The Big Picture - 'The Wife'-a-Palooza, Plus Barry Alexander Brown on Editing ‘BlacKkKlansman’ | The Oscars Show (Ep. 123)

Episode Date: February 5, 2019

We spend an inordinate amount of time talking about ‘The Wife,’ Glenn Close’s latest film that will likely net her her first Best Actress win at the Oscars (1:09). Then we assess the stock of ��Bohemian Rhapsody,’ ‘A Star Is Born,’ and ‘Roma’ after the Directors Guild Awards (40:30). Finally, Sean sits down with ‘BlacKkKlansman’ editor Barry Alexander Brown to discuss working with Spike Lee and the role of an editor in the filmmaking process (59:15). Hosts: Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins Guest: Barry Alexander Brown Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelley. With the Super Bowl in the books, I wanted to let you know about all of our coverage across the site. We have Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Roger Sherman, and more breaking down every aspect of the game, including winners and losers, key plays from the game, and the halftime show performance. Also, make sure to check out our YouTube channel where Kevin Clark talked to Amari Cooper on Slow News Day, and Roger Sherman chatted with players from each team for their thoughts leading up to the game. Be sure to watch and subscribe to our channel on YouTube.com slash TheRinger.

Don't paint me as a victim. I am much more interesting than that. Don't walk away from me, Diamond! I can't do it anymore. I can't take it. I can't take the humiliation. I'm Sean Fennessey. And I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about a movie called The Wife. We are here. It is The Wife of Palooza. Amanda, are you ready to talk about the movie that we denied for months and months? Maybe not of our own volition. Yes, I'm extremely ready. I even read a book for this. It's incredible. So for those of you who are listening to this show for the first time,

I will briefly explain a bit that we have been running on this show, which is at the top of every show, I ask Amanda if she has seen the movie The Wife. She has not until now. I had not until now. Over time, this became a bit about how this was the all-time plane movie. Many people who listen to this show are sharing with us their experiences watching this show on United or Delta or American or JetBlue. Thank you very much for sharing those experiences with us. We have had a similar experience. I did not watch it on a plane.

Amanda, where did you watch the movie? I watched it at home, courtesy of a screener that your friend and mine, Becky Landau, gave to me. She has been checking in. I have a lot of friends who have been checking in every week, in addition to the many kind listeners on Twitter who have been checking in. So thanks for all your support. We finally did it.

I think we should also just, to explain the bit, this is a movie and specifically a performance by Glenn Close that has been in the Oscars conversation since the beginning. Definitely. Since the dawn of time. Since the dawn of time. And it was impossible to see this movie. And I was sitting in your office one day, I think in like September, and was like, yo, have you seen The Wife?

And you were like, I mean, that's really how it started. And you did not. And it was, you couldn't go to a screening. You couldn't go to a movie theater. You couldn't get it on demand. You couldn't get it on a streaming service. It was not put on planes until November or December. That's right.

And, you know, also having to buy a plane ticket to see a movie is a certain privilege, if you will. So, I mean, this became a bit because bits are good, and thanks to everyone who played along, but also because it highlights the way that sometimes certain things get caught in the Oscar narrative completely independent of the film or the quality of the film or people even seeing it.

Yeah, and this film was not released by a tiny company funded by a secretive billionaire who buried it under the ocean. You know, it was released by Sony Pictures Classics. It made a little bit of money, made about $8 million in its theatrical run, which is not bad. But I didn't see a single theater in which it was playing. And it was living in, like you said, almost this amniotic bubble of Oscar hype. And there was very little conversation about the movie itself. I didn't even know, and I'm sure we will talk about the novel upon which this film is based, written by Meg Wolitzer. Is that right?

Yes. I didn't know about that book. I didn't really know very much about the filmmaker, Bjorn Runge. I didn't really know very much about anybody involved in this except for Glenn Close's Oscar odds. And I will say without getting too far ahead of myself, I now understand why I didn't hear anything about this movie because the movie's not very good. And it's not that it's boring per se. It's actually kind of interesting to me. You know, Bobby, our producer came in and was like, I really doubled up with the Super Bowl and the wife last night, one of the most boring nights of my life.

I think that The Wife does actually reveal some interesting things about kind of like what we think an Oscar performance is and what we think a story about a strong woman is too, which I'm sure we'll unpack a bit here. Yeah, I got some takes there. But just generally speaking, did you think this was a good movie, Amanda? I did not think it was a good movie. I thought it was a very watchable movie. I understand why it's a plane movie, and I understand why there have been a lot of sightings of people watching it on planes. Like I said, I watched it on a screener at home.

Historically, I'm terrible at that, as listeners of the podcast know, but I did not buy anything on Amazon during the watching of this movie. I really didn't second screen that much. I was like, oh, you know, I kind of want to know what's happening. Part of that is because it, as you mentioned, fits into a certain genre of movie, which is the people talking at each other in rooms, Oscar drama. Yes. And I'm

conditioned to like those and watch those. You kind of know the beats. It was familiar without ever having, I had not read the book and I obviously had not seen the wife before I saw the wife. So I thought it was easy to watch. Yeah. There is, it is, there's a comfort food aspect to it. Um, I was, I watched it with my wife, pardon the pun, I suppose. Uh, and I was, as we were watching it, I was kind of setting her up for the beats that were coming. I was like, in about two minutes, we will have a scene in which Glenn Close throws a book at Jonathan Price and lo and behold, something like that happened. They really kind of set us up in very clear ways. It was telegraphed.

And I think that there's something okay about a telegraphed drama because we don't have as many telegraphed dramas as we used to. I do think that there is an inherent clunkiness to the way that this story is told. It's really poorly told. And I think there are a lot of structural issues that we can talk about, but primarily that a third of the movie and sort of the crucial third of the movie is told in flashback with different actors. And it undermines most of the plot and motivation for Glenn Close's performance. And we'll talk more about this as well,

about not great Oscar movies that still yield great performances. And that's kind of a time-honored tradition. Even in this year, I won't name names, but it is a movie with a question in the title. And I think that this actually undermines the performance for me. I think that the lack of quality and how the movie is made and the motivations are conveyed, the performance doesn't come together. And I think that's unusual.

Yeah, I mean, I think as we've watched Oscar season go along and we've seen Glenn Close now give a couple of acceptance speeches, primarily at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. I think we've seen her essentially align her character in the film as sort of representative of her career and her work as a woman and her life as a woman, which is to say she's accomplished, she's talented, she's sort of present for big moments, but is never the central figure. And that is also one of the themes of this story. I don't know if that's the theme ultimately of this novel. But the idea that there is someone behind a man who is doing all of the legwork. Now, whether that legwork is creative or emotional or just functional in life, it's kind of a time-honored story that's been told.

It's a bit of a cliche, I would say. I think it's interesting that Glenn Close has wholly adopted that theme as her awards campaign theme. Because I would say Glenn Close as an actress is not really a like play it to the back kind of woman. You know, she is the star of Fatal Attraction. She is I will not be ignored. That is Glenn Close's persona as a performer. So I find like a little bit of cognitive dissonance in this role of this woman who is very sort of very quiet and sort of simmering under the surface, but has this wellspring of creativity underneath her. It doesn't totally align for me.

I agree with that in terms of Glenn Close, the awards campaigner and this character. I also think just within the performance itself, there are two people. There is the simmering traditional wife who, you know, wear the glasses and is taking care of all the logistics of everything. And I think Glenn Close is tremendous in those moments. Then she goes into turbo mode and she's definitely fatal attraction, Glenn Close. And she is playing it to the back of the room and is yelling. And part of it is that the movie doesn't connect those two people. You don't understand why.

It is a little bit about women being overlooked and behind every great man, blah, blah, blah. Sure. Actually, I don't mean to dismiss those things. We should talk about them because I think the ideas in this movie are really interesting. But the movie does not explain just ghostwriting an entire canon of books over the course of 40 years is like slightly different than being willing to take a backseat in someone's life. And it doesn't really connect them. And you don't really, you know where the rage is coming from. But for me, it feels from two different parts. Yeah. I mean, let's just back up a little bit and sort of share a synopsis of this film. If you're listening, it probably means you've either seen this film or you are interested in us talking about this film and are never

going to watch it. God bless you. I can't say I would recommend it necessarily. So The Wife is essentially the story of a writer named Joe Castleman and his wife, Joan Castleman. And Joe and Joan wake up one morning in, I guess the movie starts with them essentially having sex, which is a deeply unfortunate sex scene, but we can talk about that a little bit later. Ultimately, they wake up the next morning. Joe finds out he has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize. No, excuse me, the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. What's the Nobel Prize for literature? I don't think it's the Peace Prize for literature. Is it? I don't know. How do they do that? I don't know. Okay. Can I just

tell you also in the book, it's a different prize. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's a lesser prize. I have some questions about it. Nevertheless, he's awarded a grand prize in which he has to travel to Scandinavia to be feted by international dignitaries. And that sets the stage for this sort of 50-year history of the relationship between the Castlemans and how they met when Joe was a professor and Joan was his student and how Joe identified Joan's talent. But Joe had big ideas, quote unquote, while Joan had writing talent, had a sort of gift for language. And we see over time this very sort of uneasy alliance that they've created creatively.

Needless to say, it is revealed that Joan is in fact the author of all of Joe's books. I still don't really understand the psychology of this agreement that they've made. Totally agree. And that they've made. Totally agree. And that's a problem. It is, to me, the central problem of the movie. Yes. That there's,

it's never totally clear why they arrive upon this. And they give us a couple of examples. They show us a young, a woman played by Elizabeth McGovern who plays a novelist and I think it's the 50s or maybe the late 40s.

It's the 50s, which is crucial for feminism. Anyway, continue. Perhaps you can share more about that. But it's the 50s or maybe the late 40s. It's the 50s, which is crucial for feminism. Anyway, continue. Perhaps you can share more about that. But it's just the timing of... They give us these sort of breadcrumbs for why Joan Castleman never pursued a full-stop career as an author. Maybe some ideas about where she came from, the sort of waspy nature of her background, and the fact that maybe many people didn't think she would have anything to say.

And there are scenes, sort of stagey scenes in a publishing house in which editors are saying things like, yeah, but it's written by a woman, Joe, and nobody wants to hear what a woman thinks about a novel. And, you know, just very phony kind of stagey actorly setups for stuff that we understand to sort of be tacitly clear in the history of American literature. Now, there were female novelists in the 1950s and 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s and 2000s. So just on its face, the premise of the movie, I find a little faulty. I completely agree. I find it both interesting and faulty because there is one scene and it's like as you said it's really really stagey and i don't want to say hacky but they're really it's a lot of like pull quotes in people's mouths if that makes sense

and it's um it's a female novelist at the time who has not been successful and she says to the young uh joan character they don't want to hear from women. They don't want bold prose or thoughts from women. It just doesn't. They don't want to hear when it's a woman, it changes the way it's received. And I think that's true and an interesting idea. And I think that like that's even true now that whether it's a book or a movie or someone talking on a podcast, if you've ever commented to someone about how her voice sounds, you're kind of doing the same thing because people receive from men and women differently. We're conditioned to do it. And that's mostly bad. Sometimes it just is what it

is. So I think that's an interesting idea, but they don't develop it at all and they do not develop how the character receives that information or processes it or makes the decision to do what she does or feels about the decision after the fact they're just kind of like well one person told her that she won't be taken seriously as a writer and so then she threw her whole life away so let's use this as an opportunity to segue into the novel because i suspect that the novel which you have read and I have not, and I will never, at least whether it gives us more depth to understand why these characters do all of these things. Yes, it does. I recommend it. It's by Meg Wolitzer.

It's 200 pages. Breezy read. I read it this weekend. And crucially, it's in the first person. It's told from Joan's narration throughout. And so- In her head. In her head.

The present, the flashbacks, she's connecting everything. It's her view of Joe. She's explaining all of it. And so, you know, it both makes the story more about her and obviously gives her room to connect that speech and her fears and the nature of marriage this is a lot more it fleshes out the creative aspects of it more and just the fear and there's like one very very depressing but well-written passage that I read last night that's just like no one would love a strong woman writer I don't want to be the person out in front it's too much like no man will like me. No person will take me seriously. And which is playing into what I said

about the fifties feminism. There's another passage where it's like, why didn't I just wait 10 years for the women's movement to come along? And then I could have been my own writer and been taken seriously. So it explains the timing. it explains the fear, it explains the motivation creatively, and also explains, it connects the idea of the wife in a marriage sense a bit more as well. So it is also about a marriage. So one of the primary flaws to me of the movie, which I think is probably reflected somewhat in the book too, is just kind of what Joan sees in Joe and why she's willing to subjugate herself completely creatively emotionally in all of these different ways even though

she's obviously a brilliant woman for a guy who sucks who's a schmuck you know I mean he's just not he's obviously sort of like on the surface intelligent and willing to seem interesting to a classroom full of Smith college students but not actually a deep or thoughtful or useful person.

He's a narcissist. He is vain. He's shallow. He's just not that interesting. And it speaks badly of Joan Castleman that she becomes enraptured by this guy for sort of no good reason and sees him at his worst all the time throughout the film, and I assume in the book. And there's a missing link there. Yeah, it does not establish their relationship at all. And especially when you take it out of the first person in the film and you make it about both of them, you have to understand their connection and how they've wound up in the back of the limo kind of bitching at each other, or else you're just judging them. And I found myself judging both of them throughout the movie, which is not the intent of the movie, I would guess. Yeah, I guess that does raise the interesting question of does the

wife have to be heroic in any meaningful way? Or is it okay that these are just kind of messy, flawed people in a novel? Well, the final climactic scene, I was thinking a little bit about, I don't think that she has to be the hero, though. I think the movie thinks that she's the hero. And I think Glenn Close's performance also thinks that she's the hero. And I think Glenn Close's performance also thinks that she's the hero. Though, I guess when you're playing a character, you got to be on that character's side or else. I mean, I'm not a professional actor, but I do understand that to be the general gist of it. But I think it is more complicated than that. Some of this is her fault.

Yes. At least the character. At least that's how I responded to the final scene of like of like you know there is no accountability for either of them for their choices and some of that again I really just think is the movie making and when it's two different actors much younger playing the same people you can't establish whatever connection and chemistry on screen which is often used to to depict relationships on a screen you you just kind of people create like a connection on screen and they don't really have an opportunity to do that beyond the one at the end so yeah but but

it doesn't reckon with any of the choices either yeah i mean to me i'm not necessarily put off by a difficult man or a difficult woman in a film. It's just unfortunate that their sort of difficult nature is never really like unpacked. It's never really unbound from what we see from the people on the screen. I mean, as a movie, I think that this is like deeply unremarkable. And that's fine because like 99% of movies are deeply unremarkable. The sort of like construction, the pieces that fit in here all feel a little bit like Glenn Close's Tic-Tac-Toe. So Bjorn Runge is a Swedish director who I've never heard of,

who I think it feels like was hired because much of this film takes place in Stockholm. And I honestly can't figure out another reason. I mean, he did work with Roy Anderson, the great Swedish filmmaker in the past, and he has some laurels, but this is really just not a filmmaker of note. It's written by Jane Anderson, the adaptation, and Jane Anderson's an interesting writer. She adapted Alf Kitteridge for HBO a few years ago, the Elizabeth Strout novel. And she was also on the staff of Mad Men for a couple of seasons, including the second season

in which I believe she won an Emmy. And she's been working in Hollywood for a long time. She wrote How to Make an American Quilt. She wrote If These Walls Could Talk. She wrote a lot of sort of thoughtful, probably second wave feminists, HBO made for TV movies. I think that it's kind of like,

this whole thing is very workmanlike. You know, it's not very beautiful. The sort of flashbacks feel like the sets were just constructed. You know, they certainly appear to be shot on a lot somewhere in the middle of Central Europe. And there's no real sense of place, except maybe when you're in that sort of grand dining hall

where the Nobel Prizes are handed out? Is that how that works? I have no idea. Okay, what is the prize that the wife does not receive in the book The Well, she does because the same speech, the same climactic speech of, I just won the damn something prize, except in this case, it's the Helsinki Prize. Is that a fake prize? Yes, it is a fake prize. And they situate it, she situates it in the book as kind of a lesser Nobel because the Nobel is beyond Joe's reach. But the book is a lot angrier and more dismissive of Joe, which is useful, obviously, helps you understand, helps you not judge as much. But it's in Finland and there's a lot of weird, there's a lot of Finnish culture, which I knew nothing about.

So I can tell you whether it gets it right or not. But everything else is pretty much taken from the book, just in bits and pieces. Who is Joe Castleman in your mind? Who is this a loose approximation of? Well, I mean, there are definite Philip Roth overtones. Certainly. And that was kind of all I could get past. And then,

I mean, I don't know who else is like having his wife ghostwrite his stuff. I don't, well, I mean, even setting aside that conceit, the idea of a Jewish man from Brooklyn who sort of stymied in his early attempts at greatness and then ultimately rises above that,

those early failures to become one of the true literary voices of the second half of the 20th century in America. Right. That's essentially the character that we're talking about. So Philip Roth right on the surface. Right. And also the Philip Roth. Saul Bellow, maybe William Styron. That whole class of Updike, all of those novelists are in the frame here.

I want to talk a little bit about Jonathan Pryce. Okay. Before we talk about kind of Oscar-winning performances. And I'm interested in Joe Castleman because, you know, this is the second time that Jonathan Pryce has played this character. I don't know if you've seen the movie Listen Up, Philip. I have not. He plays Ike Zimmerman, who is almost literally Philip Roth. Right, that I remember. There's a great visual cue in which all of Ike Zimmerman's fake novels kind of run through the closing credits of that film. And they're done in that beautiful font style that is on the cover of all of Philip Roth's early books. So Jonathan Pryce has already done this before, this exact character. He's narcissistic, eloquent, but a fool, and also a Jew from Brooklyn.

Jonathan Pryce is the most British person alive. Is there a person more synonymous with a sort of haughty British actorly affect? It's very true. Why did he get cast in this role twice? I have no idea. In this case, it seems like they're trying to use the affiliation from the former film in order to not have to skimp on the character development. I don't mean to be rude.

But like 120,000 people maybe saw Listen Up, Philip. I mean, that's such a micro... I mean, how many people saw The Wife? Well, after this podcast, Amanda. Philip Roth. You know, a lot of people, I guess. I shouldn't... Yeah, I mean, obviously, this is a very triangulated sort of audience for the movie.

I just, I'm confounded by Jonathan Pryce as your go-to Jewish American author. There's literally the thousands of actors who could fill that role better. And he's not bad in this movie, per se. I mean, his character is such a caricature that it's kind of hard to accurately identify like whether it's a good performance or not there's no awards buzz for Jonathan Price just for the record um I think the performances in general in the movie are worth examining before we get back to to Glenn yeah uh there's a young man in this movie that you like a lot um that I didn't really care for his work. You know who he is? Yes, his name is Max Irons. Yeah. Who does he play?

He plays their son, who is their, his character device is to further support the legend of Joan and her wonderfulness and to make Jonathan Pryce's character look even more like a dick. It's really, it's just like a one-note plot device to be like, mom's nice and smart and dad sucks. Yeah, and he's like a moody wannabe writer who's completely

Apparently he's quite good. According to Joan. Sure. Joe is a little bit more critical. Yes. Max Irons, who's an extremely tall handsome man who is the son of Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close's co-star in a couple different movies. Yes. I don't think he's very convincing as the son of a Brooklyn novelist. Again,

how did they go about casting this movie? He's fine. He's like a mopey, super handsome dude. Yeah. Great. Great. Okay. That's just in your zone. I accept. I needed something. There's a couple of other notable performances in this movie. Did you know that Annie Stark, who plays Glenn Close's daughter, or excuse me, plays young Glenn Close in the film, is Glenn Close's daughter in real life? I did not while watching. I learned that after the fact.

Did you think she was a convincing young Glenn Close? I did think that the resemblance was notable. And I did spend some time wondering. She was clearly doing Glenn Close in this movie like I there was some there was tonal consistency I will give them that and I was wondering how that was communicated and like how they decided and I'm always curious in those conversations do they sit down did Glenn Close say okay I'm going for this this and this and we should make sure that we're communicating this and this.

Maybe she was just like impersonating her mom, which is interesting. How fraught. Yeah, I guess. Can I share with you Annie Stark's three most prominent film roles? Yes, please do. The first one is 2011. It's a film called Albert Knobs. Heard of it.

The second is a 2017 comedy called Father Figures. Okay. I believe Ed Helm stars in that film and Owen Wilson. And the third is The Wife. Okay. In The Wife, she plays the younger version of Glenn Close. Yes. In Father Figures, she plays the younger version of Glenn Close. Wow.

And obviously Albert Nobbs is, I believe, the last time Glenn Close was nominated for an Oscar. Yes. So, Annie Stark's range? Sort of limited, I would say, to stuff with Glenn Close in it or being Glenn Close. Yeah. It's a tough beat for Annie Stark. Uh, there's one other significant figure in the movie. We mentioned Elizabeth McGovern as that novelist.

Of course, it's Christian Slater, who plays Nathaniel Bone. One of the all-time great character names I can think of. Uh, Nathaniel Bone is a would-be biographer of Joe Castleman. And somehow has, I don't know, weaseled his way into this Nobel Prize trip. Even is on essentially the Concord with the Castleman family to Stockholm. So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which journalist he was based on okay because he is definitely supposed to be one of the literary world figures and who is trying to get joe costman to agree to do the book with him but it is of some renown so who is he i don't

know i mean you would say jay mcinerney but i don't't think Jay McInerney would go to the trouble of going to Sweden. I don't know who that's more insulting to. Yeah, I'm not sure who his real life comp is. He is an interesting character. He also, much like Max Irons, his character is a complete plot device. He is there to unearth the truth about the wife. The way that he does that is by essentially reading Joan Castleman's short stories that she wrote in college.

Yes. And then using that to clarify that that is the writing style that appears in Joe Castleman's novels. And he also reads, I guess, Joe Castleman's early work and identifies that it's not very good. Yes.

That's a little specious to me. There have been a lot of stories of sort of literary fraud over the years or literary manipulation. You know, Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish and all that stuff that we've read about. If you are a New Yorker subscriber, as you and I are. This one just felt very plot devicey. Where he like Christian Slater's character corners Glenn Close in a bar and is like, I know the truth about you. Yes.

I mean, that was ridiculous i think the the basic setup of we've got i have your original work here and his contemporaneous work and then the first novel and i'm connecting the dots that's more plausible than many things in this book fair in this movie i would say but yeah where he just shows up and it's like let's go to a cool old swed Swedish bar that is definitely the worst set of all the sets. That just looks like they put a fake mantle in a conference room. It's like, I know that there is no bar culture in Los Angeles and people don't know how it's supposed to look, but no. It looks like they put two beer steins on this table recording in the podcast studio. It's just not very convincing.

And then just asks her leading plot devicey questions. I also didn't know that Christian Slater was in this movie until about 30 minutes in when he shows up. I mean, I'm a big fan of Christian Slater. It's really nothing against Christian Slater. Just he's living exposition. I mean, his whole job is just to kind of explain things to the audience. He later does so to Max Irons' character which really kind of sets the plot in motion for this movie. Let me ask you one other thing about sort of the

storytelling here. So later in the film when Christian Slater's character does essentially feed the wife and Joe Castleman's son weed and beer

and then shares with him his revelations about his parents and that character has a complete meltdown yes um why was the kid so bent out of shape about that like why was he sort of screaming and thrashing about well that's a great question i mean is he unwell is that what we're supposed to believe

is he sort of battling depression or something i mean that was quite a dramatic yes performance i think in the context of the movie he is just supposed to be expressing some of the anger and betrayal you know he it's very clear that he has been raised his whole life to lionize his father and look up to his father and he's desperate for his father's approval and his father's a real dick and it's been very difficult for him and so he is react i think he's reacting as much to the lie that's presented to him and how it's made him feel and also what it's you know if he can do that to his mother what has he done to his son etc i guess i don't know okay that's fine i it's not like that's my best surface reading of the movie in the book it's the children are quite different and in the book this this the sun isn't there um but the sun is

more emotionally disturbed interesting okay so i mean you could be picking up on something i don't think that's anywhere in the movie okay Okay. So maybe they were trying to... Well, I just thought that that scene in particular was sort of ridiculously operatic and bad. Any other performances or appearances or things in this movie that are worth noting, aside from Glenn, who we will speak about in a minute? No, long silence is a bad sign. I was just honestly trying to think what else happens in the movie. I really felt that the young Joe Castleman was at zero. I mean, and I think he's supposed to be a little bit, but it's tough because there's really no chemistry between the two of them.

So do you know who plays that person? No. This is a fun fact for our Bench Mode crossover listeners. He's played by an actor named Harry Lloyd. Game of Thrones fans will know him as Viserys Targaryen. Oh, that guy. The guy with the blonde wig. Okay.

He was killed by Khal Drogo. Okay. Who is, of course, the mother of dragons' brother. Oh, right. And quite evil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So picture him with that long mane. Oh, yeah, that's right.

I don't mean that the actor was terrible i just it didn't match up again a british guy playing a yeah jewish guy from brooklyn like whatever and he's supposed to be standing in front of the room of women at smith and just being like this commanding figure that they're all drawn to and that was just not happening for me personally. He's a dweeb. Yeah. So that's confusing because I think you at least need him to be charismatic in order to connect it to the present day scenes.

I completely agree. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about Glenn Close. Okay. I just want to read you the first six or seven films that Glenn Close made in her film career. Okay. She was a stage actress before she started acting in cinema. And she came out with The World According to Garp.

Her next film is The Big Chill. After that is The Natural. Then it's Greystroke, The Legend of Tarzan. Her voice is uncredited. Then Jagged Edge, which is a wonderful thriller with Jeff Bridges. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. And then Fatal Attraction. And then Dangerous Liaisons.

And that's basically the first decade of Glenn Close as an actress. That's kind of as good as you can do. I agree. Complex characters, interesting films that hold up. I would recommend almost all of those movies. You could watch them right now, which is, you know, not true. Sidebar of virtually every Oscar movie ever made. I've been kind of like plowing through Oscar movies of the past, and I've spent a lot of time on movies from the 80s this week.

Yo, the Oscar winners from the 80s are not good. Maybe that's a separate podcast, but I just need to cite that. If you watch The World According to Garp now, or The Natural, or Jagged Edge even, great movies. You know, she was nominated for The World According to Garp, The Big Chill, and The Natural all in the Best Supporting Actress category. And then she's nominated for Best Act of Cardio and Garp The Big Chill and The Natural all in the Best Supporting Actress category and then she's nominated

for Best Actress and Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons and then about 22-23 years go by and then we get Albert Nobbs and she's nominated

and a lot of people thought Albert Nobbs was gonna get her that Oscar that she so richly deserved right and then Meryl Streep came through like the Kool-Aid man with the Iron Lady.

What a disgrace of a year. That's a tough beat. Yeah. I gotta be honest I've never seen Albert Knobbs. Nor have I. Okay. And I have just

respect to Meryl but we all know that that wasn't the one for Meryl. No, that's terrible. Meryl knows that, okay? And now number seven is the wife

in terms of performance. You know, she's won other awards. She's got a couple of Golden Globes. She won a Golden Globe for The Line in Winter. She won a Golden Globe for Damages, which I thought was a great television show. I don't know if you watched that. Early Days of Rose Byrne. Yeah, no, everyone was like, oh my God, Damages.

Because she would win. She won at the Golden Globes and everyone was like, wow, that's so special. And I was like, I'm never going to watch that. But that's great. That was also in the heady days of a movie actress starring in a TV show. And that seemed like

an exciting new thing. Also, I think the real life male counterpart to Glenn Close is William Hurt, who similarly was nominated for Best Actor through sort of the five of the first seven films

he appeared in and then kind of vanished for 25 years and then was in Damages. And I believe he won an Emmy for Damages and then also was nominated later in his career for David Cronenberg's The History of Violence. So, you know, you have these kind of archetypes of 80s stars who cycle out and then cycle back in as they enter their sort of wife phase where they can play an overlooked older person.

Just broadly, do you think that this is a great Glenn Close performance? Somebody pregnant pauses. Well, so the problem is that there are like three different performances in this. And I think the most interesting to me part of the performance is the reserved reaction-based kind of more wifey of the Glenn Close performances and it's that's not a typically Glenn Closey performance and that's what I think

is interesting about it and also what stands out to me and kind of like oh I didn't know that you could do this and you're really living in it and it is making sense in the context of the movie when she is just freaking yelling at Jonathan Price or when she's doing like the dramatic stare at the camera which is something that they use a lot and I am not a fan of as an acting style that's more typically Glenn Close says I mean she's got a lot of range but I think of her really just like as an actress playing big, being arch, being in control, being, I don't know. That is the more Glenn Close-y aspect of it to me. And I don't like it as much. I don't know.

Yeah, it's not true to her character. I mean, maybe that's why she's the right person for a role like this. She has this kind of feline nobility in the way that she looks and the way that she carries herself that at any moment could turn into like a hairball freakout. You know, that's kind of what she does. She can blow her top really effectively. If you want to see Glenn Close doing one of the great movie acting performances like Rent Dangerous Liaisons. That's her doing her thing. That kind of happens a little bit in the back half of this movie where you see her kind of unraveling and you sense this operatic flair for the moment and she's sort of grasping and she's the most violent and charismatic person in the room. It's really weird. I mean, you know, you have noted that

this wouldn't be the first time if she wins this award, and she is the presumptive favorite, we should say, RIP to Lady Gaga's campaign, I think, that a woman with a great long career wins Best Actress for a role like this, which is like, okay, it's totally fine. I don't know. What are some other ones where this happened? In recent memory, Julianne Moore for Still Alice. Kate Winslet for The Reader. Woof. Nicole Kidman for The Hours. Not for me. Yeah, that one's okay. I wouldn't say it's my favorite Nicole Kidman performance, but it doesn't offend me that that's the winner. The Kate Winslet one in particular, I love Kate Winslet. I would watch Kate Winslet in anything except for Sense and Sensibility, which I haven't seen. Much to

your chagrin. She's transcendent in that. It's very good. But yeah, it is one of those things where, I don't know. I mean, I guess Jessica Lange winning for Blue Sky. There have been some examples of this. This is just, it's consistently a weird category because they often go either for ingenue or accomplished woman who has been

sort of waiting her turn to get this award. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that part of the reason it's a weird category with performances that you like the actress, you're iffy on the performance is because there aren't as many good roles for women as there are for men. No, you know, it's because I was trying to think of actors who win late in life and you're really excited to see them. And Christopher Plummer was the first person who popped into my mind.

But he's wonderful in Beginners. And that's really, you understand why that movie and performance wins it for him. And these are kind of like, well, they found a script, they managed to get it on the screen, and we really like them. So we might as well go with it. I don't, I'm not often as offended if it's in a best supporting category. If it's in a best supporting category and a big star takes a smaller role, I don't know, James Coburn in Affliction or Christopher Plummer, as you noted, that kind of work, you know, essentially lifts the movie up in a way. When the movie is built around someone who's been better so many times, you know, that's the story of like Dustin Hoffman winning for Rain Man and Al Pacino winning for Scent of a Woman. It's like those guys are much better in literally a dozen other movies, maybe 25 other movies. And so that being their win feels weird.

I think ultimately if Glenn Close does win, she certainly deserves to have an Oscar, whatever deserves to have an Oscar means. It's unfortunate that it would be for this kind of limp piece of newspaper. You know, it happens. It happens. It even happened last year with Gary Oldman. I was thinking about that. Yeah,, it happens. It's like, it even happened last year with Gary Oldman. I was thinking about that.

Yeah, that's true. Great example. And it's, what are you going to do, I guess? But I agree that this doesn't feel, this isn't really representative of her career and her,

I know she's been playing into the big theme of being overlooked or whatever, but like, not like this. She's not hiding in the shadows. Yeah, I mean, this is just not, it's not good for the Oscars in the way that this won't be an exciting moment. Even if she gives a great speech, it won't be like a, there's no chance

for it to be a wow moment. I think what you want is, you probably want like Jennifer Lawrence, which I was not a big fan of that moment, but when she won, there was a kind of kinetic energy in the room. You know, her almost falling up the staircase and her speech which was so wide-eyed um or you want i don't know maybe marion cotillard winning for like la vie en rose you know that was that was a shocking win it is true that there are angels in the city tonight i mean it's great incredible speech she it was kind of her emergence as a movie star in america um i don't know this is it's just kind of a bummer. And I don't want to end the segment by just being like, well, the wife sucks. I guess it doesn't suck. It's okay.

I mean, it just, it fueled an entire podcast. It's, it's really interesting. And I do recommend the Meg Wolitzer novel. And I thought it had particularly resonant thoughts about the balance of marriage and how it is, thankfully, really thankfully, because I'm married, changed since the 50s and 60s. But, you know, the sacrifices that any two people make in a long term and compromises and regrets that two people have after 50 years, I suppose. And I think this idea that we receive women differently in every sphere, but specifically the creative sphere, is insightful and certainly for me, angry-making at times and so relevant.

We talked about this last week. There are no female directors nominated. They just don't let women make films. And so much of that is because, oh, okay, well, like dudes don't, dudes don't want to go see it. And that's like, I don't know if that's true, but sometimes it feels like it is.

So it explores those ideas in an interesting way. And I think that it's worth talking and thinking about. I don't think the movie lives up to the ideas. Yeah, you said insightful and angry making at times,

which is how I would probably describe my experience with this movie. Yeah. Let's just go straight forward to our next segment. Okay. Let's go to Stock Up, Stock Down. If it goes bust, you can make 10 to 1, even 20 to 1 return, and it's already slowly going bust.

A couple of things happened this weekend that are relevant to the Oscar race. I'd like to talk about them, Amanda. Yeah. They have nothing to do with Glenn Close. The first thing is that on Friday, the Ace Eddie Awards occurred. This is the editing guild and their awards. I spoke to Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Fassarelli, the directors behind Free Solo, and they were on their way after we spoke last Friday to this awards.

Turns out that they won. That's great. That was a good winner. A bad winner was the movie bohemian rhapsody somehow for dramatic film bohemian rhapsody which is a quite poorly edited movie won at the ace eddie awards and you know i've heard a couple of cases for it i wanted to talk through it a little bit with you as i try to figure out what happened here. Obviously, people are well aware now of the story of Bryan Singer and his sort of, I guess, unpredictable work life in that he sort of wouldn't appear on set some days and then ultimately was fired from this film. It sounds like about 65 to 75% of the way through shooting, Dexter Fletcher came in and finished the movie. So I think what you have here is you have probably a lot of footage that doesn't always cut together well. And so the movie is edited in such a way that, as someone pointed out on Twitter in that very famous scene in which the band meets

their manager for the first time, it's sort of like visually incoherent. Yes. And can I just say the general public doesn't pay a lot of editing, not like acting or even the general sense of directing where the general public has like a great handle on the technical skills involved. And so when you're getting roasted on Twitter for editing, you know things are bad. If you if you notice it. Yes. The editor did something wrong. Yes. There are exceptions to this. Hank Corwin, who was nominated for Vice and also edited The Big Short, has a very kinetic, hard-cutting, flashy style of editing that has changed the way Adam McKay makes movies.

That's a rare exception. When you're watching a straight-ahead studio biopic like Bohemian Rhapsody and you can notice that somebody's head is to the left of the frame in one shot and to the right of the frame in another or that you can hear a voice but that person isn't in the room. There's all these kinds of very small dropout failures in Bohemian Rhapsody. And people are always asking us, like, why do you hate this movie so much? It makes so many people happy. It's just really badly made. And a lot of the performances are wooden. And the way that it's shot is very blah.

And it obviously elides this entire history of Freddie Mercury's life. And it is dishonest about the trajectory of Queen's career. So it's just a messy and kind of bad movie. Now, the reason that people have been citing for its win is that this is not the editor's fault. That this movie was shot this way or written this way or conceived this way. The editor gets footage and has to sit down and compile it in a way to make an exciting or interesting film. And Bohemian Rhapsody is a big hit. And somehow the person who edited the film managed to pull this off. So it's sort of like a... So it's the award for saving the film. And Bohemian Rhapsody is a big hit. And somehow the person who edited the film managed to pull this off. So it's sort of like a...

So it's the award for saving the film. Yes. Yes. Now, I would argue that the award for saving the film is $850 million, which is how much money it made. Nevertheless, the A.C.E. Awards handed this down to Bohemian Rhapsody. Do I think that this means it's going to be a best picture contender even more so? Not really. But if you have a guild behind you, that's significant. And that just means you might get more votes. Maybe. I guess. I don't know. I don't really know what's going to happen at this point. It does seem like this is more of a participation trophy than a vote of excellence. And maybe the Guild Award goes to the, oh, it's our friends. And maybe when you're voting for Best Picture, you're voting for something different. I'm not really sure. Maybe that's wrong. Yeah, I don't know. It's also

notable that Rami Malek sort of kind of spoke on the Bryan Singer allegations and sort of kind of denounced them this week. I thought that was kind of a nothing story. It was definitely a nothing statement. Yeah, it was definitely a nothing statement. It's kind of a word salad. Who can know the mind of God, as Ethan Hawke once said in a film,

and who can know the mind of Rami Malek and what he knew or did not know about Bryan Singer before they started making this film? I think that there is probably an entire world of legal complication around his ability to talk about this in any meaningful way. And I think people kind of underestimate that in a time when people want to have evil denounced out loud all day on Twitter. And, you know, Rami Malek is a movie star who's at the center of a huge movie, and he has a contract. And I'm sure in that contract, there's

all kinds of weird language that allows you to say or not say certain things. Now, as a famous person, he has a unique amount of leverage, but I'm not sure that Rami Malek coming forward and decrying Bryan Singer's participation in this movie would help or hurt anything. No, it certainly wouldn't change anything. The flip side to this is that all of these people have had a lot of time to prepare for this, and you kind of got to know that part of the game in being a prominent person in 2019, and specifically someone who is campaigning

regularly for an Oscar, is that you will be criticized. This is just, there are complications and you got to learn how to talk about it. And you don't have to denounce anyone. You don't have to like solve all of the problems, but you are an actor. Practice two sentences. And I, you know, I think that goes for Rami Malek. I think that goes for Peter Farrelly. I think there are a lot of people who have not reconciled themselves to the public nature of this and not even, no one's asking them to solve problems. Well, maybe Peter Farrelly, but no one is asking them to be perfect. But it's not that hard to have a soundbite. And I'm kind of fascinated by the number of people who have not figured that out.

This is a good transition to the DGAs. Yeah. Peter Farrelly. You know, earlier in the day before the DGA Awards happened, there is always a symposium in which all of the Best Director nominees have a kind of roundtable conversation in front of an audience. This year's was particularly amusing. I would encourage people to check out Twitter to see some of the video from that conversation. Spike Lee, who has really been owning this moment in many ways and will appear on Bill Simmons' podcast later this week, was in grand form, telling a lot of stories, getting up, running around, being his most Spike, his most exuberant, his most ebullient.

I thought Bradley Cooper acquitted himself pretty well. The reviews seem to be, he seems pretty chill. And it's funny because he's really been getting the football pulled out from him on every last kick this month, this year. I don't know. This kind of feels like he's being hazed into awards contention i really don't understand it i think someone said the reason i think this was on mark harris's twitter like the reason that bradley cooper has been erased from the

oscar conversation is just because he looks like someone who already has an oscar um it's just kind of like and he did look extremely confident and comfortable up there and obviously still looks like a movie star, especially when he's not doing Jackson Maine hair. And he's Bradley Cooper. So maybe we're like, whatever. People are like, whatever. He's going to be successful for the rest of his life. We don't need to vote for him, I guess. I think that's fair. I have completely bought into the Heaven Can Wait Reds formulation where Warren Beatty was nominated for many Oscars for Heaven Can Wait and won virtually none in 1978, I think. And then a few years later, makes this grand, incredible historical drama Reds.

And that's where he is recognized as the great genius that he is. It feels like there's a little bit of that going on with Bradley Cooper right now. I mean, Cooper is next working on a Leonard Bernstein biopic. That also feels quite Oscar-y. Yes. Would it surprise you if he was back here in a couple of years doing this whole show again and then maybe being awarded? It wouldn't shock me. I think also, especially in the actual big director's races, he is up against Cuaron, who directed Roma, which is just a triumph. So some of that is just like

tough luck. And I think part of this is that he's just been overlooked in every category. Like he didn't really ever get off the ground and best actor, which I think that performance is amazing. And best picture, it's just an immediate also rant. So the director aspect of it all is like, well, there was someone better. That happens from time to time. It's true. Cuaron did in fact win later on Saturday night, the award, which, you know,

confirms to me that he's going to win Best Director at the Oscars. I don't, that's probably one of the only races I feel completely secure about. If he doesn't win, I'll be quite surprised. Yes. We talked about this quite a bit last week. You know, two in five years is a big deal.

There's not a ton of precedent for that. Rome is great. How many more times can I talk about how Rome is good? Should we do it again? Probably a few more weeks. Yeah, we're probably going to have to. No, it's a wonderful movie. A couple of other notable things.

As we said, Bradley Cooper went home empty-handed on Saturday night because he also did not win the Best First Feature Award, which went to Bo Burnham for 8th Grade. You know, I love 8th Grade. I think it's a wonderful movie. This felt cruel to Bradley Cooper. It's possible that people just don't like Bradley Cooper. I think we have to consider that possibility.

Maybe. I don't know. Do directors get kind of twitchy when an actor shows up and is like look what I can do maybe that's it I said no I mean this wasn't a problem

for Kevin Costner right you know when he made Dances with Wolves like it's happened plenty of times before I don't know

yeah other notable things Tim Wardle who made Three Identical Strangers won Best Documentary directing which is notable

because he's not nominated for an Oscar his film is not there in Best Doc which is pretty weird yes's not nominated for an Oscar. His film is not there in Best Doc, which is pretty weird. Yes. I don't know how these things work.

Also, I just wanted to note Spike Jonze won a DGA Award for Best Commercial, that great Apple HomePod commercial that he made. And it's been five and a half years

since Spike Jonze made a movie. Spike Jonze needs to make a movie immediately. That'd be great. I don't know why he's not making a movie. I think he's just at Speranza a lot.

Is that true? Yeah. Local LA Eastside eatery. Yeah, just taking a bunch of meetings, like double booking. I love Speranza and I love Spike Jonze. I wish he would come back and make a damn movie. You know, I think Bohemian Rhapsody's stock is up and Alfonso Cuaron's stock is up. I would agree with both of those.

What a time. We got to get the voting going. This is the part of the season where it's just everyone's tearing their hair. I know we're still a

full week away. Let's go to our next segment. It's called The Big Race. Well, mama, look at me now. I'm a star. Let's talk about

supporting actor. I don't know if there's a ton to talk about here, but I wanted to talk about Mahershala Ali a little bit. And Mahershala Ali, we have talked for weeks and weeks about becoming a major star in light of Green Book and True Detective Season 3.

Now, I think True Detective Season 3 is fine. That is definitively the adjective I would use to describe it. I'm all caught up. I've seen five episodes. Can I just, on the record, so have I have I okay isn't that which is a try I can't believe that historic feat I am up to date on true detective it is definitely not bad it is definitely not great and I mean it's not a phenomenon stuff needs to happen it's very it's very slow and I'm not opposed to a slow story I am don't have a lot of time, free time in my life. I agree.

And television is not my metier these days. So eight hours of True Detective or eight and a half hours or whatever they're ultimately going to do is testing my patience a little bit. And while I think Mahershala is very good in this show, I don't think it's doing for him what I thought it was going to do, which is solidify. And obviously there's this world of complication around Green Book. And, you know, his role in this has been complicated.

I think people have been very eager to say, this isn't on Mahershala Ali. None of this controversy is his fault. And I don't think anything is sort of anybody's quote unquote fault, except for what Nick Vallelonga tweeted and what Peter Farrelly has said from time to time, but he is still in this movie. So if you have a problem with this movie, I think rewarding his performance seems

like a strange thing to do. I wonder if people will just support him because they just like him. I don't think the sort of that wellspring of support is necessarily exactly where it was going to be. And so if that's not the case, do you think we might have kind of a Mark Rylance or Christoph Waltz situation where somebody kind of comes out of nowhere and wins in this category? I mean, this is definitely the category, historically, like the supporting roles where that happens. And you have two people in Sam Elliott and Richard Grant who are the classic, ah, love is work. It's so important. It would be so great to reward it, whatever. Which, as you noted, in the supporting actor category, I'm not as concerned about, especially since Mahershala won two years ago.

So it seems possible. I guess there's a little question of vote splitting. Because if you're not voting for Mahershala, then you can pick either of those guys and maybe they cancel each other out. And then Adam Driver rises. I mean, it would be the most this year thing if Adam Driver is the only winner for Black Klansman. And like, let's not do that, please. If you vote, just make sure that doesn't happen. Adam Driver is one of the greatest actors of his generation

and deserves many Oscars. But like, let's think about the optics just this much. Not likely to happen, could happen. Right. 5% chance. Yeah. 3%. I guess it could happen.

I will say that Richard E. Grant has been just on a charm tour like nobody's business. Please, please follow him on Twitter. He recently just was like outside Barbra Streisand's house in Malibu taking pic selfies. Or I'm sorry, he asked his wife to take the pictures. He at first asked the security guard whether it would be okay. And the security guard was like, it's a public road, but thank you for asking. Great, great stuff. And that does matter, especially in these categories. So it could happen. I don't want to break your heart, but I don't think Sam Elliott's going to happen just because A Star is Born is freaking cursed. And that makes me sad to say too. There's no better moment in movies in 2018 than Sam Elliott pulling out of that driveway. There's literally not a better moment. There is, and it's the same movie,

and it's when she sings Shallow. No, it's Sam Elliott pulling out of the driveway, a tear in his eye, a song in his heart, thinking about his younger brother who stole his voice. Yeah. It's nice that men have things to make them feel. I'm happy for all of you. You know, who cares? I don't care if Sam Elliott wins or not. I think Mahershala winning would be weird. I think it's like borderline unnecessary. And it has nothing to do with the movie.

It's just like Mahershala Ali just won. No, I agree. Just historically. Yeah. We always complain about how things kind of never happen on time for the right people. Mahershala Ali's win for Moonlight is one of the rare cases where the absolute right person won. I watched Moonlight a few months ago before I talked to Barry Jenkins, and I was just blown away by how good he is in that movie. There was one notable interesting thing we learned, I think, from that DGA symposium,

which is that Peter Farrelly asks actors if they're open to line readings from the director. Yes. Which is, you know, for those of you who don't know, it means when you're on the set making a movie, the director will sometimes read the line to an actor to clarify how he or she wants it to be said in the film. The only person who declined to have line readings from Peter Farrelly in Green Book is Mahershala Ali. Because Mahershala Ali is a very considerate, thoughtful actor. If you've ever read interviews with him talking about his approach to movies you know that he is a deep thinker about this stuff

and I love that he clearly has the most agency in this whole fiasco but even still like we nailed it

we got the Mahershala Ali moment going Sam Rockwell he won last year I don't know someone's missing from this category that should have won

who's missing I don't even know Henry Cavill for Fallout oh boy okay Amanda let's let's look ahead I don't know. Someone's missing from this category that should have won. Who's missing? I don't even know. Henry Cavill for Fallout? Oh, boy. Okay. Amanda, let's look ahead. Okay.

We're almost done here. The BAFTAs are on February 10th. I saw some conversation over the weekend that the BAFTAs could be a bigger bellwether than we've had in recent past. Tell me why. Well, I think it's because the BAFTAs represents a huge part of the voting body. So there are quite a few British people that vote for the Oscars. And if we just go down the list of the Guild Awards, essentially we have, well, the Guild Awards and the major other awards. So you've got Green Book wins the Golden Globe.

You've got, I believe, Roma won the Critics' Choice Award. Yes. You've got Black Panther wins the SAG Award. You've got Bohemian Rhapsody wins the Editing Award. And you've got Green Book wins the Producers Guild Award. That's really messy. And those groups don't represent a huge amount of voters with the exception of the SAG Awards. And I don't think anybody thinks Black Panther is going to win.

So maybe the BAFTAs is the most clear indicator of where Best Picture is going. I have also seen, weirdly, a lot of noise about Rachel Weisz winning in Best Supporting Actress at the BAFTAs. Yes, I have too. Which would be very interesting. What's up? That's a wrinkle that I would welcome. And then voting opens on February 12th for the Oscars. So immediately after the BAFTAs end, essentially people get their ballots and they have to vote. And you know, recency bias is what it is. People, I don't know,

will you be watching the BAFTAs on BBC America? Probably not because it's on at like 9 a.m. here. Sure, but what else are you doing? I don't know. Probably my husband's watching golf and it's your fault. Okay, that is my fault.

And then the Writers Guild of America awards happen on February 17th. I think that that will be pretty straightforward. There are several people that are not nominated for various eligibility reasons as well, right? So it's not a total comparison to the Oscars. Maybe we'll do a screenplay showdown next week on the show in the big race. And then the voting closes on February 19th. And then February 24th, we have the Academy Awards. So we're getting close. I would say that this has been a much more interesting

and messy season than I expected in August when we first heard about the movie, The Wife. Agree. Though, of course, the only thing that we're sure about now, Glenn Close is The Wife. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. I don't know.

You know, stay tuned on this show. We have a conversation coming up with Barry Alexander Brown. He is the editor of Black Klansman. We talked a little bit about sort of the gifts and the skills and the failures of editing in movies. And I'll be talking to a nominee every week for the next four weeks. And then we'll be back next week on the Oscar show, Amanda, to talk about, I guess, British people giving out awards. I do like British people. I do I do like British people I do too yeah

see you then delighted to be joined by Oscar nominee Barry Alexander Brown Barry thank you for being here it's my pleasure Barry so you're nominated

for Black Klansman but this is far from your first film with Spike Lee. Oh, far. You have worked on virtually every Spike Lee movie. No, I know. Not quite every. That's not true.

Is it 19, 20? I was trying to count it correctly. I think I was, you know, I don't really know. Somebody the other day told me it was 20. But if you count everything that we've done together over all these decades, it comes out to be over 100 projects. Oh, that's incredible. You know, I mean, maybe far over 100.

I mean, commercials, music videos, even little things that we did early on for MTV, these little one-minute things. Yeah. So you were involved in all of those things over the years. Yeah, a lot of them. Interesting. And has your role changed? Because I feel like in the very early stages in the sort of she's got to have it era, maybe your role wasn't as clearly defined as it would be, say, on Black Klansman. I don't think it's clearly defined even. Well, let's hope you understand it. I don't think

it is clearly defined. I mean, you know, hey, Spike and I, we came up together, right? And also, Spike doesn't look at me as just an editor because he knows I can do a lot of things. I mean, we wrote a pilot together for CBS 20 years ago. So I write. And he also knows that I'm a filmmaker on my own. This is not your first Oscar nomination. No, I was nominated as a producer and director of a documentary on my first film. And so Spike knows, you know what?

I can hand a lot of stuff off. You know, and just like I came in to do his Netflix series, two episodes on She's Gonna Have It. And it hit him pretty quickly. Oh, you know what? Barry can do the ADR because I've done a lot of ADR directing over the years for a lot of movies. And so the actors for the series were showing up for ADR and I was directing them and they were like, who are you? You know, one of them said, man, Spike must really trust you if you're here

instead of him. is that incredibly uncommon if you have in sort of post-production when you're recording ADR, the director is usually there instructing the actors. But Spike's got me.

Yeah. This is how I mean. Sometimes Spike is in the ADR session, but the guy is, he's so busy. He's busier than anybody I know. If he can hand it off to somebody he trusts and he trusts me, there it is. Tell me how you built that trust. When did you guys meet? How did you form the relationship you have? We met in the summer of 1981 in Atlanta,

Georgia through mutual friends. And then we were both back in New York in the fall. And I had helped start First Run Features, film distribution company for independent American filmmakers, American films. And I was the president of the company. And so we needed somebody to check prints and clean them and get them ready to ship back out. And our office was very close to NYU, where Spike was going. And he was the only film student I knew. I thought, this is a perfect part-time job for a film student.

I asked him if he wanted to do it. He said, yeah. So Spike was making, this was the early 80s. He was making $100 a week, and I was making $200 a week. Amazing. As a president. How did you learn that he was going to become such a, maybe not an important filmmaker, but a filmmaker in his own right?

You know, we got to know each other over the next few years. I would say, you know, it took us a while to be really friends. But if you look from 81 to 83, you know, he was working part time. We started talking about movies. We started talking about entertainment. We both love Broadway musicals, especially the old Broadway musicals. We both love them. At those days, if you talked to any of the other independent filmmakers in New York,

and you would say, yeah, I love Oklahoma. They would go, what? What's the matter with you? But you talk to Spike, he'd go, yeah. And West Side Story and on and on and on, right? And there was something about just entertainment that we both admired and both felt like, man, Donald O'Connor in doing Make Him Laugh. If you can't appreciate that, I think get out of the business. Because, you know, but I could talk to Spike about that in those days.

And so there was certainly politics that were very similar and certain things about just cinema in general that was very similar for both of us. And then there's this appreciation for just entertainment that just drew us together. I'm interested in your career at that time, because as you said, you'd already been nominated for the award home for Best Documentary. And so you were already an established documentarian.

I was not established. That was not true. What does that mean? That was not true. We made this film in Madison, Wisconsin. It was about Madison in the 60s. Now, this was over 10 years later. And that film was where I learned to make movies.

You know, it was sort of my college. It was sort of my film school. Spike went to NYU, but I made The War at Home. And so the film came out, and it took off like a rocket. Like a rocket. You know, I mean, when we were making the movie, people were saying, good friends were saying to me, what makes you think you're a filmmaker? Why, because you saw so many movies?

You've read so many books? You should stop. This is ridiculous what you're doing. And so then the film came out, did very well, and we got nominated for an Oscar. And I was not prepared for it. I was not prepared. I was not. I was very young, and I kind of emotionally crashed.

I felt like a fraud. I felt like a fraud. Is that because you didn't necessarily know what film to make next or how to proceed? I definitely didn't. I definitely didn't because, you know, I wasn't coming up to the business. You know, nobody would hire me. So I hired myself to make a movie. So I was definitely not established.

And I didn't know what to do with it when it happened. And I didn't even know emotionally how to take it in. It was too big. It was just too big. And I kind of emotionally crashed for a while. And I didn't do anything for a couple of years. I put myself into first run features, which was not the best idea. I'm not a businessman, you know, but it was a safe place to be for a while.

Did you sense when you were making the documentary that you had a knack for editing, that that was something that was one of your skill sets? I didn't think so. I didn't think so. Really? I didn't think so. No. No, I didn't. I didn't even take an editor's credit on my first film, even though I cut most of it. Because I thought, well, no, this is, I'm not an editor. And I didn't even think I was an editor for a very long time.

And I was then in the early part of the 80s, I was doing smaller documentaries, you know, on almost no money and cutting them because I couldn't afford an editor. And then it was my friends like Mira Nair and Spike Lee who said, you know, I want you to cut for me. And I thought, really? You know, especially when Spike, you know, she's got to have it did so well. I'd cut one scene in that movie because he cut the rest of the movie. And then when he did School Days, he said, I want you to cut it. And I thought, okay. You know, I mean, you really have a budget.

You can really hire an editor. And, you know, I really did feel all the way through School Days. And then I did Salaam Bombay with Mira. And then I did Salon Bombay with Mira and then also got a foreign language nomination. And then Do the Right Thing with Spike. And then Madonna had me do Truth or Dare. Yeah, that's amazing. I wanted to ask you about that.

And then we, you know, it wasn't until I did Malcolm X that I thought, you know, I might be a film editor. I might be an editor. But that's amazing because you were a part of so many incredibly important and impactful films. And so even in Do the Right Thing, which is obviously now kind of a world historic American film.

Yeah. At the time, you were like, I don't know if this is where my life and career is going to go. Definitely not. Definitely not. What did you think it also could be? Were you like, I'm also now I'm going to be a school teacher? Oh, no, no. I always was writing. I even worked for the Boston Globe for a while.

What did you write about? Well, recently, I'm actually in the midst of doing a fantasy trilogy. I've gotten half of it written. And I've written screenplays before. I don't think I'll ever write another screenplay. And I've written the screenplay for the film I'm about to direct. And Spike and I, as I mentioned before,

we work together. So I always figured that I'd either go back to writing or writing and directing. But editing was such a joy for me. And it's always been a joy. It's fun for me to do.

I don't know enough about your craft, so help me understand what you do. How much of what you do is intellectual and strategic and philosophical? And how much of it is mechanical? Okay, I was once on a panel with Thelma Schumacher and Sam Pollard. Martin Scorsese is great. Yeah. Editor. Yeah. Editor. Yeah.

Right. And Sam Pollard, who's the other editor for Spike. Yeah. And they were both talking about how they approach a movie. You know? And it was like,

wow, really? You do all this work? You see other movies? You think about what kind of film this is going to be and how it's supposed to move? And not me.

Not me. I was shocked. So what do you do? I am just, I'm instinctive, man. I'm instinctive. The best way I can describe what I do is I fall through a cut. I fall through it. You know, I don't think a lot about it until I'm really looking at the footage.

And I don't think a lot about it until I'm really sitting there and cutting. And then it just starts to speak to me. It just speaks to me. That's really interesting. Tell me specifically about working on Black Klansman. Now, are you getting involved? Are you on the set when they're shooting? No.

I mean, I always show up at the set, you know. But even like in Black Klansman, you know, there was a point where we came up with an idea in the midst of the shoot to have the Klan listen to David Duke tapes whenever they're in a car. Sort of this constant indoctrination, right? And Spike said to me, okay, write that up. So I listened to a bunch of David Duke stuff and wrote out something for Topher Grace to do. And then I went on the set really just to hand out the pages and make sure that everybody had them so that when Topher had a moment that they could do it, then the sound guy knew, the first AD knew, the producers knew that this was something that had to happen, sort of on the fly at some point. Interesting.

So, I mean, I assume you're coming in at the script stage when Spike is starting a movie, right? Are you reading the script? Well, he shows me the script sometimes, but not always. Sometimes he just calls me up and says i'm shooting in three months and you're cutting hey man i love spike he says jump i say how high are you looking at dailies after the day shooting well you'd like to as much as possible you know um it used to be when we were doing do the right Thing, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Summer of Sam,

there was dailies almost every night after the shoot, which were great, and they were projected. Nowadays, you know, people look at dailies in any old way that they get them. You know, it's a digital file. Sometimes people are watching them on their phone. Sometimes people are watching them on their computer, their laptop, their iPad. And so, you know, there isn't that thing about projecting dailies anymore. So oftentimes with Spike and I these days, like on Black Landsman, it would be on a Saturday. We'd come in, use Saturday to shoot. I mean, not to shoot, but to screen the dailies because he's shooting out of town.

How much of these are things evolving then when you have those Saturday sit downs? Are you saying like, we actually, this doesn't work at all, or we need to recut this in a specific way? Are you doing a lot of your work in those sessions? Yeah, I'm taking notes for everything, you know, and Spike is saying things like, yeah, no, no, no, no. Don't use this take. Don't use this.

This take is terrible. I know it's circled, but we got better takes. Don't even look at This take is terrible. I know it's circled, but we've got better takes. Don't even look at this again, right? Or he'll go through and he'll say on a particular camera move, okay, you see this take? This is really where I want to start this scene. I want to start the scene here. Or he'll say, I'm going to get out of this scene here.

And throughout, I'm making my own notes about what I feel, and he's telling me, you me, I like this thing. You see what he did just there? The only thing he does this in, right? Or she does this in. Or, wait a second, this actor does this. It bothers me. Do not ever use this when he does this thing, whatever it is.

And so I think, okay, it doesn't bother me, but man, it bothers Spike. So I got to cut around that. What do you think is okay, it doesn't bother me, but man, it bothers Spike. So I got to cut around that. What do you think is sort of the primary role of the editor? Well, your primary role, a few things. One is to deliver the director's vision. You know, good director, you better be delivering his or her vision. Now, I've been really lucky to have friends who are great, Mira Nair and Spike Lee. I've been lucky to work with both of them on multiple films, and they're great, and they have a vision, and I got to pay attention and get what it is that they're after here. And then beyond that, it is rhythm.

You want to keep a rhythm. For me, film is music. And like the two, you have movements within a film and movements within a symphony and highs and lows and pauses and points where the tempo is fast. And then there's this other thing that is very hard for me to express, which is just a sense of moments. Are they working? Is this line coming through a moment in the scene?

And sometimes it's coming down to recognize, even though somebody has a piece of dialogue, sometimes what they're saying is important to be on them because it has something really to do with that character and something about them. And sometimes it's about somebody else in the scene. That line has an effect on somebody else. And you've got to be sitting there looking at it and thinking at times, whose moment is this? Whose scene is this? I mean, even though somebody has hardly anything

to say here, this scene is all about them. And now we've to stay here, you know? And beyond that, I would say that every once in a while, your job as an editor is to improve certain performances. You know, a lot of the actors are great, but not every actor, especially in smaller supporting roles, is great. And so they're important to be there. But now you have to improve a performance. And oftentimes you improve a performance by using what other people are doing in that scene. Interesting, meaning cutting away from the performer to capture a moment.

Yeah, because I've done films where somebody's come back and said, it's a particular actress she was so good in that film i said no no no everybody else in those scenes were really good and and you just didn't feel like i was constantly on other on other people so i thought re-watching the movie not that black klansman had that. No, no, no. That was not... We don't have to throw anybody under the bus here. I'm not going to. I thought that re-watching the movie,

there were two sequences that were particularly impressive to me. The whole movie is great, but I wanted to talk to you about both of them. The first is Kwame Ture's speech on the college campus. And I thought particularly what you were doing, and I wanted to get a sense of how you guys built that scene, because it's almost like, it's a cliche, but it's almost like portraiture.

It's almost like painting, you know, especially when you're cutting out to the crowds and you're showing the people in the audience. So how does a scene like that happen? Is that on the page first? Well, I mean, the speech itself is on the page. Certainly, but everything we're seeing, is that identified?

No, the portraits and things like that? No, that's not in the script. That's something that Spike has in his head and he took he took people that were in the crowd in that scene took them into a room as they were doing this you know as they were doing going through different setups he'd grab them go and shoot them individually you know and kind of direct them in very general ways, right? Knowing, okay, somehow we're going to use this. We first cut the scene straight. Just have the scene.

It's just, this is the speech. This is the crowd reaction. This is how Ron Stallworth has been affected by it. Straight. And then Spike said, now is the time to put in these portraits. Not completely knowing how this is going to work. I mean, he knew, I want to start the first portrait here. And that was as much as he had really in mind.

And then he gives me leeway to go. And then he'll come in and tweak that. Whether or not, no, no, no, no, we got to slide this back. I don't want to cover this line. We can go to here, to this line. And then things like that. And I started experimenting with multiple images and multiple faces that are married together and movements and things like that. And trying to look through who works together here. What faces seem to work together?

And it also goes back to all these years that we've worked, that we've done so much, so many films and so many other projects together, is Spike is going to have a pretty good sense of once he explains to me the basic idea, I'm going to be able to take that ball and run with it. This is kind of a simplistic question, but'm going to be able to take that ball and run with it. This is kind of a simplistic question, but I think it's helpful to understand what you do. How long does it take to compile and compose a sequence like that? Is it days? Is it weeks? I honestly don't know. No, it's days.

Five days? No, less. Okay. It can't be that long for me because I'm fast. I'm a very fast editor, probably because I don't think much about it, quite frankly. And I just go. And I don't do assemblies. I cut.

I cut right from the get-go. From the very first cut, it's a cut. I'm going for a cut. Because, you know, when we do the right thing, we didn't know. We didn't know you do an assembly. I didn't come up through editing. Neither one of us knew. So you just cut the film and you were like, this is the cut of the film.

This is the cut, right? I mean, of course, then you move things around and tweak, and sometimes you move it a lot. Sometimes you move it very little. Black Klansman was done very little. There was more tweaks than real cuts. But on December 8th, when they wrapped, we still hadn't seen about 50% of the dailies. And so we took a week to watch that footage. And then I went away and worked all the way through the Christmas and New Year's hiatus to show Spike on January 8th the cut

because he wanted to see it on January 8th. But I did it, and he knew I was going to do it. I mean, I knew I was going to do it too. But even so, there was a lot of stuff there that was intricate, like that stuff. Well, the Kwame Ture stuff with the portraits really was done in January after he saw that first cut. But other things like the Harry Belafonte telling the Waco, Texas story.

This is the other scene I wanted to ask you about. And the Klan. The induction. Induction. And then the Birth of a Nation. And both Harry talking about what it was like in 1950 when that film came out and seeing how the Klan is reacting to it in the early 70s. I mean, that was another place where I had to get in there, but not with a lot of time.

Not with a lot of time. I mean, it can take weeks to cut it. It had to be days. It's amazing. I think that's one of the kind of the Pantheon Spike Lee movie scenes that he's ever made. It's such a great moment in the film. It's great, yeah. Has it gotten faster for you guys,

or have there been times in recent years when you've been working on a movie where you kind of have to scrap stuff and start over or kind of reconstitute what you thought the movie was going to be? It hasn't so much gotten... I mean, listen, Black Klansman was fast. And part of the reason it was fast is because I'm cutting on Avid, and I love Avid,

and it allows me to do a lot of things very, very quickly, but even do the right thing. I mean, we were so green at the time and do the right thing. Neither Spike or I knew that I was supposed to be cutting all the way through the shooting of the film. I didn't cut anything. We saw dailies and I think during the day I hung out, you know, and then at the end you know when when when he rapped then I was supposed to cut but I cut did the right thing in six weeks amazing you know but but the intensity of cutting film rather than cutting digitally cutting film for me was intense because I I mean I would have an editing room that would have rolls of film opened up to where I wanted to go to.

It's a puzzle. It was more physical. Really physical. But they'd be all over the editing room. And I would know where everything is. So nobody could talk to me. You couldn't say hello to me. Or it was like a house of cards.

It would fall apart. So I had this great assistant editor, Leander Sales, who when he would see people that were like approaching the editing room, because it was kind of this slightly glass wall that we were in, he would just put up his hand and go, uh-uh. He wouldn't say anything. He would just, no, no, no, no, no, uh-uh, no. He wouldn't let anybody come in because he knew that it was all delicate for me. But as long as I could keep everything there, I could cut the film very, very fast on this eight-plate steam back. And it was about 6 o'clock every day in those days.

I worked between 9 and 6, and I was exhausted. At 6 o'clock, I was physically exhausted. But to some extent, Spike got used to me. The day was over at six o'clock. And so, even all these years later, they don't realize that Avid is so much easier for me. It's not so physically taxing. Still, everybody's expecting, yeah, six o'clock, he's going to go. That's nice. That sounds like a civilized life. It is a civilized life. This probably requires you to remove yourself a little bit from the way you see the big picture of this stuff.

But what is it like for, comeback would be too strong a word, but for Spike and a film that you worked on with Spike to have such a moment like this, given that you've been with him through all of these phases of rising? I mean, even though neither one of us have gotten Oscar nominations for our work together, still, the reception of some of these movies have been so big. This just seems to be sort of a part of that experience. We've been lucky. And also, I think we've done good work and work that has lasted so far and do the right thing is still a film that people respond to. And a film like 25th Hour that did not do very well when it first came out. But so many people over the years have come up to me to say, that's one of my favorite films. So I probably was going to do that in this conversation.

Do you have a 25th hour story for me by chance? Oh, God, I must have a 25th hour story. I do have a 25th hour story, actually. It was the first film that we did. I guess the original Kings of Comedy was digital. But the first feature we did digitally was 25th Hour. And I mean, we went kicking and screaming. Spike and I were kicking and screaming into the digital age. Man, we did not want to go. We did not want to go. No, no, no. Right?

But finally, it was like, you have to. You know, it just became too difficult to finish the movie. And so the very end of the movie was, and it was all shot in film. And the very end of the film was this sort of fantasy sequence. The Brian Cox monologue. Right. You know, of what's going to happen to him in the future. They had shot it at 30 frames a second rather than 24. But when they got it transferred, when they transferred it to digitally, they did these, they did drop frames where they just simply made these 30 frames 24. So what does that do to the film then? What it does is that when you get out and you're going

to negative cut, the negative cutter comes back and says, this is not matching. I'm so what, how can it not match? And then we discovered, we discovered what they had done. They'd done this stupid thing because you got 30 frames in a second, but you've cut it 24 frames in the second, right? So you've actually losing six frames every second. And in those days, we still had the 8-plate in the editing room because I think both Spike and I liked it. Old school. It's like the blanket, right? That we get, oh, it's still here.

Safety, yeah. Right? But then we had to get the work print. We had to get the whole end of that movie work printed. And then we had to get it put in sync. And then I had to recut it in film. And quite frankly, I loved it. I loved it.

I was like, okay, I'm not completely in the digital age. I can still handle the work print. And I had an assistant at that time, Kim Chisholm, who had never worked in film. She was constantly trying to play catch up in terms of, how do you do this? How do you do that? Are you at all romantic about that time and working that way

or is it just much better for it to be easier? It's better for me to be easier, it's better no, there's so many things you can do on Avid that you couldn't do in film I mean just, you're talking about that scene with the Kwame Ture and those portraits

you know, I could create those portraits in Avid if we were cutting in film we would imagine things, but we would have really had to go to somebody else who would then have had to play around with things, with a look and that's how do we marry this and how do we marry that. And it would have been expensive and maybe would have never completely got to wear something that you really liked.

But now I can do that and play with it, and Spike can come in and say, I don't like those two people together. Replace him. Well, the next time he comes in, that guy is replaced. But I look good as a film editor in those days. I look good. I could really handle an A-plate. There was a guy named Robin who was an editor at CBS.

And I did one quick job at CBS. And one day, Robin was sitting behind me. And he said, did you ever think of your style as an editor? And I said, yeah. He jumped cuts and goes, no, no, no, said, yeah. You mean like jump cuts? He goes, nah, no, no, no, no. People are going to be sitting behind you and you should have style. You should develop a style. I thought, Robin, man, that's the best advice ever. And I developed the style. You'd walk into an editing room and you'd see me cutting those days. You would think,

man, he's good. All based upon nothing more than how I'm handling this. Just sort of your presence, your physical presence. How I'm handling this stuff, throwing it up, going around my neck, blah, blah, blah. You know, I had style. And people were always really impressed by that. And I was thinking, what fools? I mean, you're not even looking at the cut. You're just looking at that, you know, I have an ability to impress you with how I'm handling the film and the sound. So as we mentioned, you know, it's basically 40 years between nominations here.

What is this one? I was only six years old. Congratulations. You're quite a prodigy. I was. What does this one mean to you how are you thinking about it now

well you know I can take this one in stride you know it's really a great honor and

and it's so satisfying that it came especially for this movie but in 1980 I was overwhelmed and

now it is oh this oh, this is great. This is great. I'm a nominee for an Oscar. Oh, look at that. But the other day, I met the other nominees at this ACE, the American Cinema Editors, at a cocktail party. And, man, I mean, I have such respect for them as editors. And they're just a great group of people, a really great group of people. And what's nice about being at that event is this sense of such support among each other with editors, Such support and such respect.

And that I'm bowled over by. And I'm so happy to be nominated with these people and to be in their company. I like them as editors. I like them even more as people. When you came in, you mentioned you're working on a film of your own right now. I am. Can you tell me a little bit about it? Yes, I've written a script called Son of the South, and it's set in Montgomery, Alabama in 1961.

We're going into production in late March. We're in pre-production right now. I'm on the phone all the time these days when I'm here in L.A. It's about a guy named Bob Zellner. He was graduating at the top of his class from Huntington College in Montgomery. His grandfather was in the Klan. And a lot of things happened that spring and that summer that made him challenge his beliefs about race. The Freedom Riders came to Montgomery in May of 1961 as he was just about to graduate.

And he ran downtown and pulled Freedom Riders, black Freedom Riders, out of that riot. And he was shocked to see a riot. And the rioters were his people. He was blonde, blue-eyed, six feet tall, country boy. And that was the kind of things that he began to witness that summer. And every time he came across something, the words that Rosa Parks said to him in the spring of that year, which was something bad is going to happen right in front of you one day. And you're going to have to make a choice which side you're on because not choosing is a choice. And that's really the theme of the movie. Look forward to that.

Barry, end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they've seen. So what is the last great thing you've seen? I love Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. You're speaking my language. Why did you like it? Oh, man, that is so smart and so inventive. Such great characters. And actually, I think it's the best edited film. Yeah, that's interesting.

How so? What does that mean for an edited film? People think of animation and things like that and something like that. I say that and people say, well, it's not edited. I say, wait a second. However you get there,

if you draw the edits, it's an edit. If I cut it physically on film, it's an edit. If I do it digitally, it's an edit. But if you draw it, it's an edit. If I cut it physically on film, it's an edit. If I do it digitally, it's an edit. But if you draw it, it's an edit. And you see this stuff, these triplets that they do in the midst of this action, and they never lose you. They never lose

you. And it's sometimes this bizarre world they've taken you into. And I'm glad I'm not up against it. Well, good luck, Barry. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you.