The Big Picture - Top Five Best Picture Winners and Why ‘The Power of the Dog’ Is This Year’s Front-runner

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

We are in the home stretch of a very long award season. On this episode, Sean is joined by Joanna Robinson and they are finally digging into Jane Campion’s widely praised revisionist western ‘The Power of the Dog’ and why it has remained the presumptive Best Picture favorite for months. Then, Sean and Joanna share their favorite Best Picture winners ever. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Joanna Robinson Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know, journalists, insiders, all of whom can break down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Listen now. and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the power of a dog and what it takes to win Best Picture. We are in the homestretch of a very long award season,

less than two weeks out from the Academy Awards, so we're going hard with some bonus episodes next couple weeks. Today on the show, we are finally digging into Jane Campion's widely praised revisionist Western, The Power of the Dog, why it has remained the presumptive best picture favorite for months. Now we're going to share some of our favorite best picture winners ever. Joining me to do so is the great Johanna Robinson. Hi, Jo, how are you? Oh, I'm great. How are you? Hanging in, hanging in. So for whatever reason, this show did not dedicate 75, 90 minutes to The Power of the Dog, even though I think as far back

as September and October, it was pretty clear that this was going to be a big time best picture contender. Let's just go back really quickly. When did you see The Power of the Dog for the first time? I saw it when it hit Netflix. I didn't see it in advance, but I had read the book I think a month before that just to prepare to do it. And that's a really interesting thing. I mean, we'll get into all of that, but I think it's the one time

I wish I hadn't read the book in advance is what I was thinking. Ah, interesting. So there are, of course, big reveals in the Power of the Dog, the film, and we're going to spoil those reveals. So if you have not yet had a chance

to see the Power of the Dog, I would encourage you to do so. I know many people have already done so. We've gotten a lot of requests for this episode. So we're going to talk not just about the film itself, but the figures in the film and how they fit into the awards race this year. And let's start with Jane Campion, because she is the writer and director of this very widely acclaimed film. She's 67 years old. She's born in Wellington, New Zealand. She is widely known as one of the great living filmmakers, although it has been 13 years since she made a movie. She had a big, long stretch. Now, in the meantime, she was making some television. But when I say Jean Campion, what do you think of? The piano is, I think, the number one thing

that comes to mind. It's not my favorite, but it's the number one that comes to mind. I love Top of the Lake. And it's funny that you said, in the meantime, she was making TV. Because do you remember that whole conversation around, didn't Top of the Lake wind up on someone's best films of the year? Maybe David Earl, something like that. I believe it did. Yeah, it became this whole conversation of what's TV, what's film. And Jane Campion, unbelievably, was at the heart of it.

But Top of the Lake, incredible first season, I will say. Incredible first season of television. Yeah, nature, longing. That's what comes to mind. How about you? Yeah, the same. I mean, I think she's the sort of person who's been part of the furniture of classic and classical filmmaking since I was a kid.

The Piano, I think I was a kid. The piano, I think I was 11 years old when that movie came out and was so widely hailed and I believe was a film that played at Cannes, was nominated for many Academy Awards. She in fact won an Academy Award for screenplay for that film. And you'd think for someone who had that kind of major breakthrough moment that their career would be all peaches and cream all the way down. But of course, Jane Campion is not a male filmmaker. She's a female filmmaker. So while she has continued to make films and television over that time, perhaps not as prolific as some of her peers during that time, she did make... I think her films are often widely debated and sometimes quite controversial. She's very open about her interest in sexuality and desire in

all of her movies. She's very open about the interest in sexuality and desire in all of her movies. She's very open about the sort of like the tensions between men and women. Probably most controversially in 2003's In the Cut, which was a sort of contemporary modern noir movie featuring Meg Ryan in a very unexpected role. Very sensual, sexual, violent movie that was pretty panned when it came out and has since been revived in the 20 years since its release. But she found herself at this fascinating turning point in 2019, I guess, before she started work on The Power of the Dog. I guess she'd read the novel around 2017 and sought out the option for the film. What do you think appealed to her about this story? I think exactly what we've been talking about.

Her interest in sexuality and longing go together in this realm of repression, which is something that she's really interested in. And her fascination with nature is something that I think is understated in her work. But any of her work that you see, there are just these beautiful, beautiful shots top of the lake. I mean, part of, part of the incredible aspect of top of the lake is just the breathtaking scenery, uh, New Zealand scenery that goes along with it. So I think that when you read power of the dog, when you read Savage's novel, it has, you know, in the great style of a lot of 60s and specifically 60s Western novels, it has a lot of great language about the nature. And I think that Jane Campion with her director's eye could probably see those things come to life. I

mean, the title, Power of the Dog, is in reference to a shadow on a mountain. You know what I mean? Like that's at the center of this you know what i mean like that's at the center of of this story so i think that that's that's really interesting um what do you like does it seem like a natural fit to you what do you think completely although i guess there's one counterpoint which is that virtually everything that campion has done in her career which now spans almost 40 years has been centered on female characters. And The Power of the Dog is the main character of the story is a man. There are more men in this film than there are women. And so I guess you could make the case that that is a slight recontextualization of the work that she does.

I haven't read this book. Can you tell me a little bit about the novel itself and how you found it and maybe why you regret reading it? I guess so. I mean, it's a great book. That's not why I regret it. Written in the 1960s, Thomas Savage is sort of one of these authors who was critically acclaimed again and again and again, but not commercially successful pretty much ever. And his books languished in obscurity, despite being on New York Times recommend lists in his lifetime. This book is set in the 20s. It was written in the 60s. He was active up through, I think, the 80s writing. And then he passed away, I think it was 2013. But around 2001, an editor, Little Brown dug out a first edition from her aunt's

Dusty Collection and was like, what is this? And sort of spearheaded this campaign to get Power of the Dog reissued at Little Brown. Annie Proulx, who wrote Brokeback Mountain, has cited it as an inspiration for hers. And there's a tremendous, in the edition of, in the reissue that came out in 2001, so any edition that you would pick up right now, whether it has the Netflix cover or not, will have this great afterwards by Annie Proulx. That is fantastic. Deep examination of what the story has meant to her, who Thomas Savage is, and her analysis of the story. It's fantastic to read after you've read the novel or after you've seen the movie. But I think that his own, what I learned from Annie Pruse afterward is that this is a deeply autobiographical story, which I didn't know at all. And so if you

put Thomas Savage into the Cody Smith McPhee role, he had this vicious step uncle he had this you know sort of faded beauty mother um all of these things happened to him and and his i mean i don't know if we want to get into plot specifics here sure if you want to okay okay space do uh the way that benedict cumberbatch's character phil dies in the novel is the exact same way that thomas Savage's actual real life villainous step uncle died a hand wound and anthrax um and Thomas Savage also was a gay was a gay man gay young man who grew up in Montana so it's I don't know it's it's a very interesting I mean because it's a murder mystery it's very interesting that it's so autobiographical uh that's something to chew on but that's that's the backstory of the book and the reason that i wish i hadn't is because i think a lot of people's first reaction to this this film hinges on their feelings around the quote-unquote twist ending if that's what you want to call it

um and how that made them want to sort of go back and re-watch it thinking about the plots within the plots going into it already knowing how it, I think a lot of that energy was sucked out of my first watch. But I know you and I watched it again and our needles might have changed a little bit. But that's, I mean, almost always I would recommend reading the book first. But I guess if you're listening to this podcast, you already have either seen it or don't care about knowing the plot details of this story. Well, let's share some other plot details now that we've told people how this film ends. So this is a movie that centers on two cattle herding rancher brothers from Montana, as you said, in 1925, Phil and George Burbank. They come unglued after George meets a widow and falls for her and marries her, and she and her son move into their

home. And the relationship between Phil and George is quite complex, and Phil essentially emerges as the primary character in this story. When I saw it in September at Telluride, I described it as an anti-anti-Western, and I wasn't trying to be glib when I said that but you know the anti-western is a subcategory of the western genre that attempts to kind of deconstruct and undermine a lot of what we expect from movies it's pretty common in the 1970s you found a lot of acid westerns did a lot of this work folks like Dennis Hopper were very interested in these styles the anti-anti-western is is like a is an all-knowing engagement with the history of the Western in a lot of ways. And one of the things that makes this movie so interesting to me is that Campion is, for the most part, using classical tools of Western storytelling. Now, there are no guns in this movie.

But aside from that, we do have a lot of things that would be very familiar if you love the films of, say, John Ford or Howard Hawks. You've got a proud, stoic man fighting to preserve the methods of a culture that trained him to be really hard. So this is a John Wayne-style character right at the center of the story in Phil Burbank. But not everything is as it seems. Just as when you watch a lot of John Wayne movies, honestly, it's very easy to reimagine them or re-understand them if you think about the context in which they were made or the people who are making them. The same is true for the Kirsten Dunst character in this film. She's a lone woman on the range, saved by a noble man who can provide safety, security,

love, and a beautiful home. But of course, there's more going on under the surface. And just because you can have those things provided to you does not mean you can be well and safe. And then finally, there's a promising young man who's learning at the feet of a hard driving, but ultimately decent mentor figure, right? So if you've seen Red River, you know this storyline. Things start out tough between the macho leading man and the underling, and then slowly a bond forms, and we see they come together to create greatness on the mountain range. That's not what happens in this movie. Not exactly. Well, sort of. I mean, in many ways, the film tricks you into believing that

it's going to be a story about what these two men, this Cody Smith-McPhee character and this Benedict Cumberbatch character can learn from each other, how they can bond, how they can better understand each other, how there's more going on underneath the surface. And it's an interesting way of telling the story because I think that when you get through

the first hour and 40 minutes of the movie, it feels like there is a sort of conventionality going on here where you think that the movie is perhaps headed in a direction of a sort of conventionality going on here where you think that the movie is perhaps headed in a direction of a kind of noble prestige drama and then it becomes very clear that a lot of the the ticking clock suspense that had been operating in the middle 40 minutes of the movie is actually leading to this big and dramatic genre reveal this little hitchcockian almost execution of the story. So I obviously

had no idea about any of this as I was watching the film. And the film is quite slow. It is quite a slow burn, very purposefully. Many of Campion's films are very deliberate, but this one in particular is inching and crawling and creeping its way to its conclusion. But I also was knocked out by the final 10 minutes of the film because I had no idea where it was going. I didn't have a sense of the storytelling. And I remember leaving the theater at the festival. I was like, damn. So this is like it's this.

This is best picture. This is like, you know, she she did it. This is it does all the things that recent Oscar winners do. You know, it's like it's a story about, you know, contemporary ideas like sexuality. But it's also really a great pop boiler in a lot of ways. It has a great ending, terrific performances. It's really a total package movie. But you sat down and you watched it when it hit Netflix and you were like, I know where this is going. So when you're watching a story like that and you know how the story is going to play out,

are you more keen on looking at style and filmmaking and performances are you just a little bit more bored like what is your experience like when you know what's coming to you it might have just been that the first time i watched it i was impatient to get to the ending um and to see how she would have it all play out um knowing that that twist was coming um so and and then not being rewarded with the surprise um you, you know, oh, that's what was going on this whole time. Um, that being said, so I watched it again last night and I think you did too. And, um, that, that, that approach of just watching the performances, watching the style, being able to relax into it, having already seen it, I wound up enjoying it so much more.

Um, the second time I still wouldn't say that it is my favorite movie of the year or that I am madly in love with it, but I have a huge admiration. I always had an admiration for how it looks. It looks incredible. Um, I always had an ad and admiration for the performances because the core four, all of whom are nominated, are incredible actors inside and outside this project. But I think I appreciated even more Cumberbatch's performance, Cody Smith-McPhee's performance, even more on a deeper level watching it a second time. That was my experience. How about you? I definitely liked it even more. How much more, I guess, is still unclear to me. I had a similar feeling when I said I walked out of the theater

and I was like, this is it. I didn't think this is my favorite movie. I just thought this is a movie that has all of the pieces you need in the awards race. I'm a fan of Campion's films. I wouldn't say I'm a hardcore enthusiast. And there is something a bit mythic about her storytelling style that i sometimes have a hard time latching on to and frankly i it might just be a question of my

my um my my male identity that i'm not totally able to click into all of her stories this one was interesting in that it's obviously riffing on a genre that I know a lot about and that I care a lot about and that I'm interested in. You know, some critics have taken shots at the way that she deconstructs this story.

That obviously wasn't really bothersome to me. But the second time around, I had a similar reaction to you, which is like, from a technical perspective, this is a huge triumph. Like, it's just a beautiful movie.

Ari Wegner, who's nominated for Best Cinematography, just shoots the hell out of this movie. They make New Zealand look like Montana. I've spent some time in Montana, but not Montana in 1925. Seems accurate enough to me. And even if it isn't,

I think the idea of reimagining what that time looked like is fascinating. There's a lot of, you know, there's something that happens in a lot of great Westerns, which is like the massive scope and size of the great unknown in the West shrunk down into these little tiny frames of people's faces and the your house or the people that you're close to and that you've got to be careful who you are are are working with and and loving because there's danger there not just in the hills you know something that um that hadn't occurred to me you know when you were putting the notes together for this and you underline the fact

that this is the first campion film that you know isn't focused primarily on the female perspective that was interesting to me. And comparing how Kirsten Dunst's character Rose is portrayed in the book versus the film, I think the film gives her much more space in the story. She's much more of a supporting character in the book than she is in Campion's vision, which makes a lot of sense. And something that Ari Wagner said in, I think it was an interview with IndieWire, is that they shot a certainly the

Phil and Rose stuff almost like a horror film like that you always they want to make sure the audience always knew where Phil was in relativity to Rose and whether or not Rose felt safe or unsafe depending on where Phil was and so though this is a story about two gay men and a story about toxic masculinity and how it hurts men as much as it hurts women and all this sort of stuff, I think Campion injected a lot of this female character and centering the abuses of this man on this woman, as he does in the book, as he did in real life. I mean, one detail from Savage's real life that I thought was fascinating that made it into the story is the whole, his mom would practice on the piano and his step-uncle would go upstairs and plunk out the same song on the banjo. Does that happen to Thomas Savage? It was incredible that that happened. But so I think Campion tried to inject as much of that thing that interests her a lot, which is how would this affect a woman

at the center of this story? And it was interesting to me because coming out of Telluride, I heard a lot of people praising Kirsten Dunst's performance. And I was like, that role is so small in the book. Like, what are you talking about? So I was interested to see how it was beefed up in the film. But yeah, I mean, it's just a gorgeous film. And you talk about that, the close-ups and the interiority, but also something that Campion has always been so good at is setting these dramas against just a massive backdrop. Obviously, she's not the first person to do this. You have a very famous film on your top five best pictures of all time that is probably the most famous for doing this.

But I think the way that Campion and Ari Wagner captured the enormity of this space and how small this one homestead looks in the massive space, empty space, you know, and they built that homestead in the middle in the massive space, empty space, you know, and they built that homestead in the middle of nowhere from scratch, et cetera. Um, I, I just think that that contrast is incredible. And some of the shots, um, you know, I found out by reading interviews or there's a little, uh, 17 minute making of documentary on Netflix that you can watch, um, you know,

that a lot of the, or certainly some of the interiors, they used blown up photographs of the location as, you know, map paintings basically behind the window, sort of a very old fashioned way to shoot something. But as a result, you do get, you know, you get Shades of Red River from the story, of course, but like, it looks like The Searchers to me, like, that's what it looks like. It looks like iconic, classic Western visual language. And I really love that Campy didn't feel the need to, you know, ultra modernize it. She's like, I can work in this language and tell this story as well. I agree. I mean, the modernity is basically in the way that the story's fates are

told. You know, that Phil Burbank is very much an Ethan from The Searchers kind of figure. He's the kind of person who at the end of the story might just, you know, move on to the next, you know, the next cattle herd rather than, you know, suffer the fate that he does. John Wayne very rarely suffers the kind of fate in his stories that Phil suffers at the end of this movie. But let's talk about Benedict Cumberbatch. Let's talk about all the performances as you said all four of these folks at the middle of the story are nominated for academy awards and they're in a contrast of terms i feel like there are two very big performances in this movie and two very small and subtle performances and i don't know maybe you can identify identify which i think i'm talking

about here but let's start with cumberbatch. So, um, can I, can I try right now? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. It's big is, is Cumberbatch and Dunstan. Yeah. Smith and Feagin.

Good old Jesse Plemons. Yeah. Doing the most with the littlest. Yeah. We'll talk about Plemons. I find his nomination fascinating, but let's talk about Cumberbatch first. So this,

this is not historically been my favorite actor um someone who i find to be quite mannered and someone who i think frequently takes on similar kinds of roles which is a kind of prickly hyper intelligent um a bit distant but also like in total control kind of figure that's like an archetype ironically on paper, Phil is kind of those things. You know, he's certainly prickly. He's certainly very intelligent. He's certainly in command and in control. And yet maybe it's this,

not just the American identity of the character, but also not just his fate, but the way that his vulnerability plays out in the movie and the way that the story is told, which is that we learn very slowly about Phil, about his sexuality and about his past and about this mentor role that he has with Bronco Henry, who soon to be discussed.

This was a slightly different, slightly more, I would say more enraged rather than aggrieved. I feel like typically Benedict Cumberbatch is just sort of scoffing at everyone's idiocy around him. And there's something bigger going on inside of this character, for me at least, that I was pretty knocked out the first time I saw it. I continue to think it's the best thing

I've ever seen him in. And I don't really think the movie works without him. It's interesting that he's not an American actor. And I wonder if to dispel the notion of American exceptionalism in the West, you needed a non-American actor. What did you think of Cumberbatch? Yeah, it's interesting. So I think when it comes to a match of actor and role, it does not get much better than Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock in Sherlock. I think that's a perfect marriage of actor and role.

But if you're talking about flexibility in an actor, I think I would agree with you that I hadn't seen him do many shades outside of Sherlock since. Doctor Strange is basically like a watered down Sherlock in a lot of ways. I mean, yeah, I think they play part of the Sherlock theme in the Doctor Strange movie. But they're leaning into it. But I think that, you know, and he's obviously been lauded in the past. You know, like, he's an actor that people rate really highly. But I was skeptical of him in this role.

And I think he really, really crushed it. Accent work aside, which might be a little dicey in this, and that's not the end of the world. The angrier he gets, the more it gets away from him, I would say. He has said in interviews that Campion

encouraged him to go method, encouraged a Jungian approach. He really stretched himself for this. And not just in smearing himself down with dirt every day before he started but I think just in his just going all the way inside this character and letting this character go all the way inside of his performance and that rage and that vulnerability that's another thing that's interesting comparing the book to the film is that I think Thomas Savage wrote this book with himself, the young murderer hero, and his evil uncle, the villain. And I think what Gene Campion has done is tried to create more empathy for Phil than the book has.

And so in Cumberbatch giving this performance, it's a tough hang. As you say, this is a deliberately paced film. Gene Campion, I think, has never been afraid of putting a character on screen that is hard to wrap your arms around. And I think maybe if you're watching this casually on Netflix, because you've heard it's good, and it's slow, and you're hanging out with Benedict Cumberbatch, who's just the worst and saying absolutely foul things to everyone around him, are you wanting to stick with it? That's a question that you have and I have is like, did people watch this movie all the way through on Netflix? I hope they did because it rewards watching it all the way through, but did they?

It's a tough, prickly character and cummerbatch infuses him especially towards the end with all that pain that allows you to see um the fact that hurt people sometimes hurt people you know yeah exactly i think that's it the in many ways the point of the story is that it's about this cycle of of of rage frustration repression all the things that lead to you know especially men especially in this time but really in all times continuously hurting those who are right underneath them and then setting an example by hurting those right underneath them and then triggering this effect of ongoing deeply set masculine anger frustration etc um whether or not phil is there's empathy for phil at the end of the movie going deeply set masculine anger, frustration, et cetera.

Whether or not Phil is, there's empathy for Phil at the end of the movie, I think is an interesting litmus test on what kind of a person you are, honestly. I think you're right that Cumberbatch does infuse the character with a vulnerability that he might not have in the hands of, I don't know, Ben Foster,

just like somebody who you could see in a role like this you know but who you know tracks more rage than empathy but um but it it's an interesting thing because i don't think the movie works if you don't have that like i i don't i think if it's just evil and and good yeah and it's not there there has to be shades and i think it's asking you you know whether or not you get there i think think, you know, whether or not you get past him, I don't know, beating a horse at the beginning of the film, it's asking you for that. And it has the benefit. The book is inside Phil's head. So you're, you're hearing Phil think these things, and that's a harder hang than watching a character say these things, but wondering what they're actually thinking inside their head. And it,

you know, is this all, how much of this is a mask? How deep does the mask go? And I think once you see, you know, obviously at the turn of the film, Phil starts conning his step-nephew, Peter. And Peter is in turn conning Phil,

right. You know, two people working a long con on each other, but in that con, you know, two people working a long con on each other. But in that con, you know, Peter has these surprising moments of finally someone else who can see the dog on the mountain. Not since Bronco Henry has someone else been able to see the dog on the mountain. I have not been surrounded by anyone who, you know, sees the world the way that I do,

whether that's an intelligence thing or a sexuality thing or some combination of the two, that loneliness, you know, like we'll get to, to Plemons and George, but like loneliness is such a key element for all four of these characters. And Phil, despite the fact that he's very popular with his men and surrounded by his men at all time is probably the loneliest because nobody knows him at all. And so that's where I think the source of so much of the empathy is if you care to find it, you know? Yeah, it's a story about desolation. And I'm not sure if there's a more desolate character in the story than Rose Gordon, played by Kirsten Dunst. I would say in the circles of people like me and you, people who watch too many movies, care about award shows,

started paying close attention to popular culture in the 1990s, Kirsten Dunst is a pretty big figure. She is, I would argue, beloved because she has kind of tracked along every kind of story. She's been in prestige fare in the 90s. She's been in superhero movies. She's worked in television. She's been in prestige fair in the 90s. She's been in superhero movies. She's worked in television. She's worked with great auteurs. But I would say in the wider world,

she's liked. She's not beloved. This is the film and the performance, I think, that has elevated her to the position that many people believe she should have been in for a long time, not just because of the Oscar nomination, but because it has inspired

a lot of conversation about what a skilled performer she is, despite breaking out in Interview with the Vampire and bringing it on in films that are considered somewhat more frivolous. She plays, like I said, another archetype of the Old West here, and a very sad person.

And like you said, a very lonely person, a widow, someone who is looking after her aging son, who seems to have some peculiarity to him in terms of his interests around surgery and medicine, I guess, science. And she doesn't really know how to communicate with the world until this man comes into her life and may or may not save her. So what did you think of Rose Gordon and Dunst's performance? Yeah, it's funny.

I do think that, you know, Kirsten Dunst, being that she was Mary Jane Wasson, being that she was in a bunch of, you know, teen 90s stuff, I think there is this perception of her as someone who does lighter work. But, you know, if you've seen Marie Antoinette, if you've seen Melancholia,

if you've seen, you know, even Eternal Sunshine you've seen melancholia if you've seen uh you know even eternal sunshine i think she gives such a good performance in eternal sunshine and spotless mind um and i was actually re-watching interview with the vampire a couple weeks ago and i was just like this is stunning this is a stunning child performance she's incredible in that film i genuinely think she should have been nominated for an oscar for that film and and as you pointed out many others but um i think she's fantastic in this. I think there are just really small, beautiful moments of her,

even before her sort of descent into slight scenery, chewing drunk performance. The small moment when the, the George character, Jesse Plemons character sort of wordlessly helps her in the kitchen, like serve some food and just her soaking that in and knowing that this is such a rare bright spot in this, in this woman's tough life. Something that, that a big adaptive change that, that Campion made when adopting this book is that, you know, it's mentioned in the film that Peter's father, Rose's husband, killed himself.

What's not clear is that essentially Phil bullied that man. And, you know, I guess they either they felt like that would make Phil way too unsympathetic for him to essentially be partially the cause of this man's suicide. But this man who was an alcoholic was bullied by Phil and then killed himself. And so the vengeance aspect of all of this is doubly so, I think, for the Peter character because of that. Interesting. I had no idea. Yeah. It's not in the film even a nod in the slightest. And so I think that's just a choice she made to be like, well, they'll never be on Phil's side at all if I put this in here. But I think that decision Rose makes talking to Peter over the tea, and she pours the sugar out, and she's talking about her childhood and her Valentines

and the stars that she got on the chalkboard and all that sort of stuff. I just thought that was such a beautiful performance from Kirsten Dunst, who is still a very, very beautiful woman, but is styled in this film to be a faded beauty of a sort and so knowing watching someone who was the pinnacle of beauty for many people in the 90s tell this story in 2022 that just adds layers in versus casting someone that maybe we we as an audience didn't know as a teenager if that

makes sense it does make sense i think it's really fascinating that this part was originally set for another 39-year-old actress, Elizabeth Moss, who of course had worked with Campion in Top of the Lake and is herself one of the great screen actors going right now. Would have been a slightly different perception of that character. Elizabeth Moss is a slightly different performer. I don't think it would have necessarily been worse, but it might not have been the same, that same faded beauty concept that you're describing. Yeah.

And I think if you're talking about, like, you know, my mind immediately flashes to her smell. If you think about an Elizabeth Moss performance of someone under the influence and there's just never the same fragility in her. There's always just a- Something tough, hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Just a spine of steel at the center of whatever messiness Elizabeth Moss is doing. And a credible performer, but I think Dunst is, you know, just so much more fragile in this. And then I think it really works. I agree. Let's talk about Cody Smith-McPhee.

He plays Peter. He is ultimately the engine, the critical figure of the story though it does not seem that way for about the first 85 95 minutes cody smith mcfee is an interesting actor uh he i think he is is it fair to say he broke out on the road is that really the first time most people got a chance to see him the adaptation of the cormac mccarthy novel i would say so yeah um the road uh let me in incredible performance in that um oddly though the first time that i really really paid attention to him was in he does a motion capture performance in planet of the apes that i thought was really really incredible and that's when i started paying attention to him as

like a really physical performance performer and then of course of course, he's an X-Man. He is an X-Man. He was a good nightcrawler, I thought, of all the nightcrawlers. He also was in a really good Western in 2015 called Slow West, in which he plays not quite a similar character, but somewhat similar. Sort of wallflower-ish out of his element type. type and here it's maybe not surprising that he has the first and most significant dialogue in this movie and he essentially says for what kind of man would i be if i did not help my mother and then the film kind of rolls someone i know said they knew how it ended because it opened that way they're like well then i knew he killed him and i was like okay well you're

that's incredibly insightful i don't i don't think i had that going for me but on a rewatch you can see that the film is very clearly designed very cleverly designed in that way um you know smith mcphee was the the front runner for best supporting actor for a long long time i know and he's not now so there's been like very little conversation actually about his performance. He's in this tricky spot where he, he obviously is quite different from the other men on the ranch. And not just because he's gay, but because of the way that he dresses and because of the way that he

presents himself and what he is interested in, the way that he is styled in the film. Those white sneakers are indelible. I don't know how he doesn't get those dirty as he walks through the mountains. But this is a young actor who understood the assignment, I would say. There's something very subtle, but not too subtle, because he has to be nefarious in this story. He has to be cunning. He has to be clever.

He has to draw Phil out. He has to entice him and almost romance him into a relationship here he seduces him and there's something really really impressive about the way that smith mcphee does it because it's not you know he reminded me he reminds me a little bit of montgomery clift and not just because of the red river connection but because of the way that montgomeryifton, many of his performances, it was a kind of nervy anxiety in all of his roles. And yet he was so attractive.

He was so charming. He was so charismatic, even though it felt like he was breaking apart at the seams in almost every movie that he performed in. So what did you think of Smith McPhee? That's so funny that you said Montgomery Clifton because I was thinking Farley Granger because I was in like a Hitchcock space. And I think it's funny that he evokes to an older era of Hollywood actors, but I think both of them have a seductive quality. I think Clift has a much more, as you say, nervy quality than Granger.

But Granger also, at least in the two Hitchcocks that I'm most familiar with him in, there is that like stress, anxiety, suspense sort of hanging around his characters in both of those films. But I think that when you watch Smith McPhee, it's obvious that Peter has a plan early on. Like we see him, if you rewatch it, you see all the pieces that he's putting in place from early on. However, there is that moment when the hides have been sold and Phil is freaking out.

And that is a moment where Peter goes outside the barn and he's pacing around and you can, you can see him say, okay, you've been putting the plan in motion, but are you actually going to do it? And, and then he makes that decision and you can see his stress and guilt around it. It's in there. He's not just coldly calculating. It's in there. And I think the strongest thing that Smith McPhee does in all of this is has to be the scene when he's watching his plan unfold least that scene again. It's, it's tremendous. And it's the moment when Cumberbatch's performance is breaking, breaking wide, you know, breaking open. Yeah. So I was really impressed. And it's so

funny because in the earlier span of the Oscar season, I was a little like, okay, I guess Cody Smith-McPhee. I was like, he seems kind of like he's 25. Like, you know, I think I always like to, I know you've talked before about the fact that we usually reward older actors and not younger actors. And we usually reward younger actresses and not older actresses. And there's a lot of, we have a lot of questions about that, but I often find myself in the supporting actor category, always rooting for the guy who has been around a really long time. Like I get attached to the Willem Dafoe's or whoever it is in that category.

I'm like, I really want, you know. And so when Troy caught their, not just because of my soft spot for Coda, but when Troy's star became to rise in all of this, I was like, yeah, that feels more right to me. But now I feel more conflicted now having rewatched the movie last night. Cody's really good in this film.

What do you think? He really is. it's interesting to look at all four of these performances all nominated knowing that in all likelihood none of the four are going to win and how we'll look back on that I mentioned to you last night that I think it's possible that when we get 20 30 years out from now we look at Cumberbatch's career and his best performances and we look at Will Smith's career and Will Smith's best performances, and we'll see this as it was time for Will Smith, and we didn't ultimately reward Cumberbatch's best. Who knows? Maybe Cumberbatch has many other great performances left in his career.

I'm sure that he does. But you could certainly see an actor like him winning in his late 50s or early 60s for work that is maybe not as focused and powerful as this one. The same could be true for Cody Smith-McPhee. He could be a successful and gifted actor for the next 30 years, but will he ever have a part this big? I don't know. I mean, the thing is, is that this is a hugely nominated movie.

It's a movie that has 12 nominations. That doesn't happen very often. And so films like this don't come along very often, not just for filmmakers like Campion, but for actors. And a lot of people will see this film in a way that they will not see most of the movies that these folks make, barring the franchise entertainments that they are a part of. And maybe that's a testament to where movies are going and not where they were. But anyway, speaking of nominations, let's just talk about Jesse Plemons really quick. So this is the nomination I did not see coming the most out of all the nominations at the Academy Awards this year. I was really surprised.

I am certain that you, like me, are a hardcore, sincere fan of Jesse Plemons as an actor. Plemons, yeah. This is his quietest role ever. And he's known for playing withdrawn, cerebral, sly characters. But this one requires a measure of control and almost blankness that it's fascinating that it was recognized. Because it's exactly the kind of performance that is very rarely recognized. I've heard Jesse Plemons compared in the past to John Cazale because he is that sort of like uber character actor, not conventionally handsome, but there's something magnetic whenever he is in something. And so I'm really interested in this part because he is not,

he's in many ways the fourth most important person in the movie. And that's partly why I did not think he was going to be recognized. So what do you, what do you think of Plemons and what do you think of the nomination too? That's right. I just rewatched the entire John Cazale filmography, which is obviously a tragically short filmography. Five jams, yeah. Yeah, I just watched them all in a row because I was watching The Godfather

and I was like, let's just watch all the Cazale films. So that's a really interesting comparison. I think the comparison that I've seen the most is to Philip Seymour Hoffman, not just because he played his son in The Master and not because there is a slight physical resemblance, but I do think that there is just like to george i think especially on the rewatch where you start to question how much he knows him when he knows it you know like we we know that he like peter is aware of rose's drinking and is you know sort of masking things for her but even earlier in the film his reluctance to talk about bronco henry makes it you know makes you feel like george might not be ignorant to the inner life of his brother the way that you might that that even uh phil might think and uh so so it's george is an interesting character because i think there are there are deeper things going wrong i

around i do not think plemmons gets this nomination were it not for one line read that you made sure to point out in our notes when he says to Rose, you know, as they're sipping tea and looking at the mountains, I just wanted to say how nice it is to not be alone. And I think there are actual tears running down his face. I didn't see it on a widescreen, so I don't know. But yeah, it's a beautiful, I mean, it's a beautiful line read from a tremendous actor. And I think, I honestly think what's also true about Jesse Plemons is that the Academy at this point is really ready to give Jesse Plemons an Oscar and he might get it next year. But I think, you know, I think that just whenever he shows up, people are like, that's someone who knows their craft really well. So, yeah, I mean, it's surprising. It's a surprising surprising nomination but not one that i think is unwarranted at all uh when you look

at at the at the whole of it what do you think yeah there's just a subtlety that is uncommon it's not necessarily always observed because supporting actor is a playpen for people going big and cody smith mcphee is not really going big and neither is Plemons. So it's interesting. I mean, I agree. He is clearly beloved by great filmmakers. And if you look at his filmography of late, he's doing two things. He's either doing kind of ridiculous movies like Jungle Cruise and Game Night and kind of paying the bills. I know Game Night is wonderful. Or he's working with the best directors on Earth. You know, he's working with Charlie Kaufman. He's working with Martin Scorsese, of course.

You know, he's working with Adam McKay. A number of people over the years. And I don't think this is the coronation moment by any means for him, but this is sort of the beginning of the non-nomination career. Yeah, exactly. It's the ramp up.

Okay, let's talk very quickly about sort of the way this film looks and the production design and everything because all of those folks are also recognized by the academy this year what you mentioned ari wegner who is the cinematographer also shot zola which i thought was one of the best looking and most cleverly visually conceived movies of 2021 and what a what a double header right because you know if you want to show your range to show someone zola and power of the dog and say the same person shot both of these um i you want to show your range to show someone zola and power of the dog and say the same person shot both of these um i did want to shout out that you know uh greg frazier who we've been talking about a lot because of dune and the batman um he shot actually my

favorite because i was i was interested i feel like jane campion movies have a distinctive style but she's not someone who has had the same cinematographer throughout her career so uh stewart dryberg who did like a first i think the first three to four films so you know that collaboration but greg frazier um shot my favorite jane campion movie which is bright star which is a deliciously beautiful film and so something that aria wagner has said is that she and jane campion worked together for a year before they you know in pre-production which um my sense from that interview is that that is an unusually long period of time and that she was brought on very early in the process and that is an unusually collaborative process so i think that that's uh just an interesting thing to think about uh in terms of j Jane Campion as a director and how she interacts with

her entire team. Bright Star is also my favorite of Campion's films. Is it? Fun fact, yeah. I'm not surprised. The score. We're going to be talking a lot about scores later this week, which I'll mention at the end of this episode, but Johnny Greenwood is the composer for this film.

He obviously has emerged in the last I don't know, 15 years or so as one of the preeminent composers in movies. He's of course also the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for Radiohead. This score has been compellingly intellectualized and analyzed and Greenwood has made himself available to discuss it, which I always think is interesting. He is in very elegant terms campaigning. And so we know a lot about this score. We don't always learn what goes into making film scores, but in this case we do because he's talked about it quite a bit. There's a really good interview with him on Fresh Air, actually. I would encourage people to track down if they like the way that this film sounds,

but we've talked about Phil's banjo. we did not mention rose's uh failed piano performance but that also is a significant moment this is a quite musical film and they in this in the tradition of the anti-anti-western this is an anti-anti-western film score it is not the sweeping strings that you sometimes expect instead you get this almost like churning, discomforting. It's a horror score. Horror movie score. Yes. In many ways. And it's funny,

his other, he made two scores this year. He also did the score for Spencer, which I would describe as like jazz horror. And this is, this is banjo horror. And I guess he, he created those sounds by plucking a cello the way you would pluck a banjo

and sort of, you know, projected that sound style onto the film.'s pretty amazing definitely sets the tone he was seeking an alien and forbidding nature for the landscapes successful about this um okay so let me ask you a quick question about this category first of all i want to correct the record because like i think on my first appearance talking about oscars i made a serious trivia blunder and said hans zimmer had never won in this category. And your listeners rightly called me out for that.

So Hans Zimmer has won before. Do you think, Johnny, because he is elegantly campaigning so hard, do you think he's going to win this year? Do you think Hans has it locked up for Dune? No, I think Hans has it locked up for Dune. Just like I think Greg Fraser has it locked up for Dune. And I think Dune has many, many below the line categories locked up for Dune. Just like I think Greg Frazier has it locked up for Dune. And I think Dune has many, many below the line categories locked up at the moment. What do you think?

I think it's tough just because I don't think that Hans has been out there pressing the flesh in the same way. And Johnny has had a number of scores that have really caught people's attention. He's someone that I think, again, I think the Academy wants to reward and probably will eventually will it be this year i don't know it's tough because plucking a cello to sound like a banjo is one thing but hans zimmer literally created instruments for dune so it's hard to know either way i guess they will be accepting their oscars not during the live broadcast but um but yeah that's a real shame uh it's this isn't my favorite greenwood score my favorite is probably there will be blood but even that is slightly derivative

and i think his most gorgeous is phantom thread i think it would be weirdly a shame if he didn't win for a pta movie although he contributes only a very small amount of music to licorice pizza this year so we shall see i don't think he's gonna win but don't be shocked yeah if he surprises because he's out there in the world um i feel like we've done a good job talking about what this movie is about yeah but are there any like themes that you feel like we haven't underscored that you want to hit on quickly um i don't think so i think um i think again it's it's not something that I really noticed until I started considering her body of work as a whole. And your friends on Mying Over at the Blank Check podcast have just done a really great run of Cambion's body of work over there. Perfectly timed, David and Griff coming through.

But I think that... We knew that the train was on the tracks. We knew this has been the front runner for a long time it's true it's true um i think that uh that the only other word i have for it is eroticism it's very interesting because like not like if you take bright star for example it's like chase kisses and hand holding but that is like one of the most electric charged movies i've ever seen and i think it's true of all of her work and you know you've got cowboys frolicking in the river uh buck naked in this movie sure but that's not what is giving this

movie it's it's charge and i think campy and i believe in her uh recent vanity fair cover story she was talking about this film and she said, I like it. I'm not sure it's perfect, but there is something hypnotic about it that I'm proud of. And I was like, yes, hypnotic is a really good description.

So I almost want to praise the vibe of this movie, which is not a light praise because you, I, I really do wish I had seen this in the theater. Because I have a sense that you get lulled into the rhythm of it in a really meaningful way that you might not at home. So yeah, that's all. I think we touched on everything else I would want to say about it. How about you?

It's just in keeping with all of her work, which is Secrets and Desire. Those are the twin themes of most of these stories and while there is not necessarily a hardcore sex scene in the realm of in the cut there is an incredible amount of fire and chemistry between peter and phil especially in the final 35 40 minutes of this movie you know the scene when they capture the rabbit is basically a sex scene. I mean, it's like a, it's a seduction scene in so many ways. And so I think it sits comfortably in her body of work. Will it sit comfortably atop the Academy Awards?

I, I, I, I, I think so. I think so. Let's, let's,

let's talk about it. Like I said, it's nominated for 12 Oscars. There are not a ton of movies in the history of the Oscars that have been nominated for 12 Oscars. This is the 14th film. Among the others, Ben-Hur, My Fair Lady, Schindler's List, Gladiator, A Streetcar Named Desire. Those are some pretty legendary movies.

They're all right, yeah. The record for the record is 14. That's held by La La Land all about Eve and Titanic. That La La Land is in there is very surprising to me, but yeah. Isn't it wild?

Well, you know, that's something that happens less and less these days, the full-blown dominance because frequently what you have now is the sort of the Dune types which accumulate

a lot of nominations but don't necessarily carry acting nominations or vice versa. But La La versa only has two acting nominations right that's true so yeah the power of the dog won best picture drama at the golden globes over the weekend it won best picture at the baptist it also won best picture at the critic's choice awards jane campion won best director at the DGAs. The PGAs are next weekend. It's probably going to win the PGAs. Not necessarily, but probably.

It was, however, shut out at SAG, where it was nominated for three individual awards, but no ensemble. None of those three performers won. Additionally, there was this Sam Elliott kerfluffle in which he went on WTF with Mark Maron and talked about or frankly just insulted the power of the dog and clearly was frustrated by the demystification of the American man and the American West and spoke pretty rudely and homophobically about the movie and uh while i think that there was something kind of like amusing about that the way that whole story played out particularly the way it ended with

jane campion calling him a bitch in a pre-interview uh over one of the award shows over the weekend um that felt like the first time that there was any kind of i don't want to controversy is not the right word but you you actually hit me up shortly after the sam elliott comments and we're like is this now like an engine what so what did you mean by that well so when we talked about this the last time we were talking about basically coda versus power of the dog which is you know coda was experiencing a when it won maybe ensemble at SAG. And I think, and I've only since seen a lot of sentimental surge for CODA.

A lot of it is boots on the ground reporting like the Oscar nominee luncheon. My old colleague, Rebecca Ford was there and she was talking about how everyone was clamoring around the CODA cast the way that they clamored around the Parasite cast a couple of years ago. Similarly, there was a photo of like Andrew Garfield doing a U-turn on the red carpet to sort of give this hand clasp with Troy Kotzer, which looked identical to me to one of Brad Pitt doing a hand clasp with the cast member of Parasite a couple of years ago. It's just this sort of like the town,

the industry was watching CODA. Maybe they hadn't watched it already and they had watched it and were having such a good time with it. So as a sentimental sort of search, it was a possibility. And it feels like you and I talked about this sort of self-congratulatory, we're doing something good because we're elevating a film that um features deaf actors in a way that they have not maybe featured been featured in films before so that feels good and for some reason power of the dogs um the the gay storyline of power of the dog maybe because it feels part of the twist so people aren't talking overtly about it feels like it was left out of the conversation so

then i don't think a movie should win just because it has a quote-unquote agenda attached to it but if something has an agenda gay or otherwise um attached to it if it feels like an issues movie then i think voters in hollywood want to feel good about promoting an issue that they care about. So if the issue at hand here is toxic masculinity and the damage it does to people, to men and women, to the gay community, et cetera, Sam Elliott bringing that out and highlighting it, coming out in opposition to it might actually provide the momentum it needs to now become something that that someone can rally around um however my my old colleague richard lawson was talking about he brought up brokeback mountain the year that brokeback mountain lost and we won for best director brokeback loses to crash

in a year that granted it was like over 15 years ago but in a year where maybe the Academy didn't feel comfortable voting for the gay cowboy movie as best picture. And so are there still enough of those Academy voters left where they don't want to vote for the gay cowboy movie as best picture now here in the year 2022? I should hope not. And we've talked a lot about the way in which the Academy has changed and diversified and grown, but we can't discount that. So is this momentum in favor of Power of the Dog? Is it momentum against Power of the Dog? I mean, as you lay out the case, it feels inevitable that Power of the Dog is going to win. It would feel kind of incredible if it didn't, but I'm not counting out the CODA surge at all. Something that you said to me subsequently was you were like, if CODA did win, I think we would look, you know, similar to the best actor category.

I think we would look back at this year as, I don't know, a big miss, a surprise. And not that you and I are anti-CODA. I like it a lot, but it's not. Is it in my top five of the movies that are nominated? I don't think so. Like, it's a very nice movie that made me feel really good I've talked about it

yeah multiple times on the show new dad energy everybody I know who sees it is like god damn that made me feel good

and we talked about the feel good versus admire you know binary and where the academy likes to go with this sort of thing but there is like

a cold hard fact about this and maybe this stuff doesn't matter anymore but you literally have to go back to sort of thing. But there is like a cold hard fact about this. And maybe this stuff doesn't matter anymore. But you literally have to go back to 1932 to find a movie with as few nominations to win Best Picture. That's Grand Hotel. That movie had one nomination for Best Picture

and it won. Coda only has three nominations. And it's certainly going to win, it's almost certainly going to win Best Supporting Actor. So that might be the way the Academy sort of says we recognize you coda but that being said everything you said is true the vibes the reporting the energy around coda is very good and also there's one other thing that is complicating this which is that jane campion kind of stepped in it at the critics choice Awards and made a very foolish comment while I think attempting to honor some of her fellow nominees and some people who were in the

building. She made a comment about Venus and Serena Williams. She said, Venus and Serena, you're such marvels. However, you don't play against the guys like I have to, which frankly enraged a lot of people and raised a lot of questions about intersectional feminism and how a white woman should or should not speak about her Black colleagues or the people that are operating in her space. And so whether or not something like that actually matters at this stage of the game, I think is also open to question. I think, yeah. And I think what the road looks like for a woman, a female nominee versus a male nominee is a big question and think, yeah. And I think, um, what the road looks like for a woman, a female nominee versus a male nominee is,

is a big question and all of that. And I think that the timing is of all of that is so unfortunate. And, you know, because like, I mean, I just, I just feel like the,

the, the best response I saw to this was from Franklin Leonard, uh, you know, incredible, uh, member of, of the Hollywood community who just said,

well, this seems unnecessary. And that, you know, and I'm just like, yeah, I was just like, Jane,

what are you doing? And the fact that it has enraged people is understandable in all of this, but at the tail end of such a long campaign, it's just sort of like, oh my God, you're almost there. And she was like being lauded as a hero for calling Sam Elliott a

bitch over the weekend. It was just like the, the rapid rise and fall. So, you know, I don't know what kind of long-term impact that's going to have on all of this. But I do think you're right that if we look back 20 years from now and CODA wins over, you know, your favorite licorice pizza or my favorite drive my car or something like that, know i think i think we would have some questions about that but i think and we're going to talk about this in a second if you look at what one best picture on any given year it's often not this always happens the best film you know what i mean this almost always happens except for the movies we're going to cite when we get to our top fives so like i said pga is coming this weekend i guess it's possible that there's a coda win there though more likely if there's a koto in there though

more likely if there's an upset i would predict it to be dune or belfast because the producers guild is looking at the totality of the production yeah and the work that goes into that and the pgas do not always though they frequently match the best picture winner uh we also got a surprising king richard ace eddie awards win over weekend, which I did not see coming. And that also, the editing award is pretty significant historically in the Best Picture race. So that one took me by surprise. There's the Lost Daughter sort of indie spirit screenwriting surge. It felt like a lock that Jane Campion might win Adapted Screenplay, but now it feels like that's probably going to go to Maggie Gyllenhaal.

And Coda also took Adapted Screenplay in a surprise at the BAFTAs. So there's all kinds of uncertainty in smaller categories, which may or may not mean anything. We don't know. So gut check right now. It's March 14th at 10 37 AM. Joanna, what's winning best picture.

I think I'm just, just for fun. I'm going to stick with coda just so that like if it wins i get i get to feel like a prophet um you and bill simmons you guys are on the coda train i'm not to be clear to your lovely listeners who kind of rip me apart for this a little bit i'm not saying coda was the best film of the last year i'm just saying these are the tea leaves that i'm reading so how about you are you proud of the dog for sure for sure I still think it's power of the dog probably is

until it doesn't win best picture at something which it keeps doing then I'm gonna ride with power of the dog all the way now bear in mind I have gotten best picture wrong five years in a row so I am a fool I'm still riding high on the year that I thought moonlight might win and nobody believed

me and I just want to high on the year that I thought Moonlight might win and nobody believed me. And I just want to like recapture that high, I think. That's getting further and further away. We're getting older and older. It's true. It's true. One little factoid about Power of the Dog that I forgot to mention earlier that I want to tell you is that it had been option five times to be made into a film before Jane Campion came along. And once upon a time, Paul Newman was considered to be made into a film before Jane Campion came along. And once upon a time,

Paul Newman was considered to be playing Phil. And once upon a time, Gerard Depardieu was considered to play Phil. How do you think, how are you imagining those films playing out? The Paul Newman concept makes all the sense in the world. In the aftermath of Cool Hand Luke and Hud and those characters that Newman played, those famously kind of embittered and wild and unpredictable Western figures, that actually would have been really fascinating in like 1974.

You know, to see him a little bit more aged, you know, in his mid-40s and kind of redefining his rebel persona with this angry, violent guy. Gerard Depardieu is a hard no like that that is absurd but paul newman that film the the gay subtext would have been like sub subtext in that film yeah you know what it made me think of is um there's this noir from the 40s called crossfire in which uh there's a it's the the novel that it's based on features a story about a character who's killed for being gay and in the film they redefined it for the character being killed because he was jewish and you could see a world in which hollywood in the 60s or 70s morphed this story to change the homosexuality aspect to be something different to be a different kind of shame in that

time that they would have used because you know there obviously just were not a lot of stories that you know hollywood was not comfortable telling those stories basically at that time so it would have been interesting to see what the paul newman version of it would have been but just as a pure performer i think he would have been really capable of playing a good fill the last thing i want to ask you about before we get into your top five best picture winners ever um is you have it here in the notes the netflix question and i don't think i brought this up the last time i talked about coda but i just want to say so for a while right there was this open campaign against netflix winning best picture the likes of

steven spielberg who now has a netflix deal um you know we're out there actively openly saying we cannot let netflix win best picture it will be the death of movie theaters it will be the death of cinema in a certain way if you let netflix win so and netflix has been pouring its heart and soul in every conceivable dollar into the campaign year after year and getting very close it feels like you know if it's the irishman or mink or Roma, like they are courting that best, you know, they've won a bunch of other awards, but they're courting that Best Picture crown

so hard. And there's a part of me the way my friend described it is like Lucy with the football. There's like part of me that is kind of invested in this constant narrative. And if Apple were to win before Netflix, that's just, I don't know.

It's an interesting story. What do you think? Apple is the scrappy underdog is absurd. Preposterous. Preposterous. I think it's possible. That bias does exist for some people still in the business. Because it has actually changed somewhat over time.

Because once upon a time, it was the fact that Netflix was an upstart that was undermining the theatrical experience. And now it is because Netflix dominates the time and the talents of so many people in the industry that independent movies in many ways have been undermined by Netflix. And so things have shifted a little bit in terms of the perception of the company

in the movie industry. But this is a pretty foolproof plan. Identifying Jane Campion as a filmmaker with a story like this, with this cast, how beautifully made the movie is, I think they've campaigned the movie very well for the last six months. If it doesn't win, I feel very comfortable saying there is a Netflix bias. Like that would feel like strong evidence because this movie has dominated every award show. I think they just thought they had a foolproof win with Scorsese, with Fincher, with Cajon. You know what I mean? And it's just sort of like, yeah, it'll be interesting to talk about.

Anyway, we'll see. We'll see. Well, we can record that podcast 10 years from now and we do our top five best picture winners, but we're going to do that right now, right now. But first let's take a quick break. Say hello to Tim selects Tim's everyday value menu. Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg

pastry or our roasted red pepper and swiss pinwheel starting at only 2.99 plus tax try one or try our full tim selects lineup terms apply prices may vary at participating restaurants in canada it's time for tim's okay we're back i've asked joanna to participate in this ridiculous exercise in which we name some of the greatest movies ever made. Sometimes the Academy Awards gets it right. Best picture winners, great best picture winners are elusive. But when they hit, they often become the greatest films ever made. I didn't overthink this one.

I assume you didn't either. You would go from the heart here. I went with the heart, but then I also didn't want to have like a full overlap with you okay so well then then there's at least one on your list that like probably i should have put on okay well then you should disclose that so that you can feel like you are honoring your true feelings versus your list making podcast feelings uh why don't you start us off number five best picture west side story West Side Story. As a proud member of the Dob Mob, I just wanted to make sure that a musical is represented here for Amanda.

Much beloved, much missed. So West Side Story, 1961. A perfect film. Number five on my list. Great movie. The best part about this list-making exercise is that we don't have to really explain anything about these movies

because they are all-time classics. My number five is The Godfather. Perhaps you have heard of it. I have heard of it. Even this was a bit complex because this won't be the last time I mention The Godfather on my list. Spoiler alert.

And I just want to tell you, I saw The Godfather on a big screen for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago. I went to a screening at Paramount and it was the 50th anniversary of the film, of course, this year. And Francis Ford Coppola

and James Caan and Talia Shire introduced the film and were interviewed beforehand. And it was one of the great movie-going experiences of my life. I mean, the print that they showed of the film was absolutely gorgeously restored. And The Godfather is a five star fly straight to the Hall of Fame film, of course. But seeing it in that context after watching it many,

many times in many, many different ways on VHS, on DVD, on Blu-ray-ray on 4k on AMC with commercials on HBO and into uninterrupted across many different platforms this of course is the way it was meant to be seen and uh took my breath away I just loved it and I still love it and and I've talked about it many times on many podcasts that you can find on the ringer podcast network I've never seen it on the big screen but as I mentioned I was re-watching the godfather films depressingly to cover book of boba fett is why i watched them but wow really watch them yeah because they were he was trying to tell they were trying to tell a crime story and there were a lot of godfather illusions of book of boba fett did it make it a good show not necessarily but they

were there so uh so i wanted to make make sure that I was able to recognize them all and had a great time re-watching The Godfather. And then I watched Godfather Part 3 for the first time. I'd actually never seen it. Oh, interesting. Did you watch the new one that they just, the Death of Michael Corleone version?

Okay. So you actually don't have to bear the burden of the original, original version, which is not as good as The Death of Michael Corleone, but still not a great film. Hashtag blessed. Yes, I missed it. This is why I like working with you.

You do the work. You really do the work, Joanna. By do the work, you mean watch fantastic films? You watch the good movies. That's the work. Okay, what's your number four? 1991, The Silence of the Lambs. When we talk about films that have been deeply nominated, Silence of the Lambs, when we talk about films that have been deeply nominated,

Silence of the Lambs always comes up. And I think, I don't know that it is as appreciated in the long lens of history as it deserves to be. I think we talk about it plenty, but did we talk about it enough? That's my question. Should we talk about The Silence of the Lambs more? I think it was my number six.

So I'm glad you put it on here yeah fantastic film fantastic performances um and and uh you know we talk about sometimes we talk about the academy's approach to genre um i think this is this feels like a rare thriller on on uh the best picture winner list so silence of lambs here it is what's your number four my number four is lawrence of arabia ever heard of it one of the the biggest boldest most beautiful films ever you you know we were alluding to it earlier with the gorgeous vistas in the power of the dog and the gorgeous desert photography and and david lean's masterpiece i i don't know what does one say about lawrence of arabia this would actually be a fun

movie to kind of revisit and and and pick apart and analyze and give an hour or two to in the same way that we just did the power of the dog because there are there are a lot of best picture winners that you see on lists over time you look at the afi list or um you look at pretty much any greatest films of all time list pfi things like. It's obvious why this is a great work, right? It's the scope, the storytelling, the depiction of a man changing or not changing in the way that he inspires a people and a people inspire him.

And you forget that this was made by humans. It's not a history book, you know, it's a, it's a, it's not just an artifact. It's this thing that hundreds of people came together to build. I didn't rewatch Lawrence of Arabia over the weekend.

I actually rewatched Ben Hur for the first time in a long time because I hadn't seen it in forever because I wanted to see that was, that's another best picture winner. And I was like, maybe there's something more going on there. Um, yeah, that is not as good a film uh for a variety of reasons but it is a mind-blowing achievement of physical production and that's obviously why it won best picture and they're they're this lawrence of arabia also fits this category and there are a number of other movies

the lord of the rings films is an example of, this sort of the mega production that feels like to not acknowledge its power and its achievement would be a huge error. And Lawrence of Arabia is so big and so profound and so beautiful to look at and cut so well, one of the most best edited films of all time, despite its epic length that I'm still in awe of it to this day. That's number four. You know, there are films that you feel the length and films that you don't. And we've talked about that a lot recently with like The Batman or Drive My Car. Two equally similar films. Anyway. The Ben-Hur of superhero films, The Batman. Right, right. But I watched Dr. Zhivago for the first time a couple years ago.

I had never seen it and I felt the length on that one. Yes. The way that I don't with Lawrence of Arabia. Have you seen Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen? I have. I saw it right around when I moved to LA. I saw it at the Cinematek and it was

unbelievable. It's one of the best movie going experiences you can possibly have. Yeah. If you've never seen it on the big screen, just try to find a way to do so. It's incredible. Our number threes are the same. This is fun. 1950 All About Eve, which I just rewatched, I think, last year for a podcast that I did. And, you know, in the same way that you rewatched Ben-Hur, you're like, this isn't,

you know, I rewatched all about it, but I was like, oh, this is better than I even remembered it was. Just a perfect, a perfect vehicle for great performances by Davis, but also, I mean, George Saunders giving an all-time incredible performance in that film and then just an incredible skewering of the industry uh while while we're at it um you know we we say over and over and over again that that hollywood loves to reward films that are about making films or or making plays as the case may be um and uh but this is this is a case where hollywood like having a sense of humor about itself and and that's something you really love to see i think it's in the in the conversation for greatest screenplay of all time um so zippy absolutely it's just it's just bon mot after bon mot banger after banger uh it's joseph

mankiewicz's best film i think it's safe to say uh i think it is almost certainly the best film about show business and they're like you say there have been a great many of them. And perfect performances. This is probably my favorite Bette Davis performance too, because it does all the things that she excels at, which is brazen power and independence and also crippling vulnerability and sadness. And this is just an amazingly fun funny weird sad movie i love this

movie and surprisingly you know for 1950 yeah so it's based on the wisdom of you by mary or so like there is like you know there was a woman's voice at the center of this but like a surprisingly progressive look at you know women and aging and vulnerabilities and all of that sort of stuff in 1950 i mean it's it's yeah fantastic fantastic film uh number two my number two i already mentioned 2016's moonlight yeah so you were on this you back then you were like this is it best picture winner and also my fave it was like i think it might have been the first year i was doing oscars podcast podcasting or maybe the second but I just decided to go with my heart and I liked La La Land but I loved

Moonlight and so I just decided to put all my chips on Moonlight because I loved it so much and then so obviously the La La Land Moonlight moment I remember I was at home covering the Oscars and Rebecca Keegan who

is currently at the Hollywood Reporter but was with at the time she was backstage and uh rebecca keegan who is currently at the hollywood reporter but was with me at the time she was backstage and she slacked us and she's like oh actually moonlight one before it showed on the on the television broadcast she slacked it to us i was like oh haha very funny rebecca don't toy with me you know i care she's like i'm i'm she's like i'm professional doing my job actually i'm serious and then on, like it all happened on, on, on TV and Jimmy Kimmel helps on stage and all of that. But I, I just, I love this film. I saw it so many times in the theaters that year. I remember I saw it at a film festival early in the season and I just, nothing touched it for me. I rewatch it often. It sort of burrows into me. And if I want a

cathartic cry, I watch i watch moonlight i think it's just an incredible uh piece of cinema one of my favorites definitely my top 20 best picture winners of all time i i did actually rank every single one of these films uh in a odd exercise that i subjected myself to on an idle thursday night um i don. I'll do something with it. Maybe a summertime pod or two pods or three. Maybe if I go on vacation, we'll do the complete ranking. Obviously, I'm giving away my top five, but who cares? These are five of the greatest films ever.

It's actually more fun to talk about what's like 93 to 48. Okay. Moonlight is a great pick at number two. My number two is The Apartment. This is Billy Wilder's masterpiece. speaking of some of the greatest scripts of all time I.A.L. Diamond and Wilder wrote this one interesting story about

the way that capitalism and masculinity can crush one man's soul but also love can be found very simple story very elegantly told featuring can crush one man's soul, but also love can be found. Very simple story, very elegantly told,

featuring one of the great leading performances in the history of movies by Jack Lemmon. And I really like movies that are set in cities, featuring well-to-do, well-meaning people who are stuck. And this might be the the ni plus ultra of that subgenre sub genre of like everything seems like it's going their way,

but they are, they are as despairing and stuck as anybody else around the world. Um, it's just an amazing movie and amazing performance by Shirley McClain as Miss Kubelik. Uh, and a lot more depressing than I remembered when I revisited it tonight. A lot more hopeless than I had recalled.

But a film like this winning is pretty amazing to me. Yeah, so this, full disclosure, is the one that was almost on my list as well. And it is very theatrical. And you could see it being a stage play. Like, in even a way that All About Eve doesn't feel very stagey. So you're right, it is rare for something that feels so small, but not as an insult

and like humane as this to win. Just an incredible film. I love this love this film i love you picked it you mentioned so how many films did you re-watch in order to watch a re-watch in order to make this top five list is that a request for me to look at letterboxd always okay i'll pull it up um not not so many so of the best picture winners, I revisited all about Eve, Ben, her gentleman's agreement, grand hotel, the great Ziegfeld, the best years of our lives and the apartment. So that's seven movies over the course of four or five days. And it's a light, a light weekend for me.

That's light work. Yeah. I will say like in, you know, our three of the Great Ziegfeld, I was like, what have I done? But I haven't seen those movies in a long time. I wanted to revisit them. The Best Years of Our Lives, in particular, was one that was in the running for me, which is this beautiful William Wyler film about three men coming back from the war. But also just tremendously sad movie and i forget sometimes that sad films tragedies or these epic you know weepy dramas tend to thrive at the academy awards

um so but nevertheless seven films in five days no big deal uh did you revisit a lot uh no i i felt confident in my choices um but i probably should have i probably should have done best years our lives and grand hotel i probably should have re-watched those um my number one my number one you and i talked about this on i think a succession podcast and this is before i like really knew how many dvds were actually behind you in your office. And I asked you if you had seen this movie, which was a really stupid question. And you were not too affronted when I asked you, but 1934 is it happened one night Clark Gable,

Claudette Colbert, Frank Capra film. This is, you know, when you make a list like this, you want people to take you seriously. So you want to put something like really like weighty at number one. But I had to go with my pure hearts choice, which is this film, which I think is a perfect, delightful film with fantastic performances.

And I just love that this was like this was so celebrated so given so much credit for what it is because you know theoretically this is a romantic comedy i suppose you could say um if you wanted to a road movie um but it's hard to do it well it's so often done poorly and this is one of the best of all times. And so many films. Oh, so much to this one, getting it right. Uh, so that's why it's my number one,

the ultimate meet cute movie, right? Oh yeah. On a, on a train, on a bus, on a bus. Um,

great film. I think the Dob Mob would appreciate that one too. I know that's one of Amanda's face. Shout out to Amanda. Always want to represent Amanda. Uh, and my number one is the Godfather part two for all the same reasons that the godfather is my number five but this is my number one i guess this confirms that i like the godfather part two more than the godfather i am actually more of a i'm more of an originalist when it comes to this these sorts of debates i tend to with this came up recently about batman versus

batman returns as much as i love batman returns or something about the first batman that sings to my soul i know you don't agree with that um okay it's close it's close it's close but the godfather part two is uh is even is even more epic in scope and even more epic in story and um it's more focused on this these primary relationships you know it's not about on this, these primary relationships. You know, it's not about transitioning from one era to another, which is very much what the first film was about. It's about the,

the hardening and darkening of one man's soul and how that happens. And it's a, that's a beautiful film. It's one, it's one of the masterworks. I saw your list before I made mine. And I was like, should I put a godfather

on my list godfather certainly deserves to be on my list and if i were to put one on my list i do think it would be the godfather over the godfather part two um only because in re-watching it i felt like the flashbacks i don't know it didn't it didn't even though obviously de niro is an incredible actor in his prime, it all still feels like, and I know that they sort of, they originally had fewer flashbacks that they were cutting to more frequently and they clustered them together for ease of watching.

I still, every time it cuts back, I always just want to be back in the present with whatever the, as you say, the darkening of Michael Corleone's soul. Like that is, that is the story I want to watch. So that's what edges the godfather over the godfather part two for me but um can't argue can't argue i would never dare to argue with you about where the godfather belongs on on your list of top five well it's funny that you say that because over the years

i have felt the exact same way which is that the i feel like the film kind of goes into neutral when De Niro creeps back up on screen. But in rewatching The Godfather recently, and maybe this is the opposite of recency bias, when Pacino goes to Italy, I felt like the movie stopped dead in its tracks. And it's obviously a very long film. Both of these films are very long. And I never really loved the Italy sequencesaly sequences i know many people disagree with me about this i think i might have even talked about that on the rewatchables when we did this this film but that stuff feels so so much messier and like less less uh must what's the what's the word i'm looking at less refined than the rest of the movie which is

all these interiors and Gordon Willis' darkness and the plotting of American economy in the face of encroaching power, like all those big ideas. The Italy stuff is just like, it feels like an infinite, it's like an ellipsis and not a period. And so I'm holding that against it.

But it's like, it's 4.99 versus 5.0 like that's what we're measuring here I think I mean the the what it highlighted for me on this most recent rewatch is it just informs the whole case story because when he comes back and he's like I need you and you know she gets drawn in, in a way that you wish she weren't. We are sitting there knowing that he thought this other woman was the love of his life for a couple months there, you know? So it all, it all feels much weaker coming from Michael when you have that. But, but was it the most efficient way to tell that story? I'm not sure. You know, that might've just been Coppola indulging in his love

of Italy. You know what? I think we have two perfect lists here that no one could possibly find fault with or argue with. Certainly no one will. We'll see if the power of the dog can be eligible for this race in the near future. Joanna, thank you so much

as always. Thank you. Thank you also to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. As I hinted, stay tuned to The Big Picture this week. Coming up next, we have a special tribute to the art of the film score with a very special guest, the aforementioned Hans Zimmer. We'll see you then. Thank you.