The Big Picture - Movie Swap: ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ and ‘Titanic.’ Plus: ‘The Green Knight’!

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

It’s time for another movie swap! This time, Amanda and Sean trade a pair of classics from James Cameron: the Oscar-winning behemoth ‘Titanic’ and the action classic ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (0:30). Then, Sean is joined by David Lowery, the director behind the long-awaited Arthurian fable ‘The Green Knight’ (1:24:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: David Lowery Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at the Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathan, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Terminators and Titanic productions.

Later on today's episode, I'll have a conversation with David Lowery, one of my favorite filmmakers and the director behind the long-awaited Arthurian fable, The Green Knight. Great chat with David. I hope you'll stick around for that. But first, it's time for another movie swap. This time, Amanda and I trade a pair of classics from the filmmaker James Cameron. I have not seen James Cameron's Oscar-winning Titanic since it was released in theaters 24 years ago. And Amanda, when was the last time you saw Terminator 2 Judgment Day? Last night, when I watched it for this podcast.

What about before that? I had never seen it. A funny story. My mother FaceTimed me while I was watching Terminator 2. And she's like, hey, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm watching Terminator 2. And the face that my mother made explained why I've never seen this movie or many of the other movies.

She thought I might as well be living on a different planet. So is that the reason why you were not exposed to that level of action film growing up is your parents just had no interest? Yes. And just didn't think to put me in front of it. And so you pick up things as you go along, you know, either, you know, friends, in my case, boyfriends, sadly, or just knowing you guys for a really long time also, sadly. And then also for something like Terminator 2, you just live in the world and you actually know a lot of it. I recognize some of the shots and certainly some of the lines. I was like, oh, yeah, this is happening. So it's kind of in the ether,

but I had not felt the need to sit down and watch all two hours and 13 minutes of it until you asked me to for this podcast. So why don't we start with Terminator 2 then? Because it's the film that comes first out of these two films. In fact, there is a film that comes in between these two films, True Lies, which we're not talking about on today's episode. But this is the 30th anniversary of T2. It's arguably the signature action film of the 1990s. It's a movie that I think paved the way for a kind of digital imagery and getting comfortable with digital imagery in these action movies.

But I think there are also a lot of things about it that feel incredibly practical. And that practical nature is sort of what still draws me back to it over and over again. So, you know, given that this movie has an incredible amount of legacy attached to it, what'd you make of it? I enjoyed it. I hated the first 20 minutes. I was like, I might have to quit the podcast. And then we got into the actual normal, I guess it's 1997 with Arnold and the kid. And then Sarah Connor comes back and it's like a great buddy comedy with the silver man and a lot of like trucks jumping off of things and into things and

i was like cool i got it i'm into this um and i like the dynamics and it kind of has that broad emotional appeal paired with just ridiculous impressive stunts that makes a james cameron film and then at the end there were one too many endings and i was like all right all right come out of your lab sir but. But two thumbs up. So when you say you struggled with the first 20 minutes, was it the fact that it was this sort of over the top world building science fiction story that you're not as interested in? Yes. And, you know, and also I was thinking again about aliens.

It's just like literally very dark. And there's nothing on the screen except for his, you know, weird floating planes with the lights that look a lot like the sea planes in Titanic, which I immediately recognized. And there was, you know, another kind of voiceover prologue that's explaining what's going on that I swear to God, I was sitting there staring directly at the screen by myself, not looking at my phone, not looking at anything else being like, okay, this is important information. Got to listen. Totally missed it. I just can't make myself focus on that kind of ridiculous sci-fi narration. But I did rewind.

Actually, I think my husband came in and was like, here's literally what they just said. Like another human being had to stand in front of me and just re and it's like oh okay got it all right so another terminators come back and but once it yeah just kind of like the deep preview of avatar like i've made my own own world full of you know robots and an oblivion i find it hard to access that stuff so i assume because you haven't seen t2 you hadn hadn't seen the Terminator, the original. No, but I read the Wikipedia page. Interesting. Did you do that before or after T2?

Before, of course. Come on. Because I needed to know what was going on. Again, once you actually listen to the little introduction, they're very clear on what happened. And hopefully Terminator just seems like sort of a jesus story but um you know there's a chosen one i guess it's jesus it's also a lot of harry potter which just fyi guys was kind of stolen from the bible that's cool and you know they got to protect the kid and so sarah connor's got to fight people and i was familiar with sarah connor

um and i'm very pro the idea of Sarah Connor, even as I had not actually seen the films. But believe it or not, reading the Wikipedia page was enough to follow the events of T2. Yeah. So it's interesting to talk about this movie because it has such a major place in the imagination of a lot of filmgoers. And it makes it seem like Cameron was 25 years into his career or something that this was sort of summit point. But in fact, he hadn't even been making movies for 10 years. The Terminator was his first real big movie. Piranha 2 was a low budget movie he directed before this. And there were only a handful of movies that came between T2. 30 years since this movie, just from a general perspective, do you feel like it has aged well?

Did it look good to you? What was the pacing like for you? How did you feel like it existed as a 2021 moviegoer? Yeah, I think without stepping on the second half of our podcast, at least in terms of effects, it's aged much better than Titanic has. Because as you pointed out, it's kind of right at that nexus of practical effects and whatever advancements in in computer generated effects that cameron is working with and so that like all the silverman stuff is like very cool um but doesn't look totally fake and then there is enough of just you know people punching each other and you know when when schwarzenegger and the is it a t1000 is that what the other t1000 yeah his name

is not the silver man it's t1000 well anyway when they're throwing each other into walls you know it's like pretty obvious that the wall is just like made of cardboard but but that's fine you know like we like we're all trying, but otherwise there is enough just kind of smashing of real stuff and the effects are kind of woven in pretty seamlessly. So that aged very well to me. In terms of it being like sort of broad strokes, pretty minimal character development, but whatever. There's a mom,

there's a son, there's a robot. You've got to make friends with the robot. Will the robot learn to cry? I mean, it's very, very basic stuff here in a very comforting, familiar 80s, 90s. We'll just appeal to everybody, we don't need to fill in the lines here. You're going to get it. And then I think James Cameron is deceptively very good at it. It's hard to do that well, even as it's like kind of easy and kind of dumb at times. So that like both that aged well to me, even though that is like a signifier of the time era and the type of movie that was made.

But it was very familiar. And then I like the beginning and the end was just the part where I was like, oh, I see. I see James Cameron. I see late period James Cameron, Avatar period James Cameron rising here and really starting to flex himself. And that's not as much for me. In terms of the big action set pieces? No, in terms of the world building and the deep sci-fi. And it's really important that we establish the motivations of all the robots

and fast forward to another time war and let's add all of these things in that are completely separate from just these three main characters, two humans and a robot. And I guess another human who invents Skynet but then doesn't. So I think once it gets into deep sci-fi is when it just felt a little creakier for me. Yeah, I hear that. One of the first movies I watched at the beginning of quarantine in 2020 was The Terminator. And I hadn't seen it in a really long time. And I was not a huge fan of The Terminator. I don't I don't dislike it per se, but I don't think it imprinted on me the way that it did a lot of other people of our generation, because it always felt very

stripped down. It always felt very independent. And I think because I was not old enough to have seen it when it was released, T2 was really my Terminator franchise. And the thing I like about T2 is, you know, it's basically a Western. There's a white hat and there's a black hat. It's almost like Shane and that there's a child or the searchers. There's the child that kind of needs to be saved and protected. It's very archetypal. I think that's kind of what you're talking about. He's very good at this kind of archetypal genre storytelling. And he does get caught in the trap of his own mythology sometimes. I think that's true even in Titanic.

You can see him in the midst of the sinking Titanic being actually maybe too interested in his characters in a way and be like, can we just get a little bit more context on what's going on with the ship that is going into the ocean?

But I think there's something fascinating about t2 at t2's inability to age the fact that it does still work and might work forever i don't know if there are very many other films the only other film i could really think of that is from this time specifically this sort of early 90s moment is jurassic park It's one of the only movies that was made during this era where when I watch it, I think, you know, you're right. Some of these walls are made of cardboard and some of this practical effects doesn't really work. But for the most part, I would say 80 to 90% of it still looks great, especially stuff like

the LA River Basin chase scene, which is just one of the greatest chase scenes ever made. And, you know, the top of the truck getting cut off when it drives through the tunnel and, you know, the truck crashing and, you know, the Terminator lifting John Connor off of his dirt bike and onto the motorcycle and the swinging of the shotgun. And all of that stuff is just so incredibly well made

and well staged and all looks like Arnold and Robert Patrick and Edward Furlong, even if it is a stunt double at times. It's just the peak level of action filmmaking. There probably will never be something that is as good as a couple of those sequences. And so it holds this very special place, I think, in the history of movies that it is truly a bridge between two eras. Yeah. That shot at the end of the River Basin chase sequence when Arnold and Johnnor are driving away on the motorbike or whatever and it just everything explodes behind them i mean you know i feel

like i've seen that in a thousand movie montages if you need to like pick one shot to describe this like late 80s early 90s action um genre that's it uh and it was interesting also i did watch part of this with my husband who i think saw it around the same time you did like certainly had seen it before last night and he just kept talking about like this blew my mind when i saw it when i was 10 and i the bullets going into the t1000 and like kind of making like strangely beautiful kind of like metal you know like seashell type wounds that then heal, you know, but Zach was like, that just absolutely freaked me out, blew my mind. I couldn't believe

that that was happening. And I do think there's something like kind of artistic and impressive to the, to the way that that was conceptualized, let alone, you know, executed. They just, it's still, it like looks nice. Um, um and and it's like visually compelling as well as obviously being um an innovation at the time yeah the thing that distinguishes and i think the reason for that is in addition to james cameron being a great artist and having great taste in artists and i should say like stan winston who worked on jurassic park also worked on this movie there are a handful of visual effects supervisors who worked on the big blockbusters at that time, and they all tended to make the very best versions of these stories. But really, if you made a movie like this, and in fact, there was a Terminator movie a few years

ago that was not terrible, but did not necessarily distinguish itself. But if you make a movie like this, and I'm thinking specifically of Marvel and DC movies, we live in the era of pre-visualization. So a filmmaker and a screenwriter, they come together and they hash out a story for a film, or even in the case of Marvel, producer tells them what the story is going to be, and then they go off and write it. And then they hand the script in. And once they've handed the script in, the pre-visualization artists take a look at the script and they say, here's how we're going to shape and scope out the battle sequences for you. And we're going to create this effectively independent of the script. Sure, they get input from the filmmakers, but they're doing their own little thing in their own little terrarium. James Cameron, he really defines auteur. He really

defines having total ownership, total authorship over the stories that he's telling. This goes very much for Titanic as well. It is a totalizing vision that he is trying to execute and so you don't get if you get visual cliches it's usually because he made them cliches he usually kind of either invented them or perfected them especially that sort of walking in front of the fire moment which you know like our boss bill simmons when he was working for espn literally recreated one of those with jalen rose for a commercial for nba countdown. You know, like the visual language of fire exploding behind two heroes is such a, it's such a,

it's almost parody at this point. But I thought of this, especially at the beginning of the movie when the Terminator goes into the biker club and beats up a bunch of guys and takes the clothes off and exits the club. And as soon as he exits,

you hear George Thorogood's bad to the bone. And it's not a joke. It's not a movie trailer about a talking dog. It's literally Arnold Schwarzenegger is bad to the bone wearing a leather jacket, hopping on a motorcycle. He takes the man's sunglasses. It's very funny.

It's a movie that has a sense of humor, but it's not aggressively self-aware. It's not interested in being self-aware or ironic. This is a badass action movie. And sure, there is some science fiction in it. And sure, there is a little bit of self-consciousness about what the future of this story is going to be. But it's not winking at you. It's like, let's have fun together. That's kind of the essence of the movie. And it does feel like that kind of moviemaking is maybe not totally eradicated, but everything seems so much more self-conscious and so much more worried about what's coming next that it kind of forgets how to have fun in the moment. That's just something that jumped out to me as I revisited it.

Well, I think movies are both, I mean, maybe they're more self-conscious of kind of where they fit in the never-ending content stream. And I think maybe even less self-conscious of kind of where they fit in, you know, the never-ending content stream. And I think maybe even less self-conscious than this movie, which I would argue is like not very self-conscious in a good way. Just about like the kind of humor and so there's not a lot of winking unless you're doing like a fast and furious movie which is again possibly one of the reasons that i like those but you know i think james cameron has kind of this movie walks the line between his ability for world building and myth making and also his um his his facility with just you know kind kind of normal people and broad archetype average situations.

And it balances those for the most part, very, very well. And then as his career goes on, he's just, you know, in Avatar land and we got to sit with what we learned about Avatar one before we can even write a script for Avatar two and, you know, all of that stuff, which is like a real thing that happened. Please uh chris ryan's james cameron a bit on the watch but and also you know blog posts about james cameron and and it does also feel like the way that we watch movies and like we doing a lot of work here expect like storytelling on a big screen is that world building and okay what happened last time and where is this going to go and what do we understand about you know the world and how does how does the the

future time align with the present time i mean i have some nitpicks about some of the science fiction and in t2 and i like that the movie just doesn't care that there is this central paradox of like, if they end the terminators and destroy the chip, then there's like no future terminator and there's no Skynet. And so John Connor doesn't need to be a part of the resistance. And like, none of it makes sense. None of it lines up, but that's okay.

Like the movie doesn't care. And the movie is just like, whatever, go with it. We, we destroyed all of the things and Arnold sacrificed himself and everyone's happy. And I find that comforting

as opposed to like the eight weeks of just, you know, it's always sunny message board, like timeline, whatever that would happen now to try to like reconcile the Skynet war of 2029 with the events of T2 and also Terminator, you know? Yeah, I think that's a matter of context too, because the movies that had the most sequels at this time were usually horror movies and typically slasher movies. We didn't live in a world where there were 25 Marvel movies. There was no expectation that you would have a 10 film

franchise. And if you did, it was usually about Jason Voorhees. And often Jason Voorhees was getting killed or burned alive or sent to hell at the end of the horror movies. And then somehow he magically came back at the end of the movie. And so I think we had a different sense of movie logic. And also I was nine when I saw the movie. And so I wasn't like, okay, guys, time for me to drill down on Reddit on what doesn't make sense about the future war in 2029. By the way, we're only eight years away from the future war. Yeah, I thought a lot about that. And, you know, people like to make, it's this long until Skynet, whatever. And Skynet was founded. And I like, I can't really live on that timeline, but continue. Skynet is here, Amanda, don't you think? Every time I open up Instagram and they serve me an ad for a shirt that I looked at on a website three years ago I'm like oh yeah are you like afraid of robots is that something that you walk around every day being like oh my god we invented these machines and they're gonna rise

up against us is that one of your preoccupying concerns it's an amazing question the answer is no I'm not really afraid of very many things in general. That being said, if I woke up one day and I learned, I turned on TV and on CNN, Wolf Blitzer said the robot apocalypse is here. I would not be surprised. I would accept that we have pushed too far into technology, which I think is a big part of what this movie is about. Sure. We have definitely pushed too far into technology without any sort of oversight or like practical or ethical or other, like no one's thought about anything that comes next is, you know, there's a lot of, I'm going to die soon energy. So it doesn't matter. No, I don't know if it's that it's for me, it's mostly like, we just put a bunch of

like 25 year old dudes who don't think like about consequences in charge of stuff. And like, oh, look, like, oops, like maybe we didn't see that far ahead. But and I'm just more annoyed about that. But the robot thing is just like not a concern for me. This is maybe unpopular to say, but it's just like I don't really care about robots. I feel pretty clear about like where robots are on the, you know, I think we should be nice to them in case they do rise up against us. I have an influencer who I like on Instagram very much. She's one of her things is like, just be nice to the robots just in case, you know, you don't want

to be on the wrong side when it happens. So I think that's practical, but like, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about robots. And every time it's another movie about like, does the robot like understand? And like, does the robot like understand? And like, is the robot a person too? And like, what's going to happen? And what does it mean to be a human versus a robot? Like, I know what it means to be a human versus a robot. It's just not that compelling to me.

So that's another issue here. I think that's also probably a function of you not growing up reading very much science fiction. I think if you grow up reading science fiction, if you grow up reading, I don't know, Isaac Asimov or maybe later Philip K. Dick, where the ethical question here is, that's a big part of understanding those stories.

And it's not, I don't think it's like being afraid of what the future holds or caring about what's the fine line between humanity and mechanical engineering. It's like, it's about imagination. It's about giving yourself over to that story, ultimately. I think when this movie is desperate to get into the kind of ethical quandaries,

it doesn't really work that well. I also don't care about the Terminator learning, like understanding why humans cry. That's not what's effective to me about this film. Can we talk about the single wildest 30 seconds of this movie, which is the Sarah Connor voiceover, just being like, and then i decided that the robot would be the best father for my child what is going on what no one feels so weird you don't even need a voiceover right then that's not doing anything to further the story it's just just James Cameron being like, let me talk about how robots are better dads

than real dads. What on earth? Well, you might imagine that maybe perhaps Jim Cameron has a complicated relationship with his father. No shit. But I was just like, this is so weird. Just like, it's the literal meme of no one.

And then Tim Cameron, I decided that the robot would be the best father for my son because all the other men had failed. That was very dispiriting to me. I wonder if you would enjoy the original Terminator film if you got to know John Connor's father a little bit, played by Michael Biehn, who is one of the stars of many James Cameron movies,

though not this one, obviously, because he sacrifices himself at the end of The Terminator. Very handsome fellow, though. And I don't know, absentee fatherism. This is the defining characteristic of all male moviegoers. I have seen every movie ever made where this is a theme. Like, I get it. But not every single movie ever made, just has a weird interrupting narration of just being like,

and then I decided that the robot would be a great dad and I would post a picture of him on Instagram on Father's Day. And then some weird, completely unnecessary dream sequence because James Cameron can't go more than 30 minutes without being like, I must show you a robot apocalypse.

I was like like i'm cool just let the robot and the kid bond together and fight the other robot it's not that hard i disagree the the robot dream sequence apocalypse are incredible especially the one right in the middle when there's a nuclear apocalypse and sarah connor is at the gate and she's holding talking about but that comes but that but what happens after her little testimonial, literally when the skeleton is holding on to the gate and the nuclear apocalypse blows the skeleton away, that's just incredible filmmaking. I'm sorry.

I'm not giving it up. One of my favorite parts was earlier on when Sarah Connor's in the mental hospital and she's trying to warn everybody about the Terminators. And she's like, everybody who's not wearing 2000 SPF's gonna have a terrible day that's that's really good good line that's also just a lot of way too much belief in spf but um that's i thought that was funny uh let's talk about arnold schwarzenegger okay because he was the single biggest movie star

of this era i would i would argue bigger than Cruise, bigger than Denzel Washington, bigger even than Julia Roberts. He was the signature movie star of the 1990s, especially that sort of 1988 to 1996 period of time. This is his signature role. It's a robot. What do you think of Arnold, even with all of the baggage we have of Arnold, who has since become the governor of the state that we live in and kind of a parody of himself

and then has come all the way back around to being kind of like a figure of admiration in a post-Donald Trump world. All of that in the stew. What do you think of Arnold? Good quarantine Instagram presence. I was really charmed by it. I don't know whether this is a self-aware performance,

but the movie seems self-aware about Arnold, his strengths, his limitations is leaning into it. I think he's very good. I actually did believe in the robots relationship with the young child. And that he understood what it meant to cry at the end, which is very nice. So, and this scene, i guess when they're still i think it's still when they're trying to break out of the the mental hospital when he sends everybody else away and

then just like maybe it's later i can't really remember a lot of like office parks in this movie there are but he has to show that he shoves a desk out of one of the office parks and then just is like standing in the the window of the office park with like a very i don't know the types of guns i'm sorry and just is like shooting at all of the policemen from up above this is that sky net yes this is at the end oh that is yes yes i was like oh this is pretty cool he's he's very commanding i see why people enjoy this yeah it's all screen presence right it's, in the same way that this is a Western, the great Western actors,

figures like John Wayne and Gary Cooper. These guys looked really cool standing holding guns. Sometimes it's not more complicated than that. It's just about having iconography on screen. And Cameron also obviously is a filmmaker who really understands that. I think he does a really good job too with Robert Patrick, an actor who did not necessarily go on to be a great star by any means but this

is a very very memorable villain performance you know this kind of like still utterly malevolent you know relentless figure that keeps coming after and after and after them and and frequently in the in the form of a police officer which i would also argue is not a mistake that is a very pointed critique there especially in los angeles in 1991 not shocking to fit to identify robert patrick as a cop there so you mentioned linda hamilton and sarah connor probably neck and neck with ellen ripley as the most iconic heroine in movie history. Of course, both of them authored by James Cameron. Um, Lynn Hamilton has kind of fallen out of the culture for a variety of

reasons. She was an active movie presence at this time. And then in the nineties went on to make a number of other movies, but I think for most moviegoers, she is just Sarah Connor. Yeah. Um, what did you think about her?

Not just as what we always talk about, which is as this kind of badass woman who, you know, exists on a level playing field in these movies, but as an actor, did you think she was an effective actor in this franchise? Yeah, I,

I was trying not to overthink it because I think if you start overthinking the, the types of female characters in the way that James Cameron characterizes them and what they're allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do and the fact that he like winds up marrying Linda Hamilton which I honestly just think it's like one of the coolest things about James Cameron good for him um I would marry Linda Hamilton too if I could um you know you could overthink anything and I just choose to think it's pretty rad that he has created both Alan Ripley and Sarah Connor.

And they're great at punching people. And like I said, sometimes I just like the really practical, just like punch somebody, you know, or run. And I think she has a great physical presence. I thought she was pretty great in the early scenes when she is, you know, both having to kind of be over the top, recreating some of the more traumatic Sarah Connor episodes and then trying to negotiate her way out of the prison.

And that escape sequence for her when she grabs the syringe and puts like Roto-Rooter in it and then jabbed. I mean, that was awesome. That was really good. And I think she's really good at all of it. It's not her fault that she's asked to give a voiceover about how a robot would make the best dad. Like,

I don't know what to say. You know, it gets a little weird towards the end. And as they're trying to fit all of the characters in, she has like a little less to do, but, but that's okay. I thought she was great.

Yeah, I agree. The movie is hers in the first 40 minutes. And then it, and then it really becomes a much more about Arnold and Edward Furlong. What about Edward Furlong? So this is just baby Leo. This was astonishing to me. And obviously, it jumped out to me because we were doing this with Titanic, but he's got the same haircut. Put a side by side of Edward Furlong and Leo in growing pains.. Just, they could be related.

And I suppose it was a popular hairstyle at the time. But I just, it's like, oh, I see. James Cameron has many types of actors, but this is one of them. I don't think you can underestimate what a phenomenon Edward Furlong was. Part of it was because of the, you could see him on television all the time because of the You Could Be Mine video, the Guns N' Roses song. And I believe that video had clips from the film

and most of those clips were shots of Edward Furlong on the back of a dirt bike kind of racing off. Also Edward Furlong notably wearing a Public Enemy t-shirt throughout the entirety of this movie. Also a noted critique that you might want to flag. But he went in, he starred in Pet Sematary 2 and American Heart and a bunch of other movies right after this movie. Also a noted critique that you might want to flag. He starred in Pet Sematary 2 and American Heart and a bunch of other movies right after this movie.

I don't know if Leo before Leo was probably a little strong, but he had a kind of disaffected Gen X heartthrob thing going on that was very effective for this movie. I don't know if he's a good actor. He's kind of not great. It's tough to be a kid actor in a movie like this in the first place, but his I don't know if he's a good actor. He's like kind of not great. It's tough to be a kid actor in a movie like this in the first place.

But his, I don't know, his kind of like teen age rage and cynicism does come through in the end, I felt like. Well, and he just has all the hammy lines, which there are hammy lines in this movie. And it's okay because he's a kid. And it's like, it was very exciting for me when they're driving in the car and he's trying to teach Arnold how to speak like a human. He's like, so, you know, you got to say things like hasta la vista, baby. And I was like, oh, that's when he learns

to say hasta la vista, baby. And then I was just waiting the whole time. You know, I knew it was coming even though I had never seen this movie. So, but he sounds pretty corny when he's saying all of that, but I don't know. He's like a 13 year old kid

who doesn't really know what's going on. And it's like trying to make friends with a robot. I just thought it was supposed to be part of the schlock. Yeah, I think sometimes it's because the movie at times transitioned into like a boy and his dog movie. And the Terminator kind of becomes his dog and he's teaching him tricks and teaching him little catchphrases

and things to say, which is effective. I think we've basically unpacked the theme of this movie, which is most, most James Cameron movies. The themes are in the text. You know, the, at one point the Terminator literally turns to Sarah and,

and John and says, it's in your nature to destroy yourselves. And I, I think that's more or less what, what, what big Jim was thinking. What, what else, what else did the movie strike you as being about? Well, uh, parenting. And I think that's more or less what Big Jim was thinking. What else?

What else did the movie strike you as being about? Well, parenting. And also, it does seem like testing ground for a lot of his, like, I know that he has been doing sci-fi forever. But a lot of his issues of the problems that humans can get themselves into and then what the future looks like after that. And the kind of post-apocalyptic, the consequences of our sins of humans and then, you know, crashing things also. What do you think about a filmmaker who, and there are a lot of examples of this, but who is so fascinated by the technology and the technocracy and the militarism on screen? You know, he really puts big guns on screen.

He puts all this tech on screen, but also has this incredibly uneasy relationship to it. And there are obviously millions and millions of people saw T2 and they probably took something very different away from look at this kid who's wearing a public enemy t-shirt and look at the villain who is a police officer and look at the way that technology can eventually not just manage our lives but take over our lives I wouldn't say the critiques in this movie are subtle but they're they're they're not necessarily always

literalized for every mainstream moviegoer and so Cameron I guess I'm trying to figure out kind of whether he thinks he's done more good than bad long term as a filmmaker in terms of what he's actually trying to say with some of his films. Well, I agree with you that he's aware and asking some of the questions. And, you know, it's interesting. This is a person who famously is also just tech obsessed himself. on these types of movies as much for like the challenge of making them and the, and, and making up all of the technology and being an innovator and, you know, then being able to like scuba dive on the side or whatever they are born as much out of his like practical technical, can I create this obsessions? And also like, frankly, imagination as technology and as, you know, a feat of creation.

So he's a I think he's aware of all of it. But I I wouldn't say that the movies are so self-aware that they are. Exploring his own fascination with technology and his own investment in these worlds and kind of what happens. That's at least not my takeaway is that he has a fascination with and a great gift with the side of these things and then has managed to spin stories out of them. But so I wonder how much he's thinking in terms of good and bad, because I don't know whether these are all like movies that are trying to teach the world something about how to be. I don't think he's like trying to scare people away from technology. He's like, sorry, I have to wait 10 years to make all of these movies because I need the technology to catch up to what I want to do.

So I also I mean, Jim Cameron is just like a very confident guy, confident being a generous word. That's a soft word for what he is. Soft word. So I don't think he feels like he's done anything but good. Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot of nuance there. I think you're right that it's not a binary. It's not the technology is good or technology is evil or the military state is bad or the military state is good. It's not this overly simplistic concept, so I don't want to mischaracterize it but if you look at who he is in the 2000s and it's relevant to the titanic conversation we're about to have he spends a lot of time developing new technologies and new kind of documentary

filmmaking techniques in order to explore the world he has this kind of swashbuckling nature where he's like, I will actually get into the ship and go to the bottom of the sea to see what is there. And I don't just want to build a ship that can do that. I want to be in this ship. And then I want to document my discoveries. And so he has this, you know, he's almost like a person who believes he has the power to discover new lands, which has some kind of colonialist underpinnings that are complicated. On the other hand, he is exposing the world to knowledge that they didn't necessarily have before. And so I find that most of his movies, especially in the last 25 years, are in this constant

conflict and dialogue about what is the use and what is the power of these things that we're able to build for ourselves. I don't know that it necessarily starts here. You can see it in the abyss. You can see it in aliens. All these movies are about what happens if we found this incredible technology and it could kill us or it could save us. That's what, that's completely what the abyss is about. That's completely what aliens is about. It's totally what the Terminator movies are about. It's completely what avatar is about. It's like like what if we could build a thing to make you another living creature you know like it's fascinating how over and over and over again he can't get away from this single concept and pretty much in all of the movies there are people who know how to use the technology responsibly and people who don't and it's all it's not about

like have we gone too far have we oversteppedstepped what it means to be a human or whatever? It's like, did the right human get a hold of this or did the wrong human? And who's going to do this responsibly? And there is a right person and there's a right way to do it. And that right person always looks a lot like Jim Cameron. It's very true. Should we transition to Titanic?

Sure. The world is waiting. Unlike you with Terminator 2 2 i had seen this movie before i also think titanic is um it's it's pretty clear what happens in titanic you know i think it is even more so than terminator 2 become an archetypal story not just because we knew the titanic went down but because jack and rose and the whole story of the film has become such a part of the cultural lexicon over the years that it's not as though I forgot anything but I literally don't think I have seen this movie in 24 years I can't remember a time sitting down to watch it maybe five or ten minutes on cable from time to time but I had I

had that teenage boy thing where I was like this movie isn't cool and it's not for me. And every girl I knew who I wanted to love me, but I knew didn't know I was alive was like Leonardo DiCaprio and Titanic is the only thing that matters. So I think I just, I don't know if I held a grudge on the movie, but I was not in touch with the idea of appreciating a romantic film and certainly not a historical romantic film when I was 16 or 15 when this movie was released I you on the other hand I have to imagine this was one of the most important things that ever happened to you it's interesting I think you were at a uniquely bad age to appreciate Titanic and and Titanic was really interesting for me because I was 13 years old when it came out and Titanic

came out the same year as Good Will Hunting and And I think I've told this story before, but that was a year when I was starting to learn about movies. And I definitely was learning about the Oscars. And that was a very formative Oscars year for me, primarily because Matt Damon and Penn Affleck were super hot. And we're just on the campaign trail all of the time. Never forget the Oprah interview where Matt Damon broke up with mini driver without telling many driver on Oprah,

just like an all time event that I act that I had on VHS. I think you like videotaped, like you, you recorded movies on VHS and I was just being testing like Oprah interviews with Matt Damon. But I'm like, I'm not kidding. So like Good Will Hunting was

like the cooler movie to like then. And I was just old enough to be like, well, but like, I think this is a really great movie. And I loved that movie. Very, very formative movie for me. But, you know, I was also 13 and I wanted to have friends and they went to see Titanic like every week at Phipps Plaza, just every week, three hours. And all of my friends went eight and nine and 10 times. And it was just a thing that you did. And so I finally saw it and I liked it a lot. I wouldn't say that I didn't go see it 10 times, but unless you were say the 16 year old boy who was like i'm cooler than this and actively trying to resist titanic it was just everywhere i i mean it is just like a pop cultural event that i think makes the game

of thrones finale look like i don't know like hacks on hbmx which by the way i finally started and it's very lovely i too like this great i also liked the devil wears prada but anyway it's like a very you know a niche thing they were all like hey great um like titanic inescapable just absolutely massive it has made what 2.2 billion dollars box office let's i don't i don't know how to communicate it to the children like i don't know know if Bobby remembers it because he was so young and probably wasn't allowed to see it in theaters, but it was just all that existed. That's why when we started recording this,

you were like, it's a movie swap. And I was like, cool, are you movie swapping with the entire world? Because we've all seen Titanic? Yeah, but when I saw it and I only saw it once, while I could admire a couple of things about it i was like man fuck this you know like i had a kind of like negative opinion not an i don't even know how to rationalize it it's just when you're 16 and you're a brat you're just a brat

you have to it's like that's an important rite of passage and i admitted to even being a little like are we sure like have you guys seen goodwill hunting but but it's insane how popular this was. It's unprecedented. I completely agree. I think $2.2 billion sounds like a lot in the context of the last two Avengers movies, which made around the same amount of money and are widely considered the most successful movies of all time. That's not correct. If you look at the way that the grosses work and inflation over time, there are other movies that have made more money than this. But Titanic, to me, is probably the absolute pinnacle of paid moviegoing. Because it's a movie that, while it did both things, it did the thing where it ran for

months and months in movie theaters, but it also made that money in a concentrated period of like less than nine months, as opposed to say, Gone with the Wind, playing every year or five years or 10 years and being revived over and over again. Titanic finds itself in that crux point. You know, even movies like Back to the Future in the 80s, they could run for a year and continue to make money and crop up back in the top 10. That as a practice is basically over in our culture.

Titanic felt like the last time a movie could significantly do that. I was talking to my wife yesterday as I was telling her I was revisiting it. Interestingly, she was like, I might sit with you for T2, but not Titanic. She definitely likes Titanic more. I think she just was like, it would be interesting to see T2. I'm not sure if she had seen it before. But she saw Titanic four times in movie theaters. My wife is not the kind of person that sees a movie multiple times in a movie theater.

She could not be less interested in that experience. So that's how big it was. And there's probably a number of different versions for what was successful about it. Before we get into that, it is incredibly unlikely because this movie is 195 minutes. This movie is so long. And it's a stupid complaint to say this movie is so long, but it is so long. I mean, it is four different movies

over the course of time. So the idea of a movie that is such an endurance test like this, being this successful, is also fascinating. You know, I realized that Avengers Endgame is also close to three hours, and a lot of people loved showing up for that one over and over again.

But that at least was the conclusion of like a 10 movie investment that people had made over many years. This is a standalone movie, three over and over again. But that at least was the conclusion of like a 10 movie investment that people had made over many years. This is a standalone movie, three hours and 15 minutes. And people were like, I will go see this again right away. That's phenomenally fascinating.

Well, it's a little bit, it's both a teenage mind and I think kind of proto fan mind of there's like something that you're earned, you know, that you're like showing your devotion. It's like, I'm really hardcore. So it like the longer it is, like the more I know about it, the more I'm attached to it, the more it's like, we're in this together. It's a very good point. Also like, I don't know what to say about teenage girls. Also like what else did we have to do in 1997?

Like what? There was no internet. Okay. It's like you were at the mall anyway. You could buy Bath and Body Works or you could go to Titanic. And it's just like, how much country apple body soap do you need? None. Just FYI. But I spent a lot of it there. So I do think it also became a phenomenon of being like, oh, you got to go see it again. And then I think in terms of its kind of longevity and life after the theaters, you mentioned seeing it on cable.

I mean, I like I think this movie kept TNT afloat for like three years. And it's just right. It's like a five hour block. And so you turn it on and you've watched parts of it a thousand times. Then it has like a third life on the Internet. You can dip in and out of it. And because, as you said, you know, largely what's going to happen. And so it's, it's for the small bits. And then I think also it was one of like the early movies that got fragmented outside of its movie-dom, right? Like obviously the Celine

Dion song was like a whole thing. And then I don't know if you remember like the Britney Spears song, Oops, I Did It Again, which references the necklace, the heart of the ocean from Titanic in the bridge of the song. Like, do you remember this? I don't think I've ever known that. She's like, I thought the old lady dropped in the ocean. And he's like, well, baby, I went back down and got it for you that's like literally in the song wow I did it again which is my favorite Britney Spears song so it just it was everywhere and so you know and obviously like SNL skits and all of these sorts of things but so you didn't even have to watch it obviously many many millions of people, but that you could really grow an affinity to it without even

experiencing the full three-hour run. I tried to, or I thought I was going to closely recap and chronicle and note the movie as I was going through it. And then by the 40th minute or so, I was like, there's just too much movie here. I'm overwhelmed by how much movie there is. It's not that hard. You can do it. It's not that it's hard. It's just that I was like, we're not going to make a six-hour pod about Titanic, but you could because there's so many different things to identify. James Cameron has to do his deep sea exploring thing for 40 minutes until they find the necklace or they don't find the necklace.

Do you want to just move on from that right away? Or you just want to list the beats, basically? Yeah, but I can do it quickly. I can do it quickly. Also, I'll probably forget some things, but that's okay. I did rewatch this last night, and I have to tell you the deep sea exploring aspect of this is like much longer than I remembered,

but it's nice to see Bill Paxton. Okay. James Cameron deep sea exploring, but they don't find the necklace. They find old Rose. She tells them the story. Rose is marrying Billy Zane, but she doesn't want to. Tries to jump off the boat.

Leo saves her. They fall in love. They have sex in an old-timey car. Boat hits the iceberg. There aren't enough lifeboats. That they, you know, try to hang on together. There's not enough room on the thing, even though there is. And then Jack dies, and she goes on to live a lovely life.

I think you mostly got it, but there's definitely about an hour and 20 minutes between they have sex in a weird old-timey car and then the boat sinks like a lot happens there and that was particularly where i was like man i don't even know if i can get through every single beat of this because there's tons of filmmaking choices there's tons of character and story choices going on throughout the movie. It is an epic tale. Yeah. And the parts of the movie that I don't like are the parts of the movie that became cliches. Or not don't like,

but like I'm just not super invested in Jack and Rose, honestly, which is I still have teenage boy brain. You know, for whatever reason, I'm like, I get it. They clicked. When you're a young person, you meet somebody on a boat.

We've all been on a cruise. We're like, wow, that girl. Maybe we're going to be together forever. Meanwhile, you're not. You're on a boat. You're in a fantastical setting. It happens. Everybody just settled down.

Rose, how do you tell this story 70 years later about this dude who gave her a necklace? Well, extenuating circumstances, okay? They hit an iceberg, right? Like everything was kind of unpredictable. It was unpredictable. The first, let's talk about that first segment. 21 minutes of present day framing device, which I just don't think you need that much.

I don't know if the movie really couldn't have survived if we had just opened on Rose getting onto the boat. Would the movie have not worked? I feel like it would have worked. Would have worked, but people really loved that old lady and she got nominated for best supporting actor so i or actress i should say so um i agree with you it's so weird he just really likes being under the sea um but he likes sci-fi and he just likes being underwater and i guess I guess that's what happens. That old lady's name is Gloria Stewart. She was a golden age of Hollywood star. And so she was acknowledged for her work, which is really basically about 11 lines that she reads in the

film. But nevertheless, she's very good in it. It's interesting. I think after Titanic, which was not just an extraordinary box office success, but one best picture, one best director, one everything under the sun, was a major phenomenon from an award standpoint as well. You would have thought Cameron would have leaned more aggressively into the classical storytelling approach that he took here. This is really the first movie that is a non-sci-fi movie that he made i guess true lies is an prototypical action film but this is this is a film that is in the in the spirit of old hollywood fused with his action making sensibilities and he

has not done that he has actually done the opposite he's made a lot of movies or a lot of um documentary series that are like the first 20 minutes of this movie that are about deep sea exploration, that are about excavation of history, that are about like the aliens of the deep kind of storytelling. And it's so interesting that do you think he has more of his heart in the first 20 minutes than in any other part of the movie? Yes, though, I think it's pretty savvy. I mean, the other reason he wants to make this movie is because he wants to like make a giant boat and then crash it and then explain and explain. Listen, I know what happened, you know, that it grazed the iceberg on the side. And so then the boat like eventually took on so much water that it snapped and then it went all the way up and then it sunk all the way down. Like I, you know, I have learned from Titanic, the movie, the physics of how Titanic, the boat sank under the water because they explain it and then they show it in excruciating detail. So clearly he wanted to be able to film that like huge, huge spectacle. Um, and he does, but I wouldn't have expected him to be savvy enough to put this like sure fairly I don't want to say trite but um simple again broad you know emotions on the surface romance story that doesn't

make a ton of sense outside of the heightened spectacle of this movie um that worked for so many people and clearly brought in an entirely new audience that his other movies don't have in the same way and also really hooked a lot of people in. I think there are a lot of people who, even men, not just teenage girls, who were like, oh my God, this is the most romantic thing of all time.

It's become kind of a shorthand. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm being a little tough on the Jack and Rose stuff, but it is incredibly involving and successful, but it does feel, as you pointed out, kind of simple. You know, it's not a very complex love story. It's a very easy to understand, tragic fable, basically, about two young lovers. I feel like when I was watching the movie it felt to me like

this is the best that Jim Cameron could do with a love story you know like this is kind of as sophisticated as he gets when it comes to this sort of thing but do you think it's more calculated than that do you think he thought to himself I need to make this as kind of conventional as possible so that then I don't

have to, I have so many other things to worry about. I'm only going to, you know, I need the audience to be able to follow this part very, very closely to kind of wow them with everything else. I honestly have no idea. I think this is the magic of James Cameron. And also the thing that I'll never be able to fully access is like, he's frankly how his emotional register works and his emotional intelligence is just like exists, but it's very different than mine. And I just, I don't know, like the same way that I'm just like, I have no idea what compelled you to choose a robot father. I mean, I do, but you know, to think that that was what the movie needed. I have no idea how strategic he's being in terms of, I need this note to happen here so that people will care about this. I don't, I don't know how mechanical it is versus like how sentimental it is or how aware of the sentimentality it is.

Like it all works together. And I think the movie does not work without Jack and Rose. That's what people remember. But I don't know. He's doing calculations in a different way

than my brain does them. His films, for the most part, don't feature romance. Yeah. They're not a huge part of the story. There is a little bit of

Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth, and Master Antonio, but that's about kind of a broken relationship. You the story there is a little bit of ed harris mary elizabeth master antonio but that's about a kind of an a broken relationship you know there's a little bit of it in true lies but that's also about a broken relationship we should say james cameron has been married four times maybe he's been evaluating that but there are not a lot of his films that are about like the beginning like young love you know little bit of the terminator but that's also kind of shrouded in this crazy Jesus Christ tale that is ultimately not about Sarah Connor and the Michael Biehn figure. And so this is his one true stab at a classical romance.

And it's just so direct. It's like, here's a rich girl. She's got an absolute asshole fiance her family has fallen on hard financial times and so they desperately need her

to marry this asshole who's played by Billy Zane who's I think he like took steroids before this movie he's just completely

like roid raged out throughout the whole film um and she meets this this ruffian this

this third classclass citizen, you know, occupying below deck, and he's not very deep. He's got the soul of an artist. He's been plying his wares in Europe, but he's just not good enough, but he's got some poker skills. He wins this card game

and gets himself a ticket onto this ship, which is traveling from South Hampton to New York. And then they're like, it's extremely important that we fuck. This is one of the most important things that will happen is that we have to have passionate sex. And that is the, that's it.

That's the story. That's the romance. They, they, they, they, they want to have sex. That's basically the bottom line.

The story of every romance in history. It's like, that that's what teenagers do have you read romeo and julia like come on that's just we'd like to fuck how can we arrange it so that we can fuck until you know whatever 2000 when kids are sometimes allowed to pocket movies that's it everything else is like how can we square all societal expectations, possibly legal financial arrangements? What do we have to do to be able to have sex as quickly as possible? That is what has been animating all art for centuries. Why did it take James Cameron so long to realize that?

I don't know. Again, I don't understand how this man's priorities work. I don't understand what his emotions are. I don't know whether he thinks it's reasonable that they just want to fuck. I think he, he sees like the great star cross romance in that as opposed to just like, you guys just could have found a ship and then gotten on with your lives. But you know,

what about the rest of the movie? What are you revisiting the scale? You know, you noted that this maybe has actually not aged as well as, as Terminator two. Yeah. I mean, the ship in the daytime looks like a computer ship i don't know what to say to you it's just like oh you did that on a computer it's like i don't know why when i watch this now i just think about the like honestly the commercials for the polar express movie a movie i never saw but it just it kind of looks like, you know, they drew them. That's okay.

At night, it looks better. So at night, I think it looks great. Yeah. And I will say it always. The Titanic sunk at night, so. It did. It always, and that's true of like in horror movies, you know, they look better during sequences during the night.

You know, CGI always looks better during the night for obvious reasons. You can cover everything in shadow, but the you know post iceberg right ahead moment when everything just goes literally belly up is unbelievable unbelievable i to this day i'm like i have no idea how they did this this seems so dangerous it obviously was like a massively maligned project during production. People were like, this is going to be a disaster of epic proportions because it's going to be too hard. He's bitten off more than he can chew. James Cameron, his massive ego has once again gotten in the way of making a great film. And people were like, this is never going to work.

Even though it looks like a giant movie ship that they built. And I suspect not what the Titanic looked like, it does not matter. I was like, holy moly, the scale and the execution of this and how dangerous this must have been to do is breathtaking to me. I was trying to find, did anybody die

or were they severely injured during the production of this film? I don't know. I don't think they've publicized it if so it it is hard to imagine that everyone walked away without a scratch yeah because there's so many sequences obviously specifically when they're tipping the boat but even everything leading up to that the the water flooding the halls and all those sequences it looks like it must have been an absolute brutal experience to make i thought of

kate winslet and leonardo DiCaprio many times and just how obviously this is the movie that made their careers and cemented them as icons really in movie history. But boy, it looks not fun at all. I think sitting in water for more than an hour that is less than 80 degrees is not something I personally enjoy. They just,

they used the Pacific ocean, which is cold just so, you know, Brutalizing. Um, what'd you think about the kind of scope and scale of the movie? Did any of that part feel different than when you watched it when you were a teenager? Yes. Especially once they are, you know, once they hit the iceberg and the chase sequences within the ship itself and just kind of like the geography and the choreography that they have to communicate and nail down of, you know, Jack and Rose kind of keep descending and keep outwitting the henchmen valet is pretty remarkable. And then obviously with us, like the water comes gushing in like, you know, a small scene, like right after they hit the iceberg, which did kind of remind me of what was that game show that wasn't legends of the hidden temple but you had to climb up the crag you remember you know what i'm talking yeah the aggro crag that was a little bit look like the aggro crag but that's okay um but as soon as they hit the iceberg the two guys who've been hunting

for them in the i guess like the cargo room where the car is. And the water just comes like bursting through that room. Everyone in the engine rooms, like, I mean, there's just so much physical, intense, dangerous stuff that's happening for an hour and a half. Like just how sustained it is, is really remarkable. I found myself disconnected from a lot of the sentimentality of the romance, but I found myself disconnected from a lot of the sentimentality of the romance, but I felt myself completely connected to the sentimentality of the mortality of the story.

You know, the string quartet playing on the deck, which is kind of like a cliche of our time, but also just was enormously effective and kind of like staged gracefully i think a lot of the conversations the sort of the severity of the moment you know like what happens to people when they're put in a situation like this and what happens to the notions of class and who is willing to sacrifice themselves versus who is willing to you know attempt to uh save themselves in the face of this kind of grave mortal danger is really, really well done. I mean, this is the ultimate kind of action disaster filmmaker operating at the really the height

of his powers. I mean, he's also even from an age perspective, he's learned so much about how to make movies at this point. I just, I'm still trying to wrap my head around like how many shots did he have to stage like look at the way the movie is it's cut so quickly yeah i mean as as you were talking about those those moments like i was thinking about the mother tucking her kids in as the water's coming and like the old couple like you know on the bed together which is like based on a true story and the captain waiting in that i don't know the boat terms but the deck waiting for all the water to come crashing through the windows and the Victor Garber character, you know, like, and I can still see where all of them are as they're making their choices about what they're going to do. And then just like the water gushing in to all of them.

The scale of it is like, it's mind bending and no one else would try this but James Cameron. And it's a real, the filmmaker is smarter than the filmgoer experience for me because through whatever, the first hour and 45 minutes of the movie, I was like, why do we have to meet all these people?

Why do we have to go through the paces? Why does Leo have to have this stupid meal with Billy Zane and all these rich people on the deck of the ship? And then you realize,

the more time you spend with these people, the deeper the loss is, the more intense the tragedy of the story is and it's really really well rendered and it's it still strikes me as so strange the sort of simplified nature of jack and rose surround but this world that feels very lived in you know very um very carefully rendered throughout the movie and then this epic tragic loss what did you think about leonardo and kate it's it's classic i mean is it their best performances i don't know on the other hand do they manage to turn that like pretty thin romance as you said like to 100 immediately just

with their charm and they're just like they're spitting and you know i'm i'm flying jack i mean i just i have all of these scenes completely memorized and i that's a testament to their charisma and their presence together in what must have just been as we said like a complete nightmare of a shoot and also like without a lot of time or grist to work with, they just have to suddenly like be star-crossed lovers instantly. And you have to want to root for them. So I think they're pretty great performances. I don't think it's like, you know, masterclass stuff from either of them.

They've given more like actorly performances. But as far as movie stars go, I don't know. They're at the bow of the boat and I'm doing the arms now, guys. I mean, it's just, it's iconic stuff, quite literally. I think it's an interesting time to look at this movie

and the two of them too because Leo's last role is as Rick Dalton and Kate's last role is as Mare from Mare of Easttown, both of which are really the first times in their careers that they have taken on parts in which they are authentically kind of frumpy or over the hill or a little washed out, flawed, both notably basically alcoholics.

And that wasn't really their screen persona kate winslet played complex women historically not necessarily always kind of starlet-esque roles but she still is often very glamorous in movies and they've both hit that phase of their careers now where they are you know pushing 50 and starting to consider that they can't there is no jack and rose for them in the future you know and their relationship over the years as celebrities is always so interesting you know they are always kind of characterizing themselves as such good friends you know that's like their personas together which i think many people find fascinating i think warms their heart and maybe kind of keeps the relationship to titanic strong as a movie But also there's like this weird cosplay of like Leo spends all of his time with 22 year old women

and then also hangs out with Kate. They're like very good friends in like one sentence that they give it a junket answer, you know, every five years. That's what I was going for. Do you buy that? 3,000 blog posts. I'm sure they're really friendly. They went through hell together and like went through then a tremendous change in their careers in different ways. It seems like they really liked each other. It's not like a Vin Diesel and The Rock situation. So that's good.

Do I think that they're like brunching every week? No, I don't. I think that they just like kind of say the Hollywood thing when they're asked about it and maybe, you know, are very chummy when they go to the Golden Globes at this at the same time. And that's what counts as friends in Hollywood. And that's also what, you know, gives content for a million blog posts that we've all read because here we are stuck on the internet. Is it just because we really want them to one day realize that they're perfect for each other?

Is that what's going on there? I don't know. I guess people want that. I don't want that. I feel pretty good. This isn't the one where I'm like, what we really need are Jack and Rose together. As you said, two young characters who really needed to have sex in a car and they did that. And then some really unfortunate things happened. But like, I don't really need to like write the Titanic by having these two actors wind up together in real life. I guess there are

people who, you know, interact with the world that that way and i don't know what to say to them what is this movie about why did james cameron want to make it and what are the themes of this because he wanted to build a really big ship and crash it because he literally wanted to be like i filmed the titanic sinking you couldn't see that before and now you can see that he wanted to teach an entire generation about the physics of what happens when you take on water on the starboard side and then the ship cracks in two. I don't know if it was the starboard side. Which side is that? Do you know a lot about boats? Not at all. Despite the fact that I grew up on Long Island, which is literally buttressed on both sides by bodies of water, I don't know

the first thing about sailing. I like being on boats a lot and i obviously love you know the ocean love being in water but i know nothing about them i do also want to note was no one seasick on the titanic even for a second it's a great note i got no idea it's the first thing that i've seen this movie a thousand times but i watched it last night and i was just like everyone is dancing upstairs they're dancing below deck they're dancing like there's just not a ripple of seasickness anywhere everyone is just like cool i'm used to the ocean so in this 195 minute epic you're saying the one thing that is missing is vomit that's what you wanted to see more of yes do people even vomit once they hit the iceberg and it's like oh no things are going bad there's absolutely no vomit doesn't that strike you as a little strange?

You think they all should have just been vomiting on each other when the iceberg hit? You know, listen, I think the below deck party seems like a great time. I think one of the most charming moments is when Leo is dancing with like the seven-year-old girl. He's like, Cora, you're still my best girl. Very cute. Very great. Basic movie making stuff but they're all just drinking a ton of beer and getting hammered and dancing around on like a very fast moving vessel

at sea and that's just not my experience with being at sea i don't really get seasick so i guess it never crossed my mind um but it's a it. It's a very fair point. You know, I imagine there are a great many people who are terribly ill. I just feel like it's been buried in history, but at least one person on the Titanic vomited at some point. That's all I'm saying. Do you think that the movie has real themes that hold up? Because I agree with you that the reason he wanted to make it is this is a challenge movie.

This is a can I do it movie. And after True Lies and after terminator 2 you can feel cameron saying like what can i do next to go to the next level what is the most daring and dramatic in scope film that i can make and a period piece and a romance and all these different things. But is it just the same thing that all of his movies are about, which is like man's desire, relentless desire to build things to conquer mother nature don't work

and will always backfire? Is that the only real theme of the story? I mean, it does have elements of that. And he really goes to great lengths to set up, I believe, like the owner of the steamship line. Who's like, please turn the engines all the way up. We need to get there on Tuesday evening or whatever. And so, and the, the captain who has like, has the iceberg warning, but, or the ice warning, but it's like, it'll be fine. So hubris for sure. But I sort of just think he's like,

I need to make a tragedy. Like this is my great epic tragedy. And I will show like all the physical components of it. And then I need all of the themes that are in a classical tragedy. So star-crossed love, you know, class issues or people just feeling bound in by societal expectations. You know, greed, hubris, bad planning, as far as the lifeboats go, evil people, as far as Billy Zane goes. I just think he kind of threw everything in to be like, this is my great epic disaster tragedy. Is this film about feminism I mean I honestly don't want to do James Cameron's take on feminism and women I I can I can I can I go ahead mention the one thing that I did not remember even seeing um the first time around and jumped out in a big way at the end which was

the final shots of the film which are the photographs of Kate Winslet through the years after she survived after Jack saved her which depicted her you know not just on horseback like they talk about in the film not riding side saddle but legs on both sides of the horse but also you know on an elephant in some sort of safari scenario and then basically basically as Amelia Earhart, does Rose become Amelia Earhart? Is that what this movie is presupposing? Or like some version of Amelia Earhart, Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. You know, I think I both really admire what women get to do in his movies

and also like don't really feel the need to parse how he thinks about what women get to do in his movies and also like don't really feel the need to parse how he thinks about what women get to do in his movies or how women are positioned i don't really again i just don't understand his emotional register which is fine but he loves the superwoman you know he it's not he doesn't like he doesn't seem to respond to the nuances of a flawed woman. He wants a woman who will defeat nature, defeat evil, defeat the aliens or the monsters or the robots. Right, and it's cool that he wants women to do that

and thinks that women can do that as opposed to men. He doesn't really seem that interested in other men. I don't know whether that's because he's just really into women or because only James Cameron exists in the James Cameron universe. I think that's an interesting read. I think he's very skeptical of men who are not Jim Cameron. Right. Which like, you know, cool. Everybody is like working through their stuff on their own time. But I do think in terms of female characters that male directors of blockbusters has given us in the last, what, 40 years. I'll give him credit.

Oh, yeah. I mean, he has done more in that respect than virtually anybody, in part because the movies he makes, any man, I should say, he's done more than any man. But the movies he makes are seen by more people than any other person. I mean, he is the single most successful individual filmmaker, I would even more than steven spielberg maybe steven spielberg and george lucas have a have a you know have a little bit of a claim to that title but if you take his eight movies and you you could put them up against any any film i mean cecil b demille john ford all of these historical filmmakers just avatar and titanic alone are like the biggest movies ever

made and he's he made both of them so it's it's interesting the way that he has kind of empowered female characters but i think over time because of his return to this very traditional vision of the superwoman also kind of like it doesn't it's by no means negates the accomplishment but it marginalizes a whole other brand of like approach to life because he only knows how to tell one kind of a story. And that's most filmmakers are like that. They have themes, they have things that they return to.

I'm not trying to neg anything that he did in terms of fronting female characters in his stories. But it is so interesting to look even at Rose is like Rose is the only person who survived in all of those people who drowned and were froze to death in the North Atlantic there like even she is a kind of a superwoman you know there's something fascinating about that right but and she also survives because the the hero upstart male protagonist drowns himself in water which as I pointed out to you in our outline is also true of T2 yeah Yeah, that's a really good point. And I didn't realize that till you wrote that down, which is, you know, the Terminator, of course,

quote unquote, sacrifices himself. Although it seemed like he could have just hung out, like he could have just stuck around. Yeah. Again, not all of it lines up long term, but he does delve into an inhospitable vat of liquid, just like Jack, in order to save the heroine. What else do these movies have in common? I mean, a lot. Like, practical things, like they're actually in both. There's a prologue set in the future that starts the movie. This very dark features floating, you know, sea explorer or, I guess, apocalypse explorer

vessels that is previewing all of the destruction to come throughout the rest of the movie. Like actually structurally, they both open that way. As previously mentioned, Edward Furlong and Leonardo DiCaprio are probably related. Look into it. The main theme, which is we can't help build, we can't help but build things that kill us. And I would also argue in terms of, I mean, broadly how they both have fit into pop culture. But especially like the one-liners. And these aren't like great one-liners.

They're not like specific or remarkable. But like, as I said, as soon as he said, Asa LaVisa Baby, I was like, oh my God, I can't wait till Asula Visa Baby, like three hours later, finally Asula Visa Baby. And then the movie wasn't over, which is what I was mad about. The T-1000 reassembles himself after Asula Visa Baby felt like a betrayal to me personally, one too many endings. But anyway, I was still pretty excited about it. Obviously also from Terminator, like I'll be back. Then, you know, I'm the king of the world from Titanic, which was maybe helped by the fact that that is what Jim Cameron yelled on the Oscar stage after winning for best picture for this movie.

And then for me, like you jump, I jump. I immediately know exactly where that's from. And again, these are not, these are just really normal words. There's like no specificity to all of them, but they conjure such a specific moment in all of these movies

with really, really banal phrases. It's a testament to him. It goes back to the way that he works through the archetypes in Terminator 2 and works through the very simplified romance in Titanic.

These movies are not complex movies. They have complex ideas or technology that are used to tell the stories. But I'm the king of the world and I'll be back are two of the most simple lines of dialogue in movie history. And they are, you're completely right. They are tattooed on the brains of millions. People will never forget those lines. And sure, part of it is that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Leonardo DiCaprio are very winning.

And so when they say something, you remember it. But part of it is, this is lizard brain storytelling. You know, it's something that is almost primal in the way that people are able to relate to it and connect to it. And so it is really fascinating, like, to use that as an opportunity to look at cameron and who cameron is and who he's become because he just hasn't done a lot or at least done a lot on this scale effectively since titanic i mean as i said he's only directed 10 films one of those films is piranha 2 and one of them is a documentary called uh or actually two are two documentaries, Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep.

12 years transpire before he makes Avatar, a movie that I would like to do a similar kind of episode. I don't think it would be a movie swap, but how to do kind of the archaeology of Avatar is really interesting to me because even more so than Titanic, that's a movie that billions of dollars worth of humans saw and not a lot of people revisit. No, I mean, that's what's so fascinating. I mean, it was more successful than Titanic. It beat all of the box office records. I remember seeing it at Court Street Theater during a blizzard and everyone did see it and it just has no cultural foothold at all. It's fascinating, and obviously next year, theoretically,

we're supposed to get Avatar 2, and then two years after that, we're supposed to get Avatar 3, at least in the past. He's given interviews where he said he wants to make five Avatar films. Who the hell knows? Doesn't seem like there are very many people

clamoring for it. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that I was necessarily clamoring for Avatar, but when I saw it, and I saw it, I think at the IMAX Theater in Lincoln Center, you know, in the mid 60s, uptown in New York, I was gobsmacked. I was hook, line and sinker.

I was so, so amazed by it, so fascinated by it. And it's very similar to Titanic in that that some of the actual storytelling i was like sam worthington and this dialogue and does this really work and still i was like i know i've never i didn't know you could do this i just i was completely transported and blown away and so the idea of him needing to one-up himself waiting 12 years to make avatar after titanic and now waiting 13 years 13 13 years to make Avatar 2, knowing he had to wait for that technology, as you pointed out, to make another movie. He's, he's painted himself into a corner once again, you know, there's a lot of doubt. And

as soon as people start doubting Jim Cameron, he makes a movie that makes two and a half billion dollars. So I'm fascinated. How do you think he'll be remembered as a director certainly with like a tinge of eccentricity as you know kind of like the the eccentric sci-fi genius but eccentric also kind of undermines just how mainstream he is but i i do think late period going from titanic then taking however many years to make Avatar than just spending however many years in the writer's room for Avatar 2. You know,

it's recency bias for sure, but that you have all this capital, you have your apex mountain, as you would say on the rewatchables,

and then just kind of make a whole blue person planet with the braids and the... I don't remember anything about this movie. Like, I saw it. Yeah, and the I don't remember anything about this movie like I saw it yeah and I just don't remember it and that he also seems so set on like kind of self-immersion

in that world I wonder whether at the end of the day it will be like well we lost Jim Cameron to his own imagination that's it that's exactly what I to say. I think you nailed it. I think he has transported himself. He has advertised himself in a way. I do think that he's probably likely to be remembered more for spectacle and innovation than for

kind of this sort of like grandfatherly storytelling that someone like Spielberg or Lucas are remembered for. But truthfully, he has more in common with that thing. I think he would,

his public persona is as this technician and as this fantasist. But he really is, like, especially when you look at Titanic, this is conventional movie making. You know, this is not,

it's done at an extraordinary scale with extraordinary skill but it's a it's a love story it's a love story on a boat it's accessible it's it's there is something for everyone in a like very contained way which you know as we get into bigger and grander serialized but still specialized movie going experiences where it's for you if you've seen the last five and also like did all of your reading ahead of time and can recognize the eight three easter eggs like there is something amazing about just we made this giant thing and everybody went to see it

so if we did a kind of pairing with avatar is there another movie you can think of and it could be from any decade it could be from the 1940s it could be from the 70s but something that we know to be monumentally successful and arguably important but that doesn't seem to have much cultural register these days kind of putting me on the spot and it's a tough one because it's also like you're asking me to pick the things that don't immediately pop to mind right because it's not like the movie that would be on the front of your brain to be like oh yeah that actually made however much money and and it's no one cares about it yeah i don't know i mean i think about it when you talk about kind of concretizing movie history like do people re-watch ben-hur at home all the time you know ben-hur famously titanic matched the number of oscars that ben-hur won won, which is considered so ideal.

But I think from that time period, people would more likely return to, I don't know, they'd probably more likely return to Spartacus or something like that than they would necessarily to Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia in terms of those epics from the 50s and 60s. So I think we should probably try to find a pairing. And at some point, maybe early next year, as we ramp up for avatar 2 which is something that will theoretically come out i never expected to have applied to my life ramping up for avatar 2 but sure i can ramp up and you can kind of ease your walker up the ramp that i'm ramping does that sound good yeah that seems fine um any closing thoughts on titanic and terminator 2 judgment day i mean this is a specific titanic thought but we didn't talk about the score at It's fine. Any closing thoughts on Titanic and Terminator 2 Judgment Day? I mean, this is a specific Titanic thought, but we didn't talk about the score at all.

And I wanted to ask you about it because I think it's probably like the single most recognizable score of the last 20 years to me. That doesn't mean the best, but just like the number of times I've heard it in like airport lounges and movie theaters and it just embedded in our consciousness great that's a great future episode is the best and most memorable scores in movies the last 30 years I think uh I was gonna make a comment about Brad Fidel's score from Terminator 2 but I thought that's just like a little too nerdy even for this conversation but his two Terminator scores I think are two of the best movie scores ever written and James Horner I just could not be further afield from Brad Fidel, that like dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,

you know, that very intense, dramatic, sort of martial sound that he creates. And Horner's is this, what is that, like a whistle or like a calliope? What is that kind of signature? I think the whole woodwind section for sure. Yeah. And it's just like, I mean,

you can't be placed on hold at a bank or, you know whatever you're trying to do without listening to the opening of titanic it's it's remarkable is it good i think it certainly adds to the movie like they're the the drama and the sentimentality and the like i can hear i think it's a flute when flute when Jack and Rose are at the front of the boat. You know, I'm not going to sing it, but that moment is definitely enhanced by the fairly ridiculous music. Thank you for not singing it. Amanda, thank you for diving deep into the films of James Cameron here on the pod.

Let's go now to a different kind of epic, a conversation with David Lowery about his film, The Green Knight. Delighted to be rejoined by David Lowery on The Big Picture. David, thanks for coming back, man. Oh, always a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

So I love The Green Knight and I'm fascinated by this as a choice for you. So why a kind of Arthurian fairy tale at this stage of your career? I think that all of my films have been fairy tales to one extent or another. So in that context, it fits right in. But the very first script I ever wrote when I was like six or seven years old was an adaptation of Sir Percival's Quest for the Grail. So I've always had like an interest in Arthurian lore. And I've always loved fantasy and sword and sorcery. And I randomly decided in the spring of 2018 that I kind of wanted to make a movie about a knight on a quest. And a year later, we were shooting this movie. It felt to me like you were kind of toggling between, you know, big studio project and a smaller project. And this kind of feels like it fuses both of those disciplines. You know,

it feels like a bigger movie movie but inside a slightly more adult and I guess independently minded kind of production is that something you're you're conscious of or you're thinking about or was this just this is the movie I want to make and we'll figure out the very best way to make it it's usually the latter it's usually you know me one having a random whim or an idea or a script and it feels like the thing I want to make in that moment and there's always the one for me, one for them mentality when you're making studio movies and then independent films, but it's usually not as binary as that. And the one thing that making independently minded movies

allows you to do is move more quickly because you can make you know you don't have enough money to shoot for very long so they by by de facto are are shorter productions so you can you can squeeze them in in a way this was definitely an independent film and yet it was at the same time the biggest and most epic and most challenging film uh my collaborators and i have made yet. You know, when we did Pete's Dragon at Disney, that was many times the budget of this. And yet this one felt far larger. And we really were trying to put something or to pull something gigantic out of a very small box.

Why did it feel bigger? What was it about? Was it the scale of the story that you were telling? Was it the production design? What was bigger? The scale was a big part of it because we were trying to tell what is ultimately a very intimate movie you know a lot of this movie are people sitting around fires talking about morality but it needed to have an adventurous scope to it and it also is a fantasy film. It's a period piece that exists in no actual period. So it,

you know, it has that, it has the demands of that genre, which, you know, means big sets and costumes and vistas and landscapes and horses. And when I first thought of this idea of making a sword and sorcery, a fantasy film,

I thought, you know what, let's just make a movie about a knight on a horse going on a quest. And it'll be very simple. And we just follow this guy on his journey and it's going to be very low budget. And that went away really quickly. It stayed fairly low budget, but it was definitely my, my ambition for it increased. And I wanted this to have the breadth of a real epic. And so in spite of the narrow focus of the journey, it is a very intimate film. It needed to have this world and to execute,

we really had to just pull out all the stops and every trick we could come up with to make this feel truly gigantic. And it was a really fun shoot. It was a really hard shoot at the same time for that reason. Did you make that change because it didn't seem possible to make a movie like this at a smaller scope? Or was it just because of the story that you wanted to tell? Do you think you could do something like you had originally set out to do? I think I could have.

I think I became enchanted with the idea of the scope of this. My ambition grew as I made it. That happened with the ghost story too on a much smaller scale where it was initially, okay, we're going to be in one house. It'll be a person in a bed sheet and we'll never leave the confines of that house. And by the end of it, it becomes a Western. Sky turns into Blade Runner for a second. My ambition tends to grow as I develop things. I start with very simple ideas and then

I always get very maximalist with them. And this was no exception. I looked at something like, I love Robert Brisson's Lancelot movie, which is very simple and very stripped down, and I thought maybe this would be more like that. And then there's Eric Romare's Percival movie, which is all on painted backdrops, and I thought maybe we could do something like that. But by the time we got to Ireland and were developing it, the two biggest references we were looking at

was the Russian War and Peace adaptation that Criterion had just released, which was, you know, seven hours long and had the entire, you know, Russian government financially backing it. And then Lord of the Rings. And those are the two things we looked at a lot and was like, these are terrible references when we have the budget we have, but nonetheless, that's what we're going for. What do your financiers say when you're saying, actually, we're looking at War and Peace right now? I probably didn't mention that one. You know, that was our promise, though. We promised, you know, the script was a script.

And the script was 80 pages long. It was very short. And it was definitely, it had that intimacy that the movie has. But we promised our financiers that this would be a movie with scope that it would feel larger than the numbers we were talking about that we're going to make it for and and so our goal was always to just increase you know you know we shot on the widest lens we could we tried to make this thing feel huge we looked for locations uh that had that epic quality to them And we wanted this to be an adventure.

We wanted the movie to feel like an adventure, even though it's a little bit left of center. So what do you like about these stories? Why was this the first script that you wrote, a fairy tale like this? What do you connect to? I mean, that's a really good question. I suppose all quests are ultimately a journey of self-discovery and I I'm someone who is always, I'm trying to get more in touch with myself and trying to find out more about the ways in which I can become a better person. And, and all of those, those myths

ultimately come down to that. You know, they're always about, you know, whether it's, you know, uh, any of the, any of the tales of the Knights of the Round Table or, or any, you know, whether it's, you know, any of the, any of the tales of the Knights of the Round Table or, or any, you know, any, any fable, it's always about, you know, trying to do the right thing. And that is something that, you know, I'm always trying to do certainly. So I'm sure it has something to do with that. I also like archetypes. I really love dealing with archetypes, unpacking archetypes from the very first movie I made. That was what I was trying to do. With Saint Nick and Ain't Nobody Saints, I wanted to take these iconic images and breathe some sort of different life into them or deconstruct them a little bit. Deconstructing them is maybe a little more meta than what I usually do. I'm more earnest than I am meta, I think.

But nonetheless, I do try to unpack these archetypes to a certain extent. And that really appeals to me. So every movie I've made, I think, is dealing with larger-than-life symbols in place of characters. And then we try to find the characters within those symbols.

You know, when I think about the tone of some of the 70s and 80s kind of fantasy quest fables like this, they seem a little bit tongue in cheek. And this movie is not that. It has a wry sense of humor, but it feels quite serious. How did you figure out what kind of tone you wanted to have on this story? As with most of my movies, they usually start off much funnier. Like I try to, I always want to, someday I'll make a comedy, but like I wanted this one, especially to have a more of a sense of humor to it. And I like to laugh. I love going to see comedies. I love, I try to, you know, I think of myself as a pretty lighthearted person.

Old Man and the Gun is probably the movie that represents me in terms of my personality the most, just relatively affable. And that's probably me. But, you know, my movies tend to have a serious edge to them. And that's just, you know, I kind of just move in that direction naturally. So even though I wrote a script, I, you know, Andrew, my cinematographer, first read, he's like, you finally wrote your comedy you've always been talking about. And of course the final, the final movie is pretty heavy. Um, and, and that's just my natural inclination. It just naturally happens. Like I could try to make a slapstick comedy. I'm sure it wind up being really sad. There are aspects of the movie that have this really impressive and cool practical design,

but then there's obviously a lot of of there has to be some kind of digital imagery here how did you decide and figure out what you needed to render digitally versus what you wanted to feel touchable it was it was sort of like the we had a lot of built-in limitations like we knew like for example there's one set where king king arthur's bed chambers for example we were like we can afford to build a set of a certain scale. And also we only had room on our stage to build it to a certain scale. And so you think, well, I want the set to be bigger, so I know I'm just going to extend it digitally.

And so sometimes it's just very practical, things like that. There were vistas and landscapes that we had that were really impressive that didn't need anything. But then there were other ones where I just knew, i just need to get dev patel covering this limited period of uh this expansive land and i'm gonna just shrink him down and put him in a big digital matte painting um and so it just it comes out naturally as you're sort of like location scouting figuring out what you can find what you can't find what you need to enhance um it's a pretty organic process that being said we always knew we wanted king arthur's you know grand hall with the round table that was meant to

be 100 practical and it was we just built this gigantic set that you know took the entire length of our production to finish and we wanted the movie to be tangible we didn't want it to feel too you know leaning too heavily into visual effects obviously we've got you know giants and we wanted the movie to be tangible. We didn't want it to feel too, you know, leaning too heavily into visual effects. Obviously we've got, you know, giants and we've got a talking Fox, but at the same time,

we wanted as much to have a textile quality, a textural textile quality as possible, including the green night, which was, you know, I really wanted him to be a hundred percent practical. So I love old fashioned visual effects. I love the history of special effects and visual effects.

I love, you know, Willow is a big inspiration on this film. We looked at how they did everything on that. Talk to some of the visual effects supervisors, the ILM that worked on that and really tried to think about how would we approach this if we were making this in the eighties, but at the same time,

the toolkit available to us with visual effects now with CGg is definitely especially a movie like this on a limited budget it makes it um a little bit more doable i think if we tried to do it strictly the old-fashioned way it would actually wind up being more expensive at this point so why dev patel as your hero what what made you want to cast him i just really really liked him. I met him and instantly just wanted to hang out with him. And he's someone who is incredibly generous, gentle, kind, gentleman of a human being. But he also has this youthfulness to him that is still carrying over from when we first met him with Slumdog Millionaire, or that's when I first got introduced to him. And you still sort of think of him as having this boyish quality in spite of

the fact that he, you know, when you see him in this movie, you're like, yes, he is a knight. He has a, he can wear that crown. He can become a king. He is a, he, he can carry himself with the austerity of a, of a hero, of a legend. And yet at the same time, he also has this very natural boyish enthusiasm, this naivete to him. And so he was really able to capture the journey I wanted Gawain to go on with the film in terms of becoming a, not just a man, but becoming a good human being. Becoming a, you know, filling the shoes that he had set out for himself. And, and so he starts the film as this,

as a man child, basically he's a, he's a little, he's a little kid in a grown man's body, a kid who should have moved out of his mom's house a long time ago. And by the end of the movie, he has taken the first step towards, towards adulthood. Um, we call it becoming a knight in the movie, he has taken the first step towards adulthood. We call it becoming a knight in the film, but really what we're trying to say is he's becoming an adult. Of course, becoming an adult in this case means facing up to the fact that you need to get your head chopped off. But nonetheless, that's not a spoiler. But that is where he winds up at the end of the movie. And Dev was uniquely suited to charting that progress. What did you underestimate about mounting a story like this?

Just how hard it is to make a period film. I've made movies in the 70s, 80s. Every movie I've made has been a period film. But trying to do something where you can't fake it, you can't cheat it. If a piece of armor looks like it came off a shelf. The audience will be able to tell. And that is really hard. It's hard. You know, we looked at a lot of medieval films. We're like, what, what are the things that stick out to us? What feels false? What feels real? And we thought we had a rule book for it. And it turns out that our rule book was way off and that it's really hard to come up. You know, when we were making Inthumboddy Saints and Pete's Dragon, we had this rule about, you know, we never say what year those movies are set in, but if it felt right, we would use it.

Even if it was like, the cars were the best example. We'd have like 60s cars and 1980s cars right next to each other. And they just felt right. And it just was a sort of like strange blend of like memory and nostalgia and pop culture and things that you just understand like this, these things fit together in a picture and they work well together and they make sense. And trying to do that with a medieval fantasy film is a lot harder because everything is so far removed from the reality we know. That sense of nostalgia that gives you that free pass doesn't exist anymore.

And so you have to have some level of reality there. And achieving that level of reality is really hard. If you put a castle from the 14th century next to a castle from the 18th century, they don't really work together. And yet, that was our challenge was trying to figure out those are what we had to that's what we had to work with those were the castles that were dealt with us and so we were like how do we make these work within the aesthetics of the film how do we make a world in which these two time periods can uh coexist and not run up against each other and and that was really, really hard. How does one book a castle for a shoot? Well, when you go to Ireland, I think they're very used to castles being booked for shoots. There's all the paperwork already exists and we just have to fill it out.

So one thing that I like about your films is you're toggling between these sort of adult stories with very youthful concepts and then I think some more youthful stories with very adult themes. Um, are you, are you conscious of that? Do you feel like you are constantly trying to give one to the other and the other to the other as you make these movies?

No, I mean, they, they all kind of, they're all kind of functioning on the same level to me and they're all dealing with whatever I'm dealing with or whatever is, you know, pertinent to me on an emotional or personal level. And, and we're shooting dealing with whatever I'm dealing with or whatever is pertinent to me on an

emotional or personal level. And we're shooting Peter Pan and Wendy for Disney right now. And I think this is probably the most adult movie I've made. Of all the movies I've made, this is the most complex and adult movie. And it's dealing with themes on an adult level in a way that I never have before. And it's ironic that it's for a movie like Peter Pan and Wendy that I'm finally like embracing my own adulthood as a filmmaker, but it's finally happening. Um, I, I don't know if it's because I grew up with, I grew up with so many kids. I'm the oldest of nine kids, but I just, you know, I'm used to like seeing things from like a very childlike perspective.'s just how i see the world i've

never been able to fully um function as an adult in some capacities uh you know like gawen in this movie i moved out of my parents house far too late that's very autobiographical and i really you know i don't know in 20 years if i'll go, I'll go back and look and be able to chart my progress as a human being in my movies. But I do sense that like, I'm, I'm growing up a little bit as I make these movies. I look at old man,

the gun and ain't the body saints. And I'm like, they're essentially children's films that have guns in them and some violence. Uh, and Pete's dragon is of course a children's film with some very sad themes, but I feel like maybe green night was the first movie I made where I'm starting to progress as a human being. I don't know. It does feel like a sincere fusion.

That's why I ask. It feels like the closest you've come to kind of hitting the middle point of those two ideas. When I saw you last for Old Man and the Gun, I told you how much I loved Daniel Hart's score for that movie. I love this score, too. It's obviously very, very different from what he was doing in that movie. How did you guys work together on this one? Were you listening to scores for medieval films? How do you decide?

A little bit. I am a huge fan of Henry V, the Kenneth Branagh movie. When I was a kid, I watched that every day after school. I was obsessed with that movie. And the Patrick Doyle score for that movie was something i thought about a lot um for this one and other than that i don't think i gave daniel really any references and we never worked with tim scores we always i cut the movie without a score at all and then i show it to him and he starts sending music and usually it takes like one or two tries before we just find exactly what the movie needs like old man the gun was like right out the gate we just had

that score and we couldn't go strictly medieval with it we couldn't just have a classic you know medievalist score even though we tried nor do we have an anachronistic score with like full-on electronic stuff we tried that as well. It wasn't until we, you know, Daniel wrote the piece for the giants, the scene that with the giants, that was the first piece of score where we sort of like found something that both honored the tradition of the movie.

It's written in old English, just like the poem was in middle English. And it is, it captured the feel of the movie in a way that no other piece we had tried had, had done. But we were, you know, both like knocking our heads against the wall,

trying to figure out how the music in this film should function. It was very tempting to try to write something that sounded like Lord of the Rings. Like that was like one of the first tries was like, it was just like, it was okay. Going sword and sorcery doesn't work with this. Going with an adventurous score doesn't really work with this, but neither does pushing against

the grain work. And so the final score is a synthesis of all of these things. It's got a lot of, you know, nickel harpa and medieval instruments in it, but it's also got a lot of, you know, keyboards in it. And then it also has this choir that's singing these incredibly dense and beautiful middle english uh choral passages that daniel came up with that all tie back to the original text um but you know we were writing music up until the day we delivered the movie it was definitely a we the entire post process was a challenge but that was that that was no less challenging than any other part of it. You edited this film.

I did, yeah. I was wondering why you decided to do that. I love editing. And I work with Lisa Churgin on a lot of my movies. But on this one, I felt like I just wanted to tackle it myself. I really felt like it was going to be one of those movies where it needed to be discovered in the edit. And I wanted to be the one to discover it much like with a ghost story. Like, you know, I don't know if

anyone else would have been able to make heads or tails of what we shot. We shot so much stuff with that movie that I didn't like. And I was afraid that if someone else cut it, they'd use stuff that I didn't like. And this movie wasn't quite as experimental as that, but it was certainly, it wasn't a straightforward editorial process. We had a pretty straightforward screenplay this time. It was a pretty tight 80 page script. But the first cut I put together was like a nearly three hours long and it was very, it was very dense and it needed a lot of ironing out and people would watch it. I'd show it constantly to friends and collaborators to get feedback. And everyone was like, it feels pretty good. And I was like, I think you're lying to me. It's not there. I became somewhat of a monster in the process of making, of editing this movie because I just could not let it rest. I just was always pushing it and prodding it and trying to pull more out of what we had shot.

The poem itself has been around for centuries and it's a very dense piece of work in its own right. And there are a lot of themes that have been dissected and it's a piece of work that just keeps on giving. And in trying to honor that and to illuminate it, both to satisfy the fans of the original text, including myself included, but also trying to make a movie that would illuminate them in a way that would make them palatable, that make those themes palatable to modern audience, I just always felt there was more that we could do. And by virtue of adapting this piece of work, I think there was a lot of subtext that we didn't even know we were shooting. We didn't even know we were digging this stuff out when we were shooting it. And yet it was all there to pull from and just really

trying to find that balance, to try to get those themes to shine, to get the pace of the movie to feel right, to get the cadence of it and the rhythm of it to land the way I knew it possibly could. It was a lot of trial and error on this one. When did you lock picture? We locked right around Halloween of this year, or last year. So this has been one of the most anticipated movies among at least my colleagues and friends for a long time now because of when it was first announced and it was supposed to premiere at South by in 2020. So what has it been like just waiting for this movie to, to show to people? It's been oddly philosophical. You know, like I always, I always try to be done with my movies in totality when I finish them.

I don't look at them again. When I lock picture and we deliver it, then it's like, that's it. I never look at them again. I don't go watch them in a theater with an audience because I don't want to get too invested in how an audience is reacting. Obviously, I'm deeply invested. I hope audiences love the movies, but it's out of my hands at that point. I've done the best I can. And so it's important for me to disconnect. And so here was a case in which that disconnect occurred without anyone

actually having seen it. And it was interesting. Like I was like, this is in some ways a dream come true, but in other ways, it's incredibly frustrating, obviously, because you make the movie hoping that people get to see it. And so it was just very interesting. I was never upset that it was delayed. If anything, I was sort of secretly relieved that I had time to keep working on it and I could just keep editing it. And I think the movie that we're releasing this summer is better than the movie that would have come out last summer. I also think that I could take any one of my movies and keep editing it and make it better. That's always going to happen. In this case, we just had the opportunity to do it. And I'm grateful for it. Although I'm not grateful for the circumstances by any means. But now we're in this world where it's opening, it's coming out. I'm talking to

you about it. I'm going to be talking about it. And I have to rediscover it for myself. We shot it over two years ago now. We wrapped in May of 2019. And then I spent a good year and a half editing it. And in that year and a half, I've changed. And I've made another movie, which just changed me as well. And I'm having to really dig back into who I was

two years ago and where I was and why this movie was important to me to make. And it's, it's a really interesting process. And one that, you know, I, again, for obvious reasons, I hope I, and the rest of the world never have to like go through this again but it is an interesting thing to have gone through as an as a filmmaker and as a storyteller and as a human being and um and it has really you know been illuminating to me to like look at my own work in this way to have that distance from it to have that time with it and to and to really be able to um contextualize it in a way that i wouldn't have had it opened at its original release date. You mentioned you're in production on Peter Pan and Wendy.

I've talked to a few filmmakers who were working through the pandemic. What was your pandemic production like? Was it significantly more challenging than other movies you've made? I think behind the scenes, it was. It costs more to make a movie right now because of all the testing and all the masks and all the PPE, all that stuff. It's a tax on any production, on anything, any event you're going to do. It's going to make everything, everything makes life harder. On a creative level, it hasn't compromised anything, which is remarkable to me. And I feel very grateful that I'm able to make this movie

in this way, in the way that we initially envisioned without having to change anything. You know, we're not having to, you know, change our locations or change the scope or have fewer people on the pirate ship. All those things are still as we always planned, if not bigger and better. But, um, but it's certainly on a behind the scenes level, on a budgetary level, on a, um, you know, just trying to get, like, for example, trying to get props from London really hard, like all the customs and all the visas, all those things, getting our actors from London, really tricky. The bureaucracy of filmmaking has only gotten harder because of COVID. But I think the creative process, especially now, you know, now that it's become a well-oiled machine, the creative process has not changed at all. In some ways, it's better.

You know, in some ways, you're like, you're more focused, you have fewer people in the immediate vicinity most of the time. Um, and it helps you creatively. Um, and I also think, you know, we've been remarking about how most movies, there's always like a flu that ripples through the set, you know, in this case, because of everyone wearing masks all the time, everyone's been in the best health of their lives. That's a gain. Maybe that will stick around. I don't know if that's going to change. But if we were making a tiny independent film,

I don't know if we could have done it. I know people, if we had done it, we'd have had to go to New Zealand, where I have friends who are making movies right now that are able to do them because COVID has been eradicated and was eradicated quickly. But here in North America, like in Europe, I think, you know, it is, it is definitely, I'm grateful I'm making a large movie right now. It's a big budget movie. And if it wasn't a big budget movie, I don't know if we could bear the brunt of COVID. David, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers,

what's the last great thing they've seen? I know you're in the heart of production, but are you watching anything right now? I've dwindled down to about three movies a week these days. Wow, that's weak for you. It's less. And movie theaters just opened in Vancouver. So I i'm now like i got to go see the sparks documentary last weekend on the big screen which was just a real treat um and what else have

i seen gosh what did you like about the sparks documentary well one of the things i liked about it was just finding out that i knew way more of their music than I thought I did like just like I was like oh I have heard like I I'd been aware of them but didn't really know them um oddly I knew about them because as a kid growing up being a massive Tim Burton fan I always knew about that musical that he'd been planning to make with them because I just was like avidly following anything Tim Burton did um and um that being said I you know I went into it sort of like thinking like okay i'm going to discover these two artists that i don't really know anything about and then i'd hear these songs and like oh i've heard these songs many times i've heard them for years and of course then you also realize how influential they are it was also i have to say in the middle of making a movie just

really inspirational to go see a movie about two artists so dedicated to their own work and their own perspective and doing it their way and that was you know it was a really nice pick-me-up on day uh maybe right after day 72 of production to go see that documentary It's a pleasure. Happy to be back anytime. Thank you to David Lowery and of course to Amanda and thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Please tune in next week to the big picture to hear episode four of Gene and Roger.