Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Oscars 2024 Best Picture Special

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

With the 2024 Academy Awards taking place on Sunday, the most trusted voices in film Mark and Simon are here to guide you through the 10 films in the running for Best Picture.   Featuring highlights from interviews with directors Greta Gerwig, Celine Song and Jonathan Glazer, and actors Cillian Murphy (an exclusive unheard part of his chat with the pair), Emma Stone, and Jeffrey Wright. Plus Mark’s thoughts on all of the films involved.   Timecodes for the Vanguard:   02:36 Cillian Murphy interview (exclusive unheard part of interview)  06:39 Oppenheimer review  09:06 Greta Gerwig interview  12:19 Barbie review  15:35 Killers of the Flower Moon review  20:07 Emma Stone and Ramy Youssef interview  23:14 Poor Things review  25:35 The Holdovers review  32:54 Jonathan Glazer interview  36:02 The Zone of Interest review  39:16 Maestro review  44:42 Jeffrey Wright interview  47:22 American Fiction review  50:20 Anatomy of a Fall review  55:07 Celine Song interview  58:53 Past Lives review  A Sony Music Entertainment production.     Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts    To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, hello there. Simon and Mark here to tell you about Indeed. Yes, Indeed is driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search. Match with Indeed. If you need to hire, then you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data. And if you're busy watching all of this week's film recommendations and you have no time, then you can use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. But Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 75% of employers claim Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other online job sites.

Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. So the more you use Indeed, the better it gets, like us. Why not join the more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast? Listeners of this show will get a 100-pound sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility

at Indeed.com slash Kermode Mayo. That's Indeed.com slash Kermode Mayo terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Indeed. Hello and welcome to a very special extra, Kermit and Meyers Take, with the Oscars happening this Sunday, March 10th at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. We thought we would make sure you are fully in the know about the film's vying for the top prize this year. We are of course talking about the best picture category, which this year includes...

American fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things, and Zone of Interest. We have, of course, covered all of these films. We've interviewed many of the directors and actors involved, and Mark has reviewed all of them, because that's why he's here. That's my job.

So over the next 60 minutes, we're going to be revisiting those interviews and reviews. But before we dive in, mark your thoughts on this year's list, which you've just read out, are they all deserving to be there? It's a good list. I mean, you get everything from blockbusters to sort of smaller, more interesting art house movies. Very, very hard to call, but it's going to be Oppenheimer. So yes, I can see that. But if I was just to pick one of them. Oppenheimer.

For example, if I just put my finger on one, like an atomizer before you go, yes, that could win. Zone of interest, yes, that could win. That has, I don't think poor things should win. But there you go. Yeah, but then you're wrong because poor things is wonderful. Poor things actually would be my choice. Maestro shouldn't win. Killers of the Flamoon shouldn't win. Holdovers good, Barbie good, an atomizer for good, American fiction good, Anatomy of all good, American fiction good, Zone of Interest good.

But it'll be Oppenheimer. There you go, that's, it's Oppenheimer. So let's start with our first group of films and we're better to begin than the cinema event of last year. That's Barbenheimer. You'll first hear an exclusive bit of an unreleased interview with the star of Oppenheimer, Killian Murphy, where he talks about his feelings towards award ceremonies in general

and working with the great Gary Oldman, followed by Mark's thoughts on the film. And then we're looking at Barbie, and we'll hear from its director Greta Goehrwig about making the Barbie film her own way or no way at all. And following that, we'll be revisiting Mark's thoughts on Killers on the Flower Moon with its cloth. Killers off the Flower Moon. And then... Killers on the Flower Moon would be a very different space movie. The flowery Killers on the Moon with its striking visuals but rather

testing running time. The interview I did with poor things Emma Stone and Rami Youssef where we talked about Emma's character Bella Baxter acting as a mirror for a man's desire. Mark's review of the Holdovers which had him and his fellow critics asking why they don't make those types of film anymore. Enjoy. Can I ask you what your feelings are about awards season? Because obviously we're right in the middle of it now and you have more of it ahead of you.

You've always seemed like somebody who's very disconnected from all that kind of razzmatazz. So how are you dealing with this? I think the only way to deal with it is to go into it with an open heart and just be thankful and be humble to the people who are honoring the film and the work in such a way. So that's what I'm doing and it's wonderful to meet all these other, that's the kind of high point from here, the bonuses meeting all these other filmmakers and all these other actors. Cause I think it's been a very strong year for film

and getting to chat to them about their work. I've enjoyed that. And I have to say I'm enjoying it much more than I expected to. Gary Oldman was on the show a while back too. He came in to promote slow horses and various other things. And I think it on the show a while back, he came in to promote Slow Horses and various other things and I think it was the first time that Opp and I have been mentioned on this podcast because he said he'd gone to America for a day and when I get to his sequence in the magazine,

really he just turned up for the day. I mean it's such a fantastic scene and you've worked with Gary Oldman before of course. Can I just ask you about that though? Is that right that he was just there for like 24 hours and then he came back? Yes. We only had Gary for a day on the film. He played Truman and I remember we had a location for the Oval Office and then we lost that location for whatever reason. So they had to frantically get an Oval Office set out of storage somewhere from one of those American TV shows

and put it all together, build the whole thing, get it up, get it painted, get it lit in time for Gary's arrival on set. And he had to go through all those hours of prosthetics. So anyway, I remember walking onto that set and you could still smell the paint. And we did the scene and Gary Oldman just absolutely nailed it as Truman, like the voice, the mannerisms. And it's a very crucial scene in Oppenheimer's story. You know, I'd worked with Gary

briefly before in one of the Batman movies, but this was a proper full day, you know, going toe-to-toe with Gary Oldman, one of my heroes. So that was one of the great days. But that was the nature of the film. You know, you'd go, it became almost just normal that you'd have one day you'd be doing a scene with Gary Oldman, next day you'd be doing a scene with Ken Brannett, next day you'd be doing a scene with Downey,

next day you'd be doing a scene with Matt Damonannett, next day you'd be doing a scene with Downey, next day you'd be doing a scene with Matt Damon. It was kind of, it never became normal, but it certainly became routine, the idea that you'd be doing huge sequences with huge movie stars every day. But that's, again, the prestige that Chris has, these actors will turn up for him, you know? Did you do Barbenheimer at any point?

Did you see the two movies back to back as most of the rest of the world appears to have done? Well, I mean, I went to see Barbie for sure, but I did not do the double bill thing. No, I tried to watch my films as few times as possible. Right? I went to see Barbie and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Got a couple of listeners' questions

if we have a moment here. So I've done the research, I don't know if this is true, but Azra has sent in this question. Before delving into your role as Oppenheimer, Chris Nolan recommended watching Amadeus for inspiration. Were there any other films that found their way into your preparation process? So is that true?

That is true. Amadeus, I mean, it's such a great movie. But also, you know, the relationship between Salieri and Mozart, kind of, I suppose there's a... You could say that there is something in the relationship between Strauss and Oppenheimer in our movie. And it was just a joy to watch that film. Watched Lawrence of Arabia as well,

in terms of an epic movie on an epic scale that's not quite biopic, but is biopic. Those are two ones that we watched. ["The Last of Us"] In his face, where the story plays out, you see ambition, you see conflict, you see devotion, you see deception, you see deceit, you see disappointment.

All of those things happen on Killian Murphy's face. And I think his role is brilliant. My favorite scenes in the film are actually between him and Damon because they're chalk and cheese characters. And, you know, it's in that tension between what the military wants and what the scientific community wants. There is agreement, but there is also disagreement. You know, one's searching, one's demanding, one's exploring, one's exploiting, and not necessarily

always the way you'd think. Obviously, also the film looks great. Hoi Van Hoitimer has shot it in a way which is using the IMAX format to do close, to do intimate, to do not just... Because it's actually for a film that's about the invention of the atomic bomb, the spectacle is kind of limited. There's a lot of people talking in rooms. There's an awful lot of that. And then there's this thing about going from black and white to color, which is sort of subjective,

objective, sort of one perspective, one character in the other. Sometimes it seems like it can be style for the sake of style. I'm not entirely sure about how that works, but you kind of it, you know, it looks good and the sound design is fantastic. There is this sort of repetitive thing about the the feet stamping on the floor as applause, which then matches into the sound of a rumble and the sound of the earth kind of being

almost knocked off its axis by what's happening. I think it is a really, really good film. I don't know that it emotionally impacted on me as much as I wanted it to. And I have often found that with, no, I mean, like Interstellar is very, very emotional. And I think Oppenheimer is really good and really impressive.

It is a three-hour film, which is, it's quite hard to ask for an audience, because I said there is a lot of people talking in rooms. It is not a lot of action and explosion, and when things happen, it's fleeting, and quite often it's represented by sound rather than visuals. It is a character study, political history, really. And it's the weight of it rests on Killian Murphy's face.

["The Story of the Dead"] Does the story start with Margot Robbie approaching you? Is that the beginning of your involvement? Yes, she approached me as a writer and then I brought on Noah Baumbach, who's my partner in life and art. And so initially it was a writing project and… What did she say? She said, I, my company and Warner Brothers, we have the rights to Barbie.

They'd like to make it into a movie. Do you want to write it? And I guess they said, yes. It's actually hard to remember now because I had a newborn baby when that started. And I have a newborn baby again now. And it's very hard to construct your mindset in the like the two months after having a baby You're sort of like I don't I don't know what I was thinking exactly But something in me was thought it might be interesting. There wasn't a story. She didn't come to you with a story

No said let's begin at the beginning. It's Barbie. She said it's Barbie. What do you want to do? And I said give me about a year and I'll think of something and And I said, give me about a year and I'll think of something. And so that seems like it's quite a jump from little women. And one of the things that's come up a lot in all the movies that we're talking about is lockdown and COVID and the effect of that on film production, but also in story writing.

Because if I've got this right, you and Noah wrote this during lockdown. We did, yeah. Do you think that's obvious when we go and see the movie? I don't think it's obvious in any sort of like... Is it more unhinged, I guess, is what I'm thinking. Yes, well, it definitely is more unhinged, but I don't think it's... I think as soon as you say it, when you see the movie, you're like,

oh, I could see why that was the case. I mean, I think a lot of it is just what I was sort of saying at the top was we did, we so wanted, we missed going to the movie theater. We love going to the movie theater. And I think it was, part of it was fueled by the sense of, well, if we ever get back there, let's just do the craziest, most outrageous thing

we can think of. And I think it freed us up too, because nothing was getting made for a moment, nothing was being released. And everybody's sort of responsive, like, well, they'll never let you make this. And I was like, well, they're already not making movies. Why don't they not make this one too?

And that was kind of allowed us to be anarchic and wild. And at what stage do you think I want to direct this? You know, fine, I can write it, but really this is my film. After the script was written. I mean, for me, it's it once we had the script, that was when I wanted to direct it because for me, that's the I think the idea of directing a Barbie movie wasn't that interesting to me. It was directing this Barbie movie. And it made it very simple in a way because if they didn't want to do it,

then I didn't need to make a Barbie movie. So I felt less pressure maybe than you might if you really wanted to just do any Barbie movie. But when it came down to changing stuff for making things different, it was really like, well, I don't need to do this. You don't want to do it this way, I don't have any interest in it. And so that was kind of, I think it emboldened everybody. Now, there are obviously, the Barbie movie had been in development for ages. There was a previous

incarnation that Anne Hathaway was down to do. And then that didn't happen because it went from Sonny to Warner's. And then I think Margot Robbie is perfect for this role obviously she's a producer as you said there. She's so perfect that there's even a gag in the narration about how perfect she is for the role that the film gets away with because it's such a perfect role. And I think that it's such a perfect role. And I think that the smartness of it is that it manages to have its cake and eat it. It manages to celebrate and satirize and deconstruct the Barbie mythology.

And at the end of it, you come out actually feeling warmed with it. And I say that as somebody who is a huge fan of the Todd Haynes film, which is absolutely about the problems of the way in which, you know, the barbie isation of the real world has lethal consequences. I think a lot of people have talked about how funny Ryan Gosling is. And Ryan Gosling is really funny. I mean, there's a sequence where, and when you go and see it, there's a sequence where he is very brief scene where he is talking to a doctor

and he's assuming that he can also become a doctor because he's a man. He's a man. He's very, very funny. Because he's discovered the patriarchy and the sequence in which men then decide that they want, sit down and I'll play my guitar at you. If the use of the word at is really great.

But I think what's, it's easy to understate how good Margot Robbie is. Yes, Ryan Gosling is great. And I've seen a couple of reviews said, you know, Ryan Gosling stills it. No, he's very good. But the film works because Margot Robbie is absolutely on it in that role. And having the smarts to get on Greta Gerwig,

and obviously, as you said, the script with Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, I thought was meta in exactly the way that you want that kind of script to be meta. I thought it was funny. I enjoyed the songs. I mean, you know, I've enjoyed the songs very much. I thought the design was absolutely terrific. I mean, you come out, you kind of your retinas are everything's gone pink. There are, you know, there are loads of cinematic gags. There are loads of things, jokes about the Godfather and jokes about... And in that clip was a Matrix joke. Yeah, there's a Matrix joke. Actually, there's the red pill stuff. There's the thing about

the Justice League director's cut. But the thing is, when you ask who's it for, it's not one of those movies because, oh, well, you know, I mean, it's one thing, a movie critic going, well, I really like it because actually it's got all these really smart references throughout The Godfather and all that sort of stuff. Okay, fine. But I can imagine it playing to exactly the same people that like Barbie Swan Lake because it's, you know, because it's fun and it's just on the right side of some of the humour.

It just slides right up to the edge of what you can get away with and still be a kind of mainstream movie. Hey, I was really pleasantly impressed and surprised. I laughed and you and I both came out, I think, with a spring in us, with our arches lifted. Well, hello there. Simon and Mark here to tell you about Indeed. Yes, Indeed is driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with Indeed. If you need to hire, then you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform, with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data.

And if you're busy watching all of this week's film recommendations and you have no time, then you can use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging, so you can connect with candidates faster. But Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 75% of employers claim indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other online job sites. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. So the more you use Indeed, the better it gets like us. Why not join the more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent

fast? Listeners of this show will get a £100 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Kermode Mayo. That's Indeed.com slash Kermode Mayo terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need indeed. Indeed. This episode is brought to you by Mubi, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating

great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover, such as... Well, such as high and low, John Galliano, which is the thought-provoking new documentary from Oscar winner Kevin McDonald, charting the rise and fall of the fashion designer John Galliano. It traces Galliano's working and private life through the decades, candidly investigating his struggles with addiction and the industry pressure he faced along the way. Features Conversations with Naomi Campbell, Kate Marce, Pelby Cruz, Charlize

Thrawn, Anna Wintour and many, many more. And it is showing in UK cinemas from March the 8th. Or you could explore the women's cinematographers film group streaming on movie in the UK from March the 8th. As women have found more equal footing in the film industry, directors, producers and screenwriters, cinematography remains a stubborn final frontier. Around International Women's Day, movie are spotlighting the artistic and technical work

of women working behind the camera, including including films such as Annette from 2021, Ben Adetta from the same year, and more recently Passages, all streaming in the UK from March the 8th. You can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash Kermit and Mayo. That's Mubi.com slash Kermit and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Killers of a Flower Moon, which is the new film by Martin Scorsese. So it is true, and I think that this has to be said, I think as a theatrical experience, it is a testing running time.

I think that it felt that it was being, that it had been put together in the knowledge that it could be as long as it wanted. And I think there is a question at some point to be had about whether or not there is a different thing between a streaming running time and a theatrical running time, because I did feel that there were long goes.

I mean, it takes its time and it's not always time well spent. It's not always, it doesn't always look like it's been absolutely ruthlessly stripped back. It is taking its time to tell its story in a way that we would associate or I would associate more with home viewing. That said, it has real big screen beauty. It's beautifully shot by Rodrigo Pioto.

You see it on the big screen and you think the visuals demand to be seen on the big screen. It's also clearly heartfelt. I mean, apparently the Usage Nation had quite a lot of input into the script and the film, which changed it quite a lot and which lends an authenticity to the story and the way the story is sold because the story is quite horrifying in a sort of kind of understated way. I mean, it is a fairly brutal depiction of the way in which these people have been exploited. And you know, it's done in a kind of forensically methodical manner. Performance is a great. Leonardo DiCaprio's face, he does this grimace, it's like, I can't do it, but like his mouth is turned down at either side,

but he looks like he's constantly grimacing through the whole movie. And it's almost as if he has reconfigured his face to look like somebody who, you know, life has been hard to and is kind of grimacing in the face of the world. Robert De Niro really enjoys the role of King, the kind of the Emperor, the King mate, and he really relishes that. But Lily Gladstone absolutely steals the show. And you saw just a little bit of that, despite the fact that her role necessarily involves her character becoming more and more passive as she becomes

ill and as she's kind of start to be sidelined by the narrative. Still, she's like this glowing thing right at the heart of the drama. And it's her who drags you into it and her who keeps you invested emotionally, even when you've got on the one hand these two kind of tightens of modern cinema. There is a score which I think you'll like very much by Robbie Robertson, which is bluesy and stripped down. Occasionally there's this like, boom, boom, boom, bass thing that just goes on for like minutes at a time, just like a kind of plod, it's almost like a heartbeat. You're a

Robbie Robertson fan anyway, aren't you? Yeah, I think you'll like that very much. And the whole, like I said, the whole thing has a real heartfelt feel to it. I would say, however, I do think that there is a proper debate to be had about when you're being financed by streaming services and when running time isn't an issue,

whether there is such a thing as an ideal theatrical running time or an ideal home stream, I did feel watching this in a cinema, this doesn't actually need to be this long. Could it have been four, one hours? Yes, I think it probably could have been. We are just in an interesting point at the moment in which there is a tug of war between theatrical and streaming and whether or not,

you know, like I said, everything about the visuals is big screen. But something about the nature of the storytelling lends itself more obviously to the small screen. And I'm not saying that means don't go and see it in the cinema. What I'm saying is when you see it in the cinema, you are more conscious of the fact that it is absolutely taking its time telling this story. And you know, look, it's not that movies, movies don't movies should be the length that they need to be. And if I'm honest, I don't know that

this needed to be as long as it was. But there are many, many great things about it. That shouldn't, you know, that shouldn't be a defining factor. ["Bella Baxter"] We have to talk about Bella Baxter. So just how do you begin to explain this role to people who haven't seen this film and how you built this character? I don't really, because we try to keep it.

I mean, it's very important to Yorga so that people know as little as possible, obviously, and previews and things you can kind of get the gist that the really simple gist. Okay. So what can you tell us about Bella Baxter? Ooh, nice. I can basically, it's, she's a woman

who is building herself from scratch. She is both creator and creation ultimately. It means that she has never had these life experiences and she is without shame, without self-judgment. And she's sort of approaching everything in life, whatever it may be, travel, food, sex, dance, politics, with a sort of brand new curiosity. And she's a creature unlike anything else. Would it be fair to say she's a full grown baby at the beginning?

I guess that would be fair. Yes, it would be fair. But she's also developing in a way that no baby would ever develop. I mean, she's, what do you say? She's gating 25 words a day. Her hair is growing rapidly. She's kind of more of a creature than a literal baby. In my mind, I see her as like a metaphorical sort of, people have compared it to Frankenstein, like a kind of, the way she walks, the way she talks,

I guess does feel like a toddler in the beginning, but then it sort of evolves into a place where she's just kind of her own invention. Also, because William DeFoe looks Frankensteinian, I don't know if that's a good word, and he's the guy who's put you together. So that'll be why they end up. And bearing in mind, Emma, that you can't tell us anything about the film or what happens later on. So you're a fully grown baby to start with, but you gain sentience as we go through the film. And it's almost as though as you are gaining sentience, the men in your life go crazy. In different ways. Yes, they can't stand the fact that you're not the person that they

thought you were. Well, I think that, Romney, you had such a good answer to this yesterday about the mirror and the mirror on men, like what they're, you know, that she is herself in every circumstance. She's forthright, she's honest, she says exactly what she wants and needs, she sees no reason not to. And the reactions of the different men in her life to her agency, her growing sense of agency is very interesting and kind of like a, I don't know, a study on what did you say? Like how they react is...

Yeah, I mean, I think the Bella character in the film, it's a very mirror like where, you know, what you get out of it is kind of where you're at, you know? She's just curious and she's growing. And then, you get out of it is kind of where you're at you know she's she's just curious and she's growing and then you know these men are kind of seeing where they're at with their own desire for control and how they are with egos and yeah yeah need to possess at the heart of it there is an emotional story about somebody when you I mean it was so fascinating when you asked her like she said she's like a fully functioning grown up baby. And she said, well, yes, but obviously that's how the, when we first meet Bella Baxter, that

is what she's like, but then you sort of see her grow before you. And as she grows, and as she becomes more agile, both mentally and physically, the men become more and more infantilized. I mean, Mark Ruffalo, when you first meet him, you's all, you know, it's all Ray-Kish and everything. Halfway through the movie, he's turned into a gibbering schoolboy. And it's sort of like their paths, you know, cross like that. And there's this recurrent theme that men in her life

keep forgiving her. I forgive you for the things, I don't want forgiveness. What are you forgiving me for? I just, you know, so I thought it was, I mean, I really, really enjoyed it. I've now seen it three times. And the first time I saw it, I was a bit like, what on earth is going on? I didn't know. It was like, really? Wow. And then the second time, I think, I thought, you know, okay, now, you know, I'm getting more of the sort of

the serious undertone and the rest of it and the most recent time I watched it. I just thought it was hilariously funny. And it was very interesting that he says in that interview, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I read it. I knew it was a comedy because all of Lanthimos's stuff, you know, even killing of a sacred deer, these are darkly comedic in, um, you know, in their form. They have to hit you on an emotional level. They have to elicit a response that you can't resist.

I mean, I thought it was terrific. Simon? I felt, I admired it. I mean, I admired it and it's not, Lanthimos's films aren't for me, basically. No, no, sure. But I agree with that. It was uncomfortable, it was awkward,

it's twisted, it's divorced. And if Lanthimos is your thing, then you're gonna absolutely love it. But it's a bit like listening to some hardcore jazz. I can feel it. I appreciate it and admire the musicianship, but it's just, it's not what I would spend my time doing. Lanthimos said this thing to me.

I said, what makes you laugh? And he said, the awkwardness of human interaction, which is precisely chimed with what you just said. Precisely. And inevitably lots of award chat, so that's going to be head in that way. Mark, I was rewatching The Wolf of Wall Street just the other day. And I thought to myself, yes, wouldn't it be good to make all that money without doing, you know, all that bad stuff? It certainly would, Simon, without the bad stuff. Yes.

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Mark, would you say that AI has been one of the hot topics of the last 12 months or so? I would indeed say that, Simon. We've had writers and actors striking over the potential misuses of AI. We've had many films exploring the topic, including Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 and The Creator, among others.

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There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee and you'll help support our podcast. The link is in the podcast episode description box. The Holdovers, which is the new drama from Alexander Payne who was the guy behind the election about Schmidt, Nebraska and perhaps most celebratedly, Sideways. So this reteams Alexander Payne with sideways star Paul Jimati, who won a Golden Globe recently.

It's written by David Hemingston, who apparently drew on his own experiences of being at boarding school and from time he spent with an on-call and learning life lessons. So the film is set. It's weird because it's released now, but it's set at Christmas. And it's kind of odd that they didn't actually release it at Christmas. It's a bit strange. So it's set around Christmas, 1970.

It has the look and texture of a film that was made in the period in which it is set. Paul Giamatti is Paul Honum, who is classics professor at this university. And it's not the university, this elite New England boarding school. What did I say university? I literally just said boarding school. Barton Academy, he is disconsolate. He is misanthropic.

He's lonely. He views the students with a degree of contempt, although he's a great educator. But you get the sense that something has happened in his life and he should have been somewhere, he should have been in more glorious surroundings, but he isn't. And we see that he drowns his sorrows in alcohol. After failing to give one posh student an appropriately high grade to get him into the

university that he wanted to go to, the headmaster says, you know, his father's got money, he said, yeah, but he didn't get the grade. So he is then given the job of looking after the holdovers. These are students who stay behind at school at Christmas because they haven't got somewhere to go to for various reasons. One such is Angus, who's played by a Dominic Caesar, rising star in that Dominic Caesar, who was expecting to go home, but who learns at the last moment that that isn't going to happen, that his mom and her new partner

want time together. So he's not going back. So, embittered, angry professor, embittered, angry young student, and stoical head cook, Mary Lambert, played by Divine Joy Randolph, who won the Golden Globe for supporting actress and rightly so. She is grieving the loss of her son in the Vietnam War.

At first, the group bicker and fight, not least after a party which they have to leave early after things don't quite go as planned. Here's a clip. This is why I hate parties. That was a disaster. Total disaster. Speak for yourself. I was having fun.

Let's take Mary home, make sure she's okay, and we'll come back. Out of the question. Come on, would you give me a break? God, I was hitting it off with Elise. No, not Denise. Are you kidding me? This poor woman is bereft, and all you can think about is some silly girl. I don't need you feeling sorry for me.

See? I'm just saying. This was the first good thing that came with being in this prison with you. May I remind you that it is not my fault that you are stuck here. Do you think I want to be babysitting you? Oh no, no. I was praying to the God I don't even believe in that your mother would pick up the phone or your father would arrive in a helicopter or submarine or a flying saucer to take you off.

You see, I love that. I love the fact with that line about, I would end up praying to the God I don't believe in that your father would turn up in a helicopter or a flying saucer, my father's dead. Or a submarine, yes. And it's, in a way, so what happens is obviously you know, because of the, everything you're learning about the drama,

you know that what's going to happen is during the course of the drama, they're going to find things out about each other. They're going to discover through this kind of crotchety interaction of these people thrown together, each dealing with their own personal feelings that they are going to find some way of, you know, getting under each other's skin. So the format may be unsurprising, but there is nothing unsurprising about just how good and just how enjoyable this is.

I know this sounds like a strange thing to say, but it feels like the kind of bittersweet character dialogue driven piece that they just don't make anymore. If you walked into a cinema knowing nothing about this and knowing nothing about Paul Giamatti or anyone, and you just started watching it, you would think you were watching a film from 1970. I mean, it's not just to do with the look and texture of the film, it's everything about it. It's like the kind of film they just don't make anymore.

Do you remember when David Putnam said he was going to stop making movies directing me? Because he thought it was no longer possible to make the kind of mid-range, intelligent drama that wasn't, you know, it wasn't a big action blockbuster and it wasn't the tiny. And then he said that actually George Clooney was making the kind of films that he thought

you couldn't make anymore. The central trio, they're great. The performances are really, really good, really engaging and charming. At times it's hilarious, at times it's heartbreaking. It is never less than utterly engaging. At the end of it, and I saw it in a room with just a few people, I promised this is what happened.

The film finished and the lights went up and we almost in chorus all turned to each other and went why don't they make films like that anymore? Wow, okay. And it's so and I know and what I don't want that to make it sound like is because I don't believe in the thing about films aren't as good as they were because I actually think cinema is now you know probably as good as if not better than it ever was but there is something about the character dialogue driven, bittersweet,

you know, hilarious and heartbreaking, all those things. And it's just lovely. It's just absolutely lovely. So, Mark, we just heard interviews and reviews for Oppenheimer, Barbie killers of the flower moon, poor things and the holdovers. Which of those five films was your favourite? Well, as we've already established, poor things, although you and I divided on that. But it's going to be Oppenheimer. And that's that. So we'll look at the other films in the Running for Best Picture, although it's going to be Oppenheimer. The Zone of Interest, where Jonathan Glazer talked about the need for finding hope whilst making the film. Maestro featuring that incredible performance from

Kerry Mulligan. Why did you pause then? Because you've meant to say Bradley Cooper. But I actually thought that... Bradley Cooper. No, I'll do it again. Maestro featuring that incredible performance from... Bradley Cooper. Kerry Mulligan. Oh, yes. Your interview with American fiction's Jeffrey Wright, in which he explains why the film is so personal to him, and Anatomy of a Fall, which I think was one of the very best films of last year.

As indeed you said at the time. And also one of the best performances by a dog. Yes. In any movie. Exactly. And it was up for the Fido Awards. I think it may have been the Palm Dog winner, but it's definitely up for the Fidos. And we'll end with a joint favorite of ours, Past Live.

Which was my favorite film of the year. Our conversation with first-time director, that's first-time director, Celine Song, who spoke about the transition from directing for theater to directing for film, and how that experience has shaped her film. So here is Simon's interview with Zone of Interest director, Jonathan Glazer. A lot of the correspondence to us about your movie, Jonathan, has concentrated around the thermal imaging scenes. Can you just explain why they are so important to you

and why they're so important to the story. I was interested in meeting any survivors who were still alive and there were a handful of people who had survived the war. They were Poles, they were non-Jews, they were in their 90s at this point when I met them and some of them were members of the AK and the AK was the Polish resistance movement, so it was an underground movement. One person I met in particular, her name was Alexandra Bysadron Kolodzijczyk, forgive my Polish pronunciation. I met her when she was 90. She was 14 at the time of the war. She lived two kilometers from Auschwitz. Her grandfather was an important

engineer in the coal mine. As a result of that, the Nazis allowed her and her family to stay put, so that her grandfather could continue to work as an engineer in the coal mine, obviously, for them. And as a 14-year-old, she joined the AK as a child. And one of the things she did that she told me about was she left very simply, she just left fruit, she left food wherever she could and whenever she could. And often that would happen at night when the construction sites with the slave labour that was happening there during the day were empty. And she would go and do great danger of course to herself and she would leave as much as she was able to. So,

when I met her and she told me this story, it was something so simple and holy in that and it was so important for me personally to hear somebody who had, you know, to actually feel the light in someone that there was something other. It wasn't just this pure awful darkness. And I think I was really struggling with the project at the time thinking I was desperate for light. I wanted to, I needed to include it somehow. Where would I find it? Where was it? And I found it in her. And so I felt that I could only continue with the project if I was also going to show that. And so what you see in the film is Alexandra as a 14-year-old girl going about her nocturnal kind of cova activities that she did. And I shot it on a thermal camera because it's the thermal camera. So basically what you're

looking at there is heat, not light. And it came out of the sort of dogma for the filming of all of it really, which is I only wanted to use natural light. I didn't want to use film lights, but apart from one occasion where we used one film light, everything else in the film was shot with natural light or practical lights. In other words, if it was too dark in the house, then one of the characters would turn on a ceiling light or a desk lamp or something like that. I wanted to keep out all of the kind of artifice of filmmaking. So when I came to shooting a 14-year-old girl in a field of 1943 in the middle of the night, I couldn't suddenly bring in Hollywood light. And so it's really simply is, well, what is

the tool that I need to use in order to see her? And that obviously led us down the road towards thermal imaging. But it was all in harmony with the same sort of this 21st century lens of using modern technology, sharp lenses, you know, using everything, trying to make it as present tense as possible as a film and looking at that period through a 21st century iron. One of the things apparently Jonathan Glazer set cameras in the house. He described it as like in the way they would do in Big Brother so that when the people were acting in the house they could do a lot of it,

you know, moving around quite naturally within the house. So there's almost a kind of documentary feel sometimes to the way that the acting happens. But it's also a very, very studied, very precise. The frame is very particular. The way in which things are framed, it's not, there's nothing kind of casual or handheld about it. It's all very, very formal. I think the best way of describing it, it's like a study of looking away. It is a portrait of life going on in inverted commas normally,

side by side with something that is absolutely unspeakable. And I was reminded of, I went to Berlin, I'm going back to Berlin quite soon, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which is this strange thing when you walk into it, there are these low walls, like a maze, you walk in and the walls are very, very low down. And then suddenly the next thing you know

is that the walls are really big and you've walked into this thing that you're completely trapped by, but you almost didn't notice it was happening. And the juxtaposition of kind of quotidian life and unspeakable horror is what's happening in the film. It's also a portrait of kind of seeping, growing corruption that a man whose whole life becomes the simple mechanics of killing And there's a scene later on in which he talks about

You know he looked at a room of people and all he could think of was you know how how fast could they be could they be killed and It's a film about complicity and the I think the the fact of its horrible everyday quality Makes it even makes it worse. You know people talk sometimes about you know the banality of evil Which is the great for it. I don't know, people talk sometimes about the banality of evil, which is the great fact. I don't think this is the banality of evil. I think it's the kind of screaming, silent horror of indifference or callousness. And I was reminded of when Son of Saul came out,

one of the interesting things about Son of Saul is, because it's all shot in very close on the central actor's face, the atrocities of the camp, you do see them but they're glimpsed at the side, to the side of the frame and Claude Lansman talked about how that was a, you know, possibly a way of, you know, the fact that you can approach this subject through fiction and drama. And I think maybe it's, maybe you can only look at something this terrible from the side. You know, it's like sometimes you can't look

at something straight on, maybe looking to the side of it is actually more powerful. I do think it's really important that these stories continue to be told and it continues to be brought back into your immediate consciousness. You know, zone of interest is not an easy watch, nor should it be, but I think it is right and good that this story is being constantly retold. So the movie Zone of Interest, do you think it's the

kind of movie that will win awards or is it just the kind of movie that is nominated for? Well, I think it, best sound I think it does have a shot at because the soundscape is really, really designed. A is Ben Bailey Smith here, Substitute Taker and this episode is brought to you by Better Help. Now, a lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. If I had an extra hour slotted into my day, I'd actually get through a question, shmestians, you know, it's, I can never quite fit the extra shows in.

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unearthing daring missions packed with danger, deceit and double crosses. Follow the Spy Who wherever you listen to podcasts. Who's the piano player? Well, I figured you needed no introduction. Hello, I'm Lenny. Hello, Felicia. Bernstein, like that one. Montelegra. Montelegra? Montelegra Cone. Cone?

Montelegra Cone? Well, that's an interesting marriage of words. He's about to play the piano. He's about to play the piano, so that's a great idea. Yeah, there's something because they can't, they're none of the rights to the songs. No, that's not true. Biographical drama about then a Bernstein played there, as you heard by Brandon Cooper, who

also directs and co-writes. Portrays Bernstein as a brash whirlwind of contradictions, always on stage, always performing. This weirdly enough relates again to what Jason was talking about with Cary Grant, being Archie Leach playing Cary Grant, devoted to Felicia, but also chasing after men, big public conductor, but also private composer, huge success story who thinks that his success is failure. There's a kind of interview format, which again is not totally dissimilar to the rap around that you have in Archie. So it's almost like there's a kind of bipolar swinging between elation and despair. And just as he is like a collage of these things, so the film itself is a collage, very theatrical. I mean, it's as theatrical as Rocket Man, it's as showy as the greatest showman. There's a scene in which,

when something gets the call, that he is to conduct because somebody else has dropped out. This is a famous part in his career when he's kind of launched him onto the big stage. So we see him in bed, he gets the call, he comes out of bed, he walks down the corridor, boom, he's in the theater, which is like, do you remember the PF by a pic Laveon Rose,

which did a sort of similar thing. So reality and fantasy colliding time is shuffled around the film dances around its narrative and it's it's well done it's kind of exhausting and the film is very full on most of the time and I suppose that the theory that is that the character is very full on most of the time and his company is kind of exhausting and it's very much a kind of barrage of stuff. What you then have is the kind of the counterpoint to that is Kerry Mulligan who is Felicia who provides ballast not just for him but for us for the film. I mean there's one conversation that she has with him which she tells him that he sucks all of the air out of the room and she says if you're not

careful you're going to die a lonely old queen and there is so that's the sort of the sense of there's him doing all the stuff and then there's her being that this is you know this is where. So originally the project was Eamott Fiskessey, who went on to do The Irishman instead. He's now a producer, as is Steven Spielberg, who would also consider directing. But apparently Spielberg, after having seen Star is Born, said that Cooper, who was there to star, should direct it. I mean, the directing is adventurous.

It's very full-on, it's very theatrical. I have to say I found it quite hard to get into because it was so, so everything turned up to 11. There's also, you raised before, there's the question about the prosthetics and how one feels about that. And there was one critic who said, Bradley Cooper played the elephant man on stage without using prosthetics and how one feels about that. And there was one critic who said, you know, Bradley Cooper played the elephant man on stage without using

prosthetics. And why are you using prosthetics now? Obviously the famous stage production of the elephant man, which David Bowie was in at one point on Broadway. I personally, I don't have an answer as to whether or not the casting is legitimate. It was interesting to hear what Jason said about it, which I think the thing that he said about, I want to play as many characters as I can. He was referencing David Bedeal's book and saying there was some interesting points made in it, but he wants to be able to walk the full counter of whatever roles he can play. I think if there is a problem, it's nothing to do with that.

I think if there is a problem it is that the film is very much like a whirlwind. I mean obviously at the end you see some stuff of Bernstein conducting and you realize that the very theatrical performance that Bradley Cooper has been doing is uncannily close to what Bernstein actually did in real life. I mean, they literally, they're doing things about, you know, you think this was OTT, well, this is the actual thing and it looked like that. And he does look uncannily like Leonard Bernstein, although whether or not that's what you need from a biopic is, you know, is a matter of debate. I didn't love it. I thought it was impressive. I thought it was, and Kerry Mulligan is fantastic. She is really, really fantastic. And for me, of debate. I didn't love it. I thought it was impressive. I thought it was... and

Kerry Mulligan is fantastic. She is really, really fantastic. And for me, she was kind of the heart of it. But like its subject, I found it quite tiring. And the music was brilliant, of course, but then it's Leonard Bernstein, so. Geoffrey Wright. You said it's the most personal film that you've ever made. Just talking about the overlap of this family into the way everyone is going to relate to this film. But could you explain just a bit more about what you meant about why this was such a personal film for you?

My character finds himself at that point in his life where the youthful delusions that suggest that life gets easier as you get older are completely done away with. I found myself at that point when this script arrived. My mom had passed away a little over a year prior. I had the great good fortune of being raised by my mother and her eldest sister who's now 94 years old. And she came to live with me and my kids in New York.

The pandemic set in. As all of us, you know, experienced, there were enormous pressures by that, but also as well by the passing of my mom and the void that she left. And now the responsibility to be caretaker to my aunt whom I love dearly, it was just a lot of pressures all of a sudden being exerted. And so I understood the ways in which that asks sacrifices of a person. I felt a kinship with the challenges, with this character in the, you know, relative to the challenges that he faced.

And I also understood the pressures from the other side of the film, if you will, the misperceptions, the preconceptions, the attempts to limit his creative freedom. I don't complain. I think I've done pretty well in kind of circumnavigating those in my career. You know, I've done work that I love, proud of, but I understand the nature and the sources of those pressures. So yeah, there was a lot that I felt an alignment with. But what's wonderful about the film, again, going back to the family side, yes, there's

a universality to that. But also there's a universality to this idea of being misperceived. I think all of us in our own ways, at times, have not felt seen for our authentic selves. That doesn't simply relate to being a black man in America. That relates to being a human in any space at times. And so again, there's a universality to that side of the film and audience members who I've spoken with have responded to that, even if they don't happen to be black and male

as I am. I do have reservations, and here are my reservations. I think all that stuff about the publishing about you know that book being a success or I'm going to write this book I'm going to create this character is going to become a huge success. I think all that's good. I am far less interested when the film decides to broaden that palette and to become a more expansive and slightly tender family drama. There's a romance, there's the relationship with his mother, there's all this sibling stuff going in. And now look, the fact that the film has got a best picture nomination means that for some

people that broadening worked. Because generally to get a best picture nomination, you have to please a wide audience. So it's almost like, okay, we've broadened it out, we've got a best picture nomination, so Kermode, you can shut up because it's done what we thought it was going to do. The problem for me is that I think that all that stuff takes the edge off the stuff that I like. So the stuff about the publishing,

the satirical stuff is good, but it loses its bite. And it actually, if anything, even becomes a little bit trite when it gets into the other areas of just being a more kind of broadly humanist observational comedy. And I think what happened for me was I went in with very high expectations because I know a couple of people had seen it, really, really liked it and I liked the score very

much because I've been playing that on Scala. And I thought it started really well and I thought the cast were great and I thought all that sort of thing and then I think it loses its way. And it's kind of ironic that in a story about how in order to become a success you have to sell out, it's not that this sells out but I think it sells itself short by sort of moving off into these other areas which as I say hands up the film's got a best picture nomination. It's clearly working for some people. It worked for me and I think one of the reasons is he's such a button-down character. Yes. That it explains a little bit about his family, but it also crucially gives you a reason why financially

he needs to make this compromise. Yes, but I think that that is a plot point rather than a... Is there no point of you that thinks that the film would have been improved by being more about the publishing and less about the family? No, not necessarily. I mean, if it had been all about the publishing, I might have thought I'd like to know. I don't know. I just think he's such an intriguing character. I think he's great. And I think the performance incidentally is terrific. And when we did the thing for the Observer a few weeks ago about who should be nominated, yes, absolutely. Geoffrey Wright Sterling Cabra absolutely should both be nominated because what they do is terrific. It's more

to do with, I think, a format of the film that the film, to me, felt like it started really sharp and then became slightly fuzzy. You come here with maybe your opinion and you tell me who somewhere it was and what we were going through. What you say is just a little part of the whole situation. I mean sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost, no? And sometimes we fight together and sometimes we fight alone and sometimes we fight against each other, that happens. And I think it's possible that somewhere needed to see things the way you describe them. But if I'd been seeing a therapist,

he could stand here too and say very ugly things about somewhere. But would those things be true? So that's Sandra Hiller, who is German, who during the course of the film, speaks three languages, her own French, because of where she lives and and her husband and English, as you heard in that clip. And she switches between the languages. And the switching between the languages becomes part of the story, partly because sometimes she's trying to explain herself in one language, then moves to another language because it's

impossible to use that particular language to do it. And secondly, because it's to do with she's displaced, she's living in a country in which she is having to use different languages. And also because it kind of creates layers, cover, I think the word that the director used was it creates sort of, you know, masks that so you can't quite see who she is. So Trey and her writing partner, Arthur Ari, originally called this, when they first announced it, a hitch cocky and procedural thriller. The director also said she wanted to use the courtroom to explore the minutiae of a character and their relationships and that she was partly inspired, very partly, by the Amanda Knox case, by the way in which we bring assumptions to what somebody should look like and we make assumptions

about their guilt or innocence on the basis of how they present. There's also, and this has been repeated quite a lot, famously on the set, she refused to tell Sandra Huller whether the character was guilty or innocent. She said, I'm not having that discussion with you. This is the script. This is how it works. I think the film is brilliant. I thought that the ambiguity is sustained to the point that it really makes you question your own presumptions. There's something about Sandra Hall's performance, quite a part of her, that she's a magnificent actress, that she's on the one hand completely readable. I mean, you saw just from that clip, she looks like she is really struggling to construct that sentence right before you. You and I were talking about the way in which Obama,

you can hear the thinking, the thought that goes into the grammar of a sentence, but also something which is kind of removed, something which seems to be almost detached, almost emotionally disengaged. It makes you, do we vilify successful women? Do we, the husband was a writer, but he didn't have her success? There are subplots, there's a tape of an argument which she had with her husband, which her husband recorded. And he recorded it as inspiration for what he was writing. I was reminded of a story about Abel Ferrara, the director, recording an argument that he constructed with his wife because he was trying to write a script about an argument. The the theft of ideas or the alleged theft of ideas, a confusion over what the young child did here,

what he didn't hear, what he believes, what he doesn't believe. And the more you get into the detail, the more you realize that what's actually happening is, you are making a judgment based on, based on what you just think emotionally. And to me, that's kind of what the core of it is. I think to other people,

it will be about many different things. It's edge of your seat stuff. I mean, it's the Hitchcockian comparison is good, but I think it's more than that. I think it's completely engrossing. You can feel your brain firing on all cylinders, all the way through as you're sort of scouring the screen for clues and for, you know, I thought it was just terrific.

It's quite a long film and I never felt for one minute that it was anything other than exactly the length it's meant to be. It sounds almost old fashioned in the way you, you know, in a good way in its construction. Well making that Hitchcock in comparison, obviously, you know, people compare things to Hitchcock quite casually, as we know, but it is on the one hand, an old-fashioned courtroom drama, and on the other hand, it is a fantastically modern drama

about the way in which we judge people, the way in which we bring our presumptions to the table. Believe me, one of the films of the year loved it. ["The Way In Which We Bring Our Presumptions To The Table"] assumptions to the table. Believe me, one of the films of the year loved it. And that is a clip from past lives. It's writer and director is Celine Song. I'm delighted to say that Celine is in our studio. Hello, Celine. We were just discussing, which we weren't, but the, but the, but the final three minutes of the film and you, that's, that's the bit we're thinking, is that, is she, is that, what, anyway, and it was perfect. I think that the, but the film is meant to be a knife, and it has to finish the gesture. So I

feel like the ending is the thing that you're driving to. So there are some, a lot of things that even after I shot everything, I was in the editing room, there are things that I was letting go of just so that the sharpness of the ending would work. So I think to me it's like, if you, I mean, when we were shooting the final three minutes, I think that so much of that was very much like, you know, me running around set being like, it's like, if you, if we meant to mess this up,

the whole movie is gone. We have this right. You know, just mainly to myself. Is that what you were doing? It's funny because I feel like what I learned in the first film, and this to me, making the first movie, and I'm sure this is true for most directors, but it really was like a self-discovery or a revelation for myself.

It was such a deep and personal thing. I think it was a discovery that I am a filmmaker. And then I just, it feels like I, it's- Because you have been a playwright. Yeah, I've been a playwright for 10 years. So I think that I remember second week into shooting, I remember really going home and feeling like,

I think that I love met the love of my life. You know, and then you're like, I just know what I'm gonna be doing when I'm 90. But if we do this thing again about, this isn't a question, this is a statement. It is astonishing to see the level of confidence in a first film. I mean, I really amazed that somebody making

their first feature does it, manages to be as boldly in touch with the medium as you are. And it's lovely to hear you say, I discovered that I was a filmmaker because we're all sitting there going, yeah, you are evidently a filmmaker. Does the coming from the playwright background affected? I mean, the fact that you're obviously a writer first,

has that affected the way that you're a filmmaker? I think without question. And you don't have as many equipment or as many tools at your disposal, but you're just dealing with character, story, dialogue, blocking, just the most fundamental parts of dramatic storytelling. And then I think that those skill sets and those experiences

just came with me. The real challenge in that situation really to me was theater is a figurative medium. So time and space moves in a figurative way. And in film, it moves literally. So the thing that I usually talk about when it comes to like, what that means to me is if you want to set a story on Mars in theater, all you need is a room of any size with an audience.

And the actor just has to say, we're on Mars, you know? And maybe you want to do a little light change and it's a little red or something. And then you're like, hey, I'm on Mars today. And that's all you need to do to take the audience to Mars. In film, if you want to set a story on Mars, you have to build Mars or you have to go to Mars, right? So I think to me, that really was the hardest transition.

So I, but I think that one of the things that I learned, and this is again, this is the part where it's a little of a discovery that like I have so much more faith in the audience's patience in, in silence, for example, right? Or like their openness to listen to a conversation. And I think that that faith really does come from my work in theater. Cause I've been in a hushed room where people are just quietly waiting

for the next word to come. I was having this conversation weirdly last night. I did an onstage thing with Brian Cox and there was a discussion afterwards about how silence in theater is earned. You earn the space between things. And I think the same is true of film, that you earn the right to have those kind of the moments in which the audience, you're not having to talk to the audience.

And I've always said the thing about show don't tell. I think there's so much show don't tell going on in this film. There is one scene we won't spoil, but there's one scene in which two people don't say anything at all and the scene seems to go on for an unfeasibly long period of time. But actually, I think you would have picked up from the conversations about the space. There's a lot of space in this movie, the space between the characters. And it was a COVID film, but that's not the reason.

But they are standing a long way apart from each other. And when the Korean friend and Greta meet for the first time, they are standing a long way away from each other for a long time. And that sort of is almost like a physical manifestation of what you're talking about in terms of the silences that we have. Yeah. And I think that that, I mean, it was lovely, again, I mean, so in a way, so all the stuff I'm saying is stuff that we've already been told by the director. But when I said I love the score and I love the score in lovely, again, I mean, so in a way, so all the stuff I'm saying is stuff that we've already been told by the director,

but when I said I love the score and I love the score, in the same way that I love the Akari Shibashi's score for Drive My Car, the phrase that she uses that the audience have to want the music to come in for half a second before it comes in. And that sense of, it's the longing that you need, it's the yearning, It's the audience wanting something. Didn't you feel that you spent an awful lot of the movie wanting things to be manifested?

Well, I knew that you would be talking about the music, but I did. It was interesting that she didn't want to use the music to take you to a place. She wanted the acting and the story to take you there. So the film was kind of, the school was kind of filling in behind the story rather than actually leading the story. And that reminds me of something that, you know, Bill Forsythe said, I said, I was just back from Shetland and Bill Forsythe said this thing once, that every time I told him that I love the school

for local hero, a little part of him was heartbroken because he had this feeling that you use music when the film isn't doing the job that you put the music on. But actually what was being described there is the perfect use of cinema music is that it's not dragging you to a place, but when you're at the place it's amplifying what's happening. But it's amplifying in such an understated way. Seriously, this is a major filmmaking talent who seems to have arrived fully formed after an apprenticeship in theatre and you know, you are going to be hearing

a lot more about Selene Song in future. ["Selene Song in Future"] So Mark, we've now heard from the actors and directors involved in most of the best picture nominees, and we've heard your thoughts on each of them. Which film do you think will be taking home the prize on Sunday, Oppenheimer, and which film would be your winner, Past Lives? Yeah.

But would you put that over... Poor things. Yeah, would you put Poor Things over Past Lives? No, I mean, Past Lives... It's entirely down to you. You have... things over past lives? No, I mean, I've passed... It's entirely down to you. You have... If it was entirely down to me, I would go for past lives because I absolutely loved everything about that film.

I think of the ones that have got a chance of winning, I would go for poor things because I think the design, everything about that film is really terrific. Anatomy of a Fall, I think both you and I love, but we understand that it's not going to win best picture because Oppenheimer is going to win best picture. But my own personal best film of the year was Past Lives. And how lovely to see it in the,

I mean, you know, Celine Song said, what she learned making that film was that she is a filmmaker. And the fact that Past lives is in this conversation is I think victory enough. We hope you enjoyed this Oscars best picture special Let us know exactly. Let us know which film you think will be carrying home the statuette comes Sunday But if you're saying anything other than open home or you're wrong and will be in your years once again on Monday the 11th with yet another Oscar special thank God East is will be giving our immediate reactions on the morning after the night before.

And discussing Oppenheimer's win across the board from best director, best film and best actor. And how our friend Killian looked amazing and did his very good speed.