Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / No, Biopics Don’t Always Suck (Ft. A Complete Unknown and The Doors)

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No, Biopics Don’t Always Suck (Ft. A Complete Unknown and The Doors) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

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They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid Telling
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us to hush, dim our historical light But darlings,
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we're the Harpies, sharp and keen Unveiling the
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truth behind the silver screen History Harpies
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hear us roar Hi, this is Lauren. And this is
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Christine. And this is episode two of History
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Harpies, where we're going to be discussing a
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bunch of rock stars, biography, and the art of
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personality. And we are so lucky today because
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Lauren has actually written a biography. And
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so it's like Lauren is a guest on her own show.
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I like being a guest in my own. show and in my
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own life. We're all just visiting our own lives.
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Life is just temporal. So Christine, how has
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your week been going? That is a good question.
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I am very much looking forward to next week when
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I am going to New York to see Stranger Things
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on Broadway. So most of this week has been spent
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looking forward to next week. and I too am looking
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forward to next week. My family is on spring
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break, not me, but my two kids who are home,
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and one will be at the beach, one will be here,
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and I think it will be a good week. I'm also
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looking forward to our Passover Seder and a shout
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out to my sweet friend Jen who will be hosting
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us tomorrow night and going to a lot of work
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to herself host about. 22 people. That is amazing.
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Yeah, which is amazing. It's a huge feat. Passover
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is just a, it's a bear of a holiday. It's a bear
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of cooking and can't, you know, can't make anything
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really good because of all the matzah. So love
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you, Jen. Shout out to Jen. And I am actually
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going to say happy Passover to Lauren, even though
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it's early and I'm a day early, I'm going to
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say happy Passover. I appreciate that. appreciate
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that. So a couple weeks ago I received an email
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in my inbox which was absolutely stunning and
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it said that Michael Stipe of REM would be on
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our campus in conversation with a colleague of
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ours and At first, I thought that it was a different
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Michael Stipe or some other scholar. Michael
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J. Stipe. Right. But in fact, it really was Michael
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Stipe of REM who many people know and love. And
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I've been to REM concerts and listened to all
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the albums and the idea of having him on our
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campus. up close and personal. It was very exciting.
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It was very, very exciting. And so Christine
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and I went to this Michael Stipe event and we
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sat pretty close to Michael Stipe and I met Michael
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Stipe. I have a picture of Lauren with Michael
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Stipe. Which was a very embarrassing moment for
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me of a complete fangirling moron not knowing
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what to say and I'm sure he was incredibly uncomfortable
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and it was a terrible celebrity moment. But nonetheless,
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I'm very, very grateful that Michael Stipe came.
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And when I went to the public library about a
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week later, I came across a book that was a biography
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of R .E .M. and Stipe. And I actually took a
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picture of it and sent it to Christine and said,
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Hey, have you read this book? And why don't you
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share with our listeners what your response was?
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My response was, I don't want to say horror.
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Horror is a strong emotion. But when Lauren and
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I had gone to this Michael Stipe event, I was
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reminded very painfully of this REM biography,
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which is called The Name of This Band is REM.
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And I had read it over Christmas break. And so
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when Lauren sent me the picture, I was both very
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eager for Lauren to read it herself so that we
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could talk about it and quench about it. And
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I think it sums up a lot of challenges with rock
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biographies, music biographies, celebrity biographies.
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So I was really happy that Lauren was about to
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read it. But I also to be honest, I felt kind
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of sad that Lauren would have to read a biography
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that again, in my opinion, has a lot of weaknesses,
4:47
but neat things for us to talk about. Yes, and
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so even though I once it was confirmed that the
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biography I had eyed at the public library was
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actually this biography that I've been hearing
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about now for a few weeks, since this R .A .M.
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is Michael Saipofen, I started to read it and
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then what I would call hate read it. Hate read.
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It was a hate read. For a good... you know five
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hours we went to the beach and I brought the
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book and it was sort of like you know a car wreck
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that I I kind of couldn't stop reading but it
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was so bad and as I read it I was texting Christine
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and realizing why she hated this book so much
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and Just as a little background, I'm not an REM
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aficionado to the nth degree. I'm not encyclopedic
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on REM. I don't know as much about REM as I do
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about some other bands and musicians. So I was
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very eager to learn. And I didn't come into this
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book thinking a bunch of things that the author
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contradicted. But nonetheless. Nonetheless. And
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I will say that I was a very, very serious R
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.E .M. fan back in high school and first saw
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them in 1985 on the Reconstruction of the Fables
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tour, which I enjoyed very much. And this, of
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course, was before R .E .M. had really hit it
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big without of time in 1991. Gone mainstream.
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And so I felt like I knew a lot about them, but
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certainly was very eager to learn more from reading
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because this was the first biography of the band
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that I had read. And it really Did fall into
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i think a lot of the traps that a celebrity again
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rock film tv whatever biography can fall into
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and i would say that one of these is. That the
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author and let's just leave the author. Nameless
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nameless let's let's say i think it really one
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needs to have distance and this is something
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that lauren will talk about a little bit later
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when we talk about lauren's biography which we
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should. but the author didn't have a lot of distance
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between himself and the band in the sense that,
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to be honest, Lauren, it seemed like he was kind
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of madly in love with Michael Stipe. And to me,
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that wasn't the best position for a biographer
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to be in. Correct. The other problem with the
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biography is that often when we read biographies
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written by fans and journalists and even people
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and this author has written other biographies
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and is apparently in the industry but not a historian
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and not aware or at least transparently aware
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in terms of the writing of what other things
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might be going on in the period that REM is producing
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its music besides the world of Athens and immediate
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contacts of REM. Yes. That there are many, many
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derivatives and antecedents and connections between
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Michael Stipe and REM and the larger scene, whether
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REM liked that scene or not, they were part of
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it. But that raises an interesting question.
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So as Lauren said, the biography really focused
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on the music scene in Athens, Georgia, but in
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a really tight, claustrophobic way. And one of
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the things that certainly Lauren and I are both
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interested in is sort of all different genres
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of music, sort of music history generally. And
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you don't really get a sense from that book of,
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did other people inspire Michael Stipe and R
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.E .M.? Besides Patti Smith. Besides Patti Smith
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and the B -52s. Were they were they fans? Again,
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were they listening to, I don't know, Mississippi
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John Hurt at some point? And I think, though,
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and a question that we probably should ask ourselves.
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is that bigger context of music history, antecedents,
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is that only something that you and I maybe would
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look for? Because we are historians, but that
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most people reading that biography of R .E .M.
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would be totally thrilled and say, we don't need
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that other stuff. Right. And my response to that
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is they need that stuff if only to better...
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understand and position the band that they love
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so much and want to understand because they need
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to understand how REM is operating within a larger
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musical hemisphere that includes hip -hop, that
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includes, you know, a different kind of grunge,
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that includes... all kinds of old country yeah
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all country easy listening yeah adult contemporary
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all sorts of things and especially when rm is
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played on the radio is mainstream they are mainstream
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in the same way that mariah carey is yes and
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just because they don't necessarily fashion themselves
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as in the same genres making Mariah Carey doesn't
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mean that people who are receiving their music
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aren't appreciating both Mariah Carey and R .E
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.M. And this actually raises one of the most
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interesting points about both the event that
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we went to go see with Michael Stipe and the
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biography and that is in both cases both Michael
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Stipe when he spoke to our colleague and in the
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biography there was a great interest in in arguing
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or suggesting that REM was kind of one of a kind
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that they in the 1980s they were the only ones
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who sort of transitioned from being on the margins
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to in the mainstream they were the only ones
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who are politically active that they were really
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detached from both the music scene, but then
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what was going on on MTV. And an original kind
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of rebel. Yes, original kind of rebel. And so
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one of the most shocking moments to me and Lauren
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in the event that our colleague had here on campus
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with Michael Stipe is that Michael Stipe, for
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reasons that still remain a mystery, Michael
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Stipe insulted Michael Jackson. And insulted
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Michael Jackson in that as if he was a pop artist
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that was fluffy, frivolous, of no account, sort
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of stereotypically ridiculous. And that was something
11:04
where we kind of exchanged a look at the talk,
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but then reading the biography, it really puts
11:09
it in context. The idea that if it wasn't REM
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in the 1980s, then it was kind of bad or ridiculous
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or too poppy or too heavy metal. And that was
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a surprise, wasn't it, when he said that? It
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was a surprise and also Just so our listeners
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understand, I don't believe that his response
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had to do with Michael Jackson's reputation or
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actions as a pedophile. Correct. His reactions
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were as a musician. And he had this knee -jerk
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negative reaction to the thought of occupying
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the same space as Michael Jackson. anyone living
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in, you know, the mid -1980s. And thinking about
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MTV in the 1980s. Thinking about MTV and thinking
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about what was animating the public could not
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exist without a world with Michael Jackson in
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it. And whatever you think about him and whatever
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you think about his actions or, you know, some
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of the terrible things he did later in his life
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or during his life. he nonetheless was a hugely
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influential artist and, you know, crossed racial
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lines and, you know, and was a pioneer arguably
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in ways that maybe REM is not. REM is not. And
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that was something where in terms of thinking
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about how we understand an artist, whether it's
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again a band, an actor, how we do look at their
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lives, look at their past lives, put them in
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context, that absolutely is one of the reasons
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why, and we want that context, because however
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much an artist might think that he or she is
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just... uh on their own and an originator and
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a rebel we we always have to think well how are
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they part of a bigger trend a bigger movement
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and what else is going on that again is infusing
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all of these influences so this is a really good
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transition i think to thinking about the first
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uh text that we're going to talk about which
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is the recent film a complete unknown which is
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the biography of biopic Bob Dylan and often when
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people think of the the 1960s You know the late
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1960s the Beatles the Stones still in they don't
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realize how popular somebody like Frank Sinatra
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and I think that idea of wide taste generational
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taste wider Publix is something that's so important
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to consider and something that is equally absent
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in the new biopic about Bob Dylan in ways that
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it is also absent in the biography of Ariam.
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And I hate to say it, because I worry, Lauren,
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that... It sounds like we just don't like anything.
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We like so many things. We like so many things.
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And we'll talk about things we like later. And
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we are huge R .E .M. fans. Huge R .E .M. fans.
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Huge R .E .M. fans. And again, 1985. And that
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wasn't the last time I saw R .E .M. Right, right.
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Huge R .E .M. fans. But one of the things we
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talked about with Michael Stipe... And that is
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very pertinent with the biopic of Bob Dylan is
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this question of authenticity and how you actually
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can know an artist. And one of the frustrating
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things about our our STIPE event about the STIPE
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book. And again, it is a nice segue to to the
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Dylan film is it seemed to us as if stipe was
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kind of giving me sort of almost canned answers
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and so obviously this pertinent to the dylan
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film in that how do you know an artist in his
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own life how do you know an artist when you're
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kind of going back going to his past doing a
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biopic doing a biography how can you penetrate
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right these these very solid outer layers to
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understand the person or do we even need to understand
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the person appreciating their art. I think that's
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a good question. Something that is famously known
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about Bob Dylan is that he was a sort of magician
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and created all these different personae and
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we'll never know the real Dylan and that's something
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that's pretty well documented about him. The
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canned answers are also pretty famous. That famous
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Time magazine interview he did, I'm not a folk
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artist, I am a folk artist. Those sorts of things
15:29
which are in the the kind of cultural canon right
15:33
now. But if on the one hand we know artists as
15:39
caricatures or as inventions of themselves, what
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is the function of a filmic biography in furthering
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understanding beyond those layers? One of the
15:58
big problems right that we experienced in watching
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a complete unknown and for those of you who haven't
16:03
seen it So it's a fairly chronologically tight
16:07
biopic. It doesn't show us a big sort of span
16:10
of Dylan's life It's only a few years ending
16:13
with when Dylan goes electric at the Newport
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Folk Festival And so it's not as if this kind
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of birth to death thing For example, which we
16:20
get with walk the line almost to the Johnny Cash
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biopic It is fairly tight and it's the beginning
16:25
of his career And so we have what should be a
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really exciting set of moments in Dylan's life
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where he is crafting these persona right and
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becoming this artist and becoming famous it is
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also in the chronology of the 1960 to 1965 the
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moment of Quintessential Dylan the most beloved
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Dylan of the Dylan that people cherish Arguably
16:53
the most yeah, I agree with that and that By
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1969, Dylan does not have the sort of popularity
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that some of his contemporaries do, the sort
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of sense of being in touch with the counterculture
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in the same way that other artists do. And so
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the movie is very much a romantic and soft capturing
17:18
of these few years that Dylan is... and crafting
17:24
himself, but also entering the public imagination
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in a very, very endearing way. Okay, but here
17:31
is the problem though. If one only knew Dylan
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from watching that film, one would be totally
17:40
amazed that Dylan had ever captured the national
17:44
imagination or at least of that generation, a
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big chunk of most of that generation. It would
17:49
be a mystery because the Dylan that we see is
17:52
incredibly boring has no charisma uh simply is
17:58
kind of standing there as a folky right no stage
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presence and we'll talk a little bit later about
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stage presence when we talk about the doors But
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no, we talked about this, no sort of sexual energy,
18:09
no idea that he is a compelling person to talk
18:12
to, much like our complaint about Enora. There's
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very, very little actual dialogue in a complete
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unknown. Very little dialogue coming from Dylan
18:21
or his... peers, his romantic partners. In fact,
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there's one character who is silent the entire
18:30
silent film. And what we mostly see is Timothée
18:35
Chalamet performing these Dylan songs in a Bob
18:40
Dylan kind of way. And other people staring,
18:45
lovingly staring, they are amazed, amazed that
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this man is singing. and that he is doing something
18:53
that they've never seen anyone do before. It
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is as if they're looking at Jesus Christ turning
18:58
water into wine. And there are so many scenes
19:03
like this. As, again, like last week we talked
19:06
about Enora, the frequency of these concert scenes
19:11
with adoring fans staring at Bob Dylan is the
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frequency of black dancing in Enora. That is
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true. And neither further any sort of storytelling.
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Yes, agreed. And neither is compelling or interesting
19:24
to watch. we have these repeated scenes where
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it really is, and I've read a review that said
19:31
this, it's almost a musical, right? There's almost
19:34
no conversation, almost no depth, right? Almost
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no development of Dylan or anyone else really
19:39
as a character, just song after song after song.
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But of course, the problem is so many of us over
19:45
so many years have heard parodies of Dylan, right?
19:48
The jokes, the kind of whiny voice. And so in
19:51
effect, we have a, what, two hour, what sounds
19:54
like a parody of Dylan. And that is what we are
19:58
presented with. And we, again, know so little
20:00
about him. See, what I want, I want a film about
20:04
Dylan's conversion to Christianity. Right, there's
20:07
sort of a few years, right, where he's a born
20:09
-again Christian, right, releases how many albums,
20:11
and then in this fact says, all right, that phase
20:13
is over. I'm moving on now. I would like a film
20:15
about... how Dylan came to agree to do that Victoria's
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Secret commercial in 2004. And the film - I would
20:26
pay money for that. The film acts like he never
20:28
did that commercial with Adriana Luna, where
20:32
he is staring, smoldering into the camera. basically,
20:37
again, just selling, as he said, I'll only do
20:40
a commercial if I sell women's underwear. I said
20:43
that earlier in his career, in the early 60s,
20:45
and then goes on to actually do that. But in
20:47
the most crass commercial way that a young Dylan
20:50
would have completely wept over, wept, would
20:55
throw signs around, whatever Dylan did in those
20:58
days. And Joan Baez, God knows what she did.
21:04
saw that commercial. The other problem with the
21:10
film, especially in 2025, is it a film that is
21:15
going to have women occupying central roles,
21:21
Joan Baez, Susie Rotolo, have no voices, have
21:28
no backstory, have no personalities. no sense
21:34
of who they are in this film. There was a female
21:39
character, we still can't figure out who she
21:41
was, who was with Dylan. And there is, and as
21:45
Lauren said, there also is the silent character,
21:48
right? The wife of Pete Seeker, who seems to
21:50
never speak. And there wasn't any interest, certainly,
21:55
in exploring these women. But again, the film
21:57
isn't interested in exploring Dylan, right? We
21:59
don't have any kind of sense of his personality.
22:01
It isn't that the film is particularly muting
22:03
women. They're just muting everybody. And really...
22:08
It is an interesting comparison the same director
22:11
James Mangold he did walk the line a biopic of
22:13
Johnny Cash a biopic that then became parodied
22:18
by the Dewey Cox story, which is a wonderful
22:20
parody of Walk the Line and a wonderful parody
22:22
of biopics, right, where you do have these beats
22:25
that you keep sort of hitting. And we don't even
22:28
really see actually the sort of we don't see
22:31
drug use with Dylan. As I told you when we watched
22:33
it, I wanted to see the moment where Dylan introduces
22:36
the Beatles to pot, something that would have
22:39
been interesting, but we don't have anything
22:42
like that. And so. I think that in terms of authenticity,
22:47
we just have no idea. We have no idea. But then
22:49
the other question is, if we read a good biography
22:52
of Bob Dylan, would we have any sensibility that
22:55
we knew him? And I confess, I have not read a
23:00
biography of Bob Dylan. I've read several articles
23:03
about Bob Dylan, positioning him in larger 1960s
23:08
culture, ideas about Bob Dylan, and identity
23:13
and authenticity, and Love and Theft, which is
23:17
Eric Lott's book that was written in the early
23:19
90s about blackface minstrelsy, which then Bob
23:22
Dylan took that idea and labeled his new album
23:26
Love and Theft. So the question also of Bob Dylan's
23:30
own originality, Bob Dylan's influences, and
23:35
perhaps the kinds of theft he committed. are
23:39
all interesting ideas. Again, they're not captured
23:42
in the film at all, but they are nonetheless
23:46
ideas that animate conversations about Bob Dylan.
23:52
And again, there was a couple... A couple decades
23:55
ago, Sean Rulant's a famous American historian
23:58
wrote an article about Bob Dylan, sort of defending
24:00
Bob Dylan and talking about Bob Dylan's ideologies.
24:04
And Bob Dylan has for many decades been part
24:07
of the musical landscape, has been a kind of
24:11
touchstone for many different generations and
24:13
can mean many different things. And the idea
24:16
that a film that would come out in 2025 wouldn't...
24:19
even remotely hint at any of these conversations
24:24
is bizarre. Well, so what was the point of the
24:28
film? That is, why do we even need a Bob Dylan
24:30
film in 2025? I don't know. Because it was it
24:34
okay to introduce Gen Z to Bob Dylan. They don't
24:38
seem interested Maybe they should be Was it kind
24:42
of okay? It's the moment for baby boomers to
24:45
be reminded of their greatness back and by the
24:47
way I'm going to interrupt myself and say one
24:50
of the worst crimes of biopics was committed
24:54
in this film and I just have to say it and that
24:57
is every single biopic set in the 60s, right?
25:01
We have to see television news stuff. We have
25:04
to see the assassination of President Kennedy.
25:06
There has to be some reference to the Vietnam
25:08
War, right? It's so clunky. And I can't think
25:12
of a good biopic from the 60s. although we'll
25:15
talk about the doors in a second, where these
25:18
things aren't, again, clunky, sort of hammered
25:20
in, just, you know, it's as if a biopic from
25:23
the 80s that threw in something about Ronald
25:25
Reagan on the news, right, talking about the
25:27
Soviet Union or something. These supposed touchstones
25:30
that at this point I think are parodic and just
25:33
tedious and silly almost to see them in a biopic.
25:36
I would rather just not have those sorts of things
25:38
at all of like, this is a really important historical
25:40
moment. Get it, people watching the film? I'm
25:43
kind of tired of that. Well, also, I think that's
25:46
a good point. And we do have so many innovative
25:50
techs like the Americans do a fantastic job of
25:54
capturing the 1980s without those touchstones.
25:58
Yes. We do have the TV on once in a while, right?
26:00
We do see Soviet news. We do see... Again, the
26:06
sort of usual suspects, but we get such a richer
26:09
sense of the time period and the different events
26:13
that are motivating these characters and the
26:16
historic context of the Cold War in a way that
26:19
we do not get. from the 1960s. So there is precedent
26:24
in terms of the ways that filmmakers in 2025
26:28
could really think carefully about history and
26:33
these characters' relationship to it. And The
26:37
Americans, a wonderful show that is so terrific
26:39
this way when we see the attempted assassination
26:42
of Ronald Reagan, but then we even see something
26:44
like what David Copperfield trying to hide the
26:47
Statue of Liberty, right? And so, yeah, I agree.
26:50
It does it really, really well. So maybe we should
26:53
actually start talking about. The Doors, another
26:56
film, biopic set in the 1960s that is also touching
27:02
upon resistance, the Baby Boomer generation,
27:06
rock, drugs, the whole shebang in a way that
27:08
is seven billion times more exciting than A Complete
27:12
Unknown. Yes. So The Doors came out in 1991,
27:17
directed by Oliver Stone, who is a provocateur
27:20
and many people, particularly Gen Xers like us
27:25
have lots of opinions of Oliver Stone and his
27:28
various films. Last week we lost the wonderful
27:33
Val Kilmer and who holds a special place in my
27:38
heart for many of his terrific performances from
27:43
of course Top Gun most famously to The Saint
27:47
which I very much enjoyed. Real genius. There's
27:51
so many wonderful Val Kilmer films and I love
27:54
his Batman and I'll defend that. I'll die on
28:00
the hill. It is a hill to die. For that Batman
28:02
film, and particularly that U2 song that is in
28:06
that film. So, rest in peace. Rest in peace.
28:11
Very sad. The documentary about him was really
28:15
touching, really sad that his children had done
28:18
with him a few years before his death. It's a
28:21
tough watch, but you really see, again, his artistry,
28:24
what an amazing actor he was. And obviously,
28:27
it's a cliche to say someone is taken from us
28:29
too soon, but it is completely, completely true
28:31
in the case of Val Kilmer. So we were inspired
28:34
to watch The Doors again. Again. which I had
28:38
seen in the theater. As did I, as did I. I can't
28:42
remember if I had watched it since then, but
28:45
of course after watching Dylan and thinking about
28:49
Stipe and then receiving this news of the of
28:52
the. death of Bell Kilmer, the doors seemed like
28:56
an appropriate choice to talk about on the pod.
29:01
And also, Christine, let me know that this thing
29:03
called, what is it, Tubi? Tubi! Tubi! Tubi! Tubi
29:07
had it on there for free. Although I would have
29:09
paid for it. Love Tubi. I would have paid for
29:11
it on Amazon. But anyway, Tubi had it for free.
29:14
Although with commercials, and let me tell you,
29:16
it's a long watch. It is. With commercials. It
29:18
is. Which, again, I... But it's a price I'm willing
29:23
to pay. Yeah, it's a price I'm willing to pay.
29:26
So, the doors... which is a very, very different
29:29
film than A Complete Unknown is also in very
29:33
many ways a concert film. There are many, many
29:38
long performances, many scenes of fans, of stadium
29:43
concerts, of smaller concerts. Many scenes that
29:48
can parallel scenes from A Complete Unknown.
29:52
Christine, how did they differ to you? They differed
29:56
from me in many ways. One is exactly that, that
30:00
we see performances in very, very small clubs,
30:04
right? And then bigger theaters. And so even
30:06
just the performances, you have a sense of movement,
30:09
right? You have a sense of arc in the career.
30:11
And in effect with Dylan, we see the small clubs,
30:13
but then we just kind of see the Newport Folk
30:14
Festival, which isn't that different. But then,
30:17
of course, the most important difference is that
30:20
with Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison, you have a sense
30:23
of movement himself, right? Physical movement.
30:27
You have a sense of dynamism. Certainly we see
30:30
the ways in which Morrison perceived himself
30:33
as being kind of a shaman, that this is intended
30:35
to be a kind of Dionysian ritual. He's appealing
30:38
back to this notion of Greek gods and sort of
30:41
ecstasy. And this was obviously something that
30:43
Morrison did himself in his career, but that
30:45
Val Kilmer captures. so wonderfully. So you have
30:47
an absolutely electric sense of these performances,
30:51
right? I think you really feel what it was like
30:54
to be watching one of them with his, again, charisma
30:58
and energy. And that is something, of course,
31:02
that is so different. So different. Because all
31:04
of the performances in A Complete Unknown, right,
31:07
standing there with the guitar, harmonica thingy,
31:10
and they just seem so repetitive. Whereas, again,
31:12
there's so much, again, Energy and excitement
31:15
and the other the question it raises is I do
31:18
not believe that Bob Dylan was a boring guy to
31:20
watch in concert because people Love Bob Dylan
31:23
and I'm a Dylan fan. I haven't seen him in concert,
31:26
but he is totally an animated guy But in contrast
31:30
Jim Morrison, I mean again played by Kilmer,
31:33
but they're you know, why he was Samus, you know
31:37
why people would pay, would push in, would get
31:41
naked and run up on the stage with him. You know
31:44
why he sold out stadiums. You know why he was
31:48
all over the news. You know why he was in the
31:51
zeitgeist. And again, the kind of electricity
31:56
that Morrison had, that a lot of rock stars have,
31:59
right? Yeah, absolutely. Mick Jagger, did you
32:02
know Paul McCartney, Elton John, go through a
32:05
whole litany of people. But the film draws you
32:09
in. And again, coming out in 1991, decades after
32:14
Morrison's death. draws in generations of people
32:18
who weren't either weren't familiar with him
32:20
or maybe knew a little bit about him. But within
32:23
minutes, it is easy to understand why he became
32:28
famous, that he would become famous and also
32:31
why he would become incredibly self -destructive.
32:34
Yes. And so one of the most interesting things
32:37
about the film is that you do have this very
32:40
clear through line. The idea, based upon what
32:43
Morrison said about his own life, that when he
32:45
was a child, his family witnessed a car accident
32:48
of Native Americans and his belief that the spirit
32:52
of one of those dead people had passed into him.
32:56
And again, Morrison had told this story repeatedly
32:58
during his own life. And obviously this is what
33:00
Stone chooses, right? We see the accident at
33:02
the very beginning of the film, the older Native
33:06
American American man keeps reappearing and this
33:09
is something that was then parodied in Wayne's
33:12
World 2, which we won't talk about now. But there
33:14
is this really clear narrative structure and
33:18
framing to say this is how this man understood
33:21
his own life. Morrison thinks this about himself.
33:24
He is convicted about this idea. And something
33:28
else though, and we obviously don't have that
33:30
with Dylan. And what I think is so really wonderful,
33:33
and in part this is because Oliver Stone was
33:35
a wonderful filmmaker, we never have a moment,
33:38
right, where Kilmer as Morrison is saying, by
33:40
the way, I have this sensibility that I was,
33:44
it is all shown us in this really powerful and
33:47
really effective way. And as you say, very quickly,
33:49
we have this sensibility, who he is, what he
33:51
wants, and even though we have this kind of narrative
33:54
jump, it works really well. We feel like we know
33:56
who he is so quickly. Yes. and there's also the
34:03
real turmoil between Morrison, his bandmates,
34:09
his lovers, his own fans that runs throughout
34:13
the film. This is a difficult guy. This is a
34:15
guy that a lot of people hate. This is a guy
34:17
that a lot of people hate sometimes. This is
34:21
a volatile person that has an incredibly tempestuous
34:27
relationship with other people. Yes. And so it
34:29
is not a bunch of adoring fans staring at him.
34:33
It can be some adoring fans staring at him while
34:35
other fans are screaming at him, you know, sing,
34:38
sing by my fire. Yeah. People get angry at him
34:41
quickly and there is a lot of resentment. There
34:45
is a lot of real frustration for rightly so because
34:48
he's stoned or whatever. Yeah, whatever, whatever.
34:53
Most of the time. and won't participate in what
34:55
the band is doing, won't show up on time, or
34:58
acts completely inappropriately. And these sorts
35:02
of things show us that... Again, not only there's
35:05
a real person there, but that being a rock star
35:09
and having this kind of elevated career is so
35:12
difficult and so difficult for him. And that
35:15
it's not just that fame is a monster. And you
35:19
see scenes in A Complete Unknown where fans are
35:22
pounding on the windows of a car and Dylan's
35:25
like, oh, I don't want to be part of this. But
35:27
for Jim Morrison, it really, really, it both
35:30
ate at him and it both was something that made
35:34
him alive. And I think the film captures the
35:40
different elements of fame and how it led to
35:45
his ultimate demise, but it also kept him...
35:48
It nourished him. And yes, it nourished him.
35:51
But that's, you know, I hate to sound too negative
35:53
about folk, which of course in many ways can
35:56
be a wonderful genre. But in some ways, maybe
35:59
we can argue, and you might disagree with this,
36:02
but I think what we see in the doors is this
36:04
notion that Rock music, at least as he experiences
36:09
it and lives it out, rock music is something
36:11
dangerous, right? The individual shows are always
36:14
kind of on this precipice, right? Is it going
36:16
to become a riot? Is it going to be dangerous?
36:18
Is someone going to get hurt? Because he is drunk,
36:21
he is out of control. And of course, there's
36:23
very much a sense that part of that is intentional,
36:25
right? He wants that kind of danger. He wants
36:27
to flirt with the danger. He's a provocateur.
36:29
But you can argue, right, that this is part and
36:31
parcel of what rock is about, right, from its
36:35
origins, right, from its development out of blues.
36:38
But in a sense, what there's never people throwing
36:41
things at Dylan when he goes electric, notwithstanding,
36:44
right, although that might prove my point folk
36:46
in a complete unknown. It is so passive, right.
36:50
It is so placid, however much. Joan Baez or Pete
36:54
Seeger or even Woody Guthrie see this music as
36:57
being a protest genre. The music itself is so
37:01
bland. We talked about this while watching A
37:03
Complete Unknown. Everyone is kind of sitting
37:05
there quietly, politely clapping. And the contrast
37:09
with those scenes in the doors of people who
37:12
are out of control. And obviously, if A Complete
37:15
Unknown had wanted to, it could have shown us
37:17
the Beatles with that same kind. Lack of control,
37:21
danger. And one of the weirdest scenes in A Complete
37:24
Unknown is when we hear the kinks on the radio,
37:27
right? And Dylan's like, that's the kinks! And
37:30
it's sort of out of nowhere. But I do think that,
37:33
rightly or wrongly, we do have the sense that
37:36
Rock, Rock in a sense, lends itself more to exciting
37:39
film, right? More to an exciting biopic, rightly
37:42
or wrongly. We do based on these two depictions.
37:44
Yes, yes. I think there are other films about
37:49
that time period that might show, again, the...
37:55
a kind of animation that wasn't in that Bob Dylan
37:58
film. And certainly, you know, even if we think
38:01
of something like Eyes on the Prize, the famous
38:04
and wonderful civil rights documentary, even
38:08
looking at civil rights protesters marching and
38:11
singing and drawing crowds and having people
38:14
yell at them. And those are not quite passive.
38:18
folk audience but that's but that's not a that's
38:20
not a folk concert right exactly like we see
38:23
in that film and so in a sense what we the glimpses
38:28
that we see you know and certainly i haven't
38:30
watched a lot of biopics about folkies i'm not
38:32
sure there are that many right there Who knows?
38:35
But what we see then is a very sedate, almost
38:38
kind of like PBS audience, right? That is what
38:41
is represented, right? Again, people, again,
38:43
politely clapping. There's no sense of, however
38:46
much folk might have been harnessed in. quote
38:49
unquote, real life, right, for political ends,
38:51
as you say. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting paradox
38:55
to have someone like Jim Morrison, who is not
38:59
traditionally associated with politics with a
39:01
capital P, in a film that really shows rebellion
39:05
and really shows a kind of... anger, if you know,
39:09
rage against the machine, et cetera. And then
39:11
Dylan, who is associated politics with the capital
39:14
B, as so passive, as again - Everyone's staring
39:19
at him adoringly. And so void of meaning. And
39:21
void of meaning. And that's, again, whether we
39:25
could chalk it up to the performances, whether
39:27
we can chalk it up to - Again, the charisma of
39:30
someone like Jim Morrison or all the other trappings
39:33
of him that made him interesting is, you know,
39:38
we can debate about that. But Stone does a better
39:43
job of capturing a kind of biography that is
39:48
more multilayered and that does give, I think,
39:53
a greater sense to the music, to the person and
39:56
to the individuals that were touched by his life.
39:59
Well, speaking of that, that actually might be
40:01
a nice little segue to something else we do need
40:03
to talk about as a contrast between the two films.
40:06
And that is sexuality. And certainly, The Doors
40:11
is much, much more explicit. Yes. And A Complete
40:14
Unknown is, I think, fairly, again, passive,
40:18
fairly chaste. Is that fair to say? It is. It
40:20
is. And, but we see all of these particular moments
40:25
in Jim Morrison's life. He has relationships
40:27
with different women. We see this kind of partner
40:30
that he has in Pamela Morrison, this other relationship
40:34
that he has with Patricia Keneally. And, but
40:37
there, it is absolutely the case, right, that
40:39
part of this danger, part of this ecstasy is
40:42
his relationships and sort of his open sexuality.
40:45
Again, totally vacuous in the case of our Dillon
40:47
film. Yeah, and it's interesting because Dylan
40:52
is known for his relationships. He captures them
40:56
on his album covers. He is somebody who's known
41:00
to have these all sorts of relationships, marriages,
41:04
and to write about them in his songs. So he is
41:09
somebody who thinks deeply about relationships
41:12
and women. As blood on the track shows us. But
41:18
we don't get a real sense of any depth of that
41:22
understanding. And it isn't that Jim Morrison
41:25
is captured as some kind of sensitive... Hardly,
41:30
hardly, hardly. Definitely not a feminist. He
41:32
sleeps with anything that walks, and he is...
41:35
He's crass, and he is vulgar, and he is, you
41:39
know, abusive to Pamela. And he is pretty awful.
41:46
to the other woman too. But nonetheless, he is
41:51
sexually magnetic. And his sexuality is a big
41:56
part of his career and his life. And even the
42:01
imagery of him, the kind of things that are written
42:05
on his gravestone, continue to profess admiration
42:12
for his sexuality. Yes, absolutely. And I don't
42:16
think that anybody who remembers Jim Morrison
42:20
or that would learn about Jim Morrison could
42:23
learn about him without learning about this particular
42:26
aspect of his life. Well, that also then takes
42:30
us to, and I hate the fact that we even have
42:32
to bring it up, but the casting. of Meg Ryan
42:36
as his partner Pamela, which did almost destroy
42:41
the film for me. Now, let me say one thing before
42:43
we get into this, because I don't want our listeners
42:46
to think that we're just, you know, like just
42:48
trashing on this stuff. I love Meg Ryan. And
42:53
When Harry Met Sally might be one of my favorite
42:56
films. It's a great film. I love Meg Ryan and
42:59
I love her in just about everything. You know,
43:02
I have been watching Meg Ryan since she was Betsy
43:05
Montgomery on As the World Turns. So yes, absolutely.
43:08
We are talking about this specific film, her
43:10
casting in this film and not her great work in
43:12
other things. But this casting is so bizarre
43:17
and I understand that Oliver Stone wanted to
43:19
get a kind of sweetness and a contrast with Morris
43:23
and a contrast with Patricia as well. But Meg
43:27
Ryan is America's sweetheart and there's no edge
43:32
to her in this film. There is edge to her in
43:34
other films that she's in, but this one is flat.
43:40
This one is just complete admiration, complete
43:45
acceptance. She's a doormat. She won't veer out
43:50
on her own and she doesn't portray her love for
43:55
Morrison in a way that is particularly convincing.
43:59
Yeah, sure, we know she loves him, but why Meg
44:03
Ryan makes it very, very hard to believe that
44:07
this particular Jim Morrison, played by Val Kilmer,
44:11
is going to be spending his life with his muse
44:15
as Meg Ryan. She just doesn't seem musey. But
44:18
then the opposite is also true because, of course,
44:21
in the film, we also see Pamela Morrison. shooting
44:24
heroin and make ryan no as far as i know she's
44:29
just shooting it doesn't do it she's not heroin
44:32
it does not it does not make sense and it is
44:35
interesting to think that at that particular
44:37
point right in the very very early nineteen nineties
44:39
you know she was just on the cusp of being a
44:42
huge huge star that you would be later in the
44:45
decade when she did her films with tom hanks.
44:47
But it is and the films with tom hanks of course
44:50
make sense. Exactly. Yes. That's who she is.
44:53
That's who she is. She is rom -com queen. She
44:56
is cuter than a button. Cuter than a button.
45:00
And she is not heroin. Not heroin. So who would
45:06
have been a good choice in 1991 to have been
45:11
Pamela Mars? Okay, I would vote for Jennifer
45:13
Jason Lee. So a star in 1991, right? She had
45:19
been working then throughout the 80s ever since
45:20
fast times at Ridgemont High. age range, she
45:24
was right on. Okay. And certainly she has shown
45:27
herself, right, to do more edgy, dangerous material.
45:30
And drug stuff. And drug stuff, and drug stuff.
45:32
And so I think that she actually would have been
45:34
a really good choice for that. And I think that
45:38
she would have had good chemistry with Val Kilmer.
45:40
I do think that Meg Ryan has good chemistry with
45:42
Val Kilmer. It's just that nevertheless, she
45:44
still somehow manages to be miscast. But again,
45:46
Jennifer Jason Lee and Val Kilmer. Yeah, that's
45:48
a good, it's a good couple. It's definitely a
45:50
good couple. Who would you have picked? Hmm,
45:53
1991. Not Julia Roberts. No, not Julia Roberts.
45:58
But if we're going to go in the Jennifer Jason
46:01
Lee direction, I could also say A Bridged Fonda.
46:04
Oh, yes. Yeah. Because Virgil Fonda would have
46:08
been an up -and -coming person. Yes, I agree.
46:11
Would have been somebody that, you know, could
46:12
have fit into a lot of different molds. She's
46:15
kind of edgy too. She could have a smokey eye
46:18
and, you know, that look. She eventually did
46:21
go in the Tarantino direction. She did. So the
46:24
drug vibe is there. It is there. She's drug adjacent.
46:29
So, again, I don't mean to just take people out
46:32
of single white female, but But Bridget Fonda
46:35
to me feels a little a little also she's she's
46:39
not so iconic yet. She doesn't have that kind
46:43
of, you know, typecasting. Yes, I agree. There's
46:46
more versatility. Much more versatility. Yeah.
46:48
And again, Kilmer is such a star and Morrison
46:53
is such a star. The charisma is just off the
46:55
charts. You know, again, as sort of, you know,
46:59
Kyle McLaughlin with a wig, who's fine. I still
47:03
love Kyle McLaughlin in that film. It's great.
47:05
Yes. But we don't need big stars. We don't. We
47:07
don't. We don't need a whole host of big stars.
47:09
We need journeymen, great, terrific character
47:12
actors. Right, right. And for the most part,
47:14
that's what we get. Yes, that is what we get.
47:17
So one of the, I guess the last thing I'll say
47:20
about the doors, and then maybe we can move on
47:22
and talk a little bit about Sophie Tucker. Sure.
47:26
Do we feel like we have a better sense of who
47:31
Jim Morrison is because of the structure of the
47:34
film, because of the performances, because of
47:36
the dialogue? That film, to me, feels so much
47:39
longer than a complete unknown. It just feels...
47:42
No, maybe that's because we watched it with the
47:44
commercials. Maybe, maybe. But in the sense of,
47:47
again, we do see context, right? We see Jim Morrison
47:50
go to Andy Warhol's factory. We see him, what,
47:54
with Edie Sedgwick. We see him with Nico. We
47:56
see him in film school. Film school. And so there
47:58
is all of this sense. And he is someone who also
48:02
invents himself. Absolutely. But I do feel like
48:06
we have a greater, I don't know. I mean, I think
48:08
I go back and forth on this. Do we feel like
48:10
we know him or don't we? feel like I got a sense
48:15
of what it was like to see Jim Morrison through
48:19
Kilmer's performance. And I don't know whether
48:22
I know him as he quote really was, but I get
48:26
a sense of what it was like to go to a Doors
48:29
concert. And I believe in the storytelling of
48:35
the film. And it is convincing to me that, you
48:40
know, I don't... I'm not matching for matching
48:42
whether every Kilmer move is every Morrison move
48:45
or anything like that. But the energy, the dynamism,
48:52
and the kind of connections that are being made
48:56
in the musical scenes to me gave me a real profound
49:00
sense of being there. And that is something that's
49:03
very hard to capture. And that I think is completely
49:09
lacking in a complete unknown as as much as it
49:12
again claims to be this concert film and maybe
49:15
that's the Chalamet just doesn't doesn't land
49:19
it maybe that it's too much of a stretch for
49:22
Chalamet to go to the Dylan place. And maybe
49:27
that, again, also we've had so many iterations
49:30
of Dylan. We've had so many films. We've had
49:33
Scorsese making documentaries. We've had other
49:36
people that have investigated. Todd Haynes. Todd
49:38
Haynes. I'm not there. Made a movie. Right. So
49:40
the question that you asked before, which is,
49:42
again, worth repeating, is why do we need another
49:45
Dylan film in 2025? And is it because 10 years
49:48
ago or however long ago? Chalamet says, he got
49:52
a script and he worked on it really hard and
49:55
now a lot of Gen Z folks love him and he's dating
49:59
Kylie Jenner. He's just super hot. New generation.
50:02
He's super hot. And so here is his platform and
50:08
here's his Oscar, you know, Oscar contending
50:12
fodder. That might be a more pragmatic, you know,
50:19
kind of mechanical answer to that question, but
50:24
Again, to think about Bob Dylan, and then to
50:27
think about the forthcoming Beatles films. Films,
50:31
plural, since there are going to be four of them.
50:33
Four of them, which my college -age son has already
50:37
told me he will not see. Interesting. Who is
50:42
a son of two huge Beatles fans, but he said,
50:47
no, I have zero interest in seeing any of those
50:49
films. So I wonder if he is not willing to spend
50:54
time in the theater with his friends seeing these
50:56
films. I don't know. Maybe he's just a weirdo.
50:59
But I can't imagine that other young people are
51:06
going to go. Say, I need to see a film about
51:08
Ringo. It's hard to imagine Gen Z saying, I need
51:11
to see a film about Ringo. Right. right right
51:14
sorry Ringo sorry Ringo no so making the question
51:17
is why are we making more more about people born
51:22
you know, 50 years before the target audience.
51:27
When there have been so many, again, as with
51:29
The Beatles also, right? So many. So many. And
51:32
some of them really terrific. Yes. And again,
51:35
about like The Beatles, you know, the guy who
51:37
carried their luggage or something, right? It's
51:38
become so expansive. OK, the last thing before
51:41
we start move on a little bit is Something I
51:44
keep coming back to, there's a wonderful, as
51:46
you know, Lauren, a wonderful two volume biography
51:49
of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick, which to
51:52
me really is almost a model of a rock biography.
51:56
And I just keep coming back because Bob Dylan
51:57
blurbed that biography by Guralnick. And what
52:01
he says about it is you can feel sort of feel
52:05
Elvis breathe. He steps off the pages. And I
52:09
thought about that and said, yes, that's what
52:11
we want out of a biography or a biopic. We want
52:13
that feeling of breathing, stepping off the pages.
52:16
And in part, that's why I think I was also really
52:18
disappointed by A Complete Unknown, that Bob
52:21
Dylan himself understands what we as fans want
52:25
out of these things and felt that he got it about
52:28
Elvis Presley in Garland's book. We're missing
52:32
it from a complete unknown. So that actually
52:34
is a good segue and we're going to talk for a
52:36
few minutes. Lauren is going to talk about her
52:39
experiences writing a biography of Sophie Tucker
52:43
and actually that's a good segue from the Beatles
52:45
because the Beatles themselves mentioned once
52:47
that Sophie Tucker was their favorite band, right?
52:50
But Lauren really knows far better certainly
52:53
than I do about what it means to try to bring
52:56
someone to life where someone who is both very,
52:58
very well known but also maybe not so well known
53:00
in terms of interior life. And one of the challenges
53:05
when I decided to write the biography of Sophie
53:07
Tucker for those listeners that don't know, she
53:10
was a very famous performer across the 20th century.
53:17
Born in 1886, her career spanned through her
53:20
death, actually spanned right through her death,
53:23
1966. And she was in vaudeville, she was in film,
53:29
she was on the radio, and she was most famous
53:32
for her live performances as a kind of cabaret
53:36
live singer. And she performed every night, sometimes
53:43
twice a night. throughout most of her career
53:46
in the United States and all over the world.
53:49
And she performed with great regularity in the
53:53
UK and was friends with, for who's who of famous
53:59
people in Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood and the
54:04
theater world in her day. And again, on the Ed
54:08
Sullivan show a couple of times, friends with
54:09
Ed Sullivan and many others. She was also a tremendous
54:14
philanthropist and raised a lot of money for
54:17
different organizations and at the end of her
54:19
life left millions of dollars to all sorts of
54:23
relief organizations. So she was. what we would
54:27
consider now, certainly a philanthropist. She
54:30
was also an activist. She was the president of
54:33
the American Federation of Actors. She was the
54:36
first female president of the American Federation
54:37
of Actors and many, many other organizations.
54:41
But if you are interested, you can check out
54:45
the book. But the questions of how to write a
54:47
biography, it's a very, very tricky genre. And
54:52
anyone who tries to tackle knows immediately.
54:55
difficult it is because on the one hand, at least
55:01
for me, you did not want to tell the minutiae
55:05
of this person goes there. What they ate for
55:07
breakfast. Dry cleaning and then they met this
55:10
person and then they went to this performance,
55:12
but you also don't want to zoom back. Too much
55:17
so that you don't capture the sense of who they
55:19
are and Then there's the issue of your proximity
55:23
to your subject now my subject lived in another
55:27
Mostly lived in the 20th century and in the in
55:31
the early 19th century and I and died before
55:35
I was born but It's a person that I wrestled
55:40
with because her life was so complicated and
55:43
she's another person who likes type like Dylan
55:47
and like Morrison Had it had an artificial personality
55:52
that she Fabricated that she repeated over and
55:57
over again in interviews in her own autobiography
56:01
and in in most kind of recapturings of what it
56:05
was like to be with her. So it's difficult to
56:09
find out quote who the real the real person is
56:12
when these figures don't make themselves as available,
56:18
even in personal papers. So Sophie Tucker left
56:21
behind about 700 boxes of personal papers in
56:26
the New York Public Library, and I went through
56:28
them all. And I certainly left with a better
56:32
sense of who she was. I certainly knew what made
56:37
her tick, what made her angry, but In particular,
56:43
her silence on her family was really, really
56:46
telling. And she was unwilling to talk about
56:51
certain subjects, even in personal letters, even
56:54
in a kind of correspondence that wasn't made
56:57
accessible to the public until later. And so
57:01
it's quite difficult to get into the... quote,
57:05
real person. And that's what everybody always
57:08
wants to know, right? What was she really like?
57:13
And again, as a biographer, it's questionable
57:18
whether you are ever going to be able to answer
57:20
that question. Well, and I guess one thing that
57:23
is An additional dynamic and thinking about the
57:27
figures that we've been talking about, including
57:29
Sophie Tucker, is, of course, we're talking about
57:31
people like figures from the 1960s, right? Obviously,
57:34
Sophie was still alive and bright and part of
57:36
the 1960s, but her career had flourished earlier.
57:40
These are obviously people existing before social
57:42
media. And I think maybe what some people might
57:46
assume is that there is a greater ability for
57:49
us to get that authenticity, to push past that
57:53
self -representation if we are getting a photograph
57:57
or a picture of something someone's posting about
57:59
their breakfast. But of course, that's not the
58:01
case because social media is just giving a different
58:03
kind of representation. And so it is interesting
58:06
to think about the biographer of the future who
58:09
is looking at the Sophie Tucker or the Bob Dylan.
58:12
Where in that case, right, there's a PR social
58:15
media manager, right, who is assembling these
58:17
things. And it's just the case that we can never
58:20
know. But then the other question is, why do
58:22
we want to know? Why do we want to know? And
58:25
I would push beyond that to think about the fact
58:27
that now, I was listening the other day, there
58:29
are new Instagram faces that we all can make.
58:32
So our own Instagram faces are, or maybe not
58:36
ours, but you know, yeah. People who do. People
58:40
who do. People who do. People who do whatever
58:42
they do. They are, they have a Kardashian face.
58:47
They have a, they want to look the way that particular
58:51
starlets or celebrities or influencers look on
58:55
Instagram. Same filters, same cheekbones, same
58:59
angle. And then, so those kinds of manipulations
59:04
change, but then... The images change, too, but
59:07
the images are completely constructed. So when
59:11
you're seeing somebody on vacation and they're
59:15
enjoying themselves and they have a drink and
59:17
they lift it up and they turn their head a certain
59:19
way, that has been practiced and rehearsed and
59:23
deleted and filtered and redone and retouched.
59:28
That makes it even harder to know what actually
59:32
happened what actually happened and to penetrate
59:35
and it is so interesting that our society in
59:37
general right that is so interested in sort of
59:40
inward focus right interior person that in a
59:44
sense whether it's thinking about future biographers
59:46
or just other people right it's it's even harder
59:49
for us to grasp which would be easier. So that
59:53
probably is all the time that we have to talk
59:54
about that. But we do need to do our book recommendations
59:58
and our weekly harp or love. So why don't you
1:00:01
tell me your book recommendation for the week?
1:00:04
Well, my book recommendation for the week is
1:00:07
Duke Ellington's America written by a friend
1:00:09
of mine, Harvey Cohen. He wrote this book a while
1:00:12
ago. To me, it's still one of the best biographies
1:00:16
out there about not only a musician but a historic
1:00:20
figure. As the title suggests, it details what
1:00:26
America was like in the period that Duke Ellington
1:00:29
was living and the people that he interacted
1:00:32
with and all the genres that he influenced and
1:00:37
the larger racial politics of of the Duke Ellington
1:00:41
eras, and there are many of them. It also does
1:00:44
a really great job of introducing new listeners
1:00:48
to jazz, to what emergent jazz sounded like,
1:00:54
even off the page. And it gives a really great
1:00:59
sense of racial tensions and conflicts and questions
1:01:04
of appropriation, questions of racial exchange,
1:01:08
questions of how musicians collaborate across
1:01:10
racial lines in a really thoughtful way. I'm
1:01:14
always grateful to Harvey for writing that book
1:01:16
and spending so much time in the Smithsonian
1:01:19
archives, mining through Dick Ellington's papers,
1:01:23
and I recommend it wholeheartedly. That sounds
1:01:27
great. I wish I knew more about the history of
1:01:29
jazz. And that actually raises just another minor
1:01:32
point we should make that ideally, right, a great
1:01:34
biopic or a great biography of a musician, it
1:01:38
makes you want to listen to the music and that
1:01:40
you can actually appreciate the music in a new
1:01:42
way. And I think that's absolutely the case.
1:01:44
My recommendation for this week, and this might
1:01:47
actually segue into our harping and loving. So
1:01:49
my book recommendation for this week is a book
1:01:51
by Nick Tosh's T -O -S -C -H -E -S. And it's
1:01:56
a book called Hellfire, which is a biography
1:01:58
of Jerry Lee Lewis, very notorious early rock
1:02:03
star who in the 1950s, who then became a country
1:02:06
star, who is suspected of having done bad things
1:02:11
I won't elaborate on. And the biography is really
1:02:15
short. And again, even though it goes sort of
1:02:18
from birth to Jerry Lee's life at the time of
1:02:21
the writing, there isn't this sort of tedious
1:02:24
what he ate for breakfast. It absolutely puts
1:02:27
his music career, working for Sun Studios, getting
1:02:30
famous, marrying his 13 year old cousin. It puts
1:02:32
it in the context of Pentecostalism, Christianity
1:02:37
in the American South. Certainly part of blues,
1:02:40
right? Part of early kind of quote unquote hillbilly
1:02:42
music. But the whole idea is that this man's
1:02:45
life is like an old Testament sort of prophet
1:02:49
and someone who is tempted by the devil and it's
1:02:52
just so well done and again really short really
1:02:54
accessible you read it and you're like That's
1:02:57
just amazing. It becomes this real American story
1:02:59
But then and I'm going to segue into my harp
1:03:03
even though this is really a harp for the week
1:03:05
But I find it a great irony that this is one
1:03:07
of the greatest rock biopics ever But Jerry Lee
1:03:10
Lewis has given us I'm sorry books ever but Jerry
1:03:13
Lee has given us also probably the worst rock
1:03:16
biopic ever, which is Great Balls of Fire from
1:03:19
the 1980s starring Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee
1:03:22
Lewis. Of course, Meg Ryan's former husband.
1:03:26
But and that is an interesting question of its
1:03:27
own. How do we have someone where it's a terrific,
1:03:30
terrific biography, but the biopic ends up so
1:03:34
terribly. We have been all about the boys this
1:03:37
episode, Christine. I feel like there's nary
1:03:40
a woman in sight. Well, I will actually say my
1:03:42
other book recommendation is Lauren's biography
1:03:45
of Sophie Tucker, which is called Red Hot Mama.
1:03:48
That's my other book. We'll put the links in
1:03:50
the show notes in case you're interested in checking
1:03:54
these out. And there are so many biographies,
1:03:57
some of them terrible, some of them terrific.
1:04:01
It's a tough nut to crack. I would never write
1:04:04
another one, but Those who have done it well
1:04:07
are amazing people. Amazing people. It's its
1:04:09
own artistry. It really is. And I'm really, really
1:04:11
grateful for some of my colleagues and friends
1:04:14
and people I don't know who have gone out there
1:04:17
and done it and taken a crack at it. OK, so Lauren,
1:04:20
let's have Lauren's harp or love for this week
1:04:23
before we say goodbye. OK, Christine, I'm going
1:04:25
to love. Love. Good. We need some love. Yeah,
1:04:27
I'm going to love. We need some love. And here's
1:04:29
what I love. So for those of you who may not
1:04:33
be tennis fans, I don't know why you're not a
1:04:36
tennis fan. No, I'm only kidding. I'm a huge
1:04:38
tennis fan. I'm a tennis player. Not a very good
1:04:41
one, but it it's something that I have a very
1:04:44
strong passion for. And I was lucky enough to
1:04:48
go to the Charleston Open last week and I got
1:04:51
to see some of the greatest players on the scene
1:04:55
right now. I saw Matty Keys. I saw. all sorts
1:05:01
of players up close, they were within, I could
1:05:04
feel their sweat. And the thing about tennis
1:05:07
in person, if you have never seen it, you just
1:05:11
don't understand how good they are, how hard
1:05:15
they hit the ball, how fast they run. It is like
1:05:19
no other sport in person. It is just... unbelievable.
1:05:24
And it was a wonderful experience. It's a really
1:05:27
great venue. It's really accessible. And I recommend
1:05:33
it. And I just recommend playing tennis, watching
1:05:36
tennis, buying tennis merch. tennis core, all
1:05:42
the tennis stuff. I recommend it and I will return
1:05:46
next year. It's become a kind of annual ritual
1:05:48
for me to go to the Charleston Open. My bucket
1:05:50
list is Wimbledon and I'm hoping to make that
1:05:53
happen. But again, I'll take the sort of smaller
1:05:58
venues for now. Well, you know, that actually
1:06:00
is a nice way to tie up our time, because you
1:06:02
can argue, you have taken great pleasure in watching
1:06:05
people do something they are fantastic at. And
1:06:08
of course, this is one of the pleasures of a
1:06:11
biopic, right? Seeing people do things that they
1:06:13
are amazing at. Okay, well, that is all the time
1:06:16
that we have for this week. I think I'm harped
1:06:20
enough. You're harped enough? I'm harped enough
1:06:22
about Jerry Lee Lewis's terrible, terrible biopic.
1:06:25
So that's a positive note. I wanted to give you
1:06:28
a space for expressing your feelings. I appreciate
1:06:31
that. But I like ending on a good positive note
1:06:34
of a love, of a love. I'm sure there are many
1:06:36
more harps in my future. So that is all the time
1:06:39
that we have for this week. We hope you'll keep
1:06:41
listening to History Harpies. And until next
1:06:44
time, Harpies Out!