0:00

Hey there, CultureGabFest listeners. Before we

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I'm Stephen Metcalf and this is the Slate CultureGabFest

0:40

Scorsese's Killer Epic edition.

0:42

It's Wednesday, October 25th, 2023. On

0:46

today's show, killers of the flower moon is

0:48

Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the nonfiction

0:50

book by David Grann. Tells the

0:52

story of a satanic plot to steal

0:55

oil rights from the Osage Indians. It

0:57

stars Leonardo DiCaprio and

1:00

Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro.

1:03

And then what is Buffy without Joss

1:05

Whedon? We discussed the podcast Slayers

1:08

with Slate's own Dan Coyce.

1:11

And finally, the World Wide Web, right?

1:14

A horror, late 90s, mid

1:17

90s, utopian fantasia that

1:19

has turned since by 2023 into a dystopian realm

1:23

of surveillance and commercial

1:26

manipulation. We discuss why the internet

1:28

is no longer fun. But joining

1:30

me today first is Julia Turner

1:33

from the LA Times. Hey, Julia.

1:35

Hello, hello. And of course, Dana Stevens

1:37

is the film critic for Slate. Hey, Dana. Hey,

1:40

hey. Shall we make a show? We good? Yes,

1:42

I'm so excited for this week's show. All right. Well, Killers

1:44

of the Flower Moon, it was a 2017

1:47

nonfiction book by the author David Grann. It's

1:49

now an epic film co-written and directed

1:52

by Martin Scorsese. Takes

1:54

place mostly in the 1920s after the Osage

1:56

tribe has discovered vast oil

1:58

deposits on its ocean.

3:41

black

6:00

box in this incredibly powerful

6:02

way. So I have lots of things to say about

6:04

this movie, almost all good, but

6:06

I'll just start off by saying it is without question

6:08

one of the best movies I've seen in many years

6:11

and I highly recommend that people go despite the length,

6:13

you know, don't drink too much water beforehand,

6:16

nourish yourself well. I do

6:18

wish it had an intermission, as I say in my review,

6:21

I think that's one of the critiques I have is that it needs

6:23

to give the audience a little bit of a mental and physical

6:25

break. But it is gorgeous

6:28

and complex and astounding work of

6:30

art in my opinion.

6:31

Julia, that's quite the

6:33

bar set there. Where do you fall

6:35

on this? I'm really

6:37

glad I saw this movie and I found a lot

6:39

to admire in it and I thought it was a really

6:41

interesting

6:43

evolution of Scorsese's

6:46

work. I think there was a line in Justin Chang's

6:49

LA Times review about

6:51

how it was sort of simultaneously the assured

6:53

work of a master and a wobbly first

6:56

step in his kind of centering

6:58

of the story of a woman of color and exploring

7:01

some cultural terrain that he hadn't yet.

7:04

I was curious what you guys made of

7:07

how the film centers

7:10

the Leonardo DiCaprio character.

7:13

I found that character to be a bit

7:16

of a cipher in a way that

7:20

I felt

7:22

emotionally confused about

7:24

what

7:26

was actually animating DiCaprio's character.

7:30

I wonder if you guys had that experience. I

7:32

had a little bit of my like, well, why are you

7:35

doing the thing? Don't

7:36

do the bad things. Stop doing the bad

7:38

things. Why are you doing the bad things?

7:42

The way

7:44

in which he's under the De Niro character's thumb

7:47

is obviously one of the answers. I

7:49

liked your use of the word gormless to describe

7:51

him in your review. Dana, he's definitely

7:54

gormless.

7:55

But

7:58

the film is centered

7:59

on the other side.

7:59

his perspective in an interesting way. And

8:02

I read the book many years ago when it came out and I haven't

8:04

gone back to it, but I remember it being a little

8:06

bit more focused on her

8:08

perspective. And I wondered about

8:11

this choice to center this

8:14

kind of like shape-shifting idiot.

8:16

Is he in love with her? Is he doing all

8:18

this because he quote loves money? Does he

8:20

actually love money? Why does he love money?

8:23

Why is he so willing to do these

8:26

hurtful things? And

8:28

maybe those mysteries

8:29

are what makes the film profound, but I

8:33

found some

8:34

psychological

8:36

inertness in them. And maybe they're a way of metaphorically

8:38

asking the question of how an

8:42

entire civilization could have been so

8:44

gormless and cruel and horrible.

8:47

But like, I don't know. Did you

8:49

guys not wrestle with that? I

8:50

mean, I know Steve hasn't spoken yet and I really

8:52

want to get to his response. But in response to

8:55

that question about the character, Julia, I think that that

8:57

is the mystery and the ambiguity that at

8:59

the heart of the story and that is the thing that

9:01

made me stay in that world for those days

9:04

is the kind of moral mystery

9:06

of how you could love someone, which

9:08

I think the film establishes that this couple is

9:11

at least at first in love, which

9:13

does seem to have been the historic

9:15

case to the extent to which we can know such a thing.

9:20

And yet there can be such a horrible act

9:22

of betrayal. And I think that my answer

9:25

also would speak to something that I'm sure we'll get to

9:27

in our conversation at some point, which is the critique

9:29

in some quarters of this movie not

9:32

being framed enough around an Osage point of

9:34

view and that the protagonist, if you

9:36

want to call DiCaprio that, I mean, he's an antihero

9:38

for sure, right? But he is, I suppose,

9:41

the character we spend the most time with. Being

9:44

a white man, my

9:46

primary response to that would be, and I felt this so

9:48

profoundly watching the movie, that this is a movie about

9:50

whiteness. The critique Martin

9:52

Scorsese for being a white man who's taking

9:55

someone else's perspective is really wrong

9:57

because this movie feels to me like such a profound

9:59

self- and the ending which we

10:01

won't spoil, I think really reveals that in a

10:04

very artful way. But, you

10:06

know, when there started to be in the 90s, sort of, courses

10:08

about whiteness, right, in universities, I just

10:10

remember there being these sort of jokes about, you know, well,

10:13

what is there to be taught in the class given that American

10:15

white culture sort of consists of nothing but

10:18

feeding on the resources of others?

10:20

And that is what this movie is about precisely. And

10:23

so in that sense, having this morally corrupt

10:25

and utterly gormless figure at the center

10:27

who doesn't know how to make moral choices,

10:30

right, even when he has impulses, like

10:33

loving his wife and his family that might lead him toward

10:35

moral choices, he's ultimately corrupted

10:38

and captivated and unable to escape

10:40

that prison of whiteness that, you know,

10:42

he and the Robert De Niro character

10:45

and every white character in the movie is

10:47

constantly

10:48

constructing for themselves and everyone else. Right.

10:50

I couldn't agree with you more enthusiastically. I love this

10:53

movie. I have to disclose up front

10:55

that I'm very close friends with David

10:57

Graham, the author of the book, and

11:00

take what I say accordingly. But

11:02

I, you know, Dana, I think you're absolutely

11:05

right. I think there are two things at the heart of this movie,

11:07

right? One is, as

11:10

you say, it's a study in white sociopathy

11:12

and white sociopathy, white American

11:15

male sociopathy as it relates to

11:17

greed and the insatiable

11:19

urge for more. And then cutting

11:22

against that, as you say, is first

11:24

of all, I know the entire history

11:27

of David's attempt to make the

11:29

Osage tribe participants in the entire

11:32

process as they have been from the beginning,

11:34

including the from the chief on down in

11:36

the creation of the book and the film. It

11:39

was about honoring the victims

11:41

of that sociopathy in this specific

11:44

and spectacular and the worst

11:46

possible sense of the word instance.

11:50

And they placed a kind

11:52

of silence at the heart of this movie, both

11:54

in the writing of it, but also ultimately

11:57

in the transcendent performance of Lily

11:59

Gladstone. Stone and you need, I think,

12:03

because of the limits of the source material to some

12:05

degree, but

12:08

also in order to really honor what that person

12:10

and what that tribe was about, you needed

12:12

this kind of deep capacity

12:15

for repose and silence,

12:17

right? A very key moment in the movie. She

12:20

forces him, Ernest DiCaprio,

12:22

to shut up very early

12:24

on in their courtship and sit side by

12:26

side with one another, not facing each other,

12:28

and listen to the rain.

12:31

Storm is

12:36

powerful, so

12:39

we need to be quiet for a while.

12:46

It's actually an extraordinary cinematic moment,

12:49

right?

12:49

Including the framing, which is, I think, a point

12:51

that Justin Chang made as well, that Scorsese

12:53

tends to frame them as equals sitting side by

12:55

side in the frame, rather than doing a sort of over-the-shoulder

12:58

shot, a typical cut that you might do

13:00

in a conversation.

13:01

Absolutely, and it's a beautiful cinematic

13:03

moment. And the one thing I would say, Julia,

13:07

I really believed that

13:10

as I was watching that DiCaprio deserves

13:12

the statue this year, I thought it was an extraordinary

13:14

performance. I know that it's divider audiences.

13:16

I thought all of the pain and all

13:19

of the ambivalence, excruciating ambivalence,

13:22

he wants to please William Hale, his uncle.

13:25

You want to please the godfather, right?

13:27

That's in all of these movies that Scorsese

13:30

made. It's in all the godfather movies.

13:32

You want to please this very

13:36

homosocial world of male

13:38

mutual reinforcement and status

13:40

that involves violence. You want to I mean, party,

13:42

you does. I can't speak for all men. At

13:45

the same time, you actually want to be a full

13:47

and rounded human being, right? And

13:49

I just saw that

13:52

character and that performance by that actor

13:54

is embodying that very dilemma. What

13:56

do you think of DiCaprio, Julia? I'm curious.

13:58

Well, it's so interesting.

13:59

I mean, I hear you guys and I think

14:01

you're right about what the movie's interested in about

14:04

what it's trying to say. And again, I really

14:06

liked it. Like I'm not intending this as a critique,

14:09

but I don't – I

14:12

felt like the rapacious history

14:15

and instinct of whiteness that

14:17

yes, the movie is about, I

14:21

didn't feel it was revealed by

14:23

that character or the portrayal. Like

14:26

I didn't feel like it was psychologically revealed.

14:29

I felt like it was presented as this

14:32

confounding, heartbreaking,

14:34

tragic, awful, despicable

14:37

mystery.

14:40

And I feel like the performance is slightly

14:42

odd because it's like a performance of a void.

14:45

And maybe that's the point. Like

14:48

maybe that's the point. But I found myself

14:50

wanting to say, okay, if

14:52

this master and this incredible actor are going

14:55

to take me to the heart of the darkness,

14:57

of whiteness,

15:00

I want to understand.

15:03

And instead I found – and again, I don't say

15:05

this as like –

15:07

I think this is something that makes me like a simpleton

15:10

sometimes as a respondent to literature.

15:12

But I have the same feeling that I've described on the show

15:15

about Raskolnikov and crime and punishment where

15:17

I'm like,

15:17

oh my God, just don't kill the lady.

15:19

Like just don't kill her. Fucking

15:22

stop whining and just don't do the

15:24

stupid thing. I think I had a bit of that. Like,

15:27

oh my God. Which

15:29

again, reveals more about me

15:31

probably than the film. But

15:33

I – so I don't know. Like it's a compelling

15:35

performance. But it's – and

15:38

I understand why the film is structured the way it is

15:41

and that a sort of Scorsese telling

15:43

the story he feels is his to tell within

15:45

this landscape. And I think

15:47

you can feel

15:50

the efforts

15:53

that respect

15:54

for whose story it is in the film and

15:56

in the way that it is prosecuted

15:59

and in the way it includes it.

15:59

But it,

16:02

I don't know, I don't know.

16:04

I mean, I think you can't underestimate the fact

16:06

that his character is just simply not

16:08

very smart as he himself often

16:11

owns, right, and not very strong. He

16:13

is weak-willed and he's dim-witted,

16:16

you know, and he's easily manipulated as

16:18

his uncle, played by Robert De Niro, can see.

16:20

I don't know. I guess to

16:22

me, to me I agree with

16:24

Steve. I think it was one of DiCaprio's greatest performances.

16:27

And getting to see him play somebody who's not cocky

16:29

and on top of the world as the characters he plays tend

16:31

to be, you know, was kind of a great reach for him. But

16:34

that said, Lily Gladstone practically steals the

16:36

film from everyone. I agree.

16:38

Also, yes. And any kind of critique that

16:40

says, oh, she's too sidelined, she's not enough

16:42

of a character. No, I won't get into the structure

16:45

of why there's a section of the film where she's sidelined,

16:47

but you are so aware of her off-screen

16:49

presence and so agonized for her

16:52

well-being and safety during that time. She

16:54

also is not written or played at all

16:57

as a victim. I mean, obviously her entire

16:59

family and her entire tribe are victims

17:01

or potential victims of violence at every moment. But

17:04

she is no damsel in distress. She's such

17:06

a complete and beautifully

17:09

realized character, even though she doesn't get a

17:11

lot of dialogue. And she doesn't get

17:13

a lot of dialogue, but she, as you say, Steve,

17:16

is a quiet, observant, and watchful

17:18

character. And she just carries that off so extraordinarily.

17:21

I'm really glad she's doing a lead actress Oscar

17:24

campaign because she's unquestionably

17:25

the lead actress in this film.

17:27

I agree. I do think it's a masterpiece. And please

17:30

go see it and let us know how you thought of it. Killers

17:32

of the Flower Moon. It's in theaters now.

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right.

19:07

Well, before we go any further, this is the

19:09

moment in our podcast when we typically discuss business.

19:12

Dana, what do you have?

19:13

Steve, we have a couple items of business this

19:15

week. The first one is just a small correction from something

19:17

I said last week on the show. We got a couple of listener

19:20

emails saying that I wasn't quite right. I still

19:22

think my basic point stands. But we were talking

19:24

about that Jason Ferrago argument about

19:26

the last 200 centuries of art

19:29

and whether anything new is happening in the 21st century.

19:31

You can go back to last week's show to hear that argument.

19:34

It was a really interesting article. But I gave

19:36

a slightly wrong statistic in something I said in

19:38

talking about the Ang Lee movie, Billy Lynn's Long

19:40

Halftime Walk from 2016. That

19:43

movie is a high frame rate movie, as

19:45

are the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies. But I

19:47

had said that they were all 120 FPS, frames per second. I

19:51

was wrong. Peter Jackson actually made a 48 FPS movie.

19:54

And Ang Lee took it even further and made

19:56

a 120 FPS movie. I still

19:59

say that my point stands. is that most people saw

20:01

high frame rate on the big screen for the first time

20:03

in the Peter Jackson movies. But thanks to the two listeners

20:06

who wrote in about that. Our only other

20:08

item of business is to talk about today's Slate Plus

20:10

segment. We were inspired by an article in the

20:12

New Yorker called Confessions of an Audiobook

20:14

Addict to talk about our own relationship to

20:16

audiobooks. I think we may have talked about this before

20:19

on the show, but if so it was years ago and I know

20:21

that my relationship to audiobooks has changed a lot

20:23

since then and I think they occupy a different place

20:26

in the culture. So the question, do you use

20:28

them? Do you think of them as the same as reading? How do

20:30

they relate to your other reading practice? Is what

20:32

we're going to address in today's Slate Plus segment.

20:34

If you're a Slate Plus member you can hear that

20:36

at the end of this episode. If you're not a Slate Plus

20:39

member, what can you do? You can sign up

20:41

today at slate.com slash culture

20:43

plus. In exchange for your membership dollars

20:45

you will get ad-free podcasts so you'll never have

20:47

to hear me pitching insurance at you again.

20:49

You'll get bonus content like the segment I just

20:51

described which exists on lots of other shows

20:54

as well and you'll get unlimited

20:56

access to all of the writing and all the podcasting

20:58

on slate.com. These memberships are really

21:00

a big part of what helps keep us going so please

21:02

sign up today at slate.com slash culture

21:05

plus. Once again that URL is slate.com

21:07

slash culture plus.

21:09

Okay, onward.

21:11

Okay, before we get going on our next segment

21:13

which is about the fate of the Buffyverse,

21:16

let me just say that Dana will be sitting out and

21:18

will be joined by Dan Kois. Okay,

21:21

hey Dan, of course you're the writer and

21:23

editor at Slate. Dan Kois, author

21:25

of the novel Vintage Contemporaries and as I understand

21:27

it, am I right, something of a Buffy completist? Yeah,

21:30

I watched the series several times back

21:33

when it ran and now with my kids. Okay,

21:35

I'm gonna have you fact-check me, just flyspeck

21:38

every syllable I'm about to say. Don't be afraid

21:40

to tell me I'm wrong, but the original

21:42

movie that was written by Joss Whedon

21:45

showed up in 92. He felt

21:48

creatively compromised in the making of it so

21:50

he took the IP and he made an iconic

21:52

television show out of it that premiered in 1997, of course, Buffy

21:56

the Vampire Slayer and in

21:58

some sense out of that show, I mean... And that's very,

22:00

very early. It's almost like pre-peak TV,

22:03

arguably. It's before the premiere of The

22:05

Sopranos, and it's way before

22:08

Marvel began cranking out movies. But

22:10

it's sort of the original incarnation of a renewed

22:13

nerd culture, I'd argue, and it still

22:15

has to this day one of the most intensely committed

22:17

fan cults in existence.

22:20

On the other hand, you have its creator,

22:22

Joss Whedon, who based on

22:24

everything he had said and done to that point, and

22:27

particularly the content of his output

22:29

in both Buffy and the Avengers movie was

22:32

a feminist. He's been outed allegedly

22:34

as a martinet, as a showrunner and director

22:37

at best. And I think also

22:39

at best, according to multiple testimonies,

22:42

a borderline creep. So he

22:44

has, I think it's safe to say, been

22:46

canceled or all but canceled. Dan,

22:48

it raises a really interesting

22:51

question, though. Can you have one

22:53

without the other? Can you have this Buffyverse

22:55

that people are thirsting for more

22:58

content in and around without

23:01

Joss Whedon? You've written a

23:03

piece, Can You Have Buffy Without Joss Whedon?,

23:05

the occasion of which is a new podcast, Slayers,

23:08

on Audible. So why don't you talk

23:10

to us about this podcast, whether

23:12

or not you feel fan-serviced by it, but

23:15

in the context of this larger question

23:17

of Buffy Without Joss Whedon?

23:20

One of the interesting things about the Buffyverse

23:23

is that unlike Star Wars or

23:26

the Marvel universe or many of the other

23:28

ones, the Buffyverse has forever

23:31

just really been associated with one

23:34

person, with Joss, to the extent that

23:37

forever it was only

23:39

canon in the Buffyverse if Joss

23:41

said it was canon. So people would go

23:43

to him asking, hey, is this thing in this

23:46

comic book that you didn't write canon?

23:48

And he'd be like, no, or yes, I think so.

23:51

And then they'd put it on the internet and everyone would accept

23:53

it. And so

23:55

much of people's love of the characters

23:58

on the show were wrapped up around

24:00

this sense of themselves as participating

24:04

in this revolution in pop culture that

24:06

Joss himself was helping to

24:08

inaugurate. And when he got put in charge

24:10

of the Avengers, people who were fans

24:13

of Buffy were like, ah yes, we are now starting

24:15

to take over pop culture.

24:18

We are making it smarter and more

24:20

enlightened and better and more feminist.

24:22

And so, as you say, the

24:25

allegations against him have really forced a lot of fans

24:27

to renegotiate their

24:31

affection for the series and their relationship with

24:33

the series. And so there has come this sort of whole new

24:35

wave of fandom which is sort of about

24:38

dispensing with Joss, but is about

24:40

embracing what people perceive to be like

24:42

the spirit of the show, the rambunctious

24:46

and revolutionary and feminist spirit of the

24:48

show, even though Joss himself

24:51

couldn't live up to that. And you embrace

24:53

the actors on the show, people like Charisma

24:55

Carpenter and Amber Benson, the

24:58

ones who alleged the abuse

25:00

from Joss and

25:02

celebrate them and their work. And

25:05

so this new podcast is

25:07

unique sort of among the universe of Buffy

25:09

spinoffs because it's created

25:12

by those actors and it stars

25:14

those actors. It's the first Buffyverse

25:16

product in 20 plus years, I think, to

25:19

have Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia

25:21

and Amber Benson as Tara and

25:24

Anthony Stewart Head as Giles

25:26

and Spike and a bunch of very familiar characters.

25:30

And it was co-written by Amber

25:32

Benson. And a lot of the framing

25:35

and publicity around this podcast has been

25:37

about this is a way to support these

25:40

actors, particularly these women, as they

25:43

sort of reclaim these characters

25:46

and this story from the man

25:48

who they feel sort of wrecked it

25:50

for them and by extension for all of us.

25:53

Okay, before we go any further, let's listen to a clip

25:55

from the podcast Slayers. In

25:58

this clip, we're going to hear a vampire named Spike

26:00

and a demon named Clem. They're both characters

26:02

from the original show. It's their encounter

26:05

with a new vampire Slayer named Indira.

26:08

Let's listen.

26:10

Hello, young Slayer. My

26:12

name is Clement, and I'd like

26:14

to apologize. Hey now! Hello,

26:17

Clement. Come on, kid.

26:19

Cool your Slayer jets for a minute,

26:21

right? We just saved your life. That was

26:23

not the friendliest. I was

26:26

just trying to- Oh, hello. That friendly

26:28

enough? Look, kid, you can hit

26:30

him all you want, but it's not going to make us your enemies. You

26:33

left me in a trunk. Getting you to safety? You're

26:35

a demon, and he's a vampire. Spike,

26:38

she has point. Wait.

26:40

Spike? I

26:42

mean, they called you that back at the club, but I didn't think.

26:44

I mean, are you like Spike?

26:47

Spike? Like Summers, Rosenberg, Giles?

26:50

Spike?

26:51

Last time I checked.

26:52

Oh my god. Oh

26:55

my god, it really is you. I'm not going

26:57

to lie. Totally a fan.

27:00

Julia, remind us what your relationship

27:02

to this material was.

27:04

I'm a Buffy completist,

27:06

or at least the completist of the

27:08

show. Watch the whole thing,

27:10

not in real time, I think

27:13

a little bit later on DVD

27:15

with my roommate in like 2004, so whatever

27:18

that makes me.

27:21

And was a huge fan,

27:22

in part because of the thing you

27:24

described. It felt like

27:27

a feminist fantasy world

27:29

of the sort that culture didn't offer a ton of

27:31

at that time, and the way

27:33

in which it kind of remixed cultural

27:36

references and the goofiness

27:38

of it and the assuredness of

27:40

its tone all appealed to us.

27:43

And I wouldn't say I was enough

27:45

of a fan to have been personally

27:47

heartbroken by the revelations

27:52

about Joss. In

27:54

addition to all the ones you mentioned about the workplace, there

27:57

is perhaps irrelevant but still interesting.

28:00

of his, I think now ex-wife, about

28:03

sort of rampant cheating and disrespect

28:05

often with the wife claimed young

28:08

women. And

28:10

it's just

28:11

like a big pile of yuckaroo. And

28:14

I think I probably put all of that

28:16

in the context of looking

28:17

back on certain kind

28:19

of late 90s, early

28:22

aughts ideas about

28:25

feminism and sexuality,

28:28

all of which sometimes feel

28:30

a bit yuckaroo from this particular moment

28:32

in time. So I think

28:35

that's how I think about it in the abstract. What

28:37

I found interesting about both

28:39

listening to this audio book slash

28:42

podcast slash audio drama or whatever we're

28:44

calling it, I

28:46

couldn't tell if it was bad

28:48

because it was a poorly conceived audio

28:51

book or because it didn't

28:53

have the particular perverse spark

28:55

of Joss himself as its creator.

28:59

Like it is not very good. It

29:02

is like I listened to a lot of it. I

29:04

didn't turn it off. It sort of felt like

29:06

audio fan fiction or something.

29:09

I was

29:10

like, oh yeah, I remember these characters and

29:12

these actors and it mostly isn't my favorite

29:14

characters except for Spike. Like oh my God,

29:16

if you told me I was going to have to hang out with Driscilla

29:19

in my years again, like truly the most

29:21

annoying character in the entire history

29:23

of the Buffyverse.

29:25

And actually they make her like slightly more sane and less

29:28

irritating to listen to, which is

29:30

a blessing.

29:32

I don't know.

29:39

It was the pleasant enough.

29:41

It passed the time. It's

29:44

also ridiculous. I mean, you have a very

29:46

funny description in your piece on it, Dan, of like how

29:49

many fights there are in it. And it's

29:52

just like, oh, like

29:54

lame quip. Get

29:56

her,

29:56

Spike.

29:59

Okay, kiddos, that's enough.

30:02

So that's all, like, incredibly misconceived.

30:05

I was talking to a friend of mine who

30:07

produces audio dramas and he

30:09

asked me how the series was

30:12

and I said they just seem to feel like there just need

30:14

to be a lot of fight scenes and he went, oh,

30:16

Christ, why didn't they ask me about that?

30:18

I could have told them. But

30:21

I think you're right that the real issue

30:24

is that it really

30:26

does lack the kind of perverse

30:29

and slightly evil

30:32

and malevolent spark that Joss's

30:35

best writing had. And

30:37

that is sort of what I ended up getting into in the piece,

30:39

that you're right that one

30:41

of the reasons we all loved Buffy in

30:43

the, you know, in the 90s had

30:46

to do with these ideas of pop feminism

30:48

and strong women that

30:51

many of which seem a little bit embarrassing

30:54

today but it also

30:57

was like this operatic

31:00

drama that put its

31:02

characters through hell in like

31:05

very specifically astonishing

31:08

ways. Like the kinds of things the characters in that

31:10

show have to deal with are the kinds

31:12

of problems and situations that you

31:14

only would usually see in, like, passions

31:17

or some other totally crazy daytime

31:20

soap. And that had a lot to

31:22

do with Joss's willingness to

31:24

be really cruel to those

31:26

characters, which it seemed

31:29

to me goes hand

31:32

in hand with his apparent

31:35

alleged willingness to be really cruel

31:38

to people on set and people in

31:40

his life. And

31:43

this show doesn't have that. It is, as you say,

31:46

a kind of audio fan fiction and

31:48

it's built out of affection for these characters

31:51

in part because they're the characters, the actors

31:53

themselves have played, the actors who are the

31:55

ones calling the shots on this, the ones trying

31:58

to reclaim this property. from

32:00

Joss.

32:01

Yeah, no, I read Jossie making that point. And

32:03

I guess the thing I would push back on is like,

32:05

I do...

32:07

There's a ruthlessness, right? There's

32:10

a, there's a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

32:12

a, a, a, a, a, that you need for

32:14

drama to be really compelling, right?

32:17

But I don't, I, I think your argument

32:19

Dan slightly conflated the

32:22

notion of being ruthless

32:25

from a creative and narrative perspective

32:27

and then being like a ruthless shithead

32:29

on

32:29

set. Like, I

32:32

don't think those two are the same, you know? Like

32:34

I think it

32:35

is possible to be creatively

32:38

ruthless and managerial responsible.

32:40

Oh, definitely. And I think... You're,

32:43

you're absolutely right. I just don't

32:46

think Joss is capable. I don't

32:48

think Joss views them as different. To

32:50

me, what's interesting, and we should probably say a little

32:52

bit more about the gender of this, it's

32:54

not that powerful, but women as a concept

32:56

is laughable looking back still very

32:59

strongly in favor of powerful women, you

33:02

know, just, just to clarify, because I think we're short handing

33:04

that. But what's interesting looking back

33:07

at it for me is that

33:11

he's hot for these characters,

33:13

you know, like that's, and

33:15

he's hot for Buffy in her tank tops

33:18

in high school. And you

33:20

can like feel it when you rewatch it

33:22

in a way that's yucky. And there

33:24

was something that felt fresh

33:27

about the type of woman who was being

33:29

drooled over being

33:32

a woman who kicked

33:34

ass and was sardonic and

33:37

had emotional range, but

33:40

also could beat you up, but that

33:42

it was just a different type

33:45

of male gaze and a different type of fantasy.

33:49

And there was something freeing about being

33:51

the star of that fantasy or

33:54

watching that. And there was certainly

33:57

emotional richness in the show

33:59

beyond. just the objectification, but like

34:01

that's the thing. That's the thing that's there.

34:05

And I don't think – I just am wary

34:07

of arguments that like

34:09

his yuckiness is what made

34:11

the show great. I do think the

34:13

show was great and I think sometimes yucky people

34:16

make things that are great, but I don't – I

34:18

also wonder whether the show

34:20

could have been even greater if it was less yucky.

34:23

And I think the kind of mediocrity

34:26

like wham-bam sludge of this audiobook

34:28

is not really perfect case either way.

34:30

Julie, I do think that one of the things

34:32

that the fandom has really embraced in the last couple

34:34

of years is this sort of broader concept

34:37

of reminding people that many

34:39

of the things that are great about Buffy don't necessarily

34:42

have anything to do with Joss Whedon. That there

34:44

was an entire universe of other

34:47

producers, other writers, many of them women

34:49

who they view

34:52

now as sort of making the show great

34:54

in spite of the environment they were in as opposed

34:57

to because of the environment

34:59

that Whedon created.

35:01

All right. Well, Slayers is a nine-part

35:03

audible podcast. Check it out. I'm

35:05

sure we have plenty of Buffy fans

35:08

in our listener pool. Shoot us an email

35:10

if you have any thoughts on this subject.

35:13

Dan, thanks for coming in. This was great. Thanks, guys.

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Okay.

37:14

Well, why the internet isn't fun anymore?

37:16

Why isn't it fun anymore? the subject of a

37:19

New Yorker essay by Kyle Chica

37:21

in the October 9th issue. But we should say

37:24

it's like a funny cluster

37:26

of trend pieces all centering

37:28

around the same basic issue, which is

37:31

that, you know, this once

37:33

utopian kind of joyous omniscient

37:38

sort of omni everything, you know,

37:40

technology, this sort of paragon of human

37:42

instrumentality and potentially

37:44

democracy has turned

37:46

into just kind of a hellscape

37:49

in some sense. And at a bare minimum,

37:51

it's just not fun. But one should also

37:53

say, Dana, I'll start with you. You

37:56

know, you were really good at Twitter, right? like

38:00

what's wonderful about knowing you as a person

38:03

was really made evident on Twitter, which

38:05

I would say is unusual for the medium. And

38:08

you had a, I keep saying past tense,

38:10

I mean, presumably you're still on it, you have a

38:13

substantial follow in. And

38:16

yet, you know, no one is more

38:18

alive to the fact that Musk is by and large

38:20

a monster, and he's destroying the medium.

38:23

I mean, surely all of these

38:25

pieces resonate with you, the internet went

38:27

from something that was not only fun, but like in

38:30

a good way, in a healthy way, self fulfilling

38:32

to something that's a series of hurdles,

38:34

manipulations, surveillance, nudges

38:37

in the worst sense and misinformation,

38:40

misinformation, and it's hyper commercialized

38:42

as well. It really wasn't, you know,

38:45

where are you right now on all of this?

38:47

I mean, honestly, I feel morally

38:49

called out by your question. I know you

38:51

didn't mean it that way. But I'm struggling

38:53

at this very moment with like, should I close my

38:55

Twitter account entirely? The

38:58

only reason I haven't quite honestly is because

39:00

that's where all my followers

39:03

are. You know what I mean? Like, over

39:05

a period of more than a decade, I somehow

39:07

amassed at one point, it was like 55,000 people

39:10

now it's dropped to about 50 because I assume

39:13

presumably people are leaving the platform and I'm barely

39:15

on there myself. But when it comes

39:17

down to it, let's even say that, you know, 10 20% of

39:20

those are bots, that's still 10s of thousands of people

39:22

who want to read what I write. And it

39:24

took a long time to build that audience. And

39:26

I cannot bring myself to completely

39:29

abandon that site for that reason. But

39:32

it's absolutely true that it's

39:35

been ruined, completely ruined. This is going to

39:37

be a segment I hope a bigger conversation than just being

39:39

about Twitter. But, but it's something

39:41

that I've really struggled with just specifically

39:43

over the last two weeks since the outbreak

39:45

of violence in Israel, Palestine,

39:48

because it really became clear, very, very

39:51

rapidly, it was almost like, you know, the way

39:53

that you become aware of climate change, because

39:55

you wake up one morning and the sky is orange,

39:57

right? That's what Twitter was like after.

39:59

the

40:01

violence broke out in Israel, Palestine.

40:03

Because all of a sudden, the

40:05

work that Elon had done, and it now seems to

40:07

me very purposely done, not just sloppily

40:10

done, to undo the structure

40:12

of the scaffolding that made any sort

40:14

of truth possible on the site, just was

40:18

flagrantly clear. So basically,

40:20

and I read this statistic somewhere,

40:22

I think this is an ad week, 74% of

40:25

the misinformation being spread specifically about

40:27

the violence in Israel and Palestine is

40:29

being spread by blue checks, the new blue checks by

40:31

verified accounts who are paying for their

40:33

check on Twitter, which means that essentially

40:35

there is just an army of bots of

40:38

disinformation spreaders of liars,

40:40

you know, of red pillars that

40:43

are now running the majority

40:45

of news about that particular

40:47

topic. So if you even if you go on

40:49

there as a very sophisticated news consumer

40:51

who has some idea of how to filter through what's

40:54

true or what's not, it's utterly puzzling.

40:56

Twitter is no longer a place where you can simply go

40:58

to find some headlines about what's

41:00

going on, you know, and so recently,

41:02

I mean, just within the past year, even

41:05

even post must to some extent, there would

41:07

be evenings where you'd go on and say, I've

41:09

just got to understand this breaking news event, you

41:11

know, if I go on there, at the very least, a few trusted

41:14

voices will be pointing me towards something that's

41:16

true. And I can start to put together my

41:18

own opinion about it. That is no longer true at all.

41:21

Not to mention, I mean, this is less politically

41:23

alarming, because it's very sad

41:26

as a social site, you know, as a place

41:28

to go and, you know, post a recipe,

41:30

you know, meet a new friend, post

41:33

your work and read the work of others, just as

41:35

a place where people could actually congregate and

41:37

share, you know, things that were not live

41:40

and insults, but you know, pieces

41:43

of valuable information,

41:45

that's all completely gone. So I think

41:48

probably and I'm pretty much moved over to blue

41:50

sky now, as far as just social posting.

41:53

But I don't know what we're going to really do

41:55

without a real centralized information

41:58

marketplace. And I don't think we've begun to

42:00

figure out like what a huge loss that

42:02

is that it's just been handed over to the

42:05

wolves.

42:06

I was struck by your use of climate

42:09

change as a metaphor Dana because I was thinking about the

42:11

same thing. So having

42:13

helped news sites navigate

42:17

the internet for the last 20 years, I've

42:20

always had

42:23

kind of like a nautical metaphor in mind,

42:25

right? That every different internet era is like

42:27

a different weather system and

42:29

you got to trim the sails of

42:31

the ship you're on to

42:34

navigate that weather. So if it's a

42:36

search era, you got to figure out what you

42:38

can do for search that's you. If it's the

42:40

rise of audio, you got to figure out is audio

42:43

a medium for you.

42:45

And

42:46

this does feel like we

42:48

feel between

42:49

weather patterns. It's been between weather

42:51

patterns for like a year or so. I

42:53

keep waiting for clarity around

42:56

the next weather pattern. And

42:58

so I was also thinking of the metaphor of climate change.

43:00

Like, oh,

43:01

I think maybe that whole thing

43:03

where there's a new system every 18 to 36

43:05

months is over. And

43:08

actually, I don't

43:10

know, there is no more weather. I'm

43:12

not sure.

43:14

I agree with everything both of you have said.

43:16

The only silver lining here,

43:19

the only conceivable anti-declinist

43:21

argument about the just utterly

43:23

baleful state of Twitter and the internet

43:25

in general is that maybe

43:28

we'll cultivate more of our offline

43:30

selves. And there's

43:33

no substitution effect. And

43:35

I have to acknowledge that there

43:37

was something unique about what Twitter

43:39

was doing before Musk,

43:41

pre-Musk. And I agree with you. Dana,

43:43

it can only be interpreted

43:46

from the evidence as a calculated attempt to

43:48

destroy its most basic

43:51

usability, not to mention its trustworthiness.

43:54

I mean, it's just been crushed.

43:57

with

44:00

what you're saying about, well, maybe this is just a good chance to

44:02

reenter meat space and not

44:04

use social media so much. As far as individual

44:07

people's mental health, that is no doubt true. And

44:09

I hope that that will happen in my own life. And

44:11

I think it already is to the extent that Twitter is

44:13

so boring that I don't want to be on there much anymore.

44:15

Yeah, no doubt.

44:17

But that is a different question from how the

44:21

internet exists, right? Are we just giving the internet

44:24

over to just red-pilled

44:26

genocidal weirdos? I

44:28

mean, is there going to be any place for people

44:31

to speak reasonably in the internet space?

44:37

It does all make me wonder about Wikipedia

44:39

as a model, right? Because so

44:41

much of what is driving some of the chaos

44:43

at these places is the profit

44:47

motive, right? Is sort

44:49

of offering something utopian

44:54

for free to lure customers or

44:56

for free because you actually are a utopist

45:00

at the beginning and

45:03

then the thing getting kind of cruddier

45:05

and cruddier. And I should say, actually,

45:07

I'm realizing as I use the word cruddier

45:10

that we read a really smart essay

45:12

in our prep doc by Cory Doctorow about

45:15

the inshitification of platforms, which

45:17

I thought was really worth checking out and

45:21

speaks to this dynamic.

45:22

I totally agree with you about Wikipedia

45:24

and maybe the one source of possible

45:27

hope being the nonprofit model. What I find

45:29

really interesting though is that when

45:31

you look at what's allegedly destroying

45:34

the internet, I mean, you have

45:36

the sort of opaque apparent

45:39

sociopathy of Elon Musk, who's not

45:41

driven by the profit motive. He's taking a $44 billion

45:44

or whatever it was purchased and driving it literally

45:46

into the ground as a business. You

45:49

have the crudification model of

45:51

a at least somewhat

45:53

plausibly utopian thing in Inception

45:56

slowly getting massively hyper-commercialized

45:58

in order to enrich the family. founders and please

46:01

Wall Street, aka Instagram,

46:03

Facebook, on and on. And then you

46:05

have the someone points out in one of the pieces

46:07

we read, you've read it, which in some ways

46:09

is, you know, more on the Wikipedia

46:12

end of it, at least. It's certainly a crowd

46:15

source, you know, source of opinion and

46:17

information and often can be quite good. It's

46:20

being SEO hacked. And

46:22

so it's, you know, and then of course, you've got the larger

46:25

trend, which was always implicit in the medium

46:27

of you've got very alienated

46:29

diaspora of angry

46:32

people in the world who are politically

46:35

quite paranoid, they feel humiliated

46:38

or disenfranchised for reasons that are maybe

46:40

totally invalid. And they can only

46:42

form a politically important

46:45

socially consequential entity

46:48

if they can find one another, they may be one

46:50

person in one town or, or there

46:52

may be 100 people in one town, but they don't know

46:55

that these are their private feelings until

46:57

they're such a thing as the internet. So

46:59

it's just all of the forces of

47:01

like, you know, anarchy

47:04

and destruction, plus all of

47:07

the horrible organized forces

47:10

of expropriation and commercial over

47:12

exploitation, and all of the worst

47:14

elements of reactionary white male

47:16

backlash. It's like, holy shit,

47:19

why was this thing ever good? I

47:22

don't know.

47:23

All right, well, maybe I can end on some

47:25

notion of hope in

47:28

talking about why was it ever good, or

47:30

maybe this is just hopelessly, nostalgia

47:32

and retro looking. But maybe there's

47:35

some chance as in station 11, where

47:37

there's Shakespeare after the apocalypse in

47:39

the traveling clan of players, maybe

47:42

there's some hope again, and what used to be

47:44

the world of blogging. I mean, you mentioned

47:46

me as, you know, this big Twitter user

47:49

over a certain period of time, which is true. I

47:52

handle on Twitter and on in case people want to find

47:54

me elsewhere, all other social media platforms

47:56

is the high sign. The reason that's my platform is

47:59

it was the name of my blog. back in the early 2000s

48:01

and I was part of that sort of not very early,

48:03

you know, not the earliest adopters of the mid-90s

48:06

internet, but the early 2000s

48:08

blossoming of blog, right? When people

48:10

just sort of freely offered their

48:13

goofy thoughts in my case about movies or about

48:15

whatever, but you know people just had personal sites

48:18

that they created for love

48:20

and that sort of linked to each other and created this

48:23

web of people speaking that before

48:26

social media was a way you could sort of find your way

48:28

through alternate channels. I don't

48:30

know if there's any hope of blogs coming back. I know

48:32

that's in a way what sub-stack is, but sub-stack

48:34

of course is a different thing because it's a paid model. All

48:37

I can say is I miss my Google reader and

48:40

I'm gonna try to go back to the days of having

48:42

some sort of RSS feed that takes me to

48:44

places that I know I want to go because

48:47

otherwise, as one of the articles

48:49

that we read in prep for this segment says, you

48:52

go online to just sort of goof off and

48:54

you don't know where to go anymore.

48:55

Like where do you go to have fun?

48:57

Where do you go to have fun indeed?

49:00

Well, you listen to podcasts. I don't

49:02

know anyway. All right. This is one

49:04

we'd love to hear. I mean we always say it. We always

49:06

mean it, but it'd be great to hear from our

49:08

listeners who no doubt or have been at one

49:11

point heavy internet users, Twitter members

49:14

on and on. Tell us what you think.

49:16

Shoot us an email.

49:19

This episode is brought to you by The Big Flop, a

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50:19

All right. Now is the moment in our podcast when

50:21

we endorse Dane. What

50:24

do you have?

50:24

Steve, in our discussion of Killers of the Flower

50:26

Moon, in our focus on, I think rightly so,

50:29

on the story and the performances

50:31

and the perspective that Filmmaker took, we

50:33

didn't really get into talking about the craft of the movie that

50:35

much. The craft of the movie is pretty

50:38

overpoweringly wonderful on

50:40

every level from the cinematography to

50:43

the costumes to the production design. There's

50:46

a lot to read after you get out of the movie, if

50:48

you want to, about how all of that stuff

50:51

was created and some great conversations with Martin Scorsese,

50:53

who's everywhere in the media right now talking

50:55

about his movie, largely because of the actor's strike.

50:57

The actors can't promote the movie, but that gives us a lot

50:59

more face time with one of the world's greatest

51:02

and fastest talkers about cinema. He

51:05

talks a lot about some of the craft people he worked

51:07

with, but I wanted specifically to send people,

51:10

especially after they've seen Killers of the Flower Moon,

51:12

to this profile of Jack Fisk, who was the production

51:14

designer. I did not know the

51:17

mystery of Jack Fisk, who was apparently this

51:19

legendary figure within the film industry. To

51:21

give you an idea of how long he's been around and what beautiful

51:23

sets he's built, he was a production designer

51:26

for Days of Heaven, which we talked about. Remember,

51:28

it was one of my comfort films during

51:30

the early pandemic. If

51:33

you think about the way Days of Heaven looks,

51:35

this incredible house, this

51:37

hopper-like house standing in the middle of a prairie,

51:40

this kind of sense of barrenness, how

51:43

completely convinced you are that you're in the past,

51:46

that you have just suddenly translated yourself

51:48

to the early 20th century. Killers of the Flower

51:50

Moon has some of that, too. It's a very specific

51:52

past that he creates. If

51:54

you want to read about how Jack Fisk, who

51:57

doesn't work that often because he's off

51:59

living on his farm with Sissy Spacek, his wife

52:02

of many decades, who he met

52:04

while designing the set for Badlands,

52:06

the movie she did with Malick. Anyway,

52:09

Jack Fisk is an extraordinary character, and there's

52:11

a beautiful profile of him that came out in

52:13

the New York Times magazine a couple

52:15

weeks ago, right before the Scorsese movie

52:17

came out, the genius behind Hollywood's most

52:19

indelible sets in which the author, Noel

52:22

Gallagher Shannon, follows Jack Fisker out

52:24

at his farm and watches him split rails

52:26

and you know, work in his workshop and talk about

52:28

what it is to recreate the

52:31

1920s on an Oklahoma reservation and as

52:34

you will see, the level of detail that he

52:36

gets into in his production designs for all

52:38

his movies, I think, is just nothing short

52:40

of psychotic, but that's what makes

52:43

the movies feel so grounded and beautiful. So

52:45

read about Jack Fisk in

52:47

the New York Times. That is really cool.

52:49

Julia, what do you have?

52:51

All right, my endorsement is ridiculous,

52:54

but I think it's fitting given our kind

52:56

of eulogy for the Lost Internet

52:59

segment. But my husband

53:01

and I watched Sleepless in

53:03

Seattle the other night. He was doing

53:05

some research on romantic comedies for his work and

53:07

I watched a bunch of it and I

53:10

watched something but I watched it the first time and it's

53:12

made up of kitchen. In

53:15

it, there is this amazing moment

53:18

where Meg is dishing

53:20

to her best friend, her newspaper

53:22

editor played by Rosie O'Donnell

53:25

where she starts to mention

53:27

that she thinks that the Hank's

53:30

character she's heard on the radio doesn't sound like a

53:32

creep and Rosie

53:34

O'Donnell responds in

53:36

a manner that like should

53:39

have become a meme and now I think it's

53:41

like too late for a weird moment

53:43

from Sleepless in Seattle to become a meme, but

53:46

I have to – we rewatched it 60 times

53:48

and I took this video of it, so I'm going to play

53:51

it as audio for you guys in

53:53

hopes of making like a

53:55

belated meme. Like consider

53:57

this like the flickering campfire of the future.

54:00

future of the internet is I'm gonna play you

54:02

the audio of a video clip from

54:04

my phone

54:04

into a podcast and this

54:07

is

54:07

the future guys. Ready?

54:08

Actually, it sounded nice. Oh?

54:13

Oh really? Now

54:15

we're getting down to it. I

54:18

don't know if you could hear it but after

54:20

she says, now we're getting down

54:23

to it,

54:23

it goes

54:25

and she like chomps a bite

54:26

of egg salad into her mouth and you

54:28

hear like again the sound

54:31

of the fork time and I just

54:34

can't you just imagine the alternate internet where

54:36

anytime anybody shares

54:37

any goss somebody spreads

54:39

a gift of,

54:41

oh really?

54:43

Now we're getting down to

54:45

it. Chomp.

54:47

So that's my endorsement.

54:49

You're welcome. Oh

54:52

my god Rosie O'Donnell, Julia

54:54

Turner, maybe my favorite Julia Turner

54:56

of all time. Like that's

54:58

in you, that's somewhere in you and I

55:01

didn't didn't know till now. I'm

55:04

gonna endorse a

55:07

writer whose name is Shakespeare.

55:09

Not familiar.

55:12

He's very good. Yeah, I mean

55:15

it's a little antiquey, you

55:17

know, you gotta kind of work your way beyond

55:20

that, like kind of convoluted plots

55:22

and a lot of shit crammed in there

55:25

but turns out it's quite rewarding. Stick with it.

55:28

But without spoiling

55:30

anything there's a moment towards the end

55:33

of Killers of the Flower

55:35

Moon, I think it's safe to say, signals that

55:37

if it's not, of course, as these last movie

55:39

it might be and if it is there's

55:41

a gesture near the end of it that

55:44

reminded me very much of the end of

55:46

what is presumed to be the last play Shakespeare

55:48

wrote, The Tempest. So The

55:50

Tempest features Prospero, this wise

55:52

old figure who has been stranded on an

55:55

island for whoever, one knows how long I

55:57

can't remember, but he's now going to be liberated

55:59

from Island, returned

56:02

to his dukedom and in preparation for that

56:04

he says, and I'll drown my book. I mean, he's

56:06

an old magus. He's a magician, his

56:08

magic book or whatever. And then an extraordinary

56:11

thing happens at the end of the Tempest, right?

56:14

And it's just one of those things that reminds you that

56:17

we don't overread Shakespeare or

56:19

read too much into him. We can, of course, he can overread

56:21

or read too much into this. But Shakespeare, no,

56:23

he seems to be in control of the full

56:27

range of meanings and possible meanings

56:29

and significances about everything. I

56:31

mean, so what happens is there's

56:33

an epilogue at the end of the Tempest. And

56:35

you have to imagine that when

56:37

you read it, that Shakespeare knew this was

56:40

his farewell to the theater and it definitively

56:42

was, right? I mean, pretty

56:45

much definitively was with maybe a couple

56:47

of little quibbly exceptions, but there's an epilogue

56:50

and it's spoken by Prospero,

56:52

right? But very often the actor

56:54

comes out and does it in a way that suggests

56:57

it's not quite the actor

56:59

playing Prospero, you know, it can be

57:01

done ambiguously. And he says, now

57:03

my charms are all overthrown

57:06

and what strength I have is my known,

57:08

which is most faint. Now

57:10

it is true I must be here

57:13

confined by you or sent to Naples.

57:16

So the action of the play, which was seen determined

57:19

by the body of the play is now suddenly open

57:21

again. And the actor is saying,

57:23

I'm actually dependent upon you to send me

57:25

back to Naples. Let

57:28

me not since I have my dukedom God

57:30

and pardon the deceiver dwell in this

57:32

bare island by your spell,

57:35

but release me from my bands with

57:38

help of your good hands, gentle

57:40

breath of yours my sales must

57:42

fill or else my project fails

57:45

or else my project fails. He's saying your

57:47

applause is what and

57:49

the wind of your approbation as

57:51

an audience is what will empower

57:54

my trip back to Naples. But at that

57:56

moment he has to be Shakespeare

57:59

saying that I I was dependent upon, you

58:02

thought I cast a spell on you and that

58:04

was my power, but I was always dependent

58:06

upon you as an audience to make that

58:08

work. It was a contract between us in

58:10

some sense. Gentle

58:12

breath of yours my sails must fill or

58:15

else my project fails, which

58:17

was to please. What

58:19

an extraordinary moment. And I can't

58:21

equate, no one can be equated with Shakespeare,

58:24

but there is really a Dana Hume, I'm sure

58:26

Julia too, you know precisely what

58:28

I'm referring to, where you feel very

58:31

much as a movie goer that Scorsese is saying,

58:33

I might be done now.

58:35

So anyway, Shakespeare. That's a beautiful, beautiful,

58:37

I love that you read that. It also makes

58:39

me think that it's in a way a mature and

58:42

less comedic version of Puck's closing

58:44

speech, right? Give me your hands if we be friends,

58:46

right? He's asking for applause in the same way.

58:49

One note on Scorsese though that I have to make just

58:51

because I talk about this in my review, in fact, whether

58:53

or not it's his last movie, he has two other projects

58:56

in the work already, including another

58:58

adaptation of a David

58:59

Graham. Yes, The Wager, yeah.

59:02

All right,

59:05

Julia, thank you so much. It was really fun. Thanks

59:07

Steve. Thanks Dana, that was wonderful.

59:10

Great show. You'll find links to some of the things

59:12

we talked about today at our show page, that's slate.com

59:14

slash culturefest. And you can email us at culturefest

59:17

at slate.com. Our introductory

59:19

music is by the composer Nicholas Bertel.

59:22

Our production assistant is Kat Hong. Our

59:24

producer is Cameron Drews. For Dana Stevens

59:26

and Julia Turner, I'm Steven Metcalf. Thank

59:28

you so much for joining us. We will see you soon.

59:57

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