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Civil War is at the top of the box office, but what is it trying to say?

Civil War is at the top of the box office, but what is it trying to say?

Released Wednesday, 17th April 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Civil War is at the top of the box office, but what is it trying to say?

Civil War is at the top of the box office, but what is it trying to say?

Civil War is at the top of the box office, but what is it trying to say?

Civil War is at the top of the box office, but what is it trying to say?

Wednesday, 17th April 2024
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

I don't know if you knew this,

0:02

but the world of podcasting is massive.

0:04

Hi, I'm Leah. I'm the host of

0:06

CBC's Podcast Playlist. There is

0:08

such a constant avalanche of new releases it can

0:10

be hard to keep up. Luckily, Podcast

0:13

Playlist can help. Every week we deep

0:15

dive into the podcast world to find

0:17

the most compelling stories. And every month,

0:19

we'll give you a sneak peek into

0:21

the hottest new releases so you can

0:23

stay ahead. Tune in to

0:25

Podcast Playlist on CBC Listen and everywhere

0:28

you get your podcasts. This

0:31

is a CBC Podcast. This

0:38

new Kristen Dunst movie, Civil War, was the

0:40

number one movie in the box office

0:42

this past weekend. I think it's a

0:45

compelling and sometimes frustrating movie that poses

0:47

a lot of challenging questions. Then

0:49

on the podcast, we'll get into what Civil

0:51

War tells you about this moment right

0:53

now. I'm

0:58

El-Amin Abdul-Mahmoud.

1:04

This is Comotion. I've been waiting for

1:07

this conversation all week. I want to

1:09

get into Alex Garland's new film, Civil

1:11

War. This is a movie that

1:13

is set in the near future. It imagines what

1:15

a new Civil War in the United States might

1:17

look like. And then what the movie does is

1:20

it puts you in the position of shadowing a

1:22

group of journalists as they make their way through

1:24

a bunch of war-torn states. Here's a

1:26

bit of the trailer. Okay,

1:30

so here's the thing about Civil War.

1:46

It does a bunch of interesting things, but

1:49

one of the most interesting things about it

1:51

is you never find out the why. You

1:53

never find out why this war is happening.

1:55

There are sometimes I think some vague details

1:57

here and there, like the president, for example,

1:59

played by Nate Nick Offerman has disbanded the

2:01

FBI. We end up finding

2:03

out that California and Texas have formed an

2:05

alliance, which is quite an unlikely alliance. Then

2:07

otherwise, what you're doing is you're just following

2:10

this veteran war photographer, played by Kirsten Dunst,

2:12

whose own politics and feelings kind of remain

2:14

a bit of a mystery throughout the movie.

2:16

I spoke to Omar El-Ekad and Rad-Sabbin-Pillay about

2:19

civil war, and I started by asking Omar

2:21

to describe this version of America that we

2:23

find ourselves in. Yeah,

2:25

I thought it was a really clever trick to

2:29

avoid getting bogged down in the kind of

2:31

fight that this movie intends to

2:33

want to pick, but then actually doesn't want to pick

2:35

at all. So, for

2:37

example, you have these Western forces, and I

2:39

suspect, I'll never be able to prove, but

2:42

I suspect that California and Texas is

2:45

a very deliberate choice because even

2:47

though if you go to the Inland Empire in

2:49

California, you'll know that parts of California are incredibly

2:51

right-wing, California is still

2:53

shorthand for left-wing in American political

2:55

discourse, whereas Texas is the exact

2:58

opposite. And if you couple them together in

3:00

this patently nonsensical,

3:03

non-realistic way, you get

3:05

to avoid having a conversation about who

3:07

the extremists are or who the

3:10

resistance is. And you see

3:12

this sort of repeatedly throughout the movie. They

3:15

go to a camp for internally displaced people,

3:18

and the people running the camp

3:20

are from the World Relief

3:22

Program, something so vague. Global Relief World

3:24

or something, yes. Yeah, exactly, right? Like

3:26

the fact that you and I could

3:28

sit here for 20 minutes and just

3:30

come up with various permutations of those

3:32

three words is exactly what's intended,

3:34

right? I think it's a movie that is barging

3:37

in through the door, trying to be

3:40

very loud and provocative, but when it comes down

3:42

to the specific details, does not

3:44

want to get bogged down in a conversation about

3:47

who's in the right or who's in the wrong. It

3:49

wants to say extremism is bad and then kind of

3:51

move on. Yeah, my read on

3:53

this is that it's definitely a movie

3:55

that wants to play on the conversations

3:57

that everybody's having about political polarization. Without

4:00

you know preventing a certain set of

4:02

the audience from coming into the theater

4:04

But rad, I'm gonna start

4:06

with the positives from you. What what about

4:09

this movie worked for you? I

4:11

mean, I think there's actually quite a bit

4:14

that worked for me because like Alex Garland

4:16

He's a filmmaker who knows how to concoct

4:18

some really stunning images and moments Yeah You

4:20

know like and I would say like it

4:22

like I think he's a great collector of

4:24

images and moments without necessarily building them into

4:26

a Satisfying whole and I feel that way

4:29

even about ex machina and and annihilation and

4:31

which are is to yeah, right? So in

4:33

this movie, I mean you think of like

4:35

the image of like when when Christmas Dunsons

4:37

character is watching the the news and you

4:39

see a map of the United States reflected

4:41

on her window And there's an explosion that

4:44

rocks the window and that map shakes like

4:46

that's a cool image Yeah, okay when they're

4:48

when they're driving through embers It's a very

4:50

apocalypse now image when Jesse Plemons his face

4:52

is an apocalyptic image Like whether he's asking

4:54

you about Frito-Lay or what kind of American

4:56

you are right? Like like you've got a

4:58

lot of and I think my favorite scene

5:00

in this movie and the scene that almost

5:02

sold the movie for me is When

5:05

they when they arrive at the small town and

5:07

they're like and the people in this small town

5:09

are like oh We just stay out of it.

5:12

They're like we stay completely This is a war

5:14

never touched their town like that the word never

5:16

touched their town Yeah, and then it then the

5:18

camera pans up and you see all these shooters

5:20

on their rooftops protecting the town So it's like

5:22

oh, yeah Yeah, we stay out of it at

5:25

gunpoint right and there's so much to kind of

5:27

pull out of that Is that it I mean

5:29

it to you the easy and like the easy

5:31

kind of I guess Relevance that scene is like,

5:33

okay This is like America itself that says that

5:35

it's staying out of other people's conflicts But then

5:38

it's doing so at gunpoint is because it's armed

5:40

to the teeth But it's also I wonder the

5:43

generous reading of that Is that is

5:45

that Alex Garland kind of pointing out

5:47

that this neutrality that he romanticizes all

5:49

bull? I yeah, first of

5:51

all, this is the idea of images that stick

5:53

with you Like this movie is just chock full

5:56

of them from beginning to the end the

5:59

mood that the The image that I keep returning

6:01

to is like the shot of two of the

6:03

main characters, a shot like

6:05

behind this helicopter that has been, you know,

6:07

felled in a daily penny parking lot. And

6:10

it just like it look is visually, genuinely

6:12

just visually stunning. But

6:14

you're right about the idea of like, here are

6:17

a bunch of images and here's what they amount

6:19

to in terms of what they actually want to

6:21

say. And those are two different conversations. Because I

6:23

feel like Alex Garland's ability as a technical director

6:26

is astonishing and is at work in this movie.

6:28

But in terms of his commentary, that's

6:30

the stuff that people have been fighting about. The

6:32

glass of stuff that I've seen the internet sort

6:35

of torn apart about whether, you know, this movie

6:37

is really trying to say something about America in

6:39

this moment. Or is this movie actually

6:41

like not interested in that particular question is just

6:43

kind of interested in the mechanics of, you know,

6:45

a road trip movie that also is going through

6:47

a civil war. Omer, when you

6:49

when you first watched the trailer for this film, you know,

6:51

you thought it looked in your words, incredibly trite. And

6:54

then you actually watched the movie. How did the movie

6:56

turn out for you? I

6:59

don't think it was a bad film. I

7:01

think it was an incredibly instructive movie, whether

7:03

it wanted to be or not on

7:06

the state of American political discourse as

7:08

it exists right now. Yeah. Where if

7:11

you're living in this country, hell, if you're living in the

7:13

West in general, you are

7:15

watching right wing political parties

7:18

essentially obliterate the mechanics

7:20

of democracy. You're

7:22

watching a slaughter on the other side of

7:25

the planet that's paid for with your tax

7:27

dollars. You're watching these incredibly violent things

7:30

that are not just things in of themselves, but

7:32

are projections of what's coming. But

7:35

you also might have to go

7:37

to dinner parties with people who support those things.

7:39

And so one of the sort

7:41

of central talking points

7:44

and avenues of rhetorical safety that

7:46

a lot of people have retreated

7:48

into is this notion that there's

7:50

bad things happening on all sides and

7:52

extremists on all sides are bad and bad things are bad

7:54

and so on and so forth. And I think this movie,

7:57

whether it wants to or not, is

7:59

such a thin. Fantastic distillation of that. I

8:02

agree completely the imagery is stunning and

8:05

not just the imagery but the the

8:07

soundtrack choices Which are incredibly adventurous. There's

8:10

a lot of technical really marvelous stuff

8:12

happening. Kirsten Dunst is doing an amazing

8:14

job. Yeah Fundamentally,

8:17

I think it's a political movie by virtue

8:19

of its negative space where you have this

8:21

film that is desperately wanting

8:24

for the moral righteousness

8:26

of resistance But also the

8:28

comfort and stability of Empire and

8:31

those are two fundamentally Opposing

8:33

things and what you end up with is a

8:35

kind of mush. Mm-hmm. It's very very loud very

8:37

provocative Not really seeming to

8:39

say very much at all Yeah, let

8:41

me let me give you let me give people who are

8:43

listening some of the examples of this Attempts

8:46

to avoid this pinning down of the politics

8:48

in the movie, you know For example

8:50

when we first meet Kristen Dunst and

8:53

Jesse the young journalist who really

8:55

adores her character Lee Says

8:58

to her. Oh you made your name

9:00

during the Antifa massacre It doesn't say

9:02

whether it's Antifa committing the massacre or

9:04

whether it was Antifa who were being

9:07

massacred It's got like well this sort

9:09

of vague political event is the thing that happened It

9:12

wants to terribly avoid any kind of commitment

9:14

to say like hey extremists on the right

9:17

or bad extremists on the left Or are

9:19

also also bad in the same way Where

9:22

like the last 10 years

9:24

of American? news cycles sort

9:27

of confirmed with people that Extremism

9:29

on the right has gone particularly violent

9:31

and like there's really one political party

9:33

that is interested in the mechanics of

9:35

insurrection For example, do you think this

9:37

movie actually commits to an apolitical frame?

9:40

Or do you see it as as Omer

9:42

says which is to say through avoiding answering

9:44

these questions? That's its own answer in its

9:46

own way This is

9:48

why Alex Garland makes it most so difficult, right?

9:50

Yeah, it's not like this. It's not to say

9:52

that this movie is a political I feel like

9:54

we're using the long range wrong language and we're

9:57

saying it's not a political movie because of course

9:59

there's gestures towards everything you're talking about,

10:01

right? Like Nick Offerman, there are shades of Trump

10:03

in him. Sometimes I get

10:05

the feeling that people want this to be a

10:07

movie that lambast Trump because we're going into an

10:09

election year and he's up for election. And I

10:11

don't need that from this. In

10:14

terms of complicating the politics so that

10:16

we can't really suss out what

10:18

this movie is trying to say, I

10:20

do think that's a cop out, right? Because

10:22

I do think what you're doing here is

10:25

you are making a movie that is

10:27

cosplaying as a serious film. As

10:29

a provocative film that is coming out in the middle

10:31

of, called Civil War, coming out in

10:34

the election year, the most you can say is

10:36

that well, fascism is harmful. Nationalism

10:38

is harmful. Which is true. It's

10:40

true, yeah. Not exactly. That's

10:42

not a factor, man. It's the same

10:44

point in Batman versus Superman. So if

10:46

you can't one up Zack Snyder in

10:48

your movie Politics, what's happening here? Like

10:51

I mean, I think for me, where it really loses

10:53

out is that you

10:56

don't have any conversation about any kind of

10:58

ideological tension expressed through these characters, because again,

11:00

you're romanticizing the neutrality of these characters. And

11:02

what you end up doing is just short-thrifting

11:04

your characters as well. Okay, I have a

11:07

lot of thoughts about where this movie wants

11:09

to go in terms of what it has

11:11

to say about journalists and their role right

11:13

now, but we're gonna take a quick break.

11:16

Think of your favorite one-hit wonder. Or

11:18

that overpriced toy your parents would never

11:20

let you have. Or that TV show

11:22

that no one else remembers because it was

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canceled way too soon. Now what if

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we could fix it? I'm Francesca Ramsey.

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And I'm Delon Grant. And after 20

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years of friendship, we are now hosting

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a new nostalgia podcast called Let Me

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Fix It. Each episode we'll dig into

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our favorite celebrities, shows, and brands of yesteryear,

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and then imagine what it would take to

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repackage them for relevance today. Think of our

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show as an intervention, but with way

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less stakes. So subscribe to Let Me

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Fix It wherever you get your favorite podcasts. We'll

11:50

be back in just a second. Thank you. Alright,

12:05

we're back. My name is Alameen Abdul-Mahmoud and this

12:07

is Commotion. Let's get back to it. I'm talking

12:09

to Omar Alakhed and Radtime and Pelay and we're

12:12

talking about this new movie, Civil War. The

12:14

director Alex Garland, by the way, was on cue with

12:16

Tom Power recently and I recommend going out to check

12:18

back conversation wherever you get your podcasts, but I just

12:21

want to play you guys a quick clip from that

12:23

interview. Let's hear it. And the film

12:25

is trying to function like a reporter itself.

12:28

So it's trying to remove its own bias

12:30

and just showing you a sequence of events

12:32

in the way a journalist would. When

12:34

I told people I was going to

12:36

make a film, particularly guy in the film industry,

12:38

I said, I want to make a film where

12:40

journalists and the heroes are the heroes. And they

12:42

said, don't do that. Everybody hates journalists and it

12:45

freaked me out. Absolutely freaked me out because journalists

12:49

are like doctors. You do need

12:51

them. I would say right

12:53

now there are problems of exactly

12:55

the sort that journalism is required

12:57

to fix. So I

12:59

get not exactly conspiracy theorists, but

13:01

I start to look at who

13:04

is undermining trust in journalism and

13:06

why. There is a lot

13:08

going on and everything that Alex Garland just said, but Rad, let

13:10

me just give you a reaction. What do you make of what

13:12

he just said? I mean, look like, okay,

13:14

so on the one hand, I don't know

13:16

that he's wrong because yes, there is this

13:19

sentiment of fake news and Trump is certainly

13:21

feeding into that. And like in the era

13:23

of social media complicating what we know is

13:25

real. Like, yes, there is this distrust that

13:28

is contributing. This is trust of journalism that

13:30

is contributing to the divisiveness of it. Right.

13:33

Like, look, if this is the conversation you

13:36

want to have the conversation about how people

13:38

view journalism and neutrality and journalism or objective

13:40

truth and stuff, then let's have that conversation.

13:42

Like, let's actually have it. Not just

13:44

like going to romanticize this kind of

13:47

ideal that you believe journalism is because

13:49

right now what we're seeing is

13:51

more objective truth coming from on the

13:53

ground in Gaza with people using social

13:55

media than we are from the, you

13:58

know, establishments that are so-called. professional

14:00

journalists, right? We are seeing that there are

14:02

certain agendas being served. There's certain kowtowing going

14:04

on in places like the New York Times,

14:06

right? So this idea, you know, and those

14:09

are like, you know, meanwhile, like the people

14:11

who are like, you know, people like CNN,

14:13

for example, in order to embed with the

14:15

IDF inside of Gaza, they have to sort

14:17

of follow a certain set of rules that

14:19

the idea sort of lays out. So certainly

14:23

news organizations are abiding by certain

14:25

rules that are laid out by

14:27

particularly interested parties. Sorry, sorry to

14:30

cut you off. But no, but that's the

14:32

thing. It's like to then believe that these

14:34

individual journalists don't have any kind of biases

14:36

are not informed by the people they might

14:39

be working for and whatnot. I

14:41

think that is naive. And for you

14:43

to use that as your shield to

14:45

not actually have any real conversations is

14:47

just I mean, I think that that's

14:49

where, you know, your your whole movie

14:52

falls apart. Well, certainly, Omar, when you

14:54

watch this movie, you go, actually, I'm

14:56

not really sure that you're making a

14:58

good case for the neutrality of journalism.

15:00

Like I don't I don't I don't think you

15:02

watch this movie and go, yeah, this is the

15:05

best model of journalism that will serve people for

15:07

for for the journalists to completely disappear themselves and

15:09

not at all appear anywhere on the camera. What

15:11

would you make of the stuff that Alex Garland

15:14

was just saying? So

15:16

this notion that everybody hates journalists. Well, I

15:18

mean, that can't be entirely true. You still

15:20

have a show or not everybody. So

15:23

let's name them. In spite of some people's, you

15:25

know, in spite of my repeated letters to the

15:28

CBC, which they will not return. There's

15:32

there's a believing Republican candidate

15:34

for president has repeatedly called journalists enemies

15:37

of the people. Right. There's

15:39

a lot of the center right, including the

15:41

Democratic Party in the United States who

15:43

hate Palestinian journalists because they are presenting

15:45

a version of events that directly makes

15:48

a grotesque career out of the the image

15:50

that these folks are trying to sell. Now,

15:53

whether you agree or disagree with anything I've just

15:55

said, at least I've said something right.

15:58

And this goes back to the. The way

16:00

that the journalism is presented in this movie

16:02

I don't think is factually incorrect. I think

16:04

there's parts that are hyperbolic for sure, But

16:06

that movie making. On. It

16:09

goes back to the idea of. The

16:12

fundamental purpose of journalism. Which.

16:15

Is a name for thing to

16:17

say. What happened weight. And.

16:21

You can try and lean on the

16:23

suppose neutrality and objectivity of journalism, which

16:25

has never been there from the beginning.

16:27

You can't be a journalist and be

16:29

completely objective. A neutral. On.

16:32

You have to want to make things better on

16:34

some level. But. Also,

16:36

this is journalism within the context of a piece

16:38

of art that you chose to make. Still, it

16:40

could have gone and done journalism right. I'm sure

16:43

he has the resources as to go to any

16:45

part of the world that needs desperately journalism or

16:47

now to try and do it. but you chose

16:49

to make a work of art and a work

16:52

of overtly political aren't. You.

16:54

Can't send selectively. Hide.

16:57

Behind the suppose it impartiality of

16:59

journalism. In the way that the

17:01

movie quite literally does. when things get too

17:03

intense, suddenly we get a bunch of still

17:05

shots about is happening on. You

17:08

can't keep doing that. And sort of

17:10

have your cake and eat it too. I don't think that

17:12

was a bad movie, but I do think it's a movie

17:14

that has i'm fine shoves. Ejector seat buttons

17:16

aren't listen, you've been and real war zones

17:18

as a journalist and then you have to

17:21

sit down and a movie theater and now

17:23

and then Nicole Kidman come on the screen

17:25

she has become to this place for magic.

17:27

And you have a popcorn and a drink

17:29

in front of the on the you watch

17:31

this movie. That's gotta be a bit of

17:33

a distance between the reality of being a

17:36

journalist in a war zone and then you

17:38

know that fictionalized you know and interpretation of

17:40

it did last movie sort of Palmer real

17:42

threads of what it's like to report in

17:44

war zones. I

17:47

think a lot away the did become. like

17:49

I said earlier, it's sort of. There's areas

17:51

that are particularly hyperbolic. Is sort

17:53

of. Adrenalin Rush. I

17:55

think I'm. Forever. the guy

17:58

as the traveling around with kirsten dunst i think turns

18:00

it up to 11 a little bit too much. When there

18:02

more, yes. I've seen people sort

18:04

of do their versions of this. And I

18:06

stuck around towards the end of the credits

18:08

to see who their consultants were, because I

18:10

strongly suspect that a lot of these

18:12

actors were sent to Hazardous Environment Training, which is

18:14

what the insurance companies force newspapers

18:16

and media outlets to send their journalists to

18:19

before they go to the war

18:21

zones. And so

18:23

things like, for example, when the older reporter

18:27

who's with them for part of that movie tells

18:30

the younger one to get sleep whenever she can.

18:32

That's the thing that every one of the soldiers

18:35

who teaches these Hazardous Environment Training courses will tell

18:37

you to get sleep whenever you can. It's that

18:40

line verbatim I heard when I

18:42

was doing that training. The

18:45

difficulty, I think, where, and I

18:47

don't blame the movie for this because it's very hard to

18:49

do, the difficulty in having any

18:51

more accurate and assessment of journalism than what is

18:53

presented in this movie is that so

18:55

much of journalism is not

18:57

only very boring, but

19:00

also difficult to describe in a clean

19:02

narrative sense that still allows you to

19:04

root for a hero. So

19:06

on the former front, if you went to the

19:09

NATO airfield when we were stationed there and you

19:11

went into the Canadian media tent, most

19:13

of the time all you would see is four

19:15

people sitting at their computers clacking away, getting

19:18

rejections for their freedom of information. That's not

19:20

that sexy, Omer. I was totally. Incredibly

19:23

unsexy. It's deeply

19:25

unsexy, right? The other part of it is

19:27

that a lot of your

19:29

favorite war reporters, a lot

19:31

of the stuff you read every day from

19:33

these correspondents wasn't found out by them. It

19:36

was a fixer. It was a local. And Afghanistan, one

19:38

of the most effective fixers was a

19:41

guy who used to be a surgeon, an Afghanistan

19:43

guy who made more money running

19:45

around to dangerous parts of the country and

19:48

filing stories for these reporters that they would

19:50

then later throw their names on or

19:52

grabbing information for them. He

19:54

made more money doing that than practicing medicine. How

19:57

the hell do you put that into a movie and still have the

19:59

person? getting the fixtures reports and translating

20:02

them into a story and putting his name on it

20:04

how do you make that person look like the hero?

20:06

There's a difficulty there right? But otherwise

20:08

I thought they did a fairly admirable

20:10

job. Rad, just before we wrap

20:13

up here we should say this is a movie that comes from

20:15

A24. They put a lot of money into

20:17

this thing. They grossed over 25 million dollars.

20:20

It won the box office. It

20:22

had their best ever opening weekend

20:24

for A24. What do you

20:26

make of this strategy for A24

20:28

to do this with Civil

20:30

War and Alex Garland? This

20:33

is actually really fascinating because it's

20:35

a fascinating transition for A24 because

20:37

as anyone who's familiar with A24

20:39

we are talking

20:41

about a boutique indie distributor. They made

20:43

their name

20:47

on Spring Breakers and then Moonlight. They

20:50

are more of an art how they

20:52

are a distributor and a label that

20:54

prides themselves on investing in O'Tours. They

20:57

are a filmmakers brand. Lately

21:00

they've had to shift

21:02

gears and make more commercial cinema

21:05

because the math wasn't mathing especially after

21:07

they poured way too much money on

21:09

Bo is afraid. Between that and then

21:11

also David Lowry's

21:16

Green Knight, the idea of throwing money at

21:18

O'Tours to make whatever they want, they set

21:20

themselves up in their own Heaven's Gate scenario.

21:22

It's not paying out. Now they want to

21:24

make more commercial cinema. Civil War is now

21:26

you got the director of Ex Machina. They

21:28

gave him 50 million dollars to make. I'll

21:31

be a spectacle but look we've been talking about

21:33

it for almost half an hour now. So that's

21:35

a spectacle that is still O'Tourist. I'll

21:39

be a spectacle but look we've been talking about

21:41

it for almost half an hour now. So that's

21:43

a spectacle that is still O'Tourist. Or

21:46

the populist idea of O'Tourist. So I'm

21:49

digging this. If you know if a studio

21:52

out there wants to

21:55

throw money at directors And

21:57

find a viable way, a commercially viable

21:59

way, The to make auteurs you know still

22:01

exists and give their ideas else. I'm all

22:03

for it. I think the danger is that

22:06

even when a Twenty Four was sort of

22:08

doing is cool all look. We got Lady

22:10

Bird with a critical or weeks they were

22:12

kind of falling into certain formula. The elevated

22:14

for trend started falling into certain formula Day

22:16

Twenty Four brand started having it's own kind

22:18

of familiarity in the way that Marvel as

22:21

the was almost like indeed cinema answered Marvel.

22:23

So there's a risk that danger of them

22:25

kind of slipping into their own formulas by

22:27

pursuing this direction. But I am all for

22:29

any company. That still want to throw it? Throw

22:31

even more money at Filmmakers before it's over a

22:33

with you. The last word on this: What does

22:35

it say to you that there's so much appetite

22:38

for this movie that he does the number one

22:40

movie the box office after it opens In this

22:42

moment. I think you're going to or more the

22:44

some sort of. In the near

22:46

future. It. Was driving home from a rating

22:48

where trump I teach at in and with a

22:50

program on here and we do this thing in

22:52

the close to your driving drunk driving back of

22:54

my students. And. For.

22:57

Reasons that are in explicable to me. I swear I

22:59

did not bring the said. She decided to

23:01

talk to me about was born and good. It

23:04

felt like she was trying out opinions on

23:06

me to that she thought might work to

23:09

satisfy everyone in the car and enough room

23:11

generally. And. Is kept coming back to

23:13

this notion of. It's also complicated

23:15

and their about things being done on

23:17

all sides. And I could

23:20

see the relief and her voice to she was trying

23:22

out this opinion. Because. It was

23:24

a way to. Pretend. Like

23:26

you're not looking away from something horrible, but also

23:28

not say something that was going to get you

23:30

in trouble or get someone offended. It's

23:33

just such a compelling. Position.

23:35

To take comfort in feels like you're saying

23:37

something. When you're actively not

23:40

and and it's dangerous because. Fascists,

23:43

Know what to do with that? kind of central isn't.

23:46

You. Just move a little further towards Fascism. In

23:48

the Centrist has to move along with you because

23:50

their main position is to be in the center

23:52

of things. So. I think it's. A

23:55

kind of i'm. Projection.

23:58

Of what we're going to see in the

24:00

next few years where it's going to sound

24:02

provocative to say that there's extremist on all

24:04

sides. And. You're.

24:06

Going to get Civil War

24:08

type productions. I don't know that

24:10

that's a particularly good thing, but I think it's

24:13

going to be a very popular thing. are I?

24:15

I prefer you. Been here. I pretty always be

24:17

provocative pal. Thanks Arena Don't know I keep having

24:19

me back but officials have cars rather than play.

24:21

Ah, this is the first time with close to

24:23

agreed on anything so it's been a delight. Figures

24:26

Always forever be your friend. They.

24:29

They take her for Brigid be and

24:31

as that are such elevated can't. Type

24:34

the as are the best! Thank you so much. Thank you.

24:37

Are like at is a former Globe and

24:39

Mail journalist and author of the novels American

24:41

War and What's Strange Paradise He was in

24:43

Oregon, read Salmon Fillet, the freelance film critic

24:45

and regular here and commotion he was in

24:47

Toronto. You can listen to that interview by

24:49

the way with the Director of Civil War

24:52

Alex Garland Osu with Tom Power Wherever. I

25:03

gotta tell you another great thing about this

25:06

movie by Civil War is got a great

25:08

soundtrack. This is from that movie that's a

25:10

little bit of a song. Dream baby Dream

25:12

by Suicide Sir John Simpson shows up on

25:14

the soundtrack. Della Soul is on the soundtrack.

25:17

Civil War is playing and select Feeders right

25:19

now and that is over the shout. Remember

25:21

you can find us on Instagram we are

25:23

at Commotion Cbc. my name is Ellen Me

25:25

after my mood tomorrow.

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