WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1282 - Jason Bailey / Fun City Cinema

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

WTF takes over the historic Paris Theater in New York City for the first live audience episode of the show in more than six years. Marc is joined by film critic and historian Jason Bailey, author of the new book Fun City Cinema. They get into what the movies tell us about New York and what New York tells us about ourselves. Marc and Jason go over this history of movie making in NYC, including a deep dive into The Taking of Pelham 123 from Jason's Fun City Cinema podcast. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, Knicks? What's happening? Are you okay? Is everything all right? How's it going? Are you guys okay? How long have you been there?

Are you fucking freaked out already? Is it working out? Who's cooking? Are you cooking? Are you hiding? Where are you? I'm in the car. I'm in a car parked in my mother's driveway right now I'm out in front

of my mother's house parked in the driveway yeah I've got brussels sprouts in the oven my mother's in there with her dogs uh precious and uh louis john jasbo john is out somewhere I think he's seeing his daughter somewhere down further away. And I'm in the car, man. I'm not hiding out. I just decided that this would be the place to spend Thanksgiving in the car in front of my mother's house. Look, I hope you're holding up. All right. We can talk about there goes a car. There goes a UPS truck. I saw the stones the other night night before last I'll talk about it I'm I did all the cooking uh yesterday most of it I know what's happening let me just tell you a bit about what's happening on the show today all right I went to New York City a few weeks ago however long ago was feels

like it wasn't that long ago and when I was there doing town hall we wanted to do something we thought we wanted to to do some sort of show something fun because i was in new york but i didn't want it to be a stressful thing i didn't want it to be like a dread uh driven or dread causing event so i had this new book uh it was fun city cinema new york city and the movies that made it by film critic and historian jason bailey and it seemed like that would be a fun thing to talk about in New York City. And that guy lives there, right? So then we thought, why not do this in like a real old New York City movie theater, right? So that

was a big idea. It's actually Brendan's idea. So we contacted the Paris Theater in Midtown, the only single screen movie theater left in the city and they were they were into it they were game and we were all set up we're just going to do a podcast at the paris which is like i that theater has been there forever i mean they used to run european movies european what am i 90 foreign films what am i 70 they used to run the foreign pictures there so then we thought after they said we could do it why not have audience so we gave away tickets to a few hundred of uh of you guys you fans you you gals and guys and in-betweeners and we did our first live wtf in six years at the paris theater in midtown new york historic and uh it went great it was fun to talk about movies in new york at the paris theater

with a few of uh a few fans hanging out jason moved some merch sold some books signed some books whoo man gratitude gratitude gratitude can you do it are you capable capable? Tricky for me. All I know. First off, I know some of your what your families, some of them you may not like. And I feel the same way. I move through a lot of stuff in my head around people I disagree with in my family, people who have been awful, who are morally bankrupt and terrible people. And then you just sort of like you see them and you're like all right well this is that guy the life of your mind is fine once you get it out of your mind and out onto the thanksgiving dinner table and it's flopping around like the fucking

alien that popped out of john hurt's stomach then we you know then you got problems. Was it John Hurt? John Hurt, right? If you decide to dump your politics in a loaded situation into the dinner environment around a Thanksgiving table, it will be like that. It'll just be like, look at the teeth on that fucking thing. I hope it doesn't take out one of the kids. But here's what's happening for me and maybe it'll be helpful i i for some reason i'm not sure why maybe it's because of i'm getting older because it's you know whatever life i've lived and whatever i've been through i've i've i have a little more patience a little more tolerance and a little more empathy for you know all of these old people that i'm surrounded by it's weird as you get older the people that you always thought were old as fuck and much older than you say your parents or your aunts or even your grandparents,

as you get older, like I'm 50 and look, you know, when you have a young parent, like I always say, like my mom was 22 when she had me. So now I'm 58 and now the age difference between my mother and me, it's not that big. It's not, it's you get older if the people that you know you came out of are still alive you realize like wow it's i'm not that far away from that so maybe that gives me some empathy the idea that like we're all dying i don't know but as i do tell you every year if well maybe not last year i don't remember what was happening last year. But look, take a breather if you have to. Go outside. Try not to let them break you. Don't be broken by the past.

Don't let them use their old tools. Don't let them pull their emotional swords out of their scabbards and cut you up with a look or an aside or a weird, condescending, dismissive judgment judgment don't let them do it you have a shield you have a shield but also don't expect anybody to change they're old they're not going to change and if you've got people that are broken in the brain politically yeah save yourself the aggravation if you can if you want to dump it out onto the table and see what happens, cause some shit, make some drama. Sometimes that's the only way. Sometimes it's like, hey, why is everybody crying?

Where did so-and-so go? How come he ran away? How come she ran outside and drove away? Why? Where did everybody go? Is dinner over? Why am I sitting here alone? Sometimes that's necessary to process.

But just remember that that will be a memorable Thanksgiving for a lot of people and not the greatest one. You might not be invited back. Just take a breath, man. Enjoy the cooking. I love to cook. I realized I actually told my mother, I said a positive thing. I come down here, I'm cooking for 19 people today and I love it. Cooking is one of my favorite fucking things to do and I'll cook all of it. Just don't fuck with me while I'm cooking. Don't fucking come into my kitchen. Don't fucking, you know, hover over me. Don't ask me questions. Just let me do this thing. I made candy yams for the first time doing the standard roasted

Brussels sprouts, my classic stuffing, doing a bird, salted the bird this year. Never do that. I've been doing that with chickens and it seems to, you know, I do it overnight and it seems to brine it a little bit. It seems like a good idea. The skin comes out nicer. I did that cabbage slaw that I've just started making from that cookbook, fire, heat, vinegar, and sweat, or whatever it is, fire, heat, vinegar, and salt. salt i don't is that what it is i don't know but there's a cabbage slaw on there it's awesome i'm gonna make gravy did the cranberry sauce got a lot of it done yesterday gonna make gravy today today thanksgiving day is just the turkey and the gravy maybe the mashed potatoes i think the mashed potatoes everything else everything else is done.

Just going to warm it up. I'm going to cook it early today too. Fuck it. Room temperature. I have streamlined this process. Okay? Now I'm loaded up. I'm ready to take down whoever comes at me with bullshit.

But usually pretty behaved. And we got rid of the bad eggs. pretty behaved and we got rid of the we got rid of the bad eggs so i got uh i i wormed a couple of free tickets to the rolling stones at hard rock live last night at 7 000 cedar because i was going to be down here in fort waterdale so i reached out to uh somebody who could maybe help me with the tickets if they were around and they did uh and i was very appreciative it was very nice i didn't i had no expectations and i was just sort of like was very nice. I didn't, I had no expectations and I was just sort of like, I'm going to be five minutes from there.

So I emailed my contact within the Stones organization and she took care of me and it was sweet and I really appreciate it. I didn't think I would care as much as I did, but I do. I just do.

I do. I, you know, even without Charlie, I like Steve Jordan and Steve Jordan on drums and Darylordan on drums and uh daryl jones on bass it was the last night of this tour they were on in this small venue for them and uh i don't know i get very moved you know i've only seen the stones three times i saw him once in 81 on the tattoo you tour and i saw him with Dino in San Diego a few years back.

And I saw, and we went, me and my brother went. And the show was touching, is what's happening right now. It was touching. And it was probably, it's got to be it. You know, when Keith did his songs, he did Swipping Away off of, I don't know, what is it, Steel Wheels maybe? It was touching, because he can't sing anymore. He barely could to begin and he's plinking and he's singing at a key and he's singing this song slipping away which is about slipping away and there was a moment where he stopped singing and he just turned around and slowly walked towards his amp while you know

during the break a piano break maybe and you know just the idea of slipping away and seeing him walk towards that amp in that moment i was like this is it this is the this guy is a warrior this guy is the rock warrior and and he's tired and he's old and he's slipping away and he's just sort of walking in a in a kind of sluggish way towards his amp with his guitar in the middle of this song. And I felt it, man. I felt it. But they did Midnight Rambler, which is one of my favorite Stones songs, if not my favorite Stones song. And I always love when they play it. And there's a break in that song where it slows down and Keith goes into Robert Johnson's Hell Hounds on My Trail. And they do a verse of Hellhounds on my trail in the middle of Midnight Rambler and then come back into Midnight Rambler during that slow

break and I almost fucking died hands in the air man hands in the air yelling yelling like a fucking Stones fan you heard about the Boston god damn hellhounds on my trail baby slipping away the stones were great love them it was a great thing to do so right now i had a very good time talking to uh to jason bailey the book is a beautiful book, you know, fun city cinema, New York city, and the movie is a beautiful coffee table book with great, uh, essays. And, uh, we had a great time. So this is me talking to Jason Bailey at the Paris theater live in New York. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly host host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

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T's and C's apply. All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucknicks? What's happening? We're coming to you live from the Paris Theater in New York City. Thank you for

coming out. Thank you. It's great to be back in New York City. I've not been here since the before times. Since before the pandemic. And this show we're about to do with Jason Bailey, the film critic, historian, and cultural critic about his book, Fun City Cinema, about New York movies is really about all of our experiences with New York City.

And, you know, it's very moving to be back here after being away for so long and after what we've all been through. And I start to think about you know when my relationship with New York City really started I mean are most of you from here or did you all are you most of you transplants how many people lived here their whole life and how many people came here later see those are the people that what was it that you're sort of like I got to go to that fucking city right because everything happens here. And when I was a kid, my family came from New Jersey, and I was always sort of coming back to Jersey to see my grandparents.

I don't know how well you know me, but it was sort of a weird trajectory. My parents were both from Jersey, and then they moved to Alaska because they needed it. It was a weird sort of specific Jewish pilgrimage. They needed to get as far away from their parents as possible to feel like they could start their own life. So we went from Alaska to New Mexico, but there was always this pilgrimage three or four times a year to come back to New York, New Jersey, Fort Lee, wherever my relatives were. So I was always very connected to New York. And being in New Mexico, there was always this idea that New York was like, this is where everything happened.

This is where art happened. This is where culture happened. This is where, you know, people did what you know what they felt and what they it was. It was everything that I wanted to be part of intellectually, artistically, creatively. Everything was New York centric. Everything was New York centric. And I think part of the discussion about what's going important that i i got to know what kenneth anger is doing because if i don't how am i going to consider myself a real film intellect or any of that shit so now i'm as a 58 year old man there's part of me that's sort of like who fucking cares so and i you know i have to fight back against that part of me what you know how is that relative relevant right did you watch that velvet underground documentary right you got four fucking people like so theoretically that was an important thing right i mean that you know the way that he framed that todd haynes framed the the new york film scene and the art scene and the music scene of the mid to

late 60s and like things really happened out of that, right? But now four of you watch it. So what relevance does it really have? Everything's a micro audience. All we're fighting for is like, you know, 120 people that can sustain our livelihood for the rest of our life, hopefully. So is there a collective that really gives a shit? I don't fucking know.

But where's this going? I don't know that either. But I do know like in reading, you know, Jason's book that there is a relationship that the culture and that many of us personally have had with this city and and i and i feel it every time i come here i used to i used to go to new jersey you know to visit my grandmother when i was like 14 or 15 years old and she would drop me off at the bus stop in pompton lakes new jersey and i let me go to the city myself 15 years old right and you show up at port authority like what was she out of her fucking

mind how did i how did i not end up you know sold into hustling yeah i don't know like how did i like i would get off in the city by myself at Port Authority and I wouldn't know what to do. I was 14 or 15. So what was that? Sixty three. Seventy three. Like 76, 77. Like I remember Times Square when they still had the smoking billboard like it was still there. You remember that billboard that that puff smoke rings and you just and you just stand there going like that's fucking amazing. Like that was the greatest thing you ever saw as a kid. And I just walk around Times Square in the late 70s going, like, God, I love this place. How is, oh, my God.

And I go to Manny's Music and just stand there and look at guitars. And I wouldn't know what the hell to do with myself. But I would just, just to be part new york was so important at that time important authority at that time what a shit show i mean it's barely nice now right is it i can't believe she let me just do that then i just take the bus home by myself but then it just started that relationship with the city and i remember when times square it was disastrous in the in the late 70s it was like just but it was so great right but now like i don't know if i'm getting older again because like now there was part of me like i used to when i did

stand up in i don't know the late 80s uh when when they started shifting uh times square into whatever the fuck it is now there was there was part of me that was sort of like, they're taking away all the good stuff. Were they? Do you remember how shitty and scary Times Square was? And there were so many of us like, that's the end of it, man. They're closing up all those creepy porn holes and live sex shows, and they're moving the derelicts out of Times Square.

It's like, why live in New York now? and they're moving the derelicts out of Times Square. It's like, why live in New York now? Because now, like, I brought my friend Kit to Times Square. Like, Times Square, I think, is actually more closer to what it was supposed to be now than it was in the fucking 70s. You're supposed to go to Times Square and just look at lights and go like,

holy shit, this is insane. You literally get a buzz just standing in Times Square. I know it's, you know, they're just standing in times square i know it's you know they're just billboards for things but wasn't it always like that the 70s were this weird glitch in time where it was just like scary and full of junkies and weirdos and perverts and for some reason there there was something like i thought that was the real new york i'm like that's where that's the way it should be you know my mother used to come to the city when I was a kid. She would come, because she was a painter,

you know, she would come to, you know, the large exhibits, the big retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art. So like two or three times a year, she would, you know, drag me. But it was a great thing. It was a gift. And there's something about this book in terms of cinema about, you know, the sort of the necessity of New York and what it represents to the rest of the world and the rest of culture and how it dictated culture, you know, the sort of the necessity of New York and what it represents to the rest of

the world and the rest of culture and how it dictated culture, you know, through a lot of our lives. And now there's sort of a threat of it sort of dissipating. And, you know, what is that culture now? I mean, there was a time where like people like Norman Mailer were regular guests on talk shows. You know, there was an intellectual community. There was an artistic community that sort of ran the cultural dialogue. And for people like me, this is where everything happened. And this is how I wanted to judge myself against New York and be part of it and sort of absorb everything it had to offer. I mean, coming here in the 70s, like, I remember it. I just, it was a totally different world. And the argument in this book, or not the argument, is that as New York evolves, you know, what we have to show us what old New York was in bits

and pieces, and sometimes longer than others, are these movies that were shot here or that represent New York? Like, there is this idea this idea that like New York was so different that, you know, the culture was different. The world was different. Where has it gone? And, and, and what Jason sort of shows us in this book, it's like, it's, it's still here. It's in these movies. So why don't we bring, uh, uh, Jason Bailey How are you buddy? Hello Thanks for coming everybody I gotta give you this first

Oh thank you This is Cannoli Oh my god From Artuso It's taped up Okay yeah This is from Artuso Which is on Arthur Avenue

The Arthur Avenue area Yeah sure sure I've been up there yeah Yeah yeah Which is from Artuso, which is on Arthur Avenue, the Arthur Avenue area. Yeah, sure, sure. I've been up there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which is the Bronx's Little Italy. Are you taking these? You better.

Yeah. I mean. Take the cannolis. I knew it. Take the cannolis. Take the cannoli. Hey. Hey.

Hey. I knew it wouldn't be a live WTF if you weren't given food that you didn't know if you should eat. I tell you, man, like that whole tradition is sort of faded, but it happened. It's been a rough few days. Someone from New Haven brought me a box of Italian pastries. And I just what I can't. My problem. This has nothing to do with you or me, but it does have something to do with me.

My problem when someone brings me a box of cannolis is there's a couple of things happening. Like these are good. I don't want to eat them all, but I hate to throw them away. And I feel responsible to eat all the fucking cannolis or give them. By the time I throw a pastry away, it's such an act of self-hatred where I'm like, fuck these pastries. Fuck Jason for giving me these. Why did he do that to me? And I don't even want to read the book anymore.

All fair. All fair. Sure. Is that what you're trying to do to me? Absolutely. So now we've met kind of. Right. We talked on the phone once.

I interviewed you. Yeah. I was working for a website at the time that was a little bit of a content farm. And they were doing a theme week. They were doing internet cat week. And it was the mid-10s were weird, you guys. The mid-10s? Yeah.

And I said, well, why don't I do an interview with Mark Maron and talk about being a cat guy in life on the cat ranch and all this sort of thing. And this is when the IFC show was on. So they were, you know, they hooked us up. We had a lovely conversation. You could not have been nicer. You could not have been more game. Oh, good. And then I talked to Brendan afterwards and I said, Mark was so nice.

And he said, well, you know, Mark, I still have my cell phone number from Wichita, Kansas. And he said, I think Mark saw your area code. And he thought you were like some poor cub reporter from like a Midwestern Daily or something. And he was extra nice. And I was like, whatever, whatever. Fine by me. I can be nice. I think that's who I really am. But I have to make sure not everybody has access to it. Of course. Yeah, because then they're just sort of like, there's a nice guy. No.

So I went through the book. I read chunks of it. Thank you. But where are you from? Where are you from? Wichita, Kansas. You are from Wichita, Kansas. Yeah, I've lived in two places.

I've lived in Wichita, Kansas for the first 30 years, and I've lived New York for the next. So was your experience like in, in terms of why you came here like mine, where you were sort of like, I have to be there. Yes. I mean, Wichita, Kansas is very, it's very much when you think of the Midwest, this is the kind of place you're thinking about, you know, it's Wichita is, you know, is a factory town. It's very conservative. It's very Republican. It's very, quote unquote, Christian. Yeah. And when I really started getting into New York movies in the early 90s and sort of going to video stores and just loading up on these films, nothing could have seemed more different from Kansas in the 1990s than New York in the 1970s.

Right. And I mean, even like the movies where it's a shithole. It's like that shithole is so glamorous. You know, it's like I got to get that. Right. So, yeah, it just it was always there was always kind of a pull there. And a lot of it was, I mean, like because I was a movie kid. So a lot of it was about sort of the way the city is presented in movies, you know, either glamorously or sort of indifferently or, you know.

Sure. And like the weird thing that I realized coming back here is like, I lived in this city on like in the 80s and I had a car then. So the thing that the point I'm trying to make is that when you see it from afar, when you see it in the movies, you can't have any idea of what it's really like to be in this thing. There's nothing like this thing. Like my friend, Kit's never been here.

And I was excited just to be like, hey, look, we got a you know, I got someone who's never been. You get to watch somebody be like, holy shit, you know, and it was like it just that feeling like I drove. We rented a car to go to Connecticut and driving back down, which I used to do all the time on the FDR at night. It was just sort of like, oh, I'm like, you're hot. Like when I got out of the car, I'm like, holy shit, that was fucking amazing. You know, but I guess what I'm getting excited about is that, you know, electricity you you see or you feel you know from from the movies when you get here it's even more than you could have anticipated i imagine absolutely yeah and also it's a whole there's also a weird when when when the movies bring you here

there is a whole weird period of seeing things that you've seen in movies and either marveling over how different it is sure that's usually how it goes right or marveling over how different it is. Sure. That's usually how it goes. Right. Or marveling over, holy fuck, that's exactly like it in King Kong or whatever. Yeah. And really, in a strange way, that's kind of when the book started to form, that idea of using film as a way to see change in the city. Like the first, I don't know, a few months after I moved here, I went to a screening of the original Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3. I just saw it too. It's weird. When I got the book, I'm like, how could I not have watched all these movies during the pandemic?

I thought I watched every movie. I know. I've been much smarter to get it out at the beginning. If I would have seen that coming, I could have exploited it. It could have been a primer for people. Now we got to watch these really old ones yeah but so i see you know and i'd seen pelham a million times on tape but i'm watching it with a new york audience and first of all if you ever get a chance to see it with a new york audience oh fuck that movie kills we just did it last week

really because i when i watch that the characters in that movie it is really one of the most new york movies because all the secondary players that they were like new york guys yes new york character and just the way they were talking i'm like this is the real thing yeah it was like amazing to watch it and you know and it's an action movie where the leading man is walter mathau like there was a time when that was plausible it's like our i think that might have been the only one. That and The Odd Couple. So I'm watching this movie with a New York audience and it always kills

mainly because in it the mayor is an absolute moron and that never ages. What was odd, that was pre-Kach and he was a little Kachi. He was incredibly Kachi and also Lindsay and also Abe Beam. But yes, yes somehow precious hell there was de blasio in that guy

i don't know how the fuck they i guess it's a it's a new york mayor is kind of a thing it's kind of a it's a very specific was it with tony roberts who played his right the deputy yeah yeah yeah no it's a very specific kind of schmuck who ends up running new york so they just we just keep nailing it so i'm watching this movie and in the big climax where the where the the police car is trying to get the money to the subway station uh there's a moment where the subway car flips and crashes and everybody's watching and everybody freaks out okay so i'm watching that movie and i realized the cop car yes yeah and i'm watching that happen and i'm realizing oh that's the intersection that I pass every day to go pick up my wife from NYU. Yeah.

And I'm not. And it's it's a punchline, but it's literally a Starbucks now. There's a Starbucks. Sure. Where that happened. And that was just sort of the moment where I realized it's like, oh, shit, like everything has changed. But these movies captured it like every great New York movie. Yeah.

Is really two movies. It's in the foreground. It's the narrative. That's the story. What's whatever they're trying to tell. And then simultaneously in the background, it's a documentary of New York City at that moment and not one second longer. Right. Because the city changes so fast.

Yeah. But like, you know, it's odd that every time i'm here like i'm staying on the lower east side and there there's like there's part of me i'm terrible with history so i'll just kind of make it up kind of like this this was all it was just it was just all jews and italians here and they were poor and they made things you know and and they lived in this buildings and they weren't paid anything there was a lot of them in one room. So that's basically right. That's basically accurate. But even though when you say that it is an evolving city, but these structures still exist.

Like I'm walking up Ludlow Street and I used to do shows there. I've been on that street many times in my life. And right across Houston, there's this strange little synagogue. It's not a synagogue anymore, but it was clearly had the Star david but it was just tiny and i never noticed it so as much as everything changes especially on the lower east side no matter what the stores are the the ghosts of the past are contained in these structures and you know they're not ever going to plow those under are they i mean those are going to remain no and i thought that was amazing in the book in terms of you know when you were talking about rosemary's baby to jump around, that the choice to shoot it in that building in the Dakota and for Polanski to see not only the city as a character, but the building itself as the possibility of these haunted spaces that New York is all haunted spaces.

Right. Right. So like the past never really leaves. But when you watch the movie, you have that moment where it's alive again. Yes. Right. Yes. And and then also the movie becomes a part of that history. Right. Every time anybody goes to the Dakota, like Rosemary's baby was here, you know, that that all becomes part of that continuum of history of the city. Right. You know, so but I didn't realize so much about the the like you start way back in this movie and there are movies like i i have not seen uh you know the king vidor

movie or is that how you pronounce his last name yeah yeah the crowd which sounds like an amazing movie and i gotta watch it is it a silent movie yeah yeah yeah sometimes like i like it's a little harder for me to watch those movies i don't have the patience I used to because I feel like I'm doing something with intent and on purpose and that I have to get through. God forbid. Just that moment where you're like, this is important. But it does make me want to go back, but like there was the way you chronicle the history of the film industry in New York, you know,

sort of runs parallel with the politics of New York and how the world sees New York. Cause the argument is, is that, you know, as goes New York, so does the world in a certain way. Absolutely.

So in the beginning it was what, what, what did happen? When did the Jews leave to invent the world? Well, I mean, we start, you know, the film industry as we think of it, the American film industry started in New York. Right.

Initially, they were, you know, Thomas Edison and all the other quote-unquote inventors and developers who were stealing and changing and remaking this technology that made and projected motion pictures. They were all New Yorkers. This was all happening in New york and they were making the original movies in new york but it's weird when you say new yorkers because it's interesting because at our age you think new york is i don't think thomas edison was like yo what's going on there you know look at the bulb

look at the bulb i made a bulb, it wasn't like that. That was later. I think we just cast his upcoming biopic, is what I think just happened. Yo, fuck you, Tesla! Fuck you! I'd go see that movie. The movie called Yo, Fuck You, Tesla? Thomas Alva Edison story.

So the first movies are all really just them you know after when they get done shooting in their little studios in their manhattan buildings they're just like schlepping these giant cameras down to like an intersection like to herald square to time square and they lock down a tripod they shoot for like a minute and a half and they just release that as a movie it's called like herald square 4 p.m or whatever and because people hadn't seen movies they're like oh my god yes yeah yes this is amazing and new yorkers were like hey that's us yeah right and people outside of new york were like shit that's new york and so these and these little documentaries were called actualities yeah and those were the first kind of new york movies and then you know as the years pass they start actually like putting stories into them and things

like that but once we get into like the 1910s the industry moves from new york to california now who's but who's like who moves because like because i i keep thinking about you know uh empire of uh their own that was a neil gable book about how like the that when all those the the that generation of those jewish studio heads moved to LA. Yes. They kind of reconfigured reality so they could live in it. Yes. And they were here. Yes. They all were here.

They were here, but they could not get into the industry as it existed at that time. Because of Edison? Yes. Because all of those guys had created, you know, had put patents in on all of this technology and were trying to, to lock it down and,

you know, you know, and and and ask for these incredible right prices for anyone else to make movies right so uh they kind of all looked at each other and said well let's get the fuck away from these guys and moved as far away as they could right that was one reason that the industry moved the other reasons were you know the technology was so primitive at that time that they could only the film stock was so slow that they could only shoot outdoors there was not artificial lighting that was strong enough right to to make a movie and so they had to shoot outside all the time or up on

the rooftops they would make studios up on the roofs of their buildings so of course they couldn't shoot when it rained and they couldn't shoot in cold weather right so they said well let's go somewhere where it doesn't rain very much and where it's warm all around yeah the year and so that was another reason to move to california and we can just build our own new york and they did right the backlots of all the studios if they had a movie that took place in new york yeah every studio just had like new york street as like one of the things on their backlot where they could just go out and you know put some kids you know playing stickball and that's like see look it's new york um and at most you know they would use stock footage at the beginning of the movie you'd see a skyline maybe they'd send a second unit out for a day or two

to shoot some some specific exteriors if they needed but that was what a new york movie was with very rare exceptions for about 50 years 50 years yeah and then people started to come back yes i i like the in the book you sort of show that like a lot of the devices that people use to shoot new york streets were almost devised by edison and those early people that they hide the camera in a cart or a car and just like you know get the street scene with real people in them it's so it's so funny to me that like about how the the impression of new york or people's limited understanding of new york is that like the you talking about the movie sets just reminded me like when you go to a place when i used to travel

you know when i lived here and i was doing comedy like to a place like wichita like the booker or some local person would always say to me like oh you're from new york we're gonna take you to this area you know so right so they they take you to area where there was like a bookstore a coffee shop and and a homeless guy and they'd be like huh doesn't it feels like New York right and I'm like kind of I guess thank you thanks for the thought but yeah but in a sense that lack of integrity to the reality of the thing kind of read on film. Like, I mean, if you lived in New York, you're like, that ain't that's not. Absolutely. No, I talked to Scorsese for the book.

And he said when they would watch those movies, he would sit there and he'd be like, well, that's not New York. The curb height is all wrong. Oh, I was like, yeah. Yeah. Which is weird. Sort of nerdy, anal Scorsese, like making note of the curb height. Yes. Yeah yeah like the street lamps are all yeah you know so but but to to be fair in that in that period all studio filmmaking was fake like nothing even the movies that were shot in los angeles looked like they were shot in the studio you know there was not there was not an emphasis on thought on sort of authenticity and versamilitude in those early years. When does that start?

Honestly, it starts in the post-war era. Like for a couple of reasons. Number one, by the time, you know, until then movies were just always an escape. It was always an entertainment. And then people came back from the war and were kind of fucked up. And it was okay to see some portraiture of that on screen. It was okay to do movies about what we now call

like ptsd and stuff like that and so the idea of sort of realism was working its way into the vernacular a little right but you follow a thread of that from the crowd yes you know all the way you know sort of through like the three uh last weekend and like and i don't i'm not sure when that was but there seems to be this kind of strange gritty you know realism that you're talking about sweet about sweet smell of success the apartment that that you you kind of uh posit is is fundamentally in new york it is it is but that nobody cared about really before then right they tanked yeah where are the musicals yes we like the dancing the crowd is up batteries down the the crowd was a huge flop when it initially came out so but these post-war audiences first of all they

spent four years watching newsreels like that was you know there was no cable news at that time so they were they were sort of had become versed in the aesthetics of documentary right if you will and then also coming out of europe in post-war uh cinema particularly out of italy yeah you know in italy like they bombed all the movie studios so the post-war italian filmmakers like roberto russellini were shooting out literally in the streets in like broken streets right and that was italian neo-realism rome open city rome open city and bicycle thieves all of those films and some of those were starting to make their way over and people were like well this is a different way to see the world this is a different way to see a movie and so that started

to work its way into american cinema as well and a few filmmakers with some power started trying to make more movies at least partially in new york that were new york movies and to inject some of the life of the city into those films both the darkness and the excitement yes but it's so funny and that's post-war noir as well that's like that's movies like kiss of death and dark corner and all you know these uh force of evil that are doing a lot of location shooting and really taking advantage of sort of urban night shadows darkness it's so funny because that that sort of idea of of how movies are supposed to work is still the dominant paradigm really yeah it's sort of like i don't want to go see a movie about a sad guy yeah yeah i want to go see a movie about superheroes yeah where's the

guy with the cape who wins yes this guy doesn't win yeah and then that sort of continues to change um in the 60s with the french new wave where you know all those truffaut and godard and all those guys are shooting out in the streets sure paris you, you know, mostly again out of financial necessity. Yeah. And also like those are movies that some of them don't even make sense to me. Yeah. So that,

that was a whole other thing that Americans are sort of like, what the guy, who is this now? What are we watching? So apparently I'm going to do a full array of New York voices who are confident, but a little stupid. So,

so accurate. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I call it the smart, stupid guy, but, but a little stupid. So accurate. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I call it the smart, stupid guy. But like I thought also it was like I never really kind of put together this weird, you know, simmering darkness. Why would I? Because I'm not a film critic and, you know, I can fake it.

But the sort of movement through the crowd, then on through the Sweet Smell of Success, which, you know, I like that kind of deals with the entire politics of show business, the politics of the city, the way the city was run, the media, the politics of politics. Right. And that and then that sort of translate the sort of how you kind of sense it in the apartment that what's underneath. Yes. The narrative, the love story, the romance in the apartment is what's underneath yes the narrative the love story the romance in the apartment is something fairly horrible yeah and the idea that you could have these movies that sort of had shiny surfaces you know like sweet smell is a beautiful movie to look at the james wong house cinematography the apartment is a gorgeous movie and it's you know and its

influence on you know the madman aesthetic and that sort of thing is very clear these are gorgeous movies but you know that are very much sort of lift up the rock and you see all of the all of the the critters underneath sure and that idea of sort of delving into some of those dark places becomes a bit more prevalent in the 1960s and also i think you know what you're talking about the new york and the idea of of progress industrialism culture is that you know in the apartment you know there's moments where i'm watching it and you just see that office you're just filled with never-ending desks of people and you realize like they've all been replaced by you know just a circuit yes so it's sort of like that whole period of of new york and and the idea of of what your work was

was it's it's all gone. Yeah, but all shifting too, because it was an industrial town before that. And then it became sort of an office town. And that's still kind of over. And then the 80s become the financial boom is sort of what sets the stage. I guess that comes back, yeah. But the idea that there was just like 1,000 people just doing accounts. Yes.

It's like that's just like a button absolutely yeah i think in the book also you kind of illustrate this uh this this kind of a survival kind of like rugged kind of fuck you to new york even when you because when you document and talk about the the depression and the impact it had i don't think i can i can really picture just the impact of of how the country was, the city was. And then out of the depression, through weird sort of circumstances, comes King Kong. And it's sort of that that becomes sort of this mirror of New York's ability to survive. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and, you know, and the idea initially even of King Kong atop the Empire State Building, you know, that the Empire State Building was brand new when that movie came out. building you know that the empire state building was brand new when that movie came out and they were building it and all of these other skyscrapers like as the depression was beginning so empty

buildings empty buildings like the first 20 or 30 years the empire state building was like half full at best yeah they called it the empty state building they would they would ask the cleaning crews like after they got done cleaning to like leave lights on so it seemed occupied like they were this was there's no worse time to put up a bunch of giant office buildings than right at the beginning of the great depression but that's that new york can-do spirit that's like nope i'm putting a fucking building up marge here we go yeah you know and so that and that at the time was the highest building so that had to be the one that king kong scaled but then in this weird way you know the the the fear of of the climax of king kong uh the way that the city is is sort of uh in disarray yeah there in some ways kind of reflects what the city was going through in the great depression it's happening now post-covid now that everyone realizes like hey we don't have to really

be in a room with people yeah and there's all these buildings here now that are just empty absolutely like they're like i i don't know what i it's what do you anticipate you know cinematically you know in terms of how how is the how is the are the are the artists going to reflect on this time i'm kind of excited about it i sadly yeah no i mean i think you know i i don't know what they're going to do and that's the thing i'm most excited about. I know there's not a roadmap for it. There's not a clear, you know, I think maybe we can sort of look at post-war cinema as a way of saying like, okay,

well, this is a country coming out of a trauma. And what did we do? Film went into a lot of exciting directions. You know, then we got the noir, you know, for the film noir boom and all of this sort of darkness.

We had, you know, a greater interest in realistic drama. People were actually weirdly not interested in escaping at that moment. They wanted to delve into that darkness a little bit. I don't know if we're built for that anymore. Like when people go to the movies now, go to the movies now, they want to escape. Yeah, yeah.

They want an amusement park ride. Absolutely. Well, that's not unlike the depression, though, a little bit, right? That's true. So what happened in the, I guess, really, we should talk a bit before we open it up to questions about you know what happened yeah in the late 60s and 70s yes so this is this really is when i found out about this and started thinking about this was when i knew that there was a book here you focus on midnight cowboy a lot yes yeah in 1965 john john lindsey gets elected mayor yeah mayor this very you know sort of

handsome rugged post Camelot era I remember him when I was a kid my mother would say like he's handsome he was exceedingly handsome and also a little bit of a star fucker so he campaigns with some celebrities and he's trying to figure out you know all

this time you haven't been able to make really no one's made like full movies in New York there's not a New York film industry and it was mostly a matter of logistics it was just like there was so much red tape you had to fill out so many forms to get so many approvals from so many different offices in order to make a movie in New York you had to bribe the cops like they would literally make that a line item in the budget to like pay off the cops at the beginning of each shift like it was just so hard to do and he asked and found out that that was why movies weren't being made in new york so he made a campaign promise to bring movies back to new york as you know as an economic and as a

public relations thing and he kept that promise and in 1966 he signs executive order number 10 and executive order number 10 basically established the mayor's office of film, theater, and broadcasting, which was a one-stop shop, which is where you go and fill out one set of forms, you get one signature, and they will help you make your movie. And you can just leave the money for the cops there? It also set up a specific division of the NYPD to help you make make your movie to do crowd control and things like that um and to his credit that worked and film that's why you suddenly have a huge number of new york movies in the 1960s in the 1970s that's why all of these movies exist he also included in that executive order a directive that there would be no sensorial editorial interest from the mayor's office to these films they would not tell you what you could and could not put into New York into your New York

movies hmm the problem with that was that this is the era when New York goes into the toilet this is when you know the the tax base is fleeing the budget is out of whack social services are decreasing crime is increasing and suddenly because of a big move this mayor made the city going to shit is fully captured on giant movie screens several times a year yeah yeah yeah and the comic timing of that was just too much to resist. But that's also like the time where the sort of the right wing at that time was able to leverage the perception of New York as being this crime hole where you couldn't walk a block without being mugged. And probably to the benefit of the city, that still holds. And a lot of those people are frightened to come here thank goodness yes but that's when that happened right yes and and

and a lot of the more exploitative movies helped to nudge that notion along you know i mean like oh like death wish death wish is a fucking is a right-wing fantasy of of life in new york i mean like okay the first time paul kersey kills somebody in that movie he walks out of his apartment he crosses the street he walks into a park and within 30 seconds somebody's trying to mug him like this is a that's right he's just baiting it right yes was there a tagline in that movie was he did he have a make my day thing no he was uh he it said that he was a one-man judge jury and, and executioner. Oh, that guy. Yeah. Which is really healthy for a democracy. Sure.

I think we can all agree. Yeah. I think it was an early inspiration for Curtis Lewa. Yes. Yes. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, use the cat, Curtis. That'll get you votes. And so there's an interesting tension in terms of crime in those 70s movies and in cops. You know, like you have all of these really you know sort of semi-fascist cop movies things like french connection i saw that when i saw that movie that was like the greatest thing i watched it again recently it's great it is great it's that's what's so scary about it like friedkin i talked to friedkin about it and he's like i don't think we had permits my guy yeah they did that car chase. And they were just fucking flying.

I mean, he probably had permits. But how insane was it? That guy, he pushed the envelope, that freaking fella. Yeah, he sure did. Yeah, he's lucky no one got killed on that movie. Extremely. Yeah, he was. I mean, but, you know, Hackman, Popeye Doyle was a fascist cop.

But, you know, you had Roy Scheider, who was like, I don't know, Popeye. You had to balance it with the guy like i'm not really all right you know no it is a great movie which is what's a little dangerous about it because it's like it makes the case well for the idea that cops are being uh kept from doing their jobs by you know by these pinko liberal lawyers and these they're miranda laws and all, which was all fairly new when that movie came out. You know, the book made me watch a movie that I remember hearing about when I was a kid because I remember it was across 110th Street. Oh, God damn.

So I'd heard about that movie because I remember when I was a kid, my parents went to see it. And they came home. My father said, they cut a guy in half with a machine gun. Right? And then I watched the movie, and it's like, they don't. He says it. The paramedic, when they're taking the guy, this guy got cut in half with a machine.

But as a kid, I'm like, really? That sounds amazing. Right? But that movie was sort of incredible. Because it almost looked like they only had one camera to shoot it with yeah did you notice that yeah like there's no there's no two shots it's just like they're just moving one camera around and it's violent and weird and i there was i almost wish it seems that that movie more so that one in pelham are really the ones that that show like

that that full gritty new New York for the whole movie. Yeah, absolutely. Except Pelham is kind of a pick-me-up. Pelham is a little bit of a crowd pleaser. And A Cross on 10th Street is, frankly, it's a tough, kind of depressing movie. But it's just so funny, the control center of the subway, where everything's going on. You got these three.

You got Stiller. You got, right? And you got the other guy who's like, I'm just trying to keep the trains moving. Yes, yes yes but the funny thing is is like everyone is trying to keep the train no one seems to give a shit about the people on the train no like he that doesn't even come into the conversation that there's people that might be killed on the train like we got it backed up over here with yeah no that's the guy who says the immortal line this line always gets a huge laugh when you see that movie with the new york, which is, what do they want for that lousy 35 cents to live forever?

It's a good line. But I do think all the arc of this stuff shows the survival, the attitude. Because I was here after 9-11, and there was definitely this unity that happens where it's sort of like, you know, I mean people were even aggravated that you know people were coming from other places to gawk at the at the wreckage you know it's sort of like why don't they just leave this alone this isn't like they were uh rubbernecking you know and it felt like an intrusion and now like I even feel a little of that because I was I haven't been here in a year and a half since the pandemic and I like put something on Instagram about like, it's amazing.

It's it. And people are like, what do you think is going to happen in New York? Right. Of course. What do you what do you think is going to shut us down over here? I'm like, dude, I used to live here. Like, whatever. You know, like we're fine, you asshole. Yeah. OK, OK. And like you definitely see that spirit through all this all of it you know even like because you don't people watching the movies don't know that the 70s are a disaster i didn't know it till later that you know the only people that like there were people that's when everyone bought those fucking lofts you know in in soho tribeca like on on gray jones street they were a nickel you know philip glass Great Jones Street, they were a nickel.

You know, Philip Glass is like the whole building for a nickel. And now he lives there forever. And now you can just listen on that street. That's Philip. He's working on a thing. But now where do you see, like, you know, after the 70s, you know, what is the big shift politically and and and through the lens of the camera that happens in the 80s it's all around wall street used as the

example wall street is the example because in a lot you know the the big thing that sort of got the city back up on its feet financially to a great extent was first of all the boom in the financial market and then also there was a real concerted effort towards tourism which was really tricky to do in the 80s when it was still a shithole um but they were like no no no it's a beautiful shithole look you know and they really you know and so that but the the films that were coming out in that era you had two kind of different tracks of movies you had the sort of post death wish post the warriors uh deeper into the idea of the urban hellscape you know sort of a lot of really exploitation movies in that vein which ones oh you know things like the exterminator and uh night of the juggler

and things like you know just these sort of b movies uh maniac oh yeah but simultaneously also in the mid 80s you start to have the rise of a really specific subgenre the new york fish out of water comedy where as opposed to earlier movies that are all sort of told from the eyes of new yorkers who are scared shitless these are all movies about outsiders who come to new york and who take it in with their wide outsiders eyes and come to love its collection of weirdos and eccentrics and people like that so you talk about movies like crocodile dundeeundee and Coming to America and The Brother from Another Planet and Splash, which is like a literal fish out of water story. And The Brother from Another Planet is an alien story. And arguably Crocodile Dundee

is somewhat of an alien story. That's true. And Moscow and the Hudson is another one. So these are, and these movies are huge hits. Right. And so this idea starts to influence the kind of public perception of New York. It's a romantic idea of New York. Very romantic. Right. Yes. The idea that, no, come here. We're weird, but we'll like you.

So that just so happened. When you talk about it like this, it feels like it wasn't a coincidence that there was some sort of movement towards bringing people into the city yeah but that doesn't happen collectively on behalf of all these directors it doesn't happen collectively but something gets into the bloodstream okay i mean i think that that's sort of a running theme of the whole book is that like there's the great new york filmmakers pick up on something that's happened that's in the air and make it a part of the movie whether they're doing it explicitly the way that like spike lee does in 25th hour or whether they're doing it explicitly the way that like Spike Lee does in 25th

hour, or whether they're doing it just sort of implicitly in terms of vibe and tone, the way that Scorsese does in taxi driver, like the great New York movies all feel like there's life happening outside the frame. And so I think, yeah,

in that period, it's just like, you know, this, this push for tourism. I mean, this is the era of I heart New York, right?

You know, that's like, that becomes just sort of part of the idea of, of york is that like no come it's weird but you'll have a great time right and i would imagine that alongside of that that's when the cultural importance of new york starts to to shift and and and be kind of like backseated for the sort of you know midwestern perception of of New York as being a fun place to go. Yes, exactly. And then, and also in the book, you did sort of start to, you know, kind of talk about the, the independent film scene and, and post nine 11 movies. And how,

how is that different to you? How, what, what was the main shift in in the film uh representation post 9-11 i mean in the years after 9-11 you know it there were a lot of films that were sort of about collective trauma they were about sort of recovery and sort of things just being weird and trying to sort of make your way through the city and feel okay in your skin and like i say 25th hour puts that in pretty explicitly in a really brilliant way uh although that was not originally part of the script that was not part of the novel it was based on spike put that in you know after it happened but other movies like margaret or in the cut or you know these sort of these smaller films margaret wow there's a there's there's a sense of that's not a 9-11 movie but it is yeah you know because it's all about the sense of like

surviving a horrible act and what the fuck are we going to do about it oh my god that that movie is menacing in a very emotional way yeah yeah and you talk about francis hot too you talk about noah uh bomb back right yeah that's very much a movie about trying to live in new york and have that that new york cultured life that you talked about after it's all gone after after a after it's all gone and b when you cannot afford it oh right okay you know and so much of the story of new york in the the 2010s is about economic inequality and how hard it is you know that that you're right in the 80s you could go you could move downtown you could have a job where you you know you hosted at a at a coffee shop one night a week and that was enough to pay your shitty rent on second avenue and then you could spend the rest

of your time making films even though you didn't know how and being in a band even though you couldn't play anything and making art because even though you couldn't paint and that was this sort of like the new york life the new york life well that's interesting and you can't do that now it's like it's like logistically financially impossible but also like i'm not sure you could do that you know in in in an authentic way in the 80s late 80s like i think that you know there was these precedents set yes by generations previous around art, music, performance, and all that stuff that was sort of like avant-garde or off the grid or New York. And then people just came in and tried to fill those shoes and they did it poorly. I think there's always been, it seems like I missed a lot of

the music that was happening in New York in the 2010s and that whole scene but i did i was i did see what it become of performance art sure and some sort of sense of of of what that life started to be it was almost like a caricature of it well sure the thing we also have to remember is that you know the things that the films and the music that have survived from the 80s and that we still watch and talk about now are sort of the cream that rose to the top and there's always been a lot of garbage sure well i'm talking about yeah later than that i think the 80s was probably the last hurrah of that. Of that, yeah. But anyways, Jason Bailey, ladies and gentlemen.

Great book. Thank you. Fun City Cinema, New York City and the Movies That Made It. And I think you want to take some questions? And now, yeah, I'll kind of make my way around the crowd. We'll take a few questions. Yes, here, why don't you stand up? And what's your name?

Faye. Hi, Faye. Hi, guys. Jason, so I was wondering how significant you thought the switch from film to digital moviemaking has been on how we view the city, how directors film it, and if you think that the city has been influential in the resurgence of film that we've seen.

Yeah, I mean, I would say definitely, you know, we get in the 2010s chapter a little bit to sort of the indie movement of the 2010s, which in many ways took root in Brooklyn and some in Queens and some, you know, in a lot of these sort of smaller spaces, these artists who could no longer afford to live in Manhattan. And so suddenly the really exciting stuff is being made out in Brooklyn and out in the boroughs. And I think digital was key to that because that was a way that they were able to make these movies cheaply. Again, it's the same thing we're talking about. Some of them are like, literally unwatchable. But a lot of the good ones... You mean experimental? Worse than that. But a lot of them kind of made their way out and that's you know and and

a lot of those filmmakers dislike the label but when you talk about mumblecore people know the movies that you're talking about and that's also where the scene that greta came out of and i think that was a really important way to keep a new york indie scene happening because indie film has become such a sort of nebulous term so i think yeah i think and and uh yeah i think it was important and i'm glad that it happened because we're seeing a lot of nebulous term. So I think, yeah, I think, and yeah, I think it was important and I'm glad that it happened because we're seeing a lot of those filmmakers start to work with a little more resources and do some more interesting things.

Oh, you cover Lena's beginnings. Yeah, yeah, Tiny Furniture. Tiny Furniture, yeah. And that's another, yeah, micro budget, digital, but then, you know, that gets her an HBO deal and to make a show and really girls. It's New York. It's a TV show, but has a lot of the qualities of sort of great new york movies about it so my name is sarah hi sarah hi mark i since a inappropriate young age i have a fascination with the movie gloria by john oh yeah yeah and um i was just wondering you were talking earlier

about you know these great movies that know, encapsulate a particular time. And with Gloria, you know, being shot in 1980, but also kind of throwing it back to the 70s, kind of what Mark talked about in the beginning, that grittiness, but also then the whole mob influence. I kind of view it as a love letter to New York City. And I was wondering if you felt the same or if you could share any notes about Gloria. And if it's in the book, I'm sorry, I haven't read it yet. No, it's in there, yeah. hear any any notes about glory and if it's in the book i'm sorry i haven't read it it's in there yeah my deepest darkest um movie nerd secret is that glory is my favorite john casavetes movie and it's not the one you're supposed to like because like oh that's his mainstream studio

action whatever movie but i think everything that's great about casavetes comes together and synthesizes her and that kid oh god greatest team yeah and jenna rollins is just like magnificent in everything but in that is it's it's such a fun performance what i loved about gloria when i was researching the book is that by that point a lot of the sort of primary spaces in new york had been sort of overshot through the 70s and i love the fact that uh that casavetti shot it uptown that he's shooting up in like Washington Heights and you know their views of like you could see Yankee Stadium through windows and stuff like that

I was living in Washington Heights when I wrote the book so that was one of the few movies that I watched through the whole time where like I had that experience of like hey I live there which is let's be clear a fun part of writing a book about the movie about the movies of the cities where you live yeah I love that i don't know it's never a good story when you ask that question

what happened to that child actor does not usually have a good answer how are you what's your name cindy hi cindy as a canadian sorry sorry sorry she's. She's sorry. She's sorry. She's sorry she's a Canadian. So a lot of movies shot in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, they're pretending to be somewhere else, maybe even New York City. I'm wondering what gives a city the confidence to be itself in a movie? Don't look at me. Thank you. I think I can't answer some of that, but he can probably answer it better. in a movie? Don't look at me. I think I can't answer some of that, but he can

probably answer it better. I think that once a director who is from the city or has an understanding of the city enough to be conscious of making the city an actual character in the film, giving it that respect that it plays a fundamental

part as a presence in the movie i would imagine that has something to do with it absolutely and it also you know and i think you know on the in the in the examples when it did have to be faked it certainly does yes help to have a filmmaker who knows the city well enough uh to fake it well like one of the people when you talk about the great new york movies one of the ones that people tend to bring up of the 70s is Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese's kind of breakthrough movie. He had one week of New York shooting in that movie and all the rest of it he had to shoot in Los Angeles

for budgetary reasons. So he took that one week and shot all of his exteriors and all of his apartment hallways. He said, you cannot fake New York apartment hallways anywhere else. Weird lopsided tiled yes yeah those like 17 layers of paint on the wall you just you cannot you can't find that in l.a jason i i want to interject here your your point you were making when you did your podcast episode about taxi driver

that scorsese said he had no idea the city was going to shit. No, I mean, the summer of 75, which is when they were shooting Taxi Driver because it came out in 76, the summer of 75 was sort of the nadir of the shithole years that we're talking about. The high point of the lowest. The high point of the lowest. Because that was when, you know,

the city was on the verge of bankruptcy. They had, you know, defund police and uh fire departments and the garbage workers were on strike there was a sanitation strike and so i mean he was shooting out you know in the streets with literally just like piles of garbage and he still didn't see it on the street he didn't he didn't he didn't see it as a decline no that's a love for new york a deep love for new york yeah he said he said he was talking to mick jagger when they were doing vinyl and mick said marty didn't you notice that there was garbage all around he said no i just thought that was new york and that's what it was every time i'm in little italy which was like yesterday i can't say i i think of mean streets and i think

of uh godfather two yeah godfather 2. Oh, God. Ticking that little light bulb. Yeah. That's Brendan McDonald, ladies and gentlemen. Brendan McDonald. That's the wizard. The wizard behind the curtain, Brendan McDonald. Jason Bailey, thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you, WTF fans, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies. What a great time. Thank you, New York. Wasn't that fun? An old school live WTF from the Paris Theater. Huh? I want to thank David Schwartz and the staff of the Paris Theater for assisting with that taping.

Jason's book is Fun City Cinema. Get it wherever you get books. Jason will be in Los Angeles this weekend at the Los Filos 3, where he'll be introducing screenings of The French Connection and Panic in Needle Park. And for New Yorkers, you can join him for a screening of The French Connection at the Paris Theater on Thursday, December 9th. Go check out the theater websites for tickets. And now a little bonus. A little bonus Thanksgiving treat. Jason and his co-host, Michael Hull, created a podcast companion for Fun City Cinema, and they do deep dives on movies like Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, Do the Right Thing, Joe, Death Wish, The 25th Hour, and more. And they look at all these films through the lens of what was happening in New York at the time.

You heard me and Jason talking a lot about the taking of Pelham 123, and on their recent Subway Stories episode, Jason and Mike looked at taking of Pelham 123 and The Warriors, two very different 70s subway movies, so that's a great listen. Here's the Pelham part of that episode, and you'll hear Jason and two of his guests,

Hunter Harris and Alyssa Wilkinson. This is Pelham 123 to Command Center. This is Pelham 123 to Command Center. This is Pelham 123 to Command Center. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Listen, Trainmaster. Your locomotive has been hijacked by a group of heavily armed men. We are holding 17 passengers and the conductor hostage in the first car.

I'm quite prepared to kill any or all of them if you do not obey my commands to the letter. Have I made myself quite clear? The Taking of Pelham 123, directed by Joseph Sargent and shot by Owen Roisman, the cinematographer of The French Connection, Network, and Tootsie, among others, was based on the novel by John Godey. It told the story of four criminals who take a single car of a New York subway train hostage, and the New York City transit cop, played by Walter Matthau, who foils their plot. And many people, myself included, consider it the best of all subway movies. It has this like kind of claustrophobia, but it has this like humor and character. And it's, to me, it stands out in

my mind as like a movie about like, a movie with and about character actors. And that's like what The Subway is. It's like you have these like very disparate people, disparate groups. You never know what it's going to be. Like things are changing so quickly. And that's really why it stands out in my mind. Like watching this movie feels like, oh, I'm on The Subway.

Like I don't know what's going to happen next or who's going to get on or who's going to get off. And there's something about that quality that just feels very unique to that movie. Alyssa Wilkinson agrees. She's the film critic for Vox. If you ride the subway every day, you start to feel like this will happen to me sometime. This is a very good possibility. But I also think all the stuff in the background, like in the control center, all of the like maps on. I have no idea if there are maps like that anymore on the walls, but I would believe it if I went to the MTA headquarters and that's what was there.

The dispatcher's room that art director Gene Rudolph built at Filmways Studio in Harlem was not an exact replica of the transit authorities, but it was similar in layout. And the cast used all practical equipment, including telephones, intercoms, and a console with 100 switches and lights. I think the other thing that really does this is even though the subway systems have, you know, kind of combined and been standardized and all this kind of stuff, like all these stops are still very familiar. You know, I have been on that train, you know, and everyone kind of knows what's at the end of their lines

because you have to look for it to know which direction you're going in. And the stops really haven't hugely changed over the years. The city was initially reluctant to get involved with the shoot. People there were worried that it might inspire real-life copycat criminals. But the transit authority was seemingly persuaded by the quarter of a million dollars that the filmmakers were willing to hand over for the use of the aforementioned Court Street station, for the track leading up to it, and for several subway cars.

The city was also thanked profusely in the end credits, immediately before a title card stressing, and this is a quote, although many of the scenes in the film were taken on transit property, the New York City Transit Authority is not responsible for the plot, story, and characters portrayed. The authority did not render technical advice and assistance. Frank, my only priority is saving the lives of these passengers. Scrooge, a goddamn passenger. What the hell I expect for that lousy 35 cents to live forever? The transit authority's only condition was that

the subway cars that appeared in the film were scrubbed of graffiti, which was a detail that did not go unnoticed by New York critics at the time. But it was one of the few details that didn't ring with authenticity. I don't think a lot of movies about the subway or with the subway get into that, like, scene kind of behind the curtain. Because I think when you live in New York, it's very much like, okay, what time is Trane going to be here? What train are you transferring? Like, what station am I transferring at?

But the fact that you kind of get this behind the scenes of, like, this is actually how this like massive organization runs and how inefficient it is, is like kind of really fascinating. And I think that's like a really fascinating quality to that movie. Peter Stone's screenplay is actually kind of brilliant about this. You know, in a novel, all of the details of how the trains run can be unloaded in a few paragraphs of prose. But in a film, you have to convey that information in dialogue. Pelham 123 splits it up into two clever expositional devices. Early on, while the criminals are boarding the train at different stops, we overhear a conductor in training.

Okay, kid, out loud now so I can hear what you're saying. I'm checking the passages, getting on and off. Front and back. Shutting shutting the doors, rear section first, then the front section, and the doors are closed. Now I'm checking my indicator lights to make sure all the doors are locked. I remove my switch key, go back out the window for a distance of three car lengths to make sure no one's being dragged. And so we understand how each train works on the tracks. If I was you, I'd start studying for that motor exam right now. 32, Mr. Mattson, I have been. Want to hear something? Every car in the I.R.T. is 72 feet long. Cost $150,000, weighs 75,000 pounds. And later, Matthau's transit cop is tasked with giving a tour to the visiting directors of the Tokyo subway.

So he spouts off more fun facts, including the source of the film's title. These are the assignment desks, one for each of the lines. This is the BMT, the IRT, here's the IND. Gentlemen, this is the TA Command Center. Come on in, a lot of laughs in here, terrific place. You see, each train is identified by the name of its on in. A lot of laughs in here. Terrific place. You see, each train is identified by the name of its terminus and the time of its departure. Thus, an express train leaving Woodlawn at 6.30 p.m. would be Woodlawn 630.

While on its retained trip, its destination might be, let's say, like Flatbush 825. I hope you're memorizing all this junk. I'm going to ask questions later. And in terms of bureaucracy, well, we mustn't forget the mayor. What is it? Another strike? All right, all right. I can take another strike. This is, for my money, one of the funniest things about the taking of Pelham 123. When the novel was written, John Lindsay was mayor. And you can see traces of him in the character, who's, you know, ineffectual and terrified of strikes and politically calculating. But by the time the film was made and released, the mayor was Abraham Beam, and whom Lee Wallace, who plays the role, was much closer to physically. But then the mayor character's entire demeanor is reminiscent of Ed Koch,

who was elected mayor three years after Pelham was released. Warren, goddammit, this city hasn't got a million dollars. Then you better empty out one of your Swiss bank accounts because there's no other way out. But don't we get even to think about it? There's no time. All right, I still want the full picture. Get me the police commissioner, the chairman of the transit authority, and that putz we got for a controller. They're on their way over now, but it's no good running to them, Al. You're the mayor.

The buck stops with you. Oh, shit. God help us. I don't know. I guess the lesson here is the perception of New York's mayor as a bumbling putz. Well, that's timeless. I think I handled it all right. A regular Fiorello LaGuardia. But the thing that Pelham 123 really gets right about the New York subway is the assortment of people you'll find and find yourself a part of on just about any train. Because the film takes the care to cast every imaginable New York type in that group of hostages. You know, you got a mother with her kids, a college student, a sex worker, a drunk, a hippie, an old man, and on and on and on. And it sounds like a casting formula. But sometimes when I'm on the train, I'll look around and I don't know, it seems like a casting agent was involved somewhere along the line.

Honestly, the grouping of people on the subway feels very authentic to me. And I think that might be a reason. Like any of those people in those exact clothes could walk onto the subway and nobody would even blink today, which I think is part of the joy of being a New Yorker. Like this stuff you see, you just, nothing phases you after a while. You know, I was laughing about the like cop who's kind of a hippie. And I was like, all of this makes sense to me. It does feel sort of real and surprising and interesting.

Like, that is just how riding the subway is. And frankly, that's what's great about the train in general. You know, it's a microcosm for the city. And at any given moment, you can see the melting pot that we strive to be happening in every single car. I've ever been on a train, like a subway train where it's like, oh, I'm on a train with like all like businessmen or like all teens who are like skateboarding and like making me like feel very uncool about myself. Like it's always just like this collection of people that is so random and so weird. And you can even sense it, I think, in the moments when there's someone on a train who's like arguing, someone on the train who's

like rapping, like listening to music really loud. And it's like, like we're all like in this moment together, like annoyed with this person who's like truly talking so loud on the phone. The Taking a Poem 123 was a big hit when it was released in 1974. It's a television and home video perennial. It was remade twice, once for TV in 1998, and again by Tony Scott with Denzel Washington and John Travolta in 2009. It plays all the time in New York, and I always go see it again. And the, what do they want for their lousy 35 cents line,

gets a huge laugh every time. Oh, and shortly after the film's release, superstitious transit authority dispatchers instituted an unofficial but understood scheduling policy. No subway train would ever again depart from Pelham Bay Park at 1.23 a.m. or p.m. That was from the Fun City Cinemas podcast. You can get that wherever you get podcasts or at funcitycinemas.com. Hear that? It's my Brussels sprouts. or at funcitycinemas.com. Hear that? It's my Brussels sprouts.

Ooh, I got to keep moving. I got to keep moving. Blues are falling down like hell. Blues are falling down like hell. Okay. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big

corporations, how a cannabis company markets its with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm

in Rock City at torontorock.com.