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coverage match limited by state law. I'm

1:09

Stephen Meckeff and this is the Slate

1:11

Culture Gabfest, Timothy Chalamet Rides the Worm

1:13

edition. It's Wednesday, March 6th, 2024. On

1:18

today's show, Dune II is the much

1:20

delayed, much anticipated sequel to Dennis

1:22

Villeneuve's adaptation of the sci-fi

1:25

classic starring Timothee Chalamet. And

1:27

then, the filmmaker Richard

1:29

Linklater has given us so many movies,

1:31

Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Boyhead.

1:33

He's now produced a three-part documentary about

1:35

his home state of Texas. God

1:38

Save Texas is on streaming.

1:40

It's on Max. We avidly

1:42

discuss with Dana, our in-house

1:45

Texan. I

1:47

wish I'd worn my Texas-shaped belt buckle. You

1:50

packing? You packing heat, Dana, in case something

1:52

goes down here? All right.

1:54

Anyway, and finally, there will be in 2025 an Oscar

1:57

statue for casting. here

2:00

to discuss what a strange and subtle

2:02

art casting movie is is Paul

2:04

Chnais. He's the casting director for, oh my

2:07

gosh, the movies. I mean, really is an

2:09

incredible list when you think of Pitch Perfect,

2:11

Spotlight, Winter's Bone, Dallas Buyers Club. I think

2:13

what they have in common is they are

2:15

beautifully cast movies anyway. We're psyched to talk

2:17

to him. But first, joining

2:19

me today is Julia Turner of

2:22

the Annenberg Journalism School. She's a

2:24

fellow there. Julia, how's it going?

2:27

Hello, hello. And of course Dana Stevens is

2:29

the film critic for Slate. Hello, Dana. Howdy.

2:31

All right, let's dive in. Dune

2:34

is, of course, the sci-fi classic, the

2:36

much beloved doorstop from Frank Herbert. It

2:38

took a circuitous and tormented journey to

2:40

a successful screen adaptation, which Dune in

2:42

2021 was. And then, of course, COVID

2:47

prevented a release of the sequel. Well, here

2:49

it is, Dune 2. Timothy

2:52

Chalamet as Paul Atreides, heir to the

2:54

House of Atreides, who may or may

2:56

not also be a prophesied messiah.

2:59

There is so much built-out

3:01

world building here, I think for now

3:03

maybe we'll leave it there, and say

3:05

only this epic sand

3:07

choked film stars, Timothy Chalamet,

3:09

Zendaya, and the cast includes

3:11

Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, Austin

3:13

Butler, Rebecca Ferguson. It's a

3:15

huge and wonderful cast. All

3:18

right, in the scene we're about to hear

3:20

Chalamet as Paul is preparing for the chief

3:22

rite of passage among the Fremen natives of

3:25

Dune. It involves wrangling a worm the size

3:27

of a cruise ship. Coaching him is Stilgar,

3:29

played by Javier Bardem. We're going to hear

3:32

Giers and Bantur in the films constructed. Fremen

3:34

language. Let's have a listen. I

3:37

tune it myself. Here.

3:41

Thanks. Don't

3:45

try to impress anyone. You're brave. We

3:47

all know that. Be

3:51

simple. Be direct.

3:54

Nothing fancy. Nothing fancy. Hey, I'm

3:56

serious. Nothing fancy. You will shave

3:58

my teeth. I will shame you. I

4:02

understand. Shai

4:04

Hulu decides to die if you become Freeman.

4:07

Or if you die. I'm

4:13

going to die! I'm going

4:15

to die! The

4:30

next thing I want to add to that is that the universe is real

4:32

and not half baked. I

4:37

think that hurdle is cleared here by quite a

4:39

margin. I

4:41

totally agree. The fact that you had

4:43

trouble summarizing the strands that come together

4:46

in your summary goes to my exact

4:48

experience writing my review. I had to

4:50

do so much reading just to sort

4:52

of state what happened. And yet

4:54

I think what Denis Villeneuve really carries off is

4:56

that while you're watching this

4:58

movie, that doesn't bother you. It doesn't feel

5:01

like plot holes or this is too many

5:03

names to remember. It's a vast, vast, complex

5:05

world. Obviously in the books, much more complex

5:07

and things had to be condensed. I'm

5:10

sure many, many things left out. But

5:12

over the course of these two films, which I think are

5:14

really – it's really more correct to

5:16

think of as two halves of a movie. You

5:18

saw the first dune. You know that it ended

5:20

way in the middle of the action, to a

5:23

degree that I and some other critics really did

5:25

not like the ending of that movie. Growns

5:27

in the theater that I saw. Right.

5:29

It was teasing things that never, ever happened, including

5:31

a lot of this great sandworm action scenes that

5:33

we finally get in the second movie. So I

5:36

and I think a lot of other critics preferred

5:38

dune too to the first dune, although I think

5:40

the two interlock really nicely together. And

5:43

I can imagine a back-to-back screening

5:45

being really satisfying. I

5:47

would say the main element that I have to

5:49

praise about these movies, and especially the second one,

5:51

is that unlike a lot of big action

5:54

blockbusters that sort of attempt to

5:56

fold in some allegorical meaning in

5:58

order to bolster their own character,

6:00

and importance, this movie, like the

6:02

Herbert books, is legitimately about big

6:05

political and social

6:08

questions, right? I mean, it's about,

6:10

among other things, authoritarian politics, right?

6:12

And kind of the draw of

6:14

fascist aesthetics and the appeal of

6:16

a religious leader. This is

6:19

far from being one of those

6:21

chosen one movies that sort of

6:23

elevates the young white messiah. In fact,

6:26

it is, I would say, leaning

6:28

toward being in the next movie that is no

6:30

doubt about to be announced, a

6:33

deconstruction and a rejection

6:35

of that whole model. I just

6:38

thought it was much smarter about politics and

6:40

about the contemporary themes that it folds in

6:42

than lots and lots of blockbusters

6:44

I could name that sort of borrow

6:46

on that to lend themselves a little moral

6:49

weight that they didn't really earn. Yeah, here,

6:51

here. Julia, what about you? I loved

6:53

this movie and it made me feel

6:55

like the retroactive impoverishment of a bunch

6:57

of movies that we have seen and

6:59

discussed in the last 10 years. Like

7:02

you're like, oh, right. The

7:04

movie can be this. This is what

7:06

a movie should be. Like all the stupid

7:08

gray scale, you know,

7:11

the space ships, the color of the

7:13

foil that you scratch off of a

7:15

dollar bodega lottery ticket. Like it just

7:17

is beautiful. It sort of takes up

7:19

thematically the Lawrence of Arabia story, which

7:22

is one of the most beautiful movies

7:24

ever made. And it uses similar

7:27

terrain to tell

7:29

a very different story. And the

7:32

production design is incredible from

7:34

the very opening scene where

7:36

we see some baddies in

7:39

these floating jetpack suits that kind

7:42

of give them the motion

7:45

of like scuba divers or

7:47

astronauts at the space station. Like they

7:50

have kind of a weird gravitylessness, but

7:52

there's a lot. They're not just like

7:54

zooming around. Like there is a real

7:56

weighted physical logic to every element of

7:58

the space station. film. The production

8:01

design is incredible. The fight choreography is

8:03

incredible. I was totally transported.

8:05

I mean, it is long. It is long. I

8:07

won't claim that I never looked at my watch.

8:09

And there's, it's incredibly

8:11

arresting as we

8:13

see our buddy Timmy

8:16

settle into life among the Fremen, and then we

8:18

kind of zoom out and go to some other

8:20

galaxies and worlds within the Dune universe that took

8:24

me a minute to kind of grab

8:26

my attention. But

8:28

damn, I loved it. And I think I was on

8:30

maternity leave when you guys talked about the first one.

8:32

So I was coming to it completely cold. And

8:35

it really, despite starting in midstream,

8:37

it really worked for me. Yeah,

8:39

me too. I mean, this movie did very big business

8:42

as I understand it, which is a good sign. I

8:44

remember seeing the first one Dana and correct me

8:46

if I'm wrong, I think we liked it, but

8:48

I, I, I

8:51

had to keep checking to make

8:53

sure I liked it as much as I

8:56

did because I didn't quite follow it, quite

8:58

understand what I was watching, had not read

9:00

the Herbert books. And I

9:02

remember it not being greeted quite

9:04

as positively as this one, perhaps

9:06

both critically and commercially. And

9:09

now just complete vindication for what appears

9:11

to be a franchise. I mean, we

9:13

started doing the show roughly around when

9:16

Iron Man came out. We have coincided

9:18

with peak peak TV and

9:21

with the comic book blockbuster

9:23

tentpole, right? That has propped up the

9:25

movie business since. And it was a

9:27

real drag going back over and over

9:30

again to these sprawling three hour portentous

9:33

CGI crammed, chaotic,

9:36

nonsensical portentous

9:38

methods and pretending they were real

9:40

movies. What's so funny, Julia is

9:42

exactly right. I love the retrospective dismay

9:45

that you feel first little bitty

9:47

movies that we sort of strained to

9:49

treat respectfully. And we're trying to do this and didn't

9:51

do this. And what's amazing is how close it

9:53

is to being all of

9:55

the bad things or, or, you know, it's like,

9:57

in a way it is sort of portentous. slow.

10:00

And yet everything seems so

10:02

earned. The allegory is wonderful.

10:05

I mean, this is a

10:07

movie about colonial extractive practices

10:10

and the macro politics and micro

10:12

politics of competing for a raw

10:15

material spice in this universe

10:18

and what happens to the place where those

10:20

things happen to be deposited

10:22

in abundance. It's also, as you

10:25

say, Dana, beautifully, it's exactly that.

10:27

It's a parable against charisma, the

10:29

very charisma that typically carries these

10:31

movies, the messianic charisma of

10:34

the hero who's typically white,

10:36

typically male and may or may not be some kind

10:38

of a prophet or messiah. And the great thing about

10:40

this one is he sort of

10:42

seems to be who's been prophesied and

10:44

yet the movie becomes, and I did

10:47

not know this about the Herbert books.

10:49

So for me, I was confused. I

10:51

was like, what am I watching? It's

10:53

completely undermining his supposed chosenness and oneness

10:55

and greatness vis-a-vis his relationship

10:58

to Zendaya, which is totally gripping.

11:01

And to me was unexpected.

11:03

Can we talk a little bit about Timmy? Because

11:05

I will confess that his

11:08

like fundamental wok-a-ness was, was kind

11:10

of knocking me in the head a little bit for the

11:13

first few scenes. Like there's a way in which he shows

11:15

up and in every scene for

11:17

the first hour of the movie, he kind

11:19

of seems like he he's like the pizza

11:21

delivery guy. Like everyone else is like in

11:23

the world and they're like wrapped up and

11:25

they're amazing outfits and beads. And

11:27

he's like, Hey guys, we having

11:29

an insurrection here? Like he just has

11:31

this like, even though

11:34

he's a New York kid, he has

11:36

this kind of like California dude vibe

11:39

that sort of cut against and sort of

11:41

worked for the kind of fish out of

11:43

water narrative. And I spent

11:45

the first hour of the movie being like, is

11:48

Timmy Chalamet our best actor or

11:50

our worst actor? Like he's definitely

11:53

incredibly charismatic. Like he definitely works

11:55

as a movie star. I am

11:57

not and would not question that.

11:59

Don't worry. Don't don't come. find

12:01

me. But the manner of his

12:03

acting is so odd

12:06

and then it kind of carries you along. Anyway, Dana,

12:08

I'm very curious to hear you talk about that performance.

12:11

For one thing, and I've heard other people sort of

12:14

laughingly talk about Wonka in relation to Timothy

12:16

Chalamet. Didn't we just all agree that he

12:18

was really miscast as Wonka? Why are we

12:20

saying that that is the essence of Timothy

12:22

Chalamet? We're about to talk to a casting

12:24

director later in this show and maybe he

12:27

would be somebody who would have an opinion

12:29

on Timothy Chalamet and which roles he's right

12:31

for. But what I say in my review,

12:33

and I really believe this, is I mean,

12:35

I don't need to see Timothy Chalamet's Hamlet.

12:37

He doesn't need to transform or his Elephant

12:39

Man or whatever, some incredibly transfiguring role that

12:42

he would take on. Maybe later

12:44

on in his career, he'll be

12:46

ready for those things. Right now,

12:48

he is the Kwisatz Haderach, the

12:50

messiah of movie starness. And

12:52

I think when he's properly cast as I think he

12:54

is in the Dune movies, as he was in Little

12:56

Women, where I loved him, as he was in Call

12:59

Me By Your Name, the first place most of us

13:01

saw him, right? Where he's like divinely perfect for that

13:03

role. When he's right, there's nobody

13:05

else you could imagine in the role. And that is

13:07

exactly how I feel about his Paul

13:10

Atreides. I mean, because this

13:12

role is what I think it was

13:14

the critic David Erlich called a twiggy

13:16

princeling, which is so perfect, right? And

13:19

Timothy has that quality of being

13:22

his character. Paul Atreides is supposed to

13:24

be sheltered, right? Brought up in unimaginable

13:27

luxury, but also he has all of

13:29

his weight put upon him to sort

13:31

of represent the family. He is a

13:33

princely kind of figure who is the

13:35

fish out of water when he finds

13:37

himself in the real world, fighting battles

13:39

on a dusty planet. I'd also add

13:41

that if I follow

13:43

the movie correctly, he's surrounded by

13:45

people who believe he is the

13:48

Messiah, but he doesn't believe it.

13:50

It's instrumental to him to get

13:52

his desired revenge. So in a

13:54

way, he needs to

13:56

be a little bit out

13:59

of the role. you know what I mean.

14:01

Can we talk a little bit about, for

14:03

lack of a less academic word, like

14:05

the Orientalist imagery of this film? Obviously,

14:08

the point

14:10

of the film, it seems, and

14:13

from what I gather, some of the point of the

14:15

book is to kind of

14:17

challenge and make

14:20

us think twice about some of the

14:22

classic narratives of the Twiggy Princeling who

14:24

comes to save everybody

14:27

else. But the

14:30

visual rhetoric of

14:32

the film at some moments, and

14:35

sometimes at moments where it's trying to make us

14:38

feel how odd and often inappropriate

14:40

it is for this white

14:43

visitor to rise as the ruler

14:47

of the Fremen, didn't

14:50

feel...they felt a

14:53

little bit like they were trading on

14:55

some classic Hollywood cliches. And

14:58

it's been commented too that there's not

15:00

very many Arab actors in this movie

15:03

that is kind of trading

15:05

on some of these themes. What did you

15:07

guys think about that critique and about those

15:09

elements of the film? I

15:11

mean, I feel like to answer that more fully, I

15:13

wish I knew the Herbert novels better and that one

15:15

of us was a reader of at least some of

15:18

those books because I know that

15:20

Herbert was taking on what you

15:22

mentioned earlier, Julia, the T.E. Lawrence

15:24

Smith very deliberately and was trying

15:26

to take on colonialism and to

15:28

critique colonialism. So whether or not

15:30

in the process of doing that he engaged in some

15:32

of his own kind of exotic,

15:36

almost reverse racism, a kind of

15:38

idealization of an exotic native culture,

15:40

I really can't speak to that.

15:43

I mean, I don't think that the movie traffics in

15:45

that in a cynical way, but

15:47

I'm a white critic watching it. And I

15:49

would be very curious to hear especially what

15:52

a Middle Eastern reader of

15:54

the novels thinks about the entire franchise

15:56

and the way that it's handled. I

15:58

came away feeling like I need to

16:00

preserve judgment for the Dune III, which

16:04

seems like it must be coming, to

16:07

see what happens, like what happens

16:09

with this arc. But not all

16:11

of the portrayals were reverse racist,

16:13

positive portrayals, although there were some

16:16

wise men of the

16:18

desert, but there were also some fundamentalist

16:22

throngs. The movie

16:24

has enough sophistication and enough intelligence

16:26

that I want to give it

16:29

the chance to go where it's going to go in

16:31

the next film. But a lot

16:33

of those tensions and the question of what it's doing

16:36

with those images and those themes are unresolved based on

16:38

where this lands, and so it's a bit of a

16:40

leap of faith for me. All right, at Dune II

16:42

we seem to be pretty united in

16:44

our admiration for it, check it out, it's in theaters

16:46

and it's shaping up to be a big hit. All

16:49

right, before we go any further, this is where we

16:52

typically discuss business. Dana, what do we have? We

16:54

have a couple items of business this week. One

16:56

is, as always, to tell listeners about today's Slate

16:58

Plus segment. This week we're answering a

17:00

question from a listener named Elliott who wrote

17:02

in to ask about pieces of media or

17:04

culture that our children have introduced us to

17:06

for the first time. So we've talked before

17:08

about revisiting things that we loved in our

17:10

own childhood with kids and kid culture and

17:12

general kid literature. This is just about any

17:14

sort of culture that you know about only

17:16

because your offspring told you about it, and

17:18

I know I have lots of things to

17:20

talk about there, I think we all will.

17:23

The other piece of business I wanted to mention is

17:25

that if you are a Slate Plus member, we're doing

17:27

a little Oscars event this Thursday, March

17:29

the 7th, it starts at 5 p.m. Eastern

17:31

time, and I think runs about an hour.

17:34

It's just gonna be an Oscars themed live

17:36

chat discussion. I think there's some Oscars trivia

17:38

in there with Dan Cois running the show.

17:40

It's gonna be me, Dan Cois, Sam Adams

17:42

of Slate, and our beloved Indira Gough. So

17:44

all folks that have appeared often on this

17:47

show to talk about culture. And

17:49

we're not prognosticating about what will win, we're

17:51

just sort of batting around fun discussions about

17:54

the ceremony, and if you zoom in, you can

17:56

discuss with us. If You're a Slate Plus

17:58

member, you can sign up for that Zoom event. On

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the site And of course if you're not

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18:25

Julie I think you had something to

18:27

add this week. Oh yeah, we're just

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Such a high to learn

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more. Art.

21:19

The filmmaker Richard Linklater is made

21:21

many, many movies. The beginning with

21:23

his breakthrough one slacker. A remarkable

21:26

number have something in common. they

21:28

take place in Texas, his home

21:30

state. Now he returns to try

21:32

to understand place to contain multitudes.

21:34

To put it mildly and minutes,

21:36

a gigantic landmass. The thinks of

21:38

itself as an independent republic. diverse

21:41

and population but still substantially owned

21:43

and politically dominated by white man

21:45

link letters sri Part God Save

21:47

Texas begins by examining. The.

21:50

and apparently tax in love with

21:52

the death penalty or he complicates

21:54

that enormously along the way or

21:57

the focus in that first episode

21:59

is unless own hometown of Huntsville.

22:02

The show then moves on to

22:04

the oil and gas industry and

22:07

finally the state's relationship to Mexico

22:09

and immigration. Those installments are courtesy

22:11

of the filmmakers Alex Stapleton and

22:13

Ileana Sosa respectively. Each is returning

22:15

to their respective hometown. Also

22:18

the project is based on the Lawrence

22:20

Wright book of the same name

22:22

and he appears on screen quite a bit.

22:24

Our clip is coming from episode one which

22:27

as I said explores how a local prison

22:29

pulls the entire community of Huntsville into its

22:31

gravity. Here a former

22:33

official for the prison recalls presiding

22:35

over executions there. I remember

22:38

my first execution. I remember the

22:40

feeling that I had when I

22:44

saw this guy one minute and he was

22:46

fine and the next minute he was he

22:49

was deceased so he

22:52

had a profound impact on me. I actually

22:54

went to a minister

22:57

and talked

22:59

to him about okay how do

23:02

you you know I want

23:04

to make sure my father wasn't going to

23:06

hell. He basically told me that you know

23:10

mankind is supposed to go away the

23:12

laws of the land and if

23:15

the laws of the land is

23:17

execution and

23:20

that is your job then so

23:22

be it. All right Dana

23:24

we're gonna break form here a little bit and

23:27

start with you. You're from Texas. Really curious to

23:29

know what you make of this and maybe talk

23:31

a little bit about where

23:33

you're from in Texas and how much this documentary

23:35

touches on the Texas that you know and what

23:37

you make of it is a you know piece

23:39

of work. I mean I think a huge

23:42

thing that these three episodes get across is

23:44

how vast Texas is and how many

23:46

different experiences and cultures and terrains exist

23:48

within it right. I mean at some

23:50

point somebody says I think it's in

23:52

one of the later episodes that the

23:54

geographical size of Texas is roughly the

23:57

same as France, the entire country of

23:59

France. I mean,

24:01

just driving across it takes an

24:03

entire day. So even though this is

24:05

set in three different places, none of them resemble the

24:07

Texas that I grew up in. The

24:09

closest would probably be the episode that's about El Paso and Ciudad Juarez

24:12

and about that border space, because

24:14

I'm from San Antonio, which is a bit

24:16

closer to the border but not right on

24:18

it. But all of these spaces are essentially

24:20

completely new to me and incredible

24:23

to explore. This made me wish,

24:25

this three-part Texas documentary made me

24:27

wish that every red state

24:30

or every state that is thought

24:32

of in the popular imagination as

24:34

this undifferentiated space of Republican

24:36

voters would get something like this on television

24:38

so we could explore the communities that exist

24:40

within it. Because a political, it's a cliche

24:43

at this point to say about Texas, but

24:45

it's so true, is that Texas is not,

24:47

in fact, a red state. It's a blue

24:49

state that is being voter-suppressed and various

24:52

forms of chicanery are turned into a red

24:55

state. But every city in Texas votes blue,

24:57

right? The populations that we're

24:59

looking at, especially in these later two

25:01

episodes that are about black population of

25:03

Houston and the Mexican-American kind of mixture

25:05

that's happening in Juarez and El Paso,

25:08

are places that are about the future

25:10

of America, not the past. That's why

25:12

there's such a strong push

25:15

against them within the Texas government. So

25:17

to get portraits of people that are

25:19

actually living in those conditions that Greg

25:21

Abbott and Ken Paxton are creating for

25:24

them, unfortunately, to me

25:26

is exactly what we need in an

25:28

election year. This is

25:30

not an overtly political documentary. I mean,

25:32

it's about local politics. It's not really

25:34

talking about this red state, blue state

25:36

stuff that I'm talking about. But I

25:39

found myself wishing, oh, why aren't we

25:41

learning about different Ohio communities, different Florida

25:43

communities, getting some sense of what these

25:45

states are besides the monolithic way that

25:47

they look to us in polls. I

25:49

will also say, because Linklater is involved,

25:51

and this is especially true of his

25:53

episode, the first one, there's a lot

25:55

of humor and sort of local color

25:57

and fun conversations in diners. So

26:00

this is, although the stories that are being told

26:02

are in many cases tragic, certainly

26:04

the episode about Huntsville, the execution capital

26:07

of the state is full of incredibly

26:10

sad stories, but there's

26:12

also a real sense of the local community

26:14

and you really get a sense

26:16

of what it's like to be in that place, to

26:18

walk down the street, to go to the schools, to

26:20

eat in the restaurants, and I love that local aspect

26:22

of it. Julia, what did you make of this? It's

26:25

kind of a remarkable project, and we should

26:27

say it's really three in some ways very

26:29

distinct directorial presences and

26:31

voices. All three directors are

26:34

on camera substantially. They're all returning to

26:36

a place they're from. And chatting with

26:38

Lawrence Wright on camera. And chatting with

26:40

Lawrence Wright on camera and talking to

26:42

people that they know, including incredibly close

26:44

family members and old friends. What did

26:46

you make of this mix, Julia? I

26:50

found this documentary, slash

26:53

series of documentaries to be shaggy, and

26:55

the part of its charm is its

26:57

shag, and it's almost

26:59

got the quality of a ride along, right? You've

27:01

got these three talented, interesting directors.

27:04

They're revisiting their hometowns and they're kind of

27:06

taking you on a personal

27:09

and political journey that

27:11

tries to square the Texas they

27:14

grew up in with the Texas they've

27:16

come to understand more about as

27:19

they get older. And

27:21

so there's a wisdom to it and a personalness to

27:23

it and an exploratory quality to it

27:26

that I feel slightly Grinch-like

27:28

for having been somewhat impatient

27:30

with. But

27:32

it was like a little too shaggy for me. I

27:35

watched almost the

27:37

entire thing. I didn't quite finish the last

27:39

one. And I'm glad. But Dana, if that

27:41

project happened, I would not watch all those

27:43

movies. It

27:46

was too long. It was not tight

27:48

enough. It was a little too, like, too ride-along-y.

27:50

I don't know that the pull to

27:52

ride along was sharp or tight enough

27:54

for me. Am I being just

27:57

a Scrooge? Yeah, Julia, I think I stand

27:59

behind the shaggy and maybe it is because I

28:01

have my own local interest. But like I say,

28:03

it's not that

28:05

it's my story. It makes me like it.

28:07

It's that I feel like these people are

28:09

telling their own stories in a way that

28:12

draws me in. And I will say, and

28:14

I hate to say this to be unfair

28:16

to the other two filmmakers who obviously are

28:18

less famous veteran filmmakers than Rick Linklater is,

28:20

but I think his segment is probably the

28:22

best one. And in part, it's because he's

28:24

able to weave in some bits from his

28:26

work, right? Where you see how autobiographical, for

28:28

example, Daisy and Confused or the movie

28:31

Everybody Wants Some, which takes place

28:33

in this frat house of college

28:35

baseball players, that those things

28:37

are tied to specific locations. It's

28:39

almost like this is the secret story of his

28:41

hometown that he wasn't able to tell and

28:44

that he's apparently been recording

28:47

footage about death penalty issues in

28:49

Huntsville for decades. And so it

28:51

felt to me like a

28:54

personal diary entry from Richard Linklater and who

28:56

wouldn't be interested in hearing that? It's yeah,

28:58

I'd say his installment, the first one was like

29:00

about an hour and 20. It's a substantial film,

29:04

in a way, documentary. I think it's

29:06

beautifully done. I agree. It integrates autobiography,

29:11

the ride along, the interviews with Wright, but then

29:13

a dozen or more people that

29:15

he seems to have some kind

29:17

of personal history with. And

29:19

at the center of it is this weird,

29:22

gigantic, almost like medieval fort that

29:24

dominates the middle of the town.

29:27

It's a prison and where executions happen

29:29

at an alarming rate. I mean, hundreds

29:31

and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of

29:33

people killed. And you talk to

29:35

people who were involved in the machinery of killing

29:38

and what their relationship to it

29:40

was. These are people who, by

29:42

process of selection, self selection, couldn't

29:44

keep doing it. And then I

29:47

think the series became somewhat

29:49

what Julia said, though, I think the

29:51

third is very, very, very strong. All

29:54

of it is informative. What I would say, Dana, a

29:57

slight quibble is something you said if I might, which is that

29:59

I think... gets exceedingly openly and

30:01

passionately political project from beginning to

30:03

end. It's not partisan. I think

30:05

you're right about that. I guess I

30:08

was just not talking about national politics is what I should

30:10

have said. It's not talking

30:13

about the presidential election or where Texas falls

30:15

in the red state, blue state. It's not partisan,

30:17

right? And what I like about it

30:19

most, Julia, is that it

30:23

humanizes, subtleizes,

30:25

looks close up

30:27

at a world in which horrific

30:29

things happen without producing

30:32

the false empathy by which

30:34

political anger dissipates and disappears.

30:37

It's totally unsentimental, well-being deeply

30:39

human, and to me, and

30:42

angering and motivating. And to be all

30:44

of those things at once probably

30:47

requires a degree of shagginess, but is

30:49

also, to my mind, just admirable.

30:53

Those interviews with people who work, basically

30:56

the woman who was doing PR for Death

30:58

Row, was

31:00

extraordinary. Some of

31:02

those conversations were really

31:04

fascinating. And throughout, there were

31:07

a bunch of these moments in the second

31:09

one too, the thing that the shagginess allowed

31:11

for, which I did like

31:13

about the project, was just these kind

31:16

of plain, not too pointed, not

31:19

propagandistic, open-minded,

31:22

curious questions

31:24

about how people live

31:27

with near affected by perpetrating,

31:31

in some cases, injustice, right?

31:33

They just experience it as

31:35

life. It's

31:37

just part of the shape of life. And

31:40

those moments are profound and beautiful.

31:42

And even in my

31:45

editor's desire for everything to be tighter, tighter,

31:47

tighter, more focused, more focused, more focused, I

31:49

can see that the

31:51

space given here allows for something unusual.

31:54

I'm definitely glad that I watched these. I just

31:56

think if I had not been assigned to watch

31:58

these I would not

32:00

have watched them all, and I do

32:02

not relish the other 49 states projects.

32:06

Although maybe I should, given what I just

32:09

said, just in terms of my own taste

32:11

and attention. You have to be ready for

32:13

a shaggy hang. Okay, well it's God Save

32:15

Texas courtesy of Richard Linklater, then two other

32:17

directors of its own, Max. Mixed

32:20

few links here if you happen to watch it, let us know

32:22

what you thought. All right, let's move on. This

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are. Find Your Mama's Kitchen

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anywhere you listen. Here's

33:56

the thing about films. The

33:58

medium is defined by

34:00

the just-there-ness of it, right?

34:03

The people saying the words

34:05

you believe are real people speaking spontaneously. So

34:07

in a successful film, or a measure of

34:09

a successful film is sort of how hidden

34:12

all of the craft work that went into

34:14

making it is in some sense.

34:16

And what's more important to

34:18

a film or more hidden than casting?

34:20

Joining us now is Paul Schnay. The list

34:22

of films that he has cast is amazing,

34:25

amazing in itself as films,

34:27

but there's such beautifully cast

34:29

movies, Paul. Spotlight, Winter's Bone,

34:31

Dallas Buyers Club, Pitch Perfect,

34:34

that's incredible. There is now a statue,

34:37

finally, belatedly, for what you do.

34:40

And just to clarify, they're going to award it for

34:43

2025 movies for the first time. Therefore, we'll

34:45

get an award ceremony with the statue handed

34:47

over only in 2026. You

34:50

would have won at least one, had there

34:52

been one previously. Maybe. And

34:54

we're really psyched and really honored to have you to

34:56

discuss what it is you do, because for all the

34:58

smoke I just blew, I'm

35:00

still not 100% sure, but that just says that

35:02

it's an art, not a science. Still not gonna be sure

35:04

what we do. But I really want to hear you speak

35:07

to what is the art that

35:09

goes into and what in

35:11

the process? You must begin with a long dialogue,

35:14

long engagement with a script, and it only ends

35:16

with a single name and a single face attached

35:19

to a part. Right. Well, first off, thanks

35:21

so much for having me on. It's really a pleasure. It's

35:23

a very strange aspect of filmmaking. And as

35:25

you said, it's like the most in-your-face thing

35:27

when you watch a movie, and yet it's

35:30

a very hard process to define.

35:32

In a very, very broad sense, yes,

35:35

we will start a dialogue with the director of

35:37

producers very, very early. We're often the first people

35:39

hired, even years in advance, the director we work

35:41

with a lot. Let's say we'll send us a

35:43

script. Here, I'm making this in

35:46

five years, two years, hopefully, what do you think?

35:48

And then we start batting around ideas. In

35:50

some cases, not to get too in the sausage-making, but

35:52

a film will come to us with actors already in

35:55

it, Dallas Buyers Club, which you mentioned.

35:57

Matthew McConaughey was already there, and then

35:59

we cast around him. In an

36:01

ideal world, no one's cast, as with Wintersbone,

36:03

she mentioned, and we audition everybody or have

36:05

the director meet with people and we cast

36:07

it from scratch, which is what we did

36:09

with that and Pitch Perfect Film, the first

36:11

one. So it depends

36:14

on the project, really. And

36:16

generally speaking, a casting director that you'll see listed

36:18

in casting by, usually at the front of the

36:20

film, is responsible for finding the

36:22

actor for every speaking part. Extras

36:25

casting is a different animal, different job.

36:28

So in a very, very short version, that's what

36:30

we do. I think what's amazing is the consumer

36:32

of films is that it just

36:34

seems as though there's a platonic essence to

36:36

Jared Leto in that part in Dallas Buyers

36:38

Club. The process of the

36:41

actor is to inhabit it, so you

36:43

can't imagine them not being the person.

36:46

Nonetheless, is the process of

36:48

winnowing painful in the sense

36:50

that there are options and choices? You're

36:52

making them all the way to... Yes.

36:55

Is there a down to two or is there

36:57

a gestalt where you're like, oh, platonic essence Jared

36:59

Leto or Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone and then

37:01

it's like... Yeah, it's actually... It's quite easy. It

37:03

can be a mix. For example,

37:05

with Dallas Buyers Club, again, since Matthew

37:08

McConaughey was already there, he was

37:10

anchoring the cast in a way that everyone around him

37:12

had to make sense in whatever sort of vague way

37:14

you want to interpret that. Did a

37:16

Winter's Bone. We did audition a lot

37:18

of women for Jennifer's Roll and

37:20

there was something, it's sort of like the Godfather

37:23

Thunderbolt. She came in, she read and it was

37:25

sort of like, holy shit, that's...

37:28

And so I showed us at Demogratic the next day and let's

37:30

take a look at her and then she flew to New York and

37:32

so on and so forth. So yeah,

37:35

it's weird because also you're talking

37:37

about... If you want to draw

37:39

the analogy between what we do and what a set designer

37:41

does, putting those puzzle pieces

37:43

together to the gestalt, as you put it, it's

37:45

weird because we're talking about human people who

37:48

walk and talk and say the lines as opposed

37:50

to a painted backdrop or a sofa

37:52

or whatever. So you

37:55

very rarely, I think, hear somebody, a movie, a regular movie

37:57

go or see a movie and say, oh, that couch looks like

37:59

a house. way out of place. But you constantly

38:01

hear, and I've seen it reviews, so is it was

38:03

miscast, this person wasn't right for the role,

38:05

whatever. And you can kind of only go by the director's

38:08

instincts, your own instincts, the audition, if you're

38:10

lucky, and sometimes what

38:12

we call chemistry reads, where we'll get different

38:14

actors together, if there's an ensemble, and cross

38:16

your fingers and hope that you're right. You

38:19

know, it's very, it's a high wire

38:21

act for sure. And then hopefully the rest of

38:23

your life you get a Christmas card from Jennifer. I

38:26

don't. My mother

38:28

is so angry that she doesn't thank me at every opportunity

38:31

that she's on television. One of the contrasts

38:33

and what you were just describing is, you know, the

38:35

star versus the unknown, right, which I assume each is

38:37

a different kind of get, right? It's a great get

38:39

that you you get somebody who's a huge name, and

38:42

it's going to attract a lot of financing and other

38:44

stars to the film. But it's also great when you

38:46

dig up a gem like Jennifer Lawrence, right, who I

38:48

assume, had she done theater before that? She

38:50

was on a television, she was already with a

38:53

big agency, CAA, she was completely out of nowhere.

38:55

Right. But you know, but she definitely

38:57

qualifies as yeah, like a discovered

38:59

treasure. And, and so I'm wondering,

39:02

I guess, when you're casting a movie,

39:04

obviously, it depends if what if it's an indie,

39:06

what the budget is, etc. But to what degree

39:08

is it valued to dig up that gem? And

39:11

is that something that's disappearing as you know, financing

39:13

for movies gets harder to secure? To

39:15

the last question. Yes, I think it is probably

39:17

to your last question. It's very, it's so hard

39:19

to make a film. It takes so long. It's

39:21

so expensive. And people who invest

39:23

in films want to minimize their risk. And

39:26

one of the only ways to do that,

39:28

I think is with cast,

39:30

you know, and again, not to get too in

39:32

the weeds. But if you have x actor,

39:35

and there's a list of them, I'm sure that

39:37

sales agents have somewhere, you can pre

39:39

sell your movie in Germany, the

39:41

UK, whatever it is, based on Matt star's track record,

39:44

which is why you saw not today

39:46

names, because I don't know personally, but Bruce Willis

39:48

or Nicholas Cajun, all these huge action movies, they

39:50

have in late 90s, early 2000s that would pre

39:52

sell in China or wherever. And

39:55

it was almost irrespective of whether or not they

39:57

were right for the part in a weird way.

39:59

So there's There's that calculation that is

40:02

always gonna be there, and I think is getting worse

40:05

in the sense that it's more important. So

40:07

I don't know that Winter's Bone set

40:09

up what happened today. I

40:11

mean, you have to have somebody investing who says,

40:13

here's your $2 million in the

40:16

case of Winter's Bone, go make the movie. Do you

40:18

also have a similar issue on

40:20

who wants to be an actor

40:22

today? I mean, it's

40:24

just interesting and striking, I think, to chat

40:27

with young people who wanna

40:30

be influencers. Is it sort

40:32

of like being a baseball scout as football

40:34

was rising or something? Have

40:37

you seen that start to affect the talent pool,

40:40

or are you looking at TikTok performers

40:42

or people who are doing a different

40:44

kind of performance? Rightly or wrongly, we

40:46

are. And it's really another

40:48

sort of farm team, I suppose, that's

40:51

added to your baseball metaphor,

40:53

you know, to another avenue. It used

40:55

to be prior to YouTube, really. I'd

40:59

go to college and graduate school showcases. During

41:02

COVID, most of them went online, which was great because

41:04

then, you know, Ball State University Musical Theater Department didn't

41:06

have to come to New York. So I go to

41:08

a lot of student shows. I've directed some student shows

41:10

at NYU. And those

41:13

showcases that they're called, that each school has

41:15

at the end of the year to sort

41:17

of present their class to agents and casting

41:19

directors is a great resource. Seeing

41:22

theater in general is a great resource,

41:24

particularly here in New York. And then,

41:26

yeah, the influencer TikTok, you

41:29

know, their whole department's at the talent agencies now who just

41:31

watch Instagram all day and try to sign people. So

41:33

for better or worse, that is, I mean, to your

41:35

original question, how do young, you know, I

41:38

don't know, is it rampant that young kids or young people are

41:40

saying, I'll just be an influencer and I'll get signed by a

41:43

big agency that way and I can bypass, you

41:45

know, getting a BFA? Maybe it is.

41:48

And on the more business side, now

41:51

we are getting when I make a cast

41:53

list for, you know, a studio or a

41:56

TV network, very grudgingly

41:58

adding in their followers. because

42:01

the marketing departments of those entities want

42:03

to know. They're already the

42:05

eyeballs on this person. Whether they can act

42:07

or not is often, of course, a separate

42:09

question. And we try as best we can

42:11

to audition them. Everyone is way

42:14

more camera-ready, I think, than they were 10 or 15 years

42:16

ago. And Paul, when disagreements come

42:18

along in the casting process, how does that work?

42:20

I mean, there must be times when a director

42:22

really wants somebody, but you think that person is

42:24

wrong, or vice versa, or both of you want

42:26

somebody, but the producers think that they're not a

42:28

big enough star. What are the disputes

42:30

that have to be worked out before you get the

42:32

name signed? I mean, exactly those. And

42:34

sometimes we try to solve them with

42:38

further auditions, getting into a room

42:40

with another actor who's already in the cast, seeing how

42:42

that works. You know, it's weird, because

42:44

a lot of times I will have

42:46

three, four days of auditions, whatever, everything goes

42:48

online, and I send the link to the

42:50

director, and we make some sort of final

42:53

choices, and then send however

42:55

many the director would like eight people, two choices,

42:57

maybe only one. And then

42:59

the powers that be, I wish I knew what

43:01

happens at ABC or Disney,

43:04

or, you know, when the links go to these

43:06

executives, and we come, we then get an email

43:08

or call, this person's approved, this person's not, we

43:10

want you to keep looking. And I honestly, you

43:12

have to ask an executive. Because they don't give

43:15

notes? They will give very vague notes,

43:18

sometimes having to do with the marketability, sometimes

43:20

having to do with performance, and both. I

43:22

mean, sometimes we're told, this person doesn't move

43:24

the needle for us sales-wise. And

43:27

usually I know that. You know, we all kind of, me

43:29

and my peers, sort of know that ahead of time, but we're trying

43:31

to take a chance on someone. I wish I

43:33

knew, honestly. Because it's very

43:35

subjective, and yet the studios and networks,

43:38

I think, are trying to take a

43:41

quantitative set

43:43

of criteria on a

43:45

qualitative thing,

43:47

like acting or human being. So

43:50

I wish I knew what those calculations were.

43:52

That's an educated guess, anyway. I

43:55

mean, talking about a qualitative thing, obviously

43:57

voting for an awards show. and

44:00

saying something is best couldn't be more

44:02

qualitative at the same time. It's totally

44:05

definitive. So baking in

44:07

that the whole exercise has a degree of absurdity

44:09

in the first place, I'm curious to know. Do

44:11

you have a vote? Are you a voting

44:14

category? Well, I am. But obviously, we're not

44:16

in a category for which you are actively

44:18

nominated. Casting directors have a branch but no

44:20

board until 2026. So

44:23

what we vote on is really only best picture at

44:25

the beginning. I see. And then we vote on everything because

44:27

the whole membership votes on all the awards. Which

44:30

is nominate the nominees. I see.

44:33

So I think I know where you're going. My

44:35

hope is that the casting community who are voting

44:38

members, I think it's a couple hundred people, will

44:41

have just like costumes have insights of what

44:43

their peers are doing cinematographers will look at

44:46

a cast and say, okay, I

44:49

can sort of guess that I'm

44:51

trying to think of an example, August of Sage County,

44:53

which we did, Meryl Street and Julia Roberts came with

44:55

the movie. They attracted a lot of great actors, of

44:57

course, many of whom auditioned, many of whom did

44:59

not. If there is room, like

45:01

I'm also a member of BAFTA. BAFTA has you prepare

45:03

a statement. How did this work? That sort

45:05

of thing. And I hope

45:07

that my fellow casting branch members

45:10

will, you know, it's not terribly

45:12

difficult to sort of suss out how a process

45:14

went, depending on who the who was in the

45:16

film. As for the full

45:18

vote, the full membership voting, you know,

45:20

I can only hope that the five nominees of

45:23

the casting director branch will choose are

45:25

reflective of what is true

45:27

casting as opposed to a marketing

45:30

exercise for lack of a better way to put

45:32

it. I have a follow up question about that

45:34

because I, you know, I think with the technical

45:36

Oscars, there is sometimes

45:38

a dynamic where the

45:41

nominations reflect the view of the branch experts

45:43

and then the winners sometimes reflect like which

45:45

of the nominated movies did everybody see because

45:47

they're also best picture nominees or they were

45:50

bigger, you know, the kind of

45:52

literacy of the final voting group is maybe

45:54

different than the literacy of the nomination group.

45:56

And I wrote about this once with costume

45:58

design where the thing the costume design designers

46:00

are frustrated with is that period

46:03

costumes and sci-fi costumes are always

46:05

honored, whereas excellence in contemporary costume

46:07

design is overlooked. So what's that

46:10

going to be? I mean, you guys, there's

46:12

a casting Emmy, there are other casting awards.

46:15

What's the thing that is the bright, shiny thing?

46:17

Like, oh my God, they put so many ruffles on

46:20

that bustle. I better give the award to them. Like

46:22

what's the version of that going to be

46:24

for casting once the casting Oscar emerges? I

46:27

guess it will be the presumed

46:30

or hope for intuition of

46:32

the other members as to, it's been

46:37

an education process in terms of casting being part

46:39

of the Academy now for 10 or so years.

46:42

And there are a lot of branches who didn't fully

46:44

understand what we did, even though we

46:46

all kind of know each other in some vague way. So

46:49

I hope that's part of it. I think that

46:51

the hope is that a film that you

46:54

can reasonably infer was truly cast, if

46:59

that makes sense. Something

47:01

like Winter's Bone, as opposed to say a film

47:05

with lots and lots of lots of books. Like

47:08

The Towering Inferno. The Towering Inferno or something, yeah,

47:10

exactly, where you get lots of famous people show

47:12

up. Who's going to say no to ex-director without

47:14

naming names? I think the shiny thing will be

47:18

how evident is it, either

47:20

in reading press about it

47:22

or hearing us, I assume that we will

47:24

now be, God forbid, some part of the

47:27

campaign season, which I'm dreading. But

47:30

it will have a chance, it's weird because I can't

47:32

go on a stage at the Q&A and say, oh,

47:35

well, you know, Steve Metcalf, audition for this brobo, he

47:37

didn't get it. Because it's not the same as saying,

47:39

well, the orange couch got replaced by a blue couch.

47:45

So it's hard to sort of

47:47

walk people through what we really did.

47:50

All you can hope for is that they see on the screen

47:52

how an ensemble was put together and cross

47:54

your fingers, which I had a better answer.

47:56

Oh, yeah, you guys have to be

47:59

discreet and polite. I hadn't even thought

48:01

of that. You can't even explain like, can

48:03

you believe they wanted us to cast so-and-so?

48:05

Exactly. I can tell you off mic, I have

48:07

to share lots of stories. But I mean, there's,

48:09

you know, several people who came very close to

48:11

Jennifer Lawrence's role and I'm dying to tell them

48:14

their lives would have been maybe possibly completely different,

48:16

but I can't. All right. I'm going to give

48:18

you a chance before you go. This has been

48:20

amazing, by the way, to name one

48:22

name of your choice in a

48:24

context that is innocent

48:27

and enhancing to all parties, which is you

48:29

were sitting watching the movie. You knew very

48:31

little, if any, of the scuttlebutt around casting

48:33

and the process. And there was,

48:35

let's even say, a relatively small part, and

48:37

we won't even know the name, but we

48:39

will know the movie, ideally. And you were

48:41

like, ah, and it's an important

48:43

linchpin moment in the movie or part in the

48:46

movie, even though it doesn't have a ton of

48:48

lines, and they nailed it. You know, one example

48:50

in one of the pieces we read to prep

48:52

was, this isn't the small part exactly, but the

48:54

boy in Anatomy before. That's what I was thinking.

48:57

Oh, you were going to think, because it just

48:59

spins, the whole movie spins on it. Talk

49:01

about a hidden gem. That kid is unbelievable.

49:04

Okay. Well, yes. And that's

49:06

the kind of linchpin cast that you just,

49:08

I don't know what Anatomy before will be

49:10

without that kid. That he's so

49:12

good. And, you know, I read up

49:15

on it, it was part of the, BAFTA is also

49:17

a juried award to decide on

49:19

the nominations. Analogous to, I guess, just the

49:22

casting director branch in the Academy

49:24

voting on the nominations. So we have a four

49:27

or so hour discussion about for the

49:29

long list and then

49:32

decide on what the nominees are. And then

49:34

we vote anonymously and the kid's not

49:36

really visually impaired and worked with

49:38

a coach to, you know, I don't know

49:40

if they put contacts or whatever they did.

49:42

That's the one that really jumps out of

49:44

me from, from recently. That's a really good

49:46

one. If you get that wrong, it sinks

49:48

the movie or potentially, yeah. All right. Paul

49:50

Snae, it was amazing. Oh, thank you so much.

49:53

Amazing to come talk to you. And I hope

49:55

we can find a really good excuse

49:57

or a flimsy one even to do it again.

50:00

Yeah, that'd be awesome. Great. Thanks for coming in. Alright, thanks a

50:02

lot. This

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You can listen early and ad-free by

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joining Wondery Plus. Alright,

51:11

now is the moment in our podcast

51:13

when we endorse Tame. What do we

51:16

have? You know, I actually changed

51:18

endorsements midstream in the midst of our conversation

51:20

about God Save Texas because when Julia was

51:22

mentioning the interviews with some of the people

51:24

who had worked in connection with death row,

51:26

like a woman who was almost sort of

51:28

a publicist for the Huntsville Prison and, you

51:30

know, a guy who was on what was

51:33

called in a ghoulish phrase, the tie-down team,

51:35

you know, who sort of brought people into

51:37

the gurney and prepared them for

51:39

execution, those were some of the most chilling

51:41

and impossible to forget parts of that documentary.

51:44

And they made me think of the great

51:46

Werner Herzog documentary, which I don't think we talked about on

51:48

this show when it came out in 2011. Into the Abyss, have

51:50

either of you seen Into the

51:52

Abyss? So it's a

51:54

Werner Herzog doc about Texas, about death row

51:56

in Texas. No, no, no, no, okay. And

51:59

it's specifically follows one

52:01

case, a case of a triple homicide and someone

52:03

who's on death row. But there's lots and lots

52:05

of interviews with those kinds of people, with people

52:07

who are in the prison industrial complex, some of

52:09

whom, you know, like the tie down team guy,

52:11

have become anti-capital punishment. Just had a moment that

52:14

they, you know, had to come to Jesus kind

52:16

of moment like this is wrong. I'm now going

52:18

to spend the rest of my life advocating against

52:20

it. Others are, you

52:22

know, more in a gray area.

52:24

But it's a really, really profound,

52:26

hard to watch, but really, really

52:28

beautiful film about a very ugly thing.

52:31

Into the Abyss, it's directed by Werner Herzog

52:33

and it's streaming in various places, I'm

52:35

sure. I know you can watch it on Amazon

52:37

Prime. Julia, what do you have? Well, I'm going

52:39

to recommend a classic here. It's maybe not quite

52:41

the same as the time I recommended Chinatown. We'll

52:43

see what you guys think. But as

52:46

our regular listeners know, my family and

52:48

I are partisans of Cartoon Club at

52:50

the New Beverly, which is a really

52:52

wonderful revival movie theater here in Los

52:55

Angeles, which with a robust schedule.

52:58

And every Saturday morning,

53:00

once a month, they'll play kind of

53:02

kid featured animated stuff. Sometimes it's a

53:04

series of shorts. But a

53:07

couple weeks ago, they

53:09

screened Lady and the Tramp, which I haven't seen

53:11

since I saw it like on a VHS in

53:14

the 80s. And we brought

53:16

my daughter, who's nearly three, to her first

53:19

cinematic movie experience, right? They had little

53:21

booster seats for the kids. My

53:24

older boys were there too. And

53:27

that movie is great. It's

53:30

bizarre. It's mostly

53:32

bizarre because they make

53:34

the dogs hot. Like the dogs are

53:36

hot. And I don't know like what

53:39

about the way in which they like

53:42

what animators were doing, smoking, thinking

53:44

in Hollywood, whenever these movies were

53:46

made to be like, how

53:48

can I make this dog fluffy, glossy

53:52

ears look like a seductive

53:54

mane of hair and yet

53:56

not have it be utterly untenably

53:59

creepy and bizarre. I

54:02

don't know. And you know,

54:04

the whole narrative is kind of ridiculous

54:06

with it's basically like propaganda for domesticity.

54:09

I'm not sure I stand behind the

54:11

politics of Lady and the Tramp, but

54:13

as a viewing experience, it was amazing.

54:16

And my daughter

54:18

is a true woman of California because when I

54:20

took my boys to their first film, I think

54:22

they were five and we tried to get them

54:24

to see Singing in the Rain and

54:26

the, I had

54:28

forgotten that it's about a stunt.

54:31

There's a lot of like stagey violence in the first

54:33

10 minutes, which overwhelms them. And we had to leave

54:35

and we didn't take them back to the theater until

54:37

they were like 10. So anyway, I've

54:40

got a little screen buff

54:42

now and very excited to be

54:44

raising a Californian lady in

54:47

the Tramp fan. Although I think she now wants

54:49

all movies to include

54:51

beautiful, beautiful dogs. Well, 101 Dalmatians is

54:53

clearly your next step, which is the other kind

54:55

of hot dogs of the 60s, Disney

54:58

movie. But

55:00

Julia, I just have to say, since you

55:02

were calling out the maybe vague Orientalism in

55:06

Dune, that there is a wildly racist,

55:09

very catchy, but extremely Orientalist in

55:11

Lady and the Tramp, the cat

55:13

number. That is excruciating, that

55:16

number, it does not work at

55:18

all. And that is definitely worth

55:20

flagging. My kids coming out

55:22

of it were like, what? Correct,

55:25

yes, good. That's among

55:27

the things you learn at Cartoon Club is what Hollywood

55:29

used to do, that it hopefully does

55:32

less. But two

55:34

dogs kissing over spaghetti in an alleyway

55:36

while the Italian waiter sings to them,

55:38

you can't beat that moment. I

55:40

was also a partisan of the hot

55:42

cat equivalent, Theoristic Cats, which

55:44

featured the Duchess voiced by Ava Gabor.

55:47

I think that might've been one of the first movies I

55:49

saw in a theater. I have a very, very early memory

55:51

of Theoristic Cats. Yeah, I remember

55:53

digging it a lot. Okay, I'm endorsing, either

55:55

one of you read Helen Garner, the Australian

55:58

writer who's having a lot of fun. little

56:00

bit of a vogue now. Still going,

56:03

still relatively young. And

56:05

I'll mention that really, she's 82. She's an

56:09

incredible, incredible writer. I

56:13

finally started one House of Greece,

56:15

her nonfiction account of a big

56:17

and I guess somewhat semi-scandalous or

56:19

whatever trial, well-publicized

56:21

trial in Australia. And

56:24

at first I thought, I

56:26

just, I mean, the vagaries

56:28

of the Australian legal system and if

56:31

we know how to do one thing here in America, it's have meritricious,

56:35

super public, over a couple of,

56:37

a tabloid covered, a show

56:42

trials or whatever, or highly symbolically

56:44

loaded trials. This is going to

56:46

seem kind of, I don't know,

56:48

just sort of like a pale

56:50

afterthought or something. I didn't know, I just was like,

56:52

am I really going to get into this? And then

56:55

it's simply her ability

56:57

to describe people self-presenting

57:00

or not self-presenting, just

57:03

being themselves unconsciously in a

57:05

courtroom, is so

57:08

precise, beautifully

57:10

drawn, the economy of language. It's like that

57:12

painter in their master phase where they take

57:14

a brush and they do a little swirl

57:16

and all of a sudden you see a,

57:19

you know, a collar on

57:21

a man or you see a piece

57:23

of nature and it's just, it's so

57:26

alive and yet the

57:28

amount of gestural sweat it

57:30

took to produce it is

57:32

relatively minimal. It's just, the

57:34

descriptions, they're

57:36

so vivid, but they bring more

57:38

to the surface than a picture,

57:40

right? They bring moments just choked

57:42

with regret, emotion, rage. I mean,

57:44

the underlying story is horrifying. A

57:46

man drives, driving

57:49

with his three sons in the car, drives

57:52

into a body of water and he himself

57:54

escapes and the three boys drown. And so

57:56

the question at the heart, the question of

57:58

culpability hinges on whether did it intentionally

58:00

or as he says, because he had

58:03

a sudden coughing fit and went semi-conscious

58:05

for a moment and woke

58:07

up underwater. But it's the

58:09

amount of humanity that the woman

58:11

can impact into a single sentence.

58:14

It's like every sentence is its own emotional

58:16

iceberg and you're sort of leaping, not leaping,

58:19

you're sort of wading from emotional iceberg to

58:21

emotional iceberg, but then the total effect is

58:23

extraordinary because it's a portrait of a family,

58:26

like going

58:28

through a catastrophe prior, obviously, that they would

58:30

have been to the event and certainly since.

58:32

I mean, it's just an amazing piece of

58:35

writing. It's up there with Janet Malcolm for

58:37

its craft and powers of perception. Anyway, House

58:39

of Grief by Helen Gardner. I loved it.

58:43

Dana, thank you so much. Thanks, Steve. Julia,

58:46

thank you. Thank you. You'll find links to

58:48

some of the things we talked about today

58:50

at our show page at slate.com/Culture Fest and

58:52

you can email us at Culture Fest at

58:55

slate.com. Our introductory music is

58:57

by the composer Nicholas Patel. Our producer is

58:59

Jared Downing, our production assistant is Kat Hong

59:01

for Dana Stevens and Julia Turner. I'm Stephen

59:03

Meckoff. Thank you so much for joining us.

59:05

We will see you soon. Ted

59:15

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