Chapo Trap House - Bonus: Ren Faire feat. Lance Oppenheim

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

We talk to Lance Oppenheim, director of Ren Faire, the new docu-series on HBO. Ren Faire looks at the drama behind the scenes of the enormous Texas Renaissance Festival. When capricious 86-year-old owner and founder “King” George Coulam attempts to retire, his underlings, the obsequious & loyal-to-a-fault Jeff and the ambitious & conniving Louie, are pitted against each other in their attempts to gain control of the park. It’s a darkly comedic real-life Shakespeare story, but it also touches on a lot of ideas about work, employment, ownership, power, performance, alienation, and an (unhealthy?) obsession with the past, all in the context of a very particular modern workplace. All three episodes of Ren Faire are available now to stream on Max (the place for HBO).

Huzzah to the lords and ladies listening verily, I say unto ye, welcome to a bonus Chaplo Trap House episode for all the serfs and peasants who listen to the show. You are hearing this transmission from Castle Trap House and we are joined by the filmmaker Lance Oppenheim to talk about his extremely funny new HBO narrative nonfiction documentary series Renf Ren Fair Lance, I say unto ye welcome. Wow, I like that. Narrative nonfiction. That's a nice HBO should have used that when they talked about the show. I steal it from you. Well, Lance, let's start there. So I mean, I what I want to get at is like just it's just a broad question about you as a filmmaker and to paraphrase, Werner Herzog, when he was I mean, what I want to get at is just a broad question about you as a filmmaker.

And to paraphrase Werner Herzog when he was talking about making documentaries or yelling at people at a documentary film festival for the documentaries they made. Do you see your work as a documentary filmmaker? Are you the fly on the wall or the bee that stings? I'm like the mosquito that sucks the blood, I guess, of the people that allow me to be there. And then we paint together with the blood. And no, I don't know.

No, I'm definitely not a fly on the wall, but I feel like sometimes it's sort of like, it's interesting. I don't know. I don't consider myself this, but one of the subjects of the documentary was interviewed in like Vanity Fair yesterday, and she she compared us to like, nature documentarians that would kind

of move out of the way for our own safety, and we will help the creatures out of the way of the cheetah. But if the cheetah is in the line of, you know, a fucking I don't know a mountain lion Can a mountain lion take a cheetah? That's my analogy working then you know We're not going to deviate from reality either and we will will be there to soak up whatever happens It's it's a dance at the end of the day You know sometimes a gazelle is going to get taken down and eaten on on on film But for those who haven't seen the film, you have,

you dive into the world of the Texas Renaissance Fair and you capture a sort of Shakespearean power struggle and a figure in King George who is the creator of the Texas Renaissance Fair and it's quite literal king, you have discovered a character and a setting that becomes something of a stand in for contemporary all of America in the year 2024. So I just want to begin with like, could you tell us like, how did you come across this story? And like, at what point did you realize the gold mine that you had

happened upon? Or was this planned from the beginning? It was definitely not planned from the beginning But I I guess in 2021 and like November 2021 a journalist named David Govey Herbert's and his story researcher Abigail Rowe they reached out to me with sort of the an outline of potential promise that could be found at the Texas Renaissance Festival, specifically within this individual George Coulomb. And I thought they made up everything that was on the fucking page. I didn't think it was real at all. And I was curious if sort

of the narrative nonfiction work of David as a great journalist would not, I was skeptical that could necessarily translate to the screen. And so I accepted the invitation to go with them to the Renaissance Fair. And I'd say about two days into being there, we had learned that George was still around because that was a question was whether or not he was alive. And then, uh, as soon as we met him, um, I knew that whatever we were going to do there would result in something hopefully better than I probably would have ever imagined. And I think that really, at the end of the day, it comes back to George being the kind of magic man, terrifying, you know, will cross David Lynch. I don't fucking know, you know, he lives in the hobbits version of the Playboy Mansion. You know, it's like, yeah, that's very, very

moral, you know, his Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome to create. Yeah. So like, you have sort of three principles in this movie, you've got King George and the two men who have given their lives to the Renaissance Faire who are vying to potentially inherit this kingdom from them. But I want to know from you, what do you see in your three principle characters as being stand-ins for contemporary American culture. Like, what like do you see in George like a reflection of America in its twilight years? Well, I think when we first started this, I didn't. But as you know, we spent three years there and shot like 110 days, I think that the things

started to reveal themselves in ways that I hadn't thought of. And so, yeah, I mean, in a way, this story ends up becoming kind of like a, I don't know, like a portrait of the American Empire in decline, you know, when our leaders are probably above the age where they should be leading anything, and yet, you know, they can't give up the thing that they helped create and mold. And in a way, maybe no one can be as magical or really have the the wherewithal creatively to think outside the box and like like they did. And so I mean, I guess going back to the question though, yes, I mean, I think George certainly resembles to me like so many of our leaders today that it's it's a Guy who can't who's clinging on to the only thing that's giving him power and meaning in his life

And then I think everyone else around him I think because that's really what the story ends up becoming it's it's less about Renaissance festivals and I Mean it ends up becoming about a fantasy but not the one that you pretend to be a part of. It's, it's, it's, I guess, if there's any fantasy that they're pretending to be a part of, it's the one where they could be king. And that's really what the story is about. It's about power and proximity to power and what power can do to you when you have it, and what it can do to you when you don't, but you so

desperately want it. And I think like, you know, Jeff, the general manager of the fair, right? He's a dude who's kind of a traditionalist, loyal to a fault, maybe. You have Louie, who is a futurist and a capitalist, who is very much thinking about how to take what's there and build it into something new. He's thinking about bringing EDM festivals and making a Renaissance

university, whatever that means, on the grounds of the fair. And then you have Darrell who's sort of the blend, the fusion between those two. Can I ask a detail about this that, you know, I think came through in different ways. Do you consider the Texas Renaissance Festival well run on like a day to day basis? I think in spite of George, it is well run. I think if you were to go there, you would never know that anything of like outside of the ordinary was happening. But I think it's a question that's interesting.

I mean, the place makes so much money every year. I think Darla says this, it succeeds in spite of George. But the thing that's interesting about like a business like this is it's somewhere between like a fucking circus and like a theater troupe and like a summer camp and then like a multimillion dollar, you know, intense hyper capitalist machine. And so I think that was like to me that I mean, probably the reason they even let us make the film there in the first place was because all the people that were running the business were compulsively performing and probably looking for an outlet,

looking for a way to express themselves outside of the rumors and gossip that travel among everyone and outside of a Facebook post that they could post later on about being terminated from their position, inevitably, because that's what happens when you when you're in the back office there. Did you have any experiences with Renaissance Fairs or these kind of like live action role playing like sort of immersive imaginary zones of kind of play and capitalism. Like, did you attend any Renaissance fairs or was this your first experience with a Renaissance

fair? I had been, I'd never gone to a Renaissance fair, but I grew up in Florida and, you know, around the culture of people who would go to them all the time. And a lot of my very close friends from high school were Renny heads that I grew up about like 50 minutes away from the maybe even further away from the closest Renaissance fair. So I spent most of my time and you know growing up just at home. I think the thing that it reminds me of or at least just my the way I was trying to engage with it stylistically was not dissimilar I guess from the from the way I was making the Villages

movie. Some kind of... I wanted to ask you about that. Yeah. Because that's another place that's sort of like a kind of a manufactured... A fantasy dream representation of the past where people can immerse their whole lives in and kind of do escape the present day. God damn. Look at that. A play of somebody. Yeah. Yeah. You got it better than I did. No, that's exactly what it is. And both both the founder of the

villages and the founder of the Renaissance Fair were both extremely inspired by Walt Disney. And in both movies, there's even a section where they both name check Walt Disney and the fucking book that Walt Disney bought. I think like Disney as a purveyor of this, whatever America we've inherited, I think like you, it's not just with these theme parks or the Disneyfication of death, but it's everywhere. You go to a strip mall or you just go to like, you know, any place really it's seemingly in Texas where the land developers govern the land that they've built. That's Disney written all over it.

I not to get too, too far off topic, but did you watch the four hour Jenny Nicholson docu YouTube about the failure of Disney's Star Wars Park? I did. I did. I thought it was brilliant. So did I. I think she's brilliant. It doesn't surprise me that you, you watch that either because I feel like that trades is kind of the same thing of being like, she's probably even more generous

with like really actually coming from a place of wanting it to be good. But yeah, it's still kind of tracking that, like how do you construct this false reality that allows people to indulge in it in a successful way and how the ways that Disney failed under its own metric? I don't know. I think there's a kinship between the words. It's no it's it's amazing. I mean, I think what she does is like a very specific type of like filmmaking. It's like a different in a way. It's like vlogging and Adam Curtis

and also like, yeah, the fascination with American escapism. I think it's it's amazing. I loved what I love that thing on the subject of American escapism. I mean, I think there is there's a certain reading of the Renfair community or just like are the broader sort of like these fantasy universes, be they Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, these sort of fantasy representations of the past, that I think people read into it that like it's some sort of like a subconscious reactionary yearning to be dominated by the social relations of an earlier time period, a pre-capitalist time period. But what I really got from your movie is that everyone who goes to the Renaissance

sphere is seeking escape from the social relations of today, not necessarily that they're being replaced with like feudalism, but like that everyone wants to be the king and one of the things Chris told me is that at the Renaissance Fair when you attend the Renaissance Fair no matter who you are you are addressed by the people who work there as milord or milady and I'm just wondering like what do you what do you make of this fantasy past and like people's need to inhabit it or like what are these what need are people seeking to fulfill by in the Renaissance Fair?

Well, I think there's a good there's a way to leave everything behind when you go and you enter the gates of affair, right? I think that's sort of the the outside of just the feudal dimension of it or being addressed by the master of your own universe. I think there's just an ability you can have to just transform and become someone else. It's to me, at least I relate to that same sense when I watch a good movie where I just forget about all the fucked up shit that's going on in my life that's giving me stress or grief or whatever. And I just lose myself in the experience of whatever it is that's playing before me.

I think the thing that ends up happening in this story is I think the setting is the promise of escapism is there, but the thing that ends up happening that I thought was really interesting is like, no matter how far away you go from the confines of a traditional business or whatever it is, or even like, I feel like in some dimensions, there's a way you can see the fairer and the way that this cycle

and the promise of being king and the way that keeps people there, there is a dimension that is cult-like, or at least there is a cult to personality. I think the thing that's interesting in sort of about this exact story is that the same things that they're all pretending to be a part of this sort of fiefdom or this feudal way of existing, it is playing out in their real lives. And so in that sense, there is no reenactment to what they're doing. Like the performances they're giving in the documentary, but also in, you know, when they're in costume is an extension of the drama that is is reminiscent, I guess, of the same fucking feudal politics that would go on during the Renaissance period where you had a king and you'd have to deal with that person and you'd have to, you know, play the game to get in this good graces. All the world's a stage. Yeah. I have a follow up on that. Cause I understand that it might've been streamlined just for the narrative,

but at any point in this, as you were filming, did any of these people consider or like threatened to just walk away or did, you know, between Jeff and Louie and Darla or were they all, was that a given that they were completely enthralled of the fair that they were gonna just be There forever as long as they would be allowed to the latter And I think that was the thing that also struck me as like a reason to tell the story is that Jeff has been there for 43 years Louis has been there for over two decades Darla was the newest there, but I think because she was new she thought she could

She would be able to succeed in a way that no one else had before. But it's a fool's errand, ultimately, right? And I think that's not just a story specific to this Renaissance fair. I think, again, when you zoom out and you look at the rest of culture, I think we hope that we are the people that are going to inherit the great institutions that have been created well before our time. And you hope that you can befriend the founder of those places and rub your shoulders against someone who, you know, is a magical thinker, is a magic man of that time period.

But what you don't really realize is that you aren't a chosen one. You probably realized that too late after your life has been wasted by them. And, you know, eventually there's just nothing but it's just a barren wasteland of your of your soul and your life and empty dreams that will never be fulfilled. And so it's much easier to keep playing the game because you hope that the next cycle, the revolution of the of the cycle will will will result in your favor. I think that's really where the tragedy I think comes in of the story. I thought we were going to make something funny. I thought it was going to be a comedy and it became a fucking tragedy by the end. It's still pretty funny by the end as

as heart wrenching as some of it may be. But Lance, like what you just said about the cycle of waiting, waiting for the next turn of events that will shine kindly on you, or perhaps it will be better next year. I think it is so fortuitous that this series was released during this current election year, because like, look, we can talk about whether King George is a villain or a sort of a strange American hero But for me personally by the third and final episode of this I was like much of America is now during this presidential election fondly hoping that this guy would just drop dead because I always just I would really think like these people need to be liberated from this capricious tyrant. And it's a feeling

very similar to watching Trump and Biden on TV is I'm just waiting for the Grim Reaper to just calmly do the show. Yeah, just do your job. But as to the question of whether you can rub shoulders with the magic man, you can indeed rub shoulders with King George provided you are a woman in her 20s with big naturals. And I can't stress the importance of that enough. Big naturals. I wonder, for the depiction of King George on the many, how should we put this, dates and dating opportunities that he has provided with over the course of your filmmaking. Did George portray any, I don't know, self-awareness or shame about these arrangements that he was seeking? No.

And I think that's sort of one of the things that make him such a compelling, not just a documentary subject, but also as a person. He lives without any sense of humiliation. I guess it was interesting when I showed him the first episode I was very nervous and I remember HBO we all were like is he gonna react poorly to this? What's gonna happen? There were a bunch of people that were also around George that were saying you know this thing's coming out and you have no editorial control and you signed a release and oh my god what the fuck's good, you know, and I remember when we showed it to him he started mouthing the words that he was saying on screen

and he just started laughing even in the most, like, I would think moments that would make me feel squeamish and they do make me feel squeamish, and they do make me feel squeamish, even though I'm not George. He loved them, he delighted in them, he laughed, laughed and laughed and laughed. And I think it made me in some ways have a greater appreciation for him in a certain way.

Like I see that in the first episode when he's talking about his basic toilet paper dispenser, or when he's talking about his basic shower and you don't have to have a shower curtain with it, you know, he these are jokes to him. These are things that are and this is a practice. You're listening to someone who sees himself in a way as a trickster or a comedian. I think when it goes on and as it gets a little nastier by the end and he reveals a side of him that's always been there that lays dormant but he reserves for people who mess up on things and you see that there's a the thing that he ultimately derives the most pleasure from is not sex or the chase of sex or even money, but it's the pain of others. That's the thing that he enjoys the most. He enjoys punishing people and there's a specific smile that emerges on his face when he does it. Does that mean he's a horrible, evil person? I mean, I don't think evil exists in this planet. I spent enough time with the, you know, public defenders and attorneys, you know, I like to hew closer to how they see the world, which is that people are capable

of horrible things and good ones. I think for George, it's like the Freudian dimension of his relationships with women and his mother. And I mean, I think there's a reason he is the way he is. and his mother. I mean, I think there's a reason he is the way he is. Not to be armchair fucking Freudian. Well, he literally brings up his fear of castration at one part of the series. You don't need to get too far off the armchair to psychoanalyze him. I mean, not to get too spoilers-y in this, if you haven't seen it, go watch the show. But do you think George really had any intention or ever has any intention of selling the fair? Or is it all just a big game of playing

with these individual people for his own amusement? Like, as you said, he gets his real enjoyment from inflicting pain. Is he making his own show to watch? I think, I don't think he's aware of the game he plays. I think he just enjoys it because he operates it's pure id and he's, he is a hedonist. That's what he told me when I met him. All he does is he pursues pleasure. That's all he wants. I think, you know, I fell prey to the same thing that everyone in the show fell for. I thought he was

going to sell it. I thought he wanted to get rid of it. I thought that maybe the cycle that we were documenting was going to be the one that changed everything. And that this would be sort of the reason to tell this specific story right now. And then when it went the other way and it remained sort of frozen and exactly sort of the story ends exactly the way it begins. It became something much deeper to me actually. And it became something that was a lot, a lot, a lot sadder, more tragic maybe. The thing that's interesting is that this morning actually, this is, this is news, I guess, but he, George watched the show and he was so obsessed with the Shrek, the musical moments when Jeff was singing Shrek, the show and he was so obsessed with the Shrek the musical moments when Jeff

was singing Shrek the musical. Oh my God. I was so obsessed with that song. That was my favorite scene in the series. But he was obsessed with the scene or just the song from Shrek the musical. I think the song and the expression of emotion that he gave Jeff his job back this morning. He stepped down from being general manager George himself Wow, he cleared the office and he fucking gave Jeff his old job back

And what is Jeff doing now in two weeks? Apparently he's supposed to be being sent by George to India to go to a chocolate convention And so the cycle convention. And so the cycle, the cycle continues. That is the perfect joke of what is going on. Oh my God. What I mean, Jeff has some amazing lines on the show. The one of them that really stuck with me from the first episode is speaking of his ambitions to take over and become king of the Renaissance fair. He says, there are so many billionaires in the world but relatively few self-made kings Which I thought was so such a perfect distillation and then in episode two

he says if you serve the king he'll be benevolent and Despite what you know I mean despite the fact that George makes him fire his wife and then fires him It is actually quite heartening to hear that what goes, you know, eventually, if you are loyal to the king long enough, his beneficence will eventually shine on you before he takes it all away. And to that point about taking it away and power, what you said, this is a show about what power does to people. I was struck by like, that George as a character, it's his need for control and control over everything that I think really

defines him. And like as this figure of a king in America, with through like money and private power, you can accrue for yourself these little fiefdoms. And one of the, I think a big answer to the question of why George is the way he is, is that the only people he interacts with of a day work for him and are dependent on him entirely. Like I think that really, I think that goes a long way towards explaining his behavior. And like there is a part about how he sort of pushes away people who actually were his friends or family that were people who were once close to him so that he is only surrounded by literal like his literal serfs by people who want something from him that need a paycheck from him or are

Enthralled to him in some ways his vassals. Yeah loyal vassals and I and I'm just like I want to tease out this idea of control whether it is in his you know in his Renaissance playboy mansion reality that he's crafted for himself or back to the example of the residents of the villages in Florida or back to the example of the residents of the villages in Florida. It's this need to immerse yourself in control and be in control of every interaction that you have with other people and having it be on your terms. And it's sort of like money is the way that we allow people to do that in this country. And like, do you see a through line in your work of this idea of like the sort of dying American need for control over everyone and everything. Oh, yeah, 100%. Beautifully put. I mean, I think for me, the first time I made it, I traced it back even further because there was a film I made that was set. It's called The Happiest Guy in the World. It's a short documentary I made a long time ago, but it's about a guy who left everything behind

to live on a cruise ship. He lives on the Royal Caribbean enchantment of the seas. And he's been living there. When I met him, he was there for 20, he was living there on, it was his, yeah, it was his 20th year of being there. And he left everything behind. He had no apartment. He disappeared from his life, his family, his friends,

and he just moved onto this weekend long cruise. Every single time that cruise begins, he is anointed by the captain, he is given a bottle of wine, and they do a celebration of Super Mario. That's what they would call him. Mario Salcedo is his name. They do a whole song and dance. He'd go, he'd wave to the crowd. He was almost like the mascot. He'd say a little speech about how the cruise was the best cruise in the world. And he to the crowd. He was almost like the mascot. He'd say a little speech about how the cruise was the best cruise in the world. And he'd take the wine, and then he'd

go after the ceremony back to his windowless cabin underneath everything else, sort of the subterranean existence. He'd put the wine bottle alongside all the other wine bottles he'd have. He'd open up the Sun Chips, which were complimentary. He'd pop them in his mouth, and he'd start watching what was on TV, which was Fox News, which he like was very happy. He fought the cruise lines to get back on the ship. And so I think this idea of, I mean, look, I don't think Fox News or conservative Democrat, I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think like

liberals are just as, I think, guilty of this desire to do with it. I think like liberals are just as I think guilty of this Desire to control everything as much as someone who isn't a liberal I think the thing that was interesting to me on that ship though was that this was a man who? Automated he talked about eliminating non-value at not non-value activities like talking to people You know fucking doing the laundry taking taking out the trash, cooking. To him, what were considered value activities were conversations where he could basically push the stop button at any point in time. And these were conversations with people that worked for him, essentially, that were fearful

of him. And in that case, he was sort of like the master, the king, the cruising king. And so I see a lot of similarities between him and George. I think George is a lot. I think Mario claimed he was the happiest guy in the world. And I think in a similar way to George, there was little irony there. I think he believed it. I think with George, he was always honest with us to some degree. I mean, he would talk about his feelings. He would talk about how he you know,

He was alone and I think he was he was lonely and he wanted company and I think he found it in us But you know, we were sort of a captive audience For him. Yeah, he controlled us to a degree He didn't control what I put in the film and he never asked me of that But he he always knew that anything he'd say or do, he'd have a group of people kind of fawning over him and hoping that that we would keep following him. It's just to put King George aside for a second, I want to return to the dichotomy between

Jeff and Louie. Now we've we've sketched out Jeff's essential problem. It was his... I mean, it killed me to watch Jeff because like he was he's just was such a doormat and like I think in Jeff's wife, sort of like the audience point of view comes through a little bit. But in the sort of split between the two visions of like of Jeff and Louie and their relationship to their idea of what work is and how work fits into their life. There's a great Jeff and Louie and their relationship to their idea of what work is and how work fits into their life. There's a great quote from Louie, who is, as you mentioned, sort of the more entrepreneurial and by that I mean he has a wealthy family. But he is the

more like he's sort of a kettle corn and sorry, oh, who has, you know, he wants to make some money moves he wants to bring. He wants to bring the Renaissance Fair into the 21st century by having an EDM festival there, which I think is a disgrace to historical continuity. But there's a point where he says, speaking of the appeal of Renaissance fairs, he says, it's a throwback and it hits the emotional heart of humans. People feel like they're truly part of a village. And that's how you generate cash for the investors. But like in in Jeff and Louie, I see two part of a village and that's how you generate cash for the investors. In Jeff

and Louis, I see two sort of opposing but very common attitudes, like American attitudes about their boss and their job. And in Jeff, he just wants to serve his boss and his job and in Louis he wants to take it over and has this sugar-free Red Bull enhanced sort of grind set attitude. But both of them essentially are seeking to become their job by displacing the king. And I'm wondering like what you see in the American attitudes towards work and their bosses as portrayed in the in Ren fair. Man, another great fucking question. Jesus Christ. Wow. No, look, I think I think it's

funny because ultimately this show is almost about middle management in a way. And just the at least this very specific example of a workplace that sure it's set at a Renaissance fair, but it actually and so maybe that's not the most relatable thing to people. But I think when you actually look at it up close, it probably bears a striking resemblance to the workplaces that many people go through. Certainly when I was an intern and working, I used to be like a screenplay reader at a lot of different production companies. I even interned at the Weinstein company when I was 18 years old in Los Angeles, California.

And I was doing screenplay coverage on Cloud Atlas. Nice. Good movie. I remember the experience of being there was very similar to kind of this existence of, I don't know, of being in a culture of fear, right? I think for Jeff and Louis, their performances in this are so different. I think what Jeff ends up doing, and I think it's the most heartbreaking and fascinating thing about the whole show, is that this is a person who is a compulsive performer,

and throughout the show, he's almost performing versions of his pain. He is playing to the medium of, it's almost like giving a theatrical performance or what he would do in one of his community theater plays when he's playing Shrek in Shrek the Musical. He's taking that experience and he's converting it to being in a documentary.

Not to say that what he's going through isn't real or his emotions aren't real, but the way he experiences it and even talks is so hyperbolic. And that's, I think even when the cameras are off, that's sort of how he sees his life. I think if anything for the two of them, because they are

still at the Renaissance Fair and they are still playing the game and they are still ensnarrled basically in this cycle that is never ending, I think there's this just degree of loving the place they work in but hating the boss maybe or just having to, you know, basically that their love of the culture of the place will outweigh anything else. But then also ultimately at the end of the day, the thing that they become most comfortable doing and the really only way they know like their relationship to work and their relationship to themselves is when they're stuck playing this cycle. It's the most comforting thing for them at a certain point. And I think that's why they're still there. But Louie's interesting. Louie's different. I mean, look, Louie.

Yes, he comes from money and his parents have staked him and are investors in his business. But he could easily be the guy counting bills in the back of the, you know, the kettle corn booth. He doesn't have to be in there, you know, getting getting dehydrated and fucking, you know, just drinking as many Red Bulls as he does. All that stuff. I mean, it's like he he doesn't have to be grinding as hard, but he does. And in that sense, I actually I really respect him.

I see him as sort of he's not a man of the people from his socioeconomic background. But I think there's a reason that someone of his class is is in the rent fair. And I think it's because he I think at the beginning, the reason he know, going there and working there, I think, is because he felt different than everyone else in his life. And he sort of escaped into that universe. And then I think parts of his life in the way he grew up and coming from a family of investors, I think his desire to own the place, it was almost this manifest destiny, like I can, maybe my family will see something in me and see it and respect me for basically taking a very capitalist view of this

otherwise, I mean, non capitalist place, at least in the origins of it, and convert it into something real. And now when you go there, I mean, look, that Renaissance Fair, and I think a lot of them, as I've seen, since working on this, like, you you pay to play everything, I mean, you go there. I mean, look, that Renaissance fair, and I think a lot of them, as I've seen, since working on this, like, you you pay to play everything. I mean, you go there and you do one of those endurance, you know, strength endurance tests where you take the hammer and you hit the fucking bell, you don't win anything for hitting the bell. If you get it, you pay $10.

They've monetized prove to prove to everyone that you are you are a warrior from warrior stock, They've monetized fucking everything there Yeah, not to say that um, you know, that's a terrible thing. I think as business people there's their shrewd It's like almost like going to Vegas It's like if you're gonna go to Vegas and you want to have a good time you have to spend some money It's it's it's a different. It's a similar logic I think there was a very telling moment, a very telling character moment with Louis where he was describing his past before coming to the Renfair.

And he was training to be an Air Force pilot. But then he says that didn't work out because I don't follow the rules. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. He describes basically doing a maverick move on the plane where it's clear that he did something very reckless, but the way he spins it is like, look, I was too good at flying the plane and then they had to kick me out. I mean, it's amazing. Yeah, he's, you know, I mean, he's like, you know, people don't think I can do things, but I can. I almost crashed a fucking plane and got kicked out of the Air Force. But I still pulled it off. I mean, he's incredible.

I do think he's like someone, I mean, that's ultimately the reason, and again, that's the tragedy of the story, is that he will never take no for an answer. And you know what's gonna happen when Jeff goes on that chocolate convention in India in a few weeks or months or whenever it is, you know what will happen is Louis will go to George exactly like he had done

in this series and exactly like Louie had done years prior to the beginning of this series, because Louie has tried to own the fair for a long time. And I just don't think it will ever happen. I think once George passes away, maybe it will be be something different, I guess. The Renaissance Fair will develop a sort of proto industrial economy. It'll be textile factories there or something. We'll move on to the sort of Dickensian age of cosplaying fairs. Chris, you had a question about George as an artist that also struck me when I was watching the movie.

I have a few questions of personal preference for you. Okay, so you meet George and you see, as he said, his renaissance-affected Playboy mansion. Your initial reaction to it is like, oh my God, look at this gaudaudy monstrosity. And then like halfway through the second episode, you drop that his educational background is as a fine artist. And I feel like that makes a lot of things click into place. And I found myself having a better appreciation of kind of his aesthetic as time went on.

What do you think of George as an artist? I mean, I think he's fucking brilliant, man. I don't know what to say. Whatever. Like, you know, every time I talk to him, his new fascination is something that is totally alien to me. You see little bits of it in the first episode. He's like reading the Doll magazine, you know, and everyone should subscribe.

Everyone should subscribe to the Doll magazine. Yeah, I do think I look really stuck out of my head. You know, everyone should subscribe to the doll magazine. I do think I look really stuck out of my head. It's George is like a fucking auteur movie director. I don't really believe in like auteur theory and especially right now. I feel like, you know, movies are made by teams of people, but there are, you know, there are there. George gives that theory some credence for its existence.

Like this is a guy, every idea that he has is likely stolen from somewhere else, but he acknowledges it, owns it, and does his own weird, like, psychodramatic spin on it. And, you know, he has teams of Mexican, like, illegal immigrants, Mexican employees that are working for him, that are doing the art for him. He's almost like Jeff Koons or something.

I mean, he's employing teams of people to manufacture this shit for him. You know, and like and that's so ironic because in the third episode, he goes off on a tangent about what bullshit Andy Warhol is and how all art has been bad since Andy Warhol, because they're just jerking off the American public. And one of my other favorite lines he's describing his bathroom and he says, real cocoa means overly decorated. And that's what art is meant to be. And I think it's so funny that he has such contempt for Andy Warhol and this kind

of postmodern factory-like artistic collaboration and sort of playing with meaning and this kind of ironic pose to his art because he really is, he comes across as kind of like you said, a brilliant kind of cantankerous madman, but also a real postmodern artistic figure in this world and life he has crafted for himself. I mean, totally. It's like, I mean, he reminds me a lot of like Howard Hughes towards the end of his life when he was absolutely off the reservation, but had so much money that he could basically

entomb himself with what was it like the ice cream flavor that he was obsessed with Vegas and the TV channel that only played Ice Station Zebra 24 hours a day. I mean, yeah, it's like George. It's very similar to George, man. He's fucking listening to the DirecTV New Age music channel as he goes. So no, and yes, 24, 7, and yet, too. But there's something about him that is, yeah, I don't know. I mean, to me, it was like it was important that in a way the film feels Rococo.

Right. And I think that's also why you have so many of these like overly stylized moments, like the dragon speaking to Jeff or, you know, Jeff sort of ego death in the first episode when people are shouting his name. I mean, I love just the sheer absurdity of like taking an absurd setting and then finding ways to emotionally, or yeah, just finding ways to take real things that are happening around me

and then and mesh them with events that feel like George would say overly decorated. And I feel like in a way that's the truest way to make a documentary. It's not to try and pretend, you know, I just don't think like when you asked the question earlier, I don't think it's possible to be a fly on the wall, at least for me and my crew, it's impossible to do so. And I just don't think like when you asked the question earlier, I don't think it's possible to be a fly on the wall. At least for me and my crew, it's impossible to do so. And I think any person that says it is, is a fucking liar. And I think when you look at Frederick Wiseman's movies, he, and you look at the way he even talks about his movies, he doesn't say he's a fly on the wall.

The way he even talks about his films, he doesn't even like calling them documentaries. He likes to call them, I know Alan King calls his films actuality films. I'm pretty sure Frederick Wiseman calls them dramas because ultimately what he's doing in the edit and when he's shooting them is he's using the ideas of how a fiction film would be constructed and he's employing those ideas, a structure of sorts to the assimilation of real life. And so look, to me, I'm just always like, I don't know if it's just because of like the Netflixification of documentaries that people have this expectation that nonfiction

is supposed to inform you or educate you of something. But my the thing I like and find exciting, and there's I just continue to think there's real opportunities to be made and doing this type of stuff is to make something that hopefully the thing I like and find exciting and there's I just continue to think there's real opportunities to be made and doing this type of stuff is to make something that hopefully isn't so like up its own asshole that you know people aren't able to engage with it emotionally but make something that is emotionally engaging and then hopefully at the by the end of it have people talk about all of the ways it's been styled and everything else. Because,

you know, to me that's the reason like cinema exists. If you want to read a Wikipedia article, you can do that. But don't make me watch a movie that is a Wikipedia documentary. I don't want that personally, at least. Can I ask a quick follow up question to that? How was Louis kettle corn? Is it good enough to build an empire on? Dude, it's delicious. It's, it's, it is, he calls it kettle crack. If you look it up, that's, I'm not kidding. That's what it's actually called. The business name on Instagram and everywhere else. I mean, it's funny that it's like a, he's, he's sober, but he's, he's calling,

it's a drug of its own kind. It's addicting to eat that shit. I've been trying to figure out ways for the two of us to like do special screenings and get kettle crack to supply the delicious popcorn that could be there. But we'll see. Nice. I'm following on Insta. Okay.

We talked a little bit about your the Villages film that you did. That is very specifically a Florida story. You grew up in Florida. Ren Faire, what about this movie? What about the plot and the characters that you discovered making this film? Is something that is so singular to Texas. Do you regard Ren Faire as a Texas story in the way that like the villages film was sort of a Florida story? Something that could only exist in those two specific states?

I think both Florida and Texas are united in the sense of the, you know, like I think we're talking about like the lack of income tax and the ability for people to create empires if they want to and become rulers of their own fantasy world. I think George is not a Texan, right? He's a Californian who went to Texas because of the cheap land and the opportunity he saw. And ultimately he was run out of California and he was run out of Salt Lake City because he didn't own the land around the fair.

But I think everyone around there and I think just the ethos of work and the sort of the desire, the dimension, I think, you know, when I think of Texas, I think of like a real classic form of America that still exists somewhere, you know, especially when you when you head outside of the more developed parts and you see, you know, families that are entrenched in tradition. And I think one thing that George built with the fair is like, there's many, many empires that exist within his main one. And those empires are all run by families, you get a little glimpses of them in the beginning, the first episode, like the Imhofs who do the sauces on the stick, or the Giles, like these are families that have been native to Texas for like hundreds of years, with the Imhofs who do the sauces on the stick, or the Giles. These are families that have been native to Texas for hundreds of years, with the Imhofs specifically. The Greek family that tries to put together a buying claim at the end of the episode episode. Yeah, they're Canadian, which is funny. But I think there's a real manifest destiny dimension to all of this shit that I feel like maybe is more emblematic of just like, I'm not sure if it's just Texas, but it's it's it's it's it's it feels just distinctly uniquely

American like the reason we came to America to begin with was to escape a bunch of shit that was happening, you know, that people didn't want to do anymore. They wanted the tyrannies of old Europe and then recreate them in a fairgrounds in Texas for fun and profit. Yeah, exactly. For fun and profit. I don't know, but what do you see? Look, I think like what Elon's doing in his universe over there and it's not probably that dissimilar to the world that George is creating. And so I feel like there's a reason he's in Texas too. I don't know. Do you see something deeper?

Yeah, I mean, no. I mean, like, I just see like, you know, the back to this idea of like, this sort of prototypical American character who's sort of like part con man, part genius, sort of half smart, but has a dream. And watching all three episodes of this, I was just struck by like, George is sort of like McCabe from McCabe and Miss Miller, if the mining company didn't kill him, and he was allowed to just run a whorehouse in Washington state. He could have been he could have been the king. He was the king of that. And I just I don't know.

I just felt like a very distinctly American story and character in George. And like, yeah, the Texas aspect of it was like, yeah, like you say, he quotes the Walt Disney book where like Walt Disney's advice for creating any kind of like the imaginary realm of which you were the king of is just incorporated as its own town. Do you feel like you get away from the tyranny and bureaucracy of the state just become the state and you can do that in a country or in a state like Texas where there is just so much fucking land and so little state.

Yeah. You can kind of do whatever you want. Yeah. It's I mean, I love that about George too, though, and, you know, in the sense that like one person there once said this, that George is the he's like a businessman. He's an artist and he's a burnout. He's all three people combined into kind of this, you know, and very few people will ever be on the same wavelength as he is because when he speaks

business to an artist, they probably won't get it. When he's speaking art to a business person, they probably won't get it. And when he's speaking about like things that are far out or just things that come from like the kind of dropout culture that he also grew up in and the desire to be known and loved by his family and seen as a great artist and all these things that he never got when he was younger. Reading every popular science book all at once and taking them all is literally true, apparently. I mean, yeah, well, you know, he wrote a book

or he had a book ghost written called mind wars how I overcame dementia How I overcame dementia, yeah, he says that through meditation copy that to Joe Bridey Yeah, I mean, I don't know if George ever had dementia I mean if he did and he overcame it then you you know, whatever he discovered needs to be broadcast to the world. But, you know, the guy for all of the ways in which he acts erratically, he does have a surprisingly good memory and he uses the appearance of being a feeble elderly man

to his advantage. And because he loves to reveal like the Trump card, you know, he pulls it out, you know, whips it out right when you least expect it. He will fucking kill you if you if you if you don't have those that marketing plan. Yeah, he will eat you alive. And it's it's a he's he's still more in control than I think any other person is really in control of his own life in a way that probably very few people

are. That's why Jeff is right. Very few, a lot of millionaires, very few self-made kings, as Jeff would say. And ultimately the latter is more impressive than being a millionaire. If you can make yourself a king, because most people, they're just born that way. They just fall out of the right woman and that's it but King George we we we hail to you Lance Oppenheim the series is Ren Faire available to stream everywhere now please check it out it is a very funny and fascinating

I guess I'd be a hero with sword and armor clashing, looking semi-dashing, a shield within my grip. Or else I'd be a Viking and live a life of daring, While smelling like a herring upon a Viking ship. I'd sail away, I'd see the world, I'd reach the farthest reaches. I'd feel the wind, I'd taste the salt and sea, and maybe storm some beaches.