interact with this documentary and this world? And she's interested in it. You know, and she is she's a participant and she's not completely helpless at any point, which which is cool. And the problem is that the the other half isn't as fully baked. And I think that's not as fully baked, but just isn't as dynamic. I agree. Which is by definition. Again, that's like part of the movie. But so when it all has to come together, it's a little uneven. It's surprisingly over explained. I think that, you know, her husband's. Struggles and what what he represents. And I think when we spend more time thinking about her and how she is responsible for managing his crisis, which, you know, is something you echoed in a Wild Horse Nine. There's a lot of. Yeah. Not a lot of films spend a lot of time thinking, spending time with the woman who has that job. Right. They just make that woman a side character, you know, like in First Man or something where you're just like. And that's the first man is a good version of it. Right. Right. Yeah. Fascinating movie. A truly great performance. It would be cool to see John Doe Young be recognized. I think it's possible. You know, you pointed out that this movie does have a tremendous amount in common with Parasite and No Other Choice. Right. But they're in completely different genres. You know that this is a pure languorous drama. And, you know, it's it's humorous at times, but it's mostly quite serious. And it's a little bit of lacking the metaphysical thing that I really like in his movies. But like No Other Choice is sort of. It's about the same thing. You know, it's about a bit put out of work, looking for more work. Yeah. And how that impacts, you know, an ever capitalized South Korean society. And it's I mean, Parasite has been invoked the most as a comp because, you know, Korean class anxiety and that film won Best Picture. So I guess more people have seen it. And also because Cho Young-Jong is in that movie. She plays the rich wife in both movies. I get it, but this has just been it's been revelatory to me, like how few people saw No Other Choice. I don't know what happened there. That's a great movie. It's a weird one. Yeah, I know. That's one of my favorite movies of the year. Yeah. But that's there is now this is a movement in South Korean cinema, of course, too, where this is just the kind of class consciousness across genre in this film. And these films is really fascinating. And we don't quite have this as much in American cinema right now. It's not as much of a focus. A lot of our like action oriented movies are about things like climate change. You know, they're not. You mean issue oriented? Issue. Yeah. Yeah. Well, action. And I thought, well, that's I mean, that's true. Yeah. But yeah, I like this movie. I think Netflix is an interesting home for it. And this is not this movie is not an acquisition. This is a movie that Netflix has been behind from the very beginning, which I think is really cool. I think it's really cool. It played well for you in theaters the second time. No, I was still that I felt the two hours and 45 minutes. I felt every single group therapy session, you know, which, again, is part of the point, because I think that this film is pretty skeptical about. You know, all of the ways in which people try to cope with the systemic inequality that is forced upon them. But, yeah, well, this is really going. OK, well, I still recommend the movie. Great House. I also recommend it's a really, really great movie. And, you know, two for two on great houses in this in this episode. That's right. We're going to a third house, but we're going to take a quick break and get into Once Upon a Time in Harlem right after this. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Even the greatest. Movies you can only watch so many times. Breakfast, on the other hand, every day, the same craving, something hot, something filling and a moment to enjoy it. The sausage McMuffin with egg pretty much covers it. Adding hash brown and coffee for just five bucks. Even better. Get a sausage McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just five dollars. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Now at McDonald's, the new frosted cranberry splash with Sprite. Because there's no better time of year for friends, family, Sprite, cold foam and sprinkles. Now at McDonald's. That deserves a. That deserves a. That deserves a. No matter what you accomplish today, celebrate with an ice cold. Coca-Cola. Because even the little wins deserve a big. Enjoy Coca-Cola. Okay, once upon a time in Harlem, we could talk about this quickly before getting to the interview. So we talked about this, we saw it together at Cannes. I believe it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. And as I mentioned in the intro, 50 years in the making, the house in question is Duke Ellington's apartment. Yeah. Three for three on Good Houses. Incredible apartment in Harlem. featured in the film, but it is this collection of artists and writers and thinkers and actors and all of these figures. And a lot of figures, I knew almost none of the names featured in this film. You know, everyone knows Langston Hughes. That's not, you know, or Paul Robeson. This is a class of American artists that is very rarely portrayed, that is very rarely historicized in the way that they are in this movie. And the thing that I love about the movie and that I talked to David and Anne about is we just get to watch them talk and specifically watch them disagree. And I loved seeing the ways in which, like, what their definition of the Harlem Renaissance was was different for every person, you know? And they create these nice avenues because this event took place over two days where they have this kind of party, this kind of cocktail party with all these people interacting. And then the second day are these sort of individual interviews. And then those interviews are intercut into the movie. But I just liked hearing these people tell their stories and learning about them. You know, it's incredibly, well-conceived and edited and just is in stark contrast to the way that we're all taught about the Harlem Renaissance in school, if we are, which we should be. But yeah, getting the people who are there, you know, and not everyone who is like the headline, but just have a lot of people talk about it and their experiences and the things that you find in between in conversation between two people is way more vivid than whatever you get in a textbook. Yeah, and the movie, I guess the event is originally in 1972. The film was being constructed and William Greaves just never finished it. And then eventually, they were able to restore the footage and actually make this possible. But there's clearly, you know, I think there were four cameras operating across the first day. And so there was dozens of hours of footage and it was not sync sound. So they needed to go find the audio and then sync it up, which is like a fucking nightmare. You can hear David and Ann talk about that a little bit. But it's an amazing act of, of journalism, of preservation, of spotlighting, and a really cool, and like you said, well-edited piece of filmmaking. You know, like there is, it has a real style and a vibe and like a tone to it. And like the way that the music operates inside of it is really beautiful. And like I said, like I pointed this out to David, but Lee Whipper, who is the actor who acted on stage and then acted in films, who's like the really, really old guy in the movie. There are some people who just pop in that movie, who are just like, I just spent 45 minutes on that person's Wikipedia page. So the movie is also this like nice little portal and like rabbit hole into a lot of different places. So I encourage people to check that out. It's interesting for a movie like this to hit at this time in nonfiction. And we just talked about a movie that portrays the act of nonfiction. Yeah. And we've been talking nonstop about, you can see everything, which is also kind of an act of nonfiction. This is, this is scholarship nonfiction. There are like different ways to, this is not so much a narrative. This is, like a testimonial and educational, but like not in, that makes it sound like you're supposed to be eating your vegetables and that's not what it is. It brings it to life. No, it's a bunch of people who are overloaded with charisma hanging out. They're older, but they were famous in their time. It is quite literally an oral history, you know, but then they've animated it and put it on the screen. Highly encourage people to check this movie out. Highly encourage you to stick around for my conversation with David Greaves and Anne Demare. David Greaves and Demare is here. We're here to talk about Once Upon a Time in Harlem. Thank you for being here. David, I thought we could start with you. Sure. I just wanted to go back to the actual events that are captured in the film. You were 26 years old. Yes. During this two-day period, effectively. Yeah. Tell me what it was like. Were your, was your head exploding? Obviously you'd been working with your father and so doing the work wasn't surprising, but the experience of it, can you bring us back to it? Well, bringing you back to it, what I remember most is the preparation, the preparation for it, you know. That is, my father telling me that I was going to be one of the cameramen. There was four camera people. And that was a, I knew it was an important event. I had read about a number of these people. But the day of the event itself was not really ingrained in my head because I was working. You know, I was on the camera. So I couldn't be a fly on the wall and revel in the environment. But afterward, though, when you're going through the footage that's when you get awed. When I was awed, holy cow, what we've captured, you know, what the other camera people had captured. So that was when the immensity of what it is that my father had conceived was really brought home to me. I'm curious about this for you, Anne, as well. But maybe you can talk a little bit about how strategic you were while you were shooting. Did you know the layout of Duke Ellington's apartment very well? Did you know how you were gonna kind of block the movie in a way? Well, it was three main rooms, you know, the discussion room, middle room, and what we call the white room. There were two crews. And we just moved around fluidly, you know, finding the conversations. And wherever those conversations were, that's where we were, you know. It was in the white room or had to transition to around the bar or wherever it was. So it was a very fluid situation. It wasn't a thing of, "Okay, you guys are only handling this, you guys are only handling that." No, we were moving around, following the energy, if you will, of the event. You mentioned looking at the footage. Did you look at the footage immediately after you'd shot it? 'Cause obviously this is 50 years in the making, so. Well, we originally, and they say it wasn't sunk, but I say it was sunk up originally. We did do a sinking on it. And so that was my first look at it. That was, as you say, 50-odd years ago. Unbelievable. So then there was a little bit of a break, a 50-year break, and then brought back into it by my stepmother, by her, what was it, her passion? Yeah, she was just a force of nature with this project. Yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. She covered, she did the restoration. You know, she funded the restoration. She got the money to do the restoration. And then when she passed, it was left to us, to us being Liani, my daughter, and Anne, to, and Lynn, and Lynn, Lynn True, to put it together, you know, edit it, put it together. So that was the journey, I guess I could say. Yeah, and I'm curious how you come into the project in general. I came into the project when Louise was still alive. I was introduced to her by John Cesare Goff, who works for the Ford Foundation, who's a wonderful filmmaker in his own right. And he put us together for me to kind of help her manage that preservation process. And I just completely fell in love with her and completely fell in love with the project. And then we were able to get all of the footage sort of organized and cataloged and scanned with preservation scans and to locate the audio, which was a, which was a journey. And then, and then she passed. And, and David and Liani came in, and, and that's how we got here today. Mm-hmm. I'm curious about some of the very practical components of this. Where was the footage? The footage was, so it's an interesting story. So back in the late '80s, early '90s, Bill and Louise Greaves had given most of the film elements from all of Bill's films to the Schomburg Collection, which is in Harlem. Which is the public library in Harlem. And except for this material, because Bill and Louise had been working on this film until each of them passed. I mean, it was the last film that, that, that William worked on before he died in 2014. And making sure that the footage was saved was sort of the last, I mean, Louise, Louise worked on this project quite literally until her last breath. She, this was the most important thing to her, to, to save this footage for the next generation and to bring it to the world. Um, so that was the, that was the journey on that. I know you've spoken to your father many times over the years about the project. And I know your daughter also was really very close with him and talked to him a lot about his creative and intellectual pursuits. Do you remember recent conversations with him, you know, before he passed? Like, or was it something that was sitting for a long period of time that you hadn't discussed? Um, I had, we had not, um, discussed it, um, uh, no. Really not at all. As I, as you, as you mentioned, I, we did not, um, talk about the footage. He, he and I, obviously Louise, after my father had passed, and Louise and I had spoken about it. But, um, uh, I did not, they, I was not really speaking with him about this, about, about this, about, about this project. So then how do you both interpret intention, scope, you know, how long should a film like this be? How many, what should it include, you know? How do you make decisions effectively to honor it? Yeah, well, you know, it's a, um, six, 60,000 feet of film. And, um, you, uh, screen it, you go through it, find the things. My father always said, as I say, um, David, if something affects you viscerally, use it, you know, go, go with it. And, um, so going through, going through the footage, finding the things that really, um, resonated, you know, and just working with brilliant editors, you bring, you know, you just, uh, bring it down. Bring it down, take this out, put this in and that kind of thing and, um, come to, the point when when uh from the 60 000 feet i'm saying to annika we have six more frames of this or three more frames i find she said it's a hundred minute day but it's done oh thank god do you feel like the what you're selecting to be included would have been dramatically different at all from what would have been included 50 years ago relative to how maybe how we think about the world now and the things that matter that were said over those two days as opposed to if you had made it a more like contemporary document to its time at that time if it had come out then yeah um i don't know that uh things would have changed i would have um no i mean things become more and more meaningful now like when uh richard morris says what shall it be tonight straight so socialism with negrology that becomes very current now you know but other other than that uh pretty much everything would be yeah i mean david was really clear what he wanted in the film like super clear um you know the the choices were really strong i think the challenge the bigger challenge we had in the edit room was sort of how to make how to make that flow into a film you know how to how to find the rhythm that worked to bring the audience along in a in a at a snappy pace as your father liked to say at a snappy pace and in an entertaining way so it has energy it has it has a kind of a vibe to it but one of the greatest things about it for me is just getting to watch this dialectic happening in real time you know you're really feeling this these sort of like gentle disputes and ideology amongst these this close cohort sure so i'm curious like how you thought about representing that when you're cutting it together oh we leaned into all the conflict yes absolutely wherever there was the that energy you know back and forth that's in in the film i mean you know that's that's why you make movies you know do you remember did you sense that in the room that you felt like this was there was a kind of like um it's not it's not taking sides per se but it is really representing strongly your point of view in an individual way while also speaking to a collective movement that is really really interesting um at that time yeah when you were filming oh no no no not not at all it was a matter of um they're talking they're talking and the camera's catching this one and that that one and the participants those folks were driving it you know they were driving it by their energy by um by who who they were they just went right right into it and our job with the four cameras was to capture them you know and they did all the work if you will they they did all the work in terms of gee this will be this this is going to look very theatrical such that that's them yeah yeah i guess it helps when you have a group of performers as well right oh yeah and it's very direct like everyone is extremely direct in the film and i think that that's you know one of the things that helps it move so well is that you know and when you were asking about the the party is shot unbelievably well i just have to say like as an editor the the filming is really dynamic i mean bill's directing the camera crews but the action is is happening you know every moment where bill um prompts or talks to people and tries to guide the conversation almost every frame of him is in the film you see so there's nothing else going on like he's not he's not doing any other magic there except for directing the camera crews and and really allowing people to to inhabit this conversation fully um and allow us to see it well tell me about like structuring then because you you have these two different components where you have the these the party atmosphere and then you have the one-on-ones yeah and putting those two things in balance and letting the one it feels like the one-on-ones are used as sort of like um b plots c plots d plots to kind of learn more about our characters absolutely and i i like to tell the story that when um we were working with this wonderful editor lynn true who got us through like the first the first chunk of like just shaping it um and then we ran out of money and so david and i didn't want to stop working and and i i took over the edit and i we were and that's kind of where we found the rhythm of the piece i called a a dear friend of mine who's a mentor uh gene chen who's a wonderful wonderful documentary editor and she knew the footage because she knew bill and louise and she said to me this thing that kind of opened the film up she said with this material don't worry so much about narrative arc treat the footage like jazz let it find its rhythm and i think that so we used everything we could to make that rhythm happen like the the mood of the party the tension of the people the emotion the moments of silence and those interviews the way we moved in and out of those interviews became part of that it became like oh we need a breath we need to sit alone with somebody okay yeah exactly so so it became part of how we approach the footage how'd you think about archival and when to show us someone from that time oh the archival well um the archival was um pulled pulled together by um matt hoffman and um who's the bella rackland and bella bella rackland yes i'm researching all the um you know archival material finding the folks at a young young age that kind of thing and um uh yeah so that was that was done by folks bringing in um archival yeah and we and we knew we knew we wanted to use the split screen a lot because we knew we didn't want to leave the room you know once we were in that room you really didn't want to go away you wanted we wanted the archival to feel like memory to feel like um we chose everything very emotionally not we didn't want to illustrate things we wanted to do it in a way that was very emotional and we wanted to do it in a way that was we wanted to bring people to an emotional place how educated did you feel both of you feel about the figures who were in the film i mean for me it's there's a lot of learning going on oh yes absolutely oh yeah no there there is we had done a film previously from from these these roots that um um had like uh it was all all archival and so aaron douglas was in in there a lot called mckay was in there a lot nights and hughes was in there a lot so those are the main folks who i was familiar with but um the other people i never knew frank horn or bruce nugent you know louise pat patterson you know william patterson i didn't know who those those folks were that's why i say it wasn't until afterward when you're looking at the footage that you realize that gee these people are incredible and then when you read their backstories you go on wikipedia and read their backstories you say holy cow you know these these folks were doing it yeah i say in the 20s and 30s they were all major major major players on the cultural scene what about for you ann oh it was a huge education i mean my knowledge of the harlem renaissance was mostly from what you would learn in high school so it was a big education for me i knew the big names you know aaron douglas hubie blake county cullen langston hughes obviously zora neale hurston but all most of the people in the room i'd never heard of yeah there's something amazing too about someone like lee whipper in the movie who you know has this huge body of work but not much of it is extant you know it's live theater and so it's just all we really have is people talking about it or him kind of explaining some of his experiences right right and so there's just not a lot of documentation of so much of this work i guess you know you don't realize that until you once you hear someone talking about their experience really hard to find that a picture of him as a young man um we ended up finding it at the schomburg collection he had given them a scrapbook of his of his family and that's where that photograph came from of him as a young man but there you know he as you say because it was mostly live performance there's just almost no record um and he's in a number of very famous films he's in the oxbow incident um but he's not credited in a lot of these films and so you don't you know you don't have him as part of that legacy we don't we don't think of him that way he's kind of my favorite one of my favorite discoveries in the i mean he's wonderful he really jumps off the screen um um he's one of my favorite discoveries in the film i mean he's wonderful he really jumps off the screen um in terms of preserving the footage before you start editing it what what goes into that process i mean it's a very technical process but i'm kind of curious like what work needs to be done we worked with this wonderful film preservationist bill brand um who's also a phenomenal filmmaker in his own right and a wonderful painter and an artist um but you know a lot of it was you know a big piece of it was actually making sure we had it all like we had the work prints which had been cut up a lot um and then we had the camera reversal uh which was in really really good shape because it had been kept you know by bill and louise in their cold storage at iron mountain um but a lot of the job was kind of making sure that we had the whole collection that everything and that we because we had the the work print to work off of we could make sure we had all the original material um and then it was a matter of sort of cleaning the footage and scanning it and doing preservation scans so we did over scans which is why you see in some of the um in some of the shots you see the sprockets so you know we you shoot over the image um so uh so that's that's what that is and bill um when i was talking with him yesterday yeah um i said oh tell me about the rest you know i want to know more tell me about the restoration he said the sound the sound was the was the huge challenge because the cameras were starting and stopping and slates were not given because you know just what wasn't there right so it was a giant jigsaw puzzle giant jigsaw puzzle eye sinking oh we we we sunk everything by eye the whole film and that's four cameras with two sound with two sound recordings by eye. It took Bill and I together, it must have been six months to just do the syncing. Is it just an extended period of sifting to make sure that you're finding the right thing? Yeah, it is. And listening to the audio for anything that would be unusual, for a glass clinking, for a clap sync, for someone laughing. Laughter was really big because you could see people laugh in the footage, right? So you could go, oh, wait a minute. We used that a lot. And some people had really memorable laughs, like Lee Whipper. But so that was what it was. And you would listen through and listen through. And you had to just get familiar enough with the footage to be able to go, oh, wait a minute. That's where George Schuyler walks in the room. But so it was a long process. David, I was wondering if you could talk just a little bit about that. Yeah. Why it was so important to your father for this to be completed and why it's important for you to complete it. Sure. Well, my father wanted to capture these people before they had passed. He didn't want, he wanted folks to know about the Harlem Renaissance. He wanted them to know about these people because they were big figures in his life. They were big figures in the culture of Harlem, culture of New York, culture of America. And he wanted to be sure that it was captured and that's why he had four cameras there. That was the purpose of those cameras was to capture these people. And he understood that if you bring all these creative people together into one spot, you're going to see something. And he just wanted to be prepared to capture it. And that's what we were doing, fulfilling his, if you will, vision. And it's very satisfying. For me, of course, to, um, to do that, you know, to say, Hey, dad is done, you know, so that that's, um, yeah. So it's very good feeling. I'm curious about that particular strategy of creating an event to capture history. Yeah. You know, obviously there's a very famous photograph that does the same thing for the Harlem Renaissance, right? There, there are some instances where we feel like we're capturing these moments, but they're pretty rare and necessitates like a kind of orchestrators mind. And it did seem like your father had that if you look at his work, but maybe this feels also distinct from his body work too. Um, no, I don't think so. I don't think it was. I think that, um, uh, well, first of all, if you saw a symbiote, I don't know if you saw a symbiote and, um, symbiote was the same kind of, um, uh, looking for, but in symbiote, he was, he created the tension, you know, he, he deliberately created the tension. Um, in this film, um, he still brought, brought, brought together creative folks, but he did not have to create the, the, the, the tension that this one that, that just came naturally from the, from, from the people themselves. One of the things that we always talked about in the edit room about this is that, you know, there, Bill had a very strong sense of Eastern philosophy and he was really fascinated by chaos theory and how, how things work. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's one of the things that we always talk about in the edit room is how things change, how, how the dynamic of conflict and how that changes the situation. And I think that this film really, it's almost like the perfect example of that, of that theory, because, you know, when we come in, you know, the conversations are a little bit slow, but as things move, you start to see how, how the dynamic of how everyone's bouncing off each other really shapes what happens in that room. Um, and we, we always kept Symbio very much close to our hearts in the edit. I mean, it was really that film. And he made a wonderful film called the first world festival of Negro arts, which is like a cinematic poem to the creative power of, of, of, of, of African, the African spirit. Um, and also from these roots, because that was where the history was, but this was never, in fact, at the top of, of the treatment, one of the treatments of this film that he wrote was the sentence, this once upon a time in Harlem is not historical documentary. And he never wanted it to be the telling of, of, of the story. He wanted it to really be this portrait of this generation and to give us now. I mean, I love what you always say when you say that he made the film for the future and the future is now because it really is, you know? Yeah. Right. I'm, I'm, I'm fascinated by, uh, what else can be done with his work? Cause I do think for younger generations, Symbio, Nation Time, like these are films that if you study documentary, you have to watch these movies. You have to understand them and their lineage and their importance, but he made so many other movies. You've both also made many other works, but even just getting your hands on some of them is challenging. Like, I don't, I'm curious, like how you think about, will more of his work be more widely distributed? You know, is there actually a retrospective of his work happening right now in several places? I had film forum in New York and there's a one coming up in Amsterdam in the fall. Um, and one in London. It's, I think it's really amazing that, you know, he would have been a hundred this year. And I think that the fact that he is having a resurgence with a new work after he's been gone for 12 years is kind of an extraordinary thing. Um, so I, I do think, and we, Criterion Collection has 16 of the films. They've been, uh, one of the last things that Louise did was she did this, um, she created this opportunity with Criterion for, for those films to be accessible to people. Um, so hopefully he will continue, people will continue to seek him out and find him. What's the hardest thing about doing this? The hardest thing about doing a Pikmin is, um, Because it seems very physically and kind of like structurally difficult, right? Just the tonnage of everything that you had. The tonnage of everything, yes. It's, um, because the hardest part is making, um, making the decisions. And the hardest part is making, as you said, like thousands of decisions. And thousands and thousands of decisions. The decisions go in, go into making a film. And every decision affects everything else. Everything else. You know, like we, we had a pretty solid rough cut in the fall of 2025 and we did a screening and it was a good screening. And Richard Brody was at that screening and he wrote this wonderful article about the film, which is how we secured the funding for, to finish it. Was it fairly close to where you landed or no? Um, it was fairly close, but we broke the whole thing apart structurally after that screening and put it back together. You know, there was something about seeing it in that room and realizing, oh, this has to move up here and this has to go there and we have to, we have to get to this moment faster. And so, you know, it, it, it's a long process. I mean, I think one of the wisest things anyone ever told me about documentary film is that you're finished the seventh time you think you're finished. Does that check out with you? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You look at it and then you look at it, then you show it to a group, a good group of people and, uh, various reactionaries. Reactions. And you're like, okay, back to the story. It's so funny. I mean, is that, has that been common for you doing that work over the years? Because that's not how you conceive of a work of art, right? It's this very kind of monastic vision driven idea. Well, you know, I remember, um, dad used to always have, um, screenings, screenings for the film and he'd give everybody a pad and a pencil and he'd always invite very critical people. You know, he'd always invite critical people to the screening. There was always screening room and, um, they'd watch the film, write down that stuff. And, uh, so yeah, that was a, um, part of the, part of, just part of the process. It was part of the process getting the reactions of folks and then say, okay, how can we, you know, make it, make it better? I think, I always think there's two films. There's the film that you see in your head before you make it. And then there's the film that presents itself to you. And sometimes they're very close and sometimes they're not very close. You know? And so it's, it's a matter of that dance of like what you want the film to be, but you, it always comes down to what you have on camera and, you know, and, and what's actually there to build from. Um, and I mean, you know, Bill and Louise kept working on this project for years and they didn't just sit in the edit room and like move things around. They were filming. I mean, they continued to film in Harlem, you know, trying to sort of trace the impact of the film. The impact of the Renaissance. And, um, and there's a wonderful, um, piece of audio that we found, um, on one of their old hard drives of Bill in his older voice. Um, someone had asked him, they were shooting some event in Harlem and someone had asked him what he was doing and why he was doing it. And he said this thing that he said, I've spent my life trying to live up to the expectation of the Harlem Renaissance. And that's a hell of a brilliant career that, that William Greaves had, you know, to still be saying, I'm still trying to live up to that expectation of this generation of people. It's been an interesting period of time for documentary, for nonfiction. And it, there's been some real ups and some real downs over the last 10 years. And it's kind of in a constant state of flux in terms of, I think it's commerciality, it's purpose, what people want versus what work needs to be done. Um, I'm curious how you both think about it. maybe like what the state of the art is? You know, are you still thinking about it as this like actively evolving form because your because your dad did so much work to kind of break it and rebuild it in such an exciting way so i'm curious how you think about it wow that's a big question that's a big question that's a really big question i think one of the reasons why this film why people are responding so strongly to this film is that it's so direct you know um we we had some framing mechanisms in the beginning david had written a narration at the beginning um we were trying to bring people in with a certain frame and at one point we're just like no no get them there get them in the room get them in the room and leave them there genius drive it yeah not smarter than they are but that kind of directness is something that we don't have a lot of right now um in documentary i don't think i'm trying to think of like a film that has that but i think that people are responding to that in this film um that we're not that we're really to the best of our ability letting them be a fly on that wall and experience what's happening in that room and also with a little bit of insight into why bill greaves made this happen right you know um but i don't know i mean the documentary industry is is in in trouble and i mean it's interesting financially like we you know now we have this movie that everybody loves and it's wonderful but you know we it was really hard for us to raise the money for this everybody turned us down you know and so it's kind of it's it's an interesting place to be and you think about someone a young person starting out with a really amazing story to tell how do they get how do they break into this universe that we've created for documentary and it's harder with the um administration cutting back on the oh yeah for funding for the arts right and it just trickles down to the um person sitting at the kitchen table saying i didn't get that grant that's what that's that's what it boils and that's how so much of the work gets done is that kind of funding right that's right it has been for the last for the i mean public television's been a huge funder for the last you know i don't know four or five decades so it's it's a it's a challenge okay a couple of quick ones what's your favorite thing in the movie favorite thing um every time james van as he sits down at that piano i think it's magic that's i mean that's every single time when he starts off with a touch of piano four or five years now i don't know if i could do much of anything at all and then he sits down and starts to play that's that to me is all has always been a magic magic moment yeah i think for me richard be more reciting if we must die i remember viscerally the first time i saw that footage and i just my heart stopped because it was so good you know because it's a similar thing he's like let me see i hope i can remember it and he starts and he's a little tentative and by the time he finishes that poem oh my god yeah they all have the soul of the performer you can tell like they when you when the lights go on like they know how to do it you know there's something intrinsic there that is really cool uh we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen oh have you seen anything that you really liked recently wild horse nine oh yeah what did you like about it oh i liked very much i thought that um uh two two things um uh malkovich is was was amazing but his co-star sam rock rock roll his expressions so good which just so just we're just so wonderful you know just so jesus christ yeah he's like our surrogate in the movie right and he also just breaks your heart like seven ways till sunday and and it's so understated in some moments and then it's so over the top in moments i i loved wild horse nine but i just saw um the only living pickpocket in new york oh yeah which as a new yorker first of all i think noah's script is brilliant um but and john totoro is i mean i've always been a john totoro fan but he's phenomenal and there's so much heart in that film and there's so much love of new york and love what we're losing in the modern world that um very analog film i really loved that film yeah those are great recommendations hey congratulations on once upon a time in harlem man thank you thank you for having us absolutely thanks to david and ann thanks to our producer jack sanders for his work on today's episode thanks to lucas kavanaugh for production support next week we're digging into two more new movies club kid and godzilla minus zero have you seen that yet i'm going this afternoon oh my goodness and i'm max you want to come i wish i could i have to interview two filmmakers oh how exciting i won't tell you who they are but we'll see you next week now at mcdonald's the new frosted cranberry splash with sprite because there's no better time of year for friends family sprite cold foam and sprinkles now at mcdonald's finished your essay a day early that deserves a finally folded that laundry that deserves a parallel parked on the first try that deserves a no matter what you accomplished today celebrate celebrate with an ice cold coca-cola because even the little wins deserve a big enjoy coca-cola