The Big Picture - Top Five Movie Dads

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

What makes a great movie father? Inspired by the new movie 'Dick Johnson Is Dead,' Sean and Amanda pick not necessarily the best movie dads, but their favorites (15:23). Then, Sean is joined by 'Dick Johnson' director Kirsten Johnson (and a special guest) to discuss her new Netflix film (55:24). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Kirsten Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no. Turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage bacon and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing.

Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax. At participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about dads. Later in this show, the wonderful documentarian Kirsten Johnson joins the show to discuss her new film, Dick Johnson is Dead, which is available today on Netflix. It is a terrific film, one of the best I've ever seen about memory and filmmaking and the complex nature of our relationship with our parents, especially as they age. I really do hope you'll watch this movie and stick around for this conversation as a special guest shows up. But first, no guest for this conversation. Just me and Amanda talking fathers, movie fathers, in fact.

How are you feeling about this? You're fond of your father. Your father's come up many times on this show. I am, and he taught me a lot about really everything that I know about movies or watching movies. And he's a great movie watcher and a great movie critic. And I will admit that I watching my number one movie pick last week, last night, uh, just got really emotional. I like, I mean, it was just a little bit, the movie is a sentimental favorite of mine, but also, you know, I, my dad lives in Atlanta, Georgia. I haven't seen him in a while and COVID really sucks. And we've talked about that a lot. So this one is for my father who will not listen to this

because he gets too nervous listening to me podcasting. Well, the apple does not fall far from the tree, I suppose, in that respect. We're going to talk about our top five movie dads. Before we do that, let's just talk quickly about some movie news that has been happening in our universe. I thought that the craziest thing that was going to happen this weekend in terms of movie news was the announcement that Barry Jenkins was signed up to make The Lion King 2, which is a sequel to the Jon Favreau film that was released last year. It was almost entirely CGI. Amanda, you're laughing and grabbing at your face. When you put it like that, Barry Jenkins is directing the sequel

to the Jon Favreau live action Lion King remake. It is, listen, that announcement came out in the trades all at once. And I think all of us were like, huh, am I reading this right? Is this really what's happening? And apparently that's what's happening. It's happening.

I have two points of view about this. One, we don't doubt Barry Jenkins on this podcast. He's been on this podcast a few times. He's made some of the best movies in the last 10 years. He's a great guy. He's a very sophisticated person, but he's also very funny. And I like the idea of him having some material

like this to play with that isn't necessarily as intense as some of the other work that he's done before. The other thing is just get money, Barry Jenkins. Just do you, man. Take care of it. You've been making these beautiful independent films for 15 years. Get paid. There's no downside here. I 1000% agree. Barry Jenkins deserves to A, do whatever he wants, and B, get paid for it. And I think too often when we like wring our hands about the state of Hollywood and like what's going to happen to movies,

we like put too much responsibility. It's not Barry Jenkins' job to come like, to say no to a project that interests him and lots of money in order to like, quote, save Hollywood. And maybe he will be like adding to Hollywood by making this. Barry Jenkins, thrive, do what you want. We're excited for you. And also I'm very curious to see what his take on this particular technology is,

because it's using the same technology. That's right. I think that this probably isn't the first time Barry Jenkins has had to turn down a big project. And so I think there's a couple of things in play here. Obviously, having a Black American make a story, even if it's about animals, set in Africa Africa is weirdly radical. It shouldn't be radical. But the last Lion King movie was made by Jon Favreau and shot by Caleb Deschanel. This has been a Disney-fied endeavor. And I think putting it

in the hands of Barry is actually quite smart on Disney's behalf too, because it brings an entire other kind of cultural meaning to the story. And frankly, an audience, like we saw what happened when Disney made this choice with Black Panther, where they empowered Ryan Coogler to build out, you know, a black cast and a lot of people behind the scenes who were black to make this film. I suspect Barry will do the same. He's done that on all of his other films. And that's a whole other part of the equation. So generally speaking, I'll watch it. I don't really understand why we need more Lion King movies, but who cares? It's not that big of a deal. Yes, you do. It made a tremendous amount of money. Well, I just mean emotionally,

you know, like I'm not, I'm not sure how much more I need to know about Simba and Mufasa and Scar, like Scar coming back. What's going to happen? Okay. Like, how can you say that? No spoilers for the rest of this podcast. But like, once again, this is literally a whole podcast about dads and movie dads. That's true. That's true. I didn't put Mufasa on my list.

So I feel comfortable talking about Mufasa in this space. Okay, but you did put him on your honorable mentions. So, Jacques Hughes, okay? Yeah, the original, the James Earl Jones original version of Mufasa. He was a dope movie father. We'll talk about it later. Another movie that was announced this week, out of nowhere and will be arriving in our homes in 22 days, is a new Borat movie. The name of this Borat movie is Borat colon gift of pornographic monkey to vice premier

Mikhail Pence to make benefit recently diminished nation of Kazakhstan. We just saw a trailer for this movie. This, of course, is the Sacha Baron Cohen vehicle in which he portrays a Kazakh man who is visiting America to learn about its, I don't know, its trials, its tribulations, its rituals, its fallacies, its trials, its tribulations, its rituals, its fallacies, its difficulty, its humor. And I don't know if we needed another Borat movie either. I think the first Borat movie is one of the great movies of the 21st century, at least one of the great movie stunts of the 21st century. That being said,

I would happily receive this today. I don't really have a problem with it. I think it's interesting that Sacha Baron Cohen. Who is about to begin an Oscar campaign. For his role as Abby Hoffman. In the trial of the Chicago 7. Has also decided to almost simultaneously. Release a Borat movie. I think that could work in two directions for him.

Certainly it will make him more famous again. It will put more people. It will shine, it will make him more famous again. It will put more people, it will shine a brighter light on him at this moment. But also, it could work to undermine his seriousness as a performer because Borat is Borat. Yes. My reaction to this was, on the one hand, I'll take any new movie that I can get at this point in 2020. But on the flip side, do we need this particular movie right now? And recently, I guess I'm going to announce this on this podcast. I made a Letterboxd profile, everyone.

You broke me. I did it. Okay. Congratulations. Wait, so is your top row just Borat four times? Yeah, how'd you know? How'd you know? So instead of watching recent live news events, I just like hid in a room and indexed on my Letterboxd profile

every single movie that I've watched. I think I made it back to like May. Anyway, one of the movies that I put on that profile was Irresistible, the Jon Stewart movie. And I did not give it a great rating. And I was thinking about that movie and just how of its time it felt by which I mean 2006, 2007, like that Jon Stewart era and how much that rubbed both of us the wrong way. And I can't help feeling that Borat, which was released in 2006, might just be a 2006 cultural product that doesn't really speak to 2020 in the same way. We've kind of outpaced Borat as a media nightmare phenomenon, but I could be wrong.

I think it's very possible. I think that it's really hard to know I mean we saw sasha baron cohen engage with the kind of american crisis of the last You know, you could say probably hundreds of years But just particularly in the trump administration in who is america, which was the tv show that aired on showtime I believe a couple of years ago at this point. I think it was 20 the summer of 2018 And I thought that show was half successful and half really strained and it had a couple of great bits because he's such a creative and inventive comic figure. But it also had a lot of bits where I was like, now's not the time, dude. Like this is not the way to combat what we're going through in this country. So I don't know. I don't want to prejudge the film the same way I'm trying to not prejudge The Lion King

2. I completely agree with you that I'm very fired up to just have one more movie to watch at home that hopefully will ease some of the anxiety and frustration that people are going through. I really love Sacha Baron Cohen. I was a huge Ali G fan. I was really into that whole moment in comedy. And so I'm certainly not going to turn this movie away. We'll see what we get. It's exciting to have something else to talk about on the show also, because at this point, it's pretty clear that very few movies are going to come out in movie theaters in 2020. We still are keeping our fingers crossed for No Time to Die and for Pixar's Soul and a handful of titles, but it's pretty slim pickings right now. And so Borat 2, we accept you.

Also, per your Letterboxd comment, the big picture is also on Letterboxd now. So if you are a listener of this show and you use that platform, as I do quite fervently since the beginning of 2020, and maybe that was a bad sign and maybe I should not have started because things that have transpired since that have been roundly terrible. Nevertheless, I'm having a great time there. I like it much more than all those social media platforms. I encourage people to be decent to each other on the big picture page and also on my page and Amanda's page if she chooses to share that with you. I don't know. I just think it's a fun place to talk about movies and to see what other people think about movies and not a cool place to denigrate people's opinions of movies. We save that for the movie draft podcasts here at the big picture. One more piece

of very interesting movie news that came over yesterday was the making of another movie that is related to movies. I'm talking about Francis and the Godfather, which is a film that Barry Levinson will be directing about the making of the Godfather and the clash between Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Evans. Generally speaking, sounds great. I was doubly excited to learn that Oscar Isaac would be portraying Coppola and that Jake Gyllenhaal, my son and my father, would be portraying Robert Evans. And now I'm amped. I'm jacked. If you heard me talk on the Rewatchables Godfather episode, you know how much I care about the story of the making of this movie. How do you feel about this? I'm psyched. Let's do it. Make a movie about the making of every

great movie and I'll watch it because I'm a movie nerd and I like all of these things. And I also kind of like the fact that this is just kind of, this is for the movie nerds. This is for us. This is for the people who are like invested in, in, in Hollywood history, but in like a pretty letterboxdy way, sort of. And, you know, Hollywood makes tons of self-aggrandizing movies about itself. It can't help itself. But I like that we're making a turn

towards the really, the niche interests. It's just kind of like, this is for the people who care. And I kind of think that's kind of what movies have to do going forward, but certainly movies about the people who care. And I kind of think that's kind of what movies have to do going forward. But certainly movies about the movie industry themselves. Like it's a small band of committed losers who just want to watch behind the scenes stories.

Here we are. Thank you for making content for us. Well, it's narrow casting in the widest possible category, right? Yeah. Classic mob movies. There are many people who think, maybe I'm one of them on the right day, that The Godfather is the greatest film ever made.

So if you have that in your back pocket, why not make a movie about the making of it? Will it ultimately be great? I don't know. I really like Barry Levinson's movies from the 80s. I've been pretty mixed on everything he's done since then. And he's been mostly focusing on HBO dramas of late, working with actors like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in the later stages of their career. This movie does not, I don't think, have a distributor at the moment. It's just been announced as a project that they're going to independently finance and

film. So we'll see what happens. I wonder, it would be kind of, ironic is not the word, but it would be odd if a movie about this story ended up on a streamer because The Godfather is cinema, right? It's movie going. It's mainstream. People lined up around the block

to see the movie event of the year. And you'd have to assume that the streamers are out front in terms of bidding for this one. This movie will end up on a streamer, just so you know. And that's fine. That's great. Because again, at some point, it's 2020. Movie industry is in a time of crisis. To be able to have this movie made and to get to see it, I'll take it on whatever streaming service wants to give it to me. I will too. Speaking of streaming services, an elegant segue to what we're going to be talking about

next week on the show. I've been thinking a lot about the Oscars and award season. And I feel like this show really found its footing by talking about award season. And now I feel like award season doesn't matter at all because people, we don't have the same slate of movies we had last year. The timing is all messed up.

We're not going to get an Oscars until April. Critics critics groups we don't know when that's going to happen the globes have been pushed back most of the studios are pushing their movies out netflix is i feel like is really in control of award season in many ways this year the list right now of films that they have coming out and they just announced the launch date for another film yesterday the five buds is already out that's spike lee's movie the trial of the Chicago 7 we'll be talking about in a couple of weeks on this show and all of the Aaron Sorkinism of that movie. Hillbilly Elegy, which is an adaptation of a very popular book by Ron Howard, Mank, David Fincher's movie that I have been hyping aggressively for nine months for no money, free. Just I've been giving the hype away.

I desperately want to see the movie Mank. George Clooney's The Midnight Sky. And then they announced yesterday Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which is, I believe, Chadwick Boseman's final role of a film starring Viola Davis. A stage adaptation. And that's quite a slate of films. It sort of feels like they're set to dominate your nomad lands notwithstandingstanding. Plus they've got over the moon and animated movie. Dick Johnson is dead, which we're talking about in this episode, Crip Camp. They have a loaded roster because those movies are coming straight to your home. So what I want to do next week is I want, I want, I have

some homework for you. I'm going to share it with you right on, right on this episode. You ready? Okay. Yeah. I love to do homework. I think we both should choose five major rule changes, at least for this Oscars. Things that we want to change to make this Oscars make sense, to make it matter, to have it reflect the moment, but also to just make the show better, to make it feel more vital. Okay. That's what I was going to ask because do you want just rule changes in terms of the awards or can we reimagine the ceremony as well? I want to reimagine everything. And if you want one of those things to be, it doesn't necessarily just have to be eligibility. It could be about what you have to have to be the host of the show. It could be about when the show happens. Just let's think broadly. Let's blow up the whole

ceremony and start over in 2021 and see what we get. You game? Extremely game. Okay. Should we talk about dads? When aren't we talking about dads? Boy, how much dad psychology do you want from me? I'm not a father. I have a father.

Likewise, I'm not a father, but I have a father. You know, I think it'll come out whether we want it to or not. Don't you think even in the choices that we've made, it reflects kind of an understanding. You know, here's one thing that I did mostly unconsciously, which is four out of five of my dad picks, because we're doing top five movie dads. They are, as the kids say, fathers of daughters, but this time for good. Girl dads? No, don't even miss me with that, okay?

Absolutely not. You're a dad. But even there, obviously, I'm responding to the relationship that maybe doesn't mirror my own, but that I, you know, I'm looking to see reflected in some ways. So, yes, we will be talking a lot about our dads. Yeah, I did this in a slightly different way. I chose a kind of descending order of goodness in terms of the fathers I selected from bad dad to great dad. And I think that's a distinction that I want to make about some of my picks, which is these men, these characters in these movies are not the most pure embodiment of decency morality and fatherhood they're great characters who are fathers who i like um that's my personal choice for this list we didn't set any parameters before we started talking about this i just as i was

thinking about the fathers that i like to watch on screen i think it's useful to see the way that sometimes fathers can be vain and callow and obstruct, you know, decency, but also the ways that they can support their children and love their children and help them. So I, cause I think that there's a, you know, there's a complexity in the American male fatherhood machine. It's not just, you know, I hug my child and I love my child. Yeah. I mean, first of all all there's no such thing as a perfect dad all dads or most dads are just trying their best so I think mine are unordered under first the rubric of you know having daughters which is rarer than you would think uh in cinema history and then to like they're trying for the most part. Because as you say, a perfect dad doesn't exist,

but also would be a really boring character. I didn't pick any of like the truly bad dads. I think number one, because we were doing top movie dads and I wasn't going to put like a terrible dad. And also, you know, there are so many bad dads. This movie is about my father issues from a male director is like 40% of cinema history, roughly, like probably 60 to 70 if you're getting expansive. And so I didn't do that as much, partly because those dads usually aren't very good. And number two, the movies usually aren't about the dads themselves. They're about the issues of the director or the person trying to work through, you know, whatever chasm.

And listen, all parental relationships are complicated. All dad relationships are complicated. So it's good to work through it. But I think I focused on the dad himself as a character. I only chose one of my five slots for a father like that. A father who was like a figure of the filmmaker's psychology.

You know, someone who had, you know, the film was made because there seemed to be a sense of frustration about the patriarchal experience in that filmmaker's family. And, you know, I'm projecting who the fuck knows

what these filmmakers, but we'll get to that. Anything else you want to say about movie dads before we start breaking down our list? No, not really. I think, again, I also tried to avoid like the really famous movie dads with one exception. I picked one like very obvious movie dad, but like Darth Vader isn't on my list. Number one one bad dad sorry just really not not investing the way that he's well i guess i don't really remember do you

think he's ultimately a good dad well he strikes down the emperor on behalf of his son right so you know in the end the choices up to that point are really not what you want we could have done like a most improved category that would include like like a lot of dads that did the right thing in the in category is definitely darth vader um but you know because that's just basically like like all classical stories um that that of the Hollywood movies about dads. So I didn't really pick many of those. I tried to do some wild cards, but it's important to honor

the true cinematic dads as well. I was just trying to make an interesting podcast. We've done best dad movies on this show. We did it earlier this year with kevin clark we're doing movie dads now i gotta give some love to the moms at some point when when do we shout out the moms i guess when they i well there will be an opportunity at some point to talk about movie moms but movie moms is like a whole different can of worms in part because of who has gotten to make movies for the last hundred years. So, you know, we can talk about it if you want,

but I think we could also just like let some more female directors make some movies for a while and then talk about them. You know, I don't want to give away too much, but this being the month of Amanda in more ways than one, we're going to be talking about a few women who are also happen to be mothers who make films on this show more than more than one. There's been, there's been some understandable criticism about the male focus of this show. I apologize.

I'm a, I'm a male. I was raised in the nineties idolizing Gen X filmmakers, but we're going to start to rectify that this month. So stay tuned for that. Now let's do our top fives. Top five movie dads. Who's your number five pick, Amanda? This is a little unfair because he should really be honored with his movie mom as well. I think these are the great underrated movie parents, but it's Stanley Tucci as Dil Pendergast in Easy A.

You know, nothing you're saying is making me feel any better. Not to mention how you've been dressing the last few days. No judgment. But you kind of look like a stripper. Mom! A high-end stripper. For governors or athletes. But stripper nonetheless.

Oh my God, I'm just trying to mix it up a little. So Patricia Clarkson plays his wife and the mom to Emma Stone in Easy A. I don't remember her name. But we recently did a rewatchables on Easy A. Juliette, Chase Letman, Chase Serrano, and myself. And spent a lot of time talking about how Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, at least in my opinion, steal the show. They are like the cool parents. And I do mean that in the Mean Girls reference sense,

but they're trying very hard to like, well, not in the Mean Girls sense, because that's a joke. And these are actually supportive parents. But they are the, they're permissive and understanding and progressive and probably only exist in a movie because they're just very calm about a lot of like very ridiculous things that are happening in Easy A. I don't know if you've watched Easy A recently. Tremendous Emma Stone performance and also like how any of this happens. It's don't do this at home is what I would say.

It's just, let's not recreate it. But he is funny and also helps you understand how the Emma Stone character is able to like be okay in what are ridiculous circumstances in which she is pretending to have sex with everyone in her well she's not pretending that she does pretend in one instance but for she is letting kids say or letting boys at school say that they've had sex in order to help their reputations and teach everyone something about the Scarlet Letter. Again, not what you want your teenage daughter to be doing totally, but she's totally fine with it, which makes the movie work. And that's because she has like a happy parental unit who love her and you know she's going to be okay. So you don't have to stress out about it so um credit to stanley tucci i mean

on the name alone dill pendergast that's just that's some screenwriting right there that's some invention i love stanley tucci emma stone's name in that movie is olive and i think they're all named after uh like herbs herbs or trees or something. So, but I can't remember Patricia Clarkson's name. I don't think dill or olives are herbs or trees, are they? Dill is an herb. Just because you don't

eat it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. I hate dill. I know. Worst movie characters named dill, all of them. That's my take on dill. I despise dill. Okay named Dill, all of them. That's my take on Dill. I despise Dill. Okay, I'll do my number five.

Let me get to the point. The three of you and your mother are all I've got, and I love you more than anything. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Chaz, let me finish here. My number five is Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums. And I chose this as a stand-in for that category we were just describing, the kind of the selfish egotist who feels like a

manifestation of a filmmaker's frustrations with their own father. Royal Tenenbaums, of course, Wes Anderson movie, a classic. Where's Royal Tenenbaums on you? Is that one high on your list of Wes Anderson films? It is. Yeah, of course. Yeah, me too. I think it's definitely one of his best. And I think this is a Yeah, me too. I think it's definitely one of his best. And I think this is a hilarious performance by Gene Hackman. It's really one of his last great performances. An actor we talk about all the time on this show,

on the rewatchables. And it's so funny because he's so cluelessly cruel. And even though it's supposed to be a movie about these sort of final stages of someone's life who's trying to reckon with the mistakes that they've made, he's still not a good person. And the movie doesn't make an effort to kind of sugarcoat like what a good man he became at the end of his life. His family does come to love him in some ways, but there is something kind of caustic and acidic about this character that

I find fascinating. I thought it was like a great choice and you can see his various imperfections and flaws manifest in the three children that he has and the like the real genuine crises that they're going through um luke wilson's character gwyneth paltrow's character and ben stiller's character all of whom are very fucked up and feels like a very good showing of what a parent's decisions can do to their children i i wanted to put in kind of as a pair a bonus shout shout out to Jeff Daniels' Bernard Berkman in The Squid and the Whale, which is a very similar character. Wes and Noah are friends and they've been collaborators in the past. And I like the idea of those two guys talking about

their fathers. I don't know if Royal Tenenbaum is based on any father in the Anderson family, but we know Bernard Berkman. There's some resemblances to Noah's family. And I am interested in that character. I view those characters as lessons. I have certainly some selfish, egotistical tendencies myself. And I think about if I were ever going to be a father, if I were ever going to be... I'm an uncle, for example. What I want to be is the cool uncle. I want to be the uncle that just takes care of you, listens to you, gives you good advice, never gives you a hard time, supports you, shoots straight. So these are teaching characters in many ways for me. Royal Tenenbaum. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess they're teaching characters for me too, but especially the squid and the whale character. And we're going to have to have like a sidebar

about divorce dads and how we feel about them in movies because you know obviously that's a topic for both of us and I think we'll really bring be bringing our personal scars to that one but I guess my teaching lesson from all of these is like because you know I will never I would identify as a mom I will not be a dad so um I'm like do I want a man like this in my life or do I not want a man like this in my life and that was a the squid and the whale is a very hard no for me that's a lesson of what yeah don't don't do anything that any of the characters in the squid and the whale do I think that's just a generally a good approach I feel like maybe the Hayley fight fight for character is is a decent person but like everybody else has got a lot of problems.

We're all damaged. If you can have brownstones like that in Brooklyn, if that's available to you, no judgment. But that's really the only other thing I'd take away from it. What's your number four? My number four is one of the classic movie dads. A dad that I've talked about before on this podcast, but it it's the first thing i think of and it's uh martin lawrence as marcus bennett in the bad boys franchise what the fuck are you hi mr bennett i'm reggie what you doing here came to take on megan what i came to take on megan how old are you i'm 15 mr bennett motherfucker you look dirty

this is just important canon like like, movie dad protectiveness. It's, you know, he's clear about expectations. And he is. It's true. And protective. But he also calms the other people down. I'm referencing primarily the famous Reggie scene in Bad Boys 2. But I hope this is not a spoiler at this point. Reggie alsogie scene in Bad Boys 2, but I hope this is not

a spoiler at this point. Reggie also shows up in Bad Boys for Life, and there is a wedding and a lot of happiness. But in Bad Boys 2, if you watch the scene with Martin Lawrence and with Will Smith, it's Will Smith who's taking it too far as a dad. You know what I mean? And Martin Lawrence is being clear about the rules, but also calming Will Smith. It's Will Smith who's taking it too far as a dad. You know what I mean? And Martin Lawrence is being clear about the rules, but also calming Will Smith down. I think he is there for his kids when he needs them

in Bad Boys for Life. And he's there for Will Smith. Also kind of like a little bit of a dad figure until Will Smith becomes a dad of his own. Will Smith is also a great dad in many movies. And I feel like he's not on your list either. Is he? No. Will Smith? Yeah. I mean, I consider The Pursuit of Happiness, but I didn't have time to rewatch it. I think that's a film that I don't love, but I love what he's doing in it. And I think it's like a really cool representation of what fatherhood

can be, even if you're not in the best circumstances. Yes, I agree with all of that. And as listeners know, I love Will Smith, so I wanted to at least include him in some way. So he's in the uncle category in this, which is another, as you said, cool uncles are very important. I want to be a Mike Lowry. Yeah. But at the end of the day, these are two men who are, you know, making sure the young woman in their life knows that she is supported and cared for and should ask for the best. And I think that's great parenting. It's a great pick. Martin Lawrence

rules that the bad boys movies are great. I can't believe that the bad boys movie is the top 10 movie of 2020. It's unbelievable. Here we are. Witch content thriving in 2020. Yeah. Remember the witch? Okay. I also remember that Will Smith had a son with the witch. Oh my God, I forgot about, there's a whole other parental twist in Bad Boys for Life.

See, wow, that's really deep. Witch daddy. Yeah, oh my God. What amazing stuff. My number four is a movie dad classic. I'm going with Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon's franchise. Okay, shut off the video games.

Come on, Russ. Shut off. I know you'll enjoy this. I've worked out the whole trip on the computer so we get the maximum amount of fun time at Wally World without missing any of the good stuff along the way we watched all the national lampoon's vacation movies over the course of the last week just because i just needed to calm down things suck those

those movies calm me down quite a bit and i had a blast watching them i would not say that clark griswold is a good father i would would say in two of the four films that he stars in, he commits serious crimes, including kidnapping and attempted murder, which is not what you want from a dad. But he's also, he has a very hopeful ideal for what families can accomplish together, which I really like. And he's trying, you know, he's trying and he's kind of failing. And, you know, he is lusting after christy brinkley which is not what you want from a good dad either but he's he's he has flaws but his flaws are very naked flaws and so as we descend down in the orders of goodness he's he's next on

the list and um i don't know in terms of the vacation movies i don't know how familiar you are with those but do you have like a preference as to which one you like the most? Christmas Vacation was on play the most often in our home just because Christmas was like a big part of our home experience. And so, you know, but I forgot all of the crimes that he commits. I just think of him like pulling the attic door down and the ladder slamming directly in his face, which is, I think, also where I learned that those attic doors exist. And so it's been one of my great fears that that would happen to me. He's really kind of like that when we talk about dad movies, he's like one vein of the dad that I'm imagining when you talk about dad movies. So I don't know how much like World War II history

Clark Griswold reads, but you know, I could be wrong. But he is sort of the bumbling like classic movie dad that all the other dads are playing off. Yeah, I always liked his job in those movies. He worked at a food additive company. And so he was sort of like a low-level executive at a company that creates flavorings for artificial foods,

which is the most like your friend's dad's job of all time. Like my dad didn't do that, but I feel like I know someone whose dad did that job. You know, it's sort of nondescript. You know, it's a job someone in the world has.

To their credit, they kept up that gig in all four of the movies that they starred in. I like the vacation movies. I'm pro-Clark Griswold despite all the kidnappings. I can't co-sign the kidnappings. What's your number three? My number three is a recent throwback. It's Andrew Dysleck and A Star is Born.

But this is so good. This is like peak supportive, single dad, just like doing his best so that his daughter can become like a major singing star. And then when things go wrong, he's still there with her. He's just,

he is there for her. And, but specifically, I really want to i highlight this scene um it's after the first time she joins bradley cooper on stage to sing um shallows wow i can't believe like i almost forgot the name of shallows but now the sense memory is coming back to me and you remember he discovers the clip on youtube and then he's like learning how youtube works and he's like explaining with his buddies yes and then he's like learning how YouTube works and he's like explaining with his buddies. Yes. And then he's like, that means this many people. That's the

most classic dad shit of all time. That is like in two minutes is everything that you need to know about a proud dad. Also, I just thought it would be hilarious to have Andrew Dice Clay on a list of top of best dads. So there we go. My dad, my version of that is my dad calling me anytime Bill Simmons appears in the media. And just like if there's any Bill Simmons news at all, he's like, I see Bill. I see there's something going on with Bill. What's happening there? Fill me in. He doesn't, I don't think he actually reads the stories. I think he's just like, just noticed Bill has been present in the world. That's my version of look at the YouTube count. Shout out to my dad.

My dad has definitely started listening to our podcasts over the last couple of years, which, you know, we've been doing this stuff, even if we haven't been on mic necessarily for a long time. And I don't know what happened. Maybe it was COVID. Maybe it was something else. But he was just like, heard you and Amanda. You guys mentioned Transformers.

I was like it may have come up that may have come up on a podcast um i'm not sure how engaged he is with the content but i appreciate him just engaging at all hi hi dad uh if you have made it this far into this episode past the borat conversation um okay my number three we're getting the dads are getting better on my list this is one of the better dads. Not a great dad, but a better dad. It's Marlon. All right, where's the break?

You feel a break? Sometimes you can't tell because fluid is rushing into the area. Now, any rushing fluids? Are you woozy? How many stripes do I have? I'm fine. Answer the stripe question. Three.

No. See, something's wrong with you. I have one, two, three. That's all I have. Played by Albert Brooks in the movie Finding Nemo, which is a beautiful film. It is a beautiful film. A Pixar film that I think even someone like you who doesn't always love animated movies can co-sign.

But I love the ocean. Yeah, that's right. You do love the ocean. And fish can't talk in real life that I'm aware of. So this is about imagination and possibility. My oldest nephews, who are wonderful, my wife's sister's kids, were obsessed with Nemo when it came out. And so I was still living in New York at this time, and we were spending a lot of time with them. And I probably watched Finding Nemo with them 25 times.

I mean, it was the only thing that they wanted to watch. And even though I generally love these movies, I think the only thing that they wanted to watch. And even though I generally love these movies, I think I have a specific emotional bond to this. And Marlon is, you know, he's a dad in peril. He's a dad looking for his lost son and he has lost a partner. And in many ways, like that story is very tragic and kind of sophisticated. And in the same way that I think it's kind of the Bambi of our time in that Bambi like kind of terrorized children. You know that the scene where Bambi's mother is killed

is so traumatic. Yeah. And Nemo has a very similar opening 10 minutes. And then the whole story of separation between father and child is really intense. Beautiful movie. You know, it's fun and it's funny and you know all the dory stuff is funny but like to me mostly it's it's a story

about a father and a son so i'm going with marlin from finding emo it's a good pick where are you going number two my number two well i don't think that you can call him a good dad though in terms of dad moments in movies this is really up there for me. It's Brian Cox in The 25th Hour. On the way to Chicago for a cup skating. You always told me you wanted to see me. I'm saying, if you want it, if that's what you want, I'll do it. And I put this on the list because I think my thought process was I was thinking a little bit of like, you know, what are the good moms and what are the moms that I would put on the list?

And I was thinking a lot about Lady Bird, which I think a fantastic movie about mother daughter relationships. And I was thinking about Chris Ryan and how moved he was by Lady Bird and the last scene of Lady Bird, which he was like, it's just like the, it's the 25th hour moment. And then, but there, the final monologue, I'm sorry if I'm spoiling 25th hour for you. If I am, please go see it, 25th hour. It is a father who has not been able to be a good father or protect his son or has not gotten the outcomes that he wants for his own life and for his son,

I'm imagining a happier life for his son and, and imagining I'm like, wow, I'm almost going to cry talking about it, but it's, it's so powerful. And, and I think is a great evocation of that,

of being a father and being a parent and not being able to control everything you want for your kid and not being able to give everything you want to your kid, which I'm not a parent, but I think every parent experiences in some way. And it's really beautiful. It's a great pick. This is definitely one of my favorite movies ever, really. I think I've talked about it in the past. The James Brogan character is just a very familiar character. I think he's a firefighter and he owns a bar. And the kind of company that he keeps and the world that he has built for himself in this bar is just very familiar to the way that I grew up, the kind of people that I

was surrounded by. And I did not take the Monty Brogan track in my life. I feel grateful that I did not become a low-level drug lord working for the Russian mafia in New York. Although, sliding doors, who knows? You know, could you imagine me in that role? I guess so. I mean, I would like to see it.

That would be funny. It wouldn't, actually. It wouldn't be funny. But the mental image is amusing for a moment. I would not like to see it because I do not want to go to prison. But yeah, it's a great pick. And this is,

that's a great part. And it's, you know, Brian Cox, who was a very seasoned and celebrated actor, but he was not yet succession, Brian Cox, you know,

center of the TV universe. Like he is now. If you haven't seen 25th hour, what are you doing? Fix that. My number two is a divorced dad. I'm talking about Ted Kramer. Okay, now watch this.

One-handed. Here we go. Did you know that all the best chefs are men? I bet you didn't know that, did you? Isn't this terrific? This is terrific. We got to do this more often. You got some shell in there.

That's all right. Makes it crunchier that way. You like your French toast crunchy, don't you? Played by Dustin Hoffman. this is terrific we gotta do this more often you got some shell in there oh that's alright makes it crunchier though you like your french toast crunchy don't you played by Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer

we still haven't done the Kramer vs. Kramer rewatchable sad you hate to hear it this is a really really interesting movie I think that this movie

has aged surprisingly well I think it has some flaws. I think that there, there is some fascinating things to dissect about the portrayal of the Meryl Streep character in this movie. Yeah. The thing, and it certainly is clearly written by a man and directed by a man.

And it's a very sympathetic to Ted Kramer, who is a father who, whose wife decides to leave him and leave him with his son to raise him by himself. But it's amazingly sympathetic portrayal of the difficulty of raising a child on your own. And perhaps I have more sympathy because I'm a man and I can try to imagine myself being thrust into a circumstance like that. But I think the movie is very honest about how parents just don't have the answers. And when you're growing up, you resent your parents and you're mad at your parents all the time, but they have a sense of wisdom, authority, eight, nine, 10, and you're like, oh, they definitely didn't know anything because I don't know anything. Like, I don't know how to do anything.

I don't understand how taxes work. How do I buy a home? You know, like, how do I call my accountant? Do I have a lawyer? How do I pick someone up from daycare? How do I go food shopping? How do I manage my budget? Like these things that you presume

there's going to be some sort of guidebook. And then you think about characters like the Ted Kramer character trying to manage his life and protect the life of his child. It's just a fascinating movie. And it's weird that it still seems like kind of a radical movie, but it does seem kind of radical. It's like a pure emotion movie. Yeah, I think it's maybe the premise or like the assumptions of the roles haven't aged as well as we might like, but the actual exploration between the father and the roles haven't aged as well as we might like but

the actual exploration between the father and the son is still like very powerful and the the as you point out like the the day-to-day work of being a parent and like being a human being responsible for another human being um is like is portrayed very well and know, I think that it's just like about a man learning of all those things for the first time is, um, definitely of its time and like also maybe would not be as outdated now as it possibly should be though. I don't know. There are a lot of, there are a lot of great dads out there right now. So yeah, it's an interesting artifact and that's both very of the 70s and and still relevant in a lot of ways right now. Yeah, I'm a fan. Let's go to your number one.

So, Dad, stop it. Say something. I'm sorry. What did you say? Dad, I met a man in Rome and he he's wonderful and brilliant, and we're getting married. My number one is Steve Martin as George Banks in The Father with the Bride, which it was always going to be. I have a vivid memory of watching this movie with my father on VHS when I was like, I must have been eight years old, eight or nine. And this was the moment of being like, oh, I have a dad. And that dad is kind of like my dad. And our relationship is like a little bit

like this. And then one day he's not going to be my dad in the same way anymore. And I'm going to like feel sad about that. And oh, God, I'm going to start crying again. This is it. It's like I said, I just haven't seen my dad in a while. I love him very much. I think that this is, this is a movie that is about the experience of being a dad very specifically. Like that is the theme of it. It's obviously, it's a remake and it's obviously about like a wedding and how weddings are

wildly expensive and get out of control. But it's about a dad learning to let go or learning what his parenting has meant and what it will mean going forward once his daughter gets married. It's also a movie about a person who expresses love by being as stressed out and neurotic and control freaky as possible. And I super relate to that. That's definitely how I experienced love from my own father and definitely how I learned to express love to other people.

And I just think it is a very, very like 90s sentimental, like tugging at your heartstrings, trying to manipulate you every step of the way movie. And it works on me every single time when she calls him from the airport. God, just also when the montage, like this montage, like a very, very stock 90s montage of a little girl growing up and learning to play basketball. I was just weeping. Like, what's wrong with me? I don't know. It's just, it works. So shout out to George Banks for raising a cool daughter who wants to have her own job and life and still loves him very much. It's important to feel things. No shame about crying during the montage.

I always think of this movie as the founder of Nike's daughter gets married. You know, like George Banks is like a shoe company magnet or does he sell the company of Nike's daughter gets married. You know, like George Banks is like a shoe company magnet or does he sell the company to Nike or something in the second movie? I feel like there's some sort of thing there. I don't, I can't remember in the second movie, but in the first, the fiance shows up wearing Nikes and he gets really mad.

He's like, he's wearing Nikes. How dare he come into the house? Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. This comes right at the start basically of a new steve martin era the like steve martin dad era so you got planes trains and automobiles you get parenthood which i also really like you get this movie you get grand canyon you get a bunch of movies where steve martin i for like a four-year stretch was kind of America's dad. I mean, he was the sort of the foremost dad movie star. And someone, I don't know, who took over that gig?

Tom Hanks at some point, maybe? Yeah, I think so. Although, you know, I considered Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle for this list. And I think he is like a, he's just another dad trying to make it work, you know, and also find, and find love. But that would have been

around the same time. So I think maybe this is when like the 90s dad renaissance starts. Okay. So my number one. I'm going with, with Furious Styles

from Boys in the Hood. This is a very good one. You know what that is? Bill Boy. What are y'all, with Furious Styles from Boys in the Hood. This is a very good one. You know what that is? It's a billboard. What are y'all, Amos and Andy? Are you stepping and he's fetching? I'm talking about the message, what it stands for.

It's called gentrification. It's what happens when the property value of a certain area is brought down. Huh? You listening? Yeah. They bring the property value down. They can is brought down. Huh? You listening? Yeah. They bring the property value down. They can buy the land at a lower price. Then they move all the people out, raise the property value, and sell it at a profit.

And what we need to do is we need to keep everything in our neighborhood, everything, black. This is Lawrence Fishburne's character, obviously father to Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character. I will say that, that obviously this movie is immensely important and still incredibly well made we just lost john singleton not too long ago um his debut feature i think he made it i mean he was in his 20s when he made this movie it's so sophisticated um this character in particular is so influential on me and i did not have a dad like this. I did not have a dad who was so philosophical and so clear-eyed about how the world works and wanted to convey that. I think a lot of fathers try to protect their children from what's bad about the world or what's difficult to understand. And Fishburne's character in this movie,

he's not a preacher, and he's not like a philosopher, and he's not even really like a firebrand politician, but he's kind of all of those things kind of mixed up into one, in addition to being like a real vessel for love for his son, for trying to give his son a better life than he had and make him understand the difficulties that he's probably going to face in his life and just an extraordinary performance by fishburne like a truly amazing one of the great acting performances in the 90s and um you know a movie that like its ideas and you can you can listen to his character talk in this movie its ideas are they are everything that we're talking about in 2020 the movie itself is as resonant as it was ever going to be. The ideas about race, about violence,

about gentrification, all the things that Boys in the Hood is attempting to talk through and mostly see through the eyes of young people. You know, Stiles is this, he's like the sage. He's the person who lived through the radical 60s and 70s and is taking that wisdom

and trying to modernize it for his for his son and his son's friends so truly amazing movie amazing dad he's the he's the the ultimate dad in many ways um what else anybody else that we we failed to address here that you want to hit on you've got a whole list of runners up here that you can share if you want i have a couple more i you know i think uh bruce willis and armageddon i think you just got to give him an honorable mention there um because yeah he makes the ultimate sacrifice um that can i can i can i quibble with that quickly sure so he he does bring his daughter's beloved into space with him to destroy a meteor.

So, you know, not totally looking out for his best girl there. Not totally looking out for his daughter. Sure, but you have to know that he has a plan. And at the end of the day, he's like the ultimate dad because he's like, listen, I have this under control and I will do what it takes to make things okay for my daughter and her really handsome boyfriend named by played by Ben Affleck. You know, also, I mean, he's like not following all the dad rules. She also like grows up on an oil rig. So I don't know.

But she seems she seems fine. And I just again, great sacrifices by dads in movies. Congratulations to Bruce Willis. um and i just again great sacrifices by dads in movies congratulations to bruce willis um there's also i also had on my honorable mentions that we should talk about it um the obvious one would be robin williams and mrs doubtfire yeah i feel like a lot of people are going to be pretty angry at us that we didn't put robin williams as mrs doubtfire in this movie yeah i i have a take on this yeah do you like Mrs. Doubtfire I haven't seen it in a long time though I

remember liking it at the time I really like it you know it's it's the kind of movie that was on all the time when we were growing up and so it was easy to have access to it all the time I couldn't credibly put him on

our list because what he did is deranged. What he did is like literally he's unwell. I completely agree with you. I have this under like when I said, let's talk about divorced dads. I want to talk about this. This is just like not respecting also that like the boundaries or the well-being of your children during a divorce, which is a difficult time. And he wants to see his kids. And I think custody battles are very difficult for everybody. And it's good to want to see your children, but this is asking a lot of them. And kids, what you need to do in a divorce from a child of divorce is ask less of your children. Help them be okay with it. That's how you can be a good parent. One thing I was always struck by in this movie, too, is just how completely decent Pierce

Brosnan seems. He's just so not evil. He's not the stepdad monster that we see in so many of these movies. He's just really handsome. It's totally credible that Sally Field would be like, I want to have sex with Pierce Brosnan. Like, all that just makes sense. You know, Robin Williams got to take it down a notch. Sure. I mean, I agree. I agree that Robin Williams needs to. To the extent that that is told from the kid's point of view, I really like it.

Because if you're like eight and you're going through, your parents are getting divorced, and then like James Bond shows up and is just like, now I'm going to have sex with your mom for a while. You should just be like, could I just like, please go to the playground with my dad and not this weirdo. I understand that. Yeah. It's a, it's a good call. If people are upset about not having a Daniel Hillard, AKA Mrs. Doubtfire on the list, I'm sorry, but that man needs, he needs psychiatric help to undo the choices he makes in order to be closer to his children. Uh, speaking of psychiatric help, we could have talked about Jack Torrance from The Shining.

Certainly one of the most destructive fathers in the history of movies. Yes. You did mention Darth Vader. I think the one that I feel a little bit wistful about not including is Martin Brody from Jaws. Thought you were going to. I know. Well, maybe he's number six. Love Roy

Scheider. Obviously, we love Jaws on the show. And he does, I think, he's emblematic of a lot of the things that we're talking about in terms of, you know, he has some flaws. He actually goes out on that boat and risks his life to kill that shark, potentially leaving his family fatherless. You know, he moves his family to this shark infested haven in the first place. I don't know. That seems not ideal. I know he had good intentions there, but that wasn't great. Yeah.

But ultimately, he's like, he's trying to protect his family. So I'm pro Martin Brody. Yeah, I think that's a good one. I remembered one more that I was going to put in, which is Brad Pitt and Moneyball. Great example of how to be a supportive dad during a divorce, which is that you're polite to the new ex played by Spike Jones. And you ask the right questions about when a child should get a cell phone. And you're very moved by your child's random acoustic guitar performance in a, at a guitar store to the point that it needs to

be like the closing scene of your movie. That's, that's a dad who's engaged and, and has his priorities in the right order. I love it. It's a great place to end this conversation with Spike Jones, asking Brad Pitt, how the team's looking this year. Funniest thing I've ever seen. Amanda, thank you. Let's, let's. Let's talk more about Dads and Parenthood with Kirsten Johnson, the director of Dick Johnson is Dead. I'm delighted to be joined by Kirsten Johnson today, mostly because she's made what is definitely one of the most fascinating and beautiful films of the year, Dick Johnson is Dead. Kirsten, thanks for being here. Oh, that's such a nice thing to say. Thank you, Sean.

Kirsten, you know, I just want to know right at the top what precipitated making a film about your father when you realized this was something that you wanted to do and whether it came before or after camera person sort of hit the world. It came after camera person And camera person taught me in a strange way that I could bring my mother back to life. And so when I started to feel, and I would say like feel it in my body in some kind of way, I was not aware yet when I came up with the idea for Dick Johnson is dead, that my father had dementia. But I think I felt it in some unconscious way, because I'd been down that route before with my mom. I just suddenly was like, maybe cinema can help me. And I need it right now. And I certainly made Camera Person out of need. And I made this film out of need,

too, in a whole different way. Camera Person is this amazing archival journey through work that you had done and that you had compiled over time. And, you know, this is something where you'd maybe it seems like you didn't have much of your parents on camera over the years. And so instead, you needed to kind of start from scratch. Is that right? That is exactly right. And so what did you do? How did you go about devising how you wanted to make a movie like this?

I love the word devise. That's such a great question. I camera person was such an experiment, such an experimental process. And also this psychological process of digging deeper and deeper into unexplored territory for myself and the team I had around me was really interested in both of those processes so that the production team at Big Mouth Productions, the editor Nels Bengerter, we all got really into the unearthing process together. And so we actually did devise a process for Dick Johnson is dead. And, and the idea was, can we attempt to pair up the known and the unknown, the expected and the unexpected, the fiction and the nonfiction,

because that sort of edge between life and death, I think we'd all like to imagine it as completely binary, but in fact we all learn, you know, that in some ways it's a there's a bleeding edge there. And certainly if you have any experience with dementia, the edge between life and death in some strange way gets stretched out and can last a decade or more. So here's what I know from documentary. You can count on an unexpected thing happening. And when that thing happens, you're and you're sort of blindsided by it.

Those are usually the moments that you want to share with an audience because the audience also will be blindsided by it. For me, that has something in common with death. Death blindsides us all. Even if someone has cancer or dementia, we know it's coming. We don't really know when or how. So what I thought was maybe what we can do

is count on the unexpected in documentary, film going forward until unexpected things happen, and then sort of retroactively see how we can build a fictional death right up next to the unexpected and very real documentary moment so hence sort of blurring that line that we think we can know so easily in cinema does that make sense it does at the risk of some cheap pop psychology, was there like a desire to kind of control the concept of death with the film? You know, I actually have no desire to control anything. I have no capacity controlling.

But what I wanted to do, you know, one of the things, I think anyone who's experienced the death of a loved one knows, like, you just desperately want them back in many moments. But certainly one of the moments that I desperately wanted my mother back was after her funeral. Like, we nailed her funeral. We totally did it the way she would have wanted it. And it was hard to do it the way she wanted. And then I just remember being there and being like, oh, my God, we did all this her way and she didn't get to wanted it. And it was hard to do it the way she wanted. And then I just remember being there and being like, oh my God, we did all this her way and she didn't get to see it. So that thought that I could do my father's funeral and hug him afterwards, that was the experience I was interested in, not the control I was interested in, the experience of getting the thing back that you desperately don't want to lose.

When the film starts, it seems like your dad is fully on board with the concept of this movie. But we don't see the first conversations of you exploring and explaining what you want to do. I'm so interested in what that was like for you, what his reaction was. How did you make him participate in this? There was no making him participate in it. I mean, my dad's first response to the idea was like, dad, I just thought of this idea where we could kill you in a movie and you stump people. And he laughed. That was his first response. And the thing about my dad, my entire life is he has been a game for whatever I was doing with my own life and interested in it and supportive of me. And he's all things like he likes to spend time with me.

So he's like, let's do it. And he has a sense of humor. So, you know, all of those things were true. And then also very quickly, it became clear to me that the dementia had already taken a grip on him. And then comes these really profound questions of, you know, like, is it okay for me to make this movie with him? And so that the ethical questions that are at the core of camera person, can you ever truly have someone's permission? Can you be ethical, stay ethical? You know, these questions were like, well, here it is again.

Here it is again. And the great news is that, you know, my dad loves this film. He just watched it again yesterday. He's watched it hundreds of times. He laughs at it all the time. And he is engaged in the ongoing collaboration of this project with me. I was actually wondering specifically about that part of it. Did you guys discuss the kind of the ethical complexity of doing that and even even forcing him in some ways I think to cope with the idea of his own dementia which we see in the movie and you know you can see your father

such as such a warm demeanor but it's not always clear like how he's coping with that specific issue yeah yeah I mean I I only know directly the experience of my mother's Alzheimer's and my father's dementia my mother was unable during the seven-year period of her Alzheimer's to ever recognize that she had dementia. My father has been able to claim it throughout the entire process. I think partially because he's a psychiatrist, partially because I think this is his sort of primary attitude towards life, like it is what it is. And the more that we accept it and engage in it without shame, then we're sort of better off, right? So I would say that there were moments when I would, you know, sort of walk around and I deal with him for hours and hours, repeating and repeating myself.

And there would be contradictory answers. So, yes, I do want to do that. Oh, that's hilarious. No, I don't want to do that. that we would walk round and round it. And anyone who spent time with anyone with dementia knows you can address anything multiple times, like thousands of times. And so that you do start to get like a fairly consistent, like attitude towards something.

But I think that the thing that I that was very clear was his um emotional relationship to things and the base emotional relationship is he trusts me and so then the questions were within myself is this okay do I merit his trust in this moment? And I am open to some of the contradictions of relying upon this trust. And also I have to say, the painful thing is just walking with my dad down the street, if I'm not actually holding his arm, like, so for example, I remember a very specific incident where we went into the garage to pick up the car. I'm with the two kids, with my dad on the way to school.

And for no discernible reason, my father literally ran in front of our car as it was being backed up by the driver know driver in the garage and almost got run over and in that moment I realized like neither the film nor I can necessarily save him from getting himself killed in this current state of dementia. And that was a moment for me where my lack of control in this situation, like I could hold onto him at every moment and let go of him for a moment that feels like it's safe and it could be not safe. So there's something really akin to that territory one is in as a parent of a very young child where you realize, whew, you know, in principle, we're fine walking down the sidewalk here,

but this two-year-old could dart out into traffic for no explicable reason, right? And that you aren't actually in control of your responsibility of keeping this person safe. But I will say I did own my responsibility. I am the lucid adult in this situation and I hold the responsibility, even though I would say this film has always been a collaboration with him. Yeah. I mean, you show us that right away, that sort of vulnerability that he has just in that barn sequence right at the very beginning of the movie show there's like a there's a frailty there's an unpredictability to what's going to happen with him and even playing with his grandchildren is potentially dangerous and but also he his spirit is so strong you know it's amazing how he projects um i wanted to ask

you about your relationship to this and and if you had to negotiate with yourself about making this also your work and not just the thing that you had to do privately but spending years kind of sitting in all of this and whether there were times maybe where you've regretted it or felt like it was something that was going to be too hard to do you know the only thing that I felt regret about was that feeling we all have of like, it's too late. I've done, it's all too late. You know, I started this project too late. I had a very much a sensation while I was making the film of like, I've failed and I, I am unable to capture the essence of my father because it's already gone, you know, and then late in the process, you know, we did a

screen in the film and I was like, Oh, we got him. His essence is actually there. So that was an incredible joy that moment, because that's what I hoped for the film sort of desperately hoped from the film that I could hold on to his essence. But in terms of me and, you know, putting myself in it, there was like early on, I was sort of like the way in which I was unselfconscious in camera person. Like I'd shot that footage, never thinking that footage would appear to include me in a movie, right? So I was filming, but I wasn't worried about how I was behaving, what I was doing. So that, you know, with this film, there was a new level of self-consciousness of like, oh, how am I shooting this? But of course,

in the moments that were the profound moments, you know, when my dad says to me, I'm your little brother now, it was the first time he'd said it to me. I was completely devastated. I couldn't keep focus. I was crying, you know, and that kind of moment in some ways is a camera person moment where I've lost any sense of anyone else is ever going to see this footage. It's, I am in this experience with my dad, even though I am holding the camera. It seems like you also use the film as an opportunity to kind of experiment as a filmmaker. You know, you you're doing these stunts, you have these kinds of set pieces dotted throughout the movie. Was that always a part of the original

design? I mean, it seems genuinely like you're having fun building worlds that your dad occupies. We genuinely had fun and it was genuinely our objective. I was like, if it kills me, I'm going to make a film that's funny about dementia. So that was completely the objective and the wish. And yet what was exciting about the film was we didn't know how that was going to manifest. And, you know, I think we're in an extraordinary time right now in terms of documentaries that are being made and fiction films. Like, you know, I'm using quotes here. I think we all need new language on so many levels for what we're up to.

And we also, it's not that we just need new language we need to invent new ways of being together so that all of the things that that are a part of cinematic history um that have to do with its emergence from the military the hierarchies that are in it the way it's connected with war and that we shoot people and capture people, the, you know, racism that has been built into moviemaking, all of these things, like, we need to pull some of them apart and rebuild new forms. And what I feel is really interesting is, you know, the ways in which certain roles in filmmaking teams are devalued and others are overvalued. Those often correspond with gender, not necessarily. I'm really interested by how we treat each other on sets. I'm really interested in what we pretend is happening or pretend to know in movies. And, you know, I often think about

why do people value fiction films over documentary films, both financially, why do we spend more money on them, but also why do we treasure fiction films differently from documentary films? And one of my wonders, and I don't know about this, but I think there's something really deeply emotionally challenging to watch a film about powerful subject matter and not to be able to say to yourself, that's not real. There's not real people out there who are continuing, they are continuing to live with this terrible dilemma. With a fiction film, you were like,

that's extraordinary acting, but it is more emotionally safe. Even the films that are about the most wrenching subjects, you know, Anthony Hopkins has done an extraordinary performance as a man with dementia, but Anthony Hopkins is okay. So that even though that film makes you cry and you see things you could never see in a documentary, it's an extraordinary performance, you leave there saying Anthony Hopkins is

okay. You cannot leave my movie saying my dad is okay. It's amazing. I mean, I saw that film, the father back to back at Sundance with your film. So I mean, it's bizarre to have a kind of a double feature like that,

but you know, and with no disrespect to that film, which I think is beautiful in many ways, it was less effective than, than the story that you're telling. So I hear exactly what you're saying. Well, and I think we need to, we often need to protect ourselves from that. And I have to say, in my lifetime,

I've been really open to lots of difficult subject matter throughout my filming career. But I would say the pandemic in some ways has taught me a little bit more about why people need distance and emotional protection and need to compartmentalize things. You know, what is being asked of us as humans in this moment is so mind boggling and it's a little much. I think we're all above our emotional threshold. And I would say like, even me, and I can take a lot. And so for the first time in my life, I see myself being like, okay, I'm not going to engage with that right now, or can't talk to that

person right now because we're over the limit. And so that's really interesting to me. I feel like I've learned new things about myself and other people throughout this pandemic in terms of detachment. So I think there's something that fiction films do that's engaged with some form of emotional protection. Yeah. Related to that, I talked to so many filmmakers on this show, and frequently when there's a film that isn you know, isn't a mainstream blockbuster, but is something a little bit smaller, more sensitive, more thoughtful about something along those lines, there's a reluctance, I think, to dive too closely into the personal aspects of those stories, at least, you know, in a media setting, right? You don't necessarily want to

connect the dots directly and say, this film is about my father and what my father experienced and so because of that there's this like distancing effect that i think even viewers or people who consume stuff about the film have but with your film and i was thinking about this specifically with even dealing with the crew on a day-to-day basis knowing that this is real and that you are running the film and that your father is the star of the film, how everyone interacted with you on a day-to-day basis, knowing that there's this increased level of sensitivity going on? Yeah. Well, I, you know, I think first of Judy Karp, who's the same person who has worked with me on dozens of projects, who knows and loves my father, and who, you know, her engagement and sort of fascination with the way dementia functions throughout this project

led her to help me stay in moments, show contradictions, wonder about things. We spent lots of time processing this film together, probably more doing that than actually filming. And I think one of the things that camera person, I mean, camera person gave me so much. It freed me in so many ways, but certainly one, it made me want to push the form. And that's just how this be about moviemaking, but be about life and time and consciousness. And, you know, like we, for real, like, not just like I'm doing, I'm making this object that sits over there, but like, this is it. How can I, can I keep my father alive? Can this film keep my father alive?

And so that, you know, the slow motion in the set pieces, for example, emerged from the realization that my father's, the time span in which my father could remain lucid was shortening into matters of seconds. So then if we can, if slow motion in film can turn four seconds of time into five and a half minutes, then his smile can last forever. You know, so, so those kinds of things thinking of, you know, because I do think of cinema as so parallel to, or maybe like a metaphor for consciousness itself right consciousness we construct out of sensation and perception and nobody really knows how it actually works and cinema is a lot like that right we sort of constructed this um this thing that seems to be alive to me because it it's alive for you now we have a conversation the film creates a relationship between us um the film maybe hopefully will be alive after i die after my father dies right like what's happening there uh it's really profound and interesting to me, I think anybody also who has lost a parent or is losing a parent or is trying to understand dementia,

I mean, there's just an enormous, a wide tunnel of empathy for the movie that is just so powerful. I was wondering if having done this now, you want to keep tunneling into your own life in your work, or if you're looking to kind of pivot in any way, like what do you want to do next as a filmmaker? I'm laughing.

I'm laughing. Cause guess who's calling? Who's calling? Dad. Dad. I wish I could. I wish I could. You want to take it?

You should take the call. I know. Oh shoot. I just hung up on him. I could call him back. I totally could take the call. Do you want me to take the call? Do you want to pipe him in? We can all talk. Yeah. All right. Let me call him. That's so funny.

He's got good radar, boy. He knows what's going on. His ears were burning. Hey, okay. Hey, Dad. So there's a guy named Sean who runs a wonderful podcast about documentaries. He's a journalist, and he's on the line listening to us right now. Oh, good. Yeah. Can you hear him, Sean? Yes, I can. How are you? Well, I'm very happy to be talking to my daughter.

I'm just happy to hear your voice. I'm glad to hear that you're doing well. You're a movie star now. How do you feel? You feel fine as a movie star, dad? That's good enough for me. I'd rather like it is what he just said. Congratulations. How do you feel about the fact that we had to kill you a bunch of times

for you to become a movie star? Well, it's a worthy death. I go to another in order to be a movie star. Right on. So, Dad, do you want to stay on the phone and just listen to us and you can pipe in at any time if you want to?

Yeah, that'd be good. Okay, so you can hear me like doing you know this gives you this gives you what you love getting to hear me talk too much i will not say much but i'll listen okay you listen and if i have a question for you i'll ask and so will sean okay sweetie okay sean hit us speaking of i was i love the moment in the film when your dad reflects on the fact that you became a documentarian and did not make fiction films. It almost seems like he's talking about a major theme of your life and work in the movie. Is that something that you guys discussed

over the years as you were working as a cinematographer and a documentarian about the concept of how to make money in this work? What do you think, Dad? Were you worried about whether I would make enough money being a documentarian? Exactly right. Right on. Yeah. I mean, you know, the fact is,

when I first started college, I thought I might want to be a psychiatrist, but I couldn't handle biology class at all. So I knew that I didn't have a shot at medical school. But, you know, I mean, I think any parent worries about their kid's capacity to take care of themselves in life. And certainly, you know, my dad's always wondered and worried whether I was going to get what I needed out of my life. You know, one of my favorite moments of my mom's dementia was I was filming in Sudan and she was pretty far gone into her Alzheimer's. And I was telling her about what we've been experiencing and how we'd filmed with some rebel soldiers and that we were in the desert and we'd see camels. And she was like, okay, yeah,

but here's what really matters. Are you getting what you need? Are they getting ice cream to you there? Right. So dad, you thought you were the only one obsessed with ice cream, but in fact, mom too, in her dementia was completely ice cream obsessed. That's right. You like it, right? So, I mean, I think that's what my parents, you know, concerns that my parents expressed for me were around hoping and wishing I could do and be who I wanted to be. So, you know, over time, I think they certainly worried about me in all kinds of different ways, but were aware that I was, you know, really into what I was doing.

I'm curious for both of you about this, but, you know, this film is going to Netflix, which means, you know, you've worked on lots of documentaries and films over the years, Kirsten, but this is going to reach more people probably than anything that you've ever done. And millions of people will instantaneously have access to this very personal story. How are you guys feeling about so many people seeing what you've made? I'm good with it. And you're good with, you know, that there are 200 million subscribers to Netflix all over the world. So who knows if all of them will watch this movie, but a bunch of them might.

That's amazing. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I mean, I think both of us feel like our relationship is one of the most important things in our lives. But we also feel like it's modest and small, like who we are in the world. And, you know, dad was always saying, like, why are what my dad's taught me about how to face the complexity of life and to engage with, you know, sort of our most challenging dilemmas as people with other people. Dad, what do you say about therapy? What is it that heals in therapy? I think you've done a wonderful job of becoming an

independent and self actualized person. I think therapy for a lot of people is very helpful. It's not necessary for everyone, but for some people it's very helpful.

Yeah, and the line that you've often said to me, Dad, some people it's very helpful. Yeah. And the line that you've often said to me, dad, is that it's the relationship that heals. That's exactly right. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I think in this situation, we know, dad and I know we want to continue our relationship, uh, into this unknown territory that dementia and aging is taking dad into but it's certainly also taking me into so we're trying to stay

together like keep our relationship going into this unknown territory yeah that's true that's very true I'm very pleased to hear you say that, because I certainly feel that. Yeah, we're sticking with each other all the way. I want to let you guys have more time together, so I'll just let you go on this. Kirsten, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen. And Dick, you're welcome to, Mr mr johnson you're welcome to answer this as well if you have seen anything that you like but if there's

anything that you guys have seen lately i'd love to hear about what you've been watching dad what have you been watching lately i know you watched a football game the other day and we're pretty happy about it we may have lost him are you there still i think we lost him. I know he enjoyed watching the football game. That was the last thing that caught him in the middle of watching. I have to say I have been loving watching I May Destroy You.

Wonderful, right? I'm just so excited about how clear it is that we need the voices that have been shut out of getting to make the movies and TV shows that we are all craving to see. So I'm just so thrilled that she has made that for all of the rest of us to keep waking up about how much more we are going to get to see. I'm really glad that you made your film. I'm grateful for you and your father. Thanks for

having this conversation, Kirsten. Oh, I'm so glad that dad could join us. It's so cool. I'm, you know, Thank you guys. The Johnson lives forever, Sean. Thank you so much for making the time for us. You are. Thank you, guys. The Johnson lives forever, Sean. Thank you so much for making the time for us. You bet. Thank you. Okay, bye.

Thank you to Kirsten Johnson. Thank you to Amanda Dobbins. Thanks to Bobby Wagner. Please stay tuned to The Big Picture next week when we will be blowing up and rebuilding the Academy Awards for 2021. See you then.