0:08

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the

0:10

Bob Left Steps Podcast. My

0:13

guest today is director Morgan Neville

0:16

won an Oscar for twenty Feet from Stardom

0:18

and should have won an Oscar for his Mr.

0:21

Rogers movie. Morgan, Welcome, Hi

0:23

Bob. Okay, you

0:26

were presently working on a

0:28

Rick Rubin documentary series

0:30

for Showtime. How did that come together? It

0:33

came together because somehow

0:36

Rick and Showtime it started talking to each other. And

0:38

I think initially the idea was it was going to be more

0:40

about the studio. So Rick owns the studio

0:43

Shango Law that originally

0:45

was put together by the band in the mid seventies,

0:47

and Bob Dylan ended up spending a

0:50

lot of time recording there. But other people did too, Eric

0:52

Clapton and you know, Bunny

0:54

Raid and on and on. And I

0:58

was less interested in just doing a commentary

1:00

about the recording studio than

1:03

than Rick, because Rick is a fascinating

1:05

character. So I started meeting

1:07

with Rick. Let's be clear, Yeah,

1:10

Rick wanted in Showtime want to do something? Were

1:12

you there from the very beginning, not

1:15

the very beginning, but close to it? Okay,

1:17

there was just this kind of vague idea how

1:19

long ago. Was this somewhere

1:24

between a year and a half and two years ago, probably closer

1:26

to two years ago, So there was a while ago and

1:30

UM and

1:32

I think what Rick

1:34

and I started talking about that I think

1:37

we both connected about. There were a number of

1:39

things that we connected about. One was, UM,

1:42

create a process, you know, how

1:45

people and kind of the universality of creat

1:47

a process. It's something I've spent a lot of time making

1:50

things about. I do a series for Netflix called Abstract

1:52

about designers, but so much of that show

1:54

is actually about creative process. And Rick had love

1:56

that show and we talked about that UM

2:00

and and Rick is an interesting

2:03

character too, So I think there

2:05

was an ongoing debate and

2:07

continues to be an ongoing debate even though we finished

2:09

the show as to what UM

2:13

what the show is because I feel like UM,

2:16

in Rick's mind, his role as

2:18

a producer is merely to

2:21

be a mirror and to reflect what

2:23

the artist wants. And as

2:25

I say in the opening of the show, there's a real conversation

2:27

I had with Rick. I said,

2:29

well, my job is a documentarian is

2:31

to reflect you. And if I'm making

2:34

a reflection of our reflection, that we're going to find

2:36

ourselves in a hall of mirrors. And

2:38

Rick said, yeah, isn't that great? And

2:44

that's kind of what the show has been. It's been a

2:46

hall of mirrors. It's you know, lady from Shanghai

2:48

with Orson Welles, you know, both of you know, we

2:51

had bonded about that too, and you know this kind

2:53

of um, the embracing

2:56

the surreality of it, and what I came

2:59

to really embrace about it is I think one

3:01

of Rick's maintenance in life is

3:04

that when the lines get

3:06

blurred between what's real and what's

3:08

unreal, interesting things

3:10

happen and go

3:12

a little bit deeper what would be real and what would be

3:15

unreal. Well, for

3:17

instance, anything that resembles

3:20

a rule or a deadline

3:23

or a budget or any of those things,

3:25

I think Rick just

3:28

doesn't believe them, you know, willfully,

3:31

UM. And I think that stems from his earliest

3:33

days. I mean, if it stems from his childhood, I think in some

3:35

ways, but certainly in college. You know,

3:37

Rick being a rule breaker UM

3:40

has rewarded him again and again.

3:42

So there's been a lot of positive

3:45

feedback that this idea of

3:48

doing exactly what you want and

3:51

not caring about what's popular or not

3:53

caring about what people say you

3:55

can do or what you're supposed to do. Um

3:59

is actually really for old ground. So I think that's

4:01

that's part of it. It's just a wilful

4:04

disregard for any

4:06

Whenever anybody says, well this is supposed

4:08

to happen like this, you

4:11

know, you might as well be speaking foreign

4:13

language to Rick. Okay, but let's

4:15

go back to the point. They wanted to make a movie about the

4:17

studio. You were more interested in Rick,

4:20

So then you got involved. How did they find you?

4:23

Um? Well, I think the people

4:25

a showtime and Rick knew my work right.

4:27

I've been a working documentary and for twenty five years,

4:30

I've made a ton of music films. I made lots

4:32

of non music films. Um.

4:34

And as I said, Rick was a big fan of this design

4:36

show I'd done. That was another thing they talked about, and

4:38

so I think they all said, well, if

4:40

we can get somebody to do this would be Morgan. So I

4:43

honestly think it was me coming on board

4:46

and having a series of conversations

4:49

with Rick that kind of swung

4:52

the show from what they thought it was going to be into

4:54

what it is. I don't

4:56

have a good way of describing what it is, because

4:58

it's a rather indescribable

5:01

show. You know, it's it's a very

5:03

idiosyndradic show. It's

5:05

been, um

5:07

in many ways, some of the most rewarding

5:10

stuff I've done and some of the most challenging stuff I've

5:12

done. It's

5:15

forced me way out

5:17

of my comfort zone. Give us an example.

5:20

Um okay, Well, Rick said at the beginning,

5:23

UM, I'm never going to do an interview

5:25

with you on camera. Um.

5:29

So what I ended up doing? Why

5:31

do you think that? Well, it's just that's normal.

5:34

That's what people do. You know. I don't like talking

5:36

heads. I'm never going to do it. You know, typically if

5:38

you do a documentary with the subject. He said, Oh,

5:40

can I'll sit down do interviews with you? Can

5:43

I get a shot of you walking, you know, across

5:45

your house? Can I do this? I

5:48

could never ask to do anything like

5:50

that. So what I ended up with was

5:53

said, well, let me just do audio conversations.

5:55

I'd even call them interviews, just conversations. So

5:58

Rick um Off is

6:00

uh at his house in Hawaii,

6:03

and so part of my job was taking

6:06

several trips to Hawaii where I'd go over and

6:08

we'd spend the day having conversations,

6:10

and that conversation we could talk about the Ramons for an

6:12

hour, you know, we could talk about Um,

6:15

Tom Petty for an hour. We could talk about anything. And

6:17

I went in with no agenda. You know, this

6:19

is not me trying to interview Rick. This is just talking

6:22

about what what's interesting, and

6:24

you're recording it and I'm recording it. So I'm by

6:26

myself. First of all, I'm forced to be my own audio engineer,

6:28

which scares the Jesus out, I mean, especially

6:30

in front of Rick being who

6:32

he is. UM And plus

6:35

you know, just dealing with the nature

6:37

of hawaiis I'm trying to record good audio.

6:40

And we ended up doing more than twenty

6:42

four hours of audio interviews and

6:45

that really became kind

6:47

of this text that flows

6:50

throughout the series. And then

6:52

I had to figure out how am I going to actually illustrate

6:55

this cinematically, and it

6:57

forced me into a lot of very create

7:00

of solutions. Um

7:02

And I know you've only seen half the series. It gets

7:04

even weirder. Okay,

7:09

from the beginning, was it going to be four episodes,

7:12

It was gonna be something like that. It was a mini series,

7:15

you know, could have been Yeah,

7:17

but I think four was always kind of the goal UM,

7:20

and we didn't know what it was going to be UM.

7:24

And part of it is I mean, originally it was going to

7:26

take about a year. It's

7:28

been about a year and a half. UM.

7:31

And there's a kind of an unpredictability

7:35

also to to what's happening in the studio.

7:38

So a lot of what you see in the in

7:40

this series is just me

7:42

getting call from Rick saying such and

7:44

such as coming in the studio tomorrow, you should

7:46

show up, and we show up,

7:49

And sometimes I have no

7:51

idea who they are and or how they're going to

7:53

fit into it. So I feel like

7:55

in many ways, I was given this

7:57

incredibly diverse but

8:00

random um set of ingredients

8:03

and then I was told to make the best meal

8:05

I'd ever cooked. So it

8:08

was it took just a lot of

8:11

um outside

8:13

the box thinking to kind of stitch together

8:15

things that don't normally get stitched

8:17

together. What do you think Rick wanted out of it? UM?

8:23

I don't know. I mean I have a very

8:26

hard time answering anything for Rick UM

8:29

other than I know he's definitely been

8:31

more interested in, you

8:34

know, speaking publicly

8:36

a little bit you know, he has his podcast now, and

8:39

and he's been somebody who's been kind of notoriously

8:42

um off the grid

8:44

in anyways. Um.

8:47

And the fact of the matter is Rick

8:50

has done and learned a lot, and

8:52

I think part of him understands that

8:56

there's some wisdom that could be shared.

8:59

And I think one takeaway he and I had

9:02

when we're having these initial conversations was

9:05

if you could come away from the show knowing what it's

9:07

like to be produced by Rick, that's

9:09

a win. And so in many ways,

9:12

it's not trying to tell his story

9:14

or the story of the studio per se, though it's

9:16

all in there, but um,

9:19

but to try and give the experience of

9:22

what it would be like to come in and work with Rick and

9:24

what you'll glean from that as an artist

9:27

or even more perfectly, as

9:29

any kind of creative person or any person

9:32

you know, because the rules he's talking about

9:34

that I'm interested in are the universal

9:36

ones that apply to you, you know, if you're a filmmaker

9:39

or a writer, or or

9:41

a musician or anything else. Um,

9:44

that's what excites me. So.

9:46

UM that was the goal. But it was

9:48

no easy goal. Okay,

9:51

you watch or the half that I've watched

9:54

you get the impression that

9:56

Rick is trying to make the most successful

9:59

record in

10:01

later in the series or just your

10:04

discussion. Not everything he does is successful.

10:06

Now, you know, we had this tenure with Columbia Records,

10:08

which really wasn't that successful. But

10:11

does that factor into his thinking I'm

10:15

talking about financially successful. Yeah,

10:17

I know. I don't think finance

10:20

figures in in any way I've ever been able

10:22

to detect um.

10:25

I mean, I wish I could be that pure in my

10:27

decision making. I try. I think

10:29

most of us wish we could be that pure um.

10:32

But from what I could tell, Rick really really

10:35

doesn't care. Okay, So if

10:37

you watch the film, it begins with people

10:39

from the hip hop world. I must

10:42

admit some of them I didn't know. Okay,

10:44

how about yourself? Did you know them? No? I mean

10:46

I knew some. You know, I knew Tyler Um

10:49

creator who's in it. But you know, people

10:51

like drama. So part of what Rick

10:54

wanted to show, which is very real, is

10:57

that somebody like drama. This um, young

10:59

hip hop artist Rick

11:01

discovered on SoundCloud UM

11:04

when he only had three listens. Somehow,

11:06

Rick became the three first listen

11:09

and you know, tweeted that he was listening

11:11

to drama and next thing you know, he's producing

11:14

drama. So Rick is

11:16

still actively interested in

11:19

finding new things he hasn't heard before. So

11:22

there are a lot of people throughout the show who are

11:24

people I didn't know, people who nobody knows, or

11:26

people who are barely known that Rick

11:29

is is trying to mentor

11:31

I guess, Okay, we live in an era where it's

11:33

conventionally believed that hip hop dominates.

11:36

I noticed through the first episode, Uh,

11:39

it was mostly African Americans talking.

11:42

Was that a conscious choice to be hip?

11:45

No? No? And

11:47

in fact, I think by the end of the series,

11:49

the balances is much wider.

11:52

I mean, if you look at the artist Rick's work with two it's

11:55

well, I mean, I know from my association with Metallica,

11:58

you know that he's worked with them, and then certainly in the first two

12:00

episodes, I didn't see Metallica. There

12:02

was a mention of Slayer at the beginning. There

12:05

wasn't a mention of the Black Crows, which was on his label.

12:07

He was not the producer. Does

12:10

that stuff come up? Um a

12:12

little bit, But again, it's not the Rick Reuben

12:14

story. You know it's

12:16

and Rick was very clear about that

12:18

that, you know, this

12:21

is not going to be just

12:24

the a diazy of Rick Ruben. And

12:26

honestly, I'm

12:28

more interested in doing the other

12:30

version than the Wikipedia version.

12:33

You know, I see so many music documentaries

12:36

that feel like I'm watching a version

12:38

of Wikipedia, you know, or behind the music

12:40

or behind me. They did this, and then they did that, and they worked

12:42

with this person, they did this tour, and then this happened,

12:45

and they have to check every box. I

12:47

find that not good storytelling.

12:50

Okay, you're making the movie, and

12:53

are you ever saying at certain points, because you're

12:55

filming a lot, okay, now I have

12:57

it, Now it's coming together, or converse

13:00

with you saying hey, I

13:02

need something. It's not like it's just like Rick

13:04

of the movie. I can't tell you what it is, but I know what I'll get

13:06

there. Um, I don't know if I'm

13:09

ever gonna feel like I've gotten

13:11

there. You know. I rarely feel

13:13

that way, even about films of mine that have done very well.

13:15

You know, I feel like, um,

13:18

my whole career has been

13:20

iterative. I'm a huge believer in

13:22

that. And maybe it's because you know, I started my career

13:24

in journalism, and I came out of um

13:27

deadline journalism, which I

13:29

love because it's about doing

13:31

what you can do and then the next day you do

13:34

it again. And something about

13:36

that iterative process lets

13:39

you learn faster. I mean, I know filmmakers

13:41

that do one film for seven

13:43

years at a time. I can't

13:46

work that way, and I feel just by doing

13:48

things more, I

13:50

get better at it. Um. Well, you know

13:52

there's certainly uh, what's

13:54

his name? The documentary the guy do the Eagles nick

13:56

whatever? The guy who

13:59

I mean maybe his name is Alex.

14:02

He seems to make a million. He's

14:05

always work. He actually not that you know

14:07

when you're the three. But is he actually hands on

14:09

it all these movies? Um,

14:11

I don't know, but I know he's somewhat hands

14:13

on and all those movies. And I think anything he puts

14:15

his name on as director because he also produces things he

14:17

doesn't direct, and I think, actually, I'm trying to

14:19

remember did the Eagles doctor? Did he just produce

14:22

it? I'm not sure if he actually directed it because

14:24

there was a woman who directed it. I could be

14:26

wrong. It was great, yeah, So

14:29

and it's interesting. I mean, Alex, I've known Alex

14:31

for a long time, and he's somebody who's

14:34

you know, had the kind of career that's very

14:37

enviable. I mean, it's

14:40

interesting. And we could talk about documentaries if you want, because

14:42

I've been doing it for a long time and it's changed tremendously.

14:44

What documentary is today is let's

14:46

let's get completely different. Let's go let's

14:49

let's go back to Rick

14:51

and make sure that we don't leave certain stones

14:54

unturned. Um, there's

14:56

a plethora of product out now, and

14:58

there will be a marketing campaign, usually

15:01

with a fewer dollars than there is in

15:03

a theatrical world. Even

15:06

though I believe this stuff should list beyond

15:09

the flat screen. What

15:12

do you anticipate in what would be

15:14

satisfying or unsatisfying in terms

15:16

of response? UM?

15:20

I don't want to sound um

15:22

disingenuous, but I

15:25

don't really care. Let's say, hypothetically

15:28

was the theatrical film? Do you care?

15:30

Then? UM? I would,

15:33

But to me, I think of them differently. UM.

15:37

I feel like this Rick

15:40

experience has been a

15:43

process of experimentation and trying

15:45

things, and

15:48

it's you're learning on their dollar well,

15:50

but it's also idiosyncratic, and

15:52

I think there are people who are going to think it's

15:55

awesome and people who are going to think it's terrible.

15:58

I'm okay with that, you know. And

16:01

I feel like we had the support

16:03

from Showtime, and I feel like it

16:06

was kind of the mission statement going in that

16:09

this is going to get weird, and

16:12

um, I feel like doing something

16:15

for television, it gets judged differently than if

16:17

I put into a theater and want people to pay

16:19

money on a date night to go and sit there and

16:21

watch it. So I think about them

16:23

differently, um,

16:26

which is part of why I thought of it as a mini series.

16:28

And it kind of has a um,

16:33

I don't know how you describe it, kind of a

16:35

a drifting, you know, kind

16:38

of we referred to it as the

16:40

Gossamer Construction. You know. It has this

16:42

kind of, um,

16:45

lightly connected kind of tangent

16:47

of ideas. I mean, normally I'm a big

16:49

story and character person. This was

16:51

a challenge of trying to kind of tell a story

16:54

with a narrative of ideas and

16:57

um. And I'm really

16:59

happy with what we did. But it's I

17:01

know, it's not the most mainstrength thing I've

17:03

done, and that's cool, you know. I'm

17:06

happy to do things that certain people

17:08

will say that's my favorite thing, and other people say I hate

17:10

it. I may have done films like that and that's great.

17:12

I've done films that are kind of broad cloud crowd

17:15

pleasers too. And then to what degree

17:18

was Rick steering to

17:20

the final destination or making comments

17:23

on the edit? I

17:25

mean, I had final edit. But you

17:28

know, of course everybody

17:30

wants Rick to be happy and we want to talk about it.

17:33

But honestly, the discussions were not

17:37

you know, we it was much more collaborative

17:40

in that it's

17:43

this kind of debate about

17:45

what it is. I mean, I think in a way,

17:47

I mean it's it's it's no stretch to say

17:49

that, um, Rick

17:52

was trying to produce me that.

17:55

Um absolutely, the conversations I had

17:57

with Rick, with the kinds of conversations,

17:59

the habit is our this And even

18:01

though I would protest and say making a

18:03

film is not making a record, part of me

18:05

knows that making a film is making a record, and

18:08

that I when

18:11

Rick says, well, I know, you say that's

18:13

the best way, but how do you know, How

18:15

do you really know what happens if you don't do that?

18:18

And um,

18:21

you know, and that can be frustrating and it was.

18:23

But it can also lead you to places you would

18:25

never go to on your own, which it did. Ok Um,

18:29

I learned to be much freer making

18:32

this. I just feel much fear as a filmmaker,

18:35

you know, much less constrained about um

18:38

rules. And it's Rick happy with the final

18:40

product. I think. So, So, how

18:42

did how did step Goden end up being in the film?

18:45

Seth and Ricker good friends? Really? Yeah?

18:47

How did how did that come together? I mean Rick

18:50

has um a collection

18:52

of interesting friends

18:55

and people. I mean there are other people. He's not

18:57

in the first two episodes, but Michael Lewis uh

19:00

appears in one of our episodes in a conversation.

19:03

Um, he does a podcast

19:05

in Malcolm clab Well, like, I think he's interested

19:07

in Well is he? You know? Well, that's

19:09

the conflict in the movie in

19:11

that on some level you see this guru

19:14

who barely speaks, but then

19:16

you show what was happening in the dorm room and

19:18

you have actual footage of him hyping the Beastie

19:20

Boys and he said, this is a pretty aggressive

19:22

guy who knew where he wanted to go. Absolutely.

19:25

Um, So do you think that still applies today?

19:29

No? I think Rick's

19:32

journey is one of

19:35

um

19:37

getting away from the idea that you know, I

19:40

mean, in fact, he says it and later a later

19:42

episode that I mean.

19:44

This is the example he gives, which you will appreciate.

19:47

Um. In the movie Hall Hale Rock and Roll,

19:50

as Rick says, the film that Keith Richard's made about Chuck

19:52

Berry I as a documentary would differ

19:55

the Chuck that UH

19:58

was not made by uh by

20:01

Keith Richards. But um,

20:04

I'm blanking on the director it was, I'm

20:07

blanking. We can look it up on he

20:09

did. He's made to Hella Marin, he did coal Miner's daughter.

20:12

Um, it'll come

20:14

to you in anyway. Um

20:16

so anyway, Um

20:18

so Rix talks about Hell

20:21

Hell Rock and Roll and that when he saw that film

20:23

when it came out. There's

20:26

a scene where Keith

20:28

is constantly trying to break Chuck into

20:30

getting his act together, tuning his guitar, actually

20:33

rehearsing, and like getting putting

20:36

him on a pedestal so he'll sound as good as he can

20:38

sound. And Chuck resists

20:40

this and sabotages it again and again.

20:42

And Rick said, in the beginning, when

20:44

I watched this film, I thought Keith

20:46

is doing the best he can to help this artist, and

20:49

Chuck just won't listen to him.

20:52

And now I'm on chuck side.

20:57

As Chuck says, if I want to play guitar,

20:59

the sattit tune, that how Chuck Berry plays it, and

21:03

you know what, there's wisdom in that too.

21:05

Um. But I think something Rick talks

21:07

a lot about is this idea of

21:10

letting go of your beliefs and

21:12

admitting that you don't know. He

21:14

also has luxury based on his past

21:17

success. As you said earlier, a lot of

21:19

us, you know, are not that rich because

21:21

that many accolades. While you're making

21:24

this, I want to tell you one of this story because

21:26

this echoes another story that's not in the film. But I heard

21:28

that We talked to Rivers Cuomo from Weezer,

21:31

and Rivers tells this story that there

21:34

was a cover song, uh,

21:36

like a Tony Braxton cover song that

21:38

Rivers wanted to do and they recorded

21:40

it and the rest and the guy, the

21:42

rest of the guys and Weezer were like, this

21:45

is not good. We should not do this, and

21:48

Rick had been supportive of it, and

21:50

so Rivers was like, Okay, I'm going to strategize

21:52

about how we're going to get on the album, and how I'm going to convince

21:55

the guys in the band. And he goes into talk to Rick

21:57

and says, guy, you know, Rick, nobody else in the band

21:59

wants to use this song, must put it on the album.

22:01

Um you know what are we gonna do about

22:03

it? And Rick pauses and says, well,

22:06

maybe the right And

22:09

it just took Rivers back right

22:11

onto his back. Heel didn't be like, oh,

22:15

I never thought you would have said that. And I

22:17

think that is part of

22:20

what Rick has learned, is to understand

22:22

that maybe other people are right. Okay,

22:26

while you're making this Rick mini series,

22:29

are you also working on other projects simultaneously?

22:32

Okay? And I should say because

22:34

it's very much worth saying that. Um,

22:37

I have a partner on the Shangri Law

22:39

this Rick Reuben series, Jeff Malmberg, who

22:41

directed the series with me, So we each did

22:44

two episodes, but he was my editor

22:46

and won't you be my neighbor the Mr. Rogers film and

22:48

he's a great filmmaker in his own right. So Jeff

22:50

and I have been how do you split up the duties?

22:52

How does he do two episodes and you Dutch episodes?

22:54

I mean realistically, we both

22:57

just directed whenever we could. We just covered

22:59

to shoots and then we kind of

23:01

divated all up at the end. Okay,

23:04

let's go back to your earlier comment how documentary

23:06

has changed over the years. Yeah,

23:09

documentary. Um, it's been

23:11

twenty six years since I started my first documentary.

23:14

And back then there was nothing cool

23:16

whatsoever about documentaries. I mean it

23:18

was PBS, maybe

23:21

something on HBO, but I

23:23

mean there was Capturing the Freedman's

23:26

I mean that was two thousand four we started.

23:30

So, Um, Michael Moore

23:32

was about the only very successful but even

23:34

then, not in nineteen well, yeah, so he done. Um

23:37

rogery was so. I actually Roger

23:40

Me came out, Um in the

23:43

fall of nine. I was working

23:45

as a journalist in San Francisco. It

23:47

opened up in two theaters, one in New York, one in l A.

23:50

And I convinced my roommate to drive with

23:52

me to l A for the day to see a matinee

23:54

of Roger Me and drive home to San Francisco,

23:57

which we did. Um.

23:59

So even then, and I had a

24:01

real fascination with documentary, and there were

24:03

a number of documentaries along the way that

24:06

really showed me what I could do

24:08

well besides Roger and what were they? I mean,

24:10

Roger me Um, Hearts

24:12

and Minds, Sherman's March, Um,

24:15

when we were Kings, Um

24:18

Brothers Keeper. You know some of those films

24:21

that were just so influential and I loved

24:23

so much. It's so

24:25

good, so good, uh, And I

24:27

have to say for Fake That or in Wales film

24:29

there was hugely influential on me. Occasionally

24:38

really interesting docs getting made, but they were

24:40

hard, hard to see and

24:43

and there have been a number of waves where ducks made

24:45

a little bit of progress. So in the early two thousand's

24:47

there was a period where Capturing the Freedman's and spell

24:50

Bound and a few films like that, um Man im

24:52

Wire came out, and

24:55

UM, more ducks were getting made and there was

24:57

more money going into it, and then everybody lost money and

25:00

all kind of went away for a while, and

25:02

then this last really kind

25:04

of six years. UM,

25:06

there's been an explosion in documentary

25:09

UM, and I think part of that is the streaming

25:11

services. You know, a lot of people talked

25:13

about places like net Netflix

25:16

being um kind

25:18

of the end of the theatrical documentary, and

25:20

I think it's actually had the opposite effect in

25:23

that for years people told

25:25

me I love documentary, I just don't know where

25:27

to find them. And once you put documentary

25:29

on even platform with comedy

25:31

and drama and everything else, lots

25:34

of people choose documentary. So I think it just grew

25:36

the audience for nonfiction storytelling. And

25:39

you know, last year was one of the greatest years

25:42

for theatrical documentary ever. Um.

25:45

So I think it's changing in that way. And

25:47

just seeing people, I mean, having worked

25:49

in l A for all this time and having

25:51

worked with so many people out of film school, there

25:54

was always this attitude of documentary is

25:56

like a stepping stone to real movies.

25:58

And needless to say,

26:00

I've always resented that attitude. Um,

26:03

But more and more and more I'm finding young

26:05

people who I

26:08

just want to make documentaries for their life. Um.

26:11

It's great. Okay, Let's go back to the beginning. You

26:13

grew up where Santa Barbara, California.

26:16

Santa Barbara. Your parents did what for a living?

26:19

Um? My dad um

26:21

was an antiquarium book dealer so

26:24

um and

26:26

a huge, huge rock and

26:29

roll fan. Huge. How old is your father?

26:31

Um, seventy four? Really

26:35

so young by today's since very

26:37

young you know, having me getting married

26:39

and having me was a good way to not go to Vietnam.

26:44

But you know, huge

26:47

Dylan fan huge you know Van

26:49

Morrison and but also British Invasion and

26:51

everything else. Um.

26:54

So by the time I was getting

26:56

into punk rock, my dad

26:58

had all those records. He had every Patti

27:01

Smith and um Sex

27:03

pistols. You know, just go to my dad's record collection

27:05

to pull that stuff out. Did he also play all that

27:07

stuff in the house and on the cars to exposed

27:10

to it. Some I think my dad's real

27:12

music taste tended to be

27:15

more literary, So people like Patti

27:17

Smith, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Fan Warrison,

27:20

those were his kind of go to people. Um

27:23

who were great? Who are some of my very favorites too?

27:26

Um and uh

27:29

and my dad my parents went to the Last Waltz

27:32

and on

27:34

that well, my they were huge

27:36

fans of the band and they knew I don't

27:38

know if they knew Dylan was going to be performing or whatever,

27:40

but um, I

27:42

don't even know. But they

27:45

had an extra one and

27:48

they talked about bringing me was

27:52

nine at the time. Um,

27:56

they did not bring me, um,

27:58

but they went and they brought my aunt and

28:00

I guess they'd served the whole Thanksgiving dinner beforehand,

28:03

and then they cleared the tables or whatever may.

28:05

They didn't cleared the devils. Anyway, they had the concert

28:07

and um, to this day, I give

28:10

my dad shit about not

28:12

taking me. I would have been the coolest kid ever

28:15

if I had gone to the last Waltz. But but it

28:17

was that type of upbringing where music and literature

28:19

and film were hugely important.

28:21

And uh, you're how many

28:23

kids in the family. I have a sister three

28:27

years younger, and she's a geneticist

28:29

in Oxford, England, so she

28:31

went the other way. Wow. And the

28:34

middle class, upper middle class? What kind of upbringing,

28:36

upper middle class? And also how do you

28:38

end up going to penn Um.

28:42

It's interesting as a kid from California,

28:44

did you got a public school, private school, went

28:47

to private school? Actually went to boarding school? Uh

28:49

in o Hi school called Thatchure And

28:53

just going back he seemed like the thing to do. And

28:55

just do you want to get away from home? And and and

28:58

I actually fell in love with the kind

29:00

of history of the East Coast. I majored

29:02

in Colonial American history of all things.

29:05

So but I still find

29:07

it fascinating because they were basically making up

29:09

a civilization from scratch at the time, you

29:12

know, by their own rules, and it was a

29:14

unique situation that way. And I still

29:16

find Colonial America very fascinating.

29:19

UM. And I was kind of running away from

29:21

from California and I um

29:24

and my plan was to be a journalist, which

29:26

I ended up doing for a time. So

29:29

the experience in college was a good experience. It was

29:31

great. Yeah, I love it. But I

29:33

was a huge devotee of new

29:35

journalism. So you know

29:37

that new journalism menthodology that

29:39

Tom Wolfe edited in the early seventies with tweets

29:42

and uh, John

29:44

Didion and or Mailer and everybody else.

29:47

Um. I mean that was like my Bible,

29:49

you know. And plus people like Hunter Thompson

29:53

UM, who ended up who was family

29:55

friends of ours. So

29:57

my dad also had a small addition press.

30:00

He was publishing authors he knew

30:02

and liked, UM, so he published

30:05

um Hunter Thompson book. Um.

30:08

They were good friends with Charles Wakowski who

30:11

stayed at our house, you know, who is a very

30:14

bohemian I guess you would say, kind of upbringing

30:16

UM. So between the punk rock and

30:18

the Charles Wakowski. It was not your conventional

30:23

So, okay, you're at PEN.

30:26

You go into Pen knowing you want to be a journalist.

30:30

I had a pretty good idea. I

30:32

mean, this is also in the late eighties, and you

30:34

remember, you know, there was like a new magazine

30:37

opening every week. There

30:39

was a new magazine. You know, in the news stands are bursting

30:41

with amazing long form writing.

30:44

And that was just the thing and

30:46

the idea that it's It's funny because

30:48

all the things the new journalism preached, which

30:51

was really using techniques of fiction

30:53

writing to nonfiction storytelling, is

30:56

exactly what I'm doing now. It's

30:58

exactly the same thing, taking techniques of um,

31:01

you know, scripted storytelling and putting into

31:03

into nonfiction stories. So

31:06

and I still think of myself as a journalist. It's

31:09

just documentaries, like three D journalism.

31:11

Okay, so you graduate from Pen. What's your first job

31:14

the Nation magazine and you're

31:16

doing what are you actually writing? Started

31:18

as an intern, then became a fact

31:20

checker. Then I worked as

31:23

on the history of the Nation magazine.

31:25

So I worked on a book was a long

31:28

term project, and then I moved to San Francisco

31:30

and started working at a wire service called Pacific

31:33

News Service, and then went to work for Pacific

31:35

A Radio. Flo How

31:37

do you go from the new service to Pacific Radio?

31:39

I mean it was a small The kind of left

31:42

wing journalism world of UM

31:45

San Francisco in the early nineties was very

31:47

small, and everybody knew everybody else. The

31:49

problem I had was, as

31:52

a young person, all of the

31:54

jobs in media, particularly in the Bay Area,

31:56

but this is true throughout most of journalism.

31:59

We're taken up by baby boomers who are not

32:01

going anywhere soon. You know that.

32:03

Basically my bosses that

32:06

was the job I wanted, and they were twenty years away

32:08

from retirement. And that was true everywhere.

32:11

So part of me leaving that

32:13

world was feeling like I had to make my own opportunity

32:17

and I had to come back to l A to do it. Okay,

32:20

you switch from news to radio? You were

32:22

doing what at radio? I ran?

32:24

I was still writing freelance UM,

32:26

but there was a program called Youth Radio

32:29

UM where we would train kids,

32:31

inner city kids to be radio engineers

32:34

and reporters, and we had a weekly

32:36

show in Berkeley, but we also

32:38

ran stories on MPR and

32:41

it was kind of like a just a cool

32:43

program to get young people, you know, trained

32:45

up into media. Okay, so you ultimately quit

32:48

that to come back to l A to do

32:50

what to make my first film? Okay,

32:52

so you're in San Francisco.

32:54

How long does it take for you to say I'm gonna

32:57

quit? Two

32:59

weeks? Let me? I

33:01

mean you just suddenly said I gotta go when you went, well,

33:03

I've been thinking about it for a long time. I think basically

33:05

the truth is I've been in denial that I wanted to

33:07

be a filmmaker forever. I thought that journalism

33:10

was like a real adult career

33:12

and filmmaking was like what I did on weekends,

33:14

you know, because it was too much fun, you

33:16

know, to dilettante is for me to actually

33:18

want to be a filmmaker. Um.

33:21

And then I kind of

33:23

had this epiphany that

33:26

all the years of doing political journalism,

33:29

you know, from the nation on that

33:31

basically I was in denial about what

33:33

I actually cared about. What I spent

33:36

all of my week nights and weekends on

33:38

was culture. I was playing in

33:40

bands, I was going

33:42

to art museums, I was reading books, and I was

33:44

devouring movies. And I said, well,

33:47

why don't I actually spend my days doing

33:49

the thing I spend all my extracurricular

33:51

hours doing. And that is pretty

33:54

much when I was twenty five, I made that decision. I

33:56

haven't looked back. All I've done since this culture.

33:58

Okay, will you make movies? Before you left

34:01

San Francisco, I was

34:03

flirting with it, um

34:06

and again documentary

34:08

Like there was no clear path to have a career

34:10

as a documentary and you saw yourself as a

34:12

documentarian. So

34:15

what happened is I started my first film not

34:17

a little slower you moved. Yeah,

34:19

so I go down there. I think it's going to take the

34:22

summer for me to make a film. And my first

34:24

film ended up being called

34:26

Shotgun Freeway Drives through

34:28

Lost l A. So it's this kind

34:30

of Mondo l a history documentary

34:32

which you can find out there. Okay, but

34:35

the first question is the average person would say,

34:37

you're moving to l A and you're making a movie

34:39

on what money? So

34:41

this was in the era of get

34:43

a bunch of credit cards and you

34:46

know, rack up all the debt. This is what you

34:48

know Robert Rodriguez. And there

34:50

was a book, um,

34:52

you know what was it called by John Pearson?

34:56

Uh? What was it called? Spike,

34:58

Dikes, Mike and whatever,

35:01

which was kind of like the bible for

35:03

how to go out and just do your own thing. And

35:05

you know, so we were all this is the early nineties,

35:07

that kind of heyday of early independent film where

35:10

everybody felt you know, Soderberg's and all

35:12

these people are just kind of jumping out there and doing it.

35:14

So I thought, well, I can do that. Um

35:17

at the end of the day, we ended up making the

35:20

film for thirty five

35:22

thousand dollars, all on credit cards.

35:24

Um well, we ended up getting one investor who put

35:27

in, but still

35:30

so we But the

35:32

the story is that we basically

35:34

made it for no money. You know, and your first

35:37

film, everybody will work

35:39

for you one time for free, and you

35:41

know they won't do it for your second film. But um,

35:44

I mean, for instance, it's

35:46

also being kind of young in a city like this

35:48

with all this opportunity and all these people that want to become

35:50

cinematographers and editors who are all stuck

35:53

at as assistant editors and you know

35:55

everything else. That a friend of mine was a post

35:57

production supervisor on the TV show Northern

35:59

Exposure, and they had some

36:01

of the first avid's that had ever been used in

36:03

production. And he said,

36:05

if you for those, people don't know if those are computer

36:07

editing, nonlinear editing editing

36:10

on computers, which is brand brand new at

36:12

the time, um, and incredibly

36:14

expensive and inaccessible. So he

36:16

said, if you come in from eleven PM to

36:19

eight am, you can use the machines. So

36:22

that's how I edited the films. We stayed up

36:24

all night, um for like a year.

36:27

Okay, let's be clear. You

36:29

hadn't made a movie previously right now, so

36:32

you must have made a lot of mistakes along the way.

36:35

Yeah. I made a ton of mistakes. And I

36:37

always say my first film was my film school. Um.

36:40

But two weeks into making it, I

36:42

wrote a letter to my parents and I said, this

36:44

is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Like

36:46

it was so clear when

36:49

I started it that everything, all my

36:51

skill sets, they all come together

36:53

perfectly in this job. And it's

36:55

really all I've done since. And you said, we, who

36:57

was we? I had a co director on my first

36:59

film, here a Palenberg. Um

37:02

he still makes films and um

37:04

as an old old friend of mine. Okay,

37:06

so you finished the film you shot at one on sixteen

37:09

on video. It was a combination of everything. I mean,

37:11

it was mainly videotape, but we shot sixteen

37:14

kind of inserts and super eight and it

37:16

was kind of a mondo collage of what history

37:19

means in l A. And we got people like James

37:21

Elroy and John Didion to be in it, and Mike

37:24

Davis and all kinds of other people, and

37:26

it was right. I mean really, the reason for me doing

37:28

it was as a kid from South California

37:31

going to college back east, people

37:34

laughed at me when I talked about their being history

37:36

or culture in Los Angeles, and

37:38

I had more than a little chip on my shoulder

37:41

about it. Um

37:43

So I ended up making this film to basically

37:45

say fuck you to all these people that l

37:48

A History is not an oxymoron, and that

37:50

there's so much culture here and so much

37:52

history here. It just doesn't look like what

37:54

you're using used to seeing urban history

37:56

look like. You know, it's it's just

37:58

a different shape. Okay, So

38:01

are at the time were you happy with the finished

38:03

product? Yeah? Very

38:05

happy? And so then what happened? You did the film festival,

38:08

supermarried it south By, We

38:10

got a theatrical release, We sold it to the Sundance

38:12

Channel, and we made money. How's

38:15

that? How do you remember? Like we

38:17

made like okay,

38:20

so this is happening. Now you're thinking

38:22

about the second movie. So

38:24

I then was offered was so the other thing I didn't

38:27

tell you, And this may be a locals only thing,

38:29

but I had a day job to make

38:31

money throughout this period producing

38:34

Huell Houser's TV show how did you get

38:36

that? Gig um? Because he was doing

38:38

this l A History show. He with those of you

38:40

don't know, was this kind of eccentric southern

38:43

quasi bumpkin character who would go around California

38:45

and Los Angeles doing California, California's

38:48

gold Fuel House. And

38:52

so he was doing his own l A History California

38:54

history thing, and people I knew somebody who worked at

38:56

KCT here, the PBS station, They said you should

38:58

meet him, and I met him and he was like, oh, you're into

39:00

this stuff, come work for me. So I ended up

39:02

working for him to make money. Why I finished

39:05

my first film, and then right

39:07

when I finished my film, I got offered a job producing

39:09

any biography And I did

39:11

that for three years and I learned

39:14

so much more, not just about

39:16

filmmaking, but about how to run a production company.

39:19

UM had actually work with employees

39:21

and how to deal with all that stuff. And

39:24

during that time I got to do I did

39:26

to Brian Wilson two hour Any biography.

39:29

I did a brill building documentary and

39:31

if you remember that, UM

39:33

for Any and Bert

39:35

Backrack Libran Stoller like I pushed them

39:37

into music in a way that they weren't doing before.

39:40

And then kind of my my coup was

39:42

that UM. I was a huge fan of Peter

39:44

Gonnis, you know the music and

39:47

Peter I basically run him a fan letter

39:50

and said, I would love

39:52

to do a documentary with you, do you have any

39:54

interest? And he had done a book called Sweet

39:56

Soul Music that I really loved and I was

39:58

thinking about trying to do and he said, there

40:00

are only two subjects I want to make a film about, Doc

40:03

Pomas and Sam Phillips. And

40:06

I thought about it and I said, well, I'm

40:09

gonna have a much easier chance making the Sam Phillips

40:11

documentary than the Doc Pomus documentary right

40:13

now. And Peter

40:15

and I went about pitching it and we ended up

40:17

making a two hour Sam

40:19

Phillips documentary. It was fantastic, Thank

40:22

you, and

40:24

it was an incredible experience for me

40:26

because you know, Peter and I went

40:29

to Memphis for three months. I

40:31

had all this time again like I

40:33

was being produced by Sam Phillips. I got

40:35

the experience. I was feeling like I was one of the last

40:38

artists that Sam Phillips ever produced, because

40:40

I got the full on, you

40:42

know, fire breathing, fog

40:44

horn, leg horn, Sam Phillips treatment.

40:47

Um, And it

40:49

was amazing and basically,

40:52

UM. There were a couple of big takeaways

40:54

from that. One was, UM

40:57

that Peter Gorini, who was

40:59

really lea somebody, had taught me

41:01

so much about what I do and is one of the

41:03

greatest music writers of all time. UM.

41:06

He said something me early on that I've thought about

41:08

so many times, which is, the

41:10

three least interesting things about rock

41:13

and roll are sex, drugs,

41:15

and getting screwed over by your record label. Because

41:18

everybody tells the same stories. And

41:21

I've thought about that so often. I mean,

41:23

that kind of is behind the music basically.

41:26

So once you take all that away, what's the differentiator

41:29

between all these stories? That's what I'm interested in.

41:32

UM. But the other thing was that

41:34

Sam Phillips himself was such a believer

41:36

in his own vision you know, bringing

41:38

in African American artists to record

41:41

in Memphis, you know, early

41:43

on, I mean like Turner and BB King and

41:45

Hallam Wolf and on and on and on, to

41:47

the point where he was completely ostracized

41:50

by his peers and the rest of white society

41:52

and Memphis, and to the point where he had nervous

41:54

breakdowns, was given shock therapy,

41:56

and he never wavered in his belief in this music.

42:00

And I came away from finishing that film

42:02

and said, I have to work for myself. I

42:04

can't ever work for anybody else, and I

42:06

haven't since. So I basically started

42:09

my own production company then Tremlow Productions,

42:12

and haven't looked back. So

42:14

that was what year two thousand?

42:17

So what was the first project? I

42:20

mean, in the beginning, I was just scrambling

42:23

to make money doing things um

42:25

and I did projects for museums

42:27

and UM. I think my first

42:30

real documentary I made

42:32

was Muddy Waters Film, And that

42:34

was because Robert Gordon, the Memphis

42:37

music writer who was also kind of a disciple

42:39

of Peter Groundings. Peter had introduced us and we

42:41

become friends, and Robert was finishing his book

42:43

on Muddy and said, nobody's ever done a proper Muddy

42:45

Waters documentary. Let's do

42:47

it. So we jumped in and we did it

42:51

again, not knowing how we were going to pay for all

42:53

of it, and we ended up getting you some money out of Channel

42:55

four in England and it's kind of stitching together money from

42:57

home video back when you could do that and

43:00

um and we made it and

43:03

had such a good experience we ended up selling it to American

43:05

Masters here for PBS and

43:08

UM and that really

43:10

kind of got the ball rolling for me as a production

43:12

company. I next it at Hank Williams

43:15

American Masters and what

43:17

I found, I mean, I am a

43:19

music fanatic. It's no surprise,

43:22

but I have many interests.

43:25

But part of the reason I did so many music films

43:27

was I

43:29

could get them funded. You know that

43:32

the difference with the music film is that

43:34

there's a built an audience that cares about this music

43:37

in most cases, um

43:39

and in many cases there's a publisher, label

43:42

or an artist or somebody who cares

43:44

about a film getting made, as opposed

43:46

to making a film about his subject where

43:48

there's zero awareness and zero built

43:51

in audience. UM.

43:54

And it just felt both like

43:56

I could feed my music obsession, but I

43:58

could also kind of get no as the music

44:00

guy, which I did to the point where

44:03

I started getting calls from people all the time

44:05

saying, Oh, we have this music project. Are you interested?

44:07

Are you interested? Um? Which

44:09

was great as an impended documentary filmmaker at the time

44:11

when there weren't a lot of ways to get films made that you

44:14

know, I had my niche Okay,

44:17

so Buddy Waters, where are you from there? So?

44:20

Um, Hank Williams. Then

44:22

I made a film called The Cool

44:24

School about the l a art scene in the fifties

44:27

and sixties is not

44:29

easy to sell, like a music film.

44:32

Um. Like a lot of

44:34

these things, they're just things that I

44:36

can't get out of my head. Um.

44:39

So The Cool School was because

44:41

I went to the Getty to see

44:43

a guy named Walter Hopps who was a legendary

44:45

curator who had started this gallery called the Ferris Gallery,

44:48

essentially the first big modern art gallery

44:50

in Los Angeles, and he gave a

44:52

talk at the Getty. This is maybe two

44:54

thousand two, and

44:58

I found it so fascinating eating and I

45:00

came home and said, well, I want to watch

45:03

the documentary about him. I looked and there was no

45:05

documentary about him, and I said, well, then I'll read the book

45:07

about him. And there was no book about

45:09

him or about that scene, which was incredible

45:12

that nobody had documented it. And

45:14

then it was one of those moments, well, well I guess,

45:17

I guess I have to do it right, um.

45:20

And it was fascinating to then get

45:22

into that world of all the Venice artists

45:24

and the Robert Irwin ed Ruche and Keen

45:27

Holds and Larry Bell and Billy Albankston,

45:29

that whole group of artists, um,

45:32

who were fascinating kind

45:35

of a group of alpha males kind

45:37

of half and then we're Venice beach bum

45:39

surfer slash art modern artists

45:41

and the other half for kind of proto hippies living

45:44

up into Panga or a Laurel

45:46

Canyon, and they all kind of came together

45:48

around the las Anega scene and

45:51

would hang out of Barney's Beanery and all that kind of

45:53

legendary the early days of the la arts scene. And again

45:56

this was also feeding my l A Has culture

45:58

obsessions, so it was another middle finger to the rest

46:00

of the country. And what was really interesting

46:03

in making that film,

46:05

and this is the first time it ever really happened to me um

46:08

and it's happened a few times since. Where you make a film

46:10

and you never expect a film to

46:12

have an actual impact. You know, maybe

46:15

people like it, but it to actually

46:17

change things you don't expect. Um.

46:20

But the Cool School was something

46:23

that really planted a flag for the

46:25

fact that l A has a real art scene. And

46:28

out of that, I don't think it's a stretch

46:30

to say, and I think they admit it that. The Getty

46:32

then started their specific standard time series,

46:35

this huge year's long program

46:38

um in, this huge oral history program.

46:41

And John Baldassari, who's in my film

46:43

too, who was teaching forever at cal Arts,

46:46

said in the wake of that film that for

46:49

years he would tell his graduates out of art school

46:51

moved to New York, and that year

46:53

he said, stay in l A. Like

46:56

case the moment it changed. I mean, that

46:58

must be very satisfying. To have that

47:00

level of impact. It was great. You

47:02

never expected. If I had, I probably would

47:04

have bought more art. Okay.

47:07

And then who distributed that movie alter a

47:09

company called Art House. It was PBS

47:12

aired it here in the States, um

47:15

and and it got out, you know, it was on the

47:17

BBC, and you know it was around

47:19

the World after the Art film then

47:22

and I did all kinds of things in between.

47:24

I did a film on um.

47:27

I should look at my IMDb to remember

47:29

all them, you know. I did little projects like an

47:31

Iggy pop project about raw power.

47:34

Um. I'm a huge Iggy fan. UM.

47:37

I did a film about women and country music. Uh.

47:41

Did a film by the Highwayman. Um.

47:44

So all kinds of so. And

47:48

are you working around the clock or

47:50

you scrambling? You know. Traditionally a

47:52

movie producer as a number of projects and

47:54

it may take years one to actually

47:56

flourish. Yeah, and they could take years.

47:59

I mean. Another one before

48:01

I move on was Stax Records. I

48:03

did a film called Respect Yourself with the Robert Gordon,

48:05

which is one of my favorite films I've done because stacks

48:07

stacks music is unbeatable and the story

48:10

is well, that's the amazing thing. I went to Memphis

48:12

to do a gig. Everybody talks about Nashville

48:15

Memphis. There's so much just you, I

48:18

mean, between Sun and Stax and High

48:20

and all of that stuff. I mean, Memphis is just

48:22

I love Memphis and you go there and well,

48:25

across the river's Arkansas. For

48:27

those of us live in California or coastal whatever,

48:29

and you know Mississippi is right there, right there,

48:32

I know, by down the border. In fact, I was there this

48:34

summer with my family and um, my

48:36

wife and kids, and I walked across the bridge to the Arkansas

48:38

side just to go over there, and I was driving

48:41

him around. Yeah, as I said, I did that, didn't

48:43

do that. I said, well, God, what am I ever going to get

48:45

back to Arkansas? Because I had in Arkansas? How

48:53

do you end up doing twenty feet from stardom?

48:55

So? Um, I

48:57

got a call from somebody who

49:00

knew Gil Freeson. And Gil

49:03

many people maybe listening will know, had

49:05

been the president of A and M Records and for

49:07

forever, forever, from virtually

49:09

from the beginning. I think he was the first employee actually

49:11

at A and M, and people

49:13

called him the ampersand in A and

49:16

M. So uh. And Gil

49:18

was retired and had invested his money wisely

49:20

and was kind of looking for a project.

49:23

Um, and he

49:26

somebody said, do you want to be with him? He has a

49:28

music project he's talking about, and I said sure. So

49:31

we met. We actually first bonded

49:33

over modern art because he was a big modern art guy,

49:35

and so was I. So we talked about that. UM.

49:37

I said, so what's your what's

49:40

your idea for a music film? And he said, well,

49:43

my wife and I went to a Leonard Cohen

49:45

concert in Las Vegas and

49:47

I smoked a joint and

49:50

I spent the whole concert looking

49:52

at these amazing backup singers

49:54

he had, and Leonard Cohen didn't have amazing

49:56

backup singers. And uh, he

49:59

said. The next day, A, I just kept thinking about

50:01

these backup singers and wondering what's their story.

50:04

And I said, oh, that's really interesting.

50:06

So so what's the film? He said,

50:08

I don't know. You have to figure that out. Says

50:13

like, okay, backup singers, um.

50:16

And it's interesting for somebody who is

50:18

such a music geek. UM.

50:22

I didn't know much about backup singers.

50:24

UM. And even on my drive home,

50:27

I was thinking about it and thinking, you know, what are songs

50:29

with great backup vocals? I could come up

50:31

with like six, you know, because your

50:33

brain is not programmed to

50:35

notice what's in the background. UM.

50:38

And I over time completely

50:41

reprogrammed my brain to to this

50:43

day when I hear a great song with backup

50:45

vocals. I added to a Spotify list

50:48

I have just because now it's like precious

50:50

to collect, you know, great songs.

50:52

And I ended up with kind of hundreds of songs

50:54

and I put together a kind of a theoretical soundtrack.

50:57

UM. But it was another one of those things when

50:59

I went home said, well, who's written a book about him? Who has

51:01

made a film about them? Nothing? Nothing?

51:04

I found one article in gold Mine magazine and

51:06

that was it. On backup singing UM,

51:09

And I said, well, then the only way to learn about

51:11

this world is to talk to them.

51:13

So I said,

51:15

well, let's and this was Gil's idea too, well,

51:17

let's just do some interviews.

51:20

Let's talk to people. And he had found Lisa

51:22

Fisher because he knew sting and she was singing

51:24

a sting at the time. UM.

51:27

And Lisa was great, and she opened the door to a bunch

51:29

of people, and there were a few other people who really

51:31

helped. UM.

51:34

But we ended up doing probably thirty

51:38

forty oral histories in the

51:41

beginning, just to figure out how

51:43

this world worked, like how big is it? How

51:45

what? What are the themes? You know? Um? And

51:50

what I very very quickly came into focus,

51:52

like okay, here I understand what the big themes

51:54

are, you know, and there are some of them seem obvious

51:57

of you know, the church finding its way into secular

51:59

music and choir of voices and um

52:02

and kind of the themes of the industry

52:05

versus um versus

52:07

um, you know, kind of

52:09

personal um

52:12

integrity, I guess um.

52:14

But the thing we really discovered when we decided

52:17

to kind of jump and really make the film. I

52:19

ended up interviewing over eighty backup singers for

52:21

the film, and I think only twenty or

52:23

in the film, but I learned

52:26

so much by talking to all of them that what

52:29

the film ultimately became about was

52:32

that your happiness

52:34

is directly proportional to the

52:37

piece you make with the life you're actually living, not

52:39

the life people have told you should live, or

52:41

that you thought you were supposed to live. That

52:44

you know, we live in a culture that tells us that being

52:47

a rock stars the most important

52:49

thing, or being famous and rich is the most important

52:51

thing. And of course very few

52:53

people live that way. And

52:56

for those of us that can't get over that

53:00

delusion, um,

53:02

we can be tortured by it. And the people

53:05

who are best off. For the people that I

53:07

love, the singing, love, the work for the sake

53:09

of the work, and I think that was the

53:12

universal theme. And I didn't

53:14

know this when we started the film. I found it on

53:16

the way, but this is the theme I identified

53:18

with, and this is the theme so many

53:20

people identified with, because most people are backup

53:23

singers for their life. And in fact,

53:25

we had a screening early on at the

53:27

Minneapolis Film Festival and

53:29

a guy stood up in the Q and A afterwards and

53:32

said, you know, I just wanted to say I'm

53:34

the middle manager to software company, and

53:36

you know, I like what I

53:38

do, but I don't get all the money or attention

53:41

in the world. And um,

53:44

but I'm I just here to say

53:46

that I feel like I'm a backup singer and

53:48

I'm happy to be about singer. And

53:51

the whole crowd applauded, and it

53:53

was just one of those moments. You're like another

53:55

one of those moments where you make a film and you're like, this

53:58

connected in a way, per found

54:00

way that I couldn't have predicted when that

54:02

happens. And this happened a few times. You

54:05

again, you don't go into films thinking,

54:08

oh, you know, it's going to make people feel this

54:10

or do this or change this. You

54:12

can't play that game when you're making a film.

54:15

Well, you know, I remember seeing it before the film

54:17

came out, and it was utterly riveting,

54:20

and you knew it was something special. At

54:22

what point, because you've made a lot of producer

54:25

and directed a lot of stuff, at what point do you say, wait,

54:27

this is different, Um,

54:30

Sundance opening night film.

54:33

Um, it was kind

54:35

of the night to change my life because

54:38

UM to be the opening night film and Sundance one

54:41

to the women in the film all came.

54:43

None of them had seen the film, so

54:45

they're all in the audience. And

54:48

Gil passed away in December,

54:51

so Sundances in January. So we were

54:53

finishing the film. Gil

54:55

died, which, um, you know,

54:57

it was a rather fast illness, and

55:00

so all of Gil's friends,

55:03

UM and family came to Sundance

55:05

to to support So Tom Freston and

55:08

jan Winner and all these people came to

55:10

Sundance to support Gil, and you

55:12

know this was gils. I mean I think a

55:14

lot of them honestly thought it was Gil's folly for

55:16

a long time, like, how good luck Gil have documentary

55:18

about backup singers? You know, Um,

55:21

but I know, I mean Gil had said to me and

55:23

I don't think it's inappropriate to share

55:26

it that when he was sick in the hospital, he

55:28

said everybody with

55:30

cancer should have a documentary they're working on, because

55:33

I think it really gave him something

55:36

creative and positive to be thinking about during

55:38

that time. So I know he was very

55:40

proud of it. And then so

55:42

that night, so we screened the film

55:45

and it's just electric. I mean,

55:47

it's the biggest theater there, people

55:50

there, it's packed, and it's just unbelievable.

55:54

And the film

55:56

ends, the women get up on the stage with me and

55:58

we're all kind of shaking and

56:01

they're all in tears because they hadn't seen the film,

56:03

and and uh and they started

56:05

singing, and it was just unbelievable.

56:09

I mean, the crowd was, you

56:12

know, just you know, completely

56:15

enthralled. And then we

56:17

had that classic old school sundance

56:20

experience where the film ends and

56:23

it's eleven PM and they say, Okay, now we're

56:25

gonna stay up all night and sell your film.

56:27

So we spent the next nine

56:29

hours traveling from distributor

56:32

to distributor while they made us offers on our movie,

56:34

and we sold it at sunrise.

56:37

So that classic sundance experience,

56:40

you know, and by morning I was like, Okay,

56:42

you know, I guess this is how it goes. And

56:45

what was it like winning the Oscar? Um?

56:49

Surreal? Um?

56:51

It was? I mean it was

56:54

you know, of course rewarding. And

56:56

you know, I'm as a lifelong film fanatic.

56:59

Um. You know, there's no

57:03

greater validation in that way, you know, whatever

57:05

you think of the words, and you know, I

57:08

too can be like, oh words, no matter but

57:11

um, but it just feels like

57:14

you can exhale in a way. Um.

57:17

But the other thing I will say, by far, the

57:19

most important outcome of that was

57:22

that part. You

57:24

know, Basically before then I was spending sixt

57:27

of my time raising money to make

57:29

my movies. Now I

57:32

spend four percent of my time raising money

57:34

to make movies. So I can just be so much

57:36

more productive and so much more creative

57:39

because of that. You know, whether or not that's valid,

57:41

I'm the same filmmaker essentially

57:44

I am now than I was before I won the Oscar.

57:46

And if they need that validation to one of

57:48

fund my movies, I get it. I'm

57:50

not going to complain about it. You know. So people

57:53

keep saying, oh, you've been so prolific since

57:56

the Oscar part of it is

57:58

I don't have to spend time trying to raise my I

58:00

could just make things, which is amazing.

58:03

Where is the Oscar home?

58:06

Some people keep it in the bathroom, some people put it

58:08

in a Providence demands home my end I

58:10

have, UM not to brag.

58:13

My wife says, you haven't. You have a real ego because

58:15

I have an Emmy, a Grammy and an Oscar, So

58:19

I know you got I keep looking. If anybody

58:21

out there has a um, you know, Broadway

58:23

project, I would love to get involved.

58:26

Okay, then you make the political movie?

58:28

How does that come to get the Best of Enemies? Um?

58:32

Again, I mean it's the Best of Enemies is a film

58:34

about the debates between Corbette and Wayne M. Buckley.

58:37

They had ABC television

58:39

during the political conventions. And

58:42

that again was Robert Gordon, my friend in Memphis,

58:44

who had a bootleg tape years ago

58:47

VHS tape that he had gotten of

58:50

most of these debates, UM

58:52

from somebody who was like the doll fanatic.

58:55

Um. And

58:58

I watched these debates raw

59:01

and just thought there's something

59:03

amazing here, Like I don't know what it

59:05

is, and I don't know what the story is or where

59:07

it's going to go, but just in terms of

59:11

huge characters way M. Buckley and Gore Vidal

59:13

and huge themes, and I just felt

59:16

like whatever it was saying was saying something about

59:18

what's happened to television. And

59:20

it was one of those great stories that

59:22

once you start telling it,

59:25

it gets better and better. You know, every detail

59:27

it gets added just gets juicier and juicier.

59:30

But that was the film we had started

59:32

making before from

59:34

Stardom. In the wake of

59:37

from Stardom, suddenly people said, oh,

59:39

what else, And we said,

59:41

well, I have this film Best of Enemies. It's great, we'll

59:43

finish it. I don't know if I hadn't made

59:46

start them, if I ever would have gotten the money to finish Best of

59:48

Enemies, you know, as sad as that

59:50

is to say. And then how does Mr Rogers

59:53

movie come together? That happened

59:55

because I

59:57

was, I mean, the real story. I

1:00:00

home, um in

1:00:02

bed at night on YouTube

1:00:05

and somebody had maybe sent me a

1:00:07

link of a Mr. Rogers commencement

1:00:09

address he had given, and

1:00:12

I somehow went down the YouTube rabbit

1:00:14

hole of watching more Mr Rogers,

1:00:17

particularly speeches and interviews, and

1:00:20

as I was hearing it. I just kept feeling like,

1:00:23

where's this voice today? Like what he's

1:00:25

saying is exactly what I

1:00:27

feel the culture should be hearing right

1:00:29

now, this kind of voice of radical kindness

1:00:32

and empathy and understanding. And um,

1:00:36

and I woke up in the morning and I turned to my wife

1:00:39

and I said, I think I need to make a film

1:00:41

about Mr. Rogers. And

1:00:44

she's a children's librarian, I will say,

1:00:46

and she said, I love that idea. Um.

1:00:49

I literally went to the office. UM.

1:00:52

I made a couple of calls, and I'd made a film with Yo

1:00:54

Yo Maa and his and Yo Yo knew

1:00:56

Fred Rogers pretty well and

1:00:58

had told me stories about to which was also

1:01:00

in the back of my mind. And

1:01:03

Yo Yo son is a filmmaker, and I called

1:01:06

him and I said, is this crazy

1:01:08

to make a film about Fred Rogers? He said, not

1:01:11

only is that not crazy, I want to produce it with you.

1:01:13

So he's one of my producers. And

1:01:17

so we flew to Pittsburgh. We sat down and I

1:01:19

said to them, you know, I'm again

1:01:21

not sued to do a Wikipedia version

1:01:23

of Fred rodgers life. I want to make a film

1:01:26

about ideas. And to me, his

1:01:29

ideas are incredibly relevant

1:01:31

today. This is not a film about

1:01:33

nostalgia. There's a film about the

1:01:36

big things he thought fought for. And

1:01:38

I think what they responded to was that he

1:01:41

was never taken very seriously in his own lifetime.

1:01:45

So what we were trying to say,

1:01:47

I think was something they felt needed

1:01:49

to be said for a long time. But it

1:01:51

was again purely

1:01:54

instinctual, like, this is something I

1:01:56

want to put out in the world, and

1:01:59

I again having no idea how much the world wanted

1:02:02

to hear it. I had no idea how big an

1:02:04

audience for Mr. Rogers would be. Um

1:02:06

well became a phenomenon. What was the what

1:02:08

was the ultimate theatrical gross? About three?

1:02:12

Yeah? And I have to ask you did some of that fall

1:02:14

to your bottom line? Not yet?

1:02:19

Yea? How long it takes for studios to pay well

1:02:21

usually I I worked as an attorney

1:02:23

on a film that was the second biggest

1:02:26

of a year, and it was three years

1:02:28

later and the film was still in the negative

1:02:30

part position for the profit participants.

1:02:33

It's that crazy. It's crazy. I mean, we got

1:02:35

a bonus, but but I think the real

1:02:37

if if I do see back end, it hasn't

1:02:39

happened yet, so we'll see. And we had two great

1:02:42

group investors and other people that kind of came in to help

1:02:44

us make that film. Well, what's the budget for a

1:02:46

film like that? UM? Just under

1:02:48

two? Okay? Yeah, So

1:02:51

theoretically, what percent of the film do

1:02:53

you the What percentage did

1:02:55

you still have? UM?

1:02:58

What percentage of the back of

1:03:00

the profits? Profit participants?

1:03:02

UM? I mean typically

1:03:06

equity would control

1:03:08

about back end and creative

1:03:11

about back end, and then

1:03:13

with my producers and team, I

1:03:15

shared that back end, so you

1:03:17

know, maybe a quarter you know, thank

1:03:20

you about Okay. So what are you working on now?

1:03:22

Um? Other than the Shangri

1:03:25

Law project? I don't. I hate

1:03:27

to say this, but I can't say what I'm working on? Okay,

1:03:29

then we will we will go specifics. How

1:03:31

many films are you working on right

1:03:34

now? I'm

1:03:36

not actually making

1:03:38

a film at this very moment, but I'm

1:03:40

about to work on two projects. And

1:03:43

if they go according to plan, they would be ready for

1:03:45

the market when one would come out in

1:03:48

the one would come out. Okay.

1:03:51

So, now that you've had the success, especially in non

1:03:54

music areas, UM,

1:03:56

are you personally thinking of broadening

1:03:59

from music? Yeah? And my

1:04:01

last three films haven't been about music,

1:04:03

and um, and I've kind of

1:04:05

willfully turned down any music documentaries.

1:04:08

Uh, and these next two are not music documentaries.

1:04:11

UM. I am interested in music series,

1:04:14

and I'm working on some music series, and I've

1:04:16

produced some music documentaries and

1:04:18

even back in the day, I produced music documentaries. I produced

1:04:20

Pearl Jam twenty for Cameron Crow, and I produced

1:04:23

Crossfire Hurricane for The Stones, and UM,

1:04:26

you know, I still love music. I

1:04:28

think part of it is I just don't want to be Pigeonholed

1:04:31

is like the music one of the two best music

1:04:33

documentaries ever ever

1:04:37

leaving anything you worked on out. I

1:04:40

mean, it's funny. Some of my favorite music documentaries

1:04:42

are about bands I don't love. You

1:04:45

know, which is great? You know, whether it's UM

1:04:49

some kind of Monster or the

1:04:51

Metallica film, UM

1:04:53

or Um The Devil and Daniel

1:04:55

Johnson, UM,

1:05:00

all kinds of other interesting ones. UM

1:05:04

not Dead yet. Have you ever saw that

1:05:06

one? No? I didn't see that one.

1:05:08

And not to mention neither the kind of great concert

1:05:11

docs Stop making Sense and Last

1:05:14

Waltz and things like that. UM. And

1:05:17

I watch every single music documentary.

1:05:19

I don't think you could find a music documentary

1:05:21

I haven't watched. Okay,

1:05:24

Um, I was gonna ask whether you thought certain ones

1:05:26

were overrated? But in your viewing time,

1:05:30

how much viewing do you take of anything? I

1:05:32

still watch at least a hundred

1:05:34

documentaries a year. And but

1:05:37

how about like Netflix series that are not

1:05:39

documentaries? Not that many

1:05:41

some? Um, I watch a ton of

1:05:43

movies. I mean I watch a ton of documentaries.

1:05:45

I watch a lot of movies, old

1:05:48

and new. Um. And then I watched

1:05:51

only the very best series like if

1:05:53

five people tell me I need to watch it? So have

1:05:55

you watched? I just watched Chernobyl? Okay,

1:05:58

what do you think? I it was really

1:06:00

good? How much you know? How much did

1:06:02

you know about Chernobyl going in? Not that

1:06:04

much? You know, I wasn't. I was young

1:06:07

and not paying that much attention to it at the time. And

1:06:09

um, yeah,

1:06:11

I really I found it. It got to

1:06:13

me. Okay, that was, you know, somewhat documentary.

1:06:16

What other series? Um? You know Fleabag

1:06:19

and I loved the new season of Fleabag.

1:06:22

Um. You know I

1:06:24

love kind of biting Black

1:06:26

comedy is one one of my very favorite

1:06:28

gears. Um,

1:06:31

And I guess by extension and killing Eve I really

1:06:33

liked UM,

1:06:36

but not that many series. I'm trying to think, you know,

1:06:38

it's just the time investment, of course, I

1:06:40

mean, but the thing that bothers me. I'm obviously a little

1:06:42

older than you was. I remember moving to l

1:06:44

a in the seventies and I go to the movie

1:06:46

six nights a week. You could

1:06:48

literally see everything and you

1:06:50

could know what was going on. The

1:06:52

fact that in all culture you

1:06:55

can't be comprehensive drives me nuts. Me

1:06:57

too. It's like, you know, where's the

1:06:59

frame of I have the same disease. You know that

1:07:02

there was a long time where I just felt

1:07:04

like I had to be culturally conversant

1:07:06

in pretty much everything television,

1:07:09

movie, music, literature, Like

1:07:11

I just had to be up on everything. And

1:07:14

um, I think it was both getting older

1:07:17

and having kids that cured me of feeling

1:07:19

like I had to do everything because you

1:07:21

can't. You know, it's just become this avalanche,

1:07:23

never ending avalanche of more culture

1:07:26

coming at you. So

1:07:28

so now I try. And you know, like

1:07:30

I said, when it comes to documentary, I'll watch everything

1:07:32

because the good thing about documentary is even a bad

1:07:34

documentary, you're going to learn something. I

1:07:37

can't say that about it. One thing. One

1:07:39

thing. I five. This is one of the reasons I don't

1:07:41

go to theatrical films anymore I have

1:07:43

been, is I find I can't

1:07:45

slow my mind down enough for that experience.

1:07:48

It's like, oh, to watch even last night,

1:07:50

to watch, you know, episode of something at

1:07:52

eleven o'clock at night, no problem,

1:07:55

but like even seven pm, two pm.

1:07:57

You know, I said, I'm gonna take a break, but I

1:07:59

just it's really

1:08:02

hard to slow down, and particularly I think it's

1:08:04

harder. I have a much easier time doing

1:08:06

it in the theater, but when you try and watch a movie

1:08:09

at home, it's really hard not to double

1:08:12

screen, you know, and that's not good

1:08:14

for the film or good for you, and I try not to

1:08:16

do it. I was just talking to a friend of mine who

1:08:18

says she's watching all films with subtitles

1:08:21

because it forces her not to double screen.

1:08:24

She has to only watch that movie at that

1:08:26

time. And you say, you watch docs,

1:08:28

you watch new movies. What genre of movies

1:08:31

do you watch? Um? I mean I

1:08:33

love independent film

1:08:35

and foreign I also have to uh

1:08:39

young kids twelve and fourteen, so it

1:08:41

means I see every Marvel movie, And

1:08:45

um, I'm

1:08:48

just not the audience for it, you know, or can

1:08:50

you enjoy that? You know? This is a big debate,

1:08:52

and I feel like, I

1:08:54

mean, seeing a film like Endgame, I

1:08:57

actually thought for the Thousand

1:08:59

Balls, they had the air on that film. They did an

1:09:01

incredibly good job of balancing

1:09:03

it in a way that satisfied

1:09:06

most people. You know, incredibly difficult

1:09:08

task. I know that as a filmmaker, how difficult

1:09:10

that is to do. And a film like thor Ragnarok,

1:09:13

you know, has all of that humor in it too, And certain

1:09:15

films like that or Spider

1:09:17

of the Spider Verse I thought was great

1:09:20

just for its kind of experimental attitude.

1:09:22

Let's hold that. Because you're talking about your kids, do

1:09:24

your kids turn you onto new music? My

1:09:27

kids are not that into music. It's

1:09:30

very strange. Um, of

1:09:32

course, Like my daughter is obsessed with you know,

1:09:35

Queen right now because of them

1:09:37

Rhapsody, and we're going to go see them when they come

1:09:39

to town next month. And I know it's

1:09:41

not the same thing, but whatever. I'm just happy to take her

1:09:43

to a concert that she's excited about. Um,

1:09:46

But my kids are not. Their

1:09:48

relationship to music is not what my relationship

1:09:51

was. Um. I mean I grew

1:09:53

up in record stores, devouring as

1:09:55

much music as I could get, and

1:09:57

to me, it was like my

1:10:00

you know, I'm not the first person to say it, it it was kind of my

1:10:02

religion. It was like how I found a sense

1:10:04

of identity in connection with the world. Um,

1:10:08

and music for young people

1:10:10

just doesn't penetrate.

1:10:12

It can, but seeing the choices

1:10:15

they have, whether it's social media

1:10:17

or video games or just YouTube

1:10:20

or all of the other things coming at them,

1:10:22

it's hard for them to have the

1:10:24

the quietude to be able

1:10:26

to let music in in the same way.

1:10:29

We could go on about that, I'd be a separate podcast.

1:10:31

But going back to theatrical films, you

1:10:33

know, one of the big stories the last couple of weeks has

1:10:36

been Book Smart and its failure

1:10:38

in the marketplace. Some people

1:10:40

said it should have been platformed. I starting

1:10:42

in a few number of theaters, good gross is

1:10:45

press whatever the distributor

1:10:47

said, No, no, the word of mouth will happen, which doesn't

1:10:49

seem to be happening. Is

1:10:52

the theatrical really just for these

1:10:54

big budget cartoon movies. Well,

1:10:57

again, it depends on expectations. So I went to go see

1:10:59

book Smart this week. Yeah, I loved

1:11:01

it. I thought it was great, you know, um,

1:11:05

and it's gonna break twenty

1:11:07

million and then some which

1:11:10

so it's not a failure unless you compare it to Super

1:11:12

Bad, and I think it's an unfair

1:11:14

comparison. I think all the people that were saying,

1:11:17

um, it was it should

1:11:19

have done that kind of box office were just

1:11:22

misreading the tea leaves because not only

1:11:24

was Super Bad ten years ago in a very different theatrical

1:11:27

space, but you know, there are

1:11:29

no big names playing prominently

1:11:31

in the film. Um, it's a first time director.

1:11:34

Yes, she's well known, but it's some

1:11:36

harder slog to get

1:11:38

that film sold. I

1:11:41

personally probably would have platformed it more

1:11:43

if I was the distributor, because I think it's

1:11:45

an excellent word of mouth film and opening

1:11:47

it not many theaters, I think a couple of

1:11:51

I think that was shooting very high. Um,

1:11:54

because it is a great, great film.

1:11:57

Um, and it's my wife and I went it

1:11:59

was a great date night film. You know, it was the

1:12:01

future of that type of film, anything other

1:12:03

than the uh special

1:12:05

effects, you know, Marvel type

1:12:07

film. Is that really the flat

1:12:10

screen? It's

1:12:13

hard to know again, you know, if

1:12:15

you asked me two years ago I probably said yes. Then

1:12:18

I put out a documentary that nobody thought

1:12:20

would doing, ring that grows

1:12:22

more than twenty million dollars about a guy who was on

1:12:24

TV, you know, decades

1:12:26

ago. Um.

1:12:29

So what I do think

1:12:31

in a certain way, I mean, what the reason I

1:12:33

think people went to the movie theater to go see Won't

1:12:35

You Be My Neighbor was that they

1:12:39

wanted a communal experience, And what

1:12:42

Mr Rogers was about was the

1:12:44

neighborhood and kind of community. And

1:12:47

in many ways the film is like a secular

1:12:49

sermon, so it plays better

1:12:51

if you're watching with other people. I heard

1:12:54

many people say that there was spontaneous

1:12:56

hugging between strangers at the end of screenings

1:12:59

in the theaters. That's

1:13:01

either creepy or great however you look at it. So

1:13:05

um, but stuff like that

1:13:07

makes me happy. So I feel like whenever I

1:13:09

whenever you want to close the coffin on theatrical

1:13:12

small theatrical films, Um,

1:13:14

something happens and something unexpected

1:13:17

happens, and something new comes out of it.

1:13:19

So not dead yet, I would say,

1:13:21

is is what I would classify

1:13:24

it as. Um, But it's certainly

1:13:26

not what it was, you know,

1:13:28

in terms of I mean the real thing

1:13:30

I think is the mid level films that

1:13:33

cost million dollars

1:13:36

to make. Um, the

1:13:38

kind of adult dramas and comedies that just

1:13:41

don't get made in the same way anymore. They've all

1:13:43

those stories have migrated to television essentially.

1:13:46

Okay, So you

1:13:48

have twenty or thirty years left to make movies,

1:13:51

maybe a little bit more if your

1:13:53

career kept on this thing and you kept

1:13:55

on making documentaries. Are you

1:13:57

happy or is there some big yet unful

1:14:00

old dream. Um,

1:14:02

I'm happy. You know. It's funny

1:14:04

because people still

1:14:07

will come up and say, oh, well, when

1:14:09

you're gonna make a real movie. So

1:14:12

I've been making movies for twenty years,

1:14:14

um, and you know I love

1:14:16

scripted movies, and I've flirted

1:14:19

with different projects that haven't happened, and

1:14:21

um, and one may happen and it would be fun, you

1:14:24

know, it'd be a fun challenge. But my day

1:14:26

job is documentary and it's always gonna be documentary.

1:14:28

I mean, that same sensation I had

1:14:31

two weeks into making my first documentary, where

1:14:33

I knew it was my life's calling has

1:14:35

not changed, and that, in

1:14:37

a way gives

1:14:39

me great comfort because it means whatever

1:14:42

I'm into at whatever age I can

1:14:44

make a film about it and learn about it

1:14:46

and it will fulfill me. Let's just go back because a lot

1:14:48

of this the audience for this podcast is people

1:14:50

who are into music. How do you feel about

1:14:53

today's music? I'm I have

1:14:55

a much harder time being into music in the way I was

1:14:57

into it before because that you were the music.

1:15:00

It's hard for me to judge. Um,

1:15:03

I'm not gonna push you on it. No, I don't. I mean,

1:15:05

I listened to plenty of music, but

1:15:08

I feel like my relationship, I gave

1:15:10

so much of my life to music that

1:15:12

I'm kind of Um,

1:15:15

it just took up so much my life that I feel like

1:15:17

I'm on sabbatical. You know. When I come back

1:15:19

and find a new artists I love, It's great.

1:15:22

Um, but it

1:15:24

kind of ebbs and flows. So you're a

1:15:26

cultural vulture. And

1:15:29

even though you do not comprehensive like you

1:15:31

used to be, you still you know

1:15:33

there's a smugger's board of stuff that you

1:15:35

partake of. For my audience, can

1:15:38

you recommend two things that they're unaware

1:15:40

of? Music, movies, books, documentaries

1:15:43

that they really should check out? Um?

1:15:48

Sure, Can

1:15:50

I think about this for a minute. Uh,

1:15:54

well, you know, I didn't mean to put you on the snow.

1:15:56

I know, because I want to give the best answer problems.

1:15:58

Like in the New York Times book review, they say, you know what's

1:16:01

on your nightstand when there's no way

1:16:03

in hell those books around the nightstand. It's

1:16:05

like they just want to look good for the audience

1:16:07

who is looking at that. So, I mean,

1:16:10

like the last film I made I loved

1:16:12

Um, I mean or film I saw

1:16:14

that I loved, I mean Book Smart. I would certainly

1:16:17

recommend UM,

1:16:20

and I've

1:16:22

been I signed up for the Criterion

1:16:25

Channel. They have their news streaming service. Highly

1:16:28

recommend the Criterion streaming service. As

1:16:30

a real ciny asked, you know, I

1:16:33

love the chance to be able to just go back into

1:16:35

that and supporting those types of films

1:16:37

and making sure we can still see those types of films too.

1:16:40

What are a couple that you would recommend? And

1:16:42

this is just you know, on the channel in general. Um,

1:16:45

I've been going through a Cassavettis phase, which

1:16:48

has been interesting. So what's your favorite Cassavettis

1:16:51

um Chinese bookie? Really?

1:16:53

Yeah, mine's Woman under the Influence.

1:16:55

I think he really nails how the you

1:16:58

know, Peter Flack has no idea what's went on

1:17:00

with his wife, and his wife is

1:17:02

really I just found the juxtaposition

1:17:04

really good. Yeah, and they know

1:17:07

there's something about that time period too, and

1:17:09

you know a lot of Los Angeles and some of that stuff

1:17:12

too, But I just really respond

1:17:14

to um.

1:17:16

So yeah, in a way,

1:17:18

I end up going backwards more than anything.

1:17:21

Well, the movies were different with a great thing about a movie

1:17:23

and whether it's certainly better to theatrical experience,

1:17:27

is that it shuts out the rest of the world, and when

1:17:29

done well, you're immersed. I

1:17:31

want that experience, you know, you want an experience where

1:17:33

you don't want to check your phone, you don't

1:17:36

want to look at your watch. Yeah, that is like

1:17:38

the best review you can get. Check my phone

1:17:40

once, you know which I aspired

1:17:42

to. Okay Morgan, this has been wonderful.

1:17:44

The audience will look forward to your Rick Ruben

1:17:47

project. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.

1:17:49

Talking to you until next time. This

1:17:51

is Bob left Sets