The Big Picture - Top Five Movie Soundtrack Needle Drops. Plus: Robbie Robertson | The Big Picture

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

The art of placing music in a movie is harder than it looks. 'Ringer' staff writer Rob Harvilla joins Sean to explore the rules of a great needle drop and the pitfalls of an obvious one, before sharing their five favorite music movie moments (0:42). Then, Sean sits down with The Band cofounder Robbie Robertson to discuss his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, the relationship between movies and music, and 'Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band' a new documentary about his life and musical career (39:25). Hosts: Sean Fennessey Guest: Rob Harvilla and Robbie Robertson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Starting this week, we're launching a new show on the Ringer Dish feed, recapping the return of Survivor for its special 40th season. This season features 20 previous winners of Survivor competing for $2 million, the largest cash prize in reality TV show history. Riley McAtee and a rotating guest from the Ringer staff will recap every Thursday, so make sure you subscribe to the Ringer Dish feed for shows like Jam Session, Tea Time, and the new Survivor Recap Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture,

a conversation show about the wonders of movies and music. I have a very special show today. Later in this podcast, I have an interview with Robbie Robertson, one of the founding members of the band, a significant figure in movie history as well, who has collaborated with Martin Scorsese over the years. He has a new documentary that he participated in that basically tells the story of his life

and the work of the band called Once Were Brothers. So I hope you'll stick around for that. And inspired by that conversation, I had to invite on Ringer staff writer Rob Harvilla, who is one of the funniest and smartest people I know about music. Hi, Rob. Oh, sheesh. Well, thank you. It's an honor to be here, of course. Hello.

Rob, you know, you write about music and movies at The Ringer as well, and quite deftly. And I think the use of music in movies has always been, frankly, an obsession of mine. And I suspect that you are also a sophisticated thinker about this idea. Is that fair to say? Sophisticated is a strong word, but let's go with it. Let's roll with it. You're a guy who has a functioning brain that watches movies with music in them. Is that fair to say? I shazammed during Sonic the Hedgehog. That's the way I would describe my relationship with music and movies. That was me. I was that guy. I feel like there's a lot we know. There's a conscientiousness about choosing songs in movies now. And it's because

we grew up watching Martin Scorsese movies and then the movies of all the people who watched Martin Scorsese movies and started making movies of their own. And so the use of the pop song, we're not talking about score here. We're talking about pop music appearing in films. You know, what is your what is your sense of who does it well and sort of what goes into making a good choice versus something that's really obvious or really obscure? I think the obviousness I see a lot more in prestige tv generally like that's the place like any use of radiohead almost across the board like i like a lot of westworld but just the way that westworld just uses those pop songs you know the old style piano version of pop songs it's just you're just sort of leeching off that song's energy and like

the the cash that it already has and you're just sort of stealing it and implanting it into your tv show or your movie like it's there's a difference between stealing a song soul and like taking a song and building a new universe around it like sort of recreating it and re-energizing it it's a great point i'll never forget the moment i watched the uh pilot of Ozark, which is the last episode of Ozark that I ever watched. And at the end of it, Dex Dark by Radiohead began playing. And I was like, oh, this is that show. Now, I mean, no disrespect to say Chris Ryan, who's a huge fan of that series. But actually, that choice indicated to me what the creators of the show

thought they were doing. And it wasn't for me. It just didn't click. Despite liking Radiohead and Jason Bateman, I knew that there was a pretentiousness that I was not going to connect with there. What do you think makes for a good song choice in a movie? I think it has to be at least a little unexpected. It has to recontextualize it a little bit. There are instances where obviousness is what you need, and I think there are a few of those on my list here. But I think in general, you need some element of surprise, some just more gratuitous or just more surprising way of using it than what you would expect. Do you think it's important to saying something about character or the scene itself? Because one of the things that Robertson said when he and I talked, which I thought was interesting,

was that he really likes the contrasty moments. It's the moment when you take a very sweet song and set it against a very violent moment, or you take a very sweet moment and give it something more abrasive. And that's obviously a hallmark of a lot of the people that are best known for choosing songs and movies. You know, think of Quentin Tarantino or Fincher or Scorsese or all these people that I talk about endlessly on this show. Do you think that music can play such a profound role in telling a story in that way? I think so. I mean, you can go too far in that direction. The phenomenon of every movie trailer now using a really slowed down, creepy version of a pop song. You think of the 50 Shades of Grey Beyonce series, you know, like it's that's, or Suicide Squad, I think did that,

you know, you can go too far in that direction and just use it entirely as irony. Like here's a really sweet song to contrast it with an ugly thing. But yeah, I mean, that's sort of an overused trope at this point, but at the time in the heyday, in the early reign of those people, those directors, like, yeah, that was a really

effective use of of contrast so we're here to do a top five list you're going to share your five favorite needle drops in movies and i'm going to share my five favorite needle drops now i don't know your picks and you don't know my picks you almost ruined this podcast by accidentally sharing those picks and i would like to out you i. I apologize profusely and I apologize for my choices. I think this is just going to be you yelling at me for the next 20 minutes. That's my concern. You know what my concern is, is just being too basic. Right. You know, there are some things that are sort of undeniably signature moments in movies and music, especially in the last 20 to 25 years when I think this phenomenon has really picked up steam. And my choices are not songs that were written for movies. They are entirely

songs that had previously existed before the film came along. Is that true for you too? I think in all but one case, my number five, that's not true. But I think that's an important thing. Ideally, you have a prior relationship with that song that the movie changes. That's what makes a really good moment for me. Not all of them, but that's the platonic ideal. I absolutely love that. I probably have one song that runs in opposition to that idea, but that's a great call. So why don't we start?

Why don't you give us your number five needle drop? I need a hundred black coffins for a hundred bad men. A hundred black grapes so I can lay their asses. Number five is Rick Ross, 100 Black Coffins. The Django Unchained, 2012. I want you to picture a Rick Ross fan in 2020. It's Pete Townsend. He is a classic rock figure with Ross at this point.

That is amazing. I am standing by this. So I'll be 100% honest with you. It's no secret how much I admire Quentin Tarantino's movies and his relationship to music. I think that this actually does not work at all. And it's one of the things that holds me back from truly loving Django Unchained

like I do all of his other movies. So make your case for why putting Mr. Rosé in the middle of a slave rebellion story worked for you. It jumped in my mind immediately because I think Django might be my least favorite Quentin movie. It's my least favorite experience. I do not enjoy watching this movie at all which i think is intentional at least on some level like i just i just cringe all the way through it and so this moment this 30 seconds span is like my respite in the middle of the movie this is my favorite scene in my least favorite quentin tarantino movie and that's that's striking to me i mean obviously there are 50 to 100

viable tarantino moments stuck in the middle with you you know the delphonics and jackie brown which i just as easily could have said but there's it's it's so incongruous and so gratuitous and so wrong to have rick ross at this exact moment that it's it's perfect within the context of a movie that for me strikes me entirely as like gratuitous and incongruous and wrong like it's just it's my oasis in the middle of like a masterfully unpleasant cinematic experience where would you say 100 black coffins ranks in the uh rick ross songography is it top 100 top 1000 wow wow top 500 let's compromise and say there are 499 superior Rick Ross songs. But still, Rick Ross's 500th best song, I will take over whatever, like Lil Uzi Vert's fifth best song. Fair enough. Fair enough. You and I were on the front lines of the Rick Ross wars a decade ago, and we fought valiantly.

I tell my children all about it. If it were BMF and Django, I would have loved it. That's all I can say. Oh, wow. That would be too much. That would be overly gratuitous. Feel free to interrogate my choices as well, though I don't think this first one will be,

well, maybe it's a little as controversial. My first pick is not a song I like, but the song placement I find to be genius. And that is I Got You, Babe by Sonny and Cher from Groundhog Day. I don't get excited when I hear I Got You Babe in my regular life, nor do I get excited when I see it in the movie. But what it does is it propels the movie forward. And it literally helps tell the story of the movie to indicate that a new day has begun

for Bill Murray's character, who of course is living the same day over and over again, Groundhog Day in the movie. I rewatched a bunch of this movie last night. Let me just tell you, we were talking about the top 500 Rick Ross songs. This is a top 100 movie for me. I'm a huge fan of Groundhog Day.

I think it's way better than it has any right to be considering its high concept origins. But this song, which I don't like and would never listen to to relax or have fun or commiserate, is so the perfect choice, the sort of that AOR middle of the road. This is the kind of bad radio station choice in a small town in Pennsylvania. They would lean on this kind of mediocrity, this discarded pop ephemera, and it would drive Bill Murray crazy.

And that's a huge part of choosing songs for movies. It's not just the glamour that we're going to talk about with some of our other choices or the profundity that Rick Ross could provide you. it's getting into the head of the character in the movie and i got you babe tortures bill murray throughout the movie and i love that about it i yeah the cliche which i think has a lot of truth to it is you want a song that becomes a character in the movie itself and i think that's the perfect example of that yeah i mean because it recurs i mean it's got to be 12 15 20 times like the radio restarts like it's that's that's the perfect example of that. Yeah. I mean, cause it recurs. I mean, it's gotta be 12, 15,

20 times like the radio restarts. Like it's, that's, that's a crucial part of the movie, that song. And you're right. That that's sociologically, that's the exact right mindset to put Bill Murray in and to put you in like this.

It's the second best use of, of that song in a movie. The first being of course, the Beavis and Butthead movie. Remember that version? Remember they duetted, they duetted with Cher. That was outstanding was outstanding that's that's an honorable mention that's why you're on this podcast rob uh would would you say you're a big sunny and share guy i would not say that no okay this is that this probably my interaction with them begins and ends with

groundhog day and the beavis and butthead movie, which is, that's about where I'm sitting at the moment. Why don't you tell us your number four? Number four is The Mamas and the Papas, California Dreamin' in Chongqing Express. All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I was thinking about Tarantino, right? Like Wong Kar Wai was already a beloved Hong Kong filmmaker by this time. But this movie was a breakout for him in America. You know, doing, I think Miramax like picked it up and even released it in theaters. And that's pretty specifically because of Quentin Tarantino.

Like the first time I watched this movie, it was a DVD that included either at the beginning or at the end or both a video sort of testimonial from Quentin Tarantino. Just speaking hypothetically, if you were a really basic teenager in the 90s who was radicalized by Quentin Tarantino, by Pulp Fiction, and you started to fancy becoming a cinephile, like getting into movies. I think it's fair to say that this is maybe one of the first three to five, if not the very first, foreign movie that you turn to is Chungking Express. I feel like you just read a script that I wrote.

It's eerie. It's eerie how close that is to my experience. I've talked about that before too, obviously. And Quentin, we saw it with everything that happened with Bong Joon-ho

in the last few months. He obviously had a very similar relationship to Wong Kar-wai's films and was such an advocate for international cinema, which totally, I think, to a whole generation of moviegoers, opened their minds up and their hearts up. And Wong Kar-wai in particular has such a cool relationship, not unlike Bong Joon-ho, to American culture and American storytelling. And there's a lot of pop music in a lot of his films. I almost chose this one. So I'm glad that you did choose it. And if you have not seen Chunking Express or really any of One Car Wise movies,

I would highly recommend you do that. It's in the movie for like a solid 20 minutes. Like she's just, she's listening to it over and over again. It's her favorite song, right? Yeah, it's another case like I Got You Babe, where it's a character in the movie and it's as prominent in the movie as any of the actors so rob my number four i have some misgivings about and i want to be open with you about this i appreciate that i chose where is my mind by

the pixies from fight club you met me at a very strange time in my life. With your feet on the air and your head on the ground. Now, I'm prepared to be canceled. And if anyone wants to come around and say, this is super corny, masculine nonsense, also indie rock exceptionalism. I understand. I think it's also a very on-the-nose choice. And when you watch the movie and you think about what that song is and is about,

I wouldn't say it's the most radical decision to choose a song called Where Is My Mind. Where is my mind? Where is my mind? Not a movie with split dissociative disorder. Still, it is an incredibly epic and cinematic moment at the end of the film when the buildings start to fall, and Edward Norton's character, who finally has been fused back into one person, takes Helena Bonham Carter's hand.

Holds hands. And says, trust hands, and says, trust me, everything's going to be fine. You met me at a very strange time in my life. And that's as Frank Black wails and the guitar wails over the soundtrack

before the credits hit and the buildings fall. And I think sometimes it's okay to do the most obvious thing with music. I think not in every instance, I think you made a good case for how TV has abused this privilege at times. Where Is My Mind is a song that I think the generation that

came after us seem to think is a really big hit. And it's in part because of choices like this. And then this song got used more in other movies and other TV shows afterwards and picked up Steam as a kind of, I don't know, almost like a Spotify playlist, indie rock playlist hit. But at the time of its release, it was not a huge record. It was a huge record if you cared about the pixies, but it's interesting how a song's reputation can also be elevated so profoundly by its use in a movie.

So I thought it would be a useful way to talk about that by choosing it here, even though, like I said, if I need to go on the chopping block for this, I get it. What do you think? It makes me think about big star in dazed and confused, or it's either it's,

I think that link later said that he in dazed and confused, he wanted it to be music that people, the teenagers in the seventies were actually listening to and not the thing that people in the nineties now assume that teenagers in the 70s was listening to i think there's some parallel there because yeah this is that was flight club is the biggest thing that ever happened to this song like and i i think it completely recontextualized the song for a new generation i think i saw a tweet to this effectively this morning like it's whereas my mind is one of those songs that we now think was way more popular than it actually was at the time. And that's true of the whole of the Pixies, but this in particular. And so

this is an example of a movie completely changing the way a song is perceived. And yeah, in terms of subject matter, it's incredibly obvious. And I think some of that obvious is sort of retrospective, but I remember in my list, I favored songs where I remember specifically the moment they were playing when I was in the theater watching it. And this is an example of that. I remember very specifically this moment. I was in college. I was on college radio. I was aware of this song and the vague patina of respect around both the Pixies and this song, Kurt Cobain and all that.

The Pixies are revered by this point, but this song just came alive for me. And I think honestly, for like our generation almost in part, like this is where this song is truly born as like the pop culture artifact that it is now. Yeah, and I like the point that you made about Dazed and Confused too,

with regard to, you know, songs that kids are actually listening to and choosing Foghat and Ted Nugent over The Velvet Underground or whatever we think a hip kid in 1973 would have listened to it's something that actually Tarantino talked about during the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood run too where he said a lot of the songs that he chose literally just came from KHJ and they were played on the radio at that time which I think is useful it doesn't necessarily have to be a guidebook for how to tell a story. For me, like the dazed moment that I love the most is when McConaughey enters the arcade to Bob Dylan's Hurricane, which is a different kind of dissociative feeling where it's like that's a song about a man wrongly accused of murder who's spent the last 10 years in prison, but it's soundtracking a helplessly beautiful man

saunter around pool tables and think about picking up chicks. So, you know, these choices are always significant. What's your number three? Number three is Nico, These Days, and The Royal Tenenbaums. I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do.

I feel bad about this one. This one may be a little too obvious. I have a feeling we're in for a long 2020 of sort of arguing about Wes Anderson. Yes. About his style and about his shtick. And the people who can't stand him and just are put off by the tweeness. I totally get that. Absolutely. But for me,

I mean, this is a guy like Scorsese, like Tarantino with like a solid 50 possibilities for a list like this, like, and it doesn't in Rushmore alone. Like I thought a long time about the who song. That's the really long epic who song that's playing is like the feud is, is going on and it ends with Bill Murray in the car and his brakes are cut.

Like I almost did that one, but I just Gwyneth Paltrow gets off the bus. The sound is stopped dead. It's total silence. The song starts, you know, you look at Luke Wilson looking awestruck. It's just,

it's just the purest depiction of infatuation I can think of. It's just, it's such a beautiful moment. And like, I have a half dozen YouTubes that i return to when i need like some kind of spiritual replenishment and and this is one of those well i don't think you should feel too bad this is this is on my list of honorable mentions i also have the creations making time from rushmore on my honorable mentions which is the sort of the yearbook

montage which i think informs a lot of the west west Wes Andersonian style that we've come to know. I don't know. That guy likes a certain kind of British and American late 60s, early 70s rock and roll. The Kinks. The Kinks and Cat Stevens. This stuff comes up over and over again in his records.

These Days is a beautiful song. It's probably one of the tenderest moments in a Wes Anderson movie. I respect it. Thank you. Less tender for me, number three, is Fight the Power by Public Enemy, Do the Right Thing.

I'm very relieved you did this. If you have not watched the first five minutes of Do the Right Thing recently, I would encourage you to just go to YouTube and turn it on right now because it is one of the most audacious and exciting ways to open a movie I've ever seen. The movie starts in black and you hear the Terminator X cutting up the record. It starts Fight the record. It starts to fight the power. And then we see very quickly cut together Rosie Perez in different formations set to the drum beat. And then as soon as Chuck D's voice hits and the song truly takes off, we see Rosie dancing.

And it is ecstatic what's happening. And it indicates you are watching something you have never seen before. You've never heard a record like this in a movie. You've never seen a movie made about these people that are going to be in this movie. And the beginning of a movie and the song, if I have ever thought about making movies in my life, the number one thing and the reason I'm never going to make a movie is because I can't get past the stage of what should be the first thing you hear when the movie starts. Because my mind changes every day. And Spike, Spike Lee, who is a genius of this, knowing to choose fight the power and knowing to spotlight public enemy and then use that song,

not unlike the way that Sonny and Cher are used throughout Groundhog Day as a kind of anthem of anxiety and frustration and exaltation is so cool and so powerful to me. And it's like, I never tire of it. So that is my number three pick. No, I think that's easily the most significant single chosen piece of music and, you know, whatever it is the last 30, 40 years. Absolutely. It's a great one. What's, uh, what's your number two? Number two is Layla and Goodfellas. Good for you.

Thank you. You're steering into the guardrails of masculinity. Oh, God. And I believe in you. I believe in you, Rob. Put that on my tombstone, John. Thank you so much. I wanted to choose this, but I didn't. I wanted to not choose this. This is chalk, obviously. I was going to pick Whipp whip it in casino to be contrarian because i laugh every time that happens um but it's it's it's got to be like leila is my favorite

piano like thing of all time right like including like beethoven or whatever i and this this is just the most beautiful depiction of corpses i can think of it's just you know the kids walk up to the car the bodies are tumbling in the garbage truck. You know, you go into the meat truck, the freezer. When people knock Scorsese, you know, for glorifying, for desensitizing us to violence, this is absolutely as beautiful as violence, as the aftermath of violence has ever looked to me.

I completely agree. And I think in a way it, it de-sentimentalized the meaning of Layla in a way that is just so, so powerful. Layla is the sort of song that I've definitely heard

before I saw Goodfellas, but then never thought about the same way again after seeing it. And I think it was, I think it was a big picture co-host Amanda Dobbins who once said that

for the longest time, she didn't realize that that sort of you know orchestral denouement at the end of Layla was a different song from the first part the sort of rocking Layla that there were two different I think that was true for a lot of people but like I said I believe

in you and I appreciate you putting yourself out there in this fashion my number two is a song that you mentioned which is Stuck in the Middle with You by Steeler's Wheel from Reservoir Dogs obviously this is probably the most... Would you say that that's the most kind of controversial

and discussed scene in the Tarantino filmography? The ear-cutting scene? Yes, I guess I would. And I mean, this is, if not the earliest and the most gratuitous use of the happy song soundtracking and unfathomably ugly thing right like this is this is the zenith of that if it's not the first one you know it should have

been the last but yeah it's you know it's significance is obvious and it's very unpleasant but it's very very significant I think one of the reasons why aside from the obvious contrast between the grotesquery of the ear cutting and the buoyancy of that Steelers wheel record is the way that Michael Madsen gets to play as an actor

to that song and what that says about his simultaneous malevolence and glee and what it says about Mr. Blonde and why Mr. Blonde definitely fucked up that robbery and needed to die. And that's a, that's also a storytelling tool that Quentin has always been so good at. And like you said, we could have picked 500 different Quentin drops and 500 different Wes Anderson drops, but we would be remiss if we didn't include our own choices there.

Let's go to number one. What's number one for you? Number one for me is Bohemian Rhapsody and Wayne's World. Yes. I see a little silhouette of a man. Got a moose, got a moose. Will you do the fandango? Yes. You've done a great job here.

Oh, thank God. Thank God I passed. Was this the first time you heard this song? Because it might have been for me. I was trying to think of that. It may be in the background somewhere. i was 13 when this movie came out and i remember this moment specifically in the theater and i wish i could tell you that definitively i would guess that it was on in the background i had a vague sense of queen is like quote unquote important band you know that like

my cool uncle liked but i i had no prior relationship with this song i may have heard it in the background in like a grocery store or something but like this is another one where it was immediately recontextualized for like an entire generation of like dipshit teenagers such as myself did you i mean it is it is a really weird scene. It's hilarious. It's beautiful. First of all, Penelope Spheeris is the director of Wayne's World, which is always worth repeating from the decline of Western civilization. Just the layers of punk rock embedded in this moment. The scene is so beautifully constructed. They pick up the drunk guy halfway through.

The MVPs of this scene are the two guys in the back in the back seat so wayne's riding shotgun and garth is driving and there's the two like fellow bandmates in the back seat who don't really have too many lines in the movie but just the faces that they're pulling and the head banging like they're just they're crucial to the way it works and then there's the drunk guy in between them who's nodding off who starts like getting into it right around let me go let me go like it just as a comedic performance it's just it's such a beautifully choreographed sequence and i can i can remember so vividly being in the theater as a 13 year old and it's

like i think i know this song maybe i know this song but it's like it's instantly my favorite song of all time just in that moment let me ask you a really important question okay have you ever attempted to do bohemian rhapsody karaoke oh man i don't think so no i i had i have a memory of air drumming to it on the school bus subsequent to this movie coming out but i i don't believe that i've ever attempted any queen at karaoke. I would probably go with another one. Another one bites the dust in that circumstance. That's one of those songs. It's way too long, man.

Yeah. It's like that's like the guy who puts on American pie for like yucks and then realizes that American pie is 19 minutes long and like they physically die in front of you. Like I feel like Bohemian Rhapsody is just is just a trap. Well, you done it. I have. i'm not proud of it how'd it go rate give it one to ten give give us a pitchfork score on your karaoke cover um you know i i will say with with sincere arrogance that i think i'm pretty good at karaoke and so i'll give myself a 7.8 and wow almost best new music sean i don't know i didn't cross the threshold uh that

being said um it was a huge error because it completely killed the vibe because people were like why is this goon holding a mic for 11 minutes uh and you know i don't want to digress too much but there was a very good blog post on the cut about um how long karaoke sessions ought to be and i believe that the piece suggested that karaoke should just be the first verse and chorus of a song. And then you should hand the mic off. What do you think about that theory? No, I think I agree with that. Crucially, were you on like a stage in front of a bar full of people or in a private room with your loved ones? I was at Wembley Stadium performing for-

Oh, yeah. That sounds good. No, it was a private room, but it was a big private room. Oh, man. Sad. I'm going to go to my number one. Please. It's Jumpin' Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones from Mean Streets, which is probably one of the most significant uses of music in movie history and sets the template in many ways for what Martin Scorsese is going to do as a filmmaker.

For those of you who are not familiar with this scene, it's essentially Robert De Niro's character's entrance into the film. Harvey Keitel is seen standing at a bar with his arms at his sides, and in comes De Niro's character, and he's got two women on his arm, and he's wearing that hat, and he's laughing mightily, and he looks like maybe he's been getting into some fun earlier in the night. And those kind of thrashing chords of Jumpin' Jack Flash kick in. And then the camera starts to zoom in on Keitel's face. And then it changes perspective and it starts to zoom in on De Niro's face.

And you see the polar opposites of experience in life. Both of these guys are bad guys. They do bad things. But one is an angel and one is a devil. One is wrought with Catholic guilt and the other is a complete heathen. And De Niro is kind of, they're both kind of glazed in this red light that indicates that these guys have entered hell, that they're in hell. And it's something that Scorsese, it's a trick that he has pulled over and over again where he lights his characters in this way and he uses pop music to create this almost like doom-like sense that the characters have entered a new atmosphere of anxiety. And it's all because of a Rolling Stones song.

And frankly, a Rolling Stones song that I don't even like that much. I don't even think it's like in that upper crust of Stones records for me. But it's just such a perfect choice here. And it's before making a choice like this was a cliche we've obviously gotten to a place where the first time the stones needle drops in the departed i think everyone collectively in the theater just groaned it was like oh my god give me shelter again marty this was before we had that that feeling and that sensation so i i mark it as a key historical moment and so it's my number one what's so funny to me is, if you would have said it's from Mean Streets, I would have guessed Be My Baby. Like that's a testament to Scorsese

and Mean Streets, of course. Like, is that the first major Stones in cinema moment right there? Like, had they ever been in a movie before? It's a good question. Well, I mean, is performance before that? The movie that Jagger appears in? Right, right.

Oh, yikes. But, you know, it's that sort of, it's that time, and it's when Mick is pursuing more of an acting career as well. But yeah, it's probably, it's certainly the most significant early appearance by the band's music.

Do you have, I mean, I have a lot of honorable mentions, and I don't want to spend too much time going through them, but did you have a couple that were really hard to cut? I mean, the whole is Spinal Tap, but I was thinking of when they're singing heartbreak hotel acapella at elvis's grave and like they're all out of key and they're yelling at each other like that's

that and big bottom would probably be tied for me uh i because of the hulu show i've been thinking way too hard about high fidelity in the last few weeks and like that i will now sell five copies of the three eps by the beta band like i think i wrote on the site like that's basically the only funny rock critic joke that has ever appeared like in the universe uh so yeah those would probably be the top two for me i mean oh animal house uh i gave my love uh a flower i don't remember the song that the the hippie is singing on the stairs and Belushi smashes the guitar. Like, you know, that's not a needle drop

in the classic sense, but that's probably one of the more effective uses of music. That's a great one. There are some, there are some obvious ones that we haven't hit.

I feel the need to cite a couple of personal favorites. Sure. I think My Sharona by the Knack and Reality Bites, which turns into a dance party inside the convenience store, is a perfect movie scene.

It tells you everything you need to know about every character. The look on the faces of every single person participating in that scene is unbelievably good. You know, I didn't want to put stuff like Tiny Dancer from Almost Famous onto the list because I think that those scenes have become cliche. But it's probably worth recognizing in the moment what they that they actually did really resonate and part of the reason a movie like that became such a big hit such a phenomenon despite not really starring anybody who was famous at the time and being a period piece and a lot of other things and frankly like spotlighting the idea of being a rock critic to your point about high fidelity is because of those kind of big swings where it's just like fuck fuck it, we're going to put the grand Elton John song

into a sing-along here, and everybody's going to love that. I was out to dinner with a friend last night, and I was telling him about this podcast we were going to do, and he said, you should consider mentioning Telephone by ELO and Billy Madison when Steve Buscemi takes the phone call and crosses Billy off of his murder list.

Which I thought was just a really great call. Outstanding. A couple of others. Just Like Honey from Lost in Translation, the Jesus and Mary Jane song, at the conclusion. I think Hip to be Square in American Psycho before Christian Bale starts killing people. And the one last one that I wanted to mention that made me really nostalgic for a version of popular culture that I just don't think

we have anymore was Deo, the banana boat song from Beetlejuice. I don't know if you remember this scene in which Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis' characters

try to haunt Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones and their whole family at a dinner party. At the time when I saw it, I was a kid, and I was like, I guess this isn't normal. I guess this is what movies are.

There's a giant shrimp-fingered hand that is pulling these guys in, Catherine O'Hara dancing hilariously to Harry Belafonte. It is so strange and remarkable that something like that could happen in a mainstream hit movie that movie in general is such a testament to movie studios not knowing what the hell they're doing and saying fuck it let's let tim burton do whatever he wants absolutely and i and i miss it and i i i love that sequence the other one i wanted to bring

up was uh sister christian and Boogie Nights. It's a pretty significant moment. So this, of course, is the Alfred Molina firecracker scene. Indeed. What is it about that moment that you dig? It has sort of a Django overtone to me. It's so gratuitous. Boogie Nights is such an exhausting experience for me.

It's an experiential thing. It's just it's Boogie Nights is such an exhausting experience for me, just as an experiential thing. It's just overwhelming to me. And just that, that the scene itself is so over the top and so ridiculous and the fireworks are going off the whole time. And it's, it seems totally wrong and totally gratuitous in that moment, but it's another case of, of sort of using a song for ironic purposes in a way that doesn't feel cliched and doesn't feel cheap. Like it immediately feels perfect for that moment and how wrong it is it's also a great example of a character listening to

the song that you're hearing in the movie and responding to it which is another special category i think of music usage when the characters are interacting with it if i had to choose a boogie night song i probably would choose do your thing by Thing by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. That's the sequence where Little Bill, it's at the New Year's Eve party going from 1979 to 1980. Little Bill discovers his wife yet again having an affair and he goes out to his car and he procures a gun from his car and then the party goes belly up. Rob, this has been a lot of fun. And I, Likewise. Your fearlessness here in choosing the most obvious.

This feels like coded language to me, John. What is your number one karaoke song before we close? What's your go-to? I'll give you a song that I love to sing

that people hate when I do it. That's the best kind. And when I say people, I mean my wife and anybody else in the room is Elton John's Mona Lisa's in Manhattan, which is also like five minutes long and has a million words in it and isn't a good singalong song. So that sounds profound. You know what I think is a good one, though, that I think people do enjoy as a singalong that I frequently turn to is My Name is Jonas by Weezer. Oh, oh that is a good one any early Weezer I think would work for me it's the

night they drove old Nick old Dixie down oh my god just to bring this full circle you are the lord of segways that is that is extraordinary so speaking of the band and the night they drove old Dixie down Rob thank you so much and now let's go to my conversation with the great Robbie Robertson. Blue jean baby LA lady Seamstress for the bank Sister Christian, oh, the time has come And you know that you're the only one to say How are you?

Have you been all right? Through all those lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights That's what I'd say I'd tell you everything If you'd pick up that telephone Yeah, yeah, yeah The motor in Watch out, price for flight I am honored to be joined by Robbie Robertson. Robbie, thank you for being here on the show with me.

Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you. Robbie, I want to know why it was important to you to make Once Were Brothers, to tell this story of the abandon of your life. Well, I didn't know whether it was important. It was really other people's ideas. And it was inspired by my book testimony that I wrote. You know, I was really feeling it out. I didn't know. I didn't know whether this was going to work or not. So, you know, people come and say, we'd like to make a documentary on your book. And all I would say is, we'll do it really good. Did you have to be cajoled at all to do it?

Or were you like, this seems like a great idea and it should be on screen? I thought, you know, we'll feel our way into it. And this process, I mean, it turned out to be pretty interesting. And I like the idea that it originated in Canada. I originated in Canada. So anyway, these people said, well, we're going to do it. And then we found this young guy to direct it. I got a feeling about this guy.

So we went with that. And then he started, you know, just kind of feeling his way around and gathering material and everything. And I could see that he was really, really dedicated, really on a mission. So that was a good feeling. And so I just got out of the way, you know, he asked me, okay, can we do an interview about some of the stuff? And I would talk to him about, we did a couple of those. And then, and then there was other people that were very, very, very generous with their time to come in and talk about my story and the band. And so everything started to shape up. And then Imagine Entertainment came into the picture. Thrawn Howard and Brian Grazer, and having them on your team,

it felt like we're growing. We're going somewhere. And the material is really what pulled them in. They weren't doing it as a favor to me or anything. So that was a good sign and then as we went along then Martin Scorsese saw a rough cut of it and he came in as an executive producer so the whole growing process of this film really felt good to me and the outcome of it and the final cut and all of that of it is just terrific. And so I'm very proud of the work they did. What's it like to, both with the book and the film, to track 40, 50, 60, 70 years of your life, of your work? Is it easy to recall specifically what you're being asked about when you're in those interview sessions? Do you have diaries that you're returning to to kind of remember the sequences of certain phases of your life? I have a bit of a memory thing. I've got some

kind of a chip that, and I discovered this much deeper even when I was writing the book and that I could go back to scenes. I could go back to places and people. For some reason, I could remember the colors in the room. I could remember what people were wearing. It was odd. I would just turn on that machine and I would just, when I was writing, I could go back into these things and I remembered what people were saying. I mean, not word for word, but I got the gist of it. And so I just, I use that muscle a lot in writing the book. You've got this amazing personal history before the band comes along. The complexity of your parents and finding out that story. And I think maybe people don't necessarily know you're from Canada, despite being seen as sort of a father of Americana in a lot of ways.

And I'm wondering what you sort of participated in the balance of the story how much of the film should be about these phases of your life and then how much of it should be about the band period of your life well that that i didn't make that choice and they couldn't cover everything in the book so um so they just made some choices made some choices and kind of zoned in on particular things that they felt was as much as we could cover in the time that we had to cover it. And I was fine with that. And I was very taken by the concentration on the brotherhood of the band. And I wrote this song on my new record, Cinematic, Once Were Brothers, because they were working on this film. And I knew what was going on in this, and I knew the questions they were asking me about.

And so while that was happening, it just led me to a place that I wrote that song. It just came out because the documentary was going on. And on the record, too, there's music from the Irishman that I was working on the Irishman. So that found its way into the record, which found its way into the movie. And all of these things, the way they circled around one another, was a good feeling. I liked that. And even more to really hone in on this part of the story of the band was that I was putting together the 50th anniversary of the band album. So all of these things coming together equaled what happened. I always ask filmmakers when they're on the show, if they've, if they rewatched their work and do you listen to the records? Cause since I've seen the movie now, I'm just listening to the records

nonstop again. And they're just in my car every day or when, when you're not sort of remastering a 50th anniversary, are you listening to the work that you guys were making in the 60s and 70s or is it just something that kind of goes in the attic and you don't touch it? I got too much to do to be reminiscing that much. You know, with the film, it was necessary to address that part of my story. So I did do that. And I did do that on the box set of the band. It's not just remastering. We remixed everything. And we included the Woodstock performance and many other things. The package turned out extraordinary. I'm really happy that I spent the time on that. And then in making my album, which was kind of a center of all of it for me. And on the album, I even, for each song, I included artwork that I do.

And I've never shared that before. So there's like so much going on. And this year of my life has been one of the busiest years ever. So I don't have that much time to be sitting, let's out the vinyl honey and reminisce did you realize anything about those songs though when you were returning to them and thinking about the film and doing the box set or is it just this is just a different part of my life and i don't think about it in the same context now like does you have any realizations there were there were some outtakes in the band anniversary collection that I didn't remember until I heard them. And there was one on Rag Mama Rag that I thought, whoa, I really like the experimenting that was going on.

And the different angles that I was trying, you know, because there was things that I would say, you know, on this list, Rick, why don't you play violin and, you know, and instead of bass, but we needed something to cover the low register. So we got John Simon, our producer, to play tuba on it. And he nearly had a heart attack doing it because it takes a lot of wind. And the tune is a bit, you know, it's an up-tempo thing. So, yeah, after a take on that, we would have to just kind of, you know, fan him and say,

breathe, you know, you'll be okay. Like a lot of people, I am as fascinated by 1967 and Big Pink and that period and the work with Dylan. From your vantage point, having been a key participant in that, why do you think that the sort of mythos and the obsession with that period in particular persists in the way that it does? You know, I'm not really part of that. You know, I was a subject of some of it, but I wasn't out there in the world saying, what are they doing up in those mountains? You know, like Tom Waits says, what are they building up there? You know, so I didn't really understand what was going on in the outside world.

I knew what was going on on the inside world, and that's what we were concentrating on. And we were concentrating on, after all of these years of the guys in the band and me being together, now we were going to present our musicality. And it had nothing to do with what we did with Ronnie Hawkins or when we left and went out as the Hawks or when we played on that tour with Bob Dylan. It had nothing to do with that. It was a different sound, a different flavor, a different kind of writing, all of that. And I really give a tremendous amount of credit

to finding this sanctuary, this place, this ugly pink house on the outskirts of Woodstock, New York, where it had been a dream of mine for years and years to find a place. And it would be the workshop. It would be the place that we go. I needed that. I needed that for writing. I knew that the other guys needed to get away from the road, to get to a place where we could go inside this world and stir up all these musics that we had gathered over the years

and what was going to come out of us. And what happened surprised us. It was just the evolution of the music. Nobody ever said, let's do something that has really beautiful subtleties in it. Let's do something that's nothing like what you hear out in the world today. Never was never mentioned. What we did know is we weren't drawn to trendiness. We weren't good at that. We weren't a part of a thing of like, okay, now let's really concentrate on being rock stars.

Never, ever crossed anybody's mind. It was really about the discovery of this musicality that needed to come out of us. There's something interesting about that, though, too, because a lot of the songs that you were writing at the time and the band was writing are creation myths and are very historically minded in a way. And they seem very conscious of the long arc of something. And the music that you guys made feels very similar. It feels conscious of, you know, folk music and blues and maybe ragtime and different kinds of music and the sort of synthesis of all those things that you guys created.

But you weren't talking about that. You weren't saying to each other, what if we did this, this, and this, and we can make something new? Never. Never came. We didn't talk that way. So interesting. We were like, what do you think about this? You know, and I would play a little something on the piano or on a guitar or something.

You know, how does that flavor? Is that going somewhere? You know, we were kicking around moods and sounds and things together. And then song ideas. And for me, it was, I've always been, since a young age, very drawn to storytelling. And I guess I got that, you know, from the Sixth Nation Indian Reserve, where my mom was from. That's where I first heard real storytellers.

Not like, you know, storybook storytellers, not like, you know, storybook storytellers, people telling stories about things that change the course of history for the people. And it was like, it was so powerful. It was, you know, incredible stuff happening. When I was like eight or nine years old, I heard the story of Hiawatha and the Peacemaker. And oh my God, that really touched a nerve in me. An elder was telling this story. And I thought, boy, I got to get in on this. And the same thing with the music on the res. All my relatives seem to play instruments.

And I thought, I guess I need to as well. You know, that's the club. You know, and if you don't do it, you're not in the club. So I started learning a little bit on guitar. And I got better and better. And pretty soon I thought to myself, I'm getting as good as any of these people are. You were literally born into it. You know, The Last Waltz is obviously such a significant part of your story and the band's story. And for a lot of people who are fans, it's a kind of a denouement. It's a closing chapter.

But I'm wondering if, you know, in the interim since that film and that concert, if you or the members, especially those who, when they were still living, had discussed doing anything else to kind of commemorate the history. Because The Last Waltz is a performance with a little bit of history,

but this film is a big history, a big story of band did you guys ever talk about maybe here's how we could tell people what actually happened here amongst us or is this really the first time that it came up in this specific way the book in the film this is the first way that it actually came up the guys in the band they they weren't like that. They weren't, you know, some of them hated the, they didn't do interviews. They hated it. They didn't like it when a photographer was around. And somebody, you know, with film and everything, you know, it was like they were allergic to that.

So they weren't show busy, if you know what I mean. It was like, let's tell the story of the band. They were more like, whoa, what if people found out about that thing? We really hope that that's undercover for now. And so it was just a different breed. That's interesting. I'm curious about your relationship to movie history. Um, famously, I've read that the, the weight is inspired by Bunuel films and you obviously have this longstanding partnership with Martin Scorsese. Why is your, and, and, and frankly, I think a lot of people discover the weight from Easy

Rider and you've got this synchronous, interconnected musical connection to movies. Do you know what accounts for that? Is that good luck? Is that something in the songwriting? What do you think is the reason that you have become such a part of movie history? I caught this bug very young. I saw some film noir movies and I thought, whoa, this is, I'm drawn to this so strongly. I love the beauty of this and the mystery and the danger and the shadows. Do you remember what films? Oh, so many of them. But, you know, like I never got over Double Indemnity. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And on and on, A Kiss of Death, you know, a hundred of them. And one was just better than the other to me. So that pulled me in. And then classic films too, you know, Wells and Hawks and Ford and all of these great American filmmakers. And then when I got then caught up in the thing, I saw a Kurosawa film and I thought, oh my God, does this guy know how to tell a story? And about a period in history and boom, it's like that's the way to do it, you know. And then from that and then it was, you know, the Italian. Oh, my God, you know, De Sica.

And, you know, and I knew some of the Michelangelo and Antonioni was a friend of mine and this whole thing. And when I saw one day we were playing in a club and in the afternoon I went to a movie theater and I saw eight and a half and I don't know if I've ever been the same since. You know what I mean? I just thought imagination. It's all about imagination. And I had this key point of curiosity that I needed to know more about it. I needed to get closer to it. And if I hadn't have been so addicted to music at a young age, I'm sure I would have ended up being a screenwriter or a filmmaker. And what about the actual work of music and film that you've done so much of? The sourcing and the

composing is such an interesting and kind of elusive thing for a lot of people. I was hoping you could help us kind of understand, maybe when you're working with Scorsese, for example, how you guys decide which records to pick, what makes sense, what should a score sound like in the case of The Irishman? What is that process like? It's different. It's been different on every movie with him. Not to be different. It's different because the story is different. The rhythm of the movie is different. To me, every time, it's like starting from scratch. When do you usually come into the process? on before they shoot. And not necessarily that I need to start working, but I want to. And Marty will have maybe a couple of clues here or there. On some films, we go into it with a clue. On some films, he's like, I don't know what the hell we're going to do here. And on other things, it's mostly a discovery process. And that's exciting. Do you bring records to him and say,

what about this? And he says, yes, no. I have a jukebox in my head. Oh, I thought you were going to say in your house, in your head. Okay. Yeah, in my head. And so does he. And so we resort back to certain things that came along in different periods. And one of the most magical things is finding something that is so wonderfully counterpoint, that it has nothing to do whatsoever with what's going on and who these people are. And it works like magic. Could you give me an example of one you're proud of that fits in that way? I really enjoyed hearing Spoonful by Howlin' Wolf and the Wolf of Wall Street. And the wolf thing had nothing to do with it. It was really this kind of music. And a guy is walking down the street in Wall Street in a suit,

and he's going to figure out how to cheat the system, how to make it work for him. And this song, this blues, Mississippi Delta blues, is playing while he's walking along. It's got nothing to do with anything. And it is pure magic. That movie in particular has such an amazing palette musically you know it had you you have so many broad choices across so much time it's such a perfect choice for it you can go into just about all of the films in one way or another so did casino incredible music in casino i love that devo drop in casino which is also so unlikely in that setting, you know? I know.

Does it scratch an itch that a traditional recording career or recording work can't do, being able to work on the films? What do you mean? Well, does it give you something creatively that maybe you couldn't get from, say, working on the new record that you're doing? I get it from the new record that you're doing? I get it from the new record. For a while now, in making records, I find myself almost, instead of just strumming guitars or something, I find myself making a sound. And it's almost like score behind a song. There's a mood, there's mysterious tonalities and sounds going on, as opposed to the old picking and singing stuff. You know, I've done that, I know that. I need to do stuff that I don't quite, that I'm learning, and that it's going somewhere, all of this. So my new record, you know, cinematic, I just went into my own world on this and I experimented and I told stories

and they're all like little movies and the music and the whole record is like movies. So I incorporate these worlds in one another in a very indulgent kind of way because I love it. A couple more questions for you. One, what is it like to be pursuing new creative projects after you have been celebrated as the subject of a film like this, of having, you know, done such an influential and important work. Is it harder to say, I have more to say because people have been telling you, well, this thing that you did 10 years ago, 30 years ago is so meaningful to me? I appreciate that. It's, I have a lot of gratitude for that, but I'm busy and i've got so much i've got so much that i need to do so much that i i want to understand better and and you know i just i don't know how to turn it off that's in the film

you can see that in the film there's they're showing constantly you're always writing and you're always trying to figure out something new to be doing when you're working with the band in particular what do you what accounts for that motivation um born that way i guess yeah i don't analyze that i don't analyze it because i'm just trying to keep up with myself okay robbie we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen you're a filmmaker of a kind um what's the last great movie you've seen the last let me just think here for a moment um could be old or new i thought that this year was an interesting horizon of of movies and i'm I very much appreciated, you know, people think of the Irishman as like, ah, here we go, Marty's doing another gangster movie. And it's very different.

It has a different rhythm. People aren't screaming and yelling and shooting at one another. It's not like that at all. It's really going inside this world and the way these people feel. Whoa, okay, that's a different thing. It isn't about power. It isn't about the, you know, and the guy, you know, Frank Shearing, you know, in this book that he wrote and everything, he killed 25 people. And it was just getting up in the morning and going to work. And his family's in it, and they're like, where are you going? Going to work.

You know, it's crossed my mind that The Irishman could also be called Once Were Brothers. That would be a fitting title for that film as well. Robbie, thank you so much for doing this. Oh, this was good. Thank you. you