The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Brody Awards, and Louis Menand on “The Free World”

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Oscars, schmoscars! Richard Brody is a critic of wide tastes and eccentric enthusiasms. His list of the best films of the year rarely lines up with the Academy’s. Each year, he joins David Remnick and the staff writer Alexandra Schwartz to talk about the year’s cinematic highlights. Plus, the staff writer Louis Menand talks with Remnick about his new work of cultural history, “The Free World.” Menand writes about the postwar flowering of American culture, when the United States evolved from an economic and military giant into a global creative force. Modern jazz and rock and roll were exported and celebrated around the world. Painters got out from under the long shadow of Europe and led the way into new forms of abstraction and social commentary. Writers like James Baldwin turned a spotlight back on America’s fundamental, unexamined flaws. It was a time, Menand writes, when “ideas mattered. Painting mattered. Movies mattered. Poetry mattered.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. For more than a year, very few people have been to a movie theater. But that doesn't stop awards season. The Golden Globes and the various Guild Awards have all been doled out, and now it's time for the prizes that really matter the most. I'm talking, of course, about the Brody Awards. See, the Golden Globe.

are decided by movie journalists, a whole lot of them. And the Oscars are voted on by members of the Academy, more than 9,000 of them. But the Brody Awards, they honor the best and brightest of the year according to just one person, one voice, one critic, someone who sees more films from around the world than anyone I know, Richard Brody. Richard is the film critic for New Yorker.com, and joining me, as always, for the Brody Awards, is staff writer Alexander Schwartz. Hi. Hi, David. So, Richard, it has been about 13 or so months where we haven't been able to enter a movie theater,

or I haven't entered one, that's for sure. What's it been like for you as the most constant moviegoer I know? Well, in a certain way, it hasn't been radically different because even before lockdown, 90% of the movies I was seeing, I was seeing at home. The number of press screenings that are held in theaters has decreased, because it's expensive to hold them, and very cheap to send out a screening link. So, in the most immediate practical sense,

other than the fact that I never go out, it hasn't been radically different for the watching of movies. For the world of movies, it has been completely different. How so? Well, partly because there have been more or less no blockbusters. The kinds of movies that were expected

to make tons of money in theaters have simply been held over, and therefore the year was largely devoted to a different kind of movie. Alex, how has the year of watching movies been for you? Well, I have had a very indulgent year of watching movies because I have tried less to keep up with what is new, although I do think I've done a pretty good job of that, but I've just, if I wanted to go back to the 40s and 50s, I did it without a care, and it's been very pleasant, though I do miss the experience of turning to someone in the movie theater and sort of saying, right, which has become, as I age, has become more of my thing. I can't really resist the nudge to the stranger next to me.

And I think that's going to come back strong for me and probably for a lot of us when we get back into the theaters. Now, we're all gathered here together because of the Oscars. And a year ago, Richard, you wrote about the Oscars in a piece called the Fossilized 20-20 Oscar nominations. You were unimpressed with the movies that the Academy chose to honor. How do you feel about it this year? This year, things are a little bit better in some ways, in some very important ways.

The Academy has been aware for years that it's had a serious problem with diversity among its membership. And in 2020, in particular, they accelerated the process of welcoming new members. Women, people of color, people from around the world. And this year's nominations reflect that with movies like Minari, Nomadland. I wouldn't say that the movies are artistically much better this year than usual. But what's missing this year, fortunately, are atrocities like Joker or Jojo Rabbit or Green Book. Okay, let's get down to business. The 2021 Brody Awards.

We're going to start with the Acting Awards. First up, Best Actress in a Leading Role. Alex, the Brody nominees, please. The nominees are... Rachel Wood, Cagillionaire, Sidney Flanagan, never, rarely, sometimes always. Elizabeth Moss, Shirley.

Rada Blank, the 40-year-old version. Natalia Dyer, yes, God, yes. And the winner is? The winner is Elizabeth Moss, playing Shirley Jackson, in Josephine Decker's biopic of her, Shirley.

If that phone rings, one more time during dinner. Stanley, so help me, I'm going to take care of it myself. I'm well within the bounds of our agreement. Our agreement didn't include sluts interrupting my dinner. Elizabeth Moss is playing the novelist Shirley Jackson, most famous, of course, for the short story, The Lottery. And it's set largely in her home with her husband Stanley Edgar Hyman, played by Michael Stoolberg. And it's a drama about the flaying, agonizing tension in the marriage that is both creative and destructive. It's an extraordinary film, and it wouldn't exist without a performance of this ferocity.

And as we heard in this clip, in the role of Shirley Jackson, Elizabeth Moss wields the writers, one-liners like a stiletto knife. Now, Elizabeth Moss is not on the list of Oscar nominees. Alex, are there any performances that the Academy recognized that you particularly love this year? I think it's actually a really strong year in the best actress category, and there were a number of performances. I liked a lot. I really liked Carrie Mulligan in Promising Young Woman. She plays steely derangement better than I've almost ever seen. But the performance that I was really drawn to that I actually hope the Academy does not recognize is Francis McDormons in Nomad Land. I say that only because Francis McDormand has already won two Oscars most recently in 2018.

she won for three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, a film that I did not particularly care for and a film in which she gave a really outward performance of rage. In Nomadland, which is directed by Chloe Zhao, she has a very inward, subtle character to play, a woman whose whole life has come apart and who's decided to become a nomad in the American West, living out of her van.

And McDormand is playing opposite real people who were acting for the first time. And I think the combination of McDormann's really intense inwardness and those characters just articulating their lives on screen is profound. I write letters to her. Oh, smart man. Very good. Letters are good. I just can't ever write about anything I reckon she'd care about.

Do you ever try poems? Can't say I have. I don't think I know one. You know any? How about one that I used for my wedding vow when I was not much older than you? Oh, right, huh?

On if I hear it? Okay, let's see if I can remember it. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May and summer's lease have all. too short a date. All right, Richard, let's go on to Best Actor,

and the nominees are, Alex. Shea Cole for Alex Weedle. Delroy Lindo, Defive Bloods, Bill Murray on the Rocks, Sean Parks, Mangrove, Vlad Ivanov, the Whistlers. And the winner is... The winner is Delroy Lindo for DeFive Bloods.

I will choose. I die. You're shown the fuck. Now, Richard, Delroy Lindo wasn't even nominated for an Oscar, which a lot of people would call maybe the biggest snub of the year. How do you explain it? Unfortunately, in the realm of Oscar-Land, there's no explanation. It could be that they perceived Delroy Lindo's role as a relatively small one because it's very much an ensemble film. He's a group of four

Black Vietnam War veterans who returned to Vietnam with two purposes in mind. One to find the remains of their former commanding officer played in flashbacks by Chadwick Boseman and the other to recover a trove of gold

that are hidden before they left. So it's very much an ensemble piece and it could be that this is the reason why he wasn't nominated as Best Actor. You know, conventional wisdom is that Chadwick Bozeman who died last year is a very strong contender

to win Best Act. actor for his performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. How do you both rate Bozeman's chances and what do you make of Mar Rainey's Black Bottom as a film? I think his chances are really good. It's a tragedy that we lost Chadwick Bozeman when we did. And I think the Academy will recognize that and will want to honor him for that. I'm talking about being satisfied with a bone somebody that unthrored you. That's what's the matter with y'all.

You're satisfied sitting in one place. As soon as I get my band together and record them songs, Mr. Sturter v. I told me I can make, I'm going to be like Ma'am and tell the white man just what he can do. Having said that, I have to say that to me, his performance in Ma Rainey was a stage performance. And it brought some pleasures of a stage performance. I miss going to the theater quite a bit. But he's giving a performance to the back of the house. And in some ways, that's very fitting for the role he plays in Maureen's Black Bottom.

He's playing levy, a musician who has outsized ambitions and feels that he is bigger than the world that he's confined to. But as the movie went on, I thought to myself, why am I having a reaction that is impressed rather than emotionally moved? And I think that's the answer. I think the answer is that the direction didn't allow intimacy with the performance. And so I was impressed by the performance without feeling it really where I think it should have hit. Now we've come to the main event. Best Picture, Alex, the nominees. Please.

The nominees for the best picture of the 2021 Brodies are DeFive Bloods, The Whistlers, Dick Johnson is dead, an easy girl, cagillionaire, never, rarely, sometimes always, on the rocks, lovers rock, time, and city hall. And the winner is. The winner is Cagillionaire, written and directed by Miranda July. We don't call you, hunt, or sweetheart or baby. We don't wrap up little birthday presents with ribbons. I don't want. Yes, that's what you want. And what else?

Me to put you on my abdomen? Hmm? Make pancakes. Let me to do a little dance. Yes. You want us to be false, faky people. Cagillionaire is such a distinctive, such an unusual film that to describe it is more like to translate it. It's a family of scammers played by Richard Jenkins and Deborah Winger,

who raised their daughter, Evan Rachel Wood, to be a scammer. And she's a virtuosic scammer, a master of thievery and deception, who has been raised coldly and lovelessly. And in the course of some new scams, she discovers the narrowness of the life she's been leading. She discovers the emotional deprivation she's experienced. And the drama involves her fight for self-liberation. And was Miranda July a director that had been very much in your sights before? Oh, very much, though.

Her film The Future from 2012 was my pick for the best film of that year, too. I think she's one of the most comprehensively creative directors working now. Richard, you keep track of what's going on in Hollywood, what's being filmed, what directors are working on what. Are there any delayed films or films that are in the offing that you're especially looking forward to? Well, especially Wes Anderson's film, Wes Anderson's New Yorker-based film, The French Dispatch, in which Bill Murray plays a Harold Ross-like character, like the founder of the New Yorker, and which is set mainly in France. I'm especially looking forward to a film starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard called Annette,

with music by Sparks and directed by Laos Carrax. It's a musical. Adam Driver sings? Adam Driver sings. 95% of the dialogue in this film is supposedly some. I'm waiting with, I'm getting a ticket to now. Anything else? I confess, I'm always interested in seeing a new James Bond film.

I think that I always wish that James Bond film. Bond films were directed by directors who don't make James Bond films. I'd like to see Paul Thomas Anderson's James Bond film. I'd like to see Spike Lee's James Bond film. I'd like to see Sophia Coppola's James Bond film. I don't think that's going to happen very soon. Let's pause on that. Sophia Coppola's James Bond film, what would happen? Very little. Very little. Well, thank you. Richard, thank you for the 2021 Brodies. It is always an honor to be with you at this time of year. Alex Schwartz, who writes about theater and books and much else.

Thank you so much. See you next year. Thank you. David. Alex, good to see you. Thanks very much. If you want to read Richard Brody on the films of Eric Romer or Godzilla versus Kong, it's all at New Yorker.com.

Alex Schwartz writes about theater and books and much more. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. As Congress, President Truman makes the most momentous speech since the death of Franklin Roosevelt. He declares political war on Soviet Russia. After the Second World War, the United States emerged as a superpower. And our rivalry with the Soviet Union, culminating in a terrifying, prolonged nuclear arms race, came to dominate the globe.

If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world. And yet these decades after the war were the start of a real flowering of American culture. serious and popular. The subject for tonight's discussion is there a beat generation? Pop art, op art, underground movies, call it what you will. These two are the leaders, Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol. This means, in the case of an American Negro, born in that glittering republic, and in the moment you are born, since you don't know any better,

every stick in stone and every face is white, and since you have not yet seen a mirror, you suppose that you would have, are too. In literature, painting, music, all the arts, America had finally come out of the shadow of Europe and had all the world's attention. This period in all its complicated glory is the subject of a new book by Louis Menand. Its title is The Free World, Art and Thought in the Cold War. Louis Menand, or Luke, as he's known to almost everyone, is a staff writer for the New Yorker, a professor at Harvard, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He writes in the free world that the post-war era was a time when ideas mattered, painting mattered, movies mattered, poetry mattered.

I have to begin by asking you, Luke, what did you set out to do here? You know, when you write histories of periods like that, you're trying to bring a vanished world to life. You're trying to help readers go through a kind of looking glass into a world that's familiar and strange at the same time, and to give people a feeling of what was like to paint a painting or write an article about painting or write a poem in those years. And the years that I picked to write about, 1945, 1965, I think our period where those questions are really interesting because we sort of get what they were doing, but we also feel a little distant from it. So it's a great opportunity to try to put all the pieces together and to

bring it to life. Well, let's begin with the phrase, the free world. and the concept of freedom, which in many ways this book is about, was freedom not a theme? Was freedom not part of Americanness in, say, the 20s or certainly before the end of the Second World War? Of course it was. Yeah, this is the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

And, you know, that's sort of the American ideology is a kind of liberatist ideology. But I think what happens in this period is that it becomes international. Because the great, you have to think about the period after 1945 as being shaped by three really great events. One was the Russian Revolution, the second was the rise of Hitler, and the third was the Great Depression. And those things combined made a lot of people feel, not unrealistically, that totalitarianism was where the world is headed.

That's what George Orwell's 1984 is about. It's kind of, this is what the future is going to look like for everybody, everywhere. A lot of people took that very seriously. So the idea that freedom is what gets lost in that new world is what motivated them to take seriously art and ideas. And that's what's most striking about the period is how incredibly important people thought it was about the way you did a painting or the way you wrote a poem. So let's talk about some of the artists in your book. You go very deeply into their art and their lives, but you're also engaged in a work of cultural history. You're looking at the social forces that play on the artist, that shape his or her perspective. perspective. So does looking at it that way undermine our cherished notion about individual artistic genius? Yeah, that's a great question, and I've thought a lot about it. It's a mystery. You know, there's a certain set of

circumstances that arise because of social change, sometimes technological change, that create conditions for the possibility of a certain kind of art or certain kind of music. And then somebody has to come along and fulfill those possibilities. And there's this kind of, I would say, almost magical intersection between what an individual has that they can do and what the moment calls for. So Jackson Pollack, who struggled for years and years and years, suddenly in 1947, he started throwing paint on the canvas, he solves a huge problem that existed in Western Art for 15 years.

He solved it. What was the problem and what does it mean to solve it? So the problem is having to do with what should be the subject matter of painting, where the subject matter should be abstract or representational. And so part of what Pollock did was to create a form of abstraction. That was pure abstraction. I don't work from drawings or color sketches. My painting is direct.

And he did that by taking the canvas off the easel. I usually paint on the floor. Where the canvas is essentially a wind. onto the landscape or the person that you're painting and put it on the floor. Having the canvas on the floor, I feel near more as a part of the painting. He made it into this material object

that he then threw paint on. This way I can walk around it. Work from all four sides and be in the painting. And that was a radical gesture. The second thing he did would turn out to be more important for the history of American art than the drip paintings themselves

was that he did. danced around the studio as he threw paint on the campus. And those dances were captured by photographers by Hans Namuth and Arnold Newman, and then in a film by Hans Namath who had a film of Pollack painting. And that was an enormous influence on happenings and performance art and conceptual art in the 1960.

Stuff that looks very different from abstract expressionism, but actually took Pollock as a hero for opening up what counted as art beyond just what was on the canvas. Now suddenly the whole act of making a painting was itself a work of art. So a dominant impulse on the American side and the Free World side in the Cold War

is to provide a contrast with what's going on in the Soviet Union. So Soviet art is famously representational. The term for it is socialist realism and the idea is that the artist has to represent the history of the class struggle. And that was a very easy target for Western artists to bounce off of. So what the United States promoted,

to the extent there was government support for promoting American art, which there was in the 50s, they promoted not a particular style of art, like abstract expression. They promoted the idea of diversity of artistic styles. So what they were saying to the rest of the world was in the U.S., we don't have an official aesthetic,

unlike the Soviets. You can pay anything you want. You can paint a soup can. You can throw paint on a canvas. You can paint an American flag. It's cool with us, because we're the free world. Don't you wish you were like us? So what happens in this book is so many things start to happen with an incredible speed.

Andy Warhol paints a soup can. Jasper Johns paints an American flag. Alan Ginsberg tries to crack up the language. Rock and roll comes along and is a revolution in music. What is happening that unites the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the rest of rock and roll to Andy Warhol, to what's the currents in literary criticism, all these things that you're trying to both marry and be suggestive about in a political and cultural way. Yeah, there was a really obsessive interest in the nature of art and thought, and that people were very invested in

how the paradigms worked for literary studies, for example, literary criticism, or for fine art or for movies and that the period is fascinating because it has this sense of the deep intellectual investment in these areas. And then it comes to an end around 1965 with the war in Vietnam and suddenly it all cracks up. The whole project in the Cold War, which was the project of keeping communism in its box while it withered away under its own inefficiencies, is that it led to the world. the United States to intervene covertly and overtly in other countries' politics in ways that were terrible for the people who live there, like in Indonesia and South Vietnam, but very bad

for the reputation of the United States as well. So at the end of the period, the United States comes out as an imperialist power, which is exactly what we didn't want to do in 1945. But what you get at the end of this period is a much more open view of cultural possibilities. People are much more interested in thinking about movies and popular culture and popular music and so forth than they were in 1945. That's an opening up of the American experience. That's really important. That's what we've inherited from this time. Look, concentrating on that period must influence the way you think of the period that we're in now. How do you make sense of the maelstrom of what's happening now in the middle of a pandemic, racial upheaval, disharmoning in the political world? Is it

possible to make sense of things while you're living it, or does it require the, I don't know, at least a generation period of time distance where you can start making sense of things? To me, it requires time. I mean, I've always been interested in this period, 50s and 60s, American history, but I didn't feel I could write about it until it was sufficiently dead because it's hard to get disinterested enough. You have to be disinterested to a certain extent. obviously care about it, but I feel I had some distance from it. It's very hard to write about, like right now, you know, obviously the big story for the last 20 years has been the digital revolution. It's just transformed everything. But who understands it? You know, it's just, we're so, we're in the fishbowl still. So it does take, I'm not discouraging people from commenting on it because everybody does, including me. But we're not really going to understand it for a while. It takes a while for that things to start to make sense. The book is The Free World. I cannot recommend it highly enough. My colleague Luke Menin, thanks so much.

Thank you, David. This has been fun. Luke Manan's book, The Free World, Art and Thought in the Cold War, is out now. Luke is a staff writer and a professor at Harvard University. I'm David Remnick. Thanks so much for joining us. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus, tune yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Avey Corrieu, Riannon-Corbi, David Krasnow,

Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, Annabelle, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alison McAdam, Monfei Chen, and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.