Unclear and Present Danger - City Hall

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Jamelle and John watched “City Hall,” a 1996 political drama directed by Harold Becker and starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Danny Aiello, Bridget Fonda, David Paymer and Martin Landau. You’ll also notice a beardless Richard Schiff, Lauren Velez, and Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. In “City Hall,” Cusack plays Kevin Calhoun, the loyal deputy to Mayor John Pappas, played by Al Pacino. After a young boy and a police detective are killed in a sting gone wrong, Calhoun has to navigate a tense political situation in effort to bring the crisis to a resolution without harming the rising prospects of his boss. Unfortunately, as he soon discovers with the help of Marybeth Cogan, a lawyer for the slain cop played by Fonda, behind the deaths are a tangled web of corruption that reaches from the political machine to the courts to the mayor’s office itself.The tagline for “City Hall” is “It started with a shootout on a rainswept street and ended in a scandal that shattered New York.”You can get “City Hall” for rent or purchase on Amazon and iTunes.Our next episode will be on “Crimson Tide.”Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieUnclearPodAnd join the Unclear and Present Patreon! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War, and much, much more.

I feel that this city is gonna explode. I am talking guns. I'm talking corruption. I'm talking 2,000 shootings a year. It all began with a shooting. Got a shootout in Williamsburg. There's two deaths, and they're connected, and that's all I know. And that's all I want to know.

Kevin, you're my right hand. You're the mayor's right hand. Who do you think you are? Some gumshoe and a dime novel? Aren't you supposed to be the pipe? to the mayor you should tell him somebody's taken up the wrong street both of you you want to stay way the hell away from this one who's side of you are yours and i always will be john because this kid thinks he can elect your president are you going to forget who got you here i don't forget i don't forget anything why don't you run for office instead of carrying the mayor's

bag i consider it an honor not only to carry his bag but also to fill it at night with the things i think the city needs damage control kevin damage control There was a palace that was the city. A palace in which there is no king, no queen, no princes or dukes, but subjects all beholden to each other to make a better place to live. This is an incident that will not go away. I choose to fight back until this city. Our city is a palace again.

Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s, and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times Opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write the Substack Newsletter on Popular Front, and I'm the author of the forthcoming book, When the Clock Broke, which should be out in June. But you can pre-order now, as we like to remind you. I also have COVID-19. So if I sound weird to you or sound bad, that is why. Please pre-order the book. As I say every time I mention it, pre-orders are sort of like the currency of the realm for publishers. And so it's great to buy a book when it comes out.

It's even better to pre-order. And I'm very much looking forward to when that book arrives. You are getting very soon a physical copy where I was just discussing this with my editor and you should be getting it within a week or so. Oh, great. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, you bet. For this week's episode of the podcast, we watched City Hall, a 1996 political drama directed by Harold Becker and starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Danny Aiello, Bridget Fonda, David Pamer and Martin Landau.

you also notice if you watch a beardless Richard Schiff, which is just weird as hell. Lauren Velez, who you'll, I think you'll recognize immediately. She's like a well-known character actress. And Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, then the sitting senator of South Carolina. It's really him. Yeah, it's really him. Well. Who plays a southern senator from a state not named in the movie.

In City Hall, Cusack plays Kevin Calh. The loyal deputy to Mayor John Pappas, played by Al Pacino, after a young boy and a police detective are killed and a sting gone wrong, Calhoun has to navigate a tense political situation in an effort to bring the crisis to a resolution without harming the rising prospects of his boss. Unfortunately, as he soon discovers, with the help of Mary Beth Cogan, a lawyer for the slain cop played by Fonda, behind the deaths are a tangled web of corruption that reaches from the political machine on the streets to the court. and to the mayor's office itself. The tagline for City Hall is it started with a shootout on a rain-swept street and ended in a scandal that shattered New York. You can watch City Hall by renting or purchasing it on Ambas and on iTunes. I would highly recommend that you check it out.

I think it's pretty good. I think listeners of this podcast would really enjoy it. It's also a cool, like, hour and 40 minutes, so not something that's going to be to take up your day. City Hall was released on February 16th, 1996, so let's look at the New York Times for that day. Well, because it's about New York, I got to read all the local New York news, right? Yeah. Okay.

So, but first we'll start with what we usually talk about. Yeltsin seeking a second term points to communism as the foe, says he is best hope for democracy and reform. Casting himself as Russia's best hope for protection. protecting democracy and market reforms from a lurch back to the past, President Boris N. Yeltsin announced today that he would seek a second term in the presidential election in June. His declaration amounted to the formal opening of the campaign that, according to every measure of public opinion, could well bring back to power. The communist Mr. Yeltsin ousted five years ago,

his voice croaking with horses after a rational campaign appearances in his whole town of Yacotrenburg, Mr. Yeltsin, himself once a member of the Communist Politburo, told supporters that he alone could head off a communist victory and continue Russia's political and economic reforms. He also proposed a solution within months to the hugely unpopular war in Chechnya without suggesting what it might be. Okay. So, Yeltsin, of course, wins this election. It doesn't do much good.

The economic reforms that Yeltsin ushered in are economically and socially disastrous for Russia. They lead pretty directly to the installation of Putin as a dictator and the, you know, terribly a liberal turn Russian society has taken. The distrust of Western liberalism is understandable to a certain degree. The United States, one might argue, meddled in this election, but it's more that American political consultants kind of held. helped gossy up Yeltsin's image. The consequences of that are still with us. Let's see.

Issue of lone officer patrols reunites a New York debate. From the burials of Los Angeles to the cobblowers streets of Beacon Hill and Boston, officers and most large American police forces routinely patrol urban neighborhoods and one officer cars, but not New York. The city's first experiment with solo patrols ended in bloodshunds. in 1980 when an unaccompanied officer was slain during a test program. The issue remains one of the most emotional and local law enforcement and may pit a law and order mayor, that's Giuliani, against the police force that has contributed to his administration's

crowding achievement. The city's sharp drop in crime. The Giuliani administration reopened the bitter debate this week, suggesting the city might try to save money by replacing two officer patrols and local neighbors with single officer cars. Not in itself very interesting, but interesting because we're about to talk about a movie that deals with all kinds of city budget negotiations and all the different interested parties in those. And here's another thing. An assembly plan with dismantled city school board, local panels eliminated.

New York's Board of Education would be mostly elected rather than appointed. The Democratic leaders of the State Assembly yesterday proposed abolishing New York City's Board of Education as well as its 32 community school boards. They called and said for a new board most of whose members would be chosen in elections and for a chancellor with broad powers and even greater independence from City Hall. With this proposal, the Assembly Democrats joined force for the entire senior elected leadership of the city and the state from both parties who have now advocated dismantling the Central Board that oversees the Senate. system, nation's largest school system, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, George Pataki, Governor George Pataki, the state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, who I think went to prison. I don't know. A lot of these guys end up in prison. Maybe that was Shelton Silver, who is connected to the movie in a funny way. And Speaker of the City Council, Peter F. V alone. Again, I don't

actually know what happened with this. I don't have kids, especially didn't have kids in 1996. So I don't really know that what's the deal with the school board is right now. I do believe the school board president is much more independent than once was. I think that this is considered to be by activist, something of a neoliberal reform that is not necessarily welcome, puts it in the hands of kind of a, oh no, rather the other way around. It's kind of a democratic reform. It doesn't put it in the hands of a technocrat or something like that anyway i don't know very much about it it's just another piece of new york state and new york city uh news um what else you got here uh british or anything else look interesting to you um let me see wives of the 90 1996 candidates

are also targets of scrutiny this is about the 96 republican primary um and just about how the spouses of the candidates now are, you know, people care about what they think, in part because of Hillary Clinton's prominence, in part because the wives themselves, the spouses themselves, are taking a greater role in the campaign trail. This particular story is about Leslie Alexander, wife of former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, who was a big, it was a major contender. In the 96 primary, story moves on to talk about Elizabeth Dole, former Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Transportation, who would later, I believe, become senator from North Carolina. So she was like a political animal in her own right. So interesting on the 96 primary. What else?

That's, I guess there's an article here on GOP rivals, clash over attack ads, debate features Donnybrook on negative campaigning. They always say every single, well, not anymore now that Trump is around, but every single year, they, every single election cycle, people complain about negative campaigning and inevitably do it. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's so funny because negative campaigning, it's just like a, it's like, there's never been an American election where there isn't negative campaigning. Yeah, I know. It doesn't, it doesn't exist from the very beginning, right?

Yeah. The people have made this point before, but, like, the 1800 election features Jefferson and Adams, like, trying to tear each other throats out. Yeah. And you have to add to that election as well, that sort of this was the first time that you had, like, partisan competition for the highest political office. And so these people didn't even know what would happen. Like, if it was like, if Jefferson wins, are they going to execute us?

Like, how does this work? So that was a kind of intense election. My personal favorite slogan from an election, I believe it's the 1888 election, which is Benjamin Harrison running against Grover Cleveland, or is it the 1884? One of those 1888 elections is the Democrats are accused of being the party of rum, Romanism, and rebellion. um which is very funny to me and i think it's the same election where the republican it was it was cleveland uh who i believe like was rumored to be the father of an illegitimate child and um he was taunted with um mama where's my pa uh and the voice of like the the child about a father so like pretty standard stuff and so it's funny yeah it's funny to see complaints about

negative campaigning in the fact you mind this is like the american public doesn't want to hear you talk positive about anyone they don't give a shit if you're just if you're like if they're like hey i did lots of good things you're like yeah whatever what do you have to say about the other guy and also it's like kind of the entertainment value comes from that oh yeah as trump fully understood that making fun of the other candidates was going to be extremely effective right right and and and you know some of them never escaped it right like you know mark her rubeo's kind of like a non-entity these days. Forever

reduced. He's always will always be little Marco. Yeah, it'll always be little Marco. All right. So let's talk about this movie City Hall. Not a ton.

A background, Harold Becker, the director, it's kind of like a journeyman director he has not done. He's not like a, what I'm going to call it? He's not kind of of any kind of alture or anything.

he's like a guy who you know who directs all sorts of movies um as needed he is movie next movie after this is mercury rising uh which we will probably do for the podcast uh it stars bridge billis and alec Baldwin um at cam looking at his filmography and there's like there's really nothing other than mercury rising there's like really nothing here that is super well known uh the cinematographer was michael saracin who actually is sort of a uh a notable cinematographer. He shot Harry Potter and the Prisoner Basket Band, shot two of the Planet of the Apes movie,

the recent ones down at the Planet of the Apes and Warp with Planet of the Apes. If you like the teen dance dramas of the 2000s, he shot Step Up in 2006. A lot of stuff. He shot Bugsy Malone, which if you've never heard of it, is a mob gangster movie spoof. But the gangster, like, everyone's played by kids.

Yeah. And the, uh, the guns shoot like whipped cream instead of bullets. It's a crazy movie. It's a really crazy movie worth watching. But he's shot a bunch. Um, so notable director. This was written. So I was trying to figure out who, who actually wrote this, like who actually wrote the

original script. Um, and I think the original script, um, and I think the original script, uh, was, it was written by Kenneth Lipper, who was deputy mayor under Eggcock. That makes sense. There's a lot of Koch things that happen in the movie. I'll bring him. I'll talk about him later, but go ahead. So he co-wrote the screenplayed.

I believe he may have co-written it. This is what I can't figure out who he co-wrote it with. The other credited writers are Paul Schrader, Nicholas Pellege, who is of November. the notable screenwriter in part because he wrote wise guys plays right for he wrote wise guy and casino love and honor in las Vegas which would become the screenplays for good fellas and casino and he was married to nor effron and then the other screenwriter on this is bow goldman who is like a hugely you know important screenwriter wrote one flew over the cuckoo's nest wrote um scent of a woman with bichino wrote melvin and howard wrote ragtime

so big important screenwriter wrote the perfect storm later in the decade or did a revision on the perfect storm uh so those are the four credited writers on city hall um my i guess my hunch is that the main script the bones of the script are lipper and schrader and then peleggy and goldman did passes on the script um to get it ready for for shooting uh score by jerry Goldsmith. So that's sort of production stuff. The movie was like not did not do great at the box office like made the $30 million in a $40 million budget. No one thought it was bad, but people were just like, yeah, you know, a political corruption movie. Kind of a B, a C plus to a B movie. Roger Ebert gave it two and a half out of four stars and basically said that the movie doesn't add up to

some of its parts. Now, I watched this today on the day we're recording, Tuesday of December 5th, and I thought it was great. I found this really compelling. And I wonder if, I wonder if part of the, I wonder if part of the disconnect for people, this is like a movie about municipal politics and is like really into what municipal politics kind of look like on a day-to-day basis. And I find that shit fascinating. I love that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you go ahead. No, I think that base, I think you're onto something there. I think that this movie's atmosphere, first of all, I think the script is quite good.

I think that the lines, like the actors are good, but the script is, it's good. It makes sense with everybody who you described in it. I think that, like, it's a little too good. I think it's a little too realistic in its depiction of New York, of city policy and New York politics in particular. And I think what makes us attracted to it makes a lot of casual cinema goers might find it a little bit confusing or even tedious or something like that. But it really, it shows the way, you know, city government works in New York. It shows democratic clubs, which is a very unique thing to New York that have kind of bosses. It's actually, and it makes sense that someone from the Koch administration was involved in this because this,

actually refers to a few scandals that happened in the Koch administration, which I can go through, which are, so one of them, the movie, Danny A. Yello plays a corrupt Democratic club leader in Brooklyn who's really a boss. And that's based, and who commits suicide. Can I tell people that? Yeah. They've presumably watched the movie. He commits suicide. That's based on this guy, Donald Mains. He was the borough president of Queens, and he committed suicide. He was actually being investigated by Rudy Giuliani's officer. I think he may have already been indicted. And he was friends with Ed Koch. And Ed Koch's relationship with him kind of brought down his chances to win again. You know, Koch ran on a kind of reform line. But, you know,

It was the city, and he needed to, you know, he needed the cooperation of these party bosses in the boroughs, of which Mainz was one, and he was friendly with them. And as this movie shows, this movie shows the kind of chumminess of corruption, which I think is really accurate, and kind of how people try to get away with it and pass it off for something normal or even desirable. and basically Jimmy Breslin uncovered this whole scandal, and Giuliani uncovered a massive web of corruption that included pretty much the entire Democratic Party in New York City. It led into the mob.

There was all this money being funneled to the mob. And Koch was not directly involved in the corruption, but he was friendly with a lot of these people, and he went to visit Mains in the hospital when he first tried to commit suicide and, and, you know, I think he gave him a kiss on the head or something like that. And that was, you know, really destroyed his image as anti-corruption crusader or as reform candidate. So the movie, yeah, draws from life. It shows the organization of New York City politics really accurately.

The character is a kind of Koch. very charismatic and he's sort of a Giuliani. He's not really, I mean, anybody in particular, but, you know, he's an extremely talented politician. He's kind of like Andrew Cuomo, not Andrew Cuomo, I'm sorry, Mario Cuomo, I think is another, who is a liberal with an extreme talent for kind of soaring rhetoric. I think actually Cuomo might be the real figure in the movie that this mayor Pappas is like. Of course that was my thought.

I considered him less than an amalgamation in previous New York City mayors and more very much like a fictionalized Cuomo, especially the whole national aspirations. Yes, yes. And some people think that Mario Cuomo kind of maybe raciously. Some people think Mario Cuomo's national aspirations were thwarted by mob ties. by the possible revelation of mob ties. They make Pappas Greek to make him, I think, generically ethnic, but not make him either Jewish or Italian or black or Latino. And therefore avoid some kind of natural stereotypes people might have about those things.

Although the movie is kind of brimming with other charming ethnics and, you know, except the two main characters, John Cusack. And I forget the actress's name. I'm sorry. Bridget Fonda. Oh, of course, Bridget Fonda. Bridget Fonda are not, they're not from New York. They're not. They're just white people.

So, well, he's occasion. So that's a little interesting. But, but, you know, I thought that was kind of interesting that it's like, oh, there's all the ethnicities in New York. And then there's just kind of two white people as the protagonist. Can I say real quick that I appreciated them making, Pichino's character Greek for no other reason that we got like a reference to Pericles his funeral oration.

Yes, that's true. I really, I really appreciated that. I didn't even connect that with the fact that they made him Greek, but you're absolutely right. I thought he was just, he was just waxing, waxing poetic. But yeah, that makes perfect sense. I mean, as someone who has a friend whose family is very Greek, it feels very true to life to have an older Greek man

say a line like the first and greatest mayor was the mayor of Athens. Right, of course, exactly. The Greeks invented it, of course. Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, I have a lot of affection for this movie and I think it's quite good. I think it's not action-packed.

It is really a political, on the political side of political thriller. and it's a human drama but I think it's like kind of in the same you know what I put this in the same I think it's the same year I think Copland's maybe a little better but I just watched this recently too

I think these are both kind of like underrated political thrillers from and urban political thrillers from the era is Copland and this movie and you could kind of watch them together and get a similar vibe of New York City, a great atmosphere of New York City and

at the surrounding suburbs. That seems right to me. They do seem of a piece in that way. Yeah. So as I always say, people should watch the movie. Basically, the way this film unfolds is we meet John Cusack's character, Calhoun, who is our, who is our protagonist, not necessarily our protagonist, but he is our viewpoint guy. He's when he was leading us through all of this.

And you can divide the movie into, into, you know, into chunks. The first chunk, you see, you get it, you're, you get established in City Hall, what kind of like the day-to-day life of all these people looks like. We witnessed sort of the inciting incident, which is this undercover, this detective is meeting this guy with mafia ties. He's, we learn later that he just wants to basically talk to him. him, but the guy freaks out, shoots him, the cop shoots back. In the crossfire, a young six-year-old black child is killed. I got to say real quick, this is fair warning for anyone who hasn't seen this yet.

I found this scene, maybe it's just because I, myself, I'm the father of a five-year-old black boy. I found, I found that scene very, very upsetting. It's a very upsetting scene. So this, that happens. And at this point, it's Calhoun, the second chunk is basically and then trying to manage the crisis as much as possible. But then in all of this, it's discovered that the mob guy was on probation. But the charges were much more serious that should have warranted something other than probation.

And so this begins sort of the investigation. Like, well, why did this guy get probation when the charges were so serious? And that's the thing that ends up implicating. all these other characters because as the film progresses and what I like about this movie on a script level is that this criminal conspiracy plot is it's important and it's it's brought it's it's reminded of it again and again but it sort of it exists kind of nicely um with the the political machinations part of the movie um the two things over the two things eventually overlap at the end and like converge

but you get you get both both are happening with calhoun's character kind of going between the two and beginning to realize how they're all connected but we learn one of the items on the mayor's issue agenda is that he wants this you know financial tower or something built in brooklyn to provide jobs for the borough but in order for it to be you know be completely unlocked there needs to be a subway stop and an off-ramp, I guess, for the freeway. And Danny Aiello's character, the boss of the South Brooklyn Democratic Party, his allies have basically real estate options that would be realized if the building happens. And so he's trying to pressure the mayor to agree to this. One of these allies is the mafia boss whose son was just killed in this shootout.

And so what we end up learning is that sometime before this kid, this mafia kid, gets arrested, and then his dad leans on IEllo's character to get him off. And IEllo leans on the mayor, and the mayor leans on a judge to be lenient. And that's how this guy gets probation. And that's sort of what the criminal plot eventually uncovers. The Aello and the Bob Boss, they try to scapegoat the dead cop, but this falls through. And we, this brings us basically to the conclusion where QSack's character confronts the mayor and it's like, you have to resign. You know, I can't. This is too much.

You have to give up your political ambitions because this is, this is, this is. one deal too far. This was a line that you couldn't cross. And I think that's where the movie should have ended, personally. Confrontation, two people in the dark room. But the movie actually ends with like a coda where Calhoun is running for city council and he's handing out flyers. And the end of the kind of like, you know, isn't democracy great note?

And if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere in New York. Which I kind of get, I can imagine, to my mind, what it feels like is the movie did actually end with the Cusack and Pacino scene. And then test audiences were like, this seems kind of bleak. And then they like shot this other scene to the bright young kid. Right. Because Bridget Fond's character comes back in and sort of there's a hint of romance between the two. Like it sort of, it makes it seem less. less bleak. But I actually think

Buccino says something to Cusack's character. He says basically that you, I see in you the same kind of drive and fire and kind of like political talent that I myself have and I love to see it in a guy.

And not in a kind of like rye ironic way, but like in an affectionate way. Like you are like you know, I call you my boy and that he does throughout the movie. But like I really do see you as someone who is very similar to me and I like love and respect you for it um and to me that's like a perfect note to end the movie on because it's sort of it it it um it emphasizes i think one of the

things this movie is communicates quite well which is that the kind of skills necessary for politics on this level the kind of willingness to make deals all these things the kind of the the self-regard that, you know, that drives someone to want to have a position of high office and believe that they can improve people's lives from it. All of those things are very powerful, but also quite dangerous to a person's soul. And it's a very difficult thing to navigate that. And it's very easy to forget how dangerous those qualities are. Right. And I think that this kind of distorting effect of like politics and rhetoric itself is really on displaying Pacino's character because it's like he's full of shit in a very compelling way like he really sells he he attempts to

sell you constantly and he's always doing a spiel right he's always campaigning he's always giving a political speech he's exhorting people and even when he's in his intimate moments he's he's being a politician and he's trying to ensure the support keep the support of of um you know the people around him which is you know a kind of alienating strange thing to see in a person you can kind of see it in the way Pacino plays the role because he's always like delivering a line and kind of looking to see if it landed right yeah yeah and seeing if the if or if you went too far or so he's sort of yeah he's become he's a completely political creature in the sense that he's constantly you know giving speeches essentially he's constantly giving speeches and he's

also constantly making deals and he he thinks that these are sort of the substance and these and these sorts of political friendships which are corrupt um and kind of hazardous to Republican health are, you know, sort of like the substance of friendship and bonds between people, whether or not that's bullshit or not. He believes it or not. I think that's the thing about corruption in these contexts is like these relationships are real. The affection bonds that come between people are real. The friendships are real. That's what appears so hypocritical about D.C. to people sometimes or any political capital to people is that people who publicly hate each other or profess hatred to each other are often quite friendly. And some people,

you know, to the political class and to people, they present that as, oh, well, isn't that nice? But to people outside, they say, well, they ought not to be friendly because they're conspiring together and they don't have people's interests at hearts and you know this stuff happens i mean you know people in dc will often tell you oh you know this guy goes on tv and he lambass that person later they're having drinks together you know like there's a there's a there's a divide between selves that happens in politics i think this movie's very sensitive to you know ultimately and you know the guy is a slick you know calhoun uh kusack he's kind of this guy all these little sayings from Huey Longism, who, you know,

Hughie Long was a crook and also very good at this very kind of politics that's shown in the movie, which is both rhetorically sophisticated or effective and also based on personal relationships and deals. And this guy's kind of a slick kid, and then he, he wants, but ultimately he goes for integrity. Integrity is what counts. And Papa's, Al Pacino's character tries to play all. off his corruption as a form of integrity.

And that's why this movie is almost, I think like this script is so smart, because that's almost like a tragic plot, you know, it's like two competing, it's not quite, but it's like two competing systems of value colliding. It's like, you know, he's saying, well, I have my loyalty to my friends that, that is very deep and I don't want to betray them. And this other guy is saying, well, you have a deeper loyal, a deeper lawyer. a deeper loyalty to the people or to, you know, to behave in a certain sense. And so you are betraying a larger set of ethics.

So like two competing ethical claims in a way, but it's really more like or like a more modern idea of tragedy, which is our, does society make requests of us in the way we behave that are intrinsically unethical, right? So when you do your job or when you do, do you have to lie as a politician, right? Or do you have to do when you do your job, do you always have to alienate yourself? Do you always have to do something that lowers your integrity just by nature of living in society? So I think like the movie is obviously not quite that deep, but it sometimes points in those directions and points into some bigger social questions about what's going on with. politics, right? This guy says these inspiring things, but he's lying, or is it something more

sophisticated? Is it something more subtle than lying? Is it corruption or is it something more corruption than lie? And I guess the movie settles on, it's just corruption lies. Yeah, that's, that's sort of why I don't like the ending that we have, because I think, I think that, but the movie, I think the movie is almost on the side of, or maybe on the Senate, but again, it suggests that there are there are different kinds of corruption and some kinds of corruptions are maybe are just an unavoidable part of everyday lowercase D democratic politics like at the end of the day if you need to get something built and there are people who are going to benefit from it you you maybe you cut that deal because there is other like the

public interest still wins out right this is the idea of honest graft right it's graft but it's like done with the public, with the public eye in mind, with the public in mind. But then there are corruptions that really are just, you know, maintaining relationships with no regard for the public, no regard for what that might mean for the public. And that's the kind of corruption that we see in the willingness to help this like mob kid get off. Like there's no regard for what might happen if this guy remains on the street. And it's funny because, Kuzak's character can very much abide the first kind of corruption

to the extent that we want to call it corruption. Yeah, deal-making. He makes, I mean, the movie makes a lot of him being from Louisiana. Kusack's accent kind of goes in and out. But that's sort of, you know, Louisiana, as you all know, John, Louisiana is almost sort of of like prototypical in American politics

for like that kind of, you know, for certain kinds of corruption. And I have to imagine that QSex character, Calhoun, does not have a problem with that, per se. But it is things that compromise the public good that he turns against. And that's, I think that's actually like kind of a, that is a, especially for an American political movie,

like quite a sophisticated view of politics. Because often in, in, in, in, in how the general public talks about it in general public discourse, it is either you're corrupt or you're not corrupt. And corrupt is like a totalizing thing. But it's hard to, it's, you know, I challenge anyone to read about municipal politics, like read about the history of cities, you know, pick up a, pick up a Robert Cairo book, read about Lyndon Johnson in his career and not come away or not even.

And just like fucking watch Lincoln, a movie that we've talked about in this podcast before, a movie I very much love, in part because it also is about the kind of thin line, the thin lines that make up politics, that dealmaking and favor trading, these are the things that make politics move. And they're kind of corruption, but they're also unavoidable. And there are even, even as they are kind of corruption, there are so limits and rules to follow. Well, I think it's the difference is like when there's cash over the table, then you're, you know, like there's payments in kind, which are political favors that for that help the constituents, the constituents of the people involved, right? So like building somebody in somebody's district. Now that gets a little, that's kind of constituent services, right? But there's a, you know, they want to help out their area. Now, that gets a little iffy sometimes because I think it's just because there's an inherent problem in U.S. politics because we have a public system of government, you know, or a public that's supposed to be about fostering a commonwealth, a public good.

But each individual, you know, we have a, we have a capitalist society, a market society, you know, and the way. on a fine level, you know, the wealth of any given state or municipality or area is a number of private individuals, right, or private companies. So basically what happens, ends up happening is, you know, someone says, well, I'm here to represent the great state of Michigan or whatever. And representing the great state of Michigan means, well, you're representing the big three, right? And that's not not true. Like the big three employee, it's not, you're like, oh, well, you're just helping out corporations.

Yes, yes, of course. And like, there are problems with that. But, dude, the big three, well, at one time, this is maybe a problem with our system, you know, employed such enormous numbers of people and are so essential for the functioning of the state that listening to their interests is. essentially, you know, serving your constituents in a certain way. So that's a problem is that there's this very complicated interplay between public and private interest in the United States. Corporations is, are they public or private? I mean, they're both in a weird way. Right. You know, and it's very easy to say, oh, well, you know, do we, you know, obviously I'm on the left and I'm, I look askance when politicians have cozy relationships for corporation and don't think that that's great and want

them to be more aggressive about regulating and so and so forth. But, you know, I understand that some of that comes out of desires for these people not to get, you know, some of it's obviously campaign contributions, but they want to win jobs for their districts. That's the thing. That's the thing I find I have a bit of a hard time explaining. Like, I think the public, I think most people, for a good reason, right. I should be clear. I do not begrudge people their impressions in such of how American politics works, right? Like for most of the time, it's like a totally reliable heuristic to rely on. It's totally relevant for people like us who this is like our jobs. But the thing that is sort of, it's tricky disentangling is, first of all, campaign contributions don't matter that

much, right? Or rather, I'll put it this way. It's hard to disentangle. I'm giving you a campaign contribution because I want you to do X from, you represent my interests well, and I'm contributing to you to kind of remain a good, to kind of maintain a good relationship. Right. Which is a different kind of thing, right? Like, if you're Elizabeth Warren and you're a senator from Massachusetts, and you, by virtue of being that, you have an interest in the federal regulation that touches the medical device industry, which is big in Massachusetts, employees a lot of people, provides a lot of jobs, provides a lot of capital for the state, helps make the state attractive to employers and new people, whatever. And so in your interest in keeping this,

industry in Massachusetts and keeping it healthy, you, Senator Warren, steer some money and a health care bill to medical device manufacturers. Is that corruption? And then they donate to you for your next campaign. So, like, is that corruption? Yeah, that's a good question. That's the question. Right. No. And I think that's sort of a hard thing to disentangle. Because I think you can make an argument that it is. I think you can make an argument that it isn't. But sort of like part of the, as you were, as you were saying, part of the part of part of the thing about corporations or corporate interest or whatever is it like they are entitled to representation as well. And even if they're not entitled to representation as entities, the people that

comprise them are entitled to representation. And they're going to be thinking about their material interest. Right. I guess organized crime is totally parasitic though, right? So that's difference is that like that's completely you know that's why when we look at people helping out their family like corporations are like mediating between public and private in a way that we find to be that has certain structures of transparency right you know their public corporations so there's some kind of rational system of governance going on one would imagine. But when it's a family kind of lining its pockets, that's when we start to think about that the private interest is predominating. I think there is an argument made by

Melissa Cooper and others that kind of corporate power has shifted away from big multinationals who are publicly traded back towards kind of family-owned companies, closely held companies, and this is creating a distorting effect on public policy and has all kinds of creating a reactionary politics. I find that very interesting. But I think, like, yeah, it's different when individuals, it's like they're collecting rents from it in a certain way and just trying to hoard and there's nothing added to social product from it, right? So there's nothing, the public, as you were saying earlier, the public gains nothing from the mafia guy getting his kid out of you. jail, right? That is a pure perversion of the public good. Whereas the little deal they make in

the beginning of the movie where, oh, they were going to build a subway. I mean, who's going to be against building a subway station? You have to be a libertarian lunatic to be like, oh, that's corruption. You know, like, you know, I mean, yeah, somebody might steal a little bit here and there. I mean, the problem is, is that stealing here and there eventually adds up. And then it makes things too prohibitive expensive and it makes investment in anything impossible because people are stealing all the time. I don't know how to solve these problems. Nobody does. No, and I should think they're probably unsolvable problems. That's just sort of inherent to... As long as you're private property. Right. But even if...

Even if there's like, you know, there's no more private property, it's all all socialized, there's still going to be different manufacturers, different kind of firms, different kinds of organizations that kind of are doing their own thing, that have their own kind of distinct interest from another sector of society and that are going to be represented. and it's sort of an unavoidable it's an unavoidable part of democratic politics yeah yeah I think that's true and every basically any kind of solution that attempts to like you know all these attempts these sort of like attempts to replace representative system with some kind of direct corporate union of the bureaucracy of the state and corporate you know in corporations you know, these kind of fascist fantasies is worse. But people get very, or having some kind of plebiscite for a populist leader who sweeps away corruption and kind of says you, this, that, this, that. And it was definitely the case in the Third Republic, which I know a little bit

about in France, is that a lot of people perceive the parliamentary system of the Republic and the balancing of interest that took place as intrinsically corrupt, right? And it's intrinsically corrupt type of system, and they thought that they could replace it with another form of democracy, a more direct form of democracy, but which basically kind of an authoritarian leader get elected. And that fantasy persists, right? What does drain the swamp, right? You know, it's like people are angry at the special interests in Washington, and frankly, there are problems with the system, and angrily with the parliamentarian side of it. So they're like, well, we're going to We're going to empower a strong executive to sweep away all these things.

But those strong executives are usually even more corrupt, right? They're just kind of handing out things to their political allies. Let's say you're a corrupt interest. Who do you want in your pocket more? The federal regulators or a few congressmen? Right. The executive side of the state is sort of like where you attack. I guess everywhere.

and you want to pass laws in favor. But yeah, I don't know what the solution is. Sociologically, it is a process in which, you know, basically the, hopefully the more egregious perversions of the public interest get exposed and the ones that kind of function are functional, you know, continue. I don't know how much the process of demagoguery about, corruption is just a part of the system regulating itself?

I mean, look, Trump complaining about corruption is laughable, right? Because he wants to basically create a radio corruption. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, sometimes, you know, I'm, I think this is just, this is very much depending on your position. Like, if you believe in democracy, sometimes you get enraged and the democracy is convincing to you. And other times, it sounds to you like an unfair manipulation or an untrue manipulation of the people to attack the effective administration of the public good

in favor of some other interest that is worse. I don't know. Yeah, I think I tend to, I tend to take a, I guess you might call like a realist view of all of this, which is that like, the ideal of people deliberating in representative chambers and, you know, the better, the best idea is winning is like, not a thing that happens. It's just like it's not a thing that happens. Never has. And this is why stories that's focused on city and municipal politics, I think, are really important because it kind of lays this bare in a very kind of, like, direct way.

And this is why I think participating in local politics is important, just as, as, as, as, citizens. Like, it's important to just see this stuff happen on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on the lowest, the lowest level. It's one part, people making arguments, but it's two parts, people trading interests and adjudicating interest and figuring out, you know, what, what, what's going to be the most beneficial to me? What'll be beneficial to the public? Um, uh, what, what am I going to convince myself as beneficial to the public? It's beneficial to me. Yeah. And, and there's a lot Yeah, a lot of that. But trying to navigate it all because sort of the fact of the matter is that like the, and I've got the beginning of these argument discussion, argument discussion recently, just a variety of things.

But like the people aren't unitary, right? Like they are, the people are comprised of like a multitude of different interests and perspectives and beliefs and ideologies. and in any decision that needs to be made collectively is going to involve kind of navigating all of those things. Even when it seems as if the people are united on one thing, the truth of the matter is that like it's going to depend. I think we're seeing this recently with abortion, right? Like it's clear to me that Republicans looked at a bunch of polls

thought that sort of like mild abortion bans would fly and we're like that we can we can we can make this work and are discovering in fact that like a poll that says 60% of people support something doesn't really mean that at all and that the people aren't as certain as they might appear to be yeah um but but to to come back to just sort of like you know uh political like and a representative a democracy, I tend to be of the view that whether we call it corruption or favor trading or whatever, it's just sort of part of the process. And that's not to say that people should like it. And I think, I think political to, right, needs to be scrutinized.

The point you made earlier, you know, demigogy against it is part of the system kind of self-correcting, sort of like saying don't get too comfortable about this stuff. But I think often whether we judge it as corruption or as successful political strategy kind of just depends on how much it does benefit the public good, right? Like we look at LBJ and his favor trading and influence trading or FDR even better, right? FDR, you know, engaging in influence trading and favor trading with segregationists, if the new deal had been a failure, he'd be like, man, corrupt bargaining. But it's successful.

We're like, he's a genius. Right. And we say the same, yeah, the same thing about LVJ, who was kind of actually did quite even criminal things at times. It's clear. Yeah, it is, it is difficult to say. I mean, I think what this movie suggests about politics as a vocation, right, is that all of the soaring rhetoric that attracts support to a politician and communicates a universal vision ultimately empowers them as an individual, right? So they want to say, I'm getting power, you know, my power is from you, which is true and it will be returned to you in some way.

But they're receiving the delegation of power from the people. So they're kind of like interested in offering this vision of, you know, you know, pie in the sky or even just quite nice vision of governance in order to accrue power. So they make promises. They say things that aren't quite true. I mean, like political rhetoric by even providing a vision of a better future is sort of intrinsically a dishonest because a realistic person would come to you and say, well, I don't

think there's actually very much we could do. And that is not winning any votes, right? Yeah. So like there is something connected with lying. I mean, Hannah-Orent makes this point. There's some, just because of like the imaginative need to come up with an alternate world and to say things that move people, there's something intrinsically dishonest about politics or connected to lying about political rhetoric. And yeah, I think it's just that basically, we both I think that's like what the movie I thought about the movie primary

colors where I was watching this movie too because that movie is like yeah he's a piece of shit but there was something really inspiring about him right you know right right you know it admits of the moment and I of and that's like the West Wing

just kind of says they're not pieces of shit they're not pieces of shit you know like they're good they're good folks you know and I think that this movie is a little bit more honest about what's going on in politics, obviously, you know, other accounts of corrupt and so. The wire is kind of good with that too in a similar way in terms of that's like that the wire is sort of moralistic in the sense that it says, well, you start idealistic, but then the system's going to suck you in. And it, and, but it does show some people who are

principled and they're able to make it work and don't get totally crushed by the sims who have dignified noble careers who can keep a sense of integrity there are a few characters a lot of them kind of they're brought down and it's difficult but and they have to make compromises but I think it's kind of possible like not every politician is as corrupt as every other right there are degrees of these things you know we have politicians who are you know not everybody, George Santos is someone who was too much of a criminal and did it in frankly stupid way, but George Santos was too much of a silly criminal to do the job, right? He was clearly about stealing and attention. And, you know, they all steal, they may all steal a little

bit in certain ways or employ rhetoric that is dishonest in certain ways, steal hopefully on behalf of their constituents, right? So they do some pork barrel for their constituents. And that's a little sneaky to get it into something that doesn't really have anything to do with it. And they're pushing, you know, they're pushing a particular interest against the general interest. But there are degrees to these things, I think. And this movie just said, asks very clearly, like, where is the line? And I think it has a clear line, which is don't help the mafia out. But I think it would be also interesting to see the question is, well,

what if the mafia is involved in the construction company that you need to build the thing that's going to get the jobs for the people? Like, that's more like, all right, now we're getting into some crazy territory. Or the union is both really good, but also kind of infected with the

mall. Like, there's a lot of very gray area things, which this, which Pappas tries to say to Cusuk, you know, we're in a gray area, we're in a gray area. And this movie says, No, here's the line. I think it's a reasonable line, but not one, perhaps, that is realistic. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's interesting to think, I mean, you could, I think this, I think this movie does the texture of city politics so well that you can kind of imagine a story in which no one, there's no, you know, there's no one's killed.

There's no, like, incident that kills people, but we're still have to grapple with, like, what constitutes corruption, what is. a line a line too far yeah but only you and i would enjoy that and maybe some other people would watch that yeah yeah would be a movie specifically specifically for like the robber careo fans in the room yeah exactly no one dies nothing happens mostly paperwork you know what and and um i think this is a good time to to wrap up and we've already given our thoughts on on the movie so i'm just going to do a bit of a tangent you know what movie is actually that and it's great. It's just like it's 90% paperwork and bureaucrats. The 2016 Hideki Otto movie Shin Godzilla. Oh, it's it's it's great. I've had a copy, a Bluroy copy for like a year and I just

opened it up because I saw Godzilla minus one over the weekend, which is a new Godzilla movie out of Japan and was wanted to kind of prep for by watching Shin Godzilla. But sort of the whole premise of Shin Godzilla is it's it's it's great it was written and made as a critique of the Japanese government's response to the reactor meltdown of like 2012, 2013 um, um, uh, the, the reactor metdown and the government's cover up. Right, right, right, right. In this, in this movie. Fukushima.

Yeah, Fukushima. Yeah. Uh, in this movie, Godzilla emerges and the government is sort of like caught on a way, like it doesn't understand what's happening. it has like a really, you know, sclerotic and ineffective response. But so much, like, you get scenes of Godzilla rampaging, but like so much of the movie is actually just sort of like people watching screens and being like, okay, what do we do now?

Holding meetings, you know, delegating, deferring, like that kind of thing. It's like, it really is a movie about bureaucratic politics with Godzilla as like the problem to solve. I'm going to watch it. It's great. And then the new Godzilla, Godzilla minus one is terrific as well. It's very much like a throwback to the 54 Godzilla, Godzilla representing kind of like the trauma of war kind of thing. I'll watch it.

I just watch Oppenheimer. I should watch Osser. Yeah, you totally should. Actually, to be completely honest, Oppenheimer and Godzilla minus one is a great, a great double feature. Awesome. Perfect.

We have a lot of Godzilla stuff around because my oldest kid loves Godzilla. Thinks he's great. Sounds fun to have kids. It can be. Yeah. Okay. So, all right, that is our show. You kind of got to find my script here.

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For this week in feedback, we have an email from Aaron titled John Wu in Post-N-11 Action Films. Dear Unclear and Present Pod, your recent episode on Broken Arrow led me thinking once again on why John Wu never fully translated to American films after face-off, and I think the deeper answer is that his operatic and gloriously silly style of action films

became instantly unfastened in the United States, just as he was finally gaining. a foothold. The Baroque American action film era that Wu joined had an inherent silliness to it. The difference between the tone of classic John Wu and say con air independency or the rock is one of a degree, not kind and consistency. I'm going to break in here and say, I think that's absolutely right. And in fact, I would not compare these two filmmakers on the level of quality, but in terms of their kind of heightened sensibility, it's interesting that Conair, or rather the

Rock, is one of the examples here because it's Michael Bay, and I would like actually identify Michael Bay as having the kind of a similar sensibility to John Wu. Okay. Even Mission Impossible 2, while not particularly loved at the time, did Will enough financially.

His problem was the massive shift in the mood of the country towards action violence after 9-11 and a decade of much more, quote, realistic action film style with the Boren films, Daniel Craig Bond, and the Liam Neon, and old guy revenge film setting the standard into the wheels turned again with the MCU and fast five more inherently silly films like the pirates franchise are toned down to be more teen friendly by avoiding an R rating and four quadrants in scope and even then they never felt like they were capturing the zeit guys this kind of cultural environment was just not conducive to the kind of movies woo makes great show Aaron thank you Aaron and I I basically agree with this it's I you know we're the this podcast is currently in 19 So, like, we're halfway through the decade, and before long, we'll be at the end.

And I'm kind of interested to see having, you know, made by way through the 90s, how much the action films of the 2000s are different. The BORN movies especially seem like ground zero to me for the sensibility of like the post-911 action film. You know, lone killer, untrustworthy bureaucracy, you know, foreign threats, that kind of thing. I recently rewatched the first Taken movie just because it's something to have on when you're doing other stuff. And that's an interesting artifact in terms of it's sort of like the villains are art, are, the villains are not, they're not Arab, but I think they're like Armenian or something. Really? Are they Armenian?

No, they're not Armenian. There's some, there's some Caucasian people. Yeah, there's some, there's some vaguely foreign. Georgian. They might be, they might be George. I'm going to look this up real quick. It's, you know, it's a very specific, almost 19th century kind of racism involved. It really, it really, they're Albanian.

Oh, they're Albanian. Albanians. Okay. They're Albanians. Yeah. Do the Balkans, the Balkans, the dangerous Balkans. Yeah, it feels, I kind of wonder when, when Taken was written because I guess it's a French movie. Oh. But it feels like it was written in like 1992.

Okay. Anyway, thank you, Aaron, for the note. episodes come out every other week just about so we will see you in two weeks with oh i don't need to look this up we'll see you in two weeks with crimson tide much requested oh hell yeah uh much requested from the listenership with a special guest crimson tide with a very special guest who i will not announce here still finalizing some stuff but he is i've already given away something he is on deck to join us

join us for that show so can't wait to watch that movie it is great a classic here's a real quick plot synopsis on the US nuclear missile sub a young first officer

stages a mutiny to prevent his trigger happy captain from launching his missiles for confirming his orders to do so you can watch Crimson Tide on Amazon or iTunes rent or buying or you can buy a Blu-ray.

Does a Blu-ray exist of this? Yes, a Blu-ray exists. I'm a surprise if not. I might actually just buy the Blu-ray. It seems like it would be fun to have this to own this one. So Crimson Tide is next. And check out the Patreon

$5 every month for two Patreon episodes. Latest Patreon episode, which I have to put up, actually. I need to upload that. is on the spook who sat by the door a fun episode to do so check out the patreon a bunch of you have signed up recently so much appreciated for them much appreciated until next time until our crooms and tight episode and for john gans i'm jemel bowie and this is unclear and present danger we'll see you next time

You're going to be.