The Big Picture - A ‘Malcolm & Marie’ Meltdown With John David Washington and Sam Levinson. Plus: ‘The Sound of Music,’ Finally.

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

Sean and Amanda celebrate the life and work of the late actor Christopher Plummer, including a discussion of his most famous film, ‘The Sound of Music’ (0:47). Then, Sean is joined by ‘Malcolm & Marie’ writer-director Sam Levinson and co-star John David Washington to discuss their controversial new Netflix film, which was written and produced during the COVID-19 pandemic (59:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: John David Washington and Sam Levinson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're your friends and we've got some good advice Before you let him break your heart, you better think twice I'm Sean Fennessey I'm Amanda Dobbins And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Malcolm and Marie and Christopher Plummer Later in this show, I'll be joined by Malcolm and Marie writer, director Sam Levinson And co-star John David Washington to discuss their controversial new Netflix film, which was written and produced amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. But first, Amanda and I will celebrate the life and work of the great Christopher Plummer and talk about the hubbub surrounding Malcolm & Marie.

It's all coming up on The Big Picture. Amanda, we lost a giant over the weekend of film acting, of theater acting, of television acting. Christopher Plummer, what was your relationship to the great Christopher Plummer? One of the first leading men in cinema that I ever had a deep connection to. This one was personal you know I like we don't really need to um equate like great celebrity deaths or whatever but you know sometimes there are pieces of art or people whose work uh influenced you at a very young age and uh it will surprise no one on who listens to the big picture to know that the sound of music was that for me so this was like a real I yelled oh no and in our house. And my husband was like, what happened? It's sad. Just

one of the greats, truly, to me at least. Yeah. Massive career, much bigger than I think I had even considered. He's the sort of person who you would hear talked about in reverential and historical terms. But I think I underestimated just how big his career was. He was a three-time Oscar nominee. He won sort of somewhat famously in 2012 after a long wait for his performance in Beginners, which is a wonderful movie. You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life? I have a confession to make. When I first emerged from my mother's womb, I was already rehearsing my Academy thank you speech. But it was so long ago, mercifully for you, I've forgotten it. But I haven't forgotten who to thank. He's a winner of two Tonys. He's a winner of two Emmys. He was on television for years. He's frankly one of the signature

Shakespearean performers of the last 60 years, which I think the range and depth of his work on the stage and particularly performing the great figures of Shakespeare was a little bit unknown to me, honestly. And looking back and reading through his career has been fascinating. As an actor, he's such an interesting presence because on the one hand, he was, as a young man, such a beautiful man and such a striking presence. And yet he's not necessarily best known as a leading man. What kind of an actor, how would you describe him as an actor and as a presence? I mean, charisma times a thousand. And it's interesting.

I never saw any of his Shakespearean performances, unfortunately. But when you put that in the context of all of his film work, it's very clear. Shakespeare is what he took seriously. Not that he didn't take the other seriously, but that is the great drama and tragedy. And that informs his screen presence, which just has a little bit of like a relaxed ride. Like, isn't it funny that we're here doing this vibe, which I just find intensely appealing. But, you know, he uses that attitude in a range of roles and types of movies over like, what, 60 years. So it's, he can do anything,

but again, has that kind of star quality of just like being a little amused on the side of whatever frame he's in yeah he does seem to be sometimes operating outside of the parameters of whatever movie he's in which i agree is such a funny thing he's some somehow both regal and refined but also you know a little bit condescending the way that a king can be condescending and youending. And he's notoriously considered somewhat aloof in the 60s and 70s, I think, particularly because of his performances, Captain Georg von Trapp. And The Sound of Music is an interesting text. It's an interesting document. Listeners of this show know that I have not seen this film, or at least I had not until this

weekend. And it had been a bit of a running gag between us. And it's interesting to see it. So should we have a quick conversation about The Sound of Music? How expansive do you want to go here on this film? Sure. I mean, I didn't know that you were watching it until I got this document. So just share whatever you would like to about it. You know how sometimes you hear about something your whole life and you never get a chance to experience it. And then sometimes you experience it and you're like, okay, that was, I get it. I get it. That was the experience I had with this movie. I don't think I had like any really emotional relationship to it. was completely I saw what

people saw in Christopher Plummer in the movie I think I very much understand his charm his appeal the kind of greatness of him the movie is obviously very much centered around Julie Andrews's character and that struck me as one of the weirdest characters I've ever seen in a hit movie I don't really understand Maria like at all all um i certainly understand julie andrews like magnetism as a screen actor i understand the the shape of the story and the setting and the kind of majesty and of course every song in the movie is basically a pop hit that has been carved into your mind even if i hadn't seen it in this movie before. But what is going on with Maria? What is motivating that character?

Who is she? What is she? Where is her pathos? It's a very odd movie based around this woman. Yeah, it's interesting. If you see the musical Sound of Music, like the stage play after having seen the movie, you're just like, what is going on?

And that was my experience, right? I was handed Sound of Music, I think at three or four. And this like Sound of Music was to me what Wizard of Oz was to you. Like, I was just like, oh my God, there's like a whole world on the screen and all of these things. You know, Julie Andrews is like a singular generational talent

who means also a lot to me. And so she and Christopher Plummer both are given like pretty mystifying characters based on a true story. And, you know, the musical itself is based on Maria von Trapp's memoirs, sort of, but they amplified a lot of it. Specifically the part where Maria and the captain actually fall in love. I think in real life, she was just kind of like, I don't know. I like the kids and like he did a job. That makes sense. You know, and it does make sense. But on the other hand, the chemistry between Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer is like so exciting,

even in that weird song in the gazebo, which they wrote for the movie. And that was like, always the part as a kid where I was like, I don't really know what's going on here. I'm going to go make a snack. It's been two hours two hours um i don't know as characters they're just people in weird circumstances and then they find their way out through the power of song i don't know she's not much of a character she's just chasing her dream like the you know reverend mother taught her it's like it's they're very broad lessons in the sound of music yeah i couldn't figure out if the the film was anti-church, you know,

if it was sort of insinuating that perhaps a life away from faith is somehow worth pursuing. No, it's not that deep. And also it's not because like the best part of the movie is when Reverend Mother I have sinned. I too, Reverend Mother have sinned.

And then it's, you know, they took the random car parts. God bless. Okay. Interesting artifact. It's probably the most famous historical film I had never seen. Yeah.

And I certainly get why there's not just a cult, but a massive amount of appreciation. It was just a little saccharine for me too. I think it's a movie that comes basically right before the new Hollywood arrives and you can feel that the new Hollywood is basically responding to the sugary sweetness of this movie yeah though i think that's unfair i think like this is sugary sweetness that works and then there are all the movies that got made that were like garbage version of this like this is incredibly well made and just like the set pieces like the doremi all through salzburg are you kidding me that blew my mind as a kid like they can just you can just dance in multiple locations around europe and they're gonna film it but listen you're like

a 38 38 year old man watching this by yourself in your home like i i'm guessing after midnight i was i was joined by my wife i'm not a total sociopath did she make it through the whole thing or did she fall asleep she fell asleep but then completed it the following night and she said that was okay that was good. She seemed to enjoy it. Okay. But you know, this is a movie that is on ABC every Christmas. And I like,

it is part of like a holiday tradition that I watch it at the same time every year and have since I was a small child, there are like singalongs, you know, there's, there's like a culture around sound of music that is, it is experienced like as an event which sort of mitigates some of this sweetness I think like some of it is just how you watch it and whether you're a three-year-old put

in front of the tv or whether you're re-watching it for nostalgia purposes like that gets rid of some of the more ridiculous aspects but yeah I, I mean, it's a family entertainment. Like it's on Disney Plus, isn't that right? It is on Disney Plus and that is where I watched it. Yeah. It's a very, it's obviously a really important artifact in the career of Christopher Plummer, not just because it's the most famous screen role

that he ever had, but you can see him making the decisions of his career almost in adversity of that movie, almost rejecting the kind of celebrity and fame that a movie like that courts because he wanted to be taken, it sounds like, more seriously than that movie would have provided, even though it gave him so much exposure. And so when I think of him now, I think of him as one of the great supporting actors, and not the kind of Captain Von Trapp, stiff upper lip leading man, guiding his children and his wife

over the hills and into safety away from the grasp of the Nazis. They took a train IRL, just so you know. Oh, interesting. They didn't actually walk through the Austrian mountains. No, but every single time I go hiking now, I literally flash to those scenes. That's how embedded they are in my... When know, when Maria's doing the interview and she's like, the hills kept taking me higher and higher. I just like kind of think about that

as I like keep walking on like really small, like pieces of dirt in Southern California. There's something really interesting about the way that films from the 40s, 50s and 60s, especially kind of like traditional dramas end, which is we imagine that they end with two people kissing

and then a title card that says the end. But frequently they end almost in the middle of a moment. Like in this movie, I feel like the movie ends just as they're kind of scaling a mountain and they're atop a mountain and then the title card comes up. And I was like, so we're done. So did they get away?

Like what? They did. They found a hotel in Vermont. Is that true? Yes. Oh oh my god where's the sequel it's not as exciting okay i mean that sounds great um i made a quick list of my favorite plumber performances uh i think that for modern audiences the movies that he's best known for beginners which i mentioned he won an oscar for playing the the father of ewan mcgregor's character who comes out as gay and you know sort of playing the father of Ewan McGregor's character

who comes out as gay and sort of at the end of his life reconciles with his son in a meaningful way. Beautiful movie. Really highly recommend that Mike Mills movie. And then The Insider, I think especially for listeners of the Ringer Podcast Network, big movie, Michael Mann film about Lowell Bergman's pursuit of a story about the tobacco industry on 60 Minutes. And Christopher Plummer memorably plays Mike Wallace, but he does not impersonate Mike Wallace. He uses that regal bearing to essentially play a famous person who thinks highly of himself. And he is so damn good in this movie. I don't know if you've rewatched this movie recently, but it is Plummer at his best. I rewatched it a couple years ago, and I meant to look up this exact quote,

but just the who told your little fingers that they were able to edit me or whatever it is. Chubby little thing. Anyway, iconic. Yes, that in addition to Mike. Mike, try Mr. Wallace. Those are the two great moments from his speechifying in that movie. A couple of other movies. I saw a movie called The Silent Partner in December.

I can't say I would recommend it to you, Amanda, but it is a very exciting and interesting and clever 70s crime movie made in Canada, set in the sort of world of bank robbery in which Christopher Plummer plays one of the most evil men I've ever seen on screen. This is a terrifying performance from him. He makes a great villain. He also makes a great villain in Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country, which for some reason I decided to watch last night. And he is playing a Klingon general who quotes Shakespeare repeatedly. It is a delicious, weird performance in a movie that

is way better than it has any right to be. And then the other last one that I watched was Murder by Decree, which is really one of the coolest Sherlock Holmes movies ever made, directed by Bob Clark, who made Black Christmas. And it's a much more generous portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, who's usually kind of a preening drug addict asshole. And Watson is usually doing all the work. And this is a slightly more open-hearted portrayal of Sherlock Holmes holmes um what you have any plumber supporting acts you want to cite i have well there's one main which is the last station in which he plays tolstoy and i have very fond memories i believe this is 2009 um but you know one of those like focus or sony pictures or one of them where it was just like me and a bunch of seniors together in like a theater on a Sunday afternoon watching a movie about Tolstoy starring Helen Mirren and James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti.

So that was great. And he gets to be Tolstoy and just like yell about art and love. Why not? But one of the kind of like of a certain age, this point in my career roles, obviously Inside Man, which is one of my favorite movies, really. One of the movies I rewatched the most. And he's playing with the sound of music,

Shadow for sure in that one. And he also has a very small role in Malcolm X, but I like that he's just a small recurring character in the Spike Lee world. Knives Out, a classic, great stuff. Don't know if you caught the Ana de Armas caption in memoriam of Christopher Plummer. It was very sweet, actually, with a lot of behind the scenes photos of the two of them in the attic. But, you know, he pops up in a lot of things. I'd forgotten that he was in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a movie that I still have not rewatched in full since trying to rewatch it before a movie draft and being like, oh, my God.

But just quite good. I know it's you have to be at the right time. Yes, quite dark. Not 9 a.m., but a lot to discuss there. He was also in Siriana, Dolores Claiborne, and of course, the famous All the Money in the World, in which he filled in in the last minute for Kevin Spacey and was nominated for an Oscar, I think just for showing up and being great on short notice. But that's okay. Yeah, it's great. It's kind of late approval. The Last Station, that first film you mentioned, was his first Oscar nomination. And he was in his 80s by then, I believe. And so maybe late 70s.

And so this often happens with a lot of actors who don't necessarily get recognized for some of their strongest work in the first stage of their career. And then they get sort of over-celebrated for work that may not be as important, but feels like a necessary kind of recognition as people reach the end. The thing that I like is that great directors liked him and he liked great directors. Just think of those movies that you just named. Spike Lee, David Fincher, Rian Johnson, Ridley Scott. He worked with Terrence Malick in The New World. He had good taste and good taste found him.

And that's how you make an amazing career. Seven decades on stage on screen pretty amazing great actor it did strike me though does it feel like we're losing more people from his generation than we normally do maybe we just have more awareness of death and obviously covid19 is is threatening the lives of people especially those who are elderly but the the nonagenarian and the octogenarian luminaries of hollywood in the last year the numbers just seem higher than normal to me and it's sad like oh time is going by so fast that we can't even recognize some of these people on the show but i i made a very short list of people that i could think of off the top

of my head who have died in the past year and you, you know, Cicely Tyson and Hal Holbrook just last week, Cloris Leachman the week before that. We talked about the great Sean Connery, Diana Rigg, Wilford Brimley, Olivia de Havilland, Carl Reiner, Ian Holm, Fred Willard, Shirley Knight, Brian Dennehy, Max von Sydow, Kirk Douglas, Buck Henry, all of these people we've lost in the last 12 months. And some of whom are among people who, and Christopher Plummer was one of these people we've lost in the last 12 months, and some of whom are among people who, and Christopher Plummer was one of these people, that you would look at their age and be like, wow, this person is, they're still around, and they're still working. This person's 90.

Kirk Douglas was 104, I think, when he passed away. So maybe I'm just, I have a little bit more awareness of this than I normally would. I think it's that we have a little bit more of awareness, both just because of how media works and also because we just look at media all the time now because what else is there to do? But also, we are catching up in age to kind of the older generation. So like 10 years ago, if the greats, the 90s, like the senior senior class of Hollywood was dying, you know, I maybe had familiarity with one or two of their performances and knew them, maybe knew a couple of stories, but didn't have the connections that I think we do to a Cicely Tyson or to a Christopher Plummer. We grew up with this generation a bit more. And so you're more aware of them just because you're more familiar with the work.

Yeah. Just pop in a Christopher Plummer movie tonight if you can, because you can hardly go wrong. Even in the junky stuff that he made throughout the 70s and 80s, he's just always having fun. You can see that there's a glimmer in his eye in all of his performances. That's the great Christopher Plummer. Let's go to a different kind of passing. I think the passing of the celebration of Malcolm and Marie happened over this weekend, which is a new Netflix film. This is a fascinating document. Amanda, I will say of all the movies that we have talked about during quarantine, I have looked forward to this conversation with you the most. And there are a great many reasons for that. This is a complex movie and a complex document of history. You want to give us some of the specs on how this movie came to be?

Yes. So this is one of the first in quarantine produced films. It was written by Sam Levinson. The legend goes at Zendaya's behest after production of Euphoria season two was halted. And it was written and directed by Sam Levinson, starring Zendaya and John David Washington, and filmed in a beautiful house. We will talk more about the Caterpillar house later. Don't worry. And it was filmed in quarantine

and then acquired by Netflix for $30 million. So this was a, I guess there was a big bidding war for this movie. It's a movie that we have probably referenced more times than any other movie we hadn't seen on the show over the course of the last year. And Levinson, of course, is the creator of Euphoria. He's a director of a couple of films before this, one in particular called Assassination Nation, which plays significantly into this story. This is a movie about a young up-and-coming director and his girlfriend on the night of the premiere of his big new film. And they return to that Caterpillar house, which I guess has been rented by the production for them to occupy during the release of this movie. and they descend into relationship hell they engage in a series of disagreements

fights rage-filled soliloquies over the course of a night in that beautiful home it's inspired by Levinson's failure to thank his wife and producer Ashley Levinson at the Sundance premiere of his last film Assassination Nation and you know it's a very it's a big broad movie that is all conversations that are essentially discursive about art and intent and ownership and criticism and love and addiction and a lot of big heavy themes it's drawn some comparisons both positive and negative to who's afraid of virginia wolf to the work of john cassavetes to a lot of films about this sort of nature of confinement. I thought of Richard Linklater's tape a couple of times as I was watching this. There are a number of movies that are like this where two people are stuck together and they ostensibly have love and affection for each other, but they tear

each other apart. And that's really what this is. The style is notable. How would you describe some of the stylistic choices in the movie? Aggressive. It's very stylized. It's shot in black and white by Marcel Rev. There is a very obvious and on the nose, but I still think pretty good soundtrack, including songs like James Brown's Down Down in New York City. I Forgot to Be Your Lover. A great scene to get rid of him. The Dionne Warwick song. including songs like James Brown's down, not in New York city. I forgot to be your lover, a great scene to get rid of him, the Dionne Warwick song and more.

This, this songs do some of this storytelling while also kind of filling in some of the fact that this is like two people in a house, just like talking for almost two hours. Obviously we mentioned the Caterpillar house, just absolutely beautiful. If you like watching a movie in a design museum, this will at least scratch that itch.

And it's shot in order to both enhance the house and also kind of bring in some of the sculptural and design elements of the house itself. The camera's noticeable. The camera's doing a lot of tricks, which again, two people in one house, like one location for two hours, you got to do something, I guess, to enhance the intention. But that is definitely happening. So it's really obviously stylized. Yeah. And Marcel Rev, who you mentioned is a collab frequent collaborator of levinson's on euphoria his hbo television series i'd like to talk about euphoria

a little bit in the course of this conversation as i watch that show and i'm a fan of that show and it'll be interesting to see who is and isn't watching that show with regard to the conversation around this movie but the performances are a huge part of it because as you and I are want to do, we love to talk about movie stars. I think Zendaya and John David Washington over the last three years or so have emerged as really exciting people at the center of movies. And so just the prospect of this movie seemed like a huge deal. Zendaya has worked with Levinson so much over the course of the past couple years making Euphoria. And she seems really comfortable with what he does, with what his style is.

And we'll talk about what his writing style and the performance style that he's after and what the content of what he wants to explore in a little bit. But I thought she was really impressive in this movie. And if this movie has gotten any awards buzz, it has been primarily for her. She comes out of the Disney system and she is probably best known at this point for appearing in Spider-Man movies. But I think she's an actress with a lot of depth, someone who is eager to disassemble what it means to be emotional. I think a lot of female characters are forced to engage in the imagination of male writers, and that is often unkind, unfair, a little bit ill-informed. I think between Zendaya, and you see this specifically in Euphoria, and a little bit in this movie too, I can feel Sam Levinson and Zendaya working something out together about what they want to say about an

experience. And I think she's damn good in this movie. And I really like watching her. And it makes me excited about what she's going to do in the future. Yes, I agree with you. I think you can feel her familiarity with not just the writer, but the type of writing. And the sense that she knows how to deliver this type of dialogue. And also that Sam Levinson kind of knows how to write for her and knows her capacity a bit more.

The character just like is more of a showcase, which I still think it's like maybe the less developed character we can talk about that. But it's a character in reaction to the main character. But she gets to do both kind of like the big over-the-top stuff and the smaller vulnerable moments. There is like a range of emotions and things that Zendaya gets to express over the course of the film.

And I think she's very good at it. She really does know how to handle this very wordy dialogue and kind of these very upfront emotions. And she also, you know also has that presence and can communicate the emotion and the swing of things without the words. Yeah. She has a kind of bluntness in her delivery, like a bubble popping kind of quality when she speaks, where you realize that she is trying to take the air out of somebody else's expectation while also trying to honestly communicate how she's feeling. And it's, I mean,

it feels as much like it feels born of her personality in a way. You can almost see her in real life having those affectations. And if they know each other well, obviously, you can write to that. John David Washington, he plays the filmmaker. And well, let's just say that this person is carrying a lot of water. This character has to do a lot of work and how much of that work is particularly autobiographical is something we will definitely talk about. But he has a tough job,

John David Washington. Huge fan of his. We praised him over and over again as we talked about Tenet. We praised him for his work in Black Klansman. Obviously, this is the son of Denzel Washington.

He knows from whence he comes. He's got a lot of experience and understands how the star system works, how Hollywood works. He has many a lot of experience and understands how the star system works, how Hollywood works. He has many a monologue in this movie. I enjoyed his athleticism. I think he is sometimes a little bit ill-served by the writing in the movie.

Yes, 100% agree. I mean, he just has to say so much. It's like the monologues just keep going. And he is definitely giving them at a sprint the whole time. And that's a choice. But you just kind of can't believe that there is more to be said at some point. And I place that on the script and not his performance. I think he also is not given room to really fluctuate in emotions as much, which is, again, the script.

And a little bit the character and, I guess, a little bit the arc of the movie is that this character is supposed to be all ego and bravado and stubbornness and doesn't get to do anything except just puff himself up for the majority of the film but it yeah he seems tired let me ask you a question before we get into the specific details of the writing do you think that the john david washington character is the villain of this movie well i think villain is a tough word i think and we kind of just like have to talk about the writing and the structure of the movie while discussing this. So we can just segue into that. But, you know, I think maybe the movie's point and depending on your perspective, it's flaw is that he's wrong. Like he's just wrong. Like that character is like very clearly wrong and no spoilers. But the entire structure of the film centers on him just like being wrong.

And what, like in the argument, at least like these are two people having a fight and just like one person is just wilding and incorrect the whole time. And it's like, and, and you can both feel that exasperation, which is possibly the point. But also when you're watching a two-hour movie at some point, you can just be a little exasperated. One of our friends shared a TikTok. I wish that I remembered the creator's name of someone pretending to be Malcolm and Marie's neighbor. And just being like, I already texted Marie being like, you can come over. Like, he's still going.

Like, he's just. And that is definitely a reaction. But I do think that the movie knows some of that because it's about the Malcolm character and trying to get that Malcolm character to the place of being able to say, spoiler, thank you. Yeah. So whether he's the villain is really a question of how self-aware the film is and what sides the film wants to take and or how much you want to project your own experiences in a relationship and or dating an egotistical dude onto the film.

But I do think the film knows he's wrong. Villain versus hero is obviously a simplistic binary. And I only ask that to kind of provoke your thoughts specifically to understand how we see the movie. Because the way that we see the movie is intrinsic to the experience of the movie, because there's so much conversation about the movie and critics in particular have really reacted for the most part very negatively to this movie. And the reason for that is in the writing, the film is not just like say Faces or Shadows or A Woman Under the Influence or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,

which are these emotionally volatile, heavily written, theatrical style stage play executions of intimate stories. Those stories are about love and confusion and frustration and the differences between men and women often. They're not really about film criticism. And this movie, in some cases, is about film criticism. At certain points, it is only about film criticism, and it is not about the relationship between these two people. In many two or three intervals of the movie, Malcolm has lost the thread of the conversation about his relationship and has plunged into his own narcissism while thinking about his work as a writer-director, thinking about the reception of his movie, thinking about the way that other people write about him and what the expectations are of him. And you could certainly make the case that it hurts the movie by sort of moving the needle away from Marie and solely onto Malcolm's acrobatic speechifying. You could also say that it clarifies what you're saying, which is that Malcolm is wrong, that Malcolm is in his own head,

that he's selfish, that he's narcissistic, that he can't see the forest for the trees of his own experience in life. And it underlines his frailty. You have to be generous, I think, to do that. I will say when I watched the movie, that was how I saw the movie. And that was why I certainly did not have the same reaction. I'll just say right now, I liked this movie. I thought it was a kind of provocation that I enjoyed. I thought it was actually pretty funny at times. And is it overwritten? Yes. I've said that probably a few times on this podcast now. It feels like a movie that someone had been waiting five years to write, but wrote in one night, if that makes sense.

Yes. Yeah. Listen, I liked this movie, too. I have some notes, which we are about to give at great length. And I know that that is a sentence that strikes fear or anger in all the people in my life and also probably the writer-director of this film. So fair enough. You know, you have, sure. I'm happy to answer for whatever I say, but I did like it.

I think execution matters. And a few of those speeches that are provocative and opening ideas that are definitely interesting to me as a person who thinks about film criticism and also just like who likes to watch people argue, like you know we can explore that or not um but there is a they just go on for a very long time like editing matters how you write something how you construct it how you construct a fight how you develop those characters how you express the motivations how you ask for the audience patience and for how long and how much you put people in discomfort versus

like you know intellectual simulation all of that matters and i do think to your point about it just being written all in one night this feels like very like first dump draft at times right and there is like a first dump drafts are great but that's not the one that you should file to the editor just fyi some free writing tips. Yeah. I think I like the idea of this movie being unvarnished and being an independent production. This is something that they all put together. Even the general budgeting and financial aspect of the story is interesting. Obviously, there was a lot of COVID-19 safety protocol around it, but there's also a kind of revenue sharing agreement amongst all of the producers and the people who participated in this movie who who risk their health honestly and it's an

unusual arrangement that has been you know that on the one hand sounds like chuffing the people who made this movie who are also like mostly wealthy or at least employed and not necessarily focusing on some of the more negative aspects but i did think that this was a unique example of kind of sharing the wealth. And the criticism has been primarily pointed at the filmmaker, the person who wrote and directed and conceived the movie. Now, on the one hand, if you subscribe to the auteur theory, makes a lot of sense. He's driving this. On the other hand, you've got a lot of people involved in the making of this movie, primarily two movie stars with a lot of agency. And so I have seen many a piece of criticism that has said these two deserved better.

Zendaya and JDW deserved better than this. And, you know, it's like they wanted to do this. They liked that. They love they love Sam Levinson. They love this script. They want to make this movie. They believe in this movie. And so there is a refracting confusion that comes with some of the narrative around movies like this yeah absolutely i think we have to complicate it

further and i'm sort of annoyed that i have well i'm not annoyed because i think these are important things to like discuss um you know a couple of complicating factors in the fact that to add to the fact that zendaya and john david David Washington are like two movie stars they're producers on the film they are like very much involved and talked about that um this movie is like very clearly inspired by the director's very personal experiences and he has spoken about that and you already alluded to it we talked about it yeah yeah and so once you are making it a personal film and it's speaking to specific issues, in certain cases, specific freelance critics, I think it raises the standard of scrutiny right there. Because if you have made this about like your own experiences then it's we're no longer like reading into intentions that maybe aren't or aren't there it's it's kind of been stated that they are there um and then i do think that we

have to point out that this is a white writer director who is using a black character to interrogate questions of politicization and identity in film criticism. And many reviews have pointed that out and it is certainly worth talking about. It is worth talking about. So in the film, there is a quote unquote white lady from the LA times that is referenced over and over again by the John David Washington character. There's been some assumption that that is specifically about a white lady

freelance critic from the LA times who reviewed assassinationination Nation, Sam's previous film. We're in really murky territory in terms of intent, in terms of how personal this story is. It's very obvious. He's already kind of copped to the failure to thank his partner at the premiere of the movie as the inspiration for the movie. The first thing i asked sam was how much more of you is in this and he's somewhat demurred you know i think the unwillingness to identify the specific details it keeps the movie um i think simultaneously makes the target bigger on it but also makes an attempt to inoculate it from a certain kind of criticism i would say that that attempt did not work critics have really come hard at this movie. I haven't seen like a pan fest, a fuck you to a movie like this

in a while. And that is an interesting reaction. On the one hand, critics like people in many, in many, I guess, professions stand together. And I think the idea that someone was attacked here meant that a lot of people, especially people who knew the person who was ostensibly being identified, were like, fuck this. No way is this guy going to get away with this. Also, and I said this to Sam in private,

and I believe it, and I know from whence I speak, the only people who are more thin-skinned than artists are critics. Critics are the biggest babies in the world. And I say this self-flagellatingly. I am very sensitive. I don't like to be criticized. And critics, a profession that in many cases is very imperiled by the state of the way that culture is consumed,

the rise of fan culture relative to the merits of criticism, the way that the media has been completely distorted and somewhat destroyed over the course of the last 20 years, the way that the media has been completely distorted and somewhat destroyed over the course of the last 20 years, the way that the internet has annihilated people's idea of what is and is not good and what is and is not quality thinking. Critics obviously are under fire

in a meaningful way. So a movie like this feels like an even stronger attack than it might have 10 or 15 years ago. On the other hand, I still think that the Malcolm character is a buffoon. And all of this stuff that he is saying in the movie is not, no one's thinking like, we should really celebrate this man. He seems to have a good handle on how to be a decent person, a good partner, and a solid artist. He's an asshole. And so I've been

trying to sort my way through the vitriolic reaction to the film relative to what I think the film is actually trying to accomplish. And it's not easy to do that. I think another thing to point out is that the Zendaya character does spend a lot of the time being like, Malcolm, you're an idiot. And also hear all the holes in your argument and all the things that you aren't considering. I, you know, there were a lot of people, particularly on Twitter, taking the bait. And there is like the bad faith discourse. And then there is like the thoughtful discourse. And I think the movie encompasses both and the criticism encompass both.

There are some really, I think there are probably like a couple, not a couple, a few like cheap elements of some of the Malcolm score settling stuff. And I think people like rose to that. I think there was also some interesting ideas. And there are also a lot of critics who I respect who are pretty thoughtful about this. And we're like, listen, this just feels a little underbaked and that you know i like responded to x y and z and in 2021 all of that gets mixed together in a really unpleasant unnuanced stew and so we can't have rational conversations about what works and like what doesn't work to your point about a white writer putting his thoughts into black characters. And then, you know,

I've seen the word ventriloquized used quite a bit to discuss this movie. This is a very complicated, we may not be the best people to necessarily even have this conversation about what is and isn't acceptable in this space. I do continuously think back though to the idea of John David Washington and Zendaya.

And JD said this to me when we spoke. He was like, I kind of needed to give Sam some notes, some cultural notes to make sure that the way that some of this stuff was being communicated felt authentic to a character like this and felt authentic to someone with my experience as a person. And so there is, again, a kind of murkiness here in terms of who is allowed to say what and how, who is empowered to write a story about a black filmmaker talking about only being compared to Barry Jenkins or Spike Lee or John Singleton and not compared to, as his character says, William Wyler or a filmmaker like that, a white filmmaker who doesn't come from necessarily

the same lineage or isn't identified in the same way historically in cinema. And I don't have a definitive opinion about this. I mean, I don't like the idea of saying that Sam Levinson can't write a black director. I do think him trying to launder some of his potential anxieties is messy and not necessarily a good idea. And so I do feel a bit stuck. My reaction to that, though, is not to say, fuck this. And it is interesting to see a lot of people say, who have much different experiences than I am, who are not white men like me, saying, fuck this, I reject this.

Yeah, it's interesting. I thought, it's really complicated. And I would only add that my initial reaction to, it's a question that needs to be raised. And listen, I also was like, huh add that my initial reaction to, it's a question that needs to be raised. And listen, I also was like, huh, I have some questions about this while watching the film. I think you absolutely need to be thinking about this. It was interesting to watch people completely eliminate both Zendaya and John David Washington from the discussion. On the flip side, Sam Levinson gave some I gave an interview in response to some of the

criticism and I believe his response to this issue was you know I trust Zendaya and John Dave in Washington as collaborators to tell me when I'm out of line and I I think that's probably true and I think that also raises kind of a sticky issue about power dynamics between director and and actors which even in a more evolved setting, I do think you need to be aware of like who's in charge and what you're asking people to do and what people are going to be comfortable doing. So, you know, again, I like, you don't really have the solution to this at all, but it's, I, I, i i would i wish that there were room for more conversation about it i do too i think that the the intensity of the dismissal on both sides can is basically

destroys the opportunity for that conversation i think looking at levinson's work in context here is important um assassination nation was a quote--unquote very hot movie out of Sundance that was an over-stylized, explosive kind of satire. That was very much the purpose of that movie about the kind of shock and awe of a youth culture and an older generation's failure to understand what was happening in that youth culture. And the movie takes a lot of wild turns. And it's the classic movie that I think most people that I knew who saw it said, 40 minutes of this worked so well for me. 40 minutes of it was okay. 40 minutes of it was terrible, you know?

And Sam has received that criticism on all of his projects. Euphoria, on the other hand think is not is almost the opposite it's the same container which is to say it's about the life of teens in a confusing and technology addled period of time but it is a much more sensuous and similarly emotionally explosive but um sincere kind of a story and a little much more carefully executed. And the idea that it's a TV show, I think is really notable here because it gives the chance to take its time to tell some of the stories of the characters. Now, there has not been a lot of criticism of Euphoria about who gets to write the stories of, say, a trans character like the one that Hunter Schaefer plays on the

show or a young black woman like the character that Schaefer plays on the show, or a young black woman like the character that Zendaya plays on the show. I think for the most part, even though the show is fairly wild and got a lot of notoriety for seeming very transgressive and provocative, it seems like people have acknowledged that there's a kind of sensitivity to some of the storytelling. And so there's sort of an inversion here with Malcolm and Marie, which is not a satire and is not necessarily a sensuous drama either. It's like, it's a, it's a fight movie, you know, it's a showdown movie. It's a, it's an intimate portrayal of a relationship, but it's full of rage and confusion. And so he's made like three different kinds of things that are all basically the same thing at the same time. And they've all received

different kinds of criticism. And let's add on top of the fact, I think it's probably worth mentioning that Sam, of course, is the son of Barry Levinson, who's one of the most successful filmmakers of the last 40 years in Hollywood. And so along with a lot of this criticism comes accusations of privilege and an abuse of his own privilege and a lack of awareness of what it means for him to be him. I never know what to do with that criticism. The history of Hollywood is riddled with people who are related to each other, who were frankly were great at their jobs. We just watched Mank, Joseph Mankiewicz is Herman Mankiewicz's brother. He definitely got his foot in the door at Hollywood because he was Herman Mankiewicz's brother. He also wrote and directed

all about Eve. I don't think anybody's likee mankiewicz should be ejected from hollywood so this is there's so much complication in these conversations i would just point out that john david washington is denzel washington's son and i love him and like the five five minutes when he's dancing to james brown at the beginning of this movie i was like great just sign me up I also just want to say like it's all the interstitials in this movie like the the music and or when he's trying to figure out how to get past the LA Times paywall and the bit with like the my credit card isn't saved and all of that stuff was just like electric to me and suggests like a different movie that I think just plays to like other people's strengths in a way that I,

like, I would have liked to see it. And again, you know, I, I am interested by the movie we got, so it's fine, but you know, it's funny like to watch the balance. And that just kind of suggests me again, that like some things work and some things really don't. And that's true in most, most movies. And the things that don't work here are like very hot button things or things that really anger people because they're critics and they're protecting their jobs and or things that are really valid like the decision to have a black character you know be airing out your own personal grievances about an assassination nation review which like is that a great choice just on the specifics like no let let it go. But anyway.

I think you made a really good point, which is that I think the movie is often at its best when it's focused on the small things, when it's quieter. You know, I think the let's make some mac and cheese after a long night of partying is a great touch. And the way that that shot is very fun and very and frankly, very sens sensual that's the sexiest looking mac and cheese i've ever seen you know the idea of having a fight while your girlfriend is in the bathroom and you're yelling at each other from room to room that's a very real thing that's what happens in relationships that credit card moment that you're talking about when he's sitting there you know the idea of like very um uncreatively picking the literal interpretation song to play as you're in the middle of a fight. This is something people do. They look to art to channel their emotions. I like all of that stuff. I think Sam has a very careful eye at times for capturing

those moments of intimacy and reality. And it is at a fascinating contrast with all of this yelling about William Wyler. Yeah, I am also just interested in the, specifically Euphoria and Malcolm and Marie conversation because it seems like there are a lot of people who really love Euphoria for, take out the critics and the William Wyler of it all, but for the same reasons that they like Malcolm and create Marie, like beautiful, hyper-stylized, a lot

of like hyper self-aware emotional declarations. This is how I feel at this moment. Like this is the, you know, kind of like block test text lessons from therapy. That's another one of my notes. Like the real problem with this movie is that most therapy sessions are only an hour long and that's a reason for it because two hours is a lot. But, you know, like that style of dialogue,

that style of character development, that style of filming something has been really successful with a lot of people. People love euphoria. I will be super honest, euphoria, not for me. I can't really speak with it, about it with authority because I have only seen a couple episodes because I watched it and I was like, you know, this is not my interest. I took away from that that most people just like to kind of like to watch teens like doing drugs and getting into problems. And I like to watch sexy adults arguing. And that's just kind of like the main difference here but it I I would be curious to talk to people about how they kind of reconcile those two things because you know I think euphoria is probably more polished and kind of this this has the feeling of we were

in quarantine and we were in a house together and we like wrote our, all our feelings down and we filmed it. And I think some of like the, the, the beautiful, the aesthetics and the, the polished nature of the performances and kind of the surface of it all belies what was like a quick project, right? It's kind of impressive that this looks as fully considered as baked as it is. And perhaps this was a little more off the cuff than we really understand it to be. But I still just really like it when people argue in pretty rooms. My sense of things is that the conception

was moved very fast, but the execution was very careful. And Levinson and John David Washington talked about that a lot, about shooting entire sequences in entire days and just throwing them out because they don't work and having to block them all over again in a new way. Um, I do think this movie is very visually interesting despite that.

And frankly, all art is a product of its circumstances. The prop, the circumstances last year were, we were in quarantine during a global pandemic and this is a movie that was made. Um, the euphoria point is an interesting one.

I, the first three episodes of that show felt like an intense provocation of its audience to say, can you fucking handle this? Can you deal with what I'm throwing in front of your face? And then the show really evolves a lot and changes a lot. And the back half of the first season of that show, I thought was really good, really sensitive, honestly, pretty daring in terms of what series television is trying to accomplish and i was really impressed by it and i was also impressed by um the two episodes the sort of standalone and specials that that levinson created um during the pandemic one starring zendaya's character and

one starring hunter schaefer's character they're sort of like one of which was actually literally a therapy session the hunter schaefer episode episode is just her in therapy talking to someone about and sort of reflecting back on experiences. And the Zendaya session is also sort of a therapy with her sponsor slash father figure who's played by Coleman Domingo. And it's just a long conversation. And this is how Sam Levinson writes.

He writes in long discursive conversations. And I don't know if that's a style per se, but it's a structure. It's a pursuit. And this feels in concert with that too. It's very interesting. I don't think it really matters that the critics hated this movie. Do you think that this is a successful movie in terms of what it's attempting to do, not just creatively, but for Netflix, for garnering conversation? For Netflix, I would guess no. I mean, I don't really know. I guess I have two friends who I know who watched this film, and they are people who are super plugged in to the industry. But anecdotally,

not a lot of civilians out in the world being like, hey, what about Malcolm and Marie? I know that it was number two on Netflix at some point. And as you pointed out, there's like an interesting collision here of Zendaya stands and like kind of internet, social media fame, and then kind of like film Twitter industry fame. When I opened Netflix this weekend to rewatch it, I had to search for it. It was not served to me in any way, shape, or form. And I thought that was really fascinating. Yeah. I don't know what level of penetration this movie has in the wider culture, beyond the people who are already aware of the stars or had it served to them on Netflix.

You know, simultaneously, we talked about this movie a bunch from August through January. And then also, I don't know a whole lot of people. I caught up with my brother and my sister over the weekend. And there was not a lot of Malcolm and Marie chatter. They weren't eager to discuss that. They wanted to talk about the challenge and catching up on Breaking Bad. So it's hard to know what is and is not successful. I thought when I first saw it and this

may still be true i don't think it will be true but it may still be true i thought it would be a bigger awards movie and here's why one it basically avoided the critics awards because of its late breaking and obviously the critics were not going to go for this movie i had a pretty clear sense of that right away but and i say this as someone who has probably interviewed over 100 filmmakers at this point, the relationship that filmmakers have with critics is really complicated. Some of the filmmakers that I'm friends with hate critics. Hate. Hate critics. They are hurt by the words that they write about the things that they work hard on. Other critics have a ton of respect for the craft and love to read criticism. Quentin Tarantino loves to read criticism and loves to read good criticism and writes

film criticism, has a huge admiration for the art form. And most critics say that they don't read it, but most of them do. Most filmmakers. Most filmmakers, sorry. Most filmmakers say that they don't read criticism, but most of them do. I try to always ask that question of filmmakers when I talk to them. But I think a lot of the things that Malcolm is saying is going to resonate with people who make movies.

Because it hurts to be told what you made sucked. And it wouldn't be shocking to me if that was recognized in a way in award season. Now, maybe that's not the case. Zendaya got a Critics' Choice Award this morning or nomination this morning. Maybe there's more to come. Perhaps not because this's not the case. Zendaya got a Critics' Choice Award this morning or nomination this morning. Maybe there's more to come. Perhaps not

because this has not had a rapturous reception. But I thought it was an interesting version of awards bait. But it's so funny because even that guess rests on the assumption

that people will be identifying with it as like Malcolm's right, you know? Which is like, is it a misreading or is it not a misreading of the film is maybe like, you know, the complication it's interesting, but also, you know, there is like, this movie is raising a lot of questions and doing it in a cool stylized way with people. I like, and I like that it raises questions. I like that it's an intellectual film. If you, if I had to put my finger down and be like, this is what this movie thinks

the answers to these questions are, I have a very different interpretation of this movie and a very different response to it, if that makes any sense. And I think you're probably right that some people, particularly directors or people who really just, who have like an intense personal identity with their work. Which, you know, a lot of people just, they have a job and they show up and they try to do their best and they go home.

And then a lot of people are like, this is my life and it must go exactly right or else, you know. They may respond to certain elements of it. If that, I don't know what that says about the movie and like if that is how it's embraced in award season then i feel differently about my experience of the movie does that make sense it does i don't know ultimately if the movie is meant to be sam levinson's essay on the necessity of film criticism or if it is meant to be a portrayal of two people who are maybe in love or maybe not in love and trying to sort their way through that.

It tries to have both of those things. And that's really the struggle of the movie. Yeah. I mean, that's what's so interesting also is that we've spent all this time talking about it. We have not talked about Zendaya's character. We've talked about how she's very good at the dialogue and that she was nominated for a Critics'ics Choice Award she might be nominated she is the person everyone's like annoying movie but Zendaya is good but like completely inessential to everything that we discussed and there is another layer in this film about you know who owns a story and is a is a film like a director's vision or do other people contribute and all of that stuff that the conclusion of the film is a bit clearer there. And so I guess it's a little less interesting to talk about,

or also we're, we're not critics or I don't identify as a critic. I don't, you can do that if you want. Um, but we're certainly closer to that strain of dialogue than any others. And we're, you know, narcissistic people too. So it's what we're most interested in. It of dialogue than any others. And we're, you know,

narcissistic people too. So it's what we're most interested in. It's true. The one thing that I, the other, I guess, small slash major thing to your point about Zendaya's character is at the end of this movie,

my reaction was, and I don't think this is a spoiler. These people should not be together. They don't make sense to each other. They maybe served a purpose to one another and had love for each other, but they have perhaps wrung it out of their relationship. On the other hand, if you came into my home on the darkest nights between my wife and I, and you heard some of the things that we said to each other, not quite this abrasive. This is a very aggressive movie.

But if you saw how we interacted when we were not getting along, you might say the same thing about us. And I think the movie is trying to manifest that feeling and create a sense of universality but because there's three soliloquies about film criticism in the movie no one is taking that out of the movie no one or the people who are writing about the movie are not taking that out of the film that there is a kind of universe universality of emotional volatility in relationships yeah i mean the other thing is that my takeaway from this movie was just like well she was right and this guy is very stupid and he could have just like apologized and this would be over like she's just like it's so one-sided

that the detours and the weird things about film criticism um and how they fight or what's interesting because the other thing is just like, well, he fucked up. And then they were like mad at each other for a while and people fight. You know, it's not a lot of drama in that for me personally. As is to be expected, your take on this was that she's right.

But like she is, the movie admits it. Like literally the last scene, it's so, you know, and again, we can talk about like the construction of this movie and like what it thinks through and what it doesn't but like no shit he should have just been like thank you like you fucked up buddy like that's that's it well if you want to hear more about what the intention and and process of making this movie was stick around because I'm about to talk to John David Washington and Sam Levinson about doing so. Thanks, Amanda. prices, and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points.

Visit superstore.ca to get started. Man, I'm so excited to be talking to John David Washington and Sam Levinson. Guys, thank you for coming on the show today. Sam, I'm going to start with you. I did love Malcolm and Marie. So I've heard you talk about the beginning of this story, which is an experience that you had with Assassination Nation and forgetting to thank your partner at the premiere of the movie. I wanted to know beyond that, how much of the movie is also you and also your experience and your feelings as a filmmaker being channeled into this movie? Yes, Sam, tell us.

Well, you know, it's funny because I think that because Malcolm's a filmmaker, because I'm a filmmaker, everyone sort of automatically assumes that all of my feelings line up 100% with Malcolm's feelings, which they may to some extent. But I think Marie is an equal representation of how I feel. And I think that there are kind of two sides of, of myself that are constantly at war with one another. Um, and I think that's, you know, and I think it, the reason, the reason that that's the structure of it, I think just came out of the pure necessity of going, all right, we're going to go make this movie with 20 people. What is it? One location, all of the restrictions of it. And then, so I just started writing and it kind of unfolded as this sort of Socratic dialogue without any act structure or anything where

I'm just essentially arguing with myself and trying to explore the things that kind of matter to me and trying to acknowledge, I think the things that make kind of every artist better and, uh, and the destructive things that I think, you know, we can, we can do when we are not cognizant of the people that um uh are around us and supporting us and uh and challenging us john david i'm always interested in hearing about when an actor gets a script that they're excited about and i feel like the way that you received this and word of this project was maybe a little bit different than how it usually works can you just tell me a little bit about where you were what where your head was at when you heard about this and how you responded? A hungry, very starving artist, as if I had no career at all, as if I'm

looking for my first gig. That's what the pandemic made me feel like. I didn't know if I was going to be able to act again. Didn't know if anybody was going to see a movie. know if i was going to be able to act again didn't know if uh anybody was going to see a movie i thought i was going to be on this beautiful elaborate globetrotting tour you know on so i'm like i don't know what my career is going to look like i don't know what the business is going to look like uh so when i get a call from sam levinson well first the pandemic or no pandemic it's like oh yeah i'm in what does he want to do it's gonna be great um so add to the fact that i was just that hungry to do something uh so traditionally you know you're used to getting a script maybe a slight little pitch or a script he uh read about 10 something or so pages uh of

what of the script and i was just blown away i was getting nervous and anxious too because i didn't really hear any stage direction i just heard all dialogue'm like, so it's just two of us saying all these words. Oh, shit. You know, so I got really excited. And once I read the script, you know, it was an actor's dream to be able to say these words and to be able to live out Malcolm's experience, to explore what that would look like in collaboration with Zendaya. They're the dream team, Sam and Zendaya. I'm a huge fan of Zendaya. I was a fan of Assassination Nation. So I knew what I was in for. I knew we were going to make something. There was going to be a point of view. There was going to be something that was going to be very strong. And that really, I think Sam compliments actors. I

think he really elevates performances. So I just had the notion of that, just knowing at the prospect of that, I got really excited. Sam, why did you read the script in that way? Was it you didn't want to send an email? Is that something that you normally do with actors and say, I need to share with you in my voice what I'm trying to say? Well, because it's funny. I'm not like a particularly disciplined writer in the sense that I don't write and rewrite in that way. I just sort of, it's, I'm a little bit messier with it. So one of the only ways that I'm interested up, you know, my producing partner, Kevin Turin, I call up, you know, our, well, it's the pandemic now. So I just walk into the other room and read it to my wife. And I sort of, sometimes I improv while reading it and then make those sort of adjustments. And I also, I'm just trying to figure it out rhythmically, I but yeah no it was i was definitely nervous about

playing both malcolm and marie and reading it aloud to jd over the phone not i mean but i it but it ended up working he i think he was interested so good actor though sam can perform i was so i was so like the way he was you know, you felt the energy, you felt the tension, you, Sam, even though you guys couldn't do your series. So what was that like to try to penetrate that duo that's been working together for so long now? It was intimidating. I felt, I'm still feeling like even on the press tour, feeling like I'm trying to catch up. Like, oh, right, that's what it was about.

Yeah, great. You know, they're just, they are a dynamic duo. I think they're such a strong team. And the material that they're making is just, you know, people are still just catching up to. So I was excited to be a part of that and sort of see behind the curtain of Oz, you know, and they, you know, something I didn't know. Some takes were like, I don't know if she wrote that or if he wrote that. Like they just, you know, she just knows the voice they just know what to do it was great and they they they slowed down for me and let me catch up which I'm forever

grateful for but it was exciting and great and a great challenge to try to keep up with them because I know I knew that they they were going they knew what they were doing I I didn't know what I was doing so you know eventually when I was able to to get in there and just especially when we started filming I I felt I was getting more comfortable, more comfortable, but they made it open. I mean, we shared different stories and our experiences with, in the industry, what we love about film and hip hop, all everybody in your line of work, I think, really was, despite the circumstances. But were you guys scared at all to embark on this, given all the restrictions and the decisions that you had to make and the smaller crew and all of that? I mean, Sam, was it daunting to do it this way? Well, I think there's two parts of it, right? I think we didn't want to do anything that we felt, uh, would risk the health of, you know, our, our cast and crew. Um, so we knew sort of from day one,

that if we couldn't do this safely, we weren't going to do it. Um, but a lot of credit goes to, you know, my wife, you know, Ashley Levinson and Katia Washington and Harrison Christ were really, you know, getting on the phone with epidemiologists, doctors, uh, and, and assembling this kind of list of protocols that was pretty, uh, uh, uh, pretty specific and re and like, you know, like 20 pages. It was, it was, uh, it was was long so i think there's that part of it and then just from the pure uh from a purely kind of creative um perspective yeah it was it was nerve-wracking only because it was just all dialogue in a house and how do you sustain that and i knew going into it that i had two incredible actors. And I also knew that I had two really kind actors. And, you know, one of the things that I love is like both JD and Z are very competitive, but they also root for one another and we're shooting it and you know jd is going to sleep

at night going i can't let her win this and you know she's going i can't let him win that you know um we would be we'd be fine we'd figure out a way but i think from just a pure uh sort of filmmaking uh uh perspective it was it was it was daunting and i never really felt like I was, uh, I was actually doing right by the piece every step of the way. I always felt, I was second guessing kind of every, every aspect of it because you never know how it's going to come together and, uh, and whether it's going to be able to sustain an hour and 45 minutes of just emotional chaos. John David, I feel like in addition to being this portrait of a relationship, the movie is kind of a secret quarantine movie about being trapped in a house with someone you love and being forced to have the same conversation over and over again. Did you feel like you were

tapping into any of the experiences and anxieties that you've been maybe going through during COVID as you made the movie? Tapping into... I definitely felt the emotions displayed were in part charged by what I had been experiencing in the world. Being the unknown and living in uncertainty can can cause anxiety it can cause you to question everything can also give you self-reflection can you can mature in those moments of quietness and stillness and being by yourself which Malcolm doesn't embrace at all

obviously but I think yeah sure I don't think we're going for a quarantine movie that's not ever that's not what I thought, especially coming from a party. But in the fact that it was in black and white, there's something that it suspends this idea of who, what, where, when necessarily. We could be anywhere. It could be at any time. So that is what I loved about it.

It gives us an opportunity to just tell you what is up. We're giving you a look in. You judge us how you like. But yeah, like for my personal life, I really wanted to do this, not only because I just wanted to work again, but I wanted to say these words. And I wanted to be able to express this and see what that feels like to live in somebody, in and these people in this experience so um all of that was definitely uh informed me uh and motivated me going into the project i feel like so much of the movie and the script is about hollywood hollywood history the way that films are received and

understood it's obviously i think people will compare the movie to cassavetes movies who is afraid of virginia wolf even even new stuff like the lighthouse, these people, two people trapped in a house together. Sam, why did you decide to shoot it in black and white? Was it an, were you kind of paying homage to some of that stuff or,

you know, what, what drove that decision? I mean, I think there's kind of two main things. The first, the first one being I'm, i'm always trying to kind of get away from realism and the sort of you know i kind of i didn't want it to feel like a documentary

like here's a relationship falling apart in real time and then everyone starts to go well you know would someone speak that articulately about how they feel in this moment or that thing, which are just sort of the general things that I'm not interested in. And then I think sort of early on into the process, Marcel and I were kind of going through our different sort of references for it. And it's not a film that we had an enormous amount of time to prep for, but, um, you know,

I was looking at, you know, uh, when note, uh, just in terms of photography, when note, uh,

and you know, the servant, Virginia Wolf, a bunch of others. And, and, uh, and I just started thinking like every single person in,

in a black and white film is white. And it's sort of you know and and that's not to say there aren't i mean there's black filmmakers who have who have shopped you know people of color and black and white from spike lee to charles burnett and uh even this year with rata blank's you know four-year-old version um but it just it felt it just felt startling in that sense. of sort of the golden age of Hollywood and kind of reclaim that narrative because I think in some ways for as kind of crazy as they both are as characters,

I'm interested to see what Malcolm's films look like. I'm interested to see what Marie is like as an actor so I don't know I think it was uh it was an aesthetic choice but I think it was a it was an emotional choice William Wyler's angsty romances come up a few times in the movie too it feels like there's some some callbacks to those as well yeah probably john david the the writing in this movie is wild and it's it's your performance frankly as much as intended is kind of athletic you know it's very physical and you have to simultaneously do these pages and pages these soliloquies while also kind of physically exerting yourself what was this different in terms of how to prepare

and how to execute a performance like this than in other films that you'd worked on? Yep. Can you tell me about how it was? Yep, definitely different. I mean, it's, but it also reminded me of like, you know, my HB studio days. We discuss it, we stand it up, we rehearse it, we block a little

bit, we discuss, we throw away, then we re-block it, then we find some things that work better, then you adjust to that. I mean, me jumping in front of the window was like, what was that, day three when we figured all that out? So I think what Sam's talking about, the messiness of it was also came, was also inserted into the like how we how we found all the rhythms and the blocking and everything. It was it was just open. And so the physicality, physicality you speak of, it was open. You know, he embraced naturalism. You know, me yelling at a tree and things like that. I just didn't feel any restrictions. I felt like anything goes, especially if I'm saying these words. I love contradictory characters, too. So he has this kind of pace to him, although he's a certain pace to him,

but he's talking fast. You know, or then he might be walking fast and talking slow. So, like, there's just this constant, like, rubbing your head and tapping your belly thing going on with this guy. As you see him emotionally, that's what's happening to him. He's's in his head constantly he's always circling and trying to get his thoughts together and all that goes into it's it informs what that what goes on in his head physically this is kind of what his head feels like him moving all over the place all the time everywhere yeah i think sorry to interrupt i was just gonna say you know we originally started with a 10-day

shoot and uh our you know marcel and i coming into it were like i don't know i was thinking of like bunny lake is missing and the kind of choreography of like preminger and stuff and so we were going to shoot the entire movie you know uh on a dolly and you know we shoot the first day it's probably like an hour before wrapping and i'm looking at marcel marcel's looking at me and i i just feel like you know this is like feeling like a whiskey commercial or something you know what i mean it's just not clicking and part of it had to do with jd came into it with such a kind of explosive physicality that are all of our sort of preconceptions about how we were going to shoot it weren't necessarily lining up with it and i i think i was trying to force it at first anyway we get into the car marcel and i are talking we're

like we got to throw out this whole first day like we're going to throw out the whole thing i and marcel says you know what are're going to throw out the whole thing. I, and Marcel says, you know, what are you going to say? The actor said, Oh, you know, I'll deal with it.

Yeah. You know, because they were great performances. And so then the next day I show up, I say to JD and, and see, I say, you know,

look, yesterday was fantastic, but we're going to throw it out. We're going to reshoot everything. You know, and I remember JD being like, you mean everything? I was like, yeah, no, everything. We're going to reshoot the thing. We're going tod being like you mean everything i was like yeah

yeah no everything we're gonna reshoot the thing we're gonna do the whole movie handheld it's like we we need the messiness of life we need all that so then we shoot the entire day handheld about an hour before wrapping i'm looking at marcelo's had a thousand foot mag on his shoulder the whole time he's like drenched in sweat lost 10 pounds and i'm looking at him and i kind of shake my head he shakes his head i don't want to say you know jd's going you think we got it today i was like yeah we were great we were great terrific work we go we get to the car i turn to marcel i'm like that didn't work we gotta throw out the second day marcel's like i completely agree so then we show up on the third day i said we got to throw out the the last day and i think

part of it was and we just decided let's move on to the outside shot and just forget about this first scene we move on to the outside shot finally we shoot that little connecting piece where it goes from her in the bathroom to him coming into the kitchen and then as we were shooting and it was like four in the morning it was in the middle of summer we had about an hour left i was like what if we just kept it going this way and we can actually capture the you know jd's full physicality inside of this house marie's distance from him the idea that there's these two characters in two separate worlds within one world. And, you know, uh, and Marcel's like,

that all sounds wonderful, but the sun's coming up in 45 minutes. And so, uh, and then I, you know, I talked to JD Z and, uh,

we did three takes back to back. And the third take is what's in the movie. Um, but yeah, it was, JDd you look like you're uh still you're still recovering from that i just relived it because i just remember especially i think it might have been on that last take too i'm like if i don't if i mess up if i mess up i feel like this this whole thing is over like i'm just gonna mess everything up just because of the like we knew the sun was coming up and all of these things i had to get this right but like a play you know you just keep going the show must go on

and the messiness that we embrace the mistakes could be embraced in something like this but i did feel an immense amount of pressure sam you reminded me of my favorite part of the movie which is that breakdown of the review that malcolm's character gets uh from malcolm and it's a it's a dolly. You fucking idiot, I think is the funniest thing in the movie. And I, I kind of wanted to ask you both about this because, and Sam,

we, we talked about this briefly before we jumped on, but paradoxically, do either of you guys worry that literalizing some of these things, this kind of conversation around artists and critics might encourage critics to be more critical of the film that you are essentially like engaging in the dialogue of the dialogue and that that's an unusual relationship that artists have to their critics yeah but isn't that what critique is all about is engaging in the dialogue i mean i think that

that's part of what's sort of interesting about it. It's a dialogue between two people in a relationship. It's a dialogue about a filmmaker with his, you know, his writing, his filmmaking with, you know, this sort of the outside world and himself, I think that there's, yeah, look, I, I think anytime you make something that sort of deals with things head on and doesn't duck it, it automatically creates, um, you know, you, you, you automatically have certain people who go, well, I don't like this. It's, you know, it's, it's too direct or it's too, it's too straight on. Um, especially if it's a sensitive thing, like, you know, filmmaking and critics and everything. Although I do think that there is a, a distinction to be made only because I was listening to your, uh, your podcast, as I was telling you the other night, which you said it takes aim at critics, which I disagree with in the sense that I don't think it takes aim at all critics. It takes aim at, I think, critics who read the culture and not the material and play to that aspect in their work. Sam, you write these incredibly provocative and fearless stories most of the time.

And so obviously criticism is a natural part of anyone engaging with something like that. John David, I feel like you're in an interesting moment in your career too, where you are in true ascension. You're getting these extraordinary opportunities. You're so great in these roles. I told someone yesterday that i was talking to you and they're like that guy's fucking awesome that's so cool um but this is also like a provocative movie for you to be doing and and maybe could be perceived as a risk i mean how do you feel about portraying a

character like malcolm who says some of these things i mean he's not a serial killer but but to a film critic he might be worse he's not a serial killer. I think he's a brilliant writer and I couldn't wait to say some of these words. I couldn't wait to add some of the some of the words that were added to it. You know, there's a there's there is a feeling that is represented that I'm familiar with, that is represented with other artists that I know, a universal feeling, by the way, not just an African-American one artist that is being shared and displayed in this film that I jumped at the chance to find and explore. I think, too, the rant for me is it's more of an invitation to everybody else. The discussion of the discussion is like, yeah, but like every like for the people that don't know, they can know. Now, some of the information that's in that speech is like I wasn't even aware of.

So it's like, oh oh i can maybe get it the point is to invite everybody to the to the dinner like let's talk about this everybody sit down let's have a discussion here's some information you didn't know and and also it's funny because like what mac what are you really talking about because it was a good review you know so what exactly are you talking about you just you're questions. This could be just a way to how he creates new material for his next film. So it's more of an invitation, a look-see for people that might not know what the discussion even is about. Likewise, that speech is also critical of Hollywood's structure

and maybe some of its bad habits. At one point, the Malcolm character says, ban every fucking film with a postscript and will be good which i i also love um sam how much of your feelings about the industry and like the work that you've been doing as a filmmaker also went into the malcolm character um uh i mean i don't know look i think that there's always there's always a feeling of look i i guess I trace it back to just when I think about, you know, Arthur Miller writing death of a salesman, right. And this, this feeling of being misunderstood, misunderstood by, by say the industry you're in misunderstood by, um, or, or, or let me rephrase that actually wanting to be understood by the industry you're in and

wanting to be understood by people who write about film, which is, and so when I think about Arthur Miller's death of a salesman, you know, I, it's very much about a Jewish family, but he didn't want it to be dismissed as a Jewish story. So what does he do? He, he takes, you know, kids name names and, you know, kids name names, and, you know, Biff and happy, the least Jewish names on the history of Judaism. And, and, and I think that's, that was out of an anxiety or fear that it would be sort of marginalized or put into a box in that way. And, you know, I, you know, so I think that part of what Malcolm is brushing up against is this feeling like his work is being looked at through this sort of patronizing lens because of who he is. And he's struggling with that.

And it's raising questions about just on a broader level about what are you allowed to do? What is the importance of storytelling? What is the goal of it? What is empathy? What do things mean if you hang? If identities are constantly shifting, I do believe that. And so how do you judge things in a particular moment on identity if if there's things that weren't you're not necessarily cognizant of and so it

just i don't know i i think what he's doing is he's he's raising tough questions about how we look at film what it means to us how we evaluate it and he's pushing back on certain things that i think have become almost like uh it's i feel like they're a given right now um in how we and how we think about about filmmaking and i i think that we should we that we should question everything. We should question even those that we may wholeheartedly agree with. Because if we don't, then it just becomes a religious ideology. John David, the movie seems to be trying to address, it does address head on the idea of who gets to tell stories, why are certain stories celebrated based on who made them and how much consciousness is there how much consciousness there is about who made them

and you know i i liked the the idea of the marie character telling your character like people don't care really ultimately what actors think about political issues they don't care about social issues and yet you know your character seems to be in this kind of war between can i just make something that is entertaining and great versus does what I do have to be important? And especially, you know, a white writer writing black characters, having these conversations, there is like an inherent complexity to that. And I wonder like, how do you guys, are you guys having conversations about how best to have these characters communicate? Or are you just in service of a script that you receive what is the collaboration they're like no total collaboration rhythmically you know the content obviously the our experiences in the industry and the artistry um we shared all those things and were able to i mean what was on the page was

brilliant obviously but um there were some cultural decisions that uh that we took liberties you know cindy and i and uh were very important to me and uh which which which was beautiful i mean the whole um making of this was like from different people's perspective i took everybody's stories from kevin our producer to katya to our stills photographers african-american you know i've only seen two in my career, African-American still photographers. So like these different experiences, I used all that for this story. So I that that was what was appealing to me was the fact that we can all come together and tell this story. And that there are, I think, for actors, i think for sam as well i think for directors just

to be able to display versatility not putting us in the boxes the frustration and that's a universal um want a need to to show that from going from assassination nation to something like this being in a ballers to uh to something like this you know what i mean i think that's what we're trying to do i want to continue to do as artists, you know, no matter what. Yeah. But I think that's the beauty of, of, of filmmaking. And it's what makes it different than any other art form in the sense that, you know, it is a true collision of, of all sorts of experiences, identity, background, class, gender, you're constant, you're on set with everybody,

you're discussing every idea, well, what do we think about this dress? What do we this thing? How are we going to shoot this scene? What do you think about these lines here, and you go back and forth, and everything is a debate. Everything is a discussion, you unpack it, you look at it from every possible angle. And, and I always think that the director's job is to, in some way, be to be open to, to every single idea, and, and, and try to capture what emerges out of it, which is hopefully something that feels universal. And so we had at least, I think it was 10 days where we just sat in a parking lot and we went over the script every single day. We read it, we talked about it. Because when I first got to Carmel, I only you know 65 pages of it i didn't have the third act yet um and we just sat down we read it we talked about it we were just you know shooting the shit well this thing well this thing happened to me here when i was doing this and that and then out of that you know emerges uh something that's always always a little bit bigger and a little bit different than what you started with. And I think that's kind of the beauty of it. I love how that also disrupts the idea of the auteur genius

that Malcolm maybe thinks he is at the same time. You know, the idea that you guys do that together. Marie says it to him. Marie says to him, you want everyone to just think that, you know, it's like it's you and only you, and you're that, you know, it's like, it's you and only you, and you're just, you know, handing out orders, which is, I think not, it's not my experience with, with filmmaking, um, or with working with, with actors or anybody. Um, and so I,

I don't know, that's, that's what makes filmmaking so exciting. It's also what makes diversity, uh, so important in the sense that you want different perspectives. You want to be challenged from every single angle on a piece in order to get to something that feels more honest or more true or can reach more people. Last question, guys. We wrap every conversation on this show with a question for filmmakers, which is, what's the last great thing you've seen? Sam, I know you're probably watching a shitload of stuff right now.

John David, I don't know if you've been watching stuff as you're working. Yeah. Yeah. Not recently. Could be old or new. No, I saw,

well, I saw pieces of a woman recently, and that was incredible. What did you respond to in that one? It's an actor showcase. Can I talk? I guess I'll talk. Yeah. The birth sequence was insane.

That was dope. I mean, I'll just say that. That was pretty amazing. Sam, what about you? Have you seen anything great lately? Um, let's see. I, you know, it's funny. I haven't been, I haven't been watching that, that much stuff only because I'm trying to get these euphoria scripts out.

And I also have a four-year-old who, uh, only, only lets me watch movies in eight minute installments. Um, but I, let's see, I was was watching i watched last night i watched a part of mrs miniver i watched a part of uh weiler the graduate yeah but i was yeah i mean i was i just hadn't seen mrs miniver in a while but but i think i was watching the, which I hadn't seen also in like probably 10 years. And I was just astounded by the editing in the film, that moment where he's in the hotel room and he looks, uh, and he looks at Mrs. Robinson and there's like the bathroom light behind him. He's sort of in silhouette and he just shuts the door and it goes into complete darkness and you know you hear simon and garfunkel and it's probably 10 seconds of of just a black screen

and it was such a just uh uh an electric moment um that it just, it, it surprised me about how just ahead of his time, uh, Nichols was as a, as a filmmaker and, and just, and, and the, and the,

and just the true suspense of it, um, for a movie that's, uh, not normally thought of as a, as a suspense film, the anxiety of it. I think there's a few electric moments in, in Malcolm and Marie guys. Congrats on, on the film. And anxiety of it. I think there's a few electric

moments in Malcolm and Marie, guys. Congrats on the film and thanks for chatting today. Thank you so much, Sean. I really appreciate it. Thank you to John David Washington, Sam Levinson, and of course Bobby Wagner and Amanda Dobbins. Amanda and I will be back later this week to talk about one of the very best movies of this extended Oscar season, Judas and the Black Messiah, and what makes for a good biopic movie. We'll see you then.