Transcript

#22 Marchel · Heavyweight

0:04
Speaker 1: No, this is the operator. I have a collect phone
0:06
Speaker 1: call from Jonathan Goldstein for doctor Jackie Cohen. Do you
0:10
Speaker 1: accept the charges?
0:11
Speaker 2: No, I don't accept the pay Jackie. That wasn't even
0:14
Speaker 2: the operator. I know it wasn't the operator. That was
0:17
Speaker 2: my assistant, Khalila.
0:19
Speaker 3: Hi, Khalila, I remember you.
0:20
Speaker 1: How are you?
0:21
Speaker 2: Don't answer?
0:22
Speaker 4: I'm fine, don't I'm in.
0:24
Speaker 5: The middle of trying to get the kids do their homework.
0:26
Speaker 5: I'm in the middle of dinner.
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Speaker 2: I play. This is just a test. What are you
0:30
Speaker 2: going to do when I'm in trouble? Someday? In a
0:32
Speaker 2: real operator call.
0:33
Speaker 3: There are real operators anymore.
0:35
Speaker 2: John, wouldn't you say that I'm a real operator?
0:38
Speaker 5: Would you say you're a real operator.
0:41
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I'd like to think. I
0:49
Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe not a big time operator, small time operator.
0:55
Speaker 1: Okay, Can I go now?
0:56
Speaker 6: Yeah?
0:57
Speaker 2: You can go now? Can I go to Yeah? From
1:08
Speaker 2: Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's
1:14
Speaker 2: episode Marshall. In the late nineties, I was working on
1:29
Speaker 2: an experimental novella, an erotic coming of age story told
1:33
Speaker 2: as a series of picuresque vignettes that so defied categorization
1:38
Speaker 2: that even now, almost twenty years later, the best description
1:42
Speaker 2: I can come up with for it is an erotic
1:44
Speaker 2: coming of age story told as a series of picuresque vignettes.
1:49
Speaker 2: To support myself during this prolonged parents nightmare, I got
1:53
Speaker 2: a job reviewing movies for a local alternative weekly. It
1:57
Speaker 2: didn't pay much, but after spending all day working on
2:01
Speaker 2: my novella, hating my writing and myself, it felt good
2:05
Speaker 2: to direct my critical gaze outward for a while. Because
2:09
Speaker 2: for me, nothing was ever quite right food, music, clothing.
2:15
Speaker 2: I'd made it into my late twenties only having ever
2:17
Speaker 2: found one T shirt that met my strict sartorial standards.
2:22
Speaker 2: Material was always too scratchy, neck holes always too tight.
2:26
Speaker 2: Reviewing films gave my negativity a place to prance free.
2:31
Speaker 2: Some of my headlines from the time include Ted Demi's
2:35
Speaker 2: Blow Blows and American Beauty is No Beauty. Because I
2:45
Speaker 2: was from Montreal, my editor put me in charge of
2:47
Speaker 2: the foreign film reviews, and even though I understood zero French,
2:52
Speaker 2: I still found a way to be critical, focusing on
2:54
Speaker 2: less plot related criteria like runtime and lighting. Of Suleasaba,
3:00
Speaker 2: I wrote nothing of Charlotte Rampling's intense performance. Instead, I
3:04
Speaker 2: complained that the ninety two minute film was too bright.
3:09
Speaker 2: It was around this time that I discovered the ninety
3:12
Speaker 2: nine minute film Russian Arc. What drew me to this
3:19
Speaker 2: Russian film was its willingness to experiment in the name
3:22
Speaker 2: of art. Directed by Alexander Sokarov, Russian Arc takes place
3:27
Speaker 2: in Saint Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, and it depicts three hundred
3:32
Speaker 2: years of Russian history. But here's the thing. It does
3:36
Speaker 2: so in one continuous, unedited, ninety minute long shot. This
3:43
Speaker 2: means thirty three rooms, nearly two thousand actors, two different orchestras,
3:48
Speaker 2: fifty makeup artists, sixty five costume designers, three centuries of
3:54
Speaker 2: Russian history, all presented in a single seamless take. At
4:04
Speaker 2: the time, directors competed with one another to create the
4:08
Speaker 2: longest unedited shots they could. Paul Thomas Anderson clocked in
4:12
Speaker 2: at two minutes and fifty four seconds with the opening
4:15
Speaker 2: discothech scene in Boogie Nights, and Martin Scorsese tipped the
4:19
Speaker 2: scales at just over three minutes with Rayliota's entrance into
4:23
Speaker 2: the Kopa in Goodfellas and here came Sokarov, saying, I
4:28
Speaker 2: see your measley little scenes and raise you one entire
4:32
Speaker 2: movie only. He probably said it in Russian. If the
4:37
Speaker 2: accomplishment of an uninterrupted shot that spans ninety minutes is
4:41
Speaker 2: still lost on you, let me just say, as someone
4:44
Speaker 2: who works in the recorded arts, it's really hard to
4:47
Speaker 2: make anything good without editing. Without editing editing, I screw it,
4:55
Speaker 2: my good looking editor, Jorge, we'll fix that in post.
5:01
Speaker 2: Though they'd been planning the movie for over two years,
5:04
Speaker 2: Sokarov and his crew had only one day to shoot
5:07
Speaker 2: the entire film, the twenty third of December two thousand
5:10
Speaker 2: and one, with only three hours of sunlight. It's one
5:14
Speaker 2: of the shortest days of the Russian year, which gave
5:17
Speaker 2: them just a few hours to pull off a perfect
5:19
Speaker 2: work of art, and as I remember it, they succeeded
5:25
Speaker 2: almost The film is structured as a series of vignettes.
5:33
Speaker 2: The camera drifts from room to room, catching glimpses of
5:36
Speaker 2: historic sceness. The Shaw's grandson apologizes to tar Nicholas the
5:46
Speaker 2: First for an attack on the Russian embassy.
5:48
Speaker 4: That's been better with them.
5:51
Speaker 2: The camera lingers as Peter the Great reprimands a courtier.
6:00
Speaker 2: The camera moves on, capturing a man as he builds
6:03
Speaker 2: a coffin during the Siege of Leningrad. It catches Catherine
6:12
Speaker 2: the Great watching a play, then follows her as she
6:23
Speaker 2: runs off to find a bathroom. The movie is virtually
6:30
Speaker 2: no storyline, so the central drama, the thing that keeps
6:34
Speaker 2: you watching, is this simple question wheel the filmmakers actually
6:39
Speaker 2: pull off their crazy stunt at any instant. An actor
6:44
Speaker 2: could stumble a line, a dancer miss a que, a boom,
6:47
Speaker 2: mic could fall, a piece of lighting crash, someone could cough.
6:53
Speaker 2: At the twenty minute mark, you think this is doomed.
6:57
Speaker 2: At thirty you grip the theater armress. At one hour,
7:02
Speaker 2: you can't help but get on board, rooting at every
7:04
Speaker 2: turn for the film's success. And when there's only ten
7:08
Speaker 2: minutes to go, you realize that, against all odds, they
7:12
Speaker 2: might actually pull it off. In the film's last remaining minutes,
7:20
Speaker 2: the camera enters upon an elaborate recreation of the last
7:24
Speaker 2: Grand Royal Ball before the Bolshevik Revolution. The room, in
7:28
Speaker 2: this critics opinion is bright. The orchestra begins playing the Mazurka.
7:49
Speaker 2: The camera swirls between white columns dozens of men in
7:53
Speaker 2: formal military regalia mill about with women in freely white
7:57
Speaker 2: dresses and feathers in their hair. And then it happens.
8:08
Speaker 2: As the orchestra plays the final notes, one of the musicians,
8:12
Speaker 2: a violinist, puts down his violin and, with the look
8:17
Speaker 2: of a startled deer about to become roadkill, turns around
8:24
Speaker 2: and stares directly into the camera. When you're watching a movie,
8:33
Speaker 2: the real world disappears, but if an actor accidentally looks
8:37
Speaker 2: into the camera and breaks the fourth wall, the whole
8:40
Speaker 2: illusion is destroyed. It's a screw up so profound that
8:44
Speaker 2: it actually has a name, spiking the camera, and because
8:49
Speaker 2: Russian Arc was otherwise so perfect, the spike felt all
8:53
Speaker 2: the more shocking. The film spell was broken, and I
8:57
Speaker 2: was instantly plopped back into my crummy theater scene in
9:00
Speaker 2: crummy reality, wearing a crummy malfitting T shirt, strangling me
9:05
Speaker 2: at the neck hole. The same year Russian Arc was filmed,
9:14
Speaker 2: I finally completed my novella. There was no book to her,
9:18
Speaker 2: no advance, but none of that mattered. After a decade
9:21
Speaker 2: of writing, my work had been published, and I was
9:25
Speaker 2: on top of the world. For all of three weeks
9:29
Speaker 2: at which point the first review appeared. The reviewer chose
9:34
Speaker 2: not to focus on the unconventional structure, the scatological wordplay,
9:39
Speaker 2: nor even the cover art, which was based on a
9:41
Speaker 2: photograph I'd found in a pawnshop shoe box. Instead, she
9:46
Speaker 2: directed her attention onto the one part of the book
9:48
Speaker 2: that I'd barely put any thought into it, all three
9:52
Speaker 2: short words printed at the center of the very first page,
9:57
Speaker 2: the dedication for my sister. There's something offbeat, the reviewer
10:04
Speaker 2: mused about dedicating the weird and lurid memories of a
10:08
Speaker 2: sex obsessed Jewish teenage boy to one's sister. Here, I
10:13
Speaker 2: was thinking I was all set to be the next
10:15
Speaker 2: Luke Reinhardt, but instead I just outed myself as the
10:19
Speaker 2: next Luke Skywalker in that first Star Wars movie, the
10:22
Speaker 2: one where he totally wants to bang his sister Jedi style.
10:27
Speaker 2: All of this to say, I understood the grand experiment
10:31
Speaker 2: that ends in failure due to one small blemish. I
10:34
Speaker 2: never wrote a novel again. In Alexander Soakroov, a man
10:38
Speaker 2: who once said I want to screen real time, I
10:41
Speaker 2: don't want to cut it or shrink it, never made
10:44
Speaker 2: a single shot movie again. Was it all due to
10:48
Speaker 2: the bungling violinist. When my novella was published in America,
10:59
Speaker 2: I only got a chance to revisit the dedication. I
11:03
Speaker 2: cut it out and moved on. But the filmmakers didn't
11:06
Speaker 2: have the luxury of editing out their one mistake, and
11:10
Speaker 2: they can't redo that day, can't shut down the second
11:13
Speaker 2: largest art museum in the world for another try at
11:16
Speaker 2: probably the biggest, most ambitious shoot of any of their careers.
11:21
Speaker 2: But what if they could?
11:26
Speaker 7: Good morning?
11:27
Speaker 2: Hi? Is this Tilman Buttner?
11:30
Speaker 7: Yeah?
11:31
Speaker 2: Hello, Tilman Butner is Russian art cinematographer, the man behind
11:36
Speaker 2: the camera that the heedless violinist had violently spiked into
11:40
Speaker 2: the marble Mosaic museum floor that day. Butner only speaks German,
11:48
Speaker 2: so he asked his son to translate our conversation. What
11:51
Speaker 2: is your name, konste.
11:55
Speaker 7: Constantine?
11:57
Speaker 2: Okay, great, so Butner.
12:00
Speaker 8: My name is not Buner. My name is Temple, Constant, Temple, Constantine.
12:08
Speaker 2: Okay, Constantine Temple. The camera Buttner used for Russian Arc
12:14
Speaker 2: was one of the first HD cameras in the world,
12:16
Speaker 2: and it required one terabyte of disk space to save
12:20
Speaker 2: all ninety minutes.
12:21
Speaker 8: Back then, the disc was as big as a giant
12:25
Speaker 8: bag for an astronaut that wants to go to the moon,
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Speaker 8: a giant recorded that a different person had to carry
12:31
Speaker 8: next to him.
12:32
Speaker 2: A half dozen technicians followed Buttner around, hauling cable and
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Speaker 2: silently shooing people out of the way. By the end
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Speaker 2: of the shoot, Butner was left limping. At the time,
12:43
Speaker 2: there was only one other HD camera that was lighter,
12:46
Speaker 2: but another indie art house director already had DIBs.
12:50
Speaker 7: George Lucas. He didn't give the camera. Yeah, we give her.
12:54
Speaker 7: They asked him for it, but he wanted to keep it.
12:58
Speaker 2: Lucas wanted to keep it for Star Wars episode two,
13:01
Speaker 2: Attack of the Clones. Although I've not seen it, I
13:05
Speaker 2: assume it's about that same Randy Jedi traveling the Macroverse,
13:09
Speaker 2: fighting the Evil Empire and the equally evil urged Abang
13:13
Speaker 2: his sister Jedi style. If any Canadian theaters had screened
13:19
Speaker 2: it in French rather than in its original Ewokees, my
13:22
Speaker 2: headline might have read Attack of the Clones is an
13:25
Speaker 2: attack on decent lighting. Constant Constantine explains his father's emotional
13:31
Speaker 2: state around the time of Russian Arcs filming.
13:34
Speaker 7: The night before he couldn't sleep. It was really focused
13:37
Speaker 7: and really not nervous, but in a good way, you know.
13:41
Speaker 8: Yeah, he knew that it was something really special, and
13:44
Speaker 8: he was one hundred percent short that everything would work
13:47
Speaker 8: out exactly the way they planned.
13:49
Speaker 2: Except it didn't. I saw this movie when it first
13:54
Speaker 2: came out, and there was one moment in it that
13:58
Speaker 2: stands out to me. There's only a few minutes left.
14:01
Speaker 2: I run him through the last few minutes of the film.
14:03
Speaker 2: The orchestra, the mazurka, the feckless violinist, the incident looks
14:09
Speaker 2: directly into the camera. I'm wondering if you remember that moment.
14:20
Speaker 7: No, not this violinist that you were interested in. He
14:22
Speaker 7: couldn't remember that this happened.
14:28
Speaker 2: I can imagine the casual viewer, distracted by popcorn and
14:31
Speaker 2: milk duds, not noticing the conspicuous violinist. But I was
14:36
Speaker 2: surprised that one of the filmmakers had missed it. Maybe
14:39
Speaker 2: Tillman Buttner was too encumbered by his giant camera to
14:42
Speaker 2: see the mistake. So I decided to try another member
14:45
Speaker 2: of the crew who was there that day, someone whose
14:47
Speaker 2: job it was to keep track of every air in shadow.
14:51
Speaker 2: I'm speaking, of course, of the film's lighting designer, Barn Fisher.
14:58
Speaker 2: As my past film re viewing suggests, I've long held
15:02
Speaker 2: a passion for man made light. As a boy, I'd
15:05
Speaker 2: monkey with a dimmer knob until my fingers were raw,
15:08
Speaker 2: sit down and eat your buttered Noodle's father would roar,
15:12
Speaker 2: but alas too much dimness and melancholia would slowly descend
15:17
Speaker 2: like a Sabbath elevator and a molasses factory. Too little dimness,
15:21
Speaker 2: and I felt denuded, shivering like a vampire in the
15:24
Speaker 2: frozen goods ayle. If only there was something with fewer
15:28
Speaker 2: gradations than a knob, I'd lament some means by which
15:32
Speaker 2: I could toggle between dimnesses emphatically, on off, on off,
15:40
Speaker 2: some kind of light switch, if you will. I was
15:46
Speaker 2: eager to speak with Fisher. Uh yes, Hello, is this baron? Yet?
15:55
Speaker 7: Hi? Is this baron?
15:57
Speaker 2: Once we corrected for the standard European two second time delay,
16:01
Speaker 2: I properly introduced myself. Hello, sir, my name is Jonathan Goldstein.
16:06
Speaker 2: I'm calling from the podcast in the United States.
16:11
Speaker 1: That's the radio show What are you Doing?
16:13
Speaker 3: What is that?
16:15
Speaker 2: Or a texture? Fisher gets my work about as well
16:19
Speaker 2: as I get his I ask him about the day
16:22
Speaker 2: of the shoot.
16:23
Speaker 3: The quantity of lights is just enormous because we have
16:26
Speaker 3: to light I don't know, fifty rooms in a ballroom
16:29
Speaker 3: and all at the same time.
16:31
Speaker 2: So just aside from the sheer number of lights, there
16:34
Speaker 2: was the setting. Most museums don't even let you take
16:37
Speaker 2: flash photography, let alone make a movie that's bright enough
16:40
Speaker 2: to win a coveted Lighty, the lighting award name for
16:43
Speaker 2: Alfred J. Lightman that I've just invented.
16:46
Speaker 3: So there was always someone standing next to us telling
16:49
Speaker 3: us where to be able to put the light. Not
16:51
Speaker 3: too close to the paintings, not too close to the wall.
16:55
Speaker 3: They were scared that you would destroy things.
17:00
Speaker 2: Fisher ended up using giant helium balloons to float his
17:03
Speaker 2: lights just below the ceiling. And if the risk of
17:06
Speaker 2: destroying priceless artwork during the shoot scared him, the possibility
17:10
Speaker 2: of a slowly deflating balloon sinking into view of the
17:14
Speaker 2: camera absolutely terrified him.
17:16
Speaker 3: There was only one chance, so there was such a pressure.
17:20
Speaker 3: Everyone's so concentrated and you know you're not supposed to fail.
17:25
Speaker 3: So I know when the whole thing was done, everyone
17:32
Speaker 3: was so happy. A lot of people were crying.
17:37
Speaker 2: I didn't want to hear about tears of joy. I
17:40
Speaker 2: wanted to hear about the sad kind, the bitter kind
17:43
Speaker 2: that get caught in your throat like tiny clumps of
17:46
Speaker 2: rye bread. So I brought up the bumbling violinists cameo, like,
17:50
Speaker 2: do you know the moment I'm talking about?
17:54
Speaker 3: You know what I actually did. I just put the
17:57
Speaker 3: film on my computer because I it here and I'm
18:01
Speaker 3: just watching the scene as we're walking through the.
18:05
Speaker 2: Hell are you are you watching that moment right now?
18:08
Speaker 3: Right now? I'm watching this moment.
18:10
Speaker 2: How do you remember where it is?
18:14
Speaker 3: Well, I'm believing I know this ninety minutes, very very well.
18:18
Speaker 3: I was dreaming of this nineteen minutes, walking it over
18:21
Speaker 3: and over again. But there was no way to change
18:24
Speaker 3: it anyway, you know, because it was like a ship,
18:28
Speaker 3: you know, like a tangship which cannot break. Once we started,
18:32
Speaker 3: there was no way to stop it. I think that
18:35
Speaker 3: we were just happy that it worked. Hey, it worked, unbelievable,
18:40
Speaker 3: it worked.
18:42
Speaker 2: Except it didn't. Throughout my life, I've justifiably been called
18:50
Speaker 2: a fuss pot, fussy, gus, fuss budget and by one
18:55
Speaker 2: high school physed instructor who I believe might have been
18:58
Speaker 2: an anti semite, A little miss fussy pants had my
19:02
Speaker 2: fussiness finally gone too far. That night I rewatched the movie,
19:12
Speaker 2: and the moment I rewatch it a couple times, it's
19:25
Speaker 2: even worse than I'd remembered. Seconds before the adult violinist
19:29
Speaker 2: turns back to the camera, we see him in a
19:31
Speaker 2: long shot, seated among his fellow violinists, swiveling his head around.
19:38
Speaker 2: It's as if he's searching for the camera, like he's
19:40
Speaker 2: scanning a restaurant looking for a tardy dinner companion, except
19:44
Speaker 2: in this case, his dinner companion is an elephantine camera
19:48
Speaker 2: being hauled around by a crew of six to eight people.
19:52
Speaker 4: We would be allowed to take over the museum for
19:56
Speaker 4: a whole day.
19:57
Speaker 2: Yen's mirror is Russian arcs producer. Perhaps he can produce
20:01
Speaker 2: some answers for me. He explains that, aside from holidays,
20:06
Speaker 2: the Hermitage Museum has not been closed since the Second
20:09
Speaker 2: World War, but in spite of that, they agreed to
20:12
Speaker 2: give the films director Alexander Sokarov a day to shoot,
20:16
Speaker 2: and once Sokorov explained the plan to film everything in
20:19
Speaker 2: a single take, they offered an additional day.
20:22
Speaker 4: But Sikorov said, no, it doesn't want that day. And
20:26
Speaker 4: I looked at him and said, Sasha, you what you
20:28
Speaker 4: don't want a day? He said, no, that would be
20:31
Speaker 4: tempting Fate. It would be tempting God. It must be
20:34
Speaker 4: done in the one shot, in the single day. And
20:36
Speaker 4: that's what happened.
20:38
Speaker 2: Well, yes, it did technically happen. MRR offers no accounting
20:43
Speaker 2: for the twitchy violinist, but his beautiful accent intimidates me.
20:47
Speaker 2: So like Barishnikov on an icy sidewalk, a tippy toe carefully,
20:53
Speaker 2: and it's an incredible accomplishment. And yet, and I know
21:00
Speaker 2: I'm going to sound sort of like nitpicky, but there's
21:04
Speaker 2: this moment at the end where this violinist turns towards
21:09
Speaker 2: the camera. And do you know the moment that I'm
21:14
Speaker 2: talking about.
21:17
Speaker 7: Now?
21:17
Speaker 4: Of course, I mean you are nitpicking, but it's peculiar.
21:22
Speaker 4: I mean, you look at this film that there's only
21:23
Speaker 4: one such moment in the whole film. There isn't another
21:27
Speaker 4: one that is peculiar. Why is there only one?
21:35
Speaker 2: Mirror tells me that they explicitly instructed all the performers
21:39
Speaker 2: not to look into the camera and only one person
21:42
Speaker 2: paid the instructions. Absolutely, no mind. He just has a
21:46
Speaker 2: very kind of hapless look about him.
21:49
Speaker 4: Well, don't you imagine that at that moment he must
21:52
Speaker 4: have caught himself thinking, Damn, that's the one thing I
21:55
Speaker 4: swore to myself I wouldn't be doing look into the camera.
22:04
Speaker 4: We talked about it back then because of course it's
22:07
Speaker 4: an imperfection.
22:09
Speaker 2: So the basic tone of it when Tuckerov would bring
22:11
Speaker 2: it up, was it like something that was kind of
22:14
Speaker 2: like joked about.
22:18
Speaker 4: You've never met Alexander Takorov. Obviously there's never much joking.
22:23
Speaker 2: He's not like a prankster on the set like George
22:26
Speaker 2: Clooney or something.
22:29
Speaker 4: No, Alexander worked on every single image of this film,
22:33
Speaker 4: and so it's definitely nothing that would ever be joked about.
22:37
Speaker 2: To the question of the redo, Mirror says he lives
22:40
Speaker 2: with it. It's just one of those things you have
22:42
Speaker 2: to accept. What about Soakarov, I wonder how could a serious,
22:47
Speaker 2: non pranking, non clooney asque artists like him deal with imperfection?
22:52
Speaker 2: And so do you think if I put the question
22:55
Speaker 2: to him, you know, would you redo this movie if
22:59
Speaker 2: you had a chance? He would do it.
23:02
Speaker 4: Huh, that's an interesting thought.
23:05
Speaker 2: Would he redo this film because he is such a perfectionist.
23:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know, God knows, you know, maybe we
23:13
Speaker 4: should reshoot it.
23:15
Speaker 2: Pose that question, that question being with Sokarov. Re rent
23:20
Speaker 2: the costumes, re rent the helium balloons, rehire the actors,
23:24
Speaker 2: musicians and dancers by a brand new tub of garlic
23:27
Speaker 2: homas for the craft's service table, all because of a
23:30
Speaker 2: fuddled violinist had a wandering eye and a morbid curiosity
23:34
Speaker 2: about the art of filmmaking. I ask Mirror if he
23:38
Speaker 2: can connect me with Sokarov.
23:40
Speaker 4: I could try and put you in touch. He is
23:42
Speaker 4: not an easy person to arrange for.
23:51
Speaker 2: I imagine a large Russian bear of a man, a
23:54
Speaker 2: beard so pointy it could stab your flesh, and so
23:57
Speaker 2: long that, once inside, you were to have a camera
24:00
Speaker 2: mounted at its tip, could in one long, uninterrupted take
24:05
Speaker 2: film all of your inner demons and then screen them
24:07
Speaker 2: at the Berlin Film Festival and win an award. You
24:11
Speaker 2: try to get a ticket and a plus one to
24:13
Speaker 2: go see the movie about how gross you are on
24:16
Speaker 2: the inside, because why not. But you'd never be able
24:19
Speaker 2: to reach him, as he'd be filming a new project
24:22
Speaker 2: at the North Pool. I wanted to sit opposite mister Sokarov,
24:26
Speaker 2: artist to artist, experimental outeur to experimental outeur. I am
24:38
Speaker 2: not flying you to Russia, says CEO and Gimblet Media
24:42
Speaker 2: founder Alex Bloomberg. But Yen says it's hard to get
24:46
Speaker 2: the great Alexander Sokarov on the phone. I say, who's Yen's,
24:50
Speaker 2: demands Bloomberg, and who is the great Alexander Sokarov. He's
24:55
Speaker 2: Russian and he gets me. I say, maybe it's our
24:58
Speaker 2: shared Russian blood. Family lore has it that great great
25:01
Speaker 2: Grandpa Goldstein had a beard so wispy and delicate it
25:05
Speaker 2: was spun into dainties for the Tsar's wife. Alex says
25:09
Speaker 2: that a good old fashioned telephone call will accomplish everything
25:12
Speaker 2: I need, and so I email Sokarov asking if, like
25:18
Speaker 2: children playing broken telephone like businessmen in a nineteen forties musical,
25:23
Speaker 2: we can talk on the phone. And a few days
25:26
Speaker 2: later Sokarov replies, of course, He writes, it is necessary
25:32
Speaker 2: only to determine the day and the hour after the
25:38
Speaker 2: break the day and the hour. Thank you for coming in.
25:52
Speaker 3: Thank you.
25:55
Speaker 2: Sokarov does not speak English, and I try as hard
25:58
Speaker 2: as I may and yelling at as loud as I
26:00
Speaker 2: can prove incapable of speaking Russian. We would need a translator,
26:06
Speaker 2: and so I've hired Sasha, who has been translating in
26:08
Speaker 2: one form or another since she was a kid.
26:11
Speaker 1: Well, when I was younger, my uncle loved to go
26:15
Speaker 1: shopping to the open market and get stuff when he
26:18
Speaker 1: was super drunk, like to the point of like it's
26:20
Speaker 1: hard to talk. So he had to take me with
26:22
Speaker 1: him because this would be three kilograms of tomatoes, which
26:28
Speaker 1: I could understand but nobody else could. So I was like,
26:31
Speaker 1: I get you. I know what you're trying to do.
26:34
Speaker 2: Once we get set up in the studio, Sasha tells
26:37
Speaker 2: me she's excited to be translating for Alexander Sukarov, one
26:40
Speaker 2: of the most well respected renowned Russian filmmakers in America.
26:50
Speaker 2: Custom ring tone rings for phone owner in Russia, custom
26:54
Speaker 2: ring tone rings for you that hello, mister sokarof Hello,
27:04
Speaker 2: good day, I'm listening to you. To avoid confusion, I
27:07
Speaker 2: begin with the basics. Do you have podcasts?
27:12
Speaker 7: Yes?
27:17
Speaker 1: What is a podcast?
27:18
Speaker 2: I don't know, Rather than getting into how their sound
27:22
Speaker 2: files owned by capitalist dogs like alex Bloomberg. I instead
27:25
Speaker 2: proceed straight to the source of all of Sokarov's troubles,
27:29
Speaker 2: his decision to shoot a movie in one long take.
27:32
Speaker 2: Why do it that way?
27:38
Speaker 1: Had a really important desire to remove editing. It was
27:41
Speaker 1: very important for me. When you're shooting it with a
27:45
Speaker 1: single shot, it's an honest work, and the viewer trusts us. Today,
27:53
Speaker 1: editing is like a shot or a step of knife
27:56
Speaker 1: into a person's body.
28:00
Speaker 2: Were much because we're tricking our viewer. Of course, it's
28:04
Speaker 2: a trick, a dirty, rotten trick. And when I go
28:07
Speaker 2: home after a long day of stabbing you people with
28:09
Speaker 2: a knife, I take a long, hot shower, feeling absolutely
28:13
Speaker 2: sick about it. But consider what art would be like
28:16
Speaker 2: without editing. Raiders of the Lost Arc would contain a
28:19
Speaker 2: twenty five minute scene of Indiana Jones eating an egg
28:23
Speaker 2: salad sandwich in the cafeteria at the Fairfield, New York
28:26
Speaker 2: Archaeological Society, And this podcast would contain an additional two
28:31
Speaker 2: minutes of my trying to pronounce the word archaeological. But
28:35
Speaker 2: all of this was just semantics. What I really wanted
28:38
Speaker 2: to talk about was the incident one of the violinists
28:43
Speaker 2: watching turns around and looks directly into the camera.
28:52
Speaker 1: Of course, I remember, of course I remember.
29:02
Speaker 2: If you had the chance to redo the whole movie,
29:08
Speaker 2: to undo that one moment, that one imperfection, would.
29:15
Speaker 1: You I wouldn't have wanted to change anything. That's the
29:25
Speaker 1: value of the film. That's the value of works of art,
29:29
Speaker 1: because it is not repeatable in its advantages and disadvantages.
29:35
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate how philosophical sokkerovs being about the whole thing.
29:39
Speaker 2: There's still that one disadvantage, that fiddling forth wall breaking
29:43
Speaker 2: disadvantage that must haunt his dreams. As I knew it
29:46
Speaker 2: would mine gingerly. I proceed. But in that moment when
29:53
Speaker 2: when you were watching him turn around, did you want
29:58
Speaker 2: to strangle him?
29:59
Speaker 7: Was? No?
30:03
Speaker 1: No, no, How can you say that?
30:05
Speaker 4: Now?
30:07
Speaker 1: I love them so much. I'm so grateful to him
30:09
Speaker 1: for agreeing to take part in such a difficult undertaking.
30:17
Speaker 1: If he stood on his head and stopped playing the violin,
30:24
Speaker 1: I would have said, thank you, my friend, thank you,
30:28
Speaker 1: thank you for that.
30:31
Speaker 2: Accidents happen, It happens. Soccarov and I are really nothing alike.
30:43
Speaker 2: He's talking about accidents happening like he's horsing around in
30:46
Speaker 2: a commercial for Laundry Detergent, while I, on the other hand,
30:49
Speaker 2: can't let anything go. Why I'm still kicking myself for
30:53
Speaker 2: not investing in IBM when it went public in nineteen
30:56
Speaker 2: eleven for new listeners, that was years before I was
31:00
Speaker 2: even born. And the difference is, don't stop there. Do
31:04
Speaker 2: you think you will ever make another movie that is
31:08
Speaker 2: is done in one take?
31:15
Speaker 1: I really want to make it happen, and I'm going
31:17
Speaker 1: to be trying to make it happen, whereas I never
31:20
Speaker 1: wrote and never will write another novella.
31:23
Speaker 2: Sokarov wasn't going to let the stumbling violinists mistake keep
31:27
Speaker 2: him from making another movie like Russian Arc. I asked
31:30
Speaker 2: him what this new movie will be about.
31:34
Speaker 1: It's a big secret. It's too early to talk about it.
31:42
Speaker 2: Will will there be musicians in it?
31:47
Speaker 1: It's too early to talk about it. It's too early.
31:50
Speaker 2: If there were going to be musicians in it? Do
31:54
Speaker 2: you know what My question? My next question is.
31:56
Speaker 1: Going to be, I take a questions.
32:00
Speaker 2: Better, not would you better?
32:03
Speaker 3: I have to ask.
32:06
Speaker 2: Would you would you invite this violinist to be in
32:09
Speaker 2: the movie. It does.
32:16
Speaker 3: Afford it.
32:17
Speaker 1: You do not enter the same river twice.
32:22
Speaker 2: That's a very nice way of putting it, mister Sakarov.
32:28
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for talking to me.
32:33
Speaker 2: Be well, goodbye, Oh, thank you, thank you very much,
32:38
Speaker 2: thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
32:40
Speaker 3: And yeah, he.
32:45
Speaker 9: Didn't he didn't call me an idiot today, No, but
32:48
Speaker 9: he asked, Okay, I was going to tell you, so
32:50
Speaker 9: he asked me.
32:51
Speaker 1: He's like, don't translate that, but what's up with this
32:53
Speaker 1: obsession with one little thing?
32:55
Speaker 2: Well, why wouldn't you say that to me?
32:57
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I think he's never been asked so many
32:59
Speaker 1: time about something, and you can see him being more
33:02
Speaker 1: aggravated with it, but in a very polite way. Yeah,
33:06
Speaker 1: he was trying to be polite.
33:09
Speaker 2: Anton In Chekhov, a Russian, once said good breeding does
33:14
Speaker 2: not mean you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but
33:17
Speaker 2: that you won't notice when someone else does. And here
33:20
Speaker 2: I am an impolite dinner guest pointing out a saucetain
33:24
Speaker 2: on the ninety minute long single take tablecloth. Everyone so
33:28
Speaker 2: proud of. In spite of calling myself an artist, I'm
33:32
Speaker 2: no soker of. I'm not even a tilman. Butner I
33:36
Speaker 2: am the violinist This is hardly the first time I've
33:44
Speaker 2: been confronted with proof of who I am. There was
33:47
Speaker 2: the moment I brought up the confused Violinist with Baron Fisher,
33:50
Speaker 2: the lighting designer.
33:52
Speaker 3: It seems like really bad as you have stories, but
33:55
Speaker 3: that's I mean, what can I say? I mean, that's
33:57
Speaker 3: not been the issue.
33:59
Speaker 2: When I brought it up with Hilman Butner, the cinematographer
34:02
Speaker 2: and his son Knstey Constantine Temple Butner, he is really interested.
34:08
Speaker 8: Why you, Jonathan, are so interested in that one specific violinist.
34:13
Speaker 2: And with Jen's Mirror, the producer.
34:16
Speaker 4: You are more bothered by it than I am. I've
34:19
Speaker 4: actually never heard a live audience notice it.
34:24
Speaker 2: Not only was Mirror not bothered by it, he actually
34:27
Speaker 2: empathized with the bedeviled violinist.
34:30
Speaker 4: Imagine you're the only person in an ensemble of four
34:33
Speaker 4: thousand people who fox up that moment.
34:37
Speaker 7: You know.
34:37
Speaker 4: I wonder the film has been shown very often in
34:40
Speaker 4: the hermitage in Saint Petersburg. He must have seen himself.
34:43
Speaker 4: Look at the camera. He's probably kicking himself, or he's
34:46
Speaker 4: being teased by his colleagues, or maybe that's the person
34:49
Speaker 4: you should track down.
34:52
Speaker 2: In my life, I've ruined a lot of stuff, water fights,
34:55
Speaker 2: flash mobs, sing alongs Abatchie dinner, Mongolian hot pot dinners,
35:02
Speaker 2: Shabbat dinners, July's fourth, white shirts, white tablecloths, yards and
35:10
Speaker 2: yards of tablecloths. And with each act of runation, I've
35:14
Speaker 2: always felt absolutely terrible, which is why whenever a moment
35:19
Speaker 2: of forgiveness did come, it felt like a ladle full
35:22
Speaker 2: of soothing, warm cherry sauce, lovingly ladled over my head.
35:26
Speaker 2: The beleaguered violinists never got that loving ladle, fool and
35:30
Speaker 2: if he's anything like me, he must be feeling awful.
35:35
Speaker 2: I needed to tell the luckless violinists that not only
35:38
Speaker 2: is all forgiven, but that the great Alexander Nikolaievich Sakarov
35:43
Speaker 2: even thanks him after the break a crown of cherry sauce.
35:57
Speaker 2: Even though Russia was probably lousy, with violinists fiddling on
36:01
Speaker 2: the roof of every major edifice in the country, it
36:03
Speaker 2: would prove hard to find this particular one. While the
36:07
Speaker 2: film's credits thank the orchestra, they do not single out
36:10
Speaker 2: individual musicians, so all I know is that the orchestra
36:14
Speaker 2: playing in the film's final scene is the Marinsky, one
36:17
Speaker 2: of the oldest orchestras in Russia, dating back more than
36:21
Speaker 2: two hundred years. Not knowing what else to do, I
36:25
Speaker 2: freeze frame the moment the unfortunate violinist stares into the camera,
36:29
Speaker 2: and I take a screenshot. I then crop the image
36:32
Speaker 2: and blow it up so that the woeful violinist slack
36:35
Speaker 2: jowed stare fills the frame. I then attach the grainy
36:39
Speaker 2: image to an email that I then send to the
36:41
Speaker 2: Marinsky Orchestra press office. I wondered if you might know
36:45
Speaker 2: his name. My email reads, I'm not sure if he
36:49
Speaker 2: even plays with the orchestra anymore, but any help you're
36:52
Speaker 2: able to offer is much appreciated. A day later, I
36:56
Speaker 2: receive a message. The violinist on the photo attached the
37:00
Speaker 2: email reads is Marshall Besnard. At my request, the press
37:06
Speaker 2: office sets up an interview. I don't tell them what
37:09
Speaker 2: it's for. I've been planting the seeds for a voyage
37:18
Speaker 2: to sweet Mother Russia for days now, reading Pinsky around
37:21
Speaker 2: the office and referring to Alex as Alex Sandair. It
37:26
Speaker 2: was getting me nowhere, and so I assumed my power stance,
37:30
Speaker 2: hunched over and squeezing the chewing gum in the front
37:33
Speaker 2: pockets of my American blue jeans. I confront Alex at
37:37
Speaker 2: his desk. I must insist you sail me to Russia.
37:41
Speaker 2: I say, I must insist you get out of my office,
37:45
Speaker 2: Alex says, laughing. He extends his hand for a high five, which,
37:50
Speaker 2: hating myself for afterwards, I dutifully spank, and so I
37:56
Speaker 2: get Sasha back in the studio to translate my phone
37:59
Speaker 2: call with the cursed violinist Marshall Besnard. Oh, hello is
38:07
Speaker 2: this mister Beard. Hello, good day, and good day to you.
38:13
Speaker 2: After exchanging pleasantries, we talk about the day of the shoot,
38:17
Speaker 2: everything leading up to his moment on film.
38:21
Speaker 1: It was a very ambitious project because the camera was
38:25
Speaker 1: not shut off, and all people are supposed to be
38:31
Speaker 1: extremely organized, extremely organized. I think I watched it twice,
38:40
Speaker 1: and my mother called me and said, I saw you.
38:45
Speaker 1: I saw you in the picture. I saw you in
38:47
Speaker 1: a shot.
38:48
Speaker 2: Aside from his mother's rave review, I wondered how his
38:52
Speaker 2: friends and co workers had reacted, whether there had been
38:55
Speaker 2: ribbing the painful kind. But I'd learned my lesson with Soccerov.
39:00
Speaker 2: The Russians are polite people, and so I proceed cautiously.
39:05
Speaker 2: Did anybody give give you feedback on your performance in
39:10
Speaker 2: the movie Smooth.
39:12
Speaker 9: As a silky pair of the Serena's dainties. No, it
39:22
Speaker 9: wasn't really discussed. But the thing is, I'm not a
39:27
Speaker 9: main character, thank god. I'm just one person that was
39:34
Speaker 9: on the screen for just one second. Nothing special.
39:38
Speaker 2: Well, here's the funny thing is that I saw the
39:43
Speaker 2: movie many years ago when it came out, and to me,
39:52
Speaker 2: you were the most special thing for a specific reason.
39:56
Speaker 2: But watching specific you were the only person who actually
40:03
Speaker 2: turned and looked directly into the camera. Really, yeah, did
40:18
Speaker 2: you did you?
40:19
Speaker 1: Did you not know that? No, honestly, I did not.
40:27
Speaker 1: It's the first time that I'm hearing this.
40:34
Speaker 2: You're not in front of a computer right now, or
40:37
Speaker 2: it could could receive a screen shots from the movie
40:41
Speaker 2: so you could see.
40:46
Speaker 1: Yes, I can do that. I have a computer. I
40:48
Speaker 1: can look.
40:49
Speaker 2: It wasn't that I wanted to make Marshall feel bad.
40:52
Speaker 2: It was just that I needed to make him feel
40:54
Speaker 2: bad in order to make him feel good. If you
40:57
Speaker 2: send me your email, I can send you. Marcelle and
41:01
Speaker 2: I attempt to exchange emails.
41:06
Speaker 1: At Valieri Internet ready sending. No it says undeliverable.
41:19
Speaker 2: Don't look into the camera send me your email address.
41:22
Speaker 2: All his life, this poor man has been hobbled by
41:25
Speaker 2: an inability to follow simple instructions. But finally the email arrives.
41:33
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, it's already during the bows.
41:36
Speaker 2: So do you do you notice where everybody else is facing?
41:46
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm not looking there, I'm looking into the camera. Really,
41:52
Speaker 1: it was fifteen years ago. I was a young and
41:56
Speaker 1: handsome man. Yes, very didn't look bad at all.
42:02
Speaker 6: Uh.
42:05
Speaker 2: I attempt to ease into the subject of Sokarov's forgiveness.
42:10
Speaker 2: Do you think that Sokoro ever noticed you? Specifically?
42:22
Speaker 1: I know that he didn't talk to me about this,
42:26
Speaker 1: So there are two options. He either didn't notice, or
42:32
Speaker 1: he liked it and thought let it be.
42:35
Speaker 2: Yes, Sokarov had liked it, Yes, he thought let it be.
42:39
Speaker 2: But the presumptuous violinist had no way of knowing any
42:42
Speaker 2: of this. And why do you think that maybe he
42:45
Speaker 2: would have liked it.
42:52
Speaker 1: If he noticed, they would have had to redo it, God.
42:55
Speaker 2: Forbid, But but he couldn't. I don't think he could
42:58
Speaker 2: have redone it, and you can they only had one chance.
43:08
Speaker 1: I think that in reality, the question is not whether
43:10
Speaker 1: it looked into the camera. The question is the people
43:16
Speaker 1: that later on edited it, why did they keep the moment?
43:22
Speaker 2: They had no choice because because it's all one take, but.
43:30
Speaker 1: You can always cut out a few scenes and put
43:33
Speaker 1: it back together. Nobody would ever know.
43:35
Speaker 2: No, no, no, The whole point of the movie is
43:37
Speaker 2: that it's nines of one long.
43:46
Speaker 1: I know it's part in this. I know.
43:49
Speaker 2: More than being the kind of guy who'd stare into
43:52
Speaker 2: a camera, Marshall was the kind of guy who might
43:54
Speaker 2: very well stare into the sun during a solar eclipse.
43:58
Speaker 2: This is to say that Marshall was completely oblivious.
44:05
Speaker 1: I think it came to be beneficial for the film,
44:08
Speaker 1: right as Anderson, thank god, I'm very happy.
44:13
Speaker 2: Well, the great Alexander Sokarov might have found working with
44:16
Speaker 2: Marshall a blessing. I personally wasn't finding it such a treat.
44:21
Speaker 2: Clearly Marshall was not looking for or in need of
44:24
Speaker 2: any forgiveness. Do you remember being told on that day
44:28
Speaker 2: not to look into the camera.
44:38
Speaker 1: It would have been very strange if you were making
44:41
Speaker 1: a film and then people would be looking into the camera.
44:44
Speaker 2: So then why why did you Why did you look
44:47
Speaker 2: into the camera, and why did he. I proceed to
44:52
Speaker 2: audition a series of theories. Maybe he's jumpy and when
44:56
Speaker 2: the camera came by, he was caught unawares. Do you
44:59
Speaker 2: starttle easily?
45:08
Speaker 6: No?
45:08
Speaker 1: You know, any person can be startled by anything. The
45:13
Speaker 1: person can be startled from the fact that your close
45:18
Speaker 1: relative is sick with some incurable disease, or a person
45:23
Speaker 1: can be startled when driving.
45:27
Speaker 2: And sometimes you could be startled by a camera, a
45:29
Speaker 2: very big camera.
45:35
Speaker 1: No, I'm not one of these people.
45:37
Speaker 2: Maybe he's a bad listener or just forgetful. Are you married?
45:41
Speaker 1: Is nothing?
45:43
Speaker 7: Yes?
45:44
Speaker 3: Of course.
45:45
Speaker 2: Does your wife ever say, oh, Marshall, you're not listening
45:50
Speaker 2: to my instructions.
45:55
Speaker 1: She always says that, like any wife would, it's normal.
46:04
Speaker 2: I offer more theories while eyes shifty disposition, restless leg syndrome,
46:10
Speaker 2: and thanks to the miracle of editing, you find people
46:13
Speaker 2: don't have to sit through any of it. In a
46:16
Speaker 2: last ditch effort, I ask if he's just sort of
46:18
Speaker 2: let's a fair the kind of guy who shows up
46:21
Speaker 2: late to a surprise birthday party in Russia? Do you
46:24
Speaker 2: have something called surprise parties? Surprise birthday parties?
46:36
Speaker 4: How is that?
46:36
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
46:38
Speaker 2: Where the person doesn't know they're going to be having
46:40
Speaker 2: a surprise and all their friends show up in advance
46:46
Speaker 2: of their arriving, and everyone yelse it's your birthday, would like.
47:03
Speaker 1: No, because you know, Russia is a very conservative country.
47:06
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, finally I just give up. I don't understand Marshall,
47:13
Speaker 2: and I'm not even sure Marshall understands Marshall. Maybe something
47:17
Speaker 2: was just being lost in the translation. Okay, well you
47:21
Speaker 2: you have a good rest of the Then.
47:26
Speaker 1: York, thank you.
47:27
Speaker 2: How is New York new York's great great city?
47:37
Speaker 3: Is there?
47:38
Speaker 1: Does the movie theater on twenty first Streets still work?
47:41
Speaker 8: Oh?
47:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah.
47:42
Speaker 1: In Chelsea, Chelsea, I went to see The term Year
47:51
Speaker 1: of Terminator three. Oh it was incredible.
47:54
Speaker 2: That's a good movie. Nobody looks in the camera.
48:03
Speaker 1: Except for the Terminator.
48:05
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so you're like the Terminator In the movie
48:15
Speaker 2: The Terminator, the titular Terminator is sent back in time
48:19
Speaker 2: by Skynet to kill Sarah Connor before she can give
48:22
Speaker 2: birth to her son, John, who grows up to be
48:24
Speaker 2: a threat to Skynett. If Marshall was the Terminator, he
48:28
Speaker 2: would go back in time, find Sarah Connor, and rather
48:32
Speaker 2: than try to kill her, be all like give birth
48:35
Speaker 2: to your son all over again, lady, because I think
48:38
Speaker 2: he came to be very beneficial for the Terminator film
48:41
Speaker 2: franchise right as I understand. Thank God, I'm very happy
48:48
Speaker 2: Marshall isn't revisiting the past to fix an imperfect present.
48:52
Speaker 2: He may have looked into the camera, but he's no Terminator.
49:03
Speaker 2: Marshall had completely flow mixed me. I'd never met anyone
49:07
Speaker 2: so unburdened by past mistakes. For me, the past is
49:11
Speaker 2: a magical, spiritual place where regrets are born. For Marshall,
49:16
Speaker 2: it's just a place where one is young and handsome.
49:20
Speaker 2: The way I see it, there's only one person who
49:22
Speaker 2: can both share in my frustration with Marshall and also
49:25
Speaker 2: explain him to me. What makes Marshall the one person
49:29
Speaker 2: out of thousands of performers there that day to have
49:32
Speaker 2: looked into the camera, and what makes him so free
49:35
Speaker 2: of remorse? And the person who can answer those questions
49:40
Speaker 2: Marshall's wife after the break, rolling up my pant legs
49:48
Speaker 2: and entering the same river. Thrice, Actually at this point
49:55
Speaker 2: it's more than thrice, No four rice? Is that a
49:58
Speaker 2: word that's not a word.
50:00
Speaker 3: Is it?
50:00
Speaker 2: Five?
50:01
Speaker 5: Ice?
50:02
Speaker 2: Vanilla ice iced tea? Put some ice on it? Hello?
50:14
Speaker 2: Is is this a miss Ah? Miss Hammond?
50:22
Speaker 3: What is she saying?
50:23
Speaker 9: It's not Russia?
50:27
Speaker 2: Maybe you have a bad connection. We could call back.
50:30
Speaker 2: I'd ask Marshall to send me his wife's phone number.
50:33
Speaker 2: Considering how poorly he follows instructions, I can't say I
50:37
Speaker 2: was too surprised to find he might have gotten a
50:39
Speaker 2: digit or too wrong.
50:47
Speaker 6: Did you say, Solomon lam? Yeah, yeah, alakum salaam, All right,
50:59
Speaker 6: let's hang out.
51:01
Speaker 2: But finally Hello, Hello, yes ah? Is this missus Besnard?
51:17
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, okay, thank you.
51:19
Speaker 2: Marshall's wife's name is Otilia. By way of introduction, I
51:23
Speaker 2: explained that after seeing Russian ARC almost two decades ago
51:27
Speaker 2: and becoming obsessed with her husband's three second performance, I
51:31
Speaker 2: spent countless hours tracking him down to speak to him
51:34
Speaker 2: about it, and now I wish to speak with her.
51:37
Speaker 2: In response, she says she hasn't seen Russian ARC in
51:40
Speaker 2: a long time, and so I ask if I can
51:42
Speaker 2: send something to refresh her memory.
51:49
Speaker 1: So you want to listend the moment when my spouse
51:51
Speaker 1: turned into the camera.
51:53
Speaker 2: Yes, you know about that?
51:59
Speaker 1: Of course I remember that you do, yes, yes, yes, everyone.
52:08
Speaker 1: He is just he cannot just sit still?
52:14
Speaker 2: And why couldn't he sit still? Marshall had no answer
52:17
Speaker 2: to that question, but Utilia does.
52:23
Speaker 1: When he plays the violin, he doesn't notice anything around himself.
52:30
Speaker 1: When you're playing the music that you like, your thoughts
52:34
Speaker 1: and your soul go into the music. He wasn't even
52:38
Speaker 1: thinking about what was happening around him.
52:41
Speaker 9: Mmm.
52:42
Speaker 2: Do you think Marshall gets so taken up in the
52:45
Speaker 2: music music that he wouldn't even notice at ten people
52:52
Speaker 2: carrying a huge camera coming by.
53:01
Speaker 1: I think he just had a job music. I don't
53:04
Speaker 1: think he was thinking about anything else.
53:08
Speaker 2: Ottilia has known Marshall since they were seven years old.
53:12
Speaker 2: She says music has always been the thing he's most
53:14
Speaker 2: focused on. How when he's immersed in his music, everything
53:17
Speaker 2: else falls away.
53:22
Speaker 1: He differed from all the other boys because he already
53:26
Speaker 1: had a goal, because he's been playing the violin since
53:28
Speaker 1: he was five. Uh huh, Cardiginian official teachers, I agree
53:33
Speaker 1: on the screen. So every day he played the violin
53:35
Speaker 1: for three hours every day, sometimes even more football when
53:41
Speaker 1: everybody else was playing soccer or hockey. He was practicing at.
53:47
Speaker 2: Twelve years old, Marshall went away to study music. He
53:50
Speaker 2: and Ottilia didn't see each other for another twenty five years.
53:54
Speaker 2: During this time, Marshall attended the Rimsky Corsicov Saint Petersburg
53:58
Speaker 2: State Conservatory and then got a position at the Marinsky Orchestra.
54:03
Speaker 2: It was while he was back home for a vacation
54:05
Speaker 2: that he reconnected with Ottilia and asked her out on
54:08
Speaker 2: a date.
54:11
Speaker 1: We walked almost until the morning. It was around midnight,
54:17
Speaker 1: and we went to our school and we walked around
54:20
Speaker 1: the school and we remembered, we remembered about our childhood.
54:33
Speaker 2: After their first date, Otilia says they were inseparable for
54:37
Speaker 2: two weeks straight. They talked every day, went for long
54:40
Speaker 2: walks which lasted early into the morning. It was after
54:44
Speaker 2: one of these long walks, after they'd said goodbye at
54:47
Speaker 2: two in the morning, that Marshall phoned Otilia at her home.
54:53
Speaker 1: If I come to you with a proposition. Well, you
54:57
Speaker 1: listened to me and I said yes, of course. So
55:01
Speaker 1: he came to my balcony and I looked out and
55:06
Speaker 1: he asked me whether I would marry him, And from
55:13
Speaker 1: the height of the second floor, I thought that he
55:15
Speaker 1: was just joking. At two a m. And I asked him,
55:20
Speaker 1: where are your flowers? So he came and picked a
55:25
Speaker 1: flower out of the lawn, and I came to the
55:29
Speaker 1: first floor and agreed to marry him. We were laughing
55:35
Speaker 1: because at two a m. It was very unexpected, because
55:40
Speaker 1: he dropped me off and then he went back home,
55:43
Speaker 1: and in those few moments he decided to get married.
55:48
Speaker 2: He turned back.
55:51
Speaker 1: He came back.
55:51
Speaker 2: Of course, he turned back, just like he turned back
55:56
Speaker 2: in the movie.
55:57
Speaker 1: You know, yes, yeah, yeah, That's what I'm telling you.
56:08
Speaker 1: Because he has those unexpected moments.
56:17
Speaker 2: Marshall only had one chance. Like Sokarov, he wouldn't have
56:21
Speaker 2: wanted an extra day, so he turned back, not to contemplate,
56:26
Speaker 2: edit or fix the past, but to throw himself with
56:29
Speaker 2: passion into his future with Ottilia. I am not Marshall
56:36
Speaker 2: and I am not Sokarov. Neither of them is interested
56:39
Speaker 2: in redoing the past in art or in life. If
56:46
Speaker 2: you've ever seen a Persian carpet, which I only did
56:48
Speaker 2: once I was in my late thirties. Growing up, my
56:51
Speaker 2: family was more of a wal to wall shag operation,
56:54
Speaker 2: you'll know that it's some pretty impressive stuff. They say
56:58
Speaker 2: that as they're being made, though the weavers make sure
57:01
Speaker 2: to leave in one small mistake on purpose as a
57:04
Speaker 2: gesture of humility, because they say only God is perfect
57:09
Speaker 2: and has the right to create works of perfection. Humans
57:13
Speaker 2: are imperfect, and we find other humans to love us
57:17
Speaker 2: for our imperfections. It's a lot more rewarding than criticizing stuff.
57:24
Speaker 2: The Canadian Weekly I used to write film reviews for
57:27
Speaker 2: has since shuddered, so I can't reread my review of
57:30
Speaker 2: Russian Arc, but I'm sure the headline read something like
57:35
Speaker 2: Russian Arc sinks to the bottom of my memory because,
57:38
Speaker 2: in truth, in spite of its scope and ambition and artistry,
57:43
Speaker 2: other than Marshall's moment, I didn't remember much about it.
57:47
Speaker 2: So in the end, Marshall's mistake brought value to the film,
57:55
Speaker 2: right as I understand. Thank God, I'm very happy.
58:00
Speaker 5: Be now that the fern ures returning to its goodwill home,
58:41
Speaker 5: now that the last month's rent is scheming with.
58:46
Speaker 2: The damage to possible, take this moment to dissolve.
58:52
Speaker 7: If we meant it, if we tried.
58:56
Speaker 2: We felt around for far too from the last accident leaves.
59:08
Speaker 2: Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein along
59:11
Speaker 2: with Stevie Lane. Peter Bresnan and Khalila Holt. The show
59:14
Speaker 2: is edited by Jorge Just, with additional editing by Alex Bloomberg.
59:18
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Emily Condon, Shruthy Pennaminini, Chris Neary, and
59:21
Speaker 2: Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with music by
59:25
Speaker 2: Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Michael Hurst, and he himself
59:29
Speaker 2: Bop Up Up, Up, Up Up Up Bobby Lord. Additional
59:32
Speaker 2: music credits can be found on our website Gimbletmedia dot
59:35
Speaker 2: com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the Weaker
59:38
Speaker 2: Than's courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is
59:41
Speaker 2: by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or
59:45
Speaker 2: email us at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia dot com. Our very
59:49
Speaker 2: special season finale is coming up next week