The Big Picture - Top 5 Movie Duos and Why ‘The Last Duel’ Rules

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

We’re talking about ‘The Last Duel,’ the latest film from Ridley Scott and the first produced screenplay from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck since ‘Good Will Hunting.’ Thinking about Matt and Ben has us in the mood to celebrate movie duos, so Sean and Amanda drop some top 5s (1:00). Then, Sean talks to Todd Haynes about his new documentary, ‘The Velvet Underground’ (43:55). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Todd Haynes Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's me, Sean Fennessey, host of The Big Picture. If you're a fan of this show, there's a new Spotify feature that lets you automatically follow the show. Tap the bell on the show page to get notified as soon as new episodes are released. By turning on new episode notifications, you'll also automatically start following the show. All the latest episodes from shows you follow

can be easily accessed in the What's New feed on home. Now let's get into the show. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Davins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about duels and duos. Today we're talking about The Last Duel, the latest film from Ridley Scott and the first produced screenplay from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck since Good Will Hunting. Damon and Affleck were joined by the great filmmaker and writer Nicole Holofcener on that script. And thinking about Matt and Ben has us in the mood to celebrate movie duos, so we're going to drop some top fives here today. Later in the show, I'll have a conversation with one of my favorite directors, Todd Haynes,

whose first documentary, The Velvet Underground, is in theaters and available to stream on Apple TV+. That movie is about the legendary band and a bygone era in New York City and outsider art. And it's really one of the year's best movies. Todd is brilliant and insightful in talking about his films. So please stick around for that. But first, Amanda, The Last Duel. This is a holiday for us because Matt and Ben are back together. How are you feeling about The Last Duel having seen it last week?

Well, it's a holiday for you and me, and I'm not sure that many other people, it turns out, which, like, we can talk about it. This did not do well at the box office, and that you and I were just talking before we recorded about how we both enjoyed this movie and think there's a lot to talk about in it, and obviously the reunion of Matt and Ben

and a Ridley Scott movie and a great Jodie Comer performance. There's like a lot of things that are in our wheelhouse and $5 million worth of people saw it. Yes, this is a $100 million movie. It's based on Eric Jager's 2004 nonfiction book. We'll talk about what the story centers around, but the headline thus far has been about the low performance of the movie, which is a shame. And you just said something to me before we began, which I think is fascinating, which is you couldn't figure out why this movie got made, which is not to say that it's a bad film. That's often a question you would ask yourself when you see something that sucks. I think this is actually quite a good film. It's just the film that does not seem like

it's contemporaneous with modern Hollywood in any meaningful way. It doesn't seem to be talking to what audiences want. That kind of sucks, but it also seems kind of obvious. It's a two and a half hour epic. It's a medieval tale. It's a serious story full of ideas, some of which are effectively communicated, maybe not always communicated that way, but it leaves you with something to think

about in addition to being action-packed and not based on intellectual property. Do you think that's why it didn't work? Yes. One of several reasons. And I want to be clear that I really hated myself for having that reaction that I had. I finished it, you know, two and a half hour movie walked out. I was like, oh, all of these things that I love and people that I love. And that sense of it being like a fairly random, original idea, well executed, even though it is based on a 2004 book, which is apparently based on actual history, which we'll discuss. But I couldn't escape market franchise online brain. And it has infected me as well. And I do think people are also evaluating how they want to spend their time, how they want to spend their money, how they want to spend their kind of COVID risk of the week.

But I think we all just are trained now to be like, well, this is the new Marvel movie, or this is the bond, or I got to watch succession because of X, Y, Z, like movies are now just one small slot in our larger like cultural content wheel or whatever. And if we don't have like a specific place to slot it in, I think we don't know what to do with it. And I caught myself being a part of that as well. And I was bummed out by myself. I think it's the sort of film that a lot of people will catch on to once it goes to VOD and it starts to stream.

I think before we start getting into the story and the performances and everything else about it, it's notable that this is one of the last movies that was set into production before Fox was officially acquired by Disney. It feels like a film that is a remnant of a different time in that way. And so this is when Emma Watts was still running Fox. And she did push for a lot of films like this, original stories, perhaps based on historical events, films like Ford versus Ferrari. And it feels a little bit like that movie to me. It's a movie about a couple of guys, a couple of guys who maybe they love each other, maybe they hate each other,

they have a kind of a rivalry. There is a certain kind of 35-plus audience that a movie like this is targeted at. And that is a complicated audience right now. It's not always easy to make a movie like that work. And it is happening in direct contrast to the huge box office success of Halloween Kills, the second Halloween film, which was not very well reviewed and people did not seem to care. They showed up in droves this weekend to go see Halloween Kills because they know what Michael Myers is. And it's that time of year. And we can discuss maybe whether October 15th was the right

release date for The Last Duel as well. That may have been a factor in this conversation. But you want to talk about the movie a little bit because there's a lot to untangle here. Sure. So should I try to explain what it's about? Yeah, break it down. This also does fit a little bit into like, huh, everyone read this book, this 2004 nonfiction book and was like, we should make this into a movie, which is not, you know, obvious to me. So it is apparently based on real events. I'm not a French historian, but the movie centers on a medieval knight named Jean de Carouge played by Matt Damon, his wife, Marguerite played by Jodie Comer and a rape allegation that Marguerite

and then Jean de Courge, because of French laws, make against another nobleman, Jacques Legree, who is played by Adam Driver. And you see the story from the perspective first of Matt Damon's character, then Adam Driver's character, and then finally Jodie Comer's character. And it's a story really about this very upsetting rape that they show twice and different perspectives. And then at the end, the way that this charge is going to be resolved

in 14th century France is by a duel. And so the title of the movie is accurate. You do, in fact, get a duel. By the time you get to the duel, you feel certain ways about it, perhaps, which is interesting, but you are definitely getting Ridley Scott directing some medieval people bashing each other on horses, and it's gory. so there's a lot going on it is like it's he said she said it is a bit about me too it is a medieval epic it is a strange courtroom drama there's also a lot about taxes there is like it's obviously matt and ben there are shades of gladiator and other movies previous of ridley scott career. And all of it comes together in two and a half hours, which sounds short when you think about the number of things I just said,

and is also long for a movie. Yeah, it's long for a modern film. And obviously a lot of stories like this get stretched out into miniseries these days. I thought it was an interesting blending of genre from a filmmaker who is not afraid to jump from genre to genre. Ridley Scott has this extraordinary career now across, gosh, it's got to be about 45 years he's been making films. And he's done everything under the sun. He's done these kinds of medieval epics. He's done these kinds of courtroom films. He's done crime films. He's done serial killer movies. He's done science fiction. He's really, he's done it all. And we've said this many times in the past, and we will spend a lot more time talking about Ridley Scott next month when the House of Gucci is released.

But until that happens, I thought this was an interesting, what could have been a capstone for his career, because his first film is this gorgeous movie called The Duelists, which was released in 77, and is very in in conversation with this movie about what does it mean to have honor and dignity in the face of battle but that's a movie about two men and this is a movie about two men and a woman and i think the role of that woman is fascinating a lot of people have compared this movie and understandably so to rashomon the Kurosawa film. The key difference there is that in Rashomon, when we watch that movie, we see the outline of an event, but the details are deeply different. This movie shades things much more clearly in terms of the perspective. It's much more subtle what is

different and how people are experiencing things, especially that really traumatic rape that you see twice in this film and the way that it's rendered between the driver's point of view story and Jodie Comer's character's point of view story is pretty, I thought pretty impressive in the way that sort of the nuance that the story used to tell it. In general though,

you'd think that a movie like this would draw in viewers with the expectation of, as you say, this gory showdown and the movie opens with the with the beginnings of the showdown and then cut cut back and then it culminates in the final duel which i will say like as a longtime ridley scott fan this is like honestly him at the top of his game like he is better at this than any filmmaker alive he knows how to stage a showdown so well it does totally recall gladiator to your point um this is also a matt damon ben affleck adam driver jody comer movie star bonanza i mean

these are really four two of the most exciting young actors we've gotten in the last 10 years and two of our our favorite mainstays in american. How'd you feel about the performances in this movie and the tone of the performances? I thought they were pretty good. Even when in the case of, I'll just go ahead and say it, Matt Damon, it's not what I was hoping for from a Matt and Ben reunion.

I, you know, apparently Matt Damon has just is, is in the self-effacing phase of his career and also in the bad hair phase of his career. And even in the first segment, which is supposed to be, which is told from his perspective and is probably like the most sympathetic

to this character, he is, you know, the very strangely styled, like uncharismatic. Mulleted. Boorish. Deep scar on his face. Yeah.

And also just the character very bad at his job. All of his jobs. Just loses every fight. Has no money. Like pretty much a loser in all senses of the word throughout.

And then it's like fighting for like quote honor because it's all he's got left. So, I mean, Matt Damon isn't having fun, I would say. Maybe this is fun for him, but it's not a joyous time on screen. Ben Affleck, on the other hand, wow. So he is a supporting character. He's not in the trailer because of mistakes made by the marketing department,

but also because he's not really the trailer um because of mistakes made by the marketing department but also because he's not really central to the plot he is sort of he's like a rich i mean they're all noble people i'm not like he's like a count he's basically in charge of a a broad division of land and right the hierarchy here is not like totally clear to me but he just goes around asking people for money and then throwing parties and having orgies and i would say he's doing both his shakespeare in love character and chucky from goodwill hunting simultaneously gets to yell take your pants off or some version thereof at adam driver multiple times and even makes the weird blonde goatee work for him like almost i think he looked pretty good i i thought he was pulling it off i mean it was a real like peter ustinov style

i'm just gonna sink my teeth into this performance and ham it up as much as possible and you're gonna you can tell how much fun i'm having as little fun as matt damon and his character seem to be having ben affleck is having all of that fun. And so it's pretty great. I mean, he definitely is the supporting part. He's a little bit more of an engine figure because he and Damon's character are sort of oppositional to each other. You know, it becomes clear very early on that the Count does not like Jean de Carouge. And because of that, there is this budding rivalry between Karouge and Jacques Legree, who is played by Driver, who starts out as his running mate and his friend and his fellow soldier

and then becomes something different. The Driver part is really interesting. I've seen it. It's the least discussed part of the movie I've seen thus far. And I think that that's because Driver doesn't necessarily have a showy role, but it's a linchpin role.

And once again, Adam Driver to me can do anything i mean he really this is a completely different kind of a movie than say marriage story and he's he's excellent you know he doesn't he never seems out of place he's meant to be this sort of like charming knight-like figure wooing the ladies and running the town totally believable you can see him shading his performance too in terms of like is he a noble guy or not a noble guy as we see that each of the three stories being told i was really impressed by him yeah uh in total control and also his character does ultimately rape jody comer's character and is revealed to not be a good person but you can you can see some actors like wanting to protect themselves against that or like you know

kind of being wary and trying to signal that they know what's going on and he really um he's shading the character but does not seem to be like afraid of being the bad guy and, and showing all of the shades of the bad guy, which I think a lot of people would be reluctant to do. Yeah. There are also a lot of really kind of fun and impressive and scene stealing supporting performances in the movie. Harriet Walter is to cruise his mother and Alex Lother as King Charles,

the sixth, my boys, Elchco even neck as LaCq, one of the lawyers here. But I think ultimately, this is really Jodie Comer's movie. Yeah. And the final of the three stories, the sort of perspectives that are told is through her eyes. You know, we mentioned her a little bit on the 35 Under 35 Movie Stars episode. I mentioned her in terms of Free Guy recently.

Of course, she's best known as the star of Killing Eve. I thought she was pretty great. I feel like our suspicions were confirmed when we were doing that list where we were like, we kind of got one here. Now, obviously, if the movie is not a success, that's not ideal for her movie stardom, but she's pretty terrific surrounded by a lot of heavy hitters in this movie. Yeah, she's fantastic. And also, I think part of our positioning on that list was that she's doing another movie with Ridley Scott, which traditionally being a heroine in a Ridley Scott movie is a great career move. That's setting you up well.

So hitching herself to Ridley Scott's wagon. Ellen Ripley, Thelma and Louise. This is tried and true. Yeah. Ellen Ripley Thelma and Louise like this is this is tried and true yeah so the interesting thing about this movie is that ultimately it is pretty direct about being like this is Marguerite's story and you know each of the parts are introduced as like the truth according to Jean de Courge the truth according to Jacques Legree and then when it is Jodie Comer's character's time they say the truth according to Marguerite and then they remove like the according to

like they're just really like this is the truth and it's it's like it is heavy-handed you know but it is also like I was thrilled the 90s are back and it's just kind of like let me tell you like exactly what it is we're not going to be afraid to take a side um but functionally that means that she is playing this side character or character who's argued past or taken advantage of for two-thirds of the movie and then and has to play that from different sides and then has to like fully take control of the movie in the final third. And that's like a tricky position to put any actor in. And I think she just nails it completely with no hesitation. And like lives up to that fairly ridiculous, like the truth billing of just, you know, being able to directly

communicate what's going on with this character, even though the rest of the movie has been about how no one else can do that. I love the way that all of the performances change ever so slightly through each perspective. At the beginning of the film, Marguerite seems like this sort of like shy, retiring, obedient woman. In the second part of the film, she seems a little bit more fierce, but more like sort of seductive through the eyes of the Legris character. And then in the third film, she is this like defiant woman committed to telling her story honestly. And, you know, seeing each character through the other character's eyes is such a clever little trick for a movie like this. I agree that it is a little heavy handed the way that they are sort of rubber stamping

the final point of view, but it's very well told, you know, and it's very engaging and it does lead, it does culminate, as I said, in this big showdown that works so well. I thought, you know, I'm not sure that like the movie we need right now is ever the kind of movie that I'm excited about. You know, I really don't like a movie that is trying to wrestle so unsophisticatedly with the times, but I do think that there are aspects of this movie that are a little bit more

subtle than that truth banner that you're talking about and work a little bit work to show some of the nuance and the complexity of having some of the conversations that have been kind of rippling through the workplace around the world, but specifically in Hollywood. I mean, you know, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Good Will Hunting is produced by Miramax. You know, they were on the front lines in many ways of some of those conversations. Yes. And I would agree that I do think the weakest parts

of the movie are when you can feel like that pitch meeting or that brainstorming call of being like oh you know this is like a medieval tale but also it's like about right now and so we're gonna work in all of the modern like touch points or reflections not that they aren't there and they're there and they're important and it's cool that it's a movie about them but when you feel that like forcing the like timely issue it's it's both the it's a movie about them. But when you feel that like forcing the like timely issue, it's both the answer to my question of like, why did you guys want to make this? I assume that's how it got sold.

It's like, you know, medieval me too. And people are like, great, greenlit. But I think this story and even what it has to say about these issues is more interesting just in the little closed world of the story itself. Yeah, there is a moment during the sort of show trial in the film where one character says, you know, we all know that a woman who is raped cannot become pregnant and Marguerite is pregnant at that time. And, you know, that's a direct callback to literally something that happened in the news a couple of years ago. So there are some fingers on the scale in the storytelling. But generally speaking, I mean,

most movies like this are very clumsy or very silly. And I was impressed. I really, really liked this movie a lot. And it's so interesting that it is not at all a hit, like not even a little bit uh it's it's obviously disappointing and it also i think it undercuts a little bit of this sort of like movie star dialogue that you and i like to have on this show because you got two young ones and two old ones and people were like i don't care yeah it is a hard movie to explain and even the

elevator pitch where like it's about a rape allegation and people are like okay you know like um maybe i'll watch football instead right exactly and even and even if you're like okay cool but then it ends in like a really awesome really scott jewel number one you feel like an asshole for selling it that way and number two that's movies sure sure but i think it is like a uniquely challenging pitch and like a uniquely challenging even movie to cut into a trailer i mean i guess you could just do all the fight scenes and then surprise people with like you know ethics and in whatever in medieval france when they get there like a different kind of gamer gate dual gate sure exactly but it and it's tough because matt damon's unrecognizable and so clearly not having fun i need him separate from this to just like go

be a movie star again for a second like he likes playing losers he's always liked playing losers you know that's true but we've had a real stretch of unrecognizable losers at this point and it's like we need jason born back just slightly just for a minute you know so you can juice it to make another decade of loser movies do you think that this movie has any chance at oscars oh god i have no idea i mean maybe screenwriting as you noted in the in the doc, just because it would be fun to do that again with all three of them. It's a good story, yeah.

It'd be great to have them. It's a good script. Yeah, the two of them plus Nicole Holofcener, who's so wonderful, to have them on the circuit. If they're smart, they would do it. Have they ever been smart? No. And I even have to think, because Ridley Scott has House of Gucci coming out in a month,

which I have not seen, but that's definitely going to be the noisier one. I mean, it just has Lady Gaga in it. It's kind of more shameless and an easier elevator pitch and has already made such a big noise on the internet and in my heart so you have to assume that most of like the positioning ridley scott and all of those people will go towards house of gucci yeah i i could see maybe some below the line stuff because the production design is really good i mean this is a gray damp dank muddy bloody movie you know it really is a throwback to a different time of filmmaking

you don't see a lot of movies that are like this that feel this kind of like hand-worn and so you could see some you know production design or some things like that maybe cinematography but it not doing well does not bode well i i want i was it occurred to me when i saw this news yesterday morning that it didn't do well was like should you just put this movie on vod now like should you just make it 1999 and see if you can just make a ton of dough on it and just put matt damon and ben affleck in the photo because the like this movie doing like 2.1 million dollars next weekend like it just makes the story even worse it's like this is actually a chance to kind of radically alter um the way that these things are rolled out

but it's disappointing and also like who cares you know like we talk about the box office and where the stuff is going and it's like this movie was also basically greenlit three and a half four years ago it was a different time in movies movie going back then so i guess i shouldn't ultimately be too surprised um i was a little surprised by how well halloweenills did though just because it was also available on Peacock for premium subscribers and the movie still did 50 million dollars which is a huge number right number one like honest question Sean Fantasy do you know if at this moment you are subscribed to Peacock or not I am not a premium subscriber okay I honestly couldn't tell

you whether I am uh I think I was at one point. I don't know whether I renewed it. I should check in on it. So I imagine I'm not the only person in that particular boat. You going to check out Halloween Kills? No, obviously not. The other thing I was going to say is that I believe the box office breakdown was that it was a huge number of young men that went to see Halloween Kills. And that, so the trends are that young people and particularly young men are like, yes, we're going back to the theaters and people over 35, which is both of us, which is so depressing or like, I don't know. That's true. Although demographically, I was reading that the James Bond film that No Time to Die actually did pretty well for the over 35 demographics, surprisingly so i now i'm like are we all kind of franchise pilled are we all sort of like i will only show up for these big mega events

i think that that's plausible i think that's true i do also think that last duel is again an outlier even for 35 plus people you know bond is still bond so and it is franchise but i'm curious to say how this does compares to how compared to house of gucci which probably has a slightly broader audience but still is mostly targeted at like people you know old people who know who redley scott is and i think gaga is a is a differentiator there yes Yes. But it still is original-esque. I mean, it's based on true events, but it's not a franchise. And is probably a better indicator

of what people will and won't leave the house for. This just seems like a challenge. They set themselves a challenge, and it didn't totally pan out at the box office. I would highly recommend The Last Duel. I thought it was great. I saw it on a big screen and I loved it on a big screen, although I think people will get a chance to watch it in their homes sooner rather

than later. I assume you would give this a hearty recommendation as well. Yes, absolutely. Okay, let's talk duos. Matt and Ben don't get to spend as much time together as I would have liked in this movie, although I thought the decision to make them rivals and sort of hate each other was pretty clever. Adam Naiman in his review noted that

if they won't cast these two guys in a romantic comedy opposite each other, this is the next best thing to do. I thought that was kind of amusing. Obviously, we know them not just as on-screen pairings, but as best friends and collaborators and writers and a kind of spirit animals for this podcast. Movie duos are a little harder to come by than I maybe anticipated on screen. There's some classics that we don't necessarily have on our list, the Martin and

Lewis's or the Lemon and Matthau's who made fun movies, but maybe are not my favorite movies. When you think of a duo, what do you think of? Feel free to give away anybody on your list here. I mean, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers is the very obvious one, which I did put on my list because frankly, if we made this whole list without Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, we just would have to be excommunicated for moviedom. But they become a shorthand for two people who make movies together again and again and who bring out the best in each other and sort of become a larger entity beyond themselves and also their movies to an extent.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think, you know, looking at your list and mine, it's funny that most of these are, are older films, you know, some from the 70s and 60s and some even from the 30s and 40s

like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I wonder why movies are not sold by their duos these days. Like Hope and Crosby, that's a famous one

that isn't on our list and they did a lot of, they made, you know, multiple, I think seven plus films. Obviously, we know Laurel and Hardy

and this was a key part of movie strategy, marketing, storytelling for many years. We don't do it as much nowadays. Why do you think that is? Well, that's because they're built into all of the franchises, right? And there are a lot of duos who have been in franchises together. I did pick one for my list, but instead of the movie star being the consistent IP that people come to, or even the duo, it's now you're going to see Batman and Robin, or you're going to see, I don't know, Spider-Man and his, his mentor Iron Man, like I, whatever, you know, like all of these people, but that's the consistency. And so selling a movie on just the movie stars themselves is a bit harder.

I did have one honorable mention. They've only made two together, and they're young, but I think it's very beautiful. And that's Timothee Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan. They're not on my list because they haven't made that many, and also because movies are falling apart. But it would be cool if in 20 years there was a great great canon of Chalamet Ronan movies. I totally agree. I mean, that's the thing is sometimes there are kind of characters that are burnished into our mind. And I can, I can talk about that maybe by getting our list started. And sometimes they, there are, you know, two

actors who like to go on and make all different kinds of movies together. I love the idea of Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan, you know, making not just a little women adaptation and not just a modern coming of age story, but a movie set in space, you know, and a pirate movie. Like they should make all kinds of movies together because they're so great together. I'll start. I picked Cheech and Chong as number five. Let me tell you a little story.

I've only been out of Los Angeles twice since the pandemic started. I was in New York for a very short period of time last May. I stayed at my dad's house and I slept in the basement and I fired up Netflix as I was trying to go to sleep. And the only thing I could find that I really would settle me down after a fairly anxious set of travel was a movie called Cheech and Chong's next movie. Cheech and Chong are so great and so lost to culture. I'm not a stoner. I'm not a huge weed person. I don't, that's not why I was drawn to Cheech and Chong. What I'm drawn to in Cheech and Chong is absurd premises and good punchlines. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are super funny to this day.

Their movies are a vibe. They basically predicted like all of streaming animated movies, the way that every story is told. They've now made, I think, two, four, six, eight, nine movies together, including the animated movie. And they hold up. They're pretty fun, you know? So I had to give some love to Cheech and Chong. Number five.

Okay. My number five is my aforementioned franchise pick, and it's Will smith and martin lawrence uh i almost went with will smith and tommy lee jones here also another franchise pick that would have been good yeah but i have to tell you men in black three just is not what i wanted and bad boys for life still managed to capture the magic however many years later so i'm going with will smith and martin lawrence i mean and that's just like pure chemistry and that's the thing where two people um just egging each

other on kind of transcends the very familiar and still enjoyable to me uh franchise template but they're they're delightful great stuff love the bad boys movies um and they're back because the last movie was a hit. So yeah. Okay. Number four, in the same spirit, I had a hard time choosing. So I'm just doing a tie. Just deal with it.

Okay, Amanda. I'm going Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder and Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. Now, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have only made two movies together. So it's barely a fit. I need them to make a third. You know, after Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, like these guys are born to be together. And the same is true, I think, for Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. You know, their movies in the 70s and early 80s were a staple in my home on HBO all the time. I was probably watching them a little bit earlier than I should have been. But two guys who I see no evil, hear no evil is not

necessarily the best of the movies that they made together, but it is the movie that like clicked my nine-year-old brain. And I just love their energy. They both had a kind of like, if two guys could both be the wide-eyed, you know, manic, intense punchline machine together, there's something magical about that. So I'm cheating and I'm picking two there for number four. That's okay.

I sort of picked two on my last one okay um so what's your number four my number four are two gentlemen named uh matt damon and ben affleck listen i i feel like a broken record at this point talking about the the impact that goodwill hunting and really the goodwill hunting press tour and the 20 or 30 years since that press tour had on me and my interest and movies and movie stars. But I was at the right age. It captivated me. I did also see all the 90s ones like School Ties and, you know, Chasing Amy and where they kind of traded with one guy being the lead and one guy being the supporting actor in fairly like charming dirtbag movies. But I'll defend the Eurotrip cameo.

I don't have to defend the Eurotrip cameo. It's amazing. I won't defend Dogma. I will. I will, Amanda. Dogma rules. Okay. I mean, it's good. I obviously saw it opening weekend because I'm committed to these individuals. It has become more off-screen performance than on-screen performance, but it sort of crystallizes that possibility for me. And I just, I love them dearly. We need them back together in a real proper story

where they are at front and center in the film. And hopefully they'll do that at some point, although the box office on this film maybe doesn't indicate a good sign. It's really tough. Number three, this is my classic Hollywood pick. This is really for my wife, Eileen, point although the box office on this film maybe doesn't indicate a good sign um number three this is my classic hollywood pick this is really from for my wife eileen because she loves the thin man films and so i'm picking myrna loy and william powell uh you know franchise movies are not new

this is this was a mega franchise in the 1930s the first film came out in 1934. It's based on the Dashiell Hammett novel. It's a kind of detective story, kind of just a high-class boozy hangout story. There are mysteries in every one of the series of these films, which are directed by W.S. Van Dyke, but it's mostly about watching Powell and Loy be elegant and charming and witty and creating this kind of like world of lighthearted sophistication. You know, these movies are a vibe in a way that not very many movies can be. Something that in my wife's parlance of the kitchen movie, while she's preparing dinner,

she likes to have a black and white movie on TV. And while she's hanging out, she would frequently go to the Thin Man DVD collection, which we've had for many, many years in our house. So love both Powell and Lloyd separately, but together they're dynamite. So that's my pick. My number three is sort of the, um, 70 years later, five of this. I mean, you know, it's Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Duh. It's like quite, it's shocking that they're only at number three on my list um but listen joe versus the volcano sleepless in seattle you've got mail i i don't know what i learned about romance from these people that probably that it's like a little more like polite and uh has more access you know to to caviar and great apartments than than life, but just quintessential core modern romantic comedy,

like gentle, not really like sparring necessarily, but a cozy, lovely chemistry between these people and two of my favorite movies of all time, respectfully, To Joe vs. the Volcano. Quick volcano. Quick sidebar. I've been thinking about Meg Ryan a little bit because I just rewatched In the Cut, the Jane Cambion film, which was very controversial at the time and has had a bit of a revival. Maybe we'll talk about that when we talk about The Power of the Dog. And I was thinking about other non-Hanksy and Meg Ryan. Where are you at on French Kiss? I haven't seen it in a long time. When is it? What year is it? It's 1995. Yeah.

So I would have seen it like in this strain of movies, right? And I was very young also and probably saw it before I was old enough to really understand what was going on. So I haven't revisited it. Should I? I don't know. I would like to as well. I remember really liking it. It was also an HBO movie that was on all the time when I was growing up and i'm a huge kevin klein fan i think he's really really funny

in this movie i mean it's directed by laurence kasdan you know this was a pretty big movie when it was released and its reputation has sort of fallen in a way that say you've got mail or sleepless in seattle has not um you know meg ryan kind of kind of wish she would come back you know she's she's she kind of disappeared from the face of movie making I think she said she was happy not doing it anymore she was well I want her to be happy yeah that's okay um speaking of Tom Hanks number two uh Woody and Buzz okay Woody the Cowboy Buzz Lightyear you familiar with them you decided to do some fictional people I mean I know well yeah I mean is it it just feels not cool to say tom hanks and tim allen

there's just something no i mean i agree they are woody and buzz but it's funny when you kind of you know you start researching all the possibilities that are out there and you you read a lot of these lists and everyone's everyone's like hans solo and chewy and i was like no guys that's not what we're doing here that's not i i think maybe just because woody and buzz being voice acting and there being like a certain kind of chemistry that those two guys No, guys, that's not what we're doing here. That's not, I think maybe just because Woody and Buzz being voice acting and there being like a certain kind of chemistry that those two guys have to have together.

And, you know, my love for those films is no secret, but I think also my nephew, Jack, like really, really getting into Woody and Buzz got me reconnected to those movies. And I don't know, they're just a, they're like a perfect pairing and they seem to be commenting on, I think those kind of like Hope and Crosby

or Martin and Lewis movies, like that is a reflection of that kind of chemistry or like it reminds me a little bit of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and something, some like it hot, you know, those archetypes, the sort of like big, bold, overconfident guy and then the super relatable every man.

There's something very sweet about that and the Toy Story movies are some of the best movies of the 21st century. So Woody and buzz number two you're number two you already mentioned who are they uh fred astaire and ginger rogers have you heard of them what's your favorite of their movies together i don't this is the thing it's just a just a montage of them dancing for me and it is more like fred and ginger sequences than it is any one movie. I mean, springtime is obviously like the most famous probably.

Yeah. That and top hat, I feel like are probably the two big ones. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I kind of agree.

I have a hard time kind of like negotiating which one is which I tend to forget. I mean, shall we dance was also very big as I recall. Um, but they made a lot of movies together more than I remember. Two, four,

six, eight, 10 films together. Wow. That's incredible. The thing is that you remember them rather than the individual movies. And some of that is because they're just like such incredible dancers and you can,

those it's easy to like watch those on YouTube and then just like move on with your day. And you can, those it's easy to like watch those on YouTube and then just like move on with your day. Um, but that they do exist outside of the actual projects, I think speaks to the kind of movie duo aspect. Yeah. They're, they're wonderful. If anybody hasn't seen those films, I think a bunch of them were on HBO max. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but turn on TCM any, any day of the week and you're liable to find a Nostarin Rogers movie. Okay, my number one. I went with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Yeah.

Now, they only made two movies together, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. But those are two of the most fun movies of that era. Arguably two of the greatest movies ever made.

And I like when a movie star, and I think this is true for Matt and Ben too, know that sometimes you can't win every scene. And Redford and Newman seem to have accrued equal respect for one another. And part of the reason that those movies work so well is no matter who's playing the young gun or who's playing the more veteran presence, they are in concert with each other. And when they disagree, it's exciting. And when they're working together, it's exciting. And they clearly love each other. There's just something unspoken between them that

works so well. So I love both of those movies so much. So Redford and Newman. The Sting is another one of those movies that my parents tried to show me at eight for whatever reason. And I have to be honest, I was not mature enough at eight to really follow the plot of The Sting. But let me tell you that I remembered Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Yeah. Redford wearing like that, that like page boy cap. Yeah. They're just, they're, they're both beautiful obviously.

And they're such good actors. We're doing the color of money on the rewatchables this week. So I'm in a real new mode. That's really big for you guys. It's, it's very exciting. I mean, Newman is really, as you know, that's like, that's my guy. So what about you? What's number one? Catherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. i would have picked this had you not yeah i mean you have to it's the iconic one and in terms of like for me

this obviously invents both the romantic comedy genre as i know and love it which is like two people just absolutely wisecracking sp sparring at each other, just upping the ante and ante, and then just winding up together at the end. And it's delightful. Probably influenced me too much. And I mean, they made so many movies together. There is the offscreen element of it,

which is really fascinating when you're interested in the Hollywood history of it all. But, you know, Hepburn and Tracy, you can just say that and you have like a specific image of people arguing with each other in a loving way. I think my sentimental favorite

is probably Pat and Mike, which is not the most popular of them all. I mean, they're all pretty popular, but just because it involves a tennis player um but you know woman of the year adams ribb they're all just delightful yeah i think adams ribb as i recall is probably my favorite but that run it's the best yeah but pat and mike's my favorite but that run there adams or pat and mike desk set guess who's coming to dinner you know the final four that they made together are pretty legendary i saw i saw sea of grass for the first time last year because they added it to hbo max

and that one was pretty good too keeper of the flame is on there right now as well almost all of these movies are are legitimately pretty great so that that helps like just because you have chemistry doesn't mean you make great movies and they happen to also be a part of some of the best scripts and some working with some of the best directors of their time we didn't mention bogey and bakal which i felt bad about do they have more than two yes they but they have only like two memorable ones and they only have four and they were all kind of there in the i think 40s 50s maybe just 40s yeah i guess you're i mean like big sleep to have

and have not dark passage and key largo yeah you're right they do have four that's kind of an oversight I don't think I realized that they had made so many together I was I mean I was going to do it but then I was like I'm already doing you know Fred and Ginger and Hepper and Tracy so I just wanted to mention also Bogie and McC McCall are very important. Also, I was really surprised that you didn't do De Niro and Pesci. Yeah. I mean, only two movies together and I guess no, no,

no three. Yeah. Shit. Wow. Gosh. Yeah. You know, it was so good.

It was the Irishman. It was, it was really good. I loved the Irishman, Amanda Bogart and McCall. I putting, putting Cheech and Chong on and not Bogart and McCall is a big L. That's like,

I got, I got to reevaluate that one. That's not ideal. I, I love Bogart and McCacall putting Cheech and Chong on and not Bogart and Bacall is a big L that's like I gotta reevaluate that one that's not ideal I love Bogart and Bacall okay so Big Sleep Have and Have Not Dark Passage

Key Largo do you have a preference there Have and Have Not obviously yeah that's the put your lips together and blow exactly

that's the good stuff I mean you just can't believe Lauren Bacall is real in that movie Key Largo mad underrated because Edward G. Robinson is so good in that movie also would highly recommend pretty much any movie those two made together um okay that's our movie duos pretty good actually better than i realized

because i completely forgot two key entries they're not ideal it's really fun when people do this i also thought you might do a curveball and do um leo and scorsese but which doesn't really count but like sort of counts. I think that's a whole other great episode. Yeah. Star and director team ups. Anybody who's made more than two movies together. Just nice when movie stars find each other.

I agree. I agree. Damn De Niro and Pesci. I know. What was I doing? Okay. Well, Amanda,

thanks so much. We'll see you later this week. Now let's go to my conversation with Todd Haynes. up online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Delighted to have Todd Haynes back on the show. Todd, good to see you. Good to see you too. How are you, Sean? Good. Todd, four years ago, I asked you what's the next thing you're doing and you very quietly whispered, I'm making a documentary about the Velvet Underground. And you were a little mysterious about it. And you've made a movie since then but

VU is finally here so why did you make this movie I made the movie when certain you know forces of rights and Lou Reed's estate moving to New York Public Library. And all of a sudden, internal conversations with UMG and Laurie Anderson were like, maybe this is the time and who might be a director who would make sense for this. And so we were contacted through UMG, through David Blackmanman and it was a immediate uh i was absolutely down for it you know um i knew it would be it would be challenging it would need to um summon a different kind of documentary language um we'd need to try to find an appropriate way to tell this very specific story about this incredibly unique band.

And that would be the challenge and the creative fun of it. You know, was this the first time you were hunted down for a, for a gig like this? Oh, you mean, no, I get a lot of different.

Is that, is that what you mean? I mean, I just feel like so much of your work originates with you. And yeah, there, you know, as soon as I started to work with writers, then I get a lot of stuff all the time. And I get a lot of really interesting stuff that comes to me. Dark Waters was an example of that. Wonderstruck was through friends that it came to me, but that was also something that I hadn't originated myself. But yeah, this was absolutely my first documentary venture,

and it was going to be a challenge in a whole new way. So can you do your personal Velvet Underground history for me? When did you first hear the band? What's your relationship to them now? Sure. I first heard the Velvets really in college, but it almost felt like immediately upon entering college, the forces aligned and presented me with this inevitable experience, sort of discovery. And the kinds of music music i've been listening to this is true for so

many people who whenever they they ultimately listen to the velvet underground they find that the antecedents and all the music that they've been listening to are almost inconceivable without them and they were being led to this core origin without even knowing it. And that was absolutely true for me because I was very steeped in Bowie and Roxy and punk rock and Patti Smith and the Stooges. And it's just funny when you look back on those years of your life when things come to you that make a huge impact, how the peripheral vision is almost anticipating it and how you almost know that you've got to wait for when you're ready. ready there's a way and i remember this with david bowie in in particular where when i first was exposed to seeing his records and record stores and seeing those images and having a sense of what the music sounded like i was like wasn't ready for it yet when i was 13 i needed to wait but i knew it was coming when you heard the Velvets in college, were you able to grasp it all entirely? Because the sound changes pretty radically across the albums.

You can hear the influence that they have on a lot of artists, but it's not necessarily always the most accessible, especially the first couple of records. Some of it is very jangly and very pop, and some of it is much more artful. Did you absorb it fully when you first got into it? Well, it's funny. I feel like when I did discover the Velvets and start playing the Velvets,

I almost did it sequentially. And I felt like it was the banana record that I just fell into and couldn't leave. I just couldn't depart. And, but then I knew, you know, I knew Sweet Jane and I knew other cuts from covers of the Hoople or other things that were circulating. So I would find it in various out avenues. But that record felt like a world, an entire coherent, rich and layered and multicolored world, but a coherent, creative, artistic statement that I felt, you know, I've talked about this and it's so funny when you hear the famous Eno, you know, phrase, the quoted, the multi-quoted statement, and it's not even clear if it's

entirely from Eno or from Lou and Eno talking or that everybody, you know, no one bought that record when it came out, but when the 5,000 copies they sold, everybody started a band. Right. Because something about that music made me feel creatively inspired and it made me want to. It just, it started the gears. It did something to the internal creative gears, which is arguably true for all kinds of things we end up falling in love with creatively and are inspired by. do that even more specifically than others that, that sort of leave space for you to reply.

You know, sometimes, I mean, Bowie was inspiring, but he, he was such a central figure and a persona at the core of his music that you kind of had to contend with that first. This was a true collective artistic

endeavor and there were all kinds of avenues into it. When you first got into the band, were you aware of the community around them and Warhol and the factory and just the way that that was such a significant part of their origin and the first stages of their existence? I was, I was, it was the way it was contextualized for me among friends and listeners. And, you know, you, you immediately find your, I have a nephew right now who's just going, just starting college. And you're, you just remember that precipitous moment, you know, where you're, and you only want it to be as, as, you know, sort of alive and vital and rich for any, for, for someone you love as it, as it really was for me. I also had taken a year off before I started college and, and I was ready to really immerse in a great academic environment and creative

environment and so i was hungry to be to be stimulated and it provided that and and so yeah i was um but then i would continue to get into warhol's films more in the years that followed and in my years in New York after college and get to know the films and the culture more deeply. First documentary, what's the first call you make when you start to make the film? It's always a conversation with Christine Vachon when we discuss it. I mean, she brought me the sort of offer from David,

the query. And then it's really like, okay, how do we do this? We haven't done this before. So we need to find ourselves some partners who know how to really produce and finance documentary. And Christine did some digging around in New York, but it didn't take long to come upon Motto Films. Julie Goldman, Chris Clemons, and Carolyn Hepburn, and they're amazing. Just the three of them and their company and their body of work, it was an immediate sort of click.

And it's hard for me to imagine how this all could have happened as it did with various obstacles and unexpected things like COVID and shutdowns and isolation without these guys. I feel like a lot of your films, especially the films about musicians, are very much about the mythology of the artist and tangling with that. Documentary, typically, is much more deconstructionist,

much more clarifying some of the mystery. Velvets are a very mysterious band, I think, to a lot of fans. Yeah. Was your goal to unearth? Was it to make them more mythological did you even consider like how you wanted to frame the band and their their work i did i think i think for me you know for films about musical artists or artists in general the question is always whatever whether they're a

documentary or a narrative now i can speak from both experiences. It's really about trying to find the language or what I perceive the language of that art to be and to try to find a parallel in cinema and filmmaking that makes it like it could only look and feel like this because it's about that artist. And it tries to recycle or bring to life access and activate that specific language. And so with the Velvet Underground who have entered finally after decades of postponement in the full recognition of their influence and their essential role at their time and what followed. One challenge is also just like how to bring new life to music we know well or that I feel I know well.

A lot of that first, what I first felt when I first heard it. I wanted to find ways of triggering. And look, from the very beginning, what I realized is that with a band like The Velvet Underground, there are inherent limits to what is possible because there is not traditional footage of them performing live live in their first years as a band. They're in an underground culture that is very self-described and truthful and really manifest in that way, although they use that to their best advantage. And it's inconceivable to think of how they came together even without that being the sort of context. But, and Lou Reed is no longer here, you know? So there were things that we had to figure out ways

of finding different avenues, different solutions for. And ultimately, when you have things that you can't do, it can really trigger the most interesting creative thinking because you have to think about it and you have to contend with it. And what I saw sitting right there with this band and the culture that it came out of is experimental film culture. And this was inherently visual. It was a world that had not, that is not as well known, is increasingly less known as time seems to go on.

And it's a world that they absolutely came out of and contributed to or sort of indistinguishable from in certain ways. And that just created like an amazing spirit of a strategy of how to visualize the music and make that music feel vital and new again, put it back in its context. Can you talk about that, like very specifically,

the developing the style of the movie, the split screens, the graphic treatments, the use of archival and where you got the archival, because it's a very unusual format. And obviously speaking to the spirit of the band and the scene that they came out of, but I can't imagine that it wasn't like came from whole cloth. I assume you had some trial and error. It was, it evolved. It was inspired absolutely first and foremost from things Warhol was doing in his films like Chelsea Girls, which is a diptych film and diptychs that would thought that actually, I don't know if they, like Outer Inner Space is a diptych film. over the band's famous live performances, uh, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable or the uptight shows or the, the tours that would follow were, were ways of layering, uh, film stills,

gels, all of that stuff. Um, but, but this vernacular, this, this, this sort of optical printer-driven experimentation into how you could layer and multiply the frames on a screen was also being explored by experimental filmmakers at the time, even coming out of advertisement. The Eames did beautiful, gorgeous, multi-frame films early on from coming out of design culture. You will ultimately see it in Fleischer's The Boston Strangler. You'll see it ultimately in passages in The Thomas Crown Affair. You'll see it in Woodstock. We forget. I forget. I don't watch that film regularly, but that that film is actually-

And it's boxed and moving quickly. And it's a very, whenever that is the case, it requires tremendous amount of planning, obviously. And, but, so it was- All films edited by people who went on to be great filmmakers too, like Ashby and Scorsese and Leon. That's probably not a mistake. Exactly. So it just opened doors of possibility. I remember thinking, okay, we're talking about a 1-3-3 aspect ratio, but we're going to work within a 1-8-5 aspect ratio. So how is that box, how is that 16 millimeter frame going to play

in all of these different ways with it? What is the, what is the range of sort of formal options that we can explore? And I just, from the very beginning was giving little, little diagrams to my editors. And it was, it was exciting because it just felt like you could do so much.

You could, you know, in one point in the movie, the entire screen turns into a grid of the 1-3-3 Academy aspect ratio. And then there are times where we push in entirely into a 16-millimeter film and it fills the frames, which means you're cutting off top and bottom somehow. But within that, there was endless variables, right? And frames that would move around squares and blocks that would move around the surface of the frame in multi-frame compositions that we'd create. Yeah. I watch a lot of documentaries. So it was nice to find one that was very formally

inventive and digressive and had a lot of intent. Can you tell me a little bit about working on the more traditional documentary aspects, talking head interviews, arranging character arcs? You know, what was it like to do some of those things as opposed to the feature work that you've done? We knew that, you know, I knew it would have to take on a unique visual language, but I also wanted it to be anchored with interviews, testimony. And in the same spirit of that being very much about the time and place that The Velvet Underground came out of, I thought, because with the Velvet Underground, it could be like, where do you stop? You can talk to any musician for decades following the band and really

interesting people or critics or scholars about their value and their meaning, right? And it was almost like dizzying. And I've seen things like this where everybody tells you how important the Velvet Underground were and are and all that. And I'm like, you know what? Let's just not do that. Let's focus it. Let's create some boundaries here that are about the people who were there only. And within that, there would be an enormous range. There would be a limited but hopefully, as it turned out, I think we have a pretty interesting range of people from different perspectives, but that was a nice limit to start. And the very first interview, we knew John Cale would be a central part of this and we needed to make that relationship primary and make him feel secure and excited

about what we were trying to do. But we also wanted to get Jonas Mikus on film as quickly as possible. So he was our first interview. Oh, just in time. It was just in time. And I'm so grateful that we made that, you know, decision and jumped on it. I mean, the guy was just so lovely, so, so sharp. So his hearing was so impeccable. I mean, he was just like his memory, his recall. I know these are stories he's told before, and that's always the case. But his sense of being present in the room was just extraordinary. And we were in his house, and it was just like, what a way to start this. So we started with Jonas, and then we went to

John Cale. And we sort of built out from there. but i wanted to try to get all the interviews shot in 2018 uh because i knew i was going to go off and do dark waters and uh fonzo gonzal gonzalva is my editor is was going to go with me on dark waters and so we needed to find another partner to really be starting to go through the interviews and really start to structure, sort of build the foundation of what this house was going to ultimately look like and sound like. And Adam Kernitz was a partner of Fonzie's, Fonzo, on Gimme Danger, the Iggy Pop, the Stooges doc for Jarmusch. And they had a fantastic relationship and partnership. So I met Adam and I was just, I knew he was the right guy. He's like, I said, Adam, this is going to take culling through, you know, hours. And I mean, for the experimental films, hours and hours, I want to put together

a massive database of films. And my partner, Brian O'Keefe, who's a researcher and scholar, was the person who really started that process and put together this extraordinary list that then the folks at Mot motto started to materialize into actual links to the films we built an amazing database that was massive tried to organize it loosely around content but i was like adam i'm gonna i'm gonna do as much of this as i can but i gotta go do a feature and come back so are you prepared to sit there and like go through this stuff you know and a lot of it is long and and he said there's something i love more you know i just want to sit there and and watch six films exactly yeah and watch them again and and then start to make selects. Cut the whole thing in half once.

Go through that again. Cut that in half once. And so he started that remarkable process. And that took – and with Brian. It was Adam and Brian in consultation when I was occupied. Dark Water's entire production was fairly fast. And so when it completed and we released the film in the fall of 2019, I was ready for this. So you mentioned that John Cale was one of the first people you spoke to. A friend of mine who saw the movie a few months ago said, I was really surprised. Did you know that this, it feels, I don't know about a reclamation, but it really firmly positions John felt like needed to be done or that you wanted to kind of put into the story that maybe people haven't forgotten about

because Lou has gone on to become kind of avenging angel of this culture? I didn't know initially. I didn't know. Like, to be honest, it wasn't an agenda. It wasn't like a preordained idea for what this, as if this is what this doc is going to, how it's going to differ from others, things we may have seen or come across. And, but I didn't know how, look, he gave so much of himself. It was so vital. It described the sort of experimental process and, and, and roots of what the music would be from the perspective that he could speak to, but it also described this relationship. And, but you're only hearing it from one side and lou lou

talks about the velvet underground but in in in limited bits in recorded uh interviews and audio that we collected that we found and really called do you know know why that is? Why there's such a, why he was reluctant to speak at length about that experience? Because usually he was talking about his newest release and it's understandable. Of course, that's the thing you're invested in, excited about. You're promoting,

you want the energy to be about that. And especially when people are also holding up the velvet underground as your, as your greatest achievement. Right. So I think there was, and he's ornery and complicated and tough and oppositional and defensive. He's all those things, you know.

And as everybody would continually sort of assert that that came from all kinds of insecurity, that it's hard for us when we think of Lou Reed and his abilities and his voice and his songs that that came from all kinds of insecurity. It's hard for us when we think of Lou Reed and his abilities and his voice and his songs where that insecurity is coming from even later in his life. But it's also, of course,

the very thing that makes The Velvet Underground as a discourse so different and so unique from what other 60s artists, the messaging, the kind of self-affirmation, the positive messages. It's about people who are in pain and who are struggling with the world, struggling in their own skin, right? This is exactly the thing that made this group speak to things that weren't easy to understand for years later and then became almost the only example, I mean, or the leading example

of it, opened up an entire way of talking about male vulnerability, pain, self-destruction, self-destructiveness in ways that are just really hard to, that now we go, yeah, of course, of course, you know, we needed that. That was not being with all the innovation, all the amazing stuff going on in the 1960s, this particular perspective was not necessarily being represented. So Lou Reed comprises so much of that. But that is also in the relationship between John and Lou. There are aspects of that in John. The way John talks about the creative partnership with Lou describes something akin to a kind of romance with all the volatility and all of the isolation and all of the later conflicts and defenses that arise around intimacy like that. But yeah, so we ended up with a much more thorough perspective from John Cale's side. And I thought we'd get shit for it. And we would get shit for anything with the Velvet Underground. I mean, there's too many people

who bring their expectations, our own personal experience. It's just I kind of had to make it what was my experience and the conditions under which we were able to make it. But it's not as if Lou's presence in John's life and in all their lives and Mo and everybody who we interviewed wasn't massive. And in a way, the structuring absence of him in the movie creates a certain kind of power too, I think, or I hope, that makes things like the final interview that we finally get of him and Andy Warhol at the end of the movie, the Colacello interview, So like lands in a way that it may not have otherwise. Yeah. I mean, he's very spectral throughout the whole movie and obviously everyone brings a certain level of feeling to the table about Lou. What was your feeling about him going into this and did it change at all after you spent all this time working on it um i think you know

i i got to hear tapes of the danny fields recorded of lou at home talking on the phone with with with danny and when you hear lou reed talking to friends trusted people as opposed to journalists. It's a whole different thing. And I literally heard tapes of him hearing the Ramones for the first time and him going out of his mind. And a kind of rapid fire, I mean, he might've been on speed. He might've been just lose amazing mind, you know, hitting every piston, you know, just like,

but he was just on a, he was on a high after hearing this band. And then you literally hear, he said, what do they look like? You got a picture of them. And then Danny, this must've been recorded in the house because they were together.

Danny shows him a picture of them. And then he like goes off again on another fucking stratosphere and in the right in the middle of it he's like john would go crazy for this and you're you know it's so moving because it's like, it's the, it's the person he goes to, you know, in 76, I guess, um, you know, that there wasn't ever presence of that. There was a primary presence of that, of that relationship of what that meant creatively. And, you know, but it also described his pure love of rock and roll and what the kind of elemental reminder of it all was. And maybe John came to music making with a lot of intellectual curiosity and experimental interest and wanted to break molds. And Lou, there was something very

primal about what he loved about rock and roll, and it really communicated. And so that's what you hear when you hear him talk about the Ramones as an example. It's like a reminder of what drew him from the very beginning. And so it wasn't a revelation. It just made it sound like, oh man, I wish I could have been Danny. I wish I could have been that guy who he trusted and who he could just show his whole self to without the defenses and the sort of, you know, issues around journalism and interview giving and all this stuff. And because it just made you just fall in love with him, you know, there's just something so vital about his mind and his passion for what he did. And and then you know of course it's in the film but I learned about and this is not necessarily just about Lou

it's really about the whole band but just how generous they were to Jonathan Richmond the teenager you know that was something like you think that one undergrounders so sweet patient with his nerdy, needy guy who's just hanging out all the time. A strange fellow from Boston. Yeah. So sweet. And they let it just keep happening. He would drive them around in his mom's station wagon to the after parties.

You know? to the after parties, you know, it was so, it just, all these sides of them and their mystique and their self-seriousness that kept getting sort of chipped away. It was really kind of lovely to see. John still speaks so admiringly of Lou's like innate primal gifts, but he also seems to still harbor some pain from how everything ended. How did you find Moe and Sterling and everyone else? What were their feelings about things at this stage? Moe occupied the equalizer role, I think, throughout much of the band's life where everybody could go to Moe, particularly Lou. Lou loved Mo so unconditionally. And so she occupied a very important place beyond her extraordinary talents and unique sound and

absolute distinction as a physical presence in popular music. But even she was not uh immune from getting some tough treatment from lou especially during the the when they toured in the in the latter stages latter stages and it was often around money and like petty stuff and you just sort of think why like it just seems like why make stuff like that so important? It doesn't really matter when these people are really there for all the right reasons and always have been. But for the most part, she maintains a kind of level-headed lack of pretense about the way she can talk about it. And again, when you hear her talk, you feel the immediacy of the pleasure of music making

and not all the layers of history and legend making that surrounds the band. I mean, she really, also she lives in such a different place. And so when she is reminded of the meaning of the Velvet Underground, it's almost always a fresh surprise for her. She's also had an amazing solo career. And her solo record is just, her solo records are great,

but that compilation is, every song on it is just so good, you know? And she's been such an idol to so many musicians and artists. But she seems, she's in such an interesting contrast. I say this as someone from Long Island, but she strikes me as a real, you know, she's a Long Island, Irish yeah kind of a little hard nose a little plain spoken straightforward yeah and she exists inside of this kind of seemingly very rarefied community of artistic types yeah um so it's just it's fascinating to see her like does this experience still loom incredibly large in her life or is is that just this happened for these 10 years and i've had 45 years since and i'm going about my life like how did you find the other band members kind of tangling with the legacy of their work i think she recognizes what this means i

think uh it's selective about when people want to spend time talking about it and have a camera crew enter their world and talk about it. Doug Ewell, we tried many times to get on film and he just didn't want to do it. It's so fascinating. It is. And, and yet I,

a part of me is like, you know what? I get it. There's just times where you just aren't in the mood and you've done it before. And look, this is, these were crazy times that we were all living through and are continuing to live through.

But this was the Trump years, the crazy years. And, uh, I can see how people just like, you know what? I gotta, I gotta spend some time doing other things right now.

Yeah. And even in Doug's case, people have really come to love that record and that period yeah you know it's i feel like it's gone through a whole life cycle change in the last 20 years in many ways yeah so it's it's beautiful it's you know it's four records that are so different uh they really are and uh not just the the two two, but they really are different individually. And of course, the first two reflect a different set of terms and that. But the first record with Nico in it is just like something that could never be repeated.

Right. Could only survive its time. You sort of felt that that was ticking through the very short-lived duration of the band in general. But no, I agree, and those records are exquisite. I mean, yes, I agree with Mo. I would love to have heard her play drums on Loaded, and I think it would have given that record a lot more power.

Taking some of the sheen off. Yeah. Exactly. And maybe united the songs that feel a little more piecemeal to me than any of the other records, I'd say. But I think they get it. And I think they... Look, this is also a lost... I was very aware making this film when we were making it, particularly as COVID hit and we were further isolated, that you're sort of talking about a distant planet like a like a like a

like an endangered planet that's going to expire somehow and that we were sort of there to mark its to remark its its importance its its value and kind of and doing so, that meant kind of re-examining how values had changed since the 60s to now and what was possible in this moment. And it was possible in a general sense in the 1960s and was even more possible in the very specific time and place of New York City in the 60s, which was sort of a counter counterculture to that period and, and the factory and it's, and it's, and it's unique kind of sensibility and queerness and you know uh oppositional stance to all these other kind of categories of dominance that even if they were dressed up as hippie culture i love that sequence when they go west and i can't recall the actress's name from eating raul who's like we fucking hated

mary warren i mean what incredible moment she is we really have we all we we really do have so much more you know it's what's you know beginning with so many limitations and trying to overcome them you know i look back now and go there's so much more films that we could have gotten into this. There's so much more parts of the interviews that we have. They were generous and insightful and funny and moving and wicked and generous. So we really got so much amazing stuff. But I really felt in the end, the balancing act for me was let the music and the images lead the experience. So, so people will not get that, that fully narrativized, um, you know, tutorial of what the velvet underground were and the sort of behind the scenes tidbits and the kind of little

anecdotal stories. It's really going to be more at a visceral level to kind of put you back in this time and place and imagine how this music... And also imagine what made this music radical, you know? Because now maybe it's been so fully consumed that we forget that. And absorbed and recontextualized and become like a part of the mainstream culture in ways that maybe it doesn't even seem like it is. Exactly. Let's talk a little bit about sort of like putting a movie out into the world right now. This is a movie with Apple TV Plus and most of your films have been released theatrically. Most people will see this on their home screens.

How do you feel about that? What's your sense of where the whole world has gone? I feel like I've asked this question every time I've seen you, but it's been two years and two years and two years. So how are you feeling about the way it's coming out into the world? Well, look, we knew from the beginning, this was our sort of conditions for whatever distributor we went with for the movie that we want a theatrical release. Of course everything's going to stream you know and that was and apple was down with that

i mean things but things have kept shifting in terms of what's possible theatrically of course in ways none of us could have anticipated um and they have committed to a a great theatrical roster of releases throughout the country and i'm just right now i'm like crossing my fingers that these theaters keep their doors open and also internationally we have we have theatrical planned everywhere or several countries. Look, when I made the movie on The Avid, you know, and I even, me and Fonzie and Adam all had our Avids. We were all cutting together. It was so much fun. You know, I haven't been cutting for a long time. Um,

we did our mix as best we could remotely from Portland in an Atmos little room and Fonz came and hung out with me while we did that part of it. I saw it, you know, I worked with Leslie Schatz, my sound designer, remotely. And we tried to produce all the deliverables in that fashion. Went to some theaters in Portland to hear the 5.1 mix. But it wasn't until I was at Cannes and heard the film at the Lumiere Theater. Of course, I knew it would look sensational, and it did. But the sound was just, it just blew me away. And so after that, you know, and Matt and Molly from Apple were there,

and we were all like, holy shit, this was really impactful. And no matter how good your home system is, you're not going to hear it like this. You might have the biggest screen, and you may even have an Atmos room if you're very, very lucky and rich. I don't have one of those. But you're not going to hear it like that. And so, yeah, of course, I just want everybody to hear it in a theater. And I'm just hanging on the fact that they're really trying to expand. Magnolia is really doing a great job in expanding the theatrical.

And it continues to expand every day. But it's just uncertain times. So we're doing our best. Yeah. One of the incentives is I saw it on a big screen. As soon as it was over, I got in my car and just drove around for an hour listening to the Velvets. So that's hopefully the intention is to just fall in love again,

listen to the records again. That's awesome. One other thing I wanted to ask you about, which is not Velvet Underground related, but your film, Safe, had a bit of a revival during this very trying 18 months we're having here. And certainly people were watching Contagion and Outbreak and films like that.

But I feel like Safe was also resonating with people in a big way. Wondering if you were hearing about that, what your sense of that is and kind of how you feel about it kind of resurfacing in the culture. Yeah, I was. I was seeing articles being written about the film

and people talking about it online. And it's funny, I didn't watch it myself. I didn't re-watch it during this time. I should. You go into phases where you want to watch your old movies and then phases where you kind of want to stay away, keep some distance. But, you know, look,

I recognize that there are themes in SAFE that were speaking to the times when it was made, for sure. And no one wants to think those are going to be the new norms that we live under. These terms and questions about contagion and identity isolation are going to be played out in this particular way. J.G. Ballard once was asked, what do you think about the future? What is your personal view being a science fiction writer about the future? And he said, the future is the Californization of the world. And I always think of that with SAFE. As a California resident, I understand. Yeah, I understand too. That's where I came from. And in some ways that are like, you know, in environmental practices, you know, and breakthroughs that have happened in cafe standards and all the things that have come out of the sort of incubation of the incubator of California State. There's some good things. But yeah, the sort of philosophical questions about self. And

we were in LA during COVID and during the cutting of Velvet Underground, and there's a crisis in that city and the homeless situation is out of control and the ways the comfortable live separately and kind of are encouraged to not really address the conditions that are causing it and are worsening it. And that's a problem and it's complicated and I don't believe Newsom should be replaced for it. But it is, and it's happening in all major cities in the country right now. It's a really serious issue.

So, you know, but I, you know, of course when your work feels like it's relevant and continues to speak to the world and new audiences, it always feels gratifying. Have you got something else lined up that you're doing? Yeah. I'm doing another project that I had been developing, and then it got swapped with other things. As you know, this happens, about Peggy Lee oh and uh and Michelle Lee Michelle Williams Michelle Lee I said I almost said that's good uh Michelle Williams is gonna

play Peggy and that's what we're uh trying to get get lined up that's exciting feature film yeah very cool Todd we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen you've just arrived in Telluride i assume you haven't seen anything here yet i haven't seen anything here i just you know what i just started the last great thing i i saw i've i've just started to watch is the underground railroad yes and i i have more to go uh but it's it's it's just a magnificent piece of work and it's so beautifully made. I read the book and I know Mark Friedberg is my production designer, he's really consumed with it. But the actors and as always,

Gary Goetz, it's just an amazing piece of work. It's a great rec. Todd, always good to see you. Congrats on the Velvet Underground. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you to Todd Haynes, Amanda, and our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode.

Later this week, we're breaking down one of our favorite living directors. Ciara's going to join us to talk about Wes Anderson, whose 11th feature film, The French Dispatch, arrives this week.