Latest / The Kulturecast / Hell or High Water (2016) — "150 years ago, all of this was my ancestors' land. Everything you could see."

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Hell or High Water (2016) — "150 years ago, all of this was my ancestors' land. Everything you could see." · The Kulturecast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Weird way.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: That's a big banks, big, that's what she said. August
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: critics rave Hell or high Water. He's the best movie
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I've seen this year. Those banks alone the least they
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: could so they could swape your mama's land, painting him
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: back with that own money, but with that name textan,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Is to brothers, I'm crown to raise a certain amount.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: That's my death justice.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: We're gonna let me board that he's not a crime.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's a good thing.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Or does more known?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Very step of the way.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Hell or high Water in it are select cities.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: August twelfth, Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I am your host, Christashio, and I'm joined by my
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: good friend all the way from well, in this case,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: all the way from the dusty plains of West Texas,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: where this movie is set, not shot, but set.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Your friend of mine, he is well.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: He works over at Texas Tech, in charge of he's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a professor of media and communications. Your friend of mine,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: doctor David Promutter.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Hello, Chris, glad to be back. We're gonna go on
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a journey in West Texas.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, supposedly West Texas, though it's clearly no.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: It is clearly New Mexico.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: On this episode of the Culture Cast, we are talking
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: about the twenty sixteen film written by Yellowstone Zone, Taylor Sheridan,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: directed by David Mackenzie. Film is called Hell or High Water. So,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: like I mentioned, it's directed by David Mackenzie, written by
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yellowstone Zone, Taylor Sheridan, and it stars Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Ben Foster, and Gil Birmingham. And that's really about it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: There are some other people in the mix, but for
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the most part, those are the four main principal actors
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: in the film. Jeff Bridges plays a Texas ranger task
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: with hunting down two brothers played by Chris Pine and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Ben Foster, who are robbing banks in West Texas for
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: possibly less than nefarious reasons, at least in one of
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: their cases. It is a Western. It is a neo
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: noir Western. It is a it's a Western.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Let's just go. Let's just go with that.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: As always, Doctor Pearl Munder, you picked the film, since
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: we are together talking about it as often the case
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that you picked it, so I'm going to kick it
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to you first.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: As always. Whyy oh, why are we talking about Hell
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: or high Water.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Well, let's start out by saying that this is one
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: of the films that established Taylor Sheridan as probably one
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of the most successful film writers of our time in
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: terms of like numbers of films acclaim, and then going
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: on to do a series of television shows Yellowstone most prominently,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: but now Landsman and the different Yellowstone adjacent or spinoffs.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Having a billion dollar contract. I mean, he's everybody's dream
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: of going to Hollywood and writing a screenplay and then
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: becoming a triple threat, auteur, mega star, everything including playing
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: in his own series sometimes he famously does in Yellowstone.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: So first, this is one building block in probably the
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: most prominent career right now in the world of creative filmmaking.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And it's also a film about sort of my backyard.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: It's set here in West Texas. I'm going to put
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: a couple of asterisks there because at West Texas is
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: pretty large. So this is the equivalent of saying this
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: film is set in New England, but it's actually in
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: northern Canada. I mean, there's a lot of space that
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: West Texas covers. You could stuff quite a number of
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: New England states or small small Midwestern States into West Texas.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: You were saying something interesting. I think, like a lot
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: of films, it's easy to say of any film that, oh,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the geography, the topography, the scenery is a character in
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the film. But definitely this is true here. So this
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: is one of those small number of films in the
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: modern day set in West Texas where definitely you get
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: a sense like West Texas is one of a very
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: small band of people. You mentioned that that really we
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: only have five or six roles of any consequence, like
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: main characters. This is not one of the There are
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: other Taale of Sheridan films like Ciicario, where we will
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: cut away to larger interests and bigger, wider, more people
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: being going on wind River is more localized. So this
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: is supposed to be part of I mean, if you
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: look it up online, it'll say Taylor Sheridan's American Frontier Trilogy.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I think that's more of a statement of like he
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: made these three films, that they are a coherent like
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: volume one, Volume two, Volume three of Lord of the
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Rings or something that That's not what trilogy has meant.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's just he spiritually connected to one another, that's right.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: It seems very similar characters you could pull Gil Birmingham,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: who played expertly and now is playing again in another Yellostone.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: He was in Yellowstone as the elected chief of the
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: local Indian tribe, and so was in a lot of
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: episodes and was going back and forth fighting with the
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Dundon family for we don't go completely Yellowstone here, but
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: then I mean, the show is already over. So became
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: at the end sort of an ally fantastic actor dignity, honor, cleverness,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: and he plays it a somewhat different character here he
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: almost played I mean, he is younger, but he plays
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: sort of a I think a younger version of If
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: he lived in this film, he would have learned some
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: of the things that came up. So I just think
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: in terms of setting theme ideas, it's a very very
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: interesting film and it's worth talking about and learning about,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: especially the relationship of place and storytelling and characterization.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I think what's very funny to me and I think,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I have heard people talk about this, and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I have I have. I said it initially myself when
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I saw the film. This movie is I think what
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: people who went to see No Country for Old Men,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I think this is what they wanted from No Country
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: for Old Men. I think this film is more kind
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: of what one would expect from a film like No
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Country for Old Men in terms of the way it
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: plays out, in terms of kind of the narrative expectations.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I think this movie is a lot more narratively straightforward
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: than No Country for Old Men or I always know
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and in this is not me saying this, I just
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I know this from other people that No Country for
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Old Men's ending does not work very well on screen.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I am, I.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Am and will always be inclined to agree as someone
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: who has read the book No Country for Old Men,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I think the ending works much better on the page
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: than it does on the screen because cutting away to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Tommy Lee Jones talking about his father lighting torches along
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the way for him makes sense in a narrative literary sense,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: but in a film makes sense, it doesn't really work,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and I think it kind of it's kind of a
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: dud of an ending. This movie, I think fixes those issues.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: This movie has.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: A similar theme, similar tone. It's about you know, what,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: does what does the West, the last vestiges of the West,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: look like now in modern day? And No Country had
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that same vibe to it. I think this movie just
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I think this movie.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: Nails it more.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I think Tyler, you know, I think you know for me,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And this is the only other Taylor Sheridan thing I've seen,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: other than Sacario, which you had asked about initially if
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: we could do Sacario. This is the only other Taylor
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Sheridan thing I've seen. I have not seen Yellowstone, I
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: have not seen wind River, so those are those are
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: not things I have seen. So this is kind of
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the second or first Taylor Sheridan thing that I've seen.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Now that he's kind of become this massive you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he's got the first look with I forget who, like
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you said, he is a massive contract he in a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: lot of ways has become I would say, every you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: five to ten years, we get someone in the industry
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: like this. I would say, before before Taylor Sheridan, it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: was Shonda Rhymes, and before Shonda Rhymes, it was Ryan Murphy.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I mean those, you know, it's kind of been Ryan Murphy,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Shonda Rhymes, Taylor Sheridan in terms of like their ability
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to be so big, ubiquitous and successful that whatever they're
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: doing is successful. They're having companies, you know, streaming networks
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in other places, backing up brink trucks to their house
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: with money, asking for them to write the next Yellowstone.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And Taylor Sheridan, to his credit, has like he wrote
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Yellowstone and then he wrote like two more Yellowstones prequel
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: sequel things, spinoffs. He wrote land Man. I mean like
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: he's saying busy, but he's also staying busy with what
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: would seem to be quality projects. I mean Ryan Murphy,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: not to his credit, has pretty much made the same
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: damn thing for the last fifteen years, just American horror
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: story or something adjacent to that. In terms of theme
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and tone, I'm not saying Taylor sheridan stuff is not
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: adjacent in theme in tone. It's just I think what
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: he's doing has a little bit more upward ceiling, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I think what Ryan Murphy has done is just kind
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of keep it within this one band here. I think
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Taylor Sheridan has bigger, loftier goals for what he's writing.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And I say all that because High Water, While yes,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it is a Western or a kind of thriller drama
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: crime film, I think the more interesting aspect of the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: movie for me is commenting on, commenting on and being
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: a character study on the kinds of people you would
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: find in West Texas and the reasons and why people
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: are doing what they're doing. But it's also very indicative
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of I think, and it's very much an American story
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in terms of the you know, you know, Chris Pine
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: says it at the end of the film, you know,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: being poor is like a sickness, and it gets passed
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: on to every single one of us. And you know,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: it's initially it's just a thing, and it becomes a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: sickness the more and more it happens. Like you know,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: there are people in this country who read things and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: read things that believe those kinds of things as well,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that they're wrong in a way,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: because you know, in this country, the divide between the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: haves and the have nots has never been more obvious
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: than it is now. And in you know, this movie
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: came out in twenty sixteen, so this is ten years
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: ago that this movie came out. And I think it's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: interesting that the entire premise of the movie hinges on
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know, people robbing the banks, because the banks are
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: robbing us by their approximation in the film, And I
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: love that that is the hill that this movie is
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: dying on is it's a Western. But it turns out
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that the good guys aren't really the bad guys aren't
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: really the bad guys. They're the good guys because the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: bad guys in the movie are nameless, faceless companies, which
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: feels very apropos in twenty twenty six if they were
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: writing it, But twenty sixteen it felt a little ahead
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of the curve. So I think Taylor Sheridan, you know,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: just as an opening here, I think Taylor Sheridan wrote
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: a movie that probably deserved to win a lot more
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: than it did because it was only nominated.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: For four Oscars, which seems like.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: A And again, I'm not an oscar guy by any
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but four doesn't seem like enough.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Given this is also the best thing I think I've
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: ever seen Chris Pine. It like hard stop.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Let me start out out by giving an academic lecture
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: here on Taylor Sheridan and the Western that I promise
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: won't be longer than what's necessary. Taylor Sheridan is as
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: I allude to, and you there's no question in terms
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: of influence, power and breadth of work. Nobody has done
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: more in the last ten years to define what is
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the West across all of his syries. The New West anyways, Yeah, yeah,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: the West of the twenty first century. So you have
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: these mixtures of like black helicopters and mercenaries and machine
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: gun battles in the streets of Bozeman in Yellowstone, along
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: with so many familiar tropes of the cowboys and the
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: rustlers and fighting over land. And he has created something
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: that probably very few Westerns have done before with Yellowstone,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: which is a lore and legend which we usually connect
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: with fantasy and science fiction, but most Western films have
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: a lore in the sense that like, yeah, he killed
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: my father and I'm going to kill him or something
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: like that. It's very basic. I like Robbing Banks. I mean,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: whenever you want. You can watch this film at twenty
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: years old. And I talked to my students about this
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: because we talk about West Texas films based films. You
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: can watch this film at twenty years old and have
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: never watched Busch, Cassidy and The Sun Dance Kid, have
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: never watched The Wild Bunch, never watched any of the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: classic West john Ford westerns. You could have never seen
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: any of those and you can still enjoy this film
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: as a hard noir, rough bank robber compox layers of characterization,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: adventure action film. You don't need that lore. In Yellowstone
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: he created a lore. I mean he created an eighteen
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: eighty the same family eighteen eighty three, nineteen twenty three.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I posted a joke today on read at April Fool
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: saying twenty forty three is now shooting on the Moon.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Cowboys on the Moon. That's a Ryan that's a Ryan
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Murphy premise. That's not Taylor Shardon. Taylor Shardan, I feel
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: like is a little bit more grounded. That's something Ryan Murphy.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I think the Duttons get abducted by aliens. Like all right, all.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Right, Ryan Murphy, we see you.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Like all right, the Sea of Tranquility is dutton Land,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: and nobody's going to.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Touch it, I guess.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So so let's start out by saying that this is
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the we can use the old word, auteur who has
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: put his imprint on the West in fiction, in film,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: in visualization more than any other single person in the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: last twenty years. So whatever he does is important. Now
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: that said, there are some issues here, you know, like
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: in my notes, my notes to him like, if I
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: were a studio executive would be this is a great film.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to change anything your script. Let's go
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: with it. I do want to bring up a couple
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: of things going back to what you said. The plot
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: of the film starts out, Okay, there's these two brothers, right,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Toby and Tanner played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster. Okay,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and uh, there's like a lot of films about brothers.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: There's this sort of good instincts brother and then there's
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the shitty the bed. It's very leak out, but like
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: the brother who you get you get a sense that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: if the circumstances had been a little different, he would
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: be an honest guy and make good living and take
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: care of his family and so and the other guy
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: just wants to see the world bird like he enjoys.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, so we've very John wu.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Very like I don't know, Like it's a tale as
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: old as time set up, like you know, it's literally
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: like there's no more basic siblings set up than this.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: One, like good cop back. But it's yeah, it's yeah,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: it's biblical.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: It's very biblical. It's it's very ancient story myth there,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: and of course that's what the the West was the canvas.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Uh getting more academic now. Frederick Jackson Turner famous for
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: writing the frontier hypothesis, the idea that the America's character
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: was built by the conquest in every sense of that word,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: of this frontier, of the West, of driving west, manifest
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: destiny to the West. And it's important that that's been rejected.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Are you know, reconstructed deconstructed? But the fact is that
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: in culture, in our x hundred years of a film
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: industry and TV and movies, the Western was one of
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the most dominant forms. It disappeared almost completely, and then
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Taylor Sheridan came in and reinvented the Western, and now
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: it's one of the most what you call a Western.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Takario a great film, you know, wind River, a great
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: film I have. I had some issues with the way
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yellowstone turned out that the fact was that it was
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: probably one of the most popular series that we had.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of the most popular series the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: last ten years when it's getting mentioned in the same
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the way Yellowstone was pitched to me because I've never
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: had any interest in watching it, only because I think
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: kind of the subculture surrounding it has kind of put
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: me off to it, which is fine.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, I.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Think the same could be said about a show like
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Rick and Morty. It doesn't devalue or disqualify the show itself.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: It just made me a little apprehensive to get involved
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: initially because of the subculture surrounding it. But for me,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Taylor Sheridan always understood his place in things. And the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: dead giveaway in this movie was he mentioned Archer City,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: where it's like, Okay, I know what's in Archer City.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: You know what's in Archer City. That's where Larry McMurtry's
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: massive bookstore that he used to have that is no
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: longer there anymore, is But you wouldn't mention Archer City
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: in this movie for any other reason other than to
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: evoke the class the name of the classic Western. And
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I love that Taylor Sheridan, even in that moment, knows
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: that's something worth mentioning to not and it's up. It
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's paid flip service either. That's the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: other thing, like, no, none of it feels like.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Throughout this there's these references. Let me just bring up
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: one that's a very interesting cultural reference, which is never developed,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: but it's there in the background. Gil Hamilton Birmingham Gil
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Gil Birmingham plays Texas Ranger and of course Texas Rangers
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: talk about something iconic, right that the Texas Rangers are
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the equivalent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: sense that like just visually, anybody who's ever watched the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Western or thought of a Western, it's like the Texas Ranger.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: I want to tell one Texas Ranger story, since I
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: think your listenership probably skews a little young and may
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: not have heard this story. There's a famous tale of
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: there was some sort of unrest going on in some
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: tam in the either of the eighteenth and it's such
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: a don't forget which one, and they say, we got
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: to call in the Texas Rangers. So the train pulls
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: up and one ranger gets out and like the town
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: elders say, wait a minute, we got a huge riot fighting,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: everything's going on. You only send this one ranger. And
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the ranger says, well, you only had one riot, right,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: So you know the Texas Range. If you come here,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: you can visit the Texas Ranger Museum. They are absolutely
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: iconic now they are, and they are also an investigated
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: for us. That's very important to know, Like they're they're
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: sort of like our local are a local state FBI,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: and many states have a version of the FBI, so
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: they investigate crimes which are perceived as like this is
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: getting too big for a local. It's going multi jurisdictional,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: like if somebody's robbing a bank in three or four
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: counties for example. So anyway, and then.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Wear cowboy hats when they go out there, which is
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the other that's part, and that is one hundred sent
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: part of this because if it had been local cops,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: the iconography would not have worked. The iconography here, Like
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Sheridan knows what he's doing. He's like, well, if they
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: were cops, I wouldn't It would feel shoehorned in to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: have them having cowboy hats on. So I'm just going
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to make it Texas Rangers because then it makes perfect
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: sense why they have cowboy hats, and it leans once again,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: like you said, into the iconography of the West or
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the Western more apt.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, and by the way, people do wear cowboy hats.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I had the honor of being a speaker. We had
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: a panel on the media and police. You know, I
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: wrote a book years ago on police in the media
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: at the Texas Sheriff's Association, and I can vouch every
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: sheriff in Texas, the sheriff of a county with two
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: million people and a sheriff of a collie with fifty
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: thousand people, were's a big cowboy hat. It's really interesting
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to be there and be the only one in the room.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: You didn't take that as an opportunity to wear one
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of your own.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I have some pretty nice boots. Okay, nice boots, yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: but I don't feel I've earned the cowboy hat. Yeah,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: we'll see I have.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I have two cowboy hats, and I wore one to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: my sister's wedding. I actually showed up in a suit
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and tie and everything with a brown cowboy hat on.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: So I think every Texan should.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Wear a cowboy hat once in their life because I
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: think it is it does there is a level of
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: power with it that comes from wearing it. And I
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: also think just seeing someone wearing it, like a Jeff
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Bridges type in a movie or a Gil Birmingham, it
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: adds like a level of I don't know that the profile,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the level of kind of importance surrounding the character just
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: it adds a level to it, you know, like you said,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: in your perception, you have to earn the cowboy hat. Literally,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: there's nothing about earning a cowboy hat anywhere, except for
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: it would seem in all of fiction that he who
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: wears the cowboy hat like there's a level of importance too.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's there. It's funny. It's become so much
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: part of the colloquial culture in references like, for example,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: a phrase that is often used. I've heard it the
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: first time I came to Lubbock was he's all hat
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and no cattle. That's right, I mean somebody who's all
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: talk and doesn't really have anything to back it up.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the name of the Gil Birmingham character,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Alberto Parker. Now in Texas, Alberto obviously signifies Hispanic, and here,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: for example, in Lubbo County, we're a fifty to fifty
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: two percent Hispanic. The culture of West Texas is and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: has always been pretty divided by ethnicity, not necessarily by race.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: They are very small numbers of African Americans. They played
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a prominent role. They're small numbers of Asian Americans. But basically,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: if you go to most of the counties of West
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Texas and New Mexico and Arizona. The split unless you
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: go to a major city like Phoenix or Albuquerque, the
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: split is Hispanic Anglo and that's been the cult for
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: hundreds of year ever since, you know, before before white
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: people came. Now there's always been and now there have
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: been always been also a Native American population, an indigenous
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: population before the white Europeans came, and before the Mexican
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: and Spanish Europeans came. Yeah, so Parker is probably the
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: most famous last name, Kuana Parker. When everybody this will
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: be the homework assignment on the exam. Quana Parker fascinating.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: He was the son of a European woman who was
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: kidnapped in a battle called the Fort Parker Fort Parker Massacre,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and she married the a commancie chief and they had
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a son, Quana, who became a commanche chief. He lived
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: from the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century, twenty eleven,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I think he passed away, and he's probably the most
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: famous chief, at least within white culture. You know, like
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: you like anybody in West Texas, Oh, Quanta Parker. There's biographies.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's really been a great movie about this.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: It fascinating biography. Again, you know, you grew up and
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: from at that time, you know that mixture was like
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: a huge deal, and to rise to prominence and be
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: respected by both peoples was also a huge deal. So
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: it's not it's not a coincidence that it would be
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Alberto Parker with the mixture of the Hispanic herritage. And
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: of course a lot of Native Americans do have Hispanic
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: names right because they've they grew up, you know, conquered
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: by first by Mexico and then you know, having their
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: own independence next to Mexican Spanish colonialism and eventually settlements.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So it's complicated, but I just I wanted to put
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: that in there because just like the other reference that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: you gave, this is like a little reading like, hey,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: this is part of West Texas heritage here Alberto Parker there,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: So something else I want to bring up. Poverty. Let's
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: talk about poverty. West Texas definitely has a history of
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: like every place on earth, like there's poverty. Obviously, you
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: go down downtown Los Angeles and you see a lot
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: of poor people, even though you'd look it up and
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: you'd go Wow, it's a rich area, right or New
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: York City, there's poor people and there's rich people everywhere.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: West Texas has one advantage and that made me a
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: little bit skeptical about the conceit of the film and
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: the plot of the film, and that is we have
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: a tremendous amount of mineral wealth. A lot of these
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: small counties, if you drove through you would go like, oh,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: there's not too many people here, and a couple of
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: the buildings are run down and things like that. But
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that, for example, when we get
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: kids here at Texas Tech and they're majoring in media
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: and communication, well, yeah, they had a high school with
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: a Hollywood level media lap. Because they're high schools, their
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: schools are supported by oil wealth. We've always had a
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: challenge in Texas and New Mexico to some extent, but
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: mostly Texas because the Permium Basin, if you just look
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: up on a map, the Permium Basin, this is one
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: of the largest oil fields in the entire world, has
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: produced incredible amount of wealth, now wealth for oil companies,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: but also wealth for individuals because, as is revealed at
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: the end of this thing, if you're the farmer who
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: owns the land and you've got mineral rights, then you're
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: doing really well. I mean if you go down to
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Midland ODESA, the bank here is listened as Texas Midlands Bank,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: So that is like probably except for Saudi Arabia, like
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: some of the wealthiest place on earth, and it has
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: been channeled back into public everything, right, so like like
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: it's not quite as plausible this thing about the the
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: mother and the reverse mortgage and poverty. And by the way,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: they just found oil because they've done a lot of expiration, right, Yeah.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It's like it's meant to be twenty sixteen if this
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the one thing I do I will say is I
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: think it should have been set a little bit like
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: it should have been more of a period piece and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: it didn't need I know why it wasn't, but yeah,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the we just discovered oil rights, Like yo, what come on?
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Like you saw how rich everybody else was getting around
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you or near you. Unless you're completely inept, which Chris
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Pine's character is made out to not be inept, I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: find it hard to believe that you're you've waited until
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen to figure out the oil mineral rights situation.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Come on, if you drive from Lubbock. If you take
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: a look at a map down to Midland, Odessa, keep
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: going to l Passo, right through the heart of the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Permian basin, you are going to see everywhere. Sometimes you'll
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: see thirty at a time. Those classic there will be
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: blood oil wells. You know thenk kachunk kachunk I mean
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: actually from Rogue Warrior, the same the same one there. Yeah,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: the the sort of low scale but still popping right
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: out of the ground. And those those people who owned
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: those mineral rights. You know, there was a family and
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: they had a ranch and they were doing okay. Uh.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Here at Texas Tech we if you visit, we have
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: an amazing Texas Ranching Heritage Museum where they have actually
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: moved physically these ranch houses from all over Texas and
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: you can see what. You know, people did live pretty
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: challenging lives that looked like something out of a john
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Ford Western before oil wealth. But after oil wealth it's
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: a little less plausible. The central plot about the poverty part,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: let's just put it that way. Not completely implausible, but
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: a little plausible.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: That's fifty thousand dollars a month at the end of
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the movie.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: By what they're saying.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Is a lot of money to do nothing, to do nothing.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Right that I I that is not a weird thing.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: That that well, the weird thing is.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Six yeah, no, I'm with you, Like it's, they would
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: have known what the They would have known what the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: upper level of the money they could have gotten is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And for Chris Pine's character, who is as smart as
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: he is to plan all of this and do all
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of this, I find it hard to believe that he
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: would look to robbing banks before being.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Like, well, there's clearly oil on.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Our land, like it's. It is the one conceit that
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the movie forces you to like go with. But also
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: to your point, you have to also know about mineral rights,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: like and I only know about it because my family
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: has mineral rights to some land in eastern Oklahoma that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: we have had in our you know, my dad's mom's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: side of the family forever. It's nowhere near as profitable
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: as this land is, so nobody really cares. But I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: only know about mineral rights because that I'm going to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: go out and a limb and assume that Taylor Sheridan
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: was assuming that a lot of people didn't know about
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: mineral rights or wouldn't find it weird that they were
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: waiting this long, but you and I clearly are on
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: this same page. Like, I would not believe that they'd
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: wait until twenty sixteen. They would have known in the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: seventies at probably the list I.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Feel like, yeah, I mean the boom began. You know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: you watch Martin Scorsese's Killer of the Flower Moon. The
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: boom began back at beginning of the thirties, right, right, right, Yeah,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So anyway, there's another part about this film that really
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: I want to say, I'm okay with every decision made here.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have said, okay, Taylor, you got to change
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: a couple of script items here. I would because you
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: got to tell a movie. It's got to be an exaggeration.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: You can't have everybody doing something logical and reasonable. The
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: other part that I think people in West Texas went like,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that, mister Sheridan. And that was
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: the bank robbery part. Because now, the funny thing is
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: that they actually deal with this issue was which would
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: be a criticism of plausibility. They actually have an entire
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: scene in the film which I think is one of
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the funniest violent scenes in the history of film, and
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: also one that this sort of sums up something that
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: when I first went in the film and I was
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: in the theater and I was going like, wait a minute,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: they're going to do bank robberies in West Texas. Everybody
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: is armed, right, everybody has a good in rural Texas,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of people have weapons, and a lot.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Of in rural anywhere.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Really, but yeah, and that the supposition is Texas.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, it is just it is part of
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: the culture. And so the now they bring it up
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: right like their their goal. They try to rob banks
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: like in the morning when there's there's not going to
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: be a big crowd there. That's sort of set up
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: as they're a rule. But of course these Chris Pine
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: plays a pretty intelligent guy. Again, you could just imagine
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: he would be a manager on an oil field very successfully.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: In fact, why he doesn't have a good chi, I
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: mean a good living, I don't know. This is something
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: else that has to be brought up, is that if
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: you are a hard working, responsible, blue collar oriented man
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: in West Texas for the last sixty years, you can
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: get a really good job working on an oil field,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: working on a ranch, working on one of the big spreads,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: working in trades. You don't have to be poor in
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: West Texas unless there are you know, lots of circumstances
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: happen to people. But I'm just saying that that one
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: of the one of the issues we universities have for
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: attracting young males is that there you could get a
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: job driving a truck or working on an oil field
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: for a spectacular rate of pay.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to upper education. What's even that?
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, we make the case you know that
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: that there are there if you want something. I was
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I never tried tell students not to do something. I'm
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: just we just have to make our case. There are
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: every boddy where to drive trucks, yeah, or or and
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: these are these are dangerous, very difficult jobs, just like
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: you know, working as a pumber is a dangerous difficult
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: to our roofer or whatever. But the point is that
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: that that's a little bit harder to sell. The poverty part.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: That was easy to sell for Butch Cassidy and the
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: sun Dance kid that you know, the poor pressed farmers
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: and the rich railroad it's harder to sell in twenty sixteen,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: let's put it that way. But it's okay, we go
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: ahead with the plot. But then then we go back
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: to the gun issue, which they deal with in a hilarious,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: you know, violent tragic way, which is that at some
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: point they're they're following this rule of like, let's not
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: rob the bank when there's a lot of people there,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: they get delayed. Now I if I were Crispine, I
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: would say, screw getting delayed, We're not going to do it.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: We're going to follow our original plan, right, But they don't,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: and they walk in basically at lunchtime. And the scene
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: which I was expecting to happen, which definitely would have
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: happened if you tried to rob a West Texas bank
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: at lunch time, was that there are twenty guys there,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: and I'd say about half of them are open carrying
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: and the other half are concealed carrying. And so two
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: robbers walk in with guns and every single one of
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: these guys I have. You know, I've always thought, Chris,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: and I think I mentioned this on one of our
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: previous shows, there should be an Academy Award for tiny performance,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: like for an extra who just does one thing, and man,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: those people in the bank. And Taylor Sheridan has always
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: been very good and I think the director here was
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: very good at getting people in crowds to It's very
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: hard to get a crowd to act right. How many
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: times do you watch the film you can see somebody
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: laughing or you know, doing something weird, and they're not
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: like racting well.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Getting extras to be convincingly doing things like mostly it's
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: mostly in a film. If you look asked one or
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: two extras in, you begin to notice that there are
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: people that are just kind of there but aren't adding anything.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really am impressed in those films where
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: there's crowd shots in New York where the main actor
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: is like walking through the streets of New York and
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: everybody looks like they're just walking through the streets. Nobody's
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: like looking at the camera or right right doing something
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: goofy or something.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So pretty much what I'm saying is most films shot
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in the seventies in New York.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even today. I mean I watched the
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: television show Succession, which I hope we'll discuss at some point,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: and they had a lot of crap of scenes in
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: New York where their characters were walking along having dialogue,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: and they did a really good job of having New
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: York street scenes not be unintentionally hilarious there. But anyway,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: they walk into that bank, the Texas Bank. I think
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: it's noon during lunchtime, and oh, my gosh, all of
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: these people who I encounter every day, These these people,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: good people have just grown up up here, mostly guys.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: You know, they're cashing their paycheck or they're coming in
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: to get some extra money at the end of the.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Week, bringing in their old coins.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: And yeah, and they're they're thinking two things. One, they're thinking,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: these are the dumbest bank robbers on planet Earth. And
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: they're thinking, Okay, you're not taking my money. I have
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: a choice here. I'm not a helpless victim here. And
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: so there is a shootout. Now there is a little
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: bit of unrealism in that Ben Foster ends up killing
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: some of these people who they jump into their car
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: and chase the robbers. So it's not just a shootout
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: at the bank, like literally a whole bunch of people,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: which I don't think would happen in many other cities.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: That is, I would say that that's realistic, though I
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: think if this were to happen.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Realistic, that twenty guys would jump in their cars and.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Temporarily deputize themselves.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Now, the unrealistic part is that Ben Foster has a
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: rifle and kill some of those because he has a
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: rifle and they have handguns. I think a lot of
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: these guys would have a rifle in their car, so
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: they would be a rifle shoot a long distance shootout too.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: But it's a fantastic scene. It's a fantastic scene in
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: a fantastic action sequence. And then something happens which really
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: took me by surprise. And I love it when I'm
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: surprised in the movie when the plot takes a turn
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: that I didn't see coming, but still as plausible. It
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: isn't like just ridiculous. Gil Hamilton's character is shot and
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: killed and that was a big I don't know why
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: I keep doing that, Gil bermeham I'm sorry. Gil. Next
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: time I see you, I'll apologize. He's shot and killed
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: and unceremoniously.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: One might would say, right.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this wasn't a heroic shootout at noon.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: This is just you know, a shot got him, Ben Foster,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: I think it was. I think that's a character. Yeah,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: definitely him. We don't even know.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: We don't see him do it either, which I think
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: is a very smart choice because we're meant to empathize
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: with his character a little bit, and I think if
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we saw him doing that, I think that would take
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: away any level of empathy would have for that character
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: in the kind of final moments there.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have no empathy for the Ben Foster character whatsoever.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: That Yeah, I mean I don't have it for reasons
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I'll discuss later. I don't have any empathy for the
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Chris Pine character whatsoever either. But but like Ben Foster
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: is definitely we're supposed to read him as the badder
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: brother of the brothers. Yeah, but Gil Birmingham's character dies
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: now we have to we're off. Obviously we're doing some
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: spoilers for a ten year old film. But but Jeff Bridget,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, what an actor. Right, he has been
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: until this moment, He's not been a very attractive character.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: He's been bluff He's smart, he's obviously a very like
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a good ranger, a good investigator, he's clever. But he's
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: a racist buffoon. There's no other way to put it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: He says a lot of things did demean ALBERTA. Parker.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Gil Birmingham's character racial slurs and epithets and the sort
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: of you know, I don't know, Like the Sopranos they
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: had that phrase breaking balls, where like it led to killing,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: like one out of every five times somebody was murdered
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: because of that.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: You're gonna take that, Tommy, You're gonna take that.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: You're gonna do.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, it always makes me think a good Fellas.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know with Michael Imperioli and Joe Peshi,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: you're gonna take that.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: You're going to take that.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: From him, and it's like, you know, yeah, he's dead now,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: like I killed him.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just I'm just breaking this phrase. But that's
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: the phrase that they use. And I think he so
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: in his defense, he grew up in this culture where
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: men would constantly test each other by saying whatever slur
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: popped into their head with no andelocutor. Right, But Gil
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Birmingham's character is portrayed as like, first of all, he's
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: a generation younger and he's hurt. He's genuinely hurt by
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: these remarks. There's a scene in the Motel. It's a
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: beautiful scene where Jeff Bridges is going on and again
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: you get a sense Jeff Bridges does like this guy,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: he's his partner, but that's just the way he does.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: And this is this might even just be a quote
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: on his expect He's meeting the expectation where he is
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: expecting it to be met, which is, like you said,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give this guy a hard time because
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that's the expectation in our culture, or in that subculture,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: even that's the expectation. So I'm going to meet it,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: even if the other guy has no interest in meeting
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: me there, or he even wants to be there with
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: that expectation.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: He's coolest that Alberto Parker does not want to participate
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: in this right. By the way, I was thinking also
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: of the Seinfeld reference. If you remember an episode of Seinfeld,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: George ends up doing some business with some guys from Houston,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: and the guys from Houston are stereotypes. They're wearing cowboy
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and they're always saying, well, this bastard told me that
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: you're you bastard, And so George takes that and starts
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: using it in his daily New York conversation.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work at all, amazing.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: So anyway, this scene is a beautiful scene. It's a
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: beautifully written scene. It's a beautifully directed scene. They're in
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: a motel room. They're doing the investigation. Jeff Bridges is
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: just doing his stuff. And you see a close up
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: of Gil Birmingham facing you, lying on a motel bed
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: because they're in a room with two beds and he's
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: lying facing you and he's there's tears welling up, and
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: you're thinking, Wow, this is different than the regular Western,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: you know, which Cassidy would not like take take offense
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: right yea at something that Sundance kids said to him,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: and like have tears in his eyes.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: They were calling each other yellow all the time. They
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: were calling each other all kinds of things in those movies,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: and you never saw anybody bulk at them once.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: The Wild Bunch, which is definitely referred to here in
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the sense of like some of the forms and tropes
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: of the Wild Bunch. By the way, we're talking about Westerns,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: like you know, the Wild Bunch was famously described as
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: the last Western, and the Western that was intent because
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: it used the machine gun, and you know, this was
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the end of the era of the one man against
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: each other. All the men in the Wild Bunch are
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: hard men that you could never imagine crying themselves to
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: sleep in bed.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Especially and especially not because of another what another man said.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely to me, that was an Oscar winning moment for
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: gil Birmingham. There should have there. And also you gotta
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: get Taylor Sheridan gets some criticism for some of the
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you know, the goofy stuff that did happen in Yellowstone
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: and elsewhere, and some of the other things that he's
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: done in shows anybody who's written as much as he
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: is always going to have something people can criticize. But
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: that moment, I was thinking, man, you just reinvented a
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Western character that I have never seen before. They've been
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: one hundred thousand Westerns and no one has ever done
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: this in my living memory. Now I'm not, you know,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: an ultimate scholar of all Westerns since the dawn of time.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: But is there a scene where one cowboy's teasing of
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: another drives the other one into tears?
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Not in a film that's meant to be taken seriously.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe in a comedy parody, but it's done so well.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: And then of course at the end, Marcus Hamilton Jeff
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Bridges is devastated by the death of his partner. Now again,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: this is so clever. How many cop movies have we
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: seen lethal weapon whatever? I mean, how many cop movies
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: have we seen where a guy's partner is killed forty
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: eight hours I'm thinking of, excuse me, forty eight hours
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: somebody's partner is killed, and then the cop gets even
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: you know, revenge and stracks down the murderer. The trope
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: is completely subverted in over here because what happens he
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: realizes he was partly responsible. He is. He suddenly realizes also, man,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: this guy died thinking i'mant a jerk, you know, I
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: treated him so badly, and then there's no resolution in
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: the film. There's no there's no like final, final, final,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: final shootout.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Well, I would contend that Taylor shared I means smartest, Well,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: it's it's a I would say that the smartest thing
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: that Taylor Sharedan did, on top of all the other
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: smart things he did, was give us you said, like
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the first time a cowboy has ever made another cowboy
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: come to tears. I think he's also given us what
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: I would describe the first mental shootout verbal shootout between characters,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: because at the end of the movie, instead of there
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: being a you know, guns at noon, it's words at
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: you know words at half past five. You know there's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: no like you said, there's no actual shootout in the movie.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: The actual shootout of the movie comes thirty minutes before
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the end of the movie. But what we get at
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the end of the movie is a war of words
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: in a way that is much more devastating than any
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: bullet to the heart or head could ever be, because
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the person who hears those words often has to live
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: with the consequences of what they've heard. And that's kind
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of the implication at the end of the movie is
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: if Jeff Bridges and Crispine do or don't get back
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: into the same room and talk to one another, they
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: at least know what side of the page and what
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: side of the river they're standing on at the end
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: of the movie, even if they're not pointing guns at
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: each other, they're pointing two ideological.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: Opposites at one another.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: And that's enough for Taylor Sheridan to kind of get
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it over the hump of a war of words taking
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: the place of a final shootout at a movie and
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: it and unlike No Country for Old Men, where nothing
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: in that last ten minutes of that movie really works. Here,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: it works like Gangbusters, because, like you've already talked about,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Taylor Sheridan does such a good job of letting us
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: know I'm going to upend your expectations almost entirely. I mean,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a bad comparison to make. And
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: I've heard Yellowstone described as the Sopranos in the West,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure you'll say it's probably like that in
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: some capacity. I would say it's not surprising that the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: comparison is made to the Sopranos when that show. One
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: of the things I love about that show and David
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Chase as a showrunner is constantly subverting expectations at every opportunity,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: at every opportunity, and Taylor Sheridan, I see the same
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: in him as an aw tour Like he has a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: specific idea and mindset and way of thinking about things,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and it goes through everything.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: It doesn't just stop at one thing.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: And you see that, like you said in the movie
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: with with Gil Birmingham's character, you see it in that
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: later moment at the hotel or at the motel where
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Jeff Ridges and him are sitting outside and they're having
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a conversation about the way the West used to be
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and they talk about how we were all Indians at
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: one point, and I think that again, that's Taylor Sheridan
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: being very smart about the way he's writing things and
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: ignor knowledging the history of the genre and of the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: West as a whole, but also saying we're past that
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: in a way where we need to move past our
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: kind of older ways of doing things and move into
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: this kind of newer, more acceptable Gil Birmingham way of
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: doing things. As I think Taylor Sheridan is very smart
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: in really challenging expectations and saying I am only not
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: not only going to upend your expectations, but in upending them,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I will also continue down that path and not really
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: make mention of it. I'm not going to do like
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you know in Casino Royale that James bond reboo, where
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: they make like they really linger on the up ending
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: of expectations.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Here, they don't really linger on it. It just kind
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: of goes.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate that as well, because that means I
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: think you have faith in you have ultimate faith in
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. They don't have to hang a lantern
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: on every up ending of expectations you do the sopranos
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: just ended.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: David Chase knew what he was doing.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: And he has really never hung a lantern and on
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: it since he did it, and he never will because,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: like Taylor Sheridan, he's the kind of person who expects
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: that if you've watched the show, where you've watched the movie,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and you followed me all the way to the end,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: then you are exactly where I want you to be.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: If you've been paying attention and playing along and giving
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: yourself over to the thing that I've created, which Taylor Sheridan,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: if you do that, it really works like Gangbusters.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Clearly.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, I always have a problem with simple, and I
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: know that's not what you're doing. Like simple compare here,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: since you were doing a very complex tiered comparison of
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: two creators. And I hate it when people on the
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: website so who was a better Western director, John Vord
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: or William Wiler. Well, they did different movies at different times,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and let's talk about their different elements. I feel it
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: just on the criterion that you listed there, of the
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: subversion of expectations, I felt that Taylor Sheridan in this
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: movie did a better job because it did feel very
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: heavy handed and purposive. There are some things that have
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: come out about the Sopranos where apparently David Chase became
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: angrier and angrier at the fans right because he kept
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: he kept making Tony Soprano and the Soprano crew into
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: more and more evil people, like they would do more
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: and more horrible things. And yet the fans were like, Hey,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: did you just see Tony whacked that guy last night?
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: That was that was great, And David Chase was sort
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: of feeling like his fan the fan base was not
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: appreciating what he was doing, and I think that affected
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: the work and it became sort of a checklist of
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: all the things we can do have Tony Soprano do
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: to alienate the audience, which they he never did. But
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: here I felt was more organic. Right, Like Jeff Bridge's
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: character starts out, you can see if you view him comprehensively,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: he is effective as a Texas ranger. He is a
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: very smart investigator. He's probably great in the gun battle.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: You know, he's probably physically strong. He checks a lot
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: of boxes. But he is not He is too antiquarian
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: in his social attitudes and his treatment of his fellow officers.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't help. It doesn't put help the investigation
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: and he comes to realize that. And Gil Birmingham plays
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: somebody who is the future is the new generation of
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: effective because he's just as effective. He's not a poor
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Texas Ranger, a good Texas ranger. He's probably going to
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: be more effective because he's more sensitive and aware of
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: people's feelings and understanding. Look, we can't say this anymore,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: we can't do this or something like that. So it's
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: a generational conflict that has resolved in the favor of
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: the person who dies in the line of duty as
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: a hero. So to me, the Alberto Parker character is
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: sort of sacrificing himself for the future, not just dying
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: in a gunfight there. And it just felt organic much more.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: It's felt like a natural evolution arc. You know, people
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: often say any kind of character changes they call it
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: an arc. I think there's very few character arcs that
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: are done very well. Actually, it's more I mean, to me,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: just somebody acts differently in the See seven that they
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: didn't eat too. It doesn't necessarily mean there's an arc.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: It just means bad writing sometimes right right.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Well, And I would say arcs take a while, like
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: arcs I think should almost be. I wouldn't say, like
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: you know, solely used when talking about television, but in
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: immedia needs time to build a character up so that
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: they can go on a believable journey to your point,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: and you know you can't just to be able to
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: subvert expectations, you have to set things up, and setting
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: things up takes a while. I mean, to go back
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: to The Sopranos, took six season to get to the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: end of that show for where they're able to do
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: what they did. You know, Yellowstone went on for how
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: many seasons? Five or six seasons. Yeah, it's it's one
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: of these things where I think if if you go
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: into a movie like this with the expectation that's going
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: to be one way, Taylor Sheridan, I think takes you
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: on this journey that rewards you for sticking with it
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and giving yourself over to the.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: To the to the writer.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I would say the other thing about the Gil Birmingham character,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: that's interesting and you know, just the optics of it
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: or kind of the Western iconography of it. You have
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: two cowboys again for visually two cowboys, Jeff Bridges.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: And Gil Berming.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: But then you take it back and you look at
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: what they're really trying to play at, which is the
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: age old story of cowboys end quote indians unquote. And
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: we have you know, the the the white man with
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: the Native man, and the native man is the one
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: in tune with things and the white man is the
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: one who's out of touch with things. And you know,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: we have Alberto Parker saying multiple times like well you
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: just got lucky, or you know, you know, we should do.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: This, or we should do this.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: And Jeff Bridges is going off of the old you know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: stakeouts and other things, and Gil Birmingham's character is going
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: off of the new ways, and I like, I like
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to your point that they don't do the thing you expect,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: which is Jeff Bridges sacrificing himself for the new ways,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: you know, so that the old ways may die and
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the new ways may take over, but the character of
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: the new ways sacrifices himself for the old ways to change,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: because it would stand to reason Jeff Bridges' character wouldn't
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: have gone on that journey two thirds of the way
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: through the movie.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: If he had not died.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: So it's, you know, like you said, the sacrificial piere
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: he throws himself on is one to progress the story,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: but also to cause a change, a genuine believable change
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: within Jeff Bridges' character, where after that moment in the film,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: he is no longer the kind of amiable buffoon that
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: he has played.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: To be earlier on.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Throughout the movie, he becomes very sad and dour, more
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: like a cowboy of the old Western story, kind of
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: the old grizzled you know, law man who's just looking
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: to be done with his days, which I mean, obviously
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: it's smart that he you expect he's the one who's
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: going to die, because it's been coded into the script
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: that he's he's just just a year away from retirement,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I you know, like tomorrow is my last day.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: They make fun of it in The Simpsons, they make
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: fun of it in National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: They make fun of it in Last Action Hero.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: They're like, I was one day away from retirement, like
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: and then you die. You know, that's always that's always
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: the gag. That's always the joke, and Taylor Sheridan traffics
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: in it, and it's it's you know, it's funny.
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: It's a joke.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: You know, I sound like one of these people in
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Room two three seven, Like you know, Kubrick was making
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: a very serious joke here, like Sheridan is making a
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: very fun play on your expectations here if you're willing
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: to meet him where he wants to be met, which
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: is understanding iconography of the West and Western because it's
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: you know, Tonto and Lone Ranger. Ultimately, but what if
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: the Lone Ranger was a moron? Like that's essentially the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: setup of this movie. But the question always becomes in
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: those movies anyways, who was actually doing leading? Was it
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Tonto or was it the Lone Ranger. It would always
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: almost seem to reason that Tonto was the one leading
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the Lone Ranger just by pure happenstance and sheer existence
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: that that was Tonto's expectation from the Lone Ranger, was
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: he was going to lead him. And they trafficked in
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: that here because it's again it's we get these kind
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: of oscillating levels of who is in charge, who was
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: in the lead, who was the one who we should
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: be empathizing and sympathizing with. And I think the movie
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: makes the case that by the end of the movie.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: It was meant to be both, but the movie was
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: doing a very good job and kind of juggling the
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: balls with your expectation.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, and absolutely praise to Jeff Bridges, because Jeff Bridges,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: I think is at a point of his career It
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: certainly was in twenty sixteen where he doesn't have to
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: take a role, right, nothing left to prove at this point. Now, yeah,
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: he's proved that he's one of the great living actors
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: of our time. He's done a lot of different kinds
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: of roles. So he gets to the script, and at
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: that time, Taylor Sheridan was not the giant. Now I mean,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: now any agent would like run to an actor's home
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: like waving a script too. Sherdan's then us right right
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: to anyone. Uh, there's very few people would not read
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: a script right there. He was not as famous at
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: that time ten years ago. So Jeff Bridges, if you
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: just imagine reading the script and going like, well, I
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: think I know you were, you were exaggerating for effect.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: He actually is very competent. He he's a moron in
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: his way. He treats his fellow co worker and and
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: his just on his lack of self awareness in the
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: damage that he's doing, not just to a human being,
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: but also like ultimately it probably hurts their effectiveness as
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: a team. Yeah so so, But so Jeff Bridges is reading,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: so I'm going to be this callous, racist old guy.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: But oh my gosh, I what well what happens here? Oh?
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: What?
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: You can see the actors opportunity in this. He realizes
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: that his habits of a lifetime were wrong, and he's
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: trying to make amends in a tone for it. But
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: he's frustrated in that, and he has to make a
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: decision about whether he spent his whole career upholding the law.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: And again, we don't know what's going to happen a
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: week later. Uh. I know what if this had been
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: written by a lesser writer, created by a lesser director, Yeah,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: there would have been Jeff Bridges would have gone to
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Crispine's house and shot him right. There would have been
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: a shootout, Yeah, there would there would have been. They
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: would have been a Western shootout. Now, the last scene
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: of the film would have been a low Western shooterot.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: As you say, the shootout is half an hour before
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: the end. There's there's some other stuff there that's a
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: little bit again, just my little implausible. In good films,
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: implausibilities we just look past them because everything is flowing
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: so nicely, we just don't want to stop. And in
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: bad films they become And then I think the casino
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: money laundering, that's something out of the seventies. Every dime
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: is accounted for. You can't just you know, do that.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: And the Texas Rangers are like an FBI like organization,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: so they would have been able to go to a
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: casino and like get Crispine on video and see this
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: and that, and then the the whole thing where a
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: bank helps cover up and refuses to help in the investigation.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, there's no possibility the Texas Rangers would hold
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: a press conference and say Texas Midland Bank is refusing
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: to cooperate in the investigation of a death death of
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: a Texas Ranger. That's that is unbelievably crist big, big deal,
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: Like the Governor of Texas would throw a task force
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: with four hundred people on it to solve that crime.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: That that that so the idea that the Texas Middleland
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: he would the president of that bank would get a
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: phone call from the Governor of Texas saying, what the
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: hell are you doing down there? Right? So so that
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: that doesn't work, but it But it's a great example again, kids,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: if you're writing a screenplay, you are allowed in plausibilities.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: You're allowed quote unquote plot holes. If everything around it
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: is transcendently great and moving the plot forward, it's okay, right.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: It literally doesn't matter like it It matters so little
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: that it, Like you said, the only reason you're bringing
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: it up is to highlight how good of a thing
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: this is. That it does not detract, hamper, harm or
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: do anything other than exist at the same time as
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: those things. Those two things can be true at.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: The same time.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: This can be an amazing thing that has some kind
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: of wonky logic, but the wonky logic serves the plot
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: in such a way that I don't really care, because
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the movie does, like you said, such a good job
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: in writing its name and cursive effectively that I'm impressed
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: by the way it did it that I don't necessarily
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: need to know that. You know, maybe it wasn't exactly
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: what I wanted, but it all hangs together, and that's
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: I think. The thing with Taylor Sheridan clearly as a
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: writer is he is thoughtful and purposeful in what he does,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: and not everyone who writes is thoughtful and purposeful, and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes they're neither. I think it's important that Taylor Sheridan
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: kind of commits to the bit, as it were. When
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: given an opportunity to pay homage or reference West Texas
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: or previous Western things, he does that, he takes that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: upon himself. He makes sure to do it in a
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: way that is also not just, you know, like we've said,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: paying lip service. There's that scene between Ben Foster and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the Comanche man at the casino table that I think
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: is also very indicative of Taylor Shardan's ability to write
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: a scene that works, that speaks more or less to
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the entire film's premise in one moment.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he's really summed up what Taylor
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Sheridan has demonstrated himself to be one of the great
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: artists of our time in the probably one of the
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: most important media we have for expressing art, film and television.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, you could say digital games now are obviously
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: part of that different palettes that you can express art
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: just as much as traditional oil painting or music. But
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: he does not make these references just to check a box, right,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: It isn't like you can imagine two cowboys in big
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: cowboy hats driving their Mercedes down a Texas highway and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: by the side of the road is a man dressed
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: in traditional Indian garb and he's has one tier. This
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: is harkening back to the famous commercials about stopping pollution
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: in the seventies. But that would be like so heavy handed.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: I guess we've learned in our time together. And this
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: is what I try to get across to my students
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: is that great art does not hammer you over the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: head and tell you it's great art. You yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: it does, doesn't say and by the way, in case
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: you missed it, the mean it doesn't have like a
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: play by play and a color commentary saying like and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: by the way, the meaning of this scene is I
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: oppose racism. Does everybody get it? Did everybody get it?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I want, you know, I want the clap, the slow
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: clapping to begin now right right, yeah, this that moment
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: in the motel. I just go back to it because
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: I really think it, like like if you asked me
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: my top fifty scenes in movies where I felt a
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: point was being made. So brilliantly without heavy handedness underlining,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: you know, spotlights. That was it about the cost of racism,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: the cost of ethnic you know, identism, where you're you're
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: making people feel terrible for who they are. It just
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. A great film deserves attention, deserves rewatch.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: If you haven't seen.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: It before, we hope we haven't spoiled it for you.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: But like, you don't have to be a tailor shirt.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: I think the thing I want to add is that
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: there there are people who watch films like, oh, I'm
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: a Stanley Kubrick fan, so I'll watch all the Stanley
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Kubrick films. That's not the reason to watch it. This
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: is stands alone. You don't have to have watched any
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: any other American trilogy or.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Other than Sacario. And I honestly forgot that. I forgot
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: that he wrote Sacario because I just look at that
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: as a DNA evil neve thing like and you know, obviously.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: You can see now yeah, yeah, I mean we can
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: go off on the direct a great screenplay. We've said
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: this before. This is my rant. I get to say
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: it every episode. Hollywood can throw money at a film
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: project and the lighting will be good, although weirdly sometimes
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: it's not. But the acting can be good, although weirdly
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's not. But you know, the props are good.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: But like no amount of money can produce a good screenplay.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: It just is or it isn't right right, So, uh,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: this is a great screenplay.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: And I would say everything I've seen of Taylor Sheridan's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: in terms of his films, which is Sacario in this film.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Both have great screenplays because yes, great directors are involved,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: but that doesn't necessarily mean the screenplay is going to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: be and well and also to be fair, you know.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: And this is the other thing I will say about
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Taylor Sheridan, Like, like we've talked about subtlety and nuance,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the two characters in this movie are riding in a
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: car that's a what at some point they're in a
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: bronco at one point driving around, which again the iconography
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: of the West, and driving around and you're riding on horses.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: That the fact that Taylor Sheridan is able to make
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: me think of men riding on horses while two men
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: are in a car is something that a writer, only
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: a writer could get away with in terms of the
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: subtlety and nuance. The director obviously has to be able
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: to understand what the writer's going for. But the fact
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: that Taylor Sheridan was able to evoke horse riding with
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: cars is.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Something that is that, isn't it?
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: That isn't an innate ability of a great if not,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: like again, like you said, a tour level writer, and
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: I think Taylor Sheridan is, and I think you know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: to your point of like the yellowstone of it all,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I've seen no yellows and so I'm the perfect person
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: to speak to. I have no idea what that show
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: is about. I know nothing about it other than like
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: I've said, it's the sopranos on the on the planes,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: is what I have been led to believe by the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: things that I've read. That's probably being dismissive, and uh,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: you know, like very I wouldn't say dismissive, but like
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: you know, simplistic, I'm sure, which is unfortunate, and I
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: would like to get around to watching it at some point.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: So all of that to say, I'm the right person
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: to have watched this because I have no affiliation to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Taylor Sheridan whatsoever. And like I said, forgot that he
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: even wrote Sakaria, I would say that this is, like,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the best westerns I've seen, and
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: probably one of the best movies I've seen in a
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: really long time. I would put this up there for
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: me with a writer director like Martin McDonough, whoever, every
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: time he releases something, I go and try to see
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: it in theater because I think Martin McDonough is one
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: of the best living writers in terms of film right now,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: and I would put Taylor Sheridan in that same group now,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Like you know, I would say that, like you said,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I parsed over the script for Heller high Water and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: the script for Hell or High Water is amazing, just
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the way all of the scripts for Martin McDonough's films are,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: because the writer has such a unique and specific voice
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: that it comes through on the page in every word
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: that they write it, and it's it's you know, sometimes
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: a script is a guideline. Sometimes a script is an outline.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Sometimes a script is a step by step way of
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: doing things. Taylor Sheridan's scripts are just again, it's like
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: you said, like he's an auteur for a reason. He
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: gets exactly, he gets exactly across what he wants you
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: to understand with his words on the page, and then
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: a director can execute that easier than others because Taylor
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Sheridan is telling you exactly what he needs. And like
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: I said, that those shots behind the shots behind the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: car shots with the cars jostling on the road making
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: them look like horses, and then utilizing just the one
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: usage of the word bronco very again smartly but not
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: hanging a lantern on it. I think, as you know,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: if indicative of a writer who I wish I could
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: write like that. I think anyone who wants to write
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: professionally in film would hope that they could ever achieve
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: the levels of what he achieved with this script, because,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: like I said, I think this is one of there's
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: a reason this movie is nominated.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: For Best Picture. It's because it's a.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Really good movie with a lot of nuance and depth
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: and thoughtfulness to it that most movies don't even have
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: in one scene, let alone every scene in this movie has.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess the way I'd like to end on
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: this movie is that one of the qualities I felt
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: that came through on the script, which is something again,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: people who want to learn or want to write stories
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: is the effortlessness of it. The idea that like, this
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: is an organic story and organic characters who develop. While
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: some of the technical like how they get from A
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: to B plausibility questions come up just as an aside,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: just as fun to talk about for a few seconds,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: but like the character development, what people do and say
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: feels so natural, and this is this great challenge. Right.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of properties now, you know, two
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: hundred million dollar television series where I did not feel
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: for one moment that I wasn't hearing the words of
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: for California screenwriters, right, and they're by their pool typing
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: or to or Uffer brothers, you know, just just I
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: didn't feel that they understood whether it's you know, a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: space colony or it's a Western crime drama. I watch
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff where I don't feel the those
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: people have understood their own characters, right, right, right, I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: agree with you, and I'll tell you Taylor Sheridan has
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: whatever is that magical ability that you may disagree with
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: his characters. You may disagree with what they do, you
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: may disagree with some of his choices, but man, he
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: knows his people right and what they do.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: He He's created It's one of those things where a
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: when a really good writer does what they do well,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: they create a sandbox where within that sandbox everything is
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: so clearly defined yet wide open that it's less about well,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I don't understand what you know. I don't understand what
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Tony Soprano would do if he went to, you know,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: the toy store with his son. No, I actually do know,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: because David Chase and the writers he surrounded himself with
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: created and characterized Tony Soprano in such a way that
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: he's essentially a wind up toy that you already have
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: seen been built and it just goes. You just have
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: to figure out what direction to point it in, and
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: it will interact with the things the way it always has,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: because it's so clearly defined to begin with, and the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: world is so clearly defined, but it's wide open. And
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: that's the sign of a good writer is that they're
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: able to, like you said, craft a world that seems
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: at times real, believable, plausible, but also wide open to
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: things happening that, like you know, I would say, subverting
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: expectations is just a writer attempting to inject a level
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: of reality into their script that's hard to do, because
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: you know when we talk, you know, we've you know,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: you and I are friends, and we've talked outside of this,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: you know, in a non professional capacity, and you know,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I've talked about my personal life and my personal life
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: for eighteen years almost after I graduated high school was
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: pretty drama free and without any subverting of my expectations,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: as one might say. But a couple of years ago,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: my expectations were subverted in a way that's hard for
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: me to still. I mean now, as I've processed it
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: therapy and other things, I understand better now. But I
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: would say that the term subverting expectations really, in a
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, just means something happened in this that
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: is reflective of real life's unpredictability in a way that
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: is believable. And you know, Gil Birmingham's character dying while
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: he's just sitting there aiming down the sites of a
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: gun at Ben Foster hasn't even shot at him and
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: just dies is pretty realistic. That's subverting of your expectations.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: But that happens all the time in real life. Someone
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: just dies on the job, especially in a dangerous job
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: like that, And I think it's interesting. Taylor Sheridan, I think,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: is able to create a world where things are believably happening,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: but then the subverting of expectation moments are still as
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: believable and real, but they also hit really hard because
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: you understand the weight of them in the world that
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: he's created. Because the world that he's created is so
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: just thoughtful and well thought out that it you care
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: about the things that are happening, and you are following
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: along with the story or the plot, but you're also
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: aware that this writer is willing to inject something into
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: their stories that is reflective of the real life that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: we all live, and that's dangerous in a way, that's
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: transgressive and subversive in a way, because movies for a
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: lot of people are a safe space you go to
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: where the expectations and the genre kind of tropes are
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: lived within. I mean again to speak to the Western,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: a genre that has so many tropes, or the mobster
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: genre that has so many tropes, and David Chase and
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Taylor Sheridan have taken it upon themselves as writers to
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: upend those expectations. Not intentionally, I would say, but just
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: because their way of writing and their unique voice that
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: they each have is just more about hewing close to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: what we all live as a human experience. I think
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: they as writers actually speak to the human experience much
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: more than most writers do, because, like you just said,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: I watch so many things and I just hear four
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: people sitting in a room together, not on a bone,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: collectively passing it around, going well, do we think this
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: character should live? Do we think that this character should die?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know what, I think the story actually
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: dictates that you guys are just the shepherds of the story.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: The story has dictated the expectations. And when I hear
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things, like you said, all I can
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: think is just a bunch of people sitting in a
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: room together, be it in La or New York or
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: where have you, and it's just it's not true to
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the world and the characters they've created. And that's such
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: a shame because anymore, that's what I want, That's what
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: I resonate with, is a writer is wanting to speak
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: truth to power in terms of the human experience. And
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: I don't really if I want to go be entertained
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: by something, there are plenty of things I can go
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: entertain myself with. But if I want to watch something
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: and really have something to chew on. Like this movie,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: I want the writer to take it upon themselves to
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: speak to the human experience in a way that feels
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: real as opposed to just a put on.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: Well, i think I'm going to give you an a
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: plus for this class, Chris Dang.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Well, yet again, thank you, and you you've done well
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: with the pick as well. I would say, you know,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: we've we've been you know, just kind of chatting outside
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: of these podcasts and and picking up things to watch.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: And you know, the thing that we were originally going
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: to watch was a lot more out there than this,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: a little less narratively straightforward. Is a time travel movie
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: with Sam Rockwell, uh, this is not that. And I'm
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: actually glad that this wasn't that because I I could
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: stand to have watched a little straightforward cinema for once,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: because I do try to keep myself in the weirder
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: side of things. So thank you for the good pick this.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: This is a film that I'm I'm going to definitely
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: suggest to people and rewatch you know, on on on
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: several occasions with other people so I can talk with
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: them about it. Because I know my dad who's a
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: huge fan of Westerns, went to Archer City de Larry
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: McMurtry's like bookstore when it was still open. Like, my
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: dad loves westerns, like this is right in his wheelhouse,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: and so you know I would be excited to watch
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: this with him. So thank you for another good suggestion.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: You know we're you're as to use a baseball parlance.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: You're batting.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: You know you're batting in the point four point five,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: may even higher than that. I don't think you've had
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: a bad suggestion yet. Every at bat has been a success,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: no strikeouts yet.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: Well again, something I try to put forge in my students.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of Mystery Science thereto three thousand
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: and you know it's been renewed by Netflix and they
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: injected a big budget into it. It's really being well
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: done now, I mean it always was. I'm old enough
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: to remember the original show. And you see films there which,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: let's put it this way, they are technically terrible, right, acting, plot,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: the photography, everything is pretty bad. But you know you
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: learn something from them, right, And so nobody should ever
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: watch a movie or a TV show and go like boy,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: I mean you can say that was a waste of
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: your time, that's reasonable to say. But if if you're
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: interested in making culture or critiquing appreciating culture, and at
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: least you learned something from the good, the bad, and
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: the ugly, and this was definitely the good, so well,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: I would say.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: That, I would say even more than good, I would
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: say that this is transcendent. I would say that I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: rarely watch perfect films, but this is the closest thing
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: I've seen to a perfect film in a while, so no,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. So if you want to hear
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: more discussion with the doctor Peerlmutter and I talking about
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: film and other well just film really, I mean, I
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: like he's alluded to, I'd like to expand a little
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: bit more into other things. And that's a discussion for
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: another time. But if you want to hear me talking
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: primarily about television, it's not going to be here. It's
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: going to be on several other specific podcasts that talk
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: about television shows specifically, not broadly, but for movie discussion,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: head on over to the Culture Cast, which is this
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: show you're listening to now, which is part of the
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: Weirdingway Media network, which you can find over at weirdingwaymedia
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: dot com, where this show so many other great shows
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: like Midnight Viewing, Rejection Booth, eighty CV Ladies, and plenty
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: of other shows that I'm probably forgetting because there's a
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: lot of them. Just go listen to those. Stop listening
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: to me, and listen to those.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: It's that part of the show.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Like, rate and review this show on iTunes and Spotify.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: Those are the only two places I would prefer you
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: find the show. If you're finding it elsewhere, cool, leave
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: a like, I guess on YouTube. Doctor Pearl Mutter, thank
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: you so much for the candor and the film pick again.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: I always appreciate it.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and as always, we'll catch you on the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: next episode. H