The Big Picture - The Oscars Aftermath Mailbag, Plus Neil Jordan on ‘Greta’ | Interview (Ep. 132)

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

Amanda and Sean put a bow on the 2019 Oscars by answering the burning questions they didn’t have time for on Sunday night (1:00). Then, Sean is joined by writer-director Neil Jordan to discuss his latest film, ‘Greta’ (48:06). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Neil Jordan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This week on the site, Danny Kelley, Robert Mays, and Kevin Clark will be offering their takeaways after each day at the NFL Combine, Myles Surrey brings you his Ringer guide to streaming in March, and Andrew Gritadaro tells you how to survive The Bachelor. You can check those out and more on theringer.com. I'm Sean Fennessy. And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Oscars.

The Oscars, of course, are over. Nevertheless, we are still podcasting. If you wait until the second half of this show, you will hear a conversation with the writer-director, Neil Jordan, who has a new film coming out called Greta, starring Isabelle Huppert, that is quite wild and fascinating. So stick around for that. But first, Amanda and I will be doing a little bit of an autopsy on the 91st Academy Awards. Some might say this is a wake, some might say

it's a funeral. How do you feel about it? Are we celebrating or are we mourning? We're analyzing. We have some distance now i think sunday night was a wake and a therapy session and you know just a space where you and i could express some feelings and thank you to everyone who listened to those feelings and this is we're gonna we have some distance we've rested you have written i have not written i won't be writing about these oscars i have written i've written and i've been told i'm a woke baby. So I'd like to address that. But we have some space and we can try to talk about it with a little more measured tone and also possibly talk about the Oscars of the future.

A friend of mine emailed me this morning and said, I really enjoyed the podcast. It seemed as if you had gotten as close as you ever will to Colonel Kurtz during the final telecast episode of the show. So I think we're going to have a little bit more light than darkness here. But we did ask you guys for reader questions and we got a lot of really good reader questions in our mailbag. So I'm excited to dig through this stuff with you, Amanda. You ready to do that? Let's do it. Okay. We're going to go right into what I thought was a very smart question and something that I have been very interested in for the last few years,

which is, are you guys pleasantly surprised by the ratings? This is at Jolin Vila asked us this. What do you think the cause is? No host, movie controversies, et cetera. Do you think it could continue for next year? I noticed that you started with a question where you get to say, I was right. Yes, I was right. And I was wrong.

And it's important to be able to say I was wrong. I was wrong. I did not think the ratings would be up this year. I wasn't completely right. I actually thought that they would be up a little bit more than this. The ratings are up 12%, which gets it closer to 30 million over last year's 26.5 million. I think there are actually a variety of factors that we can unpack here for why this happened. Were you surprised truly or were you just sort of standing on your prediction?

Well, as you noted, it's not like a huge increase. It's not like it went back to the Oscars of yore. And I think that there was certainly hope on the part of the Academy and ABC that they would get back to the Oscars of yore. And my thing has been like, we're not going back to the Oscars of yore. That's just not how people watch television anymore.

But I was wrong. So it's important to say that. My theory as to why this happened is less about the movies that were nominated and more about the hullabaloo around the telecast for months ahead of time. And you and I on this show focused a lot on the last few weeks of controversy and whether the categories would be all presented live and that kind of infighting. But Kevin Hart being fired and then going on like a very large publicity tour on Good Morning America and Ellen

and shows that have millions and millions of viewers was pretty good advertising for this show. And people do like a train wreck. So I think people were just curious about the mess of the show in a way that they might not have been, say, last year for The Shape of Water. I think that was a factor. I respectfully disagree because I continue to hold on to my theory that if a movie like Black Panther is nominated, more people are going to tune in because they are invested in the

idea of Black Panther. Now, there's a whole secondary aspect to this conversation, and I wrote about this a little bit on Sunday night, about whether the effects of the choices that they made on Sunday night will affect the ratings going forward. Because I think if a movie like Black Panther had won, there might have been more interest and there might have been something announcing to an audience, particularly a younger audience, that this show is taking seriously its younger audience. Green Book's win, I'm not sure if it accomplishes that. It doesn't necessarily negate it, but I do think that between Black Panther and A Star is Born, and particularly Bohemian Rhapsody and the choice to open with a Queen song and a Queen live performance, I think that that bolstered things. I think that that got people more excited. Now, I'm with you on the train wreck theory. There's definitely a kind of rubbernecking aspect that was going on here,

but these ratings are also across the three-hour and 20-minute runtime they're sort of measured against. So people could have looked for the train wreck and realized, as we noted on Sunday night, that first hour was pretty darn good in this show. And for the most part, I thought it had pretty good rhythm and flow, and we didn't miss a host. That's true. We also didn't know what was going to happen, and that was a very crucial part, even within the broadcast itself. Like, we didn't know until the last moment that Green Book was going to be the winner. There was, for the Oscars at least, an element of suspense that we haven't had the past few years.

I wanted to ask you a question that I meant to ask you earlier, but we'll just do it here. Do you happen to know if your 15-year-old sister, who is now a listener of the Big Picture podcast. Yes, a rising star in media. Did she actually watch the Oscars? I highly doubt it. Okay. We haven't discussed it. Okay, so we don't know.

She's too busy dragging me about my takes. I honestly don't know. I don't think she cares. I don't think that she really cares. But I just know that she is interested in the Marvel Universe. And obviously, she listens to this podcast and really liked Bohemian Rhapsody. So I was curious whether that was enough to get her to watch. I think if next year, Spider-Man Far From Home and her beloved Tom Holland are nominated, then maybe she would

get interested. But until then, it's hard to say. Shout out to her for being such a loyal listener. At Age of Irony, shout out to Jor-En, loyal listener of this show, will the Oscars ever have a host again? What do you think? I think they will because, number one, I don't think they're going to throw out like 100 or 90 years of tradition just because one telecast went okay or went pretty well. So I think they will at some point. Will they have a host next year? I don't know. It could be a lot more flexible.

We were so nervous about the fact that they didn't have a host because the last time the Oscars didn't have a host was like an infamous catastrophe. And it doesn't seem like it's a scary thing anymore to not have a host. That's true. It seems like an option in the toolbox. But I'm sure they'll have a host, especially if they want to keep the ratings going. I think there is a case to be made that recognizable movies equals ratings and an extension of that case is recognizable people hosting equals ratings. So maybe they'll try it. Yeah. I've been thinking a bit about the ratings for the Shape of Water season,

you know, the year before and why that happened. And I think the biggest reason that that happened was the air of inevitability around the awards there the year before and why that happened. And I think the biggest reason that that happened was the air of inevitability around the awards there. And also the fact that Jimmy Kimmel was coming back for his second year. And Jimmy Kimmel got largely very positive reviews for his hosting ability.

But there was a complete lack of surprise around that show completely. And as you noted, this was kind of all surprise. We just didn't know how everything was going to go. We didn't really address like, do you think the ratings

will continue to go up? I think that if I had to guess just right now, and we'll talk about some movies that might be nominated next year, but right now my gut says that they'll just start to go down again and that this was anomalous. But, let's I'm going to hold that thought. Okay.

Should we go to the next question? Yes. It is from The Willsman. Willsman, I guess. Per Box Office Mojo, the money of this year's Best Picture nominees makes the last few years look like a joke. It's the biggest since the 2009 to 2011 era, so it bears out that ratings would increase. Is it that simple? I mean, that's obviously the theory that I'm talking about.

I think in some respects, yes. I'm wondering if the Academy is going to redefine what it means what an Oscar movie really is and that's because a lot of the tentpole stuff that's coming out this year has the vague sheen of respectability you know like Jon Favreau's The Lion King is probably going to be close to a shot for shot remake of a movie that we saw 25 years ago but also it's Jon Favreau who everybody loves and it's Disney which has now entered the Oscars fray officially. And I feel like there's going to be more of an effort to put that, I don't know, that sort of that respectability, that pixie dust of quality and award season, I don't know, special sauce on big blockbuster-y movies. Now, that's not going to be true across the board.

I joked on Twitter about Hobbs and Shaw and Alita Battle Angel being nominated. I don't think movies like that will be nominated. But I do think, and we discussed this also in our preview videos, will there be some sort of weird Avengers Endgame, the closing of a chapter acknowledgement the way that there was for Lord of the Rings? Will there be, I don't know, a movie like Harry Potter 10 years ago, never got a chance to really compete in these awards. And I feel like if that was happening now and that undertaking of these seven or eight films, whatever they are, sorry to binge mode, I don't know how many movies they made, concluded its series, there would be a strong case for those movies to be nominated now. Does that make sense? Yes, though I don't actually think they would be nominated now and I think next year actually provides two interesting examples of franchises ending because you have Avengers ending and then you have the J.J. Abrams

Star Wars movie at the end of the year episode nine yes which is I'm sure they'll make more Star Wars movies but that is that's an ending of sorts I think that episode nine almost certainly will be nominated and I don't really think Avengers will be nominated. Sorry. I don't think so either, but it'll be interesting to track. I mean, there's so much we don't know about this year in movies. You know, the,

the most notable commercial that I think we touched on very briefly was for Netflix is the Irishman. And there was a piece in the Hollywood reporter today by Rebecca Keegan about what Netflix is going to do to put that movie in theaters and how it's essentially going to reshape its expectations around theatrical significantly more so than what they did for Roma. And it sounds like they're really going to play the game heading into this year. The Irishman almost feels like too obvious.

Like I feel like Martin Scorsese already had this moment with The Departed 13 years ago. So it's funny that they're running it back so specifically, but we'll see what happens. Next question. Would you have been okay, this is from man wearing. Would you have been okay with another montage? Had it been one minute honoring the wonderful work of all the dogs in this year's films?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not a dog person. Yeah. But you know, Olivia, the dog, just transcended all expectations that I had of animals and humans in film, frankly. So the other key part here is one minute. Would I have been okay with a one minute montage of all of the dogs? Yes, sure. Of course. I'm not an idiot. This is a twist. This is a twist because you're out on montages and you're out on dogs. But for some reason, well, you sound like a sociopath. Well... I'm not a sociopath. It's fine. Keep it moving. Okay. Yes, I would be fine with this. I, too, can feel joy. And I, too, can recognize great work, whether it's canine or human.

And why don't you guys go watch Widows again, since none of you watched it the first damn time, and you tell me whether you wouldn't want to see Olivia the dog at the Oscars. Okay, that's all. I'm done. I have no comment on this question. At HuffPost, Vandy wants to know, has the expansion of the best picture category been a quote unquote success? However, you or the Academy would define that.

Is there an alternative voting option to preferential ballot? Can you identify years that would have had a different best picture if only five nominees had been available? This is a complicated question. Yeah, many good questions all in one. I would say that the expansion of the Best Picture category has not been a success. Oh, interesting. And I think it's because what we've seen in large part is that the Academy and preferential balloting in particular will always revert to a kind of middle brow point of view. feels like a highly unlikely and unorthodox choice for best picture in light of Green Book and into

some respects, The Shape of Water, that just because you have eight choices doesn't mean those three new choices are really going to matter. Yes? Question. Didn't they always revert to a middle brow, an Oscar-y sort of point of view? In some respects, yes, but they changed something in an effort to fix it and they didn't fix it sure but and the ratings have gone down for the most part okay but i really do think that in that case we just have to divorce the ratings from the nominees from like 2009 to now tv has changed so dramatically i agree with you let me ask you a question though do you think that there is a sort of generational wound around the dark knight thing do you believe in that that if the dark knight had been nominated the way that many people thought it should have been, that

that would have, for whatever the fanboy aspect of it that defines that question, would that have saved some portion of viewers and gotten younger people at that time invested in this award show? No. Because number one, the fanboys are always going to find something to complain about. Like, they're always going to be mad. If the world is not exactly what these people on the internet want it to be, they will be angry and complain and create their own worlds. And part of the change in the last 10 years is that media has changed in a way that they can just create their own culture that they then get to dominate. So no, I think it would have changed. Just some of this is systematic and technological. Like in the same way that Netflix has just changed the way that people

watch movies and people don't go to the movie theaters as much, like people just do not turn the TV on in the same way. And we have to accept that. So given that, is it bad that a few extra movies that I like that no one ever would have taken seriously the Oscars get nominated? Like, no, I don't think that that's bad. I'm glad to see Lady Bird in there. You know, I like that no one ever would have taken seriously the Oscars get nominated? Like, no, I don't think that that's bad. I'm glad to see Lady Bird in there. You know, I like would get out, have gotten nominated in the five nominee situation. I don't know. It's great that it did. So it didn't fix it, but like, has it ruined it? I don't think so. I think it was already broken. I don't think it's ruined it, but I think that they're seriously going to consider returning to the old way.

I think that the outcry over the Green Book win has some people shook and there's some concern. And that's a nice segue into the second question, which I really like, which is would we have had different winners in years past? I have some thoughts. There's no way that we'll ever know, but the one that strikes me right away,

and specifically because basically what could have happened here is two films could have gotten 33 and 32% of the vote. And the film with 32% of the vote could have received a trundle of second and third place votes. And the film with 33% could have received none. And so preferential ballot would have necessarily moved that 32% first place vote getter into a best picture win. So let's just say in the year 2014, Birdman wins. There was a strong contingent of support for Boyhood. And there was an acknowledgement that what Richard Linklater had done was a huge achievement for Boyhood. Now, this is sort of valueless, this whole conversation. It's just

sort of what could have happened. That feels like the kind of movie that could have won with just a plurality of votes and not, excuse me, with just a percentage win and not a plurality of votes. What do you think about that one? I guess so, though. The imitation game is also in there. And in 2014, I think that runs back. I don't know. I guess it would change the winners, but I don't know that it changes the winners in ways that you and I would like to see it.

You specifically in boyhood. I thought it was fine. What the hell is this? I just said this is valueless i guess it does change it yes it does change it do you think moonlight benefited from this that's such a great question i i mean obviously yes though because that is a film that a lot of people regardless of what you thought of it there was a huge admiration for the the thoughtfulness and the craftsmanship and the sincerity of that movie that it feels like it probably was a second

place vote for a lot of people even if those people were voting for like Arrival or Manchester by the Sea like if Manchester by the Sea was your number one it's pretty reasonable that Moonlight would be your number two yes though. Though in situations like that, I am always curious about how much the fact that you get to, how much the knowledge of the preferential ballot and how much the fact that you get to rank them factors in on how people vote. Like, because that way you don't really have to make a decision between Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight

because, you know, like, eh, Manchester by the Sea probably won't win, so I'm going to vote for it because I love it and then I'll give my number two to Moonlight. And it will be both the result that I want and I get to cast some sort of statement ballot. So I kind of feel like that year there were people who were in the Moonlight cluster and the La La Land cluster. And maybe they didn't have those at one and one on their ballot specifically. But I think there were probably I don't know I don't know if it changes it because I really do think I know everyone's like it's a

consensus that it's not a consensus but it's like a bunch of people putting it at two or three that pushed Green Book over but that still indicates a level of passion specifically when we're talking about green book that I think we're kind of underrating. And I don't know how much it changes it because I think it also eliminating the preference ballot changes the way people vote. I think that that's true. I think the only other time when this was particularly fiercely fought was I would guess 12 years of Slave and Gravity in 2013, which that was one of the last true kind of neck and neck battles.

And they were different versions of Oscar worthy fare. You know, there was the big historical epic and then there was the big sort of technical intellectual achievement. And those two things pitted against each other. So I could have seen in a world with only five and if you remove like Philomena and Nebraska and horror and all these other movies, it would not have been nominated if it was only five. That feels you remove like Philomena and Nebraska and horror and all these other movies,

it would not have been nominated if it was only five. That feels like it could have been meaningful. It probably would have changed to some extent every year. Would it have changed the best picture? No, but the percentages are sort of what's interesting here. And maybe we should use that as a segue to the next question, which comes to us from at Mark Rosen. Do you think that to fix a broken system, the Academy will ever release vote totals for Best Picture? It would really help explain if this was a systemic, i.e. Green Book had the most first place votes, or a bummer result of ranked choice voting. Release the results.

That's all I have to say about it. Just release the results. This will drive so much interest in the show if you release the results. No one's going to feel bad if they only get 11 votes. They're nominated for Best Picture. That's an extraordinary achievement. Release the votes. That's my take. i completely agree with you and i think it

will never happen shameful the votes for the baseball hall of fame are public are they not bobby yes they are he's nodding he he produces the mlb show here i mean that's fine but like number one that doesn't stoke my interest in baseball at all just for the record so i don't like totally know whether that it will stoke interest is totally true. I think that there is an argument to be like giving away information is giving away power. So I don't think that they will ever do it because they want to be able to control the system as much as they possibly can. I think they should. I think it would definitely be more interesting for us.

I don't know. I don't think they will. Release the vote totals. I say it again i agree with release them i agree with you so do you think do you think green book had a lot of first place votes or do you think it was second and thirds i think it was both i think would it shock me if it pulled 40 of the vote and then one from there that's probably right that sounds there was obviously a lot of admiration for the movie and i you and I enjoyed the movie. Like, I don't know, you know, without knowing the context or caring to engage in the context of the conversation around the movie,

I think it's very plausible that people sat down, they watched Screenbook, they're like, I like those guys. That made me feel good. And they walked away. Yeah. And I tried to write about this in as sincere a way as I possibly could. But I think that a lot of times you watch a movie and it has a brutal and frustrating and sad ending, and it makes you feel bad. And that doesn't mean that you hated it. It just means you don't want to put your vote

towards that. And I think a lot of people watch Green Book and then the movie ends and Mahershala Ali is in Viggo Mortensen's apartment in New York and he's having a Christmas dinner with his family and he's like, man, the world can be good. We can all get along. That's what I want to put my vote for. Yeah. It is a very effective last shot. It is like a romantic comedy when he shows up at the door. It's like, you know, running at midnight to kiss on New Year's and when Harry met Sally. Yes. I get it. It's wish fulfillment.

Sure. And, you know, I understand that there was a passion for that. Now, my problem overall is twofold. One, as somebody who's super invested in the Oscars, I just think it's a bad choice to pick a movie that not a ton of people have seen, but also that is that kind of middle brow Fantasia. That movie didn't push anything forward. It didn't change anything significant. It doesn't really reflect the state of movie making in any meaningful way. I tend to think that Best Picture should try to do that. It's not the best. It's a movie that many people enjoyed watching. Yes, it is clearly, literally the most agreed upon. Yes, but it is not a triumph of technicality or vision or reinventing anything or pushing the film industry forward, as you said. Yes, and the biggest drag about it is it probably hurt people and that's bad.

That's not great. I did feel like there were several people who reached out to us saying, doesn't this prove that people aren't online, which is something we've talked about a lot. I do think that there are probably a lot of voters who watched it, thought, huh, that made me feel good and then never really encountered

any sort of alternate opinions on how the movie was received. I think there are two versions of online. There is I'm on Facebook and there is I'm on Twitter. It's true. And there are obviously some gradations between those two things. And I think I'm on Facebook is like, you cannot tell me that this movie is not good. And I'm on Twitter is like, you cannot tell me that this movie is good.

That's a stratified world. It's true. And I do also think there are some voters who were online and did encounter some alternate opinions about the movie and then got really mad about it. And we're like, screw you. Now I'm writing for this number one forever, which is a separate conversation. You know, it's a challenging question. Yes. Where would Green Book be on your ballot? My ballot. Ranking one to eight. That's tough. I can't believe we never did this. We never did this. This would have been a good exercise. I think we didn't think it was going to come to this.

I think we thought Roma was going to win and we were not going to have to, you know, rend our garments over the preferential ballot. But here we are. I did spend a lot of time thinking about how I would, whether I would rank Roma or Star is Born. One or two, and then we never had to do it because the Star is Born was never in the conversation. It faded, yes. Yeah. And it's so interesting because the thing I was saying, like, how do you think about the ballots? Because in my heart of hearts and in what I value to be like the true greatness, I think I have to put Roma at number one. But when I'm thinking about the fact that I know A Star is Worn isn't going to win, but I want to vote for it, I can put that at number one and Roma at number two. I think I'm too much of a purist. So I would have done Roma number one regardless

because I need to be able to say, yes, I voted for the best, like my idea of the best film. So without running through all of your rankings, where does Green Book end up? Is it seven, six, five? I mean, it's seven or eight. But it can't be behind Bohemian Rhapsody. That's true.

Yeah, no, you're right. So I guess it's seven. Seven. Yeah, it's probably seven or six for me too.ody. That's true. Yeah, no, you're right. So I guess it's seven. Seven. Yeah, it's probably seven or six for me too. Yeah. It's funny. I look at this list and I obviously have similarly strong feelings about A Star is Born and I'm a huge admirer of Roma, but looking at the favorite and Black Panther and what those movies are and how much I liked them. And I returned to the favorite this week after Olivia Colman's win. And I was like, this movie is really good. It's great.

I probably would have had a, it would have been difficult to rate this in this way. And I'm curious to see, we'll keep a very close watch on if they maintain this system in order and they keep doing it this way. Because I have a sinking suspicion that they're going to make a change and feel like this has not been successful. Should we go to the next question? Yeah.

This is from, we apparently got this question from many people. 2020 contenders and favorites so let me just say right now this is a way to get freaking burned it is february 27th as we are recording this fam we don't know anything all right but now that now we've established that and this is like wild baseless speculation just based on names and a log line. Let's go. None of my speculation is baseless. I'm a person who has devoted my life to this craft of predictive work in the Oscars. I think that there are a couple of obvious ones that,

inevitably, the obvious ones don't always hold up. So we mentioned The Lion King already. You mentioned Star Wars Episode IX. I think those are both interesting possibilities, though not by far from a lock. The one that feels the most, the one that I heard the most about, even when I wrote a joke tweet about the 10 popular movies that we've nominated, people said Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's movie. Now, the reason for that is because it's very starry. It's Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie. It's set during the 1960s in Hollywood, effectively about the Manson moment in Hollywood. That being said,

Quentin Tarantino's movies are super intense and violent and gross. And I'm very interested to see how that plays in the year 2019. You seem a little more dubious of this one. No, I'm not. It's my internal struggle. I'm extremely excited for this movie. I'm a Tarantino fan. I am a huge Brad Pitt fan. And Leonardo DiCaprio, I like all these stars. I like, you know, 60s Hollywood. I'm, against my better judgment, interested in how he handles the mansit of it all.

Though, at the same time, I'm like, oh, do we really have to do this one? Really? Like, this is, it just seems like it could go so wrong so quickly and you know it's a movie and quentin tarantino makes movies but i don't i don't think that i can watch this movie completely outside of context at this point in my life or in the world and so that's kind of you know how how much am I going to be able to let go? Or maybe he'll nail it. You don't know. Maybe he will just walk a perfect tonal line. I have my doubts about that. Well, I think that there's no such thing as a perfect tonal line

with Quentin. This movie is being released on my birthday. And so I'm very, very excited about that. That will be a wonderful birthday for me. I look forward to few things in the universe more than a Quentin movie, even with all that baggage that you're describing. This one is probably a little less controversial, but I do think that A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is going to be in the mix. Absolutely. The Mariel Heller, Mr. Rogers biopic starring Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks back.

That's got a big fat Oscar target on it. Right. And as Roger Sherman of the ringer pointed out, the best actor category has in recent years, just been a play, a famous guy. I think it's six, 11 of the last 16 winners have played a real person,

which is a staggering number. And yeah, that, I mean, that seems like a good one. I've heard a little bit of buzz about, um, queen and slim, which is Daniel Kaluuya's movie coming out this fall, directed by Melina Matsoukas, who people may know from Beyonce videos and also directing Insecure. This is her first feature. I don't really know too much about it. I think it's kind of a heist-ish movie, a fun crime caper but also maybe a little bit wider than that sounds like another movie that daniel clue isn't in this year which is widows that's yes yes which didn't

go super well yeah we have a question about that coming yeah we do um one thing that you just reminded me of this has the potential to be a real beyonce season at the oscars between lion king and then you know she obviously has worked with Melina Matsoukas in the past. And I just, when you have the opportunity to have Beyonce at your awards show and associate your awards show with Beyonce, I mean, the Grammys have failed at this spectacularly for many years, but you really want to lean into it. So I kind of think that there could be a Lion King boost just in in that respect someone shared with me uh recently the idea that we could have a beyonce taylor swift showdown in

the best original song category because taylor swift of course will be performing for cats and beyonce will be performing for the lion king song eliminate best song uh let's go through a couple more we mentioned the irishman of course uh timothy chalamet is going to be in a netflix film called the king about king henry v that seems oscary it's david mishode who made uh the rover and and uh war machine um we mentioned the goldfinch on our preview video and that's directed by john crowley who made bro made Brooklyn. I feel quite strongly like that will be there. How are you progressing in your Goldfinch read? I'm about 78 pages in.

That's further than last time we talked. Yeah, but it's going slowly. Well, you have a while. I do. I'm going to finish the Goldfinch at some point in this life. I really enjoyed the Goldfinch and recommend it to everyone. Will John Crowley have an Oscar before I finish the Goldfinch? You have to finish it, but it's October.

It's supposed to come out in October. Okay. You can do it. Coming in May is Rocketman. We're going to talk about that a little bit more coming soon. I have more doubts about that one than you do, I think. Sorry for like Elton John. What do you think about the woman in the window's chances in the aftermath of the A.J.

Finn story? For those of you who are not familiar, A.J. Finn is a novelist who also goes by the name, what is his real name? Is it Dan something? Dan Mallory. Dan Mallory. There's a big feature in the New Yorker about Dan Mallory, erstwhile publishing figure of some note, perhaps ill repute, who scammed his way, it seems, to the top of the publishing world. And his thriller, The Woman in the Window, which is heavily influenced by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, is coming out this fall. And it has a shiny cast led by Amy Adams, who is now in the Glenn Close

zone, as we noted on Sunday, could be back at the Oscars. Or people may look at The Woman in the Window in the aftermath of this Dan Mallory saga and say like, eh, I don't think I can invest in that. Right. So this is another who's online and who's not situation because I don't know how many people, that was a huge deal in like books and literary Twitter and media Twitter to an extent, but how many people read that very long New Yorker feature?

I don't know. It's really good. Yeah, it's fantastic. Dan Mallory also has a second book that's still to be published, so it didn't really affect his book chances. So I don't know how many people will actually connect the two. We got to talk about, in addition to Amy Adams, this is a screenplay adapted by Tracy Letts, and it is directed by your friend and mine, Joe Wright. Yeah.

So I don't know what to do. I've read this book. This book is terrible. This book is not good. And I will read pretty much any trashy crime thriller involving a woman with a black cover. No problem. Sign me up. And it was not good.

So I don't trust the material, but I also really, really like all of the people involved in the movie. It's tricky. This is not what I would have wanted for Joe Wright personally, as a fan of Joe Wright's work. This is perhaps a very savvy choice because theoretically there's a big audience for a movie like that.

But, you know, The Girl on the Train was essentially this movie two years ago and it failed. I mean, that's a movie that stars Emily Blunt and we didn't like it. And we really like Emily Blunt. Yes. So this is not as much of a slam dunk as you might think. We'll see. There's a couple more.

Harriet, which is a biopic of Harriet Tubman starring Cynthia Erivo. Could there be more of an Oscar bid than that? It sounds interesting. It's Casey Lemons' first movie in a long time. Feels ripe. What else? Anything else on your mind? You want to talk about Little Women? Yeah, of course. Directed by Greta Gerwig. Yeah. And starring Saoirse Ronan,

Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Emma Watson, Laura Dern. This is certainly one of my most anticipated movies of the year. It's coming out at Christmas. It's slated, and it just feels like a real holiday family feel good. And I trust Greta Gerwig with my life. So I think that could be a big thing. I don't know how many times Saoirse Ronan is going to have to be amazing in something before she wins an Oscar. But it seems like she's already had so many. Are you saying Saoirse Ronan's in the Glenn Close zone? Well, no, because she hasn't actually been nominated that many times.

I think three times already. But three already, and she's what, like 23 years old? She's 11 years old. Yeah, I think she was very close to 11 the first time she was nominated. Okay, let's go to our next question. We're going to go a little bit quickly, more quickly here. What 2018 movie that didn't receive a single nomination do you think will be the one that people are most appalled didn't receive a nomination 10 years from now this comes to us from at trace d comics widows i mean it's

just widows go see widows yeah that feels right i don't really have a quibble with that yeah i think if you want to expand it to what wasn't nominated for best picture we will look back at the beale street snub with just a lot of confusion. That's just a real missed opportunity just because of the career that Barry Jenkins is going to have. And obviously, Regina King won. Brian Tyree Henry is seen in that. It's just kind of like... I completely agree. I mean, to me, that ultimately just felt like that movie got out in the world too late. And probably some of it was the knock-on effect of like, Barry, he won for Moonlight. It is what it is. He'll be fine. But I agree with you that that's, you know, that's like the kind of movie that people study.

And he's definitely going to make 10, 12, 14, 16 great films. And it's going to seem strange. Can movies that don't campaign at all, like Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, ever have a chance at the Oscars? This comes to us from Nikila. And what would it actually take for awards season to not resemble political campaigns and be able to make picks based on merit? This is a very good question.

Very good question. There's also a lot of philosophical stuff in here. We should probably break it up. Boots Riley, for those of you who don't know, came forward a couple of months ago and said, one of the reasons that you're not seeing any of my stuff in the award season is there is no campaign. There's no money going towards this campaign. People liked Sorry to Bother You. It actually did pretty good business for a small film that got acquired at Sundance. But if you don't throw parties and you don't go to every event

and you don't work the guilds, it is harder. Now, I did want to raise one slight counterpoint to what's being implied here in this question, which is Olivia Colman didn't really run a campaign. Olivia Colman was making the crown for almost the entirety of awards season this year. Yes. Release the crown, by the way. Release the crown. And still she won.

Yes. Still she won. So what does that tell us? Is that just that Olivia Colman is sort of an overwhelmingly charming and gifted person that she need not campaign? I think a little bit. Yes. I have watched that speech a few times since Sunday night. And obviously you all listen to me react and work through my emotions to that in real time. And frankly, I still feel the same way, but it's been interesting just to watch.

Everyone seems to react the same way. That speech was just magic and she has a certain quality. Before we started this podcast, I watched a mashup of kind of her three high profile speeches, the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and the Oscars. And I was like, oh, she won because of the speeches. Like, oh, people just really liked her that much. It was as simple as that. So when you are that charming, you can coast on it a bit. Now, she wasn't particularly campaigning but the favorite

was campaigning so she was on people's radars and I think the fact that she is going to be in the crown you know you finish that movie and you're like oh who is this person and where can I watch her again and oh she's going to be in the crown which is a high profile role it's a special circumstance I think I think more broadly to the question, it's very, very difficult to win without campaigns. And, you know, I don't know that this needs like a McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform necessarily, but it probably does. I think the fact that Netflix is so sort of infamously

at this point spent, it sounds like north of $35 million to get a Roma win and didn't get it. I don't think that they're necessarily like furious about that, but it's complicated and they want to win. They want to win. All of these people want to win and it costs money to win. It costs money to get on the radar of the voters at large.

Yeah. Unless you make Green Book, which people, I guess, just kind of liked. Next question. We know you guys are out on a best popular movie category, but if you could add a category, what would it be? We've talked about this a couple of times in the past. Mine is very straightforward, which is, I think that there should either be a best popular movie category, but if you could add a category, what would it be? We've talked about this a couple of times in the past. Mine is very straightforward, which is, I think that there should either be a best newcomer or a best first-time feature award.

Those seem to be awards that when people receive them during this very lengthy award season, you got genuine moments of greatness, for lack of a better word, of charm, of excitement. And I think awards season needs that. We saw that with Olivia Colman on Sunday night. It was like, oh my God, she was so surprised. How exciting. It was extremely good television. One that gets thrown out a lot is kind of best stunt or best action sequence, which I think rewards a part of filmmaking that is very hard and that is not often seen at the Oscars. So that would be a good one. I was thinking about this and I'm just throwing this out here. I don't know whether I totally endorse it, but something to the effect of best scene or something where you can reward a moment

or a smaller achievement in a film that maybe is not sustainable for the whole movie, but it's like, oh, that person has something. I've been thinking a lot about like the short films are in the Oscars because we're supposed to reward up and coming filmmakers. And, you know, they go on to make features and it's important to see their work. And like, that's fine, but they should have a different awards cast. They also don't go on to do that, but that's a whole other podcast. That's a problem with the shorts category.

You do often watch a movie and it doesn't totally work, but in the same way you can isolate a performance or a stunt, there's always a moment from a really great filmmaker where you're like, oh, I see something here and there's some promise. And it would be interesting. I think you could also get a lot of different movies in the mix that way, especially if you can't submit for best picture when you submit for best scene or best small or something. This is one of the reasons why every year at the end of the year, I always write that best movie moments piece because I didn't really love the movie Blindspotting and people ask me all the time,

like, what'd you think of Blindspotting? Did you like it? Did you like it? I didn't love it. And so I didn't really write about it. I didn't really, I didn't interview the filmmaker, but there were a couple of scenes in that film that I thought were completely ingenious.

And I think that you're right. It would be able to introduce a movie like that into the mix here. I also would love to see like best line reading. Like there's a couple of moments in films that are even smaller than what you're describing

which just take five seconds that you see in the kind of acting reels where you're like, man, that moment's amazing. Sam Elliott talking about the 12 notes, you know,

that's just such a, that is a movie moment and maybe Sam Elliott wasn't in the movie enough to win in his category but at that time you're like,

oh wow, they captured something. I do think that they could have a little fun with, a little bit more fun with this. Yes. Let's keep going through these questions.

A couple of Glenn Close questions. How is it possible that Close won all the guilds but lost the Academy Award? Will Glenn Close ever win an Oscar? On Sunday, I thought she would never win an Oscar, and I feel like she might never win an Oscar. I think that this was so humiliating that they're just going to have to make it up. I really do. How did she lose?

What do you think happened here? I do think some of it was just the charm. And a lot of people, you know, the Guild makeups and the Oscars makeups are different. There are a lot more people voting. And especially when it's not preferential balloting, you're just clicking a button and it's like, oh, I like her. And especially when so much of the Glenn Close argument was like, oh, I like her and it's time. But that performance

is not that good. It's not. How much of a role do you think availability on streaming platforms after release in theaters plays in modern day campaigning? This is an interesting question. I think that there's going to be an increasing expectation that people will be able to see the movies as easily as possible and we're increasingly a streaming a streaming country a streaming nation counterpoint glenn close was nominated for the wife and was the prohibitive favorite for the wife even though it was impossible to see it in your home until january and it worked and part of the reason it worked is because no one could actually analyze the movie to be like really this one Are we sure that's true? That's why I think it will play more of a role I think being able to see the movie will you know what I mean?

Like I thought you meant like I think that people will embrace it and everything will be available More easily so that we can all participate in the oscar experience. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure I think would be a way of Making people more interested in the Oscars. But would it be a way of making sure that Glenn Close wins an Oscar? Probably not. Here's a good question. RJ Wyant wants to know, out of all the acting winners, who do you think has the best chance at repeating at some point in their career?

Of course, Mahershala Ali did repeat. So we've really only got three here. I mean, I would say Olivia Colman. I know she said this is never going to happen again. She did literally say that. But I think she just has such the markings of someone that people love, much like people love Mahershala. I do think that Mahershala's repeat wasn't part of, oh, that guy. I really, really like him. And I'd like to see him up on stage again. And I would love to see Olivia Colman on stage again. Rami Malek really aced the campaign.

And Rami Malek's going to get a lot of opportunities because Rami Malek is one thing that a lot of these other winners are not, which is a movie star now. He can probably open a movie based on the success of this movie, assuming it reaches for the same sorts of heights. And I also think that

that sort of music biopic thing is just like a category all its own in 2019. That's true. He strikes me as the kind of person who, given his age and given his, how adept he is at connecting to people.

And I don't know if you saw any of the photos of the after parties, but he was absolutely mobbed at the after parties. So I would say him. Let's just do two more here. Okay.

As we run out of time. Mission Impossible Fallout is undeniably one of the most electric and incredible action movies of all time. This is from At New York City. Not spelled the way you would imagine. Do you envision the Academy nominating Tom Cruise

for his portrayal of Ethan Hunt when the series finally ends as a lifetime achievement, or is his baggage too heavy? I have a hard time imagining him nominated for Mission Impossible. I think that I agree, it's electric. Some of his best work in many years. I think he'll probably. It's electric. Some of his best work in many years. I think he'll probably do a late career serious movie that won't be as good.

He'll do a version of The Wife. And he'll get nominated for The Wife that's really a nomination for being amazing in Mission Impossible movies. And then I don't think he'll win because of various baggage. I agree with you. That's more or less how I feel. I don't think that this film will be acknowledged in any meaningful way. There's also two more coming up now. So great. Um, Chris McQuarrie is working on both of them, which is, I think we'll be delighted to go see those films. I think that the, the idea of a Tom Cruise Oscar campaign, if you think the green book shit was tough, like that's, it's, that's going to be complicated. You know, there's,

there's, there's already so much that's been said and so much that could be said that it's just, it's, it is truly one of Hollywood's great complexities and his, his stardom continues. And so I don't see that happening, but we'll see. I think you're right that he will pursue it more aggressively when he gets into his sixties and he can't jump out of a plane anymore. Um, although maybe he'll prove us wrong that he can jump out of a plane. okay where do you think lady gaga's acting career goes from here amanda this is from at hey girl samantha hey girl that is if she has one maybe since she got her oscar she'll move on to the next phase of the egot uh but since she since it was always her dream to be an actress i'm thinking she'll try and do more. This is an interesting question because I don't know that she would say the acting part of this went the way she wanted it to this year.

Even though obviously she got a lot of acclaim and people really love the performance, she didn't win an Oscar. And I think she's making a lot more money in her Las Vegas residency right now so i think she will always primarily be a musician if i had to guess because that is her skill set and also kind of that's the basis from which she can pivot to do an acting role or you know do whatever sponsorship she wants to i think she'll act again what does it look like oh i'll never love again sorry i just got really emotional um I think she will act again but I don't I don't know I don't know either I I think one of the one of the inseparable aspects of the A Star Is Born story is the fact that musical performance is so endemic to it and I think that Gaga as Ally was great but part of what was great was that it put her in a position to amplify

her greatest gifts. The stuff that has stuck with us, some of it has been acting performance driven, but a lot of it is music. Music is so key. And I wonder if she'll make an effort to continue to do things like that, to make films or television series that are oriented around music. And if not, can she be Cher, basically? You know, Cher effectively pivoted out of a music career. And now Cher was never sort of the high-toned rock star vocal stylist that Gaga is, but she became a genuinely celebrated Oscar-winning actress. And that became mostly what she's known for, I would say,

at least for a long stretch of time until she kind of bounced back and decided to get back into music with Believe and stuff like that. So maybe Cher is singular and I shouldn't say she has one specialty. It's a good model, but I would agree. I think Cher kind of goes back and forth at this point. I think of her equally as from Moonstruck and from Believe, you know, and obviously everything that came before. So that seems like a good model for Gaga. I hope that she can find, I still think the acting part of this was so revelatory from her and such a, I hope she can find a situation in which she can do that again. Like it's a testament to Bradley Cooper's directing, I think, as well as her performance. So I don't know how many of

those roles are out there. Any final observations from the 91st Oscars that you want to make before we bid adieu? Some good things happened. Certainly. We should embrace some of the good things that happened. Yeah. I feel stronger than ever that the two academies thing is real. Yeah. And that it'll be very fascinating to see not just kind of what wins best picture next year, but what's nominated and why. Because I think that's changing a lot. And I think it's going to keep changing a lot and whether they keep the preferential ballot or not, we'll probably dictate some of that, but we'll be following it closely here on the big picture. Amanda, thank you. Sean, thank you. Thanks again to Amanda Dobbins for chatting with me about the Oscars.

Now let's go to my conversation with the writer-director Neil Jordan, who is the creative force behind such memorable films as The Crying Game and The Good Thief, which is one of my personal favorites, and recently Byzantium, and of course the TV show The Borgias, which aired on Showtime. He has a new movie called Greta, and Greta is a complex paranoid thriller about the relationship between a young woman played by Chloe Grace Moretz and an older woman played by the great Isabelle Huppert. So right after these messages, we're going to talk to Neil Jordan. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Sonos.

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when you pair a Beam with a sub and two Sonos ones for truly immersive sound. So just go to Sonos.com to learn more and order your Beam today. That's S-O-N-O-S dot com. Today's episode of The Big Picture is also brought to you by Bud Light. Did you know not all alcohol products are required to list their ingredients? That was news to me. Bud Light is changing the game.

They believe that we deserve to know our beer's ingredients, so they put an ingredients label right on their packaging. Bud Light, brewed with hops, barley, water, and rice. No corn syrup, no preservatives, and no artificial flavors. Find out what ingredients are in your beer. Bud Light, enjoy responsibly. AB Bud Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. I'm delighted to be joined by fellow Irishman, Neil Jordan. Neil, thank you for being here. Thank you. Neil, you have such a full creative career. You do so many different kinds of things. So I'm interested at this stage, you know, you're an author, a screenwriter, a director, you've worked in television. What attracts you to a story right now at this moment? It's probably something that I haven't done before in a way. You know, it's this specific story.

Well, I mean, you can talk about maybe how this one came to you. Well, you know, I generally look for something that will kind of excite my brain in a way, you know, and in the case of Greta, it was like an urban stalker script that I thought could be turned into a rather delicious and weird fairy tale, you know. I mean, I often look for the same elements in material, you know, that I'm attracted to, and in this case it was the the possibility of making a version of Hansel and Gretel really in New York City you know what's it what when do you know when something when you're reading something is it very quickly that you sense oh I see what this is or do you have to finish it and then kind of take it apart well I mean I mean the way it goes movies now nowadays is, particularly independent films, is you're sent a script or in most cases I write them myself, you know.

But in this case, I was sent the script, this script. And what attracted me to it was, you know, that hook of the handbags, the fact that the extraordinary fact that the monster, the stalking invasive monster was a woman, you know. And that immediately drew me into kind of Grimm's fairy tales and stuff like that, you know. And the possibility of examining this obsessive relationship between Frances and Greta in a kind of a rather sick and deranged manner, really. And I loved the fact that there was no sexual element to the story whatsoever, perhaps just because it was between two women. And it was all about issues of motherhood, you know,

and promises of friendship and companionship, you know. So I thought it was a deliciously ironic possibilities in the story, really, you know. Yeah, I think this is, it does seem like something new for you, but also it totally hits on those hallmarks that you're talking about. Well, it's absolutely very new for me. I mean, I've never done a slashery, stalkery movie

before, you know. I've done thrillers, but they've been more noirish thrillers in the vein of Mona Lisa. But this, to me, was like an urban fairy tale, you know, gone horribly, horribly wrong. Yeah, I feel like the fairy tale thing, though, is something that you've come back to a couple of times. Do you have that sort of at the tip of your fingers?

Do you know the Grimm's fairy tales well, or do you have to return and read them? Well, I kind of forget most of them, actually. You know what I mean? But you know, it's, I mean, this is partly Grimm, it's partly Bluebeard. Who wrote Bluebeard, the French fairy tale of the guy who married the girl and she found the dungeon where all the previous brides were kept? I mean, the thing I like about fairy tales or about myths and archetypal things like that is they go right below psychology, you know. So they kind of tear away the uh surface of uh the realistic surface

of things you know they get back to something quite elemental and very simple really sometimes almost too simple but i'm really attracted to that i mean one of the set after i made my first movie angel i made a movie that was a fairy tale it was the company wolves you know and uh that was um came out of the the work of the great angela carter you know who basically probed a whole raft of familiar fairy tales to find the uh the realistic freudian kind of sexual content beneath them yeah i was going to say there's always a slight perversion of the fairy tale i feel like whenever you approach it you know i'd love to tell one straight actually i'd love to do snow white you know i straight, actually. I'd love to do Snow White, you know.

I'd love to do Pinocchio, you know. But I suppose the thing about those kind of stories is they provide you with ready-made territory in a way, you know. And you can explore and you can spin it around and see different things in it. It's a bit like a jewel, you know. If you turn to the light, it reveals different things. Is it significantly different when something comes to you? Because you've been the primary creative force behind most of the films that you've made.

So this one with the script, what is that like? Is that significantly different? It's kind of scary on the one hand because you wonder, is your instinct correct? And you have to trust somebody else's organization of a story and somebody else's, uh, imagination in a way. But I mean,

this was, this was a genre piece really, you know, and it was, I thought it was a very effective one, you know, you know, it travels through very familiar areas,

you know, that was, uh, can be a good thing and a bad thing, you know, but, uh, I just kind of ratchet,

ratcheted the characters through it very quickly to get to the, to get to the, demented me to the relationship, you know, so it's, that's the way, that's the way I approached it. What do you do when you're going to make a thriller? Do you go back and watch thrillers that you love or think about the things that you want to kind of borrow or reinvent? I do sometimes. It can be a very dangerous thing. I mean, people talk about Hitchcock with relationships, this, you know, you know mean, people talk about Hitchcock with relationships. You know, the only

piece of Hitchcock I thought about this was Rebecca, actually, in a strange way. You know, it's a beautiful kind of movie of doomed

romanticism he made before he came to Hollywood, wasn't it? I think it's his best film. You think it's his best film? So do I.

It's a beautiful movie. There's a different Alfred Hitchcock in a way, isn't it? You only see it again in Vertigo in a way, that kind of thing. It's a different version of romance, I think, too. I think so, yeah.

Yeah, but that's, so, I mean, I wasn't thinking about Psycho or any of those Hitchcockian classics, really. But I thought, you know, I looked at Repulsion, you know, that movie by the unmentionable Roman Polanski. You know, there are so many unmentionable people these days, aren't there? Yeah. Well, that whole idea of being locked up in a room, though, is obviously central to your movie. It was great. And there's a movie by George Slyzer called The Vanishing. Did you ever see that?

Oh, of course, yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is a film that basically deals with claustrophobia. Where did you make this movie? Is it primarily in New York? I shot the exterior in New York. I shot the exteriors in New York. I built the sets in Ireland. Oh, okay.

It is Ireland. Yeah. Well, the interiors. Yes, yes. And we did little bits, and I could only find a relevant street to situate her house in Toronto, you know? So there was three cities involved in the mix in this.

How important is that for you to be in the right place to be making a story like this? Well, it's... I mean, this is a story that could have happened in any city, couldn't it? Really, it could have happened in Paris, anywhere, anywhere. Any American city, I suppose, really. Because there was a contrast between an American sensibility

and a European sensibility, really. It was the entrapment of an American innocence by some kind of European guile, in a way. That's the way I saw it. There's something about the tactile thing on of an American innocence, you know, by some kind of European guile in a way. That's the way I saw it. There's something about the tactile thing on the subway, though, where somebody leaves something and it's like, you have to be a kind soul to return something if you find it on the subway. You have to read your Bible, don't you?

Yes, yes. You have to know the story of the Good Samaritan, you know, which probably is one that Francis should never have come across, really. No, I don't think so. Tell me about Isabelle Huppert. You've not worked with her before? Never, no. And she's incredible in this movie.

It feels like in some ways subverting the cool tone that she often has. Yeah, she often has a very chilly kind of presence in films. When I read the script initially, the character was much older, was kind of exhausted and almost a grandmother more than a mother. You know that kind of thing? Yeah. The kind of woman you see waiting at a traffic for the lights to change,

holding, you know, shopping bags. You want to carry her bags for her. You know that kind of thing. That was the character that Ray Wright had written, the writer who wrote the original script. And when Isabel came on board, I said, okay, I'm going to restructure the entire thing, the whole character around you.

So I gave her this French veneer, you know, which was a lot of fun. I gave her this elegance and this sophistication. I gave her a piano to play, gave her a beautiful Hungarian piece of soporific romanticism, you know, called Liebesraum, you know, and, uh, and constructed this character really where there was different dimensions to where, you know, there was, there

was a, there was a kind of an L an elegant surface, you know, that that was, and when you strip away that you find something that belongs to an East European forest, you know, and that is rather more scary than the appearance, which would lead you to believe. to an East European forest, you know, and that is rather more scary than the appearance, which would lead you to believe. How do you collaborate with someone like her who, you know, you've both made so many films at this point? Is there a lot of conversation ahead of time about the character? There's an enormous amount of conversation about the character

and what the character means. Isabelle read, she read a lot of documentary material on the kinds of people who keep children in their dungeons. They all seem to live in Belgium and Austria for some reason. And they're always men. They're always men with mummy issues. So she did a lot of reading in that regard. But she played it very simply, actually.

But she's the kind of person that you can, when I'm working with her as a director, who can make these rapid moves, you know, and suddenly add a little spin to the character that seems to come out of nowhere. Like, for example, when she was preparing herself to do away with a detective played by Stephen Ray, we were playing Chopin on the radio,

and she turns it up, so he counted the banging from the room next door. And I said, Isabel, I'd love you, if you could play this like a ballet, really, you know, like a dance. pan on the radio and she turns it up so he can't hit the banging from the room next door and i said isabel i'd love you if you could play this like a ballet really you know like a dance and you know i'm sure most actors would say are you insane i can't do that but she she did it so beautifully and she made she made a part of the character in a strange way you know so she's able to make moves like that that very few people can do yeah she's really wonderful i'm curious especially with things like that, about the idea

of balancing tone because you have to kind of toggle the ridiculous and the absurd a lot of the time here. So as a filmmaker, what's that like?

Tone. I don't understand the word tone. Let me put it that way. It's like, I mean, this film has about 25 tones, doesn't it?

Yeah. That's what's fun about it, for sure. I think it is what's fun about it. I mean, it starts as a kind of almost a soporific romance between a younger and older lady,

finding the mother and the daughter in each other. And you go, okay, now, okay, I know what's going to happen here. One of them's going to find the other has leukemia or something like that. Or, you know, whatever. And then the discovery of those multiple handbags in the film rapidly becomes something else. So, I mean, you know, I use a tone that's appropriate to the opening sequences of it, rather kind of everyday romanticism. And then as the movie gets darker and darker, the tone of the film changes.

What's fun for you at this point in making films? It's been a few years since you've made a film. I'll tell you what's fun is because I've been working in television. I did a series called The Borgias. What's fun in making a movie is making one specific thing, you know, one coherent thing that has its own mood, its own light and shade,

its own colors, you know. It's like, I mean, it's a unique experience making a movie. Nothing can replace it, really. I know that people like me are being seduced by long-form cable possibilities, you know, but there's something about making a film that is irreplaceable, really.

Did you pick up anything from the experience of the Borgias that you brought with you to making films now, though? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. I had to work much faster. Yeah. It's extraordinary, actually, you know, both a curse and a blessing, really, you know,

I mean, no matter how, I mean, we had quite quite large budgets on on that borgia series but still you work at a pace that you never would have done in motion pictures you know but i mean the great thing about something like the borgias is actually being able to tell a story at such length you know that material kind of warranted it really you know because there's all this historical stuff i had written it originally as a screenplay as as a movie I wanted to make, which I could never really get the financing for. And DreamWorks suggested that we turn it into a TV series, which so suddenly all this material just seemed to expand of its own accord, you know?

I realize life is not a binary, but do you have a preference between the two at this point, between the television long-form thing and the film thing? I mean, I love the long-form thing. I love the long-form thing as a writer. I really love it as a writer. As a director, I'm not so sure, you know? i mean i love the long-form thing i love the long-form thing as a writer i really love it as a writer as a director i'm not so sure you know i mean and the most difficult thing actually is as a director to be supervising other directors that's just at a natural embarrassment you know for one's admiration for another person's craft it can be

it can be an awkward kind of dialogue you know yeah it's more management than it is creativity in some respects right you see another director do something, you say, okay, could you do it this way? And immediately the hackles are up, you know, who's in control of this ship, you know, that kind of thing. I mean, directors are used to being in control. And in television, they're not as in control as they should be, really. Do you see, I'm so, you know, I love so many of your films, I'm so interested in looking for kind of the common points. And as I was watching Greta, there's this idea of surrogacy you know and the sort of a parental figure that isn't your parent coming up and over and over again do you know as a creative person that you have these recurring

themes yeah I have recurring themes of ersatz relationships you know I mean of of kind of romantic obsessions placed on the wrong object you know yeah and of uh promises of eternal kind of loyalty and truth and love being uh taken too seriously and leading to disastrous ends i mean i i know i have these things and i think part of the thing that attracted me to this project was that i could explore these issues again you know that's interesting yeah cool yeah i mean it's like people make a lot of promises in my movies you know don't they and sometimes they have to keep them you know and like stephen ray in the crying game before he knows that dill is actually a guy he does promise to look after it doesn't he you know how much do

you do you ever go back and look at your work and think about how it all fits together i never go back and look at my work never ever no no but i'll tell you i do but i'm getting old you see like i mean that's old no i know but it's uh they say oh it's the 20th anniversary of the crying game i go oh my god okay then it's the 25th and something some anniversary for interview the vampire apparently coming up i'm going it just seems like yesterday i made those movies you know that kind of thing so it's so i do go to watch i i i had to watch both of those again recently with an audience you know what was that experience like really interesting actually really interesting do you see the flaws when you're doing well i mean making movies is constantly wondering what

you could have done different you know that's that's the uh that that's the reality of it because it's it's it's you're you're under uh you're kind of under a stardust pistol when you start shooting, you know? And do I see the flaws? No. I mean, I only think of story, really, in the end, you know? And if the story is elements that don't work or make sense, I sometimes think afterwards, oh, I could have done that. You know, we just came out of Oscar season. I'm always so curious about Oscar winners,

kind of if their lives and careers significantly change after they've won. Did yours? Because you've made so many films since you won

and I'm curious not just from the business perspective where you have more opportunity per se but do you feel like you know more about how to do this?

How to make movies? Yeah. No, but I enjoy the experience more you know the first few movies I made were just like

you know being dipped in acid really you know it's because I didn't go to film school or anything like that I never went to a film I was a writer that's what I like about Angel though

that's sort of I just rewatched it yeah and it feels like it's yeah it's streaming on the internet right now is it? it is

it's on Amazon Prime is it really? it is yeah oh I must check it out several of your films are, but it really played beautifully and didn't seem over-prescribed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, well, I mean, I started as a writer and the reason I got into movies was because a very great director, John Borman, read my work and he said, oh, look, come on and work with me.

So I did some work on the last draft of Excalibur with him and he wanted me around to bounce ideas off, so I proposed that I do a documentary on making the film. So that was how I learned everything about movies, really. Do you think it was better to have been untrained in that respect? I don't know, really. I don't know. I speak to younger directors now making their first movies,

and they are so cine-literate, you know what I mean? They know everything about angles and about possibilities and about choices and all that sort of stuff. I mean, when I started making movies, I just trusted my gut, you know? And I've always thought of it as a medium where you close your eyes and try and see a picture and then try and realize that picture, you know. Do you, are you necessarily invested in the way that people see your films? Because there's so much conversation now about the streaming services and the sort of the Netflix of it all. And, you know, you've been making films for a long time. And is that movie theater experience meaningful to you?

Oh, totally, totally meaningful. I mean, seeing something with a big crowd is, you know, is always the final experience, the final goal, really. I mean, I have no idea. What would it be like if you made a movie for Netflix and it comes out on a Friday and that's it? Bang. I don't know. You could find out if you made one. Yeah, I could find out.

It must decrease the stress level enormously, I would say. Do you think so? Oh, I think so, yeah. There's no returns and things like that? Well, it's not that. How many screens are you on? You're just a million and one at the same time. I mean, I don't...

It'd be an interesting experience, I think. But it's... I mean, I did watch... What did I watch the other day? Velvet Buzzsaw, yeah. So that movie came out. It's made with all of the care and the intelligence that a movie should be made with. Comes out on Friday, that's it.

Extraordinary, yeah. Yeah, but if you fire up that machine and you look at it, it could be there every day for you too. Oh, it's there forever, yes, absolutely. I know, yeah, yeah. There's something fascinating about that. You were really in the crucial moment of independent film in the 90s working. And I'm curious how much that's changed from your perspective now it's well it's kind of it's it started with uh sex lives and videotapes didn't it with steven soderbergh yeah

and then it built and built and built through the weinstein company and or what was it called miramax miramax yeah the crying game you know was a big big independent hit you know and i suppose it kind of peaked with pulp fiction in a way didn hit, you know, and I suppose it kind of peaked with Pulp Fiction in a way, didn't it? Yes. And after that, it kind of changed. I don't know, something happened, you know. Movies, you know, the studios kind of abandoned the middle ground entirely, really, didn't they?

And now it's a different thing, I think. You know, independent film seems to flit from festival to festival to festival. Some marvelous work being made, you know what I mean? But it's a more disparate movement, you know, I think you know independent film seems to flitch from festival to festival to festival some marvelous work being made you know what I mean but I it's a more disparate movement you know

I think do you have a kind of film that you desperately want to make kind of film that I desperately want to make

yeah you want to make a war movie or a horror movie or is there I made a war movie I made a movie called Michael Collins yes that's right

never made a western never made a musical I'd love to make a kids movie actually oh I really would yeah well because I've got five kids and I've got three a western, never made a musical. I'd love to make a kids movie, actually. I really would. Yeah, well, because I've got five kids and I've got three grandkids, you know.

But my temperament probably would be a bit too scary for children, I think, perhaps. Maybe, but, you know, we were talking about fairy tales and I feel like... Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know. I mean, what I do is I shove fairy tales into adult kind of concerns, really, isn't it? I mean, if I was to do the reverse, I'd love to make a movie of Pinocchio. I mean, it's interesting with movies, really. Sometimes you see bits of movies are startlingly good, you know, and then the entire movie is not as good as those bits, you know, that kind of thing. Yes.

Great moments, but not cohering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do you prevent that kind of thing yes and great moments but not cohering yeah so how do you prevent that from happening how do you make a movie that completely coheres for a layman like me how do you make a movie that completely coheres

I suppose you write it correctly in the first place you know that's the first thing to do what about the writing that is not film writing for you I'm not as familiar

with that work but you write a lot of fiction and that's sort of your background well I've written novels I've written novels yeah I mean I'm your classic schizophren with that work but you read a lot of fiction and that's sort of your background I've written novels yeah I mean I'm your classic schizophrenic

really you know every time I'd get annoyed with the process of filmmaking I'd go back and write a novel you know but I mean the minute I started making movies

nobody you know I was a filmmaker you know in the current cultural landscape it's very difficult

to be two things you know. Yeah, what is that? I'm always interested in the multi-hyphenate. What is that like when someone tells you, just go be over here and be this kind of a person for me? People always say, oh, I never knew you wrote books, you know. It's a strange one. I think you have to, I mean, the way the culture works is if you do the same thing constantly and repeat doing the same thing, people know exactly who you are

and what you are, you know. And I think a public and an audience, they do want to know what you are, you know, that kind of thing. So when people realize that I write books, they get a bit confused, you know. Who are your favorite screenwriters? I would think of novelists in terms of,

I'd think of people like Cornel Woolwich, you know, and I'd think of people like James N. Kane, you know, who wrote the stuff that gave rise to these great movies, you know. Raymond Chandler. I suppose the best screenplay that has been written is a screenplay for Citizen Kane, I would say, wouldn't you? Possibly, possibly. I hear Chinatown all the time.

We already talked about Polanski, you know. Chinatown is good. It's great, actually. Yeah, yeah. But that's interesting, though, that you would think novels because you're iterating on, you know, something that exists. Well, Chinatown feels like a novel to me, doesn't it? It does. It feels like a, you know, a wonderful Raymond Chandler book that he never wrote, really.

Absolutely. Neil, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen. So I'm curious, what's the last great thing that you have seen? Oh, my God. The last great thing that they have seen so i'm curious what's the last great thing that you have seen oh my god the last great thing that i have seen it's probably a quiet place i would say yeah what did you like about that then i wouldn't have guessed that you would say that i like the idea that was so simple you know i like the execution of it uh i like the fact that uh the kid was killed so quickly and i liked the fact that it brought horror movies to a kind of an emotional intensity that I hadn't seen before. But the last movie that I saw that actually I thought was really special was Paul Schrader's film. What's it called?

First Reformed. Yeah. What spoke to you about that? The simplicity of the camera, you know, the bareness of it all, and the kind of stripped-back quality of everything, really. You know, and I thought it was very brave of Paul to just not move that camera one bit. I like that a lot.

It's a hard thing to do. It is. Neil, thank you for doing this. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you again to Amanda Dobbins and of course to the great Neil Jordan. The Big Picture is continuing despite the fact that the Oscars are no more.

We'll be back with more episodes coming next week. We'll also be recording episodes live from South by Southwest. We'll be talking about the best movies there. I'll be sitting down with some likely very famous people, which I'm looking forward to. So keep it locked on this show, The Big Picture. And, you know, if you've liked what we've been doing with it the last few months,

please do leave a review on iTunes. You can rate and review us there. Thanks again. Today's episode of The Big Picture was brought to you by Sonos, maker of the Sonos Beam, which has been absolutely filling my home with films. I've been re-watching the films of Neil Jordan, as I mentioned him during my interview,

all through the Beam. That was an incredible experience. You know, the Beam is easy to set up and comes with Amazon Alexa built right in, so you can enjoy hands-free control of your entertainment center. So just go to Sonos.com to learn more and order your Beam today.