librarypunk - 131 - Close-Up (1990)

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Movie night again! We’re talking about the film Close-Up about a strange case of fraud in Iran surrounding a film director, made by a film director who was part of the events because he wanted to make a movie about it. The layers! Media Mentioned https://web.archive.org/web/20120322165628/http://www.projectorhead.in/one/closeup.html https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1492-close-up-prison-and-escape https://sabzian.be/text/%E2%80%9Cambient-genocide%E2%80%9D

The Wikipedia says it's one of the best films of all time. I noticed that. It's very, very encyclopedic of it. I'm Justin. I'm Skelcom Library, and my pronouns are he and they? I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library, and my pronouns are they them. And I'm Jay. I'm a music library director, and my pronouns are he him. Gender? What is it? Soviet Russia? All right. Big reaction from the crowd on that one. No guests. We're doing a movie episode.

We watched the movie Close Up. It's about a close-up. It's hard to explain exactly what the movies about in like a sentence. We just stared at one guy in a close-up camera for like 45 minutes and that was the film. Yeah. Is that play that Michael Gambon did where he was just like framed in his face? He had to stay exactly still and do all this acting. I've never heard of that. I've never seen it.

I have once again forced the podcast to watch an art house film. Yes. Well, it's one of the greatest films of all time, as Wikipedia says. Enrichment in our closures. This one admittedly is a bit of a stretch, But I'll make it work. Okay, okay. You have to speak into a microphone for it to work.

You can't look around the room. You're asking too much. I have the worst mic discipline. You know this. You literally just turned your head to the side as you said that. I didn't get my water. Right. This will be fun.

All right. What's this movie about Jay? All right. So close up is a 1990 film from Iran. that is more or less a docu-fiction about the instance of a man named Hossein Sabsian, impersonating or pretending to be to this one upper middle-class family, the director Mosin Mahmobov, and this reporter like learning about it and breaking the story and then his subsequent trial.

And it's by Abbas Kyrostami. and basically everyone in the film plays themselves. So it's not a documentary about what happened. And it's not like a Unsolved Mysteries reenactment kind of thing. It's like a fiction, like a drama film, but starring like a based on true story kind of movie. But everyone that the story is about, those are also the actors. They play themselves. And that is the very simplified.

version of it. Like, there's this, like, a lot of it is this, like, trial scene that is shot on 16mm instead of 35 millimeter, like the rest of the film. That is the, quote, documentary, quote, quote, quote, part of the film that, of course, is largely staged and scripted and influenced by the fact that there were cameras rolling. So, like, it's this film that, like, sort of asks us to question, like, how you present truth and reality and what those things even mean. Very similar to some other films that we've watched on this podcast. And that is the very short version of what this film is. So, yeah, like I said, it's directed by Abyskir Stami. All the film, people in the film play themselves. And some, like, cultural historical context, I guess, how much do you two know about

the cinema of Iran? Absolutely none. I know that a girl who walks alone at night was filmed in the U.S. Because I couldn't film it in Iran. It's an Iranian director. Yeah. That's a good movie. So media in Iran, both pre and post, the revolution, I believe, in like the late 70s, early 80s. Yeah.

Has faced like a lot of censorship, right? You know, does the film look favorably on the Shah? Or does the film look favorably on the Islamic Republic? or whatever. Famously in 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panehi was arrested and put under house arrest for attempting to make a film about the 2009 election, I believe it was. And he was forbade from ever making a film more like touching a camera ever again. And then having his son film on an iPhone basically filmed himself around his house talking about this movie that he would make and then snuck the footage on a USB drive in a cake to the Cannes Film Festival.

Even in this film, there's mention of them wanting to go to a theater further away to go see this one film by Makmobah, I believe, because it's the less censored version, quote, unquote. Obviously, from the West, the way that we hear about censorship in Iran is going to be very orientalist. It's going to be very Islamophobic, but also, like, censorship did and does happen. There was like a booming film industry, obviously, in the 70s and 80s, and still continues to be, but like the Republic was like pumping a bunch of resources into its film industry to have this almost like nationalist cinema, kind of. And that is how do we get the Iranian new wave. So lots of sort of national cinemas have a new wave. And famously, there's the French New Wave, which I'm not a huge fan up. There's a Japanese new wave.

There's a German new wave. And I like the Iranian new wave. Because when your national cinema faces various degrees and inconsistent degrees of censorship, what does or does not get censored, you start to like, start thinking about like, well, what does it even mean to like make a fucking movie, right? What does it mean to depict truth or to depict reality? Like, what does it mean to capture these things? And so, like, one of the, like, key things about the style of Iranian new wave is,

is this sort of documentary styling. Some people will call it Cinema Verite and then the inner Werner Herzog in my head is like, no. We don't like cinema verity. I mean, it's very inspired by Italian neorealism and stuff like that. I think it's, I think it's Jafar Panihee, but it might be Abas Kyrrissami

or might be Makamabah. I forget which. But there's like this one film that he was making with like a girl on a bus. And in the middle of a take, she's like, I'm done. I want to go home. and takes all her shit off and goes to walk home but still had her mic on. And so they left her mic on and kept recording her as she was like walking home. And that's in the movie, right?

So like that's kind of what's going on with a lot of Iranian New Wave is this sort of like interrogation of what it means to make a movie in and of itself. What does it mean to try to capture reality, whether that be in a documentary style or in a fiction style? I think is one reason I like it so much. And like I said, like, when I watched American Animals for the first time in theaters, right? I remember going like, holy shit, this is like close up because it has like the actual guys who did this in the movie, like, talking to the actors who are portraying them, right?

And it's blending this like documentary and fictional, like this dramatic style. Like, so yeah, that's sort of like the background of the film and a little bit about Iranian New Wave. And sort of why is this film the way that it, the way that's already just. So, all the listeners at home are probably wondering, why are we talking about this on a library podcast? Because we were bored. Well, yes. Didn't want to write an episode. Actually, I've got like three workings.

You're just not done yet. We've been busy. I, like with American Animals and F or FAA, and even a little bit, the Bernard Hart song, like, I want to, like, relate this to, like, more broadly, like, information and media literacy, as well as our contemporary media and news landscapes, and how those are being talked about. Because I feel like this film and the way that it is a film, and also the way that people talk about this movie, like, has a lot to say about a lot of stuff that's going on right now. I guess I should ask, what did the two of you think of this film, as it was your first viewing of said film? I liked it. I haven't seen it before. I don't. I don't.

know a whole lot about Iranian film. I don't know a lot about film in general, but I did like kind of snooping around while watching it and trying to figure out because I knew going into it that everyone is playing themselves, because you already told me about this movie. And I knew that there were going to be parts that didn't happen in real life and that it was mostly just going to be a fictionalized reinterpretation with the added layer of reality of all the people who actually it's about are the actors, but they're actually. playing themselves, which actually comes up in close up, a long shot, which was made in 1996, and there were interviews people in Sobsian's current neighborhood.

By this point, his son, his other kid no longer lives with him. So both of his kids are living with his ex-wife, and he kind of lives alone and just goes to the movies whenever he can and works as a bookbinder part-time whenever he wants the money. But he can... See, that's a library connection. Yeah. There you go. He's a very experienced bookbinder.

He just can't stop talking about movies while he works, apparently, because they interview his boss. And then people say, well, it seems like this is a con of him playing a nice person, which has also said in the movie close-up, when the family is asked if they want to withdraw their complaint, the younger son, who is more interested in film, says he's playing the part of a thoughtful person. And I think other people in real life in the 1996, well, highly edited 1996 short film because you see tons of cuts, especially when Sabzian's talking, because I think he tends to ramble. He's just like me for real. We're going to talk about whether this guy's autistic, because I am really sure he is. He's something. He's definitely something, but he's got a very strong special interest. He speaks in quotes constantly.

He talks about how he can't fit in with society and that people don't get him. He breaks up Tolstoy in court, which I thought was hilarious. I laugh every time. He's like, his Tolstoy said. Yeah. So he's, I don't know, he's an interesting guy. And I think it's totally possible that, you know, he is a compulsive liar, but he's also being manipulated by the people making the film, particularly.

Abbas Kirstami. Yeah, Kirstami. Because this guy doesn't seem to be all there. I mean, obviously, he can consent to be in a movie, but it could obviously be talked into doing this, even if he didn't think it would be very good in the long term. it seems also that his opinion about being in the movie changes based on when they interview him. So he's like, oh, that was great. My inner child was happy.

And then he's like, you know, I was being conned. And I didn't, you know, I fulfilled one of my dreams. And then he also says, like, you know, I didn't, I'm a victim of being manipulated. So he has, he's definitely interviewed at different times a day. So he's a very, you know, obviously interesting guy. But he gives a really good performance, which I find is very interesting because it seems like there are cuts. in close up that you can see. Yeah.

Like very obvious cuts that they didn't bother to reshoot. Yeah, they're almost jump cuts. Yeah. They're trying not to be, but there's like no way to hide it. And they don't counter shot, which again, I don't know why people don't do that more. They should just counter shot and cut away from the cut. But my critique of quarreters right now is they keep doing obvious cuts when they have two cameras. Cut away and then cut the audio.

And again, shot countershot, Charlie Rose. Come off. I've been doing this for 50 years. It's why there's two cameras. But I don't know. I documentary film was such a fun thing because like this is this is almost kind of true crimey in terms of oh this guy did a very petty but strange con where he just pretended to be a director because he's obsessed with movies and the only thing he got was like cab fare one time it's extremely petty like offense so yeah like i don't know if like in iran if like everybody lives in basically gated communities where like all of their houses have like gated yards and everything, but at least the neighborhood where the Ahakas live. Ahahsahs.

Yeah, my presentations bad on that one. They live and like behind gates and everything. They're very like obviously upper middle class. And they're like, this guy stole Monty Forster Capfair. Derry, put him in prison. Literally, he's in prison. Sadie, what did you think? I watched about the first half and then I took a break to do something and I actually went

over to my wife and was like, this movie is really boring. And I don't necessarily mean that as like a bad thing. I think it's just I really didn't know what to expect watching a film where people play themselves. So it's like obvious that they're not professional actors, but it's kind of documentary. So they're not supposed to be. And then it just throughout the film I just kept thinking like they're playing themselves. They're acting as themselves.

And like having like this weird like sort of like disconnect moment where I was just like I'm watching it. I have the suspension of disbelief that you have with. watching fiction and that kind of thing. And then I would be like, no, these are the actual people. But this might not be what actually was happening. This might actually be scripted, but how weird is it to sit in a courtroom and re-accus somebody that you did this for already who supposedly conned you and your family and just do it all over again if this is the way that it actually happened? So I just kept having those moments where it was like jogging back and forth between like, yes, this is fiction, but yes, this is also nonfiction in an interesting way. And like, so like while I was watching it, I was kind of like, okay, there's not a whole lot of plot here.

But that's kind of the point, right? So yeah, it was, I was really interested in the courtroom scene just because I know what cons look like a lot of the time. And the way that they kept asking him if he like intended on robbing the family or like what were his intentions and pretending to be this director. And he kept giving answers that weren't like direct answers. Because Kirstami scripted them. Is that it? Yeah. Okay.

Because I was just like, because that's a very con man thing to do. But knowing it was scripted, I was like, is this how he actually talks about this? Or is this, yeah, something like, or is this scripted to be, you know, more, more challenging than perhaps a straightforward, yes, I'm guilty of this. And he kept saying, you know, I know that this looks like fraud from the outside, but it wasn't from my perspective of things, which, yeah, I thought was a really kind of interesting way to put it because, but that's true for a lot of con, for a lot of cons too. It really is them playing a role and living it as if it is their lives to get something out of it, even if they don't necessarily know what they're going to get out of it in the end. So like, I think from that

perspective of whether or not a crime was really committed was interesting. I also think that they kept asking him if he was intending on like burglarizing the house, but at the very beginning of the trial, when he was like, I did not have that intention. I wasn't planning on stealing or burglarizing the house. The judge was like, yeah, you're not accused of that. Stop talking about it. But then they kept talking about it. And he kept having to be like, no, that's not what I was doing. But yeah, this is why you have a right to an attorney in the United States because you can't just throw an uneducated person into a courtroom and then bombard them with questions. Yeah, exactly. And Yeah, so it's like the younger son is behind him giving the story of what was happened.

They don't have a lawyer. You know, Sabzian doesn't have a lawyer. There was somebody off-camera asking questions. I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a lawyer or somebody else as part of the court. Is it the director? Okay. Yeah. Because, yeah, I wasn't sure what that was supposed to be.

But then they're like the judge is asking questions too. And yeah, it was very different than your usual court, like American court scene. Yeah. And I mean, like, is. Islamic law proceedings are different. They aren't in still very, like, democratic in a lot of ways, but they're like a 1400-year-old, like, law proceeding, like, trial system. I read in a review or something. But yeah, like, that scene, like, it looks like it's, like, documentary, right? Like, it looks like, like, oh, the rest of the film is, like, reenactment. But this part, you know, they had to, like, get his trial date move to accommodate the shooting schedule. And look, it's filmed on 16 millimeter instead of 35 millimeter, and it looks all grainy and everything. But, like, yeah, like, Kyrostami scripted a lot of Sabsian's lines. Like, I still go back and forth on, like, I always get, like, conflicting info on, like,

was that the actual trial scene, or was that a recreation of the actual trial scene? But regardless, like, apparently, like, Kira Stami, even in the trial scene, like, when it actually happened, scripted Sabsian's lines, and also worked with the judge to determine the verdict. Like, the judge was, like, influenced by the director. Apparently, the family was furious. And even Sabsian was like, are you sure you don't want to put me in prison? Because he was very religious, right? He was like, I should probably be in prison.

Yeah. And this isn't brought up in the wide shot short film. Long shot. Long shot. That, because in the movie, you see the trial gets moved up because he wants to get him of prison kind of as like, you know, a favor to him. And accommodate shooting. I thought that was a lie.

That was the excuse because he said, I'll do what I can to help. Well, maybe it was both. It was a convenient truth. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that. But, yeah, where did you read that the actual trial itself, which we don't see because that footage is just like gone or something or they just didn't want to use it, that the judge was influenced in the actual trial? I put it in the notes.

It's close up, prison and escape. on Criterion.com. Also, I made a note that in Longshot, they go to Sobsian's, it's not really a house, it's more like his room. And he has two books, which is the Quran and making films on Super 8, which is very funny. Yeah, it made me laugh. Because you just see the subtitles that's like, Holy Quran, making films on Super 8. And that's it. That's his two books in his room.

See, we want to go to notes. One other thing that I thought was really interesting was because the con was he was pretending to be this director. Yeah. And he told the family that he wanted to. use their house as a setting for his next film and told, I think, both of the sons that he wanted them, he wanted them in his, in the film. And he told one of them, the younger one, I think it was that he wanted him to star in the film, right? And during the scene where they kind of like, his arrest is like reenacted. And he was at their house when he was arrested. And the journalist was present

and taking pictures and that kind of thing. But right beforehand, he's talking to the younger son. And he's like, don't forget we have rehearsal. So like the son also obviously, like, He was also interested in film, as was Sapsion. And, but here they are in a film talking about making a film that wasn't going to happen. And also, they ended up being in a film. Yeah. So I was just like how much of this, like how, and near the beginning, I think the father says something about like, I did this to teach my family a lesson, implying that like his family was too easily conned by the idea of being in a film. So it makes me wonder how much influence that had in the making of it.

Like, we'll put you in a movie and you have to play yourself in the movie, but you have to play yourself being conned in the movie about not making a movie. So it was just this like, I just wonder about the motivations of the people that this happened to and why they chose to make this, like, why they chose to be in a film about this crime that was supposedly committed against them, right? Yeah. I don't know. I just thought that was just like a many layers deep. sort of like meta docu-fiction kind of thing. Like, did the younger son go on to be in anything else? Did Sapsion? Did either of them do anything after this when it came to film? Because they obviously really wanted to be in a film somehow. I thought that that part was interesting. It was messing with

me while I was watching it, I guess. Yeah. And Sabsian says in long shot, you kind of have to watch both these together because it explains so much stuff about like Sabsian's personality. You get to see him not doing lines. You get to see him talk. And he was saying when he was in the house watching Kiarostami direct them, he's like, that's exactly how they acted when they thought I was the famous director. And they were listening to me and they cared about what I had to say. And more importantly, no, what he said was that, like, the way he was directing them was the same way Kierostami was directing them, that they were directing them the same way. Like, same style and everything. He's the kind of guy who would just say that, though, I think. Yeah, like, if

So obviously, like, in part of the opening credits, which I love a movie that takes, like, 16 years to get to. It's, like, title card drop. Love it. Love it. But it says, like, you know, starring as themselves. But, like, did you know that they would be playing themselves before that moment? Or, like, how much of just that title drop, like, card, like, appearing as themselves, like, influenced what you knew about the movie. Like, that doesn't make sense. But, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, I think I knew that they were playing themselves before I started watching the movie. So I don't remember if it was Justin or if it was because I pulled up the Wikipedia article and skimmed the first couple of paragraphs. But yeah, no, I knew that was happening going into it. I think I mentioned it in the American Animals episode because they go off on like an Iranian New Wave tangent. And I was like, yeah, in this one movie, they played themselves. Listen back, listeners. Go back. See if we did bring it up. Who knows? see. So I guess like one thing about this film that I like that this film I think in and of itself interrogates and that like, because like movie people

love to focus on the like movie aspect. Like you know how like Hollywood loves a movie about Hollywood right? Like in the Oscars if you make a movie about movies and it's like let's get a win. Like filmmakers and like movie people love a movie about movies. And so a lot of

the like reviews I looked at and criticism of this film talked about like the meta-film aspect of it. But what I'm much more interested in and is not necessarily like this film as like a meta-commentary on filmmaking, but more like the presentation of truth and reality and that like how that affects how we like interpret it and like perceive it. Like for example, the fact that the trial is shot in 30 in 16 millimeter, but the rest of the film is in 35-fil-meter. How much of that is a budget? or whatever other else choice and how much of that is aesthetic.

Because that grainy or grittier, low-fi look of 16-millimeter looks, quote, more real than the 35-millimeter, which looks like a movie, right? It also historicizes it. It looks like what you would be able to bring into a courtroom because it's like lower quality and it looks more like film of the time because it was, you know, I guess it was only like a year before. all this actually happened. They made the film like a year after the actual trial, which is wild. It's similar to this article.

Someone just put it on my timeline and I just read it. And it's about the film that just came out, Zone of Interest, which is like the Holocaust film. That's not really about the Holocaust because it's about like the Mueller family or whatever who just live. It's like a camp director of Auschwitz. And he lives in this like middle class house. And this article is all about like a historiographical. He's basically saying that the film is doing presentism because it's creating this dissonance through like its formalistic elements, which I don't. I'll buy it, but I don't really care that much about formalism.

But, you know, well, the film is like zone of interest. If you haven't seen it, it's filmed entirely with like hidden cameras. Like all the shots are static. It's like literally like a reality TV show like Big Brother. In fact, the director said it's like Big Brother. And all the lenses are modern lenses, so it doesn't look more historical. You're not separated by time from it. It's what it would look like now.

It looks like a modern film because it's shot on modern equipment. They don't do any color grading or anything like that. And he's saying that creates a dissonance, particularly like the soundscape, it creates a dissonance between like what the movie is trying to say and what it's trying to make its audience feel. And it shouldn't have done that if it wanted to portray the Holocaust correctly. which, you know, it's arguable if that film is using the Holocaust as a metaphor in the first place about something else, which is quite possible because it doesn't really seem to be focused on the Holocaust. It seems to be focused on the present era. It seems to be using the Holocaust to say, like, this is what your life is built on, right? This is what it, this is the violence that undergirds your middle class bourgeois fantasy. I mean, the director did say in his, like, Oscar's speech that, like, he renounces the fact that, his, that like, the director of Zone of Ventrish is Jewish. And he's the guy who did Under the Skin, which is another great movie you should go watch.

But that, like, he renounced Judaism and his Jewishness being used to justify what's happening to Palestinians, basically. And it's basically been kind of blacklisted for this. But, like, yeah, that's what the movie's, like, about, kind of. Like, the end of the film is, like, this really unsettling sequence of present day in the Auschwitz Museum of just the janitorial staff. cleaning and just like showing like and this is intercut from the Nazi dude like doing a thing and then he like gets sick and then it cuts to present day and it's like them cleaning in a film about like these hygiene conscious Nazis being like children was we're in the river with like jawbones oh no like this hygiene and cleanliness like this oh we have to have this perfect clean sanitized

middle class life that doesn't exist without you know what he was doing in Auschwitz right right And so, yeah, I would argue that's the point of that movie. Right. The reason I brought that up was I wanted to talk about like TikTok authenticity, like how people hold their microphones, even if it's like not the mic they're using or does it need to be held because it looks more authentic as if you are just like, hey, guys, I had to tell you about this. And like I'm holding my my earbud microphone because that's that looks more authentic. It's the same thing where like there were models who take selfies. but they're using like a good camera. So it's literally a picture of a mirror.

It's not a selfie. It's not a mirror selfie. They're using like another camera. They're not using a mirror. The camera's pointed at them. They're holding a camera. But it looks like they're taking a photo of a mirror, but they're not. They're taking a photo of themselves holding a phone.

So it just looks more casual. So there's like this authenticity of TikTok. And I want to bring it up because like that authenticity is also used to because TikTok is like a war weapon now in terms of propaganda for like both. the Israelis and Palestinians who are trying to document like their lives or spread propaganda, which really doesn't hit outside of Israel, which is something Israelis don't seem to understand, like that kind of stuff is normalized in Israeli media. And then once everyone else, he says, they're like, what are you doing? There was a tweet that was like,

Paul Berhoeven really hit it on the head when he had all the people and Starship Troopers dancing around and celebrating on the bug planet. Watch Starship Troopers. Good movie. But anyway, the authenticity in the film is really interesting because, like, the change of the film grain is used to manipulate the audience into thinking this is more true. And that's also true of, like, any kind of media you're going to see now, why is that decision made? Why is it filmed on what it's filmed on? Why is it shot with the cameras it's shot with? Why is it framed the way it is? All of these things are tactics to manipulate you.

And, you know, I don't go on about information literacy a lot because I feel. like it's like attacking a wildfire with like super soaker. It's really disheartening work. I love, like, I know people get really, really into it, but ultimately, like, the funding to do that kind of programming comes from the government and they're only going to fund things that, like, are ineffective. Right. Like literacy for what kind of information? What kind of literacy, right? Like, I was speaking of like the TikTok thing, like, you know, there's the whole like Zionist myth of Polywood, which is that all of the videos we see on TikTok. and Twitter of literal, like, dead children and stuff and, like, people documenting, like,

attacks and all sorts of stuff of, like, you know, how many, like, dead people I've seen on Twitter today, you know, like, literal real. I was like, I didn't know, you could show that kind of shit. This is literal, like, oh, my God, like, and, like, a Zionist propaganda myth is that, like, that is all a filmed, like, that in and of itself is filmed propaganda, that it is fabricated, that it is made up, that it is, like, Hollywood, right? And so it's like, we do. don't believe the literal, like, avalanth of, like, real footage we see that, like, these actual people are filming of what is happening to them and then sharing on TikTok and Twitter and stuff. But then, like, you know, on, you know, not even Fox News, like, on other, like, more quote,

if we think of that stupid chart of what media sources are, like, you know, that we go on about, like, what are the reliable media sources? You know, it can't be too left, can't be too right, got to be in the center, like, good CNN. Like, you know, like, you know, when you go on there and it's like, oh, yeah, no, this is totally where the terrorists were, look at all their names and their ships. And it's a calendar because they don't expect the people watching this to know Arabic, right? It's like, we'll believe that because it's on the news, right? And it's like filmed by like reporters and stuff, but then we don't believe. it's like certain things will show authenticity except for when they don't, right?

It's like we don't want to believe this because it's coming off of a phone, but we'll believe the news because that's the reliable source. How many times have you been like even like remember being in like high school or something and your teacher or a librarian being like, well, if you're on the web and you need to cite sources, you probably can't trust something at a dot com website. But if it's dot edu or dot gov, oh, that's probably reliable then. Like, that's horseshit and we all know it, especially now. But yeah.

People would also say that about what's the other domain that's not dot com? Dot org. Yeah, dot org. Because that's organizations. Right. Dot org costs, I think, the same as most dot coms and anyone can get a dot org. It's my first choice whenever I can't get a dot com is I just go to dot org. Well, and speaking strictly to that, like, I don't remember how long ago it was,

but they basically said, you don't have to prove that you're like an EDU or that you're an organization to buy a dot org or dot EDU, right? So they just basically kicked any sort of authority of those top level domains to the curb by saying anybody can register for any of them for any reason when that's not what they were intended for or how they had been done to begin with. But how many people would realize that, right? So there's the definite line of where it was authentic and where it stopped being able to be authentic. And nobody even fucking registered that that had happened because it was such like an under the radar change. I think.edu actually got more strict and that if you had, if you had an dot edu, you were grandfathered in, they wouldn't take it away. But then they got more strict about it. So academia.edu, which is just a company, it's a social media company for academics, was grandfathered in.

but it's not an EDU or it's not an educational organization. It's just a company. Okay. Maybe it was just the dot org then. Probably dot org. Because you can definitely just go by dot org right now. We should get library punk.org to prove a point. Maybe.

I mean, also the government agencies also use dot com all the time because people remember. Dot com as like the default. So if you have like a Medicare website or like campaign websites. Yeah. Well, campaign websites are like not, they wouldn't be dot com. Gov. But I mean, like, the government will create, like, this is where you go. And it's like social security.com or something or like social security check.com or something because that's just what people will use, which is insane because like just put out, like put out ads on the TV that just says,

if it's a government website, it's dot gov. Put it on PBS. I don't know. Put it on C-SPAN. IRS.com. I mean, yeah, it's all the time you will get redirected to a dot com on a government website. And there's really no argument for it as to why that should be, except that it's, I'm sure there's a reason, but I don't think whatever it is is probably a good enough reason. Yeah. I feel like this is also like,

is a fucking AI, like becoming like also relevant, again, because it's like, how are we teaching people to recognize what is or isn't AI when they're on the web team? Like I remember, and you know, this is anecdotal, so don't,

you know, H-Bomb, don't yell at me. But, like, seeing that someone who was autistic, like, was denied a job or an opportunity or something because the people, like, they were writing, the emailing to thought that they were writing the emails with AI because of just vibes, I guess, like, because of the tone of the email, because they were autistic, right? But then people will, like, just without question sometimes, believe stuff created by chatbots. And, like, what's the art one? Mid-Journey. It's any kind of, what's the word, combative? Gan, Gan generated images.

Generative adversarial networks. Yeah. And, like, you know, even sadly, I saw, like, a Palestinian reporter sharing a, like, like AI image. Like you remember like the Let Rafa Live AI image that was going around Twitter and then like there was one recently of an attack and it was like two Palestinian boys like carrying a cart full of like watermelon slices and people were going like this is AI like you know you're making yourself look less creditable by sharing these things or

even creating them in the in the first place. And so it's like you know what now are our markers of authenticity when AI is happening. Like, you know, I mean, already a lot of writing sucked because of grammarly before AI was in it. Yeah. Also, like, Chad GPT was trained mostly by humans who worked in Nigeria. So a lot of the way that ChatGPT talks is Nigerian formal register of English, which uses some words of people like, aha, that sounds like, sounds like GPT because it's using

this word too frequently. And then that would then lead to Nigerian people getting confused. with chat GPT because they use those words more frequently and their register of English. So the bias has been kicked into the way that the language is spoken by the people who are going to train it. Yeah, like at my conservatory, about two-thirds of the students are not native English speakers. And it's not like a research institution. So they're not doing a lot of writing, but the writing that they are doing, sometimes

the professors are like, this is obviously they put this into chat GPT. How much of it is just them putting stuff into Google translate, though? You know? Like, that also sounds tilted. Yeah. I feel like Infilip for AI is just a losing battle. And I know we had guests on to talk about Infilip for AI. And I wanted to believe, but I don't.

Particularly a lot of people that I follow on Twitter are making fun of those Facebook viral images, which is like people walking the ocean holding the giant Bibles. They're like cops usually. And then like the words are misspelled. So it's like holy dibble. And I don't know why they're always walking in the ocean. It doesn't make sense. But they're like holding a giant Bible, the kind I saw on like the special collections

at my Catholic University, like huge like liturgical things that no one even uses anymore. I don't know why. But the way, the reason those images are so popular, because everyone makes fun of them because they're funny. But the reason they're popular is because they are a screening test for scammers. So they'll put them out there for particularly pious old. people who will then respond to it and say like, you know, amen or whatever. Yeah. And then the scammer will say, you know, God bless you. Thank you so much. You know, I'm having such a terrible time. And then

they engage in a conversation in the Facebook comments. And they say, by the way, you know, I'm having really tough time. You know, anything you can do helps. God bless. That sort of thing. Or they start doing like drop shipping. Yeah. And it's the same sort of like Nigerian print scam, which is you're filtering out people like the reason the grammar is bad is to filter out people who are going to catch it and you want people who are not going to notice that something's a miss. And so AI just is a new vector for that attack. I'm not even sure it's like particularly more efficient for scammers. I mean, I'm sure it is. But, you know, I just feel like a lot of this stuff is going to become too expensive for people to use for free because it doesn't make any

money and it's extremely expensive. So I'm hoping the problem kind of goes away on its own because generative AI is shit and it can't do anything useful except scam people right now. That includes investors. So, yeah, I mean, we were going to see, like, verisimilitude created by AI, I think, you know, probably like it could be like color grading. It could be adding in people that look more authentic or changing the footage in some subtle way that's going to, again, manipulate you. And you have to be aware, like, why is someone doing this whenever you're watching? Like, what's the intention of them sharing it with me? Just be a little more cynical about your life. I think you should go through life being more cynical. That's my takeaway is you should just distrust why anyone does

anything, particularly when they're trying to convince you of something. Including us. Yeah. Don't believe us. What are you doing with your life? Through hacks. Yeah. Start your own podcast.

Live your life. Get a hobby. Fall in love. I'm just thinking of when I'm trying to Hartsog, like, thinking about, does it fall in love? Does the robot fall in love? Do you love the robot? That's kind of hilarious because I just watched X Machina for the first time a couple, like a week or two ago. Good movie.

Yeah, really good movie. That one, that one stuck in. my brain pan for a couple of days. It's one of my wife's favorite movies and they were just like watching me watching the film and I would go, but what, but wait, why is, but what? And they would just be like, I knew that watching, I knew that watching this movie with you is going to just be so much fun because I'm one of those assholes that talks to the TV and says all of my dumb thoughts allowed. So it was just a good time had by everybody. You're just a tabless fucking dance floor. Yeah, right. Oscar Isaac is so good at that movie.

God. Like, I kind of don't care about the rest of it. It's like watching Oscar Isaac. Just being insane. I didn't see shit. The director is the guy who did that new shitty Civil War movie with like footage from actual Nazis. Yeah. Again, media literacy.

Like, you know, what is he, what is the point of that movie and is the director dumber than you? He is. Yeah. It's always a good question to ask. Good movie, dumb director. Not Civil War. X Machina. Civil War apparently is a bad movie.

People are so torn on it. It's, I feel like it's another Joker situation where people are like, no. Listen, it's a good movie. And other people are like, this film's the shittiest shit that was ever shit out of an ass. And I'm like, yeah, I guess you just got to watch it for yourself and see how you feel about it because I like Joker. I know a lot of people hated the shit out of it.

Maybe I would like Civil War because it's a bad movie. I love bad movies for no reason. Jesse Plimkins or Plymins are not Phillipsymore Hoffman. He looks just like him. It's apparently like fun and gay and evil in it. I like, he feels like pink sunglasses. Yeah, especially with like how the Open AI guy. Sam Altman is obsessed with the movie

She, I feel like I need to watch it. Her. She? Her. Oh. Oh, because we were listening to Misfits the other day. Okay, her. She slash her. Okay, she slash her. What's funny is that Sam Altman is gay? It's not like ha ha, funny, is it? A little.

Because he's so obsessed with like, Scarlett Johansson. It's all gay men are. I was supposed to say, is that what makes him gay? Maybe. You're like a woman, a hot woman, gay? You're fucking yeah, bro. In conclusion, maybe, unless say he has that thing. to say. Iran's land of contrasts. And like, Iranian New Wave, like, was interrogating these questions and stuff. And, like, this film came out in 1990. But, like, Iranian New Wave started

in, like, the late 60s. And I feel like it took American cinema or, like, Hollywood, um, a while to catch up. Because even things like Italian neol realism and French New Wave, like, those were meant to, you know, do the whole cinema verite thing. Like, oh, yeah, we're going to depict it. So it looks real. you know, because that's where the truth is, but it was still all fiction, right? It wasn't playing with the, like, documentary thing, the way that, like, Iranian film started doing. And, like, I wonder, like, how much of our willingness or unwillingness to, like, interrogate documentary and other, quote, unquote, sources of truth is to do with just, like, this kind of culture, right? Like, in Iran, apparently, like, this is very, like, part for the course of, like, this is how you interact with media, right? You're supposed to do weird shit like this.

In the United States, we're like, oh, the true crime documentary is obviously all true because it says true and the true crime, right? Like, that's the true crime. And when being told true crime, if it weren't true, right? As Anne Rule sits on her piles of money and exploitation, sorry, I have strong feelings about Anne Rule. Who's that? She writes a ton of true crime, like, shelves upon shelves, and she clearly. She knew Ted Bundy really well when they met in passing. And yeah, different podcasts, different episode. Yeah. I mean, I like this. I'm the weirdo who likes like Soviet realism, which even my professor was like that, no one likes this more than the other stuff you read.

And I'm like, this is great. I love Soviet realist film. I love Soviet realist literature. It's great. It's aspirational, God damn it. That's what I like. It's like a Jeremiah ad for socialism. And that'll get a sensible chuckle out of like three of you. But yeah, that's, I mean, if you get the Criterion version of this movie, it's got a lot of specials, and it's got the long shot film, which I definitely think you should watch along with this. I mean, it's probably also out there in other ways, but I would definitely recommend watching both of them because Sabzian is an interesting character, and it's nice to actually see him not acting. And what's fun is that that sort of interest article, like review your reading was in a film magazine called Sabzian. Yeah. Named after this guy.

That was just pure coincidence. I read it this morning when I couldn't sleep. And then we watched the movie. And then I was like, let me go get that article. I'm thinking about it. And I was like, wait, what was the name of that guy in the movie? And yeah, that was up to him. Very strange.

Weird synchronicity. All right. Well, thank you, everybody. Go watch a movie. Movies are good. Mm-hmm. Good night.