0:01

It's

0:05

about

0:09

life.

0:12

It's

0:16

about

0:19

love.

0:23

It's

0:26

about

0:30

And I looked through every one of them.

0:32

You didn't think you could really nail any

0:34

of those. I failed to identify one that

0:37

I could do without getting arrested. Cool. I

0:39

did a really throw a scan and I

0:41

thought about it from a bunch of angles

0:43

and I went, I don't think I should

0:46

try one of these. I think the tagline

0:48

for the color purple which you just did

0:50

from the, in my opinion, wonderful poster. It's

0:53

a very iconic. Yeah. It's about love, it's

0:55

about us. It's about us. Is such a

0:57

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

0:59

like, like, You know, stereotypical 80s movie tagline

1:01

where you're just like, what does

1:03

that mean? And then you're like,

1:05

oh, so what's the movie about? And

1:07

they're like, well, and you're, and then

1:09

if someone described what the color purple

1:11

was about to you, they'll be like,

1:13

what do you mean it's about life?

1:15

It's about love? It's about, I mean,

1:17

sure, but that's not really setting me

1:19

up for the color purple, that's all.

1:21

I like this movie. That being the

1:24

tagline for this movie on this poster

1:26

with all the other elements of what

1:28

is being communicated in the poster is

1:30

kind of the whole movie in a

1:32

nutshell. Like this movie's weird cultural object

1:34

status of just like, here's the seismic

1:36

book, it wins all the awards, how are

1:38

we going to make this into the movie,

1:40

just get the best people in Hollywood, and

1:42

then try to sell this as like big

1:45

tent entertainment, and decades of people being like,

1:47

was that the right way to do this?

1:49

Is like the goal to make it the

1:51

biggest production you can? Well, it worked. This

1:53

movie was a colossal hit. That's the thing.

1:55

And I do think, yeah, big seismic, everybody

1:57

went to see it kind of movie. Yeah.

2:00

And it's I'd never seen it before.

2:02

This was the first time watch for me.

2:04

This was one of my only Spielberg

2:06

blind spots. And I don't think I'd

2:08

been avoiding it to any degree, but

2:10

I feel like it has a very weird

2:13

status in his career. And I

2:15

just kept last night watching it and

2:17

going, it's so bizarre that Stephen Spielberg

2:19

made this. That is true. And

2:21

what's weird about it is in

2:23

every single solitary second, it both

2:26

so feels like a Stephen Spielberg

2:28

movie and doesn't at all. Wow, I'm

2:30

looking at the art. Do you want

2:32

to see it, Kenny? Yes. For the

2:34

mini series. This is the mini

2:36

series. This is just, I'm just

2:38

seeing this now for the first time.

2:40

Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I look fucking hot

2:42

as an idiot. Well, you know, a lot

2:45

of people look hot with that cat on,

2:47

but yeah. You know what? And I want

2:49

to commend Pat Reynolds for

2:51

also not photoshopping any of

2:53

us onto the cast of the

2:56

color purple. Another great decision.

2:58

Blank check with Griffin and David.

3:00

I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a

3:02

podcast about filmographies, directors who

3:04

have massive success early on in

3:06

their careers, such as making Jaws, ET, two

3:09

Indiana Jones movies, and then are given

3:11

a series of blank checks to make

3:13

whatever crazy passion products they want.

3:15

And sometimes they decide to adapt Alice

3:18

Walker's to a temic novel, the color

3:20

purple. Who's our guest? Measers on the

3:22

films on TV show. Oh, sorry, sorry,

3:24

sorry. It's called Podrastic cast.

3:26

That's not new information. And today

3:28

we're talking about the color purple.

3:30

Our guest is the great comedian.

3:33

Great comedian. I started

3:35

combining your name and

3:37

comedian. Please don't. Canese

3:39

Mobley. Hi. The Tonight Show. Yes.

3:41

The founder of Netflix. We just

3:43

established. I made it. I have

3:46

money. So much money. You did.

3:48

Your Tonight Show appearance. Was. in

3:50

the pandemic, right? It was. It was

3:52

the rooftop. It was the rooftop. It

3:54

was 28 degrees outside. Have you seen

3:56

any of these David or Ben? Can

3:59

he's performed it? my favorite comedians. Wow,

4:01

oh my god. And we've known each other

4:03

for a little while, we kind of overlap

4:05

in circles, we'll run into each other, and

4:07

it kept coming up, and every time I

4:09

would cross paths with you, you're like, can

4:12

I argue a point of something that

4:14

you and David said on the podcast

4:16

that drove me crazy? I start increasingly

4:18

finding out that you are a listener.

4:20

Yes. Through your like objections to how

4:22

did we drive you crazy? Right? This

4:24

is what I can't remember it's

4:26

happened multiple times But you will

4:28

reach on go like good episode. Yes, but

4:30

then sometimes you'll come in and be like

4:32

I have an ax to grind What the

4:35

fuck are you guys talking about? So I

4:37

was not a listener of your podcast and

4:39

then I dated three people in a row This

4:41

is the thing you said when we met you said

4:43

I need you to know I have

4:45

a problem, I keep dating listeners of

4:47

your podcast. Someone just told me that

4:50

her friend confessed to her recently, she

4:52

and her boyfriend put our podcast on

4:54

the TV. What? I guess through like

4:56

YouTube or something like that, Spotify,

4:59

and then like sit and listen to

5:01

it. That's chilling. And I was like, are

5:03

they doing? Do they like knit or cook or

5:05

something? She's like, yeah, it's too

5:07

big. They must do stuff. But

5:09

I can't imagine just sitting sitting

5:11

sitting sitting there. It's horrible. It's

5:13

so it was so strange because

5:15

I didn't I wasn't aware of

5:18

this podcast, but then so many

5:20

people kept it would come up

5:22

on dates and I'm like, what

5:24

is this? Sure. And so I

5:26

started listening first for like the

5:28

bit and then I became a

5:30

fan. That's nice. Not a fan

5:32

of yours. During 2020, you got

5:34

to do stand up on the Tonight

5:36

show, which is one of like the It's

5:39

the thing I had been working

5:41

for for my entire comedic career.

5:43

Did Carson invite you over

5:45

to the couch? Well, the dead

5:47

Carson invited me, yes, it

5:49

was complicated. Couple interesting

5:52

wrinkles in Canisa's circumstances.

5:54

One, Carson longed dead.

5:56

Secondly, no one was allowed

5:59

to be indoors. What

6:01

would Carson have made of all that?

6:03

I don't know. Can he's had this

6:05

great show outside? Weird stuff. Can he

6:08

set this great, fucking, tonight show set,

6:10

the dream that happened on a rooftop

6:12

in the winter? Yes, I was crying,

6:14

because like, if it's cold, I start

6:16

to, my eyes, water. Yeah. And so

6:18

I had to, like, constantly figure out

6:20

ways to, like, wipe tears away from

6:22

my face while still telling my jokes

6:25

and, like, being filmed. It was, it

6:27

was an an experience that I'll never

6:29

forget. But my memory is that it's

6:31

like Fallon at home, right? Like in

6:33

his cabin and he's in studio. So

6:35

like some people were allowed to be

6:37

in studio. Okay. The roots and Fallon

6:40

are in studio. Okay. So it was

6:42

when he was back to in studio,

6:44

but there was no audience. Yes. Yes,

6:46

and half the guest were zoom. Yes.

6:48

And he's in studio and he goes

6:50

like, and now can he's mobility, except

6:52

instead of gesturing to his left, he

6:55

gestures towards the roof. Yes. And then

6:57

it just cuts to the roof of

6:59

30 Rock. In again, the winter. The

7:01

winter. Non-winter. Yes, it's fascinating. With Carson

7:03

would have been, Carson was in LA.

7:05

So a rooftop with him, but it

7:07

would have been bought me even in

7:10

February or whatever. Why that guy have

7:12

to go and die and make your

7:14

life more difficult? First he retired and

7:16

lived. It was about me. Yes, yes,

7:18

yes. I won't be there when she's

7:20

performing. No, I'm retiring and dying. I

7:22

mean, a few people did it outside,

7:24

but somebody did it from a drive-in

7:27

in Texas and that was like warm

7:29

and he looked like he was happy.

7:31

And then Mark Norman, I think, did

7:33

it from the Staten Island Ferry, and

7:35

it was very strange. That seems like

7:37

maybe too much business. But also, under

7:39

those circumstances, maybe you do want to

7:42

just, like, be like, look, this is

7:44

never going to be normal? Yes. So

7:46

why not try to do the weirdest

7:48

version of it? Sure. That's why I

7:50

got married in my backyard. I was

7:52

like, I don't know when things are

7:54

good. You have a backyard? No, it

7:57

was it was my parents-in-law's bed. I

7:59

was like, you know, what? You have

8:01

access to grass and sky simultaneously? I

8:03

didn't at the time. I lived at

8:05

a fucking railroad. I had a roof.

8:07

We had a roof, but it was

8:09

one of those sort of building roofs.

8:12

On the rails, just to be clear.

8:14

David his wife, a bindle. Carson retired

8:16

92. Die to 2005. Oh wow! I

8:18

thought he was dead way earlier. Just

8:20

lazy. What is this? 13 years? Just

8:22

fucking cool in his hands? This is

8:24

my favorite thing to talk about. Carson?

8:26

Used to retire in this country. Oh

8:29

yeah. Especially people in jobs that deed

8:31

turnover. Yeah, but you know that need

8:33

a bit of freshening up. So like

8:35

that's that's a huge part of it

8:37

right? Just in general that doesn't happen

8:39

this generation won't fucking let go their

8:41

possessions. You know who used to retire

8:44

the hardest? You're so funny that he's

8:46

read all. Do you know who used

8:48

to retire the hardest? Who used to

8:50

retire the hardest? The most famous people

8:52

in the world. Sure. Right. Oh yeah,

8:54

they would be like, I'm done. Goodbye.

8:56

Right. You're like, right. Audrey Hepburn, you

8:59

know, I guess. Well, no, well, no.

9:01

Hepburn, are you talking about Audrey Hepburn

9:03

right now? Because we're about to do

9:05

always the last film. Right. Right. That's

9:07

your final movie. She died shortly after.

9:09

like you know I guess she's not

9:11

as good an example did she do

9:14

an alpaccino phase where it was just

9:16

like anything that paid her she was

9:18

there none of those people fucking did

9:20

that no I think that you know

9:22

it was less of there weren't movies

9:24

like that as much I guess back

9:26

then either right you couldn't just be

9:28

like hey put me in any Bulgarian

9:31

action movie that like is being made

9:33

this year right like they're relevant threads

9:35

within this right like this is Miser

9:37

is on the early films of Stephen

9:39

Spielberg covering the first half of his

9:41

career. His first big official professional directing

9:43

job was the episode of the Night

9:46

Gallery with Joan Crawford. And that was

9:48

the example of like that's like an

9:50

old movie star who won't retire, right?

9:52

And perhaps like didn't manage their finances

9:54

enough to be able to retire slash...

9:56

the attention, but it's like, but you'd

9:58

end up there, you'd end up like,

10:01

you're a very special guest star on

10:03

television. That would be nice. Right. Or

10:05

you like have a sort of like

10:07

poignant cameo in a thing, or you

10:09

show up in a horror movie for

10:11

five minutes to be like, lend it

10:13

some credibility, whatever, right? There wasn't the

10:15

sort of like cash out of Red

10:18

Hulk. Yes. But there's also the thing

10:20

of- Is he doing like five movies

10:22

right now? Calling we have maybe brought

10:24

up Red Holkin every episode of this

10:26

series come up because he just keeps

10:28

being so funny to me that they're

10:30

like there's a new Captain American movie

10:33

and I'm like Oh, what's it about?

10:35

And they're like, there's a black captain,

10:37

Sam Wilson is Captain America. I'm like,

10:39

what's it about? What does he do?

10:41

And they're like, what's it about? What

10:43

does he do? And they're like, what

10:45

does Captain America do in the movie?

10:48

And they're like, he's the title. He's

10:50

like, what does Captain America do in

10:52

the movie? And they're like, you know,

10:54

and they're like, he's the, he's the.

10:56

rings of power, season two. Yikes! Because

10:58

I have this kind of seven to

11:00

10 o'clock period where I'm not, I

11:03

can't sleep, but my twin babies are

11:05

trying to sleep, but that's when they're

11:07

gonna be the most rocky. They'll pop

11:09

up, they'll, you know, you know, they're

11:11

rock steady, bebop and rock. Their names

11:13

are bebop and rock. Oh, okay. I

11:15

was like rock steady like Gwen Stefani

11:17

or rock steady like the other, okay,

11:20

cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

11:22

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

11:24

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm hip. I'm

11:26

hip. So it's good to have a

11:28

show that I don't, I don't mind

11:30

too much of it. Nice. Or whatever,

11:32

and Lord of the Rings of the

11:35

Rings of Power is that show. It's

11:37

very plausible. Have you seen? Yes, I

11:39

watched all the first season and then

11:41

I watched the first episode of the

11:43

second season. And you were like, I'm

11:45

finally, I'm being, when we're following like

11:47

black, like gunk just rolling down a

11:50

hill. does happen. I think I was

11:52

a little out on that. That does.

11:54

That's like young Soron. You are, Ben?

11:56

Correct. You were doing a joke, but

11:58

that's what that is. That's 100% is.

12:00

They're like, Sharon died and then he

12:02

was gunk for a while. Let's follow

12:05

the gun. And I'm like, who were

12:07

following the gun? Yes, up a hill.

12:09

Did Ben write this show? Possibly. No,

12:11

there's just there's whole episodes, but they're

12:13

like, should we? make more rings and

12:15

they're like I don't know and I'm

12:17

like I know you're going to make

12:19

rings not answer other questions no other

12:22

questions answered they sit and they think

12:24

about making rings and that's You know,

12:26

they have this like pro-dogandoff where he's

12:28

like, should I beat Gandoff? And I'm

12:30

like, I don't know that. It seems

12:32

like a good idea. He's like, I

12:34

don't know how to do it. And

12:37

they're like, is he literally Gandoff or

12:39

is he a Gandoff? He's literally Gandoff.

12:41

He has visions of a staff or

12:43

something? Oh my God. It's just one

12:45

of those things where people are like,

12:47

oh, they're going to do a prequel

12:49

order ring show. But like, you know,

12:52

I know that there's a lot of

12:54

Tolkien stuff that you can work with,

12:56

but don't people kind of know, you

12:58

know, the backstory enough to, how could

13:00

that be interesting? Like, no, we'll make

13:02

it interesting. And like, 18 hours in,

13:04

I can tell you, they didn't pull

13:07

it off. They give him or he

13:09

decides to bend it. Like I do

13:11

so much money on that. It's an

13:13

it's an expensive fairly handsome show, you

13:15

know, and you know, anyway, whatever. I

13:17

can't even remember how we got on

13:19

this topic. People don't retire. Yes, and

13:21

Ford is red or small. Don't you

13:24

think it's funny that they're like Captain

13:26

America. What's it about? I had a

13:28

whole long argument with my grandmother. Who's

13:30

a woman in of an advanced age?

13:32

and gets very touchy when I get

13:34

into conversations about like people need to

13:36

retire, right? I'm talking about from a

13:39

sociological aspect and she interprets it as

13:41

you're saying that over a certain age

13:43

people don't have value anymore. Got it.

13:45

Which I constantly try to delineate. You

13:47

know, but we had versions of this

13:49

argument with Joe Biden, running for president,

13:51

a thing that worked out really well

13:54

for everybody. So well. We're excited about

13:56

the future. Totally. But I was saying

13:58

this about Harrison Ford and she's like,

14:00

who are you to say he can't

14:02

work anymore? And he still has value.

14:04

And I'm like, I'm not saying that.

14:06

I'm just saying, maybe he shouldn't make

14:09

movies for nine-year-olds anymore. I want him

14:11

to do whatever makes him happy. But

14:13

I'm like, I want him to do

14:15

whatever makes him happy. But I'm like

14:17

a little depressed that we can't let

14:19

go of him playing Indiana Jones. I

14:21

was having on shrinking. I'm not going

14:23

to tell him he shouldn't play Red

14:26

Hulk, but there is a larger aspect

14:28

of like, let's step back. Like, Red

14:30

Hulk feels like this inflection point of

14:32

like, we need to examine 10 different

14:34

cultural phenomena that have led to this

14:36

moment. That have led to Harrison, do

14:38

you know, have led to this moment?

14:41

Have led to Harrison, do you know?

14:43

Have led to Harrison, like, we have

14:45

to examine 10 different cultural phenomena that

14:47

have led to this moment. That have

14:49

led to Harrison, do, have led to,

14:51

have led to, have led to, have

14:53

led to, have led to, have led

14:56

to, have, have, have, have, have, have,

14:58

have, have, have, have, have, have, have,

15:00

have, have, have, have, have, have, have,

15:02

have, have, have, have, have, have, have,

15:04

have, to, have, have, have, have, have,

15:06

have, had, had, had, had, had, had,

15:08

had, had, had, had I want to

15:11

see him more in like what lies

15:13

beneath sized movies. That would be great.

15:15

That would be great. What if you

15:17

married Harrison Ford right now? I might

15:19

be freaking. Might be weird. We've talked

15:21

about it a bit in doing this

15:23

series, but you're just like, wouldn't be

15:25

so cool to see him and Spielberg

15:28

work together in any other context? You

15:30

know, like rather than just Indiana Jones.

15:32

They never worked together. It's just wild

15:34

that they never did. That's true. And

15:36

they remained like close friends and they

15:38

speak very love and leave each other

15:40

and there was always like the rumor

15:43

that he was That he wanted him

15:45

to play. I want you to direct

15:47

six days seven nights. Sorry. I don't

15:49

know. Just do it a bit. There

15:51

were conflicting rumors about him and Lincoln.

15:53

I remember the. I feel like both

15:55

at some point maybe being the timely

15:58

Jones part, but also maybe. being grant

16:00

in a smaller role. And then there's

16:02

been some like kind of questioning of the

16:04

story of David Lynch ending up in the

16:06

Fablemans that was suggested by Mark Harris, but

16:08

Spielberg said he had a different actor

16:11

in mind. And people have been like,

16:13

would that have been Harrison Ford for

16:15

one scene? Like all of those are

16:17

interesting possibilities. Obviously, we got two great

16:20

performances from other people in that situation.

16:22

And we're about to get a great

16:24

performance from him and Captain America something,

16:26

something something something as red hulk, President

16:29

hulk. I just think it's funny that

16:31

he's the president. I think every part

16:33

of it is fun. It's eight hats

16:35

on hats. Yeah. They're like, we've cast

16:38

hairs in front. I'm like, that's

16:40

okay. That's an upgrade, I

16:42

guess, or that's crazy. He'll

16:44

be redholked. He's gonna be

16:47

redholked. Okay. And he's the

16:49

president as well. Here's the

16:51

funnier part. They elected him. Yes.

16:53

We're going to talk about the

16:55

color red. 10, 12 years, right?

16:57

A lot of times. And is

17:00

basically always, at most, the 10th

17:02

most important character in the movie.

17:04

And you're like, yeah, he's fine

17:07

in these. He's like, sturdy. They

17:09

get a little dramatic use out

17:11

of helping, having him set up

17:13

larger government stakes or whatever, but

17:16

he's not that important. And then

17:18

William Hurt dies, and then they're

17:20

like, here's the pitch for Captain

17:23

America, maybe the whole movie's about

17:25

him. Yeah, they were like, okay, we're thinking

17:27

maybe we'll make a Marvel movie that's

17:30

not Black Panther, but about a Black

17:32

Captain America. No. It is about the

17:34

president. Be real. It's about the president.

17:36

It's about Harrison Ford. Please come to

17:38

this. What if the president was a

17:40

monster and you shaved his mustache?

17:43

Just the sort of like... Taking

17:45

your whole dick out too, right?

17:47

Of like, Harris unfortunate. I'm like,

17:50

okay, he's right, Hulk. Are there

17:52

any surprises? None. None. None. You

17:54

just saw my whole day. That's

17:56

my whole day. Like, that's all

17:59

the man. Okay, we'll just hold

18:01

it. He might get a little angry.

18:03

Oh, will he? And they're like, oh,

18:05

he's right. Oh, look at him! Ah!

18:08

He looks, his face looks like Harrison

18:10

Ford. We made it look like Harrison

18:12

Ford. We made it look like Harrison

18:14

Ford. Oh boy. Anyway, why are we

18:17

talking about this? I don't know. The

18:19

color purple. Retiring. Retiring. It is, I

18:21

don't, how do I frame this. There

18:23

were times I was watching this. of

18:26

like, oh, this was a point in

18:28

time where if a movie, if a

18:30

book won the Pulitzer Prize. Sure. Big

18:32

best-selling book. Studios would be like, well,

18:35

obviously, we have to turn this into

18:37

a big, serious movie. There is a

18:39

cultural obligation and the public is demanding

18:41

it. There is interest in this. Right.

18:44

This book came up three years before

18:46

the movie. Like it was, you know,

18:48

book comes out in 82. By 83,

18:50

it is an award-winning surprise-winning best-selling book.

18:53

By 85 the film has been released

18:55

directed by one of the big filmmakers

18:57

of the era. Like, you know, bang,

18:59

bang, boom. What won the Pulitzer Prize

19:02

for Fiction last year? I don't know.

19:04

I should know. I don't read as

19:06

much as I should. I feel very

19:08

guilty. Something called Nightwatch. Historical fiction during

19:11

the American Civil War by Jane Ann

19:13

Phillips? Someone turned this into a movie.

19:15

Is it sludgy? Fludgy? I just... I

19:17

just finally saw Nickel Boys, which will

19:20

be, have been out for a while

19:22

by the time this episode comes out,

19:24

but just came out here pretty recently.

19:26

Well, that, which won the Pulitzer in

19:29

2020. This is my point. In fact,

19:31

that is the last Pulitzer winner for

19:33

fiction that has been turned into a

19:35

film. Okay, so that film is phenomenal.

19:38

Yeah, right? The book's great. I haven't

19:40

watched the movie film, a book too.

19:42

Movies terrific, but I was just like,

19:44

having seen that. in theaters in the

19:47

same week that I watched Color Purple

19:49

for the first time. Oh man, you're

19:51

real deep in black pain. Look, I'm

19:53

not looking for a round of applause.

19:56

Oh, I'm not giving it to you,

19:58

but... Thank you. We can agree on

20:00

that. I don't deserve it. Don't give

20:02

it. But yeah, you real, black people

20:05

be suffering. A little bit, a little

20:07

bit, and it's just, you know, timing

20:09

chance, whatever, but it was like interesting

20:11

to see these two movies like 40

20:14

years apart, right, in the same week

20:16

and be like, here's this book that

20:18

is like seismic and that like Amazon

20:20

and MGM are just like, you know

20:23

what, we're gonna give like a $25

20:25

million budget to someone who's never made

20:27

a feature-length scripted scripted film before, casting

20:29

largely unknown actors. with like a very

20:32

daring formal like conceit. I've heard about

20:34

this conceit and I'm like, wow, I'm

20:36

excited. Which is incredible, but that speaks

20:38

to in that moment, them almost having

20:41

the awareness of like, there is no

20:43

big tent version of this. If we

20:45

try to make the version of this

20:47

that appeals to like multiplex, mall audiences

20:50

everywhere, like it's not going to accomplish

20:52

anything, right? It's like the help, bro,

20:54

like. Totally Totally. That's when it's like,

20:56

hey, we need to make this a

20:59

four-cognant thing. Okay, we got to get

21:01

the black people out the center of

21:03

it. Okay, we get rid of that.

21:05

But even the help is, like, that's

21:08

more of a, like, an emotional be-treat.

21:10

You know, it wasn't like, this is

21:12

this like, humongous, immediately historic piece of

21:14

literature that needs to be treated with

21:17

respect, that also in the history of

21:19

Hollywood was like, we have to serve

21:21

two things at the material. but also

21:24

too we have an obligation to like

21:26

win best picture make a hundred million

21:28

dollars and nickel boys is just clearly

21:30

like why would we even attempt to

21:33

do that just do an artistic film

21:35

right you know and I think that

21:37

everything that's interesting about color purple is

21:39

it like existing intention between those two

21:42

things you know and like being both

21:44

better and worse than it should be

21:46

and could be at the same time

21:49

The really annoying thing is, when I'm looking

21:51

at this Pulitzer list, all the light we

21:53

cannot see the sympathizer in the underground railroad

21:56

alternate into television. Right, that's, that's, now what

21:58

more often happens. Goldfinch was turned into a

22:00

movie. I was thinking about a bad one.

22:02

I saw it. I suffered through every second

22:04

of that piece of shit. Yes? That's the

22:07

other one I was thinking of in doing

22:09

this sort of math in my head where

22:11

I pin that my mind and I'm like,

22:13

I feel like that was the last time

22:16

that a book comes out is a sensation,

22:18

wins all the awards, and there's like this

22:20

feeding frenzy of like, which recent best picture

22:22

director are we gonna get with 20 name

22:25

actors? Before that it's the road? Yeah. And

22:27

we're taking like eight-year leaps. The road also

22:29

was like 10 years in development? Yeah. This

22:31

is the thing. There's a lot of these

22:34

sort of bestsellers that became classics. Cavalier and

22:36

Clay, Middlesex. That like... Middlesex was a was

22:38

made into something? No, no. What I'm saying

22:40

is people keep... Saying like we're gonna turn

22:42

that into like an HBO series or we

22:45

know we're gonna make a movie of that

22:47

and then it just kind of gets lost

22:49

in development Those started this way where it's

22:51

like it wins the award and it's immediately

22:54

like X Y and Z have all signed

22:56

on to adapt this here are the casting

22:58

list here the this and it keeps getting

23:00

redeveloped and it never happens Okay, because they're

23:03

like not I feel like that's why they

23:05

make my bitch. I would that's why they

23:07

make crazy rich agents. I would that they

23:09

make crazy rich agents like crazy going to

23:12

make us more money, why would we do

23:14

this? Yes, yes, yes. There's like, there's less

23:16

of this pressure to take a book that

23:18

is important and try to figure out how

23:20

to make it more functional as a broad

23:23

movie. Whereas I think they're now like, if

23:25

a book feels like a movie, make it

23:27

into a movie. And if a book feels

23:29

difficult to adapt, then maybe let's like slower

23:32

horses and like rethink this. David

23:37

yes have you're a browsed incognito mode

23:39

yeah absolutely I'm not gonna ask why

23:41

for what reasons but here's what I'm

23:44

gonna tell you and it's bad news

23:46

mostly it's to you know try a

23:48

different thing instead of matrix see what

23:51

the well that's what I do as

23:53

well look maybe we can personalize this

23:55

here and say that every morning sometimes

23:57

you submit your cinema tricks nine and

24:00

you're curious about small unit what would

24:02

that have done was there a better

24:04

way to play this but here's the

24:07

problem. That mode is not as incognito

24:09

as you think. Oh no. Other people

24:11

might be stealing your answers. You feel

24:13

like you're invisible creeping around the web,

24:16

but in reality you're like when the

24:18

invisible man has paint poured on him.

24:20

Oh no. You know. Right. Yeah, no.

24:23

Hollow Man with the rubber and you're

24:25

like, well, you're invisible, but also now

24:27

I can see you. That's kind of

24:30

what incognito mode is. All your online

24:32

activity is still 100% visible to a

24:34

ton of third parties unless you use

24:36

Express VPN. Google recently settled a $5

24:39

billion lawsuit after being accused of secretly

24:41

tracking users in incognito mode. That's the

24:43

opposite of what I want. So, uh,

24:46

without Express Depot's third parties can see

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25:29

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25:50

Anyway. The color purple is the movie

25:52

we're here to discuss today. So Griffin

25:54

had never seen it. Ben, had you

25:57

ever seen it? No. I'd seen it.

25:59

Had you ever seen it? Okay. Oh

26:01

my goodness. Let's just let me finish.

26:03

Okay. So I am a black woman

26:06

from the South. It was, I was

26:08

raised in the Black Church, went to

26:10

a black school. I was certain that

26:13

I had grown up with this film,

26:15

that I had seen it so many

26:17

times. There are cultural touch points. It's

26:20

in, like, it's everywhere. So I was

26:22

like. When you were like, hey, Color

26:24

Purple, I was like, yeah, I got

26:26

that. I watched the movie, I've never

26:29

seen that movie in my life while.

26:31

I had not seen it, and I

26:33

had to be like, oh, fuck. Had

26:36

you seen like the musical or the

26:38

musical movie or any of that? Like

26:40

any of the later Color Purple stuff?

26:42

Had you read the book? I read

26:45

the book yesterday. Oh, so no, I

26:47

read the book, I read the book

26:49

long ago. Oh, you're cooler than me?

26:52

Pretty cool of me to have read

26:54

a famous bestseller, The Color Purple, which

26:56

I'm pretty sure I got on. Kintle

26:58

Unlimited in COVID, when I was just

27:01

like, I gotta read something. But yes,

27:03

I have read the Color. Okay, so

27:05

you'd never seen it. You had never

27:08

seen the Color Purple. Congratulations on watching

27:10

it. What'd you think? I am so

27:12

worried about my street cred, right now.

27:14

I could get like cards could be

27:17

revoked you don't understand it's like a

27:19

whole thing and so like yes this

27:21

movie important yes it has some of

27:24

the people who have defined blackness on

27:26

camera for the last 50 years I

27:28

think it is important Quincy Jones did

27:31

the mood like the music for it

27:33

and everything super important and like produced

27:35

it and was by all accounts the

27:37

one who really got Spielberg to sign

27:40

on yeah I mean we'll talk about

27:42

it yeah I hate the music for

27:44

this so much it like I was

27:47

like what the fuck is this like

27:49

why are you shooting child rape like

27:51

it's a day in the part well

27:53

this is what we're going to talk

27:56

about this is the weird total thing

27:58

with this movie absolutely about it. Thank

28:00

you. I just I feel like part

28:02

of me has to say that I

28:05

love this movie. You don't have to

28:07

say anything. Okay, thank you. You

28:09

definitely don't have to say anything.

28:12

But I I definitely felt

28:14

like the book had more interesting

28:16

things to say about the

28:19

black community, our relationship with

28:21

God, parents and women specifically,

28:23

and they took a lot

28:26

of those edges off and then had

28:28

this ending of coming to Jesus or

28:30

something and I was like, please don't do

28:32

no, no. As an adaptation of

28:34

the book, it's a it's a huge misfire.

28:36

I think I think all adaptations of the

28:39

book are actually, I think the musical and

28:41

the later musical movie also are

28:43

bad adaptations of the book or those

28:45

are kind of they're kind of just

28:47

like adaptations of this movie in

28:50

a weird wet like it's like. Because the

28:52

book is very hard to deal with.

28:54

We're like cultural reputation of the movie

28:56

as an idea, which is sort of

28:58

so different than what the thing is. I

29:00

watched it and I was like, oh yeah,

29:03

because like this is an important thing the

29:05

first time, like a lot of like, oh

29:07

wow, it's about black women, we never get

29:09

to do anything. And then, oh, so we

29:11

just get beat down and assault, okay.

29:14

Well, look, look, the whole thing with

29:16

the color purple, though, the movie, is. what

29:18

you're saying of like why why was

29:20

it made by Stephen Spilberg and like why

29:22

you know well what they got in

29:24

the what to do it at the time

29:26

that's that's what we have to talk

29:28

about is right is like right who is

29:31

who is the project sort of I

29:33

think Quincy Jones saw it out, Stephen Spielberg,

29:35

and this sort of like, that gives

29:37

it the biggest seal of approval. He's the

29:39

biggest director there is. Isn't Oprah, though,

29:41

kind of also very involved? No, she's a

29:43

leader. She's a fucking nobody for this

29:45

one. She's like a local TV host.

29:48

Like, Oprah becomes like one of

29:50

the main creative forces on both

29:52

productions of the musical on Broadway

29:54

and the musical movie. And Oprah,

29:56

like, she becomes Oprah, like, she

29:58

becomes a local TV host. Like

30:00

she was the start of Oprah, but

30:02

she was not a mogul. With zero

30:04

acting credits, right? I think yeah. I

30:06

mean, and that's the past of this

30:09

movie, you have like, is a lot

30:11

of people, you're like, well, these are

30:13

famous people who were not really well

30:15

known at the time. Like, Danny Glover

30:17

was like a theater actor, like, Danny

30:20

Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Goldberg, Oprah, prior to

30:22

this moment, gives it a power that

30:24

is kind of like, never gonna disappear.

30:26

It's an important movie. It's important that

30:28

a movie like this was a blockbuster,

30:31

launched careers, you know, sort of displayed

30:33

an experience that wasn't in movies much,

30:35

but it feels kind of like first

30:37

steps, you know, on a lot of

30:39

this stuff. Very first steps. It's very

30:42

tentative. I think in present is a

30:44

step. I think Spielberg himself would admit

30:46

like he was. somewhat cowardly in how

30:48

he made the movie and like, yeah,

30:51

send it out, send off the edges.

30:53

Because this is the thing I really

30:55

like, go back and forth on with

30:57

this film that I think is interesting.

30:59

Okay. I don't say interesting a good

31:02

way. I'm like, part of what makes

31:04

it a fascinating, like, a piece of

31:06

work to dig into. It feels like

31:08

just, you know, we'll dig into this

31:10

more, but like, there is almost the

31:13

chess move, it feels like. where when

31:15

you read Alice Walker be like, do

31:17

I want to like, sell these rights

31:19

to anyone? Do I trust anyone to

31:21

make a movie of the color? Right.

31:24

Could Hollywood make a good movie of

31:26

this? Right. And then she's sort of

31:28

like convinced by people in her inner

31:30

circle of like there's a responsibility to

31:32

like put this on a bigger platform.

31:35

There's like an opportunity here to make

31:37

a movie of this size, starring women

31:39

of color, which doesn't really exist in

31:41

the studio system, like they're all the

31:43

values in. in like black Hollywood and

31:46

opportunities and like trying to create industries

31:48

and this like that and it feels

31:50

like he made this sort of strategic

31:52

chess move of like a if I

31:54

get Spielberg to direct this, that gives

31:57

it the biggest stamp of approval. But

31:59

B, does that also kind of protect

32:01

it? Like, he is the one guy

32:03

with enough cashier, where if he says

32:05

he wants to do it this way,

32:08

they won't push back on him. Which

32:10

is interesting, as a strategic move, right?

32:12

Then the flip side of that is

32:14

all the stuff that you're saying that

32:16

Steven Spielberg doesn't represent well in this

32:19

movie, feels like, to David's kind of

32:21

cowardice of him being like, You want

32:23

to give him the credit for knowing

32:25

that he would have fucked that up.

32:27

But yet, if you are the one

32:30

adapting this material and you're not willing

32:32

to touch that, then maybe you shouldn't

32:34

be directing this movie. Yes. Has he

32:36

ever directed anything with even a hint

32:39

of gay in it? This is a

32:41

theory that David and I have stood

32:43

on for a long time. I throughout

32:45

years and years ago, and that I

32:47

feel it comes up a lot on

32:50

the podcast. But when Stephen Spielberg was

32:52

the head of the jury at the

32:54

con film film film film festival. He

32:56

gave the pom door to Blue is

32:58

the warmest color. Even the jury. But

33:01

yes. But he was the head of

33:03

the jury. He was the head of

33:05

the jury and he gave it to

33:07

French lesbian drama. Blue is the warmest

33:09

color. Directed by a really chill guy.

33:12

Okay, cool. A little bit of a

33:14

similar situation. At the time. Adapting a

33:16

very big like queer French like graphic

33:18

novel by a man who maybe has

33:20

a weird relationship to women. Yeah. But

33:23

they don't know. They don't know. Griffin

33:25

is saying is Spielberg is watching this

33:27

movie that is wall-to-wall sex scenes and

33:29

lesbian sex scenes. It's just like I

33:31

could never This is always been my

33:34

so impressed by is that when like

33:36

filmmakers are the heads of juries of

33:38

major festivals You see what they give

33:40

the awards to versus when it's actors

33:42

or you know other people I think

33:45

specifically when it's directors and some of

33:47

those choices are really odd I think

33:49

usually you can pathologize it as this

33:51

is the movie they can least imagine

33:53

themselves being able to pull off that

33:56

they are in awe that there is

33:58

something on screen that they're just like

34:00

I don't know how you get there

34:02

and speak Spielberg gives it to this

34:04

movie and is like, and by the

34:07

way, the award is split between the

34:09

director and the two actresses. Yeah. Because

34:11

this couldn't be possible without the level

34:13

of whatever. There's years of litigation of

34:15

like did he abuse the actresses, psychologically

34:18

torturous set, whatever. But there's something there

34:20

in Spielberg like 30 years later being

34:22

like, I wouldn't even know where to

34:24

begin. He chose. One lady putting her

34:27

hand on the other lady's shoulder, and

34:29

that's a stand-in for all lesbianism. You

34:31

also have to remember, it's the 80s.

34:33

This just isn't a movie. You think

34:35

of a movie called like Desert Hearts,

34:38

right? Which is, I think, the same

34:40

year 85. Have you ever seen Desert

34:42

Hearts? Anyone ever seen Desert Hearts? Anyone

34:44

ever seen Desert Hearts. But like that's

34:46

like an indie indie indie ass movie

34:49

that like you probably could have only

34:51

seen in two theaters like in America

34:53

That's that's where like gay, you know

34:55

romance basically exists in the American cinema

34:57

in the mid 80s, right? Sure, or

35:00

you know, it's it's like dog day

35:02

afternoon, or it's like well, sure, you

35:04

know, but that's not what that movie

35:06

is fundamentally That's an element of the

35:08

movie and that's a sort of sensationalist

35:11

element of that movie that that movie

35:13

handles very well But like, yes, it

35:15

is like kind of, there's that degree

35:17

of it and Spielberg talks about interviews

35:19

being like, look, I felt the movie

35:22

had to be PG 13. There's a

35:24

responsibility to make the biggest version of

35:26

this movie. I wanted to be communicated.

35:28

That was a strategic decision. But the

35:30

other part of that is just like,

35:33

so crazy. Where you're like, how does

35:35

the movie begin? It's like, well, you

35:37

know, it's about this, this girl who's

35:39

being abused by her father. That's the

35:41

start of the movie. That's the start

35:44

of the movie. Like, yeah. Her on

35:46

a bed in the snow pushing a

35:48

baby out. And you're like, what's the

35:50

plot of the movie? And you're like

35:52

a procession of suffering across like multiple

35:55

characters until. get like a little bit

35:57

of respite at the end, which also

35:59

those types of narratives which often are

36:01

make like huge incredible important books are

36:03

really hard to adapt into like not

36:06

even three X structures but sort of

36:08

like fixed-time audiovisual narratives where it's just

36:10

like watching characters go through the worst

36:12

of it over and over. This is

36:15

why I want to open the dossi,

36:17

but I do want to say this

36:19

is I think the argument for why

36:21

this movie is kind of good in

36:23

a way. Good in a way is

36:26

exactly how I would put it. I

36:28

mean to be clear, all right, to

36:30

be clear I think that this is

36:32

a very watchable affecting movie like it's

36:34

just like sit down and watch this

36:37

movie as many Americans did. It is

36:39

hard not to be moved by it.

36:41

It's incredibly incredibly well acted. He cannot

36:43

make an uncompelling movie and like, you

36:45

know, it's a it's And Spielberg's a

36:48

good filmmaker and like, you know, you're

36:50

earing the hands of a good filmmaker

36:52

and you watch this movie and you're

36:54

like, yeah, wow, I mean, like, what

36:56

a what a tough time and what

36:59

a, you know, somewhat, you know, note

37:01

of grace at the end and blah,

37:03

blah, as an adaptation, you can quibble

37:05

as like. a white Jewish filmmaker who

37:07

doesn't really know shit about like the

37:10

South or women's experiences. You know, like,

37:12

but he's like, yeah, but I was

37:14

also sad as a child. Yeah, it's

37:16

like, I don't think he's coming in

37:18

there being like, I understand the experience

37:21

for not having the arrogance of that,

37:23

but it's the right, the weird, yeah.

37:25

But the fact that Spielberg is too

37:27

shy or maybe just too sentimental to

37:29

really depict things like with like, utter

37:32

brutality. Kind of makes the movie you

37:34

know, it's like there's a lot of

37:36

movies that just lean into the misery

37:38

and the brutality like you're saying and

37:40

they're not really good like that's often

37:43

a mistake They can become kind of

37:45

numbing. It's kind of relentless and numbing

37:47

and you're so you know It's really

37:49

hard balance to strike how to depict

37:51

like and then at certain point I

37:54

think in our culture people sort of

37:56

being like can we just have less

37:58

movies about this like and have But

38:00

then, you know, you read shit, like,

38:03

you know, Margaret Avery is,

38:05

like, incredible, right? Yeah, yeah.

38:07

Anyway, so that's sort of

38:09

the argument for, like, what

38:11

was helpful about the color

38:13

purple? I'm, you know, I'm,

38:16

like, layering this in caveats.

38:18

But, right, like, if you're gonna...

38:20

But then, you know, you read

38:22

shit, like, you know, Margaret Avery

38:25

is, like, like, you know, Margaret

38:27

Avery is like. And then her like

38:29

career completely kind of stalls out and

38:31

you read interviews with her like Margaret Avery

38:33

Shoghay, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, her and the

38:36

character both have the same last night. Cool,

38:38

cool, cool. She was just like, this movie comes

38:40

out again, Oscar nomination and people are

38:42

like, well, she's not big enough for

38:44

movies and she's probably too big for

38:46

TV. Was just sort of like, all off

38:48

of this frozen. Right, they were just kind

38:50

of like, and I'm not even gonna have

38:53

a window of a window of opportunity, unless

38:55

there's like a window of opportunity, unless there's

38:57

like, And she was like, and meanwhile I

38:59

watched the next year, Denny Glover does like

39:02

lethal weapon. Like it's an immediate launching pad,

39:04

right? And obviously, Whoopi Goldberg launches into like

39:06

an insane film career off of this. A

39:08

very nice one. A really nice one, but

39:11

it's also sort of bizarre to be

39:13

like weird, like theatrical comedian, never

39:15

in a movie, gets her breakthrough in a

39:17

like purely dramatic role in a Spielberg

39:20

film. gets an Oscar nomination for her

39:22

debut performance and then immediately is like

39:24

great and now I make comedy vehicles

39:26

yeah like it's funny that she didn't

39:28

get slotted into drama and that she

39:30

was able to go back and forth

39:32

comedian totally yeah but I mean like but

39:34

what B's career is a one-of-one like it's a

39:36

very unusual and awesome career yes but like

39:38

that's that's a weird example of like

39:40

and then you know for the Oprah

39:42

like doesn't really act again for like

39:44

over a decade We've now covered like

39:46

half of Oprah's movie career on this

39:48

because we've covered Beloved and and we

39:50

cover Princess of the Frog. Oh sure.

39:52

Oh wow. If you remove Times in which she

39:55

played Oprah Winfrey in a movie, it's

39:57

like eight roles and I think we've

39:59

covered four. of them. Yeah, we'll probably

40:01

do Selma one day and a

40:03

wrinkling time. I mean if we

40:05

do Selma we're doing a wrinkling

40:07

time, same director. But you're like

40:09

this thing where it's sort of

40:11

like launches people and also like

40:13

some people get totally stuck? Yeah.

40:15

Margaret Avery should have won the

40:17

Oscar and what if you should

40:19

have won the Oscar in my

40:22

opinion. If you guys want to

40:24

talk about it right now or

40:26

we can talk about it later,

40:28

if you want to talk about

40:30

the 1985 Oscars, which are kind

40:32

of a travesty. Build up to

40:34

that. Okay, fine. So the Color

40:36

Purple, 1980s, Stephen Spielberg, Peter Pan

40:38

himself. He'll never grow up. He

40:40

makes movies about space aliens and

40:42

Harrison Ford with his whip, temples

40:44

of doom, sharks. sharks. He's quickly

40:46

becoming... Oh, he wants to make

40:48

a grown-up movie and it turns

40:50

out to be Palthergeist. It's just

40:52

another silly movie. for children. And

40:54

you're getting the narratives of like,

40:56

is this guy holding back culture?

40:58

Oh, he wants to make another

41:00

thing. Oh, he's doing a movie

41:02

based on his favorite TV show

41:04

Twilight Zone? Well, I'm sure nothing

41:07

bad will happen there. Oh, he

41:09

started a production company, Amblin. What's

41:11

he gonna make with that? Gramlins

41:13

and the Goonies. I'm serious, like

41:15

this is the narrative. This person

41:17

is infantilizing culture with his childish

41:19

genre obsessions and like now. Amblin

41:21

is spawning like more Spielberg's like

41:23

that will only you know do

41:25

more right right he basically right

41:27

they poured water on Stephen Spielberg

41:29

and now many Spielberg's are coming

41:31

out of his back and wrecking

41:33

trap but like at this point

41:35

he has made four of the

41:37

highest grossing films of all time

41:39

if not five Oh sure I

41:41

don't know Indiana Jones draws an

41:43

ET for sure close account was

41:45

up there whatever he's made like

41:47

four of the highest grossing films

41:49

of all time here's the other

41:52

weird thing that we've been covering

41:54

canese Sugar Land Express, no Oscar

41:56

nominations, right? Second movie, Jaws. Big

41:58

Oscar film, nominated for Best Picture,

42:00

not nominated for Best Director, seen

42:02

as a snub. For a film

42:04

that was so culturally like seismic.

42:06

Then, Close Encounters. Nominated for Best

42:08

Director, not nominated for Best Picture.

42:10

1941's a flop, Rayor's a Lost

42:12

Ark, nominated for Picture, and Director.

42:14

Oh! Indiana Jones is the first

42:16

time that they're like, Fuck, fine.

42:18

Yeah. We'll give you both. But

42:20

it's felt like they've been a

42:22

little like young. I did not

42:24

know that that was nominated for

42:26

Best Picture. Which is also crazy.

42:28

Yeah. Do you like Steven Spilberg?

42:30

We didn't even ask. I think

42:32

so. I like Stephen Spilberg in

42:34

the way that I like Coca-Cola

42:37

or Beyonce or football in America,

42:39

you know, just like this. Craft

42:41

mac and cheese. Yeah. Actually, I

42:43

don't like crap. I'm from the

42:45

South. That's like offensive to me.

42:47

Sorry, I didn't know. I'm so

42:49

sorry. Are you Velveeta then? What's

42:51

your head? What earth are you

42:53

talking about? She's saying that like

42:55

she's, she's, it doesn't need to

42:57

make mac and she's out of

42:59

her. What's your head? I thought

43:01

it was just you had another

43:03

brand allegiance. What? What are you

43:05

talking about? Any family? I'm so

43:07

sorry, I'm now with you, yes.

43:09

Homemade is better. When the word

43:11

Velveeta came out of your mouth,

43:13

I was like, what is it

43:15

happening? You gave me, you gave

43:17

me, not, give me a disdainful

43:20

look. And I understand that cheese

43:22

once, it was weird. I didn't

43:24

know that Velveeta made mac and

43:26

cheese, because Velveeta isn't even, can

43:28

we legally call Velveeta cheese? It's

43:30

cheese product. It's the go. I

43:32

think it is, I don't know.

43:34

Holy day. It's like the orange

43:36

version of the Sarangu. That's what

43:38

Melville looks like. No, it's not

43:40

vegan. I'm sorry. I take it

43:42

back. The vegans are going to

43:44

come after you. One of my

43:46

exes who listens to this podcast

43:48

is a vegan. He's going to

43:50

come after you. One of my

43:52

exes who listens to this podcast

43:54

is a vegan. He is a

43:56

vegan who listens to this podcast.

43:58

He's a listen to listen on

44:00

the TV. Immediately one of the

44:02

most beloved films in. history, I

44:05

think is basically presumed to be

44:07

the Oscar Front Runner and it's

44:09

seen as like a bit of

44:11

a shock that Gandhi beats it

44:13

for picture and director. And it's

44:15

this element of like they would

44:17

rather give it to the very

44:19

sort of like handsome middlebrow classical

44:21

biopic than the movie that like

44:23

made the entire world cry because

44:25

it does feel like there's a

44:27

bit of a like we can't

44:29

fucking give Spielberg everything. We can't

44:31

give him too much power, right?

44:33

off of ET. He can be

44:35

the box office king, but that

44:37

doesn't mean he gets Oscars automatically.

44:39

And it is foolish, because indeed

44:41

he probably should have just won

44:43

his Oscars for ET, because that's

44:45

where it's kind of like, look

44:47

man, this is the whole package.

44:50

You made a huge hit, it's

44:52

a personal film, it's sort of

44:54

appeals, it's really fucking. This is

44:56

the whole package. You made a

44:58

huge hit, it's a personal film,

45:00

it sort of appeals to everyone,

45:02

but Gandhi was this, you know.

45:04

I don't know. And they got

45:06

this guy who looks like Condi.

45:08

Where did they buy this guy?

45:10

He's like, I don't know. Anyway.

45:12

He rolls straight from that into

45:14

basically a contractually obligated Second Indiana

45:16

Jones movie, which people have a

45:18

device of reaction to. And it's

45:20

in that moment, that inflection point,

45:22

that it does feel like we

45:24

have this run of years that

45:26

Spielberg being like, you want me

45:28

to grow up? Fine. Like a

45:30

slightly kind of like vindictive, like,

45:33

I can do this. for a

45:35

long time I'd wanted to become

45:37

something involved with something I had

45:39

more to do with character development.

45:41

I wanted to do something that

45:43

was not stereotypically a Spielberg movie.

45:45

Try a different set of muscles,

45:47

right? Sydney Lumet, Sydney Pollock, a

45:49

couple of Sydney's out here, right,

45:51

who he admires, who are more

45:53

guys who kind of do a

45:55

lot of stuff, you know, like,

45:57

right? Like those are not filmmakers

45:59

where you're like, yeah, they're gonna

46:01

make the same sort of movie.

46:03

drama is in a grown-up movie.

46:05

And also, like, you know, Spielberg

46:07

growing up, like, coveting people like

46:09

Hawks and Ford. who made like

46:11

six studio movies a year and

46:13

they'd finish one and the studio

46:15

head would be like, here's a

46:18

book, adapt this, you know, and

46:20

it's just like, this is the

46:22

assignment, you're handed. Like those kinds

46:24

of assignment directors were able to

46:26

elevate the material but would just

46:28

kind of serve it and be

46:30

like, here's another one off the

46:32

factory line, and some of them

46:34

hit. He's always had such a

46:36

like, he covets those people and

46:38

those types of careers and the

46:40

flexibility in the range of what

46:42

they were able to make. You

46:44

could see him going like this

46:46

is my chance to do that

46:48

kind of thing. It's an epistolary

46:50

novel as we know, as readers

46:52

of the book. These two haven't

46:54

read it. Guess they don't want

46:56

to, you know, experience literature. Alice

46:58

Walker was letters. It's a bunch

47:00

of letters. Which of course is

47:03

in the movie, you know, discovery

47:05

of letters and stuff becomes important.

47:07

Alice Walker, she was an editor

47:09

at Ms magazine. and had written

47:11

this big essay about Nora Zielherston

47:13

that helped revive Nora Neelherston. Okay,

47:15

I was like, who's that? Jay

47:17

Jay, you are legitimately fired. Laura

47:19

Zielherston. Nora Neelherston. Double fired. And

47:21

I guess, like the book by

47:23

coming a bestseller is somewhat of

47:25

a surprise. It's a tough book

47:27

to read. It's written in like

47:29

a vernacular. The violence is very

47:31

intense. It's very dark. It has

47:33

lesbian themes, which are, you know,

47:35

maybe less controversial literature, but still,

47:37

you know, it's like a little

47:39

out there, I guess, for 1983,

47:41

but it is a gigantic bestseller.

47:43

And Quincy Jones loves the book

47:46

and gets Peter Goober. Right, this

47:48

is the other one. It's a

47:50

Quincy Jones. The last name is

47:52

Goober. We're just accepting it. I

47:54

assume that's how you say it.

47:56

Quincy Jones gets a Goober and

47:58

Allen. Goober and Peters. John Peters.

48:00

Right. Yeah. option the book because

48:02

he wants to do the he

48:04

wants Quincy Jones is like I

48:06

must do the music no Quincy

48:08

no like the guys he hires

48:11

the producing team who four

48:13

years later are shepherding Batman

48:15

and Warner brothers are just

48:18

kind of like the big

48:20

like swing and dick

48:22

Hollywood producers at the time

48:24

you know I don't know if Swing and

48:26

Dicks were right for this product. No, no.

48:28

No, but it speaks to, it's just

48:30

like, let's just get all the heavy

48:33

weights. And so people want to be

48:35

a part of it. Kathleen Kennedy, legendary

48:37

producer, also reads it and gives it

48:39

to Spielberg and Spielberg, says he falls

48:41

very much in love with Seely and

48:43

is obsessed with the book and can't

48:45

stop thinking about it. Kennedy wasn't

48:47

like, you have to make this or anything,

48:49

but she was like... You know, thinking of

48:51

it as a potential thing for

48:53

him and he said, look, I'm

48:56

scared to do it, but I

48:58

kind of love that. And Quincy

49:00

Jones agrees. They had worked,

49:02

he and Spielberg had worked

49:04

on some sort of unrealized

49:06

musical together. I don't know

49:08

what it is. Not really a

49:10

panting. Okay. And. Spielberg is

49:13

saying to Quincy Jones like shouldn't

49:15

a black person direct this shouldn't

49:17

a woman direct this is reasonable

49:20

questions Quincy asks and this is

49:22

a good line by Quincy Jones

49:24

you didn't come from you didn't

49:26

have to come from Mars to do ET

49:29

did you a pretty good line it's a

49:31

good line but line so ET's not from

49:33

Mars from the green planet which

49:35

is which one's that that's what

49:37

it's called okay I believe that's the

49:39

proper name planet yeah The one he

49:42

did the interview with Vulture a couple

49:44

years ago where he says Marlon Brando

49:46

would fuck anything you'd fuck a mailbox.

49:48

Yeah. And he fucked James Baldwin, he

49:50

fucked Richard Pryor, and the guy's like,

49:52

wait, how do you know that? He

49:54

slept with this people, he says, come

49:56

on man, he didn't give a fuck.

49:58

Do you like Brazilian music? That's

50:01

lovely. It is the greatest

50:03

incremental. We're just like, do

50:05

you like Brazilian music? He's

50:07

like, what? Uh, yeah, sure.

50:10

Anyway, I just like to think

50:12

about, you know, be like, ET,

50:14

you're not from Mars and you

50:16

made ET. Do you like Brazilian

50:18

music? But the most important

50:21

person, Spielberg has to

50:23

sway. Coist, going to sea Jones,

50:25

see Jones, is on board, is

50:27

Alice Walker. And so he meets

50:29

with her. and her daughter and her

50:31

publishing partner and literary critic

50:34

named Barbara Christian and filmmaker

50:36

Belvie Rooks and the activist

50:38

Daphne Muse and this entire group

50:40

apparently is like we do not

50:42

want Steven Spielberg to make this

50:45

movie. It would be hilarious if the

50:47

names I just read to you were

50:49

all just like, Steven Spielberg seems like

50:51

a perfect choice. Would you sign our

50:53

easy posters? And especially the Spielberg

50:55

we're talking about. Like, it's like later, the

50:58

guy who made like the sort of more complex

51:00

like, you know, 2000s movies that he made like,

51:02

you might kind of be like, oh, well, he's

51:04

grown up and he's made a lot of different

51:06

kinds of movies. We're talking about the guy who

51:08

just made Raiders of Lost Dark and Alien movies

51:11

and shit, like, it's a huge leap. It's,

51:13

look, it is not a one to one,

51:15

but in the 2000s, in this sort of

51:17

similar quarter to what we're talking to what

51:19

we're talking about, Spielberg, Spielberg, Spielberg, for what

51:22

we're talking about, Spielberg for years, came, came

51:24

very close, came very close to wanting to

51:26

wanting to, and developed it and

51:28

then end up still producing

51:30

it when Rob Marshall took

51:32

over. Okay. I don't think that...

51:35

Gave it to an Asian woman,

51:37

Rob Marshall. Yes! I was like,

51:39

Rob Marshall. That's how we pronounced

51:42

that. I don't think that movie

51:44

would have turned out well. But

51:46

I'm also like, if he had,

51:49

if there had been a Steven

51:51

Spielberg memoir purple in 1985. where

51:53

at that point he's like branched out and tried a

51:55

bunch of different shit in some of it works and

51:57

some of it doesn't. Whereas at this point you're like...

52:00

Steven Spielberg's thing is figured out and

52:02

he's taking like the hardest pivot where

52:04

and this is the the other thing

52:06

about him being like I want to

52:08

be like Sidney Pollock and Sidney Lumet

52:10

and all these guys those guys like

52:12

do not have a Dominant personality and

52:14

worldview that seeps into every single corner

52:16

of their they're both like right My

52:18

job is to figure out how to

52:20

tell the story the best you can

52:22

right and like Quincy Jones is the person who

52:24

I think kind of like Convinces Sidney Lumet to

52:26

direct the whiz in the 70s in a

52:28

similar way of like this needs to be made

52:30

by a major filmmaker I'll produce this. I'll

52:32

have to be a dog to make dog day

52:35

after Yes,

52:39

but like every Spielberg movie is

52:41

just like we understand this guy's brain

52:43

his stylistic quirks What he likes

52:45

out of his collaborators Do you like

52:47

Brazilian music like the Steven Spielberg

52:49

thing is so like codified at this

52:51

point for better and worse that

52:53

for him to Then just be like

52:55

I'm just gonna try to put

52:57

it on something totally different as far

52:59

away for myself as possible is

53:01

so strange So Alice Walker's

53:03

take in in concert with

53:05

the sort of group of like intellectuals and

53:07

you know collaborators What

53:09

our experience had been with Hollywood and with what

53:12

white people do to black work? All

53:14

you have to do is go to an average movie where

53:16

you have one black person surrounded by a million white

53:18

people and you see How artificial the black character becomes and

53:20

I just didn't want that so she's anti Spielberg But

53:22

she likes Quincy Jones Probably

53:25

because he's a fun hang

53:27

and he's like yeah, just meet with

53:29

him And then she sits down with

53:31

Steven Spielberg and she really likes him now

53:33

Steven Spielberg is like a book I I

53:36

think right and sits down

53:38

Starts talking about the book in her

53:40

opinion incredibly intelligently clearly actually read

53:42

the book and cares about it. I

53:44

guess And

53:46

you know, she's very taken with him

53:48

and has confidence that he's the one

53:50

and She watches

53:53

ET and she's like fucking rocks Not

53:56

joking like she's like of all

53:59

characters being produced in Hollywood at the

54:01

time ET was the one I felt

54:03

closest to. So I look and I

54:05

also get there is like a level

54:07

of like emotional intimacy and sincerity to

54:10

ET that for how much people

54:12

are like Spielberg the manipulative the

54:14

big sweeping emotions like there is

54:17

like a smallness in ET and

54:19

him's kind of preserving the like

54:21

emotional integrity of this like very

54:24

delicate relationship in this big movie

54:26

that to her I'm sure she's

54:29

just like Look, there is a

54:31

feeling being conveyed here that this

54:33

guy knows how to create and

54:36

perhaps you could transmute this onto

54:38

a wildly different story. I

54:40

don't know if I want to feel

54:42

good when I'm watching a child be

54:44

assaulted. But I think the balance of

54:47

just like, oh, ET is able

54:49

to go into places of darkness.

54:51

Never as dark as the color

54:53

purple, you know, but like it

54:55

has this range. He's not just

54:57

dealing in like midtones. It's very

55:00

different. She does set of circumstances

55:02

with this material. She does say

55:04

that at one point Steven Spielberg later

55:06

referred to Gone With The Wind

55:08

is the greatest movie ever made and

55:11

said he loved the Butterfly McQueen character

55:13

and she said she slept poorly for

55:15

a week after that. And she thought

55:17

she was going to have to relate

55:19

to him quote to make him understand

55:21

what a nightmare gone with the wind

55:23

was to me. Yeah. So right. She's

55:25

not like he's perfect by any means

55:27

by any means. She is, however, allowed

55:30

to write the first script. Like,

55:32

she is given the first shot

55:34

of turning into screenplay. She turns in,

55:36

after three months, a draft that

55:38

gets rid of the epistolary structure,

55:40

has more sugary in the

55:43

narrative. Spielberg likes the script,

55:45

but, you know, it doesn't want to make

55:47

it. I don't know. She submitted with

55:50

an alternate title. Watch for

55:52

me in the sunset. Spielberg's

55:54

like, like, this is interesting, but

55:56

then like brings in Melissa Matheson,

55:58

who he's worked with before. And was

56:00

married to Red Hole. Was married to

56:02

Red Hole himself. Walker rejects

56:04

her. Spilberg brings in Menom and Mayez.

56:06

How do you say his last name?

56:09

Mayez? Yes. A rookie screenwriter. He had

56:11

like a spec script called Lionheart, which

56:13

eventually gets turned into a Gabriel

56:15

Burn movie. But was kind of

56:17

like a cast in situation of

56:20

like Spilberg finding this guy

56:22

and... throwing him on projects and having

56:24

him do passes on stuff. Yeah. Walker

56:26

likes him because he's Dutch and is

56:29

from like a part of Holland with

56:31

folk speech that is looked down on by

56:33

the rest of the Dutch and she said

56:35

that he really understood like sort of

56:37

like folk speech and like felt like

56:40

that this was some common ground for

56:42

them. And so he they work on

56:44

the movie together, but he has

56:46

sole screenwriting credit. It is so

56:49

weird again that you're like. The

56:51

color purple directed by Steven Spielberg,

56:53

written by a random Dutch guy

56:55

who'd never written a movie before.

56:57

Okay. And so they have this script

56:59

and yeah, you know, Spielberg's...

57:01

It's a little exasperating

57:04

because he's saying things like, I

57:06

wanted to bring Sealy's story to

57:08

a wider audience and the one

57:10

reading the book. You know, the audience

57:13

reading the book is more

57:15

female. Like, you know, I want.

57:17

We gotta change that. I get

57:19

what he's saying. Like, it's the

57:21

only way he can defend it

57:23

in a way of like, yeah, I'm, I

57:25

can, I have a launch pad to bring

57:28

a lot of attention to this,

57:30

right? Sure. Why does he get

57:32

a lot of the same

57:34

sex intimacy in Walker's novel?

57:36

I wasn't comfortable going beyond

57:39

that, he says. Well, That's

57:41

an interesting take. Yeah. You saying

57:43

is there any Spielberg movie that

57:45

has even like a hint of

57:48

queer stuff in it, right? There's

57:50

that conversation and there's the bigger

57:52

kind of tied conversation of like

57:54

sexuality in Spielberg is a very

57:56

limited spectrum. Period. There's a reason

57:58

why the Munich... comes up all

58:00

the fucking time. That's weird. As like

58:03

the weirdest sexy by someone who's never

58:05

even like heard a description of sex.

58:07

Oh no. And you watch that and

58:10

you're like. You like look at a

58:12

diagram and was like okay we're gonna

58:14

that's how we're gonna show this. But

58:17

also that he like you're like is

58:19

that the first time you actually see

58:21

two people fucking any Spielberg movie? Like

58:24

maybe? And it's like 35 years into

58:26

his career and even like you know.

58:28

Marian and Indiana Jones have a more

58:31

sexual relationship than exists in most Spielberg

58:33

movies up until that point and even

58:35

then it's very like dot dot dot

58:37

and then she accidentally knocks him out

58:40

and he wakes up with birds swinging

58:42

around his head or whatever like it's

58:44

just not a thing that really gets

58:47

touched on you could argue some of

58:49

this has to do with like these

58:51

sort of original sin of Spielberg capturing

58:54

footage of Seth Rogan holding his mom's

58:56

hand and thus having a very weird

58:58

relationship to intimacy depicted on camera. I

59:01

do think there's something there, not to

59:03

psychoanalyze, but it is just a thing.

59:05

He doesn't seem to ever have any

59:08

facility communicating. And here is a movie

59:10

where you're starting with a source material

59:12

that's like the greatest source of trauma

59:14

and this is the repeated sexual violence

59:17

perpetuated by the men and the greatest

59:19

source of like comfort and joy and

59:21

solace and belonging is the like sexual

59:24

intimacy and like required love provided by

59:26

the other women. Shug holds up a

59:28

mirror to Seeley's vagina and shows it

59:31

to her and helps her understand her

59:33

own body and whatever and like that

59:35

should be in the movie. The moment

59:38

where she goes, oh my god, you're

59:40

still a virgin. Right. It's such a

59:42

profound piece of right. And that's the

59:45

scene that Spilver claims that only Marty

59:47

Scripps. Yeah, what? I assume he kind

59:49

of means like Martin's Christie's he makes

59:51

like. R-rated movies and I don't I

59:54

guess that's for what movies with mirror

59:56

scenes He loves mirrors. Yeah, he knows

59:58

how to make you don't see the

1:00:01

camera and he's never figured that out

1:00:03

relationship with vagina? Yeah, oh yeah, God.

1:00:05

Marty, that guy, yeah, super, super, yeah.

1:00:08

But this, the like sort of, I

1:00:10

have responsibility to make this movie translate

1:00:12

to a bigger audience. There is this

1:00:15

like, and as he morphs, as he

1:00:17

stretches out, some of this gets knocked

1:00:19

out of his system, at this point

1:00:22

in his career, Spielberg is still like

1:00:24

entertainer first and foremost, even when he

1:00:26

is trying to make a more serious,

1:00:28

considered adult movie. there are like what

1:00:31

you're saying like some of the most

1:00:33

traumatic sequences in this movie he kind

1:00:35

of shoots and edits like their set

1:00:38

pieces yeah because it's just how he

1:00:40

thinks and he's so good at just

1:00:42

being like okay what's the emotion you

1:00:45

need to feel here so then if

1:00:47

the camera moves like this and I

1:00:49

caught like this and whatever then that

1:00:52

gets that across any say with the

1:00:54

music because truly the the music was

1:00:56

killing me during this movie it's also

1:00:59

so strange because I mean there am

1:01:01

I wrong in thinking The only two

1:01:03

scores that John Williams didn't do for

1:01:05

him are this and Bridge of Spies?

1:01:08

Correct. Right. And Bridge of Spies was

1:01:10

like, he's getting older, he's doing the

1:01:12

Star Wars movies, he just didn't have

1:01:15

the time. Right? And this was like,

1:01:17

well, obviously, Quincy wanted that he opt.

1:01:19

It's like in the contract. Yeah. Speaking

1:01:22

to him, he has something to say,

1:01:24

and you hear it in the score,

1:01:26

and I love Quincy Jones. Yes. Feels

1:01:29

like Quincy Jones doing a bad John

1:01:31

Williams. Yes, exactly. It's a horrendous score.

1:01:33

And it like, it has these weird

1:01:36

themes where you're like, that almost sounds

1:01:38

like Indiana Jones. Like he's trying to

1:01:40

match the Spielberg movie version of the

1:01:42

movie, which doesn't help. Well look the

1:01:45

like root of all this movie is

1:01:47

the sexual violence so I have to

1:01:49

find ways to depict this and maybe

1:01:52

it's not going to be graphic but

1:01:54

it's going to be visceral and it's

1:01:56

going to be painful but the way

1:01:59

he knows how to make his camera

1:02:01

expressive also is like theory pop art

1:02:03

yeah and then all the sort of

1:02:06

like intimacy and romance he's just like

1:02:08

can I reduce that to like one

1:02:10

scene with a kiss and I think

1:02:13

that kiss scene is very well done

1:02:15

on its own. I think that scene

1:02:17

if we took it outside of the

1:02:19

context of what it is supposed to

1:02:22

represent entirely yes I think it's like

1:02:24

beautifully acted and staged and conceived and

1:02:26

if that were the first scene that

1:02:29

leads to the start of the threat

1:02:31

of their relationship whether or not that

1:02:33

is depicted in an incredibly visual graphic

1:02:36

way but at least as textually like

1:02:38

Pointed at it? Yes. I'd be like,

1:02:40

man, he handled this well. I'm watching

1:02:43

the scene, I'm like, this is a

1:02:45

kind of intimacy I don't see in

1:02:47

his early films that we've been watching.

1:02:50

And then it's like, and that's enough

1:02:52

of that. I did it? No more.

1:02:54

Aren't you happy? Isn't that like the

1:02:56

main way she gets any type of

1:02:59

joy in her sad, sad life? And

1:03:01

then we're just like, nah, don't include

1:03:03

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Who are you? The

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Blumhouse Wolfman. I'm sorry, what? Blumhouse

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Wolfman. You're forgetting what's going to

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Blumhouse Revival. It's like a wide

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release film. It came out like

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two months ago. No even. No,

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no, it wasn't him. It was

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just Lee Wannell. Fred, who you

1:04:04

like? And you don't even remember

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that the movie exists. I didn't

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get to see it. Well, this

1:04:10

is the point. Who played you?

1:04:12

Christopher Abbott, a good actor. I

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don't like him. No one even

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recognizes me. You know what the

1:04:18

problem is? What's that? I wasn't

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really furry enough. Okay. People had

1:04:23

a lot of notes on our

1:04:25

take on the Wolfman mythology. Right.

1:04:27

Yeah, that the movie kind of

1:04:29

ends before he hits full Wolfman

1:04:31

transformations, so he's just kind of

1:04:33

a fleshy guy with some dog

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features. Is that really what goes

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on in that one? I swear

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to God everything I'm saying to

1:04:41

you right now is real. Okay,

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well, so it sounds like you

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sort of have hair thinning issues

1:04:48

your own of your own. I

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could use some hair growth. I

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could use something to really kick

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that would definitely help me because

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I think a big part of

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it is psychological, definitely. That's what

1:06:16

my doctor has been saying recently.

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Sounds like an interesting modern take

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check. Thank you so much and

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I'm just going to recommend that

1:07:08

you David Ben and all of

1:07:10

your listeners Google what I look

1:07:12

like in the movie so maybe

1:07:14

retroactively this is funnier. I sort

1:07:16

of assume there was a baseline

1:07:18

kind of cultural awareness of what

1:07:20

I was talking about. Sure. So

1:07:22

maybe just Google me and you'll

1:07:25

kind of get it more. Okay.

1:07:27

Goodbye. McDonald's

1:07:32

meets the Minecraft universe with one

1:07:34

of six collectibles and your choice

1:07:36

of a Big Mac or ten-piece

1:07:38

McNuggets with spicy netherflame sauce. Now

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available with a Minecraft movie meal.

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I participate in McDonald's for a

1:07:44

limited time on Minecraft movie only

1:07:46

in theaters. Wolfie Goldberg loved the

1:07:48

book and had written to Alice

1:07:50

Walker saying if it's ever turned

1:07:52

to a movie I want to

1:07:54

be a part of it even

1:07:56

if I just play a Venetian

1:07:58

blind. Good line. And so Walker

1:08:01

suggests Goldberg to Spielberg to Spielberg.

1:08:03

And so Spielberg goes to, he

1:08:05

doesn't know her. He goes to

1:08:07

see a stand-up performance, along with

1:08:09

Walker, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and

1:08:11

Lionel Ritchie. Cool. Just a regular

1:08:13

show, yeah. Just hanging. Was this,

1:08:15

was she on Broadway at this

1:08:17

point, or was this? I don't

1:08:19

know. I think she did this

1:08:21

for them. I think it's I

1:08:23

don't think they like went to

1:08:25

see like he was like hey

1:08:27

do a set for us. Oh

1:08:29

okay I was genuinely I was

1:08:31

like at like the stand just

1:08:33

like her kidding up comedy tip

1:08:35

your bartenders. Well she's such a

1:08:37

weird and he loves her it

1:08:39

works even though she apparently did

1:08:41

a joke about ET getting hooked

1:08:43

on dope in Oakland jail Spilberg

1:08:45

is very charmed and despite the

1:08:47

rumor that Diana Ross was the

1:08:49

first choice for this which is

1:08:51

insane to think about. He's like,

1:08:53

I want you to do it.

1:08:55

Whoopi is, like, I don't know

1:08:57

if I'm up to that. What

1:08:59

if I played Sophia, you know,

1:09:01

a supporting character, Oprah, Oprah, Oprah,

1:09:03

Oprah's character, and then eventually she's

1:09:05

like, wait, Steve's movie, he's trying

1:09:07

to cast me as the lead

1:09:09

in this, like, what is that?

1:09:11

I should just do what he

1:09:13

says, like, I'll say yes, absolutely.

1:09:15

and then launches like as you

1:09:17

were saying and will impact one

1:09:19

of the most unique careers entertainment

1:09:21

history like there is no parallel

1:09:23

to her really when you like

1:09:25

step back and go like she

1:09:27

has done everything at least twice

1:09:29

you know like it just covers

1:09:31

all of it but it is

1:09:33

such an interesting I don't know

1:09:35

I feel like this is what

1:09:37

I was trying to get at

1:09:39

earlier but like here's this woman

1:09:41

who's like basically like kind of

1:09:43

synthesizing a new form of comedy

1:09:45

at the time where you're saying

1:09:47

like She's referred to as a

1:09:49

comedian, but she was like more

1:09:51

doing character stuff, but would also

1:09:53

do monologues. She like can recite

1:09:55

jokes, but was very quickly doing

1:09:57

like longer form kind of. pieces

1:09:59

and then becomes like a sensation

1:10:01

has like this one woman off

1:10:03

Broadway show that keeps growing and

1:10:05

growing but I think there was

1:10:07

like you read the reviews of

1:10:09

the time people go like how

1:10:11

could you translate this like Whoopi

1:10:13

Goldberg is so her own universe

1:10:15

she is so complete just leaving

1:10:18

her alone on stage for two

1:10:20

hours she can create like you know

1:10:22

an entire reality. What is the

1:10:24

proper vehicle for her? You don't

1:10:26

put her on a fucking sitcom,

1:10:28

you know? Like, what's the movie

1:10:31

you make for her? To then

1:10:33

do this big swing to put

1:10:35

her in this dramatic role that

1:10:37

is so quiet and so reactive

1:10:40

and is like 90% just her

1:10:42

face and is so underplayed and

1:10:44

is like 90% just her face

1:10:46

and is so underplayed. Yeah. And

1:10:48

is so underplayed. Right. I'm just

1:10:50

going to like follow all my

1:10:52

own ways. Yeah. Is that what happens

1:10:54

in theater, Rick? I think so. Yeah.

1:10:56

Yeah. What'd be very intimidated

1:10:59

on set doesn't, says she really didn't

1:11:01

know what the hell she was doing,

1:11:03

said Spielberg and her had a bond

1:11:05

over like movie nerdery. So he would

1:11:07

be like, hey, Dubu Radley, when he

1:11:09

gets caught in to kill mocking. And

1:11:11

she knew what that was. Or like.

1:11:13

Do Indiana Jones finding the girl at

1:11:15

the end? Like what he would like reference

1:11:18

things for her and she would recognize that.

1:11:20

He was as encyclopedic as he was of

1:11:22

watching every single movie that would like air

1:11:24

on television and do gas light. Like when

1:11:27

Danny Glover's being insane to her, do gas

1:11:29

light and she apparently would like be like,

1:11:31

yep, I know what you're talking about. What's

1:11:33

crazy about it to me is that like

1:11:36

on paper is like, this is how you

1:11:38

shouldn't direct. Yes. Right. Right. that he is

1:11:40

flexible enough to be like, what do I

1:11:42

need to help this person? Here's someone who

1:11:45

is like undeniably as powerful a performer

1:11:47

as anyone on the planet, but also

1:11:49

has not had to act within this

1:11:51

context and this structure, has not had

1:11:53

to play a role like this before,

1:11:55

has not been on a shoot like

1:11:57

this before, and he's just like, oh, you know

1:11:59

what? I point to a scene and go,

1:12:01

like, you know the face that Kerry

1:12:04

Grant makes in that moment? Can you

1:12:06

do that? She actually is able to

1:12:08

replicate that in a way that isn't

1:12:10

hollow, can access the real emotion from

1:12:12

the surface level, request of what I

1:12:14

want? That's fantastic. Like, I know Whoopi

1:12:16

Goldberg, just as someone who's watched the

1:12:18

movies and has seen the view. So

1:12:20

to hear this stuff, I'm like, yes,

1:12:23

she's cool. I was compared to film

1:12:25

school. I was the only black girl

1:12:27

in my class. I had locks and

1:12:29

they were just like, you're Whoopi Goldberg.

1:12:31

So they just called me Whoopi Goldberg

1:12:33

all the time. What the fuck? You

1:12:35

must have loved that. Oh, it was

1:12:37

definitely interesting. And they also, because I

1:12:40

lived in a decent apartment based on

1:12:42

a scholarship thing, they're like, oh, the

1:12:44

only reason you would have money is

1:12:46

that your dad is Sam Jackson. That

1:12:48

would have a daughter that looks like

1:12:50

me. His last name is Mobley. Yeah,

1:12:52

his last name is definitely Mobley. Right.

1:12:54

They don't like to talk about it

1:12:56

very much. It's all thing. Sure. Yeah.

1:12:59

So to hear that she's like cool

1:13:01

as hell, there is a bit of,

1:13:03

I don't like reclamation of that where

1:13:05

I'm like, I don't know, she is

1:13:07

pretty cool. Okay. They could have called

1:13:09

me Whoopi. But if they had known

1:13:11

that, not just because I had Locksin

1:13:13

was black. What I find so interesting

1:13:16

about Whoa. There are all these stories

1:13:18

of like when she wanted to do

1:13:20

Star Trek, right? Like next gen is

1:13:22

happening. And she goes to her agent

1:13:24

and she's like, I want to be

1:13:26

on Star Trek. And he's like, you're

1:13:28

Whoopi Gold. You can't be on Star

1:13:30

Trek. You're not going to be a

1:13:33

guest star on Star Trek. Now I

1:13:35

want to be a guest star on

1:13:37

Star Trek. Now I want to be

1:13:39

on Star Trek. Now I want to

1:13:41

be a guest star on Star Trek.

1:13:43

You're going to like damage your legacy.

1:13:45

Right. Because it wasn't even like I

1:13:47

want to be a guest star on

1:13:49

one episode. She's like, can I have

1:13:52

like a recurring part? We're not trying

1:13:54

you down to a fucking contract on

1:13:56

Star Trek. I don't know. Sounds pretty

1:13:58

cool. Let's do it. But she just

1:14:00

totally was like, you know what I

1:14:02

want to do? shit I want to

1:14:04

do. And I feel like she'll do

1:14:06

these interviews now, much like Quincy Jones,

1:14:09

one of the best interviewers, will just

1:14:11

say wild shit and now has a

1:14:13

TV show where she just says wild

1:14:15

shit every day. And in some ways,

1:14:17

that does sometimes abstract her of like,

1:14:19

what's whoopies deal? She's just like some

1:14:21

kind of like woman who just says

1:14:23

crazy shit and then like pops up

1:14:25

and does stuff. But you're like, no,

1:14:28

she's done everything. And like, she's done

1:14:30

everything. prestige in that way? I think

1:14:32

that she was just like, I don't

1:14:34

give a shit, I'm gonna like host

1:14:36

the Oscars, I'm gonna do this, I

1:14:38

like cartoons, I like whatever, and you're

1:14:40

like, she like broke eight million doors,

1:14:42

but in a way that just kind

1:14:45

of makes it feel like, oh yeah,

1:14:47

and like Whoopi Goldberg is like the

1:14:49

American flag. She's just like an object

1:14:51

that we look at. You know? You

1:14:53

know, it's always doing something. Like I

1:14:55

feel like, like, our like, like doing

1:14:57

something famous people. There are 10. Right.

1:14:59

It's like Whoopi Goldberg, Danny DeVito, Arnold

1:15:01

Schwarzenegger. Like who are the people who

1:15:04

could exist in both the Academy Awards

1:15:06

and the Kids Choice Awards? Those are

1:15:08

the 10 people where you're like, and

1:15:10

a lot of them, part of it

1:15:12

is just like, they don't look like

1:15:14

anyone else. They have an interesting name.

1:15:16

Yes. They appear in all kinds of

1:15:18

things, you know, they'll be in commercials

1:15:21

and also like cartoons and whatever. Yes.

1:15:23

Yes. She is the one he consoles.

1:15:25

Yes. The Roerger. Yeah. But I feel

1:15:27

like that's kind of, I don't want

1:15:29

to say taken away from her, but

1:15:31

people are like, oh yeah, I guess

1:15:33

like it would be Albert. Yeah, but

1:15:35

they don't put her on the pedestal

1:15:37

that she deserves to be on. Yes.

1:15:40

And now she's just on the view

1:15:42

and I feel like she says something

1:15:44

out of pocket every day and everyone's

1:15:46

just like, oh whoopies crazy, who cares,

1:15:48

takes a limo, I guess, too, too,

1:15:50

and from, and from, and from, and,

1:15:52

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:15:54

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:15:57

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:15:59

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:16:01

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:16:03

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:16:05

and, and, and, and, and Whoopee! It

1:16:07

is an incredible... What's a real name?

1:16:09

Sorry? Elaine Johnson? Karen Elaine Johnson. What?

1:16:11

Yeah. Karen Elaine... I mean, Whoopi Goldberg

1:16:13

is an incredible... How did she get

1:16:16

the Goldberg? I think it's part of

1:16:18

her family. Like, there's some, like, uh,

1:16:20

forbear, uh, although then she did the

1:16:22

Henry Lewis Gates Junior show and he

1:16:24

was like, we didn't find any gold.

1:16:26

But she claimed that it was. Okay.

1:16:28

We could all claim stuff. Let's do

1:16:30

it. Yeah. She got Whoopi from Whoopi.

1:16:33

Like, Whoopi. Danny Glover cast largely he

1:16:35

was in he's in pieces in the

1:16:37

places in the heart pieces in the

1:16:39

heart pieces in the heart That's a

1:16:41

weird movie places in the heart Spielberg

1:16:43

loved that performance casting without an audition

1:16:45

Glover says Glover grew up in San

1:16:47

Francisco not in the South, but he

1:16:50

was the first generation in his family

1:16:52

to do so his family is from

1:16:54

Georgia He would spend every summer going

1:16:56

back to Georgia working on the farm.

1:16:58

Quincy Jones I just want to say,

1:17:00

84 places in the heart. In 1985,

1:17:02

Witness Silverado and the Color Purple. Wow!

1:17:04

He's the villain and witness. But he

1:17:06

basically, like, 1979, inmate and escape from

1:17:09

Alcatraz. You know, like three or four

1:17:11

tells you've never heard of, and then

1:17:13

it's like, he's in one movie that

1:17:15

like gets on the Oscar radar, the

1:17:17

next year he's in three big movies,

1:17:19

two years after that lethal weapon. It's

1:17:21

like, it was this incredible, he's a

1:17:23

nice. He's 39 in this. Mostly a

1:17:26

stage actor, but mostly a stage actor

1:17:28

and then it's just sort of immediately

1:17:30

identified as like yeah movie star I

1:17:32

guess so, he's a very interesting movie

1:17:34

star in a way. I love Danny

1:17:36

Glover, he's one of my favorite actions.

1:17:38

So wait, when he was too old

1:17:40

for this shit, he was only like

1:17:42

43? He's not that old. He's younger.

1:17:45

He's like 41. Oh God. But he

1:17:47

looks too old for the shit, you

1:17:49

believe it. You do. Great acting. Great

1:17:51

acting. The last 30 minutes of this

1:17:53

movie, when they shave his hair aligned

1:17:55

back, you just see that he's cool.

1:17:57

Well, also, when they age him up

1:17:59

in this movie, you're just like, this

1:18:02

looks like Daniel Glover. 2000 is a

1:18:04

reality. That's exactly it. I was like,

1:18:06

Royal Timboms, Danny Glover, right there. Boom.

1:18:08

I see it. He's so fucking funny

1:18:10

in the Royal. Yes. But like there's

1:18:12

the famous. Who calls him cold tree?

1:18:14

He knows. He's so much love so

1:18:16

much. He's so old. Right. He was

1:18:18

80 for a long time to me.

1:18:21

Yes, right. And he was like, and

1:18:23

then when he caught up to looking

1:18:25

as old as he looked in the

1:18:27

exercise, it's like, let's get you back

1:18:29

in the movie. Danny Glover weirdly had

1:18:31

the opposite thing where they like age

1:18:33

him up in this and people were

1:18:35

like, wait, do you want to play

1:18:38

older all the time? That's the dream.

1:18:40

Quincy Jones at one point is catching

1:18:42

a red eye for some. He's in

1:18:44

Chicago. He's in Chicago. He turns on

1:18:46

the TV. He's a show called A.

1:18:48

He's a show called A. He's a

1:18:50

show called A. A. A. A. A.

1:18:52

A. A. calls Stephen Spielberg. Quincy Jones

1:18:54

really was kind of wild for this

1:18:57

one because like all of his choices

1:18:59

make sense. You're like, yeah, Whoopi, Goldberg,

1:19:01

Danny Glover, these are great choices. But

1:19:03

like imagine being Stephen Spielberg being like,

1:19:05

all right, how do I get my

1:19:07

handle on this like black lesbian drama

1:19:09

set in the South? And Quincy Joe's

1:19:11

like, I'm watching this local Chicago TV

1:19:14

like fucking daytime modes. She's perfect for

1:19:16

Sophia. We're gonna cast her. She's like,

1:19:18

like, okay. She'd never written in a

1:19:20

movie. she found being in a movie

1:19:22

really difficult like it's not like Oprah

1:19:24

Winfrey was like a natural actor like

1:19:26

you know and she talks about like

1:19:28

how tough it was like hey your

1:19:31

role is like being insulted being hit

1:19:33

and then being like catatonic yeah like

1:19:35

you know all all fucked up oh

1:19:37

the makeup in this movie is the

1:19:39

way like they make the The son

1:19:41

of Danny Glover Harpo. Harpo. Yes. Oh

1:19:43

Harpo and yeah. Oh first production company.

1:19:45

Yes. Yes. He just he ran with

1:19:47

that his makeup. when he's supposed to

1:19:50

be old made me laugh out loud

1:19:52

at the movie and I'm like that

1:19:54

is not what I'm supposed to be

1:19:56

getting from the scene but they put

1:19:58

a ball cap on him where you

1:20:00

can see the seam of it they

1:20:02

just like kind of put wrinkles around

1:20:04

their eyes to be like look they're

1:20:07

old now and I'm like but they're

1:20:09

oh okay so he looks he looks

1:20:11

insane he looks truly like who put

1:20:13

this wig on this man did they

1:20:15

hire people that knew how to do

1:20:17

wigs like you're like what? Lon Cheney

1:20:19

like it looks very like you know

1:20:21

I understand we are trying to like

1:20:23

show the lasting physical scars of this

1:20:26

woman's like experience and the indignity she

1:20:28

suffered, but it is like stylized in

1:20:30

a way that looks universal monster It's

1:20:32

like the substance that's what I got

1:20:34

from her eye prosthetics in that movie

1:20:36

But she does this, she does noble

1:20:38

son and then doesn't do a movie

1:20:40

until beloved, sorry, native son, and then.

1:20:43

It becomes, I mean, she becomes Oprah.

1:20:45

Right, becomes Oprah, but also it's just

1:20:47

like, movies are tough. I don't need

1:20:49

to do that again. Yeah, I don't

1:20:51

like. So she tries to do Beloved

1:20:53

where it's also black thing? That's what's,

1:20:55

it's, I find it interesting, right? Beloved

1:20:57

is her doing the Quincy Jones thing.

1:20:59

It's her making kind of kind of

1:21:02

the same kind of the same decision.

1:21:04

I think I can get this top

1:21:06

book made into a movie. I can

1:21:08

protect someone else from fucking up. My

1:21:10

choice is this incredibly talented white director

1:21:12

who's not like again connected to the

1:21:14

south or like you know this sort

1:21:16

of heritage or but he's got empathy

1:21:19

in space. But he's a good director.

1:21:21

And it's like the result again is

1:21:23

a movie we're like this is well

1:21:25

made. It's not bad. No. But why

1:21:27

was this the choice? Would anyone rewatch

1:21:29

beloved? I guess you could. It's a

1:21:31

really interesting movie. I saw in theaters.

1:21:33

Like my, this is important. Right. We're

1:21:35

going to go see the stories. So

1:21:38

it was like, Jesus, do you hate

1:21:40

me? What? And it is? I mean,

1:21:42

you must have been like 12 years

1:21:44

old. Yeah, I know. That's all I'm

1:21:46

like, is my mom mad at me?

1:21:48

Did the directors hate me? Sure. and

1:21:50

counterpoint to this movie where it's sort

1:21:52

of like what you were saying David

1:21:55

of like that's a movie that is

1:21:57

like okay we're not going to do

1:21:59

like magical uplift yes and instead it

1:22:01

is just like punishing and like very

1:22:03

difficult to watch and thus like has

1:22:05

no cultural permanence whatsoever, like did not

1:22:07

translate. But then she like is so

1:22:09

burned out by that experience that she's

1:22:11

like, I'm not gonna do a movie

1:22:14

again. It's just fascinating to me that

1:22:16

it's like, Oprah just like quietly gets

1:22:18

an Academy Award nomination for her first

1:22:20

performance ever, then becomes the most like

1:22:22

important woman in media, right becomes I

1:22:24

think like the first black billionaire period.

1:22:26

And then like over 10 years later

1:22:28

is like it is my responsibility to

1:22:31

try to do this again Yeah, and

1:22:33

was like this sucks I hate it

1:22:35

Why are we doing that? I don't

1:22:37

want to do the same good for

1:22:39

her and it was like oh, it's

1:22:41

weird Oprah was in like two movies

1:22:43

And then the last decade she's just

1:22:45

a quietly like done a handful of

1:22:48

phones. Yeah, she started acting and she's

1:22:50

really good. She's really good. She's always

1:22:52

good easier though like in small and

1:22:54

smaller Yeah, but hey wrinkling time is

1:22:56

a really big role. She's a really

1:22:58

big role. She's like a really big

1:23:00

role. She's like a giant Have

1:23:04

you seen that movie? No. Can

1:23:06

he's tallest Oprah, you'll ever see

1:23:08

in your life? The tallest Oprah?

1:23:10

Okay. The tallest Oprah. You're talking.

1:23:12

I don't know, like 800 feet?

1:23:14

800! These are like a giant.

1:23:16

Yeah, like a true giant. So.

1:23:18

Taller than a skyscraper? Fieldbring and

1:23:20

Jones want Tina Tina Turner to

1:23:22

play Shoe. is like, I fucking

1:23:24

lived that shit, bro. I fucking

1:23:26

was married to Ike Turner. I

1:23:28

do not want to make that

1:23:30

movie. I'm gonna go make Mad

1:23:32

Maxey off Thunderdome, literally. That was

1:23:34

what she doesn't live. Underdome. Thunderdome,

1:23:36

yeah. That's a new experience. Spilberg,

1:23:38

apparently, Spilberg had worked with Margaret

1:23:40

Avery. She's in something evil. And,

1:23:42

uh... Like apparently didn't even remember

1:23:44

and no one was even that

1:23:46

excited about her, but I mean

1:23:48

it's an incredible performance. Mostly a

1:23:50

TV theater actor at this point.

1:23:52

Yeah, it's incredible in it. The

1:23:54

movie cost about $15 million. Spielberg

1:23:56

accepted only a minimum salary. Yay!

1:23:58

So double of him. Yes. It

1:24:00

was shot in North Carolina where

1:24:02

you grew up. Set in Georgia,

1:24:05

of course, the color of her

1:24:07

was set in Georgia, but as

1:24:09

Kenny's told me, it was shot

1:24:11

in North Carolina, and she's right.

1:24:13

And it was heavily storyboarded, just

1:24:15

like all Spielberg movies. Alan Davia,

1:24:17

who shot ET, shot it. His

1:24:19

first instinct was to shoot in

1:24:21

black and white. Then he was

1:24:23

like, I'm being a coward, that's

1:24:25

me sugar coating it more. Like

1:24:27

me fearing the violence even more,

1:24:29

trying to distance it even more.

1:24:31

So he doesn't do that. So

1:24:33

here's an interesting thing. He talks

1:24:35

a lot about on Finler's list,

1:24:37

which is the movie where he

1:24:39

succeeds finally in like making the

1:24:41

transition that he's trying to make

1:24:43

on this film and on Empire

1:24:45

of the Sun, right? Where he's

1:24:47

like, how do I make the

1:24:49

movie that is actually like staring

1:24:51

reality in the face that isn't

1:24:53

caught up in like... I don't

1:24:55

even run out candy coding. Yes,

1:24:57

and he's dealing with serious issues

1:24:59

and pain and what have you

1:25:01

not entertainment first and foremost And

1:25:03

that movie he talks about that

1:25:05

he was like I had to

1:25:07

let go of storyboards I didn't

1:25:09

want to be like Mathematical about

1:25:11

it. I would like show up

1:25:13

and I would feel it out

1:25:15

and it was improvisatory and I

1:25:17

think part of that for him

1:25:19

was that he was just like

1:25:21

I need to like be connected

1:25:23

to the actual emotions of this

1:25:25

thing which is not a thing

1:25:27

that happened to his people that

1:25:29

he perhaps has a greater psychic

1:25:31

connection to and he's filming in

1:25:33

similar spaces and all of this

1:25:35

right it's exactly what you're saying

1:25:37

of like Spielberg's sitting down with

1:25:39

the script and being like okay

1:25:41

so how do we shoot the

1:25:43

father raping yeah and like storyboarding

1:25:45

it might be like the beginning

1:25:48

of the problem where even if

1:25:50

he's kind of making good choices

1:25:52

thinking about it that clinically? Yes.

1:25:54

Which isn't to say he shouldn't

1:25:56

have like planned out shots. Yes,

1:25:58

but where it's like this will

1:26:00

match this exactly versus What is

1:26:02

the feeling, how do we best

1:26:04

portray, what is happening in front

1:26:06

of the camera? Because Spielberg's problem

1:26:08

at this point in his time

1:26:10

is that he is too entertaining

1:26:12

and he is too good of

1:26:14

a communicator, right? It is what

1:26:16

makes people go like, is this

1:26:18

all just like manipulative bullshit? When

1:26:20

people are starting to tire of

1:26:22

the Spielberg thing, of like, you

1:26:24

know, he's got to pull up

1:26:26

the heartstrings every fucking time, he's

1:26:28

got to have the moments of

1:26:30

awe and wonder and all this

1:26:32

sort of shit. It is so

1:26:34

hard for him to not turn

1:26:36

something into a moment of like

1:26:38

grand a static movie magic That

1:26:40

he does need to like figure

1:26:42

out how to I don't know

1:26:44

like tie his arms behind his

1:26:46

back to some degree Yeah, and

1:26:48

be more of an interpreter Talk

1:26:50

about the movie versus an orchestrator.

1:26:52

Yeah, I mean it just it

1:26:54

comes up right from the beginning

1:26:56

because you're like thrown into the

1:26:58

deep end of like some of

1:27:00

the most extreme shit in the

1:27:02

movie like To me, the thing

1:27:04

that stuck with me most is

1:27:06

this cheesy, sappy score plus the

1:27:08

voiceover narration, which I'm like, I

1:27:10

don't know, do they have to

1:27:12

make her sound like that? Whatever,

1:27:14

okay. But that over blood baby

1:27:16

being taken, a dad saying, don't

1:27:18

tell your mom, like that, it

1:27:20

just... You have so much, so

1:27:22

quickly, there is a real, like,

1:27:24

you know, this character lives in

1:27:26

hell, and we're like speed running

1:27:29

through it. Yes. And even to

1:27:31

a degree, you know that it's

1:27:33

like, this movie stars Whoopi Goldberg.

1:27:35

We're still on the young version

1:27:37

of her. It takes 30 minutes,

1:27:39

I think, I want to say,

1:27:41

before you get to Whoopi. Yeah.

1:27:43

And so you're just like, man,

1:27:45

there's like a lot to get

1:27:47

through. That little girl goes through

1:27:49

a lot of pain. A ton

1:27:51

before the movie's really going to

1:27:53

kind of begin in earnest. Yes.

1:27:55

It's the kind of thing that

1:27:57

in a book you can take

1:27:59

longer to sort of thing that

1:28:01

in a book. through which it

1:28:03

just is is overwhelming but yes

1:28:05

you set up this woman The

1:28:07

abusive father has, father two children

1:28:09

with her, has taken him away,

1:28:11

and then is basically sold off

1:28:13

into marriage to Danny Glover, who

1:28:15

is interested in her sister, not

1:28:17

in her. Who's like 12? Yes.

1:28:19

And her abusive father is like,

1:28:21

take the older one. Yeah. She's

1:28:23

separated from her sister, who's her

1:28:25

closest tie in life. Her only

1:28:27

friend? Yes. Her, her, her, her,

1:28:29

like... kind of her entire life,

1:28:31

like her entire grounding force. The

1:28:33

guy who plays her father, Leonard

1:28:35

Jackson, is very like indelible to

1:28:37

me. And I think it's because

1:28:39

he's in like Sesame Street a

1:28:41

lot and like for Shining Time

1:28:43

Station. He was a lot of

1:28:45

like, wow. He watched as a

1:28:47

little kid because I was watching

1:28:49

it being like, who is this

1:28:51

guy? His face is so familiar,

1:28:53

like I really know this guy

1:28:55

and that's what I think I

1:28:57

know him best from. Anyway, carry

1:28:59

on. There's split up, there's this

1:29:01

sort of like we'll communicate through

1:29:03

letters, that's how I'll let you

1:29:05

know that I'm still alive, the

1:29:07

device of the book, but that's

1:29:09

basically the 30-minute mark, not to

1:29:12

say we're past all of that,

1:29:14

right? But like at 30 minutes

1:29:16

you get to like, here's Whoopi,

1:29:18

now she's grown up, she's stuck

1:29:20

in a fucking horrible situation, she

1:29:22

hasn't spoken to her sister in

1:29:24

10 years. She doesn't seem to

1:29:26

just... It is what she plays

1:29:28

incredibly well, I think, is someone

1:29:30

who basically as a survival mechanism

1:29:32

has just kind of... It's interesting.

1:29:34

There's like the two sides of

1:29:36

like, you know, Oprah plays Sophia

1:29:38

as this sort of like, zombie-like

1:29:40

despondence, right? Like as much as

1:29:42

she is trying to like turn

1:29:44

herself off to insulate herself from

1:29:46

the pain of her reality, where

1:29:48

she gets too ultimately in the

1:29:50

movie in the movie. there is

1:29:52

this feeling of like great sorrow

1:29:54

within her that she carries that

1:29:56

she's trying to like I don't

1:29:58

muzzle so it doesn't overtake her

1:30:00

right Whereas Whoopi, it's almost just

1:30:02

sort of like, how do I put it?

1:30:04

She's just trying to like

1:30:06

disengage, right? She shut herself

1:30:09

off entirely. She's like completely

1:30:11

closed down because it is

1:30:13

only pain outside of that.

1:30:15

It's very sad. It's my insight

1:30:18

into that situation. But

1:30:20

there is this Spielbergian

1:30:22

nostalgia for the childhood

1:30:24

nonetheless. The hand clapping, the

1:30:27

singing, and the stuff like that,

1:30:29

you know. Visually, it reminds me a

1:30:31

lot of, what is it, daughters of the dust?

1:30:33

Oh, yeah, an incredible movie. Yeah, which

1:30:35

is visually striking and it comes

1:30:37

later, but there's visual similarities and

1:30:39

it's just interesting to watch daughters

1:30:42

of the dust and be like, oh, look how

1:30:44

this is evocative of a whole thing. And there

1:30:46

it's like, I don't know if this is like right

1:30:48

for child rape, I don't. Daughters of the

1:30:50

Dust is an interesting movie to talk

1:30:52

about because that's Julie Dash. That's like

1:30:54

one of the first movies directed by

1:30:57

a black woman in America. Like that's

1:30:59

naturally realistic. Because I think the first movie

1:31:01

directed by a black woman is a dry

1:31:03

white season. But that's um, use in policy

1:31:05

who's French or whatever. But like that's how

1:31:08

unusual it was for a black woman to

1:31:10

make a movie. Like period. Daughters of the

1:31:12

Dust is amazing. Yes. But it's... You know,

1:31:14

it's an art film, it's

1:31:16

kind of light on plot,

1:31:18

it's very experiential, it's in

1:31:20

this sort of gala dialect,

1:31:23

so it's like, you know, it's,

1:31:25

it's like not a commercial film.

1:31:27

It's like a memory piece. Julie

1:31:29

Dash never gets to make another

1:31:31

like, you know, movie like that

1:31:34

again, you know, all that. She

1:31:36

should be making, like, or whatever,

1:31:38

like, or whatever, like, Yeah, instead

1:31:40

like when there's the hand clapping that

1:31:42

this motif that's over put to the