Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) - Luc Besson | Houselights #260

Transcript

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) - Luc Besson | Houselights #260 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Tonight, we finish our Luke Bisson retrospective from the nineties
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: with The Messenger, the story of Joan of Arc from
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine. In this film, Bisson traded super green
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: DJs for medieval battlefields and tried to reconcile his love
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of kinetic action with the weight of historical martyrdom. It's
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: a violent, operatic and unusual take on jon of Arc
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: that asks whether divine voices are inspiration or delusion? With me,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: who's burning with conviction and ready to charge into battle
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: on a moment's notice with a ridiculous haircut Darren Moser
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and channeling serious Hoffmann vibes, with judgmental energy, skepticism and
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: refusing to let anyone off easy is John Mills. The
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Messenger means every vision from God comes with a side
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: of trauma, and every victory just brings you closer to
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the French. Let's hear voices, crown a King and steal
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: some ideas from Catherine Bigelow. This is Houselights. Love it,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: love it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, Let's get into Luke Bison's attempt to deconstruct a medieval,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: religious ish sort of war. Things Yeah, let's see how
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: this one goes, because I mean, you know, all cars
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: on the table, everybody who's listening to this knows you've
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: got some serious fans of Kingdom of Heaven here, and
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: so it's like, I can't help but come into this
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: one after missing it all of these years, to be like,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: all right, let's see Bison's take on a similar.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Sort of topic, right, And so yeah, this came out
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: in ninety nine. This was directed by Bissan and co
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: written by himself and Andrew Berkin. Stars mil Yojovivich, John Malkovich,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Fade Doun Away, Dustin Hoffman. Cinematography was by Tierra Arbagast again,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: music by Eric Sarah again, editing by Sylvie Landra and
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: it is run its run time, it's one hundred and
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: fifty eight minutes, and it was the main location was
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: the Czech Republic. So you guys, is this is this
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: all our first times watching this movie?
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I think so, I think, okay.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: For me, this was something that I was very glad
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: that we did the House of Bissan because the main
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: reason why I wanted to do the House of Bisson
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: was obviously the fifth element. As we've talked about but
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: also because I wanted an excuse to watch The Messenger.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Now I know that I don't need an excuse to
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: watch The Messenger, but you know how it goes with
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: so many missing frames, like you need sometimes you just
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: need that extra motivation in order to get the job done.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: Tiny bit of peer pressure from my pens.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Just you know, my mom said it was bad, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's good. Take that if this is the one
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: lesson you guys could take away from this, it's peer
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: pressure is good sometimes. And so with this one, this
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: one was one thing that I always wanted to watch
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: because when I saw the trailer, I was like, oh, okay,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: so they're going with an angle where like maybe she's crazy,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: you know, like maybe she's she's a little off kilter,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: maybe she's unhinged, which is an interesting take. I'm not
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: saying it's correct. I'm not saying that's what. I'm not
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: saying it's factual. I'm just saying it's an interesting take
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: because we've seen this is the first time a French
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: filmmaker has shot an English version of Joan of Arc
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and so that in itself is interesting. And so Darren,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: what did you know about this movie? Before you saw
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: it now.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: Very very little.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: I mean I think I peaked at the cast list,
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: and I knew the cover from walking by it at Blockbuster,
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: which I think is many movies that you know of
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: but don't haven't seen. That's how you're exposed to it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I didn't. I mean, I was pretty sure
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: she was gonna get burned at the end like that.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: You kind of can't tell the story and not have
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: that happen. Inkling, So I mean, I do. That's okay,
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: that's the end point. What's the beginning point? How are
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: we gonna go? But I think watching it, like you said,
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: Tristan as a part of house Lights is also good
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: because we can look at it kind of seeped in
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: the bisonness of it, like going from Fifth Element to
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: this seeing again the epicness, I'll say with a pause,
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: because it is epic, but it's.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Also completely different than Fifth Element.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: Like Fifth Element and This are like one are the
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: pictures of Think of like Wednesday, where you have one
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: in black and one in like multicolor, and they're like
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: we're sisters or roommates and it's gonna be weird. That's
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: these two movies because they are so different. But the
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: only thing I want to say from the beginning to
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: get it out there. There were some parts of this
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: movie where I had a really hard time not remember
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: and imagining Sir Lancelot charging through the Castle of Python
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: and Holy Grail, not where he's running up to the door,
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: but like when he's just like killing and I'm like, Okay,
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: I know I'm supposed to take this scene seriously, but
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: I just picture him in the background of these shots
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: and it's making me laugh.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: So I just want to get that out there.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: That's I think that's completely fair, because you're talking about
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: how bisan this is. What's interesting about this in specific
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: is it's always a welcome change to say, oh, here's
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: a director that's not known for an historical epic mindset.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: There are certain rules to in historical epic that any
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: director knows, like any human being on the planet, I'm
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: going to do a historical epic. Everybody's like, Okay, I
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: already have the template. I know how this is gonna work, okay,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: And I know how the battle scene's going to be staged,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: and I know how the camera's gonna go, and I
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: know and there's gonna be some guy in the background
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: where I'm gonna see that the blows aren't happening right,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: and I gotta consciously not look at him. You know
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: that's not going right. But I think that it's exciting
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: to say, Oh, Luke Bissan, you look at you, look
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: at Leyon, you look at the fifth element. You're like, Oh,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: what is this cat going to bring to this? That's
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: super interesting. But I think that in all honesty and
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: you talking about the battle scenes, where it really jumped
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: out for me was the battle scenes was sometimes you
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: need to look at somebody's style and say, is this
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: really the right change for the approach to this material,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: because unfairly or not, I have a certain expectation for
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: how these battles are going to look and how big
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: they're going to feel. And if there's anything that this
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: movie suffers from in those moments is nothing feels big.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: And that's just Bisan style, you know, the way he
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: frames things, the way he approaches the matter. Nothing looked big.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Nothing tricked my eye to think that this was more
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: than you know, a couple hundred people putting on armor
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: play acting a battle. I didn't feel like I was
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: lost in this giant morass of violence like in Brave
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Heart which came out a few years before, or you
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: know the I made reference the Kingdom of Heaven before.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: You know, like the battles in that are just overwhelming,
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: but you still get the sense of like, oh wow,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: when they're at the castle, you know, when they'ret the
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: battlement walls, You're like, this is huge, what's going on
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: right now? I really think that's where this movie super
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: falls down is those scenes don't deliver, and it's because
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Bisan doesn't know how to treat it and he doesn't
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: know how to make it more like his style enough
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: that I'm not caught in this weird gray middle that's
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: not satisfying in either direction. That's my take on it.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: At least well and to the point.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, whenever we're cutting back and forth between like the
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: French and the English, it again kind of felt like Python,
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: where there's they have this much of the castle and
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: they're shooting and this is where they're standing, like it
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: never feels like there's anything past your els, right, But Tristan,
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: to John's point, do you feel this is Thesan's fault
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: or is this trying to make a movie on sixty
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: ninety nine limitation.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's both, honestly, because there there are ways
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: to show expanse, there are ways to open up the
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: camera because Abergast is often praised for this movie with
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: what he does with the camera, but mainly in the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: intimate moments like when he when he's photographing Jean and
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: her competriots and everything like that, like where you you're
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: not quite sure what's real and what's imagined, what's a
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: vision and what's real. The way that he floats the camera,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: the way that he moves it is very articulate and
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: precise and guided, and with the battle scenes, you just
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: expect a little bit more. And I think it's I
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: think it is a you know, I'm not quite sure
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: if it's Okay, sixty million in ninety nine can go
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: a long way. It's I just I understand that, like
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: there's limitations to everything, but there was I mean, according
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to historical records, there could have been four thousand people
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: fighting at that first siege, and it feels like just
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: a handful of people. And part of me was just
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: kind of like, oh, this is interesting that, you know,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: like like during that first battle when they just try
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: to get over that little that little hillock of a
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: bridge where I'm just like, oh, this is cool, because
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: not every battle has to be brave heart level, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: or like last Samurai level, like we can that we
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: can save that for later. That never came, And I
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: think that was the part that was odd because what
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: was what was interesting and novel wore off and just
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: started to look cheap. Yeah, and I think it kind
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: of it kind of downgrades Jean's victory a bit like
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: her real life victory where you realize that like, just
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: like the real life Jean didn't just get lucky, like
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: she actually led these thousands of people to victory and
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: helped save France, and we just didn't really sell that
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: because we didn't get that imagery.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: And I think even beyond the imagery, I think that
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: the attempts to postmodernize her, you know, like it's a
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: worthy attempt, it's worth trying, But I think that the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: script never comes together in such a way that I
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: ever felt a strong attachment to her fate. I never
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: you know, I was rooting for her by default because
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: she's the main character. Okay, I know, I'm supposed to
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: cheer for what she's doing, and I'm on her side
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: because the movie's on her side. But then I get
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: to this situation where like, when I really think about it,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't ever feel anything for her, Like
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: everything that she goes through and I never feel anything
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: for her. And it so that I think lends itself
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: to the flatness as well is and I do I
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: blame the script because I think there were several moments
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: where the point of like, I'll go all the way
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: to the point of attack. The better introduction for Joan
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: is to have her be completely shrouded in mystery and
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: meet the Dafahn and then tell the rest of it
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: through flashback, have her tell me the story, because that
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: first twenty twenty five minutes, I'm just like, uh, you know,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: to steal another mundy Python reference, Darren, get on with it,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: you know, like please.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Also, it's also a complete fabrication, right, Like That's what
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: really got to me. That's what really got to me
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: is because like, not only are you accurate with what
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: you're saying about how like, man, that first twenty five minutes,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: you gotta get through it. You gotta get through it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Like they were establishing trauma didn't even happen on multiple levels.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: So in those first twenty five minutes, so her sister
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: was not killed by an Englishman and then posthumously defiled.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Talk about an unnecessary scene too, which was complete.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Not only was it completely unnecessary, it didn't happen. And
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: then so she didn't start getting visions until she was thirteen,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: not when we saw in the movie. And also the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: sword didn't appear to her in a valley somewhere. She
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: was on her way to sheen On when she found it,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: and she found it like when she already knew her purpose.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: And so those three, those three things are huge in
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the first twenty five minutes, and they didn't happen, right,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: And it's just like listen, her village was burned down,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: but not by the English. It was by the Burgundians.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: I know I'm saying that wrong. I know I sound
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: like an idiot. That is it Burgundian?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, because they're from Burgundy, So Burgundian would I mean,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: what are you gonna call them the bi burgundy Esques? No,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: it's Pgundians. That makes sense.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Like it was burned down obviously, it was burned down
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: by the Berkenstocks. And and so that like that's an
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: like that there was one hundred year war. This was
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: the end of a hundred year war. That's enough for
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: any Frenchman French woman to hate the English. You don't
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: need to invent a really graphic and horrible fake trauma
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: in order to give her motivation. She's French, she has
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the motivation anyway. That pissed me off. It pissed me off.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: And the thing is, it's it's a conscious attempt from
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: the filmmaker to manipulate us and to refuse to accept
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: the context of the time and give me a second here.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I know it's going to seem crazy to bring this in,
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: but there's actually an event from college that I've always
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: held on to because in an early Shakespeare class that
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: I took, there was a guy who insisted that Hamlet,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Hamlet's father must have been fake because ghosts aren't real.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: And I was the only person and I was supported
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: later by later Shakespeare teachers and stuff like that. I
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: was the only person in there that was going, like,
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: you know, Grady, it doesn't matter whether you thought goes
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: for real, whether you in the twentieth century think that
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: ghosts were real to them back then like that, you
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: can't do that, and so I take that and then
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I put it here where they're like, oh, well, it's
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: not enough for modern audiences to believe that Joan could
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: have just come to these things the way that history
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: has told them to us. We have to invent a
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: modern reason that would make somebody super angry and motivated
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: to go to war. When to your point, Tristan, I
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: think anybody nowadays, if you explained it properly, which the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: movie doesn't, after one hundred years, everybody in France was
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: ready to kill the English. They hated them, like they
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: just had had enough of them. And the movie, instead
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: of trying to establish that and show how awful everybody
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: just thought the English were, by default, transplants this thing
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: that says, well, that's not good enough. We got to
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: invent something that would piss somebody off today, and on
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: top of that, go over the top with it. And
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: it's like, that is just the wrong impulse in every
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: possible sense, because again you're discounting the fact at that
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: historically it was reason and reality to these people what
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: she was doing and why she was doing it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: You know, Miila does an amazing job in this movie.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: She is acting her heart out every moment she's on
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: because she's bringing the same energy she had in Fifth
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Element and not to play script doctor. But there was
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: never anyone else. I know, there's kind of the captains
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: a little bit, but there was never anyone else that
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: she that was on her side, that she could confide in,
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: that she could talk like.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: So in the end, she's talking to herself.
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: And not that that didn't have a lot of power
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: in it, but it was. It just felt like an
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: interesting choice for this movie to be, Okay, our heroine
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: is going to basically be alone in her entire journey,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: like at its core, and not whereas many times when
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: you have a you know, a lead character, they at
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: least have a confidant or someone they can talk to,
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: and I didn't feel anyone really fit that bill. Again,
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: I know there's a bit with the captains and other
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: things like that, but it just.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Led to a lot of internal monologuing.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Well, I think what's fascinating is that in the movies
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: quieter moments, you know, to speak to what you were
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: talking about earlier. Tristan with like the photography and the
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: quieter moments is actually quite nice. It's really well staged,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: like I My frustration for the movie really manifests in
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: how much I loved the Dustin Hoffman scenes with Yuvovich,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: because they really felt, in the most positive sense, like
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: a workshop, Like I was witnessing something real happening with actors.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: And I was like, I was really impressed with the
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: way he was shot, with the way it was shot,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: with the way it never came down on one side
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: or the other. But let you come in and say,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: is she imagining him? Who is he really? Why is
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: he talking to her this way? Why doesn't he appear
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: to other people like? But the quality of the dialogue
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: that they have is great, And I'm like, where was
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: this in the rest of the movie. And that's sort
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: of the breaking point that I had. I was sort
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: of like middling with the movie until I got that
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: and I had this really intense, like sort of like
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: snapback reaction to it where I loved it so much
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: it made me angry that I had to go through
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: the rest of the movie the way that I did,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: where I was like, you could come on, like, why
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: couldn't you give.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Me more of this?
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: So here's the thing, is that just to give some
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: like you know, I made a joke about it at
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the podcast about stealing ideas from Catherine Bigelow.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: So for some behind the scenes knowledge for those of
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: you who don't know, Catherine Bigelow came to Luke Bisson
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: and said, this is the movie I want to make.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Here's all my research, this is the direction I want
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: to go, here's an outline, this is what I want
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: to do, this is who I want to cast, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: this is how I want to do it. And all
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I need is your money. And he's like, cool, let's
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: do it. And so he was going to be an
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: executive producer. He was going to be a moneyman. And
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: so they go into pre production, they're doing all they're
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: going through it, and then she wants to she says
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: who she wants to cast as the lead, and then
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: the song goes, wait, you're not going to cast my wife,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: screw you, and then pulls his funding and so she
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: sues him for breach of contract and they settle out
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: of court. What that means is Catherine Bigelow got her
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: money and rightfully so. And it was her idea to
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: have the Dustin Hoffman role. That was her brain child.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: She came up with that her and her writing partner,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: And so the reason why that works so well is
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: because she was probably going to be working towards that
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the entire This is complete conjecture on my part, but
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the reason why that stands out is because it was
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: probably the biggest thing that he stole from her.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I think also Bigelow. You know, we did House
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: of Bigelow, you know, just very recently. I think that
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: her approach to photographs thing the battle scenes would have
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: pushed it into that more interesting non traditional sword and
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: sandals battle look right, I would have gotten exactly what
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: we were talking about, which was like, instead of this
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: non committal middle, we would have gotten something where it
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is a really fresh take to
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: approach these battles. I feel like I'm in the middle
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: of it and I'm getting socked in the face, and
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Bassan couldn't pull it off. So with that added knowledge of,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: like you know, of Bigelow having developed it, suddenly I
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: think that's even a trip where it's like Bisan definitely
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: gets over his skis because he takes her idea, which
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: she probably could have made work pretty darn well. Do
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I think it'd be a five star movie? I'm not
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: saying that, but like I think that, you know, to
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: your point, like he's I think he steals the movie.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know. Can we be Can we
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: be sued for me saying that? Can I too?
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: So two things, two things I want to talk about.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I have no idea if this is true. This doesn't
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: feel true what I'm about to say. But I read
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: it online and they don't just give people up, you know, websites,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: you know, they don't just give those away. But the
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: only source of information that I could find on how
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: she was going to do it was Shanade O'Connor for
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Joan of arc and Sean Connery for the Conscience. I
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: don't I don't think the Shnead O'Connor thing can be
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: real because she would she was born in the sixties.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: There's I mean, so like Jovovivich was too old at
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: twenty four to play Joan of Arc, let alone, Snead O'Connor,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: that just doesn't feel real. But Sean Connery I could
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: see being cast as a conscience.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: Also.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: The second thing that I want to say, and John,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: You're not gonna like this, Uh well, I love those scenes.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I love the dialogue. I love the direction, I love
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: the acting, I love Hoffman Hoffman's interpretation. I love everything
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: about it except for it being Dustin Hoffman. And I
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: say that only because of his face and his name.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: He's too distracting because he's Dustin Hoffman in my opinion, Darren,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: what do you think of that?
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: About that? I can see your point, Tristan. I was
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: not distracted by his hofness, you know it, hoffmanness.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I love this, his hofness, his.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: You know I see. I totally see it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: And they're definitely actors who it is really hard to
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: detach them from the person and into the.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Role or from another role.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: Like seeing Harrison Ford and not seeing Han Solo or
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: Indiana Jones like that could be really difficult.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: But I think there for me, there was enough going
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: on in the scene and it was engaging enough that
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: I was pulled in enough to not be lost. Uh
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: but yeah, it was.
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: I kind of agree with you though, as far as
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: the the quality of the scene, It almost I felt
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: like that's where they started, like I have this really
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: great idea, and then they kind of extrapolated out a
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: whole movie leading to that, or almost like you're in
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: like theater, click camp and they give you a really
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: cool scene that you've really researched and thought of. But
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: oh yeah, by the way, you need to make it
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: few hours. Oh let's put something else here. So I'm
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: not saying this movie lives or dies on that scene.
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: It's the most interesting part of the whole movie as
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: as far as you know, Joan and yeah again, it's
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: it's the fact that it doesn't belittle its audience into
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: handing the answer because you really start to doubt. Because there,
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: if I'll say anything about this whole movie, it really
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: made me think. It made me think about what would
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: I do if I was the captain And I'm like,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: these are sound battle plan doctrines and you're not listening
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: to them. Like would I follow someone who claimed to have,
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: you know, a message from God and was wearing sunglasses?
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: But no. But all that to say, I think this
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: movie blues bothers. No, thank you, thank you.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: No, that was I knew that John got it, but
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that was lost on me. I appreciate that. Thanks.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Wow, Okay, I'm glad you said something, Darren,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: because I presume Tristan got it. Go on, though, go on,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: the message from.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: Just to say yeah, it made me think, and the
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: fact that the end scene again didn't hand you the
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: answer made you pause, but not so much that the
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: whole movie fell apart and it was like, oh, obviously X.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: There was no obviousness in that end. I think the
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: most obvious thing was the fact that they basically jump
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: cut to the fire, and I'm like, I kind of
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: appreciate that. I don't need a lead up to that.
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: I don't need to see someone like being led gallows
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: style to that pire. You know it's going to happen,
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: and then the movie's over, you know, moments later.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I it's something where I think they missed the
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: boat where they like, I was so excited because I
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: thought they definitely started going down the road, but they
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: just fumbled. It was this idea that, regardless of whether
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Joan had visions or not, all she ever was to
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the elites was a useful way to manipulate people to
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: fight for them. Joan thought they were on her side,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: and instead it was simply, oh, we got what we wanted. Yeah,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: you know what, we don't even do whatever the English
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: can stay we got what we wanted. It's fine, Yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: it's Dayton now whatever, and so the true believer is
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: simply a pawn for the decadent, a holes to just
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: make sure that they don't lose their mansions and stuff
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: like that. And it's like, you know, I hats off
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: to uh to Faye Dunaway. I thought I didn't know
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: she was in this. I thought she did great, she
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: was fantastic.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: She immediately right when she popped up, I was like,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, she looks like a reverend mother from
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: David Lynch.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: I was thinking about too. I'm like, this is a
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: lady what not Jessica but late the reverend mother.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the reverend mother.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The only thing, the only thing that was distracting
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: was that the vein that they painted on her forehead
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: was different. And every single scene.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, makeup consistency should have been questioned on that one.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: But I take a.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Few polaroids, make a stencil, come on here.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: And there, here and there. But the thing is Dunaway's
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: great casting. Malcovich. I'll never you know, they could have
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: had Malcovich do whatever, Like it's weird that Malcovich is
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: in this. Andy's in being John Malkovich in the same
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: year and it's like that's.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, you know that that lends me to something
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: that I want to talk about, because we talked about
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: this with K nineteen, like with the with the accents
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: m hm okay. So there's, as we've talked about before,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: there's a couple of different ways that you can go.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So when you do a it's an English language film
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: set in a foreign country, you can, like say France,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: you can have a whole bunch of French people with
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: French accents speaking English, or you can have a whole
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: bunch of French people speaking English with whatever accent they
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: bring to the table, because they wouldn't actually be speaking
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: English anyway. So either one I think works. However, you
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: have an English language film that has France and an
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: English speaking country known as England where the language comes
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: from yep. So you have British people with British accents
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: and you have French people with British accents? What's going on?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Like that?
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: That?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: For some reason that really really took me out of it,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: because you have some French actors who are kind of
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: speaking in a French accent, and you have like the Archer,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: whose character I really liked had a thick Californian accent.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: You know he was actually in Dexter. Oh, yes he was.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: He was. He's a good actor. I don't think that
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: he's the right actor for this movie, but he's like.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I love the energy that was bringing to
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: the table, and I love that he was an educated archer.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I thought I loved the relationship between two of them.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: But he's just John. You need to calm down.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Yesiusly, it says Jarring as Keanu Reeves and Francis ford
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Coppe was Gary Oldman as bromsakers Racula.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, but then you have like chech Kei Carrio and
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Vincent Cassel, who are like well known French actors bringing
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: like just a dusting of the French accent, and it's
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: it's just it's so strange. And then you have like
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: the cannonball that he was etching hello onto like it
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: didn't say bonjour. And then you're asking yourself, You're asking yourself,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: well did he write hello because he knows English? And
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: then at the same time you're like, okay, so Joan
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: of Arc was illiterate. She did not speak, she didn't
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: she could not write, read or write French. She could
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: not speak English, so she's not having these conversations across
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: the river or across the moat with these English guys
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: in English, like they would not be understanding her. And
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: also like during the courtroom scenes, like there was no interpreter.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It's just I don't know, man. I know it's a movie.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: It's a movie, and the stuff that I'm bringing to
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: the table just complicates things. I get that if this
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: movie was made today, it probably would have been handled
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: in a different way. But I shouldn't be asked myself
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: these questions.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: But see, I think what it is is we're caught
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: in a weird spot, and I think you're right to
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: point it out. The movie is trying to do the
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: historical epic in all of these different ways. There are
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: only so many things I can sort of give ground
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: on before you're asking too much of me. I agree
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: with you about the accents because I got it from
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: the beginning where I was like, Okay, we're not they're
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: just using their own voices. That's fine. But because you
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: had French actors with French accents in French roles, and
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: then John Malkovich, I'm.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Like, what's it like?
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: It you have to remind yourself in every scene.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And that that's the reason why I brought it up
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: is because we were absolutely robbed of a horrible Malkovich
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: French accent.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Yes we were, we were. We could have gotten the
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Teddy kgb of French accents in this movie, and we didn't.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: And I think that is blash the check, check check,
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: give the A to me and he has money. I
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: think that there is absolutely just so much going on
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: that Bison is making a lot of choices that I
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: don't think he's ready to back up, and I think
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: that the movie gets caught up in that. And I
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: think that in all honesty, in a different timeline, this
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: movie never happens once it's taken away from Bigelow. But
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: I think that Bison is coming off of the heat
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: from Nikita Leon fifth element. He's got the swing to
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: do this. And ninety nine is a wild year because
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: everybody like, maybe I'm overstating it, but like, I think
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: ninety nine is a really interesting year in film in
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: general because everybody knows two thousand is next. Everybody's excited,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Like it gives an energy to the studios where they're like, oh,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: we've got permission to try crazy things because everybody's in
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: that place mentally. I just think that Basan wasn't the
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: director to try everything. The accents is a bridge too far.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: The script nothing comes together quite right. It was somebody
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: else's movie that he took over, as I guess, a
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: vanity project for his wife. And it's like that's the
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: wrong reason to make the movie too. That's like that's
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Charles Foster Cane vibes right there, like.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Why And at the same time, Yuvovich doesn't look back
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: fondly on the movie. She says that all of the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: pieces were there, but it missed the mark, and she
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: felt like her marriage with besides On crumbling during filming
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: didn't help the movie, and she felt like her performance
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: was ruined because in her she feels like I believe
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: she said her performance was ruined in editing because of
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: her crumbling relationship with the director.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Interesting, Yeah, so he knows of sabotaging. Well, he probably
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: didn't consciously sabotage her.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: There's no way he consciously did it.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: But probably he didn't. Always he didn't care as much
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: about how she came across. Yeah, he wasn't. He wasn't
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: putting the movie together to support his lead actress that much.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: I guess you could say part of the assembly thing,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: right is it's one hundred and fifty eight minutes. I
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: feel like you feel every.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Minute of this feeling.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: And the thing is, I, you know, I love to
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: be the one to throw this out there, but like
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the editing, right, what worked and what didn't? This is
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Sylvie Landra. I don't know anything else that Sylvie has done,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: but like, where do you guys land with the editing? Like,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: do you think that at least the on a micro level,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: the scenes came together well. Did was there any stretch
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: of the movie that felt, you know, like it flowed
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: well or anything like that.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just long. It's a long.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Movie, and it's the kind of movie where it either
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: should be longer because they put more into it, or
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: it should be shorter because there's only so much story
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: to tell. And the prologue whatever you want to call
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: the beginning like way way too long too. You know,
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: we even had text, we also had text teleigas stuff,
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: and we still.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Took forever and a durable font. Oh god, hard I
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: had to pause it three times in order to read it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I honestly think you summed it up with
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: what you know. Miela said, it just missed the mark.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: The pieces were there, but it didn't come together in
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: the edit. It didn't come together in the end or
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: you know, just the nature of the story. And honestly,
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: that happens a lot in movies. No one goes what
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: do they say, No one goes into a movie wanting
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: to make a bad movie. You know, they they want
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: to make a good movie. They have a vision. It
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: just doesn't always coalesce. But yes, too long.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Sylvie Landra edited The Messenger, Leon and The Fifth Element
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: and Halle Berry's Catwoman, so clearly she knows what she's doing,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: all right, Okay, obviously that last one was a joke.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, no, she did. She did edit that one.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: But I'm saying that, like, this person knows what she's doing.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: And I think on a micro level, things really flow
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: well from like scenes within a scene flow well. I
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: don't I can't think of anything that really that really
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: popped out to me. We're like why do we cut there?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Or like that doesn't make sense, or like where are
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: we I feel like she really showed us what they
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: had to work with. But on a macro level, I
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: add a little bit more blame to the director's feet.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: I traditionally do that. I think you kind of have
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: to kind of because on a micro level, you've got
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: to praise the editor for doing what they do with
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: what they have. On a macro level, you know, that's
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I feel like you lean kind of hard on the
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: director to kind of help that flow because the director
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: gives the editor what they have. So it's it's too long,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: the intro is too long. It needs to be way
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: shorter or like start the way that you talked about, John.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, like when we when we
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: get to sheen On and malcolvichen company are talking about
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: like like, oh, yeah, she's on our way here, this
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: is the this is the X level letter that she
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: sent us, and she's gathering support in the countryside. I
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: kind of wanted to see that, Like I kind of
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: wanted to see this support, Like why is she becoming famous?
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Why are people following her? Like why are people why
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: do people know about her? Yep, because you know, like
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the inciting incident is I mean, besides the fake trauma
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: that Bisan decided to put on all of us and
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Jean the inciting incident or like the part where she
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: kind of goes into history is when she recognizes the
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Delphin out of the crowd, Like that actually happened, or
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: at least you know, we think it happened that way.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And then she became the Maid of Orleans. You know,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: she liberated Orleans. I mean that this is a huge deal,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Like this is why she became famous. She became famous,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: So why did the Virgin of Lorraine become famous before
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: she became the Maid of Orleans? Like I would love
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: to know that. And that's story structure, that's director, that's writer,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: that's not editor, and so that's kind of where I'm
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: falling into it.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: Fair.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: I think that's fair, you know. I mean, Darren, was
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: there anything that was like super cool? I mean, like,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: is there anything where like because for me, it's like
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: it's the Dustin Hoffman scenes work. Well, Like I'm struggling
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: here because like my esteem movie is falling. Like while
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: we're talking, you know, well, I would say, I think
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: we all.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: Agree about the grandness not quite getting there. But there
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: are some really good battle sequences and that's honestly what
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: I was most looking forward to.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I don't know my story at all.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: I know where we're gonna go, I know the very end,
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: but I don't know oh.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: Oh, this battle of this great I have zero context, text,
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: idea what's going to happen in the next moment, So
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: things like attacking the door with the porcupine, you know,
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: auto fire thing, which felt a little advanced, but you
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: know we're gonna look oh.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Man, oh.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: I love siege war material from the medieval ages. I
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: freaking love like seeing like all of that stuff. Like
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I know it's it's weird, but like all these inventions
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: that we came up with hide behind our walls, I
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: find very interesting.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that you had, you know, her leaping over the
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: very first battle, leaping over the wooden spikes, and even
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: towards the end when and I think I like the
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: My favorite one was the siege tower going backwards, because
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: I think they timed it right where you, as the audience,
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: realize what she's doing right as the characters do, because
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: I don't know what she's doing.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Like why are we getting this up? Why are we
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: pushing it backwards?
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: And then you see it tip into the moat and
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: you're like, oh, they just made a ramp right in
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: and as soon as they realize their mistake, it's too late.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: So yeah, siege warfare is just an interesting thing, and
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: you have to always put yourself back to the mindset
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: of this is a numbers game. Like this kind of war,
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: it's all about almost always who has the bigger army,
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: who has more people to throw at each other. Yes,
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: there's some tactics and there's some skill, but I mean,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: I'm not even gonna talk about how the attack on
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: Paris felt like the attack on the fort Paris, maybe
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: not the city, but.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: But yeah that okay. So like like talking about Macron, my.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: You know his put this bride level scale.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: That's all you need to get into Paris is just
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that one gate right there right there.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: I didn't and that more men.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, So like on a micro level, I
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: feel like some of the battle scenes were really good
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: because I felt like some of the violence was really
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: in your face in a good way. It showed you
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: kind of the carnage of war, like from hand to
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: hand combat combat. And there was really only one time
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: when I kind of kind of laughed out loud and
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: rolled my eyes, like there was a dude who lost
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: his arm, but it was so plainly a guy who
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: had his arm just at his side and then a
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: prosthetic went away, Like if they just cut that a
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: little differently, like if they just held on that for
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: a fraction of a second less, I wouldn't be laughing.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: But the the action sequences were cool within the battle,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: but the battle themselves was not as grand as it
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: needed to be. And also like the the quote unquote
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Battle for Paris or whatever you want to call it
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: was absurd, just absolutely absurd, you know, like were they
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: trying to make it laughable? Were they trying to make
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: it like looney tunes? You know, like realism here where
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: like people are literally climb climbing the gates and like
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: banging their fists saying let us in, like we're.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: We're gonna liberate Paris.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: We're totally gonna do it.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think you guys are probably more generous with
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: the battle scenes than I am. I agree. There are
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: moments where, you know, when when they did they turned
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: it around and they you know, bashed in the drawbridge.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: I thought that was interesting because I hadn't seen that before,
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, yeah, eventually somebody would figure
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: it out something like that, Sure that makes sense. I
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: don't know though, I mean, it's just it's I don't
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think that this is actually quote unquote the case.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: But I know that, at least for this American audience member,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: after The Messenger came out, Luke Bassan became stunningly less
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: relevant to American audiences because I know this movie was
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: it was a complete bomb in the States, and I
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: know that after this movie came out, I when I've
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: you know, when I hear Luke Bisson's name, I'm like, oh,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: he hasn't done anything since you know, the Professional or
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: the Fifth Element. And then like I go and I
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: look at his filmography and I'm like, oh, no, he's
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: he's actually been involved with a lot of the product.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: H this is interesting, but like he fades completely from
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: the spotlight at least here. And it's it's fascinating because
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: I think that we're all keying on what audience is
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: in general, because I think it like cinema score, they
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: got like a B minus on the exit interviews from
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: the audience, and I'm like, that's death. Like if you're
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: an A minus, you're lucky. You know, That's that's enough.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: Word of mouth to keep you going on a cinema
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: score on a scale to F, like, once you get
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: it to B minus, that means that you're getting torched
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: by at least half the audience on the way out
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: the door. And I think that, you know, I don't know.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: I just I think that we're keying in on the
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: an important breakpoint for Bisan because this is definitely the
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: moment where he's no longer a hot Hollywood commodity. After
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: this he becomes more of a producer, writer, and God
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: help me, I will see his attempt at telling Dracula.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Oh mane horrible reviews.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: I can't help well, you know I'm a sucker for
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: these types of things, Tristan. You know I've already got
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: my ticket. I'm gonna go see this stupid thing. You
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: know I'm gonna hate it. I can't help myself. It's
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: a compulsion at this point. Well, I'm even the one
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: yelling at the trailer. I'm like, he's not even He's
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: just remaking Coppola's version. This isn't even an attempt to
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: tell the story. Ah, and his hair too looks even stupider.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: What's going on here?
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: Well, back to Joan of Arc.
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that indeed, no, I think especially with you
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: know films that you know French director and a lot
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: of foreign I often will find myself because I usually
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: look at Wikipedia because I just like how everything is
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: displayed in a singular, you know category.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: But for box office, you really got to break it.
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: Down between international and domestic, because you look at it
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: and like, oh, sixty million budget, sixty six six million worldwide,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: you know, worldwide.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: That's not terrible. No, no, it's it's bad.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: It's films.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: Bade of that fifty two of that was international. This
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: movie made fourteen million dollars in the US.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: That is that is bad.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: And as English language film.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: As I love to keep pounding on, especially back in
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: ninety nine, US box office is what made or broke you.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: Like you can sit there and give you like fifty
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: two million from the rest of the world, that meant nothing.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Back in ninety nine, how you did in US box
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: office was the sole barometer of whether your film was
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: a success. Right or wrong, doesn't matter. It's not the
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: way it is, does it. It's not the way it
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: is with Avatar, obviously, because the bulk of its money
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: comes from overseas. But like back then, you might as
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: like your your gross was only the US box office.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: So the fact that it made like fourteen million in
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: the US, that is a that is a disaster of
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: water World proportions right there. In fact, I think ratio wise,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: water World did better possibly than this. I'm a homepan
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: looked that up. Hold on, Oh that's hold on.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: You don't want stone worse world.
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: Ooh ooh, are you change our saying to instead of
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: talking about water we're talking.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: About the water World?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, this is worldwide box office was to sixty four
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: point two and had a budget of like one hundred
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: and seventy five million, and oh yeah, no, this that
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: that got to worse. No, I just got to know.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Hold on, I'm looking up the release here.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: They had to build like half the sets.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: That flatter World's budget was one hundred and seventy two
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: at number one. Oh okay, it grossed eighty eight million
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: at the North American box office, so I can't do
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: the fast enough. Okay, maybe water World was more of
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: a disaster than this was.
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know the.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Scale, no, because like no, like eighty eight out of
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five is less than fifteen out
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: of sixty.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so there you go. You screwed up worse that.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Well done, guys, well but at least.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: You got like universal with water World, Like you're not
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: going to do that with Joan of Arc, right right, I.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: Think honestly at the end of the day too, the
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: draw of a movie about Joan of Arc it's just
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: not there. Like, I'm still amazed that as many people
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: saw The Fifth Element because it is you know, yes,
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: it attracts like the sci fi crowd and things like that,
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: But I don't even know how we'd pitch that to someone, like.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: It's weird, it's esoteric. Yeah, it's hard to It's hard
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: to pitch like the elevator pitch is is weird?
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Bruce Willis's action movie that was the pitch.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: It's true.
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: Bruce Willis, Like, as much as I kind of clamped
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: down on his acting, that movie would not have has
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: been successful. People wouldn't have even given a chance if
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: he wasn't in it.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Willis powered that. Yeah.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: So before before we go to our ratings, one thing
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: we have to talk about is Eric Sarah's evolution in
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: this movie as a composer. Now something like ninety percent
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: of this movie had music underneath it. It was crazy
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: how much score was underneath this film. It was almost
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: like a musical in terms of how much was underlaid.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I personally freaking love this score. I think that it
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: was a cop out at the end where you know
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: they're just he was basically just kind of like copyed
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: the homework of some other operatic masters, and then was
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: like a change a little bit, so the teacher doesn't
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: know that we copied it. But other than that, I
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: felt like this was really this showed Eric's Sarah's skills
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: and evolution and growth, especially coming off a fifth Element.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: You know, just like if you compare these two scores,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: they're so totally different, but yet they have his signature
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: all over them. I really enjoyed this score more than
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: I expected to. Darren, what did you think about this music?
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Did you have an opinion about the music?
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: No, I liked the score.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree it again, Fifth Element is just such
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: a jewel of itself. It's so hard to compare to tonally,
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: you know, story wise, music wise, visuals, costumes, like it
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: just is its own thing. But yes, that has been
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: the other joy of the Bason of the nineties is
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: he has many of the same familiar faces, you know,
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: going throughout all these productions, and uh yeah, this one
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: had a lot of I did enjoy the score. I
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: enjoyed it not being I enjoyed it being everywhere because nowadays,
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: like ninety percent of the movie would have no music
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: and it would be all in that sound and you'd
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: feel the cold of the winter.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: And all that stuff. And no, this is a nine movie.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah you're gonna feel it. I do. I see what
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: you're saying about the end.
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: I did feel the mic drop worked or the needle
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: drop on the that last track, because you're like, okay,
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: and then the movie's over, You're like, oh, okay, it's
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: I guess I was getting pumped for something, but I
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: guess it was marshmallows.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah, John, what do you think.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I didn't really have an opinion either way. I thought
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: it was fine. I didn't think it was great. The
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: part that you're talking about, I think it was Carmen
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: and Barana where they were sort of cribbing a little bits.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: It was Carmen. It was totally a ripoff of Carmen.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Carmen and Barana. There was a little bit of
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: rip off there, and I'm pretty forgiving of that because
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, Star Trek six is one of the greatest
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: scores of the nineteen nineties and that ripped off holsts
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: the planets in several parts. So that's fine, so Williams.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: But like, I think that it's just it's very I
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: think like a I think like the film itself, there
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: are parts that are fine, and there are parts that
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: are completely forgettable, and there are other parts that have
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: just annoyed me. So kind of a push on the
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: score for me.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, because I'm hosting, Darren gets to go
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: first with his rating. Yes, so I want to know
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: how many how many swords found in the woods are
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: you giving this film?
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: We're saying that, you know, we're giving a constitutional monarchy
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: to people.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: Just find swords in the ground, in the dirt, in
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: the mud, you know. Now, lots of references to Mighty
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: Python today.
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: Sorry, I had to bring my brain back because as
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: we were talking about classical music, all could think of
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: is the X Men X two trailer.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: With Mars Bringer of War and how that just rocked.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: But ah, yes, I'm back in the nineties. I'm given
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: this A three.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: I think it besond is, his star is diminishing, He's
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: going into the West. But I you know, on a
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: technical level, I think this is the harder film to
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: pull off than the Fifth Element, just because it's real locations.
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: It's real like you're trying to convey a different tone
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: and a different connection to your characters. You can't have
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: random things happen. It has to make it. It has to.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Feel real, not like a comic book.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: And I almost would go to say that Fifth Element,
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: while it gave the Bud the prowess and the budget
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: to do this, I think it almost set it up
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: to fail because if I saw that and then saw this,
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: like I don't know what I was expecting, but it
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: was not what was delivered. I think I wanted more
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: or more of a stylized take or something, and so
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: in that way, it was almost its own worst enemy.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: But yes, three swords from the Lady of the I
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: mean the Man of the Muddy Field.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: So John, how about you?
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I think Bissan was the wrong director for it.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: I think that things don't come together. I think that
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: what it reminds me of is Guy Ritchie taking on
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: King Arthur, where it's a worthwhile experiment, but sometimes experiments
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: fail and I wind up giving this a two out
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: of five. I will never watch this again. I find
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: some redeeming stuff, but not enough for me to say
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: at at any point in the future, you know, I'll
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: give that Joan of Arc movie a spin again. Nah,
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: I'm good, I saw it. I'm done, and I'm out
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: two out of.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Five for me.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna meet in between you guys. I'm
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: giving this a two and a half. Probably when I
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: finished watching it, it was probably a three. But then
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: as I started thinking more about it and kind of
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: going through it in my head, I was like, Oh,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: that didn't work. That didn't work. That didn't work. Man.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: It just kind of made me upset more than angry.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: That doesn't make sense. It was one of those things
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: where I'm just like, ah, it's a misopportunity, and not like,
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: oh that was stupid. It was just like a man,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: that could have been better. Yeah, I wish they did
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: this that.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of you're not angry, you're disappointed.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: That is that is much more apt phrase for it.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I was not angry. I was disappointed because, like I
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: think the music is fantastic. I think that cinematography is
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: great most of the time. I believe that the writing
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: in the direction is the worst parts. And I like
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Yuvovich's portrayal. I like that she's a little off kilter,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: but I feel like there's a lot of nuance there.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: But it's just it's middle of the road for me.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's a lot of good things about it,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: but there are far too many negatives, and so this
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: is straight down the middle for me two and a half.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: So there you have it. This is the end of
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the House of Bissan of the nineteen nineties, and I
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: am very much looking forward to what we're doing next week,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: and that is Darren.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: Yes, we had a great time in the nineties. It's
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: time for another wing where we pick up some films
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: that have continued that we've already covered before. Next week
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: is the wing of Predator, as we return to Predator,
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: killer of Killers. Here on House Lights
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Join the Revolution, join the nerd Party.